ity and county distributions. Are we clear? Can we have a roll call? What about a suggestion for an amendment to that? Okay. With C as is, leaving the 350 competitors and the 200 is Metro. I respect that council member. I'm going to keep the motion as is that I made it to make it a 550 competitive for the reasons that I outlined about the assumptions of baseline funding and other things moving forward. Okay.  I was going to see if it got a second. The motion. I'll second that. The second, the. The motion to just keep C as is. Move C as is. Just to leave C as is. I'd like to ask, I mean, I'm not a parliamentarian, but I don't think you can introduce 15 substitute motions to the motion on the floor that you continually vote on. I mean, at some point, I think you get to actually vote on the initial motion that was you're allowed to introduce an additional substitute motion, which we did. At some point you come back to the original motion, which is what we would do right now before we then take a secondary component. I don't think it's 15, but I'll go ahead and ask our attorney to weigh in on that. No, it, the, you have two potential issues here. One, the substitute motion can be heard now. It is a substitute motion, but you did have a request for a motion to call the question as well too. Which I believe was before the substitute motion was in. That's correct. So it is appropriate to act on the call on the question. You can call the question. Okay, we're going to call the question prior to the motion being made. So we're going to go back to the original motion by friend, and that is item C with the revision to delete the 200,000 from Metro and to add to the competitive fund, raising it from 350 to 550. Are we clear? 550. Okay, I'd like to have a roll call, please. Commissioner Gonzalez. No. Commissioner Lynn. No. Commissioner Botthorff. No. Commissioner McPherson. No. Commissioner Leopold. Yes. Commissioner Friend. Yes. Commissioner Schifrin. No. Commissioner Caput. No. Commissioner Kaufman-Gomis. No. Commissioner Johnson. Aye. Commissioner Brown. No. Commissioner Bertrand. Yes. Seven, eight yeses. I mean, eight noes. That motion fails also. I'd like to go back to commissioner Lynn for a motion. And I would move approval of option C as written. C as written. As written. Second. I'll second that. I got a second by McPherson on that. So just for clarification here, we are now down to item C, which is completely printed as is with no changes. Which includes all the other staff recommendations. And it includes all the other staff recommendations. And that is, I've got scribbling here, but I believe it's 350,000 competitive, 200,000 for Metro. So all of other agencies are included in this process. So with that, a roll call vote please. Commissioner Bertrand. Aye. Commissioner Brown. Aye. Commissioner Johnson. No. Commissioner Kaufman-Gomis. Commissioner Caput. No. Commissioner Schifrin. No. Commissioner Friend. Aye. Commissioner Leopold. Aye. Commissioner McPherson. Aye. Commissioner Botthorff. Aye. Commissioner Lynn. Aye. Commissioner Gonzalez. Aye. Thank you for that democratic process. Okay, that motion passes that nine to three. It was, that's nice of you. Thank you for that discussion. And we'll move on to the next item, which is item 21. This is a state of good repair. Okay. Oh, you guys have a lot of endurance. So Rachel's made my job easy, I hope. This action here is pretty, this would implement approval of item number three in the prior staff report. I apologize that it is before you the same day and I can understand that this would be confusing. The reason we have brought it before you is that the deadline for the application for project lists is due to Caltrans this month. So we did need our board's approval on this action today. This is related to the state of good repair funds that were discussed earlier. And I'll go through my staff report and hopefully you'll be able to see how it fits with the earlier action approved as item number three. So in April of 2017, we had SB1. In April 2017, SB1 passed as you know, it provided funding for a variety of new programs, including significantly increasing the funds to the state transit assistance program and the state of good repair program. The goal of the state of good repair program is to provide funding for capital assistance to preserve the existing transit system. As Rachel pointed out in her earlier staff report, these funds do flow through the regional transportation commission, some are directly allocated to the RTC and others are sub-allocated to Metro. So these can be organized into the population-based formula funds 99313, which come directly to RTC and the revenue-based formula funds 99314. In the SGR population-based formula share is 374,249 and Metro's public transportation operator revenue formula says 313,111 for a total of 687,360. 85% of the state of good repair funds were already allocated to Metro as part of their May 2017 TDA claim. Again, this was implementing the policy adopted by the RTC in December 2017 and 15% the 56,000 that's before you today were set aside for programming at the RTC's discretion. So today we're discussing the 56,000 that has not already been programmed and also the project list that was submitted by Metro for all of the SGR funds that they've received, they would be receiving if you take action. So consistent with the recommendation item number three in the prior staff report, RTC is recommending allocating 15% of that unprogram share the 56,137 to Metro, which we added to the SGR funds that were already approved in their TDA claim in May. Metro has submitted a project list which is included as an attachment and RTC is also recommending that RTC staff excuse me is also recommending that RTC approve that project list for all of the region shares a fiscal year 1920 state of good repair program distributed under the 9313 and the 99314 for a total of 687,360,000 of SGR funds to Metro for fiscal year 1920. The RTC's budget already includes this estimate for the SGR population and revenue based formula funds and if they're the budget will be adjusted if there's any updates. So that concludes my report. Thank you. Any questions for Grace? Thank you for that. Let's open it up to the public. Anyone from the public like to comment on this topic? Move the staff recommendation. I'm a motion by Schifrin. Second by McPherson. Any other further discussion? Ms. Coffman. I was just wanting to see if there's any comments Metro has. I know that we have staff here regarding this item before us. Is that? He's okay. He's okay. Thank you, Barrow Emerson Metro Planning Director we're supportive of the staff recommendation. Thank you. Thank you for that, Barrow. Okay, with that we have a motion to second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. That motion carries unanimously. Okay. That will take us to item 22. This is a potential rail vehicle demonstration. Mr. Mendez. Yes. Good morning, commissioners. Is the mic on up? Yes. Good morning, commissioners. TIGAM, a company based in Southern California approached RTC staff requesting to provide a demonstration of one of its rail vehicles. TIGAM manufactures electric rail trolleys powered with onboard batteries and hydrogen fuel cells. Now live demonstrations of potential rail transit vehicles would be useful for the analysis of potential transit vehicles that will be part of the alternatives analysis that the RTC is undertaking for high capacity transit on the Sanctuary branch rail line. So TIGAM is proposing to run its demonstration as early as November, but depending on the required approvals from the Federal Rail Administration, it could be potentially in the spring of 2020. Now the exact track segments for the demonstration will not be known until TIGAM performs an inspection to determine that there is track meeting FRA safety standards for demonstration. And TIGAM will actually be doing inspections tomorrow of RTC track. And the RTC staff will be participating in those inspections. It is anticipated that the potential demonstration would start at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk. And TIGAM has already been in conversations with the FRA to make sure that they can meet all the necessary requirements for such a demonstration. Now Brad Reed, President of TIGAM is here with us today and he will make a presentation on TIGAM's rail vehicles and their proposed potential demonstration. Now if inspections and the FRA determine that there is suitable track available for this demonstration, then RTC staff will come back to you with a potential temporary license for TIGAM to run that demonstration. So with that, I'll hand it over to Mr. Brad Reed to make the presentation. Welcome and thank you for your patience. Good morning, commissioners. I think it's still morning. My name is Mark Johannes and I'm a resident of Aptos and have a law practice in consulting business in the city of Santa Cruz. I'm here with Brad Reed to present a proposal to demonstrate the streetcar that Mr. Mendez mentioned, which has the potential to achieve the high capacity public transit goals on the branch line and also be fully compatible with competing uses of the track, including bike and pedestrian use and also complimentary to services of Metro provides in the region. So as Mr. Reed will explain after me, these streetcars are lightweight, quiet, they're about the size of a bus. They're ADA compliant. They do not use overhead wiring and are powered by batteries with a top-up generator, which is a fuel cell generator, which allows it to be in service for 20 hours a day. So for those of you who do not know what fuel cell technology is, it's the same technology that's used by Toyota and a Mirai vehicle, Honda with its clarity vehicle and Hyundai with its next vehicles. The only emission from these devices is water. Now, considering that the area receives 100% green power from the Monterey Bay community power, these streetcars have the potential to be to 100% zero carbon, 100% zero emission. So TNGM is a California company based in Chatsworth and manufactures modern off-wire streetcars and these are called streetcars or trolleys. There's a number of different names and they also are an operator of these systems. And as you know, the commission, there is a track licensing agreement progressive and progressive currently has freight operations in the Watsonville area. Phase two of that license requires provision of passenger service and I believe it's 5,000 passengers per year. This type of technology, high capacity commuter vehicles would allow that goal to be achieved. Each of TIG's vehicles can carry between 100 to 200 passengers depending on the configuration and they can also be configured to accommodate bicycles, bicycle racks. The proposals that demonstrate the use of this streetcar as passenger service, as Mr. Mendez mentioned either later this year, early spring, a lot of it depends on getting the FRA approval. We've already reached out the FRA and it's going to require a waiver. A lot of that will require the track inspection that we're going to be having over the next few days to see exactly what portion of the track can do this. Now these vehicles are going to be, the vehicle is going to be brought in on a truck and it's just going to be laid on the track. So the idea would be to find the place where an active demonstration can occur. There's also a possibility of moving the car without people to areas where possibly an active demonstration can't occur but maybe a open house type demonstration can occur for example in Aptosville or Seascape. So unfortunately the demonstration will not include a demonstration in Watsonville because of the agreement with Progressive. Progressive is operating freight on that line and there's no way to operate a passenger system along that line at this point. In addition there's a washout on part of the track that precludes any kind of rail activity between Watsonville and Santa Cruz which is actually would help with the FRA approval to have the demonstration run this side because there's a physical barrier there. So the commission approves moving forward this project and we're going to be doing a track inspection with commission staff and then we'll work with the staff to determine the exact location of the demonstration. It's anticipated that this, as Mr. Mendez mentioned, the project will come back to the commission for open approval. We've also been in contact with Roaring Camp and the Seaside Company and we do not anticipate that this will impede their operations at all. In fact that's why I think the timing late fall to spring particularly in terms of Roaring Camp's operation will not, it'll be compatible. In fact, we think that this operation, the ultimate streetcar operation on this line would be actually a welcome service to both of those organizations. So the proposal is to have a demonstration over one of two periods, either a 13 day period which would include two weekends or a 27 day period which would be over four weekends and that's to be determined. The cost of the demonstration is going to be worn by TIGAM and we're going to reach out to local sponsors to help sponsor this. So we hope that this demonstration will allow the commissioners to get a close looking feel of what this type of high density public transit would look on this line and how it fits in with the community. It'll give the commissioners a sense of the modest size of the vehicle and in the context of the surrounding and how this type of fixed rail vehicle would be compatible with the competing uses of the rail. And the timing I think is also good because I understand next agenda item is the creation of an ad hoc commission or committee to look at the alternative analysis. This would give the opportunity for the commissioners on that commission to receive data on how this would fit in with that alternative analysis. So there's a number of details we have to work out including the FRA approvals. We do not anticipate any roadblocks at this point. So Mr. Reed and I will be available for questions should the commissioners want that. And now Mr. Reed will present the information on TIGAM, their development of these vehicles and also their experience in operating these type of vehicles in dense urban settings. Thank you. Do you want a question of the speaker? I was gonna let them both present and then we'll come back. We'll both present and we'll have questions for you. Okay, thank you. Okay, thank you. My name is Brad Reed. I'm the president of TIGAM modern street railways.  Thank you very much to the commission for allowing me to speak before you. I'll try to keep it really brief, not too much technical. And just about how I wanna highlight a few slides that really indicate how these vehicles can be attractive on this kind of an alignment. TIGAM builds self powered trams. We're the only company in the world that makes an electrified street railway tram that can operate a full day of passenger service without any wayside power of any kind. That means there's no overhead wire and there's no opportunity charging stations required anywhere along the alignment. All the power for a full day of duty cycle is carried onboard each car. So you can see in this slide at the top left, there is a 200 passenger articulated modern car. In the middle, there is a 100 passenger rigid body, single car body, modern car. And in the bottom are two heritage style cars which we build in several different sizes, but they are from 35 to 100 passengers. They are heritage style. They look like they were built around the turn of the last century, but they all utilize the same propulsion system. Let's see if I can advance these. How does this work now? Advancing is, which way? Oh, there we go, I'm sorry. There we go. So Tigama is an international transportation design, build, operate and maintain firm. You can see here our projects around the world. We have provided PRT, LRT and APM at various locations around the world. We're working in five countries currently. Our mission is to reduce street car infrastructure impacts and costs by eliminating electrification systems required off-board the cars. That's simply what we do. We are a turnkey design builder. We design, build, track everything from analysis to operations and maintenance, including track and rolling stock. To bring it down to a very concise statement, Tigama manufactures battery dominant serial hybrid self-powered electric trams. Now when I say battery dominant serial hybrid, as Mark has indicated, 90% of our onboard operating energy is carried in the form of batteries. About 10% of the energy is carried in compressed hydrogen, which is then consumed by a hydrogen fuel cell, which actually charges the batteries while the vehicle is in service. The reason we do this is to keep the overall heat of the system down to extend the range while being able to add energy quickly to the vehicle in the form of hydrogen as opposed to charging batteries. It works very well for us to provide 20 hours of service. Here are some of the cars in operation in Doha, Qatar, where we are involved in the world's largest lead project. It's called the Musharib downtown Doha project. We are installing in just this month entering into certified public operation. All of our cars are built according to European norms, the most comprehensive worldwide standards for railway applications. Some more pictures of the cars in operation. This is really hard to advance this accurately. I keep jumping. Can you start this video? Here's a little video where you can see three of these 100 passenger cars. This is the car that we'd be bringing up for demonstration. The first thing you'll see here is our maintenance vehicle that maintains the tracks for us once a day. And here are three of the 100 passenger single-body modern street cars. These cars are completely silent. The cars have 16 flange lubricators on board that lubricate the front and back face of every flange in the car, eliminating all wheel noise. So you cannot hear these cars whatsoever, even when they're moving around 15 meter curves, extremely tight curves. I'm guaranteeing you that there is nothing even close to a 15 meter curve on the Santa Cruz branch line railway. So all wheel noise has been eliminated. There is no motor on board any of these cars. They are absolutely silent. Here are three of the cars lined up. And what I'd like you to consider now is what we call virtual coupling. Using either the 200 passenger car or the 100 passenger car, we have an option called virtual coupler. Now I travel around the world and consult with street railway systems all over the world. The major problem that I see is operators buying cars that are sized for their peak hour demand. What this means is during off peak hours, most of these operators are dead heading up to 50% of their seats. That means they're operating with 50% capacity on the cars because the cars are too big. They're sized for peak hour, not for off peak hour. So what we offer is what's called virtual coupling. By the use of GPS, Bluetooth and LiDAR, we can couple these cars together without any mechanical connection used at the push of a button. So what this means is, I can get to the next slide. There it is. By virtual coupler, we can scale the tram size. By non-mechanical vehicle coupling at the push of a button, the trams can be sized to reflect the demands of peak and off peak hours. This reduces excessive driver costs and eliminates the dead heading of empty seats. As you can see here utilizing 100 and a 200 passenger car, we can build consists of from 100 to 400 passengers, each one of these consists being driven by a single driver. So in other words, if we can go to the next slide and advance once more, here is an example of three cars coming from three separate alignments. They stop at a station, two of the drivers go home and the tram drives off as a single 300 passenger car under the control of one driver without any mechanical coupling, ultra safe. Let's go to the next one and advance this one. Here's an example of two 200 passenger cars coming from two different alignments or two different schedules. And then one of the drivers goes home and the consist drives away as a 400 passenger car under the control of one driver. So this eliminates an enormous amount of driver cost which is the highest cost in the operation and maintenance total for the year. Can we go to the next slide, please? TIGAM also builds track, an example of our track construction here is in Doha, Qatar where TIGAM did everything curb to curb. Now I want to talk a little bit about the hydrogen fuel cell application. These cars represent the world's first zero carbon transportation system when we utilize renewable energy to create hydrogen from the electrolysis of water, compress it and use it on the cars to charge the batteries while we're in operation. We provide for our clients a hydrogen electrolysis unit which produces a set amount of hydrogen per day utilizing water as the feedstock. We separate the water into hydrogen and oxygen. We compress it and distribute it to the cars once per day utilizing a dispensing appliance which operates just like an automobile gasoline dispenser. Dispenses hydrogen at either 350 or 700 bar to the vehicles. Next, please. Now here is an example of a 24 kilogram per day hydrogen electrolysis unit and its dispensing appliance as we delivered it to the city of Dubai for the first hydrogen fueling station in Dubai for the Dubai trolley system which is a heritage operation, heritage looking cars that are really the most technologically advanced street cars on the planet utilizing battery dominant hydrogen fuel cell propulsion system. Here is our renewable energy-based self-powered tramway system philosophy. Now we've been able to achieve this in Texas and in Aruba utilizing solar and wind power. We harvest renewable energy and sell it to the grid at peak hour prices. Now at off peak hour we buy that energy back at off peak hour prices thereby becoming a profit center for the operator as well as a zero carbon energy system. We use that renewable energy to operate our hydrogen generation plant which operates 24 hours per day providing stock hydrogen to our compression and dispensing unit. So once per day we utilize renewable energy to charge our advanced battery systems hydrogen to power our hydrogen fuel cells plus the regenerative braking that is harvested all day long. These three power sources, power heritage and modern street cars for a 20 hour service day supplying the world's first zero carbon public transportation system. That's what we do. Thanks a lot for letting me speak to you. I hope you agree that this would be a perfect application along the branch line railway. Thank you. Thank you for that presentation. Commissioner Gonzalez. Yeah, I just have a, oh thank you. Thank you for your presentation. It was a good presentation. I got to ride with one of these in Vegas. It was really nice. But one of my concerns is that we're not gonna have a demonstration in Watsonville and I don't see reasons why we wouldn't be able to do something like that from Lee Road to Manresa Beach and back because it's just for a demonstration and I think it's important that Mid County and South County individuals get people up to need to ride on one of these and not have to commute to Santa Cruz to get on the demonstration. That was one of my main concerns when they originally came and proposed was that how could we include Watsonville on the equation? Unfortunately between Watsonville and Manresa Beach is the slide at Harkinsloo. So until that slide is cleared and that section of track is repaired there's no pathway from Watsonville to Manresa Beach. And then also these vehicles it's important to know is really not compatible with freight. So to actually have a demonstration just in downtown Watsonville it would not be possible would freight on the line. Any other questions? Mr. Kaufman Gomez. Being non-compatible with freight because of the way it's set up now and this would then still take conversion if the freight in this were to share line what makes it not compatible for right now? Streetcars are not compatible with freight because they're much lighter weight and the FRA has concerns about their crashworthiness. You can correct me or add on to that. I think through my discussions with Progressive the Federal Rail Association does not permit passenger cars on an active freight line. You need to have what's called temporal separation which is actually physically separating. In fact our discussion with that organization on roaring camp is you actually have to have a physical switch that absolutely under no circumstance can one of their trains roll into this area. So it could be possible if there's a section of track that's not being used to possibly do a drop-off in an open house in Watsonville. We certainly would want to look at something like that but in terms of going on an active track freight track Progressive has been very clear that not gonna happen. Just a question for her to see. The freight, the Pacific Rail only goes up to Walker Street. They don't go beyond a lony way, right? On their freight rail? Because I mean there's nothing to deliver after a lony. They do go all the way to couch distributing which is right on Lee Road on the other side of Lee Road. Exactly. Can we do it on the other side of Lee Road? The demonstration? Because when the tracks do jump the street. That's where it was just explained that we would actually have to have a way that there was a switch or some other mechanical device that prevented the rail line from actually connecting. Is that correct? That's correct. Yeah, I mean there has to be, I mean based on the new or the past accidents they're very strict about having this temporal separation and under no circumstances is there any way at all for the trains to freight trains to mix with passenger trains. So there has to be some type of, or there could be a switch that I think would do it but we'd have to look at the regulations there on how that would apply. I mean the Federal Rail Association seems to be very supportive of passenger rail on their tracks but it's a question of going through, you may have to go to Washington DC and you know whatever, whatever, I mean that can take some time. So that's where we've kind of pushed this out to Bosley Spring because of those types of approvals but you know we're certainly open to any suggestions on how to make that happen.  Commissioner Shiffrin. Yeah I would just, in the interest of time, since the commission would like to have a demonstration Watsonville as well as North County to just ask staff to do whatever they can working with the company and see if there's any way to make a Watsonville demonstration happen. Commissioner Leo. Thank you for the presentation. You know when there have been discussions about rail and people have seen the steam locomotives or even the DMUs they, there's been concern and the idea that there is a train that is so energy efficient and so low impact and zero emissions and quiet is, I didn't realize there was something out there so I think that the community would be very interested in seeing this demonstration and I support it. It was kind of unclear to me about the time of the year in which this was gonna happen. There's talk about November and then talk about spring and would, do you have any thought about how you would encourage people to go to use this?  Yeah I think the question of November through spring it's really on the spring side of it to be roaring camp and their operational schedule we wanna try and catch this before they start operating at this point in terms of November it's that's when the demonstration car will be ready. So really if the commission decides to proceed with this we'll get right on the FRA approval and get that waiver going. So does that answer your question? Yeah I mean I was just trying to, you know in January, you know we don't, it's the off season, right? And whether people wanna go from Santa Cruz to Capitola or Live Oak or whatever. I'm not sure how that works and maybe spring is a better time but this is an area which I do not have expertise. Yeah so I think one of the things I did mention is we're playing a media outreach and a stakeholder outreach to really get people to see this demonstrations occurring. We wanna encourage folks at our bicycle list to come by and take a look at it to see how this vehicle goes down the track and how compatible it would be with the varied uses. So we do anticipate a lot of media outreach on this track, on this demonstration because ideally the value of a demonstration like this is to get everybody who has an interest in this at all to come to these things. So if it's a weak demonstration we'll have two full weekends that we understand it's not tourist season at that point but it is commuter season all year round. So you're basically hitting the folks that would use this on a daily basis and 200 folks per car potentially could take 200 folks per train trip off of one. Sure, thank you very much. I look forward to seeing this continue. Thank you for your presentation. They're beautiful, eye-opening. I look forward to seeing something. Questions about capacity. I think we heard a couple ranges from 35 to 100 for a heritage car and I think I heard 100 to 200 in a car and then I heard something about bicycles of course. So I'm wondering about why there'd be a difference in how many passengers and also what's the trade-off? Is there a simple way to say what the trade-off is between allowing bicycles on a car and what the level of passengers would be reduced correspondingly? So Brad will come up and address so bicycle racks on the outside I believe or however it's configured and then also the capacity of the trains. Yeah, each individual car has a, it's set capacity but the passenger capacity of each car can be customized for the client. So in a lot of cases we design interior, first of all, we have to be ADA compliant. So we have to have wheelchair births on each car depending on the size of the car. So in the car that you see here up on the screen this is a 100 passenger capacity car. It has a large low floor area that will accommodate two wheelchairs or five bicycles on the low floor area inside the car. We also have exterior racks that can be added to the outside of the car. Now these are single-ended cars they can be designed as double-ended cars which means they can reciprocate, they can go both directions on the alignment without being turned around. That will eliminate three passenger seats. Now when I talked about from 100 to 400 passenger capacity that is a matter of joining several cars with our virtual coupler. Now the smaller capacity like I mentioned a 35 passenger, 45 passenger, that would be the smallest car we make which is a single deck 36 foot heritage street car. It's a shotgun loading cross bench style that was popular in about 1911. Then we have a 40 foot version of that then we have a 40 foot double deck car which can go up to 100 passenger capacity. Now if we're gonna put inside luggage and bicycle capacity that will reduce the seated passenger capacity by a certain fraction. So it's really a matter of design. What we would be demonstrating here would be a 100 passenger car. Similar to this it would be all white. These the cars you see with the different colors on them those are full body wraps and they can be changed out. We deliver white cars and then we wrap them with various color and graphic patterns depending on what the client wants. And would your demonstration include capacity of bicycles because I know you mentioned wanting to invite cyclists as well. Sure. Great. Inside. Commissioner Bertrand. Three questions. The 88 does the offloading and onloading meet whatever I guess height there's in the area or do you have to have set platforms? Well it depends on the project here obviously what we would we don't have any platforms in this case. What this particular car is a 280 millimeter low floor which is about 11 inches. So in permanent installation we build an 11 inch curb and the car loads flush to the curb. What we would do here is build a wooden platform which would have an ADA ramp at the ADA slope provided and the wheelchairs would board level to the low floor section of the car the wheelchair section of the car. Okay. There would be temporary platforms wooden platforms built and painted in locations. Okay. In terms of feeding back into the power grid here how's that managed? I'm sorry. In terms of feeding back into the power grid here. Charging the batteries. Yes we would provide a generator to charge the batteries while we're on site. In terms of when you have a light air configuration so that a car is falling without a driver. Yes. When you're going down the hill how's that managed with regenerating the batteries? The all motors there's a motor on each axle in the car. Each motor is either a generator or a motor and it's controlled by torque controls that the driver has. So in the case of virtually coupled cars the driver controls the torque commands for each motor on each axle of the entire consist. So the entire consist will be powered and regenerating under the command of the driver at the lead car. So with the driver in command there could be a lag issue here because there has to be coordination between one car's momentum and the other car slowing down. It's all done through programming. There's a PLC that controls through as I said Bluetooth LiDAR and GPS. That's a communication mechanism. Okay so computer will control this so there's no. Exactly. How close do they have to be? It's a programmable distance. So normally we run them at about one to three meters. One to three and so that would vary depending on the slope. Yeah and depending on the local regulations. And are there regulations for this? Well there are guidelines. There are especially in the E and the European norms there are guidelines for a close spotting of headways. Okay thank you. Any other questions? We're going to open up for the public. See what they have to say. Thank you. Hi Brian people so at the trail now executive community. So when we look at capacity you have to look at it from a systems engineering approach. You don't look actually at the capacity at the vehicle you actually have to look at the entire line. What's my through throughput? So the study from the unified corridor study was trains going 45 miles an hour 60 times a day. So and you're on a single track. So you don't just look at this is our big we could have a hundred foot for a hundred people. You don't do design that way. You have to look at the entire system and having a train. And so the other key point about this is you have to pull up the entire train tracks. You have to pull up the entire train tracks just to accommodate this unique rail line. Essentially it's cheaper to pull up the tracks and put rubber wheels, use rubber wheel vehicles. So why would you go through the expense of saying we're going to have it as rail specifically just to isolate that type of mode of transit. It doesn't necessarily make sense. Now for Watsonville you guys are kind of in trouble already because right now the plans are going forward in discussions about using freight for the dump. The dump's going away. And so your opportunity to have trains going from Watsonville to Santa Cruz is being discussed as it's quite possibly eliminated with the idea of freight supplying the dump. So you gotta start looking at those issues that are occurring. It is going on the discussions are going on that way. So when you look at operational, do fixed rails work versus rubber wheels? The study showed that rubber wheel vehicles actually are far more effective by seven times and it's significantly less expensive. So what we're encouraging you to do is be clear to the public. So you're going and running off and gonna demonstrate this product but there's a lot of costs that you're not sharing and you're trying to tell them this is the next thing when really you have to pull the entire rails up and replace them for this system. And you're paying half a million dollars to go study this. So to bring this forward to the public prior to that study being completed is really somewhat disingenuous. You need to be, you can't go and say, hey, look at this great product and not be honest with what the real costs are and the capacity of that system is because we know that fixed rails on that single track is not as effective as rubber wheels. Thank you. Thank you. Do we get to rebut? We're gonna let the public speak all the way through here. Sir, you waited long enough. Come on up and address us. Yeah, I'm Lawrence Freitas. I live in Aptos. I live near the tracks. I've been, I voted yes in 1991 in June for Prop 116. I don't want my yes boat to go to waste in this county. I think this is a great idea. Also, I like the idea that they're offering to do the maintenance for the track. And I know I checked out in the mid 90s with Southern Pacific, I called up their office and I asked them the cost of fixing the track from class one to class two. It was relatively inexpensive. I can't remember the exact numbers, but it was way less than widening the freeway one mile. I'll say that much. So, you know, you're talking about a simple upgrade so that you could have trains going 25 miles per hour on the track instead of 12 or 15. Now I know they're a mess right now because of all the weeds growing on them, but we need to fix the tracks. That wouldn't be all that expensive. We have a company here that's willing to do the maintenance and whatever else needs to be done on the track to make it viable, to make it work. I would hope that something could be worked out in Watts Mill regarding the freight, even if it takes maybe doubling the track there. One other thing is on Mondays, I'm down in Monterey at one of the most, well, one of the big tourist attractions. I would love to see a day where from the west side of Santa Cruz all the way down to the old train station in Monterey, this train is actually operating between both cities. That would take a lot of cars off of highway one. Thank you. Thank you for those comments. Hi, Jessica Evans from Santa Cruz. So a couple of different things I wanna urge you to accept this extremely generous offer. From taking it to do a demo, I think it would be really exciting for the people of Santa Cruz to be able to see the possibilities of the use of the branch line for a real mass transit service. And I also wanted to just make a suggestion that maybe some kind of a, you know, you can bring in these big concrete barricades. So it's possible that maybe track division temporal separation with a physical barrier could be done with a concrete barricade on the track to allow a demonstration in Watsonville. And then the other thing I was gonna say is if that's not possible, I know that you're bringing these trains in on trucks, maybe just set it on a platform in the city of Watsonville. It doesn't have to be on the track. Allow people there to see the possibilities. It's really important that we reach out to people in South County when I do, you know, when I go out and talk to people about the rail line, when I talk to them about mass transit options, I say Watsonville to Santa Cruz because that's what we're talking about. We're talking about allowing people to come from Watsonville to Santa Cruz and then go home to Watsonville. That's gonna be the major users. So the other thing I wanna just mention is that of course, having this demonstration meets our obligation to Caltrans that we made when we got the grant to purchase the branch rail line that we would start working on passenger service and that's really important. And finally, I'd like to suggest that you may need to look at having larger cars that have increased bicycle capacity beyond the five bikes on the interior because we have year round commuters and I think that you will see extremely high adoption by bicyclists and we may need to have larger cars that have more bicycle capacity. That's what happened with the smart train in Petaluma they had to go out and redo their cars with increased bike capacity and I know that you'll be able to do that. So just wanna put that out there. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, my name is Tina Andrea and I live in Aptos. I'm excited. I live right across the street from the rail line and some of my neighbors are really worried about the noise, phenomenal. There isn't any noise, that's great. I have, I just completely support it. It's been too many years, the cost keep going up. Let's not have any more delays. This has been what, a 20 plus year endeavor and let's look at what that cost would have been 20 years ago. Let's, I'm not, I can figure out with the cost of living, et cetera. Let's move forward, quiet. Let's think about greenhouse gases, vehicles miles traveled and I also cycle, ride my bike a lot. And a lot of my friends in Aptos won't ride their bikes because they're really afraid on Soquel Drive and the Gregor Road. I do it and go down into the village of Capitola and it would be so fantastic to ride from C-Cliff to the west side and I do it now on East Cliff, Pleasure Point. I'm confident enough to ride my bike but a lot of my friends aren't. This would be phenomenal to go through it. A lot of times I go listen to music on Wednesday and Thursday nights in the summer and during the middle of that, I ride my bike but as the sun starts going down then I'm a little bit less confident and I take my car. And I know there's a lot of people in this county that support keeping the bicycle, pedestrian and light rail. And lastly, let's not forget about Watsonville and let's definitely not forget about our youth and millennials and those young people, they embrace mass transit. They wanna get out of their cars and I'm a senior citizen but let's not forget about the youth. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, Sally Arnold, friends of the rail and trail. We are so excited about this, as you can imagine. Just bringing any demonstration vehicles to the rail line is just so important. We need to be able to envision something modern. Sometimes when we hear people objecting, they're like, well, we don't walk whole fire and locomotives on those tracks. And it's like, yeah, nobody does. And this would be a real physical demonstration of a modern kind of vehicle. And I hope that this is just the beginning. I hope that you're able to bring many different kinds of modern light rail vehicles to Santa Cruz so we can see what our options are. And the technology is changing so fast. I'm sure it'll be different in a few years and better, I'm sure. So we're really eager to see this modern light rail here in town. And obviously, yeah, Watsonville is really important. It would be great if there could be some way to run it on a small section of track there with some kind of safety barrier between the freight. If not, at least bring the vehicle there so people in Watsonville can get on and see what the options might be in the future. And I know there were some concerns about, you know, November or early spring being the off season, but I don't actually think that's necessarily a problem.  And so doing it at a time when we have less tourist traffic and they'll be easier for the locals to ride it and get a feel for what is possible is really excellent. And if there's anything that Friends of the Rail and Trail can do to help support this project and, you know, get the word out so people get on this train when it gets to town, we are behind it and we're very excited. Thank you. Thank you. Very Scott, I live in Apotos and I'm on the Fort Board and a big advocate as you know of rail transit. I just checked the maps and there are switches to my friends in Watsonville, switches at Olin Parkway and at Lee Road that might be helpful in getting a short demonstration there. I think it's important that we try to do that. What a marvelous time to have a demonstration train project. We've got the alternatives analysis to look at buses versus rail vehicles, yet we don't have any real rail vehicles to compare our buses to. We can look outside and get on a bus in practically any direction, but there are no rail vehicles. So this is perfect timing. I think you all need to have as many demonstrations as possible. The last time there was a demonstration project in this county, some of you may remember, you see these pins, the Flexliner and this one is the Santa Cruz Coastal Cruiser train. This was a Reggio Sprinter, a diesel multiple unit that came from Norway I think and the Flexliner, these were all in 1996. The Flexliner came in for one day. The Reggio Cruiser came in for one day and a third demonstration was a return of the Sundown Special, 1996. We haven't had anything like that since then. The Christmas trains, of course, were 1959 vintage locomotive pulled, whatever, and left the community with the completely wrong impression of what trains would be like. So it's no wonder that there's some resistance to something. When a vehicle like this comes to town, and especially for more than one day, my goodness, and people get a chance to actually ride it, bring their bike on board, roll on to level boarding in a wheelchair for two weeks and gotta like to see four weeks, this is gonna be profoundly useful. So I thank you for hearing the presentation. I hope we get to see this thing soon. Thanks. Thank you. Anybody else like to speak on this topic? Okay, I'll close the public college. I have a question for staff, just for clarification. Is this type of vehicle compatible on our tracks? Yes, it is. I mean, it's a standard gauge track and the vehicle is built for standard gauge. I just wanted to clarify that. Commissioner Leopold. Yeah, I appreciate the comments. You know, half the time we hear from critics saying, well, we've got the line, you're not doing anything with it, shame on you. And then when we try to do something, they say shame on you for bringing something that might people might use the line. This demonstration, whether it be for two weeks or four weeks will not require all the tracks to be ripped up. It will not require the laying of new track. There will be, wow. That hasn't happened to you in a long time. No, it hasn't. No, it hasn't. Some people complain that you speak. Yeah. You know, so it's a very doable demonstration of a vehicle that people would like to see, a hydrogen battery hybrid like this, zero admission that doesn't make any noise. That meets a lot of the concerns that people have had. So I think it's great to do it. It does not affect the alternative analysis in whatever its final decisions gonna be made, but it does give people at least some chance to experience something different. And if we wanna make a decision at the end of the alternative analysis, we might have some better idea of what might be out there. So I look forward to this. I look forward to you bringing it back in agreement. And our comments from commissioners. We're no action today. We're just receiving the presentation. Okay, thank you very much. I think you can tell by the flavor in the room that everybody was inspired by this. And I think it's something we're all looking forward to. So thank you. Okay, that takes us to our next item. This is 23 ad hoc committee for alternative analysis for high capacity transit. Ginger. Good afternoon commissioners. I'll keep this short. It's been a long meeting today. I'm a senior transportation planner on your staff. My item is to discuss the appointment of an ad hoc committee for the alternatives analysis for high capacity public transit on the rail right away. At the August 1st, RTC meeting, the commission approved a motion that included direction to the RTC chair to consult with RTC and Metro staff and return with the proposed ad hoc committee for the alternatives analysis. Based on communications with staff of both RTC and Metro and commissioners, the RTC chair proposed the following RTC commissioners as members of the ad hoc committee. Commissioners Botorff, Rotkin and Kaufman Gomez to represent Metro and commissioners Leopold, Coonerty and McPherson to represent the RTC. This composition does consider balance representation from both Metro and RTC as well as geographical equity. The ad hoc committee will be involved at key milestones of the project to oversee the analysis prior to soliciting input from the entire Metro and RTC boards. This committee will only be effect during development of the alternatives analysis. So after completion of this alternatives analysis, the ad hoc committee will no longer exist. Without the RTC staff recommends that the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission adopt the proposed appointments of the RTC chair to an ad hoc committee for the alternatives analysis for high capacity public transit. Happy to take questions or comments. Any questions, Ms. Dicar? None, thank you for that quick presentation. Anyone from the public like to weigh in on this item? Seeing none. Air recommendation. A motion by Schifrin. Second. Second by Brown. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Have motion carries unanimously. Can we get a review of items for closed session? We do have one item, we do have one item for closed session today. The matter identified as anticipated litigation. And do we expect to report anything out after this? I do not anticipate a reportable action. Okay, then with that, we're gonna adjourn to a closed session and our next meeting will be on Thursday, excuse me, Thursday, October 3rd at 9 a.m. at the board of supervisors chambers, TPW meeting on September 19th. Thank you for your attendance. That would be fine. Thank you.


Hi everyone, Joe for Jaspy's CaseBreaks.com coming at you with 2020 Panini Prism Baseball Quick Pitch Edition, like fast break for a prison basketball. Five box random team break number three. Big thanks to these folks right here, Keith, David, Phillip, and Brandon. One spot gets you two teams in this retail box break, so let's roll it. Randomize names and teams two out of five, seven times each. One, two, and seventh and final time. After seven, we've got Brandon's down to Brandon. Two out of five, seven times, and seventh and final time. After seven, we got the Nats down to the Braves. All right, any trades? Brandon has a lot of teams, so how about this? Let's try to preserve my golden voice a little bit here. All right, Brandon, you have all the teams except for the Marlins and the Indians, the Padres and the Reds, the Giants, the Yankees, the Rays and the Blue Jays. Easy. So let's sort by team by column B. All right, so Dave, you have the Reds and the Giants. Keith with the Indians and the Marlins, Yankees and the Rays. And Phillip, you have the Padres and the Blue Jays right there. All right, any trades or no? I don't think I see even people whispering about a trade. Should we just roll? Unless people are lagging. Hopefully they're not lagging behind because that was your opportunity for trades. OK, Brandon looks like wants to trade the Yankees, Keith, and be sure to be sure to keep that checklist in mind as well. But I don't know, I've seen trades like this happen. And I just grabbed another Eenie Meenie mining mode, grabbed another stack of five boxes right there. Rex, what's up? Yes, I do remember the M&M poster that I pulled you a few years back in some sort of vault treasure type break. You just sold it for $4.25? Nice. That's not bad. I thought you would have maybe kept that one, get it framed up or something like that. That's a good price, though. What was the, do you remember the buy-in? All right, let's roll. TWC trade window closed. Let's print, let's rip. There's the final printout right there. Good luck. That's not a bad price, though. I feel like the buy-in must have been like two something. Oh, there you go. Hey, these are those fireworks. Just don't be a Jason Pierre Paul. Has he done his annual message yet? There's Jordan Yamamoto to $199. Just in the interest of time, we'll sleeve and top load those up a little bit later, the higher numbered ones. Michael King to $175. We've got Clayton Kershaw to $149. I had a $199, manning Machado. That's, see, Mitch is right. If you buy the fireworks the day after, you can get a huge lot. You should just skip the fireworks this year, Rex. Here's James Paxton Silver. Buy out the store the next day on the 5th of July when demand is down for fireworks. And then next year, woo. And all I gotta do is sacrifice one year. Nick Costano to $25. That's it. But then you'll have a massive fireworks. I don't know, but then I guess the temptation would be there to set those off during the regular part of the year, so maybe not. You know, the container. Container here. So I'm here. Mike Yastrebski to $199. Fireworks, Kristen Yelich to $199, Jake Fraley. There's James McCann to $149. And $159.35, Justin Dunn. Seattle Mariners. That's going to go to Brandon with the Ms. Next box, good luck. I'm going to race LeMond. They're talking about race cars here. Everyone, I recently watched Ford versus Ferrari a couple weeks ago or something like that. Went over to the blockbuster and got it on tape. I was kind. I did rewind. It was a good picture. It was a really good picture. I enjoyed it.  Albert Pujols to $75. Paul DeYoung to $149. Yeah, Mitch, a day at the track. That'd be fun, right? Should we go? I always wanted to group break. Do some breaks at a race track. There's Yusa, Kuchy. We've got a big racing culture out here in Southern California. So I'm sure we can go to Irwindale and go to go break there, watch some funny cars. There's Brock Burke. Go to the California Speedway and Redlands. Fontana. Fontana, I think. Corona. Somewhere around there. It's Kyle Seger, 99, do some group breaks in the infield of the Auto Club 500. Steven Strasberg to $199. Walker Bueller to $199. Manny Machado, 22 out of 25. We've got Omar Narváez, 11 out of 15 for the Brew Crew. Brandon with the Brewers. Imagine randomizing based on cars. Everyone's on a number than slot into teams listed by alphabetical order. What's up, Mac? What's going on? Nico Harner to $199. Man, if that gearbox was reversed, I would not be wild and be so confused. And 10 out of 25, Eson Diaz. Are we working on the Ford? That sounds un-American to me, Mac. Keith with the Marlins, nice. Are we working on Memorial Day? That's more, we are working in the memories of. Dot, dot, dot. Out of respect. Veterans died. Soldiers died for us to be able to work, so gotta work on Memorial Day. But on Independence Day, we're being independent of the man. King George, get him out of here. Get him out of here. No thanks. We are taking July 4th off. We'll be right back here on the 5th. Next, good luck, Mike Miner to $149. Justin Verlander to $99. We've got Anthony Rizzo to $199. Yeah, so I actually, for the first time maybe years, I'm actually getting a three-day weekend on a major holiday. Here's Christian Yellish to $99. I haven't had one of those in ages. Ooh, nice Nico Harner silver. Brandon with the Cubs. We get baseball this year. This is a guy to watch. Patrick Sandoval, angels. Christian Yellish, instant impact to $199. Correct, Mac. Yes, for the first time Friday will actually be a Friday for me. I haven't had one of those in a while too. Kettle Marte, 10 out of 10. Great season for him last year. Brandon with the Diamondbacks. JT Real Muto to $199. DJ Khaled, it's kind of inspirational. Out of $199, Chris Bryant. Sean Murphy to $99. And Bobby Bradley, $14 out of $50. Rookie Auto for the Indians. That's gonna go to Keith with the tribe. Mac, today's your Friday, nice. That's good. Well, happy Friday to you too. Or happy Friday to you on this Thursday. Lively hearing aids, right? 100 days risk freeze. Oh, well, live lead in this word. I just saw a disclaimer flash across the screen that says it wasn't allowed in like three states. It was like Oregon and like West Virginia and like some other state. Wonder what law prevents the use of that kind of hearing aid. Isn't that kind of weird? Do we have live basketball on ESPN on the fourth? What's the live basketball? Well, one day, you need another day off, Mitch. Tell them it's okay. If they had a Emmy for social media shows, I would be in the running. I would love that. Or like just online exclusive streaming shows. The Emmy for the best sports online only streaming show goes to, oh, you don't mind? All right, no big deal. And if it's not work to you, then you won't have to work a day in your life. And Matt Boyd, it's $99. And we've got Mike Kastremski, silver for the Giants.  David Harrell with the Giants. Lake Snell to $199. We got a Colton Wong to $199. And look at this. We've got a Hanser-Alberto, 32 out of 50, like a snakeskin pattern going on here. I like that. That's for Baltimore. That's for Brandon. We've got numbers game, Alex Bregman to $149. Out of $199, Kevin Newman. And there's Wilson Contreras to $149. Austin Meadows to $199. Dylan Cease, three out of 50. Yeah, I'm getting worried about about any kind of trip as well to public locales. Your mayor, Max, saying if you want to travel back from the States, have spikes in the vid, you have to isolate for 14 days on a return. Yeah, it needs to change. If it's gonna change, people better get their act together. There's Yu Chang. This parallel is really cool. Four out of five. I don't know what's called. A white prism maybe is what they've called in certain sets. Although these are like donut holes in this, but anyhow. Nice, Cleveland Indians. Keith out of fives and under get the train whistle. All aboard the Big Head Express. Trey Turner to $25. Otani to $199. And the last box coming up. All right, next one. I want a 63, split window Corvette. Be nice. Justin Verlander to $149. Yusai Kuchy to $25. Fernandes Teese Jr. to $199. Josh Bell, four out of five is gonna get the bell. Pirates, that's gonna go to Brandon. With the Josh. All aboard the Big Head Express. Another Nico Horner, silver. Cubs, nice. John Gray to $199. Mike Clevenger to $199. And Donnie Walton to $175. Michael Conforto to $199. Zach Wheeler to $199. J.J. Bleday top of the class. Danny Santana to $149 for the Rangers. Eddie Rosario to $199. And 46 out of 50. Jesus Lazardo for the A's. Brandon with the A's. Nice, could be a pretty interesting prospect too. And there you go. Thanks everybody. That was a random tee break number 30, or 30, three of 2020 Panini Prison Baseball, five box quick pitch edition from jaspyscasebreaks.com. We'll see you next time for the next one. Bye bye.