We're going to go ahead and call to order the Santa Cruz Regional Transportation Commission meeting for Thursday, May 2nd, and can we begin with the roll call? Commissioner Low. Here. Commission Alternate Story. Here. Commissioner Brown. Here. Commissioner Randy Johnson. Here. Commissioner Alternate Hearst. Here. Commissioner Caput. Here. Commissioner Alternate Ship Friend. Here. Commissioner Friend. Here. Commissioner Leopold. Here. Commissioner Alternate Virginia Johnson. Here. Commissioner Gonzales. Here. Commissioner Botthorff. Here. And Commissioner Rotkin. Here. Okay. We'll proceed to oral communications. These are items that are not listed on an agenda. You will be allowed three minutes to speak on those items. Anybody would like to come up. Now would be the time. I, Brian Peoples, with Trail Now, you know, it's good to have the Transportation Commission meeting here in Capitola. And I want to remind you right behind us is the essentially the road that is closed. The Capitola Coastal Corridor, the 32 mile corridor that's very valuable to our community. And it's closed. And it's closed currently because of assumed assumptions made by this organization that were not correct. I went to the March 13th meeting at the California Transportation Commission, along with your executive director. And we talked to the Transportation Committee. And we also talked to them after we had meetings with their commissioners. And their message was that shouldn't be closed. It's 20 years that it's been sitting that you've been planning this. So the corridors remaining closed. And what we don't realize today is how valuable it is. And I'll give you the example. I live in Aptos and my wife's a teacher at Valencia Elementary. My house is half a mile probably, mile from Valencia. Valencia Road got closed because of the storms. That was a game changer for our community because that main throughway was closed. People had to go all the way around. It was a nightmare. That's what we're talking about when we talk about the Coastal Commission, the Coastal Corridor. So for us to accept the idea that we're going to leave it closed for 10 more years, 13 actually, because you're not unless you're going to spend 15 million for to support their excursion trains. That's closed. It's the roads closed, you guys. That's a road right here. So the California Transportation Commission told you they were surprised in our conversations with the way that this has been managed, especially when you looked at the Unified Corridor study from an engineer's perspective, trained in work, bus doesn't, neither one of those have the capacity of active transportation. So I want to remind you that you have a road closed through our community. The actions you're doing, you've closed that road.  Thank you. Thank you. Welcome. Good morning. Peter Stanger, I'm a South County resident, there we go. Just want to recount, on Monday I was with the Santa Cruz County Cycling Club and we started our bike ride over at West Marine and we went along Aloni, then over to avoid Beach Road. We took the underpass, Beach along the slew there and then got on the Lee Road where we have no choice but to get on to Beach Road. Going down Beach Road to Clearwater, there was a line of eight of us cyclists. On the lane and as we were pedaling towards Clearwater, a UPS driver thought it was clear to pass us and as he was passing us, oncoming traffic started coming and he had no place to go. The oncoming traffic swerved off the road and nearly went into the ditch.  Unfortunately, when we came up with the Monterey's Scenic Sanctuary Trail Plan, at the 11th hour, segment 17 was threatened with a lawsuit and in its wisdom, the Transportation Commission decided on a 17B that was hastily put together by staff unthinkingly. I would really implore the RTC staff to go back and the Commission to direct them. A much better route which I'd really like to see implemented soon is to go along Lee Road, have a pontoon bridge across the slough connecting to Pajaro Valley High School that could get the kids to the high school, then to go along Harkinslough Road across on another pontoon bridge, the slough, to connect up to where Roundtree Sheriff's Facility is and then to Juana Vista. By doing this, it would be a shorter route for cyclists. It would be car-free because the cars couldn't get over the pontoon bridge and it would connect South County to North County. I really would like someone to study this and I would like it to be implemented as soon as possible because it's for the safety of the residents that you're asking to bicycle but you're not giving us roads to bicycle on. Thank you. Anyone else like to address the Commission? Oh, Dr. Rodkin. Members of the public obviously have every right and I think we all appreciate their ability to share their views of what we ought to do with various situations but I think it's important that the public know accurate information about our relationship with other agencies and I'd like to ask our director, are we in trouble with the traffic transportation commission over the problem with the quarter not being built yesterday or tomorrow or something? No, there are commissioners on the CTC that are frustrated with the fact that we don't have passenger rail service on the line. They've made it very clear that they provided the Proposition 116 funds for rail service. The executive director of the CTC did confirm that we have met their commitments with our continued freight and excursion travel on the line. So we are not per se in trouble with the coastal commission or the transportation commission but they are asking for additional information and would like to see us proceeding with improvements on the line. Thank you for those comments. Okay, with that any additions or deletions to the consent or regular agenda? The only thing of note is there is a handout for item 27. There are no either changes, additions or deletions. Okay, great. That brings us to the consent agenda. We usually deal with this all in one motion. Is there anyone on the commission that would like to pull anything from the consent agenda? Yes, I think I'd like to pull item 16, please. Okay. We'll move that to, I'm going to move that till after the director's report. Any other items to be pulled? Anybody from the public like to comment on anything on the consent agenda? Any other comments on the consent agenda? Thank you, Mr. Chair. I need to recuse myself from two items on the consent agenda, specifically item 10 and item 29, which deal with the rail corridor. I have a principal residence within 500 feet of the rail corridor, so I have a disqualified for a financial interest for those two items. Great. Thank you for declaring that. Commissioner Rodkin. Just move approval of the consent agenda. As amended, I'll second that. Yeah. Okay. All those in favor? On those two items that we'll vote on, all those in favor on the motion? Aye. Any opposed? That motion carries with the recusal on items 10 and 29. And let's go to the regular consent agenda, regular agenda item now and it's commissioner reports are related items. I just want to begin with welcoming everybody to the city of Capitola. This rotation as we do these RTC meetings is good for the community as we take an opportunity to visit at least every city one time. And it's our honor to have this meeting in our humble little abode. So welcome to Capitola. And with that, any other commissioners have comments? Seeing none, we'll move on to the directors report. Thank you, commissioner. I have a couple of quick announcements. I'm going to keep it pretty short since we have a pretty long agenda. The first one is regarding highway nine and complete streets on April 18th. Commissioner McPherson and assemblyman stones offices organized a meeting between Cal Trans District five County Public Works, CHP and San Lorenzo Valley school district, as well as RTC staff and other state and congressional representatives to discuss both the near and long term options for addressing pedestrian safety along highway nine between Graham Hill Road and the San Lorenzo Valley school complex in Felton. Cal Trans is currently evaluating suggestions made at the meeting and identified through the highway nine San Lorenzo Valley complete streets corridor plan. And RTC staff will continue to work with its partners to support implementation of projects and public education efforts throughout San Lorenzo Valley, both on short and long term solutions. Regarding the Monterey Bay Sanctuary Scenic Trail, the city of Santa Cruz Planning Commission adopted the initial study mitigated negative declaration for phase two of segment seven of the MBSST at its meeting on April 18th. That decision has been appealed to the full city council. A date to hear the appeal has not been set. The city of Santa Cruz announced that the trestle over San Lorenzo River will open to the public on Friday May 17th. That's the first delivered will be the first delivered section of the Monterey Bay Sanctuary Scenic Trail. The initial planning has started for a ribbon cutting ceremony scheduled to be on Wednesday May 22nd from 12.15 to 12.45 under the banner of National Public Works Week. Bike to Work, May is Bike to Work Month and May 9th is Bike to Work Day. The RTC is a funding partner and Sparn sponsor of the Bike to Work event. On May 9th from 6.30 a.m. to 9.30 a.m. there will be 12 Bike to Work breakfast sites around the county where bikers will receive free breakfast, coffee, smoothies and bike maintenance. Some sites will also offer electric bike test rides and free massages and acupuncture. The RTC will have a booth at the Pacific Avenue site. For more information on Bike to Work Day please visit the Akali G Action website. Open Streets Watsonville. The RTC is also a sponsor of Open Streets Watsonville which will be taking place on June 2nd from 11.00 to 4.00 p.m. in downtown Watsonville. Open Streets transforms city streets into public parkways where people can enjoy active outdoor recreation in a safe and fun carefree environment. We will have a booth at this event as well to promote the RTC's programs and projects. I have an announcement on Community Bridges. Provider of Lifeline Paratransit Dialeride program they held a ribbon cutting ceremony for two new electric vehicles and charging stations at its fleet facility in Watsonville. The total project cost for the two electric vehicles and the two charging stations was $360,000. The California Air Resource Board and California Climate Investment Grant provided $268,000 and $62,000 came from RTC's Measure D. Transition from gas to electric vehicles will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and provide for a more sustainable future. I have a couple staffing changes to announce. I'm sad to announce that NIE's Schenck, Transportation Planter 3 here at the commission, has left the RTC for greener pastures with the county. NIE's will be sorely missed and we wish her the best at the county. We look forward to working with her as she will continue to be heavily involved in transportation planning just across the river. Many of NIE's assignments have been assigned to her staff including Tommy Travers, who has been provisionally appointed from a planning technician to a planner. Included in his provisional responsibilities, Tommy will replace NIE's as the RTC's staff lead for the Bicycle Advisory Committee. The June RTC meeting, the regular one will be held on Thursday, June 6th, as planned as there is no meeting in July and staff anticipates having several items that will need RTC Board approval prior to the August 1st meeting. We may be scheduling a special meeting for the end of June, likely June 27th, after the county completes its budget hearings in July. We will send notifications if a special meeting of the RTC Board is scheduled and that's all I have. Thank you. Any questions of the director? I would just like to congratulate the city on the coming completion of the San Lorenzo River Tressel project. It was originally going to be opening by Memorial Day and then after the rains, I heard there was being put off until June, so the fact that it's opening May 17th, I think it's great. It's a very greatly needed improvement that will encourage people from the east side to get to the beach area and the boardwalk and it was well used when it was really difficult to get across as a four-foot walkway and now it's a 10-foot walkway I think it's really going to be appreciated by the people of Santa Cruz. So I just want to just emphasize how desirable and important that project, the completion of that project is. Well said. Any other comments from the director's questions? From the public, Mr. Peoples. Hi, Brian Peoples, trail now. Great thing about the San Lorenzo Bridge, we recognize that as a key milestone for this organization, so good work there. The lift line, that's phenomenal getting those electric vehicles. Great example of rubber-wheeled vehicles utilizing existing infrastructure to help transportation. Those are all good things. One thing we get concerned about with though is show boating. Show boating especially when you're not really performing to it and that's the San Lorenzo Bridge. We kind of see that as a show boating. You've owned the corridor 32 miles. The CTC said you guys have had it for 20 years. You've been planning it for 20. So we kind of see that you're doing that as a show boat and it's kind of great, but that's kind of what the feeling was at the CTC meeting. And you think about the California Transportation Commission. They're the ones that are giving you money. So if you're going there not being truthful and playing games with the way that you're approaching your policies, not really following engineering requirements, engineering standards, their standards on making your decisions on your infrastructure improvements. It's visible, you guys. I was there. We've been talking to them. So when we say trouble with the CTC, yeah, there's an underlining problem. Your relationship with them. They're following and you're going there telling them, giving them an excursion train plan and they're saying, well, where's your passenger train? And they're still waiting for that. They're still waiting for when you're going to give them a date on that. Thank you. If I may, please. I'm not prone to a counterpoint with the public, but one thing I've learned serving in public service is that for us policymakers to get anything done going through all the processes and crossing all the T's and all the I's, it's a very difficult thing to do. And anytime we can accomplish something and get something done, I don't consider it showboating. I consider it progress. So I'm not sure if that's the line you were going down to Commissioner Leopold, but I think that this project in Santa Cruz as Commissioner Schiffman stated is something the entire county and this board can be proud of. So with that, sir, go ahead. Peter Stanger, South County resident. When I was working in Santa Cruz, I went across that wooden bridge many times and on my bicycle. And so, yeah, I'm happy that it's there. But for those of you that evidently can't recognize what's going on here, the city of Santa Cruz area, let's see, you've got the Yacht Harbor project that you build out using Monterey's Bay Scenic Sanctuary funds. You've got segment seven that you're building out. You've got the planning from Santa Cruz to Davenport that you're planning on now. You've got the Trestle project. Wait a second. What about Mid County? What about South County? What happened to even segment 18? That was really a needed segment, but that's not getting built yet. And what about when you rebuilt the Trestle in La Selva Beach? Did you put a bike lane on it? Where's the pedestrians supposed to go on San Andreas Road? Well, what sense does that make? Is that very safe? Where are the ways app cars going now instead of Highway 1? They're going along San Andreas Road. Who wants to bicycle? Who wants to walk on San Andreas Road? Unsafe, but you're not giving us alternatives. What happened to a bike lane, a pedestrian lane across La Selva Beach's Trestle? What happened to a bike lane or a pedestrian crossing from Sumner to Aptos Village? No, we can go where there's no bike lane underneath the Trestles. Unsafe and where are the ways routing right in that same spot? You're leaving the public vulnerable and I think it's shameful. Thank you. Welcome. Hi, Sally Arnold, Board Chair, Friends of the Rail and Trail. And I just want to congratulate you on the opening of the San Lorenzo Trestle. I'm really impressed it's going to be done by Memorial Day. I had my doubts when that deadline was set, but it's excellent. And I just want to extend my sympathies that apparently if you build something, you're in trouble. And if you don't build something, you're in trouble. And I just want to say that Friends of the Rail and Trail is just really behind you and wants to see all of these infrastructure projects built north to south, making it easier for bicycles, pedestrians, and those people who can do neither and need to maybe roll their wheelchair onto some kind of really convenient high capacity public transportation. And I just want to say, you know, I get that it's hard and thank you for what you're doing. Thank you. Any other comments? We'll go ahead and close that. It brings us to item 16. We're going to, from the consent agenda, this is the approved the fiscal year 2019 Transportation Development Act. And Commissioner Schifrin, your questions on this, please. Yes, I really just had a question for the transit district having to do with the metro base project, looking on page 16-63 of our agenda packet. It talks, this is the capital budget. It talks about construction related projects at the beginning. And it includes almost $2 million in funding for rehabilitation of the metro base, the center in Santa Cruz. And I think I heard that the transit district was making some decisions about a joint project with the city of Santa Cruz to rebuild the metro base. And I just wondered if we could get a little update from the manager about what the status of that project is and how it relates to the budget. Thanks for being available, Grace, but it looks like they want the next stories. Alex, go ahead if you can shed some light on that. I appreciate that. Sure. I'm sorry, I didn't catch the page number. And I think you referenced metro base probably talking about Pacific Station? Yes. Yes, okay. The only reason why I ask is metro bases, that term we used when we were building the operations facility. Oh, I'm sorry. That one's done. Behind the times. Thank goodness that one's done. I didn't want to allocate any more money to that. Okay, so metro center station rehabilitation specific stations. Page 16-63, okay. Yeah, just to give you answer your question on the progress of that. So as you may or may not be aware that discussion about what the future holds for Pacific Station has been an ongoing discussion in excess of ten years has gone through many iterations of review of possible projects. Shortly after I came aboard there was a project ongoing with group four to look at what could be done in the way of a transit-oriented development with a tarmac below a building structure that eventually became so cost prohibitive that it went to the side. We then engaged the city in further discussions, further study of the facility. We needed to answer some questions like do all bus operations need to come to a central point? Do you need to have this sort of pulse system or can you disperse those bus operations throughout the downtown area? We did some studies and those studies revealed that given the nature of our operating region, the way that it is laid out and the way our services run on very limited sort of northwest corridors that this type of system that we have designed here is the optimal system as opposed to dispersing throughout the downtown. So then that caused us to refocus on Pacific Station. So since we now determined that we're not going to disperse the services and where they end and connect, we've been engaging the city in additional discussions on where to go. We took a pause for several months while we evaluated our existing structure. So that building that we have on the property was reviewed very thoroughly because we have had problems, ongoing problems with leaking during the rains, not just the roof but the windows. And we determined that there was a significant investment needed to bring that up to really good standards, reasonable standards to the tune of about $5.6 million. So that gave us a pause point now to go re-institute, if you will, the discussions with the city about how this project might fit into the redevelopment that is ongoing between our property line and Laurel. There's discussions about our development and whether that sort of continuity of development can include our property. And one thought that's being kicked around, and this is very preliminary, is that we would remap the property, city owns some property adjacent to ours, remap it all, and you might have a commercial retail office, clinic, housing along Pacific Avenue, multi-story, and then a bus tarmac, 25-day bus tarmac on the backside facing Front Street. So that's where we're at. We're just at their last meeting, approved me to start negotiations with the city on what we might do next together. Do you have any kind of a timeline for how that project might be moving forward? Well, all of that is dependent on funding. There is significant gap in funding right now relative to what we have, what the city has, and so the conversation will turn to grants, grant opportunities, or the opportunity zone that that's in. Could that bring some revenue to bridge this big gap in funding? Now, if that's all resolved, let's say over the next several months, the city and myself and the board come to conclusion on a funding model that is fundable, that's the key. Not funny money, but fundable. Then the process of actually designing, going through the environmental and building is probably a two- to three-year process once we identify the money. So you're expecting to have a conclusion to the funding analysis in the next three months, would you say? I'd like that to be the case. I won't stand here and tell you that absolutely will be the case, but that is a good target for me. Okay, well, thank you very much for that update. This is a very significant project for Santa Cruz generally, downtown Santa Cruz in particular, and for I think the metro system as well in terms of how the bus system is going to operate. So given our oversight role and funding role, I think it's, I appreciate being able to take the time to ask about what it is. And frankly, in the motion to approve this, if I make the motion, I'm going to ask that we get a report back and fall about the status of this project because I think it is an important one for us to keep our eye on. I'd be happy to do that. Commissioner Brown. Yeah, I don't have further questions. Thank you for laying out the trajectory of those conversations related to the Pacific Station project. You know, as a council member who's been following this and as somebody representing the city of Santa Cruz, one of the least affordable places to live in the world. And having been apprised of the discussions happening with the metro from my council colleagues on the metro board, we really are, have been waiting patiently to try to bring this project to fruition. I'm glad to hear that there is some movement. We do have some, as you know, some funding available. We have some potential opportunities with the state and to the extent that we can actually move forward and have a plan that will really be helpful for us. So I appreciate your willingness to move this forward. Thank you. Commissioner Leopold. I'm also, I'm glad that people are happy with the progress they've been making. You know, the metro has taken a lot of time over the last 15 to 20 years trying to make this project a reality. Saw grant funding, bought the property next door, the Greyhound Station, cleaned that up. The city had originally a different plan that was unfundable and then we had the Great Recession. Now, you know, we've done this, another study at the request of the city and we all now seem to be on the same page to move this forward. And so I think working together we can create a great project that will benefit both the city of Santa Cruz and the transit district. And I would move approval of the item with the additional direction to get a report back in the fall on the status of the project. Second. Motion by Leopold. Second by Schifrin. Before I call the vote, I just want to add to this. Alex, you can go sit down here. This is stuff you already know. I sit on the capital subcommittee along with director Matthews and director McPherson and we've been working diligently on this project with Santa Cruz City Economic Development and we finally brought this to a vote after getting all the information back. And, you know, the nuts and bolts of this whole project is this could be potentially a $12 million project and the metro is in a position to where maybe they have four or $5 million. So we have about a five or $6 million shortfall. But we've got some encouraging advice from AmBag. We've engaged AmBag and they've got some funding that they think we might be able to afford. This is a unique project because it incorporates transit and housing in the same location. This is something that our governor is very favorable on trying to develop and I'm going to try to meet with Assemblyman Weiner. He seems to be a powerful force these days in getting things done. We're going to try to move this along because that gap of five or $6 million I think is something that we can narrow down and we all know this would be a great project for the metro riders and for the city of Santa Cruz. So Alex, thank you for sharing that information in this motion. All in favor of the motion? Aye. Opposed? Carries unanimously and we will continue to report back on this. Thank you. Okay, that will take us to Caltrans report. Ms. Logan. Thank you. Good morning commissioners, good morning everyone. Today is the day that we honor our fallen workers at Caltrans. You can't, it's just small. We have a little emblem honoring the workers, highway workers who have lost their lives in the line of duty. And today, just coming up here at 10 a.m. at the district office in San Luis Pisco, we're having our memorial. This follows on the statewide memorial that was held last week in Sacramento. There have been a total of 189 highway workers who've lost their lives in the line of duty. That's 189 too many. It's interesting that I'm frequently at the RTC meeting in this room on the same day. It just happens, it's a coincidence that it falls on the same day. It's always remarkable to think about the workers on the road, CHP, emergency responders, tow truck drivers, highway workers, you name it, construction contractors. There are a lot of people who put their lives on the line, literally daily, to make it so that we can get where we need to go. And they are literally in harm's way. When you see lights or you see cars pulled over on the side of the road, please take note of that. If you're on a freeway, please move over, slow down and move over when you can. And please just stay alert when you drive. Leave home a little earlier if you know that there's inclement weather or you know that it's going to be a busy day if it's a weekend day or you know you're just going to need a little extra time. And please just put your devices down. All of that chatter can wait. And I just want to implore you to do that. As your Executive Director mentioned, for Highway 9, we're also pleased to participate in the multi-agency effort to look at the next steps from the Complete Streets corridor plan that I know I believe is coming to this body in June for adoption. Caltrans engineers are busily evaluating the many suggestions that have come forward and I think we have multiple opportunities to implement things together in partnership. And we're looking forward to forging new and different partnerships in this regard. Caltrans has a commitment to safety of all users including pedestrians, bicyclists, transit riders. And I think we have many new opportunities ahead that we haven't had in the past. So I look forward to that. And meanwhile, your growing list of projects is here in your agenda. And if you have any questions on those, I can try to answer them. Any questions for Miss Lowe? Commissioner Caput. Yeah, I want to thank you for the work you've been doing with South County and with Highway 152 known as Eastlake Avenue in Watsonville. The sidewalks are, they started with the sidewalks under the Disability Act. And just for the public's information, that'll be on both the north side and the south side, right? Both sides of Highway 152. There will, there'll be a small problem at the bridge, but that's something that will have to be addressed later. That's at Hula Hand and College Road. And also the pedestrian signal upgrades on 129 and 152. Riverside Drive and Eastlake Avenue. So I guess we can get a complete list on what we're looking at later on. Actual sites that have been identified. This is the project listed number eight under construction project? Yes. We'd like a map of individual locations, we can, we can get that to you. Okay, that'd be great. Thank you. How long did it take you? You have to drive to get to this meeting all the way from San Luis to Miss Lowe. What time did you leave? I left yesterday. A smart woman. Yeah, down on transit. Unfortunately, no. Any other questions for Miss Lowe? Go ahead. Go ahead. You know, I think the point about the following workers is a very good one on our, on our drive up this morning from watchable. It was joked, of course, you know, the traffic is pretty bogged down. There's really no room to move over. I mean, there could be room, but there's not room currently. But fortunately, the flow of traffic was so slow that the workers could almost get out of your, your way if you were a distracted driver. But, you know, everyone needs to be much more cautious and more careful, particularly around the CalTrans and contractor crews. Thank you. Thank you. I just want to add to that.  There's paving going on at night and two lanes of traffic are moved over to one side of the road and it's pretty much just separated by cones. And I was pretty amazed that the workers are out there. This is their regular job site and they were literally three or four feet away from ongoing traffic at whatever speed they decided to go. And I think, you know, we always pay attention to the risks that firefighters and police officers are placed at. And I think it's a valid point that Miss Lowe brings up that CalTrans people are in harm's way on a regular basis. And in honor of the 189 people that have lost their lives doing a job, I just like to take a moment of silence and reflect on that if we can. Thank you for that. Miss Lowe, did you have another comment? You just reminded me that you'll see more initiatives by the department to bring safety up and even higher. Safety is our number one priority. The director has implemented a new policy to reduce speeds in work zones by 10 miles an hour universally. And she has also determined that she will be hiring a chief safety officer, the first one in the department's history. Just for the record, what is the safe speed in the driving zone currently? Well, the work zones are each treated differently. And they're usually posted speeds. Sometimes there are warning speeds, but they vary. But it would be 10 miles below. Sometimes there isn't a speed restriction. But you will be seeing more speed restrictions. You will be seeing more lane closures for longer periods of time. We do a lot of night work. I think it's safe to say the department has worked very, very hard to do our maintenance and construction work in a way that minimizes the impact of the traveler and worked very hard at that. And we have to balance that by the safety of the workers. So you could see a few more delays and things like that, but that's the intent. And thank you for the moment of silence. It's well-deserved. And so the slow for the cone zone will be slower for the cone zone. Thank you. Okay, great. Thank you for that. All right. Let's move on to we have the Capitola Public Works update. What's going on in Capitola? I have a point of information. We have a 930 public hearing scheduled. Are we not going to have that? No.  We're going to move to that. And thank you for bringing that up, Commissioner Schiffin. I'm going to hold you off until we do that, because we need to do that on a timely basis. So let's jump to the 930 public hearing. This is a 2019 unmet paratransit and transits needs. Grace. Good morning, commissioners. Grace Blake-Slee of your staff. This is an item that you hear annually. And it's something that's really near and dear to my heart to be able to bring to you the information from the elderly and disabled transportation committee, one of your advisory committees. Some of the unmet needs that are unique to people who are living with disabilities and seniors and the types of priorities needed to help them avoid isolation and maintain independence. The purpose of the unmet needs is really comes from the Transportation Development Act statute, which requires transportation planning agencies that use TDA funds for streets and roads to implement a public process, including a public hearing to identify the unmet transit needs and unmet transit and paratransit needs. RTC does not allocate Transportation Development Act funds to local streets and roads and therefore is actually not required to perform this analysis, but the RTC endeavors to solicit regular input on these needs every year, and it provides a useful tool to assess and prioritize these needs region wide. The Elderly and Disabled Transportation Advisory Committee also serves as a social services transportation advisory council for the TDA statute, and they regularly hear at their meetings discussion of unmet paratransit and transit needs. The unmet paratransit and transit needs are those transportation needs, which are not currently being met, have community support and do not duplicate transit services provided publicly or privately. So attached to your staff report today, Attachment 1 is the 2019 unmet paratransit and transit needs list. The updates since the 2018 adopted lists are shown in underline and strikeout, and we routinely provide this document to you in this way. You'll see there's a prioritization given to the unmet needs, both a number system as well as a letter system for a high, medium indicating high, medium, and low. High priority items are those that are considered to fill a gap in service or where there's not ongoing service. So either the gap, the service is not available or it's not ongoing. Medium priority items are those that would supplement an existing service. So an example might be a service that's provided from nine to four, and it would be to expand that service from seven to six or to the weekends. That would be an example of, to supplement an existing service. A low priority item doesn't mean it's not a priority. It's still an unmet need, but it may be identified low priority because there's more specific planning required to identify what the specific need is or is because it may only serve a, it may not address a basic need as transportation such as transportation to medical appointment or for basic needs. When you look at the one, two, and three, we really tried to add that component to the unmet needs list when we adopted the 2014 region of transportation plan. It helps to indicate to what extent it addresses the regional transportation plan goals. The input is received from a variety of sources to develop this list. It's primarily developed through the Elderly and Disabled Transportation Advisory Committee, which includes CTSA staff as well as Metro staff. We also coordinate with Metro planning staff, the volunteer center, and we do receive public input. Attachment two is the public input received for this year's process. I was really pleased to see some engagement in the process. We did consider that public input when we were developing the unmet needs. Most of them were addressed or there's opportunities to be addressed through further conversation with the Elderly and Disabled Transportation Advisory Committee. I wanted to highlight just a few of the updates that are shown in underline and strikeout in your packet. One of them is a focus on development of new medical facilities along transit lines. I focus on the need for on-demand transportation services, the challenge that the community is facing with the introduction of the transportation network companies and the decrease in taxi service that's available. So taking a closer look at how to address that on-demand transportation service need. There's also was identified a need for more regular communication amongst the transportation providers themselves so that they can do a better job of referring folks who call them. We do have a guide for specialized transportation services, so one of the thought was to make sure that every agency in that document is informed and takes a look at all the other services provided annually. There was also a funding need identified for electric transit vehicles. You heard a little bit about that earlier. We also took a look at incorporating some of the transit needs that were identified as part of the unified corridor studies, such as transit priority and dedicated transit facilities. And this list really continues to be a comprehensive list of the unmet needs identified through our various stakeholders in Santa Cruz County. It's always important to clarify that the unmet needs list is not a funding recommendation per se. It does not prioritize projects for funding, but we do use this list when grant funding opportunities occur. For example, we know there will be a section 5310 grant funding opportunity coming up this summer, so we'll be referring closely to this list and working with ENDTAC to identify priorities for that grant source. I really want to, again, just thank all the stakeholders that took time to really dive deep into this list. We've had calls from different folks this year kind of talking to us about what they see as a need, and they're always really appreciative when we can point to the list and say, you know, we have really talked about that. Take a look here. Let's dive a little bit deeper. And so I just want to take a moment to say thank you to the stakeholders. For action today, we're recommending that the RTC adopt the 2019 unmet paratransit and transit needs list with amendments as appropriate following a public hearing and consider these transit and that paratransit needs as funding becomes available. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions? Ms. Blakeslee, Dr. Leopold. Thank you, Chair. Ms. Blakeslee, I was wondering if you could just address some of these unmet transit needs were reduced from a high priority to a medium priority, and I'm trying to get some senses to what that means. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk about the benefits of measure D funding. That's really what we're seeing there. Kirk Ains from Community Bridges is here and can speak to some of the specific projects that have been implemented as a result of measure D funding as well as the funding to continue transit operations. One example is we'll have ongoing service for same-day medical paratransit rides, which before was grant funded, it was difficult to continue, and now it is an ongoing program. Service is also provided seven days a week through Community Bridges. So these are some of the improvements that were considered gaps before. They can always be improved, but they have been reduced to a medium priority and it was really exciting for us to be able to do that thanks to measure D. Commissioner Brown. Brilliant minds think alike. Any other questions? Okay, this is a public hearing, so I'd like to open it up to the public. Anybody like to come and weigh in on this? Thank you. Hello, Peter Stanger again. I'm glad that this has come before the RTC. The needs that I see is the absence of a bus route that goes through La Selva Beach and along San Andreas Road. As the father of twins that have orthopedic problems, the lack of bus service means that my sons have to literally walk across... Well, we don't want them on San Andreas, so they have to walk across the railroad trestle and then across the fields to get to the bus stop over at CC Convention Center. So they have to leave 45 minutes earlier to make that walk so they can catch the bus that only comes every two hours. I know that there's been Route 54, because I used to take 54, and that it wasn't working because there wasn't enough ridership. And the reason for that, I believe, is that 54, even when it was running every half an hour, was the end of a line of a deadhead route. And if... I would like to, on your report, you have from my neighbor, Bonnie Gutierrez, and she's saying exactly what I'm asking you to do, and that is to have Route 69 or any of the other ones come down San Andreas Road and stop at the corner of San Andreas and apply a boulevard, make another stop at Renaissance High School, KOA, make another stop while she has Buena Vista. I would rather do it at Zills Road or Monterey Bay Academy and another stop at the Farm Labor Camp before going into Watsonville to the Transit Center. If it was on part of a route that was actually connected and was moving fast and was regular, I think that it would have enough ridership on it that it would benefit the community by, again, giving bus service to that area of Santa Cruz County that is totally unserved now, and I think it would be a good move by Metro. Thank you. Thank you for those suggestions. Hi, it's Brain Peoples Trail Now. This is really good work. This is exactly the kind of analysis that you need to do to understand your requirements on providing the services that are needed for the community. In addition to this, though, you have to kind of step back and say, you know, do a root cause analysis of why do I have these shortcomings? And if you did a root cause analysis, you probably would realize that, you know, you got to allocate it into the appropriate areas. And this is why we're strongly advocating not to waste money on the train and on building a trail for a future train. And yeah, it is showboating when you're advertising that when you have these kind of shortcomings. So we encourage you to keep doing this type of analysis, but be truthful in how, why these problems are occurring. Why do we have this limited funds? Because if you look at it, $1.6 million to maintain the corridor is seven articulating buses operating in a year. I think it might be eight actually. Eight articulating buses that could service the community. So this is great work, but follow through with mitigation activities. Thank you. Welcome. Good morning. Today on my name is Carol Childers. Today I'm wearing both my Meals on Wheels hat and my senior commission hat. I represent the San Lorenzo Valley. We still have a lot of unmet needs for our very isolated elderly up in the San Lorenzo Valley. I have one example for you. We have a man who lives way out in Lompico, and I'm talking up on a ridge. Very difficult to access, but we get him his meals every week. The other day I was driving up Graham Hill Road, and I see a man crumbled on the sidewalk, and I thought, first I thought it was a worker, and then as I drove by I thought he's not working on anything, so I turned around, and this is right in front of the Sheriff's substation. Luckily a very large man pulled in behind me, and we both go down and we talk to this man, and I realize he's our client. And I said, how did you get... First of all, you injured. He said, no, he didn't want assistance. He just wanted to be picked up. So this very big man picked him up, and I said, how did you get down here? He said, well, the only way I can afford to get down here is to hitchhike. He needed milk. Well, so he hitchhikes down. Have any of you been out Lompico Road lately? There's two spots where the lanes are falling apart, but he hitchhikes down. He walks down, hitchhikes down to the Safeway in Felton, and he tripped on his way back up. Well, he wouldn't let anyone give him a ride home. He hitchhiked back. He's trying to maintain his independence as much as he can. Gratefully, you know, he failed where someone could help pick him up. He falls off Lompico Road, while someone find him. So we need to really work and remember that we have a lot of very isolated, elderly low-income folks, and we need to be able to reach them. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning, commissioners and staff. For those that don't know me, my name is Kirk Hans. I'm the program director for Lifeline, a program of Community Bridges, and I'm thankful that the RTC does the on-meant needs list. We partake in part of that as a stakeholder. Even though they're not required to do it, we appreciate it. It's helped us greatly in getting grants, supported our claims for the need for certain types of transportation, which Grace had mentioned earlier, the same day in the out-of-county transportation, which we were able to show that we needed the funding that was on-meant needs, and we've gotten funding for two and a half years to do that, so we're providing two additional drivers to provide that same-day transportation, mostly to medical appointments or things that are related to health, and also out-of-county, which we go as far as San Francisco County. We go to Santa Clara. We go to Stanford as well on a daily basis to the vets in Monterey, and this helps support people that don't have means to get to those appointments that are specialized appointments. It could be for children, Lucille Packard, and those sorts of things, so we're really thankful for that list and the continued growth, and also the operation facility for Lifeline was on there, and I'll be talking about that a little later, so great accomplishments. I also share the passion that Carol just had about the clients and the isolation, so we're always looking to see how we can better meet those needs in the county. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning. My name is Johanna Leihill, and I live in Seacliff, and I want to thank you for considering all our comments today. I have a short story. When I was growing up, I used to visit my grandmother in Santa Clara. She lived behind the Food Villa off of Sears Creek Boulevard, which is now a bed, bath, and beyond. She used to walk to the grocery store almost every day, and she'd often return empty-handed, but she could come back and tell us what was on sale and the price of ham for the day. I thought it was a strange story, but I was a kid, and I didn't think much more about it. Not until my own mother, in her later years, lived behind the Safeway off of Airport Boulevard in Watsonville. She too frequently walked to the stores whether she needed to or not, and she refused my offers to do her shopping for her, and it was only then that things started to make sense for me. To some, a walk is more than a walk. To these women, walking was not only exercise, but a demonstration of self-reliance, and sometimes their only socialization for the day. The outings allowed them independence and dignity. Neither wanted to burden others if they could do for themselves, and I think most people feel this way. So, as you consider future mobility and transit needs for our county, I ask that you remember those whose needs may seem less apparent, but are nonetheless just as important. Please facilitate mobility by providing safe and direct walking routes within communities, ones that are hopefully pleasant, but more importantly, separated from the hazards of both cars and bicycles. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, Sally Arnold, friends of the rail and trail. I read over the comments for the unmet transit needs, and I was at the Elderly and Disabled Transportation Advisory Committee meeting last month, and what struck me was that there's all these individual needs that people are talking about. There's the safe passage for elderly people to walk from one place to another, and, oh, well, we need ways for the disabled to get around on public transit. But I think that when we look at it system-wide, as opposed to just picking off little problems, we can see that there are some big solutions available to us, and that I feel like the Unified Corridor Study was the beginning of starting to think, like, big about how can we system-wide improve transit in the community. And I will not surprise you to know that I'm going to say that I think that the rail trail with the high-capacity transit is going to be just a game-changer for people. It will provide that accessible route for people to walk in their communities away from traffic. I mean, segment 7b or phase 2 on the west side is an example of providing a much more level, accessible grade to get from the west side to the beach area, which is not, there just isn't one right now. People just have steep hills. And the difference of some kind of a transit vehicle that allows people to just roll on and roll off with a wheelchair, I mean, that's a level of accessibility that is far superior to waiting for the lift to roll on, get strapped in, roll off, get strapped in. I mean, that's great. It's better than nothing for sure. But if we can get a roll on and roll off kind of transit available on the corridor, that's going to be a level of independence that will be really appreciated by people. So I just want to encourage people to continue to think big and think about system-wide solutions to solving these individual problems. Thank you. Thank you for your optimism. Anybody else I'd like to comment? Without them, go ahead and close the public hearing and bring it back for discussion and action. Well, I move the staff recommendation on this item. Motion by Schiffel. Second. Second by Leopold. I want to also thank the staff for doing the work. The outreach is really important. The comments we received here today are also very helpful. And I know there are Metro representatives here who are listening to the needs for the bus system. And I know that that's a constant discussion at the transit board about how we meet the transit needs of people in Santa Cruz County. So we'll take that seriously. Any other comments? I just want to add one thing. I'm really happy to see that the, I call a new inspired relationship between the RTC, Metro, and Community Bridges and lift lines specifically to work together to meet the needs of every agency. So I'm really happy with that new relationship. So with that, we'll have a vote. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thanks, Grace. Do you have a comment? I just would want to make one more comment. Sure. Many of the elderly and disabled transportation advisory committee members have been involved in the art and history exhibit on senior isolation that's up now through the early September. And I would recommend if members of the public and commissioners visit that exhibit. It really does tell a great story. Great. Thanks, Grace. Okay. We're going to go back to the city of Capitola Public Works Update. Kailash, come on in and let us know what's going on in Capitola with RTC money. Thank you, commission members. Let me pull up the slideshow. First of all, I'd like to echo what commission member and council member Bonner said. We would like to welcome all of you to Capitola. It's fun to have all of you here and we enjoy working with RTC staff. The purpose of this presentation is just to provide you a quick update on the transportation projects that have been completed and funded and also completed with coordination with RTC which has been a very helpful partner on a lot of these projects. This is the list of all the projects that we'll run through. First we'll talk about the two projects that were completed last year. And we'll go through the projects that we are anticipating to have go into construction in the next fiscal year. And then there's two unfunded projects that we just wanted to highlight that are out there but we're still working on funding availability. So the first project is the 2018 slurry seal that was completed last year with help from the Measure D and it allowed us to complete slurry sealing on about 2.6 miles within the city of Capitola. That was completed in late fall of last year. The next project was a sidewalk completion project so this 38th Avenue was part of a complete streets project and the one segment of sidewalk was not completed in the first phase of the project so we were able to go back last year and complete that corridor so that allows passenger or pedestrian travel all the way up 38th to the Capitola Mall area which serves a large area of residential community there so it's been a big improvement for the community. And the next project that we have is coming up for this year. This project we plan to go out to bid next month and this is a long-standing project that has been a need for the city of Capitola which will provide both bicycle and pedestrian access from the Cliffwood Heights neighborhood and New Brighton Middle School down into the village. And there's about 1,600 feet of new sidewalks that will go in on the north side of Park Avenue and will also improve the striping for bicycle and pedestrian crossings at all of those streets that are included. The next project that we're currently working on and recently we're given some input from the technical advisory committees through the RTC is the Brommer Street Improvement Project. This street is in many of you may know is in a state of needs a lot of repair and there's also a portion of sidewalk so there's a gap at the intersection closest to 41st Avenue so this project will rehabilitate the whole roadway improve the signage for bicycle and pedestrian use and then complete that portion of sidewalk on the north side of Brommer Street. We've already had our community workshops and we're just been soliciting input on design and we'll be going hopefully have completion of design later this summer to go out to bid in the fall. This is also another project that has been able to be completed through funding through the RTC. Our next project I'd like to highlight is also on Park Avenue. This was a project that was a result of a storm damage from the 2017 storm season where we had a we just finished rehabilitating the whole section of Park Avenue and then three large eucalyptus trees fell over and damaged the road shoulder and bike lane to Park Avenue and currently we've finished our engineering and we'll be submitting our packet to Caltrans where this is eligible for federal funding and that hopefully will also go to bid this summer with completion either in the fall or the spring of next year. And then one other project that we have in the works further down on Park Avenue close to where we're at now it's a pedestrian pathway that will provide access from our upper Pacific Cove parking lot that then goes up to the intersection of Park and Monterey and will allow for access to the future of Monterey a scenic trail and also allow all the visitors who come to Capitol and make use of those public parking places to have a safer route of travel down into the village into the beach. And that concludes all the projects that I wanted to update you guys on and I'm here to answer any questions otherwise I would just like to reiterate that we really enjoy working with RTC staff very helpful for us being a small agency they provide a lot of additional staff support and knowledge about what's going on throughout the community and in the regional level that helps us secure funding and input that is always beneficial for our projects. Thanks, Kalish. Any questions? Director Leopold. Well I'll just say thank you for the presentation and thank you for the work. I'm especially happy to see the 38th Avenue on the Brommer Street because very often people contact the county because they think it's a county road and they say when are you going to do that and I said talk to the city of Capitola it's their road so it's really great to see that moving forward I know that that's something that people have really wanted to have done and especially that Brommer Street portion is pretty bad right now so when it gets fixed it'll be amazing. Thank you. Thank you for your work. Thank you. Any questions? Thank you Kalash for that presentation. Okay we'll move back up to item 28 now this is the Safe On 17 Safety Corridor Program. Amy. Hi. Good morning commissioners. My name is Amy Naranjo, commission staff and program manager for the Safe On 17 program. My item today is on the 2018 Safe On 17 annual report. The annual report discusses the work of the task force which has been active for 20 years to reduce collisions and include motor safety on the highway 17 corridor between the cities of Santa Cruz and San Jose. The Safe On 17 task force is a partnership between the RTC SAFE, MTC SAFE, CHP Santa Cruz and CHP San Jose as well as Caltrans in districts 5 and 4. Task force members also include local police, fire legislators and members of the local media. The task force meets twice a year to discuss the outcomes of CHP's extra enforcement and education efforts and to share information on Caltrans current projects and maintenance activities on highway 17. The group has identified three main strategies for reducing collisions. It's extra enforcement of safe driving practices, road improvements and public education. It's typically referred to these as the three E's. Education, engineering and education. Enforcement, sorry. The role of the RTC in the Safe On 17 task force is supporting for extra CHP enforcement. We currently provide $50,000 a year for enforcement on the Santa Cruz County side and MTC SAFE provides 50,000 on the Santa Clara County side. We also facilitate the biannual task force meetings and prepare the annual report which I'll summarize today. The packet begins on page 28-7 of your packet and includes various types of data from CHP, Caltrans and Caltrans. In 2018 there were 801 total collisions on 17 in the corridor. Two of those were fatal and 269 of those collisions were injury collisions. Now these injury and fatal collisions have increased substantially over the last three years including coming into 2019 and the average number of injury and fatal collisions there then the pre-program average of 249 injury collisions between 1996 and 1998. There are a couple of reasons for the increase in collisions. A few of them are likely a combination of factors which include distracted driving, speeding and unsafe lane changes. However, the data also shows a correlation between annual rainfall amounts and the number of collisions and you'll see in section 3 on your report the annual rainfall on 17 from 2011 until now and you can see how as rain goes up collisions go up as well. Traffic volumes also affect the number of collisions and essentially the greater the traffic volume on 17 the greater the likelihood of collisions and in 2013 there were approximately about 54,000 vehicles on 17 whereas now that's gone up to about 66,000 trips. And that was the counts as of 2017 so it could be even more vehicles that are going over as of now. Extra CHP enforcement is an essential element of the SAFE on 17 program and increased CHP visibility and citations being issued really provide a deterrent to motorists who practice unsafe driving behavior and due to the increase in collisions on 17 over the last few years. CHP has really targeted their extra enforcement at specific times of the day and at specific times of the year and using the data and the feedback that we get from the task force meetings to really strategize where they're going to put those officers. Regarding engineering projects and construction projects, Caltrans has also completed a number of safety projects in the last year. They included the Highway 17 shoulder widening and concrete guardrail project that was just north of Scotts Valley and then the storm water mitigation project that was between the Highway 117 interchange and Sims Road. And then as well they continue to do tree and vegetation removal to keep the area clear. Some of the public education activities that have happened in 2018 included the start smarts driver safety classes hosted by the Caltrans. They're new drivers and teenage drivers to attend with their parents to learn essentially safe tips on how to maneuver and drive on the road and keep safe. And then the Santa Clara County Fire Department also implemented a Safe On 17 campaign and produced a number of safety videos to really warn drivers about either distracted driving, tips for driving in the area, or if there's a secondary accident when there are stalls on the highway. RTC staff also used cruise 511, our traveler information program to really get out the messages whether it was our own messages that we were creating and sharing or messages from CHP, from Caltrans and our other partner agencies and getting the message out there and really explaining to the motorists what projects are happening and if there are any other questions that you might have. As I mentioned previously the Safe On 17 program is also funded with safe funds and those funds are generated from the dollar registration fee on all vehicles residing in Santa Cruz County. Funding for extra CHP enforcement has been $50,000 a year since the program started in 2002 and meanwhile over time rates increased 65%. Starting with fiscal year 2018 the RTC has added an additional $25,000 in measure D funds to help with the additional CHP enforcement and we've been working with CHP to amend the contract to get those funds into the agreement. In addition there's also been significant concern expressed by residents both on Santa Cruz County sides. Really about the number of injury collisions and looking to HSEs to see what they're doing. Therefore beginning in fiscal year 2019 and 2020 the RTC is proposing an additional $50,000 in measure D funds to augment the $50,000 in safe funds that goes to CHP Santa Cruz. This will cover the inflationary cost increase of 65% and provide additional funds for even more enforcement on CHP. We're more enforcement with CHP to ensure that motorists drive accordingly and will help reduce collisions. That concludes my staff report. Staff recommends that the RTC accept the 2018 annual report and approve the resolution to increase funding for CHP enforcement. I'm happy to take questions and then Lieutenant Ian Troxel is also here from CHP Santa Cruz to answer any questions. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for that report and it was a little bit disturbing to see the increases in the accidents over the last three years and I noticed the cause had listed but I was wondering is there any evidence that impaired driving is contributing to the increase in collisions? Lieutenant Ian Troxel Santa Cruz CHP. I'm going to answer your question but I want to add a couple of things here. One of the things that has really helped is on the engineering side of the house, high friction surface roadway has helped some of those major curves like Laurel Curve and other areas to reduce collisions so that should be taken into account to extend high friction surface improvements throughout Highway 17. From an education perspective we find that teaching youth works really well through StartSmart and other courses but as drivers age and get more experience they kind of forget about the basics of driving safely and it becomes more of an opt-in type situation in order to get information. I can tune out a poster board or not take an educational class or turn to TV when I see something I don't like but we got opt-in to it. From an enforcement perspective that's where you don't have a chance to opt out. That one-on-one contact with the CHP officer that makes the enforcement contact brings everything back in. It's the enforcement and then the educational process that that driver is going to go through by going to court, traffic school and the fine associated with whatever they're doing. So I'm a strong proponent obviously to reduce collisions on Highway 17 and save lives ultimately. As far as what we're seeing on the increase of fatalities and collisions across the state is distracted driving. That's ultimately what it is and we just have to come up with some strategies to figure that out, that piece. Whether it's technology and cars that reduces the ability for drivers to interact with social media and everything else that's coming through a personal device in a car. That's what we really need to look at. As far as driving and influence I haven't really seen an increase as much as I thought I would see with legalization of marijuana and those types of things. I haven't really seen the increase in DUI. So it's really distracted driving it's really unsafe turning movements speed. Those are your primary collision factors specifically on Highway 17 but across the state. Unfortunately our mileage death rate has increased over the past three years where we are under one and now we're about 1.1, 1.2 on the mileage death rate. Any questions for the Highway Patrol? Go ahead. I think it's a lot better than it was. I remember years and years ago Highway 17 there was a time when the oncoming traffic in both directions were especially at night the glare of the lights and everything but with the partitions and also the educational part you're getting out to the drivers to be careful. So you know what you're doing out there is really important but is there currently a test or is anything in the for somebody driving under the influence of marijuana I know for liquor of course there's a number of blood tests, breath you know breath tests and all that or is with marijuana are we still going through just being able to do the walk or whatever? If you're stopped driving under the influence there's still a standardized set of field sobriety test which can which include walk and turn finger and a nose and a couple of other tests. As far as chemical testing the state still hasn't decided what nanogram level of drug in the system would be going to be impairment so it's based on how the person performs on a field sobriety test can they operate a motor vehicle safely and if they have any objective symptoms of being under the influence of marijuana and then of course if the chemical test comes back positive for marijuana. But right now we don't have like a breathalyzer or a hair sample or a saliva that you can do in the field right now. With alcohol or whatever they're going to jail right? I mean if they fail the not necessarily so in this county they can decide it out and not go to jail and they're most first time offenders will just go to the sobering center and sit in the sobering center for however long it takes them to become sober. Commissioner Story did I answer all your questions? Do you have any follow-up? Yes I've got the answer. Commissioner Johnson. Thank you chair. And also thank you to the executive director and staff bringing this forward I mentioned some time ago that the funding for this particular program was essential because one of our top priorities is of course health and safety of our citizens and when you're losing people on the highway when serious accidents are happening then we have to kind of adjust. I mean you mentioned it was mentioned that the number of people who travel that highway rose from say fifty some thousand to sixty some thousand the weather is going to be this or that but we have to adapt to that we have to make sure that we have in place all the weapons I'll use that word I guess against to fight against a culture of recklessness and speeding and you know I really appreciate the fact and you alluded to it lieutenant the fact that there is education sometimes young people see it that fades and it really gets down to enforcement we all nobody wants to opt out there but you have to opt in when you know you see the red lights and so you know I'm from scott's valley and we work hand in hand that you know highway 17 is right in our backyard and we have a very good relationship but I think whatever we can do and you know I'm happy to see we've added another fifty thousand dollars I think we also added at some point and say is fifty thousand enough because that roadway is a big integral part of this county going over the hill making a living coming back and I think we've all been exposed to drivers who are just so reckless and dangerous that sometimes what is the eternal question where is the CHP when we really need them have family members that I have gotten a ticket on highway 17 they have okay but getting a ticket and having enforcement is the most important thing to kind of degrade the recklessness that sometimes creeps into that culture and so whatever you can do and what you have done thank you very much I appreciate that thank you thank you chair I really appreciate the presentation this is an issue in which I get a lot of calls on I'm sure my colleagues get a lot of calls on concerned about the safety and that has there's definitely been an uptick over the last two years either because of the economy the fact that that more people from Silicon Valley are buying houses over here in Santa Cruz county the fact that there's more traffic on highway 17 and possibly the rain the people perceive that it's a lot less safe than it used to be and I appreciate the work of the staff when we added money last year and that we're going to increase it again this year because when you everything cost more than it did 15 years ago but 15 years ago that $50,000 bought 850 hours of enforcement time and in 2017 which is the last full year in which we have data that same $50,000 bought 166 hours so we're when you look at the statistics and you look at the correlated with the number of hours in which we have enforcement enforcement works it does play a significant role the roadway, the surface plays a role the rain plays a role the distracted driving plays a role but people slow down when they see the officers and we need to increase that funding over time to make sure that we have an adequate number of hours so I really appreciate the work the ongoing work of the safe on 17 committee to be looking at this that through that data it really makes a convincing case to increase the funding for this and I'm grateful for the people of Santa Cruz County who has the wisdom to vote for measure D so we have these kind of resources to be able to provide funding on a critical route transportation route in the county in which I think there are 60,000 cars a day that go on that road so that money is going pretty far and will help reduce congestion and improve safety so thank you for your work thank you it's always a happy day when John and Randy and I can all agree on something and I really feel strongly about this because you know all these other issues are real intoxicated drivers and the slickness of the road and the rain on a mountain road with pretty steep curves and so forth but when you drive the road you rarely go over the road when there's not at least one idiot that is going like 75, 80 miles an hour by you and no matter how safely you're driving it's like you're in the middle of a risky situation where it could be really problematic people do slow down when they see the officers out there it makes a difference in how they respond and distracted driving can be an issue but I don't think these people that are speeding are distracted in the typical sense that they're not on their phones necessarily although occasionally you see that too but more often they're just driving really, really unsafely and really fast and having enforcement is the only way to deal with that problem if you made the road safer they would drive still faster like now it can go around the curve at like 85 miles an hour and so I think having police officers there really makes a difference and this is money well spent and I'll certainly support the emotion that's been proposed to us Commissioner Gonzalez I'll keep this brief because I do just like the fellow commissioner stated speeding is a big issue there I was a long time commuter over that hill and I experienced the on Laurel curve before they put the friction road on just my truck just spun out because it was so slick it was 4 in the morning so you get the black dew on there and it was really awful so I do appreciate CalTrans for all the improvements they've done on that road but speeding is really the big issue and when you have big vehicle trucks on that highway 17 at commute time it creates more high speed traffic on folks that know that that right lane is empty and then they speed up and then they jam in and then they speed up so that also builds that that opportunity to speed up I guess and I guess more education and more enforcement on that will help and I support us this in funding you with more money and trying to create that but it is an issue of having people just literally just going too fast in that freeway and thinking that that freeway is actually designed for a high rate of speed thank you about every six months or so in Scotts Valley and I would assume other jurisdictions you get a confluence of all the law enforcement agencies who badges are something that come in and have concentrated enforcement for half a day or a day does that ever happen on highway 17 where you instead of having two or three officers you might have 10 or 12 so each jurisdiction decides badges is a program of motorcycle officers that go out and enforce different traffic concerns and it happened we were trying to get it monthly and each community decides where they want the officers to go and enforce we have some other grants we have some DUI enforcement money that we use on highway 17 that puts additional officers but really the bottom line is since 1960 1970 our baseline of number of officers has remained the same so we haven't increased our force to the numbers of commuters that we have on the road so I typically deploy about six to eight officers for the entire county of Santa Cruz every day so to bring in 12 officers or of CHP officers that wouldn't work but if the allied agencies together like a badges we could do that if Scotts Valley PD decides that they want enforcement on that freeway portion of Scotts Valley they could do that they could use badges to do that and that's something that they do monthly Commissioner Hurst did you have a question? No I don't I have a question for staff I was a little confused about something that's being recommended as I understood the staff report the budget last year or maybe this year was increased by 25,000 and are we proposing in the 2019 2020 budget to go up an additional 25,000 or an additional 50,000? What you said first is correct for fiscal year 18-19 the commission approved an additional 25,000 funding for measure D and so we're recommending now for fiscal year 19-20 that that 25,000 become 50,000 So in fact the increase is another 25,000 The increase is another 25,000 exactly. The other question I have has to do with we tend to talk about the funding for this program in terms of dollars but Commissioner Rotkin brought up a point that made me think about what we're really concerned about is the number of hours of extra enforcement that is being funded and it was certainly of concern that that was reduced from 870 if I understood correctly to 200 in something as a result of increased costs until the money went up and I'm wondering if it would make sense for us to be when we're considering budgetary decisions on this program whether rather than simply seeing it as having a goal of having a certain amount of money really having a goal of a certain number of hours and I know that there are limits based on the number of officers that the CHP has to how many hours that they could provide an extra enforcement but the fact that initially there were 870 I just wonder how much it would cost to go back to the 870 and to whether the CHP has the capacity at this point in terms of their force to provide that number of hours because I do kind of remember when it first went into effect when I don't drive over the hill that often but when I drove over the hill it was much more obvious that there were CHP officers available than it is now and I think that's what we're all talking about is trying to get the level of enforcement increased to the extent costs go up just providing additional money may not do it so I guess I have a question for the CHP officer about whether the capacity exists for 870 hours if there was funding available and two if there is how much more funding would need to be provided for that capacity to be there right so that total number of hours if I'm remember this this is for San Jose and Santa Cruz correct so we probably wouldn't be able to support 870 hours probably wouldn't I'm just being honest we need that these officers are working on overtime so they're working on their days off they're working after shift, before shift those types of things so it might be a stretch but I'll do some analysis for you and then I'll report back to the committee to see exactly how many hours we can support I think that first step of the additional increase of the 25,000 that's definitely something we can support through that effort and get back maybe an actual number of hours I think that would be appreciated and maybe as part of our next budget consideration that we look at what it would cost to provide funding to support the number of hours that the CHP is able to provide and you brought up another issue of course this is not just our side of the hill it's the other side of the hill and I know we were going to try to get additional money from the MTC was that successful are they also increasing their commitment to match the commitment that this commission has approved? not as of this fiscal year but they are interested and they're looking at doing that in their next budget budget well I would in terms of proving the staff recommendation I would certainly add a direction I'm not making a motion but I think it would make sense to add a direction that the commission chair write a letter to the chair of the MTC strongly urging that they support the additional funding for the SAFE on 17 effort before I get to Commissioner Brown I just want to clarify the hourly comment was brought up by Commissioner Leopold not Commissioner Rock just for the record I know you like everything to be accurate so I wanted to make sure we have that I definitely appreciate that I know that and I think what we're all alluding to is that the number that Commissioner Leopold brought out first of all, CHP, thank you for sharing that you can't meet this obligation I don't think you can provide the hours that we had and based on my simple math adding up what the number is we would probably need another additional $100,000 to get to that number I think incrementally what you're trying to do with us is $25,000 at a time I think it's about your ability to provide the hours of service and that's what I took away from your comments I want to make sure that if we're going to have a partnership with you and you're going to get back $25,000 to the highway patrol that we're going to use that money and we're going to use it wisely we're not going to have anything left over so it's great I think the step by step process is definitely work let's try the $25,000 see where it goes, where it takes us and any amount of money from here is going to save lives it's going to reduce crashes on highway 17 you're going to get in view patrol you're going to get more officers on there I'm going to go to Commissioner Brown then to Leopold here I just want to make a quick comment I want to thank the RTC staff for giving us this report really thorough overview to help us understand what's happening on highway 17 and that combined with my own experiences anecdotal qualitative seeing some of the bone-chilling collisions and then other accidents people going off into the canyons over time really kind of paints a picture about the need for law enforcement to monitor so I definitely support the suggestions made by Commissioner Schifrin and I know Commissioner Johnson has been very much an advocate of this and others as well so I'd be supportive of looking at the costs and trying to increase our contribution over time and certainly support the staff recommendation just wanted to say the last collision I was involved in on highway 17 was when I was rear-ended by somebody who was reading a newspaper so it's been quite a long time and things have definitely changed since then I want to appreciate all the work that you're doing to keep up with the times Thank you I think what Commissioner Schifrin brings up is important about number of hours but I don't want to if you look at the data about the number of hours and the collision information there isn't exactly an apple-to-apple comparison that more hours brings less so I think important since the start of this program is the goal to reducing the number of collisions and the number of fatalities I think we want to keep on that and we want to we're trying to impact it by adding because we haven't added money we're basically using the same amount of funds that we had 15 years ago and so this will be a big increase and on top of last year it's a doubling which is helpful and then we should see what the statistics say if the rain plays a major role if we have we had a lot of years if you look at that chart of the drought where collisions were way down and if we go into another drought our hours may not be the deciding factor so I think that we shouldn't get lost a number of hours we should look for the results and be able to examine and analyze what the results are telling us and I encourage, I've gone to a number of SAFON 17 meetings they're really interesting meetings you can really get down to the weeds on some of this data which I have found helpful and informative for me and I think we should we should keep on getting reports about that and maybe even include the SAFON 17 report in our information packet when they come out quarterly so people can see what's going on Commissioner Johnson I had a couple of comments and then a question for the officer so my first comment is it goes without saying but we do need to say it for the members of the public that aren't familiar with this committee that this is an amazing example of an interagency collaborative effort and it's the best of the best the way government works and I just want to make sure that's stated and thank you for the staff and all the agencies that participate I too have been to many of these SAFON 17 meetings and if you're interested in how to make this one of the worst roads unsafe roads in the state of California despite all the efforts we've made you should go to one of those meetings they're public and you do get a lot of information and you can see the level of collaborative cooperation and dialogue as to okay that didn't work but this might in the next steps so I just want to appreciate that my question is well one more comment I know a number of us including Commissioner Leopold have been in receipt of a petition which I have provided to Caltrans today and by email of more than a thousand users, regular daily users of SAFON 17 who are very interested in additional safety measures additional projects etc and one of the things that struck me is I was reading the petition and Caltrans will write a response because they've done a lot of work and I'll make sure that in fact I think I did email it to you as well to Mr. Preston one of the things that really struck me about that is that sometimes the public doesn't understand everything that we have done which there's a huge amount of education we could do and not that we want to sit in our laurels we don't we want to do things better all the time but to be able to say there is a huge number of improvements Captain Koonsler, your captain pointed out 29 years ago he said the condition of that road was appalling and to compare to what it is today so we just really need to give ourselves some credit for the improvements and the attention that we're paying and I would encourage you when you do your education that that would be a component of it and then lastly I just want a quick question and that is and maybe I missed something is it that all of the hours need to be provided as overtime it would seem like I understand you're having a challenge in getting additional officers trained but it would seem like that would make sense to be able to do it otherwise so the program is funded through a grant which is used as special code for overtime hours and I don't have the number of officers on a regular day or regular shift to specifically do enforcement on Highway 17 I have one officer that works Highway 17 on a deployment day so that's really and as far as training is concerned we've actually had a gap and new officers in Santa Cruz for the past seven to eight months we haven't had a new officer which is strange but we typically get about five new officers every six months that's slowed down quite a bit so I don't really and I wouldn't know a mechanism to really use funds for just regular salary how that wouldn't even work Commissioner Gonzalez just for clarification on attachment to 28-45 and it's on the fund extra CHP enforcement for Highway 17 to ensure continuous of the safe on 17 program it has down there it says therefore be it resolved by the Santa Cruz Regional Transportation Commission that the Executive Director and his designee to authorize up to 70,000 per year for fiscal year 2018-19 after 100,000 per year beginning fiscal 2019-20 is that correct and is that adding the 50,000 that we're putting up here per year? that is correct it would be adding the 50,000 if that gets approved by the commission for a measure of defense so just for clarification it would be up to 150,000? it would be up to 100,000 a year so he could negotiate up to 100,000 a year? he could negotiate up to 100,000 a year I just wanted to make sure that we the numbers that were being put out there and just to answer the Commissioner Alternates Schifrin's question earlier about what it would take to get up to the original hours we have to do the analysis and what the inflationary increases have been and it's been 65% inflationary increase the cost of the per hour of CHP overtime so the additional 50,000 hours to get you more than what the original number of hours could be paid for with the original $50,000 the amount the number of hours you see per year that are actually done in overtime by the CHP does not necessarily correlate to the amount that can be bought by the funds available because that's actually determined the amount of overtime that's available by the CHP officers to work during that year so in some years not all the money gets used but then it gets rolled over to the next fiscal year and then you might have more hours in the next year Commissioner Lowe you got a comment? Thank you. I also appreciate the work that the SAFEHON 17 group does I think Commissioner Johnson's comments were right on it is an absolute great example of collaboration what can be done I would just also like to say that in addition to this we should not lose sight of the needs to do still some long-range planning and investing in the corridor for the long term there are needs that could be addressed with more investment I know it's that next level of things in the regional transportation plan that are considered to be currently unconstrained but we did collaborate with you on a report I believe it was concluded in 2014 to manage the access points on the Santa Cruz side of highway 17 I know also that District 4 our Caltrans office was also looking to do some kind of planning work similar to that so I think we still want to keep our planning activities alive and moving forward to the investments that go beyond what we might consider to be the low-hanging fruit that's an overused term but this is the the engineering enforcement education is absolutely critical the degree to which engineering solutions can fix bigger problems are very expensive but we have to keep our eyes on that too Commissioner Rodkin and I'm going to get to the public I don't want to make it sound like this would be easy because it's not because it's difficult to hire public safety officers for all agencies at this point and it's not like we're just rolling in money that we can just give away and throw it every problem that comes along to mitigate the possibility of sending a message to the CHP that there might be a potential source of more dependable funding over the long term which would allow actually hiring additional officers in addition to this overtime plan and again that's a planning issue it's not going to happen this year maybe not even next but if you're going to do it ever you need to start sometime and so for us to get engaged with the CHP in a discussion about how many would we have to contribute and what would be the legal structure in which you would make the contribution into the state budget to make that all happen but that's something we should be thinking about rather than simply saying well it's only overtime and that's all we can do I don't think that's smart for us I think we have to think about a more permanent solution that allows an increase in the number of officers because it won't be distracted driving but if people are working overtime too much that's what we should be thinking about in 2017. Thank you. Anyone from the public like to weigh in on this top? I guess the passion of the board and the audience.  Go ahead. This is kind of a quick fun question for those old enough to remember that would travel back and forth on 17. I guess he was a good Samaritan and he would carry flares and give people a jump and give people gas if they ran out. I'm just curious if anybody knows what happened to him I don't mean to put you on the spot but Mike, I'm sure you remember him and Lole you're probably too young. So much bugging for me. So I don't know and probably you that's a long time ago but he did this on his own time and I don't know if anybody knows what happened to him. It stopped about five or six years ago. He was doing it up until then and I don't know why he stopped or what happened but I actually met him once really publicly minded citizen for sure. Okay. So now we have the freeway service patrol and thank you for clarifying that. They provide a free service to do all those things. It's a tow truck. I would move the staff recommendation with a couple of added directions. One that we ask staff to coordinate with CHP to do an analysis of additional hours that might be possible and what it would take to support them and also to ask staff commissioner Rotkin's suggestion of the financial implications as well as the bureaucratic implications of actually having the commission fund and an additional officer at least as a to be on the highway as their regular assignment. Second by a motion by Schiff and second by a motion by Schiff. Any other comments? All in favor? Opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you for that discussion. Thank you. Okay. It takes us to item 29 measure D five-year program for projects for regional projects. Rachel Marconi. I think we've got a previous commissioner that lived within 500 feet and so I'm supporting the fact that you need to recuse a job. Is that correct, Brooke? All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Brooke. All right. Thank you. Thanks for sharing that, Sam. Appreciate that. We still have a quorum, correct? Good morning, commissioners. Rachel Marconi of your staff. Before you today is an annual action and discussion that we'll have. Thankfully, the voters approved measure D in 2016 which allowed us to address some of the backlog of needs in our community. We are presenting our preliminary recommendations for how to expend measure D funds over the next five years. You will not actually be taking action on those five year proposals today. Instead we're recommending that you schedule a public hearing for your June meeting. At that June meeting we'll go into a little more detail on some of the projects and status of projects although in your packet you do have fact sheets on all of the major projects but today we really wanted to come to you with the opportunity to look at our preliminary staff recommendations. Let us know are there things that you want us to investigate similar to the prior item. One of the things that is funded by measure D is the highway 17 safe on 17 program. So we'll be looking at your recommendations from that last item as we tweak this five year plan. But this really is the time to vet what's before you now so that next month we come forward with the funds. So as mentioned before measure D is a 30 year half cent sales tax and so this five year plan is an opportunity to tell our public here's how we plan to use the funds in the near term. The measure D included expenditure plan that provides general guidance on how the funds are to be distributed. 25 percent of the funds go to highway corridors, 17 percent to active transportation, the Monterey basing tracenic trail and rail trail program. Seven percent go to the rail corridor. About 20 percent of the funds go out by formula to the transit district and lift line for transportation for seniors and people with disabilities. And 30 percent of the funds go out to local jurisdictions, the cities and the county for addressing needs on the local street and road system. Five million dollars of that neighborhood funding is designated for the highway 17 wildlife crossing and 10 million of that money is designated for projects in San Lorenzo valley through the highway nine corridor. The regional transportation commission is responsible for identifying specific uses and budgeting the funds for about 50 percent of the total measure D funds for those regional projects and categories. So as I mentioned next month we will be seeking commission approval on this. We'll be doing a lot of public outreach. We have a mailing list of over 5,000 people who have expressed interest in keeping track of what's happening with measure D and these different projects and programs and so we'll be alerting them to the public hearing. Your advisory committees, the elderly and disabled transportation advisory committee, the bicycle committee and the community have reviewed these preliminary five-year plans and provided some feedback. Staff has already integrated those into the five-year plans. So today I just wanted to highlight a few of the updates from what was identified before these are summarized on page two and three of the staff report but also in attachment one which are the spreadsheets on the far right column it shows here's what the updates are for the proposed next year's. So a few of the highlights are that for the active transportation program Monterey Basinx Race Scenic Trail project we did receive a request from the City of Santa Cruz for an additional $1 million to implement segment seven phase two of the rail trail that is the section that goes from essentially California and Bay intersection down to the wharf. City of Watsonville requested $3.8 million for segment 15. Staff's recommending $2.8 of that $3.8 million and we'll be working with the City of Watsonville to solicit use those funds to leverage other grants and solicit other funds. The county of Santa Cruz has asked for a total of $4 million to do some preliminary engineering and environmental review of segments 10 through 11 and 12 of the rail trail that essentially goes from 17th Avenue out to State Park Drive and Aftos Creek Road with the exception of the section in the City of Capitola. A City of Capitola is looking at options there. We also have within the rail component of the five-year plan and analysis of the trestle bridge through just right here. A few hundred yards over. In the highway quarters plan and in the highway nine and the highway 13, wildlife projects there are not significant changes except for that we have scaled back how much measure D money we're showing in the five-year plans and we're going to aggressively go after some new Senate Bill 1 grant programs using measure D funds to leverage those grants but we are hopeful that we'll be able to cover a significant portion of the auxiliary laying projects through Senate Bill 1 grants. We also have added a new item which is about $100,000 for the Cruise 511 program to issue a call for projects to some of our partner agencies who provide commuter support and other transportation demand management programs to really encourage people to get out of their cars and use alternatives especially since it's going to take a few years before we get those auxiliary lanes constructed so providing some interim options to provide commuter relief. As mentioned before we are recommending increasing funds for the Safe On 17 program the five-year plans before you show that additional $25,000 a year and then for highway nine we are recommending increasing funds for the one section of roadway between Graham Hill Road and the school campus we're upping the amount of money there to $1 million to hopefully serve as a match to leverage some other funds or partner with Caltrans through the state highway and operations protection program. We've also added a tiny bit of funds $35,000 to serve as the funding to the match of a highway safety improvement program grant that we received to make improvements to crossing pedestrian crossings throughout the valley. In the rail program there are a couple updates but two major ones are that we did secure a grant to do an alternative analysis for transit options in the corridor and we are needing to add some funding actually in this fiscal year and there's a budget amendment as part of this item as well to serve as match to that grant and then also to add an additional $150,000 that was needed to finalize all of the work that was done through the unified corridor investment study. So again today we just are asking for your feedback or if there's any additional items you would like staff to evaluate we're not looking for a motion on the five year plans but we are looking for a motion on the public hearing and approval of the resolution. So with that I'll be happy to answer any questions. We do have the project managers for each of the programs here in the room and so if you have specific questions on highway projects trail I might pull them up. Okay. Commissioner Schifrin? I have a process question should the commission desire to amend the five year plan over the coming year what's the process for doing that if it's possible? It is possible the way that the ordinance and all of the agreements with local jurisdictions and for any of the funds are set up but interim amendments can be made the way our board does it is we typically do it as part of a budget amendment. So it's simply a budget amendment it's not required to go through a formal public hearing process? It is not for the five year plan updates the five year plan updates we just do one public hearing on correct. Okay thank you. Commissioner Brown? Well I just thank you for that process segment seven it's nice to know that we in the anticipation of phase two we may be able to secure additional funds if necessary. Commissioner Leopold? Thank you chair thank you for this information grateful for the voters to support Measure D to allow us to have these conversations and you can see the impact is broad and extensive and I'm very grateful for that. I really appreciate the fact sheets that are here and I'd love to get individual copies of them because you know we have a 400 page packet it's hard for people to find these things and this would be great to be able to share with the community and you know the estimation here on these fact sheets is that if we're successful at getting grants which you have shown yourself very successful we have a very attractive project here we could have the trail done from the north coast to Aptos by 2025 that is pretty incredible I mean that would be have a huge impact on our community and that also includes the Watsonville segment so now that we have we've adopted a plan we've gone through the unified corridor study we have we're actually starting the construction it's really starting to happen and there are naysayers somebody even said that getting the first part open with showboat but we'll have miles of this done within six years and that is a great accomplishment and it's fast for government time but it's necessary because there are some environmentally sensitive things we have to take care of a speaker also brought up concern and I've heard this before that the city of Santa Cruz is getting everything and everybody else is left wanting we hear that a lot and my mid county residents have that concern but you don't want to build a PC or a piece there you want to start building it so it's continuous and for me to be able to go out and tell mid county residents that by 2025 you're going to be able to get on your bike or walk from 17th avenue either to Aptos or up the north coast on this trail is a great deliverable and we'll really make a difference in Santa Cruz County we even have a new owner on 17th avenue of a space that is already designing the space to face the trail because he knows that it's going to be a plaza it's going to be a place where people are going to want to congregate and take a break as they do the system so this is great information and I'd appreciate if you could if we could get at least my office could get copies of segment 8, 9 and 10 the fact sheets because we'll include that in a future newsletter. Thank you for your work. Any other questions? Commissioner Hurst? I've seen somewhere somewhere in the report I think it was in the report that Pedestrian Bridge was proposed for Highway 1 and I'm thinking about the opinions that currently cross at Harkinslew and Highway 1 at this time and how the existing sidewalk is so inadequate that students spill out into the street and we're talking hundreds if not a thousand students that are passing through there along with their drivers and the high level of vehicle traffic that exists both in the morning and the afternoon so I'm wondering what can be done we did have a proposal previously about Pedestrian Bridge that might not alleviate some of the motor's congestion but it might provide a safer passage for students and if not a bridge what can be done with the existing overpass to make it more pedestrian and bike friendly? Sure I can respond to that really quickly and Commissioner Lowe might be able to add to it as well. In partnership with Caltrans the City of Watsonville has been pursuing the new Bicycle and Pedestrian Bridge over Highway 1 at Harkinslew Road Caltrans is in the environmental review phase right now and is on schedule I think to finish that up so that the project could go to construction I think in 2022 the Regional Transportation Commission has committed to backfill million dollars for that project that unfortunately was deprogrammed in 2016 before we had Senate Bill 1 and the CTC was facing severe funding shortfalls because the gas tax was not keeping up with the needs and anticipated revenues so we are we continue to be a funding partner for that project we have been working with the City of Watsonville and Caltrans for many years to see that project implemented and I'm pleased that it is moving forward it's not moving forward with Measure D funds, Measure D did the Highway Quarters category is a little bit flexible but the focus of that has been on the pedestrian crossings at Mar Vista in connecting C-Cliff and Aptos as well as at Chanticleer connecting live through Live Oak area. Thank you very much I just don't want this to fall off the table because it's about safety and public transit. It is absolutely on the top of our list of things that the commission has committed to funding. Thank you again. Any other questions? Director would you like to? Yeah I just wanted to let Commissioner Hurst know that the Harkinsloo Bridge was very competitive in the act of transportation program grant application it did not receive funds but it only didn't receive funds because it lost its high breaker and that was essentially the fact that it wasn't ready for construction so we did have a very effective meeting yesterday with the previous CTC Executive Director and talk about the applications and what they can be done to strengthen them. It's important to understand all the different funding avenues in strategizing which funds to go after for which projects and we think that in a subsequent round of the ATP program that the Harkinsloo pedestrian over crossing will probably get funded. If not we have other avenues to pursue funding for that project. Thank you very much and please keep us posted. Commissioner Johnson. I just want to thank the staff for the million dollars for that stretch of Highway 9 between Graham Hill and the stretch identified. That corridor where all the combined school campuses is very constrained in its number one pedestrian safety corridor so thank you for that. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you for the 2.8 million possibly if it could be up they'd be great because it is an important part of the segment 18 for us to get our trails going for our bicyclists and our students and making it a safer access for some of our students to access Parfal Valley High and also for those folks who want to do commute from the South County to Mid County that would be a great connection for us. Commissioner Cap. Thank you. I guess that's the only question I'm focused on right now is we requested 3.8 million and then we come back with this figure of 2.8 million. How did that come about? We didn't just pick a number out of the air, right? A major goal of Measure D is to use Measure D funds as seed money to leverage other grants and so we believe in other funds and ensure that local jurisdictions also provide funding into projects as well and so we believe that it would be good to go after some grants or for the city to also look at its own Measure D share of funds and consider contributing funds to the projects similar to other jurisdictions. I know we have pressure from the federal government funding and everything on state funding. With Measure D it was passed by two-thirds of the voters so that money cannot be taken and being used for something else is that correct? Very true and that's one of the best one of the key reasons that we needed Measure D was to know that we have some stable funding coming in. That's the importance of having a specific rather than general tax and there is pressure because the federal highway and all that is threatening to withhold money from California so we're not going to take money for these specific projects in order to fund some of the other projects that are not going to be funded by the federal government. I am optimistic that the federal government will maintain its existing commitments for projects that we've already funded. The question was asked earlier we can amend this later or can we amend it now? Today would be the opportunity for commissioners to identify if there are different things that you would like us to evaluate as part of the five year plan. You would then approve the five year plans in June and then if after June between June and June 2020 you want to make some other modifications you could ask staff to look into those and bring forward any changes? I don't know if it would be an amendment but to look at and it was also mentioned doing it in peace and I know that that doesn't connect the city necessarily with the part we have in the unincorporated areas but that would be the ideal thing if we could connect everything but we want to make sure the cities Santa Cruz, Capitola and the Scots Valley and Watsonville get their money to get their projects done. So I would say I would like to look at Watsonville being raised to anywhere between 3.8 million and what they're requesting. I'd like to let the executive director weigh in. So I wanted to respond somewhat to Commissioner Capit's questions and concerns. Rachel made a very good point with respect to leveraging additional fund sources. If you also look at the five-year programming recommendation that was put forward we actually have more projects programmed than we have funding available. We that made me nervous in doing so but one of the things that I've seen is that it's very hard for projects to meet their delivery schedules. We also looked at Watsonville's request and noticed that it was several years out and that this could be amended in future years. So we felt that programming a little bit less than the full amount requested would provide incentive for looking for ground opportunities so we can make this money stretch as far as possible but there will also be another opportunity next year to redo the five-year plans. There will also be opportunities for amendments between now and then so that the amounts that are recommended to be programmed today could be changed at a later time based on how well those projects do in funding grant opportunities. So it shouldn't necessarily be looked at as if the 2.8 million is an absolute and that's all that will be received by Watsonville for this particular project but an opportunity to try to see if we could stretch that money a little bit further and if not certainly be receptive to reprogramming if needed to deliver the project. I guess I do understand that but I want to make sure we get that segment in the Watsonville you know done so I can say in my amendment and right now my amendment would be that we make it up to 3.8 million not 3.8 million and then that's a little bit more than put in there but also it does offer some incentive so that would be my amendment that we at least were arguing for 3 million up to 3.8 million instead of 2.8 million I would need a second on that so we're actually not taking amendments and motions today you're just providing feedback and staff will take that into consideration as we develop our final staff recommendations these are suggestions these are just suggestions today you are not taking action on the five-year plans Commissioner Shipman then I'll get to you I think it's important to remember that these are goal-setting in terms of allocating a limited amount of money there's only a certain percentage that can go for this function and the commission staff has been very active in trying to identify a variety of funding sources to make that measure D commitment go as far as it could to do the entire to reach Commissioner Leopold's goal of having a completed trail by 2025 is going to take a lot of money it's not just going to be measure D money the jurisdictions are going to have to put in money as the City of Santa Cruz is putting money into the projects within its area and the other jurisdictions are going to have to put in money as well plus there's other grants out there at the state level maybe at the federal level that can be applied for so I think my sense of it is the staff approach is a reasonable approach in terms of saying based on where these projects are at this time this makes sense when the projects get ready to actually go to bid and be done we want the project done and moving them along to the point where they can be constructed and then having to deal with maybe we'll be lucky and the price will be less than what we like maybe we won't be lucky and the price will be higher than we like and then we have to look at what is the funding available to build the project so from my perspective there's a commitment to build all of the segments the Watsonville segment is moving forward as quickly as it moves forward and it's ready to go I think the commission will cooperate will be supportive of at least I'll be supportive of cooperating with the city of Watsonville to make sure there's significant money but I think there is a the city council and the city staff have to appreciate the fact that there needs to be an internal commitment as well because Measure D has to go a long way if it's going to really fulfill the goal of providing the entire trail so I don't know what the funding mix is now I think that each of the segments need to move along as quickly as they can looking for the outside grants looking for the jurisdictional commitments and looking for the Measure D funds and finding that correct match I'd like to weigh in for a second before we territorialize what's going on here I think I want to commend staff for making an effort to allocate $2.8 million of a $3.8 million project that's a significant investment into a project I believe we're sending a strong message that that's a priority project I also want to go back to the presentation we had earlier from our public works director who showed some of the projects in Capitola and as you could see the breakdown showed that some was paid by Measure D some was paid by the city and I think the message that the director has sent us is by allocating 2.8 we're providing incentive to look for these other grants as Rachel seems optimistic we can get and there is a portion there that we expect individual jurisdictions to contribute themselves and even though I'm not wouldn't be generally opposed to bumping up that number as a commissioner Capit suggested I keep in mind that every time we take $200,000 in some place we take it away from someplace else so I want to make sure we don't get into that that game where we are fighting against each other I would like to think that the staff has made a recommendation that this project is a priority project by seating it with $2.8 million so with that I'll go to Commissioner Hurst thank you very much Mr. Chairman you know I fully agree with your comments there and understand the take away and give away aspects of the budget but this project in particular is needed and necessary and the current need is that thousands of high school students could be utilizing a trail in addition to the general public that could easily walk from the urbanized area of Watsonville to the land trust property for public access and students can quite easily move on to the high school as well so the need is already there it's pretty clear this is a wonderful opportunity I just want to reinforce Supervisor Caput's concept and goal and desire that we've moved this segment 18 forward as most rapidly as we can thank you Commissioner Gonzalez yeah just a quick comment and like I said City of Watsonville for the $2.8 million and they are looking in for grants and for funding but it also is a priority for us in South County to develop this rail trail system to give access especially to our students because my heart goes out to all those folks out in Fulton and the student that was lost on Highway 9 we shouldn't be waiting until we have major accidents and fatalities like that to take action and I thank the RTC for their action on this but I would also like to ask staff to come to the City of Watsonville and make a presentation on this and so with that I thank you for your time that's a great suggestion Commissioner Rodkin just two comments first on this one I think people have said most of the things that I would say about it I think it would be different if it was $2.8 and here's the whole strategy for how we'll get the rest and when you go out and ask for grants one of the things that you do is you show we have this need we're matching it over matching it we're not asking for like 80% of it we're asking for a smaller percentage of it and you're more likely to get those grants if in fact you don't have funding some larger part of it yourself so I'm not persuaded that this project will benefit necessarily and again it's several years out and you have opportunities to do it and we might be persuaded of that in two years and I'm not persuaded of it right now just so you understand that my other comment's not related to this issue but it's on the thing we're dealing with someone in the public talked about how Trump's trying to withhold money federal government's trying to withhold money from California and believe me I would be happy to jump on any opportunity to blame the president for everything going on but I was recently in a lobbying trip for the transit district looking for transit money for our district as well as for the country in terms of public transit and public transportation and what's really clear is that despite the president's bluster about how he's going to punish California and so forth that's not really our biggest threat the biggest threat is that there's simply not enough money in the federal government to fund all the projects that people won't fund it out there that's an issue for congress and the president and I'm afraid it's a little dismal because we might have about six months to actually do the work on renewing the funding for public transit for the next five years that's a slight window of opportunity because after six months we're in an election and nobody's going to vote to raise the gas tax in the middle of an election so whether we're going to be able to do that or not I think our problem is getting the federal government to turn around and face the reality that we need public support for moving people in America because right now it's the rhetoric of punishing California it's the rhetoric of why should the federal government be in the transportation business that's frightening me and so I think we really have to think about how we're going to lobby not just the president but congress about the critical importance of getting we haven't increased the gas tax since 1993 and it's in crisis and there's a whole bunch of other stuff I won't spend the time this morning to get into but I think that's where we should be focusing our energy is on getting more responsibility for helping America move around and that rhetoric is scaring me a lot more than whether they are or not going to try and punish California I didn't get a sense from the administration people in the federal transit administration for example that they're in any way involved in this punished California concept what they are telling us is they're 10 times over subscribed for the federal funding that they've got to go out in the transit and that's a serious problem for us and they're targeting California they have denied $6 million worth of disaster relief requests at the federal highway administration already for the county of Santa Cruz and in six months we're in danger of losing $35 million because of the Trump administration's effort to block California getting disaster aid so that's not to disagree with anything my colleague said but this administration is targeting California and denying money to Santa Cruz county right now okay thank you for those comments I'd like to go ahead and open up to the public now if anybody would like to weigh in on this topic now's the time right people's trail now in 2012 this is an example of the show boating you did show boating Mr. Leopold then you said we've already got the trail and we're already building it well we haven't physically built anything the reason why building anything segment segment is a great example you had to break it up because it was too expensive it's that million dollars you want to throw at the segment segment phase two it's still not enough this is our argument you guys you're wasting you're sitting there complaining about not having enough money in the meantime you're trying to spend to build your trail to design a trail for a future train that's our problem you're trying to design you're spending money to design a system for a future train that you can't afford so why are you spending all those millions for that segment seven is a great example no you haven't done anything segment eighteen at wasville that was supposed to be done years ago it's been sitting there I'm sorry that's why the CTC is questioning your what you guys are doing you're really taking going off and designing spending money to design a trail today to accommodate a future train is taking away from where we need to spend the money this isn't all kumbaya you know the show boating it really is a word that should be used more often when I come in here I hear you Mr. Leopold be show boating Mr. the board in general please don't pick on individual commissioners we operate as one unit I know you do anyways so let me give a little bit history of the measure it was originally had a significant million dollars going to the train we opposed it Zac friend Don Lane adjusted it because they knew that it wouldn't pass if they had the train They had millions going towards the train because the public doesn't want the train. You saw that with Measure L. Okay?  You're continuing with the train goal. That's the direction. And the community was against that with Measure D. And that's why we had the ZAC and them adjusted the language. They took Monterey train station out. So as you continue to spend money designing a trail for a future train, that's essentially spending money for a train because you're spending, wasting a lot of money. And Segment 7 is a great example. Yeah, give the million dollars to Santa Cruz. It's still not enough. It's still not enough. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else like to address this? Welcome. Chris Schneider, City of Santa Cruz Public Works Department just wanted to express our need for the million dollars for Segment 7, Phase 2. That matches a million for the City of Santa Cruz Measure D. And the intent is to apply for a grant this summer that's going to be available. The project cost is about $10 million. We've recently gone to the Planning Commission and they've approved the permits for the project. It's been appealed by a couple of individuals to the City Council and that's intending to go this month or next month. Also the first segment of the rail trail is under construction and that's the San Lorenzo River Trussell Walkway. It is actually ahead of schedule. The likelihood is it's going to be open to the public on May 17th. Originally it was May 24th. The contractor has done a great job in picking up speed on the project with the better weather and it's going to be open before the summer season. Segment 7, Phase 1, that project's getting ready to bid this summer and hopefully everything going as anticipated under construction in the fall. Thank you very much. Great. Oh, one other project. Segment 8 and 9, we are working with the County of Santa Cruz on that project which is a joint project. The City took the lead on the application for the grant that's paying for the environmental review and design with obviously the help of the Land Trust to match the grant, not Measure D at this point and that should be going out and be circulated this summer as well. So hopefully we'll start working on that project next fall as well. Thank you. Thanks for the update. Hi, Sally Arnold, Friends of the Rail and Trail. We are very excited about the progress being made on the rail and trail and we've been talking amongst ourselves kind of looking at these sections and like how, you know, link them together. We're thinking, oh my gosh, in two years we're going to be able to bike from the east side over that trestle through Segment 7 out wilder and we'll be able to get to wilder car-free. And then we're thinking, you know, three years maybe to Davenport and you know now that we hear there's these things going south, South County and Mid County, it's very exciting when the fact that the city of Santa Cruz and the county and Watsonville are all applying for funds to build segments and their jurisdictions is really indicative of the countywide enthusiasm for this project. And I have to say we've been doing a lot of tabling this spring at public events like the Earth Day in Watsonville and in Santa Cruz and when we're there, the most often heard thing we say is, what's taking so long? When will we get my segment? And I see that these allocations spread as they are throughout the county. Is your response to that question? Your segment is coming soon. And I'm just very excited about the diversity of projects and you know, kind of like stringing these beads together on a chain and pretty soon we're going to have a beautiful trail across the whole county. Thank you. Thank you for those comments. Okay, anyone else from the public? Can you back for discussion? I would move the staff recommendation on this item with the edit direction that staff provide a presentation on Measure D funding to the city council and Watsonville. Second. Motion by Commissioner Schiff and second by Johnson. Any other additional comments? With that, all in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Commissioner Story, welcome back. Okay, that takes us to item 30 of Measure D Community Bridges, Lifeline Five-Year Plan. Grace, Spike Lee, welcome. Thank you. Good afternoon now, commissioners. I'll be brief. 20% of the Measure D revenues are designated for transit in seniors and people living with disabilities. And 4% of the revenues are allocated to the Consolidated Transportation Services Agency, which is Community Bridges, Lifeline for Santa Cruz County. Paratransit services, as we talked about earlier, as part of the unmet needs increased transportation options for seniors and individuals living with disabilities and persons with low incomes. Lifeline will receive an average of $855,000 per year during the period of this five-year plan, as shown in Attachment One. That's a correction from the staff report. It referred to it as Attachment Two and it's Attachment One. 32% will go to support two new driver positions to provide door-to-door service. 9% is for a new van driver trainer, who will supervise van drivers and provide all phases of training for drivers. 8% goes to an administrative assistant to support these programs, as well as a dispatcher. A small portion, 1%, is provided for outreach to provide materials and videos to promote paratransit rides through Lifeline. 46% is for an operations and facility reserve to purchase property and construction operations facility. And 4% for vehicle and equipment reserve to purchase two new fleet vehicles. All of these investments address items that are on the unmet paratransit and transit needs list. Community Bridges Lifeline is the only agency receiving a direct allocation of Measure D funds that is not a public agency. So review and approval of their Measure D five-year plan is overseen by the Regional Transportation Commission and included in the RTC's public review