Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission today, Thursday, January 14th is now nine o'clock and I will open the meeting roll call, please. Commissioner Bertrand. You're muted, shock. Yeah. I'm here. Commissioner Brown. Here. Commissioner Johnson. Commissioner Lowell Hurst. Right here. Commissioner Caput. Commissioner alternate Schifrin. Here. Commissioner Mulher. Commissioner alternate Murher. Here. Commissioner Koenig. Here. Commissioner McPherson. Here. Commissioner Lynn. Here. Commissioner Gonzalez. Here. Commissioner Rotkin. Here. And Commissioner Eats. Here. Good morning, everybody and welcome to the beginning of the new year. Patience with me a little bit kind of new at this. So we're going to keep rolling on though forward. We're going to go and move on to item number two oral communications. And I'm going to allow for two minutes of public oral communications. So can be start off. Mr. Vanessa. Thank you. I'm really, you might note that this is on items that are not on today's agenda. So for example, not the choice on the quarter. Yeah, thanks for that. Yeah, any item that's not on the agenda is as now the moment does speak minutes. Mr. Vanessa. Yes, okay. Can you hear me. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, it's not about today's issue number 27. I'll talk about that later. I'm bringing up to date on the you can, you can fly. Program that's going to be in high schools next fall and bringing up to date on that. That's moving ahead. That's the Watsonville Pilots Association, the experimental aircraft association, which has the young Eagles, they work on airplanes, new airplanes and repairing existing ones. The Civil Air Patrol, by the way, the first Civil Air Patrol west of the Rockies was in Watsonville, Santa Cruz Chamber of Commerce, your future is our business project. And Joby is also going to be on the committee. So that's moving ahead. It's going to be great, especially for Watsonville with two high schools right near the air strip and with the ability to interchange with them and these sponsors will be fantastic. So we're looking forward to that building throughout the county. And that's an update. It looks really great. These kids will have an opportunity in four to five years to be in the aviation industry as a mechanic as avionics as a pilot as a drone operator with this experience when they graduated they'll be in demand and traveling will be back. So it's a great opportunity. Thank you very much. Thank you Ben. Next, Mr. Craig Chatterton. Can you hear me. Yes. Yes. Yes, I would like to request that item number 10 be pulled from the consent agenda and rescheduled for another time. This item has to do with the state legislative program. I would like to make sure that the commissioners and the public have the opportunity to be fully aware of what the RTC is planning to lobby for a particular concern is the amending the state constitution to lower the voting threshold and transportation. You know, this may be a question that the RTC is asking for this at the same time, they're proposing a $1 billion rail program. Either way. Mr. Craig, a minute that that item is since it is on the agenda. If you want to eat when it comes to that part of the agenda agenda. You can ask to request to pull it and speak upon it. I'm sorry, I thought it was because I'm sorry, I thought. That's quite all right. Is there any other item that you'd like to speak that's not on the consent agenda. Thank you for on the agenda. Thank you. Mr. Michael St. Good morning. I would like to congratulate him for winning the district one's supervisor race. And I also want to remind him that he has big shoes to fill. as we approached it. With integrity, hard work, preparation, and a true commitment to everyone in this district and Santa Cruz County. For the actual comments today, I'd like to share an article with you from street blogs Los Angeles, which is entitled, Cal Trans Lies Again, widening five freeway will minimize congestion and reduce pollution. Given the past 80 years of highway building have resulted in massive congestion increases and climate threatening pollution increases. It is clear that Cal Trans is once again, not telling the truth. We here in Santa Cruz County have not made the same mistakes LA County has by delaying our highway widening for the last 40 to 50 years, whether it was through political or economic issues that we did not widen. Switching the Oxley and Project to a dedicated bus rapid transit would ensure that Santa Cruz County does not repeat LA County's failure of reducing congestion by highway widening. To decrease greenhouse gas emissions, you must reduce the use of the automobile. It is as simple as that. One of the comments on that blog, explained that the induced demand fallacy is based on extensive historical performance. Freeway widening makes the freeway more attractive and results in more people taking the freeway until congestion reaches the level it had before the widening and drivers start using other routes. There are so far no contrary examples in urban freeways. When the 405 was widened through supportive pass, a large number of homes and business had to be bulldozed. Fortunately, we are not going to do that. The result was that the speeds on that section averaged one mile per hour slower than before the project was started. Sometimes the congestion reaches the previous level quickly as everyone rushes to use the expanded capacity. Sometimes it takes four or five years, but it always happens. Expand the freeway because you want more people to use it. Maybe there's enough economic activity to stimulate it to offset the businesses that were bulldozed, but don't pretend that it fixes congestion. Congestion is built into the system. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Michael. Next. Mr. Berry Scott. Good. Go ahead, Barry. You're on. Good morning, commissioners, and congratulations, Manu, on being on the board. I want to speak briefly to something that I don't believe is on today's agenda, and that is the progressive's desire to leave town. And I want to ask the commissioners to all give careful consideration to Roaring Cam, Big Tree's railroad, becoming our provider. They have two locomotives down in Watsonville, one of which is not too far from being able to provide service. I believe that progressive rail would be happy to work with Roaring Cam. They're a local partner. All of the failures we've had have been with out-of-state providers. So if there's a need, and there is for freight service in South County, I hope that you'll all give Roaring Cam your most sincere consideration. That's all. Thank you. Thank you, Barry. We don't have any other comments, commissioner. Okay. Seeing no more oral communication from the public, we're gonna move on to item number three, which is additions or deletions from the agenda. So yes, Chair Gonzalez. Go ahead. Yes, Chair Gonzalez, we have a revised agenda, and that on that agenda is item 28, which we have a handout for. We also have a replacement page for item 19, handout for item 25, and a handout for item 27. All of those replacement pages and handouts are located on our website for anybody who needs a copy. That's it. All right, thank you. Go ahead and move on to the consent agenda. You had that other speaker who wanted to pull something you might stop. Yeah, and that's what I was going to. Is there anyone that wants to pull any item from the consent agenda or comments? Mr. Craig, this is the time for your request. Mr. Chatterton, sorry about that. You're muted if you're there. No, can you hear me now? Yes, we can now. Yeah, we got you. Yes, I was concerned about this item number 10, which has to do with legislative program for the state. I'd like to make sure the commissioners and the public have the time to weigh in on this. A particular concern is amending the state constitution to lower the voting thresholds on transportation measures. It may be a coincidence that the RTC is asking for this at the same time and they're proposing a $1 billion trail system. But I would prefer that elected officials do not lobby for constitutional changes that affect all of the citizens. And I suspect many voters also agree with that. So I would ask that you consider that if you go forward with this, you may well be going against public sentiment on changing voting regulations. This also is not consistent with the through bottom line approach of the RTC in terms of equity. I just don't think it meets that definition. So I would ask it to be pulled and scheduled for another time as a regular agenda item. Thank you. Thank you, Craig. Is there any commissioner? We have more comments. Okay. Is there more public comments on the consent agenda? Yes. Mr. St. Michael St. Go ahead and make Michael. Yes. Mike again here with this time for a campaign for sustainable transportation. Some would agree with that gentleman prior to this. I hadn't thought of pulling anything really, but I just wanted to draw all the commissioners' attention to item 10-13, which is entitled Air Quality, Greenhouse Gas Admissions and Climate Resiliency. Basically the three items under that are to improve the air quality, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, make our communities and transportation networks resilient to a changing climate. This in my mind is actually the Holy Grail of guidelines for future transportation projects. Although we missed attaining these goals with the poison pill of oxalines in measure D, we can and I hope we will take these goals to heart and do better in the future to help mitigate the effects of climate change. I hope all of you will take time to read these recommendations and legislation before projects are approved. Again, page 10-13 under Air Quality. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mike. Keith Otto. Keith. Yeah, can the commissioners hear me okay? Yes. Sounds good. If you could stay on this intro slide for just a minute. So I also wanted to speak with regards to agenda item 10, the 2021 legislative programs. Question for the commissioners. Have each of you thoroughly read and reviewed all the pages for this item? Do you agree with the proposed positions? There's a number of items that caught my eye and are of concern with the limited time. Let me pick just two next slide, please. Expand the authority of the RTC to increase taxes and fees. Wow. Yes, transportation and infrastructure is expensive, but this is the wrong way to go. My recommendation is to instead double down on being better stewards of the funds and resources you already have, spend funds more wisely, allocate resources to projects with greater public support. The bottom line is increase public confidence with current spending first, rather than working to expand authority to increase taxes. Next slide, please. Lower voter threshold for taxes from two thirds to a simple majority or 55%. Again, this is the wrong way to go. If anything, we should be raising the bar on voter thresholds. And yes, this might mean that funding does not happen for projects that I think are important, but note what would happen. It's the projects with the greatest public support that would go forward and doesn't that make sense? So to wrap up, if this item is postponed when it comes back, please put it on the regular agenda for wider discussion. As written, I urge you to vote no while it does, while I don't object to everything here, there are a number of items which I consider poison pills to the package. And I've noted just two of those this morning. Thanks for listening, thanks for your time. Thank you. Mr. Chair, if I could interrupt out, this is Commissioner McPherson. I think it would be appropriate to amend that and say accept the 2000 state federal legislative programs instead of approve. I think we can accept them and then to discuss them further and further detail in a later meeting. But I think the language, if we had to accept instead of approve, that would be more reasonable under the circumstances. Yeah, I was gonna bring it back to the commissioners. So if any commission wanted to pull that item from the consent agenda, then we can address it at that point, but I wanted to first go to all the public comments and allow them to speak. And then we'll take the floor. Is that okay? No, we'll come back. Thank you. Good plan. Mr. Commissioner Gonzales, we do not have any other comments. Okay, you're on now commissioners. Does anybody want to pull it out? Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm sorry to get ahead of the discussion, but I move that we pass the consent agenda with the change to change the policy item number 10, approve the 2000 state and federal legislative programs to the word accept the program. Second. We have a motion, we have a second. That's Rockin on the second. Mike Rockins on the second. Is there any comments or an open to discussion? Seeing none, can we have roll call? Commissioner Bertrand. Aye. Commissioner Brown. Aye. commissioner Johnson. Aye. Commission alternate Hearst. Yes. Commissioner Caput, commission alternate Schiffron. Aye. Commission alternate Mulherr. Aye. Commissioner Koenig. Aye. Commissioner McPherson. Aye. Commission alternate Linn. Aye. Commissioner Gonzales. Aye. Commissioner Rockin. Aye. Thank you. We're going to go ahead and move on to the regular agenda items, item 23 update from the city of Santa Cruz. Good morning, commissioners. This is Christian Eider, assistant director of public work, city engineer. And I know you have a public hearing in 10 minutes, so I'll be brief. I want to prevent, present just a brief information and status of transportation projects that the city is working on and that have been partially funded through the RTC. The first project is the Highway 1 and 9 intersection improvement projects. And we've been working on that aggressively for the last several years. We recently received our funding authorization through the CTC. So we'll be going out to bid at the end of the month for the project so we can anticipate construction probably starting in about April for this project. It will last approximately one year, hopefully not that long. And a certain amount of the work will be occurring at night to reduce impacts to the traveling public. Chris, can you say briefly what the project does? So it adds some additional lanes. The biggest one is a new northbound lane on Highway 9. Currently, there's only one accepting lane, so it'll be widening towards central home supply. And we've acquired the right-of-way to do that. And what that allows is to add additional lanes, one on a second left turn lane, on Highway 1, on the west side of the intersection, and additional lane on River Street heading north. And that's going to reduce congestion and make it safer for people to enter the intersection. We're also adding bike lanes and pedestrian improvements with the project. It's funded through STIP, RSVP exchange, the city's traffic impact fee program, and gas tax. So anyway, we're moving forward closely with Caltrans, and they've approved essentially all the steps that we need to go through to go out to bid and award a contract. Seven of the rail trail. I know you're all familiar that we've recently had the ribbon cutting for Phase 1 from Bay, California out to Natural Bridges. There's still a couple of small things to finish, striping and planting trees and some landscaping. But the project has been very well accepted by the public. People are using it all the time. We're getting all kinds of compliments. And we appreciate the funding that's been received through the RTC, which has included the federal earmark, STIP funds, and a Measure D and gas tax, a Measure D from the city's allocation, as well as from the RTC's allocation. Phase 2 has the design is 99% complete. We have applied for a grant for that project for the construction, and we're hoping to hear back from Caltrans mid February to see if we, if the grant's been accepted. We are also applying for other grants as they come up. And it is one of our highest priorities to complete soon. Segments 8 and 9 of the rail trail. We have awarded a contract to our RM and some their local team of sub consultants to do the design and environmental review of those segments. We're working with the county on that as well because it goes into it. It is from essentially the wharf out to high out to 17th Avenue. And so we're working closely with County Public Works Department on that project. It's funded the design environmental review is funded through the ATP program to about $2 million and a generous donation contribution from the Santa Cruz County Land Trust as the local match. We're also applying for construction grants already for that project, even though the design and environmental review aren't done, but in anticipation that funding will be coming up in the near future. The other project recently we're out to bid on is the Pacific Avenue sidewalk and that's funded through RSTP exchange. Our local measure the allocation and a TDA funds. And that is to replace a missing sidewalk to eliminate diagonal parking next to a bike lane, which isn't generally very safe. And it's been a missing gap in our system for quite some time and that's down in the beach area. So we'll be hopefully under construction of that project in a couple of months. Projects we've completed recently with STIP funding was the Water Street and River Street painting projects using a cold recycled in place treatment treatment and also an enhanced bike lane striping primarily on Water Street that includes, you know, protection as well as buffers. And if anybody's driven it, you can see that it's quite a bit different than some of the other past striping we've done in the city. That was funded through STIP SB1 gas tax and measure H and measure D. And then we've completed a couple of important crossing improvement projects through safe routes to school and the hazard safety improvement program. We spent over $2 million on both projects total and we've include a lot of pedestrian crossing improvements where we used to have one flashing beacon. We now have over 30 and just over the last two years, as well as the number of radar feedback signs near all our schools. And that's been a really successful project. I think as people navigate around the city, you'll see the difference that makes for people crossing the street, how much safer and more convenient it's going to be or it is. We anticipate installing more the RFPs with our different projects. For instance, with the rail trail segment seven phase one, we installed two there and we're installing one more at Al Mar. Anyway, that concludes the main projects I wanted to talk about. We have a number of other ones, but those are the most significant and the most current status of the projects. But do you have any questions for me? Thank you, Chris. Is there any questions for the city of Santa Cruz? And the commissioners, you know, I just this measurement first and again, I wanted to say compliment the city of Santa Cruz and moving ahead, especially with some of the bike pedestrian projects. But I know the Highway one and nine, which is in my district, has been a long negotiation process. And going to improve the safety and the transportation aspects of that whole region, that whole corridor or intersection. So thank you very much for Santa Cruz for sticking with it. And congratulations on some jobs. Well done that trail on the West side is really phenomenal. It's a great, great addition. So congratulations. Thank you. And I'll pass that on to city staff. They've a lot of them worked really hard on these projects. And go ahead, Mike. I just wanted to add, Mike, congratulations, Chris, on the Highway nine, River Street intersecting Highway one, because anybody that's tried to drive almost any time of the day from downtown Santa Cruz out to the freeway or even worse, crossing the freeway over to Highway nine realizes how congested that is and how long that line gets. And sometimes you wait for literally three lights before you can get through. And so it's really going to make a difference to have people able to move more freely through that intersection. It makes a really big difference. And whereas I'm generally opposed to the idea of widening highways, I have to say, sometimes there are true bottlenecks that really sort of bring at least some little piece of the highway up to the general standard of what else is going around it. And that's why I think that widening is justified in that area. Thank you so much. Welcome. Thank you, Mike. Is any other commissioner that like to ask a question or see an end? We have I thought that Burke Schock Bertrand was going to jump in. I just had a quick question. Could you clarify how much money has actually been secured for segments eight and nine and for seven B? So seven, seven, seven face to the projects already been designed. We have measure D allocated for the local match for the grant, approximately two million. So we're applying for an approximate $8 million grant to construct that project. Segments eight, nine, approximately five million has been secured for the design and the environmental review through a measure D and excuse me, not through measure D, but through the ATP program and the Santa Cruz County Land Trust. We have local matching funds dedicated towards a future construction grant, approximately two million dollars. Thank you. Thank you, Jack. Yeah, Chris, if I may, is there any allocation for turn lanes for Costco? Because, you know, that gets really congested at times when everyone's going into the big mega store. How do we nine one? Yeah, no, but there's the new north additional northbound lane on on Hyde on Highway nine is going to help that that condition, because what right now what you do is you have people backing into the only lane, right? So that creates a lot of congestion. Now people will be able to get around. They'll be able to go to Ensignal if they want to access Costco as well. And, you know, all the other facilities up there. We also are adding a southbound lane. So that will also help with not blocking Fern Street for people to make the left into the Harvey West area. Okay, thank you very much. You haven't seen the plans, but that seems to solve the problem. Thank you. Thank you. Is there any other fellow commissioners we should ask a question? All right. See none. We have about a minute left before we go into a public hearing. I guess. Sing a song. If there's anybody from the public that has 30 seconds comment, I would love it at this moment. All right. Thanks again. Bye. I do not see any. Oh, here we go. We have one hand raised. Let me see. Mr. Bud Colligan. How you doing, bud? You have about 30 seconds. Go ahead. Can you hear me now? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, commissioners. I just wanted to make one comment to something that Mr. Scott said. He was a large cheerleader for the Progressive Rail. Sorry to interrupt you, but we were on the item for the city of Santa Cruz update. Oh, I thought you were opening it up for any comments from the public after that item was finished. Okay. Sorry about that. All right. Okay. All right. We're going to go ahead and move on now. We're going to go into the item 27. It is a public hearing. It's a 930. And so now I will open up the public hearing and we will start with staff report. Good morning, Chair, commissioners and members of the public. This is Ginger D'Arcar. I'm a senior transportation planner on the RTC staff. The item before you today is the Transit Carter Alternatives Analysis and the Rail Network Integration Study. Today, the project team is recommending that the RTC review and provide input on the final draft report and the recommended locally preferred alternative. The project team is scheduled to come back at the February 4 RTC meeting to request acceptance of the report, which includes the locally preferred alternative. The resolution has been provided in the staff report for your consideration for adoption at the February 4 meeting. Both RTC and Metro staff have been working together with HDR Engineering and Farron Pierce consultants on this analysis. There are many members of the project team here today to present information and answer questions. I'll provide a brief overview of the project. Then I'm going to hand off to Steve Decker, who is the project manager at HDR, who will be presenting the results of Myosem3, the performance measure analysis, and the recommendation for the locally preferred alternative. We also have Shannon Simons here from Caltrans Division of Rail and Mass Transportation to present an update on the California State Rail Plan as part of this item. But first, before I go any further, I want to thank the many people who have contributed to this project to bring together the enormous amount of information and analysis. The Ad Hawk Committee, many members of RTC staff and Metro staff, the consultant team, Caltrans staff, RTC advisory committee members, partner agencies, and the many members of the public and community organizations who provided input into this project. Next slide, please. The objective of the Transit Corridor Alternatives Analysis is to evaluate transit investment options that utilize all or part of the Santa Cruz branch line as a dedicated transit facility. The outcome of this study is to determine a locally preferred transit alternative for this right-of-way. The study area is shown here on this map and goes from Pajaro Junction, which is a mile or so to the east of Watsonville, to Natural Bridges Drive on the west side of Santa Cruz, close to the city limits. This analysis stems from the outcome of the Unified Corridor Investment Study that was completed in January 2019 to protect the right-of-way for high capacity public transit next to a bicycle and pedestrian trail and to work with Metro to analyze transit alternatives on the Santa Cruz branch line. Next slide, please. With the purchase of the Santa Cruz branch line in 2012, Santa Cruz County was given an incredible opportunity to develop a transit service on a dedicated transit facility. With a dedicated transit facility, transit travel times are no longer slowed down by congestion and mixed-use traffic. By developing a system where transit travel times and reliability become more competitive to auto travel, you expand the viable travel options, expand transit ridership, provide an equitable option for travel for those with low income, people with disabilities, youth, seniors, and others that either prefer or do not drive. As people shift from driving cars to riding transit, renowned gas emissions are reduced and climate change goals can be advanced. By utilizing the Santa Cruz branch line as a dedicated transit facility, we are assuring that Santa Cruz County is included in the vision to develop the statewide rail network that will offer an alternative to travel that meets mobility, climate, and equity goals. The opportunity for Santa Cruz County to use the Santa Cruz branch line as a dedicated transit facility, along with a multi-use trail, cannot be overemphasized. There is no other corridor in Santa Cruz County at present that readily provides this opportunity. To secure the ownership of the Santa Cruz branch line by the RTC took more than two decades of work by the many RTC commissions, RTC staff, and partner agencies that realize the incredible benefit that this right away would provide to the residents and visitors of Santa Cruz County as both a dedicated transit facility and a multi-use trail. Next slide, please. The evaluation framework for this analysis is based on a triple bottom line performance-based planning approach with federal that follows federal and state guidelines for making transportation investment decisions. There are three key milestones of this project, as you can see here on the graphic. For the first milestone, the goals of the project were developed, and then the screening criteria and performance measures in order to assess how the goals would be advanced. The first milestone also includes development of an initial broad list of transit alternatives that were evaluated. During milestone two, the initial list of alternatives was narrowed down to a short list using the screening criteria developed in milestone one. The short list included four alternatives to evaluate in detail. For milestone three, a more detailed quantitative analysis was performed to evaluate the short list of alternatives using the performance measures. From a comparison of the performance of the four alternatives, the locally preferred alternative can then be determined. With that, I'd like to end off with Steve Decker who will present the performance measure results and the recommendation for the locally preferred alternative. Thank you, Ginger. Can you all hear me? Yes. I'll try not to be as loud. Let me turn it down a little bit. Next slide, please. So through the detailed performance evaluation process that Ginger spoke to as part of milestone three, bus rapid transit, electric commuter rail, autonomous road train, also a rubber-tired newer type of technology, very similar to a tram, and electric light rail were moved forward into detailed analysis, those four alternatives. I'll briefly, in the next slide, I'll briefly get into the characteristics and pros and cons of each. In terms of the bus rapid transit, it follows from Pajaro Station at the southern end of the corridor through on Highway 1, gets on to right in Aptos, gets on a local road system and then into the right-of-way in Capitola. So the right-of-way actually includes about seven miles of bus rapid transit with the other remaining 14 or so miles, 15 or so miles on the local roadway system, very typical of bus rapid transit service. Weekday service, we are proposing 15-minute headways and from services from 5 a.m. to 12 a.m. So very long levels of service on the corridor. We have proposed quite a few stations, 23 stations or platforms, typical of a bus rapid transit which will support a variety of travel markets and trip making. Next slide. In terms of the pros, I'll get into some of the pros, not all. Certainly transit ridership was strong, strongest in the, you know, 6,000 plus range per day. This is easily, this system easily integrates with the overall transportation system, including Metro Bus. This system can be adapted to future new technologies, probably somewhat easier than others. And the costs provide the lowest capital cost compared to the other alternatives. In terms of some of the cons, there are long travel times probably in the 90-minute range. These are shorter trips we're traveling on. You know, we will use bus, you know, bus on shoulder and Highway 1, for example, and local roads. So there are a lot more stops and stop and go travel compared to the other alternatives. It does only use 7 miles of the right of way. There are limited capacity to provide bikes and mobility devices internal to the vehicles compared to the other alternatives. And there are limited opportunities for transit oriented development potential. Next slide. In terms of the characteristics of commuter rail, it uses the entire right of way from Watsonville to natural bridges. There are less number of stops typical of a commuter rail system. We have 11 stops and stations and stop locations. The frequencies are 30 minute headways during the peak, or the train will travel every 30 minutes in the morning and afternoon peaks and a little longer in the off peak periods. The service runs from 6am to 9pm. Next slide. In terms of the pros and cons and characteristics, certainly this will be a passenger rail service with electric propulsion, no fossil fuels. It will operate entirely on the fixed rail system the right of way. There is a strong ridership capacity for long distance travel. One of the keys to this project. It will use single side single tracks. In terms of the pros, just selected pros, definitely reliable, faster travel times from the 45 minute range compared to BRT which could be double. Certainly there is strong transit ridership potential while lower than bus rapid transit. Probably in the 5100 range, 5000 per day range. Strong support for transit and development which could create more opportunities for increased ridership. This provides a strong integration, one seat ride to Monterey, Pajaro to connect to other rail transit in the state going north and south and Shannon from Caltrans will talk about that in a bit. There is more funding potential for this through various state and federal programs. In terms of the cons, this is somewhat higher than the industry standard cost estimates that we created. We developed, it's about 480 million compared to bus rapid transit which was about 410. There is somewhat slower, lower ridership than bus rapid transit but still strong. And this does provide less opportunities to be resilient to climate change. Next slide. Light rail transit. Looking at very similar service on the right away from Pajaro station to natural bridges. We have 15 potential station locations. 30 minute headways again and we figure 30 minute headways all day from 6am to 9pm and this shows the configuration of the light rail. Next slide. Some of the characteristics, certainly we're all electric here, no or hydrogen cell based on the technology. There will be no fossil fuels operated systems here. This will use the right of way fixed rails to operate. There is less ridership capacity than bus rapid transit but very strong, nonetheless operates on a single track, as I said. In terms of some of the key pros and cons, they're very similar to commuter rail as we'll talk about with the locally preferred alternative below. In a few minutes, certainly reliable travel times a little less than, less reliable with more stops than commuter rail but still in the 55 minute range compared to bus rapid transit at 90. Still provides strong ridership. Does support transit oriented development which would help improve the ridership and other aspects characteristics of the right of way. One of the keys is certainly it provides lots of coverage with disadvantaged communities and people who would potentially use the system. 92% and there is level boarding which is key and as with commuter rail, the rail cars, I'm sorry to mention this for commuter rail, but they're certainly flexible enough to provide more bike and mobility device capacity on these types of vehicles. In terms of the cons, higher costs, a little higher than commuter rail and certainly higher than BRT. Some of the lower ridership than BRT and this may require a transfer will likely require a transfer to the regional rail network because of light rail configuration issues. Next slide. So autonomous road train or ART. This is a somewhat new technology implemented in China and getting some momentum in other places worldwide in the US. It is a retire. This configuration starts at Lee Road in Watsonville. So will not there were some compatibility issues with rail service. Current rail service in Watsonville. So we started this in Lee Road. So there'll be this connector from Lee Road to Pajaro to provide that connection service for transit users to the system. And then it goes all the way to natural bridges. There are proposed 13 stations on this line 30 minute headways all day. And the service timing is from 6am to 9pm. Very similar to light rail and commuter rail. In terms of the characteristics. Oops, yep, you could go on to the next slide. Thank you. In terms of characteristics, this is an emerging mode. Electropropulsion autonomous vehicle certainly combines the benefits of BRT and LRT with autonomous drivers. It will be rubber tire with dedicated on a dedicated pavement alignment on the right of way. Definitely resembles LRT style of vehicles and operates on a single lane on the corner. In terms of pros and cons, certainly strong ridership potential. You know, one of the keys is this would have a great ability to adapt to new future potential technologies, including connecting technologies and provides a strong level boarding at all platforms, etc. In terms of the cons, capital costs are very high. You know, in the 700 plus million range. This will not be compatible with current and expected freight operations in the Watsonville or freight rail operations in Watsonville area. And there are somewhat longer travel times in the 60 plus minute range. So next slide. So based on the technical detailed analysis that we performed in milestone three, the locally preferred alternative recommendation will be electric passenger rail, moving forward commuter rail and light rail into the next potentially into the next phase of this design environmental assessment. And in this case, design determinations, the alternative would determine in later stages, whether it's commuter rail or light rail. Next slide. And we talked a lot about this already. About the characteristics of electric passenger rail through the commuter rail and the light rail discussions. Certainly this passenger rail service, the locally preferred will operate on the right of way. You know, with electric propelled vehicles, battery cell, etc, not fossil fuels, it'll operate on a single track with sightings to allow for two way travel, interim sightings along the corridor. We expect speeds of 30 to 60 miles per hour. And the range is pretty wide considering the the makeup of the infrastructure on the rail right of way. There are approximately 11 to 15 stations with proposed level boarding for each, whether it's a full station and or platform. Hydrogen fuel cell battery other future technology will be the propulsion type. And certainly when we go through the agency goes through the future analysis of this, the vehicle type will have to comply to federal agencies in this case, Federal Railroad Authority, Federal Railroad Administration, sorry, other federal agencies in terms of including federal transit administration might get involved here. So the frequency of service, we're definitely in the 30 to 60 minute frequency range with weekday service from 6am to 9pm. So all the characteristics that we talked about earlier. Next slide. In terms of the benefits, very similar to what we talked about with commuter rail, light rail, include actually very similar and, you know, the same, certainly reliable travel times in the 45 to 50 minute range for both alternatives, a little longer for light rail, with the more more stations but still very the fast travel times and reliability is a key. There will be reduction of VMT, which will result in GHG emission reductions as well with shifts to from auto to transit use. Both will this passenger rail locally preferred alternative provide, you know, very high access to transportation disadvantaged populations, as shown in previous slides, level reporting and will be provided, which is key for accessibility of all types of users to the to the vehicles. And these passenger rail provides a greater flexibility in space allocation, whether it's seats for riders, bikes and mobility devices for other for folks wishing to use, you know, integrate those modes with at least bikes with a rail. So there are great opportunities here for transit oriented development with a fixed guideway system such as this, there's greater funding potential through state and federal resources, grant opportunities, etc. And then there are opportunities to provide regional and statewide rail network connectivity, which is what Shannon will be talking about in a few minutes. But there are plans to improve and enhance passenger rail in the state of California. And this would provide that pretty key connectivity to passenger travel north and south in California. Next slide. I think with this, I'll turn it over to Ginger to talk about stakeholder outreach and next steps. Thank you, Steve. The outreach for milestone three was extensive. There were meetings held with the ad hoc committee, the Metro board, the three RTC advisory committees, the bike committee, elderly and disabled, and interagency technical advisory committee. An online open house was open from November 6 to November 27 with input received through a survey. The notification for the online open house was promoted through various avenues, emails, mailers to property owners within the vicinity of the right of way, social media, print and radio ads, media coverage, and RTC website news. There were also two sessions of an online chat room that were provided where members of the public could type in their questions for the project team to respond in real time. Members of the public were also encouraged to email comments to RTC for additional input. Next slide, please. There was no shortage of interest and input on this project. There were approximately 1000 members of the public that participated in the open house and took the online survey. While this survey does not establish a statistically representative sample of countywide support, approximately 75% expressed support for rail. There was about 12% that expressed support for no transit or trail only and about 5% for a bus rapid transit. Out of the 275 emails received prior to November 27, there's approximately 80% of those emails were supportive of rail transit. Again, this does not establish a statistically representative sample of countywide support. Since the November 27 deadline, we received probably double that number of emails. All of the information on emails received as well as survey responses are available on the RTC website, the TCAA webpage. If you characterize the additional comments generally like percentage or what they're most people wanted to have happened. There seems to be in the additional comments received after November 27. There was a bit more. I didn't I didn't calculate the numbers. Obviously, that's why we have a deadline so that we can bring all this information together in autonomy fashion. But it did seem like in going through the emails that there was a little bit more interest in a bus rapid transit than had expressed earlier prior to the November 27 deadline. There was also from the advisory committees, the more they all supported emotions supporting rail as a locally preferred alternative. Letters of support have been received that are contained in the staff report from Caltrans division of rail and mass transportation from the city of Santa Cruz, city of Watsonville and the Transportation Agency from Monterey County. The draft report was revised to consider stakeholder input received. With that, I'd like to hand over the presentation to Shannon Simons from Caltrans division of rail and mass transportation to provide a brief update on the California state rail plan. Great. Thank you, Ginger. Next slide please. Good morning everyone. Thanks for having me again. Shannon Simons with Caltrans and the senior regional coordinator for rail and transit in the Bay Area and the Central Coast. And so I'm going to spend just a couple minutes kind of zooming back out from all of that really detailed work that the team has done on the transit corridors alternative to put this into the context of the state rail plan. As in 2018, we released our most recent California state rail plan, which establishes a vision for prioritizing state investments in the passenger and freight rail network statewide. And it provides a framework for coordination between our planning partners, the rail operators, the rail owners and the state to develop a rail network with the strategic vision in mind. And so the integrated network helps the state meet our statewide mobility, equity and climate goals by improving the options for non single occupancy vehicle mobility options and connecting them through an integrated rail network and with coordinated feeder services of inner city bus, local transit, bike and pedestrian improvements. Next slide please. So the vision for the state rail plan is based on these three pieces. So the first is that it's an integrated statewide network where different services are physically connected, including high speed rail to serve some of those long distance kind of trunk line service trips, slower speed express and local services providing for that local and regional travel. And then connections of integrated express bus services that are used to fill the lower ridership slots on the schedule as well as providing those connections to the more rural communities in the state. The second piece of the vision is that these connections are designed to be made at multimodal connection points on coordinated schedules. So the vision rather is designed around regular pull service, which means that all of the services operate around regular clock-based schedules that allow for these easy times connections at key transfer hubs on the network. And the hubs are identified on the network not necessarily when we say how we don't necessarily mean huge infrastructure like an LA Union station or something like that. It just means this is where we can coordinate schedules and make it easier for local transit system or some of the regional systems off the main line to feed in and out of those services to help expand the reach of the network to the rest of the state. And it does some of the first and last mile connections of the system without a car trip. And so then the final and really the driving kind of component of the vision is that this really is meant to be customer focused. So also thinking about how to connect to and from the rail network either again with local transit services or walking, biking, car share, other services driving to get to and from the network. The second component of the customer focus is focused on integrated ticketing. So through the Calvary Integrated Travel Program we're really working at streamlining how you plan a trip, how you pay for a trip and how you verify the various eligibility benefits you may get by being a student or a senior or a host of other benefits. And then finally this really is based upon the idea that you can provide this seamless customer experience with travel times that are both auto and air competitive. All together these will deliver our mobility climate and equity goals. Next slide please. So the way that we plan for this rail plan is through kind of phased implementation strategic planning. So phasing helps to intensify the existing capacity and improve services to meet both our interim service and connectivity goals without requiring the full capital investment upfront. Also that can help drive down the cost and improve the system in the near and the midterm and then reap the benefits of those interim efficiencies to reinvest into the system to eventually build out the 2040 investment. So as you can see we kind of identified the long-term service vision which for the next rail plan will be 2050 so last one was 2040. Then we derive the phased implementation of the project back to what we reasonably expect to be you know constrained delivery in the 10-year timeframe and then build out the planned and committed projects developed to support that vision that are already in the pipeline in the short term. And so one of the key ways that we do this is by utilizing existing rights of ways to provide transportation capacity that's equivalent to additional lanes of freeway and road expansion. And so this will result in our again long-term infrastructure savings by reducing the need for additional expansion either on the rail and transit side or the highway side. And importantly it's a priority for us to continue to utilize existing capacity which is why I think we're so excited about this project on the Santa Cruz branch line. Next slide please. So we're in the process of updating this rail plan for the 2022 state rail plan which will continue to enhance rail service in the public interest and serve as the basis for both federal and state rail investments on both passenger and rail or passenger and freight rail rather. So what we're updating is we're revising that statewide vision to incorporate all of the work like the CCAA and other network integration and planning studies across the state to make sure that those are brought in to help us update timelines and alignments and connectivity goals. We'll continue to advise the priorities for state investment and then continuing to devise implementation strategies that are both phase but really working towards getting these services up and running as soon as possible. Next slide. Thank you. So the question you all want to know why why rail and Santa Cruz County. So I think that this map is a little bit hard to see here but hopefully you can all get a copy and look at this closer but you know Caltrans through the rail plan and other strategic planning work is committed to advancing our equity goals and rethinking the opportunities for the role of transit and for the role of public agencies that fund, administer and operate transit. So I think there's a big opportunity to provide the seamless connection from the Santa Cruz region to the statewide network which provides access not only to the Bay Area but kind of those duplicates to services of the existing bus routes but also to the high speed rail network at Gilroy as well as points on the Central Coast south of here. A positive rail service in this corridor can meet the demands of commuters while also importantly providing this all-day service and the mobility that provides transportation options for all users in the community and this is something we're really excited about is rethinking how to provide that all-day service. I think COVID has really shown us that the travel markets are changing and when we're providing service for essential workers and people who have continued to work on the front lines it's been more of these non-traditional commute markets and so there's an opportunity to build that system out in all the regions across the state and so you know this is a priority for the state and there's significant state funding opportunities available that can provide a pathway for advancing Santa Cruz County Connections as part of this statewide network continuing to build on these investments and developing more zero emission vehicle technologies and zero emission corridors across the state and then I just had to throw in this example of a battery hydrogen fuel cell multiple unit that's going to be deployed in Tamboridino County because it's a exciting and that's the type of thing that we could potentially see in Santa Cruz as well. So with that I will hand it back to Jinder and thank you. The next steps of the project are to come back on February 4th to seek acceptance of the final draft report which selects the locally preferred alternative and on April 1st the project team is scheduled to present and seek acceptance of the business plan for the locally preferred alternative. With that that's the conclusion of our presentation we're happy to take questions and comments. I did want to introduce of the project team who's available to take questions this morning. From Metro staff we have John Ogro, Pete Rasmussen, Wanda Moon and Ginstu and Matt Marquez from HDR besides Steve Decker. We have Pam Yonkin worked on the performance measures as well as Alan Wang from Fair and Pierce who worked on the ridership estimates and other performance measures. From RTC staff besides executive director Preston and deputy director Mendez and myself. We also have Breonna Goodman who is part of the project team and Rachel Morakoni who worked on the funding sources. Thank you Jinder. Thank you Jinder. It's a great report. A lot of information. I'm going to go ahead now and open it up to our commissioners for any technical or clarifying questions on the study plan. Yes. Great go ahead Greya. Good knowledge you. Okay I'm trying to figure this out. Okay you can hear me right? Yes. Yeah I was looking at that. Is there any is there any place we can look at that actually has rail that travels over 100 125 miles an hour? I don't know that's a tremendous speed so I was looking at that and is it in Europe do they have any trains or anything anywhere? Sure. It goes over 125 miles an hour. They don't necessarily have the answer to that but perhaps Shannon Simons from Caltrans who has a perspective on the you know larger rail transit network obviously in Santa Cruz County we're not looking to have speeds go anywhere near that comes right right. Yes but everything else I got you like hang on a minute. Go ahead Shannon did you want to answer that? Oh yeah thank you and if this is regard to our first vision map that's a great point. Those are largely the high speed rail speed so the high speed rail authority will be delivering both on the blended and in the dedicated high speed rail corridors travel speeds of over 125 potentially up to 220 I think at the top speed of what high speed rail can go on the dedicated right the way. To just point out those those speeds won't not be necessary or appropriate in Santa Cruz but that's what those types of services look at. Thank you. Thank you. Mike you had your hand raised. I was just going to add that I wrote on a train because about 180 miles an hour in Italy about three years ago so I mean but it's not local service like we're looking at here it's a long a long trip across most of the country that's out in the countryside. Mike how did that feel when you were going that fast? You know you don't notice it much unless you look out the window and you see stuff just flying by and you're riding next to a crew here or something you're going twice as fast as the cars that are running next to you. Okay thank you. Is there any other fellow commissioner that has any questions? Who do I have there? Randy? Yeah thank you. Go ahead Randy. For that report I was curious as you mentioned the new reality in terms of with we've learned over the last year many many more people are using Zoom staying and not actually using any form of transportation. So in your ridership numbers did you take into consideration that change that I think everybody agrees is going to be at least somewhat permanent and it's going to excuse me is going to at least subtract some of the transportation that occurs including train, auto, bus and what have you? Sorry with answering that question commissioner Johnson and then I'll pass it off to Alan Wang, a fair and fierce. Obviously this pandemic hit us and nobody was prepared to the level of change in our lives. What that happened due to this pandemic. I think that we still don't know what the future holds and have a good grasp on what things will look like in the future. I agree with you and hope that there are some silver linings in this and that more people will realize that the ability to be able to work from home and that will be a shift. I think that's something that as transportation planners we've looked at previously and have done everything we can to encourage people to at least work from home one day a week or move towards that in the future and reduce the demand in our system. But I don't think that necessarily negates the need. People are still going to want to travel. People are still going to be going to some offices to a certain extent. The ridership projections were based on information pre-COVID. That's the information that we have available. Obviously that's something that we need to pay attention to as we move forward in the future. I don't know about you. I'm ready to get out and do some more traveling myself. But that begs the question of if you didn't include it in your analysis why wouldn't you? We know if anything the number of people who travel is going to be diminished because you know the people who use Zoom it's become more acceptable for this type of environment. So if you didn't take that in consideration my question number one would be why not. Well yet I think I would reiterate that this is something that we don't know to what extent people will be working from home and also that the need for people to work from home in the future give an increased population and demand in our transportation system is and what is going to be there regardless. But I can hand that off to Alan Wang or Steve Decker if you have any other points you'd like to make. This is Steve before Alan jumps in. Certainly the project started and we as we are evaluating these projects with various clients including this RTC we typically go to pre-COVID conditions or post-COVID conditions thinking that we want to be as conservative as possible and we want to replicate represent what ridership potentially would be. Many of the studies that sort of were impacted including this one with COVID impacting the study have not really gotten into the COVID analysis that you're asking for. And as an example the Metropolitan Transportation Commission has suggested that all the analysis will be pre or post-COVID with the anticipation that levels of demand will approach what it was pre-COVID. So there are lots of different ways to look at this. But Alan maybe Alan could describe some of the ways in which they have assessed COVID impacts on ridership. Thank you. I would just add that I think one thing to clarify is in terms of the ridership analysis we are forecasting out to a 2040 condition as the horizon year for this project. So I think as both Steve and Ginger had mentioned there's a lot of uncertainty going post-COVID condition. We don't really necessarily know how things are going to change or how people's travel behavior is going to change in that long run. But for again for purpose of this type of analysis we tend to kind of go back to assume that things are going to trend back towards the normal condition pre-COVID. But that's again just something I wanted to clarify that this is a pretty long-term forecast in terms of the future ridership. With respect to the state rail line connection and so forth the broad sort of you know vision of the state of California it seems to me that the when you mentioned that with in reference to Santa Cruz County it's more of a feature than a benefit. It's a feature that will exist but it only becomes a benefit if people use it. And you know again in my mind I think the minds of many people is yes you'll have you'll have a certain number of people that want to take a train to L.A. or take it over the hill to Gilroy and then up to San Jose. But a ton of people will fall with and this is this is an operative work. So right now you're explaining that there's a feature and there might be funding about this and that for the same time there's no true benefit I think that you can actually project because I don't think that you've done really an analysis of how many really how many people will actually use it in conjunction with a statewide rail system and therein lies the rub in terms of cost versus benefit. Thank you. Annie Shannon you wanted to make comment on that. I see you did. Yeah actually it was maybe not directed about that. I'm happy to touch on that. I was going back to the kind of the COVID ridership numbers. One of the interesting things we've seen and which is why I mentioned kind of the focus on all day travel and the role of providing transit from an equity and mobility lens is that at least in the free inner city routes that are state supported routes we've seen almost like at the beginning nearly a hundred percent ridership drop-off on both the capital corridor and low fan services which primarily serve commute and long distance commute even more than their inner city travelers whereas the fan walking service tends to support lower income more diverse communities that don't have as many white color commuters and their initial ridership drop-off for more like the 60 to 70 percent so while it's still obviously very significant because people weren't traveling at the beginning they've seen a little bit more of this bounce back in a little less of a hit and I think that that is you know helping us to rethink at the state level how we plan for these essential services and what their role of transit is and making sure that we have options available to everybody across the state and so I just wanted to mention that in terms of we don't we don't have enough ridership data though we are certainly trying to account for COVID as we update the next rail plan but really taking a look at who has continued to use transit and when they've used it throughout the past year during this pandemic thank you I'm going to go ahead and go ahead and call on Sandy then Manu and then Jack is that okay and Bruce and Bruce I didn't see your hand raise Bruce I and I just went to the whoever had our hand raised go ahead Sandy you're on thank you uh so yeah this is a great it was a great presentation and I want to thank everybody who is involved at the staff level the consultants and the ad hoc committee I I'm wondering if swan or more of you might be able to comment on the the rationale for the the cost estimates attached to these options I know that you know we've had in previous iterations lower costs and you know just it's a little opaque or a little general at a general level and you know I think that we're you know wanting to get as much information as we can as we make these decisions and while I understand that it you know it's it's really early on to you know to be able to come to any you know solid conclusions I'm just wondering if somebody could help me understand or help us understand what that process was the you know kind of the data analysis and assumptions that were made I'm happy to start that off and then I'll pass it off to Steve Decker it was really the majority of his team to brought all the cost estimate information together and some of the cost estimating for the rail alternatives started out with the rail transit feasibility study they were developed there and pretty pretty good level of detail for a planning study we also utilize that and updated that information for the unified corridor study and that information again was passed off to HDR to update for this transit corridor alternatives analysis also for the for the non rail options bus rapid transit in the autonomous road train it was a standard process for planning is is to utilize the Caltrans 11 page template which makes sure to include all the various different components of a construction project that you don't want to miss because there's those costs can add up and so it's kind of a standard process to go through that we did for the unified corridor study the rail options had a 30% contingency whereas the bus rapid transit and unified corridor have a had a 50% contingency we felt like that was appropriate at the time because the rail did have more detailed information on the cost estimates but we've dialed back in the rail estimate to a 50% contingency because it's a planning study and that's kind of more the approach the typical approach that you would do for a planning study for cost estimates with that hand it off to Steve and provide more information right so for a planning study such as this we did go through a very detailed cost estimation approach process as Ginger said we use this 11 page Caltrans format process for bus rapid transit and autonomous road vehicle the autonomous road vehicle vehicles you know it was very extensive in terms of the various categories of work we did is very similar analysis for commuter rail and light rail so we got to very deep analysis as much as we could in terms of track you know the infrastructure for the rail line in terms of improvements to meet commuter rail or light rail needs so we got into track issues on the infrastructure you know in terms of tie replacements resurfacing new track construction we got into the need for grade road rail grade crossing infrastructure to support the the needs so we we probably had I don't know 20 or 25 different items that we cost it out which is pretty typical we also got into crossing signal details in terms of cost train control structures including bridge rehabilitation retaining walls I will say that retaining wall was a an earthwork were a big deal for bus rapid transit and autonomous road train compared to commuter rail and light rail basically think of you know the the bus rapid transit as a new you know roadway system a new roadway on the right of way so that's why that earthwork was needed so that was built into those cost estimates we also built into into the station's maintenance facility total construction with contingency that was on the infrastructure side we got into purchase of rail vehicles etc so there are quite a few items that went into the detailed cost estimates for each hopefully that answers your question thank you thank you first I just want to point out I think this notion that it's too early to really know about the cost is completely absurd I mean what we know is the costs are increasing significantly if you look at the passenger raise rail feasibility study at that time the cost for a train were estimated at seven hundred million dollars and now we're up to 1.2 billion dollars for capital and operating costs over a 30-year period which is the period that we would go out for a sales tax measure for so the cost of almost doubled in three years I did have one specific question for Mr. Decker they're in the current study it shows the capital cost for most of the rail options which you claim would all be electric at about 450 million dollars however in the unified corridor study the estimated cost for an electric multiple unit train was 550 million dollars I'm curious why in this particular case I would see the estimate has been reduced we did start with the the UCS is our basis for cost estimates we did provide more detail I'm not sure why the difference is a hundred million dollars we did use industry standards to support our cost estimates with our rail engineers and designers and cost estimators so you know I'm not sure of all of the elements that were built into the UCS I know that we built in what was appropriate for this quarter in our analysis I don't know ginger is there anything you want to add with your involvement in the UCS I don't know if I can say a hundred percent but I think at the time there was not the technology had not been available for electric to not have a catenary system I think in the UCS it includes the catenary system which increased the cost of that extra about a hundred million for the public that's an overhead wire system that the train runs under we went with different technology that was not that was not recommended the overhead okay fair enough thank you for that clarification my second question was for miss simons I'm curious if the state rail plan has been adapted at all since our governor said that the current high-speed rail plan will simply cost too much and take too long we've seen political support for that project dropped rapidly what if any changes have been made to the state rail plan to adapt to that new reality okay thanks for the question so we're in the process of updating the next state rail plan so while we tried to make this one more the living document old habits die hard so we are working to update that for release sometime spring or summer of next year so we're still in the process of doing a lot of the technical services designed to account for changes and different service and connectivity goals as well as timing funding availability COVID as best we can and to the point about the governor's statement though he when he said that there was a little bit of miscommunication and when he actually made that announcement early last year what he did was kind of change the timeline of the phases and so when he talked about the overall cost he actually expanded the mileage of the initial phase so we're definitely taking that into account and following direction from our partners of the high-speed rail authority eagerly awaiting their updated business plan which we hear will be out sometime in the next couple of months to make sure that things are aligned on that but we're definitely taking into account the additional 40 miles that have been added to the central valley phase one and looking at what they're saying updated timelines will be for connecting that to silicon valley and then eventually down to Los Angeles as well but that's a very long way of saying yeah we're we work very closely with high speed rail to make sure that we're taking into account updated numbers timeline things like that and then planning the connecting services and the rest of the network accordingly right so we're still opera what we've seen today is still the old plan that hasn't been updated correct yes if you go to our website you'll still see the 2018 California state rail plan and soon we will have an updated vision and I'll be working with ginger to make sure that we are reaching out to this group and others with kind of the components of the service plan so that we're getting feedback from all of our stakeholders well before this gets finalized and stamped for phase two where we start actually going into phasing project development capital costing and working on phase implementation of the updated rail plan thank you thank you thank you jock a question of Bruce McPherson he's lead would you accommodate him and then go ahead and ask his question now go ahead Bruce uh thank you for that consideration number we're gonna flip the switch on the community choice energy issue for Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties in about a half an hour so i wanted to make sure i got a statement so thank you for this time and i just wanted to make a statement about uh i support of doing the tcaa and i know some people are concerned why are we keeping doing these studies but i think we need to do so to fulfill our obligation under measure d to investigate compare the transit options for the corridor uh we just needed and still need some some further answers and i accept the study and i want to thank the rgc staff and steep decker and the consultants for doing a thorough job under some very difficult circumstances with the divisions that within the community on the use of the corridor that we are seeing every day i do believe it is a good public policy to preserve the option to build passenger rail understanding that this is a possible future use but really one that we can't afford now i do think we need to focus on fiscal responsibility and fulfilling our measure d project promises that we gave to the voters in november of 16 and i do think we need to focus on fiscal responsibility and fulfilling other measure d project promises to the voters in that regard um i don't believe another ballot measure to build rail service is fiscally responsible nor is it politically real is realistic at this time um but i fully support maintaining the freight service to whatseville because it is vital to the city's economy um i also want to see commuters from south canna county have a greatly reduced travel times which is the key component of all of this which would but one which we can deliver more affordably and far less time than building passenger rail service uh and we can do that with the bus on shoulder project i believe i do think the rail corridor is an invaluable public asset and i think the community should be able to use it sooner than later which means we need to put this debate to rest and move forward on projects that are financially feasible and can be delivered i think in the feasible future that they for the public benefit um i i think that summarizes my comments uh that some of you have might have seen uh that i made it metro a couple months ago and at the same time i want to thank metro for its uh cooperation and uh the rtc and metro getting together and getting the report to this point uh so i just wanted to voice my concerns and my thoughts about where we should be going in the immediate in the immediate future uh and i thank you for this time before i have to sign off in about 10 or 15 minutes so thank you very much thank you new commissioners uh commissioners jack well thank you very much chair and um i completely agree with bruce's comments um let's back up a little bit when i first heard about what progressive well first of all after the failure of two rail lines uh in terms of the commercial viability of commerce on our branch line uh backing out and now progressive line to back out um the thing that i thought from the beginning is that watsonville is the only viable possibility especially for the people in watsonville that want to get jobs but anywhere north of that um completely impossible then when i read this study and we're up to 1.5 billion and perhaps more as costs increase due to all sorts of factors that we know about since we're on various commissions that improve budgets it's up to 2 million billion dollars um completely out of line to what this community can afford and when you consider all the things that we cannot do right now because we don't have the money like some of the bond measures for schools the the horrible condition of roads in the rest of the county the issues that we face every day with the homeless there's so many issues in this community that we cannot address because we don't have the money we haven't been able to adequately fund so many things and then to peel off in a regressive tax measure to build a rail does not make sense to me we have to come up with something that is financially feasible i completely agree that we need to deal with the traffic issues but the ways that we're trying to think of that in terms of highway one bus on shoulder and other methods i think are the way to go there's so much cheaper point of order i have a couple of questions and i just want to reiterate because i think what bruce brought to the table is about time so my questions do you excuse me jaren i'm sorry my point of order is this is a time i mean me maybe jock your questions are about to be more technical about what was presented they are going to be michael thank you very much because we shouldn't save our general comments till after no i agree michael but i was following up on some other general comments so um i um am i pull my technical career manage many projects that um our decision had to be very considered tens of billions tens of millions of dollars of investment for the companies i worked for and one of the things that we dealt with was when you realize you had 10 to 20 different considerations that had to be made you waited those considerations and the waiting was very critical to the outcome and the waiting had to be very much out of personal or emotional concerns it was based on numbers and what the company was going to benefit from that decision so i'd like to get to the trip and triple bottom line waiting and if staff could comment on that or maybe steven decker could comment on that how was the waiting decided such that one aspect was more or less important than the other and i have two other questions after them thank you commissioner vertrand i can start off the response to that the rtc has been um utilizing the triple bottom line as a framework for decision making um we may have started even earlier i know i i started the rtc at around 2010 we used it for the um regional transportation plan in 2014 and um you know we i feel that strongly that it provides a breath of information for how to evaluate transportation investment decisions and it it um it's kind of juxtaposed against a cost benefit analysis which has its place but also um can eliminate information for decision makers in my whereas the triple bottom line it provides the breath of information on the various different performance measures that can represent economy environment and equity in a way that all the decision makers can look at all of that information decide for themselves what they feel like is the most important and bring that to their own decision making and if we utilize that and waited um one performance measure um in a way that and try to get agreement from the commission on what that waiting would be um i i believe that would be pretty challenging because everybody has a different value system on what they feel like is the most important um okay thank you very much ginger for that and i look to the legislation that this derives from it is state policy and is used in many other cases but there's no mention there in how the waiting is done and i disagree because i think some aspects of waiting are more important than others especially when you have to deal with the affordability i have another question and ginger you talked about this you mentioned in terms of the public involvement and my kudus to the rtc and reaching out and trying to achieve um intensive involvement in the community and get the word out i think that was great but as you mentioned several times um this is not a statistical survey so short of that we really don't have any idea if the public is going to approve all the things that we've been planning for in all these different studies um how would you answer to that when the bottom line is basically um as bruce said the almost the non inevitability of passing something what do you think of our efforts to move towards a solution what we don't even know if the public's going to approve it um again i'll be happy to start off and i'll look towards the project team to um add up any backup information as needed um rtc staff puts a lot of effort towards soliciting input from stakeholders and members of the public it takes up a significant part of our time and um when when soliciting input you know we've had this challenge of um people being concerned about whether it's a representative exam at all and what i found for working from the rtc of the last 10 plus years is the best approach to get information is you know we may have a project team of five to ten people but you get the benefit of the diversity when you get public input that is from 200 people or 500 people or a thousand people to make sure you're considering all the various different angles of what they're um what they're interested in or what they're concerned about and what they want to move forward um there's there was a whole range of reasoning provided from the members of the public and stakeholders that have been provided in the attachments to the staff report i really encourage all of you if you haven't not had a chance yet to review that case four and against um moving towards rail transit as the locally preferred alternative um it provides a wealth of information from members of our public and stakeholders community organizations um as far as whether it's the time is right to go out to for a valid measure obviously this is an argument that a lot of people feel concerned about and it's time to do that um i still i'm not sure it's the time is right for that yet i feel like there's still information that we could provide the members of the public um to get a sense for what that would look like to have transit on the corridor whether it's rail transit or other um demonstration trains that type of thing where you could really give the public and look and feel what that would look like um thank you junior um i appreciate that uh mention of the public's involvement and i did look through the public comments it's amazing how many aspects of this issue was brought out by the various number of comments whether pro or con and i appreciate the public's participation and note that there are several groups that are pushing various views and that's probably why we've had certain numbers of representation of one view of the other my third question is basically to um miss simons in terms of funding so the plans here uh suggest that anywhere from 60 to 50 plus percent would be provided by outside funds and as randy said in a way this is sort of a benefit or a connection to the state system and so i'm looking to the state to provide many of these funds and so i just like to mention some research i did when i first came on um and i like your responses because it brings up an aspect i think it's important so um i referred to san francisco which just got a c contract i forget the particular project it was but i read the detailed state analysis of why they supported san francisco getting this contract and one of the things that stands out to me is that it was a huge metropolitan area and it services i forgot the numbers but you know hundreds of thousands of people during the course of a year you know we are not that kind of situation we are not a huge metropolitan area we're you know we just do not have that level of ability to support projects because we don't have that level of commerce whether hard commerce or not um so why would the state of california fund us as opposed to the major ret metropolitan areas like san francisco sacramento san diego los angeles you do not get the bang for the state monies as opposed to the millions of people that live everywhere else except the hundreds of the tens of thousands that live here so i want to know that rationale why it's worth the state to invest in our project and not in those other projects thank you and i'm not talking about studies studies could be funded all day and they support our staff which i completely appreciate i'm not talking about studies i'm talking about when we actually have to build the project and then we have o and m costs which have to be considered we have to be able to afford that too so why would the state do these things thank you yeah yeah great question i think there's a couple of reasons um you know obviously i'm i'm most familiar with the funding programs that are administered through the state transportation agency though there are others that i think would be available and but i think a lot of the funding that um we work with is from green house gas reduction fund um proceeds and other sp1 improvements which or sp1 funds rather which really do look at having some sort of regional equity across the state as well and so while they are you you are exactly correct that there's more people in the ridership numbers are going to be just you know apples to oranges in a place like la or san francisco we still want to make sure that we are pursuing our climate our mobility and our equity goals in all parts across the state and making it so that there are viable ways to access different housing and jobs opportunities and some of the smaller and less dense regions in the state like Santa Cruz or Monterey or other places on the central coast and i think one of the ways we see that explicitly is one of the sp1 funding programs is the state rail assistance program and that's mostly formulaic but carved into that is for emerging corridors and so i think this is you know a tip of the hat that we want to see emerging rail corridors like Monterey like Santa Cruz like some of the central coast communities have access to these statewide funds that have largely been directed towards the inner city routes or the larger commuter rail operators like a metro link or a pow train or something like that and so i think from our perspective we're really looking at the opportunities to you know build communities around some of the stations the station the transit oriented development the equity concerns again that i mentioned in providing different types of mobility options to all of our essential workers throughout the state i think these are some of the main reasons why the state is still looking at all regions not just the big metropolitan areas across california thank you miss suance i appreciate that i'm gonna try to wrap this up because we do have a lot of attendees and we have some folks that want to speak so scott if you can any technical or yes thank you sir i just wanted to add on to what shannon said in terms of statewide investments the reality is the state is really focusing more and more in terms of funding on programs that reduce vehicle miles to travel to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that is a huge those are both really big priorities for our current administration as well as equity considerations and so and there's a real movement because of that away from ways that we have addressed traditionally addressed congestion through highway widening and other means that would would have been our go-to strategies as was mentioned earlier that's you know there there is a move away from that the administration is currently working on a climate action plan for transportation investments that reinforces those kind of priorities away from highway widening towards other ways of addressing congestion and providing mobility so i would anticipate you know no guarantees and it's all evolving at this time but there's i would anticipate that that we're going to see him a shift to more operational funding for transit systems and rail systems as well as investments for capital improvements thank you uh we'll take a uh questions and clarifying questions or taking questions i have technical go ahead pat uh thank you uh my first question is um why uh this can you raise your volume just a little bit um can you hear me now yeah that's good okay i'll speak directly into my microphone how's that um i when we initially started this process i had asked that the major transportation investment study from 1998 be included in the discussion mainly because it was the the first swing that this agency took at a unified corridor study or alternative transit corridor alternative analysis it evaluated options down the highway highway widening versus bus rapid transit versus rail transit on the rail corridor and which is why i had asked that it be engaged as part of this this process but it doesn't seem to have been included i did find one mention of it which is strange to me because the the major transportation uh investment study the mtis uh was fundamental to our prop 116 application in fact the the prop 116 funding application said that we were acquiring the rail line in order to implement the mtis so it being left out of discussion is curious to me especially since it traveled down all of the same corridors that we went down with with the tca and the ucis um could someone explain why why it wasn't uh part of the documents i realized it's old but we did also i saw references to the around the bay rail study which is also from 1998 um is there any reason why the mtis was not uh discussed I'm happy to take that Commissioner Mulhern uh we did um my mistake leave it out in the first draft report but it has been included in the final draft report that is available on the rtc web page so uh apologies if um you have not seen that yet but there is an appendix a in the back of the um report that does go into the details of that analysis and and the outcome from that study but that's that's great because um that that study uh concluded that rail transit uh wasn't financially feasible um and even at the time the technologies that they were evaluating are very similar i mean they're the word they were diesel trains at the time but but the cost projections were very very similar to the ones that we're looking at here and it's it's strange to me that that i mean it says that it is not fiscally feasible in their report and yet uh we seem to be uh going in a different direction with this report uh my second question is uh do we know where the station locations are going to be yet there were station locations developed for each of the four alternatives that are provided in the report on the um alignment maps uh they were also provided in the powerpoint presentation um component that steve decker presented um for each different alternative there was different stations um there was for the commuter rail transit there was um 11 stations that um we've been looking at on the um light rail transit i believe it was um maybe 15 stations two of which are um seasonal stations these are proposed and these are the stations that were evaluated in the transit card alternatives analysis but that does not necessarily mean these will be the stations as we move forward this would be something that we would be looking at again through um you know next steps uh preliminary design and environmental okay so that that's something that we would settle upon in the environmental phase okay thank you i have one final question um how are uh i guess this is for the consultants how are you going to develop um a business plan without selecting a specific technology to uh i'm sorry you're saying generally speaking uh passenger rail is the prefer alternative but making no distinction between commuter rail or light rail injure should we respond take that safe sure i'll start um with the business plan uh passenger rail there are the two alternatives we will do a different analysis for commuter rail and light rail as we build the business plan to understand um revenue projections how would fund funding scenarios over time uh so that both would be built into the business plan while we're not selecting a technology through the business plan we will identify what that those revenue projections are the cash flow and funding would be as we move forward so there will be that separate analysis for both and then the selection of the the technology would come you know the next phase is with the more detailed engineering environmental and the station area analysis that we just talked about does that make sense yeah totally thank you i i just wanted to get that out um into the the public conversation here since uh we're talking now about finalizing our decisions in some future study that we haven't agreed to do yet and certainly haven't paid for ah thank you Patrick okay um annie uh any questions yeah it's very quickly um uh about half an hour ago there were about 197 people uh attending the meeting uh they're now down to 139 this was a public hearing for to hear what the public has to say um we've been at it for quite a while i think i would really urge the chair to open the public hearing that that is here that's what i'm trying to do if you had any questions or i can wait till after the hearing from the public comments are going to be after the public hearing okay seeing none no more i'd like to open this up to the public commissioner given the amount of attendees um is it a two minute or a three minute comment period let's go ahead and guess the amount of the attendees let's reduce it down to two minutes uh i know some of you have presentations that are for three but due to the fact that this is a kind of a longer than anticipated uh and to give as much people's opportunity it will be going down to two minutes and i apologize for any inconvenience okay so we'll go ahead and get started with mr mark Johansson you're muted you're on mark you're muted yeah we hear you we don't hear you still muted okay let's see if he was allowed to talk i'm mute can you hear me now yes yes okay so so this uh power point is for the next speaker not mine okay could you speak me well the yeah there we go okay uh can everybody hear me yes all right so this is originally a three-minute i'll see if i can really speed through this so good morning commissioners my name is mark Johansson i'm an attorney here in santa cruz and a resident of aptos and assisting to get with this demonstration next slide please so the to recap the commission approved this demonstration in december 2019 because of the pandemic has been rescheduled to this summer next slide to get will demonstrate it's award winning off library operated zero mission in quiet mr 3b a tram with a hydrogen fuel cell range extender next slide the train is a bit longer narrower than the standard minibus with comparable weights and about a quarter of the weight of a passenger rail car next time this will be a live demonstration between the boardwalk and capital atreso and stationary exhibits in aptos village in wasa bill next slide the vehicle has level accessible boarding the ability to accommodate bicycles and runs on a fixed rail which is safer for other users of the rail trail next slide so what about financial uh feasibility in the 2019 unified quarter investment study estimated the cost of board and 74 million that was based on a large metropolitan train system that study also said that the use of the current technologies could significantly reduce the cost of the system next slide so take it would like to propose a concept for the commission's consideration which includes a public private partnership to design build operate and maintain a rail transit system on the branch line which would provide passenger service putting wadsville and wasa cruise and excursion service between capital and davenport the system which is divisible in phases and expandable to meet the rider's need this would include private investment of 120 million and a public contribution of 57 million over 15 years which is one quarter of the cost estimated in the unified quarter investment study because of the technology use this includes track improvements track welding replacing 38 000 ties two and a half miles of new track passing thank you for your time sorry about that thank you next we have um brad read and i will bring up your slide here shortly is he on can you hear me yes let's go ahead brad if you can thank you i i certainly can't get through this in two minutes but i'll try uh tig mllc is a california a railway design build company we have produced and developed and delivered a 90 page proposal for a privately funded project that will include full use of the branch line railway as shown in the in the illustration right here the proposal includes computer simulations of operations and a cost model for capital expense in 15 years of operation showing that the project can be profitable the tig m capex is 26 percent of the tcaa lrt cost next up slide please for the commuter rail we'll use our battery hydrogen fuel cell vehicles continue on please next slide for the tourist excursion rail also battery hydrogen fuel cell vehicles for the diesel electric vehicles for on the short line freight operation continue please we've put together delivery team that can design finance build operate and maintain this entire project tig mllc jonai consulting urban innovation santa cruz big trees and pacific railroad for the short line operator and mark johannesons our local li liaison and legal consult consult next slide please the modes of travel we we propose multimodal stops at every station the modes of travel do not compete with one or they complement one another next slide please tig m rolling stock used the same propulsion system and is operated by the same on m staff next slide please zero mission rolling stock battery and fuel cell next slide please all virtually silent using flange lubrication each wheel resilient wheels and vibration damping next slide please based on the work done in the src the sec rtc rail transit study we've developed simulations next slide please full computer simulations are available close up thank you thank you okay mr auto go ahead auto you recognize you got two minutes still needed can you hear me now yes sound check great can you pull up my slides please okay go ahead great sounds good Keith auto county resident next slide please the tcaa recommendation is for electric passenger rail passenger rail does not make sense for santa cruise county consider the huge cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build tens of millions of dollars each year to maintain that maintenance being a forever liability yes infrastructure projects are expensive all the more they need to be effective and passenger rail will not be effective for santa cruise county the tcaa projected ridership numbers are low it does not move large numbers of people to where they need to be rail is inflexible transit times are long a better solution is to invest in sc metro restore the service cuts that were made back in 2016 continued to implement bus on shoulder which has noted in the rtc corridor study has better transit time than rail and create a premium trail in the corridor next slide please going back to those operating and maintenance costs what will we spend per the rtc corridor study that's 13.2 million dollars each year next slide please the tcaa study tells us that regardless of which option we choose the operating and maintenance costs will be 23 to 25 million dollars each and every year not only is this a large number but look at how much it has increased from only two years ago next slide please as noted last month the tcaa ridership numbers are even lower than those already low numbers we had from the corridor study next slide please wrapping up remember the 10 000 signatures for trail and no train let's go forward with a better plan let's invest in metro implement bus on shoulder build a premium trail and as noted again in the sentinel today let's have a county wide vote thanks for listening thanks for your time thank you mr. mr. vernazza go ahead mr. vernazza you're on is he there ben ben vernazza still muted okay got you now got your band all right um go ahead due to due to set segment 12 um and the fact that the includes mostly expenditures for the train you may and be in breach of the fiduciary duties because on page 20 of the ordinance expenditure plan it says the measure revenues do not include funding for any new trail rail service and that's mainly trained in segment 12 the expenditure plan can be amended for you to do that and here's the process reciting necessity finding necessity that's hard then note note to every supervisor and every city council that you want this done and then you vote and the amendments require a two-thirds vote now segment 12 comes under the corridor and it talked about it in the in the ordinance but it didn't talk about the 2.7 miles cost a 45 million dollars a mile it also said revenues can be improved bicycle and pedestrian facilities on existing crossings so don't lie in the highway use that travels as bicycle pass and walking pass and you connect all of mid county between sea cliff to La Selva beach inexpensively the commission can only start to spend a new trail by making that amendment or otherwise you may be in breach get the votes go ahead it takes eight the breach matter matters should be said further by the county legal staff now high school Santa Cruz high school is the only one near the rails so it can't and the rail doesn't matter anyway because it doesn't go to the airport metro bus i put my application in for the oversight committee i love your support that was my job in the past a forensic accountant with trusts pension plans endowments wrap it up thank you thank you uh mr craig chatterton go ahead craig you're recognized unmute okay can you hear me now yes yes thank you for bringing up the slide all right thank you for the commissioners who have already raised a number of the issues that i have in the slide this is a summary that talks about the benefits and the costs of this rail system and i'd like to highlight the fact that aside from the costs which have been discussed widely already they're really very small and minor almost insignificant benefits if you look at the carbon offs the carbon savings that you get the emissions it's less than point one six percent of what the county produces today vehicle miles 22 000 less than point four percent of the vehicle miles traveled per day in the in the county traffic fatalities you may reduce injuries by one you will not reduce fatalities so if you look at this from a triple line perspective looking at the economic the environmental and the equity perspectives there's no benefit here it really just doesn't have to fight it in all this data comes directly from rgc reports this is either the current study or the ucis study this does not make sense and i think commissioners have already said that today and cobit 19 as one of the commissioners pointed out is another area that we just have no knowledge of at this point in time the how it's going to affect the future but spending 30 billion dollars or 30 million dollars a year for the next 30 years i don't see any way that this makes sense that's it you always a question did mike did you have a question you raised your hand no i'm sorry just so okay so in summary the lp in my view and i hope you'll agree if you look at the data and i do urge you to do your own analysis this i've tried to be as fair as possible these numbers come directly out of the rts rtc reports i think you'll see this just does not make sense unfortunately and the reason is because our as they pointed earlier our density and population it just simply does not match the areas that have successfully introduced programs like this thank you great thank you for your comments mr. colligan yes i can you recognize can you hear me chair consuls yes thank you chairman consuls and commissioners but colligan i'm a live oak resident this commission has now been studying options for the rail quarter for over seven years prior commissions have studied it for 31 years more you have had the numbers you need to make an informed decision on the use of the rail quarter since the completion of the ucis in 2018 more data is not going to change the fundamental question does the public want a rail solution providing limited ridership that will cause 500 million in capital 800 million in operating expenses over 30 years and require a new tax approved by two thirds of the voters that's the question unless you can answer yes to this question today you need to stop wasting our precious tax dollars and start developing a realistic and doable way to use the corridor only one option has ever been universally supported by the public a trail the huge question is what type of trail and how to preserve future options you have a simple path forward to preserve future options on the corridor with rail banking the tcaa only reinforces the conclusions of the ucis a train is not feasible or fundable in a county with 270 000 people most of whom have no possibility of ever using it if you feel you need additional public input make it representative and put a countywide vote on the ballot leadership is about telling the truth even when it disappoints some of your constituencies let's respect the voters intelligence and move in a direction that's obvious to the voters today thank you thank you for your comments but mr bruce saw y'all can you hear me yes go ahead you're acknowledged thank you hello chair gonzalez rtc commissioners and staff thank you for your diligent and thorough work on the tcaa i want to speak to the importance of metro and the corridor development process and business plan development friends of the rail and trail at no surprise to anybody supports the locally preferred alternative of rail on the rail line we realize that the tcaa is specific to the rail corridor but the rail corridor has to be part of a larger transportation system to be truly effective research shows that public transportation changes from an option of last resort to an option of choice of transit modes are integrated the schedule is reliable and not affected by traffic and frequency is every 30 minutes or better this is necessary to achieve huge increases in ridership our vision is that most rail stations would be mini metro centers with a bus or three waiting as passengers step off of rail vehicles using buses on short circulator routes integrated with rail gives more bang for the bus and allows more geography to be effectively served this is a spine and rib configuration rail transit on the rail corridor should not be viewed as competing with metro but rather as a resource operated by metro to provide better service to more riders throughout the county this means that metro needs to be deeply involved in integrated transportation planning to build the most efficient equitable and cost-effective transportation system possible thank you Mr. Rod Dierden Mr. Dierden you're on mute go ahead Mr. Dierden unmute yourself and we can come back to him Callie Arnold go ahead selling our good morning commissioners just wanted to a sound check can you hear me yes got you okay great um so as as i think you know i'm with santa cruz county friends of the rail and trail um and first i i want to really thank uh commissioner shifrin for mentioning the huge numbers of people who have uh overcome great technical hurdles and a lot used a lot of their time to try to be in this meeting right now um i'd like to take if you haven't done so yet i'd like to encourage the commissioners to each look at the bottom of your screen at the little participant button and click it and you should be able to see the list of names of who's here and you should really take a minute to scroll through it and see the the huge public interest in this issue um and the obviously the the public cares deeply about what we are doing here today and and what are we doing as a community we are considering which will be better for our county bus service on part of the corridor or rail service on the whole corridor other transit options have been considered and rejected trail only with no transit has been considered and rejected there are people who are unhappy that those earlier decisions were made and they want you to revisit that decision that was made two years ago but please keep in mind we've studied and rejected those options it's time to move forward today the question is bus on part of the corridor or rail service on the whole corridor and how are you going to make this decision the rtc is chosen to use that triple bottom line analysis which was already discussed your staff and consulting efforts experts have reached this conclusion that for our county passenger rail transit is the best we own the corridor and we have the tracks and it makes sense to use the resources that we have this option of passenger rail transit is broadly supported by many government agencies community organizations and the general public and the final tcaa and your agenda packet make this clear they've done tons of community outreach and people are telling you what they want it's not unanimous but the majority is vast the obvious choice is to approve the rail as the locally preferred alternative please direct the staff to thank you for your time this is plan uh mr lee s go ahead mr lee s uh we acknowledge you two minutes mr lee or really could you make a general comment that people need to be more ready to like on youth themselves you know so they can get on quickly this is sure we're wasting literally we're wasting 20 seconds a person okay so let's go to um jack carroll go ahead we're gonna move on to jack carroll hello this is jack carroll can you hear me yes you got two minutes jack good uh the state rail plan has been mentioned uh in several contexts and uh i want to comment that there is a zero funding provided by the state rail plan it's a at best a cost estimate um last time i looked at it um the uh regional plans that we had were in the tier three 2050 year 2050 vision that's uh 30 years from now and uh the possibility that sp1 greenhouse gas emissions reduction funding being available that diminishes every year as we move towards electric cars that there's a less and less advantage moving from an electric car to an electric train so i don't see that as a funding source that's available to us by the time we'll actually be uh asking for the money so um rail is just uh not a financial possibility for us it's it's a bad idea as far as ridership goes to and uh i'm not real excited about having a bus on our bicycle trails either that's my opinion thank you very much thank you jack mr dear ben uh is the uh is that working now yes yes good i apologize for the uh you have two minutes go problem uh yes thank you very much for uh hearing me i was asked by some friends over there to give a a listen to you what you're doing having gone through about 15 of these kinds of joint powers boards and and i am happy to be with you and congratulations to you mr chairman and the commission and to steve and ginger and shannon for their final reports a quick comment please remember that you're building a project for the next hundred years you're not building it for 30 years from now you're building it for a hundred years from now and if you if you lose that asset as a quarter uh then you lose it forever and and your valley your area is going to require that transportation over the longer term so please have the long vision as uh my friends bruce and and uh fred keely and others over there remember uh this is for the long vision and by the way huge amounts of funding are being created now uh by the uh biden administration uh in the carbon disincentive fees over a trillion dollars and uh it's going to go to projects that are shall we're ready because they're also creating jobs so if you're ready you're going to receive funding don't worry about that it's a matter of being ready that means completing your alternative analyses and identifying a course of action to go forward and of course your project needs to be carbon neutral so thank you very much for your good work and good luck with you thank you sir diane drier go ahead diane you you're on hello my name is diane drier and i i want to start with just saying i totally agree with uh mr darodon i hope everybody listen to that there are so many reasons that rail is a superior choice for us and i want to sorry i want to steer you towards chapter six of the tcAA report that summarizes all of the benefits rail protects the trail construction by assuring a continuous corridor rail provides faster travel times and greater travel time reliability rail allows for easy connections to the regional trail network rail network rail reduces auto vehicle miles traveled and greenhouse gas emissions rail assures energy efficiency per passenger capacity mile rail provides greatest opportunities for transit oriented development rail can be implemented most quickly and has more funding sources available it allows for future rate freight and excursion service and rail utilizes the whole right away between pahero and west side santa cruz rail provides the ability to have level boarding at all stations rail stations serve a high percentage of disadvantaged populations rail has more space for bicycles wheelchairs and other mobility devices given all the evidence the obvious choice is to go with the recommendation of the experts and confirm passenger rail as the best locally preferred alternative thank you thank you matt ferrell uh matt you're on uh can you hear me yes two minutes uh i serve as the city of santa cruz representative on the rtc's bicycle advisory committee which has endorsed electric passenger rail as the most bicycle friendly transit option i'd like to speak to some points in the cal trans comment letter that i think are important for today's discussion cal trans states that the 2018 rail plan identifies the santa cruz branch line is a key corridor for passenger rail throughout the region providing critical connections to the bay area central coast destinations and it is vital to preserve this rail line because it aligns with the state rail plan passenger rail service in this corridor can meet the demands of commuters while importantly providing all-day service and mobility that provides transportation options for all users in the community this is a priority for the states and there are significant state funding opportunities available that can provide a pathway for advancing santa cruz county connections as part of the statewide network building on the state's investments in the corridor through proposition 116 realizing the full pendenche pinnacle of a combined rail and active transportation corridor is consistent with the sustainable community strategies for the monterey bay the state rail plan connectivity for goals for this region and regional greenhouse gas emission target thanks for the time thank you matt robert singleton next go ahead robert you got two minutes great thank you can hear me yes my name is robert singleton i'm the executive director for the santa cruz county business council um organization represents the 85 or so largest employers in santa cruz county uh we were supportive of meser g in 2016 um but in 2017 after hearing from members of the rtc fort and greenway and the rate of multiple ridership studies 86 percent of our membership voted for a trail only option because we found that the train options were financially infeasible for providing the level of service and value um to reduce traffic on during peak times on highway one now after three years of studying uh people pulling out of the freight contracts um and uh your own analysis saying that bus rapid transit might be better for ridership uh we feel that the political and bureaucratic support for uh light rail is waning so now we're in an interesting place where we certainly are not in a position financially to make this kind of investment right now and given that the outreach that's already been done we feel it's a lot of self-selection uh none of the outreach has been scientifically valued or statistically accurate we don't know why the rtc didn't do an actual opinion poll since the tax measure is no doubt going to be needed and at this point looking at high speed rail the smart train and sonoma we feel it's really important to put this issue to a countywide vote when we're genuinely skeptical of the analysis that's been conducted thus far so we feel strongly we need to put this to a countywide vote and it's a course of action that we might be willing to pursue on our own accord if the if the rtc or in the board of supervisors is not willing to do it themselves thank you thank you for your comments Nancy Faustich next Nancy I'm Nancy Faustich director of rehenaracion we at rehenaracion parro valley climate actions strongly support rail transit for the rail corridor our county is disconnected and segregated who is here today who is not represented we had classes of pv high students here who had to leave to go to their next class kind of confusing to advertise a public hearing starting at 9 30 and they wanted to comment as the rtc prepares to accept or reject the staff's recommendation i'd like to know how many commissioners have built personal relationships with individual low-income brown essential workers the majority population in watsonville how many of you have ever ridden a bus from santa cruz to watsonville in traffic how many of you live with your family in one room of an apartment or home with limited kitchen and bathroom access how many of you have ridden the bike to a bus stop not knowing if there will be room on the bus for your bike i'm concerned about the bus option because one it would take longer to develop two there could be major problems with right of way since existing easements for for purpose of rail and three with a limited three bikes per bus that makes it a risky bet on whether any individual could count on riding to the station and getting on with their bike in contrast electric train will be faster accommodate many more bikes will be more accessible and will be implemented sooner and let's talk about those easements is a hidden issue here the large payoffs that would go to property owners for the right of way that's not for the purpose of the rail let's step back and recognize that it's imperative to get people out of cars if we're going to drive down emissions sufficiently to actually protect a livable planet with the change in federal administration i anticipate much new funding including for transit systems thank you nancy for your time thank you kary mcdonnell hi can you hear me yes sir you're on hi hi i'm a resident of live oak taxpayer and very interested in this issue i've listened to uh this presentation with an open mind i have a couple key questions there's been a lot of talk about studies how much public money tax money has actually gone into pain for the existing studies and and i heard some future studies is there a cap i've actually heard that it's been over 20 million dollars in studies i think which i think is unforgivable secondly is measure d money going into this project because i believe uh that that money was not to go into any to build or operate train secondly uh the second third point on all three rail options the cons were higher costs operation costs higher maintenance costs with lower ridership and less resident resilience to climate change even though those those are there was a lot a shorter list of cons those are massive cons to me and more importantly all three rail options as you stated uh there there are speeds were 30 to 60 miles per hour now as a bike an avid bike rider on the streets of santa cruz i would not feel safe riding next to a train going 30 to 60 miles an hour and then finally to suggest that the sample size of a thousand respondents is even close to representative of a town of 64,000 or whatever we would need at least in my estimation about 2,500 responses so i'm suggesting that this should go to a vote of the people and like i said i was fairly open-minded when i uh attended this conference i'm completely against the rail now and i'm actually four mass transit but this does not make sense for santa cruz in my opinion thanks for hearing me out and if you could answer those questions that'd be great thank you carry Gina Cole go ahead Gina you're acknowledged Gina you can speak thank you so much my name is Gina Cole i'm from bike santa cruz county sorry i lost my letter bike santa cruz county wishes to express their support for passenger rail as a local the local shoot sorry for the local whatever i'm sorry it's not coming the local preferred method of transportation along the rail line we believe that utilizing a rail option is essential to support a sustainable and safe way through the county from a cyclist perspective safe means separate from automobiles and wide enough to ensure safety for all users the rail trail is currently proposed offers this kind of safety and as for sustainability keeping the tracks does not put the trail at risk however removing the tracks does not only just keeping the rail intact save the trail it saves time and valuable resources in order to sustain the trail we must firmly support preserving the rail another reason that bike santa cruz county has is that bike santa cruz county has always advocated for bike friendly infrastructure that increases the ability of people to use a bike for daily trips to use a bike for recreation to use a bike for increased physical and mental health and well-being we will continue to advocate for safe routes for cyclists and we will continue to push for a trail alongside a rail line while we are not transit experts we do offer perspective as active bike commuters and recreational riders and it is in the spirit that we give our support for the rail as the clear choice for public transportation along the trail the transit corridor thank you thank you jenna my grab go ahead michael plus you're acknowledged you hear me yes yes yes this is my composer i'm the chair of the local group of the seara club we have 4 000 members in santa cruz county we support the staff recommendation for some kind of train or tram on the rail corridor we do have one condition which is that the trail is not put on the streets anywhere along the corridor doing so would divide up the majority of the members of the county that support a train and trail system so not even for a few blocks keep keep the keep the trail on the corridor and then build a train i know that we can do it the seara club supports the train because in the long term fixed line transportation with fixed stations encourages and supports the type of planning where and development where people walk and ride bikes for shorter trips and then use a train for regional mobility and that type of growth those types of lifestyles are what we need to reduce our largest cause of greenhouse gases trips by personal automobile now you may have heard me mention development and growth which is not something that the seara club you know often comes out in support of but our club supports the train partly because we do care about the needs of workers and others especially in south county and we see a way to support the needs of those workers in a way that is supportive of the world's climate which is some kind of rail system i've heard a lot of people talk about our train is too expensive that seems odd to me given that the average person spends 25 percent of their income on their car and for working class people it's more like 30 or 40 or 50 percent so for a worker to raise their sales tax by a few hundred bucks a year and you'd be able to operate less automobiles as a household that's a great bargain socialized transportation like socialized medicine is expensive for the government but it's a bargain for society as a whole especially people that have a hard time affording cars which are the kind of people we should be serving so again the seara club supports the staff recommendation mostly because it's the best thing for the world's climate but also because we want to collaborate with people that care about working people and care about the economy so we're with you we're supportive and let's move forward next um i have a phone number your last four digits are 3660 unmute yourself 3660 you have two minutes hi greetings chair gondolas and my name is Steve millen i'm a professional engineer and a board member of fort i have carefully reviewed the earlier graphs and final drafts of the tcaa r and is comparing them to each other and comparing them both to prior studies especially the unified forward investment study completed just two years ago i am frankly disappointed in the level of detail regarding estimated cost contained in this report what i and hopefully some of you have already noticed is the level of detail in this report is less than that provided in prior studies this bothers me because as studies become more focused the level of detail and accuracy of estimates should be increasing not decreasing fort has brought attention to several of these issues in prior written correspondence but fort's comments appear to have been ignored accordingly i'm bringing this to your attention today here are two clear examples first the contingency included in the ucis was 60,900,000 representing 23% of the estimated cost the contingency in the current report for light rail is now 127,200,000 more than double the previous figure and now represents more than 37% of the estimated cost second fort requested a more detailed breakdown of the estimated on m costs included in the November draft of this report the final report removed even the paltry amount of detail included in the November draft we strongly recommend the estimates be revised and updated to provide the level of detail and accuracy warranted by this once in a lifetime project in light of the tig m presentation include a probable range of costs and be made available for public review before proceeding with the pretend promised business plan which will rely heavily on these cost estimates thank you thank you mark Tina next Tina you're acknowledged good morning can you hear me yes go ahead two minutes Tina andrietta I've lived here for about 40 years I'm a volunteer for four friends of the rail trail I live in AAPTOS I live close to the rail corridor and I am speaking today in support supporting the choice of electric passenger rail as the locally preferred alternative transportation represents our single biggest choice given its share of greenhouse gas emissions adding passenger rail transit to our existing rail corridor is an opportunity to expand our choices for mobility and make a huge different locally to reduce the devious stating effects of green climate change I have five quick points vehicle miles traveled is the gold standard and measuring environmental impact a rail solution is estimated to offer a 31 percent greater reduction in vehicle miles traveled over bus rapid transit rail solution is estimated to also offer 31 percent greater reduction in global warming greenhouse gases over BRT a rail solution is estimated to offer 23 percent more effective energy use over BRT a rail solution is estimated to offer 86 percent greater capacity during peak travel times over BRT transit critical as we anticipate future demand a rail solution can be implemented up within 12 years four years faster than BRT finally apart from the TCAA study did you know particulate pollution from unregulated rubber tire wear is the significant element poisoning our water systems and our oceans rail based vehicles eliminate this unfortunate and not often discussed impact on road vehicles I urge the RTC to select rail transit and rapidly move forward to make this genus leave at 10 thank you Jim all right test one you got two minutes Jim all right thank you my name is Jim Jensen I live downtown Santa Cruz I live 500 feet from the Santa Cruz big trees Pacific railway I live 600 feet from highway one and you get to guess which one is noisier louder more pollution more dangerous to walk along one point I would like to make is that a lot of people are saying oh we can rail bank or this is an abandoned track that is not a local decision that is actually handled by the feds at the surface transportation board and anybody says it's abandoned or can be rail banked whether it's a letter to the editor to the Sentinel whether it's an activist or whether it's a politician they are lying to you this is Roy and Campbell probably say no we do not want to be an embargoed system and the surface transportation board will say no we can't pull that up so we're gonna have this track and we can either use it or not use it and I say if we have it use it because it makes more sense and then another person said about you know oh my goodness there's a train that's gonna go by me 30 miles an hour the thing about trains is they generally stay on the track and they don't swerve into bike lanes or onto sidewalks I used to walk down water street from branch 40 to ocean and every time I come to a corner I look around because I knew somebody was sneaking up behind me either in a car or a bike and trains just don't do that so I definitely recommend continuing the plan for rail transportation you know we got to think 58 years down the line and not be selfish thank you thank you Mr. Brian Peoples Mr. Brian Peoples you're acknowledged you have two minutes thank you hi this is Brian from trail now can you hear me yes the options included in the TCA will cost our taxpayers over a billion dollars it's time to stop wasting spending let's rail bank the coastal corridor proceed with building a transit oriented trail that serves the most in the county our voters have declared time and again that they want to trail now we do not want 60 trains a day speeding through our neighborhood we believe a continuous trail from Watsonville to the boardwalk can be built by 2023 we're asking the RTC to make this a reality trail now the trail as part of the TCA was not included as part of the analysis it did not include the miles of fencing that will be required to protect the public 12 people have died in the last three years from a smart trai