All right. Good job. Okay. Good afternoon, everyone. And welcome to the June 20 26 hearings
of the California Transportation Commission here in lovely Bolsom, California. Um, whoo,
yes. Um, we're gonna kick it off to Douglas for roll call. Douglas. Thank you, Chair.
Mr. Bradshaw, vice chair Cruz, present commissioner Brown Heinz, commissioner eager here. Commissioner
Grisby, commissioner Gordino, commissioner man, commissioner Tiffany chair Falcone, president
Senator Cortez, assembly member Wilson chair. We have a form. Thank you, Douglas. And kicking
members of the board. Thank
you for changing it back to you
for instructions for public
participation. Thank you,
chair. Welcome to day one of
the June 2026 CTC meeting in
Folsom. Please note that
because this is a two day
meeting, you will need to use a
separate link to attend the
meeting remotely tomorrow. The
links can be found on the first
page of the meetings agenda on
our website. Please use the
questions tab in the webinar.
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Thank you for joining us today.
We know your time is valuable
and we appreciate you sharing some of it with us.
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you, Douglas.
Just moving on, we're gonna kick off this hearing
with a welcome to the region
and I think we have Mayor Justin Raichel.
Mayor, did I say your last name correctly?
Raichel, thank you.
Good afternoon, there we go.
that sounds better. Welcome to Folsom. As you said, my name is Justin Rochal and I have the honor and privilege of serving as the mayor of Folsom this year. Also with us today, we've got City Manager Brian Whitemeyer, and then our City Engineer and Public Works Director Rebecca Neeves, and our Public Information Officer Christine Brainerd. So Folsom is one of California's top ranked and fastest growing cities with also a rich cultural history and a thriving historic district.
the U. S News and World Report active actually ranked us the number one place
to live in California last year, and we're the ninth fastest growing city in
California amongst mid side cities. We have strong ties to Sacramento and the
broader region. We're a charter city and we participate in eight regional joint
powers authorities to solve regional challenges. We're a suburb with
increasing density and we have an increasing demand for multimodal
transportation options to support our growth.
We're also a regional job center.
We're anchored by technology, health care,
and advanced industries.
While Folsom has been on the technology map for decades,
thanks to a large Intel R&D campus,
today we're actually home, not home,
but we have five of the world's global semiconductor
companies which have significant presences
right here in Folsom.
And California's electrical grid is also run from Folsom
thanks to Cal ISO.
We're a key gateway between Sacramento County
and El Dorado County along the US 50 corridor.
Next slide, please.
So our region is rising to the challenge
of California's housing crisis.
For the last eight years,
the six county Sacramento metropolitan area
has been the leading housing producer per capita.
We've built these houses across the income spectrum
from affordable to luxury,
and we're consistently innovating
here on this project. We will
see what happens on our missing
middle challenge. We have done
this as construction costs have
skyrocketed and our
infrastructure to support this
housing has lagged. Local
officials do our best to tell
the story and get creative, but
every dollar we can put to our
infrastructure lowers the
anti-growth pushback that can
come with a rapidly changing
community. Next slide, please.
These are some of our new trails
going down in Folsom Ranch
where we have built almost 5,000
the city of Toronto. The city of
Also is home to over 50 miles of trails and what you can see on this map is our 30 more miles planned and
multiple over crossings for safety
We are very aware that every commuter we can get on a bike or walking helps our traffic flow and makes our community a better
place to live
next slide
The city of Folsom and the Saykog region want to take this opportunity to thank the CTC and our state and federal partners
for their ongoing commitment to delivering these infrastructure investments in our communities and
are directly tied to the growth and answering the call to our region's housing needs. We're
going to share a few projects that aren't necessarily from Folsom, but we want to talk
about our region because the growth is something that's happening really throughout this whole
area. Next slide. In this slide, we've got the Hazel Avenue interchange located in Sacramento
County, which serves the communities and cities of Folsom, Rancho Cordova, and the county.
It's directly tied to the support of future housing development and planned affordable housing.
In 2023 through a local partnership program application with Sac County and Sacramento
Regional Transit, CTC awarded $15 million in funds showing its ongoing commitment to housing
development through supportive infrastructure funding. The folks who had the opportunity to
take the regional bus tour this morning had the chance to see this project firsthand. And the
CTC recently took action related to this funding throughout construction of segment one of the
project to move forward this fall. Next we have the Citrus Heights Auburn Boulevard Complete
street's phase two. We had to wait a bit for this picture as they set this just a couple nights ago.
The Auburn Boulevard complete streets phase two project revitalizes a one-mile stretch of
commercial corridor through the heart of Citrus Heights from the Roseville I-80 border to just
north of Antelope Road along the historic Lincoln highway route. The project is the culmination of
more than 20 years of focused efforts working with hundreds of property owners, business owners,
facilities, design teams, the CTC, FHWA, and SACOG to deliver on commitments for improved
safety, accessibility, and functionality while supporting the economic revitalization and
development of the Auburn Boulevard corridor. The Phase 2 project has received over $24
million in grant funding from design through construction. Next slide. Next up we've got
the Whitelock interchange and Laguna Creek pedestrian overcrossing. This proposed Laguna
area. Project the laguna
creek in a regional trail
crossing at state route 99
project will close a major
gap in the laguna creek in a
regional trail system and
provide a safe route across
the freeway for transit use
for trail users. The project
will construct a 760 foot
long pedestrian overcrossing
over the state route 99 as
well as trail segments on
each side of the freeway to
the existing trail network.
A prefabricated steel truss
the city of Davis. The city of
do not have to transit through downtown Sacramento.
It also provides some multimodal travel opportunities
and encourages our strong regional partnerships
to deliver these.
Next up, we've got the SACRT,
largest capital project in SACRT history,
the Gold Line Light Rail Modernization Project,
with significant impacts in Folsom.
This consisted of a purchase of 76 new low floor cars,
the reconfiguration of 48 stations,
and a new passing track in Folsom
to reduce transit times to 15 minute service.
Significant funds were obtained
from the Federal Rail Vehicle Replacement Grant Program,
solutions for congested corridors,
and state contributions have contributed
up to 40 million for this.
This combined funding advances mobility, sustainability,
and access across the entire region.
Next slide, we have our Empire Ranch interchange.
This interchange is gonna provide safety
and congestion relief for one of the city's
critical access points and regional circulation
the new housing located in the Folsom Plan area.
As I mentioned, we built 4,800 homes down there,
and that's just the homes on the south side of the freeway.
This interchange provides direct connection to schools,
Folsom Lake College,
and four predominant healthcare systems that are here.
Next slide.
I wanted to talk also about
the power of public-private partnerships.
Local agencies and cities are finding themselves short
on infrastructure funding, but with creativity,
many have opportunities to bridge that gap
community oriented development
project. It is a process that
will work through the power of
public private partnerships.
Recently the city of Folsom had
significant success in
conditioning a community
oriented development project to
fund a pedestrian overcrossing
at East Midwell which is one of
the busiest arterials in our
region. The developer is fully
funding the environmental
clearance design and right away
to make the project shovel
ready and a prime candidate for
construction funding. Next
slide. And in conclusion I
to bring your paddle board or
your bike to get out and
explore our trails. I'm sure
we'll be happy to find you on
while you're here. Thank you
all for your time and enjoy
Folsom. Thank you so much,
Mayor. Justin, any public
comment on the mayor's
presentation? We do have a
virtual attendee with her hand
raised at this time. I'd call
on Marissa Brown, who is the
mayor of the city and is one
of the newest members of the
you with their hand raised at this time. I'd call on Marissa Brown. Sorry, my hand was raised a
little too early. I'm gonna go ahead and lower my hand. Thank you. There were no other requests to
comment. Thanks, Justin. Any comments, questions from commissioners and anyone else from the dice?
Okay, Vice Chair Cruz. I just want to thank the mayor of Folsom for making that great presentation.
It's always good to be in Folsom. I don't live too far in Sacramento.
And I've always enjoyed the Folsom Lake, not just like Natoma, but also
the lake, but also a great rodeo venue right behind us.
We have a great rodeo there every single year, but
the improvements are instrumental, obviously, to the region.
Allow for a lot of connectivity between Sacramento, Ranch Cordova,
and Folsom, which is all areas that are really growing
that we need to reach out to
other people. And creating
good opportunities for folks
who want to live in this area.
So thanks again for all the
work you do. We appreciate it.
Great comments. Thank you,
Vice Chair Cruz and thank you
again, Mayor Ray Phil, for your
presentation, for welcoming us
and allowing us to use your
facilities in Folsom. Glad to
be here. All right. We are
going to move forward. We got
folks, 193 items. Do you think
with tab three, approval of the minutes.
Thank you, chair.
We'll take tabs three, four, and five together.
Tab three is approval of the minutes
for the May 14, 15, 2026 commission meeting
and the April 9th, 2026 joint meeting with CARB and HCD.
Tab four is the commissioners meetings for compensation
and tab five is the advisory committee members compensation.
Staff recommends your approval.
thank you, Douglas. Any public comment? No, there was no request to comment on
these items. Any comments, questions? Motion from the
dais. Commissioner Tiffany moves and seconded by Vice Chair Cruz. All in favor?
Any opposed? Extensions? Okay. Tab six, update from our Chief Deputy Director
from. Thank you very much.
Good afternoon, everyone. And
thank you Mayor Ray Thorpe for
welcoming to Folsom today. I'd
also like to thank Cal Trans
District three for arranging
this morning's tour of projects
in the region. Some of these
projects are quite familiar to
members of the commission staff
and commissioners. We
appreciated the opportunity to
see them up close.
Commissioners We have a lot on
the Senate Bill one programs.
These guidelines are the result of an extensive public workshop and stakeholder engagement process. The investments the commission makes through the S B one programs are among the most impactful decisions that the commission is entrusted with.
we won't be adopting new projects for these programs until next summer. We are just now
entering the application evaluation stage for the Active Transportation Program. The
deadline for applications for the Active Transportation Program closed earlier this week, and the
Commission received 316 applications with a total request of $2.9 billion. As a reminder,
Our commission has about $620 million available to award.
That means we can only fund 20% of the amount requested, once again illustrating the significant
need in this program.
Our volunteer review teams will be evaluating applications over the coming months and staff
will bring recommendations for funding to the commission later this year.
Over the course of our agenda this week, the commission will be asked to consider more
the city of California. We are
now at the city of California.
We are now at the city of
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city of California. We are now
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that we will be working to
to make sure that there is a
daunting undertaking.
I would like to thank our
clerk staff, Doug, and Justin
Hall for their hard work
preparing and distributing our
meeting materials.
I would also especially like to
thank the office of the CTC
liaison who had to navigate a
particularly challenging set of
circumstances this year.
Thank you to Jaime, Christina,
Nicole, Christopher and the
rest of the OCTCL team for
helping put together this
We look forward to supporting you and working with you to help align internal Caltrans processes to streamline our agenda development in the future.
Commissioners, I have two staffing updates.
First, Erwin Rufino is concluding his temporary assignment with the commission in early July and will be returning to Caltrans traffic operations.
I think Erwin is here. There he is.
to have a
opportunity to share their
experiences.
Erwin jumped right into
supporting the engineering
team when he joined the
commission in April and he has
been essential in laying the
groundwork for the
commission's tolling guidelines
update that we expect to
initiate later this year.
I would like to thank Erwin
for his service to the
commission and I would like to
thank Caltrans for loaning
Erwin to us for these past few
months.
These opportunities to build
interagency knowledge and
relationships are beneficial
for both Caltrans and the
commission. And the second
staffing update, David Gianco
has joined the commission's
engineering team on a permanent
basis, and I believe David's
here to. David brings extensive
private and public sector
experience to the commission,
including time with the city of
Chico Caltrans and a temporary
role here at the commission
many years ago. Commissioners,
uh, finally, as a reminder, our
you. And then we have the
director Taylor's medical
leave scheduled to run
through early August. I'll
once again be assisting you
at our next meeting and in
the interim, I'm sending her
best wishes while she is out.
That concludes my report.
However, this is also an
action item today. We have
the, um, Commission meeting
calendar for 20 27 attached
to the book item for your
to comment on our chief deputies update request a comment on the item. Any comments, questions
and emotion from the dais. Okay, motion by Vice Chair Cruz seconded by Commissioner eager
on favor. Those abstentions. Okay, thank you. That passes. All right. Thank you, Chief Deputy
Okay. So we have seven
commissioner and ex officio
reports. Anybody want to make a
comment? Yes, Commissioner
Tiffany. Thank you, Chair
Falcon. Um. As Paul just
mentioned, um, we had a great
tour this morning. Um and I
for me personally, it was quite meaningful
because I joined the commission early part of 2024.
And one of the very first things that I did
was to drive up to Sacramento or actually West Sacramento
and be there for a hearing on Yolo 80.
And I know that was a major project in our state.
And for me, and I mentioned this as Sergio,
it really encapsulates what, in terms of projects,
what I think is the proper way to go about things.
And that is to look at a balanced approach.
We had a situation where we're dealing with congestion,
but to deal with that, we're looking at managed lanes,
we're looking at expanded bike lanes,
we're looking at a multimodal approach,
which makes a lot of sense,
and I think it struck a very good balance,
and it's exciting to see the project.
So I wanted to comment on that.
I also, on a bigger subject,
wanted to mention that we heard some exciting comments made
that I guess would fall under the category of cost
efficiencies.
And one had to do with kind of the mixed results,
although it was more to blame with the railroads,
but mixed results on a design build approach
on one of the projects.
And then also we heard some exciting,
what I thought exciting cost efficiencies achieved
by using a 3D modeling approach on one of the projects.
And after the tour, I told Sergio that I appreciated him
kind of teeing up the subject for me
because, and let me just take a moment to make my point.
Several weeks ago, I was at a city of Salinas
infrastructure summit and one of the things that was highlighted was the spending gap
or the funding gap that we have over the next 10 years, 2025 to 2035, as has been presented.
There's going to over that 10 years, there's going to be a $215 billion gap in funding
that's what's projected. Um,
I feel strongly that we have to look at the other side of the coin as well.
And it's exciting to hear that I think Caltrans is looking at that as well, which is, how
do we create more cost efficiencies?
How do we potentially speed up the process in terms of getting transportation projects
projects done. Because obviously time is money and as projects go longer, it generally is
going to cost more money. So how do we focus on cost efficiencies so that we can get more
transportation projects done? I feel like that should be a real priority for the entire
other state, Caltrans, our commission and staff, and let me just mention specifically
that if we look at this agenda, by my count, there's roughly 10 supplementals that we'll
be looking at that amount to over 25 or just about $25 million, and there's, I think, 54
time extensions.
I'm not going to pick on any particular supplemental or time extension.
and they all have good arguments for why it happened,
I get that.
But again, if we could reduce those supplementals
to a certain extent,
if we could reduce the number of extensions,
then that's gonna save money that can be then used
for more projects throughout the state.
And so with that, I'll just close my comments.
I just, again, think that should be a priority for us.
And I thank you for your time.
Thank you for those comments, Commissioner Tiffany.
We have our director here from Caltrans, Dina.
Do you want to comment on any of the comments
that Commissioner Tiffany,
I just wanted to give you that opportunity since.
No, thank you very much Commissioner Tiffany
for the comments and yes, I definitely do agree
that time is money and looking for those opportunities
for efficiencies and I'll be talking about
some of the innovations that we're looking at
in the department actually in some of my reports.
But the goal is to deliver the projects
as fast as we can.
We recognize that every delay is an additional cost
and also to limit the amount of time
that we're asking for extensions, time extensions.
Most of them come as a result of circumstances
or project deliverables that we were not able to meet
for one reason or another, but definitely noted.
And yes, we're definitely in agreement, thank you.
the city of Toronto. And then,
that we're going to continue
And we'll come up with some
topics to focus on that I'll
address some of the issues
commissioner Tiffany that you
raised at a future commission
meeting later this year.
Yeah, I support that. And thank
you, Director L. Tawansi for
for jumping in and commenting on
the commissioners comments. Any
other comments and then we have
looking at me. Yes, thank you. And Commissioner Tiffany, thank you for those comments. We've had those discussions many a time of what we could do better and looking at going forward. But speaking of better, certainly that tour today, looking at the exciting things that you all are doing in this region. It did invigorate us. We were talking about the BIM process and what that could be going forward.
making sure that we're looking at things upfront
before those mistakes happen at the end.
We fix them upfront.
So we were excited to hear all of that.
Taking that tour, I think some of you had heard before,
I went to UC Davis Law School and went across that causeway.
I worked at the downtown Sacramento.
So I was prepared to have PTSD going across the causeway,
but was very excited to see the work that was done there
and the bicycle lanes that are safe now
and the managed lanes down the middle.
I know that was a hard fought and hard time,
long time coming but I did wanna congratulate you all
on that causeway work and the Yellow 80 work.
The other thing, I did a lot of travel
in the last couple of weeks
And I just wanted to congratulate Caltrans
for the work that you've all been doing.
And I know we're getting towards the end of the year
and everybody's trying to get everything done.
I had to drive from San Diego, to Tulare, to Fresno,
to the Central Coast and then up into the Northern Coast
and driving on the 41 between Fresno and San Luis Obispo.
That project that is saving lives between that area has been in the works for 25 years and
getting that in the books and going is certainly a huge hurdle and I appreciate all that work.
Going from Bakersfield over to the coast on the 46 that is absolutely gorgeous and
when I got to San Luis Obispo people asked me, are you the one that did the 46? We can't tell you
how great this is. I said oh yeah I did it. I was out there with my shovel. But I did notice
that people were not stopped on the freeway going that direction. There were not trucks
that were passing in the wrong lanes because now there's two lanes there. The air quality and the
safety issues that were being addressed by the work that you all are doing in those areas
was truly miraculous. And so I did, Dina, want to congratulate you and the teams out there
for all the hard work that you're doing. And I know sometimes you get the other side of that,
but I was able to witness the wonderful work. And I know District 6, you were blaming me for
all your VMT, but I didn't have any other way to get there. I promise I had to drive there,
but it was amazing. So I just wanted to congratulate you.
Welcome back. Thank you,
Commissioner. Commissioner Man.
Thank you so much. Um and I'll
just echo the remarks from my
comment from my colleagues that
it was a great tour today. I
really appreciated the
opportunity to see more of the
community on and independently.
I was also able to experience
some of your ATP projects and
your trail system this morning.
Um and it's great. So you know,
to this area. So thank you for those comments. For me I wanted to just highlight some of the work
that's happening in Southern California. So I know in two places in California we're hosting the World
Cup and Metro has been doing a lot around community engagement to get more people on the transit system.
And that level of community engagement has been really interesting to see of how they're converting
and how they're now getting new riders onto that system
and what that looks like.
But their engagement has really ranged.
We heard a little bit about it
when we had the town hall in South Los Angeles.
There was some discussion about what they were gonna be doing
in terms of the activations.
And so being able to see some of it actually implemented now
has been really helpful to understand
how you're really converting individuals
don't typically take transit into new transit riders. And so it's been a great process to be
able to experience that in Southern California in addition to watching the World Cup games. So
thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Mann. Yes, Commissioner Brown-Hines. All right, I actually
participated right into the World Cup and LA Metro is wonderful. We've been a park
from so far and takes shuttle and then take a shuttle back worked perfectly. So I wanted to acknowledge that. And then I secondly I just wanted to add I yesterday, I participated in a groundbreaking ceremony in Riverside.
the Ramona Expressway, it's like a mid county project,
safety project.
And it was just great to see the investments
that are being made there in terms of,
especially in terms of safety.
I hadn't realized it's an area close to my home.
There had been at least 30 collisions and fatalities
in that stretch of the expressway over the past 10 years.
So that was one of the things that was mentioned yesterday
that this will help save lives.
to see these investments, um,
throughout throughout Southern California especially in our region. Um, and the funds
came from our local partnership program and the solutions for congested corridors. And
so we were acknowledged there. So I just want to congratulate our CTC for, um, that starting
that project is going to take I think about two years. Um, so I can't wait to go back
to see it once it's finished. I just wanted to acknowledge that as well.
Thank you, commissioner for representing the CTC at that event. Any other comments? Okay.
Just really quick couple things, you know, Commissioner Tiffany and my colleagues, Commissioner
Eger and man encapsulated well our wonderful tour this morning. I just really wanted to
the last one. I wanted to be a
and it's going to be done and
so it sounds like it is going
to be done.
And so I wanted to congratulate
Sergio and his team for really
moving, you know, very, very
thoughtfully and quickly on that
project.
I know it wasn't easy because of
the issues that Tiffany,
Commissioner Tiffany brought up
earlier related to the railroads
along with other issues that
were mentioned.
the other project was the gold line which was really neat and and our SCCP
funds went towards some upgrades and improvements on on that line that's
really excited to see a couple of our other funding programs that were brought
up during this morning's tour was shop funding going to to ELO 80 as well as T
and so it's great to hear when our programs that we make decisions on are brought up and highlighted as really being impactful in completing and progressing or advancing these projects.
So I wanted to thank the team at Caltrans for keeping us updated on how the funding
that we approve here goes to work and goes to seeing these projects come to fruition.
So thank you. The second thing I wanted to mention,
Okay. So as you can tell, we have one other missing commissioner. We lost a Commissioner
Elliott to the high speed rail. That's fine. I guess he's needed there. But, you know, we only
had him for a year and his presence was definitely very felt when he did speak up, folks listened.
He did have certain issues that he championed and they were issues that are felt up and down the
the state related to housing in particular. And how our land use and transportation is
informed partly on our need for housing. And so I just wanted to if he ever listens to
this hearing, maybe I'll text him and tell him to listen. But you know, we respected
the work that he did here. I understand that he actually enjoyed his time. I'll be brief
on the commission. We do have a proclamation with all the whereas is and where ends in
in celebrating the work that he did with us and I hope that he remembers us finally as
he is taking up high speed rail. I have gently advocated for him to look at San Diego. Don't
forget us when he's thinking about the highest speed rail. But we know that he's going to
to be doing good things there. And I just wanted to highlight for him, or to all of you, a proclamation for him, and we will be sending that to him. And if there's anybody else that has any comments related to my comments, yes.
Well, I'll just add that, and you already said it, but I thought that Commissioner Elliott, as you pointed out, when he spoke, people listened.
listened. And he was very passionate. And I always felt like I learned a lot when I heard him. So I,
for one, I think all of us will really miss his voice. I know he's going to do great things.
He's, that's a challenging, you know, project that he's being put on. But I want to congratulate
him on his new position. So thank you. Yes, we think he's been well placed, but we will miss him.
So thank you for your comments.
Any other comments?
Any public comment on all of our comments up at the dais?
Anything?
There's no comments on your comments or anything else.
Wonderful, thank you.
All right, moving on then.
Next, we have our esteemed undersecretary James Hacker,
who has become kind of a partner with me
in many events and speaking engagements.
Good to see you, James.
Good to see you, Madam Chair.
we've shared microphones a lot lately, I think. But good afternoon, everybody. Appreciate you all
being here this afternoon. Appreciate the chance to join you and represent CalSTA here, and thank
you to the City of Folsom for hosting. It's June. We're already halfway through the year, which is
surprising every time I look at the calendar. But given that we're halfway through the year, we have
a lot of progress to report and much work that remains to be done. So go to the next slide.
will start with safety. So first of all, just flagging that hopefully everybody has had a chance
to watch the World Cup. The Office of Traffic Safety has been running a paid media flight
featuring Think Before You Drink and the Go Safely movement that started June 8th and will run
through July. Messaging men to highlight the dangers of impaired driving, particularly around
large events, and hopefully help offset some of the traffic risks that naturally come with an event
of that size and that scope. Additionally, the Office of Traffic Safety ran their annual
safety law enforcement forum, which brought together traffic safety professionals including
with folks on law enforcement. It highlights the critical role that safety plays as our top
priority and the critical role that law enforcement plays in that effort. And Secretary Omashakan
delivered the keynote address. That event always provides great conversation. We can
cite the panel's speeches and discussions. So thank you to the Office of Traffic Safety and
to Director Doherty and her team for organizing such an important forum. Moving on, our work
continues on agencies state priority safety corridor effort we've already we
have three corridors that are live all down in Southern California officer
traffic safety organized a May 16th event down in Los Angeles to drive
public and community engagement on the Avalon Boulevard safety corridor and so
that work and that community engagement is continuing across all three quarters
while we really ramp up efforts to identify additional corridors to announce
and launch hopefully later this year.
And lastly, the Zero Traffic Fatalities Task Force,
which was kicked off as part of the Joint Secretary's safety
policy, which was launched late last year,
has been running full steam.
They recently held their third meeting earlier this month,
focusing on data and the ways that data can help inform
new and innovative ways to reduce
the likelihood of high speed and severe crashes.
They also have their initial list of recommendations,
which they are reviewing and finalizing.
meeting for is planned for July 20th with a focus on land use and transit after which we will transition into sort of the finalization and implementation process of those recommendations. So thank you to all the members of that task force for all their hard work. We'll go to the next slide.
Under climate, CalSTA is a member of the Strategic Growth Council or SGC. The most recent SGC meeting back in April, which is hosted by UC Merced.
Council voted to award more than $45 million for 23 agricultural preservation projects,
again, with CalSTA support, which are very excited to support these projects under the
Sustainable Agricultural Lands Conservation Program.
These 23 projects, including several tribal entities such as the YTT Northern Chumash
Tribe, will protect approximately 17,381 acres statewide, spanning 16 counties, and help
drive further sustainable land use across the state.
Go to the next slide.
transit. Couple of exciting updates. First under Cal ITP or the integrated transit program.
Metrolink went live with Cal ITP last week on the Metrolink arrow and San Bernardino lines,
and this allows that service to provide secure, cash-free methods to pay for transit,
including simple tap to pay. And by making those payments open and contactless, contactless,
the goal is to reduce friction and make it easier for riders to use transit and therefore drive
and increase transit ridership.
That pilot program was developed with support
from our CALSA team,
as well as the team
from the Southern California Association of Governments.
So thank you to SCAG for all their help,
and we're excited to continue this work
across additional rail lines
and additional transit agencies later this year.
And lastly on this slide,
the Transit and Intercity Rail Capital Program, or TIRCP.
The cycle eight call for projects were due May 18th.
We received 54 new submissions,
which significantly oversubscribes the amount of money
we project that we will have for it.
So similar to other comments from the commission earlier
about sort of oversubscribe programs,
you know, it does make our decision-making process
extra difficult, but it is exciting to know
that there's that much demand for transit investment
and additional transit capital out there.
And so we look forward to reviewing those applications
and then funding as many of them as we can later this year.
Um. We'll go to the next slide.
Under equity, uh, Council continues to support the work of the National Equity and Infrastructure Project, or E I. P. On June 4th, Secretary Omashocken delivered the opening remarks at the E I P 2026 playbook for a new paradigm.
signatories to the EIP pledge, including the California High
Speed Rail Authority, as well as our valued partners
at the ports of Oakland and San Francisco.
EIP commits to improve public contracting practices
by creating competitive opportunities
for historically underutilized and disadvantaged businesses,
developing more prime joint venture and equity contracting
opportunities for those firms.
To date, there are more than 100 nationwide signatories
to that pledge, including 39 right here
California which includes we're very proud to say both CalSTA and Caltrans.
Additionally moving on to our DBE program or the Caltrans disadvantaged
business enterprise program. We've been in the process of reworking that
program following new guidance from the federal government late last year. The
reevaluation of the first phase of the new DBE rules or the updated guidance
was completed June 1st of this year just a few weeks ago. Within a six-week
and so we've been in the
last week period, Caltrans
reevaluated 771 submissions
for DBE certification and
approved 435 back into the
DBE program.
We'll continue to work with
our partners in sort of our
historical DBE programs as
well as our partners across
the broader CUCP program to
complete our recertification
process and submit an updated
DBE list to the federal
government by July 1st with
the state of San Diego. We're
There we go. Alright, under innovation, lots to report here. So first under autonomous
vehicle regulations, earlier this year the DMV completed a multi-year effort to update
its existing autonomous vehicle regulation program, which regulates the deployment of
autonomous vehicles across the state. Notably, in addition to updating light duty standards
including a couple of things that I'll mention here, this allowed for the operation of heavy
duty vehicles in both a commercial cargo moving use case as well as some exciting potential
use cases around transit and other uses. So we're excited for these things to go live.
DMV and CHP are now in the implementation phase, which are very excited about several
provisions authorized by AB 1777, which was passed back in 2024. Strengthens our oversight
of A.V. operators with a notable focus on first responder interaction and emergency response.
These new rules will go live July 1st, so the regs are in place, but the new first responder
standards go into effect next month. These include a new process for notices of A.V.
non-compliance, which allows local law enforcement to ticket autonomous vehicles
for traffic and moving violations. DMV and CHP have submitted a policy memo and are in
in the process of providing training materials and opportunities local law
enforcement so this goes live in a hopefully relatively seamless manner.
Those standards also include new requirements for first responder
communications. This requires AV vehicles or autonomous vehicles to have a two-way
communication device and requires operators to have an emergency response
line staffed 24-7. It also requires AV companies be responsive to a
that we're calling sort of emergency avoidance areas.
So it authorizes local authorities to designate areas
as sort of active emergencies or avoidance areas
that they then communicate to the AV companies
who will then geo fence their maps to prevent their vehicles
from moving into those spaces,
which hopefully will help keep the roads clear
for first responders in emergency situations.
So we're very excited for these things to go live
and we're looking forward to the continued evolution
of this program and of this market
in the coming months and years.
Additionally, under the NEVI program,
which is the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Program,
Caltech's and Caltrans continue to work closely with CEC
to implement that program, which again was funded
by the federal IIJA.
We had the program fully obligated
before the end of the federal fiscal year last year,
which was very exciting.
So now we are in the process of soliciting projects
worth roughly $306 million
for additional EV infrastructure statewide.
Applications for rounds three, four, and five
are now closed. And six is coming live shortly. And if we'll go to the next slide. Oh, that
was much quicker. Nice. So under economic prosperity, focusing on PFIP, so the Port
Infrared Infrastructure Program, we continue to implement this program now, our focus on
allocating money and making these projects real. Once again, this is a program that is
intended to invest in infrastructure, both in terms of cargo management, cargo handling,
as well as actual transportation infrastructure
like roads and rails to help speed the movement
of freight statewide and to reduce
both the social and environmental impact thereof.
To date, we've allocated more than $543 million
of this program statewide.
And we're looking to allocate an additional $632 million
statewide over the next year.
It's between 25, 26 and 26, 27.
So between the next 13 months or so.
These investments are supporting port modernization,
rail capacity expansion, zero emission freight infrastructure
and trade quarter improvements throughout California.
And importantly, as we allocate this money,
we're moving into the delivery,
the actual project delivery process.
We're very focused on helping our grantees navigate
permitting issues, navigate local engagement
and actual project delivery,
so that we can go from sort of the paper exercise
of signing off on an award and an allocation
and turn it into an actual charging station
or an actual rail line or an actual zero or low emission crane.
So we're excited for this program to continue.
We're excited to make the additional investments that
sit in that program real.
And we're looking forward to the long-term impact
that we'll have on the state of California.
If we go to the next slide, that concludes my remarks.
Thank you once again for having me.
And I'm happy to take any questions that you all may have.
Thank you, Mr. Undersecretary.
Any public comment?
you. Thank you so much. You
know, we did not receive your
request to comment on the item.
Thank you. Any questions or
comments from commissioners?
Yes, Commissioner man. Thank
you so much, Mr Undersecretary
for that presentation. It was
very helpful. Um I have a bit
of an in the weeds question, so
I don't know if it actually can
be answered. Um now, but to the
you're running safety campaigns? How do you measure the outcomes and the effectiveness
of those campaigns? Thank you.
Thank you, Commissioner. That's a great question. And I will do a very inartful and incomplete,
or give you a very inartful and incomplete answer. And then I'm happy to facilitate a
conversation with OTS to give you a longer answer. OTS for the most part is the repository
of the state's traffic safety data. They work both with Caltrans as well as with CHP. And
So they're tracking serious incidents, minor incidents,
to the extent that we have the data.
They're tracking that data at the local level in real time.
So we're doing a communications campaign.
They're purchasing ads they know what markets
they're buying them in.
And then they can theoretically compare that against traffic
data over the same time.
And so I think that's typically a standard part
of their campaigns, but happy to facilitate a longer
conversation about exactly how we collect that data, exactly
how we run that analysis.
and what kind of outcomes we've seen.
Thank you.
If there are no other questions or comments,
we will move along.
Thank you again, Mr. Secretary.
Next item is an update from our Caltrans director,
Dina El-Tawansi.
Good afternoon, Chair Falcone and commissioners.
Dina El-Tawansi serving as Caltrans director,
and thank you for the opportunity
to provide the department's updates today.
Before I jump into my updates,
I just want to take a moment to acknowledge
and thank one of our executive team members
who is attending the Lost CTC Meeting.
Please help me acknowledge David Amble,
our Acting District 4 Director.
He's gonna be retiring in the next few days.
Dave had served the state of California
for nearly 36 years,
and I had the pleasure of working real closely with him,
co-leading District 4 before I came to this position.
He's a great asset to the department and to California,
and we really are gonna miss him.
that we can engage in. Thank
you, David for all we've done.
Next slide, please. My first
update for the commission this
afternoon concerns to
celebrations. Keltran's
recently had for our clean
California campaign. First I'm
pleased to announce that in
district one, Keltran's York
tribe leaders and community
members came together for the
opening of the walk. Are she
funded through a five million grand
as part of the York Tribe Reservations Parts Project.
The park creates a welcoming community space
after Alter Camp Road on the north side
of the Klemeth River.
This project shows what's possible
when state tribal and community partners
work together to deliver meaningful public spaces
that support youth, family, and cultural vitality.
Moving from Klemeth down south to the city of Pasadena,
and I'm also excited to share
that the city of Pasadena was
recently named the 100th
clean California community.
Joining 99 other communities
across the state committed to
beautification, accessibility
and stewardship.
For each of the 100 communities
it all began with taking a
clean California pledge to help
create a zero letter state and
start the designation process.
long-term anti-litter and community purification efforts. This includes local cleanups, events, and offering anti-litter lessons at local schools. Since the Clean California campaign began, Caltrans has collected and holded away 3.8 million cubic yards of litter and trash. That volume could completely cover nearly 600 football fields 3 feet deep in trash.
so it's a staggering amount of rubbish that has been collected.
Beyond the litter abatement, California, clean California
communities have built gathering spaces in places
where people access to parks have maintained open spaces.
And in a state as beautiful as California,
outdoors spaces are certainly one to thank our partners,
elected officials, and the dozens of communities,
organizers and the thousands of volunteers for making California a reality.
Next slide please.
I quit you.
Slagging a little bit.
Looks like we lost Wi-Fi.
It'll be just a second.
There we go.
We're back.
Thank you.
We're back.
All right.
Happy related birthday.
Happy related birthday.
All right.
I'm moving.
I know.
Yes, it is.
It is.
All right. Moving on to equity. Equity work in transportation happens through years of
determined effort. Often this policy work comes into fruition in the form of financial
resources to speak for our values as a transportation department. This year, aid sustainable transportation
planning grants are being awarded to tribes and to projects that directly support tribal
and the impact of the global
the implementation of the limited waiver of sovereignty and unity requirements had made it easier for native communities to receive and administer state planning funds.
By removing barriers in contracting, the department has opened doors to more tribes to engage meaningfully in transportation planning,
further localizing resources to meet more targeted needs.
Equally important, expanded outreach efforts has helped build stronger and trust-based
relationship with tribal partners.
Through technical assistance, tribally specific outreach, and ongoing dialogue, Caltrans has
been able to better align its programs with the needs and priorities identified by tribal
governments.
But these aid grants represent more than funding.
the signal progress towards a transportation system
that respects tribal sovereignty,
supports tribal self-determination,
and improves safety, mobility,
and economic opportunities in tribal communities.
And Caltrans is looking forward to continue
with this work together and expanding our collaboration
with all tribal communities in the years ahead.
Next slide.
Moving on to some of our climate action efforts,
So I want to update the commission on the latest wildlife crossings to be completed
in the state along with high along highway 97 in Siskiope County. Two crossings one is
an over crossing shown to the right and the other to the is an under crossing that have
been recently completed. 97 cuts across habitats of species, including deer, elk and other
and the state of California. We
at around 97, we are reconnecting ourselves with what it means to live in such a beautiful complex
and beautiful state. We continue to make progress on the 144 wildlife crossings prioritized in recent
years. With each crossing, we are one step closer to recollecting all communities in our state
so that the Californians, Californians human and wildlife alike, can not only sustain themselves
but thrive far into the future. Next slide. Caltrans environmental stewardship is also looking
further ahead to a future where California's shifting climate will mean changes to infrastructure
and maintenance. I'm pleased to announce an important step towards climate action goals
with the release of the updated department wide sea level rise guidance. This document
the city of Toronto. The city of
this update comes from the intentional coordination
of many climate change and C initiatives within Caltrans.
Due to the Caltrans guidance is in concert
with that of the Coastal Commission,
the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission
and other organizations.
This important policy advance Caltrans is
to develop solutions for changing climate
as we adapt to the near future
and our education plans.
Next slide.
And my next update is about the FIFA World Cup.
As the word joins us this summer for the FIFA World Cup,
I'm excited to share that with you,
I'm excited to share with you a new guidance
outlining best practices that have been developed
to support major events hosted in our state.
As you know, in recent year, Caltrans has prepared
for many major events
and responded to several emergencies.
As a result, we were able to have a lot of insights
and lessons learned that we have incorporated
into this guidance.
Safety and efficiency remains our top priority
as we coordinate closely with event organizer,
with host city communities on committees,
security partners and the California Highway Patrol.
Public information campaigns are being amplified
to encourage transit use and the right sharing
to ensure consistent and reliable mobility
throughout major events.
The guidance also outlines efficient way Caltrans
collaborate with regional partners to support extended service and also strong traffic
management whenever events are taking place. Caltrans and our state and local partners are
confident and fully prepared to support safe and successful events that showcase our world-class
transportation network today and in the future. Next slide. Continuing with other exciting
developments taking place with Caltrans, I want to update you on two new platforms
that leverage generative AI capabilities to help us usher in the culture of safety statewide.
In April, the department launched the Road Safety Insights, or RSI, and the Traffic Mobility Insights,
TMI, to evolve our safety analysis and traffic management projects. Road Safety Insights
evaluates all crash types and quickly provides comprehensive data to identify high-risk
corridors, and contributing factor. This program supports crash analysis,
corridor evaluation, encroachment, premature use, and customer inquiries.
By integrating over 30 databases, RSI reduces it 20 to 30 hours analysis to minutes.
This helps clear backlogs and enable earlier identification of risks,
particularly for pedestrian and bicyclist safety.
traffic mobility insights or TMI updates culture has mobility performance report through centralized automated data pipelines.
This was this has reduced report compilation time by 82% allowing staff to shift to more focus on safety operations. TMI is real time incident awareness quickly
the context of normal traffic patterns and improve collaboration across districts traffic management center with CHP and resulting in a faster incident respond and preventing secondary collisions or incidents. Department wide guidance district level generative AI coordinator role subject matter experts led testing evaluation and ongoing training throughout the department ensure that safe and efficient application of these tools.
looking forward. Caltrans is preparing to scale RSI and TMI statewide, and I want to
be clear that these tools are argumenting not replacing Caltrans's expertise.
Recognition for these platforms also underscores Caltrans's commitment to safety innovation.
In April, we received the Public Sector CIO Academy Leadership Award for developing these
these tools reflecting our commitments to efficiency and human and loop AI safety solution.
These innovations mark an important step forward for Caltrans and for transportation in California.
And we look forward to building on this momentum to benefit every community in our state.
Next slide.
Recently innovations and creative solutions have also actively improving lives through
through transportation now.
In Los Angeles, Caltrans is piloting an infrastructure grade autonomous solar roadway light solution
that directly advances our safety and climate action goals.
This will reduce dependence on electrical grid while addressing persistent vulnerabilities
such as wire thefts.
Because these units are 100% solar, trench-free retrofits, they avoid costly electrical work
and reduce exposure of our maintenance workers,
thus improving safety in our busiest corridors
on the state highway system.
Each poll delivers high efficiency LED output
and leverages a model with a 30 years lifespan.
The systems are remotely operated and programmable,
giving districts more control
while reducing nighttime field exposure.
The pilot demonstrate how Caltrans
is deploying proven solutions to persistent safety issues
and our stewardship of taxpayers money,
all the while continuing to advance our climate energy
and sustainable commitments.
We are ready to scale this success
where possible across the state.
Next slide.
My final update for the commission today
is one of my favorite new innovations.
And I'm sure you will love the story
on how this came about as well.
Shown here are photos from the newest member
of Caltrans drone fleet, the graffiti abatement drone.
These images were taken during a demonstration in May,
alongside Northbound US 101 near downtown Los Angeles.
The idea took shape when Paul Yamasheta,
a transportation engineering technician with Caltrans,
connected with a superintendent
from Washington State Department of Transportation,
who was presenting on a painting drone
at the Western State Forum.
Through simple networking and interstate collaboration,
the two combined their knowledge
and introduced the concept of a painting drone.
The drone significantly improves worker safety
by reducing the need of crews
to access difficult and hazardous location.
Instead of climbing slopes, working from bucket trucks,
or setting up expensive enclosures,
crews now can operate the drone from a safe location
while maintaining effective control of the paint process.
Faster applications speed help reduce labor hours,
equipment needs, traffic impacts,
and overall traffic costs
while improving response time to graffiti incidents.
This innovation directly supports
Caltrans's strategic goal of safety
while also advancing efficiency and innovation
with maintenance operation.
By leveraging emerging technology,
we continue to innovate to enhance employee safety
and keep California Highway beautiful.
Next slide.
This concludes my update for today
and I'm happy to take any questions.
Thank you, Dina.
And thank you for hanging in there
during our technology challenges.
Your presentations were perfect,
but our technology not so much, but,
and thank you staff for all your work
to try to get us back online.
Any public comment?
No, we did not receive any request to comment.
Thank you.
about. Thank you. Thank you.
Any comments? Questions from
the dyes. Yes, Mr Eater. Just
so the drone project. Is it all
over the state now? Are you
focusing on L. A area now and
moving out? How's that going to
work? We're starting with L. A
area, but we are going to be
scaling it up, and I think
there's a lot of applications
for it. Um. There is a lot of
safety and exposure of our stuff off in the field. That's great. Thank you. I always
wonder how they get up there to do that, right? How do they draw that up there? I always
wonder about the old event signs on the freeway as well. Thank you. Just kind of tugging on
that thread on technology, a lot of updates on technology, and we certainly heard some
during our tour. I, we found out a new acronym called BIM4I. Building Information Modeling
for Infrastructure. Mouthful. But it's impressive because you're utilizing this technology to help
determine the integrity of a project before it's even, portions of it before it's constructed,
which is efficient and helps you with determining
costs, et cetera, and safety.
And so as you have been doing updates every hearing,
we're hearing more and more about how you're utilizing
technology.
And we hear a lot of concern, particularly
as it relates to AI and replacement of jobs.
But what I'm hearing is enhancement
and actually helping with project delivery
now with the technologies that you're using.
Can you talk to me about adoption from your workforce?
How, what kinds of preparations and training
have you implemented in order to get your workforce ready
for these technologies?
Yeah, thank you very much for the question, Chair.
And just going back to Commissioner Tiffany's question
earlier about technology and the use of technology,
There's certainly a whole array of opportunities
when it comes to technology, BIM4i is one of them.
And you mentioned some of the efficiencies
during the design, but it also helps us avoid
a lot of potential conflicts during construction as well,
because we are able to identify those earlier
and address them before they even go out to the field.
There's a lot of the technology also
within the traffic operations part.
We talked a little bit about the traffic mobility insight tool.
This has been very helpful in reducing the amount of time
that we're doing a lot of the analysis.
And it helps free our staff to do more of the technical work
rather than the tedious, time-consuming functions.
So when we introduced those pilots,
and we did that about a couple of years ago,
we focused on just limited locations
limited number of opportunities. But then as the pilot started showing the results that we wanted,
we started training statewide and we started with our subject matter experts that are within the
operations divisions, brought them in and started introducing them to the tool and training them on
how to use it. The biggest emphasis is that that does not, the tool is not, we are responsible for
for the results, not the tool.
And that we are, the tool is just a tool
to help us get there faster.
But some of the iterations that we've done of this
has helped us identify locations
with abnormalities in traffic
and has also helped us to identify
or to recommend to us safety counter measures, for example.
And then we start evaluating those,
but we've been training our staff on that.
some of that, but we're also
training the one copilot and
the use of copilot and other
technologies that are coming
available to us. Thank you for
that. Um any other comments or
questions from the dais? Okay.
Thank you. Oh, yes,
Commissioner Grisby and then
Vice Chair Cruz. Right. Thank
you. Thank you for that
presentation. Um I'm always
happy to talk with you. You
happy to hear about the use of AI for various applications. My particular question is related
to moving beyond task management and improvement to perhaps workflows and value creation within
organizations. This is a key question that even the private sector is looking at. So I'm wondering
if there's a task force when you thought about how Caltrans might be restructured or workflows
might change given AI. Yeah, thank you for the question, Commissioner Grisby. I think
the implementation of AI is happening actually in waves. If you look throughout the whole
industry, not just within the department, you know, the first is really getting those
early adopters. And then as you mentioned, you know, going into workflows and making
it more systematic in our system. We have an innovation officer that the department
has hired. And his main focus is to identify use cases within the department and to also
help us systemize these implementation within the various divisions. So he's been working
on each division separately and where these opportunities are. But, yeah, the target,
I mean, the goal is to move from just applying it to individual efforts to a whole statewide
work flow, but certainly it's in the planning phase right now. Thank you. Vice Chair Cruz. No, I
appreciate the conversation about new technologies and incorporated them into a workplace representing a
labor union. We've embraced innovation over the last few years in AI, GPS, GPR, robotics, as far as
even 3D printing concrete printing has been something we've also stepped into so anything we do, you know, to move forward to increase productivity, improve safety for for workers is important, but I appreciate you guys taking first steps in doing so and keeping a lot of folks in the loop.
But this technology is going to change the way we do business, but it's also an opportunity to grow and be safe. So thank you.
Thank you for your comments Vice Chair Cruz it's not shared across the board so I appreciate particularly your perspective on on behalf of of your your workers as it relates to adoption of technology.
Anybody else. Okay, great. Thank you for your for your update.
Next is calling Mr. Zhao regional agencies moderator.
I'm going to call it a break, so I'm good now.
All right.
Nice try.
Good afternoon, Chair Falcone, Vice Chair Cruz,
Deputy Executive Director Golda Zuski, and Commissioners.
My name is Lewis Jow with the Orange County Transportation
Authority, and I'm serving as this year's RTP moderator.
The RTP has met yesterday here at Folsom.
And we'd like to thank Jackie Carr from Saycog and Ted Ocampo
from Sijia Folsom.
secured a really beautiful meeting space in the woods. We had a very productive meeting because of
that. We did discuss several topics with pretty severe direct implications to transportation
funding and project delivery that I'll like to discuss with all of you today. First, we received
an update from CalCog and Caltrans on the Office of Management and Budgets proposed revisions to
uniform guidance for federal financial assistance. The revisions are intended to streamline grant
making by simplifying applications, improving clarity, and reducing upfront
administrative burdens. At the same time, those proposed rules introduced new
administrative and compliance requirements and include expanded
equity-related restrictions. It also provides grant administrators with
broader flexibility to terminate discretionary awards. While these changes may
improve some efficiencies during the application process, they would
to create additional challenges for both the regions
and Caltrans during project delivery.
The RTPAs will continue to monitor these proposed changes
and evaluate their potential impacts
on delivering transportation projects.
Second, the RTPAs recently participated
in their workshop with Caltrans regarding the development
of the inter-regional transportation
strategic plan guidelines,
which will inform the ITIP process.
During that discussion, RTPA members expressed concerns
about the compressed schedule for development guidelines,
definitions of inter-regional,
as well as questions regarding how Caltrans
strategic investment strategy will be incorporated
into the evaluation criteria.
The RTP is appreciate Caltrans continuing engagement
with the regions and look forward
to remaining active partners throughout the process.
My colleague, Aaron Hoyt,
from the chair of the rural county's task force
will elaborate more on this matter during this update.
Only one item before the commission during this meeting
is the proposed SD-1 program guidelines update.
A key issue raised by the RTPAs
was the need to preserve project cost savings
realized at the time of contract award.
Under these existing guidelines,
Esplan funding is reduced proportionately
when projects are awarded.
And given today's construction environment,
many regions are experiencing significant cost increases
on critical projects.
Proposed guideline revisions would instead allow
any funding adjustments to occur at project closeout,
to provide a greater flexibility to address unforeseen cost increases during delivery.
The RTPAs would like to express our strong support for this revision
and sincerely thank Commission staff for listening to the concerns of the regions
and incorporating this important change into the guidelines.
Commissioners, this is also my final meeting serving as the RTPA moderator.
Yesterday, the RTPAs elected Jose Luis Caseras from Santa Rosa,
to our final conversation.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm who is here to help the
senate council of governments
and as an ex-moderator.
The last time these two
agencies held leadership
positions, they also served
together.
It's been truly a privilege
working with all of you to
address California's
challenging transportation
issues throughout this past
year.
I want to thank the commission
that. We need to translate the
region's complex technical
issues into world world impacts
to the people of California.
That concludes my remarks. We
have to answer your questions.
Thank you, Lewis. Any public
comment?
There was no request to comment
on the item.
Comments or questions from the
commissioners? We got a comment?
the board or my second.
It's a lot of work.
It's all good.
I just wanted to thank Lewis for his leadership this year.
And I'm sorry that this is out of order.
Yeah.
Excellent leadership quality.
It would be a hard time.
Okay.
Very good.
Thank you.
It's not easy managing large and small RTBAs and getting our feedback and input on these
items.
So well done hurting the cattle, so to speak.
And I also just wanted to comment, if I could,
since item 13 has been pulled on the agenda,
I wanted to make a note with respect to Keith Dunn's item.
But before that, too, Commissioner Eger's comments
about traveling up and down the state of California
and southern California, east and west,
through San Luis Obispo.
There have been so many champions
on that State Route 46 East Project.
From federal legislators to state legislators,
the leadership at District 6 and 5 has been remarkable.
and take the credit when you're in town.
Why not?
With respect to item 13 South Elk County,
San Luis Obispo Council of Governments
has been an aspiring county since 2016.
We fell short 467 votes in 2016.
It was a presidential election.
The San Luis Obispo Council of Governments
has placed on the ballot for November ballot measure,
measure H, so we'll see how that plays out.
So we look forward to potentially being a member of the self-help coalition after that
election is certified.
And then just lastly, I want to also thank Commissioner Mann for making it to San Luis
Obispo County in late April for our groundbreaking for an innovative transportation project that
is on US 101 Southbound with respect to traffic management solutions.
It's the part-time use of Inside Shoulder.
And with that, we look forward to also seeing you in late September for a San Luis Obispo
sponsored, hosted town hall in partnership with the Central Coast Coalition on September
17th and 18th.
We'll have information through Douglas available to all of you.
So thank you.
And Louis, again, thank you all.
For all.
Okay.
Sorry.
All right.
Thank you.
That was rich Murphy from slow fog, everyone.
Thank you. Um. Who is I feel
like we just started getting to
know each other. Hopefully we
continue to see you here. Um
Mr Jose Louise, you have big
shoes to fill make it good.
We're gonna miss you here. I'm
sure you'll continue to attend
the hearings. Okay, great. Um,
we just won't see you.
Presenting as much, but thank
you for all your work and
so thank you. All right, Rural County's Task Force Chair, Mr. Aaron Hoyt.
Well, good afternoon, Chair Falcone, Vice Chair Cruz, commissioners, Undersecretary
Hacker and Director L. Twansy, and of course, Chief Deputy Director Glazuzki. My name is
Aaron Hoyt from the Nevada County Transportation Commission, and I'm representing the Rural
County's task force. This month our CTF did not have a meeting as we meet on a
bi-monthly basis but I do have three items that I'd like to touch on in my
time here today. Now first I'd like to congratulate CTC staff on the release of
the draft Senate Bill 1 competitive program guidelines updates that are on
your agenda today. The workshops were open and collaborative process
strengthening and updating the individual programs themselves and I'd
We'd also like to thank and echo Louis Zhao's comments about staff considering the region's
comments into these updates.
The second item that I want to touch on and will probably spend the most time on is the
interregional transportation strategic plan.
At the main meeting, I shared that the Caltrans staff presented to the rural counties task
force on the update, they provided an overview of some of the changes that are being anticipated
and the timeline for those updates.
Caltrans has graciously met with staff at Nevada County Transportation Commission as well as a
presentation to the rural excuse me a presentation to the regional transportation planning agencies
and potentially other stakeholders and agencies that I'm not aware of. So I do want to thank
Caltrans staff for their willingness to meet and making themselves available to us. However I want
to share three concerns that we have collectively. First it's the update to the definition of inter
regional travel. The second point is the use of the Caltrans system investment
strategy as an evaluation tool and third the ability to thoroughly evaluate the
proposed changes and collaboratively work to find a common ground on such a
tight schedule. First the definition of inter-regional travel is defined under
state statute and highway codes 164.10 and 164.2. And it is not
not apparent whether to some of the regions whether or not the definition of interregional
travel can unilaterally be changed. The proposed revision to the definitions removes the phrase
long distance trips between two or more regions and replaces it with travel between two or
more regions, states, international borders, and strategic interregional corridors on the
interregional road system. The revision appears to open the doors to other types of projects
that would be eligible for limited interregional transportation improvement program funding.
Additionally, opening the door could lead to inconsistencies of a state statute, but
that is still unforeseen.
The question that it poses is whether a change of this magnitude is appropriate for a minor
update to the interregional transportation strategic plan at this point in time.
And we say minor because that's how it's been referred to as by staff.
The second point of contention is the refinement of the interregional transportation improvement
program funding evaluation criteria to include the Caltrans system investment
strategy. ITIP funding is also set under state government statute and codes. We'll
read all the numbers for time consideration but together these
statutes set forth a complete and exclusive substantive criteria for ITIP
funding including consistency with the ITSP, consistency with regional
transportation plans and geographic and mobile investment system percentages
set forth in streets and highway codes. So using the Caltrans system investment
strategy as a prioritization framework poses a real concern on the
applicability of projects outside large urban areas which is specifically what
the inter-regional transportation improvement program is intended for.
Furthermore in 2022 the Caltrans, or sorry Caltrans CTC and the regions
developed an evaluation criteria that aligned with the climate action plan for transportation
infrastructure. This is evaluation criteria that we feel should continue to be used until a robust
and collaborative process to update the criteria occurs. And finally there's a three-month window
to reach the consensus to reach consensus on these two fundamental topics. Additionally to
provide input on other aspects of the plan that will be developed and all that has to occur before
drafting the 2027 in a regional transportation strategic plan that is scheduled to be out this
fall. I will say the Caltrans staff has offered one-on-one meetings and there are upcoming kind
of region specific meetings that are scheduled but we do ask whether or not there could be
additional collaborative workshops between regions all of our CTF members or all of our TPA groups.
That way we can understand how this fully impacts
different regions with different set of circumstances
across the state.
And with that, I'll close out my last remarks
as a rural county's task force chair.
As I do, my term will be coming to an end as of this month.
As all good things, they all come to an end.
And I wanna say that I'm appreciative of the opportunity
to present to you and represent the 26 rural
regional transportation planning agencies
and that is probably one of the last times
I'll have to say that mouthful.
So I'm excited for that.
I've enjoyed the dialogue that has occurred
here from this podium,
as well as individual conversations that we've had
separately through various discussions
and receptions, et cetera.
It truly has been an enjoyable experience for me,
getting to know all of you.
And I do want to announce that Heather Adamson
from the Association of Monterey Bay Area Governments
will be the new chair starting in July.
So I do feel that you'll be in good hands with Heather.
So I thank you for your time
and this last opportunity to present before you.
Thank you, Aaron.
Any public comment?
No, there was no request to comment on the item.
Any questions or comments from the dais?
Yes, Mr. Tiffany.
Just want to thank you for your service for the last year
and look forward to working with you
in a slightly different capacity.
And I know Heather will do a good job as well.
So thank you.
I don't like to be abandoned.
well thank you Erin for your your service and your updates I am harnessing
Tanisha Taylor and net right now because I know that you've had friendship with
Tanisha and if she was here I am sure she would be congratulating you and
thanking you and so I as well thank you for for for being here I'm sure we'll
continue to see you in different capacities representing rural counties
and thank you for your work and we welcome Heather to the podium next
next hearing thank you yes you have comment Vice Chair Cruz just on item 13
I did have a chance to talk to Keith Dunn this afternoon and he since his
regrets about not making the meeting it looks forward to meeting everybody in
the city of San Diego. In San
the board of directors. And I
will be joining us virtually.
The Senate bill one. Cycle five,
equity supplement and guidelines
updates. You will hear about
this as part of tab 18 and the
SB one items on today's agenda.
And I wanted to highlight here.
That the SB one team has been
working with the Senate bill
the draft. The draft equity
supplement includes clear
guidance on inclusive engagement
and accessibility. Stronger
evaluation requirements. And
committee member efforts will
help shape $1.5 billion in
multimodal funding allocations.
And throughout this process,
and throughout this process, members have gained invaluable insights into program development. So thank you to that team for working very hard with our members. Next, I'll highlight you see member involvement with the 2027 active transportation program or ATP cycle eight.
for the first time in 2020.
The call for projects was
released in March of 2026 and
six equity advisory committee
members have volunteered as
evaluators.
And so we're very grateful for
their input and participation
in this process and look
forward to hearing what those
recommendations are in the
future. An upcoming advisory
opportunity includes the A.B.
the city's city's city. We're
in San Diego. So next I will pass it to EAC member Florence Simon joining us virtually. Hello
commission members it's really good to see you really good to be here virtually I'm so sorry that
I can't join in person but I really value the opportunity to speak with you for a couple minutes.
So first I'll quickly introduce myself my name is Florence Simon I live in San Francisco District 4
in Caltrans. I've lived here basically for the last ten years with a short stint in DC and I
come from a Cantonese immigrant family that has a really long history and really deep roots in
our beautiful state. I got my start in transportation policy when I was working on Secretary
Buttigieg's campaign for president back in 2019 to 2020. So I had the opportunity then to leave
the development of this infrastructure policy and really emphasize the importance of safety,
equity, access to opportunity, sustainability for a highway trust fund which is now even more
of an issue than it was back then. We made the centerpieces of the policy proposal that he put
forth. I also worked on transportation at the federal level first on the transition team for
President Biden with Secretary Moshekin actually and then as a political appointee at the Department
of Transportation where I helped to lead implementation of the bipartisan infrastructure law.
So as part of that, we managed an ambitious grant calendar. We released and prepared
hundreds of grants for thousands of projects across the country. So many that are of course
familiar to this commission. Mono buses, airports, Fed state partnership for rail, bridges, mega,
EV chargers, reconnecting communities. Those were all part of what my team was managing.
We integrated policy priorities of the administration like climate and equity.
We addressed major policy issues with the White House on issues like speed and reliability for
major rail corridors and we worked on project delivery which I'm going to come back to.
I've also started as director of innovation for Mayor Lurie in San Francisco. We supported the
MTA there on a better customer experience responding to customer complaints about
cleanliness and safety incidents being more proactive and monitoring and cleaning the most
written and most complained about bus lines. There we also launched a citywide online permitting
system to make it easier to host events, build housing which is you know so critical giving the
rising costs in the San Francisco housing market in advance of what people anticipate to be some
really big AI company IPOs. The costs are going up and it's important to build more housing,
of course, and also making it easier to open small businesses. What I am?
Do you mind going a little bit slower for an interpreter?
Oh, yes. So sorry. So sorry. I'm excited that our committee has a clearer focus for 2026,
which is complete streets and equity in funding decisions.
And what is so, I think, incredible about that committee
is that there are a lot of really passionate
and experienced leaders who are advocating
for more funding for disadvantaged communities
and more engagement.
And I do wanna talk to you today about the fact
that funding and engagement are really, really important,
but there is more to equity than that.
And I've always believed that.
Because equity is really also about impact
and about delivery. If the government can't deliver then the communities in need are the
ones that suffer the most. And I was someone who worked on that I think really deeply and
wrestled with that problem really deeply at the Department of Transportation because what we were
doing originally is we were designing all these grant programs as I said and we were making sure
that we were embedding in a lot of language for equity, justice 40, different screens for climate
and racial justice and those were really really important. But as I, you know, continue my work
in the department what I came to realize and what led me to want to work in equity at the
state level as well, is that equity is about building projects, specifically transit projects,
active transportation projects for everyone. Building transit is equity. And so that was
something that I brought to my work at the department by trying to emphasize and increase
the emphasis on project delivery. Of course, as you all know very well, at the federal level,
we were not delivering a single project. We were funding the projects. But what we found was that
oversight and executive focus could also play an important role. And so what we did, and this was
something that I created over the course of a few months, is we actually created a dashboard that we
put in front of the secretary where we provided information from grantees and contractors and
subcontractors. We had like a red, yellow, green system. We looked at the difference between
planned and actual every couple weeks. We looked at where delays were happening. And we found
actually many opportunities to clear roadblocks, like, you know, a permit being stuck at the Coast
Guard or being able to support Amtrak on a key negotiation. And so it was an example of how we
were not building the projects as the federal government. Just as we know, you know, many cases
that the state is not building transit projects. That's of course being done by transit agencies
at a local level, but I think that what that taught us was that this culture of really focusing,
sharing information, clearing roadblocks made a big difference in getting those projects done
more quickly. And so maybe my bottom line message here is that delivery really matters and that at
the leadership level do not underestimate the power of taking a few key projects and asking
the question over and over as to how can we deliver faster? Where are the roadblocks? How
do we help you clear those roadblocks? And I know because I've been in, you know, politics at many
levels that that level of focus is really, really hard because there are so many stakeholders and
so many constituencies, especially the state as big and diverse as California. It's really, really
hard to focus on a few key projects, but that is also why it's powerful. And that is also why it
can get outcomes for communities in need. So thank you so much for listening to me. Thank you so much
for having me as part of the committee. I'm really excited to keep working with you
and finding ways to deliver equitable projects and outcomes faster for Californians.
Thank you, Member Simon, and thank you, commissioners. That concludes our equity
updates for today. Happy to answer any questions or hear any comments. Thank you.
Thank you, Sequoia, and thank you, Florence. Any public comment?
No, there was no request to comment on the item.
Any comments or questions from the dais? Okay great. Thank you for all your work. You've done
a lot and thank you particularly for the work that you've done for SB1 and we look forward to
hearing further updates in future hearings. So thank you Florence for joining us virtually.
Okay next item 15 state and federal legislative matters Justin.
Good afternoon commissioners. Tab 15 is the report on state and federal legislative matters.
The Senate and assembly are scheduled to adjourn for summer recess next week and bills must pass
out of policy committees in the second house before then. When the legislature returns from
recess on August 3rd they will have until August 14th to approve bills and fiscal committees and
staff continues to meet with
bill authors and stakeholders
to provide technical
assistance.
Staff is not recommending the
commission take any positions
on bills at this time.
Last week, the legislature
approved a state budget for
fiscal year 2026-27.
Negotiations with the governor
on the final budget deal are
ongoing and expected to
conclude before the end of June
so a budget can be in place
later this week.
The bill is not recommended
by the legislature.
The bill is recommended by
the legislature.
The bill is recommended by the
legislature and the legislature
to meet with a state budget for
fiscal year 2026-27.
in place at the start of the fiscal year on July 1st.
And lastly, on federal legislation,
the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee
approved a five-year surface transportation
reauthorization bill last month.
The bill, referred to as the Build America 250 Act,
includes about $580 billion in guaranteed spending
in future appropriations over five years,
which is about half of what was included in the IJA.
Staff is monitoring this legislation
and any other proposals introduced in the Senate.
And we will provide updates as they become available.
At the January commission meeting,
Caltrans presented the California reauthorization
consensus principles as an informational item.
Staff has reviewed the consensus principles
and as part of this item,
recommends the commission sign on to the principles
when they are submitted
to California's congressional delegation.
Staff from Caltrans's office of the federal liaison
is on the line if commissioners have any questions.
And this concludes my report.
the staff. And the staff. And
Hi, I'm Andrew Carhart. I am Caltrans Federal Legislation Manager. There were some changes
to the document primarily related to requests from our transit agencies across the state
to support more transit operation funding. We did take that note and put that into the
document. That was kind of the primary one that was a political concern. Most of the
with the document, And I
think the rest were fairly
minor changes. We do have
available a comparison
between the draft version
that we put out for public
comment and that final
revised version. I'll get
that over to Justin. So you
have a complete accounting
of what changed in the
document. Right. Thank you.
Thank you for the question.
Any other comments or
motion. Oh, okay. It is an action item. Pardon me. Got a little ahead of myself. Do I hear
a motion for adoption of the update? So moved. Okay. Moved by Commissioner Eger. Second by
Commissioner Tiffany. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Abstentions? Okay. That item passes.
to you just in great. Missionary's tab 16 is informational item. Keep Duncan from Caltrans
budgets will present an update on budget and allocation capacity. Thank you, Justin, Madam
Chair, commissioners. Good afternoon. Happy Thursday. As mentioned, keep Duncan Caltrans
division of budgets and I'll presenting tab 16 budget allocation capacity update. Next slide,
please. As noted in your slide on the slide before you, as well as in your agenda material
through May the commission has allocated 5.3 billion dollars onto 800 projects across all
programs within your purview that represents about just under 50 allocated for the year
knowing that we have a roughly a little over 2 billion dollars on your agenda over the next two
days for your consideration that could potentially end us with a little less than 4 billion dollars
that carries over to next year that can still be allocated on the projects next slide please
there we go this just showing a comparison from this current fiscal year to the last three fiscal
years the unit of measure here is percent allocated the this year's line is represented
by that reddish orange line you can see we started the year quite high and then we flattened out and
the we kind of caught up to the last couple years so from percent allocated we're still in line with
what we've seen over the last couple years next slide please and this next slide is total dollars
allocated through the year. Unfortunately, we're a little lower than what we've seen over the last
few years, but knowing again, a little over $2 billion allocated, we'll be able to be in line
with what we've seen in the highs over the last couple of years and total dollars allocated.
Next slide, please. The next slide, when it does show up, are a couple of the standing
budgetary updates that for the commitment that's commissioned is expressed interest in. First,
related to federal funding. In relation to formula funds, that's the core funding for all
the programs within your purview. Those funds continue to be available, allocated, obligated,
bill for reimbursement, so those funds continue uninterrupted, so that is great news. On the
flip side of that, the discretionary and competitive grants continue to be delayed. We have seen
a handful of grant agreements that have been executed by USDOT, but we continue to wait
impatiently for the others to be released so we can try to get those funds obligated
because much of these grant funds need to be obligated by September 30th. The other item that
is expressed interest I believe from prior Commissioner Elliott was the Federal Motor
Carrier Safety Administration penalty assessment. That was the penalty that was assessed to California
because of a finding of non-compliance to the issuance of commercial driver's licenses to
non-residents. Based on feedback from our friends at the DMV, they have met the requirements that
that the FMCSA has provided,
we're just all waiting for feedback or confirmation
whether the penalty will still be there
or if it will be repealed,
the penalty would be assessed next federal fiscal year.
So again, this is another item
that we are waiting very impatiently on for the outcome.
The next item is related to the shop allocation plan.
As you note on your agenda,
there are 10 projects that have come forward
that are program in the current fiscal year.
Those projects continue to meet the criteria
that the commission approved back in December.
And we also continue to see bid savings for the program.
So we are seeing some fiscal pressures
a little bit alleviated there.
I mean, we are on track to be able to meet
at by the end of the fiscal year
to stay within budget on track.
So we'll be able to report more details
at the next meeting whenever we finish our reconciliations.
And then the last item is related
to the legislature approved budget.
Justin already touched on that is the continued negotiations
that are taking place.
But there is one item that we are tracking closely
and that's the SAF,
the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Tax Credit.
That's a credit or a incentive for fuel refineries
to develop cleaner aviation fuel.
This proposal has a place on the language,
was approved by the legislature.
So we'll continue to monitor that
as that continues to be discussed.
Excuse me, that tickle again.
If this does move forward,
the programs that would be impacted would be the SHOP,
the Teach Trade Corridor Enhancement Program,
as well as potential funding for cities and counties.
But we'll continue to monitor that and report back to you.
Next slide.
All right, as we're just a few short days away
from the next federal,
at the start of the 26-27 fiscal year,
we wanted to present to you the draft allocation capacity
across all these programs.
we will be looking at the
this represent the base funding
for the new fiscal year for
programs such as the shop, the
STIP, ATP and TCEP the amounts
that you see on the screen are
consistent with the fund
estimates that you previously
approved and for the other
programs the amounts on the
screen are consistent with
budgetary or statutory
requirements. At the August
meeting we will take a full
reconciliation of all the
allocations and whatever
remaining balances are from
and we'll do that in a minute,
but we'll add this, add that to
this totals and then we'll
present to you at the August
meeting, but the new final
allocation capacities are for
you. Current estimates are
anywhere from 9 to $10 billion.
So get ready. You've got some
busy efforts for next year.
Next slide, please. As we look
ahead for the month of July
budget enactment July 1st, we're
eagerly waiting for that
patiently also included in July
will be presenting the final 26-27 allocation capacity for your consideration. And then
my friend Garrett Franklin in a few moments will probably will be presenting the 2026
draft TCEP fund estimate. He'll be back in August to present to you the final for your
consideration for adoption. And as mentioned previously, September is the last month of
the infrastructure investment jobs act. So as Justin mentioned, we are watching eagerly
work. I'm really impatiently
and digging in to see what the
next a better fiscal year may
bring to us. Next slide, please.
And with that, I say it a lot,
but I'll say it 1000 more
times. It's a team effort to
manage the billions that you
get to see on this screen. I
want to thank CDC staff, our
Caltrans financial programming
and our special Caltrans
budgets team for everyone's
efforts in this, and I'm
available for any questions you
I don't know, there was no request to comment on the item.
Any questions or comments from the dais?
Okay, thank you for the challenge.
And on behalf of CTC staff,
who will have to deal with all the allocations
that you say will be coming forward,
we accept the challenge.
All right, okay.
I'm gonna give everyone the gift of a break for 15 minutes.
I wanted to bring to your attention in front of us
some wonderful fruit that was donated
by our wonderful engineer, Tim Soberman.
You would think that an engineer has a green thumb,
but apparently he does.
So thank you, Mr. Soberman, for the gift of your fruit
since we are having a fruitful conversation.
Yes, I did a Carl-Guardino joke.
All right, 15 minutes, everyone.
Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
That worked.
I actually have to use this.
Where's my ticket?
Doug needs to announce that sort of thing.
Yeah, all right.
We have to do that, go ahead.
That's so much.
That's so unnatural.
Before we resume the rest of the agenda,
I'm going to kick it back to Douglas for a quick announcement.
Douglas.
Thank you, Chair.
If there's a Shannon Baker with us
driving a 2014 Ford Fusion,
licensed 7FCA 160.
You are parked in a city parking spot behind the building
and your car will be towed if it does not move soon.
Again, Ford Fusion 2014 7FCA 160.
Please move your car.
Shannon Baker, thank you, Chair.
All right, thank you, Douglas.
Hopefully she gets the message.
Okay, we're gonna continue the agenda.
And we are gonna kick it off with Bridget Thriller,
Innovations in Transportation, Bridget.
Thank you, Chair Falcon.
Commissioners, tab 17 is an information item.
As part of our series on operations and transportation,
Tim Hale, the executive director
of the Contra Costa Transportation Authority,
will present on their agency's efforts
to advance autonomous vehicles.
and without further ado, I will turn it over to Mr. Hale.
There we go, whoa.
Good afternoon, Chair Falcon, commissioners,
Undersecret Hacker and Director Altwansi.
Really appreciate the opportunity
to come share a little bit about CCTA
and our innovation program.
So without further ado,
I promise to keep this presentation about 10 minutes,
so I will do my best.
So next slide, please.
So Contra Costa Transportation Authority,
just a little bit about who we are.
We're one of the self-help counties here in the state of California located in the East
Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area.
I've been the executive director now for about six years at CCTA and we're really proud of
the work that we do in support of our transportation system in Contra Costa County.
And again, thank you to the California Transportation Commission for your continued support to the
county and the self-help county coalition.
Next slide please.
One of the foundational or really unique things about CCTA is our innovation programs.
So we actually own and operate one of the largest autonomous vehicle test beds in the
country.
And I would really invite the California Transportation Commission to really come out one day and
check it out.
It's a really fascinating program and fascinating facility to see innovation happening right
here in the Bay Area and in the state of California.
And one of the reasons why we created Gomentum Station was not about just the technology,
but was really about how can we at CCTA really advance safety, as well as efficiency, really
smarter and more high paying jobs to Contra Costa County.
So there was definitely this economic development component to Gomentum Station.
And at Gomentum Station, we've been able to implement some really neat programs.
one of the programs we just did in partnership with Caltrans is we started testing kind of
next generation bus on a shoulder. I'm really trying to leverage how we can use new technologies
to make sure they're safer on our public highway system. And so we were able to take the draft
guidelines for transit bus on shoulder and actually put them into real world scenarios
at Gomentum station in a secured environment. Next slide, please. As part of Gomentum station,
One of the things that we're also proud of is how we can really bring technology to
Contra Costa County, but advance it, incubate it, learn from it, and really form a true
public-private partnership for technology.
And one of the examples that is Glideways, I know they've been here to provide a presentation,
so I won't spend much time here, but we've been able to take this technology, actually
learn to find an actual use case for this tech benefits of go mentum station is it provides
us an opportunity to kind of test new technology please okay cool so we were one of the first
agencies public agencies and state-of-the-art anonymous fields and public roads on this
is actually long before DV actually adopted the regulations we had project specific authority
under AB 1592 to be able to test this technology on public roads and that has led to a lot of
development of how we can learn how to integrate these autonomous technologies into our public
transit system and into our public transportation system and you might ask why like this is not
about a fancy object this is not about the technology this is really about problem solving
for us at ccta we have a tremendous amount of first and last mile challenges given that we are
suburban county. And so how are we going to use this technology to really expand access and
coverage and really provide higher ridership and higher performance for our public transit
system in Contra Costa County? Next slide, please. So that really led to a federal grant that we got
from USDOT, the automated driving system grant, and that was really the development of our
Presto program. So as we learned about this technology, we also learned about the pilot
and how to pilot this technology.
So how do we actually put it into real world practice,
real world deployment in specific use cases?
And so we developed this Presto program.
There's supposed to be a video.
I don't know if we're gonna be able to play it,
but the Presto program really focused
on three important use cases.
The first use case was really,
how do we use this as a first and last mile
with a business park, right?
And then the second one was really,
how can we use this technology
to provide access to seniors,
really maintain their quality of life
and provide that independence
and so people are not aging in place.
The third one is really focused
on our county medical facilities.
How can we support expansion of wheelchair accessible transit
and paratransit using this technology?
So it's three use cases.
This video will actually show this in real world action.
So if you can just hit the play button, hopefully it works.
Doesn't look like it's going to work.
Okay, so looks like it may not work.
You know, it's always risky with these videos sometimes.
So we'll just go ahead and advance the next slide if I may.
So it was really cool,
because you actually see the shuttles
and real world action being used by real people
and used by the public.
This was the first public deployment
of this technology public use in the state of California.
We started this program in 2022,
and we operate this program for two years,
with over 3,600 passengers per year,
I'm able to demonstrate this pilot.
And through this program,
and you can kind of see one of the vehicles there
with the main mobility,
we were able to really understand how to scale, right?
How do we actually get to full deployment?
How do we actually integrate this
into our public transit system?
And so if you, looks like the video's trying to work.
Let's see here.
actually it's working kind of. So this is the Bishop branch project and then
it'll transition to the Rossmore project. And just so you know these are level four
autonomous shuttles, they're purpose built, there's no steering wheel, no brake pedal,
no gas pedal for the Bishop branch project as well as the Rossmore project.
The main mobility project had a steering wheel and it was a wheelchair
accessible vehicle. So one of the unique aspects of the Martinez project, the
the county hospital project with main mobility,
is we're very proud of this.
We actually did this in partnership
with our public transit operator, County Connection.
It was a public private partnership.
Main Mobility provided the technology,
County Connection provided the labor.
And we actually were the, we were the first agency,
and I know this for a fact,
we were the first agency in the country
to train an ATU bus driver into a Thomas vehicle operator.
And so we actually developed an actual career pathway
to do that.
And this slide actually demonstrates exactly what we did.
We developed an online course and they had to take this online course.
We went out to Glomentum Station and take behind-the-wheel training at Glomentum Station
with the vehicle when to engage, when to disengage, when to take over operations of
the vehicle.
And then we also had on-site training.
And by using those trainings, they were able to go to DMV and get their actual driver autonomous
vehicle operator permit.
And so we actually created a career pathway, right, to really show promise that this is
about transitioning our existing workforce into these new technologies, and really not
about leaving anyone behind or displacement.
So with that in mind, if you go to the next slide, P, please, we've created this thing
called a Grumentum Innovation Alliance, and this is, again, a partnership that we have
with public sector, private sector, academia, labor, union labor, ATU, and we're basically
looking at how we continue to develop these additional pathways to really figure out how
to really transition the workforce. These projects, as we think about the technology,
the most important thing is really the human factor, right? The human factor of the public
acceptance, but also the human factor of actually training the workforce to support this technology.
And I can, I'd love to ask or answer any questions you may have about our experiences with this,
but trying to stay on time with my 10 minutes. But we did a gaps and needs assessment that
really focused on with these new technologies, gaps and needs in the
workforce. And the biggest one we found was actually technology competency, right?
It was, there are still people that don't know how to log into a computer. There
are still people that don't understand the nomenclature. And so, so we actually
started working on a feasibility report, which is on the right here, to start
developing an actual career or career course or career pathway, really about
the first step, right? Which is technology competency. That would be the
very first step in this career pathway. And then we can start defining what
those additional steps are. For particularly one is remote assistance, like how do we actually
train a bus driver or an attendant to become a remote assistance for a vehicle. And so
we've been able to develop a really strong relationship with union and with ATU to develop
these career pathways. Next slide, please. A little bit of a lag. Relative, so for the
momentum innovation alliance,
some of the things that we're starting to think about
is how do we actually expand this technology, right?
As you know, DMV in April approved
the heavy duty regulations.
We're really proud to be part of really supporting DMV.
We're very excited about this new regulatory environment
that is now provided for public transit
within the 10,000 to 14,000 weight range,
which is really in support of these autonomous shuttles.
And this is really for vehicles specifically again,
10,000 to 14,000 and for anything 15 passengers or less.
specifically this like autonomous shuttle use case, right. And so we're now looking at the
regulatory environment and how to implement that in our public transportation system.
So by doing that, you know, we're looking at also the emergency responder element of this as well,
as we all know, emergency responders are really important. And even in that Presto program,
we had to train our emergency service providers. We had to train the police department. We had to
do a lot of training around and support around this project, around the technologies to make
make sure these projects were successful in these real world
environments.
And so as part of that, I'm like two slides forward now.
But I'm just kidding.
And so next slide, please.
So this is the regulatory framework
that I was just talking about.
And so now what we're doing is we're
looking at our public transportation system,
and we're really starting to understand,
how do we take this technology and actually
improve and integrate it into our public transit system?
So how do we close gaps?
How do we create more access?
How do we create more first and last mile
funding for public transit is really challenge to really frequency and coverage, right? So you're
really when you're planning your system, you're really thinking about how, where do I need to
provide the most frequency? And then how do I navigate to provide the most coverage? And you're
limited on that. So we can start looking at technology, we can start looking at how we can
do both, right? How can we take these funding streams and look at new and using this technology
to expand that first and last mile coverage and access right and so we're really excited about how
we can leverage this to really in my mind if I could see one headline in the future newspaper
five years from now hopefully sooner is how this autonomous technology can really solve our public
transit fiscal cliff you know and really support ridership to the public transit system as you
think about system in Contra Costa County we actually did an analysis of the market demand
So if you look at the slide, you can see the purple there.
That's low transit demand and low supply, right?
And then if you look at the blue,
those are the real high opportunities, right?
High transit demand, low supply.
So those blue squares are the opportunities
that we can really focus on where we got high demand
but low transit supply because of limited funding
and limited resources.
And so how can we use this technology
to start filling those gaps?
Next slide, please.
This is one of my last slides here,
but the other use case is on emergency services.
And so we got a grant from the federal grant on safe streets for all to really start developing
a system that leverages the emergency services protocols within the new regulations to really
start creating moving geofences. So if you can imagine a fire engine that's being dispatched
to a fire, we would create a geofence around that fire, a geofence around the fire engine,
and we would create this kind of vehicle to network environment as well as communication
with the infrastructure to be able to communicate to autonomous vehicles to these avoidance areas,
right? So you can see here, you know, number two is you do a dynamic show fire, you're
to the autonomous vehicles, and then now you're actually creating an avoidance zone and now they're
rerouting. And so how do we actually create systems that actually can take this application
of technology and really integrate it again into our roadway system and into our system very safely,
and really safety is the number one factor here across everything.
So if you go to the next slide, please.
We have a podcast on the go.
It talks more about this project as well as other projects and the other things we're doing at CCTA.
So this is for everyone.
The latest podcast we do is actually on our countywide smart signal system, which is really fascinating
and really embodies some of the things I just talked about for the emergency services.
And I think the next slide is my thank you slide.
So appreciate the opportunity. Happy to answer any questions that you might have.
And again, I invite you all out to Gomentum Station and to Contra Costa County to have
maybe a CTC meeting and I can host you all at Gomentum. You can see all this stuff in real world
action. So thank you very much. Thank you, Tim. Any public comment? No, there was no request to
comment on the item. Okay, thank you. Any comments or questions from the dais?
Yes, that's just a quick question. Do we have access to that video that we couldn't see?
Absolutely. Yeah, we'll get that over to you. They're saying yes, so we're on YouTube too.
Great. I'm sorry, that's Chair Grizzby. Thank you. But I think, Leanne, are you for?
Okay. Thank you for the presentation and all the work you're doing in Contra Costa County.
I live in Alameda, not too far away from you. I know you have some pretty bold ideas around
mitigation, around I-680, and unfortunately it was challenging to get funding for all those elements,
but with this particular idea that you have, is it going to lead to any VMT reductions along that
corridor, perhaps other ways to do mitigations for the project? That's a really good question. So
For the Innovate 680 program that was really circled around seven strategies and one of those
strategies was first and last mile and then the other strategy was prepare the corridor for the
future. And so through those strategies we are focused on share mobility hubs and we see share
mobility hubs being really essential to the implementation of this technology. So as you
We think about the daily maintenance, the daily required in terms of charging, cleaning,
all these things.
We see that the share mobility hubs are going to be really essential to really, you know,
supporting the distribution of these vehicles, right?
Because to make first and last mile and micro transit to really work, it has to have a place
to go to, it has to have a hub.
And so we just finished an integrated transit plan.
We just identified 36 share mobility hubs in the entire county.
actually going through a proposal right now to understand what a procurement business model
might look like for those 36-year-old ability hubs which might include a concession or P3 type of
procurement. And so to answer your question, those three PRESTO programs that I just shared with you,
those are actually part of the Innovate 680 program. So PRESTO, Rosmore, that was part that
that was actually one of the six projects for the InnoV 80 Pro. So, as we think about how to scale these technologies, it would absolutely be a future strategy to reduce vehicles travel and built into the share mobility hub strategy as part of A6 80.
Excellent. Thanks so much.
technology is part of a six 80.
Excellent, thanks so much.
The question, um, commissioner
either. Yes, thank you.
Well, Bob and I being in our seventies.
We have a question for you.
What is the cost for writers to be able to
utilize the system and the other is.
For seniors who might not have access to technology,
will they be able to buy a ticket?
will that work for the population? Yeah, I mean, that's an excellent question. I mean, this is
exactly the things that we're continuing to explore relative to the business model and how
we plan to implement this technology. But, you know, our goal is to implement this technology
very much in alignment with current public transit fares, right? I mean, that's really the
goal here. And so this is really, you're taking the Uber and Lyft environment and you're putting
it into the public transit system, right? And at those fares. And so some of the examples of that
would be really looking at, you know, how do we actually, you know, by using this technology,
how do we actually increase ridership, increase farebox return, so that way we can reduce
subsidies, you know, potential subsidies to public transit, right? And so, so like Glideways is a
perfect example of that. We're actually going through the business model right now. And so,
so that project specifically, given to the very rural environment in Eastern Contra Costa County,
We're only seeing this, which is way different than our current transit model.
So as you think about this more, when we were working with the Rossmore community, we're
demanding it back.
Like we completed, they're like, how do we get this back?
right now into Rossmore because they ran it so bad, a disabled person was able to call
Forest County Health Services would actually dispatch and schedule the ride for that person.
And then we would dispatch the shuttle directly to the spot where they want to be picked up.
So using all sorts, right, from telephone to just circulator.
There's all kinds of ways I think that we can address like all the needs in our public
transportation system with this technology.
other comments. Thank you madam chair. When you made the comments some you know some people don't
know how to turn on the computer I want you to know I do know how to. Are other counties talking
to you or looking at taking this kind of step and taking it in the next you know in the in the other
other parts of the Bay Area? Yes, I mean we we so in the Bay Area you have nine
self-help counties, nine Bay Area counties, and this is something that we we talk
about amongst the nine, my peers, the other eight executive directors in
Contra Costa County, and I know that you know VTA is is very much looking and
interested in how to deploy these autonomous shuttles. San Francisco County
Transportation Authority did a pilot on Treasure Island specifically for
autonomous shuttles and I know currently right now there's other
trans operators across the Bay Area that are interested in working with us and learning
more about what we're doing.
We're also learning and being a model actually for the entire nation, not to like toot my
horn really real quick, but we tend to, we actually are part of a coalition called the
Automated Connected Electric Shared Mobility Coalition.
It's a coalition that CCTA actually support and co-founded with Jacksonville Transit Authority
in Florida and it's a coalition of public transit entities and operators that have the
same mission and goals about how to really integrate this technology within the public
transit system and public transportation system across the entire country.
And so we have members from Texas, from Florida, to Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey
Port Authority, Nevada.
So it's a really big coalition about how we can work with USDOT in our respective states
to learn how we can do this together.
Great.
Thank you.
and one thing that I like that you touched on
is that it sounds like as you move forward
with this technology, there's not gonna be a loss of workers.
It's the workers are just gonna transition
into this new technology, which is great to hear.
Thank you.
We have Commissioner Guardino joining us
with a question or comment.
Thank you, Chair Falcone.
And I'm not sure how good the connection is here
the highway 80 so I will be very brief. First Tim, thank you for your creativity
and innovation. Second, thank you for trying to make this happen not only in
Contra Costa County in the Bay Area but across our country. That approach
is one that I embrace and excited about. Third, because I think I may be losing my
signal sometime soon. If you're going to be at the reception tonight, we can talk a little bit
more depth on this because I'd like to learn more. I've been out to go mentum for other efforts over
the years. I think it's a great approach and I hope the Commission can come there sometime soon.
Finally, I think that's great that you have a podcast. I'm hoping you can send me and other
interested commissioners a link but I will say tongue-in-cheek uh in that uh wonderful picture
of yourself as a cartoon in the podcast riding a bike my friend you're not wearing a helmet
but i like my bike to work every day actually yeah that's a very very big uh bike person
i'm glad you pedal what you preach but we want to keep we want to keep your brains in place
you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm
or are you having to put a lot of agency inputs into it?
And what has that been like if you've had to
in terms of resourcing that up?
That's actually an excellent question.
There are literally a lot of different models
that I think are out there,
and we were actually trying to test
all those different models.
Like for example, the main mobility one
was very much this public-private partnership
where we had to work with County Connection
to provide the labor,
and then they're providing the technology
and we're working collaboratively to implement
and deploy the project.
But yes, there are other contractors out there.
So for example, the Rossmore project
and the Bishop Ranch project,
that was very, both those projects were led
by a company called Beep.
And Beep is essentially a system aggregator,
system deployment and they are a turnkey solution.
So you can hire a consultant or a vendor like Beep
and they will come in and provide you
a complete turnkey solution,
depending on what the operational design domain
would be for your project.
And I think that's what's really key about this stuff
is making sure that you're not really focused
on the technology, but you're really focused
on the use case and how to deploy
in the use case in a safe way,
and not necessarily get really distracted
by the shiny object, right?
And so I think like the main mobility project,
for example, that was a really interesting use case
because we knew it was gonna be on 100% public roads,
whereas the other two were kind of a hybrid
of private and public.
And so with the main mobility project,
we had to have an ADA accessible vehicle.
We had to be on public roads and be able to operate
on posted speed limits 45 miles an hour or more.
And so we had to do with procurement
and main mobility at the time
was the only commercially available technology
to meet all those requirements in our procurement.
and I can tell you that we validate their technology
at GoMentum station, you know,
and so that goes into a little bit of our processes
that we do at CCTA, so we do vehicle commissioning,
we do route commissioning,
so there is a little bit of expertise on CCTA side
just based on all the other things we've been doing
since 2016 in terms of how to deploy these projects
in a very safe way on public roads.
Excellent, well, thank you so much,
and I'll echo what Commissioner Guardino said.
Thank you for your innovation.
much appreciate it. Vice Chair Cruz, did you have a question or comment? I was just noticing that he had a question.
Gotcha. Okay. Thanks for having my back, sir. I had a couple of questions. So first, kind of a practical one, and then second, just interested in, you
know, data. So you will be gathering a lot of data during during this sort of, I guess it's a pilot period. Do you anticipate the user using
this more of a door-to-door or a door-to-transit?
That's the first question.
Because I see there is going to be multiple users per,
let's just call it a pod or a vehicle.
And then the second is, and I can
assume that local governments will
be grappling with this question about data sharing
and who will be managing the data, who owns the data,
if you can address those two items, thanks.
So yeah, the first, I'll tackle the first question,
but yeah, I think in terms of the door to door
and the point to point and all these different use cases,
I think that's actually, I think what makes this
really exciting for the technology.
Like this, the technology is gonna be available to us
within the next five years can truly transform
the public transportation system
to really enhance the user experience,
enhance access, and you can use this technology
to focus on doing the door-to-door,
like paratransit, for example.
And I think it's really important to recognize
in paratransit, there will always be a safety attendant
in that vehicle.
And by having a safety attendant in that vehicle,
as we continue to rely and trust the technology,
that safety attendant can start really focusing more
on customer and vehicle attendance, right?
And customer attendance.
to making sure that the customer now in the vehicles
getting what they need throughout the entire trip
from point A to point B.
And then there'll be other use cases
where you may be able to apply potentially
like remote assistance.
And I can go on and on about the planning that goes involved
but you could do point to point,
you could do from stop to stop.
Like the main mobility project,
that was actually a stop to stop project.
So you had to, we basically planned the stop
as close to all the places where people wanted to go.
And so you could go anywhere point to point
within any of those stops.
So you're bypassing.
So you didn't have to go from point A to point B
to point C, point D, like you would normally on fixed route.
We were able to take you from point A to point D
within the system, which now creates it highly efficient.
So there's a lot of different ways
of planning and doing the service within the service area.
And so, and then there's other things
like the Rosmar project,
which was a fixed route circulator type of project
where the shuttle was operating on a fixed route.
It stopped at every single stop, right?
Similar to fixed route.
So this technology can apply to all sorts of use cases
and transform I think our public transportation system.
And I think with that being said, I think that's,
I mean, we've done a lot of public research.
We've done a lot of public research
through our countywide transportation plan.
We've done a lot of data collection,
as you mentioned from the public
about these pilot projects and programs,
and what people are really looking for is they want a system
that caters to all the needs of all the users.
And so you're starting to think about
how to create a system that has a complete multimodal,
right, not just fixed route,
not just like multimodal system.
And that's where we see Innovate 680
really kind of trailblazing is we're creating a system
that's really catering to all the users,
all the needs in that corridor, right?
And so you're doing that through attachables,
through an express plus service,
through the share mobility house,
through bike chair, you're providing,
you're bringing that private experience
into the public transportation system offered
by the public sector, you know,
at a very competitive rate, right?
And by doing that, you're changing the business model,
right, of public transportation.
So those are all the things that we're really exploring.
And then in terms of your question about data,
data is a challenge, 100% challenge.
And so we had to negotiate many, many agreements
based on the intellectual property,
the proprietary information of this technology,
including data sharing.
One of the requirements of our automated driving system grant
was to create a data management plan
to U.S. specific requirements to collect data
and share data that's DOT.
and then not national highway traffic administration.
We collected, I can't tell you how many terabytes of data from these three projects.
And we have put it all into a dashboard and we've actually program evaluation to USDOD.
And so right now we're actually, one of the things that's really important, so I'll give you an example.
Human group, right? You have bus trained at Gomentum station.
They were sitting behind the autonomous vehicle, ready to take over the vehicle in VIF need be.
And so the disengagements were higher in the beginning and lower at the end.
So what does that tell you?
That means there was a human factor involved that the autonomous vehicle operator was
still building trust with technology over the course of the project.
Right. And so, again, these are the important things we have to consider.
Working with labor, working with ATU, are these really important human factors?
You know, and how to train and how to incorporate that into our materials
and how do we actually get that transition of the workforce?
The other thing that's also really important is I can't tell you enough that it's so important.
We had such a great experience with ATU and the bus drivers on this because just by nature,
when people are in their paratransit vehicles, the user creates a relationship with their
bus driver, and the bus driver knows the route, they know the community, they know everyone
in the community.
And that is so valuable, so valuable when you're doing this autonomous technology.
And so, as we're deploying the technology,
just having that bus driver as the autonomous vehicle,
you're already building trust with the public.
Like, no problem, my bus driver's here.
This is great, you know, I'm bridging that gap, right?
And now I'm even more comfortable to use this technology
because of my bus drivers there, right?
And so there's just these really interesting human factors
that are really important that we have to consider
when we're actually deploying these technologies, right?
And having the bus driver there, knowing the route,
knowing the community and actually telling them
that this is fun, this is safe.
And we surveyed all these bus drivers afterwards
and they had a great positive experience
using this technology.
And so it was really fun to see that happen.
But I'm happy to share more data.
We have a tremendous amount of data
in terms of disengagement.
Why the vehicle disengaged?
What happened?
Was it a shadow?
Was it because the autonomous vehicle operator disengaged?
But we have vehicle to object data.
I mean, we have a ton of data that we're analyzing right now.
And USDOT and NHTSA are really interested in this data
because they want to create a safety case framework
for the entire nation.
And that was the whole purpose
of this automated driving system program
that USDOT funded was to really pull that data
into creating a national framework.
So I can geek out on this for a lot.
So I'm very passionate about it, very excited about it.
So I apologize for the long-winded answer.
No, thank you.
Thank you for the great presentation.
And I suspect that you will have sister agencies
I know you have a date with
commissioner Gordino later on
this evening and so stick
around.
Absolutely.
Thank you.
And again, I invite you all out
to Contra Costa and GoMentum
station.
Please, I'm happy to host you
all.
So thank you very much.
Thank you.
All right.
Moving along.
So we have item 18.
So we got the big ticket item
today.
Draft 2026 Senate Bill 1
program guidelines starting with Mr. Yaskat. Thank you chair commissioners. I'll present tab 18 as an
information item to update you on our ongoing 2026 Senate bill 1 program guidelines development
process and some proposed cross program changes. You'll also hear from program managers on updates
to the solutions for congested corridors program on tab 19 updates to the trade quarter enhancement
program on tab 21 and updates to the local partnership competitive and formula programs
under tabs 22 and 23, respectively.
But I will say I have a lot to talk about during this item, so please strap in.
Program guidelines establish the policy standards and procedures for the development, adoption
and management of its programs.
In each funding cycle, commission staff amend existing guidelines over the course of several
the next two months. While
conducting multiple public
engagement workshops and
incorporating stakeholder
feedback along the way.
Guidelines updates have been
under development for over seven
months now, and they will
continue to be under development
until commissioners adopt them
at the upcoming August Commission
meeting. The 2026 s b one
programs represent the fifth
cycle of the competitive s b one
with a kickoff workshop back on November 20th, 2025.
And since that workshop,
the team has held nine additional workshops
to cover updates in the competitive programs.
And we've also presented on our guidelines development
process to the Interagency Equity Advisory Committee,
as well as working with committee members directly.
We develop our program guidelines in close collaboration
with our transportation partners during these workshops
as part of a transparent
to ensure that this is not
needed. As a result of the
public guidelines development
process. However we're also
willing to accept comments or
suggestions outside of the
workshop process with the
intention of bringing those
changes back to a workshop
setting for discussion. You'll
hear more on specific updates
to the individual programs and
the following presentations,
but during this item I want to
highlight three significant
themes of changes that will be
applied consistently across the
the city of California. We have
We have developed a more structured but still flexible approach that we believe better reflects
the economic opportunity that SB1 investments have already created.
The proposed changes restructure the economic development and job creation and retention
evaluation criteria variance in the SB1 competitive program guide their two-part framework and
were discussed during a public workshop back in March. The first part addresses construction phase
workforce development and outreach. The second part addresses post-construction job outcomes,
opportunities, and community impacts. The language allows for early stage estimates and references to
comparable projects previously delivered by these agencies because we understand that detailed
workforce data is often not available at the project nomination stage. The new language also
approach. It also allows for a
demonstration of existing
practice, including coordination
with regional and local
workforce development boards,
community colleges, community
based organizations, and
apprenticeship and pre-apprenticeship
programs. Ultimately, these
changes enable applicants to build
upon the workforce assets and
strategies already in place
within their regions, and they
provide a starting point for
regions who are just starting to
community engagement and equitable outcomes
within the SB1 programs.
This initiative was led by Beverly Newman-Burkhardt
this cycle on behalf of the SB1 team.
Community engagement is a major factor in project selection
in the project selection process
and plays a very key role in how projects are evaluated
and prioritized in the SB1 programs.
Projects must demonstrate meaningful
and effective public participation
in their decision-making processes,
especially from communities that are disadvantaged or historically impacted and marginalized.
Back in cycle three, staff developed the SB1 programs transportation equity supplement,
which provides indicators and examples to help agencies address the community engagement
evaluation criteria in advance more equitable projects.
To update the community, community engagement evaluation criteria and the equity.
So, I'll have three subject experts from the EAC signed up to provide in-depth a review of, um,
sorry, signed up so that they could individually review and provide in-depth input on our community
engagement evaluation criteria, the supplement, the workforce development evaluation criteria
that I just mentioned, and the proposed CAHPTI policies that I'll cover shortly. In addition,
staff presented and led a discussion with EAC's community engagement policies and practices
subcommittee back on April 20th. Several key themes emerged from our engagement
with the EAC subject matter experts as well as subcommittee members and staff incorporated
several revisions in response, including new guidance in the supplement related to inclusive
engagement practices, including community relevant meeting locations and times, supportive
of accommodations in accessible formats for individuals
with disabilities as well as non-English speakers.
New language in the supplement related
to building community trust, including through consistent
follow-up and transparency, culturally competent
communication and the acknowledgement of past times
that contribute to community distrust.
A new application question asking applicants
to identify the phases during which community members
were engaged.
additional displacement definitions within the supplement and a new application
question on how applicants assessed unintended project consequences
included displacement and a new travel engagement resources section within the
equity supplement. In a collaborating with the equity advisory committee and
statewide advocates we did hold a public workshop on April 15th to gather input
from all of our project partners program partners and other interested parties
to the community. We have a lot of opportunities. Overall, revisions to this language, revisions, strength in existing language and resources with an emphasis on elevating community voices, meeting the needs of seniors and individuals with disabilities, and effective engagement with our tribal governments and tribal community partners. In terms of next steps, I just want to highlight that we do plan to debrief with the Equity Advisory Committee subject matter experts to get feedback on the process improvements that we can make for next cycle.
the next slide. We will also
update them on how their input
was included in the guidelines.
After commission is
commissioners approved guidelines
in August. We're also planning
to debrief with the fully AC and
then provide them a full overview
on how input was incorporated.
During their December E A C
meeting. The final major area.
Um that I want to cover was, uh,
the city of Washington. The
and the impacts are and the air quality and community criteria. For the solutions for congested corridors program, we incorporated strategy 2.4, which is continuing current practice to target a vehicle miles traveled neutral suite of investments. And across all of the programs under strategy 3.1, which is reflected in our community engagement updates, we added new questions on environmental justice impacts and community benefits.
I do want to mention that there are two cross program items that are still in development.
And we're just in the virtual public workshops on July 15.
So the stakeholders have an opportunity to weigh in before language is finalized.
The first item that we'll discuss is delivery methods.
We're proposing updates to our delivery methods provisions across the SB1 programs so that
we can correct outdated information and expand procedures
for alternate project delivery methods
such as progressive design build.
The second area is within efficiently inducing housing.
We're proposing clarifying updates developed
in collaboration with our partners
at the California Department of Housing
and Community Development which will appear
in the local partnership competitive program
and the solutions for congested corridors program guidelines.
Registration information for both workshops
the commission's website and was emailed through the commission's distribution list earlier this week. Following these July workshops, the commission will consider adopting the 2026 SB 1 program guidelines at its August commission meeting, which will also initiate a call for projects for the competitive programs with applications due in November. We would like to thank the EAC members who contributed their input and expertise.
and expertise to help us continue advancing more equitable projects. Specifically, we would like to thank Andres Ramirez, Howard Wong, and Peggy Martinez, who participated as subject matter experts, as I mentioned, as well as engagement policies and practices subcommittee members.
and the city of San Francisco.
advocates, and partners have remained engaged in our processes over the course of five SP1
cycles now.
And I believe our current guidelines reflect this engagement and the feedback that we continue
to receive.
Finally, I have to and sincerely want to thank my SP1 programming team, specifically program
managers Naveen Habib, Beverly Newman-Burkard, Lashaw Ward, and Kaylee Geese.
the past seven months have been very busy,
quite challenging times.
My team continues to challenge the commitment to our work
and I continue to admire not only their hard work,
but also their professionalism.
The continued success of the SB1 programs
are truly a testament to the program managers on this team.
That will conclude my remarks.
I'm happy to answer any questions
that you may have on anything I said,
Otherwise, I know our program managers would be happy as well.
Thank you, Matthew.
And thanks for all your work and the work of your team.
Any public comment, Justin?
Yes, we do have one virtual attendee
with her hand raised at this time.
I'd like to call on Leslie Beatty.
Oh, sorry.
I think I raised my hand for the wrong item.
I'm sorry.
If that includes, I'll request a comment on this item.
OK.
We do have two speakers in the room.
First, we have Kenneth Cowell, and then followed
by Sarkis Konchick, Kenny.
Good afternoon commissioners Kenneth Cowell
with the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.
I just wanted to take the time
to thank commission staff for all the work
that they've done to this point.
I really wanted to recognize that I had sent Matthew
an email, I think right after the last workshop
to be like, oh, I have one additional thing
that I'd like you to consider.
And it's really just a cleanup, a clarification
as to when cost savings are recognized.
and they were able to look at that
and make that recommendation.
So I'm really appreciative of that.
And I'm also really appreciative of the time
that your staff has taken to hold office hours
with all of our local jurisdictions who are requesting them.
So I look forward to supporting these in August.
Thank you.
Thanks, Candace.
this. Thank you. Um, thank you.
Chair commissioners are just
contract with the Santa Barbara County Association of governments. Uh, first of all, we're thankful
for, uh, the S P one team for all the work, including the transparency and collaboration
with the guidelines. Uh, we are very thankful for Senate Bill one and all the opportunities
that provides for regional agencies in California. So we are here today to express our support
for the guidelines. Thank you. Thanks, Tarkis. Any questions, comments from the dais? Yes,
Commissioner Eaker. Thank you. Thank you, Matthew, and your entire team for all of the great work
that you've all done. And I know it's not finished yet, so we're just going to keep pushing you on
until you get to the finish line, but we want to know, want you to know how much we appreciate
all the work up until now. I can't stress enough, for those of you who still have comments
or questions or things that you want the staff to know, please participate in the workshops.
I know there's two in July, correct? But as Kenneth just said, you know, he also sent
a note saying, hey, I forgot this, you know, this is part of my suggestions, and the staff
So, you know, we hear sometimes,
gosh, I have all these wonderful ideas
that I would love to have in these guidelines.
Our response is, let them know, show up, you know,
go online, make sure that you're part of this process,
because it does take all of us
to be able to make that product at the end.
And this is a wonderful staff,
And we're doing a great job
of improving the funding.
And they take everything in and
really analyze whether it's
legal and whether or not we
can do that.
And it's in the best interest
of the state.
So I just encourage you all.
And thank you, Kenneth, for
proving that I'm right about
this.
Thank you.
the work that you're doing and.
to the best of your abilities and within the parameters of the program, comments and feedback from all of our stakeholders. So thank you. There's nothing else. Okay, let's move forward. Tab 19 are the draft 2026 solutions for congested corridors program guidelines presentation. This would be you.
Thank you, Chair. Good afternoon, commissioners. I am Naveen Habib and I will present Tab 19,
which is the draft 2026 solutions for congested corridors program guidelines as an information
item. As a reminder, anytime I say we or us, I am referring to commission staff. The solutions for
congested corridors program funds, multiple projects, multimodal projects that relieve congestion in the
state's most congested corridors. The 2026 guidelines represent the fifth cycle of this
competitive program and will provide 2 years of funding in fiscal years, 2027-28 and 2028-29
for a total of $524,555,000. This capacity accounts for the 2024 program being over-programmed
by $1,970,000, which is offset by $26,525,021 in cost savings
being returned to the program.
The commission's program guidelines
establish policy, standards, and procedures
for the development, adoption, and management of its programs.
Program guidelines also address statutory requirements,
incorporate stakeholder input, and include commission
and the city of California. We
We also hosted a virtual office.
The draft guidelines focus on clarifying changes that reinforce existing program policies and priorities.
Collectively, the proposed changes support the Commission's strategic plan goals to elevate
community voices, ensure a healthy environment for all, move people and goods efficiently,
prioritize safety, and to partner for success.
As Matthew noted, the substantive changes apply across the programs.
the city of Toronto. In brief,
we updated the community
engagement evaluation criterion
and the Senate Bill one
programs, transportation equity,
supplement to clarify response
requirements and strengthen
applicant guidance and we
restructured the economic
development and job creation and
retention criterion into a
clearer two part workforce
framework. We also amended the
application submittal
requirements so that project
and we added supporting resources to assist applicants.
And finally, consistent with Commission Resolution G2531,
we incorporated the Climate Action Plan
for Transportation Infrastructure, or CAPDI 2.0,
Strategy 2.4 into the draft guidelines to state
that the program will target a vehicle-miles-travel-neutral
suite of investments by continuing the existing practice
social distancing. And one of
the top priorities of
prioritizing projects that
reduce vehicle miles traveled.
Those are the substantive
changes in the draft. The next
steps move the guidelines
toward adoption with continued
opportunity for public input
along the way. Again, as
Matthew mentioned, registration
information for the two
upcoming July 15th workshops is
posted on the commission's
website and was emailed to
stakeholders on the
commission's distribution list.
committee, and the transportation policy committees in the Senate and assembly at
least 30 days before adoption. We will submit these draft guidelines to the legislature
by July 10th. The commission will also hold two public hearings for additional comment,
one for Northern California on August 3rd and one for Southern California at the August
Commission meeting on August 20th, when the commission will consider adopting the guidelines.
Registration information about the Northern hearing will soon be available on the commission's
website. This presentation is the result of seven months of
workshops, work groups, office hours, debriefs, and a few more
meetings than my calendar would like to admit, or a commission
staff collaborated with stakeholders to prepare these
draft guidelines responsibly. Major kudos to all commission
staff, especially the Senate Bill one programs team for their
support to Laura Penny Baker and Bridgette Driller on the
planning team, John prey on the engineering team and our
executive team. Thank you for sharing your expertise and your
Thank you for your support.
Thank you, everyone, for our
patience and equal measure.
Our deepest gratitude to our
commissioners, members of the
interagency equity advisory
committee and our partners at
Caltrans, the California
Department of Housing and
Community Development and the
California Workforce Development
Board for their continued
collaboration throughout this
process.
And to every stakeholder who
joined a workshop or an office
hour to share feedback.
Thank you.
I want to say thank you to our fearless leader,
Deputy Director Matthew Yaskat sitting just here to my left.
I think anything we could say would not be enough
in appreciation of what an incredible leader
and manager Matthew is.
He is properly embarrassed right now
and we'll keep doing it all the way down the line.
So I'll just leave it at that and say huge thank you
for him being the awesome human being he is.
Lastly, this also marks five years for me with the commission
hope you have a good evening and
have a good evening and
have a great evening. Thank you
for managing the solutions for
congested corridors program and
what a ride it has been. We
have come a long way together
and I'm grateful for every mile
in this managed lane. This
concludes my remarks. Thank you.
You do not disappoint of
moving. Um and you did get your
boss to smile. So thank you. Um
any public comment? Justin No,
Any from anybody from the dais? Questions? Comments? All right, you got a good job.
Commissioner Eger. We did not capture that on the mic, but that's okay.
Okay, we will move forward and we look forward to August for the adoption of SCCP.
Thank you. All right. Next
item is item 20 that will lead
to item 21 draft 2026 trade
corridor enhancement program
fun estimate Justin. Thank you,
commissioners. Time 20 is an
informational item. Garrett
Franklin from Caltrans budgets
the state. And the state is a
the next slide. Next slide,
are just over $1.2 billion and are made up of the elements that I mentioned in the previous slide.
Next slide, please. So as is the case with fund estimate cycles, we've worked closely with
commission staff and will continue to do so in the lead up to the August commission meeting.
policy. At that point in time,
we would present the proposed
2026 fund estimate for
adoption. And provide any
potential updates that come
about based on the enacted
budget. And similar to this
meeting, the intent would be
for that to coincide with the
program cycle guidelines. Next
any public comments? No, there was no request to comment on the item. Any questions or comments
from the dais? Okay, thank you. Thank you. The next tab is draft 2026 trade corridor enhancement
program guidelines presentation. Ms. Newman-Barkar. Thanks, Chair Falcon. Commissioners tab 21 is an
information item to present the draft 2026 trade corridor enhancement program guidelines. The trade
corridor enhancement program is a competitive program that funds public freight infrastructure
improvements on federally designated trade corridors of national and regional significance
on California's portion of the national highway freight network and along other corridors that
have a high volume of freight movements including priority corridors identified in the Commission's
Senate Bill 671, Clean Free Corridor Efficiency Assessment. The draft guidelines describe the
statutory requirements, policy standards, and procedures for the development, adoption,
and management of the Trade Corridor Enhancement Program. Program guidelines govern program
development and implementation, including the process by which we select projects for funding,
the criteria on which projects are evaluated, and the policies that successful projects must
comply with, active funds are awarded. The 2026 trade corridor enhancement program is the fifth
cycle of the program and will provide two years of funding in fiscal years 27-28 and 28-29
for an estimated total of $1,228,000,000 based on the draft fund estimate presented under top 20.
Commissioned staff commenced the guidelines development process in November 2025,
and hosted six public workshops over seven months. The workshop covered topics, various topics,
including but not limited to the Climate Action Plan for Transportation Infrastructure Policy
Implementation, Equity and Community Engagement, Workforce Development, Zero Mission Freight
infrastructure, advanced programming and various clarifying edits. The workshops were well attended
and included participation from local agencies, regional transportation planning agencies,
metropolitan planning organizations, state agencies, freight industry representatives,
private sector developers of zero mission freight infrastructure, interagency equity advisory
committee members, statewide advocacy organizations, community-based organizations and other interested
parties. All six workshops were held virtually, were open to the public, and workshop recordings
and copies of the presentations were posted on the commission website for viewing afterward.
Staff considered all feedback received during workshops and through emails, letters, and
individual meetings and incorporated it where feasible and statutorily appropriate.
During the guidelines development process, staff also held 33 office hour sessions during which
we met with potential applicants to provide technical assistance on project nominations.
In addition to the climate action plan for transportation infrastructure, equity and
community engagement, and workforce development updates described by Matthew under tab 18,
the guidelines development process resulted in various policy and language changes.
These changes are shown in bold red text in attachment A, and I'd like to highlight a few
of the key changes now. A major focus of the guidelines revisions was advancing zero-emission
freight infrastructure. Specifically, staff updated the guidelines to help zero-emission
freight infrastructure applicants better communicate project benefits and demonstrate
project readiness. As part of this effort, staff added several new zero-emission freight
infrastructure evaluation criteria to better assess project benefits, readiness, and deliverability.
For example, the guidelines include new questions related to technical specifications for battery
electric charging and hydrogen fueling station projects, additional questions related to site
features including amenities available to drivers, project readiness including project site control
status, and project team experience to assess the applicant's ability to deliver a publicly
funded zero emission freight infrastructure project. Additionally, it collaborates with
F.R.E.S.A.S. and uses F.R.E.S.A.S.A infrastructure resources appendix, which includes examples of
eligible project types and links to fact sheets on monthly funded zero emission freight projects.
example Zero Emission Freight performance measure methodologies and narrative topics,
and links to resources on Zero Emission Freight project planning, permitting, and implementation.
At the request of regional partners, staff also updated the guidelines to ensure
Zero Emission infrastructure applicants are aware of the streamlined permitting process
and alternative delivery methods. The other key focus this cycle was amending our policy related
to advance programming requests. The Trade Corridor Enhancement Program guidelines,
if an applicant has the opportunity to use state Trade Corridor Enhancement Program funding to
secure federal funds, the commission may choose to award program funds to the project in advance
of the regular programming process. The draft guidelines were updated to place limits on the
federal obligation deadline for projects requesting advanced programming. Specifically, if a project
is already secured federal discretionary funding, the applicant must demonstrate that the federal
funding obligation deadline falls on or before September 30th of the first fiscal year of
programming for the upcoming trade corridor enhancement program cycle. This language was
added to ensure that advanced programming is reserved for projects facing an immediate
federal obligation deadline. Staff integrated several clarifying edits as well, none of which
represent a change to existing commission policy. The draft guidelines continue to advance
policies that enhance freight mobility and California's economic competitiveness,
while supporting this transition to zero emission goods movement and reducing freight related impacts
on communities and the environment. The draft guidelines also support
several of the commission's strategic plan goals, specifically the guidelines aimed to
elevate good voices through updates to the community engagement evaluation criteria,
the equity supplement, and the equity supplement. And these updates focus on inclusive engagement
practices, meaningful collaboration, and building trust with affected communities.
The guidelines also aim to advance progress towards a healthy environment for all by continuing
to prioritize and support zero-emission freight infrastructure. The guidelines aim to move people
and goods efficiently by continuing to support projects that improve freight mobility, address
critical freight priorities, and mitigate the impacts of goods movement on surrounding communities.
The guidelines also aim to enhance safety by continuing to prioritize safety for all users,
including industry workers and people walking and biking near freight corridors. Finally,
the guidelines advance our goal to partner for success by integrating the input and expertise
of the many local, regional, and state agencies, community-based organizations, advocacy groups,
equity advisory committee members, and free industry partners that participated in the
guidelines development process. Before I conclude, I'd like to thank the entire Senate Bill 1 team
for their support and collaboration during the guidelines development process. I am especially
grateful for TSEP's research data specialist Kenneth Lopez, who has supported every step
of guidelines development while leading several other program activities. From the Commission's
planning team, I'd like to thank Lala Teijo for supporting various guidelines updates with her
freight planning expertise. I would also like to thank Tanisha Taylor and Paul Golozewski for their
guidance, expertise, and trust. And finally, thank you to Matthew Yozcat. Once again, I couldn't ask
for a more supportive, thoughtful, caring, and kind person to support me through this process.
this concludes my presentation of the draft 2026 trade corridor enhancement program guidelines
and I'm happy to answer any questions thank you Beverly um any public comment just yes we do have
some virtual attendees with their hand raised at this time like to first call on Marissa Brown
yes hello folks can you hear me yes we can okay great um my name is Marissa Brown and I'm based
in Oakland representing the Green Lining Institute. Thank you so much to staff for your hard work on
these guidelines, and thank you to my fellow advocates who continue to show up to push for
a healthier California in the guidelines process. We appreciate the commission's efforts in the
guidelines to strengthen the program's alignment with California's climate, equity, and goods
Movement Goals, including the addition of CAPTIE 2.0 language, the new ZEV appendix,
tribal coordination language and resources, and expanded workforce development and community
engagement provisions. We urge that the CTC keep these additions and adopt TSEP guidelines that
prioritize deep community engagement and electrification of California's trade corridors.
We additionally asked for increased transparency and consistency for TSEP projects.
We like to see this in the guidelines through
language to clarify how CSIS scores are being incorporated in the TSEP decision-making process,
language to require project developers to explain how their project is helping meet
regional greenhouse gas targets under the Regional Transportation Plan
slash sustainable community strategies, language requiring projects to submit a project performance
analysis once every five years after construction to ensure that the projects are achieving the
goals stated in the application, and lastly a requirement to report the number of potential
displacements in the costs of right-of-way acquisition and relocation in the application
and in the baseline agreements. Together these improvements will help ensure TSEP investments
deliver cleaner air, more efficient freight movement, greater transparency, and lasting
benefits for California communities. Thank you. Thanks Marissa. Any more twisting? Yes,
we have four more hands raised at this time. Up next I'd like to call on Sophia Rafacova.
Good afternoon, commissioners. Sofia Avikova with the Coalition for Clean Air. I wanted to first
deeply thank the CTC staff for working closely with us throughout this year to go over and
incorporate many of our recommendations that we submitted. We strongly appreciate the addition of
the new ZEV appendix with best practices information, a robust workforce development
section urging applicants to provide additional info on jobs types and quality, and a stronger
equity section encouraging applicants to report on targeted community outreach and collaboration
with community partners. All these new additions will help collect more data on how TISA projects
are supporting our economy and working closely to address concerns from local underserved communities
as well as encourage more ZEV infrastructure projects to apply to this program to help build
over 100,000 heavy-duty chargers that are necessary to support our ever-growing zero-emission fleets.
We would also like to see stronger language in the guidelines to improve project accountability
and ensure that TISA programs remains in alignment with other agency efforts across the state.
For example, as mentioned by the previous speaker, we'd like to see additional language on how
projects are helping meet regional GHG targets under the RTPSCS. Currently projects are simply
required to check a box to confirm they are in the RTPSCS, but having additional information
would help commissioners and the public understand how TISA projects are advancing regional goals.
We would also like to see a requirement that projects submit a project performance analysis
once every five years after construction to ensure projects are achieving the goals outlined
in their application. Currently, these reports can be requested in an as-needed basis, but
having consistent reporting that is then presented as CTC hearings would help showcase the benefits
these projects are bringing to the state, to the commissioners and the public. And finally,
we'd like to see stronger collaboration between CTC and Caltrans in ensuring that projects
are relying on a single travel demand model to submit applications and that Caltrans has
access to accurate project information to help calculate Caltrans system investment strategy
scores. We hope to continue working with your staff and thank you for your consideration.
Next we have Leslie Beatty. Hi my name is Leslie Beatty and I'm representing Climate Plan which is
a statewide network of policy community and environmental justice groups. We are working
to align California's transportation spending with safe access affordability and health goals.
I'm commenting to uplift the comments
of my colleagues for Coalition for Clean Air
and the Green Lining Institute.
And I also echo their thanks to the CTC staff
for engaging with advocates on these guidelines.
We really appreciate the engagement
and the consideration of our input
to these important guidelines.
And we believe that we share some common goals
with respect to CSEP.
We asked that the CTC to adopt TSEP guidelines
that give top priority to projects
that electrify California's fleets
and mitigate driving increases over projects
that are merely highway expansion.
Much of the current TSNP funding goes to support projects
that widen highways,
pushing more diesel trucks onto our trade corridors.
These trucks view air pollution contributing over half
of the particulate matter that sickens and kills Californians,
particularly in communities right next to these roadways.
This isn't an equity that's worth the best efforts
of Caltrans and the CTC to address
through its funding decisions.
and hope the economy doesn't have to come at the expense
of the health and life of Californians
who live along our trade quarters.
Thank you for your consideration of the prioritization,
community engagement and transparency requests
that my colleagues have raised.
Thank you.
Next, we have Michael Speyer.
Yeah, hi, my name is Mike Speyer.
Thank you for listening and thank you to staff
and the commission for your hard work for California.
I represent several hundred members in San Mateo County
who are frustrated with how we're spending our tax dollars
increasingly on highway expansions
instead of on clean and efficient transportation.
Thus I'm urging the CDC to adopt TSEP guidelines
that prioritize the electrification of our trade corridors
over these additional highway widenings.
It seems that too much of this TSEP funding
currently goes to support projects that widen highways,
and this just pushes more diesel trucks
onto our core trade corridors.
This increases air pollution, childhood asthma,
particulate matter, especially in low income,
diverse communities that live adjacent to the highway.
We do not need this for a healthy economy,
and thus we encourage the CTC to give top priority
to projects that electrify our fleets,
and that we stop spending money
on these fruitless highway expansions
that do not reduce congestion.
We also ask the CTC to take steps
to increase the consistency, transparency,
and accountability of these projects.
consider that the CSIS scores in the TSEP decision-making process requiring project applicants to use consistent measures for induced vehicle travel and requiring project sponsors to report out on the true outcomes of their project once completed to ensure the projects achieve the goals that were stated in their original applications.
Thanks so much for listening.
Next we have Hannah Krieger.
Hi folks, my name is Hannah Krieger
and I represent the Green Lining Institute,
a racial equity organization serving California's
low income communities of color.
We very much appreciate the time CTC staff
have spent updating the TSEP guidelines
and incorporating our recommendations.
I'm here urging the CTC to adopt TSEP guidelines
that prioritize electrification of trade corridors
and to take seriously the displacement crisis
highway expansion projects are creating. State data shows that over 850 homes and businesses
were demolished to expand highways between 2018 and 2024. Greenlining has mapped these
displacements on our Homes Before Highways website overlaid with legislative districts
and we've shared those findings with legislators. But that data only captures completed projects.
So Greenlining wanted to understand which projects are funding, which programs are funding approved
projects that will displace communities in the near future. And what we found should
concern every Californian navigating the housing crisis. Over $350 million in TSEP funding is going
towards highway expansion projects that will result in displacing California residents.
At least $57 million of that is allocated specifically towards right-of-way costs,
home acquisition, and demolition. In the middle of a housing crisis, we cannot keep using taxpayer
dollars to tear down homes to widen highways. TSEP is just the first program we've examined
and we plan to look into others. We encourage the commission to take action on this issue
and to support the development of the Caltrans Director's policy to reduce housing displacement.
We urge the CTC to prioritize projects that electrify California's fleets, avoid displacing
residents, and require project sponsors to report true outcomes to Californians. Thank you for your
make a motion. Okay. And we
Thank you, Justin. We do have a
couple of speakers in the room.
First want to call up Ethan
Nichols. Good afternoon,
commissioners. Thank you for
taking this time to hear from
your constituents. I am a
University of California at
of the state's own data shows the highway expansion projects are directly contributing
to the displacement of homes and businesses, exacerbating the housing crisis. In my research,
I analyzed all 56 TSEP baseline agreement documents identifying every project resulting
in housing displacement. In this analysis, I found that $358 million of TSEP funding
went towards highway expansion projects resulting in the direct displacement of California residents.
of these projects, at least $57 million
is specifically allocated towards right-of-way,
including home acquisition and demolition.
This information was challenging to acquire
as there are several inconsistencies
between baseline agreement documents,
especially in regard to availability
and depth of right-of-way information.
Other information such as destination of TSEP funding
was often unavailable,
and the formatting of the documents themselves,
such as several sections of agreement documents
being scanned in rather than searchable PDFs,
compromised accessibility.
In several instances, entire sections were either,
entire sections or appendices were missing.
These results point to two logical conclusions
for you to consider when adopting new TSEP funding
guidelines.
First, I urge the commission to consider these discrepancies
in transparency within the final agreement documents,
measures such as standardized fact sheets and right of
the city of California. We are
Green Lining Institute who you've already heard from.
So I'm just going to echo and add on
to what was already shared by my colleagues.
I also want to thank Matthew and his team.
They've been really diligent in working with us.
And so we appreciate all that time and effort
that they put into the draft guidelines.
We appreciate all the updates to the guidelines.
So I want to say that first for both the solutions
for congested corridors and T-SIP program, particularly
we want to strongly support the CAPDI actions
in both programs.
On T-SIP, we urge the CDC to go even farther
in prioritizing freight electrification.
That is a really important aspect of this program,
the ability to clean up the air,
particularly in communities
that are most burdened by diesel pollution.
And as you've heard,
we would urge you to avoid funding highway expansions
that are increasing pollution
and congestion in those communities.
We also really appreciate the new language
in the guidelines around anti-displacement measures
and avoiding that,
the city of Toronto. And we're
high, but the amount of money that goes towards displacement is significant at a time where,
as you just said, you have ATP oversubscribed by six times. And relatedly, we understand
that Caltrans is developing a policy to avoid and limit future direct displacements. We're
really excited about that. We intend to engage in it. And we hope the commission will as
well. We hope that gets adopted and finalized before the end of this administration. So
we'll be watching out for that closely. Thank you.
Thank you.
Next up is Jose Luis Casades.
Oh, well, Jose Luis Casades.
I am the director of programming and project delivery
for the Stanislaus Council of Governments.
Of course, we are in favor of the adoption
of these guidelines, but there are a couple of comments
that made, I wanted to respond to them.
First, you know, homelessness is in the news a lot.
And one of the things that I think is important
is when we talk about homelessness,
realizing that there's multiple kinds
individuals who are experiencing homelessness. When we talk about highway
expansion similarly as we're delivering projects we're seeing there's lots of
different types of projects that can be done that could be labeled highway
expansion but I would say would be mislabeling highway expansion. In our region we're
building a stretch of highway that's been on the maps for forever and we're
taking it off of a local road that should not be a highway and I'm concerned
that someone could consider that highway expansion and it's important that we
be careful when we use big broad terms. Similarly, we talk about displacement. Yes, we're buying right away along the strip for this kind of realigned highway, but we're buying it in strips and pieces and bits and parts. Not every right away purchase results in someone having to find a new place. But when it does, we have the money, we provide the funding for them to get their new home, not in the path of this highway. So just a couple things.
I wanted to bring to the CTC and staff's attention. Sometimes we use these broad terms
and we count all the right of way costs being expended and sometimes we are over counting
and not taking into account the individual situations of these projects and these property
owners. Thank you.
Any other comments, Justin, online?
Did not see any additional requests to comment. Thank you.
you. Any questions or comments from the dice? Yes, Commissioner Mann. Well I guess to echo everyone
else, thank you to Matthew and your team for all of the incredible work that's been done. It sounds
as if there's been really extensive conversations and workshops and other efforts around this
engagement with the equity advisory committee and just thank you for all of that. I have a couple
of follow-up questions based on what I'm seeing right now in the guidelines. My first question
in terms of community engagement, which it's helpful to see the way in which you're thinking
about community engagement and how that would further follow, but my first question in terms
of community engagement is as you think about community engagement like what ends up being
robust community engagement or community engagement that qualifies as community engagement under these
guidelines and I know you're talking about specific types of groups and individuals that would be
engaged in the work that I've done over the years I've seen really great community engagement and
and I've seen checkbox engagement.
And the checkbox community engagement
often doesn't provide enough time for the community to engage.
It doesn't provide enough forums for them to engage.
And so when you're thinking about community engagement,
practically, what does that mean?
What are you looking for?
Thank you.
Thanks for the question, Commissioner.
So first, I would say that community engagement
became an evaluated criteria in TSEP in cycle three.
So it's relatively new in TSEP.
And the engagement that we've seen in applications
has really improved through the cycle.
So what we saw last cycle was a huge improvement
on what we saw the cycle before that.
And it's also a huge emphasis of what staff
has been talking to applicants with during our office hours
and during our debriefs on applications from last cycle, both successful and unsuccessful.
We got a lot of great comments from our equity advisory committee evaluators who evaluated the
community engagement last cycle. So in terms of what we think of as robust engagement, I think
it could look different for every project, but our equity supplement really gets to kind of what
we're looking at. We're looking for engagement that's specific to the project and we're also
looking for engagement that is really not just informing but it's really shaped, the project is
being shaped by the community. So taking whatever feedback the community is giving the agency and
incorporating that into the project. And we've seen that with a lot of T-sub projects and last
cycle where the agencies integrated some sort of mitigation measure as part of
the project to kind of reduce the impacts of freight. So maybe there's
people walking and biking along a major freight route and so the agency
integrated something like a class one path or a new protected bikeway or
sidewalk. Um, so I just lost my train of thought. Um, yes, so, uh, we're looking for
engagement where it's like really interactive. And in our equity segment, we have a lot of
examples of what that can look like. So kind of meeting the community where they are, um,
through different types of meetings. So not just, you know, having a city council meeting
presentation, but really like holding a workshop at a local school that's really familiar to
the community where it's somewhere where they already gather or going to things like farmer's
markets or just like local events and having conversations with the community and also doing
things that are a little bit more interactive. So some of the suggestions that we have in the
guidelines it's just like making it a little bit more where like you know we're asking the
community's questions and the communities can provide input based on those questions and it
it can help shape the project.
So it's something that we, well, okay.
So I also have an active transportation program background.
That was my first program here.
I'm really, really passionate about community engagement.
So again, like in every conversation I have
with our applicants, I'm really stressing the importance
of community engagement
and really having an interactive process,
not just, you know, telling the community
what, what you're going to do. And a lot of the language that we added to the equity supplement
cycle came from solutions from our EAC and Matthew already thanked them, but I just want to say
thank you to those members again. I was familiar with that for them, it overwhelms in a good way.
Like they provided so much practical, practical ideas that we could integrate into the evaluation
criteria and into our equity supplement. So we added more examples of what inclusive engagement
looks like. So when we're having these workshops, how are they ensuring that everyone can participate,
not just like anyone who's ever been to a community meeting. There's always the local people who come
to everything. But how are we getting everyone who would be affected to come? So we have more
examples of how to make engagement accessible by public transit or by having it in a location
that is familiar to the community and at times that is good for the community. So ensuring
that materials are accessible. So accessible to individuals with disabilities and for non-English
speakers. And then we also integrated more language about building trust, which is something I
really want to expand on next cycle as well. Like building trust for the community and really
acknowledging the past harms and like, you know, working with the community to mend those past harms.
I hope that answered your question. I feel like I rambled on.
I appreciated it.
That was very helpful.
So it sounds like it's ultimately
many, many months of engagement that
is effective community engagement and proper notice
to the community in terms of how they participate
in that engagement.
Thank you.
In terms of the anti-displacement,
I appreciate all the comments around displacement.
And with this one especially, it seems
if in some ways you describe in the guidelines which I very much appreciate what displacement
is. So there were some comments about displacement from right away but then in the guidelines you
also have a conversation about displacement based on like economic reasons right there's a market
shift that happens that causes displacement and so with some of the provisions in the guidelines
I can understand how a project proponent would be able to assess and give some understanding
about what this is going to look like in the future, and I'm guessing also with the displacement.
On the other end, once the project is implemented, and I did want to just also call out the
workforce development provisions, which it's helpful to see those as well, I could understand
like for some of those on the other side you see you can enumerate it you can say like this many
jobs were formed this is how many people these are the provisions these are the places where
we were able to connect with them um when it comes to the displacement do you have thoughts in terms
of how that's measured later especially when we're not talking about just right-of-way
displacement and the demolition of homes we're talking about this other level of displacement as
well. I actually, so we have definitions that we added to the supplement, and that's a really
good question. We added a new displacement question to the guidelines, and we're looking at Matthew.
Do you have any thoughts, Matthew? That is a really good question, and I think the reason
I'm reacting like this is because when when we introduce the workforce development language,
Um, one of the reactions we got, and it was a, I think it was a very, uh, important reaction
for us to hear was we were asking for tangible forecasting of what would happen to the workforce
climate once a project was in, in the delivery phase.
Um, it's very hard for a lot of our partners to forecast that with, with a certain degree
of accuracy, which is why we're kind of taking it a step back and saying, well, why don't
you use past examples that your agency has employed and give us those as like what it
could look like, and then obviously with the monetary threshold, you can kind of scale
it.
I think the question you're asking is very similar in terms of how a project being built
would shift these demographic, see a shift in demographics that would cause displacement
that mechanism, that's a really good question I think for us to to consider along with these
workforce development questions that we want to consider in cycle six. It's because we haven't
had that conversation with our stakeholders in order to, I think, answer that question in terms
of what so we might be able to understand what they can forecast, but it might be kind of a
a retroactive exercise, if that makes sense.
But it gives us a lot to think about.
And I would actually like to come back to that
after this meeting.
Any other comments from the dais?
Yes, Commissioner Crisby.
All right, well, thank you for the presentation.
I definitely wanna thank staff for the real progress
that these draft guidelines exhibit on the list here.
I'll go through some of them.
The cap die 2.0 language, the ZEV appendix,
the workforce and tribal engagement additions,
and now the explicit inclusion
of individuals with disabilities.
So the aspirations there, the goals are tight.
My questions will be around enforcement
and compliance to those goals.
So the first is, how do we verify that a project fully
mitigates, or to what degree the project mitigates, their VMT?
And a connected question would be,
how do we ensure that a project that names
an RTP or SCS goal actually moves their region
towards that goal?
OK.
In terms of the VMT mitigation, so
the language that we added to the guideline
to set projects that mitigate the passenger VMT impacts,
which is the Kapte language which mitigate passing
to impacts will be more competitive for funding.
So how we're looking at it in the guidelines
is we are looking at the kind of added benefits
of those VMT mitigation measures.
So in terms of what that looks like, it's, so we are essentially, it's not like, it won't be a
scientific accounting of being like the the DMT being fully mitigated. And we're essentially
looking at, so if they're mitigating their DMT impacts, they should discuss those benefits
throughout the application and whatever evaluation criteria is appropriate. So
For example, if they're doing like some active transportation improvements to mitigate VMT they
could talk about those the benefits of those measures in the safety category or in the
multimodal strategy evaluation criteria or in the greenhouse gas emissions evaluation criteria
or in the community engagement criteria if it's usually the results of some community input on
the project. So we won't be doing an accounting to ensure that they're fully mitigating their
passenger VNC. I will say that a lot of projects are already integrating these types of measures
into the. So, so there were many things that we've that integrated measures like this.
And that's, a lot of the did mitigate VMT, but a lot of our I would most our project
sponsors now are creating incorporating elements that also mitigate mitigate the impacts of
freight on communities. So we're seeing projects that are integrating active transportation or
transit expansion, several projects integrated transit expansion, things like complete streets.
So this is kind of supporting and advancing what our project sponsors are already doing with
their freight projects, kind of making them more comprehensive and getting the impacts,
and make the impact that they're having on communities.
Lucila, second question.
I'm so sorry.
Yeah, I have a couple.
So I was going to say.
Did you ask what was the question?
Oh, and the other one was, how do we know of a project,
actually, that has listed an RTP SDS goal?
Actually, has moved in a region towards that goal.
OK.
I'm glad I asked you.
Once again, I got kind of carried away
thinking about your question.
And then I forgot the second question.
OK, great.
So in terms of the RTP-SES, so in order to be eligible for the Trade Corridor Enhancement
Program, a project must be consistent with the RTP-SES. So at this point, the relevant
Metropolitan Planning Organization must submit a letter as part of the application that confirms
that the project is consistent with the RTP-SES. All right, excellent. And going back to community
engagement and I've noticed there's been and it's not our fault as a state or a commission
but there are some areas of the state where I think communities are better organized again
therefore express their opinions earlier in the process and get more people involved and then
there's other parts of the state where that doesn't exist or there's not a culture of doing
that in those communities. So do you have any thoughts around that and how to make sure that
that we get more consistently really good
community participation outside of areas
where those folks are already organized
to provide that input.
Yeah, that's a great question.
And it's something that I think about a lot.
I think in terms of our equity supplement
kind of is part of like how we're working to achieve that
because we know that there's some areas of the state
where again, like you said,
they don't have that same culture of community engagement or they just don't have this like
same type of experience. So we're trying to put kind of best practices into that supplement
and examples to really help those agencies do that kind of a community engagement. And
the reason we want to help them is because as Matthew said during his presentation,
community engagement really is a major factor in how projects are evaluated and selected for funding.
And TCEP in particular, I'm sure in the other programs too, but I was only reading my applications
that I received, the agencies are really improving their community engagement, and I would say
a lot of them are using that equity supplement as a resource, and incorporating the kind
of practices that we're putting in there.
So I would say because it's such a critical component of our evaluation criteria and will
continue to be a critical component, I think agencies will take it seriously, and they'll
use the resources available, and again, as I already mentioned, during all of our office
hours and debriefs, we talk to agencies about this, and commission staff is always really
willing to help on this matter. I've had some office salary sessions where I was kind of
brainstorming with agencies on this, like maybe they submitted previously, and I was helping
brainstorm ideas for what they could do for their community engagement leading up to
Cycle 5. Thank you so much. And I have one more. Yeah, definitely. For the years, I've been really
personally inspired by the work the Commission has done around clean freight and I think that
should be applauded by various communities in the state. We know there's barriers to folks
having clean freight infrastructure built, whether it be connections to electricity,
et cetera, et cetera. Do you have any thoughts about how to encourage folks to apply
to this dev program we have.
Yeah, OK.
So that was when I joined TSEP last cycle.
It was like the thing I was one of the things I was mostly
excited about was Advancing Zev.
And obviously, I jumped in right after the guidelines
or right when the guidelines were at the last cycle.
And as we were evaluating applications,
it was something I really thought about.
And so that was why, as a team, we came up with the Zev appendix.
And I'm really grateful.
We got a lot of input on that from both our regional partners, who
I will say there's some regions in this state who are really, really
interested in these projects.
But they were like, we don't really know how these processes work.
We need help.
So we wanted to come up with resources for them.
and also our advocate partners who wanted us to keep advancing
these projects, which we're completely
aligned with that perspective.
So that appendix has different examples of project types
to help Africans think about what
they could do with set infrastructure,
including traditional projects, like a traditional freight
projects that has a ZEV element, which
We've seen several, I wouldn't say several,
but a few of those in the program
and they are very highly competitive.
And then the second piece of that
set of appendix is, example performance measures.
So there's three statutorily required performance measures
in the program.
throughput and reliability and velocity. And the previous of applicants have had a really hard
time competing. We have to evaluate for statute. We have to evaluate projects on those measures.
And we've had a hard time competing those measures because they're like we can't there's like these
this measure doesn't make any sense for us. And so I'm really grateful to my staff Kenneth Lopez
because he worked to create some example performance measures that applicants could
use which we included in the guidelines in the appendix. And we also worked as a team
to come up with some like narrative topics they could discuss because off cycle, I mean,
we saw some where they were like, the applicant would be like, oh, reliability doesn't really
applied as a product. There are things you can talk about here, you can talk about checks
not having to go on detours, you can talk about even things like queue management within
your charging station, how are you managing that queue to get the flight back on the road
and get the cargo moving? That was that second piece. Then the third piece is the resources
that we provided. We provided a lot and I'm very open if people know, I haven't said this in our
workshop, if people have other resources that we can add to that appendix, I would love to consider
them. We really want to make it as helpful as possible because I think a lot of our local and
regional agencies, they really just don't know where to start and I think like things like the
permitting process are very confusing and they just need like that push and that help. And I will say
It's not in our guidelines, but we are committed to, for applicants who are successful in getting
a ZEV project funded this cycle, we're also going to develop some more guidance,
kind of like a next step guidance. It's not in the guidelines, but once we fund those projects,
it's like, here's some next step guidance on permitting, like what you need to do now,
or template letters that they can use for the permitting process.
We're going to do that in collaboration with Caltrans and we've also been working with the governor's office of
business and economic development. I always call them GoBos, but
that's what that means. So we've been working with them to kind of put those resources together.
Excellent. Well, thank you so much for all the hard work and I'm so happy to hear so many stakeholders
were happy with the process and their inclusion
in it. So congratulations. Thank you.
Just something quick, Matthew. So you talked about it's difficult to evaluate and monitor
economic development, right, as things are happening. I'm not sure if you have reached
out to large economic development organizations, not necessarily go-based, but people are actually
in the field doing the work because an economic development organization that brings a large
project to a community, they have to do an economic impact analysis. And so some of those
tools are already in place for what it is that you're talking about. So it was just my suggestion
that you might want to reach out to folks and say how is it that you're doing it because it can
apply to what we're doing here too. That is a great suggestion. I know you were one of the
commissions that work directly with us to inform this language and what I failed to
mention during my item is we are considering the integration of workforce that we're committing
to in cycle five is kind of a two step process. We would like to take the language further,
provide tools and examples that actually that was one of the major suggestions we received
at the workshop that Naveen led back in March. So we will be in touch because that will help
to help us inform where we can get started when we bring that back in cycle six. Just to add also, part B, or the second part of the criterion the last section that we workshop with you and the stakeholders literally says describe the workforce development landscape in your region, and how this project connects
that you've already identified
in part A, that you used during
the construction process.
And that came actually directly
from all of this great
information that I researched
based on what you provided us.
So thank you so much for
sharing all of that.
Great.
Anybody else from the dias?
Okay, just a couple of things.
So, great job team.
And I know we have one more set
of SB1 presentations.
Just on the community
engagement, and you said in your comments about resources, so it'll be interesting to
kind of, you know, really understand, and it doesn't have to be now, but maybe in the
August as you're continuing to compile comments and feedback on how you actually measure community
engagement, because you talked about resources and no two regions are the same in terms of
their resources and their ability to incorporate community engagement, it all has to be done,
but there's some very lean budgets in certain regions, and so they may be more innovative
even though they don't necessarily procure community engagement consultants, et cetera.
And so it'll be interesting to understand how you measure that, is it more subjective,
is there a sort of a loose metric.
Again, you don't have to explain that now, but maybe something to think about.
Because from my experience working on community engagement, again, different entities and
jurisdictions have have have monitoring ability to to procure professionals to
to do engagement you can also use CBO's right and so it would be under need to
understand kind of robustly what what those opportunities are and so that
applicants aren't hamstrung on any one method as it relates to community
engagement. Second of all finally I just want to remind folks that want to
continue to engage on SB 1 that there are two workshops again that was
mentioned earlier on alternative delivery methods and land use and
housing and so that's another bite at the apple and I encourage folks to to
attend those and I know that you all really dedicate yourselves to the office
hours. That's an amazing opportunity for folks to to engage one-on-one with staff on projects
and ideas as it relates to our guidelines development. All right, so with that moving on to
tab 22 draft 2026 local partnership competitive program guidelines presentation. Ms. Ward.
Good afternoon, commissioners. Tab 22 is an informational item to present the draft
2026 local partnership competitive program guidelines. The local partnership program
provides funding to counties, cities, districts, and regional transportation agencies in which
voters have approved fees, tolls, or taxes dedicated solely to transportation improvements
for the competitive program. Eligible agencies also include those that have imposed fees
dedicated solely to transportation improvements. Funding for the Local Partnership Program is
divided into two programs, 40 percent for the competitive program and 60 percent for the
formulaic program. Tab 22 will focus on the competitive program and tab 23 will focus on
the formulaic program. Please note the change list for tab 22. The corrected book item includes an
updated version of the draft guidelines minus the strike through text. A corrected list
of formulaic eligible agencies in Appendix F and the addition of a checkbox for individuals
with disabilities in Attachment A, Appendix A correction. The 2026 Local Partnership Competitive
Program represents fifth cycle of the competitive program and includes two years of programming
with an estimated $143,858,000 available. The 2024 program was over-programmed by $142,000.
The initial appropriation of $144 million has been reduced by that amount. Please keep
in mind that this is still an estimate and we anticipate the total funding amount available
will increase once we finish reconciling unused incentive funds from the formulaic program and lapsed project funds from both LPP programs.
The final program capacity will be noticed with the guidelines adoption in August.
The draft competitive program guidelines were prepared by commission staff in consultation with the Interagency Equity Advisory Committee,
Caltrans, the Department of Housing and Community Development,
preservation planning agencies, county transportation
commissions, local agencies, advocacy groups,
and other stakeholders.
Following the same process as the 2024 program,
we gathered community and stakeholder feedback
through a series of workshops
and through written letters and emails.
As described earlier,
the 2026 guidelines update process began on November 20th
and included program managers
from the three SB1 competitive programs
and the local partnership formulaic program.
Following the kickoff,
the commission held two public workshops
specific to the local partnership program
where staff presented all proposed edits of substance
for both the competitive and formulaic program guidelines.
Attendees were offered opportunities
for discussion during the workshops
and encouraged to follow up
with written comments if necessary.
Local partnership program staff
also use this opportunity to offer some training on the formulaic program comments received through
workshop discussions and written materials were incorporated into the draft guidelines
as appropriate peak attendance at our program specific workshops included 95 attendees and
represented staff from local and regional agencies caltrans the equity advisory committee and
and advocacy groups.
After each workshop, the PowerPoint presentations
and workshop recordings were posted
both to the main commission workshop page
and the local partnership program page.
Commission staff also hosted 24 virtual office hour sessions
between March and May of this year
to provide technical assistance to potential applicants
who wanted to discuss their project nominations.
The office hour sessions focused on the competitive program,
but we did occasionally answer some questions
about the formulaic program as well.
At this time, I would like to briefly highlight
some of the proposed changes to the draft
2026 competitive program guidelines.
A first, the transportation equity supplement
and community engagement evaluation criterion
described earlier has been incorporated
into the LPP competitive guidelines as well.
Likewise, the revised SB 1 workforce development language has been updated in the economic
development, job creation, and cost effectiveness evaluation criterion.
In response to stakeholder feedback, the 2026 local partnership competitive program guidelines
include a new award limit of $40 million per agency per cycle.
the per project award limit remains at $25 million, the new policy accommodates agencies
that submit multiple project nominations and preserves the commission's intention to
balance the need to direct increased revenue to the state's highest transportation needs
while fairly distributing the economic impact of increased funding from Senate Bill 1.
listening to that question.
As familiar with the 2024
program guidelines will notice
small clarifying edits to
language and an updated
appendix A, which is the
application template. This
appendix has been revised to
better align with the
guidelines language and it
incorporates references to the
E P P R or the electronic
project program and request
document. And the state highway
It also adds a new requirement for nomination packages to be ADA remediated prior to submittal
and Naveen described that earlier. Finally, a major effort was made by the whole SB1 team
to align guidelines language and format to provide more consistency between the program guidelines.
We hope you agree that these changes will make the guidelines easier to use and understand
for our partner agencies.
Looking forward we have two standalone workshops
that have already been discussed.
They are on July 15th where we will discuss
alternative delivery methods language in the morning
and the efficient land use and housing language
in the afternoon as previously mentioned.
As a reminder the land use and housing criterion
and appendix supplement are specific to the SCCP
and LPP competitive programs.
And we have been working directly with the Department
of Housing and Community Development on that.
We encourage all interested stakeholders to attend
and share your feedback as this will be
the last opportunity to do so.
Final guidelines for the 2026 local partnership
competitive program are proposed for adoption in August.
Before I conclude my presentation,
I would like to thank our partners and stakeholders
to participated in workshops and provided feedback
on the development of the draft guidelines.
In particular, I would like to thank LA Metro
for their efforts to provide thoughtful suggestions,
which ultimately were incorporated into both
the 2026 Local Partnership Program guidelines.
I'd also like to commend my fellow SB1 program managers
and their staff for their efforts to coordinate
and ensure our guidelines update process is as trans,
this excuse me is as transparent as possible.
It truly is a pleasure to be part of a team
with colleagues as capable and as pleasant as they are.
Finally, I would like to thank our Senate Bill 1
Deputy Director Matthew Yasgott for ensuring the integrity
of our process every step of the way
and always doing so with a smile.
That concludes my presentation of the Draft 2026
Local Partnership Competitive Program Guidelines.
I'm happy to answer any questions.
Thank you.
Thank you, Lashara.
Any public comment?
There was no requested comment on this item.
And no one in the room.
Any comments or questions from the dais?
Just before we get to the last one,
I just want to say, Matthew, we all just love you.
And we haven't noticed yet.
this is all really about how much we love Matthew.
No, I think they're trolling me at this point.
It does seem every cycle it gets more and more.
Well, two cycles ago, I was paying them to say these things.
Now they're just doing it to troll me.
They just want to see you smile, Matthew.
All right, final item of the day.
this is Kisi, item 23. Draft 2026 Local Partnership Formulaic Program Guidelines.
Commissioners, tab 23 is an information item to present the draft 2026 Local Partnership
Formulaic Program Guidelines. In tab 22, Lashara provided an overview of the Local Partnership
Program and the guidelines development process. So today I will focus on only the Local Partnership
formulaic program and guidelines. This will be the sixth cycle of the formulaic program
and will include fiscal years 2027-2829. Eligible applicants under the formulaic program
are local or regional agencies that have and administer voter approved taxes, tolls, or fees
that are solely dedicated to transfer improvements. Each cycle 60% or 216 million dollars of local
program funding is distributed among eligible agencies in the formulaic program. Each agency can then request to program their formulaic program funds to eligible projects throughout the cycle. The draft local partnership program fund distribution, which shows each eligible agencies formulaic program funds amount, will be published on the commission's website in the next week. And the final 2026 fund distribution will be presented as an action item at the August commission meeting.
the new program. The new policy
was developed in response to
request from formulaic
stakeholders to allow eligible
agencies to program 2026
formulaic funds before the
initial programming in January
2027. This new policy will allow
eligible agencies to program
2026 formulaic funds before the
initial programming in January
This new policy will allow eligible agencies
to program 2026 formulaic funds at either the August,
October, or December 2026 commission meetings.
The policy states that advanced programming requests
will only be considered for projects
that support significant events of statewide economic impact
and will be considered on a case-by-case basis
as program allocation capacity allows.
Most of the updates to the formulaic guidelines
cycle were intended to make the guidelines, policies, and processes easier to understand
and more user-friendly.
These edits included adding clarifying language in various sections.
In the allocation adjustment section, we've added additional language to clarify the process
for adjusting allocations between program to project phases.
In the cost savings policy section, we have updated the language to specify who the cost
the program's program. The
will be recommended for adoption at the August meeting and initial programming will be presented
at the January 2027 meeting. Before I wrap up, I'd also like to thank our partners and stakeholders
who participated in the 2026 SB1 guidelines development process, especially those who joined
our LPP-specific workshops. We had very robust discussions with formulated program stakeholders
and they provided valuable and helpful feedback for not only the guidelines but also formulaic
program processes when we presented formulaic program training topics in this cycle's LPP
workshops. Finally, I know that Matthew has raised. So my view is to all of my SB1 program
teammates for their continued support and collaboration throughout. That concludes my
presentation of the draft 2026 local partnership formulaeic program guidelines.
Well done, Kayla. Well done, team. Any public comment?
I do not see any requested comment at this time.
Okay, great. Any questions or comments from the dais?
Okay. All right. We'll see you in August. Well done. All right. So before we adjourn,
the agenda. So just a quick