Good morning. I'd like to call to order the Metrolink board meeting for October and ask
for a safety briefing by Tim Morehead, our interim chief safety security compliance officer.
Good morning, happy Friday. Good morning, Chair, members of the board. Today's safety
briefing is a reminder that in the event of a fire, we're going to collectively exit the
board room, go down to escalators, and we'll convene down by the customer service outside
on the right-hand side there and then wait for further instructions. In the event of
an earthquake, I'm going to ask that everybody stop what you're doing, drop, let's take
cover, wait for the shaking to stop and then at that point we can see if an evacuation
is needed. In the event of a first aid emergency, we do have first responders in the room as
well as an AED device that's located out here in the hall next to the security desk.
And in the event of an active attacker, let's remember the three key words, run, hide, and
fight.
That concludes today's safety briefing.
Thank you.
Thank you, Tim.
I ask Director Murphy to lead us in the pledge.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
If you'd rise if you're able, and join me in the salute to the flag of this great nation.
With liberty and justice for all.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Madam Secretary, could you call the roll?
Certainly.
Director Wapner, Director Dutray, Director Marquez,
Vice Chair Chafee, Director Nguyen,
Director Murphy, Director Dumitrou,
second Vice Chair Bergson, Director Spiegel,
Director Middleton, Director Vargas,
Director Tremblay, Director Engler,
Director Barger, Director Krakorian,
Director Najarian.
Here.
Director Solis.
Director Hughes-Leslie.
Director O'Connor.
Director Allen.
Here.
Director Preciado.
Here.
Chair McCallin.
Here.
We do have a quorum present.
Thank you very much.
Do we have any public comment?
I have not received any requests to speak,
but I do have some written public comments
that will be emailed to the board after the meeting.
Very good.
Thank you so much.
Next is our consent calendar.
is there a motion on the consent? We have a motion in second. Any objection to the
motion? Any abstentions? Seeing none, it's passed unanimously. On to our regular
calendar. First off is our contract for a train operation and maintenance services
recommended for an award presented by Don Felipe, our Chief Operating Officer. Don?
Good morning. First I just want to recognize the team that worked on this
for the last year and a half. Angeles Kesleyonis, Arnold Hackett, Rod Bailey,
Luis Kestlong, and Ray from legal. They put a lot of hard work into this and it
was a really good experience for all of us. It was a great teamwork. I'd also like
to recognize the team that negotiated with us from Alstom they're here today
as well and I'd just like to thank all of the proposers that participate in
this process we appreciate everything that they did and we appreciate them
proposing in this are participating in this process. So on to the presentation I
will be presenting on MSOP 158-24 train operations and maintenance services
as we call it.
Next slide.
Since 1992, the authority's rolling stock
and train operation services have been provided
through individual contractors.
The following contracts will expire June 30th, 2025.
Alstom, rolling stock maintenance,
Amtrak, Metrolink operations, and Tassie, aero operations.
The maintenance of our facilities is currently performed by authority staff, however specialized
equipment maintenance such as HVAC, elevators, landscaping, that is provided by a third
contractor, third party contractor.
Next slide.
In April 2020, the board directed staff to pursue bundled approach to procuring train
operations and maintenance services.
In February, 2021, the board approved a five-year bundle contract for track and signal infrastructure
maintenance and support services for Herzog.
On November 22nd, 2023, RFP MSOP 158-24 was issued for train operations and maintenance
services.
The RFP included rolling stock maintenance, train operator services, facility maintenance
and contractor facilities, facilities maintenance for contractor use facilities and on-call
work directives for rolling stock, train operations and facilities.
Arrow maintenance and arrow facilities was not included in this contract.
Next slide.
A total of 92 firms expressed interest and 48 representatives from 21 firms attended
a pre-proposal conference on January 9, 2024.
participated in a three-day tour of the authorities major facilities that were
involved in this RFP. Next slide. Proposals were evaluated on a basis on
proposals were evaluated based on the following criteria relevant experience
qualification of the firm and the key personnel past performance approach to
services, workforce retention and pricing. The authority received three proposals by
the due date of July 16th, 2024. The three proposals were Amtrak, Herzog and Alstom.
Next slide. Herzog and Alstom's proposals were found to meet the minimum technical
requirements. Both were invited to present their teams and their technical proposals.
Herzog score was 86.2. Alstom score was a 77.25. Negotiations with Herzog were
conducted in September of 2024. However, the parties could not agree on price
and agreed to end negotiations. Negotiations occurred with Alstom in
October and the ultimate and ultimately negotiated price was lower than the
authorities also exceeded the DBA DBE participation goal next slide now I
wouldn't want to run through budget impact the following items represent the
budget impact base mobilization is 7.8 million dollars option a dash zero one
mobilization is $779,000, and year one for base services, $94.1 million for materials
administration, $1 million, excuse me, for on-call maintenance work directive estimated
$900,000. Materials passed through, $16.7 million, and for first-year capital not covered
under base maintenance, $8.1 million.
Next slide.
So total fiscal breakdown, just under $7.9 million
for mobilization, just under $853 million for base services,
$80 million for on-call work directives, just over $10.2 million
for materials management and just under $171 million
for materials.
Next slide.
It is recommended that the board authorize the chief executive officer
to award contract MSOP 158-24
for train operations and maintenance services
to Alstom Transport USA Incorporated
in a total not to exceed amount
of 1,121,666,447 dollars
and 85 cents. This covers mobilization,
base contract term of five years, and one three-year option to be exercised at the authority's sole discretion.
That's the end of my presentation. We have a team here to answer any questions you may have.
I show my ignorance. Could someone tell me who Alstom is? Alstom is?
I have no idea who they are.
Alstom is a global company, they manufacture cars, they were a, prior to Alstom, you may
know them as Bombardier, they merged, Alstom took them over.
So they manufacture cars globally, they have projects such as this globally, and they are
currently our maintenance provider for the last, I think, 10 plus years.
And where are they doing similar work for,
you said they were doing similar work somewhere?
Yes, they are working in Canada and the U.S.
They have multiple projects up north,
trying to think of the exact projects,
but let me, Luis will give you the exact names.
Luis Carrasquero, Deputy Chief Operating Officer.
They have operations in Mark on the East Coast,
as well as in Canada, as Don mentioned.
Hold on, Luis, Luis, I'm sorry, Mark,
you gotta make sure we, Maryland.
Maryland Authority, rail?
Baltimore area.
Very good, thank you.
Any comments, questions from Commission members?
Alan.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Obviously, price is extremely important,
but there was a significant difference
when it came to the technical score.
So I have to make sure we're not sacrificing
anything that we would have had
if we had Herzog just because of money.
Absolutely.
Would you like to talk to that?
We'll speak to the contract issue.
Good morning.
Andros Castricianac is Senior Manager
of Contracts and Compliance,
also the contract administrator for this contract.
During the negotiation,
all our concerns were addressed by the contractor
and the solutions that they provided
eased up all our concerns
and solved any issues we thought would be.
so we are confident that they will cover this area.
I don't think that answers the question.
My concern is that we're going to have as good,
if not better, quality service with this vendor,
even though they're lower priced than we would have
with the best-scoring technical score with HRSA.
That's why I don't wanna make sure
we're not sacrificing anything for money,
that our passengers are still gonna have
a safe and reliable train system.
Absolutely, so when we reviewed the proposals,
there were items within their proposals
that we were uncertain of, there was staffing proposed,
key personnel that were proposed,
that we were not certain of.
So that reflects their score.
So when we had a second conversation with them,
we got to understand exactly what they meant
in their proposal.
There was a clear understanding.
We felt very confident about that.
And they also made changes to the key personnel
to, you know, to basically satisfy our concerns.
The concerns that you had during the process
were taking care of during the negotiations
for the price.
They absolutely were.
Okay, thank you.
Fun thing, can you flip the slide back?
Not a big deal, but I just want to address this
so that everybody knows we're paying attention.
This one says 86 cents and you said 85 cents.
I know it's not a big deal,
but if you remember a few years back,
we had a contract and we were off a few pennies
or whatever in the presentation,
and someone called us on it,
so I just wanna make sure we address that penny.
That is a good find, and I will fall on the sword.
My notes, I typed in 85 cents.
The slide and the report both reflect 86.
No, this agenda says 86, 85.
It's just a slide.
I'm just so, and after meeting one time, a few years ago,
do you remember that, Alan?
It was a...
You say so if you're an area.
Oh, so, which...
The board agenda prevails, so absolutely.
Thank you for pointing that out.
Didn't we have a problem with Bombardier before?
Am I remembering incorrectly?
So I don't know in the past, since my time here,
I can speak to what I've experienced.
I can't speak prior to me,
but what I've experienced, they had coming out of COVID,
they had a staffing issue.
They did not have enough personnel to facilitate
what we were asking them to facilitate.
They immediately addressed the issue.
They went to work, they started hiring,
they started training, they brought that staff in
and they were able to facilitate from that point forward.
It took them about, I would say probably eight to 12 months
to get fully staffed and get all of those individuals trained.
But that is the only thing that I've experienced, uh, in the five years,
that five and a half years that I've been there. You shook your head.
It was a period of, it was before COVID and I can't remember what the issues
were. Darren, you remember, um, what, here's what I can remember. And of course,
I wasn't in this capacity, but I was with the Ventura County Transportation
Commission. There were issues with Bombardier and I think this is one of the,
Again, we're not talking about Bombardier.
They have been acquired, fully acquired by Alstom.
Alstom, I think the moment Alstom acquired that operation,
we saw improvement in our activity that exists today,
getting past that history of those years ago.
But because Bombardier was limping,
certainly in a variety of areas,
I think that with Alstom's acquisition,
they have been far better capitalized
to deliver a service.
I'm going on the line of thinking that Mr. Wapner is and so I'm very leery remembering
some issues in the past but if you're confident with the full take over, I'm okay with that.
Thank you.
So I am quite concerned with the technical scores, which had Hertzog at 66 and Alstom
at 52.
that when the price score came in, that there was some ground caught up by Alstom.
But I mean, I am concerned the relevant experience is significantly lower for Alstom and the
approach to the services is significantly lower.
Price is always a factor in our decisions, but I think we've, you know, in light of some
of our history, I think this board has not placed such a great emphasis on cost savings
as we have for safety, experience, qualifications, and all that.
My second point is more on process, and I wish this had come through a committee where
we could have dug into it on a committee level, been accustomed, you know, to the issues,
and then come to the full board.
So I heard what you said, that you went back with Alstom and they alleviated some of your
concerns with the key personnel issues.
I'm not totally at ease.
Not that I'm against it, but I'm not totally at ease with how we got to this point.
I don't know if anyone else shares those concerns.
I do see that Herzog dropped out of the negotiation process,
however, leaving you essentially only Alstom to deal with.
But I'm just a little off on this.
Yes, and that's fair.
It may look like we settled based on what was in front of us.
But the reality of it was the procurement process
There's only certain parameters that you can get through, and so when we first got those
presentations and we started to review them and the committee went through them, there
were things that we were uncertain about, and there were things that, you know, within
that proposal that just really didn't explain their approach, and were they answering the
questions that we were asking and so the score kind of reflects that it kind of
reflects the uncertainty that we had with Alstom through that proposal
process there's you know it's not a conversation I can't I can't have an
open conversation and ask them what did you mean on this proposal I have to
score based on what they provide now when we get past that process and you
then you can engage, and you can start having those conversations, that's when we got a
lot of the answers that we were searching for through the proposal, and we started to
feel much more confident about what they were going to, what their approach was and how
they were going to be able to facilitate our needs.
So fair question in which you're asking and what your concerns are, but us as a team,
we felt very confident in Alsom's ability to perform after we went through that lengthy
process with them. Okay very confident is a strong seal of approval and I
appreciate your your remarks in explaining that thank you. Thank you Mr. Chair.
So in every procurement in every agency that I sit on I believe in giving wide
deference to staff because you're more plugged in than we are, certainly on
the details. At the same time, the policymakers of every agency have to be
engaged fully. It's our decision, it's not staff's decision, it's ours. And I think
I have to be even a little bit more pointed than ARA was just now.
Four years ago when we were talking about bundling these contracts, I said at that time
that if we bundled these contracts, we were going to get very few bidders for these procurements
because there were very few companies in the world who could handle all of these things.
seems to have been borne out by this procurement process, but still even with
that we had we had three which you know included the incumbent and I don't see
scores for the incumbent. So why is it that we're only being presented with
Herzog's and Alstom's scoring and not Amtrak's?
The process described in the request for proposals and the instructions to
proposers, only the proposals that would be identified in the competitive range
would be scored. That's the reason why we have not included that score in the
final report. How is a bid found not to be in the competitive range if it isn't
scored? It is preliminary scored in the process but that score is not transferred
to the end because price score is no longer considered.
It would be no price score for the third company
that proposed, so we can't have a comparison
apples to apples anymore.
I'm sorry I'm not following.
So is the competitive nature determined only based on price?
No, the competitive range is defined only based on technical
and then we move to the next phase
and price is also considered at the end.
So the third proposal we received did not make it
to the process.
Okay, on the technical scoring.
Correct.
Okay.
Has Metrolink ever entered into a billion dollar contract
before?
No, this is the first time.
So why was a billion dollar contract put before this board
without it being considered by a board committee
or as far as I know by the member agency tax.
My decision, but I'll let it speak out.
Excuse me, Director Corcoran.
So the thought process here was this contract
is a significant contract.
Going through committee does add time.
We have a board meeting again in November.
So we were going through, and in November,
we only have board meetings.
In December, we only have board meeting.
So we did not have a committee written into,
from a scheduling perspective,
we were only gonna be able to go to the board
given the time frame.
So we had the negotiation completed
and in the interest of time
and having the contractor have adequate time to mobilize
for July 1 of 2025,
we decided to make it as soon as possible,
recognizing that we only had board meetings
the rest of the year. So we would have if we were going to go the committee
process we would not have been able to do that until January. Understood but the
proposals came in in July and I have never been involved with a significant
procurement I think in any agency where part of staff's presentation was not
really sorry but we have to decide this right now because the contract is
expiring we don't have time to consider it further and when this is not only a
significant contract but a contract that will fundamentally change the entire
nature of this organization because it is all of our bundled services being
contracted out for over a billion dollars this is the sort of thing that I
would have expected that this board would have been engaged in thoroughly
from even while these negotiations were ongoing, at least to let us know what
was coming. I would have expected a special meeting would have been called
of the board or of its committees. It's not hard to call a special meeting, but
you know what I have in front of me right now is two proposers. The one
One that's being recommended to us is has substandard scores on every single category
on which they were ranked other than price.
Every single one.
Workforce retention is equal.
In every other category, they are the inferior bidder.
And it's helpful, I guess, to have you present and say, yeah, but we went back to them and
we talked to them.
But this board hasn't.
This board has gotten none of that input.
And even on the strategic idea of going back to the superior bidder and negotiating on
price to the point that they pulled out of this procurement, that's something that the
should have been engaged in and involved in deciding.
We've said that safety is foundational to this agency.
We don't say that price is foundational to this agency, so I feel that this is coming
almost out of the blue for the board, and what we're hearing is essentially, trust us,
think it's okay for a billion dollars and the entirety of service that we
contract out? I'm not satisfied with it at all. I certainly agree with my
colleagues. You know one of the primary thoughts when this was first brought to
the board's attention to do this would be a cost savings. What is the cost
savings by bundling this. What will our agencies save? Do you have numbers that tell us that?
Director Burksen, Arnold Hackett, Chief Financial Officer. So when we look at the contract,
how we looked at it from a financial standpoint is what was going to be our cost if we continued
on this path, right, with the three, and we estimated those with the increases. And this
contract is coming in a little bit lower but about even with that so there's
really no benefit to bundling it with the exception maybe perhaps that the
different divisions will be you know under the same house umbrella and so if
something happens they can work together instead of trying to call the different
contractors so coordination wise I think it would be the plus but aside from that
you know when you put your eggs in one basket and you leave them out in the sun
for too many days things can go sour real fast and that's what we're doing
we're putting all of our trust in one company that doesn't really seem to have
a track record that any of us at least those who have spoken that don't really
know all strum I don't know them either other than what you've told us today
that they do some maintenance or something on the system they maintain
our vehicles for the last 10 plus years hopefully the revenue fleet that's what
they do to answer your question there there is a benefit other than just costs
It is the continuity of service, maintenance and operations work hand-in-hand, having one
contractor responsible for those is greatly efficient for an agency.
They also bring things to the contract that we don't currently have, technologies, resources,
engineering, that are not included in the current contracts.
So to Arnold's point, if you look at what we're doing today, and you try to compare
it to what this contract offers, there isn't really a comparison as far as, as Arnold stated,
pricing is equivalent, it's a little cheaper, but as far as what it provides and the resources
that we're going to get out of this, there isn't a comparison.
Excuse me, if I could just real quickly chime in just a couple of quick points.
One you know, this is as was explained through the presentation. We do have one bundled contract now
that was our tracking signal and
maintenance of way that had prior had previously been
Completed by two different contractors. So here we are with this one the logical connection here
And I can tell you I can I've experienced this myself as a user and who speaks with the conductors and engine in the engineers
on our trains. The level of coordination that I see is a where we have an
opportunity with Alstom is that they're a one contractor providing the mechanical
work on our trains and our conductors and engineers. So there is going to be
one contractor that the operations team has to go to and we're not going to have
finger pointing. Right now I experienced, I see it firsthand, finger pointing
between various contractors.
This is our way of being able to get past that
and hold Alstom, a single contractor,
accountable for that responsibility.
So I've seen that, again, firsthand.
We have, we do have a history of this.
It's a new history of bundled contracts,
but has proven successful with what we have out there today.
And we see this as that opportunity.
I don't recall this, but I see that this may have come
in the past conversation that Mr. Del Rio you have to correct me if I'm wrong
but I believe the last bundle contract that we had the Herzog contract that we
currently have also came straight to the board and so it has been a way we've
approached it when we brought these big contracts and now I say we this is the
way we've approached it we have a history of exactly one time so I don't
want to say that that's the precedent that we should always follow but that
That has been what we have done in the past.
And so while there is some less familiarity with Alstom as a company, and I've heard
from our board members the question about technical skill sets, their original proposal
didn't meet the standard.
It was through those negotiations and us identifying where we saw deficiencies that they said,
okay, what makes it responsive then to meet your needs Metrolink and a big part of it was on the staffing elements and that
was something that they agreed to correct came in with
experienced professionals to
Run the certain run this operation should they be received the contract so that was sort of the evolution of that process
To where we are today, so just a couple of observations as the board continues to contemplate this
We we have options if we need to if we if the board is not prepared to have this
Take action today the staff recommendations stands
But we do have another board meeting if we need to take it take another boarding our November board meeting
If there needs to be continued you know continued thought on this
if we and if we can provide more information to satisfy board members of
what Alstom as our recommendation on how they can perform.
So that would be another alternative
if there is not comfort to do this today.
One of the problems, a couple of problems I've seen
with this is that first of all,
we didn't come with a presentation telling us
who Alstom is and all of the benefits of going with them.
The other point is you've done negotiations
where you've changed the score
and you haven't told us what those changes were
and how much that would have changed the score technically.
So I agree with the CEO that maybe we ought to continue
this to our next board meeting and you come up
with the information that we're asking for.
Why did you change, you know, what is the,
that you've added that changes the technical,
the scores that you've presented to us here?
If you have to get the technical evaluation committee together and decide
that fine.
But we, I sense that we as a board don't have enough information to be comfortable
with what you're proposing.
So I would recommend that we continue this to the next board meeting.
Alan?
Thank you Mr. Chair and I can certainly support that.
But you're going to have to help me with the history because the way I remember it,
when we first talked about policy direction from bundles, initially it was one bundle.
if you all recall, in fact, just the opposite.
We actually had an ad hoc, I think I was on that,
to go through the whole process and watch the whole process
through including HRSA coming forward.
We realized that the mega bundle wasn't gonna work
and so we split it up into many bundles.
Now, at Lexic, we're going back again.
First, I don't wanna hold, staff, you're not responsible.
We're the one who set the policy direction
for bundles to start with.
But we were deeply involved with the first process
where it did have its own ad hoc
and went through policy committee
and then came back to the board.
My question at this point, though,
looking at the final negotiated price from Herzog, how does that compare to the
final negotiated price with Alstrom? What's the difference, the final
difference? The final negotiated price from Herzog was still over a billion
dollars. What are the numbers because it's over a billion dollars? The final
negotiated price from Herzog was one one billion sixty nine million and some
change. And the final negotiation from Alstom was $875,754,000.
One more time? $875,754,000. Now, you do need to remember that this is the price file that
was submitted during the procurement process, and that was what was negotiated. And certain
Items that are in the recommendation today were not part of the price because they are either pass-through costs or on call work
That will be awarded later on and will be negotiated as such
So Angela's that the the original price if you don't mind, mr. Chairman just jumping in
We we based it off of a base of
875 eight hundred seventy five million
that was the base cost for
operations for operations and mechanical and maintenance and
875 versus 1.066, one billion or so.
$125 million less in round numbers
between the two proposed cost items.
I get that right?
Correct, and all the items that we are requesting
in addition to the pass-through cost and the on-core work
would be added on top of that billion dollars.
Given where the, my sense of where the board is on this
the request for more information that's another question that we should be
prepared because I'm hearing certainly from the chair that we will the desires
to table this to the next board meeting that's a question that we need to have
better answered so that that's clear and and I think it'll speak for itself but
we do need to make sure that that is a question since it's come up from the
Board. I think we should all take a moment and step back I know it's Mr.
Corian was making some comments too of getting questions I guess to you or the
chair that we'd like to see answered at the next meeting. Not that you have to
sell it to us, you have to explain it to us because we don't have the knowledge.
The technical scores are really bothering several of us and I understand
that you you're saying that well once we talk to them we can in negotiations we
understood that well we don't know that and we are so focused on the safety of
our passengers that is a number one and that's my fear is that if we've taken
any negotiated step down from that focus and so I think that showing us the
differences in how you came to the decision that the scores weren't significantly different
once you answered the answer questions and probably would be good to have somebody from
Austin here so we could talk to them directly.
They're here.
Oh, they are?
They're listening.
I don't know if they're ready to answer some of these, but.
Well again, Director Spiegel, the sense I'm getting from the board is that we bring this
back in November and I suspect also we'll be here and if they want to meet them and
they are here now, but at the same time I don't think now is going to get to the board
the answers you're requesting.
Darren, if I may, the mail out for the November agenda is one week from today and I don't
know that that's enough time for this to go on to the November board agenda we
can do it we can do it we can do it just one other observation just looking at it
from 10,000 feet I would and I was not obviously a part of any of the analysis
or the negotiations but when you have a bidder that is the low on the technical
side as well as a low on the price side you wonder if that bidder really
understands the bid and sometimes knowing too much about a bid can be
costly because that higher bid is because of other experience or really
understanding what's being asked and that's just a kind of another way of
looking at the concerns I think that's been expressed and I wonder I'll leave
it to the chair and the rest of these of the members that have more experience
and I but I almost think you almost you're gonna need almost in essence like
a study session type of discussion before you come back out here and do it
all up front but that's up to everybody else's comfort level I think the
questions that were asked are good ones but they sort of just make up the
surfaces to what I think the concerns are from some of us up here so I join
in the idea that it's certainly not ready for prime time today but I'd also
be cautious about allowing a calendar to direct how you're going to make the
largest financial decision that sounds like that this board's ever made thank
you mr. chair yeah just a couple more things one the 1.1 billion was that for
the five years and the three-year extension or is that just the first five
no that covers everything that was discussed the five years the three years
and everything else that was discussed, mobilization.
So two other things, one is I think to sum up
10 other colleagues comments, can you provide us
with a new score, a score after the discussions?
I don't believe we can do that under procurement laws.
I don't know that we can provide a score
but what I think we can probably do is
We know where our score was originally and what was done
to then give us a position of greater comfort
about, again, staffing questions and what they did
that instead of one person, they've now brought in
and are going to provide another.
So it won't, I wouldn't, it's not gonna be
a numerical number, but it'll be what took it.
So long as we understand what it means.
Understood. The advantage or what was taken
from that conversation, that satisfied staff.
And the other comment I have is because I continue to think about 2028.
And I want to know if this contractor, uh, because this is the contractor who's
going to now have extra equipment and extra operations during that period of
the Olympics or an after will this company be able to have that extra
manpower and support to make us function as we're supposed to.
That was a condition in the RFP that they would be prepared
to flex up to meet the needs of LA-28.
And anecdotally, Alstom's parent location is Paris, France.
That is their base of operation.
Their headquarters is Paris.
They have direct experience in being a part of a game.
It's not that that was what necessarily mattered,
but they bring a skill set that was unique
to what just occurred in 2024.
The most important thing that comes to Los Angeles
twice in my lifetime, it's not very often
and we certainly don't wanna fall on our faces
and give Metrolink an awful name
because the trains aren't showing up
because there's lines are out of service,
machines are out of service,
and they don't have the staff to put it together.
So that's why, and I'm glad it's in the contract.
So those were the little things I had, thank you.
Director Corinne.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Kettle, for the suggestion. I think just having a
little bit of extra time for all of us would be a great relief. Thank you. And I would
just suggest that Director Wapner raised the issue of the vector and you addressed that.
I'm not sure that I fully understand yet whether we're comparing apples with apples. So when
you do come back, if you could kind of break that price differential down a little bit
more because of the add-ons that you were describing.
You know, I just want to make sure that we understand what the actual price difference
is, apples to apples, all in.
And then also the issue of what our cost savings were from the bundling, I think, is an important
part for us to really look at as well.
It's too late now, we've made that decision, we decided to go with the bundling, but that
was the principal motivation behind it was that there would be cost savings and it sounds
like we're not realizing the degree of cost savings that the board might have hoped four
years ago when that decision was made. So we will need to have that in front of us.
And then to Director Murphy's point about some of the technical discussions that you've
had that brought you to a greater comfort level on that part of the scoring, you all
have far more expertise in all of these issues than I do, certainly. I think it would be
helpful if the member tax could kind of weigh in on what your thought process was as well.
So if they could be at least brought into the discussion, brought into the loop so that
we could each be advised and fully informed about those changes. That would be helpful
as well. I don't know if it has to be a formal process, but at least having the extra time
will allow the member agencies to look at it and say, oh yeah, we agree. That makes
sense. The changes that you've talked about really do satisfy our concerns. I think that
would be helpful as well. I don't know if there's a way that you can do that within
the timeframe, like I say, formally or informally.
I think we have a chance to be able to do it informally.
We do have a MAC meeting scheduled, I think, for next week.
We will be flying by the seat of our pants
to get the information that's been requested here
to make it happen, but we'll certainly do what we can
to get that and to make that available.
And we can do it informally, Director Corcoran, at the MAC,
Just to leave any concerns that might be out there
on the member agency side.
Great, thank you.
And my advice or counsel is to don't tell us
why you can't do it but tell us how you can do it.
That's usually the way I try to approach things, sir.
Don't let the contract law or whatever restrain you.
Thank you, Mr. President.
Just a brief obligatory statement is that
we've had a really healthy policy discussion
But it's just that it's not pointed toward either the bidders or anything else
We're talking about the policy and the process and that's what this is all about. I think that's a great healthy discussion
Good point. Yes
First of all, I want to thank staff for doing such a great job a lot of work into this great questions by the spore
Thank you. The only question I really have since it is a five-year contract with one three-year extension
If for whatever reason it doesn't work for us. What are our options?
We have the ability to terminate for cause
Any other comments or questions
We need a motion to table this
As there any objection to tabling this to November?
It's November
8th is our board meeting
Very good. Thank you so much. We appreciate your effort. And I know it's going to be difficult,
but we just need to get to a comfort level as a board before we proceed. Next, we'll go on to
Item 7B, which is our board and committee meeting dates for calendar year 2025. Michelle?
Thank you, Chair. Next slide, please. So before you is our proposed 2025 Board and
Committee Meeting Calendar. It follows our typical schedule of the committee
meetings being on the second Friday and the board meetings being on the fourth
Friday of the month with the exception of September, November, and December, where
there are no committee meetings. For September, there are no committee
meetings due to Mobility 21 falling on the second Friday of the month, and then
and for November and December,
it's the typical holiday schedule,
so we have the board meeting on the second Friday.
Also came up at the e-comm meeting,
Chair McAllen recommended changing
the time of the executive committee meeting
to nine o'clock a.m.
and the audit and finance committee meeting
to be at 9.45 a.m.
and contracts, operations, maintenance,
and safety committees still would be at 10.30 a.m.
So with that, I will turn it back to the board for discussion.
Yes, thank you.
I'd also like to continue this item.
We have some new board members coming on.
I want to be certain it's convenient.
I'd like to check with everyone to be certain
this new arrangement works.
The executive committee is earlier than in the past.
And I personally have a little trouble with that early time.
So I'm trying to figure that out.
No trained schedule works for me.
as I get here before seven.
So I'd kind of like to continue this also to make certain
when we have some new board members,
it works with them as well.
And we're more certain as to who will be on which committees.
Thanks for the timing of your work.
Objection to continuing this to the next board meeting?
Go ahead.
When are you talking about continuing this still?
On the next meeting.
Do we already know who our new members are gonna be?
Maybe it might be the second,
Is there two meetings in November or just one one just one and a half beat to the next meeting the November 8th
The election will be over by then but we may not know that's that's what I'm trying to say we can always bring it back
Would you like to push it to the December board meeting or?
What would when is that one pleases the board?
I believe it's the 12th. I will not be in town on the 13th
Yeah, you'll be out of town
Well, let's if we can move it one meeting try to figure this out a little better
We just talking about the time of meeting start or the dates. I'm fine with the dates
You're fine with the dates. We're ranging different meeting times and trying to make it more efficient
I think by having three on the same day, for example.
We just leave it up to the chair and the CEO
to take an informal poll as to who would probably
be in those executive committees
and pick what they deem to be the best.
If I could, just for the board's awareness again,
so Vice Chair Chaffee gets the hot seat here in January,
and we'll be making those selections
as to which committees we generally,
and I think there's respect for the preferences
of board members on which committees they sit on.
So we may not have that information
until Vice Chair Chafee is, Chair Chafee.
So that's the only wrinkle,
because we may have new members
and we will potentially have new appointees
to different committees.
I agree.
I would leave it up to the Chair.
That's your reason.
One of the benefits of taking the extra pay
you receive. If I might. One more penny, I think. The reason that I asked for the change is starting
in January, I won't be the chair of Metrolink, so it will free up some of my time so I could
participate more in some AQMD meetings, and that was the reason I asked for the
Change if we if everyone could agree to it so that I would be able to
Work some committee meetings at AQ and D that I really should be involved in but haven't been because I've been chair here
But I understand if we can't do it, but
I'm hopeful that we can
Work on it. Okay. So we'll table this to our November 8th meeting
without objection any objection
Seeing none, that's what we will do. Then on to item 7c, update on the cooperative planning
and issues between SRRA and Desert Express Enterprise. This is received and filed and it's
going to be presented by Roderick Diaz, Director of Planning and Development, and Don Perrett.
I can't pronounce the name, Senior Vice President of the Corporate Affairs for Brightline West.
Please go ahead.
Roderick, you need to hit your button.
Good morning, Chair McAllan, members of the board.
This morning we have the privilege
of having Ben, the Senior Vice President
of Corporate Affairs of the Bright Line organization,
to give us a direct report on the overall progress
of the Bright Line West, to introduce Mr. Port.
Welcome, Mr. Ben.
Thank you, sir.
Appreciate it.
Good morning to the rest of the board.
I appreciate the time and the chance
to update you on Bright Line West.
I also wanna introduce my teammate Asha Jones,
who together with me oversees our corporate affairs,
government affairs, public affairs work here.
We are ready to hit the slide.
I do wanna give a brief reminder of who we are.
Some of this may be reviewed to some
and may be brand new to others.
But Brightline is the first private company
to engage in passenger rail in America
in more than a century.
we have successfully launched and deployed
our first system in Florida,
which I would invite all of you to come see
that connects Miami to Orlando.
And that is the best example of our overall business model
which is to connect city payers
that are too short to fly and too far to drive.
The systems around the world that connect cities
that are about two to 400 miles apart
that we envy from Europe as well as Asia
and that we desperately need here in the United States.
We became involved in what used to be known
as Desert Express, we acquired that project in 2019.
And since that time have been working to put it
in a position for construction and development,
which we have successfully done.
I'll go to the next slide.
With our Brightline system in Florida,
just a quick overview, we have six total stations.
We launched the first phase of that in 2018,
a 70-mile stretch from Miami to West Palm Beach.
We expanded that to Orlando to 235 miles in 2023.
Since that opening in September of last year,
we have successfully increased our ridership and revenue
almost every month since we opened.
And we are on a steady path to stabilization, which
will take place in 2028 based on our projections.
That will allow us to carry over 8 million passengers
a year in the state of Florida.
The model also calls for kind of the reimagining
of passenger rail and just travel in general.
It's based on an experience.
It's completely different than any train
that maybe any of us have ever been on.
And we measure ourselves through that lens
of the modern traveler and what they need
and what they want.
And we compare ourselves through polling and data
to other companies that we're all familiar with.
hospitality companies and technology companies.
And if you see on the right-hand side there,
my right-hand side,
we measure comparably to the Ritz Carlton,
Amazon, Netflix, all of these companies
that we're all familiar with.
If you go to the next slide and the next one,
I'll show you what we're building here today,
which is a similar corridor in length, 218 miles,
from Las Vegas to Rancho Cucamonga
with train speeds that will go above 200 miles an hour.
The definition by the FRA is 186 miles an hour
or faster designates high speed rail in America.
This will be the first high speed rail system
to ever be built in the United States.
We'll have fully electric, zero emission trains.
And based on our ridership projections,
there's 50 million trips today
between these two population centers.
we expect and project that we'll capture about 20% of that.
The stations that you see up there, Victor Valley,
Rancho Cucamonga and Las Vegas are the three main stations
that will allow passengers and guests
to go all the way back and forth
between one end of the corridor to the other.
There is a four station being planned
in Hesperia, California between Rancho and Victor Valley
that we're partnering with the San Bernardino County
Transit Authority that will serve and hold,
withholds seats on a morning and afternoon basis to help
with commuter populations up and down the cajon pass.
Next slide.
I don't have to go into too good a detail.
I think that this stuff is talked about often,
but you guys are well aware that these projects
and the amount that's being invested
have a tremendous economic and environmental impact.
This project, in and of itself, will create 10,000 direct
construction jobs.
We saw a very similar number in the state of Florida
that we can point to.
And once the system is up and running,
there'll be a thousand jobs left to operate the system.
The environmental benefits are equally impressive.
Not only will we take cars off the road,
but we will certainly remove
harmful emissions from the air.
But I think most importantly,
what we look at this project as,
and what we hope to convey and show and prove to others,
is that this really becomes the blueprint
for how we create high-speed rail all across the country.
And there's one major difference between our project
others, which is we look to build within existing transportation corridors.
This project will go right down the middle of the I-15 highway.
Our project in Florida used roadways as well as an existing freight track.
That eliminates private property issues, eminent domain issues, grade crossings, it's already
environmentally disturbed.
So when we look at it from that perspective, that becomes a big piece of our business model
to do in other parts of the country.
Just a little bit about each station in Las Vegas, our company acquired 110 acres on the
south part of the Las Vegas Strip on Las Vegas Boulevard and the I-15.
We need about 20% of that footprint in order to build our station site.
The rest will be designed and master planned into a residential, commercial, and other
real estate opportunities.
We did the same thing in Florida.
If you go to the next slide, you'll see where our station is.
We're within 10 minutes of every place
that everybody wants to go when they get to Las Vegas.
And part of our experience is making it a seamless transition
to get from our station to any of the destinations
on both ends.
In fact, when you check into the train in Rancho Cucamonga
and you're staying at, let's say, the win,
all of your bags will show up in your hotel room
without you having to worry about it.
Those are the type of things that we're thinking about
and that we're doing in our system in Florida today.
Next slide.
In Southern California, you'll see the two stations here
that will serve as the whole corridor.
Victor Valley, which is actually in Apple Valley,
but across the I-15 is Victorville.
So we are calling it the Victor Valley Station.
That will be a much smaller footprint.
But then we have the Rancho Cucamonga Station
where we are in partnership and coordination
with your organization.
I would just like to stop for a second and say that your team has been incredible partners
to ours throughout the duration of this project.
I know that CEO Darren Kettle and our team are working and meeting on a monthly basis
to ensure that when the system does come up and running, the timetable, the scheduling,
the seamless transition for guests are all met and put into effect hopefully from day
one.
This would be another point in which I would emphasize to you and invite you to Florida,
Our Miami station has three other forms of rail
that come into our main system, into Florida.
So we have experience doing this with our first system
and we'll do it with MetroLink with our second.
On the Rancho Cucamonga station,
you'll see that it's divided.
We're on the second level platform.
Passengers will be able to take a short escalator ride
down to a MetroLink train
in order to get to wherever their final destination is.
So, just a bit on construction,
because this is the phase that we are within today.
We look at this project, which is, like I said, 218 miles,
and we divide it into four different work zones,
four civil work zones,
segmented across different parts of the corridor.
If you go from Las Vegas to Rancho Cucamonga,
the first one, the Nevada scope,
includes 34 miles of earthwork, rail structures,
highway modifications that go from our Las Vegas station
to the Nevada state line.
The second one we refer to internally as California North.
That's the longest part of the project for us.
That's 110 miles of civil work,
which includes rail structures, rail bed, earthwork,
and that goes from the California state line
to the city of Barstow.
And then we have California Middle,
which is 39 miles of highway modifications and rail work.
That goes from Barstow to just north of the Cajon Pass,
about six miles north of the Cajon Pass.
That also includes a 3,800 foot viaduct,
which is referred to as the Barstow Viaduct.
That's by far the most complicated part of the project,
and will probably be the most interesting and newsworthy
both here and around the globe.
And then the final one is the California South project,
which really encompasses the earthwork
in the civil project from Rancho throughout the Cajon Pass.
In the end, it will include construction
along a five percent grade along the Cajon Pass,
which our engineers tell me will be the steepest grade
of any train throughout the world.
Previously, from my understanding and technology,
that would not have been possible.
But when you get to our rolling stock,
we now know that we can do that.
You go to the next slide, I'll just show you the makeup.
Nobody understands this slide
unless they're in the rail business.
So you gotta study it a little bit.
But we are planning on preparing initially
for 60 minute headways,
ultimately getting to 45 minute headways.
The 218 mile corridors will be primarily single tracked.
83% of it will be single tracked.
The rest, the 17% will be passing sightings
throughout the project that will include sightings
that range from six miles to 10 miles
that allow trains in both directions
to go around one another.
So in Florida, we run approximately 32 to 34 trains a day.
We have plans to be able to do that out here as well.
Also as a private company, we organize our operations
depending upon events within the area.
If we need to increase capacity, if we need to couple trains,
if we need to increase schedule, we can do that.
Our rolling stock, we recently announced
we will partner with Siemens Mobility, who also manufactured
our train sets in Florida.
They are going to make the first generation high speed rail
train for America called the American Pioneer 220.
It'll have top speeds of 220 miles an hour.
Our initial order is 10 train sets.
And it will be interoperable with California high-speed
rail.
Next slide.
So just some of the recent milestones that we've had.
We received a federal grant from the Biden infrastructure
bill back in December.
We broke ground with Secretary Buttigieg
in April of this year.
Since then, we've had a number of other milestones.
We announced the Siemens partnership in May.
Just last month, they announced that they will have,
they will build a new manufacturing facility
in upstate New York to build all of those,
to build the high-speed trains for Brightline West.
And then in September,
and this becomes a big component of our financing,
we finalized the grant agreement
with the Department of Transportation in the FRA.
That was signed on September 23rd of last month.
Where we are today on construction primarily
is finishing up the field investigation work,
which includes geotech, boring's utility potholing,
and technical analysis that finishes up the engineering.
We're 95% complete in Nevada and 88% complete in California.
In the final slide.
So just our financing plan,
our project is a 10 plus billion dollar
infrastructure project that's primarily privately financed.
Florida, which was our first example,
was just about $6 billion.
That was 100% privately financed.
This project, we just, like I said,
we just finished the $3 billion grant.
That becomes kind of the security, if you will,
for the remainder of the financing.
We also have an allocation of $3.5 billion
in private activity bonds.
If you're not familiar with those,
those are not backed by the federal, state,
or local government.
Those are backed by the assets of the project,
and we sell those to private investors.
We were one of the biggest users of those in the country
with our project in Florida.
Our initial allocation is 3.5 billion.
Our finance team is currently evaluating the market today
to determine when to go and begin selling those bonds,
but I would probably describe that
as being relatively imminent,
and I think you'll hear more about that
before the end of the year.
The rest of the funds will come through
a combination of debt and equity.
Those conversations have been going on for months.
Now that we have the grant agreement finalized,
I think that you'll hear more about that
before the end of the year.
So that's my contact information in case anybody needs it.
And the reason I put that up there for both Asha and myself
is one of our goals and one of our objectives
is so that organizations like yours
are never caught off guard or surprised
with what we are doing.
and we are here to answer questions and be good friends
and neighbors as we build this project.
So let me see if you guys have any questions.
Thank you, Ben.
Any questions?
All right, go ahead.
Mr. Chair, thank you.
Yeah, I got a couple questions.
First of all, you were saying that 15,
the intersection in the middle,
we're gonna have this high-speed rail.
What protections are we gonna have for vehicles
and actually for pedestrians
not being able to get into the right-of-way?
First of all, Mayor, it's good to see you.
So the way in which we'll build this, so 95% of the system goes right down the middle of the I-15.
And so the blockade on the side are cement walls that are between five and six feet
that will protect and serve as a barrier between the rest of the I-15 and our trains.
In the second question, we do have a great airport,
Ontario airport, we have a president here
that runs the airport.
Is there going to be a connection between the airport
and to the Book of Monday?
He's probably more qualified to answer that than I am.
If you recall, we're going to do a tunneling project
between the airport and the Metrolinx station
with regular autonomous pods going through there.
Other questions?
Thank you very much for the presentation.
Exciting to see you, I'm really curious on the Cajon Pass.
Are we going to be adding some new track or is it going to be also along the 15?
How is that going to work?
Yep, so all of this is new track.
This entire project will be 100% Greenfield.
And for the Cajon Pass primarily it will be, I couldn't, I shouldn't say that.
So the co-home pass will be 100% brand new track,
as well as the rest of the project.
Does that answer everything?
Well, part of what I'm curious about is,
and maybe I should have been clear,
is it gonna be running like with the 15, along the 15,
or is it gonna be like a whole new grading project
somewhere, or a tunnel through, how's that gonna work?
And for just to be very transparent,
I go out there and I run, there's a Pacific Crest Trail
is very popular. I've seen a lot of cars and vehiculars all on that side. And so I'm just
wondering if there's also going to be now a whole new, which is great. I'm just curious
on what that's going to look like.
Yeah, so we have no tunnels throughout the whole project. Just so I don't speak out of
school, I don't know if we're in the middle or on the side. And I think that we're both
around the Cajon Pass. I'd be happy to follow up with you and kind of show you what the
the actual right away looks like there, so you can see it.
Thank you very much.
The project, it's exciting.
I was telling my partner here who that this morning,
actually, as I was speaking to somebody on the Metrolink,
and one of their questions was about the Brightline project.
That's great.
How was the decision of the stations decided?
So I see the Victor Valley one.
I see the Rancho one.
And so I was just, you know, like Hesperia 1,
are we gonna see future stations possibility
come into fruition?
The project that we acquired,
which everybody may be familiar with,
was called Desert Express or Express West,
had a 2011 record of decision environmental permit
that went from Las Vegas to Victorville.
So when we acquired that, we updated that record of decision.
But we knew from the financial investors that we work with
as well as our own intuition is that we had to get
as close to Los Angeles as possible.
And so we expanded that and began working
with San Bernardino County and their transit organization
and ultimately ended up with Rancho Cucamonga
which we're very excited about.
They had future plans for additional lanes of highway
but in order for our corridor to be built
in the plan and engineering design that we had,
they elected, and I think that they should get a lot of credit for this, but they elected
to eliminate one of those lanes in exchange for us putting together the Hesperia Station,
which would also help them alleviate some of the commuter traffic on a daily basis.
So that was in partnership with the SBCTA.
That is some great information.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Not a question, it's a comment. I did ride Miami, I think, a couple
times. You know, the way I describe your company, I don't know if you agree, I don't describe
you as a train company with development. I really describe you more as a development
company with trains. The kind of development you have in Miami is just absolutely incredible,
and I'm looking forward to see a similar development at the Rancho Cucamonga station as well. But
it's a great company. I've been following this story ever since it was Desert Express
and Express West and watching it go all the way through, so congratulations on moving
moving forward. Thank you. I also had a conversation about Bright Line West not
too long ago and the question came up of when we know you've done the ribbon
cutting but when when is the or groundbreaking I should say when is
what's your schedule looking like? So I get asked that question all the time
when am I gonna see construction where is it? You likely have seen our crews in
the field today but these are the field investigation crews that that are out
they're doing the final technical analysis.
2025 is really gonna be the disbursement
of our construction teams, which we partner
with different unions and nine different contractors.
So you're gonna see that throughout various stages
of 2025 being deployed out into the corridor.
You're not gonna know that they're building a railroad.
It's going to look very similar
to highway construction work.
The way that we look at the project is kind of
in four major buckets of construction,
the first being all civil work.
And that civil work is preparing the middle of the I-15
for the rail line and the overhead cantonary systems.
So that's the widening of the road,
the modernization of the bridges, the tunnels,
the ditches, the culverts, all of that stuff.
So that's not gonna look like railroad construction,
it's gonna look like road construction.
After that, we will lay the tracks
and the powering system above,
and then simultaneously we have facilities
and stations and rolling stock.
As it relates to the deadline,
or the timeline of construction, it's a four year build.
And our original plan and where we were really pushing for
was the 2028 Olympics.
But as the grant process went on and the grant agreement,
which we still feel like we did in record time
kind of shifted, our timeline expanded to just
the end of 2028 rather than the opening ceremonies of 2028.
Appreciate that and then as
Assuming that you're going down the middle of the 15. Let's say between Barstow and and Las Vegas
It's for the most part a two-lane
Highway on each side with a few three-lane areas
is
Is there any plan that you're aware of the Caltrans would be adding any additional lanes?
Next to what you're building or is there still going to be a gap? I don't I don't have that answer
There is talks in Nevada of widening the i-15
But none that I'm aware of with Caltrans. I could double check that for you for sure. I just you know and
the reason I'm kind of thinking of this I saw some kind of a
photo that looks like you have dining cars that looks super wide like way wider than a normal train and if you put
You know that in the middle of the freeway will
Caltrans ever be able to add a third lane, which I think has been
News worthy of over decades of issues of traffic going to and from Vegas
Obviously, you'll alleviate some of that traffic. But I think at the end of the day
I'm just curious if if there would still be room for
An eventual additional third lane in those areas that don't have it
So I don't I would I don't want to speak on behalf of Caltrans because I don't know those answers
What I would say is that the the corridor design that we have put together for the middle of the I-15
One of the benefits to the state of California and to Nevada was that it was never planned to be used for anything
and so by us leasing this
Right of way and doing highway improvements. We're actually investing
800 million dollars into the i-15, 500 million in California, 300 million in Nevada, that
the taxpayers would have otherwise had to pay for over time to improve the i-15.
So that is now part of our project and investment.
But my understanding and part of the lease description is that that was not going to
be used for additional lanes, but I don't know if they have future plans on every part
of the i-15.
But I would say, Director, once you see a train going past you at 200 miles an hour
and you're sitting in traffic, you're never going to want to drive again.
Director Spiegel.
What do you mean, if a car goes past me at 20 miles an hour, you don't want to?
At the groundbreaking, somebody in excitement talked about going all the way down to 15,
which I get excited about because we need some type of corridor, but we have the 15
toll lanes now that are down the 15 so we don't have that middle section, how would
you get around some day in the future, because I do know from San Diego, somewhere in Riverside
County to San Diego would be a great addition to your portfolio. But I know
that as we trying to deal with the growth in California Riverside County, we
have got a lot of new cars and it will continue to grow and so that's why we
have down now the tollings down the middle. Is there any other option or is
all of your plans down the middle you know from Rancho to to Las Vegas that
that is the plan is to build right down the middle of the median there are there
are certain areas where the highway breaks that we you know are going down
closer to one side versus the other I've never been asked this question so I
don't have a good answer for you at the moment in the future but we will come
back to you for sure. It would be interesting because as you get the excitement going, and
I know we've talked about off and on a couple of us that went to the groundbreaking. You
were there, Darren, right? There it was. I knew it was going to be. And I think it was
set in jest. I, you know, like, we're so excited. We'll take over the world, you know. Those
kind of comments. It was an exciting day. It was a very exciting day. But I can certainly
see that I'm sure my colleagues are thinking about other areas and focus on
Southern California.
Good comment. Other comments or questions? This is a
receiving file, thank you Ben. Thank you guys I appreciate your time. A lot of
objection that's what the board will do. I do have one speaker's slip on this
item mr. Harlan you have three minutes and please stay on topic on this
particular item that's all right okay this is concerning Bright Line West
this is definitely an illegal project the 15 freeway belongs to me there's
some crazy people here thinking they're spending the money under the highway
they're not there's not to be any any toll lanes on the 15 the desert express
The press was never a project.
They acquired a project that didn't exist
that they put out of business.
All those people are criminals.
There should be nobody from Florida
doing any rail infrastructure anywhere.
All of that property all the way to Las Vegas belongs to me.
Those, that land in southern Las Vegas,
illegally developing also belongs to me.
Everything they're doing is illegal.
Go fucking crazy on them.
This is, look at this, Airbnb,
illegal real estate development.
This is all about travel and tourism,
and construction jobs.
Who in the hell wants another fucking $5,000?
But you, we're gonna cut you off.
Sorry, this is my language.
There's a problem with evil trading companies
from Florida trying to develop.
Pete Buttigieg does not decide anything.
Nobody, that money from the federal government was fake.
It was television money.
All their projects fake off the television.
That 110 acres in Las Vegas they're trying
to illegally develop also belongs to me.
Crazy attack, anyone involved in that project?
If anyone in Metro is sincerely,
and I know we're trying to get information
about the project, but if anybody is sincerely involved
at MetroLink, they're to be terminated immediately
with force, give them a real bad timeout.
Pete Buttigieg, they're to use military force
to shoot that guy down.
The federal government does not fund transportation infrastructure and they sure as fuck don't
fund rails being developed on my property.
The 15 freeway belongs to me, all the revenues from that freeway belongs to me.
Everything along that freeway is illegally developed, all of it, all of you guys involved
in that are going to prison.
The proper form for fixing it is to cut you out.
Do you understand what that means?
Trying to spend federal tax revenues that aren't yours,
they're to cut you out.
Sir, your time is up.
Please be seated.
There are no further people wanting to comment.
The chair has left to catch a train.
So it has left to me to finish the meeting as vice chair.
At this point, we'll go to the CER Chief Officer's report.
Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair.
Give me a minute.
So let's first talk about arguably the single biggest thing
this agency has done in 32 years.
Our new Metrolink schedule started on Monday.
We increased the number of trains by 22%.
We went from 144 trains to 172, or it may be 142 to 174.
In the new schedule, every train that we have added,
every train, is a different time than what
it was the Friday before.
This was a really, really, really big deal.
And we've had some bumpy parts, no doubt about it.
There will be an email coming out from me to our writers later today owning the fact
that we've had some challenges.
It's going to take us a little time to work out some of these bumps.
I think we are extremely excited about the potential.
We broke records three out of four days this week with ridership growth.
We have areas that we're working on as it relates to all of these things
that we can model and simulate,
but when you see it in real life,
things happen differently.
So we're having, and the operations team
is working really, really hard to figure out,
okay, how does this now work in real time
so that we can deliver the schedule
that we have committed to?
And we have been communicating with our riders.
You will see the middle picture
as a member of our staff taking a picture.
That's on the San Bernardino line.
We are seeing very full trains on a number of our lines.
So there's some real positives,
but I can't sugarcoat the struggles that we've had
related to some of the on-time performance
of this new schedule,
but I think we're committed to getting this right.
The next slide is another challenge
and it's at no fault of our own.
We have certainly in the new schedule
created some challenges for ourselves
that we didn't realize.
But the challenge that we're dealing with on on-time performance right now on the lines
that serve the Orange County, well, it's three lines, Orange County line,
the Inland Empire Orange County line, and the 91 Paris Valley line.
All of those lines are on, the host railroad is BNSF.
And BNSF has flat out not performed.
I received a letter from their senior vice president
for passenger operations on Monday explaining
what they're struggling with.
I responded this morning with a letter that said,
okay, you have your issues, our passengers deserve better,
Metrolink deserves better, and we're gonna hold you to
the shared use agreement obligations that you have.
So that is where we are today.
and we're going to continue to work on BNSF
to improve that area.
I'm looking at our train tracker right now
on my computer, and all but one train
on the San Bernardino sub is on time.
So I think one of the things that we're gonna work on,
obviously, is making sure BNSF meets their obligations
under the shared use agreement.
A handful of things that they've explained
as being their issues.
They've relocated their entire dispatch team
that had been based in San Bernardino on the west coast
to Dallas Fort Worth.
And a number of those dispatchers in San Bernardino
didn't move to Fort Worth, so they have all new people.
They are dealing with a crew shortage.
They are wrestling with expansion of growth
in the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach
that are requiring more trains, more freight trains.
And they've had to wrestle with some criminal activity
that is affecting how they operate on their trains,
and so they're literally having trains
stopped midway through a corridor.
And while I acknowledge and appreciate the challenges
that BNSF has, it is not acceptable
that they would not meet their obligations under the SUA,
and we are gonna continue to push that.
And so we are also raising that in my e-mail that's going out to our riders later today that some of our challenges
are
Beyond just the new schedule
so
The last slide next slide I'm going to go to so let me just talk about some good news
We were pleased to receive from the California State
Transportation Agency the announcement of a 45 million dollar grant in the out of the transit intercity rail capital program
For the expansion of the eastern maintenance facility
And you can see that sort of it's in the San Bernardino. It's in San Bernardino, Colton area
On the border of San Bernardino and Colton you can see it highlighted there in
In yellow, we're getting two additional tracks S&I tracks service and inspection tracks
that will allow us to be able to store even more trains
on the eastern edge of our system.
And I have, this is good news,
the other part of this good news is goes to RCTC
and that the Riverside County Transportation Commission
also received a TIRCP grant for the Mead Valley Station
on the Parris Valley Line.
So congratulations to RCTC with that.
So I have given our chief of program delivery
what I call a CEO's challenge
for the Eastern Maintenance Facility
and that he be ready for LA 28
because we're gonna need the storage of all that.
So Justin Fornelli has never wanted to back away
from a challenge and I have full confidence in his team
and Justin that they'll be able to deliver.
So those are my items.
I suspect there may be board members that have questions
on the new schedule or on the on-time performance issues.
So with that, Mr. Vice Chair, I'll turn it back to you
and I'm prepared to answer questions.
Thank you.
Do board members have any questions of our CEO?
Yes, Mr. Brown.
Just to comment on what his last,
my training was two minutes late this morning
when it was due to police activity, not PSF, thank goodness,
But the new schedule allows me to take the train
from my city station to and from L.A. now
before I had to take Metrolink here and take Amtrak back
because of our train schedule.
I'm now allowed to use Metrolink
and I'm very happy about that and look forward
to using Metrolink till I die.
We have, Director Brett, we have heard that sentiment
from a number of folks.
The ability to spread out our trains
throughout the system throughout the day is one of the positives. But we also had
trains that were very much appreciated by a commute public that has been
historic, you know, has been our historic ridership. And so as we balance this out
this is where we hope we grow, where we have opportunities just as you suggest
but also that we give this time for our customers, our longtime loyal customers,
time for this to sort of work itself out and they adjust to this new
service model that really is going to be our future because I think if we were
going to stay focused only on the commute market we weren't going to see
growth and and that our future and in fact we're counting on that for LA 28 is
that's going to be the service model we have to have in place I think to be
successful with that. So thank you Director Brown for making mention of
that. It's working for you I'm glad. I saw Director Spiekow's light on. I've
asked this before and now I'm kind of asking again. Can you when we get new
schedules just bring them to the board meeting so that we have those in our
possession than having to pick them up at the station? Absolutely. Anybody have
schedules out there? Metrolink team? All right we'll take care of it. Yes,
Dr. Corian. Thank you. Congratulations Mr. Kettle because yes with something
like this there's going to be bumps in the road, there's going to be you know
things that have to be smoothed out but this is such a dramatic expansion and
restructuring and it's based around a vision of building for a different kind
a model for the future so bumps in the road or not this is a huge thing and so congratulations
on that. The BNSF challenges we've discussed before and the criminal element of this is
just it's really disturbing it's like you know going back to the wild west or something
where we have train robberies that we have to do. So who is principally responsible for
enforcement in that scenario when it's in the right-of-way and they're stopping
trains. Is there an agency that's primarily taking that on? Both class 1
railroads, UP and BNSF, have their own police force and in the case of BNSF
they are heavily utilizing drones and other crime-fighting tactics. It is a
is a massive network that these railroads operate on,
so they are definitely being hampered
just because they have such an expansive network
that they do have their own police forces.
Thank you.
Dr. Appreciato.
Yeah, I was gonna do this during our comments,
but it's relative right now,
and actually started a little bit of the conversation
back there.
I appreciate how you're pushing BNSF.
I'll start off with that,
and thank you to all of the staff
for always adjusting to the new schedule.
I'm very, very excited for it.
On a personal note, my wife and I are two for three.
We missed two out of the three trains we used this week,
but we were happy to go right to the next station
and knowing that there was another one.
And then I got to learn things,
and at the San Bernardino line,
I wasn't expecting to first see the train going east.
And I said, yes, this is what it's about,
and seeing other writers go into it,
showing that there was a need for it,
and I'm sure it's gonna grow.
I'm excited for that expansion.
Also thinking that, you know, sometimes it's a blessing,
so on our staff that,
while I was on the other train,
I ran into, shout out to our sheriffs that were there,
we rode together, but there was,
I actually ran into also my high school teacher,
who was, we haven't seen him in like 15 years,
and he had a whole group of kids,
and some of them it was their first time riding the train.
They were very appreciative of MetroLink,
and how they were able to obtain tickets for them.
Then I told them, you know you could do that
with your student email as well,
and just always ride the train.
I know there's mechanics, but for them,
ride it for free and use it in a convenient way and manner.
And I know that we're doing better and better and better
because the more we speak on it,
the more we're educating others.
Actually, my colleague on the council this week,
she is a Raiders fan, her boyfriend is a Rams fan,
and I never, ever would have expected this.
She's actually made some negative comments
about public transportation,
which I try to correct her every single time
and opportunity, but she actually told me,
She goes, I rode Metrolink, I rode Metro,
and it was a great positive experience.
And I said, yes, one by one by one.
And it's really, we're going to keep going at it.
And I just can't thank staff enough,
because it is all day, every day, especially that service,
especially when there's hiccups on time happening.
I think that most people that take public transportation
will get there a little early.
And I think I just, you know, somebody called me earlier
and I said, I'm taking the bus back
plus or minus 15 minutes on the time I need to get back,
as you know, on public transportation.
So we're adjustable, and I know that it's our best effort
forward, and people really appreciate that.
So thank you everyone, and thank you everybody
on the board as well.
Just real quick.
Yes, Director Spiegel.
I have to just say thank you.
I don't know if my colleague's got his letters
constituents. My staff got so into it they started responding by taking the
letters because you copied me and they so you didn't get it just a touch of
what we were getting and actually I didn't get much responses back as well
as once because they started copying me they responded back to your staff. I
think that they were well written and I think it calmed people down so I
I appreciate you extending that courtesy of saying that you respond to them. As I said my staff really got into responding to him too, so I
Mentioned during our committee meetings last two weeks ago that we have a team. That's been taken this
The our response to our writers
very personally
Lisa Barr
Scott Johnson a few others
We've put ourselves in our writers shoes
And they've done it brilliantly and I think come from a good place and we don't have all the answers and sometimes the answers we give them aren't necessarily going to satisfy them, but at least we've responded in a personal way and it's really tip of the cap to the customer experience team for giving that personal touch so thanks to the acknowledgment.
Any further questions or CEO or director comments?
Mr. Chair, please go ahead.
Thanks. I'd like to comment on two items. The first is I want to thank staff for a thorough
Memorandum to us regarding our legislative advocacy efforts both on the state and federal level
Because those are so consequential, which is a term I'll use in a minute
I really appreciate the depth of the response that they're important. And so I thank you for that
Sitting here observing during this meeting and being uncharacteristically quiet
I would characterize that with no disrespect to the consent calendar items
I would characterize this if it's not been an action consequential meeting. It certainly has been an informationally consequential meeting
At the risk of adding one more bit of information
I do have a few comments on the recent meeting by the ad hoc committee with the LA with senior management at LA 28
And I think we have a PowerPoint on this and I'd like to spend just a minute or two briefly commenting on our work
as directors, Director Wapner and our chair Mr. McAllen and I together with Darren Kettle and Paul Hubler
attended a meeting in mid-September with LA 28
including John Harper, its chief operating officer. And the principal, the first principal thing that we needed, it was first of all
was a cordial and professional meeting, we wanted to make sure first of all that
we educated LA 28 as to what Metrolink is all about and the fact that we are a
joint powers authority, we are made up of the Transportation Commission of five
counties and by the way our member agencies cover nearly 80% of the
operating costs of Metrolink service and we all of us up here are directly
responsible to taxpayers in the counties for for the cost of that service. Bottom
line it we communicated to LA 28 that we believe that games related transit
demand are going to significantly exceed our current baseline service.
We're standing our new baseline service and great kudos to Darren and all staff
for their hard work on this but it will significantly exceed new baseline our
new baseline service and there's two things on that. One is you know from an
additional servicing standpoint to deal with the short-term demand we have
evaluated the option of deploying some additional train sets from our existing
fleet and that's the 48 four-car train sets to with two spare train sets but
more consequentially we've had met our staff has explored additional options as
as we all know, to if our demand exceeds the capabilities
of our existing fleet, and it looks like Metrolink,
and we'll see some finance numbers here in just a minute,
is going to need to lease at a very significant expense
additional train sets from other regional rail providers
in the United States, and that includes Caltrain
and Metro in Chicago.
The bottom line is that, as member agencies,
we communicated that we're not prepared to absorb
the costs of the additional service
for a transit first or car free games.
And we expected LA-28,
we're not prepared to absorb these costs,
and we expect LA-28 to rise to the occasion.
And what we specifically asked for
was a service level agreement from LA-28.
As the bullet point notes,
to fund additional costs of state
or federal funding is not secured.
The bottom line is that LA-28 responded by saying,
No, we're not going to entertain a service-level agreement
with MetroLink.
LA-28 is also not going to enter,
it's not considering at this point entering
into a service-level agreement with LA Metro
for its supplemental bus program.
And the state of well funding isn't available
in our games budget.
LA-28 did say, by contrast, well, we will help you.
We will commit to advocating and collaborating with you
at both the state and federal legislative levels
and administrative levels for funding for Metrolinx,
which is one reason why I really appreciated
the detailed response back
relative to our legislative efforts,
our advocacy efforts at the state and federal level.
Can we go to the next slide?
And they did say we would potentially collaborate.
And I just wanna make sure that the directors see this.
This is our, these are the current numbers
and the federal budget request,
simply on the capital side is in excess of $338 million,
including that leased six-card train set component
that I was just speaking about a few minutes ago.
And then finally, the operational surge,
which you'll recall that $107.9 million number
came directly out of the letter that I think
Darren and staff already, or the chair already sent
back in March to the Biden administration.
So that's where we are on,
I don't think there's any additional slide.
Oh, there's a thank you slide, so.
And thank you.
So we wanted to be sure that we briefed you on that meeting.
Again, it was a professional and cordial meeting.
Director Wapner may have some additional comments,
but I wanted to just at least give you a brief
on our activities.
Yes, Dr. Wapner.
Thank you very much.
It was an educational meeting,
I think more so for them than for us.
They don't get it.
They just don't get it in order.
I don't know if they really cared.
They went out with this whole policy statement,
it's gonna be car free transit first,
without ever consulting with any transit agencies.
Maybe LA Metro, I don't know,
but they seem to think LA Metro is the only offense.
LA Metro is the only transit in Southern California.
They don't understand all of us have to feed into that system.
So they're not prepared for what we need to do.
They had no idea how our board and our agency is structured.
They didn't know that we have no independent source
of funding like other agencies may,
that it's up to our member agencies to pay.
And frankly, our member agencies are not
going to kick in this additional nearly half billion dollars.
It's not going to happen.
Didn't really seem to phase them very much.
It kind of like, OK, well, we're going to go along.
Without a service level agreement,
we're assuming 100% of the risk of this half billion dollar
investment.
I don't think any of us can support something like that.
So what's the alternative?
Well, I don't know.
There's no train service to the Olympics.
That doesn't work.
certainly don't want it to impact our regular riders. We don't want them to be
pushed off because of the Olympics. So I don't know. I don't know. It was tough
for us to get this meeting. I'm really happy that they agreed to the meeting.
Hopefully, I don't know what kind of follow-up Darrin's had with their staff.
That was really where we put it, that follow-up with between the staff members
and then bring it back to our board. But I wasn't real optimistic after this
meeting. They were very cordial. They listened. I don't think we're gonna see a
a lot of reaction out of them, unfortunately.
And just a brief follow-up.
I mean, I think if you've,
I know there's concerns at LA Metro.
There was a big story in the Los Angeles Times
in the last day or two talking about Olympics readiness.
And the question is, what is gonna happen for us in 2028?
I did have the opportunity,
it was not part of my CEO remarks,
but I was able to be in Paris a couple of weeks ago
and I met with our equivalent agency, the RER.
RER was the operator of regional rail in Paris.
Impressive, impressive operation.
And my takeaway was, we're about in the same place
where they were as far as planning.
They just start from a very, very, very different place.
Their daily operations are 1,200 trains a day.
And what did I just tell you our new service model is?
174.
So they come from a very different spot.
And so one of my takeaways is we're just
going to do the very damn best job we can do and make sure that at least what
we can manage will get done. That said if we are going to accomplish that it is
going to require additional resources so we're going to have to come from some
place if we're going to do the best job we can. Any further comments? I'd like to
thank all of you who are enduring this experience with LA 28 and the
intelligence that you provided them, so thank you for all of that.
Now, it's my turn, and the only thing I want to say is I'm going to meet briefly with General
Counsel and talk about meeting decorum after the meeting.
So with that, we are adjourned.
Go Dodgers!
Let's go!
And you can take three of our trains home tonight if you're going to the game.