Okay, good afternoon everyone. At this time, I would like the call to order the July 17,
2025 regular board meeting of the North County Transit District. Before we begin, members
of the public who may be viewing the meeting on the district's YouTube page, please note
that in order to make a public comment during the meeting, you must connect to the meeting
using the Zoom link provided on the agenda. In addition, you must also register by sending
an email containing your name or phone number and the agenda item on which you
wish to speak to about to the to clerk at NCTD org Taylor's sweetly seaweed
deputy clerk will you take a verbal roll call please
board chair Bot Patel vice chair Sonella here board member Martinez here
Board Member O'Hara, Board Member Garcia, present, Board Member Joyce, present, Board
Member Desmond, Board Member Edson, Board Alternate Melendez, here, Board Member Lee,
this completes the roll, Board Members Bapatel, Edson, O'Hara, Desmond and Lee are absent.
thank you Taylor. Board Member Garcia would you please lead us in the pledge? Thank you.
Okay Taylor will now provide us with our safety brief and review of our
evacuation procedures. In case of an emergency I will dial 911. In case of an
evacuation please take the stairs do not use the elevators. Once cleared of the
building do not re-enter unless cleared to do so by emergency personnel. There
There are fire extinguishers and first aid kits
on each floor of the building.
There is a portable defibrillator on the first floor
and staff on hand trained on CPR procedures if needed.
This concludes my safety brief.
Thank you, Taylor.
On to our first, I guess, I need to ask,
are there any changes to the agenda?
Yes, Vice Chair.
The attachment for consent item number three
was updated to include a contract that needs
to have additional capacity process during the time
that NCTD will not have any board meetings.
In regard to new board agenda item number eight,
government code section 54954.2 authorizes
a legislative body to take action on items
not appearing on the posted agenda upon a determination
by a two-thirds vote of the members present at the meeting,
or if fewer than two-thirds are present,
unanimous vote of those present that one there is a need to take immediate action
and two the need for action came to the attention of the local agency after the
agenda was posted. After the agenda was posted for the July 17th
2025 meeting staff became aware of an omission that from the FY 2022
classification and compensation schedule that requires immediate attention
because the emission may affect retired employees benefits and NCTD's compliance
with California Code of Regulations 570.5 immediate action is necessary to
ratify the corrected schedule and maintain regular regulatory compliance a
revised agenda and a radish sheet was sent to the board and it has been
updated on the NCTD website for public inspection. Great thank you for that
update. Moving right along. Sorry vice chair let the record show that O'Hara
arrived at 202 p.m. Welcome Jim. Taylor do we have any general public comments
today? Yes vice chair. Could you please call the speakers for us? Yes miss
Castellanos you have three minutes. Yes. I lived in the city of Vista for the past
eight years. I've taken public transportation my whole life. I've come
today to just tell you guys thank you so very much for implementing the NCTD
Plus bus in the city of Vista. We have some good workers in the morning. They
pick me up either like right outside my house or just down the street and also
the afternoon people are really nice. It's the same people every day. I feel
so much safer going to my employment and coming back home.
I'm fortunate enough to get the NCTD pronto disability card, PTSD, from
something that happened in my younger years. However, I find that I feel so much
safer. I have like a new life. I'm not so much scared anymore on public
transportation. So I'm also very thankful to hear that we're not third outsourcing
in our work to like a third party.
So like being native to San Diego,
like I've seen the streets
and I know what it's like to be out there
and I just feel so much better
that you guys have offered this to us.
And so I'm thankful.
I'm like, I'm like, yay.
It's important to us as the community to be safe and happy.
Also, I just have a couple of requests
for alleviation of finances for those of us
but do get the Ponto Disability Medical Senior Card.
Maybe we could add more money just a little bit
or a bit, you know, financials on that.
The safety, the doors are heavy on the buses,
on the NCD-TD plus buses.
So automatic doors would be beneficial to everybody
because sometimes they're on a decline or incline
and the doors are heavy.
If we can expand the borders a little bit further out,
Possibly to like by the DMV and Vista or Oceanside area,
that would be helpful to get me to my house,
to my employment and back safely
and I don't have to take another bus
and be on the streets any longer than I have to.
Also, in regards to the people that are working,
these buses are really nice and sweet.
Mainly the ones in the afternoon,
they get so busy that sometimes, you know,
it's important that they get their lunches and breaks,
you know, and other than that,
I'm just so thankful.
I am so thankful that I can return home to my family,
feel safe.
I'm not crying because I just went through a battlefield
out there.
And I'm just thankful for everybody that came here.
There's a lot of people here.
Hi, everybody.
So other than that, like I said, I'm a San Diego native.
I'm very proud to still be here.
And this is amazing.
Just being here is amazing, and it's so new.
But thank you, everybody, that's heard me.
And you guys are just doing amazing.
Thank you.
Well, thank you for coming and thank you for the feedback.
And I did see staff taking some notes
on what you were commenting on, so thank you.
Any other speakers?
There are no further speakers, and let the record
show that board member Edson arrived at 2 o'clock p.m.
Great.
OK, at this time, public registration
to provide general public comment will end.
Just going to go over some of our protocols.
Before we proceed, I have a couple of quick protocol items
to share.
First, I will ask board members
to please hold your comments and questions
until after each agenda item has been presented.
Second, when the time comes for board member questions
or comments, please raise your hand
and wait until you are called upon to speak.
Third, please turn on and speak into your microphone.
When it is your turn to speak,
this will ensure that your comments are heard
for those listening online.
And lastly, when it's time to vote,
Taylor will call a verbal vote for us.
Our next item is our minutes from the last meeting.
I'll entertain a motion to approve.
Motion to approve.
I'll second.
Okay, we have a motion by Martinez
and a motion by O'Hara,
and then a second by Martinez.
Can we have a vote, please?
All in favor, say aye.
Aye.
Any opposed?
Any abstain?
On the motion of board member O'Hara,
seconded by board member Martinez,
to approve the minutes for the regular board meeting
June 26, 2025. Motion passes. Board members bought Patel and Desmond absent.
Thank you. Moving on to our consent calendar. There are eight items on the
consent agenda for action today. Taylor have any members of the public
requested or registered to speak on the consent or requested that any consent
items be pulled? No, they have not. At this time we are ending the public
the registration to speak on the consent items. Do any of my colleagues wish to pull any of
the items on the consent? I just had a question. I was actually, item one, I was just wondering
if you could expand on the, if we'd ask the CEO to expand on what the positive train control
rail safety enhancement project is and how we're going to use that money. Yeah, so we
We have a few different projects going on in relation to positive train control.
One of them is specific to signalization.
If the board doesn't know, we have like PTC 0.01.
In fact, we were the first, I believe, the first passenger rail in the nation to have
positive train control.
So when they put all that in, it wasn't as robust as it is in our current setting where
fiber was run between the signal boxes in the track.
And so there are a lot of things that we deal with that a lot of agencies don't in terms
of when we have shunting on the track, sometimes we get false positives that get sent back
and then we want a speed restriction until we can figure out what the issue is.
A lot of these signalization upgrades and PTC upgrades are just bringing in newer technology,
really managing those on a one-for-one.
Some of them are grants that we receive from the government specifically along the Sprinter
line, we we're kind of doing it a chunk at a time. So we'll get, you know, we'll get 10 million from
the government or a combination of state and government money, and we kind of work them in
chunks. So right now we're working from ocean side to pretty close to Vista, maybe a little back a
little bit toward Melrose. But that's what a lot of that is, is just general upkeep and kind of
moving toward the newer PTC model that's out there.
That's great. I appreciate the answer. I was sorting through that and just trying to figure I know we do an
amazing job moving forward and I loved seeing and I thought that's what it was
and I appreciate the answer that we're also managing systems we have and
always updating and improving those so thank you appreciate it. Yeah we it's an
interesting conversation when we're at the rail conference because having the
very really the very first one on the passenger side has been a little bit an
adventure people have really taken what we built and it's a it's a good system
our team internally I think has done a good job of managing the OG and and
other systems have built off of that and built some pretty good platforms and for
process just kind of going back and replacing things that like newer fiber and directly
connecting signal boxes to the line itself or station houses.
And so there's just a lot of places where we could improve what we originally had down
almost a decade ago.
Fantastic.
Keep up the good work.
Thank you.
Any other questions or I didn't see anybody who wanted to pull any items.
So we'll go ahead and entertain a motion to approve.
Move approval of consent.
Is there a second?
Second.
Okay, we have a motion by Edson and a second by O'Hara.
Taylor, can we have a verbal vote, please?
All in favor, say aye.
Aye.
Any opposed?
Any abstain?
On the motion of board member Edson,
seconded by board member O'Hara
to approve the consent items one through eight.
Motion passes.
Board members Bot-Patel and Desmond absent.
Great, thank you.
And before we move on to our first informational item,
number nine, I have a planned flight in a departure,
so I'm gonna turn over the reins to Board Member Martinez.
Thank you.
All right, now we'll go to an information item
on the agenda.
The next item will be an overview
of SANDAC's draft 2025 regional plan.
NCTD's Director of Service Planning, Katie Pearsons,
accompanied by SANDAC's Jennifer Williamson
and Bryan Lane will provide a presentation.
However, I see Mario here,
so we're very pleased to have you here.
So Katie, Jennifer, Brian, Mario,
whoever will be presenting, we look forward to this.
Great, thank you so much, good afternoon.
So, SANDAC staff will provide an overview
of the 2025 draft regional plan
and a little bit of background information
about the regional plan.
We then have a few slides about NCTD staff's input
into that plan and NCTD's priorities.
So, with that, I will hand it over to you, SANDAC staff.
Thank you for having us here first and foremost.
The team will be presenting what the regional plan is,
where we are with it.
Again, we're really appreciative.
You're the owner or operator of a system
that we include in the regional plan.
We work hand in glove with you,
so we do need to take in consideration always
what the owner or operator can do and cannot do.
and that's a little bit of the basis of the regional plan.
Our regional planning covers the entire county of San Diego,
multiple modes of transportation, it's a vision.
It's a vision that changes or gets tweaked every four years,
and it's to meet certain requirements
that feather on state government.
But I don't want to steal the team's thunder,
and I'll let them continue, and then at the end we'll wrap up
and will be open to any comments or questions that you may have.
Great.
I was told I get to use this microphone so tell me if you have any issues.
I'm Jennifer Williamson.
I'm the Deputy Director of Mobility Planning at Sand Egg and I'm joined today with my colleague
Brydon Lane who works on our team.
I'm going to give you an overview of the 2025 Regional Plan.
So today we're going to go through a few items.
What is Sand Egg?
that briefly. The probably the good stuff that you want to hear about Brian's going to cover
and those are the specific projects within the plan. So what is Sand Egg? Sand Egg is the
metropolitan planning organization. We plan projects so we plan not only transit projects
we plan highway projects we plan climate initiatives and a variety of other transportation related
projects, we build things. So for you guys, you know something you could think about is the
mid-coast trolley is something that we've built very recently. We preserve sensitive habitats.
We've done a lot of work in the lagoons and we provide programs and services. What we don't do,
as Mario said, is operate service. So what makes the region unique? I'm sure you guys all know this,
But San Diego County is very diverse.
We have a number of cities and counties in the region.
We also have the international border.
We have a number of tribal governments
that participate in our decision making.
And then we also have a variety of different entities
that are involved in our plan.
Oh, they animated.
So who's represented at San Diego?
As I said, we have 18 cities and the county of San Diego
that are represented, but also we have a wide number of advisory members that give us input.
Folks like the airport, the Port of San Diego, and major stakeholders within the region are
represented at Sand Egg.
So what's the regional plan?
It's important to note that the regional plan is a plan.
It's not an implementation vehicle.
So if you think about it, it's our long-term vision for how we're going to grow through
2050.
We update it every four years and the reason we do that is because things change.
This region is not static.
There's a lot of land use changes.
Technology is constantly changing and transportation is changing so we want to make sure that we
encapsulate all of that every four years into the regional plan so we have the most up-to-date
data for our planning purposes.
We work very, very closely with the jurisdictions and the transit operators to ensure that we
We have the latest land use policies, the latest planning assumptions, and that we include
any projects or programs that the region or the jurisdictions have asked us to include.
So it's not just a transportation plan, though.
It's really important to note that we, as I'll tell you in a minute, we get involved
in other things as well, housing, land use assumptions.
There's a wide number of things that contribute to the regional plan.
requirements I'm just going to skip to the good part and that is a state or I'm
sorry SB 375 which is a legislation that requires us to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions by 19% by 2035 and that's a heavy lift so that's kind of our
baseline for what we're trying to achieve in this plan. We also look at a
wide variety of other things we as I said it's not just a transportation plan
This plan is involved in housing, all of the region's housing assumptions and the
regional housing needs assessment feed into the plan, land use, all of the
jurisdictions updated land use so that we get understanding, you know, where all
the densities are. That's a real driver for transit. And then additionally we
also look at vehicle miles traveled. So SB 375 looks at reducing greenhouse gas
emissions but it also asks us to reduce the number of the amount of vehicle
miles traveled throughout the region.
And just to give you a feel for what that looks like,
a lot of people think that we can resolve our greenhouse gas
emissions through electric vehicles.
And it's a good method, but it doesn't reduce
our vehicles' miles traveled, because people are still
traveling alone very often in their electric vehicles,
and that contributes to congestion.
So we've been out and about.
We've been beating the bushes, if you will,
and we've done a number of workshops.
We've done a wide number of presentations,
and we've gotten a lot of comments on the plan
as you see on the slide in front of you.
Some of the themes we've heard
is everybody wants to reduce congestion.
The congestion is back to pre-COVID levels,
and we're seeing that on the freeways.
I'm sure you have all seen it as well.
We're also hearing that they would like transit
to be faster and more frequent, so more service, basically.
We're hearing that school connections,
everybody wants school connections.
There's been a real reduction in school bus service
throughout this region,
and kids are having a hard time getting there
despite the youth opportunity pass.
Safety is a big consideration as well.
So looking at our biking safety
and our pedestrian connection to our transit centers.
And then as well, micro transit is a very hot topic
for this plan, if you will.
Everybody is very interested in getting shuttles
that can get them either to transit
or directly to their destination.
So this is our network.
We're going to give you a little quiz at the end.
Now, we put this up here because there's
a lot of information, hundreds and hundreds of projects,
is I want to let you know that if you are interested in looking
at any specific project, we have an interactive map
on the SANDEG website that allows
you to go in and click on every single thing you
see on this graphic and get very detailed information
about what that is, when it arrives in the plan,
and what it is, what purpose it serves.
This is our active transportation plan.
It's also very intensive.
So there's a lot of new local connections identified
in the plan, as well as some new regional services,
hundreds and hundreds of projects.
So if you are interested in active transportation,
I would encourage you to, again,
go into our interactive tool, click on it,
and figure out what piece of the puzzle
that line represents.
So as I said, the regional plan is not just
about transportation.
We used to call it the regional transportation plan.
The regional plan includes a wide variety of things.
I should mention that this plan is very
focused on implementation.
What can we implement earlier?
So we are very focused on near-term implementation
and safety.
And these are the different policies and programs
in the plan.
and I'll have you guys look at it yourself.
But again, safety, making sure the existing infrastructure
is taken care of, and our climate
continue to be ongoing themes.
These are themes from our Laos Regional Plan as well.
So now I'm going to turn it over to the good part
and let Brian go over the North County highlights.
All right.
Thank you, Jennifer.
In the Regional Plan, on the website and in the PDFs
you can click into.
Appendix A is the one with all the list of all the projects,
you can really dive into that and get a list.
We break out the projects in the areas around the region,
so North County is one of those,
and I'll kind of go over the highlights
of what's up here in North County,
especially for transit improvements.
You know, I think you guys all know the Sprinter,
we'd like to add enough double tracks
so we could increase the frequencies on that.
Grade separations is a big part of that.
You won't see an actual list in here yet
of which grade separations and when we will do,
we're still working with transit operators
down at MTS as well to do a prioritization
of all the grade separations, all the grade steps out there
to see which ones we should prioritize.
Mario talked a little bit about the plans
over the next six, 12 months of prioritization
of a lot of the projects that come out
of the regional plan that we'll be working on,
but this is definitely one of them.
And I know you guys are working on, you know,
identifying those that are most important.
Another big part of the transit improvements
for North County is just increasing the frequency
on all the buses and sprinters in the coaster,
trolley down in the South Bay.
This is the common thing we hear all the time from riders
is if you have a hundred dollars to spend,
how would you like to spend it?
Usually number one is well,
safety is always up there as well,
but next is increasing the frequency
and the number of routes out there.
So that's a big part of the regional plan.
And then we also hear from folks
as part of that safety and security,
asking for upgrades to the amenities out there.
So increased bathroom, shade, security.
Rapid will continue to be a big part of our network.
We have the rapid routes down in San Diego area already today.
We're planning some in the North County as well.
Out of the 35 planned rapid projects in the county,
15 are in the North County area.
A couple examples of these and highlights is the 483.
That's a project we're currently just starting
some planning on working closely with Caltrans
the 1578 connector this route would help provide some congestion relief for that actual work that
they're doing. This route would take riders from the Temecula area down to Escondido and San Marcos
to hit the health areas and the school districts in that area. I think RTA the Riverside Transportation
Authority used to have a couple routes that came down into San Diego and with COVID those routes
went away and so we've been hearing from the folks at San Marcos and Palomar to bring something like
that back. Another route and this is I think is one of the ones top on NCD's list of next
routes to get going would be 494. These are just our numbers for our modeling. You guys
may end up numbering themselves and we're not even sure who may operate some of these.
That 483, that's a common discussion we've asked. Our question has been asked, who would
actually operate that route? It might be RTA, it might be North County Transit District.
We're not quite sure as we work through it and figure it out that would happen. But 494,
that's entirely inside your guys service area and that's an ocean side to Vista via Mission
Avenue and I think you know we've heard this would be a pretty well serviced and well-written route.
Losan is a big part of our plan. Stabilizing the bluffs is one of the top priorities for this.
Finishing the double tracking so we can increase the frequencies on the coaster,
replacing bridges. There's still a few that need some replacing. Delmar section of tracks, that's a
touchy topic. I'm not going to get too deep into that one but that isn't our regional plan and you
and we have a team out there right now
working on the environmental work
to see exactly what kind of options we have for that.
Longer in the plan in the 2050 phase is a Miramar tunnel.
And that's to straighten out that big loop
around the UTC Miramar UCSD area.
Then you would tunnel through that
and add a stop at UTC ideally.
And speaking of new stops,
you guys are already in the works of thinking
about a Camp Pendleton stop
and the Gaslamp one downtown.
And then increasing service frequencies
on both Coaster and Track.
And maybe we talked with MetroLink
bringing something else down.
So Jennifer quickly mentioned the neighborhood shuttles.
We sometimes refer to these as our flexible fleets,
but we've been hearing a lot about these.
You guys are piloting two of these right now.
You have plans to pilot a couple more.
We have our flex fleets pilot program
about to come out this summer
to provide some more options for other cities
or jurisdictions to apply for and try some new routes.
but it is a big part of the regional plan.
In the North County area, there's 13 service areas.
Most of these were developed in conjunction
with the work that you guys had done
when you identified some of the microtransit areas to do.
I think your next one is Fallbrook area.
But we also have Oceanside east of the I-5.
I know you have the current one
in the downtown Oceanside area,
but a future one would be that.
And then Encinas and Escondido are also seriously
considering ones in the near future.
So Highway, I know you're a transit district board,
but still in the regional plan are a lot of highway projects
working with Caltrans and our board of directors.
We hear a lot of what we would like to see.
Already in the works right now is to extend
the managed lanes on the I-5 up to 76.
Right now, like I mentioned, Caltrans is working
on the 78 I-15 connector that's in the works
and needs full funding to get all the way
through construction.
The I-578 freeway connector is still,
it's a little bit more down the road,
but that's still in the plan and Caltrans
working closely with the jurisdictions up here to figure out exactly what to do on that one.
78 managed lanes is still in the plan obviously and then extending some of the managed lanes from
I-15 from Highway 78 up to the north northern county line. Again that one's a little further
out in the plan as Caltrans considers that and you know seeks funding. So you know the big thing
is is we've been doing the public comment period that ends tomorrow. Our transportation committee
at San Diego tomorrow morning. We'll be hosting the public hearing and you
know we hope to get a lot of folks out to provide comments tomorrow. We've
already been getting a ton of comments like Jennifer mentioned. That closes
tomorrow night and then this summer we'll be releasing the draft
environmental impact report have a public comment period for that as well.
The board will then start considering any last final draft to final changes
all from the things we've heard from all these public comments and then we plan
to present that to our board this December for their approval. Again this
is open for a day and a half but there's still some ways to get in and provide
public comments. So for folks listening in and your residents there's still a
chance to get the comments in. You can email, call, use our online form which is
a great way to do it. You just pick the kind of comment you'd like to give and
you can do it straight in there or come tomorrow to our transportation committee.
So with that, I'll hand it back to Mario to wrap it up.
Yeah, thank you.
Like we mentioned, this is a four year effort
that gets updated every four years.
It gets updated based on the realities
that we have at that moment, right?
Funding, funding assumptions, new technology,
lining up the vision that each of your local agencies have,
right, your land use.
So it's ongoing, projects, you will see projects in a whole list of projects,
but this is just the vision of those projects.
Each of those projects has to go through its own process, its own environmental document,
its own design phase, its own consultation, and its own funding strategy.
So these are all assumptions that we're making in this regional plan.
And what's really important is that we
need to get this plan lined up every four years
so we can continue to receive the formula funds in the region
for the local agencies and for the regional agencies
like this one.
So we really thank you for allowing us to be here
presenting this plan.
And we're really open to any comments and questions.
Thank you.
Before we get into questions, just a few items
from the NCTD perspective on regional plan input
and our priorities, NCTD had discussions
with SANDAG staff for this regional plan
back in spring and summer of 2023.
Generally, there are three planning documents
that help to inform NCTD's priorities.
So that includes the California State Rail Plan,
NCTD's Service Implementation Plan,
which is updated and approved by the board every year,
and NCTD's Microtransit Suitability Analysis,
like Brian mentioned.
So as a reminder that suitability analysis
was an assessment that planning staff conducted
to evaluate and prioritize 14 different zones
within NCTD service area.
This assessment has ultimately guided our deployment
of NCTD Plus, and we had provided with SANDAG
with those zones that we evaluated.
Generally speaking, NCTD looks for smaller,
contained micro transit zones that connect
to major transit centers and stations.
So you'll see that in the regional plan map.
And CTD staff also participated
in the North County regional plan learning session
that was held in Vista in June, 2025.
And we've also had some discussions with Sandag staff
in July, 2025 about the draft regional plan.
So as you can tell,
and CTD expressed to Sandag that the Sprinter
is a high priority for the district,
particularly that there is untapped potential
on the Sprinter corridor for North County.
We also express that our priority is projects
that improve operations, whether that's projects
that decrease travel times or protect service reliability
through those infrastructure investments.
The NCTD board approves a discretionary grant strategy
every year with projects that are consistent
with this framework and you'll see reflected
in the regional plan.
Grade separation along our rail corridors
is also important, as Brian mentioned.
And as you know, NCTD has an MOU with the county
to explore grade separation at the Buena Creek Station
and a similar effort is underway in the city of Vista.
NCTD has discussed with SANDAG
the prioritized grade separation matrix
that Brian mentioned as,
as part of regional planning efforts,
and it's important for these projects
to be documented in the regional plan
as part of our discretionary grant pursuits.
Finally, generally, NCTD staff review,
when staff reviewed the regional plan,
We're looking for strategic deployment of our services
on key corridors and looking to ensure
that any new services connect
to NCTD's major transit hubs.
Like staff mentioned, the regional plan
is a guiding document that is intended
to meet those state and federal requirements.
And ultimately, any service implementation
that NCTD intends to operate
is included in the service implementation plan,
which is updated and approved by the board every year.
And with that, we'll open it for questions.
Thank you very much Brian, and Jennifer, and Mario, and Katie.
That was really informative.
Much appreciated.
Taylor, do we have any public comments today?
No, we do not.
But let the record show.
Board Member Desmond arrived at 2.21 PM.
But we're glad you're here.
All right.
Are there any questions or comments
from the board members?
Any comments or questions from any of the board members?
question if somebody else wants to go. I had a quick one, thank you and thank you
for allowing me to serve as alternate today and thank you all for joining us
from SANDAG. I also have the opportunity to serve as board member on SANDAG and
I'm now looking at how I can support NCTD just for today. So you mentioned
that there was you know there's plan requirements and there's NCTD has
different considerations and and in the multiple discussions NCTD has had about
the plan it sounds like we've been you know revving up towards this plan
working together for a couple of years to share our concerns and I heard that
there was three kind of guiding documents or considerations that was the
sustainability analysis the California State Rail Plan and the service
implementation plan. My only question would be are there other guiding
documents for this agency that we would want folded in and brought into consideration and
maybe can inform me of why these are so significant.
Yeah, that's a great question.
I think for us specifically, our long-range transit plan is included in that.
It's not necessarily included in the three documents because it's sort of, it's consistently
changing.
I would say from what Katie mentioned is those conversations are taking place directly between
the two agencies.
When our long-range transit plan changes or morphs,
or when we see opportunities to change things,
we talk with the SANDAC team and sort of ab those in
as needed into the regional plan.
The other three documents are a little more static.
They're state-driven or they're policy requirements
in some cases.
What we have agency-wide from the long-range transit plan
is more a year-over-year look at the service we have,
Opportunities we may have that a immediate five or ten year look out and so when we see those we kind of we go to SANDAC
And we have a conversation and we just add those directly into so we have the opportunity to see more of those immediate trends that can
influence the plan
Yeah, and a lot of that conversation is born out of board input as well. So when we get we get community input
On on our pieces specifically for NCTD
We get input from the board on what they want to may they may want to see in their own cities
We kind of incorporate those in.
I will say having served as the chair of the board
on other MPOs, it's difficult to manage all of those
into one regional plan when you have two transit agencies
and then an overarching agency that oversees highways
and tolling and a few other things.
So the guiding documents that we have listed in there
are more specific to state policy.
Our long range plan is very specific to us.
And so when we talk about what can be prioritized
in the regional plan, we have those conversations
very directly with Sand egg.
That's great, thank you.
And my only other concern was there was reference
to grade separation.
And I don't see that incorporated
in the draft Sand egg plan at this time,
but I think many of us could agree.
There are some critical corridors
where we need grade separation
for the purpose of just ease of service,
but also for first responders.
I know that that is a concern at our VISTA Transit Center.
So I just want to highlight that.
So we don't specifically call out individual grade
separations in the plan.
There is a bucket, if you will, or a line item that
has a dollar amount that includes
it's a pretty significant dollar amount.
And the reason we don't identify specific grade separations
is because, as Mario said, each of these projects
goes through its own planning and design process,
and it's during that process that we would move the project
into the regional plan as an identified specific project.
Additionally, Sandak is going through
a grade separation analysis to kind of,
because there's a lot of different entities
that want grade separations in the corridor
throughout the region.
And so we'll be prioritizing and identifying
what are the key criteria that makes a grade separation
needed or warranted and start to lay out that criteria
with the assistance of the jurisdictions
and the board members.
Very good, thank you.
Board Member Aitken.
Thank you and thank you for coming today.
My question is for Sean.
Sean, how can SANDEC better support NCTD?
Well, first of all, and I know I've had this conversation
with the board before, I really appreciate Mario's leadership.
I think it's been, at least for me, when I came here,
I looked at the relationship that I think this agency had
with the previous CEO of Sandag
and just don't think we really wanted to operate
in that environment.
And I appreciate the changes that are occurring
over at Sandag.
I would say one of the things that we have talked about,
so this isn't a secret between the agencies,
is I think we have a little bit bigger of a role
than I think is maybe identified sometimes in projects
when they come across.
And so maybe just how we coordinate those things
in real time and how we communicate those to the public,
I think are critical.
The one thing that we have had conversations about,
and I did mention it at the TC meeting a few weeks back,
I love that there are things in the regional plan,
like expansion of micro transit
and some of these other projects.
The one thing I think we occasionally struggle with is,
we come up with a great identifier for a project
and then we push a pilot.
And then the pilot, at some point in time,
when we have to decide whether it's not gonna be a pilot
anymore, we have to find funding for that.
And that's been a little bit difficult, I think,
for NCTD and for MTS, collectively.
And I don't necessarily put that on SANDAG
because that's a revenue generation issue, right?
Like either revenues that were generated
through the region that would go through SANDAG
have shown a decline, and we have to decide
which one of those projects are most important.
But I think that's the biggest piece is
where do we find these long-term sustainable fundings
for the projects that are identified in the regional plan.
And I wouldn't say that's necessarily a sand egg issue.
I would just say that sometimes there's a little bit
of difficulty when we have a great regional plan
that's communicated and then once it gets transferred
to the individual agency level,
we have to sort of walk through and decide
if long term sustainably from a financial standpoint,
we can do that.
And so just really sort of cultivating our message,
I think between the agencies to ensure that, you know,
that messaging gets to our customers, right?
Because they're the ones that are affected in North County.
You know, there's just a lot of big projects
that are happening right now.
Some of them are a little polarizing, I think.
So just how we coordinate that information
and how we sort of communicate that in real time,
I think is key.
But, you know, again, I appreciate Mario's leadership
and I know the team over there
consistently brings good information to the table.
You know, I've said before on the bluff relocation project that out of all the mega projects, I've been in charge of or been associated with this one has by far the most information I've ever seen my and I know that's been a source of.
You know question and I will say that I see a ton of information come out of that project may not be information that you agree with it may not be information that you want to see, but it is a great deal of information that has been really cultivated over the past decade so.
There's always room for improvement.
I think as an agency, we have room for improvement,
and our relationship will continue to evolve
as we move forward in this thing,
but I definitely want to make sure that we give a nod
to the noticeable changes that we see at Sand Egg
and I think that's a direct result of Mario's leadership.
Well, if I may, Chair, current Chair.
For the day?
Chair for the day, Queen for the day.
just one comment. I really, as both a board member of SANDAG and NCTD, I really appreciate
the work that both agencies do. And I share Sean's initial comment about frustration
over pilot programs like YOP and flexible fleets that are successful, yet there's no
sustainable sources of funding. So whatever we can do to make that happen is good, but
We can't take it. We can't steal money from the transit agencies on other programs to
support these programs. There's still got to be operations funds. So, it's tough.
Oh, Board Member Densman.
Well, thank you. Sorry I was late. But I have a couple questions, and thank you to the Sandag
staff and Mario, you know, for the CEO coming up here and appreciate that. And I'm glad
to hear, I know we are a transit agency, but we're the transportation agency as well.
And so I like to see the balance where you've got projects like the 7815, the 785, you know,
coming on to line or hopefully, you know, advancing those projects.
And then hearing about the, you did mention one great separation, Buena Creek.
Somebody did.
Who said, oh, you did.
Okay, great.
All right, sorry.
So we did.
All right, the, Buena Creek.
And I'll just say, for the county that's very important, that whole area works.
Because I've heard complaints, and I'm sure Katie's heard the same things,
from the fire and first responders response, it's just kind of a mess there.
And it's a county's area.
So I've actually, for several years now, we've been putting an effort into
realigning some of those roads and getting some of those plans in ahead of time.
So I was glad to hear that.
So I do have three questions though.
So, it's been a while since I was on SANDEG, but is this the time or are there any defined
early action projects yet or no in putting up the transportation plan, the regional?
I guess it's a draft, but I'm just wondering if they're in there now.
That's a great question.
And that's a great answer.
The regional plan, it's that snapshot to get us to the targets for air emissions and the
different requirements we have.
Now, the early action plan, maybe that you're referring to, was the transnet two ordinance
early action items, and we're going to be having a priority discussion with the board
of Directors, where there's a time of reckoning, where we need to have a discussion about
the regional plan, the transnet commitments, and having that discussion of what has been
achieved and what needs to be achieved, and having also not just with the early action
plans, but other projects that North County Transit, the county, any of the
cities bring up and say this is something that I really want you all to
focus on and work with my entity to move it ahead. From a funding perspective,
from a delivery perspective. Each project of itself stands alone, right? This is
just a snapshot, and it gives windows of delivery. So we will be having a discussion about priorities
because the needs and the priorities are here and the funding is here. And we're staff,
we're going to put everything in front on the policymakers, which is our board members,
and we're going to ask, what are the priorities? But it needs to be based on the different
agencies brings up also as what's the priority. So North County is going to be
telling us we're we're interested in seeing this this early on and we're
gonna have that discussion with the Board of Directors. Okay well I guess I
could assume though I guess if you've got timelines timelines you've got set
that's an indication of where where projects might fall in the order of or
sequence I guess. Yeah and if I could take a step back and probably should
have brought this up during the presentation. The plan is laid out in two or actually three
increments if you will. 2035.
You probably said this before I got here but go ahead.
No, you were here. I just didn't say it. So 2035. And those are the projects we can reasonably
expect to deliver by 2035. They don't all show up by 2035. There's staggered time frames
between 2025 and 2035. And then there's a time frame between 2035 and 2050 where you'll
you'll see a whole other group of projects that get delivered.
And then we have the third section of the regional plan called the unconstrained project.
Those have no delivery date, they're kind of a, I hate to say wish list, but they are
a documentation of what the region would like to accomplish but isn't able to do within
those two other time frames.
So if you're interested in what is going to occur in the near term, look at the 2035 plan.
Okay.
Appreciate it.
glad to hear that you brought up TransNet and even though in the past those promises
were still, some of us still hang on to those and say, hey, where the heck are they? So
I appreciate that. And then I did have a question on, I got two more. The Temecula San Marcos
via Escondido, sounds a little, we're reaching out to Temecula now, have we done that before?
Is that new?
Is that?
It's not new.
Did we bring them into North County?
Are they like Greenland?
We're bringing them in?
No, no, there was a run once upon a time that was actually
operated by the transit system in Temecula.
We do see an opportunity there.
I know that CSUSM has talked to us
about students that are also in that area.
I would say the agency doesn't necessarily have an issue
with the thought process behind that route.
I would say our only concern in real time
is that we're already facing some potential challenges
on funding our current service.
And so adding in some of those things
would require us to have a conversation
that's a little bigger about where that directed funding
would come from.
You know, and the best example of that would be,
You know, MTS has made some decisions over the years
to pull out of, you know, Sorrento Valley.
We've covered some of that service.
We've had a lot of conversations about MTS,
the service between, you know,
Eastside Downtown and Escondido Transit Center.
What does that look like in the future?
How does that roll into the plan?
Right now that's rapid route for them.
Does that just extend all the way to Temecula?
I think, you know, we see that as our service area.
We would like to try to target that market
if there's funding available, but we have an obligation
to our current routing structure first,
and then whatever that next piece would be.
Okay, well, and I'm fine with it.
I just, because I realize a lot of students
come down from Riverside County, Temecula area,
Muriena coming to San Marcos, or even Palomar College,
although there's a smaller Palomar College campus
at the 15 and 76, I guess it is.
So that's, all right, so you don't want to bring it up,
but I will, Delmar, and I don't want to take away
from the chair's position on this,
but the NCTD, the rail lines are hopefully,
I mean, that's our rail line, right?
We own the rail lines.
We own the rail line.
So as far as, and I know there's a lot of discussions
on picking which line, which lane,
and the yellow, the blue, the purple, the green,
whatever they are, and I understand you're doing boring
right now, and I guess, so what's the next steps
in that process for where the tracks are gonna land
or to get them off the bluffs eventually in NCTD?
Just, you don't have to tell me which one yet,
but what's the next steps?
Well, any project has multiple phases, right?
That's one, check the box.
It's in the regional plan, right?
So it's there.
But like I mentioned, they become a standalone project
and we need to pursue the funding.
Every project has their environmental document phase,
their design phase, and their construction phase.
We are at the environmental document phase,
and we're looking at multiple alternatives.
It's fully funded, and we're working
with the different stakeholders in the area.
We are very cognizant that this is North County Transit.
There's an MOU where North County Transit
has final say on the designs and what gets built there also?
We do?
We have final say on that, not Sandag Board?
Yeah, I would say that.
Not the design.
Not the design.
Yeah, I would say once the design has been,
once the path forward has been chosen by the Sandag Board,
this board has the opportunity to make the decision
whether or not that is something that needs to be done
on our rail.
Okay, but once they come up, okay, so the design,
They do the design, come up with a suggestion,
and then we get yay or nay, or up or down vote on it.
Is that right?
I would say we have, it's our railroad.
We own the line.
We would have to decide whether or not
we're comfortable with the action taken.
Who will own that railroad,
how those funding sources will be decided,
and if we're comfortable with that course of action.
And that's not a point of decision.
It's a journey, right?
So we are in the environmental document,
we're talking. Yeah, I know that's kind of North County transit tells us this is
something that we're not comfortable with. Why even go there or if Coastal
Commission tells us this is something I'm not going to approve then that that
alternative becomes unfeasible. So this is the this is why the environmental
document face exists. You look at everything, you look at the all the
different components physically, the impairments to the impacts to the
the environment, the public's interest,
it takes everything into consideration.
Okay, well, and I appreciate you doing all,
Sandig doing all that work for this effort here.
I've looked at the different lines and things like that,
and to me, the North Yellow Line looks the least disruptive.
I don't know if it's the least cost effective or not,
but it looks like the least disruptive.
I haven't talked to Solana Beach yet or anybody else,
But to me that would be probably preferable in my opinion,
just my opinion on for that effort.
But I appreciate all the hard work
and I don't have any other questions.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Thank you again for being here today.
I just wanted to flag a few things.
It's been brought up about the pilot projects
and I, looking at the lovely brochure we even have,
the little ghost cider is featured in the neighborhood
electric vehicle show of the plan itself.
So, you know, there's been funding for it to pilot.
It's extremely popular.
It definitely keeps emissions down in our downtown area
where people are buzzing around all year.
It also has been really critical for getting some
our at-risk neighborhoods to just a grocery store on a daily basis. We have
really great relationships. So just to plug to find ways to extend projects
like that beyond the pilot zone. Also I actually had a question about the 494,
the OSI, to Vista rapid route. Is there any information about what that will
look like or could look like, or is it just like we identify that as a really
good route to make rapid. There's a line on the map in the plan, but like the work we're doing on
the Temecula route down that we have the planning funding to do some alternative analysis work on
that. Now we're actually going to get into the details for that route of where we might stop.
We're talking to the residents of San Marcos, Escondido, Fallbrook, Temecula, like where should
we stop? What, you know, what are we, what are you thinking about? Then we'll start providing
alternatives. So now we're actually getting into the fun stuff of this and getting it. So the same
same would be with the 494 like where would we actually stop you know should
we actually extended south of ocean side a little bit go further east you know
all those will be considered and most likely be changed from what you see in
that plan right now but but there we need to be you know very you know
transparent these are concepts that we're developing with ideas to achieve
their reduction of air emissions but the conversation of the sustainability of
of these programs, it's something that's there, right?
And we need to take at SANDAC always the concerns
and the comments of the owner operators.
It is a balancing act, right?
So sometimes there's something that's good there,
but it may not be achievable
from financial sustainability purposes tomorrow.
It may be achievable later on.
That's why the windows in the original plan
gives such a broad amount, right?
Yeah, I would say, too, one thing
that we have an opportunity I think to,
I don't want to say course cracks, not the right thing,
but I think maybe be more informative to the public
is I think there's been one very static view of what
a rapid route looks like.
And really, bus rapid transit is a million different things.
It's a combination of could just be dedicated guideway.
It could be a combination of not-dedicated guideway and dedicated guideway.
It could be no dedicated guideway whatsoever with stops that have amenities and transit
signal priority and reducing stops along the line to speed up the process through the waste.
There's a ton of different ways that you can look at a rapid route, and depending on what
city you're in and the layout of the geography, it could be different in each part of the
city, depending on what that city wants out of that transaction.
I think historically there's just been a thought that we're going to come in and take a lane of your road, and good luck.
And that's not what the process is.
The process is very thoughtful about who's impacted within a half mile, what routes are adjacent that if that's on a one hour service,
that if it was on a 15 or 10 minute headway would have a game changing impact to a neighborhood that might walk a half mile instead of waiting in front of their house for a one hour bus.
there's all these pieces that kind of go into it that I just think we haven't reached that
point yet with our planning team and with SANDAC to have those sort of iteration conversations
and so you know there's more to be done on that level.
Great okay now to the somewhat non-NCTD related the the 76 is really really bad
and so my constituents constantly ask like what is going to be done to make it a usable roadway so
I'm just gonna flag that.
I noticed it doesn't have a lot of breathing room
in the regional plan.
And then just also to flag the five,
getting the management lanes up until the 76 itself.
And we already have some issues with the Camp Pendleton
five interchange that we're meeting
with constituents about right now,
but they have the traffic will get backed up
going into Camp Pendleton all the way to the freeway
and then really in unsafe conditions like on the freeway.
So just being thoughtful about those plans
and making sure they're including the most needed areas.
I would say specifically on the I-5, the HOB,
from 78 to Ocean Site,
that project, it's I would say beyond the regional plan.
It's an implementation.
It's being designed, as we're speaking.
And the next strategy is,
and it's gonna be part of the priority discussion.
How do we fund the construction
so we can begin construction
within the next two to three years?
That's about $140 million investment
just under construction.
But if you put it in a priority phase,
that's almost ready to,
it's shovel ready within a year and a half
to two years from now.
So we really need to be cognizant
that that has to be funded.
Because if not, we're gonna lose
the value of doing the design.
Okay.
All right, thank you so much.
Okay, under Garcia.
Wonderful, thank you for the presentation.
Nice to see you all here.
Just a couple of things I want to speak to.
I wanna thank you for the renewed interest
of response and response to stakeholders
and the community's input.
So thank you very much for taking that.
I begin to hear from even my constituents
talking about how they feel that they actually have a voice
that they didn't have before.
So just to highlight that, thank you very much.
Shave frequency and security.
That's awesome, that's great.
I love the way it just flows very easily.
security both for SANDAC for well for at least for us here at NCTD I'll speak to that we're doing
very well hear from the constituents how it's all improving the frequency not so much we're
all working on that and I know that will always be a concern and something so I'm like I'd like
to highlight that and connection with that. Now, shade. When I was first elected five
years ago, that was an issue that I got from my constituents about just talking not macro,
micro. In Escondido, a couple of stops that really needed full of senior citizens, et
cetera, et cetera. You know, it rains and it gets very hot. So promptly sent an email
out and I got a response and it was,
we're gonna do this and it's gonna take five years
because it's gonna, this year, number one,
this, this year, number two, this, this year,
number three, this, this year, number,
so I'm in year four and I haven't said anything
and I'm waiting to see if in year five that goes up.
Now I begin to hear across the region
that there are areas that probably should have a little more priority for something
so simple like that. Because if we're trying to increase in the regional plan, including
this, not only the transportation, not only the driving and the VMTs and all of that,
but also the actual, increased actual transportation of the usage of our public. If it's raining,
I'm gonna write something, if it's really hot,
I'm gonna do something else.
And we just kind of shoot ourselves in the foot
if we're not able to provide.
So I wanted to highlight that when it comes to something
that could be so unimportant, maybe it seems,
in the scheme of everything,
but extremely important to those that ride
our public transportation.
So those were just a couple of the comments
that I wanted to make.
But once again, thank you for your responsiveness
and thank you for the renewed interest
to listen to the stakeholders and to our residents
and those that write our public transportation.
Thank you.
That was a fantastic point.
It really was, we were all nodding full agreements.
First off, I wanted to thank you for coming today. I appreciated how you were able to put a
presentation together that was succinct about such a massive organization that so many people
have such a hard time putting their mind around. So thank you. It was fantastic. I also want to
compliment you, Mario. I know under Mayor Huebner and your leadership at Sandag,
I know our Mayor, Bruce Ehlers, has had nothing but high level comments about
the efforts being done there, so thank you for that and appreciate you coming out today.
So moving to some questions I have and I think we've touched on this. I've heard Sean talk about
it. I believe Mr. Desmond talked about it. Councilmember Joyce talked about it. We talked about
frequency and we've all talked about touching on frequency and you mentioned
15 rapid bus routes neighborhood shuttles and we talked about you
mentioned who operates and I appreciate that I don't hear a real push about
funding and and what I see us doing each week or each month here is cutting
routes minimizing options for our people and I think this this idea of
frequency is you're spot on but how do we do it and where do we get the funds
and who are we pushing forward to do it and if if it's going to be us doing it
frequency so we're gonna have to cut services and cut routes and and I'm
wondering what what what is the strategy is the strategy to to help us find funds
or is it to require us to remove or change routes which I know vista is not
here but vista is very straddled by the challenge of getting its residents
And so just wondering what the strategy is there other than just to increase frequency because it's a great dream. I
Don't see it from where I'm sitting. So I'm wondering what your thought is on that
well our our
Our regional plan, which is what we're presenting
It's it's the snapshot of what we think things there that are gonna happen now you're asking
Probably what's our financial strategies beyond?
The the the assumptions that we make in the regional plan
the regional plan has multiple assumptions of of what
Future revenues could look like or not look like and they're spelled out there
But I would say from a today perspective
Is a partnership where we're talking when I'm in Sacramento
I'm calling Sean and asking him, what do you need?
Let me know.
I'm meeting with such and such person
saying when I'm in Washington.
We also should not always expect just formula funds.
We need to figure out how we're going to cut our cost
from a capital perspective.
I'm talking how some of the existing revenues
could be shifted from either capital to operations?
And part of the discussion the SANDAC board
is going to have about those priorities
is not just about projects, but programs.
So it's a very, you're asking a great question.
And I don't think anybody has the exact answer to it.
I think it's the village that needs
to come together to get to try to figure out
how we optimize the system,
how we bring in more resources for the system,
and how we are able to get to the point of that vision
of where we need to hit the targets,
either for air emissions or something else,
or do the targets need to be reduced, right?
Have we been putting too much of a high mark
in that all the money that we're spending
should be to get to that point that maybe it's not achievable
can be reinvested into services
that really help us reduce emissions.
It's, I'm not giving you a straight answer,
but I think I would say it's a matter of
looking jointly at policy,
looking at potential revenue sources,
looking on optimizing our services,
and looking at new technology.
I'll just give you one simple example.
The managed lane systems,
it's the HOB is being converted into managed lanes,
having more riders that people with more occupancy
ride it free and then selling that capacity.
But that capacity is not for an agency profit.
If you end up doing that it's for the transit agencies
to be subsidized.
Is that a strategy that's gonna be implemented?
We're not the policy makers,
but that's one of the tools in the toolboxes.
And there's so many.
So I think it's having that joint discussion
and what's possible and what's really stretching it
that it's not feasible.
So that's what I can tell.
We're really working very closely
and each time we're trying to enhance that partnership
so we have a joint vision.
Well, it's great.
I appreciate that, and I hear the dedication
to partnership and collaboration,
and I'm really glad to hear that.
I hope I'm not hearing that you're gonna charge me
to pay extra to drive on a road I've already paid for,
but we won't talk about that today.
I'm also, I'm intrigued,
up on there, something we talk about at every NTCE meeting
that I've been to recently is School Connections,
and it seemed to come by the board
quickly up there. I'd love to hear more about that if you could. I know that's something where
a lot of us are dedicated to in our communities. Yeah so we are we have also heard a lot about
school connections and the importance of school connections. Unfortunately everybody is financially
strapped and you know the state school system has really taken a step back from providing
school service, direct school bus service. And so as part of our analysis early in the plan we look at
What are major trip generators and those include educational facilities.
We mostly look at middle schools and high schools because we recognize that elementary
school age kids generally aren't taking transit to get to their destination or to their schools.
So we do look at how we can route services or if there's a way that the rapid service
can provide a connection.
We also work with our local operators to see, you know, is there, if the additional frequency
could help.
flexible fleet service also, the micro transit, we see that as a real benefit to school kids
getting to and from school because that's a safe system that can get them directly to
and from school. It's very difficult because we generally can't provide point-to-point
school service. We don't have the funding to do that for the school system. So we look
at how we can optimize our existing transit service
to really serve the high schools and the middle schools,
the highest density population middle and high schools.
And are we working that through the school systems,
education department, the local agencies?
How are we, which, are we working like in Encinas,
for example, with EUSD or San Guido school district?
Are we working with the California educational system
as a whole?
Let me go back a little bit what SANDAC does.
SANDAC is looking at the capital projects
and what needs to go to the targets that we have.
The operators are the ones who design
the specifics of that service.
So it's, again, it's a partnership of working together
and seeing what the operator needs also
with what the regional vision has to get to the targets.
So, it's a matter of talking here, North County Transit, having that dialogue with the school
district, and also how we can cooperate with that longer term vision of creating routes
or how we can help with some capital projects.
I remember in one location in San Diego County, I was still not at Sandak, it was when I was
in Caltrans.
got a call from MTS and there's this high school that was had a stop just
near the freeway and suddenly we were getting each bus was bringing 40 to 50
kids at each each of their runs and the bus stop couldn't take it and it didn't
have shelters it was in an on and off ramp and it was a safety concern so
So there what we worked on was again, in a collaboration with SANDAC, MTS, and Caltrans,
and we figured out how to enhance the stop, how to make it safer, and really understanding
that there was an unprecedented demand because the school bus had been cut in that area.
those are one-offs but it requires each cage is a situation of itself and it's
that collaboration. That's great. I appreciate the clarification. It's really
really helpful and a couple more questions. We're going to SB 375. You know
with our with our cap plan in our own city, for example, one of the challenges
have is with the socio-economical challenge, the structural challenges,
we're constantly having to go back and and realign it because we can't expect
our residents to have $50,000 to upgrade their car, put in a charger, change the
where they live, just the the challenges of it that everybody faces. And I'm
wondering how often that's having to be updated or how we're dealing with
that across borders of region,
that challenge of SB 375 and the socioeconomic
and the structural impacts we have
and the hurdles we have to accomplish to achieve it.
You asked very good questions.
Thank you.
SB 375 was passed around 18 years ago.
And it has a lot of merit, right?
It wants to help reduce greenhouse emissions.
I think SB 375 needs to be re-looked at.
And the world is different today
than it was 18, 20 years ago.
We have a lot of new technological advancements.
What I can tell you, as a region,
and SANDAC is taking that lead,
we have met with the other four MPOs,
bigger MPOs in California,
And we have agreed to pursue a discussion and movement
of evaluating SB 375, acknowledging its merits,
but also acknowledging and bringing to the administration
the point that there is time to relook at it
and see what has worked and what hasn't worked
and where we need to retool it.
And we'll probably in the future,
probably not that near future
because those are long journeys.
We will come, we'll coordinate with your management,
but we'll come and present where we are with those efforts.
That's a journey.
It's not a short-term endeavor,
but definitely it has to be acknowledged
that SB 375 is a good thing, it's achieved good things,
but it also, some things probably need to be retweeted.
Thank you, I appreciate you entering the questions.
I really do, obviously these are all questions
asking is I'm passionate to get the best outcomes for residents and I
appreciate your same interest and willingness to answer these questions.
I appreciate your time today it was all and my last comment
and this isn't really a question is I would love to see SANDAG regionally
talk a little more about e-bike safety. It is something that we experience
literally at every council meeting we have in Encinitas. I assume some of my
other counterparts up here experience the challenge of e-bike safety on a
regular basis and with transportation being a huge issue in in San Diego and
you know the question of we won't get in development questions but getting people
to tighter tighter from using using getting that last mile using public
transportation whatever it is e-bike usage is going up our youth are using
it our adults are using it and the better we can do as a region at the big
level, kind of start big, work small across the board to to promote safety
and policy that that is encouraging everybody to use it but to use it and
get there in one piece. I'd love to see SANDAC take take part in that effort
with everybody, so that's my last thing. I don't have any more questions I
promise. I really appreciate your time. I appreciate you hearing me out. Thank you.
Thank you. I'll be very brief. I'm part of the Regional Planning Subcommittee on
in Sandex, I've heard this before,
and I appreciate you being here.
I too want to get credit for asking a good question
because I had SB 375, I think he stole that from me
because I circled it so I'm not so sure about that.
So what I, just from an educational standpoint,
I thought it started like in 2008 or nine, that was passed.
But with the goal of 19% reduction,
where are we as a state?
Do you have any idea?
Because I've never gotten an answer.
I mean, I'm sorry, as a region.
That's a recall.
19.3%.
So the plan achieves what we're being asked for.
But the plan itself, let's land this plan
into a little bit of more reality.
The prior plan was, how big?
$160 billion.
$160 billion.
This plan is 130 billion dollars.
So we're scaling it down based on the realities.
Still has a lot of assumptions there, right?
And, but it's what we think that it's achievable,
but it's still a very high mark.
But our responsibility is to provide,
to the best of our knowledge,
a plan that if the assumptions are achieved,
can be achieved itself.
And it can allow your city, the other cities,
the county, the transit agencies and the region
to still receive funding from the state
and the federal government.
Now, there's gonna be a point of reckoning
where there's going to say, okay,
there's gonna be a point that we are gonna say
It may not be achievable based on limitations of funding.
All this cannot be achieved.
Maybe we can do the capital project,
but then our partners, you,
the transit agents cannot operate it.
So that's why talking about SB 375 targets,
now in putting in those target emissions
to a more realistic point of view,
It's important as well as talking about maybe vehicles miles travels not the right proxy
for greenhouse emissions, right?
Why? Well, you have a lot of e-cars now, a lot of e-bikes, but that's not getting credit.
The electric vehicles still driving miles, and we're still getting penalized
or measured with that one, even so the emissions are down.
So those are the discussions that we all need to have.
Right now, this plan achieves that
and it allows the region to continue receiving funding.
Thank you.
And then my other two comments are,
I'm glad to see microtransit in the plan.
Although the funding is really important,
I think it's a great way to enhance public transportation
because it's that last connection for people.
we've had people today share that it's a safety issue
that allowed her now to enjoy taking public transportation.
So I think, and it's an equity issue.
So I think that microtransits really important.
And then I also agree with board member O'Hara
is that anything we can do in the plan to enhance bike safety
and bike routes are really important.
And I shared a lot of that with one of your employees
at the regional planning meeting.
I think that's very important.
I'm going to close with this, and you're going to think,
oh my god, Mario is so philosophical here.
But look, we in government sometimes
aren't nimble enough to catch up with an evolving
world in technology.
And that's the challenge that we have sometimes
among many other challenges.
e-bikes, understanding, creating the appropriate design features or metrics,
right? Who does it? We still don't know, right? But that strategies of how to move
people, we're on the 21st century. We have to be thinking 21st century and not
20th century strategies. So those are things that sometimes we it takes us
some time to catch up but I we hear you that there are a lot of things that we
need to get there you know you're you as an agency are pursuing alternate few
equipment that is great right that is moving into the future so all those
different things since putting it in the blender and making it work.
Alright so this is an informational item so there's no, oops, I'm sorry I had one more
clarifying question I appreciate this discussion I really do and this might be a question for
Sean a little bit more clarity on the grade separations so it's I think it's great that
we have a couple of jurisdictions within the NCTD service territory that have put some
resources towards the grade separation. We've done that in the city of Vista. It sounds like
the county is doing that as well. And my concern is that although it sounds like there is going
to be funding in the 2025 plan, there doesn't seem to be a commitment from SANDAG to look
at these particular projects specifically, so I just wanted
to understand what will NCTD be doing in order to go
after these competitive funds?
Yeah, I would say some of them are grant related.
In fact, on Buena Creek, we teamed up with Desmond's office
to seek grants for that.
We were not successful.
So, you know, between the supervisor's office
and between NCTD, you know, every year we aggressively work
on these grand plans because that's really the first part of the process to find out
what needs to be done, how much that's really going to cost, and then slide it into Sandex
queue.
There's two of them specifically in that corner.
We have some all over the all over the coaster of spinner lines, but specifically for us
Vista Village and Buena Creek.
Both are probably equal in terms of the need for grade separation.
Wayne and Creek probably has a little more significant challenge than Vista Village does
just in terms of the length of really the necessary grade separation itself.
Our goal is to continue to look into those, and we're aggressively looking for either
state funding grants or federal grants to be able to really kick start the process so
that once we have those completed, we can jump them in the queue.
And then we'll have that conversation collectively about which ones regionally have the priority
begin to work on them. We do have several along the coaster line as well
between Carlsbad and Encinitas and a few other locations. I mean, there's
just some locations all the way throughout the system that would
probably from a safety standpoint be better served. And we have quite a few
meetings about that with city staff. I know we've had conversations with
Vista County staff about that. We've met with Encinitas and Carlsbad about
the same things. So I would say to answer your question, a lot of it comes
down to how aggressive they are in giving us the grant funding
to explore what is needed in that arena.
I was a little disappointed that the joint grant request
that we had between the supervisor's office
and our office did not get picked up.
I thought for sure that was a win.
I mean, our team worked very well with the supervisor staff
to put a really good path forward on that.
You know, we're going to go forward again this year.
We're going to see if we can snag it.
Those are high priority areas for us.
I mean, they all are, I would say, things that have been on our radar specifically in
the Sprinter Corridor or Vista Village in Buena Creek, so we're going to aggressively
try to solve this problem.
Thanks.
I completely agree.
Both of those intersections are significant.
Even my parents live over in the Buena Creek area, and so safety response is a super high
priority to me, but it's hard when we're competing with the entire region, and we've identified
as an agency that these are our top priorities, right?
So we want to make sure that that is heard.
And then I also, just as a last comment,
absolutely agree with Member Garcia.
If we can, and maybe this goes back
to Member Desmond's comments as well.
You know, what are the first projects
that we can get done as, you know,
as a SANDAG board and as a SANDAG staff?
How can we just raise the quality of life for people
so that they're actually moving into these facilities
with dignity, with shade, with safety,
and a little bit more east,
so I completely agree with those comments, thanks.
I have some good news on that front.
Through T-Hud, most recently,
there were some awards put out that do cover some of those
between Escondido and San Marcos.
So right now, it's just a matter of figuring out
how we're gonna manage those locations.
Unfortunately, we're still going through a NEPA process
on some of those, so it does take a little longer
than it historically did, but the good news is,
is that those things are moving along,
as we thought they would be planned.
Although, we still have one more year to go.
Well, thank you again for being here.
And Mario, thank you for your leadership.
Okay, then the next and last item on the agenda
is informational and is related to an update
on the insourcing of bus operations.
Just a few weeks ago, NCTD brought bus operations
and maintenance in-house and gained
approximately 450 employees as a result.
NCTD staff will provide a presentation on this transition.
So who's presenting?
Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair, for today
and members of the board.
You know, this was a huge, really a huge undertaking
for the organization.
In my career, I've been a part of a few transitions
over the course of either outsourcing or insourcing.
I kind of go in between.
And it really takes a lot of energy.
And the reality is, if you plan them out for three years,
it's really the last two months where everything
sort of comes together and really makes it kind of happen.
And that's just sort of the way it goes.
We really kind of started this endeavor.
The board may or may not remember.
It came to the board back in 2022.
We had agreed that we were gonna look
to try to outsource by late 2027.
When I came on board, the agency,
one of my main goals was we had just brought rail in-house.
And there really was an opportunity for us
bring all of our employees under sort of one direct operation.
Largely our organization had been a facilitation organization
to manage outsourced rail and outsourced bus.
We have really transformed into an operator.
And I think that's important for the world-class service
that we want to give to our communities.
Really managing between the two when
you have three different organizations that
are sort of managing in real time what operations looks like.
You really want to consolidate that stream of information
sharing, organizational throughput, and really
responsibility to the downline customer under one agency.
And so that's kind of what we did here.
I want to take a minute to recognize Nick Solfo, who's
out here in the crowd today.
When I first came on board, one of the first things I did
was asked Nick to come up to my office
and dropped on him that he was going
to be in charge of the transition.
So Nick is still here.
Nick and I both lost a lot of hair during the transition.
So, so it is what it is.
You know, this is a really great picture of sort of through the transition
and how we were giving our employees, you know, information about the organization
and new badges and all the things that are kind of required.
And we'll kind of talk about it in a minute, but really you're talking
about doubling the size of the organization.
I mean, we had roughly 500 employees that worked here,
a little less than that in our previous iteration.
This added a little over 450 additional employees to the organization,
so we essentially doubled in size overnight.
And that's a huge deal.
I really kind of want to take a minute,
when we walk through some of these numbers,
and I want to give out a bunch of kudos here for a second,
but, you know, really, 55-plus purchase agreements
in our procurement department
to bring in some of those things, 450-plus new employees,
required our teams to manage five different labor MOU extensions.
So we got temporary extensions with our bargaining units
on five of those labor agreements
so that we can negotiate them while they're in house.
And really three new system implementations
from maintenance of operations,
operations on the street,
and then some stuff we had in the back office.
So the reality is is all of this sort of happened
in about eight months.
And so that's a huge deal.
I can tell you that, you know, that doesn't happen
if you don't have a good relationship with the operator
that has the contract that you're taking it from.
And so I do want to make sure that we give kudos or kudos
or do the transition for all intensive purposes
went very smoothly because we had a good relationship
with the operator who had the employees before.
And the reality is this was really an effort
to bring all of our modes in-house under one roof.
It really wasn't necessarily anything about bus operations
or rail operations.
So we're just thankful for that.
Every department that we had really
had a touch point in this transition.
And from our operations team to our admin group,
our human resources department,
our procurement team, IT, payroll for sure,
they did a phenomenal job.
Our unions with the Teamsters, and the ATU,
our legal teams, I mean there was,
every single department in this organization
had a touch point in this thing.
And realistically, probably the last four weeks
for a lot of our employees have been seven days a week,
significant hours of the day,
really just to make sure that that transition is there. And you know what,
like with every transition, we've got a couple bumps in the road. It's not that
big of a deal. We're gonna work through them with our employees. Everybody got
paid last Friday and that was really the first test of whether or not this was a
success. Uh, and so I know everybody was pretty excited about that. But, um, I
really couldn't be more proud of the work that every single one of our
departments put forward. I mean, you know, whenever you're talking about
onboarding 450 employees, like that is just a Herculean task. And so, you know,
our I T team to get emails for everybody and for HR to get the paperwork
into the system and get that over to operation so that they could pass out
badges and make sure that the system is still running on a daily basis to our
maintenance teams who essentially acquired all of the maintenance
equipment and all of the items that were in the maintenance house into our
house to be able to work on our equipment. And it was just seamless.
like we switched over on a from Saturday to a Sunday and operations just kept
running. I think that's such a testament to the amazing work that our employees
really put forth every day. It's kind of the things you don't see behind the
scenes and I just you know I've been through a few of these in my career and
I really couldn't be more proud of the work that all the teams put forth. I mean
it's it's been busy, it's been heavy, you know we got a I think everybody's ready
for a vacation but it's it's been good. Some of the complementary initiatives
that we kind of have around that and that will springboard off of this that
we continue to do we've been doing we're gonna keep doing in the future our
clean air initiatives and we just received our we're receiving our last
piece of the last bus order that we had on our hydrogen fuel cell buses our
hydrogen fuel cell facility is still under construction but it should be done
hopefully sometime this fall and we'll invite everybody back out to take a look
at that I'm NCTD plus expansion we were just in Vista a couple months ago what a
great launch that was. We're starting to see all of the demand that we wanted
from that route and we're making tweaks here and there thanks to Katie's group
and planning and the feedback that we're getting from that to make the necessary
adjustments. You know we just had our folks compete at the National Bus
Rodeo this fall. We're going to host the regional Rodeo between MTS
and our folks here at NCTD so we'll invite all the board to that if you
want to come out and drive a bus in our lot if that's ever something we've
going to do and you know we'll make sure you don't take it out on the street but
we'll make it work. You know the rodeo is pretty cool. It's an opportunity I
think we've talked about before. It's really a showcase by our employees to
really put their skills out there. If you've never seen a rodeo you should
come check it out. It can be nerve-wracking. I've driven that course
myself a few times. It's a lot can be a lot. You know, I've had my CDL for over
20 years now. And every time that I go to a rodeo, I start to sweat a little
bit. And it's a lot, right? I'm just waiting for the operators to let me
know that maybe I need some work.
You know, upcoming initiatives in FY 26, we're still working through a fee
facility upgrades that were approved in the 26 CIP, you know, shelters, as
mentioned before but really here on our property there has not been the effort
that I think we need to put into making sure that our facilities are good for
the next 30 or 50 years of our of our life and we're coming up on our 50th
anniversary. We need to have equipment and we need to have buildings that are
in the best shape they can be for our employees for the next 50 years. We've
got some pretty decent locations throughout the county where we're
stationed. So we just need to make sure that those are moving forward. Workforce
development, especially on zero emission vehicle and tech programs. We
actually have an employee here who teaches at Palomar. We have an
apprenticeship with Palomar College, but we also have someone who teaches at
Miramar. And that's pretty cool. Uh, Lillian Montoya, our chief operating
officer and I were able to go to, um, a class that was put on and actually
talk about the benefits of NCTD. And like when you get done with school,
come out and see us and work here. Um, so it's really nice to be able to kind
to have those touch points out in the community.
And really to optimize operations,
we continue to refine all of our operations systems,
procedures and services.
I know we've said this a million times, but we're unique.
We have sort of a hybrid rail system,
we have a commuter rail system,
and we have a bus system.
Those are things you usually find in a large system.
We're a mid-size system that has all three of those.
And really the best opportunity for us
was to bring all those back in-house
so that we have the ultimate touch point
for every one of our customers.
And so, again, it was a lot going on,
really supporting our mission of renewed and reinvested
in our culture of service,
and really providing that accountability, integrity,
and teamwork that I think our customers expect from us.
And again, I just want to go back and say, it was a lot.
There were some tough meetings,
there were some conversations behind the scenes
about things we needed to kind of change on the fly,
but everybody responded.
And I can't tell you how big of a deal that is as a leader to kind of watch that happen
in real time.
It means that no matter what happens at the end of the day, we've got the right people
at the organization and we're moving forward in the right space.
I would offer anybody who was involved in that operation, please stand up.
Alex didn't stand up, but Alex was part of that.
And that's really all I had today on the transition.
We've had a few board members that came out
if and when they were able to.
When we had a couple of days after we opened up,
we brought out some food trucks for the folks
and just said thanks and appreciate
all the work that's happening.
I can tell you that our employees very much appreciate
the support that they get from this board.
It's mentioned every time that we are out at the facilities.
I know that from our bus operators
and from our bus operations team,
they know that those things aren't possible
without the support of the board of the directors.
and so they wanted me to relay their thanks to you for that.
So I appreciate the hard work that was put in.
And that's all I have on this,
unless anybody has any questions for me.
Thank you very much.
Any questions or comments from the board?
I just wanted to comment.
Our city hall is right above our transit center and NCS,
and I had a break where I was meeting the sheriff
at the transit center, walked down there,
and got there early.
I had a chance to talk to some of our drivers,
And I talked about just this past week with the,
how's the transition going?
And my feedback was that employee morale
was at an all time high as a result of this.
So kudos and compliments to your staff.
I just wanted to say congratulations.
I know this has been a long time coming
and I know that it was a lot of work for everyone.
So thank you all.
It's just, it's kind of crazy in this time
because it feels like all the wind is moving
to contracting and to, you know,
everybody getting pushed out of a collective space.
So I just think it's cool to be going the other direction
and to feel closer to our family.
So thank you, appreciate it.
Yeah, and I just wanna congratulate you.
I think you talk about how all the employees were all in,
but I'm sure it's under your leadership.
It's a big part of that, so thank you for that.
And I'm really happy they're part of the team.
I'm sure they really feel part of the team now,
which is really important for morale
and for service and everything.
So all good news.
Okay, do we have any public comments?
No, we do not.
Okay, I went out of order, so sorry about that.
All right, so this was just information,
and also we have no vote on that.
Do you have anything to add today?
Just a couple of things, I'll make it quick,
because I know we had a great presentation from SANDAC.
Didn't want to take a minute to thank SANDAC.
I know they left, and I've said it a couple times.
Like, I really appreciate Mario's leadership.
We've had a lot of tough conversations
about things that impact our agencies and the region.
One of the things that I'm,
I know we do transit here,
but one of the things I'm on him about consistently is 78.
So you know,
looking forward to those managed lanes on 78,
so we can put our buses on them.
You know, transit funding as a whole,
I think there were some general fears across the nation
about what the current budget might look like.
I think we were probably not surprised,
but thankful that the president's budget
that just came out actually added some money
to public transportation.
There's also some money that's being put in there
in the CIP part for strengthening some of the
the transit stations that we have and a few other things.
That's been a source for a long time of
transit systems that were built,
transit centers that were built in the 70s and 80s
are in need of some desperate repair.
And so we were glad to see that reinvestment,
I think in infrastructure,
which was a followup on the previous administration.
So I was glad to see that continue.
We've got Comic Con and Del Mar races coming up.
Make sure you go spend your money.
If I had to choose between the two,
I'd say spend more money in Del Mar.
But you know, we support both.
We support both.
If you're not 21 and you can't bet on the ponies,
go to Comic Con.
You know, I would say ridership on Padres in the last run
we had with the fair was pretty phenomenal.
And we had a lot of great feedback on our coaster service.
and I want to give kudos to Mary and her team.
The marketing team did a fantastic job
of really building that up.
And I want to give kudos to the rail team too,
you know, creating these different size concerts
that we have on the train to be able to accommodate
a Pandre's train or to be able to accommodate
some of the fare traffic has been phenomenal.
That's not easy to do if you've been out to the yard
and you've watched them try to uncouple these trains.
That's all day, it takes all day to do that.
So kudos to the group who really reacted to those
and the fare was fantastic.
and so I'm pretty excited about that.
I already mentioned, but our hydrogen buses are on the way.
Most of them are already here,
got a few left over that we gotta bring in.
We're optimistic about what that means for the fleet.
We'll see once we're able to get them all out
in the service at the same time,
and we haven't been able to do that yet
only because our hydrogen fuel station isn't complete,
but we'll get there.
And that is all I had for today,
other than Taylor did an amazing job
sitting in as clerk of the board today.
Suhail always does an amazing job.
I don't wanna make it sound like that's not a thing.
But awesome job, Taylor.
Nice work.
Thank you very much.
Board members, anything else?
Comments or anything to report?
Yes, so at the Los Angeles Executive Committee
on July 8th, they reported a major milestone,
two million riders for this federal fiscal year,
which is for the first time exceeding two million
gets us like at and above COVID.
So that's really recovery that's so important
within the industry.
They reported 69,000 riders for May,
which was also pretty healthy.
And at the same time, it's worth noting
that the coaster boardings for May were above budgeted goal
at 15.3% or were above budgeted goal
of 15.3% increase compared to May 2024.
So we can beat our chest, too.
Anyone else?
All right, Taylor, do we have any remaining public comments?
No, we did not.
Okay, so just as a reminder,
there will be no board meeting in August,
so the next scheduled board meeting is September 18th
at 2 p.m.
And with that, we are adjourned.
Thank you, everyone.