all right well we are at 2 p.m. so I'm going to go ahead and kick us off and
get started for those of you that are here good afternoon at this time I'll
call to order the September 18th 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 clerk at NCTD.org.
Suheil Rodriguez, Clerk of the Board,
will take a verbal roll call for attendance.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Board Chair Bapatow?
Present.
Vice Chair Sinella?
Here.
Board alternate Svelek?
Here.
Board Member O'Hara?
board member. Thank you. We're
review evacuation procedures?
Thank you.
In case of an emergency, I will dial 911.
In case of an evacuation, please take the stairs.
Do not use the elevator.
Once clear to the building, please do not
re-enter unless clear to do so by emergency personnel.
There are fire extinguishers and first aid kits
on each floor of this building.
There is a portable defibrillator on the first floor,
and we have staff on hand trained
on CPR procedures if needed.
This concludes my safety brief.
Thank you.
And I'm going to ask if there are any changes to the agenda?
No, Madam Chair.
Great, and we'll move on to our public comments.
Do we have any general public comments today?
Yes, we do have two in-person public comments today.
I will call them when prompted.
We may have two additional phone call,
telephonic comments that may come in when confirmed.
At this time, I will call John Mosher to the podium.
Ms. Mosher, you have three minutes.
Hello, board.
I'm John Mosher from San Marcos
with the San Marcos Mobile Home Residence Association.
I've come here before, part of it was about transportation
and the NCD plus program we had.
And I wanna thank you guys for having San Marcos
being lucky enough to have it first last year.
I know Vista has it now, been very successful.
We've been very lucky to actually expand our services
in our city and we've been looking at crossover times.
We're lucky Nick came out and gave us a presentation
at our traffic commission meeting last month
to let us know where we stood.
And since I'm trying to move seniors from mobile home parks
to the senior center for specific meetings
or like what deputy mayor Mike Sinella did for us
put in skin with Jordan Marks
at the county assessor at the Civic Center,
I'm having problems getting people to the meetings
for those that either don't drive anymore,
but they do wanna come.
So while I was looking at that,
and we're listening to the presentation,
it came out that we have two shuttles in the morning,
two in the afternoon.
At one point in the day, we have a crossover,
so we have four of them.
And we're looking at what it would take
to actually have a third bus in that system.
And right now, it comes down to funding.
And that's one of the reasons I'm here
is trying to look at options for funding
and what we can do to help to get the word out.
I do have some residents that are trying to get to Kaiser in Vista and I was thinking if I've
got Kaiser in Vista and I got Vista people that need to get to San Marcos Kaiser there might be
a way to have a shuttle going back and forth and also go to Kaiser and ask them to become a sponsor
or help us gather those funds. The other thing I want to say is Eric I want to thank you for what
you've done in your city and the the rent ordinance and working with the cap with your your efforts
is something I see necessary for us seniors to protect what we have and keep our affordable
housing for years to come. And Joe I know in Escondido I think they said that there is a cap
in place so I'll be reaching out to you to discuss that later on so it's been a while but anyway good
to see you all. Thank you. Our next speaker will be Ms. S.L. Henderson. You have three minutes.
Yes. My name is Sherline Loretta Henderson, best known as S.L. Henderson. I am here on the behalf
of suffering students with laws for the freedom of who's who. Personal choice. I've lived in the
sixties and here in San Diego County since 1987 incorporated who's most
likely to succeed just who do you serve service three years and this is another
school year and nothing has changed in North County schools in certain areas
like Vista and San Marcos.
Well, here in Oceanside, too, the 303, Nita 603 are seeing bias from the same health and
safety concerns in other parts of this country, USA.
You have seen an Escondido 651, 652, and an Oceanside, the 623.
I occasionally have been riding in the area over six years now and complained, and complained
now three times and about the safety laws of overcrowded buses and the health and issues
that has not even the parents concerned.
Told once they were the homeless, that was the answer they needed to hear.
I started looking all the groups of 651 and 652 and 623 and said, who is this walker,
the chieftain of pedophiles and perverts don't serve as cities with transportation
rules or regulations.
Every bus route in this area are operated like the suburban pedestrians beware.
And the stops show you're working against yourself, a bus that runs once an hour can't
connect with one that runs every 20 or 30 minutes.
A bus that passed the Sprinter station can't pull into Sprinter station.
have a good day. I got the core of it. Thank you. We have no further speakers on general
public comment. Okay. Thank you. At this time, public registration
to provide general public comment will end. Before we proceed, I have a couple of quick
protocol items to share. I will ask board members to hold your comments and questions
until after each agenda item has been presented. When the time comes for board member questions
or comments, please raise your hand and wait until you are called upon to speak. And then
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 to the meeting online.
And lastly, when it is time to vote,
Suhil will call a verbal vote.
So we are going to be moving on to presentations.
And before we do that, I just wanna make sure
you wanted to do that after this item.
Okay, perfect.
The first item on the agenda is a presentation
regarding the State Zero Emission Rail Fleet.
NCTD will be involved in support of the testing
and piloting of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles
to be used in the San Diego subdivision.
Lillian Doherty, our Director of Planning and Development,
and Kyle, is it Gradinger?
Okay, perfect.
Chief at Caltrans Division of Rail and Mass Transportation
will present this item.
Lillian and Kyle, I will pass it off to you.
Thank you, Chair.
Before turning the presentation over to Kyle,
I'd like to take a moment to revisit the complementary plan
NCTD has taken with respect to our own rail fleet that makes this opportunity to support Caltrans,
one that will allow our team to gain valuable knowledge and experience. In 2023, around the
same time that our Zero Emission Bus pilot initiative had already taken place, this board
approved a contract for a Zero Emission Rail initiative that allowed our team to evaluate a
number of technologies ultimately determining that hydrogen is the
propulsion technology that best suits our goals and our objectives as well as
our operational requirements both current and into the future. The team is
currently evaluating the requirements we need the evaluating the requirements we
need to provide the infrastructure. Well I think we're going to take just a two
minute recess to figure that out so just yeah yeah well we'll just yeah so I
think what we'll do is we'll go ahead and take two minutes and we'll figure
that out and we'll be right back thank you all right well thank you for your
patience we had a few technical difficulties and we want to assure there
was a public speaker so we want to assure that public speaker that was
calling in that once we are able to at the end that we usually ask for public
speakers at that time, we will be calling you to ensure that we can hear your
public comment. And again thank you for everyone's understanding and flexibility
and with that I'll pass it back over to you all for the presentation.
Currently the Zero Mission Rail team is evaluating the improvements necessary to
support a hydrogen fleet, as well as developing the performance requirements
that a rail fleet powered by hydrogen would be required to have.
Combined with this, our grants team has a robust funding grant strategy
that they will be utilizing to fund both the initiatives
for the infrastructure improvements as well as the acquisition
of the rail fleet in the coming years.
Today, Caltrans is here with us to tell us more about the deployment of the first fleet
of ten hydrogen powered multiple unit vehicles that they have secured.
The plan for this fleet is to operate it on the low sand quarter, which makes it an ideal
opportunity for NCTD to partner with them on the training and the certification of these
trains and to be part of a statewide initiative to transition to a zero emission fleet.
The next step for both of our teams is to develop a memorandum of understanding that
will outline the guidelines for the working relationship that we will have.
I'll turn it over to Kyle to tell us more.
Thank you, Lane.
Good morning, or good afternoon.
Sorry, members of the board.
Thank you for the opportunity to present today.
My name is Kyle Gradinger.
I'm the division chief for rail at Caltrans.
So I want to describe an exciting project
that we have going on at Caltrans.
And we're looking forward to the opportunity
to work with you all at NCTD to deploy
some of the most advanced trains in North America.
So at Caltrans, we are procuring a 10 zero emission
multiple unit train sets.
These train sets are going to be
some of the most modern in North America.
They're going to significantly reduce emissions
and support the state's efforts to become an innovator
in zero emission mobility.
The procurement is currently progressing as planned
and we are in the final design review phase of the project
and expect delivery of the initial train sets
in 2027 or 2028.
Several of those train sets will be coming
around the same time.
One will be going to the test facility in Pueblo, Colorado
to be put through his paces, while the other is then
our ship to California to begin corridor testing.
So now that we are past those development milestones,
we need to shift our focus to the infrastructure
that's required to support these flirt train sets
in operation.
So I'll give a quick overview of procurement
in the vehicles.
So as I mentioned, we are ordering 10 of these train sets
and we still have the ability to exercise an additional
19 options from the manufacturer Stadler,
it's a Swiss company,
which has built thousands of trains around the world
and also has a manufacturing facility in Salt Lake City
where the current Cal train kiss zero emission,
I'm sorry, electric multiple unit trains
are being produced.
Our train will be a hydrogen fuel cell
and battery hybrid train.
I'd like to compare that to a Toyota Prius,
only instead of a gas engine,
we'll have a fuel cell producing the energy
and then batteries coupled to that for propulsion but then also to be able to collect regenerative
braking energy and improve the efficiency of the vehicle. The trains are four car sets with a
power pack in the middle which is where the propulsion and hydrogen fuel cell parts are
stored. There are two cars on either side of that power pack and so a four car train set will have
the capacity of over 200 seats and we have the ability to couple two train sets together into
to essentially a eight-car train
with over 400 seats per train.
The boarding height is 24 inches.
We're working at Caltrans actually with NCTD
and other state partners on a working group
to work on developing a standard boarding
platform train interface that hopefully in California,
it's a problem we've had for over a century in North America
with different vehicle heights
and different platform heights and different platform offsets.
we are hopeful that this is the height where we can begin to work on developing a statewide
level boarding platform train interface over time.
That will take decades to implement, but this vehicle, we think, is a good starting point
to set a new standard for boarding.
We'll also be deploying an automatic gap filler, which will extend from the train to
near the edge of the platform, allowing unassisted level boarding for passengers with mobility
devices.
On board, we will have vending options for beverages and snacks, and bike storage, approximately
room for 14 bikes in each of these individual four-car trains, so 28 bikes on a two-train
set train.
In terms of accessibility, there will be two accessible toilet rooms or accessible restrooms
in the train set, one on either side of the power pack.
We will have access for those passengers to the vending area, and there are four wheelchair
spaces and a transfer seat in each train set. The transfer seat will allow passengers using
mobility device to transfer to a more comfortable seat for longer journeys. So we're we've been
evaluating corridors around the state. The purpose of this train set procurement came
out of a 2021 general fund line item for zero emission inner city rail and bus procurements.
And so we've been looking at opportunities to deploy these trains and test their feasibility
around the state. Now that we are getting closer to the actual delivery of the vehicles,
we have gone back through our corridor feasibility analyses and begun to look at opportunities
to deploy these in testing and then into initial revenue service around the state, looking
at things like the fueling logistics, supply chain for maintenance and spare parts, and
the capacity to actually operate these trains in an existing service corridor. We've looked
at infrastructure readiness, looking at the availability of things like maintenance facilities
and track capacity. And we've looked at organizational factors, including things such as the ability
for an agency or a partner with us to provide track access for testing and to test the commercial
viability of these products. So when we look at those things, particularly the infrastructure
readiness and the organizational readiness and then we've looked at service patterns
around the state on the inner city rail side.
We've identified that the south end of the low sand corridor demonstrates an optimal balance
of implementation feasibility, operational readiness, and strategic benefits.
So we've had conversations with the NCTD staff, very, very positive conversations,
and we were excited to hear that they were interested also in hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.
And so for a lot of reasons, we think we found a great partner to begin the testing
and initial service of these train sets here in Southern California.
To step back for a moment,
the vehicle that we all have heard about in San Bernardino,
the ZEMU being run on the Aero service,
that is a predecessor vehicle.
It's very similar, not the same,
but very similar to the vehicle that we are purchasing.
That went into successful revenue service last weekend.
We have learned a lot from that process working with the FRA,
Working with the manufacturer working with web tech and and and the component manufacturers
to get to the point where that train is now a successful revenue deployment and so we are going to take a lot of lessons learned there and
Move into the process of working with our partners here in Southern California to make sure that our vehicle also
successfully goes through the process of
certification and testing
So we are hoping that the flute deployment in Southern California could follow a phased approach
Beginning with testing and perhaps some opportunities to elevate the visibility of this train set in time for the 2028 Olympics
Probably not in revenue service
But certainly an opportunity for the general public to view the trains and see what the potential future viability looks like
And then we'll continue to move on into revenue service planning
So we want to begin the testing process in the 2027 2028 timeframe here in
San Diego County on the NCT San Diego subdivision and that will be a process
that can take much longer than a year just to get through the corridor testing
and by the time we get to the summer of 2028 we should have four train sets
available for testing and whether or not they're available for revenue service
again as I mentioned it would be great to be able to put on a static display
and begin to use that opportunity to educate the public not only locally but
globally on the highlights of these new train sets.
And then as we begin to pass through these stage gates testing, and then looking into
how we can begin to integrate them into service on the broader corridor, we'll be working
with NCTD and I neglected to mention with our other critical partners in this corridor,
the Losan Agency, the Surf Liner, and Amtrak to begin to look at how we introduce these
trains into revenue service.
Our intention is to run these trains on the Surfliner.
We've identified a few slots that exist in today's schedule where these train sets would
be a good fit, sort of a low-risk, mid-day trains for initial service, and then ultimately
bringing these trains into service will allow the state to expand its fleet and redistribute
trains across the rest of the statewide network to support other corridors like the San Joaquin
in the capital corridor in the north and also enable the surf liner to grow its
service as ridership rebounds from the pandemic. So we'll work with you all we'd
love to work all in with you all and develop an MOU so that we can continue
to investigate the opportunities here and we're just thrilled at Caltrans that
NCTD has expressed interest because of your your pursuit of a similar vehicle
type. We think there's a lot of opportunities and synergies here to work
together to successfully deploy this exciting new equipment in Southern
California. Thank you for your time. Great thank you and I'll look to see if any of
my colleagues have any questions or comments at this time. Board Member
Contreras. Yes thank you so much for the presentation and I know this is
something Sean that you've been talking about for a long time publicly been
telling the board thank you for you know really bringing this together I do just
have some some general questions you know we do have the hydrogen fuel cell
you know buses but what we saw was that there was I think like an over a hundred
and sixty percent increase in the fuel costs so can someone break down what
we're looking at for potential fuel costs with this set of trains? Yeah I
would say that's definitely something that we don't have an exact number on
yet that the hydrogen cost continues to fluctuate like the best sort of
comparative I can give you is on the bus side and when we look to put in the
fueling station here for our bus operations it was supposed to get to a
place where it was somewhere between four and $5 a kilogram and liquid form.
Currently that's somewhere in the 12 to 15 dollar range right now and in gas
form that's closer to 70-75 dollars. I think part of the issue that exists in
California is scalability and that that really has to go back on the state a
little bit. You know the state really opened the doors for what they wanted to
to see from a hydrogen standpoint,
and I think there has been great interest
by our friends at Caltrans and CalSTA,
and I think the transit community,
I think when you get to the energy side of it,
there has been less of an investment
in trying to scale sourced hydrogen within the state.
I think we have a couple, you know,
what we would consider large scale facilities
that pull in that hydrogen and sort of refine it.
You know, the state's requirement
for the most part is that it's green,
and that creates its own set of complications
when we have natural gas lines
that we could probably farm and electrolyze from.
So there's a lot of different things I think need to happen
at the state level to make that happen.
It will increase our fuel cost
if it doesn't stabilize itself.
I will say the risk that we run in an electric scenario
is the same if we went with a third rail option
or if we try to do overhead catenary.
You know, our friends to the south of us
have experienced some increases in electric cost
over the years and there's some inherent danger
with overhead catenary as well,
especially along the sprinter line
where we have potential fire hazard dangers.
And so I think when we sort of weighed all those options
between fuel potential fuel availability,
aesthetics along the line, what really folks might want
from a long term sprinter outcome,
the hydrogen piece was kind of the way to go.
My thought is that by the time we get to a place in 2030
where we're really putting all that together,
there should be more hydrogen available and we're banking on that. That's part of the infrastructure
throughput of this project at least is to even look at our own area and should we have our own
should we have our own hydrogen facility in north county so that's all part of this entire project
and the state's been very helpful to point us in the right direction and try to help us out with a
lot of those things. Yes please. If I could add to that for sure. So we'll be covering the cost of
of the operations at the state because this would be in surf liner service.
But I appreciate the conversation about NCTD's potential use of hydrogen.
But at the state level we've been having several conversations with other state agencies
including the Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development.
And they've introduced us to some of the potential hydrogen manufacturers
who are looking to do purely green solar photovoltaic production.
And there's also a new joint powers authority created by the city of Lancaster to help sort
amalgamate the demand for green hydrogen in California and to connect the producers to the off takers and so I think that there's
Donning said I think there's a lot of potential in California still to produce green hydrogen and scale that up quickly and and
Indications, I'm getting from conversations with state partners of commitment. It's still there and
Fantastic, I appreciate I was actually gonna ask that you know when I'm assuming an MOU is gonna be a separate discussion
that's going to come to the board. So yeah, I just wanted to ask the state, can
you foot the bill for this fuel while we're testing it? So that's so that will
happen. Yeah, so thank you. I appreciate you chiming because that was that was
gonna be my next question. Yeah, I will say on the long term, we're pretty
fortunate that in along the 78 corridor we have cities that are interested in
transitioning over to hydrogen fuel sets for their for the city vehicles and even
I think Edco had a small conversation at one point and so we're having a conversation about what that looks like on the east end of
the corridor to combine resources between a few cities that are interested in some private businesses that want to
Move into hydrogen technology as well. So a lot of good leverage there
I think by the time we get to that point we'll be in a much better place to sort of
Really hone down what that fuel cost is gonna. Okay, great great. And I'm just to stay on the on the surf liner
Cuz I do have something I want to say about the sprinter line
But you said there's opportunities right now in the schedule
For some testing. Would that be like between noon and 3 p.m. Is that or do you have like a certain?
time
Just curious things. Yeah process, but the I think one of the things that we really appreciate from
NCTD is that you know as the owner of your infrastructure and the dispatcher
You have the ability to create the capacity traditionally a lot of these the early vehicle testing will take place in off hours presumably
overnight hours
Right, right
Okay, fantastic. No, that's great
I was just curious where the opportunities in the schedule are now because I know we do have
Unfortunately too many gaps in our service when it comes to the coaster
Especially if you're all the way in San Diego trying to come back or if you're here trying to get over there
it's really difficult, so we're always looking to expand frequency and brighter capacity in that way.
So that's great. I love that those conversations are happening.
And
now I just want to move over quickly to the sprinter line. So I know that we're just focusing right now on low sand,
but I'm really interested
having this on the sprinter side because
We have a lot of mechanical issues with the Sprinter right now. It is constantly there's something going on with it and
I
Just think that there's a lot of potential, you know
When we look at our infrastructure if we're able to double track more do more grade separation
You know, we could have still our freight going through and we can have late night
Sprinter
You know capacity for passengers, which would be fantastic
Because if we figure out the low sand corridor,
it's still really hard for people.
I'm in Vista and it's hard for us to go inland,
or even to go to front wave in Oceanside and whatnot.
So I'm really excited about this.
I really think that this is an amazing conversation,
discussion, and partnership that will come out of this.
So thank you so much for all the work,
and that's all I have to say.
but I will be looking on that MOU
to make sure that there's a line there for our fuel costs,
because I'm really concerned about the fuel costs
on the hydrogen side.
I do think that it will come down at some point.
Thanks.
Thank you, board member.
And before I keep going down the line,
I do need to check in to ask if we have any public comment.
No, Madam Chair.
OK, great.
So at this time, we will end registration
for public comment.
And then I'll continue to move down the line.
Does anyone else have any questions or comments?
Board Member Joyce.
Yeah, just brief the weigh-in.
Thank you so much.
That was really interesting.
The FLIRT.
It's a good job.
It is an acronym, I always say that.
It stands for Fast, Light, Innovative, Regional Train.
So when I worked in, we bought the first ever set of FLIRTS
that were built in the United States in Fort Worth.
And so I had to burn that into my head
every time I gave up.
Yeah.
It's always getting real frisky with their acronyms.
That's cool.
It was a great presentation.
I appreciate it.
Also, very interested in the sprinter line.
And I just recognize when we're talking about these fuel
shifts and changes from historical fuels
to what we're trying to look into the future to use,
I just want to recognize our ability and need
advocate strongly to the state to commit to this not in just name but in
backing the systems that support these things. So I'm happy to help however I
can. Thank you. Anyone else? I'm not seeing anyone raise their hand. Thank you so much
for the presentation. I want to just echo those sentiments. Looking forward to
seeing this come before us as an MOU and thank you for letting us know that we're
going to be hopefully one of those people piloting this so thank you. All
right we'll move on. All right so the next item is the approval of the minutes.
Do I have a motion to approve the minutes for the regular board meeting?
Contreras moves. Oh you know what it's fine I'll leave it to someone else. No
it's fine. I will say that I wasn't actually here I never miss a meeting but I
was never here but the minutes look fine to me. I think it's okay as long as you've
read them. Yeah I went through them. Perfect. Perfect. All right. Second. Okay. So motion by
Contreras seconded by O'Hara. And then as well can we please call the vote? All in
favor say aye. Any opposed? Any abstain? Speeley? Thank you. On the motion of board
member Contreras seconded by board member O'Hara to approve the minutes for the
regular board meeting on July 17. Board members Speeley abstains and board
members Desmond and Etsun are absent all right moving on to consent there are
nine items on our consent agenda for action today I'll look to fill for any
public comments there are no comments on consent great at this time we are
ending the public registration to speak on consent items before we move on to
anybody from the board wanting to take action I'd like to pass it off to mr.
Donneke really quick. Yeah, thank you Madam Chair. I just want to take an
opportunity to notate that the last item number 10, I'm sorry, item number nine on
our agenda listed as 10 is approved labor agreement between NCTD and the
Teamsters Local 542, four of our breeze coach operators. If you recall on January
29, June 29, we brought our operators in-house and I just want to take a
minute to say how thankful I am to the Teamsters and the team that came and
negotiated with us, you know, clearly we have a great partnership and it was a
lot of good conversation about the quality of life that we want to have
for our employees, responsible pay that we think our employees should have
moving forward, really reflecting the hard work that they do and they came to
the table and they were extremely thoughtful. Everything that they asked
for I thought was very reasonable, was very much in the realm of protecting
workers not only workers rights but worker protection through safety,
managing the things that they do from a scheduling perspective, and really
putting all those things together in real time. And I know there's a few
members of our local here today if they could stand up real quick. And Don I
didn't know if anybody over there wanted to say something real quick. If you don't
that's fine if you do. And that's all I had. I just always want to make sure that
you know our bargaining units are recognized. One of the things that has
always helped me I think throughout my career is that we've had a great
relationship with our bargaining unit teams. You know we have a very common
thread and that is the incredible people that work for this organization and so
I'm just very thankful for the way they approached it. I'm thankful to our team
as well who helped negotiate that and just wanted to make sure everybody was
recognized. Okay thank you and it sounds like you all didn't you all are good you
just want us to pass it. That was it, right? That was it. Okay, just making sure. All right,
great. So any board members wishing to pull items from consent?
I don't want to pull an item, but I just wanted clarification on item number three. I can't
tell on NCTD Plus the difference between VISTA and San Marcos. Yeah, is there?
Yeah, so we did take that into account, the feedback that you gave at the last meeting.
Going forward, we're going to separate them out.
Oh, okay.
Back and forward the breakdown to you after this.
Yeah, I'm just super curious because I see it everywhere in VISTA, and I've heard really
good things from people.
It's doing really well.
Good.
So I just, I'm really like just wanting to take this to my counsel and be like, hey,
it's going good, you guys.
Yeah.
So, okay.
Starting next meeting, you'll see them broken out, and I can send the numbers to you after
this.
Awesome.
Thank you.
move approval of the consent calendar. Sinella second. Okay motion by Contreras
seconded by Sinella and we'll go ahead and call a verbal vote. Thank you. All in
favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstain? On the motion of board member
Contreras seconded by board members and vice chair Sinella to approve consent
items two through ten. Motion passes. Board members Desmond and Edson are absent.
All right, so we are moving on to other business items on the agenda. Over the
next two items, staff will provide an overview of challenges the transit
industry is facing and suggest several recommendations of actions NCTD can
take now to avoid some of the drastic changes our peer agencies are having to
make. As part of this effort, item 11 is asking the board to set a public hearing
to standardize weekend breeze service
and modify coaster connection service.
So, Sean Donaghy, our CEO and Mary Dover,
our Chief of Staff will present this item,
so I'll go ahead and pass it off to them.
And I think there's somebody else joining us as well.
Yes, I'll let you make the introduction.
Thank you.
Yeah, so also we have, so Sean'll kind of introduce the item
and then I'll go into what we're actually proposing
the Board of Senate Public Hearing for.
And with me, I have Yoni Chilakova.
She was recently promoted to Manager of Service Planning
and significantly smarter on all of these things than I am.
So she'll answer any of the specific questions
that you may have.
Yeah, thank you.
I'll just go ahead and kick it off real quick.
If you saw the email that I sent you,
and you read it all the way through, good for you.
Clearly, you have nothing to do on the weekend, but.
You know, we just came back from Boston yesterday,
as a matter of fact, from our annual.
And we had a lot of conversations.
And I will say, I was able to spend some time with the new FTA
administrator, Mark Malnaro.
And I was very pleased with some of the messaging
that he had regarding transit funding
and where he really sees transit
playing some pretty significant roles
both on the rail and the bus side.
And so I appreciated his candidates
when we talked through that.
But I'll say that there's a little bit of an issue
I think in our industry where some of our larger agencies
are being significantly impacted right now
and some of our mid-size and smaller agencies
have sort of these dates in the future
where things are definitely gonna become a problem for them.
Rhode Island Transit, as you can see on there,
is probably a little smaller than us.
They're going through some pretty significant bus cuts
and line cuts.
Philadelphia, our friends at SEPTA
have some really great leadership there,
but they went through a pretty massive cut in service
that also included about a 20% increase in fares
that has been a little bit embroiled in a court battle
and a few other things.
BART has asked the governor for a $750 million loan
to be able to sustain service in the San Francisco Bay Area,
which is I think being considered by legislation right now.
And then our friends to the south of us
are working on a few things including a fair change
as well as a potential tax initiative years down the road.
And I will say that we had heard some information
that specific to fair increases that were sent to the board,
the board actually asked that to be sent back
to the executive committee for redo.
And that's kind of where some of these things
can occasionally become a little bit problematic.
I think for us, it's really about right sizing the system
so that we can make these many changes
as we go to try to stave off these sort of
in your face service cuts that are happening
across the nation from some of our transit partners.
And so, you know, I really wanna give
the planning team a lot of credit.
When I came in the door and we really put the map up
on the wall and we said like,
where are areas where we have redundant service?
where are areas where we have these opportunities?
And so this is, for operational context,
this is our service area, everything in blue here.
We did put the coaster connection down there at the bottom
at Sorrento Valley.
The reason that we sort of point that out
is it's not in our service area
and we provide service there.
Now there's definitely some reasons for that
and we'll get into that a little bit.
But I think, you know, from our operational context,
we have a really good-sized service area,
probably a lot bigger than most other mid-sized systems
by sort of default of San Diego County, I would say in a few of our areas we have a
lot of overlap and you'll see some of the pictures that we've taken when we go through
the presentation of where we sort of have three or four or five routes sort of overlapping
each other in these areas.
And one thing that I picked up on sort of as soon as we got here and really was a function
of the planning team kind of talking it through with me is we really don't have sort of a
consistent service that our riders can point to.
have a weekday service, we have a Saturday service, we have a Sunday
service, we have a Friday holiday service, a Saturday holiday service, and a Sunday
holiday service. And when you combine that with coaster service and sprinter
service, it's just a little bit difficult for our riders, I think, to do.
And so when you go, when we go through these presentations, for me, I think there
are far more benefits to making these subtle changes to the system. One,
there's efficiencies that are had by the agency that we'll be able to continue to
work off of. Two consistent weekend ridership is a huge deal for me like
whatever bus comes on Saturday is the same bus that should come on Sunday and
we have routes that either don't need weekend service because they were
primarily a function of helping schools that are Monday through Friday or we
need to add Sunday service to a route that doesn't have it now just has
Saturday service and you'll kind of see when they walk through the schedules
where we have this sometimes robust service on Saturday which probably
starts a little too early and then we have this small Sunday service on the same route and so if
somebody has a weekend job they may be able to use public transit on Saturday but they may not be
able to use it on Sunday because they just don't run and sort of concert with each other. And so
that's really the goal that we're going for here. If we can really I think the thought process is
we really need to rebuild the foundation of the network. I think one thing that our planning team
has done over the past five years and you know the pandemic put a little bit of a halt to that but
Up until 2020, we really hadn't re-imagined or sort of redesigned what the system looked like.
Whatever the system was 25, 30 years ago is about the same thing that the system was in 2020.
I think our planning team has done a good job of making some of these adjustments.
And the one thing we kind of heard loud and clear was don't come at us with these one at a time.
And I appreciate that. I would prefer not to do that.
I think what we wanted to do today, and you'll see this through changes that we are making
for our October service that are already in movement and then the public service hearing
that we want to open for two months on the other two were really set the
foundation for us to be able to have frequent consistent service and really
the consistency piece is the part that we really need to dive into because we
have a lot of routes that do a lot of things and sometimes they overlap in
weird places and sometimes they don't and we're really trying to streamline
what that service looks like throughout all the city so we have connectivity to
those items and so I'm going to turn it over to Mary and let her and Yoni take
get over and for yours. Thank you, Sean. So in that vein, we're asking the board
to set a public hearing for the November board meeting on two sets of service
changes. So one is related to the Soreno Valley Coaster Connection service.
You'll recall in October of 2023, MTS is board voted to discontinue the service
due to low ridership. NCD saw a benefit to continuing the service. So in April
2024, the board voted to continue operation of the service with some
slight modifications that were geared toward increasing ridership. NCTD began
the service on June 10th, 2024, and over the past year we've analyzed ridership
trends and have been evaluating the best way to serve the community schools and
businesses in the area. Of the coaster connection routes, the 479, which serves
UCSD and UTC Shopping and Job Center, and the 473, which serves the area's
East of the 805 have generated the greatest the highest ridership. The
ridership generators on those two routes are students taking the service to get
to school and on the eastern section employees of smaller businesses that
aren't able to provide their own employer-sponsored shuttle for their
employees to and from the station. NCDD has enjoyed a great partnership with UCSD
and has been working with MTS and UCSD to expand access to the Triton U-Pass.
UCSD students overwhelmingly pass the U-pass referendum,
which provided them with access to the coaster and NCTD+.
This is in addition to all of the services
that they were utilizing before the referendum.
So now they have access to all of NCTD services,
including the coaster connection,
which was previously not included.
This action will also more than double the amount of revenue
that NCTD is receiving from the school,
and is a huge win for student access,
and we'll undoubtedly further ridership on the 479.
Yeah, if I could just make a quick comment about that.
The students are very adamant that they wanted access
to NCTD's entire system.
I can tell you that MTS negotiated a lower pass price
at the request of the student body.
We negotiated almost a two and a half time,
well, 205% increase in our pass price,
and now they have access to nearly the entire system
before they only had access to Breeze and Sprinter,
now they have access to pretty much everything.
So credit to the planning team in Yoon
who negotiated that new rate.
I think that speaks volumes of our partnership with UCSD.
So today, we are proposing to maintain
routes 479 and 473 to ensure that the areas
that we see the service needed most,
that service is maintained.
The elimination of the underperforming routes,
471 472 and 478 will allow NCTD to optimize these two services
So the second piece of this public hearing that we're asking the board to set today is to standardize our weekend schedules as Sean
Mentioned in a lot of cases we have a separate Saturday schedule on a separate Sunday schedule
It's confusing for customers and on occasion. It's accusing for operators a confusing for operators as well
So we're looking to standardize some of our schedules on the weekends
Planning staff found that weekend schedules were sometimes inconsistent and that there were also duplicative services that existed that served the areas more effectively
Several major corridors were also missing Sunday service, which is proposed to be added as part of this service change
As we've mentioned the main goal of standardizing our schedule is to streamline and optimize our services
We're proposing to reallocate some resource hours from the duplicative services to expand service in other areas
So phase 1 of the weekend standardization as Sean mentioned is already underway and will be in effect next month with our service change
Those changes include adjusting weekend service on the 302 from 20 to 30 minute frequencies
We found that 20 minute headways were confusing for customers in some cases and determined that it would be best to move to the industry
Standard of clock headways a lot of 15 30 45 hour is easier for the customer to understand and 30 minute headways
We're the one that fit this service the most the best
adjusting run times on the 305 to make the schedule the same on Saturdays and Sundays,
shifting some trips from Saturday to Sunday on the 309 to ensure that we had adequate coverage
on both weekend days, and similarly adjusting run times on the 351 and 352 to have the same
schedule on both weekend days. And also Karina mentioned it, stole my thunder a little bit,
as part of this we are also standardizing the weekend coaster schedule and the schedule on the
the weekdays as well. Ridership patterns since COVID are less commuter based and
we don't necessarily see a need for the higher morning and afternoon peaks, so
we're looking to smooth out some of those peaks to have a more consistent
service on the coaster. As you all know, existing coaster service has major gaps
in midday service, which was leading to a mismatch in what the riders were
telling us they wanted versus what the service that we were providing. Also,
Saturday only service was confusing. We had two trips on Saturday that did not
match the Sunday schedule and the late night service on Friday and Saturday was
not at the optimal time. So the updated schedule will reduce those gaps and
provide a consistent service throughout the day. We will have at least one
coaster in every hour block. It won't necessarily be every hour but at the
noon hour at the one o'clock hour you'll see you'll see a coaster. We heard the
board and our customers and we added service in the noon hour to serve people
that were going down to downtown for midday meetings or lunch meetings and
that and the like so we've added that service in there. And another benefit of
smoothing out our service peaks is improved on-time performance. We are
able to realize that by reducing the potential conflicts with Amtrak and
Metrolink service. We've also found that with this new schedule we don't need to
have as many train sets out at one time so we're able to utilize our resources
also as Karina mentioned like fuel which reduces our maintenance obligation as
well. So phase two is what we're asking the board to set a public hearing on
today and part of that is adding Sunday service to the 304 and the 318. These
are major corridors for NCTD but they were lacking Sunday service and we're
also proposing the elimination of Saturday service on 325 and 347 due to
low ridership and duplicative services in those areas. So this just demonstrates
the routes in green are going to be adding Sunday service and the routes in
purple are going to be eliminating Saturday service. However, the routes
where the Saturday service is proposed to be eliminated, we are providing
supplemental service with the 315 on 325 and NCTD plus San Marcos for the 347.
The 304 and the 318 see promising Saturday ridership, so we view that as a
benefit to the district and our riders by shifting some of our resources to
Saturday or sorry Sunday service on those routes the 325 and 347 we viewed
as being better served those corridors are better served by the 315 and NCT
plus San Marcos respectively. NCTD is proposing a two-month public comment
period to make sure that we're able to communicate as best as possible with our
customers and the community on these changes. Information will be posted in
English and Spanish on our website at bus stops on board buses that run these
routes in addition to a bilingual legal notice that will be posted in the
newspaper and on our website. We're also going to start hosting virtual open
houses as an additional way to garner public feedback, take any rider
questions and questions from the community, and then as we've always done
we're going to be meeting the people, the riders where they are, and hitting those
really high touch points at the Palomar College Transit Center, Carlsbad
Village Station, and Sorano Valley Coaster Station. So today NCTD staff is
recommending that the board set a public hearing on November 20th 2025 for the
following proposed service changes elimination of flex routes 471 472 and
478 elimination of Saturday service on Breeze route 425 and 347 and the addition
of Sunday service on Breeze 304 and 318 and Sean you and I are available for any
questions great thank you and I'm going to look towards Suhail for public
comment today? We do have a telephone comment, Mr. Glenn Leader, and we're
getting him on the phone right now. Great, okay, we'll wait for that. Thank you.
Yes, I'm commenting about the elimination of certain services, particularly the 325 Saturday service.
For me to have to walk all the way from where I live, all the way to Carlsbad Village Drive to
catch the 315. That's why I'm opposed to the elimination of the 325 Saturday
service. And anything else? Thank you. Do you have anything else to add, sir? I
think we we did hear your comment. Is there anything else you'd like to add?
You do have a little bit of time remaining. Okay, great. Thank you so much.
Thanks for calling in. We have no further public comment on this item. Okay, thank
you. All right at this time we will end the public registration to speak on this
item. Well I know I have a few questions but I will wait until the end so I'll
look to see if any of my colleagues have any questions or comments regarding this
item. Yeah I'll start with Board Member O'Hara and then I'll go to Board Member
Contreras. Sure thank you appreciate that. I'm kind of parallels off of that
public comment. I was just looking at our choices here of some of the changes
we're making to services and I noticed, I noticed like in that case there are
multiple routes that overlap and we seem to eliminate entire routes rather
than eliminating portions or stops exactly of routes and why is there a
a reason for that that we could connect to that and is there a thought process
behind that? With respect to the 315 and 325? I think that's an easy one to look
at because they both essentially end pretty close together and the comment
was about that so. Yeah the 315 and the 325 are interesting because they are
supplemental services to each other. We make that deviation on the 325 in
Carlsbad to serve a school that's there and as Sean mentioned there isn't a
great need to serve that school area on the weekend so service will still be
provided on the 315 for the majority of the route. Anything else board member? I
have other questions but I just wanted to address a public comment because it overlaps with that question. You can keep going. I'll yield the floor and you can come back to me. Are you sure? Yes. Okay. All
right. Board member Contreras. You know what thank you because actually I wanted to
kind of jump off of the public comment as well. And if someone could just walk
me through, if I'm this individual, right, and I have these concerns, can you walk
me through what it looks like to overcome those concerns? Yeah, I think
it's through through our outreach process and ensuring that the public is
aware that there is a service option for them and it does exist on the 315. We can
speak to them about the schedule. We can gather feedback on where they're going
and coming from and provide them with information through that outreach.
So I know that this is probably not something you're prepared to do, but I'm just curious
if someone could just tell me the what this person's route would be or you know.
Yeah, essentially would be the 315.
I think as you'll see with the 323 presentation on the next one, the part of the public hearing
that we really need is there may be an opportunity for us to deviate the 315
on a on the weekend to cover that some very small portion of the 325 that's not
covered by the rest of 90 percent of that route is covered by both of those
routes or by another route to the north of it and so when we talk about like the
315 going all the way through north when it comes back down there's a
possibility that we could have it run that piece of the 325 that's getting
cut off just to reverse directional but we need that kind of feedback like where
where are you located in that equation so that we can do it most of the
feedback that we received especially along the 323 was your pulling service
out of my area and then once we said well actually there's a supplemental
service with X especially when we started talking about NCTD plus in San
Marcos on the 347 you know you have all these areas where there's already sort
overlap on a lot of these routes. They're just not set up correctly when you
remove a Saturday piece. I think to Mary's point, that's what we need from
the public hearing. We need somebody to come and say I live a mile and a half to
the south there and so I'm gonna have to walk to get to that 315 and then we can
make potential deviations. Yeah cuz it looks like that's the deviation between where there's
service now and potentially no service is like a quarter, three-quarters of a
mile-to-mile like radius right further down and just a question on how you get
public comment so you know obviously you had to register the individual had to
register to make this public comment is there someone that's gonna follow up
with the caller the public comment yeah I would I would really appreciate that
because I think and I think that's probably if that's not a practice that
we do already I think it'd be good because they're providing us the
information we can you know potentially reach back out. The other question that I
have is for the public you know process and for the board members information is
there a ability to have like the writers guide be in draft form as to like what
the changes would look like. At some point I don't know at what point it
make sense to do that, but I think it's just,
it'd be good for us.
I don't think we've ever reviewed a writer's guide,
but they're on every bus and folks go through them
and I would just love to see, so I understand.
So I don't have to like take the route myself
and figure it out, but I can like see it in my head, right?
Like where the changes would be.
Does that make sense?
Is that something that's doable?
It totally makes sense.
And it's actually something we've had a conversation
internally that we are trying to get away from the rider guide. What we
really want is a small guide that has a system map and a listing of all of our
routes and where they come from and a listing of our transit terminals. What we
really want is individual schedules for each route that exists so that when we
make these changes they don't have to flip through a book to try to find it.
You know I can only speak for myself that when I interviewed here it was very
difficult for me to go through the ride guide and find out which routes we're doing.
Oh, I'm 100% back any kind of effort
to create better mapping for our,
and that goes along with the wayfinding.
But until we do that,
I would love to see some kind of a draft form
just so I can thumb through it
and get a feeling for the changes
and how I would move if I were someone
that utilized this route, what the deviation would feel like.
Because I know it's like really difficult.
Once you get any kind of distance that's more than
1,000 feet, it can make it really difficult
for people to get there.
And I think that's the benefit of the public hearing, too.
I think the model that we really want to get to
in our public hearings is a lot less presentation-like
and more station for routes.
They come and see the station for the route
that you're concerned about.
Give us that feedback.
Let us show you the alternatives that
exist when we change it, because when we put a full pallet
like this together, you don't see right off the bat like,
oh, we're gonna deviate this route,
or there's another route that services that area.
And those are the pieces of information we wanna show
and have somebody point to a map and say,
well, I live right here,
tell me how I'm gonna get to the bus.
And we'll definitely point that individual
toward the public hearing.
And the one thing we're gonna do this time too,
that I don't think we've done before,
we're gonna do some virtual public hearings on Facebook
and a few other places.
So we can just have people ask us questions in the chat,
We can answer them in real time.
I'm really solicit that public feedback that way too,
because we know there are a lot of folks
that sort of watch us on social media
and might be a good place to.
And is there any kind of like animated,
like scenario that could,
I don't know what technology you all have.
Yeah, but is there, you know,
talking about social media and whatnot,
where, you know, the public could get some more information
with like some kind of visual showing
that this is happening or this line is changing
or anything like that.
I mean, I would just really recommend that
because people talk.
And so you just need one writer.
Yeah, I ride the system a lot.
And so I see people, they see each other,
they recognize each other and word spreads.
So I think if we even just get a small percentage
of folks that are writers that get to see that,
they can like spread the information as well.
but if we do have the ability to do that,
that would be really cool.
Yeah, I think our goal-
Because your all social media has been really good lately.
Yeah. I will tell you.
Yeah, Mary's team has been rocking it,
and I'll say our goal has been to get
to very specific information about maybe not the whole meal,
but one piece of it, you know, this is the route change.
Yeah.
Here's an animation of what that looks like in real time.
Long-term, what we want to do also is we want to video
each one of the routes, mainly for training for our operators.
I mean, we already sort of have that,
but in a little more detailed fashion
that has like way finding points
and put those out to the public.
So if they haven't ridden that route for the first time,
they can look at that video and say,
okay, I need to get off at the Walmart
or I need to get off at the doctor's office.
And they have sort of an idea of what that looks like
in real time when they're watching the video.
Amen to that, I love that all.
Thank you all so much.
Those are all my comments for now.
Great, thank you.
Any other questions or comments over here?
know I have some but I'll go back to you now. I was just kind of informational
question the start of the presentation you you mentioned that BART is down and
looking at what we have to overcome I ride BART frequently visiting family
friends trains are full high usage trains are full trolleys are full all
all their vehicles seem to be occupied.
And I see us struggling with a different challenge.
And so I'm wondering how they are behind
in what that means in coordination for us.
Yeah, I think for the bigger systems,
it's a combination of fair enforcement issues
that lead to reduced fair revenue.
I would say capital costs in larger agencies,
San Francisco community, which is the bus system
complements the BART immediately implemented about 350 million dollars
worth of cuts a couple weeks ago. I think when you're operating at that
magnitude sort of these peripheral things can really come to get you a
quick which is legacy routes that exist in neighborhoods that are largely
driven by needs of certain cities and then when they go back and review the
data on them they just don't check out right and then and I think we have the
ability to sort of course correct that in real time and it's really not a space
for us where we're trying to reduce the service hours necessarily that we're
running we want to pull those service hours and have them at the ready to be
able to launch new services especially in corridors you know like 325 and 315
and you'll see on one of these pictures I think it was on was that on this slide
the picture with all the blades so we have a picture in the next presentation
that has like a stop that has like four or five blades on it. And that's, that's a
problem because essentially that's two operators at minimum and X amount of
service hours that we could put into a new location to run service. And so I
think for the larger systems, it's a little bit of an infrastructure piece in
addition to a declining sales tax and the Bay Area is experiencing the same
thing we are, which is declining population and thus declining sales tax.
but there it is, there's that picture right there.
I was wrong, it's this presentation.
That's my favorite picture of all time.
So when we look at stuff like that,
and it was interesting because I got all worked up
because I drove by that stop
and I went straight to Mary's office and said,
wow, that's crazy, I might have said something else,
but, yeah, that's not my picture.
I didn't think of it.
Just a way.
But it's kind of, you know, in the bigger systems,
there's a lot of redundancy that I think could be fixed.
And I love BART whenever I'm in San Francisco,
that's the system I ride.
And you're right, they're full.
If you're going to a basketball game,
it's full over to the Chase Center.
If you're going to any of the outlying cities,
and I think they have a good network.
And they've got great leadership and great employees.
I think there's just been a little bit of a reluctance,
I think, locally for them to want to change those services.
And they sort of ran themselves into a point
where we don't have the long-term money
without dipping into reserves.
And so that was where they kind of came to the crossroad.
And I think our team,
and I'll give them tons of credit,
and they have, between our finance department
and our operations teams have done a great job
of existing in the world that we are funded at.
I think I've said it before,
that when we did our last budget cycle,
it was about 10 million less than what we did
my first budget cycle in 24.
And we wanna be responsible with it.
We want the service to be out there,
we want it to be frequent,
but the overlap, I think, kinda hurts us a little bit
in trying to find ways to do that
is sort of chief concern to us.
So there's a little bit of differences there.
I think the same thing that Bart's experiencing
a little bit is happening down to the south of us.
And it's twofold, right?
I go to a SANDAG meeting and I watch the MTS meetings
and we have lots of conversations in here.
And I love the fact that our local leaders
have a ton of passion about what they want to see
in the region.
But if we're deadlocked and we don't make decisions
in real time, that can sort of help us
right the ship as we go for the next couple of years
while we're looking for an additional funding source,
it creates these duplicative problems
that we can't solve later on down the road.
And then it sort of seems like a shock drop
when we have to make that change.
And I hate that for some of my peers in the industry
because I think they do a great job of putting service out
and I think they do a great job
of managing the networks they have.
The one thing I love about this agency,
we have a really good ability, I think,
to move and swing when we need to,
but protect the service in the best way possible
for the people that need it.
Anything else?
That's it?
Okay, great.
Perfect.
All right, so I'll ask some of my questions now
and thank you again for the presentation.
First, I know for the 309 we mentioned
potentially shifting some of the Saturday service
to the Sunday service.
Does that mean those certain routes
would be eliminated from Saturday
and then added to the Sunday service?
I'm just confirming.
Yeah, so we're proposing to trim the schedule
on the Saturdays.
We see very, very, very low ridership
on those very early morning
and very late evening trips on the 309.
So we're effectively proposing to shift those trips
over to Sunday to standardize the schedule.
Okay, great.
Thank you for the clarification.
And then for the times with regards to outreach,
I know you mentioned there are,
I think it's like four or five different times
that you'll be out talking to the community
with regards to this.
And so I'm just curious, with regards to the dates,
were those picked based on ridership
and how many people were going to see at those times?
Or what was it based on, just because I know we have...
Maybe I'll stop there and then I'll share my comment.
Yes, we've picked outreach at these particular locations
and at these particular times
based off of ridership patterns.
Okay, yeah, I think the only reason
why I was curious is because, for instance,
if we pick Carlsbad, I notice it's Saturday,
and I'm assuming, yes, maybe our station
does have more ridership on Saturdays,
versus if we're looking at Sorrento Valley,
you see Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
I guess the one thing that I was curious about
is that on Wednesdays, for instance,
we have our farmer's market,
and so I'm just wondering if outreach
during those times might be of interest,
but I'm guessing you're trying to catch riders
as they're coming off and say, hey, we need your feedback.
Right, we're trying to catch those Saturday riders
on the 325 to make sure that they're aware.
We're certainly not opposed to adding additional outreach
and we can definitely look at what makes,
what'll get us the best bang for our buck.
Yeah, okay, and then I think when you were sharing
with regards to the feedback,
as we're receiving feedback for some of these routes,
so kind of in line with what was shared
with the public comment, we have the ability
to potentially fine tune some of our routes
to ensure that we're still meeting that gap
in case we hear a lot of feedback saying,
hey, if you eliminate this stop,
it's just going to impact my way to get to work.
So we have the ability to fine tune that and fix that.
Yeah, we, in the next presentation,
we'll kind of go into how that process worked
on the 323, the public feedback that we received
and the feedback that we received from the board
and how that informed the service change
that we proposed for that route,
we can certainly take the same view
with this public hearing.
Unfortunately, we're never gonna be able to serve everybody.
We would like to, but so this is not a promise
that if we receive a public comment,
but if we receive a flood of public comments
and it makes operational sense for us to make that change,
we can certainly consider it and bring it to the board.
Okay, thank you.
And then my last question is around the virtual,
I think it was a virtual open house or a virtual ways
for folks to get involved.
I hope it's going to be fruitful.
I know I've noticed it can depend on what it is.
It can be hit or miss.
You might have two people joining in.
You might have hundreds of people joining in.
I think one of the things I know in the past I've asked
is if we could do some sort of surveys that we put out,
and I know we've done that,
but is there a way for us to maybe,
with the geolocation, have an ability to just send it out.
I feel like, yes, of course we're gonna get our,
hopefully we get our very active writers
that are checking our social anyways,
but maybe we'll get other people
that really do wanna utilize the service
and they have the ability
to then give some feedback as well.
But I just wanted to throw that out there
that a survey would be a great way
for somebody who may wanna take the time
instead of having to, I mean,
I can tell you, as a millennial,
maybe they may not want to join in on a online,
on some sort of forum.
They might just want to do it on their own time.
So I just wanted to throw another option, if that's
possible, out there.
So you can certainly answer that.
OK, awesome.
I think that's it for me.
I don't see anybody else jumping out of their seats
to ask anything else.
So I'm assuming we are good.
So thank you again.
And I know that we need to have a motion to approve this item.
So can I have a motion and a second?
to approve. Okay, motion by O'Hara, second by Joyce. And Suhail, can we please call the vote?
All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstain? On the motion of Board Member O'Hara,
seconded by Board Member Joyce, to set the public hearing for proposed brief
weekend standardization and coaster connection service changes. Motion passes
with Board Members Desmond and Edson absent. Great, thank you, and on the next
and last item on the agenda is to conduct a public hearing related to the proposed elimination
of Breeze Route 323. And Mr. Donaghy and Ms. Dover will present this item so I'll go ahead
and pass it off to them. I'll kick this one off. So as the board will remember, the board
voted in June to open a public hearing for the proposed elimination of Breeze 323 and
NCTD staff have been conducting outreach to communicate the proposed changes to our riders
in the community. In this item we'll give an overview of feedback we received and service
considerations we're taking into account with the staff recommendation. So this map is just
to reorient you with where the 323 exists with some of our other services in the area.
323 is outlined in orange and other blue routes are routes that we view are that we see are
higher performing in the adjacent areas. The 323 covers the Rancho del Oro area, cuts down
Emerald and then over to the Cory Creek area. Staff brought the proposed
elimination of the 323 to the board in June due to low ridership in comparison
to adjacent routes. 323 accounts for 0.3 percent of total breeze ridership and is
far less productive than other routes in the area. In particular the 311, 313 and
325 which staff highlighted as providing duplicative service with some sections of
the 323. One of the things we've always kept in mind with the proposed
elimination of the 323 was to maintain school connections, particularly with
El Camino High School. So shown here is the stop level ridership for the bus
stops serving the school and as I'll note the 311 and the 323 have the stops
that see the highest ridership in this area. Another driving force for shifting
away from the existing 323 route were impacts to city roadway infrastructure.
we consistently heard from operators that the dip in the road on the left turn
from college to olive causes buses to bottom out and scrape the skid plate.
This operational condition posed potential maintenance challenges and had
a consistent impact on the road as you can see in this picture. So we took those
operational considerations and public feedback that we received throughout the
public hearing and looked for ways to maintain connections while still
optimizing our available resources upon approval to move forward and CTD will
reroute three adjacent routes to continue service to key destinations and
we'll actually be able to expand connections through this change. So this
is the service as it exists now you'll see again the 323 has duplicative
service in some areas with the 325 the 311 and the 313 and then this map
illustrates what we're proposing to change. So in purple those are two
critical connections that were proposing to maintain with this route. And that's
consistent service to El Camino High School and then Tri-City Medical Center.
We really wanted to make sure that we were able to maintain those connections.
We viewed those as critical, the riders viewed those as critical, and they saw
some of the highest ridership. But we're also proposing to add additional
connections through this reroute. So we're able to change the 311, the 313, and
the 325, and in particular on the 311 we're able to expand connections to
from Era Costa College, adding an additional route
and a north-south connection.
We've heard from the college that a lot of their ambassadors
that go to El Camino High School,
they might not have driver's license
and they're having to Uber right now,
so we're able to provide this connection
from the college to El Camino High School
for students and ambassadors alike.
We're also maintaining that connection to the Corey Creek,
which is the four area right there.
It's actually an expansion along Lake Boulevard,
and then we're gonna be able to serve the Vista DMV
for the first time that's located in the five area.
So these proposed re-routes will actually help us expand
service to some critical destinations.
So public outreach was conducted in both English and Spanish
and included ride-alongs on the 323,
an outreach at one of our busier stops
to communicate with the students.
Information was posted on the website at bus stops
and onboard buses that serve the 323.
In the agenda packet, you'll see a summary
of the feedback that we received.
some of which is reflected in the reroute.
As part of the proposed elimination,
we have also conducted a Title 6 analysis
and determined that through this elimination,
no disparate impact or disproportionate burden
was identified.
So today, we are asking the board
to approve the proposed elimination of Breeze Route
323, which will trigger the realignment of adjacent routes
to expand connections in the area.
And with that, we'll take any questions.
All right.
Thank you.
Do we have any public comments today for this item?
Yes, we do have an in-person comment, Ms. S.L. Henderson.
If you want to go to the podium, and you have three minutes.
I've been here before.
On behalf of the 323, I don't think you've
answered my question on just who do you service.
OK, the interruption with your smart devices.
I'm a senior, 78 years old, no family,
and lost my last friend.
OK, I have no means with your smart devices,
and I ask people questions, and they say they got theirs.
So that means I'm still a student.
But anyway, it matters not to me about the 323,
because these are the reasons it doesn't matter.
And when you say the people that need it,
you open it for a senior, you open the door
for anybody to come in and take over
with seniors on the go, ubers, taxes,
personal people coming into your personal life
when you want to stay in the public
and probably meet somebody.
But anyway, these are the reasons,
I have a neighbor here who is in the same ship I'm on.
This is like a secret meeting to me.
I just heard the day before yesterday,
but when you don't recognize people,
and the poorest of the people,
I couldn't, I wouldn't be able to attend this
if it wasn't for someone like him.
You're only fooling yourself with dump the pump
when you don't have stops at passing rides.
You passes three passing rides on the 323 parking rides.
You pass three parking rides on the 323 and you don't have a stop at either one of them.
Well, you got one stop.
Okay, I written a letter to the transportation of Vista with the red light at the Sprinter.
With the 323, I missed two buses going both ways because you don't have a stop for a connection
at the red light there, Vista and Emeril.
You got to go all the way down to West Drive
to get off and then walk back, a senior.
And it takes more than 26 seconds to get back to there.
But I missed connections.
And I written a letter to the Vista.
It happened, the buses don't even wait,
don't wait for the sprinter, it'll take two or three minutes
for them to wait for the sprinter,
for the buses that's sitting at the light,
but they go to the light and sit too and wait.
I submitted, the last time I was here,
I submitted a suggestion because the 325 and the 315
runs into each other on the same route,
and then they're not going, you cut out,
That's when you wanted to cut out the 323 then.
I suggested that you merge the 323 with the 325
because they said that they had to modify the 323
because of the drop there, it was too dangerous.
Ms. Henderson, Ms. Henderson, thank you so much.
I just want to turn that.
Okay, Ms. Henderson, we can have,
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay, thank you so much for your feedback
And I'm sure we can have one of our staff follow up with you
to make sure we hear the rest of your comment.
Thank you.
All right, so with that, I will go ahead and see
if anybody on our team has any questions or comments.
All right, Vice Chair Sinella.
Thank you, and thanks for the presentations.
I waited till the end of both of them
just to make some comments and to say thank you
for all the work and effort that's been put into these.
I'll never know, you know, we have so many bus lines and other options.
Like I'll never have the level of detail to make the decisions that you're making,
but I can tell that you put a lot of thought into them and they're based on data and they're based
on trying to drive more efficiency and they're also based on trying
to keep this agency fiscally sound and for that, I appreciate it.
And so everybody in the room that was involved on this, thank you so much for your efforts.
Thank you. I'll go down this way instead since we started here. So anything else? No, that's fine.
Mr. O'Hara? I read through the report. I feel like we had a lot more public comment, written
public comment and phoned in public comment than we generally have in these reports. And I know
there are really tough choices to make. We've gone back and forth in this boardroom a lot about
how hard these choices are to make. That was the fact that we received that much more public
comment and feedback. What effect does that have in this process? Yeah, I would say it's a good
thing. Honestly, I get concerned when we don't get public comment. When we went through and read
several of the comments that were listed in the public comment, there are options for those.
And I think the responsibility that we have, if we move forward with this, is to make sure
that we reach out to each one of those individuals and say in your case
specifically this is the change that and how can we help you get to that change.
I think initially just the thought of man my routes going away what does that
mean for me and there's other things on the periphery that we've changed I think
we we have a responsibility post-decision to go back to our public
commenters and really be thoughtful about I think to Director Contreras's
point earlier we got to be better about putting that information out to the
public post decision to make sure that if you have a comment or you need help
getting to you whatever the results of that is we have an option for you. There
are a few in there that do create a little bit of an issue for the rider by
and large most of them have an outlet to be able to move through to another route
based on the feedback that we received. That's great and I want to thank everyone
who did send in public comment we really encourage and appreciate the
participation in this and once again I thank staff for analyzing all the data
we have here and working on a very hard decision. Yeah if I could just piggyback
off that again, I'm a huge fan of public comment even in the face of difficult
decisions because it tells us what our next move needs to be or if there's
things that we need to continue to change. I get very worried when we do
something that is potentially large in scale and we get one public comment. I'm
like, that's not good. That means we either didn't communicate effectively on
the front side or we have missed the boat for 20 years when we've had around
that area, right? So I always appreciate the public feedback and I hope that we
continue to see public feedback at that rate. Great, thank you. Board Member Garcia,
anything? Board member Joyce? Yeah I mean it is a lot of it is a lot of public
feedback and I do want to say thank you for showing what what kind of changes
we're looking at to really address the concerns and to address you know the
basic needs of our riders like that's the short end of it is that we have
folks that rely on a service and so we have to make sure that they get there. Are
all of the students who wrote in are we confident that they have an option that
isn't overly burdensome? There are several students that wrote in. Yeah so we spoke
to some of the students that are going to be able to utilize the other routes
that we're going to reroute to maintain that connection to El Camino. We did have
one student that may have to walk to a different stop to catch at the start of
their run and there are going to unfortunately be those instances the
majority of the students would be able to use the rerouted services and are
these comments ones you may have covered this and I apologize if you did these
comments one that they submitted after having conversations with you about
their possible options combination of both yeah it's it's any comments we
received through the public hearing period so they may have sent them in and
then received information at a in a open house or a public hearing. It's a
combination of both probably. I guess that's all I have for this I guess.
Board member Contreras. Yeah um I I know at a different meeting we were talking
there's a I don't know if it's a board policy but there's a certain threshold
of writers is like 15,000 or something like that. Can someone remind me what
that is? Yeah, it's twofold. We have a, there's a couple different ways we look
at it. There's a, there's a passengers per hour. So when we break a route down,
we look at it sort of two different ways. This passengers generated by service
hours. So there may be routes that only have a coaster connections. Perfect
example, our UCSD route generates 10,000 rides a year, but we only operate in the
morning and in the afternoon, so by the numbers, it's an okay route. 17,000 rides
for 323, which operates a larger schedule, falls on the low end. I think the
concern for us is when you break that route down to a passengers per hour and
you look at each run that runs in certain hours, there were blocks of hours
where there were more riders than most, but those geographically fell in
regions where the other two routes had overlap where there wasn't a lot of
ridership was sort of the branch off of the 323 in certain areas and not during
school hours. So really our focus on the 323 came in the high school where
where will the students go? Do they have opportunity to get on other routes and in
this case they do with the exception of one or two which will have to walk I
I think, north, a little further north to get to another stop.
So, I mean, I'm concerned about that population, you know.
When I look at the desperate impact on the minority
population with their threshold being 10% and this brushing up
at 9.2%, I think that my concern is completely founded,
You know, so, I don't know, I have a difficult time,
you know, not understanding how those folks
are gonna be able to connect, so.
Yeah, and I think there's a connection point there.
And I'll just say we need to be careful
when we talk about disparate impact
because disparate impact is a number
that's based on population, it's not based on ridership.
So, right now we already have an area
that has a disparate impact that's not riding the bus.
So there are two different conversations
that we're having in real time.
If it was an area that was high ridership,
big disparate impact,
in an area that has a disparate impact,
that's a whole different conversation.
Right now we're talking about essentially moving off
of a route a half of a mile,
which is the industry standard,
half a mile to get to a bus route.
And based on the reroutes,
we're connecting people to three more things
that they never had access to before
between the Walmart Shopping Center, the DMV,
and a few other essentially Tri-City.
So there's a lot of pluses beyond this.
I don't disagree on the concern at all.
I totally hear the pluses.
I'm worried about the minus, you know,
and how we can really help those folks out,
and I think there needs to be a considerable effort
to outreach to those folks, considerable.
I'm sorry, can I clarify a little bit?
Yeah, sure.
When we say, when we analyze the disparate impact and disproportionate burden, we're
not necessarily saying that 15,000 people are losing service.
We've brought to the board the elimination of the 323, and so that's what the Title
VI analysis is.
Correct.
But through this reroute, we're actually going to be able to serve a lot of those populations.
It's just not reflected in the Title VI analysis because we aren't asking the board necessarily
to approve the reroute.
We're asking the board to propose the elimination, so a lot of that population will have that
service maintained through this reroute. So is that that to me begs the question
is there a board policy that needs to be reviewed so that we could also get that
information concurrently to having this discussion because I think that's really
important information you know and I don't think that there is a process
right now for that and it's probably additional staff time and I don't know
if we have the ability to do it but I would like to investigate whether that's
the case because this is just one of many eliminations that we're probably going to
talk about.
Yeah, I would say historically we have not had that practice but I don't think it would
be an issue for us to do that if that was asked of us going into the future.
I would say.
Yeah, I 100% asked that.
Yeah, I would say.
Of this organization.
I would say the one thing that we have made every attempt to do that historically we have
not is if we're going to eliminate a route, how can we cover that with another route?
Right.
However that impact is, it's not significant in nature to the ridership.
And again, our system is very unique.
This is the first system I've worked at that has this much overlap on bus in certain areas
and unfortunately that location has probably the most route overlap in the system.
And so the goal for us I think eventually is to try to get to a high frequency service
along that corridor that connects to circulators at the end of those lines to bring them to
to the one line. Right now the other two lines sort of solve that problem for us
in real time but I do agree that and to Mary's point in this case 15,000 people
are being impacted but those 15,000 people the vast majority of them I
would say 95 plus percent are going to just have to switch to another route and
not necessarily get on the 323. The remaining group which is a small portion
a portion of Emerald is the one that's impacted,
but Emerald is a half a mile from the other stops
for the other, for the reroutes.
So, sorry, I was just conferring with Tony.
I don't want to promise something
that would be inconsistent with federal standards.
So, we do the Title VI analysis on the proposed elimination.
If the Title VI analysis comes back and says,
there is a disproportionate burden,
then we would just prove
that we are providing some type of elimination.
We've done that through this reroute,
though it didn't trigger the disparate impact so we are I can't promise that we
could provide like a title six analysis that says this number of people are
actually the ones being impacted but we are doing the mitigation that would have
been required if we had hit that threshold even though we didn't so yeah
are working to cover the population that and correct me if I'm wrong but I think
the numbers you're looking for not necessarily that but if we reroute
routes to cover those areas what is what is the population total that would be
Yeah. And even if it's not required through federal standards, I think it would be good
board practice just because we, I mean, you said in this meeting, right? We have to look
at our routes, you know, and at the end of the day, I know that, you know, with all this
overlapping, it wouldn't be an issue necessarily if we didn't have budget constraints. So this
really is about budget and about eliminating half a million dollars.
So I would push back on that a little bit.
I have been very frank with the staff
that I want to eliminate some of these routes
to create service hour opportunities for expansion
without expanding the budget.
So I don't think it's necessarily fully budget-related.
It's 100% budget-related.
However you slice it, I mean, you're saying it one way
and I agree with you.
And I'm saying it a different way.
And we have different slices of the same cake.
But this is 100% about the budget.
I would agree that it's budget related in the sense that we will not have additional operating revenue to expand service
And this is a way for us to try to yeah to try to do that
I mean, this is goes back to the right sizing. Yeah. Yeah, so totally agree totally agree, but anyways, so that yes
We can certainly get the population numbers
But I do have stop-level ridership to just see that at least the population that's currently riding the service what the impact would be
So in and I'm just going to highlight the sections of the 323 that are not going to be served by
Realignment and the re-envisioning of the other routes and I can provide this also as well. Yes
There's a section on
as this old grove road
East of El Camino high school that will not have service on it right now
There is one there's one rider that utilizes that stop on average every day and then the section on emerald
That is not going to see any service. The service will be on Thunder. There's average activity of 34 and the highest
The highest daily boarding at one of those stops
is
only
0.15 miles away from the proposed reroute on Thunder
it is it is a
Relatively low number of at least riders that are currently riding and this was not provided in the packet
But it's, is that the foundation for the diagram that has the bubbles on it?
Yes.
Okay.
I'm like, just because if you had this, you used it probably for something.
So I was like, what did, I know I saw this, but not like this.
So I would really love for moving forward in the future that we receive that information.
I know that, you know, we get so much information, it's like difficult to read it all but...
Try to find a delicate balance.
Yeah, I know, but I think that is really critical.
I love the higher level view with the bubbles, too.
But being able to get into that,
because then I can understand,
one of the other things to me is around this area,
we don't always have good infrastructure for people to walk.
It's not super safe.
So that's like a whole other issue.
So when we're looking at eliminating routes or whatever,
I know that we don't need to take that into consideration,
but it is a factor in real life.
So, anyways, those are all my comments,
but thank you so much,
and I look forward to getting even more information
in the future.
I appreciate that feedback.
If I could dive into that a little bit.
When we look at those routes,
and I can only say like when we're in the office
looking at those, we literally go through stop analysis
on every route of who gets on at what time,
and it's a combination of do we really need this run
at 4.30 in the morning that averages one rider per day
when we could slide that into more frequent service
during peak time.
And so that data exists.
It's in the back, we kind of do the heat map thing
because it's a little more, a little easier on the eyes
than the board meeting.
But we can definitely get you that back office information.
Okay, I have board member Joyce
and then board member O'Hara.
would also like to sign up for the expanded packet. Sounds like a killer
horse, but I'll take it. A couple more questions just came to
mind. So can you go back to the heat map dot one? You said it I think you said it
averages one rider per day, that east one, but it has a pretty decent dot there for
ECH ridership. Does that mean most of the riders of that route come for the ECH,
the El Camino high school students?
So the section that is the one rider per day.
So you can see in the existing routes, the existing 323,
there's this section that goes down Avenida del Ora.
So with the proposed reroutes, Mesa Drive
will still be served by the 313.
So what we're talking about with the sections of the 323
that won't be served by any other transit route.
It's just this section right here
that goes down of needed or there are stops along there
and that's where we're seeing one rider per day.
So we really wanted to look at the stop level ridership,
make sure the stops that do have high ridership
are still served by something else in the route
or adjacent to another route.
Okay, I was mixing up two different spots.
Well, right, and I said east of El Camino High School,
but not immediately adjacent.
Yeah, my apologies.
Thanks, and that's not even at 323, so I was really off.
Just a note, because I saw their outreach times,
and you came on a Wednesday at 2.30, 3.30,
and they have early release that day,
so you probably didn't catch a lot
any of the afternoon kids at the school,
because they would have gotten out at 1.30.
I was the one who did the outreach that day.
And we did make sure to be there,
I was tracking the early release,
so we did make sure to be there beforehand.
We were there before even MLK middle school arrived
and waited until the school released.
And we watched all the students kind of cross the crosswalk
and wait for the 323 to come up.
And I talked to each individual student
and asked them exactly like where they're trying to go,
what this would mean and had those conversations
with every student at the bus stop.
Wonderful and then just because it does sound like the reroutes are are the realignments that are proposed are
Not being voted on today. Are they locked in? Is that like happening if we if we make this change so this if if the
One sets off the other essentially with the approval of the 323 we would immediately
Move into the reroute of all this what they're they're complementary of each other. We just can't
Do the one without the other and I understand because the just the way it's talked about is we could do these things
I just want to make sure that that they are they are a
It's cause and effect
Okay
All right, well, I definitely appreciate the expanded information on this one and it definitely
Helps it is it is a leap of trust obviously to make such a big change
But I think we have to trust each other on this. So I'm gonna I'm gonna support it
All right, thanks board member Joyce. I know board member. How you had something
So with the reroute I understand that there'll be more desirable stops on the new reroute than there were prior, right?
So I hear it's discussing
The number of riders who will be left off
Is there also a way if we're gonna track that if we can track the number of new writers we get by having a more desirable route?
Yeah, we do track stop-level ridership. So as we start to implement these
re-envisionings of the routes we can definitely look at the stop-level ridership and we may make a determination that
The DMV for example, which we expected to be a ridership driver may not be we get a lot of one-ways
And then when they get their drivers, I say don't right anymore. So so it's possible that we need to track
Yes, this may even create new riders that we don't have numbers for so we could see ridership go up and therefore our cost of operation
Be more efficient
And I can speak to we did a similar reroute for the 347 a few years back
And that was something that we tracked very specifically where we tracked
Where the areas that we expanded and what that did for the route level ridership throughout the year that we advanced and it it showed
that the ridership increased pretty significantly and that's something that
we brought back to the city and kind of an ongoing conversation we have with
the operators too. I'm sure it gets complicated to predict the future and I
know that you guys are doing the best you can so I appreciate those answers. Thank you.
Anyone else? All right not seeing anything. Thank you for this. I know this
was a hard conversation and decision and really appreciate everyone's effort on
this and of course all the comments that were made with I'd love to hear the
feedback as we move forward on how it's going doesn't mean that we have to
always stick to this right I mean I hope that it'll work out and it sounds like
it will hopefully be something that we can move forward with but always I think
think we're always a work in progress so hopefully just getting that those data
points and hearing from folks as we're moving forward will be a good way for us
to keep a pulse on how it's going. So with that I will look for a motion and a
second. Sonela move to approve. I'll second. Alright motion by Sonela, seconded by
O'Hara. So now may we please call the vote. Yes. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed?
Any abstaining?
On the motion of Vice Chair Sonella, seconded by Board Member O'Hara, to close the public
hearing and approve the proposed elimination of Breeze Route 323, effective February 2026.
Motion passes.
Board Members Desmond, it's absent.
Thank you.
All right, we are moving on to the CEO's report.
Sean, do you have anything to report?
Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair, members of the Board.
of all I want to say I very much appreciate the feedback that we get from
this board. I worked a few places where we didn't always get that and I I like
the questions I appreciate the approach I appreciate the tough questions that we
get because we need to be able to answer those in real time and when we're
making changes like this and so I always like to say thank you for that. Is Nick
still in the room? Where's Nick at? Stand up Nick. So Nick Salfoel who's worked for
this for quite a while now was recently hired as the new executive director and
CEO of the North Central Regional Transportation District so he's moving
from NCTD to NC RTD you know it's really a unique opportunity and I've been
fortunate in my career to have a lot of people that I worked with move into that
CEO role or move into other roles and it's just really is such a pleasure to
watch that and that's really what we want out of our industry is to see
people succeed and kind of move on to whatever that next role is that they
think is important for them. So I just wanted to recognize Nick and say thank
you for your service and give him a big round of applause. And Yoni did a
phenomenal job today and she has stepped in to fill in for Katie Persons who is
our director of service planning. She also got an excellent opportunity to
work with our friends to the North at Orange County Transportation Authority.
They have a little bit of a different setup than we do from a planning
perspective they do a lot of tolling and roads and a lot of different types of
planning we just you know have bus and rail so she got a really great
opportunity up there and we had a great going away for her a few weeks back and
just wanted to recognize her as well. I think her and Yoni and the entire
planning team have just done a phenomenal job of building what we want
our system to look like and so I wanted to make sure we gave her some credit as
well. 50th anniversary on the 27th if you can be there please come and join us
it'll be at Oceanside Transit Center so Hale will get some information out on
that we are having our rodeo which we share every year between MTS and NCTD in
October I think it's on the 25th is that correctly it will be at our West Yard
down here off of Mission so please come and hang out with us on that day it's
gonna be a lot of fun if you come early we might be able to let you drive a bus
around the course so come come hang out yeah look so Lori's not here today so
So all risk bets are off, if something happens it's cool, come down and drive a bus wherever
you want.
Legal said it's good.
Oh sorry.
We have an absolute work window on our rail this weekend so we will be doing a lot of
track work.
I always want to give those folks a shout out in our signal and maintenance away.
They don't get the kudos they deserve for an entire weekend, essentially they come in
and they're working around the clock doing a lot of stuff to track maintenance
and things like that. I know it's a little bit of an inconvenience for our
team members out there and the folks that ride on the on the train, but we
try to keep them as limited as possible. But those folks do an absolutely
phenomenal job. And on a personal note, I gotta give a shout out to my dad who
got inducted into the Aptohol of Fame this weekend. So I know he's always
watching. So big shout out to him. And Madam Chair, that's all I have. Thank
you. Great, thank you. Any board members have anything to report? Board Member
Joyce? Yeah, as I was looking at the agenda this past I was just thinking
about how when we were addressing the the leadership of this this committee
and commission we talked about revisiting how we do elections and how
our governance is structured. I'm just not sure we followed up with that if we
have a plan to follow up with that, but I think it is important for us to have
that conversation that we had originally talked about. So I know I'm
springing this out of nowhere, but I do want to plan on having that
conversation before we come up against the end of the year where we're doing it
all over again without ever having addressed the original issues. Yeah and
we can definitely do that. I would say it's the one area that the agency is not
supposed to have any pull on. So but we're more than happy to take a look at
if we could pull the policies on what the executive committee does with that.
Yeah I just wanted to add and in the October executive committee the
committee will review all of the board policies and have an opportunity to make
any provisions before they get adopted at the October board. So there is an
opportunity for one of those board policies that talks about the nominating
committee which is I assume is that what you're talking about? Yeah just the
general structure I think is what we all kind of questioned and had concerns
about and whatever so maybe it's a good idea for the and I one of the one of the
questions we had was like the executive committee's doing that without input
from the total board too so I think maybe that would be something that
should be flagged for everybody to have a chance to even weigh in on ahead of
that meeting so thank you thank you and yes I do remember that being something
that we wanted to talk about.
And I do believe, as you mentioned,
it's on the executive committee's agenda.
However, I think what you're saying
is for all of us to have a full discussion on it.
So everyone's aware of what the process looks like.
So Mr. Donaghy, is there a way for us
to have that discussion at the next board meeting?
Can we pull any policy specific to board composition?
Yeah, I can do that.
And would you like me to send it to the board?
That way everybody has a chance just that we don't go to thumb through all the policies you can just look at those specifically and kind
Of figure out what you may want to take to the executive committee for consideration
And we just received a text that Lori is listening so
Perfect and from a
I'll look to missy from a process perspective when that does get sent out to us
What is the best way for board members to share feedback for the executive committee to consider?
Sorry, you can just send your comments to Sue Hale directly. Okay and then Mr.
Donaghy in case there is an appetite for a broader discussion with the rest of
the board because I'm hearing that that might be what the you know the ask is
how could we go about doing that. Yeah I definitely think there's a way for us
to put that on the on the either as an informational item stemming from the
the executive committee or for discussion at a board meeting.
And I know we've talked about it in the past
and there's a few things that have floated out there.
I know we have a chair and a vice chair.
I know we've talked in a few outlets
about maybe adding in a secretary position.
That's all at the discretion, I think, of the board
as long as it falls under the legal context
of board composition for the state.
And as long as we're within, as long as we've done that
and we've gone through those policies
and they're all vetted through our legal department,
I mean, that's all something that we can do on the issue.
Okay, thank you.
And yeah, when you do send over that information,
anything in that purview that you could send over
with regards to information on how that board composition
comes about would be helpful.
Yeah, absolutely.
Okay, great, thank you.
All right, anything else?
Okay, not seeing anything.
All right, any remaining public comments?
We did have that one.
So have we had a chance to connect with that?
Yes, we will have two telephonic comments.
One person is already on standby, Ms. Diane Bedrosian.
If you were able to hear me, you have three minutes.
Hi.
I'm Nicole's dad resident, and I did try to comment at 2 o'clock,
and there were some problems with the system.
At 2 PM, I was at the NCTD office in Escondido
because NCTD requires disabled adults, like my daughter,
to appear in person to renew their passes every three years.
I can understand the first time,
but for renewals when nothing has changed,
I have bad knees and my daughter
cannot go to locations like this alone.
The location is dicey.
Just one month ago, someone was dap to death there.
When we walked in, there was a weird guy there also.
Why can we not renew online?
When I inquired by email, I was told,
this is just how it's done.
Well, perhaps things can be changed.
There's absolutely no reason for people
to have to walk into this place,
drive all the way over here to renew something.
This is a hardship for disabled people and their families.
I am also a pediatrician
and I'm concerned about this for my patients.
Secondly, my daughter is a student
at a learning center for adults with disabilities.
She takes transportation to and from the location.
Normally the transportation is fairly reliable,
but on 9-10, Lyft arrived at our home
earlier than the 30 minute window of their pickup time.
Luckily, my daughter was ready,
so she was picked up around 7.35 a.m.
I brought to the Learning Center.
The Learning Center does not open until 8 a.m.
and MCTD has been informed repeatedly
not to drop off students there before 8 a.m.
with no one there to receive students.
This driver did it anyway.
He dropped off my daughter
and another special needs student at the location
unattended with the center still closed.
Not only is this an issue
if some have physical disabilities,
but this also leads special needs students
as sitting desks to anyone come by who wishes them harm.
That's why I'm not even mentioning
the name of the place in public comment.
Luckily, another transport driver was there
and told my daughter and the other students
that they could wait in his van until the center opened,
which they did.
Kudos to that driver.
But what about the driver who did not follow the rules?
I believe the center may have called NCTD,
but I also wanted to follow up
as this was very concerning to me.
On 9-11 last week,
I sent an email to Alicia Pete Watson,
Director of Customer Experience,
who I had connected with in the past
when my daughter had been being driven around on this
for two and a half hours after PICA,
despite us not living far from the center.
I received an automated reply that same day
with an incident number stating quote,
please allow us five days to respond, end quote.
The email also mentioned in the future,
I should submit through the online portal
or call the phone number,
both options of which have been unhelpful in the past.
So it has been five business days.
There has been no response to my email.
Is this the way NCTD does business?
Are people who are probably very well paid,
too busy and too important to themselves
to respond to customers?
Thirdly, the agenda for your meetings
is not posted in a timely fashion.
It was not posted by Monday morning, September 15.
Moreover, the previous month's agenda was not viewable
as it was a dead link both from my phone and from a desktop.
This agency is not very transparent.
Please do better to serve the community.
It is our taxpayer money.
Thank you, your time is up.
We do have one more speaker.
We're getting her on the phone right now.
Thank you so much, Mr. Sean Dunning
for providing an update regarding representation
of Coast Recruit Members by Teamsters 542
for collective bargaining.
It actually answers a lot of the questions and concerns
that I was going to express in my public comment today.
Quickly, I would like to request clarification
for operating rules until the CPA is reached,
such as safety training, qualifications, investigations.
I humbly request that NCTE defer to CFR codes
that apply such as 49 CFR Part 243.
Also, there are operating rules,
or actually not operating rules,
but other rules of employment
that are on post reports in the break rooms,
wondering if NCTD is following that as well.
I'm really hopeful that NCTD will come to an agreement
and we'll be able to ratify
a new collective bargaining agreement, sure, quickly.
And thank you so much for your time.
I know it's a late day.
Thank you so much, I yield back.
Thank you, Ms. Johnson.
Madam Chair, we have no further speakers.
Okay, thank you.
At this time, public registration
to speak on remaining public communications will end.
The next scheduled board meetings
are the executive committee meeting,
Monday, October 13th at 11 a.m.
And then the regular board meeting on October 23rd at 2 p.m.
And with that, we are adjourned.