Alright, good afternoon. I'd like to welcome everybody to our meeting today.
I would like to call to order the Marketing Service Planning and Business Development Committee Meeting
of the North County Transit San Diego Railroad for March 19, 2026.
Before we begin, I would like to inform members of the public who may be viewing the meeting
on the district's YouTube page that in order to make public comment during the meeting,
you must connect to the meeting by using the Zoom link provided on the agenda.
You must also register with the clerk by sending an e-mail to clerk at NCTD.org with a name
and phone number and which item you would like to speak on.
So now I'd like to ask Taylor Swee-Wee, help me again.
See-wee, see-wee.
Deputy Clerk to call vote please.
Committee Member Martinez, here.
Committee Member Garcia, present.
Committee Member O'Hara.
member Joyce present this completes the role committee member O'Hara absent okay
thank you Taylor now will you please provide us with the safety brief and
review the evacuation procedures yes in case of an emergency I will dial 911 in
case of an evacuation please take the stairs do not use the elevators once
cleared of the building do not re-enter unless clear to do so by emergency
personnel. There are fire extinguishers and first aid kits on each floor of the
building. There is a portable defibrillator on the first floor and
staff on hand trained on CPR procedures if needed. This concludes my safety
brief. Thank you Taylor. Do we have any remaining public do we have any public
comments today? No we do not. All right before we get into specific items on the
agenda for this meeting I would like to outline the meeting protocols to make
at this meeting as efficient as possible.
Please first, first, please hold your comments
and or questions until after the agenda item
has been presented.
And second, when it comes,
when the time comes for board member comments or questions,
please raise your hand and I will call on you in order.
All right, so we first have item number one.
The first item on this agenda today is the election
of the committee chair and vice chair
for calendar year 2026.
Suhil Rodriguez, director of administration,
will present this item.
Suhil, you have our attention.
Thank you.
Well, good afternoon, Ms. Pada committee members.
As we do each year, it is now time
to elect the Ms. Pada chair and vice chair
for calendar year 2026.
Pursuant to board policy three,
the first meeting of the calendar year, which is today,
members of the Ms. Pada committee
will elect their chair and vice chair,
and that person that's chosen today
will also serve on the executive committee for the year.
I will now turn to the committee to make any recommendations or nominations, and I'm here
for any questions.
Hello?
Hello, members?
I'll go this way.
If you're willing to continue serving this year, I'd be happy to nominate your name.
Thank you, I would accept that, and I'd be happy to do that.
So I therefore move.
Is there a second?
I guess, right?
There we go.
All right.
Do we need a vote on that?
Yes, we do need a vote.
That is for Chair and we also need one for Vice Chair.
We also need a nomination for Vice Chair.
Yes, so should we do them together?
We can do them together, yeah.
You want to nominate next.
Member Garcia, would you like to serve as Vice Chair?
I would enjoy that, yes, sir.
Okay, I'll make the nomination then.
Y'all are just doing a great job.
This is a non sequitur and my counterpart here agrees.
Oh, thank you, okay.
So we'll take a vote on myself as chair and board member.
Joyce made the motion.
Do we have a second?
Oh, I thought.
Yeah, I'll move.
I'll second.
Okay.
Our boards are always fun.
On the motion of committee member Joyce
seconded by committee member Martinez
to elect committee member Martinez as chair
and committee member Garcia as vice chair
of the MISPDA committee, motion passes.
Committee member O'Hara, absent.
All right, thank you.
Taylor, do we have any public comments on this item?
No, we do not.
Okay, so let's go to item number two.
The next item on our agenda is to review
the 2026 proposed committee work plan.
Mary Dover, chief of staff, will be presenting this item.
Thank you, Mary.
Hi, committee members.
So for the calendar year 2026 work plan,
Our first meeting is this meeting in March
where you elected your chair and vice chair.
You'll be receiving the proposed work plan.
And then after, you'll also receive an update
on the FY2027 service implementation plan.
The next two scheduled meetings are in June and September
pursuant to board policy.
At the June 18th meeting,
it's proposed for you to receive
a marketing and communications program update.
We'll go over some recent campaigns
on both social media and advertising,
and do an overview of public outreach
that we've been conducting in the community.
And you'll also receive an update
on customer feedback trends and initiatives.
At the September 17th meeting,
you'll receive an update on safety and security
and receive an overview of fiscal year
2026 service performance and trends.
This is intended to be a preview of the annual topper
that the full board receives every year.
And with that, I'll take any questions.
Any questions?
Yeah, I might go for questions.
I guess my main question is that these are updates.
I think as the committee, shouldn't we
be making some recommendations to the board
on certain things?
I don't know, between now and June,
if we can talk about what kind of marketing and communications
program suggestions the committee might have,
or how do we structure that if we don't meet again until June?
Yeah, so the committees traditionally provide discussion
and then they provide feedback that the staff
then incorporates into whatever item
then goes to the full board.
So we don't structure them as approval items
or any action necessarily,
but we do take the discussion to inform any items
that go to the full board.
If there are any suggestions from committee members
on marketing communications initiatives in particular,
those can be conveyed to me or the marketing team
And we can certainly incorporate that into the presentation
and to our initiatives moving forward.
Yeah, I'm not totally certain we've
been asked that question before, just because it's usually
discussion related to things.
That's something that we wanted to explore.
We could totally do that.
I mean, we could send out maybe sort
of what our general plan is ahead of time
before that meeting.
And then when we get to that meeting,
what we're really looking for is feedback
on, are there pieces that we're missing from the marketing
and communications piece?
Are there other places that we should be?
last year sort of in particular was the first time
we were really out in the community at that level.
And so I think there, you know, we've had some meetings
with some folks in the community.
I do think there are a few places
that we have not made an appearance yet that we need to,
and what's our strategy on that,
and how are we trying to drum up
some of those conversations.
So we can probably get some information out to the group
here so that you're armed with some of the information
on what we are doing versus what maybe we should be doing,
and then that can come back to June if that helps.
I would appreciate that too,
and I really appreciate your recommendation.
We have fair, so it'd be nice to know
how that is gonna be.
That's happened?
More good, yes.
And then more importantly, baseball season events.
That's the best part of the year,
so it would be nice to have that at a heavy time.
And I will note also that we're scheduled
to have a board workshop in July
where we'll be discussing board governance
and the committee structure.
So if at any point we wish to change the committee structure,
We certainly can do so at that point.
Do we have a date for that yet?
It'll take the place of the July board meeting.
I'll have the board meeting.
July 17th maybe?
17th, 16th, 18th.
I do have a question.
When we come to discussing this,
thinking about a little longer, long term,
does the board have a five year, I'm trying to think,
do we have a five year strategy in place?
We do have one.
And does any portion of that that deals with marketing
come down to the subcommittee to deal with that,
tweak that, recommend so we're looking at,
because I think what you're asking is what is,
what are we doing long-term, right?
Yeah, so that's a good point.
We actually have five-year plans around our budget
and our service, but we don't necessarily have one
for marketing, so I think that's certainly
something we can look at.
I think that would be good.
I think it'd be great and maybe consider
putting that on our work plan, if everybody seems green.
Yeah, and I definitely think we want
to hear from the cities on that,
because historically, the marketing piece
has sort of been buried in the nuance,
and not because our folks aren't doing a good job.
This just has not been a priority for us
until probably a couple years ago.
And so, we really want to hear from the cities,
like where do you want us to be involved with,
like not just showing up for the Veterans Day Parade,
or not just, you know, how can we incorporate ourselves
with, you know, your economic development council,
or how we marketing to the schools that are in the district
or how are we having those conversations
so we need that feedback.
And I think a five year plan on the marketing piece
would be a perfect thing for us to do.
Good, thank you.
All right.
Do we have any other public comment on this item?
No, we do not.
OK, so we have to take questions.
Anybody else have any comments or anything?
OK.
So this was information.
And we'll move along to item number three.
Next item is a fiscal year 27 service implementation plan, Yoni Chulakova.
How'd I deal on that one?
No, you would say that anyway, so.
Very close.
You would say the same for me.
Chulakova.
Okay, thank you.
She's the director of service planning and she'll present on this item.
You have our attention and thank you.
Awesome, thank you.
So the service implementation plan or the SIP for short is an appendix that's included
every year in our budget documents and it's updated every year for the upcoming fiscal
year.
The document outlines all the monthly projections for the upcoming fiscal year and it includes
ridership, service miles and hours for each mode and it does include a five year projection
so it goes through fiscal year 31.
The SIP is a document that every transit agency in San Diego County has to submit through
SANDAG and is developed in accordance to Board Policy 17. So our funding outlook
does remain very similar to the previous fiscal year in that there is significant
uncertainty at the federal level projected abortions at the state and
local level are also coming in lower than expected. Because of this, NCTD
will not be able to consider any service expansions in the upcoming fiscal year
and without the introduction of any new or additional funding sources,
NCTD will likely need to reduce service hours in future years.
Youth opportunity pass does continue to be a really important factor in our overall ridership,
making up 13.5% of our total fixed ridership in FY26.
And it is currently funded through June 30, 2026,
but there are significant efforts to extend this funding for this project.
SANDEC is currently conducting a fair change study that, if implemented, would impact the fair revenue and the ridership for upcoming fiscal years.
So while there are no service expansions currently planned for bus service for FY27 through 31,
NCTD is still looking at ways to increase capacity within the system.
So one key strategy is the introduction of articulated buses, which would allow us to carry more passengers
without having to increase frequency or adding new routes.
These articulated buses are anticipated to enter service in late FY28 or FY29.
However, as mentioned, due to the current federal, state, and local funding projections,
no formal service expansions are planned for the upcoming five fiscal years.
NCTD, for NCTD Plus, we will be submitting a funding request to SANDAG, Flexible Fleets
program to support Fallbrook-Paula NCTD Plus zone in FY27.
NCTD Plus is a valuable service, but it does come with relatively high operating costs
compared to fixed route service, and because of this, any expansion of future NCTD Plus
zones will be heavily dependent on external funding, including SANDAC's flexible fleets
program or external programs.
In addition to funding availability, future expansion will be dependent on the operational
capacity of the agency and overall system performance.
For rail, so both Sprinter and Coaster, while there's no rail service expansions planned
for the upcoming fiscal year in terms of number of trips, there are still important investments
that will support system growth.
One of the most notable is the planned Coaster Convention Center station, which is anticipated
to open in FY29.
the city of the city of the
we did not. Okay, about questions from the committee. I have a question. I guess it's a
little bit delicate, but we you mentioned the cost of NCTD Plus and we
currently have two cities that are receiving NCTD Plus. You know, when are
we going, what is our active review of whether or not that's something we
continue because we've always talked about this is like let's try it let's
see if it works we weren't sure you know whether or not it fits within our full
profile what we should be offering we understand there's a gap but that
doesn't necessarily mean we're able to cover it so I think from a standpoint of
like equity if you look at our cities having it just be Vista and and San
Marcos there's definitely some questions about equity about people being serviced
and so I just want to I do want us to get to the bottom of like is this
something that we are going to continue to do and what and I want to understand
the numbers in a really complete way yeah we definitely review those in fact
we look at them every year when we put the annual topper together I will say
interestingly enough in the case of San Marcos and Vista they're probably two of
of the more robust and used demand response services
than I've seen at other agencies.
I think they were set up very specifically for that.
I will say on the funding piece,
part of what it concerned me,
and I know we talked about this
at the board level a little bit,
but the agency started demand response service
with essentially a grant money
or something of that like
without long-term funding sort of associated with it.
not that anybody guaranteed us there would be long-term funding. I think that's problematic
when you try to implement new service without long-term funding built into the equation.
And I think what we saw from that, like when we had conversations with San Marcos, we've
had direct conversations with them about what their contribution to that will be if they
want to continue that service. I will say both of those cities have seen a service reduction
on fixed routes to cover some of the cost of NCTD plus. We've made service adjustments
in those cities where we pulled parts of fixed routes back to accommodate the continuation
of that service. I would say we've had questions about that from other cities that if I didn't
do fixed route but just did this, does that cover the cost? I might think we look at those
on a case-by-case basis where the fixed route is maybe not seeing that ridership aggression
that we want and maybe there's a trade-off there because you get a bigger zone to sort
of operate in. I do think at some point in time the question will be had and is already
being asked of cities that as that cost continues to rise if you want the zone
to be this big if you wanted to continue to be this robust there's going to have
to be some contribution from the city on that it's the same conversation we're
having about school service as well we run a lot of school trippers at the
school district provides us a zero funding on and you know I understand
that that's a you know decent chunk of our ridership 15% of our ridership is
youth but all those conversations kind of fall into the conversation where we
We have to deviate off of a main round
and that cost us 250,000 a year,
like who's gonna help us cover that cost.
And NCTD Plus is no different on that.
I don't know if Mary-Fia or any other.
Yeah, I'll just add.
So as Yoni mentioned at the top,
without an additional funding source
or additional revenues brought into the agency,
we will have to look at our services as a whole.
And so that could include NCTD Plus.
It could include fixed route, as Sean mentioned.
We're looking at what's the most productive,
what's bringing in revenue, what's utilized by the public,
and then we'll make those decisions as a board.
We, to kind of further Sean's point,
we have begun discussions with the city of San Marcos
and we'll start them with the city of Vista
explaining the challenges that we have
with long-term funding for NCTD Plus
and starting the conversation,
should we get to a point
where we will have to make service cuts,
NCTD Plus could be one of those services
unless the city is able to provide us with some resources.
I think the trade-off, I give an example of like removing the 347 from the
weekends in San Marcos and replacing it with NCTD Plus has proven to be a good
utilization of services because we're really getting some of that fixed cost
that I think we see decent ridership on during the week where we really don't
get that on Saturday and now people have a little more opportunity throughout the
network to use. So there are cases within each one of those cities where there are
places where we're seeing that consistent ridership and it does sort
of drive the cost down. The ridership on both of those, interestingly, especially
for only being in operation for a year or two, are much higher than some of the
other cities I've seen put demand response in or some type of a like a
plus service. You know, Vista ridership for only being out there as long as it
has been has been pretty robust. It doesn't necessarily solve our cost
problem because it just means we have put another vehicle out there but but
it's nice to see that trend because I would say ten years ago that was all the
rave was we got to get demand response out there.
It's the thing, it's the new thing.
And then when people realized it was pretty expensive,
they were like, oh, maybe we shouldn't do that.
In this case, yeah, the cost is higher
than some of our other modes.
It's the highest cost out of all the modes we have.
But we see these pockets of continual ridership
that are popping in and new riders
that are coming into the equation.
So that leads us to the conversation that,
okay, now that your community's invested,
how do you want to be invested with us
so we can either protect the service or restore fixed route.
If you don't mind, just a little wrap up.
Great question.
Yeah, so I mean, I think it's,
I appreciate those answers, I really do.
I worry that this will come to the board,
it's like a fixed decision at the end of a road
that we're all going down and maybe not realizing it.
So I'd really like a robust conversation around this
because there's no, there's no version of this
where we're expanding this to all of our cities
in the near future.
So I guess is that part of our mission?
I just think like we really need to have
that honest conversation about where we're at
given the funding, the first slide of this deck
that talked about how we're on a cliff.
You didn't say that, I did.
And that we have real decisions that need to be like made
with the full honest accounting.
So I know that there's trade-offs.
I just think, I haven't heard the board weigh in
on like trade-offs of removing the fixed route,
recovering some of the cost of the fixed route
to these on-demands.
I just don't think we've had that conversation.
And I think it's a really interesting one
that talks about like who we're serving
and the function of what we do.
So I just am asking for us to be able
to have that conversation in full.
actually I think you make a one of the best points related to demand response
which is I think when I first came on board the idea of demand response I mean
I'll fall on the sword I was not a big fan of it I was very vocal with the
staff about that I had not seen it be ultra successful in certain places and I
think once you're once you're committed I think to your point once you're
committed you either have to trade off or you have to find somebody to invest
in it, where I do think it does have a great value as long range, which in our current
condition we're a little stifled with right now, but long range if we were going to have
these high capacity transit corridors where there was 10 to 15 minute service, right?
What it does is it opens the zone up to get people to the frequent service, so it starts
to lower the cost down, and like our grid is kind of interesting because we've got all
these sort of pocket routes, and at some point in time they like trip over each other all
all over the place, kinda like we talked about,
the 315 months ago, you get this sort of trip over routes.
Really what you want is, is this the way our main corridor,
and if it is, what does frequent service look like on that?
And how does that connect to Sprinter,
and sort of how do we have these connectivity pieces
where they're more like circulators
that connect to the main to get people
where they need to go, right?
Because if I could take one bus for an hour,
or if I could take two buses and it takes me 20 minutes,
right, that's a no-brainer.
And so I think your question is absolutely spot-on,
In theory, years ago, I would have said there shouldn't be a tradeoff.
Either you want NCTD+, and we figure out what that means as part of fixed route.
As of late, it's been, look, I know you like the service, I appreciate that.
You're sitting behind it.
To do that, we're going to have to make adjustments to these other things, and to your point,
I don't want to get down the road where we're just talking about tradeoffs.
It either works because it's part of the network and we want to make it something different,
or we get contribution to that when we say,
hey, like it's getting a little costly.
Is the city willing to invest to try
to either expand the zone or make some things?
And we've had that conversation specifically
with San Marcos because they would like to incorporate,
I think some of San Alejo Hills and a few other locations.
And thankfully, the zone stops right at my house.
So thank you for that.
So I guess the question is,
have you found any interest in the city?
I think there's one other city that's interested.
Well, I was talking about participating in-
Yeah, we've-
Oh, no.
We haven't heard from any city council.
We've had good conversations
with the city of San Marcos.
I think we're kind of going back and forth.
We're furnishing some data about the service.
We're managing some of the expectations
of what could be expanded,
making sure that we keep the service
as efficient as possible
without adding additional operator resources to it.
You haven't, by any means, come to a number.
I think they're ongoing conversations,
but they've been fruitful so far.
Yeah, they're not diametrically opposed to it at all.
In fact, when we brought it up,
we thought they might say like,
hey, thanks for coming today, you know, five minute meeting.
We actually had a really good conversation
and I think they understand,
you know, that this is something that works for them.
It works for their citizens.
For us, it's a little bit different
because it's not a traditional fixed route
where we have these sort of fixed points
that we can work on driving ridership.
And so they recognize that and said, you know,
Let's have a real conversation about what that looks like
for us.
I don't think we've had a conversation with Visty yet,
have we?
Yeah.
Couple of things, 13.5 youth opportunity past ridership.
Wow, that's impressive and I'm really happy about that.
And I see the impact that it has on our students.
I have a high schooler, well, no longer high schooler,
but last year when she was still in school
senior year, wow, hundreds of kids getting off the buses. I'm like, all right, okay,
we're, we're, it's a need that it's being met, and I'm sure there would be more. So
good for that. I'm a little concerned that we keep having to do these year,
yearly adjustments and looking for things that hopefully we can get to the
point where we have partnerships going on that will help us have something
more long-term as we, as we look into that because I think that's something
anything that is completely necessary for our communities.
The other thing, how much is that, by the way?
How much does it cost us, our budget?
For NCT Plus or?
For the, the YOP.
Well we get, that's about a million and a half.
Yeah, I think we get around a million and a half.
Sand egg provides, I think, nine million for the region total.
MTS gets the lion's share because they have the most riders,
I can get you the official number. Okay yeah and I would say that's a great
point to bring up because one thing that when I was at the TC meeting we had
this whole conversation about continuing the program and I like I hate to be the
naysayer in the room and TC sometimes because I just feel like we talk about
things that a 50,000 foot level and I really appreciate Mario because he ditched
down into it but I'm sorry the San Dax Transportation Committee meeting that
rolls up to the board and so one of the conversations they were having was like
hey, we've really invested in the long term YOP pass.
The thing that has not, I mean, we've said it here a few times,
but the problem is they don't have any operating money to give us for that anymore.
So in the first year, they gave us money that we could use directly for operating costs.
So it goes right to operating budget, you can use it to expand service
or do something specific to operations.
When they started to experience some issues with their intake,
they moved it to either CMAC money or capital money.
So now essentially we're getting $1.5 million a year
in capital money, which doesn't really help us
when we need that $1.5 million in operating.
And so I don't have an issue at all
with how the program works.
I think it's great, they should expand it.
We try to make it very easy for students to get their IDs.
We go to the schools, we do a lot of training.
My concern is that when the first conversation came up
about the capital money and they were like,
what does the transit agencies want to do?
I said, hey, man, I can't be the face of killing transportation for children like I'm gonna get
destroyed on that. And I said, so you've really kind of put us in a place where, you know, we
really can't back off of Youth Ride Free because we've seen success from the program every year
that program grows. We just need to find a way and Mario's been really good about trying to solve
that problem for us. But we need to find a way to get back to getting those as operating dollars
versus capital dollars, because that's money that goes straight into helping us sort of manage what
school service looks like or a connectivity to some of the after school
stuff and you know we do students are a ton of our ridership afternoon and
mornings I mean they're the bulk of what we've got out there and we want to
continue that program so I really appreciate you bringing that question up.
Right now students rely on the pass, they don't pay any money.
They get the pass either through us I think sometimes they can get it through
the school and then we'll get them a pass.
So these are the assumptions there
that they can't afford to contribute even a small amount.
So in a past life, that's what we had.
So we did all of the public school service
for Cincinnati Public Schools.
This was a long time ago, this was 15 years ago.
And so we got about $7 million a year
from the school district.
And then the students got an ID from the school
and then they had a 50 cent cash drop on every ride.
So 25 cents if they were, Cincinnati was school of choice.
So the network essentially could take them
to a school district way out somewhere else in the city.
So it was 50 cents if they were going out of their school zone,
25 cents if they were in what they should,
within their, what should have been their school district.
And that worked fine for a long time.
I think as time went on, what we found was is that
if we were able to find a way for the school districts
and or for like, in this case, a YOP pass
to sort of cover the difference on that,
truancy rates went down big time, you know.
And I think we've even seen it,
and we've heard from some of the school districts here,
that just opportunity regionally to the YOP
has decreased truancy rates quite a bit.
When you take that burden off of,
I think the parents who are probably likely
already using our services as well,
that's just one less fare they have to deal with
throughout the day, even if it's at a reduced fare.
And the schools have no school buses of their own,
is that right?
So this is their school bus,
but yet the school district doesn't contribute.
They don't, and I don't want not to beat them up.
I don't think we've ever, no, no, no,
I'm saying from RC, not to beat them up.
We've never really had that conversation with them.
And I know that they face a lot of different challenges
between declining enrollment,
what money comes along with that from the state,
you know, school lunch issues.
And eventually we're gonna have to have
conversation with the school districts about like when we deviate these routes,
when we build these routes that are specific to this ridership generation we
see at the school, they're really a two-year benefit. We want to we want to
continue to do that. Do we need sixty million dollars? No, but like you know
what is that reasonable conversation we're having in real time? And I don't
think anybody's ever locked us out of some of those conversations. We just
haven't officially gone to them and said, say this is a thing. So that was my
follow-up question. So if they articulated plus expansion, that's appears to be
based on need for school transportation, is that right?
So meaning you're up to capacity and you need more space.
Occasionally, it's for school trippers,
but we do see some on our regular fixed route services
as well.
We received a grant from the Federal Transit Administration
to purchase new CNG buses, and so the purchase of the buses
themselves is covered by a grant.
Yeah, the interesting space is we've
got some fairly frequent routes that are on 15 minute service.
and moving that service to 10 or five
is fairly costly for us.
We add an additional 20 feet on the bus
and we're in a space where we can accommodate,
like right now there are times of the day
and typically it's right around the time school gets out
or sometimes in the mornings, more usually in the afternoon,
but where we're denying boardings,
we have to go drop off only because we're at bus capacity
and we typically try to make sure
that there's enough room when we get to the schools
because we know that's going to be an issue.
But having the 60-footer sort of thoughtfully deployed
along those routes will allow us to maintain 15-minute service
but have the capacity to not really go into drop-off-only
mode.
And they're fun to drive.
They've got a big accordion in the middle,
and y'all can come out and drive around a lot.
They're actually easier to drive.
People don't know, like I think they're
easier to drive than a 40-footer.
A lot of bigger systems use them in neighborhood traffic
because they're a two-piece.
So when they turn a tight corner,
it just trails the back end with it.
40 footer, you gotta like navigate the whole turn.
They're actually a little bit easier to use in the system,
especially if you're in neighborhoods.
And I think our folks are pretty excited
about seeing some on the street.
We get them every day at ESCO.
MTS has quite a few of them.
And they use them on their shuttle bus out
to Escondido Transit Center.
So, you know, they're not new to the region.
We've got quite a few of them floating around here.
Well, great discussion.
I'm glad we had that.
NCTD plus, I have gotten some emails and phone calls
asking about the interest of expanding into Escondido.
And these were very specific groups
of people that say, you know, it's really great for us
because I'm representing a group of people
that are limited in their vision
or they have no vision whatsoever.
And to be able to navigate to a regular bus stop
and things like that, you know, Joe, could you please?
I said, I'll absolutely raise the issue
to let everyone know because there is,
there are those smaller groups of people
that really can benefit.
And I did mention somebody who, that wasn't an issue.
His was something else in VISTA
that happened to be a former church member of mine
and called me for something else
and then said how great the service was.
And I made a point to let everyone know
that we're doing our job and we're limited
of what we can do.
But there are groups out there that do need that support.
Thank you for continuing to try to figure out
how we can help is probably the best way to put it.
Yeah, VISTA's probably interesting because some of it's geographical.
Like a lot of places where I've seen this connectivity to a fixed route network
through a demand response where they're smaller kind of system setup is
where there's geographical issues where people live there and could use fixed route
but probably don't qualify for paratransit.
And so, VISTA's kind of an interesting example that we have places that are literally
within a half mile, three quarters of a mile of the VISTA Transit Center.
They can't get down the hill to get to the transit center.
And so now that we've put that service into the area,
they have access to all the stores.
They can get to the transit and catch Sprinter.
So the cost trade-off, there are benefits
and or reasons geographically why we do some of those things.
But San Marcos is pretty standard.
But Vista is a little different because geographically,
there are some places we just can't put a bus.
And whether that's neighborhood street size,
whether that's it's in the hills kind of coming down in the transit center and
so we've seen some some good ridership jump up on that thank you any other
comments I see you thinking yeah good I like you thinking I also noticed that we
have some rebranding going on and just as the marketing committee I guess maybe
maybe if we have an update on if there's plans to do more rebranding, or like what's going
on with our brand.
I don't know if that's something we could talk about in June.
Yeah.
Okay.
It's an easy one, right?
And then, so I'd ask my committee members, I really want to understand NCTD Plus as a
function of how much it costs and consider the service straight offs, too.
And so I look to you to see if you want to add it to one of our agendas that are upcoming.
I also will pivot and open to like, is this, if this is going to come to the full board
at some point too, I don't want to double book or create too much more work.
So what do you think Mary?
I would like to learn more about it.
I would like to know what it cost, what passengers pay, what are the typical routes, what are
the trends?
I think what we had envisioned for the board workshop
in July was a discussion on board structure,
but then also a high level overview of services
and where we can have that conversation
about the different needs that each of our services fill
in the transportation network in San Diego County.
We also will likely have a conversation
about the upcoming budget,
budget that the board had just passed in June,
a five year outlook.
So it'll be a very high level strategic conversation
with the board.
we can have it at that, but we can certainly in June
come back to the MSEBDA committee
and talk about the different services.
Either one works.
Yeah, specifically plus.
I mean, we could come back in June with a.
Yeah, at some point like a deep,
like a really deep understanding of plus.
And what you were saying,
like what are those typical routes look like?
How much does it cost per round?
Would it include all of that?
I mean, it seems like it's gonna be something
really important that we have to look at.
So it would be great to understand it deeper.
Yeah, I would say we did something similar
have the request of director Contreras about one of the I think it was a six
month update on San Marcos and we're only not too far into Vista but by the
time we get to the June meeting we'll have plenty of data to sort of show the
difference between the two really deep dive into where we're seeing the the
pocket passenger that who's getting on where they getting on at how much that
cost how much the riders are paying what their average wait time is how does it
compare to things that we're doing on the fixed route side if there's anything
else you want us to put in there we can we can throw it in. So I would like to
understand too that it was a basically a pilot study so what was the goal of the
pilot study to see how to see if the city would pick it up to see if it could
pay for itself which I know it can't so I know the answer to that but what what
was the goal of the pilot? Yeah I think we classified is it a pilot just to see
if it was something that the community would adopt. I don't think we ever ever
assumed that the cities would pick it up and pay for it themselves. I think it was
always something that we expected to have to shoulder within our operational
budget but we the San Marcos pilot we did see have strong ridership as Sean
mentioned it competes very well with other demand response services
throughout the country and so that was factored into the decision for us to keep
I mean for me the bonus is if you're using that to get to get a passenger to
another mode of public transportation that's a win. If you're getting them to a
medical office, you know medical appointment that's a win, but at some
point it's more of a communal benefit than the greater good of the mission of
public transportation. So I think what I'll do is to the work plan for the June
I'll add an overview so that this committee can have a more in-depth understanding of NCTD plus and how it interacts with our fixed drought services and then
There will still be a conversation at the full board workshop, but it won't be as it'll be more high-level and strategic
But as the service planning committee this this committee at the June meeting can get a more in-depth overview
If you see something the meantime that you think that you're just like hey
I really want to know that piece of it just email us and we'll incorporate it into the into the data
So I will update the work plan and then I'll have Sue Hale send it out to the committee up to this meeting
So we don't have does anybody have any committee any comments anybody wants to make any report out, right? I think that
I do these every every week at council right and I said, you know, we have a chance here and
But I just got back from the National League of Cities in DC and to let everyone know I
Changed my flight so I could be here for this meeting
I had changed it to be here for the two o'clock meeting and then when somebody scheduled this one for this time
I was like I got to change it again
You know, oh, well, let me tell you
staff made a mistake and read and booked my tickets under Joe Garcia, but my ideas Jose Garcia
Saturday I spent five hours trying to fix that.
They eventually just said, go to the airport four hours early
and we'll see what we can do.
So I had to do that both going and coming back.
But I think everybody understands that.
They need to book my tickets, Jose Garcia, not Joe Garcia.
But anyway, or I'll have to change my name right now.
But anyway, I'm on the Public Safety and Crime Prevention
Committee, Advocacy Committee at the National League of Cities.
And we work on things that provides an opportunity for us
to be able to open further discussion.
And I think there are issues of safety and public safety
that we're not discussing in those committees.
So I just want to say, you know,
I have a great opportunity to be able to bring this up
at the national level because we're working specific.
This is an advocacy committee to work with that.
So if there's anything that I can do, please let me know.
I would be honored to be able to share what is it,
and even in our own cities, right,
of what's going on in our area that we should discuss.
So I wanted to share that I'm on a couple of other committees, too.
But it is a great way to impact at different levels what we do locally.
Because what we do locally really, really, really has an impact.
Somebody said once, there's no Republican or Democrat way to pick up the trash, period, right?
That's true.
And so I think we're doing a good job.
I got to ride the, I always, when I'm out of town,
mostly is a chance for me to ride public transportation.
So I rode the train from Dulles to downtown.
And yeah, it's a long ride, but it was $2.50, right?
So I was like excited 250 when it's peak,
It's 750, I think, but then on my way back,
because of my name thing, I took Uber.
I almost had a heart attack, 65 bucks.
And I'm like, man, if it wouldn't have been
because of my name thing,
I would have gone on the train again, right?
So public transportation is absolutely a blessing.
That's what I'll say, thank you.
My friend Randy will appreciate the shout out.
He's the CEO there at WMATA.
So we'll see him on Saturday.
I'll let him know that he's done a really good job of trying
to sort of reinvent that system there.
And the Silver Line extension at Dulles has been bonkers.
It gives us another option when we fly into DC
to talk to folks.
You know, Reagan's a little bit shorter of a train trip.
I just read that LAX is charging $12 drop off
for any Uber or Lyft.
That's just one way.
That's going to be very classic, too.
Well, I appreciate this meeting and appreciate all the input.
We'll call the meeting to a close.
And our next meeting will be June 2nd.
All right, I'm glad to have you there.
All right, I call the meeting adjourned.
Thank you, everyone.