Welcome to the May 16th, 2024, regular meeting of the Transportation Commission.
Would the Secretary please call the roll?
Commissioner Ash?
Here.
Commissioner Creeling?
Present.
Commissioner Patch?
Here.
Youth Commissioner Yao?
Here.
Vice Chair Cagle?
Present.
Chair Reese?
Present.
And this portion of the meeting is reserved for comments on items not on the agenda.
Under the Brown Act, the commission cannot act on items raised during the public communications
but may respond briefly to statements made or questions posed request clarification
or refer to the item to staff.
At this time, I'll open the item to public comment.
Do we have any members of the public wishing to comment on items not on the agenda?
We have no members of the public wanting to provide comments.
Next on the agenda is the adoption of the January 18, 2024 meeting minutes.
Do I have a motion for approval of the minutes from January 18th commission meeting?
moved. Do I have a second? Second. Would the Secretary please call the roll? Commissioner
Ash? Yes. Commissioner Creeling? Aye. Commissioner Patch? Yes. Vice-chair Cagle? Aye. Chair Rees? Aye.
Okay motion passes. Next on the agenda is the adoption of the March 21st, 2024 meeting minutes.
Do I have a motion for the approval of the minutes for March 21st Commission Meeting?
So moved.
I'll second.
Would the Secretary please call the roll?
Commissioner Ash?
Aye.
Commissioner Creeling?
Aye.
Commissioner Patch?
Aye.
Vice Chair Kegel?
Aye.
Chair Rhys?
Aye.
So moved.
Okay, this is going quick.
Next on the agenda is an item for commission consideration,
Downtown Walnut Creek Transit Signal Priority.
At this time, I invite staff to provide their presentation.
Good afternoon. My name is Isham Noemi, I'm the Director of Programming.
I feel like I know all of you, so I've worked with many of you before.
So I'm very happy to be here and to present this item.
Thank you, Smadar, for getting the presentation up.
Before I start, I really want to thank your staff here, Matt
and Smadar, for helping me and CCTA over the past probably
five years now in getting this project implemented.
I mean, they were really instrumental in this project
and I'm sure in many things that the city does.
You all know about CCTA.
I'm not gonna talk about CCTA.
So just as a background about TSP,
as you know, TSP is just one of the tools
that transit agencies use to improve on-time operations,
basically, it aims at reducing
the delays at signalized intersections.
And the systems do that by either extending the green time
when the bus approaches the intersection,
so it can pass through without having
to stop for the full cycle, red cycle,
or by shortening the red cycle if it reaches when
stop light is at red.
We're talking about seconds at each intersection, maybe
30 seconds up to 30 seconds, depending on the cycle length.
But when the bus goes through 30, 40 intersections or more,
these seconds add up and they translate into minutes,
and that starts making a difference in on-time performance
delay.
So the real objective of this project
is to improve on-time performance for transit
so more people can use it.
By itself, it's probably not going to be enough to entice somebody to use transit, but with
everything else we're trying to do, including safety, you know, including reducing fares
or providing free fares, it could entice somebody to use transit, and that's really the goal.
So there are many partners on this project.
CCTA is one of them, but this project started basically by MTC providing a grant to the
city of Fauna Creek and another grant to CCTA to do TSP in both cities.
And our CCTA grant was in partnership with the city of Concord and County Connection.
And between both grants, there were about $1.1 million available for this project.
MTC also did the system requirements.
They hired the consultant to do that for this project to describe what it needs to do at
the end.
Of course, the city of Walnut Creek and the city of Concord, their role is pretty important
as an owner and operator of the traffic signals.
There are 31 intersections, signalized intersection Walnut Creek, and 35 in Concord that are in
the project area.
And County Connection, who actually asked for CCTA help with this project, operates
the transit service in this area.
They actually operate, as you know, in 10 cities in Contra Costa.
So they never had TSP before and they just didn't have the bandwidth or the staff to
implement and maintain such systems.
So they came and asked MTC to do this work.
When both Walnut Creek and CCTA got the grants to do TSP, we sat together and we figured,
okay, we cannot have two different systems to adjacent cities with one transit provider.
The transit, the system needs to be consistent
across the whole service area.
So CCTA took the lead in implementing the project.
We did the procurement, the deployment,
and also were responsible for operation and maintenance
through our contract with the vendor
for the next three years.
So that's just a little bit background
on how CCTA got involved in this project.
we just saw an area where we needed to help
to close the gap, basically.
So we got the grant back in 2018.
Since then, as you know, we had COVID.
There were a couple things that happened.
One of them, FCC had a ruling
where they changed what we can do with the spectrum
that was supposed to be used for this project.
So we switched from after we did the system operations,
we thought we were done, the ruling came out,
so we had to go back and figure out what we need to do.
That's when we talked about and agreed
to do a cloud-based TSP system.
And I'll talk about the advantages of having that system.
Originally, we were thinking about just
a V to X vehicle to infrastructure type of system
where you have equipment on the bus
and equipment at the traffic controller,
and you will have direct communication between them.
That didn't work out, and I'm actually
glad it didn't work out.
This is a better system, I think.
And I'll explain some of the benefits of this system.
So after that, we issued an RFI, Request for Information, RFQ,
and we ended up selecting GTT, which is acquired now
by MyoVision.
It's a big company that does this type of thing.
And we entered with the partners into a cooperative agreement,
as well as a funding agreement.
And the project really didn't kick off until May 2022.
That's when we signed our contract with GTT
to start deployment.
And during that period, we were still
suffering from the supply chain issues.
So we wanted to upgrade the signal controllers
at those 66 intersections,
and it just took the supplier a long time to provide them.
And once we get them, you have to test them
for like 21 days each controller,
and you could only test one or two at the yard,
because you just don't have enough space.
So that really impacted the project schedule.
However, that's all done now, thanks to Matt and Smadar
and their work.
And we turned on the system basically in the end of March
of this year.
I'll talk more about the next steps later.
So as I mentioned, the goal is to improve transit travel time
reliability on time performance.
Of course, less stops you make at the traffic signals.
Hopefully, that will improve air quality, improve the fuel
mileage on your buses.
And the eventual goal is to provide a better option
for driving alone by increasing transit ridership.
And for CCTA, this is just a pilot.
Our goal is to expand beyond those study intersections
in the future and beyond actually just the city
of Fauna Creek and Concord.
We want to implement this throughout the county in the future.
So this is a picture of the project area.
These are the 31 intersections.
They cover the downtown area along routes four and five.
And for those 31 intersections in Walnut Creek, we needed to basically upgrade the communication
in the controllers to make sure this system works.
We in terms of the number of buses that use this route, we basically configured 15 buses
along both routes.
Overall there were 31 buses that were configured to be part of the TSP system.
County connection fleet is about 125 vehicles or buses.
So we, this is just a small portion, 31 is not, it's not enough, so in the next couple
months we're actually adding 28 more buses to the fleet, to the 31 that we configured
to be part of the system.
So about half of the fleet, when they pass through these intersections, will get transit
signal priority.
So the benefits of a cloud-based system are many,
but just to mention them, you really
don't have much equipment to talk about.
This is all software-based.
As long as your controllers are upgraded and what
they call NTCIP compliant, NTCIP
stands to internet protocol communication.
As long as they're compliant, then you're
able to communicate with them.
So basically, the way the system works
is you have the software sitting on an Amazon server
somewhere in the cloud.
It gets information from the transit operator
related to the schedule, the occupancy,
are they behind schedule or not.
And then from the bus itself, because every bus
has a modem already, you'll be able to get
the location of the bus every second, which is really critical for such a system to work.
You really need to know to be able to track the buses and know exactly where they are.
This would not work if the information on the buses is available every 30 seconds.
It's going to be within one to five seconds.
And luckily, with the modem on the buses, we're able to get that every second so you
know exactly where the bus is.
And as it approaches the intersection based on the logic that you put in the software,
is the bus behind schedule or is it full, for example, or half full, then you can decide
based on the logic whether to send a priority request to the controller.
And then the controller decides based on the traffic conditions at the intersection whether
to grant the priority to that bus
by either extending the green or shortening the red time.
Or if the bus was going to go through the green
without any action, then no action will be taken.
So a major benefit of this is you have fewer components
to deploy, maintain, or need to upgrade in the future.
This could work not just for buses.
If you decide in the future you want to give priority to garbage trucks or something else,
you can do that.
It will be a different type of priority.
The only thing you need to have is you have to know where that vehicle is as long as you're
able to track their location.
I'm thinking in the future when you have shared autonomous vehicles, then this could be another
priority level, you could give those if you have multiple people in the car.
And it's easy to scale this type of projects.
It's that if you decide to add more intersections or more buses into the project,
you know, the additional 28 buses that we're going to configure,
it's going to take the vendor a week to do that.
If you have to provide hardware,
it will take you a lot longer than that.
And then you have to maintain it in the future.
So it's easily scalable.
However, having said all of this,
there are cons for cloud-based systems.
One of them is you cannot do it, as I mentioned.
If you don't know where the buses are,
you've got to know exactly where they are every second.
Your infrastructure has to be upgraded.
There's a cost to that.
If you have old infrastructure, this system will not work.
So that's why CCTA is investing $30 million
to upgrade traffic signals throughout the county
in the next two years.
And this is because this is all software-based and cloud-based,
you've got to be careful about the security
threats to the system.
So you've got to have usernames, passwords, and firewalls,
and so on.
And your controllers, when you upgrade,
they do have to be what they call NTCIP compliant.
And a lot of vendors claim they are.
But until you test, you really want
to know if they are compliant or not.
So that's the issue.
So in terms of the status, we enabled,
turned on the system basically on March 27
after rigorous testing at each intersection.
And our 30-day acceptance period ended a couple weeks ago,
on April 28.
There is a requirement that the system is 99% reliable,
basically, for CCTA to accept the system.
So right now, we're trying to figure out
during those 30 days whether the system was down, basically,
more than 15 minutes every day.
If it is, then we need to find out why
and repeat the acceptance, this thing.
We're doing a before and after study
to evaluate the benefits of the project.
As I mentioned, we'll talk about seconds at intersections,
but overall, we're hoping it'll be translated
into minutes in time savings
for the average bus trip, basically, or journey time.
And as part of our contract with GTT, with my vision now,
they are going to be on board on this project
for the next three years to help operate and maintain
the system.
The system breaks down for some reason.
They're supposed to come and help us figure out why
and fix it, basically.
I think I'll stop here.
I'll be happy to answer any questions.
That would help.
Thank you very much.
Does the Commission have questions, starting with Jared, Commissioner Ash?
Thanks.
Appreciate you being here.
I guess my first question is, how was this route chosen, and what other routes are you
considering?
It's a very good question.
Typically the way you would pick a route is to, you will have information about all your
bus routes.
and you will pick the ones where you have the most significant delays at the intersection.
So you know, a journey, a bus total travel time consists of travel delays at intersections,
delays at the stops, as well as the actual travel time from one point to another.
You really want to focus on routes where you have significant delays and where on-time
time performance is lacking, basically.
That's the ideal word, that's how we do it.
But in our case, we had to focus on the routes where basically we wanted to connect to BART
and also we wanted to pick routes where the infrastructure is already upgraded or close
to being upgraded so we can test this pilot.
Eventually, I mean, this will be rolled out throughout the routes.
I mean, that's the idea here.
We want to test it, make sure it works.
Once we figure out the template, and we have the funding to do it,
then I think we would want to roll it out to all the routes in County Connection.
But if you have limited money, limited funding, then, yeah,
you would focus on routes that are underperforming.
You would look at the ones that have the most significant
delays at the intersections.
Because this is just focusing on the intersection delays,
not anything else.
OK, thanks.
And I'm asking for a friend, how do you get one of those modems
to have and test?
Yeah, actually, a lot of our testing
that we've done before turning on the system,
we had a vehicle kit.
So we didn't wait for the bus to wait.
No, we had a vehicle kit that the vendor put in a rental.
And once that passed, you know, that got it a green light.
But yeah.
Any other questions?
Yes?
Mr. Kuehlig?
Thank you.
Thanks for the presentation.
I haven't met you because I'm new on this commission.
I have a few questions.
It's very, the whole topic's very interesting.
And I don't know if you can share this, or maybe
Smidar has it.
What's the total cost of the pilot?
So the TSP component, our contract with GTT is $240,000.
It's not a lot.
The major cost was the amount we needed
to spend to upgrade the infrastructure.
So to initially implement it, costs us about $240 million,
if my memory serves me right, $240,000.
And then you have an annual cost.
So it's about $15,000 per year for the annual cost
to operate and maintain.
And if you want to add more intersections or more buses,
there is like a cost per intersection.
I think it's between $1,500 to a couple thousand,
basically, if you want to expand the pilot in the future.
So then, I would imagine that GT, T, or MyoVision,
they must advertise some claimed efficiency we
were going to get out of this.
And I'm not even sure how one measures that.
You guys probably know how we measure
how this is working and the efficiency we're gaining.
Is there something that the manufacturer,
the consulting firm said, hey, you guys
will get 10% more efficiency from your buses
or something like that?
Yeah, there are studies that show the benefits of TSP.
And what you will hear is averages of these studies.
Probably will know more about this than me.
But that's why we're doing the before and after study.
We want to know for our specific area, what were the benefits?
And if they're not that great, what can we
do to improve them, basically?
And then does anybody, the flip side of this,
does anybody measure any negative impact
to the other pedestrian vehicle traffic
who they're going to, by extension, I guess,
get longer red lights?
Great question.
So whenever there is a pedestrian call,
that needs to be served first,
even if you have a transit vehicle.
So pedestrians get priority.
But side street traffic could get delayed.
And that's why the before and after study
is gonna look at that as well.
As there being significant delays to side street traffic
and or safety concerns or whatever,
we will be looking at that.
But the good thing about this system,
and I didn't emphasize in my presentation,
this is not just, you don't,
this is conditional signal priority.
Conditional, which is, you cannot do with other systems.
So you can set the conditions
where you can only request priority
when the bus is half full
or when the bus is five minutes behind schedule.
If it is empty or if it's on schedule,
you don't send the request for signal priority.
The reason we did that is we wanted to focus on throughput,
people throughput at the intersection,
not vehicle throughput.
That's fascinating.
Then how does the system get the data
that the buses half full or full?
So every bus agency, they're required to,
as part of 5-1-1,
they're required to provide their transit fees
to that system, showing basically how full the bus is,
as well as whether it's behind schedule or ahead of schedule.
So that data, that's what Google uses basically.
It's called GTFS, thank you, real time data.
GTFS, transit feed system.
I don't know what the G is for, general transit feed system,
I think.
data that basically Google and others use to determine where
the bus is, whether they're behind schedule or not.
Interesting.
And then maybe just more of a comment.
You mentioned it.
I was thinking about the vulnerability
to cyber attack, and is that a way for somebody
to hack into the entire signal system
and say they're all red all day long as a part
of a greater cyber attack?
I know you mentioned that's one of the cons
to this cloud-based system is you have to worry
about the cybersecurity.
Yeah, that's why we involved the IT at each city
to make sure there are firewalls,
so the bad things don't happen.
And also, if you have to control anything,
you need to have an IP address.
You cannot go and change everything at one time.
You gotta have the IP address for every equipment
that's connected to the internet.
And I think for Walnut Creek, they had created a separate server and a tunnel
from the rest of the services in the county just for this.
Great.
Thank you.
Commissioner Patch?
I had a clarifying question on the occupancy question.
Since this is part of trying to see if we can increase ridership on transit,
do we have a lower threshold right now of occupancy for that priority?
And if so, what would be the difference
as we move out of the pilot?
So during the acceptance period, we didn't,
we basically said, even if the bus has nobody in it,
you will give them priority or,
so it was unconditional.
Until we do our before and after study.
If the before and after study show significant impacts,
then that's when we tighten the screws basically on,
when we give buses priority.
And we could start, there are different thresholds,
like 10% full, 50% full, or 100% full.
I forget what the threshold are,
but you can change the threshold
until the negative impact is gone.
Great, thank you.
Any other questions?
Commissioner Kegel.
Thank you for touching on kind of the pecking order,
for lack of a better term that if there's a PED call
that's served first and I was curious
about the coordination with other systems within the city.
For instance, I know we have some traffic signals
that are already coordinated and we've invested in that.
And then also emergency vehicles.
I believe that they also have something at intersections
to give them priority.
So just if you could touch on how it interacts
with all of those systems?
So emergency vehicles, they get preemption, not priority.
So if you get that, that's the first one
to serve before anything else.
So that's not an issue.
And right now, I think the way it's done, I think it's
through the Optikom system.
So it's not cloud-based or anything.
There is equipment on the bus and the controller
to once the fire truck shows up,
basically you give him a green light
and you put everybody else at red.
So that's not gonna change.
If you have a conflicting requests,
then the emergency vehicle gets the preemption.
Transit is like a second priority.
And in the cloud-based system,
you could have a third and a fourth and a fifth,
depending on the classification of the vehicle
you want. So that's something you can do in the future. In terms of throwing the
corridor out of coordination, which I know that was actually one of the
reasons a lot of the cities were reluctant to use TSP. They just were
worried about this could throw all their work out of the window. And our
Our response was the timing plan, I mean, there are TSP timing plan that we had to enter
into each controller that basically limits how much the system can go out of coordination.
And if it does, then it takes a cycle to get back in coordination.
I think that's more of Matt's expertise than me.
Did I say anything wrong?
Okay.
Yeah.
Sounds complicated.
Thank you.
The second question was, we're making this investment
to try to make transit more appealing and efficient
for the rider, and are we doing anything
to communicate with our potential ridership?
Excellent point.
I think Matt asked me to touch on that, actually,
and I forgot.
But as part of this, as soon as we're done with the before
and after study and we have something to show to the public,
there is some kind of a public campaign
I will do with that we will do at CCTA in coordination with the cities and county connection
to let them know, hey, there is something new here and may not see it, but we're working
towards making your right faster, basically, and more reliable.
Great.
Thank you.
I had a couple of questions.
You mentioned that part of the project was upgrading the infrastructure.
And it might be a question to Matt or Smidar,
but you put in new traffic signal controllers,
or did you just upgrade the software in the controllers?
So in the city of Walnut Creek, it involved,
I mean, it's the city of Concord that
involved replacing the cabinets, the controllers themselves,
and the firmware on the controller.
In Walnut Creek, luckily, they have updated controllers,
but we had to replace what they call the 1C cards.
Okay. What does 1C stand for?
Communication? Okay. Yeah.
Okay. So it was less of an upgrade effort,
but still the 1C card, they had supply chain issues.
And also we had to upgrade some of the switches at the controllers
and the firmware.
And so the upgrades,
because I know the city is moving forward
or planning to move forward with upgrading the controllers
in the whole system on YVR.
What we're doing now is compatible
with what we've been doing on YVR
and what we're planning on doing in YVR.
Yeah, that's right.
So it would be, it's compatible
and tying into the smart signal project,
which I think we've touched on before,
sort of from like the capital budget side of things,
the transit signal priority is one of the items that,
as part of that smart signal project,
which is also led by CCTA,
is something that would potentially come
to Ignacio Valley Road or a couple of the other corridors
that were identified.
So having this pilot in place,
we understand how we need to configure
these controllers moving forward in order for it to work.
And why this corridor and not YVR?
It seems like YVR.
Well, I think I know the answer, but I'll let you.
Yeah, it wasn't, I mean, we went back and forth
why we picked route four and five,
but connection to BART was one of them.
But, and the other one was the relative status
of the controllers in the corridor.
how much of an effort to upgrade the controllers.
And we ultimately basically relied on County Connection
to tell us which routes needed to improve
in their on-time performance.
Yeah, and I'll also add to that,
that when this project started, it was,
I think the grant funding was in 2018,
was maybe the grant application.
And at the time, we actually had really high ridership
on routes four and five too, by the way.
And so these were really, they were really suitable routes
that were experiencing those types of delays.
It's a good connection to BART, accessing the downtown.
And so I think the idea was really just to improve
on-time performance.
And then the other piece is really that this was a pilot.
And then also just kind of stepping back
into that time period, we thought that we were gonna have
to invest in some substantial infrastructure improvements.
and so maintaining infrastructure on Ignatia Valley Road,
for example, would have been a very different task
than more in like a downtown setting.
And regarding there's the warranty for the three years,
what happens after the warranty who operates
and maintains it, is that it's cloud-based,
so is that just somebody on the beach
or is that he had 3CTA, or is that in CCTA's offices?
How, what's the vision for that?
Well, if you talk to Tim, our executive director,
I mean, the vision is CCTA will assume that role.
Of course, the big question is where the money's
gonna come from, so that we need to solve that question.
And it's not relatively large amount here,
but I mean not only will be helping monitor this system,
but I mean there will be other improvements
that we are making in other cities we need to monitor
as part of Innovate 680, for example.
So this will be just another add-on or another part of that.
So yeah, we have three years to figure out
how is all that gonna work.
We can, of course, still continue with the vendor
and have them extend their contract
for another three years after that,
as long as we come up with the funding
if that issue is not resolved.
But yeah, it's gonna take all of us.
I mean, CCTA is not gonna be the one making the decision.
Whatever decision we make,
it's gonna be agreeable to both cities
and county connections.
So it's a collaboration effort, really.
Yeah, I imagine there's a lot of work to be done regarding having a regional agency come
in to a local agency, and the priorities that the regional agency may have may differ from
the local agency, and then you compound that with all of the various cities that you have
and three CTA, it's going to be complicated so good luck with that.
So any other questions?
No?
So with that, I'd like to open it up to public comment.
No, we have no members of the public.
I didn't get the chance to finish reading.
Okay.
Okay.
So at this time, are there any commissioner comments?
And I'd like to just start from right
and just go left if that's okay.
Commissioner Nash.
I think this is great.
I love CCTA and the cities working together
to coordinate signals.
Such a simple thing to have cities talk together
about signal timing on routes of regional significance
and thinking about the BART routes.
I'm just, I love it.
I appreciate all the work that everybody's done
on all sides.
But I would say look at YVR as a priority too,
as you go forward and look for funding
just because it's a long route and it's connecting
multiple cities and multiple parts of this county together.
Thanks.
Youth member, yeah.
Thank you so much.
I really appreciate seeing all the, sorry,
all the improvements to the public transit
and transportation and making transportation
more accessible in Walnut Creek
so that more people have an option
to explore the areas with greater accessibility.
And I also really like the techniques
to improve the transit reliability,
making sure that these methods are reliable,
and then also reducing the carbon footprint
because the environment's a great problem to consider
when talking about transportation.
so I think this is great and thank you so much.
Commissioner Crowley.
Yeah, thank you again for coming out and presenting.
I will look very forward to seeing the data
to see how the efficacy of the program
is compared to not having it.
Sure, Commissioner Patch.
Thank you for this presentation.
I really enjoyed it.
I'm also looking forward to hearing the data
behind the pilot program.
I was just actually talking with somebody two days ago
about the need to make sure our buses run on time
and run faster.
Otherwise, we're not going to have riders on them.
So hopefully this works, and we can continue
to improve our transit.
And Commissioner Kagan.
I'll just echo the gratitude, and I look forward
to hearing more about how this goes.
Yeah, thanks very much for all this.
I know I asked about the YVR route,
and why that wasn't chosen.
I actually really liked the route,
the system that you chose,
because I think you're gonna get
a tremendous amount of diversity in operations
at different times of the day,
different types of intersections,
some are YVR, California,
and then some more in the core of the downtown.
And I just think you're gonna get,
assuming that your before and after data program
really robust, which I hope it is, oftentimes we shortchange that piece, but I think for
something like this where CCTA is looking to expand it out throughout the county and
wanting to, for the lack of better word, take control in order to have consistency throughout
the county, I think the before and after data needs to be robust so that you can really
understand how the program is benefiting different types of conditions.
And I think that if you were to do YVR, for example, it's just straight, and it's just
a ton of commute traffic, and it's just one type of condition, and there's so many different
conditions in our county that I think this route was a good choice.
I won't get into the management and the oversight
after three years.
I think that, except that I'll say that I think
that that is optimistic.
I hope it happens, but there's a lot of work to be done,
and a lot of work to be done quickly in order to,
I think make, to see this vision that Tim wants to achieve.
So thank you very much, I appreciate it.
Thank you for the opportunity. I appreciate it.
So the next agenda item, uh,
for the commission to consider is the bike to wherever day 20, 24.
Um, at this time I invite staff to provide their presentation.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh, good evening, commissioners. Uh,
my name is Henry Ruhn. I'm a transportation planner for the city.
I'm here tonight to give you a brief update on our bike tour everyday event,
which we held this morning. Uh,
We had amazing attendance this year.
Over 40 cyclists came, and that was
with a reduction of staff coming, too.
So it could have been even higher.
We surpassed last year's attendance record by roughly 15%.
We had an energizer station out in front of City Hall
at North Main and Civic, where we provided snacks,
bicycle equipment like lights and bells.
And we also had a large amount of gift cards
that were donated by local businesses
to support bike tour every day.
They were raffled off using that prize wheel you see
in the lower picture.
People could spin it and then they get to pick
what prize they want.
The largest contributions were from Mike's Bikes
and a Sweet Affair Bakery.
But we also had generous donations from Love and Chocolate
and some other local businesses.
Newly this year, we were joined by the director
of our sustainability team who had her own table set up,
Candace Rankin-Mumby.
an excellent collaboration. She helped us with the setup and she had her own materials and her own
outreach going on at the same time as well. It worked very smoothly. So that was just a brief
update but you are welcome to provide your thoughts and insights. I put some ideas there
if you'd like to jump off with those or just you know whatever you think, whatever you'd like to ask.
Is there anything we can do to make bike month 2025 even better? Is there anything else you'd
you'd want to see at the Energizer station next year?
And do you know of any other organizations
that could be good collaborators for this effort?
So I open this up to you commissioners, thank you.
Commissioner questions?
Commissioner Ash?
Can you come back to me?
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Youth member Yao?
Have there been any like measures
to target youth for this event?
We have not done any specific youth outreach for this event.
In the past, we have had a large number of kids
come by on their way to school,
but usually they're in a rush.
They're not super inclined to stop to grab snacks.
So that is a good idea.
We could do some more targeted outreach,
see if we can get people to come early
so that they're not in such a rush.
So they have time to grab some snacks.
Thank you.
Commissioner Crowling, no questions.
Commissioner Patch.
I have a lot of questions.
I'm sure that doesn't surprise many people.
So first question is how did you choose the location
for the Energizer stand?
Like was it proximity to Bart, or schools,
or what was the consideration?
So bike to wherever day is a larger effort
across the county.
So there are many Energizer stations put on
by different organizations.
There was one at Bart, there was one at Whole Foods.
So the city's doing our own and we don't want to overlap
or get too close to the other ones,
the idea is that we can have a nice,
wide county coverage, catch people,
doing different kinds of trips,
going different kinds of places.
So with that in mind, we stick close to City Hall.
I believe in prior years, we have tried doing it on Broadway.
Yeah, and well, in a previous year,
we were doing a, we were conducting a study for,
it was part of a pop-up bikeway on Lincoln Avenue,
and so we had coordinated,
it was just really good timing.
coordinated the bike to work day at the time, it's called bike to work day,
Energizer station at that location. But historically we've had it next City Hall
and any cities that are hosting Energizer stations. I just saw you know
the transportation manager for San Ramon and the traffic engineer for Pleasant
Hill, they all have them right next to their City Halls and then other
organizations will host some of those bigger ones. So for example, 511 Contra
Costa, along with East Bay Regional Parks was out at the Contra Costa Canal Trail, Iron
Horse Trail intersection, which is a great location, but, you know, some of the other
larger organizations are kind of capturing those spots.
Great.
Your answer also kind of made me point to my second question, which is I was on the
East Bay bike to wherever website and I didn't see City of Walnut Creek listed anywhere on
Were we actually working in coordination with that?
Is that just an oversight on their side?
We were working in coordination with their larger effort.
Some of our supplies were provided by them.
So I believe our energizer station was on the list of energizer stations.
You didn't see it there?
No, I looked and I did not see our city hall one listed.
We will have to talk to them about that then because that was an oversight.
Okay.
Good.
Good to know.
And then do you know why it's in the morning and not the evening commute?
So originally, several years ago, this was called Bike to Work Day.
The idea is it's catching people on their way into work.
I don't know precisely why that's chosen for the morning rather than the evening, but the
idea is that it's coordinated across the county so that everyone's in sync.
I do think in the morning you catch people fresher, they're more excited, whereas on
the way home they're more likely to not be particularly inclined to stop and
talk about transit infrastructure and grab their stuff they just want to get
home I believe that may have been some of the rationale there okay yeah sorry
I'll also add to that so this is a Bay Area wide initiative and I mean I think
depending on the location of the Energizer station some of them are open
during the morning and the afternoon because they're just really popular
spots. There's also like the other cities for example who did have Energizer
stations they hosted them in the morning that's just typically what we've done
it's and I don't like giving this answer but it's this is the way we've always
done it which is not necessarily you know it's good it could be you know we
could we have room for improvement so we're welcome to that we're open to that
feedback. If I could just add in here I am on the 5-1-1 site and I do see
that I think there's eight stations in Walnut Creek
that were open and City Hall is on the list,
currently at least.
And in the evening you can go right now,
Kelly Craft Brewing has a station
off the Contra Costa Canal Trail.
So there are a mix of them on here.
I didn't even know about this, so this is really cool.
Like to look at how many stations there are in our city.
I must have been on a different website,
because I looked very seriously for it and saw nothing.
have a different list that's like sponsor organizations which we are not
that might have been what we were missing from maybe all right that's good
to know and then my last question is specifically for the promotion that
Walnut Creek does of their station was there any consideration in making a
call out for other micro transit options or because this is part of a wider or
organized effort did you just want to focus on bikes so we actually did
mentioned in our promotions that other micromobility is encouraged and
welcomed. I believe by name I mentioned scooters and unicycles, you know, as
examples. Yeah, so we counted wheeled transit towards those 40. I believe about
two or three of them were scooters and then we had another 25 or so visitors on
foot, but yes we are, you know, encouraging a wider micromobility effort. It's not
bicycles bike to where every day is shorthand but we welcome all micro
mobility. Thank you. Those are all my questions. Thank you.
Commissioner Nash, do you have anything else? Just since it's biked to wherever, is there any
efforts to make to work towards the schools particularly the high school and
the middle schools? I don't know if you've ever reached out to them to engage
them or if you could pass on to 5-1-1 who I think organizes it maybe like there
could be a concentrated effort next year to bring in middle schools and high
schools all over. Yeah I think that's a good idea it's kind of building on what
Commissioner Yau was saying and I think that is where you can kind of see that
this is a relic of where it used to be bike to work day that it wasn't really a
consideration and now that we are widening the focus it's a great
opportunity to reach more people and include more people in the event. Thanks
Thanks for the presentation.
You counted the number of people that came to your station.
The other stations, do they count as well and is there a summation of how many people
they interacted with countywide or citywide?
Each station provides their data to 5-1-1 and then they do a larger reporting on it.
I'm not sure when that will be out.
It will obviously take them some time to process it because they're not just dealing with one
count from one station.
They're looking at everything.
Are you just providing them the count or are you providing them other information such
as Commissioner Ash mentioned, students, people going to work, people shopping, people recreating?
How much data is collected from the people that you interact with at the stations?
Formally, we only provide the count, however, you know, notable occurrences or something
that we pass on as well.
And for our own internal use, we very often, you know, stop to talk with people.
They can share their transportation concerns.
We can get some great, you know, outreach information collected from that for our own
use.
Okay.
Thank you.
Opening it up for public comment.
Are there any public members here?
No, there's no, nobody here for public comment.
Okay.
Commissioner comments, start.
Any commissioner comments starting?
I'm good, thanks.
Yeah, I think this is a great idea to include more people,
encourage more people to bike.
And I think it'd be great to target more efforts
towards the youth, like Commissioner Ash said,
making more effort to like put these stations
near like schools, like high schools and middle schools.
And just like getting the youth more involved too.
Cause I know like a lot of people at my school bike,
sometimes I bike to school too.
And this would be like a really cool and fun event
that people could like really bond over.
So thank you.
Yeah, thanks for working on this and, you know,
contributing as a city to, you know,
getting people to think about other forms of micro transit.
And I'm glad it's open to not just bicycles.
Thank you.
Thank you for being here, and thank you for doing this.
It's great, a huge fan of anything
that gets us out of our cars.
I echo the sentiments around getting students and younger
folk to do it to schools.
It does not have to be just like the kids.
Maybe parents bike their kids to school.
Could be one of the efforts that we
around this and then I would also start considering having something in the
evening like maybe the stand doesn't have to be there the whole day but I
know I'm not a morning person and so I wouldn't stop in the morning because I'm
usually in a rush to be there on time whereas in the evening I have more time
and could stop and chat so I think that you're missing a demographic by only
holding it in the morning and then I would encourage the team to make more
of an effort to make sure that it's not just like people assuming they have to
use bikes. I mean it's great that we had some people stop by but I see a lot of
people using scooters in their work commute so if you had that few show up I
feel like there's something in the messaging that's getting lost that makes
feel like it's just for bikers. So thank you. Just thank you for your work and the presentation.
Yeah, just to kind of reiterate, I think that it would be helpful if we reached out to students
and kind of made that a priority because it's hard to get people to change. It's easier to
get young people to change if they start out early, using bicycles.
I think what would be I don't want to go down this path of like collecting 50 demographic questions
about who comes to the stations, but I do think that understanding at least the age difference
would be beneficial to know if this program is reaching and reaching the youth.
I think that would be helpful to start to be able to measure that. I realize you're not 5-1-1,
but I think it would be helpful if some of that basic information was available so you
could try to be more effective each year rather than just throwing up tents and putting out tables
stuff. And yeah, I think keep up the good work. It'd be great if we could rebrand
it from, you know, bike to wherever to, I don't know, wheel to wherever to
recognize that there are other forms of transportation that we benefit from
they get people out of their cars and don't contribute to climate change. So
thank you very much for that. Thank you. You sure can. I loved the fact that you
were giving safety items away at the table. That's awesome. That might be a way
to get parents to encourage their kids to participate because like they care
about their children's safety. Thank you. If I can add one more comment. This was
just based on the chair's comments I agree with not trying to go too deep with the demographic
data. It would be fascinating to know the person is commuting to work or some other
type of trip. I would be really interested in learning about how many people actually
commute to work. I don't ride my bike to work even though I could do it pretty much on all
the trails because pedaling along in your work clothes and then you get to work and
all that that goes with it versus if I'm just recreating.
So it'd be a very interesting breakdown,
just commute versus non-commute.
Thank you.
Yeah, thanks.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Okay. At this time, I'd like to invite the commissioners
and staff to provide their reports on activities
and or announcements.
So I'll start with Commissioner Ash and we'll just go around the horn.
Yeah.
Thanks.
I just wanted to note at the CCTA Citizens Advisory Council in multiple group stages
so we didn't hit a quorum problem.
We got a tour this week of Gomentum Station, which is the leading autonomous vehicle test
station in the country and got to explore some of the new technology there, got to see
5,200 acres of undeveloped property, like sitting here in the middle of the Bay Area,
which was kind of pristine and wondering why is it taking so long to develop in other areas.
But it was just really cool to see smart signal technologies being tested like they were literally
throwing fake animals at vehicles on like robot skateboards and um in one case and we like how
cars were reacting to that um we saw um one known brand manufacturer like testing at different stop
signs and waiting times in like circular motions and it was just really cool to embrace the
technology and to say like there is like the leading autonomous testing track in the country
is like right here in our backyards
for an economic development standpoint, then yeah.
Great, thank you.
Any other reports or announcements?
Mr. Cagle.
I can give a quick report.
I attended the April 26th mayor and chairs
quarterly I guess meeting.
And there were a couple of items that I think
the commission would be interested in.
the first is our police chief shared
that there's a new staff person on PD
in the traffic safety unit
and they're gonna be stepping up enforcement
on phone use and DUIs and things like that,
which relates to traffic safety.
And then the second was,
and I actually realized I just had this in my head.
I didn't even take notes on it,
but it sounded like there was an update.
There's some progress on the Toyota area project,
the kind of mixed use project
but it has some various multimodal transportation elements
to it.
And so, you know, it would be nice to perhaps get an update
for the commission on that at some point, if appropriate,
but it sounds like that project is moving along
and we haven't heard about that since,
it was during the pandemic,
I remember sitting at my kitchen table
when we did a meeting with,
I believe it was the planning commission
and the city council to hear about that project more broadly.
so that's it, thank you.
I can go ahead and give you an update.
So the Toyota project, as of right now,
it went to the city council last Tuesday,
and the council accepted some general plan amendments,
and it's also like an amendment to the specific plan
and some zoning changes.
So part of that project, so it's not a project yet,
it's sort of like a programmatic,
in a programmatic phase.
But it did study sort of a few different scenarios
of what could be built out there.
But part of that does include a component
that would realize the envisioned pathway
that connects between Broadway and North Main,
just an additional connection
through this really large block.
And then go ahead and it would connect back
over towards Civic to the Iron Horse Trail.
So it's just an additional east-west connection
that really provides another access point
from the Iron Horse Trail over to Bart
or to all the uses that would be
in that north downtown specific plan area.
Does the staff have any announcements?
We have none.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Is it okay if like, I had a update
not regarding transportation,
what about like seat at the table?
Is that related?
Oh, okay.
I attended the May 7th meeting,
May 7th city council meeting
and the city like kind of reevaluated
like the seat at the table program
and they decided to make it permanent.
So yeah, and they were kind of like talking about
how long the term lengths should be.
And I kind of spoke,
I try to convince them into the two year
because a lot of people were leaning into the two year term
with an option to reapply for another two-year term.
And so I kind of advocated for that
because I would really like to have,
to continue being a part of this.
However, they did decide, again say they decided
to only have one two-year term with no option to reapply,
but in order to encourage more people to be involved.
So I think, is this the last meeting
before the summer break for the school year?
Yeah, it is.
So I think this might be my last meeting.
Yeah.
So hopefully you guys can look forward
to another youth commissioner.
Wow, well, thank you.
I'm sorry you're leaving.
You've been excellent and really appreciate all of your insight.
I wish they had done the option for you.
But thank you for everything that you've done.
you've done an excellent job.
And are you going to intern with the city?
Yeah, I asked about internship
for the transportation commission.
And I think they got back to me
and said that they're like figuring it out
because they've never had like a high school intern.
So I'll continue to be involved in the city,
but thank you so much for giving me this opportunity
and really welcoming me.
And it was a great experience.
So thank you.
Sure, thank you.
And I'll put a positive point for having a high school intern.
Our firm had a high school intern from YVR,
from Ignacio Valley, and incredible.
So we got a lot of positive work
and it was a great experience for everybody.
So I would encourage the city to,
if it can happen, I would encourage the city
to take advantage of these kinds of situations.
Hey, Rob, can we recommend for outgoing commissioners?
The city has a ceremony and gives a little gift.
I don't know if they've done that
for outgoing youth commissioners.
Can we recommend to the city council,
maybe just even at a city council meeting
to recognize their service to the city?
I think that's a great idea.
And should we vote on that?
No, we don't have to vote on it.
You're not allowed to vote on it.
Well, we aren't.
That's new business.
That's new business.
Yeah.
Okay, so that's a great suggestion.
Hopefully somebody heard it.
Can I ask is our, have you been on two years?
Yeah.
Well, thank you for your service.
Thank you.
Okay, is there anything else?
Okay, so I hereby adjourn the May 16th, 2024
regular meeting of the Transportation Commission.
Our next regular meeting is July 18th, 2024,
and I'll do this quietly this time.
How's that?