I want to welcome everyone to the January 15th, 2026 regular meeting of the Transportation
Commission.
Would the secretary please call roll?
Commissioner Ash?
Here.
Commissioner Patch?
Here.
Student Commissioner Kirsch?
Here.
Vice Chair Krelling?
Absent.
Chair Brightman?
Present.
And I want to thank everyone for your patience, we were just having a quick tech glitch as
we got ready here, but happy to get the meeting started.
Let's move on to item number two, on the agenda, that's public communications.
This portion of the meeting is reserved for comment on items not on the agenda.
Under the Brown Act, the commission cannot act on items raised during public communications
but may respond briefly to statements made or questions posed request clarification
or refer the item to staff.
At this time, I'll open it up for public comment.
Do we have any members of the public wishing to comment
on items not on the agenda?
It looks like there's one.
Yes, thank you.
Go ahead.
Jan Warren from the Woodlands.
I wanna thank whoever was responsible
for the nice pictures and on the e-bikes
and all the writer and all the information.
What I would like to suggest,
and I don't know who would be in charge of this,
but it would be helpful
if we actually had someone ride some of these
down our streets, being videotaped,
because we have kids come out of our neighborhood,
wide streets, so they can ride anywhere on the street,
because there's no markings.
They get up to the intersection,
there's a marking to cross.
Technically, I guess they shouldn't be on the sidewalk,
but that's the safest thing.
Otherwise, they'd have to be in the left turn lane
to turn left.
There's basically you've got you go from streets that have nothing you can ride to the right or in the middle
if you have a lane you're supposed to ride in the bike lane and
You know it just you just go from one thing to another and so the easiest thing to do is just stay in the street
because you're changing too many times and as I'm driving down here, I don't know who goes from
20 miles an hour to 28 or 15 miles an hour on Ignacio
with the cars going 40, 45,
how you would safely do a U-turn on Ignacio,
I just think visually it would be really helpful
because it's hard enough to distinguish
and I don't understand why the e-scooters need a permit.
They're all wearing helmets.
It's under 18.
Most of them are under 18 for everything.
Why are they the ones that need a permit?
Because most of them are driving
and don't have old enough to have a license.
So anyway, I'd just like you all to continue
to work on this and improve it,
because maybe tweak a little bit.
Thank you for being here.
Are there any other members of the public
who have comments on items not on the agenda?
doesn't look like it.
We have no others.
All right, great.
Let's move on to item number three.
This is the consent calendar.
Under that first approval of the minutes,
let's adopt the 2025,
November 20, 2025 meeting minutes.
Is there a motion for approval of these minutes?
So moved.
Seconded.
Lovely.
Would the secretary please call roll?
Do you Commissioner Kirsch?
Aye.
Commissioner Ash?
Aye.
Commissioner Patch?
Aye.
Vice Chair Krelling, absent.
Chair Brightman?
Aye.
OK, that's done.
We will move on to number four.
That's items for consideration.
And we have a couple items tonight.
The first is the Application for Transportation Development Act
Article III funds for Newell Avenue improvements.
At this time I invite staff to make their presentation.
Commissioners, hello.
My name is Rashad Culver.
I am an associate engineer with the CIP department.
And today I'm here to speak about the Newell Avenue
improvements, a project we are considering
to submit for the Transportation Development Act Grant.
Just a little background information,
the Transportation Development Act Grant or TDA grant is distributed by the Metropolitan
Transportation Commission also known as MTC. These are funds for pedestrian and bicycle projects
allocated annually on a per capita basis to the nine counties and incorporated cities
under MTC's region. Each jurisdiction may submit one project per cycle and typically
in Warner Creek we applied when this is offered to us
and historically we received between 60,000 and 120,000 of grant funding.
Project considerations. How do we pick a project?
City staff explore locations with the potential for
vehicle and pedestrian or cycle, cyclist conflicts.
Based on our previous experience we determined that a competitive project
we need community support through project outreach, significant progress and design,
and needs to be fully funded. With that being said, we landed on bicycle improvements on Newell
Avenue. A little project background, the plan improvements are from city limit to Broadway.
Newell is a regionally significant corridor on MTC's active transportation network.
Newell is included in multiple adopted plans including the Warner Creek bike master plan,
Olympic Boulevard corridor trail connection study, as well as the iron horse corridor
transportation plan. Some of the destinations off of Newell Avenue include Kaiser Hospital,
Whole Foods is just a new office space, residential homes. Newell provides access,
provides connection to our regional trails, including the Iron Horse Trail and Lafayette
Moraga Trail. And just on the right we have a screenshot from Google showing local bicycle
networks and it's mostly in the north-south direction with gaps in the east-west direction
and we have Newell Avenue circled in red and this project will help close that gap.
So what's our vision for Newell Avenue? We would like dedicated bike lanes, both at street level
with a raised buffer, as well as raised bike lanes which put the cyclists at sidewalk elevation,
intersection treatments at South Broadway in Newell, including a scramble phase which will allow
pedestrians and cyclists to cross diagonally safely.
We like to reduce traveling width and efforts to reduce vehicular speeds
and we would like all this and we would like we also like to
maintain all on-street parking where currently
where it's currently at existing. And here we have an image
of the Broadway and Newell intersection, um we have Broadway Plaza parking garage,
just to the left there we have the Whole Foods parking lot and the Iron Horse Trail. In here
we have our design for the Newell and Broadway intersection. This project is currently funded
and in design, and it's funded by the OBAC-3 grant.
And you can see the scramble phase I mentioned before,
allowing pedestrians and cyclists to cross diagonally.
We're removing the right-turn slip lane
and installing go-bouts, narrowing vehicular travel
lanes, and you can see the raised bike lanes
in front of the Whole Foods parking lot.
So the OBAC 3 grant is for intersection improvements only, which is why we would
like to submit this project for the TDA grant so that we can have grant funding for the full
corridor. And for our project for the TDA grant submission, it includes buffer bike lanes from
city limit to California Boulevard, street level bicycle lanes with raised buffers,
as well as high visibility pavement markings.
And here we have a cross section of said proposed improvements.
This is on Newell Avenue facing west between Maria Lane and South Main Street,
just adjacent to the Chase Bank parking lot.
And as you can see, we are converting one eastbound travel lane to a buffer bike lane.
So the estimated cost. We anticipate this project costing around $180,000,
with $145,000 being towards construction cost and $35,000 for design, admin, and contingency.
soft pause. We are seeking $100,000 through the grant. And as I stated before, this project
is fully funded through traffic impact fees. However, if we are awarded the grant, this
will free up funds for future bicycle and pedestrian projects. So why am I here? We
request that the commission recommend to the city council that staff submit the Newell Avenue
improvements project for the TDA3 grant call for projects and with that I'll
open to questions. Thank you. Thank you for your presentation. Do any of the
commissioners have questions? Student Commissioner Kirsch. What's your
timeline for completing this project? Well the timeline depends on the if we
are awarded grant funding or not. However we are currently designing and we would
like to see these improvements at least started
within the next year or so.
That's it.
Thank you.
I just, I think you said this.
I just wanted to make sure I heard it right.
There's no impact to on-street parking in that area
and to the flow.
There's just enough room there to add all these bike lanes,
sort of by narrowing the lanes
and redesign everything, right?
Correct.
We plan to keep on-street parking
We will be reducing the travel lanes eastbound
down from two lanes to one.
However, we're right sizing the corridor.
Historically, this provided access to 680.
There was an on off ramp off of Newell.
However, that's not the case anymore.
And based on our studies,
we believe that converting one through travel lanes
to a bike lane wouldn't affect operation negatively.
And yes, we are keeping parking
where on-street parking is present, yes.
Do you have any questions?
I was looking at the diagram.
Okay, so you did answer one of my questions,
which was why only the eastbound
was getting rid of a lane.
My other question is why are you considering multiple types of bike lane and not just making
it consistent for the whole length?
Our design was based on existing conditions, geometric constraints, and funding that's
currently available now.
So based on those factors, we believe this is the best approach for the corridor.
Okay and then if the project is going to cost 180 why are you only asking for 100?
So the TDA funds are for construction only and previously per our commission's recommendation
we upped our request amount and we actually received the requested amount which was about
66% of the construction cost.
And we believe that this 100,000 is an appropriate amount
to request for us to be competitive.
And it's in line with that 66% from last year.
Great, thank you.
And my fellow commissioners covered my questions.
I don't think I have anything else.
So at this time, we'll open up this item
for public comment.
Do we have any members of the public wishing
to comment on this item?
It looks like there's one.
Please feel free to come forward.
Have you filled out a card yet to comment?
Excellent.
And you'll have two minutes, please.
I'll try and squeeze it in.
My name is Tony Almeida.
I live on Newell Avenue on the other side of the freeway
by Park Mead Elementary and the other elementary school
on Tice Creek.
And I've traveled down, I've commuted down Newell
on my bicycle for over 10 years.
continue to commute on Newell Avenue and it's pretty good in the east bound
direction. The west bound direction especially from South Maine to
California is pretty hairy and there's a lot of traffic they're going fast most
of the people are in the right lane going to turn right so riding my bicycle
in the right lane is not really a good consideration. If you go into the next
lane the middle lane it's fine because that's why I want to go I want to go
keep going past California into Saranac but if I go into that lane too early
the cars coming behind are going very fast so I hope you take those comments
into consideration I think the city has done some previous improvements over by
CVS on the going south on California other things like that that I appreciate
And if there is any chance for me or any members of the community could to contribute to this rather than just looking at it at an engineering or a city management perspective, I'd be happy to join those discussions.
All right. Thank you. Thank you for being here. Are there any other comments? I don't think so.
okay did you want to add something before we go to Commissioner comments
thank you for your time any comments from the commissioners I guess just the
only comment I have is just to make sure that the stakeholders are involved like
law school miss high school Kaiser and then also just a general public as a
project just forward thank you great I think this is exactly what we
talked about and been working on and yeah I just appreciate this because it
fits into an improved downtown making it easier multimodal making it safer to
encourage multimodal slowing traffic but not not altering that traffic pattern
right and so I think it's just a win-win and on the grant I've represented us on
the CCTA Citizen Advisory Committee and every time somebody talks about a grant
for something, I think Walnut Creek does a lot better than a lot of other cities
that are smaller or less sophisticated and you guys as staff do a great job on
getting that compared to what I understand those other cities around
this so I really just want to give you guys a shout out on that. Thank you for
your presentation. Very good and to the point. I love this project. Glad that we
are looking for a different source of funding so that we can open up the other
funds for other projects, because I know we all have a lot that we want to
accomplish. And yeah, I think the amount that you're seeking is a good amount,
especially given that we were awarded the amount that we were asked last time.
So thank you for remembering that.
And yeah, good to go.
All right, I second pretty much all of what they said.
Thank you for your work on this.
It's been really fun to see over the course of the years
us connect all the different pieces to help out our,
folks who are traveling on wheels or pedestrians.
And so I think this is a really great project
that will help close a gap there in an important area,
and I look forward to seeing what else is going to come.
And thank you, yes, for asking for as much as we can.
I think that's important to just shoot for the moon.
Thank you for doing that for us.
And with that, is there a motion
to recommend to the city council
that staff submit the Newell Avenue improvements projects
for consideration by the county's TDA subcommittee
for 2627 TDA Article III funds.
So moved.
Second.
Secretary, please call roll.
Student Commissioner Kirsch.
Aye.
Commissioner Ash.
Aye.
Commissioner Patch.
Aye.
Vice Chair Carlinx-Apson, and Chair Brightman.
Aye.
All right, thank you very much.
Thank you, commissioners.
Uh-huh.
All right, our next item for consideration
is CCTA's Walk and Roll Program update.
At this time, I invite staff to make their presentation.
Good evening, my name is Cara DeYoung
and I am thrilled to be here.
I have my notes right here.
Sharing about the Walk and Roll Program
that's kind of gaining speed in the trans-pac area.
Just as an overview, this is the second year
that this program, noted by school years,
has been running.
We piloted it in 24-25 school year,
so with seven initial schools that joined.
And this is the second year of the program,
and we currently have 11 schools rolling as of today,
with five more coming on in the next couple of weeks,
including two in Walnut Creek.
So let's take just a quick step back.
Here we go.
I am relatively new to the 501 Contra Costa team,
but I've been working in school programming for a long time.
First as a parent, volunteer and community bicycle advocate,
and then now hired by Advanced Mobility Group
to work on the 501 Contra Costa team in street smarts
and to expand the weekly walk and roll program
that I created into a more regional program.
So, our team, we manage all the vehicle trip reduction programs
that the CCTA offers in the trans-pac and transplant
regions, as well as a few programs
throughout the entire Contra Costa County,
including street smarts, which is our elementary school traffic
safety assemblies, and walk and roll,
which we're going to be talking about today,
and then 511 Contra Costa, which offers a load of programs
to encourage commuters alternatives
to driving in single occupancy vehicles.
All right, with that, let's talk about Walk and Roll.
All right, so what is Walk and Roll?
Walk and Roll is a customized encouragement program
that motivates the entire niche community
to use active transportation or carpool.
And we use community development and behavior change
strategies, including investing in local leaders
at the elementary school level,
and customizing the look of the program
through an individualized walk and roll logo
that matches their school mascot.
These strategies encourage not only students,
but also their parents to use active transportation.
And it's had some great effects,
which I am excited to share with you tonight.
So the way that it works is that every student
is given a barcode scanning tag,
as you can see on the screen, and I have some examples.
And once a week, with the help of school volunteers,
a school hosts Walk and Roll Day.
So let's say it's Wednesday, Walk and Roll Wednesday.
And volunteers check in students,
as you can see in the picture, using an app called
Active for Me, which tracks trips CO2 saved and miles
traveled.
The motivation for students comes from the fact
that every fourth trip a student completes,
they're given a charm.
So you can see the trip charms there on the right,
the smiley faces.
And additionally, weather terms are given on rainy days.
And there are five special days to celebrate school holidays
and encourage those who can't participate on a regular basis
to be able to participate a few times a year.
And those are on the left side of the picture.
We like to say that this is an all-inclusive program
because carpooling and busing are also included.
So parents can register their child's tag.
They don't have to in order for a child to participate.
But if they choose to, they can receive students' stats
by text and email, like you see here on the picture.
And it also serves as an alert that students made it
to school, especially for those older kids who
start coming by themselves sometimes after the program
begins to be rolled out.
We asked the school to do three things.
The first is to find volunteers.
And this, as you can imagine, is the most difficult part
of starting a program.
But through successful publications and many talks
like this one to various stakeholders,
schools are now coming to us to start programs.
We ask the volunteer team to count bikes every day,
bikes and scooters.
And this helps us to know the hard data
and see the change that is happening at a school.
For instance, this is at Pleasant Hill Elementary School,
the school that I created and started the program at in 2022.
And at that time, the average count of bikes and scooters
was around 10.
But we'll pretend it was 20 to give a huge margin of error.
Three years later, this is the data.
So Walk and Roll Wednesday, you can see average
is 90 bikes and scooters.
but the effect is throughout the entire week
with the rest of the week averaging
around 70 bikes and scooters.
So we know the program's having an effect
over the whole week,
even though it's only run once per week.
And we also know that with this bike count data
that it's assuring us that even though people
might be cheating and not accurately reporting
what their transportation mode is,
we're still seeing a significant change.
Okay, the last thing that we ask schools to do
is to advertise the program and get the word out.
And we help them do that by providing
easy to use templates and graphics,
and we also run an Instagram account for walk and roll
so schools don't have to create their own content,
but they can just use ours.
In return for all these things that the school does,
we provide the funding for everything that you can see here,
including like a little storage bin,
so it's a turnkey situation for the school.
And as well, we provide training from our team
so that their team can feel confident
that running a weekly program
with hundreds of people every single week
won't be intimidating,
but in fact, feels super fun and important.
Here's a more in-depth list of the items that we provide,
including the one-year subscription to the app,
scan tags, graphics for their particular school,
the charms, all the marketing material.
We provide a promotional video that we make for them
so that they can show that in the school
in order for everyone to know what's going on
and get behind the program.
So, that's the program.
That's how it works.
And in response, what are we seeing?
We're solving a lot of problems.
One of the reasons why the program is becoming so popular
is because it does have a huge effect on attendance
and this is why the schools are buying in.
Well, in part, oftentimes, schools
report up to 2% increase in attendance
and up to 50% decrease in tardies on walk-and-roll day.
So this is huge for principals and their schools.
Additionally, decreased school traffic.
This picture shows 50 cars and 50 drivers and 50 bicycles.
So on walk-and-roll day, you have a far less long car line.
And that's one of the reasons why we like to say
this program is for everyone.
So even if people are driving, they're benefiting as well.
So we're all on the same team, look out for each other,
and let's all work together.
Another great side effect of this program
has been community building.
So participation improves my child's health.
90% of people say yes.
Below that, the program improves my community.
90% of people agree and strongly agree to that.
And in the top right, I'm meeting more families
by participating.
More than 50% of people say, yes, yes, I am.
And then, of course, we also have children's well-being
as improved through this program.
As noted in research that after 20 minutes of walking,
students can complete learning tasks more quickly
and accurately.
And I think we just know it's common sense.
Good job exercising, getting to school,
getting your wiggles out, et cetera.
And then another thing that we're seeing with this program
is that with more walkers and bikers,
we're normalizing active transportation
and making it safer for those who must use this mode
by heightening awareness and creating
more empathetic drivers.
And in surveys that we've done, a lot of parents
have reported becoming more empathetic drivers
because their kids are now walking and biking to school.
OK, let's look at some more data charts before I finish.
This is the first year, 24-25.
We had seven schools in rural.
And so you can see by week 22, so the weeks of school
on the bottom, the number of participants up the top,
and then the colors are each school.
So by week 22, we were hitting over 1,000 students
walking and biking and carpooling school every week,
and then getting to its highest over 1,200 students.
With this result, we were able to, sorry,
there were over 2,800 people participating in the program
with almost 1,500 gallons of gas saved,
over 30,000 total trips from walk and roll days.
So the numbers were huge.
But additionally, we were able to show
that 417 tons of CO2 emissions were reduced
throughout the entire school year on all the days.
and 1.2 million total school year vehicle miles reduced.
So it's a very practical result to this little simple program.
And this is exciting because this is this school year.
This school year, we have 11 schools, like I said,
and over 2,000 children walking, biking,
and carpooling to school, with five more coming on
in the next couple of weeks.
So I'm hoping my personal goal is
to see those numbers at 3,000 by the end of this school year.
which is then exciting when you think
about what that's going to translate to in terms of CO2
emissions and vehicle miles reduced.
Another fun statistic to look at is the average bike count.
So if we look at all the schools and what their average bike
count was, they start counting the bicycles like one or two
months before walk and roll starts.
So together, it's about 121 bikes parked at school.
But after walk and roll starts, it doubles that number.
Another knock-on effect that we've seen in Pleasant Hill,
because that's the city that's had this going the longest,
as of this year, all three feeder schools
that go into Pleasant Hill Middle
have walk-and-roll programs from one to three years.
And so this year, their bike racks just busted open.
And so 501 Contra Costa was able to purchase them
seven new ones, which they have filled.
And parents were installing it.
That's what you see there.
So if one side note is we can purchase bike racks
for schools, which is great, and we love seeing this.
And we're interested to see what happens in the next three
years when the same cohort gets into College Park.
So who's enrolled?
Your favorites, Murwood Mustangs and Park Mead Panthers.
They're starting up.
Murwood is going to be having a walk and roll Friday program
starting on January 23.
And Park Mead starts Wednesday, February 4th.
You're invited to come on down any Friday or Wednesday,
Fridays at 7.30 AM and Wednesdays at Park Mead at 8.30 AM.
We'd love to see you at the launches.
You can see this program up close and personal.
And here's just a list of all of the programs
that are running throughout the trans pack area.
And we hope to, we have more coming, actually,
But we're so busy that we're just kind of pushing them off
till after February.
All right, and I think that brings me
to the end of my presentation.
And I would love to answer any questions if you have some.
OK, do commissioners have questions?
Yeah, I just have a few questions.
First, is active transportation just like walking and biking?
Yeah, well, and scooting, skateboarding, skating.
And we do talk about that in our promotional materials.
But yeah, anything that's human powered,
when it comes to electric bikes and scooters,
it's nice that we're the same program with street smarts.
And we do a lot of education around that at the schools.
So that comes hand in hand.
And that isn't typically what we run.
We don't typically run into problems
with that at elementary school level.
It's more middle school and high school
that are dipping into the electric vehicles.
Okay, and is this program geared more
for elementary school students,
or are you also looking to include
high schoolers and older kids?
So at the minute, this program,
Walk and Roll, is an elementary school program,
and paid for by TFCA.
And we are hoping that in time,
we can create something off of this for middle school
and high school, because it would be silly not to.
And then my last question is, going back to the graphs,
maybe we can go back to the slide.
Tell me which one.
The one with the box diagrams.
And it had the days of the week.
Yeah.
Do you know why there's a significant increase
on Wednesday?
Or is that just a coincidence?
That's walk and roll day.
So this whole program is once a week,
walk and roll Wednesday.
So at this, well, walk and roll day.
At this school, it's walk and roll Wednesday.
So you would expect on the day where the program is running,
like you're getting charmed, you're getting excited.
We have a much bigger intake of bikes and scooters.
But my point with this was that the rest of the week
is also affected, even though you're only checking
children in and giving reward on one day a week,
the rest of the week, because habits are building.
And parents are now comfortable with the idea
of going with their children or maybe letting
their children go on their own.
No, not everybody.
That's why we have carpooling and busing involved as well,
because maybe you can't.
But if you can, even if I always say in Holland,
it's like 30% of transportation is bikes.
So if the school can hit 30% of their enrollment,
which this school has, that's an incredible number.
That's success, and that's gonna have a knock on effect
for the rest of your community,
because then they're gonna see what's happening
and then more people do it,
and that's also what we've seen at this school.
Thank you.
Sorry, so much more than you wanted to hear.
Can I, I'll build on, I think, this slide,
trying to figure out how to ask what I'm trying to get to.
So is the bottom, like the bottom single line,
is that what you're saying it was before the program?
Sorry, no, that's the range.
So this chart is showing you from the 24, 25 school year
what the range was.
So like on the lowest day of that year, on the Wednesday,
let's say, they had like 42 bikes and scooters.
Probably it was freezing, or raining,
or something was happening.
The fifth graders were at outdoor education camp.
And then at the top, the highest number
is the top bit of the thing.
So they had almost 120 bikes and scooters parked one day.
So help me understand,
and I think you were talking to it,
it might be on a different spot.
What's like the base, right?
Like, so we know, hey, at Pleasant Hill Elementary,
it was 30 bikes on an average day last year,
And now our average is the 75, right?
I'm just, I think, I don't understand what the basis
to see the overall increase.
Okay, I have a beautiful slide
and I did not put it in this one
because I was feeling like I always say it.
Matt's seen it like four times.
So I'm really sorry.
But yes, we can look at the increase year on year on year.
So if we, you're just gonna have to believe me,
I can send this to you later.
But let's say Pleasant Hill Elementary,
Their average in the first year, 22-23, I think,
was 120 participants.
And then in the second year, it was 150.
And then in the third year, 160.
And this year, they're in their fourth year.
And it's close to 200 participants.
So we can also do the same with the bike count
and look at the average bike count.
The problem with the bike count, I will tell you,
is that it relies on the volunteer team to input it.
And so some of the volunteers don't,
which is totally normal and fine.
But this particular school, because it's
been going for so long, they do have a very good system in order
for us to be able to look back at all of the counts.
So we do have a good average where
we know that at the beginning before the program started,
it was like 10.
And then it was 35, 55, and now 70.
But you'll have to believe me, I can follow up
with some charts.
Yeah, if you can, that's great.
Because I just was curious, like how,
I mean, I know in my neighborhood, which isn't on this,
there's a ton of kids riding already.
So I'm just trying to understand what's that base,
and how does this build upon the base?
But yes.
Okay.
Is one of your schools on, no.
Is it Indian Valley?
Mm-hmm.
It was 10 bikers pre-programmed, before the program.
Because I was just a mom who was like,
I want to make some change here.
So we were counting bikes in 2019.
And there was 10 people.
Five were me and my kids and friends, and then five more.
And then now this is four years later.
You can see that it's much more than that.
OK, thank you.
I think you're getting to where I was.
The point?
Thank you for helping.
Those are just my questions and my comments are for later, okay, but this was helpful at understanding what I was trying to understand, okay?
Okay, so you mentioned a bunch of the things that they get and
The first line was the one-year subscription to the app. What happens afterwards?
We keep we keep well as long as the program's funded then we keep renewing the the app for
Okay, so the school doesn't have to know for it
This is like so those that are in the second year of the program
They're provided with the app and the charms and extra tags and stuff to keep the program rolling year-on-year
As long as there's the programs funded then they get to stay in and keep going
Brings me to my next question. Where are you getting your funding from? Is it just from five one one?
or so our this program is funded by
the TFCA grant, so through Bay Area Air District.
And that's part of the reason why,
well, I'll just leave it at that.
It's a TFCA grant, yeah.
And then you had one slide that,
I believe it was for this year with the weeks.
What happened week 10?
Oh, Martinez was in school,
but Mount Diablo Unified wasn't.
And so that was two Martinez schools alone.
Still hitting like 400 students, though.
I was just curious what happened there.
I really need to just put that on the slide.
Has there been any problem with thefts,
like helmets getting stolen, or tires,
or anything of that nature being reported?
No.
I mean, so our street smarts program
has funding to provide helmets and locks,
so we provide those to the schools if needed.
There's never been a report of vandalism.
There has been a couple, I would say,
less than five, maybe even less than three,
reports of bikes being stolen.
But that's why we then added the locks,
because that shouldn't be a reason why people
aren't biking to school.
I think one of them was a mistake,
like a kid grabbed a similar-looking bike,
but two of them, they weren't found.
I had another question now.
I forget what it is, so I will pass it over to our chair.
All right.
We'll come back to you if you remember.
So e-bikes can or cannot participate?
They can.
It's not illegal for class 1 e-bikes, right?
So they can.
It's just that it's typically not an issue at elementary school.
So it hasn't really been something
that we've had to deal with much.
OK.
So has there been much of a need for education around safety
on e-bikes then?
A little bit.
And to be honest, mostly to parents.
And so we've been able to send information to principals
and to the walk and roll coordinator
to distribute to parents about what the law is
and how wearing a helmet, even though you're over 18,
could help and things like that.
Yeah.
Cool.
You mentioned that you're funded by a grant with an acronym
that I can't remember to repeat.
Is that grant time limited?
Yeah, it's a one-year grant.
We reapply for it repeatedly.
OK.
The TFCA is Transportation Fund for Clean Air.
OK.
Thank you.
Yeah.
And do all schools do just one day a week?
Mm-hmm.
Okay, because of the time intensity of the,
I mean, like we said at the beginning,
and if you're a parent, you know,
like bandwidth is low.
And at schools, it's already difficult to get volunteers.
So typically, in the first year,
the reason why we only had seven is in part because
when you approach a school and say,
hey, start a new program, you need volunteers.
Everyone's like, I don't have volunteers.
I don't even have volunteers for like lunch duty.
But what happens is typically this program
recruits different volunteers than the average volunteer
who's been involved previously.
And so that's part of the reason why it's, I think,
been successful, because it's dipping
into a different parent group who then gets onboarded
with helping at the school.
So it's a win-win for everyone.
And all of that said, to answer your question,
it's kind of a lot to ask to do it more than once.
And once we saw the data that it's affecting the whole week,
then it was like, well, we don't need
to do it more than once.
Yeah.
Do you coordinate with Bike to Work and School Day
to help promote the program?
Yeah.
So like I said, we're the same group,
but we do all these different things.
511 Contra Costa, still me, still our group.
We are the ones who coordinate for part of Contra Costa's
Bike to Work Day.
And we do all of the Bike to School Day stuff.
So we bring like incentives to schools for that.
So yeah, it's all overlapping all together.
Did you remember your question?
I did.
Do the students get to choose their own charms?
Or is it like, hey, this is the charm you get
for your first one, this is the second one,
this is the...
No, we're dealing with thousands of people every week.
So it's pretty standardized at this point.
Let's be honest, when I was doing it as a mom,
I'm like, yeah, jeez.
But now we have trip charms, which are the little circles,
the little smiley faces.
And then also the special charms are
given on a particular day.
So it's like Valentine's Day charms
will be given out on the week before Valentine's Day, which
is a Saturday.
And so part of the training that we do
is to talk about these sorts of things,
like how to handle hundreds of children.
So for instance, not giving choice, but just,
good job, you got one, and being excited no matter what.
Okay, any further questions before I go to public comment?
Okay, at this time, I'll open it up for public comment.
Do any members of the public have any comments on this item?
Okay, our one member of the public does not have a comment.
Thank you for being here still, though.
Okay, at this time, are there any commissioner comments?
I mean, I think it's a great program and there's currently like benefits like better attendance and performance and just overall well-being. So yeah, that's it
I've heard from parents and kids who go to the schools that have had this and they love it
their response is how excited it is and I do hear that the tangential now they're like, oh, let's just write every day dad and
and it's having that my my big piece of feedback is
is regardless of like how the money is coming,
the 511 program is through CCTA,
and there's no, this is a program
that is literally touching people.
I mean, I know it's only in a couple of cities now,
but as it continues to expand,
this is a good way to promote
where our tax dollars for transportation
and Contra Costa are going to.
And I would encourage you guys to have a conversation
that somehow, can we brand none of these tags
and charms or branded?
No, they are, these are just old pictures.
Okay, so just, yeah, I would encourage this as a great way
to show where does all that, where does it come from?
How does it go?
You know, it's why cities put up signs that says
this program is funded, this construction program
is funded by X, right?
And so, I would just encourage you to use this
to promote the great work that CCTA and you guys are doing.
Do I get to comment back or no, I have to be quiet?
Okay.
Yeah.
You can do whatever, yeah.
Oops, sorry.
Yeah, here it's on, so I saw that, but yeah.
Okay, I wanna comment back.
Yes, you're absolutely right,
and we do have opportunities to do that.
We do have branding on everything that we have,
the banners, the stickers, the tags actually,
if you look at the bag of these tags.
And the great thing is, exactly as you say,
because I go into every school and give a presentation,
I get to talk about what the CCTA is
to most people who don't even know.
So it is, we're trying to do exactly what you said,
but I take your comment very intensely.
Thanks.
Great work.
Thanks.
Yeah, I love this program.
I wish it existed when I was still in school.
I did not like taking the bus all the time.
I would be really excited to see how we can transition it
into middle school and high school,
but particularly middle school
because those students still can't drive.
And so I'm hopeful that these cohorts
that you're training now will take the lesson
to middle school and then maybe demand it there, hopefully.
I'm very excited that it's expanding in Walnut Creek.
That's great.
I do kind of echo the branding.
Yes, I see it here, but I have friends
that every time they take their kids to the library,
they're like, this is what your tax dollars are paying for.
And so if you just kind of make sure
that that's in the education portion for the kids themselves
so that they learn, too, that this
is why you engage in government at a young age, that
would be really cool.
I spent my first two years of college at Santa Barbara,
which is a bike campus,
and that's kind of why I asked about the bike theft
and whatnot, because that was a problem.
We had to register our bikes
so that if something got stolen,
the police actually had a little registration number
with your bicycle.
So even if you aren't having problems,
I'd hope that some of the education stuff is like,
what do you do with your bike when you're in public
and not just in your safe middles portion
of your hometown, right?
That's so great that you're providing locks and everything
and just like, do they carry their helmets
into the school with them?
And if they leave it on the bike,
are they being taught that you can't do that
if it's not at school?
That kind of education will be really good for them as well
as they grow, because I had a lot of friends
who lost their bikes when we were in college.
Yeah, seats, the one wheel that's like,
if you don't wrap it to the bike frame,
it's really easy to steal that kind of stuff.
We ended up having two locks most of the time for our bikes.
But great job.
Love this.
Very excited to see it come to Walnut Creek.
Great job growing this program.
I think getting on a bike or trying
to pick some form of active transportation that's
not easy, like getting into a car and going to school,
is something that takes a little bit of a nudge.
and I think that making it fun gives folks a nudge.
So thank you for doing that.
It looks like it's effective
and getting folks to be more active.
So yeah, thank you for all of your work
and thank you for being here tonight
to do this presentation to us.
It was nice to learn about the program.
With that, if there are no other comments,
then this was just an item to receive the presentation
and provide comments to you.
So thank you again for being here.
There's no action that we needed to take necessarily.
So with that, we'll move on to our next item
and we do have some stuff to give back to you.
Thanks for bringing these for us to take a look at.
Thank you for having me.
Very cool, very fun.
Noted all of these back, appreciate it.
Okay, so we will move on to item number five.
And this is, I'd like to invite our commissioners
on staff to provide their reports on activities
and or any announcements that you have.
Any announcements or reports?
No.
No?
Commissioner Ash?
I guess this may, may not to be determined last day.
So I just want to,
I don't know if I'm supposed to then see something or not
or what, give me some guidance.
But I just want to shout out to the city staff,
like over the, either way, like the six years
that I've been here, we've had three secretaries,
but a whole lot of people throughout the streets
and public works team, and they do a great job.
I know that I work with a lot of cities in the day to day,
and I think Walnut Creek is just really well run,
and it is a special place.
And a shout out to all my commissioners,
because I have learned from your perspectives,
and appreciate them along the way.
Yeah, so just thank you everybody.
Thank you for all of your expertise
and hopefully maybe you can get an extension.
Do I want one?
If you want one, hopefully you can get one.
I don't really have anything to report on.
Okay, great.
And I'll just say yes, thank you.
the last six years have been really fun,
and I've really appreciated staff's patience
and your willingness to educate us along the way
as we take up various issues,
and just general education around,
you know, how our street systems work,
and so I'm grateful that you all are here
to make our community better.
Thank you for all of the work you do.
Do you have any reports for us?
Yeah, first the curb plan,
which you saw many times this past in 2025,
that did pass through Council.
So thank you for many of your comments and input on that.
We had a study session with Council
and then we were able to pass it on consent
with some minor comments, so thank you.
And then yeah, I'll say for Jared, Commissioner Ash,
thank you for all your input.
Many of it very direct and very helpful.
So thank you for your participation on the council
for the last six years.
And I hope you consider an extension,
if that allows for your schedule.
Commissioner Brightman, thank you.
If you served for a chair for three different times.
I remember presenting, and you've always
been very supportive when I was a wee lad presenting,
and I appreciate all your positive comments.
So thank you both.
Thank you.
I even remember when our chair had a different name.
Right.
OK.
So I think that's all our report outs for the evening.
So with that, we'll go on to item number six.
I hereby adjourn the January 15, 2026 regular meeting
of the Transportation Commission.
The next regular meeting is scheduled for March 19, 2026.