Senate Transportation LOSSAN Rail Corridor Resiliency

Now. Good morning, everybody. This is the Subcommittee on LOSSAN Rail Corridor Resiliency. The Senate continues to welcome the public and has provided access to both in person and teleconference participation for public comment. For individuals wishing to provide public comment via the teleconference service, the participant toll free number is 877-226-8163 and the access code is 161-8051. And we will be taking public comment at the end of today's Subcommittee hearing.

So there's quite a lot of time available to call in, and I'll repeat that information at the end as well. This information is also online at Senate CA gov. So we will be hearing all of the panels and presentations on the agenda first prior to taking the public comment. So I'm really excited to be here today. Thank you, everybody who came in person and who is watching online.

We have a lot to cover, and I want to just remind everybody about where we are in the process here. So we held our first hearing of this Subcommittee in May, and we discussed the high level goals, which included raising the profile of the coastal rail corridor and taking up policy discussions on how best to set the rail corridor up for success. So additionally, we heard about some of the most urgent long term climate related good morning.

Climate related needs in Santa Barbara County, San Diego County and Orange County. And we also importantly heard about how the rail corridor that isn't operating affects real people, affects the passengers. So today we're going to get an update on the work that was completed in San Clemente a month ago after being shut down for about eight months, and discuss the benefits that the coastal rail corridor offers.

And following a discussion of the benefits as a whole, we'll hear from academia and state experts on what is threatening the rail line. And we'll end our hearing with a discussion on what investments look like from the local, state, and federal sources. So before I jump into all of this important testimony, I want to just mention a few other things. So last month at the beginning of our summer recess, I took the first week of recess to fly to Washington, DC.

To make sure that our federal agencies and partners knew about the work of this Subcommittee and to continue advocating for our coastal rail corridor to be a priority at the federal level. We had meetings with the White House, nearly the entire congressional delegation for the State of California, U.S. Senator Alex Padilla and I actually met with him on a walking meeting. And we were walking and sitting in the train that travels from his office to the floor of the US.

Senate, which was very fun to be talking about trains in a train. We also met with Senator Feinstein staff, the Northeast Corridor Commission, the Department of Defense's, Transcom, and more. And Senator Padilla even brought up the Losan Rail Corridor in a budget hearing, a week later talking about the climate threats that are affecting our whole state. So overall, I'd say that in Washington, DC.

The people that we were speaking with were receptive and positive, and many of them know the value of this coastal rail corridor and how it serves as a vital regional, inter, regional, state, national, and international asset. They also know that this rail line cannot fulfill its purpose without attention and investment and its purpose. Just as a reminder, we know these, but I'll just remind everyone that it is a crucial transportation link for the military.

It's an economic artery for the Southern California mega region and a large scale mobility option for passengers that creates a very important alternative to driving. One of the biggest takeaways is that we have support from federal agencies, and our federal partners are standing by to help us take this corridor to the next level. One of the best meetings we had was with the Executive Director and the Deputy Director of the Northeast Corridor Commission.

This is the convening agency of all the stakeholders to the Northeast Corridor, which is the busiest and most successful rail line. So we learned about how they work together to get consensus among all rail owners and operators, how they prioritize needs, and seek federal and state investments. They've been extremely successful, and so for us, it's a model of what is possible.

Another update is that just last Wednesday, there was another smallish bluff failure in Del Mar that shut down the train service, and luckily, it was determined that the rail line was safe for train traffic shortly thereafter. But this type of instability reaffirms that. We must look toward our long term relocations of sections of the track if we want a rail line that exists for generations into the future. This rail corridor has the potential to transform into a high performing corridor.

We just have to work together and be unified in our desire for that to happen. So today's hearing is titled Tracks to Tomorrow maximizing the Potential and Safeguarding the Future of the Losan Corridor because it serves as an incredible asset, but needs our support to safeguard it for the future and to maximize its potential. We have 20 million people that live adjacent to this rail line and so much opportunity to make an obvious mode of transportation in Southern California.

At the next few hearings, we'll be talking about what we can do legislatively to make this corridor more successful, and we'll be asking if we're set up to succeed organizationally and if we have the appropriate authorities or streamlining in place that we need. We'll also be discussing electrification and whether or not the transit network in Southern California is working for riders, not just riders on the corridor, but riders who feed into the corridor from all of the other rail lines and other transit.

We have a short time to get this right, and I'm glad that we've got a coalition here to make it happen. Lastly, I'd like to thank my colleagues on this Subcommittee. So I want to say thank you to the senators who are here. So Senator Newman and Senator Allen as the ones who are still on their way. Senators Limon, Nguyen and, Umberg And I look forward to having their participation. I'd also like to thank the transportation officials and other experts who are testifying today.

And I'd like to thank my staff Member, Jack, sitting to my right for all his work putting this together. And I would invite any Subcommittee Committee Members to make any remarks at the beginning here, if you would like to go ahead.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to thank, first of all, thank the attendees, everybody making the time to testify and otherwise participate. And I want to thank the chair for her leadership on this issue, which is not only important, it's also very complex, especially as it relates to timelines, costs, and roles within a very important process of figuring out what to do, both short term and long term, to address this important rail quarter. So glad to be here. Looking forward to participating. Thank you. Thank you.

Senator Allen, do you want to say something?

I actually do not represent any of the territory on which this line runs, but I'm acutely aware of how important it is for our region. Big fan of trains and think that it's a really important part of our long term solution for our transportation and climate challenges and very concerned about ensuring that we make sure this really doesn't just retain its vibrancy and relevance, but really dramatically expands and enhances its relevancy. Because this is a corridor that is screaming out for much more rail transit.

I mean, if you think about all the challenges of high speed rail going up and down the state, here we have these two massive conurbations right next to each other with relatively flat land in between. And there's a real opportunity here to dramatically increase the amount of traffic between these two cities on rail and reduce congestion, reduce pollution, everything else, right? But there's a lot of challenges, as has been mentioned by both of you, to making this happen. And it needs investment, it needs attention. And I'm just glad that you've convened this committee to provide that type of attention.

Thank you. All right, we will now call up Supervisor Katrina Foley from OCTA, as well as Daryl Johnson, the CEO of OCTA, and Daryl Kettle, who's the CEO of Metrolink, and invite the three of you to speak. So Supervisor Foley represents Orange County. The section that has San Clemente in it. And so this is really a hot spot focus, and we're grateful that she traveled here from Orange County so that she, as a fellow elected official, could speak to us about things from her perspective. So we'll turn it over to you, Supervisor Foley.

Thank you Senator, and thank you for your leadership and the committee's leadership on this really important issue that impacts not just Orange County or San Diego, but really the whole state of California along the coast. My name is Katrina fully. I'm the county Supervisor, representing District Five. District Five has 20 I'm sorry, 32 miles of coastline from Costa Mesa to San Clemente, and it includes the entirety of the area of the county seeing the most significant impacts on the LOSSAN rail corridor.

I also serve as a Director for the Orange County Transportation Authority. Daryl Johnson, our CEO, will be speaking a little bit later, delving into some of the specific projects that we are working on at OCTA that is related to hillside and track stabilization efforts in San Clemente.

As soon as I learned about the fact that I was going to be representing this area, I started receiving phone calls from people wanting to share with me about the impacts of coastal erosion, the rail system, and what was happening. So I visited Capo Beach in Dana Point, and I was shocked by the erosion. It took out half a parking lot, volleyball courts, basketball courts, parking meters, and the beach was gone. I also noticed that homes were red tagged.

The county reacted by buffering with some sandbags that obviously the ocean was stronger than. I toured Cypress Shores, where homes were sliding off the hill, the land sliding 21 inches in a year towards the tracks and the once great sandy beach gone. And so we reacted again by replacing the area with rip wrap to protect the rail system. I met with residents, experts, and academics to find solutions and started using my influence as the soon-to-be County Supervisor to sound the alarm.

So what are we doing right now in Orange County at the OCTA and the county of Orange, all of us, Members of your committee, congressional representatives, local elected officials, organizations, academics, UCI, we're all working to try to identify long term plans to protect the rail. But while we immediately protect in place what is there now so that we don't continue to see the rail system stopped as you deliberate on a plan to protect our rail corridor and our coast, please consider three commitments I'm supposed to be doing this sorry. That are guiding our local decisions climate adaptations and resiliency, protecting our beaches, and then, of course, maintaining our critical transportation infrastructure.

The faster climate changes and the longer adaptation efforts are delayed, the more difficult and expensive responding to climate action and climate change becomes. So it's important that we proactively plan, which I know you care about, instead of this piecemeal, costly, reactive planning that we've been doing over the last decade. I hope that the work of this committee will really prioritize pulling everyone together in a coalition that is unified towards a long term planning process.

But I also want to reiterate the importance of the short term and how important it is that we have your help in reducing the bureaucracy, in streamlining, in making sure that additional costs are not incurred as we protect the rail corridor in place where it is now as we plan for the future. We've had the rail corridor since September of 2021 shut down three times, and this year it's been closed more than it's been open. And that is unsustainable. It's unsustainable for our local economy.

It's unsustainable for commuters who are using the rail corridor for transportation to work, to school, and for tourism. So as you are, Senator, I'm a woman who wants results. Yesterday. I find efficiencies wherever I can, but I am worried about the length of time that this project will take and how, if we don't have a parallel system where we are focusing on protecting the rail. Currently, as we study the long term impacts, we study the environmental analysis, the design, the planning.

We go through all the approval permits. I've been a planning commissioner, City Council Member, mayor, and county supervisor, and I know these things take more time than any of us want. And so we must have some kind of a short term adaptation process. So what I want to talk about is what are we doing now in Orange County to help with our adaptations?

The county of Orange has invested in taking our sand from the River Channel, the mouth of the riverbed in Newport Beach and replenishing Doheny Beach and Capo Beach in Dana Point so that we can replenish the sand. We've dropped 22,000 cubic yards of sand. It's a new program that we just started this year, and it's working.

So we want to make sure that we have the kinds of procedures in place to streamline that process so we can continue to create a maintenance program from Newport all the way to San Clemente for sand replenishment. In the past, we've had Army Corps of Engineers doing every five years, but that was delayed in South County. So we saw the coast erode. That buffer that protected the rail system eroded.

So now we are trying to encourage our public works, our state parks and others that we need to repair the beach just like we do potholes, just like we do repair roads. We need to repair and replenish the sand. So we will continue that effort, but we need your help with regard to the planning and approval processes so that we can streamline that process. Partnerships are critical in this effort. We cannot afford to do nothing every day.

As the costs grow, it's just going to become more cost prohibitive. That's why I'm so grateful to you for getting everyone together to develop a long term plan. Orange County has a $14.8 billion tourist economy, much of it connected to our pristine coastline. We have many passengers who use Metrolink Pacific Surfliner, especially on Thursdays through Sundays, and they drive the southern Orange County economy. We have commercial goods in that corridor. We've got Senanofre. We have Camp Pendleton.

It's a matter of national security that this corridor remain functional and we must protect it. So I know that you are committed to this cause and we are here to be a partner with you. But we want to reiterate, and I'll say it again, that the short term, we have to run it parallel with the long term planning, and we really must all work together. It's so critical.

On August 30, my office, working in conjunction with Supervisor Sarmiento, will host an Orange County Climate Resiliency hearing, and we expect to learn more about the challenges, obstacles and recommendations for the county. Congressman Levin will be testifying about his role at the congressional level in protecting this important LOSSAN corridor. In conclusion, I just want to leave you with a few takeaways. We have to find long term solutions for the corridor. We cannot let this moment pass and just be another headline.

We have to stay committed to the cause. And until we get the long term, Orange County and the Orange County Transportation Authority are committed to reinforcing our first line of defense, our beaches, from further erosion. We need your support to streamline the process and help create a routine sand replenishment management program. And we also need ongoing support from the state and federal government to immediately adapt and mitigate the impacts of climate change on our coastal communities and protect our coastal economy.

So I thank you for your efforts and again, happy to answer any questions.

Well, thank you very much. I think we will hear from all three of you first before we go to any potential questions. So, Darrell Johnson, would you like to go next?

Yes, I think the laptop is being transferred to me, but while that is happening, let me just say thank you, Senator Blakespear. Happy to be here, appreciate the invitation. And also hello to Senators Newman and Allen. I appreciate your interest as well. So. My name is Darrell Johnson, the chief Executive officer of the Orange County Transportation Authority. And for today's purposes, I'm going to spend time talking about our ownership.

We own 40 miles of rail line between the cities of San Clemente and Fullerton, and of course, 7 miles is in the critical area that we're speaking of today between the cities of Dana Point and San Clemente. If we could go to the next slide, which we're there. Thank you. So a little bit about the quarter. I know you have seen this before, but I think it is really instructive to understand that it is a six county coastal region.

It is the second busiest quarter, as you've talked about, Senator. 41 stations, 150 daily passenger trains for Amtrak and Coaster and Metrolink. It's the second busiest quarter in the nation. As you talked about a moment ago, in addition to passenger services, it carries more than a billion dollars in freight, and it's also part of the Strategic Rail Defense Network, which is rail access in and out of Camp Pendleton. Those are things you know. So you're asking me, why am I telling you what you already know?

So if we go to the next slide, I want to talk about OCTA's. If we could go one back. Thank you. OCTA has several roles in the LOSSAN Quarter, and I think it's worth emphasizing that, for good or bad, each of the six counties along the quarter has a different role in the quarter. It would be easy if it was all the same, but the fact is, it's not. And our roles in the LOSSAN quarter are first, we're the owner of 40 miles of track, as I indicated, 7 miles between the city of Dana Point and the San Diego County line. In addition to OCTA, there are six other right of way owners, so it's 55% freight owned as well.

OCTA's second role, in addition to being a track owner, is that we are the managing agency of the LOSSAN Rail Corridor Agency that was selected by the other eight Members of the LOSSAN board, which means we provide professional staffing services under an administrative services agreement to the LOSSAN service. The goal of that, when that was passed, carried by then Senator Padilla in 2012, was to help integrate rail services to better meet customer and community needs. And I think that has done a lot.

I think there's clearly more that can be done in that area. But we are very thankful for that Bill that was carried more than a decade ago and has moved us in the direction that we're there today. We are also a Member of the Southern California Regional Rail Authority you're going to hear from Mr. Kettle in just a moment, which operates the Metrolink service. They are the railroad operator of records.

So while OCTA is the owner, the operating responsibility does sit with Metrolink, and we are one of the Member agencies of that. It's an eleven Member board of the five counties in Southern California. So if we go to the next slide, I want to shift to the emergency projects that were done over the last 23 months, and there are three of them. And if talk about totals for just a moment. The total work is about $27.7 million over the last 23 months.

I would note that there are some outstanding costs that aren't yet determined. There will be some permitting cost, and there will be some right of way acquisition cost there. But at $27 million, I also have these color coded. The orange is what we believe is directly related to beach erosion issues. So that was the rock revetment the stabilization of the track, and that was $8 million, 100% paid for by OCTA.

The work was done by Metrolink, and we viewed that as an emergency work and the permitting was done. The blue, we believe, is more about landslides and private properties that are sliding into the rail quarter, which may have issues around climate and rain and other things, but they're not associated with sea level rise or sand erosion. They are real and they are significant. But we put these into two different categories.

And as you can see, the first one in the middle of the Cypress Shore Track Stabilization Project that was in the southern end of San Clemente. You can see the funding there. We're very happy with the participation at the federal level, at the state level, as well as the local level. I would note that that project is now in its final closeout. Earlier this week, the hydroseeding of landscaping was put back on top of the area of work.

And that really gets us into the closeout phase. And the monitoring has indicated that we have no land movement since that construction started. So we're very pleased with that. Again, we recognize it's an emergency basis, but it is performing as indicated. And then the last one on the far right, we call it the Casa Romantico location. Again, private property above the rail line sliding into the rail line. The rail line did not move.

The rail line was not being impacted from the coastal side, but it did require significant work. OCTA provided $3 million in funds and the state provided an emergency allocation of $3 million in funds. And that work is done as well. If we go to the next slide, this I'd like to pick up a little bit maybe on a broader basis. Supervisor Foley indicated the idea of partnerships and working together. She talked a little bit more broadly at the local level, but also at the state level.

I wanted to dig a little bit deeper into how the partnerships worked in this emergency session because I think it was really important. The first work in 22 at Cypress Shore. We had great participation from Caltrans. The Director of Caltrans as well as the California Transportation Commission held a special hearing, the first in its history. And thank you, Senator Newman, for your participation and engagement and support in that. And the OCTA board declared an emergency.

What that indicated, though, very clearly and I mentioned it when I was here last time, is that there is a very clear process in the state of California for highway emergencies that allows the Director of Caltrans to declare a Director's order and frankly, just get work done. And that did not exist for publicly owned rail lines. And through that learning process and engagement with the CTC staff and Executive Director, the CTC did establish a new policy.

We were very instrumental in helping craft that because we had immediate experience on how that would work. Unfortunately, we didn't plan to use it so quickly. It was put in place in May and then in June with the Casa Romantica slide, we had to seek that policy execution or implementation, if you will, and I think, again, teeing off of what the supervisor indicated. The idea of moving things quicker is really, really important, particularly when you have an emergency and that was very important there.

The CTC did approve that. Again, Senator Newman, thank you for your support. On the day that we requested that work, the Oct Board did declare a state of emergency to expedite the process and that work now has been completed and is underway. The key I would like to just make here is that even on something that is relatively small in the large transportation infrastructure space, it takes a lot of public agencies working in the same space to work together.

And this doesn't really on this slide indicate the role of the City of San Clemente, which is the property owner. They are doing their own work as well and they continue to work on stabilizing the hillslide above the tracks. And in our role right now, it's really protecting the tracks from that sliding hillside. Let me move to an action plan. As I mentioned when I was here before, we had spoken about and our board approved in February 2 approaches and again emphasizing what Supervisor Foley indicated.

We have a short term to medium term protect in place plan and we have a longer term plan. Just yesterday, the OCTA Board of Directors unanimously approved a contract with a professional services firm to begin looking at the short to medium term solutions. We expect that work to be underway within weeks as we sign contracts and do other things there. But it really will develop a set of options that protects the 7 miles of coastal rail infrastructure at various sea levels.

So we'll be looking at that. We'll gain an understanding of what the climate effects are on the rail infrastructure in that space that will build upon our climate adaptation study for this quarter that was done in 2020 and it will all identify potential solutions. I think it's really important that we don't pretend we know the answer before we start.

We need to look at a wide range of solutions and the way we're going to get to those wide range of solutions is have significant engagement with key stakeholders. There's very obvious stakeholders. There's the public agencies that make decisions. There's the California Coastal Commission. There's the city of San Clemente. But less obvious are the community groups that are very impacted by the rail line when it works and when it doesn't work.

Homeowners association, the environmental community, we plan to deeply engage with all of those at as many levels as we can. We know that will take extra time. We are committed to it. I know the supervisor is committed to it. We want to make sure that that engagement is top to bottom, left to right, inland to coastal and throughout the entire county to make sure we understand what the need of the quarter is. And then we are already planning for something will come out of that study.

We don't know what that is, but we're working to make sure that we have funding for the next piece. And to that end, we are seeking funding through a current program that the state is offering to begin. So we have the funding lined up for the next steps as well. And then finally, if we go to the last slide and then I will wrap up I forgot to indicate, I'm sorry.

If we can go back one more on the right hand side, we are currently developing a scope of work for long term solutions for the coastal section of the rail line. So the left side is the immediate and near term. The right hand side is the long term. We need to create an action plan for those key elements. And we absolutely have to have partnership not only with the LOSSAN Rail Corridor entity, but the state and federal agencies, some of which you indicated earlier, Senator Blakespear.

And we need to again engage the key stakeholders. I think one of the challenges with stakeholders, particularly at the community level, is the wheels of government turn slow sometimes. And we need to make sure they understand that there's short term and there's long term. And just because we're doing something in the short term doesn't mean we're not looking at the long term. So then the last thing I'll wrap up on if we go to the next slide is how we're paying for these items.

In the green, you can see on the top left, we received funding through formula funds that flow to OCTA from the federal programs. And we've matched it with OCTA local funds, about $2 million. We are seeking up to $15 million through the local Transportation Climate Action Protection Plan program from the CTC.

And the idea there is that we will seek $12 million, match it with $3 million of local Octa funds to be prepared to do the environmental work that would come out of the feasibility study that is underway now and then about to be underway. And then finally, our current funding for the long term study. We've identified about eight and a half million dollars, $5 million from the state's transit capital and inner city rail program that's committed. We're excited about that.

And then we have $3.5 million in pending funds through the Community Project funding program made available through Congressman Levin. So we'll continue to look at options there. We hope those dollars obviously stay there, and we'll need to add to that as well. So with that, Senator Blakespear, I'll conclude my remarks.

Well, thank you. We're so grateful to have both of you from OCTA come today to talk about this. Thank you. And now we'll turn it to the CEO of Metrolink. We're so grateful you came as well. So thank you.

Thank you, Chair Blakespeare. And good morning, Senators Newman and Nguyen. Good to see you again. So, I'm Darren Kettle, and I am the chief Executive officer at Metrolink. I started in this role September of 2021. Prior to that, I was the Executive Director of the Ventura County Transportation Commission, one of the five Member agencies of Metrolink, and also one of the owners of the rail corridor in Ventura County as you move into Ventura County as you go north.

So both Metrolink system as well as the LOSSAN corridor, I did mention I started on September of 2021. You'll recall that Supervisor Foley said that things got real on the corridor starting in September of 2021, and we had three closures starting in September 21. So I was a little worried that I was bad luck, but I've been assured by the geotechs and all the engineers that it's really not my fault. Let's see, here we go again.

Metrolink has been in Southern California's regional passenger rail system since 1992. We were formed as a Joint Powers Authority at that time, consisting of five counties in the Southern California region. And yes, we do go as far south as Oceanside into San Diego County. They are not Members. We have seven lines. We have 545 miles of service miles and 66 stations. We are the third largest regional passenger rail system in the country.

And that Joint Powers Authority that I mentioned includes OCTA, LA, Metro, VCTC, RCTC, and the San Bernardino County Transportation Authority. We do operate two primary lines that are on the Los Angeles corridor, the Ventura County line and the Orange County line, a portion of the Inland Empire. Orange County line is also part of our system, which is what we call a suburban to suburban commuter rail. And in the middle of that, of course, is Los Angeles County that is also on the corridor.

Now, while the rail corridor we operate on as Metrolink, we also don't own it. As Mr. Johnson indicated, all of our corridors, all of our lines are owned by other parties. So we are the railroad of record. As was indicated earlier, that's a Federal Railroad Administration designation. With that designation, we have the responsibility to keep the railroad operating safely and reliably. And in fact, even during these closures, we were able to open the corridor for freight related traffic.

However, it was not a safe condition to operate passenger trains, and so we chose not to operate, as did Pacific Surfliner. On top of the challenge of not being an owner, we work very closely with our Member agencies to ensure that we perform our duties, but we are an agency that does not have any of its own dedicated revenue stream.

Mr. Johnson indicated the way that we paid for many of these improvements over the course of the last couple of years, and it was due in large part to OCTA and the board making wise decisions there, as well as the California Transportation Commission and support from the California State Transportation Agency. So on line three, you've already seen some of this material, but just very quickly, some of the lessons we've learned over the last two years. We do have a successful partnership with OCTA.

They have absolutely been responsive in assisting us and providing funding. We have had a partnership both in whether it's been funding or the actual delivery of projects. Mr. Johnson indicated when we first started dealing with Cypress Shores, when we were having to put giant rock to protect the railroad tracks, that was a Metrolink project. The second phase of Cypress Shores. The Tieback Walls. That was an OCTA project. And then most recently with Casa Romanica, that was a project that Metrolink performed under an emergency order.

And we ended up with a very, very quick design, build and move forward with a project that took somewhere less than three weeks and came in under budget. So we're pleased with the way we were able to make those timely improvements and get the rail corridor back up and operating. As Supervisor Foley indicated, a nine month closure was anybody's that was nobody's intent.

We all would have loved to move quicker and then only to have the tracks reopen and then close and then open and then close again. If rail riders weren't getting whiplash, I don't know what would give it to them. So what I'd like to do here, I hope that we can run this video. It sort of describes exactly what we did in a relatively short period of time. I'm not getting any audio, though.

Well, you're going to get the video. You're going to get the video portion. Yeah. Thank you very much. So this was time lapse of the installation of the barrier wall. It took us about two weeks to get completed. From the beginning of the time that we stopped some freight traffic, we actually did get some assistance from the Burlington northern Santa Fe. They embarked good. They were freight for 48 hours to allow us to come in and mobilize equipment and get the contractor to perform the work.

And then just lastly, the contractor that did perform the work was the same contractor that had done the work for. OCTA at Cypress Shores. The tie back wall. They were very familiar with the territory. All right, madam chair, that concludes my remarks.

Okay, thank you. Well, I very much appreciate the three of you testifying today. I do want to make sure we stay on time. So I'd like to not have a lot of long questions from people if there's anything brief you want to ask. Okay, well, we'll say thank you so much, and I hope you stick around and listen to everybody else who has important things we are not doing. Questions. Yes. Briefly, if you want. Do you have a question? Okay, go ahead.

Okay, so thank you. First of all, one of my goals for this legislative year is to get a monitor in the front of the room. So to those of you with tricks in your neck, I apologize on behalf of the Senate. It's kind of weird that we can see it. You can. Mr. Johnson, thank you for coming up, and thank you for participating this time and last time you've talked about the coastal rail protection study. And I do appreciate the emphasis that you and the supervisor made about the parallel paths, short term and long term. But specifically, what solutions do you expect to come as a result of the protection study.

Through the chairI think, as Senator Newman, we don't know for sure, but we would anticipate that there would be opportunities for reinforcement. I think one of the things that needs to be absolutely undertaken and I've talked to the city manager of San Clemente about this is we need to look at every property that is privately owned, or there's no public owners property on these hillsides, but a good assessment of what the slope stabilization is. And this is not the coastal erosion issues.

This is the private hillsides, because two of these three big issues have been around private properties sliding in there. So that's a key assessment. And that may lead to some more ideas, whether it's soldier walls or other stabilization efforts or dewatering or other things that would make that sense. But that's a really critical piece because that can protect from those emergency issues. So that's one of the things there. We also would expect to see some options around sand replenishment and protection in that area.

Clearly there's differences of opinions on the Rock Revetment or the Rip wrap, but there is a consensus building that that is not as helpful as it could be around sand erosion. So if there is opportunities in a thoughtful manner and it meets with the scientific analysis of beach erosion, I've said to our board, and I think the supervisor would agree with me, that OCTA wants to be part of the solution. We can't be the only solution. We can't replenish the entire beach for 7 miles. But if we can be part of that as a transportation authority and a transportation partner, we'd be happy to do this. So those are quick examples of some of the short term things we would expect to see.

And I appreciate that. So to that point, what kind of response have you gotten from local entities that obviously need to be involved in these conversations?

I think in General, they're waiting to see what we come up with. I think one of the challenges in working with community groups and stakeholders, they want all the answers now, and we want to be able to make some informed decisions with the broader group. But I think sand replenishment obviously will be popular, we believe. And then I think the idea of making sure that you don't have other at risk properties maybe a little less exciting, but really important, I think that will be positive as well.

And my last question, you talked about funding and sort of shifting to kind of a larger context. The dollar amounts, even for the small pieces, are relatively big, especially as it relates to sort of state funds. What are the total costs? Probably equally important, what are the sources and what are our prospects for securing those funds in a timely manner?

Oct has put over $2 billion into the rail quarter in Orange County over the last two decades. And that's not an escalated number. That's a real time number. But we would expect that depending on the type of solution that comes out of the shorter term study, you could see environmental and preliminary engineering be in the $15 to $20 million or more range, depending upon what the type of project it is. Engineering and right of way permits could be 30, $40 million or more.

And then depending upon the type of construction, again, we just did emergency work for $27 million. You could see many hundreds of millions of dollars, even for the short term, depending again on the type of solution there. So we need to determine exactly that. But this is not going to be something that we're going to come out with three or four solutions for ten or $20 million. It's going to be a significant investment, even for the short term.

Appreciate it. Thank you, Madam Chair.

His wasn't that short, just for the record.

Relatively short.

Fair. Thank you, Madam Chair. To the CEO of OCTA, you mentioned the short term steps for the study, which I've been a proud supporter of. What are our next steps for that study?

Senator Nguyen, good to see you again. The board yesterday unanimously approved a contract for the short term study. We anticipate that starting very quickly, one of the first things is an assessment of the hotspots there. That's a really critical issue. And I think second to that is understanding all of the stakeholders, broad set of stakeholders from the community level to the state level, to the federal level, to the regional level, to the county level, to understand all the participants.

Because we don't want to develop solutions without the engagement of all the parties. That's a really critical step. Parallel to that will be making sure that we have access to existing studies done by the city of San Clemente that we know they've done sand replenishment studies. We know the county has done some work in that space. We the Army Corps has done...

We don't want to spend time recreating the wheel, if you will, but making sure that all of those things that are being done in a little bit of silos, if you will, now are coming together in one place, that's going to be really important to get a good baseline as we go forward.

Do we know how long that study is going to take?

The study from beginning to end is anticipated to take two years.

Okay. No way we could go a little faster?

We will attempt to accelerate.

I don't think that rail is going to anything can happen. That's the challenge. The sooner we know, the sooner we can have a plan to fix it permanently.

We agree. I think we need a balance going fast, and we need a balance with getting good information and community engagement, but point is taken.

Thank you. And then sorry, I might not have heard the answer to this. It might have been stated before, but what is the nature of the city of San Clemente's involvement in the emergency project for Casa Romantica?

So currently they are the owner of that historic property, and they had worked to stabilize the hillside prior to OCTA and Metrolink building that soldier pile wall that was just shown by Mr. Kettle. They had been unable to stabilize the hillside in a manner that would allow the tracks to be reopened. I would say they'd been a good partner in trying to fix their part of the issue, but it wasn't allowing us to open rail service as quickly as we wanted to and needed to.

We're still concerned that the wall that is in place today as they continue to try to stabilize the property that they own on the top of the bluff, that it doesn't harm the rail line. Further, there is risk there, but they've been a good partner to date, and we continue to hope that they will continue to be a good partner. Recognizing that there's two things at play, their property as well as the rail line, and making sure that those two are balanced out.

Thank you.

Thank you. And I'll just add a couple of comments to some of the questioning. I appreciate the questioning. It was really helpful at taking this a little deeper, and I'll just share that from being the chair of SANDAG, which is the transportation agency in San Diego County, I was on the board at a time when we were not moving forward with any type of rail improvements of note.

And then we had some instability and some threats to the tracks, and it kick started faster process and movement. And I think one of the things I just really am hoping that OCTA internalizes is that in order for the public to meaningfully participate, you need to propose something. So there are the types of community engagements where you're sort of generally saying, what kind of transportation future do you want? And it's an open ended conversation about getting overall goals.

But there are other types of engagement which are actually the forward moving ones, where the technical experts do the type of analysis that's needed to say, here are three possible options. Here are seven possible options and having the public react to something that is actually possible to build and that is conceivable and understandable, because the conversations that are happening in a world that's not grounded in reality really are just not forward moving.

And I was having a conversation earlier about with some thought leaders in the rail space who were saying in the last 40 years, we've made about ten years of progress. And I think that's a really important way to be thinking about things. And so how do we make progress? How do we make 40 years of progress in ten years? Right? How do we flip that script? And so I really want to encourage the community engagement in a forward moving prospect and not in a treading water type of approach.

If I could, Senator, I think I agree with you and I think the board agrees with you. There's a time and place for that visionary approach, your long range transportation plan, or trying to figure out the future of a broad set of transit improvements around an area of 3.2 million people. This will be the latter, though. This will be where those technical aspects will be presented and engaged against.

But I want to make sure that we're also making sure that we're not just going to the people that are going to agree with us. We want to make sure that we're engaging in all levels of community, particularly within an area that we know well. We've experienced and done a lot of work both on the highway side and on the rail side, as well as the open space mitigation side and water quality side with the cities and the communities in Dana Point and San Clemente. We want to make sure that they're part of the solution. But to your point, it will not be a visionary exercise. It'll be a specific exercise.

Great, I'm thrilled to hear that. Okay, well, I think with that we will move on. Would you like to oh, okay. That is short. We appreciate it. Okay, thank you so much. And we will move now. We have some I will invite to come up, our next panel. So this is Chad Edison. Kyle Gradinger and Trey Bradley. And these are our state level experts. So we move from the county level up to the state level.

So Chad Edison is from CalSTA alongside Kyle Gradinger from Caltrans, and Trey Bradley from the Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development. And so we'll start out with Chad, and I just want to thank the state level experts for coming to the Subcommittee today to speak.

Thank you, Senator Blakespeare, and thank you, Senators, for this opportunity to speak today. The slide deck will be up in just a moment. I just have a couple of slides for each of the times I'm up here today, and I will elaborate on those. Let me begin by pointing out what a lot of other committee presenters have said, which is that this, this corridor is one of the most significant state corridors in the state funded corridors in the country.

It has the highest ridership of any corridor outside of the Northeast corridor. And it really builds on a legacy of investments that stretch back into the 1990s, which is when a lot of the most significant investments happened. State bond dollars, self help, county taxes, money from the public transportation account. This just had loads of resources put into it over the years, since the 1990s.

Amtrak west used to put a large investment into this corridor and it's really the greatest sustained investment in any of the state rail corridors in the state that has been made here. Also, I'd like to emphasize that this corridor is successful in part because it has inner city, it has regional services, and it really functions as a multi county corridor.

The strongest trains in this corridor are on the LOSSAN side, are trains that run the entire length of the corridor, that run from Santa Barbara and further north all the way down to San Diego. And that is a really important market. And the south end does better because the north end is there. And that's just kind of a key element that we need the whole quarter to be functioning in order to be successful.

Overall, the two LOSSAN stations, Los Angeles and San Diego, are in the top 15 nationally for inner city rail ridership. So these are very important stations on the service. And the direct economic benefits for those that use the corridor travel, time, savings and other benefits they realize are significant. But there also are benefits for those on the roadway system because they experience less congestion than they otherwise would because of all the people using the rail corridor.

So I will also point out the importance of the freight here. There are direct connections from major ports to domestic markets throughout this corridor. Wainimi and the Port of San Diego use the corridor for significant distances. And those are important assets as well. And there's no alternative rail route to the Port of San Diego. And so we see that as a very important part of the corridor today in terms of national defense.

We've had pointed out to us the stracnet nature of this corridor, that it's an asset for national defense purposes. And we have notifications that the Department of Defense sees the worsening condition of the corridor as a concern. And so this is an area where we need to make sure that this is kept in open status and that they can use this to get to Camp Pendleton, to get to the Port of San Diego and other parts of the national rail network.

So that really, I think, underscores the significance of this corridor today. What I will then also point out is how important this is in our vision for the future. Through the state rail plan. We have the potential here for millions more riders per year in the corridor. All the transportation assets in this corridor are constrained and rail is where some of that growth can happen.

And so the ability to run more cars on each train, to put more frequencies on this corridor, the existing infrastructure can sustain more service than is there today. And of course, with additional investments, it can do even more. The preservation and continued development of this corridor is a core feature of the state rail plan.

And just to give some idea of the vision there, we see a vision where the inner city trains are running every 30 minutes between Los Angeles and San Diego throughout the day, 18 hours service span. That there are regional overlay services on there that are running every two to three trains per hour throughout portions of the corridor south of Los Angeles and north into parts of LA County. And then that these trains support each other. They enhance mobility for destinations throughout Southern California.

Connections to trains that go to the Inland Empire. Connections to trains that go to the up, into the Antelope Valley and beyond. And so this is a really critical port of the corridor on the south end and then on the north end, we have the vision of at least hourly service by inner city trains to Santa Barbara, a little bit less than hourly north of there to San Luis Obispo and regional services that overlay on that as well to Ventura and Santa Barbara.

And so this becomes a very critical corridor for mobility. And that quarter of the future will have zero emission trains running on it. We'll see combinations of hydrogen and battery and potentially use of catenary that's there that would be there for the high speed rail system. And so you have really the ability to use many technologies in making sure this quarter has clean operations on it. Finally, I would emphasize that this is something that FRA.

We have used every meeting with them to emphasize the importance of this quarter to us, how high a priority it has in the state. It is one of our applications to the Quarter Identification and development program, which is FRA's process for doing, planning to make sure we're all aligned with each other and then coming to them with the top priorities for the corridor as well as the longer range view of how that fits into the network over the life of 20 or 30 years.

So it has both a short term and a longer term view to it. And that is a very important process that we will engage all the stakeholders in the Corridor to accomplish. Caltrans put that application in, in conjunction with the LOSSAN Corridor, in conjunction with the agencies that are on its board. So everybody from SANDAG to Santa Barbara County are interested in how that process goes and to make sure that we properly plan and prioritize the Corridor.

So with that, that's the portion of my presentation on the benefits. I will pass it on to GO-Biz and let them present as well. Let Trey present as well, and then I'd be glad to take any questions. It's.

Thank you Chad. And good morning. Thank you. Senator Blakespear. And thank you to Members of the Senate for allowing the opportunity for GO-Biz to speak a little bit about the values of this corridor. My name is Trey Bradley. I'm the Deputy Director for sustainable freight and supply chain at GO-Biz.

But in this capacity I've worked in several roles at GO-Biz and also at the Office of Planning and Research and a myriad of topics including business consulting to companies across the state of California, working with all sectors, also in working on climate and military affairs issues when I was at the Office of Planning Research. So excited to talk about the LOSSAN corridor today, just for those folks who are in the room or listening to explain a little bit about GO-Biz.

We are a small entity within state government, but we are the primary point of contact for economic development and job creation efforts and have a range of teams. And so the team that I am on and the office that I lead here within GO-Biz is the office supply chain. Just a little bit of an overview on how GO-Biz is structured.

The primary purpose of this team within GO-Biz is to service the business community and connecting with freight and goods movement, but also ensuring that longevity within building long term supply chain assets within the state of California is there in those opportunities which we will speak about later, which are very important in respect to this corridor. So LOSSAN is critical for multiple industries.

There's two sectors I'm going to be talking about today, and that is supply chain and goods movement and then defense and military and aerospace really quickly. We are in really a renaissance of public investment in supply chain and goods movement. We are riding on the largest single state investment in goods movement made by any state in the nation. And I'm really going to say compends to the California State Transportation Agency who just recently released over 1.2 billion in port and freight infrastructure.

But California has a very diverse complex supply chain ecosystem. We have twelve ports within the state. Five of those twelve facilitate container traffic. As you can see, four of those five are represented in the six LOSSAN County region and 42.4% of all US. Container traffic comes through. California includes port of San Diego, Wainimi, as mentioned. As well, we have twelve airports with major cargo operations, of course our class one railroads and diversity of our rail system.

And we have existing future commercial land and border port entries with Mexico. And I'll be speaking about that as well in a an excuse. There's an arrow in my presentation for some reason. But like I said, we are riding on this largest investment that we have in the state, our office in GO-Biz. We minister programs relevant to data and data system development at California's containerized ports.

But I just wanted to highlight one specific example to the Port of San Diego in this large investment that we have made as the state, which is 35 million, which will support for National City and including the rail infrastructure on site on the terminal. But of course, we have large investments being made at Port of LA Long Beach, Port of Wainimi, is a really transformational investment made in that port that is going to be very fascinating to see in years to come.

But if you include all of the heavy duty ZEV and freight electrification infrastructure and the likes, it's really going to be a transformational change in the next decade for California's supply chain ecosystem. And this is riding off of the largest, what is a record year in California's ports. I think that a lot of people said things were going slow, but our ports move the most volume in US. History, so in an entire year, including some of the records in the Western hemisphere.

So I commend them and their leadership and the workforce that made that a reality. But we need these investments given the future and the movement of goods in the state. Really quickly. I just wanted to mention that this increased public investment is garnering and bringing in increased private investment in freight and goods movement. Recently, this last year, we had the largest single private investment in supply chain announced in California. Is the first inland port to be led by a Class One railroad.

It is by BNSF with a $1.5 billion investment in Southern California. This will have a direct connection to the LOSSAN corridor. This is the first, I said inland port to be led by the Class One railroad. It is important because it shifts and notes that the importance of moving freight by rail as a means to reduce truck traffic, but then also to bring and collectivize the goods and centralize them in one single place.

So we're seeing a huge investment in the private sector also in freight and goods movement infrastructure as well. Just to highlight the four of our twelve ports and then the four ports that are in the 6th county region here, and I'm just going to focus on one of them, and that is the Port of San Diego. The Port of San Diego contributes and billions to the local economy. Is home to 800 businesses.

This rail subdivision in San Diego is operated by BNSF, has two cargo terminals, 15 bursts on dock terminal rail. It provides a range of services and goods movement support, which includes brake, bulk, row, row and vehicles, but also refrigerated containers big for agriculture. There are 16 rail spurs across the port, and of course at the 10th Avenue terminal and then at National City, they have six rail spurs. And it is a primary BNSF auto facility.

As listed on their website is where they facilitate a lot of vehicle traffic. If you've been down in the San Diego area, you probably see on the railroad there's a lot of Toyota Tacomas. All the Toyota Tacomas are made to the south in Tijuana. They travel via rail to the port directly in the southern portion of the LOSSAN corridor in the county.

But vehicles are used throughout the entirety of the county not just for commercial sale, but also for military use, which we'll be highlighting soon. Really what is one of the major things that I just wanted to highlight here to close out is that we are in a massive change in the cobalt supply chain paradigm.

As you can see in this last year, it's the first year that Mexico supplanted China as the top trading partner for the United States top trading partner for the State of California export market. For California, that trade is two ways. There's a lot of construction materials that flow down this corridor directly to Mexico for projects and primarily manufacturing and logistics. As you can see in the left, the map is highlighted. It's directly from BNSF's website.

They have, of course, the four primary points of contact of gateway in the United States that they list between the US. And Mexico. And of which San Diego is one. There is key alignment and strategic industries in partnership with Mexico. And that was really highlighted this past year including critical know, clean economy, supply chain, semiconductors, defense vehicles and microelectronics. We only see this trade increasing dramatically. And of course, this is also propped by the largest single public investment by the federal government that's been made.

If you take the Inflation Reduction Act and IIJA and Chips Act and put them together and adjust for inflation it's more than the entirety of the New Deal. And so a lot of that prompts that the trade be in North America and we're going to see a lot of that shift to Mexico. We talked to dozens of companies, I feel like, on a monthly basis about this shift.

I've highlighted several of the companies that have a large presence on the Baja side on the bottom and just to highlight some of the know, hydrogen, critical minerals, semiconductors, of course and then offshore wind and to talk about California defense, of course. California is the home's largest concentration military personnel and national security activity. Really. I'm going to commend the Governor's Office of Planning and Research, our sister agency who really does a phenomenal yearly annual report on the impact California for national security and defense.

Defense produces 158.2 billion in economic impact across the state of California 762,000 full time jobs and 20.7 billion in tax revenue for federal, state and local governments. California is home to 10% of the global aerospace industry and 25% of the total US. Market. And then with respect to LOSSAN, if you take all the individual bases and assets and you include auxiliary airfields and hospitals and the likes, you have 21 assets across these six counties.

It includes Naval Base San Diego which is second largest surface ship base of the Navy camp Pendleton, which is the major west coast US base for the marines. And then of course we have Vandenberg space force base and LA air force base, which is space systems command for the space force all along the corridor of LOSSAN. And then of the 158.2 billion in economic impact total within the state of California, 103.2 billion of that is concentrated in los an six counties.

Of the 762,000 full time jobs, 376,000 is located in those six counties. There's a ton of firms across the space General dynamics, General Atomics, Northrop, Lockheed Martin, NASSCO, Cubic, who are along this corridor and who definitely facilitate with the military in this regards. As mentioned in STRACNET by Chad, this is a map of STRACNET and the corridors that the military has outlined. As you can see in the red is where STRACNET key corridors for facilitation of military freight.

I just wanted to highlight that the BNSF does provide ad hoc rail services to the Department of Defense. But the 2021 Usgao study found that 67% of the US. Army's transportation of equipment and goods is done via rail from base to port during contingencies at the national level. So in the case that there is a national contingency, majority of those goods will be moving via rail. Of course, the broader defense apparatus benefits from resilient commercial rail operations.

And if you really look at know, the governor's office of playing in research and the California state library did this research and bifurcated by regions in which there's the concentration of national security spending and jobs. As you see the San Diego and the bottom is quite large, but the coastal region also encompasses the central coast territory within California. But you can see that the impact along this corridor and its critical nature to defense and defense community is profound.

And that concludes my portion for defense and economic benefits of this. The next section is on the financing element. So thank you.

Okay, great, well, thank you. I actually do have a couple, and this is for Mr. Bradley. I appreciate that presentation. And given how deep and strong this economic impact is, and the partnerships between government and the private sector, what role do you see for the future of BNSF or any of the railroads investing in this corridor? Basically taking a more active role in making sure it functions for their purposes?

I'd say BNSF has been very active in seeing the insured efficiency of this corridor. And I think that the piece where I highlighted the critical change in supply chain, supply chain resiliency is a focus of many of the firms globally, and that means ally shoring and putting resources near here domestically within the United States. In my mind, that means more business for our rail partners, and that means more business through this corridor because it directly connects with Mexico.

So I see the investments coming and I see that they want to sustain and have continued use of this corridor. As I mentioned, also is the largest investment that we have planned by BNSF. There's also several other investments within southern California that BNSF is exploring and making. I think that BNSF is very straightforward by calling California the linchpin of their supply chain and freight goods movement system. So I think that the investment will be sustained and that they will see that through in the future.

But what does that mean, investment will be sustained? I mean, does that mean that they will actually financially contribute to the Los an corridor's improvements? Because we've been talking about this as public investments, state, county, the federal government, but what about that private sector?

Right, I cannot speak on behalf of BNSF because I'm at GO-Biz, but I would say that they have shown and I have seen them as being a working partner in trying to understand where solutions that may fit for them. Of course, I know that there's variations in ownership along this corridor between freight and public agency. I understand that the nature of financing such things is oftentimes complex. But I know for a fact that BNSF is a willing partner and willing to work with those agencies and locals on that type of exploring that opportunity.

Okay, that's great to hear. Do my colleagues have any questions or statements?

One quick question. Thank you, all three of you participating. We've heard across now two panels about how complex the sort of roles and relationships are across lowcent at the state level. Which agency right now holds the lead or responsibility for coordination and planning on losing? Is there one or is it sort of jointly shared depending on the issue or the need?

Yeah, Senator, I'd like to start by answering that, and then if Trey would like to add more, that would be great. Also, the planning for the corridor is shared primarily between the LOSSAN rail agency as well as the Caltrans and CalSTA as we work on longer term planning in the state rail plan. And so it's really a partnership between the state and the regional agency.

Of course, that also includes each county, each owner of the corridor, and the sponsors of the other services in the corridor. So there is work in partnership with other levels of government and other public agencies. But the primary planning here is really between Caltrans and the LOSSAN agency working together.

And then we have ongoing work that we do with other agencies that identify challenges in the corridor, whether that be the GO-Biz or the coastal commission or others that have insight into challenges in the corridor as well.

And Mr. Bradley. Anything to add?

You know, we're GO-Biz, we're the office, we're not the cabinet level agency on transportation, but we are here to support in any facet that we see, of course, being a link with the business community, involving the business community in certain elements of the corridor. And project, I think, is where we provide great opportunity to support the project in totality.

But of course, we're looking to be of any support to our sister agencies and departments in making sure that working together on this project collectively is a team effort.

My follow up question, I think, to the Chair's broader intent here. Is there a strategic plan for the LOSSAN quarter at the state level? And would you agree there's probably value in creating one and specifically identifying the roles and responsibilities of the different agencies in affecting that plan?

Thank you, Senator. Kyle Gradinger. I'm the assistant deputy Director for Rail at Caltrans, and I'll just build on what Chad had mentioned. So Caltrans and CalSTA, in coordination with LOSSAN and other partners in the room, OCTA and Metrolink, do lead the planning efforts in that Corridor. We're also very excited about the opportunity for the Federal Railroad Administration to come back into the fray.

Chad mentioned the Corridor Identification Development Program, which is part of the IJA Act, and that will provide significant funding for rail infrastructure across the country. About half of that will go to the States, not directly to Amtrak. And so we did put in an application to look at the LOSSAN Corridor end to end.

We crafted a very thoughtful and wide ranging application for that, where the state will state with LOSSAN, will continue to lead the efforts looking from the north end to the south end, and then coordinate closely with all of our partners, including BNSF, up, and local agencies.

So if we're successful in that application, we'll have an opportunity to begin sort of a new level of planning coordination that builds on the vision in the state rail plan, builds on the near term work that agencies are doing already throughout the Corridor. And we'll be able to do that as a group with federal funding and state leadership.

Okay. And CalSTA would take the lead on that?

The primary agency that would be involved in doing the quarter ID work would be Caltrans, working through its rail staff. And then the agency would be involved in communication of the high level strategy to the federal government. We also are involved in coordinating some of the Executive task forces and so forth that are being set up in the Corridor. So we are stepping into the area of working with the stakeholders throughout the Corridor to make sure we're working together on prioritization and strategy.

But all of this is happening as sort of a matter of sort of shared commitment coordination. There's no legislative basis. There's not a larger kind of directive that's driving that other than the imperative.

To yeah, I would say that the primary. We have a strategic planning framework in the state rail plan that has gone through a lot of the long term vision and what the basic infrastructure needs to be in that future in order to support what we hope to put on the corridor from a passenger and freight perspective. So we do have a high level strategy there.

The details of working through the prioritization of projects and working through what comes first and what comes later is really a process that we at the state have seen as very important to do with the local agencies because we need to balance both the needs that are identified through those county level and quarter level inputs with the vision to put together a network statewide that really brings more ridership and benefits to the corridor.

This has been set up, I think, in statute to really have more than one party that's involved in the planning and development of the corridor. The state certainly has that state rail plan role which gets lots of input as we develop it. The new one's about to be published this fall. The last one was in 2018. But the process is a shared one between the state and our other partners.

Appreciate it, obviously not a simple thing at all, but appreciate the thinking and the coordination going into this. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Well, and I think your questions are really getting at the heart of this entire issue right here, which is that and I've heard the word use Balkanization of the different organizations that both operate and own the tracks. And so this question, Senator Newman, about who is ultimately making the decision or doing the strategic planning for know that was one of the things that was the most clear to me when we were in Washington DC.

Talking to the Northeast corridor was that they're doing an analysis of the whole corridor and also the things that feed into the corridor because the corridor doesn't just exist on its own going north and south. It also has all of the passengers that are coming into the corridor from these other rail lines and that they're set up to be able to make decisions and analyze where do we have the greatest potential for growth, where do we have the most important threats?

And something that was raised to me recently from some outside advocates is that there are these run through tracks that would link Union Station in Los Angeles, but how important is that to Los Angeles and their whole infrastructure? And when you look at the whole corridor, if that's the thing that would make the most improvements in efficiency, who's advocating or pushing for that to happen?

And so we know that there are these environmental threats around these certain sections like in San Clemente and Del Mar and other places, but just organizationally being able to advocate for the success of the corridor and the feeder agencies, given multiple owners and multiple operators. That's the complexity here that we're trying to work out and unearth what is the best path forward to be higher performing essentially and to be resilient.

I appreciate your question and just really putting your finger on where we have the opportunity for improvement. Okay. Anything else from my colleagues? Okay, great. Well, we will move on to the next panel, which I think the CalSTA reps are going to stay. And then we'll ask Dr. Julie Kowanski from Scripps Institute of Oceanography, UC San Diego, to take the seat of Mr. Bradley. Thank you, Mr. Bradley, again. I will there she is. Okay. Yes, thank you.

Good morning, and thank you for having me. So are you seeing let me get into presenter mode and make sure you're seeing the correct screen. Are you seeing the right screen?

We are. We're seeing the beach. And the cliffs. Yes.

Great. Thank you. Thank you for having me this morning. So I'll be talking a little bit at a high level about some of the impacts of cliff erosion. And this is the work of Adam Young, who unfortunately couldn't be here today, and then go into some details about some of the climate projections that impact cliff erosion. So this is just looking these are both pictures from the Del Mar area, and the two main mechanisms that impact cliff erosion are wave erosion and then rain and groundwater.

And as you can see in the pictures, they actually happen at different points along the cliffs. And so this figure is looking at so this is a correlation. So the higher the number, the more connection with cliff erosion. And what you see, this purple line is wave impact height, and this blue line is rainfall overall. And so what you see here in terms of wave impact height, the elevation is lower on the cliff, whereas the rain impact is a bit higher on the cliff.

And so the different mechanisms impact cliff erosion in different locations. And then Adam Young and his team at Scripps has put together this California Coastal Cliff Erosion Viewer, the website's down here, but you can click on these different locations, and then you get an image or a figure that shows, based on several different measurements, the range of the rate of cliff erosion. And so you can see that along the coasts and can dig into different locations more specifically.

So next I'm going to turn to some of the projections of climate change and how it impacts both the wave, the sea level rise and the rain. But before that do that, I want to do a little bit of Climate Change Science 101, just because I'll be going back and forth between different scenarios. I want to understand a little bit between the differences between them and similarities.

So the way we look at climate projections is a whole bunch of different agencies and institutions run these global climate models, but there's an agreed upon set of scenarios. And the older version was CMIP Five, which, if you can see here, these are the purple different boxes, and they're called RCPS. And this was done over ten years ago. So a lot of the research that's been done recently or over those last ten years has used these CMIP five scenarios.

More recently, the next set of global climate models have come out, which are called CMIP Six, and they use these SSP scenarios. And so this SSP three, 70, is often what's shown as thinking of the most likely scenario. But this figure is just showing how these different SSPs relate to the RCPS. And I'm showing both because the RCPS, as I mentioned before, have been around for a lot longer. So some of the research or some of the results are based on the RCPS.

As the SSPs are newer, new research is coming out of the impacts of climate change. So some of them are based on the SSPs, but they are relatively similar. So I don't want that to throw you off in any of the images. So the first thing I'll talk about is changes in future precipitation on monthly. And this is showing here's the map in the corner. And this is showing for region six, so this coastal area.

And so this is looking at a bunch of different climate models and their histograms showing when monthly precipitation is greater than 30% of the total water year historical average. And so this is how much in a month, which you see here, how much of a month is that percentage of the year. So at 50%, that means that month got 50% of the total water year average. And this is looking from the global climate models, the historical, the early century, the mid century, and the late century.

And so we're probably most interested here and here, but what you'll notice is if you look at this in the early and mid century, we're seeing more and more months that are getting 100% of their water year average in just one month. And that increases even more so in the late century. And so if we think of that figure before, when it talks about rainwater or groundwater, as you're getting more of this heavy months, the potential to contribute to cliff erosion increases.

Now we're going to switch to looking at daily precipitation. And so this is using all three of those different SSPs. And this is at the end of the century of looking at it. And the different color dots here are looking at different seasons. So blue is December, January, February. Light green is spring, March, April, May. Dark green is Summer june, July and August And Orange is fall september, October, November And so this is the percent change in the five year return interval.

So what you can imagine is, for example, here for December, January and February, and kind of this most likely scenario, that five year return interval is going to become a little over 10% more extreme. And here, this is the average on all the different GCMS. And here you can see the ranges. And so this is for the five year return interval. But you can see this becomes even more. So true when you get to these higher extreme events.

So the 50 year return interval and the 500 year return interval, where these extremes, the percent increase is even greater. And so now that's showing that the extremes are going to become more extreme. And here is looking at the number of wet days for these different percentiles. And so this is for San Diego, for example. This is this middle of the road most likely scenario in these new projections. And this is for the end of the century.

What you're looking at here is the number of wet days. And these are binned by percentile. So this is the zero to 25th percentile, 25th to 50th, and then going all the way up. And what you start to see really is this increase in the most extreme events. And so 95th to 99, all the way up to the 99th nine. And so the number of wet days with this really extreme precipitation is going to increase.

So that not only will the daily extreme precipitation become more extreme, that most extreme precipitation will become more frequent. And so this is looking at some work that had been done previously on the RCP scenarios. So this is a change in total precipitation that's contributed by atmospheric rivers. And what atmospheric rivers are, are these elongated they're just looking at there's really elongated plumes of water or vapor in the atmosphere. And when they intersect with our topography in California, it can produce large amounts of precipitation.

Oftentimes atmospheric rivers can be beneficial because they do produce part of our water supply. But when they are too intense, stall, and remain too long, they can be detrimental and cause flooding. And so this is just looking at all types of atmospheric rivers. But if you look at this in the Santa Ana River basin, for example, what you're looking at here is the daily precipitation based on percentile. And so these most extreme, as shown before, types of precipitation are going to increase.

But this gray shading, which you're going to see here, is the increase as a result of atmospheric rivers. So it's really these atmospheric rivers that are driving these extreme events. So now I'm going to talk about the other part or the other mechanism that impacts coastal erosion, which is sea level rise and wave erosion. And so there's a lot going on here. So I'll walk to the side.

So sea level rise is one of the climate variables that in the near term is a little bit more certain, but in the long term becomes highly uncertain. And given the timeline and the interest for the rail, it's really this near term that probably most interested in. But just in consideration for some of that long term planning that was mentioned, I think it's worthwhile to mention some of the later century input.

And so what you're looking at here, and this is from a new report that came out. It. Was a multi agent report on sea level rise. And so what you're looking at here is this black line is over. The whole US is the historical record based on tide data, observations and then out to 2050, which we're calling this near term. You can extrapolate this with observation extrapolation and then you get these various different Low, intermediate, intermediate, high and high.

And this is based on our understanding on observations and various different types of modeling, the range of possibilities. And I showed this for the this is US. Wide but I showed the numbers in the report throughout the southwest, out to 2050 and this is in feet relative to 100. And so for the Southwest, this observed extrapolated line be approximately 0.8ft by 2050 whereas you can see the range between the Low and the high all in feet.

I will mention in thinking about some of this long term planning as you go farther out, as you can see this uncertainty in the shaded region increases quite substantially. And this has to do with two main factors. One is the future scenarios in terms of greenhouse gas emissions and how rapidly temperatures will rise. And then the other one is the understanding of how ice sheets so think Antarctica and Greenland will react to it.

And these are places that are hard to get to and hard to measure and it's also complex modeling. And so there's a fair bit of uncertainty in how they will respond, especially in the latter half of the century. And so these are the reasons why you see this increased spread and uncertainty past that 2050 point. But just thinking about extremes, what this is actually showing is a total water level for kind of a middle load scenario at La Jolla.

And each of these red dots represent a time where the total sea level exceeds its historical height, which in La Jolla was in 2015. And so in 2050 it happens periodically but by 2075 just a reoccurrence of hitting this extreme total water level and then by 2100. So this is just that indication. And these are year long snapshots, right? And so this is just a visual way to think about how often based on, like I said here one projection.

But just as a representative, how often will we get those high sea levels that can contribute to cliff erosion? Now, looking at this in more of a time series viewpoint, this is from various different scenarios but this is number of hours per year over that maximum sea level. And so you can see there's various different uncertainty but that increase over time and this is just a snapshot to 2040.

But then you can take this 2040 and also extrapolate it out and that uncertainty that happens in the later half of the century. You start to see this wide uncertainty and you can think about it in how many more hours per year and then eventually how many more days per year. And then up here, it's actually almost a month per year. And so this is kind of different time spots.

And also, considering the uncertainty, what we do and don't understand in terms of what sea level rise don't understand or just don't know what we'll do as an international community. In terms of greenhouse, the last thing I wanted to end on is looking at a historical perspective of sea level. And this is during El Nino and LA Nina phase. And so what you're looking at here is the percent of extreme level events that happen during various different phases.

And so right now, you're looking at strong El Nino versus a weak El Nino neutral and a La Nina and a strong La Nina. So what really stands out is that most of our extreme sea level events historically have happened during a strong El Nino or a weak moderate El Nino. And you can see here, so that absolute values are the total values. And the anomalous is, I would say, unexpected if you take away the tide cycles.

And then to kind of highlight this point in terms of thinking about this upcoming winter. So this is from the International Research Institute. So they provide a projection of El Nino every month. And this is from July 2023. And what you're looking at is different projections from various different models of the chances of El Nino at these different three month lead times. And so anything here above 0.5 is considered an El Nino. And you can do this in different ways. One is using a dynamical model.

So if you think of, like, a weather forecasting model that runs a whole bunch of different calculations and mimics how our climate system works, this is their red line. And you can see this winter, these dynamical models are really projecting much stronger of an El Nino. A statistical model is looking at the statistical relationships between a whole bunch of different variables and different models are set up. And that bold green line is the average of the statistical models.

And then this blue line, which I should say indicates a less strong El Nino, whereas this blue line is what the Climate Prediction Center at NOAA is forecasting, which is a bit weaker than El Nino compared to the dynamical models. And so in thinking about some of the urgency, although climate change will impact cliff erosion, there are also events that happen currently that have the potential to obviously impact cliff erosion. Now, I'll just wrap up with some summary points.

That cliff retreat is affected by both wave erosion and rain and groundwater. But the cliff erosion occurs closer to the base of the cliff, and the rain and groundwater is higher up on the cliff. Future projections of precipitation highlight that both extreme monthly totals become more extreme, and extreme events, largely caused by atmospheric rivers, will become more extreme and more frequent. Sea level rise is a lot more certain in the next 30 years. Beyond that, there's this increase in uncertainty, but more frequent extremes are projected.

And then the other thing to think about, especially during this upcoming winter, is El Nino. Events historically have caused the most number of extreme sea level events, and El Nino is forecasted for this winter. So I will stop there and have be to answer any questions.

Well, thank you, Dr. Kalansky. We appreciate that. And maybe we will now ask Mr. Edison to put that climate information in context of the rail line.

And so the need to both protect the corridor that's there in the short term and look at realignment alternatives is very real in this corridor. The coastal threats here are not only on the south end of the corridor, as we've been emphasizing with Del Mar and San Clemente over the last two committee hearings, but they're also on the north end of the just a map here that I'll put up, and then I'll come back to the other slide on the north end.

We recently funded a portion of the roughly $85 million of investments necessary in these five locations with similar kinds of bluff issues and erosion issues, things that need to be stabilized and hardened on the north end. And so as we kind of think throughout the whole corridor, as we were talking about earlier, the success of the corridor depends on the whole corridor being open.

And those north end improvements that start with these five projects are ones that we're getting going on here in the near future with funding that was awarded earlier this year. While the while the short term focus here is on shoring up the reliability of the corridor, we are determined to put funding towards the studies that look at planning the future.

Just in the last year, $365,000,000 has been made available for bluff stabilization and planning efforts, mostly through TRCP, also through some of the Itip funding and other sources that have been made available. But this isn't going to be an ongoing need even as we're looking at realignment in the corridor.

One of the things that is critical to the Corridor is having a growing ridership in use of this Corridor so that those investments that we make in the future can be afforded and affordable to us as we look at having more demand for passengers, more demand for freight throughout the Corridor, as we get projects like the LOSSAN station run through tracks done and that brings more riders to this corridor. That's part of when we get to some of the funding discussion here.

That's part of how we're going to get to the ability to put resources towards some of these threats is the more important this corridor is in the economic use of the corridor for both passengers and freight, the more likely it is that we can get the priority on funding to meet some of these threats. So the state rail plan continues to highlight the need for investment here.

We highlight the areas all along the corridor that are threatened by the kind of issues that were just highlighted by Scripps. And this is really an area where we want to continue working with the agencies that are the owners of the corridor to make sure that we're prioritizing the right kind of projects in getting those funded and planning for the future. So that's really where I would leave it here and then take questions.

Okay, thank you. Do any of my colleagues have questions about this section on the environmental threats? I do not see any, but thank you very much for the oh, yes, yes.

I certainly don't have questions, but I just want to reiterate how important this conversation is to the entire corridor. As I represent Ventura and Santa Barbara County, we talked about just the impact in terms of safety, and I represent Port Wainimi as well. And having had multiple evacuations and multiple highway 101 closures, rail is what we rely on.

And certainly in 2018, when the 101 was closed for 13 days, that rail became the only way that we could get in and out of Santa Barbara County for those 13 days, while Caltrans worked 24 hours a day to try to mitigate the impact that the fire followed by the debris flows had. And so I think for me, again, no question, it's just a matter of stating how critical this is for safety.

And we know that as far as climate, yes, it's impacted by sea level rise as well. But with the wildfires, the extreme heat and everything that comes with that, it also impacts this. Know, I know a lot of this conversation, the hearing today has been on what is happening in the San Diego Orange County portion of the rail.

But certainly those of us that represent other counties with this rail are looking closely at what that looks like now, because that may be the future of these other counties and the issues that we have in those other counties. So I appreciate the conversation, but just want to note the severity of not having access to this along the coast.

Well, and maybe if you look the map right there that's up there are these five hotspots in your area, and maybe Mr. Edison might do you want to say a little bit about you were saying those are five priority spots. Do you want to just say a little bit more about those projects?

Yeah, well, the details on the scope of each project I don't have right here with me today. But what I will emphasize is that many of these are bluff stabilization efforts and making sure that the track along the rail corridor is stable. Part of what's important here is that we have enough money to do some of these projects here with state and state resources, but we also are going after federal resources for these same projects.

So much of the corridor here, these won't all happen, and the other quarter hardening efforts that need to happen can't happen. With only the state funds that are available. We also need federal funds to get this accomplished. And so that kind of partnership and going to DC and making sure that they're aware that these are projects that we need to get built so that the railroad can stay open.

What happens in some of these locations is that you may be able to keep running the trains for a while longer until there's a catastrophic event, but in the meantime, you're slowing the trains way down. You're having to do a lot of extra maintenance in these areas. And so we're still in the process in Los Angeles doing a lot of this work with Union Pacific Railroad in this area because they're the railroad owner of identifying all the places that are at threat.

And these were the hotspot projects that kind of rose to the top of the list in each of these locations. But there are more that we're aware of along the corridor that will be detailed in the future that just points to the importance of continuing this work, of planning and technical work, of looking at where we need to. Make these investments and then using the best recommendations we can get from those who are studying this to make the investments that are the highest priority.

Just a quick question. Years ago, the high speed rail quarter in the system had a leg from Los Angeles through the Inland Empire down to San Diego. I don't know if you're familiar with that. You are. Okay. And that was the segment of the system that attracted the greatest interest from the private sector, even from other countries, to fund that portion of high speed rail. That was sort of the jewel of the whole system.

And I realized that there are all kinds of challenges with high speed rail. But in terms of getting from Los Angeles to San Diego efficiently and as opposed to going down the coast, what are your thoughts on that and the viability? Whether it'll happen in my grandchildren's lifetime or not.

That corridor is in the state rail plan as a corridor for our long term vision. So for 2040, 2050 in both the 2018 and the upcoming 2023 rail plan, that as a high speed rail corridor is still a priority.

The nature of that is leveraging the East West service improvements that can happen between Los Angeles in both San Bernardino and Riverside out through Rancho Cucamonga, and then really the highest speed segment is from Rancho Cucamanga in Ontario through Corona down to San Diego on that inland corridor. This is a corridor that doesn't have as much in the way of tunneling and other kinds of investments. So it is a candidate for the type of investment that we see coming that's of interest to companies like Brightline.

So those corridors that are kind of in the highway right of way or near it often are easier to construct at that point in time. So, yes, it doesn't serve all the population, but it actually connects a very high amount of population from the Inland Empire to San Diego and really connects to that East West mobility that Metrolink and others today provide, that is in the long range state rail plan.

So, given that we've got significant challenges, as was illustrated today with the LOSSAN rail corridor going down the coast, is there a conversation about accelerating high speed rail? I know that at one point would go from Anaheim to Los Angeles, out to Inland Empire and then down to San Diego, ideally much, much faster than an automobile might travel that route. So is there a conversation about accelerating that portion of high speed rail given that we've got these challenges on the LOSSAN corridor?

These are all big projects that take time to implement, and I think both corridors are corridors that we at the state level see as needing to advance. So we still need to keep the current LOSSAN corridor open. High speed rail, therefore, phase one goes down as far as Anaheim and the other services on the coast are still important, but in terms of really growing ridership and connecting new markets to San Diego and doing that in an efficient way that serves additional markets, that high speed leg is important.

But I think each of these investments, whether it's realigning parts of the rail line, making the kind of capacity increases that we need to make on the coastal corridor, as well as serving passengers with the interior route, those are all very important in the state rail plan.

So they're important, but the fact that LOSSAN Corridor coastal corridor is deteriorating doesn't change the equation whatsoever.

I think they both have a deep importance to the economy of Southern California and to the state. So I don't think that the one replaces the other or makes that less important. They're both serving key and different needs than the other.

Okay, I'm not sure that that quite answers the question, but I'll take it in any event. Thank you.

Okay.

I think ultimately it's about investment and resources and prioritizing either of them or both of them. But that also leads us into our next panel discussion, which is about federal and state investment. So maybe we will move forward to that and say thank you to the environmental comments, to our commenters on the environment. So we would invite Mr. Bradley, deputy Director of GO-Biz, to come back up. He's around here. Yes, there he is. And then this is the last section today, so it is on federal and state investment. And would you like to I'm not sure which of you would like to start? Mr. Edison, would you like to start going first?

That's fine. I'd like to start out the funding section here with a little bit of emphasis on that kind of ties back to the threats discussion we just had, which is the cost of shutdowns in the corridor because it's actually in the near term affects our funding.

Continued shutdowns of the corridor raise the operating cost of the corridor and that then puts at risk the funding we have for the intercity rail program as a whole in California if ongoing shutdown related costs continue to hit our operating budget. And so that is something where protecting the railroad and being able to get it reopened quickly is very important to the ongoing operating funding that's available for the services that run there.

In addition, the kind of emergency funding approaches that we have for the current projects, those take resources that were reserved for other capital projects either in the Itip or in other capital programs. And so while important to get the railroad reopened, they also have that impact on current funding, where maybe we had other projects we were planning to put the money into in the LOSSAN quarter that have to be shifted over to doing the emergency repairs.

That's just a brief comment on the impact of that shutdown and also that it affects our long term ridership, as riders who want to use the corridor have significant periods of not being able to use it. And so that's just a key topic for us in the very short term in terms of the state and federal funding sources. Today, we have a number of funding programs that are funded through largely SB One and GGRF, greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, Resources, Cap and Trade Resources.

Those are the TRCP state Rail assistance, the SB One programs at CTC. The Trade Quarter Enhancement Program, congested Quarter program, state local partnership. These have put very significant resources into the corridor in recent years. And both San Diego County, LA County, and other county in the north end of the corridor have all received significant resources to expand service, increase frequencies, and further invest in the corridor. However, these funding programs do not have large annual budgets, they're statewide programs.

And so the amount of resource that comes out of them that can solve multibillion dollar projects in the future will be limited. But they have been a very significant element of keeping the corridor in an improving state. Just in this last few months, we've had $100 million of funding go into the Sandeguito Lagoon Bridge Replacement and Double Track Project. CTC has allocated over $100 million to the Vaticitos Bridge. We also put additional funding into the Fullerton Junction area.

And I just emphasize that these are the kinds of investments that you can continue to see in the corridor, but they're investments that are often doing things in the tens of millions or maybe Low hundred millions at a time. And when we look at the needs of the future, there's not enough here to meet the largest of those needs. We also have the ongoing and the history of large sales tax measure based investments in the corridor.

And as programs get renewed and thought about for the future, those are also potential funding sources for projects that need to be prioritized. And finally, we have a federal partner. And I guess in the federal context, I would emphasize that many of these programs have the amounts of funding they're working with right now tied to five year advance appropriations that are not necessarily going to be funded at that same level in the future.

These programs, many of them existed before the bipartisan infrastructure law, the IIJA, but they do not continue with that same level of funding if we go back to regular appropriations levels in Washington. And so again, there are a number of programs that can invest in the corridor. But the largest of these, the Federal State Partnership for Interstate Passenger Rail, it's funding outside of the Northeast Corridor for every project across the nation is $12 billion over five years.

And some of that is already in the process of being given out. So we continue to advance our projects through planning and through pursuing grants. We can also look at some of the future possibility of FTA based funding being used to make quarter improvements that they can. So the federal programs are very important to our pursuit. We are putting in grant applications. We're working with LOSSAN and SANDAG and OCTA and others on those applications when we have the chance to apply for them.

But where I will go with this is that it's likely that these funds are going to be insufficient to meet the kinds of needs that we are talking about here today. The currently known grant and capital funding sources can't do large scale rail line relocation that is in the over $10 billion range across some of the concepts that are out there today. That brings us to that potential role of financing tools that may be needed as we start to define better the future of this corridor.

That is easier to do if you have a growing market using the corridor, if you have more riders, if you have more freight trains. Because both the funding agencies that we have that can use kind of current resources over longer periods of time, as much as 75 years with some of the federal loan programs like TIFIA and Riff, those programs could either. Take solid commitments of ongoing public money to invest in the corridor.

But they also could take user based resources that are tied to the access cost of that railroad. And that can be something that a BNSF is willing to pay for as they get access to more freight capacity in the corridor. And it's also something that if spread over time, could make some of the operators that are running passenger services able to make some of those payments for improvements to the corridor as well.

I think the note I would make there is that the value of doing that in the context of growing use is easier to come up with that kind of commitment over time. There are many other ways of putting financing to work, and I think GO-Biz is going to be talking to some of those as well. But this comes back to what we've talked about a couple of times here with some of the questions as well.

The need to have a regional and statewide quarter advancement and funding strategy that is based on the kind of work that we're doing in this committee, and also together as public agencies that are studying the future of the corridor. And so with that, I'd hand it over to Trey and see if you have questions after he presents.

Great. So I'm going to be talking about a little bit about financing. So this is kind of a different role in the supply chain space. In a previous role at GoBiz, I also managed opportunity zones and tax increment financing tools and working in that space. I know Senator Allen and Senator Newman have both spoken in that capacity, in that prior role. The these tools, there's definitely an element in place for them in the work and funding of infrastructure support in this type of project.

There are a myriad of tools as you can see in this slide. This is kind of my brain downloaded onto all of the ways you finance finance in California. There may be another box in the far distance which is you can go to the voters to ask for financing authority and capacity, but all of the essential for private and public entities that exist in the space of tax increment financing.

I know many folks are familiar with former redevelopment, but in a very simple form it is leveraging the value of land, of course, which is incredibly valuable in California and bonding against it. I would say that one thing. And the reason I kind of brought tax increment financing up is what the Legislature did do in this past year. So the Legislature, beyond creating tools in of themselves for tax increment financing, they have also created specific tax increment financing districts for areas.

For example like Port of San Francisco and that area has its own special legislative created tax increment financing district for supportive infrastructure following transitions and happening in that port. This last year, there was a creation of a climate resiliency district, which is a tax increment financing district that was countywide given to Sonoma, but allowing I think the idea was for other counties to also create such districts with working on projects relevant to sea level rise and climate resiliency adaptation as a primary focus of that district.

Tool. It is a new type of it because it was countywide and the Legislature also did give that tax increment financing district different tax authority, so ability to leverage and administer other types of tax authorities other than just utilizing property tax increment. And so what is tax increment financing just for a really quick high level overview, it is leveraging the value of land by bonding against the future value of those properties and the increment associated with them.

That is usually done via the property tax in those projects and the assessments made at the local level or in lieu of property tax like possessory interest like at our ports. So either of those means are to leverage to bond against some of them. They're around the state. Orange County is the first one. There was a county, City Placenta and Orange County tax increment financing district which is leveraging development that is around rail infrastructure.

But then also Laverne is another example that is rail centric as well. I would say that we as GoBiz have a website now which is our kind of place based strategies web page where we profile all these tools and how to navigate them. What are the associated requirements with implementing and executing these tools? There's not very many limitations on these tools in terms of participation from local government bodies. And the statute is written.

You could have in any way we've thought up crazy ideas where you could have multiple counties joining in one tax increment financing district such as possible as listed in the statute. Of course you have new development in doing anything. So you have reassessment of property taking place, whether that's infrastructure or utility support or the likes. So you have the ability to leverage that value capture. That is just the only other piece I want to talk about.

Of course, going back to here, there are other means of bonds and financing capacity. We have at our Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank or Ibank. The Infrastructure State Revolving Loan Fund. We also have exempt facilities bonds which have been explored for rail infrastructure. It was mentioned the Bright Line West project is an example of a project that is utilized bond capacity via the treasurer's office in conjunction with Know. There's a lot that exists out there in the realm of financing, of course.

And it was mentioned that TIFIA and the Know, the Federal government and USDOT and other financing primers that they have drafted and published is that they really like tax increment financing as part of the total capital stack and project development. It's easy to leverage. Of course it is not grants or likes, but those opportunities do exist. It is not, I think a 300 million dollar check, which was the largest check I held in my life when I presented a LOSSAN corridor.

It is not an example of those. But of course, as Chad mentioned, the total build out and cost of these types of projects, the capital stack is rather large. With that, that concludes this entire presentation. I'll just say at the end from the GoBiz and I think with working with calcium and the others is that supply chain is transforming and changing completely in the next 40 years within California. We have some huge developments here with one of the largest concentrations of critical minerals on the planet.

We have a complete shift in moving of semiconductors electronics. The supply chain of tomorrow is very different and the alignment and position California has to be able to benefit from that is directly now and today. And so, looking forward, I think that this quarter plays a key role in that total future. So thank you.

Thank you. So back to that complicated screen that had all those availability of options for financing. I wonder if I heard what you said, which was essentially counties can get together and do this, but does the governor's office have a preferred approach that you might be willing to lead on? Not saying to here are counties that you could work on it, but here we are as a state and this is what we would do.

Well, most of these tools are designed, of course in local government and by design with property tax. Most of them are designed to be local led. The state is not a participant in these types of tools and districts unless there is an independent direct allocation of bond in which there is bond council of which the state does review projects on a case by case basis.

But for the actual, most of these districts and the way that they're designed and built themselves are really for local agencies and authorities to come to that know, to move and to create, even in the ones that the Legislature has created that the Governor has then signed that are specialized to local areas. We are like specific, for example, the Port of San Francisco has one. There's also actually one in San Diego that is specifically created in the northern end of the county by the Legislature.

All of those efforts that were the legislation the Governor signed onto these districts that were created for financing were all advocated and led at the local level to then go up to then create that type of district tool, even in the case in last year with the Climate Resiliency District. So I think that really the local level and community vision and alignment is where these tools really come and bring their strengths.

Actually, the dynamics at the local level is some of the areas where it has to be discussed in order to have them be adopted, which includes requirements of a meeting sometimes for voting and the likes.

Okay, yeah, and I mean, I'll just highlight this is the section on investments, federal and state investments, is that when we were meeting with the I mean, they actually have a carve out in the Investment and Jobs Act directly for that corridor.

And part of the way they were able to do that was to have a governance structure and a strategic plan to be able to present to state or to federal lawmakers that said that there was confidence that they would be able to actualize that money into important projects.

So the idea of when there's reappropriation advocating for the LOSSAN corridor to have a federal carve out, I think that seems like a good and ambitious goal that we should be working toward as the second busiest rail corridor and all the things we already went over. It seems like there's really a lot of opportunity there for that.

I was with the federal government when the NEC Commission was getting going and saw some of the early steps they took to build that consensus across what are many states in the Northeast corridor. And I would agree that that's a good model of building both consensus and priority. That was effective then later when Congress had the ability to put money specifically on that corridor.

So I think those types of actions are noticed in Washington when we get multiple counties or multiple states in the case of the Northeast together and really make the case for why these investments are the highest priority investments. They do have a much larger list than what they have funding for, and so they're getting part of it done. And they obviously have much more that they would like to do beyond what the resources that the federal government has given and the IIja will provide.

But that is an important model when they see many stakeholders across levels of government coming together and having a strategy. And that is part of what I think we're going to be trying to do through the Quarter ID program is showing that to the FRA at least. But these are investments that go beyond just what the Federal Railroad Administration will Fund to also what other levels of USDOT other modes can contribute to as well.

Yes. Okay, great. Do any of my colleagues have any statements or questions? Senator Newman, this is yes, quick statement.

Just thank you to all of you who participated today. And again, thanks to the Chair. Obviously, this is an ongoing conversation about an issue and an area that is, as you made very clear, critical to. California, critical to our economy, critical to. Our climate, you know, appreciate you being here for the very thoughtful discussion.

Thank you. Senator Allen.

Well, I'd love to get some insight from the chair, actually, we can talk offline. But about your trip to Washington and how it interrelates to all the comments that we've heard today and how we all see our prospects. Of being able to tap into more federal funding seems to be a continual theme here, with all the testimony and how we can be more effective in advocating for it, given how critical it seems to be that our success here.

Yeah, I mean, I would just say that the importance of this rail corridor that's already existing, that has incredible amounts of sunk cost and also right of way already purchased and serving the military, serving passengers, serving freight it seems to me like there's incredible potential for mode shift and also maximizing a rail corridor with incrementally more investment.

So we're not building new in the middle of the state somewhere, and we're not having to buy right of way and all of that, but we're investing in something that's already there. And so looking at models, there are many models outside this country that are very inspiring, but trying to work within what's possible in this country and in this state is obviously what the opportunity and struggle is.

So going to Washington and talking to the Northeast corridor as a governance structure that oversees multiple states, that's the most successful in the nation to me was it shone light on places where we need to improve. And one of those really is that we're really not doing effective strategic planning for the whole corridor. So I don't think any of us really know when we have seven different owners and many operators along the corridor, where should the investments be made?

We know when the corridor goes down in San Clemente and people are taking an hour bus bridge around from Irvine to Oceanside that that hour on the freeway is reducing the number of people who want to take the train by more than 50%. I mean, ridership had gone almost back up to 75% pre pandemic levels, and then it fell back down below 50%. And so those are catastrophic threats to the corridor.

But figuring out how because we have a local control approach and we've decentralized power around the corridor, how is decision making made? And ultimately, who is going to advocate, whose voice is going to advocate for this? That's what this Subcommittee is supposed to do. It's supposed to say, our voice is going to say, this is important, we want this to function. We want to invest in it and elevate it. That's the point of the committee.

So I don't exactly see everything in clarity forward, but I feel like this process will get us there because we're getting all together the different interests. We're talking about it publicly, we're elevating it and not just letting it fall into the ocean in places and then otherwise have freight shift from the rail over onto the road under our watch and not do anything about.

So and I think there are some just really interesting statistics about the capacity for this corridor to just take off exponentially because people really want to avoid driving on the 5 freeway. So someone who's going from San Luis Obispo or Santa Cruz or Santa Barbara down to San Diego, that long distance ride is really important part of it, but it has to actually function.

And the other thing that became clear to me is that it's really not just about this north to south, it's about the other feeder transit agencies because that's how people are getting into the train station in the first place. So you can't just think about it as what are these seven, but also all the different operators that are feeding in the first mile, last mile, exactly right.

And those have to be aligned with their timing, competing or the cross purposes of Amtrak or Metrolink with local agencies. I mean, all of that just really needs.

Does that is that comport with your conversations with Mean?

One thing that I think builds on, what Senator Blake sphere was just saying is that that incremental investment going to Washington, showing what you're going to do with the next request and the next request after that is really important for them to see that they're getting a discrete benefit as part of a bigger vision, part of a bigger plan.

But that each time you come to them, this is what you're going to where you're going to see more service, you're going to see more ridership, you're going to see an outcome. And if we're continuing to make those kinds of investments that build towards even bigger ones in the future, they will then be confident in helping us take care of some of the bigger problems down the mean.

You see this in the Northeast Corridor where they had a number of runs at trying to address some of the rail capacity issues around New York City and some of the tunnel replacement. And it took them a number of runs at it before they finally got kind of the coalition and the strategy together. And that involved federal work, it involved the states working together, local government working together.

And I think that same thing has to happen here if you're going to be effective in communicating on the funding side to DC. Is they need to know that each time you're coming to them, you're giving them something that's not just a phase of something, but something that has its own outcome and its own benefit.

Yeah, and I guess I just add one more thing that I think it's important that we don't let really hyper local provincial interests drive what happens. The success of the whole corridor. So part of it is raising up the status of it as a thing, as a corridor, not just as there's this particular section and how many people in my local area are using that or not, but recognizing it that it needs to function for the whole 351 miles.

Of course.

Okay. And then I was just going to say a noted variation, of course. I think in Northeast Corridor is we're talking about multiple states and exactly the counties here are larger than some of.

The and multiple states in that corridor. Yeah, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but yeah, you're right. And that's important to say that it's multiple states. So that's times two senators each. Right. So we have two senators. Right. But the other thing is that we're the fourth largest economy in the world. I mean, all of those states together don't rival our economy.

And we know we have to have local matches for things, the county or the city or the local transit agencies, and the state has to have these local matches. But we're able to create that if we're also able to bring in these much bigger amounts of money.

But ultimately I think we have to make the case to our federal partners that we have a consensus, but also that we know what we're going to do and that it's going to have this effect on freight and on passengers. And that's something that I don't think we're currently able to quantify. The information about the incremental increases, I think that's really important, but we need to be able to quantify it.

Yeah, I believe that we do have access to the resources that let us quantify some of this. So I think as we work together and as we do the work of the next month together, being able to quantify what the outcomes are of the priority capital investments will be a key part of that effort.

Yeah, okay, good. Any other comments from my colleagues before we go to the public comment? I think we have three on the phone and a few in person, so I'll just repeat how you make public comments. I want to thank you again for coming today and testifying, and a big thanks to all of the panelists who came today.

So public comment can be made on the phone, which will go to the in person first, but then for participants who would like to call in, the number is 877-226-8163. The access code is 161-8051.

And testimony will be limited to up to three minutes per person. And so if anyone is in the room and would like to offer public comment, go ahead and come forward. Good morning.

My name is Steve Roberts and I'm President of the Rail Passenger Association of California, which is an all volunteer advocacy organization advocating for improved inner city and commuter rail. First of all, I want to thank the chairwoman and the Members of the committee for their diligence in putting this together. I want to thank the presenters for their excellent presentations bringing us up to date.

I wanted to kind of pivot off of some of the other comments about the focus on the potential of this quarter as we go through this very difficult process of finding a solution to the San Clemente issue, because bringing that in and including that potential as part of our decision factor.

And as part of that, we should take a look at what the estimates are for having a high quality, high capacity rail line out there and what it does for mode share, because that will drive revenues, substantial increase in revenues, which may, for example, eliminate operating subsidies on the surf liners and reduce operating subsidies on the commuter trains.

And also we also need to do a calculation of public benefits from shifting folks from the highway or avoiding additional lane expansions on I Five and fewer accidents and reduced travel time. And all the public benefits. We do a public benefit calculations for a sewer system or a flood control. Let's do it for this.

So when we're looking at the alternatives, we might find that a more challenging alternative might be better as far as benefiting additional cash flow for the operators in out years, as well as public benefits to offset any public investment in this. And so, once again, I want to thank you for all your work on this. Thank you.

Hello. Good morning. My name is Brian Yannity. I am the vice President south of the rail passenger association of California, and I live in downtown Fullerton, a block and a half from the Fullerton station. And I'm a regular user of Low sand. And I just want to thank you senators and thank the presenters for your attention to this vital issue and from the rail passenger perspective, Our organization has long endorsed a double tracked railway the entire way from LA to San Diego.

Of course, it already is between LA and Fullerton and really the potential of demand for frequent service, I think Caltrans or CalSTA folks here today talked about a surf liner every 30 minutes. The only way we're going to get that is double track the entire way.

And regardless of this coastal erosion or landslide issue, which obviously is extremely important in this case and is a driving factor and reason why this committee was created and everyone's here today, regardless of that, just ignoring that we have a single track constrained railway in that section and there's not room for double track through San Juan Capistrano. There's not room for double track through most of San Clemente anyway, even if we wanted to.

So we really got to look at and follow the studies that have done before. The good news is we've had studies done before, the 2003 Losan studies, and then in 2009, there was a programmatic eir by the Federal Railway Administration.

They eliminated some alternatives, and what we're advocating for us at Railpac and others, it's in a presentation that we've submitted as part of our comment to this hearing, is following a couple of the options looked at in the 2009 studies of going underneath I Five, and that's Caltrans. Right away, we feel, and we actually mapped out where some potential portals can be. And again, we're not geotechnical engineers. Caltrans really needs to look at all the geotechnical record underneath Interstate Five.

And I know that tunnels have been built like this under freeways, or what we call freeways around the world. And we think that we can pretty much avoid in the direct tunnel alignment any private property whatsoever, just Octa and Caltrans and whoever owns this one street in northern San Juan Capistrano. Avoiding that. And it's a big project. I admit that it's going to take a long time.

I don't want to give years or budgets because I've worked in the construction industry over ten years, and you don't give ballpark figures too early when you don't know what's going on. But you got to look at it this way. It's a piece of infrastructure that would last 100 years or more.

And my rough guess, and people can correct me, I think the economic value of this Low Sand corridor, having a functioning railway between LA and San Diego is probably around $2 billion a year, maybe a billion, something like that. Multiply that by 100 years and then compare that, that's like the cost of losing the line.

Thank you so much. Thank you.

Good morning. I'm Laura Walsh with the Surf Rider Foundation. Really appreciate the formation of this committee and being able to speak today. I'm speaking on behalf of our hundred chapters and clubs in California who are dedicated to protecting the beach and the ocean. And we're certainly a local stakeholder in San Clemente where we have a chapter that's been involved and a voice in climate resilience in this corridor for about ten years.

We are asking today for a commitment to relocate the corridor in the 7 miles from South San Clemente to doheny because of the impacts that the rail and the related armoring to deal with the problem of seawater level rise is having on Public Trust resources. Currently, 6500 tons of boulder are sitting on a half mile of public land. This is taking up footprint of the public tidelands. It's disrupting sand flow, exacerbating erosion of the beach, it's destroying coastal access.

You can't walk from the iconic Trestle Surf area to the northern beaches and it will likely impact the surfability of Trestles, which again is probably one of the most prized surf arenas in California. We know that Armouring has impacts to surfability and we know that those impacts get worse over time. So Surf Rider is expecting that impact. All of these impacts are both self evident to anyone who lives in San Clemente and well studied.

I know there's a sense that planning for retreat is putting the cart before the horse. It's the idea of putting a solution before studies, but really we're at the stage of the situation where the evidence is in front of us. We're already experiencing major impacts to the public trust. And from Dr. Kalansky's sea level rise presentation, we know that there is no question about the direction that sea level rise rates are going.

We know that Armoring and beach nourishment won't fully solve this problem and won't address the rates of sea level rise we're going to experience. And so, at best, the current trend is that we'll have a band Aid for dealing with sea level rise that comes with an enormous price tag of the public tidelands and of coastal access. The best time to plant a tree was yesterday.

We've known about the location problems of this rail, we know about sea level rise science and about the consequences of armoring. This is our chance to set a vision for how to deal with sea level rise in a way that allows us to accomplish 40 years of planning in ten years. And I'd just like to really quickly touch on funding. When we started working with SANDAG on rail relocation in San Diego, early estimates for relocating there were about $13 billion.

The estimate today is more like 3 or 4 billion. And we understand that funding is pursued in increments and we think there's a lot available today that is worth setting us down that path now. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Yes. Next speaker.

Hi, I'm Gabriel Riley. I went to college in Ventura County and I'm currently here speaking on behalf of streets for all. So Losane has been incredibly successful despite all of its shortcomings. Service is infrequent. There's been major issues with reliability and service disruptions. The state and Los Angeles have repeatedly laid out visions that have not been enacted upon. We can go back to 2003. Losan had long range plans. We can go back to the 2005 state rail plan.

Most of the 2005 state rail plan when it comes to Los An, has not been implemented. We've been talking about this for 15 plus years, and it has never been acted upon through a combination of lack of funding and through the distributed government we have. Counties seem to have very little interest in actually running the rail infrastructure, and so the state needs to consider taking that back from them.

Sierra Siding right now the extension that was proposed by Octa is a scaleback version from the 2021 San Diego Pathing study was studied between Fullerton and San Diego. The full extension as proposed in, that would support three round trips, hourly of passenger service, unlocking capacity now to increase service, and then in the future, we can realign the corridor. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you for coming to testify. Okay, now we will move to the telephonic testimony. Oh, sorry. Go ahead.

I'm sorry. If you do wish to testify, please press 10 at this time. Again, it's 10. We'll go to line number eight. Please go ahead. Line eight, your line is open.

Hello, we can hear you. Good morning, committee. My name is Mark Booksovich, also speaking on behalf of Streets for all, the state policy Director. I wanted to thank Senator Blakespear and all of the senators who have contributed to this. I like Mr. Rhianne earlier, who we work closely and just to acknowledge, we work closely with railpac. We're working closely with Californians for Electric Rail.

I used to be a regular user of the Low sand back when I went to UC Santa Barbara, and then as an army reservist, would travel down the line to Camp Pendleton and train there as a soldier. And so I want to acknowledge how critical this was to my personal life and how critical this as a regional and also national priority for both national security reasons, but also regional and state transportation needs.

But I want to echo and emphasize the opportunity that we have before us, that we have the opportunity to have the best rail service in the country, not the second best rail service in the country. We could reach higher ridership than the Estella Corridor, and that's the corridor from Boston to New York to DC. We have the opportunity in this process to improve project delivery. Why is it that in the US.

Heavy rail costs $1 billion per mile when in Spain it costs a quarter of that? We also have the opportunity to electrify the corridor, which means improving service, improving local emission impacts, and improving even the grades that trains can. Climb if we do underground align. And lastly, we have the opportunity for fundamental governance reform of this rail network.

Lastly, I just want to also mention something, I guess re echoing Senator Blake's comments about local concerns and the need to recognize that this is a national and regional priority and to not get burdened by local concerns. And I'll also echo what my colleague Gabriel mentioned, that there are a number of projects in the pipeline, including the Sierra siding project, but also projects where the rail corridor fell into the ocean in Santa Barbara and Ventura decades ago that have never done that.

We have opportunities now to build that ridership and increase the potential for the rail corridor. So all of this, I think, should be happening in concert, in conjunction with each other, to create the best rail corridor in the country. Thank you.

And next we'll go to line 18.

Good morning, chair and Members. Reading from a California Globe article by Katie Grimes. July 22, 2022 California's electric high speed rail. No power, no money, no high speed. Many wonder if the high speed trains will be powered by windmills, solar panels, cooking oil and algae. If it is built, California's high speed rail would be the largest public works project in state history.

In fact, that fact alone appears to be intoxicating to state officials in a perpetual quest to have California be the first state to do anything, grimes reported in 2011. That's how long California's high speed rail has served only as a jobs program and a really bad joke on California voters and taxpayers. By 2011, it was apparent that the High speed rail Authority was violating important mandates.

In the 2008 initiative passed by voters, Prop 1A 9 billion in bonds for high speed rail, included numerous mandates, none of which can be legally bypassed on the way to building the massive train system. Top on the list is that the rail system must be high speed electric trains that are capable of sustained maximum revenue operating speeds of no less than 200. However, much of the first segment between Fresno and Bakersfield is not high speed, nor will high speed be attainable in dense cities.

Despite the warnings of a nearly 100 billion ballooning price tag, no track laird, no trains running, decreasing legislative support, and even opposition from die hard rail advocates, the High Speed Rail Authority is steaming ahead full throttle with plans to build the most expensive high speed rail system in history. That is also from 2011. Eleven years ago. And nothing has changed except more spending on the train to nowhere.

A 2011 field Poll found that two thirds of Californians want a referendum on the project, and by a two to one margin, they say they'd vote to derail it. Only three years after passing Prop 1A, adding insult to California voters, the California High Speed Rail Authority has published a website peddling myths about the bullet train while they suggest they are trying to dispel myths and separate fact from fiction. Their own website is rampant with more opinions than facts.

Even in 2011, California's high speed rail pushers were agitating for the 3.5 billion in matching federal funding for the rail plan. However, the federal money came with a requirement of use exclusively in the economically depressed Central Valley. A 2011 report by the legislative analysts found that future high speed rail funding sources were highly speculative.

Thank you, ma'am, for your comments. We appreciate your comments. We're beyond three minutes by a lot, so we are going to move on to the next caller. So thank you very much for your comments.

And again, it is 10. We'll go next to line 17.

Good morning, Senator Blake's Beer and Senators Paul Dyson. I'm, 40 year Member of the Rail Passengers Association of California, currently vice President. I'm a resident of Burbank on the corridor, and I use it both north and south. I just want to make a couple of very quick observations. One is that everybody agrees how important this corridor is. They've been agreeing on that for the last 30 or 40 years, but we haven't had the investment in the last 30, 40 years. We've made very little progress.

The railroad is still like a county road compared to a ten lane freeway with single track sections still in existence. Second observation is that counties don't understand railroads, and they've got no business owning railroads. Counties have highway construction departments, but they've never been in the business of constructing railroads. We need a railroad to run a railroad. We see over the last decade that I five continues to be widened. There is always money for highway construction. Highways get built, but railroads are studied.

Once again, highways are built, railroads are studied. That will be your challenge in making a difference here. Thank you for all your efforts in this, and I wish you success.

And currently no further commenters in queue.

Okay, well, thank you very much to the public commenters and again to the panelists and also to my committee colleagues. We know that the case for the Low sand corridor is set. The rail corridor has the potential to transform into a high performing corridor, and we need to bring it to the next level. So we will see you in a few short months for the next meeting. I want to say a big thank you to Jack Christensen on my team for making this happen.

We could not do it without the incredible work that you put in. So thank you again so much. And we are talking about having a meeting in one of the districts along the rail corridor so that we can part, we can actually see it firsthand. I think there's no substitute to doing that. So we'll be in touch about the details, but thank you again, and we are adjourned.