Assembly Select Committee on Select Committee on Regional Transportation Solutions

Good morning. We'd like to begin this Select Committee hearing on Regional Transportation Solutions. This is an informal meeting, but this is an official meeting of the State Assembly and the Legislature. So we have Members of our panel are made up of our committee, are made up of Members of the Assembly, and we're certainly happy to be here today. Good morning to all of you. We are going to open this meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance and then we will move forward with our presentations.

Please join me. Right hand over your heart. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Before I begin with some opening comments and turn to my colleague, Assemblymember Carillo, I'd like to first begin by recognizing the tireless work of our first responders and local, regional, state, and federal workers that have responded to the disruptions and destruction of Tropical Storm Hillary.

We will continue to have to deal with the impacts of extreme weather and climate change, and the continued efforts of local and county public works teams and Caltrans is greatly appreciated. So thank you to all who have been a part of helping with that recovery. Let me also say that I want to thank you for joining us here today for a timely discussion on delivering regional transportation solutions. The purpose of the Select Committee on Regional Transportation Solutions is so important.

We're here to listen and to learn from experts in the field and explore and deliver solutions that matter to the constituents in our districts and throughout our great state of California. California's number one source of global warming pollution is from transportation sector. And as many of you in this room know, taking steps in our transportation infrastructure is the best way to curb our carbon emissions and make our communities safer and healthier places to live.

As legislators, I believe it is our duty to serve the long term interests of our constituents and the people of California. Providing better regional transportation solutions and create efficient alternatives to driving and, in turn, reduce vehicle miles traveled. Support technologies that reduce our dependence on dirty fossil fuels, improve access to high quality transit options, improve affordability and accessibility of options, and make certain that no one in our community is barred from educational and economic opportunity.

Encourage communities to engage in active transportation and contribute to improve public health. Together, we will plan for and Fund better and more sustainable transportation solutions. Together we will improve access and equity in our regional transportation solutions. Together we will expand connections that improve the quality of life and better connect people to work, school and leisure opportunities. Again, I thank you for joining us here today.

Over the years, I've had the opportunity to convene these informal hearings in several different venues, from LA Metro headquarters to the US Court of appeals in Pasadena to the Ontario city hall. I would like to thank my colleagues and friends, Assemblymember Juan Carrillo for hosting this hearing in his district and the Antelope Valley Transit Authority for welcoming us to the city of Lancaster and offering this state-of-the-art chamber for our hearing today.

It's my pleasure to recognize Martin Tompkins, Executive Director of the Antelope Valley Transit Authority. Mr. Tompkins, we turn to you for your greetings and welcome and thank you for being here and hosting us today.

My name is Martin. We're happy to host this important committee hearing on transportation solutions. Is that better? Is this better where was I? We're happy to host this important meeting on hearing on regional transportation solutions. Our jurisdictional partners, the City of Lancaster, the City of Palmdale, and the county of Los Angeles take our community needs for public transportations very seriously. Anything AVTA can do to further that cause is a high priority for this agency and our board of directors. Just a brief background on AVTA.

We operate five different modes of transportation our local transit, microtransit, on demand Dollar Ride, nonemergency transportation, and commuter service which serves downtown Los Angeles, West San Fernando Valley, Century City, and the Veterans Hospital. Additionally, we are working on a new commuter service called the High Desert Connector, which will serve residents that connect them between the Antelope and Victor Valley. This is expected to begin in fiscal year 2025.

Our fleet today consists of 81 100% fully electric vehicles with an additional 21 buses due to arrive at the end of this month, and 19 fully electric vans by April 2024, which will bring our total fleet to 121 fully electric vehicles. To date, our electric fleet here at AVTA have traveled more than 12 million electric miles when we started this journey. That is a savings of more than $4 million in fuel costs and more than 3 million gallons of diesel fuel avoided.

AVTA seeks to be an example in the transit industry. Last year, the state of California's Air Resources Board and several other state and local agencies joined together here in Lancaster to recognize abta's achievement of becoming the first 100% zero emission transit agency in North America. Under the guidance of our AVTA board of directors, this agency accomplished California's innovative clean transit regulation goal 18 years ahead of schedule. The AVTA board of directors continue to set innovative goals for a greener transportation.

We are pursuing a project which includes the acquisition of 43 acres adjacent to our facility to build our own solar farm, battery, storage and power electric fleet off the grid. Additionally, this agency sets daily goals to meet the needs of our community. We are here to mobilize and empower our community by connecting people to Aye. Grove. I Atkins. Aye. Atkins I five to zero., opportunities, and enrich and elevate their lives. We are dedicated to this goal.

Listening to our writers and community M\members helps us to better serve this community by being here today you are participating in this goal for this region and the entire Golden State. Thank you.

Thank you. And we do appreciate your welcoming us today and providing the facility for us to hold our hearing here. It's a wonderful facility and we thank you for opening it up to us. Thank you. I'd like to introduce my colleague, Assemblymember Juan Carrillo, at this point, and I'm sorry.

Thank you.

Okay. Assemblymember Carrillo has brought passion and commitment to bringing focus to the issues of the Antelope Valley and transportation is second to none. It's my pleasure to introduce him. He's certainly high on the issues of connecting the valley to other parts of the region and that ties into the importance of this committee. So, Assemblymember Carillo, we welcome you for your opening comments.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And welcome back to the Antelope Valley. It's nice to see you up here again. And thank you, all of you for attending this important meeting, important issues and discussions that are going to happen today. Yes, because transportation is something that I'm very passionate about, given my almost 20 years of planning experience working for two different jurisdictions.

This is an important issue for me and I do believe that housing and transportation have to go hand in hand so that we can solve the challenges that we have in the state. With that, I also want to acknowledge the elected officials that are here. It's also important to see them involved in these talks, these conversations.

Mayor Pro Tem Alarcon is here from City of Palmdale and we also have not acting as the Mayor capacitor, but Eric Coulson, my District Director, and I don't see any other elected officials here, but if I miss you, let me know. Again, that's important for me to have those local elected officials being here participating, seeing the discussions that we're going to have today. With that, Mr. Chair, I give it back to you.

Thank you very much. And Councilmember, it's good to see you and best wishes to your dad. Let's see as we move forward in the presentations today, and we will have Assemblymember Pilar Schiavo, who will join us here shortly, and we'll give her an opportunity to make some opening comments when she arrives. But we will have an opportunity after each panel, as Members of the panel of the Select Committee, to ask questions.

After each panel, we'll open up for public comment once all the panels have had an opportunity to present. Let me also say that this hearing is being live streamed, so everyone on their best behavior goes without saying. So it's my opportunity now and my pleasure to introduce our first panel. The first person I'll call up, and I will just assume that you'll speak in the order in which you're called up.

This panel is represented by Annie Nam, who is the Deputy Director of Transportation Planning and Programming with Southern California Association of Governments. Annie Nam, currently serves as the Deputy Director of Planning for the Southern California Association of Governments, leading long range planning, programming and strategic initiatives and transportation. She oversees the three panel departments including Integrated Planning and Programming, Mobility and Good Movement Planning and Partnership to Innovate Deployment.

She has over 25 years of research, analysis, and planning experience, specializing in surface transportation policy and financing. She was instrumental in leading the development of SCAGs concept of operations for the regional express lane system and mobility go zone congestion pricing program. More recently, she has been leading SCAGs last mile delivery research and demonstration efforts, focusing on clean, innovative technologies. Welcome. Annie Nam. Thank you.

I will introduce the full panel and then we'll turn to you. Thank you. Also on this panel is Gloria Roberts, District Seven Director of Caltrans. Gloria Roberts. Serves as Caltrans District Seven Director. As District Seven Director, Gloria excels in change management and strategic planning. She has been instrumental in driving cultural change to embrace people engagement and partnerships. She combines her passion for equity and sound business acumen to leverage a holistic approach to advancing transportation programs and projects.

This accelerated the ability of District Seven to become more responsive to the needs of the communities within Los Angeles and Ventura counties. Welcome Gloria, and we will turn to you and you may begin.

Good morning. My name is Annie Nam, deputy Director of Planning for Transportation at the Southern California Association of Governments. Chair Holden, Members of the Select Committee. Thank you very much for this opportunity to present. Before I start, I'd like to just provide a little bit of background, particularly for those who may not be familiar with SCAG. We are the federally designated Metropolitan Planning Organization, the largest in the nation.

Geographically, we cover over 38,000 sq mi, comprise 191 cities, six counties, and we are home to nearly 19 million residents. So we have multiple roles and responsibilities per state and federal law. But today I'm going to focus primarily on numbers one and two noted here on this slide, namely our regional transportation plan and sustainable communities strategies. In particular, given the interest in transportation planning and funding, I am going to focus my talk today on the financial element of our long range regional transportation plan.

So firstly, I should note that SCAG is currently in the process of developing our regional transportation plan, also called Connect SoCal. This is, as I mentioned earlier, one of our core responsibilities under federal law. This is updated every four years. And in developing the RTP, we must include a financial element that covers over a minimum of a 20 year planning horizon.

We're essentially required to identify how much funding will be needed to build out our capital improvement projects as well as to operate and maintain the existing transportation system. So fundamentally, we need to be fiscally constrained, meaning that we need to demonstrate that there is a balance between the expected revenues and cost. And for our latest Connect SoCal 2024, our time horizon is through 2050.

So in terms of assumptions, we essentially build off of data provided by our local county transportation commissions, and for LA County, that would be LA Metro that we work very closely with, in addition to various other transit operators, as well as state and federal data and other publicly available sources. So again, I think out of what's called our core revenues, these are existing transportation sources that we project out to our horizon here. Our local sales taxes are really the single largest transportation source in the region.

We have a total of eight transportation sales tax measures, and historically they've generated nearly 60% of local revenues. And sales taxes, as you may know, are highly volatile. They're tied to the economic conditions, and that's reflected here in this chart to the right there. At the onset of the pandemic, we had pretty substantial reductions in consumer spending and in turn sales tax receipts in the region, which then quickly rebounded and have increased from 2019 levels.

We do have concerns in the short term due to inflationary pressures, and so we're continuously monitoring what's actually happening. And I should note that historically, the Great Recession significantly reduced the region's revenues from transportation sales taxes. And so we're really mindful of this. And just given the reliance on sales taxes, as I said, is the single largest source of funding, this leaves the region really quite vulnerable to any potential future recessions.

Additionally, three of the eight transportation sales tax measures in our region actually expire before the planning horizon of 2050. I'm also going to touch upon state and federal taxes here. Excise taxes on gasoline and diesel fuels are really the basis of most federal and state transportation funding. They essentially depend on fuel consumption. The federal gas tax was last increased 30 years ago in 1993, and has not been indexed to inflation.

So if it had been adjusted to account for inflation, the current federal gas tax would be approximately 37 cents per gallon, more than double the actual current federal rate. So revenues have essentially been sustained by additional travel from population growth, but on a per capita basis, revenues have actually steadily declined. And as shown here on the chart to the right, the Federal Highway Trust Fund, the primary recipient of the gas tax revenues, has required more than $259 billion in General Fund transfers to actually remain solvent.

So these transfers are shown. There are particularly the spikes there, including the latest $118 billion one time transfer to partially Fund the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, or IJA. So in California, we're in a slightly better position as a result of the passage of SB 1 in 2017. We addressed at least some of these concerns by indexing to CPI and then added a supplemental registration fee for the alternative fuel vehicles.

Nevertheless, I think we still have some challenges ahead, and so we're mindful that recent rules in California could increase really the magnitude of the challenge, at least on the fuel tax revenue side, just given the declines that we actually anticipate. So the recent California Air Resources Board's advanced Clean Cars two rule requires that all new vehicles sold in California be a zero-emission vehicle by 2035. This really accelerates the need to secure alternative funding sources for transportation.

Also, the recently adopted Advanced Clean Fleet Rule would apply to the entire fleet composition and not just to new vehicle purchases. So all of this, we estimate, could mean a decline of revenues by about 30% to 40%. So on the cost side, the region faces significant challenges as well, with transportation cost escalation over the plan horizon.

The financial plan uses a long-term 4.7% annual escalation factor for capital costs over the life of the plan, while the long-term general inflation is projected to grow at about 2.3%. So we're basically taking a 30-year average of construction cost increases and have really estimated a 4.7% average and using that as a basis to project out what we're seeing. So in effect, our purchasing power will decrease by over 70% through the life of our plan.

One of the key challenges in forecasting long-term operation and maintenance costs are multiple uncertainties, of course, facing transit and passenger rail operations. Service levels dropped for many transit operators during COVID pandemic and then post-COVID service levels. Recovery and timeline has really been uncertain and varied by transit operators throughout the region. We're currently working with our local agencies and transit planning staff to incorporate service-level assumptions into the financial plan.

But I should also note that beginning 2029, 100% of new bus purchases by transit agencies must be zero emission vehicles with a goal for full transition by 2040. So there are significant cost implications to this, at least until there's greater market saturation. So operation and maintenance forecasts will also need to address potential vulnerabilities from extreme weather events. We're currently in the process of gathering data on the magnitude of the additional expenditures for system resiliency needs.

But these concerns really extend to maintenance of all capital assets in the transportation system and could also increase operating spending.

So based on our current analysis, we anticipate that a shortfall could be as large as 285 billion. There are further refinements that we need to do to narrow this gap, but the magnitude is generally consistent with prior plans. Considering the breadth of issues that I just highlighted, costs are really the driving factor in a lot of this, especially with the inclusion of resilience needs.

And of course the viability of state and federal gas tax funded sources over the long term also heavily contribute to the funding gap. So overall, before I transition to talk about some opportunities or options for new revenue sources, I just wanted to highlight three key takeaways. Overall, our revenues are decreasing, costs are increasing, while our transportation system needs are expanding.

So in addition to the core existing federal, state, and local revenue sources, Connect SoCal can include under federal law what's called reasonably available new and innovative funding and financing. And so historically, these new and innovative sources have really been instrumental in helping us have a policy conversation across the region about transportation funding. And these principles were first developed in collaboration with SCAGs Transportation Committee in previous cycles and updated to reflect our most recent input from our next-generation Infrastructure Subcommittee.

And I'm not going to read through these principles, but the general focus is on establishing stronger user-fee-based systems, firewall protections for transportation revenues, return-to-source guarantees, and better leveraging the value of public assets together with innovative financing opportunities. So this slide shows some of the new and innovative sources I'm highlighting here all of what we call our user fee-based strategies included in our previously adopted plan, our 2020 Plan, which provided over $140 billion of new revenues.

So currently staff is using this as a starting point for our analysis and working on updating for changes in conditions and timelines for our new plan. I do want to highlight that the first of these strategies, identified as average user charge, is what we contemplate as a replacement to the existing state and federal gas taxes. So this is purely a financial measure and fundamentally different from some of the regional and local mechanisms listed here as well.

And so again, we assume a replacement of the gas tax both at the state and federal levels with a mileage based user fees starting in 2030 and indexed to maintain purchasing power will likely push the start date out to 2035 for update. Given the amount of work that is still needed, we're perhaps as a state about a decade or more behind on this front and so that is something that we think that is most appropriate pertinent for us to address in the near term.

We also assumed some regional congestion pricing program in our adopted plan, as I mentioned earlier, comprising both very localized parking and zonal-based pricing as well as some broader regional measures. Recognizing that the actual form of implementation may differ across the region, but fundamentally focused here on managing demand, congestion, and emissions.

So again, I actually want to make a distinction here between the state and federal gas tax replacement versus some of the localized strategies, both very important for different primary purposes and both included in our plan, and both generating revenues to be reinvested back into the transportation system. So the strategy to shift to a mileage-based user fee is certainly not unique to the SCAG region, nor California.

Nationally this map shows that most states are exploring a transition to a mileage-based fee to address the fundamental issues inherent in the gas tax. States in yellow there have an active road charge program of some form, states in green have piloted a road charge, and states in blue are studying road charge mechanisms. And I should also note that under IJA, USDOT will be carrying out a national road charge pilot program shortly. And so this is actually my last slide.

I just wanted to pivot a little from the financial discussion and just for some context. This is the relative contribution of planned strategies in meeting per capita greenhouse gas emission reduction targets for our region. The suite of pricing and user fee strategies included in our plan accounted for about 19% of GHG reduction, followed by land use at 18%, and then investment in EV charging infrastructure at 16%. The remaining strategies are really a compilation of smaller strategies added together.

What the emphasis here is how our road charge and pricing strategies are more than about closing the funding gap and meeting fiscal constraint requirements. They are also fundamentally the basis for how we as a region meet SB 375 greenhouse gas emission reduction targets in addition to federal air quality conformity requirements. And so this concludes my presentation. I'd be happy to take any questions at the appropriate time.

Thank you. Good morning, distinguished Assembly select Committee Members, Assemblymember Holden, Assemblymember Carrillo. And I also like to thank Director Tompkins for your hospitality today. I'm Gloria Roberts, CalTrans District 7 Director serving Los Angeles and Ventura counties. Today I will be sharing with you a summary of CalTrans's progress and the accomplishments we are achieving through rebuilding California. I will also provide you with information about state and federal transportation investments that are improving the vitality of our communities.

And through this presentation today, I will be framing the discussion of the work we do at Caltrans through the lens of our four foundational pillars of Safety, Equity, Climate, Action, and Economic Prosperity. These foundational pillars, also known as our Core Four, serve as the tenets of our people-focused approach in implementing transportation improvements. California continues to grow and is now positioned as the world's fourth-largest economy. Thus, CalTrans has the responsibility to continue to support the extensive utilization of the state's transportation infrastructure.

Yet we are at a crossroads of how we utilize land as we now focus on what becomes of the natural environment, the impact on air quality from additional cars, and on the communities that highways cross through. Land use considerations are compounded at a time when there is a regional housing shortage. So as we continue to plan, design, construct, and maintain transportation projects, we focus on these four foundational pillars. Safety remains our top priority for our travelers, our communities, and our workers and contractors.

We have a vision to achieve a goal of zero fatalities on our state railways by 2050. We are implementing proactive countermeasures to make our roadways safer. As we also work with our partners through education and enforcement for equity, we are reconnecting communities that were divided by federal policies in the 1950s that determined where interstates were built.

We see transportation not as a privilege, but as a fundamental resource for all people, a resource that encompasses all modes of travel and that includes bicycles, pedestrians and transit and rail. Multimodal transportation also supports climate action, with transportation contributing about 50% of the greenhouse gas emissions. The California State Transportation Agency, CalSTA, adopted the Climate Action Plan for Transportation Infrastructure, also known as CAPTI, in July 2021 in order to mitigate and adapt to climate change and to move to a Low carbon, sustainable future.

Economic prosperity is related to equity. CalTrans knows that the confluence of jobs, housing, safety, a clean environment, and access to transportation helps deliver the substructure necessary for a community to thrive economically. With three ports of the ports of Long Beach, LA, and the port of Hueneme in District 7, keeping freight moving is of regional importance and a key for California's economy. Here at CalTrans, we have the incredible opportunity to help families across the state to achieve the kind of economic prosperity they might want to attain.

With Senate Bill 1, the Road Repair and Accountability Act of 2017. It's been an incredible contributor in this area. SB 1 provides significant, ongoing and stable transportation funding, and since its passage in 2017, more than $16 billion has been invested in SB 1 programs. With 4000 completed projects and another 4500 projects planned or in progress. SB 1 stipulates performance measures to hold CalTrans accountable for the expenditure of SB 1 funds.

And here you see the four asset classes that we developed as performance targets in pavement, bridges, culverts, and transportation system elements. The fixed first approach of these four primary assets serves as the foundation of the State Highway Operations Protection Program, also known as SHOPP. The majority of SB 1 funding goes to Shop projects, and projections presented here indicates that CalTrans is currently meeting and is projected to exceed SB 1 condition-based targets by 2027 for all four asset classes.

Specifically, this slide quantifies how we are meeting our statewide targets, and you can see the number of improvements we have made so far. Every time CalTrans completes a project that helps provide a safer and more reliable transportation network, it also allows for more families to take steps towards opportunities for economic prosperity. The benefits to our communities from the SB 1 projects include reduced climate impacts, reduce traffic delays, enhance efficiency for the movement of goods, improve equity of access, and safer active transportation facilities.

Additionally, SB 1 has stimulated growth and employment opportunities. SB 1 projects are providing opportunities to communities with a growing emphasis on engaging with small business and disabled veterans business enterprises while strengthening our transportation network across the state. SB 1 also comprises of several funding programs. TCEP, which is the Trade Corridor Enhancement Program, provides approximately $300 million per year in state funding for projects which more efficiently enhance the movement of goods along quarters that have a high freight volume.

The Solutions for Congested Quarters Program SCQP provides a $250 million annual program for funding for a balanced set of transportation, environmental and community access improvements that reduce construction throughout the state. The Local Partnership Program, LPP, provides local and regional transportation agencies with a continuous appropriation of $200 million annually to fund road maintenance and rehabilitation, sound walls, and other transportation improvement projects. SB 1 also augmented the funding of the active transportation program.

The Legislature created the ATP program in 2013 to encourage increased use of active modes of transportation such as biking and walking, and SB 1 directs 100 million annually to the ATP, which significantly augments the available funding for this very popular program. These four slides are examples of TSEP Grants that are awarded in 2022 in District 7. As you can see, these projects all support efficient movement of goods throughout the region.

This next slide shows the SECP and LPP grants that were awarded to Ventura County Transportation Commission, the City of Inglewood, and LA Metro for these grants that contribute to improving safety and increasing access to a greater variety of mobility choices. And this slide shows a sample of the ATP grants in District 7, where these grants allow communities to become safer while encouraging multimodal access for all.

We do have three specific upcoming projects in this area, all of which are funded by our SHOP program, the first of which is $124,000,000 Shop major pavement rehab project in Pasadena that's in the planning stage. We also have a significant $173,000,000 major pavement rehab project for the cities of Lancaster and Palmdale that's currently in construction and as some of you may have driven through.

The third is an 18.5 proactive corridor safety improvement project for SR 14 that is currently in the environmental phase that is estimated to cost $18.5 million. Lastly, there is a component of SB 1 that requires CalTrans to achieve at least $100 million of efficiency savings each year. Stewardship and efficiency are strategic key components of CalTrans's goals and we have exceeded the 100 million dollar goal of efficiency savings for this fifth consecutive year and we anticipate continued adherence to this accountability and performance measure for SB 1.

Since November 2021, when President Biden signed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Bill, also known as BIL, which is also known as the Infrastructure Investment in Jobs Act IJA California has received more than $20 billion of IJA funding. CalTrans has demonstrated to be good stewards of SB 1 funds, and for this reason, IJAs historic investment empowers us to accelerate the pace of our work that improves the quality of life for all Californians.

So far, California has announced to date the $20.1 billion of age of funding, with $15.1 billion dedicated to transportation. And of the $3.69 billion investments to date, $759 billion are dedicated for District 7 projects. And so far, with IJA, the IJA funding has recreated close to 48,000 jobs. In addition, with the contracts that have been awarded for IJA-funded projects, we are meeting and even slightly exceeding the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise contract goal of 22.2%, IJA has also enabled us to increase the contribution of active transportation projects.

These active transportation grants, funded by IJA, augments what we can provide to disadvantaged communities.

In addition to the regular work that is funded by our state and federal programs, CalTrans has worked on numerous emergency projects in response to the storms of early 2023, which had significant impacts throughout the state. In District 7, we have undertaken 40 emergency road opening projects, primarily in response to storm-related damage, with combined capital costs, $118 million. Statewide, as you can see, we have 345 projects with a capital cost of $101.3 billion of emergency repairs.

In addition, we have ongoing projects focused on permanent restoration strategically designed to rectify the lasting consequences of these emergency events. And please note that these figures do not include the damages that were caused by the most recent tropical storm, Hillary. CalTrans sincerely appreciates the support of our legislators in recognizing the important role that we play in emergency response. Our crews work around the clock to keep our communities safe and our roads clear during road, during all weather events, and every day. And so I thank you for your time today, and this concludes my presentation, and I'm happy to take any questions.

Thank you. I appreciate both of your presentations. I'll turn to my colleague to see if he has any questions for one or both.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. But before I do that, I also want to recognize staff from Assemblymember Laura Friedman who are here. They made it up this way. And also staff from Pilar Schiavo. I thought I saw her here. She may have stepped out a little bit. But anyway, I do have some questions, comments, and statements.

And yeah, first of all, the first responders, now that you mentioned all the damages that we just recently had last weekend, thank you for all the first responders and local governments to the public works departments who were really out there cleaning out the roads after all the mudslides that we had everywhere in Southern California. I wanted to ask the equitable distribution of resources throughout the region. That's one of the values and cores from SCAG and also from CalTrans.

And given the numbers that you presented and all of the projects and the billions of dollars that are being spent throughout Region 7 in CalTrans and SCAG region, I know that having equity throughout the region is something that we want to make sure that it's done. Are you looking at any metrics to see how these equitable programs or monies available that are distributed throughout both regions, the SCAG region and CalTrans?

The reason I say that is because in the Antelope Valley, sometimes we feel like we're the forgotten child, the stepchild of the county. And we can see that, but we don't see what you just presented. We don't see the amount of money that has been spent in the region. And this really helps see where those monies are going, the types of projects that are being repaired, presented, and for future infrastructure.

But again, going on that equity issue, do you guys have metrics that we can see and show the residents of the Antelope Valley that we actually are having what we deserve and what we need in the region.

Thank you for your question, Assemblymember Carillo. As part of the captive the Climate Action Plan for transportation infrastructure, CalTrans is continuing the development of a transportation equity index that will really kind of spell out in terms of how we measure the baseline and then continued. Success in terms of, as you say, the equitable distribution of our projects and resources and how we plan for transportation improvements across all regions. So that is definitely something that's currently in the works.

And we also have major strategic actions to support equitable engagement across all phases of our work with all of our projects. Now we go in at the pre planning phase to really learn what are the priorities of the communities and what is missing in terms of the existing transportation network that is not serving the communities and then building from there so that they have a say and are involved in the planning process to help us work through transportation solutions that are actually meaningful and serve the purpose that is meant to serve, which is the local residents and communities of the various regions.

And so CalTrans and CalSTA and the California Transportation Commission, we also have an inter-agency Equity Advisory Committee to align our action work with equity goals. And that is a committee that is there to serve in terms of making decisions and funding decisions that really point to the fact that we are investing the monies in the appropriate places.

Thank you for that. And from SCAG.

Yeah, if I can just add that historically SCAG has not been involved in the sub allocation of federal transportation funding. However, recently, with IJA and with recent action by the federal agencies, we are now going to be responsible for the suballocation of the Carbon Reduction Program Dollars, at least the local regional share, as well as moving forward CMAC and STBG federal funding.

And so as a part of that process, we've been working very closely with CalTrans as well as our County Transportation Commission in establishing a process that really takes into consideration numerous factors, including equity being first and foremost as part of that, highlighting some of our work that we've been doing internally on priority equity communities. So most definitely it's a part of our process.

And along with those lines, just for my own benefit, when CalTrans receives the funding through the state, is it distributed by region, is that taken into account or is it by population? Do you know how that money gets going down through the different SCAC regions?

I can maybe start it really depends on the funding source. So even some of the formula categories that I just spoke about. So the latest federal action is that we cannot sub allocate by population for some of these categories. And so we've been looking at various performance metrics as a means to do some competitive suballocations.

Of course, categories like CMAC for example, has to be redistributed to those areas that are generating the resources as a result of the air quality, the criteria pollutant issues in the various non attainment or maintenance areas and so they are by formula kind of redistributed in that context for the region. But as a regional agency, we would then need to establish a competitive process to ensure use of the funds that are more closely tied to performance.

Thank you. Thank you for that. In the presentation you also mentioned that going through the bidding process and getting small businesses to be able to participate in disabled veterans also being able to be part of the bidding process so that there are opportunities for them as well for economic improve their quality of life as far as getting their jobs and obviously that improves better quality of life. Is there data that you also can share with us? You don't have it.

I understand you don't have it now, but Larry can send it to us so that we can not only let our constituents know that these opportunities are available, but those that have actually been benefited from these opportunities that you are providing to them. Again, I think that that would be beneficial for our constituents, letting them know that there are opportunities out there that you are helping small businesses and disabled veterans so that they can know that those opportunities exist.

I think that that would be something that would be beneficial for all of us. When we talked about meeting those goals from 2035 and the heavy investments that have been done electrifying the state, I think that we also need to start looking at hydrogen. That's something that we are talking about in the Assembly, but in order for the state to be able to meet those goals, which are very drastic.

But 2035 will be here before we know it and it's been proven, and I've experienced that myself, that the electric infrastructure there's a little bit out there, but a lot of times they just don't work. The mirror or the charging stations are out of order and it takes a long time to charge your vehicle. I just want to make sure that you can see that the hydrogen could be another fuel that could help us get to 2035.

And again, those are things that we are discussing in the Assembly. But I think that that's one way they're going to be able to meet those goals not only in personal vehicles, but also with heavy-duty trucks and also with public transportation. There are trains, I believe that AV Land through Metrolink is working on having a train that is going to be operating with hydrogen.

So I just wanted to let you guys know that that's something that we are looking at and that we think is one of the ways that we're going to be able to get to 2035. Let's see what else I hadn't known. A couple of things. Do you want to introduce Assemblymember Schiavo? I think. Finished.

So with that, I'd like to introduce our other Member of our Committee, Assemblymember Schiavo, who joins us. We're just finishing panel one. I'll pause I have a few questions that I'd like to ask, but I'll pause on that for a moment. We've we've each had an opportunity to have a brief opening statement, so I will give you the opportunity to say some opening words, and then we'll continue with the questioning on panel one and then transition to panel two.

Thank you so much. Very happy to be here. Apologies for being coming in later. I had a flight this morning out of Sacramento, and I should have, would have, should have could have taken public transportation because I arrived here with about 23 miles in my electric vehicle left. So just by the skin of my teeth, I made it. But personally, I'm a huge fan of public transportation. I've been able to live around the country where there's incredible public transportation.

My family got rid of one of our cars because we were able to use public transportation so much that we only needed one car instead of two. And so it's something that I've been a big supporter of personally and really believe that there's so much good work that we can do in the LA region around this issue. And I know work that's happening now. I was listening to the hearing as I was driving out, so I didn't miss anything.

And I know that the finances are a challenge, and that is really one of the big challenges facing us right now that we have to figure out. We have to make sure that public transportation is faster, gets people where they need to go quicker, very available to working class folks who have to get to work and have to get home to kids. And these are big priorities for me. So appreciate everyone being here today, being a part of the panel. Very happy to dig in and learn more about what's happening and how we can support at the state level.

Thank you. Thank you. And that actually ties into my question for Ms. Nam on the clearly, California. We all set and proudly so ambitious goals. And as they address the issue of environmental concerns, what are some of the suggestions that you might have in terms of how the Legislature can work closely with the agencies and coordinating and to what degree are these goals having impact on revenue in terms of how we were planning going forward?

Are we seeing, and I know in your presentation you talked about the time frames and when certain dollars would expire. But as we continue to sort of push the envelope and try to be aggressive in addressing these environmental goals, how do you see the Legislature and the agencies working together to better plan and where we might start looking at resource opportunities going forward.

Well, most definitely, I think conversations like this is a step in the right direction. I think there needs to be more dialogue about the need to have some of these hard conversation about what's happening to transportation funding. Right. We've been very focused rightly so, on the challenges associated with climate change and ensuring that our policies are really focused on addressing that. But I think there are larger implications to that and we need to really think about more holistically, how this impacts various aspects of the sector.

And I don't think we've had that kind of a large conversation. The same is true in terms of just simply on clean technology side, right. The energy implications of all this. And I don't know that there has been really a concerted effort to have dialogue amongst many of the transportation agencies, as well as the energies, the utilities, to be at the table and really understanding the full implications of the change to come.

We're at the cusp of, I think, a pretty significant change and we really need to be thinking about all these factors that are going to hit us pretty soon.

No, I appreciate that when you talk about bringing in the utilities, that does make a lot of sense in terms of how the coordination, especially in terms of electrification, and how we're moving in the direction and charging stations, and how the pressures in that sector coincide with transportation and planning and so good point. We'll make sure that either part of this conversation going forward, as this committee continues to delve into these issues and working collaboratively with all of you.

I wanted to also ask real quickly, with CalTrans, there's a public portal where people can go to learn more about SB 1 projects, funding and SB 1 programs. Is that the case? Because I know the Assembly Member brought that up. Can you talk a little bit about this portal?

Sure. This portal is a website. It's called RebuildingsCA.gov. And so basically, you can go into that portal and look up any of the SB 1 projects, SB 1 funded grants that are funded by SB 1. So if you wanted a status of what is going on in your neighborhood or region of the state, you can go in and look up the project status and the conditions.

Very good. Well, I want to thank you for your presentations. You'll stick around. When we get to public comment, there may be some questions that you might need to be prepared on, but we'll now transition to our second panel. Our second panel includes transportation leaders who have demonstrated commitments to providing solutions that improve access and equity. Today we'll benefit from receiving information from Rafi Hamperian, a Deputy Executive Officer with LA Metro, Darren Kettle, Chief Executive Officer, Metrolink, and Denny Zane, Founder/Policy Director Move LA.

As I invite Raffi to the podium. To start off, allow me to share a bit about him. Raffi Hamparian. Born in New York City and raised in New Jersey as a graduate of Rutgers the State University of New Jersey where he also earned a Master's Degree in International Relations. Hamperion has worked for a number of Members of Congress, most recently as the chief foreign affairs aide for former New Jersey Congressman Steven Rothman.

He currently serves as the deputy Executive officer of Federal Affairs for the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority, where he advances the Metro board's federal legislative program. He is resident of Pasadena, where he lives with his wife, Mireille Hamparian, and their four children.

Thank you, Chair Holden. Thank you, Members of the select committee, for having the Los Angeles County Pennsylvania Education Authority testifying today at this important gathering. Raphael Frank. Executive officer for LA Metro. There you go. A little better. With an eye towards content and also brevity. I'm going to jump right into the presentation and have an opportunity, hopefully later to answer some questions.

Let me start by saying, as you are all aware, LA County is the most populous county in the nation. 10 million residents, 88 cities, plus unincorporated LA County. Our transportation system is large and complex and includes moving both people and lots of goods over 40% of the inbound cargo entering these United States.

Let me go to our next slide. There you go. Metro is the second largest transit agency in the United States. We're the chief planner, coordinator, designer, builder, and funder for projects across Los Angeles County. Our goal as an agency has been to transform transit in LA County, and we are doing that through the nation's most ambitious capital program, with an investment of $2.2 billion in fiscal year 2024 alone, and with some of the most innovative programs and initiatives across the United States.

Understandably, ridership is down from pre pandemic levels, but we have made good progress to move forward. Our annual ridership is up 15% year over year, and we've recovered 75% of our weekday ridership and nearly 90% of our weekend ridership. This ridership increase is a direct result of steps we've taken to improve the quality, safety and frequency of our transit service and make it more accessible and useful to more people, namely low-income riders, women, and K-12, and community college students.

I'll get into that a bit more in the next slide. Metro has implemented a series of new strategies to increase Ridership even further. Recently, we established the Ambassador Program as part of our broader effort to reimagine public safety on our Metro system. To date, we've onboarded over 300 ambassadors. Ambassadors are a key part of our multilayer program to improve the customer experience and public safety.

Combined with a team that includes Metro security, law enforcement, homeless, and mental health service, outreach workers, and cleaning crews to the next slide. Metro has also implemented programs to help low-income people and students afford transit. Our GoPass pilot program partners with K-12 and community college students to provide free access to students on our system and dozens of others in the county. We recently recorded 22 million GoPass boardings.

Since the pilot was launched in 2021, GoPass has helped Metro grow its student ridership by 43% over pre pandemic levels. And GoPass is part more broadly of our Fearless System initiative, which began with a study in 2020. GoPass is one of the tools to help bridge the gap to expand our fairless programs. The other side of the bridge is our LIFE program, or Low-Income Fare Easy program.

We have partnered with LA County Department of Public Social Services to help sign up people for the LIFE program. Participants can choose to receive up to 20 free rides each month. new LIFE participants receive 90 days of free rides. We are proud to say that as of this month, we have enrolled over 250,000 participants in the LIFE program.

Metro's Rapid Equity Assessment Tool concluded that the cost barrier to transit disproportionately impacts Low income households, which can limit mobility and access to employment, education, medical care and social services. We are making investments and efforts to ensure that we can strengthen our subsidized programs. This effort extends to all riders, regardless of enrollment in a program.

With our new fare-capping system launched in July of 2023, customers can now use their tap card to pay per ride until they hit a daily fare cap of $5 or a seven-day fair cap of $18. Once the one-day and seven-day caps are reached, Metro riders will be able to ride the system for free for the remainder of the day or a seven-day period. We hope to have preliminary results about fare-capping available soon.

Metro is also, as I mentioned, undertaking an extremely aggressive capital program. I want to highlight one recent success and one planned study. The success is our Regional Connector program, which is basically connecting many of our rail lines underneath downtown Los Angeles. The project includes three new stations in the downtown core of the city Little Tokyo, Arts District, Historic Broadway, and the Grand Avenue Bunker Hill station.

These three stations have allowed us to turn three lines the Gold Line, the Expo Line and the Blue Line into two lines the A and the E Line, offering smoother, faster, transfer-free rides between Azusa and Long Beach and East LA and Santa Monica. It's still early, but we are already seeing ridership gains from this project. And finally, I will touch upon the A-line feasibility study to evaluate connections between the San Fernando and San Gabriel valleys.

Thanks to Chair Holden for assuring that these funds for this specific study were appropriated in 2021, and specifically, this feasibility study is set to examine a potential rail connection between the A-line, formerly the Gold Line in Pasadena, and Hollywood Burbank Airport. A rail connection could potentially expand upon the BRT service currently planned for the corridor, and we are eager to see the results of this planned study.

And with that, I thank you again, Chair Holden, Members of the Select Committee on Behalf of LA Metro for having us here today and at the appropriate time, be happy to answer any and all questions. Thank you, Chair Holden.

Thank you. It's a pleasure to have you here and appreciate your presentation. I'm going to introduce the next two members of the panel, and then we'll just allow you to go right into your presentation. Darren Kettle is the Chief Executive Officer of Metrolink, Southern California's regional passenger rail provider that offers safe, easy, affordable and stress free alternatives to car travel for more than 18 million residents of the six-county mega region. He became the Metrolink CEO in September 2021.

Kettle has more than 30 years of experience with local regional government agencies. Before joining Metrolink, he was the Executive Director of the Ventura County Transportation Commission for 14 years. Previously, he was with the San Bernardino Association of Governments, now the San Bernardino County of Transportation, from 2000 to 2007. Early in his Sandbag tenure, Kettle was Director of the Intergovernmental and Legislative Affairs for both Sandbag and the Riverside County Transportation Commission. Thank you and welcome. Denny Zayn, founder policy Director. Move LA.

Denny Zayn founded Move LA to coalesce environmental, labor, business, and community organizations to initiate Measure R 2008 and Measure M 2016, each a one-half-cent sales tax increase to raise billions of dollars to invest in Los Angeles County transit system. Approved by more than two-thirds of voters, these measures will generate $120 billion over 40 years to invest in one of the most extensive rail and bus transit systems development programs in the nation.

Mr. Zayn also initiated the development of Measure H 2017 and ULA in 2022 in Los Angeles to raise the funds needed to aid the homeless and build affordable housing. Previously, Zane served three terms on the Santa Monica City Council from 1981 to 1992, including a term as mayor, formulating Santa Monica's successful affordable housing strategies, and leading the creation of the Third Street Promenade. Welcome, Mr. Zane. Mr. Kettle, you're up.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good morning. Good morning. Assembly Members Carillo and Schiavo again. My name is Darren Kettle. I'm the Chief Executive Officer at Metrolink. I'm a proud resident of the county of Ventura. I'm a regular user of our train. So as the saying goes, I'm not only the CEO, I'm also the customer. And because of that, I have a unique experience in the role I get to play in serving as the Chief Executive officer.

The name of this committee is the Assembly Select Committee on Regional Transportation Solutions. And I would suggest to you that we are the definition of that, a regional transportation solution for all of Southern California. The map you see on the screen is our system. We were formed 30 years ago we just celebrated 30 years last October. We serve six counties, including as far south as San Diego County. We do go into Oceanside, our five core counties, though, that include our five Member agencies.

My home county of Ventura, Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Riverside, and Orange County. We have a system that is seven lines. You can see that also on the map, 545 miles of route miles. That makes us the third largest regional passenger rail system in the country as far as the amount of the distance that we span and with 66 stations along with and I mentioned that we are a five-county member joint powers authority that includes those five counties.

The system that you see there is traditional commuter rail. Again, something that has kind of changed. I'm going to touch on that in a second. We operate as many as 55 locomotives throughout Southern California. 40 of those locomotives are very, very new, brand new, tier four low emitting locomotives that run on renewable diesel. We do not run on any of our locomotive. All of our locomotives are run on renewable fuel. No petroleum in our locomotives.

So, again, we started 30 years ago as a commuter railroad when people got up in the morning at 6 or 07:00, got on a train and went someplace, typically into Los Angeles or Orange County. Well, three years ago, something changed and changed the way we can do business. 2019, we averaged nearly 40,000 daily riders on weekdays and close to 10,000 daily riders on weekends. And then March 15 of 2020 occurred and we all went home for a year and a half or so.

And we are now working to come back when that did happen. Commuter railroads are arguably the most impacted transit service anywhere in the country. When you are, again, by definition, a commuter railroad and people are staying home and not commuting to work, things are going to change. And we lost nearly 90% of our ridership overnight. We did still carry people. We still carried a number of essential workers to their place of work and continued to conduct our business. We did reduce our service levels.

We did not continue to run the same number of trains as we did prior to the pandemic. But what it told us, though, is that leisure travel was something that and discretionary trips were something that we were going to have to pivot to. And so very seldom will you hear me use the term commuter rail any longer. You will hear us refer to ourselves as regional passenger rail. Because, again, the nature of the commute has so fundamentally changed. So we are pivoting.

We're changing the way we're doing business. And we're going to talk about that here in a bit. Because the Antelope Valley Line, the line that serves this community, is going to be one of the first lines that we shift to add service to a different kind of model from what we have been historically. We have to recognize that our trains are about visiting friends, attending sporting events. Most recently, a couple of weekends ago, the X Games were at the fairgrounds in Ventura.

Our trains got to the Ventura County Fairgrounds to provide service to that location. And so we're continuing to look at new options besides that typical commute trip going to the beach while we had to struggle for a while with issues related to landslides in South Orange County, in San Clemente, where we had to discontinue train service because of unsafe conditions.

As we've brought that service back as we made the repairs in San Clemente, we have seen our ridership on weekends go up significantly because of the nature of wanting to go to the beach both from Los Angeles County on the Orange County Line, but also on the Inland Empire to Orange County Line and then just doing other things. It's all about the adventure, spending the day in the city and again using the train for something other than just the work trip.

Now that said, the work trip is still our core market and we're not going away from that. It is a reality that we need to continue to keep, but we can't just rely on that. It's not sustainable. Given the fact that I mentioned where we were, we're at about, one of the questions I'll often get is, well, what is the ridership as compared to the pre-pandemic? And we're still not quite to even 50% of pre-pandemic ridership, so nearly 40,000 daily trips pre-pandemic.

We did have a record-breaking Tuesday where we got nearly 20,000 boardings on our trains this past Tuesday. Our two most successful lines, the lines with the highest ridership include the Antelope Valley lLne and the San Bernardino line. And those lines are hovering around 53% to 55% in ridership recovery. So let's talk a little bit about what we're going to be doing on the Antelope Valley Line. We've been working with our partners at LA Metro again. LA Metro was one of our primary funders.

We share a board Member Board of Director for both Metro as well as Metrolink. Kathryn Barger came to both Metrolink and Metro back in the spring with a desire to see service restoration on the Antelope Valley Line to pre-pandemic levels. We are still working out all the fine details on the budgeting, but both the Metrolink board and the Metro board will be considering budget amendments in September that will allow us to launch new service restored service on the Antelope Valley Line in October.

And what that means is new round trips on the weekday between Lancaster via Princessa and Los Angeles Union station. We're also going to have early trains leaving the Lancaster area as early as just a little bit after 04:00 in the morning. That is a very early wake up call. But also trains leaving Los Angeles, coming back to Lancaster, leaving at 11:00 p.m. And coming back into the Lancaster area on 12:30-12:45.

One of the things that we've heard about is I can't use the train to go to a Dodger game. And if we want to attract that market, we better put service out there that allows that to happen. Or if we want to catch a Laker game, how do I do that? And so whether it's the theater, whether it's sporting events, having later night trains is going to be critical to making that happen.

And then we're going to be doing new additional weekend service, nearly hourly service from via Princessa, but also clock facing schedule. So if you're going to know every hour or every two on that, at the 15 or at the 30, you'll be able to catch a train on the Antelope Valley Line, another program very similar to what you heard Raffi talk about at LA Metro. We've done some work. We had an affordability and accessibility study that we conducted in April of 2021.

We launched what was originally called our low-Income fare program. We've rebranded that just this month to what we call the Mobility for All program. With an EBT card, you can go to our ticket vending machine. You put your EBT card into the machine, followed by a form of payment, and you receive a 50% reduction in the cost of the fare, whether it's for a monthly pass or for a round trip, a one-day round trip.

So every fare product, you can utilize the Mobility for all program. With that EBT card coming soon, either late September, early October, we'll be launching our Regional Student Adventure Pass. So with a valid College ID, I shouldn't say College ID, a student ID, college, community college, university, trade school, high school. You will be able to ride our trains for free anywhere throughout our system. It's going to be a pilot. It's being funded. And of course, we talk about these things with discounts and free.

Well, there's discounts, but nothing's ever really free. So thanks to the state and the Low Carbon Transit Operations Program LCTOP, the grant funds are being used to Fund these programs to allow us to try to find out how do we capture new markets to try to utilize the train. As a lifelong Southern Californian, I've used Metrolink, really since the early 90s, when I did work in downtown Los Angeles and I lived in San Bernardino. I used the train because of the commute.

Californians aren't always wired just to necessarily go take transit. We use it because we happen to use it for work. We've got to break down that barrier, and these are the opportunities to expose people to use the train for something other than that work trip. We have a major capital investment program called SCORE. It's the Southern California Optimized Rail Expansion program. It's two and a half billion dollars that has been funded out of a little over $10 billion program.

The map you see here shows all the different projects that are moving forward in our first phase. And certainly since we are in the Antelope Valley, I can direct your attention to projects 1920 and 21 that are track improvements and station improvements that will allow us to increase capacity so that we can run even more trains on the Antelope Valley Line.

We have projects happening on all seven of our lines and in all five counties that we serve. On the Antelope Valley line, as I mentioned, we have improvements with double track extensions, new sidings. We're making improvements at what we call the end of the line at the Lancaster Terminal and then the Brighton McGinley double track project.

And we are going to be doing a study over the course of the next twelve months, looking at opportunities where we might be able to implement zero-emission types of equipment throughout our system. But starting again because of grant funding, looking at the Antelope Valley line on zero-emission pilot projects. Earlier in my presentation, I showed you our map. We are going to be testing because Assemblymember Carillo mentioned hydrogen.

We are going to be operating a hydrogen powered multiple unit, not the large locomotives like you see out on our system today, sort of a light rail on steroids between San Bernardino and Redlands. We have that equipment is in the United States right now. It's being tested in Pueblo, Colorado before it makes its way to Southern California where we'll do testing. And we're going to run it on 9 miles of track between San Bernardino and Redlands.

So we are already, once it is in operation in revenue service, it'll be the first hydrogen and fuel-powered passenger locomotive in the country. And so we're looking forward to testing that out. Generally, we're looking at summer of next year, 2024. Of course, it wouldn't be a presentation talking about regional connections if we didn't talk a little bit about this small little event coming up in 2028. The Southern California Games Metrolink system is going to be the regional public transit backbone.

I'm sure we've all heard about the fact that LA 28 is going to be a car free games, which means spectators and workforce will not be able to drive to a venue. They will have to take public transit. And I see it as a great opportunity. It's going to force people to use transit whether they like it or not, or whether they've even wanted to try it or not. And so we have this wonderful opportunity.

We are going to serve as that backbone system taking people from throughout Southern California into the core of Los Angeles, where then it's going to be Raffi's job and Stephanie Wiggins, my good friend, the CEO at LA Metro. It's going to be their job to then move all those people once they get to downtown Los Angeles.

But think about what we're going to have to do from a regional perspective, given the fact that we're going to have the world here in Southern California, and when you have a conversation with anybody outside of California and we talk about it being a car free games, you're going to have to use public transit. Not many people throughout the world believe that we can actually pull this off. So this is our opportunity to shine. Mr. Chair, that concludes my remarks. Thanks for the time. I'll be happy to take questions at the appropriate time. Thank you.

Mr. Zane.

Good afternoon. My name is Denny Zane. I'm the founding Executive Director of Move LA. Now the Policy Director. People ask me what happened and I say, Well, I moved over so Eli could move up. Now, Eli Lipmen, the current Executive Director. I'm sure you will all have an opportunity to meet him. Wonderfully talented and public-spirited guy. Now, I still see the Metrolink slides up here, which I love. Which ones? Here we are.

So I'm going to talk to you a bit about an imaginary scenario because it almost took place, but didn't quite because we had several successful ballot measures, actually four successful ballot measures. Two in transportation, transit, principally in LA County. We had begun to look in about 2020 at strategies for addressing regional concerns that we shared with many others. Are you able to hear me? All yes. I just can't see you well.

Is there a stool? All right. So Move LA, at that point, wanted to expand our mission to include clean air. I confess this was a prejudice. I grew up in the Inland Empire in the, went to college in LA. In 70s believe me, we couldn't see through the soup, much less imagining what it was like to breathe it. So I had a prejudice toward achieving clean air. Had once been the Executive Director of the Coalition for Clean Air long before Move LA.

So this mission that I'm going to describe to you really started in large part as a clean air mission. But we all know the close and intimate relationship between air pollution and climate emissions. And so joining those two missions was at a very, very important objective. But we also knew that we needed to marry that strategy with strategies that would reduce traffic congestion on our freeways and boulevards because not only are those intimately related, but the voters want both.

They have a hard time, I think, accepting one without the other. They want both. In addition, we wanted important allies to join us who were very interested in jobs. And so we began a proposal that we brought initially to leadership at the South Coast Air Quality Management District. Natural place to go when you're thinking clean air.

I knew from my history of working on clean air that one of the fundamental challenges that the South Coast District had for meeting clean air goals is they did not have regulatory authority over most diesel-polluting technologies that was in federal hands. What they could do is if they had resources, they could invest in infrastructure and incentives to bring clean alternatives to diesel. And that was their fundamental challenge.

So I knew that major public dollars addressing diesel emissions in particular was an essential part of success for the South Coast Air Quality Management District. We began to formulate a strategy that would raise in that district, with a half-cent sales tax, over $100 billion over 30 years. And we basically tried to pitch this, if you will, to the South Coast Air District. Now in fairness, the Air District did not buy all of my grant designs immediately.

I still think they may have if we had been able to keep going. But they saw something important and they began a process of seeking legislative authorization for such a measure. Now how does that relate to what we're talking about here today? One of the things that was important then to realize is that at that time we were about to have the opportunity for a simple majority vote if a measure were qualified by voter initiative.

So the Air District could seek legislation that would create the boundaries for such a measure. But a preferred strategy we argued, would be to try to qualify a measure with a signature drive. And that really meant building coalition in order to qualify for a majority vote. This is the district that we're looking at. Includes everybody in four counties. Almost doesn't quite go over the boundary of the mountaintops in the north of the county.

But very close polling on this showed that 65% of the voters would support this. That's a strong poll if you need a majority vote, not enough if you need two-thirds. Mission one, double down against climate change, accelerate to market zero-emission light-duty vehicles. Related to that, many of you haven't heard about this. My suspicion is to reduce short-lived climate pollutants, which is mostly methane and black carbon from diesel.

Mission two for finishing the clean air would be bringing to market medium and heavy-duty zero-emission trucks, trains, ships, planes, ports and construction equipment. But mission three, we argued, would be to invest in Metrolink. Metrolink was for us a key objective to the success of any clean air plant, both because of the role they play in providing low emission or zero emission transportation, but because also the constituency coalition that they might attract locally and statewide.

So we were arguing to south coast at the time that that would be a fundamental part of an investment strategy that would work. That would be how importantly we would not only make the program right, but we'd build the coalition we would need.

We also thought that that would be a strategy that could lean into the region and the state's ambition for a high-speed rail program because you could design Metrolink in such a way to be, if you will, the southern partner as we all envisioned it, of the high-speed rail program. So instead of just being in the center of the state, spreading out, the high-speed rail program could be as we were envisioning it then starting from the ends as well as starting from the middle.

And that would accelerate both the interest and the prospect of success for that program. And Metrolink was really key to making that happen. We also thought investment in county-based transit would be an important part of this goal for clear and obvious reasons. But a large part of the explanation here, as I was, we were building a coalition to win.

And part of the coalition to win is not just the breathers, not just the people worried about climate change, not just the people worried about traffic congestion and wanting transit, but the people who have to build infrastructure. The labor movement, for example, the building trades, for example. We needed to bring those into the partnership because their energy, but also their money was a key part of success here.

Without that kind of partnership, it was hard to envision who would be the funding base for an emission reduction program. All right, so we proposed we're about to propose actually what we call the 60-40 Plan for Southern California health and prosperity. Now, we're thinking 2026, but this is really about the dialogue from 2022 and what we learned from it.

About 60 billion to SCAQMD South Coast Air District over 30 years to finish the Clean Air Challenge, zero emissions, everything, frankly, but about 20 billion for Metrolink and 20 billion for regional transit was what we were going to put on the table for discussion purposes. Again, we're not the Legislature. Legislature might have said, well, that's a crazy idea, or we really like that, or let's tweak it. We needed legislative authorization to go anywhere, but we needed a vision to get people engaged in the discussion.

So this was a vision we were putting out to try to build partners. Now, what happened here is that one of the key partners in this coalition, the state-building trades, kind of went south on us at that time. Now the leadership. There had been friends and partners working on Measure R and Measure M in Los Angeles County. But they were very suspicious of the South Coast Air District's intent. They worried that the South Coast Air District if this money happened, might try to close refineries.

We had no such intent without the measure could clearly prevent that. Nevertheless, that worry caused the authorizing legislation to die in committee. But what has happened since some very important things. Number one, everybody is developing an increasing appreciation of the importance of getting after climate change in a real way. Everybody is developing an increasing appreciation for the need for zero-emission trucks, trains, ships and planes, et cetera, in making that happen.

Everybody, including the building trades, our adversary of that moment is now our partner of this moment. And that partnership bloomed when Move LA put together a coalition in the city of LA for a ballot measure for affordable housing and who came to become our principal funding partner, the LA Orange County Building Trades. In particular, leadership. Chris Hannon, who now is the head of the State Building Trades Council.

Chris Hannon who has brought the building trades into a partnership seeking federal money for hydrogen infrastructure development because he believes in fighting clean air and climate change. Chris Hannon. So instead of having adversaries in a key constituency, we now have partners with whom we have a trusting relationship, and we believe we can make this kind of program happen in 2026. We are nursing this forward now. We have good experience and lessons learned from 2022. The formulas that I provided here are illustrative. They could change.

But I do think the combination of clean air, climate change and transit investments are a prescription for voter success, especially if we retain the ability to have a measure approved by majority vote rather than two thirds. That would be an opportunity of the future to really bring grand accomplishment in all of these major infrastructure areas that Southern California has been really wrestling with for so long. Thank you.

Thank you. I'll now turn to the Panel Member or the committee Members to see if you have any questions for our three panelists.

I do have a couple of questions. First, thank you for those presentations. They're very insightful and very informative, at least for me. I can say that this is very useful. And with what you presented, one of the things that got my attention is your comments, Mr. Kettle, on the opportunity for LA. To shine with public transit. When Barcelona had the Olympics in 1992, that's what really made Barcelona what Barcelona is today. Before that, there was barely any mention of Barcelona.

But with the Olympics, the attraction of the world going to the Olympics, and the investment they did with public transit, and I think that this will be the opportunity for LA. To shine by having people go to the events only by public transit. And I think that's what we need to be able to actually feel what public transit feels like so that people can actually believe in it and give it a shot. So that's something that really caught my attention. Thanks for mentioning that.

I do think it's a good opportunity. In the increasing ridership slowly, as you mentioned before, the pandemic, do you think that the perception of not having a safe system to ride, is that a reason why the ridership hasn't increased as it should have? Since we are back to normal.

Assemblyman, the Metrolink system, we constantly check with our riders about what their experience is like. We do not hear a concern about safety on our system. And I think where we have seen the challenge with ridership is just a matter of the fact that even in a hybrid commute environment where, let's just say 2019, people went to over the office five days a week. Now, in a hybrid environment, they're going in two or three days a week.

So we have many of the same riders, they're just not going in five days a week. So we're running into that situation. And what that translates then, too, is that perfect example. We had nearly 70% of our riders pre-pandemic would buy a monthly pass. They were monthly pass users. We're down to about 33% of our riders use monthly pass. So we've actually introduced new fare products that recognize people are commuting differently.

So I think the real reason we're seeing a slow recovery, I'm actually trying to move away from the term recovery because it just can be depressing because it's going to take a while. And BART in the Bay Area is experiencing exactly the same situation. So I think what we're just trying to do is again broaden that market because the nature of the commute has just so significantly changed. That's the principal issue not really a concern with safety on our system.

Thank you for that. And you mentioned the BART system in the Bay Area. We know that public transit is facing real challenges with funding and ridership and all of those things. In the Bay Area, there is actually legislation to increase the toll fees so that they can sustain the public transit in the Bay Area. How do we compare here in LA compared to the Bay Area as far as being able to provide the service and do the maintenance and all those things that are very expensive?

One of the things I did not include in my remarks earlier was how we're funded and Metrolink is we're a five Member agency and what we do not get in fares and we get a small amount of federal money we get from our Member agencies. So LA Metro and the four other transportation commissions.

So every year as we develop our budget, we identify what our costs are going to be and then I have the great joy of going to five counties and saying, okay, we need this much money from you to run our system. That's a real challenge as you're dealing with these ridership questions. So the good news is again in Los Angeles County is LA Metro is stepping up with additional funding so that we can bring back more trains to operate.

And I hope that what we may see. And again, hats off to the Legislature and your budget. You've recognized the call for help from transit and the fact that we've got a couple of years now of funding that we can use for both capital or for operations being flexed, operations, I think that is going to help us through the next couple of years.

These same agencies have relied on COVID relief money that is now gone. Unfortunately, our ridership hasn't come back. So the state's willingness to come in for this stop gap for these next several years to use that funding to continue our operations or for capital is going to be tremendously helpful. And I'm hoping to convince all five of our counties.

Again, Metro is pretty well on board at this point, but the other four counties that those dollars Metrolink led on the discussion of the challenges with operations, funding, and public transit. And so we believe that if we're going to bring our system back. We're going to meet all the goals of the state related to VMT reduction, greenhouse gas emissions reduction, equity in transit, access to affordable housing. We need to be in line for those revenues. And of course, I'll argue we should be in the front of the line. I may have some competition for that, but I will argue it nonetheless.

The hydrogen locomotive that is going to be in San Bernardino, do you have any metrics that will measure how successful that's going to be and how eventually that could be the way to go for the rest of your system? I know it's something new. It's something that has to be proven that it's going to be reliable and also clean hydrogen. That's something that we also need to work on.

But once you prove that that's the way to go as far as a public transit system with hydrogen, are there any metrics that you're looking for to be able to expand those to the other lines?

We'll definitely be testing it as part of this pilot project to see how it plays out. There's a lot of questions that the industry has. The vehicle that's going to be used is a smaller one. Like I reference, it being sort of a light rail on steroids. It's a smaller piece of equipment than our large locomotives that are locomotive-hauled passenger cars. So we're going to test it to see how it works in that environment. Again, it's 9 miles. It's short, it's flat.

You don't have tunnels and all sorts of other things that you need to be. Again, a challenge if we were to drop that same unit into the Antelope Valley Line and we have tunnels that we have to go through, how do you vent tunnels? Because you have a mile-long tunnel, how do you vent in the event that there's something related to hydrogen becomes an emergency?

So this is a test case for us, and we don't have metrics necessarily, but it is the opportunity for us to test every element of operating a hydrogen-powered multiple unit passenger rail. And again, it'll be the first in the country.

And as technology advances and there is more investment from the state in hydrogen, that may also facilitate expanding those locomotives. In your presentation, you mentioned that there is going to be more trips coming to Lancaster, a late 11:00 p.m. Train and one early as a little after 04:00. a.m. having more frequency. In one of your slides, I think that you showed double rail lines in certain sectors of the Antelope Valley Line. Are those needed now to start what you're going to be doing with more frequency, are those the only sectors with double line that are needed to improve the frequency?

We're going to be able to improve the frequencies immediately, so we're going to start this new schedule in October. The projects that were identified on the slide are additional double track and siding capacity that will give us the ability to have as frequent as half-hour bi-directional frequencies in the core area that's generally up through Via Princesa. We'll have less frequencies because we simply don't have at this point as much track north of Via Princessa.

But we still will be able to have as frequent as hourly frequencies from Palmdale and Lancaster. We will have the infrastructure in place to do that with the SCORE program. What we will not yet have in place is the operating revenues to help support that. Just because, again, running a railroad is an expensive proposition. So that, again, capital. The infrastructure will be there, equipment will be there. We'll have to figure out the way that we fund the operations.

Of course, we will work with LA Metro to put as much service as we can. But to your question, we do not need those improvements to start this service. And again, it will be serviced throughout the day, not just at the peak.

Okay, thank you. And one couple of more questions for Raffi. I know that Palmdale was selected to be the Palmdale Transportation Excellence just recently. What are the next steps to get there? What does Pamela have to do next.

Being selected for the Palm Transportation of Excellence? Okay, so maybe I'll follow up with somebody else later.

Oh, the center for Transportation. Yeah. My apologies. That LA Metro could not be more excited. Assemblymember about that initiative, I think that vision, I'll make a long story pretty short. That vision was basically the dilemma we were facing in using Measure R, Measure M, Prop A, Prop C dollars, local dollars from LA. County taxpayers buying rolling stock that was not manufactured in the United States. What was occurring, Assemblymember, is that rolling stock was being assembled here.

And for those of you who are familiar, it takes lots of people to manufacture something, just a couple of folks to assemble. So the LA Metro board vigorously robust support to set up that center for Transportation Excellence. Great partnership with the County of Los Angeles, excellent partnership with the city of Los Angeles, which owns some property up there, and great support from the City of Palmdale. And we are now looking at petitioning the federal government, which has talked about this for a long time.

They've talked about manufacturing rolling stock in the United States. And we have officially applied for a grant from the US. Department of Commerce. Our CEO, Stephanie Wiggins, recently met with Deputy Secretary of Commerce Graves to explain that we are 100% committed to seeing the center for Transportation Excellence take off. It would be a first of its kind facility in the United States of America, bus and rail. And you can only imagine.

Assemblymember not only the jobs associated with this, the innovation, the linkages with universities, the engineers, the talent that would be needed to have this take off. So probably one of the more exciting things we're doing. And, yeah, it's all happening here in the North County.

Thanks for that. One last comment, Mr. Chair, for Denny. I do believe that the appetite for that measure in 2026 may actually be even sooner than that. There are things that we're working on, and I do believe that that's something that may be happening before 2026.

All right, let's have a dialogue.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Accelerated your time frame. Assemblymember Schiavo

Thank you. And I appreciate I want to thank the chair for holding the hearing out here because I know, I think the EV often feels left out, and even my side of the San Fernando Valley feels left out sometimes. So it's really nice to highlight what's happening here. And I wonder if you can talk a little bit about because I know we're talking about the dollars that are going to be needed. Can you talk a little bit about the federal dollars?

I know there's so much investment happening at the federal level. The state is not flush with billions of dollars like we were last budget year. To the chagrin of Assemblymember Carillo, I imagine, and myself, we didn't get to experience that, but the benefits of it are still rolling out, luckily, I know, for some programs.

But there's going to have to be a balance, right, in terms of the investments that are needed around state and federal and local dollars and would just love to see kind of what's coming in now, what's on the horizon that you think could be coming in to help to support the work that needs to happen.

I'll start. So, Assemblymember I think we've referenced IIJA a few times in the earlier panel. That's been a game changer, particularly for rail in the United States, but it's generally focused on capital. And so the federal government has been strong partners and are stronger partners with IIJA when it comes to capital. During COVID when we received federal funds, we were able to use federal funds for operations. Those federal COVID relief dollars we could use for operations. Again, those revenues are gone.

And at this point, unless you are in a rural area, federal funds can't be used for operations, for transit operations. And so that's what we really struggle with. The industry has gone back to the federal government and talked about that issue. It didn't make its way out of IIJA, unfortunately, but we did see significant increases, particularly in state of good repair funding, which our systems desperately need. So I think the Feds have been good partners in many ways.

This operating question is one that has definitely challenged us across the board and generally the federal government looks as that's a state issue or a local issue to try to address. So those are my thoughts as it relates to the federal participation.

I would just add, Assemblymember, that the BIL signed in 2021 has delivered significant dollars to the region in particular, it's advanced and enhanced programmatic and formula dollars by around 35% to 37%. I cite a couple of examples of that because I think just citing a figure like that, I think lacks a bit of efficacy. So for example, the BIL significantly enhanced funding for the Buses and Bus Operations Program low or no emissions program, which is a grant program operated by the Federal Transit Administration.

Last year, we were pleased to get $104,000,000 for electrification of Metro bus divisions eight and 19. The BIL dramatically enhanced, actually doubled funding for the Capital Investment Grant program, which is the primary means with which the Federal Government, through the FTA, builds new transit projects. We were able, working with federal stakeholders, Senator Padilla, Congressman Cardenas, able to secure a $909 million commitment for the East San Fernando Valley Line. And so for a lot of the projects that we have, you had mentioned the word game changer.

The BIL has been a game changer, and I want to make it clear with respect to the Olympics, which is on the welcome horizon front, the BIL will be vital to make sure that the federal government's participation reflects and repeats the success Atlanta had in 96, Salt Lake City had in 2002 to make sure that the Olympic Games not only come and we're successful hosts of the Olympics, but that three weeks after the world leaves us, and after a wonderful experience that we are left, in the words of our CEO, Stephanie Wiggins, with legacy investments that the 10 million people who live, work and play in Los Angeles County will benefit from for a long time.

And the last point I'd make is Assemblement career with respect to the center for Transportation Excellence. Funding for that will hopefully in the future be drawn from Bil funding, but also from Chips and Science Act funding, which is where we have currently a grant proposal before the US Department of Commerce. Thank you very much.

Thank you. I know safety was raised earlier, and I just wonder when we're talking about ridership and getting that ridership back and what the barriers are, I know that there's been a lot of narrative about safety, and I feel like it's something that the media has picked up on quite a bit. But I wonder, what do the numbers say when it comes to that? Do you have statistics on whether or not safety risks are higher or lower now than they were in the past with higher ridership or what those indications are?

Speaking for the Metrolink system, we've actually increased our presence of law enforcement and security on trains because it's the right thing to do, because we've been hearing some concern about safety. That said, our crime numbers are down unruly passengers, where we end up with passengers who may try to take on a conductor, that type of thing. Those numbers have actually gone down in the last year.

I think it's due in part to the fact, because we have added presence on trains and then actually at platforms as well. So on the Metrolink system, that's what we're experiencing just as hard. The numbers are showing a reduction. I think that there is a perception issue that's absolutely out there. We just tested this with Riverside County residents that use our train, and while they still see our trains as safe, our regular users see our trains as safe. They're not at the extreme, safe.

They've actually dropped their safe feel by a little bit. They still feel safe, but earlier they felt extremely safe. And so I think we're dealing with this light trend of perception, of safety. And so we're trying to hit it head on by just adding a greater presence on trains and at platforms.

And I would add for Metro that safety continues to rank very high in surveys we do with our passengers. And in response to that, our CEO has instituted what I mentioned was the Ambassador Program to have where law enforcement is not present to have a presence. And that thus far has shown results. I don't have with me some of the statistics with respect to some of the crimes committed on the system.

I'm happy to have that presented subsequently to the committee so you can have that information. But yes, it is an issue that continues to be on the radar for our ridership and something that our board specifically, and our CEO specifically is intent on addressing because people don't feel safe on the system. A, they're not going to ride the system, and certainly they're not going to be recommending to their family and friends to ride the system. So I think our CEO, our board is well aware that that's an issue that we have to continue to focus on and make progress on.

I understand if you not having the numbers, you can't answer this question, but just do you have a ballpark? Because partly kind of a common sense deduction is that if less people are writing, there's probably less incidents happening. So I'm just trying to see if the perception matches the actual experience.

Yeah, again, I don't have that information handy. I do know that there continues to be on parts of our system, not all of our system incidents, which I think the agency feels uncomfortable with, and why we're dedicating more resources, both with the Ambassador Program, with law enforcement, with social workers, to make sure that the ridership is safe and, to your point, feels safe.

I think one example is a good example is some of the intervention that we've done at the MacArthur Park Station in Los Angeles where we've had a situation where we've had significant homeless population, significant issues with respect to individuals doing drugs and what have you. And we have done a number of things, including enhancing law enforcement presence, including increasing lighting in areas, closing off areas. For example, there are areas of the station where.

The back end of our stations where we have machinery and what have you, and people were going into those areas and using illicit drugs and what have you, and we've closed those off, added security. So what we found is, in terms of enhancing security, it's never one thing. It's never one thing. It's much more than that.

And in addition to providing some of the crime stats and some of the ebb and flow of that, I will provide a separate report on what we did with MacArthur Park, because I think it's a good example, a template for what we could do to enhance security across the system.

Thank you. Yeah. And I appreciate that social workers and homeless outreach is a part of that. I know while there can be a perception or a feeling of being unsafe if people experiencing homelessness are around, doesn't necessarily mean there's inherent danger. But it is an opportunity at the same time to meet people where they're at and to make sure that they can get access to services, get off trains, get into homes. So I appreciate that that is part of the solution that's being pursued here and support a lot of that work, since that's going to solve the problem as it pertains to people experiencing homelessness.

On the hydrogen train. Can you talk a little bit about where the hydrogen is coming from? I know there's a lot of discussion of the hydrogen pipelines and storage, and we're having a lot of these discussions at the state level. You're going to have enough hydrogen to operate it?

Well, we hope so. It'll be a really slow train trip if we don't. So it is anticipated we'll be tanking it in. So we'll have hydrogen producers here in Southern California that will then it'll be tanked in, brought over to the station that is just outside of Downtown San Bernardino, fuel the vehicle.

And I think that's one of the things we need to test is we just also don't know with our renewable diesel fuel that we run today, we have a very good idea about how far we can run, how much, how often we need to refuel it. This is going to be one of those tests about how we do that with hydrogen, how long it can propel the vehicle. So we're going to be learning quite a bit of it at this point. It'll be trucked in and fueled, and then I believe it's every two days, I think is the number. I heard that we were supposed to see a fueling vehicle.

An trucked in from where?

That I don't know. I will follow up with that information.

If I could add, there is a coalition in Southern California called the Arches Coalition, which has submitted a major grant request to the Department of Energy that they believe they're likely to get, which would provide up to $2 billion in funding for a green hydrogen production system, an electrolytic hydrogen production system in Southern California. My guess is that if we win that grant, we should hear in September-October. That the answer to your question about where are they going to get it. It's going to be local and it's going to be clean and green.

Okay.

Maybe from right here from Lancaster.

Could be selfless plug. One last question or just comment, really. Mr. Zane, I just wanted to highlight, really appreciate the work in the building that you've done to bring the trades in to move forward, know, making sure that we're greening our transit and transportation and also making sure that those are good jobs because I think we have to do so. You know, very, very supportive of that and hoping that the tea leaves that Assemblymember Carillo is reading over here turn out to be true.

There is a new day, I think.

Yes.

Well, thank you. I'm going to forego my questions because I want us to make sure we get to the third panel and then leave enough time for public comment. We do have, what I'm understanding, a hard stop at one. Maybe we get a little latitude on that.

But I wanted to thank all of you for, quite frankly, the great work you're doing, and certainly most notably on transit passes for students and the fact that Metro has become and also Metrolink has become very creative in how to take fair box dollars and allocate. It in that way. Not everyone is doing that. So I really do appreciate that and certainly Mr. Zane's advocacy for student passes and making sure that we have a robust program.

And so whatever we can do going forward, let us know. We've been trying really hard, as you know, for a number of years here to get additional revenue to support those important programs. I would just say, too, as we're preparing for 2028, I'm hoping that you're not going to wait till the Olympic Games before you roll out a car free program, maybe find some ways to see what that looks like a test run here or there.

There's a big football game and parade in Pasadena on January 1. You might want to think of that as a good starting point to see how it works. But I want to thank all of you for being here and certainly for contributing to this conversation. Our third panel, which I will introduce, is and before I introduce, quite frankly, I wanted to also let the public know that if you are prepared to speak at public comment, you'll need to fill out a card.

We have Catherine who's got those available for you. We want to make sure we have enough time for the public to present. Our third panel includes an opportunity to receive updates from the Brightline West and the Goal Line Foothill Extension Construction Authority. Both organizations have a proven track record of expanding sustainable and economically beneficial connections and delivering transportation solutions.

Today we will benefit from receiving information from Adrian Share, Executive vCce President of Engineering and Planning for Brightline West, and Lisa Levy, Bush Chief Communication and Strategic Development Officer for the Gold Line Foothill extension. I will if it's okay. Let that be the introduction for both of you. I have a biography for both of you, but I think as you maybe go into your presentation, you can integrate some of that in. But we do appreciate you both being here and we will open up with you, Adrian, on your presentation.

Good morning. Thank you. Is my mic on?

It is.

Thank you, Chair Holden, the Assembly Members. Brightline west is very happy to be here and share exciting times going on. I'm going to actually start with a video.

Say hello to Brightline West, the high speed rail system that will connect two of America's most vibrant regions, Las Vegas and Southern California. Soon to be one of the greenest forms of transportation, brightline west will take millions of cars off the road, removing tons of carbon dioxide from the air while providing a fast, convenient and enjoyable experience. The new system will revolutionize travel, generating thousands of jobs and over $10 billion in economic impact.

Brightline is backed by Fortress Investment Group, a global firm with over $30 billion of infrastructure investments. Brightline will build on the successful model they created in Florida to redefine high-speed rail in America. Each year, 50 million people travel between Southern California and Las Vegas over 85% by car. Driving is unreliable and can require five or more hours on one of the nation's most congested and dangerous roadways. I-15. Air travel is inefficient, filled with delays, and expensive. Brightline West offers an alternative.

Our all electric high speed rail system will cover 260 miles between LA and Las Vegas in about 3 hours. The journey begins in downtown Los Angeles at the historic Union Station, where passengers can use their Bright Line ticket to ride the San Bernardino Metrolink line. Riders emerge east out of Union Station and in about an hour arrive at our Rancho Cucamonga station. As passengers arrive in Rancho Cucamonga, they will immediately see the Brightline Station above the Metrolink track. A seamless transition just an escalator right away.

Brightline guests can book their trip using the Brightline app website or ticketing kiosk, where our exceptional customer service team members are there to help with everything from ticketing to baggage check. Riders breeze through touchless security checks, then glide into lounge areas where they can relax and recharge. As Brightline departs Rancho Cucamonga, passengers will enjoy scenic views along I 15, conquering the steep grade of the Cajon Pass, a mountain highway dividing the majestic San Gabriel and San Bernardino Mountains.

The Victor Valley Station platform is strategically located within the I-15 and is the last stop before Las Vegas. The departure from Victor Valley will bring the train to top speeds of up to 200 mph. Our trains will fly past the staggering traffic and a two-lane freeway, while passengers sip, chat, and chill from the comfort of a bright and spacious cabin.

With ergonomically designed seats and ample legroom built through the lens of today's modern traveler, Brightline train sets will have something for everyone, including first-class seats and a resort-style lounge with space for 35 guests. Our trains will race past the impressive mountain views as they approach their final stop, Las Vegas. Entering Las Vegas, our well-reshed passengers will arrive at Brightline's flagship station on the famous Las Vegas strip.

In the heart of Vegas' biggest entertainment and sports hub, brightline extends its high-quality travel experience all the way to a rider's ultimate destination. With Brightline Plus, our door-to-door concierge service. Powered by our app and supported by a fleet of electric vehicles, this service will seamlessly take passengers from their arriving train to their destination of choice. As we challenge the status quo of transportation, Brightline has built an unparalleled service for travelers looking for a deluxe experience without the private travel price. Welcome to the future of travel in America. Welcome to Brightline.

Thanks. So as the video that you saw, the footage of the trains running are from our system in Florida and we started this concept of inner city passenger rail. We're the first private company to to initiate inner city passenger rail in over 100 years. And we started it in Florida under this premise of finding city pairs that are too long to drive, too short to fly.

And based on the success of the model in Florida, where we are about to open our system to Orlando in the coming weeks. We have ventured out west and this is our second venture with connecting Vegas with Southern California. Just to talk a little bit about the Florida system, I worked on that project from inception and we're just extremely proud of how it's transformed transportation, and the image of train travel in the US. And that's evident from, hopefully you could see that from the videos.

It's walking into our stations is like walking into the lobby of a luxury hotel, not the image we're used to in picturing an urban train station. So the intent with this is just to change the passenger experience with train travel and get people out of their cars and into trains. And we've been very successful at it. If you just see the customer satisfaction numbers from surveys, we're right up there with the top brands, with top brands that we're all used to.

And then we've also found that by servicing the market, we've grown the demand for the system by adding cities along the way. So we opened two stations in Aventura and Boca Raton just last year because of demand in what was supposed to be just the starter line between West Palm and Miami while we were constructing all the way up to Orlando. So we've just seen tremendous success and TOD development around the station. So that brings us to what we're planning out here.

So this is the route going from Vegas down to Rancho Cucamonga. Probably most of you are aware because the idea of connecting Southern California and Vegas with high speed rail has been around for a long time. So we started back in 2019. We purchased the rights to what was then only going to go to Victorville. And then we decided in 2020 that we really did need to connect to the metro area. So we've expanded the route, added the 50 miles down to Rancho Cucamonga, so it's now 218 miles.

Importantly, on this slide and for being here today, that there's two important connections shown on the slide. The first one is shown at Victor Valley. It's actually combination of Apple Valley and Victorville, so we use the term Victor Valley. But that's where the connection to the high desert quarter will happen to come out to Palmdale. So sometimes gets confused.

That's not our project, but we're partnering with the high desert quarter JPA and work closely with them in helping the development of that project. And look forward to their success. And then the second one, which we talk about is our connection with Mr. Kettle System at Metrolink. At Rancho, we're working closely with his staff to have a seamless connection between our two systems at the Rancho Cucamonga station, which is where we will be building our terminal station to connect the two of us.

So everything from timetables to ticketing and just making sure that it's a smooth transition between the two systems has been the focus. With Metrolink, we are fully electric. So just to talk about some of the major benefits from the economic benefit over $10 billion of direct economic impact from the project. We do hope to be the catalyst for true high speed industry in the west. We're working closely as well with California high speed rail.

Our schedule has us opening by the LA Olympics, which is a common theme you've heard through this morning. So I'll talk about that just towards the end here. And not only the economic impact is significant in terms of jobs created, but they're union jobs. So we've got strong partnerships and MoUs in place with unions that we're proud of. And we've really jumped ahead off not only for construction but also for operations. So we've already got a commitment there for the union partnership environmental benefits.

Again, by being an electric train taking over 400,000 tons of carbon dioxide off the road every year and that's the equivalent of 3 million cars each year and then enhancing wildlife protections. So we have partnered with Caltrans and the Department of Fish and Wildlife for California to commit to the construction of three wildlife crossings in the high desert part of the project. So we're proud of that partnership as well.

And then in terms of safety, this is a supremely safe system in that it will be in a dedicated corridor. There's no mixed traffic. It's just us that run on the tracks. There's no gray crossings. So systems like this around the world are just supremely safe. Eliminating the equivalent of 75 highway fatalities or injuries. Project's near shovel ready. We've already invested, privately invested over $600 million and the goal is to break ground later this year.

The key in that is you're likely aware we've partnered with Nevada 75, I heard it called today, for the Bipartisan infrastructure law. The program we're targeting is the federal state partnership program, Amtrak quarters. So we believe our chances are very good and we're hoping to hear very shortly, hopefully, on the success of that application. We've got recent success in receiving a $25 million federal raise grant for two stations, the one at Apple Valley and then one in Hisperia.

All of our permitting, we're at the literal two yard line of completing everything perfectly timed for completing the grant. All the land is secured and as I noted earlier, we're looking at approximately a four year construction time. So in anticipation of receiving words shortly about the grant success that allows us to complete the financing by knowing how much that is, completing our financing, and getting the project in the ground just as soon as possible. So that concludes my presentation. Happy to answer any questions.

I think I could say, Good afternoon. I'm Lisa Levy . . . people line . . . we are with our program of projects. Let's see, here we go. We are part of LA County's growing rail network. That circle is supposed to go around sort of that top right. That's the one line in the Metro system that we are responsible for planning. We are overseen by our board of directors. We have a joint powers authority that advises that board of directors that's made up of all of our corridor cities.

We've been in place since the late 1990s. And again, we have one job. We are a state agency, and we are responsible for planning, designing, and building this one line. To date, we are either under construction or completed with 23 of 25 of the program stations. We have two left to be started, and I will go over with you where we are with not only the project we're building today, but where we are with those last two stations.

You may recognize some of these folks. This is our board of directors. They represent local, they're all local elected officials from our corridor cities . . . and of Claremont, you can see him there--Ed Reese. Our program has been ongoing for quite a long time. I've circled the areas that sort of were big milestones. 1999 was when the agency, the construction authority that I work for, was put in place by the state. At that time, we were responsible for taking money that was already in place to build the project. But was shelved at the time for many reasons and put that money to good use.

We were able to complete the first segment of the line from Union Station. It opened in 2003, and at that point, the twelve cities east from Pasadena, so from Arcadia east to Montclair said they really wanted to be part of this program. And so we go up into segments. So phase 2A was Pasadena to Azusa, and phase 2B is Glendora, or Azusa, where we end, Glendora out to Montclair. And I'll give you a little bit of an update on all those.

So, like I said, Los Angeles Union Station to Pasadena, completed on time, under budget back in 2003. That was the first 13 stations. Pasadena to Azusa, that's phase 2A; that was six more stations. When Measure R passed in 2008, we were ready to go and were able to get the first funding from that measure for light rail transit capital.

And we were able to build the next six stations to Azusa, again on time and under budget. We finished in 2015. It opened in 2016, and then we also then broke ground after measure M passed in late 2017 for the final six stations. When we were hiring the design build contractor, we found out that we did not have enough funding, so we had to divide the project into two phases, two construction phases.

So we're under construction now with the first 9 miles, four stations from Azusa to Pomona, and we are looking for the funding to complete the project from Pomona to Montclair, which will connect Los Angeles, the San Gabriel Valley, and the Inland Empire.

So, just you all are very aware of the growth that's taking place in our state. In Los Angeles County, we expect growth to be taking place about 16% increase over the next few decades. The San Gabriel Valley is growing at about that same rate, and when we look at where that growth is happening in the San Gabriel Valley, the majority of it is happening along our rail line. So you can see here we expect about more than 40% of the population growth and over 50% of the employment growth to take place within our corridor. So it makes sense to be building this rail line.

This is what we see today: again, traffic on the 210 freeway, on the 10 freeway, almost 3 million trips are happening a day between western San Bernardino County and the Foothill Goldline Cities and surrounding areas. Only 3% are currently taking transit, so most of that is car trips.

So just a quick update on the current construction project. Again, we broke ground in 2017. We've completed two contracts for that project, 2018 and 2019. In late 2019, we hired our design builder. We were hoping they'd be able to again build the full six station segment, but the funding was unfortunately not able to be acquired in time. So they are building the first 9.1 miles, four stations, between Glendora and Pomona.

It's a fully shared corridor with BNSF, so the first thing they had to do was actually move the freight line that was in the middle of the rail corridor that is now shared, and move it either to the north or to the south to make room for the light rail system. They also are building, of course, four new stations. We had 21 street crossings where the train will cross at street level. We have 19 bridges that needed to be built or rebuilt for both the freight system and the light rail system.

And I'm happy to report that we are now very close to 75% complete on the project, even though major construction started in July of 2020, right as the pandemic was getting started. And our contractors been able to stay on time and again, we believe we'll be finishing this project on time and under budget in January of 2025. So this just talks about the contracting that we've done to date. You can see some imagery of some of the stuff we finished, some of our big milestones.

The freight track has been relocated throughout the 9.1 miles, so now making room for the light rail system bridge work is done for all the 19 new bridges and renovated bridges. You can see most of the bridges are over small waterways, but we do have four new bridges that cross major city streets, and those are now complete. Our grade crossings, all 21 AC grade crossings where we've rebuilt everything under the street as well above the street, are now complete.

And just recently, we celebrated completing the light rail track installation that was completed in June just a few short months ago. So we're about over 60% done with our light rail power system installation. We're over 50% completed with our stations. And overall, like I said, we are very close to 75% complete overall with construction, and we are on time, and we believe we will be under budget at the end when we turn it over to Metro in early January of 2025.

Something near and dear to Chair Holden's heart, and our heart as well, is finishing this project to Claremont and Montclair. And there are two stations that are left to be done. Like I said, our program is 25 stations. We will have completed 23 of those 25 in early January of 2025. So we have two remaining stations. They are very important stations.

They are the majority of the ridership benefit of the full six station program comes from completing the two final stations at those stations will connect to the Inland Empire and the Montclair Trans Center, which is a big trans center. It has over a dozen bus lines from all over the Inland Empire, as well as Metrolink connection there and a new Greyhound station there as well. So we expect that ridership opening year for those two stations alone would add over 7000 boardings to the Metro system.

And of course, that grows over time. That reduces car trips in the thousands and of course, reduces greenhouse gases. Because of that, the two cities already have plans in place to have 10,000 housing units built right around those two stations alone. And that doesn't even include all the housing and economic development that occurs around the other stations. So getting to those two final stations will provide more housing. It'll provide better connections.

We are very grateful that in March of this year, Metro made finishing this project to Claremont and Montclair the agency's top priority for new state funding. And so we are hopeful that with the budget that was passed in July and the new capital dollars, that we are hopeful that we will be able to finish this project in the next five years once we get funding. It will take us five years. It'll shovel ready to go as soon as we have the funding. And we have just an unmatched coalition of support for our project from all of our stakeholders.

Lastly, you know it's all about building connections, connecting to the Inland Empire through the Montclair Trans Center, to all the open space areas to the Fairplex, which we're underway with the station right now that'll be right across the street from the LA County Fairplex; connections to the Ontario airport. We've been nicknamed the Brain Train because of all of the universities along our corridor. We have a dozen of those in the last two stations alone and then of course, all of our historic downtowns and areas that we're continuing to grow toward. I'm happy to answer any questions.

Well, thank you. I appreciate the presentations as I'm listening to both of you make--your rail systems in terms of where they're going and how they're going to be connecting, certainly Brightline is an important project of connectivity from Palmdale to Victorville, but how it also connects to Rancho Cucumonga and the Gold Line essentially concluding in San Bernardino County, certainly begs the question of seeing--

Cumanga . . . which would connect to Brightline and head on a party train to Las Vegas. I'm also excited about just looking at the fullness of how Metrolink and Brightline and Gold Line kind of interconnect. So this has been some of this you think of it in counterparty, you don't necessarily, once you see it, on how it has the application or potential of linking together and that's hence this--

You talked about the funding as we talked about earlier, the presentation is so critical to infrastructure and making sure these programs projects happen. So thank you for your hanging in there. As we make our way through the process, I'm going to turn to my colleagues and see if they have any questions for either one of you.

I don't have questions, but I have statements to make and the support that I have for Brightline from day one. When I was sworn in on December 5, I introduced Bill AB 31 . . . Victor Valley to make that connection with Metrolink station here in Palmdale. It is going to be a catalyst for the high desert . . . People keep coming up to the high desert on both ends and to Valley and Victor Valley because it's more affordable.

The trade off that we have to do is travel down below, as we say here for 2 hours. So with Brightline coming up here, the catalyst of providing that transit, that public transit, the additional housing demand, and with that comes the economic development demand too. Principles of economic development is the rooftops. The more rooftops develop commercial developers see, they are more likely to bring those services that we need to have in the high desert.

I still believe in California high speed rail, that's a separate system, very expensive, a little bit of controversy, but I think that this will also create maybe a healthy competition with California high speed rail. I believe that Brightline will be something that will incite some more support. I believe for California high speed rail, it's got its challenges. We all know that it's very expensive.

And the way that Bryightline brings the product here, the system is by going through existing right away. With that, we wanted to have another freeway built in the High Desert, the High Desert corridor. And there is already some money allocated for that on the LA County portion. And on the San Bernardino County, we still need to work on getting the funding for the right of way. And I already started talking to Congressman Obernolte on the San Bernardino side, the Victor valley; He's supportive of Brightline.

He and I committed to work together and see we can find the funding to do the right of way on the San Bernardino County so we can have that connection between Victor Valley and the Antola Valley so that we can get a faster route to get to Union Station in LA. And again, this is another great benefit to have these meetings so that we know what you're doing, what the status is of those great projects and how we can be supportive too.

Again, the first Bill that I introduced was in support of Brightline. So that shows my enthusiasm and how I believe that we need to have that type of public transit here in the High Desert because it will be the catalyst to bring more development, more opportunities for us. Again, the hope is that we don't have to keep on driving down below, spend 3 hours just because housing is just a little bit more affordable.

So with that, I thank you for that and I look forward to continue being a partner and let us know how can be supportive. One thing that I want to mention, too, is that with one of the trailer bills that talked about the wildlife crossings, some of us were really hard to make sure that those were done under the trailer Bill, because it just made no sense not to build them now in coordination and cooperation with CalTrans, because we know that can be challenging, too.

So on this trailer Bill, those three wildlife crossings are going to be built in conjunction. Again, just to make sure that there's the support that you need to make sure that you come to California and that you show that these systems are awesome, that they can get us to where we need to be. Vegas makes sense.

I know that that's the model that you use in Florida, but eventually we can expand on that, having the High Desert commute down below, as we say, so that we can spend more time with our families up here. With that, I thank again, both of you, for your presentations and I have nothing else to share. Thank you.

I'll keep comments brief so we can get to public comments as quickly as possible, but want to thank you both. Very excited about the prospects of Brightline and also high speed rail and appreciate Assemblymember Carillo talking about the wildlife crossings, which are a critical piece to make all of this work right for everyone. We're trying to do good things for our environment and we have to think holistically when we're doing that.

And just want to again, thank Chair Holden for holding this out here, and Assembly Member Carrio for hosting us in his district, and the AVTA for hosting us here today. All of the panelists appreciate your time, your work, and really dialing down on how we can get to where we need to to make sure that we're making the improvements that bring people in.

And also, I know we still have a lot of work to do around the dollars to make sure that those are there to continue this work as well. So look forward to partnering with you all to make sure that we can do that here for our community and have incredible public transit that our whole community deserves. So thank you.

Thank you. We're going to turn to public comment now. I only have one speaker's card, so if there are other questions that you may have . . . I'm going to ask Sandra Cattel because I think you had some comments on a question on Sylmar Newhall Tunnel Metrolink service. And just to give you an opportunity to be really clear in terms of what part did you want to have answered and how you wanted to have that answered, I turn to you to pose your question.

Thank you. Is this on?

No, we'll have someone help you out.

It is now. Thank you. I'm Sandra Cattell and I'm here representing the Sierra Club. First of all, Assembly Member Carillo, hank you for highlighting wildlife corridors and crossings. Appreciate that. This is a little bit of a wish list. I know. True regional transit, by the way, would include Santa Clarita to Ventura along 126. 75 years ago, we had a train. Now we don't even have a bus.

Test. Test.

I'd like to advocate for expediting the double tracking and straightening of the Antelope Valley Metrolink line, but I'd also especially like to address the New Hall Silmar Tunnel. It was built 113 years ago. It's only 17 and a half feet wide. It's used not only for commuting, but it's also used for commerce. It's a fire death trap.

The fire department said if there should be an accident and on fire in it, there would be no survivors because there's no access, there would no way they could rescue people. It's somewhere on the list of projects, but I would encourage you to upgrade it and find funding.

Obviously, you're going to have to find a grant or something because it'd be outrageously expensive. But there's a tremendous need for that particular section, which happens to be like a clog in the entire line. And also the fact that it's a death trap and it would expedite the time for transit, say, from the Antelope Valley to LA. And it would also increase the safety. Thank you very much.

Thank you. It's important statement. I don't know if anyone from Metro, there's a sort of a more broader global or CalTrans.

We didn't have anybody from high speed rail? I believe that's the question. It's been directed to high speed rail. We didn't have anybody join us for this, but we can pass that on to them.

Certainly follow up with that. I thought it was about the tunnel. Got you.

It is the tunnel between Newhall and San Fernando Valley and Sylmar. It's used by the Metrolink and also by freight trains, and it is a single track.

Our Metrolink representative, I believe, our panelists had to leave. Sebastian Lozano. Why would Metrolink pursue hydrogen exploration when CalTrans, Amtrak and Europe/Asia have moved to electrification? We should pursue proven technologies.

That was pretty straightforward right there, my comment. first, I just want to say thank you to Assemblymember Holden, Assembly Member Carrillo, Assembly Member Schiavo for holding this select committee hearing as a self proclaimed transportation nerd, this is right up my alley, and myself and my colleague were more than happy to come up here and listen to the wonderful speakers. I don't see Mr. Kettle in the room anymore, so this is more directed towards him.

But there was an article in Streets blog on July 6, 2023, that came out entitled California needs leadership on Electric Rail. The main point of the article was talking about how Metrolink specifically is pursuing hydrogen exploration as an alternative technology. However, CalTrans is already electrifying their fleet. Amtrak on the East Coast is in the process of doing it as well. And as I've said in the comment, Europe and Asia have done that too.

It's hard to visit Spain, for instance, an economy much smaller than ours, and they have a built out high speed rail system. And very much they are moved to proven clean technology like electrification. So I just wonder why Metrolink, and they're not here right now, but I would encourage them to look at Caltrain and why we wouldn't be doing something that's proven, that's already being implemented in Northern California.

I think there's some real concerns there about if we're going to implement a whole new technology, why not do the same technology that's already being done and it's proven to be clean as well. But I do see your concerns about the grid. That's something that is definitely, I hope, would be improved upon. Thank you.

Can I answer that? Few of us had a chance to go to Spain and see how high speed works over there, how it was created. And we also visited the energy production that they do in Spain. So we dropped the train from Madrid to Barcelona. We visited their energy facilities as well. And the answer is because unfortunately, in California, we don't have that investment, that capacity, and the way that they've been doing it in Spain, in France and Italy with high speed rail, they know that.

They knew that they needed the energy that they use, and they build upon that for decades, 30 years ago, maybe even more. And here in California, we're having a struggle with our energy without taking into account high speed rail. So we need to invest more in energy and those are things that we're working on. Offshore wind is one option we're looking at. There is actually going to be a valid measure to support offshore wind with a $10 billion bond.

That's going to be up to the voters. But to answer one of your questions, why is that? It's because we just don't have the capacity that we need. And we've been struggling California for years now to get that capacity. That's one of the reasons why.

Thank you.

Thank you. I have one last speaker card. It's from Anne McKinnon. And I'm just going to allow you to come forward and pose your question and your comment. Thank you for being here.

That's my first comment and it's back at you. Thank you for being here. We often feel like the red headed stepchild and it means a lot that you are here. He very politely let you know that my writing is so bad he could not actually read the question. So thank you for that too.

Darren was speaking about how for rural areas, grant monies can be used for operations. I live in Acton, just 3 miles from the Vincent Hill Metrolink station. We are very definitely rural, as this past week's storm has reminded us yet again. Is there any way you can help us use some of those grant monies for operations for Metrolink? Because LA County is urban. But North LA County is not.

I can, again, it seems like it would be important to have had our Metrolink representative here to field several questions. That's one that we'll add to the list. But I know that Metro has been able to use dollars to do a variety of things that within the context. I don't know if there is a broader 30,000 foot view that you let's see if we can have you just if you could yeah.

Thank you for the question. I know from the federal government's perspective, there's certainly a number of grants, especially those that were authorized under the bipartisan infrastructure law, that had specific set asides for rural areas. So I think that's something that we can certainly follow up with you and maybe we can speak to Metrolink and pass this along.

One example I would give is, for example, the Mega grant program where I think north of 10% of that federal grant program for projects is set aside specifically exclusively for rural areas. So, Chair Holden, we're happy to convey this to our partners at Metrolink and hopefully we can get your contact information and connect the dots.

Perfect.

Thank you so much.

Thank you. Seeing no others who would like to comment, I just want to say thank you to and show appreciation for my colleagues who have joined us today. This is a committee that is a select committee. It falls outside of the regularly established committees of the Legislature, but it does give us an opportunity to formulate ideas, and as was pointed out, to engage with the community on areas of particular interest. And there are a lot of select committees.

This one is one of a few that deals with transportation, but it's the interconnectivity part that makes it unique and how we can look at a variety of agencies and how transportation projects have the potential of linking together trains, planes, and automobiles. We have two major airports that are located in this region, from Ontario to the Burbank Airport, and it provides resources for all of us as we move around the region.

And now we're going to have high speed rail that's going to give us an opportunity to transition and traverse around a much larger area. So we appreciate what that represents. I also want to say the comprehensive approach that has been brought to us today and how we've been able to hear and experience and understand how the funding which is never going to go away from projects like these that require state, local, and federal dollars. And we have been very fortunate over the years.

In the past, California has been at a disadvantage on federal dollars because we're such a large area, and in LA County have always found ourselves competing with one part of the county versus another. But we've seen in recent times how our federal legislators have come together and have been able to support projects in a way that they can advocate for us in a much more efficient way in Congress. So we appreciate that.

And I also want to say thank you to the public who came out today, our panelists. It has been very educational, very informative, and the information that we take in today. You have two legislators who represent this area and they are already doing yeoman's work in terms of being forward visionaries, in terms of how we can link the larger county to the Santa Clarita Valley as well as Antelope Valley. So I want to thank them for their leadership.

They've hit the ground running, let me just tell you, and they're making real impact. So we are going to stay connected, pun intended, and we look forward to letting you know when we have further select committee hearings from this committee and how you can connect. And hopefully we'll be able to get something back to all of those who've signed in with some feedback and questions that may have not been answered at the end. But I want to thank all of you for being here. And if there are no other further questions for my colleagues, then this meeting is adjourned.