Senate Transportation Subcommittee on LOSSAN Rail Corridor Resiliency

This is the Senate Subcommitee on LOSSAN Rail Corridor Resiliency. Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for coming. I'm sorry we're starting a little bit late here. The Senate continues to welcome the public and have provided access to in person participation for public comment. For today's hearing, we will be hearing all of the panels of witnesses on the agenda prior to taking any public comment.

Once we have heard all of the witnesses, we will have a public comment period for those who wish to comment on the topics that are on today's agenda, this is the fourth hearing of the Subcommitee on LOSSAN Rail Corridor resiliency. Since being formed, this Subcommitee has heard from subject matter experts and received witness testimony about the importance of the resiliency of our coastline and the rail corridor between San Luis Obispo and San Diego.

The data is clear and the message more urgent than ever, that our coastline near the rail line is at critical risk of failure. While I remain optimistic and appreciate the leadership that we'll hear today and from many others, the reality is that our coastline and our transportation infrastructure are at a significant disadvantage without a coordinated and comprehensive plan and response that lays the foundation for the level of transformative action and investment that is needed.

Independent research and local stakeholder feedback continue to raise the need for a different approach to planning, maintaining and operating a complex rail core such as this, 1351 miles in Southern California. We'll hear today from local partners about their response to a recent track closure in San Clemente, which closed rail service for two months in south Orange County since our last hearing in December.

We'll also hear from our state agency partners, including for the first time, the Natural Resources Agency, the Coastal Commission, and welcoming back the transportation agency. I'd like to thank transportation, our Transportation Agency Secretary Omishakin, and Natural Resources Secretary Crowfoot for their leadership and focus on collaborative action toward this shared goal, a healthy coastline and world leading transportation corridor. While there are challenging and complex issues ahead for us, I'm confident in our ability to get this right.

We need all of our leadership, vision, data and best available standards in science to be successful. Now is the time for our collective action. I want to thank my colleagues, Senators Nguyen, Allen, Newman and Umberg, for being here today. I'd also like to welcome Senator Laird and Senator Archuleta for joining us. And thank you also to the panelists and Members of the public who have taken time to be with us today, including the San Clemente Mayor, Victor Cabral.

Would any of the Subcommitee Members like to make any work, share any comments before we begin I don't see any. So we will bring up our first panel. So while they make their way up here, I would like to welcome Andy Hall, City of San Clemente City manager Jason Jewell, Losan Rail Corridor agency managing Director Darren Kettle, CEO of Metrolink, and Darrell Johnson, CEO of OCTa. Thank you for squishing into the little table right there. We appreciate being in this historic room. So we will turn it over to Andy Hall, who is going to be presenting first with his PowerPoint.

Thank you, chair Blakespear, Members of the Committee, we really appreciate the opportunity to share a few ideas and things that we've learned from the most recent slides, and we'll move through it relatively quickly. But I think the pictures tell most of the story. And I am accompanied here, of course, as mentioned by the mayor of San Clemente, Victor Cabral. There's your beautiful train coming through our community. But we think that there might be a different approach to trying to protect the rail line through San Clemente.

As you know, in San Clemente, the rail line continues to be squeezed by the ocean on the west and some of the bluffs on the east. So when the rail was first put in, of course, there was a revetment that was placed, and there was a fronting beach width. And as the beach has naturally degraded and as now the waves hit the revetment straight on, there tends to be is scouring and we start to see, oh, sorry. Yeah, the chair was in the way.

Sorry about that. And we believe that the best way to protect the rail is probably through the beach nourishment process. So I wanted to show you a couple of pictures. This is that, this is a point of concern for Octa in what we call Cotton's point. And as recent as 2008, you can see several hundred feet of sand that was protecting the revetment. And just recently, in just a few years now, now in 2021, you can see all of that beach is missing.

You can actually see water hitting the train as it goes through that area. So this is Solana Beach, before and after beach nourishment, just recently, in November of 2023 and in March of 2024. And what's important here is you can see the revetment that they've put in place to protect the stairs that come down from the bluff, and that is to make sure that those stairs can stay in place. But after the nourishment, you can see how protected they are. That's the same area.

And you can see that the water is getting nowhere near near that. And so that very much that facility of those stairs are being protected by that sand nourishment that's happening on the beach. This is kind of what happens to the revetment. It's very difficult when you put something heavy on sand. It's like when you stand on the beach and the water goes underneath your heels and you kind of sink into the sand. Well, the same thing happens to the rocks.

So the rocks that are on the sand, as they get a little bit inundated, start to slip down a little bit, and you start to see some of this happening. And what happens is, as some of these larger rocks start to pull down, you can see some of the large ones at the top start to be supported by much smaller rocks, and they start to move. And the revetment continues to move down the coastline.

This is another one, the picture there on the left, you can see some of the wave action pulling those rocks down, and you end up with a rather large cavity. This is a very large cavity now that's left as those rocks wash down. So this is kind of a. An illustration of what's happening on some of our beaches. And you can see the natural revetment. You can see the lines there in red.

And then as rocks get added to the revetment, you can see that it goes out into the water, and it almost pulls that water up to the revetment. So you can kind of see that the sand would like to migrate to the north and to the south, but it's being cut off by the revetment, which would actually be protecting the sand. Would be. Be protecting the revetment. But there's two sides of the tracks, right?

There's the other side of the track that we need to worry about in San Clemente as well. And if you look this, this is what's happening to our bluffs. I think a lot of people misunderstand that. It's not just the storms, but it happens year round. You can kind of see, if you look up there, you can kind of see these. The San Clemente bluffs are layers of sand with a clay bottom, and there's several layers of them.

And so you can kind of see right there. Maybe I'll go back real quick. Quick. You can kind of see the water seeping out right there. You see a straight line there. You can see another one there. You can see these layers of clay. What happens is even during the dry season, you can see the water as it comes out of those clay layers almost in a straight line.

And when that sand gets saturated, of course it's going to get heavy and down the slope it comes. So some of the things we need to maybe look at, as you can see here, some shot creek was put up there to try to keep those busts stabilized. So we're going to have to look at stabilizing the bluffs because again, the rail is getting kind of attacked by both sides. So you can kind of see, and this is my, I think this is my last slide.

You can see here at Mariposa Point, you can see that Mother Nature just really wanted to pull that sand down to the beach. But we have a trail and we have railroads in the way, and so it makes it difficult to do that. So the beaches right now are being starved, which then of course, the waves come right up to the revetment. They create some instability and the revetment itself starts to fail.

So there's a few takeaways there, but the bottom line is, I won't read those to you. The bottom line is, I think what's going to be really important is that we make the ability to put sand on the beach as easy as putting revetment on the beach. And to do that, I think all of the agencies are going to have to work together. It's much more difficult to permit putting sand on the beach than it is putting rocks on the revetment.

So if we can all work together to try to make that process as easy to put sand on the beach as rocks, I think we can protect the rail with the sand. Thank you.

Well, thank you, Mister Hall. We appreciate that. Thank you for being so efficient with your showing of the slides, too. So next we will hear from Jason Jewell. So go ahead Jason.

Mound here. Good afternoon, Members of, of the Committee. My name is Jason Jewell. I'm the managing Director of the LOSSAN Rail Corridor Agency. And thank you for the opportunity to be here before you today. We are the managing agency for the Amtrak Pacific Surfliner intercity rail service. And today I wanted to focus on some of the positive coordination efforts during the most recent track closure at Mariposa Point in San Clemente.

But before I do, I wanted to highlight some of the ridership, revenue and recovery trends that we were experiencing specific to the Amtrak inner city rail service before and after the closure. So on a positive note, we experienced really strong ridership over the summer months since late July.

After reopening the tracks from the closure below Casa romantica in San Clemente, we saw Amtrak Pacific surfliner ridership recover on an average of about 64% of pre COVID service levels up to about the November timeframe, and in July in particular, we had really successful ridership events with such events such as our Del Mar horse racing that happens on an annual basis, as well as a comical and the X Games event in Ventura in November in particular, though, we typically experience higher than normal ridership in November.

But this November, ridership rose to about 76% of pre COVID ridership on a rider per mile basis. Ridership per mile was actually at 102% as compared to a ridership per mile statistic during November of 2019, so we actually exceeded our pre COVID ridership levels on a rider per mile basis. Now, I wanted to dive into some detail around the ridership and revenue impacts around the track closure at Mariposa Point in San Clemente, which began on January 24.

When the closure happened, we were able to quickly coordinate with Amtrak to implement contingency schedules. Given our experience with closures previously, we were able to quickly and efficiently pivot to enact our emergency operating schedules. We enacted the same reduced service schedule that we had previously put into place in our previous closures, which did provide three bus bridges between Irvine and Oceanside in each direction.

As far as ridership impacts, though, historically we do see a decrease in ridership during our winter months, typically about between the 15% to 20% range. But in February, with the tracks closed and the bus bridges in place, we did see about a 30% drop in ridership and about a 38% drop in revenue. From January to February, the fare box ratio dropped to about 33%. And just as a reminder, our goal, our mandated goal is a 55% farebox recovery ratio.

The February 2024 ridership and revenue was both about 49% of pre COVID level ridership. So that gives you a little bit bit of idea about the impacts of the closure. With the emergency bus bridges in place.

However, I'm happy to report that on March 6, through a very coordinated effort between Amtrak, LOSSAN, Metrolink, OCTA, and CALSTA, we were able to introduce limited Amtrak Pacific surfliner service during construction of the catchment wall at Mariposa Point that you saw a picture of in one of those slides with safety assessments and protocols calls in place.

And this allowed a morning northbound and southbound train to go through San Clemente between the 7-8:00 a.m. Hour, as well as again between the 6-7:00 p.m.. Hour. And in the first week of introducing this limited service restoration, we saw about a 27% increase in ridership over the previous week and for the entire month, we saw an increase of ridership of 63% and revenue increase of 66% of over February.

Our farebox recovery ratio climbed to over 51% and on a passenger per mile basis we exceeded pre COVID service levels again. The ridership per mile was about 101% compared to March of 2019. So these positive results are reflective of the coordinated efforts between all of our stakeholders. After completion of the catchment wall, both Metrolink and Amtrak were able to resume full service on March 25.

For Amtrak, Pacific Surflin service was restored to 10 round trips between LA and San Diego, with five of those round trips extending to Goleta and two of those round trips extending all the way up to San Luis Obispo, which does mirror the service that we were operating prior to the closure. And since the restoration of the service, we have experienced an average daily ridership increase of about 69% over the average daily ridership operating earlier in March with our limited service that was in place.

And we do forecast April ridership to come in at about 75% increase over February and about an eight to 10% increase over March. So very positive results and we look forward to continuing these trends, especially with the upcoming special events that we have coming up, such as the X Games in Ventura, again, the Strawberry Festival, as well as the Del Mar horse racing and Comic Con events.

We also look forward to continued coordination across all of our corridor partners and stakeholders in all of our efforts to sustain this important corridor for years to come. That concludes my brief remarks, and I'd be happy to take any questions you may have.

Thank you very much. We also have an Olympics coming. Yes. Okay, great. Well, thank you. And now we will move on to Mister Kettle from Metrolink.

Well, thank you, Madam Chair, and good afternoon. Good afternoon to Members of the Committee. I'm Darren Kettle. I'm the Chief Executive Officer for the Southern California Regional Rail Authority, often recognized as Metrolink. Thank you for a little bit of time today to speak with you, just a little bit of background about Metrolink. We have about 220 thousand weekday boardings on 142 daily trains operating on seven lines in Southern California.

Three of those lines run through Los Angeles Union Station, with 45 weekday trains operating on the Lo sand corridor at some point in their journey and on weekends. Four of those lines combined for a total of 20 trains. If you include the Ventura County line, we have another 20 weekday trains. This is just to say that we have a large volume of trains that operate on the entire lo sand corridor.

And we look at it from a Ventura County segment all the way down through San Clemente. Of course, the topic of today's discussion, this Committee knows. There we go. Second slide. Multitasking. This Committee fully knows the nature of what's going on with the San Clemente area. 8 million people moved through the quarter annually pre pandemic. Today, $1 billion worth of goods are transported along the route annually. The US Department of Defense has designated the corridor as part of the military strategic rail corridor.

All of this brings me to the key point. The challenges and solutions for improving the resiliency of the Los Ang corridor are larger than Metrolink, the three county transportation agencies that own the right of way in which Metrolink operates on. That includes, of course, OCTA, my good partner here, Darrell Johnson, and his board. To my right, LA Metro and the Ventura County Transportation Commission, or any other single entity.

Given the heavy reliance by people, goods and the military on the Los Ang corridor, and the scope and scale of the resiliency challenges, there's a clear, clear role that both the federal and state partnership and robust investment in the corridor is necessary. Catchment walls are one solution catchment walls are one solution to mitigate landslide threats, but these walls are expensive to build and in the immediate future they are strategic, albeit limited, steps Metrolink can take to monitor hillsides movement and high risk.

In the instance of Cypress Shores and Castramonica, inclinometer technology were used and were installed which provided information on slope movement. This type of sensor is installed by drilling 80 to 100ft into the hillside and allowing us to understand a little bit more about what's happening with that hillside. In the instance of the Mariposa point slide earlier this year, our most recent San Clemente challenge, there was no such technology installed on the hillside prior to the incident.

Prior to the construction of the barrier wall that we did build in cooperation with our partners, Metrolink had placed tilt sensors on the surface of the slope, which supported constant monitoring through several inclement weather conditions. Tilt sensor errors are helpful since they provide us with some advanced notice of the hillside moving, but this approach cannot be duplicated and monitors could be installed at other hot spot locations until catchment walls can be built where they're needed.

It is important to note that while tilt sensors are important to provide notice of movement, they do not provide remediation or protection to the right of way. Catchment walls are necessary to provide the critical support to keep tracks safe. Debris falling onto the tracks from landslides is only one of the problems we face along this section of the LOSSAN corridor.

The other significant issue is the erosion of track infrastructure structure and an engineered revetment or facade coupled with sand replenishment program is desperately needed to protect the railroad right of way from continued erosion. This type of solution requires coordination and collaboration with multiple state and local agencies, as well as funding and expedited permitting, as neither Metrolink nor OCTA have the jurisdiction over Orange County beaches.

From the recent closure and those over the last couple of years, we have learned the importance of collaboration across the various stakeholders and across all levels of government. Metrolink is responsible for maintaining track structure, conducting track inspections, and providing information to our freight and agency partners on the safety of train movements. On days where the track was cleared of debris and deemed safe, BNSF, which has an easement to operate along the corridor, was given the option to resume service.

In doing so, BNSF assumed the risk of operating through an area of active hillside movement. Similarly, Amtrak was offered, or Surfliner was offered, the option to resume some service, which, when Metrolink deemed the impacted track bed and rail stable partners along the corridor deemed restoration of passenger service critical. Losan began operating two Pacific surfliner trains in the morning and another two in the evening on March 6, leaving the rest of the day for us to complete construction.

This was 42 days after the track initially closed and 18 days ahead of full service resumption. Similarly to BNSF, Amtrak also assumed the risk of operations. This is just a brief overview of some of the lessons we've learned both operationally and from the infrastructure resiliency standpoint. Metrolink is appreciative of the urgency and focus on the Low sand corridor resiliency challenges from the Subcommitee and many of our partners. And I look forward to answering your questions. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. And now we will go to OCTA CEO Darrell Johnson.

Good afternoon, Chair Blakespear and Members of the Committee. Very happy to be here. I will also say I'm very happy to be in the historic capitol room. It's much more exciting than the swing space. So happy that we're here today. My name is Darrell Johnson. I'm the Chief Executive Officer of the Orange County Transportation Authority, also known as OCTA.

I want to start with the fact that there's been a rail line in this area for 134 years or so, and OCTA has owned it for the last 30 years. And that's not by any means to say that we don't have responsibility for it, but to talk about the challenges that, where this is at and the challenges that have come along with that and the 7 miles that we're going to focus on today.

Have clearly been identified for a number of years as the most challenging, the most vulnerable, and the opportunities for the most significant failure to changing environmental conditions that we're experiencing in today's world that we haven't experienced in the first 130 years of the rail line being on that coast.

So just a little bit about the Mariposa point. I know this is the most recent one. I won't touch on the engineering side of it or the operations side, as Darren and Jason did that, but just a little bit about what occurred there. OCTA has long been focused on public access in and around the beach area. The Mariposa point, the San Clemente Beach Trail, has a lot of different names.

That is on OCTA owned right of way that was put under a long term license agreement with the City of San Clemente in the late two thousands and has been an absolute jewel in the City of San Clemente and coastal access along the rail line since that time. But the challenge that we see here is that the city owned rail bridge did fall and fail due to the bluff. It was talked about by Mister Hall a moment ago.

We did work with Metrolink for the 200 foot catchment wall and again 200ft, $9.2 million. So these are not inexpensive. The challenges of access, the challenges of construction are very critical in this area. There's a little bit of a timeline that you can see there on the right hand side.

I did want to note that we could not have done this quickly, and we could not have done it without the support, the financial support and the support of the California Transportation Commission and the California Department of Transportation in ensuring that new policies that have been put in place over the last two years could allow for that expedited work. And I'm going to come back in a moment and talk about expedited work and what that means for the corridor.

A little bit of response, or a timeline we've been able to assemble in terms of what we have learned about doing things quickly when a crisis or emergency arises. So since 2022, we've had the initial response of understanding what happened at Cypress Shores in the very south end of the community. A couple of key points. The California Department of Transportation was able to declare a State of emergency. California Transportation Commission held a special meeting, which they had never done in their history.

And our board, OCTA's board, declared a State of Emergency that led to new policy responses in 2023. And I think that was really critical in terms of allowing us to react even quicker and more definitively going forward. So the CTC established a new policy that allowed for funding allocations on public owned rail lines on an emergency basis. Absolutely. The work that was done in 2022 influenced that policy discussion. That was a positive change.

The bad news about that is we didn't expect to have to use it so quickly, but we found ourselves using that new policy as we went into late 2023 and into 2024. I am going to talk a little bit about the study that we're doing now, but as you can see, this policy that was informed from 2022, changed in 2023, did allow for quicker work in 23 and 24 at the Casa Romantica slide, as well as the Mariposa Point slide.

So a little bit about what we're doing in the short term, I'm going to start on the right hand side because I think one of the questions really begins with what can you do in the long term? And our board, the Octa board of directors, adopted a two pronged strategy in February of 2023 that said we should look at long term coastal solutions, about how we can look at 30 years and beyond, about what that rail line needs to look like.

Is it a candidate for relocation, is it a candidate for protection in place? But what are those options and how can we engage key stakeholders in that work? But we also know that whatever the decision is about that long term relocation, we have to do things now.

And that's really on the left hand side is how do we look at the short and medium term solutions, as well as dealing with the initial issues that have arisen in the last 24 months, particularly as it relates to significant erosion and sliding and some of the water and soil issues that Mister Hall discussed. We've been very focused on the left hand side, if you will. So a study is underway.

We're developing a series of options to protect 7 miles of coastal rail infrastructure along the corridor, gain an understanding of what we can do and what we can't do, and at the same time identify potential solutions. And I want to emphasize this word of potential solutions. There's a lot of stakeholders, both regulatory community and others, that need to be involved in determining what the actual solution is. But identifying potential solutions for consideration is the key start, including sand replenishment and sand retention. I'm going to come back and talk about that in just a moment as well.

We've identified in that initial assessment four reinforcement areas that we think are most vulnerable to both beach erosion as well as slope failure. Those were identified in late 2023. Potential solutions in a perfect world, we think would need to be placed and significantly or substantially underway by the fall of 2024, ahead of the next storm season. So we don't have interruptions to the corridor and rail operations that we've experienced in recent years. I want to point out that the potential solutions. Again, potential solutions, no recommendations.

They evaluated at the conceptual level a variety of different materials, performance, cost, methods and schedule. And I know there's been some press talking about that. There's a recommendation from the OCTA board of directors to spend $200 million on rock revetment. I want to publicly state that is not true. What was presented to the OCTA board in March was an information item that talked about potential solutions, pros and cons, and said, we are not finished. We're continuing to donate, do more work on this.

But it was an interim update on that. So with that, the interim update is what I'd like to talk about now. So I'm going to show two illustrative schedule slides, and I know that there's a lot of information on this slide, but I was trying to make it in a way that we could sort of really focus in on what the challenges are about doing anything. So if we assume that where we're at today, we'll call it May 1.

And if we had a traditional project delivery method without any expedited or emergency permitting, we would design our solutions, whether they be rock, sand, rock and sand or wall, over the next two or three quarters. Then we would go through a permitting process with our resource agencies of 24 to 28 months, and then we would begin procurement, and then we would go through construction that takes us from May of 2024 through 2027 and 2028.

Now, just a moment ago, I had said that we would like to get things in place by the fall of next year. So these are not long term solutions here, they're short term solutions. But the timeline of traditional project delivery and approvals would take us 36 to 48 months in the yellow bar or the light yellow bar at the bottom. There's some high level conceptual cost estimates by type.

So, as you can see, approximately 67,000 to 84,000 tons of rock at a cost of 183 to 195 million. That's rock and wall sand nourishment, approximately a half a million cubic yards, a cost of 64 to 150 million wide. Variance on that in terms of transportation, delivery, how you get it, there is a truck. Is it train or is it dredging? And then the total estimated cost of somewhere between $245 to $340 million.

So this assumes that we can make a decision on what we want to do today and that we can find $250 to $340 million, and we'll spend four years doing those types of things. There's also some sort of compliance and permitting and assumptions at the bottom, very high level and conceptual. What I've prepared for the next slide. Is, well, what if we could do.

This a little bit quicker? What if we could do it a little bit faster? I'd like to start by saying that, first and foremost, our organization and myself, we have absolute respect for the roles, responsibilities and missions of all of our partners, whether it be the Coastal Commission, the Army Corps of Engineers, the State of California, the County of Orange, or the City of San Clemente, and all the other approval and regulatory bodies.

But we did look at what if we could do something a little bit different? How can we shrink that time? So a couple things happen when you shrink time. One is it cost a little bit of less, because the little bit less time value of money is brought back in a little bit. This would look at the opportunity to simultaneously design, procure and construct along with your permitting. And this would look at that on all solutions. Again, both rock and wall revetment as well as sand.

And you can see from this graphic that instead of shifting out into 2027 and 2028, we see opportunities to get some things done by the end of 2025 and perhaps the middle of 2026, still not by the fall of 2024. And I wish I had a graphic that could show you how we could get to the fall of 2024, but we haven't found a way to get that done in any meaningful manner.

A couple of takeaways on this one is we absolutely need some type of expedited approval process from our partners. That doesn't mean we should skip public engagement, doesn't mean we should skip environmental impacts. But if we have crisis and we have emergency, we owe it to the public for public infrastructure to figure out how to protect the rail line quicker than four years. We need to be able to do that. The other takeaway, I think that's important, is there's no silver bullet.

There's not one thing that can fix all of it. It's not just walls, it's not just sand. It's not just revetment. They all have to be looked at together. The other silver bullet is that there's not one entity that controls all of this. As Mister Kettle indicated, Metrolink doesn't control the beaches in Orange County, nor does OCTA, nor does the city, nor does the state. All stakeholders have to be involved.

So we need a coalition of all parties with a common goal in mind of how do we do the things together. Now, from a transportation standpoint, it would be easy for me to say that our number one priority is the transportation corridor, and that's a true statement. But we also absolutely recognize that co benefits exist, whether it's lateral beach access or coastal access, protection of properties along the coast, recreation, tourism opportunities, as well as understanding the long term impact on the environment.

And I believe that working together, we can all accomplish our missions, whether it's the Coastal Commission's mission, OCTA's mission, the City of San Clemente's mission, and the myriad of other public agencies that are involved in this. So I'll just wrap up by just telling you where we think we're going. We started the initial assessment, as I indicated, in late calendar year of 2023, progress report in February of 24. And then you're the first to see the two graphics that we showed here today.

We've been underway with a number of listening sessions. We've been very focused on this idea that we want to listen to our stakeholders, listen to their thoughts, listen to what they say, obtain that feedback and information, and then develop what we would call a purpose and need and evaluation criteria through the spring of this year.

That's informed by those listening session comments and feedback, and then work to develop what we call our initial concept development to look at how do we get through that, not this hotspot analysis, but also how do we march towards the 10 year mark, the 20 year mark, and ultimately the 30 year mark, and then how do we refine those concepts, develop a way in which we can look at how do we pay for these items, how do we deliver these items and projects, all of these in terms of whether, again, whether it's wall, rock, sand, or a combination of the three.

I'm sure you've noticed from Mister Hall's graphics there's no roads there. It's a rail line and a beach in some places less beach than Moore. And so all of these have impacts on rail operations and passenger operations as you try to do that construction work as well. So with that, Senator Blakespear, Members, I'll conclude my remarks. I know I went a little bit longer than the rest, but hopefully gives you a sense of the work that we've been doing.

Okay, thank you. That was all very interesting. Let me see if my colleagues have any questions before I ask a question, and then we'll go to the next panel. Does any questions, Senator Nguyen? Yes.

They can hear me. Right? Thank you, Madam Chair. First, I want to thank our mayor from City of San Clemente, who's also here today as well. I know it was mentioned earlier, but Mister Hall, I guess my question is, because you said so you said that with collaboration, and if we can work together, what is the most difficult part or which agent is the most difficult for us to deal with when it comes to trying to do sand replenishment in San Clemente?

I think specifically in San Clemente, we do not have a certified local coastal program. So we do rely on the Coastal Commission to be able to approve this. So we do need to have collaboration with the Coastal Commission in order to get sand on the beach. We also have a state beach that's part of that. So there's the state beach, there are city beaches, and there are some that are actually private beaches. We have talked to the private landowners.

They are very willing partners, willing to work with us. So again, I think it's really important that we collaborate with the Coastal Commission at the state level and the state beach. And then the City of San Clemente is certainly a willing partner, as are the private property owners.

So what do you, I mean, when you go to the Coastal Commission, what's the process and why is it taking longer?

So I think the biggest challenge is making sure that you. Well, it's been, our biggest challenge in San Clemente is making sure that you can find sand to bring to the beach. As people that have followed it know. We found one borrow site that had a lot of cobble. We had to regroup, find a different borrow site. We believe that we found one now that is producing the sand that would be necessary to do this.

So I think getting the permits in place and then, you know, there's very few people that can dredge that kind of sand. So if we aren't going to bring it through a dredge, then you've got to look at transporting the sand. The costs go up very quickly, when you start transporting the sand, either by truck or rail, it goes up a lot. So if at all possible, it makes a lot of sense to see if we can get that sand brought by barge.

I understand. Find sand, the cost, etcetera, because we're going to have the Coastal Commission folks here. I mean, if there's something to say to them, this is the moment, right? This is the time to go, hey, we need help. And here's why. Because, you know, what is that bottleneck? If you had the sand, if you had the means to get there, you had the funding. What is it with the co star? How long the process can we ask them? Hey, what can we do? How can we do? What would that question be?

How quickly can we move through the environmental processes? There's a lot of stakeholders. You will have everyone from private entities like perhaps Surfrider and others that want to go through this public process. You'll have surfers that want to understand what adding sand to the beach is going to do to the surf and the different wave surge that comes in. So what we'd like to do is move as quickly as we can to have a lot of pre approval in place.

So rather than waiting for the crisis, let's decide, you know, what we need to do to get sand on the beach in San Clemente, get all those approvals in place now so that every time the rail becomes inundated or we start to see some impacts on the rail, we've already got the approvals in place. Let's go get the sand. Let's put it on the beach.

Is there not a process right now to get the pre approval?

I don't think that there, no, I think that that would be a new process to have a pre approval in place. There is what's called an opportunistic sand a scoop program, which does allow that somewhat. But at the scale we're talking about, I think we would be talking about having a pre approval process in place that I'm not aware of now.

Coastal Commission will be talking to you later, and they may have a better answer than I do, but I don't, I haven't seen, in my experience, a preapproval to put sand on the beach before you need it.

So our wish list to the coast, though, have you heard pre approval is, can there be, could there be a future process of pre approval just for the sand replenishment just in case when a crisis like this happened, we don't have to wait months, months, months to getting that approval to start replenishing the sand. Can I ask, Mister Johnson, I guess you know, you've talked about your state agency's partnership and going back to the Coastal Commission.

What kind of conversation have you had with them regarding the rail and what should we anticipate or where can we go from here.

Through the chair, Senator Nguyen I think our conversations with Coastal Commission staff at all levels have been very positive overall. And as I mentioned a moment ago, we fully respect their, their mission, their roles and responsibilities, and we've been very focused and very pleased in recent conversations in the last 2, 3, 4 weeks about opportunities for expediting.

We were able to share the graphic I showed a moment ago with Coastal Commission staff, and they provided some feedback on that and some opportunities for that. The one item I think that is worth consideration is a policy item, and I think we should be thinking about public information infrastructure different than private development.

If we have public infrastructure that is for the good of the public, maybe that's a road, maybe it's a rail line, maybe it's a pedestrian bridge, maybe it's something else that, in my opinion, should have a different way to examine and different opportunities to protect public infrastructure versus private infrastructure.

So that's one area that I think we should talk about and think about, much like we've talked about, as I mentioned a few slides ago, working with the California Transportation Commission on an opportunity to help emergency issues on publicly owned rail lines different than privately owned rail lines. So I think looking at that public infrastructure versus private infrastructure a little bit differently would be an area that we would like more conversation about.

So if one last question, if not sand replenishment, what else? What other options do we have on the rail?

I think in the long term, the conversation of relocation has to be opened up. Again. I'm reluctant to say that's the absolute answer. We have a number of stakeholders that need to be engaged, as we've talked in this Committee before. But in the short term, meaning 10-20 years, I think it's going to take catchment walls, I think it's going to take rock revetment, and I think it's going to be sand. None of them independently by themselves will provide the protection we need.

They have to work together. And I think when we get into the conversation, all three of those things need to be looked at.

Thank you. Thank you, ma'am.

Thank you. I know we have another panel, so I'll be brief with my questions and comments, but my first question is to the city manager, a certified local coastal program is what the Coastal Commission wants every coastal city to have. So your city doesn't have one. So, and that's part of what's creating the delay here, as you said. So what is the effort at the city level to get a certified local coastal program?

Yes, we are concentrating on that. We're moving very quickly on it. We have had a lot of support from the Coastal Commission, and I think we should be closing on that in the coming months. I'm pretty confident in that.

Okay, so do you think. Pardon?

I'd like to have a few questions myself.

Okay. Would you like to go in front of my questions? Okay. All right, well, I'll just finish up then. Okay, thank you. And then my next question is to Mister Johnson about needing the expedited permit process, and that one entity does not control everything. So I think one of the complexities is that expedited permit processes are usually applied when you know what the project is.

And so my hope is that what we're all focused on is how having a parallel track of the short term protection and the long term planning, and it's that walk and chew gum at the same time idea that we should really be doing this. And I think there's a concern about putting just incredible amounts of money into short term projects that don't actually end up with us having a resilient rail corridor because there's some other section that goes down.

And so I'm curious about how quickly you think, if you're looking at this assessment here, and how quickly do you think that we could get to the point where we have both short term predictions of where there might be future slides and short term projects being sand rock revetment and catchment walls, and then long term, the consideration of either the relocation or some notion of a protect in place that would actually serve us from the 50 to 100 year timeline.

So how quickly do you think we can get to that part? Because to me that seems like where we need to be going with a really clear understanding of that being the goal.

through chair Blakespear. I think I put this slide back up because this is the four highly vulnerable areas that we identified between December and February. We know these are the hotspots. There is no disagreement that those are the hotspots. I don't believe I would hear that from the city manager, from Metrolink, or frankly, anyone else in this discussion. The question is, how do you treat them?

I think there's General consensus on the inland side that short term catchment walls need to be dealt with in the short term, the ocean side. It's going to be some mix of rock revetment and sand nourishment in that area. So that's the here and now. And then through the next part of the study, the longer term meaning beyond what I just showed, which we would love to get done by the fall of 24. We think that is very difficult to do.

But from year one to year 10 to year 20, we plan to have those concepts by the fall of this year with refined concepts in the spring of 25, and then be able to look at a final report on that in the fall of 25. That would, the goal there is to get us from that time period through the longer discussion about potential relocation.

Because as we've discussed, I believe I testified before, if we made the decision today to relocate and we had all the money and we had all the go ahead, we are 25 or 30 years away from having an opened rail line in a tunnel somewhere off the coast.

So we need to be able to look at how do we fix the leaky roof between now and the fall of 24, and then how do we replace the roof of the house over the next 20 years while we're thinking about where the new house is going to be built. So that's how we see those three. The last piece is we have put in writing to Secretary Omashakin, request to lead the long term relocation study.

We believe that the scale and scope of that is beyond one county Transportation Commission. The ramifications stretch from San Diego to Los Angeles. They have verbally agreed to that. We need to work through the details of when we start that and how we do that. And I think you're aware, finally, that congressman Levin, through community funding, through the appropriations process, there is a $4 million earmark, I'll call it, specifically identified, for a relocation study.

That is a very small amount that we're very happy for, but we need a lot more investment and a lot more engagement at the state and federal level for that longer term look.

Okay. Thank you, Senator Archuleta.

Thank you. I think, excuse the voice. I think the big question here is how safe is it today, and how long can you go with that safety umbrella without something happening that people aren't listening? Your number one priority, obviously, is to keep it open, keep it moving, but you need help. You talked about all the agencies coming together, sitting around, sitting on their hands, waiting for something to happen, and you're waving the flag. Please be proactive. How long can you stand it? How long can you last?

Senator Archuleta it's the owner of the operating right of way. We don't make the operating decisions, but I will say safety is of utmost important. I think maybe, perhaps Mister Kettle, you should talk about the safety of operations.

Thank you, Mister Johnson and Senator Archuleta. As the operating railroad, it is our determination as to what's safe and what's not safe. And we've had to make tough decisions to close down the corridor because it was not. Today we're operating that corridor with, at full speeds and with the protections we have in place, we have a very safe corridor. The challenge we have is that as Mister Johnson indicated, we have hot spots that we don't know when they're going to give.

Just as we experienced with this most recent Mariposa Point closure that causes us to react very, very quickly to have to close down the corridor due to safety concerns. So hopefully we will continue to remain safe. And hopefully we will have. We won't, those hot spots won't be realized, but if they do and we end up in an unsafe condition, we'll have to do what we've done in the past and take the corridor out of operation until it can be protected.

And the reason I ask is, I've got Orange County and LA County. So, you know, imagine everyone coming out of La County going to Orange County. So the question, I think, is one that needs to be answered. And so you've got people on top of it every single day. God forbid that there's changes and you can react quickly.

Certainly that's, that is our job. And we have regular inspections. We, we obviously know where these hotspots are. So we're paying even closer attention where we have areas where we know we have concerns. And if, again, if that tough call has to be made because something starts to give, we'll be prepared to do that. But your point is a good one, Senator. This is a very, very busy corridor, Los Angeles to San Diego, and we want to keep it operating for the movement of people, goods and the military.

Madam Chair, one more. What is the, the influx of money that you need immediately over the next three to five years.

Through the chair, Senator Archuleta, I think we're still at the conceptual level, but our thinking is really in this space here, as I've said a few times today, that we believe it is a three pronged approach with catchment walls, rock revetment, plus sand nourishment. Our conceptual level estimate is between 210 and $310 million in that timeframe to be able to do the design, the permitting, and the building of the walls. Delivering of rock and the dredging of the sand.

And as you mentioned, the difficult part is getting people to be proactive. Right. Well, we've got to wake them up. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Well, thank you very much. We are going to move on to our next panel. We very much appreciate all four of you coming up and speaking to us today. Next we have Christopher Darren Kettle, California Natural Resources Agency Special Counsel to the Secretary. We have Kate Huckelbridge, California Coastal Commission Executive Director, and Chad Edison, Transportation Agency Chief Deputy Secretary, rail and transit. So we welcome the three of you up. Thank you for your patience.

And I think we will start with the Executive Director of the Coastal Commission, Miss Huckelbridge. Welcome.

Hello. All right. Let me pull up my. There we go. All right. Good afternoon, Chair and Subcommitee Members. I am Kate Huckelbridge, Executive Director of the California Coastal Commission. Thank you so much for the invitation to be here today and to speak to you about the role of the Coastal Commission in management and planning for the Low sand corridor. So I imagine you're largely familiar with the Coastal Commission, but for those who are not, I'll do a very brief introduction. The Coastal Commission is charged with protecting and enhancing California's coast for present and future generations.

We do this through careful planning and regulation of environmentally sustainable development, rigorous use of science, strong public participation, education, and effective intergovernmental coordination. More specifically, the Commission implements the Coastal act, which was signed into law in 1972 and contains broad statewide policies intended to guide planning and development along California's coastal zone, which you can see here on the map in red.

While the Coastal act contains policies for a wide array of topics, some of the policy priorities most relevant to today's discussion include maximizing public coastal access, protecting sensitive habitat, water quality and marine resources, minimizing vehicle miles traveled, and ensuring the public safety from coastal hazards such as erosion. The Commission translates these broad stateway policies into concrete and actions through its dual role as both a planning agency and a regulatory agency.

On the planning side, one of the Commission's key statutory functions is to assist local governments in developing and maintaining local coastal programs, or lcps. As you heard in the last panel, lcps are the planning tool by which local governments in the coastal zone implement the Coastal act within their jurisdiction, and they contain land use policies and ordinances to guide coastal development.

One of the Commission's priorities in recent years, and this was affirmed last year in legislation, has been partnering with local governments to update their lcps to assess the risks posed by sea level rise and related coastal hazards, and to develop local plans for community scale sea level rise adaptation. The Commission similarly collaborates with state and regional partners on plans related to sea level rise and other coastal priorities such as public access.

For example, the Commission has a strong working relationship with Caltrans centered around the planning for state transportation infrastructure in the coastal zone. One focus of this collaboration has been the growing alignment of state transportation policy and coastal adaptation policy in foundational planning documents such as the state rail plan. By baking state coastal policies into these local and regional plans, we lay the groundwork for efficiently permitting projects that implement those policies.

Relevant to today's discussion, the most significant planning product created by the Commission is our guidance for adapting critical infrastructure to sea level rise and coastal hazards. This guidance was adopted just over two years ago, and it was the result of extensive collaboration with state resource and transportation agencies, as well as local and tribal governments, academic policy and equity organizations, and the public. The guidance identifies policy pillars intended to inform how we approach assessing the vulnerability of infrastructure to coastal hazards and planning for its adaptation.

The LOSSAN corridor is featured as a case study in this document for how we collectively apply these principles to a truly critical piece of infrastructure.

In discussing the rail corridor, the guidance identifies the importance of assessing climate vulnerability on a corridor scale rather than in a piecemeal fashion, coordinating planning and investment across all levels of government, pursuing multi benefit solutions such as those that provide coastal access both in the form of reliable rail operation but also continued public access to the beach and approaching adaptation in phases.

These policies provide a framework to guide future collaborative planning and project development efforts along the corridor, which the Commission is eager to be a partner in. We've seen these principles carried through into projects like the Del Mar Bluff Stabilization project number five, which the Commission authorized through a federal consistency certification in 2022. This project stabilized the bluff along an extremely vulnerable stretch of the rail corridor, thereby helping to ensure consistent rail operations.

Sandag also designed the project to maintain the public's access to the beach along the project area to mitigate impacts to coastal habitat, and incorporated study and planning for future strategic relocation of the rail line off the bluff. Proactive multi benefit projects like this make real progress on the chronic challenges facing the corridor and allow us to move beyond being in a chronic State of Emergency response.

As we heard in the previous panel, there are several of these chronic emergency hot spots along the San Clemente segment of the corridor. Over the past year, the Coastal Commission has acted quickly to authorize the emergency work necessary to keep the rail line functioning safely. As part of the follow up permitting process for these emergency authorizations.

And as we anticipate upcoming work, the Commission will continue to coordinate with OCTA and other partners to apply an approach similar to what has worked in Del Mar. This involves identifying efficient permitting pathways that ensure the continued operation of the rail and address immediate concerns related to beach loss and public access.

Importantly, we will also work with OCTA and partners to focus on the long term planning that is crucially needed to map out a resilient future for the rail line through San Clemente and the rest of the Lo sand corridor as a whole. While planning work like this is incredibly complicated, it is something the Commission has experience with.

Through shared principles and coordination, we can shape a future for the Los Angeles corridor that demonstrates how to responsibly implement coastal management and transportation policy in response to climate change. Thank you and I'm happy to answer any questions that the appropriate time.

Well, thank you. We appreciate that. All right. Next we will go to deputy or Chief Deputy Secretary Edison.

Good afternoon chair Blakespear and Members of the Subcommitee. I'm Chad Edison, Chief Deputy Secretary for Rail at the California State Transportation Agency. Thank you for inviting me to provide an update on our efforts and partnerships to prioritize addressing the needs and growth potential of the LOSSAN rail corridor. As stated in testimony in 2023, the entire corridor is of critical importance in moving goods and people throughout Southern California, and it features heavily in our plans for providing high quality transportation infrastructure for California.

I would like to update you on three focus areas for us at Calsta as we work with the Legislature, public agencies and the communities along the corridor, we are first committed to keeping the corridor open for business. Second, we're focused on identifying priorities for capital investment to ensure ridership growth and making sure that current capital investments have the support they need to get completed. Third, we're focused on communicating and planning transparently. I will now unpack each of these further.

As has already been discussed by the many presenters before me, the partnerships necessary to keep the corner open in the short term must be as strong and efficiently managed as possible given the significant weather related challenges we have experienced during the last few rainy seasons. While we have improved communication in response to events that result in quarter closure, we need to strengthen our response and get ahead of these events, mitigating them in advance as possible.

We have and will dedicate significant staff and financial resources to partnering with local and state agencies to keep the corridor open. I believe you've already heard that commitment from my peers at the agencies that presented ahead of me. We are also fully committed to providing state leadership and advancing the long term planning on relocation alternatives where that will be necessary.

While our agency has played a significant role in funding the current and future capital needs in the quarter so that ridership can continue to grow, this more than $5 billion investment is of limited use if the quarter is not operable for significant time periods.

We have spent the first months of 2024 focusing on how to expedite priority investments that could help mitigate expected future landslide and ocean instigated erosion of the corridor, and are glad that our agency partners are working with us to identify multiple, flexible approaches that can be responsive to feedback from commissions, boards and the local community. We will seek to prioritize funding to these projects and future needs based on an honest evaluation of the availability of local, state and federal funds.

One forum in which these discussions can be held includes the ongoing quarterly meetings that CalSTA Undersecretary Mark Tollefson continues to chair, involving public agencies and officials from across the corridor. We are committed to communicating and planning transparently. In addition to the quarterly meetings, we are also partnering with Caltrans, the LOSSAN Rail Quarter Agency and the many quarter infrastructure owners and stakeholders, and the Federal Railroad Administration's quarter identification program.

This process will include coming to consensus on the highest and earliest priorities for additional capital investment in the corridor, opening us up for what we expect to be significant additional federal investment in the years ahead. The work we do across all these bodies will be documented, both the analysis and the recommended actions for review by public agency boards.

We really are much stronger when we all work together, and we can assure those who are being asked to invest in the quarter that we agree and are well coordinated in what we are doing to improve rail service. In closing, I'd like to provide a brief focus on the significant investments that we have committed to over the last 10 years or so, some of them completed, others still in the process of getting into construction.

While the total investments are more than where the total is more than $5 billion, I'd like to focus on those that are at least 4.3 billion of that total. In the completed category is the more than half a billion of funding for cleaner tier four locomotives for LOSSAN, Metrolink and coaster, along with the completion of positive train control investments that made the corridor safer.

In the well underway category are two grade separations, the Rosecrans Marquardt crossing in LA County and the Rice Avenue grade separation in Ventura County, totaling nearly $300 million between them. Finally, we have three major service expansion programs, the Metrolink in La Union Station School core phase one program, the San Diego County rail projects, many of which have been completed, and the LOSSAN north service expansion projects that allow us to add more through trains to Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo.

The total investment will exceed $3.5 billion in these selected projects, and a significant portion of the funding is dedicated to the corridor protection in preparing for future rail line relocation. We need to work together to bring this full set of investments to completion, which in some cases will mean finding some additional resources and also continuing to identify and fund additional critical projects on top of these. This concludes my testimony. I'd be glad to join the other panelists in answering your questions.

Thank you. Okay. Thank you. We appreciate that. And now we will go to Christopher Calfee, Executive Director yes, I'll let you introduce yourself.

Thank you very much. Senator. My name is Christopher Calfee. I'm Special Counsel to Secretary Crowfoot at the California Natural Resources Agency. In that role, I am agency's point on all things infrastructure and permitting. In particular, the natural Resources Agency has a long history of collaborating with state and local partners to facilitate infrastructure that avoids harm and provides environmental benefits.

We are active participants in the Governor's infrastructure strike team, and we're part of the team that worked to develop the governor's legislative package on infrastructure last year. More specifically, in the transportation context, the Natural Resources Agency partners closely with the California Transportation Agency on various matters of mutual interest. One example is our participation in the transportation permitting task force.

Together with the Transportation Agency, the California Environmental Protection Agency, Caltrans Water Board, Coastal Commission, and the Department of Fish and Wildlife, this task force work together to develop frameworks for reducing permitting times and improving environmental outcomes through early engagement liaison contracts with the permitting agencies, development of best practices manuals, and others. Another recent example is collaboration with the Transportation agency, Caltrans, and other partners on planning for improvements to Highway 37 to enhance habitat and increase resilience to sea level rise for that corridor.

On the specific topic of the LOSSAN corridor, the transportation agency has updated us on recent developments on the LOSSAN corridor and concepts for near term improvements to avoid service interruptions, as well as planning and work on longer term solutions.

Secretaries Omishakin and Crowfoot have met together with their respective teams on the importance of the LOSSAN corridor and the need to coordinate the activities of permitting agencies so that the work can proceed as expeditiously as possible, though a good deal of coordination has already been underway, some of which Doctor Huckelbridge mentioned in her comments.

We have recently gathered with leadership of the Department of Fish and Wildlife, Coastal Commission, State Lands Commission, and state and regional Water Boards to establish points of contact in lines of communication on OCTAs near term proposals. We look forward to continuing this partnership as more specific proposals are evaluated.

In closing, I want to reiterate that we at the Natural Resources Agency very much appreciate the importance of the Los Ang corridor and the need to keep passenger and freight lines open, and are committed to working with our partners to ensure that the needed improvements are thoughtfully designed and considered by permitting agencies in a timely way. Thank you for the opportunity to be here this afternoon and am happy to take any questions.

Well, thank you very much. We really appreciate the three of you coming today. I'll ask my colleague, Senator Archuletta. Do you have any questions?

I'd like to thank you all for being here, and I'm really impressed with what you're doing and what an asset we have here in California. Anyone who's ever ridden the train and come from Los Angeles, San Diego. It is truly an asset for all of us, and I'm glad the Governor is with us on this. It's so important. The only question I have is working with the other side in reference at something that's so important, I think, is, as you mentioned, working together as partners.

And I'm still puzzled with that, that being able to work together before something does happen and, you know, pre permitting evaluations and so on. So, God forbid that something happens. You're on it. And I may be wrong, but if they're telling us that they need your help, I think you, too, need to sit down and figure out, you know, put some scenarios behind you and see what's happened. What if this were to happen?

And you've got the paperwork in permitting, God forbid, that we're waiting six months for someone to sign off on it, and we shouldn't have to do that. It's imperative that we keep the trains rolling because you both agree that it's priority number one. But on the legal side, you know, everything has to go through the legal side. But why not do it ahead of time? That's my only concern. But I congratulate the State of California and certainly the Commission. I'm just hoping that maybe you can get together. Madam Chair.

Well, thank you. So I have a couple questions, and I'll just start with Secretary, Deputy Secretary Edison. So, CalSTA, I'm wondering if there's a way to leverage the institutional knowledge that we have with CalTrans, and it's knowledge bandwidth lessons learned from the, from the road side of things to implement over here on the rail side of things, because it seems like maybe we could, and I'm wondering if you're actively working on that or if there's, you know, what you would say to that.

Well, I can look back on what just occurred at Mariposa, and the effort there did include us having folks from the CalTrans district, really, engineers and others, take a look at the geotech situation, coming in alongside OCTA, coming in alongside BNSF and Amtrak and others.

And so we do believe that, like, making our full set of resources available over at CalTrans to advancing these projects and making sure we have good ideas in the room and that we're generating the right responses, we can definitely bring that to bear when it's helpful.

Okay. Yeah. I mean, one of the things that strikes me when I read the state rail plan is how abysmally far away we are from reaching any of the goals that are in there. I just I wonder if, I mean, we're not even applying for federal money for the Infrastructure and Jobs act, the money that's going to high speed rail. We're not applying for those grants.

And my hope is that we are able to see this corridor and its potential to do so much more while it's sitting next to roads that are clogged with traffic to say, what can we do to make this operate at a much higher level? Not an incrementally higher level.

I mean, across the board, we're still down about 50% from our high before COVID And so I know things are trending back up as we heard from the first panel, but we're still not really where, anywhere near where we need to be. So having, recognizing our goals is so much higher than where we are. I'm, and I'm hopeful, and I'd like to hear from Calsa that there's a serious focus and energy on getting us there.

So, you know, the focus on that state rail plan and getting the partners aligned and having the leadership and prioritizing of it, you know, where are we as the months are ticking by since we've begun the Subcommitee and we've had these various failures and we're looking at places for a short term, you know, where are we in trying to meet those goals from the state rail plan?

Well, first of all, I would say that the large number of capital projects that I just went through include that implementation of the state rail plan with over $5 billion of capital investment, much of which has not yet been in completed projects. That is a very significant investment in this corridor.

And we continue to add hundreds of millions of dollars to it through federal grant pursuant suits which are ongoing, some of which have recently resulted in receiving money, for example, for the Santa guitar rail bridge, which was coupled with a whole lot of state money as well.

There are many opportunities ahead of us to continue pursuing money through the bipartisan infrastructure law, and we are then continuing to build that pipeline of projects through the quarter ID program, which is really going to support that reauthorization of the next round of federal funding through Federal Railroad Administration. So I believe that we are aggressively working towards making the corridor better.

And that, and really at this point, we need to get a lot of the projects that are already programmed all the way to completion, get the projects into construction and finished. And sometimes that's going to involve trying to identify some additional resources because projects get more expensive as they go through the planning process into and take longer to deliver. So, you know, throughout the state we're really working hard on implementing the state rail plan.

I think we're getting our share of funding in a variety of these programs on a national level, and we really need, you know, continued push statewide for the highest priorities across these programs.

Okay, thank you. And I just have a question for Director Huckelbridge as well. I wonder about whether there are additional opportunities for nature based adaptation strategies around sand and more guidance that can be given to get there. And so I wonder if you could just address that directly.

Yeah, of course. I think you're absolutely right. There may be opportunities for nature based solutions. I think it's a case specific question and there are going to be areas that are getting, get too much wave action and nature based solutions won't be appropriate. But, you know, sand replenishment in and of itself can be considered in some cases a nature based solution.

So I think we've been really pushing that as an important component of any of the work in this area to kind of consider that we are working on guidance right now, actually on nature based solutions. So it's hopefully that will be out relatively soon. I'm not quite sure of the timeline, but we agree that that's an important component to look, to look for.

But it really does depend some of these, I think in some of these very hot spot areas, it's probably not realistic to expect that a nature based solution would hold up all by itself. And so we understand the need for kind of a multi component, but it should be a mass, a major part of any project. So agree with you there.

Yes. Because it seems like having sand on the beach is part of the access to the coast. That's part of your mission. Yes. Because if there is no sand, then there is no real access to the ocean because you can't scramble over the big rocks.

No. In several sections that we, some of the areas where we've already permitted rock revetments under emergency situations, we have lost the beach completely in front of those areas. We've lost lateral access for Members of the public and for anybody who wants to, visitors or residents. So I think from that perspective, that's been for us. As I mentioned before, a key component moving forward is that we're looking at the whole package of issues. Yes.

We need to be very careful about maintaining service on this very important rail line, but we can do it in a way that maintains public access. It maintains beach for the people of California and for Orange County.

Yes. Thank you. Okay. And then I just have one question for Special Counsel Calfee. Do you feel like, there are processes and procedures in place with the level of coordination and goal setting that we're all looking for. Do you feel like those processes are existing and in place?

I'm confident that we have a very solid foundation, and it's built on the history of our work together, many of our agencies together over many different project types. You mentioned roadway improvements being one of them. I think here we will build on that foundation and continue to apply those lessons learned to this specific context. But I am confident.

Okay. Okay. Thank you. So those are the end of my questions. Did you have any other questions you wanted to ask? Okay, well, thank you so much to our witnesses, to all the witnesses who joined us today. We really need all of your voices and your leadership in this together. And then, and in the spirit of that, I'd just like to share, share a few comments in closing. It's okay. Thank you so much.

Yes, so we truly are at a crossroads. Today we heard more of some of the lessons learned and the very real challenges and opportunities that are facing the rail corridor and our California coast. Both of these require us to think beyond any one county, operator or state agency when responding to emergencies or planning for the future. It's clear the rail corridor is not operating right now at its highest potential.

This is occurring in an environment where the state and local communities are relying on the corridor and coastline to mutually support the state's climate, coastal mobility, and sustainability goals. And we cannot accept an either or solution. Both our coastline and the transportation corridor are too important to us, both for the resources they provide today and for their promise for our future.

While we face a challenging environment created over decades by changing travel patterns, state and local planning and prioritization, and increasingly complex weather and oceanic related events along Southern California's fragile coastline. We have never had this level of public engagement data and partnership between local, state, and Federal Government around this rail corridor. I ask that as we conclude our hearing today, we not lose sight of the importance of all working together collaboratively for the benefit of a region that we all care so much for.

And you have that commitment from me as chair of this Subcommitee. So we are going to take public comments now, and I would like to ask you to come to this microphone if you would like to make public comments. Do we have anyone wanting to. Okay, good. Great. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair, honorable Senators. My name is Shirli Weiss. I'm a longtime resident of Del Mar, California, and have practiced law in California for over 40 years and state and federal courts. I was also served in Executive leadership at my firm, which is, which is one of the largest firms in the world. Attorney Laura Schaeffer and I have closely studied SB 1098 and submitted a position paper respectfully proposing amendments, principally that.

The Coastal Commission be added as an equal Member of the working group created by the Bill to render periodic reports to the Legislature. Second, that the content of the reports be augmented to include the coastal environmental impact of any recommendations made affecting the coast and third, that any agency veto power over the content of the reports be eliminated. Instead, that any agency objecting to the contents of the reports be included.

The portion of the LOSSAN corridor that runs through the coastal zone lies at the crossroads of both the interests and transportation and the public's right to environmental protection of the coast. For the long term, there is tension between those interests. The tracks will be moved off the coast in San Diego, San Diego, and likely Orange County, too. Mother Nature has put her thumb on the scale, but not for another 1115 years or more.

Continued rail carriage on the coast is temporary in the great scheme of things, but interim construction projects that may result from this Bill will leave permanent changes that will affect the coast and the coastal cities, both aesthetic and economic, for generations. SB 1098 is a planning Bill that creates an ongoing information and Recommendation Highway Superhighway directly to the Legislature that will result in action on the coast.

But this Bill is significantly imbalanced because the information and recommendation flow is almost exclusively from transportation and rail agencies and private railroads. With only my opinion, token input from the Coastal Commission, which is the primary agency charged by law with protecting the coast and has a wealth of information, knowledge and experience on this very subject. In light of the Bill, it is not enough for the Coastal Commission to be involved in just the permit process, whether emergency or otherwise.

It will expedite the goals of this Bill to include the Coastal Commission at the planning stage. Californians have a strong stake in preserving the coast for generations, an interest at least equal to the temporary use of the coast for freight and passenger service. The Coastal Commission needs to be in the room where it happens.

It needs to be part of the working group created by the Bill and an equal participant with the rail agencies and railroads at every stage of the information, recommendation and planning process created by this Bill with respect to the coastal zone, what is at stake? The long term thrivability of our coast and coastal cities. Thank you for your attention.

Thank you, Shirli, and thank you for coming here from Del Mar for this hearing. Anybody else wishing to make public comments? No? Okay. Well, thank you for participating and listening today. You may submit additional comments or suggestions in writing to the Subcommitee, and I'd like to thank those who already have. Your comments and suggestions are important to us, and we want to include you in the official hearing records. Thank you to everyone who joined us today, and we are now adjourned.