Assembly Select Committee on Select Committee on Reconnecting Communities

We will start with Dr. Zafari, Professor at the University of Maryland. He is joining us via Webex and his presentation is entitled Cost Effectiveness of Capping Freeways, a case study. Professor Zafari, are you prepared to begin? And if you are, I think you need to unmute your on your end so we can hear you.

Hello. Yes, I am ready. Should I share my screen?

Please do. Thank you. Go ahead.

Sure. Are you able to see my screen?

We are not. One second. Dr. Zafari, I think you. We are. We see it now on screen. Do you have control of the slides?

I can see that on the screen. Or maybe I can start and we can. I can let you know.

Please do. Go ahead. Thank you.

Sure. Thank you so much for having me. I think it's a great pleasure to be here. Today I'm going to talk about the cost-effectiveness of capping freeways with parks. This was a case study of the Cross-Bronx Expressway in New York City that we conducted at the time that I was at Columbia University and I'm an assistant professor at University of Maryland, the School of Pharmacy. I think I lost the slides.

You are correct. We are bringing them back on. Why don't you continue and we'll bring them up or do you need?

Yeah. So we published this study back in 2018 in American Journal of Public Health. This was in collaboration with Dr. Peter Munich at Columbia University and Suyan Kim at the time at Columbia and now in New York University. Yes, I can see the slides again here. Maybe do the third slide and then one more. Perfect. So this basically the freeways have a lot of benefits. So the freeways covered by deck or cap parks can have multiple health and societal benefits. The next slide.

One benefit is reduction in accidents between pedestrians and automobiles. Next slide, please. They can also promote physical activity, social connectedness, and social capital. It's a huge benefit of that. They potentially reduce air and noise pollutions by containing an even filtering out the contaminants in a contained space.

So therefore deck parks can lead to an array of health benefits, including reductions in the rates of diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, mental illnesses, cancer, as well as increases in the health-related quality of life, which we're going to talk about in the next slides. Some previous examples of a deck park's implementation in the US a couple of big projects.

One was the biggest projects in Boston, which basically created five parks and covered one and a half miles of freeway, has a lot of benefits in terms of revitalization area with greener spaces and shopping areas. However, the cost of the Big Dig project was large, in part because of because this freeway was elevated and had to be buried. But then later on it also had some construction issues and maintenance issues in terms of the leakage and ceiling collapses.

But the implementation cost of a freeway can be significantly lower if the freeway is already underground or at ground level. And another example of an above-grade deck park can be the freeway park in Seattle, which covered about eight lanes of freeway and cost about 18 million per acre.

In terms of the opportunities historically, implementation of green spaces and freeway deck parks had lower priorities for the government and for budget allocation purposes, mainly because of higher needs of other social services and healthcare services, such as social welfare and healthcare benefits. However, there are numerous opportunities and long-term benefits of parks and green spaces that have been historically underestimated or overlooked. And in this project we particularly looked at the cost-effectiveness of capping Cross-Bronx Expressway within it with a deck park.

And in our analysis, we also try to be very conservative by doing a one-way sensitivity analysis and looking at a wide range of implementation cost of a deck park so that other jurisdictions can also learn from that. But the Cross-Bronx Expressway historically is located in a relatively lower income neighborhood and is below grade, and is also in a neighborhood that traditionally historically experiencing high rates of asthma, obesity, and diabetes. So it's very unique population in terms of health inequities and health disparities.

And also historically, this expressway was implicated in a crime wave in 1970s. Just to give you some background about this expressway. Next slide. The first thing, we quantified the areas that were sunken and underground so that we thought they would be deemed eligible for implementing a date part with a relatively lower implementation cost.

So we identified those segments of the highway, the freeway, and then as well as the census tracts and the population size surrounding these segments of the freeway, which I provide more details in the following slides. So, in terms of the parameters of these segments of the highway, the total length of the expressway is 6.5 miles and the total width of the expressway is 0.0, almost 0.2 miles.

The length of the proposed the three areas that I showed you in the previous slide that we thought that they could be easily capped with it, relatively easily capped with a deck park was calculated as 2.4 miles and the total number of population affected which we identified from the census tract surrounding those segments, and within half a mile proximity to the expressway was 226,608 number of people.

In terms of the economic model, we developed a microsimulation Markov model, which is a mathematical model that basically quantifies transition of patients over time between different health states until they die. And in terms of the health and quality of life endpoints, we particularly modeled impact of implementing a deck park on fatal and non-fatal injuries in terms of traffic accidents and then the non-fatal injuries. We modeled different probabilities for permanent or non-permanent injuries.

We also modeled the impact of deck park on promotion and increases in the levels of physical activity in the South Bronx in that target population and health estate utility values associated with that, as well as the impact of deck park implementation on reductions in noise pollution and health state utility value associated with that.

For health-related quality of life, we measured a matrix called quality-adjusted life years, which basically looks at both longevity of a resident exposed to the deck park along with health-related quality of life during those years that the participant or a patient is living. Next slide, please. In terms of economic endpoints, we particularly looked at the direct cost of deck park implementation and as I mentioned earlier, we were very cautious about one-way, dedicated, one-way sensitivity analysis around that to make sure other jurisdictions can learn some lessons from that. And we also modeled the direct maintenance cost of a deck park over time. So the first one was a one-time cost, obviously, the second one was a maintenance cost over time.

We modeled both direct and indirect cost of non-fatal as well as fatal injuries, and by indirect, I mean losses of productivity and associated indirect cost of that. We also looked at the property values changes as a result of this deck park implementation from previous published studies. For analysis, we model our mathematics, a mathematical model over lifetime of an average resident of the South Bronx that provided the characteristics for basically the average age of those patients are 34 years old.

And we were very conservative in terms of modeling the health benefits. So we only look at the population exposed or living closest closer to the deck park within half a mile from the deck park. So we did not model any health benefits for other residents that are living farther than half a mile and then future cost and qualities we discounted to the net present value using a future discount rate of 3%.

And then in our analysis, we obviously followed the recommendations of the second panel on cost-effectiveness in Health and medicine in the US. This table shows us the results, which I provide very quickly. So, for 1% average person of South Bronx and New York, the projected per person lifetime cost in our model, both in terms of direct and indirect costs in a status quo, which means that in the absence of a deck park implementation, we're calculated as $1,312. This is over lifetime.

And then the deck park implementation in our model reduced the per-person lifetime cost by $1,629. And you can also see the 95% credible interval, which is basically the uncertainty as a result of the Monte Carlo simulation probabilistic analysis. On the other side, the projected per-person lifetime quality-adjusted life years, which again provides both longevity as well as health-related quality of life associated with the status quo in the absence of a deck park implementation, were calculated as 32.37 QALYs.

And then as a result of deck park implementation, the per-person lifetime quality is increased by 0.15. So, as you can see, the results of the model suggest that such implementation save money as well as increase health and quality of life. So, in conclusion, we showed that the Cross-Bronx Expressway basically has a long history of social and health inequalities in South Bronx. We quantified that capping this Cross-Bronx Expressway can potentially increase health, increase health-related quality of life, and save money and costs.

And we also showed that in our one-way sensitivity analysis, that even when we double the implementation cost of a deck park in South Bronx, the project is still producing good value for money, which with an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of $11,000 per quality, which according to American willingness to pay threshold values, is very good value for money. Usually, we are talking about between 100 and $150,000 per QALY as a threshold. So 11,000 is way below that threshold. The next slide, please.

And also, the results of our probabilistic sensitivity analysis or the Monte Carlo simulation, suggests that in 84% of the random iterations of all random input parameters, the implementation of a deck park scenario would still be cost-saving relative to the status quo or the absence of such deck park implementation.

So finally, our study suggests that the capping this expressway in South Bronx with greener spaces potentially can, over long term, reduces the long-existing social and health disparities and inequities that the South Bronx residents were facing for such a long time. And thank you again for this time.

Thank you, Professor. Appreciate you being here and making time for us. I have some questions now, and perhaps if you're able to stick around for the other items. There might be others that come. But let me ask about the model that you utilize and its applicability in other settings.

I think you, you've made a comment about that, but how applicable is this as a model for, you know, in other parts of the country and certainly here in California, we've identified to date about 10 projects, reconnecting projects, some of which are park caps or caps, just generally in theory. Others are not, but a handful definitely. How can we apply some of the lessons learned from the model here? Is it something that can be applied or what are the limitations?

This is a great question. So I would say yes, this model can be applied to other settings and jurisdictions. Obviously, every setting is different in terms of their unique parameters, obviously, the population size, the characteristics of such population in terms of the socio-demographic characteristics, and other parameters of that particular population. But I think the major lessons learned from this study is that basically documenting the health benefits and the cost benefits of implementing such deck park nationwide in different settings.

I think one sensitive parameter obviously is the characteristics of the freeway in different settings. And for example, I think I mentioned that as part of the presentation, for example, if it is above ground or underground. So those features of the freeway can potentially influence the implementation cost. But on the other, obviously, it's much easier to capture freeways that are underground or at ground level.

But we have other examples, you know, in the nation such as the Seattle Freeway Park or the Big Dig projects that we can learn some, you know, cost implementation cost data from them. But in terms of, I think health benefits, definitely the results of the model are generalized a bit. And obviously, we can update the model using different input parameters from other settings to get the new results for a new setting.

Yeah, I understand your point of we have highways, freeways built at different grades in between communities. And so I think what you're trying to say, that in this case, the findings are in the Bronx, this freeway is below grade. So you'd build the cap, which is perhaps much simpler than, and in terms of, certainly in terms of cost, less costly than the Big Dig program in Boston, which increases the cost, and therefore the cost-benefit analysis can be different.

But I guess my point is for communities, and just to be very clear here, there's a community in San Diego that I represent, a couple of communities actually, where the freeways are both built below grade of the neighborhoods. And so these, we're talking about potential cap projects.

So I'm curious as to the applicability of your methodology to two different areas because I do think there's an argument that sometimes needs to be made in terms of the return on the investment, which is certainly a societal return. In the case of many of these communities, there were homes that existed where these freeways came in and people were displaced and communities were divided in many ways.

But then there's also the, you know, in your case, in this model, some quality of life and healthcare benefits. And so it would be useful for those of us looking to create more opportunities for these types of investments to have data that is useful for us to demonstrate that this investment is worth it. And so I guess that's why my focus on how much is this model, potentially something that could be utilized to analyze other scenarios with the different metrics. Obviously, there's different populations, but it's all data, I think, that can be input into the model that can provide an output that will measure the quality of life years as you've identified.

Absolutely. I think, yeah, this is a great question. I think it's very flexible. So this model can basically be adapted to the new setting parameters. So if, you know, if you have the parameters for a new setting, for example, like you mentioned, the population size exposed, obviously different features and parameters of the new setting, we can definitely, this model can be definitely used and just be updated for that question.

Okay. I'm definitely interested in following up on that. Can I ask you where's the status of the discussion in New York on these cap proposals or concepts?

This is also a great question. So I think as far as I know, this is progressing and I think this summer we are hoping to get to hear some good news. But this is definitely in this current administration is moving forward.

Okay. Also on the data that you found, and just to be very clear, and we also have access to the report. So thank you. The full report, the QALY quality annual, remind me what that stands for.

Quality-adjusted life years.

Life years. So in your results, when you talk about it increasing by 0.15, we're not talking about 0.15 of a year. Correct?

So yes, that's a great question. So basically, one, in order for us to interpret that is one QALY is basically mean that one year of living with perfect health. So if you assume that zero is death and one is a perfect health, one QALY means one year of living in a perfect health.

So in that if you think about that sense, that means like basically for one average resident of South Bronx, just such implementation of a deck park could increase 0.15 of a year with the perfect health. So basically you can you know, somehow thinking about like a longevity increase with the perfect health, which is, which is, I think, a great return on investment in terms of health.

So there's, so there's the health in terms of years, then you also quantified costs. And that one, I'm trying to understand your control costs versus the, what it looks like savings, if you will, and costs and what that delta or that difference is.

Great question. So basically a status quo in the absence of a deck park implementation, what we did was basically projecting the lifetime, let's say, for a 34-year-old average resident of South Bronx. We got all those parameters and data from different sources in New York, and we projected lifetime direct and indirect costs in terms of accidents and other direct and indirect costs of non-fatal, fatal injuries. And we quantified them.

Then we assume, okay, if in a deck park implementation scenario, then obviously the delta that you were asking, obviously part of that delta is the implementation cost. So one-time implementation cost of a deck park, plus the maintenance cost of a deck park, those are obviously positive delta. But then we have many savings as a result of that too. Right? So this implementation of a deck park could save and reduce potentially many accidents, non-fatal, fatal injuries over time.

That basically save healthcare dollars, both direct and indirect, in terms of productivity losses. And that delta comes from that, plus the impacts of that and the property values of that. So basically quantifies the property, direct medical, indirect medical savings as well as the property value increases.

I want to ask you more about property value just in a second. But let me ask you about the reason for selecting the 0.5 miles as a metric for proximity, given that studies that we've seen over the years, the more, the closer you are, if you will, to freeway system, the impacts on things like hospitalization as a result of respiratory illnesses, asthma, et cetera, tend to be a lot higher the closer you are, and certainly remain high, unfortunately, even within as big of a distance, if you will, as half a mile. But curious as to why the 0.5 miles and not a smaller distance as I would, this is a big assumption. I would assume that the impacts would be even higher for those who live closer, who suffer from not as good as quality of life.

That's right. And that's a great question. So two things. We decided to be conservative for that. So that's part of our literature search that we found different studies, and then we decided to go with the most conservative estimate we got from that. And then we chose on 0.5 as health benefits. And you're certainly right. So that the closer you leave, definitely the better, I mean, to take part to depart greener spaces, the more benefits you get. And that's certainly true.

But then the second thing is the model is very flexible in terms of how we would like to change the input parameters. So for example, if you are, if somebody is interested in, let's say, you know, a higher threshold for that, and then in such scenario, investigate the cost-effectiveness analysis, the model is capable to do that as well. So it's very flexible in terms of how we define the parameters and how that impact the cut, impacts the cost outcome. But the half a mile itself, it just came from, you know, the published studies that we reviewed, and at the same time we decided on the most conservative estimate that we got from that.

Again, just thinking and referencing to the communities that I represent that where a model like this could be useful. I also am recalling now that, and interested in your perspective on this, that oftentimes these communities are already park deficient. And so I'm wondering, I have a follow-up question on park deck versus park and other uses on the deck. But let's start with the just parks on the deck.

You know, some of these communities where these highways went into, I'm gonna venture to guess I don't know them all by any means, but probably suffer from some of the same things, including deficiency of public parks, park space, to be specific. So I'm just wondering if the benefits actually have potentially even a greater impact if you go a mile out because there are certainly some communities with a mile radius in which park space does not exist, and so creating parks potentially could even have a bigger impact in some communities versus others. Do you have any thoughts on that?

I think that's an excellent question and I think that's definitely possible. I mean, if somebody hasn't been exposed to the park deficient, as you mentioned, and they are now exposed to greener spaces, I think for them. I think we have some literature saying that starting physical activity above a threshold from no physical activity has some higher benefits. I mean, that partially addresses your point, and I'm aware of those studies. So I think it's certainly possible that for that population, the impacts and benefits are even higher.

And one another possibility is basically subgroup analysis as part of this, economic evaluations that can be done, right? So we can look at different subpopulations, and as you mentioned, some of those subpopulations could be park deficient subpopulations or some other. And then we can model even separately for them what is a higher return on investment or health benefits for that subpopulation relative to other subpopulations.

I'm just curious how much park or green space or what you would consider sort of space, public space was there, is there, around the area that you studied, was it pretty park deficient, moderate? What would one or two words to describe it?

I think it's, I'm not aware of many parks in that neighborhood, so I would say, yeah.

Very deficient. Then let me ask you about the analysis. So you did it based on parks. Some of the conversations that I've heard about decks are certainly parks and public amenities, but also potentially investment in construction of buildings, housing being one, because again, in many communities, thousands of families were displaced. Where there used to be homes, there are now freeway lanes. And so there's, you know, some talk in the community about, well, if we're going to invest in reconnecting communities, let's bring back some of the housing opportunities. That, I assume, was not something that was measured in your analysis of this?

That's right. We didn't, we didn't measure that as part of study.

Do you have any just sense or opinions, I guess, on what that would mean?

So I think my instant answer is thinking about that is it even further increases the benefits and return on investment. And I think what you're saying is very interesting because just thinking so, one parameter that we did not model in this study because we already had, because once we reached the cost-saving threshold, obviously we could stop there. Very conservative. But one benefit that we didn't model and can be done in the future, you know, can be improved is the social connectedness. Right? And the benefits of that. And I think that is very relevant to what you're saying. I mean, just, you know, putting back communities together, the value, the economic value of social connectedness, they all can be improved and can be added to the model, but it further improves the return on investment.

Thank you, Dr. Zafari. I did have another question on just property values just because, not to discuss a bill as this is a Select Committee, but we've got a bill on a financing tool utilizing tax increment because we do assume that there would be an increase in value of properties when you do these types of projects, which tax income and financing would allow us to bond against that, to actually pay for the infrastructure, which is very costly when you do these projects. So I'm interested in that. But in order to move on to next item, maybe if you stick around, maybe I'll come back to you. If not, we still appreciate you being here and presenting a pretty fascinating research and I thank you for sharing that with us.

Of course. My pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.

So we will go on to reconnecting communities through redevelopments with Mr. Mark Pisano from the Infrastructure Funding Alliance. That is our next presentation. Mr. Pisano, come on up and welcome. Thank you for being here and we appreciate your testimony.

Thank you, Chairman Alvarez and other Members of the Committee. My name is Mark Pisano. And are my slides up yet? And while they're putting the slides up, let me just note that a bit of my background, and that is I was the Executive Director of the regional planning organization for Southern California. We were the MPO and planning organization for 32 years.

And since that time, I've spent a decade as a Professor of practice at USC, also a Chairman, co-Chairman of the Intergovernmental System panel of the National Academy of Public Administration. In that role, we've been looking at issues such as the subject of this Committee, and I want to commend you for putting this subject matter on the table. And that is, how do we reconnect our communities? And let me just say, spend a minute describing.

There are many ways we can talk about what we've done to divide our communities. Freeways and highways is one of the most obvious ones. Equally as obvious is the freight rail lines that we, in fact, have that are running through our regions, particularly in Southern California, where the whole issue of goods movement, us being the corridor for the United States, for moving of goods, caused an incredible increase in the amount of freight moving on railroads. And let's see. Could you go to the next slide, please?

The other issue that has divided our communities have been power lines, and power lines have had not only separating committees, but separated geography, but they've also had real divisions in terms of harm to individuals through electromagnetic currents within the communities. There's a number of other reasons we've divided our community, and I'm going to suggest that our policies and the policies for development have been right at the top of why our communities are not coming together. And I'll speak more to that later.

Another issue that I would like to talk about in this introduction, and that is what role redevelopment had in connecting communities and dealing with the issues that enable us to bring our communities together. As I will point out later, reconnecting communities is fundamentally, you begin with strategy, and then there are a number of investments that you could undertake that add to the multiply the impact of what investment projects could undertake. And redevelopment in the past was used primarily in our state.

Once they began up and running, and it took them several decades to do that. They fundamentally were used to redevelop our urban areas, in the urban core areas. And that was the best examples I can present to you is what happened in Los Angeles. In our region. What happened in Los Angeles. Tom Bradley used redevelopment as the means of moving forward. His vision for LA as a center of a business center within the state and within the country. The same thing was true in terms of.

Of Long Beach, the mayors of Long Beach, and the council of Long Beach. Post World War Two, the navy was the predominant dynamic in and around the harbor area and the urban area. That was fundamentally altered by a series of redevelopment initiatives that changed that dynamic. Other areas, other communities, such as Ontario, Rancho Cucamonga, and the Inland Empire, used redevelopment to build basic infrastructure that enabled an employment base to come to that, to the inland part of our region.

Employment meant that the people who were living there didn't have to commute long distances in order for them to get to their communities. So it really created community, a sense of real community in those areas. Let me just note that I could go on and describe multiple impacts and positive effects of redevelopment, and there also were a number of issues that led to the elimination of redevelopment. We can discuss those if needed, but I think we're pretty familiar with those.

In the last decade, my organization, and at that time, I had moved from SKAG and from being a Professor at USC to the infrastructure funding alliance because of this issue, moved with and in partnership with other organizations to establish public finance authorities, and they're called the community reinvestment and revitalization authorities. And the other organization, the other structure was the enhanced infrastructure financing districts, and then finally the community, excuse me, the climate resiliency districts.

All of these are basically organizations that have the capacity to undertake integrated investment strategies and integrated investment programs. And I'll illustrate that they have all the authorities, let me repeat, the collection of them have all the authorities that redevelopment previously had in our state. And as I'll comment in my closing comments, finding ways in which we can improve how these operate, and furthermore, adding to their authorities, which is the subject matter of this hearing, I would hope will be a real policy priority of the state.

The next few slides, and I'm going to quickly go through them, illustrate some of the actions that we, in fact, have undertaken using this concept of public finance authorities. Next slide, please. The first is the Alameda corridor. And let me just go to this particular slide, because I think it shows it pretty clear and pretty directly. We had five railroads, all carrying unit trains to the port.

These unit trains were over a mile in length and sometimes had disruptions of 15 to 20 minutes within our communities. And you can see that the green lines, the BNSF, went through the. The south bay of our region, and the red lines were the other four railroads. We were able to, by establishing the Alameda corridor authority, again an authority, and that was able to bring financing to the table. We were able to integrate those five railroads.

Next slide into the Alameda corridor, and 10 miles of that corridor is this trench. And that corridor goes right. The Alameda corridor goes right through. I can name all of the communities. And we were extremely successful. Go to the next slide, please. We were extremely successful in developing the benefits, and I've discussed all of them right now on this particular slide. Financing, bringing in the private sector.

We were able to demonstrate that the efficiencies that were created through this realignment was so great that the shipping, the shippers gained so much efficiencies in the way their operations occurred that they were willing to pay the fees directly to the ports, into the Alameda corridor authority to pay for this investment, a $2.4 billion investment. And the benefits in terms, and I don't want to spend all the time, the slides really do describe it.

The benefits were really overwhelming, and they enabled us to Fund this particular investment without a. A grant program. We had a loan from the Federal Government. That credit enhanced the project. The next particular set of slides describes what happened in our first EIFD that we implemented within our region, and that is the La Verne, the City of La Verne, Route 66. And we're all familiar with that route from our TV days and from the lore of the west.

Route 66 went right through the middle of the burn. It separated the old historic part of the city from housing, from universities, from the county fairground. And the area in yellow that you see there is the footprint of Route 66. And if we go to the next slide, it shows what we're able to invest in that particular city. First of all, in the last slide, I'll show the actual improvements on the corridor. There were residential units, 1700 of them, 255 affordable retail hotels, et cetera.

And if we go to the next slide, it points out that the district, and they've issued bonds and they Fund and finance this, has spent $33 million to put in the improvements that enabled that corridor. And the improvements are written into that diagram. You can see all the improvements and investments that went in to, in fact, take that huge prism of a state highway and make it a functional integrating force within the city. Let me just go to the next slide so that I can.

This points out the fiscal impacts of the EIFD. The money raised, the county and the city joined forces in that particular EIFD, and the county participated, and the reason they participated is that it increased their funds going into their General Fund. That exceeded the contributions that they made in the investments. The next slide is what I'd like to really close with, and that is the lessons going forward. We have these statutes. We've worked now for about nine years, and we've been able to form 26 districts.

25 are under formation. One of the ones that is under formation, in fact, is a freeway cover on the 101 freeway that goes through Hollywood. It's below grade. It would connect the cities on both sides of Los Angeles and create a park center right in the middle of one of the most park depleted areas in the City of Los Angeles. That's one of the 25 that's under formation. Let me just relate to the Committee.

So much more could be done in this state, not only to deal with this issue of how do we reconnect and create economic and social equity within our community, but so much more could be done with these districts and with these public finance authorities that could address the state's most critical issues. And let me just note the other benefits of the other uses of these districts.

The issue of affordable housing is probably the single biggest issue within the state right now, and that is the majority of people can't afford houses or they can't even afford the rent. And the crowding up, crowding into rooms in our region is one of the most intense in the country, showing that renters can't even afford their homes. And our homeless problem has just gotten out of control in our part of the region.

And in other parts of the region, these districts can be used for not only affordable housing, homelessness, but also can, in fact, be used for how we deal with climate change in our region. And let me just close with the following observation. There's so many improvements that can be made, and one of, in terms of how we integrate and how we use these districts, they have incredible authority.

And furthermore, we added to the financing authority a provision that allows governmental agencies, special purpose and General purpose, to be on the same board. That was an amendment that at that time Assemblyman Tony Atkins introduced that allowed any governmental entity that brings funding to the table can be an actual decision maker and a participant of the board, first time joint powers agencies. There's no state law like this anywhere in the country that allows governmental jurisdictions that are willing to participate financially to be decision makers.

And then finally, if we can integrate and use the provisions of the various districts more effectively, and we're in discussions now with Assemblywoman Friedman, and the Bill is AB 930 to make improvements into the districts. But even those amendments could be furthered. And let me just put on the table, schools are not an eligible item of these current districts. You cannot invest in schools, and we need to invest in our schools. That's part of the community building, the labor force development that we need to make.

And I could go on. That's a whole session in and of itself. But if schools were an eligible item and participated in the funding of these particular districts, it would make them all the more vibrant. I want to conclude with, again, thanks to the Committee for looking at this issue. How do we reconnect our communities? It's part of how do we reconnect our population and all of our fragmented elements within our society? This is really a significant issue. Thank you for undertaking it.

Thank you, Mister Pisano, thank you for your testimony. I would like to just say, as we've gone on with these committees, this is a third one. As I mentioned, we've gotten increasingly incredible and great feedback. So yours included today, there's a couple of questions that I have, and then I'll see if my colleague has some questions of his own. But first and foremost, let me ask you about the Alameda corridor case. You created the Alameda, I think, transit authority Acta.

It's called active. The Alameda Corridor Transit Authority.

Right. What tool did you use for that? Is that an EIFD or what?

No, that was a joint powers agency. And let me tell you why is.

It a special district?

It's called Joint Powers Authority. It's a state law that enables organizations with powers in common to come together and form an authority. It took us 10 years to do that. Secondly, we could not include the county in the authority because their powers are different than the powers of cities. And furthermore, we could not bring the ports and other entities onto that particular board.

So it's a joint powers authority, and I've sat on them before when I was on the City Council. And you just had the authority of. Of working together. But you do not have taxing authority or bonding authority or any of those authorities?

No. They use the bonding authority of the City of Long beach to issue bonds. Okay. Those bonds were paid back by two things. Well, they were paid back by container fees that the shippers, in fact, paid to the port of long. No, to the port of the Alameda corridor authority. Okay.

They did not have tax increment. I mean, the real advantage of these public finance authorities is that they have every provision in the state legislative code that has nexus as its provision. That is, the revenues collected are linked to the expenditure of funds, and there are 17 different provisions I could go through and list them all assessments, Melrose districts, etcetera. They have all of those authorities. The creos have eminent domain authorities. The other two do not.

On the other hand, the climate resilient districts have something that redevelopment and no other agencies had, and that is they can do operations and maintenance as part of their responsibility.

I'm going to ask you more on those in a second, but I don't want to lose my thought on. So the 2.4 billion for the total cost of all these, essentially, the issuance of those bonds were backed by the fees.

They were backed by those fees. And secondly, and they were backed, they were credit enhanced by a loan that the Federal Government made to the Alameda corridor, a $400 million loan, which was that.

Sorry, I keep interrupting because I don't want to forget my train of thought, because, you know, all this was a 400 million then done as a result of the commitment from the. From ACTA to and from, obviously, the companies that do the shipping to assess themselves. Additional fees, or was this an. A fee that already existed that was going to be directed towards this?

It was a totally new fee.

Additional new fee?

This never has happened before in the country. And that is that the shippers, and they looked at this and we did research on this that showed that the efficiencies that we introduced into the process were so great that they were more than willing to pay the fees. In fact, they had to convince the railroads and others to, in fact, come and participate in it. It was all part of a pretty extensive negotiation based upon dollars and cents, which is something that I'd like to just emphasize.

One of the key things of these funding authorities is that they have the capacity to be recipients of federal, state and local grants, licenses, fees, etcetera. They can bundle categorical and special purpose grants. They can bundle them and couple those with beneficial backed revenues that they collect and that they issue bond and debts for. So you really have a capacity to take all of these categorical and special grants that are necessary if you're going to implement strategy.

Yeah, I'm familiar with that as well. It was on the airport authority in San Diego, and so we had. So what this is reminding me of is the passenger facility charges that we charge in order to build terminals, which then go get federal funding and sometimes state funding. But I had not thought about it in terms of shipping. This is a new idea for me. So thank you for sharing. That should probably make some of my San Diego friends worry a little bit.

New ideas on how to build things anyway, let me now ask you, and then I'll definitely give my colleague an opportunity on the Laverne crossing. This looks like a very small area for an EIFD. One of the things I had heard is there hasn't been a lot of districts formed. I have one in San Diego. My old council district reformed the first one there. But it was a very.

It was, it was miles and miles square miles in the Ota Mesa, which is very underdeveloped or undeveloped, I should say. And so I'm curious, how large was this map, this Laverne crossing? Because you've been able to do quite a bit in what appears to be a very small area.

The area is really the core, the downtown core area.

It's like 1-2-3 sq. miles What are we correct? Okay.

And one of the Chairman, Alvarez, one of the real beauties of these districts is that it's not directed by a state law. It's permission. It's permission granted to leadership that if they want to undertake integrated investment funding strategies for all the purposes that we just talked, that I just described, they have the permission from the state to go ahead and do it. They did not have to come here to the state Legislature.

One of the things that I learned at the local level and why the EIFD was important was that the local agency has to take sort of the initial step to form these, because these are voluntary, as you just stated. And that sometimes does take some resources. It definitely takes staff time, and then you got to go through the processes of creating these districts.

So I'm familiar with EIFD going back now very briefly to ACTA, who put in resources to do all of that planning, to do the financial analysis on the extra fee, on the containers, or however that was done, and why that would be a return on investment were the cities that participated all gave some money and pooled their resources to do all this analysis ahead of time. To have an argument for this, the.

Pre planning work was done by SKAG. SKAG did it. And let me go on. We spent about two years through Committee processes, and mind you, there were lawsuits being filed. The whole question of whether or not our goods movement, development in the region would in fact be stopped by these lawsuits and the communities. And it was about a quarter third of my board at Skag said, mark, you're the transportation, you're the air quality. You've got to figure this thing out. So we basically framed it up.

And then once the corridor was established, the various cities then began to put in what is called pre deployment. And you raised an extreme, extremely important issue. Chairman. Mister Chairman. And that is the reason there are a number of reasons why we haven't been able to accelerate the development of these districts. Mind you, in about eight or nine years. We did 25. It took redevelopment three decades to have that many. So we're not slow.

But we could, given what is needed in this state, we need to accelerate it. There's two things that are really lacking in the implementation of these districts. The first is there is no state involvement whatsoever. There's no pre deployment, there's no involvement of state agencies. And secondly, there's no oversight. And both of those issues really do need to be put on the table.

Thank you.

And they need legislative attention.

Appreciate that. Definitely this is an area of huge interest of mine. And definitely I think will be some follow up. Something else I just putting on the record that I learned, I thought there were less EIFD districts. It sounds like there's definitely in the twenties and another 20 plus being formed. And then last thing, just to clarify, I think you said this, the 101 freeway cap is looking to utilize EIFD.

What's holding that back, interestingly enough, is the difficulty within the City of Los Angeles to be able to in fact come to a policy resolution that they really want to do it.

Oh, I see. I mean, whether or not they want to move forward with that project.

Well, it's a processing issue within the.

City primarily because the other, what was interesting that I caught in your La Verne example is in my case, I remember our county did not want to participate in the IFD and they don't have to, it's voluntary for them as well. And so we were only able to capture the TI for the city. But in your case, in La Verne, the county saw this as a valuable investment and they decided to contribute 50% of their ti. So that's the other challenge that I've heard in other places.

Could I comment on that?

Yes, of course.

And that is the County of Los Angeles and the County of Orange have been two of the major county leaders in setting up these districts. The County of Los Angeles is partnering five of them and orange in one. And looking at others, bringing the city and the county together really helps, as you've already stated.

Okay, thank you, Mister Alanis, do you have some questions or comments you'd like to share? Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Mister Pisano. It's really been an honor to have you. And you'll be on speed dial as we have further discussions on all this. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much for the invitation.

Thank you. Now we have the pleasure of hearing from Klyde Warren Park in Dallas, one of the freeway caps that I've had the chance to personally visit. In fact, the first one that I got to visit and was inspired by. So I believe we have on Webex, we have Rob Walters, who might be presenting on this. Can you get Rob on the screen? There you are, Rob. We can hear you, and hopefully you can see the screen. And if you need us to move forward, just let us know, or if you can control it, then please proceed and welcome.

Well, thank you for having me. And I don't know, can you see me as well as this?

No, we cannot see you. We can only see the screen at the moment.

All right, well, you're not missing much. But listen, thank you for having me, and delighted to see some of the opportunities that you all are exploring in California. And we're very happy to share our learnings of what has, by any, I think, any objective standard, been an enormous success for our community and really has exceeded our wildest expectations. And I think, frankly, and I don't mean to overstate this, maybe really the paradigmatic public private partnership and a contribution to our community and to our city. Maybe very quickly we could go to the next slide.

So you all are operating. There we go. The genesis of this is somewhat inauspicious. This is the original freeway that we capped into Clyde Warren Park. And Assemblyman Alvarez, delighted that you have had the opportunity to see the park. This freeway was built in the late sixties, early seventies. And really severed two important parts of the city. To the left is the northern edge of downtown. To the right is the southern edge of sort of an uptown area.

But was a very vibrant community at one point. A couple of us, really, without any commission or mandate, just citizens, looked out our windows, literally from our offices. And saw this chasm that separated our city. And really kind of rubble concrete. Between a couple of commercial areas in the lower of the city. The freeway had originally been built down. Instead of up with the thought that perhaps one day somehow somebody might come along and do something to cover up this scar.

So we went about the business of doing that very thing. After some considerable labor and luck and fortuitous circumstances, we ended up building the park. And maybe you could go to the next slide, which is what the park looks like today. Which is really an extraordinary, I think, accomplishment and contribution to our community. And it has been that way in two principal respects. And I think this is really the theme of what I'd like to impart to you all. The first is the,

the qualitative contribution to the park. And what I mean by that, if we go to the next slide. What I mean by that is Dallas, like so many other automobile age cities, was balkanized, atomized. Didn't really have many places where we, as a community gathered and focused on what we had in common. It was also, I don't think we had a far sighted founding leadership, because we have an okay existing park infrastructure. But we really had to get serious about sort of reverse engineering.

And putting in parks where they might have been in the first instance. So what has emerged is this really become our town square. When we didn't have a town square. Today we get almost a million and a half guests. They come from all parts of the city, South, North, East, West. It is all socioeconomic demographics, all ethnicities, all race. And, of course, we're a very diverse community. Perhaps among the most diverse communities in the country. In Dallas and DFW region.

And it really emerged into that kind of a gathering place. Such that really the principal celebrations that we have as a community, as a city. Everything from holiday celebrations to Independence Day celebration, you run the gamut. They really happen at Clyde Warren Park. And we will routinely have major gatherings of 30 and 40,000 people. We all come together. I will say this. We call it a park, but it's really more of a venue.

And we kind of think of ourselves as if you think about public radio. We raise money in order to provide free programming. That's what we do. Our model was Bryant Park in New York, which extraordinarily well done urban park right by the New York Public Library. And we offer over 1,300 free programs year. We really, we sell nothing. Everything we do, other than a couple fundraisers, are available free to the public.

And so in that sense, and this is really an important concept, we're right on the edge of a very, very fine arts district with performing arts center, Symphony Center.

But we really democratized or pluralized that area where everybody up and down the socioeconomic scale could participate in the life of this area and the life of the city, where young families could come to our park, spend hours upon hours in fountains and, you know, splashing around, and they would, you know, maybe bring a satchel full of sandwiches and a few drinks and do it for free and participate in really some fantastic programming that we offer everything from, you know, Zumba exercises to chess matches to different, you know, sporting events.

It really, really covers the gamut, and in a way that we really embrace all of our ethnic communities as well. It's a vehicle for all of them to utilize this as free space. So that was our qualitative contribution. And let's go to the next slide. And this is just sort of a graphic representation of what I'm talking about. And this is happening at the park really each and every day.

But let me turn to what is the quantitative contribution, which is, I think, equally and in some ways more profound. If we could go to the next slide. You know, publicly, the best of public leadership recognizes the difference between an investment and an expenditure. And I think dollar for dollar, pound for pound, there have been few, if any, better public investments than in this park. Let me just give you some numbers. We have a public improvement district around our park, or the equivalent of a TIF.

And then when we first opened the park, the amount, the properties were valued at, $2.2 billion in and around our park. Today, that number is $7.5 billion. So we have created incremental value in and around our park of approximately $5.3 billion. And I think if you look at any infrastructure study, this goes back literally to the days of Central Park, and we had some investment banks who volunteered their services to do this.

The value creation and accretion that occurs by the well done and well placed. Parks is just breathtaking. Footnote on that, our basic debt cost us $40 million. To build the equivalent land would have cost $50 million. And so we essentially created land out of thin air. And if we had bought the land, we would have taken off the tax rolls, and it remained on the tax roll. So it was very much a win win. Here's the bottom line, though.

The city invested an initial $20 million in a bond issue back in 2006, 2007. Today, based on the incremental value creation that has occurred in and around the park, the return to the city, the school district, the county, our community, our public hospital in our Dallas College region is approximately $160 million a year. So again, a one time investment of $20 million is generating today an incremental tax accretion of approximately $160 million. And that number is only going up.

And we're very proud of that contribution to our city, both again, qualitatively and qualified. Quantitatively. I will say, too, this has been very interesting. It's been a park that's gotten a lot of attention around the country and around the world. The Federal Reserve is focused on it as sort of a exemplary public investment that has generated great returns. We've actually become the prototype and the template for almost 70 of these projects that are underway around the country and around the world.

There's not a month that goes by that we don't have somebody comes in from Kansas City or Atlanta or Hamburg or Hong Kong looking at and studying the nature of this public investment. Let's go to the next slide. This just gives you a glimpse of what this area of Dallas looked like before and after the creation of the park. And you just get a sense of what this public infrastructure spawned in terms of development in and around our core.

And frankly, like so many American cities, particularly automobile age cities, our core was hanging in the balance and some would argue might have been atrophying. Today, it's quite vibrant. It has its challenges, but it's quite vibrant in large part because of these sorts of infrastructure investments. And then the last observation for you, next slide. We didn't quite complete the park, and so we're expanding our park quite considerably to do two things. One is we are creating a structure.

If you look at this slide, this is how our park goes west and creates another couple of acres, which gives us more opportunities on the far side, where the field is for recreational opportunities, markets, those sorts of things, so we can offer more programming, more revenue opportunities. And then we're also going to put a building on a piece of the park, which is almost unprecedented. It's a really intriguing concept.

When we went to the Texas Department of Transportation on this project originally, they said, well, look, guys, interesting, but we build field freeways. That's what we do. And as you all probably know, the recently converted are always the most devout. And now Texas Department of Transportation is at the vanguard of some really interesting development. And one thing that they're focused on is the value of air rights like your cities.

In our cities, they are ringed with freeways, and there's a great opportunity around Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, Fort Worth, and even Austin to look at whether there are opportunities in those development rights, actually create land. And TexDOT is very much at the vanguard of that. And so that's what we are doing. And maybe we could just pop to the last slide. You just pop through a few. There's our building. The next one is our park expansion. And then finally, let's go to the last slide.

As you all might know, the eclipse came through Dallas not long ago. But this is just a typical example of the kinds of crowds and community gathering that we have. This was during our eclipse. You'll see the food trucks along the side. And the other really important observation is it's really aided sort of the notion of taming areas, urbanizing areas, making them more pedestrian friendly. The one thing we did when we built this park is we completely and utterly ignored the notion of parking.

We just figured people would find their way if we offered an attractive enough enterprise, and they have. And frankly, it's actually been a boon to local buildings and landowners who have been able to use their parking and evenings and weekends and actually create incremental revenue streams themselves. But this is quite typical.

And then last observation about this, I would say, and those of us who founded it and have been with this enterprise for now going on 20 years, we've now been open 12 years is, I think, the keys to the kingdom. And really the magic sauce is the fact that it was a public private venture. We have a strong business community in Dallas, a business community that is committed to the commonwealth, General welfare, and a lot of good things come out of our private sector.

And so the combination of the private corporate leadership together with a, you know, a really superb, absolutely splendid partner in the City of Dallas sort of created this magic. And on that score, it's really important to appreciate that we are not on, we don't receive any public funding sources. So we, as a private 501, we are a public park. We are public in every respect from, you know, from expression to participation. It is absolutely indistinguishable from any of the most inclusive parks you'll ever encounter.

At the same time, we manage it privately, which means we're able to do it at the highest level. And we pay for it through our indefatigable efforts in generating corporate, philanthropic, and private support. In addition to, we do have a PID around it that contributes about 15% to 20% of our annual revenue. And that's a tremendous boon to the city. So the city isn't responsible for this park like it is for so many, for most, the vast majority of parks in the city.

So we're proud of what we've done. We have miles to go before we sleep to make sure that it is everything it can be. But I think, again, by any objective measure, it's been an enormous success, enormous contribution to our community.

Thank you. Appreciate you being here. And I have a few questions for you. And let me start by just congratulating you again. I've been there in person. I don't think your pictures do justice to just how great your park is and how expansive it is. It really is. Remind us of how large the coverage is. How many acres.

It's about five and a half acres, and it'll be about seven and a half acres by the time we complete our expansion.

And is your expansion being funded by what is going to pay for the expansion?

Yeah. So the same basic scheme is about probably half public dollars, half private dollars. So it'll cost probably 150 million on the public side. We've raised it. We'll get another allotment from the city out of an upcoming bond package, approximately $15 million. Our Texas Department of Transportation is in for about $35 million, again, because they see it as a vehicle for their own ambitions about air rights.

And we recently received from the Department of Transportation, a couple of parks came together in sort of the reconnecting communities theme and petitioned the Department of Transportation. We received another 20 million there, but we will also raise, and already have raised about half of it, another 60 or $70 million of private contributions. So it will follow our pattern of a public private partnership.

Yeah, I think I want to specifically commend you on that segment of it. I mean, you are in the downtown area, so there are a lot of individuals who interact in that area, and probably at a civic minded, but it is one of the things that I know I and other civic leaders and other parts that are trying to get focus and attention on these types of projects have had more of a challenge.

Oftentimes our civic, some of the major donors in our communities focus on other things, and so you've done a really good job of getting them focused on this. So I want to congratulate you on that. So the 20 million you got from, that's the federal DOT, from the reconnecting funding that the Administration got in?

Yes, sir.

Okay. And then your state now it sounds like, and we're gonna have some of our state folks here in a bit, too, but they're really now outside of Clyde Park and the downtown area. Are they looking at other areas in the State of California? In the State of Texas?

Very much so. There's a project underway that could be the mother of all these projects if it comes to fruition in Austin. I don't know if you've been to Austin, but it is divided by an elevated freeway, and it was a terrible idea years ago, and it really severed the city in two. And TexDOT is committed to a multibillion dollar demolition and reconstruction of that project.

Both the City of Austin and the University of Texas, who sits right on that freeway, are both committed to decking the portions of the freeway that are in front of them. And it could be the most transformational decking project that happens anywhere in the country. I mean, it could literally double the size of the University, which is landlocked.

And so some of the interesting initiatives you all have had at UC San Diego, UC Irvine, where you have done some, some housing initiatives, they're looking at similar initiatives because housing has gotten very expensive in Austin. And the City of Austin itself, further south of there, is looking at a couple deck projects that will actually reconnect the community. And frankly, if there's one healing project in Texas that is at the top of the list, it would be reconnecting East and West Austin.

So you are looking at building structures, housing on some of these decks, particularly in the Austin area.

Yes, we are, although I will tell you that's an interesting one. I mean, each one of these is sui generates, right? Everyone has a slightly different slant, different market different. And some of your previous folks have commented on that. I do think you have to be careful there.

I think that it's very expensive to put a structure on it, and a lot of times you're better off, and we were better off for the rest of our parking on the basic infrastructure being a little less expensive, and then working around it, contiguous to the park and enhancing the land that borders the park. I think it depends on the particular project, but that might be the sweet spot in terms of redevelopment. Yeah.

I think some of us are just thinking about, how do you make these projects? Pencil and so. Certainly creating new value, property tax based value, could allow us to create some funding streams. So that's why I asked that question.

Well, here. One suggestion on that front. It was a mistake we made. You will be astounded at how you increase the value of the contiguous properties to these projects. I mean, it's breathtaking. If you're contiguous, it could be 50% to 70% increase in value. If you're a block away, it might be 30% to 40%. And we came in after the fact and we said, look at this windfall we've created for you. Private landowners help us. And they said, fine. And we created a pin.

They make an contribution. You might think about it prospectively and going to them now and saying, hey, look, we'll embark on this project, but we need to partner in a much more substantial way so that you can create a revenue stream.

I think the project that they're looking at in Atlanta, that bridges, I think, the I 75 freeway between Georgia Tech and their midtown, they're going to the property owners on the front end for a much more substantial contribution to create a revenue stream to actually build these things in real partnership.

Thank you. I think you're in that office that I had to visit. You can oversee the park right there. I can tell in your window.

I am. That's our park, I do. One of the reasons I'm in this office, we can look out in the park, and there it is.

Yeah. One of the things. I have to caveat. I think we had another panel at some point talk about there is property tax, there is property values that are increased. And so we've got to be careful, especially in some of the communities where they're residential, in terms of displacement, and those issues are of concern. And we got to keep in mind the last question I'll ask you, and then Mister Alanis, my colleague has a caution question. Question, I think, is you are exhibit a on that.

It doesn't always require government intervention to allow some of these things to happen, but government can be helpful in some ways. Is there anything that you'd like to share in terms of how government, in your case, has been helpful and maybe how we could be more helpful as we try to support some of these projects throughout our state?

That's a great question. Thank you for the question. I thought a lot about that, and I, you know, whether there's something institutionally that you look, the reason we were successful with our governments is because they. There is maybe a slightly different social compact. That occurs in our part of the world. Which is the business community and the philanthropic community. Because they operate maybe in a lower tax base with different expectations. It's a very strong community participation and community commitment.

The recipient, the inverse of that is our municipal government. Our political subdivisions do look to the private sector for partnerships. And we've had very strong leadership in our city that has approached it with that. Don't look at us as a problem, but look at us at the business community as a partner. And has approached it with great humility and realistic expectations. And has trusted the private sector to really partner in a way for the overall benefit of our community.

We would not have been successful here if we didn't have our public sector led with that worldview. And I think it's been very positive for our community. And at the same time, they've been demanding in the right way, which is this will be a public asset and at the highest standards. And I will tell you, Assemblyman Alvarez, you know, like most communities, there aren't many things where we have unanimity. Glidewarm Park has unanimity.

If you run the gamut of our City Council, of all quarters, there's absolute unanimity. That it has been a good thing for our community. Where we can focus on what we have in common and not what separates us. And so I think of all the things that have emerged in the creation of this project, that's the most heartening.

Right. Thank you. Mister Alanis has some comments, questions.

Hello, Mister Walters, my name is Juan Alanis. I just. You had brought up parking, which I'm glad you did, because I was looking at that, I was thinking like, where's everybody parking? Because like the eclipse photo that you took, you could probably see thousands and thousands of people there. Have you guys ever maybe thought about doing something in parking? Or is it just not going to be worth it?

No, it's not going to be worth it. And we really wanted to. We wanted to leap off this cliff. And we wanted to demonstrate to the world. That we didn't have to have a parking place for every human activity. And it's the most amazing thing. People have found their way. They find their way here. They ride the trolley car in, they'll park a few blocks away, they'll uber in, they'll double up in some fashion. They'll use existing parking, which is really maximize the use of it.

Because a lot of that parking just sits there unused on weekends and in the evenings. So all of those things combined, we have really, we have changed the conversation from one that was fairly narrow and fairly reactionary of, you know, you better have parking to one where a little bit of a leap of faith that things can work without organizing ourselves or leading with the issue of parking. Great.

That's good to know. Also, I'm very jealous of our Chair, who has already seen this in person, so maybe I will be there one day. The other thing I have, so I come from a public safety background and I wanted to know, is there any public safety that had input on this or any issues that you guys foresaw? Maybe you wanted to change that would help with that as well.

Yeah, that's a great issue. And I will tell you, and I'll be very candid about this. You know, it's interesting. Things go into a vicious cycle or a virtuous cycle. We have, we've had few, if any, instances of public safety problems. Now they're in, Frank, you know, the principal indicator, the best indicator of the safety of a park is will moms bring their kids? Will young moms bring children to a park? And we are overrun with moms and kids. Our kids park is standing room only.

And you say, well, how do you get there? Well, number one, we have, you know, we have cameras on every inch of the park. And, you know, the people who are intent on crimes know that we also have a private and extremely well trained guest relations group. And they are sort of iron fist, velvet glove. It's our security team. But they, we don't, you know, we're very good about it, we're very welcoming about it, but we don't put up with much.

And we have a great relationship with the Dallas Police Department. So if we ever had anything serious, you know, we have the kind of relationship and the kind of access to ensure that we're well taken care of. It's interesting, you know, we've been open 12 years and we literally have had no acts of vandalism, that the patrons of the park really sort of have a sense of ownership where it's their park, it's not our park. And as a consequence, they take great care of it.

And so for those reasons, I think we have created a really good environment where we have minimized, really eliminated public safety issues.

Well, thank you for that, and congratulations on the wonderful park. And I look forward to seeing future parks as well, hopefully in my area as well. Thank you.

Well, come on. We'd love to have you. Our guests we actually have pretty darn good Mexican food at the park. I'll try.

Not as good as California.

No, we might have to debate that one.

Thank you, Rob. It's great to have you here. Appreciate it. And maybe we'll see you also again as our work continues. So we go from New York to Dallas, now to Colorado. We have the central 70 project from Denver, Colorado. Bob Hayes from the Colorado Department of Transportation is here. We thank him for making his way to us here in the state capitol of Sacramento for California and present on the project that Colorado is working on, particularly the 70 freeway. So welcome.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you, chair. Thank you, Committee Members. Really honored to be here and have the opportunity to talk about what my biased heart thinks is one of the best projects around and so want to run down through Central 70. It is worth pointing out how different each one of these projects are and the context in which they're built. It matters. And it's important that as representatives and as public servants, we note that and we take a look at that as we're looking at the context, these projects.

Next slide, please. So I'm not going to belabor this, but as with many pieces of infrastructure nationwide, this stretch of I 70 cut through what we call the Globeville, Illyria, Swansea neighborhoods, or GES. And so a lot of scars left with this neighborhood as a part of that construction back in the fifties and sixties. And so certainly something that we needed to take into account as we started to look at replacing this piece of infrastructure. Next slide. So a lot on this slide.

Just trying to convey that the number of public meetings and the robust interaction with the community started in 2003. And we've got a record of decision in 2017. So very, very long period of time to get to the point where we felt like we had an engaged community and engaged third party stakeholders that were wanting to move in the same direction that we were. Next slide. So I show you this slide just so you get an overall idea of what the project was.

It was a 10 mile project, approximately $1.2 billion. But the main portion of the project, we are adding an express lane in each direction and replacing that 57 year old viaduct. So there was a, you know, roughly mile and a half stretch of a continuous bridge that was elevated. That was actually the piece of infrastructure that did cut through this neighborhood. And so that's where you see the lowered nomenclature there and kind of the orange color.

That's where we tore down that viaduct, lowered the highway in place, and then built a new four acre cover park over the top of I 70. Next slide. And so this is one of my favorite slides. Early on in the project, we used to have the before picture and then an artist rendering of what it was going to look like eventually. And that was kind of the eye candy. Now we actually have it. And so really a fun slide.

But you can see that the before slide, you see that continuous viaduct that literally goes through this community, chops through this community. We have photos of kids playing underneath the viaduct in the shadow of this bridge. It was dark, it was dingy. All the things that you would expect from a bridge through a community. And so on the right hand side, you see the after, which is the lowered I 70 at its deepest.

We lowered it about 35ft from existing ground, so we had to tear down the bridge, went down to existing ground and then 35ft below that. But then that is the four acre cover top park, which overall was really something that we were doing for the community in its own right. We wanted a place where the community could get stitched back together and really come together. And so it was really a mitigation for this community. And that was one of the goals.

It is kind of hard to see in this slide, but Swansea Elementary School is adjacent, just on the right hand side of the soccer field there. And so that soccer field is actually dedicated for the school. So during school hours, the school is the only group allowed to use it. And so their pe, recess, you know, all the things. Field day, all the things for that school. Next slide. So this is aerial looking straight down on it.

So really have different areas programmed throughout that four acre park. You can see Swansea elementary school a little better on this one. So we rebuilt their entirety of their playground, which is adjacent to the soccer field. Then have. It's a full size soccer field. If you're going east, west or left to right on this screen, you can turn it into two U8 soccer fields. If you. You go north south.

But then as you move from that left hand side of that picture to the right, we also have a promenade area, which has been designed to allow for food trucks. We have power. The food trucks can come in there and park and really program that area. Then you go just further to the right is an amphitheater. So we've got a stage in there that has power ready to go.

You would just come in with speaker towers and sound boards and you'd be ready to put on whatever show you can dream up, right, whether it's a play or a concert, whatever that is. And then that transitions into yet another play area, quite a large play structure there, that kind of orange and yellow area, and then another natural real grass area just north of that. And so all of that. And then we have bookends on both sides. So we didn't want the.

The park to just end at those cross streets. So we actually added on several. Roughly 75ft on each end where it's continued park. Right. So it's not just there's a street and then there's a ledge and you go down to the interstate. We wanted kind of a bookend area where it just allowed it to feel more like a park and wasn't truly. You didn't feel like you were just on top of an interstate.

And then some of the pictures down below, we actually do have a splash pad. And this gets back to some of the conversation about. It's tricky, what you put on these structures. So that splash pad is not actually on the bridge, it is just off of it. But if you were to walk out there, you would have no idea it's just a part of the park. And so we were very cognizant of what we were. And we're not putting on our structure as well.

Yeah, pretty awesome. Next slide, please. Yet another picture. So you can kind of see the bookend there where we actually did flare the bookend up in elevation slightly, so it kind of feels. Makes you feel more contained while you're on the park. Planted it with trees. We're never going to have redwood trees on this structure.

We certainly have growth challenges with the root balls and things like that, but we engaged all the landscape architects to make sure we were choosing the correct trees to ultimately make it a give it a park feeling, because we knew we would not have trees that got large enough to provide substantial shade. We did build three shade structures so that it's not just a, you know, in the middle of summer, it would be very hot just. Just sitting there on the concrete.

So we wanted to provide that shade and park benches and things like that underneath those shade structures. Next slide. So the neighborhood is key. All of this was done for this neighborhood, frankly, as a mitigation for some of the previous things that have been done. It's an environmental justice community. You can read down through all of the challenges that this community have on top of all of these.

It's also a food desert, meaning that it takes a significant amount of time to get to a grocery store. So as we were looking at ways that we could help support this community, not only during construction, but over the long run, we wanted to make sure that we were taking all of this into account. Next slide. As we started to engage with them, though, some of the conversation with the Texas folks, that gentrification item came up. They're like, well, this is great.

You're going to build a park next to us, but what is that going to do to my property value? I'm not going to be able to afford to live here any longer because my taxes are going to go up. Major concern on the part of the community. We had also just passed legalized Marijuana in Colorado. This happened to be a very popular area to put grow houses in because as you looked at that 10 mile corridor, it goes from very residential to commercial.

In a very short stretch, just over a block, it goes to very commercial. And they found that the cheap prices were very good for them to build those grow houses. It's also, not only is it next to I 70 now, but it's also was next to a smelter plant, smelter operation previously. And so lots of concerns about just the quality of the soil and the area.

We also had a lot of distrust in the government, let's just say so not only CDOT, but just in general the government. And so they didn't want to talk to us as we started to go out and engage with them. And so we knew that we had some major barriers to break down as we started to engage this community. Next slide. Next slide. So one of the first things we did, those concerns about the quality of the soil as we started.

So once again, we're tearing down a bridge and then we're going to dig. Ultimately, it ended up being about 2 million cubic yards of soil out of this area to lower I 70. The concern was, well, this was a smelt. There were smeltering operations here. What are you digging up and where are you going to put all of this material? So we went through and did over 2,000 soil samples, really turned our property, the seed out right away into swiss cheese to classify all that material.

We didn't want to haul that off and put it in a dump if we didn't have to, but we needed all the testing in order to classify it. Turns out that 98% of it was actually reusable. It was classified as residential material. There were roughly 2% that did have to be hauled off into an industrial landfill. But this document and everything that we did out there for pre work helped us then have the conversation with the community and ultimately be able to move, move forward.

Next slide.

Next slide. Thanks. Air quality, also a significant concern for the community for all the reasons we've talked about already today, and so we installed four air quality monitors, one that was a permanent installation right next to the elementary school. We put that in one year prior to our construction starting so that we could get a baseline understanding of what that air quality looked like. And then we had three more that were more portable for construction, where we would move them, where the construction activities were.

Immediate results gave us alarms if we were kicking up too much particles, and we could actually go and make an impact and change our approach with that construction. Next slide. One more. So, as a part of trying to work with this community and build this community, we wanted to make sure that we gave them an opportunity to work on a project that was ultimately going to be transformational for their community. And so not only do we know that we have shortages in the construction industry, we need more trained craftsmen. We knew that there was a significant number of them that needed work.

So we worked together to have a training facility that was in the community and then ultimately made our developer the contractor that we hired to build it. There was a minimum number of hours that were required for them to hire that local workforce. Wild success. In the second year of construction, we reached our number. The number probably should have been more aggressive, frankly. But nonetheless, those folks, a significant number of those folks, 70% of those individuals, are still working in the construction industry.

So not only did it help our project, it is helping the construction industry. So really proud of how that went for us. Next slide. And then home improvements. When I say that we had homes that were legitimately in the shadow of the viaduct, that is not an overstatement. We had homes that were very, very close to the work that we were going to be doing. And so two blocks north and south of where I-70 was, we went in and upgraded their windows.

We upgraded their air conditioning, gave them air conditioning units so in the summer they could have their windows closed and ultimately keep the dust and noise from construction out of their home. We paid for their energy during that timeframe, so we weren't burdening them with paying for that additional air conditioning.

And then we had a great, real cooperative relationship with the City and County of Denver, where we came together and they had an energy outreach office that they were able to actually come in and help do some improvements within the homes that otherwise we wouldn't have been able to do. There were just restrictions on the way we could spend our funding. So when you layer all of those onto each other, some of these homes got new refrigerators, they got new siding, they got major improvements. And so really a great initiative for the community.

Next slide. And then Swansea Elementary School, approximately $20 million worth of, a little under $20 million worth of improvements. Built them a brand new early childhood education classroom. We put in a hospital-grade HVAC system so that once again, they could have clean air during our construction period, relocated the main entrance, and then the playground that we relocated, we moved it further away during our construction, and then we swapped it back so it was right next to that field.

The feedback from the kids has been fantastic. This playground is really unbelievable. And they call it kind of their Six Flags playground, which is pretty exciting. Next slide. So this is, yet again, a very. This picture hits hard for me, anyway, so on the left-hand side, you've got a child playing approximately 50 yards from the viaduct. And so maybe not right in the shadow of the viaduct, but playing on a playground, that is not ideal, I don't think, for that community. And then the one on the right was opening day, so we got the construction of their playground finished in time for their first day of school that year.

And all the construction crews, we were there to welcome them with cupcakes and really be there the first day that they got to use that, their facility, which was awesome, to say the least. Next slide. Just another picture of the change. So the left picture is their old front entrance, the right picture is their new one. Next slide.

Other community commitments. And so we talked about gentrification. So we wrote in a $2 million affordable housing grant and ended up giving that to one of the housing collaboratives in the neighborhood. And so that $2 million has been used to build permanently affordable housing in the neighborhood. Fresh food access. We committed $100,000 to fresh food access with the City and County of Denver. Always want to use the clean, low-emitting construction equipment. And then we have a transportation, northeast transportation connections.

We worked with them to give bus passes. We bought them a shuttle so that they could run folks around. And just everything we could do to try and make the four to five-year period of construction easier for the community. We went ahead and did that. Next slide. And then contractor requirements, really. I'll let folks just read down through this, but we have a public-private partnership. It's a 30-year agreement with Kiewit Meridiam Partners. They're our developer. They took this very seriously, and they understood that they had a 30-year commitment to this neighborhood and this community, and they ended up committing to a scholarship Fund.

So that any student who was attending Swansea Elementary School during construction can then apply for that scholarship when they're ready to go to college and that scholarship will be available to them. So really pretty incredible partnership that we have with our developer. Next slide.

And then I think these are some of my last slides. But demolition by far some of the most impactful work we did a lot of dust. When you're bringing down concrete structures, you can put all the water in the world on it and you're still going to have dust. And so it's important to understand that and recognize it. We worked with, these are some of the businesses that were directly adjacent to the work that we were doing.

We worked with them, provided a coupon program where they were given some cash incentives to. They got a check, we handed out coupons that would then get additional people down to their business. So not only supporting them with an immediate cash payment, but also supporting them with hopefully new business and building their clientele. So I think it was a win-win for sure. Next slide.

That's what those coupons look like. And we were very targeted with the folks that we helped out. Next slide. And then this community did not trust us to start with. We embedded a bilingual community liaison in the community and it took many, many years and a lot of meetings to build trust. By the time that we were hitting our stride with the project, they did trust this individual.

And so I would highly recommend when you have a relationship between the government and a community the way this one was, you really have to work to build that trust and very, very important to get someone in the community that they know they can reach out to and talk to next slide. And that is what I've got for Central 70.

Thank you. Appreciate you being here and sharing your experience. One of the things that I think first question that comes to mind is all the programs that you described, they were all part of the mitigation efforts. Is that funded by the Department of Transportation, your state Department of Transportation?

So we worked with, so over the 15-year process to get our environmental document in place, get through the NEPA process. We worked with federal highways and we actually wrote those mitigations into our record of decision, which by doing that then allows you to get federal reimbursement for those items. And so they were all federally reimbursable.

Wow.

And that's because you were building or I guess, expanding your highway system or what were you technically doing to your highway system?

So we were replacing a viaduct that was structurally rated poor. And so as you started to look at the alternatives for that, that's how you could rebuild the viaduct in the exact same location. You're in an EJ community. And so how does that fix any of the wrongs that have been done? And so as we started to, not only we had the need to replace the structure, and then we were going to add the express lanes, but that is directly having an impact on that community. And so as you developed your environmental impact statement, you have to have mitigations assigned to that impact to offset those impacts. And so that's the way we were able to work with them.

So, again, just to clarify, the funding for this project was entirely from federal highways?

No. So public private-partnership. We do have a TIFIA loan, very significant Tifia loan from the Federal Government, private activity bonds. And then we have enterprises within the Department of Transportation. So we have a high-performance transportation enterprise, which is essentially, it's a private business within a state government. And so they're able to then collect the tolls and ultimately help us pay back the loans that were needed in order.

So the expressway has a toll associated.

Correct. The expressland does. Yes.

Yeah. Okay. And what was the total cost of the four acres?

So it's. Our estimate is $100 million to not only build the structure, build all the fire life safety systems. So we've essentially built a tunnel. It's a little over a thousand-foot-long tunnel for our I-70 traffic. So fixed fire life safety systems, all of the niceties on top, everything in approximately 100.

So the $100 million price tag includes the digging up that you had to do?

Yep.

Okay. That sounds. It sounds less expensive than I would think, given how much work it sounds like went into it and four acres.

The only caveat. Sorry to interrupt you. The only caveat is, because we are a design-build project, we didn't actually specifically ask for an itemized breakdown of those costs. And so this is our estimate of what it is. Kiewit is less than willing to provide exact numbers. So it's an estimate.

Okay. But even if it was twice that much, it sound. It seems like all the figures I've seen on other projects is. Yeah. Okay. So it's good to know.

About 25 million an acre is what it turns into. And I think when you saw what some of the other folks were quoting per acre, you know, it's not wildly outside of the norm.

Okay.

Mr. Alanis, do you have any comments?

Just same thing with the parking, anything like that. Any issues? What was your take on that? Obviously, we saw Texas,

So we've had the exact opposite conversations where the community is pushing back on us, saying, where are all these people going to park? You're having a concert there on a Saturday night. Where do you expect these people to park? We don't want them in our community. Yeah, exactly. And so we have not had a concert there yet, other than the school has put on a couple small concerts, very limited amount of parking needed for that. They're actually able to use the school parking lot, which is just north of where the park is. So those have been fine. I think it's still a conversation point that's going to come up.

And then second, we're the same thing. Public safety.

So we have a unique relationship with the City and County of Denver. So we built this, we paid for it, we built it. They are maintaining it. And so Denver Parks and Recreation is responsible for programming it, maintaining it, and then ultimately the safety aspect of it. So DPD, Denver Police Department, they're responsible for general safety here. We have the exact same oversight on our park as they do all the other parks in Denver. And so, in other words, they have cameras on it.

They'll respond if the camera picks up something going on. And so to date, haven't had anything significant to note out here, but time will tell. We are working hard to install a lot of artwork out here, and we find that when you install artwork, people are less likely to graffiti the infrastructure. And so that's, we're in the process of doing that right now. Thank you.

On the question of what's allowed in air rights and did you have to go through any changes in state law?

We did not. No.

All right. Thank you. Appreciate you making that trip out here. Appreciate you sharing your story. Congratulations. That'll take us to the, our final presenter, bringing it back home to Sacramento and to California with our own Department of Transportation. It's known Caltrans here. And we're going to hear about projects and freeway lit options in California and available funding opportunities as we try to again bring this to a close. This is our third in a series of hearings.

We are preparing a final report back to the Legislature. At the end of this hearing, we will do that. And we have Chief Deputy Director, District 4 of Caltrans here and also Acting Deputy Director for Planning and Modal Programs at Caltrans. Thank you both for being here.

Thank you and good afternoon. Thank you, Committee Members and of course, Chair Alvarez for taking the lead on this topic of reconnecting communities. Again, just for purposes of reintroducing ourselves, I'm Ann Fox. I am, as you mentioned, currently acting in the role of deputy for planning and modal programs right here in Sacramento, our headquarters. Formally, I am the District 11, our Caltrans District 11, which is in San Diego and Imperial Counties, Planning Director there. And with me is Dave Ambuehl, and he's out of our Bay Area, as mentioned, our District 4 Chief Deputy Director.

Next slide, please. Next. Thank you. And what I hope you'll hear throughout our presentation is really that common thread of community collaboration. And what we'll do is, what we hope to cover here is an overview of our federal and state reconnecting communities program. We'll go through our local San Diego example of Teralta park.

We'll talk about how we're getting started on our Vision 980 project and then wrap up with potential some funding opportunities we found to complement the reconnecting communities program. Next slide. So, recognizing the historical harm freeways and highways have caused underserved communities, the Federal Government and the State of California have taken steps to address these wrongs.

In 2021, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, including California's US Senator Alex Padilla, proposed the Reconnecting Communities act to create federal funds for reconnecting communities. Under the bipartisan infrastructure law, also known as the Infrastructure Investments and Jobs Act, the Federal Reconnecting Communities Pilot Grant Program was created under the USDOT with $1 billion in funding over five years.

The reconnecting communities program offers the opportunities for communities to repair, rebuild, or reconnect their surrounding resources, to remove, retrofit or mitigate highway or other transportation facilities that create barriers and increase community connectivity and economic development, and to help prioritize equity outcomes and restoration in historically underserved communities. Next slide please.

So, under Cycle 1 of the Federal Reconnecting Communities Pilot Program that was awarded again back in January of 2023 and I won't read the details of the next couple of slides, but want to share that California received 19%, or 35 million out of 185 million in available funding for this first cycle. This proved to us that we were punching well above our weight as our typical federal share runs around 10%.

Of the five California awards, four are for planning grants and one is a construction grant for the Shoreline Drive Gateway in Long Beach. This was only one of, or this I should say is one of only six construction grants nationwide. The Vision 980 planning grant was awarded to Caltrans in partnership with the City of Oakland. You'll hear more from Dave on that project in a moment.

Caltrans is also a partner on the Monterey Road study and the State Route 710 study with the cities of San Jose and Pasadena, respectively. Next slide. Now, Cycle 2 of the Federal Reconnecting Communities Program was awarded just this last March, so March of 2024. Nationwide, there was 3.3 billion in grants awarded for 132 communities. California received 240 million across 17 projects. So within there, this was five construction awards, 10 planning awards, and two regional partnership awards.

One to highlight here is the removing barriers and creating legacy, a multimodal approach for Los Angeles County. So this was awarded under the Regional Partnerships Challenge and the award amount was $139 million. So this project will restore community connectivity by investing in high-quality multimodal transportation options, such as 14 miles of bus priority lanes, 23 miles of bus corridor enhancements such as transit signal priorities, all door boarding, bus shelters. Also includes 60 metro bike share stations and various other supportive programs and operational strategies.

Next slide. So as we start to now turn our conversation to the state level, we also want to shine a light on our transportation priority shift in Caltrans. So, over the decades, we have transitioned from a highway agency, the division of highways, to a multimodal transportation department. We've moved from evaluating transportation based on levels of service to vehicle miles traveled, from managing congestion to reducing emissions, from moving through a community to actually being part of that community.

Our mission, vision, values, and goals are reflected in our guiding documents such as our strategic plan, the state's Climate Action Plan for Transportation Infrastructure, or CAPTI, and also included in our California transportation plan. Equity and engagement, safety, climate action, and a multimodal approach are now at the core of the work that we do. Next slide. In 2023, the California Department of Transportation launched the Reconnecting Communities: Highways to Boulevards Pilot Program.

Now this program was established to plan for and fund the conversion of key underutilized highways in the state into multimodal corridors to reconnect communities divided by transportation infrastructure. This pilot program seeks to upend the traditional funding business model by, in part, basing the selection of communities on historical harm, need, and ability to develop community partnerships rather than a defined project area.

The seven core program goals that the program guidelines, application requirements, and evaluation criteria were based on include restoring community connectivity, providing matching funds for federal grants, removing barriers associated with transportation infrastructure, improving travel options, providing opportunities for implementation of affordable housing, avoiding displacement effects, and advancing community-based transportation planning efforts. Next slide. So the paradigm shift for this pilot is twofold, the addition of a new phase called Community Readiness and the establishment of a long-term partnership through community involvement.

Reconnecting a community encompasses more than just changes to the transportation infrastructure itself. The community readiness phase is where community partnerships are established. This new phase is critical to establishing relationships that will lead to project visions and outcomes that are truly community identified and community driven. Allowing room to establish long-term partnerships is the cornerstone of this pilot. We recognize government made the decisions to build the transportation infrastructure much without the community's voice.

This pilot creates space for communities to fully participate and determine how to reconnect their neighborhoods. Under the funded planning phase, this program will require a plan that not only addresses the transportation needs of the community, but also addresses housing, displacement avoidance, economic development, climate access, and other needs. The intention is for the community to have a well rounded, holistic plan that will restore community connectivity and support the advancement of health and equity for the underserved community.

Now we recognize the funding made available for this program is not enough to plan and certainly implement one project yet alone three reconnecting projects. Therefore, the state funding will be leveraged to the fullest extent possible and used as matching funds and seed money to compete for Federal Reconnecting Communities and other grant opportunities and to attract non traditional philanthropic and place-based funding. Next slide please.

The three communities that were selected for this pilot program and announced just a couple months ago in March are under the urban category, the Connect 4 South San Francisco project or program community. This vastly underserved community is split by four transportation infrastructure elements, the Caltrain, US 101, the Colma Creek Flood Control Channel, and El Camino Real, which is a major thoroughfare. The community basically exists in a keyhole surrounded by multiple major transportation infrastructure elements.

Second, under the rural category, the US 101 corridor in Arcata affects multiple US areas of persistent poverty and state-identified low income communities. The US 101 and State Route 299 freeways bisect Arcata in multiple locations, creating barriers to education, economic opportunity, health and basic amenities.

The third selected under the corridor category is reconnecting Southeastern San Diego and National City, which represents healing of multiple jurisdictional cross-jurisdictional communities along a corridor that's bisected by multiple freeways, including Interstate 805, Interstates 5 and 15, and State Route 94. Additionally, most of the communities in the corridor are areas of historically burdened by the city's highest concentrated poverty and unemployment rates and are federally designated as a priority zone. Caltrans is committed to these long term partnerships and supporting the healing of the communities.

Next slide. So, even before the federal and state programs existed, community connecting type of work has been core component of our projects. One of these examples is San Diego's Teralta Park, California's first freeway park lid, or "cap", which was a community led effort. The community organized and led the change to ensure the project included elements they desired and needed. The people drove planning and engagement to fight for a variety of transportation options and community elements. This project actually included three caps.

The largest cap includes a 5.4 acre Teralta Park situated between two roadway overcrossings at Orange Avenue and Polk Avenue, and then two smaller caps which are expanded roadway overcrossings at adjacent avenues of University and El Cajon Boulevard. The two smaller caps have 40ft of buildable space on either side of the street and are designed to support two story lightweight frame structures for transit facilities or small scale commercial uses.

The quarter now includes centerline bus rapid transit stations, bus only lanes, commuter bikeway, art, housing gathering and green spaces, and small business opportunities. It's a model of a holistic transportation corridor. Next slide, please. So there's much that must go into consideration of freeway cap development and much of that you've heard today in earlier presentations for sure. In California, the urban form of most communities is based on auto-centric development that was popular during the mid-1900s.

This development linked low density rural areas, or, excuse me, residential areas or suburbs to high density commercial areas via transportation networks. And as we know, often freeways were constructed through our existing communities. Today, federal, state and local governments advocate for compact development partners or patterns, create greater access to parks and other strategies that support healthier and more sustainable communities. Caps offer a way to maintain the state highway system, which facilitates by our business of efficiently moving people and goods while accommodating development, essentially providing new land.

This is an especially attractive option in urban areas where land is scarce and costly to acquire. Caps can improve communities in a number of ways as you've heard in earlier presentations. They can provide parks and park deficient urban areas, provide a sense of place in the community, and stimulate community development and revitalization. To develop freeway caps in California, local jurisdictions and private entities must comply with Caltrans procedures for project development review and approval.

If the project is financed with any federal funds, or if the freeway was financed with federal funds, it's likely will require then coordination with the Federal Highway Administration. Caps also must be designed to permit full operation of the underlying freeway and to support the weight of the full build out potential while ensuring proper widths and clearances could still be maintained.

The design must take into consideration any future uses that may be permitted on the cap deck, and again, this could include park elements such as the soil, mature trees, recreation facilities, buildings, roadways, transit facilities, etcetera. And as with most large infrastructure improvements, no two caps are alike in terms of costs and funding. All caps have an initial capital cost that includes planning, design, permitting and construction, as well as ongoing operations and maintenance costs.

Also, with any major infrastructure, project funding for the freeway caps typically comes from multiple sources. Many recent projects have utilized a mix of federal, states, regional and local funds, and sometimes private investment. So when coupled with transportation improvements, Caps can take advantage of transportation funding programs. In some circumstances, a cap could be included as a project feature or a mitigation measure as appropriate per the environmental laws and regulations. Next slide. So, as we've heard freeway caps are complex.

Planning for and seeking agreements for use on this newly created space is also needed. So one of those tools is development of an airspace lease agreement. Essentially, Airspace is any of that that area defined above or below existing state highway infrastructure. And Caltrans relies upon existing policy and guidance for those airspace leases. So the types of allowable uses can vary significantly depending on location of the airspace.

More typical examples include parking lots or other businesses under bridges and ramps, cell towers next to freeways, or even utility crossings over it. And with any lease agreement, there's certainly interest in requiring fair market value compensation for any of the private use of public property and other non-transportation uses also typically require a fair market lease rates on state highway airspace to meet transportation funding requirements. Now, all this is not to discourage, but certainly to encourage early and continuous collaboration when considering freeway caps.

Now, to transition slightly from here, we'd like to share more information on the Vision 980 study, which was a Federal Reconnecting Community Cycle 1 recipient, and how we're engaging our partners and the public and what options may be explored for the corridor. So I'll turn it over to you, Dave.

Great, thank you. Good afternoon. Next slide, please. Thank you for the opportunity to provide information about Vision 980 study, which will identify a new transportation and land use vision for 980. Interstate 980 is in Oakland. It's the red line going down through the center of the slide. To the left is West Oakland, to the right is downtown Oakland, and you can see West Oakland is surrounded by freeways, and just to the south and to the, I guess, left of the slide is the port of Oakland.

Next slide, please. So, as happened with many communities of color across the country, West Oakland was selected as a location for a freeway alignment. Construction of I-980 disrupted the street grid in favor of long distance commuter traffic and reduced connections between West Oakland and downtown. The few crossing points that remain are wide boulevards with minimal pedestrian and bike infrastructure. Next slide, please.

So this is a current view of the 14th Street overpass going over 980. There's one narrow sidewalk on the right side there and no defined bike lanes. Next slide.

There are two key City of Oakland plans. The West Oakland specific plan, completed in June of 2014, which noted opportunities to soften I-980 crossings and provide transit loops and complete street linkages to connect West Oakland and downtown, and the Downtown Oakland specific plan, which published a preliminary draft in late 2019 and a final draft in March of 24.

The plan recommends improving connections over the freeway to be more bike and pedestrian friendly in the near term and recommends studying the long term feasibility of replacing I-980 with a multi-way use boulevard, potentially with a lid for a park, and creating opportunities for new land uses. Next slide. Which brings us to Vision 980, the study will be completed in two phases. Phase one will identify a new concept and vision for transportation and land use along the entire I-980 corridor.

The phase will utilize 500,000 in federal state planning and research funding and will take place from spring of '24 through the fall of '25. Phase two will perform a more detailed feasibility and technical analysis of the concept and vision identified in phase one. This phase will utilize 680,000 in Federal Reconnecting Community Pilot funding. The City of Oakland is a co-applicant for the RCP funding. Phase two is anticipated to occur in early '26 and go through late '27.

Beginning in phase one and continuing through phase two. The study will develop an evaluation framework to ensure vision meets equity, performance measures or benchmarks. Next slide, please. The options to be explored in phase one will include improving public transit connections providing pedestrian and bicycle paths redesigning roadways and overpasses for walking, biking and transit, capping the freeway to expand open space such as a park and transforming the freeway to create new land use opportunities such as a boulevard with mixed use development. Next slide, please.

Vision 980 Study Phase 1 will engage partners, stakeholders and the public identify options for the corridor, develop performance measures, including equity measures, to evaluate various options, and identify a concept and vision for the corridor to be assessed in Phase 2. We've awarded a consultant contract and work has begun on Phase 1. The Phase 1 consultant is WSP with RBA Creative and Arup, as well as three community-based organizations, Urban Strategies Council, West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project and West Oakland Health Council.

The project will focus on reintegrating communities, addressing environmental justice and reducing harm for neighboring communities, and improving multimodal transportation options. Next slide, please. Vision 980 Study Phase 2 will continue to engage partners and stakeholders and the public, develop a more detailed concept and vision for the corridor, apply performance measures, including equity measures, to evaluate feasibility, and identify next steps toward implementation of the concept and vision.

Engagement prior to selecting the consultant for phase one has included presentations and collaboration with the Oakland Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee, the Mayor's Commission on Persons with Disabilities, the Youth Commission, the Prescott Neighborhood Council and West Oakland Neighbors Group, and a briefing for Oakland City Councilmember Carroll Fife. So at this point, I'll pass it back to you, Ann.

Thanks, Dave. Next slide, please.

Can I ask you to maybe give some concluding remarks so we can ask some questions?

Sure, we can. Actually, we can wrap it up here. What we really want to emphasize over these next couple of slides is just again bringing it back to that community collaboration. And building on those strong communities, starting with our having a strong engagement plan, incorporating that into the work we're doing and certainly being there through that early work in our planning phases. So I can wrap it up with that.

Great, thank you. Appreciate that. Thank you both for being here. I'm going to go back to the slides. Don't have a number, but one of your earlier slides on the Cycle, 2 Federal RCP awards. I'm trying to identify through some of them whether these are-- Like the Healing Hollywood project, is that the 101 project or is that something else? Do you know?

I don't know right off hand. Many of them as they're walking through the, or going through their applications have redefined themselves. So, we can get back to you.

Okay. And the other one, I have a question on, literally in my backyard, the Barrio Logan, reuniting Barrio Logan. It's a $10 million amount. I had read that that was a different amount. And so if you could follow up and let us know what exactly that funding was for in terms of amount and also aspects of the project. Those are two very specific questions on projects that I see listed.

I guess the other question then is I'm familiar with the Barrio Logan, very specifically, and the National City, obviously. But are there-- So the 980 seems to be one of the conversation, at least from the community standpoint on freeway capping, which would then get into the air rights issue. And that's one of the things that remains as a concern.

I don't think I've been able to get any real clarity in terms of does Caltrans currently have the authority to allow for cities, counties or some collaboration thereof to move forward with freeway lids or underpass projects that would reconnect communities? Is that currently something you have the authority to do or do you require legislative authority for that?

Yeah, we do not have any current policy or guidance that restricts that construction of highway caps.

You did mention some, I don't know if it's policies or what they are exactly, but issues as it relates to being compensated. So, for example, if we're looking at building parks, again, above or below in terms of airspace, I think it's either practice or policy or you tell me what it is that there's compensation that is of market, fair market value for the use of that space.

Right. And that does come back in with our airspace lease agreements. That is a right-of-way transaction. And in doing that, there is a determination of what that fair market value would be of that facility in place, and what would that lease agreement look like.

So does it depend on the, I mean, we don't have a lot of park lids, as you mentioned, Teralta being the only one. And that was, I believe I was very young at the time when all this was going on, but that was a mitigation effort. It wasn't-- You were building the highway, and as you were building the highway, you built the park too. And so I guess that should have triggered some sort of airspace issue because that park is now a city-owned park.

So did the city have to contribute to get the park?

Yes, on Teralta Park, it's definitely a mix of funding where we do have state, federal and local City of San Diego dollars in that we're funding that project. With Teralta Park, the agreement there for-- there was a transportation nexus, like you mentioned, so there's mitigation that was part of the project development complementary to that park. There is transportation improvements that were done along the State Route 15 there, including there's a bus rapid transit station there in median.

But all of that to say the agreements that ended up being put in place were for the construction and then the maintenance then of the park itself is through just that. It's a maintenance agreement with the City of San Diego. We do not have an airspace lease with that. There are components. I will take that back. There are components of which we are working with the City of San Diego on those, the small business opportunities there on the adjacent, right?

Okay, just to note for our Committee, I think that's a question that remains for our final report is this issue of air rights seems to still be a little nebulous in terms of how that's going to get handled and certainly wouldn't want it to become an impediment to projects that are having some progress along the way, whether it's Vision 980 or down in San Diego.

So I think those are two important questions that we need to have some resolution on at some point as these projects hopefully become more of a reality. As far as policies, and don't expect you to have a response to this one because it's not really purview of Caltrans, but as it relates to housing displacement and issues, as we look forward as either to do reconnecting projects above, below, or in the case of places like the 710, you know, the stub there.

Are there any policies that recommendations have come out of Caltrans in terms of housing protections for people who live within the vicinity of these potential projects.

I think that is something that we would look into and definitely would need to continue those conversations through that. And that's something that we can work through our legislative staff also to get.

I also heard you mention, and I was not aware that, and drive certainly under and by the overpasses on the 15, that they're built to capacity of two story frame structures. So clearly there was a lot of analysis done on weight bearing and I assume and all that. And that's important because it's one of the things that in conversations of people who are looking to build these projects is how do you finance them?

And certainly some type of revenue stream would be helpful to finance these very, very costly projects. So as far as the outreach goes, and, you know, 980, you're in the middle of a robust, it seems like, process. Remind us of Caltrans' policy on engaging and collaborating with communities where these projects are being discussed and at the moment, just being evaluated.

So I think for us, engagement starts early. And we've been working in Oakland for quite some time, doing projects, working with the West Oakland Indicators Project and these other various groups. We're really just starting this collaboration to see what it is they want to get out of this project. And we've seen the two Oakland studies, the West Oakland study and the downtown study, both dealing with transit, softening up the overcrossings, looking to add more things there for connection.

So we've been at it now just a short while, and we have a consultant on board to continue that process.

And just also, your current process, you've only received funding for planning and for this outreach activities, visioning and all that, right? And I saw you received 500,000 for phase one. And is your phase two already, are you going to be seeking that funding or you've already been allocated?

We're being allocated that. That's the 680,000 in reconnecting communities.

That was from this year cycle, from federal? Okay. And then obviously, depending on the conversations, that's going to dictate the cost of a project?

Correct.

I think I've asked the questions that came to mind for myself. Mr. Alanis?

Just a few. I see you guys have selected the three communities. One, was there a board, a group that decided which three were picked? How were those picked, and how many were, how many other projects were there to pick from?

I don't have the numbers in my head as far as how many applications were received. The communities that were selected were kind of across the state, we have northern, southern, central communities. The committee that was selecting these, and we can get more information to you on that specifically, but it was across jurisdictions. We had not only representatives from Caltrans, we had representatives from agency. We had local equity advisors that were also part of the team. So there was a broad, I guess, casting of those involved. But we can certainly provide you.

I was just wondering. I just notice all three-- I'm great. I'm happy that this is happening. But I noticed they're all on the coast as well, or at least they looked, appear to be mostly on the coast, nothing really inland. That's more my area as well, so I'm a little biased on some of that. But I'm just curious to see if any of them have put an application in also. And if they didn't, maybe if we're doing something in the future, I can help push them.

Yeah, we can get you that information and follow up. Just to add to that, we, with any of our applications and certainly with Reconnecting Communities, we do offer for those communities that weren't selected, there may be other grant opportunities that they may have even better opportunities with, and those could be through your active transportation programs, some of the other local partnership programs, and the like to continue to work to move those projects forward also.

Okay, thank you. Thank you for taking the time to be here, too.

Thank you. I think one of the things in doing this work that we've been digging into for the last couple of years, really, it seems to be that a lot of this funding has been awarded to communities where there's been a very localized, and I would say in the case in San Diego, very grassroots-based type of activity that would then somehow makes it onto the radar for like the local planning agency or the local MPO.

And then, you know, sometimes lucky enough to reach levels of Caltrans. And that's been a pathway for some of these projects. Others obviously are very sophisticated. Like, I'm sure the Port of LA, and I know that the Harbor Drive 2.0 Port of San Diego has been, you know, very much on top of that for a while. So there's, I think, alternative ways for projects to make it on here so that they can be part of the conversation, if you will.

So I think encourage more communities to do so. And I hope that with our hearings and our report that there will be others out there that get inspired. You know, our hearings have been, it started with a lot of historical context of what's happened, how highways have divided communities with a lot of data from researchers. I think they were from UCLA in that case.

Then we had some community members who are those grassroots community members who have tried in places like Seattle and in San Diego to advocate for these projects. We had City of Pasadena. They've really engaged to try to do a project there. And today we heard from projects throughout different places in our country. So clearly there's a movement there, but there's also work that needs to be done. So I'm looking forward to that.

The last question I think I'll ask is because Mr. Pisano talked about rail line and it's really not the purview entirely of the Committee. We are focused on divided by highways, but that is a major mode of transportation that is also in some communities cost, some division. Is there anything on that for that Caltrans is engaging in at the moment?

I would say it's, you know, we do reference that in one of our selected communities where there is the barrier through of a rail line and inclusive of Caltrain. Separate from that, what I would also add is that we, even through federal and other state programs there has been an emphasis in separating the points of intersection of rail with local roads.

Great separation.

Yeah. Improving the safety in that aspect for that. So there's opportunity there as we move through kind of systematically to look for those areas of grade separation to do the additional work around that.

Okay, yeah, that makes sense. I just wanted to make sure I noted that because in other parts of the state Mr. Alanis noted there are other impacts to communities being separated and I want to acknowledge that. Want to thank you. I think there's still some questions that remain. They will be found in our final report as it relates to how the state can facilitate that. And certainly Caltrans is a tremendous player in allowing these reconnecting projects to continue.

And we certainly don't want to have any barriers along the way. So I think that work is going to continue legislatively, but also in collaboration with Caltrans. I want to thank you for the work that you do and I want to thank all the presenters. We do have an opportunity for public comment at the moment. If anybody would like to make a comment, this would be a good chance to walk up to the mic.

I don't see anybody getting up, so I think we're okay with that. So with that, this is the end of the series of this Select Committee. Again, a report will be put out to share with the Legislature the findings and the research that's been provided to the Committee and looking forward to share that with everybody and then probably create some priorities legislatively for us. Thank you, Mr. Alanis, for joining us today. And thank you all for being here. This meeting is adjourned.