Senate Standing Committee on Transportation

All right, the Senate Transportation Committee will come to order. Good morning to everyone. Welcome. We do have only one measure on today's agenda, and I do have an acknowledgement of one of our Committee staff Members right after that. So I hope those who can stay for a few, few minutes after the first item, we'll do so.

I assure you it would only be a couple of minutes. We want to establish a quorum at this time, so I'm going to ask the Committee assistant to do that. We're missing one. All right, so we are not going to be able to establish a quorum.

We'll do that as soon as we can, but the author is here, so we're going to have Senator Wiener please present his Bill.

Great.

Please proceed when you're ready.

Thank you very much, Mister chair and colleagues.

I'm here to present Senate Bill 530, excuse me, 532, which modernizes parking payments by authorizing, but not requiring a five-year pilot program for three pilot cities that have all asked to be included, San Francisco, Long Beach, and Santa Monica, to implement paid parking without having to incur the high cost of physical parking meters.

Current law effectively requires cities to spend precious resources purchasing, installing, and maintaining, at times outdated and expensive parking meter equipment that take up space on sidewalks. Last year, for example, physical meters cost San Francisco $26 million to install and maintain.

Basically, about half of San Francisco's parking revenue goes to the physical infrastructure instead of to other needs. Parking meters are often vandalized, take up a lot of space, and this space could be free to make it easier for people, including people with disabilities, to get by.

And so SB 532 will allow the three pilot cities to pilot parking meter-less paid parking zones, and provided that the city provides signage about how to pay if the person does not have a smartphone, and has reasonable alternative means for cash payment. To be clear, existing current law does not require that meters accept cash.

You can have credit card only, but we do require in this Bill a cash option. So it is a five-year pilot program. I would ask for your aye vote. And with me today to testify in support is Silvia Silly Shaw, representing the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency.

Please proceed.

Good morning, Mr. Chair and Members. Thank you to Senator Wiener for authoring this measure, which will allow San Francisco to modernize the way we accept payment in paid parking zones. As he mentioned, it will allow the city to save millions of dollars at a time when our budgets are very tight.

Paid parking is the best tool that cities have to create parking availability, which benefits businesses, minimizes circling and double parking, and reduces emissions speeds public transit, and makes streets safer and more efficient. However, we currently collect payment for parking using parking meters, which are expensive to maintain.

And unfortunately, existing law requires cities to use physical parking meters and pay stations to accept payment for parking and prohibits mobile-only payment. We also are very mindful and excited to address the requirement that would allow for a cash payment plan in these mobile-only areas.

You know, we understand that not everybody has access to or wants to use a mobile phone to pay for parking, or they may not have a credit card to be able to pay for parking in those zones. So we look forward to implementing that as part of this Bill. And for these reasons, SFMTA supports SB 532.

I'd also like to voice the support of the City of Santa Monica and CaCTI, the California City Transportation Initiative. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there anyone else in the room who wishes to speak in support? Please come forward. Name, affiliation, and support, please.

Chair and Members, Max Perry, on behalf of the City of Long Beach in support.

Good morning, Mr. Chair and Members. Matthew Siverling, on behalf of the California Mobility and Parking Association, in support. Thank you.

All right. Seeing no others. Do we have an opposition witness in the room? I'm seeing none. Is there anyone in the Committee room who wishes to speak in opposition? I'm seeing none. We'll come back to the Committee. Comments or questions by Committee Members? Senator Newman.

Thank you. Just quick question on the cash payment. I understand it's kind of a work in progress, but how can we do that in a way that actually addresses that equity question of people without digital access?

And the good news is that California would not be, sorry for my voice. California would not be the first state to do this, as indicated in the analysis. And there are other examples as well of cities in various parts of the country that have already implemented this. And there are a few ways that you can do it.

You could have a pay-by-phone option. Some cities will do it that on the block where you have this, there will be a store that the signs will indicate you can go to that store and pay via cash.

There is also a way to do it where you would just get something in the mail afterwards to pay. So there are various options, and other cities have implemented some of those options.

But I think it's also important, and I said this at the beginning, and I'll reiterate it, the California law does not require accepting cash today, that you can have meters that only accept credit cards. So if someone doesn't have a credit card, you know, they would have a challenge there as well.

So that's something just, I want to just reiterate.

I appreciate that. I mean, I'd be fine with no cash option, but that's always been a point of contention, these kinds of discussions here. So appreciate it.

Yeah. Thank you.

Yeah. If there's no one else, just make a quick comment. You know, Senator Wiener started talking about this Bill a long time ago with the Committee staff and, you know, with all of us up here, I think.

And, you know, my reaction was, particularly given that it's a limited pilot that, on some of these issues, the cities will make decisions based on whether or not they can capture revenue the way they want to.

So if there's issues with Wi Fi or anything else, I think those will play themselves out and the pilot will inform, you know, where to go next. So I think it's a good Bill and I'm certainly supportive. Do we have a motion on the Bill? Did we get a quorum in?

All right, well, we're going to have to take up the vote when we get a quorum. Senator Wiener, you're free to leave. We're going to, if you'd like to stay, we're going to have just a few moments here to acknowledge our Chief Committee consultant. Did you want to close Senator Wiener? You may.

I respectfully ask for an aye vote. Thank you.

Thank you. All right.

Rather than recess, we want this actually on the record. As you may have heard, Randy Chin is retiring this year, and I think some have said he's actually re-retiring. As chief consultant, Randy's been leading the Committee for almost 10 years. When he took the wheel, pun intended, it was the Transportation and Housing Committee.

And then in 2019, he weathered an amicable divorce and forged ahead with the transportation team. Professional divorce, right? Randy has been part of the Senate family for nearly three decades. He became the chief consultant for the Senate Energy, Utilities, and Communications Committee in 1995 after moving over from the Assembly Utilities and Commerce Committee.

When he joined the Transportation Committee, Randy changed tracks from electricity supply to electric cars, becoming the Senate expert on zero-emission vehicle deployment. Additionally, he has helped Members navigate some difficult transportation policy issues, such as speed cameras, goods movement, autonomous vehicles, and, of course, outdoor advertising.

But of all the bills and policies Randy has left his mark on in the transportation world, the biggest has to be SB 1, the Road Repair and Accountability Act. Randy advised the former chair of this Committee, Senator Jim Bell, my predecessor, and the full Senate on this landmark piece of legislation.

And as we all know, SB 1 raised billions in new revenue for our state's transportation network and took years to get over the finish line. Randy was a major part of that success.

In addition to crafting good policy, Randy has also helped shape the next generation of policy staff, and I can attest that he's done a tremendous job of that.

He served as a mentor for the CCST Science fellows for many years, shepherding them through the hustle and bustle of Committee work and helping many of them transition to permanent Committee staff, like our own consultant to my right, Jacob O'Connor.

On behalf of the Members of the Committee, the Committee staff, and the Senate family, I want to thank our chief consultant for his service to the people of California and his contributions to transportation policy. I've certainly enjoyed working with Randy. Where did he go? All right, Randy, I've certainly enjoyed working with you. I'll repeat that twice.

It's bears repeating multiple times. Your professionalism, your diligence, the stuff that people don't see behind the scenes, even, you know, just the regimen of making sure we're prepared, everyone's prepared on such a detailed basis. And the mentoring was already mentioned.

Sorry to see you go, but happy for you in the sense that maybe golf and Maui and some other things will be in your immediate future. And it wasn't why I was late, but I did bring a De minimis.

We won't even call it the g word, a De minimis item here that you may want to take on your own or possibly share with Committee staff. But it's just a banana nut bread, homemade, and I'm not wearing black in mourning. This is all a whole other gimmick set up by a couple members of the Senate. Yeah.

So a little bit of a coincidence there. Of course, I'd be wearing celebratory clothing if I could, so. Right. Yes. Thank you, Senator Wiener. Thank you. Senator Wiener says De minimis in cost only as to, as to this item.

And if I'm sure that others, on an individual basis, will have something to say to Randy as we disperse here, but I was hoping that we could all stand and. And give him a big round of applause for his work.

Mister Sheriff, I could just quickly say. From the other side of the aisle, he has also been great to work with.

Thank you. Thank you, Mister Vice Chair. Senator Wiener has already closed. We now have a quorum and we'll ask. The Bill was moved by Senator. Yeah, we need to establish the quorum, and we have a motion on the floor immediately after you establish the quorum. We'll just go right to the roll call.

[Roll Call]

All right, so the quorum's established, the motion's by Senator Newman, and the roll call will now follow.

This is SB 532. The motion is that the Assembly amendments be concurred in. [Roll Call]

The bills out on an 11 to zero vote and we're going to go ahead and adjourn the Senate transportation meeting. Again, thank you to everyone, particularly the Committee staff today.