Senate Transportation Subcommittee on LOSSAN Rail Corridor Resiliency

Subcommitee on LOSSAN Rail Corridor Resiliency Informational hearing will now come to order. Good afternoon everybody. We welcome the public, either attending in person or watching on live stream. Thank you for your attention and engagement and we look forward to your input.

When we come to the public comment part of the agenda, that will be after our panelists testify. So this is our first hearing of our Subcommitee this year and it's the sixth hearing of the Subcommitee on LOSSAN Rail Corridor Resiliency when it was formed in 20-- since it was formed in 2023.

First, I'd like to thank the panelists of local and state partners for joining us this afternoon. I'm excited about learning more from you today. I'd also like to recognize my colleagues on this Subcommitee. I want to say thank you to Senators Archuleta, Cervantes, Limon, Strickland and Umberg for your hard work and leadership.

I'm also delighted that three other Senators representing the Los Angeles area are joining us today, particularly our home Senator, Senator Durazo, who is sitting to my left.

I also want to recognize Senators Allen and Richardson. And I will turn it after my remarks to Senator Durazo to give some remarks here in her district at the Los Angeles Union Station. And finally, I want to say thank you to LA Metro for allowing us to use this boardroom for today's hearing.

It's a beautiful boardroom and I'm really excited, excited to be here. The first time I've been here. I hope to have more hearings here in your boardroom. We are here in the heart of Southern California and the center of our region's transportation systems, Los Angeles Union Station.

This is a historic place, a place where communities travel on and connect to three passenger rail services and countless local services like LA Metro. I look forward to the completion of the Link Union Station, which when completed, will transform rail service for passengers.

I'm mindful of some of the important work that we've completed together to support the 350 mile LOSSAN Rail corridor. With your partnership, the corridor now has more long term planning and important projects underway to support rail services.

We've increased service frequencies and brought stakeholders together, shining a light on the needs of this rail corridor, the second busiest in the nation, and a shared vision of how to transform the rail corridor to be more high performing. While much has been accomplished, we must speak honestly and directly about the challenges that remain.

We meet here today at a time when the rail line is once again closed to passenger service through San Clemente. This closure, which is the sixth in recent years, is required in order to fortify the tracks and to ensure that there is a continued safe service through San Clemente.

Today, for example, I'll share that I traveled 42 miles from my home in Encinitas to the San Juan Capistrano train station by car. And then I caught a train in San Juan Capistrano for the remaining 57 miles here to LA Union Station. Ideally, I'd have been able to take the train the entire way.

San Diego is the eighth largest city in the entire nation and Los Angeles is the second largest in the entire nation. And these two cities deserve to have functional, competitive, reliable train travel between them. And it should be the responsibility of the state, not just the local transit agencies, to make sure that this happens.

I'm thankful that local agencies, the State Transportation Agency and the Coastal Commission are all working together to deliver a whole suite of necessary projects. I also look forward to passenger service resuming on Saturday, June 7. Across the corridor from San Diego to San Luis Obispo, the rail line needs investment and it needs work.

There is a long list of projects that need to be delivered, but the time before us is limited because the region will soon welcome millions of spectators, visitors and local Californians who are attending three mega events in back to back years.

In 2026, there's the World Cup, in 2027 the Super Bowl, and in 2028 the Olympic and Paralympic Games. We must ensure that this rail corridor is ready for California's global stage. The state and local partners here today are counting on services to be accessible for frequent and operated with significant progress toward a zero emission future.

We'll hear today from experts on the importance of these public transportation services moving far more passengers. I believe we can do it. We can think differently about how these services are operated, managed and supported. And this requires action at the local, state and federal level.

Today this subcommitee continues its important work of identifying how to best support the rail line, strengthen its infrastructure and fundamentally expand and enhance its service.

This is crucial if we're going to meet our region's mobility goals, if we're going to reduce traffic congestion, if we're going to improve air quality, and at the end, if we're going to combat climate change.

There are many of us working together to meet these goals and I'm thankful for the partners that we have at the State Transportation Agency, Caltrans, CalSTA, the City of Los Angeles, the Air Resources Board, the Transit Association, all working in collaboration with the professional staff at the LAO, the Legislative Analyst Office and academic experts at UCLA to help us address these challenges.

In closing, I want to thank you again for being here today or for listening in today and joining us on this journey. We are striving to transform our rail network and create the modern, efficient and carbon-neutral transportation system that California needs in the 21st century.

And so now I would like to turn it to our host Senator, hostess Senator, Senator Durazo to make a few opening remarks.

Thank you, Senator Blakespear. This is the first time I sit up here. I've always been over there. It'll be fun to see the difference. It feels kind of good. Thank Senator Blakespear for her leadership on these issues and just insistent and insistent and also very welcoming to ask others to ask all of us to participate.

So I'm very grateful to that, thank you. And it's an exciting time for Los Angeles. We get to show off our city and beautiful state to the world. At the same time, we must be honest that we're grappling with really tough decisions. Transit agencies across the whole state are facing financial challenges.

LA Metro also could face a multibillion dollar deficit through 2030. One in four Californians live in LA County alone. How will California meet our climate goals without a commitment to building out local transit systems? How will working class people get to work and to school and to all the many needs that they have?

These systems will also be critical to moving visitors. As my colleague said, for the World Cup, the largest and longest tournament in history, and for the 2028 Olympics. As we've been told, the 2028 Olympics will bring 13 million ticketed spectators. This is the equivalent of seven Super Bowls per day for 16 consecutive days. That's just mind boggling.

All of the above things that I just mentioned will inject billions of dollars into our economy. And we want the potential, see the incredible potential for creating good jobs for people in this area and others who will move to this area. People won't move out, they'll move in. The eyes of the world will be on California.

I'm grateful to be here with you today and for the work of this Transportation Subcommitee. I look forward to hearing from all the panelists and planning for the road or railway line ahead of us. Thank you everybody. Thank you colleague.

Well, thank you. Now we'll invite up our first two-- Our first panel has two on it. So we have honorable Paul Krekorian. He is the Executive Director of the City of Los Angeles Office of the Major Events. And we also have Chad Edison, Chief Deputy Secretary of Rail and Transit at the California State Transportation Agency.

And so we will turn it to you, thank you in advance for your testimony. And we will turn it over to you, Executive Director Krekorian.

Well, thank you very much, Madam Chair. It's a pleasure to welcome you here to the Transportation Center of Southern California. And Senator Durazo, it's always a pleasure to be in your district and to welcome you here. We've switched positions here and I'm delighted to have you here. And this couldn't be a more important or more timely hearing.

And I'd like to, if I could take a few minutes, just to set a little bit more context for what we have ahead of us here here in Los Angeles. Both of you mentioned the upcoming 28 games, of course, and the World Cup.

But between now and the end of 2028, Los Angeles will host nine major sporting events, any one of which would be challenging for most cities to put on. There's never been any time in the history of our country where one location has hosted such a dense collection of major events in such a short amount of time.

So Mayor Bass created my office, the Office of Major Events, as a hub of the wheel for coordination of preparation for those events to ensure that Los Angeles is prepared. And we will be.

Just to give you a better sense of the size of the 28 games, Senator Durazo mentioned the mind boggling statistic that it's the equivalent of seven Super Bowls a day. It is that. And this gives you a little bit more context for that. We will have 100,000 volunteers probably who will be working on the event.

We'll have 30,000 members of the media coming to Southern California, between 13 and 15 million ticketed spectators, which probably will include at least 5 million distinct visitors to Los Angeles from outside of our area. So it just gives you a little bit of a sense.

And I'll go in later to some of the economic impacts that that will present. But in short, this will be the largest Olympic Games in the history of the Olympics movement.

So some of the areas, the cities of our region that will be hosting venues, of course, Los Angeles, but also our sister cities in the county, including Long Beach, Carson, Pasadena, Inglewood, Pomona, Arcadia, South El Monte, San Clemente and Anaheim, not all in the county, but in the region.

So if you think of how LOSSAN will impact that, there's obviously the immediate thing that comes to mind is how will people, these 5 million visitors to our region, get to sporting venues?

And there are many connections where LOSSAN will be critically important to people getting around the region and attending those venues, as you can see, some of them are immediately adjacent to stations even.

But beyond that, with the influx of visitors that we will have, just moving our residents and people who are here already is going to be a challenge when you consider the number of street closures that we'll have and the congestion that we'll have.

So moving our residents onto transit who are used to driving is going to be another important service that the LOSSAN corridor will be providing. And it also is a potential long term legacy for the Games as more people learn that they can get out of their cars and they can get around Southern California by rail.

Of course, connections with people who are coming in and out through the airport, connecting with hotels. Virtually every hotel in Los Angeles will be booked and probably already is. So there will be a need for our visitors to be staying in outlying areas and coming into Los Angeles. And the only way that'll be realistic is by rail.

So just to give you a sense of the sort of the economic impact of these major events, let's just take Los Angeles's role as one of the host cities of the FIFA World Cup in 2020. As you know, it's a three country hosting arrangement. Los Angeles is just one of many cities.

We will have eight events here in Los Angeles County. And those eight events will produce an economic impact of almost a half billion dollars with, as you can see, 180,000 unique out-of-town visitors, a quarter of a billion dollars in increased wages, and importantly $57 million in new state and local tax revenues.

Now, by comparison, the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games will produce $18 billion in economic output. LA28 alone will spend $7.1 billion.

But with all of the ancillary events and expenditures and the multiplier effect of that expenditure, it'll be $18 billion in economic output, almost 100,000 jobs supported, increase in labor income by over $5 billion, and as you can see in the span of two months, activity that will generate $700 million in new state and local taxes and over a billion and a half dollars in federal taxes.

So obviously that means that we all have an interest in strong advocacy for the success of the 28 games. So right now and for some time now, there has been a coordinated planning effort that has been centered in what we call the Games Mobility Executives.

This is a cross jurisdictional consortium of leaders that includes LA Metro, LA28, the City of Los Angeles, Caltrans, LA DOT, Metrolink, SCAG and a number of other transportation stakeholders that serve on many subcommittees of the Games Mobility Executives. They're deeply involved in intricate planning already for this and that planning continues.

And these are just a few of the focus areas that the Games mobility executives are concentrating on. There is a subcommitee specifically for regional rail, as you can see, and other areas that will be of interest, including key station upgrades.

Some of the transportation legacies that we expect to come, some of which are already being realized by the urgency that is built into Games preparation, the long awaited LAX Metro connection, the regional connector here, and you see some of the many others. I won't go into them here in the interest of time.

Just bringing us back to the impact. In 1984, people thought that the Olympics were going to cause widespread congestion. It was going to be Carmageddon in Los Angeles. And in fact, none of that happened. It was one of the best times to get around in Los Angeles ever, other than Covid.

In fact, Mayor Bradley, at the conclusion of the Games, famously said, 'the Olympic Games are now closed, let the traffic begin.' And we do not want that to happen here. We want the use of transit to become one of the human legacies that are left behind by the Games.

But in addition to that human legacy will be the tremendous economic legacy. And you see just some of the things that 1984 produced for us, including a surplus that was so significant that there are youth sports programs in Los Angeles today that are being funded 40 years later by the 1984 Olympics.

So we hope to be able to have that kind of success again as we look forward to our first Paralympics and our third Olympic Games in 2028.

And just wanted to give you that background to lay the groundwork for why we should all be coming together to advocate so strenuously within the state government, within the federal government in particular, for support of the infrastructure and transportation service needs that will be necessary to, to host the world in 2028. Thank you all very much.

Well, thank you, Director Krekorian. We appreciate that. We'll have the second panelist and then we'll go to questions. Thank you. So next we have Chief Deputy Secretary Chad Edison and he's chief deputy secretary of Rail and Transit with the California State Transportation Agency. And I'd also like to welcome Senator Richardson here. And I want to make sure if you'd like to give any remarks that I give you the opportunity to do that.

Thank you, Madam Chair. First of all, I just want to commend you for doing this hearing for us to cover these very important issues. It's always good to see Mr. Krekorian. We serve together in the Assembly and so we have a long history as well. And I know when the mayor tapped you, she knew you would be capable to help us get over the hump. And so I look forward to working with you. And to those of you who are here, excuse my delay. We had to take my mom to the hospital last night when I arrived and I finally got her home and in bed at 5 am so excuse my few minute delay. Thank you very much.

Oh, we're so sorry to hear that. It's impressive that you rallied to come. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. Go ahead.

Appreciate the chance to speak here today. At the California State Transportation Agency in conjunction with Caltrans, we are very, very excited about showing off California during the upcoming special events, the Olympics, and the events prior to it. And we look forward to working with our stakeholders in Southern California to make that as successful as possible.

On the rail side, the State of California is involved in inner city rail service conjunction with LOSSAN, but we also work very closely with the regional rail partners, Metrolink and NCTD's coaster services. And in working together, we believe that we can deliver a very successful expanded service offering and in high quality service during the, during the Olympics and during other special events. We are actively pursuing rail expansion for the LA '28 Olympics and for events prior to it. And there's three different focus areas that we have.

One is expanding the number of seats available on the inner city rail fleet statewide. The second is revitalizing that inner city rail fleet, including some of our legacy equipment, and then really focusing on operational excellence and how to achieve the best service possible during during the Olympics.

I'll start with the discussion of the of the expansion of our service capacity. And this is a focus on adding about 40% to the total seats available across our inner city rail fleet statewide between now and 2028. This has three major components. The first is our expansion of service with new zero emission train sets that are currently on order and being built for the State of California. We expect to deploy some of those train sets here in Southern California leading up to the Olympics.

There are ten zero emission hydrogen fuel cell trains being built and they will start being delivered for service at the end of 2027. That is our first investment and that adds significant seating capacity. Each of those train sets has over 200 seats on it and they can be operated in double train set or single train set configuration.

The second investment is in leasing legacy equipment from Caltrain and redeploying some of that fleet, some of the other fleet that the state owns here to Southern California. So we are looking at leasing legacy train sets from Caltrain to boost capital corridor service and then redeploying some of our existing fleet down to California down to Southern California for additional capacity during the Olympics.

This will also benefit us in the near term as we further increased our frequencies back to pre-pandemic levels. But we're also looking at going to higher levels of service during the Olympic period and before. We have up to 16 trains that we're allowed to run between Los Angeles and San Diego.

Right now we're getting back to 13 and we have up to seven that can run to Santa Barbara and right now we're at five. So those are both increases in service that the fleet will allow as well as the ability to pursue the opportunity to go further than that. And I'll discuss that in a moment.

Finally, we're investing in fleet revitalization and this is taking a comprehensive investment in the 88 state-owned passenger rail cars that we have on the bilevel side and making sure that they are in the best, that they have good solid overhauls that have an enhanced customer experience on them.

We are starting that process next year so that it is as much of it as complete before the Olympics as possible. This will take our bilevel service and raise it to a higher level, a higher customer service customer service level. It will also make that fleet more reliable which is, which allows us to have more capacity out there on on special event periods. So we will be able to not have as much of it in maintenance.

We're working with the maintenance schedules on our fleet to make sure that we can have as little out of service during special events as possible. Going on to the maximization of our fleet. We are working with new maintainer in Northern California of our fleet in order to lift the state of good repair and fleet availability that is starting this year. And then we are also overhauling our locomotives so that they are more reliable in more reliable operation by the LA '28 Olympics.

In addition, we're working with our partners to increase frequency levels as a special frequency increase during the Olympics. So we're talking to both the host railroads such as BNSF and Union Pacific, as well as working with Metrolink and Coaster to see what we can offer on top of our regular level of frequencies during the Olympics.

So that is also an investment that we're making to try to get to a surge level of service during the Olympic Games and carry more riders on on that increased fleet. So with that, those are the, that's the summary of the major investments that we're making. I'd be glad to take questions when we get to that.

Okay, well, thank you so much. We really appreciate both Executive Director Krekorian and Chief Deputy Secretary Edison for your remarks. I'll just start with a couple questions and then I'll turn to my colleagues. So I wanted to start with a question for Director Krekorian.

Do you think there's anything more that the state could be doing to help prepare to help you prepare to so that particularly clearly around transit. So to help your transit partners have plans or resources or the ability to optimize service so that we can scale up frequencies in order to support attendance at the events and also attendance for all the volunteers and the many trips that need to be made that aren't just to the event.

Well, thank you, Madam Chair. And I first of all very much appreciate hearing the news this morning about the increase in frequency and capacity. It's going to be very critically important, not just during the 28 games, but in the lead up during those many other major events which are kind of our test run as well.

We have a very strong partnership with the state in this effort. I meet bi weekly with the governor's office to discuss planning and where we're at. The state is present in the GME, the games mobility executive planning process that I've been talking about. So it's been a strong and close partnership.

As with everything, the critical area is in funding and I know this is a difficult time to be raising that topic because of the challenges that the state has, as we do at the city level. But the thing that keeps me most awake at night is the concern about whether or not we will have sufficient federal support and state support for the supplemental transportation needs that we'll need during that time period to avoid what could be a, you know, fairly disastrous result if people are not able to get around this region.

And it would be such a black eye for our, our state, for our region, for the country if that were to happen. So really it's about a few key investments in less in infrastructure than in service. For example, our supplemental bus fleet that's going to be necessary. We'll essentially have to double the size of the Metro bus fleet during the Olympic Games. So it's in those sorts of areas where I think the continuing support from the state will be vitally important.

And have you defined that already? What supplemental services and the cost of them that is needed from both the state and the Federal Government.

We have. In a broad sense, it's not at the level of specificity that I would like to be able to present to you today, but that is in development right now. And again, this is part of an ongoing conversation that we have through the governor's office already. But there will be more to come on that very soon.

Okay. Yes, I appreciate that. I mean, as a member of the Legislature, we are responsive to local agencies and cities and counties and. But we need you to define the need. So it does really start at the ground. And so I appreciate the notion that you'll be putting more specificity behind that.

And if I may, part of the challenge in that is identifying how to segregate the various asks that we have between federal and state asks, because there are things that we would normally expect to be paid for by the Federal Government which may not be a certainty at this point. So those are some of the areas that we're wrestling with.

Yes, we, we, we well understand the uncertainty and acknowledge the difficulty there. And I know you served in the State Assembly, so you're also aware of the way things work in Sacramento.

Yes, and it was at a similar time with regard to the budget, I might add.

Uh huh. I'd like to just ask a question to Chief Deputy Secretary Edison. So I'm really grateful to hear of the 40% addition of seat potential. 40% addition of seats, and also the specificity around the time slots that are available. Like there are 16 or you said that going north we have up to seven slots and five of them are filled. And then going to the south there are up to 16 slots. So I appreciate that. Just to fill out what you were saying is that because the freight.

Freight owns the lines, but there are existing agreements that allow for passenger service up to a certain amount at minimum. And we are not yet at that basically that floor. So I appreciate that there's acknowledgement and an effort to get us to the point where we have more service. I think one of the most important things for transit is that it is reliable.

So that's the biggest thing that you hear from people about why they don't ride transit or why they tried and stopped is that they needed wherever they need to go to run their life if the train doesn't come or the train is substantially delayed and then they miss their connection or they miss their kids soccer game or whatever the thing is, you know, that leads to them deciding not to use transit.

So having more frequency is a really important part of that. I think also the timeliness, so focusing on trying to reduce, as you said, the time that they're down in maintenance, but also the unexpected delays that come from freight or from other reasons like equipment malfunction and others, or train strikes, which are a euphemistic term for suicides, which I know you can't do anything about.

But all the reasons that transit sometimes gets off track. It's really important we focus on all of those things to try to eliminate to the greatest extent possible. So I think one of the things, when you were speaking, there were lots of things you said that I was very heartened to hear. But one of the things that I want to ask you about is that hydrogen trains, I perceive them to be highly speculative at the moment, that they're not in wide circulation. And so you said that we would have up to ten zero emission train sets. And so I wanted to just ask about the technology and whether that is realistic to get off the ground in a short term. And you know, some thoughts on that.

I'd be glad to comment on that briefly here, Madam Chair, and also provide additional information after the hearing if you would like that. The, the State of California has been partnering both with SBCTA and Caltrans to develop hydrogen fuel cell trains. The first of those is going into service this summer.

I just wrote it in a demonstration service last week here in Southern California and that's gone through all of its testing and regulatory work in Pueblo, Colorado as well as elsewhere with the FRA. And we're very close to having that signed off on and put into service on the aero service which Metrolink is the operator of between San Bernardino and Redlands. The state's transats are derivative of that Transat.

So it's using the same technology it's using, it's a higher performance version of that train and it's a longer version of that train and that is currently being built by the same manufacturer. The schedule and completion and testing of this went very well with the initial two car train that was delivered to SBCTA.

And we're now working towards having additional train sets that will again have their deliveries starting in 2027. So this is a demonstration, this is a beginning of something that could be bigger in the future. We have 10 train sets on order. We have options for 19 more. This is, you know, something that we believe has been is being effectively developed so far and, and we're looking forward to demonstrating it with various partners and in different corridors around the state.

Okay, well, that's great to hear. Yes, yes.

If I could just add on the issue of sustainability in the corridor. As a former Metrolink director, I do want to just observed that Metrolink, I think, was the first regional rail agency in the country to adopt Tier 4 locomotives. And I know that it is the first agency to adopt 100% renewable fuel. So right now every Metrolink train in the system is running on renewable biofuels made from natural fats and food oils and so on.

Thank you for highlighting that. And before I turn to my colleagues, my one last comment is that one of my longer term interest is in making sure that we have train travel to some of the mega events that are happening all the time.

Like for example, there's a Padres game in San Diego and people in Orange County want to come to it, but there will be, you know, one Amtrak train that goes at an appropriate time and then there are tens of thousands of people who are getting on the roads to make that trip because we have two transit agencies that don't cross the line between San Diego County and Orange County.

And that to me, NCTD and Metrolink not going down into each other's service area means that we're not providing for a more regional reality of how people go to a Taylor Swift concert or a Padres game or an Angels game or whatever it is across the county line.

So what we can establish from these three and more mega events, I hope we can take some of those lessons and make them into legacies so that we establish a culture of service across county lines. And so I hope that we can all be thinking about that as a longer term goal. Yeah. Okay, so I'll go turn to my colleagues now to see if you have any questions or comments. Senator Durazo, would you like to ask any questions?

Thank you. Thank you very much, both of you. As with regards to the big events and I appreciate increasing the frequency of the trains. How does that connect with the bus service? That obviously is a part of our whole, of our whole system. Right?

How does this connect so that folks can continue to go to work, folks can continue to do the things that they have to here and we're going to rely on so many people to keep the economy going while others are having fun and having a good time. So could you describe a little bit of that, how that, how you envision that happening?

Yeah, I can speak to it initially and if Director Korekorian would like to speak more, I'd welcome that as well. The LOSSAN rail services and the regional rail services all have many station locations where the local transit services distribute passengers. They also have many connections to longer distance buses which take people from parts of the region that are not in and beyond that are not on rail lines and bring them to those locations to connect to the trains.

And so, you know, we believe that this is, you know, both important outside of special events, but even more important during that time period. We think seamless connections and transfers and ticketing and all of this is necessary. So we continue to look for ways to work the stakeholders in the region to make it easy for people to travel around and make those connections between the services.

And we continue the dialogue here with LA County on how to make sure that like when someone gets off a train that they can make that whole journey without having to worry about figuring out many ways to pay. So that's something that has been, we've done some good initial thinking on this and we're working to make sure we have know things in place that'll make that an easier experience in the future.

Yeah, I would just add, Senator, that many of the measure M infrastructure investments that are ongoing right now for local transit users that are self funded by county taxpayers were intended to create greater connectivity with low sand and other rail assets in the area. But in terms of actual operation, if the way I always look at it is anybody who gets on an Amtrak or a Metrolink train and is going especially cross county in this area is a car taken off the freeway. It's almost a one to one ratio.

So that then facilitates our ability to use the freeways and for that matter local streets for bus transport. One of the central parts of planning for the major events is how do we move buses most quickly, most efficiently through the city when we have this increase in congestion?

So the goal is reduce that congestion so that you open up the arteries to be able to facilitate bus transit. And that's in fact what happened in '84. You know, the transportation solutions in 1984 were not just about how do we get people from hotels to venues, it was about how do we do traffic demand management, how do we change goods movement, how do we do change shifts of major employers so that people who are normally using transit are better able to get around the region and not congested into more than they normally would be.

Yeah, I asked that because one of, as you said about. Okay, what Mayor Bradley's quote was is I think from all the presentations I've heard that we're trying to make this a great experience for all Southern Californians who can get to the games and even our outside visitors.

So the idea here is not to make it as uncomfortable as possible so that you go, I'm not sticking around, I'm jamming. We are, I assume, and I've heard presentations about how we want to make everybody feel welcome and be able to participate in one way or another through different events. And I think that's great.

That's a whole different way of doing things. But it also requires a different view of our trans. How do people get around during that time? One question is how does this all work in with the logistics, the movement of our goods? That has to continue while all of this is going on. Any thoughts?

Yeah. On the rail side, there are some critical projects that both Caltrans and Metrolink and for that matter, NCTD are all pursuing that will make the railroad more reliable and create less conflict between freight and passenger trains. And so some of those can get finished before 2028.

And we're pushing ahead to try to get as many of those projects completed because this will allow the freight service to still be effectively run during the period of higher passenger train volumes. And that's part of the discussion we're having around how to get to frequencies that might be beyond the ones that are already contractually allowed in the corridor. Today's operation is still well below the level that's contractually possible in the low sand corridor in some segments. And we'd like to go above that.

And we need to discuss with our freight partners how to make sure that happens. But we already have designed and engineered and environmentally cleared most of the projects necessary for that. And so it's just a matter now of getting them into construction and finished in time.

Yeah, I would just add that from my Metrolink perspective. Again, you know, one of the biggest challenges that Metrolink has for reliability is you know, freight traffic and also the passengers, the pedestrian strikes and suicides, those are the two big drivers more than mechanical problems for reliability.

So having that coordination is going to be even more critical and especially as we change goods movement patterns during the major events. And SCAG is already well underway and working on some regional TDM strategies involving goods movement. But because we're going to have to be making changes there, it's going to further complicate that interface between the freights and the passenger railway.

And then just final on the creation of jobs which is really important to people. Right. Is you mentioned the manufacturing, I think on the hydrogen. Yeah. Is there still the opportunity? Do you envision it? Because a few years ago when we were talking first talking about and trying to get the decision to have the Olympics and other games here, there was that opportunity that electric buses or other, even the trains could be manufactured in this area. So any more thoughts? Is that completely off the agenda here?

So there are a number of investments we're making. The fuel cell trains are only one of those investments and that equipment is already under contract. It's being built with many suppliers going into it. But the primary train set manufacturing is in Utah, the same location that built the Caltrain equipment that's in the electric service up there now. In terms of the refurbishment and revitalization of the existing fleet, we expect those efforts to happen largely within the State of California and to increase the number of jobs doing that work.

I mean so that is effort that we think will happen here in California directly. But on any large new train order suppliers, including those in California are part of the project. Even if the manufacturing of the actual train sets, the final assembly is happening in another state. So that's what we have right now.

I would have thought that the assembly would have been the easier to do here.

It depends on where you have the facilities that can do this. And the facility that's building equipment in Utah can do car shell manufacturing. It can do many things that are not, you know, that are big one time investments. And so that's where we have the, there aren't that many builders of rail cars and this particular train is one that has its manufacturing location in Utah. And this has been the case for a couple a few years now.

Okay, thank you. Senator Richardson.

Yes, thank you very much. First of all, as I said, I came in a few minutes late, so I don't know if you covered it in your initial presentation, but I had heard there were various transit options being considered, such as a one lane access to like, let's say on the 405 freeway, leaving the, you know, one lane completely dedicated.

Could you tell us a little bit about that, if you know anything about it? And also the proposal of flex work schedules, which worked when we had car, the avoiding of Carmageddon, we're dating ourselves that we were here long enough to remember that and that was the best time to drive in LA.

So has there been any communication or preparation with corporations with the expectation maybe that people would work remote for two weeks? I mean, fortunately through COVID, we have really advanced our ability to do that, unlike when it was in '84. But has there been any work on those two issues?

Thank you, Senator. The with regard to the reduction of demand through flex scheduling and otherwise, as I mentioned, SCAG and also the games mobility executives are working on TDM strategies. There hasn't been, to my knowledge, direct outreach yet to our larger employers. It's a little early for that because I think we need to be further along in our planning of, I mean, we just had the final venue plan, for example, agreed upon.

So it may be a little premature to have those direct discussions, but that will definitely be part of the strategy and finding ways that we can support our employers in providing not just flex schedules, but transit options that the employees might not be taking advantage of right now. And your other question was about the single lanes.

So every Olympic host, well, every Olympic organizing committee is required to ensure what's called the games route network. And that's always the case. It was the case in Paris as well. And this is to ensure that if you're a athlete, an official, something like that, that you're not stuck in traffic and you miss your gold medal final event. So access in and out of the actual venues.

There will be a network of those, you know, lanes that are devoted just to the Olympic family during the time of the games. Now, one of the advantages of that, that Mary Dalgo realized in Paris was the highway that circles Paris called the Périphérique. One of those lanes was devoted to the games route network.

And then she just kind of quietly made sure that after the Olympics were over, that remained a bus only lane. So it improved. It was a transit legacy that came from the creation of the games throughout network. And, and we're hoping that through our careful planning of the GRN for this event that we'll be able to realize that kind of legacy and minimize the disruptive effect that it inevitably is going to have.

I mean, I'm not going to sit here and say it's not going to be disruptive, it is going to be disruptive during that period. And so our goal is sort of, you know, mitigation of that impact while we ensure that we have something to leave behind that will be a benefit.

Okay. And then we talked a little bit about the timeliness of the transportation that would be available. However, I would say, and that is certainly important, but for me living in LA, the two things I hear people talk about are cleanliness and safety. And actually safety usually is number one. So what are we doing to consider?

Are we going to need more ambassadors? What are we going to do to ensure that people feel safe getting on? You know, we go through all this work to have the availability of this transportation network and then people don't feel safe to, you know, put their kids on them and go to the next event.

Yeah, and that's very true. And it can become a self fulfilling prophecy because the, as ridership drops, the system actually becomes less safe then. And the greater the activity, the greater the ridership, the more of a perception of safety and actual safety there is and no longer on the Metro board.

But I know that until I left there there was a very concerted effort by Metro's management and board to try to address that exact issue because that was what we were hearing from customers and it's, it's had great impact. The ambassador program that you mention has been phenomenally successful and well received by riders.

Crime is significantly down throughout the Metro system. People don't read about that in the paper, but that is true. And ridership is beginning to spike back up to almost pre-COVID levels. So there is that commitment at Metro and it's continuing on. I think in terms of Metrolink it's less of a perception of a concern. You know, in the regional rail system there is still that people do worry about putting their kids on the train or something, but it's more acute with Metro and it's being treated that way by the system.

Okay. I would encourage you that when you make your budget submittals that it's clear that that piece is being dealt with, that we're not just being asked for $50 million or $100 million, but what are we getting for that $50 million. The second thing is it was mentioned about between rail and when there are special events here in Los Angeles, we have when the Dodger games go on at the first stop for Metro down on Artesia they have buses.

And when the games start, I think the buses start like three or four hours before the games and there's always like three or four buses lined up and they pick people up there. The buses only go on the freeway set aside lane.

I think they make only two stops and they're the freeway stops, they're not getting off of the freeway. And then from there they go directly to Dodger Stadium. And quite a few people take advantage of it. I've ridden it myself to meet friends who were able to go a little earlier and I was stuck trying to get in. But I think something like that, you're absolutely right. Having enough Metro buses to connect between rail and bus and how people can get there and having a sufficient amount and understanding you need more than one.

And it's not that we need ten all the time, we might just need ten between the hours of 10 and 2 instead of ten all the time. So I wanted to commend the Chair for that point. And then the last thing I wanted to do, Mr. Edison, is to ask you a rhetorical question. It looks like you're well on your way with Israel system. Where were you when we needed you with high speed rail 14 years ago? And now, I mean it's a frickin mess. So Ms. Durazo knows my thoughts on that.

I'm the Chair of Budget Sub 5 which includes transportation and we're considering additional funding and they may want to consider including you in the work that needs to be done to bring that into fruition. And finally I think there was a question asked, I believe in the governor's budget. So far, he put aside 50 million for Olympic preparation, but certainly that's not going to be enough when you look at the total items that are going to be needed.

Thank you. Well, thank you. I appreciate the great questions from my colleagues and I just want to basically end with the emphasis on customer facing experiences. So when the Olympics was in Salt Lake City in 2002, I was working as a reporter at the Associated Press covering the Olympics in Salt Lake City where I was a reporter.

And one of the things that is just really important is when someone lands at the airport that they see some information about how they can take light rail to get where they need to go and when they're looking online beforehand about how to get from their hotel to the event, they see that there's a shuttle that goes up the mountain or goes where they need to go so that they don't default into renting a car. And a lot of people of course, are using Google Maps and push on transit to see, well, what goes where.

And so I hope that we're really spending some serious time thinking about how to communicate to people. You know, when I see on the chart that you provided here that there are 15 million ticketed spectators, there's not a box here that says how many visitors. But this is the largest Olympic Games that we will have ever had.

It just the number of people who will be coming into the area and the importance of clearly communicating what the transit options are. I know this was initially billed in. It was when it was promoted, this game was called a car-free Olympics. And I mean that.

The idea of that, I think is that some people are certainly driving to a place that they will catch a shuttle to get to the event. But we have the opportunity to really capitalize on all of the additional service that's going to be provided and the bus only lanes. But we really have to communicate that and not just hope that people figure it out. So I hope that that's real. That customer facing is really top of mind.

It certainly will be, Madam Chair. And I'm pleased to say that I believe it's next week we'll officially be opening the connection between LAX and the transit system which is Los Angeles has waited for since we've had a transit system. So that's going to be, that's a 28 by 28 project which will be opening up just within a matter of days. And that will give us the option to be able to do that when people arrive, to get them right on the transit system and let them know that they really don't need that rental car to get around.

Can you just. So that's a people mover from LAX to Union Station?

No, no, to the transit to the light rail line that services that area. So it'll be a direct connection between light rail and the airport.

Oh, great. And that's opening when did you say?

June 6th. Thank you. June 6th.

Okay, great.

Madam Chair, if I could. You reminded me of a point. Maybe if you guys would also look at lessons Learned in Washington D.C. When President Obama was inaugurated, the transit system that they had some of the trains that were coming in from all different directions and how people got stuck in a tunnel and missed the whole thing. And so we may want to also get some feedback from Washington of what they did in preparation and what worked and what didn't work. More importantly, thank you.

Okay, well, thank you so much to our first panel. We very much appreciate your expertise and dedication to this and thank you for the information you put together for us. Thank you very much. And we'll transition to the second panel. So we have five distinguished members of the second panel.

This one is called LOSSAN 2050 Navigating Challenges and Planning for Success. And the first person that we have presenting is Jennifer Gress, Ph.D. Division Chief for the Sustainable Transportation and Communities Division of the California Air Resources Board. Welcome and thank you so much for coming.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and Members. I'm Jennifer Gress and I'm here on behalf of the California Air Resources Board. Thank you for inviting me to be here today. I'm going to talk about how the low sand rail corridor fits into the state's climate and air quality goals.

The California Air Resources Board's work to reduce air pollution and combat climate change is deeply tied to the future of how we move around in this state. The board recognizes that reducing vehicle miles traveled, or VMT, isn't just about traffic or emissions. It's about building healthier communities, supporting racial and environmental justice, and protecting public health.

Our 2022 Scoping Plan and 2020 Mobile Source Strategy make it clear. We can't meet our climate and air quality goals without meaningful reductions in VMT. But achieving that means rethinking how we design communities so people can live closer to where they work, shop, and access services.

It also means investing in safe, accessible, affordable transportation alternatives like transit, walking, biking, clean shared mobility, and passenger rail service. These strategies not only reduce VMT and air pollution, but they also help people get around and they often save people time and money.

One of the true levers for change is in how we implement transportation policy and where we put our funding. Investments in the low sand corridor are a great example. With roughly 4.5 million annual total passengers, it is providing a successful alternative to driving.

Due to its climate benefits, it has secured a number of awards funded by California Climate Investments that together seek to enable faster headways and increase service during peak hours. And the service has invested in ways that have particular benefits for low income and disadvantaged riders, including the demonstration of seamless ticketing and transfer policies such as free and reduced fares and improved reliability.

The opportunity here is clear. We can create a healthier, more equitable, and sustainable California. But it will require supporting a range of transportation options, including improved and expanded passenger rail to help achieve our goals. Thank you very much.

Okay, thank you. We'll take all the panelists and then we'll go to questions after. So thank you, Ms. Gress. Next we have Mr. Frank Jimenez, Senior Fiscal and Policy Analyst from the California Legislative Analyst Office.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair. Frank Jimenez with the Legislative Analyst Office. Today we've been asked to provide an overview of inner city rail in California, how it's funded and options and considerations the Legislature could look at in providing additional funding.

I'll be making my remarks from a handout which we prepared, which should be making its way around for those in the hearing room or those watching online. This handout is available on our [email protected], if you'd like to follow along as well. So turning to the first page. So California's rail system can be broken up into five components.

There's freight rail, which transports goods around the state. Freight rail is operated by private companies. Much of the state's rail network is owned by private freight rail companies which host inner city and regional rail on their right of way through various agreements. Next is inner city rail, which provides transportation between metropolitan regions.

Inner city rail can be divided into two groups. There's Amtrak long distance routes which are funded by Amtrak and serve California and interstate markets. An example of one of those routes is the California Zephyr, which runs from Chicago to the Bay Area.

And then there are state supported routes which are funded by the state and serve California markets. The rest of this handout will cover the state supported routes. But to finish off, there's regional or commuter rail, which provides transportation across metropolitan regions. Regional rail services are provided by various local agencies across the state.

Examples of regional or commuter rail include Caltrain, Metrolink and Coaster. Next, we have urban rail, which provides transportation within metropolitan areas. Services can include both heavy and light rail systems and they're also funded and supported by various local agencies such as the San Diego mts, BART and LA Metro. And then finally, we have high speed rail.

As we all know, the state is in the process of constructing a high speed rail line from Los Angeles to San Francisco. And then Brightline West, which is a private company, is looking to build a high speed rail system from the greater Los Angeles area to Las Vegas.

So turning to page two of our handout, we'll go over the various roles that entities play in supporting state supported routes. So the state is responsible for supporting three state supported intercity railroads. This includes the Pacific Surfliner, the Capital Corridor and the San Joaquin's.

The state provides various coordinating oversight roles to monitor performance, address operational issues and ensure that services align with statewide plans. Prior to the COVID 19 pandemic, state support represented around 30 to 50% of operating costs, with the exact share depending on the specific route.

So the state used to have direct administrative role in operating the three state supported routes, but by 2015 all of the administrative authority was transitioned to three joint powers authorities. These JPAs are responsible for managing and operating the lines and collecting fare revenues.

I'll note that the state continues to own and maintain the rail stock, but prior to the pandemic fare revenues typically covered 50 to 70% of operating cost and the exact share varies by route.

So the three JPAs are Los San Rail Corridor Agency, which administers the Pacific Surfliner, the Capital Corridor JPA which administers the Capitol Corridor and the San Joaquin JPA, which administers the San Joaquin's All3JPAs contract with Amtrak, which is overseen by the Federal Government to run services on each of those lines and the Federal Government will also provide various grants to the JPAs and the corridors for improvements.

And in response to the Covid 19 pandemic, the Federal Government did provide temporary relief to support operations. Turning to page three, we'll provide an overview of funding that the state provides.

So the state provides ongoing funding to the three state supported routes through two major programs, both of which are supported by the state sales tax on diesel fuel and are funded through the state's public transportation account. The first program is the State Supported Intercity Rail or Passenger rail program.

This program provides $131 million annually to the three JPAs. In 2425 budget package there was a three year augmentation provided to this program from the public transportation account. This includes $66 million in our current year, $72 million in the budget year and $73 million in budget year plus one.

There's also the State Rail assistance and this provides both operational and capital support to commuter rail and to intercity rail. The funding is split between the two components. Most of the inner city rail funding is provided directly to the JPAs. Funding fluctuates each year based on diesel sales tax revenues.

However, in 2425 program funding is estimated to be 60 million. Other state funds the JPAs are eligible to receive funding from other state programs such as the Transit Intercity Rail Capital Program and the Solutions for Congested Corridors Program. Those are competitive programs that the JPAs are eligible to seek funding from.

Other state funds can be used for improvements when they're provided to local agencies such as infrastructure projects that are on infrastructure that's shared between regional rail and intercity rail and then the state portion of the state Transportation improvement program remains with Caltrans and Caltrans has to spend a minimum amount on intercity rail improvement so they can seek improvements through that avenue as well, so turning to page four, State supported routes and intercity rail face challenges, both fiscal and those related to climate change impacts.

So during the pandemic, ridership on state supported routes decline leading to decreases in fare revenues. Ridership has returned but has continued to remain below pre pandemic levels. On this page you'll see a chart that shows ridership levels for the three state supported routes and how that's changed over time.

You'll see a significant dip in the pandemic and then ridership increasing but still not being able to retain those pre pandemic levels. State supported routes received limited term federal funding to help maintain operations. However, the winding down of this support has created fiscal pressures.

The additional funding that I mentioned before provided by the state is is expected to help, but absent ridership returning or ongoing funding solution, these fiscal pressures may continue to persist. And then state supported routes also face issues related to climate change impacts.

Many of these routes are currently or projected to face impacts related to sea level rise, coastal flooding and erosion. The exact costs will depend vary on the severity of the impacts and the ultimate mitigation measures that are selected.

So turning to page five of our handout, before getting into the options that the Legislature has in providing additional funding and some of those trade offs, we look at what would be the Legislature's rationale in providing additional funding and there are a couple reasons.

The first is that the state has played a key role in funding state supported routes. A rationale for the state's involvement in the space is that these services connect metropolitan regions, and this is an area that's typically outside the scope of local agencies, which tend to focus on services across and within metropolitan regions.

Maintaining or even increasing state support would align with the state's historic role in this space. The state supported routes and their related infrastructure are an important component of the state's transportation system and climate goals. State supported routes enhance connectivity and improve access economic opportunities.

They also contribute to the state's overall climate goals by shifting travel from personal vehicles to rail. These corridors are also an important component of how the state moves goods, so additional support to maintain our expand services or to improve infrastructure could enhance these benefits.

And then absent additional funding, state supporter routes may either need to reduce service levels or raise fares. These actions could make traveling by rail less convenient or less affordable, and ridership may respond by shifting to other modes which would just exacerbate these issues.

So these are some of the rationales and why the state may look to providing additional funding. So turning to page six, the Legislature does have several options in providing support it could look to providing ongoing support or one time funding and ongoing support could help the state supported routes continue to maintain or even increase service levels.

Alternatively, the Legislature could look to provide one time funding either to help state supported routes buy time as ridership continues or if there are critical infrastructure projects that are needed to be built. The Legislature could consider various Fund sources in providing additional resources.

This could include the General Fund, transportation specific special fund accounts, or the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. The Legislature could also look on the other side of the ledger and increasing revenues, whether that be through bonds, transportation taxes and fees or increasing other broad based taxes.

So turning to page seven and the final page of our handout, all of these options do come with trade offs. So depending on which funding source the Legislature to use, providing additional funding to state supported routes would mean less available funding for other budget priorities, whether that be in transportation or other areas of the budget.

This could be particularly challenging on the General Fund side given recent projections on General Fund revenues. As such, the Legislature will want to weigh its considerations in providing additional funding against its other budget priorities. And then the Legislature, particularly on the ongoing funding side, would want to understand how that changes incentives.

While state funding supports some portion of operating costs, fair revenues have generally represented around 50 to 70%. As I mentioned before, this creates a strong incentive for the state supported routes to maintain and maximize ridership.

So if additional ongoing funding is provided, the Legislature will want to ensure that state supported routes are able to provide the most cost effective service and going after the highest ridership levels. But with that, happy to take any questions.

Okay, well, thank you very much, Mr. Jimenez. We will go to our third panelist who is Mr. Michael Pimentel, Executive Director of the California Transit Association. Welcome.

Thank you for having me, Madam Chair and Committee Members, I'm Michael Pimtel, Executive Director of the California Transit Association, and I'm pleased to join you this afternoon to lend our voice to this timely discussion focused on strengthening passenger rail service on the low sand corridor.

By way of background, the California Transit Association is a 501c6 nonprofit trade organization that represents California's transit and rail agencies in the halls of the State Capitol with the express goal of building, through education and advocacy, a fully funded, efficient and effective public transportation network for all Californians.

Our membership includes 220 Member organizations, including 85 Trans agencies across the state, regional entities and transportation authorities, as well as national and international transit suppliers who deliver the products and services that keep our systems running.

Over our 60 year history, we've led on or been engaged in all major state level discussions impacting transit policy and funding and have worked in partnership with the state to advance our shared mobility and climate goals. In recent years, our advocacy work has focused on the stabilization and recovery of California transit and rail agencies from the pandemic.

We have used this opportunity to advance a back to basics policy platform, focus on delivering rider centric improvements to public transit, and as a break the glass moment, to reimagine how we build a mass transportation system that works for more Californians.

Through this work, we have secured incentives in state law for transit agencies to conduct comprehensive operational analyses to mirror to track how ridership demographics have changed, to implement contactless fare payment systems and build discounted and fare free transit programs.

We've created CEQA exemptions for clean transportation projects, including those that help increase transit speed, reliability and attractiveness, expand first and last mile connections to public transit and facilitate the build out of charging and refueling infrastructure to allow us to make continued progress on our zero emission transition.

We streamlined the timeline for judicial review of CEQA challenges to major transit projects.

We've provided transit agencies with new tools for ensuring that once these projects are built, their effectiveness is not impeded, not eroded by road users and we've supported the creation of our state's first transit policy for the state highway system and then finally we have established new statutory frameworks for transit agencies to address homelessness and harassment that exists on their systems.

These efforts directly responded to calls from the Legislature and the public for our systems to modernize, to reflect changed travel patterns and the availability of new technologies, to improve travel times and reliability, to deliver transit and rail projects more quickly and on budget, and to address the safety issues on our systems.

And a note on this final point that in fact this year we are pursuing broader authorization in state law for transit agencies to bar violent individuals from from riding our systems.

Now, to deliver a more holistic and transformative change to our public transportation network, our industry has leaned into the California State Transportation Agency's Transit Transformation Task Force, which first convened in December 2023.

This 25 Member task force includes 12 Members from my Association, including myself, and has met roughly every two months to produce a report of recommendations for transit transformation, which will be delivered to the Legislature in October of this year.

We've taken this work seriously and through a new internal Advisory Committee, have provided the task force with detailed and, we believe, practical recommendations covering the topics of transit prioritization, fare and scheduling, coordination, system safety and cleanliness, among other things.

Through these past and ongoing pursuits and with your support, we continue to build a public transportation network that is making progress toward our shared mobility and climate goals. California transit agencies have achieved some of the nation's strongest ridership recoveries.

San Diego, MTS, Orange County Transportation Authority, LA Metro and SF Muni have all recovered more than 85% of their pre pandemic ridership, besting the national average of 80%. We have built transit ridership statewide at 800 million unlinked passenger trips annually that is now the second highest in the nation after New York.

And we have led the nation deployment of zero emission transit vehicles, cross buses and rail exceeding CARB's projections for these technologies for 2027. Now, years after the pandemic, it's important to remember that this recovery and this progress was not guaranteed.

It took focus, it took commitment from our industry and it took partnership with you all in the Legislature to help bring these results together. Unfortunately, as I join you today, this progress toward a better transit future faces ever more challenging headwinds.

Transit funding at the federal and state levels for core services and for major projects has become increasingly uncertain.

The Leo projects that the State Transit Assistance Program, the lifeblood of public transit funding in the state, will decline by as much as 30% between now and 2035, and Governor Newsom's may revise specifically, his Cap and Invest plan threatens nearly $3 billion in greenhouse gas reduction Fund expenditures for transit and rail between this upcoming fiscal year 25-26 and fiscal year 28-29.

This total includes $2 billion in funds that have already been committed by the state and regional agencies to specific transit and rail projects and services, including almost $900 million in hard fought emergency relief funds that the state just approved in the budget act of 2023, which is currently keeping LOSAN Member agencies afloat, and more than $1.1 billion in grant awards issued by the California State Transportation Agency to transit and rail agencies pursuant to Cycles 5 and Cycle 7 of the TIRCP.

And I'll note this includes funding for the Low Sand Double Tracking and Bluff stabilization Project and OCTA's Coastal Rail Infrastructure Resiliency Project.

So today, as we engage in this conversation on strengthening passenger rail service on Low Sand Corridor, I share the urgent message to that the Governor and the Legislature must enact a final Cap and Invest plan that protects its funding through 2030, commits to maintaining these historic levels of funding for transit rail projects through 2045 and that expands the list of eligible expenditures and any funding commitment for high speed rail to include investments in shared rail Corridors and stations that help deliver a blended system as well as that help drive ridership by way of investments in booking and connectivity projects.

For us, failure to do so erodes our ability as an industry to make continued progress. I just want to thank you again, Madam Chair, for the opportunity to be with you today. Looking forward to our discussion.

Well, thank you, Mr. Pimentel. Before we go to our fourth speaker, I'd just like to welcome Senator Limone all the way from Santa Barbara. We're really happy to have you here in Los Angeles. Thank you for coming. And I'd like to ask if you'd like to make any initial comments.

I will just say that as someone in the Central Coast, I look forward to more trains more often to beat this traffic. Glad to be here.

Well, you'll be happy to hear that from our first panel, there was an announcement from Mr. Edison from the California State Transportation Agency, Calsta, that there are seven slots available and only five of them are filled going north of Santa Barbara from here.

And they're going to be adding the additional two slots in so there will be at least two more trains. Yay. Okay, so next we have Mr. Jacob Wasserman, research program manager at the University of California in Los Angeles. Welcome Here from UCLA.

Perfect. Thank you all so much. My name is Jacob. I am the research program manager for our Public transit research program at the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies. We do what it says on the tin, study the big transportation issues and how we might address them. So first a little context on the corridor and rail in General.

So not to burst anybody's bubble in this room, but Wasan carries less than 1% of the ridership in corridor counties. Now that's not to say it's not important or that couldn't grow, but the bus is the workhorse in greater LA and San Diego. Nationally it's a little higher. Around 5% of transit ridership is on commuter rail.

But trying to look for easy solutions. Unfortunately, not a single commuter rail agency for the latest year of data we have, has recovered its pre pandemic ridership. So we are not alone here. There are 70 freight trains a day. That's not the case on other commuter rail corridors and 112 passenger trains.

There's a hodgepodge of who owns the right of way, different operators crossing counties and metropolitan planning organizations. And that means it's crossing between different funders and different planning bodies. And if you take a step back law sense, it's this awkward, maybe dual role.

It's part commuter rail and it's part inner city rail, and it does each of those, but there's compromises between them that you may have to address. So I'll go over some of the ridership trends next. This, if you can see here, I wasn't able to isolate Metro Inc. Just on Wasan.

I'm sure somebody else in this room has it. But the three services here have not recovered from from the pandemic. Far from it. They're still well below what they were in 2019. And then if you can see the gray line, the second from the top is commuter rail nationally, also not recovered, but still doing a little better.

And then, interestingly, the pink line is Amtrak nationally, and that includes the Northeast Corridor and their big routes coast to coast, and that's recovered almost all the way. So again, this difference between commuter and inner city, Inner City's actually doing better in terms of recovery. Here. If you look nationally, commuter rail is the darker blue line.

It was doing pretty well before the pandemic. Gradual growth compared to the bus, which is the yellow line declining. But then it's near the bottom again. And if you look just since fiscal year 2019, commuter rail is doing the worst in terms of recovery.

So again, it is a mode because of shifts in where people work and when people work that has really suffered the most. I'll turn this for a second to models of regional coordination, because this might be a way to get out of that. I have this chart here.

I'm adapting this from a paper by Kenji Anzai and Eric Eidlin. And the top row is basically who does service planning, fare structures, tickets marketing, customer information, and all that stuff. And the bottom is who's putting the buses and trains out there. And you have one model.

This is like New Jersey transit, where it's just one body that does everything. A second model where you have one body that plans, but it also runs its own transit, but there's still smaller transit agencies. And you can think here London and Paris, kind of LA Metro, though they're more a funder than a planner.

This is a network manager model, where you have one body that's overseeing tell different agencies, hey, meet at this point with these two bus routes with the same fares, free transfers, but they don't run transit themselves. And for this, Germany would actually be the model.

And then what I'm going to nicely call ad hoc coordination, where different bodies oversee different subsets. If they do it, all agencies might just negotiate with each other. And nominally, Wasan might be a regional transit agency. It does have a jpa, but it's very small, doesn't have a lot of staff capacity.

And so I think you should look to these to maybe build out the planning capacity of Wasan on this corridor. A new agency, you pick your model, but at the moment more coordination is needed.

And just for clarification, this is what it looks like, you know, from a government level, but to the public, you might brand them all as one thing. So Phoenix Valley Metro is a great example.

In Phoenix, you take Valley Metro, it looks to a rider like every bus is Valley Metro, but actually different cities run their own bus services. They're just intensely coordinated, have the same fare schedule, same colors on the bus by the regional entity.

And this coordination starts again from this paper I'm referencing sometimes just negotiations between transit agencies, sometimes a higher level of government forces them to do it, and sometimes there's an outside event like a big infrastructure bill, political change or a natural disaster. I'll close with just a few policy implications of this work.

Short term, there's a lot of work that can be done on fare integration, revenue and cost sharing, ticketing between the different agencies on the corridor. Electrification is a really big one.

The corridor I don't think is slated in the state's plan to be electrified, but that could provide immense benefits and then a shift to thinking about regional rail.

So, you know, I know there's the Link Us program at Union Station, but can we get trains that run through Union Station up and down the coast instead of having Metrolink trains all stop there and end, Move away from commute oriented scheduling, have a single branding for all the different services and then think about do we want a network manager, do we want a state rail agency that can be strong enough to tell the transit operators, you know, you need to have coordinated fares, you need to have trains that meet the buses at this exact time, and then maybe even a dedicated funding source for the corridor.

And finally, high speed rail, it was mentioned earlier, here's Law San, you note it's not really on the high speed rail map. You're building the center first.

This is an example from Hawaii where they built the outlying part first because it was the least expensive, but then their ridership is suffering and in public relations it's seen kind of as a boondoggle. No offense to my friends. There's.

And so strategic investments in high speed rail, but in the most densely populated parts can serve two purposes. So this is a comparison of high speed rail or rail networks across the world.

You can see the different populations of the city and in Northern California, they invested in Caltrain electrification, which was great because it connected those two dots on the left side with better service while also serving high speed rail. And you can see Wasan at the end there could do the same thing.

And last, when a freeway has a fire under it like the 10 did, or a bridge collapse like in Philadelphia, they repair it in 1012 days. And it takes months for this corridor to be repaired.

So as all this big picture planning happens, we need to remember that when we repair our rail, it needs to be treated with the same urgency as our freeways. We have a bunch of further information on our website. Thank you.

Well, thank you, Mr. Wasserman. We appreciate that very much. And we'll go to our fifth and final panelist, who's Jonathan Stewart, civil and environmental engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles. Welcome.

Oops. Some slides. Terrific. Yeah. So my name is Jonathan Stewart. I'm in the Samueli School of Engineering at UCLA. I do research and teaching in geotechnical and earthquake engineering there. And I also have quite a bit of work in the policy space related to seismic issues at the state and national level.

We can go to the next one. Oh no, I can do it. Sorry. There we go. So what I'd like to talk to you about very briefly is geohazards, which are a major issue for this corridor, as I think we all know. And the geohazard that is front and center in recent experience is coastal landslides.

Up and down the California coast we have something that is kind of intermediate between soil and rock. It's kind of a weakly cemented rock. It weathers, loses strength and is often undermined by wave erosion and then we get landslides. This is happening in many places along the corridor and in fact all up and down the California coast.

It's not just here in Southern California we also have, and there isn't as much recent experience with this in Southern California with our last major damaging earthquake in 1994. But we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that we have major earthquakes hazards in our region.

The photo on the right is from the Darfield earthquake in 2010 in New Zealand. It is a outcome of soil liquefaction where the soil loses strength and there can be lateral shifting of the ground. And we're looking at an area that had compression due to that shifting buckling.

The rail lines that you see there, there are a number of places along the corridor that have liquefaction risk. Landslides don't just happen after rainfall events or from undercutting of waves, but it of course happens from earthquakes most often earthquake induced landslides or rock falls like you see on the right.

That is another earthquake in New Zealand from 2016, the Kaikoura earthquake. And you see the rock fall over the rail line there. And then perhaps most dramatically is the. You can have surface faulting. So where an earthquake fault ruptures and breaks through a rail line.

This is a photo from a little less than two years ago in Turkey in their 2023 earthquake. From the perspective of the viewer, we're looking at a block of the crust that has moved up and to the left offsetting the rail line as you see there.

And there are a number of fault crossings of the Lon line in California. As we look at these different geohazards, most of them, the only exception being surface faulting, are impacted by climate change. Why does climate change affect these hazards?

It's mainly because of the increased frequency and severity of storms, which contributes to that undercutting of the slopes along the coast with some additional impacts related to regional groundwater levels, which, if they rise, increase the likelihood of liquefaction. So what can be done about this?

And I'm going to try to approach this question not from a site specific scale, although I can certainly take questions along those lines, like how do you solve a problem at a particular location? But I'd like to approach it more from a regional scale.

And one of the things that's done in other domains in California is to map these hazards. So we know zones that are more and less likely to have these kinds of problems. The map on the right is actually the part of Los Angeles where we are right now.

I don't know if this pointer works, but we're basically in that little divot right there within the green zone. That green zone is a liquefaction hazard zone mapped by the state geologist, California Geological Survey. If you look elsewhere in the map, you'll see little blue zones. Those are landslide zones.

And probably the most exciting is right up here is the Hollywood fault. And the rail line that comes down into Union Station crosses the Hollywood fault. By knowing where these regions of particular vulnerability are, it allows for planning. The other thing that can be done is instrumentation.

And basically what instrumentation does is it gives you some warning that in the case of the figure on the top, that a landslide might be about to happen. What that figure is illustrating is what's called an inclinometer. It's basically a sensor that goes through a slope. It can detect the onset of movement.

Landslides will sometimes begin with subtle movement and then advance to something much more severe. If it's known that this is happening, it's possible to shut down the rail line or at least do some inspections or mitigation measures and not be surprised.

With regard to earthquakes, one of the most effective things when you've had an earthquake is to know how strong the ground shaking was.

So if it's illustrating there accelerometers which record ground shaking, and if that is, say you had a series of sensors along the line, you would know areas you could probably leave and other areas where you might need to temporarily shut things down and do inspections because there's a high probability of something having gone wrong.

So these two responses to the question what can be done? Are both trying to approach the problem from a proactive perspective, like what can we do in advance? Or in the case of the accelerometers, in the moments to identify these hazards, oftentimes what has happened is a landslide simply happens and we go out and we fix it.

But if we can anticipate these things in advance, I think we can have a better response. So I'll close my remarks there and I'll be happy to take any questions.

Okay, well, thank you so much, Mr. Stewart. We appreciate that. Thank you for bringing those interesting photos from around the world where there were threats to rail corridors. It's interesting to see that. So we'll go to questions now and I'll just start with a couple and then turn to my colleagues here.

So my first question is for Ms. Gress, our first panelist from the Air Resources Board.

So I'll admit that when I was elected three years ago to the State Senate, I was hoping that CARB would be more active when it came to trying to mode shift, basically to say, you know, we have this many people driving cars and it's creating this amount of air pollution and we need to invest in transit and would be more actively coordinating with, with the transit arm of our state government to try to create the opportunities for more mode shift.

And, and I know that CARB has a scoping plan and there's a certain level of vehicle miles traveled reduction that needs to happen in order to, to meet the CARB scop. And so we need to increase ridership levels. And I'm just wondering if you could reflect on that.

And where, where is CARB active and where are you creating opportunities for improvement when it comes to mode shifting? Because, you know, I, I, yes, I, my hope is to have a more active partnership around, around that, that part. So I'd just like to see if you could respond to that.

I love that question. I'm so glad that you asked it. Thank you. Well, you know, you noted the scoping plan. I also mentioned the mobile source strategy. These are planning documents. One of our objectives in those is to set to say what is needed at the state level.

Another thing is to identify some of the key actions that could be undertaken by state, regional or local governments to facilitate BMT reduction. And mode shift is a big part of that. So I think identifying those is one thing we've been really active in.

And as part of that, we do work with our state partners as to kind of solicit and vet some of these actions. The key drivers that CARB has really are around a few things. One is in the SB375 program. SB375 is a planning law, it's not an implementation law.

And it requires metropolitan planning organizations to adopt what are called sustainable community strategies that integrate land use and transportation planning to meet greenhouse gas reduction goals that are set by CARB.

We have done a lot of work evaluating the success of that program and we've done a number of reports as required by SBA150 and they all show that we're not really meeting our regional GHG targets and that more needs to be be done to implement these sustainable community strategies.

And I think, you know, a few areas in particular that I call to your attention is that in our reports we're talking a lot about a misalignment between kind of actions and objectives both across state agencies, but also between state, regional and local agencies. And so I'd, I'd cast your eye to looking for those misalignments.

Also more money. These plans are really expensive and there's often not sufficient revenues. A thing we, an action that we often call for is increased roadway pricing because not only can that be a tool for shifting, you know, influencing travel behavior, it's also, it generates revenue that can be reinvested in alternatives to driving. I think.

So we'd also like to see, as I mentioned on the 375 program, I think there are ways to strengthen that legislatively to put a bigger focus on implementation. But of course we need, I think, greater policies and funding to support implementation of the plans that do exist.

CARB also implements a number of incentive programs that help to provide alternatives to driving. These are contingent on funding through the state budget, but a key one is the Sustainable Transportation Equity Project.

And the key objective of that program is to work directly with local communities and local governments to Fund an array of different transportation options that provide mode shift. And that program is specifically focused on low income and disadvantaged communities. And there are a couple of other programs too, kind of in that similar vein.

Okay, thank you. Yes. I mean, I'll just respond to that by saying that I come from local government where I served on our mpo, which was Sandag, and I served as the chair of Sandag.

And your phraseology of there's a misalignment I think is really accurate where local governments land use planning is largely driven by the perceptions of their local community.

And then there's this very high level planning that's happening with these sustained sustainable community strategies that doesn't seem in any way aligned with what the local community's housing element or transportation, existing transportation networks are.

And so there can be a Lot of staff, time of money, of consultants doing high level planning that is just completely not connected to what's happening within local cities and counties, but particularly cities. And so how to align that better?

I mean, to me it seems my preference would be that there was a bit more of a command and control approach instead of a very soft kind of incentivizing that doesn't really seem to be connected to things that are important to local city leaders. So I appreciate that there's some thought to how to change those misalignments.

I mean, I just agree that they are there. And I think one of the frustrations that I have is that a transit agency, like for example, the one that I was the chair of, there's a lot of momentum toward projects at times that don't actually seem to be driving toward more ridership.

Like for example, in San Diego, county, there's a straightening out of a curve that's a project that potentially could add an additional seven minutes of time that would be saved if that curve was straightened out.

But the reality is people are not choosing not to take the train because there's a seven minute additional curve where the curve is causing the train to go at 25 miles an hour instead of at 60 miles an hour.

But because this is seen as a long term nice to have, and it's easier to do that planning because it's not in an urbanized area and it's not disturbing people and you don't have to invoke eminent domain and get political buy in, that's something that is defaulted into as what the planning agency is pursuing.

And so how to create the reality that there's money available and funding happens from the transportation agencies that meet our climate goals, that meet a mode shift goal, that meet a carbon reduction goal, I mean, to me it seems like that should be more closely aligned in our policies so that those types of projects could not be prioritized at the top.

They would have to be projects that would actually drive increased ridership and increased mode shift. So it's hard. We live in a very complex regulatory environment and CARB has a lot of things you're working on on a lot of different fronts.

But this is an area where I think we really could see improvements when it comes to CARB's relationship with the transportation sector and just a more robust and active participation in that. And I think as legislators, we're always open to good ideas and suggestions legislatively about how to make those changes.

So I invite you and your colleagues to be communicating with us about that, because I think you see from those of us who are here and others interested in this that we want to see improvements here. And as we saw from the UC, you know, less than 1% is train ridership.

The rest is bus when it comes to transit. But there's so much potential for our train systems to just work better and our transit systems in General. So thank you for the response to that. I appreciate it. And I'll just ask one more question and then I'll turn to my colleagues here. So this my next, my.

I'll ask a question of Mr. Jimenez about the LAO report. So there's a suggestion.

One of the things I read the LAO report in advance, and the thing that jumped out at me was on the, on the last page where it says that fare revenues, so farebox recovery is typically half or between 50 and 70% of operating costs.

So, so when people are paying a fare, that's half of that is going to the transit operating costs. The other half is coming from, from state and federal and local revenue streams. Right. Grants or local sales tax revenue or whatever the different forms are.

And so your, your, the implication is that, that if there was less farebox recovery, like let's say it was at 30% and then there was a 70% that was coming from a state subsidy, federal subsidy, or local subsidy that would somehow discourage decision making that was prioritizing ridership.

And I'm just not sure if I agree with that premise. And I also just wanted to ask Mr. Pimentel to address that LAO suggestion, so you can elaborate on that a little bit more fully if you'd like to. And then I'll turn to Mr. Pimentel to see if he has any response to that.

Yeah, correct. So around 50 to 70% of the operating cost comes directly from fare revenues. The remaining portion is going to come from that state support that's provided through Caltrans to the JPAs. And that's going to vary depending on each line. Each line has a different fare box recovery ratio.

It's not something that we highlight as a major concern as something that will happen. It's just the incentives that the state is providing out. If we're going to provide ongoing funding, the state would likely want to provide additional guidance and receive some level of confidence that we're giving additional ongoing support and we expect certain improvements.

And how to track that. And by providing just ongoing funding without some sort of guarantee or oversight in how that will be used to, you know, increase service levels to track ridership was ultimately what the state wants and increasing transit usage or, you know, creating mode shift.

So it's just something that we highlight as a concern and something for the Legislature to look out for, not necessarily something that will happen. It's just having that, you know, those guardrails in place for the Legislature and providing additional funding and ensuring that it's getting what it expects.

Yes, thank you. And that's essentially accountability metrics, performance goals. I mean, those are all things that could be built in even if there's a shift in the overall revenue picture for transit.

Yes. Okay. Yes, Mr. Pimentel.

Yes, Madam Chair. So I think, you know, from the California Transit Agent Association's perspective, systems that have historically had lower farebox recovery because of the support that they might have from state or local sources, and I'll take LA Metro as a very strong example of this, whereby they have two sales tax measures are agencies that have very heavily prioritized low income communities, heavily prioritized high ridership from those communities with very concerted efforts to keep fares low.

And so I would probably challenge the concept that there is necessarily this trade off between strong state support. Or I. Should say strong state and or local support and drives toward ridership.

Because I think what we've seen historically is for agencies like L A Metro, They've got a GoPass that's available to students, it's available to a number of low income communities. That is something we see as inherently intending to drive ridership.

And for systems that have traditionally high farebox recovery, the reason for that has, I think frankly grown out of conversations in decades past about government efficiency, running transit as businesses.

And I think that unfortunately what we find is in this post pandemic landscape whereby so many people are working from home, working fewer days in the office, that that model is actually something that erodes the ability for these systems to remain viable.

If you take an example of BART or caltrain, and in doing so, what we might find is these systems become increasingly weak in instances where that farebox recovery takes no stack for any number of reasons. And so again, I think I would challenge that concept of necessarily a trade off totally stipulate to the need for accountability.

I think some of the work that we're doing within the task force structure speaks to how we can do that and reinvent it. But I would want to emphasize that there are ways to do strong support from the state or local governments and still drive ridership forward.

Okay, thank you, I appreciate that. And Mr. Wasserman, did you want to say anything in response to that?

Yeah, thank you. We have a report that I can provide later about different metrics that were used. I would agree with Mr. Pimentel's points about the farebox recovery ratio. There are agencies that, you know, are considering, or at 1.0 we're considering going fare free. Well, where would that leave them? They would.

I mean, they'd obviously have to come up with a funding source from it, but their farebox recovery ratio would be zero. And low income fires. Metro's giving out discounted fares to students. So I think there are other accountability metrics. The report that our center wrote suggests putting agencies in buckets so you can compare to peers.

Like a rural agency is just not going to have the same financials and efficiency metrics as an urban agency is. So you can compare to peers within the state or in other states to have accountability. And maybe that accountability even comes with risk of getting or losing funding, but. But not just tying it to farebox.

Okay, well, thank you very much. And I'll turn to my colleagues if there are any. Senator Durazo, do you have any questions or statements? Senator Limón.

Thank you. I actually just want to piggyback on that. I'm curious about some, you know, there's talk here about the farebox recovery ratio, but also about some entities that have provided free ridership, whether it's for students or seniors or fires. And that's not necessarily.

I want to make sure I'm understanding that's not necessarily increasing the ridership per se, or is it having an effect?

And I'm trying to actually get a bigger picture because there's been a lot of talk at the state level about, yes, increasing ridership, but also doing things that people feel and see the benefit of when it comes to government.

And so I'm trying to just get, if you can speak a little bit more to that and what, from your perspective, it does to be able to provide free ridership, or is it just conditional? Is it just a timely thing? If it's always free, do people not feel it? Or if it's.

Help me understand just a little bit more.

Yeah, that's a very good question. The research has shown that free fares are not a great strategy at attracting new people to transit. Now, possible asterisk, something like the Olympics.

If you're totally new in town, you don't have a tap card, maybe you don't even have a credit card that works in the US but for the most part, they're not great at getting new people onto transit. Free fares, discounted fares are good at Helping people who are already regular riders ride more.

And so it can have a ridership increase, I think dollar for dollar, probably putting out more service. The research is going to show that that is going to increase ridership far more. But you don't have to view it as a competition between those two things necessarily when we're talking about alternate sources of state and local funding.

Yeah, and it's also kind of a. It has other social benefits as well, avoiding interactions with bus operators. We've done some research on that. How fare disputes can escalate into violence. And operators really worry about that.

Bringing people who already honestly aren't paying their fare, paying their full fare into some sort of legal arrangement, it's not going to change ridership and it's not going to change the economic bottom line, but it's going to at least bring people under an official umbrella that has a lot of benefits as well.

If I might add to that, I would say that I agree with Dr. Wasserman on the broad frame. Agree also with the rank order priority. If we were limited in resources and we had applied either fare free or increased service levels, the latter is likely to drive higher ridership.

But what I would add is in the cases of fairfree programs, oftentimes what we're looking to target are those communities that are on the margin who quite literally may not be able to afford riding public transit.

And as a main means of formalizing the relationship with the agencies, moving them out of potential exposure for crime or penalization that may otherwise apply to them for evading fares, we look to bring them into the fold with fare free.

But I think the other area where I would want to uplift and suggest there could be some longer term benefits is, is in really building a culture of ridership.

And so oftentimes you'll find that University Systems K through 12 systems will lean into fare free transit regimes as a way of beginning to get folks into public transit early with the belief that if you bring them into the systems early, they may become lifelong riders.

And of course that is talking about a longitudinal approach to public transit ridership. And it's a long term, long term strategy, but it is something that can pay some dividends. I think part of the challenge that we'll often find is within these limited resources, agencies have to understand where best to apply their dollars.

Those fare free transit programs that we find to be most effective are generally those that are done in partnership with other institutions.

So again, University Systems, K through 12 systems, employers, things of that nature that provide an additional Financial means of support to the agencies that allows them to do fare free, but it also may provide them with additional monies that they can use for operations and expansion of service that pays dividends in other areas for other demographics.

Thank you. That's very helpful. Thank you.

Yeah, I mean, I just want to add on to that because it does seem like intuitively it makes sense to me that as a young person, when you're figuring out how to live in the world, if you do actually take transit and you see how it works and you consider it as an option, that it can really have a lifelong effect.

And I know that when I was a preteen, my mom took me to the bus, which we did not take around, and no one I knew took the bus. And she drove behind the bus as it went to where we were going, which was back to my home, basically.

And then we walked up the street because the bus stop wasn't that far from my home. But she was trying to say the bus is a totally reasonable option. And although in the 80s, that's not something that your peer group is doing, I want you to know that this is safe.

And she did it with my sister as well. And to me, it just seems as if you give kids a bus or train pass and you say you can go anywhere, this is freedom for you.

In the same way having a bike is, or having your license when you turn 16, that these are ways that people learned how to navigate their world.

And if you don't provide that option, there are many people, I feel like, in my peer group who do default into an Uber and Lyft and renting a car and that's it. Like, they're basically never considering transit. So how do we create that culture of transit ridership, especially at the young age?

To me, intuitively, it just seems like there's no question that it would make a difference if it was. If every kid could use their school ID as a bus pass and a train pass, that we would have more transit ridership. So, you know, I just wanted to say that. I don't know. Dr.

Wasserman, you seem to suggest that there was actually no benefit to providing free passes, but I guess I would somewhat challenge that and go more with not no benefit.

No. Yeah. Also not. Dr. Wasserman, though, I appreciate the vote of confidence.

Okay. Okay, thank you. Thought it was PhD. No. No. Okay. Okay. Senator Durazo.

Yes, If I can just jump on. I mean, I think in LAUSD, the overwhelming majority of students there are qualify for free lunch. So the Issue of poverty, the issue of not, you know, the ability to use that money for something else in their lives is very real.

I think that's, that's more of the drive is to address the needs of our communities. Not so, you know, much, of course it means increasing ridership, but it's really about can people afford it and can they use the limited funds that most of us could sneeze at? Most people need it.

So I think that's got to fit somewhere in the work that you all have done, how important it is to communities. And there's been campaigns here in Los Angeles for decades about being able to take the bus is a human right. It's been fought for in the courts for several decades.

So I think there's a culture of trying to address that. Plus, they're our workforce. They need to get to the different places because they don't have the cars and the ability to get cars. So I just. Somewhere in there, it's gotta fit.

Yes. Thank you, Senator Richardson.

Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. First of all, listening to the discussion that's being had today, I would maybe suggest that some of these items would be prime for Senator Limone with her cap and trade program. When we start looking again at extension and programs that are funded out of the cap and trade program.

Maybe some of the things that have been discussed today could be considered, such as funding for, although may not be highly agreed by our professional intellectuals here, but maybe a program that does provide free bus passes to all children, for example. So I would encourage maybe we submit some of these ideas to that program.

The second thing, very briefly, Mr. Wasserman, I don't believe we got a copy of your presentation, did we? I didn't see it in my. Okay, I didn't see it in there. And then Mr. Jimenez, you come to our budget sub Subcommitee hearings all the time. I was curious. I.

First of all, thank you for pointing out where the funding sources come from, because oftentimes we don't have. Thank you. We don't have discussions about that.

However, I was wondering, what are you thinking about Senator Wiener, who has brought forward an initiative for a tax that San Francisco, that they're going to do a measure tax regarding their transit funding because it's just not sufficient and given the limited ridership and so is there some way of.

Have you thought about making maybe that suggestion to locally or for the state to consider maybe a broader tax initiative, ballot initiative that would then incorporate some of the transit needs that we have? I think I might have seen Mr. Laird also was bringing forward something in his community that they were considering a tax regarding transportation.

So maybe you could give us your thoughts on what you've seen, because I think I've seen two of our colleagues so far that this might be something broader we want to think about.

Yeah, happy to answer that. I would defer to Mr. Pimentel on what's going on the ground in the Bay Area. Definitely recognize, you know, the legislation that's being put forward in allowing the Bay Area and putting a local sales tax measure on the ballot that would ultimately have to be approved by the voters.

I will Note that in SB125, which provided additional funding, formula funding to transit agencies to provide them temporary relief two years ago as they look to increase ridership or look at some of these local measures, a part of that is that calsta and a group of multi stakeholders are supposed to come up with a report with a way to improve and grow transit.

We're still waiting for that report and we anticipate that it will have a lot of measures and recommendations to the Legislature on additional funding options that could be available for the state to provide transportation revenues specifically for transit across the state, but specifically in the, you know, legislation that Senator Wiener is putting forward, that's for the local measure and that will be for the voters.

It's definitely within the wheelhouse of the Legislature to increase, you know, current or existing taxes or fees and dedicating that specifically to transit also as part of the cap and trade negotiations and the GGRF expenditure plan, both, you know, statutorily or ongoing budget plans.

That's a negotiation point for the Legislature as well as ensuring that, you know, the funding that currently goes to transit is maintained and looking at additional avenues to provide additional funding. But I would defer to Mr.

Pimentel on the specifics of what's going on in the Bay Area and that measure and maybe his thoughts as well on kind of the larger cap and trade picture.

Thank you for the question, Senator. I think it's a very astute observation that the conversation on self help needs to be part of the future for public transit. We have the Bay Area pursuing a regional measure, looking to be authorized by the Legislature in S.B. 63.

And I want to note that when we were as an Association before the Legislature several years ago asking for emergency relief for our transit agencies, we had broadcast what we were looking for was a bridge to get us to self help. And so we have the Bay Area that's moving forward with it.

I'm aware of as you noted the Central coast at Santa Cruz Metro at Monterey, Salinas Transit, they're looking to make a similar push in San Diego and Sacramento Regional Transit, all looking to move into this mode of self help.

I would flag though that one of the challenges that we've long had with moving in this direction has been the vote threshold. The reality that we have a super majority that is required in order to pass these measures. We as an Association been long supportive of bringing that vote threshold down 55%.

The Assemblywoman Cecilia Curry has authored constitutional amendments that have moved through the Legislature in years past to help make that happen. Unfortunately, as they've moved to the ballot, they've been watered down and then unfortunately have failed.

But we would like to see something like that move forward again so we can see more of these health help measures move forward and be less of a draw on the state for resources. I think final point that would make here is I think that there is some risk within this cap and trade conversation.

And again the may revise the cap and invest proposal that's been proposed because some of those emergency relief monies that serves as the bridge are proposed for rescission. And so we asked for the bridge, we got the bridge.

The bridge may be removed from us, in which case we're accelerating the fiscal cliff, making it very hard for those self help measures to deliver on their intended benefit.

What's the funding name that this bridge is called? Just so we know to look for it?

Yeah, so it's often referred to by SB125, but it does flow through two programs, a formula TIRCP and the formula ZETCP. It was a 5.1 $1.0 billion package. What we have in the governor's proposal is a precision of almost $1.0 billion.

Could you say those formulas again?

Yes, it's the formula based TIRCP and the formula ZETCP.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, well I. I'll offer my concluding remarks, but I want to make sure everybody has had a chance to answer or ask the questions or make the comments that they would like to. Any more questions or comments, Senator Limon? No. Okay. Okay. Well, I'd like to thank our witnesses for joining us today and from both panels.

And I want to thank you for your partnership with this Subcommitee. As we work during this legislative session, I continue to be optimistic about the future of rail in this state. We are making real progress in creating a culture for rail ridership.

And we must continue to ask one another what more we can do to support communities that are counting on us. If we, when we have these mega events in 2026, 27 and 28, or when we're traveling to see family or friends across the region, we must meet the urgency of this moment.

I remain committed to uplifting and supporting rail services along the low sand corridor and across the state. And I'd like to ask any of the Subcommitee Members if they would like to share any closing remarks. Yes, Senator Limon.

Well, thank you. Thank you first of all to our chair for convening us and for continuing this conversation. It's been three years of, you know, advancing these conversations about the losan and also just about the connectivity throughout Southern California. It goes up to San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Ventura, the three counties that I represent.

But it also is a way to connect us. I think I'm very happy with some of the progresses that has been made in terms of better understanding not just the connection issues, but the long term issues that we have explored. We visited sites together.

I still think that there's still a lot of work to do in every hearing that we have. We also are able to identify pieces that are related.

I think one of the challenges that I walk away with coming in and also walking away with this is knowing that our funding is limited at the state level and we're having to make a lot of decisions about where we go. I really appreciated hearing, you know, some of the, the remarks and including the need for investments.

But when the need for investments are limited, I think it's going to present a different picture for us. I wish that we could give all the money that is needed to expand and sustain the corridor.

But I also worry that our mindset is going to have to be a little bit different if money is the only thing that is going to improve the corridor itself, its use.

And so I think that this is a welcome, you know, to continue to be partners in this together and to identify how we prioritize the work, but also understand we're working with very limited, limited resources, more so today than we were three years ago and certainly with a fiscal outlook that may make it even more limited in the year or two to come.

So I appreciate everyone's, you know, information for being here and look forward to continuing to be part of the conversations under our Chair.

Well, thank you very much. And we're going to take public comment. Oh, yes, Senator Richardson.

Madam Chair, just to the public. I'll be getting a copy of your public comment remarks. I had a prior commitment, so I'll be leaving now. But I didn't want you to feel I wouldn't be looking back to hear what you shared. Thank you very much.

If you would like to make a public comment, please come forward to the microphone.

How much time do you have Senator or Chair?

Well this is supposed to end by 2:30 but public comment should be two to three minutes or less.

Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you so much. Chair Blakespear, Senator Durazo, Senator Limon for, for being here and for having this informational hearing. First and foremost I just want to say how delighted I am at this discussion. Like this is the discussion that us at streets for all we all the time. Is fairfree a good idea?

How do we prioritize resources? What can we do best for working class people and transit riders? This was just like I mean the ideal discussion in terms of the conversations we're always having and so happy to talk more about those with you in longer term discussion in detail especially after House of Origin has passed.

There are four sort of key items I want to stress and stress those on behalf of the letter that we sent with California's for electric rail and other other advocacy organizations.

First and foremost is the need for electrification of the railway especially the right of way of the railway that already aligns with California high speed rails planned electrification. And the reason we disagree with the state's argument around electric around hydrogen versus electrification is not simply that hydrogen doesn't work. The trains functionally work. That is a true statement.

The problem with hydrogen is that it operationally is very very challenging.

The temperatures you have to pump the hydrogen or refuel, all of the sort of changes necessary it is, it is a massive operational difference to move to hydrogen that is not nearly as efficient as electrification and not nearly as tested as electrification which is used around the world.

So I just want to stress that hydrogen yes functionally works. You can move a train on hydrogen. You can move it fairly fast too. But it hot poses massive operational difficulties to move move to hydrogen rail.

And second of all I wanted to stress stress the need for sort of governance reform and some of the things that were mentioned by some of the panelists here.

We have this, this massive challenge and I've said this before, I think to Senator Limon where you know I need, I need you Senator Rosso to be upset if there's an issue with the Goleta train station just like I need other Members to be upset if there is the Sarah siding project getting in the way of the being able to deliver people to Trestle's beach for the Olympics.

It is a one united corridor and we need to think about it in a more united way and our governance is not doing that at all. And that's a huge challenge for the system and part of the way that we're going to fix that is by having ideally some amount of dedicated funding for this.

And I know funding is a really hard word at the moment. I heard and know it well. But the challenge with relying on even something like Tir Sif like Mr. Mr. Pimentel mentioned is that it is a competitive, wide ranging pot of money that, that everyone can put into.

We need a dedicated, reliable source of funding that the low sand corridor can use and the agencies can use.

And ideally this is sort of unpopular opinion of what I'm about to say is there's a lot of money in the transportation budget but right now, right now it's going to highways and I'm not against that in all circumstances. I go gauchos. I went to UCSB.

The 101 is a really vital corridor, but in areas we've built a highway system the past five years that would span from Chula Vista to Shasta County. That's how much we're widening our roadways in California at the moment.

I think this Legislature needs to reprioritize its transportation funding especially in advance of the Olympics and our major tax generating events. Thank you so much. Have a great day.

Good afternoon Senators. My name is Riley O'Brian. I'm an urban planner. I live and work here in Los Angeles, but I actually grew up in San Clemente and my family still lives in San Juan Capistrano. I just want to say I agree with the previous commentator.

We need to focus on electrification because it is the most reliable and operationally sound technology. We know it's going to take time. We know we have to prioritize the segment, you know, from here to Anaheim first.

But long term, you know, as we're planning, designing things like the Del Mar tunnel, we need to plan for electrification that actually allows for overhead wires. We know that's the technology that works best.

I also just want to say it breaks my heart a little bit every time I come to Union Station and I see the Metrolink Orange County line going and stopping at Laguna Niguel and not going any further. San Juan Capistrano, the train station there is beautiful. It's a vibrant community.

One of the most highest transit ridership areas in South Orange County. And you know, the Sarah siding project, of course, extending further to provide better service to San Clemente. I'm all for that. But I do think we just need to double track that entire segment from Laguna Niguel to San Juan Capistrano as soon as possible.

You know, Mr. Wasserman earlier mentioned the highways that got rebuilt in a matter of weeks, a matter of days, I think we can do that within the next few years.

And I know again, takes funding, but the space is there, and I really want to see San Juan Capistrano become that transit hub that it can be and see the trains go a bit further so that, you know, when the next time there's a Landslide in my hometown and the trains are shut down, that you're just one step closer there to connecting all of south Orange County and San Diego County to where we are right here in La.

So thank you, Senators, really appreciate this opportunity. Appreciate all your effort. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Committee Members, Louie Costa with Smart Transportation Division. I just wanted to highlight a point that Senator Richardson made about safety being the number one reason why people don't use public transportation. Safety is really the biggest concern for the operators. We represent conductors and engineers, we represent bus and transit operators.

And if you're to ask them what's their biggest concern about their job, it's their safety on the job. They face assaults. They save unruly passengers. So I would just ask that the Committee, as the conversation goes forward about making public transportation safer, that the perspective of the operators and the conductors be taken into that conversation as well.

Again, thank you for the opportunity.

Thank you. Yes, welcome.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and Members of the Committee. My name is Javier Hernandez. I am the Director of Innovation and Communications for the City of Pico Rivera.

I just wanted to point out a couple of things that you and kind of build upon some of the points you made about the role and responsibility that us at the local city level have with respect to supporting the bigger, more regional efforts that are ongoing, whether it's the transportation system or whether it's the housing needs or whatever, it's really at the local level.

Whereas local cities really have a responsibility to contribute on a regional level to the broader goals that are established at the state, at the local, the regional level, even at the federal level, whether it's climate, whether it's economic development, again, housing, transportation and mobility, et cetera.

Well, interestingly, what's very difficult is when we have these unfunded mandates, especially for small local cities, were only 8 square miles, 60,000 people. It's incredibly difficult to help achieve some of these goals when we're only receiving $0.06 on the dollar with respect to our land, property taxes.

So in Pico Rivera, we have no choice but to really be as creative as possible to help contribute to these major goals.

Well, in order to do that in Pico Rivera, we're taking a completely solution oriented approach and that is to leverage all of the major significant assets in our, to not only our advantage, but to the advantage of the region. In Pico Rivera, one of those chief assets that we have is the Lausanne Corridor.

When you travel south back home to Encinitas, you'll be traveling right through the heart of Pico Rivera, which we're now currently master planning as a very robust, vibrant, dynamic downtown community. Now, we want that community to be as transit oriented as possible because we don't.

We have arena allocation or regional housing needs allocation of about 1,200, give or take. Well, at the same time, the low sand corridor converges in our city where we're also going to soon have a Metro light rail, the east side Gold Line extension from East LA all the way out to Whittier.

We are also on a bus rapid transit corridor, Rosemead, Lakewood Boulevard, also known as Highway 19, that goes from the mountains all the way down to the ocean. All of that converges within a 11/2 mile radius of each other.

So we want to be able to contribute to the housing situation here in the region and go far above and beyond our 1,200 RHNA allocation. We really want to get to a point, and frankly, we're having conversations now about whether or not we can actually contribute upwards of 10,000 units in our city.

Now, we can't do that if we don't have the transit to be able to obviously reduce the number of parking that would be typically associated with that amount of housing. So in Pico Rivera, in that. Sorry, in this segment of the low sand corridor from Union Station to Anaheim, it's incredibly congested. It's largely owned by bnsf.

There's a lot of different operators. We have Metrolink, we have Amtrak, we have the Amtrak Southwest Chief. We also have bnsf, Union Pacific and a number of others.

Interestingly, it's California High Speed Rail who is currently advancing a programmatic EIR and EIS in this corridor to eventually at some point accommodate for high speed rail to come into this corridor.

So California High Speed Rail is addressing one of the most significant bottlenecks in this segment, and that's in the City of Commerce where they are proposing to build a Commerce, what they're referring to as the Commerce Flyover, which will provide a viaduct up and over a bunch of different infrastructure in the area that's immediately adjacent to one of the most significant operational divisions for bnsf.

Their big fueling yard and maintenance facility building that Viaduct necessitates eliminating a station on this corridor. And they're exploring mitigating that by relocating that station to the City of Montebello, just shy of a mile east of that location. Interestingly, that existing station is one of the worst performing stations in the State of California.

With respect to ridership, California High Speed Rail is proposing to put it in an even worse location that will not contribute to ridership.

We have introduced, in partnership with Metro as well as with Metrolink and a number of others, an alternative to relocate that again to the heart of our dynamic, transit oriented downtown environment that we're planning in Pico Rivera.

I bring this only to your attention because as we have been discussing, there's resources that are required that are necessary and kind of getting back to this idea about creativity to be able to accommodate or to achieve some of these goals. We need funding.

We are very open to exploring Value Capture mechanisms that will help us capture more of those taxes, property taxes, as long as we can keep them here and help contribute to actually building the regional rail station in our city, that would then contribute to building higher, dense levels of density in our community.

I appreciate knowing all this and you did a really good job of explaining it in a very compelling way. Who is your Senator and your Assembly Member?

Well, you'd be very happy to hear that it's our very bold Senator Archuleta. Okay. We are working with them very, very closely on all these matters.

Okay, great. Well, I appreciate hearing that and I'll definitely make sure and put in a good word for what you're saying when I speak to Senator Archuleta.

Thank you very much. We really appreciate it.

Thank you. Thank you.

I also happen to be a conductor for Amtrak on the Pacific surf liners.

And as we're moving forward with all these plans for the Olympics, the World cup, all those things, just reminder all parties involved to reach out to us, the train crews, the bus operators, and ask us for our insights, because we can help a lot and we want this to be successful as well. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Anybody else in public comment? Okay. Well, thank you to all the individuals who participated and who came to watch or are watching online. You may submit additional comments or suggestions in writing to the Subcommitee. And I appreciate those who already have submitted comments.

They are important to us and we would like to include them in the official hearing records. We do appreciate your participation. So with that, we have concluded the agenda and the Subcommitee is now adjourned. Thank you.