Governing Board - Regular Meeting

Can we please stand for invocation?

You can bow your heads, please. Our dear and gracious and holy Father in heaven, we love you, Lord, and give you thanks for this beautiful day. Thank you for the gift of life. Thank you for the board meeting that we have today. I ask that you would bless all of our leaders here in the city and the county. Give them direction. Let them make the right decisions, Lord. And just thank you for their leadership. Thank you for having them work together as a team. And let it be your will and let everything come together when the timing is right. In Jesus' name, amen.

Will the birthday girl please lead us in Pledge of Allegiance?

Ready, salute.

I pledge allegiance to

May I have a roll call please?

Director Nielsen?

Here.

Director Reed? Here. Director Ford?

Here.

Director Amabile?

Here.

Director Serrato? Here. Director Pacheco?

Here.

Director Pedrozo?

Here.

Director McDaniel? Here. Director Pereira? Here. Director Silvera? Present. Chair Samra?

Present.

Thank you. We do have a quorum.

Item number two is approval of the agenda. Does anybody have any questions or entertain a motion for approval of the agenda?

So moved.

I have a motion. Do I have a second? All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed? Okay, thank you. Moving on to item number three, this is a public comment. Do we have any written comments come in? Okay, anybody from the audience wish to make a public statement at this time? Seeing nobody come forward, we'll move on to reports and presentations. At this time, where is Mr.? Come on in.

We are going to go there.

I got the mic for you.

He can make a speech if he wants.

Hello, everybody. I just wanted to, on the behalf of the entire board, I wanted to appreciate and thank our former chair, Silvera, for doing a great, great job. He put a big, big thing for me to carry on with, but I'm gonna try my best. And for that, you've always done a great job, and thank you very much. Perfect.

Pitcher. I'll wait until my board member comes.

Okay, going on to Caltrans report. I believe we have Caltrans here, who I'm gonna thank.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good to see everybody today.

A few announcements from California Department of Transportation. So the first one is, in the most recent CTC meeting, they approved over 150 new projects that will improve safety on the state highway system and strengthen infrastructure. TWO NOTABLE PROJECTS IN THE NORTH VALLEY. ONE IS FOR THE SAN JOAQUIN COG PROJECT, THEIR STATE ROUTE 99-120 CONNECTOR PROJECT. THEY GOT $20 MILLION TO SUPPORT PHASE 1B OF THAT PROJECT. AND THE OTHER ONE IS $2.7 MILLION IN SUPPORT COSTS FOR THE STATE ROUTE 152 VELOTA ROAD INTERSECTION PROJECT IN MERCED COUNTY. The funding will be used for planning and implementation of a roundabout intersection safety improvement project scheduled to begin construction in 2028. The project will improve traffic safety and reduce fatal collisions along State Route 33 and 152 connector near the City of Los Banos. Next announcement, Caltrans recently received approximately $1.4 million in grant funding from the California Office of Traffic Safety to help expand and improve traffic data collection that will improve safety on the highway system. Caltrans analyzes a wide variety of data sets, so this additional funding will help us continue moving closer to better safety on the roadway. Three funding opportunities. One is with the USDOT. They have a call for projects for their fiscal year 26 competitive buses and bus facility program. Eligible activities include capital projects to purchase, lease, or rehabilitate transit buses and related equipment, and acquire, construct, lease, or rehabilitate bus-related facilities. Currently $610 million available for that, and the deadline is September 21st. Two Caltrans grant opportunities. The first one is with the Local Highway Safety Improvement Program, also known as H-SIP. This is federal and state funded availability for roadway safety projects aiming to reduce traffic fatalities and serious injuries on California's public roads. Projects must adhere to specific safety issues and be supported by local road safety plans. There's $370 million available for that. Deadline is November 2nd. And then the third one is the Caltrans Sustainable Transportation Planning Grant Program. Last cycle, MCAG was awarded $275,000 for their Merced Rural Suburban Mobility Hub strategy. So we're happy to meet with any of the cities or the county to review their application. And if you guys are applying, please reach out to us and submit your draft application so we can review it and provide comments and feedback before the deadline, which is October 9th. AND ONE MERCED COUNTY ANNOUNCEMENT, SO RECENTLY TRASH AND ENCAMPMENT CLEANUP ON STATE ROUTE 99 AND CHILDS AVENUE WAS CONDUCTED BY CALTRANS WITH THE HELP OF CHP AND THE CITY OF MERCED. And then one reminder, I know sometimes you guys work through staff or through me for issues, but just to remind you, we do have the Caltrans customer service request portal that you guys or your constituents can use for any issues along the state highway, and that's csr.dot.ca.gov. And then the last thing is next week, the Caltrans director, L. Tawanzi, will be visiting District 6, which is our neighboring district to the south, on various things. And District 6 has invited our District 10 director, as well as Ms. Guzman, to have conversations with District 10. Ted Smalley with TCAG, as well as Patricia from Madera CTC to talk about 99 stuff. So we're happy that they included us in those conversations so that we can keep the 99 initiative moving forward. That concludes my report. Unfortunately, I won't be here again next month. I'll be on vacation with my wife, but District 10 will be in person to provide the Caltrans report and take anything back. So happy to answer any questions at this time.

It's not so much as a question. Caleb, on 152 eastbound, the sign that notifies people that Delta Road is coming up, it got knocked down. And I know I just reached out to our public works guy maybe yesterday. So if you could just follow up with it on your end. I think it's, those signs I would imagine are part of Caltrans system, right? Even though it's for a county road, but if there's a sign that's on On 152, it would be your guys' responsibility.

I'm not sure, but I'll look into it and we'll make sure that either us or the county gets that taken care of. It's on the eastbound side. Eastbound side.

That's all I had. Thank you.

Anybody else have any questions for Caltrans, Killam? Seeing no one, I just wanna thank you or Caltrans. The resurfacing of the ramps, it went very smooth. I know there was little issues with pub notification, but it looks great. And also a couple of meetings back, I mentioned some overgrown sunflower plants. You must have heard because the next day those plants were gone. So once again, thank you very much.

we have a lot of roadway and so we rely on you guys and your constituents to identify those things that need attention so we can take care of them all right thank you very much uh mr prayer yeah um so the stoplight at gear and and ca-165 and hillmar is up and working it's just a thank you you don't have to make a note but uh Although it was a seven year project. So if we could get that down to five, we'd be happy next time. Thank you.

All right, thank you. How come the mic is going off? Anyway, on to the information items. So we have information items, items 5A, one through eight. 5b one through two and five c one through two any questions from members or staff anybody wish to for discussion seeing no one come forward uh we'll move on to consent calendar all All consent calendars and items listed below will be acted by one vote unless they're specifically removed from a separate consideration by a member of the board, member of the staff, or a member of the public. We have the items 6A1 through 2, 6B1, and 6C1 and 2. Does any staff member have any questions or wish to vote? Anybody from the public wish to pull that in for discussion? Seeing no one come forward, I'll entertain a motion at this time. I have a motion, do I have a second?

Second.

I have a second, all in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed? Item seven, this is action item 7A, Stacy.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This item is a request for the board to adopt by resolution the Measure V Corrective Action Plan for the city of Dos Palos by way of just providing a brief summary that we were notified earlier this year that this. Hold on a second. We were notified by the City of Dos Palos earlier this year that there was an expenditure of Measure V local funds on ineligible non-transportation uses within the City of Dos Palos, which represented a breach of the Measure V funding agreement. and violated the terms of the measure program that the voters approved in 2016 so as the local transportation authority mcag responded by preparing the corrective action plan for the city of dust palace several conversations and discussions with the city occurred prior to the development of this plan and it is really intended to be the guiding document to kind of have the terms and mutual understanding of what is necessary in order for the city of Dos Palos to come back into compliance with the Measure V program in relation to their local funding agreements with MCAG. So the process is to request that the board adopt the attached resolution 2026 8 2002 and that would approve the corrective action plan and direct staff to submit the plan to the city of dos palos on in the staff report on page 98 of the agenda table 5 is is copied out directly out of the plan and it sets a timetable with the key the key elements that are being requested from the city And that starts that within 60 days of submission, which would be within two business days of me, of the board taking action on this document, so my intention would be to get that out tomorrow, that there would be, that the agency would be provided a copy of the investigative audit that had been done last year. There'd be a financial reconciliation of their measure documents and records. And then there is language about local, INTERNAL CONTROLS TO HAVE IN PLACE TO PREVENT THIS FROM HAPPENING AGAIN AT THE CITY AND THEN TO WITHIN 180 DAYS HAVE SOME TYPE OF A REPAYMENT PLAN NOT REPAYMENT OF THE TOTAL BUT SOME KIND OF TO THIS DATE WE DON'T HAVE ANYTHING THAT SAYS HERE'S KIND OF WHAT THE PLAN IS AND I KNOW THE CITY'S BEEN KIND OF WORKING THROUGH THAT BUT WITHIN 180 DAYS TO GIVE THE mcg board some indication of kind of what the strategies that they'll have at their disposal to be able to work towards re-compliance the plan also outlines quarterly reporting it also includes in the appendices and as attachments all of the forms and documents that the city would need to be able to comply with these there's an additional form to go with your regular already that everyone has to do on a quarterly basis expenditure reporting just to do a little extra oversight to make sure that the terms that that we're establishing are being followed and there's appropriate oversight i think that's it i'm happy to go into more detail if required if if desired but the request is that this board approve the resolution and which then will direct staff to finalize the document and distribute it or submit it to the city of dust palace within two business days of today's action thank you more any discussion

Mr. Pedroza.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Stacey, can you remind me or explain the 180 days and why not 120 to come up with a plan?

so the um that thank you because as soon as i unmuted or muted myself i realized i should have pointed something out um when when i had presented this plan in draft form to the board previously the submission dates were half of what they are And in discussion with council, it was recommended that in light of the difficulty of the situation that the city is facing and with a corrective action plan that will outline compliance for them, giving them some additional time could be beneficial. I don't want to put words in council's mouth, but she already said it was her. So she told me to double the time.

i suggested that because this you know responding to this corrective action plan will require the city to consult with to take items back to the city council given the times you know the deadlines for submission of agenda items and staff reports i felt it was prudent to give them additional time so that they could approve this at each step so yes that was my recommendation i will say that the response we received from them initially the first response will dictate how we will largely dictate how we proceed with this going forward so explain that what do you so like if their response so this can change without our action no i we would come back to the at this point We are approving the corrective action plan in open session. But additional discussions on this could end up in closed session. How they react to the corrective action plan may dictate our next steps, will dictate our next steps. There are deadlines, legal deadlines, that would have to be met and considered in order for us to move forward. For example, there is a one-year statute of limitations on filing a claim against a public entity for breach of contract. That's often different when it's a public entity against another public entity. But we need to be mindful of that moving forward. There are quite a few considerations to make here.

Thank you.

anybody else on the board i think and i agree with extending the deadlines it's ultimately i think uh it's been this board's intention is to work with the city of das palace and and give them a path forward i think if the original timelines that we talked about we probably were setting them up for failure to meet some of those

those deadlines and so trying to be respectful that there's a lot of stuff going on in the city dust house and I know that they're currently working through that we want to give them every opportunity to be successful anybody else on the board yeah no and I'm okay with that I was just trying to remember what our original discussion was and I and I get it and I want to work with them for them to be successful I just wanted to get some clarification so thank you

Anybody else on the board? If not, I will go to the public. Anybody in the public wish to make a comment on this item? Do we have any written statements or? Okay, if not, then item's now closed to the public. Board, any further discussion? I have a motion by Chair Silverado, no, it's Chair. Director Severo, do I have a second? Second by Director Pedrozo. May I have a roll vote, please?

Director Nelson?

That's the reason I called for a roll vote.

Director Reed?

Hold on a second, hold on. That's the reason I called for a roll vote. Okay, that's fine.

Director Reed, it's within your discretion to decide whether you would like to vote on this item or not. If you would like to, okay, thank you.

Go ahead and roll vote please.

We'll go again. Director Nielsen.

Yes.

Director Reed.

Yes.

Director Ford.

Yes.

Director Amabille.

Yes.

Director Serrato. Director Pacheco.

Yes.

Director Pedroza.

Yes.

Director McDaniel.

Aye.

Director Pereira.

Aye. Vote aye.

Director Silvera. And Chair Samra?

Yes. Thank you, item passed. The item...

8a uh this is the i'm sorry i'm gonna do that one too okay uh item eight uh stacy thank you i'm glad you didn't uh read it all out because i'm gonna do it again and it's a lot so this is uh i'm going to be elizabeth's at the ctc meeting uh today so i am taking this item it is just an update to notify of a change in our timeline so as you know we are wrapping up our rtp scs season that's our regional transportation plan sustainable community strategy the public review period for our documents and that and when i say our documents it's our rtp scs it's our draft environmental impact report it's our draft 2027 federal transportation improvement program called the f-tip and the draft air quality conformity analysis. So we released those all at different times based on the public review period requirements so that they would all conclude on the same date, which was on July 31st, 2026. at that time when we developed our our schedule it was intended that the adoption of these final documents would be before the board at today's meeting but we have pushed that action out to september due to situation outside of our control but related to a delay in the federal action that is necessary to occur prior to board's adoption so it um we pushed it back so it'll be on the september agenda but because our public documents initially had indicated that adoption would be today we wanted to make sure the public knew that they that adoption will actually be before the board in september and i'm happy to answer any questions if there are any board any questions

If not, then we'll close this item and move on to item nine. This is an action item. 9A1. We're gonna do both. And two, Navneet.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Navneet Mattu with TJPA. TJPA is seeking approval from the board to enter into a contract with Pinnacle Petroleum for delivery of bulk fuel, lubricants, and DEF at the operations and maintenance facility to operate the transit vehicles. We released an IFB back in June and we received three bids back and Pinnacle was determined to be the lowest and most responsive of them all. THIS IS A THREE-YEAR CONTRACT WITH FOUR OPTION YEARS. FUNDING FOR THIS CONTRACT WILL BE INCLUDED IN THE FISCAL YEAR 26-27 BUDGET FOR 2.8 MILLION WITH 5307, 5311, AND LTF FUNDS. AND STAFF WILL BE MONITORING FUEL PRICES ANNUALLY AND ADJUSTING THE BUDGET AS IT REFLECTS THE MARKET CHANGES. We also had another item on this staff report for the fuel card program for the last panels feeling. Unfortunately, you were we had some issues with that one. We had ongoing negotiations and conflicts. And so we will be bringing that back next month to the board for approval. And I'll be happy to answer any questions if you guys have any.

I just want to clarify because I think I misspoke when I when I let the chair know that we would be taking 9 a one and 2. We're only take we're only asking for action on 9 a one. And 2 will be at a later date. So just that was my mistake so just an amendment there that the action requested is have need already eloquently did that my brain is just keep catching up. 9 a is that one.

911 to go with the contract with Pinnacle Petroleum. Yes. For the bulk fuel, lubricants, and DEF.

Perfect.

Thank you. Mr. Pereira?

Thank you. How was the how was the the bid? I mean I see the the dollar amount, but what what's the are we paying so much over? We do go is price or house. How's it figured?

Yes, so we go with the OP is pricing from Stockton and the bidding comes up as the markup price on top of the OP is so the contact whoever bidded they bid it on the markup cost and

So the $2.021,927 bid from Pinnacle is $2 million over our cost?

Yes, that's for seven years, that's all. So that's for the total contract amount.

Oh, including the four-year options? Yes. The four one-year options?

Yep. Okay. The OPI is not included in that, and we budgeted 2.8, including the OPI for the first year.

2.8? 2.8.

Okay.

Thank you. Same question I had.

I was trying to figure that out. Anybody else from the board have any questions? Oh, yeah.

Give up that bid.

If not, to open this up. Move to approve. Second.

I need to, I need to. Public comment. Yeah. Public comment. Yeah.

We're after public comment.

Okay. This item is now open to the public. Anybody wish to make a comment? Do we have any comment, no? Okay, items now close to public.

Move to approve. I have motion.

We have a motion and a second. All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed? Thank you. Item number 10, this is the.

For clarification, do we need to, the other item we didn't consider, do we need to move to table that one until the next meeting or?

No. No, no motion to table is necessary. It will just come back at a later date.

Thank you. Okay. Item 10A, this is the transit service planning priorities. Serenity, you're already up there.

I'm going to just do a little kickoff. Just kind of teeing this up. This is going to be a broader discussion It'd be nice to me. It's my birthday.

Come on, it's her birthday. Let her talk all she wants. Let her put the staff to the side.

I'm technically on the agenda for this item. It is my birthday. Serenity's going to do a great job in laying out some pretty technical stuff, but I just wanted to set the stage because this is like... dipping our toe in the water of a broader topic that we are going to spend some time on starting with today high level but we will spend a lot of time this is one of the key three issues that will be discussed at the board retreat in october and it's something that's going to help guide hopefully board discussions moving forward and the simplest way i can explain what we're wanting to build a foundation of understanding around is how a system cannot efficiently be designed to both pick the resident up that's at the edge of your service area way kind of out there that may be transit dependent but is just kind of out in a low population area and then also have full buses And we can't fill buses and then also expect to cover all the rural parts of our county. For a transit system to operate really efficiently, you're either designing for the ridership to fill your bus, or you're designing it to reach as many people who need it. and often I don't know that any system is designed expressly just one or the other but there's a there's somewhere in the middle and why we think it's important is because as Serenity will walk through we'll see how decisions of this board will can affect that and we need as a board to have a better we need or are asking the board to develop vision or a strategy with with kind of what the fundamental goals are going to be so that as we start talking about service decisions we know is it about reaching as many people or is it about getting as many people on the bus and making the system as efficient as possible and that's really difficult because you know I know you all get a call get calls that might say hey like the bus used to come and pick me up I live out pick rural pick a rural area and they don't do it anymore and so we have those conversations and and when we say oh well let's just go pick up that person the buses are inherently not going to be able to fill with ridership if you're not making it efficient for the people who are in kind of the high corridor areas and then the reverse is WHEN WE GET A LOT OF COMMENTS ABOUT BUSES BEING EMPTY, IT'S OFTEN BECAUSE WE'RE RUNNING SERVICES THAT ARE DESIGNED TO PICK UP AS MANY PEOPLE IN REMOTE AREAS. SO YOU MAY ONLY HAVE EIGHT OR NINE RIDERS, ONE PASSENGER PER VEHICLE HOUR OR WHATEVER, BUT WE'RE COVERING A LOT OF THE COUNTY. So philosophically, they're kind of two different values to build a system around, and we want to just start talking about that. So I know that wasn't brief, but that's what it is. There's a really good book. If anyone wants to know, it's called Human Transit. I'll buy you a copy if you want to read it. But Serenity is going to give you kind of a foundation to start, and then we'll talk more about it in October. I'm muting myself. I'm done.

So like Stacey said, this is going to be a lot. So I hope you're all buckled up. And please feel free to jump in or hold questions to the end, whichever. But we're going to be covering a lot of things. And I'll try and do it as efficiently as possible as we're trying to do the same with our routes. So Mary Michael, if you could. So good, fast, and cheap, pick two. I think a lot of people know this saying. We're kind of going with the same idea. You can't have all three realistically. So next slide. And what we're talking about is ridership coverage and retaining our current service hours or even looking at a reduction in service hours. Again, like Stacy said, ridership and coverage are two competing values. It's not necessarily about picking one or the other, but picking the priorities. So when we talk about that, again, coverage means we reach more neighborhoods, more outlying communities. We provide essential accesses for those that need it. Very common in our more rural areas, but it is a higher cost per that individual passenger. When we're looking at ridership, we're talking about more frequent service, direct shorter routes, increased ridership, and then also a lower cost per passenger due to that increased ridership. Next slide. So again, it's a dial, not a switch. We need to kind of pick where we're going to fall. Again, we need to pick a priority. Is it going to be the coverage or is it going to be ridership? Coverage, again, we reach more places less often. Ridership, we concentrate our service to pick the highest rider corridors. Next slide. So again, the question really is, is our system useful, right? So if you have a bus that's coming on a 60 minute frequency, you miss the bus, you have to wait, you're pretty much planning your entire day around the bus. If a bus is coming every 15 minutes, then you just walk out to the stop and the bus is going to be there in a few minutes, right? It's a lot more easy to live without a car. Okay, next slide. So when we're looking at our current service, and for this I'm mainly gonna focus on Merced. It's where the bulk of our services are. We will talk about our commuters and outlying communities later, but again, that's where kind of our two competing priorities, and we need to find that balance. What we're doing in our urban areas is not necessarily what we're gonna be doing in our outlying communities. They're gonna be a little bit different. But again, Merced, we have eight routes that service the city of Merced, about 15 buses daily. So that's what we're looking at here. And so again, our routes are spread broadly throughout the service area. They're a little bit too broad to be super useful for people, to be perfectly honest. And our ridership is constrained by this. However, we do have those better first mile, last mile connections. People don't have to walk, bike, skateboard, scoot, whatever. as far to get to the bus. So you can kind of see this on our current route map where we go into all the nooks and crannies there of all of our neighborhoods. So in the next slide, we'll look at a vision. This is just a demo. This is not anything set in stone, but this is utilizing our current routes, the same service area, but you can see that we increased, you see the red lines on the map, those are our high corridor routes. So those routes would be coming every 15 minutes. where right now our best route is coming about every half an hour. So this would, again, higher frequency on those main corridors. It creates faster movement throughout the system, even though people might be transferring. We might have one route that turns into three routes in this scenario. But we might have longer first-mile, last-mile connections for some. So that person that used to be able to walk out to the end of the block might now have to walk four blocks to get to the bus, but that bus is coming much more frequently. Next slide. So we're going to look at a few maps with some of this comparison. You'll see a little icon. Her name is Jane. And the dark blue shows the travel times and the population that we're able to get to in 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 45 minutes, and 60 minutes. You can see it's still there on the travel times. So on the left is our current services. And you can see that if... Jane there is at Transpo downtown. In 15 minutes, she can reach just shy of 5,000 residents. In 30 minutes, she'll reach 30,000. 45 minutes, she'll reach, oh, perfect. Thank you. Maybe not. Nope.

Sorry, technical difficulties. I don't know.

Oh, there it is. OK. So yeah. So again, these are the numbers that we're looking at. And again, so then if we go to a high frequency system, Jane, again, is at transpo. And we're reaching twice as many people in 15 minutes. 30,000 to 52,000 in 30 minutes, and 67 to 72,000 in 45 minutes. And then again, 100 people in 60 minutes, but those are the less frequent writers that are using it to go those 60 minutes. Next slide. Same theory if Jane is down in South Merced. Again, on the left is our current services. I have power. Again, you can see the increase 7,700 to 10,000, 11,000 to 29,000, 19,000 to 57,000, almost 58,000 there. We're really able to reach a lot more people in a lot quicker time. But again, especially looking at South Merced, this is where with this vision of a map, we see the biggest changes. Right now, we have the M1 that runs into all the little nooks and crannies of the south side. This vision does a high-frequency 15-minute route, and then it also incorporates a microtransit on top of that. That microtransit would go into all those nooks and crannies and If you're trying to travel, say you're at HSA and you're trying to get to North Merced, the microtransit is probably going to connect you to the high-frequency route, and then that would connect you to transport where you would connect to another route to go to North Merced. So it would be a few more transfers for people. where they're currently taking one bus and they're on that same bus for an hour right now, they might be transferring a bus two or three times, but they're only on the bus for 45 minutes. And it'll be on us, again, to educate the public and do this as we move into things like this. Next slide, please. OK. And so again, we just wanted to go North Merced. She's up at Merced College now. And you can see, again, from about 2,700 to 4,100 in 15 minutes, 11,000 to 24,000 in 30 minutes, 38,000 to 54,000 in 45 minutes. So it really, no matter where she is in the city, it really just opens up the options and makes transit more usable for her. ANY QUESTIONS SO FAR WE'VE COVERED A LOT OKAY NEXT SLIDE SO THIS IS JUST A QUICK BREAKDOWN LOOKING AT THAT KIND OF PULLING THOSE NUMBERS SO IF YOU'RE AT TRANSPO DOWNTOWN IN 30 MINUTES WE'RE ABLE TO REACH 74 MORE PEOPLE IN 45 MINUTES 7 IF YOU'RE DOWN THERE IN SOUTH MERCED YOU HAVE THE BIGGEST JUMP OF ACCESS AGAIN, EVEN THOUGH IT LOOKS LIKE YOU HAVE THE LEAST AMOUNT OF ROUTES AVAILABLE AND THAT ROUTE REALLY SHORTENS, IT OPENS UP THE POSSIBILITIES EXPONENTIALLY. SO 154% IN 30 MINUTES AND 195% IN 45 MINUTES. AND THEN AGAIN, NORTH MERCED MERCED OR Merced College was 115% or 41% in the 45, that should be 45 minute window. So again, no matter where you are, it really just opens things up. Next slide. So this is an example of the M1. So this is our current M1 route that tries to do all of the things, right? You get on this bus, and you can be on it for a half an hour before you get back to where you start, or an hour and a half before you get back to where you began. Very, very long route, tries to do everything all at once. And so again, looking on the proposed or the demo here to the right, it is three separate routes, right? We have the M1 here, but here it's broken into three separate routes. And showing Jane down there at, I think she's at Golden Valley right there or close to it. So in 15 minutes, we do lose a few people, but this is also without the microtransit zone overlaid. So with that microtransit, we actually increased, but I wanted to show it just again, breaking up those routes into quicker times and how that can improve the services. But so at the 30 minute mark is where we really start to see the increases from 9,000 to 14,000 people reached. And in 45 minutes, 15,000 to 32,000 reached. So next slide. So this is One of our commuters, the Turlock, as you guys are aware, we have recently lost just shy of half a million dollars in funding for the Turlock commuter due to some UZA changes with Stanislaus County and between Stanislaus and Merced counties and them not funding any piece of the Turlock route anymore. So we started to take a really hard look at it and see how we could make the T route more efficient. And this is kind of what we'd be doing and looking at with

all of our commuters if we kind of you know move to a more efficient service could I ask just a quick question because I don't want to forget about it later so I talked to supervisor Chiesa today and asked him why they stopped the funding and so what who's funding because he said he doesn't think Stanislaus County the county stopped the funding so who where'd it come from

It's federal funding that's allocated to a UZA, which is... Urbanized zoning area?

Was that you?

Did you mute me? Okay. It's federal funding that is allocated to urbanized zones. Well, so...

Which agency stopped it?

It was the census track changes. It was the breakup of the UZA after the census. So the UZA used to spread over Merced and Stanislaus counties. So we had an agreement with StanCog that they would send us some of their money because we were also serving part of their UZA. so so that's going to clean it up but it wasn't stan coxane we're not going to be the money anymore it was at the u c a change the service areas change that we no longer were sharing that funding though it's it's fifty zero seven money that's bank of allocates the city of turlock and so we provide eleven point four seven percent ballpark

TO THE TURLOCK STANDS LOSS AREA SO WE GET 11.47% OF THAT FUNDING TO OUR SERVICE SINCE THE UZA CHANGED SINCE DELHAID NO LONGER FALLS IN THE UZA OF TURLOCK SO WE LOSE THAT FUNDING IT WASN'T STANDS LOSS DIDN'T SAY WE'RE NOT GIVING THE FUNDING IT JUST THE WAY THE UZA WAS IN THE SENSE IS WE LOST THE FUNDING BECAUSE DELHAID NO LONGER FALLS IN TURLOCK'S UZA SO I DON'T KNOW IF THAT'S

And then and then I would say that we should go back and connect with either the city of Turlock Stan cog or the county of Stanislaus and we are taking our people to spend tax dollars in their County So if they want to subsidize that we should have that discussion That'd just be my suggestion

And, Director Perra, we have had conversations with Stan RTA and Turlock about providing service into the pockets of Delhi instead of us providing it. And they're just like, well, you know, funding, we got funding cuts as well. So we're going to try to figure out a way where we could have another happy medium. And I will say, WE ARE APPLYING FOR 5311 FUNDS, UP TO $300,000 WHICH WHEN SERENITY TALKS ABOUT THE SERVICE MODIFICATIONS WE DO, THE SAVINGS, PLUS THE $300,000 WE'LL COVER FOR THAT LOSS OF FUNDING THAT WE HAVE. And we could thank Director Serrato for some of the modifications. For the redesign here.

Yeah. So again, on our commuters and the routes that run outside of Merced, it's going to be more about making some smaller changes that, again, just increase efficiencies. So in the T route, we looked at our ridership per stop and where we could just shave off a tiny bit of time here and there. So we found in Livingston, if we don't go down B Street, we're able to shave off, honestly, it's about two to three minutes. It's not very much, but it all adds up when you're doing that 15 round trips a day. Then in Delhi, we went for a streamlined, again, we looked at the ridership. Over here on the east side of 99, we had very, very single digit ridership for the past couple years. Then on the west side, this little loop right in here, again, pretty low ridership in here. Our highest stop was at Delhi High School, and they're able to walk over to a stop that's right in here. It's a little bit over a quarter of a mile walk for them. AND THEN WE LOOKED AT TURLOCK AND AGAIN DECIDED THAT IT WOULD BE THE MOST EFFICIENT AND THE BEST USE OF THE FUNDS THAT WE HAVE TO GO DIRECTLY TO TURLOCK TRANSPO AND NOT CONTINUE THE WHOLE LOOP AROUND TOWN. huge amount of time but overall it saves about 18 to 20 minutes per trip so again when you're doing that 15 times a day it really does add up you know 15 times a day 254 times a year it adds up so with this we are able to streamline the t-route we would go from 15 trips on weekdays to 13 trips on weekdays I lost, there we are. So again, from 15 trips currently to 13 trips is what we'd be looking at with these changes. We go from a 60 minute frequency to a 70 minute. Again, it's not our goal to increase our frequencies on any of them, but we looked at this and decided it was probably the best because what it does, it allows us to remove an entire bus from the T route that's operating all day, every day. SO WHAT WE CURRENTLY DO WITH THREE BUSES AT PEAK SERVICE, WE'RE ABLE TO DO TWO LESS TRIPS WITH JUST TWO BUSES AT PEAK SERVICE. AND SO AGAIN, IT GOES FROM 11,426 ANNUAL SERVICE HOURS TO 8,547. SO WE'RE ABOUT TO SAVE ABOUT 3,000 SERVICE HOURS. DIRECTOR PERERA, DID YOU HAVE A QUESTION? OH, THANK YOU. OKAY. AND AGAIN, OUR ANNUAL COST GOES FROM A LITTLE OVER A MILLION TO 769,000. SO IF YOU'RE LOOKING AT THIS BY A COST PER PASSENGER, USING 2025 NUMBERS, I WILL SAY OUR T-ROUTE RIDERSHIP HAS INCREASED IN 2026 SO FAR, BUT I WANTED TO USE FULL-YEAR NUMBERS. SO I THINK THE DIFFERENCE WOULD STILL BE THERE. Again, it's a little bit lower than the 24 25 24 24 that we see but we would using 2025 numbers we would look at 24 24 per passenger versus 17 and 92 per passenger using those same numbers the average um cost per passenger for a rural transit service is somewhere around the 10 to 19 dollars an hour so next slide please so to end again is our goal to provide a transit service that is available to more people or that is useful to more people those are the questions that we need to ask ourselves and make some decisions around sometimes tough decisions but Any questions? Mr. Pedroza? I'm sure you are.

Thank you. Can you go back one slide, please? So when you say, I might have missed it. How did you get the $17.92 per passenger?

We had about, it was just over 42,000 annual passengers. So you divide the cost, the $1 million or the $7.69 by 42,592 passengers. I can get you the exact ridership for the year.

So that doesn't. So the cost is the $769,000? Yeah. So the per passenger is $17.92. What is that per service hour?

We're looking at our service hour cost with our contractor this year is approximately $89 an hour. Okay. Yeah.

Okay. So there's, and you said 41, how many passengers?

A little over 42,000 in 2025.

Is there any way to, and this is just by thinking out loud, to think about how many people, is it just like one out of that number, are there repeat users? Oh, absolutely.

Yeah, and it would be difficult to get how many individuals we're talking about. Again, I know looking at the services and the stops that we're looking to eliminate on the T route, the biggest impacts, I think, the biggest ridership impacts is going to be to Turlock itself. We have a lot of riders that get off at Monta Vista, some present company included, and a lot that get off at Stanislaus State. We want to make sure that we are going to be communicating to those passengers and letting them know that Turlock Transit is really what they should be going to. We'll drop them off at Turlock where they can make those connections. For the Stanislaus State guys, they do ride Turlock Transit for free, so they just have to show their ID. It won't be any more of a financial burden to them. They'll just have to plan those connections.

Okay, thank you.

If I could, I just want to add that specifically the changes to the T route cuts the impact of the lost funding in half. So we lost about a half a million in change. So it helps us recover. We're not recovering it, but it helps us kind of adjust to that funding loss by reducing it to about half of what it was.

And again, as Nav said, we're going after additional grants to fill that the remainder of that gap. Anybody else said transport a turlock transfer was going to be I think we went from 144 minutes to 123 minutes, you know, yeah, one way from transfer to transfer. YEAH, IT WAS APPROXIMATELY 70 MINUTES, A LITTLE JUST UNDER OVER, YEAH, JUST OVER AN HOUR.

YEAH. YEAH, BECAUSE RIGHT NOW IF YOU LEAVE MERCED AT 6.30, YOU'RE GETTING TO TURLOCK, MONTAVISTA AT 7.30. WE GOT THE TIMES RIGHT HERE.

SO IF WE'RE LEAVING TRANSPO AT 6.40, WE'D BE GETTING UP TO TURLOCK AT 7.43. OKAY.

Under the new?

Yes, yeah, in the new, right here. So we're leaving our transpo at 640, getting up to the Turlock transpo at 743, where right now, again, it is a 630 departure. That's where that, we went from 60 minutes to 70-minute frequencies. So it's a 630, and we get to Turlock transpo at 750 currently. We're saving 20 minutes. Yeah. You got 20 minutes back to your line.

NO, I'M A LITTLE CONFUSED.

WE'RE GOING FROM A 630 PICKUP TO A 640 PICKUP FOR THE ONE THAT DIRECTOR CIROTTO IS LOOKING AT, RIGHT? Yeah, so 6.30 to 7.50 at Turlock Transpo currently, and we'd be going from 6.40 to 7.43 in the new proposed.

I just don't, as a, because currently you go 6.30 from Merced Transpo and it gets to Monta Vista near the Safeway in Turlock at 7.30, so that's an hour.

It's like right in here is where the Monta Vista stop is, yeah.

But then Turlock Transpo is closer, but it's still taking, and we're streamlining it, and it's still going to take about an hour to get to Turlock Transpo. Seems like it'd be a little.

We're not going around the block there. We're just going to we'd be going directly down Folk Earth.

So yeah, it seems like it'd be more. It seems like it'd be a little fat, maybe a few minutes faster.

I mean, again, this system does use, you know, it plays it safe to say that. But, you know, before we do roll this out, we were running it in buses multiple times at different traffic times and speeds to tweak.

The laws of physics all of the other things would say that if we're traveling a shorter route with fewer stops It's going to be faster Yeah, I think what I think what you see is when it translate what we put on paper is we don't want people to show up late We'd rather them show up

Yeah.

Early, I guess. I guess that doesn't make sense either. The maps are just very generous in the time for.

We have to, again, because to do these calculations.

You're going shorter, more direct.

Yes. It'll be faster.

Yeah. You said three minutes slower. It should be.

I think the estimate's about 20 minutes. Yes. Yeah. 18 to 20 minutes quicker.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

JUST FOR MY OPINION, THIS IS A WIN IN EVERY WAY. IT'S A BETTER SERVICE. IT'S FASTER. IT SAVES 200 PLUS THOUSAND DOLLARS. YEAH. IT'S A WIN IN EVERY WAY.

YEAH. IT'S JUST LITTLE TWEAKS TO REALLY HOPEFULLY MAKE THE SYSTEM AND THE ROUTE MORE USABLE FOR THOSE THAT ARE USING IT.

ANYBODY ELSE HAVE ANY QUESTIONS?

Just on that too, you have links at Turlock Transport to get.

Yes, there are multiple. They have seven routes in total. Three of those go up to Stanislaus State, Monta Vista area that we won't be servicing any longer.

I think a link to get to the Merced or the old routes along Monta Vista linking up with the TAN in San Jose County would be, it serves that whole area so you're in good shape.

Anybody else? I have a question. Do we have any numbers how many people actually GET OFF AND GET ON AT MONTAVISTA?

MONTAVISTA, JUST OFF THE TOP OF MY HEAD, I WANT TO SAY, NEVNEET MIGHT HAVE BETTER NUMBERS FOR ME. SHE WAS LOOKING AT IT EARLIER. I WANT TO SAY MONTAVISTA WAS SOMEWHERE AROUND THE 2000 ANNUALLY. MONTAVISTA, OUR HIGHEST STOP CURRENTLY IN TURLOCK IS THE TURLOCK TRANSPO. SECOND IS STAN STATE. THEY'RE I THINK JUST SHY OF 3,000 ANNUALLY. AND THEN MONTAVISTA IS THE THIRD MOST POPULOUS. AND AGAIN, I WANT TO SAY IT WAS JUST OVER 2,000 PASSENGERS. BUT I CAN GET YOU THE EXACT NUMBERS AS WELL. AND RANCHO IN LIVINGSTON?

YOU HAVE NUMBERS OVER THERE?

In Livingston the stop that we're eliminating.

I think it was 126 people annually One person every other day we eliminate Monte Vista as you're saying Do you anticipate that people say you know what? I? Come in here for shopping whatever And now I'm not gonna be able to I have to go there have to come back. It's more inconvenient How do you anticipate that to be an impact? I?

I think that, yes, we may lose some riders that might say, ugh, I don't want to have to transfer buses and take Turlock Transit. And again, yeah, it's more of a burden or inconvenience, however you want to look at it. So we might lose a few people with that mindset. But I think on the flip side of that, I think we'll gain people that are saying, oh, the Turlock commuter is now more reliable. To get to Turlock quickly efficiently and I think in that will gain some plus, you know gain those guys plus back Yeah, kind of Okay board any other questions?

Yeah You know and and hopefully the people that aren't going to Turlock to shop will come to You know Mike's kind of alternate still ride the Turlock commuter the other direction. Yeah, that's what he was thinking. I

But I am going to ask for a certain percentage of my sales tax I drop on Atwater all the time. I should get some sort of a rebate.

You've seen me all, yeah.

So I should ask for a rebate, you know.

And his daughter. Huh? You and your daughter. Yeah.

We try to go to Atwater or Merced any time we can, you know. Keep it in the county.

Well, I did see him at Walmart in Toronto one time.

But that means you were there too.

SO YEAH, I THINK WE WANT A LITTLE BIT OF INPUT OF IS THIS THE DIRECTION THAT WE SHOULD CONTINUE LOOKING AS WE MOVE FORWARD. AGAIN, WE WILL DISCUSS THIS, SOME OF THESE IDEAS IN OCTOBER AND MAYBE HAVE A LITTLE BIT MORE SOLID CONVERSATION THEN. BUT THIS IS A TRYING TO GET THE JUICES FLOWING ON THESE IDEAS. AND AGAIN, IF WE THINK THAT THESE ARE THE RIGHT DIRECTIONS TO BE GOING OR IF WE SHOULD PIVOT and start looking at broader coverage.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Serenity, so then, I mean, it focused mostly just on the east side routes. If we're gonna take this approach, then we're gonna look at these same types of things on the west side routes?

The west side's a little bit different. Like, we would look at the Los Banos commuter and these same kind of lights. Again, we're not going to vastly chop at it. With any of our commuters, we're never going to have a 15-minute frequency, right? That's just unrealistic. But how could we make it a little bit more streamlined to better serve those that are using it? And then we will continue to watch the microtransit on the west side. And if it gets to the point where it seems like it might be able to sustain some fixed routes. And again, we would look at kind of more of those direct high traffic corridor fixed routes. Right now, our ridership for the west side microtransit is approximately, I want to say, 5.4 passengers per hour, which for a fixed route, you really want to say somewhere around like six to eight passengers per hour. So we'd be watching that and implementing the same strategy ideas as we change services.

If you go back a couple of slides where you had, keep going before the maps. little more right there is there any significance as to why you put merced right there is that where you think we're at i think that's closer to where we're at right now and that's what we again that's what we kind of need to decide where do we want to fall on the spectrum listen it's frustrating when you see empty buses right and we all understand the costs that that are associated with having that bus on the road and so i you know Yeah, I'd like to see us get that a little bit more toward the middle.

And I think we can, and I think it can be a really good thing for our communities. I think it will be a burden on us, transit, to again educate the communities as we do make some of these changes and really highlight that yes, you might have to walk you know, another two, three, four blocks to get to that bus stop that you used to be able to catch right down the street. But again, it's going to be a better service when you get there. You'll be able to get there quicker. And for more people, that will be the case.

So if you're truly transit dependent and you've got to get somewhere, you're going to you're going to adapt, right? And, you know, and I think about like maybe some of our disabled folks and whatever. Well, we have all other services that are going to help them. So to me, looking at it and trying to dial that into a more in the center is where I'd like to see us go, is finding that happy medium, understanding that you can't have everything.

Well, I will say, looking at this kind of just the demo, again, this is just something that we've been working on. It's not set in stone at all. But it is a little bit more of a happy median. We've done some mock-ups that are really just focused on these high-frequency corridors. We could eliminate many of our routes and run a much cheaper service, to be honest, but it wouldn't have some of these outlying connections that people do rely on. So this is kind of a happy median of that without going too far the other way.

Thank you.

And I did just want to kind of last comment is that part of why we wanted to have this as a series of conversations is that we want it to be kind of a policy level discussion or a vision of the board because when we do make changes, and we come to the board for route changes or whatever we have in the future, that there's just a fundamental kind of agreement or understanding as to what our goal is as a transit agency, because these are ultimately going to impact the lives of residents in the community that you all are close to. And to help you kind of have an understanding to where when you get the questions of, hey, the bus doesn't come to my street anymore. You know, you have that built knowledge where you can say, you know, we've been working on this and it's going to be better service. And you have kind of those bullet points in that fundamental understanding. And I appreciate Serenity and Nav and Madi and Navneet and the team who've really been um wanting to take kind of a high level view of our system take a look at it at a high level and and and start having policy level discussions about what the goals of the transit agency have been i know in the 13 years that i've been here 12 years 13 to 12 years i don't know um we haven't had this kind of a conversation. And I think our service is a little, it's trying to do everything, kind of like the M1. It's trying to do everything. And I think we, Serenity's made a really strong case that we can do a lot of things better with tweaks here and there.

Mr. Pereira?

Thank You chair as one of the board members that over time has kind of said I hate seeing empty buses right I want to thank you and your team for really pressing in what what when I think of transit right there's two types of people there's the types that are getting somewhere they got to be somewhere at a time right and so you know like shaving time off of the commuter route I mean that I think people are gonna appreciate that all day long There's other people that want to go to the store It doesn't matter to them whether they go really at 11 or they go at 10 or whatever So, you know just kind of something to keep in mind is can we make some routes super efficient and run those? You know, whatever six to nine or whatever and and you know four to seven or whatever to get people commuters going that kind of thing the head the people that write it every day right and then have some filler routes that get people to where they could go shopping right or you know when it's not really time sensitive and so

So and that's a very good point. And that's one thing that we've been looking at with some of especially some of our commuters and those that are used more as a commuter. The T route, to be honest, has pretty steady ridership throughout the day. I think initially we had thought there was more of a fluctuation of those true commuter hours, but there's quite a few people that, yeah, either it's students that are going to class in the middle of the day or people that are going to shop. But a few of our other commuters looking at the Planada and a few, again, we know that those are outlying communities where people are really heavily using it to get to work. So in those, we are going to be looking at, again, should we be running a little bit different services during commute hours versus what we're running all day long? So absolutely, we'll be looking at those types of things.

And then do you plan to ride the bus and then while you're riding it, poll the people that are riding it for why are they on the bus and what would make more sense to them, I guess.

Yes, we actually have a survey that's going out this week coming up with some of those questions. But as we move into this and as we move towards some sort of a big system overhaul, if that's what we're going to be doing, WE'LL DEFINITELY BE GOING OUT GETTING VERY DETAILED PUBLIC COMMENTS, SURVEYS. WE'LL PROBABLY BE TRYING TO GET THE MAPS SO PEOPLE CAN SEE THE CHANGES AND MAKE SURE THAT EVERYBODY IS FULLY AWARE AND PEOPLE CAN VOTE ON THOSE CHANGES AND HAVE INPUT ON THE CHANGES, I GUESS, MORE THAN VOTING. BUT, YEAH, WE DEFINITELY PLAN TO BE AS TRANSPARENT AS POSSIBLE WITH THE COMMUNITIES.

And then, you know, I would just keep reiterating to people that as we make these changes, they're still going to be the paratransit that helps the elderly, the disabled, you know, all those that really need specific services. You know, so like, you know, if you say, well, they've only got to walk an extra quarter mile, right? Well, to somebody on crutches, that's a long ways. But to a high school student, that's not very far, right? So anyways, I appreciate all the work. Thank you.

Thank you. More to any other questions?

I think definitely on the right track.

Big advantage is you have the numbers. You see who your riders are. We have more transit-dependent folks. There are more choice riders. What's the customer mix, so to speak? And then what are the numbers? Where are you getting a lot of ridership where you aren't getting ridership? I think routes like the T, the L can certainly be streamlined. the Merced routes too and you can you have certain corridors with more frequent service and then and then yeah a lot of different ways to do it but I think uh I definitely would support moving and probably yeah definitely more towards the um the ridership and it out towards ridership yeah especially for two we got to be balanced and probably probably a little more towards the ridership

Exactly and yeah, each route will be a little bit different It's not going to be a consistent model across the entirety of the of our system throughout the county For opening to the public any other board members comments questions

I just, before I open it up, I just have a general comment. I understand the efficiency and all that. Sometimes I wonder, is it, our bus is empty because there's not enough frequencies that people say, why should I have to spend so much time I can get there in my car in 20 minutes, but it takes an hour to go through the bus. Is it one of the after, would it increase the frequency, I'm sorry, increase the ridership if you increase the frequency, or does it, if you decrease the frequency, like I said, you could lose more, So it's kind of like you said, I agree with Mitchell. I wish we could move the dial over to the right, but then it's only so much money.

Well, again, and that's where, you know, trade-offs is what we say will be made. But that's the goal, yeah.

Thank you. And anybody from the public wish to make any comments at this time? Anybody wrote in? Nope. Okay, it is closed to the public. Board, any further questions? It is for discussion, and we'll move on to executive director's report. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Remember, it's your birthday, so not too much talking.

Have four announcements, but they're fast one the Los Banas Are at Los Banas fairgrounds. We will have a household hazardous waste collection event on September 19th from 8 to 12 So that's HHW at the Los Banas fairgrounds September 19th Stephanie has flyers. Do you have flyers with you or in the? okay you said stephanie can get the flyer we'll we can send these out we also have um at the highway 59 landfill an hhw collection event on october 17th both events run 8 a.m to 12 p.m And then Gustine has a community cleanup event on September 26. This is not HHW. So if you are in Gustine and you have HHW, bring it out to Billy Wright. Or no, bring it out to the Las Manas Fairgrounds the weekend before. So, because you have your... the the Las Vanas Fairgrounds HHW event September 19th the following weekend Gustine has a community collection event but does not that's not for HHW it's just community collection for community cleanup and then lastly I just want to um thank Stephanie if you all got your packet of cookies these are handmade uh she yeah she she stayed up probably longer than she wanted to from what I hear but I think they do have nuts so be if you're if you can't have walnuts proceed with caution they're delicious so thank you Stephanie and uh to the whole team who has just done a great job and spoiled me rotten today so I appreciate it thank you Mr chair

You're welcome. The reason I wanted to cut it short, I wanted to get to the cookie as soon as I can.

We do have closed session.

I know we do. I know we do. Directors, any directors to report out?

I just wanted, I'll take this opportunity quickly to, you know, as chair, one of my goals was is to, we have a really great team in place, and I kind of like, tell me, I'll run the meeting, you guys do your piece, and I think we kind of worked out some stuff, and I know, like, I'm happy At least from for joy's perspective. We talked about this a little bit before the meeting of getting our agenda down to one agenda that comes out I think we found some ways to streamline some stuff in there And so as future chairs come in I would encourage you to do the same thing.

Thank you Any other directors have any comments

I just want to clear the record. I did not say anything when Stacy started talking. I did not hit a mute button. I have no authority over that. So happy birthday.

Thank you. Mr. Brewer?

yeah i didn't get a chance to be over at him keg and i don't know if you guys saying stacy happy birthday or not but how can we do it again just for stacy happy birthday to you happy birthday to you happy birthday dear stacy

happy birthday to you thank you very much but josh's birthday too well they make a joke it's an ongoing joke he's a december birthday thank you thank you very much are you just like thank god it's somebody else

Now that we've showed our singing voice, I'm going to make a statement about our closed session.

We'll now adjourn into closed session and consider items 15A1, and it's actually B1 and 2. Thank you.

We're back in open session. Legal, anything to report?

No, nothing to report out of closed session.

Okay, we are in adjournment, everybody. Thank you.