C-TRAN Board of Directors Meeting

0:00 (upbeat orchestral music) - All right, welcome to the June 9th C-TRAN Board of Directors meeting. Please stand and join me in the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

0:57 All right, Cindy, will you please call the roll? - Yes, sir. Ryan Davis? - Present. - Will Fuentes? - Here. - Bart Hanson? - Present. - Kim Harless? - Present. - Tim Hein? - Here. - Sue Marshall? - Here. - Ann McEnerny-Ogle? - Present. - Eric Paulson? - Here. - Joshua Waitz? - Here. - Glenn Young? - Here. - All right, we are through the roll and it now is up to the approval of the agenda. Are there any additions or changes to the agenda? - Chair, I move approval of the agenda. Paulson? - Second. - We have a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. - Aye. - Aye. - Aye. - Okay, now. Moving along to public comment. Next up is public testimony or communication. Testimony is limited to three minutes. We ask that comment shall be respectful and courteous to all. As a reminder, you can email comments to the clerk or the board and these will be accepted as part of the public record. I'll now open the public testimony and I will take the first person first

1:56 and we have Jayne Kleiner. - Can you please turn your mic on? - Okay, try again. Good evening, my name is Jayne Tesner Kleiner, the program manager for the Lower Columbia Nature Network and I thank you for your time this evening. Your clerk will probably hand you a flyer that looks like this, thank you very much. And we'd like to welcome all of you to enjoy Get Outdoors Month, which is June. And many of our local cities like Vancouver and Washougal and Ridgefield and, I'm forgetting the battleground, have all had proclamations to celebrate this. And as you know, we are blessed with so many amazing resources in our region to get people outside. And we have an event calendar here on the QR code with over 250 events happening in June with over 40 partners around the region

2:55 as well as road trips out to the coast and up to the gorge. As you may also know, one of the biggest barriers to getting people safe and welcoming access to nature is transportation. And I'm very grateful that your group continues to provide the Youth Opportunity Pass. And I'm really excited that the new vine going up to Highway 99 will be able to get people up to like the Salmon Creek Regional Trail System in the Burbridge Creek, et cetera. But we're lacking access to some of our regional properties around our region that are really special and especially for those big family gatherings like Vancouver Lake, Frenchman's Bar, Lewisville Park, our state parks like Beacon Rock, Paradise Point, and of course, Battleground Lake State Park. As you also probably know, many of our larger communities around the country have shuttle services for seasonal access. And of course, we've got the great Skamania Gorge system that goes up to Dog Mountain and up to White Salmon

3:55 and up to Hood River. Portland just announced their shuttle service to Washington and Forest Park, their big park systems. So just to put an idea on your many idea boards, I'm happy to talk with you in the future because representing and working with over 40 partners, we wanna help address accessible and adaptive access to our local park systems. So maybe for next year, we can start planning and thinking now about what could be those opportunities for a seasonal shuttle system to get folks, including our elders, we have a partner Hope Dementia that has a past system to get our dementia patients and caregivers out to local parks because we know our natural systems are healing and healthy and enjoy physical, emotional, mental health benefits. So I thank you for your time and consideration. I would love to talk with you or your staff in the future with some of our LCNN partners to talk about what a shuttle system could look like next summer.

4:54 Thank you for your time. - Thank you. Next up, we have Douglas Tweed. - Okay, is this on? I guess it is on, okay. Yeah, Douglas Tweed, Camas. I wanna speak about TriMet's history of over predicting light rail ridership. Last October at the C-TRAN board meeting right here, IVR executives were asked about forecasted versus actual ridership results for TriMet's light rail system. The program administrator replied in a letter dated December 10th last year, but he only discussed the TriMet Max Green Line and Orange Line, and he just gave information about the opening year ridership saying nothing about ridership since then. It has been very poor. For the last several years, these two lines are at about 1/3 of their forecasts. Now, the Max Green Line ridership forecast for 2009 were made with the Oregon Metro Regional Travel Demand Model, the RTDM. That's the same kind of model that's used

5:54 for the light rail. And the letter cited a fiscal 2014 report to Congress. In 2009, the forecast was about 25,000 and the actual was about 24,000, so that's not too bad. What about since then? The letter from IVR gave no information, so I found other sources. Cascade Policy had a 2020 letter to the FTA, and then you just go to TriMet and you can see their monthly ridership reports. So in 2020, with the Green Line, they forecast 33,000 average weekday riders, but the actual pre-COVID was less than 21,000, 63% of forecast, and the actual has dropped by half again. So you currently, you can see on the picture you've got, I sent you, less than 33% of the 2020 forecast. In the same December 10th letter, IVR admitted that the Max Orange Line forecast was quite a bit higher than actual,

6:50 17,000 versus about 11,000, about 2/3 of the forecast. But the IVR claimed that after adjusting the model, they got it closer to the actual numbers, but funding depends on predictions made years in advance, not after it started. So that's a poor excuse. What about more recent ridership? 2019 actual was about 12,000, still well below the forecast. And currently it's 5,400, another half drops, about 32% of the 2015 forecast. And then what about the Max Yellow Line? That's the one that IVR wants to connect. 2004 forecast was about 14,000, 2004 actual was a little under that. Forecast 2020 is 18,000, actual pre-COVID was 13,000, now it's about 8,200. So TriMet consistently over-predicts ridership, and the ridership is a half to a third of forecasts. And that's obviously hurting their budget deficits, they're drowning in debt, TriMet, and they want to make Clark County pay for it

7:49 by pushing Max Light Rail across the I-5 bridge into Vancouver. IBR is using a similar flawed model to predict that transit ridership across the I-5 bridge in 20 years will be 20 times what it is now. That's in spite the fact that bridge ridership today's half it was 20 years ago. Don't believe their models. Based on history, they're always wrong. Thank you. Thank you, next up we have Melo De Leon. This meeting is being recorded and summarized. Summarized means that they're gonna change the words later. So my name is Carmen De Leon, also known as Melo, and I'd like to talk to you about the ridiculousness of spending billions of dollars on light rail. For example, the population of Washington State is eight million. The population of Oregon State is four million. That together, that's 12 million, yet they want to spend billions on a single stop.

8:48 That's a few billion per people, per person. That's at least 12 million per person, and yet you want three billion for two stops? Granted, you've got Powell's The City of Books, a whole block of the library on Temp Street in Portland, and actually across from The City of Books, you have the other block, three blocks of books in Portland, yet people are gonna spend money to come to this rinky-dink library in Vancouver, get real. You're talking about leaving a legacy to the population of not Vancouver, Oregon and Washington State population combined of 12 million people, a million dollars each. Plus, that's three billion, not one million, one billion. That's three, but it's generational debt. That's what you call economic collapse. For example, Clark County went ahead and built this hospital out there in Orchards,

9:48 but they didn't keep enough money to fill it with employees, so you got an empty building all year long because of the lack of foresight, and just like they said, they're comparing, I think it was 24,000 daily ridership on the Yellow Line, and then it went down to 5,000, and then it went down to 900 round trip. That's 450. How many allies can you guys put up with? You know, denial ain't just a river in Egypt. It's a way of life, and if you guys keep doing it, you're gonna fall just like every other great civilization that has fallen, Rome fell, and we are on the verge of economic collapse, and yet you guys wanna justify spending millions per citizen on this ridiculous two stops, two stops, when one bus costs a million and one train costs 19 million, you can buy 19 buses for one max line, and by the way, I rode the BART system,

10:44 the Bay Area Rapid Transit, which is closing now, and they have a population between the Bay Area and Oakland and San Jose of eight million. Together, just Portland and Vancouver is, what is it, 200,000, 600,000, not even a million, and you wanna put a billion into this. Come on, you guys are gonna be left, leaving a legacy of debt and economic collapse. As they said, there ain't gonna be no ridership. It's gonna be empty, just like that building out there in Clark County that got authorized to be built without enough money to employ people. So if you're gonna keep embracing the lies, hey, that's on you. - Thank you, next up, Margaret Tweet.

11:33 - Good evening, board. I wanted to say, yeah, the bus ridership in 2006, about 3,300, and that number of riders is below 1,500, crossing the I-5 bridge today, a reduction of a little more than half, and again, it is very unlikely that these 20 time increases will be seen by 2045 in light of the last 20 years. Now, last time I talked about in the FSEIS that C-TRAN and IBR are stating that light rail is required on the I-5 bridge in order to get federal funding, the CIG grant, but in fact, the FTA website does not state that. Buses or BRT are an option that hasn't been considered, duly considered.

12:33 So that's a misrepresentation that needs to be corrected. The final SEIS report on I-5 bridge was approved by a C-TRAN board majority at the February 10th meeting, 2026, over two months prior to publication. How can you approve something that you have never read, and that none of us in the public had an opportunity to read either? This extension at the April meeting, it was stated perhaps three and a half billion to build the light rail if there are two stations in Vancouver, and the project currently estimated up to 15.2 billion, although that could increase as it did this year, more roughly doubled. And light rail, buses can run on-shoulder or a dedicated lane at a small fraction of the cost of light rail,

13:30 which allows no other vehicles, carries no freight. So the C-TRAN board is being asked to approve a revised agreement, which is a draft agreement tonight. And this is a substantial agreement outlining the expansion of TriMet light rail into our community. And since it is a draft, again, I wonder at the wisdom of approving something that is in a draft form, that you don't know how it's going to end up. And giving that authority, taking away from the board and giving it to the director instead to make all the finalizations. Again, giving the public no opportunity to comment on the final version. In 2012, voters in the C-TRAN district rejected a ballot proposition to extend Oregon MAX light rail over I-5 bridge into Clark County, and then in 2013,

14:29 county-wide, voters opposed light rail unless voters first approved it in a public vote. No updates on that public vote have been held, only cost updates. - Thank you, next up we have Rachel Shapiro. - Would you guys mind if I take that? I'm not used to sitting. Hi, I'm Rachel Shapiro, and I wanted to talk to you guys today, one that the people before me had talked about the cost. One of the things is your job here is to represent the people and to make sure that everything is for the people, the city, the people that live here. The cost does not outweigh the benefit. This is a billion dollar project, like someone had brought up that per person it would be seriously in the millions per individual.

15:27 This last weekend, I had to take my daughter and son-in-law and my two grandchildren to the airport. If you guys put a toll here, that would have, the max that you can do a toll is 14.50, and let's be honest, everyone is going to always end up using the max of the toll. If you're allowed to go up to 14.50, they're gonna do it, they may start off low, but they're gonna go up. That would have been me taking them to the airport, coming back, and then going to pick them up and take them back, that would have been close to $60 just to take your family to the airport. And because they had two car seats, a double stroller, their luggage, and a port-a-crib, two port-a-crib, so that, they have to take a car. It's not something you can take a light. Well, you're burdening people just to get to the airport. And unless the light rail runs consistently, most people won't take it to the airport.

16:25 Like we talked about the people, the people have voted on this already. They voted on it twice, they voted on it in 2012, 2013, and I guarantee you, if you tell them to vote on it again, they're gonna vote no. And you guys need to represent the people. Also, I noticed that there are more people here for Vancouver than Clark County for the vote, which doesn't seem right because there's more people, more residents in Clark County than there are in just Vancouver. So that was just an observation that I made and I could be wrong on that. And then again, I noticed that your report that you guys voted on without technically really understanding or reading it was just a draft. And if you're going to put your name behind something, please make sure you read it from beginning to end

17:25 and it's the final document just for plain common sense. I mean, if you don't read something from beginning to end, how can you actually consciously vote on this? And I think this cost that outweighs the benefit is completely unconscionable. So again, I see I'm running out of time. I'd like you guys to say thank you for listening to me. And we all need to sleep at night and our property tax is going to go up. So please vote no for this. Thank you for your time. - Thank you, next up, Bruce Barnes. - Good evening, chair and board. My name is Bruce Barnes for the record. Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight.

18:21 A few things, I went to Spaghetti Factory last week and I made some observations there. And my observation was there's a lot of pictures in there of trolleys. They used to be basically a light rail that are all now defunct 'cause they didn't work. People didn't use them, kind of like light rail. I also went out to Rockwood last week to get some shocks from my dad's vehicle at O'Reilly Auto Parts and I just could not believe the destruction of neighborhoods and how they looked along the light rail that did not look that way 20 years ago. And I would urge all of you to take a trip out through there and just say, is this what we want in Vancouver? Honestly, is this really what we want? I mean, we've already got Fourth Plain Boulevard that's a disaster full of drug addicts. Do we want more? I don't think so. Probably not going to be a very good look, especially for people trying to move businesses into our community and trying to prosper

19:19 and create some jobs. I see jobs leaving the area. I don't see jobs coming into the area. And with this millionaire tax and everything else that's going on, I think we better take a good long look at what's going on here. When I look at the money spent by TriMet, I look at the money that's taken in and spent by C-TRAN, I understand people need jobs, I get it. But you got to have something that works, right? And the one thing that does work in C-TRAN is your pilot project out in Battleground, where it's basically an Uber system, right? That is working, right? And they don't have big, huge buses. People get to go where they want to go. These buses don't take people where they got to go. They got to just keep jumping like a game of Frogger to get to the next destination. It takes forever. Nobody wants to be in that situation. They want to be able to get where they want to get. That's why people drive vehicles, they don't ride buses. And we seem to be catering to the 1 1/2 or 2% of people that need them, and I get that there needs to be public transportation for people

20:19 that are of lower income and people that are elders. I get all that, you know what I mean? But we've got the smaller buses as well, right? They seem to work good when elders need a ride to Starbucks Coffee or Fred Myers or Safeway or whatever. It gets them to and from, and it's cost effective to them. It doesn't take some humongous diesel bus that everybody seems to be so concerned about the environment but it certainly doesn't look like it when you've got all these diesel buses cruising around. The electric ones failed, we're buying nine new ones. We got to do something different, you know? I mean, when I look at my property taxes and I look at my expenses and I look at the Colombian today and the governor's sounding the alarm. Oh my God, we're in debt again. We need to raise more taxes. At what point are people absorbed to the point where they can't afford to live? And you can see the mass exodus. I mean, people are moving out of here. They're moving to Idaho, they're moving to other places that are a lot less costly to live at and there's a lot more jobs. I mean, there's seven and gonna be 11. Oops, thank you for your time.

21:18 - Thank you, next up, Chris King. - Good evening, Chair and Board. Thank you for the opportunity to voice my opposition to light rail. I'm Chris King, I'm a long time East County resident. I'm just a construction guy. So my math is like in pounds and feet and tons of asphalt and things like that. The cost side of this thing just doesn't make any sense. First, we had a position of that we're, Clark County's not gonna pay any operating and maintenance costs for TriMet. Now we've opened the door for that. And the ridership of all this doesn't support what's going on here. And maybe my newsfeed is filled with negative stuff against this.

22:17 And I'm not seeing any news that supports anything that says this thing's going the right direction. Day after day, I'm reading things like TriMet's going broke by 2029. Why would we support that? Why would we subsidize that as taxpayers here in Clark County? (clears throat) $290 million of the IBR to go to a maintenance facility for TriMet, why would the taxpayers of Clark County be involved in that at all? Who's running the show here? TriMet, as my friend Rachel said, you guys are stewards for Clark County. It's time you acted like it. Please ditch this light rail boondoggle. Thank you. - Thank you, Chris. Do we have anybody online? - We do have one person online. - All right, let's go to that individual.

23:10 - If you could please unmute yourself. Please state your name. - Good evening, Kimberly, Kimberly Goheen-Albin, life citizen of Clark County, Washington. So pay very close attention to these speakers as they speak for most of Clark County citizens. And I'll say it again, put Clark County under a five-year no growth. I'll mention that you hold public hearings not to do as we the people ask or tell you what to do, which that's what we've been doing here. But you do this to satisfy the Open Public Meetings Act. So shame on you. You need to put out a, and it should be mandatory, a questionnaire to all citizens in Clark County and mail it about the light rail.

24:09 Do they want light rail and do they want tolls? It's definitely more effective than what you've been doing when you say that you've made public notices when you know it doesn't reach the masses, but that's by design. And it's a show of big government that wants to push light rail to Clark County when we voted light rail down at least two times, which you ignored. Light rail will cost millions of dollars each year and it is not a benefit to the masses who would end up paying for it. I'll add that as Vancouver wants to grow to be the second largest city in Washington State, they are dead set on getting light rail. The push to get light rail is proof of a tyrannical big government that Vancouver has shown. Tell us, when is Vancouver going to go carless? I'd like to know. And did anyone on this board ride C-TRAN to this meeting? I ask because the Clark County Council

25:05 has a proclamation request from June 3rd meeting for ride transit month and will probably be passed. So ride transit. I'd also like to mention that Google AI says that many public transit systems are persistently in deficit. But C-TRAN holds $423 million in total assets, including $205 million in unrestricted cash reserve. So it's for their rainy day scale. So what goes on with all that money? Is the public actually reaping any of the interest that you might be investing in with all this money? That's our money. Why are you guys always needing more of our money? Our property taxes have gone up. Everything has gone up. I can hardly make it per month. I'm one house came in a way of probably having to sell. I don't think that's right.

26:05 Most of Clark County does not want light rail. You guys need to pay attention to this. Those people speak for tens of thousands of people that are there tonight. They showed up. It's a lot of energy to listen to these meetings, show up and do our duty. And you guys need to listen to us. And I mean it, you gotta figure something else out. I know you've invested a lot of our hard earned tax dollars already, spent it I might add, to get the bridge and the maps and the light rail up on that big ramp and everything. But it is not gonna work. So make sure you listen to what we the people want. You do represent us and you're not. And you need to. - Thank you, Kala. - Again, one of-- - Okay, and that is public comment. We're now on to consent items. And let's see here. Would anybody like to pull anything from consent?

27:04 Do I hear a motion to approve? - Motion to approve consent as presented. - Second. - We have a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. - Aye. - Aye. - Opposed? All right, moving along here. Now we're gonna break into executive session. Chief Executive Officer Performance Review pursuant to RCW 42.30.1101G, no action will be taken. A time estimated at 20 minutes. And Chair, the time is now 557. And we will return or send somebody to add additional time. So we'll be back at what, 617?

27:46 (upbeat music) And we have returned from executive session. The time is now 627 and the meeting is reconvening. No action will be taken at this time. Cindy, will you please call the roll again? - Yes, sir. Ryan Davis. - Present. - Will Fuentes. - Here. - Bart Hanson. - Present. - Kim Harless. - Present. - Tim Hein. - Present. - Sue Marshall. - Here. - Ann McInerney-Ogle. - Present. - Eric Paulson. - Here. - Joshua Waits. - Here. - Glen Young. - Here. - Now moving on to action items. Action item number one, Highway 99 bus rapid transit project condemnation proceeding staff report 26026 C-TRAN board resolution BR26005 and Randy Parker. - Thank you, Chair, members of the board.

28:44 Before I get started, I wanna introduce Jackie Walker, who should be online. She's our legal representation from Miller Nash. She's our condemnation expert. As you well know that Highway 99 is well into construction now. When we started, we had 30 right-of-way files total. We've closed on 27 of those. These remaining three, we've been in negotiations with them for quite some time and just can't seem to get there, so we're at an impasse with them. Our contractor has been graciously moving around, been quite nimble to help us keep moving, but we're running out of time if we're gonna meet the schedule overall, so we need to get going on this. So with that in mind, we're proceeding with eminent domain condemnation proceedings with Miller Nash.

29:43 So that's what this board resolution is about, and this is a staff report is requesting that the C-TRAN board of directors authorize the CEO to approve resolution BR26005 to authorize acquisition by condemnation of the property needed for the Highway 99 BRT project, including the right to acquire all or any portion of identified properties above by negotiation or condemnation in the event an acceptable agreement cannot be reached. And I should point out that at this point, there's no identified cost for this, but the expenses for this will be covered under the adopted capital budget underlying items for Highway 99 BRT project.

30:39 And with that, any questions? Questions? - I have a question. As part of this process, do we need to declare that this is for a public benefit? - Yes. - Is that part of the letter? - Yeah, so it's a very prescribed process, and if we're gonna get into the weeds of that, I'll have to ask Jackie. This is the first time that this agency has done this in 25 years, something like that. - The reason I ask is the council just made a decision on one of these, so I was aware of that public benefit, but. - Yeah, that is correct. - Good. - Thank you, Chair. Thanks, Randy. Good question, I don't wanna get into the weeds too much, but I'd like to better understand the process and communication that's occurred with property owners so far. - Yes. - I know the intent is always to be reasonable.

31:37 - Yeah, so we've had months of negotiation back and forth with, so there's three properties, two property owners, one of the properties owns, one of the owners owns two properties, right? And we've gone back and forth with them for months. One of them, their response to us was, condemnation is our final answer. They wanted to go to condemnation. They were done talking with us. So it's kind of where we're at in that process. We've tried, exhausted every opportunity to work it out. Come to some degree. - Okay, thank you. And then this process, what will then be the process for evaluation of the property so that it's reasonable? - Yeah, we've done appraisals, they've done appraisals, and we can get Jackie on to go into further depth, but I assume those appraisals will need to be updated. I don't think they're that old, but maybe they will need to be updated. I see you nodding. So that's a good thing.

32:33 And then Jackie, you can talk more about the process. - So right now, C-TRAN has appraisals for these three properties. File five, which is one of the properties, they submitted an appraisal review, which does not conclude to a value. And essentially what it did is it just evaluates whether C-TRAN's appraisal followed the proper methodology. So C-TRAN doesn't have a counteroffer or the value from the owner. So when condemnation is filed, one of the steps is to file for a motion for an appraisal exchange, a contemporaneous appraisal exchange. And so at that point, both parties will exchange appraisals. So that's the mechanism to get an appraisal from the owner. So we know what their value is to see how far apart the parties are.

33:32 As far as file 13 and 16, we do have the appraisals from the owner. However, we're working through some valuation issues and C-TRAN's appraisals will need to be updated to reflect that. And so if we're gonna file for a condemnation, it might make the most sense to file for a motion for appraisal exchange. So both parties can have the same date of value. Right now, the appraisals value the taking as of different dates. And one of the rules in condemnation is that both parties are supposed to value the taking as of the same date. And the way to do that is you establish the date of value in the condemnation, and then both parties update their appraisal to that date of value. - Thank you. So really quick question, either for Jackie or for Randy. It sounds like you've been in conversations with the property owners.

34:29 There's some appraisals that have been conducted, yet they're choosing condemnation. Can you help us understand or help me understand why that is? - I can answer very briefly. I don't know the why. But as of two weeks ago, I corresponded with counsel for file five. I sent him the notice of this board meeting and asked him if they had a counter offer or an appraisal. And they said, "We don't file for condemnation." That's what my client wants. I asked for a phone call to discuss it further, but he hasn't responded back to me yet. So I don't know why, but they've sent the same message to Randy and his team. And then they recently, as of two weeks ago, sent me the same message. - I would add that- - Go ahead.

35:27 - I was just gonna add that we're not, in this case, we're not talking to the property owners. We're talking to their lawyers. I wish we could talk to the property owners, but we can't get there at sea. So that seems to have a difference. - Chair, could we see page two and then three? Thanks. - So one of these properties is in the city of Vancouver and two are in the county. - So do you need to actually state that it's for public benefit? Do you need to use those words? - There was, in the resolution,

36:24 if you turn to page two, which it should be attached in your packet. It says, "Therefore be resolved." And it's got section one, two, three, four. One of these, it says, and Jackie helped me find it, but it says in that somewhere that it's gotta be, is it? Oh, it says, "Section two, C-TRAN board finds "that the public health, safety, necessity, convenience, "and welfare demand that interest in the real property "described in attachment one be immediately acquired, "condemned, appropriate taken, and damaged "for construction, upper maintenance, highway 99 BRT." One of these, it says, I thought that, oh, here it is, section one. "C-TRAN board deems the highway 99 product "to be a public use for a public purpose." Is that what you're after? - That's what I was after, thanks. - Just one real quick question. How big are the, I mean, like,

37:23 how many square footages of parcels, and then does it make any material change to the use of the property? - Well, so the square footage of the property we're seeking is small. I can't, I don't remember the numbers, but it's not like, it's the one, the file in the city is literally a grass strip in front of their property. - Yeah, okay. - No material use change. - These aren't huge. The one, I forget, is it file 13, where it involves a driveway? That is an issue that we're having with them. But there's another driveway 30 feet away from that driveway. So, but it gets more complicated than just that driveway, so. - Other questions? Do I hear a motion? - Chair. I move to approve C-TRAN Board Resolution BR-26-2005.

38:22 - Chair and McEnerny-Ogle seconds the motion. - Thank you, we have a motion and a second. No further discussion? All those in favor? - Aye. - Aye. - Opposed? And the motion passes. Moving on to the next action item, the Inter-Government Agreement, IGA Extension between C-TRAN and the Washington Department of Transportation, WSDOT, for services related to the Special Transportation Planning Study Agreement and Staff Report. And we have Scott Patterson. - Yes, thank you, Chair and members of the Board. This is Staff Report 26-027, seeking the approval of an extension to our existing IGA between C-TRAN and the Washington State Department of Transportation. C-TRAN for a number of years, I believe dating back to 2022, has had staff do various parts of work on the IBR program.

39:21 We do have one staff person that is full-time dedicated to the IBR team, that is Steve Witter, and Steve is here this evening. So if we wanna get into a number of questions and some of the technicalities on this, I may ask for Steve to come up and kinda help me answer this, but we've had an agreement in place from the very beginning of the program. And again, this is really designed to be able to reimburse not just the one full-time position, but also the work that finance staff does in support of IBR, planning staff, operations, safety, so on and so forth. And so this last go around for this current update, there was some more substantive changes to the language. And so we just wanted to make sure the board is aware of it in addition to the fact that we have a number of new board members on here as well.

40:17 But we are asking and seeking for the board's adoption of this proposed IGA that would extend and continue to reimburse those staff costs for another year. And I think I'll pause there and see if there are any questions or not. - Thank you, Chair. Thanks, Scott. Question on in terms of the timing and the cost, you might give a quick review over what was the impetus of this agreement? What's the timelines and the monies that are outlined? But can you kind of tie a bow on it, bring it together a little bit? - Oh, I just turned my microphone off. Yes, I will start as Steve walks up because I know he's been more directly involved, but what happens when we first went into this intergovernmental agreement,

41:15 C-TRAN staff in coordination with IBR will have a series of meetings and we'll talk about what the scope of the work is in any given year. There's some general work that they typically know that's coming in advance, whether it's planning, whether it's C-TRAN's background bus network, some of the financial work that needs to be done over the course of the year, and with that, we kind of provide the IBR with an estimate in terms of the staff involved, what we think the estimated number of hours could or should be, and from there, we come up with an annual amount. And so that's kind of very high level. I don't know, Steve, if I said anything wrong, feel free to correct or supplement.

42:03 Uh-oh, there we go. - I have trouble with my left and right. Scott, you accurately described it. We took a look at the year's work ahead. This year's work ahead will really be starting to dig into the design, the design of the bridge, the design of other transit elements, and this allows us, as Scott said, in many different layers in the C-TRAN organization, to provide staff input, review drawings, designs, other things. So I built up a budget for this next 12 months. That includes, as Scott said, that includes staffing from our finance department, it includes some of Randy's time and Taylor's time on transit planning and other things where C-TRAN interfaces with the transit program. It also pays for our maintenance and operations staff to participate in reviews and give input.

43:00 And so I've assigned hours throughout the year to all those various staff members and built up essentially a cost estimate for this work. I hope, did that answer your question, Director? Great, thank you. - Chair, how much is that? What is the budget? - I'm still trying to get sort of a final review and approval from IBR that signs off on the dollars, but we're talking about in total for the year, $323,000 worth of staff time. - Thank you. - Yeah. - Thank you, Chair, and just for clarification, that's reimbursing to wash off? - Yes. - Okay, thanks. - Other questions? All right, your motion. Go ahead.

43:58 - Thank you, Chair, I've got an additional question, but I didn't know if you had information to share, or do you want 'em all right now? - Yeah, no, not yet, let's keep going. - Okay, okay, thanks, I've got a question on paragraph 4.2 and 4.4 regarding transportation planning, which I believe is outlined in one of the requirements for the statement of work in the agreement. - I'm sorry, Director, could you repeat the-- - I think it's under task 4.2 and 4.4, it gets into transportation planning, specifically ridership, I think one of the areas that this agreement covers. - Yes. - So one of the requirements is a revenue agreement that the IBR team that's included in this agreement is detailed modeling ridership forecasting.

44:57 My question is that if the IBR team is looking for C-TRANS input into that model, that seems like a good idea from my perspective, because C-TRANS modeling in terms of ridership is real and accurate. I've had concerns in the past, and I don't believe I'm alone, some were voiced tonight regarding projected ridership with the IBR team. How is the information, the realistic, real-time information that C-TRANS is providing, as outlined in the agreement, gonna be utilized by the IBR team to get hopefully improved ridership forecast? Is that a fair question, or is that just a statement? - I think that's a great question, and I hopefully have a great answer. In order to refine our ridership models,

45:55 the FTA has asked the IBR program, including C-TRAN and TriMet, to go out and update its transit ridership surveys. And so the IBR program worked with my C-TRAN colleagues here and TriMet's planning staff to develop a series of questions that went out into the field, and we actually surveyed riders on the C-TRAN system and on the TriMet system. And we were very specific to understand how the cross-river commute worked in real time. This was in March and April of this year. And so the raw data has been collected, it's being processed and we will, my colleague, Mr. Parker here, will have a chance to look at that data. We think that's actually pretty valuable to C-TRAN outside of the IBR because it's some real-time updated data that we have for right now.

46:54 And so that will go into the model. FTA's been asking us to do that for several years. And so the IBR program has finally agreed to FTA's request to do that. And so Director Hein, I think that will actually give us a more accurate picture of the ridership modeling. Now we all, I think, can agree it's a model. It's based on inputs and other things. But this really should narrow down the inputs that go into that model with real-time data. - How do you see that model? I was interested in how's the data developed or captured? How is it being modeled and how will it be? - So the data will be captured through real-time surveys. They're using electronic pads and they're actually putting personnel on buses and they sit with the patrons and our riders

47:54 and they ask a series of questions. I don't have the questions in front of me, but do you work? Do you take transit five days a week? Do you work at home any certain days of week? And so they try to establish up-to-date patterns of ridership behavior. Who's driving to go get on a light rail vehicle at a park and ride, say at Delta Park? That combined with where's your license plate from starts to give us information about who's traveling where. I am not an expert at modeling, but those are sort of updated and refreshed inputs that go into the FTA Stops model, the Simplified Trips on Transit model. And I've been here before to talk about the Stops model. It takes a snapshot of ridership as if the project was built today. So it's not a bunch of projections about growth and ridership

48:51 and certain amount of people will take transit in 2045. That's more of a metro predictive model for bigger picture land use and things like this. This is really today. What are the patterns? And if we put that service out today, that Stops model is there to predict what that ridership would be. Go please. - Just one more. - No. - What is our assumptions developed as a result of that? - Our assumptions. - Like what assumptions, I'm assuming that the assumptions are gonna be created over, hey, this is the model, this is the data, this is the model, we need to come to some point for basic. - Phone a friend. - May I? (laughing) - So the way it works is, so out of the survey data comes information

49:51 like trip purpose. Is it a work trip? Is it a shopping trip? Age, who's making the trip? What's your mode of access? Time of day? Your income? Do you own a car? All sorts of these things, right? And then the Stops model built by FTA has assumptions in it, but they're national, right? That model was built to serve the nation, not just this region, right? And it does a pretty good job of it. It used to be that, and the Metro model uses this too, uses local households and employment data, census information. The Stops model uses that information from the American Community Survey. So in entities or locations don't have the opportunity to crank up the inputs, if you will. So the way it works is they'll run the model as it is, Stops, and then compare it.

50:50 What comes out of it? And the Stops model might say 30% of the trips on transit are home-based work trips. Well, the data that we find from our surveys of our onboard survey show that in this region, it's only 24%. So they'll go in and adjust the coefficients on the algorithms and these long, usually mode choice, very long equations to dial that model into this region to more accurately reflect it. And that's why FTA is very big on one, using the Stops model. They're very fond of it. They built it. And two, it can be if you have more recent and current data about your system, then you can adjust it and fine-tune it to get better forecasts. - Thank you, Randy and Scott. Yeah. - Having Randy on our team is a giant asset in these modeling conversations.

51:48 - And I sit in on all those conversations with FTA. In my former life, I was a modeler for many years, and my company, before I came here, was the first to use Stops model with FTA in Seattle. So I used to know it inside out. I don't know it that well now 'cause Scott makes me do other things, but I know enough about it to be problematic. And so I sit in on all these things, the meetings with FTA on the IVR project. - Chair? - Thank you for the information. - I appreciate all those questions 'cause it's led me to ask a few myself. What was the sample size, and would this be considered an opportunistic survey? - I haven't seen what the sample size was yet. I mean, ideally, FTA would like you to survey your entire system, both TriMet and C-TRAN. That would take a year. We didn't have the time,

52:47 and so we brokered a deal to base. It might have been reported. We agreed to do a certain set of routes with FTA, and they let us do that. - What was it, part two? - It was a question about opportunistic, I guess, versus scientific in terms of judging the value of the information that you've gotten. There's two kinds of surveys. - I've done a lot of surveys, but okay, I believe you. I don't know what this one is. - All right, thanks. - Scientific, I would assume. But anyway, don't know the answer to that. - I think it's how you sample. Yeah, I mean, over the years, it used to be they'd get on the bus and with a piece of paper and take the, and some people didn't want to do it. Now they get, it's all electronic with tablets, and they walk them through it. - We may be getting into the weeds. - Yeah, it's gotten a lot better. - It's very good to have this information, so I appreciate it. - Yeah.

53:47 - I guess I would just end it as I would love to see a lot of that data. - Yeah, I would assume our board would like to see it once it's been analyzed and presented. I think that'd be appropriate. - One final comment here. And the routes that are being used. As you mentioned, Randy, there were specific routes that were used to be interesting to know what those are. - Yeah, there's a, I haven't memorized. Do you know what the routes are, Taylor? Anyway, I can get 'em too. There's way more over here than there are on the other side. I think they're surveying the route six on that side. Is that Ringo Bell? And maybe Yellow Line? I can't remember, but there's more on this side. I can get you the list. - I'd be happy to come back and report once we have the document. - Yeah. - Yeah, sure. - But yeah, it'll be really interesting information. Taylor can't wait to get his hands on it. Just for our own use, not just for IBR.

54:45 - Other comments, questions? Do we hear a motion? - Motion to approve site report number 26-027. - We have a motion. Do we have a second? - Second. - We have a motion and a second. Any further comments? All those in favor, signify by saying aye. - Aye. - Aye. - Opposed? Motion passes. Now we go to communications. And I don't have anything as far as the chair. Does the board have anything they would like to add? Mayor? - Chair, thank you. Leanne, thank you so very much. While we were serving 1,000 hot dogs on Memorial Day, we think your C-Tran shuttle from Hudson Bay was instrumental in getting all of those people back and forth. So thank you for providing that service. - Any other comments?

55:43 All right, from the chief executive officer. - Thank you, chair, and thank you, board. You're welcome, Mayor Ann. I'm glad the shuttle was able to provide a good service for everyone and enjoy the CMAQ parade as usual. Again, this month is Ride Transit Month, and I'd like to begin by thanking each of you and your respective jurisdiction councils for support of Ride Transit. We started off by last night by going to the city of Vancouver for a proclamation from Mayor McEnerny-Ogle. And so we have some more jurisdictions we'll be visiting through the coming days. So we look forward to that. And again, these proclamations help highlight the central role public transportation plays in connecting people to their education, healthcare, and jobs and activities that they have with their families and friends. Another highlight for our agency is we had APTA Emerging Leadership Program.

56:43 And I'm pleased to recognize one of our own, Tyler Eit, who successfully completed that this year. So that's a 10-month program. He's been instrumental in helping C-TRAN initiatives, including the launch of the current expansion of the Vine systems and development of the C-TRAN 2045 plan, which we all had a good conversation about today. So congratulations, Taylor. And last but not least. (audience applauding) Last but not least, again, we have community engagement, as Mayor Ann mentioned. And so we have many more that are coming. We have, actually tonight, there's a Ridgeville Raptors game. So hopefully they're doing well. We got Vancouver Pride Block Party coming up on June 13th. We got Vancouver's Juneteenth Freedom Celebration on June 20th. And we got Camas Pride Block Party on June 21st.

57:40 So that's a small amount of the events that we'll be participating in this month. And thanks to all of our communications and marketing and customer service on-street team that helps make those days successful. And that is it. - Excellent, and now communications from our legal, Jackie Walker, who is filling in for home. And she does not have any. So with that, oh, is she on? Jackie, can you hear me? - Yes, I'm here. I don't have any additional comments to add. - Thank you, Jackie. And with that, we are adjourned. (upbeat music)