1.

Caltrans Report (CALTRANS)

2.

Bike and Pedestrian Pilot Program (Kai Han) [INFORMATION]

All items on the consent agenda are considered to be routine and non-controversial by COG staff and will be approved by one motion if no member of the Committee or public wishes to comment or ask questions.  If comment or discussion is desired by anyone, the item will be removed from the consent agenda and will be considered in the listed sequence with an opportunity for any member of the public to address the Committee concerning the item before action is taken.

Summary: Below is an update on each of the on-going circuit planning and engineering projects.  Please note that only the three projects that are currently active are on the list.  Completed activities, as well as projects that have been placed on hold by their respective agency or are considered inactive, are not included below.  

The top 3 planning-related projects resulting from that process include:

1. Fowler Project 1 - Golden State Property - Land Use, Transportation and Infrastructure Design Study, Purpose & Need Statement, Funding Source Review, and Assistance with the Funding Application.  City staff and the circuit planning team have completed the required documentation, and are awaiting Council direction later this month.

2. Sanger Project 2 - Assist with a funding application to plan for an integrated transportation and land use system and to ultimately annex the unincorporated area located south of North Avenue and west of Academy Avenue.  Circuit planning staff has presented City staff with draft scope and application narratives, and is awaiting response for additional adjustments, as needed.

3. Kingsburg Project 3 - Preparation of a school-zone study focusing on the six school zones in Kingsburg. The study would include safety analysis, circulation, and traffic calming recommendations.  City staff and the circuit planning team have completed the required documentation, and are awaiting Council direction later this month.

The top 3 engineering-related projects include the following:

1. Selma Project 1 – Assistance with Planning and Design Issues - Dinuba Avenue Overcrossing/Interchange @ SR 99.  The circuit engineering team has met with City staff and Caltrans representatives.  A traffic analysis will now be conducted, following review and concurrence of the methodology and needed deliverables, which was completed by the team in September.

2. Sanger Project 1 – Bridge Preventative Maintenance RFP/RFQ.  Circuit engineering staff has submitted a draft RFP/RFQ to City staff for their review, comment, and use in order to secure a consultant to conduct the study/program.

3. Orange Cove Project 1 - Bridge Preventative Maintenance funding.  Circuit engineering staff is currently preparing the necessary documents to ensure key bridges are on the eligible funding lists of the Highway Bridge Program.

Staff can provide details on the status of individual projects, as requested.  If you have any questions, comments or concerns regarding the tasks associated with either the circuit planning or circuit engineering programs, please contact Rob Terry at (559) 233-4148 Ext. 222 or via email at rterry@fresnocog.org.

Action: Information.  Direction may be provided at the discretion of the Committee.

Summary: The 15/16 Federal Fiscal Year (FFY) ended on September 30, 2016. All funds programmed in FFY 15/16 in the 2015 FTIP should have been obligated prior to October 1, 2016. In order to meet this deadline, Caltrans asked that agencies submit requests for authorizations to Caltrans Local Assistance no later than Friday, July 29, 2016 in order to guarantee processing and submission to FHWA in time. However, Caltrans staff continued to work on requests submitted after this date, on a first-come first-served basis, into the month of August as well.

Fresno COG's overall total Obligational Authority (OA) Target for CMAQ and RSTP federal funding sources in FFY 15/16 is $23,419,373, which is about $450,000 greater than the previous OA target reported of $22,971,370. This is due to the fact that in July 2016, each of the MPOs in the state of California was awarded additional OA funds.  As of August 31, 2016, $22,886,806 of CMAQ and RSTP has been obligated in Fresno County, which reduces our FFY 15/16 OA Target balance to $532,567. This indicates that we have met 97.7% of our estimated OA delivery target for this FFY. (The August 2016 report from Caltrans is attached.) However, there may be some additional obligations that did not complete processing in August and could be reflected in the final FFY 15/16 September 30, 2016 report from Caltrans.  Fresno COG staff will continue working with our member agencies and Caltrans to identify any upcoming obligations that will close out the FFY.

Since Fresno County has been successful in delivering the vast majority of planned CMAQ and RSTP obligations required in FFY 15/16, we have also effectively complied with the “Use It or Lose It” provisions of AB 1012 enacted in October 1999 and will not have any of our CMAQ or RSTP funding apportionments subject to reprogramming on November 1, 2016.  Please see the attachment included.

If you have any questions regarding the OA targets or process, please contact Chelsea Gonzales at 559-233-4148 ext. 223 or your District 6 Local Assistance Engineer.

Action:  Information.  Direction may be provided at the discretion of the Committee.

Summary:  (Task 1) Greenprint: Work on the Demonstration Projects is progressing.  Each of the three Demonstration Projects gave a presentation to the Greenprint Advisory Committee at its meeting the afternoon of September 29th.  FYI, a summary description of the three projects is attached.  Because at least part of each Demonstration Project addresses some aspect of groundwater sustainability, they are required to coordinate their efforts as much as possible.  Each project will incorporate datasets compiled in Phase I of the Greenprint project and now hosted within the San Joaquin Valley Gateway of Data Basin, having migrated over from UC Davis where they were originally hosted.  Conservation Biology Institute, which developed and administers Data Basin, prepared sample maps that were presented to the Advisory Committee.  These maps are intended to illustrate the benefits and functionalities of Data Basin and will be used in upcoming workshops and other outreach activities.  The Greenprint Project concludes March 31, 2017.  For additional information on the Greenprint project, please contact Clark Thompson at (559) 233-­4148 x203 or clarkt@fresnocog.org.

Action:  Information.  Direction may be provided at the discretion of the Committee.

Summary:  The Fresno COG has initiated a study to determine the feasibility of constructing separated bikeways, also referred to as cycletracks, within Fresno and Clovis and possibly elsewhere in the County.  The study complements the region's significant investment in planning and building off-road trails by connecting the trails network with riders' final destinations via separated bikeways.

The enclosed flyer titled Building Safer Bikeways directs you to www.FresnoClovisSeparatedBikeways.com to learn about the benefits of separated bikeways and what differentiates them from regular bike lanes.  Take the short survey and then use the Interactive Map to show where you think a separated bikeway should be located.  The survey and web map will help the project team understand agency and public preferences for the different types of separated bikeways and where they might be strategically located to help meet the region's active transportation needs.  If you would like further information about the Feasibility Study, please contact Clark Thompson at (559) 435-9184 ext. 203 or clarkt@fresnocog.org.

Action:  Information.  Direction may be provided at the discretion of the Committee.

Summary: The Measure C TOD program was created to boost transit ridership and encourage transit supportive land use such as compact development and mixed uses. It also supports livable and viable transit oriented communities and strives to improve the range of transportation choice in the Fresno region. The TOD program is estimated to accrue $16.9 million in 20 years and $850,000 annually. 

The program started to award funding to qualified projects in 2012, and a total of $6.1 million has been awarded in the first five funding cycles from 2012 to 2016. Attached with the agenda is a summary of the projects that have received TOD funding in the first five funding cycles. Under the existing guidelines, TOD funding can only be given to projects that are located in the three designated TOD priority investment areas, that is, downtown Fresno, Blackstone and Ventura/Kings Canyon BRT Corridor and Shaw Avenue Corridor from SR99 to SR 168. However, when approving the existing program guidelines in 2011, the COG Policy Board and the FCTA Board also directed that  the TOD program be reviewed after the fifth funding cycle, and "projects outside of the program application areas that meet the other criteria may apply."

Two TOD Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) meetings have been held since the spring of 2016 to discuss the TOD program review. No consensus could be reached among the TAC members, who are representatives from the members agencies, local developers, BIA, transit providers, stakeholders and interested public. City of Fresno, who is the exclusive beneficiary of the TOD program so far, is of the opinion that the TOD program should be kept under existing guideline unless other local governments can show that investments have been directed towards high capacity transit such as Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) and supportive land use decisions such as high density development and mixed uses have been made  to support such high capacity transit system. City of Fresno proposed to update the Public Transportation Infrastructure Study (PTIS), which could then become the basis of the TOD program update. The original PTIS made the recommendation for the 3 TOD priority investment areas in the existing program guidelines. Fresno COG has successfuly obtained a grant from Caltrans' Sustainable Planning Grant program to conduct a long range transit plan, which could serve as the PTIS update. The Long range transit plan study will be initiated in Oct/Nov., and is estimated to be completed in 2 years.

City of Clovis, along with a few other small cities, believe that the TOD program should be opened to the other cities since the fifth funding cycle is completed. The scoring criteria in the existing guidelines should be revised to allow small cities to compete. There are examples of similar programs in other parts of the state that created different funding categories based on place types or urban/rural designation. City of Clovis, City of Selma and City of Mendota were present at the August TOD TAC meeting and supported the TOD program update to move forward without the PTIS update. BIA was also in favor of the TOD opened to the entire region at the 6th funding cycle.

Since the TOD TAC could not reach consensus and no recommendation was made regarding how to proceed with the TOD update, staff is looking for directions from TTC/PAC and the Policy Board. 

Action: Staff is seeking directions on how to proceed with the TOD update.

Summary: Attached are the Strategic Growth Council's (SGC's) funding recommendations and staff report for the 2015/2016 Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities (AHSC) program. Two awards are being recommended in the Fresno region:

(1) City of Fresno - South Stadium Phase I TOD at $5,738,730; and

(2) Cesar Chavez Foundation - Kings Canyon Connectivity Project at $15,579,426

Between the two projects, the funding recommendation is $21,318,156 (7% of the total $289,439,832 amount recommended).

Seven total awards are being recommended in the San Joaquin Valley, with three of those being rural projects (Kern: Wasco, Tulare: Dinuba, and Tulare: Lindsay). In total, the Valley is recommended to receive $60,562,042 (just under 21% of the total). The Wasco project alone is a $18.6 million project, and the Kings Canyon project is $15.5 million.

The SGC Council Meeting to approve these recommendations is scheduled for Oct. 11th from 9-12, at the CalEPA building in Sacramento.  The agenda for this meeting can be found at www.sgc.ca.gov.  For any questions regarding the AHSC program and/or activities associated with additional Cap and Trade auction proceeds, please contact Rob Terry at (559) 233-4148 Ext. 222 or via email at rterry@fresnocog.org.

Action: Information.  Direction may be provided at the discretion of the Committee.

Summary: The Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) has released a draft version of CalEnviroScreen (CES) 3.0, which is a mapping tool that helps identify California communities that are most affected by pollution, and where people are often especially vulnerable to pollution’s effects.  CES 2.0 has proven a useful tool to COG in its efforts to identify disadvantaged areas in the Fresno County region, and the new version has an updated methodology that somewhat changes how areas of Fresno County compare with the rest of California.  The purpose of this presentation is to discuss the notable changes present in the methodology and the results of CES 3.0 as compared with the prior release (CES 2.0).

Major changes in the draft include:

• More recent data for all indicators.
• Improvements in the way some indicators are calculated to better reflect environmental conditions or population vulnerability to pollution.
• The addition of two new indicators reflecting health and socioeconomic vulnerability to pollution.

More information can be found at http://oehha.ca.gov/calenviroscreen

Action: Information and discussion.  The deadline to submit comments to OEHHA regarding CES 3.0 is Friday, October 21, 2016.  Comments may be e-mailed to CalEnviroScreen@oehha.ca.gov, or sent by mail to:

Carolyn Flowers
Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment
P. O. Box 4010
Sacramento, California 95812-4010
(916) 324-7572

1.

RTP Roundtable kick-off meeting scheduled for October 20, 2016 (Brenda Veenendaal) (INFORMATION)

2.

RTP Roundtable - Remaining Vacancies (Brenda Veenendaal) (INFORMATION)

3.

2016 California Regional Transportation Plan Guidelines Update (Kristine Cai) (Information)

All items on the consent agenda are considered to be routine and non-controversial by COG staff and will be approved by one motion if no member of the Committee or public wishes to comment or ask questions.  If comment or discussion is desired by anyone, the item will be removed from the consent agenda and will be considered in the listed sequence with an opportunity for any member of the public to address the Committee concerning the item before action is taken.

To locate current and past year state bill information go to the Official California Legislative Information webpage at: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/

To locate current and past year federal bill information go to THOMAS, The Library of Congress’s bill information website (in the spirit of Thomas Jefferson) at: http://thomas.loc.gov/

Please contact staff person, Brenda Veenendaal, if you have any questions or comments.

Summary:  Fresno COG received a letter (attached) from the "Fresno Works" coalition requesting that the Fresno COG Policy Board reaffirm its support for the California High-Speed Rail Project. The request is based on the general consensus of those closely following the progress of the project, that the California High Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) will likely be making a decision on the location of the Heavy Maintenance Facility (HMF) within approximately 4-6 months. With that in mind, the "Fresno Works" coalition believes that a resolution of support from the Fresno COG Policy Board would send a strong signal that the Fresno region is fully behind the project, which would strongly bolster our region's chances of being awarded the facility.  Attached is a resolution of support for the California High-Speed Rail Project.

Action:  Recommend the Fresno COG Policy Board adopt a Resolution of Support ( R-35) for the California High Speed Rail Project.