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.

1.

City of San Joaquin TDA Claim FY 2023-24 [ACTION]

Summary: WE 181 Regional Climate Action Plan – As part of the Inflation Reduction Act, the Environmental Protection Agency Office of Air and Radiation (EPA) was appropriated $5 billion to reduce GHG emissions nationwide. They have issued program guidance for Climate Pollution Reduction Formula Grants and encouraged the Fresno Council of Governments to apply for the Fresno Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) share.  Fresno COG is serving as the grant administrator in conjunction with the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District and the city of Fresno.   Fresno COG has formally submitted the $1,000,000 grant application and requisite work plan to develop a Regional Climate Action to the EPA. A federally approved regional Climate Action Plan is required for Fresno COG’s member agencies to be eligible for a share of the $4.6 billion available for federal Climate Pollution Reduction implementation grants. 

Three grant deliverables are required, a Priority Climate Action Plan (PCAP), a Comprehensive Climate Action Plan (CCAP) and a Status Report.  FCOG’s grant application has been submitted to EPA and received a very favorable review, however the PCAP deliverable deadline is March 1, 2024, with the regional planning process scheduled to begin as early as 09/01/2023. EPA highly encourages FCOG to get started immediately with the planning process while the formal grant application is being processed.  The EPA grant guidelines include a 90-day pre-encumbrance provision at grantee risk but since this is a non-competitive formula grant stipulated directly for the Fresno Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) Fresno COG believes the risk the grant will not be awarded is very low. 

Action: Fresno COG staff recommends the TTC/PAC/Policy Board approve FY 2023-2024 Overall Work Program Amendment #1 

Summary: A roundup of Federal grant opportunites accepting applications now.

U.S. DOT has also opened a streamlined application process to access more than $5.5 billion in funding under the Multimodal Project Discretionary Grant (MPDG) program to help carry out major infrastructure projects across the country. MPDG solicits applications for three separate funding programs under a single opportunity.

 The MPDG funds:

• The $1.8B National Infrastructure Project Assistance (Mega) Program
• The $3.1B Infrastructure for Rebuilding America (INFRA) Program
• The $675M Rural Surface Transportation Grant (Rural) Program

 Eligible projects include:

 Highways & bridges

• Intercity passenger rail
• Railway-highway grade crossings or separations
• Public transportation
• Wildlife crossings

The deadline for applications is 11:59 pm ET on Aug 21. Applicants will find the NOFO at https://www.transportation.gov/sites/dot.gov/files/2023-06/MPDG%20NOFO%202023-2024%20Final_0.pdf

2023 Clean School Bus (CSB) Grant Program

The U.S Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is soliciting applications for the 2023 Clean School Bus (CSB) Grant Program, which helps replace existing school buses with new clean and zero-emission (ZE) school buses. EPA expects to award $400 million in total program funding through 25 to 50 grants. The application deadline is Aug. 22.

Eligible activities include replacing existing internal-combustion engine (ICE) school buses with electric, propane, or compressed natural gas (CNG) school buses and purchasing electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE) infrastructure and EVSE installations. A single application may target multiple fleets, school districts, and/or bus types.

Eligible old school buses must be diesel-powered and model year 2010 or older that will be scrapped if selected for funding, have a Gross Vehicle Weight Rating (GVWR) of 10,001 pounds or more, be operational at the time of application submission, and have provided bus service to a public school district for at least three days per week on average during the 2022/2023 school year (excluding COVID-related school closures).

Eligible replacement buses must have a battery-electric, compressed natural gas (CNG), or propane drivetrain; be 2021 or newer; have a GVWR of 10,001 pounds or more; be ordered after receiving official notification of EPA funding; be purchased, rather than leased or leased-to-own; and be able to serve for at least five years following date of delivery.

Eligible infrastructure may include installations and upgrades between the electric meter and charging port, including: charging equipment; design and engineering; installation costs, such as trenching, wiring, and electrical upgrades, labor, and permitting; and related intelligent equipment and software intended to monitor bus and infrastructure performance.

2023 Reconnecting Communities and Neighborhoods Grant Program

The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) announced a joint Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) covering $3.553 billion in funding for the 2023 Reconnecting Communities and Neighborhoods (RCN) Grant Program.  Applications must be submitted by 11:59 p.m. EDT on Thurs., Sept 28.

The joint NOFO combines the Reconnecting Communities Pilot (RCP) Program and the Neighborhood Access and Equity (NAE) Program into one comprehensive grant opportunity. The RCP Program will support planning and capital construction projects that mitigate infrastructure barriers, restore community connectivity, and enhance quality of life, while the NAE Program will advance projects to enhance walkability, safety, and affordable transportation access by improving community connectivity, mitigating or remediating negative impacts from the human or natural environment, and facilitating planning and capacity building activities. Applicants may apply for one or both programs by submitting one application and can receive funding under one or both programs. DOT will allocate $198 million in total funding for the RCP Program and $3.155 billion in total funding for the NAE Program under three award categories:

• Community Planning Grants support planning activities for construction projects that address localized transportation challenges. DOT will allocate $188 million for Community Planning Grants, including $50 million under the RCP Program and $135 million under the NAE Program.
• Capital Construction Grants support projects to remove, retrofit, mitigate, or replace existing dividing transportation facilities with new facilities that reconnect communities; mitigate burdening transportation facilities that are sources of air pollution, noise, stormwater, heat, or other burdens; or reduce environmental harm and/or improve access through transportation improvements. DOT will allocate $2.718 billion in funding for Capital Construction Grants, including $148 million under the RCP Program and $2.57 billion under the NAE Program.
• Finally, Regional Partnerships Challenge Grants address persistent regional challenges related to equitable access and mobility. DOE will allocate $450 million in funding for Regional Partnership Challenge Grants under the NAE Program.

Action: Information.  The Committee may provide additional direction at its discretion.

Summary:With $1.5 million funding from the Department of Housing & Community Development (HCD), Caltrans, and Kings County Association of Governments (KCAG), the eight Valley Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) initiated the Central California Travel Survey (CCTS) in late 2021.  Led by Fresno COG, the CCTS collected demographic and travel behavior data from 7,406 households (19,084 persons) across the eight counties in the San Joaquin Valley in 2022/23. Here are some of the key findings from the Survey:

• The overall trip rate for the Valley is 4.0 trips/person/day; 3.9 trips/person/day in Fresno County.
• 90% of all the trips in the Valley are made by individual vehicles; 90.6% in Fresno County.
• Transit trips account for 0.7% of all trips in the Valley; 0.6% in Fresno County.
• About 28.7% workers telecommute at least one day a week; 30.1% in Fresno County.

The CCTS also included a supplemental housing survey. The key findings from the housing survey are:

• About 75.5% households in the Valley live in single-family detached homes;71.7% in Fresno County.
• 42.9% of people surveyed think the best neighborhood attributes of a home is to be conveniently located near school, work or shopping; 42.9% in Fresno County.
• Of those who don't own a home, 31.9% believe they lack the financial resources for a mortgage payment; 30.4% in Fresno County.

The final draft report is attached with the agenda and can be found at www.fresnocog.org. 

The data collected from the CCTS will be used to update the traffic models maintained by each of the eight Valley MPOs. The model is a key tool in the Regional Transportation Plan/Sustainable Communities Strategy (RTP/SCS) development, SB 743 VMT analysis, roadway design, corridor studies, EIR of local general plans and specific plans, etc. 

RSG, the consulting firm that conducted the survey, will be offering a brief presentation to the TTC/PAC.

Action: Staff requests that the TTC/PAC recommend the Policy Board accept the Central California Travel Survey Final Report.

Summary: Fresno Council of Governments is serving as the grant administrator for the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s $1 million Climate Pollution Reduction Grant (CPRG) awarded to the Fresno Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA). Although EPA originally identified the San Joaquin Valley Unified Air Pollution Control District (SJVUAPCD)  and the City of Fresno EPA as logical grant administrators , there was a consensus decision among the three agencies that because almost 50% of greenhouse gases are produced from the transportation sector, it would make sense that Fresno COG serve as administrator.

The challenge from a planning perspective is that the EPA timeline for grant completion is incredibly compressed and leaves very little time to complete the mandated regional planning process. As illustrated in the attached CPRG Fresno MSA Workplan, a Preliminary Climate Action Plan (PCAP) is due March 1, 2024, and a Comprehensive Climate Action Plan (CCAP) is due Sept. 1, 2025.

The first work task within the PCAP is an inventory of GHG emissions by various sectors.  The sectors to be inventoried include: transportation, industrial, commercial, agriculture and timber, commercial, residential and electricity generation.  Fresno COG staff has the technical ability and tools to handle the transportation sector inventory; however, all the other sectors will require a consulting firm that specializes in developing GHG inventories at a macro level.   

Traditionally, Fresno COG would issue a request for proposals (RFP), however; the RFP process generally takes three to four months and there is only six months available to conduct the work necessary to have a PCAP ready by March 1, 2024.  These deadlines are of critical importance because without a federally approved PCAP/CPAP, Fresno COG’s member agencies will not have access to the $4.6 billion in federal funding that will become available to implement GHG mitigation measures.

Due to the extenuating circumstances, in combination with the significant fiscal importance to our member agencies as highlighted above, Fresno COG staff is recommending that a contract for the PCAP element of the CPRG be sole-sourced to LSA Associates.  After due diligence by Fresno COG management, LSA Associates was chosen as the best option for this work because the firm has strong professional experience in developing PCAPs, Fresno COG’s professional experience with LSA Associates on other planning studies/projects has been excellent and it recently served as the prime consultant on the City of Fresno’s 2020 Climate Action Plan.

Action:  Staff requests that the TTC/PAC recommend the Policy Board authorize the Fresno COG executive director to enter a sole-source contract with LSA Associates for $150,000 to prepare the Priority Climate Action Plan (PCAP) element of the EPA Climate Pollution Reduction Grant.

Summary:  Per the direction of the Fresno COG Policy Board, Fresno COG staff will be working with urban and rural school districts to initiate a regional planning process to identify and inventory Safe Routes to Schools needs within Fresno County. The intent is that the school district’s Safe Routes to Schools planning process work in tandem with our member agencies’ Active Transportation Planning (ATP) process to develop a cohesive comprehensive long-range vision and implementation strategy for pedestrian/bicycle travel within our communities.

The need for this type of cross jurisdictional (transportation-education) regional planning process became clear during the Measure C renewal process where we saw that there was no “connectivity” between what the education establishment was doing with its Safe Routes to Schools (SRS) planning and the Active Transportation (ATP) planning being conducted by local agencies.  This disconnect hurt us with voters as opponents to the Measure C renewal framed the issue as Measure C has “not kept its promises” because we still have unsafe routes to schools in our communities. For the record, the original (1986) Measure C had no allocations for SRS or ATP, the Measure C reauthorization (2006) added a bicycle and pedestrian trails programs element to the Local Program, and the 2022 Measure C renewal effort did include a Safe Routes to Schools component. 

FY 2022-23 K-12 Public Schools in Fresno County

1. Total K-12 public schools in Fresno County

            346

2. Schools in Fresno & Clovis SOI

            197

3. Schools in 13 small, incorporated cities SOI

            91

4. Schools in rest of unincorporated County

            58

In terms of the regional planning process, COG staff will initiate individual outreach to each of the 15 city managers and the Fresno County CAO explaining the SRS/ATP planning process and why there is the need for it. This process will be replicated with the administrators of the various urban and rural school districts to explain the planning rationale behind “blending” our local agencies ATP planning process with the school district’s SRS planning process. The final product of this planning effort would be an inventory of the SRS needs in each school district along with the ATP plan/projects currently identified by the local agency. This list of identified projects will then be scored for prioritization purposes by a steering committee consisting of transportation and education sector stakeholders. The identified priority projects would also have identified potential funding sources from either the education sector or the transportation sector to deliver the project.

Action:   Information.  The Commitee may provide additional direction at its discretion.

This portion of the meeting is reserved for persons wishing to address the Committee on items within its jurisdiction but not on this agenda.  Note:  Prior to action by the Committee on any item on this agenda, the public may comment on that item.  Unscheduled comments may be limited to three minutes.