Meeting Date: Subject Summary of Issues Recommendations Financial Implications Approve Transition of Central and East County 511 Contra Costa and Safe Transportation for Children Program Oversight to the Contra Costa Transportation Authority TRANSPAC has requested to transition the oversight of the Central and East County Transportation Demand Management (TDM) and Central County Measure J Safe Transportation for Children (STFC) programs to the Contra Costa Transportation Authority (Authority). Authority staff is proposing that the Authority contract the programs to its existing project management consultant to ensure a fast and seamless transition of existing programs. The Authority would provide oversight of the program through the contract. The development of a TDM strategic plan is also proposed to ensure the program continues to meet its goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and vehicle miles travelled. 1. Authorize the transition of the Central and East County Transportation Demand Management (TDM) and Central County Safe Transportation For Children (STFC) Programs to CCTA. 2. Authorize Authority staff to negotiate a contract amendment and revision to the scope of work with its existing project management consultant, Stantec to deliver the TDM and STFC programs in Central and East County. 3. Authorize Authority staff to work with the City of Pleasant Hill to, either by amendment or termination, discharge existing agreements 17PH.14 and 16PH.TDM to release any unspent allocations back to CCTA. Funding for the program comes from the Transportation Fund for Clean Air (TFCA) and Central County Measure J Safe Transportation for Children Program. These funds would need to be reallocated from the City of Pleasant Hill to the Authority to provide this program. The funding for this program exists in the proposed FY 2016-17 draft budget. 10-1
Page 2 of 5 Options Attachments None 1. Do not transition the programs to CCTA and provide direction back to TRANSPAC. Changes from Committee Background 511 Contra Costa (511CC) provides TDM service and support to jurisdictions and residents who live and work in Contra Costa County. Funding is provided by the Authority to support the 511CC program using three primary funding sources: Transportation Fund for Clean Air (Bay Area Air Quality Management District), Measure J (Program 17 Commute Alternatives), and Congestion Mitigation Air Quality (Metropolitan Transportation Commission). Funds are managed by three separate agreements with three separate offices that provide the 511CC program. The graphic below shows the general structure of the program. Funding Provider CCTA 511 Contra Costa WCCTAC City of Pleasant Hill City of San Ramon Estimated FY 2016-17 Funding Levels TDM West TFCA $318,701 MJ $185,005 MTC $15,890 TOTAL $519,596 TDM Central TFCA454,886 MJ $264,060 MTC $22,680 TOTAL $741,626 STFC Central MJ $425,000 TOTAL $425,000 TDM East TFCA $346,780 MJ $201,305 MTC $17,290 TOTAL $565,375 TDM TFCA $283,602 MJ $164,630 MTC $14,140 TOTAL $462,372 511CC Office Service Area West County Central County Central County East County Southwest County 10-2
Page 3 of 5 Currently, on an annual basis, the Authority enters into funding agreements with three entities to provide the 511CC program West Contra Costa Transportation Advisory Committee (WCCTAC), the City of Pleasant Hill and the City of San Ramon. WCCTAC provides TDM services to the residents, employers and jurisdictions in West County. The WCCTAC office also administers the Guaranteed Ride Home program for the entire county. For the City of Pleasant Hill, specific staff provides TDM services to the residents, employers and jurisdictions in both Central County and East County; they also provide the carpool and transit incentive program for the entire county. In addition to TDM functions, the Pleasant Hill office also has staff dedicated to administering the Central County Safe Transportation for Children (STFC) program through separate Measure J Program 21 sub-regional funds. These City employees work out of an office separate from other City offices. The last agreement is with the City of San Ramon to provide TDM services to the residents, employers and jurisdictions in the Southwest Area Transportation Committee (SWAT) area including the San Ramon Valley and Lamorinda jurisdictions. This office also administers the vanpool program for the entire county. In the case of the Pleasant Hill and San Ramon agreements, they provide both employees and fiscal oversight while project selection, programming and budget development are done through TRANSPAC and SWAT, respectively. Recent staffing changes including the retirements of TRANSPAC Executive Director and the TDM Program Director left TRANSPAC with options regarding decisions on how the TDM program could be delivered in the future. Based on this, TRANSPAC has asked CCTA to look at options for restructuring the program as it is related to both TRANSPAC and TRANSPLAN so that TRANSPAC would no longer provide direct oversight of the TDM program in those sub-regions. Because many of the programs provided require several months of advanced planning and bookings, a seamless transition that takes into account the ongoing nature of program delivery is important. The current TDM/STFC programs pertaining to Central and East County have seven dedicated staff employed by the City of Pleasant Hill - four full time receiving full benefits, and three part-time with no benefits. One of the full time staff is dedicated to the STFC program and one is dedicated to TDM. Two of the part time staff are dedicated to the STFC program. The balance of the staff provides service to both programs. 10-3
Page 4 of 5 Options Considered In an effort to consider different program delivery models, Authority staff looked at the following options: Option 1 No Change In this option the program would stay within the City of Pleasant Hill and the employees would be subject to employment decisions by the City. The Authority would continue to contract with the City for the project management of various TDM and STFC programs provided to Central and East County jurisdictions. TRANSPAC has indicated this is not a preferred option. Option 2 Transition some or all of the existing staff to the Authority / Contract some program tasks to a consultant. In this option the Authority would hire all or part of the current staff and take over the program for Central and East County. Authority staff has concerns in three areas with this option. First it doesn t make sense for the Authority to run only two sub-regional programs rather than the entire county; second absorbing staff into the Authority could have significant financial impacts on current and future pension costs paid by the Authority; lastly, there is currently no room in the Authority offices for more staff and splitting the staff into different office locations is neither desirable nor efficient. Because of these reasons this option is also not preferred. Option 3 The Authority contracts delivery of the entire program to a consultant. This option would shift program tasks currently being delivered by city staff to the Authority for contracting to its project management consultant, Stantec. In initial discussions with Stantec they are motivated to take on the work and build the program beyond its current status. Stantec has some TDM experience on the Treasure Island Development Project and has indicated that they would likely hire current staff as appropriate to maintain an existing level of service and program continuity. With Stantec currently under contract with the Authority staff believes a transition can be made with the least program delivery impacts with the current program budget. This option is the recommended option for consideration. On October 8, 2015, TRANSPAC took action requesting that the City of Pleasant Hill enter into a cooperative agreement with the Authority to deliver the FY 2016-17 TDM and STFC program for Central and East County. On May 12, 2016, TRANSPAC rescinded 10-4
Page 5 of 5 that action indicating that they no longer wanted to provide program oversight and indicated a request for the Authority to take over that role. With this recommendation from TRANSPAC, the Authority does not anticipate entering into an agreement with the City of Pleasant Hill for the FY 2016-17 TDM/STFC program. There are currently two open cooperative agreements with the City; agreement 17PH.14 is from FY 2013-14 and has an unspent allocation available in the amount of $770,342 in Measure J STFC funds. All TDM funds in the agreement have been expended. A second open agreement is from last fiscal year, 16PH.TDM. This agreement has $1,873,389 allocated funding in TFCA, Measure J Commute Alternative and Measure J STFC. If the Authority authorizes the transition of the program to the Authority these two cooperative agreements will need to be closed and the unspent allocations made available to the Authority to support the TDM/STFC program. Development of a Contra Costa TDM Strategic Plan Authority staff and staff from the three 511CC offices have been working on developing a scope of work for the development of a Contra Costa Transportation Demand Management Strategic Plan. The strategic plan would look at developing performance objectives for TDM projects and programs and evaluate the existing program in meeting those objectives. In addition to the program elements, the strategic plan would make recommendations for most effective delivery method of the TDM strategy. The current programs have been in operation for many years and it is likely some have run their course with respect to how effective they remain in facilitating mode shift. Staff believes that emerging technologies and innovative transportation delivery options could have a substantially positive effect on greenhouse gas reductions and vehicle miles travelled. These innovations will not only make modal choice more efficient and real time which is good for the traveller but will also improve the ability to monitor and evaluate actual data generated in real time to better evaluate services. The process by which the program markets itself will also change significantly with these new technologies. The 511CC group anticipates bringing a proposed Scope of Work for the Strategic Plan to the Authority for approval in late summer. Recommendations Staff recommends implementing Option 3, which transitions 511CC to CCTA with program delivery by consultant. 10-5
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