Revised Agenda. Tuesday, July 20, :30AM. Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority BUS OPERATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE

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1 Tuesday, 9:30AM Revised Agenda Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority BUS OPERATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE Windsor Conference Room 15 th Floor 1. Call to Order 1 minute 2. Approval of Minutes Attachment 1: June 15 Minutes 1 minute 3. Chair s Report 4. Homeland Security Funding Issues 5. Countywide Program to Reduce Bus-Related Fatalities Attachment 3: L.A. County Bus Fatality Project Congestion Management Program Update and Adoption COMMUTE Update Attachment 4: Board Report 8. TIP Schedule 9. State Legislative and Federal Update Attachment 5: Legislative Matrix Action Bob Hildebrand Action BOS Bob Hildebrand Marisa Yeager Don Carr/Chuck Massar/ Robert Torres Heather Hills Warren Morse Herman Cheng Michael Turner/Marisa Yeager

2 10. UFS Update 11. Regional Short Range Transit Plan Handout at Meeting Paula Faust Annelle Albarran 12. New Business Discussion BOS 13. Adjournment Items: 90-day Rolling Agenda FY05 MTA Board Committee Assignment 2004 CFP Recertification and Deobilgation % Fund Balances % Discretionary Fund Balances CMAQ Fund Balances TE 1% Fund Balances Summary of Invoices FY Subsidy Tracking Matrix 2002 Document Requirement Status 2003 Document Requirement Status Summary of EZ Pass Invoices FY03 Summary of EZ Pass Invoices FY04 Please call Desirée Portillo-Rabinov at or Susan Chapman at if you have questions regarding the agenda or meeting. The next BOS meeting will be held August 17, 2004 at 9:30am in the Windsor Conference Room, 15th Floor, Gateway Building.

3 1. Call to Order Chair called the meeting to order at 9:37 am. N/A Bob Hildebrand 2. Approval of June 15, 2004 Minutes David Rzepinski moved to approve the June 15, 2004 BOS Meeting Minutes as submitted. The motion was seconded and BOS approved. June 15, 2004 BOS minutes approved. N/A 3. Chair s Report Bob Hildebrand reported on the TAC meeting. Formula language regarding ozone standards for CMAQ funding may be changed, endangering as much as $50 million of funding for the LA area over the next 4 years. N/A Bob Hildebrand Bob spoke at the MTA Finance Budget Committee and Board Meetings. On behalf of BOS, Bob objected to a long list of fund balances in the report that were depicted as possible sources for Consent Decree services. The Board approved $11.3 million to fund Consent Decree service and $23.9 million to fund the FY04 MTA budget shortfall, with both sets of funds coming from the General fund right-of-way lease revenues. Bob gave a brief update on the Metro Connections study working group. SCAG and Booz Allen Hamilton are currently doing modeling that includes a corridor analysis. Meetings are planned in the coming weeks in the MTA sectors with the operators. He also gave a brief update of the General Manager s meeting which included the following: MTA was recently in federal court and it was ruled that the MTA must add buses to its consent decree lines. There was discussion about project fund balances and the possibility of transferring the balances to Muni accounts. EZ Transit Pass Update: Copies of Terry Matsumoto s presentation on the program were available. The Regional Pass working group needs to address several issues such as the reliability of reported boardings and the procedure for fund reimbursement. TPM Guidelines: The FAP/TPM working group completed draft guidelines. Consensus could not be reached regarding fare box recovery ratio and the passengers per VSH indicator. It was decided to postpone the discussion until advice from the executive oversight committee. Julie Austin will present the guidelines to the BOS in August. Finally, Bob invited Jess Segovia of ASI staff to discuss a recent class action lawsuit against ASI. He presented an access services summary notice of the 1 of 6

4 proposed class action settlement. Changes resulting from the settlement will not affect service on the street. The changes will affect the reporting process. In addition, proposed operation changes will now be reviewed by the advisory committee prior to board approval. Other changes include three annual audits, two mid-year updates, and the addition of 125 new pick-up locations. Also resulting from the settlement is the use of GPS in vehicles in the LA Basin to verify driver locations. The ASI Quality Service Sub-Committee will become a standing quarterly committee to discuss future operational changes. September 24th is the first summary hearing for post settlement to ensure the results of the class action lawsuit are reasonable. Ron Cunningham asked if ASI will fund the GPS and Jess replied yes, for L.A. Basin providers. Two handouts were provided: one summarizing the lawsuit and the other about the Spirit of Accessibility award. This award will be given to area transit providers for exemplary disabled service accessibility. Munis are encouraged to apply. 4. Homeland Security Funding Issues Marisa Yeager reported that with regards to transit security, Congress is more focused on rail security than bus security. Transit security through FY04 ending September 30th, has received $115 million. The MTA has received two grants from this money, one for $ 4.5 million and one for $800,000. Congressman Cox is working on a bill that would simplify the formulas that determine eligibility for these funds. N/A Marisa Yeager For FY05, $2 billion have been requested for transit security. The house passed $110 million of funding, the Office of Domestic Preparedness (ODP) distributes $100 million of which these funds, 80% would be used for local transit. The Senate has approved $115 million for urban security, of which $15 million has been designated for the TSA, and $23.9 million for science and technology. The MTA board has moved to support four legislation bills: S2453, Senator Shelby s capital/operating grants bill, S2276, Senator Boxer s Railroad/Mass Transit Protection Act of 2004, S2273, the Rail Security Act of 2004, and S2289, a bill increasing federal penalties for criminal acts on transit systems. Bob asked why this federal funding does not reach the municipal level. Marisa answered that the language of the bills is not specific enough to trickle down to the municipal levels. Susan Lipman asked what the MTA does with the funds that it is allocated. Steve Henley explained that the money is earmarked for specific projects such as a two-year pilot project to detect nuclear or biological material in subway systems. He mentioned that most of the money trickles down to first responders such as Fire or Police Departments. Marisa also urged 2 of 6

5 BOS to speak with their members of Congress to request that future security funds are allocated through the FTA so that funds can flow to the operators through existing distribution procedures. 5. Countywide Program to Reduce Bus- Related Fatalities Don Carr reported on the effort to reduce bus-related fatalities in Los Angeles County. LA County had 46 fatal incidents from The goal is to reduce the number of bus-related fatalities in LA county by 7% per year for 5 years. By examining data, three key strategies have been identified: enforcement, education, and engineering. Chuck Massar elaborated on this plan, explaining some of the common types of accidents, such as those caused by right turns. Discussion ensued speculating as to why Los Angeles suffered so many more fatal accidents than other California counties. Susan Lipman asked if information from the NTD reports was used in the study. Chuck replied that although this data was examined it may not be the most accurate data available, and instead multiple data sources are used. Teresa Price asked if information is collected about accident victims. Chuck replied that the reports focus on the circumstance of the accidents. Don noted that there are patterns in the characteristics of the accident victims. One important factor is age, with the elderly being more likely to be killed. Knowing such information can be useful in targeting education campaigns. Don concluded by asking BOS members to attend future meetings and agreeing to notify the BOS of such meetings through MTA staff. Desiree will disseminate to BOS member the upcoming meeting notice Don Carr/ Chuck Massar/ Robert Torres Congestion Management Program Update and Adoption Heather Hills reported that the final 2004 CMP should be adopted by the end of July. The big change in the 2004 CMP is the suspension of the credit/debit requirement for the 89 jurisdictions. This change is due to a Nexus study being conducted to determine the feasibility of instituting a countywide mitigation fee in lieu of the current credit/debit approach. Mitigation must be completed by cities in order to retain gas tax money under section This fee would likely take place at a sub-regional level. Several other counties, such as Riverside County, already have such countywide mitigation fees in place. Bob asked if such a fee would be in addition to any fees the cities already impose. Heather responded that the Nexus study is the legal framework for determining whether a fee is appropriate, the amount of the fee, and how it is incorporated with existing fees. Next report at September BOS on consultant progress of Nexus study Heather Hills COMMUTE Update Warren Morse and Alonzo Williams presented the COMMUTE update. Warren explained that the two major services that COMMUTE provides are providing Metro information and handling passenger related complaints. The call center handles approximately 41,000 calls per week. Warren Morse Warren distributed a handout detailing improvements to the Metro Customer 3 of 6

6 Relations workplace facilities. Such changes include larger and improved designed workstations and a new computer system called TripMaster. The system was developed internally in Metro, eliminating the transaction fees of the old system. This system s software is available to all area transit providers. The new system will save over $200,000 per year in transaction costs. New performance standards have recently been developed including setting aggressive goals, increasing call monitoring and coaching, and providing more scripted answers. Complaint analysis has also been expanded. With the passing of the FY05 budget, ten customer agents and four supervisors were let go. This has added to the challenge of meeting the needs of the customers. Bob Hildebrand asked about wait times. Warren and Alonzo replied that wait times have been hovering around 3- with fluctuations throughout the day and week. As of June 27 th, operating hours were reduced to 6:30 AM to 7:00 PM on weekdays and 8:00 AM to 4:30 PM on weekends. Teresa Price inquired about the TripMaster system and its ability to generate rail-only trips. Warren replied affirmatively that the new system is more flexible. Susan Lipman asked if the system will be available to other transit providers and Warren reiterated that the system software is available for free to all munis. 8. TIP Schedule Kalieh Honish reported on the TIP schedule. There is a September 20 th deadline for the Quarterly TIP amendments. The next deadline for TIP amendments is December 30 th, A schedule of upcoming due dates was distributed. SRTP Regional Workshops are currently going on. The July 29 th workshop is full, but spots for the August 4 th workshop are still available. Susan Lipman asked about the approval of the TIP from last October. Kalieh and Herman Cheng replied that it has not yet been approved, noting the complicated process that SCAG goes through. At the request of SCAG, data needs to be verified at times in order to ensure that nothing has changed over the elapsed time. Ron Cunningham asked about the process for approving minor or administrative amendments. Herman and Kalieh responded that these changes are still subject to the process. It was requested by BOS that communication between the TIP office and the municipalities be improved, with emphasis on publicizing administrative cycle dates. It was also suggested that municipal operators receive an opportunity to review corrections before the final product is delivered to SCAG. It is recommended that changes can be submitted anytime to Herman or Kalieh as soon as possible in order to streamline the process and avoid missing due dates. She can be reached at (213) Kalieh Honish/ Herman Cheng 9. State Legislative and Federal Update Marisa Yeager reported on current Federal affairs. President Bush is still asking that the federal transportation reauthorization be passed at $256 billion. The Senate still wants the bill to be $310 billion. The House wanted its $375 billion 4 of 6 Marisa Yeager/Mich ael Turner

7 proposal to pass, but has conceded to go down to $295 billion. The White House has indicated it will reject anything above $256 billion, though it is informally considering settling at $280 billion. The House and Senate Conference Committee for Reauthorization met today, July 20 th, as the extension ends on July 31st. It is likely that the current bill will be extended to December 30 th, after the presidential election. CMAQ Minimum Guarantee ozone attainment money is currently in question. This could have a $200 million impact on the region with over 200 communities in non-conformance. The House transportation and treasury subcommittee on appropriations met July 15 th and approved $89.9 billion for FY05. Of this, the FTA will receive $7.3 billion and Amtrak is funded at $900 million. Highway funding is at $34.6 billion and transit was cut by $16 million in the new starts category. New starts are earmarked at $300 million, of which Metro is receiving $60 million for the Metro Gold Line Eastside Extension. The full committee will be meeting Friday, July 23, Michael Turner reported on State matters. Despite the current lack of an adopted budget, the BOS group is not impacted. Governor Schwarzenegger s Indian Gaming bill would help repay transportation loans. The Governor has made compacts with some tribes but needs agreement with all tribes in addition to the failure of two measures on the next ballot in order for the bill to take effect. The Metro Gold Line extension to Claremont is being discussed along with design-build highways. The legislature returns to session on August UFS Update Paula Faust delivered a PowerPoint presentation that presented an update on the UFS project. Paula gave a similar presentation for the ITS America West Coast Electronic Payment Systems Workshop on July in Oakland. The conference dealt with Transit, Tolls, and Parking. Paula reported that UFS will now be referred to as TAP or Transit Access Pass. Paula updated BOS on the proposed TAP schedule including bus pilot, development of the regional cdcs and the development of the tap service center RFP. Paula discussed the refinement of the money committee structure into three working groups: Technical/operations, financial and marketing/customer services. Paula discussed the tasks that will be dealt with by the working groups. Paula also discussed that the money committee will also be focusing on the formal agreement for participants of TAP. That will be forthcoming to the tap executive committee (GM group). Regarding the TAP service center, San Diego has expressed interest in the RFP. This fall, Division 9 will begin the bus pilot program. The rail pilot program will follow shortly thereafter. The SmartCardwill be integrated into the Metrolink system as well. The regional program will be rolled out in phases. Thus, agency participation is of the utmost importance. 5 of 6 Paula Faust

8 11. Regional Short Range Transit Plan Annelle Albarran reported on the update of RSRTP (the Plan), which include two handouts: a committee list, and a Transit System Fact Sheet to be filled out by each Muni operator. Previously consultants, Nelson-Nygaard, prepared the 2002 Plan. Now the Plan will be completed in house in coordination with BOS and LTSS. Annelle circulated the committee list of nine potential committees, for which volunteers are needed. The working groups will meet from late August through October The transit system fact sheet was distributed and is due back by August 31 st. Discussion of the working groups ensued. The Chair will work with the BOS members before the next meeting to set the membership of the groups. Transit System Fact sheet is Due August 31 to Operations planning. Annelle Albarran 12. New Business No new business to report. N/A 13. Adjournment Meeting adjourned at 11:47 am. 6 of 6

Agenda. Tuesday, September 21, :30AM. Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority BUS OPERATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE

Agenda. Tuesday, September 21, :30AM. Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority BUS OPERATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE Tuesday, 9:30AM Agenda Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority BUS OPERATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE Windsor Conference Room 15 th Floor 1. Call to Order 1 minute 2. Approval of Minutes Attachment