Welcome to the first edition of the Streetsblog California podcast, StreetSmart. In this podcast, I'll be talking to experts about various topics, policies, programs, and people that I'll be covering as part of the beat at Streetsblog California.
Our guest in the first episode is Jeanie Ward-Waller, who is currently the interim director with Climate Plan and the Director of Transportation Advocacy with Fearless Advocacy. Of course, her work throughout the years at Caltrans, Calbike, and the Safe Routes to Schools National Partnership has been regularly covered at Streetsblog.
Today, we discuss the California Transportation Commission, the appointed state board that reviews and approves billions of dollars in grants every year. Ward-Waller explains how the board works (and doesn't work), and what to expect at their long, two-day meetings. It just so happens that one of those long meetings is this Thursday and Friday.
Our second podcast, that looks at the funding picture for transit agencies statewide in the COVID-Recovery and Trump eras will feature UCLA researcher Juan Matute and will be live in one week.
A transcript of the interview can be found below the podcast.
Transcript
Damien Newton: So, welcome to the inaugural podcast of our first Streetsblog California podcast, which we're calling Street Smart. At least we still are as of the recording.
Jeanie Ward-Waller: Woo hoo!
DN: Sometimes we change at the last minute here, but right now we're calling it Street Smart.
JWW: Awesome.
DN: And, yeah again, if you haven't read any of our introduction pieces: the concept for this is we're going to, as the new Streetsblog editor comes in, they usually do lots of calls to catch up and find out information that maybe isn't widely publicly known or just even find out things about people or organizations that aren't as widely covered outside of Streetsblog. We thought, “wouldn't it be cool if we did those meetings and recorded them so that anyone that reads Streetsblog could listen to them or read them. So this is our first one of those and we brought a Streetsblog celebrity for it to make sure that you listen to at least the first one. So welcome Jeannie Ward-Waller.
JWW: Thank you so much, Damien. I'm really excited to be your inaugural guest.
DN: Inaugural guests on past podcasts that we've done include a newly elected council member and in our San Gabriel Valley it was a mayor. So…I guess you should run for office soon.
JWW: That's right. Feeling lucky!
DN: So, our topic for today is the California Transportation Commission (CTC). Streetsblog has covered it in-depth in the past and, for a long time, we were one of the only news outlets that covered it.
Although, weirdly, in the past couple years Politico's started covering it, which has been cool. But since this is sort of our beat, and because it's a committee that doesn't get a lot of widespread publication coverage or radio coverage, we thought we would start by explaining what is the CTC to people just joining in.
The plan is for this podcast to be going up on Monday the 27th, and they happen to be having a meeting on the 30th and 31st of January - in just a couple days. So anyone Googling "CTC" will see this podcast and then they can learn all about it.
JWW: Very cool.
DN: So why don't we just start out with the basics? What is the California Transportation Commission and why should people care what it does?
JWW: Great question. And again, thank you for inviting me on to Street Smart. Very excited to be here. So, the CTC is a little-known transportation agency at the state level that has a really outsized impact on transportation funding in the state of California.
It is a commission. It's a board. Members are appointed. There's 11 voting members. Nine of them are appointed by the governor. Two are appointed by the legislature, one from each house.
And then there are also two ex-officio members, which are the two transportation chairs in the legislature. So it's a fairly small group, but know they are essentially responsible for allocating - we call it "programming" - or sort of promising awarding funding to transportation projects in the state… primarily state funds.
They also have an oversight responsibility for federal funds…really, really big programs like Caltrans State Highway Operation and Protection Program - which we lovingly refer to as the SHOPP program - which is funded to the tune of about $5 billion a year. CTC approves SHOPP projects, and they also have responsibility for oversight on Caltrans work with those funds. They have a pretty small staff…about 30 staff.
But they have a huge responsibility because they literally allocate billions and billions of dollars in every single meeting.
They meet six times a year. And their responsibility is really significant.
So the wonkiest wonks of state transportation advocacy tune into every meeting. We regularly have policy items and funding programs that we have comments on. But it's not a space that gets a lot of participation by just general members of the public because they are, as I said, a small commission that hasn’t gotten a lot of attention other than from Streetsblog.
Of course, Melanie religiously watched commission meetings for her whole time and was really great at covering it. So just appreciate Streetsblog so much for ah for being the lens into [it].
DN: I made my Zoom reservations today for those meetings, so I'm ready.
JWW: Yes. Get them on your calendar now…
But yeah, the meetings are long. I think most of their meetings are scheduled to run a day and a half. So it takes some endurance to stay on and hear all of the decisions that they're making at every meeting.
DN: A lot of times when people hear about transportation grants they assume it's from Caltrans, or the state agency.
Do Caltrans grant programs have to be approved by the CTC? Or are they separate? Or sometimes both?
JWW: Not all of them.
Caltrans does have a few programs that they're responsible for awarding and managing and administering. Many are in CTCs purview. And then some can be awarded by the federal government. The federal government has their own set of discretionary programs. Caltrans helps to manage the funds because they have a fiduciary responsibility that's given to them - sort of delegated to them - by the federal government.
Even at the regional level, MPO (metropolitan planning organizations) also have their own sets of grant programs. So there's grants that can come from agencies all over the place. But CTC has some of the big, really important ones. Streetsblog often talks about the Active Transportation Program. That's a beloved program that advocates have been pushing for a long time to get more funding.
And that is in CTC's responsibility to award and administer, although they lean on Caltrans staff to provide quite a bit of support for that program too.
DN: The last podcast I recorded was actually Melanie's goodbye podcast. And in it, she mentioned that CTC gets really annoyed with her because she uses the term “rubber stamp” for a lot of the proposals that come through. And when you describe the make-up of the board where you have nine people appointed by the governor and only two people appointed by something else, is the reality that we see a lot of things just sort of "rubber stamped" as to whatever the governor wants? Like how often will you have governor appointees arguing with each other?
JWW: Not often.
I think it's fair criticism from Melanie and part of the frustration, frankly, from the advocacy community that we do feel like there's rarely real honest discourse and dialogue and questioning of projects once they get to a commission meeting.
One of the rare really high profile examples that actually even the L.A. Times covered was about a year ago at their, was their January meeting a year ago when Commissioner Joe Liu raised some really important questions about a big project that was getting funding from the the Trade Corridor Improvement Program, which is one of those big grant programs that CTC awards. And he had some legitimate questions about the environmental impacts, air quality assessment, traffic analysis that Caltrans and the sponsoring agency, which is the San Bernardino County Transportation Agency, did not receive well. And Joe really took a lot of flack and, unfortunately, was not reappointed after that meeting. That was his last meeting.
And a couple of others agreed with Joe: Commissioner Lugo and Commissioner Grisby. At the prior meeting, they had sort of agreed with Joe and said, “Hey, let's not allocate funds to this project now and bring it back in January and get some of these questions answered that Joe was raising.” And that kind of discord and split vote is extremely rare at CTC. By the time the projects get to CTC, they really feel baked. It's too late for dialogue. From an advocate perspective, that's really concerning because we feel like that kind of scrutiny should happen in public. It should happen at a public meeting. And because transportation is so hard to influence at the early steps of project development, we don't necessarily have a view into what's happening with that project. The decision-making, the environmental analysis… Environmental documents are thousands of pages long. No average member of the public, or even us as professional advocates, have the time and the capacity to dig through and read all the details and it's super technical.
So we would like CTC commissioners to bring some of those hard questions to a public meeting and have those discussions in public, but it rarely happens and I think it's been discouraged. From what I understand, CTC really wants those meetings to be very cordial and have agreement amongst the group - at least publicly - so it's a frustration for us for sure.
DN: To build off that question and the frustration you're expressing, how much does it matter then who the commissioners are? Because I know several years ago, when Tamika Butler was first appointed, there was celebration because it was breaking up sort of the monopoly in several senses that had dominated the CTC.
And she stepped down under some conflict of interest concerns because she was working for a transportation consulting firm at the time. But I mean, I know there's some really good people on it right now. But does it matter that much if the rubber-stamp mentality and cordiality is so important?
JWW: Absolutely.
I absolutely think it matters. And from the perspective of the coalition that I work with, we continue to do the work to organize and identify good people who have expertise, who bring a different perspective that would be willing to serve on the commission. So, we actually just sent a letter to the governor's office recently with some more recommendations of, "Hey, these are good people that represent different parts of the state that maybe aren't represented on the commission at the moment, that are willing to serve, and are really interested in serving on CTC and providing it input to the decisions.”
So, we're not deterred, but I think it's challenging. The change that I have seen over the last several years with having more diverse perspectives on the CTC - equity being maybe one of the biggest and most important - that are now often centered in discussion. It's not always like a real deep dive on what are the equity impacts of a particular project, but they talk about equity a lot in the reports that they get and the introductory statements and the agencies that come and present to CTC. Equity is very much becoming part of the dialogue.
And hopefully that is going to have an impact over time. But it takes a long time to change these systems. So I think we're still waiting to see that then become deeper in the analysis and the discussion around projects and around funding allocations. Like... how are those things influenced by all of the dialogue and all of the discussion and time that's spent talking about equity?
I don't know if that's a partial answer to your question, but I think it has made a real difference to bring new perspectives to the commissioners that are actually sitting on the dais. But it's not totally changed the process and some of the bigger concerns about funding allocations that we would like to see.
DN: No, I think it was important to address that because I realized the rubber stamp question might have sounded too discouraging to people after I listened to the answer, which I've heard before, versions of it from you and Melanie before.
But as I was listening, I thought, “I don't want to make it sound like we're telling advocates not to be involved, that it's just a rubber stamp anyway.”
JWW: It takes a long time to change. Changing the culture, changing the folks in the decision making structure - all of these things are like steps in the right direction.
I do feel like we're getting to an important tipping point in some of the bigger decision-making and I'm hopeful. I'm not deterred. And certainly the folks that I work with, we continue to show up, we continue to advocate really strongly at CTC and continue to try to shift the perspectives on the board.
DN: So, you mentioned Active Transportation, which is a program we've covered a lot that's administered by the CTC. It seems that the biggest issue people have with this program - the biggest negative issue, I should say, that people have with this program - is that it's too popular and there's never enough money for it.
But that's not really something the CTC can do anything about. If anything, the CTC has actually been asking for more money for this program because it's so popular.
JWW: Yeah. Yeah, that's right. We were very pleased, and I want to commend the CTC in a big way, for putting the active transportation program at the very top of their list of priorities in their annual report to the legislature this year. So they are asking, in pretty clear terms, that the legislature put more money for ATP in this year's budget and also start to look at a longer-term solution that would try to solve the problem of not enough funding to this program year over year into the future.
DN: You're talking about a dedicated funding stream, like a certain percentage of this tax pays for the ATP every year.
JWW: And ATP does have a dedicated funding stream now. There is a base funding allocation that's continuously appropriated - that's state and federal transportation dollars. But the base funding has never met the need, right? Every single cycle of ATP has been oversubscribed by many times. And then we saw a one-time augmentation of general funds three years ago, when there was a big budget surplus and the governor did his “big climate budget.”
But that funding has unfortunately been clawed back each of the last two years. And the clawback has actually ended up eroding the base funding because CTC had programmed that whole one-time allocation, which was a billion dollars. They promised that money to projects. And so actually, as the money's been pulled back from the one-time allocation, they've had to use the base funding to meet the promises that they've already made.
And so this last cycle - and I think Melanie covered this pretty well - the cycle that was just awarded in December, a month ago, there was only $84 million available statewide and they received two and a half billion dollars in applications. So it was oversubscribed by 30 times and they could have funded hundreds of projects. At least several dozen that scored really highly. Instead they finished ninth in the statewide competition.
So 300 applications - many dozens that were great, scored well - and…they funded nine. To just even think of the wasted resources that goes into all of those cities and counties preparing applications, preparing these projects and applying…it costs a lot of money because they often hire consultants.
This year has put it into more stark relief than ever before. There's more ATP projects out there to fund than frankly even the highway projects that applied to the big two highway programs “congested quarters” and “trade quarters” programs. Those two programs received the same amount of applications in terms of dollar amount.
The demand just grows every year for ATP. It's not like we're meeting the need and we're just going to be done at some point funding active transportation. The applications of ATP grow every single grand cycle. So demand is just increasing for these kinds of projects. They're so popular.
DN: When LADOT cut its local slow streets program and eliminated it, I remember testifying or writing a letter to them basically saying, “I don't know why you would ever consider cutting this program. In my neighborhood, the most conservative estimate is that it had 80% approval when we did our surveys. and the neighborhood association, which didn't like it, really pushed people to vote against it."
So I'm pretty sure that the 80% is actually low.
Like, why would you ever cut this program? It's got like apple pie approval ratings. And I feel like it's the same thing for ATP. Everybody loves the program. Why wouldn't you be desperately trying to find ways to put more money into it?
Because it's just a program that makes people happy.
JWW: It's a great point and I'm hopeful that that's actually the way the legislature is going to feel that way this year. We've been making the rounds as a coalition, educating members about this program and also just reminding them of the great projects that have been funded in their districts.We get really positive response. Since it's CTC's top priority, the chair of the Senate Transportation Committee showed up to CTC last month and said, “I really care about this. I want to make this one of my top priorities.” We're hopeful that this is the year that we really do break through and get more funding for this program.
But I totally agree with you. I've been involved in this program since its inception in 2012. That was the year I moved to Sacramento and started working in transportation. And so it in some ways feels like my heart is with this program and I've seen it come so far.
And now that we have 10 years of history of projects that have been funded out of this program, we've funded projects in every district all over the state. So many communities have benefited. So, we have a strong constituency that supports this program now.
DN: This program is part of what was included in a letter that you and 60 plus other advocacy groups sent to the CTC and a couple other boards this week that made the case that now is the time to be investing in active transportation and progressive housing policies, and transit operations.
The federal government's lack of support for electric car programs in the next couple of years is going to mean that the state is going to struggle to meet its climate goals on a system that's built around expanding electric vehicles.
JWW: I think the president made it very clear on his first day with all those executive orders that he has no commitment to addressing climate change. Equity is not a priority, right? They've canceled all DEI initiatives in the federal government, which I think is gonna have a really big impact on some of the most exciting programs that came out of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the last federal transportation bill that was enacted under the Biden administration.
Programs like Reconnecting Communities. There was one called Neighborhood Access and Equity. Safe Streets for All. There were a whole slew of programs, carbon reduction programs, new discretionary programs that were created and awarded by Buttigieg as transportation secretary that are dedicated to climate and equity safety for all modes, right? Not just people in vehicles.
Given the statements and the initial orders from the Trump administration, we can anticipate that most of those programs will go away. And that's really unfortunate because all of those goals were very aligned with our priorities in California.
What our letter said is we want the state government to be the backstop for this stuff. If we lose a partner at the federal level in these efforts, we need to actually push harder at the state level and and the regional and local level in California on these things that we know we really care about that are California's values.
We're really encouraging CTC, Caltrans, the Air Resources Board - they do our climate planning and they're also the agency that regulates vehicle emissions, and then also HCD, which is the housing and community development department. They of course are responsible for our housing policy. Where we build housing is super important and influences the transportation and the climate goals significantly.
We think there's a lot that is in the state's control. And we really encourage the state to step it up, especially over the next four years when we may backslide. We may really backslide electric vehicles. I mean, our regulatory power may be diminished, but also things like the EV incentives, investment in EV charging that we've gotten from the federal government.
If a lot of that goes away, the state's going to have to make up for that. And one way we can make up for it is, frankly, by trying harder to reduce driving by providing people alternatives to not driving. That can be another way that we move further on our climate goals without needing federal support and on the electrification side of things.
DN: So since this is a concept podcast where people can come and listen to it whenever we tried to keep the things that were too specific to what's happening at this moment towards the end.
So since we're at the end-ish, why don't we talk about, is there anything really exciting on the CTC agenda that'll be at the end of the week that this podcast is being first podcasted?
JWW: So this letter that you and I were just talking about… our advocacy coalition will certainly be showing up at the CTC meeting next week to make sure that commissioners saw our letter, understand our recommendations, and feel some urgency to respond and to take some leadership in these areas. So that's one that's one thing that you'll definitely hear.
In addition to that - again this is where I get turned into a super transportation wonk - there are a couple of planning documents that Caltrans and CTC are going to be presenting on that are policy items on their agenda. So, we'll certainly have comments. There will be other places on the agenda where we'll have some comments to make.
One is in support of a bill that we worked on last year, SB 960, which was authored by Senator Wiener. This is one that requires Caltrans (when they are doing SHOPP projects), they have to build complete streets and transit priority everywhere where those needs are identified in planning documents.
JWW: So that plan is called the state highway, um sorry, system management plan.
So that's one of the items that we'll definitely be tuning in to hear from Caltrans on - what are they thinking for their next update to that plan and how are they going to be incorporating complete streets and transit priority as SB 960 requires? So... pretty wonky, but exciting for those of us who have worked on his policies and been deep in the weeds. We're anxious to see progress.
DN: All right, well, we're already up against our time limit. Doesn't it feel like we just started? I bet people that are listening are going to be like, how could they be approaching a half hour already?
JWW: It's just so riveting.
DN: Yeah, yeah my broadcast expertise says definitely pick on your content at the end of every at the end of every podcast.
It makes you relatable.
But, future topics are going to be just as wonky. So if you enjoyed this, the next one's probably going to be ah about a week and a half from now. And we're going to be talking specifically about the state of transit funding.
Certainly there will be some Trump in that as well. But we're going to be talking about some different agencies and what's going on and what the state can and can't do on this issue over the next couple of years.
JWW: Awesome, yeah.
DN: Like, what do transit agencies need to be doing in a broad sense in your post-lockdown era, which we're still in and probably will consider ourselves in for several, several years... Is work from home is still a thing? Because we're not in Northern Virginia or DC. So work from home is still a thing. And how does all that change everything? Anyway, though, thank you for being here today.
JWW: So important. Thank you so much, Damien. The stuff is super-wonky, but it's also so important. So thank you for diving in deeply and for...
DN: Yeah, I'm definitely going to tell Juan Matute. He has to listen to this and match your energy for the next podcast.
JWW: Good luck.