Title
Recommendation to Authorize the Interim City Manager to Issue a Request for Proposals (RFP)for the Citywide Transit and Transportation Demand Management (TDM) Plans. (City Manager 61050)
Body
To: Honorable Mayor and Members of the City Council
From: Elizabeth D. Warmerdam, Interim City Manager
Re: Recommendation to Authorize the Interim City Manager to Issue a Request for Proposals for the Citywide Transit and Transportation Demand Management Plans
BACKGROUND
On January 21, 2015, the City Council directed staff to prepare an approach to a comprehensive citywide transportation planning and implementation effort in response to a City Council referral from Councilmember Tony Daysog. On February 25, 2015, City staff presented its initial thoughts on an approach to a citywide transportation effort at a joint Transportation Commission and Planning Board meeting. Staff’s refined approach to the citywide transportation effort, including draft goals and a proposed scope of work, was presented to the City Council on April 1, 2015. At this meeting, the City Council directed staff to move forward with a Request for Proposals (RFP), including a draft work scope, for Citywide Transit and Transportation Demand Management (TDM) Plans. Exhibit 1 includes a draft RFP for the Citywide Transit and TDM Plans for City Council consideration.
DISCUSSION
Purpose of Citywide Transit and TDM Plans
The Citywide Transit and TDM Plans will help ensure that the City sustains its high quality of life during a time of population growth throughout the Bay Area region from 7 million to an expected 9 million population in 2040. To help place the Transit and TDM Plans into context, the major reasons to proceed with this planning effort are described below.
• Traffic Congestion: Improving the City of Alameda transportation system and physical network is of paramount importance to the residents of Alameda, who have been experiencing increased traffic congestion as the result of regional and local growth and increased use of automobiles.
• Housing Requirements: Due to State of California mandates, legal requirements, and local housing needs, the City must continue to accommodate its regional housing needs, which will result in increased demands on the transportation network.
• Climate Change: Reducing automobile use and the associated emissions is the primary means by which the residents of Alameda can reduce greenhouse gas emissions to address climate change, which is required under California’s 2008 Senate Bill 375 (Steinberg).
• Transportation Funding: Federal, State and regional transportation funding is increasingly being directed to transportation projects that improve transit services and alternative modes of transportation.
• Transit Provider Coordination: The City needs to coordinate local development funds and efforts with the regional transit providers - AC Transit, Water Emergency Transportation Authority (WETA) and BART - to create convenient citywide transportation services for all existing and future Alameda residents.
• Changing Demographics: Younger residents are more likely to take transit than their older neighbors. Forty (40) percent of Millennials use public transportation compared to 28 percent for Generation-X, 19 percent for Baby Boomers, and 8 percent for the Silent Generation, according to a Portland State University Study.
The 2009 Transportation Element of the General Plan, which is the guiding document for the City on high-level goals, objectives and policies, requires the City to update planning documents for the various components of the transportation system (i.e., bicycle, pedestrian, transit and TDM). Figure 1 illustrates how the Transportation Element informs the more detailed transportation plans, such as the proposed Citywide Transit and TDM Plans. These implementation-focused plans will be coordinated to ensure that the documents are complementary and produce meaningful short- and long-term transit and transportation enhancements and a clear set of priorities spanning the next 20 years. One of the purposes of the Transit and TDM Plans will be to provide a more substantive analysis on which transit and TDM-related goals, objectives and policies in the Transportation Element have been implemented and what additional measures can be taken.
Figure 1: Transportation Project Implementation Process
The overarching goals of the Citywide Transit and TDM Plans are to take a holistic and integrative Citywide approach: (1) to minimizing the total net of new single-occupant vehicle trips at the island crossings and; (2) to enhancing multimodal intra-city mobility. Special attention will be paid to the peak travel periods - morning northbound, which is leaving Alameda, and afternoon southbound, which is returning to Alameda.
The Transit Plan will focus on implementing transit-related services and infrastructure by directing city funding and by coordinating transit providers such as AC Transit, WETA and BART in their near- and long-term route planning and expansion activities. The Transit Plan also will evaluate the financial feasibility of establishing a free intra-city Alameda shuttle similar to the City of Emeryville’s Emery Go-Round service.
The TDM Plan will recommend how best to manage transportation funds and requirements on new development in the City to most effectively support transit and TDM programs. The TDM Plan will build on existing efforts to determine the best organizational structure for implementing TDM programs for the City, as a whole, and for individual development projects.
This coordinated planning effort will include a comprehensive community engagement process consisting of community workshops, ongoing stakeholder outreach, a public opinion survey, a Citywide Transit and TDM Plans webpage (http://alamedaca.gov/community-development/citywide-transit-tdm-plan) maintained by City staff, an ongoing web-based comment page, and Transportation Commission, Planning Board and City Council meetings.
Need for Consultant Services and City Staff Support
The City Council asked staff to evaluate the possibility of City staff preparing the Citywide Transit and TDM Plans without the use of outside consultants. Staff recommends that the City contract with a Consultant Team to supplement the staff effort to complete this work. Similar to other successful, major planning efforts for Alameda Point, the 2009 Transportation Element, and the 2011 Citywide Parks Improvement Assessment, it is recommended that this work be completed by a team composed of both City staff and technical consultants.
The Consultant Team will help ensure that the City gains access to:
• Technical expertise such as TDM implementation and transit operations;
• Transportation models or software that the City does not own or want to purchase;
• Experience in other jurisdictions such as Seattle (http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/transitmasterplan.htm), Alameda County Transportation Commission (http://www.alamedactc.org/TransitPlan) and Boulder (https://www-static.bouldercolorado.gov/docs/boulder-transit-modal-plan-2014-1-201407291341.pdf), which have hired consultants to develop transit plans;
• Knowledge of best practices and ability to draw on a wide range of staff expertise and data within a larger organization;
• High-end graphics, which make presentations easier for the public to understand; and
• Specialized engineering.
The City staff’s role will be to provide institutional knowledge and will take primary responsibility for:
• Ensuring the draft work products are consistent with the City’s requirements, policies and initiatives, including public safety, legal, financial and maintenance obligations;
• Ensuring that the draft work products reflect current City Council and community expectations, priorities and goals;
• Managing the public outreach and public review process for all draft work products and ensuring that community input is adequately incorporated into subsequent work products;
• Ensuring that the public process is open, transparent and well publicized;
• Preparing and presenting all staff reports and major presentations;
• Ensuring that the recommendations can be effectively implemented by the City once the Consultant Team has completed its work;
• Implementing the strategies and recommendations upon plan approval; and
• Writing grant applications upon plan approval for outreach, design and construction of specific strategies in the plans, as needed.
While the Citywide Transit and TDM Plans are in process, City staff and the local transit operators will continue to work together to improve the City’s transportation system. For example, City staff is working with WETA to improve ferry terminal access to/from both the Harbor Bay Ferry Terminal and the Main Street Ferry Terminal. City staff is also negotiating with AC Transit to consolidate shuttles into future AC Transit lines or route expansions as part of its Service Expansion Plan (SEP) (http://www.actransit.org/sep/), with potential implementation in the spring of 2016. One route expansion proposal is the Northern Waterfront route, which would have AC Transit buses travel between Fruitvale BART and 12th Street BART via Buena Vista Avenue and Atlantic Avenue, similar to the former AC Transit Line 19.
RFP
The attached RFP provides background information on this planning effort, the expected consultant role, consultant submittal requirements, a proposed work scope, schedule and the City’s standard consultant agreement. Once a preferred Consultant Team is selected, City staff will finalize the work scope and budget, and will return to the City Council for approval of a consultant contract in December 2015. The Consultant Team is expected to complete the plans by July 2017.
At this time, staff is requesting the City Council authorize the issuance of the RFP so that City staff may solicit proposals from transportation consultants to prepare the Citywide Transit and TDM Plans.
FINANCIAL IMPACT
Staff estimates that the cost of preparing the Citywide Transit and TDM Plans could range between $250,000 to $400,000, depending on the approved scope of work. It is anticipated that funding will come from a variety of sources, which could include the General Fund. Funding will be identified as part of the staff report recommending award of contract to the selected Consultant Team.
MUNICIPAL CODE/POLICY DOCUMENT CROSS REFERENCE
Undertaking Citywide Transit and TDM Plans is consistent with the Transportation Element (http://alamedaca.gov/sites/default/files/document-files/files-inserted/general_plan_ch4.pdf) of the City's General Plan, which states that the City shall update transit and TDM planning documents as shown below:
• Policy 4.3.1.a: Update and implement the recommendations of the Alameda Long Range Transit Plan.
• Policy 4.1.6.e: Support and maintain an up-to-date Transportation System Management (TSM) and Transportation Demand Management (TDM) plan consistent with state law to provide adequate traffic flow to maintain established level of service.
ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW
In accordance with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), this action is Exempt under the CEQA Guideline Section 15306 because it consists of data collection and planning studies. Individual projects identified within the Transit and TDM Plans will be reviewed in accordance with CEQA requirements prior to their approval or implementation.
RECOMMENDATION
Authorize the Interim City Manager to issue a request for proposals for the Citywide Transit and Transportation Demand Management Plans.
Respectfully submitted,
Jennifer Ott, Chief Operating Officer -Alameda Point
By
Andrew Thomas, Assistant Community Development Director
Gail Payne, Transportation Coordinator
Financial Impact section reviewed,
Elena Adair, Finance Director
Exhibit:
1. Citywide Transit and TDM Plans Request for Proposal