REVIEW the draft Monterey County Active Transportation Plan; and PROVIDE comments by May 31, 2018. 

The Active Transportation Plan is an update of the 2011 Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan. The focus of the 2018 Plan update is to meet the State Active Transportation Program guidelines, incorporate innovative bicycle facility designs, and promote high priority projects.

The Plan will position high priority projects to be more competitive for grant funding, such as the State’s Active Transportation Program. The upcoming ATP cycle funding estimate is $445 million for FY2019/20 to FY2022/23. Staff time, and Alta Planning + Design's contract totaling $124,891, are both included in the adopted TAMC budget.

The goal of the Monterey County Active Transportation Plan is to meet State's Plan guidelines, identify high priority bicycle and pedestrian projects, and identify opportunity sites for innovative bicycle facility design, and designating areas for enhanced regional and local connectivity.

Public Outreach:
The development of this Plan started in 2016. In May 2016, Committee members from the Bicycle and Pedestrian Committee and the Technical Advisory Committee participated in a mapping activity to identify bicycle and pedestrian improvements throughout Monterey County. In August 2016, Committee members provided input on the list of projects identified in the May mapping exercise. From September to December 2016, TAMC staff set up an online mapping public input tool. Members of the public were able to provide feedback on: barriers to bicycling/walking, routes that they currently walk/bike, and routes that they would like to bike/walk if improvements were made. Approximately 300 people submitted 430 comments via the Wikimapping tool. Staff collaborated with the Monterey County Health Department to gather input from their Greenfield Leadership and Civic Engagement group, and collaborated with the City of Gonzales to host a South County public workshop.

Plan, Projects and Ranking:
Since the public outreach phase of this project, TAMC staff met with city and county staff to review public comments and to discuss city priorities. TAMC staff then developed draft ranked project lists for each of the Monterey County jurisdictions, based on the State Active Transportation Program grant scoring criteria and input received from the Bicycle and Pedestrian Committee and the Technical Advisory Committee. The scoring measurement methodology and data sources as well as a refined scale for how points are distributed among these categories (see attachment): Safety, Connectivity, Comfort, Active Transportation Trips, Equity, Complete Streets Opportunity projects, and, Quality Facilities.

An interactive map and the draft ranked project lists for each of the cities and the County of Monterey are posted on the Active Transportation Plan website: http://www.tamcmonterey.org/programs/bike-pedestrian/bike-ped-plan/.  Attached is the Executive Summary of the Active Transportation Plan. The projects identified as regional priorities are those that scored in the top 25% of all projects countywide. Based on input from the local jurisdictions and the project scores, Alta Planning + Design will develop conceptual designs for the following projects:

     *Regional priority project based on plan's ranking criteria

The intent of the conceptual designs is to advance these high-priority projects into project development and make them more competitive for ATP grant funding. Following release of the draft Active Transportation Plan, staff will conduct additional outreach to promote the draft Plan and coordinate with stakeholders on the conceptual design development. Public comment will be accepted until May 31, 2018.