RECEIVE and COMMENT on draft 2020 Legislative Program.

The purpose of the legislative program is to set general principles to guide staff and Board responses to legislative or budgetary proposals. The program also notifies state representatives of the Transportation Agency’s position on issues of key importance to the Agency.

The recommended action has no direct financial impact.

The draft 2020 legislative program continues to focus on transportation funding and is limited to priorities that are likely to come up in the 2020 legislative session. Attached is the draft legislative program.

Items of particular interest to this Committee include:

    State:

• 2S: Pursue funding for passenger rail.
• 10S: Promote transit-oriented development, alternative commutes and multimodal transportation.

    Federal:

• 1F: (6) Coordinate with military installations in Monterey County to seek funding for transportation projects with a nexus to those installations; (7) Support Monterey-Salinas Transit application for federal funding for the SURF Bus Line in the Monterey Branch Line corridor; and (8) Support applications for the Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development (BUILD) Transportation Discretionary Grant program on the California Central Coast.
• 3F: Streamline federal rail funding.
• 4F: Support funding for Amtrak.

The Executive Committee discussed this draft legislative program on October 2, 2019, and on October 23, 2019, the Board approved releasing it to Committees for input. The Bicycle and Pedestrian Facilities Advisory Committee will review it on November 6, 2019 and the Technical Advisory Committee will review the draft on November 7, 2019. Staff will also meet with partner agencies locally and statewide to discuss common issues. Following the Executive Committee's review of the draft program on January 8, 2020, the final program will come back to the Board on January 22, 2020 for adoption.