April 3, 2013
1:30 – 3:30 pm
NXP Semiconductor
411 East Plumeria Drive*
San Jose, CA 95134
Minutes
Transportation Policy Committee Meeting
Click for original background Agenda & Materials at the http://svlg.org/policyareas/transportation/transportation-committee/transportation-committee-only
(password BARTtoSV)
1. WELCOME AND INTRODUCTIONS
The Transportation Policy Committee meeting was called to order at 1:30 p.m.
Transportation Committee Members:
Chris Wall, City National Bank (TPC co-chair)
Melissa Zucker, Solaria (TPC co-chair)
Angus Davol, Stanford
Paul Shepherd, Cargill Salt
Denny Yau, SJSU
Ron Gonzales, Presencia LLC
Kerry Haywood, representing NetApp
Chris VanWert, Stryker
Russ Yarp, Fujifilm Dimatix
Betty Garza, NXP Semiconductor
Patty Pine, eBay
Staff:
Jessica Zenk, Senior Director of Transportation
Bena Chang, Director of Transportation and Housing
Joanna Huitt, Transportation Coordinator
2. TPC Minutes Approval
Motion—M/S Betty Garza / Chris Wall—Carried unanimously.
Approve the minutes of the February 2013 TPC meeting.
3. Bay Area Bike Share (information item) – Aiko Cuenco, VTA
Aiko Cuenco reviewed plans for Regional Bikeshare Pilot Program. For background, see
VTA BikeShare Presentation. Phase 1 of the program is slated to launch in August 2013.
Regarding sponsorship, the Air District is working with a marketing firm to do this right.
They expect an RFP for Title Sponsor soon; while it’s not finalized, the sponsorship ask will
probably be on the order of $15M with naming rights, logo on all bikes, web/print media;
NY: 10K bikes, 3K first w/ Citibank/citibike - $40M; Minneapolis – Blue Cross and Kaiser.
Another option is to be a Station Sponsor, which would allow for a pod at your
workplace, naming that station, etc. Altabike is the vendor for the system; a purchase
order is in for the bikes, and the team is finalizing initial sites and working on marketing the
system.
Questions & Discussion
 Betty: What about bike helmets? Aiko: Not mandatory (users only 18+); planning
to offer discounts for purchasing helmets.
 Betty: What about taking from a pod here to Light Rail? You could set up one at
an office and one at a LR station.
 Betty: How does the system let you know that you’ve returned? Technical
solutions in other cities have ensured that people aren’t improperly charged.
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Russ: What’s the pricing? Annual, monthly, 3-day-week, day user options; precise
price TBD.
Russ: Do I keep the bike with me all day? No, need kiosks and use throughout the
day; also have “rebalancers” to make sure bikes are where you need them.
Betty: Can you reserve? No, need to be shareable.
Kerry: Do you have pricing for Station Sponsors? Not yet.
Ron: How were the cities chosen? Caltrain ridership based.
Chris: Who was polled about usage? SJSU campus internal survey; Intercept
surveys early on with general public.
Chris: Lots of time on “last mile”; potential very high response rate from
concentrated campuses with an interest in moving people back and forth (proof
of concept to and from Caltrain/LR – commute timeframe focus) (Betty: Adobe,
NXP, eBay); Want people to do exactly that – add with Station Sponsorships
4. Implementing SB 1339, Employer Transportation Programs (information and
feedback requested) – David Burch & Jackie Winkel, BAAQMD & Tracy Keough,
O’Rourke
Jessica provided background and the history of SB 1339 with the TPC and Leadership
Group. The organization and committee discussed the legislation at length in 2011
through 2012, provided feedback to the BAAQMD and MTC as they crafted it, and
ultimately decided not to weigh in for or against it. Jessica then introduced David Burch,
Jackie Winkel, and Tracy Kehoe.
David and Tracy explained that the BAAQMD is in the very early stages of implementing
this requirement. Their intent with this extremely preliminary outreach is to hear from the
committee about potential fatal flaws, what would be great to have happen with the
program, and generally have a very frank discussion – mostly hearing committee
comments. For background, please refer to Implementing SB 1339, Employer Input Survey
Draft and/or email commuterbenefits@baaqmd.gov.
Questions & Discussion
 Angus: Is there a minimum threshold for options 2 & 3? Option 2: cover employee
cost up to a max of $75; Option 3: TBD – need formal rule to BOD and MTC
Commission, then develop guidelines/supplemental provisions
 Betty: Carpooling? $40/month if you carpool
 Kerry: What’s the aim of the Report? (Paul second) Report to the legislature – how
many vehicle trips are being reduced as a result of this legislation, etc.
 Tracy: You are already doing this, we know that. We need your help to craft the
policy
 Patty: Think there are a lot of people who aren’t taking this
 Chris: Day job is working with small businesses; need something that they can plug
& play – click on and offload responsibility of setting up and reporting tools – Do
not make them design anything!
 Kerry: What is it that you need to report back? David: What we envision is a very
basic questionnaire –
o Which option did you choose?
o Were you already doing this? Y/N
o How many people are taking advantage of this?
They do not want to force people to do surveys, etc.
 Chris: How are companies going to dodge this? (contracting?) How to make it
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David: Education about benefit that saves your employee and you money and is
pretty easy to implement
Tracy: Intending not to be punitive
Melissa: Commuter Check, Wage Works, HR intermediaries – could they do this as
part of their service? Or payroll companies/banks?
David: Interested in this; TMA already authorized to do this
Paul: Have other jurisdictions done this outside of the Bay Area? David: DC area,
and 3 cities elsewhere in the Bay Area; Interesting to get the public sector
employers involved (esp. school districts – need to be equally if not more
important as major employers)
Melissa: Pre-tax benefits not stable in the federal code; David: If program
revoked, rethink effort all together; if lowered, just less incentive
Tracy: Particularly for those of you who work with small businesses, what are the
best ways to inform and implement? Chris: Online is fine, all in one place is critical;
Chris: One concern – what does the punitive component, what does it look like?
Understood and planned for upfront.
Angus: People taking “option 0” – not participating and being fined? What’s the
punishment? (by size of employee, batched)
Paul: Avoid “Governor of Texas adding this to his elevator pitch” for why
companies leave California; Biggest problem – management time, make it simple
David: 50 threshold: 8,000 employers, 60% of Bay Area workforce
Patty: How do you plan to treat contractors? Legislation does not address; how
do we define these (w-2 form)? Not 1099 (contractor); complication also around
“where” the employer is located/headquartered (ie. temp agencies)
Timeframe: Process – informal through May; draft proposal – July/August;
proposed program – October; hopefully adopted by the end of the year;
employers have 6 months to implement
Ron: Talk to Chambers, typically representing smaller numbers of members
Chris: Industry associations as well (law firms, restaurants, etc.)
Jessica: Last year, a potential win discussed was if it actually became easier to set
up pre-tax benefits as a result of this law; we heard from many members that it’s
not as simple as it should be to do that.
Kerry: Could you provide something like a GHG reduction certificate? Something
that adds value, information they don’t already have.
David: The intent is to make compliance easy
Paul: Recommends keeping the word “compliance” out of presentations.
Tracy: Would you like or dislike the groundswell from employees? Answer: It
depends on the company.
5. Employer Trip Reduction/Incentives Research Project – Joanna Huitt (SJSU)
Joanna introduced her project, which is aimed at understanding what is most successful
at encouraging employees to use transportation alternatives other than solo-driving
(see Presentation on Employee Commute Behavior). Jessica mentioned that part of the
idea is to have the end product useable by people like TPC members, potentially
through a website that tailors solutions to individual workplace types (by size, location,
etc.).
 Betty: Might you take into account income level as a factor? Employee
schedules and “emergency ride home” as drivers for what people will actually
do, especially for working parents.
 Russ: Even just the desire to leave for lunch makes it tricky for people to use an
alternative.
 Kerry: Age/demographics really matter – there are different “buttons” – things
that work – for those different populations.
 Tracy: The Spare the Air Employer Program is working on a major “handholding”
effort to try to engage new populations, working with major companies.
 Melissa: Most helpful from an attraction/retraction perspective – comparing what
the employees could get at other places for transportation services. That pushes
companies to do more, being employee-driven.
 Betty: It would be great to understand what the barriers are and how they can
be overcome? (ie. guaranteed ride home programs, zipcar, getaround, etc.)
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Melissa: Getting feedback to companies and to providers would be helpful.
Kerry: Numbers and charts back to upper management, best practices, really
help as well.
Melissa: What do the employees LIKE that they’re doing – that would be useful.
Angus: Key to find the right company for your best practices/case studies – where
they want the data and you’re doing the work for them.
Melissa: LBNL, other publicly funded organizations would be other good targets,
along with biotech/tech associations.
Tracy: stacommutetips.org also has good information and can be a resource for
you.
Announcements
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Revised Tax Increment Financing Principles are included in your packets, based on
comments received on March 11, 2013.
Nominate most EV ready business for Ready, Set, Charge Bay Area EV Readiness
Awards at http://baclimate.org/impact/ev-readiness-awards.html. Nominations due
April 25.
At Health Happens in the Workplace, April 30th at Microsoft, Silicon Valley Leadership
Group members and our partners will dive into the details of how successful
companies are making it easy, fun and safe to bike, walk or take transit. Register
Today
Bike to Work Month & Day! Mark your calendars for May 9th, and find out more on our
Bike to Work website, including how to get into the Company Bike Challenge which
runs throughout May.
Join us for Silicon Valley: Driving Charged & Connected – the future of EVs &
sustainable transportation. June 6-7. Register Today
Meeting adjourned at 3:31.