1 STAFF REPORT
DATE: March 26, 2024
TO: Justin Hess, City Manager
FROM: Patrick Prescott, Community Development Director
BY: David Kriske, Assistant Community Development Director, Transportation
SUBJECT: Approval of a Cooperative Agreement with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority for the Design and Construction of the North Hollywood to Pasadena Bus Rapid Transit Corridor Project
RECOMMENDATION
1. Approve a Cooperative Agreement (Agreement) (Attachment 1) with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) for the Design and Construction of the North Hollywood to Pasadena Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) Corridor Project , subject to incorporation of the City’s redline changes as described in this report that have not yet been agreed to by Metro.
2. Direct staff on whether to require a more detailed project description in the Agreement which specifies the inclusion of mixed- flow lanes on Olive Avenue between Buena Vista Street and Lake Street.
BACKGROUND
Metro is currently designing its North Hollywood to Pasadena BRT Corridor Project. This 18-mile project would construct a BRT between the North Hollywood Red Line / Orange Line Station and the Gold Line in Pasadena, passing through the cities of Los Angeles, Burbank, Glendale, and Pasadena. BRT is high- capacity bus transit that offers fewer stops and speed improvements over a traditional bus route. Unlike a traditional transit project operating in Metro right of way, the project uses local city street right of way for operations as well as the location of stations.
The proposed project alignment (Attachment 2) would generally run from North Hollywood via Lankershim Boulevard and the Route 134 freeway before exiting the freeway in Burbank to serve the Burbank Media District. From there, the route would proceed east along Olive Avenue, Alameda Avenue, Buena Vista Street, and back onto Olive Avenue to Downtown Burbank, then south on Glenoaks Boulevard where it would le ave the City and travel eastward to Downtown Glendale, the Los Angeles community of Eagle Rock, and Pasadena. The project would construct five stations in Burbank: 1) Hollywood Way
COMMUNITY
DEVELOPMENT
2 at Olive Avenue / Riverside Drive, 2) Buena Vista Street at Alameda Avenue, 3) Olive Avenue at Verdugo Avenue / Sparks Street, 4) Olive Avenue at Lake Street, 4) Olive Avenue at San Fernando Boulevard, and 5) Glenoaks Boulevard at Alameda Avenue.
To achieve higher speeds and capacities, BRT generally operates in dedicated bus lanes on city streets but is also flexible to operate in mixed- flow traffic using traffic signal technology or small bypass lanes to speed up travel times. In some cases, dedicated bus lanes can be built within roadway medians or other excess right of way, but often their implementation requires converting travel lanes or parking lanes into bus lanes. In addition to bus lanes, however, BRT also offers additional speed and reliability improvements such as all-door level boarding, payment required prior to boarding, further space between stations, and traffic signal priority.
In Burbank, the route is proposed to operate as a mix of dedicated bus lanes and mixed- flow traffic. Bus lanes are proposed along portions of Alameda Avenue, Olive Avenue, and Buena Vi sta Street in the Media District, Olive Avenue in Downtown Burbank , and Glenoaks Boulevard south of Providencia Avenue. Depending on the street configuration and width, the bus lane would be constructed by eliminating a vehicle travel lane or parking lane and converting it into a bus lane. However, BRT has inherent flexibility.
Depending on the neighborhood context of a particular BRT segment and the availability of right-of-way to construct dedicated BRT lanes , dedicated lanes are not required in all areas to provide a viable transportation alternative. The City Council has specifically requested that the portion of the project located on Olive Avenue between Buena Vista Street and Interstate 5 be constructed to operate as mixed-flow.
In 2020, Metro prepared a Draft Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the project, which included a public comment period. In December 2020, the City Council approved a comment letter to be sent to Metro as part of the public comment period (Attachment 3).
The main issues discussed in the City Council’s comment letter concerned the range of project alternatives analyzed, transportation policy and public service impacts, analysis of utility systems and roadway infrastructure, and concerns over bus lane impacts along Olive Avenue.
In response, Metro conducted additional analysis, modified parts of the project, and held additional public outreach, which led to the preparation of a Final EIR in 2022. In response to the Final EIR, on April 12, 2022, the City Council approved a second comment letter (Attachment 3 ) that was provided to Metro. This comment letter acknowledged the issues that Metro addressed in response to the City’s Draft EIR comments, but raised two significant project concerns that remained:
1. Metro should implement the project as mixed- flow on Olive Avenue between Buena Vista Street and Lake Street until project ridership reached a level that can justify converting a travel lane to bus lane.
2. Metro should develop a program to construct an Olive Bridge BRT station that would connect directly to the Downtown Burbank Metrolink Station.
On April 28, 2022, the Metro Board of Directors approved the project and the Final EIR but did not address these two important issues. However, the City maintains control over City-owned right-of-way and may continue to negotiate with Metro. 3 DISCUSSION
With the Metro Board’s approval of the project in 2022, Metro has continued to refine its conceptual design plans and has coordinated with the City as it prepares to secure third party consultant and contractor services for final design, project management, and construction. As part of this coordination, Metro would like to enter into a Cooperative Agreement with the City to define how the two agencies will work together to design and construct the project.
The main purpose of this agreement (Attachment 1) is to define roles and responsibilities during design and construction, clarify the parameters of the design of the project, identify procedures for reviewing and approving design plans, establishing the various City design standards and guidelines that the project will be subject to, setting up a dispute resolution process, and identifying how private and City utility conflicts will be resolved. The agreement also allows for the City to seek reimbursement for costs related to the design and construction of the project, or to contribute funds to make betterment improvements to City facilities as part of the project. The agreement identifies portions of the project that will be maintained by Metro once the project is complete, to ensure that operations and maintenance of the project does not fall to the City.
The proposed Cooperative Agreement has been negotiated between City and Metro staff.
Some of the new City obligations identified in the Cooperative Agreement require the City to meet certain standards for responding to queries, reviewing plans and other materials, enforcing its rights over private utilities, and coordinatin g with adjacent development.
These costs will require staff time and/or consultant staffing to achieve, but many of these costs can be reimbursed by Metro through this Agreement. Staff will prepare an implementation plan that will identify the resources needed to implement the City’s portion of the agreement and return to City Council to approve funding and identify the costs to be reimbursed.
There are several items in the proposed Cooperative Agreement that remain unresolved between Metro and the City. The proposed changes to the Cooperative Agreement are believed to sufficiently protect the City’s interests, while still allowing for proper coordination to expeditiously deliver the project. T hese changes have not yet been accepted by Metro; therefore, Staff recommends the City Council approve the agreement, subject to the City resolving the following items identified below.
Credit to Metro for Costs to Replace City Infrastructure with Expired Service Life Metro has requested that the City consent to partially reimbursing Metro for costs to reconstruct or reconfigure City infrastructure that needs to be modified to accommodate the project, if that infrastructure is old and therefore a portion of its lifespan has alrea dy been exhausted. Metro would receive a credit paid by the City based on the proportion of that affected infrastructure’s amount of remaining expected lifespan, versus the amount of lifespan that has already been exhausted. Staff recommends that expired service life credits not be granted, based on the past history of other regional transportation projects that did not include this provision, and because the relative remaining life of a piece of City infrastructure should not have a bearing on whether Metro is required to pay for City infrastructure improvements necessary for Metro to build the project. Introducing expired service life credits would mean that the City is undertaking part of Metro’s project costs. 4 Staff has currently negotiated changes to the agreement that would require both City and Metro to agree to apply an expired service life calculation to any part of the project.
Deferring Operations and Maintenance Principles to a Separate Agreement The Cooperative Agreement includes provisions f or the City and Metro to meet in good faith to identify operations and maintenance costs for the project that will be borne by each agency as part of a separate negotiation. Metro has requested that discussion of operations and maintenance be deferred because certain aspects of the project ’s operations and maintenance won’ t be known until after the project’s final design has commenced. However, Staff believes some operations and maintenance elements of the project should clearly be the responsibility of Metro, regardless of how the project is designed, and therefore should be identified as part of the Cooperative Agreement.
These primarily include the operations and maintenance of elements related to the transit stations. Staff recommends the City Council direct staff to ensure that operation and maintenance of major project elements like the transit stations is included in the Cooperative Agreement rather than deferring to a subsequent agreement.
City-owned Utility Adjustments Procedures
The Cooperative Agreement sections related to u tility adjustments and relocations does not apply to situations where the City owns its utility infrastructure. Staff recommends the City Council direct staff to include adjustments to the Cooperative Agreement that account for the City owning its water, electrical, recycled water, and fiber optic communications utilities, and ensure that Metro will be paying for all utility adjustments necessary for the project.
Project Description and Project Alignment
Metro and the City currently disagree over how the project alignment is portrayed in the Cooperative Agreement. City staff requests that certain broad details of the project (alignment, station location, roadway configuration) be included in the Cooperative Agreement so that both parties understand the scope of the project that is approved to be constructed. Metro believes that this project description should not be included because Metro’s Board of Directors approved a project that includes a bus -only lane on Olive Avenue between Buena Vista Street and Lake Street, which is contrary to the City Council’s direction of ensuring that the project description includes mixed-flow bus operation on this stretch. Based on City Council’s prior direction, Staff believes that including the mixed- flow project description is important to convey to Metro the City Council’s wishes, but including this description carries the risk that Metro will not approve the Cooperative Agreement. If the City Council directs staff not to include the project description in the Cooperative Agreement, staff would still continue to direct Metro to implement the project in accordance with the City Council’s direction and would review, approve, and permit plans that included mixed- flow on Olive Avenue between Buena Vista and Lake, unless the City Council directs otherwise.
Olive Avenue Bridge Connection to Metrolink
Finally, the Cooperative Agreement does not address the status of the project’s station connection to the Downtown Burbank Metrolink Station. As part of the Final EIR, the City Council conveyed to Metro that it believed a direct connection between the project and the Metrolink Station be provided via a new station on the Olive Avenue Bridge. This element is not included in the project . Metro does not intend to modify the Olive Avenue 5 Bridge as part of the project and will provide a connection to Metrolink via a station at Lake Street. In lieu of making inclusion of this direct connection contingent on approving the Cooperative Agreement, Staff is proposing to prepare a Capital Improvement Project as part of the City’s Fiscal Year 2024- 2025 budget which would allow the City to begin high-level planning and conceptual design of a possible modification to the Olive Avenue Bridge to include BRT station, and to explore outside funding opportunities to fund this improvement.
Staff recommends approval of the Cooperative Agreement, subject to changes that protect the City’s interests as the project development moves forward and based on the City Council’s current policy direction. However, the City Council has latitude to direct staff in how to move forward with the Cooperative Agreement, including directing staff to make further changes, remove changes, or to deny the agreement outright. The City Council may direct Staff in accordance with Staff’s recommendation or pursue other action as desired.
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
Metro conducted community outreach and engagement throughout the development of the North Hollywood to Pasadena BRT Corridor Project, during both conceptual project development as well as through the EIR process. This outreach process also helped the City Council develop its formal input to the project and resulted in the City’s formal position to support the project with the two important caveats of maintaining mixed- flow lanes on Olive Avenue between Buena Vista Street and Lake Street, and for Metro to support the City in developing a BRT station on the Olive Avenue Bridge.
ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW
Metro as the lead agency for the Project conducted environmental review pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and an Environmental Impact Report was prepared pursuant to 14 Cal. Code Regs. § 15080 et seq., which was certified by the Metro Board of Directors on April 28, 2022.
FISCAL IMPACT
There is no Fiscal Impact to the City in approving this Cooperative Agreement. While the Agreement imposes new obligations on the City to assist Metro in delivering the project, the additional staff a nd consultant costs borne by the City to meet its obligations under the Agreement are also reimbursable by Metro under the Agreement. Approval of the Cooperative Agreement allows the City to recover costs incurred to assist Metro in designing and constructing the project.
CONCLUSION
Metro requests the City approve a Cooperative Agreement to guide how the two agencies will work together to design and construct the North Hollywood to Pasadena Corridor BRT Project. The Agreement describes the roles and responsibilities of each agency, lists the various city design standards and guidelines that will apply to the project, and sets out a process for the City to seek reimbursement from Metro for costs incurred to support the project. However, there are still areas within the Agreement that Metro and City staff have not yet agreed upon. Staff recommends the City Council approve the Cooperative Agreement with the City’s redline changes incorporated and provide direction to staff on whether to include a more detailed project description that reflects the City Council’s 6 policy direction, so that Staff can ensure that the City directs the design and construction of project elements within its right of way and can be reimbursed for costs incurred to support the Project.
ATTACHMENTS
Attachment 1 – Draft Cooperative Agreement with City’s requested redline changes Attachment 2 – Project Alignment
Attachment 3 – City Council Final Environmental Impact Report Comment Letter and Staff Report