August 28, 2023
To: City Managers/County Administrative Officer
North Coast Tribal Transportation Commission
McKinleyville Municipal Advisory Committee
Humboldt Transit Authority
RE: Transit Needs Assessment Annual Process – Public Hearings Every year, as established by the California Transportation Development Act (TDA), the Humboldt County Association of Governments (HCAOG) is required to conduct a citizen participation process to assist in identifying transit needs in the region. This process is required prior to allocations of TDA funding in the following fiscal year. All comments deemed to meet the definition of an unmet transit need will be analyzed and reviewed by HCAOG’s Social Services Transportation Advisory Council (SSTAC) to determine if the need is “reasonable to meet.” Comments that are operational in nature are forwarded to transit operators. The attached document includes a summary of the TDA rules, use of Local Transportation Funds, role of the citizen participation process, and adopted definitions and criteria used to determine if a need is reasonable to meet.
The HCAOG Board of Directors will hold a public hearing on Thursday, November 16, 2023. Though not required, we encourage your agency to also conduct a public hearing between October – December. All public comments received by December 31, 2023 will be discussed by the SSTAC and a Report of Findings brought to the HCAOG Board in 2024.
New this year
HCAOG staff requests time prior to opening the hearing to provide a brief presentation on the state of our regional transit systems, exciting new developments that are making our transit systems more convenient, transit performance measures such as operating subsidy per passenger and passengers per hour, and potential modifications to the adopted reasonable to meet criteria. In addition, we ask that the agenda item be described as a “Transit Needs Assessment.”
Please provide your meeting date to Stephen Luther at
[email protected] by Friday, September 15, 2023, to allow us to meet publishing and posting requirement deadlines. Thank you! Sincerely,
Stephen Luther
Associate Regional Planner
Enclosure
ec: City Clerks
HCAOG
Regional Transportation
Planning Agency
611 I Street, Suite B
Eureka, CA 95501
707.444.8208
Fax: 707.444.8319
www.hcaog.net
Members:
City of Arcata
City of Blue Lake
City of Eureka
City of Ferndale
City of Fortuna
City of Rio Dell
City of Trinidad
County of Humboldt