MEETING MINUTES

Spare the Air Youth Program

Meeting Title:Spare the Air Youth Technical Advisory Committee Meeting #14

Date:June 3, 2015

Location:Fishbowl Conference Room, MTC Headquarters

Notes by:Hannah Day-Kapell, Alta Planning + Design

The red text below is meeting minutes; the text in black is the original agenda items.

Attending on the phone:

  • Maria Abilock, City of Palo Alto
  • Tonya Veitch, Santa Clara County SRTS
  • ArunGoel, Alameda CTC
  • Marty Martinez, Safe Routes to School National Partnership
  • Ernesto Lizaola, SVBC
  • Anna Lee, City of San Jose Walk and Wheel program
  1. Welcome and Introductions(10 minutes)
  1. Youth for the Environment and Sustainability (YES) Conference (10 minutes)
    –Yvonna Cazares, Bay Area Air Quality Management District
  • Yvonna announced that there has been research conducted on a variety of venues for the conference and that she’s heard from a few groups in the Peninsula that they’d like a more central location. She announced that a school in the San Francisco School District may be a good option.
  • Regarding a date, the first weekend in February may be an issue due to the Super Bowl. BAAQMD is a sponsor for the Super Bowl’s sustainability initiative and BAAQMD is talking with the host committee.
  • Yvonna opened it up to group discussion. Nora Cody mentioned that the Super Bowl will make everything more crowded, and that BART and transit accessibility should be prioritized.
  • Amy Jolly likes the idea of holding the conference at a university campus as it provides value-added experience for students who may not have been on a university campus
  • The Ed Roberts campus of UC Berkeley was mentioned as an option
  • Wendy Kallins encourages a later date for the conference and indicated that last year the late December presentation submittal deadline was difficult for students
  • There was consensus that late February may be best, with the exception of the third week, as many schools are on break
  • Hannah Day-Kapell announced that she’s working on having a save-the-date out as soon as possible and outreach will begin in earnest in the fall, with a focus on better representation from all Bay Area counties
  1. Updates from Phase II Grant Projects (60 minutes)
  2. Youth Ambassador Program, YBike
  • It was reported that students were given the opportunity to lead rides as they developed skills and confidence and over 800 students were served through bike roadeos
  • Results include:
  • Overall improvement from pre to post-test ranged from 15% to 50%. Tests included information on ABCQ check, door zone, and rules of the road, among others.
  • Approximately 66.5% of kids in program want to ride to school.
  • Before the program, 90% of students didn’t know ABCQ, and after, 100% could perform the check
  • The program participated in many community events as well, and indicated that volunteers from the community were critical to success
  • In Marin, there were two after school programs involved. It was reported that working with the school district was a challenge, but they ended with more community facing events and community awareness around YBike,
  • Taking the program from San Francisco into other communities was interesting and required adapting outreach methods and materials for other types of communities
  • A question was asked about bikes being provided for the activities. Bike are provided for the after school bike clubs, but students can bring their own bikes as well. If students bring their own bike, it is first checked out by program staff and deemed safe for riding
  • This program is concluding as of June 30, 2015 [UPDATE: The program will continue into fall 2015].
  1. Climate Justice Youth Academy, Causa Justa :: Just Cause
  • The project was a collaboration between POWER and CJJC and implementers leveraged work the organization is doing
  • The project involved a train-the-trainer model, with youth leading workshops regarding climate change and transit
  • The project included engagement from 19 Youth leaders, leading 17 workshops and 10 events. Youth developed a game of life board game with bus, bikes, cars; free muni for youth clipper card skits; and organized events and conducted outreach
  • The materials included both pros and cons of transit use and included education about using clipper cards.
  • The program focus was really on youth leadership, they developed the program and implementedit themselves
  • The challenges of the program included: development of tools (game) and youth leading workshops at other schools because they are also in school. In the end, youth leaders provided workshops at their own schools/classes or to other organizations after school and on weekends.
  • It was also mentioned that the organization merged on Jan 1 and their work is shifting toward tenants’ rights, but they will continue to use the tools developed in other work
  • This program is concluding as of June 30, 2015
  1. Transit Education, TAM and Marin County Bicycle Coalition
  • Napa held a contest in which students answered questions about transit and climate change and learned about Clipper cards. As a result, kids report being more aware and more willing to use transit. Napa was planning a Clipper card promotion, but they did not get Clipper in time for the promotion. Something will be done next year to promote it.
  • The Great Transit Race was held in Petaluma. The students planned it, presented to others, and made posters. Wendi reported that each time an event is held, interest grows. The prize for the contest is a GoPro camera for each student on the winning team. They also solicit for other prizes.
  • At Drake High, the ASB group promoted the transit race event. A total of 44 students participated on a Saturday for 4 hours. They visited 5 communities and all teams finished. There were 4 students per team and the winners received a GoPro. The students took pictures and uploaded them to receive points. The Leadership teacher now wants all academies at Drake to participate, with a focus on freshman and sophomore populations.
  • According to a survey conducted, most students had not previously ridden the bus, but most indicated they would continue to ride after the race
  • Next semester they will go to each academy and are considering doubling up the event and another incentive for all students in the school to ride the bus
  • A question was asked about the bus passes and Wendi responded indicating students do get free bus passes for the event. They also download google docs and figure out how to ride all on their own.
  • At Terra Linda, the Marin School of Environmental Leadership students workedon getting a bus for to arrive at the school in time for zero period. They met with Marin Transit to discuss feasibility, surveyed students, held a pilot event and filled the bus with students riding that morning and committing to ride next year as well. Marin Transit has agreed to add the bus for the fall and the students have been invited to go in front of the Marin Transit Board.
  1. Family Bicycling Program, San Francisco Bicycle Coalition
  • SF Bike and Roll to School week included a Bike Train training as well as a free raffle for anybody to enter to win a donated electric xtracycle bike. The winner of the bike donated it to the school and parents can rent it out
  • What’s working, as reported, includes donated bikes, broader outreach through school districts and not just schools, and pre-registration. Some cities have also paid for workshops.
  • To date, 64 family biking workshops have been completed, 78 contracted, working with many bike coalitions, 1,922 participants , and surveys indicate workshops are extremely effective
  • SFBC has also coordinated with Bay Area BikeMobile for several events which increased participation
  1. BikeMobile, Local Motion
  • To date, there have been 4,500 repairs, 192 visits, average 52% increase in ridership, and about 75 bikes that were donated and fixed up have been given away
  • The BikeMobile guarantees to fix 20 bikes per visit and has been operational for 14 months
  • Partnering with 511 and law enforcement has been proven successful
  • It was also noted that some school districts have bike fleets and have provided funding for BMB to repair them
  1. Clean Air Bright Futures, Aquarium of the Bay
  • To date, there have been 137 trips made and about 20,000 students served since the program started
  • All teacher activity guides are on the website, staff has attended teacher trainings, and they have submitted for AZA education award
  • Teacher surveys indicate teachers are much more likely to talk about climate change after a visit from the BayMobile
  • The program is currently taking reservations for summer camps, library programs, and special outreach events; working on services in low income communities and multiple languages; preparing teacher reservation information for August; hiring and training new staff; and updating curriculum.
  • Hannah mentioned that she is pulling together all the information, where programming was offered, and will have a break down at next meeting
  1. MTC Regional SRTS Evaluation Draft Results (20 minutes)

– Hannah Day-Kapell, Alta Planning + Design

  • Hannah presented draft results of the Regional SRTS Evaluation and clarified that ICF is doing an evaluation of all climate initiatives, and theRegional SRTS program is one part of that. The goals of this evaluation are to evaluate the impacts of RSRTS-funded programs, including greenhouse gas emissions, and to identify key successes.
  • Hannah mentioned that the presentation is focused on overall results, and she can talk to individual counties about their data offline.
  • The materials were sent out and will be sent out again. The evaluation is wrapping up at end of month, so feedback is needed shortly. She is looking for factual corrections primarily.
  • There was a question about additional data that has been collected by program implementers since last fall and Hannah responded that the follow up time period has passed, so additional data will not be included in this evaluation.
  • This evaluation includes data for Fall 2011-Spring 2014. Student hand talliesinclude1.1M trips, 90,000 tallies, 330 schools, and 8 counties and parent surveys include 23,000 surveys, 107 schools, and 5 counties.
  • Data was also collected regarding program activities and from the US Census and Department of Education.
  • Findings from parent surveys and student travel hand tallies were presented and a statistically significant mode shift was found as follows: 3% increase in walking, 14% increase in biking, and 2% decrease in use of family vehicle.
  • The group discussed the findings regarding mode shift by county, as each county other than Alameda saw a decrease in shared modes. This finding seems attributable to the loss of school bussing.
  • Parent survey findings include mode shift by tenure: schools that had just begun programming saw big shift in the first few years, while schools involved for longer lengths of time (Marin and Alameda counties) continued to shift but saw smaller increases. San Mateo County’s programming was new and saw a large shift during the evaluation period.
  • While looking at the percent change in modes, it is important to note that counties with higher active and shared mode splits may have a large absolute change, but it will be a smaller percent change compared to counties that begin with low active and shared mode splits.
  • Activity participation results indicate that frequent walk and roll programs are correlated with increased walking, biking and carpooling. More total activities and more ongoing activities also correlate to an increase in walking, biking and carpooling.
  • Underserved populations had higher rates of walking, and lower rates of biking, regardless of the intervention
  • After additional discussion, Hannah noted that much of the correlation data at the regional level is inconclusive, but individual counties may see an impact. She also noted that there were no control schools included in this evaluation.
  • Hannah announced that there is an overall report that is shared, along with a cut sheet for each county. She is looking for feedback on accuracy and still finalizing county-specific reports. A report will be completed for each county, and if there are multiple programs in that county, the report breaks it down as such.
  1. Discussion of Mobile Rideshare Apps (10 minutes)
  • This agenda item was postponed until the next TAC meeting due to time.
  1. Information Sharing and Upcoming Events(10 minutes)
  2. No announcements were made.