MEETING MINUTES

Spare the Air Youth Program

Meeting Title:Spare the Air Youth Technical Advisory Committee Meeting #10

Date:April 30, 2014

Location:Claremont 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:

  • David Parisi, Parisi Transportation Consulting
  • Kristina Chu, Bay Area Air Quality Management District
  • Tina Panza, Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition,
  • Sylvia Star-Lack, City of Palo Alto
  • Cathy De Luca, StreetSmarts San Ramon Valley
  1. Welcome and introductions (5 minutes)
  1. Updates from Phase II Grant Projects (60 minutes)
  2. Clean Air Bright Futures, Aquarium of the Bay
  3. Blair Bazdarich reported that they launched their visits in Mid-March, the van has been wrapped, and the touch tank is completed. They have finalized the K-12 lesson plans, and hired and trained staff presenters/naturalists
  4. They are starting teacher workshops this weekend, working with summer schools/SF public libraries, and science Saturdays.
  5. Hannah asked about the distribution on programs they have scheduled. Blair replied that the programs are well-distributed within 15 miles currently. They are currently getting calls for visits next fall and will need to develop prioritization measures, which could be based on geographic equity, socioeconomic equity, other SRTS efforts, etc. Most requests are from elementary schools, with some middle school requests but no high school yet. Blair will be reaching out to high schools specifically.
  6. The touch tank setup is taking a long time at each venue, sothey may need to reconsider the timing and number of visits.
  7. Blair will sendan email to the TAC with the heading “BayMobile reservation” and information will be online at:
  8. BikeMobile, Local Motion
  9. Tommy Bensko reported that visits began in mid-March, and they have completed 35 visits to date. They have been in Sonoma and Santa Clara counties primarily, and have visited every county except San Francisco.
  10. The visits have an average of about 25 participants. Partners have been promoting the events well.
  11. Tommy is hoping to hire 1-2 high school interns in the summer. They are looking for activities to keep participants occupied while BMB is working on their bicycles.
  12. They are booked through early June, but are looking for summer events opportunities: YMCA in Santa Clarita, San Francisco Sunday Streets may be good candidates.
  13. Their evaluation plan is to survey during the event, conduct pre- and post-bike counts, will be putting stickers on bikes now that the logo is finalized.
  14. Tina reported that the BikeMobile has been going very well in Sonoma County. An unintended consequence is building support with other adults in the community.
  15. Go Green Fridays, City of Morgan Hill
  16. Ann Horner reported that GoGreen Fridays is involved in nine schools and has created banners to post at schools. They created standup superheros that people can pose behind to build excitement for the program.
  17. They are working in Martin Murphy Middle School, which is in San Jose but part of Morgan Hill Unified School District. Students gave a presentation at community conference and added it to the Green Day activities.
  18. The biannual Youth Action Council YAC Attack in Mountain View included student presentations and games about air quality math and science.
  19. GoGreen Fridays held a limerick contest at PA Walsh, an underserved school. Students won donated gift certificates.
  20. Bicycling Magazine is having a bike fair in early May, and Go Green Fridays will have a booth.
  21. After school programs at multi-family apartment buildings will have events in May.
  22. Climate Justice Youth Academy, POWER
  23. Jaron from POWERreported that they are working with 25 students and developing a workshop to promote transit, built around the Game of Life. They took longer than expected to create the workshop and tailor it for the classroom, making it compelling, but are finalizing it now. They have many workshops planned for the summer.
  24. CYJA youth held an art contest with teachers who have been supportive of transit.
  25. They held a scavenger hunt with over 60 high school youth to promote transit use. They found out students do not always tag their Clipper cards, so the event educated students about how to use the system and encouraged them to practice.
  26. Wendi felt that some of the workshop cards are somewhat confusing. The cards go with the workshop, and Jaron can share the game.
  27. They have had a lot of interest from teachers since the project is youth-designed. They have reached out to teachers who they have relationships with.
  28. Ana noted that there are some 7,000 students who have not signed up for Free Muni for Youth and asked if they could help reach out to those students.
  29. Family Bicycling Program, San Francisco Bicycle Coalition
  • Nancy Buffumfrom the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition reported that SFBC has scheduled several workshops, including a lesson at Alice Fong Yu Middle School in advance of their trip to China, where they bicycled on in Xian, China with their families. They have had the most success partnering with an organization.
  • Tina reported that the first workshop went very well, and found that the workshops have been a good opportunity to build relationships with cities.
  • Wendi reported that they did their first Riding with Youth workshop in April. Their largest issue is no-shows of people who have been signed up. They are requesting $10/family registration fee.
  • Transit Education, TAM
  • Wendi Kallins of the Marin County Bicycle Coalition (MCBC) reported that they are still in administrative work with the subcontractors. They have met and are planning to launch in the fall, doing program development in the summer.
  • They are developing a video with the students but are still working to get some students to participate. They will be getting pictures of students traveling to school this spring.
  • Youth Ambassador Program, YBike
  • Andy Slone from YBike reported that they completed two 16-session bike clubs and are working with two more. They have purchased a bike fleet, created skills ramps, and branded the van.
  • Scheduled peer-to-peer programs where older students lead the ABCQC to check the bikes every day. They have a rainy day bike repair and youth development games.
  • They have had some issues with bullying, which they are working on.
  1. Spare the Air Youth Guidebooks and Media Plan (10 minutes)

– Hannah Day-Kapell, Alta Planning + Design

  • Hannah presented the update that Alta and Parisi are working on the Guidebook for Pooling to School, which will shared with the TAC later. Ana asked if the guidebook would include safety information about California requirement for children up to 8 years old to use car seats. Hannah confirmed, and also that it would discuss high school requirements for carpooling.
  • Hannah reported on the media plan: Alta will be launching a blog on the website, has created a YouTube channel, and would like suggestions for leaders to contact.
  • EC02 school and MCBC have blogs, while the Aquarium has Twitter and Instagram. Many of the other partners have a variety of social media outlets. The Spare the Air Youth blog is an opportunity to coordinate between them and pool resources to spread the word about SRTS activities.
  1. Data Evaluation (20 minutes)

– Craig Goldblatt, MTCand Hannah Day-Kapell, Alta Planning + Design

  • Craig presented an overview of the RSRTS funding cycles. In Cycle 1, MTC hired a Consultant to evaluate the Climate Initiatives Program. The evaluation considered GHG emissions and modified the parent survey for that information. For Cycle 2, program providers are responsible for conducting their own evaluation.
  • Ana reported that they had negative feedback in San Francisco about the change in parent surveys. San Francisco has a Chinese version of the National Center form, which Ana will share.
  • Craig will send the memorandum to local CMAs and invitethem to comment in the next two weeks.
  • TAC members noted that they would like to see a Tagalog version of the tally.
  • Ana noted that references to STAR testing should be changed to Common Core or made generic about school curriculum

  1. Green Star Schools (20 minutes)

- Mark Spencer, Stop Waste

  • Mark shared the StopWaste website, which was funded as a Climate Initiatives Creative Grant. The website came online after transportation project had mostly been finalized, so they are looking for transportation projects to add to the site.
  • The TAP Curriculum is aligned with Common Core standards.
  • They would like to work with TAC members to get their transportation projects posted in the website. The site shows the CO2 reductions and be compared with other schools and districts.
  1. Program information sharing and upcoming events(5 minutes)
  • Ursula reported on the future of SchoolPool; the contract with regional rideshare will expire in two years. MTC has money for improving the current system, but looking into doing a pilot with the Marin SchoolPool to test the success of the new strategy. We will follow up with an email to find jurisdictions to pilot the program. MTC would provide back-in system, jurisdictions would do their own mapping.
  • YBike is hosting an LCI seminar in May, which still has spaces.
  1. Update on statewide active transportation funding (optional lunch meeting)

– Sean Co, MTC

  • May 21 will be the call for local projects; MTC has an additional form – available online here:
  • Q7 – CA Conservation Core, Virgina Clark & local person. Contacts for the ATP grant:
  • CCC:Virginia Clark
  • Region Deputy, Region 1
  • California Conservation Corps
  • (916) 341-3147
  • fx(877) 834-4177
  • CALCC: Cynthia Vitale: <
  • Cost effectiveness is a significant amount of work. Five points are allocated for justifying how the project is beneficial, and five points for describing the method. Cite sources, and it is possible to can submit additional documentation.
  • SRTS-NP has a research page with latest documentation on the benefits of SRTS.
  • For public health, the WHO HEAT model has useful information. The tool is available here: