SJCOG_Regional_Resiliency_Implementation_Plan_-_Adaptation_Guidance_Final.pdf

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REGIONAL RESILIENCY

IMPLEMENTATION PLAN

AND ADAPTATION GUIDANCE

SJCOG

Prepared for:

San Joaquin Council of Governments 555 E Weber Ave, Stockton, CA 95202 https://www.sjcog.org/

Prepared by:

WSP USA INC.

2150 River Plaza Drive, Suite 400 Sacramento, CA 95833

VRPA Technologies, Inc.

4630 W. Jennifer, Suite 105 Fresno, CA 93722

This project was supported by a Caltrans Sustainable Transportation Planning Grant.

https://www.sjcog.org/

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Contents Executive Summary

Introduction

Structure of the Plan

Climate Adaptation and Resiliency (Phase I) Study

Assessment Approach

Climate Hazards

San Joaquin Region Vulnerabilities

Regional Needs Assessment

Stakeholder and Community Engagement

Stakeholder Engagement

Community Engagement

Community and Stakeholder Engagement Key Findings

Prioritized Implementation Strategies for the San Joaquin Region

Strategy Prioritization

Implementation Strategy Evaluation Criteria

Scoring Methodology

Top Implementation Strategies

Create a Regional Climate Collaborative

Develop a Regional Emergency Response Strategy

Conduct a flood adaptation assessment for SR-4 from Stockton west to Contra Costa County

Advance the Lower San Joaquin River Feasibility Study

Develop climate resilience metrics to evaluate 2022 regional project prioritization

Conduct a flood adaptation assessment for SR-99 through Lodi

Conduct a flood adaptation assessment for South Stockton

Conduct a flood adaptation assessment for Waterloo Rd/CA-88

Create a public education campaign on climate change

Provide better communication services in emergencies

Develop backup power strategies for transit

Continue the Mossdale Tract area flood adaptation assessment

Provide comprehensive backup power at Port of Stockton

Update design criteria and guidance for infrastructure projects to address climate change

Assess flood mitigation options for City of Stockon public housing

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Identify dedicated funding sources for climate change adaptation

Advance Smith Canal project

Conduct a Stockton Wye flood adaptation assessment

Conduct a BNSF Intermodal Railyard flood adaptation assessment

Create a free shade tree program

Easy to Implement and Near-Term Strategies

Create a Regional Climate Collaborative

Advance the Lower San Joaquin River Feasibility Study

Develop climate resilience metrics to evaluate 2022 regional project prioritization

Create a public education campaign on climate change

Develop backup power strategies for transit

Provide comprehensive backup power at Port of Stockton

Update design criteria and guidance for infrastructure projects to address climate change

Advance Smith Canal project

Create a free shade tree program

Expand bus routes and hours with increased frequency, particularly in underserved communities

Develop template language for general plan safety elements for compliance with SB 379

Provide free transit to cooling centers on hot days

Create project manager guidance to consider climate risks in planning and design

Identify best practices or projects that other cities and counties are implementing to respond to climate hazards and emergencies

Create one platform for regional climate change information

Develop climate resilience policy template language

Expand on-demand transit

Provide free water for active transportation users

Regional Adaptation Guidance

General Principles and Approaches

Federal and State Adaptation Resources

Climate Resilience Policy and Funding Opportunities

Co-Benefits

Understanding Consequences of Design Criteria Exceedance

Regional Adaptation Resources

Pathways to Create a Regional Climate Collaborative

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Template Language for General Plans – Senate Bill 379 Compliance

Develop Climate Resilience Metric(s) to Evaluate Regional Transportation Plan Projects

Create Project Manager Guidance for Regional Transportation Plan Projects

Appendix A – Complete List of Regional Implementation Strategies

Appendix B – Prioritization Methodology

Implementation Strategy Evaluation Criteria

Prioritization Protocol

Scoring Methodology

Stakeholder Input

Appendix C – Regional Climate Collaborative Pathways

Background

Regional Climate Collaboratives Overview

Strategic Growth Council Regional Climate Collaboratives Program

San Joaquin County Regional Climate Collaboratives Opportunity Assessment

Conclusion

Stakeholder List

Capital Region Climate Collaborative Member Benefits Overview

Appendix D – Template Language for General Plan Safety Elements

Background and Instructions

Safety Element - Template Language

Vulnerability Assessment

Resilience Goals and Objectives

Appendix E – Climate Resilience Metrics for 2022 RTP/SCS Project Evaluation

Aspirational Cost Metrics

Additional Options

Simplified Cost Metrics

Process Metrics

Next Steps

Appendix F – Project Manager Climate Change Checklist

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The San Joaquin Council of Governments (SJCOG) is a Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO), Regional Transportation

Planning Agency (RTPA), and Local Transportation Sales Tax Authority for San Joaquin County. As an MPO and RTPA, SJCOG is interested in addressing regional climate change impacts to the transportation system and supplying its member jurisdictions with resources to adapt to climate change and increase the resilience of the region’s transportation infrastructure.

SJCOG completed a Climate Adaptation and Resiliency (or “Phase I Study”) to understand how climate change will affect the San

Joaquin region, its transportation network, and those that depend on it. Based on future climate projections evaluated in the Phase I study, the region is at risk of experiencing rising temperatures; flooding driven by changing precipitation patterns, fluvial/riverine inflows and, in tidally influenced locations, sea level rise and storm surge; and potentially indirect or direct wildfire impacts.

The Regional Resiliency Implementation Plan and Adaptation Guidance (or “Phase II Study”) furthers the Phase I study by providing specific solutions to anticipated transportation impacts such as asset degradation, travel delay, emergency evacuation, and public safety. These “implementation strategies” were collected from community engagement with San Joaquin stakeholders and the public and include physical adaptation strategies such as making levee improvements, but also include a broad range of strategy types such as creating new policies and programs, identifying funding opportunities, capacity building options, and more. They were prioritized based upon factors such as effectiveness, cost, ease of implementation, and co-benefits such as greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction potential and whether the strategy would protect a disadvantaged community, to general identify effective and important strategies for the San Joaquin region. However, this prioritization process reflected SJCOG’s priorities and therefore may be different for other regional stakeholders.

The top 20 implementation strategies to build the resilience of the San Joaquin region transportation network and communities are as follows, in order of priority. See the Prioritized Implementation Strategies for the San Joaquin Region section for information on each strategy.

Create a Regional Climate Collaborative

The top San Joaquin region implementation strategy is to develop a regional climate collaborative, which meets regularly to coordinate and implement responses to climate change.

Develop a Regional Emergency Response Plan

A regional emergency response plan could be developed to evaluate existing evacuation and emergency response efforts and identify additional evacuation routes, emergency response strategies (e.g., setting up contraflow lanes), and the roles and responsibilities of stakeholders in the San Joaquin region, including transit operators.

Conduct a flood adaptation assessment for SR-4 from Stockton west to Contra Costa County

The SJCOG Phase I Study identified the most critical and vulnerable assets around the county, including SR-4 from Stockton west to Contra Costa County. This section of SR-4 plays an important role for evacuating the San Joaquin Delta in the event of flooding. However, it operates at a deficient level of service and runs through a 100-year floodplain, and transects tracts projected to be flooded under a one foot of sea level rise (plus storm) scenario. A more detailed assessment of this corridor is recommended to understand future flood risk and potential adaptation strategies. The assessment should also consider how a flood event might impact evacuation routing.

Advance the Lower San Joaquin River Feasibility Study

The Lower San Joaquin River Feasibility Study will identify flood protection needs for the lower San Joaquin River to protect the City of Stockton, where there is existing flood risk, which may be exacerbated with climate change.1

1 US Army Corps of Engineers. Lower San Joaquin River. Accessed February 24, 2022, from https://www.spk.usace.army.mil/lower_sj_river/ https://www.spk.usace.army.mil/lower_sj_river/

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Develop climate resilience metrics to evaluate 2022 regional project prioritization

As an MPO, SJCOG is responsible for creating the San Joaquin Regional Transportation Plan (RTP)/Sustainable

Communities Strategy (SCS), which includes a list of regional projects to advance the transportation network. As part of this strategy, SJCOG could incorporate a new measure for overall project resilience to climate change, so that adaptive and future-oriented projects would be prioritized. SJCOG has developed a few options for what these resilience metrics could be.

See the “Regional Adaptation Resources” section for more information and Appendix E for an analysis of resilience metrics options for the 2022 RTP/SCS.

Conduct a flood adaptation assessment for SR-99 through Lodi

The SJCOG Phase I Study identified SR-99 through Lodi as a priority vulnerability because it is within the 500-year floodplain and serves as a key transportation corridor for the local community and the region. In addition to serving as a bus corridor between Lodi and Stockton, it serves as an evacuation route, which could easily be overwhelmed during an evacuation given already existing congestion during rush hour. A detailed assessment of flood risk is recommended for SR-

99 to understand existing and future risks and identify adaptations. The assessment should also consider how a flood event might impact evacuation routing.

Conduct a flood adaptation assessment for South Stockton

The SJCOG Phase I Study identified this area as a priority vulnerability because it has a disproportionally high percentage of transportation-disadvantaged communities compared to the county as a whole and impacts to the transit system will be more acutely felt in South Stockton. A detailed assessment of flood risk and potential evacuation impacts is recommended.

Conduct a flood adaptation assessment for Waterloo Rd/CA-88

The SJCOG Phase I Study identified this area as a vulnerable asset for adaptation action since it serves as an evacuation route. A detailed assessment of flood risk and potential evacuation impacts is recommended to better understand existing and future flood risk and plan flood mitigation and response.

Execute a public education campaign on climate change

This campaign could be used to define climate change terminology such as mitigation, adaptation, and resilience. This could also present an opportunity to share resources on emergency preparedness and evacuation, and to help the public prepare for and effectively respond to flood events and wildfires.

Provide better communication services in emergencies

California has faced numerous natural disasters and emergency events in recent years, including devastating wildfires, landslides, floods, and related impacts such as infrastructure damages. This implementation strategy would involve reviewing the county’s existing emergency alert systems and protocols to identify any gaps and ways in which communication could be improved.

Develop back-up power strategies for transit

Transitioning to all-electric buses could be challenging given more frequent power shutoffs; thus, transit providers will need to evaluate back-up power options, such as battery storage and microgrids.

Continue the Mossdale Tract area flood adaptation assessment

The existing levees protecting the SJAFCA Mossdale Tract (Reclamation District 17) Area currently do not provide 200-year flood protection and are not in accordance with Senate Bill 5 and the Urban Level of Flood Protection. Implementing flood risk reduction measures provides necessary protection for new development and existing property that is currently located in the floodplain.

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Provide comprehensive back-up power at Port of Stockton

This strategy involves identifying additional back-up power options for the Port so that all areas and systems could remain operational during an outage.

Update design criteria and guidance for infrastructure projects to address climate change

Design criteria and guidance is based on historical climate conditions and events. Adjusting design criteria and guidance is a cost- and time-saving way to account for future climate projections in design and create more resilient infrastructure.

Assess flood mitigation options for City of Stockton public housing

There may be additional flood mitigation measures that can be taken by the City and its Housing Division to ensure Stockton public housing is protected in the event of a flood. Implementing this strategy would involve reviewing the structures on the

Restricted Income Housing List and identifying where additional protection may be needed.

Identify dedicated funding sources for climate change adaptation

A lack of funding was one of the most frequently cited barriers to climate adaptation noted by stakeholders interviewed. This implementation strategy could involve collecting all climate resilience competitive funding sources and evaluating opportunities for dedicated funding in San Joaquin County.

Advance the Smith Canal project

The Smith Canal Gate Project is currently under construction until November 2022. This project includes a floodwall along the San Joaquin River and ties into the existing FEMA accredited levee.

Conduct a Stockton Wye flood adaptation assessment

The SJCOG Phase I Study identified this area as a priority vulnerability since it serves as an important freight rail junction between Union Pacific (UP) and BNSF, and new projects are underway to grade-separate the tracks. Disruption to this intersection would have significant impacts to goods movements, including to and from the Port of Stockton, so further study is recommended to determine adaptation measures that could reduce the severity of these impacts.

Conduct a BNSF Intermodal Railyard flood adaptation assessment

The SJCOG Phase I Study identified the most critical and vulnerable assets around the county, including the BNSF

Intermodal Railyard. Interruptions at this facility would have major economic consequences and disrupt critical supply chains. Further study is recommended to identify consequences and adaptation options.

Create a free shade tree program

One of the simplest ways to mitigate high temperatures and Urban Heat Island (UHI) is through planting shade trees. This strategy would involve creating a free shade tree program with dedicated funding through regional partnerships.

Each of these strategies and the others contained in the full list of strategies (Appendix A) presents one step towards creating a resilient multi-modal transportation network in the San Joaquin area through regional partnership. This plan is provided not only as a framework for how to achieve a more resilient San Joaquin region, but also to provide SJCOG member jurisdictions and its stakeholders with guidance for how to implement their own climate change vulnerability assessments and adaptation projects.

SJCOG developed a suite of tools and resources to supply stakeholders with adaptation guidance. See the Regional Adaptation

Guidance section and Appendix C, D, E, and F for some of these resources, which include:

• Options for creating a Regional Climate Collaborative to foster communication between San Joaquin stakeholders and to work together to advance the strategies of this plan.

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• Template language for general plan safety elements, which detail San Joaquin County climate change vulnerabilities, as well as adaptation goals and responses, as collected by SJCOG (these may differ from other stakeholder and jurisdiction goals).

• Climate resilience metrics for use in project evaluation and prioritization, to ensure that projects advanced in the region will be prepared for climate change and avoid impacts.

• A project manager climate change checklist, to help project managers consider how climate change may affect project design and future operations and maintenance.

Finally, SJCOG developed a Regional Resilience Web Portal complimentary to this plan, which provides climate change tools, research, guidance, and grant funding opportunities, to help member jurisdictions and other stakeholders with their own climate change projects. The web portal is accessible here: sjcogresilience2022.com

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INTRODUCTION

The San Joaquin Council of Governments (SJCOG) is a Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO), Regional Transportation

Planning Agency (RTPA), and Local Transportation Sales Tax Authority for San Joaquin County. SJCOG is made up of the following member jurisdictions: San Joaquin County and the cities of Stockton, Lodi, Manteca, Tracy, Ripon, Escalon, and Lathrop.2 As an

MPO and RTPA, SJCOG is interested in addressing regional climate change impacts to the transportation system and supplying its member jurisdictions with resources to adapt to climate change and increase the resilience of the region’s transportation infrastructure.

SJCOG is also dedicated to protecting community safety, especially during emergencies and evacuation events, and prioritizing the needs of San Joaquin County’s disadvantaged and underserved communities.

SJCOG completed a Climate Adaptation and Resiliency (or “Phase I Study”) to begin to understand how climate change will affect the San Joaquin region, its transportation network, and those that depend on it. Based on future climate projections evaluated in the

Phase I study, the region is at risk of experiencing rising temperatures; flooding driven by changing precipitation patterns, fluvial/riverine inflows and, in tidally influenced locations, sea level rise and storm surge; and potentially indirect or direct wildfire impacts. Current and future conditions can directly affect transportation systems and assets owned by jurisdictions in the San Joaquin region, and both directly and indirectly affect transportation users. See the “Climate Adaptation and Resiliency (Phase I) Study” section for a complete summary of this study and its findings.

The Regional Resiliency Implementation Plan and Adaptation Guidance (or “Phase II Study”) furthers the strategies of the Phase I study by providing specific solutions to anticipated transportation impacts such as asset degradation, travel delay, emergency evacuation, and public safety. This work involved first developing an assessment of regional needs, concerns, and barriers that the public and stakeholders have surrounding climate adaptation. Perhaps the most important aspect of this Phase II Study was the collection of strategies for the San Joaquin region, which can be taken to create a more resilient transportation network into the future.

These “implementation strategies” were collected from community engagement with San Joaquin stakeholders and the public and were prioritized based upon factors such as effectiveness, cost, ease of implementation, and co-benefits such as GHG reduction potential and whether the strategy would protect a disadvantaged community. They include physical adaptation strategies such as making levee improvements, but also include a broad range of strategy types such as creating new policies and programs, identifying funding opportunities, capacity building options, and more.

This report focuses primarily on the implementation strategies compiled and developed through the SJCOG Phase II Study, which can be advanced in the San Joaquin region to promote transportation infrastructure resilience, reduce the physical risks of climate change, build capacity of regional stakeholders and communities to adapt to climate change, and preserve public health and safety.

STRUCTURE OF THE PLAN

The Regional Resiliency Implementation Plan and Adaptation Guidance report is intended to be a tool for SJCOG member jurisdictions, other stakeholders, and the public in identifying strategies to adapt to climate change and improve regional resiliency.

The plan provides a range of implementation strategies for the region, which can be advanced by SJCOG and its stakeholders. The plan also summarizes the steps SJCOG has taken to develop this list of regional implementation strategies, including the completion of the Phase I Study, stakeholder and public outreach, and the creation of a scoring methodology to rank and compare different strategies. SJCOG member jurisdictions and other stakeholders may find the Regional Adaptation Guidance section particularly useful, as it provides guidance on general principles for adapting to climate change along with specific resources SJCOG has developed for the San Joaquin region.

The plan is divided into the following sections:

• Climate Adaptation and Resiliency (Phase I) Study: Summarizes SJCOG’s Phase I Study, which identified planning gaps, climate hazards and projections, and key transportation infrastructure vulnerabilities to climate change.

2 San Joaquin Council of Governments. (n.d.) About SJCOG. Accessed on February 24, 2022, from https://www.sjcog.org/145/About https://www.sjcog.org/145/About

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• Regional Needs Assessment: Summarizes stakeholder and community engagement conducted for the Phase II Study and the key findings from this engagement, including regional concerns and barriers to addressing climate change, and ideas for adapting to climate change.

• Prioritized Implementation Strategies for the San Joaquin Region: Summarizes the top ranked regional implementation strategies and how the ranking was done.

• Regional Adaptation Guidance: Summarizes general principles for considering climate change projections and uncertainties in decision-making and how to approach climate change adaptation, along with regional adaptation resources for member jurisdictions and other stakeholders.

CLIMATE ADAPTATION AND RESILIENCY (PHASE I) STUDY

In 2020, SJCOG conducted a Climate Adaptation and Resiliency Study to identify critical transportation infrastructure assets within

San Joaquin County and assess their existing and future vulnerability to climate change impacts. Existing climate change planning efforts were incorporated to provide more holistic understanding of risks in the area and to allow for prioritization of assets for resilience efforts. The goals of this project were to sustain multi-modal transportation, create and maintain network redundancy, and improve overall resiliency and reliability of San Joaquin County’s transportation system. These goals and the approach to the vulnerability assessment were developed alongside a working group of regional stakeholders.

ASSESSMENT APPROACH

The approach to the Climate Adaptation and Resiliency study followed the steps below:

1. The study team collaborated to develop key resiliency goals that focused on improvements to the transportation system.

Identification of goals helped to focus the study’s scope and prioritize project outcomes and deliverables.

2. The study team conducted a vulnerability assessment that utilized GHG emission projections (RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5), climate data, and information on relevant transportation assets. The data was used to determine future climate impacts on selected transportation assets and flag high vulnerability assets.

3. The study team used a planning horizon to the year 2050 to synchronize the timeline with RTP and other local efforts.

4. The study team then assessed the vulnerability of assets in relation to identified climate vulnerabilities. Key assets included bus routes, transportation support/maintenance services, goods movement connectors, access points for transportation-disadvantaged populations, evacuation routes, and air and deep-water transport.

5. A criticality assessment was conducted to focus on transportation most important to proper transportation network functioning.

6. A vulnerability assessment was conducted to determine which assets will be most vulnerable (defined to include exposure, sensitivity, adaptive capacity, and consequence) to climate change impacts and to quantify potential disruption. Findings were compared to project resilience goals to prioritize assets according to vulnerability.

CLIMATE HAZARDS

Key climate hazards assessed in the vulnerability assessment included increases in sea level rise, fluvial/riverine inflows, extreme precipitation events, wildfire, and extreme heat.

Overall, San Joaquin County is predicted to experience more flooding due to sea level rise and riverine flooding. This can significantly impact bridge infrastructure by reducing clearing (or “freeboard”) and undermining bridge structures. Flooding can also overwhelm drainage systems, damaging rails, roads, and airport infrastructure. Additional improvements need to be made to San Joaquin County levees to protect against sudden flooding events. As a key example, Stockton Airport is located within the 100-year floodplain and may experience significant flight delays and cancellations from flood events.

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San Joaquin County is also projected to experience increased frequency and intensity of precipitation events. This can contribute to flooding and flash flooding which can overwhelm drainage systems and exacerbate the effects of sea level rise and riverine flooding.

Wildfires are projected to remain consistent or even slightly decrease in frequency across San Joaquin County. However, wildfires may still impact transportation infrastructure by causing closures that may exacerbate congestion and restrict access to transportation from other climate impacts.

San Joaquin County is projected to experience a significant increase in the number of hot days which can place strain on rail infrastructure, roads, runways, and maintenance activities by straining the health of maintenance workers.

Lastly, drought and the potential of a mega-drought are predicted to increase in California. Drought can cause roadway pavements to crack and can increase the likelihood of wildfires.

SAN JOAQUIN REGION VULNERABILITIES

Results of the study show the widespread impact of selected climate stressors that make it difficult to identify top priority assets in some cases. The most critical assets in the San Joaquin region were identified through the criticality assessments based on multimodal transportation, redundant routes, and emergency response. In the vulnerability assessment, the project team then evaluated how these assets are projected to be affected by each climate stressor of concern in the San Joaquin region. The top priority assets for adaptation responses are summarized in Table 1 below.

Table 1: Top Priority, Vulnerable Assets in the San Joaquin Region

TOP PRIORITIES ADDITIONAL PRIORITIES

SR 99 through Lodi Port of Stockton

South Stockton Neighborhood I-5 between Tracy and Lathrop

Stockton Airport Waterloo Road/CA 88

Stockton Wye Bus stops in downtown Stockton, Hammer Triangle, and Harrell Park

SR 4 from Stockton west to Contra Costa

BNSF Intermodal Railyard

REGIONAL NEEDS ASSESSMENT

A thorough inventory of stakeholder and community needs was a critical input into establishing a Regional Resiliency Implementation

Plan and Adaptation Guidance for the San Joaquin County’s transportation system. The Regional Needs Assessment documents this inventory, summarizing input and findings from a stakeholder workshop, a series of stakeholder interviews, and a public survey conducted for the SJCOG Regional Resiliency Implementation Plan and Adaptation Guidance project.

This Needs Assessment drew on engagement with stakeholders through roughly a dozen interviews and a workshop, and with community members via a public survey. The survey targeted zip codes in disadvantaged communities, as identified by

CalEnviroScreen. Over two thirds of respondents resided in these areas.

STAKEHOLDER AND COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT

To collect feedback on regional needs, impacts, and adaptation and implementation strategy ideas from SJCOG stakeholders, the project team organized a Vulnerability Assessment Working Group (VAWG) made up of SJCOG’s member jurisdictions, regional

San Joaquin Council of Governments Regional Resiliency Implementation Plan and Adaptation Guidance Page 8 nonprofits, transportation agencies, and relevant state agencies. A workshop was held with the VAWG to discuss project goals and outcomes and begin to collect feedback for this Regional Needs Assessment. The project team also held a series of follow up stakeholder group interviews with VAWG members and other regional contacts. The stakeholder interviews provided another opportunity to ask questions posed to the VAWG and gather input from regional decision-makers about some of the most important and vulnerable facilities on the transportation network, and their ideas for how to improve these facilities and make them more resilient.

VAWG WORKSHOP # 1

At the Phase II Study’s first workshop, the project team asked questions aimed towards identifying technical, institutional, and community needs and held a discussion with VAWG members. The project team also developed questions and talking points for a second stage of discussion focused on the Phase I Study priority facilities identified in the assessment.

Through discussion with the VAWG, the project team identified needs and barriers to regional adaptation planning and implementation. These needs include specific impacts stakeholders are facing and/or problem areas on the multi-modal transportation network that should be prioritized for the Regional Implementation Strategy.

The VAWG also provided the project team valuable insight into what implementation and adaptation strategies are needed to prepare local communities and the transportation network for a changing climate.

STAKEHOLDER INTERVIEWS

Interviews were held with regional decision makers and asset manager representatives from SJCOG’s member jurisdictions, community and faith-based organizations (CBOs/FBOs), VAWG members, and other partner agencies. To maximize the number of interviewees and encourage cross-jurisdictional/agency discussion, the project team organized group interviews with stakeholders that had similar perspectives and interests. Interview questions were developed specific to each set of stakeholders but were focused on achieving the overall stakeholder engagement goals of identifying needs and barriers to regional adaptation planning and implementation, past impacts and problem areas, and adaptation and implementation strategy ideas.

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

Community engagement was an important element during the outreach phase of the SJCOG Regional Resiliency Implementation Plan and Adaptation Guidance project. The engagement process gave community members the opportunity to provide their needs and priorities related to climate change, and detail what climate hazards already impact their daily lives. The input received from the community provided the project team with additional information about local concerns surrounding climate change, how residents use the transportation system, how previous weather events have affected them, and the types of responses that the community would like to see implemented in the San Joaquin County region.

With the ongoing COVID-19 health crisis, it was important to develop effective engagement strategies that could be completed in environments that would keep participants safe, while still providing the valuable input needed to meet the project’s established community engagement goals. Therefore, the project team researched and identified multiple engagement strategies as alternatives to in-person events or gatherings. It was decided that the engagement strategies that would be most effective during the project’s public outreach phase would include the use of an online survey, a dedicated phone line to receive comments from the public, and a social media campaign. Once implemented, all these outreach strategies were made available to the public in both English and Spanish.

The project’s online survey was hosted on MetroQuest, a survey platform accessible on both computers and mobile devices (e.g., cellphones and tablets). The SJCOG Regional Resiliency Implementation Plan and Adaptation Guidance online survey was made available to the public on December 24, 2020 and was live through March 15, 2021. During this time, a total of 74 completed surveys were submitted by participants throughout San Joaquin County. The survey consisted of a series of multiple choice and priority ranking questions, as well as a mapping element, and was available to survey participants in both English and Spanish.

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The project team also established a dedicated phone line to receive input from the public to help bridge the digital divide that exists among those in the community who have limited or no access to computers and the internet. The phone line consisted of a local number that callers could dial in to and leave a comment on the project or participate in a telephone survey. The telephone survey contained pre-recorded questions that were like the online survey, and that allowed participants to verbally record their answers.

A social media campaign was used to bring awareness to the project and help boost online and phone line survey participation. A targeted social media advertisement via Facebook advertisements was used to ensure input was received from all segments of the community. The project team ran two bilingual Facebook advertisements during the social media campaign. The first advertisement specifically targeted zip codes that are identified by CalEnviroScreen as disadvantaged communities, per California Senate Bill 535.

These zip codes were targeted to encourage input from communities that are historically disadvantaged and disproportionately burdened by pollution and environmental impacts. The second advertisement targeted the San Joaquin County region, including those disadvantaged communities already being targeted in the first advertisement.

Additional public outreach strategies that were used during the project’s engagement process included sharing project and survey information to project stakeholders for dissemination to their colleagues and constituents, as well as posting project information and the online survey link to the Stockton Reddit platform.

COMMUNITY AND STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT KEY FINDINGS

In general, regional stakeholders face future climate risks with limited funding, staffing, and information about how best to manage these risks. Clearer coordination across stakeholder groups and governments is needed to respond to climate change. There are varying levels of engagement – federal, state, regional, and local – and it can be unclear how all are working together. Cross-agency coordination is needed and should be proactive before there are impacts and emergencies.

Flooding is a persistent threat, particularly in the western portions of the county in the Delta; and in Stockton, by far the most populous city in the county, and nearby communities, such as Lathrop and Manteca. While there is a complex network of flood protection systems, bolstering these levees and other infrastructure to withstand expected future flooding would be very costly. While some jurisdictions and agencies know which parts of their systems are most vulnerable, others lack that knowledge. From a transportation perspective, protecting evacuation routes and infrastructure serving disadvantaged communities are two key priorities.

Several key roads, railways and bridges mentioned by stakeholders should be prioritized for adaptations.

Over 90% of community members surveyed said they were very or somewhat concerned about the impacts of climate change, citing poor air quality as the most concerning hazard, followed closely by wildfire and flooding. Poor air quality has impacted travel of far more survey respondents than any of the other hazards (see Figure 1). Many respondents said they experienced poor air quality in the

Stockton area.

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Figure 1: Survey Responses Regarding Past Events and Conditions

According to survey respondents, the most popular transportation strategies for resilience are more trees along roads, expanded bus routes and hours, and more comfortable, shaded transit stops. Each of these strategies tends to be implementable at a local level. When asked about other types of strategies, respondents most frequently cited educational opportunities for community members to learn about climate change and sustainability, followed by community solar or gardens and job training in green business. Public education and accessibility to information were mentioned as key strategies by some stakeholders as well.

Stakeholders and community members also noted poor reliability of electricity in the hottest months of the year. Transitioning to all-electric buses could be challenging given more frequent power shutoffs.

Integrating climate change considerations into the early stages of the transportation planning process should be a priority.

Organizations like the Delta Stewardship Council, Caltrans, and California Department of Water Resources are heavily connected to many decisions affecting the resiliency of the region’s transportation system, again pointing to the need for collaboration. Many decisions and solutions rest with local agencies as well, where capacity building is particularly important. Local agencies pointed to a need for better guidance on resiliency-related best practices, land use and general planning, and data to support adaption planning and decision making.

PRIORITIZED IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGIES FOR THE SAN JOAQUIN REGION

The conversations held with stakeholders and the public survey responses collected through the Regional Needs Assessment provided an initial set of implementation strategy ideas and established needs and goals for increasing regional resiliency. SJCOG added to this list of strategies to develop 56 implementation strategies total, which was narrowed down to 46 in the final list. The implementation strategies were compiled and ranked in a “Strategy Evaluation Matrix;” a simplified version of this matrix with all implementation strategies is in Appendix A.

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To identify the highest priority strategies for implementation in the region, SJCOG developed a system to compare and rank the various strategies. To compare the effectiveness and value of different strategies, a set of consistent criteria were developed to score strategies against one another. These criteria center around the implementation strategy benefits (e.g., risk reduction) and any challenges to implementation (e.g., cost), and are weighted by their relative importance, so that SJCOG and its stakeholders can make informed decisions about which strategies to prioritize.

However, it is important to note that the evaluation criteria, prioritization methodology, and scoring system were defined by SJCOG with input from its stakeholders to create scores that are only relative to the other strategies in the Strategy Evaluation Matrix. It is also important to note that it can be challenging to fairly score so many different types of strategies against one another. For example, one strategy may be very well-defined (e.g., levee improvement project) whereas a different strategy is a high-level concept for a program

(e.g., free transit to cooling centers). The effectiveness of the well-defined strategy is better understood, so therefore it may by default receive a higher score. Finally, implementation strategy priorities may vary greatly for different agencies and local jurisdictions. For these reasons, the prioritization scores are provided to help narrow down the long list of strategies to help SJCOG and its members and stakeholders focus resources and attention, but it is not intended to provide rigid framework for completing these strategies.

The implementation strategy prioritization approach is summarized below. See Appendix C for a complete technical memorandum on the prioritization process.

STRATEGY PRIORITIZATION

IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGY EVALUATION CRITERIA

These criteria were used to evaluate the implementation strategies and support strategy prioritization for the San Joaquin region:

• Alignment with Phase I Study:

o Addresses vulnerabilities at a Phase I priority facility/location (e.g., South Stockton, Stockton Airport, SR 4 from Stockton West to Contra Costa).

o Addresses vulnerabilities for a critical transportation asset, as defined in the Phase I study using critical asset criteria developed for the study:

▪ Bus route density

▪ Key supporting services

▪ Goods movement connectors

▪ Access points for transportation-disadvantaged, rural populations

▪ Access to transit for transportation-disadvantaged, urban populations

▪ Evacuation routes operating at a low level of service

▪ Transport via deep-water port and air

• Effectiveness:

o Physical risk reduction OR resilience capacity building:

▪ Physical risk reduction is evaluated as a criterion for projects that would make a physical improvement to the transportation network or address a site-specific vulnerability. For example, raising or improving a levee would reduce the risk of flooding.

▪ Resilience capacity building is evaluated as a criterion for policy-level strategies, or those that would have a broader impact to help the San Joaquin region prepare for climate impacts. For example, San Joaquin Council of Governments Regional Resiliency Implementation Plan and Adaptation Guidance Page 12 instituting a new tax to fund levee improvement projects would help build capacity needed to mitigate flood risk.

• Relative cost of implementation:

o Capital cost, or upfront costs of completing a project (e.g., high cost) o Operations and maintenance (O&M) cost (including staffing requirements) (e.g., low cost)

• Streamlining implementation:

o Ease of local implementation (by local/regional entities) o Timeframe for implementation (e.g., near, mid, or long term) o Alignment with existing projects and funding

• Co-benefits:

o GHG reductions o Local environmental benefits (e.g., improved regional air quality, water quality, habitat) o Community health and safety benefits (e.g., to public health, safety, Urban Heat Island mitigation) o Disadvantaged community needs and benefits (e.g., to health and safety, improved mobility, and access to transportation options) o Improvements to transportation system (e.g., efficiency, redundancy, access, transit/active transportation options)

While not a criterion used in prioritization, the Strategy Evaluation Matrix also notes who could be responsible for implementation of each strategy. This could be SJCOG, one of its member jurisdictions, or other regional stakeholders such as the Stockton Metropolitan

Airport or the San Joaquin Area Flood Control Agency.

SCORING METHODOLOGY

This information feeds into a weighted criterion scoring methodology. Each implementation strategy is evaluated against the consistent set of criteria provided above. Each strategy receives a score for each criterion. For example, each strategy is assigned a score of low, medium, or high for the “ease of implementation” criterion. These low, medium, and high scores are scaled between

0%, 50%, and 100%, respectively. So, a strategy that is very easy to implement would receive a full scaled score of 100%.

Each criterion also has a weight tied to it based upon SJCOG’s priorities. Criteria with higher weights are considered relatively more important. The weights are given as percentages and the sum of all these weights adds up to 100%.

These weights are multiplied by the scaled scores. Then, they are added together to obtain an overall score. This score can then be used to rank each strategy.

The steps to the scoring methodology are provided in more detail below:

1. Identify common scoring formats and scale for implementation strategy criteria: There are different ways to measure the evaluation strategy criteria identified above (e.g., dollars, periods of time), which needed to be compared on a common scale for the sake of the scoring exercise. For this project, the project team used simple, categorical scores, particularly given the range of different strategy types being compared. The project team identified scoring formats for each implementation strategy criterion and a common scale for ranking strategies.

The scoring formats were used to compare and score criteria across different strategies in a simple way. For example, when evaluating the timeframe for implementation a “near, mid, or long-term” scoring format was used. This is compared against

San Joaquin Council of Governments Regional Resiliency Implementation Plan and Adaptation Guidance Page 13 the same criterion for other strategies and can be scored rather simply; a strategy that can be implemented in the “near-term” will receive a higher score than one with a “long-term” timeframe for implementation.

The project team decided to use a simple 0%, 50%, or 100% scale for each of the criteria. For criteria that have a simple “yes or no” scoring format, the associated score is 100% or 0%. For criteria with “low to high” scoring format, the associated scores would be 0%, 50%, to 100%.

2. Apply weights: Some criteria were identified as more important than others for determining overall priorities. Therefore, the relative importance of each scaled score was adjusted by multiplying the score by a weighting factor. Criteria deemed more important to prioritization were multiplied by a larger weight (e.g., a 30% weight is more important than a 5% weight). See

Table 2 for the evaluation criteria weights.

3. Calculate prioritization scores for each strategy: After the weights were applied, the final step was to calculate prioritization scores for each implementation strategy. This was accomplished by first summing the products of the weights and scores for all the criteria relevant to the strategy. The final values were scaled on a range from 0% to 100%, with 0% representing the lowest priority strategy and 100% the highest priority strategy. So, each strategy received a final score out of

100% which was used to compare strategies to one another.

4. Organize. The final step was to sort the matrix by overall priority. Each strategy received an associated ranking with its score

(1 through 46). The project team created two final strategy rankings: one that ranked all implementation strategies and one that only ranked the near-term, easy to implement strategies.

Table 7 in Appendix A provides a condensed version of the Strategy Evaluation Matrix, showing scores for the following criteria:

effectiveness, capital cost, operations and maintenance cost, ease of local implementation, timeframe for implementation, and all co-benefits (GHG reductions, local environmental benefits, community health and safety benefits, disadvantaged community needs and benefits, and improvements to the transportation system). Table 7 also shows the final strategy ranks based upon the criteria scores and final weighting.

Table 2: Evaluation Criteria Assigned Weights

EVALUATION CRITERIA WEIGHT

Addresses vulnerabilities at a Phase I priority facility/location 4%

Addresses vulnerabilities for a Phase I critical transportation asset 4%

Effectiveness (Physical risk reduction OR resilience capacity building) 50%

Capital cost (upfront costs of completing a project) 5%

Operations and maintenance (O&M) cost (including staffing requirements) 5%

Ease of local implementation (by local/regional entities) 5%

Timeframe for implementation (near, mid, or long term) 5%

Alignment with existing projects and funding 2%

GHG reductions 3.5%

Local environmental benefits (e.g., improved regional air quality, water quality, habitat) 3.5%

Community health and safety benefits (e.g., to public health, safety, Urban Heat Island mitigation) 3.5%

Disadvantaged community benefits (e.g., to health and safety, improved mobility, and access to transportation options) 6%

Improvements to transportation system (e.g., efficiency, redundancy, access, transit/active transportation options) 3.5%

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