On-Call Professional Consultant Planning and Engineering Services for Project Management, Capital Project Tracking, and Technical Assistance in Project Delivery

The San Joaquin Council of Governments(SJCOG) is soliciting Statements of Qualifications (SOQs) for On‐Call Consultant Services for Planning and Engineering Services. Services may be related to transportation planning, programming (funding), or capital improvement program development for state/federally funded projects. Engineering services also include project management and oversight of various transportation planning projects that may involve ancillary construction elements (such as EV chargers, bike infrastructure, and way-finding elements), as well as larger capital project delivery (i.e. interchange projects, highway widening projects, regional arterials) funded by Measure K, the Regional Transportation Impact Fee (RTIF), or other state/federal funds.

The purpose of SJCOG in issuing this solicitation is to create an on‐call shortlist of firms that will assist SJCOG staff with the tasks outlined in the Scope of Services below. A previous shortlist expired in June 2025. The shortlist will be active for five years from the time of SJCOG Board adoption. Those firms shortlisted will be invited to propose on various projects throughout the five‐year period. It is anticipated that the cumulative budget for SJCOG staff use of the on‐call list is targeted at $100,000 annually; however, this amount could be higher or lower, so long as the five‐year cumulative total of $500,000 is not exceeded.

SJCOG staff will also make its on-call list available to local jurisdictions who may be interested in utilizing the list through a piggyback procurement process, enabling the local jurisdiction to tap into SJCOG’s completed, competitive process to secure consultants. SJCOG makes no commitment that any local agency will be utilizing the list in this manner and is simply stating the list would be made available to local jurisdictions in San Joaquin County.

The San Joaquin Council of Governments (SJCOG) has a proven track record, spanning decades, of exceeding its federal obligation authority for projects in the adopted Federal Transportation Improvement Program ( https://www.sjcog.org/110/Federal ‐Transportation‐Improvement‐Progr.) Often, SJCOG is in the top five of Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPO) in the state for exceeding its federal obligations in a given year. SJCOG also oversees the Regional Transportation Impact Fee Program ( https://www.sjcog.org/118/Regional ‐Transportation‐Impact‐Fee‐RTIF) and the Measure K Program ( https://www.sjcog.org/300/Measure ‐K) where some project sponsors, including SJCOG, use these local revenue sources to either match or leverage state/federal dollars. SJCOG has also been successful in pursuing a variety of large state grants for planning studies, pilot projects, and demonstration projects that go beyond planning and involve small scale construction projects requiring a higher level of project management and grant tracking than in the past. With both state and federal planning grants, and transportation programming generally becoming more complex, SJCOG seeks to keep a bench of qualified consultants to aid staff when workloads are high. Some examples of consultant tasks include:

1. Delivery of Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Projects (CMAQ) and Regional Surface Transportation Program (RSTP) is dropping ‐ Public transit projects have been a big component of the CMAQ program, but in recent years, increasingly more street and road projects have been funded (traffic signal synchronization, traffic signal installation, intersection/operational street improvements, non‐transit vehicle purchases, street sweepers). The street and road projects have more extensive project development activities than public transit projects and, therefore, require more time. SJCOG has traditionally used basic spreadsheet tracking tools to monitor projects, leading to a shelf list of projects “ready to go” if other projects experience delays. However, SJCOG staff is seeing the need for more sophisticated tracking systems because of the growing number of projects experiencing significant delays in delivery.

2. Enhanced tracking of federal and state funded public transportation projects beyond “authorization to proceed” ‐ SJCOG’s role as the Metropolitan Planning Organization is to approve the “grant applications” of federally‐funded transit projects as part of the submittal to the federal or state project tracking systems. In the past several years, various agencies brought to SJCOG’s attention that approved projects scheduled for delivery with state or federal funds were reporting no activity, despite being authorized to proceed years prior. As a result, some funds were not only in danger of lapsing, but were in jeopardy of being removed and not returned to the San Joaquin region. In each instance brought to SJCOG’s attention, millions of dollars of federal or state funds were at risk. While some last‐minute fund exchanges and project substitutions resolved these issues, SJCOG is looking to develop “post authorization tracking tools” for projects to better assist the region to prevent these instances from happening again. By proactively tracking, updating, and monitoring project and program delivery, SJCOG seeks to ensure smooth delivery of studies, projects, and programs, while ensuring the agency's ability to successfully attract additional funding based on a stellar record of project and program completion.

3. Improvements in the administration of Regional Traffic Impact Fee Program ‐ The RTIF program’s objective is to generate funding from new development projects that impact the Regional Transportation Network and integrate these funds with federal, state, and other local funding to make transportation improvements identified in the RTIF program. SJCOG’s RTIF has many projects which have “operating agreements” authorizing the project sponsor to expend RTIF funds. However, some of the project information, funding plans, and overall schedule, are inconsistent with other information with the same project that is reported by jurisdictions in federal/state grant applications. SJCOG is interested in tools and strategies to enhance the role of RTIF in leveraging state/federal funds and also to improving the RTIF project delivery by local agencies.

4. Grant writing assistance and related technical assistance in the pursuit of various state and federal funding opportunities ‐ There are many new infrastructure programs coming out of the state. This is anticipated to increase when the federal transportation law is reauthorized. There is an expectation that many traditional funding programs and grant opportunities will emerge from the reauthorization with substantial changes in focus, priorities, and requirements. SJCOG staff wishes to assist local jurisdictions, to the extent possible, by bolstering grant application efforts which includes providing information and technical analysis - especially for projects identified by the SJCOG Board as regional priorities. In some cases, SJCOG may want to utilize consulting assistance in these efforts to improve the quality and content of grant submittals for transportation projects to state and federal funding programs.

5. Project management of project development teams and/or technical assistance on issues as needed ‐ troubleshooting and proactive strategies are the primary tools to keep a project on track and on budget. SJCOG has a strong working relationship with Caltrans and our federal partners participating in or leading many project development teams (PDTs). With the scope envisioned to develop a federal CIP, the expectation is that additional consulting resources are needed to manage the federal capital improvement program to assist local and transit agencies in their delivery schedule.

In addition, SJCOG anticipates the need for experienced “project managers” to oversee consultant project development teams that are currently working on projects in the region. In this role, the “project manager” will report to either the deputy director of planning or the deputy director of programming and project delivery. This requires experience working with Caltrans District 10. The immediate projects include but are not limited to: I‐205 Managed Lanes, the State Route 99/120 Connector project, the Innovations in Bicycle and Pedestrian Infrastructure Project Delivery plan, and various grants to deploy alternative fuel and multi-modal transportation hubs throughout San Joaquin County.