SBCTA: Tunnel to Ontario International Airport

This project, an innovative approach of tunneling, will create a subsurface transit connection between the Cucamonga Metrolink Station and the Ontario International Airport (ONT) terminals. ONT is located in the heart of the San Bernardino Valley and is a regional mobility hub for national and international travel. U.S. passenger volume is expected to grow by 15 to 30 million annual passengers by 2040, making accessibility crucial to travelers. Operated and maintained by Omnitrans, the project will feature a bi-directional system where passengers traveling to and from ONT will be transported in autonomous, zero-emission vehicles on an “on-demand” basis and developed under the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) Fixed Guideway requirements.

While in the environmental phase of the project, CPOG performed outreach tasks to support and promote the virtual public scoping meeting. A comprehensive campaign was developed and implemented to promote the public meeting that included Constant Contact e-blasts, social media posts, Geofencing advertisements, and a direct mail piece. The public meeting was held virtually, allowing more attendance than seen at in-person meetings. The goal of this meeting was to provide information about the project and instruct the public on how to submit official comments and questions as part of the Scoping Period. A total of 126 people, consisting of project staff and the public, participated in the meeting.

Once logistics were established, the team moved forward with drafting an Announcement of Virtual Public Meeting that was sent via direct mail to 3,057 recipients, including local, state, and federal agencies, as well as residents, businesses, and organizations within a 1-mile radius of the proposed project limits. An e-communications toolkit was developed and distributed to agency and city partners, providing them with copy-ready social media posts, newsletter content, and website copy to share the virtual meeting and project information through their communications channels.

In addition to advertising and executing the virtual public meeting, CPOG also assisted in the collection of public comments during the scoping period and created a scoping report detailing the outreach efforts and metrics leading up to the meeting.