The commissions shall rely to the maximum extent possible on existing state, regional, and local transportation planning and programming data and expertise, rather than on a large duplicative commission staff and set of plans.

The Legislature envisions the development of a small, but very capable, core staff able to provide the commissions with an objective analysis of the various options relative to plans and proposed projects of the regional and local transportation agencies and operators, and then translate those options into a short-range transportation improvement program to be developed and approved pursuant to subdivision (b) of Section 130303 in accordance with decisions made by the commissions.