Transportation Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the City of Alameda Transportation Commission meeting for 01/22/2025. We will begin with the first, we're gonna be with an announcement about where this meeting is and where other meetings are from Lisa Foster.

I think everybody's in the right place, but we are the Transportation Commission in here in City Council Chambers. Commission on persons with disabilities is behind us in Room 391, and the Public Arts Commission is in Room 360.

If anyone wants to stand up quietly, this would be the time to no? Okay, good. Let's do the roll call. Go ahead, Lisa.

Commissioner Kim?

Present.

Commissioner Dara Abrams? Here. Commissioner Gloyn?

Present.

Chair Weitzi?

Here.

Vice Chair Suthan Thira? Here. Commissioner Johnson?

Present.

And Commissioner Nochtigal? Here.

Looks like we have a quorum. Thank you everyone for being here. First next agenda item is any agenda changes. Any agenda changes from commissioners? Okay. Seeing none, we'll move on to the next part of the agenda, staff communications with Lisa Foster.

Good evening Chair Weitzi and Transportation Commissioners. I am Lisa Foster, Transportation Planning Manager. Wanted to let you know for city council actions on items reviewed by the transportation commission, we have on February 4, we are expecting to take the safe routes to school or excuse me, Safe Streets for All Federal Highway Administration grant agreement to the city council for their approval. The next couple of Transportation Commission meetings are February 26 and March 26. Some of the things we'll be talking about at those meetings are the annual reports, Stargell Avenue safety and transit improvements, Measure BB named transit project reprogramming, and the next budget cycles capital improvement plan for transportation.

On February 7, we have a transportation one hundred one event for older adults and people with disabilities at the Mastic Senior Center. And and in terms of project updates, we will, of course, at the next meeting, have our whole annual report. So just real briefly today for a few things that are happening. One, the Central Avenue Safety Improvement Project will break ground. The construction will begin on January 27.

We're all very excited. Construction is expected to finish in 2026. The project, of course, as you all know, includes a road diet with two motor vehicle travel lanes, a two way left turn lane as a center lane and bikeways. Three funded roundabouts and resurfacing, improved bus stops, enhanced pedestrian crossings, and street trees and rain gardens. The Oakland Alameda water shuttle carried about 6,500 passengers and almost a thousand bicycles in the month of December.

Winter is a little bit of a different experience out there, but we are operating the same schedule through the winter. We're working on window coverings for half the boat, to make it a little more comfortable in the rain and the wind. And shuttle runs are occasionally canceled when the operator feels it's unsafe to operate usually because of wind. In which case, the SF Bay ferry sends out an alert. There's instructions in the staffer, communications.

Neighborhood greenways, we're working on a bid package to construct the first section of the Pacific Avenue neighborhood greenway from Lafayette to Oak and continuing to work on that project. Then at the West Midway development and reshape, the first phase of work will require closure of West Midway from Orion Street to Pan Am Street for approximately nine months while utility and roadway improvements are built to support the reshape housing project. And we have a traffic handling plan so that everybody will be able to access what they need. And then our highway safety improvement project has, I think it's four intersections that improvements are underway or construction is progressing on this project. So And then not in the written staff communications, but I did want to share that we had our first fatality of twenty twenty five traffic fatality.

A person was crossing Ralph Appazado Memorial Parkway at Coral Sweet C and Poguey when a motorist struck her and she died. Preliminary investigations suggest that she was crossing Ralph Apazado Memorial Parkway as the motorist was making a westbound turn when the collision occurred. But the investigation is still underway, and our fatal crash response program team will go out onto the location in the coming weeks when the investigation is a little further along. So, sorry to share sad news. And that concludes my communications.

Thank you Lisa. Next we're going to move to non agenda item public comments. So these are for public comments for non agenda items. Do we have any slips for public comment in the audience?

Yes, we have one slip. Jim Strelow.

Happy New Year, commissioners

Happy New Year, Jim.

Staff. I'm here because I'd rather be in that meeting back there rather than here, but I have to be here also because I'm interested in what's happening out in Bay Farm Island as well. I only got notice of meeting about the disabilities for Fernside Boulevard today rather than like seven days in advance or something. Wondering you know, where was that published? And for people to be able to kind of plan their times accordingly and stuff, I think it's a little bit unfair that I can't be in both places at the same time because I planned this seven days in advance because of the agenda that was posted publicly and that I only heard about the Fernside discussion today.

And I know it's only limited to people with disabilities and stuff like that, but it's still Fernside. That's where I live. That's where I'd like to be. But I'm here because I also want to understand what's happening in Bay Farm Island. I think it's a little unfair to have both things scheduled the same time and with very little advance notice about the meeting back there. Thank you.

Thank you for joining us. Any additional public comments?

We have no other speakers.

Anyone on Zoom?

There are none on Zoom.

Okay. May I reopen staff communications for a second?

Please do.

I forgot to introduce Susie Hofstadter, our new senior transportation coordinator. We're very pleased to have her on board. So just wanted to do that. Welcome, Zborg. Welcome.

Okay. Seeing no other public comments, let's move to the consent calendar. We're gonna move to item five a, the approval of the draft minutes of the 11/20/2024 Transportation Commission meeting. If you have not had a chance to review, please do review now. And I will take a motion to approve.

I'll make a motion to approve.

Any seconds? Second. Seconded by Vice Chair Susan Theriault. All in favor of the motion, please say aye.

Aye.

Anyone strangely opposed? Okay, good. Motion passes. Let's move on to Regal Agenda Item six, move to 6A, to review and discuss the 2025 pavement and rehabilitation project including design updates in Monho. Good luck to me. Ogden Paw Way, McCartney Road, and Maitland Drive. And I believe this is a discussion item, not something that we need to vote on. I believe Scott Wickstrom will be doing a presentation. A gentle reminder that we had a thorough and actually quite excellent presentation on paving in the city. So do try to remember those details so we don't get too down in the weeds trying to help Scott. Thanks.

We have all night. Chair Weitzey, members of the Transportation Commission, once again Scott Wickstrom, city engineer. I'll be joined in this presentation by Rob Rees from Farrant and Sarah Dowling from NCE who helped have been working with the plans and came up with a lot of the innovative solutions we have for this project. It's a little bit unusual, I would say, for us to bring a paving project to the Transportation Commission. I believe this is the first time we've done this.

But I will say that our paving program has been evolving over the last several years to not only just take care of the pavement but also look at how and when and where we can include safety improvements, whether it's a complete street element or whether it's a enhanced crosswalk or any other items that we can add in. And as we started looking at opportunities, we thought it would be well worth the time to bring it forward to this commission so that you guys might have the opportunity to see where we are, what we're proposing, and also a chance to kind of, I'll say, bring this to the public in a way that they have an opportunity to respond and provide some input to us. We are at the moment sitting at our 65% design. So we have the streets largely selected, our initial rough things out there, but there are opportunities to make changes or modifications depending on the feedback we may receive tonight. That, and that button right there.

So quick agenda, overview and objectives, I'll be very brief about that. Rob Rees will jump up and really give the meat of the presentation about these three particular corridors and in particular the one intersection of Maitland, Melrose, McCartney, that challenged intersection. And then Sarah is going to come up and speak a little bit more about the roundabout that we are currently proposing. For an overview and objectives, we talked back in September. We broke the city up into thirds.

This year, 2025, we're on the Eastern 3rd Of Alameda, Bay Farm Island. And for our project this year, we have about 12 miles of pavement preservation, and I included the Island Drive and McCartney Pathway in that 12 miles because that's heavily used by a lot of school children riding their bikes to and from the various different schools. It is mostly slurries and cape seals. It's delivered at this small. There's more information in the actual packet.

The greens and the oranges are either slurry or a cape seal. We were on Bay Farm Island, I believe it was four years ago at this point. And pretty much all of the streets North Of McCartney, the public streets, if we didn't slurry or cape seal them four years ago, we're going to capture them this year. It really is about optimizing our paving network. These roads were constructed in the early to mid 90s.

They are at the time where we really need to start to get in there and get something done to help preserve our payment and infrastructure. Project budget is about 4,000,000 to $5,000,000 When we do slurry seals and cape seals, we can get a lot more miles per million dollars is a strange way to put it, but that's basically the math that we're looking at. So with that, and I'm always remiss if I don't pull up one of my favorite slides here, is our nonlinear pavement degradation curve and our exponential increase in costs. And just remind the commission that one of the things that we really strive to do as much as we can is to get the right treatment on the right street at the right time. And the significant amount of slurries and cape seals is really the best approach for where we are at Bay Farm Island and preserving the condition of that pavement.

So with that overview, I will pass it off to Rob who's going to talk specifically about the improvements.

Thanks Scott. I'm Rob Rees with Farrand Pierce and I'm just going to run through couple of the corridors that we're looking at real quick and then I can answer questions later if you have them. Been a while since I've been in person. Usually I'm on teams and it's a lot easier. I know how to push the buttons on this keyboard.

So there's three corridors that I'll talk about, Ogdenba, McCartney. Well, two corridors. I kinda treat Maitland, McCartney as kind of its own its own unique space. On Ogdenba, what we have in existing conditions is we essentially have bike lanes relatively standard lane widths from a highway perspective, know, feet, 12 foot lanes. We have some buses along the corridor that are on a portion of the corridor, but here in front of the school where we have the on street parking, we just kinda have a standard bike lane system.

And during school days, when schools are in session, there's a lot of parking on the street. There's double parking in the bike lane on both sides of the road, and there's a lot of activity. And so it makes it difficult for kids to ride in the area when they're leaving school or arriving to school. And so what we're proposing to do, this is a slurry seal project, and so that's one of the lower cost projects that Scott referenced in his graphic that he loves. What we're going to do is we're going to bring the lanes down at school to 10 foot lanes.

So that gives us extra width. That allows us then to have a little bit more robust bike lane at six feet. You will have the gutter in that area, so the area that is just for bikes without the bikes, without the gutter seam would be about four four plus feet. And then on the school side, we would then have a nine foot parking lane and a little wider buffer of four feet. The reason we have a four foot buffer there is so that when the car door opens, it is fully within the buffer area and somebody can get out of their car without stepping into the bike lane.

On the other side of the street, we then have enough space for a three foot bike lane. Now what we're going to be doing here, it doesn't show on the graphic, but what we are gonna have are channelizers in the buffer zones. And so what that does is per NACTO, it becomes a class four facility because the channelizers are spaced such that the cars cannot drive into the bike lane area. This is a special benefit here in front of the school because with the channelizers, the cars will not be able to pull over into the curb area and pick up and drop off kids. We will place the channelizers very close, 10 to 20 feet apart in order to make it provide that separation.

And so that is in front of the school, and this is what the striping plan would look like if you were looking down from a helicopter from above and you can see that the parking is floating out into the near next to the vehicle lane, and then that allows for the separation to have the bikeway between the curb and where the cars would park. This drawing doesn't show where the channelizers would be located, but we would have channelizers along this this corridor in the in these areas. And then as we move to the west, as we move to the west, we go by the park. We then no longer have parking on the street. There's no parking generally along the street, but we still maintain either 10 or 11 foot lanes depending on if the bus route is there is a bus route that goes between here and McCartney, and so the lanes need to be 11 feet for the bus.

But we still are able to take a little bit of excess width to have the wider buffer, and we would continue with the channelizers through this area. We are recommending that the Kaufman Intersection become an always stop intersection. One of the things that we noticed when we were out in the field observing the traffic is that drivers come up to this intersection on Kaufman and they sometimes they stop at the limit line, but generally they kind of float through the limit line, through the crosswalk areas, sometimes into the bike areas so that they can get good visibility to see if there is oncoming traffic. And you might think that that would only be for left turns coming out of Kaufman looking for them looking to the right to be able to make sure they can make a left, but actually there are structures, planting, and utilities that are around the park that actually influence and impact sight lines. And so even for a driver that wants to make a right turn out of Kaufman, they have trouble seeing.

And so MUTCD allows us to install always stops as an optional solution if there is a safety concern related to sight lines. In this case, we have a large number of pedestrians using the crosswalks. We actually have a fair number of bike riders around the school times, and they are all going through this intersection at the same time that drivers are encroaching into the crosswalk and even into the bike lane to make their turn from Kaufman onto onto Augenbaugh. And so as a result, we really feel that the stop signs are needed here to address the potential safety issues and to help drivers so they have a better opportunity to turn on and off of Augenbach. The next area I'd like to talk about is McCartney.

I'm gonna talk about the four lane portion of McCartney. That's where we're proposing to do safety improvements, by reducing the number of lanes. McCartney transitions from a four lane facility at Island, generally at Island, down to a two lane facility as you go towards Ogdenba, and then most of the way it's a two lane facility. And so what we are proposing to do is make the entire stretch a single lane in each direction with left turn pockets and then installing instead of standard bike lanes like you see here, buffered bike lanes and maintaining the on street parking. And so the concept that we have looks generally like this.

On the on the right side of the screen, have a nine foot parking lane, and then you have some combination of buffer system and bike lane. In this case, we're showing a buffer next to the parking as well as a buffer between the bike lane and the auto lane. The reason for this is that McCartney changes width along its entire segment. There is not a standard width along the segment. And in fact, the directionality has different segment widths as well.

So as a result, we have in many cases excess width that we need to do something with. And so what we're doing here, which is where we took picture, which is around between Island and Fontana, is that we are using a combination of buffer striping, as I mentioned, between the parking and the bike lane, between the bike lane and the vehicle lane, and then a buffer stripe between the vehicle lane and the median. And this is because we have the excess width that we need to do something with. The benefit of having the yellow striping at the median is that the median does have trees, it's landscaped, and so the buffer stripe keeps the cars a foot or two away from the median and that really benefits the quality of the pavement because the trees and the vegetation are going to impact that area right at the median where the pavement meets. And so what we wanna do if we can is shift the cars just a little bit away from there so that we don't get damage at the end of the pavement where it where it hits the median.

And then in this case, going in the other direction towards island, we have a left turn lane, the vehicle lane, the buffer, the bike lane, and then in this case, there is no on street parking in this particular segment and so we then have some buffer at the shoulder. And again this is because we have this odd width and this is a resurfacing pavement project. It's not a project to move the curbs. And so we're kind of stuck with trying to put something together that is safe and but does not look too daunting to users along the corridor. We also other elements that we're doing here is we are doing some transit stop improvements along the corridor.

We are putting in some RRFBs, rectangular rapid flashing beacons to help with some pedestrian crossings. We are also making some turn lane modifications at Island in order to address some of the dual threats that occur with the dual right turn lane at at the all way stop. And I am probably missing let me think. I think that's oh, the other thing that we don't show here is the multi use path. So what we're proposing to do with this project is to basically come in and fix the multi use path so it becomes a truly effective multi use path that can be used by students and people that ride bikes that are a little less confident.

They will have the opportunity to use the multi use path rather than, riding in the street. And so we're providing basically two bicycle systems, for the community. One that is Street one that is in the street with buffers and one that is on the multi use path. At this is the image of Island. Island is the up and down street.

You can see is and then McCartney is the street that goes across the page. You can see as you're coming down Island towards McCartney, you have a left turn lane, a through lane, and two right turn lanes. So what this results in is that you get drivers in both right turn lanes and they turn they it's an all way stop. So they stop and they're gonna be looking for cars when they make their turn. And in addition, the driver on the inside right turn lane is also gonna be looking at the driver on the outside right turn lane, making sure that that guy doesn't cut him off.

And likewise, the driver on the outside right turn lane is gonna be worried about whether or not the driver on the inside right turn lane is gonna float out, and so we ignore the pedestrian in the crosswalk. And so that's not a good design and we recommend that it be changed. We did the operational analysis on it and the operational analysis shows that cars that are using that right turn lane can do so in a single lane. They don't need the double right. And then I would also just let you know that any time you have an always stop at an intersection with many lanes, it's very confusing to drivers.

And so you lose a lot of efficiency if you're focused just on cars. You lose a lot of efficiency in the movement of cars across that intersection because they have to judge when every car in every lane gets to the intersection. And so if you think about it, when you're in a single lane, it's pretty easy. I look at three cars and that's it. I decide what to do.

This has one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten lanes. And so as a driver, I get to look for 10 cars and I get to decide who gets to go first. So it's confusing. And so the road diet in McCartney allows us to reduce the number of lanes. The removing the right turn lane allows us to remove one of the lanes.

It's still a lot of lanes but it's a lot it'll be a lot better than what it is now and we found that the intersection operates fine as with the reduced lanes. And so this is what we end up with on the next page. We stripe out the right turn lane that's coming down the page, so there's a single right turn lane. We provide direction for the right turner to come out into the single lane going from Island to Fontana and then on down to Ogdenba, and then we reduce the number of through lanes lanes so we have a single through lane. In on McCartney approaching Island from Maitland, we put in a right turn lane which helps with the determination at the intersection of of priority, but it also allows us to have an improved bus stop for the the bus stop that that occurs there.

And what we end up with though on McCartney, as you can see, McCartney between Island and Fontana, which is off the page to your left or to the left of the screen, is we have a lot of space. And so what we've done in this design, since this is just a resurfacing project primarily, is that we've used a combination of striping and on street parking to try and take up the space, to keep drivers, in their lane where they're supposed to be and provide space for the bicyclist. There are a variety of ways that you can do this design. This is the design that we put forth for the 65% submittal to the city under their review now, and we look forward to hearing their comments and possibly recommendations for adjustments here. There is no single answer for how to design the striping in this area.

Again, we aren't moving curbs and so we're limited to using a combination of striping or maybe posts or something like that to address the pavement widths and try to make this a safer environment for all users. And then along the top of McCartney, we see there is a curvy path, and that is the multiuse path for people that will be improved so people can ride on that path, like I mentioned earlier, on down to Augenbob. This is probably my favorite intersection. The reason it's my favorite, I'll I'll just let you know we figured out how to install a roundabout here. We can install a roundabout and have the buses be able to use the roundabout effectively without going over any of the features.

We can accommodate the emergency vehicles and it's a it's a clean solution and Sarah will be talking about how to do it inexpensively. You could spend several several several 100 thousands of dollars if you wanted to build a really fantastic roundabout with landscaping and everything, or you can build some really a really nice one. They have them in other areas that Sarah will talk about. But we did look at three alternatives. We didn't just jump to the roundabout.

This was the first alternative and this is one that we talked about when we were out in the field with the city, looking just kind of what could we do here. And so what this does is it basically tightens the, five way intersection. It's still an all way stop. It tightens it up. It provides some crosswalks. We have an angle crosswalk. You could also make it a straight crosswalk. There's nuances that you can certainly change here. We do have some expense to do some curb extensions, and so that's going to result in, you know, curb and gutter work. It's going to result in some expense to the project.

And so while this improves sight lines for all the drivers, it improves the pedestrian connections at the intersections, it defines the intersections, it provides all of that great stuff. It's gonna cost you some money though, and we'll talk about the the roundabout in a in a moment. The second option is that, you know, one of the things that I mentioned earlier Island is that the more stop signs you have, the more complicated it is for drivers. So here, we got rid of a stop sign. We made it a four way stop, and then the drivers that are coming out of Maitland would be forced it would be a right turn out.

They would probably also be able to make a left turn out, but there would be no turn in. So it basically makes it cuts Maitland off, and it kinda forces the traffic to use the Maitland McCartney Corridor, and then there would be a very large concrete sidewalk landscape, some sort of feature that you would have to build to make this work. This is a little bit better for the pedestrians. The crosswalks are a little bit shorter. It's a little bit more standardized as an intersection goes.

There's it's less crossing distance in some cases. And so it's a little bit better, but it's also gonna be expensive to to do with all the curb and gutter and drainage work that you're gonna have to do. And so that's something to think about. And the reason I talk about the expense is that one of the fears that people have is a roundabout, and people think that's going to be expensive to build. And so it's just important to recognize that just because you design redesign an intersection in a standard way that it's not expensive, but if you redesign it with a roundabout, it's expensive.

They're both expensive. And so as you're looking at a solution, try to look beyond the expense and try to think about the value and the benefit. The value and the benefit here is that we are able to slow all traffic through this intersection. So this roundabout is designed to be roughly 15 to 20 miles per hour for drivers moving through the roundabout. It's designed with the crosswalks set back so that the pedestrians are more visible than they would be if it was right at the intersection.

It's designed so that a the buses can make all maneuvers through here. The exception is the very sharp right turn from Maitland coming from the left, making a right turn to go to McCartney to go back towards Island. And there actually is a bus stop a bus route that that does that. So what that bus does in a roundabout is they just go around about the intersection and they don't have and they can make the maneuver easily. This design allows all buses to make all maneuvers except for that one without encroaching on the curbs at all, so you aren't gonna see damaged curbs from buses and trucks as long as they're the size of buses, so the, you know, the single unit trucks, the FedEx trucks, UPS trucks, those kind of things, they're gonna be able to get through here easily.

But the deflections are really good, which allows us to make sure that even the slower moving, the smaller cars are going at a slower speed. We did analysis, operational analysis on all this. The roundabout, the four way stop, the five way stop, they all operate the same. So you you can remove traffic operations from your decision making and focus on other aspects of the designs. And I'll let Sarah now talk about the roundabout because you've probably heard enough from me. Thank you.

Hello. I'm Sarah Dowling with NCE. So I'm gonna go over a little bit more of the roundabout and options there that Rob was alluding to. So there is a modular system that can be used to construct this roundabout. So just initially with cost compared to traditional concrete that would connect to the existing curb and gutter that would require regrading of the roadway, storm drain improvements, moving of storm drain structures.

The construction cost could be anywhere from $350,000 to $400 For this modular system, we are estimating about half that, dollars 150,000 to 175,000 So again, this is a more cost effective, and with these modular systems, they're bolted into the pavement. So if there is a desire or a need to remove and go back to a stop intersection, they can be removed. So it kind of gives, the city and the public a chance to get used to this new traffic configuration. And these, modular system, it's made of recycled plastic. And so this kind of gives you an overview of what they look like and how they're attached to the pavement.

And they're also quick to install. So during construction, there's less downtime and traffic moves more quickly through there. And then again, these have been installed. There's one that we worked on ourselves here in Pierce with the Presidio Trust in San Francisco at Lincoln And Girard Road. So that went in at about 2020.

It was in construction, and then it's still out there. And you can see there about four inches above the pavement, and they're mountable. And so far, it's been growing out there. And you can see in the overhead shot, there's a bus, you know, making its way through there. So that concludes it. I'll hand it back to Scott.

Everyone's staring intently at their screens. Love that. Oh, there's no, we didn't put the last slide in there. The last slide is basically, all right, that concludes our presentation. Are there any questions?

Thank

you for the presentation. Are there any clarifying questions, questions of fact before we move to discussion? Vice Chair, Susan Thera.

Thank you for the detailed presentation. Appreciate the information there and thought and work. I can see the site visit and everything. The clarifying question is mainly in terms of the selection, selection of the roads. I do see that the plans were looked at, you know, the Vision Zero plan, active transportation plan, high injury corridor and all that. But were there any other criteria used, like traffic generators used in selecting the road segments for impairment?

When we select this goes back to our September or my September presentation. When we select the payments, we're looking at our multi $100,000,000 asset and we're looking purely at what do we need to do to maximize the life and the efficiency of our network system. That's our primary drivers for selecting streets. And then after we select those streets, we look to our high injury corridors for our Vision Zero action plan, our active transportation plan, and what are the streets that we selected that come forward that we might be looking at more intensively for improvements to be made.

Okay. I will probably ask more details later on. The other question I have is for the Island McCartney Intersection where you are doing the proposing restriping, was there any complaints received for the operation of the related to the operation of the intersection?

Not related to the operation of the intersection, but there are there are complaints that we do receive for pedestrians feeling it's a challenged crossing. But operationally we have not received significant complaints about the operation of the intersection.

Okay. Will.

Had a clarifying questions. Questions of facts in the presentation. Sorry. Commissioner Nachtigal, my fault.

I actually am wondering, was this presentation attached to tonight's meeting? This is a yeah. This is one that would have been nice to have had in advance.

The information in it was in the staff report. So this is a visual representation of the information that you got. But but, yeah, it's it's it's posted with agenda now, but it just was posted today.

Any other clarifying questions? Okay. Let's move on to public comment on this, then we'll get into some discussion. Any public comments on this agenda item?

I have two I have two speaker slips and I have one hand raised on Zoom.

Okay. Let's go in person first.

First, I have Maria Piper.

Hello, commissioners. Thank you for having me. I'm representing Bay Farm School and first I will say that operationally that intersection should qualify for one of the worst intersections in Alameda. It gave me heart palpitations when I first moved there and had to cross it every day to get home. It's terrifying, and I think anyone who likes it has some sort of fatigue. They've just gotten so used to the stress of it. They're over yeah. It's just terrible. I wanna say that the improvements on Augenbaugh will be so helpful to the Bay Farm students, many, many, many of whom walk and bike to school. Many parents are afraid of having their kids walk because of cars constantly blocking the bike lanes.

So for about a year, we've had volunteers going out every day and putting cones in the bike lanes. That has prevented the issue, but there's only so much volunteer hours. We can commit to it, and everyone is only in it for the rest of this year. So I don't think we could can continue it for the remain like, foreseeable future. And then the problem will just return.

So peep like, ten and twenty cars parked in bike lanes, every day. In addition to that, I also know people who are on the Sheffield Way, like, live on the other side of Sheffield Way or on the other side of Kaufman who are afraid to let their kids cross those crosswalks. So the improvements that are there will help a lot with helping parents have the confidence to let their kids walk across the street. Some things that I would love to see changed or modified in the plan: Currently, they're proposing repaving the bike lane up Island Drive. There is one section along Veterans Court that is excluded from that plan.

If budget is a concern, I would propose changing, moving some of the bit on Island Drive which has better paving and fixing the bit next to Veterans Court which I've seen older people fall on the routes that are up there and there's a section that is just completely, the pavement is gone. So that is something I would like to see changed. In addition, on McCartney, they are going to install rapid beacons but I didn't see any daylighting included. And one of the things that makes it really hard to see pedestrians and to see cars are all parking on McCartney. So having the daylighting there would be super helpful for visibility.

And lastly, there's a section on McCartney that has no sidewalk. I understand that's not part of this plan, but I would love to see a plan in the future for filling in gaps throughout the city that where sidewalks are missing or where they're too narrow, where are those? How do we get them filled in so that people who are biking, walking to neighborhood shopping centers, or using the bus can get there? Because this is on a bus stop. There's no place to stand. So thank you very much.

Thank you for identifying the intersection Stockholm syndrome might be a thing. Do we have another public speaker?

Next we have Jim Strelow.

Good evening, commissioners. I, number one, wanna agree that Veterans Court definitely needs attention. I ride I drive a car besides, you know, bicycling all over the place and My 279,000 miles on my BMW has had quite a bit of seeing. But when I came back from the Oakland Airport, I came down Maitland Drive and saw the McCartney Intersection and used it. I said, gee, I wanna go over to Safeway.

It led me to Garden Road. Garden Road is, if you want to do safety improvements, you need to look at Garden Road because when I got there, it looked so simple to want to make a slight left hand to go over the Safeway, but it says right turn only and I made the right hand turn. But the way Garden is and the way that it wants you got a sight line over to Safeway that it's a danger that the city should take a look at. Because in one of these designs, you had, oh, let's divert people off of Maitland onto McCartney. But if people want to go to Safeway, they're gonna end up on Garden Road.

And then you're gonna have more people maybe discovering the kind of bad design that Garden Road has at Island Drive. Lastly, when you talk about 10 foot lane widths at the school, all that does is bring more vehicles closer to maybe have an accident right in front of the school. It's interesting that the truck widths are nine feet or so. But when you have mirrors, they're an extra 18 inches. That makes 10 and a half feet.

And what I've seen of a lot of the driving or being on bicycles and seeing these large trucks in these narrow lane widths, you almost see near misses of the mirrors of these different vehicles. So you need to be more aware of that these large vehicles with their wider mirrors actually tend to scare the 10 foot lean widths where oncoming traffic could cause a problem. And lastly, those channelizers, unless they're bolted down into the ground that if somebody wanted to go off and hit somebody in the bike lane, channelizers are not equipped to stop somebody want to drive through them. So it doesn't really protect the bike lanes that well. Thank you.

Thank you for your comment. And it sounds like we have also a Zoom comment as well.

Yes. Next we have Bharat Sinai.

Good evening, commissioners. My name is Bharat Singh. I'm a resident of the Bay Island and I have two comments. Number one on Oba Way in front of Bay Farm Island, I really appreciate that those improvements. One thing that I would like the city to consider is where the kids actually park their bicycles.

So they have a larger bicycle parking on the playground that's adjacent to the park. And there's a smaller one that's towards the kindergarten and first grade area. So what you do see when people come up the road is that they get into the drive lane to turn into the school. So I would recommend that you look at paving markers on that street, on that section that indicates to drivers that there might be kids on bicycles crossing the street to get into the school. So that was number one.

The other question that I actually had was for for Maitland and Melrose, I think the plan showed that there was plan to resurface both of these. Are there any plans to repaint stripes or any other interventions to start to identify them as neighborhood connectors as they are listed in the ATP? And the other question I had, if that can be answered is what is the timeline for the roundabout to be installed? Or is there still a decision to be made for that roundabout or the other alternatives that were shown? Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Any additional public comment in person or on Zoom?

I see no other hands raised.

Thank you. Closing out public comments, we'll move to discussion amongst the commissioners. Any comments from commissioners? Oh, come on. Okay. I was going to say, Commissioner Kim.

Hi. I just had a couple

of questions mostly related to the transit stops because it's

with some

of their striping well, I guess my question would be whether AC Transit was consulted about the stops or if that's kind of gonna come later. And I'm mostly asking because some of the striping looks like it may conflict with some of the bus stops in the area. I think specifically at the roundabout, it looks like one of the new crossed the hatched crosswalks actually is where a bus stop currently is. So I just wanted to verify that if ACTrans has been discussed with yet or if that's gonna happen later.

We

have not brought this forward to AC Transit yet, but that is something we'll definitely look at as we get further into our detailed design.

Okay, great. It makes sense.

Any additional commissioner comments?

Yes. Commissioner Gloyn. Thank you. I have two questions. First one is, I recall in September, Scott, your presentation on pavement improvements. You mentioned that people tend to drive faster on improved surfaces. And my first question is whether there is anything we can do to try to avoid an increase in speeding as a result of the resurfacing?

I appreciate that Mr. Strelo has left, but absolutely correct when we put a brand to make it a nice smooth roadway down there is an observed increase in speeds. It's human nature if you're not bouncing around. So that is why we look at narrowing the lane widths. Legal maximum width of a vehicle in The United States is eight and a half feet wide.

You add the mirrors on, it's nine and a half feet. So 10 is widely accepted by NACTO as a minimum lane width. What it really means is you should be slowing down. The visual cues of the narrow lanes will help you slow down. If you are approaching a larger vehicle, particularly on some place like Ogdenba, will have the channelizers centered in the buffer, but there is about a foot, foot and a half that you can kind of slide over that and drive on that stride if need be. So that is the primary method of counteracting smoother pavement is by basically restricting the lane west to be something appropriate for the speed and the context of the neighborhood.

I'm sorry to jump the queue. Can you just explain what a channelizer is for people that are not familiar with that language? Feel like it got used a lot, but we should talk about what it is.

Yeah. A channelizer, you can also think of it as a delineator. It's basically effectively, it's gonna be a vertical post. Class four cycle tracks or cycle ways are considered separated. There's a distinction to be made between a separated bike way and a physically protected bike way.

Again, mister Srila brought this up that the delineators are not gonna stop a car from driving into it. No, they will not. They will at least get a clearly demarked place where the bike should be and where the cars are gonna be. When we're talking about a slurry seal project and you start talking about doing running a solid curb line to separate, suddenly we're well outside the realm of fiscally kind of in the same order of magnitude of what we're looking at for a slurry shield project.

Thank you. And so one more question before you step down. So McCartney And Island as was mentioned in the presentation and in the comments, that is a very large intersection. Did you consider changing that to a roundabout? Obviously, there's a fiscal consideration for that, but it would be another way to potentially reduce the crossing widths and the potential confusion of trying to navigate stop signs for many lanes?

Absolutely. The roundabout was studied in 2020, 2021, and COVID, a few other things kind of mixed support from the public and a variety of reasons, it's basically been kind of pulled back a little bit. It's still an option, still something we wish to consider and perhaps pursue in the future. But it was well outside the realm of what we'd be looking at here. When you start looking the big distinction between Melrose, McCartneyMaitland, we'll say at that point, two lane roads all the way through there and then this big, big, big large intersection.

For Island and McCartney, if we're going to do a roundabout there, we're going to want to do something permanent concrete based with a lot of elevation and and quite a bit more work and effort involved in that. So it is something that we as a city have considered. It's something that's still out there as a potential. But at the moment, it is it was certainly not something that we looked at as part of this project. Great,

thank you.

Mr. Nachtfall.

Thank you and thanks for this great presentation. I have a handful that actually are probably clarifying questions. The Maitland Drive portion, it was noted in the staff report that there are going to be high visibility crosswalks consistent with the active transportation plan. Are those going to be implemented on the other corridors as well to facilitate crossing? I know there was talk of the RR FBs. But I didn't notice any other mention of the high visibility crosswalks.

Most of those intersections that would qualify or part of that are already identified as high visibility. We didn't really talk about it specifically here but there's a separate project that's out for construction right now to install three new RRVs on Maitland Drive which will also include that high visibility striking at McCartney. Three RFPs on McCartney and that project is out in construction, should be going in within the next month or two.

Okay, thank you. And I mean I'd say in general I'm in favor of reducing the turn lane at the big intersection. And then I noticed when looking at the PowerPoint, the design, once that portion of McCartney is narrowed, there wouldn't really be anything but paint separating the bikeway from the now one lane of traffic as opposed to what folks were used to being two lanes of traffic. Is that correct?

That is correct, yeah.

Okay. So maybe having lots of painted bikes in the bike lane

To be clear, yeah, yeah.

Help.

It's also in Rob showed this on the cross section, but we do have basically a you know, it's like a two or three foot buffer, the bike lane and then another buffer. We visually wanna make it not look like a lane and not have too wide of a bike lane so that cars use it as a passing lane basically But which is the is a dilemma when you have frankly that much pavement and we're doing a pavement preservation treatment method. It's out of the realm of the budget to start bringing curb lines in.

Right. I think that we all know from anecdotal experience at this point that the changes on Otis, the changes on Clement, people are used to driving and they still want to drive in the bike, what are now bike lanes a lot of times. Okay, another clarifying question or question in general. On Augenbaugh Way, there's talk at the intersection with Kaufman of posts and paint. So that's painted bulb outs, right? And then posts as in bollards, correct?

Bollards, yeah.

Okay. So my question is, will they be Are they envisioned to be similar in structure to what's now on Central?

Yes.

Those sturdy bollards that have the high reflective and are protective?

Haven't gone to that level of detailed plans, but yes, it'd be something of that nature. Whereas what we're talking about the channelizers in the buffered bike lane would be a narrower piece.

Because in the areas that don't have the bollards, I've seen cars drive across. And if the point is to be protecting the pedestrians, then having a good sturdy bollard is probably a

good area. Yeah, or Lincoln and Walnut, if you've been there recently.

Just tonight, Okay, thank you. And then, I'll just, one last comment question. It's noted at the end of the staff report that some components or streets may be dropped if cost estimates. So is there a process in place? There criteria for this? Or is it really just that the hardscaping's going to be the first to go because that's not part of the initial conception?

We basically have to we're closing out our last paving project and all the numbers. We have to find out how much money is left over from last year. That money rolls forward in this year's paving project. We're busy doing design. We go out to bid or we get our estimates.

We try to get as close as we can to the full available budget. We try to spend as much as we can without going over. If we have to pull a few streets just to make sure we stay below our estimate below our estimate stays below our budget, we will do that. At this stage, I don't anticipate that we would pull Ogdenbaum, McCartney or Maitland that. What we'd probably be looking at are some of the ancillary seals might be pushed off or the cape seals in the residential areas might be pushed off until the next time we're back in Bay Farm Island.

Okay, thank you.

Question of Vice Chair, Susan Theria.

If you have. Thank you.

So I mentioned about the select I mean, have a question on the selection. One thing is it's prudent to see what other initiatives are kind of going to be overlapping that will have impact on the payment. So one is the ferry parking terminal. It's going and there is a proposal for charging ferry parking. And if it is going to be in the next three or four years, it's then, you know, we need to kind of consider encouraging biking, which means that giving importance to bike lanes in that section between Aginbawi to the ferry point, which is just a Class II bike lane now and it's not really that great even in terms of the design per se.

So I was wondering whether you consider at least a Class II buffered bike lane over there.

What we try to do is to rely on the active transportation plan. And partly because there's a, and I don't want to be too, you know, to shorten this discussion, but it's like there's a time for planning which we spend a lot of time and effort pulling together an active transportation plan project. And then at this stage here, we're largely in the stage of implementing. And so we try to rely on as many plans as we have already without trying to do too much kind of new thought process about where bike lane should or should not be.

Okay. I figured. Basically, primary goal is the payment program and you're trying to overlay it over the planning efforts that has already gone.

Correct. Correct.

In terms of what I really liked is the roundabout is a great idea. The five legged, it's been so confusing and always worry worrisome whenever we drive through. And I've been in that area for twenty five years. So, I kind of know all the roads and all the challenges and some of the improvements that you are proposing now and like I feel like why it didn't happen twenty years ago. So and the protected bike lanes in front of Bay Farm is an excellent idea.

Only thing is, like others mentioned, having flex post, the quality of the flex post matters. And I have driven through various areas within the Bay Area with different kinds of flex posts. So some are solid like in Fremont that seem to really deter cars going close by. So you may want to consider which ones. I know you are also looking at the cost, but it is good to select rather than going for the concrete payment. You are looking at flex post. But even in that, you can make a selection that provides the best safety.

Yes. And if I may add a comment on to that. The cost of those flex posts are not going to be a driving factor of which one we select. I ride my bike regularly in lots of locations. I've been in Fremont and I've seen some three inch diameter pretty solid posts. I'm sure that scares your car. As a driver, it scares the driver. It scares me more as a cyclist. If I touch that post with my handlebar, I'm going down. Whereas if you have something that's flexible, you have a chance to recover on that.

And so that's something I'm very mindful as a cyclist that you to weigh tradeoffs. There's tradeoffs. Yes, you have extra protection for the cars, but at some point it becomes potentially a hazard for the cyclist as well. It's something we'll definitely consider.

Was there any consideration for protected bike lanes or similar with flex post for Earhart School along Robert Davy Junior? You do have bike lanes.

Yeah, we do have bike lanes there but I was like, we weren't looking at that with this project. Right? That wasn't part of our paving area.

Okay. Are bike lanes but similar to how you are considering for Bay Farm School and improving it to a protected bike lane. I'm just wondering whether you considered that for the Robert Davie Jr. Road which already has Class II bike lanes, buffered bike lanes to connect to the Earhart Elementary School.

Yeah, and I'm saying right now we didn't look at that so I don't know that I could speak directly to that issue. I will say one of the advantages of Ogdenbaugh is that there are no driveways that front the roadway. I believe most of Robert Davie is similar where there's not driveways out there so that does kind of lend itself. But when we were selecting our streets to pave, we're not including Robert Davie as a street.

Perhaps next time. There are no driveways on the road on Robert Davies Jr. As well.

So in that sense it would be a good candidate for a separated bike. And

coming to Kaufman Parkway, three way stop sign is great. You may have missed your team may have missed something. As a driver, I have experienced and others also have mentioned it. Coming from Kaufman Parkway and taking a right turn, especially in the morning when the school kids are running all over, the sun is really hitting. And I don't know what solution is there out there. But it's very it's blinding for the drivers. And it's very hard to see the kids on the crosswalk. So I don't know if there is any solution for it.

The paint and post Bulbat will help that. What we heard from residents and members of the school were that a lot of the drivers come out of Kaufman because it's a very wide area and it has a pretty generous radius coming around there. They're already kind of half making their turn as they come around the corner. And they're not really yielding at the stop sign. They're not stopping at the stop sign. They're barely slowing and they're yielding way further up. The bull belts will straighten that so you have that gradual kind of radius onto Augenbaugh. It'll be a little more direct straight line and then you make a little bit sharper turn. So the intention is to slow the drivers down. We can't move this on unfortunately, but we can do what we can to slow the drivers down.

Okay. And coming to the road diet you're proposing on McCartney, did you consider the fire station being there under the horizontal curve?

I won't say that we directly considered it, but when the fire engine goes with all their lights there's plenty of room for them to get through. Yeah.

So do they, are they aware of this?

We haven't brought this to them directly yet, no.

Okay. I mean is there a practice to check with them?

That's a good suggestion and we'll definitely reach out to them.

Because that is the only fare station there and they seem to be getting out every, I mean quite often.

So

it will be a good idea to check with them, like how whether it impacts their performance or their ability to get out on time.

Yes, absolutely, absolutely.

Can ask a follow-up question to that? It's a good question. So when we're doing these kind of projects, is it like an SOP that we just interact with things like fire stations and schools and just like there must be some sort of like document that we refer to. We have a checklist where we just work through these things. Right?

No. That's part of the reason should be and that's part of the reason we're like I said before, we are now beginning to bring our paving program, at least to this body, to kind of bring it out in public. For the schools, what we do with the schools, we are very proactive with them because we know if we're gonna pave in front of them, there's a lot of direct considerations. We also, Alameda County Transportation Commission helps fund safe routes to school audits and we have a lot of that information. And where we can, we implement those things.

But we always, when we can, meet with school representatives at that time. We start stepping back and we know we at some point need to reach out to AC Transit. We also, that the fire is something that we, I'll basically say that we don't always directly think about.

Given the current conditions I think we have to pay more importance to how the fire station operates and help them. So the intersection itself, it's very it's pretty big. And like robberies countered, there are so many legs any driver making a turn needs to really think about, consider and navigate. So it's challenging even for the driver. Definitely pedestrian safety is a big issue, even for bikers.

And I always avoid crossing even when I go on bike. And my thinking is I don't know whether this change is going to be very effective. The proposed reduction of turn lane is going to be effective. And you are I can see that you're trying to slow down the driver and also trying to avoid someone running into the other lane. But the one issue you may have to think about is the vehicle volume that's going to be backing up during peak period.

I see it especially because there is only one lane coming to taking a northbound turn lane or coming from McCartney to Island Drive in the morning, there is only one backs up to Safeway entry point. And there are many cars getting through Safeway parking lot and get on to Island Drive. I know for a fact. So you don't want that happening in the afternoon. So maybe doing a pilot to test out how that functions before you stripe may work.

I mean, I don't know. I'm just throwing the idea out there. And we do a lot of tactical urbanism and all that work. But basically, you are just testing out whether the proposed ideas is going to be effective. So you do the payment before marking. You can just lay out the cones or something, I mean, temporary with the tape or something like that. You can test it out. Just throwing out a suggestion whether it's going to work well or not.

Yeah. If you'd like, Rob can come up and speak a little more to the operations of that intersection and how that, you know, we're proposing, I think one of the comments that Rob made was that when a driver pulls up and has fewer conflicts, fewer other drivers to look at, it's easier and quicker to make a decision on when to move. In that there may be some efficiency gains even on that left turn. But Rob, do have any more you want to add to that?

Yeah. Scott's right. So it might seem counterintuitive but when you have a single lane or you have fewer lanes I should say, then there's fewer decisions that need to be made and so the turn can actually be made more efficiently. It doesn't mean that you aren't gonna have a queue because you are going from two lanes to one lane, but it's not taking the queue that you have in two lanes and doubling it. It's maybe taking the queue that you have in two lanes and making it 50% or 40% longer.

And that's because the car in the single right turn lane is able to make a more efficient turn versus two lanes. And what we found actually in our analysis is that that left turn lane, it's only a small amount so I didn't raise it, but just to give you an example, that left turn lane going from McCartney onto Island actually in the analysis gets a little bit shorter. Just a car or two, it's not gonna change the behavior of people. But the reason it gets shorter is that all the other approaches are reducing their number of lanes and so those left turns actually get a little bit more efficient because they're able to make the move a little bit more efficiently with fewer lanes and that's just the way that the models operate. The reason I didn't bring it up is because it's such a small amount, but it's just an illustration that that as you remove lanes in an all way stop, you can oftentimes get a slightly better way and you wouldn't it's counterintuitive because that's not what we do as traffic engineers usually.

But we're usually dealing with signals and not stop signs so.

Maybe but there is a safety issue happening with the drivers driving through a safe safe parking lot in the morning getting on McCartney. So you may want to observe that at like 07:45 a. M. Or something.

Yeah.

Chair Weitzey, I just wanted to note that Rochelle Wheeler is going to step in as Transportation Commission Secretary for the rest of the evening while I go.

I did my best to get you out of here by 07:30, Lisa. Sorry. Tag in Rochelle. Any other commissioner comments? Commissioner Dare Abrams.

Well, first, thank you to staff and consultants for turning these paving projects done previously internally into opportunities. I know it's a real challenge to find the sweet spot of just enough public input, but this is I hope this is serving like a good model for the city. Really great outcomes when you all can be opportunistic about building safety improvements in, and also reacting to just the right amount of feedback from all of us in the general public. I'm also gonna say thank you for rebuilding the multi use trails at the same time. That did not happen with Mariner Square Drive over on the west end of the island and that was a missed opportunity.

So if that for these mythical standard operating procedures, if that can be part of it of just, if there's a multiuse trail near a paving project or a street rebuild added to that budget. Speaking of trails, maybe Scott or someone else could you speak to Veterans Court in that northern leg?

Certainly. Ms. Piper mentioned this to me a couple days ago that she was going bring up Veterans Court and was like, why didn't you include Veterans Court? I was like, because I've never ridden my bike on it and didn't know the condition of the thing and no one ever brought to me as a concern. We can very easily add that into the scope of the project and we'll plan to do that.

It makes sense to make the whole loop complete in that sense. We will absolutely add it in. Great. Glad to hear that.

I wanted so I'm a little less familiar with some of the connections on Bay Farm. I wanted to ask because Maitland Drive is sort of the afterthought here. Say I'm a parent with kids and we want a ride to Godfrey Park. How does this paving plan or how does also I'm a little naive. How does the active transportation plan say I should do that?

Or not do that?

I'm going to apologize to say that I don't know exactly where Godfrey Park is. Maybe, Yeah.

We did look at this in the actual transportation plan. It's just right next to the golf course, I believe, the park we're talking about, right, Yeah. On And because of the width of Maitland Drive, we were not able to consider putting bike lanes there, I guess, unless we were to remove parking. So we it's recommended as a bike route to get to that park. So that's kind of that's where we ended up.

I'll add in.

And with, you know, Melrose was mentioned by one of the Zoom participants and that is a neighborhood greenway that takes you to that intersection with Maitland, which is close to the park, I believe.

Yeah. I will add a little bit of more context. So you look at old maps and old aerial photos. Maitland Drive is part of the original Bay Farm Island when it was actually properly an island. And so that's been around since well before the 40s.

I don't know when it actually was built. Relatively narrow, not a lot of houses on Bay Farm at the time. McCartney, Augenbaugh, those are kind of the 80s, 90s construction, the heyday of cars are ready to go, these nice broad boulevards of pavements. Big change in character as you go from one to next. As much as we're struggling on McCartney having literally too much asphalt, too much pavement to work with.

We have the exact opposite problem on Maitland where we don't have the right of way. A lot of houses, older ones, some with garages, some without, some with single car garages, etcetera, a huge demand for parking. To remove parking would be a pretty significant challenge for the local population there as well.

Okay, understood. Just want to note that that is a choice by the city. And also just wanna note on McCartney. This is like that was the site of a pedestrian fatality. So I know the context, you know, we're talking in the abstract, but and I know improvements are on the way for that.

But I just want to note that we're talking about real real speeding that has real effects and I'm glad the city is making both the rapid response and this longer term restriping. But that's the context for that roadway. And again, to speak to what you're saying, Scott, roadways that are too wide in certain places. I wanted to end on Ogdenba in particular, and great credit to the Bay Farm folks, Maria especially. If for folks who haven't followed this, I looked it up.

There's a great Alameda Post article from last February, covers it all. And I mean, folks even went so far as getting a an encroachment permit right? Like let's give them credit for making it possible for kids to cycle to school. And so I think the city needs to think about well is this permanent solution just as good as, you know, not just as good as a fully staffed solution, but the cones they've been putting out. And I think we'd, let's, I'd like to talk more on the separation.

This is not sounding like a class four bike lane. Like what sort of options, like one of our other public commenters was saying what could stop a car wheel. We've got like up on Clement. Like maybe could you give us the technical lingo for like the Scott for the Clement treatment?

Yeah, and this is where we get to the notion of a separated bike lane. And again, we follow like a NACTO definition of a class four, a separated bike lane, the vertical delineators or channelizers do meet that classification. But then there's extra levels you can go above and beyond and we start talking about some means of physical protection for that bike lane. We like to think and assume, and I also use those words carefully, that a six inch high curb provides protection for pedestrians and bikes to the extent that it does. We also know from fact that if a car is going fast enough and veers off the road, a six inches curb is not going to provide protection.

The car will just go up on the curb. Protection is a relative kind of level in the relative terms. So we always have to be very careful about that. But to your point, Commissioner Dara Abrams, you know, the next real step would be to put in essentially curbs along route and then you'd have posts in between those. Essentially exactly what we did at Clement.

That's the would be considered the next level of protection for cyclists out there. We do have to be a little careful just in the sense that how you do the transitions to and from but that would be the next level. We're doing a slurry seal. The cost for those curbs and those are delineators would be more than the actual rehabilitation we're spending. So it is, yeah, cost is a primary consideration.

But again, when we start looking at our active transportation plan, we start looking at the network as a whole, we're looking at trying to balance where we put these higher level protection separated bike ways separated and protected bike ways from those that are separated from those that are just buffered from those that are just standard bike lanes. And that's kind of done on a larger planning level and then we're in a position to look to implement where we can. I know that doesn't fully answer your question and I appreciate the desire to always want to do more But we're always in a cost constrained situation.

Yeah. Oh, I understand there are trade offs here, but I think like, well, let me say, the glass half full is I think you all have been really strategic in looking at like three or four different roads around Bay Farm and picking realistic treatments. And it's just this Augenbaugh one in particular pops out because like the context here is a K to eight school, right? And we're talking like if the staff report is going to say we're going for all ages and abilities, We need a treatment that really can support all ages and abilities in the specific context of parents and big SUVs. And completely understand on, you know, there's only so much a six inch curb can do.

But I think this is the one part of the overall big picture here that it would be great if staff and consultants could give some more thought to creative solutions and different materials that could really just be more effective at something for sixth graders riding on a bike next to Honda Pilots driven by independent parents.

Appreciate it.

Thank you, Commissioner. Any additional Commissioner comments? Commissioner Johnson.

Yeah. Thank you for the presentation staff. I've worked with Rob Reese in the past. Question about roundabouts. I really like roundabouts and great questions about the AC Transit coaches.

But is there any sort of feedback about representatives from our ADA community who use wheelchairs, electric chairs in terms of their comfort level and sort of crossing near roundabouts in terms of because the roundabout is to get you around and get you out. And I've been in roundabouts and I'm just thinking about somebody who is visually impaired. They have their animal. And I'm just is there any sort of feedback or studies that show people from the ADA community and what that impact is on them and how they feel about it? I'm just curious.

Yeah, and I'm gonna ask Rob if you can come up and maybe speak

to him. My friend Rob.

I think that if you ask the ADA community, you'd get different perspectives on it. There's not one clear answer. What you wanna do with a roundabout is that you're setting back the crosswalks so that you improve sight lines so the people that are driving can see. You still set up the crosswalks and the curb ramps and everything to be consistent and appropriate for ADA use. This is a neighborhood roundabout, so it's a single lane in each direction.

It's a slow speed roundabout. If we were in a larger roundabout that was faster or it had multiple lanes then you would need to introduce traffic signals or RFBs or some sort of additional warning devices. I think that at this particular intersection, it's not square. And so one of the questions that people would have is when you're walking around a roundabout, you sort of have to go around it. Well, we don't have a square intersection here, so if you were somebody with a sight impairment, you would still have to navigate that.

The benefit I would think, and I'm not blind, I'm not a blind person, so I'm approaching it from a sighted person, so take that in mind. But the benefit that I would think is that you know what the expectation is at the roundabout, it's a circle. And so you know you're at a roundabout and so if you're trying to get around it, you know that you're gonna be moving in a circular pattern whereas what you have now with this odd five legged intersection is here you cross this way and then you cross on an angle and you sort of go in this direction and then you go partly on the sidewalk and then you have a short little crossing at Melrose and so it's challenging. And so I would think that the roundabout would give a clear expectation for the user. But you would be best to talk to the local ADA community to get their perspective.

Go ahead, sorry.

Oh yeah, I didn't want to interrupt you.

No, I'm just

Okay. Yeah. I think that as you you guys know, Gail Payne, project manager extraordinaire and leader of roundabouts in Alameda. And she you know, Central Avenue is the project that has kind of led the way for roundabouts. And now they're about to be installed with construction starting. And she did reach out a lot to the people with disabilities, including the Commission on Persons with Disabilities, which

is speaking

simultaneously here. And she also worked with them on the Clement Tilden project, includes another roundabout. So I can't tell you all the specifics. I think there are differing opinions. Some people wanted rectangular rapid flashing beacons at the crossings of them and then others in the community feel like the strobing on those RFBs is actually can have, you know, cause issues with some people with certain disabilities.

So but I know that those have been designed with really the ones that are going in on Central and will go in on Clement and Tilden have really been designed in consultation with the community and particularly people with disabilities. And so it's definitely something that we've been looking at. And we can certainly make sure that any, you know, tips or approaches that we've used on those other ones could be incorporated into this one. And I will just say that, yeah, in Alameda, we are only building round single lane roundabouts. If it doesn't work, if there's too much congestion and it needs to be two lanes, we're not building them because they're not the safest ones or the single lane roundabouts for pedestrians.

So like ones that you might think of that have multiple lanes, we're not proposing those anywhere in Alameda.

Thank you.

Can I ask sorry? Sorry to interrupt. Can I ask clarifying question because it's related? Because I guess I'm curious how roundabouts and pulling back the crosswalks and everything and the new daylighting laws, are there any I guess, how does that impact a roundabout design? Or how does it impact safety regarding how a roundabout functions?

So from a safety perspective, by pulling back, if the crosswalk were right at the roundabout, the driver would be making, kind of coming through the roundabout and they're coming through on an angle. They're they're not gonna be looking straight at the crosswalk. As as they're as they're starting to exit the roundabout, they're actually looking more at the opposite side of the street at the entry just because of the orientation of their car. And so as they get through the roundabout, two things happen. One, in the roundabout, they're going a little bit faster because of the way it's designed.

And so as they come out of the roundabout, it's a sharper turn, so they have to have their foot on their brake or at least off the gas in order to make that move. And and so number one, they aren't accelerating. And then number two is as they're making that turn, they're coming into focus of the crosswalk. And so when they are at their slowest speed, at that point, they are looking at the crosswalk in front of them, and they aren't able to accelerate yet. And so if by chance there is somebody there that they did not see, then they are in a position to easily quickly put their brake on versus in the roundabout where they actually have their foot on the gas.

So that is the design. That's the design intent. And then the other thing that you do is by doing that, it's also safer for the drivers that are in the roundabout because the car's butt is now generally out of the roundabout to the extent possible depending on spacing. On the sight line issue, the roundabout has a what I might call like a curb extension that comes out and so it really makes the crossing narrow. So there's no parking, there's no ability to park in those areas and so you have really good sight lines at a roundabout whereas you actually don't at an all way stop or a standard intersection because of the legislation it says 20 feet, that's okay, but it really should be more.

And so the roundabout addresses that because there's no ability

to park.

Thank you. Mhmm.

Should I have to call?

Thank you. Since we are going down the roundabout rabbit hole, I have a question. I am looking at it on the screen still here with the Presidio Trust roundabout example and this new modular proposal. It is only four inches? Four inches high?

It's about, yes.

Yes. So does anyone know if drivers are just simply ignoring that four inches roundabout and going straight through? Or is everyone treating it as it should be as an actual roundabout?

I've I haven't, like, sat there and watched it, but you do not have cars you don't have track marks. And the other thing, if you look at the four inches, it's it's an up and down four inches. So a car hitting it is gonna be rough. And so there's really no point. And then the last point that I would make if if you kinda look at the picture on the right, you can see if you can visualize if you're the driver, your orientation as you're entering that roundabout is actually directing you away from the center of the circle and that's what you wanna do.

And so the only way I could go over that roundabout is if I make a decision to turn my car to hit it. I just I really wouldn't wanna do that. It'd be it'd have to be an intentional act, I guess, is what I'm saying.

I've seen all sorts of intentional acts around the island recently from drivers, so that's why I flagged that

it's Well, it's a it's a good question. And so then if you're concerned about that, you kind of go to a more traditional roundabout where you use a six inch curb, but then you have to build a truck apron for the curb and then the driver drives over the truck apron, so. Yes.

Got it. Thank you.

I had exactly the same question, Commissioner. So thank you. So again, I'm going jump in. I only have one question, actually. Can we go back to the map or sorry, the picture with Island Drive and McCartney? I'm just going to criticize this like any of my fellow commissioners have done before. Not the roundabout, but the actual the intersection. Keep going. Keep going. It's maybe one of the first slides. Yeah. Thanks. And then one forward where we're talking about the new setup with these two right lanes reduced to one. So I think it's maybe the next slide.

One-one with the proposal. Yeah.

Perfect. So this has sort of been alluded to, maybe even explicitly said. I just want to reemphasize the point. So I don't totally get this in the sense that we are setting up a right turn and we are asking this right turn to not turn into make a hard right into the bike lane, into the parking spaces. Like, I just I don't totally get this design, to be perfectly honest, because we're making paint do a lot of work here.

And I just want to really echo what a couple of the commissioners have said. Like, if we're asking them to not turn into the bike lane and not turn into the empty parking spots, what was once a lane presumably, we need to put some sort of like deflection or some sort of like don't make the hard right because you can cross a dotted white paint line. And if I'm that person, I'm probably doing that because this is very similar to just a regular right turn. So I would definitely ask the designers to go back and look at other options for this. It was also said I don't also totally get the movement of the bikes on the outside of this and the cars to the inside of this because I think part of the reason this white dotted line is there, I assume, is so that there's a little bit more easy access to the parking spaces to get over there.

But I don't if it was me, I would swap them for safety. But regardless, I just this is the part of this entire presentation that I just don't buy because you're going to get a lot of bad behavior on that right turn, and there's not a lot of deflection there's not a thought from that thing. So just I would ask them to please go back and look at this. And actually, that's all I have. Otherwise, I had very few criticisms of this. Any other comments? Any questions? With

all the investments we are making, I would suggest you to consider where the uprooting is happening. It really damages, especially on McCartney and close to the fire station area, a lot of uprooting of the pavement and that doesn't it makes it actually unusable. And with all the restriping, it's going to be something. So it also happens on Island Drives. So something needs to be done for that.

Thank you. One more since we have this slide up. One more consideration or thought I have here is it's very clear if I'm on McCartney Road as a cyclist where I if I'm going east west or west east, it's very clear where I should be. If I'm trying to turn onto Island Drive or if I'm on Island Drive coming from the South, which this is more or less north south here, isn't it? It's not as clear how I'm supposed to navigate this intersection.

I could figure it out, but maybe we could consider making it more obvious how a cyclist should approach this. If they're not if assuming they're not

on the shared path. Thank you, commissioner. With that, if it's okay, I'm gonna close out this discussion item, item six There's no vote here, but thank you for the communications from everyone. And I'm going to move to seven, commission communications. Any fill on transportation related issues? Open floor. Commissioner Derry Aprons.

So on a transportation related topic, I just wanted to, for folks who don't follow transportation at the federal level that closely, I just wanted to share with the general public that earlier this week, the new administration released an executive order titled Unleashing American Energy with the net result of saying, maybe Alameda doesn't need to repave Lincoln. Maybe Central Avenue doesn't actually need those rainwater retention facilities. Big open question way beyond the local scope. Everyone has to pick and choose what issues they follow, but the net result is all of hundreds of billions of dollars of allocated funding will be reviewed by the authors of Project twenty twenty five. All that said, all that said, I want to just say a thank you to all of these staffers at public agencies and with the federal agencies who are responsible for working through this.

And I think we can trust they are trying their best, And I thank them, and I will say take care everyone, and we'll do what we can to help each other. So thanks.

Any other commissioner comments on transportation issues?

I would like to bring everybody's attention to locally here. To Alameda folks, after last meeting, we had this king tide issue and a lot more damage had happened more than what we anticipated on the shorelines. It was quite heart wrenching to see how the bike path and the walkways along near the ferry terminal, especially in Harbor Bayside got damaged. You know, I've seen it for twenty five years and suddenly you see you don't see half of that. But there was a quick action.

It was unimaginable. So I want to thank everybody who's behind that. And in two, three days, the debris that came like, you know, 10 to 15 feet inland had been cleared and the bike path was open. And then even the shoreline that got damaged is now getting reconstructed. It's such an amazing and quick effort. So I want to thank the staff of the, you know, I don't know whether BCDC is behind it or the you know, bars or you guys, but amazing job.

Kudos to all of you. Let's take a bow.

No. I'll pass on your thanks to, its public works director, Aaron Smith, has really been leading that effort. And and it's surprising, I think, to a lot of people that was. It was a king tide, but the storm came through and the wind changed direction, wave run up. It was easily a fifty twenty five year to fifty year event, something we haven't seen in in a very, very long time since 1983.

Don't quote me on this, but somewhere in the order of a million to $2,000,000 worth of damage that just happened and kind of is a little bit below the radar. But I'll say to the credit of our public works director and able to get some people to help out, McGuire and Hester have their offices there, they're the ones helping us out a little bit. They were able to take quick action to get those areas restored.

Thank you so much. But in the future, if there is any public involvement or volunteering can be you know reached out or harvested and you can get out into the neighborhood post and things like that. There were a lot of people looking to how to help.

Yeah, thank you. Appreciate Yeah.

This city does amazing things. Any additional comment? With that, I am going to close the meeting at whatever the heck time it is, 08:16PM. Everyone have a great night. We'll see you next month.