Transportation Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the City of Alameda Transportation Commission meeting for Wednesday, 05/28/2025. We will begin with the roll call. Lisa Foster.

Commissioner Dara Abrams. Here. Commissioner Kim.

Here.

Commissioner Gloin.

Present.

Chair Weitzi.

Here.

Vice Chair Suthan Thira. Commissioner Johnson is absent at the moment, and commissioner Nachtigal cannot make it. She is absent.

Okay. Seeing that we have quorum, we will continue. Next item on the agenda, any agenda changes? Any proposed agenda changes from commissioners? Seeing none, we'll move on to item number three, staff communications. Take it away, Lisa Foster.

Thank you. Good evening, Chair Weitzey and commissioners. As chair Weitzi said, I'm Lisa Foster, transportation planning manager. We've had a couple of council items on items reviewed by the transportation commission recently. And on May, the city council held budget workshops to provide direction on the fiscal year 2025 to 2027 budget proposals.

There were wasn't any major changes in given for direction for the capital improvement plan draft that you all reviewed. They the city council also authorized replacing the Ralph Appusato Memorial Parkway bus lanes project with three transit focused multimodal projects for the named Measure b b project. So that is next going to the AC Transit Board of Directors. Our next Transportation Commission meeting is August 27, and then September 24. And then for public events coming up, May 31 in a few days is an urban cycling workshop that will be at the main library.

And then on June 6, we have the transportation 101 and clipper cards for seniors at the Mastic Senior Center. For project updates, July will be a big month for the Oakland Alameda Water Shuttle. The water shuttle team is planning to add a six day of service along with other service expansions, And we will also celebrate the one year anniversary and expect to celebrate the one hundred thousandth passenger. So keep an eye out for communications about those. We had a successful bike month.

The city hosted the Alameda Bike Festival. It had great attendance. It was on April 26. I guess that was Maybe I mentioned that at the last meeting we had. Bike to school day and bike to wherever day were successes as well.

And Alameda Transportation Management Association had a good after party out on the Radium Runway. On May 22, the Alameda County Transportation Commission approved their 2026 comprehensive investment plan that has funding for four city projects. Funding for an additional two years of service for the Oakland Alameda water shuttle. Funding for neighborhood greenway major crossings, 2,000,000 for that. Some money for the Willie Stargell complete street corridor project that you guys have reviewed and funding for a FEMA brick match for the Doolittle Drive, State Route 61 and Bay Farm Island project.

FEMA has recently ended their BRIC program, but the city is still advancing this project and looking for a new funding plan. So, on Central Avenue, as you all know, construction is underway. There are more details on the webpage and in the written staff communications.

Public works has continued to refine the signals along the Ralph Appusato Memorial Parkway with the Cross Alameda Trail.

Although, you know, the project was substantially completed last year, they are continuing to tweak. They added new bicycle detection indicators at a few intersections and a new protected left turn phase at Atlantic And Wilma Chan. This allowing for a longer green right turn phase arrow for the eastbound Atlantic traffic, which was a big source of frustration when the signal upgrades first went into place for drivers. So that should improve things there. Grand Street construction has started just from Shoreline to Otis, Shoreline Ave to Otis Drive.

And neighborhood greenways, as I think you know, we're looking forward to late summer for construction for Pacific Avenue from Lafayette to Oak. And I'm going to stop there. There is more in the written staff communications for your review. Thank you.

Great. Thank you, Lisa. Just one roll call to update that Commissioner Johnson is present as well. Let's move on to non agenda public comments. So these are public comments on things not currently on the agenda. Do we have any slips or virtual public comments non agenda items?

If you would like to make a comment on Zoom, please raise your hand. I see no hands raised and no speaker slips in the studio.

Okay.

Let's move on to item number five, the consent calendar 5A. Move to approve the draft minutes of the 04/30/2025 transportation commission meeting. Everyone have a chance to review the minutes. Any suggested revisions? Any changes?

No changes for me, but if I may just say that the minutes included a commissioner communication from me regarding unpermitted bollards on Webster Street. And I just wanted to thank city staff and the business for removing those since then. So Webster Street is now accessible to people in wheelchairs and pushing strollers again. Right.

And actually that does bring up a point just for new commissioners. So typically, city staff has the minutes don't necessarily put in all our comments. But if any particular commissioner wants a comment they made during a meeting to be highlighted in the written portion of the minutes, they can actually ask for that. I've done that once or twice when I thought I was very clever. So if you want to do that, you can definitely do that as well. Okay. Do I have a motion to approve the draft minutes?

I can note that Commissioner Gloin was absent.

Ah, so you shouldn't use yourself. Do I have a motion to approve the minutes? Any

second? I second.

All in favor of the motion to approve, please please say aye.

Aye. Any

opposed? And any abstentions?

Abstain.

Okay. So Commissioner Klein abstains. Motion otherwise carries unanimously. Let's move on to agenda item number six, regular agenda items. This is a discussion item. This is to receive an update on Caltrans State Route 61 Otis Drive, Doolittle Drive, Broadway Preventative Maintenance Project and Future Project for Otis Drive from Broadway to the Bay Farm Island Bridge. Again, this is a discussion item and I will be believe we will be let off with Lisa Foster. Take it away, Lisa.

Good evening again. I am just going to give a quick introduction to this, presentation which will mostly be given by our friends at Caltrans. So I wanted to appreciate Ranke Aina and Devinder Singh for being here from Caltrans tonight for their State Route 61 Otis Drive, Doolittle Drive, Broadway Capital Preventative Maintenance Project. So the city can you move to the first slide? Here, I can do it.

Okay. The city of Alameda has been advocating for major safety improvements to to be included with this project since 2020 And we appreciate that Caltrans is currently working with us to incorporate some safety improvements at key intersections. And you'll hear more about that from Ron, so thank you for that. This is a big project. It includes more parts of Route 61, not all in Alameda, but one key part that we've all been talking about a lot is is the portion that's on Otis Drive.

So I wanted to give a little introduction and kind of orient you to what we're talking about here. This is, Otis Drive from Bay Farm Bridge to Broadway and it is, just over half a mile residential fronting corridor. Just under a quarter of it is, fronting Kruse Park, which connects to Otis School and is home to school and recreational programs. You can see there it has four baseball diamonds, so there's a lot of baseball there. The school is right behind it.

It's a four lane roadway with uncontrolled crossings at key pedestrian and bicyclist access points. In the city Of Alameda, street classifications, it is a neighborhood connector which is like an arterial. It's a transit route and it's a truck route. And what Caltrans found with their study is it has very high auto volumes, higher than other neighborhood connector streets in Alameda. It's a high injury corridor in the City Of Alameda Vision Zero Action Plan.

It is on the Alameda County Transportation Commission's new, proactive safety network which is a network of streets where vulnerable users may be exposed to roadway conditions associated with fatal and severe injury collisions. So they used roadway characteristics and basically land use characteristics to identify whether vulnerable users are present, and, both this segment of Otis and Doolittle are on this network. The active transportation plan for the City Of Alameda has two neighborhood greenway connections on this portion of Otis, including a crossing at Mound Street. That neighborhood greenway will you know, connect, the southern part of the city and a neighborhood area across to Crusoe Park and Otis Elementary and then going further north on the Versailles Neighborhood greenway. And then Bayview Drive is also slated to be a neighborhood Greenway in the 2,030 Backbone network, and so we're looking at trying to connect Bayview and Otis to heading east toward the bike bridge, the Bay Farm Island Bike Bridge.

So just a few city highlights for our takes on these projects before Ron takes over. For the CAPM maintenance project, Caltrans will tell us more about some pedestrian safety improvements at a few key intersections, and we really appreciate that. And, we also wanted to highlight that they included significant bikeway improvements on Doolittle Drive, which we are happy to see as well. And then the future about the future kind of road diet project that is slated to be programmed in 2028 to start work. I wanted to mention that the city has recommended studying a few specific design concept alternatives, not just one, and one of them is not necessarily a road diet because we do see high auto volumes here.

We want to think creatively about how to address that while addressing the significant pedestrian and bicyclist safety and connectivity concerns that we have. And then our current city priorities are safety for pedestrians and bicyclists crossing Otis Drive and, that having a widened sidewalk and path east of Bayview Drive for this project. And now, I will, pass to Ron, Kia Aina, and thank you for letting me take some extra time for this.

Good evening commissioners. My name is Ron Kia Aina. I'm with Caltrans. I'm a regional project manager there. And I'd like to thank the commission for allowing me to come back and present or give an update on our CAPM project.

We were last here I think in August and we did hear, we heard the feedback from the commission as well as the public on our project. Since then, we've had multiple meetings with city staff. And most recently, we met this week with Mayor Ashcroft. And we do we want you all to know that we have heard your feedback and we've made several modifications as a result of your concerns. And I will cover these as part of our my presentation tonight.

Let's see. Okay. So our project is five miles long and starts at the southern end. Let's see. Oh yeah, at Route 112 which is at the very bottom of the red.

And it goes along Doolittle Drive through the cities of San Leandro, Oakland and then finally Alameda at Harbor Bay Parkway where then it crosses over to Otis Drive and then along Broadway where it connects or stops at Encinal. The city streets that are affected in the city of Alameda are Broadway, Otis and Doolittle Drive. So the purpose of the project is to preserve and extend the life of the existing pavement, improve ride quality, and enhance traffic safety within the corridor. The scope includes pavement rehabilitation, drainage system rehabilitation, guardrail and curb ramps curb ramp upgrades. The project is first and foremost a pavement preservation project.

The purpose is to repair the pavement. The further the pavement preservation improvements are delayed, there will be more damage that will occur and more extensive repairs at higher cost and higher costs will be required. So it's important that the work proceed in an expeditious manner as possible. The project does not change the lane configurations. The number of traffic lanes remain the same as before the project, the same as after the project.

The project does not add any roadway capacity nor does it reduce the roadway capacity. And again, the purpose of the project is to fix the pavement. And the pavement design life will be about ten years of rehabilitation. And essentially, it's to repair failed areas and as well as resurface the entire road. We would grind off about three inches of pavement and replace three inches of pavement.

As part of this pavement preservation project, we're incorporating complete streets elements such as bike and pedestrian safety improvements where feasible. The first revision based on the feedback that we received is to add refuge the islands in addition to the already proposed RRFBs or rapid rectangular flashing beacons, safety lighting and high visibility striping at the Mound and Versailles Crosswalks at Otis Drive. The second revision is to add curb bull bouts at Bayview Street to shorten the crossing distance for bikes and pedestrians. Other features of the project would be to add additional signs, roadside delineators, guardrail delineators, enhanced high visibility striping throughout the entire five mile project length, upgrade accessible pedestrian signal heads and safety lighting where feasible. And the third revision that we've added based on the feedback we've received is to install Class IV bike lanes for most of Doolittle Drive and that covers starting at 112 at Davis Street in San Leandro all the way to Island Drive in Alameda.

It's not entirely Class IV but most of it is Class IV or in areas that aren't Class IV, there is a Class I bike lane that kind of is a replacement for that. And in addition, the project includes other safety improvements such as flexible post delineators, guardrail upgrades, flashing beacons at curve warning signs and other guardrail upgrades in the city of Oakland. This is the other presentation. Do we have the one I emailed?

Try going to the next slide. I think I noticed this in

the Can't new go forward.

Yes, this is the right one. Okay. So this is an example. This is a picture of Broadway where, you know, it's an existing picture that shows typical RRFB installation that's already in use. On the left hand side, you'll see the street lighting with the rapid rectangular flashing beacon when a pedestrian is at the crosswalk.

Activate it with the push button and they can cross and it's flashing on both sides. And this would be the same thing that would be installed at Mound And Versailles. And as you can see here, just like this intersection, there's two steps, one on this crosswalk and then on the far crosswalk as well. Okay. I had an example of a median refuge island.

But I don't know if we still have that. If not, I'll just describe it. I had a slide of an example of the median refuge islands like just as an example of what would be constructed at Otis And Mound And Versailles. It was just a representative. The exact configuration still needs to be designed and we would consult with the city staff to make sure that it was acceptable.

But it would essentially provide a buffer and separate the two lanes from traffic in one side with a six foot median island and then two lanes on the other side. We're essentially pushing traffic out to make room for a median refuge in the middle. And these would be at four locations, two at Mound and two at Versailles. Stuck. Not again.

Okay, there we go. And this is an example of what the class four bike lane would look like on Doolittle Drive between Harbor Bay Parkway and Island Drive. It shows a two foot buffer with a vertical channelizer and the five foot minimum bike lane. And I'm going to go a little I'm going change the order a little bit here. I'm going to start, I guess, backwards.

So starting at Harbor Bay Parkway and to the right is Island Drive. This is essentially what the it's hard to see, but this is a class four bike lane that starts at Harbor Bay and goes all the way to Island Drive as we continue further to the east. And then at that point, it stops. Most cyclists would use the pedestrian bridge to cross over. And then continuing on over the pedestrian bridge at Fernside here.

The striping will be essentially the same as it is now that you see. It'll just be refreshed after the pavement is resurfaced. However, at this intersection here, this is Bayview Drive and then this is High Street down here. So at this location, there'll be curb bulb outs into Bayview to reduce this crossing distance here. That's one of the additions that we're adding as a result of the feedback we've received.

And continuing further on, this is, it's hard to see, I think this is Mound right here. Yeah, Mound and this is Versailles. And so this is the area we would have a median refuge here, a median refuge here and a median refuge here and one more over here. And each of those will have an RRFB to warn motorists when a pedestrian is in the crosswalk as well as the street lights.

Ron, I think I have found the new presentation. Would you like us to switch Okay, sure. Okay. Apologies for that.

No problem.

Lots of moving pieces. I can PDF it. Do you wanna just continue or do you want me to PDF it and then get it up? Sure.

You can Okay. Be PDF. It's fine. Okay, I'll jump forward back to the Median Island Refuge. So this is an example of what it could look like where you have two lanes, a median area that pedestrians could take refuge in and two lanes to cross the other side.

Both will have RRFBs. At a minimum, there would be like a pedestrian push button in the middle. We'll still need to iron out the details if an RRFB would be placed in the middle. But essentially, this is what it would look like. Other variations could be like a curb that's in front of the ear and this might need to be set back a little bit to put a curb in front.

But those details need to be worked out in the future. And this is the same there's no change in this picture from Harbor Bay to Island Drive and to Bayview. And as I was mentioning at Mound in Versailles, we will be placing the median refuge islands here, here, here and here. Our concern was truck turning and we may need to have a restriction for vehicles longer than 40 feet in length as they turn left from from Mound Street in case they to avoid clipping the pedestrian refuge area just based on the vehicle length. So left turns here, left turns here, just to make sure that that's safe.

The same thing for Versailles, left turns. And this this is Otis here and then this main one is Broadway. And on Broadway, the the pavement will be restriped exactly as it is now, which features one lane in each direction, a two way turning lane, and class two bike lanes. And this is the end at Ensenault

right here.

So the project funding was allocated by the CTC in mid May, and we're on target to advertise the contract for bids. And we anticipate construction award of the contract by September and construction would start sometime in January 2026 and end in approximately April 2027. We'll be providing outreach to the public as we get closer to the beginning of the construction. And examples of that would include press releases or a newsletter and the project website that details usually would detail lane closure information. The project is funded out of the State Highway Operations and Protection Program, otherwise known as the SHOP, total cost of about $23,000,000 And as I mentioned earlier, the project is implementing as much bike and pedestrian safety improvements as is feasible for this type of project, this pavement preservation project.

And as I mentioned earlier, it includes this type of improvements would be the RRFBs with lighting, the median refuge islands, the curve ball bouts and the Class IV bike lanes. However, the project can't accommodate significant changes in roadway configuration or change in roadway uses as that would happen if we were to do a roadway diet such as this. And this is a schematic of what a roadway diet would look like between Broadway and Fernside. And that's primarily because of the high traffic volumes on Otis Drive now, reducing the lanes from four lanes to two lanes, essentially halving the capacity would shift traffic to other streets, would likely require removal of parking on one side of Otis. And there are several possible alternatives and roadway configurations that could be done.

All of this requires a longer public engagement process and environmental process and along with limited funding and funding deadlines. We decided instead that it's more beneficial if this point six mile segment would be addressed as a separate future road diet or otherwise traffic calming project. And this project would be programmed in the 2028 shop. And so in 2028, we would start the environmental phase of the project. And it would be the project would be to modify Otis Drive from four lanes to three lanes, one lane in each direction, two way median left turn and bike lanes and as well as other alternatives that the city would like to study and forward it to us already.

And the purpose would be to improve bicycle access and enhance safety. I mentioned that we would start in the environmental phase in 2028. It would take about three years to finish the total of the environmental and design phases, at least for scheduling and then complete construction in about a year or so. It would take about till thousand and thirty two to complete the construction phase. And that would be also funded out of the State Highway Operations and Protection Program.

And with that, I'd be happy to take any questions.

Thank you, Ron. Any clarifying questions, questions of fact about the presentation before we get into discussion? Commissioners? Commissioner Abrams?

Well, first, I just want to say thank you for both of you for coming back here and presenting this. We know Caltrans Bay Area District covers nine counties, millions of people. So thank you for the attention to to the city. I only had one clarifying question here because that I just wanna be upfront and say that final slide, I think, raises lots of reactions around here. And I know Lisa had had hinted that the city wanted to put some specific options on the table for this future study.

And while I don't think that's the main focus of our conversation tonight, if I could just ask Lisa if you wanted to very briefly share the city's proposed options just so that members of the public seeing that slide can think of that as one of a range of possibilities, even if it's kind of going beyond tonight's conversation.

So actually, we're gonna do that, that's fine. Should do it during discussion, though, because we should focus clarifying questions should be specifically on what was presented here And then we can certainly move to that as part of our discussion. Any other clarifying questions, questions of fact on the current presentation?

I rephrase that as a clarifying question? What's your discretion? Of course.

Please, let's move to discussion.

Okay.

Commissioner Kim. Question about

the 2028 SHOP program and just understanding is, I guess if you are trying to get in this in the SHOP program, is that like a sure thing or is that something that may not happen?

Well, we have to first complete a planning document, a project initiation document to scope the project and identify the cost. But our intention is to program it at that time. So I would say, yes, it's a sure thing as we can do because we're committing to doing this. But then, you know, it does depend on how the state funding is during that fiscal year. But it is on our priority and we've targeted to program this project. Any

other clarifying questions? Commissioner.

Just to follow-up on commissioner Kim's question. If that work was programmed within the the 2028 SHOP program Mhmm. When would the construction work be completed?

2032. So it would take about, yeah, four years to be complete. Okay. You. Three years to clear it and design it and about one year to construct.

They're clarifying questions, questions of fact from the commissioners. I have a couple real quick ones just to help us understand the project. I believe you referenced that the protected bike lane would be going all the way out to Davis Street in San Leandro. That's within the scope of this project. I just wanted to clarify that's true.

Yes. Okay. Class IV bike lanes, yes, from Davis Street. There are some segments where there's not enough shoulder or not enough roadway width from say curb to curb. And in those cases, it does drop down to a class two bike lane, believe. So it's less than probably less than five feet.

Oh, I got

it. But a lot of that segment is covered by a class one bike lane. So there's some overlap and cyclists can use the class one bike lane. But there is still some small segments. I'm not sure what the total length is though, but less than half a mile, I think, of the at least four mile stretch.

So it sounds like it's fair to say that the vast majority of Davis Street all the way to Island Drive would be?

Yes. Will be Class four.

Yes. Second one, think just to help us visualize kind of, I don't know, pedestrian safety on the part between Fernside and Broadway. Can you give the public a sense of how many stoplights are within that gap? Are there any stoplights within that gap? Are there stop signs? Is there anything?

Well, there's a stoplight at Fernside, one at High Street, and one at Broadway.

Okay.

And then nothing else in between.

Very helpful. Thank you. Seeing no other clarifying questions, I would open this to any members of the public that would like to make comments specifically on this item. Do we have any slips or online for

Yes. We do. If you're interested in speaking online, please raise your hand now so we can get an accurate count. So far we have three on Zoom and two in person.

Why don't we take the people in person first?

Perfect. First I have Maria Piper.

Hi Maria.

Hello. Thank you everyone. I wanna point out one of the things that's really interesting to me about this project and one is that the first goal of it, the second part of I forget what the first one So apologies for your three part one. Forgot the first one. Second is to improve its ride quality and third is to enhance traffic safety.

And I think that says a lot. We're focusing on improving the street's ride quality over traffic safety just based on word prioritization. I understand, you know, we all need to make the dollars stretch as far as possible and doing things sooner makes them more affordable. And I want to commend what the city of Alameda has done, to do a lot with pavement preservation projects and making streets safer, especially streets around schools. I think what's important about this is that this is not a highway.

This is a neighborhood street in common people terms. Surely safety is more important and when we are looking at how many users there are, what I hear being talked about is how many drivers there are, how many cars there are, not how many actual users of this stretch there are. And I would imagine that if this was a safe street to cross and a safe street to traverse, we would have increased users and probably in other ways. So I also want to add that this is an area with high congestion. We've talked about how there are a lot of users who are driving on this section.

I was one of those users up until five years ago when I got sick of driving and sitting in Otis Drive congestion. Guess what? Got a bike. Now I ride the vast majority of my trips not on Otis Drive. I think that's something we as a society need to start embracing is congestion can improve safety overall by making cars drive slower.

It can also change and incentivize different behavior, which is what we need in this town. We have been doing so much as a city. You all have been doing so much. Staff has been doing so much to change the way we get around. I just really don't like that we are focusing on keeping the same kind of throughput availability at the expense of what I see as students getting to school being able to cross the street to get to school.

Now I do also very much appreciate that the pedestrian refuge is there that you're adding. That's great. Since you've added those, I would say one thing that is very interesting to me is that it looks in the diagrams like going in front of Island Drive towards Harbor Bay Parkway. You have a bunch of green that's very expensive, and I don't know who's going to ride on that since bikes aren't supposed to be on the And last, permissive phasing on Harbor Bay Parkway to Doolittle is extremely dangerous.

Thank you for your comment. Next public comment.

Next, we have Christy Cannon.

Hi, Christy.

Hi. Thank you for hearing me out. I came really to complain about Caltrans. Sorry, it has no reflection on you personally. Was really pleased to see just before I came to the meeting that these changes have happened in the plan.

I think they're going to be a big improvement. I actually don't live near Otis. I live on the West End. But I've been affected by Caltrans work being on the West End, and the next project, which will be the tube, will also be handled by Caltrans. And I have felt like Caltrans doesn't listen to the city, doesn't compromise, doesn't budge.

And so I'm kind of torn in getting up here to speak because I think that's probably still true. At the same time, you've really tried to incorporate some things in response to concerns and complaints. I really echo what the previous speaker said about let's prioritize pedestrian bicycle safety. That's what you all have tried to do. I know the city staff has tried to do that. The council has tried to do that. So stay on top of Caltrans. Caltrans. That's all I ask of you. And the city staff will probably have the onus of that.

And I know they're on top of things. So thanks for listening, and I know you have hard work to do. Keep all these projects juggled. I appreciate it.

Thank you for your kind words. Do you have any other in person comments?

No more in person.

Why don't we move to virtual?

Excellent. First, we have Cindy Johnson.

Hi, Cindy.

Good evening. I'm calling on behalf of Bike Walk Alameda to first say that we're relieved to hear that the late breaking upgrades about the late breaking upgrades to this project and appreciative of the effort put in by many to make them happen. We so rarely get opportunities to improve safety and access on streets like this. We know this effort will be well rewarded. Secondly, we had some comments about the intersections along Doolittle.

We hope for improvements across Doolittle Island from the trail on the north side rather than across Island as shown in the presentation. Regarding the other important intersection on Doolittle, the one at Harbor Bay Parkway, it appears that the bike intersection markings on the south side of Doolittle are missing on the diagram on Slide 13 of the presentation. If Caltrans staff can also speak tonight of any planned bike ped safety enhancements for that key intersection, such as a dedicated bike signal or turning prohibitions, for example, which would improve safety and access for that intersection, we'd greatly appreciate it. Finally, we'd like the entire continuous length of Doolittle to have Class IV bikeways. Were there exceptions, has making the road lanes narrower or reducing the speed limits been considered? Hopefully, ideas can still be explored. Thank you again for your consideration.

Thank you for your comment. Next comment.

Next we have Jim Strelow.

Hi Jim.

Good evening. Number one, I'd like to see the new presentation posted on the website and that so that we can see some of those new diagrams. What I'm concerned about and number one, I'm really pleased how the project is being shown tonight. I am concerned, however, that it's not a fully understood what it's presented to the public, how you get from the using the existing bike pedestrian bridge and you cross over the wooden pedestrian walkway bridge to get to the other side of Doolittle. And it should at least be noted or addressed by the city to say what the status of that is, whose responsibility is it for that wooden walkway bridge because it's in poor shape.

And it's important to understand how the people are supposed to use the existing bike pad bridge to take advantage of these new designs of Doolittle Drive to go out to Davis Street. So I know that it's a kind of a who's is it, is it the Alameda County's responsibility, is it somewhat the city's responsibility for that, the wooden walkway bridge? But it would help people understand how to use this proposal properly. Thank you.

Thank you, mister Strelow. Next public comment.

Next we have Alice Sunshine.

Hi there.

Mute. Okay. Hi there. Can you hear me okay?

We can. Okay.

Good. Thank you. My name is Alice Sunshine. I'm the President of the Ravenscope Homeowners Association, which is located at Bayview and Otis. And I want to thank Transportation Coordinator, Rochelle Wheeler and Mayor Ezzy Ashcraft for getting Caltrans to include the bulb outs at Otis And Bayview in the upcoming project.

I do want to say though that our community's concern is not so much the distance to get across the street. It's more the crowding that occurs between pedestrians and cyclists at that corner. The space isn't big enough to accommodate pedestrians, cyclists, and all the dogs being walked across the street there. And the cyclists are coming off the Bay Farm Bridge often at a pretty good speed, and then they're going through that corner to get towards the Bay Farm Bridge to go over the bike bridge. And and it's really been dangerous.

I've done it myself. I've been a pedestrian and a cyclist at that corner, and I've been afraid both times. So I wanted to ask that oh, and also there is a collection of boxes for traffic control that adds to the squeeze in that space. So a bulb out is a great idea. I hope it's designed within mind to improve the space to keep the pedestrians and the cyclists from crashing into each other.

We have a homeowner who lives at that corner, and she often regales us with stories of near near crashes and accidents and people screaming at each other at that corner. So the bulb out's a great idea. It just has to be designed to give the space for the two to pass. And our community appreciates you all having it having us in mind. Thank you.

Thank you for your comment. Any additional public comments?

I see no other hands raised.

Okay. Seeing no more public comments, we'll move to commission discussion and questions. Do any commissioners have questions or discussions or rephrasings? Mr. Dare Abrams, why don't you jump in?

Thank you, chair. I'll try again with this question. Lisa, could you speak to you had hinted that the city has some potential scenarios for future consideration.

Thank you. I'd be happy to. You know, so a situation where we have such a residential street, such important pedestrian and bicycle connections with really high auto volumes means that real care and consideration needs to be put into the best configuration for the street as as mister Kiana was saying that, you know, public process and and study so that the alternatives the city had recommended studying were basically from sort of least to most intrusive or most change from today. We're first keep keeping the four lanes but having more significant crossing improvements including a pedestrian hybrid beacon otherwise called a Hawk at Mound Street. And then another idea was to have a road diet with you know, four to three road diet with retaining parking on both sides of the street but with no no bike lanes.

And and then the other one would be a four to three road diet with class two bike lanes with parking only on the South Side Of Otis. You know, the feasibility of these all require study, but these were our suggestions for a place to start. Of course, 2028 is gives us some time to to see where priorities are in the future and think this through further, but those are what we have suggested. And I will also mention they all any road dieting would not include the signalized intersections was our suggestion because a fair numb because those intersections need to move through a fair amount of traffic.

Thank you, Lisa. Commissioner Evans, any follow ups?

I have a few more questions, but I'd like to let others have time as well.

Thanks for question. Commissioner Kim?

Yeah, I have a direct follow-up to that. So we had talked about medians and bulb outs as part of the current work. Would any of that would medians and bulb outs preclude any of the future kind of alternatives that we're looking at?

No. We if need be, we would remove them to change it to the configuration that's done in the follow-up project.

Okay. Yes, other commissioner questions? Commissioner Klein.

Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. That's very helpful. You mentioned that a study had been done to assess the volume of traffic on Otis and that it currently supports a relatively high volume of traffic and that is one of the reasons why keeping the four lanes is currently in the plan. During that study, was there any assessment of the speed of the traffic on that section of Otis?

So first to be clear, we just do monitoring to find out the volumes of traffic on Otis. We didn't do a specific study that accounts for like the turning movements on Otis. So that's the first thing. So it's not it's really more like we just do like a yearly monitoring of traffic data or a year or every few years, but not specifically a study for that. A specific study would be done if we were to change the roadway configuration, right?

So that's when you want to know how many volumes, how much volumes are there and how the roadway will be affected. If you add volume or if you add capacity, it will induce more traffic and there'll be more volumes. But if you reduce capacity, where do those volumes go, right? Because there will be other impacts to other streets. So we didn't do that because we're keeping the roadway exactly the same. So we don't do an in-depth traffic study assessing where the volumes go. I hope that answers your question.

Yeah. That's helpful. Thank you. I I was more thinking about speeding on that section particularly given as we know, there's a tendency for vehicles to travel faster when there are more lanes, it's particularly when the lanes are wider and straighter and that sort of thing. But it sounds like we don't have data

Well, for that particular it's signed for 25 miles an hour, right? And there are some, I think at least one speed feedback sign that lets the public know how fast they're traveling in case they're not paying attention. But that's pretty much as low as we can go, a 25 mile an hour speed limit. There's not too much more we can do to change that. It's largely, you know, up to the public to travel at a safe speed.

Yeah, that's as low as it's permitted right now. It's 25 miles an hour.

Sure. Thank you.

Commissioner Susan Thera, sorry, Vice Chair Susan Thera.

Thank you, Ron, for being here second time. And thank you to the staff for working and following up with Caltrans and bringing an updated presentation just before the meeting. So just following up on Commissioner Groin's point and your response is that in terms of you mentioned that it's up to the drivers are the drivers to be careful in driving. But I think there is a design configuration. That's what we as transportation experts are supposed to be developing, providing the infrastructure to make the drivers go at a safe speed, right?

So in terms of the project itself, I'm seeing this as a Phase one, what you're doing as a safety improvement. And then the SHOP project for 2028 is going to do much more in-depth. But what I'm not clear I'm in-depth in the sense you're looking at programming for road diet. But what I'm not clear is that as part of the road diet project, will you be you will develop the PID document and as part of that you will be looking at alternatives. But in terms of the traffic analysis, will you be just focusing only on Otis or because the traffic is if it is road diet, then there's a certain volume that's coming down on Otis for this section is going to be diverted to other roads, right?

So we want to have a comprehensive look at how the traffic is going to be diverted and which other parallel roads or any intersections or which neighborhoods are going to be impacted so that everyone is aware a more transparent way and what kind of preventative measures need to be taken, right? So will you be looking at that as well? Yes. Okay.

We already did a traffic study when we took an initial look at the road diet and that's how we knew that there's going to be a lot of impacts that there's going be a lot of traffic that has to be diverted primarily towards the East as they come off from Fernside. There's too much traffic on Otis, they'd have to divert to the East and then further north after that. But we would do all of those studies during the environmental phase of the project.

I understand it's not new to Caltrans because this is a state route and it goes through different land use types and the different type of neighborhoods and 61 definitely sees that traverses different kind of land use and then it gets into Main Street and into the neighborhood. Similar to 185 in San Leandro and as it gets into downtown area, it is different. So and Caltrans has made more effort to make the sections safer. So and you have experience. So it is challenging, but you have to listen to the or look at the neighborhood safety and what you are hearing from the public and we appreciate you are working on that and we hope to continue in the same path.

Thank you. Commissioner Johnson, anything? Commissioner Abrams, I think you had a couple of follow

ups.

Yes, sure. Thank you. I wanted to ask a couple of questions at the some of the planned slides you came up with. First, on the Broadway segments, where there are existing the existing class two bike lanes. One of the so I think the Caltrans' project on Encinal, the Encinal portion of State Route 61 has actually been really successful for both drivers and cyclists.

One of the features I really like is it has lines painted on both sides of the class two bike lanes so that people parking kind of have that indication that they should park close to the curb. And so I'm wondering if the that's not of it's a feature on some city owned portions of Broadway, I believe, but not the Caltrans owned portions of Broadway. And I wonder if that is in the current plans and if not, if that is something that Caltrans could consider adding stripes for delineating both sides of that Class II by

I'm not familiar with that. We can check. You're saying that as part of our we also have a CAPM project that we're wrapping up or we might have just wrapped up on Encino.

Yeah, all for it. Yeah, yeah.

And we want to kind of match that striping that for the bike lanes there. Or do you want to apply that to Broadway? Is that what you're saying?

Yes. I see Scott nodding if there's some maybe if you want to add any language. I think you know what I'm hopefully hinting at in layman speak.

Members of the Transportation Commission, Scott Wickstrom, City Engineer. I think really what we're referring to is, you said it quite well, is basically you have the bike lane. Normally the bike lane often the striping only delineates between the vehicular and the bike, but you can also stripe the inside edge of the bike lane as well. And that was done on install, so that's

the request.

I don't recall looking at the plans that level of detail whether it's in the plan or not.

Sure. We'll take a look at that.

That's Thank you all for noting that because it's a small detail. At the same time, those are the cues that I think lead to motorists having you know, just being aware that they're encroaching on that bike lane. Also wanted to echo the public comment about the let's see, this is Otis High and I can never remember that name of the sorry, it's not Shoreline. Got to look it up here. Bayview.

Thank you. So and I can also echo that experience of, like, there's crowding on the sidewalks. And so just curious to know if Caltrans has thoughts on would these bulb outs be at the same grade as the sidewalk or a step down or like are there ways to accommodate that the crowding the commenter spoke to?

What we're thinking is to put something like what's called quick curb. So there wouldn't be a widening of the sidewalk and curb ramp. It would remain in its current configuration, but we would create a bulb out with like a quick curve, which is essentially like a curb that just is I don't want to say glued, but basically placed onto the pavement and then delineates a bulb out. So pedestrians could still stand within it, right, and it's protected by this curb. But you don't have to, say, widen with concrete at the same level as a sidewalk.

And this can be done faster. It's cheaper and it minimizes other like, for example, in case that traffic signals would need to be relocated if we were to do like a regular curb bulb out, it would avoid that type and utility conflicts and traffic signal relocations.

Okay. But it wouldn't just to confirm I'm following, the ramp down to the auto level would remain

the same. They would just ramp down to the pavement surface. And pedestrians would stand on the pavement surface, but it would be within a bulb out area that the new curb would be placed.

Oh, okay. Okay. I'm just going to predict as a pedestrian myself that that the experience will depend on some different factors of whether people actually wanna stand there. So I wonder if our, you know, flex posts and vertical features available as options or ways to at least make it a little more apparent that that's the pedestrian realm rather than

auto realm. We haven't really spent too much time yet on the detail, but we would work these details out. And then we could present it to city staff for review and comment and collaborate on what the appropriate way to delineate this curve ball bout is.

Okay. Understood. Thank you. I've that's it for the the my detailed ones. I'll I'll bump it back up to the 30,000 foot view and hand it back to others.

I I just want to speak to to a shared interest here. To be frank, this has not been an efficient process. I would hope that if Caltrans and the city are aiming to work together on this additional phase that it can work from a more collaborative relationship because at the end of the day, everyone's trying to serve the public here. You know, we're working from limited funds. I if I can just kind of put this into the broader context, like, right now, Congress is debating the future of the Highway Trust Fund.

You know, the decades of what the industry has taken for granted is kind of calling into question, and so it's I'm addressing these thoughts broadly, but if anything, the need for efficiency for effectiveness in delivering real public services is growing. And I think everyone collectively is leading towards a better project here, but so much time from city staff, so much time from Caltrain staff, sorry, Caltrain staff working at cross purposes, and to really deliver quality public services, and to really get into some of these scenarios in-depth for a better street. You know, I think this really calls for these two organizations to work together on a more collaborative basis. And, you know, speaking from. From our role here, I would like to to suggest that.

This body in the city can help provide the right amount of public input, a Goldilocks amount. Not too much. Too much can can be overwhelming in its own way, but I think this project has shown how too little means that, you know, the city and and and District 4 have been talking past each other for years on this project. And and so I I'm trying to say this in a forward looking way of, you know, this particular SHOP project looks like it will be a net benefit to the residents of Alameda, the travelers of Alameda, although at all substantial cost of staff time along the way. Hopefully, it can serve as a better foundation for a more productive and just more efficient use of resources next time, and maybe a template for kind of how to to make aspects like Complete Streets integral to design, public input, swimming in the rowing in the same direction as internal engineering constraints.

You know, and I think a lot of people in Alameda would like to help make that happen. So, you again for your time on this project. Thank you for taking very pointed criticism, for looking for ways to make this project work, and and thinking ahead to how to make a phasing really serve some larger goals. Thank you.

Any other commissioner comments? Commissioner Kim.

Yeah. Just want to add a little bit to what their commissioner was saying. Yeah. It a lot of this process seemed pretty inefficient in a couple ways. Right?

And it feels like we're adding on a lot of things onto a project kind of as we are about toward award the contract to the project. And it kind of makes me worry a little bit that some of these things aren't gonna be fully completely thought out. Right? For example, with what you mentioned with the quick curves and for the bulb outs, and I'm assuming the medians as well, like, it as commissioner Durbin was saying, like, it's if it doesn't actually feel safe, no one's gonna use it. And I would like to but I don't know if we have the time to kind of fully vet out what that looks like before we actually award the contract and get going.

And so I guess I would like to know a little bit more about the schedule. How realistic is this schedule? And do we actually think that we're gonna be able to kind of get all this work and feel good about the work before we award the contract?

Yeah. So our intention is to develop a design fairly quickly and reach out to city staff for review and comment and then we'll collaborate and come up with a final design. And then we would implement that as part of our construction package. Most likely, we would be advertising the project and issue what's called an addendum to change the project plan so that the contractor can bid on that work. So we think all of that can still be done in time without delaying the project schedule.

Mr. Guine?

Thank you. I have a couple of specific questions and then one more sort of general comment. The first specific question is, at the very start of the presentation, you mentioned that there were a couple of purposes to the project and the second one is to improve the ride quality by improving the pavement surface. Does improving does is Caltrans also concerned about the ride quality if you are traveling by bike or is that out of the scope for Caltrans?

No, we are concerned about quality for bike. Generally, ride quality means is the pavement is deteriorating and so there's potholes and ruts and that sort of thing. So by repaving it, we fix all of that, right? So it will be much nicer and smoother. And we paved the entire roadway surface so it includes the shoulders and any bike lane between curb to curb.

Got it. Thank you. And so the bridge between Alameda and Bay Farm Island, pedestrian bike way across that bridge obviously has a poor quality surface. Is that under Caltrans jurisdiction?

Steel bridge, is that the one you're not the wooden bridge you were Yes. Talking Okay. As far as I know, that's not Caltrans jurisdiction. It's outside of our

Can I jump in very We actually had a pretty good discussion on this in a recent commission meeting? I would definitely invite my fellow commissioners rather than ask staff to rehash that to review that video because we actually had a pretty good jurisdiction discussion about that thing, just for your own context.

Thank you. And then my final question is on slide, I think it was twelve in the original presentation, I'm looking at the bike lane on Doolittle. And on the south side of the road there, there's a there's a bike lane. I forget if it's supposed to be class two or class four. If you are approaching if you've come off the bridge, you are not you wouldn't be on the road if you were on a bike because you would have crossed the bridge on the wooden bridge which would take you either onto the Bay Trail around the North Side of Bay Farm Island or you would go under the road and you would end up on Island Drive.

If you so I guess what I'm trying to figure out is if I'm traveling that way by bike, how would I get to the bike lane on the eastbound side of Doolittle once I'm on Bay Farm Island? And I don't know how I would do that.

I'm not sure. Have to I don't know offhand. Okay. I I don't know if there's a traffic signal. There's a crosswalk there. There is. Is is that how it yeah. There is. I think that's how at least that's the plan.

Alright.

Thank you.

So yeah, just one more sort of general comment that's not particularly a question, although I'm going to frame it as a as a question, which is obviously, we've talked a little bit about the sort of trying to align the priorities of the city with the priorities for Caltrans and obviously a lot of work has been done to try and to try and do that in the in the planning for this project. I guess as I think about this more generally and much more broadly, you know, State Route 61 is on the Island Of Alameda, State Route 61 is all residential streets apart from the short section, I guess, coming out of the tubes. And on Bay Farm Island, it's not in a residential area really. But again, as I think about it, we've talked about 40 foot trucks, we've talked about 60 foot trucks a little bit. And State Route 61 doesn't go to the industrial areas at Alameda Point.

It doesn't go to the industrial areas on Bay Farm Island, on Harbor Bay Parkway. It doesn't quite go to the major commercial area at South Shore. So I guess in a philosophical sense and this is again, this is not really an accusation, it's gonna sound facetious. What is the purpose of State Route 61 given that at least within the city of Alameda, these are all residential streets? I don't necessarily expect an answer, but it's just a thought more than a question. Sorry?

Do you want us to take it back?

Yeah, that's a tough one. I mean, I think, you know, residents of Alameda would use Otis Drive to go south, right, on Bay Farm Island and then further probably to 880. And likewise, maybe from Bay Farm Island, they'll go through Alameda to get to the tubes to go to Oakland. So it does serve some regional traffic but it's not a whole lot, right? It's primarily going to be local traffic. So I would say the state, the function would be to serve both regional and local traffic.

Okay, thank you.

Commissioner Susan Thira.

Talking about truck traffic, did you guys do truck counts?

Well, we didn't do specific counts. We just we have the truck data. But since we're not changing the configuration, we didn't weigh too much in our consideration. But our concern with trucks is more about the turning radius and to make sure that if we put the median refuge there, that trucks aren't going to, you know, run over it or knock a pole down like an RFP pole. So that's the main reason we're concerned about trucks.

This is identified or truck route, designated truck route?

No, not necessarily. I mean, from the cross streets, I think trucks are prohibited. It's just, it doesn't necessarily mean trucks. It could be longer vehicles that we just need to be aware of, whether it's school buses or, you know, other types like that that have the potential with a that require a wider radius so that they don't run into the median refuge islands.

So now that we'll be having a bulb out and accommodate more crowding,

I

mean, based on the comments you have heard. And I'm assuming you will also look at how the truck or the larger vehicle turning radiator is going to be?

Oh, yes. For sure.

And I have just two other questions. Actually, one other question because crowding was discussed. And the bike connection, I think, again, it's been discussed quite a bit. But specifically, the connection from Doolittle Drive to the metal bridge, bike pit bridge, that's the connection you need to kind of look at. Or otherwise, you had to go further up and then get off at the Harbor Bay Parkway.

That's where the signal is. That's where the crossing at this point is. But if you bring the bike lane to Island Drive and then how will you cross? So I mean that intersection needs to be closely looked at. Has signal, but not far crossing for the bike at that point.

Check into Yes. I mean it's basically the timing. You are receiving a lot of comments in terms of the details at this point. And the details are great and the modified comments are modified. The improvements are really addressing the long standing issues.

And I think there was a lot of anxiety amongst the residents, amongst the city staff as well, like when it came to this point. But then it's a relief, but this could have been done a little differently. And that's, I think, expressed by my fellow commissioners as well. But the timing now from now to your design and then contract release or the RFP release is very short. And we really hope that you will take all the details into consideration and develop the design and then discuss with the city staff.

We will.

Thank you.

Other commissioner comments? I can be real quick. I think this is a really good project. I think this is a very balanced approach to this. I agree with my fellow commissioners that probably there should have been an efficiency gain through probably a little bit earlier collaboration with the city. I will also say at some fundamental level, we should acknowledge that the process worked in the sense that a something was proposed. It was brought to a commission. It was brought to public engagement. That was probably the most critical meeting we've had in the last three or four years. You guys listened.

You suggested revisions. I know personally you worked very closely with city staff. You came back with a significantly improved project. Yes, it took longer than we want, but we also asked it to take longer because we asked you to go back and make changes. And so I think at some level, it's good to acknowledge when, yes, things can be a little slower and, yes, things can be more efficient, but also simultaneously the way that we're supposed to do this as a society worked. That's a good thing. And I think we should actually keep that in mind as an end goal that even if the process is not perfect, what we got out at the end of this is a much improved project. And it looks like on the horizon potentially an even better version of this in twenty twenty two thousand thirty two ish. So I just want to compliment, I guess, all parties honestly. I think city staff did a really good job.

I think you guys actually did a really good job listening, I think the public did a great job of being vocal about it, quite frankly. So that is all I have, and I think it's a good project. Any other commission comments? This is just the discussion item. No vote needed. With that, I'm going to close out agenda item. Thank you for your time. Appreciate

it. Thank you.

Let's move to item number seven, commission communications. Any commissioner communications on transportation issues? Seeing none, I will move to oh my gosh, this was fast. I will move to adjourn us before 08:00. Do I have a second for that? All in favor of a journey before 08:00, please say aye. Aye. Come home. Thank you.