Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everybody. This is the joint meeting with the Planning Commission and the Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee for the Town of Fairfax. And we're going to start with a Planning Commission meeting. So I'm going to call the Planning Commission meeting to order and ask for a roll call.

Okay. Commissioner Janssen?

Yeah.

Commissioner Petrone? Here. Commissioner Kelly? Here. Commissioner Cardozo? Here. And PJ Pfeffer, Commissioner Pfeffer is absent. Oh, no? Okay. Commissioner Pfeffer? Yes. There you go. And just to note that Commissioner Chair Swift is absent because anyway, she wasn't feeling well, so she couldn't make it tonight. So Mimi is stepping in.

Thank you. I'm here. All right. So we're going to get my stuff out. Does anybody want to move to approve the agenda?

Motion to approve the agenda. A second.

Okay, motion and approve and second all in favor.

All right.

Any opposed. Unanimous approval of the agenda. I'm going to read the meeting protocol. And the chair shall maintain order at the meetings in accordance with Robert's Rules of Order, and the Planning Commission has the responsibility to be a model of respectful behavior in order to encourage community participation and citizen input at Planning Commission meetings. The Planning Commission and the audience are expected to refrain from using profane language and or ridiculing the character or motive of the Planning Commission members, staff, or members of the public, and to maintain the standards of tolerance and civility. All interested persons are invited to participate in public hearings in order to give all interested persons an opportunity to be heard and to ensure the presentation of all points of view. Members of the audience should limit their presentations to three minutes, provide their comments by email, as described in the agenda that's been posted online and various places throughout town, state their views and concerns succinctly, submit any new documents to the planning staff first or via email at planning at town of fairfax cal town of fairfax ca all one word dot gov to be entered into the record next we get up to public comments on non-agenda items and anyone who wishes to address the planning commission on matters not on the agenda but within the jurisdiction of the planning commission must do so by email, in person, or via Zoom in the manner described in the posted agenda. Presentations will be limited to three minutes or as otherwise established by the chair. Does anyone in the room have any public comments on non-agenda items? Mr. Hamer.

Good evening, Commissioner Newton. I had a discussion at coffee with the mayor yesterday. And one of the things that came up was a few years ago, there was an affordable housing ordinance for Fairfax that we approved. I forget the number. And there were thresholds set up in that ordinance. And part of the reason the thresholds were set up for the definition of affordable as being median income, which is 80% to 120% AMI, in order to not discourage developers from adding housing to Fairfax, as pretty much evidenced by all the new construction going on in Marin County, by large developers, multiple unit housing. I don't think any of them are discouraged by anything. And I think that the threshold of affordable needs to be brought down to truly affordable levels. There's one project in San Rafael that's 30 to 70% AMI, and that's more like it. um i know sherwood oaks came in at 60 that's more like it so um i would like to see the planning commission make recommendations to the town council that that that ordinance should be reviewed and the thresholds be adjusted so that we actually do see more affordable housing instead of instead of market rate which is really not affordable to anybody except people that make you know, over 100,000 a year. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Anyone else? Is there anyone on Zoom with their hand raised? I see no hands on Zoom. Okay. I will close the public comment on non-agenda items. Next on our agenda is consent calendar, but we have no consent calendar items. So we'll move along to our

first public hearing on 150 bothine road application 2610 and bren you're on good evening commissioners um today i'm going to be presenting on a project at 150 bothine road it's for a 106 square foot accessory structure meant for home office use in the rs6 single family residential zone um The construction of this accessory structure will have electrical service that will be used as a home office in the side yard of a property developed with an existing single-family residence. The accessory structure will be provided by Autonomous, a company that designs and delivers prefabricated backyard pods. The legal non-conforming status of the site makes any new construction subject to Town Code 17.080.050, which requires that a conditional use permit or a hill area residential development permit be obtained from the Planning Commission prior to any physical improvements to the site or the existing structure. Therefore, the construction of a new office space accessory structure requires the approval of a conditional use permit. The project does not require a hill area residential development permit because the construction will require the excavation fill of a minimal amount of material, less than 50 cubic yards, and the structure is less than 200 square feet in size. And actually, the pod will not have any grading involved. To approve a conditional use permit, the Planning Commission must consider all adjacent uses and structures to the physical environment of the proposed use and to the public health, safety, and general welfare of the town. The approval of the use permit shall not constitute a grant of special privilege and shall not contravene the doctrines of equity and equal treatment. It is common for older homes built in the early 1900s, such as this one, to have very little storage space since many of Fairfax's older homes were built between 1910 and 1940. There are a lot of similar sites with older homes that rely on accessory buildings to provide storage or additional habitable space for the residents. And there are accessory structures that have been approved before by the Planning Commission as home offices, playrooms, yoga studios, etc. When expanding an existing house would either be very expensive, would negatively impact the historic architecture of the home, or require too much excavation or other site disturbance. Therefore, construction of this accessory home office will not constitute a grant of special privilege. The accessory structure also maintains the required minimum five foot setback and does not encroach in the required combined front rear setback. Therefore, the impact of the structure and adjoining properties is minimal. The proposed accessory structure does comply with all the zoning regulations, including setbacks, height, floor-air ratio, and law coverage of the RSX zone, subject to the approval of the requested combined side setback variance. Therefore, the approval of the use permit is not contrary to these objectives, goals, or standards pertinent to the particular case and contained or set forth in Title 17 of the Town Code. Accessory structures used for home occupations are listed as a permitted accessory use in the RS-6 zone. The Commission must consider whether the accessory structure size and design results in a use that will fit within the scale of the site in both theme park and neighborhood because the lot size is legal non-conforming in this zone. And as stated before, the applicant is requesting a combined site setback variance. Enforcing the combined 20-foot side setback requirement would make access to the 106-square-foot home office structure on the site with a 43% slope difficult and deprive the owners of the ability to have a home on a property developed with a 1929 residence that typical for houses built during that time period has little or no office space. This would be an unnecessary hardship for the owners. The approval of the variance to allow the accessory structure to encroach 13 feet into the combined 20-foot combined side setback will not be a grant of special privilege because the accessory structure will meet the required 5-foot minimum side setback as stated required for accessory structures. Locating the accessory structure directly next to the house would deprive the owner of using their existing patio and placing in the backyard where there is an extreme slope would require significant grading and disturbance of the slope and requiring the applicant to choose a different location. The proposed flat compacted five feet from the property line of their lot would be an unreasonable hardship. So the planning or so staff recommends approving this project.

Great, thank you. Do any of the commissioners have questions for Planner McKillop? Go ahead.

I assume since it wasn't included in the staff report, we got no comments from neighbors?

No comments received.

and the immediately adjacent neighbor on the side which this structure is proposed, the application materials made mention of their own storage shed. Do we by chance know if that is legally non-conforming or if that complies with the side setback requirements?

I did not check that property.

Thank you.

Any other questions on this side? No? How about, yeah, go ahead.

I have two questions. The first one is it's less than 120 square feet, so I believe it does not need a building permit. There is no such clause in the planning code, correct?

Correct.

Yeah.

The second question is the site, the drawing, this is drawing one, shows the site, the lower part of the site, the farthest away from the house. appears to be completely flat because there are no the great lengths stop. Is that correct? To the rear of the property?

The house is adjacent to a flat, compacted dirt area, and then there's a slope in the back of it.

Correct. So to the north, a slope, but only roughly to half of the property. After that, there's no slope shown on the site drawing.

I think that's correct.

Okay. Thank you.

Okay, I have a question about the reference to the submittal of the application or the plans received by the town on August 7th. I didn't see any receive stamp or anything. Are the plans that were received on August 7th, the ones that are attached as attachment exhibit A to the

Yeah, we do have stamped plans, but the ones that were included in the packet were the ones that we had electronically. And so we didn't have, we didn't give, we made a mistake and did not give the planning commission the stamped plans that we had in the file.

Is there a difference other than the stamp between what was attached here and what has a stamp?

The only difference is we did get an additional site plan. You'll notice that the site plan you have has three sites. And we did request that they give us another site plan that just identified just the one site that they were going to use. So...

you have the site plan that has the three sites but they're they're clearly using site number one anyway okay so i want to be clear the uh the plan we have has three sites on it it's like dated this topographical map is dated 2022. But this was included in the application or there was a different topographical map that doesn't have all three sites?

Well, it's the exact same plan. It just took out the site two and site three and just included site one.

Okay.

Because they only tend to use site one.

So.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Any other questions?

Could you just help me do a little math? It sounds like if the shed was 13 feet over, they would not need a variance.

Yeah, go ahead.

Yeah, I think so. I wish I would have provided a picture because I think that would have explained this better. But the patio is elevated. And so I think they wanted a little more distance between the patio and the house and the home office. Like one of the primary reasons the applicant wanted to construct this home office, and it might have been in the project narrative, was to get more space from the house so they could work concurrently. and not overlap each other's calls. So I think the idea was to put it in that spot to give more distance between the house and the extra and the additional home office.

Anything else? Is the applicant on Zoom? I don't see the applicant here.

If the applicant is online and would like to speak, can you please raise your hand? There's a raise hand icon in the middle of the box on the Zoom screen. Sorry, I don't have the full names of everyone, so I don't always know if the applicant is online and I do not see any raised hands.

OK, well, I will nonetheless open public hearing on this item. Anyone in the public would like to speak on this item, Mr. Hamer can come on up.

Hi there, Commission. This type of structure is considered a relocatable building in the California Residential Code, which basically just means so long as it isn't sitting on an easement or a right-of-way. In fact, it sure looks to me like they could easily just put this thing on some dollies and take it with them when they leave.

so i i think that it should just be passed by the commission thank you thank you mr hammer any uh raised hands on zoom i see no hands raised online all right not seeing anybody else who would like to make a public comment i'm going to close the public hearing on this item and bring it back to the commission um and i might begin the discussion because I had been taking extra special care to pour through this because Chair Swift wasn't going to be here. And one of the things that we have to make on any of these resolutions when we're dealing with conditional use permits and we're dealing with variances is a set of specific findings from the town code. And Bryn, I got a little lost trying to connect the findings provisions with the findings so i sent you like a red line a very colorful red line and i just wanted to explain to everybody that what i had done was looked at the findings for the conditional use permits and variances in Town Code Section 17-032-060 and 17-028-070. 060, 32-060 is for the conditional use permit, and 28-070 is for variances. And I tried to make the sections that were cited go along with the language that we had, and I kind of mixed it around a little bit. Bryn, I did realize I made a mistake that you had a citation in your former paragraph six to town code section 17-040-020C. And even though I moved that whole paragraph up to the conditional use findings, I forgot to move your your citation is 17-040-020-C up there too. So I want to put that back up in there. But it's confusing you guys, but I really just wanted to group, you know, we see at the first conditional use permit findings code number 17-030-060-A and I changed it to E because there are five specific sections that we have to make the findings for. So the first paragraph, I kind of added a little language about this isn't going to contravene the doctrines of equity and equal treatment. And I pointed to paragraph B. And then the second one, I added the language from 17.040.020C there in purple. the approval of a variance to allow the accessory structure. Because this is about how, since we're going to give them a variance, the whole thing isn't going to have any adverse effects on the neighborhood. So that one I pointed to O60C. And then the next one is about, it's consistent with the general plan. It's not contrary to the objectives, goals, or objective design standards. And I pointed to 060A and D for that one. And then the last paragraph before the variance sections, it's just a simple recitation of that O60E. Approval of this conditional use permit will result in equal or better development of the premises than would otherwise be the case and is in the public interest. And so I was just trying to be very clear about which findings we're making associated with which recitation of facts. And if you go down to the variance findings, very similar. but I combined paragraphs five and seven, and I was like, why, Mimi, why? I combined paragraphs five and seven, and then I cited 17, 028, 070A, one and three. I actually combined eight, because I moved that up there to seven. And then I made a new six. Where I moved some more language and then I cited 070A4. I know you guys are so happy that I do this stuff. And then on the last paragraph 7, I've got the granting of the combined side yard setback variance will not constitute a grant of special privilege. It's consistent with the limitations upon other properties in the vicinity. There's a typo there. and under identical zone classification and is consistent with the objectives of the town zoning laws. So yeah, now I'll let you guys have a few words. Anybody else wanna comment or make a motion or whatever?

I just had one minor quibble with on the paragraph one where you repeat the language from the code this is the finding that we're required to make. So I think it should say, and will not, we're finding that this project will not contravene.

Okay. So that's the paragraph one and the added language should say, and will not contravene the doctrines. Okay.

Yeah, this is the famous combined setback issue. It's a very small building. For that, there's not really a problem. But I think there is an issue with the findings. The statement that it would be a hardship to put it somewhere else, I don't see how that's possible. It is a huge property with multiple flat areas. I mean, the original one, two, three already shows a location where you can do it. So, and again, it's not that I think it's really a problem in real life, but we're stuck with this combined setback ordinance. And that finding would be hard. I'd be open for arguments, but I don't know how we would do that.

I do think access to the other location, especially above the slope would be extremely, it would be hard to get to, and there would still be like grading. I think that would be required up there.

I'd like to maybe concur but use a little different language and point out that I believe we're fortunate to have that combined side yard setback requirement. And the site is massive. It's very difficult for me to believe that it's a hardship. and there's reason for the combined side yard setback. One of them is so that we don't sort of take away all the green space back and forth between the site, and this site is so massive that's not even an issue, which is fortunate for the owner, but I think it lends itself to disagree with that hardship as well.

Commissioner Pfeffer?

Yes, thank you. Just on the first point on the changes you made, I appreciate them. I think that helps. And we had a discussion a few meetings ago, I think, about some jurisdictions and the resolutions literally just use word for word the required findings from the relevant code versus some jurisdictions trying to write them all unique, to have unique references to the properties throughout. And I agree that it's helpful at least to have citations to the code sections for each Finding, um, for the hardship, so I, I wish the applicant was here because they noted for. At least the 3rd, 1, um. You know, uh, more disturbance to the property more grading. Um. The 2nd, 1, I don't know about the, but I think. When we're thinking about excessive hardship, um. We should also be cognizant of just financial hardship. You know, I don't know if it doubles the price of installation to move it to site three. I think that makes that's a little bit more plausible to me. I just don't know the... if there really is a difference for the cost of installation or anything like that between site one and two, based on the narrative, it seems like the preference is just where the door is.

Anyone else want to throw out some thoughts here? I had similar concerns. I don't necessarily think that we can just say, ah, combined side yard setback doesn't matter because they're within the minimum of five feet. And at the same time, living in a house that is non-conforming to the side yard setback myself, you know, my house encroaches within that. I think it actually is incumbent on the neighbors who would have gotten notice of this to come and express dissatisfaction with that proximity of the proposed structure to their property. And we don't seem to have any indication that that neighbor had any concerns or even was in favor of it. So on that point, I am feeling a little bit more flexible about how we determine if the strict application of the combined side yard setback requirement would in fact pose an undue hardship. I mean, what is an undue hardship? Is there a benefit to requiring it if the person most affected has not spoken up to tell us that they have concerns? So I just, I'm wondering.

Yeah, I agree with that. I mean, I'm sort of persuaded by the fact that the neighbors don't seem to be concerned, aren't here, haven't written or communicated with the town or the planning department. And if they're okay with it, it seems like it's something we could make the appropriate findings. I mean, I'm open to being persuaded the other way, but that's kind of my view.

Yeah, I think the combined setback is not a thing for the neighbors. It's for the urban design component. Five foot is what the neighbors would be concerned about, and it's five foot away, so that's not the issue. Because the combined can be on either side. It's from the public view, if you look at a street wall with houses, that there's in-between green, and it's not a continuous wall. because it's not urban, it's more village-like. So I think, and I think Commissioner Kelly was correct, the 20 foot combined is a problem with very small lots. And I misstated that, that's the thing. This is a very big lot. That's where, for me, the issue is. Again, it's a very small thing. It's almost, but yeah, you set a precedent. That's the problem. That's where the problem is. Because, you know, the next applicant can come with a structure five times that size. And then what? Same argument. Anyway, that was just my response.

And I'd like to just say that I... I'm in favor of small offices being located on large lots. It breaks down the scale of the neighborhood. It doesn't make for a larger building, which I think is great. But I don't believe that moving this building over 13 feet is going to be detrimental to the project. So for that reason, I think that I'm not in support of it.

Yeah, I was going to, again, hope the applicant would be able to maybe elaborate what the excessive or unreasonable hardship is for what was alternative number two. I had been thinking before, is excessive hardship just... they have to deal with something the neighbors would not have had to deal with in putting this on their site. And I think that sort of concern is already covered by the first and second required findings. This seems to be very distinct from all those other sort of related issues that may be excessive or unreasonable for this property. And this seems to be very much just a design and construction focused finding. And in my opinion, it should also be a financial focused finding, but I, if somebody has something, something that fits as excessive or unreasonable, I don't, you know, normally I would say What are we asking the applicant to come back for for a minor change, but this also doesn't seem like It's that big of an ask for a building so portable to say, can you just put the pegs down a little bit further.

Yeah, I agree with Commissioner Pfeffer. I think it seems like the ask is to have them reconsider site number two, because it sounds like that is within the combined side yard setback. I know in their narrative they list a few issues with that, and... You know, as have been said, I would have loved them to ask them sort of clarifying questions on that. You know, I think if you're asking for a variance based upon hardship and you don't show up to the meeting to explain the hardship, I struggle with sort of granting it without additional information.

I have a question for our planning department. Is there a time deadline for the planning commission to make a decision on this application? Could we postpone it till next month with a request for the applicant to answer some questions?

Yeah, I think what you would do in that case is you would continue it to the next meeting. It could be pretty simple. Yeah.

uh you guys want to try for that okay do i have a motion uh move to continue this item to the next regular meeting of the planning commission no second okay a motion and second let's go one at a time if you could do the roll call uh commissioner pfeffer i

Commissioner Jansen. Aye. Commissioner Trené. Yes. Commissioner Kelly. Aye. Commissioner Cardozo. Yes. And Vice Chair Newton. Aye.

Okay.

And carries unanimously.

Thank you. So we have continued that item until our next planning commission meeting. And I would ask Brandon, if you could follow up with the applicant in the interim and, you know, maybe share some of these concerns with them so that we could come back and be more constructive next month. That'd be great. Okay, we're moving on to the minutes. We have none. The planning director's report is up.

I do not have anything to report, except that we have a joint work session.

Okay. Any commissioner comments or requests?

I would request we look at and make a recommendation that we heard in open time for non agenda items. I know I was one of the people making comments on that, but the data and information is out there for what our area median income is separate from the county wide, which is higher than sort of our zip code and I still, I think, believe, as I did maybe two years ago when this came up, that this is not the big gating issue on construction. It's like input costs and the price of the sites itself, limiting the rental to somebody who's making $80,000 versus $110,000 just so that it's affordable for someone in our community. It's not really moving the needle on a decision.

Okay. Any other comments from commissioners requests? I don't have any, so we can adjourn the planning commission meeting at seven 40 ish. And then we'll reconvene. Yeah, sure. Move to adjourn there. That's a good idea. I'll move to adjourn. Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? No.

Great. Did we want to just roll right into it or do you want to take a five minute break or? Roll.

Okay. Yeah, you can turn that off.

Sure.

And What I would suggest then is the Planning Commission could reconvene the Planning Commission meeting as a joint work session, and then I don't think we need to take roll call again, but then we could have the BPAC convene their meeting, and then Joey, the chair, can take roll call. Or I can take roll call, however you want to do it.

All right. I will reconvene the planning commission meeting with the same old planning commissioners from the last meeting.

All right, Joey, it's all you.

all right good evening planning commission uh my name is joey shep i'm the chair of the bicycle and pedestrian action committee um i'm going to take roll call now all right voting members uh joey shep present uh eric bettencourt uh liz gottlieb not present kyle jameson uh

Let's get back.

Check, check. Okay, here we go. Do I need to start again or am I good? Start again? Okay. All right. Roll call for the Bicycle Pedestrian Action Committee of Fairfax. I'm the chair, Joey Shep here. Eric Bettencourt. Liz Gottlieb. Not present. Kyle Jamison. Virginia Bilal Rosenthal. Mark Vendetti. Ian Walton. Jeff Gild. Charles Barberi, Emily McFarland, not present. Andrew Hobbs, not present. Simon Hewitt, not present. All right, that concludes roll call. And back to staff to continue.

Yeah, so I think just call the agenda item and then I can start a presentation.

All right, here we go.

What exactly?

Oh, just... Just ask for the presentation on the bicycle pedestrian master plan.

All right. Can we have the presentation for the bicycle and pedestrian master plan?

Yes, I'd be happy to do that. So, yeah, thanks for putting up with all the procedure. I'm going to pass it over to Bryn to give the bulk of the presentation. And we also have, I believe we have the consultant from TJKM, Colin is his first name, and I believe he's on the Zoom if we have any detailed questions. And I'm not sure if our council liaison is online or not. She's on a trip to the Midwest, and I'm not sure if she's on Zoom or not. So, no. Okay. But anyway, so the purpose of this tonight is we are in the throes of preparing a draft, a public review draft, a pedestrian bicycle master plan. And so today we've kind of uh, assembled kind of the goals, policies, and programs to kind of review jointly with the bicycle pedestrian master plan and the planning commission. Um, so just to give a little bit of background and what a bicycle pedestrian master plan is the, the, in 2008, there was a bicycle pedestrian master plan created that was, uh, Done approximately the same time, maybe a little bit before the 2010 2030 general plan was done. And so if you review the circulation elements of the general plan, there's a lot of. bicycle and pedestrian influence in that plan. So it emphasizes those modes almost more than the vehicular modes. So it's very focused on active transportation. Then the bicycle pedestrian master plan had a significant update in 2016. And so that's kind of the current master plan that we're operating under now. And so there's a relationship between the bicycle pedestrian master plan and and the capital improvement plan. So every year the council adopts a capital improvement plan, which is required to be consistent with the general plan. And then also it influences the bicycle pedestrian master plan. So those are the three documents that kind of work together. There's the general plan, the capital improvement plan, which is annual. And then there's a bicycle pedestrian master plan, which is kind of the five, 10 year plan. for those modes of transportation so those are kind of the three documents that work together and the role of the planning commission is you don't you're not directly making a recommendation on the bicycle pedestrian master plan to the council because that's the that's the purpose of the dpac however the planning commission is very important due to that kind of connection to the general plan and the planning commission is responsible for implementing the general plan. So we thought it was important to present components of the bicycle pedestrian master plan, at least at the goal and policy level, to make sure that the planning commission felt that it was consistent with the general plan. So kind of this is an idea of kind of bringing everything consistent A really strong bicycle pedestrian master plan and a strong general plan are really helpful when you're applying for grants to get grant funding to make sure everything is, all your policies are lined up. So what else did I want to say? So I also did a a little bit of a summary in the staff report on kind of all the goals and policies in the circulation element that relate to bicycle and pedestrian planning. Just kind of show that the plan, the bicycle, pedestrian master plan would be consistent with the general plan circulation element by responding to these various goals and policies. And with that, Oh, and I also should mention that we have had quite a bit of public engagement. One of the purposes of the BPAC was to provide kind of a venue for that public engagement. We've been conducting outreach through the town newsletter. We have a dedicated project websites. We've also had a public workshop on May 7th, which was somewhat lightly attended, but I thought we got a lot of good input despite the light attendance. We had a really good walk audit of the kind of the entire main commercial corridor, all the way from the library, all the way through to Good Earth and back. The BPAC hosted a couple of pop-up information tables at the farmer's market and the Good Earth. And we also had a very successful kind of online survey, which I think we had, what, over 200 or more responses. And so we are shooting for an adoption date of October 7th, which I know is only a couple months away. So that's why we're shooting for it. I'm not sure if we'll hit it or not to get it in front of the town council. And with that, I will turn it over to Bryn, who's going to go through the bicycle and pedestrian master plan framework.

Okay.

There you go. Just click. All right. So today I am presenting on the 2026 framework for the town of Fairfax by school and pedestrian master plan. Our objective tonight is to talk about or to walk you through how the public engagement the safety data and the phase project pipeline designed to make, or how, sorry, excuse me, walk you through some data, some public engagement, as Jeff mentioned, to kind of talk about how this like phase project pipeline will create a more seamless active transportation network. So plan is only as good as the community equity built into it. And this framework is the product of a year long deeply collaborative public process that kicked off in September of 2025 with our 11 member BPAC committee convening. In October 2025, Fairfax retained TJKM to systematically update the plan with a particular emphasis on creating a priority project matrix, which I will talk about in a bit. And then in November, residents participated in the walk audit that Jeff mentioned. And from there, we had a 300 person survey that was very helpful. And we had a public workshop. So that brings us to now, as we're gearing up to publish a public review draft. It's a little blurry. So I apologize. It's a little blurrier than I was anticipating. But this is the scoring criteria for the priority matrix of projects that the consultant delivered to us. So with limited time resources, we cannot build everything at once. So to increase kind of our implementation, the likelihood that things get implemented, every proposed project was put through this matrix. Projects were scored dynamically across five core criteria, safety and risk mitigation, key destinations and school access, regional network connectivity, accessibility and ADA barrier removal, and ease of implementation and readiness. The scoring produced three clear priority tiers. Tier one projects are our high priorities. These are slated for immediate delivery with the goal of like starting them in zero to five years, but not necessarily completing them in zero to five years. And they represent our kind of shelf ready targets for quick build pilots, for example, and major federal state grant applications. Tier two represents our medium priorities, which track to more of a six to 10 year delivery window. These are midterm capital projects that require more complex engineering, multi-agency coordination, or local match cash reserves. Finally, Tier 3 represents the lowest priorities scoring the least targeted for a horizon of 10 plus years. These are more visionary network connections that would be re-evaluated for future plan updates. And before we get started talking about specific projects that in some recommend specific kinds of classes of bikeways, I just wanted to review the different classes. Class 1 shared use paths are completely separated from motor vehicle traffic and serve both cyclists and pedestrians in park-like settings, for example. Class 2 bike lanes are designated lanes on standard streets marked clearly by painted solid white stripes, arrows, and bicycle symbols delivering a low traffic stress experience. And Class 3 bike routes are shared roadways designated by signage and pavement sharrows where bicycles share the travel lane directly with vehicles. And class four protected bikeways, or known as cycle tracks, are the gold standard for safety. They're physically separated from motor vehicle traffic by raised curbs or flexo bollards, planters, or parked car buffers. And then the bottom half of this slide demonstrates the Caltrans design standards for class four cross sections to kind of give you more of a visual of what a buffered bike lane looks like. So to transform this kind of guidance into policy reality, our investments over the next decade are anchored by six interconnected community-driven goals. Our first goal is safety and access for all, focusing heavily on universal accessibility. Goal two is maintenance over expansion, ensuring a state of good repair. Goal three is slow down vehicles using systemic speed management. Goal four is build a low-stress network through connected, protected infrastructure. Goal five is partner with local and regional organizations to secure out-of-jurisdiction links and business outreach. And goal six is reflect Fairfax's unique sense of place, which celebrates a rich cycling history and unique community identity. So safety and access for all is our first goal we're going to talk about. Universal accessibility remains a documented gap in Fairfax. During our surveys and the different kind of engagement opportunities that staff and BPAC engaged in, our residents explicitly gave poor marks for wheelchair and stroller navigation downtown in particular, while families requested protected infrastructure near White Hill Middle School and Manor Elementary School. We're proposing addressing this by embedding safe system principles, which is a countywide transportation plan specific kind of system into all operations and prioritizing the most vulnerable users. A massive component of this would be safe routes to school where we are expanding e-bike safety education and adapting school parking and routing specifically for the e-bike boom. So this is a project delivery kind of table. And looking at this one, the short-term five-year window includes a premier class four separated bikeway on Sir Francis Drake Boulevard, which would stretch a half mile from Claus Drive to the town limit. And we are also proposing a class two bike lane on Brideway across the Bank Street to Claus Drive and Claus Drive to Pacheco Avenue segments to close the critical 120-foot eastbound bike lane gap on Sir Francis Drake Boulevard at Claus Drive and to build a class two lanes directly on Claus Drive. So goal two, the next one is maintenance over expansion. It represents a major pivot in town policy from the last plan based directly on public feedback. And it came up over and over again in BPAC meetings. So we're hoping to focus on bringing existing sidewalks, cracked crosswalks, and worn roadway surfaces into a better state of repair, and that must take precedence over expanding the network into new areas. To achieve this, we are establishing the state of good repair as its own independent phasing and prioritization category, rather than folding maintenance costs into large expansion budgets. The kind of core innovation of this goal is a new operational integration process shown in the flow chart. Let's see on this slide. Something that the BPAC noticed about the 2016 plan is not a lot of it was implemented. And even though the town was able to take advantage of opportunities for grants when they came up about projects that weren't in the plan, it wants to make sure that it really, the BPAC really strove for this plan to have better kind of teeth. And one of the ways that we've decided to do that is by aligning more with the Public Works Department. And as I've talked to Kristen Arnold, the Public Works Director, it's become clear that the annual pavement plan should be potentially bionically aligned with this set of priority projects that's coming up through this planning process. So the idea is that the annual payment plan, which scores streets and schedules maintenance on them, would be brought to BPAC meetings a couple times a year and there would be kind of a review of which roads are getting paved and review it for the highest priority projects and see where there's overlap and work with Public Works to potentially add scope before a bid or use the crew, like Public Works crew, to implement a pre-approved toolkit or... and kind of use the BPAC to report back and update the CIP. so goal three is slow down vehicles it addresses systemic speed management widespread speeding along sir francis drake boulevard and major secondary quarters creates an environment of uncomfortable crossings that deters walking and cycling and to counter this we propose establishing a formalized quick build pilot pathway so this would allow the town to deploy temporary completely reversible materials to test traffic calming without without waiting years for capital delivery. However, the town is balancing speed with data-driven accountability, and this is potentially a written evaluation plan with six to 12 months of baseline data would be strictly required before any pilot could convert to permanent capital infrastructure alongside necessary sign-offs from public works, fire, and EMS. And the necessity of this goal is highlighted by the local road safety data here, which spans from 2015 to 2024 TIMS records. 42% of all reported traffic crashes in Fairfax involved a cyclist or a pedestrian. Our bicycle collision rate significantly exceeded the Marin County average of 19%. And 16% of our collisions involved pedestrians. And 80% of those occurred directly inside marked crosswalks. Additionally, 9% of bicycle collisions result in tragic death or severe injury. So the state of Drilly drives our short-term projects. We are proposing immediate crosswalk improvements at Winnie and Elsie Lane and Bank Street, concurrent with sidewalk installation and deploying potential radar speed feedback signs near all designated school zones. And once again, these are all dependent on being able to apply for a grant to get, like, funds for this or working it into the public works pavement improvement plan and things like that. Medium-term projects will see structural traffic calming, including speed bumps, raised crosswalks. Refuge Islands alongside dedicated center Refuge Islands at Bolinas Road and Sherman Avenue through some quick build initiatives. This is a map of collision data. It's a little tough to see. And this is a table listing those key projects, the funding sources, and the implementation lead. So the next goal is goal four, which focuses on building a continuous low stress network. This goal focuses on linking neighborhoods, schools, parks, commercial areas, and transit stops into a seamless web to reduce vehicle miles traveled and greenhouse gas emissions. On short, zero to five year delivery list under goal four includes class three route on Bolinas Road from Broadway to Park Road, a class three route on Blackberry Lane from Creek Road to Forest Avenue, and a sidewalk installation on LC Lane and Bank Street between Bolinas Road and Broadway. These segment improvements could be funded via an active transportation program and federal transportation alternatives set aside grant. And this is a map of the existing and the proposed bike routes. So goal five will focus on regional coordination. Fairfax does not exist in a vacuum. Our primary cross-jurisdiction quarters like Broadway, Center Boulevard, and Lansdale Avenue require transitions into neighboring towns or the county. We're establishing a standing coordination framework, the town of San Lansomo, for joint BPAC engagements and synchronized routes leading to Archie Williams High School. Furthermore, we would like to build better multi-agency partnerships to integrate active transportation with Marin Transit bus routes, smart rail hubs, and the Larkspur Ferry Terminal. We're also partnering directly with the Fairfax Chamber of Commerce to address downtown merchant concerns regarding parking, wayfinding, and business delivery zones. In our short-term projects, we have prioritized Class I side path on Center Boulevard and Lansdale Avenue, running from Pastore Avenue directly to the town limit to connect into San Anselmo's bike network. In the medium term, we are proposing a Class I bicycle and pedestrian bridge linking Hawthorne Court to Sir Francis Drake Boulevard, accompanied by enhanced transit parking and wayfinding. Funding for these regional pipelines could be pursued via a Caltrans Sustainable Transportation Planning Grant or the congestion mitigation and air quality improvement program. Goal six ensures our infrastructure reflects Fairfax's unique identity. Public feedback reminded us that Fairfax holds a proud legacy as a birthplace of mountain biking and serves as an iconic gateway to West Marin. Our infrastructure choices could honor that heritage by supporting trail gateways and partnering with the Marin Museum of Bicycling. This goal also prizes community placemaking that makes Fairfax feel distinct. Here you can see three categories honoring our cycle heritage. potentially preserving and formalizing historic hillside public stairways, lanes, and paths that cut through neighborhoods directly to downtown and community placemaking. For our short-term delivery, we could deploy distinctive artistic treatments, including brightly painted crosswalks, decorative signage, and community design elements, as long as the costs are not too high or supported by outside funding. And Public Works, of course, would have to find it feasible for these kind of things to make them sustainable investments. In the six- to ten-year window, we would like to officially document and extend the historic step lanes and pass network and construct a sidewalk on Bolinas Road from Broadway to Porteus Avenue. Funding could be captured through the SV1 Local Partnership Program and potentially small community grants from AARP and America Walks. See, so securing outside funding is hyper competitive and to ensure Fairfax wins its fair share. This slide outlines kind of a seven step grant alignment strategy. We are proposing that there's a shelf ready project list, which this is kind of step one in that. But we would need to pre draft scopes and do preliminary engineering for tier one projects. So that's that zero to five year category that was under each goal. we would want to deliberately match project types of funding sources for instance leveraging hsip for quarters with heavy collision history or different ones for projects that maximize emissions reduction we are proposing to strategically time our local cash matches from measure aa and developer impact fees to align perfectly with state grant cycles We will want to reuse this priority matrix scoring as a built-in kind of data-driven narrative often required by grant reviewers. And we are proposing to coordinate early through the Transportation Authority of Marin to catch regional cycles before they open. And we're proposing to share a single master calendar of some sort with Public Works to be better at catching like paving opportunities as well as the kind of BPAC paving plan alignment strategy I proposed. And we need to find grants that we can apply for that are more design focused to make our project shovel ready for bigger construction dollars. So to close, I want to review what to expect next. So step one is to finalize this framework and finish the draft plan. We will launch the official public review period alongside one more survey, allowing the public to validate and tweak public project priorities. We will likely start conducting the survey in the next couple of weeks. We're going to probably have the public review draft done by the end of next week. And the goal is to have, as Jeff stated, the formal town council adoption on October 7th. And there's one more BPAC meeting on September 21st. And let's see. And then the next step will be folding these adopters short term projects directly into an annual capital improvement program, or into that pavement plan. Um, yeah, so thanks for your time and, um, I will not open up the floor to public comment.

Yeah, I think maybe the way to do this, um. Chair chairs is to, um. ask questions first and then maybe entertain some public comment. And then we may want to break this into the bite-sized pieces of the goals and just, you know, talk about each goal separately and then ask for input from both BPAC and the planning commission. So we'd have like six kind of discussion topics, so to speak. I mean, that, that'd be my thoughts, but I'm, I'm open.

Okay, it sounds like a plan. Do you want to go first, Joey?

As far as the discussion?

As far as if any of the BPAC members have questions for the staff.

Okay, yeah, let's start clarifying questions first, then we go to public comment, and then we come back and have discussion.

All right, let's start with clarifying questions.

All right, are you able to hear me now? Okay, so this was released yesterday, and I'm hoping that we have a chance to be able to talk about some of the individual recommendations, because I do have concerns about a number of the highly recommended items that are on there, and I think there are a number of key things that are missing, and so I just want to make sure we have time to be able to dive into that. I don't know if this is the time to do that, to do that or if we're going to meet again later to be able to do that. I just want to know kind of what the right forum is to get more detail oriented into the recommendations.

I think now is the time. But I also just want to give some context to that. We received a public review draft from our consultant, and then we decided we wanted to do more of a nested structure because it was still very separate where there's a section of policies, there is a section of goals. and objectives and they were the ones that Joey gave us at the last BPAC meeting. And then there was that same project list and that table. And so I decided it would just be easier to kind of nest them all. So then we kind of understand which projects are associated with which goals. So it was like more of a summary. And so it's still a work in progress, and that's why we don't have a public review draft today. So, yes, now is the time to kind of refine it. Okay.

Other clarifying questions?

You can turn your mic off.

Okay, I think we're ready to move forward.

I'll ask the planning commissioners if you guys have any questions for staff about the commissioners to my right here.

I just had one question. The circulation element has a goal of expanding the network of pedestrian trails, connecting the neighborhoods to downtown. and the steps lanes and paths this may not be central to the main objectives of the of the plan but i use those trails all the time that's how i get down here how i get to downtown and the 2016 plan said that that the fairfax volunteers had made significant progress in I think it said mapping and documenting the existing historic trails in town and the trails mapping the existing ones and identifying unused rights of way, pedestrian rights of way that could maybe be activated. And I'm just wondering, was that completed? Where does that information reside?

Yeah, it's online, but it's kind of buried on the website. Yeah, I can send them to you. Did you want to add?

Well, I couldn't find any reference to that information. So it's great. Yeah, if you could just send me a link or something, that would be great.

Other questions?

Also, if we do have stuff buried, we could probably try to dig them out and link them to it because we did create kind of a page for the update page. So we could probably like add, if we find things like that that are missing, we could probably add links to that kind of a master, the master web page, so to speak.

Any other questions on this side? How about on my left? Okay. Commissioner Janssen.

First, following up, yeah, if you can please unbury those. I have the same interest. I think it's an important topic. I think everybody, so I appreciate that thought. Thank you for the presentation. I do have a comment about it, and it's not about the content, but I think it's important. The absurdly small font is not accessible. And since this is a public meeting, I think you might want to change that. This would not fly by the American with Disability Act. And so you could get yourself in trouble. You can see that it's hard to read. I can read it, but not everybody can. So it's just a comment. Don't want to be nasty about it, but I can't read it either. So maybe give it a refresh. Thank you.

Thank you. Just General comment, I guess. It seems... 80% focused on bicycle safety vis-a-vis vehicles. And I know with Marin, broadly in Fairfax, you have a substantial aging population. I'm sure there are plenty of concerns of pedestrian safety, not just vis-a-vis vehicles, but bicycles. And, you know, so... I would like, you know, the sidewalk repair is great for that, but I want to make sure that we don't have, um, a growing population of people who would come downtown more, but for they're not comfortable walking, you know, around so much. Um, and to that element of focusing a little bit more on the um structural kind of traffic calming elements that also have pedestrian features like this sort of sidewalk build out kind of a thing in the uh bike lanes that are you know with built out i think the class uh four style where there's you know it's it separates things and makes everybody more sort of visible against each other and sort of brings the, the pedestrian concerns a little bit more well integrated in how we're implementing some of the probably more expensive projects.

You know, save this, just clarifying questions. So We'll remember everything that you said when we talk about the more discussion. Because we want to have a public comment before we get too deep.

Okay. I think we're done.

Did you want to open it up for public comment?

Oh, yeah. Let's open it up for anyone in the room from the public who cares to comment. Mr. Hamer. But you're going to have to share a mic with him again.

Thank you, Director. I have to emphasize Commissioner Pfeffer's comment about the aging population. In particular, the Class 4 route that is described for Sir Francis Drake is probably going to replace parking along there because there's no place else to put it. When you're talking about having a bicycle lane, which is shared by pedestrians, strollers, and wheelchairs, That's a little bit of not a very good mix of traffic. And if the horse riders ever come back, it's going to be a real mess. But that particular section, they're having some continuity. The business that's formerly known as The Way Station is a very narrow walkway that's essential to reach the Fairfax market on the other side of the street. It's a real bottleneck and It really just is, you know, to use the word non-conforming, it's the sidewalk with there is non-conforming. It's really, it's surprising there aren't more accidents. In fact, the base station's fence at one time was knocked out while it was opened. So there definitely needs to be some engineering there.

Thank you. Thank you. Is there anyone on Zoom who would like to comment? You can raise your hand on Zoom.

I see no hands raised online.

Okay. So we'll close the public comment and bring it back for discussion with the BIPOC first, I guess.

Sure, thank you so i'll take Jeff suggestion of moving through each goal as a discussion topic, maybe we could bring up the presentation to help facilitate. Great. Okay, so this is going to be open discussion, and I think anybody has comments here. I'll just note that this safety and access for all is intentionally put here to try to balance the pedestrian and bicycle sides of our town, which I think is really important. And so we really want to put this first and really establish that we see them as equal in this town. And so... Certainly, we can expand on it more, but I just want to note that this was very intentional. Discussion points here? Anybody?

I appreciate the foregrounding and that element, and I very much believe and understand it. That being the case, I think my When I look at this with NI towards what's actually going to get done, I see less the goal sort of structuring and just really am looking at what's in the short-term phase. Because even the report itself says in an ideal world, we're updating this every five years, not every 10 years. So it's really the focus is what's in that short-term program. And, you know, I think, I mean, this is a good, very specific list in goal one. And I think it's, what it could use is more of a... estimate of how big each one of these projects is as compared to each other um because as five projects um is closing the 120 foot gap something that once it's approved can be done in two months and then you have more time for the rest uh um just sort of trying to build into this kind of table the town's actual implementation structure.

Yeah, I had a conversation with Kristen today when we were looking at this together. She's the public works director, and she mentioned specifically on this slide you could combine a few of those. It's just a matter of kind of when we're communicating this information to the public and to all, like, how specific do we want to be and how broad do we want to be? But I think that's great feedback to hear that maybe in the draft plan we need to get more... need to somehow craft a way of telling the public which of these specific segments come together to be one project.

Just to follow quickly on that, because we have six goals and each one of them has a short term part. So when you get down to it, all of a sudden you have 20 something bullets in the short term. And sort of even, I know we do this for some of the other housing element related tables of Referencing in goal one, not just what can be combined within that, but how it can how it can be combined or related to also applies to goal three also applies to goal four and this way.

I also wanted to add a nuance with sidewalks is that the town doesn't have control over a lot of sidewalks are owned privately. I've learned this myself recently. And so it just presents additional challenges that there are some creative opportunities there to like incentivize businesses to fix their sidewalks as worked in the past and things like that.

um but certainly crosswalks is another area for pedestrians that i think is a big emphasis and so just noting that we've kind of teased it out and those are some areas that i think are opportunities um and just piggybacking off of that as a question um does the draft plan look at intersection daylighting at all both as a general safety measure but also as a legal requirement based upon state legislation

I'll hand that one to the staff, but I'm pretty sure yes.

Colin, are you there to take that question? Colin is our consultant with TJKM, and he's more familiar with the draft plan than I am in that regard, so he might be able to speak to it.

Hi there. Can you hear me? Yes. Yeah. So intersection daylighting, can you clarify precisely what you mean by that?

Yeah, sure, Colin. I just mean in terms of new state legislation requiring intersection daylighting across all pedestrian crossings, I think it's AB 413.

Yeah, we have not discussed that yet, but we can discuss that as we wrap up the public draft.

Okay, so yeah, I just wanted to get it on your radar if you guys weren't talking about it yet, because it is a new state requirement that a lot of cities have started to implement that requires the removal of parking at pedestrian crossings within a certain distance of that crossing. I'm not sure where Fairfax lies on the state's list of cities to check in on this with, but it's something that's out there and that is passed by the state, and so just to get it on your radar.

I guess I have a question more than a comment. Along those lines, what level of technical feasibility have we studied any of these options? Have they all been vetted with traffic consultants? Where are we in just understanding the viability of each one?

I can address that. So where the draft plan recommends bike lanes, there's been a look at what, you know, we've looked at whether or not there is adequate space to accommodate bike lanes and they can be accommodated with some shifts to existing lines. And for the class four on Sir Francis Drake, there's adequate space. It is correct that in some locations, It could require parking removal. Now, in some cities, Class 4 bikeways have used parking as part of the buffer for a Class 4 bikeway, and that might be an option in places, too.

can i make a comment um i i have concerns about our number one recommendation on here like this uh um separated bikeway on sir francis drake like some of our our best bike infrastructure is um parallels that on on center and so i'm not quite sure why that's our number one recommendation to add bikes so that sir francis drake i um i know as a cyclist that's not where i want to ride Because we already have good infrastructure on center. I think there's going to be a lot of conflict. If that's our number one recommendation, that it may remove parking and a lot of kind of the issues that we've identified as being a resistance to upgrading our biking infrastructure. So I don't know if that's the recommendation that I would want to lead with as we bring this to the public. just to clarify i think it's just the section here west um to kind of white hill is that the recommendation here is improving the my understanding looking at this is it's from a downtown east and so it's that new it's that a dotted red line adding in a bike lane from downtown to our san anselmo um border which to me does not make any sense on on on on why that's kind of a recommendation Yeah, it's that red dotted line.

Yeah, I concur with that.

What caused it to score as high as it did is that it is an area that had collisions, reported collisions that occurred there. And it's also a segment that serves a good number of destinations. It's in the central part of Fairfax. So that caused it to be a tier one project it doesn't necessarily have to be viewed as the number one project. You know, Broadway and Center could be viewed as the number one projects, but it is a tier one project just based on the prioritization criteria.

On this, this is Jeff Gile here speaking. Can you hear me? Speaking on this goal, the safety, One of the things that I think you added since we had our last meeting was on the fourth. Can you go back to the bullets? The data driven prioritization. So I was really happy to see this get incorporated. Commissioner Pfeffer you know you started like this is the same thing that we did so no fault here but we immediately started focusing on projects when we started this process it's like it's the thing when you see something specific you have to start judging it considering it and then quickly it would devolve into I think this is more important I think this is more important and it would kind of go back and forth What I think we've kind of realized towards the back half of this process that we've gone through here is that the process will need to continue beyond this. We can't generate this plan and then just expect it to manage itself. There's so much diligence that needs to happen, so much community input that needs to happen with each and every one of these projects that trying to have a perfect list At the end of this plan, it's not going to happen. So it's just what we're trying to do is bake in policies and ongoing continuity with the BPAC, public works, the community, other committees that we just stick with this and we're patient with it and we trust the process and we're trying to put more teeth into the process and their ongoing continuity. So that's just repetitive.

No, I appreciate that. My focus, or I guess, or attention on the project is not really related to the reflected in the presentation, but more in the staff report of when we We're talking about what's in the 2016 plan and using that to apply for grants and things, being able to point to like a specific project that is listed in this sort of document that's contemplated in state law and saying we have this listed in here as a blank priority. So give us the money to do it. I so we you know, I know we want some projects, but also want to have a document that can be sort of continuously looked at and referenced as we're making tweaks along the way. You know, it's sort of a sort of a damned if you don't situation with what projects you include. Because then, yes, I'm sure you get into an inordinate amount of time saying this project is better. But we do need something to get funding.

Yeah, just to clarify, I don't disagree with the comments you guys have made about the project. So just kind of trying to clarify what we've decided that was more important to focus on. But I mean, not that we shouldn't focus on.

I just want to acknowledge that the plan is designed for prioritization of these projects. So I just want to say this is exactly the kind of discussion we want on like, this should be moved up or down and it's, it's designed that way. And so we'll be going through public comment. And so, um, just want to say this is a healthy process intended.

Yeah, I have one comment on this. I do concur about moving the Class 4 separated bikeway down. I'm not sure if that makes sense. On the sidewalk construction, is it possible to highlight which sidewalks are within the town's purview and which ones are private would help maybe with prioritization planning? You know, because I understand it's a really important issue. And then again, and just on this one prioritization, I would still think that adding the crosswalk improvements at Oak Manor would be a high priority short term. That's a pretty important intersection. And as we all know, once people start heading east past Klaus Drive, it's people are going fast again. And so crossing Sir Francis Drake, once you get past like. even maybe the Museum of Split Rock or whatever starts to get challenging.

Yeah, I have a comment. I've seen only all the projects very quickly, and I'm focused on the short-term ones. And thank you for the presentation. I'm really happy to see all the attention for these projects. In a quick few, we have the impression that there is a bias towards bike projects versus pedestrian projects. I don't know if that's actually true, but going through it, I see a lot more of those. I'm not sure if that's right or wrong, but... Part of...

So a lot of these projects were inherited from the 2016 plan. So like something like 90%. And so we've added a few. So we're kind of working with what we have. And so but we can certainly start to prioritize more of the pedestrian to try to balance it out. So I'm just kind of explaining the history and where you're seeing all these projects came from is really a long laundry list that has been built up from the last plan, which I think was more bicycle focused. And so we're now trying to find balance. So just giving you some historical context.

And are we using the data about accidents and injuries and things to help us prioritize in the sense of both pedestrians and bicyclists?

Certainly the data driven has been what's, you know, pushing the consultant. I think that's why some of the bicycle ones are rising up because they appear more in the accidents. And so that's potentially a logic on why. And so we're kind of seeing this prioritization ourselves as the BPAC, you know, for somewhat the first time. And so we're kind of new to it, too.

Yeah, I think I was... My thing that struck me was that 80% of the pedestrian issues are happening in the pedestrian walkway. That makes sense because most of the pedestrians are using those walkways, but it doesn't make sense if they're not able to use them safely. And I know... I'd love to see what the data is on... The walkway where we've actually installed the lights or the two walkways, I guess, where we've installed the lights versus the ones where people are just sort of, you know, there's this great, I think it's Scandinavian thing where instead of holding a flag across when you cross the street is just maybe a. British Columbia on April Fool's, they hold a brick when they cross the street. But yeah, I'd be interested in seeing how effective those lights have been in terms of the data.

Colin, could you quickly speak to the priority matrix ranking categories and kind of why you might think that the sidewalk segments didn't get ranked into the high priority categories, maybe as much as they could have?

Well, there are, so the, there were many sidewalk segments included and about, let's see, I think eight of those segments were in high priority. I think because the goals that you presented tonight are relatively hot off the press, all of those high priority sidewalk segments didn't necessarily make it. But I think in refining the project list following tonight, there are additional sidewalk segments that were recommended to be high priority.

Just to make a clarifying point, as we go on to goal two and three, those are almost all about sidewalks and crosswalks. So there are definitely pedestrian recommendations, just not as much in goal number one, which is what we're on now.

I was going to suggest we keep going. On to goal two.

Yeah, let's move on. This may be a two thing, but just one last point on that data-driven approach, because I... pet peeve of mine because it's only going to be as good as what data we're getting. So it's a lot easier to get data on accidents with cars than anything. And we're not, you know, one of the things that said there is residents get poor ratings for wheelchair and stroller navigation. There's not going to be data that says people are not coming or going anywhere because they would not be able to get around.

But I guess I just want to figure out why 80% of the pedestrian car issues are in the walkway.

Can Colin address that?

Well, I think, yeah. It would include pedestrians that are crossing in crosswalks, and that may be what tips the data in that direction.

I think it also might be emphasizing that, yes, crosswalks are important, but sometimes they're not enough to, like, slow down a car if needed.

Right and it's also just the actual conflict point right, that is when the the modes are at conflict and so that is therefore when the modes are most likely to collide right.

That would be as a function of the location right, there are some sidewalks located in fairfax where you from a traffic engineering standpoint might not want to put them. Like midway in a connector between two intersections.

and to commissioner pfeffer's point the data i think it's a very cogent point there is uh maybe we could do more to surface the source data of this project and um in some way in the plan so that people can know where it's all coming from and on that uh the data driven point um like uh

Joey mentioned a lot of these projects came from the 2016 plan. And I think that plan was done purely on safety data. And then that safety data was also reviewed by TJKM, Colin on the phone can confirm this. That was still the predominant source of data to drive these projects. And we did do surveys, but that data, it's a little bit more subjective, hard to parse and get the geolocations all dialed in with the same level of specificity as the safety data is. So there's a reconciling process with that community feedback that has yet to really been done in earnest. So that's why you're not seeing some of these preferences that people have as reflected in as much as it is on the safety data.

And one weakness in the safety data is it's ultimately based on police reports, which sometimes are not incredibly specific about the location. If a police report indicates, for example, that a pedestrian was jaywalking, we know that they were not crossing at a crosswalk. But police reports will often list the collision location as with the nearest intersection. And so it's not always very specific. And I should add that the collision data for this plan update was based on a different set of years than a 2016 plan. So it wasn't updated. We'll have to add collision data

Okay, I'm going to suggest we move on to the second goal discussion, maintenance over expansion. So just a little preface to this. A lot didn't get done from the plan last time. And so there's really a big emphasis here on trying to just get our backlog cleared out. We know what a lot of the major issues are. And can we fix those first and before we expand? And so that's kind of what brought this about. Questions, comments, discussion?

Are the projects that are carried over from the prior plan like very specific in terms of, you know, Specific sidewalks, specific areas, specific locations.

Yes, I'd say most of the items that were pulled over were very specific.

Yeah, we have the same problem with the general plan in general. Of not, you know, we're very aspirational. but not so much the doing, you know, due to financial constraints, reality constraints, you know, the implementation over zero to five years, you know, when you're sitting here at zero years seems doable, and then you get to year four and a half, and you're like, wow, where'd the time go? Anyway, I don't know where I'm going.

Yeah, we concur. That was definitely what we discovered by reviewing the plan. And so that's why we're kind of putting a focus on trying to be realistic with what can get done and focus on sort of the maintenance of existing infrastructure.

Are the implementation lead and funding sources the same as they were before?

As before, like goal one or?

No, as in the last plan, I don't think they, is there a different way to accomplish the same thing that didn't get accomplished before?

Um, I don't think in the 2016 plan implementation was spelled out goal by goal. So the idea is that this is different because it's more specific. Um,

But my understanding is a lot comes from grants like the Transportation Authority of Marin and such. And so that's, again, one of our goals is to really structure this for grants and finding outside funding. My understanding is that several of the projects actually were funded in that period but never completed. And so that's definitely a problem. And so we need to really make this more actionable.

Well, you know, follow up on that. I mean, we've talked about trying to align more closely with public works because they're bandwidth limited. They can only do so much and they have to manage all the projects so you can get grant money. But if there's nobody to manage the project, it can't happen. And I think there's a few that are on ice for that reason. So it's important to the alignment section or portion of it with public works is going to be very crucial.

Yeah, and that's why I think Commissioner Pfeffer's comment earlier about the understanding the timeframes and the estimates and the costs and being able to kind of stack the whole schedule out is going to be helpful. I think that's what you were getting at.

Yeah, to that point. So I am also on a countywide commission that allocates federal housing dollars and allocates I know from that it's going to be a big county priority and a bigger state priority to focus on who's actually spending the money because there's a real chance that the pittance that we get from the federal government for affordable housing in the county is going to be reduced because of awarding grants to projects that aren't able to deploy the money once they get it. And so grants going forward there's going to be a county and state level a much more critical look into will you actually spend this in the two-year window that you have to do it and that's why i think it's helpful to see here is how long this takes to get done once we have the money and knowing that in advance for what we're applying to and what we're focusing on even

One idea that we're exploring is continuing the BPAC after this plan is done to have at least quarterly meetings to try to keep things moving forward. And so in the past, the BPAC just formed and said, here's the plan. And it was up to the town to sort of find their extra time to implement. And that obviously didn't happen. And so continuing with the BPAC could be a potential solution to keep some management energy going into it.

And I think there are specific grants for design and engineering studies that are like pre-grant grants. And I think those are really important to stay on top of. You know, Kristen just realized that I was interested in looking at these grants and they were getting forward to her and Kristen, you know, has fleas to deal with and she has a lot going on. So, you know, it's just a matter of like, I think kind of getting more staff, like hands on deck. And also just even under, like, there's a lot of grants that we miss because we just don't even know they're available. And so just getting it like better, I think staff needs to better integrate with the TAM staff. And sometimes, you know, it's a tough thing when there's turnover and like both. And so, you know, it's a challenge, but I think it's a small thing that could make a big difference is just better interagency coordination, which is another goal we'll get to.

Should we move on to the third goal, just for the sake of time here?

This is just a slide I presented on about the BPAC alignment for the annual pavement plan that was related to this goal.

I have a question for staff on that. The staff report does not have a goal three and four. Is that on purpose?

These are from the I'm sorry. So you're talking about the circulation element. If you look here. Oh, you're looking at the 2015 goals. I'm sorry. I was confused. No.

The policies go from goal C1, C2, C5, C6.

Right. Aren't those the circulation element goals and policies? If you look at the intro right here before C1.

Mm-hmm. Right.

So those are just the ones that happen to relate to, the way I understand it, maybe I'm not looking at it correctly, but it just seems to be the ones that specifically relate to the bike and pedestrian management issues.

Yeah, the purpose of the staff report was just kind of be kind of a setup to give you the background. So here's the general plan. Here's the basically what was in the 2016 plan. And then Bryn's presentation kind of picks up where that staff report left off. So there's not a direct relationship to those goals and these goals. They're in different documents.

They're not related?

Yeah, that was kind of a tricky thing for me to wrap my head around.

My first question is, where is C3 and C4?

They're in the circulation element.

Yeah, if there's missing numbers in the circulation elements because those particular... policies did not have bicycle or pedestrian components to them. That makes sense. Because what I did is I just pulled out just the stuff that related to the bicycle and pedestrians.

It was a question, so that's why. But they are not correlated to the goals that we are currently discussing.

There's no direct line. They're kind of generally supportive, but there's no direct line connecting all of those dots through the general plan and into the bicycle plan. That's beyond our capabilities.

Yeah, I'm the questioner.

Okay, thank you.

OK, discussion on the slowing down vehicles. This was a core unifying element. We heard a lot of feedback over cars driving too fast, people feeling uncomfortable around that. This is also an area where there's a lot of contentious issue around making changes to the town and drivers don't like it. And so figuring out ways that we could do quick builds, which is a new strategy where you're putting down temporary elements to change traffic patterns and get feedback without making a permanent change that can John Potter, upset, a lot of people, and so, so anyhow we're trying to meet these kind of dual mandates of you know change traffic, which is hard for drivers, but necessary for slowing down and keeping our town safe.

John Potter, So I think I had a question about that that you're doing you're talking about the quick build pilot pathway. Yeah, I was trying to visualize what that meant. And so a physical example would be calming elements or something like that. That would be temporary.

Yeah, like turnabouts constructed with straw bales temporarily. They're using it around the Bay Area to demonstrate a new traffic pattern without any permanent changes.

I think quick build is wonderful. Just two thumbs up for that. I think particularly in the current federal funding environment, right, we have a Secretary of Transportation who would refer to things like that as DEI bike lanes. So anything we can do to get the improvements quicker is great. And I love that we have an entire goal kind of built around that. Has any thought been given as to what project that first quick build would be?

yes all right there's been lots of discussion around downtown traffic patterns and that's probably the most contentious area um and also the biggest opportunity perhaps um uh there i think a lot of people have rallied around um the pillows that allow the emergency vehicles to still go through fast but slow down traffic now that isn't necessarily quick build but Um, it's in a solution here that it seems like is winning in multiple camps. And so, um, anybody have any ideas on what might be a quick build that we would focus on first?

Alameda County there. Um, I met with her like an active transportation planner there or not. Sorry. Alameda County, um, Richmond, sorry, the city of Richmond. Um, and they did some quick build roundabouts, um, And their reason for doing it was actually to prevent sideshows like cars. But she kind of ran me through the estimates. And it's still quite costly. It can be like $25,000. But that's a lot less than probably a permanent one. And in Fairfax, I think it seems like the community feedback we got, people want to have that demonstration before it's permanent. And those can be just as easy as like painting a circle. just to kind of guide cars in a different way, like suggestive. So we could list, as a short-term project, a specific place we want to do a roundabout demonstration, for example. But that still would probably require an engineering study.

Well, I mean, the reason I ask it and it sounds like I might be wading into a field of landmines here, but I'm going to ask it anyways. I just was trying to figure out what is actually proposed for the Broadway-Bellinas intersection, because that seems like where all the data, both in terms of surveys and crashes, is pointing as to the major the biggest conflict point in town it also happens to be our town center right and so if we're looking for places to implement a quick build project i mean that site screams let's do it to me um but that's my personal opinion and i'm sure you guys have talked about this a lot so

Yeah, the downtown area had a lot more response on the public survey than it did actually on the safety, like where the heavy-duty safety stuff was more like on Sir Francis Drake and some other places like where Center transitions at Pastore and down by Good Earth, that intersection there where people are trying to go over to Lansdale. So there was actually some substantial safety there that also overlapped with social conflicts. Um, but specific to where you're talking about at Bolinas and Broadway, everyone agrees with that. It's just, it's, it's crazy. It's like the most, it's, um, there's a lot of social friction, I'd like to say.

Yeah.

And, um, that, uh, speaking to quick build, I can't remember, maybe it was a public comment at one of the last meetings, but, um, maybe like bollards, like the bump, like a bull, like the bump out at the curb to shorten the distance that, um, people actually have to cross. So people come, One of the public comments a few meetings ago was talking about the plants or the plants that are like Um, it will catch you on a bike if you go too close. So like, kind of like re redoing that and maybe doing like some temporary, like those plastic bollards, they don't, they're, they, those, and just to make a distinction, there's quick build. And then there's the demonstration projects, like the demonstration projects with like, you can do like one of those roundabout, like for the day. Like, you make it a roundabout for the day, and you have, like, the fire truck drive through it and kind of try it out, see if it's going to impede the emergency vehicles, things like that, and just kind of get some awareness. But then there's also, like, actually, like, a demonstration project where you're going to do it for a while on a pilot to get feedback to say, hey, this is – we're serious about this enough to – at least put down some temporary things that'll be durable for months.

Right.

Longer than a day.

Yeah.

And then, but that's the kind of thing like the bulb outs or the, am I saying the right term? Is it a bulb out or bump out? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, again, it's just, the rare intersection where it feels unsafe for all modes, right? Even when I'm in my car, I feel unsafe. I certainly feel unsafe when I bike through it and I feel even less safe when I walk through it. And I have huge problems with those, um, orange flags. Um, they're, I mean, I think they're insulting. Um, it's not an actual approved, um, measure for pedestrian safety. It's not ACTO approved. It's not approved by the Federal Highway Administration. It's a town-by-town thing that I think, you know, I think we failed if we're asking pedestrians to wave a bright orange flag as they're crossing in designing our main intersection in town, right?

Yeah, I think the brick is way more Fairfax and But I also think with the speed issues, there's a calming that we need for the drivers that, and this was, I don't know how long ago, we used to have the school students had drawn signs for wildlife crossing and And I thought having children design the signage along Sir Francis Drake, for example, was psychologically very effective to have people remember who we're asking to drive slowly for. And I wonder if we could work with our local schools more to have some more of that calming signage on areas where people tend to speed, like along Sir Francis Drake, sort of west of town. And if we could expand that type of signage from the schools beyond wildlife crossings to, you know, senior crossings to wheelchair crossings to children, you know, and People with their pets or whatever and maybe I don't know. I don't know. That's my idea about trying to calm us down have a very Zen like message out. Maybe there's just a whole bunch of Fairfax hippies who we need to ask to draw like calming signs of

that's actually been a great through line discussion for us we're trying to figure out ways that we can have quick wins in the community without big timelines on construction projects and big budgets and signage has come up over and over and an opportunity to also express the unique character of our town through signage we've got a lot of bicyclists coming into the town help them figure out where to park and where to stay in the bike lanes, all these things. So there could be a signage network that local artists, schools could participate in that could have some impact with a very small budget and add to the character of the town. So you'll see in the low stress network and in Fairfax's character, we have it sort of woven through several goals. But I really like that idea, too.

Just a general question. How did this list get edited? I'm surprised that there's not more projects on this goal. I don't know what the process was, but it's definitely got the least amount of projects listed. I don't know whether that was just because of priorities or whether these seemed to be the only ones that were fruitful, et cetera. But it sure seems like there could be a few more added.

Yeah, no, I agree. It's a reiterative process. I just needed to be ready for today for discussion. So there will be more projects added.

Oh, and I wanted to also point out that I hope that my 10-year-old daughter is not watching tonight or she would be running in here to debate you about the flags.

Um, so, uh, this is the other one. I, I similarly was like, this is where all the projects, uh, should be, um, uh, big believer in, uh, physical traffic, calming elements. And I thought you were going to bring up Belenus and, uh, Broadway because of the daylighting, um, issue there. Cause a lot of that, those corners are going to have to move and bumping them out. think helps um for me what i'm surprised i did not hear or see was a temporary or trying to um round about at like klaus drive bank street and at um and if you're doing it on sir francis drake at like um marin road and maybe one or two further out because uh you even in Southern California, but plenty of other places. You don't do those right where the accidents happen, but before or after, so people don't have time to speed up in between. You know, there's a light at Klaus Drive, and if you know there's only a quarter mile you're going before, you're going to have to go around a little turn just to slow you down. Those sorts of things, I think, help, and especially... If you want to build goodwill, I think having a straw pile roundabout at Drake and Marin Drive in the morning during a school commute with White Hill and Manor so people are not waiting... 10 minutes to turn off of Marin Road and seeing that everybody will actually get to their destinations quicker despite moving slower if you just had a circle there. Seems like there are some easy wins you can have by putting them in less trafficked areas, but people would be surprised at how effective they are.

real roundabouts are really great. They work fabulous, but they leave a lot of space. So talking about it, I'm, yeah, there are, at some point they become so small, they become less effective. Just a note.

Can I ask one more question on this goal? Speaking of slowing vehicles down, have we looked at reducing speed limits in town? Um, like for example, I mean, I guess my overarching question is when we talk about class three bike routes, are we just talking about sharrows and signage, or are we actually following up with speed limit reductions on those streets to make them true? Sort of not the safest, but at least more comfortable routes. I struggle with defining a class three as just sharrows as an actual improvement because the data doesn't actually show that it is any safer.

Yeah, we've definitely had a lot of discussion around the speed limit issue. I think further research needs to be done, but there's something about like if you do a study and it shows that The average is higher. It could actually raise it. And so there's a little bit of issue around that. But also California recently, I think, has allowed more local control over speed suggestions, not necessarily limits. And so those are some things that I think we need to flush out a little bit more. Anybody have anything else to add to that?

Yeah, the other concern that we brought up was enforcement. There's not a lot of speed limit enforcement that happens right now. And so the traffic calming measures have a lot of data behind them. And so that's more what we've talked about to slow things down.

to Kyle Jimmison's earlier point on why we'd be building a new bike, protective bike area on St. Francis Strait when it makes much more sense to go down center. I think that's one of the places where signage could be more effective of directing people where to go, especially on the weekends. You have a lot of people not actually familiar with the town's roads coming in. And I'm sure everyone has seen plenty of terrified bicyclists that could have just have gone on the hands Dale and don't think they have enough space on even center. So making, making what the actual suggested routes are more visible, I think.

And I think that flows into the next one, the low stress network. And that's exactly what we're hoping to do is, you know, help people understand the safest route to get to like red Hill shopping center from here. It's a very difficult route. If you don't know the way you could end up on Sir Francis Drake. And every time I see a bicyclist on Sir Francis Drake, I go, Oh, You know, we didn't do our job in helping direct them correctly. And so, yeah, I think that's really important. And it goes for the children, too. A lot of us have experience with the Safe Routes to Schools program. And we really focused a lot on teaching the kids the routes to school. And we feel that's really important that they stay on the safe routes and they know those routes. And so that should go for the adults, too. Okay, taking us into build a low-stress network, goal number four. So we have a lot of this network infrastructure in place. Sometimes it just needs to be called out more. I think signage, repainting the... Uh, bike symbols, uh, there's a lot that could be done to sort of close the gaps here. Um, and this is also trails and sidewalks too. And so it's all a unified network here. So, um, anybody else have some comments or discussion points here?

Just a general comment that, um, I would sure like to see, um, the. Hill trails and stairs added to this, whether it's maintenance or even adding to some of the right of ways. I think that talking about a low stress network, I think that previously those were talked a lot about egress, you know, safety. But I would lobby that they're part of a fantastic low stress network that really ties our is very particular to our town, which is pretty great.

Yeah, absolutely. I think everybody here concurs with that. That's great. And that could be part of the signage that's developed that helps people understand little micro maps in a neighborhood that kind of point the routes to get around and things like that.

Yeah. Oops. I was just gonna say, I think like Mill Valley, for example, has like a volunteer led steps lanes and path program. And I think that might have existed in Fairfax in the past. But we have that goal, or we have that program under goal six, I think. And so that's another example of a program that could kind of be cross referenced to this goal as well.

I'm going to recommend that you reach out to John Reed, who had been the one who sort of spearheaded that before he became a council member. And I was on the Open Space Committee back then, and I have some vague recollections of some of the concerns. They might have come from Mill Valley publishing a similar array of trails, and it caused sort of a... I don't know if it was legal concerns or what the deal was, but I would double check in with John Reed about some of the nuances of focusing on that.

we can't fix those pathways technically because a lot of them are on private property. Oh, sorry, go ahead.

Well, that's what I was going to say. I mean, one of the problems with that, and I think the 2016 plan talked about this, is that there's, in terms of the town taking, you know, responsibility for maintenance of those trails and taking on the liability, and there's uncertainty about the ownership of the right-of-way and, you know, They can't be made ADA compliant, so that's an issue. But it would be nice to have them all mapped and signed and stuff. Well, there was a color-coded map.

There was a color-coded map, and it would have red if they were impassable and green if they were pretty clear and yellow for ones that needed work. And he was working on them kind of one at a time to try to turn yellow into green and things like that. I just think he will be a great resource for this project.

Yeah, and maybe reinstating the volunteer group to kind of improve them and maintain them. Some of them are quite funky at the moment, the stairways especially.

I'm surprised to hear there's legal ambiguity. The Accessory Quarters map... clearly shows those as not part of private properties. You can see them when the town was laid down in the 20s. There's a whole spider web. Some people call them easements, and I bet you there's utilities in a lot of them, but that's not their function. Their function was truly before the automobile for people to walk up. So if you go to the county's website and you download the assessor's map, you just see them. And half of them you can see now in reality. The other half now appear to be on private property, but that's because everything's grown over.

Anyway, so I'm surprised to hear there's... That's what the plan said, that part of the mapping was to identify those historic easements and rights-of-way, some of which have now been encroached upon.

They're encroached upon, correct, but it's not an easement. The easements are still there, yeah.

And that's what they were mapping, right, in the 2016 plan, indicated that there was a mapping process being done of those easements. So it's not easements.

They are not running over private property.

Again, I think this is where you...

There's been encroachment.

...with John Reed, who had torn down this rabbit hole.

Yeah, I'm just responding to what I hear. I'm surprised to hear that.

I'll find those on the website and try to put them in a clear place, like attached to this project. But then I can also, if I try to remember to send them out to everyone. So we're all kind of on the same page about what these are.

That'd be great. But we're hearing clear feedback across all the community, how important these are. So they're definitely going to be referenced in whatever way we can in the plan. Okay, any further discussion on this goal or should we move on? Okay, let's move to goal five. Partner with local and regional organizations. I think Bryn did a good introduction here earlier that we don't live in a vacuum here, both from transportation network, funding, community. We could do a lot to integrate some of the issues that we have. We share with neighboring communities like Lansdale, some of those intersections there with San Anselmo. there's been interest of joint work between our towns and i think that would um really be great for all the communities involved and this also does a lot to position the plan for funding so that's also really smart so discussion points here

Can I ask about the class one along center? I know that that or I think that that was carried through from the 2016 plan. And I guess I'm just wondering a little bit about the history, because it seems like to me, you know, class one paths are kind of the most expensive tool in our toolbox. And that's an area where the existing, as at Lansdale, the sort of shared street works okay. I mean, it's not perfect, but it works fairly well. You know, to me, it's more the intersection with Pastore that doesn't work. And so... I don't know if anybody knows the history about that path, but I'm just curious as to, I understand that it relates to San Anselmo's planning as well. They theoretically want to connect to it. I just, I don't understand the need, certainly not as a short-term priority in my mind.

I think Liesl was on that BPAC that drafted that plan. So she might be able to speak to that if you want to contact her.

I know we've also had a few community members who have been sort of passionate about bringing that back. I guess that was the train route along there. And there's an extra amount where there's like vegetation along there that this community member was saying we could reclaim. But I agree. It seems like we have a pretty good solution that could be improved. And so it kind of comes back to our other goal of like maintain the infrastructure we have. And so- work at improving the safety of those intersections. Um, there was an idea recently putting like mirrors at some of those intersections where, you know, the bicycle is blow right through and at least you'd be able to see if there was a car coming out or something like that. And so, um, but yeah, there's a lot of opportunity to improve what we have.

I was also going to point out, I think the San Anselmo plan has that one, a pretty low priority too. It's pretty way down there. So it's, there's a bit of a disconnect there.

I have a question on item two. What's the plan with marine transit? I'm not sure what that entails.

There's been interest in at least in helping pedestrians and bicyclists figure out how to get to the bus, you know, how to get to the public transportation. So sort of us being the last mile or the first mile to get to public transit. So just connecting those networks, like if I wanted to get to the ferry and I only had my bike, you know, how would I get there? Those kinds of situations. So I think that's the thinking there.

And also, um, like facilities for parking bikes, securely, things like that. So you could actually like, if you live down in the Cascades, you could ride into town and park your bike in a locker and get on the bus and get to the other transit locations. Um, there also discusses, you know, if, uh, There's going to be increased density of housing. Different projects are kind of on the horizon that would increase the density of people and the proximity to that. Perhaps more ridership. We could maybe lobby to get better service. The service is still not as good as it was pre-pandemic. They've really scaled it back. So just kind of advocating for that. with agencies and things like that.

Right. Yeah, the Golden Gate doesn't serve it anymore, but that's way past. Right.

On the topic of new development, so in our zoning code, do we currently not have bike parking and end-of-trip requirements for new development, or do we?

No, we do not require bike parking.

We don't. And is there somewhere in this plan that recommends that we implement that or study that?

I think it's goal one or goal two, list of funding sources, development impact fees, but that's very vague right now.

Yeah. I mean, it would be great if some of these new projects provided secure bike lockers inside. Stepping back a second too, it would be great if the town had an inventory of bike parking. Because if a goal is to increase the availability of bike parking, it's good to know how much we have as a baseline, at least publicly available bike parking.

Interestingly, the building code actually does require bike parking for larger projects.

It does, okay.

The building code, but it has to be a fairly large project to kick in, yeah.

So, for example, if a 240-unit apartment building were being built?

That would have bike parking required, yes.

Got it.

Okay. Through the building code, yeah.

Through the building code.

All right. Should we move on to the last goal? All right. OK, so I think the plan wouldn't be complete without acknowledging Fairfax's unique sense of place. And so I think there's several dimensions to this. The cycling heritage is big and we have a lot of out of town cyclists who come who I think. create a lot of the impact that people feel you know like spandexers blowing through the stop signs and such is not a lot of local moms and dads that so how can we work with that group of people coming the tourists and everything to help better inform them about our town and the rules The steps, lanes and paths. We already discussed that. I think that's really important to everybody. And the community placemaking. I think this is an opportunity for art and signage to come into the town. And again, this could be lower budget and could move quickly within the first year or two and show the citizens that we're making progress, even if the bigger projects are taking longer. And so this is kind of unifying some of the character elements of the town and trying to turn them into a sort of productive and safe form of art.

I like the way how these trails go up the hill there. That's quite beautiful. Aspirational.

Okay, so I haven't seen anything on e-bikes at all. And that's definitely something that is very concerning as far as accidents go. And where are they? Are they going to be on the sidewalk? Are they going to be on the street?

Yeah, no, I'm glad you brought that up. Um, so we did briefly mention them under goal one, and this is not, it would have been a really wordy PowerPoint if I listed all the policies. So this is kind of an overview. There are going to be specific policies that, um, are about kind of creating, uh, more connections with the schools about youth e-bike users, um, But it is kind of a countywide, there was a countywide ordinance that we adopted recently, probably about a year ago, that restricted certain e-bikes in Fairfax to a certain age group. But we, let's see, do you have anything to say about that, Jeff, the e-bike policy? No.

Yeah, I mean, a lot of it's enforcement. So we do have a policy that you're not allowed to ride on certain e-bikes if you're under 16. But we all know that there's a lot of 12-year-olds riding around on Class 3 e-bikes. So a lot of it's enforcement.

I think we should also be mindful, too, that e-bikes aren't just specific to children. I mean, adults ride e-bikes. Basically, e-bikes increase the speed of the bike lane, and it's just overall increase in speed, and that's a problem for pedestrians and everybody. And, yeah, it's not quite addressed here, but traffic calming applied to bicycles is also something we probably want to contemplate. Like one fellow mentioned on Lansdale, it's a great idea. Speed bumps at stop signs force you to slow down just – You need the physical things to have people with anybody who has a bike with a throttle to slow it down and keep it under 20 and under 15.

There was a recent article that's passed around from the New York Times that was showing in New York City something like 17 different new bills coming out just about e-bikes. And what I took from that is it's a rapidly evolving space. Part of it is technical. Some of the bikes will be more self-explanatory if they're class two, class three, what speed they go to. Like, for instance, law enforcement has a hard time telling what's appropriate bike or not. And so that's going to fall back on manufacturers and people selling the bikes to make sure that people are educated and the law enforcement can immediately tell this is not a legal bike for your age. So I think part of that we're going to kind of wait and see what comes down. Um, that said, I think the, the, the mandates that came from, uh, that we adopted from the county have been effective from what I've seen at the school level. I have a son at white hill and, um, the it's, it changed radically when they started basically impounding bikes. If you rode an e-bike to school that you weren't approved for. Um, and so, uh, that changed a lot re very quickly.

Um, I think another important consideration with e-bikes is its expanded accessibility. So not just talking about children, but for adults and everybody, there is increased ridership and people are going faster. And so when we're thinking about our bike infrastructure, thinking about that there are bikes that are going to be going faster. And so places like Lansdale, where there's a lot of shared use conflict between pedestrians, people going slow on bikes, people going fast on bikes and cars, Um, I think long-term it's less and less of a tenable solution. And so looking at doing like a class one bike way on center as like looking forward that people are gonna be riding e-bikes more and more people are gonna be going faster and, and looking ahead at kind of what those networks need to be, um, in order to accommodate that rather than being reactive, um, which is commonly what, um, where we end up.

I'll just make another comment on Lansdale. Kind of your point about the flags on Bolinas and Broadway. It's kind of like, you shouldn't have to do that. You also shouldn't have to have stop signs along the strip that everybody ignores. The reason why you kind of say it's fine is because you don't stop on your bike at those stop signs. I would have just, I'm speculating that you might not stop at those stop signs when you're riding your bike on Lansdale, which is it's, It's just wrong to have it to have it be OK to run stop signs. You know, it's like the fact that's OK is kind of telling that it's not a viable. Well, it's the terms escaping me, but it's just common practice instead of, you know, actually observing what you're supposed to do.

I think just to that point earlier on the e-bikes and the way they're being used more and more in our towns, especially with the big hills, is not just considering the speed, but the size. So going back to that point of maybe having a class one sort of separate thing on section versus Lansdale. So you don't have issues with people with the size. giant like six feet feels like at least a wagon at the front expected to be in sort of a two or three foot strip of the road with people biking like in a large group speeding. You know, they're very different uses and I think should be sort of considered differently.

Yeah, I'm hearing a through line of sort of preparing for the bike future a little bit. And that has to do with how we're planning bikeways and speeds and all that. And so I think in this 10 year span of this plan, we're probably going to see a huge evolution of e-biking. And so whatever we can do to prepare ourselves through this plan, I think would be intelligent.

Yeah, I would agree with that. They're not going away and law enforcement is not going to be able to fix it all.

Okay, we're coming to the end here. It's been a really good discussion. Any final comments on the plan? Maybe, Bryn, we could just review the what's next one more time. Your mic.

I'm going to incorporate this feedback into a public review draft that by the end of next week, I will distribute and publish online. And then I'm going to put together a pretty simple survey just asking for the public to kind of give their comments on, um, the goals, um, and the projects associated with them, um, and other comments they have on the public review draft. Um, and then I will go come to the September 21st BPAC meeting, um, with some survey data. So that'll just be, you know, probably about two to three weeks of survey data. Um, And, um, we'll use that to assess, um, as like kind of another tool, you know, it's not a statistically significant survey. It's just another kind of engagement tool, um, to help you guys kind of make sure that the public review draft is reflective of what the community wants. And then from there, the goal is to go to October, I think seven it's early October, um, for the town council meeting.

I would definitely recommend that you include and ask that the town council continue the bike and pedestrian master plan implementation committee or whatever. We did that with the general plan. We weren't that successful, so I wish you more success.

I think in addition to making that direct ask in the proposal that goes to the town council, having one or two of the trial things, like if it's a speed aprons in one spot or at one day, we're just going to show what a bump out would look like in this intersection or for a weekend, having one or two of those suggestions that can fit in just ongoing budget that the town has to that maybe it would consider spending. in May when you're getting to the end of the fiscal year and says, oh, we still have a couple of thousand dollars open for this, having something that we can suggest as a very low cost and low commitment option for them to approve in advance.

Yeah, on that point, the 2016 plan it suggested ongoing BPAC, um, for continuity. Um, but I don't know, I don't think it actually happened for some reason. I must not have had enough, enough teeth. I think the resolution that formed this, this BPAC, uh, a year ago specifically said that it would disband as soon as we published the plan and they adopted it. Um, and so that is the, it's, it, codified that we're going to go away if we don't have the council change their mind. So I think we need to consider how to bring that to the fore if we all agree it's a good idea. So I don't know the process to do that. Should we engage as a group with the town?

It doesn't need to be the same people. It could be a new group And it would just be a recommendation that a new group be created to help ensure the monitoring of implementation. And it could be all of you or a subset of you or some of you and some other people. I don't know.

Yeah, I guess what I was just thinking about is not necessarily staying myself, although I'm having a good time, or anybody else, but just the procedural. What's the proper procedure to actually put this back on the council's radar before we disband?

I just had Bryn bring up this slide because, I mean, it's intended that we integrate kind of the BPAC alignment review kind of as part of the plan.

With the maintenance goal?

Yeah. Yeah. So it will be in the plan. So it's just a matter of following up after the plan's adopted to say, hey, we adopted this plan. It calls for a BPAC to be continued or reestablished. And so then just bring that forward. But ultimately, it's the town council decision. So we can just present our best case.

Yeah, I just I was thinking maybe just to be more proactive about it. Then just kind of.

So just think it's contacting a council member because you can let them know now that you're interested in that and put it kind of on their plate to address.

Has any thought been given to establishing BPAC as a standing committee, like climate action, open space, given that we've talked about the importance of overseeing the implementation of the plan?

I think that's exactly what we're discussing right now.

Yeah, it's up to town council to do that. They would have to make it a permanent committee. Some things to consider are... You might want to have an idea of how many times a year you want to meet. Probably the fewer, the more receptive council will be to it, just in terms of staff time. Let's see, what else?

Yeah, and then the public works bandwidth. I know that San Anselmo, so they have a steps, lanes, and trails thing also. They're pretty active in it, and they meet quarterly. They have a standing BPAC committee that handles... kind of as their own little subcommittee that steps lanes and trails, I think, whatever it's called. It's great. But they do it quarterly. They have active engagement for public works. They have a very productive meeting, and I think less is more in that regard. It's just a matter of having that cadence and presence and being able to keep things moving forward. They're really reviewing some substantial projects, and it's pretty cool to see the engagement from their public works guy.

Yeah, I asked Kristen to come to the September 21st meeting. She's our public works director, Kristen Arnold, so she'll be there. And I have been talking to her about our PTAP, which is our pavement plan. And she just sent me this document that ranks the condition and like kind of scores the street scheduled for pavement management. Um, so I think it'll, it'll be a great opportunity to kind of talk about what like alignment, what in a meeting could look like in the future too, of like going through the streets and looking at the projects of our public, our draft public, um, sorry, a public review draft and just kind of like, yeah, I think it would be a good example. And I talked to Kristen today and I think she's very in support of, um, having the BPAC continue because she would love to have that kind of like community engagement and assistance for these kind of projects. So I think you'll have her support at the meeting.

So just a specific implementation drafting, you just have, I would suggest having a paragraph in the final plan that says that we also recommend the town council adopt a resolution forming this. If there's a biannual oversight sort of implementation alignment review and you have a quarterly meeting, so you stack it so that you meet In the gap halfway through to decide what you're hoping to see for the alignment review in the by each of those with Kristen at the next meeting to what what she thinks is the best and most productive, like, amount of meetings to have. Yeah. So so just. Be clear, you have something in the plan that says we suggest you adopt the resolution for making this formal and then you. We just include an exhibit. Here's the resolution you could pass tonight also just so that it doesn't get lost. And we're asking about this eight months later.

Yeah, I'll make a note to draft a resolution.

Yeah, I was going to say I was going to say exactly what you just said, pretty much just to make it because we have it. We have it implied in the current plan, at least in the goals. Currently, I haven't seen it. And, uh, formally in informally or implied in the draft plan, but to just make it explicit that the, you know, it would require a resolution to do so. And by adopting this, they would, you know, basically it'd be updating that. Imagine, you know, just to have it be more binding.

All right. I want to thank everybody for this fruitful discussion. We really appreciate all the feedback from everybody. It's going to make the plan better for the town. And with that, I guess, hand it back to finish the meeting.

Yeah, I'll ask somebody to move to adjourn. But first, before I do, I just want to adjourn or have our adjournment be in memory of our chairwoman's late husband, John Sargent, who passed away recently, as well as our prior general plan consultant, Larry Kennings, who was very instrumental in helping us put the general plan together and continue to help us in the general plan implementation committee. So I want to also acknowledge his passing recently. Do we have a motion to adjourn the Planning Commission meeting?

Motion to adjourn.

Second. Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. No opposed.

Second it. All in favor? All right. This meeting of the BPAC is adjourned.

Thank you.