Active Transportation Committee - Regular Meeting

Alright. We'll go ahead and call this meeting to order. This is the 04/15/2026 meeting of the City of Fullerton Active Transportation Committee. Jessica, may we please have a roll call?

Chair Tapadio?

Here.

Vice chair Norby?

Here.

Committee member Morales?

Present.

Committee member Walters, not present. Committee member Chase, not present. Thank you.

Thank you. And now we'll move on to public comments. Do we have any public comments in chambers? I don't see any. Do we have any public comments in Zoom?

We do have one public comment. Give me one moment.

Sure. Thank you.

The Zoom caller, you're online. Please unmute. Michael, you're online. Please unmute.

That better?

Oh, there we go.

Oh, that's perfect. Thank you, Michael.

I'm sorry. I didn't realize I was muted. Let's see. Is my camera on? Can you see me in the, you know, thing or not?

No, Michael. We can only hear you.

Okay. I don't know whether I have my camera on or off. I'm interested in finding out how we can get better signage on our streets. I ride on the on the roads on a road bike going over Bassenshire and State College. It can get pretty terrifying.

We don't have any signage on that. I know we are strapped for money as a city. Is it possible that we can get some outside support? In other words, private donations to offset the color of the cost of painting the striping on the roadways. I rode down in Newport Beach today.

The signage down there is incredible. I know that some of these cities have more funds to work with than we do, but I'd like to find a way to make our roads a lot safer. We have we have bike lanes all over the place, but when it gets to a real crunch, the the bike lane disappears, and there's no signage. When you go on up Brea Boulevard, you get to Bass And Sherry, and there's a shared lane on the other side, but there's just a sign off in the corner that motors can't see. So when I start off from that signal and I merge into the traffic, I've got motors that are having a problem because they don't know why I'm there.

And so my question is, how do we get more of the signage done in a more rapid way with perhaps some outside help for funding.

Thank you, Michael. Do you have any other questions or any more comments?

Let's just start with that.

Well, this is just a public comment. They can't answer right now, but we did take notations, on your concerns.

Are you interested in outside support for the committee? In other words, you have five committee people. Do you have any subcommittees working? Are you interested in such a thing?

Generally, we are not supposed to provide significant information in response to public comments. But I think what you're asking might be out of the scope of this committee, unfortunately, but I I I get the spirit of what you're asking, and I appreciate your comment.

He's he's gone. He left.

You know, there was individual, Nelsa Gundo, that put up a stop sign, though, outside his house. He was arrested because it was unauthorized. So he got a little ahead of himself, but I'm sure the city would be happy to beat anybody halfway.

Thank you very much. Do we have any other comments in Zoom?

No. We do not.

Okay. And I don't see any remaining comments in chambers. So I'll close public comments, and we'll move on to our regular business. Our first item is the Cal State Fullerton Bridge Project, and I believe we have a presentation from, Cal State Fullerton representatives. Is that correct?

So I'll introduce Please. We're gonna have Katie Hickey from TY Lynch. She's the lead bridge bridge engineer, and she's also the project manager for the Cal State Fullerton Bridge project. And I just wanna reemphasize this is a Cal State Fullerton project. This is not a city project. And I will get the presentation on right now.

Alright. Good evening. Thank you for having me. As Michael said, my name is Katie Hickey. I'm a project manager and a bridge engineer with TU Island International.

So the Titan Gateway pedestrian bridge, is something that the university has been looking forward to building for many years now. You know, they've studied this several times over the years, and the intent is to protect protect pedestrians mainly, you know, including university students, faculty, and staff, and reduce accidents at this very busy intersection of Nutwood Boulevard and Commonwealth Avenue on the South side of campus. They are also hoping that this will mitigate some neighborhood concerns and improve traffic flow in this area while reducing campus vehicle trips and encouraging walking. College Park is the building on the South Side of Nutwood, which the university is in the process of purchasing. That's where the university president sits.

They have classes there as well as other, campus offices. And the vast majority of employees and students that need to go back and forth to that building right now cross Netwood at grade at Commonwealth. And there have been several, vehicle pedestrian accidents in this area. There's also a bus that drops off just south on Commonwealth that a lot of students use for commuting, it seems, based on the ped studies that were done. And then this intersection also connects students and faculty from Hope International to the amenities at Cal State Fullerton, like the dining halls and restaurants, Starbucks, etcetera.

So we're looking at an overview of the south area of campus. The building that you see at the bottom is the College Park. I believe that's 10 story. Again, offices as well as classes there. A very large parking lot, and there's a lot of street parking south of campus here that students use to avoid paying the fees on campus as well.

The intersection that you see on the left between Hope University and College Park is where we are placing the pedestrian bridge. We will be on the east side of that intersection. Yep. This is just the overall area map, but it will be on the East crosswalk of Netwood And Commonwealth. No.

I'm not aware of a pedestrian bridge that was there, Michael.

Respond to the bridge. So the previous bra bridge was further west. It connected with Hope International University where it is now. It was there in the sixties, and it was removed because it was I was told it was removed in the I believe it's either I think early two thousands from what we were able to find, and it was removed because it was difficult for a lot of people to be able to access it, whereas this one's going to be more accessible. And and also the bridge that was there is actually at Commonwealth And Brookhurst today. So that bridge was moved where the where the church is.

Is the bridge here at the eastern end of the intersection that does not currently have a crosswalk? Is that what you're referring to?

No. So it'll be the East Side Crosswalk. It'll be

Oh, it not

It'll be right there.

That one in Commonwealth?

Mhmm. At that one in Commonwealth.

There is currently a crosswalk. Mhmm. Uh-huh. Okay. Thank you. Yep.

So it's it's South Of Commonwealth on Brookhurst. That's where it is now.

Welcome. So where we're at in the project, the project is currently out to bid. The university uploaded their second addendum yesterday, and bids are due in two weeks, I believe. They just extended the due date based on some comments from bidders. They are hoping to have construction started by this summer, so the contract will be awarded within the next month.

There will be all the preconstruction meetings and final utility relocation plans getting approved in May to June. And like I said, construction starting in 2026. We are anticipating anywhere between thirteen and eighteen months of construction. So this will be open either 2027 or 2028 depending on fabrication of the truss most likely.

Mhmm.

Early the goal is to have it opened in December 2027. If that doesn't happen, the plan is spring quarter, it would re it would open.

Mhmm.

Mhmm. Correct. So looking at overall pedestrian circulation for the proposed bridge, again, the the goal is to really connect the South Side Of Commonwealth with the main campus on the North. And we have several entrances to this bridge structure. So starting on the North side, there's both the ADA ramp, which winds its way up to the bridge span as well as a staircase up one of the ramps, to allow quicker access, for those who are able.

On the South Side, there are many entrances to this system, and this is connecting directly into what is currently kind of a plaza level in front of the College Park Building. So you can enter the building from the intersection corner at Dot Number 3. You can also enter the bridge via staircase at Number 4, more, you know, closer to that we've been calling it the bean, the center of the ramp. You can enter through the parking lot on the north hand side at 5. That is a ramp that goes up.

There's also another smaller staircase at Point Number 6, which takes you up at onto the plaza level as well. There is both a stair entrance and a ramp entrance from Commonwealth as well, which will take you up to the plaza level and then onto the bridge.

Attention. It looks like a skate skate park. Are there features that are designed to discourage that? Or is

Unfortunately, discouraging skateboarding also impedes, ADA, compliance for the ramp. So there will be signage. It is only 10 feet wide, so narrower, pedestrian structures do tend to limit skateboarders.

And it's open twenty four seven. There's no automatic closing. Yeah.

Correct. There's no intent to close this, at night, but it is wide enough for the university golf carts to get onto should they need to. But the intent is that, you know, there should be enough pedestrians on the bridge to discourage the state borders.

Slides address this. But, is there is there going to be signage on this spot on the sign?

There there will be signage throughout the, you know, the standard university signage. You know? No skateboarding here. You know?

No. I'm talking about Mhmm. Cal State, go titans. It's just some kind of identification sign because it's an opportunity for the university to identify itself. Oftentimes, bridges like this have signs like the the one we have that says welcome to Fullerton, which is a railroad bridge. Is is there is that part of it or it that could be

The university is looking for separate funding to add signage potentially from private donors who would also, you know, get some naming rights.

The digital signs. Yeah. People pay a lot for for those. Maybe that's something that

Correct. The university is investigating other avenues. Their their funding for this project was limited, so they did not include the signage as a part of it.

I see. Alright.

And as well, you know, like, the benches, the tables, they're they're working on funding for that through separate means than the federal funding they received for the main construction.

Fullerton College has a similar bridge over Chapman.

Mhmm.

Because at least it's there's an identification sign there saying Fullerton College.

Yeah. So here on the renderings that we provided to the university, you know, we provided some options. You know, they could attach signs to the truss. We would we had recommended them attaching it to the retaining wall here, which is a nice, you know, again, that bean area where they can have seating for folks that just want a break or some sunshine. You know? We had told them, you know, they are they have the, the titans, the elephant. I don't know its name, actually.

Tuffy.

Tuffy. Okay. We we were like, you could put a statue of Tuffy in the bean. You know? Wouldn't that look nice? Any alumni that wanna, you know, sponsor a signer, an elephant for Tuffy, I see at least one CSU Fullerton hat up there. But yeah. So this is the the vision for for the plaza area in front of College Park. You know, they do have the network cafe on the 1st Floor, so it'd be nice if they can provide some additional seating and gathering space for students and faculty. I try to go outside when I get a chance to eat my lunch, so hopefully they do too.

May I ask you to go back one slide, Thank you. Would would you go forward again, please? Mhmm. This sort of blacktop area at the bottom of the image Mhmm. Where would that be in the previous image?

So that is that cul de sac that you see for the parking lot.

Oh, I see. Okay. Thank you very much. Mhmm. Thank you.

Any other questions on the the south approach at College Park? Alright. Here are some other views of the renderings. Know, again, we're we're sticking with clean concrete and some black railings. Nice and simple and hopefully not creating a heat island here. The landscaping has changed a bit since we did these renderings a year and a half ago, but there will be plenty of landscaping in this area as well.

Yes?

I was just wondering in, like, the ADA perspective, have is there a possibility to you know, like, time, like, what it would like, the strength and energy would take for for for somebody to go fully across just to make sure that, like, those individuals aren't, like, tired after or, like, just something like that?

Sure. That wasn't a part of the ADA compliance, study that we went through. We've provided landings as required and the slopes as required by ADA. I'll say this. I wouldn't personally ride my bike up this. I would probably, walk it, but, you know, it is compliant with the ADA code.

Just, like, for a little bit more clarification, like, maybe somebody on, like, a manual wheelchair just like I just wanted to take in, like, their perspective as well. Like, if they had no assistance or if it was a motored wheelchair. I feel like that would be a little bit better, but just making sure that, everyone's seen in that perspective.

Sure. So moving on to the north side of the bridge on the main campus side, you know, again, to get from, you know, 19 or so feet above grade down, we took a a bit of a serpentine path on this side. We were trying to avoid the small orange grove that is in this area, but also touched down, you know, well ahead of there are the university presidents' memorials, the university flags are are just outside of the screen here on the bottom. So we've provided the staircase down and then, you know, as shallow of a ramp as we can to get down to grade, within ADA compliance. Just an isometric view of the overall bridge site and area here, looking west.

And again, another perspective of the bridge looking towards College Park from main campus, so looking south from the north. Architects really love, the rendering. So, this is looking up the ramp on the main campus side, I believe. So we did think about sustainability as going about the design of this project as well. So all of the lighting will be LED lighting, so does low energy, low cost.

We're using pervious concrete paving, so more of the stormwater runoff can end up getting treated and back into our groundwater. The planting palette is native and drought tolerant. The university actually had us change our initial plant palette based on some issues they've had with planting on campus in the past, and we've put in very efficient irrigation systems to support those plants. And I believe my next slide nope. So fire access, as a part of this project, we are modifying the parking lot at College Park to provide a legal fire lane, for the city of Fullerton fire department.

What is out there currently is not a legal fire lane, which was discovered, as a part of this project. So we worked with, the fire department as well as the city engineer to put together a plan for this parking lot to provide fire access, to the building. The current Fire Lane actually goes through the corner of the building and around, and we are cutting that off with the bridge systems. We're providing them a new exit as well onto Nutwood here, through what is currently the president's parking spot. So I apologize to them for removing that.

Looking at the existing site, on the left hand side, this is, from this is looking at main the main campus side. You can see the edges of the orange grove on the right hand side of that photo, as well as Hope University on the far side of Netwood Avenue. On the right hand side, we are looking towards campus, main campus, from the corner of Netwood and Commonwealth. On the left hand side again, this is the fountain that will be towards the end of the ramp on the north side, and we are, you know, avoiding these beautiful palm trees and the colonnade here. And on the right hand side, this is the cul de sac, the turnaround at the parking lot on the College Park side on the south side.

So, again, the existing fire lane goes through that plaza level through the palm trees. And because we're cutting that off, we're giving a new driveway for fire access onto, Netwood. So overall project limits, we are reconfiguring that parking lot at College Park so that include that will actually be closed for a period of time both for staging area for the contractor as well as to slurry seal and restripe. We cross, you know, just to the right of that crosswalk that you see on the east side of the intersection, and we touch down, and our ramp takes takes out essentially that triangular shaped landscaping on the North Side. I would like to note that you can see on the north Side, there's that red paving.

That is a county bike lane, which will be extended. So our project is taking that into account, and all of our infrastructure will be behind the current and proposed bike lane on the North Side Of Netwood here. I believe that project is in design. So we've coordinated with the city and with we've provided our drawings to the consultant for that so that they can incorporate you know, ensure that there's no conflict with our design either. So looking a little bit at the planting inspiration, you know, some of these are photos from campus.

Some of the these are photos from around Orange County. But we are using, you know, drought tolerant, native species, no date palms because no one likes cleaning up after them, but some other palm trees, which do not drop fruit. Again, lighting will all be LED. We are providing them with color changing lighting on the bridge truss itself. We have specified, that they cannot use traffic signal lights, that the colors cannot change quickly to ensure motor safety.

We are providing white LED lighting throughout the ramp systems, and the campus, I believe, will also be installing additional safety lighting throughout the plaza areas. And just another view of the lighting here and lighting going up and down the stairs. I will note that we have moved the lighting into the railing from these puck lights at the base level. That was a comment from someone on campus for safety. So the lighting will be coming through the rails and shining down.

Yeah. It's very nice to have this rather than overhead floodlights.

Yeah. Those are just a little bit harsh. Mhmm. So it's it's better to come from a lower level. So it'll be about hip height at the railing.

That's the end of my slides. I will say that there will be two new traffic signals at this intersection as a part of the project as well, which Michael has been very involved in the design of. Those are not shown in these renderings, which were done around our, you know, 15 to 30% design. And the traffic signals did, evolve a bit from then. But we are following all standard MUTCD, signage. All of the stopping distances and and visual distances to the the new traffic signals have been checked, and this should be safe both for for motorists in the area as well as for the pedestrians.

New, you mean additional

So there's a

existing sites that'll be upgraded? Because right now, there's one at Titan Way, and there's one at Commonwealth.

So there is let's go back.

There are quite a few signals there already.

Mhmm.

So right now, the signals, on both the north and south side of Netwood on that east side will be replaced. So the signal for Commonwealth

Will be replaced.

Will be replaced. Additional was. The existing one will be removed, and a brand new one, will be provided.

We're upgrading the existing. Upgrading existing as opposed to adding signal.

And they'll have a new video detection system that can detect bikes and everything else.

Yep. So the signal will be, reprogrammed as well.

Well, thank you very much. That was very informative. Welcome. Are there any more components to the presentation?

Nope. That was all I had for you today. Happy to answer any, answer any other questions.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Appreciate it. Before we go on to our committee comments and questions, may I please ask if there are any public comments on this topic? I don't see any in chambers.

We don't have any on Zoom.

None on Zoom either? Okay. I'll go ahead and close public comments on this, and we'll bring it back to our committee. Do any of my fellow committee members have questions or comments about this project? Please.

Kind of back to, like, my first comment, or I would say, in in addition, just, like, to make sure, like, those who are have manual wheelchairs, like, just to, if possible, like, you know, if we can to try it out just to see, like, you know and also, like, unfortunately, sometimes when I walk too fast or something, my leg hurts and then, like, I start cramping. So, like, just thinking about, like, in that perspective, if somebody has, like, you know, that same pain or whatever, like, would they be able to make it all the way across? How long it would take them? And just, like, measures like that, making sure that, like, we take those perspectives into account, but that's pretty much it.

Thank you. Thank you. Any other comments or questions?

I'll move we receive and file. I think that's all we can do. I But thank you.

I have questions before we do that. Sure. May I ask how much does this project cost in total?

So the construction budget for this is just under $11,000,000.

What about planning?

Planning and design was around 1,300,000.

So the total cost is about 12.3? Correct. And I just wanna get it so one of the important aspects you brought up was making sure that we maintain convenience, safety, and access for active transportation users. I know you mentioned this earlier. I just wanna get it on the record. This is not going to conflict with the existing Nutwood plan that the bike route plan that the city has going to improve bike and ped safety through the Nutwood corridor. Is that correct? Thank you. And this is also not going to impede access to the existing crosswalk in any way, and it's not going to replace the existing crosswalk? Correct.

Okay. Thank you. One of my comments or one of my questions was, will the area underneath the bridge be lit? Because I noticed that it overlaps with the crosswalk. So as someone is crossing that crosswalk at nighttime, the bridge shadows might make them feel less visible. And I wanted to ensure that there would be lighting under the crosswalk to make sure that the pedestrians are visible because that's a very important, consideration at crosswalks.

Yes. Our specifications show that there needs to be soffit lighting under the bridge. So the the truss itself is not designed. That's what we call designated design. So the contractor will need to bring in a truss manufacturer to design and provide plans for the truss, and our specifications for that, require that they provide under lighting, underneath the truss.

Perfect. Thank you. I also noticed the the sort of access point comes right up against the sidewalk. And at this committee, I wanna say maybe a year and a half ago or so, we gave our recommendations that for city infrastructure and city projects, we would make a preference for perpendicular curb cuts instead of our existing diagonal, which are less safe and less convenient for pedestrians. However, that does require a broader right of way.

So if that were to become a feasibility, I wanted to ask if there would be any possibility of perhaps moving some of that back simply to accommodate the increased real estate necessary to create perpendicular curb cuts at this intersection at that at that Southwest corner there?

I do believe that our staircase there comes up to the right of way. We are actually removing a city tree on that corner, and the university has agreed to replant a tree for the city at their, leisure. Mhmm. But since this project is already out to bid, I don't believe that we could shift the because we would need to shift the entire bridge in order to move that staircase further from the edge of Current City right away. Mhmm. I'm not sure off the top of my head what the sidewalk width is there, but I believe it is wider than the the minimum required five feet.

Okay. Michael, is there any comment that you could give on that from the city's perspective regarding the feasibility of perpendicular curb ramps with the concurrent configuration?

This is a Cal State Fullerton project. This is not a city project. So

Right.

We're not designing the bridge.

But we have we we own the the the sidewalks and the curb cuts.

So Any changes on Nutwood will be addressed with our bike project.

Right. The way it is now, does the real estate afforded to the sidewalk currently give enough right of way for perpendicular curb cuts? Does it give us enough allowance for that? Like, if, like, if you were to say if the city were to say, today, let's make sure that we put in perpendicular curb curb cuts, would that be compatible with the project design?

The bridge should not be conflicting if we're making changes to to do curb cuts.

Okay. Like, perpendicular curb cuts specifically because they require more space.

I don't know if we're doing curb cuts at that corner, but we're still going through the design right now.

Mhmm.

The bridge should not be affecting anything.

We would have to have curb ramps there because we have crosswalks.

Right.

Yes. But I don't know if we're upgrading that corner

Right.

Part of the Nutwood project. But we would look at it through that. We're not looking out through this, but the bridge should not be in the way if we wanted to do that.

What I'm saying is I'm looking at, like, future proofing the project so that one day if we do decide to do diagonal curb cut or pardon me. Excuse me. Perpendicular curb cuts, would this allow for it? I'm sort of thinking toward the future.

The bridge should not be in the way if we're going to do that in the future.

Okay.

It should still give us room to do that.

Okay. That's my question.

Thank you. Yeah. So this rendering might show it. But you can see that the vertical support for the bridge here is pretty far back from, the crosswalks. So I'm not very familiar with curb ramps. You know, again, I'm a I'm a bridge engineer by by my normal trade, but, I would imagine that you would have enough space here.

Okay. Thank you. Let's see. Okay. You already answered my question there. Oh, shade trees. Jennifer brought up a really excellent point about the potential need for pedestrians to stop. I can imagine certain individuals have a higher need to stop or maybe they can't make it all the way across this, especially given the increased length of travel. Is there any accommodation for shade trees or plans for shade trees in the context of the landscaping that's currently planned for?

I don't think the trees are providing a lot of shade to the ramp system or the bridge itself, quite frankly. The city does use some of those fabric sales on the north side of campus. Mhmm. And we recommended that they investigate finding funding to add some of those, especially to this, you know, the bean area when they have additional funds for that. I would say if the length of the bridge and the height of the bridge is a concern to a user, the the at grade crosswalks will remain.

They'll have to wait for a light, but that that will remain as an alternative to those who who don't, want to to climb this ramp.

Mhmm. Yeah. Okay. So no shade. And I guess that that's all of my questions as long as it doesn't interfere with the existing because I I just wanna clarify and sort of also include in my comments pedestrian bridges, when they go from ground level to ground level as opposed to maybe, you know, from a building to a building, they don't tend to increase pedestrian safety per se.

Logically, you would imagine because you're getting pedestrians up off the ground, but you're increasing pedestrian inconvenience because you're increasing their, travel length. So as of right now, there's seven U turns in total that I counted that a pedestrian will have to make crossing this, plus, you know, having to go up, which increases exertion as opposed to just, like, having an accurate crosswalk where you just go through the crosswalk. So I don't see this increasing convenience for pedestrians or safety. I feel like we could just improve the crosswalk, and that that that would that would be sufficient for that that specific purpose. It certainly would be a lot cheaper.

And, you know, in a busy corridor like this where there's two universities and lots of students walking and more anticipated as Cal State Fullerton moves to a residential model. Pedestrian safety and convenience, I think, matters more than motorist convenience. And that's that's about all. I just wanted to put that on the record. So as it stands right now, obviously, I'm not I'm not here to oppose the bridge.

As long as it's compatible with the existing rights of way and the existing active transportation in infrastructure and it's not going to reduce, accessibility for those road users, then, I think this is as good of a design as we could possibly ask for in that regard. Yeah. Thank you. Do you have any other question?

Well, it is a curious question looking at this slide here. It shows all these people crossing the bridge. It doesn't show anybody crossing the existing at grade crossing, which presumably a lot of people would do rather than rather than cross the bridge. Bridges like this usually occur where there are no at grade crossing. Las Vegas has a lot of them.

We have one on Lemon Street that connects that neighborhood with Lemon Park, and I there used to be a fence there that prevented people from from crossing the street. Here, there's a sidewalk. Here, there's an actual crossing. So if the university thinks this is needed and goes ahead with it, I won't oppose it, but it it it does seem a little redundant. Because if I was a pedestrian and I wanted to go from point a to point b, I probably would just use that crosswalk rather than this whole circuitous route that this bridge entails.

But presumably, the university bore that in mind, and if it is something they think they need and want, then I I'm not gonna stand in the way of it. But as a bridge engineer, do you have any comment on that? Because oftentimes, these bridges are built where there is not any ad grade access here that seems like they're competing with each other?

Sure. So I would say that, as long as you're able to use stairs, the the route across this bridge is much simpler than, you know, seven to nine u turns. You know, there's stair access from both sides that makes that quite a bit shorter. And as an impatient person, I might run up some stairs and across rather than waiting for a light here. I've been on the site several times, and the wait to get a light to cross Netwood can be quite time consuming. And I saw many people jaywalking in this area on the various site visits I did because they didn't want to wait for a light. So I think the goal is really to reduce reduce those. Those who

which is now legal.

Yeah. Those who would run across the intersection can now just run up the stairs. You know, I would say that t y Lynn, was hired to, design a pedestrian bridge for the university here. And That's

their choice. Now you said you're you work with Two Island?

T y Lin Internationals.

T how do you spell it?

The letter's t y l I

n. Okay. Thailand. Now to to address commissioner Morales' point, if I were in a self propelled wheelchair, I probably would take my chance with that at grade crossing, that crosswalk rather than try to make it make it up this because seemingly that would be a lot easier. But, like you say, you are charged with designing a bridge, and this is what you've done, and we do appreciate you coming forward with that.

It it does give a lot of options. If I was out for an evening stroll, especially with somebody I cared about, I mean, this is it looks very romantic and very pleasing, you know, walking up this with a with a soft light. Mhmm. And there might be a view at the top. I like the design of the bridge. It's kind of a far railroad truss bridge like you used to see Mhmm. Across rivers and things. So, anyway, that those are my comments, madam chair.

Please.

I did appreciate on one of the rendering videos or pictures, my my apologies, that there was, like, one, like, side of the bridge, but also, like, not netting, but, like, fencing to potentially stop somebody from, like, you know, going past that. So I do appreciate that, and I hope to see that in, like, as well in the future or potentially, I just like how it's highlighted.

Mhmm. Yeah. We actually kept a a taller fence coming off the bridge, for about 15 feet as well to to let the grade come down a little bit before we went to a more standard 42 inch fence. So it's a non climbable fence. You can't get up on the truss. And, yeah, the university is really looking forward to this. They're hoping it becomes a bit of a destination on campus, you know, for folks to come take their graduation photos, you know, etcetera. And we look forward to supporting the university through construction in the next few years.

Thank you so much. Are there any other questions or comments from the committee? Wonderful. Thank you so much for for coming and speaking with us and sharing this with us. Appreciate it.

More than happy to.

Thank you very much. Very good. Thank you again. So we'll go ahead and move on to our next agenda item, which is the safe streets and roads for all project. Do we have a presentation on this?

Yes. And for this one, we will have Carlos Velasquez, who is a principal engineer with, Lochner. They were KOA formerly, and he is a project manager for this project. Also, I wanna say that we're bringing it to you. We're presenting it to you to get your feedback because we're going to be taking everything to counsel.

This is essentially a work in progress. This is not finalized. We're trying to get the action plan established so that once we have that, we can go after additional funding to do implementation. So it's still gonna be a plan that we're working on. So we're now bringing the overall and the plan to all the different committees to present and get feedback. We can also we'll send you the plans so that we can get your comments, and then we're gonna take everything to city council in May because we have to meet the deadlines or else we lose the funding. So now I'll turn everything over to Carlos.

Great. Thank you, Michael. Hi. Good evening, members of the active transportation committee. My name is Carlos Velasquez. I'm a principal and project manager at Lochner, formerly KOA, and we are the consultant, firm that's leading these efforts. So, this evening, I will present on several aspects on this project. Here's a brief agenda. I'll go, briefly through the project overview and what the project is intended on doing, followed by, summarizing some of our community engagement activities. Then I'll get more into really the meat of this project, which is the proposed recommendations, and I'll go over a little bit on the methodology that went into into developing those, those treatments.

Then we'll get into the proposed treatments, and then I'll open it up for q and a. So, what is the safe streets and roads for all, program? This is a federal program that is, about, five years in, in length. It allocates over $5,000,000,000 of funding, that is provided to small jurisdictions, agencies, and local governments with the intent on improving overall roadway safety on on several streets. The funding applies to both the development of safety action plans, which then allows jurisdictions to be eligible for, pursuing infrastructure funding.

So the the overall program provides funding for action plan development and then for infrastructure, infrastructure, construction. The this project is purely on the action plan. So once we, we wrap up the action plan and it is adopted by council, the city of Fullerton can then be eligible for pursuing infrastructure funding as part of this program. So the action plan has several goals. First, it's aimed at, providing an overall comprehensive overview of what are the safety conditions in the city.

So instead of this being a very piecemeal process where you have a collision and then you address it and then you have a collision elsewhere and then you address it, this is intended on looking at the overall situation of collisions throughout the city, identifying patterns and where what's going on, and then identifying treatments that will address those conditions in a systematic manner. Sec, it's it's mainly focused on reducing traffic related deaths and serious injuries. So a lot of these these types of projects like safety action plans and vision zero plans, are not aimed at fully, addressing all collisions, but really, identifying those that are causing the highest level of injury or fatalities. Once you address those, typically, the instances of other collisions tend to also be addressed. So we want to focus on locations where we're having higher fatalities and higher instances of serious injury.

The overall goal again is to benefit all roadway users. So this this is focused on improving overall safety, but ultimately, all roadway users would be would be benefiting as part of this process. The big disclaimer is this is not an active transportation plan. So, although some of the treatments that I'll be presenting on later do overlap, and have a lot of, there's a lot of, they're they they have common aspects to active transportation treatments. This is not an active transportation plan.

So the intent of this product is not to expand the bikeway network or expand the pedestrian network. It's intended to address, where you have the highest concentration of collisions and where you have the highest need. And some of those treatments might also benefit, active transportation roadway users. So I do want to make that disclaimer. Here's a project timeline.

We started this project almost a couple of years ago at this point. Our intent is to wrap up this, project by, by this spring. So we are currently, draft we have an internal draft of the actual plan document, which my intent is to provide over to, public works for their review. And, ultimately, this plan would be adopted sometime later this, later in in in May. So now I'll be going over, our community engagement activities and what we've been, up to, with the public.

So, as part of this project, we had six main, activities that we did with the community. We attended three, events that were that were already ongoing events. And so we attended those. We attended two farmers markets, as you can see there. And then we also attended in October 2024, the, the trunk or treat event that took place.

So we attended two farmers markets and the trunk or treat event. Additionally, we also held three community engagement meetings, two of which were in person, one at Orangethorpe Elementary, one at Commonwealth Elementary, and then we also had a Zoom meeting in December. Here are some images of of the community engagement activities. You'll see, kind of in u shape from left, bottom, and right, us at the farmers markets and the trunk or treat event. And then in the top middle image, that's at one of our community, community meetings at at at one of the schools.

Here are some of the the input board. So at each of these community meetings, we printed out large boards of of the city. We we also, asked, participants and residents where are some of the biggest issues that you see, in terms of roadway safety in the city, and what are some of the areas that we should prioritize based on their anecdotal experience. Based on what we heard from the community, we were able to identify some of the more frequently mentioned locations as well as comments. So Orangethorpe, Commonwealth, Bastion Cherry, Harbor State College, and Lemon were frequently mentioned as being of highest concern in terms of roadway safety and and just general vehicular behaviors that that impact safety.

Some of the more frequently mentioned comments or issues that that that folks mentioned were speeding, constant running at red lights, dim street lights, unsafe facilities for people who are bicycling, jaywalking, sidewalk gaps, and street racing. So these were some of the more frequently mentioned comments that that we heard as part of our engagement activities. As

part of

this project, we also had a couple of surveys. So, the first survey was focused on asking what are some of the issues and what are some of the areas of concern that you have as part of as part of safety in in the city. We also had a second survey that focused, primarily on asking residents what are some of the treatments that that that they like and that they would like to see more of. And that that I'll save for the latter part of the presentation after after I go over some of the countermeasures that we're proposing as part of this project since it'll make a little bit more sense once you learn about some of the elements that we're proposing. So survey number one, overall, I think as shown on that, most residents felt that streets were somewhat unsafe and others felt that they were very unsafe.

So I'd say a little more than half of of your residents don't really feel safe on on on city roadways. Common safety concerns, speeding, poor roadway conditions, bicyclist safety seem to be the the highest the the most common instances of of why they don't feel streets are safe. Overall condition of roads and sidewalks in your in your neighborhood, about a quarter felt they were poor. A little over 30% felt they were fair. So, again, a little over half of respondents felt, roadway and sidewalk conditions were poor to fair.

So, not not ideal. People would like to see, better improved, roadway conditions as some of the treatments they'd like to see, as well as improved pedestrian crossings and more opportunities for that. We also ask them, how do you do you frequently use other modes of transportation like biking, walking, public transit? A quarter said they'd use it occasionally. Some did say that they use it several times a week, but the vast majority, just it was only occasionally or rarely.

And then, we asked them how effective do you think current treatments are, to protecting pedestrians and cyclists in your area. Quarter were neutral. Just under 30% felt they were very ineffective. 90% felt they were somewhat effective. So this gives gives you a little bit of an overview of of how people feel about current conditions and what they would like to see on city streets.

Before we get into the countermeasures, do well, I guess I'll save questions for the end. So now in the next several slides we'll get into what is it that we're proposing. And before getting into some of the treatments, I'd like to really go over the methodology that we used to identifying how we got to identifying those treatments. So instead of just going going on and and proposing specific treatments in all areas of the city, what we did is we wanted to take a a very very methodical approach in identifying where we should prioritize. And the reason we wanted to do that is because, ultimately, we want to position the city, for, to ease their implementation of these projects.

And so instead of them just getting a bunch of projects, we have over 380 that are proposed as part of this plan. We wanna be able to help them prioritize which areas should they go after funding first. And then after, they can go after subsequent areas based on priority. So instead of just having these 380 projects, then Michael has to figure out which ones to implement first. We would have done that work already for them as part of this plan, and and they have that road map to continue.

So to develop that prioritization, we identified four major categories here. One focused on network, another one on safety, another one on equity, and then, another one on support. Within those categories, we have several criteria. So for example, for network, we identified land uses, so number of attractors, key activity centers, destinations like schools, parks, and public facilities. In terms of safety, we looked at primarily collisions.

And then so where do you have the highest concentration of collisions? Where are those locations? Then for equity components, we looked at disadvantaged community, proximity, areas of vehicle access, housing burden, things like that, and then support, which was community feedback, meaning what we heard from the community. As you can see on the right, we went ahead and applied weights to each of these. And so through that we developed a formula, which a top score of 80.

We then, essentially applied all of these treatments. We put them on a map and we mapped them out, citywide. And then based on the concentration of where you had the highest scores, we were able to identify, as you can see here, where you have the highest concentration of where a lot of these these, criteria, where they score the highest when we combined

all of had a question.

Yes.

Previous slide. What is justice 40?

So justice 40 is a metric that is used by the federal by the federal government as part of this program that encompasses a lot of other, equity, equity components. So for example

have no idea what that means. Justice 40. Is this a whole study or is this

It's it's it includes

What is it?

It includes several, several metrics, that involve, like, income, poverty levels. And so they just label it as, like, justice 40. I don't know why they chosen the

the number four. Poverty level would seemingly be the same thing. Right? It's

Yes and no. Sometimes they use a metric like area median income. So, like, the the median income of a specific area and if you're below that, but then also if you're above or below the poverty line, that's also a different measure. So it's just different ways of looking at at that. The just

Housing burden. What what does that mean? Housing burden.

So housing burden would be where you have communities that might like, the the level of income versus the amount of housing that they're paying is a higher proportion of their income to to pay for their housing versus in other areas where, maybe the housing burning is less, meaning that the percentage of a person's income is not as high to pay for housing. So that's what that means.

Cardiovascular disease, presumably, would be related to the age. I mean, the older people are, the more cardiovascular disease they have. So but those areas also tend to be very affluent. I mean, I'm right across the street from Morningside and, you know, a lot of cardiovascular issues there because these people are in their eighties and nineties.

Yeah.

But they also are not necessarily poor. Right.

So that's what we wanna do.

I'm not sure what that what that means. Are you able to judge individuals that has how many heart problems they have, or is it a metric just based on age and weight?

So

And how how do they get down to that Yeah. Granular level?

So we got this data. This is from the census. And so we looked at census. We look yeah. We looked at at census blocks.

We also were able to pull this information from, statewide resources like CalEnviroScreen, which is able to map out where in the city you have the higher concentrations of cardiovascular disease. And so it it's actually quite substantial data that they get from the census, where they pinpoint which census blocks and census tracks within a specific, within a specific jurisdiction, you have higher concentrations of cardiovascular disease. So to your point, yes, it could be a function of age. I mean, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna say it's not. But it's it could also be a function of lifestyle.

And so you we we wanna be able to capture that. So for example, you might have a section of the city where because, streets are unsafe or there's a lack of park facilities or recreational facilities, people have to drive to get to everywhere they're going or there might not be as many options for healthy food or grocery stores. And so that could be a function, cardiovascular disease or higher instances of cardiovascular disease can be a function of lifestyle, land uses, and overall built environment patterns in addition to age.

And vehicle access, it seems to be saying that lack of vehicle access is a problem, or is that actually a good thing? Because, I mean, if people don't have vehicles and they're riding bikes and walking

Yeah.

Taking public transportation, that's what we want. Right? Or or is this considered a sign of poverty because they don't have cars and we want them to have more cars?

Yes and no. So, vehicle access and the lack of vehicle access specifically in in a place like Southern California is usually more of a function of of income and and means versus versus options. So most people, what we found is who who don't have a vehicle is because they can't afford one. And, yeah, you do have a set of people who would rather not have a car and wanna ride their bikes or take transit, but the vast majority who don't is because they can't afford it or they're not of age. And so we use that as a metric to account for, for for, income or other, socioeconomic indicators of that population.

Okay.

So, essentially, think of all the all these, criteria as ingredients in in a soup, in a cake, however you wanna I know it's dinner time, so we're probably all hungry. So think of it that way, but don't think of it too much because then your stomach will start growling. And so we went ahead and threw all these in in into this into our our GIS platform. And through these efforts, as you can see here, these areas rose to the top, meaning that these locations had higher concentrations of a lot of these specific criteria, and they score the highest based on on that. So, not surprisingly, areas of priority, were the neighborhoods, primarily South Of Of Commonwealth, and particularly in and around Ornestorpe.

So you have, yeah, those areas south of the city. You also have a higher concentration in in the area in and around Cal State Fullerton as well and and along along the 57 Freeway. So these areas rose to the top based on a combination of higher number of collisions, higher socioeconomic indicators, as well as higher, public health indicators as as as identified in the previous slide. We were able to also then, from this pinpoint, what are some of the higher corridors that ranked the highest. So as you can see here, specific segments of Commonwealth, Gilbert, Ornithorpe, Euclid, Harbor, Chapman, State College, and Yorba Linda ranked ranked the highest.

And these are primarily corridors that are within these high areas of priority. And then from that, we were also able to pinpoint some of the intersections that we we deemed as higher priority because they were within these specific areas. So all that is to tell us that we know where we want to focus our efforts on. And so what this map shows here is about three eighty proposed treatments that came out of this effort. And as you can see, a lot of the locations sort of mimic the higher concentrations or where you have the higher yeah, the higher concentrations of priority.

So a lot of the treatments are located in and around the southern part of the city. You have a lot of set a lot of improvements in and around Commonwealth as well along, Cal State Fullerton and some similar areas. But, again, we wanted to focus a lot of our efforts where you had the highest priority and the highest need.

A question on Smith. The stop sign and marking, are these suggested additional stop signs at intersections that don't exist or just better marking for existing stop signs?

It's both. So what you have a lot in in your residential neighborhoods in the southern part of the city where you have a strong grid is you have a lot of a lot of residential streets that are intersecting. And we found that, that those streets or or several of those intersections do not have stop signs.

Well, a lot yeah. A lot of them don't.

Yeah. And so we're The

challenge of adding them is is suddenly, you know, stop, stop, stop, start, stop, start, people who are used to

Yeah.

Driving through their neighborhoods without having to do that. I I each one of these will have to be approved by the council, right, and by the traffic commission.

Yeah. So

I think just a proliferation of stop signs. I used to see a lot of them here, and I don't know what street that is over here on the Southwest part of the city. Unless they're demonstrably dangerous streets, people have been living like this for sixty years Mhmm. And not every single intersection has to have a four way stop sign.

So

I'm looking at our traffic engineer over here.

Add to it. So we're not talking about a four way all all way stop. We're talking about assigning right of way. So it'll be a if it's a four leg, it'd be two of them. If it's a four all four, we would have to do a warrant study to

see if they qualify,

then take that to the traffic commission.

Right. I remember I was on the council years ago. We added all these stop signs on Las Palmas and on Hermosa. And none of them met warrants, but it was to prevent cross traffic from avoiding Imperial and cutting over to Brea. And, they're still there, and the residents, I think, generally ignore them and and others maybe roll through them. But if they're just an over proliferation of stop signs, they tend to have less credibility, and people who are used to not having them, I don't know. I I think it's it's something to consider, and each one of these has to be considered individually. Right?

Yeah. So what we did here is is we were judicious in where how we we place those potential stop signs. So although it it looks like it's a lot, what we did is we assigned them to the minor street. So as as you know, with each intersection or with the with each, when two streets meet, typically, there's a major and there's a minor. And in lot in a lot of these neighborhoods, we did is as as, as Michael mentioned, we assigned them to the minor Street.

So wherever you already have a natural stopping pattern that happens at these residential streets, we're just this is simply directing the city to add an actual stop sign and pavement markings that reflect that. And presumably, these stops are already happening, but the issue is that for someone who doesn't know the area or who's driving through there, they don't know if they need a stop or not or they don't know if the the car on the major street is gonna stop or not. And so we wanna reduce that level of of ambiguity, and we're proposing it at the minor streets, not necessarily at each intersection where where the major street at that crossing, is is also stopped.

And if if I could add to that, this is the safe streets for all project, not the car driver convenience and safety if it's convenient project. So I think that that is more in the spirit of what this project is about. Thanks.

So so based on that so again, based on this prioritization map and the higher concentrations of need, we we develop these three eighty improvements, and these are located throughout the city. Now earlier, I referenced that we don't wanna just give this map to the city and say, this is what you got. Figure it out. So based on that, we we went ahead and grouped the majority of those proposed improvements into 10 distinct projects. And the way we're we're developing this in the plan is, for example, you see number one, the Southwest area, and then you have, you have, number two, the Harbor West area, number three, the Euclid West area.

These were grouped based on not only proximity to each other, but also just generally what made sense in terms of, like, the natural divisions of neighborhoods. What we intend on doing with this is these are the 10 projects that'll group all of these improvements in that area. Then Michael's team can then go after funding and say, yeah, we have the Southwest Area neighborhood improvement project. This is the menu of 20 or so proposed treatments that are located here. You can then put a very strong grant application together because all of these projects are within the same neighborhood.

They all have a combined effect of improving the overall safety of that specific area, and that makes for a stronger grant application. So, and we numbered these based again on the area of priorities. So as you can see there, the Southwest area has the higher concentration of sort of red in terms of both safety and also need. And so that's why that area to the bottom left or the Southwest area ranked the highest as as sort of the number one project that the city can probably have the higher chances of getting funded sooner rather than other projects throughout the city. So again, that's how we were able to group these to again provide the city with a roadmap of pursuing funding and implementation.

The next several slides will get into more of the actual treatments and that's more, the next several slides will focus on a sampling. I'm not going to go ahead and cover all three eighty improvements as part of this meeting. Those will all be listed as part of the plan document. But for the purposes of giving you a little bit of a taste of what is being proposed, the next several slides will go through some of the projects and the improvement types that are being recommended as part of this plan. I will preface this discussion by saying that the proposed treatments were not only vetted with public works.

So these are treatments that the city has experience with implementing and is comfortable with implementing. And so our job is to be able to balance out being innovative in the treatments, but also being realistic in what the city, is is able to implement and what your your residents are also comfortable with. The other thing I want to say about the improvements is that these are are, very commonly, treatment or or commonly implemented treatments as part of these types of projects. So there's plenty of industry best practices that back up their effectiveness in addressing safety and improving overall road roadway comfort for all for all roadway users. So I just want to mention that we just didn't go ahead and say, yeah, let's do that there.

There was actual documentation that backs up why we did these types of improvements where we did them. So the first area I wanna touch on is the area in and around Bastionchuri and Brea. So as part of this this corridor here, we're we we've heard a lot that there's high instances of vehicle speeding. It's it's obviously in the northern part of the city, so it's used a little bit of a cut through. We know it's a very wide roadway.

So although we're not gonna propose any any rotary reconfigurations or road diets as part of this project here in this area. We are proposing mechanisms to identify, vehicle speeds and and ideally make make drivers slow down. So, a very simple improvement that we're recommending as part of this project is the speed feedback sign. So that's shown on the right, of the screen where that that tells motorists how fast they're going. So we're proposing these to be to be placed throughout the the this, quarter segment.

Passengerry is a little confusing to motorists because it goes from six lanes to four lanes to six lanes to four lanes. I know in the master plan, it's planned for six lanes, which I think is is is excessive.

Right.

I remember when it was widened to six lanes between Euclid and Harbor. I was on the council at the time and questioned it, but it was told, hey. It's on the master plan. We gotta do it. There was a lot of residential opposition to it.

It's it's four lanes on the other side of Euclid, then it narrows down a net to four lanes when you go by the golf course. So I think, generally, a lot of these streets designed back in the sixties and seventies are just a lot wider than they need to be. And I'm I'm glad you're not talking about reconfiguring them because I think that four lanes generally is adequate on Bass And Cherry, and any kind of other improvements, bike lanes, whatever we can use for those other lanes would be good. Staff took a bold move and tried to put Associated Road, another street, which is four lanes, which doesn't really need it. And the residents came out and objected to the on street parking because they had other other concerns.

But I was I was glad of that effort. So I'd also like to, at this point, mention on street parking because a lot of these streets that are very, very wide still prohibit on street parking, and I'm not sure exactly why. Studies have shown that when you have on street parking on streets, yeah, there are issues, people getting in and out of cars, but they tend to calm traffic because when when motorists see, cars parked on the street, they tend to drive a little bit more carefully. I'm thinking specifically, and I don't know if you're gonna mention this, State College going north to the Braves City limits. When you cross the Braves city limits, you can park legally right along Craig Park and go to the park.

But south of the city limits, Fullerton doesn't allow parking, and and the street is exactly the same width. I brought this up when I was on the parking, the the transportation commission, and there was a lot of nodding in heads, but nothing really was done about it. So I think we ought to look not just at the bicyclists and the pedestrians and the motorists, but the people that live along those streets, be able to use the park along those streets. And and if there are opportunities to expand on street parking without limiting limiting road use, we could do that because I know on Bastion Cherry, there aren't a lot of people that live right there. But once a year sometimes there are events at the cemetery, and people will park on Baston Cherry illegally, but they're not ticketed.

There oftentimes, are concerts at the park, and people can you know, should be able to park on Baston Cherry. So where there is enough width to do that, I I would encourage that as well. Also around Hillcrest Park, this is something that I know the city did a master plan on and it didn't get the changes that I supported. But if you look at Valley View, you look at Lemon Street, there's no parking allowed right next to Hillcrest Park. So people are forced to park across the street and and and run across the street.

And so I I think we generally should take a more open minded view of allowing on street parking where it does serve the convenience of people that live there and people that use those parks. I don't if you have any feedback on that or if that is included in any of this, but it's something I I think we had to look at long term.

Of the scope of this. We need to focus on this project.

Well, I I think it may be outside the scope, but it's something that I think we ought to look at and be mindful of.

Yeah. I mean no. I I think I mean, you're you're right. There there I think when there's on street parking, people feel more safe walking because they're buffered from fast moving vehicles. We did not look at at at increasing on street parking opportunities as part of this project, and certainly not on a street like Bastion Shuery. The reason is including on street parking would probably come at the at at at at the cost of removing a vehicle lane, like, as you can see that in these images there. So we didn't wanna focus on on that as part of this project. The focus was really finding ways to slow down vehicles and and doing that where we could. But, you know, presumably, that's something that

chance to wave the flag. So I'm I'm waving it here.

Yeah. Okay. Thank you. So, yeah, at this quarter, we're looking at installing, speed feedback signs to to assist in in slowing down vehicles or at least make motorists more aware of of how fast they're going and and having them slow down. At the intersection, with with Brea Boulevard, we're proposing a couple of improvements as seen, at the bottom of your screen.

One, we're looking at improving bicycling options here, so adding two stage bicycle boxes at that intersection, as you can see on the image to the left. And that would facilitate left turning movements for for people who are riding their bikes through here. On the image to the right, another element that we're proposing here is adding retro reflective back plates to the signal heads. So as you can see in the before image, that's a regular signal head. And then to the right, you see a faint yellow outline.

These these types of improvements have been shown to have a relatively high crash reduction factor based on the research conducted in the local roadway safety manual. And so these are very simple improvements. They're very widely funded. And they're typically very highly used at main intersections like Brea and Bastenturi. At this next location here, we're looking at the intersections of Bastenturi State College and and Brea And Ashburn Terrace.

The improvements here are similar. We're looking at installing higher visibility crosswalks, making those a little bit more consistent so that they delineate better where people are crossing. And then another improvement that we're recommending at this intersection given its proximity to some recreational facilities and and just there's a lot of walking activity that happens here is leading pedestrian intervals. These are improvements where, if someone presses the push button, the light turns green for the pedestrian first before it turns green for the vehicles. And what that does is that that keeps vehicles from cutting off pedestrians when they both turn green at the same time, and makes makes it a a little safer for people who are are wanting to cross in the same direction.

The next quarter we're gonna talk about is Commonwealth. So the big the big improvement here that we're looking at is a a roadway reconfiguration. So from going from two lanes in each direction in this segment to one lane in each direction. The reason this is really the only location in the city that we're looking at doing this, and the reason why this this area was selected was because there's already segments of Commonwealth that are already in this configuration. So you already have segments specifically in the downtown area that are are one lane in each direction.

Obviously, a downtown area, but it also makes it much more of a pleasant and and vehicle environment, and vehicles travel a little bit more slowly. We wanna continue encouraging that. And Commonwealth seems to be have a lot of neighborhoods serving retail, and there's a lot of residential nearby. So we just figured this is gonna be an improvement that just continues that that that roadway that roadway environment through here.

Question. Where is Commonwealth two lanes in the city? You said that it already is two lanes in certain areas. Is that what you said?

In the downtown.

In the downtown. I I'm not aware of any. Just some factual. I mean, Commodore has four lanes. I think the whole length of the city

You're talking two lanes in each direction.

Yeah.

Oh, you mean two lanes in each direction?

Yeah. So it's it's K.

But here, talking about narrowing it to one lane in each direction. Correct?

Yeah. This is what what we discussed there. Right? Yeah. So we'll we'll look at I that's something that we discussed with the city. We'll we'll look at that.

I'm not necessarily against it. Obviously, this would have to be approved by the council. Yeah. I know

this is a an area then I I might I might have misspoken then. So yeah. Mainly, we wanna look at at reducing the number of lanes here given that it is more of a downtown environment, encourage more slower moving vehicles, and just make it much more fun.

Did that, there there would be room for striped bike lanes.

There could be. We we didn't take measurements in terms

of very, very wide median island here, maybe wider than it needs to be. So if you're freeing up space, then maybe that would be a consideration.

Yeah. And I'm sorry. I I misspoke. Yep. So we're looking at at doing the the road diet here. So going from from two lanes to one lane in each direction with a center median. And, yes, presumably, there would be space for potential bicycle facilities, which we didn't we didn't look at, but we wanna provide that option as once you you do this reconfiguration, you can go ahead and explore that.

And just to clarify, Commonwealth is one lane in either direction by the university.

Okay. So not not through the downtown?

Well, where it where it moves up and becomes yeah. But the whole East West section, I believe it's I believe it's four.

Yeah. Sorry about that. I misspoke on that. Mhmm. Next next area of Commonwealth, this is a little bit more to the to the east of the city near Commonwealth Elementary.

So we're proposing a couple of improvements here. On the left side, you see its current condition. On the right side, we're proposing three improvements, a leading pedestrian interval, which is what I I mentioned in the previous locations where, the pedestrian has, has has priority when the light turns green, higher visibility crosswalks where they're not, and then a curb extension, into the school area. Any curb extensions that are being proposed, we were we were very careful into ensuring that they do not take on street parking away, and so they were located presume usually where there's red curb space. So it's where cars cannot park already, and so we're looking at doing that there.

Other improvements on on Commonwealth, again, little further to the east, we're looking at both the intersections of State College and Acacia, More leading pedestrian interval improvements, retro reflective back plates. On the right side, you'll see the same improvements, but one new one is what's called the hardened centerline. So you see that on the bottom right. It's a little bit it's it's like a strip of of rubber or or it could be asphalt. But essentially what it does is when vehicles are turning left, it forces them to make a wider turn that usually is slower.

And that's that's done on purpose because we wanna make sure that vehicles don't just make sharp left turns and potentially cut off people who are crossing, on the opposite side, but they they do it in a way that is slower and safer and and and especially in an area in and around school facilities and where you have children and and other parents walking. At the intersection of of Commonwealth and Lilly, we're looking at this improvement here. We know that there's already an unprotected crosswalk as shown on the left side, where vehicles, have to stop when someone's crossing. However, we felt that, we can do a little bit more, so we're proposing a couple of curb extensions as shown on the right side to shorten that crossing distance for people who need to cross Commonwealth, and and presumably expose them less to live traffic that's traveling through the through through that street. In and around Cal Fullerton, we have, several other improvements.

I'll focus here, at the intersection of State College and Dorothy. I'll I'll preface this by saying that we also had discussions with the Cal State Fullerton mobility staff as well. And so a lot of these improvements were vetted by them, and they also provided some input on these. So, the city reviewed these and also, and also the the Cal Fullerton mobility, staff looked at these. So at the intersection of State College and Dorothy, we heard that there's quite a bit of of crossing activity.

You have the high school on the other side. You have, a lot of students from Cal State Fullerton crossing here. We do know that a lot of students live off campus, so they live on some of the, on some of the houses that are to the to the west of this location. And so we proposed several improvements. One, leading pedestrian intervals, retrofit the back plates, hardened centerline improvements to to reduce those to slow down vehicles as they turn.

And then I don't know if this I I believe this might be a first in the city, but a scrambled crosswalk. Essentially, it's an all all pet phase. So when you have a lot of a lot of folks congregating here, push the button, all cars in all directions have to stop, and then people can cross diagonally and throughout. So that's that's, an improvement that is being proposed at this location.

The the scramble approach, like. In fact, I I can think of several locations where it might be even more appropriate, especially Harbor And Commonwealth. But right right in the heart of downtown, we have a lot of pedestrian traffic, people going to bars and restaurants, things like that. Possibly Chapman And Harbor as well. So, I

don't

know if staff has any proposals for that. This would require council approval, presumably, but there there are places where it could be it could be done, and done effectively, especially downtown.

So is it Commonwealth Harbor and then

We used to have one of these at Commonwealth and State College. And is it still there?

No. It's not there.

But we had a scramble one, didn't we? It was. Yeah.

She crossed diagonally.

Uh-huh.

Alright.

Thank you.

Next location is the intersection of Nutwood and Commonwealth. So I know we just heard about the the bridge project in and around this area. And then the city also has a active active transportation funded project through here. This project would not conflict with those projects, and it's it's meant to augment some of those benefits. So what we're proposing at this intersection here, again, leading pedestrian intervals, retro reflective back plates, and then some bicycle boxes as well to to facilitate bicycle movements through this intersection.

At the intersection of Nutwood and between State College and the 57 Freeway, we did hear a lot about it being very dark, especially in the wintertime, late fall. And so what what we're proposing here is improving lighting options through through this through this quarter. Other recommendations in and around sort of the Euclid West area. This is a largely more residential focus. So we noticed a lot of the streets and the intersections in this part of town and also in the Southwest area.

You have missing curb ramps. And I think this might be just something from when the streets were laid out maybe like seventy plus years ago. And so especially in this area where you have proximity to I believe that's the middle school. You also have park facilities nearby. So presumably, you have a lot of people walking through here.

And so a simple improvement that can go a long way is adding curb ramps to where they're missing. So as you can see here, adding them to this intersection. And we have a few other locations that we're proposing the same thing. At this intersection of Citrus And Hill, adding what's called rectangular rapid flashing beacons, or RFBs, along with some curb extensions to make crossing safer, easier, and notify motorists that, hey, someone's about to cross. There's a beacon notifying them to stop at this location.

And again, this is an area in and around the school, so presumably you have a lot of student student movements through here. The intersection, at the location of of Harbor West, again, more residential focused improvements here. On the left side, you'll see similar, some curb extensions, higher visibility crosswalks at both of these intersections at Harbor and Ash and Harbor and Roslyn. At the intersection of Richmond and Elm, again, similar improvement as as a couple slides ago, adding a rectangular rapid flashing beacon. Again, when someone's about to cross, they push the button, the lights flash, and it it makes it much more easily noticeable by a motorist that someone's about to cross and they stop especially when it's dark.

The intersection of Highland and Valencia, we're adding a couple of improvements here. A leading pedestrian interval to make, to prioritize people who are crossing, and then some bicycle box, turning improve, improvements here as well to facilitate, bicycle movements through here. The Intersection Of Malvern here in in Chapman, so at Basque and Carhartt. So this is a very a very limited location. You have this the the flood control channel on the south side.

And so what we're looking at this intersection is, again, adding leading pedestrian intervals, some hardened centralized centerlines to, improve, or or make it a little safer as people make left turns, adding a curb extension where we can, and then some curb ramp upgrades, on on the south side of that intersection as well. So it's it's very limited. I mean, I'm not saying the curb extension is gonna be large, but it's something that we can make work and overall improve the safety of that intersection. And then here, near Orangethorpe, elementary, we're looking at a couple things here at Page. We did speak with members from the school here.

So we're looking at adding some edge line treatments, and then another improvement is adding sidewalk facilities through this location as well. We did hear that there's a lot of students who use this street to to access the school. It's a little bit of a gap in the sidewalk network, through this area, so, the right of way is there. And so adding edge line treatments to slow down vehicles and providing, sidewalk facilities as well. And then here, we have several locations in sort of the Southwest neighborhood, several locations, and this is what we're talking about is the stop signs, adding those.

And as you can see on that image to the bottom right, the it wouldn't not it would not be an all way stop. It would primarily be on on the Minor Street as it intersects the other street. So it'd be more of a two way stop. But, again, it'd be it reduces ambiguity, makes it a little bit, I mean, the people who live there and who have lived there, they already know how to navigate this area, but, it's typically for folks who who might not be as familiar or if it's dark, they can't see, but at least now they know who needs to stop and who has a right of way. So that that wraps up, my overview of some of the recommendations.

As part of our engagement process, we did go ahead and have a second survey that went out where we asked residents what their thoughts were on these improvements. So, and so I'll I'll go through these, briefly. We asked them about retroreflective backplates and what they thought, and the survey included images of these treatments and included a description as survey was also provided in multiple languages. And so we asked folks what they thought of these improvements. So retro effective backplates, if they felt they would be positive additions to signalized intersections, most respondents agreed.

88 curb ramps, most respondents agreed that it they'd be positive. Speed feedback signs, again, most respondents agreed that these would be positive improvements. Bicycle turn boxes were a little bit mixed, especially at the intersection of Bassett, Chury, and Brea, although the majority agreed that they would be positive additions. The results were a little bit more mixed on on these these treatments. A lane reconfiguration at Commonwealth, so the one that we discussed here going from two lanes to one lane in each direction.

Again, these were also mixed. People liked that idea. They liked more of a of a calmer street through through that area, but other folks were were neutral. No one really strongly disagreed with that. Curb extensions, people like them. They strongly agree that they'd be a positive, addition to that intersection. Same thing with the the proposed curb extensions at Commonwealth and Yale. Hardened center lines, again, these results were a little mixed, and so although most folks agreed with with with adding that. Rectangular rapid flashing beacons at the intersection of Richmond And Elm, most folks were were supportive of those treatments as well. Stop sign markings, we included one location at Ash And Jensen.

Most respondents strongly agreed with just, again, better demarcating who has right of way at that crossing. And then we asked them, and they can yes if you think the recommendation of, yeah, like, the the proposed recommendations there at the intersection of of State College and Dorothy. And so we listed the the types of improvements that were proposed there as well as at the intersection of Citrus and Hill. And so most folks felt that the proposed recommendations as shown there on the right would would be would be positive additions and they like those proposed treatments there. So that wrap up wraps up my presentation.

I wanted to make sure that we we had enough time for q and a. I know it's a lot. And, this is just a small sampling of the proposed treatments. Again, we have over 380 proposed as part of this project. And so happy to answer any questions, comments, thoughts on this project. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Thank you for that detailed presentation. Before we go to our committee questions and comments, I would like to take public comments. I don't see any public commenters in chambers. Do we have any on Zoom, please?

We have one on Zoom.

Please.

Zoom user, please unmute. You have three minutes.

My name is Carol Thackery. I have lived on Rolling Hills Drive since 1974 parallel to Baston Shuri, And we have State College on one side, and it ends at 22 schools. We are a 64 foot wide street. We have left turn lanes. We have electronic feedback signs that were installed in twenty o five by Fortell, and I see that you wanna put some on Baston Shuri.

Our feedback signs throughout the city are ones that when you have a speed limit and the folks have hit that speed limit, it says slow down. I think people like to look at those signs and see how fast they're going, but they don't know. We have a school which draws people from all over the city, outside the city, and outside our county. This one mile between State College and and Brea Boulevard has no traffic signals, no stop signs because it's not conducive to have that because the stopping and going would be a problem. The school has a flashing light, which was installed in the street at one time, and then it was put on a pole.

They can press the button, and the the crosswalk is is monitored by a crossing guard. When this has been here for 2000 since 2005, these signs have been out. You're talking about signs now on our even busier streets. Our I think our traffic count for daily is 4,700 as of the last count in 2019, and, that means that we have over 32,000 cars a week. We are the detour when there's any major accident on State College or Brea Boulevard.

And, if I have my windows open wider, you could hear we hear the traffic here, and we have a lot of traffic on our street, and we're getting the bikers. We do have a bike lane too designated. And, again, if, I I wish I had known about this earlier because, like I said, we have schools at on either end. And, I think that Rolling Hills needs to be considered in this project or at a future one because it is a big deal when, people have to back into their driveways in order to not be backing out as it's not safe with some of our t intersections, which there are three of or or four of along the street on a one mile area. And if people like the speed, they hit it, and they really go fast, including your motorcyclists and the souped up cars.

We also get, on occasion, auto haulers who decide that Rolling Hills Drive is the best place to park in our middle left turn lane, and we have them offloading vehicles here. The police department doesn't have enough manpower in their motor division in order to keep up with this kind of thing, and it is a street where I think there are safety issues, especially since we're surrounded by State College, Bastian Chury, and Brea. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Do we have any other callers on Zoom?

We do not.

Okay. Thank you. So I'll go ahead and close public comment, and I'll bring this back to our committee members. Are there any questions or comments from our committee members? Please.

One additional comment on Page. The Page Island was a county island for decades, and the city annexed it, I believe, it was in the nineteen nineties when I was on the council. And that's why they don't have sidewalks. And I don't have a problem with adding them, but I think you will get some response from the neighbors, some of them have been there for a long, long time, and that they saw this as kind of their own little community. There are a lot of areas of the city that don't have them, especially up in Sunny Hills where people think it adds to the rural nature.

Fern Drive, where there's a school, and there are no sidewalks there at all, it's fairly safe. So I'm not saying it's better or worse, but this is an area where you might expect some pushback, from the neighbors, if you do add sidewalks because that's it it's a kind of an anomalous situation because it was unincorporated for so long. Yeah. So Yeah. I'll leave you with that.

We've seen that in in other jurisdictions where we've we've designed sidewalks in locations like these. And, yes, you naturally have pushback, especially if they've done nice lawn improvements or, you know, they have their like, that wall that they have if it yeah. So there there's there's things that would have to be dealt with. But, when speaking with members from the school community and and just looking at the overall grid, it just seems like a gap. To your point, it was kind of an island. So thank you.

Thank you. Any other questions, comments? Please.

I just wanted to say that I think that the research that was done behind this was very extensive. And I like to I like that to see that a lot of the concerns recently have been covered in this, such as page Commonwealth. Like, I go there and I see people, racing on both lanes, so turning into one would be very nice to see. I appreciate all the bike improvements such as, like, you know, markings and, you know, considerations for them. So I just like to see that reflected.

Thank you.

Thank you. Any other questions or comments? Thank you. I guess I'll share mine. Thank you so much. I think I'm not sure if I'm supposed to disclose this or or share this or or anything. I had the privilege of being nominated by this committee to be on the advisory committee community advisory committee, I believe, for this project. So that was really exciting, and I really enjoyed being part of that. And I think I also attended I wanna say I attended all three community meetings, I believe, if not at least two. So I I appreciate it.

That was actually really fun to be able to interact and hear people's feedback, especially about parts of the city that I wasn't as familiar with. And I do appreciate all of this, all of the work that went into this. This is a really cool project, I think. I think it's, like, really visionary for our city to be implementing a safe streets for all, ethos, with things like systematic safety and vision zero and, projects like that. The idea is to shift away from the idea that roads are safe only if everybody is perfect at all times to a new thought process of roads road safety accommodates human fallibility and the fact that humans will be negligent or will make mistakes.

And then how do you mitigate the fallout? So you predict those things. And I think things like this are gonna take that into account. This is like a forward thinking project instead of kinda doing things the same way that we've always done and expecting people suddenly not to die anymore. So that's really, quite nice about this. That's something I'm very excited about for this project. I think a lot of the things that you that you came up with were amazing. Like, the bike boxes at Nutwood, in my personal opinion, are just, like, incredible. Like, that is an that is an amazing way to solve that intersection problem, Nutwood And Commonwealth, right in front of the university. Right?

That that that intersection that doesn't go straight, however bicyclists will go Yeah. That is a hard problem to solve because of the lane configuration there. Bike box is ingenious, I think. And there was something else. I think there was oh, a bike box at Highland and Valencia. That was amazing too because that is a tricky intersection because of the way that the road bulbs out as you go southward on there. So that's a very tricky solve problem to solve, and I like the bulb outs, as well at, you know, some of the various, examples that you've given at the pedestrian pardon me. Excuse me. Residential streets. The pedestrian scramble at Dorothy in State College is also just ingenious.

I love that. I I I did notice something here where I felt like a lot of these items, they they had, like, the right ethos. And it's I almost felt like in a lot of these these items on the list, it was almost like maybe there was a little bit more room for innovation. Like, we could take it a step further and really kind of see this thought process through. For example, at Brea and Bassentry, you know, you proposed bike boxes, which is fantastic because a busy intersection like that, yeah, it gets really difficult when you're on a bike.

And on Brea Boulevard, there are a lot of cyclists. But what if you added striping that went all the way through the intersection for the cyclists to convey them safely? Because in intersections like that, car drivers frequently try to overtake cyclists. And the division of right of way is confusing. And that becomes actually quite terrifying when cars are trying to overtake in the intersection, and it's not very well delineated.

So that could be maybe a place where you take a step further and you really innovate and kinda see, like, see that ethos through. Another thing I was thinking was I didn't I noticed that that there weren't any indicators for raised crossings or roundabouts. And these could actually be deployed in a lot of places, especially around schools. For example, Troy High School has, like, a great location, I think, for a raised crossing that goes from the residential area on the North End Of Dorothy into the school. There's a little cutout from the wall in front of the residential, and there's actually a crosswalk that goes into the into the school.

But people fly down Dorothy when they're driving because it's long and straight. And a race crossing kinda like the one we have in Wilshire and Lawrence, can deter that, while also allowing pedestrians to maintain, their level as they cross instead of having to dip down, which is especially helpful for people on wheels, like wheelchair users or people with strollers or things like that. And so I like I said, that that's, like, a step further. Acacia is another great example of, like, a place where that could be implemented because people are crossing from the apartments on the west side of the street into the school. I actually did, like, a small walk audit over there with community members, and and that was an issue that they identified.

So, like, a raised crossing in in front of, Ladera Vista, could be very helpful. There's also, like I'm I'm I'm a little confused about why there wasn't more emphasis on bicycle infrastructure. For example for example, like, there's a there's a bunch of opportunities. One thing is, like, Valencia. People routinely park in the bike lane because it's a very it's a it's a high demand on street parking area.

And drivers will park in the bike lane, and then the cyclists while while they're waiting for a spot to free up, you can't get rid of parking there. It's not it's really not feasible. But but cyclists will be forced to swerve around that into the car travel lane, which is especially dangerous at night when it's dark and there's no visibility. But that's the time when this is most likely to happen when everyone's coming home from work and they need a place to park. So you could one option, an idea, you could switch the on street parking and the cycling or the the bike lane to create a parking protected bike lane.

And you could do that on Acacia as well near the school. Commonwealth, I did have a concern about that corridor you mentioned between Library and Balcombe about just getting rid of the lane divider and effectively doing a road diet. The concern that I had was that if you do that, you widen the vehicular right of way. And generally, that's thought to increase travel car travel speeds because when you have narrower lanes, cars travel more slowly because they have to to be careful to stay in their lane. And if you expand the lane, then you're gonna get higher travel speeds, which are more unsafe.

So, I wasn't sure kinda how that squared. You you know, there is an ample opportunity for putting in a bike lane there, and using that to narrow the road to compensate for the, the the the transition from two lanes to one lane. These are just ideas, but they're just, like, examples of, like, how how I feel like this project is these examples that you gave are, like, are, like, there. You know? They're they're right there.

It's, like, such an amazing opportunity. You guys have done such an amazing job of, like, all of this background research and really trying to figure out what we need to do. And I feel like the implementation well, not implement not the formal word implementation, but, like, the the application of the research you've done. I feel like it could take this one step further, and we could really get some juice out of this. And I'll go ahead and throw in a plug for another idea, which is a bike box at Acacia And Chapman.

This is an area where the class two bike lane going north transitions into a on the north side of the street, and it's always just like this really awkward dance for cyclists riding alongside the cars going northbound. It's being like, who's gonna go first, me or you? And it creates conflict, and it's a dangerous situation. Especially, there's, like, four schools in that area. There's Maple no. I'm sorry. Not Maple. There's, the Montessori. There's Ladera Vista. There's Commonwealth Elementary, and there's one more, Acacia Elementary.

So, so it's like school zone, you know, that that's that's something that certainly deserves scrutiny. Another thing was, like, I saw a lot of RFBs, which is which is okay. But my concern with RFBs are just, like, deploying them as sort of, like, a safety measure, just sort of, you know, where wherever you see an opportunity for that. It's like, the problem with RFBs is that car drivers be rapid rapid re no. Rapid rectangular flashing beacon, Those things where you hit the button and it and it flashes light for the crossing.

The yes. Like that. The problem is that if you don't combine the implementation of one of those with traffic calming, the car drivers just don't stop even if the lights are flashing. So if you drop them on a busy street with high speeds, your your pedestrians are not really any safer than they were before it existed. And so I kind of like, this is just another example of, like, it's almost there.

Like, maybe we could take it a step further and see this thought process through to the logical conclusion and and be like, okay. Our our goal is to improve safety, not just to put a sign up, but, like, really change the whole corridor to that end. I'd love to see more Chicanes and more bulb outs, like like the one pictured here, in in in more locations, especially in some of these residential streets, particularly in some of them that don't have crossings. So, like, there's Highland and I'm blanking right now. It's, like, South Of Commonwealth.

When you go down Highland, I think it might might be, like, in the area of Elm or so. When I'm from experience, when I'm biking down there, if I have to cross over I think it's South Of Valencia. When I have to cross over to the opposite side of the street, for example, to go to some businesses there, there's no crossing. And I think if I have trouble crossing, imagine maybe, like, a child, you know, going to the park, like, going to Richmond Park or something from their home. It would be absolutely impossible for them.

Like, I and our streets I think part of the ethos of something like safe streets for all vision zero, systematic safety, should be how do we not only convey adults safely through these corridors, but how do we make it accessible to all age levels, including children? Yeah. How how do we give kids back that freedom of of transportation? And another thing I noticed, like, mentioned the stop signs, which is I actually think you made a valid point of, like, people kind of get stop sign fatigue, and they just roll through them. But you can, in in consistency in with the Vision Zero ethos of, like, accepting the fit fallibility of human behavior, you could do a bike boulevard, you know, where you have roundabouts.

Like, people already aren't stopping, so, like, we'll just turn into roundabout where they don't have to stop anyway. And I wonder if, like, again, instead of the stop signs that everybody ignores and it creates confusion as a result, a bike boulevard could be implemented in that area instead to accept the human behavior that we have. I I see things like Chapman. We had four pedestrian fatalities in, like, a two year time span along Chapman a couple of years ago. Some of them related to mid block crossings, but I think it just indicates a need for more crossings, not a need to force pedestrians into the very set like, long distant crossings that currently exist because nobody's gonna walk a half a mile when it's a 105 degrees outside.

So, like, that's, you know, another, again, systematic safety perspective of, like, maybe create more crossings instead of just, saying that people shouldn't jaywalk. Well,

they can now. It's legal.

They they can, but if they're gonna do it, we can find I wonder if we could find a way to accommodate that behavior and to say, oh, human beings want to do this. Let's make it possible for them to do so safely so we don't have more fatalities on this corridor where we've already had many. So those those are my thoughts. I I love this project. Like, I'm, like, really excited that Fullerton has a safe streets for all project, and I love the approach and the research and all of the things you're talking about with equity are just, like, so important. And I'm, like, I I wish this was talked about more. And I just I really wanna see this project succeed, and I really, really wanna see it just taken to that next step. It's like we have this opportunity. I really wanna seize it. So those are my comments. Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you. Yeah. So when you look at the report, you'll see, we we didn't do chicanes, but we did something similar specifically in some of the residential streets in the Southwest area of the city where we recommended these these sort of median islands within within the residential streets. So big big thing that we discussed with with Michael and his team is the city is currently reviewing their speed hump policy, I believe. And and I know there's there's deliberation that's happening as part of that process.

So that's why we didn't we didn't look at recommending speed tables or race crosswalks or any sort of vertical element that would reduce speeds. Same thing with roundabouts or traffic circles. I know those have been controversial in the city, and the city is again deliberating the application of those treatments. So none of those those two treatments are recommended as part of this. However, specifically in your residential streets, we looked at more horizontal level types of treatments or reduction factors.

And so you'll find in the report, there's several corridors where we recommended, these sort of small median islands, on residential streets that force vehicles to do a little bit of of a of a turn as they're approaching them, and that that deflection movement that vehicles do automatically slows them down. And so they're they're placed in several locations along these residential streets to do that reduction of speeding. It might mean eliminating a couple of on street parking spaces in that area, but from our review, it's not a severely parking impacted area versus other parts of the city. So we were, again, judicious where we wanted to place them to make sure that residents were for them. But, again, they're they're not they're not gonna slow down vehicles on in a vertical manner.

The hope is that they would they would slow them down in in more of a of a horizontal manner. So Yeah. That's that's that's, something we're looking at. So it's it functions like a chicane, but it's it's a little different. A chicane? So chicanes are are typically on small streets where they

How do you spell that?

C h I c a n e. And so they typically come at the cost of a lot of on street parking because they they kind of come out from the sidewalk area, but they force vehicles to almost meander through a street, thus having them travel much more slowly.

And if if I can add to that, California now has a daylighting law.

Right.

Where you can't park within 20 feet of a marked or unmarked crosswalk. And we don't we haven't implemented that through red curbs, which we probably should throughout the city, to reinforce that. But because of that law, you know, adding bulb outs at at those positions, it really doesn't Yeah. Affect on street parking because you're not it's not legal anyway.

Yeah. Yeah. So that's something we we're I mean, we we didn't look at the daylighting loss part of this project, but where we recommended curb extensions, we try to locate them where there's already existing red curb

Yeah.

To just further improve facilities there.

I'm I'm just wondering if, like, instead of because the city will probably take forever to implement those red curbs to be consistent with daylighting. Is it possible to, like, make that recommendation and not not defer to, the city's decision not to, paint the curbs red? Is it possible to just, like, make those recommendations regardless of whether the city has taken the initiative to paint those curves red?

I mean, where where we located curb extensions so we we didn't do them everywhere Right. Because, obviously, the daylighting would force you to do it at every intersection. So we're not gonna go ahead and then just follow that and do curb extensions everywhere. That's gonna be a huge a huge project and a huge undertaking for the city. Where we recommended curb extensions, it was done in in areas where we saw there was, like, a path to maybe a a facility, a school, or there's, a crossing opportunity that we need to improve, like, on Commonwealth. And so we we didn't wanna go ahead and install curb extensions everywhere or recommend them everywhere. We did them in locations where, okay. Yeah. There's a natural pathway here. People are using this this sidewalk.

Let's improve that crossing area. So we wanted to be, again, judicious in where we recommended them, not just where we had Red Curb. Mhmm. But what we did, we try to take advantage of, oh, there's Red Curb there. Okay. Let's just locate it there as well.

Thank

you. So we wanted to ensure that it reflected mobility patterns for the city.

Thank you. I think you had a comment or question, please.

I was gonna say that I really appreciated the chairs the chairs talking about how, like, oh, in some instances, maybe we could take it a step further. So I just wanted to say that I really support some of those ideas. Yeah.

Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Regarding the roundabouts, something I wanted to bring up was part of the community's opposition to them. There there were the spirit of the comment I'm about to make is to say, I I wanna make sure that we don't shy away from good infrastructure ideas based on bad, interpretations of the current situation or incorrect interpretations. The roundabouts that exist on Wilshire right now, I think part of the community opposition is simply that they part is that people are still getting to know how to use roundabouts, and a lot of people are they're not familiar with them. Another thing is the curb ramps are not standard for roundabouts.

So the curb ramps currently are diagonal. They go right into the Central island. Whereas if you look at the more modern treatments, like over near Fissler Elementary, for example, they have the more, like, established configuration where the curb the the the curb ramps are further out. The crossings are further out from the curb from the roundabout, which pedestrians which is, like, a little safer for pedestrians because they are not directed into the direction of moving traffic. Another thing is I as I understand it is that the center islands that currently exist on Wilshire are not large enough to deflect the direction of car travel partly as I understand it, and I could be wrong, but partly because of the demands of emergency departments, first responder departments.

But I think that and I'm not a traffic engineer, but I think that a well designed roundabout would be different. And so I don't think you see the same opposition to roundabouts, for example, over up in the northern near Sunny Hills where they currently exist and they're designed a little bit more formally, you don't see the same opposition over there because they kind of do their stated purpose. They deflect traffic more, so you don't have cars speeding through, over there as much. So I I just wanted to say that because I don't want that to to deter, the implementation of something that could be really, really, effective. And we know that roundabouts are safer than signalized intersections in most in most situations.

Like, we are like, we already know that. So I don't wanna lose out on that opportunity based on bad data. And as for raised crossings, this is, like, a question more just for my own edification because I'm not I I well, not familiar with how that process works. But, like, in the interest of, like, not losing out on a good opportunity that we could take advantage of in the future should circumstances change and, again, just for my own notification, is this project something where we like, make a suggestion? And it's the response may be currently, well, the city doesn't really have plans for that or the city is changing its rules on on, you know, speed humps and things like that.

But maybe we'll still make the recommendation in the event that the city's mind changes or the policies change. So, again, we don't lose out on access to that innovative street design.

Yeah. I mean, once so, I mean, the the the plan is very intentional in what's recommended where. And so for us to say, yeah. We're gonna implement like, the city should look into a race crosswalk or a speed hump at this location, but we're not recommending it. It's it's I think we have to make sure that it's it's it's approved by the city before just saying, well, if the city wants to at a later date, they should consider it here.

I mean, I I see what you're saying. I mean, you wanna make sure that you have flexibility in the future should things change. But for the purposes of this plan, you know, we we need to be definite in what we're recommended because then the city can go after funding for these facilities. So, that's not to say that the city this is a be all end all, and the city cannot consider treatments aside from this, but it it just wouldn't be in the plan. Yeah.

I know that this is intended for creating for giving rise to planning grants. Or this might actually be the planning Yeah.

This is

the plan that then can be used for implementation grants. Are we beholden to this in its final form when it comes to implementation grants? Like, could the city if the city says, oh, you know, we wanna do something a little different over on Gilbert, before we submit our application for the implementation grant, could it do that, or is it beholden to the strict, application of the measures recommended here as they stand?

No. Typically, what cities could do is so if you wanna do a product, say, on Chapman or wherever, the grant application almost becomes its own project. And so what you can say is this is inspired by the safety action plan, and there are several improvements that are from that. But you could also maybe, make additions that weren't part of the plan as part of that grant application. The issue, the so that that is doable.

You could deviate from it as part of your grant application. The issue can be where maybe that those new improvements that are being tacked on to the grant application that were part of the plan Mhmm. If they weren't vetted as much through a process like this or if the community didn't have input on it, then they they might become a little it it might weaken the overall application, so that is a little bit of the risk. But if you're able to sort of back it up in the narrative of that grant app it it all depends how that grant application is put together. But if you can say, hey.

As part of this plan, we did this. And then, oh, at a subsequent day, the city realized, hey. We can do this, this, and this. We we ran an analysis. We checked with other folks in the city. The stakeholders were for it. Then then you augment your your grant application, and so you have both. So you you could do that, but you just have to do a little bit of the work behind it to ensure that those elements that are proposed are also supported through other means. So there is flexibility. It all depends on how you put together that grant application.

Thank you so much. Appreciate it. And I guess my last thing last two things are I wanted to suggest pedestrian scrambles because you brought one up, which was amazing. And if we could get more in the city, that would be fantastic. Pedestrian scramble at Maple Elementary, Lemon in Valencia. We actually did a walk audit at the school two years ago. It got a lot of community members, school, police, city, and it was it was a great experience. And a lot of people because they had existing concerns about that school intersection, pedestrian scramble was brought up, and people loved the idea. And another one is Chapman and Raymond. I think it what is it?

Is it Raymond Elementary over there, I believe? That is an intersection where if you go at at at the school drop off time, it's flooded with kids, and the crossing guard just has a really difficult time protecting them from the cars. I also wanted to mention, on community input pay the the page and Orange Slope Elementary, the sidewalks. I also did a sort of like a mini walk audit, and a member of the like, a local resident there was terrified walking on that street. And she was like she's an adult.

And she was saying, if I'm scared, like, imagine how the kids must feel. So Yeah. My only comment there is that if that if that is eventually implemented, that's gonna make a lot of people very happy. I don't think you're gonna get a lot of community pushback. I hope not. But just from the comments that I've heard from the community, I think that will be very supportive. So that's a very exciting item to see on your list. Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you.

I think that's it for me. Any other questions, comments from our community members? No? Okay. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Yeah. Of course.

Thank you. Alright. So we'll conclude that agenda item. Thank you for taking the time in coming before us and speaking with us and explaining all of this. Now we'll go on to staff and community pardon me, committee, communication and future agenda items. Do we have any items from our staff or from our committee to mention in this section?

No. From staff, we have no other updates, for next month. I just like to remind you that, from the subcommittee group's work, we did send out that survey and presentation to everyone. I have two responses so far. So if the rest of the committee members could take some time to fill out the rest of the survey, that would really help us.

If not, we'll give it one more shot, and then if not, we'll just come back with the two responses that we do have. But, again, I'd like to, request hopefully request that that be filled out. Again, as a reminder, those were priorities that were set by the subcommittee. The entire committee had discussed each item, and then it was a follow-up just to kinda digest all of that information and then to help prioritize individually. And then that way, we can take an assessment in terms of where that goes. So that is a critical part of, the policy making as part of this committee. So, again, just would like to have that. And then if there's any questions, of course, you can certainly reach out to Michael or myself. We're happy to answer them if there's questions along the way.

Awesome. Thank you. Would would you be able to resend the the survey as well as the PowerPoint presentation that went along with that so that respondents can consult that PowerPoint presentation as as they answer it?

Yeah.

Thank you very much. And just a point of clarification, I don't think we're allowed to call it a subcommittee. We had a working group.

Good catch. Good catch.

It was a working group.

Thank you. Wanted to ask our PowerPoints from today, will those be available on the city website as part of our supplemental materials so that the public can also review them, please?

Yes.

Thank you. I wanted to share, we since our, this is only sort of tangentially related to Fullerton, but I just wanted to share because it involves our neighboring cities. Placentia approved their Chapman Corridor revitalization project at their city council meeting, a few months ago. And this is something that abuts the city of Fullerton, which is very exciting. This is gonna be on Chapman over near the Northgate Market near the city borders.

And it's gonna be as it's a zoning project where they can build, you know, mixed use, and they're putting in some bike lanes as well. And so I just wanted to share that with the public and with our community members about positive active transportation related changes in the area around us. They also have a special plan five, which you can look up online, Placenta special S B 5, which is just south of that area. And and they're also creating a more vibrant community in that industrial area South of Chapman. So I would encourage any everybody to go look at that so we can see what our neighbors are doing.

And, the last thing I wanted to say is I don't I don't know if I'm allowed to do this, but I wanted to suggest perhaps we could end our meeting in the honor of two people who passed away since our last meeting. I don't know if that's something I I'm allowed to do or if my fellow committee members would support that. I'm not

gonna be anyone's gonna stop you,

so go ahead. No, please. You you can if it's not if it's not okay. But I just wanted to honor the memory of, Todd Harrison and Maureen Milton, who both passed, sadly since our last meeting. And I wanted to honor them because they were very very strong advocates for active transportation users, pedestrians, especially those with mobility impairments.

And they were always present at council meetings making suggestions, and they made a lot of comments, especially Maureen, at this committee. And so I just wanted to honor their memory, and appreciate their commitments to, to safety for all. And I don't believe we have any agenda forecast items except for the survey, as you mentioned. Any other, items to add from our staff or from our committee members? Okay.

In that case, I'll go ahead and ensure in the meeting, our next active transportation committee meeting will be Wednesday, May 20 at 05:30PM in this room. Thank you, everybody. You. Hey. By the way, I really like what you said about the wheelchair.