Active Transportation Committee - Regular Meeting

When you're ready.

All right. Thank you. Let's see. So we're going to go ahead and call to order this August 19th meeting of the Active Transportation Committee. Thanks, everybody, for being here. Jessica, would you please call the roll? Of course.

Chair Tapadea? Here. Vice Chair Narby?

Here.

Committee Member Morales?

Present.

Committee Member Walters? Not present. Thank you.

Thank you. Are those our four members at this time? Thank you. So let's go ahead and take public comments on general topics. Do we have any commenters on things that are just, so you know, we're going to do public comments regarding things that are not on the agenda at this time. So if you have something that's not on the agenda for today, then please feel free to make a comment on that right now. If it's pertaining to something that's coming up on the agenda, then we could take that comment at that time. So anything you wish. If you have a public comment on a general thing, please feel free to come on up. Hey there, Vince. Thank you. It's on. Oh, it's on? It's on, yeah. Is there a way to raise the volume so it's more audible? I did. Oh, thank you very much. No, no, no, it's not your fault. Thank you very much. Do we have any other public comments in chambers? Come on up. Hey, Chris. If it's pertaining to the presentation, the agenda item that's coming up, if you want to hold tight, it's just going to be a few more minutes. Thank you very much. Do we have any other public comments in chambers? OK. Do we have any public comments in Zoom? Please. Yes, we do. Hold on one moment.

Kent, you're on. Go ahead and unmute.

Yeah. I can't hear anything that the speakers at the podium are saying.

I think you can't. We'll fix that right now. Do you have any other comments?

No.

OK. Thank you.

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

No, we do not. OK.

Very good. So then we'll go ahead and close this general public comment period, and we'll go on to our regular business. The first item is our bike lockers. Do we have a presentation from staff on this topic?

Yes, we do. Awesome. There you go. Stephen Weiss, Director of Public Works, will be presenting this item.

Thank you so much.

So let me see if I can look this way here. One second. yeah i'm just setting up the powerpoint give me one second all right okay good evening members of the committee my name is stephen bice the director of public works the first item here is related to the bike locker program specifically within the fortune transportation center but really within the city of fullerton so i want to start off with some background and unfortunately a lot of this these slides will have a lot of text just giving general background of the program when initiated some changes that have happened over time So it started in 1996. There was approximately 20 lockers that were purchased by the redevelopment agency through OCTA, put out at the Fullerton Transportation Center, and that was the start of the program itself. So program parameters included a lease agreement that was required by each leasee. There was a refundable $80 deposit upon issuance of a locker key, and they did need to renew every six months. Those are the general parameters of the program. Our administrative services, they collected the deposit and they were the ones issuing out the keys. Basically the locker was gonna, once you have that lease, give the deposit, get the key, that was your locker until you returned the key and got your deposit back. In 2012, 22 additional lockers were installed with the construction of the SoCo parking structure, resulting in the city having over 40 lockers at that time. Fast forward to 2016, staff did present a bike locker program. It's actually a survey results. I'm missing a word there, to ATC. So I believe at that time, well, some of the documentation is a little unclear, but I think there was some concerns with vandalism and usage. So they did a survey to gauge, you know, who's using these lockers? What's the frequency of use? Are there a lot of renewals? There's various different things. So I put the results here. I'll go through just the questions and the results of the survey one by one. So again, this is 2016. So you can see the first question, how long have you had the bike locker? Most of them had it well over a year. How'd you learn about the bike locker and program in Fullerton? It's various. You can see right here, it's just heard from someone or the phone number on the locker. How long were you in the wait list for the bike locker? A lot of them said more than three months. So at that time, I think there was a substantial wait list, even though we had probably upwards of 40 lockers at that point. I think because people were renewing their lease. How often do you use or access the bike locker? Most of the respondents said two to three times a week. If you're not able to store your bike in a locker, would you use the racks? Most said no. What is your primary trip purpose when using your bike? Most of it was for work. Before you had the locker, how did you complete the trip? It's kind of all over the place, but mostly by they drove the car to the train station. And what's the value of your bike? Most of them were over $500. And then so that was the survey results. Looking at the video of that meeting when this was presented, there was not really any action items that came of it. It was just information. And they were going to keep revisiting the program holistically. So fast forward to 2021. So the bike lockers at the FTC was discussed with ATC in March. And this was really due to the increased vandalism reduction of use at that time. They really wanted to look holistically at the program. What could we do to change it? They provided options for changing the fees to the programs, possibly removal of some lockers or consolidation. are transitioning to a third party. And what that means is you basically outsource the admin and operation and maintenance to a third party who would probably put advertising on it for some kind of revenue. They charge like a monthly rate. Unfortunately, I didn't see if that was ever followed through with or if any were contacted. I think at that time there was some staff turnover and this kind of fell through the cracks. But based on the video of that meeting, And the meeting minutes thereafter, they said, okay, well, there's vandalism going on here. So the ACC, the members on the committee, suggested to investigate that third-party program to assist with replacement ongoing maintenance. Unfortunately, I don't know if staff followed through at that time. Also in 21, 22, this is relevant. In the background, there was a settlement with the city and the US attorney's office for ADA deficiencies within the transportation center. We weren't the only ones hit. A lot of station cities receive a similar settlement, including Amtrak. A part of that that we had to do an assessment of all of our amenities within the transportation Center and they did identify all the bike lockers as being non compliant with Ada they're not accessible. So that's just some background on on why some additional ones were removed basically most of them are all of them should have been removed at that at that point. and I'll go on to why they weren't. So that was in 21 where those were identified and we had a timeline to complete all the obligations within the settlement and that timeline was February, I think February of 24. So as part of those obligations, staff reviewed the location, condition, utilization, available ADA compliant options of the remaining lockers. Most of them were critically damaged and replacement parts not really available. And then we also looked at modifications. Could we modify the existing lockers to be compliant? And it just didn't seem feasible. We provided communication to ATC in December of 24, indicating the lockers were going to be removed due to the settlement and just continued vandalism and theft and inappropriate use. And I think the committee at that time understood why they were being removed. We also notified all the leases intent to remove the lockers and also just to gain feedback to see if there was any any users that really relied on them. So one individual did provide some feedback and we collaborated with them and actually retained four lockers and we relocated them to a different location. So we basically took the four best lockers we had still around and put those in a different location for continued use. So after all was said and done by February 24, we were down from 44 lockers to four. So here's just some pictures. I keep mentioning misuse or vandalism. These are just two. We have several pictures. I mean, you could imagine they became misused storage for maybe some transients you know who know people were replacing locks with their own locks they became when we got the input also that users felt unsafe not only unsafe but their bike didn't feel secure so there's multiple issues with just the the conditions of the locker and the conditions surrounding the lockers So in 2026, we were informed that there was new damage and vandalism of the remaining four lockers due to previous correspondence and ongoing issues. We decided to put a pause on the program, basically suspend it. We wanted to remove the four lockers until we could identify funding and enhance security of the FTC and then reinitiate the program. That was paused for the time being, so the four lockers are still out there. Unfortunately, they're not operational, and the leases were informed that it is discontinued at the moment. So right now, we don't have any leases. The lockers are still out there right now, just temporarily, until we take this to council to figure out next steps. So a few contributing factors that we believe that resulted in the decline of usage. General security within the FTC. So PD, they do patrols, but there's a lot of areas that they probably don't have good line of sight. They're not frequently there. There's a lot of transit activity at and around FTC. There's no dedicated security guards or patrol around FTC. So that's a huge factor that we believe needs to be addressed before we relaunch a program. There was continuous vandalism with no dedicated funding for maintenance or replacement. That's also important to know. The two biggest banks that were purchased were through OCTA. One was through the redevelopment agency, one was through the construction of SoCo. So both of those initiatives, they provided the capital costs for the purchase and install, but there was never any funding identified for maintenance or replacement. So over time that we, you know, they just kept getting damaged and removed a couple of other things. Metrolink added a dedicated bike cars in 2011. So we, from what we've, we've heard from, um, OCT and Metrolink, you know, they, they noticed, uh, an increase in people taking their bikes on the train instead of leaving it at the station. And same with Amtrak. They expanded their bike program in 2014. So similarly, people, I think, felt better taking their bike with them if they could accommodate that on the downstream side of their trip. And then also COVID-19, that changed a lot. People's working environment changed. The train ridership plummeted initially. And I think after that, a lot of businesses or a lot of jobs or workplaces changed their model. And they probably allowed more remote working, which resulted in lower usage of the lockers because they didn't need to commute anymore. So these are just some contributing factors that we think contributed to the declining usage. So as part of this exercise, we also looked at station cities. We did a survey of just the closer station cities that we have to us. You can see here there's Buena Park, Anaheim, all the way down to Laguna Niguel, the number of lockers and approximate users that they have. Buena Park's right in the middle of, they're kind of where we're at. They're trying to relaunch their program and change the parameters. So they don't have any fees or deposits now. They don't have any users, but they do have eight lockers there that are vacant. Anaheim does have 24 lockers. We're still waiting to hear back from them on some of the information. So those are the stars. There's the gaps in the data. Orange has 24 lockers, about 12 regular users, no regular fees, but they do have a large deposit. Santa Ana only has six lockers. I'm not too sure about their users. Still waiting to hear back on that. And they have a usage fee per year and a deposit. Tustin, 20 lockers, only five users, monthly. Yeah, well, they pay every three months. So $48 per every three months, but no deposit. And they also said there's minimal maintenance that's required for their lockers. Irvine has the most lockers and users. They have 54 lockers and it seems like they're all booked up and there's an active wait list. They have a $50 deposit and $30 per every six months. And Laguna Niguel has 20 lockers, 10 users, $5 a month at the $50 deposit. But they indicated that they have a low renewal rate. So what I mean by that is they don't have a lot of users renewing their locker. And we are still gathering some data on other cities. We did reach out to OCTA to see if they would be willing to help us fund or administer a program. Unfortunately, they don't directly support programs like this. They did identify and lead us to some potential funding sources. However, most of those are very competitive and probably not, we wouldn't be, as competitive if we just applied for bike lockers they'd be like an element in a bigger project so we can we can explore that but it doesn't seem like um the cost you got to look at the cost benefit that the cost to deploy a bike program is not very high and the cost to pursue these grants and administer these grants is high so it's it would have to be like a business decision if we want to pursue a grant for this But they are out there. Right now, I don't see any that are really applicable to this. And then they kind of led us on their way. So OCTA, we just explored that avenue to see if there was anything there. And we're going to continue to. So Mayor Zhang is on their board of directors. And he is also talking to them to see if there's any potential funding through OCTA. So then we're like, OK, well, what's on the market? There is a lot of bike lockers on the market. We did a deep dive. I was going to try to put some on here, but it just got out of control. So I encourage you, you can just Google bike lockers on the market. There's all different types, shapes, sizes, different amenities that are on the market out here. But I did focus in on one called bike link. It's one that LA Metro uses and other big, large transit agencies use throughout the state. And I met with the rep and then he, It seems like it would be a good solution. They're definitely more enhanced than the ones we have out there now. They definitely stood out, like I said on the slide here, being they're more accessible. They have access options, user support services. They have operations management tools, data reporting, maintenance monitoring. And they really are bulky. They seem vandal resistant. So I have a video here. This is from directly from their thing. Let's take a look at bike link. There's no audio. It's just like a jingle in the background, so there's not anyone saying anything as part of these videos. So you just look and read along. So we're not necessarily saying that this is the best bike locker on the market. It just seemed the one that maybe fits our needs the best. And it has been vetted through a large agency like LA Metro. And I have seen it in person. And it is a bulky locker. And I think it would hold up to some of the efforts to try to vandalize. So the recommendations here, we're just trying to look for the committee's opinion on the program itself holistically. Look at should we charge, should we not? Is the bike link maybe a good option, or should we look at other options? But we really want to, at this time, we do want to remove the non-functional lockers at this point. Investing more money to maintain those or to replace them doesn't seem to make sense right now. And then we also want to look to enhance security at FTC. So we are exploring some contracting with private security companies. And we feel this is a very important piece. Without the security to continually to put amenities out there that get vandalized, it doesn't make a lot of sense. It seems like it could be a waste. So we want to prioritize the safety first before we launch a new program or launch new lockers. So for the bike link, just to put some money out there, some dollars to this project. So 10 lockers would be $50,000. So they're about five grand each. That's initial capital cost. And it's 1500 annual maintenance. So that's 150 per locker per year. So as far as the charges go, that could be up to us. A bike link recommended a 5 cents per hour charge for X amount of hours. I just put 12 hours here, but you could really change that. And then it would increase in like an after hours type rate. Like if they were in there after 12 hours, it would increase to 12 cents per hour for an extended period of time. And that's really to incentivize people to not leave their bikes in there forever. And then there would be a cutoff when it would be considered abandoned. And then there'd be a procedure to contact and get the bike out if it was deemed abandoned. And then after it was launched, we'd advertise and monitor usage. And I think with the technology they have, since it's app-based, we'd have more data to see who's using this. Is it the same user? Is it different users? Is 10 enough? Should we have more? Should we have less? So I think that's something we never really had in place before. It was very manual, very clunky. It was keys. People held onto logs for a long time. and we didn't know if they're being really used frequently or not this would be a first come first serve type of situation there'd be there would be a usage charge no deposit it would kind of take the city out of the administration in a way too where they would just be paying bike link right through the app So it's a good solution. It's something to consider. And I believe that's all I had. So I'll leave it up to the committee for some questions.

Thank you. Did you create this presentation yourself?

I did.

That's really good. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. So before we go to our committee comments, let's take public comments. Do we have public comments in chambers? Come on up.

Hey, good evening, committee members. Mr. Vice, really appreciate your presentations, very comprehensive. And that's a lot of good information. I really appreciate it. So my name is Chris Rep. So I was actually the last bike locker user. I was the last one in this of the four that are the remaining. Just a little history. I've had a bike locker since 2012. I've been commuting 25,000 plus miles. And I plan to continue to do that. For those who don't know, many of you know my story. So at one point, my bike was stolen out of the locker. I actually posted this very sign eight different times throughout the train station and a few hours later I got a call from an individual that wanted to give me my bike back. So he didn't want a reward he just wanted to give the bike back. And. So that was that was a cool development. I just wanted to reiterate that I appreciate the city's desire to resurrect the bike locker program all the efforts that have gone into it. I certainly support that and support the committee. I wanted to talk a little bit about the PowerPoint and just some of the questions that came up as I reviewed it and maybe some comments that I have. First off, I would really encourage you guys to just keep working with the stakeholders like myself to give feedback on all these things. Some things that came to mind. That's pretty expensive, $50,000 for those 10 lockers. Maybe we could go with five. I don't know if that company has a minimum that you have to buy. We could try something smaller. Paying any money after paying nothing for a bike locker for so many years gives me a little heartburn to pay. Anything, you know, to use a bike locker, but obviously the security benefit is tremendous. And I think it's probably worth it to do that. But, you know, some of us bikers are in the frugal side, right? Pretty cheap. So just something to consider. And I saw that Santa Ana had a locker that was a locker program, $10 a year. I think that was pretty, you know, I'm not sure what options they have, if they're working or they're being used or not, but maybe something to look into as well. Yeah, how secure is it? I think one of the main things that we have to consider is it seemed like that particular locker, if there was an issue, we couldn't get the bike out, there's someone that would come out and respond to it, because that's a security thing. I actually have been locking up on the rack as of a few weeks ago, and I've locked up there several times. I've actually... I have invested in a $380 Kryptonite lock. It actually has insurance and a gauntlet of measures to keep the bike from getting stolen. So I actually have some level of comfort with bike rack. So you have to consider and weigh that with all the options for bike lockers. So with that, I really appreciate the time, and thank you for all your consideration.

Thank you. You go to Union Station?

Yes, that's correct.

Union Station you could park it if you don't need it to actually go on to your place of work Have you considered that as it might be like I haven't looked into it.

I don't know if there's bike lockers at Union Station Another option is to take the bike and just write it to the building I work at the JFB building on Hope and first in downtown so I can just take the bike and write it from Union Station So that's not Union Station to your place of work. It's about a mile. Okay I take the red line the subway. Oh one stop and get off and walk right now. So up and down stairs The challenge of the bike is now it's on the train So you kind of got a babysitter on the train right and you can't if I go to a happy hour I can't take the bike. So I'd probably have to lock it up on the rack.

So you take Metrolink usually or Amtrak?

Usually Metrolink, but over the last 20 years, I've taken Amtrak as well. The times change, so either one usually works.

Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Any other questions? Okay. Thank you very much. Do we have any other public comments in chambers? Come on up. Hey there.

Hey, everybody. I really appreciate the presentation. I thought it was it was a really good presentation. And I do like that this new model is not the long term leases because when you were showing the poll, it looked like there were a lot of people who just didn't have the opportunity to use it. So I think switching to a bike locker system that allows first come first serve, there might be more users because I'm sure a lot of those people who said no, they said that they weren't able to use it. They probably just gave up on it after a while if they kept trying to. So the need was still there, but it wasn't provided for. And I just want to emphasize that bike lockers are different than a bike car. just because the bike lockers are for storage if you're not biking at your destination, if that makes sense. But a bike car means you're going to bike when you get off or you have a place to store it when you get off. And I think if there's one place that we need bike lockers, I mean, the train station is the best place to have that. You know, if you think about it like from a free market standpoint or a competitive standpoint, you want – we spend a lot of money on our roads and on car travel and – As bad as our roads are biking is even worse so if you want less people to use our roads and to put more wear and tear on our roads then you have to improve walkability you have to improve bike ability you have to let there be some competition for the quality of transportation and as bad as it is driving here it's still worse walking and biking so I think this is a good investment for the city to make and while it may not have a lot of users now There will be a lot more if we just improve the quality of the service. So I would support moving forward with these lockers and just seeing what data we get back as we go along. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Any other comments in chambers? Any comments on Zoom?

No comments. Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, there's one comment.

Oh, all right.

Let's go for it. Hi, Kent. Go ahead and unmute. We have three minutes.

Hi, can you hear me?

Yes, we can.

Okay, great. Yeah, Kent Morris, avid bicyclist, longtime resident of Fullerton, retired professor. The few times when I use a train and my bicycle, I always bring my bicycle on the train. So I've never used bike lockers, but I can understand why a lot of people, especially commuters, would like to have... bike lockers available in a safe setting where they don't have to worry about vandalism, etc. I would continue to survey the public as far as if this is something that they really desire. I would also look at the City of Irvine to find out what they're doing right down at that train station that makes their bike lockers so popular. So that is basically all I have to say. Thank you for the presentation.

All right. Thank you. Any other public comments either in chambers or on Zoom? No comments. Thank you very much. So we'll go ahead and close public comments on this item Do we have any comments or questions from our committee members? I have a lot to say on this so I had a front-row seat to Chris's Situation back in June of this year and if I may kind of give a little background to those who are listening about What see what part of what led to this very moment? Is it okay Chris if I share those details? Okay, so What happened with Chris is that he, as you mentioned, he uses his bike, gets to work, parks it at the train station. One night he came back on a Thursday night and the bike locker lock at the train station was broken in such a way that he couldn't get his bike out. And this is, unfortunately, a common tactic for bike thieves, where they do something like they break the lock so the lock is unusable, or they put their own lock on a bike, hoping that you'll leave to go get help or maybe come back the next day when help is available. And by that time, in the dead of night, they've managed to saw off your own lock or do their thing and take your bike. So that night, Chris contacted me, and we tried to figure out what to do, emailed everybody we could at the city. And I think you even called non-emergency services at the police, if I'm not mistaken. And you were told that this does not constitute an emergency, and it would have to wait until the following morning. So the following morning, maintenance was called. And a maintenance order was placed. But maintenance again said, this is not an emergency. This doesn't merit after hours. I think that was a non-working Friday for the city. So maintenance said, we'll have to delay action until Monday. And then Chris's bike was stolen from the locker on Sunday. before it could be rescued. So I like the bike link idea because it provides after-hours security, which I think could have prevented the bike theft in this situation. If we don't go with bike link, if we don't go with a company that offers after-hours services. I think it would be incumbent upon the city to provide those services because of what can happen overnight with these bike lockers. And these are people's primary modes of transportation. So they're just as important as a parking lot with people's cars. They're not less important just because they're bikes. So that would be one thing I would suggest. I know it was brought up about taking bikes onto the train. It's not really a feasible option if you already have your schedule set up to park your bike at the station and then get on the train without it. Reason being is that Metrolink doesn't always have a bike car. On the remaining cars that come, sometimes there's space for one, maybe two bikes. Like Chris said, you have to sit and babysit it. And babysitting it often means standing at the front of the train for 30 minutes with all of its bumps and you don't get to take a seat. Amtrak has increasingly not been able to supply bike cars. Amtrak requires a bike ticket. Even if you have a code share, like a monthly ticket with Metrolink and you have code sharing with Amtrak and you're allowed to use Amtrak, Amtrak increasingly these days does not supply bike cars, even if you have a bike reservation, to get onto Amtrak. And they are very strict. You may not board Amtrak without a bike reservation, period. And so Amtrak comes, the train comes up, and you're expecting to be able to get on, but they don't have a bike car. Even if you secured a reservation on their website, they won't let you on. So if it's sort of built into your daily schedule to get on the train without your bike, kind of need to have that reliability, because the alternatives are just not there. So the bike lockers are really important. Something I took from this presentation was I appreciate the work that's gone into reactive measures. But what I took away was that for 10 years, we've known that there is a vandalism issue, but we didn't really do much to improve the lockers over the past 10 years. So this is actually a longstanding issue. I think when the Clean California grant came up back in 2023, I don't know if this was in writing or why I couldn't find it in my emails, but I know that Taylor, when he was here with the city, Oh, it's OK. I think Taylor and I took a walk over to the train station so we could actually look at the lockers that were there. They were in the parking lot at that time. And I think that's the time when you, Chris, were alerted that these were going to be removed. And you had put the sign up. And at that time, I remarked to Taylor, well, the problem isn't lack of use. The problem is that these are in this random corner of the station that I didn't even know was there. And so they don't have eyes on them. They're not visible. And that's like a fundamental principle of bike security is lock your bike in a visible location. Do not lock it up out of sight. So these are techniques that we could be employing. We could be learning from these situations, and it sounds like we are, in order to enhance security for the future so that people can have a sense of security when they lock up their bikes, not just here, but all around the city. I totally support the use of these bike link lockers. I think that if it's good enough for LA Metro and it's good enough for LA Union Station, it's good enough for us. We're the third highest ridership Metrolink station out of all 69 in, like, period. Out of all 69 Metrolink stations, we have the third highest weekday ridership, at least as of 2024 statistics. And so we definitely need to provide this amenity to riders. I understand that we have budget deficits at the city level. I totally get it. With that notwithstanding, I think that this is a general amenity that we do owe to the public so that they can have freedom of transportation. BikeLink is a good idea. It does offer a few features. If we don't intend to go with BikeLink, I think we can take a few lessons from BikeLink, which is that they do offer those opaque doors. And they're hard metal. And the doors are sort of recessed so you can't squeeze a crowbar into them and break them open like you can with our current lockers. Our current lockers have a gap. They're opaque, so you can't see what's inside, whereas ours are current. They have a mesh on the outside, so you can see if there's a bike in there. And you can even maybe get an idea of what kind of bike and if it's worth stealing, which is a drawback. One of the suggestions I had was perhaps we could consider, so Something I fear is that if you get to the train station and you have your bike with you, and then it turns out that all the lockers are occupied, you are out of luck. It's a difficult situation. So I don't know if it's possible through BikeLink, but if they could have a reservation system, like an advanced reservation, either that you do it the night before, reserve a locker so it's ready for you, or maybe if they have a long-term rental option in addition to a short-term rental option, you could do both, and the long-term perhaps could have a deposit. Because you're like a reliable user you know if you're gonna be there every single week Always using a locker you need to know it's gonna be there for you that maybe that could be something we can consider I do like the pay-as-you-go option I know that you mentioned Chris mentioned as a public comment that it was a little bit of a deterrent, but at the same time I think the the usage fees are a deterrent to vandalism because you don't have people using them for free there's a certain there's a tiny barrier to entry for that and So it kind of it does make it A little bit more restrictive. There's a little bit more friction that then discourages improper use so those are all the lessons that that I wanted to take away from this. I don't want to harp on this point too much, because I'm really happy about this presentation. It is amazing. And you made so many good points. But I hope that we can do better in the future with regards to how the vandalism episode occurred, where this happened. And then at the next council meeting, it was brought before council as a public comment and got a lot of visibility. And then the city's response was, to announce that they were taking out the lockers, which gathered a lot of negative public reaction because it felt like the city was sort of withdrawing support at the time when users needed it the most. So perhaps that could be a lesson to us in the future of how to respond to issues like this. I know there's probably a lot going on behind that decision, but that's how it came off in the public eye. There's one other thing. I also worry about removing the lockers before a replacement is provided. And I understand the pros and cons. I totally get it, because right now we're sort of passively servicing lockers that people aren't able to use. They're unusable. They're just dead weight right now. But the reason I fear taking them out is because if they're gone, we are less incentivized to move quickly on a replacement. they might just be gone and forgotten. And so if there's either a deadline we could set for when could we expect to get new bike lockers, we can plan for that. And I know that there's security considerations as well. There's a lot of moving parts there. Maybe there could be a plan in place like a deadline, okay We've got to get lockers by this time or maybe keep them around for the time being just as like a placeholder so that the Opportunity is not lost forever That might be that might be helpful just as a you know, keep the band-aid off a little bit So those are those are all my thoughts about this Bottom line is I love it. Let's do let's do bike link if we can it's great. I And I like the idea of data being here and I think This is a lesson for how we treat active transportation infrastructure in the city as a whole is proactive not reactive responding to need Understanding it holistically, you know people aren't not using these because of lack of interest but rather because of lack of usability You know these kinds of lessons

Now I'm comment during the conversation so let me pull back and ask my fellow committee members if anybody has any additional comments or questions I Would like to offer my opinion on this I think this is an awesome idea But given the financial status of this City, I don't understand how we can justify spending $50,000 on ten bike lockers It makes no sense to me how we are even having this conversation given that cost, because it's not just $50,000. It would be ongoing security personnel. I don't know. It just doesn't sit well with me. I wish we had money to spend on something like this, but I don't think we do. So I don't know that I'd be a very big supporter given the cost.

Thank you. Do we have any other comments from our committee members?

The recommendation is not to spend city money on this, right? It's to try to find funds somewhere else. There's nothing in the city budget for this.

There's nothing currently in the city budget specifically earmarked for bike lockers. There's always discretionary funds that can be shifted around. But right now, no. We just said adopt our budget last night, and this was there's nothing earmarked for this purpose. I guess mentioned in the presentation there is potential grant opportunities, but it'd have to be packaged as part of a bigger project and pursuit of those is is resource expense on resources, too. um so in the big picture of things is it a big dollar amount in the city's budget no but you're right you know how do you justify it right we just had a long discussion last night adopting the budget about the impacts of some unbudgeted unfunded positions and services uh so now to turn around and spend this money on uh i have a question for our speaker uh now you

It seems we are comfortable with the bike stand now that you have all this new locking system right that a locker isn't necessary or are you still feel that they are.

Yeah please.

Yeah. So I have reached a level of comfort I didn't think I would have by now because I have a gauntlet of security measures that I've implemented. I have an air tag.

And only one person can break kryptonite. I don't think even he can. Superman, yeah.

No, so the bike lock I have, if it's defeated, you actually get, they'll pay for your bike. But it was a $380 lock. So I've kind of invested in that and I have a lot of different measures and things, nuts inside of the Allen bolts and the seat posts and all sorts of different things that I've done. So I have reached a level of comfort with it. I think during the day my back will be fine now. But if there were lockers like the ones Mr. Weiss presented, I think I would probably use them. But, you know, I think, yeah, that is pricey, though. So I understand the financial part of that.

Thank you. And if I could share another advantage of bike lockers, sometimes you have to lock up your bike with a lot of stuff on it. You want to leave your lights on. You want to leave a couple panniers on with some stuff in them. You can't do that at a rack. It's common to carry all this stuff on your bike because where else are you going to carry it? So a bike locker helps because those easily removable items are more secured. Also, I just remembered one other thing, if I may bring it up. Another aspect of low utilization for the bike lockers, I suspect, was the idea that they were challenging to access in the first place. To find out who orchestrated this at the city required a little bit of elbow grease. There was one person with one phone number. And you had to call them and do the thing. And Chris can probably. give his experience a little bit better than I can. But that friction, I think, reduced usability of these. So solutions such as bike link or something similar, or at the very least posting the contact information for the responsible party at the city on the bike lockers themselves to enable interested parties to utilize them, that would be another lesson that we could learn. Any other questions, comments from my fellow committee members? Okay, all right do we is there like guidance or What's the word?

Thank you recommendations that you need from us as a committee as a whole or no your advisory body So just your your thoughts are all we need for now so this this discussion is gonna be documented in a more holistic memo that would be resending to council and And then we'll see the sentiment of council and how they feel about it.

This goes directly to council or through the Transportation Commission?

We weren't planning to take it to Transportation Commission. And I don't even know if it will be agendized at a council meeting. I'll prepare an internal memo that will be sent to them. But really the security piece is important for me is that if we are going to invest any type of money in bike lockers, we need to address the security. Not just the unit itself, but holistically at the transportation center. So that's another conversation and initiative that's being worked on in parallel. So without that in place, this is kind of going to be on hold. And as I think it'll be on hold until that's addressed. So it's going to be ongoing. But to your point, it won't be forgotten. We are still going to push to remove those because they are blight. It's like the broken window effect. They're just going to continue to get more damaged or used as shelter or housing or storage for some transients. So we're going to still push for that. But I understand what you mean. But right now, just the discussion is all we need for now.

With a company like BikeLink, do they require certain level of security measures to be present where their lockers are installed before they're willing to?

No.

Do they offer insurance if bikes are stolen from their units?

I don't believe so. So that $1,500, $150 per locker per year maintenance is really for just like graffiti and minimal things, but it doesn't cover vandalism. If the lockers were damaged to the point of not beyond repair, the city would be responsible to replace. So it only covers so much.

Will it cover vandalism that doesn't require replacement, such as a broken door or a broken lock?

No. No, it will not. If you guys imagine $150 per lock, $150 isn't going to do much throughout a whole year.

Then we would have to supply a maintenance person to fix stuff like that.

Yeah, or replace. So that's been an issue with this program since the beginning. There's never been a budget for ongoing maintenance and replacement. So that's another aspect to this program. If you want it to be successful, you need to address the security and address the finance. So any amenity does need ongoing maintenance and budget for replacement eventually. With this type of system, specifically how it was set up before, it was free. It was essentially free. There was a refundable deposit and no usage fee. So the maintenance costs just came out of the city operation. And there was no replacement costs. So as they got damaged beyond repair, they got removed. So we'd be looking at the same situation unless we had actually a budget for maintenance and replacement in the city side, not just bike lane side.

Out of curiosity, how much does it cost to cover maintenance for the parking lot at the train station? I'd have to get back to you on that.

just rolling it's rolling for all of the parking lots in the fullerton transportation center yeah i'm just wondering like the comparison seems an apt comparison just the parking lots yeah i could get that number i don't Yeah, we did an exercise. Again, don't quote us on this, but I want to say it's about $10,000 or so, $10,000 to $15,000, but upwards of $20,000. The reason we know that is we just amended our Old Spaghetti Factory lease, for instance, and we have what's called the area maintenance contribution, and that includes upwards of $15,000 maximum. But if I recollect correctly with Dave and Gratham, it's about $10,000 to $15,000. And that's just for one lot.

That doesn't include the two parking structures? No.

No. No.

Okay. I'm guessing that would significantly increase the price if we included those.

Yes.

Yeah.

I mean, you do it with all of the lots, but you have to think of landscaping, the maintenance, the clearing, if it needs to be repaved, all of those goes back into that.

$1,500 a year kind of pales in comparison Anyway, all right, so if there's no other comments questions for my fellow committee members We'll go ahead and close this item And then our next item will be the bike master plan. Do we have a presentation on this?

We don't have a presentation other than just the copy of the presentation that was provided to the committee back in I want to say April of 2025. So just a recap on that whole process. So the reason this is coming before you is just really a public notice, but also to the committee that we're going to go ahead and codify what was presented in the sense that we're going to use that as the priority metrics based on the feedback that we received from that meeting. And we'll put it into the policy framework and then of course, you know the final work program in terms of where that goes It goes into public works workflow. It also dependent on council direction Grant funding things like that that will play a factor into it. But in terms of the bicycle prioritization since some time has lapsed we took on an effort as a committee to be able to kind of sort of reprioritize or just have a fresh look into what is uh under the action items of the bicycle master plan we created sort of a working group that was determined by the committee um chair anjali tapadia was there as well as andrew galusha that was between the end of 2024 going into 2025 work with michael plotnik our traffic engineer to sort of vet a lot of that and then that was presented to the committee at the time We brought it back for discussion. There was a lot of discussion between the committee on a lot of the items. Those were incorporated as well. But for the most part, the presentation that's been attached and provided to you, I believe the color is blue. The blue is kind of our staff's input in terms of those projects, where it is, is it in progress, is it not? And then all of the others in terms of high, mid, and low priorities were based off of the working group's recommendations. So that's really the update. We're not planning to go deep into that. My goal is also not here as a technical expert on it. But for the most part, we did have a lot of ample discussion around it, especially early 2025. And then we did have a survey that was sent out as well. So between the time that we didn't have ATC, those were circulated a couple of times for just additional feedback. We didn't get any, so I'm going to assume everything was aired and discussed during that public meeting. And we didn't receive any other public comments since then either. So with that, we're going to take that reprioritization and just kind of run with it. So I just wanted to make sure that the committee is aware. If you had any other last comments, if there's members of the public that want to use this opportunity to speak on it. But otherwise, we'll go ahead and take it as a policy framework moving forward on all of the other projects as it relates to it.

Thank you. Before we take public comments, I just want to note, so this is the presentation that we were given today, this packet, which is wonderful. Thank you for printing it. This was not made available on the city website today for the public to review. I know it may have been in previous meetings, but I think the public may or may not know exactly which meeting listing to look into to access what was going to be discussed today. So that that I hope I just wanted to comment that doesn't have.

We'll go ahead and add it as a supplemental. So when you go on the link for those that are watching or listening by the end of the day or even tomorrow we can add it as a supplemental the PowerPoint again you can go to the previous meetings as well. But yes our sincere apologies for not having it for today. We had a little bit of a document mix-up but otherwise the presentation will be posted and and if folks have any comments on it Since they didn't get a chance to take a look at it. They're more than welcome to contact staff.

Thank you Yeah, that would be helpful for the future because the public I think does need time like I have it because I worked on it But the public didn't have it. So if anybody wanted to share their thoughts they lost that opportunity at today's meeting and the same is true for the The same. Well, anyway, we'll talk about it later. So anyway, thank you for that. Appreciate it. Yes.

If I may, high level, aren't most of these dependent on repaving of the roads? These recommendations?

I can speak to that. So yes, some of them are. They'd have to be packaged with a capital improvement project. There are some that are signage, whether it's a class three that just needs some signs put up. That doesn't need to be a capital improvement. But yeah, if we're going to put paint on the ground, it's got to be a pretty good road. If it's not in good shape, we ain't going to put paint on the ground. So it would have to wait until a CIP is programmed to implement that bike facility.

Right. OK. That's what I remember. So thank you. Yep.

Thank you. All right, before we go on, do we have any comments from the public about this item? Come on up.

I'll be pretty brief but yeah I really like these. Anjali I asked Anjali for the PowerPoint beforehand that's why I have it. But I don't have all the staff's input but specifically Commonwealth I know Commonwealth is coming up. I'm not sure how much of that would be included in in this program but I would love to see that. I think that. I think they said Commonwealth is going to be next year. So I know that that's the road that everybody cares about in South Fullerton and I think having some active transportation improvements there would be great just to start. Where I live in South Fullerton there's like no way to bike. I mean it's like Acacia is horrible and Commonwealth is horrible and I would love to just start seeing some investment down there for active transportation improvements. And if we're going to be doing that road might be the perfect time to do it either while that's happening or right after, whatever makes most sense operationally. And yeah, that's it. Thank you.

Thank you. Come on up.

I will just make one comment and I'll try to talk into the microphone in response to Eric's comment about paving that Berkeley finally got paved after all these years that I've been complaining about a Berkeley between Chapman and Wilshire Critical bike link is now paved and I appreciate that being done.

Thank you Thank you, do we have any other comments in chambers No, do we have any comments in zoom? There's no comments on zoom. Okay, so then I'll go ahead and close public comments Do we have any questions or comments from committee? I?

Do any of these recommendations require the removal of existing on street parking.

You know I'd have to look back. I believe some of them did either parking and or travel hints to be honest. So some of them were not advisable through the staff's recommendation. Some of them would have to be packaged with the CIP. There definitely have to be a lot of stakeholder outreach if there were any removal of parking and or removal or traveling to accommodate bikes. So they're by no means going to be implemented through just a standard CIP process if it does include one of those two items.

Yeah, good. It's good to comment to let the stakeholders know how their street is being affected. All four bicyclists I use them myself and but at the same time there are trade-offs with everything Now At this time maybe we could reclarify what the city code is regarding bicyclists using sidewalks because sometimes if there's no safe way to utilize the street and there's not a lot of width there and People do. I've done it. You go on the sidewalk for a while and you kind of weave in and out. That is legal in Fullerton, right, to ride your bike on the sidewalk as long as you give right-of-way to pedestrians?

Yes. Okay.

I would like to see more attention, even if it's just in a dream phase, to the UP right-of-way, which is there. There's been a train on it in over 20 years. I know the railroad still owns it. But that is a long, long route which begins at the city limits right there on Imperial. It actually begins beyond that on Lambert. It goes all the way down and even has a bridge which crosses the Coyote Creek. I don't know what the name of that creek is. The storm drain there along Malvern and then takes you right down into southwest Fullerton. And it's a great spot for a bike trail. I've ridden it myself, the length of it. and would encourage others to do so, even though technically it's railroad property still. But I don't think the trains are ever going to reappear there, and hopefully we can put that somewhere so we don't forget about it, because it's a tremendous asset, especially that bridge across the channel there. It takes you right into a neighborhood in southwest Fullerton. It doesn't take you across to Santa Fe, but it does – It stretches north-south, and it's a great commuter route. It's especially recreational as well, so I hope we keep that in mind. Also use of flood control channels. There are a number of channels. I've used them myself. There's one that goes east-west between Harbor and Euclid there at kind of the north end of the city limits. Sometimes it's locked. Sometimes it's not. Sometimes the fence is open and you can use it. even though you're not supposed to. It says no trespassing county property. Well, county property is public property. And even though you can't trespass on all of it, there are a lot of places for flood control channels, creeks. We should remember these so-called flood control channels were once normal creeks before the concrete boys got at them. And there are a lot of places in the country and in California and the LA area where they're trying to reopen them, especially if you go along the LA River north of downtown. It's a beautiful bike path there. And even though the sides of the river are concretized, the base of the river itself has trees and plants and things like that growing on it. So hopefully we can keep these in mind because even a short one, like when you're going north in Acacia, there's a flood control channel which cuts up Dorothy I mean even just a shortcut there and there's a maintenance road right right along it, but the thing is locked up So I'd like to see us work more with the county and our supervisors specifically All I think the last three have been mayors of Fullerton including me if for the fourth district to work on those And hopefully look beyond just using existing streets but dedicated right-of-ways that those would provide for

Thank you very much. I agree with the furry goes in flood channels idea. I think it's great. It's unused space. We could totally use it for something else. Well, for additional uses. I guess if you're seeking direction or recommendations from the committee, I would put in a vote for let's do it. I was part of the two-person working group that assembled the prioritization list. So I agree with myself. We should do it. I wanted to bring attention to a particular aspect of this list. which is that in the bike master plan prioritization list that was provided to us, it was provided to us throughout 2023 to 2024. But I believe the most recent iteration was in September 2024. And this just gave comments on various line items in the bike master plan, feasibility, status, things like that. A number of items were listed as infeasible. Andrew, Galusha, and I, in this working group, we actually did look into those in order to rethink them. And we found that there were a number that actually, with a little bit of outside of the box, out of the box thinking, those projects actually perhaps weren't infeasible and may actually have, if they were re-envisioned, could bring a lot of usability. So for example, Highland near Porter, Highland near Orangethorpe. This is an area that definitely could be – like, I think it was marked infeasible, but only within the constraints of more – I don't know how to say it, basic thinking, kind of inside-the-box thinking, but with a little bit of reimagining of some intersections there, could actually significantly improve usability for a major bike thoroughfare. So other things like fast and cheery, we also discussed things like that. So I bring that up just to say as this is reviewed, I would ask our staff to please keep those quote unquote infeasible products under consideration and not count them out entirely. Because I think that there's actually a lot of feasibility there if we just think outside the box and we don't dismiss them outright. Let's see. I think that's the extent of my comments. I just want to make sure that those quote unquote infeasible projects are kept in mind. And if a little outside the box thinking has some potential, perhaps it could be brought back to the committee for consideration of some ideas. And we certainly presented a lot of those in our PowerPoint presentation as well. Any other comments or questions from my fellow committee members? Okay, very good. So is there anything else that that you guys need from us as part of this item?

No, we want to thank the committee's time and the working groups time for doing this. I know I was on Previous committee member, I listed things to do as well. And it took some time. But we do appreciate the time and to be able to work with staff, understand sort of the nuances of both sides, and to be able to create this list. Of course, if things change as these projects come to a design level, it'll still come back to ATC as an individual project. But this just kind of helps to prioritize them if we had to choose between two projects, things like that. but that's about it on this particular item, but we'll take the recommendation and We'll take it in off to see if this needs to go to council or not, but more or less We'll be using it internally Thank you very much.

Yeah, it was a three year endeavor from actually 2023. So a lot of a lot of work So, thanks guys Now we will go on to staff and committee communications and future agenda items do our staff members have Forecast items or as other things to bring before the committee We do not at this time Again, the projects come before you when they are ready for sort of input around the design stage at this time We don't have any items Do my fellow committee members have any items to share with the public or make reports on?

No.

OK. Thank you very much. I actually don't have any to share at this time. In that case, we'll go ahead and adjourn the meeting. Our next meeting of the Active Transportation Committee will be Wednesday, September 16, 2026. And I know everybody's working really hard. I just want to ask, please, if those materials could be posted online prior to the meeting so the public could have the opportunity to review them. And so can we. That would be lovely. Because we are really invested in making sure that we provide good quality comments on items. Thank you very much, everybody.

Still going around.

Thank you guys so much.