Council Airport Committee - Regular Meeting

One. Plus this one? You can.

20 things. Okay.

Okay. It's on Zoom. Zoom.

This is you too. Oh,

thank you. Yeah. I'm gonna pause the recording.

Oh, I'm off. Okay. We go. Angel,

do you wanna switch yours on? Right there.

Yep. There you go.

Alright.

Ready? Okay. You guys ready? Yeah. Ready? Okay. Ready? Yes. We're ready. Okay. Good. Okay. And, can I see can you turn your name your name card around just so I just to make sure okay? Of course. Alright. Okay. Yeah. Just right there is fine. I just I just yeah. That's fine right there. Perfect. Okay. Hi. I'm not too to you. Good evening, everybody. Welcome to the Hayward Airport. Welcome to the Hayward Airport. Right? I get a tiny sound check. Okay.

Welcome to the Hayward Airport. This is we're Wednesday, 02/26/2025. It is 05:32PM. I'd like to call, this meeting to order of the council infrastructure and airport committee and be so, and then I I don't know who takes role. Miss Kim, were you gonna take role? Or

oh,

go right ahead.

Council member of the address. Present.

Present.

Present. Thank you. Next is public comments. Public comments is reserved for anybody in the audience who would like to make a public comment on something that is on the agenda or not on the agenda. But I think many of you are here for items that are on the agenda. So let me let me ask this. Do any of you have a public comment on something that is not on the agenda? And okay. Seeing no public comment, I no. I'm kidding.

Okay. So we have public comment. And let me did you you've already fine. Okay. And, of course, they are in order. I don't know what order they are in, but let me

Like a couple more, two

Yeah. Yeah. So, miss Dean, you have you have two cards not on the agenda. Okay. On agenda. Okay. I'll start I'll tell you what. I'll start with, miss Dean. Come right up. And then for those who are not on the agenda, why don't you do this?

Why don't you stand up and kinda, you know, queue yourselves along the wall there next to doctor Carlson over there? And, and you can and then as you as you talk, give us your name, and, in that way, I can pull your card out. Okay. Miss Dean, you're first.

Thank you. Some of my comments are about noise, so I'll address those during the noise time. I did send you guys, comments, but I want to say them in public as well. And the first thing I want to ask about was the larger jets. And I know you can't answer my questions now, but that's okay. The larger jets are very, very noisy. And I'm just wondering if, there is a supposed a flight pattern that they are supposed to follow and, whether or not that they're supposed to be flying at all hours of the day and night. That was a question. Next question. What is the current status of the SkyWest Golf Course?

We'd really like to see, it being better maintained and vandalism prevention. As far as the pilots go that fly in and out of Hayward, we're kinda wondering where they're coming from. I know the last time I got a public records request, it was only, like, seven people had a 94541 ZIP code. I would wondering about the current percentage of vacant industrial space in Northwest Hayward and in all of Hayward. And I'm kinda curious as to how much of it is publicly owned or how much of it is privately owned.

I'm wondering about the market rate rent for hangers by size and whether or not the current tenants are now paying market rate for their hanger rentals. I'm wondering about the current status of the proposed projects at SkyWest, like the hangars that are gonna propose to go in where the Western Pond turtles live in that first pond. The industrial space, I know it has been postponed. I'm not sure how long it's been postponed for, and we know that's in the butterfly Grove where the most monarch butterflies live in the East Bay. 477 of them counted by the Xerxes Society.

So putting that industrial space in where the monarchs live doesn't really sound like a great idea. And then the clubhouse, which we know is not in the runway safety zone when we looked at the city of Hayward GIS, when we looked at those maps, we saw that the clubhouse was not in that zone. And the, the clubhouse is getting really destroyed with the overgrown weeds and trees and then the glass being broken all the time. And I'm wondering if you guys could board it up more or something. Next is I'm wondering about a 100,000 trees.

You guys are involved in a 100,000 trees program where you grow little trees and you plant them. Totally awesome. But then we're thinking about cutting down all these trees at SkyWest, so I don't know how those two things align with one another. It seems like it doesn't work at all. We'd love to get quarterly updates, and I know you guys are planning a calendar, I believe, for this committee, and I'd like to see SkyWest being updated.

We'd like answers to these questions whenever you can give them to us. And I feel like an update a quarterly update would be really cool. We really wanna keep SkyWest as open space as as a buffer between the airport noise and the homes. We know that, in your looking forward 2040 plan that it's it is open space. We'd like it as a buffer, and we wanna let you know that there's a worldwide movement to convert old golf courses into open space for community benefit, and I'm really hoping Hayward will do that. Thank you.

Thank you. Next public comment. Yeah. Go ahead. And if if you're just walking in, I'm if if you wanna make a public comment and it's on something that is not on the agenda, you can speak now. But if you're gonna make a public public comment on something that is on the agenda, I'm gonna reserve those public comments when we get to the item. Okay? Because I just saw a handful of people walk in. So Hi. Right ahead. And and I'll do for this public comment, I'll do three minutes. And then when we get to the agenda item, and then we'll adjust the the time. But Okay. But I just wanna

I'm Mary Clements. I live at the SkyWest townhouses, and I'm on the board at SkyWest. And I'm coming to say thank you. Oh, thank you because I was at the meeting last month, and the big tree that had fallen is gone was gone the next day. So we really appreciate that.

And they've mowed, especially along the townhouses, the fairway, and even as close as they could get to our property line, this week, which is good. So my next question and hope is that the three fallen eucalyptus trees that happened last February, February 2024, and they did do some work, and they cut them up into stumps and pieces, but they're still sitting there. And so they're getting nice and dry, and we'd appreciate some time spent to cleaning that up. But we are we're pleased with your attention to keeping that safe. It's looking beautiful.

And today, a lovely monarch butterfly was flying by. So we appreciate your efforts and and listening to us.

Thank you for the kind words. If you want five more minutes, I can give you the first. Okay. Anyone else that wants to make a okay. Miss Frost.

And this is something that is not on the agenda. Correct?

Well, it's not related to the noise. Okay. Good. I I wanted to say, my name is Sandra Frost, and I'm a resident of South Hayward. I wanna kind of reiterate what Ms.

Dean said that we have concerns about the airport the plan for airport expansion, and really appreciate this forum to be able to talk to you guys about this freely and and appreciate your transparency. And, also, there's there's such a tremendous amount of opportunity for that space to be used for education. We had an amazing weekend with the fire fire training crew from Chabot College. And what you know, this will add to their training to be able to deal with the dry wood and the dry grass eventually in SkyWest as an open space. They can learn to deal with fire hazard in an urban area, which will further round out their talents as, you know, future firefighters.

And that that program is phenomenal at Chabot. It's just phenomenal. And I I think that that's all I need to say. I don't need to take up your time. Thanks for hearing me.

Thank you. Next public if you yes. Because it's it it is not on the agenda, and so you may do that. Yeah. Alright. Hi. I just wanna talk

to you about your fabulous website. Your website is so great, and I just wanted to quickly just highlight some of, like, sort of my favorite aspects of the website that you have. It includes something called an environmental justice element. I even think some of,

you

all have had voted to approve and add that to your general plan. Just some, some great highlights of, the environmental justice element. Physical fitness. According to the California Health Institute, survey, the city of Hayward had a lower percentage of adults meeting the recommended physical activity guidelines in comparison to the county. The lower levels of physical activity within Hayward may be due to a variety of factors, including lack of recreational space.

So I found that just really interesting contributing to things like obesity, asthma, cardiovascular disease. So I just wanted to highlight that as well as your park standard policy that the city wants to achieve. And this is a shall. Right? So we know the difference between shalls and shoulds.

Right? So this says the city shall seek to increase the number of parks throughout the city by working with hard to achieve and maintain the following park standards per 1,000 Hayward residents. So with all this great stuff, I'm just wondering how the development of SkyWest is even on the table. It just seems so counter to what your, documents show, over and over again. And so it's really disconcerting.

Right? Like, you want legitimacy in these documents. Right? Like, you want them to mean something. So I couldn't understand how a proposal to develop, one of the last precious open spaces, could go forward. Another thing that you have is, like, even better than the environmental justice element as far as, our purposes, if we're talking about SkyWest, is something called the resource element. I don't know if you've seen it. Have a look at it. The city promises to protect, natural resource habitat and not turn it into an industrial expansion of the airport. I mean, it's just it's just amazing.

Right? Not not even the unincorporated area had something like that. So I just think this was a really smart council that went forward and passed such legislation. I would really hope that that council would adhere to that legislation because, you know, laws should have effect. Right? And laws should be adhered to. So what I wanna demand, right, is that the city comes forward and formally says that you have dropped the plan to develop SkyWest, and that's our demand. We want that in writing. Thank you.

Thank

you. Next. I believe it's you. Yeah. Hello. My name is Steven Brown,

and my backyard looks out on the former SkyWest golf course. I have a very strong feeling that if you allow a business park to be built, mine and my neighbor's property values will all go down. I believe that we can all agree that gazing out at a landscape green space is much

more pleasing to look at buildings look at buildings and asphalt. I'm keeping I'm for keeping SkyWest a green space for many future years that will develop progressive and responsible thing to do. The whole industrial area has many interior houses and buildings that can

be retrofitted for businesses that would like to build on SkyWest. Let's be respectful and progressive in saving this healthy green space. There's been a ecosystem evolving in the former golf course with many birds, frogs, butterflies, many other animals, farms, finding a sanctuary away from the congestion of the city. Please place life and nature above any monetary gain by building a business park.

Yep. Something else here. Good. We've got almost two minutes. Okay. Well, last night, I was I was was standing in background and I'm recording. I'm just gonna play a few seconds of that. Fine. It's right here. I'm nervous, but it's right here. Sorry. I still got time.

Yeah.

I got I

had it already.

No. That's not you. Sorry. Yeah. We we we wanna keep SkyWest green. So that's why I'm here, and that's why I'm looking under r for recordings. And I can't find it. P r oh, shoot. Oh, there it is. Okay. There it is. Okay. Here we go. Oh, shoot. Sorry. Okay. Here we go. Can you can you I don't think it's like can you hear that? Yeah. Yeah. We heard it.

Oh, come on now. I'm trying to play it here. I got

I'm sorry. But We get it. Frogs are I mean, you you if if you were to stand next to me in my backyard from, like, 08:00 until about 02:00 in the morning, It's a chorus of frogs. It's a chorus of millions of them out there. And if we build a a business park out there, that ecosystem would probably be gone. And so Okay. Please, let's keep it green. Green. Green. Green.

Thank you. Anyone else for public comment on an item that is not on the agenda? Well, think you're probably comment right over there. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So okay. Okay. Seeing no more public comment, I will close public comment and move for and then move on to, the approval of minutes.

I'll move the item.

Second.

Moved by council member Andrews, seconded by council member Sara, and then you can take the role. Well, actually, if there are no objections, it will unanimously pass. How's that one? Okay. Moving on to item number three. This is the Santa Clara Street calming project number 05303, and I believe either miss Kim, our assistant transportation engineer, will kick this off. Miss Kim.

Okay.

Hi, everyone. My name is Jay Kim. I'm an assistant transportation engineer at the city of Hayward. I'll be presenting the Santa Clara Street traffic coming project. The project extent is from the West A Street to Winton Avenue, which crosses over several streets, including El Dorado Avenue, Elmwood, and OC Way. The traffic coming project was initiated as directed by the city council.

And as you work that out, I just wanted to add, miss Dean, you have another card here that says, airport noise on the agenda. There's no air point airport noise. There is?

At the end of airport?

You want me to state the word?

No. It's

a oral report.

Oh, the oral okay. Okay. Alright. Alright. Alright. Okay. I Okay.

Right after the point.

Yeah. It's at the bottom of the page. Okay. Yes.

Okay. Ready to get back? My apologies. Alright. I can continue with the presentation.

The objective of the project is to improve the transportation safety of Santa Clara Street between West A Street and Winton Avenue. This section of Santa Clara Street is two lane roadway for the most part and serves mostly single family neighborhoods. There, there are existing class two bike lanes, but there's no shopping separating the bike lane and, and the on street parking. While the posted speed limit is 25 miles per hour, 84 percentile speed is 36 miles per hour, indicating that 15% of drivers are driving at 36 miles or higher. The average daily traffic is approximately 15,000 vehicles, 6,000 vehicles of which are data vehicles.

Based on the collision data from 2018 to 2023, there were 12 injury collisions, including two fatal and one severe, injury collisions. The cross section, at the bottom depicts the section between El Dorado and Elmwood Avenue. There's one travel lane, a class two bike lane, and on street parking in each direction with a center turn lane. And as you can see in the cross section, there is no shopping separating in separating the bike lane and the parking. The transportation department hosted an open house on February 6 to gather community feedback on safety concerns and potential improvements for the Santa Clara Street.

Approximately 30 area residents participated. Based on the feedback, we learned that due to the speeding vehicles, residents are having difficulties exiting driveways or minor streets to munch onto Santa Clara Street or safely cross Santa Clara Street. They also felt unsafe traveling at nighttime due to insufficient lighting. There were many collisions crashing into their parked vehicle and houses, especially the corner houses. And there were also concerns related to too many thrill traffic trying to avoid I-eighty, and people asked for additional traffic controls needed, such as stop sign and traffic signals.

The poster board at the bottom left shows the community feedback regarding the current transportation challenges. We asked where people feel unsafe crossing and the intersection with Eldorado Avenue and OC Way received more starts. We also asked why do why they don't feel safe traveling on Santa Clara Street, and the popular answers were cars were traveling too fast and not enough streetlights. The the sticky notes at the at the bottom responses were summarized in the bullet points above. Lastly, we also asked how they travel on Santa Clara Street and residents mostly voted for walking and driving.

And on the bottom right, poster, we also presented the proposed safety improvements and received feedback related to existing concerns, which are also summarizes, in the bullet points above. On the consideration of the community feedback, we are planning for improvements in the immediate, short term Oh, sorry. Okay. Yes. We're planning for improvements in the immediate, short term and long term.

As part of the immediate action, we're trying to address issues related to street line maintenance, sign replacement and red curb installations at intersections. The short term improvements are expected to be implemented in within the next two years and will focus on safety improvements for pedestrians and bicyclists such as preferred bike lane and high visibility crosswalks. The long term improvements are expected to be implemented in five years as part of the repayment project to reduce the overall vehicle speeds and right of way conflicts. The improvements will include intersection upgrades and lane configurations, which are explained further in the next slide.

K.

The intersection upgrades for the long term improvements include concrete or painted curb extension along with the rectangular rapid flashing beacons at the intersection with Eldorado Avenue and OC Way. These improvements are expected to better accommodate pedestrian crossings, and we have been selected for funding for these improvements, and we'll be working to implement these upgrades. Additionally, when Santa Clara Street is repaved in about five years, we propose updating the striping to discourage through traffic and further reduce the right of way conflicts. We'll be evaluating the potential reduction of the double left turn to one left turn from both 8th Street and Winton Avenue onto Santa Clara Street and additional adding additional controls such as stop signs, traffic signals or roundabouts at the intersection within the segment. Lastly, we'll also evaluate the implementation of a raised median near OC Way to limit U-turn movements and reduce vehicle conflicts.

For the next step, we'll further evaluate our proposal based on any comments from this meeting and public feedback. Then we'll have second public outreach event with the public to give an update on the project proposals. We'll then finalize the short term improvements, which will be implemented in summer twenty twenty six. After this, Anna Clara Street will continue to be evaluated to establish and implement the long term improvement. And thank you for listening. I'm open for questions and comments.

Before I go to public Thank you. Before I go to public comment before I go to public comment, I'm gonna see if there's questions from council members. And so I will go with, council member Andrews first.

Thank you. Thank you for the report. Wanted to know, for the open house, where was the location of the open house?

Microphone.

Oh, sorry. Yeah.

So it was at the Alameda County Office of Education. That's located at the corner of Santa Clara and Winton.

K. Thank you. And then for the second public outreach, it says fall winter twenty twenty five. So wanted to know what date that was because it's the 2025.

Maybe this So sorry.

She'd love to be a public director. So later this year, we'll be doing more outreach. So, like, somewhere between you know, we need to sort of

hear what we

hear from you, hear what hear from the public, kinda take that information back, and then sometime, you know, say, between September and the end of the year.

So more like fall twenty twenty okay.

Got

it. So just wanna highlight that just so I don't get confused. Okay. And then can you remind us where the funding came from for the the long term improvements, at least for the intersection upgrades?

The intersection upgrade, that is, from the HSIP grant.

The what grant? HSIP. HSIP. Can you remind me what that is?

It's been

Okay. And it's, funding that we get we just heard we're gonna get from Caltrans. So it's has to be formally approved, but we we don't anticipate, any issue with that. And that won't we won't actually get the funding probably until either later this year or early next year, but we're excited about that.

Okay. And did you receive any, comments in writing of about this plan from the public? Like, we we

meetings specifically. Is that what

you mean? But we got a lot of you saw the sticky notes, and we had a lot of comment cards that we collected. And we have all that feedback.

So only at the meeting, but not in the email?

Or

I did receive, like, several emails set

from the residents.

Yeah. Okay. Great. Thank you. I'm gonna stop right now. Thank you. K.

Thank you for the presentation. One question was just around the implementation of speed bumps or the lack thereof. Is that a plan for the street implementing any speed bumps? I didn't see that mentioned.

The speed bump was not mentioned.

Okay. And I'm just curious if there's

a requests for speed and and just to

be clear, right now, Santa Clara is classified as a street that our policy doesn't permit speed humps. So that would we'd have to kinda talk to you all and, get some direction from council if we wanted to do something that didn't conform with that policy.

Got it. Is that because it's a minor arterial road? Exactly. Okay. And so it sounds like whenever we're putting a speed bump on a minor arterial, we have to get specific permission, or we don't have a process for that yet?

Yeah. I mean, basically, our

policy says we don't install speed humps on minor arterial. So we would if we were not gonna follow that policy, we'd want to get specific direction not to follow that.

Okay. Yeah. I guess we can wait till comments. But, you know, for roads like this that are primary res primarily residential, you know, this seems like a easy way to help bring down the speed of traffic in a long strip like that.

Yeah.

And that's it. Thanks.

Just a couple of follow-up with council member Andrews. At the, at the, ACOE, how big was the participation? Was there a lot of people there? Same amount of people?

There were about 30 people.

30 people? And, and just out of curiosity, all the, you know, the, like, the emails that you received, how many did you get? The 10, a 100?

Not that many. I received about maybe three or four.

Oh, three or four? Yeah. Okay. And then, in terms of, like, cards and post its and stickies and stuff like that, would

I mean, we we got a lot of comments. Yeah. Yeah. We have people who came to the meeting were very passionate, very concerned, lots of issues happening on the streets, that they're they were concerned about, so we got very lengthy comments.

And then the other question I have is, you know, I I don't know if you track this or not, but in terms of, you know, that corridor between West Winton and A Street, it's a pretty dense corridor. Just curious if if comments came from, like, one particular part of the neighborhood or pretty much spread across, you know, the neighborhood. I don't know if you track that, but

We we do have one household.

We did talk to you know, we talk it

was an open house. We talked to all the folks who came, and we had people from up and down the corridor and from the side streets, all across the corridor. Would say we even had some folks who came, from, a street over, still on Santa Clara, but, you know, just outside the stadium. And they brought donuts to make sure they were welcome.

So Perfect. Perfect. Yeah. And I I believe the the council, we had something that night because I I I remember I wanted to go, and we had something going on that night. And so, anyways, I I wanted to I wanted to apologize for that, for not being there.

And the other the other question I have, as part of your analysis, will you be you know, you know, I know this is not permanent and or we're not we're not building anything tomorrow. But will we be looking at, like, incident reports, you know, accident reports, fatality reports? Will we be looking at that in the analysis of Yeah. Of this work?

Yeah. We already have started looking at the data as it relates to that. And, yes, absolutely, looking at all the kinds of data we get on that, on data on speeds, data on on travel. So that all informs all the kind of recommendations that we're making. And

and I see fatalities, but are we gonna be looking at, like, will we break it down, like, bicycle

Yes.

Driving, walking, strolling, stuff like that? Okay.

Absolutely. Perfect.

Okay. Councilor Andrew,

got you back wanted to know what was public safety's comment on this plan given that I know that speeding has been identified, but just curious about what fire thought about as well as PD.

Yeah. I mean, we're before we have, like, a specific plan, this was really, like, starting of the outreach process, hearing from folks. So we haven't brought anything, to, like, our internal groups to say, hey. We're planning to do this, that, or the other, on this, but we we will be doing that as we move forward.

Okay. Thank you.

And then at the at the at the next meeting, will we be reaching out to public safety, particularly the police department to include them? Yeah. We can do that. Yeah. Wonderful. Okay. Okay. Go ahead.

Thank you. I'm curious. I I see the inclusion of a rectangular rapid flashing beacon. Are there thoughts around the inclusion of curbed pedestrian islands as folks are crossing these longer streets, giving them a place of reprieve in the middle of a larger intersection?

Like, community and refuge.

Yeah. So I think we can look

at where that's possible. You know, that always depends on the width of the street and if turn lanes are not and and one thing or another. But where it's possible, we absolutely do those Okay. Kinds of treatments. We try to.

Thank you. Thanks. Great. Okay. So what I'd like to do now is go to public comment, and, I only have four cards, regarding the Santa Clara, issue. Are there any other speakers that wanna speak to the Santa Clara issue? This is item number three of the agenda. If not, the so there's have you already submitted a card? No? If you can please submit your card, then I can include you in your he will get you some cards.

Yeah. Okay. And then, now I'm gonna be, you know, in, in the consideration of time. You know, we usually give three minutes. But since this item you only have four cards or five cards, maybe six cards are coming.

I will give three minutes. But, as we start to look at, item number four, if you can, you know, see if you can trim down your public comments to maybe two minutes. I'll shave two minutes. If I start to see, repeat, you know, issues over and over and over, if, then I may step in and, and reduce the time. But, otherwise, you know, I wanna be as generous as possible, but I also wanna, you know, be home by midnight. How's that? Okay. First public speaker is Alejandro Hasso.

Hi. How's going? Well, thank you thank you so much for working on this project. It's It's really important to I can say if I just rolled down to get here Mhmm. You know, some parts.

You know, this section is not included in this project, but I'm just gonna advise a driver getting into the bike lane right before Winton by the post office. So I have the screen so the driver could see me because they're trying to just cut traffic through the bike lane. But, yeah, specific to the section that that is in this project, something that I I don't see is notion of, like, potential, like, run within the. That way, like, the drivers when they're when they seem to, like, be leaving their driving lane, you know, they they there's, like, a physical there's, like, like, a physical awareness of you know, they're they're getting off the car lane because we've seen a lot of we've seen a lot of fatalities in here recently. And I think that I think that could be something that could be added as part of the buffer, these round pigment markers, just to be more clear when someone skinned off the car lane.

Also, I think there was a mention about race intersections. I mean, I always mention this, but on Fairview Avenue, there's a bunch of race intersections, and they work really well at slowing cars down without make without causing traffic backups. And I think that could work well here because there's no stop signs, but those could be effective slowing, like, inward passing additional traffic backups. You know, keep continue allow them for a continuous flow of traffic, but, you know, at a safer speed. Yeah.

And I think this I think this is already mentioned in the project, but, you know, due to the to the one off traffic, I think, those required class four bike lanes. But, you know, in the future state, in the long term project, I know there's a a lot of drivers, but, just wanted to highlight that that it is a requirement from, NACTO based on that nominal traffic.

But thank

you for working on this project.

Thank you. Appreciate that. Our next speaker is, Deborah Souza.

Welcome. Thank you, Fari. Thank you for allowing me to speak. This this project is very passionate to me. I missed the original meeting at the town, but I've been in contact with Jade through emails since this I first heard of this. I my family's seventy five year residents of Holly Lane right across Santa Clara Street.

We are right in the

middle between Winton and A. We've seen a lot of changes. Okay? We've seen changes. And I'm so grateful for this. Three years ago, I petitioned the city to do a traffic study in because I'd seen the fatal auto flood. Yep. I've seen accidents there. My sister was hit there. Just trying to get out of our street is, like, impossible at certain times of the day. I was told that they did not warrant any stop signs. I was told that people could not have symptoms, and I think he was saying that. Okay. Those ovulating bumps, that would be great. Thus, I have a couple questions after reading what came out of the last name.

Can I address those real quickly?

You can ask the questions. We will take those questions down. We can't answer those.

I will

We'll get back to you on those. Okay.

I know that the intention is to have a lane going in each direction with the center turn lane. Also, a bike lane on each side. Also, parking. How are we going to fit that? Between Elmwood and A Street, the road is wide. Between Elmwood and Winton, the road is more narrow. When I was a child, that area north of Elmwood was county jurisdiction. So there was no sidewalks. It was all dirt and so I remember that very much. The thing that concerns me, and I don't know if people had ordered this or not.

People's front yards. Response from people responding. But this area, this is highly ESL. To work in the people that do not speak English and do not venture out of their homes. So can talk more through something that we can get some information from as well.

Talking about the crosswalks at Eldorado and the OC Intersection, that'd be just the lighted flashing signs or would the sidewalks light up? Okay. And we've talked about what happened to the crosswalks for their entire childhood in Woodbridge, Sinclair. There is an AC Transit bus stop on both sides of that road. I know it because I took it to high school every single day. Every one of my siblings did. People still take that AC transit to block in every different places. Suddenly, there's no crosswalk since the last repaving or a

couple of repavings. We did approach the city with that information. They told me there

was no more crosswalk there.

You can see the remnants of

the crosswalk still at the edges.

Miss Souza, your time is up. I appreciate your advocacy over the years, and and I think we've I would encourage you to continue to communicate with miss Kim and Yes. With you.

And I did speak, pretty much everything I wanted to say.

Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is, Tyler Dragoni.

I appreciate it. Yeah. I just want a second. Those crosswalks are there. You do see the remnants of those crosswalks. I just wanna say you're supported for making the street safer. Probably a lot of stuff online. The people don't like change. Right? So you may see that. I just wanna say you're supported here in real life, right, where it counts. And you have support, and you have a responsibility to make it more safe. So thanks.

Thank you. And thank you for not taking all the three minutes. I only say that to Tyler, by the way. Is it Jamie? Yeah. Jaime? Oh, Jamie. Jamie. Right? Okay. Yeah.

Good evening, everybody. Thank

you, mayor, and city officials alike. Lifelong resident, born and raised in Hayward. My family grew up on Sonoma Street. That'll be the closest intersection to El Dorado. My grandfather's father built my house that I live in today back in 1919.

You know, tonight, this is where we all come together as a community and and leaders that we entrusted, you know, to make the right decision to make the right decision. I wanna say thank you for the the thought that's going into Santa Clara and slowing its traffic as both a pedestrian on that road, a commuter on that road, and a bicyclist on that road. It is a dangerous road, you know, and we see so many times where, you know, us as citizens can be neglected. And so great to see it back in back in the limelight again. So my my comment is for this intersection on the Eldorado and Santa Clara.

And my suggestion came to me after our open house meeting. I was driving down on Gadding and Hayward, and I noticed that there was a three way crosswalk, you know, instead of a four way. So my question to you or comment would, what's keeping us from converting the Eldorado Santa Clara Intersection and converting it just to a three way and cutting off the the crosswalk that's closest and nearest to a street to give drivers more reaction time. We know they're going fast around that corner. You know, my neighbors had a a couple cars in his backyard, and the neighbor across the street had a couple cars in his backyard.

But my comment would be to just make it a three way crosswalk opposed to a four and put a no pedestrian cross sign that we see on other streets that are like I know we can't put speed bumps in there. Yeah. You know, it was mentioned earlier, but perhaps it's been in other cities where they raise the entire intersection. So the entire intersection is a speed bump in itself. I'm not certain if that classifies or falls in the same jurisdiction.

Extending the the curbs out, you know, I get it. You know, putting the pedestrian out there, but I don't think the pedestrian should be on that crosswalk to begin with. They should be on the crosswalk, you know, 50 feet down, you know, just to be a little bit more safer. Also, people like myself and my neighbors, we also have larger vehicles. We tow a lot with trailers and putting that curb. It's gonna make it real difficult for me to make that turn back home and and cause me to actually go into the other side of of traffic, which can also, you know, cause some other issues itself. But thank you for bringing us today. Off subject, maybe a bigger room, some more chairs. You know, I should have said that in the beginning, but, that's all I have.

Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. Next speaker is Mark DeLonge. Mark is not here. No? Oh, there you are. He was over? No. This is this is the oh. Santa Cruz. I will put you over here. Sorry. I missed that one. Let's see. Crystal, is it Bladgett. Bladgett. Yeah.

Bladgett. Yeah.

There you go.

Oh,

sorry. I am living in

the house my dad bought when he got out of, yeah, in 1955. Why isn't the the sign that says how fast you are going working, and it's been out for years, and that does slow traffic down. And it's why aren't the police giving tickets when people go ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty miles over the speed limit? You give them tickets, they'll slow down. That's all I have to say.

Thank you. Thank you. Art Torres?

Thank you. Thank you. My name is Art Torres. I spent most of my life right there in that area. I mean, I also moved to Modesto and Tracy and stuff, but I've spent most of my life right here on Yolo Street in Santa Clara. My wife and her family own the property at the end of it's now corner house at the end of Santa Clara coming towards a street. I I believe that because when they built that bridge, they made the road go around her house. That wasn't her house wasn't in the corner at the time. It was on the street. There wasn't anything.

I think you guys put my wife's house in danger. She's had three or four cars crash into the front yard, go through the fence into the house, go through the fence and into the closet, ruining both of the bedrooms. I've seen a car come from Santa Clara Way, which was created by the city, come off that street, come on to Santa Clara, make a complete u-turn, and go right into the cyclone fence, through the cyclone fence, through the yard, into the other fence, and into the neighbor's house. Talk about the information you have with people getting killed on that street. There's three or four people.

Actually, my neighbor across the street, her dad got killed on there. And there's other two or three other people that got killed right in the corner of El Dorado and Santa Clara. Now I know it's not your fault. I know those people just don't care, and some of them were under the influence of alcohol. But, you know, it's it's very dangerous. I think the first meeting I'm a change the subject for a second. The first meeting that you guys had, I think it could've been handled a little better. You know? You didn't have anybody there to talk to the people. I had people come to me and ask me, hey.

You know, what's going on? Who's talking? I said, I don't know. Go talk to that guy. You know? But they were also bilingual, so it wouldn't have done any good to have you you're a person go talk to them. They didn't understand how to speak Spanish. I get back to Santa Clara. There's a lot of problems with that. I just don't wanna see that you that the idea that you guys wanna put some bike lanes in there and that's your solution to it, that's not gonna help.

There was quite a few comments that were given to, I guess, and you guys put them on those notepads. We don't really know what you wrote. I don't. I know I gave quite a few, but I don't I didn't see I didn't read those things. Not all of them, anyway. And that area is pretty rough. It's just not by Eldorado. You know, Eldorado, right close to that. And there's no way if you're gonna put some kind of a I don't know what, but there's gotta be something better than nothing. The cross traffic that goes right there is dangerous as all heck.

Mister Torres.

Yes. I understand. I just wanna say

But I

but I get it. Yeah. The last thing I wanna say is that if you're gonna come out with some information, as Jay did right now, You know, I didn't understand half the stuff, and I thought it'd be good that you guys put it down on paper so you can hand some out because there's quite a few people that probably didn't understand or couldn't hear. Yep. You know? And even though I heard what she said

Appreciate it. Thank you. Okay. Our next speaker is l Hodges. Thank

you.

L Hodges. Thank you, mister Torres.

Okay. Just kinda backing up my baby sister, Deborah. That's my baby sister. She kinda covered up what what I was gonna talk about. But I will like to emphasize that at the corner of Red Bud and Santa Clara Street okay. That definitely had crosswalks. I was in them all the time, and now I live on Aida, which is the next street parallel to Santa Clara off of Redbud there. And, so the in 1950, they felt the need for crosswalks there. And at that time, Santa Clara was blocked at, by OC. You know, it widens.

So not much traffic coming from Britain at that time, and Costco wasn't there. There wasn't any traffic. We could lay on Santa Clara Street. We played football and everything on Santa Clara Street. But, they felt the need for a crosswalk there. And now they say we don't have enough traffic to warrant a crosswalk there? Something wrong there.

You know?

So that's about basically what I wanna carry, go over on with it. Now I have I moved in in 1952 on Holly Lane. I was two years old. Okay. So now I live on Ida, and I moved there in 1971. So we've been there a long. We we see everything and remember it vividly. We love Hayward. You know? I've heard some bad things about Hayward, but we live there, and we love it.

You know? So if you could just kinda keep that in mind, appreciate it because no traffic. You know, we could flip on on Santa Clara Street. And now and we got a crosswalk, and then we don't have a crosswalk because there's not enough traffic. So fifteen minutes to get across Santa Clara. Fifteen minutes. I'm I'm halfway across Santa Clara Street, and the cars just go right by right by. I'm I'm going the where I remember the crosswalk was. Anyway, thank you so much.

Thank you very much.

Appreciate it.

You know, I didn't get

any notification. I'm shocked. I'm gonna like, I've been in labor seventy seven years, and I didn't get I didn't even know about this. My sister told me.

Well, there's certainly a lot of history, in this room, of the city of Hayward. So I really appreciate, all of you, who came up to speak. Just so that you know, you know, all of the agendas and everything is posted online. If you are not already, I wanna encourage everyone. If you go to the city of Hayward's, home page, Just scroll all the way to the bottom.

Click on, the newsletter link. You know, subscribe to the stack. We have, like, three or four different newsletters. If you, if you apply to the stack, you'll get all the meeting, agendas. You'll get all the meeting announcements, and so forth. And so I think you know, we're pretty, timely on that. Okay. With that, I'll return back here to the table and see if anyone has comments or, any further comments.

Jump in first.

Yeah.

Also wanna express gratitude for the comments tonight. I think, you know, the recommendation here, there's not a formal decision that's being made. Is that correct? It's just to receive this

feedback. Exactly.

Okay. Well, I think you've heard the feedback from the community loud and clear. It sounds like, you know, a real desire around crosswalks. I think studying, you know, the impact that curb ball bouts will have on certain intersections and the types of work trucks and occupations of that neighborhood are a way for us to be, I think, culturally sensitive to people's livelihoods. Lights at the pedestrian crosswalk, I am curious. Have we implemented I know we have the lights in the sides, have we done it in sidewalk cross, lights before?

So we we don't, we have historically done that, and it used to be common to do it, but there are a couple issues. One of which is they fail very quickly

Okay.

And become a very significant maintenance challenge. And two, they actually are much less effective than the ones that are because the ones that are on the side, they're at eye level. And the ones that are in the crosswalk, you tend not to be, like, looking down right in front of your car, so you're much more likely to see them. So best practice, is really to use the rectangular rapid flashing beacons that you see around town.

Will they be paired with reflectors on the ground at least?

We do use reflectors in some cases, and we can certainly you know, especially on something like a bulb out or on a median, we'll often have reflectors, so folks can see.

Okay. Because when I hear about someone waiting fifteen minutes to cross the street, that's unacceptable for a neighborhood. Right?

Yeah. Totally unacceptable. And I wanna be clear that my team and and I think you all know many of us are, there was a a lot of turnover in the transportation team. We were not aware that the crosswalks were not put back. The ones that that some of the folks are just gonna they will be put back, we're hoping to put those back this summer if we can when we do repaving just to make sure we address the ones that were just not repainted when it was repaved last. And then further upgrades would happen later, but that's something that we can actually do pretty quickly.

Okay. And then it sounds like there's already a speed limit sign there. I mean, how soon could we get that repaired?

We'll we'll look into that to

figure that out.

Great. And know, when I hear about a car crashing into a home, not just one time, but multiple times and then through fences, a concrete bollard on a corner can solve for that pretty quickly. Are you familiar with the intersection they're speaking about?

Yeah. Yeah. We talked a lot about that. Okay. There's actually, sadly, multiple homes, it sounds like, on this, road, and we talked to folks at the meeting and had got it. It was very useful for our standpoint. We got a lot of great feedback. We talked to everybody in the room and and understood their issues. So, yeah, we'll we're gonna look into all those issues in the day

we can because

I know in Orchard Avenue, we had a similar problem with that roundabout.

So Exactly.

For those specific homes, I think having concrete pillars is a good way to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Yeah.

Okay.

Get into that.

Yeah. I mean, I I'm just here to echo a lot of the comments we heard. I really appreciate the community providing their feedback because it helps us do a better job with a project like this, and I'll I'll end my comments there. Thank you.

Alright. Thank you to the community for coming out regarding this item. Wanted to know if we could for the next community meeting that you have, can we consider having a interpreter? If they were if they were there previously, they may have may have missed it. I know we have that for certain meetings, so we should include that.

We can we can look into that and and look at having that. Or or I I like the idea of suggested of a walk and talk maybe for folks Mhmm. Who might feel less comfortable at the

community meeting.

And I know that we've done a, like, a walking audit. I know that was done with an organization through UC Berkeley, but it might be something that you'll be interested in given the comments we got from the community.

Absolutely. We do those very frequently on lots of projects. So, yeah, we can definitely look at that as an option.

Okay. And then regarding speed bumps, I know there there's particular requirements for for why we don't have the speed bumps. Is there any way we can get more information on what what street allows for speed bumps, which don't, why we don't if we don't do it at all? Like, if you can get more details of that because I

We so we do have we have a a policy on speed humps that, I mean, that was adopted by council, and we actually just updated it pretty recently to change some of the thresholds actually to open up the number of streets and the number of blocks that would allow. But it's pretty simple. Anything that's classified above a collector. So I think that's considered a minor arterial Yeah. Or an or a major arterial would not allow for speed humps

Yeah.

Which is a lot of the streets Right.

Actually, in Hayward. And there's a separate question about whether or not those are all classified correctly, and we want them all to be classified as arterials. And that that is a bigger conversation that we would have to have with with city council.

Yeah. If there's something that you could put on the website, because I do get that question asked a lot from the community. And when they find out that actually it's not allowed in certain streets, it's confusing for folks.

Yes. We don't have

a map on the traffic calming web page that shows that. We'll make sure it gets added.

Okay. Great. And then ditto regarding the speed limit sign as well as re I was I was gonna ask if if their crosswalk was there, can we just put it back? So it sounds like that Nope.

Absolutely. Make sure that happens.

Okay. Great. I think that's all my comments for now. Thank you again for the community for coming out. Sorry.

Had a quick follow-up just to piggyback off of council member Andrews. So, I'm in support of maybe at some point reassessing what we consider a minor arterial. I know it might be based on the amount of traffic. Is that correct?

It's a little bit more complicated than that,

but traffic is certainly a factor that goes into that.

Got it. And so maybe creating some new designations so that we can allow for more speed bumps in certain neighborhoods. But in lieu of that, it sounds like what's being proposed here at some part of the road is a raised part of the road. Is is that allowed in a minor arterial?

Yeah. I mean, that is something that we could look at, and I will advise that we have other locations in town, and some of you may be very familiar with these where we've tried that raised intersection Yeah. And get daily complaints about.

Because of noise and light noise.

And if there's any heavy vehicle use of that, it tends to be quite loud and, again, in a residential area.

So I see.

It's something I think we will we can absolutely look into. We don't wanna rule anything out at this stage. My advice is likely to be not that we wouldn't wanna do that, but it is something we'll look into.

Okay. Yes. I mean, I'll take your advice, your your your staff, and we trust you with these projects for a reason. I think I I I would be more interested in just understanding how we're classifying minor minor arterials and seeing if there's some flexibility to allow us to expand speed bump.

Absolutely. And just to be clear, one part of classifying roads, like, a really important part, if you look at federal guidance, is land use. Mhmm. And so we have a lot of residential streets that are identified as arterials because they serve through traffic. Mhmm. And so that's this trade off between residential versus through traffic and what is should control. So that's something that we can look at and talk about.

Okay. Great. Thank you. Thanks, mayor. And, mister Log, can you well, tell you what I'll I'm gonna do. I will, close the I still have a a few comments I wanna make, but I like to pause this section, reopen public comments because I know you rushed over here. So so, give me your your card, your public comment card. Oh, okay. That's fine. Fill it out.

Fill it out.

Speak first, then fill it out, and then give it to Hugh. Yeah. Because I know, yeah.

Hi. My name is Priscilla Figueroa, and I live at the corner of El Dorado and Santa Clara Street. And I just want to tell you that I have that we have had three different accidents right at the corner. And people that cross the street to go to school or what or to go to the park, they take their lives in in their hands, you know, just by crossing the street. And I've spoken to a lot of the neighbors, and one of the suggestions that we had, you know, to have one of those push buttons, the yellow light, you know, so that people could actually cross the street safely.

And I've been there since 1956, so I know the area. And I know when the street was straight, and then we got this curve. But the curve seems to be a blind curve. So people start taking off really fast, you know, as they take that curve. And, you know, sometimes they play races in front of my house.

I live at that corner. So one of the things that I talked to my neighbors that we have thought would be maybe put one of those bumps be just before you get to the to the crossing on El Dorado so that people know and understand that, you know, it would slow them down. And then maybe one on the long blocks, you know, to have a bump as well. The other thing that I I was just checking the street right now, and you can hardly see any bicycle signs in there. And other parts of the street have the green barrier, you know, whatever.

And when they fix Eldorado and those streets back there, I asked one of the work workmen there if they would please put ink, as you say, on that emblem because a man was going to work 06:00 in the morning. And a car just came and ate him up, and he landed in my driveway about 120 feet. And, you know, that it it hurts to see my people over there. And the other issue that I have as well is the people that live on Sonoma Street. They take their lives in their hands, their cars in their hand because you cannot see a car coming.

It's a blind street. You know? I I work with some of the engineers, and I had an engineer come to my house, well, maybe nine maybe 2000, 19 '90. And they said they needed 10,000 cars to go across so they could do something about it. And I know that we could do something about it because our life is precious. I really thank you for allowing me to speak. I'm sorry. I went to to the school district, and I went to city hall, And there's a note. Somehow I missed the email where it was gonna be. So I apologize for my.

No problem. Thank you. Okay. Make sure you fill out the card. Okay.

So I I have a I just have I wanna make three brief comments. And, you know, and and kinda I don't wanna, you know, relitigate. I know director Amiri was at the council meeting last night, and I know my two colleagues here were were there. But, you know, last night, I adjourned last night's council meeting, in the memory of a young woman, Lydia Guerra. Lydia, on February 10 at about 07:40 I think it was about 08:30 in the morning, 08:15, 08:30 in the morning, she was walking.

She was a she was a special ed teacher, a preschool special ed teacher at Roos Elementary School, and she was walking to work. You know? A car going northbound on Kalaroga at an excessive speed, ex and it's on video. It at an excessive speed, bulldozed a row of cars, cut about four trees, right, like toothpicks, and hit Lydia and killed her. It was horrible.

Less than one week earlier, less than one week, I think it was, like, six days six days before on Hispereum Boulevard right over here. A guy was walking in a car at a high rate of speed, hits him, kills him, didn't stop, just kept going. He is still at or the driver is still at large, and we were lucky enough to get the driver on the Kalaroga incident. I say all of this because what we are trying to do and what Public Works is trying to do and what and what I said last night it's it's recorded. What I said last night is that the city council is in full support with Public Works and with every effort possible to slow traffic down.

We have to slow down. You know? And I and I don't wanna belabor this one point, but I remember early on my tenure here, there was a neighborhood. There was a, you know, a a problem with speeding, and and everybody, in fact, it might have been up in the hills, in the Highlands somewhere. And, they wanted enforcement.

They wanted enforcement. So what did we do? We sent patrol up there, and we started ticketing everybody who sped. But then what happened is that we I started getting calls from people saying, we wanted you to ticket the speeders, but we didn't want you to ticket me. Right?

So, you know, these so, you know, we are listening. Right? And at the at the core of this is speeding. Right? It's our it's our kids. It's our neighbors. It's our, you know, our uncles, our dads, our moms. I mean, we're speeding, and it's comp there's more people on the roads. Traffic you know, there's more cars on the roads. And, you know, and we get we get clobbered online.

And I'm not gonna name the the the the social media groups, but we get clobbered online when we do road diets, when we put the the bollards, when we, you know, do you know, when we paint, you know, when we do paint when we paint the street or when we narrow the street. Oh my god. I mean, we are clobbered online for this. And that's why, you know, mister well, Dragone Dragrone, when Tyler comes up I appreciated what he said because, you know, we we when we do what we wanna do to slow traffic down, you know, the the pushback and the vitriol and the ugliness that happens online, it's absolutely you know, it's it's troublesome. It's troublesome.

So, so that's our main that's our main goal here. Secondly, you know, speed bumps. I know there's you know, they seem like a a a the solution to a lot of things. I'm not a I'm not an engineer, but I do know that there's there's problems with that. And, you know, and and and they they aren't necessarily the the panacea for everything.

But they you know, there's other things that we can do. And and so and so when we do those things this will be my last point. When we did when we do do those things, when we do listen to you, when we do plan our our strategy, when we do execute the strategy and we, you know, start implementing what we want or what you want, we're gonna need a little grace. We're gonna need, you know, a little grace, and let's test it. A lot of the road, you know, reconfigurations we're doing, a lot of this is just trial.

Let's test it, and then let's you know, and then we'll tweak it along the way. I hope it doesn't take fifty years to do it. I hope it doesn't take, you know, that much time, but, I just wanna say that we're we're here. We're listening. But at the same time, we can't not see what is staring us right in the face in that we are in something the the what is happening and people are literally, you know, are are are losing their lives, and we need to take this seriously.

And I know the next item that's coming up on Hayward Boulevard, I understand, you know, the issues up there, but I just want you to know that we we are working with everybody, and and we really wanna solve this and figure this out. So with that said, I appreciate everyone's participation. I'd like to close this item, and then I'll move on to item number four, which is the update on the Hayward Boulevard feasibility study project zero five two one seven. And, and I believe mister Amari and mister Locke will, I always mispronounce it. It's Loke.

Louch. Louch. I it's fine. Louch. Miss mister Louch will kick this off. Okay. Yeah. See.

Oh, yeah. I

don't we're not are we on Osaka Boulevard? On on the on the So

I'll call in for the

Are we are

we online? If we if we were to get a public comment online, we can get one online?

Yes. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks for mailing you guys.

Thank you. Thank you.

Okay.

Okay. Thank you. So, again, I'm Kewla, deputy director of public works overseeing transportation. I'm gonna talk a little bit about the oh, let me chime in the microphone. Hayward Boulevard, feasibility study. And this is very much restart of a project that was started, before my tenure here with the city, and it is something kind of excited to bring back, to you and to the community. This is very much the start of outreach for this project. We've definitely heard from a lot of folks. All the comments we've received are in your packet, that that were received by 01:00 today. So you have a copy of all of those, if you have any questions about them.

And very much we heard a lot from the community and a lot of, thoughts and ideas, both people who support elements of the project, people who have concerns, and and certainly we wanna hear all that, and make sure we make a better project for you all. So with that, let's make sure this goes forward. There we go. Okay. So the Hayward Boulevard project was started really as a focus on safety.

And and, I have to say, Mayor, I really appreciate your comments. Certainly, we see the kind of vision zero policy the council has adopted as the kind of guiding light for all the work that we do in transportation, and and really trying to save people's lives. And we wanna as we do that, think about all the different users of the street. And so with Hayward Boulevard, some things have changed pretty substantially since we started the project initially. So the project was started.

We thought we might be able to pursue a grant. We had some very, exciting, very, I would say, grandiose ideas about what could do with that with the street. And as it got put on pause due to a variety of concerns and also with transition and staffing in the transportation division, you know, we've wanted to kinda come back to it thinking about what what is actually sort of possible. One of the challenges we have is that the likelihood of getting grant funding for a project like the one we had identified is actually pretty slim, I would say, given the type of conditions of the street and the and the situation and compared to what is available from grants. But we do have opportunities through repaving, which is planned for later this year, as well as maybe through some smaller scale projects that we can do in the short term.

And then as you say, kind of learn from that, grow from that, and and try to work our way towards a longer term project. We can keep working on this project. It doesn't have to be this phase and done, but we do, want to do some things, if possible. So we have kind of three phases of the project we're gonna talk about. We're really to talk about the first two phases, one of which is restriping we might do this year, but not a done deal.

I just want to make that clear. Also sort of crossing improvements, which we know, I think there's pretty broad support for that we need to do some design work on and then anything we do in the long term. So the plan for restriping is pretty straightforward. I mean, this is came out of essentially the work that was done before, which is to do a road diet. So to convert the segment, and this would be from Carlos B to Farmhill, which is the portion we're gonna repave from a four lane road to a two lane road, with a center turn lane, and to add bike lanes.

And one of the things that, we've identified with this is that we'd have a different condition in the uphill direction and in the downhill direction. So in an uphill direction where bicyclists are generally moving much slower than the speed of traffic, we would have separation because you have different vehicle speeds. In the downhill direction, one of the main things we heard and one of the main concerns we heard from prior outreach, and and I've listened to all the meetings that we have held before, was about evacuation and the concern for that. And so we've intentionally designed or come up with a design that would allow that space to be still used for as an evacuation route. You would still effectively have the same capacity you would need in evacuation, but then on a sort of regular basis, it would be marked as a bike a bike lane only.

And we could actually sign that. I mean, we've had some conversations with our fire department and about this, and and we'll continue to have those conversations as we go forward. Then I just wanna note a couple sort of specific improvements in the striping plan that were identified. These include some turn lanes at a couple places, some improved connectivity if you're coming down the hill by bike or you're coming from the neighborhood by bike to get into campus. And then, in the very steepest part of the corridor, we did hear, from a resident who's had similar to Santa Clara, had his, wall crashed into in the front of his house multiple times.

And so we would, in addition to keeping vehicles away from the edge of the street, which would help, we'd also have these sort of speed markings that are these lines that get closer together as you go down the hill, and that gives you this this feeling that you're traveling faster than you are and tends to lead to at least moderate slowing down. It's I'm not gonna say, again, it's like the perfect solution, but it does give you a a little bit of a reduction in speed. And then the phase two work that we're proposing to do here is really, primarily three new crossings three new pedestrian crossings. And so these would be at Parkside, the sort of lower part of Parkside, where you're near the university. It's also at, Spencer, and then at, Farm Hill.

And in each case, we'd be we would have, rectangular rapid flashing beacons. We'd have new curb ramps. We'd have new median refuges of the store we talked about a minute ago, that would help people cross the street more, effectively and more safely. And then there's a little piece. There's a lot of missing sidewalk on the street.

Some of that sidewalk would be incredibly expensive to install. You're talking about grades and a very challenging environment to work in. But then other portion, there's a a little portion near Civic Avenue where there's a, a little shopping center and stuff where we could kind of fill in a little gap there, and it would sort of create a lot more connectivity for a relatively low cost. So we identified that as a short term, a relatively short term thing we can do. In terms of the timing, I kind of said this already, but effectively, we would do striping improvements.

We we wanna finalize that, do some more outreach. I'll be doing that probably in the fall, when when they're doing repaving work or at the end of repaving work. And then the we'd be doing design of that phase two crossings and sidewalk work, over the next, little while, probably about a year, and then essentially, in the following year, we would implement that. And with that, I will take any questions.

Thank you. Couple of comments. Well, since I started with Andrew before, I'll show

you Alright. I look forward to hearing the comments from the public, and then that'll inform my questions. Thank you.

Okay. Thanks. I will close this portion. I'll move to public comment. So I just counted. I have 15 cards, and I will I'll tell you what I'll do. I will we'll put a minute on the on the clock, but I will give you some grace. And that way we can sort of move right along there. Right? So we can be concise and and open the issue. First speaker is Mike Langerz. Mike Langerz? Alright. There you go. Thank you.

Alright. Thank you, first, for letting me talk. Mine is the Hayward Hayward Boulevard. I'm very concerned about safety. Should we have a fire up there? We need to get out of there fast, and we just keep growing and growing and growing. I think the bike lanes, big mistake. People are gonna get confused. They're not gonna be able to figure it out under the panic. So we gotta get back to safety. And in my opinion, forget this idea. That's it. Thank you.

Thank you. Nice way to start. Thirty seconds. That was good. Next caller is George Gramaglia.

Thank

you.

Yeah. I'm talking about the same issue. The first thing, I guess you guys did do a study. Did you guys study how many bicycles actually go up and down Hayward Boulevard? Because the thirteen years I've been living up there, I do not recall seeing more than a handful at best.

And it seems like a pretty elaborate amount of money to be spent on something that might I don't know. Maybe it's in the study there. Maybe I just didn't see it all, but money can be spent elsewhere and other issues that are more pressing than the luxury of somebody being able to ride downhill on their bicycle because you don't see people going up that. If you've ever been up that road, it's steep. That's not my main issue, but basically, what the the previous person was talking about was, you know, the escape from fire. I'm I'm supporting that one too.

Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you. Great. Is it Keith Marksberg Burger? Keith Markrider. Don't you know how to say Keith? My gosh. Rock like that. Hi. Thank you.

Thank you all for having us, tonight and giving us a chance to say, you know, what we think. Obviously, there's a mayor Salinas. Did I say it right? There's a there's a a pool here about bicycles. I haven't been a very long term resident, but I live off of Spencer and my neighbor behind me two at least two or four people below me and the other three who I brought with me, we all ride bicycles.

And what's happening right now is there was a revolution in the bicycle industry, if you guys haven't noticed it, and it's called the e bike. Alright? And so we ride down to the to the trails and then come back up up right up the hill on our own bikes. I'm 17 years old, and I've skimmed the most rice as well as downhill by people who trucks and trucks and and have no longer service the road. The problem is science is bike lane.

To evacuate. That's obviously very important to to to maintain evacuation of a case of virus. I would make this motion circle.

Mode.

It's this. So we have to come

down.

So thank you very much.

Thank you. Appreciate it. Okay. Next speaker is Fred Jafton. Fred Jafton. You got it right. Thank you for giving me a little bit of grace.

Appreciate the opportunity to speak. I've only been a recent resident compared to some of the folks that have testified here today. It's outstanding to see that they've stayed with Hayward over the years. That's has a reputation, I think, that's under under addressed. The aspect of the city is well run over the years from what I've heard from people, and that's a good compliment. So let me

see if can you want. Yeah. I

got an hour? No. Please let me the striping of the highway is important. I drove up, had to be in Las Gatos last night or early in the evening and drove up in the dark. And if you're over 80 and the if the road is not striped properly and can maintain for striping, it's hard for an older person to see what lane he's in.

Now if you narrow down to just one lane in each direction, do you create a gauntlet problem, which is the opposite of the striping problem? So there are two issues here. Either one, you gotta have a safe trip up and down with the right striping of the lanes. Too much candy along the side of the road, plastic where you have in certain areas in the east on the west end of that same road beyond Carlos B toward Sarto Sarto Road is almost like a secondary gauntlet area too. It's a little hard for another person.

You went from four lanes down to warming each direction. So one problem, too too fast. Other problem, hazardous. You know, somebody could lose control because of it. So I want you to think twice about narrowing down to a gauntlet. So those are the two things I wanna talk about. I'm done, and I appreciate your opportunity to have an opportunity to talk.

Thank Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Kelly Dimick Nelson? Or

You got all that right.

Yeah. Okay. Alright. The the n looks like a b, but that's okay.

So far from me. Right?

You couldn't make place,

though. Sorry

about that.

Thank you.

I have lived here in the Hayward Highlands for the better part of forty five years, and so I've seen a lot of the changes.

Mhmm.

And mostly none of them are good. So I appreciate what we're trying to do to make it safer, but it tends to be that the voices of so very few impact the many. So it's it's cute that we want to have like all of these things when we're not considering the working person. Like I'm not riding my bike to deliver my children to school. In fact, frankly, I'm not riding my bike anywhere. And so what I really need is access to get to work. I need access to take my kids to school. And we are continually shortening our access to do that. I've got Campus Drive, which is now one lane, and they're about to drop a middle school on it. I've got Fairview, which is one lane, and we have an elementary school on it.

We just shortened Carlos B and Orchard down to one lane, and there's a school on it. So I don't have any access that isn't impeded, and it used to be my only access was to get on the loop, and maybe we shouldn't talk about the loop, but that's inviting so much traffic to our city that isn't bringing us commerce, and it's bringing us danger. So I feel like we need to spend more time considering the person who's working rather than the person who wants recreation. We are not doing us a service. We need all of those lanes and open them back up for that matter. I think that's most of what I wanted to say. So thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is a lifelong cyclist, doctor Carlson.

Yeah. It's interesting. I follow my neighbor, my very next door neighbor. Yes. I am a cyclist. I run a cycling group. It's got a thousand members in it. We all know about Hayward Boulevard to stay off of it. The reason is it's splitting down the middle and coming down from the top. You drop a wheel on those splits, and you're down. So if you don't see a lot of cyclists on there, there may be reasons you haven't thought about. And I ride it both up and down at least once a week because I live in the neighborhood, and it's a good training. Right? I wanna compliment the idea of not putting the post on the downhill side. You did that on Alex, what is it?

The I I forget. It comes comes up to the campus. Campus. It is campus. Yeah. You did it on campus, but now when you go down campus, you've got to do 25, 30 miles an hour in a two foot lane and make sure you don't clip that post on the outside by dodging something and going down. So downhills, I think, definitely don't need the post or any kind of anything in the lane that wouldn't spill somebody. Uphill doesn't matter. We're going too slow to care. There's a metal tunnel cover on Hayward Boulevard.

It's somewhere between the where you're gonna put your thing. You gotta take that metal cover out. You hit that when it's wet. You'd lose control and go down. One thing about the lights I heard commented that you can't see the ones in the street.

Frankly, when the whole street lights up with yellow, that's a pretty big clue for me that someone's gonna go across it as opposed to a flashing something behind that tree limb over there that I can't really see. And the other thing is, finally, you say that when you when you do some of these things, the vigor is very high. I get kinda irritated with it too. But what irritates me most, I wanna follow oh, she's left. Yeah.

The lady said nothing stops traffic like a cop on a motorcycle. Yep. And I really hate to see all this protection spring up when there hasn't been an honest sustained effort to control the speeding through enforcement.

Yeah. So thank you.

Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. I don't think he's in the room. Tyler? Is Tyler in the room? No. He's on the room. Yes. Okay. Gustavo Zabala. How

are doing? Thank you for letting me speak. I'm a new for to Hayward. Well, I've been here for ten years, but I just buy a house in at 27269 Parkside Drive. And the traffic is it it's getting it's getting bigger. Mhmm. And I do think that maybe a bike lane on one side of the street might work than two because you're eliminating road. And I do see some cyclists, but there's not really that much cyclists going up the hill. That's why I was confused why you're gonna put two bike lanes. And that's all I wanna say. Thanks so much. Thank you.

John Morton.

I live on tripping. I'll try to be quick. If you do, make some changes, I like plan b where you had still had four lanes. If you're gonna plant any trees along the road, you're gonna make the mistake that was made in San Francisco nineteen o six when they short when they had narrow roads. The fires blew out of control in nineteen o six. So you need to keep the boulevard wide open. No more planting. That's extremely important. You're going to have if you narrow the roads and you get someone who's driving up the road just the other day, 20 miles an hour because they were freaked out, I guess, you're gonna get road rage, and

we don't need

to add that, to the neighborhood. The ice I really do believe that we need to keep four lanes there, and I'm, really big on the emergency vehicles. I was just down in Palisades just before, the big fire down there, and I don't know how they all made out made out of there. But if we have an earthquake or fires up there, the the big earthquake happened just a few block half a mile from where we I live on Tribune.

Mhmm.

Anyway, that's what I wanna say.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Matthew Matthew Verona. There you go.

Verona.

Yes. That looks like a w, but yes.

Yeah. It's pronounced as g e.

Oh, okay. So I

have been a resident of Hayward Highlands for fifty four years. And, you know, my educational background is I have a civil engineering degree from San Jose State University and graduate degree in civil engineering from UC Berkeley, and I'm a bicyclist. Okay? And based on all of that, let me tell you, I don't think it's a good idea what is being proposed. And here's a few reasons.

So one is, of course, safety for earthquakes and as well as fires. The other one is that if you look at the Campus Drive, those ballots there, a lot of them, you are replacing them all the time. They are locked down. So they didn't increase the safety of the bicyclists. And second thing, they prevent the street cleaning equipment from going there. If you look at that, you may want to drive mirrors through there. There's a lot of glass there, broken glass, twigs, gravel. That's not for the bicyclist. I'm 75 years old. I have still two bicycles and I bicycle a lot, okay, recreationally, like some of the people here.

And I what you can do much cheaper Instead of doing this grandeur plan, you could somehow team up with AC Transit to get us a bus back there. It was discontinued about two years ago. I used to take that because it's unsafe to ride the bicycle. And the balance and all of that will not help it. People will still go, especially that you have the volume, which was designed when the Wolpert Ridge was developed in the early '80s.

And that was the studies at that time showed that you needed four lanes, and that's fully developed. You have the Stonebrae. You have the other developments there, Bailey Ranch and the developments on the towards Castro Valley. And it's just you are not changing that. So for safety reasons as well as for the fact that if you narrow it, you will make it more unsafe than it is now.

So I would recommend the slowing traffic, I agree with you. And I don't think that necessarily ticketing people is going to help it. So when they are ticketed, next two months, nobody will be speeding there. But they are going to go 50 miles an hour. There is no stop signs between or traffic lights between the fire station on the upper part of the hill and the Tribune Street, okay?

And people go really fast there.

So that would suggest that you're talking about these banking rights and all of this, people don't pay attention to those. So the cheapest way, if you have a problem with Graz, as you mentioned earlier, will be the stop signs, the four way stop signs, like what is done currently at the upper part of the hill as well as at the fire station. Do the same thing at Farmhill Drive, and it will slow down the traffic. And probably those that still want to venture on the bicycles there

Mister Verona? Yeah. You're out of time.

Okay. So I would seriously consider that. Okay?

Thank you. I thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker is Cynthia Taylor. Is it Cynthia?

Robert Stevens. Commissioner Stevens. Where's mister Stevens? Thank

you very much. So I think in 2021, there was a great start on planning Hayward Boulevard. Unfortunately, what we have before us today, I don't think meet some of the top three objectives that were initially established. And this meeting we have tonight, I'm thankful for it, but but this is not really outreach. You know, outreach is really meeting us on the terms so we can actually explain to the planners where the challenges and the problems are.

And the plans that are prepared, great. It's a great bike lane, But it doesn't address, I think, some of the fundamental issues that were initially established. And I had some technical questions that I'm I'm I'm sure mister Lautz will be able to evaluate and provide to us. I really encourage additional conversation related to this so we can fine tune this. Finally, I I just just wanna wanna make one more point. I am a licensed civil engineer and traffic engineer. I deal with this daily. I think there's a problem with the way we think about this. We hear a lot of frustration about speed, about safety. Right?

Engineering solutions rarely solve the problem. There's often unintended consequences of those actions. So when we're gonna make a major change, I agree with the mayor. Sometimes it's good to test things. Totally agree with that. But I think there needs to be some thoughtful planning that's put forth on this. Thank you. Thank you.

Cynthia Taylor? No? Okay. Moving on. Peter Verona, I guess. Oh.

So I'm a resident in Hayward Highlands for last fifty years. And the only comment that I have is about removing two lanes on on Hayward Boulevard. Right now, during rush hour, the traffic there, it it would create a a traffic jam. It will also be very dangerous, if we have a fire in in the hills. You you really, you know, you I haven't seen that many bicycles there over fifty years.

You know, I may maybe one bicycle once in a month. You know? I I just don't understand. You know, you you have to have a a traffic flow. And right now, it's it's to me, it's very important to to not to have a traffic jam there and and cars just, you know, polluting while they are I airlink. So that's all I I have to say. I think we we should forget about, you know, bike lines and and keep all lanes.

Thank you. Thank you. Oh, is she we'll get back. Okay. I will I will go to Zoom after. I only got two cards here. Two cards left. And I think it's is it Fredalyn? Fredalyn.

Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. My husband and I have been, residents in the Hayward Hills for over thirty years, way before the new developments in Stonebrae and were built. So we do recognize how it was before. Very quiet, peaceful. And we're right on Hayward Boulevard. So we've experienced car accidents where near misses when we're turning into our driveway where people are just rushing up the hill. They're don't they're not paying attention. We're signaling way ahead of time, but there's, near misses where they were just like grandmas. So this is long time coming.

We're also major bipless. So it's also if you put it there, it will be used. There was a time where our son was going to Moro, and he actually tried taking the bike to his his school, but it was just so dangerous going up and down the hill that he he stopped. So speed, safety is what we're looking for. The other thing is traffic has increased incredibly.

And I think part of it is because websites like Google and Waymo are sending people that are not in the neighborhood through our streets. Case in point, I was going to Stone Ridge Mall, and there was this huge traffic. And the reason why is the cars were avoiding five eighty and going through our streets. So if there's a way of of stopping nonresidents to go through Hayward Boulevard, would be great.

Thank

you. Thank you. And, Mark Delong? Yeah. Thank you for clear handwriting, by the way.

Sure.

Thank you, mister mayor. Thank you, council members. So I'm longtime, Hayward resident. I've lived in the Highlands, maybe about five years now. I appreciate the investment in our area of the city, but I think, what the proposed striping plan I just saw, I don't think that's the right solution.

I was just doing some research. The, community survey that was done in 2021 pointed out the top three corridor needs that were expressed by the, community was landscaping, building out safer sidewalks, and reducing congestion, and just kind of reducing from two lanes in each direction to one lane is going the opposite direction. The neighbors that I've talked to in my area, the main concern they have is we live in the wildland urban interface area. It's a high fire danger. They're really concerned, especially after the Southern California devastating fires.

Everyone's just kind of horrified about what happened if that happens in the Hayward Highlands. And so both the need of getting vehicles to the area, fire apparatus, getting people out of the area, we really I don't think the the road diet is what we need right now. I also with the steep grade of, the sections, I don't think that that's really there's not a lot of bicyclists there now. I don't think it's because there's not a dedicated lane. I think it's because of the the grade.

The other thing is with, the separated, you put delineators, you're gonna end up with a dead zone where you're gonna collect a lot of garbage and debris, glass, tree branches, and the street sweeper can't get in there and clean that. So, if there's one thing that I would like you to take away from my speaking tonight is, please, no more delineators. The the plan shows, like, over a thousand delineators being added. I feel like the city of Hayward mascot is becoming a white delineator. There's been so many added. I I I I'm a transportation engineer. I'm also a bicyclist. I've been hit by cars, bicycling to work. I appreciate and greatly support the effort to improve safety, to reduce speed. Traffic enforcement, I think I would totally support that.

That generates revenue, and, delineators only add, you know, capital cost to build it and then long term maintenance cost. The ones that were added west of, around, like, Orchard Boulevard, already maybe, like, a third of them have already been replaced because they've been hit. They're being replaced with whatever size delineator happened to be on the back of the truck that day. It ends up being an eyesore because they're all mismatched. They got rodent, you know, skid marks on them.

Anyways, so please no more delineators. And then just looking at the the, the plan, the Spencer Call Avenue turn lane, the queue area, if you only have one lane there, I think that's gonna present a safety hazard because I have seen cars queuing up to turn left. And, if they you know, that's a very short, area there. So, yeah, thank you. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. I'm now counting how many engineers are in the room to see how fast we can get this thing solved. I know we have a oh, okay. Go ahead. Got one minute, and then I'll go to online. Mister Hasso. Thank you.

Thank you. Yeah. My name is Alefino Hasso. I live with my sisters, brother-in-law, my nephew in the. My nephew was. And I just wanna let everyone know that there's at least 30% of people, here in residence that cannot drive for different reasons. Either they're underage. They cannot get a license. They cannot afford a car. They're disabled, or they just don't have the the money to have the privilege to to get a car.

So I'm speaking on behalf of those people as well. I personally pick up my nephew by bike sometimes. You know, his his mom brings his bike in the morning to Stonebra, and then I ride up to pick him up. But, yeah, like, there are people mentioned here. I've I've almost been running over while trying to ride ride up Hayward Boulevard because even though by law, I can take the full lane, and there's two lanes going up here.

Even though I can take a full lane, drivers don't always respect that, and I will and everyone's being runnable. Of course, I don't take my nephews down here at Boulevard. We take other streets, which are longer, steeper, more drivers. So this will be the most direct route. The the least steep compared to the alternatives is the only least steep route to get to Stonebrae and the Ukraine Ukraine.

There's a whole world mountain biking club. Chris Chris Espana's son is part of the club, and I run into him at the Ukraine Trail. I would like to make it safer for these kids to ride up the hills on the trails, and I wouldn't be heartbroken if any of these kids gets hit by a car. Right up the streets and glitches splitting, and then also those would be a good good way to reduce speeding. But, also, it could in case of an incident.

It would help, by making making it make it will help by encouraging more people to feel comfortable riding up up the hills, in case in case of a fire like in LA. You know, if if there's a mock up, of course, people will have an alternative because they'll be more comfortable riding bikes. And then also if, in I don't know if you saw, but, like, in LA Miss cars, you know, also backed up, and they had to rebuild those to open the roads for the for the fire department to get and put off the fire. So the bike lanes could be used by the first responders to respond in case of incidents.

Mister Oslo, your time is up.

Yeah. Thank you. I'm working.

Thank you. But but we but we we can thank thank you. Okay. Online, who oh, Cynthia. Is Cynthia online?

Not yet. The first speaker I have is Jill.

Okay. Jill, go ahead. You got one minute.

Jill, please unmute yourself.

I'm unmuted. Can you hear me?

Yep. We can hear you. Speak up a little louder. We can hear you, though.

Okay. Great. I would just like to notate that the Hayward Highlands is a vastly populated community, and to narrow the roads would impact commuters trying to get to work, dropping off their children to school. I think as mentioned by miss Kelly Dimmick, there's an elementary up here. There's a planned middle school up here.

There's a college up here. The changes that were made to Mission Boulevard at Hayward Boulevard were made without notification. All of a sudden, the road was just changed and commuters were forced into one lane without notification. So notifying commuters of changes would be hugely important. Paving the roads, I think, is hugely important for anybody that lives up here or drives around here.

Those posts are a disaster as evidenced by the ones that were installed on Campus Boulevard and then also on the Orchard. I think as mentioned several times, they just have been, you know, replaced multiple times because people just, you know, create such a narrow road. They people can't navigate around them. So I think that finding an alternate solution, is is preferred.

Thank you. Appreciate it. We're gonna go to the next caller.

Caller is Cynthia Taylor.

Cynthia, go ahead. Key up.

Cynthia, please un un unmute yourself.

Feel like I've been in this communication.

Oh, okay.

Ask her to try talking. You you try talking, Cynthia. Or just put her on speakerphone. Yeah. Put the microphone. Give the microphone. Give her the mic. Yeah. We we we we give access any way possible. Right?

Alright, Cynthia. I think you're good to go.

Okay, guys. Thank you for first of all, thank you for letting us, speak tonight and giving, the community a chance to give you know, speak our opinions. I'm a new resident to Hayward. I live in the Highlands, and I love the community. I just wanna really, really emphasize how strongly I am against the striping plan.

I appreciate the, effort to make a more, rec you know, a better place for the bikers, but safety safety first. Always, always, especially in the case of an emergency. My question to you guys, you don't have to answer now, but I don't know if there's any been any studies about what is our evacuation plan with this new striving plan. Has has that been, evaluated, and what is the plan? Another thing is I'm from San Francisco, and, it's a great city for bike lanes.

It's a seven by seven. Bike lanes are needed. We're in Hayward, and there's lots of different communities. Hayward Highlands, and I'm I'm sorry for the bikeless the bicyclists out there, but we live on a big hill. And it's a busy hill, and it's there's gotta be other ways to keep the traffic slower to slow the traffic lane down, but bike lanes is not the is not, the the option there.

So I just wanna say that, safety, safety first. And to the lady that spoke about being a working woman and dropping her kids off to school and brought all those points up, I completely, agree with her there. And I think, she should you know, that's awesome for bringing that up because safety, then there's, functionality, guys. We need to be functional here. And then, so I hope you can

the other the mayor's gonna pull you, Cynthia.

Pull you. Thank

you. Yeah. I know.

Thank you, mister Stevens. I appreciate that. Okay. Any more public comment? How many? 12. Okay.

Next, caller is Hershel Kanakia.

And and for the callers, just be ready. You have one minute.

Great. Thank you, mister Mayer, and I appreciate everyone, giving us an opportunity to voice our opinions on this proposed project. Like many of, the the speakers, mentioned already, I echo the sentiment about the proposed plans as not being the most thoughtful or, mindful of the the risks that we face up in the Highlands. Also, I would like to act add to the fact that, the, Fairview area residents also use this corridor as a means to, commute into, the the Bay Area as well as out of the Bay Area going out to 580. So there's sufficient traffic already in this neighborhood.

And by further restricting the lane access, not only presents a threat to, folks, while evacuating, but, it it creates road rage for folks who are trying to commute during peak hours, and that might worsen the speeding situations. Totally in support of, enforcing, speeding and and fining and ticketing reckless drivers. That's totally unacceptable, which causes a dangerous situation for residents who are either walking down Carlos B or, drivers, equally. But, I I I would totally support any investments made in restriping the boulevard, improving better markings, and repaving what appears to be an unsafe road to a degree where there are a lot of potholes, and drivers oftentimes try to avoid those potholes by, swerving into different lanes. And and that's also a key hazard.

Mister Kanakia, we have to cut you off. Moving on to the next caller. Thank you. Thank you.

Next caller is Rudell.

Hello. I'm a 32 year resident of Hayward, and I live in the Prominent area. I actually protested the, the building of Stonebrae because of the evacuation issue of people riding down Hayward Boulevard and the inner and teeing at the Mission Street and how that would create such a disastrous plan for us to evacuate the area. However, I took the time to listen to the 04/21/2021, meeting on this particular issue. And during that meeting, the number of people that objected to the bike lane was significant.

The respondents at that time continued to advocate for bicycle lanes, and the raise justification for that was because they wanted to narrow the lane in order to reduce the speed, to narrow the number of lanes as a mechanism for reducing speed. I understand that that ultimate goal. However, I agree with many of the callers here who have suggested that there have to be alternative ways of handling the speed issue rather than narrowing the lanes. And, mister mayor, with all due respect, it is not that we all don't respect the idea that we want the speeds to be reduced. What is of concern is the plans that were proposed in that April 2021 meeting don't seem very different than the plans that are proposed now.

And I would suggest that people are not listening to the constituents as they have addressed it here, indicating that they do not wanna see a reduction in the number of lanes. They do they do not particularly want to have bike lanes because the tail will be wagging the dog at that point. And I would like you to ask the people who have already experienced some of the road changes, the striping that you're talking about, and to see whether or not they are pleased with or happy with the design that has been proposed and ultimately enforced on them. So that is my concern. I too don't agree with

Rudel Rudel, thank you. We heard you, and then your time is up.

Thank you.

Thank you. Next caller.

Next caller is Shams.

Hello. Can you guys

hear me?

Yes. Hi. As a resident of, Sombrae, I I think this plan, in all honesty, it it it's nice. It's but, however, I think it's in the wrong application. First and foremost, from an urban planning perspective, doesn't really make sense.

Secondly, there's concerns with, just traffic congestion, vehicles that require the, the lower speed lanes as well as just, you know, overall efforts. I mean, I think it's nice that the that the team is willing to consider, improvements in this area. But if we can just improve the asphalt itself, I think that would be tremendous. However, by reducing that lane, I think, in general, with all the traffic, all the congestion that's up there, will further deter us from, you know, from future accidents potentially. So I think, in general, nice plan, but I don't think it's gonna work.

But I would like to see a proposition that does not have the reduction of the lanes. Right now, the corner of Mission and, Carlos Speed, continues to be a little bit challenging since the improvements. That's all I have to say.

Thank you. Next caller.

Next next caller is, Roman, Kogan.

Go ahead, Roman. Gotta unmute. There you go.

Okay. You you can hear me now. Right?

Yes.

Okay. To introduce myself, my name is Roman Kogan. I am a software engineer doing data science sometimes and have doctorate in mathematics, and I am an avid driver. I drove across 45 states, across the country twice, across Europe, maybe a dozen countries, across Ukraine during the world twice. And the first thing I wanna say is, you know, two lane roads are not dangerous. I lived in Texas for seven years. 70 miles per hour roads are fine there. I drove in Brooklyn. They are fine. The evacuation concerns are purely hypothetical.

Statistics shows that single lane roads are safer. Another thing, crosswalks are great. I see people crossing the road every day and putting their lives in danger. For them, four lane roads are dangerous because cars pass each other's downhill in speed and might hit pedestrian. And I would like to prioritize their concerns that are actual for the actual pedestrians that exist every day, that crossroad every day over hypothetical evacuation concerns, which are not grounded in data and not grounded in reality.

Thank you

for putting this plan. I support it.

Thank you. Appreciate it. Next caller.

Next caller is Ray.

Hello? Hello? Yes. Go ahead, Ray.

Yeah. Hi. Yeah. I've I I'm a cyclist, and and I can tell you, you know, going up the Hayward Hills, it's it's not for everyone. It's it's not easy. It's not something that any normal person can do. You you really have to be quite athletic to be able to go up and down those hills. And and I really think it's a mistake to go from four lanes to just two lanes. We already have an insane amount of traffic. I mean, even just, you know, drop off from Stonebrae Elementary, you know, you can see it.

It backs up, quite a bit. And, you know, some of the changes that already happened to Carlos b has already built up so much traffic because we've reduced it from two lanes to one lane and builds up such a line for just one light, I can't imagine how this is gonna end with so many with just a massive reduction. I mean, what if someone has, you know, their own personal emergency? Wouldn't they be stuck in traffic? I mean, it's it's we really need to consider, you know, prioritizing the effectiveness and efficiency and the functionality of Hayward Boulevard rather than making it safe for just a few bikers.

Thank you, Ray. Appreciate it. Our next caller?

Hello? Is is number 767217?

Hi. Can you hear me?

Yes. We can hear you. Go ahead.

Great. This is doctor Jason Tsai. I'm a board member from Stonebrae, HOA. Right up here, there are probably close to 3,000 people in Stonebrae alone. Can you imagine anybody with a medical emergency needing to go down there and being stuck in a single lane?

How how can we account for those kind of situation? Let alone in large scale emergency, you you don't have enough space to accommodate all the traffics. That includes emergency traffic coming out the road and people trying to leave the area. Where we are right now, on Fairview, there's already congestions. From Stonebrae down the hill, there are only two exits.

We are sandwiched between two wildfire risk area. It's enough of a concern since the Southern California fire that many insurance company have decided not to write new policies or renew policies for people living up the Hills. Can you imagine if you change the access or emergency exits, how that would impact on the thousands of people who are living up here in the Highlands? This is highly irresponsible to push in a direction that potentially put residents in harm's way. Thank you.

Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Next caller.

Next caller is Kay.

Hi. This is Kay. I go by Kushi as well, and I am also Stonebridge resident. So I'm here to echo the other speaker's opinion on how creating a new bike lane may increase problems and safety issues? I respect bikers and recreation, but creating a bike lane on the road is primarily uphill and one lane where most street users are car drivers and not cyclists.

Yeah. Even though this is environment friendly, but we don't see many bicyclists here. And prioritizing a bike lane here does not reflect actual usage pattern. Plus, the poor visibility during rainy and foggy nights increases accident risk for both drivers as well as cyclists. Emergency response time may be affected due to increased traffic and reduced road space. So, mister mayor, I would propose alternate safer options, and I would also request, please try to improve public transportation for those who cannot drive for any reason. That's it from me. Thanks.

Thank you. I don't time. Next caller. Daisy? Daisy? Going once? Daisy? Going twice? You go ahead and go to the next caller.

Hi. This is Greg Gillis. Can you hear me

okay? Yes.

Okay. I'm also a resident over forty years and another civil engineer. I think the plan to change to two lanes is very inappropriate. I've actually run and biked up and down Hayward Boulevard, one of the very few that's done that. And I just don't think the bike lanes that are planned are necessary.

If you look at 5 Canyons, they've got a smaller bike lane, which is more than adequate for the small amount of traffic going up and down the hill there. And there's been a lot of input over the past four or five years to the city, including a May meeting with the mayor up here in our neighborhood, and nobody's listening. I mean, you can hear the number of people against this plan. It was presented before in 2021, and we keep getting the same stuff back. Nobody's listening to the input that you're getting from the citizens.

That's all I had to say.

Thank you very much. Next caller.

Joe Swagerty?

Yeah. Hi. Can you hear me?

Yes.

Thank you for allowing me to talk. Yeah. I'm just in agreement with everyone here that this is inappropriate just based off of the fire safety and what has happened down in Southern California. I really disagree that the bike lanes are inappropriate. Also, in the event of, like, a tsunami, and I know we're kind of on the other side of the bay, but getting people uphill in the event of a biblical proportion wave. So I think just removing lanes is

You gotta

do is is a a ridiculous notion. That's all I have say.

Thank you very

much. Thank you.

Next caller. Hello?

Are you there?

I can can hear me?

Yes.

I I wanted to thank you guys for the opportunity to speak and voice our opinion. You know, I think like a lot of my neighbors, you know, we appreciate the need to be more environmentally friendly and to create more recreational space. But I think it's unfortunate that all of these issues kind of got conflated into one project. I think a good number of residents here support, you know, additional measures to reduce speed, whether that be through enforcement, through traffic lights, speed bumps, restriping in a way to kind of, you know, highlight visibility and crosswalks, what have you. But to kinda put that all together and to also reduce the lanes, I think, to be responsible.

I think you guys have kind of heard what the community is saying in terms of their concerns for evacuation, in terms of congestion, in terms of, you know, just the very fact that we would be spending an enormous amount of money when our roads are already in shambles. And, you know, how many people is this really going to create additional recreational space for to bike up and down the hill? You know, Hayward is a pretty large commuter city anyways as it is, and the Hayward Boulevard and Campus Drive see an enormous amount of traffic from all of the surrounding communities as well as, students. Thank you.

Thank you. Appreciate it. And I think this is caller number 21. Oh, that is everyone. Alright. Great. I will close public comment, and council member Andrews is gonna summarize all of the calls that came in to us.

I'll start off with that tsunami scenario. No. I appreciate all the community coming out regarding this project on both sides of the issue, but I do think we do need to think about safety and safety in terms of pedestrians, safety safety in terms of residents for evacuations. I definitely understand the concern there. I've personally have friends who lost homes during that fire, and we're on we're we're impacted by that.

So we definitely wanna consider that. So I do have one question for staff before I get to the rest of my comments is that in 2021, when was so that community outreach happened in April 2021. Where was the location of that outreach?

At that time, it was online.

Okay. That's what I was wanting to confirm because I do think you would have seen more of this kind of response in order to inform your plan a little bit more given that 2021, I mean, there was we were still at the height of of a pandemic. So what is the plan for the next community outreach if we were to just move forward in terms of getting more information gathered from the community?

Yeah. I think doing future and we've heard this very much from residents doing some outreach specifically at locations Yeah. Along the corridor is is what we'd wanna do.

Right. Right. And then also, again, with the I would say the same thing as I did the previous item is making sure we have interpretation there as well as we might I mean, doing door to door. I've done door to door in the area, and it's very difficult. So we will have to think about posting possibly at Pearl's, per se possibly at some other locations that are on that hill to inform of a community meeting regarding this. And then, obviously, you all probably do postcards and all that.

Yeah. We did for this meeting send notifications essentially to everyone who might use Hayward Boulevard.

Okay. Great. And then I do recommend working with Hayward Unified. Maybe Stonebrae Elementary is a location that you can consider for a meeting. I also want to just talk a little bit, speak to some of the comments that were made that were pretty interesting.

I am curious to see if we could look at what 55 Ks has done in terms of bike lanes. I know that area, but I'm I'm I'm having a hard time remembering what it looks like right now. But looking at that as we review this plan moving forward, also, I'm curious. I know that in the previous item, we have not engaged fire and HPD in a way that has been very concrete, but interested to hear what their thoughts are in terms of evacuation. What is our what is our plan?