Council Airport Committee - Regular Meeting

I'll start over. Just

Sorry. Sorry.

Yeah. It's okay. Sorry. Good evening, everybody. Today is Wednesday, 10/22/2025. It is 05:31PM. This is the council infrastructure airport committee meeting. I'd like to call the meeting to order. And miss Groves, if you can please take the role.

President McBridendries? Present. And Ms. Tyler?

Present.

Mia Salinas?

Present. Thank you. Moving on to public comment. This is reserved for anybody who would like to make public comment on something that's not on the agenda. Is there anybody in the audience that would like to make a public comment on something that is not on the agenda? Is there anybody online that would like to make a public comment that is not on the agenda? Seeing none, I will close public comment, move on to approve the agenda.

Move the item. Second.

Moved by council member Andrews, seconded by council member Saira. But if there are no objections, it will unanimously pass. Thank you. Moving on to item number two, reports and action items. We have our item number two is amendments to the water supply agreement between the city and county of San Francisco and wholesale customers relating primarily to, one, reducing the requirement for purchase of minimum water supply quantity for the Alameda County Water District, city of Milpitas, city of Mountain View, and city of Sunnyvale. And two, updating tier two water storage allocation plan. And I believe our public works director, Alex Marion, will kick this off.

Yes. Thank you, mister. And council members, I'm not going to repeat what you just said. There are those two items, two important items before you. We have been discussing this for a long time with WASCA, WASCA member agency. There have been many meetings. You are going to hear tonight that there is going to be a financial impact in labor. We have been cognizant of that from the beginning. We have been talking with everyone that listened about that impact. But right now, Hayward is the only member of Bay Area Water Supply and Conservation Agency that has not approved this.

We thought about the implications and what's the best thing to do. We are making a recommendation for approval. Sharon O'Neill, who's our water supply manager, water supply manager is going to give this stuff.

You, Alex. Good evening. I'm Sheryl Mills. I'm the water resources manager for this. And tonight,

I'm

going to walk you through the proposed water supply amendments, I'm gonna refer to them as the WSA. It's much easier than saying water supply a 100 times. Anyway, so I'm going to walk you through the proposed WSA amendments and the updated tier two plan that every wholesale customer, including Hayward, have been asked to consider for approval. First, I'll provide a brief overview of the WSA between San Francisco and the twenty sixth. And then I'll discuss the proposed three amendments to the WSA followed by those updates for two plan.

Hayward purchases a 100% of its potable water supply from the SPUC. This water supply is governed by two agreements. The first is the 1962 agreement between Hayward and the SPUC, and the second is the water supply agreement between San Francisco and the 26 wholesale customers. The 1962 agreement primarily addresses the quantity of water to be delivered to Hayward and is the contract under which Hayward is sure it's efficient supplies to meet its demand as long as adequate supplies are available. AWARD is a member of the Bay Area Water Supply and Conservation Agency, otherwise known as BOSCA, which represents the interests of 26 the SFPUC's 26 whole wholesale customer agencies, and council member Andrews is Hayward's representative to the board.

The WSA describes the provisions of water supply from the SFPUC's regional water supply system to the customers and focuses on issues of common interest, such as defining how costs are allocated between the SMPUC and the wholesale customers, the minimum purchase quantity requirements for four specified agencies, and establishes a process to allocate water supply between San Francisco and the wholesale customers during drought, which is called tier one plan. The wholesale customers can adopt a method for allocating water amongst themselves, which is called the tier two plan.

There are four wholesale customer agencies that have minimum purchase quantity requirements as shown. This is supposed to go. There we go. Having technical difficulties. I don't know what is going on.

But, anyway, so therefore, four wholesale customer agencies that have minimum purchase quality requirements as shown. The minimum purchase quantities were developed for agencies with multiple sources of water. This was intended to provide the SPUC with a level of wholesale revenue certainty. Without this, the SPUC could see large decreases in purchased volumes and sales revenue during normal water supply years from those agencies purchasing water from less expensive water supply sources, thus affecting the SPUC's water cost. Impacts of the last three droughts, periods, and other factors have resulted in reductions in water purchases for some of the minimum purchase quantity agencies.

These four agencies are contractually obligated to their stated annual minimum purchase requirements, although one or two agencies may not require the entire amount. Following several years of discussions regarding the minimum purchase requirements, the SPUC proposed amending the 2021 WSA, which is the most recent version agreement, to reset the existing minimum annual purchase requirements to align with current water consumption trends while protecting investments in SFPUC's regional water system. The minimum purchase quantity amendment has several elements, which essentially lowers the minimum purchase quantities for each of the four agencies. The proposed minimum purchase quantity requirements will increase costs for both the SMPUCs retail and wholesale customers. The amendment assumes the cost for the reduction in minimum purchase quantities will be distributed among all of the wholesale agencies.

Boscas calculated that the cost increase of the amendment in non draft years to be up to 0.70%. As Hayward is one of the largest water purchasers from the SNPEC, the city would bear a large fiscal impact of approximately $284,000 annually. For a typical single family home, the monthly average increase could be a dollar 21¢ or $14.52 per year. Over many discussions with BOSCA staff, some involving one of the minimum purchase quality agencies, Hayward staff expressed strong concerns with the cost shifting to Hayward customers. Moving on to the next proposed WSA amendment, the tier one water shortage allocation.

Water shortages from SSPUC's regional water system are governed by plans, tier one, tier two. Tier one plan is a method for allocating water from the SSPUC's regional water system between San Francisco's realty retail customers, excuse me, and its wholesale customers as shown above. The tier two plan is a method of allocating the water from the San Francisco PUC's regional water system among the wholesale customers. The total amount allocated to the wholesale customers as a collective in tier one is further allocated by customer agency in tier two. As shown in the box at the far right, the plans are implied during system wide shortages of 20% or less, such as during a drought.

Agencies are given an allocation based on a percentage cutback. The way tier 10 excuse me, tier one currently works is if an agency uses more than their allocation during a mandatory shortage emergency, than their charge for the excess use. The proposed family plan amendment includes a provision that no excess charges are levied unless the wholesale customers as a collective purchase more than their collective. Graphic illustrates two agencies purchasing more than their allotment and two using less. Their total purchases are less than the total allocation for the agencies, so no excess use fees for each of our.

So what are the impacts of the WSA amendments and the tier two update table? Minimum quantity purchase quantity requirements will increase the amount Hayward customers will pay for water. The average increase could be up to a dollar and 21¢ per month for a typical single family home. And as one of the SFPUC's largest water purchasers up to $284,000 annually for. No adverse impacts are expected from tier one water shortage allocation plan amendment or from the administrative updates to the WSA.

With regards to the tier two water shortage allocation plan, no adverse. Next steps, if SEAC agrees, these items will be presented to city council for consideration at their December 2 meeting. All of the other wholesale customers have approved the WSA amendments and tier two update plan. If the WSA amendments and the tier two updates are not approved, they will not go into effect for any of the wholesale customer agencies as unanimous approval is needed.

Presentation. Hold there. Okay. This is what this is a

Combination to counsel.

Correct. To counsel. Okay. So I'll tell you what. Let me let me open up for public comments first, and then we'll do council questions and then

oh, okay.

Is there anybody online that would like to make a public comment?

Okay. Go

right ahead, and then let's

Hi. My name is Pat Showalter, and I am a council member from the city of Mountain View and our representative on the BOCECA board. It's been a pleasure to serve with Angela Andrews. I've been really impressed by the quality of the questions she asked. She's really doing a good job representing Hayward.

I also wanna thank the water management reps who meet regularly to make sure that Bosco is meeting our collective water supply needs. I understand that Alex and Mary represents Hayward, and our rep is Elizabeth Flagel. They've been working on this for the last three years. So these this set of agreements represents a tremendous amount of work. I'm here to respectfully request that you support your staff's recommendation to advance this item to your full council on December 2.

The 25 other SFPUC contractors need your approval to go forward with the water supply agreements. The city of Mountain View has worked hard to promote conservation. We haven't used the full amount of our minimum purchase obligation for about fifteen years. So the original reason for the minimum purchase agreement to prevent shifting to other water supply sources hasn't applied for a long time. Also, Mountain View takes housing and the Bay Area housing crisis very seriously.

We've taken steps to add quite a bit of housing to our community to improve the ability to live and work in the Bay Area. But to date, this has not driven water demands significantly higher. I just also wanna close to say conserving water is a good thing, and these water supply amendments are designed to encourage water conservation. Collectively, less water means there's less stress on this SFPUC Hetch Hetchy system. This means there's less need for San Francisco to build alternative water supply projects, and that will save all of us money.

So thank you for this opportunity to address you, and please support the tier one and tier two, water supply amendments. Thank you.

Thank you, council member. Appreciate it. Is there anyone else online?

No. Thank

you. Okay. So I'll return to the room here. And, Bradley Dunn?

The East

Bay Greenway.

Oh, okay.

And Tom.

Oh, okay. Tom?

Yeah.

Go ahead.

Thank you, mayor Salinas and council members. Tom Smagel with Bosco. I'm the general manager and CEO. I'm here with Danielle McPherson. Danielle, I had the privilege privilege of running the workshops that, developed, the water supply amendments as well as the tier two plan that involved the staff from 26 agencies meeting more than monthly for about three years.

And so a lot of staff time. Cheryl, was was really the in in that negotiation for for all that entire time. So we really appreciate the work of all the agency staff as well as the Hayward staff in particular. As was mentioned prior to this time, the other 25 agencies have approved this. And I do wanna highlight one of the benefits, I think Cheryl mentioned this, was the tier one family plan so that if Hayward's if Hayward uses over its allocation under the new amendments during a drought, it would not be penalized by San Francisco unless the the collective group was over the allocation.

And so that is a benefit to all agencies. The the reduction in minimum purchase is a benefit to all agencies as well, again, by increasing our water system reliability, avoiding as the council member show Walter suggested, avoiding alternative water supply improvements that might be necessary in the event of higher water demands, reducing overall demands for the system. And then the last thing I would say is I'd like to stress that the two items are a package. The the water supply amendment is contingent a contingent factor in approving the the tier two allocations for some of the agencies. And so all of all of the other agencies have approved both, and just to let you know that you would need to approve both.

And Danielle and I are both here to answer any questions that you might have.

Right.

So when he's when when he says approve both, basically, we're gonna move them we're we'll move it to the council. The council has to approve both. Okay. Alright. Any other Public comment?

Seeing none, I will close public comment, and I will turn to counsel. And, I'll take the chair's privilege to, call upon our water expert, council member Andrews.

I think council member should call in every other Tuesday. No. I'm doing on basketball. No. I wanted to thank her for calling in you to the general manager, CEO, Ossamigo, on this all your efforts in getting into the committee and director Mary Kramer to the committee.

I know that we all are very conscious about raising rates, but this is something that we will have to move forward with council approval because this is a 26 member agency. So there's there are a lot of eyes on our city right now in moving this forward to make sure that we are continuing to have access to that great Hetch Hetchy water system that makes our city attractive to a lot of communities, to make sure we have access to that. And then also, we are hoping that and this is something I've been stressing on the BOTSCA board is that collectively we do more in conservation, not just Hayward. We also I have been particularly pushing the other side of the bay to do more in conservation because I do think Hayward is in particularly one of those cities that has been doing their part in drought drought tolerant landscaping, less usage, all that. But I I will say that the some of the communities I have seen more efforts in their conservation efforts.

So just last week, I was at an event. ACWD was out in the community celebrating or raising awareness about Imagine a Day without water. So they are putting their money where their mouth is in terms of making sure they're getting out to their communities and letting them know that they should be minimize minimizing their water usage. So I will be keeping an eye on that and making sure that they are doing their part, but we have to do our part by agreeing to this just because it it would be a huge loss for this collective to make sure we got that access.

Is there a question in there, or are making a mistake?

So what do you think about it?

Yeah. Okay.

Okay. Yeah.

We've got a question. Yeah. So for the layperson watching this meeting, this is a really complex amendment, and I guess I'm trying to understand the the why at a high level. Like, I understand what the amendments are and what's being asked, but I'm trying to understand the why of why this amendment is needed, especially if it's gonna lead to higher rates for our residents. Sure.

I can I can take a crack at that? So so, basically, we've gotten or, Alex, do you wanna You were looking at the slide.

It's up it's okay. Either either or.

Let me start, and then if you have anything to add particularly for I I would speak for the the Yeah. Area as a whole. Yeah. These four agencies, particularly Mountain View, have gotten to the situation where their obligation to San Francisco to buy water is more than their total demand for water. So we're in a weird factual situation now, where they're paying $3,000,000 to the the city of San Francisco for water that they can't possibly use. Mhmm. And so the system has a good proportion of fixed costs. Mhmm. And all of us share in those fixed costs. And it's it's actually not just the agencies in Bosco, but the city of San Francisco customers as well share in these fixed costs.

Mhmm. And so the $4,000,000 that Cheryl mentioned is split among our agencies and among City Of San Francisco residents as well. But it's just a simple math problem that if you recognize the reality that Mountain View, in particular, can't use that water and shouldn't be charged for water that it can't use. That that cost has to be put somewhere else. Mhmm. It is a a relatively small amount. I understand that any rate increase is is not not a good rate increase. Mhmm. But it we're talking about less than 1% increase in rates.

Mhmm.

Your current bill, I think, the last fiscal year to San Francisco was thirty more than $37,000,000 for water. And so, you know, a $300,000 increase is certainly less than 1% of of the of the cost of the water from San Francisco. Okay. And that's just that's applying to everybody. It's applying to all the agencies, and certainly not singling out neighborhood in any way.

And so this redistributing the reduction in water that mountain that's why this entire amendment was made for. It's specifically to address Mountain View situation?

Mountain View is the biggest problem. Okay. BCWD and the others have smaller smaller issues meeting their minimum obligation. Mountain View is really the the one that's the major problem. They've they've spent, 11 or $12,000,000 over the last four years on water that they they cannot possibly use.

And so we have to maintain a certain level of minimum purchase quantity for the utility to have sustainable and predictable revenue. Is that what I'm hearing? And so that's why we have to figure out where to distribute this cost to other cities.

So every year, San Francisco does a calculation of what the total revenue requirement is for for its water enterprise. Yeah. And it divides that by the estimated amount of water sales. And then you and your customers and all of the other customers, Bosco as well as the San Francisco retail customers will use that certain amount of water, and then that's trued up at the end of the year. So it's really an estimating process. So every year, the water rates are set. Mhmm. And what we're talking about is the next time water rates are set, they would move to those quantities being a little bit small. Okay.

Got

it. Is there more that you wanted to add? Or

The minimum purchase, came about because these four agencies have different supply sources.

Mhmm.

And the thinking was that, okay. They can if there is no minimum purchase requirement, they can play with how much water they purchase from San Francisco. For instance, in years that water is plentiful, they can maximize purchases from much cheaper sources Mhmm. And not from San Francisco, which has the exception of being high cost. So that cost then gets distributed to other member agencies.

And during a drought, they can maximize purchase from San Francisco, which has an impact on us. So this was put in there for contracts that you have this requirement to purchase a minimum amount. Yeah. It is true that they have done a great job like the rest of the member agencies in reducing their their usage. Their usage is slightly higher than Hayward in terms of per capita, but still very, very low.

Yeah. There is going to be an impact. This $4,000,000 that was talked about, we are 7% of the collective wholesale agencies in San Francisco. 7% of $4,000,000 is $280,180,000 that we have to pay. The thing is, and I have to say, that it is very true that Mountain View has an aggressive plan to add new housing.

You know, when you go into the city, you see what they have done similar to what we have done on Mission Boulevard. They have done in their city. I have looked at their their plans, and I know that in the next fifteen years, they are planning to add 11,000 housing units. In Hayward, our plan is to add about 4,000, and we are twice the size of the mountain. This $280,000 a year is not going to remain as they develop and provide more housing. It is going to be reduced. Yeah. But we start from 280,000 about per year.

Okay. Thank you.

I'm comfortable with this being moved to the the full council for a larger discussion, but I I don't know if I'm fully confident about the amendment itself without more protections for ratepayers. And I understand negotiations have already happened, but if it really is contingent upon Hayward agreeing, I think there needs to be room to figure out how we make sure there's not runaway costs associated with passing this. I just I don't wanna get too Yeah.

And and and the question I had, I mean, I I just gleaned at the email that was sent to it. But and given the comment which made that all eyes are on Hayward, what if we don't do this? What happens?

Then the whole thing is going to unravel.

We are

not going to have an agreement, and that's what's gonna be.

No problem. You know, I I yeah. I mean, I'm I'm comfortable with this going up going up the council. I mean, you know, I absolutely can I put this? I absolutely understand the value of of our water head catching water, and and I understand it.

I mean, I I and I know sort of the value of that is just not just the money, but just, you know, the benefit is to our residents, to economic development, to, you know, some of these other areas. But, you know, I was listening to the council member of the book you and, you know, arguments brief. It's pretty I've been seeing you. But but regardless, this will this has to go to council. I mean, regardless. Right?

It has to Yeah. It has to your recommendation

Yeah.

Of forward against.

Okay. Well, I I'm I'm hearing that we should just pick this up to the council and and have the rest of us

And just to be clear, don't have a recommendation.

Yeah. Without the recommendation.

I said I don't have a recommendation.

So council member, has no recommendation for, but, I mean, I hope I mean, you know

I'll move forward.

I'll move in.

I'll second. Yeah. Do we need to vote on this?

Yes.

Oh, okay. Moved by council February Andrews, seconded by mayor Salinas. That'll be a number. Okay. And then it two one, and it passes. It'll go to council. Oh, thank you. Yep.

Perfect.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Okay. Next item is, let's see.

Next item is.

Yeah. This is the downtown. The the the probably the least controversial issue in the city of Hayward, that is the that the the safe streets downtown, the loop update. Yes.

So you have been asking us for a long time that we need to do something about the loop. And, actually, that started happening right after it was opened again. I mentioned the. People realized that it's a ridiculous configuration in middle of the downtown. Traffic is fast.

It is unsafe. It is, you know, five, six to five feet on the street. It's unacceptable, and we've been happy. We have been able to get a grant to start looking into the possibility of doing something about they do and also some other Gotcha. Streets in the downtown. So, Biden's saying our transport transportation engineer is here to kick off, the presentation. We are very excited.

Okay. Let's get it set up. Just a minute.

This is not necessarily the reason why ACT sees the hearing.

They are also excited that. I

know. Let's connect now.

Alright. Good evening, mayor Salinas and, committee members. My name is Byron Tang. I'm the principal transportation engineer of public works department of city of Hayward. I'm joined by Carrie Modi. She's with Farr and Pierce principal of Farr and Pierce. They are the city's consultant for this project, and we will both be presenting an update on Safe Streets Downtown project. We're here to get confirmation of the options that will be presented to be studied further and to receive any feedback that you have on it.

And Carrie is a use of company. Hughes used to be out of him. Yeah.

Hello. Oh,

currently, you're Hughes' boss. I am. Oh, okay. Make him work.

Okay.

The presentation will have three parts. The first part will be the we're gonna look at the study overview and the work to date that was done on this project so far. The second will be the presentation of the four options, and the third will be next steps and to get feedback from the committee. So as, the loop is in downtown, as many of you know. It's foot it's surrounded by Foothill Boulevard, Mission Boulevard, and A Street where they're, one way.

And, so Safe Streets Downtown. What's the reason for Safe Streets Downtown? One of the big reasons is in 2023, the city passed our vision zero policy, which is to reach zero fatalities and severe injury traffic collisions by 2050. And a lot of that the loop presents a big issue with that. Looking at crash data from 2013 to 2022, about one collision happens every eleven days, and on average, two people die every year.

Another reason for Safe Streets Downtown project is, Safe Streets Downtown project supports the downtown specific plan and in creating a thriving downtown, one that's economic, economically healthy and prosperous, something that we all want here at Hayward. And then as Alex was mentioning, we've received many, complaints about the loop, from different, reasons from traffic, access to businesses, the noise it creates. And, through this project, we have, also confirmed through our surveys that, there are a lot of concerns about loops where, over 75% of, survey response, had, complaints and concerns. So I'm gonna hand it over now to Carrie to talk about the project.

Great. Thanks, Byron. So that background is really why the goal of the study is primarily to create safer streets in downtown. It also has the additional goals of promoting economic vitality and advancing transportation equity, both in terms of process and outcomes. And then, ideally, at the end of this, positioning the city well for funding, which is really the next step that's absolutely needed to actually move the project towards design and construction.

Next slide.

So right now, we're partway through the middle of the project. So we've done some initial community engagement to identify design options. You'll hear more about that tonight. And we're here really to confirm direction on which options to study further. And so once we get some, hopefully, input and some buy in on that, we'll go and do more community engagement. So that's the goal for this fall and winter. And then based on that, we'll come back to you all in early twenty twenty six to actually select a preferred option. Once that's done, then we will detail that out through design plans and cost estimates so you can really understand what kind of project you might be working with moving forward. But important to note that that is very much after the study. So the conclusion of the study is really those conceptual engineering drawings and cost estimates.

Lots of work to do subsequent to that secured funding to actually do the final design and construction of the actual project. And the community engagement today, as Byron mentioned, really has affirmed the study's goals and strong community desire for change. And I think if you go to the next slide, that was one of the most exciting conversations that we had recently. The city held a design shred, council member was there. And after it, there was an open house for community members.

And it was really a hands on exercise to be able to design options and really say, what what are the what are the design choices that they'd like to see council actually look at as part of this? And so they were able to do that literally in a hands on way to kind of design different options, have neighbor to neighbor discussions, and really plan out those options. And so you'll see in the subsequent slides, they went in a very transformative direction. They were big ideas, lots of discussion around conversion of the loop to two way traffic operations, and then really wanting a a set of downtown streets that really serve downtown. So a sense fundamentally that, the current design really still at the end of the day is about kinda citywide or through traffic and wanting it to be, supportive of downtown as a real place.

So based on those design track findings and then some subsequent conversations with staff, this is what staff is proposing to study. So looking for input from you all on this tonight. Again, not here to select an option, just confirmation that these options are what you'd like to continue to see study as part of this. So there are four options. Each is distinguished by how much place function there is. That's shown in green on these diagrams, and you'll see that on subsequent slides as well. And then how much movement function a street has, and that's what's shown on orange on here. So there are four basic options. The first option is what we're calling the baseline option. That's because it's it's fundamentally pretty similar to what the loop is like today.

It maintains a one way street, circulation throughout downtown. It does have, some safety enhancements to really meet the goals of the study against safety focused, but fundamentally doesn't change, a lot of those, basic parameters and design. The second option restores the grid in downtown. So really fundamentally changes and has some big moves including looking at removing two blocks of Foothill Boulevard between C Street and Jackson. The third option, which maintains the current alignment but has a strong place focus.

And the fourth option maintains the current alignment but still allows for a bit more movement, particularly on Foothill, thinking about that kind of three more regional or kind of citywide traffic. Important to note that options two, three, and four were all generated through the design shreds, so those all came out of the design shred themselves. And that's also important to note that there's a lot of other kind of interesting pieces that can be layered onto any of these designs. So that's what's shown in the box right here. So B Street pedestrianization was something that some community members were very excited about, full or partial closure of B Street to everything except pedestrians.

And then you'll see that there's not a lot of bike options on what's shown tonight. And that's because the city has separate money to study what's called the bike loop, which basically is a kind of route around downtown. So rather than on the loop, it providing high quality infrastructure around downtown. And then any of these options can also layer onto it some public space opportunities, place making improvements, and then also transit improvements as well.

Next slide. And so you'll

see a series of diagrams like this. I'll go into a little bit more detail on those four options I just mentioned. But and these are kind of quick sketches when we come back to you in 2026. You'll see not only some more analysis and kind of performance of these different options, but also some more involved drawings to kind of bring them to life as well. But basically, what we're working with downtown is shown on the diagram on right. This is one way operation that you all are familiar with. And then these drawings show the the basically, the cross section. So Mission Boulevard today, three lanes parking on both sides. A Street, four lanes today, parking on both sides, and then Foothill, about five lanes today parking on both sides. So sometimes add or subtract turn lanes in addition to that, but that's kind of the fundamental design.

So I mentioned before the option one baseline improvements. What this really does is transform the street through a combination of repurposing some of the travel lanes to provide additional space. In this case, it is proposed for separated bike lanes. On Mission Boulevard, what would be done is going is maintaining the three lane cross sections that was recently kinda put out on the street with parking on both sides and then use using that extra space through kind of making appropriate sized travel lanes and appropriate sized parking lanes for a separated bike lane. And then a street would be reduced from four travel lanes today to three travel lanes in one direction.

Again, parking still on both sides and a separated bike lane added in the same direction as traffic. And then Foothill Boulevard will go from five lanes northbound today to four lanes, again, parking on both sides and a separated bike lane. Next slide. The downtown grid option shown here really maintains a lot of traffic on Mission Boulevard and a Street, but really fundamentally changes the character of Foothill. So Mission Boulevard, again, three lanes today.

This would actually now be four lanes in the future, two travel lanes in each direction, maintain the parking. On a street, this would transform the four lanes in one direction to two lanes in each direction. Again, parking maintained on both sides. And then this would have Foothill Boulevard really transformed between A and C Street to just be one one lane in each direction. So two lanes total with back and angle parking.

So probably an increase in parking supply associated with that as well. And that creates opportunities to really widen the sidewalk and have it be a very place oriented street with a lot of space in the public right away that can be oriented to businesses or for street treats or other uses. The big move here is that it removes Foothill Boulevard between Jackson And C Street. So that creates opportunity for maybe more park or open space, really creates a lot of opportunities for what you'd wanna do with that space if you were to move those links from the network. The third option here that maintains the current alignment but has a place focus.

So Foothill is still the big street in this option, but it goes from five lanes to four lanes, two in each direction, and a and a very large wide median. So kind of envisioned as kind of a a grand boulevard kind of scheme. A Street and Mission are the ones that are really transformed in this option. So Mission goes from three lanes to two lanes, one in each direction with back and angled parking, so creating a lot of opportunities for parking on those streets that really fundamentally making them more place oriented and that much safer. And then similar design on each street going from four lanes to two, one lane beach direction and also with the back of angle parking.

And then the last option is a variation on option three. So this maintains the current alignment that has a more of a movement function on Foothill. And so the way that it looks kinda similar, the picture, but what we've done here is removed the turns on each of the streets. And so what that's gonna do is make it a little bit faster for vehicles to travel through the corridor. So kind of maintains a little bit more of a balance between some of the through traffic and just serving just having streets in downtown serve downtown.

Mission and a are then still very much transformed as place oriented streets. Mission going from three lanes down to two, one in each direction. This shows it with much widened sidewalks, so a lot more opportunity for kind of places and supporting businesses on Mission. And then a street has a similar design going from four lanes down to two, one in each direction, again, with the widened sidewalks. So we're here just to take any comments and confirm that this is the right direction to head in.

Obviously, there's much more study that is needed. And so with kind of information from you all tonight, if there is buy in, we'll proceed with evaluating their performance and actually do some community engagement as part of that too, some more public community engagement. And then what we do is come back to you in early twenty twenty six with that information and start to move towards selection of a preferred option at that point. We're also interested in getting some information from you all just if there's any concerns or opportunities that you think aren't being addressed by these options. And then also if there's any additional analysis or inputs that you will need to be able to make that decision as well.

Our presentation. Thank you. Great.

Okay. You have to promise us, director Mary, that when we start doing any work out there, that you give me the first opportunity with a jackhammer to start breaking ground.

Absolutely. Great.

Okay. Awesome. Alright. Go ahead. Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you for this presentation. Thank you to our entire team for getting this work to this point. It's really nice to see a vision for the future of LOOP, and I'm excited for this kind

of refinement process that we're

gonna go through together. I'll just jump straight into the options that you have presented. And what might be helpful is if we could go back a few slides just so we can look at different options together. Yeah. Sorry. Optional. Okay. Great. So for baseline, I just wanna like, I like the bike lanes. That's what I wanna say. I wanna figure out how to work into the other options since there weren't a lot of biking options in the the the following ones. And I know there's an idea for, you know, access around the loop. We want cyclists to come into the businesses, not just hang out around the outside park, and then we'll have to walk three blocks to go where they're trying to go. We've just invested a lot in Main Street's, revamp, and that has nice bike parking and bike lanes. And so I see this as complement to that.

I'd wanna make sure any work that we're doing in the loop includes that. However, in general, I wanna stay away from the baseline if possible because we just brought in a massive grant. We've dedicated a lot of staff time to change the loop, and this doesn't feel like it's actualizing that change that we're pushing for. So I just the good is the bike infrastructure. The bad is it's too similar to what we have now. I mean, if we need to put forward a more progressive vision. Could we jump to option two, please? Great. Okay. I love the boldness of this vision.

But as I look at this, originally, this was going to my favorite because I like the idea of having very predictable roads for people to be able to navigate and reinsert reinstalling two way traffic along a lot of these major streets. But Mission Boulevard and A Street, when I think about the the the blueprint of our downtown and our also our development goals, we're we're thinking about Maple And Main as a development. We just built Lincoln Landing. These are massive housing developments that are either planned or have been built. And A Street and Mission are major roads that we want these folks to be able to cross.

There are some businesses on Main Street as you go towards Lincoln Landing that you can see have struggled because of how wide, A Street is. It's like our our the North Hayward gets cut off because of H Street from the rest of the downtown. So, in looking at this, I understand that there has to be some place for all the traffic to go. And if we get rid of Foothill, then H Street and Mission are kind of the sacrificial lambs there. And so that's where I've actually found myself moving away from this even though I like the boldness.

And I and the idea of reclaiming that awkward Foothill Strip and making it into green space or, like, a walkway for people, some kind of walking vertical like, a long park is awesome, but I don't think I wanna sacrifice the connectivity of, you know, our library to the rest of the downtown or Lincoln Landing and that whole, you know, and the gym from the rest of the downtown. So those are my thoughts on, the downtown grid. If I could wave a wand, though, I think the reason I like this so much is that intersection between D Street and Foothill is, like, crazy. It's like like a eight I don't know how many different roads are intersecting with it. And if there was a way to get rid of that, I'd love it.

But I don't I don't know if it's it's doable in this in this project. Next slide, please. I think I'm leaning towards this one. The sorry. I'm moving forward on my own slides too. I think I'm moving forward towards, place the most. I think when I talk about tying in a complaint that I hear from the different merchants, right outside of city hall is they feel disconnected from the rest of downtown. I think that's because we have mission, you know, cutting the line through the downtown. I think this would do a great job of connecting our library, our city hall, these businesses to the fabric of the downtown as well as what I was just talking about about a street too. And I think this would make Foothold Foothill a lot more accessible and approachable to folks.

And especially if it's two ways here, I I could see this really enlivening Foothill, and and it creates enough connectivity with the Upper B Street neighborhood that, I'm not, you know, mad at it. I still think that Intersection Of D and Foothill needs a lot of work, and I know I can see specific designs that are presented on, like, do we need a roundabout there instead of just letting it be what it is right now? Because that intersection is just too nuts. I mean, that's where a lot of the accidents happen. So I I guess as we figure out our our bigger picture, if you were just thinking of what we're doing right now, I I would like to see us zoom in on specific intersections, so we can really hone in on how we're trying to handle them, particularly, you know, Foothill Jackson and Foothill D.

And then the last one, I like the thought behind this, but there's just gonna be a lot of illegal left turns. Like, I just this is Alameda County. Like, if if we make our own rules on the road, and I I just think this is asking to be broken, and I don't wanna invest in a solution that like, I understand the intent of the solution, but I I don't wanna like, I don't wanna say we're not encouraging illegal behavior, but it's just going to lead to illegal behavior. And so this this makes me really anxious. I do really like, again, Mission and A Street.

So I guess to summarize my thoughts, I really think bringing this bringing everything West Of Mission and North Of A Street into the fold of the downtown is kind of priority one for me, which is why I lean the most towards towards the place alignment, as well as how this is handling it too. And I would like to see more bike infrastructure work into these plants and to look at really problematic intersections and find solutions to how we improve those. That that would be my overall,

key. Thank you. Thank

you for the presentation. I wanted to know about if we didn't ever do the loop, what was the concern? And, like, I just don't Why did we do Yeah. Why did so for the public so they can understand why we did the loop.

Yeah. So for thirty years, we had a plan to have Route 230 in in the hills of Haywood. And there was division here in the city regarding whether or not that should that project should go ahead. Those who lived in the flatlands and were so impacted by cut through traffic, they didn't want that. They wanted to have the highway in the Hayward Hills. And those who were more environmentally conscious, they did not appreciate to have a road like that. So the city came up with this idea that now is

The city came up with it.

The city did. The city did. The city came up with the idea, and we had some other ideas, crazy ideas too, but this was, like, the better of them, if you can believe them. We came up with this idea, and we said, look. With what we have here, regional traffic can be handled here. You know? We are going to make our downtown streets one way and four lanes and five lanes and what have you. So that was acceptable. And we received funding. We received a lot of money, to construct this, and we went ahead and did phase one.

And then phase two of Mission Boulevard, we had some money left over. So there are two things. One is that whatever is the solution to this, we know we have to speak to what happens to the regional traffic. Is it going to impact all of our local streets, or are they going to be frustrated enough to go and try to take eight eighty. The idea that we have right now is that hopefully we can work with ACTC and advance some of the interchange improvements on 880 to be able to make 880 less frustrating Yeah.

To traveling public so that then we can implement a version of these changes. And by the way, these are long term changes. Nothing is gonna happen next year or or two years from now in terms of construction. So that's the dilemma. Some of these, you know, have come from residence and in my mind are idealistic.

Like, for instance, making Foothill into a two way street or making B Street into a pedestrian street because B Street, unlike some other downtown streets, does not have alleys in the back. So the street is used for coverage collection, deliveries, you know, everything else.

So we've been hearing for a long time about shutting down Beach Street, and the business community has been mixed on that on that street. In this 500 serve person survey, was that included the business community in this this survey, and what were they thought their thoughts on pedestrians in B Street? Is there an update on I'll

speak first. Let's check that. The business community was part of the our stakeholder outreach. And from what I've actually spoke to some of them at the Shred, yeah, there there are operational concerns with, like, being able to get delivery and and things like that. I feel like a lot of the support for close closing or partially closing B Street has come from the residents or people who are visiting downtown. So I don't know if you have anything to add, Zachary.

Yeah. Just that the 500 surveys, that was really focused on the needs phase. So we would still be getting a lot more information, but we did have a listening session with the chamber of commerce early on. Then they're well represented at the Shred too, so we actually had at least one business owner from View Street and another one in downtown in addition to representation from the chamber. So they were active participants. Okay.

Alright. And then did we use or refer back to the Lisa Wise Consulting downtown specific plan? I think that was a while ago, but was that referenced here for

Not referenced here, but some of the concepts

Okay.

Are very similar. Okay. We have a different design, like a racetrack design for for Tim and the mission that has not been incorporated in here. But this is, like, preliminary conceptual design. You know, those things can be incorporated as we develop this further.

Okay. And then, some of the options, I'm wondering about signal timing because we're drastically reducing lanes. How would how would we adjust in

a way? Of those things would have to be Okay. Looked into, definitely.

Okay. Can we go to the first one? Then I can go through the different options. Yep. So I think that Mission Boulevard being one way is I think that's one of the reasons why people are concerned about coming downtown, same with Cliff Hill.

Mhmm. H Street, I don't hear as much other than it being referenced at one point that there was talk about it going to two way. So I would say no on this option as well. No. I'm not interested in this option, so I don't think we need to study it.

K.

Option two, Mission Boulevard. Yes. So Foothill, I actually do like the diagonal parking. I'm just concerned about signal timing, and I see a lot of access and frustration on Foothill Boulevard specifically. So I I'm just wondering how feasible this this design is. But Mhmm. I think it's very confusing right now whether people can park the way it's it's lined. Mhmm. Because people think, oh, can I actually park, or do I have to go all the way on the back? And and if they look full already, then they just keep going.

Where this is clearly showing this is a this is a parking spot, and I think that actually does look good on B Street to have the diagonal parking. So it it just kinda brings more attention to the shops downtown. So I do like it. I just don't know how feasible it is. So I would I will be interested to hear about the signal timing on Foothill.

And H 3 yeah. I'm not how feasible that is either with the the diagonal parking. Again, I like the look of diagonal parking in general. Foothill Boulevard, I'm not sure about the median inside. I I've seen our medians throughout the city, and I don't know if it will help with slowing down traffic.

But I know it looks good, but I don't know how I don't know how it'll be on Foothill specifically. It's just a lot of traffic coming through there, and we I'm already seeing some issues just in our 5 Flags area and and other areas, and I just don't don't know how how well that will look, but I do like the the two way. So I'm interested in option three, that. Option four, the same comments as option three. And Mission Boulevard, I don't know how feasible that is to have that many to just drop it down to.

I I understand the the need for wider sidewalks. I just I'm not sure how feasible that is, but it looks good. So I'm interested more in two and three.

Okay. So, you know, okay. Yeah. But but I have a couple of questions first. But yeah. Absolutely. Thank you. Okay. So, you know, I well, I guess the just a couple of big things. One, for me, it's slowing traffic down. I mean, that's the main that's the main issue. I mean and because if you look at it along the perimeter, a street, 2nd Street, We have a lot of you know, there's a lot of senior housing. There's a lot of assisted living. There's lot, you know, there's a lot of senior citizens all around. Mhmm.

And and they simply I mean, I see it. They can't cross the street, you know, or they're rushed to cross the street. And and they tell me, we feel rushed, and and, you know, it's very hard for them to cross the street. So so, you know, whatever, you know, whatever option we look at, just be mindful of we have to slow people down. I mean, it has to be slow. I mean and and, you know, I know the speed limits. I know we we have tinkered with speed limits, you know, in our you know, around the loop, but, you know you know, I'm not afraid to go slower. So there's that. The other the other big issue is whatever we do, be mindful of safety. Right?

And and, I mean, the fact that I had no idea that every 11 days, there's a collision, and, on average, two people die a year. I mean, I can't think of another street in the city of where we had two people die. If we had two people die a year if, you know, if we knew that there was a street in the city of Hayward that every year two people died, there was a fatality. Yeah.

Have a high injury network.

Yeah. I mean, there's certainly anyways, so safety clearly, you know, is is an issue. So, you know, slowing it down and make you know, doing whatever we can to make it safe. But and I don't wanna repeat a lot of the stuff that everyone else has said, but, you know, one of the things you know, option three, I think we all agree on I think we all say the option three. I like option three just primarily because it does create a sense of space and a and a plinth for downtown.

And I think everything that we've been talking about up here, creating making downtown a destination, you know, and, you know, and, you know, if we were to remove a lot of the you know, if we were not remove, but if we were to fix and and resolve a lot of the prohibitive factors that make it hard for, you know, for businesses to open in downtown, if we were to remove all that, we get, you know, a downtown that's, you know, thriving and and hustling and bustling, then we would be talking about making it a a destination. And I think that's what what we've been talking about. Now, you know, I know you talked about the the the islands and and so forth. I mean, there was one conversation, if I'm not mistaken. There was one study that we looked at some time ago about, you know, putting sort of a wide median at four corners, And and there may have even been, like, pagoda out there or something.

Or, I mean,

I'm trying to remember. That's from

the downtown specific plan. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. The horse race.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, I I guess in in in at a very high level, my my you know, what what makes me what the reason why I like option three is is we're being mindful of creating this place where people are gonna wanna come to.

And, you know, I mean, Foothill, you know, the fact that we have this you know, the the the median there, we have, you know, four lanes of traffic going both ways, which is good. You know, a street, you know, it it we're kinda going back to the way it was before. I mean, that's really what it is. But but I you know, by doing that, you know, the parking I mean, I'm not gonna you know, I know there's sort of the politics between diagonal parking and and vertical parking. I mean, I wanna get into that right now, but I think it makes sense.

But but it you know, I just want us to create the that loop, our downtown. Let's make it a downtown. And whatever we can do to make it a downtown, let's do it. And and and create these opportunities through landscape, streetscape, lightscape, all that for, you know, public art and, you know, some of these other things that we've been talking about. Yeah. You know? And it you know, for me, it just seems that option three seems to be a a viable plan to really sort of locate that.

So, anyways

Got a question. Yeah.

Was there a specific street that the collisions were happening, like, portion of the hill or mission that was coming up and the fatalities that were coming up out of all the locations here?

Was it federal? You have a slide on the, I think.

I think there's more mission, but you know what? Yeah. There's more mission for that. It's more mission.

Mission Boulevard is fast. Yeah. It is fast. Fast. I mean, the other the other thing too I wrote here I know we're only looking at the loop right here, but, you know, what about the lead in to the loop, like coming off of Jackson? You know, that's where a lot of cars begin to do.

This is actually part of a a bigger grant, and the other components of that grant, we are also studying other quarters in parallel. Yeah. We actually just released an RFP to look at Jackson as one of the streets that do lead up to them. But right now, there's already a study going looking at history. Mhmm. And that RP also has Mission Gold, the one we just released. So I think all those will tie into and, you know, work into what comes out of this and how we make sure the teams are

collaborating. Yeah. And then when I mean, to go back to the comment you had made earlier about a street, what happened? I thought we were gonna reverse a street and bring it back to two ways.

So we are looking into that option to see if it is possible and what we can do.

Okay. Because I I mean I mean mentioned it.

I thought we were gonna do this some time ago. Like, thought we were I thought this was part of the plan, like,

a long time ago. It takes a lot of work and some funding to to do that because we redesigned the street to cater to one way, you know, turning into mission. We have to look into it and see what we need to do.

And so we might be able to get funding to do that as part of applying for funding of this as a whole. Is that kind of the thought? As a

whole or separately. Any funding that is available, we go forward to see if we can receive them. I just want to mention, I know I don't wanna be naysayer. When I look at this here and I see one lane going south on Mission Boulevard that right now has, you know, multiple lanes, you know, how is the morning traffic going to work here?

Are you looking at option three?

Yeah. Option three. When I look at, I don't know, a street one one way, you know, one lane, the same way, Foothill, lanes, the evening traffic, how is it going to be handled? So there's a lot of work that we have to do.

I mean, mean, that that is true. That is true. But, I mean, I mean, I don't know a lot of I mean, I don't see people driving through Downtown Mountain View at 60 miles an hour. Right? I mean, if we're gonna have a downtown and if we're and it's gonna be a a destination place, I mean

Mountain View has 85. Right? They constructed it twenty years ago.

Yeah. And how's the speed through rate? I mean, you know, I don't I don't know Mountain Views out of Yes. Is it is it fast?

Well, that's that's the highway. Yeah. So 65 miles. Have here the environmentally bad concept of 85. And, yeah, we don't have that in

So so the criticism I mean, you know, part of the criticism of the loop is, you know, people say, well, you know, the loop because I so let's go to the let's go to movement. Right? Option four.

Mhmm.

Right? People have said, well, you know, the Loop was built for commuters, not for the, you know, not for the city. Very true. And, you know, and so here we are, you know, sort of studying this and saying, okay. Let's look at this, and let's let's whatever we reconfigure, let's do it for the city. Hey. We're not necessarily for the community.

Yeah. I I agree. I mean, I understand your concern and why you'd you'd be a naysayer here. I think the reason why I'm okay with places, we're we're keeping Foothill as that throughway connector from Jackson to the freeway, and we're trying to adjust people's budgets. Hayward isn't going to be your through fair anymore.

Yeah.

Might be better for you to stay on the freeway a little bit longer if you're using Hayward as a through fair because our downtown's for its residents. And, you know, when I look at Mission, we have a library with kids right next to a five lane freeway. Yeah. And I know it's not technically a freeway, but that's not the way a library should connected be to its downtown in my opinion. When I look at this and I imagine a kid crossing can we jump to option three, please? Thanks. When I imagine a kid crossing that handful of lanes to get to the rest of the downtown, we talk about encouraging more family friendly businesses to arrive. Right? We're creating ecosystem now.

No question. Yes. And, you

know, we have seniors at eight zero eight a Street. I'd rather them cross that than, you know, four four lanes, for example. So I really wanna make sure this downtown is working for its residents. And, I'm sympathetic to the traffic, but I think people also need to adjust their travel budgets. It's it's really what we're choosing to prioritize, people's ability to get to and from and through or, like, to come to our downtown.

Yeah. And and and just to you know, I remember I remember when the loop was discussed, and I remember sitting, you know, in council meetings. And the theory was, you know, if we had what we have today, these hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people driving through Hayward will boost the downtown. It will, you know, create a an economic boom. You know? I mean, the the the theory around all of the cars driving through Hayward was just going to just be incredible and be a wonderful thing for the city. And and I can tell you, I mean, I talk to people all over the region, and they say, yeah. I drive through Hayward all the time. I they never they never say, yeah. I, you know, I I drove through Hayward.

I stopped, grabbed a burger, or went shopping, went to the movies, or you know? And so so, I mean mean, I don't mind. Like, Foothill, I like Foothill being this big, you know, sort of major thoroughfare. Fine. You know? People are used to that. But let's save the other streets to, you know, more of a, you know

We just did that wonderful work on Mission Boulevard Improvement Phase 3. Right? A lot of pedestrians don't ever make the jump to see that because it's separated by a five lane phase street. True. I we're trying to connect the fabric that we've worked so hard to build, into one cohesive body, and I think that that's what this is really trying to accomplish here.

I appreciate that.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So, you know, I I mean, let me let me I know there's someone on the line. So, I mean so baseline you know, for me, my my main priority would be, you know I'd I'd like to see what what you guys come up with with or see what just come up with with place, option three. Mhmm. You know, I I I certainly would be willing to look at, you know, the other two. I mean, I don't know. How many options do we get? Two or one? Do we need to land

on That's what we're we're deciding here. If if there's a consensus that we don't need to study option one, it would, allow us to repurpose some of that, resources to study for the other options.

Well, I see option one's off the table. So let's let's cancel option one. Option two, I mean, you know Mhmm. Option two.

I think the option two, the median in inside that one is just one instead of this two Mhmm. Two line. I think that might be a good compromise because I do hear the concerns because I do have to take five eighty through Foothill, and it is pretty jammed in the morning during rush hours. So that might be something that we could probably live with. Yeah. Possible. Yeah.

And then so two, three, and four.

Okay.

Oh, I'm I'm a know on 4.

Oh, okay.

Yeah. You say four?

Four of them is Oh, okay.

So then so two and three then. Okay. That's fine. Okay.

Leaning heavy on two on the just on the Hill one.

On the median, you mean?

Mhmm.

Okay. But it's but our general consensus on three with some elements of two is what I'm hearing. Yeah. Okay.

Okay. So clarifying, no four either. No four.

No one. No four. Two and three.

And primarily three elements of two. Then Can we say four again? And then the bike infrastructure from one.

Yeah. Four. Okay. Alright. Let's go to public comment. Looks like we have a public commenter. And do we have a name? How many public comments are there? Just one.

Just one. Oh, okay.

Who is it?

Mister Alejandro Jasso.

Good. Oh, Hasso. Yeah.

Yeah. Hi, everyone. Yeah. This is Alejandro Jasso, local resident, all supported by Hayward. Yeah.

I just wanna second what George said. Like, the these options don't have, infrastructure. The downtown bike loop, that's just, a short term project to make it a little bit easier to get around the loop because it's really dangerous as a cyclist. And I also wanna highlight that city, the downtown currently has, 1,700 parking spaces in the parking lots. So I think this, analysis should deprioritize on street parking, because it's already there's there's no lack of parking in downtown, but there's lack of bike infrastructure.

So I just wanna make sure you keep in mind that, you know, there's plenty of parking in downtown, and that hasn't helped a lot of the businesses. So, you know, making sure that proper bike infrastructure, is is helps people get around easier in downtown, you know, that's that's gonna help the businesses. Also, like, if we add the BART parking lot, that's another 1,400 parking spaces. So there's, like, thousand parking spaces, more than, more parking than, by San Pedro Square in San Jose. So, I think it I I would hope to I I would hope that you'd prioritize a lot of this on street parking, to make sure you make space for, bike infrastructure. But yeah. Thank you.

Great. Yeah. Bikey. I have

my ear. Bikey. Okay. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah.

I apologize. We do have one more.

Okay. Let's do it.

Hey there. This is Robert Prince, advocacy director with Bike East Bay. Thanks for all the comments, and, thanks to also to staff reaching out with us and coordinating with Bike East Bay and Bike Hayward on the outreach for this project. I would also like to put in a plug just to not rule out necessarily bike infrastructure with some of the other options. I don't wanna make it necessary that diagonal parking is inherent to those options or planted medians.

That space could actually be repurposed and otherwise build a move more people around and provide more mobility options. And it's not just bike lanes for bikes. We're seeing so many different types of mobility devices in what were previously called bike lanes before, including scooters, including monowheels, including, you know, mobility devices for people with accessibility needs. So this is gonna be a growing market, and those are a lot of customers, especially the bikes because they run on food, that, you know, would be really great to welcome into those streets, not only on side streets, but the places where the destinations are. So don't rule it out even with those other options. Be happy to tinker continue seeing what we can make fit. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. Okay. Seeing no more public comment closed public comment, and do you have what you need? We have

enough. Yes. Thank you. Great.

Thank you. Thank Great. Okay.

Next item is item number four, which is East Bay Greenway multimodal Haywood segment project, review staff's recommended project alignment and types of.

Council members, like you said, this is a report on the conceptual design. Obviously, Greenway, for your comments. We are very excited to be here tonight and talk about this significant project. Lucas, would work our senior transportation engineer is here to present the report?

Hi. Good evening, mayor, members of the committee. My name is Lucas Wilbert, the senior transportation engineer in the public works and utilities department. And this project has been introduced, the Eastgate Greenway multimodal. This is a project you've you've heard some you've heard some about by now.

So I presented initial recommendations to this committee in, October 2024 and have provided some oral updates both here and other committees like AC Transit, ILC. At this point, we are, approaching the end of the planning and scoping phase of the project. And this so we're we've done a lot of work with Outreach. We've convened an active transportation working group. We've met four times with them.

And, so this this presentation will provide an update on those recommendations, and, we're we're hoping to to be able to move forward with with this into into environmental. So big picture, I just wanted to show where we are. So I it looks like we're at the very end of something. In the previous slide, we're also kind of at the beginning of something, which is that we're we're concluding this planning and scoping phase. Next up would be project approval and environmental documentation.

When we would be finalizing the purpose in need of a project, we would study alternative solutions in detail, and we would document environmental impacts. There's also additional outreach as part of that as well. After that is complete, then we could move into detailed design and then ultimately construction. We are, at this point, tentatively planning to come back to SEAC once a year. That's the schedule we're on.

It's always been October so far, but, that that might shift depending on milestones. So just to briefly recap the project goals and the scope of this planning study, first and foremost is is safety. This project uses proven countermeasures to improve safety for people of all ages and abilities. In addition, there's the benefits of the aesthetics and the environment. The project includes street trees, landscaping, lighting to to beautify the environment and produce really see the effects and really promote the public realm.

In addition, this project is intended to enhance health. Active transportation is a healthy lifestyle choice, and, this also promotes multimodal connectivity, with comfortable options for walking, biking, to transit, schools, neighborhoods. And in addition, this is, of course, part of a a major regional trail, the East Bay Greenway, which, which is, currently starts at Lake Merritt and would stretch to South Hayward with this project. So as it originally proposed, this East Bay Greenway would run on the Union Pacific alignment, which would include some right of way acquisition. That's a very complicated and long term thing to do.

And so in the near term, an an on street alternative was proposed. And while I think there had been some discussion about a potential alignment on mission In November 2023, we are, requested to evaluate the alignment of on street facilities that, the mixed use of facilities that are already recommended in the city's bicycle pedestrian master plan. And so this is the alignment that we currently studied, the, preferred preferred alignment in magenta and then some side streets that were also investigated in blue. Another important element of this project is the participation of an active transportation working group. When this kicked off in December 2023, the city and all data CTC committed to convening an an active transportation working group, which I'm going to call the ATWG from now on, to guide the the outreach and project recommendations.

So what we're presenting here, represent the collaboration of the ATWG, which is really a group of, stakeholders with different perspectives, different priorities. We met four times, reviewed technical work, and also used the used their networks to leverage our outreach efforts as well. Recap on bicycle facility types. So based on national best practices, the the choice of a bicycle facility type really depends on, on traffic speeds and traffic volumes. And this graphic orders them in terms of separation of the most separated facility, which is a a class one multiuse path on the left, over to a a bicycle boulevard on the right, which may be more appropriate for streets and lower traffic volumes.

So all these, this choice of facility has a lot of implications on the number and width of travel lanes, on on parking availability, on the separation with the facility, and space that we might have for place making, and and curb and sidewalk impacts, which are a major driver of cost for this kind of project. So in this project, we are we are recommending, a mix of class one shared use paths and and two way separated bike lanes, because those facilities, as opposed to one way lease direction, have an overall smaller footprint. They don't use they they only need one buffer, for example, and that that allows more space for parking or travel lanes or landscaping or something else. In the technical, so the technical work and, community outreach was was really intended to sort through these trade offs and facility types. And so, there were a number of technical numbers that we reported on earlier, including traffic, parking occupancy, and the prevalence of cut through traffic.

I think the only thing that might be new here might be the cut through traffic, which, I mean, personally, when I am down on Tennyson or Industrial and I'm driving to City Hall, the mapping application always tells me to take Whitman, which is, of course, the corner for the East Bay Greenway. And so, we wanted to really quantify that. And so that was that was part of this additional technical study that was done. Also wanted to recap the the outreach activities that were, held prior to the last, SEAC update. This was intended to capture feedback both from broad audiences, like mailers and community events, and also, more deep and substantial feedback from people during, focus groups and and walk in mic audits and one on one conversations with people.

Since then, at the request of of Siak, the project team performed additional outreach, and this was really targeted to, residents and daily users of the East Bay Green New Corridor. So this included, again, that range of of broad and and really focused feedback. Flyers are distributed along the corridor. The the project team went door to door, knocked on almost 200 doors, and talked to about 55 people just out in the street just to to learn about their priorities and their concerns. There's also an online survey, but this wasn't really a broad survey.

This was people were steered to this in in that in person outreach. So two thirds of those responses actually came from people on Whitman Street. And so through this, this was intended to oh, and, also, I should have mentioned that we also we receive access saver tickets with some regularity on streets on on the corridor, and so any of those people were also invited to participate in in this project a little bit more. So what do we hear through through this additional outreach? First off is is really broad support for multi level improvements.

The overall goals of the project were were strongly supported. There's also support for things like improved aesthetics, safety, walking conditions, sliding, those sorts of elements. So a real a real need for, like, high level design as we are are implementing this facility. Also heard some frustration with heavy traffic and speeding, on most streets on the corridor and some apprehension about the potential for the removal of parking or travel lanes, which is probably not a surprise to anyone. There's also some specific outreach done with Tennyson High School, and this was actually really, this came the summer, actually.

Brightman School was almost let out, which was that we've we learned a lot of students do bike to Tennyson every day. And and they, in general, were very strongly supportive of substantial bicycling and pedestrian improvements, even if that came with some trade offs. We also, had conversations with staff who were more had more reservations about about some of those trade offs. Alright. So so we've talked about the alignments and the process of analyzing some of our outreach activities.

And so this slide as well as the attachment in the staff report with existing post sections describe the the specific facilities that are recommended, based on the work of this project team and the ATWG. So this this is a summary. And, and on the next slide, I'm going to to highlight some of the things that have changed in the past year just to to really focus on those. But in general, the in the northern part of the corridor, the streets, there there's a a sense that these streets could be suitable for people of all ages and abilities with traffic calming. That includes Sunset and and Montgomery Street.

There's definitely some work to do there, but that that would be an appropriate facility type of traffic calming. As we get closer to downtown, in the BART station along B Street and Grand Street, there's a recommendation for two way class four, which provides more direct access to the BART station, and for both directions. Grand Street would also, also include a one way facility on the other side of the street, And so I can talk about that a little more later. As we get towards the heart of the corridor, MEET and Silva and Sycamore, things get a little bit complicated. MEET would be a a one way class four facility.

And then Silva is an extremely narrow street where we would be looking to really implement some some very intensive traffic calming bike boulevard treatments, to try to keep that down to comfortable speeds for shared for shared use. Then we get to, Sycamore Whitman. And Whitman, this is actually somewhat of a departure from before in that we had previously, proposed an ensuite class four facility on the East Side. That is now look. They're now intended to be a class one, a multiuse path that is a little bit separated from the roadway, which, I'll share a little bit more about that later.

Yeah. Perceptions. Class four is completely protected. Class one is

Class four is, like, mission board phase two.

Okay.

Yeah. And I I personally did not choose the and it frustrates me that it's not a spectrum, that it goes from one to four where it's it gets more protected or less protected. But but one class one is is is like a a separated path.

Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

So and and really, it's not that different from a from a from a sidewalk level class four that's separated by a buffer. You can even think of it. There there are almost a couple of things. But yeah. And the the last thing down here would be a Tennyson Road where where there'd be a two way class four recommendation on the BART side of the street as well as a one way class four on

the MED side.

So so it's really on some of these changes. Grand Street is currently in order to like, a the two way class four provide better access to BART. And so this was changed in discussion with BART and the ATWG. The one way class four on the West side would be retained. I wanna highlight this doesn't actually change the parking situation, Greg, because there isn't parking currently allowed on the east side of the street, but it does affect the buffer width and things like that.

Silva Avenue is is a where we maintain the current the current, on street parking and travel lanes, but we would include speed humps that we do 250, 300 feet, and additional traffic calming treatments to to try to keep those vehicle volumes low, make it not attractive as a cut through route. And then Whitman Street, as I just mentioned, would be a a multiuse path. And, the reason for introducing this was that, the multiuse path provides a little bit more of an opportunity for landscaping. It also preserves some parking along Whitman because we we move everything onto the sidewalk. It combines the existing sidewalk on the east side, which is not not well utilized.

It's just next to to railway tracks with with a bike facility as a plus one path. And then the the last change I wanted to highlight here was on town of some roads they just described. There there had always been a plan to have a two way on the south side, but in discussion with the ATWG, this would also include a one way facility. Let's see. So I I mentioned earlier that we studied parking utilization in in August 2024.

And so just to provide a little bit of background on what that means, this project team went out, made observations of every street and many side streets along the corridor during different time periods. They were out there weekdays, seven to ten, twelve to three, six to nine, Saturday morning, afternoon, and evening, and Sunday. They spent a lot of time in the corridor seeing how many cars were parked. And so the numbers I'm reporting are averages of those, but what we found, and it surprised me a little bit actually, is that it doesn't vary as much throughout the day as as you might expect. It's not that there's everyone leaves during the day and it's open.

No. It's just kind of a constant. The highest numbers were along Silva Avenue, which we mentioned is is changed in the recommendations, approaching a 100% occupancy at all times on Silva. So Meek Avenue and Sycamore would both would both lose some parking, and then Whitman as well. And I'm gonna show you what this looks like in the next next couple slides.

But this would this would really just be parking on the east side of the street, which is next to the tracks. The last thing here would be tennis and, oh, and on the southern part of Whitman, where the it moves away from the railroad tracks, there would there would still be some parking removal on the current section, on again, on the east side of the street. Tennyson is, where there was a plan to remove on street parking on the South Side. This is bar parking. It's very poorly used. It's almost never almost never parks there, and, this would also include the North Side. Just so we talked about class one, class four earlier. This was just a rendering. I thought I just wanted to show a little bit about that. What what does this Whitman class one really look like?

And this would be a section where where actually there was parking removed. But, but in this case, it's a shared shared facility for people walking and biking. So I wanted to dig just Hold on.

Go back go back to Yeah. So so that I mean, I know this is a rendering.

Yeah.

But Whitman Whitman is, I mean, mostly multiunit. It's mostly apartments. Mhmm. So, like, I'm just kinda curious. I mean, and the reason why there's so many so many cars parked there around the clock is because of the apartments. There's

Oh, crap.

And so I I guess I'm trying to what's the connect with, like, what's I mean, this would more probably look more like by attendance in high school or something. But

Yeah. I would say I think it was less less intended to show what the parking would look like and more to show what a class one would look like with the with the street and the railroad tracks. But I will actually the next few slides start with the detail on the parking. So let me let me just show that to you. Alright. So so just to clarify what this what this looks like on the grounds. The in these images, blue is is where parking would remain, and green is where it would be removed. And so starting a sycamore orchard, it's it would be removed on that east side next to the next to the tracks. These are just Google Google map captures. There's not a particular time that I took this.

And then moving, down between Orchard and Berry, actually, in that case, there's there's more space to work with. There's no need to move any

parking there.

We we gain that back phase in the class one. Between Barry and Harder, again, we would we we'd be constrained and would remove parking on that east side. And then the last section here from Harder to Fruitwood, again, this is an area where there's enough right away to work with that we wouldn't need to remove parking. There's a couple more sections, again, to to show what this looks like. Down by the high school at, Whitman, the Spring Fruitwood, Tennyson, That way, there would be some parking removed from the east side.

And and part of the reason for this is is that the homes on the east side of the street mostly face the side streets. They don't not as many face equipment. It also avoids the driveway conflicts that you would have with the with the class four facility on that side. So that's some of that's the reasoning behind that, the technical reasoning. The last the last image here is is Tennyson just again showing that this is the BART parking, that we're just describing.

Alright. So that was a lot, but I did wanna sort of walk you through what this looked like, you know, block by block, really. Just, and there's, of course, more detail in the staff report and the recommendation and the attachments. But, this is substantial work. Nothing about this moves fast.

And so the question at hand, right now is to allow this project to proceed with detailed environmental review, engineering studies, continued community engagement. If if we were to if this were to be approved by city council, this would wouldn't commit funding to the project or finalize any design decisions. It just means that we are you're authorizing the next steps to study the project impacts, refine the designs based on additional technical analysis, public input, and and position it for future funding. The final plan would continue to evolve as additional community and stakeholder input is solicited. And if as we move into the next phase, would be environmental clearance, Alameda CTC would be the lead agency.

I I should have actually neglected to introduce my colleagues from Alameda CTC who were sitting at the other side of the table, but they would they would continue to have that lead role of the project. Right. And that is all I had to share tonight.

Jay, can you introduce yourself?

I'm sure. Evening, everyone. Long time no see. Good evening. JL Sraez, director of project delivery and construction at Alameda CTC. I'll turn

it to our project manager. Good evening. I'm Kandra Raj, Alameda CTC project manager consultant.

And as well as our consultant as well.

Good evening. I'm with Kills Nest, associate's consultant for Alameda CTC. Good.

Katie on the line.

Anyone? UTC. Hi. Katie Duluth

from Winter Consulting, meeting the team that

does the outreach for these.

Great. Great.

Also prepared a new by campaign master plan a few years. Oh, okay. Great. Great. Okay. Alright.

Let's see. Let's let's go public comment first and see. Let's start with Bradley Dunn.

Smart. I'm not gonna make any comments on the

water. Hello.

My name is Bradley Dunham, the manager of local government community relations for BART. I wanted to speak in support of the Eastlake Greenway multimodal project. BART supports enhancements to pedestrian bicycle access, the improved options for multimodal travel. Last month, riders exited more than a 100,000 times at our two Hayward stations. They're important stations to us.

They're important stations to you. Improving station improving safety and comfort encourages a broader group of riders and pedestrians, with varying abilities to use active modes of transit to access BART. When you combine local improvements with regional transit like BART, it makes accessing the best of the Bay Area easier to do. It also helps more people across the Bay Area come to Hayward for work, shopping, or for attending cultural events. As we look towards the future, we do want to ensure that the Greenway is designed in a manner that could support transit oriented development, which is priority for BART.

And we look forward to working with the city and ACTC, to refine the design and bring these improvements to BART riders. So thanks so much for having me.

Thank you, mister. Appreciate it. Our next, speaker is Ahmed. Yeah. Nice

to meet you, everybody. My name

is Sharab. I'm not Sharab. Yeah. Sharab. Okay. I apologize.

Nice meeting you, everybody. My name is Ahmed Sharab. I'm a home owner in Hayward Highlands. Lucky to be in this community in the last few years. Thank you for you guys' work on on this project and seeing it online. I'm really excited about it. I ride my bike every day down from the Highlands to South Hayward BART, so I'll take Carter down and then do the southern portion of the of the route that you just described. I I wouldn't be too impressed. I see the surprised faces. It's a it's

a No.

I'm just chief the chief landed, Mike.

I need I need for you to be at every meeting while we talk about bicycles. Yeah. I What

is that?

Yeah. It's a yeah. I'm I'm a bit new around here, so I'm just getting sold in. So thank you for having me. So I'm a president of chief ebike, and I'm a mechanical engineer by trade. So I'm all about seeking the efficiencies in my life and in my job and, you know, ebiking to the BART station just makes it sound saves me a bunch of money. So a a bit about the route, it's it's pretty high stress. It's not your average bike ride. It's very much combat biking. You know, I have to choose between avoiding the the doors opening on the from the parked cars and the the the traffic passing by.

And so I'll I'll position myself on the outside of the bike lane, but people driving it pissed off because they see another biker that's not in the bike lane, I would frequently get honked on and all that. So it's not a good situation. I'd I'd love to see this come to fruition, so I don't feel like, you know, fighting for my life or my commute every day. So thanks for allowing me the opportunity to speak, and there you go. Thank you. Appreciate it.

And I think I see someone online. Right?

We did. We have 37. Oh, great.

Who's the first name?

Hi. Again, this is Robert Prince, advocacy director with Bike East Bay. Really excited about the entirety of the East Bay Greenway project, especially this part through Hayward. The current alignment is based on request, one from Hayward City Council and also from Almeda CTC. One from Hayward City Council expressed an interest in making sure that there's direct connectivity to area schools.

I want to note that all of those area schools are South Of Orchard Street. The request from Almeda CTC was to find an alternate alignment to Mission Boulevard that still served all ages' abilities and low stress best practices as especially as it relates to car volumes and speeds. That section that's designed South Of Orchard does meet that. Although there are some additional differences between class one multiuse trails and class four, separated bikeways that weren't noted in the presentation. One is that, cities are allowed to ban ebikes from class one trails, but not from class four separated bikeways.

So we'd like to see a commitment from Hayward to allow all classes of ebikes on all sections of this facility and not to institute any bans. We'd like to see a formal commitment to that. Also, class one trails have an exemption, from liability for the city for any, crashes or injuries that happen due to maintenance issues. That is not the case for other types of facilities or or sidewalks even. So we'd also like to see a commitment from from the city if they are moving forward on a class one trail here that they still commit to maintaining it and to accept liability.

And in the case of any incidents, we wanna make sure that happens to encourage the city to continually maintain it and and keep keep it safe for all users. For the section north of Orchard, I do have some existing design concerns that I think the facility does not meet those all ages and abilities and low stress standards that were requested by Omni to CTC, especially some of the bike boulevard segments. People working on this project have already confirmed that they will not be able to bring the car volumes below those best practice thresholds for bike boulevards, that they cannot using anything except for divert car diverters, which, you know, would not be feasible for those segments. So the entire stretch of the facility north of Orchard is not needed in order to reach those area schools, but it's also not meeting that guideline that was set up by Alameda CTC. I don't know how to design for that with the alignment that has been offered, but I wanted to call out, and that wasn't mentioned in the presentation, that those segments do not currently meet those standards nor can they meet those standards.

So if the intention is in all ages and abilities and low stress facility, the current alignment does not meet that. Thank you.

Thank you.

Mister Michael Williams?

Yes. Hi. Michael C Williams, Hayward Area Recreation and Park District. I'm the trails program manager. And I just want to echo kind of what the BART representative said.

This is there's been a lot of planning and, hey. You know, Hart has really appreciated working with the planning team on this, all the consultants. I think you've, you know, picked top notch people. It's as Robert was just pointing out, even with the best minds working on this, there's there's still holes and some issues, but it's kind of like trying to build this in the middle of the loop as well. So, you know, Hayward just is you guys are tasked with having to deal with a lot of technical issues, but I think this is really some of the best thinking and planning that's gone into it to try and work with, you know, the conditions that, you know, are given.

And so, you know, we certainly support it, especially if we're looking at tying in the San Lorenzo Creekway. We'll have BART Hayward BART access via Western Boulevard. It's not necessarily on the exact same alignment, but it will still support it as a low stress bicycle infrastructure to get from the San Lorenzo Creekway running east and west to Hayward Bart and beyond. So I just wanna say thank you for the support, and and Alex's team has done a phenomenal job on this along with the loop project as I've been involved in both.

Thank you.

Hi. This is Alejandro Jose again, part of my Hayward local resident. Yeah. I want the second one Michael said. It was great working with the active transportation working group. I think big projects like this is a county wide project, you know, goes from Oakland, you know, all the way to Hayward, and it'll continue down to Fremont. So it's a big project, and community involvement is really important. You know, we just wish that this type of involvement, like like, with the downtown loop was done before it was realigned. So, you know, before, like, it was moved back from Mission Boulevard. But just specifically about this alignment, I think these are, like, great improvements.

Again, like, I wanna echo what Robert said, like, Silva and Montgomery, like, they're still pretty high stress. So those are very tricky, to, make all agent an ability. So those are still concerns for us as well. And, but all these upgrades all the other upgrades, you know, they're great. I think they're much needed for the community. And, yeah, I think if anything, you know, just, again, wanna re reiterate the importance of having community involvement when big projects like these are done and, you know, just wish the active transportation working group was started before, the project was realigned from Mission Boulevard. But thank you.

Thank you.

No. My.

Okay. Helpful comment. And then, did ACTC wanna say anything? Or

I think I just wanted to, express our ex appreciation one for all staff. The active transportation working group has been essential in bringing this project forward as well as partnerships with the local agencies and, you know, especially Lucas helping me the point of contact for this project to really shepherd it along in the city to get it to where it is today. It was probably a it was a tough decision back two years ago when we had to go pick the pivot, but I think we've come a very long way. And today's action would help set forth a lot of needed steps to make sure that we can try to move forward, not even just through environmental, but help the agency focus on efforts to bring the, next phase after that to fruition.

Yeah. Well, I appreciate the agency working with us on that pivot. I know that was a lot of heartburn in in in both areas. So great. Thank you. If we get Who wants to start?

Oh, I can start. Yeah. Sure. Go ahead.

Thanks for the presentation. Thanks for joining us. Wanted to ask about the ATWG. Was fire and hair included in that? Because I know there's been a lot of talk about women being used as an alternative to mission and how traffic is going on Whitman. So just wanted to hear thoughts on the plan.

Yeah. Fire PD, we're not part of the ACWG. No. I think we can definitely do some more internal discussions with the project. I think that that would be great to just engage them. I think as we haven't gotten to a design phase where I think there's anything really tangible for them to react to, but I

Well, they're reacting because I'm getting some earful about it. So this this more like, oh, I know there's a lot of traffic on Whitman Mhmm. With all the new developments that are coming on mission. So I just wanna make sure to get eyes on it sooner rather

than later. Yeah. Can you answer? We appreciate the comment, but, you know, we like Lucas said, we haven't done the design yet. Okay. So right now, what you're asking is to improve the the conceptual alignment so we can proceed with the design and then come up with it. And we do have plans to meet with the fire and, you know, also emergency responses just to make sure that because we're talking about traffic coming, and we need to make sure that fire and emergency response should be able to access through that. Right? So so so we certainly will be involved in the next phase.

Okay. Alright. And then Silva, you said there's no parking impacted on Silva? Right. Okay. And then, minimum impact on parking on Whitman, just where there's driveway conflict?

It would it would not be fair to say minimum impact. No. Oh. Yeah. So since the so what I wanted to to emphasize on Whitman is that there is parking removal, but it is I can just back up to

Go back to Whitman because Yeah. Yeah.

So yeah.

Yeah. So the green here is where there would be parking removal.

Oh.

And that that includes the the east side of the street for not not the entire corridor, but a lot of it. And so from Sycamore to Orchard and from Barry to Harter. The the idea behind having it on that side is to, you know, take advantage of of of that extra right away that we have there and and avoid the driveway conflicts and avoid taking parking right in front of people's houses. It should be on the on the West Side.

So whoever's doing community outreach, this is gonna be a big, big deal. And I know we've talked about this before, but when we were looking at roofs for 10 spots, we we had little signs, pitchforts out. So I can't imagine what's gonna happen when this conceptual gets out. So

Mhmm.

Just wanna just give word of caution about that. I know the prioritization is on on pedestrian improvements, bike lanes, and I just I'm just getting mentally ready for the blowback from the community because we're not I I don't know if we are thinking about it. I'm sure you are, but there's a lot of apartments there Oh, yes. And a lot of cars associated with the apartments. And I'm just thinking of the elderly, the families that are really gonna be impacted by this.

And so I just those are just my concerns. I you know, I'm I'm for bike lanes, but this is gonna be a huge blow to this community. And I understand why we moved it from Mission. There's a lot of housing and businesses on Mission that would have been impacted, but this this community is gonna be severely impacted. Just thinking about what are they gonna get out of this if they don't ride back bikes. What what what are we gonna tell them? Okay. We're gonna have a bike lane. Okay. Well, I'm 85 years old with, you know, two grandkids.

How is this gonna help me? We gotta think about what we're gonna give back to this community. I don't know what it is, but we should think about it now. I don't care if it's conceptual because as as soon as the conceptual designs go out, that's when they're on next door yelling at us. That's when they're on Facebook yelling at us. So just wanna make sure that we're thinking about something for them. And, yeah, I mean, it it seems like this plan is pretty pretty fully fleshed out, I think, on the conceptual side. But I just I'm I'm supportive of the overall vision.