Active Transportation Committee - Regular Meeting

I think I'm gonna hi, everyone. Welcome to the regular meeting of the city of Fullerton Transportation and Circulation Commission and Board of Parking Place Commissions. I call this meeting to order. Would you please call the roll? Wayne Carvajo is on an excused leave.

Okay. Chairman Suri?

Present.

Vice chair De Leon? Here. Commissioner Cavalho? Commissioner Sherry?

Here.

And commissioner Walker? Okay.

We'll bring we'll start with the pledge of allegiance. I'd request commissioner De Leon to please lead the pledge of allegiance.

Please

rise. And know your heart. Ready to begin. I pledge allegiance to the of

The United States Of America

Please take your seats. So the first item is public comment. The members of the public have up to three minutes to comment on any items that are not on the agenda. Anyone that wishes to speak on any item that's not on the agenda? Seeing none, is anybody online?

We do have a

None?

We have one person online.

Okay. Please.

But she has not said anything. She wants to speak, but she we do have someone online.

Okay. So she doesn't wish to speak on this item at this time? Okay. Moving on. The first item I have is the consent calendar. I have minutes of the 03/05/2026. Do I have a motion to approve or any discussion on this?

I move to approve the minutes, for 03/05/2026 meeting.

And I second.

So I have, first by commissioner Sherry and, second by commissioner Leon De Leon to approve the minutes of 03/05/2026. Please call the roll.

Chair Mansary?

Yes.

Vice Chair De Leon?

Yes.

Commissioner Kualia absent. Commissioner Sherry? Yes. Commissioner Walker absent.

K. The minutes have been approved. Next item is CIP annual street program presentation. Mister Putnick, would you please go ahead?

And we will actually have Juan Savala, our our principal civil engineer, do the presentation.

On? Yeah. You can hear me? Alright. Yes. Alright. Good evening, commissioners. My name is Juan Swala, principal civil engineer, and I manage the city's city's capital improvement program. Just a little bit about myself. I've been with the city for over nine years.

I do see some familiar faces. But tonight or this afternoon, I'm gonna be presenting on the overview of our capital improvement program, specifically with Streets. So we'll be focusing on Streets, not necessarily the whole entire CAP program. So today, we'll walk you through current project status, overall conditions of our street network, how staff prioritizes projects, and what we're proposing for the next upcoming fiscal year. So with that, the CAP Streets program is part of the city's five year capital improvement program, and it focuses on maintaining and rehabilitating our roadway network.

So this includes street rehabilitation and reconstruction, ADA and safety improvements. Streets in general are not just asphalt. When we reconstruct or rehab of the roadway, we work on concrete improvements as well. So that includes deteriorated sidewalk, uplifted sidewalk, curb and gutter. Again, it's it's a it encompasses more than just asphalt.

In terms of funding and how streets streets get funded, we typically use and rely a combination of general funds, special revenue funds, and grants, when available. While some general funds are used, the majority of the funding comes fourth streets typically come from the infrastructure and special revenue funds. Oh, sorry. So special revenue funds, and what do they include, and what are they? So gas tax and SP one funds, those are funded through taxes at the gas pump.

Measure m two, which is the Orange County's half cent sales tax administered by OCTA. City receives a portion of those funds annually. I talked about grants, and grants are pursued when available. However, they're not guaranteed, and they could vary year from year. Also, typically, they require a local match.

So it does require for the city to kick in some money as well. Alright. So we could break out the street network into two categories, you could say, arterial roadways and local roads. Arterials are approximately 71 miles, and those are typically two to three lanes. They're carrying the higher volumes, traffic volumes.

Local streets, that's about 227 miles, and those are your typical residential areas. Our streets are designed to last twenty, twenty five years. But with maintenance, like slurry seals or overlays, we can stretch that lifespan significantly. One thing to keep in mind, and there's factors on how long a roadway could last. So the pavement life could vary, but it depends on factors like delay of preventive maintenance, traffic volume and loading, age of pavement, type of pavement, so ace asphalt versus concrete, soil and base material underneath the pavement, stormwater infiltration into subgrade, and utility trench cuts.

So how does the city assess and evaluates its streets conditions? The pavement management plan or I'll refer I'll refer to it as the PMP is what it's our tool. That's our tracking mechanism for payment condition and planning maintenance. So the city hires a consultant to conduct conduct inspections and to prepare the report. Each segment of roadway, gets a payment condition, index, rating or a score, you could say.

So PCI score. So scores range from zero to a 100, You know, the fewer issues like the potholes cracking or rutting, the higher the PCI. The lower that means it's just, you know, just poor. So this plan gives an objective measure for roadways and helps helps us prioritize where they invest where to invest our resources. The latest PMP update was completed in 2024.

However, the next major update is expected to be completed by '20, June 2026. I also like to note that, in order to qualify for the Measure m two funds that I talked about earlier, OCTA requires that the PMP be in place and maintained. So arterials are required to be inspected every two years, while locustreets are every six years. So let's take a look at the PCR results from the latest draft PMP, update. So overall, arterial streets are relatively in good condition with an average PCI of 74.6.

Local streets are in fair condition with an average PCI of 65.3. Combined citywide, average PCI is 68.7, which also falls within the fair category. So while many streets are still in decent condition, there's still a no noticeable portion, particularly among local streets that are trending toward the lower end of the scale. So you can see the graph on the right. Blue represents the arterials.

Orange represents the locals local streets, and green represents the combined, overall. You could see how there was an increase, spike around 2020 to, you know, 2022, and then plateau. And, you know, just to point out is that during those years, we did receive, onetime funding, ARPA funds. So there was some money put into it, into streets. So you could see how invested money helped with the PCI score.

So it was a onetime funding. However, that funding is no longer available. So with without additional funding, we're beginning to plateau. You could kinda see that at the tail end. So be to be quite frank, I I we're anticipating a decline in our streets, moving forward if no additional funding gets, gets injected.

So if you wanna compare this to where we stand to neighboring cities, unfortunately, Fullerton is ranked at the bottom in terms of PCI, compared to other cities. The city the the county wide average is approximately 79.2, with the highest performing cities, they're in the high eighties. So this kind of highlights the ongoing challenges we face, maintaining and improving our roadway network with limited resources that we got. So this this slide here, shows the general cost range of the typical street, treatments. You can see prevent maintenance maintenance, such as slurry seal, is significantly more cost effective when applying streets in better condition.

Whereas, you know, when streets start to deteriorate into or in the categories of poor, very poor, the required treatments become much more extensive and costly, often requiring a full reconstruction. So where are we at in our current street funding levels and challenges? So the CAP Street, section receives about $8,000,000 annually. Unfortunately, the 8,000,000 that we receive is just not enough to make meaningful progress. It essentially allows us to, I'd say, barely maintain existing conditions at best.

In practical terms, it's as we improve one neighborhood, others continue to deteriorate, and they just so they can't keep up. So the graph to the right shows the last five years of the street's budget. You can see that it increased and then it lowered. And as I mentioned earlier, that's because of the, the ARPA money that we got. And so it went up, and now that's no longer there, and so it's going down.

So what are some of the challenges we're we're facing? I think I mentioned this. Obviously, there's a funding gap. Overall, the needs for street rehab far exceeds the resources we currently have. So the backlog of streets slipping into poor or very poor just continue to grow faster as then we can address them.

Rising costs don't help either. Construction labor material costs escalated have escalated in the recent years. So each mile of repair cost is a lot more than it did in the past. Additionally, you know, new requirements and regulations add a cost, but there's no associated revenue to offset those obligation obligations. So together, these challenges make it very difficult to keep up even with preventive maintenance, and major rehab projects, without a more sustainable, funding strategy.

So so how how are our streets selected? So the infrastructure on natural resources advisory committee, you know, for short, I'll call it NREC, They previously helped establish our criteria. So the major considerations are streets only, no alleys, where we're equitable distribution throughout the city, combining work with water and sewer projects when possible, maintenance history, PCI rating, traffic volume, and planned development. We've made a consistent effort to distribute the work across the city rather than focusing on just one specific area, year after year. Historically, we try to combine projects street projects with the water and sewer projects.

However, our funding in streets well, water funding has been stronger than our street funding, so we can't keep up with even the water main replacement projects to have both programs simultaneously go together. As such, you know, some streets projects do get completed, but they're about a year or two behind the water main project after it's been completed. Obviously, that's a funding constraint that we're still trying to navigate. So what you see on on the screen is street projects that are scheduled for this year, along with staff recommendations for the next fiscal year. The map, you know, red indicates projects that are planned to begin construction this summer.

We typically design work in the winter so that projects are ready around spring, summer when, weather, it's a little it's more favorable, and we're not trying to pave a road in the middle of the rainy season. Blue represents, projects that are being recommended for fiscal year the next upcoming fiscal year, 2627. Two projects I wanna highlight, which is the Magenta ones, or these are projects that we've secured grant funds for, but it's only for design. It's not for construction. So when when funding becomes available, hopefully, we have design plans ready to go, when construction money comes in.

So couple things I wanna highlight in two previous points is try to be as equitable as we can. So as you can see, we're somewhat, you know, touching around all over the city and not just in one area. So we're not concentrating. Secondly, a lot of the projects that you see on your screen are the street projects are projects that are following water main replacement work, that has already been taking place or will be taking place here soon. So for instance, just to highlight a few, the Sunny Hills Twilight area, the Firethorne area, and Ken Shepherd, just to name a few.

Finally, you know, these these locations are not necessarily all set in stone and can change just based on budget, you know, construction costs, and shifting priorities. It's more for discussion purposes. So with that, you know, that concludes my presentation. I'll take any questions the commission's the commission may have.

Thank you, mister Ron. At this time, I would like to hold off our discussion and open the discussion open the floor for public comments, if any. If there is anyone who has any comments or questions, well actually you have three minutes to comment on this agenda item. Seeing none, is anyone online?

Yes. Julie Rayburn can speak.

Hello. Good evening. Yeah. I was calling I had a few questions, and concerns about some of the quality of the streets that have been put in in the last several years. Today, I was driving down Euclid, and all the area that has was a few years ago repaved kind of, you know, Chapman area or, actually, it's Malvern, I guess, up and down that area.

What I'm noticing is there's a lot of cracks, like, down the middle of everything, and I've been noticing that as well in the areas that were, like, kinda recently done, that the stuff over off of oh gosh. Near Baston Cherry, off of all the, like, associated and all that. Some of the quality to me just kinda seems subpar. And if we're paying all this money and there's supposed to be longevity on these streets and they're new and they're already cracking, that just kinda seems like possibly the quality of the people we're hiring or they're not doing the greatest job. You know, that that's a concern of mine because I've been here thirty years and not there's been no repaving or anything of of my street.

And if we want these to last, then I suggest that, you know, somebody needs to really look at the quality control of some of the work that's being done because there there's weird lines going all over the place that kinda make your wheels move odd when you're driving on them, like, kinda like swirls in the street. Granted, yes, they're better than what they were. I'm not gonna deny that they're not better, but they just don't seem like they're all that professional when you drive around on other roads in other cities. They're just they just don't look high quality. So, anyway, that's just something I thought that I wanted to bring up.

I've talked to other people about the same thing that we're noticing these big cracks that go down right the middle of these streets kind of between the lanes and things like that, that they just appear very quickly. So that's something to keep in mind. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else? Okay. At this time, I'll, close the public comments, and, we'll bring the discussion back. Any questions? Please go ahead.

First of all, thank you for your presentation. Streets are a very big issue in Fullerton, maybe the populist issue in Fullerton. And I think that a lot of what's hap happening here is, you know, the mismanagement, sort of chronic mismanagement mismanagement of our priorities over the last probably decade or so. Staff sometimes gets the blame for this, but I appreciate all of you guys and all of the work you're doing and having to find creative ways to make do with less or, you know, do more with less, be inventive. I do have some questions.

When the gas tax revenue started coming in, it was, like, what, 2018 or something like that?

SP one? Yeah. Roughly. Did

the city decrease its general fund spending? If we go back to the slide with the chart on improvements where it showed the different spending levels. The next one. Yeah. So I see, like, for street improvements, the general fund contribution is 500,000. Did did and I see that SB one now is 30 it's a very it's the largest portion.

Yeah.

Did the city start moving away did the basically, my question is, did the share of general fund spending in that street improvements budget decrease after the, after the SP one revenue started to come in as a percentage?

I don't think the intent was to decrease general fund based on revenue coming from SB one. General fund is usually you know, it's we get very limited. It's it's and it it varies, I would say, from year to year. So in my opinion, it's just because we were we're receiving SB one money, the general fund money got, reduced.

It did get reduced.

There there it fluctuates.

No. Okay.

So so for instance, like, you could see how in half 1,000,000 here previous fiscal year, it was about a million. Right? It's not correlated, I would say, with the SP one.

Okay.

Now keep keep in mind that, you know, as as part of our, MOE for receiving measure m two, we are required to use, certain general funds, by a certain amount of time. So we have a level of threshold that we have to keep. So that comes in with general fund or infrastructure fund.

I get I see. I guess it was just it's I'm I'm surprised to see the such a high percentage of our spending is on street improvements is from SB one. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised, but my I guess the purpose of my question was what did we do before SB one? And maybe it's just we weren't spending at those levels. My next question is, there's several candidates running for governor talking about suspending the gas tax, and, I just wanted to know if the city has any, contingency plans for if that happens.

I don't think it would. It seems too complicated too, but that is something that several candidates on both sides of the aisle have talked about. I think it would not work, but

I don't know.

What? It wouldn't help.

No. It would be really bad.

Yeah.

But I do know that as as people pay more at the pump, that's probably something that could be brought up more.

And we have seen an increase in the SP one funding that we receive every year. So it's we remain relatively close, but it's an increase.

Yeah. And our score is the worst in Orange County. Do you know if our spending is much lower than the cities around us? For instance, like Buena Park, you know, Orange. Is our spending just not adequate? I mean, to why is our score so low? Is that the bulk of it is we're not spending enough?

I mean, that plays a major part into it. Right? We're I don't know. I haven't looked into the adjacent cities and what their funding levels are. Right? They do have every city is different. Right? Is they have different revenue sources versus what we got. I mean, just to right off the top. Right? Brea. They have the Brea Mall. Right? So that's a huge revenue for them. You know, you got Anaheim. You got Disneyland. Right? As so every city is different. Buena Park. Right?

They have knots. Right? So as far as how we're looking at the funding levels that we get versus what our needs are, it's just not it's not sufficient Yeah. Even to try to keep up. Right? And we really need sufficient more funding to better our streets.

Yeah. I agree. I agree. Thank you.

Vice chair. De Leon?

Thank you. I'm gonna look at my phone because I have a few questions here. And and I appreciate you coming out and and speaking on this because this is something I hear about all the time. First and foremost, the caller had mentioned about the poly of the pavement that's being used. I noticed a similar situation on, Melvern where it meets Idaho. I think there were some some, new pavement that was there, and I noticed that it was separating too. And so I thought that was kinda odd. It's not isolated to this city. I saw it in another city as well. So I I, you know, I I don't know if you do follow-up with that, but I gotta imagine that that's not normal.

So I did wanna confirm that. I noticed that you talked about looking at the next couple of years in in funding. Since we do know, like, measure two funds, I understand if I recall in the other place I used to work, that goes to 2040. Am I correct? Is that around and all in the same that funding? I think it goes through to 2040. Is that correct? So so with that being said, couldn't we map out a strategy of pavement management program where we can extend further out into into the future? I I'm gonna again mention the city that I used to work at. That's what we had to do.

It was a twenty year plan, and I think now 97% of the streets have been completely repaved. Is that about right? 95%? I say that I look at Michael because he was working there at

one time.

In La Habra?

Yeah.

I mean, they get so the way it works in La Habra, they have a seven year CIP. So I don't know if they've repaved 97% of the streets, but they will get back to an area every seven years. And then depending on funding, then they can pave those streets.

And that was part of I I recall when the plan was initiated when I was working there, and it was about over twenty years ago because our streets there were as horrible as they are here. I'll be honest with you. That's the I gotta share that. So I don't know if that's something that you've ever looked at. I do know that there is existing funding that exists that's you know what's gonna be coming through. You you know, taking a little bites of time would probably help. When a resident calls and asks, you know, about their street, when they think it's gonna be paved or want information on when it's gonna be paved, who do they call? Who do they speak with? Is that you, or is it or do the

So, I mean, we get requests for streets on a regular basis, and we get in from different sources. They could contact us via email. They could call our public works engineering general line. But, typically, they'll end up with one of the engineers or myself to look into when a street may get paved, if it's on the radar or if it's planned or programmed.

So I've I've ventured to say that the best way to communicate with you, because I know the app is very effective Mhmm. Is to basically take a picture and report it as part of on the app because that goes directly to whoever's managing that subject matter. Am I correct?

Correct.

Yeah. Okay.

Well, it goes to I think it goes to a general, and then from there, it gets distributed to the correct contact person to reach back out.

So if there was a street problem and they report it as when you're gonna do when you're gonna repave my street, it will go straight to that individual

So so for that specific question, for instance, sometimes it comes in a combination of, like, hey. There's a pothole here. Could someone come out and fix it? And you a lot of times, it's a follow-up. When is the street gonna get repaved? So potholes pothole request maintenance goes to our maintenance crews. The portion of, like, when's the actual street gonna get paved, that goes to the CIP engineering division.

Okay. And then the last question I have is I saw that on Commonwealth, they have the new the new development happening right there just past Basque. It's on the left. It's a new apartment complex.

Yes. Meta House.

And I and I saw that they are repaving the street. Is that part of the development that has to pay for that, or is that the city?

That's that's correct. So that developer was conditioned to pave the roadway as part of their approval, conditions of approvals. So when larger developments that come in, their conditioned, conditions are looked at, public infrastructure's looked at, to see what impacts they may bring. And that's, for the most part, for the larger scale projects, they're conditioned to repave the road. So that's one example that you pointed out, meta housing.

Another good one that I could think off in my mind is the development that's happening on Rosecrans and Euclid. So that development was conditioned to pave the roadway as well. So when these developments come, that that's how they, you know, they they they help in that aspect.

So when I look at a development right there where Goodman and Sprouts Distribution Center is Mhmm. Am I to assume that they paid for the street, okay, improvement there?

So when Goodman came in, they paved the whole width of Orangethorpe. They actually reconstructed all of Acacia, and they actually made it a concrete paved road. So, yes, that was part of their conditions of approval.

Okay. That's good news because that's money that we don't have to spend at that.

Right.

The last thing I did wanna say, and I apologize if I end up coming in another question, but I did wanna kind of share a little thoughts that the condition of the streets did not happen in the last ten years. It has been probably forty years of neglect. I mean, you know, when you look at the condition of the streets, I appreciate that staff is really faced with some of the challenges that we have. And and, of course, you know, the city streets are probably the most visible and gives a negative impression of our community. It's certainly not a reflection of the residents of our community.

Unfortunately, what it does is it reflects negatively on the city as a as an operation that we can't even take care of our streets. And so my only thing is, because I was in your position at one time, that you take you know, you you you first of all, I always I didn't know everything, so I found someone that knew more than I did. And so that's how I, you know, educated myself. But more so, you know, coming up with an effective plan and a a plan that we can commit to over a longer period of time because as I there isn't enough money in the world in the next three years to I mean, at least for our city to pave all the streets. It's gotta be taken at little bites at a time.

And I think that if residents see that there's progress being made, yeah, they may not like that the streets in front of them are getting done, but at least they see progress. And I do see that that there was a spike in the when when you had the ARPA funds, but I know these other funding sources outside of that have been pretty consistent in the past. And so my hope is that we are using the monies, and I'm not saying we're I'm not implying anything outside of the fact that the most because the the monies can be used for a variety of places within streets. I mean, that's what I'm talking about, those streets. But right now, our priority should be the streets, the roads that we are in.

I understand ADA compliance. I understand all those things, but our roads are really, really in bad condition, and and and we just need to be committed, which I know the staff is, to to have the discipline to follow through on a longer year plan. Like I said, a multiyear plan, not something that's just I mean, I I you know, if it's a seven year rotation, then that's great. Because I think that that if we just wait and see, wait and see, it it just becomes frustrating for everybody. So those are my comments.

Thank you. I'll begin by asking you the question that the caller asked, and also vice chair also pointed out the the condition or the quality of work. So the caller had mentioned that in certain streets, Bastion Cherry and Euclid and Melbourne and several others, and the vice chair mentioned Melbourne and some other streets. So can you address that, you know, the quality of workmanship? I'm not sure what is the life of the, you know, rehabilitation or, you know, reconstruction. So can you shed some light on that aspect of maintenance?

Yeah. So when you when you do, let's just say, a grind and overlay per se, each let let me start off with each street is is, you know, site specific sometimes. Right? It's site specific. You know, a lot of times, payment life depends on, you know, what's the subgrade, the material underneath the roadway.

As far as when you do a slurry seal, you know, that lasts you know, obviously, it's sealing the top. It's preventing maintenance. When you do grind grind and overlay, you know, that should last you several years. When you do a full reconstruction, you know, you're expecting a lifespan of twenty years. Right? But that still comes with maintenance to it. It it's it's not like you're gonna reconstruct the roadway and leave it. You know, you are required to come back. I would say it's somewhat concerning what the residents are saying about some of the streets, that they're mentioning. It's it's, you know, quality control.

We we do have inspectors on the job site. Projects are do have a warranty period, which is a one year warranty period. However, like I said, there there is prevent maintenance required to extend that pavement life. It's not like you go and reconstruct it and walk away from it. Hopefully, answers your question.

So is that correct? Please help me understand. We are lacking in preventive maintenance. Is that the reason why the roads are falling apart sooner than they should?

I I think the street is like I said, I think the streets that are being mentioned, I mean, it's probably been shoot. I'm trying to think of when was done maybe five years ago or so, 2018. So we're close.

I mean,

you know, we're getting to Seven,

eight years.

Seven, eight years. Right? And, again, it's it's, it's not gonna last, twenty years. I if I recall, that was a grinding overlay. But it is, somewhat concerning, I would say. We could definitely look at it.

Then, talk

David wants to add something.

I can just add something. Think there's maybe I missed something. When you're talking about the cracking that goes in the direction of travel, it's longitudinal cracking. And a lot of times that happens because when you've got the paving machine, they'll take a pass, and that's the joint. And a lot of times you'll see that joint over time just come apart, the two materials. You know, one's really hot, one's not quite so hot. They put tack coat. It doesn't last forever. So that's usually the the difference where you see that longitudinal cracking. It's the difference between the the paving operations.

We we need to do on a more regular basis crack sealing down there so it'll stop the water getting in. But those longitudinal cracks are difficult over time to eliminate. The best way to do it is close the road down completely, have a really, really wide paver, which doesn't exist, then you wouldn't have it. So I think that's just part of the the downside of having to pave and and the operations we have to go through to keep paving traffic moving while we're doing the work.

Thank you very much. Yeah. This goes to what vice chair mentioned, the planning, long term planning. Actually, my my next questions are I'm I'm trying to understand. Please help me with this.

So I'd like to find out a few things. One is how is a street selected for, you know, renovation or rehabilitation? So I wanna make sure that we are doing it fairly, that we are looking at entire flurgeon, and then the selection of these projects is fair and done very objectively. Secondly, I'd like to make sure that we do have a long term plan like the vice chair mentioned that we need to have this condition of these roads like he mentioned. It's taken like forty years so it appears that maybe there was a lack of planning or lack of you know some long term planning to maintain these roads.

Now I understand that there is a major problem with the shortfall of funding, but with the proper planning, preventive maintenance might have been more effective and maybe we could have, you know and the last thing that I wanna make sure is that we are using our funds efficiently, that we are we have funds. Actually, let's begin with with this Fulton Street budget fiscal year 2526. How much of this fund is, like, solid and some on how much is, like, wishful thinking?

What you see on the screen is what was approved as far as the street budget funding. So that that that's approved. It's not, what we were wanting to have. This is actual figures of what we received.

So, like, for example, I see a grant CDBG. Have we received this grant?

So the CDBG grant is we have to apply for it. For that fiscal year. We did receive the $3.50. Okay. So the past fiscal year. For this upcoming fiscal year, we're applying again for another project. We're in the process. It is part of, the upcoming proposed projects, that we're trying to seek funding for. So the $3.50 for the to answer your question, this fiscal year was secured so that we did receive it.

So these numbers are pretty much we will have these numbers eventually. We'll we'll have this budget. Okay? So please help me understand the PCI. And as I understand, PCI is a important factor in deciding which projects would be taken on in the next two years.

So I understand first of all, what is this, you know, reasonably acceptable PCI for a city? I understand ours is 68.7, which has come up from 62 over the years from in the last ten, fifteen years, it was down to 62, and now it's up to 68, which I understand because of the ARPA money. We have improved the condition of the streets. But generally speaking, what are we shooting for as a PCI overall?

Ideally, you wanna be, you know, as high as you can, but 80, I I would say, is where where you want to be, I would say. But the higher, the better. Right? That doesn't mean

Of course.

You know, if you we shouldn't be shooting just for the average. Right? But Mhmm. It's it's anything higher above that, I think that would be great.

So how much is the short shortage of budget for taking the 60 from 68.7 to 80? What would be the money that we are short of? I'm just

curious. I would say that's a very complex question

Okay.

Because it's like, you know, it's not gonna happen in a year.

Of course.

You're not gonna go from 65 to an 80, in a year. It's this is to your point, this is long term planning, where where there's heavily a high investment in our roads. I mean, a figure that I could say out there is you probably wanna be about 25,000,000, dollars, on a fiscal year to really see significant improvement on our rows visibly, right, that you can say, like, we're really impacting, and our PCI is going in the upward, direction. But, obviously, it's it's long term planning.

Of course. Okay. Very good. So help me understand the PCI. What goes into PCI? Is this because the condition of the road, is there a objective measurement of how we arrive at a PCI? The the pavement, what is it called? The pavement condition index.

Mhmm. So the PCI. So, we do have a consultant, like I mentioned, that does inspections and prepares a report. Is there subjective into it on who the inspector is?

Mhmm.

Like, you know, it's yes, I would say. But, again, it's it's it's it's we trust our consultants. Right? And we trust that they are rating them, correctly. But, again, it's it's, it's visual, inspections that they do. So it's it's pretty obvious sometimes when you're looking at it, and the road's pretty much falling apart.

Right? Right.

Versus when the roads are in very good condition or in fair condition. Depends on the different distresses that are visible.

Okay. So as I understand PCI is not the only thing that goes into the decision to choose certain projects for the next two years period. Correct. So how is the determination made as to which projects would be taken on for rehabilitation or, you know, just slurry or whatever? So how how is this process works? Can you please walk me through that?

Yeah. Definitely. So I know maybe I could go back to one of those slides here. So selection of slurry seals, we can start off there. We try to do large neighborhoods. Obviously, you do slurry seals where the PCI is in much better, higher rate, to extend the pavement life. So we try to look at different neighborhoods that we can take a look and hopefully completed that that year. We try to be, like I said, equitable around the city. So we also take a look at the dollar amounts that are available. You don't wanna do one street here, one street here.

So we try to do a whole neighborhood with the amount of funding that we have available for that year and see what makes sense. As far as street selection, one of the biggest drivers is the utility work. Like I said, it is we want to combine projects of water and sewer. We don't want to pave a road, and then just a year or two later, it gets cut again. Right?

So we wanna combine the the work in that aspect. But since we're having to play catch up with water, right, because they're much better funded than streets, then at that point, a lot of the street projects are somewhat driven by the utility work. Right? Other aspects, you know, it's you know, some sometimes when we go after or when we go after grants. Right?

Those are very specific locations that we're seeking to go after for grants. So a lot of times when we go after a street, we're we're looking for a grant for a specific, street, it's not fully funded by the grant. We have to as a city, there are local match requirements. So we have to take into account the amount of money that we have to pitch in. So, obviously, although we're getting money for our grant, we're also contributing as well. So that's when the dollars start shifting around and, you know, what streets get done.

So when deciding which streets will be, you know, renovated or worked upon, does the community get to participate in the decision as to what projects would be worked on?

As far as the proposed projects for the following fiscal years

Yeah.

We present the projects to NREC, for their support. Projects do also go to council, for approval. So it gives the public, the opportunity to come in, and voice their opinions. Yes. They they get us, I would say, a chance to express their opinions.

Very good. That's about all the questions I had. Thank you so much for a wonderful presentation. Any more Yeah. Go ahead, please.

So going back to the PCI, and I I understand you have a a doing the evaluation. Would you consider having the consultant evaluate the entire city and then create a map so we can see the conditions of the streets around the entire city?

We have that.

Can you provide that to us?

We could definitely provide it. Apologize that it wasn't on the screen, but we do get all the information on GIS. We have maps. So we could definitely provide I gave it I could give it to Michael Plotnick and to upload it. And you could see an aerial or a map of the entire city, what streets are considered very poor, what streets are considered, poor, fair, good, and very good. So it gives you kind of a stand back picture of where streets are at.

And the second second part are actually, there's two other pieces. This is it I'd love to have a copy of this presentation just so I can study it a little bit and become more familiar with it. And then lastly, if you can include the date of that meeting because when a resident comes to me and says, hey, when are they gonna fix my street? I can send them to you. I can say, don't you just go to the committee meeting and just let them know?

Yeah. So, there's a couple ways you could get this information. NREC NREC is held, third Monday of each month, so they're welcome to come. We talk about a lot about infrastructure streets as well. And but, you could find some of these presentations online, or some of the statuses of where our network is at. I'm not sure if they've been updated, but who knows? Right? Yeah. The meetings are on video, so you could always go back, and see the recordings as well. So

Thank you very much.

Yeah. I

I just I guess I have a couple of comments that just can go into the public record, which is that, you know, I I think that the staff does have a plan. And the plan is, like, to hang on for dear life a little bit right now. And a plan to raise our PCI score, as I listened to your presentation last week, would require significantly higher spending levels for a decade or so, really, to make an impact, such as we've seen with Placentia and other cities that have really prioritized PCI score and seen it. But it's taken a decade, and it's taken, you know, in in their case, reprioritization and and increased revenue. So for me, it's and I I said a decade of maybe mismanagement on this, but that's only because I've been paying attention for a decade.

But, yes, I'm sure it's gone on longer to the vice chair's point. You know, I think that either city council can prioritize finding revenue in the existing budget or the city can push for, you know, a proposed sales tax increase, which I think is something they're going to do. But I do think it's sort of the responsibility of us and NRAC to make sure that council knows that these spending levels are sort of not appropriate, I think. And it's going to keep us at these low PCI scores and and maybe even be worse if we're spending $10,000,000 a year when we should be spending, say, 20 or 25, at least double what we're spending now. So I don't know if that's ever something in the future we wanna do, but I would be interested in just making sure that if we talk amongst ourselves as a commission, maybe we could make a recommendation to counsel that they prioritize spending on this as an as an issue, but that's all.

Thank you all.

Thank you very much. At this time, we'll conclude the discussion on this, and I will go ahead and receive and file this agenda item. Moving on to thank you so much, mister Wong. Thank you. Moving on to the next item, actually, commend the staff on picking great agenda today. These are the two items, you know, the street maintenance and then the safety. These are the two important, you know, items to the transportation commission. So I'm glad we picked this agenda for today. Thank you. So I would now request, please go ahead with the presentation on the safe streets and roads to all SS four a presentation.

Okay. Good, good afternoon, members of the transportation com and transportation circulation and commission meeting. My name is Carlos Velasquez. I'm a principal and project manager at Lochner, formerly KOA. We are a transportation, planning and engine engineering firm.

We were contracted by the city of Fullerton to lead the development of the city's, safety action plan of which I will present to you on today. So this is what we'll be going over. I'll give you a little bit of a project overview, get into some of our community engagement efforts, then get into the countermeasures. Ultimately, the goal of the project is to develop projects and specific improvements that could improve safety throughout the city. So we'll be going over a select few of those projects, and then, we'll go get into, q and a.

So safe streets for all. So what is what is the intent of this program? This is a federal program that is that is intent the the main intent of the prod of the program is to improve roadway safety, in specific communities. So, the project, has a five year period. This is the last year where funding's going to be available.

And what the what the program does is that it funds both, what we call planning projects of which this is one of them and also implementation projects. So once a city has, an approved action plan of which Fullerton's is this one here, then they could go after implementation funds. So find ways to fund a lot of these infrastructure improvements. But again, there has to be a nexus to safety. So this isn't an active transportation plan or a complete streets plan.

Although some of the improvements that you'll see are do overlap with those types of projects, They typically have to have a nexus with safety improvements that that would be, being addressed, by this project. So what are the goals? One is be very comprehensive in how we assess roadway safety throughout the city, collect the appropriate data, analyze it, and identify specific hot spots throughout the city so aimed at improving roadway safety. Excuse me. The other other goal is really once once those areas are are identified, find ways to reduce traffic related deaths and serious injuries, and ultimately benefit all all roadway users.

So ultimately, like I said, even though this is not an active transportation plan, the goal of this product is to improve overall safety for all users of the rotary, not just people on vehicles, not just people who are walking, but everyone. So what's the project timeline? This project started in mid twenty twenty four. We embarked in a in a robust data collection effort. Throughout that process, we also conducted some community engagement activities of which we'll get into shortly.

Overlapping with that, we got into plan development, draft plan, and we're really at the point where we're finalizing the the plan. So community engagement, what were some of the activities that took place? As you can see on this chart here, we had, six overall events. Three of them were had us attend, community engagement, or or community events like the farmer's market, the trunk or treat, and similar events. And then three of, other events were standalone community meetings.

So we we reserved a room, we brought people in, and then they went ahead and, we we had a presentation, and then we kinda workshopped what people's priorities were and and the main issues. So we had six in person events. Here are some images of those, at both the farmers markets, at the trunk or treat events, and then, at at some of the stand alone meetings. And then here are some of the workshop sort of aspects of it. You know, with each of these meetings, we had maps.

We gathered around. People identified specific areas of priority and things that they would like to see. So what were some of those things that were, primarily mentioned? Here we we split it between like the locations that mostly came up as well as the the issues that came up. So locations that were frequently mentioned by the public were, streets like Ornsthorpe, Commonwealth Passenger, Harbor, State College, and Lemon.

And these are your larger fast moving streets, that connect the city. What were the frequently mentioned comments? Speeding, running red lights, a lot lack of street lighting in a lot of these locations, that was something that came up quite quite often, being unsafe for for bicyclists, jaywalking, sidewalk gaps, and then street racing. As part, to supplement the community engagement, we also had a couple of surveys that were out, to the community. The first survey focused on identifying, again, issues because we wanted to ensure that we got a good idea of what the community felt was what what needed to be addressed.

So, we asked a series of questions. We asked, like, the first question focused on, like, how people would would rate overall safety in the city, and the results were relatively split here, with about 30% of the respondents saying they were somewhat safe or somewhat unsafe. So, I mean, that that that seemed to jive with a lot of the results that we got. What were the the common safety concerns? Again, poor road conditions.

Speeding came up quite quite substantially. How would you rate the overall condition of roads and neighbor on your neighborhood and streets? A lot of folks at poor or fair. That those seem to be the majority, which is funny after the discussion we just had earlier in this meeting. That seems to be a consensus that they a lot of residents want want better streets.

How frequently do you use alternative modes of transport? Occasionally, some said daily, but that that's that's where where some of those answers laid. And then, how effective do you think the current measures are to protecting pedestrians, cyclists in your area? A lot folk a lot of folks are neutral. About 30% of respondents felt that they were pretty ineffective.

So that was the overall that was overall sort of overview of of the results that the first survey had. Our team also conducted a second survey, and this happened after we had laid out some recommendations. And, I'll go through these relatively quickly, but the big takeaway here is that these these will make a lot more sense once we get into the specific treatments that are being recommended. So, here, what we wanted to do is we wanted to ask, your residents, about specific projects. As you'll see later in the presentation, we have proposed a ton of projects citywide, and we could not ask we cannot have a survey where we ask everyone about every single project.

It would just be a very long survey. So what we did is we went ahead and and just identified specific projects and wanted to get an idea of what people felt. So we asked them if if they thought retroreflective backplates, for example, would be positive additions to intersections. These are adding, like, a yellow outline around traffic signals, And so most folks thought that they would be positive. ADA ramps, with detectable warning surfaces would be positive additions.

Most people agreed. Speed feedback signs on streets like Bassentry Road that have experienced a lot speeding. Most people were for these types of improvements, so that was positive. Would you like to see bicycle turn boxes at the intersection of Bassett And Cherry Road and Brea? These results were a little mixed, although the majority did wanna see more bicycle infrastructure in streets like these. There seemed to be a wider, set of of responses to that. Would you like to see lane reconfigurations on Commonwealth? Again, this was a little varied as well. Would you like to see curb extensions on on Commonwealth and Lilly? Most respondents said yes.

Would you like to see curb extensions at the intersection of Commonwealth and Yale? Again, most folks were for them, although some folks were kind of on the fence. Would you like to see hardened center lines at the intersection of Commonwealth And Acacia? These results were mixed. And rectangular rapid flashing beacons at specific at this intersection of Richmond And Elm, most folks were for that.

Would you like to see stop signs and markings at the intersection of Ash And Jensen? Most folks would like to see that. And then we asked a series of questions, if you think specific recommendations would be a positive addition to the intersection of State College and Dorothy. So we got those those responses, there as well. And one thing I'll say with these with these surveys is that we did have images and and photos of each of the recommendations, so it wasn't set like that.

So again, this will make sense a little bit more when I talk about the countermeasures. So this map here shows the all of the projects that are being recommended as part of this plan. So we're looking at well over probably close to 200 projects at this point throughout the city where we have specific improvements both at intersections and also along specific project corridors. So you can see here, although the vast majority of the projects are in the southern part of the city, we do have some in in the northern parts of the city like along Bass And Chury near the Cal State Fullerton and other parts of the city. What we did as part of that and to make it much more easier for the city to implement is we went ahead and took all of these projects and we packaged them into 10 specific projects.

So when when the city is trying to go after funding, it's just gonna be very impractical for the city to say, okay. Well, we're gonna we're gonna go after infrastructure funding for a project on Bassanctuary and then a project on Commonwealth and then a project on State College. It just doesn't make sense. So what we did is we wanted to ensure that we were able to package them so that then the city can can brand the project and say, We're gonna go after funding for a project that's the Bass And Cherry Safe Streets corridor or, you know, the the, the Euclid Avenue, neighborhood project. So we were able to package all of those projects into 10 standalone projects so then the city can then go after funding in that manner.

So based on that, we we went ahead and and that and that's what we that's what that's what will be in the plan is these package projects. Each of them will have actual costs associated with them, and and so that that's that's what will go on the plan. So in the next series of slides, I will be getting into specific projects. These are not all of the projects. Again, I I don't I didn't want this to be a a a a very, a very long presentation.

If if we'd get into all the projects, then we would be here for for quite a significant amount of time. But what we did is we pulled out some of the projects that had unique features and also, and and also were were relatively, transformative in their own way. So the first the first location that we'll talk about is Bastionchari and Brea. So this this sort of northern part, of the city. In this location, we're looking at a couple of projects.

One, throughout Bastinchuurri, we're looking at adding speech feedback signs. So on the left, you see the way it is now. On the right, you see we we we intend on adding some speech feedback signs. Now the way we also chose these these specific treatments is that they are typically fund the this product typically funds these types of projects. So we, we didn't wanna choose products that would not be funded, but typically, a lot of the treatments that we'll be going over in the next set of slides typically tend to be funded quite substantially by this program.

So we wanted to make sure that we position the city in a way that you highlight specific areas, but also the types of products that have the highest chance of being funded. So here, adding speech feedback science to Bastianchuri was was a priority. Here, at the intersection of of brand Bastianchuri, adding some two stage bike boxes to facilitate some of the the left turning movements for for people who are riding to make those movements a little safer, was was something that was identified on the image to the right, adding retro reflective back plates. Again, these are the yellow outlines that you see, surrounding the the traffic signal head. So you see that on the on the left image, there isn't any, and on the right side, there is.

So, again, we've seen a lot of these projects being funded by this program. At the intersection of Bass Centurion State College and Brea and Ashburn Terrace, we're we're recommending a couple of different things. One is a leading pedestrian interval, which what it does is that, when someone is about to cross the street, they they they press the the crossing button, then the light turns green for them before it does for the cars. So like that, the the the motorist who's about to, say, make a right turn, they already see that someone is crossing. So it it it makes it a little safer for someone who's who's about to cross versus when they both turn green at the same time.

What you have happened is sometimes motorists just cut off the person who's who's about to cross the street. So we're at we're recommending a leading pedestrian interval here at both of these locations and then, striping higher visibility crosswalks to again, emphasize that that that people do cross at these locations. Moving on to Commonwealth, and so this is what there was another, priority location that we looked at. Big big thing that we wanted to explore here is potentially a lane reconfiguration of Commonwealth. We understand that that this can be controversial, but, you know, we felt this is a a downtown area, an area with a lot of businesses, a lot of dynamism that's happening here.

So if if and we know that parts of Commonwealth are already down to one lane in each direction. So, we figured we could extend that, make the streets slower, make it safer, make it easier for people to cross as as they as they intend on doing here. So that's a a product that we're looking at recommending as part of this project. Additionally, at the intersection of Commonwealth and Lilly, this is a little further to the east of the city, near near an elementary school. Again, adding a curb extension as you see on the right, adding a leading pedestrian interval, and higher visibility crosswalks as well.

Continuing in the Commonwealth area, again, a lot of similar improvements, leading pedestrian intervals, retroreflective black backplates. One unique aspect that we're looking, at the intersection, there on the right is adding a hardened centerline. So you'll see that on the image to the far right, and that is essentially like a mini, like like a thin little, almost like a speed hump that that is parallel to the left turning. And what that does is it widens the left turning vehicle. So instead of the vehicle making, like, a a left turn that is gonna be very tight and fast, they they're forced to go a little further into the intersection and turn at a much wider radius.

And so what that does is that that inevitably slows them down, and it makes and it makes it much more, safe for someone who is crossing where there might be a conflict. So that's that's an improvement that we're recommending as part of that that location. Additionally, there are several locations on Commonwealth that you do have crossings but you but they're just crossings. And so, again, one thing that we heard from the from the public was more crossing opportunities, better crossing opportunities. One thing that we're recommending at the intersection here at Commonwealth And Lily is improving that existing crossing with some curb extensions.

So, again, we're not intending on taking any on street parking here, but we have space to create the curb extensions, shorten that crossing, make vehicles go slower as they're making right turns to that area, and so that's that's an improvement that we're looking at recommending here. Moving on to the Cal State Fullerton, area, there are several locations here that we're looking at doing. One at the intersection of State College in Dorothy. We were looking at doing a scrambled crosswalk. So this is like an all phase.

You see these in areas where there's, high amounts of pedestrian movement through an intersection where essentially anyone who's crossing gets their own phase. So, I think Pasadena has a lot of these. City Of LA has a lot of these already. But, essentially, it allows people to cross in a diagonal fashion. All vehicles stop, and then all pedestrians cross.

I will I will say that, a lot of these improvements at Cal State Fullerton, we we did coordinate with their transportation, and mobility, person there as well. So we made sure that that interaction and that coordination did happen, and a lot of these these improvements were vetted through those folks. So, because we know that, we wanna make sure that it didn't, create any undue, problems to their operations. So, anyway, this this was, recommended here at Dorothy and State College. At the intersection in Nutwood and Commonwealth, we're recommending a few things, leading pedestrian interval, retro reflective back plates, and then bicycle boxes as well.

One thing I will add is that there is, active transportation project at what that's happening here. This project would not, would not be contradictory to any of those efforts. Continuing on Nutwood, one of the big comments we received from from the university was, poor street lighting. It gets it gets very dark. You have a lot of students here, sometimes leaving classes late at night.

So, adding adding pedestrian lighting, as a way to improve safety and make it more comfortable is something that we're we're looking at doing here. In the Euclid West project area, a a series of of more residential focused projects. A couple things here. One, we noticed in a lot of your residential areas, specifically where it's very, a little more dense, like in the southern part of the city, there's a lot of missing curb ramps. And where you do sometimes you do have curb ramps.

They're not ADA compliant. So, we we we are we're looking at adding those here at, for example, at this intersection of Basque And Southgate, adding adding some curb ramps with detectable warning surfaces as well. Here as well, adding adding some curb extensions and RFBs to improve, access and make it safer for those who are crossing the streets. This is at the intersection of Citrus and Hill. And then in the Harbor West air project area, looking at several other improvements.

Again, more gateway curb extensions at Harbor And Ash, and then at Harbor And Roslyn, adding more, curb extensions and higher visibility crosswalk. So so you can see a lot of these improvements start to repeat themselves, but we're we're looking at adding them throughout the city. At the intersection of Richmond And Elm, one thing we noticed here is that, again, you have another situation where you have a crossing, but that's it. And here, you're also near a school where you have a lot of students who are crossing. So, adding a retro, rectangle rectangular rapid flashing beacon.

So that's this is where people press press a button and then the lights flash and then that alerts the motorist to that someone's about to cross. So ideally, they would they would slow down or stop. So that's that's what we're looking at adding here. At the intersection of Highland and Valencia, again, leading pedestrian interval and a bicycle turnbox to facilitate some of those left turns. At the intersection of Malvern and Chapman, this is a very, a very complex intersection because you have the flood control channel on the South side, so things are are pretty tight.

But we're looking at doing a couple of things. One is adding leading pedestrian intervals, adding hardened center lines, curb extensions where we could fit them, and adding some curb ramp upgrades, at some of those locations. Again, it it gets very tight here, but some of these are relatively minimal improvements that can go a long way in improving safety for those who are who are seeking across, at this intersection. And then here at Orangethorpe, one one thing that we're looking at here specifically, at Page Avenue is, adding edge line treatments. Another thing that that we're looking at doing here is also exploring adding new sidewalks throughout this area.

This is near, this is the main way for that people get to the elementary school that's there. And so one thing that we did hear a lot from the parents was the lack of sidewalk facilities here and how vehicles just go very fast since it's a relatively straight shot to the freeway. So, again, adding edge lines that'll that'll make the street seem a little tighter, force vehicles to slow down, and then explore adding some sidewalks there as well. Other improvements in the Southwest part of the city. One one thing that's also common throughout this area is the lack of the lack of stop signs.

So you'll see that you have a lot of these intersect, neighborhood intersecting streets that it's not very clear, you know, who's supposed to stop. I think people just know it because they've they've lived there for a long time. So we wanted to reduce that level of confusion by adding stop signs specifically at the minor streets or the streets that carry less traffic and then, supplementing that with curb ramp upgrades as well. And so we're looking at doing that at at these four locations as shown here. So with that, that wraps up my presentation. I know I went through that relatively quickly, but I did wanna leave enough time for questions and answers. And I could go back to any of the slides as as you as you see fit. Thank you.

Thank you very much. And could you please stay there? We'll just Of course. Ask you a question in just a few moments. I'll open the floor for public comment at this time. Anybody? Nobody here. Is there anybody online? Please.

Okay. Julie, go ahead and speak.

Hi. This is Julie again. I'm curious to find out if any there was any mention of how unsafe the roundabouts are. Prior to having the roundabouts, many of our streets had four way stops. We had dips that also caused cars to slow down. I just know that that's like a daily occurrence out here, a lot of honking and people that don't know how to use them properly. There's a severe lack of of signage to for people to know you know, everybody thinks they have the right of way. They don't know how to yield. I don't feel safe, and it's right in front of my house. And there's a lot of other people that don't feel safe, and they're trying to walk their kids, walk their dogs.

And I would love to at least see either a two way stop sign on the streets, maybe for the northbound streets because they are just flying between Commonwealth and Chapman, just flying through our neighborhood, and also to put some crosswalks back in. You know? I mean, I know that's not a wall. It's not gonna stop a car, but it it helps visually. And I think that would really be helpful. So I'm curious if anything was ever brought up in any of the meetings. I know when I filled out the pay the online forms of these, I wrote down how unsafe it's made our neighborhood. So I'm curious to know if there was any consideration of that. Thank you.

Julie, can I ask you to if you could please share the location of the roundabout that you mentioned?

The roundabout that I'm at is at Woods And Wilshire.

Thank you.

And, originally, the roundabouts were supposed to be on the East Side Of Harbor, and then they added a few more onto the West Side, kinda like Mauldin and maybe Highland. And then all of a sudden, they just came all the way down to Woods, and we never had a chance to even, you know, discuss this, you know, give our feelings on it to go to any of the meetings because they were just kinda added in, and it was kind of a surprise to our neighborhood. And I know people around here who have ADA issues and things like that. The ramps go right into the roundabout. There I mean, there is no way if you're in a wheelchair or something that someone can see you. The speed

of the

traveling is is quite fast. So alright. Thank you.

Thanks a lot. Okay. Anyone else? Okay. I'll close the public comments at this time. Let me just ask you this before we start the questions. Can you address this situation with the roundabouts? Is there any plan to address this situation in the near future?

So, as part of this project, we did a lot of coordination with Public Works on the types of treatments that the city, would like us to explore. As part of these products, we always want we don't wanna just go ahead and propose projects that the city's not gonna be comfortable with implementing or or members of the community are not comfortable with. So, the round, roundabouts and traffic circles did come up, and, ultimately, I know that those are being assessed internally by by the department, as well. And so for the time being, none of no roundabouts or traffic circles were recommended as part of this plan since the city's trying to reassess where where they go in with those types of treatments.

Mister Plotkin, can I ask you if if there are any plans to address this situation with the roundabouts?

We're not changing any roundabouts at the time, but we are going to study them to make sure that they are designed properly because there have been collisions at some, but nothing in stone yet.

Okay. Would you please share it when you have that study Yes. With us? Thank you so much. Okay. Vice chair Delia, would you please ask your question?

I I actually just have one. First of all, very impressed with the study you conducted. I mean, it's pretty extensive, and most of the areas that you're talking about are familiar with, and I think it was a great great opportunity for the residents to contribute. The only question I have is in regards to Cal State Fullerton. I mentioned earlier in my earlier comments about development and whether or not they contribute towards street improvements. I know that Cal State Fullerton had a ton of of improvements on their site. Did they contribute at all? Are they contributing at all to paying for the cost of any of those improvements, or is that just on the city?

I'm sorry. Can you repeat that question?

Oh, I got you. I was talking about development and Cal State Fullerton. They've invested a ton of money on their new housing and stuff. And so my only question is some of the improvements that are gonna be recommended for around that, are are they contributing any money towards it, or is it just gonna be on the city to make those improvements?

So the all the student housing, the new apartments, and everything, the developer contributed some money, and that was for the striping on Commonwealth, but nothing else towards any of these projects.

So I understand that they're under they're under a different jurisdiction as it relates to their improvements on their site. So the city didn't couldn't did not have any opportunity to say, listen. If you're gonna do these improvements, we would like you to follow-up with some of these recommendations as well.

Correct. Because Cal State Fullerton deals with the state architecture office and not the city. So I believe when they did it, what we asked for were they did a traffic study, and then from that, the conditions of the project included striping, and they repaved the street. But that that was it, and we can't go back now and ask for additional.

So even if we had the opportunity, if they decided to make improvements, could we and I don't I'm just asking the question, so I don't know. Can we condition them like we do every other development to pay for some of these improvements?

So we can't go back now?

No. No. I'm talking about in the future.

If future, if they do any changes, yes, we could put it on the developer as part of the project conditions.

Thank you.

That's all.

Okay. I'd like to, welcome commissioner Walker, and, please make a note of, mister Walker as, joined. Commissioner Sherry, would you please ask your question?

Yeah. This was really, really exciting, frankly. So thank you for coming here and presenting this. I I think that a lot of these projects are really, really beneficial. To address Julie's point about the roundabouts, I also agree. I find I've I've think in my first meeting on this commission a couple years ago, I did mention that the roundabouts, I don't think are, having the effect that they might, have been designed for. The roundabouts don't really cause the cars to have to deviate very much. And so because of that, people's speeds aren't reduced. And there's also no there's no markings for crosswalks. And so I I think there was a SCAG project or something, wasn't it? Or did we just do that?

There was funding for a bicycle boulevard k. On Wilshire, and that's where all the funding came from.

Got it. But I mentioned that I think there should definitely be some update on the striping. I don't think that we can do much about the fact that the roundabouts aren't big enough, really, because then they would encroach into people's houses and stuff. But I do agree with Julie on that one. I if you could go back to the slide of the lane reduction or whatever we wanna call it so people like it more, but on Commonwealth, because I think that's terrific.

I would add to this that I think because you're taking out a lane in each direction, which I think is appropriate, there should be protected bike lanes on the on the right hand side of the parking spaces. If you go to most major urban areas now or places that are trying to increase walkability or safety and removing pedestrians from vehicles, this is safety issue. It's, you know, I I really like the idea of bike lane on the right by the curb with parking to the left of it and then the lane to the left of it. I think that's something and Michael, I think that's something we should expand throughout the city as well. I really like to see things like that.

But I I think a lane reduction is appropriate on Commonwealth to slow traffic, like you said. I would love to expand that in other places. I know it's not always popular, but I I think it would have a I think it would have a really good effect, especially in providing more parking for the downtown, which is something that businesses struggle with or say they struggle with and users of the downtown area. So I think that'd be really, really great. Yeah. I'd love everything. I love the I love the bicycle boxes, the curb extensions. This is really great stuff. How how many of these projects do you think what what are our chances for success on getting any of these funded?

Well, it depends on on how, how strong your grant headers are. And so that that's gonna be the next task. But we wanted to do and and as you can see on the slide here is we we packaged these projects in the way we did so that we could we could consolidate, the specific treatments in in a way that you could brand the projects so that you could then package it all, and then that is your grant application. Because what we've seen when we've prepared grant applications is the ones that succeed the most not only hit a lot of the boxes that the program is seeking to fund, but it's also a continuous project that that that, improves conditions in a specific street or a specific neighborhood. So for example, what you see on that map there is that, if if you go after funding for all of these locations, yes, your project is gonna be more expensive, but you can argue in the grant application that this project overall with the sum of its parts of all of these treatments is going to have a a wide, range benefit for a lot of the folks in that neighborhood.

One thing we we're also doing as part of this is that we're adding, we're gonna we're gonna give the city, like, a a prioritization, like, a prioritization. Well, we developed prioritization methodology, but what we're gonna do is that we're gonna tell the city, okay. The way you can implement this is going after the products that are the most competitive first. So for example, I think we have there the the a lot of the products on the Southern part of the city, South Of Of Commonwealth and South Of Vornsthorpe, tend to rank the highest in terms of specific measures like transportation safety, so you have a lot more of your collisions happening there. But it's also the areas in your city that have the highest need from an economic development perspective.

So typically, projects located in those locations with those types of features tend to be much more competitive. And so packaging them and then giving the giving these to the city in a way that go after projects here first will ideally make make the city much more competitive when going after after funds. So to answer your question, there's a lot that goes into it.

I thought we had already applied. That's I my service. So this is presenting the potential situations. And I don't think the city even has a grant writer on I I used to write grants for the city at Townsend Public Affairs who provides our lobbying. But I don't even think we have a grant writer contracted. So Yeah. This is cool. Fabulous. But

yeah. I mean, the the thing is with it's not until this plan is approved that the city would not be able to apply.

Okay.

So this is the first step Yeah. Is getting this approved, and then you

can apply.

So it's gotta go to us and then any other commissions?

We're gonna be presenting what? At Active. PC. And then we're gonna be presenting at council.

Okay.

Yeah.

Great. Fantastic. And when is the deadline to apply for funding?

I think the notice of funding for SS 40 just came out. I think it's May. So you got you got about a couple months.

Yeah. So it's in a couple months, we have to get this approved by council and apply for the grants.

You could start working

on now.

For the app Yeah.

So you could start working on this now because the the treatments aren't gonna change. So the city can start working on on identifying the price they wanna go after and then putting that together. Typically, the program requires that the plan is is posted online at the time of submittal of the grant. So, whether it's a draft, whether it's not fully adopt like, you you have some leeway in how you could do it. Okay.

And and Michael, do does the city have any capability to be able to produce app these applications in the in the timeline suggested?

Yes. City staff has applied for a lot of grants and and successful.

Okay. Good. Good. Okay.

Thank you. Commissioner Walker, I'll go ahead and ask my question so that you can have a little bit more time to listen to the presentation. I usually like to go at the very end because that makes me sound a little better because I already know everybody's comments, so it makes me look more strength intelligent. Now I already have the benefit of knowing what everybody else had to say. But so I, you know, agree with my colleagues here.

It's, you know, wonderful stuff. You've done some really great stuff. I really like the chrome curb extensions, ramps, and the bicycle turn box and the speed feedbacks. I don't know what is r r f b, but sounds impressive. What is r r f b?

R f b is a rectangular rapid flashing beacon. So Okay. And I can go to the image. But, essentially, what it is, it's it's a flasher. There's an image there on

the right.

So when you're about to cross a location

Mhmm.

Press the button, the lights start flashing. So it creates like a beacon.

I

see. And then as motorists approach, they're notified, okay. Someone's about to cross. They slow down.

Or stop.

I do. So now these are my concerns. Actually, I just want to understand this. So I really, you know, appreciate what you have done. These 10 projects, they look phenomenal.

You know, definitely, they will add to the public safety. Now my questions or concerns are one of my main concern is I wanna make sure that we have treated everyone fairly, that we have taken on projects after looking at the needs of the entire Fullerton City and not just specific areas and concentrated in those areas. So one of the things that I wanna ensure is how we came up with these projects to implement. Second my second concern is I'd like to make sure that there is a mechanism, there is a way of figuring out that this was a good plan, it improved something, how we measure, you know, our actions, some feedback, some some mechanism to know that we spend the money wisely, that this was a good thing, that we did this, just not the beautification, not just, you know, make the area look good and make feel you know, make people feel good, but this was exactly what was needed, and there was a, you know, concrete return. So I'm gonna try and figure that out.

So and then, of course, you know, I'm also interested in accountability as to, you know, if this was not the best use of our money, now how how do we, you know, go about figuring out who's you know, who should have done what? So first of all, I'd like to figure out that these projects now I understand we had six community outreach meetings, and we asked for opinion. We did two surveys. Did we so I'm gonna come back to the survey. But I'd like to ask you, did we also have data from, you know, these traffic accidents and what have you? Did we also have that, along with these?

Yes. Yes. And that's really the foundation of this is really the the data. So we went ahead and collected, traffic collision data, over a five year period.

I believe

it I believe it was from 2019 to 2024. I'd I'd have to double check the numbers, but we collected a five year period where we looked at all of the collisions citywide, both from an injury perspective and also from a a property damage perspective. So just because someone didn't get injured or hit doesn't mean that we don't wanna account for for that type of collision. So we we accounted for all of that. We mapped all the information, and it told us where your hotspots are. And so what the data showed was a lot of your hotspots tend to happen in the southern part of the city.

Very good. Now that makes me feel better because I was kind of sort of not too impressed with the survey because this is what my problem is. One of the survey that was used to come up with these projects had only 15 responses. Now we are a city of about a 140,000,000 people, maybe a 150,000,000 people. Now 15 responses to base any action on 15 response responses to me doesn't really make too much sense, but then again, what do I know?

And then the other survey also which we used to base, you know, the selection of these projects, the location by the way, I'm not shooting down any of the projects. They look awesome. But so so can you justify this that there is a survey that we used in determining where we would, you know, put put all of these safety measures? So one of the survey has only 240 response, and the other one is even 15 responses in a city of a 140,000,000 people. Now I understand, you know, you know, survey principles, but can you talk about a little bit about this?

Yeah. So that was that was a bit of an anomaly on our end too. I mean, we we did we had quite a substantial effort to get the word out on these surveys. The first survey, you know, we we put it out through, through the city's social media pages. We went ahead and and distributed it that way, and got the word out.

We did the same exact thing with the second survey, but for some reason, we just did not get many responses. I know that we also coordinated with, with the school district as well, and they helped us put the word out. And, typically, they they have a big a big catchment of of, of community members as well, parents who are very involved. So that I unfortunately, I I don't have a reason. I know we did what we could to get the word out, and and those are the responses we got.

I do wanna mention that as part of our community engagement efforts are in person, although it's not as impressive as as you would like, we were able to speak with with several members. As you can see there, we've had several participants as well for for these. So collectively, yeah. I mean, could we have gotten more more information from from the community? Yes.

But we we did, what we could to get the word out on the surveys, and we were out in the community as you can see in these images here. So, that's that's sort of where we want. Now you you also had a comment about what went into selecting the locations of these treatments. And so typically what we did is is and as you can see where is it? Here.

Yeah. So we we combined both what we heard on our engagement. So, you know, we had here frequently mentioned locations and streets. So we try to identify, we try to balance that, with what the data was telling us. So the the collision data that I mentioned, we collected that information, we mapped it, and we combined it with this, And we come back we combined it with other, socioeconomic indicators, and we try to identify, okay, which are the areas that make the most sense for these products to be in. So that's how we determined where we wanted to locate specific projects.

That makes sense. I mean, I understand, especially now that I understand the the collision data was a big part of this decision making process. It makes me feel comfortable. So now next question I would like to ask is how would we measure the success? How would we know that we and and by the way, all these 10 projects have already been implemented, or they are in the process?

No. They're they're identified as as part of this plan. The city then has to, apply for funding to

Oh, I see.

Bill. Yeah.

So none of these projects has been implemented yet. We are waiting to be funded.

We they the city would have to apply to get the funding I see. The the Safe Streets for All

Okay.

Program.

Okay. So now, how would we measure is there a mechanism? Is there a way for us to know that, you know, the return of this investment, what was the return over a period of, say, five years or whatever?

Yeah. I mean, I would say that the the first the the easiest or the the most direct way of of measuring the success is getting some projects funded. You having this this safe streets for all action plan allows you to not just pursue s s four a funding that that is is due in a couple of at the May, but you could actually go after active transportation funding. You could go after h SIP funding. You could go after different funding programs, and it makes you more con competitive having this this plan adopted and and having it ready.

So just, so you having this now allows you to to fund because typically programs that fund these types of projects, they wanna ensure that, cities conducted a comprehensive assessment of the city streets like we've done here, and you are going after funding for projects that you've vetted internally and vetted with the community and analyzed, which all is included here. So, again, you having this plan empowers the city to be able to now go after a lot of funding.

And so what is this deadline, the May 2026?

So that is one of the funding programs that that is directly tied to this. That that is the the the last round of the safe, the SS four a funding. So the city can apply for what's called implementation funds, which would which would seek to implement infrastructure projects that are recommended as part of this plan. However, you still have other funding programs that happen throughout the year that you could use, that you could go after funds on those programs based on the recommendations here.

So are there in addition to these 10 projects that you have identified, they are the top priority. Are there other projects in in the city that you would have recommended if, we had the funding available or some way of, being able to get those funds?

Like, I you're saying, would I recommend a specific project?

No. I'm I'm just saying, is all that we need to fix is just these 10 areas, or are there more areas?

I see. Well, I mean, let's go to the map here. I think that shows it. So you can see here, these are all of the the projects that that came out of this this place. So we have all of these locations, and we went ahead and put them all into 10 specific projects.

However, you can see that there's there's some products that don't fall in those ten ten areas. I see. I mean, we try to capture all of them, in a way that made a lot of sense. But, so, yeah, there's some that that just didn't you know, they're they're kind of on their own. But, presumably, the city could add it to their CIP programs, especially if it's something that is that they could program for later on if it's kind of on its own, if they can't get funding for. I do like the idea. I think one of, I think commissioner that they all mentioned about coordinating more with Cal State Fullerton. That seems to make a lot of sense. That seems pretty innovative, especially in and around the public streets. That can be that can be an option.

So the I I think there's different ways that you could seek to implement these projects, but, again, having the plan is a first major step.

Thank you very much. Commissioner Walker, any questions?

You know, I think a lot of my concerns are really are gonna pretty much shadow council member council member Mentor's concerns. And, really, I think one of the things he kinda pointed out that I kinda wanted a little little bit of clarification on is sort of the return on investment. Do we ever do any sort of or have we done any studies based on some of the previous work that we've done to show, like, this measure actually improved safety in a various area such as when we've installed a RRFB? Have we gone back and shown and say, hey. Looking at the data, I know, like you said, you look at five year data after we installed, we can show we didn't have any more near miss collisions that we ended up reporting.

Have you guys have you do you are you able to show show that as part of a have you ever done that type of analysis?

Yeah. So, for maybe not necessarily for this, but for other products we've done what's called, like, a before and after study where we we test. We say, do, like, a pilot project, and we collect data before the project was implemented. We get, like, a baseline on, like, collisions or speeds or what was happening. We implement the project. We wait a few months, and then we collect the after data to identify whether they're like, what the delta was or or what some of the changes were. So that that does happen. Obviously, it wouldn't be part of this project. It would it would reek for this type of project, it would require the products to be implemented and then the city to make an assessment. Okay.

Let's go back and see if we've had a a drastic reduction in, say, collisions. Now a lot of the recommendations that we're laying out here, they there is documented literature that show that rates a lot of these based on what's called, like, a crash reduction factor. So there's, the state of California has, like, their local roadway safety manual. And in that manual, there's a lot of the recommendations that are that are here where they have, like, that that crash reduction factor score. And so, typically, like, retroreflected backplates or RFBs tend to rank middle to high.

And so we have to balance out with what's not only implementable based on what you have on your roadway and the space you have, but also, you know, make sure that it it has a higher return on on the investment. So, yeah, there there is documentation, but I think if the city wanted to take this a bit further, it would happen after some of these projects would be implemented.

But we've never we've never developed anything like this before in the past that was so comprehensive. Correct?

I I don't know if the I don't think the city's done, like, a vision zero or a safety act. I don't know if you do you have a LRSP? I think you

We do have that.

Okay. So that was before this then. Okay. So the city did do a a local roadway safety plan, which looked at a lot of these similar, issues. And so this just took it a step further in building, like, other socioeconomic indicators into the analysis to ensure that, you could go after a wide range of funding.

And then as far as your outreach goes, I'm just gonna ask. I know, mailings are are are expensive, but have you guys potentially piggybacking on the water bills that go out to a large number of the residents?

So it's it's funny you you mentioned that, commissioner. For our first meeting, and this was at was elementary school? It wasn't Commonwealth. It was, Ornestorpe Ornestorpe Elementary. We we had a community meeting there, and, we went ahead and and issued mailers. So we we we developed flyers, and we sent out, I think, close to 3,000 mailers

Mhmm.

To so we got addresses. We we hired a service that that does that specific, thing. We got the postage. We had our staff put the mail and and everything was shipped. I think we got, like, 10 people.

And we we we mailed, like, close to 3,000 mailers. So it it was it was a lot of a lot of expense and the return was very poor. So and and that was with us also working with the school, and having them advertise the meeting through their social media, through their parents' groups. And so, you know, like, that we we did what we could there. And after that wasn't as successful for the subsequent meetings, we we just opted for for more digital, like, advertisement of the meetings. But, yeah, we did try mailers and, you

know That's why I was gonna say is it maybe more effective to maybe piggyback on the water bills? I I know with the with your Fullerton water bill, there's always an advertisement to help fund the the help the fund the I don't know. Fourth

of July.

Yeah. Fourth of July or something like that. You know? I don't know if it's an option to put on there, hey. Conduct a safe street survey, and, you know, you might never know who to. Alright. And just just kind of throwing those ideas out there.

It's a good idea.

And then the I just kinda have two real quick questions, and that has to do with actually with maintenance. So if we're gonna install additional, like, RRFBs, I mean, have we taken into account the long term maintenance costs for maintaining some of this additional infrastructure?

All that would be covered under our traffic signal maintenance, same as any of the other RFBs. It's very minimal. If anything, the batteries, we have to worry about those in three to five years. But we in fact, we just had to replace one the other day on Placentia and Ruby. It was old and the I guess the where the solar connected to it, it cracked, and it got water inside and actually shorted out the board, and we had to replace the whole thing. But that one was about 14 years old. Mhmm. So it was time anyway.

And then my last question just actually has to do with, some of the large area, let's say, the now this redevelopment predates me before I came to Fullerton, but I was it was a pretty big thing when I previous town I used to work in or used to live in. And so then I was wondering, are areas like one, three, five, and two, were those previously large RDA, redevelopment agency areas or service areas at all that the city had interest in or had designated. I don't know if that's you know? Do you know what I'm it it's probably never mind. Then it's probably it's it's more a historic issue or more of a historic question.

Usually, some cities have would designate certain parts of town to be redevelopment agency areas or subject for funds and assessments.

I don't believe that was the case, and that didn't come in in any of the meetings. These areas, like you're saying, one three five, that's where we got a lot of the requests from. So that that became a priority for this program.

Okay. Alright. Great.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any more questions, commissioner Sherry?

The last one is what level of funding does the, do these funding mechanisms, these funding programs pay for? Is that a 100%? Does the city have to have matching funds?

So on I wanna say the last time I did it, if you put in a match, it would give you extra points, but I don't believe a match is required.

Okay.

Yeah. A lot a lot each program's different.

Yeah.

But, yeah, the the more matches, an agency puts Yeah. Part of these projects, the more competitive I think they get, like I know, like, with the active transportation program, they get, like, five extra points

Okay.

Which for a competitive program like that, it might mean funding versus not. So, yeah. Typically, it's recommended.

Cool. It's very cool to see, you know, things continuing out of that bipartisan infrastructure bill, you know, however many years later. So thank you for your presentation.

What's the last year? So we'll see what happens. Well yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And then I just I just have one more question. And when we speak about, financing, do you do you I know don't even know if you would know or would be aware. When we go to bond for, you know, financing these types of projects, do you know what type of bonds we're looking at as far as, like, the duration that we're looking at? Thirty year bonds or what?

We wouldn't use bonds for these types of projects. This would come from either m two or gas tax.

Okay.

Bonds would go to big city infrastructure.

Awesome. Great.

Thank you. Yeah. I think that's, that's it. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Thank you, commissioners.

Thank you. At this time, I'll, receive and file this, item, and, please make note that, vice chair De Leon has left. Next item is, staff update on non agentized item and review of the past city council actions.

Yes, commissioner. So one one update. So the Euclid Street And Valley View Drive, Valley View Place intersection signalization recommendation will be going to city council tomorrow, April 7 at 05:30PM under regular business item 13. A presentation will be given by consultant traffic engineer, Roseman. Just because he's been on the project since it begins, I'd like to continue with them.

And the proposed motions are to direct staff to proceed with the traffic signal installation project at the Euclid Street And Valley View Drive, Valley View Place Intersection, and to authorize the director of public works or designee to seek grant funding opportunities for the traffic signal construction at the Euclid Street And Valley View Drive, Valley View Place Intersection. As a reminder, if any of the TCC commissioners, including chair and vice chair, would like to attend the council meeting and discuss the item, you're welcome to do so, but you need to make sure you're doing it as a resident. You're not to utilize your capacity as a commissioner to the of the traffic and circulation commission where the item was discussed and recommended. A recommendation was made at our February 2026 meeting. And that that's all the updates I have.

No. I don't think I have anything. I think we've exhausted enough time today, but, no, I don't think so. Thank you, chair.

Thank you. Commissioner Walker?

I don't think they have. Thank you for your time.

And I don't have anything to, talk about either, so I would, at this time, adjourn the meeting. Thank you all for coming.