Active Transportation Committee - Regular Meeting

Meeting of the active transportation committee to order. Janet, would you please call the roll?

Committee member Morales?

Present.

Committee member Walters is absent. Vice chair Chase? I'm sorry, Vice Chair Norby?

Here.

Committee Member Chase is absent. Chair Tapadea? Here. And Committee Member Walters is also absent.

Thank you. And now we will go on to public comments for items that are not on the agenda. Do we have I see people in our chambers. Are do we have any speakers for public comments? I'm on a

Vince Buck. I, of course, have lots of comments, but it looks like the agenda may cover much of it. I we'll see. I am puzzled about the absence of Jeff Chase. I thought his term expired in December, so I'm not sure why he's still on there. But I did not overhear the conversation that you were just having, so I would like to see that position filled. I'm pleased to see that the I guess the council decided to send the electric bicycle issue back to this committee rather than have the council decide it last time. I'm not sure why it didn't come here first. Think that says a lot. And is there anything more needs to be said?

Yeah. No. I I have a lot to say about priorities, but I'm not sure that this item will work if we ever get the staff here for it. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Our our our vice chair stepped away for just a moment, it seems. Does that mean that we have to pause the meeting for lack of quorum? Oh, alright. I think we are okay to continue. We have a quorum again. So, please, can we have our next public commenter?

Okay. Alright. I'm Dominic Moonheart. I live in District 3. I wanted to comment on the ebike issue because I did see it on the forecast for the city council, and it it didn't make it to this commission first, which irritates me.

In my opinion, I believe that the city council has no not doesn't have an opinion when it comes to the ebikes because there are not there's not enough infrastructure for ebikes and e scooters. Granted, I do have a broken hand because of a DUI guy. I can't talk too much about it because I'm still in litigation, so I'll have to leave it at that. But with that said, there needs to be more infrastructure before the city council or this commission decides on what on how they how to move forward with the ebike situation. Ebikes are great.

Obviously, they're they're affordable. The thing is is the infrastructure. And it's the infrastructure, the infrastructure, the infrastructure, the infrastructure, and I can just say that. I don't know how many times. So let's let's address the infrastructure first. Anaheim City Council, our neighbors south of us, had banned the ebikes and e scooters on sidewalks. And now that's that's caused a couple issues. I'm not too sure if they're gonna reconsider that or temporary temporarily pause it. I'm not too sure about that. But the ebikes are not allowed on sidewalks and on and e scooters as well on the sidewalks in Anaheim.

They're supposed to be on bike lanes, but most of the streets don't have bike lanes. So what's the second option? The second option is that the e bike and e scooter can take one full lane that's closest to the curve, But people use the automatic Tesla driving method, and they do get run over. Hence, that's me. But several peep several cars have run over ebikes and e scooters because those cars are way faster than any bike.

So but that's Anaheim City Council, so I will address that there. But long story short, the thing is is I don't want what happened in Anaheim to happen here where we bring rules to enforce, and there's no way to really enforce them because there's no infrastructure to enforce the rules to begin with. So let let's go ahead and slow down on that until we get more bike lanes and then proceed from there. So thank you.

Thank you. Do we have any other public commenters in chambers? Alright. Do we have any on Zoom, please?

No hands raised.

Alright. Very good. So I'll go ahead and close the general public comments. And now let's go on to our usual business on the agenda. The first item is the Netwood Avenue active transportation project. Do we have a presentation on this item, please? Okay. Do we have any public comments on this item, please? Please.

Alright. I'm back. So I Netwood is obviously in District 3 up to state college, and I'm glad that there's finally bike lanes being discussed on this road. That whole road needs to be repaired and redone all over again. But I'm glad that bike lanes are finally coming here.

The thing is is my concern is the freeway and the people that exit out of the freeway and speed down on Nutwood and Yorba Linda. And I I I live around this area, so I'm not too far from it. And getting getting a council here here at the council chambers, I almost got run over because of how fast those cars are going. I I would I I guess I do see class five bike lanes in some parts of of the plan. There are some bike lanes already there.

Granted, it is on Cal State Fullerton's jurisdiction, so that's not necessarily our jurisdiction. But on the opposite end, where the Hope University is and where the the parking lots for Cal State Fullerton and also that, I guess, the southernmost point of Cal State Fullerton. There's a bike lane, then it goes under the bridge, and then it ends at Placentia City boundary. I I prefer that we discuss having, like, a more, like, classified bike lanes where it's fully separated from the road. Granted that it might be hard because of the land, you have to acquire certain land and all that stuff, but especially going under the freeway that needs to be there needs to be a protected bike lane on that whole entire road because of how fast these cars are going.

You can always lower the speed limit, but it's it's really hard to enforce in that area. So I I advocate that we have more of bike protected bike lane and a a classified bike lane on both sides of the road. And then if we can connect, obviously, Commonwealth bike lane to the rest of that bike lane. It it just makes comments. It's it's just common sense at right there. So, yeah, I just wanted to address the concerns of the speed and add five classified bike lane. Sorry. So thank you.

Thank you. And just as one point of clarification, by class five, do you mean class four completely off street?

See, I this is where I get confused with it. So I'll I'll just clarify having a barrier between the road and the bike lane. Understood. So whatever class that is, I thought it was class five. So if you can correct me on that. Thank you. No.

Appreciate it.

Thank you very much. Please.

I have lots of comments, lots of thoughts about this, but without a presentation, I'm not sure, you know, what's what's happening, and so I'll just not say anything.

Do we have any other public comments in chambers? Any, public comments on Zoom?

No hands raised.

Thank you. Alright. So if we have no more public comments, then I'll go ahead and close the, public comment section, and we'll go on to comments from committee members' questions. Any committee members have thoughts or ideas or questions?

I'm confused. Are we on agenda item? Is the presentation here? I have no comments at this time, but would be happy to hear from any from the public.

Okay. I, I have, lots of thoughts and comments. First of all, I'm really excited to see this. As I've mentioned before, this is my route when I bike to work. I take the entirety of of Nutwood from end to end, even past through Placentia, and I can attest that there is a distinct need for better bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure.

So I really appreciate this project. It entailed a large grant, some of which much of which was geared toward expanding the area under the 57 Freeway with retaining walls in order to accommodate the bike lane under it. So I think that this is extremely important. So the problems that I I I can envision this addressing are is the safety of a lot everybody going through this roadway, but especially the students going to the two different colleges on along here. They don't have great infrastructure to carry them through, and I often see people at the start of classes in the morning and in the afternoon riding their scooters and bikes on the sidewalk because they don't have a safe space to ride.

So I think that this is gonna be a really great project to help them get where they need to go. There are a few things that I would like to see. One, as always, is the perpendicular curb ramps, which I think if we're gonna be I don't know if this project entails the curbs, like, if it involves the curbs and sidewalks. But if it does, I think those perpendicular curb ramps are gonna be indispensable here because it is it is already and will be even more of a heavily trafficked pedestrian corridor. And having those perpendicular curb ramps is gonna be extremely helpful.

So, like, for example, anytime there's a crosswalk, like, at Commonwealth in Nutwood or at State College, just anywhere where we have crosswalks, I would really love to see perpendicular curb ramps for all the reasons, like, we've talked about at this committee before. I think not seizing that opportunity here at this big with this big project, this sort of big I almost, like, envision, like, a complete streets project. You know, that's the that's how great this is. Not missing or missing the opportunity to put perpendicular curb ramps, I think, would be a real oversight. As for some of the crossings, I'm I'm I'll say I'll just be honest.

I'm really disappointed not to see complete crossings at some of these intersections. So for example, at Folino, at State College oh, no. I'm sorry. Yeah. State College. I know this project ends at the east border of State College, but not having that south crossing, meaning, like, going between east and west on the south end of the State College And Nutwood Intersection. I think that's a huge oversight. I think that would be Titan Drive is another one. I think we absolutely do need, you know, complete crossings in all four directions there. I I don't I say not four way crossings because not all of those have four.

Some of them are bounded on the north end by, like, a sidewalk, but but some of the sides of those intersections are missing crosswalks. And I I can't really fathom why when there's a missing crosswalk and a pedestrian needs to cross from one side of the street to the other. Sometimes it does require them to take an extra to add an extra leg to their journey, you know, wait for a break in traffic. And and that's that seems like a small inconvenience, but it adds up over the course of an entire journey. And it also just introduces more conflict points that we could seek to avoid by just adding crosswalks.

Let's see. I'm also a little concerned about the lack of crossings from the bike lanes. So for example, if if a bicyclist were going, down one side of the street, how would they then cross to the other? This is gonna be an area and you already see it right now. Like, even as I came down Knutwood today to get to this meeting, at the peak of students, like, moving about in the area, you could see just such a huge number of students, going from one side of the street to the other because their classes are up on the north end, and then their residences are down on the south end of this project.

So the the lack of a way for bicyclists to safely cross the road, like, for example, to turn left or to turn right to get into these various zones of the university and residences, is really kinda concerning to me. I think we should have more I'm not sure how to make that happen, but more leeway. Maybe it would entail bike boxes perhaps at some of the intersections to enable bicyclists to more safely merge into travel lanes and then make their turns to go into the university or elsewhere. But I would I think that's absolutely, nonnegotiable in this. And, let's see.

There was one other thing. And then and that still stands also at some of these, other ones. I had a question about those turns, but I will ask that in a moment. I wanted to mention, as part of the Safe Streets for All advisory group, at our last meeting, the Nutwood Corridor did come up, and, the adviser, the consultant for this if you're not aware, this is a project going on in the city right now where a consultant's been hired to make recommendations using, among other things, community input to make recommendations on how to improve our street safety. And as one of the periodic meetings, the Safe Streets for All Advisory Group, the consultant mentioned that at the intersection of Commonwealth and Nutwood, which is a really tricky one.

It's a really the this is where the pedestrian bridge is supposed to go. It's a really tricky intersection to try to fix specifically for bicyclists going straight forward northward onto the northward onto the campus. The consultants proposed a bike box at that intersection, which I thought I personally thought was an ingenious solution. I know that's outside of the scope of this project, but I just wanted to tie that in because having that sort of holistic understanding of all these different moving parts can be helpful. So so that is that that bike box solved a problem, a pervasive problem at that intersection, and I thought it was a great idea that perhaps we could deploy to other sections of this project to solve some of the issues of connectivity.

And I know I'm kinda common during the time, but my last item was a question for you, Michael, about some of these, like, the ends and beginnings of this street. So for example, how could we improve this the turning safety and reduce conflicts at some of the ends? For example, Nutwood and Placentia, as a bicyclist is going eastward, let's say they wanna turn left onto Placentia. Currently, there's a lane that a straight turning lane. It guides the bicyclists into a straight turning dedicated bike lane, between the car turn lanes.

And if a bicyclist wanted to turn left or wanted to turn right, could they safely do that? If they wanted to turn right, how could they avoid conflict with a car? Is this also an area where perhaps a bike box could be deployed to facilitate that movement? And a similar question I had a similar question at the West End for state college for west moving bicyclists. And those are my comments so far.

So we can look into if there so this is the 30% plan. We sent this back in June when we got it. We've been moving forward. I believe there are bike boxes proposed on later revisions. We had sent these plans for you to review and send comments back, so we haven't received any comments at this point. So I'm writing down everything you're saying to see if these are things we can incorporate into the later versions.

Thank you very much for that.

Madam chair Please. You had a question about the State College Nutwood Crossing. It's not clear here, but, evidently, there is no crosswalk, no marked crosswalk on the south side of that intersection. Is that correct?

Yeah. That that's what I was referring to.

And there isn't now and there isn't in this proposal. Correct?

That's correct.

Okay. Now a bicycle is a vehicle, so any vehicle can cross there whether or not there's a crosswalk. Is that marked right now when you're a pedestrian? Is there a sign that says don't cross here, cross on the other side?

There should be signage posted saying do not cross there. However, there's no jaywalking laws. So if people choose to, they're not gonna get a ticket. But, there should be signs. I always wondered

the status of those signs because, illegally, the sidewalk does continue crossing any any intersection. I didn't know if those side signs were advisory or if they hailed a force of law, but now there are no jaywalking laws. A person can cross there.

So if if they were to cause an accident, they could be cited for it, but there should be posted on usually the traffic signal pull, those regulatory signs saying cross the other way. Do not go straight across.

No. I I don't I don't agree with that either. And I I agree with what the chair is saying because there is a a major bus stop there southbound on State College too. And if anyone is crossing there, then I don't know if they're gonna be deterred by a sign. We might have a as well have a crosswalk because the jaywalking laws being what they are nonexistent.

That person does have the legal right to cross there. And if they're gonna cross there anyway, then we might as well have a crosswalk there. A bicyclist presumably would not be deterred if a bicyclist is coming out of Nutwood going eastbound across State College. So they're they're not gonna go all the way around. A bicycle is, at this point, is a vehicle rather than a pedestrian.

But it seems that there is some incongruity there, and we might as well have a sidewalk or at least take away the signs that say you can't cross here because a pedestrian can cross regardless of us of there being a crosswalk. So I I think that does need to be addressed as well and be would be happy to have further discussion on that. Thank you.

Thank you so much. I totally agree. I think that that that's that's super important is to have that crosswalk on that southern end of that intersection, and then all the other areas where we have crosswalks on a few sides of the intersection and but not others. At the 57, I know that's really under Caltrans right of way. That's not under the city's right of way, but there is the need for a crossing there as well. And, specifically, I'm talking about the is it southbound? Yeah. Southbound Nutwood where it intersects South excuse me. Pardon me. Southbound 57 where it intersects with Nutwood.

There's a lot of businesses down there where the students often go, like restaurants and coffee shops. There's, like, a a complex. And I think oftentimes the students are gonna be crossing from the school excuse me, from the university down south into that area with the restaurants, and having a crossing there would be critical. Over there on the West Side, the the next closest crossing is on the West Side Of Folino. And currently, on the East Side Of Folino, there's no crossing allocated.

And so the students would have to go all the way there to cross and then to go all the way back. Now just to clarify, jaywalking is not legal in the state of California. It's simply been decriminalized. So there's nuances to that. But I think

Decriminalization and legalization. I always figured they were the same thing, but I could be wrong there. Do you have a different interpretation?

I I do. And I won't presume to understand the law fully as somebody who's not not remotely a lawyer, but I just know there's a

different decriminalized, then it's no longer illegal. I guess there's there's a point of

I think there's, like, nuance. Like, you can still get cited for things if you kinda do it. Like, for example, you can't just cross. You still have to do it in a at a time when there's when it's safe.

Right. Right.

Yeah. And so you could still be cited for negligence is my understanding. So it doesn't fully but but at any rate, since we know that this is an area of a lot of crossing for students, provisioning for safety would be really nice because we know that they they're going to and they need to cross anyway, and I would like to see crosswalks that help them preserve their safety. Bus shelters was another thing I noticed. I can't recall where the bus shelter is here.

It's on there's one on the North side of of Nutwood, meaning the the westbound side. And I wanna say it's near Folino, but I'm not totally sure. Do you know pardon me. It's in front of Commonwealth. Thank you.

And especially, like, now, you know oh, yes. I can see that bus turn out. You know, right now, like, as I was coming over here around 05:00 when it's a time like, a heavy traffic heavily trafficked time for for people there in the campus, the bus shelter is completely overwhelmed with people. Like, there's three seats for, like, 30 people, and it would I'm sure it would be even more challenging during the hot sun or rain. And so I was I know that bus shelters are kind of a tricky subject because of our vendor contracts and and such, but if we're gonna be doing this, I we might as well go big or go home.

And I was wondering if there was a possibility of provisioning for additional bus shelters at the bus stops here seeing as how they're so heavily used by Cal State students.

Well, if you see on the plan, we have proposed bus shelters. Right here. It's going to be moved further down, and we're also making this, the bus turnout and bus layover area bigger to hold a few buses.

Perfect. Thank you. Is there gonna be, like, additional seating beyond what currently exists?

We haven't finalized the design, but I imagine we're gonna have more than what's there now.

Awesome. Is there also a bus a bus stop on the southern side or, like, the eastbound side of Knutwood as well? Does anybody recall if there's an OCTA stop along there?

Yeah. It's in

Hope front College? No.

Is it?

Okay. Got it. The right in front of okay. Yeah. Right in front of the wings of hope. Yeah. And that I know that that's probably gonna be challenging because of the space allocation, but I wonder if there's a way to put a bus shelter or at least a shade. I've seen some kind of cool designs for at least shade, if not seating, because I know that sidewalk may not be wide enough to accommodate seating. But I've seen some cool designs for shade where it's kinda like the stem goes up and it's a very small footprint stem. And then it then extends into a shade that then gives, like, overhang.

But it doesn't have a large footprint on the sidewalk itself. Has a very small footprint on the ground while still affording that shade. And I wonder if that's something that could help us accommodate shade for bus bus stop users despite our space restrictions.

That's outside of the scope of this project. We would just be doing the bus shelter near the campus. Anything outside we're in the process of I don't know. I know we released the RFP. I don't know if anybody's applied yet. So whoever gets the contract would be providing bus shelters, things like that.

Okay. Is that something that perhaps could be added to that consideration, like, or to that list of of wants is a bus shelter in that area?

So when we hire whoever takes over, that could be we could tell them we'd like a bus shelter there.

Oh, that would be great.

Thank Excuse me. The bus shelters go through this committee or they go through the Transportation Circulation Commission or direct to the council or what's the filtering process there? I know when I was on TCC we discussed them quite a bit, but Well I'm not sure.

Depends on who's who's going to be so once it's awarded, I guess it would get discussed at TCC.

Okay. Good. Good.

But then it would just probably be a recommendation to send to the bus company because it wouldn't be any cost Bus to the city company. The bus shelter company. They would So I don't know if it needs to go to council at any point.

Yeah. I I think there needs to be discussion. I I'm still trying to get an answer about that bus shelter across the street here on Commonwealth in front of the church, which used to be the Billy Barty Center, and then it was the Safeway before that. But you know what I'm talking about? Because I was told that the church had taken down the shelter because they were concerned about the homeless, and then church indicated that they hadn't.

And I I noticed there are there bus shelters throughout the city where the the shelter has actually been removed and people are exposed to the elements. So I think that bus riders do definitely deserve the convenience, especially if the bus shelter company is going to pay for the actual overhead shelter through advertising. So I look forward to a a process there by which, hopefully, these shelters will be taken a look at and that I'm presumably will go to the TCC. Is there one citywide contract or is there one just for the benches and then one that that actually merits shelters? Because I know the benches themselves usually have realtor pictures and phone numbers on it.

Is that the same company or is that is that different?

So there's three right now. There's the city owned benches that don't have any advertisements.

Right.

Then there's the one of them is Clear Channel. And one of them is another company. And so the ones that are with the other company have the realtor ads and everything else. And they don't have elders? And some of them do, some of them do not. But the intention is with this RFP to combine everything under one. Okay. So it'd be one company not dealing with three different entities.

Right. Well, know in some cities, specifically Brea and Placentia, they don't allow they hadn't allowed advertising, so they don't get a shelter. Brea has more money and they will build city built shelters, they'll have artsy stuff in there, so there's no advertising. And Placentia, they're they're sitting on the curb still. There's a there's a bus stop near Eldorado High School where there's absolutely no improvements at all.

And I think if we're gonna have improvements and we don't wanna pay for it, then the advertising is perfectly legitimate. In fact, the ads themselves become part of the the lit urban scape at night, and I don't think anyone has any particular objection to them. So I'm glad that's going forward because if a person's waiting for a bus, you know, with the buses the way they are every twenty minutes, forty minutes, wherever, it is nice to have a shelter there. And then they can be designed so people don't sleep under them. I know with armrests and things. So that won't be coming to this committee, but it will go to the TCC. Right? Okay. Great. And that'll be a few more months or next year or what?

I'll find out where we are on the awarding. I I haven't heard anything. I know they released it, I believe, July or August, so I imagine it's gonna be still open for a little bit. Okay. Great. Thank you.

As for the fifties, the part the portion of this that goes under the 57, I also just wanted to put in a small request for lighting. That, I think, would be really critical. When you go under there on a bike as it currently stands, you're basically invisible even in broad daylight because of the shadow from the freeway, and it can be really hard for cars to see you. So I think just having lighting would be helpful.

We we actually reached out to Caltrans. We didn't know who the person was that was in charge of lighting because there's a lot of bridges

Uh-huh.

Where the lights are out. Yeah. And they've been out for a long time. We now have that contact and we told them a few locations where the lights need to be working under the bridge, so they're aware of it.

Thank you. That's awesome. Yeah. That would be absolutely wonderful. The final I sorry.

I didn't mention this in my earlier comments, but the final image on the last page, they're at Folino and Nutwood. I just wanted to take the opportunity to highlight, the sort of problem that this picture demonstrates, which is when there are diagonal curb cuts, you can see how difficult it makes it for pedestrians and bicyclists to try to navigate through the intersection as they go straight through or make turns. Even here with dedicated infrastructure, if you are on a bicycle, you could imagine if you're going westward from the right side of this photo and then coming up onto that curb cut and then down onto the street to cross, you can imagine you have a very narrow gap that you have to position yourself into in order to dip down onto the street. You can't just jump the curb. You have to go right into that little narrow curb cut, which means basically making a u-turn to get down two u turns to get down into the street.

And so perpendicular curb cut, I think, would solve that problem, and it's especially critical for people who are using wheelchairs or walkers or strollers and such. And so this kind of well encapsulates that problem that I would like to see fixed with perpendicular curb cuts. I think those are all of my requests for now. Do any of my other fellow committee members have other ideas or thoughts or questions? For our city staff, were there any specific questions that you had or ambiguities or anything that needed to be addressed by our committee?

None at this time. That's why we had sent the plans in hopes that we would receive comments back. I've taken notes. I'll also be able to send out we have a meeting with Cal State Fullerton this week. And once we have that, we'll know what direction we can move forward. Also, it has to agree with the fire department, Caltrans, Cal State Fullerton. Once we have that Uh-huh. We'll know where we can make adjustments, then we could send you revised plans. And you can see a lot of things that you had brought up

Awesome.

Have been addressed.

Thank you so much. It's the it's hard for me to distinguish on the on the map, but the most of the bike lane is gonna be a class two. It's gonna be on street.

So from the east side towards once we get to the freeway, but then it's gonna change over where it'll be off the street. And then it'll eventually go through the campus where it'll be completely off the road.

Okay. And that's for both the east and westbound directions of bicycles Yes. Traffic. Awesome. Is there is is there gonna be I'm guessing it's just gonna be paint to distinguish the bike lane from the sidewalk.

Yes. It'll be identifiable. We're working with State Fullerton on colors, themes, it matches the campus and it won't stick out.

Okay. As long as there's something that's so that pedestrians don't, like, you know, do what pedestrians do, and everybody's happy. And is is I'm guessing that there's gonna be, like, at least the width of a curb separating the bike lane the edge of the bike lane from the road. It's like the bike lane is probably gonna go right up to the curb, but there's gonna be, like, maybe like a little bit it's not gonna be like bike lane and then floor and then road. It's gonna be like bike lane and then maybe a small little curb and then road.

So on the road?

Like for the class four portions, how far what how far is the very edge of the bike lane gonna be from the from the road itself? Like, at least a few inches separated from from the edge of the

Let me

see if show you the cross section.

So here's your class four bike lane.

That answers my question. Thank you. So that's a nice generous you've got a little bit of leeway, basically, when you're on your bike before you in case you fall or something. Awesome. Alright. And I think that that that's about it from me. Any any other final thoughts, ideas, questions?

I just wanted to say that I'm very grateful for the plans of how it's heading. I just think it's really important, like, noted that certain places where pedestrians are crossing the most are highlighted, like mentioned, and that's the main thing that I could ask for is my main concern is having that visibility on the streets where pedestrians are most likely to get hit by a car. But we see that, so I'm very grateful for that. And I'm excited for future revisions and the future implementation of safer streets in Fullerton.

Thank you. Alright. So if there's no other comments, questions, then we'll go on to the second item in our agenda, which is the bicycle master plan project prioritization. Do we have a presentation for this? I was I was a little unclear on the purpose of of putting this on the agenda today. And so I was hoping perhaps our staff could tell us what what they need from us today.

So the bicycle master plan prioritization working group are the group as a whole had established the working group. So just as a reminder for those that may have, not been following or even for the new committee members, the ATC had selected kind of a working group, which was, chair Tapadea as well as, Andrew Golusha at the time who had put together a lot of work regarding our bicycle master plan and just looking at all of the deliverables and how do you reprioritize that based off of the information that, staff was able to provide as it is current. So what's the update on some of these projects? Is it gonna happen? Is it not because it conflicted with other projects?

So on and so forth. So they put forward, and you had discussed it at the probably two or three meetings ago regarding they provided a recommendation in terms of where they feel like this meets on a high, to low priority list. And then there was a lot of discussion about it, with the new committee in terms of how you all felt, whether there was consensus on it, etcetera. So it was a good great conversation. We took a lot of feedback from that.

And rather than us finalizing it at that moment, we put out a survey so that the committees had time to look at it because it's a pretty big document with a lot of information. And then to really just finalize your thoughts around it. I'm still waiting on a committee on the full committee to kind of put the survey together. Not that we need it, but it's just additional opportunity for the committee as a whole to look at it one more time. But certainly with the public meeting discussion, we have enough to kind of move forward and finalize that list.

So this is more of just a reminder and a public reminder just to fill out the survey if possible. If you could by, you know, let's say Monday, that would be great. And then we're we'll be able to kind of finalize and give you a report of what that looks like. And then that would, give us a road map for, you know, the foreseeable future to seeing how these projects can be integrated into some of our existing projects or at least in the next five to ten year pipeline. But it's been you know, at least this discussion to date has been really fruitful, and hopefully, committee feels that way as well from the past discussions.

But as staff, we feel like it it's very helpful that we're able to kinda move it forward and integrate it into our existing work. So that's it's just more of a reminder and to fill that out, let's say, by Monday, if that's agreeable to the committee, we'll we'll use that as a kind of a hard and fast deadline.

Perfect. Thank you. Before we go on to our committee discussion, I'll just ask if there are any public comments on this item, please.

Alright. Well, yes, there is. I I just wanted to mention the the bike lanes that are on the Do

mind stating your name and address for the record?

So well, I I prefer not the address part. Oh, okay. Just for safety. Yeah. But I'll I'll give you my District District 3. I'm Dominic Moonheart. So I I wanted to mention the Commonwealth area. That that that area is just horrible, especially towards State College. There's bike lanes that are not even visible. My tires have popped there several times.

When it comes to connecting Commonwealth to Fullerton College on Berkeley Avenue in Commonwealth, there is no traffic light. It's just a pedestrian crossing where you push a button and yellow lights blink. I I I would like to ask if the light that's on Belcom be moved to Berkeley or just add a light on Berkeley, especially when people are crossing to get on to Commonwealth. People just speed I mean, Commonwealth is so notorious for speeding. Pretty much all of District 3 is notorious for speeding.

And then on Pomona Avenue, from the train station to the to Commonwealth and then to Fuller and Union High and all of and, obviously, Fuller and College, that needs to there needs to be a better connection there. There is nothing right now. So if if we can look at that. And then I think it's a a Keisha Avenue where the that that's another street that's horrible, especially since it's next to an elementary school. That's dangerous, especially for our kids.

So that needs to be fixed from Anaheim City boundary to wherever that bike line ends up north. That that needs to be addressed. Honestly, frankly, that should have been addressed yesterday. I've bugged the mayor several times, and nothing gets done. So I I just thought that that road needs to be checked.

And then Lemon Street, I know Anaheim is already putting bike lanes on their side of on in their jurisdiction. Some of them start, and then some of them stop, and then some of them start again, and then some of them just stop out of nowhere. And then once you get into Fuller Inn, you can tell which side's Fuller Inn, what side's Anaheim. And then there's no bike lanes there. It's I can't even ride my bike on that road, on the sidewalk because it's super narrow, and then there's also those electricity poles and things of that nature.

So if we can look and see and have a study on bike lanes on Lemon Street to connect it with Anaheim bike lanes. And then I know my time is running up, so I'll just be quick with this one. Orangethrope from Harbor, if we can continue all the way to Anaheim City boundary. Thank you.

You you can finish. Thank you.

Okay. I will make just a couple of comments. I think in terms of setting priorities, there are two things. One, there's some low cost items. It wouldn't cost much. Could be done overnight, practically. I think in particular, like buffering on Bass And Cherry East Of Associated. I mean, that's it's a no brainer. It's been there for years. There's so little cost involved. The signage on the bicycle boulevard. I mean, that's, again, a very low cost item. Mean, who knows where this bicycle what this

I mean,

who even knows the bicycle boulevard except for those of us who know? Then there should be priorities between, high priority goals or or, you know, goals in terms of, distances and locations, high priority locations. Like, the university is a high priority location. Downtown is a high priority location. The Santa Ana River Trail is a high low high priority location.

And give priority to those trails, those routes that link those places, route from train station to the university. I mean, I've said this. This is not the first time I I've said this, but, you know, certain parts of that are there, but then there are gaps. You get to Acacia, and it's it's really not safe to take Acacia from the bike, boulevard up to, not not as far as Dorothy, but to the cut cut through streets, not wood and even. That that should be a major consideration in in setting priorities, how you develop safe routes between major destinations. Yeah. I'll let you go with that. Thank you.

Thank you. Do we have any other public comments in chambers? Please. Please. Please. Hello,

everyone. Adam Zabel, district, this one. I just wanna kinda go off of what the other folks have said. Lemon sounds good. Lemon bike lanes into Anaheim.

I'm not normal, and I made a map of most of the North Orange County, like, bike lanes and things and, like, proposed routes that I would like. And there's no routes that cross the 91 Freeway. For example, in Buena Park, they have, like, Western Street and Stanton Avenue that are both nonexit streets that go under the 91 Freeway. Whereas we have, like, Acacia and Gilbert, but neither of those cross downtown. And so Lemon Street could be a good alternative to Harbor because Harbor's a main thoroughfare, Lemon Street has actually less traffic. That's a good idea, I think. What else? Yeah. More protected bike lanes and more connections across the 91 Freeway was all I was gonna say. Thank you.

Thank you. Do we have any other comments in in chambers?

Yeah. I would like to ask for some clarification or maybe some input or because I love to hear everyone's comments from today, but do I would like clarification. There's a survey where the public can make these suggestions as well. Yes or no?

No.

It wasn't made public. It was for the committee alone. But all it is is just the questions that are in the headers of the PowerPoint. And it just says, like, rate this between priority. Because we use the public forum or the ATC meetings to gather that public feedback. You, of course, need to discuss it. Do you agree with it? How do you incorporate it? Staff gets the ability to say whether it's possible, whether it's not. So we reached out.

The comments today, certainly, we'll still include it and just see, yeah, if there are low hanging fruits to accomplish within the existing work, we'll certainly do it the best that we're able and coordinate with public works. But overall, you know, we we try to use this public forum to get that feedback. And then we'll incorporate it as, like, public comment. And then here's what committee has said. And then we accumulate the two to kinda come up with common ground.

Thank you

for that clarification.

Mhmm. May do we have any public comments on Zoom?

No hands raised.

Thank you. Alright. So we'll close public comments, and then we'll go to any additional committee discussions, questions. I I appreciate the public comments, and I I do agree that we need better connectivity. I would encourage everyone to look at the prioritization PowerPoint that is linked in the agenda.

This is something that Andrew Andrew Galucha, who was on this committee and I worked on for many, many, many hours. It's not it doesn't match the scope of, like, a complete overhaul of the bicycle master plan from 2012, which in case you are not aware, Vince, who's sitting right there, was part of its creation. So it's not it's not it's not quite enough to to rethink the entire bicycle master plan because that's quite an endeavor. But we did, you know, use that. We looked through all of what what happened was our staff created a list of all of the project items in the in the bicycle master plan.

And then we went through and we said, okay. What's what's not been done yet? What is still feasible? And then created this list out of that, which ones are high priority items and such and put some ideas in there as well. So I just wanna draw everyone's attention to that.

Some of these very good ideas have have also been echoed in the presentation. And I and I agree with, you know, the network connectivity and and all that, and those concepts have been echoed in this in this presentation. You know, the the need for connecting hubs, high traffic areas such as the university and downtown and the train station, which I agree do need a lot of that's one of the most common questions I get and one of the biggest barriers is how do I get from the train station to Cal State Fullerton. But that is a huge barrier to people. So creating that connectivity is super duper important.

I I just wanted to take this opportunity to also reiterate something that we brought forth in the making of this presentation and in our working alongside Michael, who's our traffic engineer, who is very gracious with his time, which is that some of these items were deemed unadvisable on the on the list of of opportunities. But I think there's as I had mentioned before, I think there's a lot of opportunity to maybe rethink some of those things that were considered unadvisable. I think they were marked unadvisable regarding the plans, like, proposed plans that were there on paper. But maybe if we think outside the box, there are ways to solve the problems of those areas that maybe would be advisable, that maybe are a different different solution to the problem. So I would just like to reiterate my request that we don't we don't throw away opportunities to improve just because they're labeled unadvisable.

Maybe there's a way that we could make those things work, but just with, like, a little bit different, of an approach. So that was that. Other than that, I guess that's all of my comments for for this item. I don't really have more because I already talked to your everybody's ears off at the time of my presentation, and so I won't belabor that. But a lot of work went into this presentation, a lot of thought, a lot of ideas in there.

And so I would encourage everyone to review that and and and then comment, you know, in response to that and bring your ideas because the more ideas, the better. And that's it. Any other comments, questions from the committee?

When people ask you how to get to from the train station to Cal State, what do you tell them?

I my my I know this is outside of the the scope of this agenda item, but I think this is fine real quick because I know that there's probably interest. I go up Pomona to the Bike Boulevard on Wilshire, and then I turn north through the strip mall onto Victoria. I cross Chapman at Victoria, and I go up Victoria. And then I take Victoria East onto Dorothy.

Okay.

And that's how get to New York City. So that's that's a good route.

That's the best con connectivity. Mhmm. Yeah. When people say, how do you get there? I mean, public streets are legal for all bicycles to ride on. Commonwealth would be one. Wilshire, I take Wilshire just because it's more interesting for bicyclists. It's a narrower street. And then cutting up through Victoria, it'd be the way to go, or you could go all the way up to Chapman and go that way. So I didn't know if if they were asking you for your advice as a bicyclist as the best way to go or were suggesting more improvements along the way. Both. But there are a lot of a lot of different routes that people have, and they experiment with them. Well, drivers do the same thing. So Yeah.

But that that experience certainly informed, for example, suggestion of, like, perhaps we need way finding signs on that route because of our experience with people asking us how to get from place to place, and way finding signs can help solve that problem.

People have well, they use their their phones now as navigators. Even pedestrians will do that. So I don't know if bicyclists do that as well. I presume they do. And it will show them, you know, how to get there.

But there there are a lot of different ways, and that's one good thing about Fullerton compared to, say, Irvine where everything is is channeled through these major major four lane, six lane highways. There are a lot of different ways you can cut across. I do that when I come from my house. Normally, I go down Harbor to Commonwealth, but I couldn't get over to the left hand turn signal. So I went to down down Richmond and Highland and cutting across cut through traffic is what residents call it when they don't like it, but they do it themselves.

And there are a lot of great cut through streets like Wilshire and Dorothy, Valencia, Mesa, and that's what makes cities interesting. There's a variety of ways from getting from place to place. I had a a comment on Cyclovia in LA, a report, but that does that come later on the agenda, madam chair? Do you

wanna hear

It perhaps

comments right now.

Pertaining to this agenda item? Perhaps we could put that in the staff report section of our of our meeting.

Mhmm.

Yeah. Excellent. Any other questions, comments? No. So Monday will be the deadline. So everyone please, fill out your survey responses, and you can utilize this presentation that's in the agenda to do so. Alright. So I'll go ahead and close this item. And now we move on to the committee member and staff communication and reports. Do any of our staff our city staff have reports or things to present?

Yes. Chair Tapadio. I have a couple updates. So we went over note with ATP, and we discussed that we are moving forward. We have a meeting with Cal State Fullerton and Caltrans this week, and we'll be able to send over some updated plans as soon as we get that. And we would like everybody's input here, and then we can incorporate those comments. So the Nutwood Avenue Bridge, which is Cal State Fullerton's project, they actually redesigned the intersection for us and we're good with those plans. We signed off on them, so that will be getting upgrades. Sounds like they got funding, at least half the funding for the bridge. So that's moving forward.

We have an agreement with them that went to council already.

Now we had a bridge there for years, didn't we? And I it's been gone now, what, ten, twenty years? A pedestrian bridge. I'm not sure you're familiar with the history of that. I I I I may be the only one that can remember it. Vince, you remember it, that pedestrian bridge, and it was removed. And I'm not sure if that was a city bridge or a Hope Bridge or a Cal State Bridge. I don't know if anyone here has an institutional memory of it, but it was there for a reason. And it was taken down for a reason, and now I'm sure it's it's coming back for a reason. Are you familiar at all with the old bridge?

I went to Troy from '94 to '98, and I I don't remember a bridge there, but it's possible maybe it was there before.

Okay. Yeah. It went directly from Hope. I think it connected one of the upper levels of that campus there, And there was a stairway on the other side, so so good good it's coming back.

Also, the SS foray, which was mentioned earlier. So we're gonna have a, we'll call it a pop up tent at the Farmers Market, which is on the twenty fifth of this month. So feel free to come by, and we'd like to just show everybody the action plans that we're putting together. So once we have that, we're gonna have one more meeting and then we'll put together we're gonna have the consultant put together 30% plans, and then we'll apply for funding to do implementation of those plans. And these are citywide, so it's just input that we received from everybody that showed up to the meeting, emailed, called, sending letters.

We're also working with OCTA for Next Step and this is essentially a Safe Routes school for schools, so we're working with Ornithorpe and Commonwealth Elementary Schools and they're gonna do a high level look on what's around the schools and how to make it safer. Those two schools were highly suggested, so we're working with them.

May I ask, are there any dates for public involvement that have been set yet for those school projects?

So these are not open well, I guess, I suppose the public could show up, but it's mostly just OCTA staff in the school. The parents that are there are usually involved, but we've never had anybody from outside come and join them. But I suppose if you wanted to you could join it. I can

This is an evening meeting, PTA

or No. Is in the daytime. And it's usually we're just walking around collecting information and then the consultant puts together plans. It's not really it doesn't need to have public there. They're gonna just look at what needs to be updated and put plans together and then go after funding. But you're welcome to come over and see what we're doing.

Do you have dates and times for those?

Yes. I can send that over.

Okay. Thank you. Any other, staff, reports? Or

And then there's also the Harbor Boulevard Complete Streets. We're in the process of awarding that contract to one of the consultants. We're negotiating the price right now. Their price was very high.

Mhmm.

And we're coming down on that because we still need to have a lot of money. We're gonna be redoing a lot on Harbor including repaving it. So we need to have a lot of funds available. I I heard something that we were awarded is a safety improvement for Euclid, so we'll be repaving from Valencia to the 91, as well as Yerba Linda Boulevard. I don't know the limits of that one, but I believe these were h sip grants.

And then the Union Pacific Trail, projects, that's in the park where we're gonna add crosswalks and beacons and let everybody know, and that will also have a bike path and lighting. And Lemon Valencia, the traffic signal.

The

status of the bike path beyond the park that goes to the swim center. There's a right of way there. I don't believe it's improved. This is just The going Union Pacific.

This is going to go from

It crosses Highland and

then Crosses Highland but it stops at Highland. So I believe we're going Highland. We are doing a crossing at Richmond and then in the parking lot itself.

Okay. Now the status of beyond Richmond, West Of Richmond, there's a there's a right of way, right? A dirt right of way where the tracks used to be years ago. And is that planned for a a bike route or a

So

rec trailer?

I actually have the plans. Oh, good.

I mean, you can use it now as a jogging path and a bike path too, although the surface is a little rough.

So from from Highland all the way into the parking lot going west, we're creating a bike trail Uh-huh. And walking. But we're not doing anything East Of Highland.

Okay. Well, East Of Highland, it crosses Harbor. Right? There's a dedicated bridge there. I'm talking about west going toward the swim center from Highland and Richmond.

This is the Union Pacific Park, so that's where the

I'm talking about the the trail itself.

Yeah. This is going into it's staying in there and then it goes into the parking lot. And we're crossing at Richmond, and then it ends in the parking lot. And that's where it'll it'll have crossings. I can I can show you the plans?

Okay. But there is there is a right of way, an existing right of way where the tracks used to be that crosses Richmond, and it goes west from there. I'm not sure where it ends, but it heads eventually, that rail line merged with the Santa Fe and went over. So that right of way exists, and you know what I'm talking about. It's a dirty area. It's behind some industrial buildings on both both sides of Richmond extending east and west. But I don't know if there are plans to improve that or to put gravel there

or pavement. Is the Union Pacific Trail

you're Right. Right. That is. Right.

That that is that is a hard fought

project. But it is not a an improved trail currently?

Not a no. No. No. It's this was at the at the I don't wanna go too much into it because we're not on agenda right now. But this was a huge project and it is finally going to be turned into a trail and the community fought very hard to make that happen. It's a half mile trail right now. It's dirt now. It's in It

goes from Independence Park to Highland Avenue. It's going to be improved. It's going to be a trail. So I have the actual plan, the final plan.

Oh, great.

I can share them with you.

Okay. Great.

And then Lemon Valencia, the traffic signal modification was finished in time for Maple Elementary School opening on August 11. Awesome. And we added APS, so for the crosswalks, video detection, which included bicycle detection, as well as flashing yellow arrow. And we have not heard we haven't received any negative feedback. So everybody's been happy with how it's been operating. And we're also currently in construction Euclid and Rosecrans traffic signal modification, which will also have APS upgrades as well as video detection for bicycles.

Thank you very much.

And that's all the updates I have.

Thank you. I appreciate the updates very much. What is APS?

APS is accessible pedestrian system. So when you push the button and it says wait or you can cross, it's for people with visual disabilities.

Got it. Thank you very much. Any other items? Yeah.

Committee, you will be here seeing an item for next, next meeting. It's the ebike ordinance. So, we do request that you provide your availability to Janet so that we can ensure that there is quorum. But the the intent of it is to create sort of objective standards, types that we would allow here in the city. So the chair had brought this to our attention, and we did agree that it it could come before the ATC for review. So that will be on the agenda for next month, before it goes to council. So we just request that you provide your availability so that we can plan for it accordingly.

Thank you. Mhmm. Any other about the straight safe streets for all, I I do encourage everyone to attend that and give their input. This I believe that this is the last this is the second to last opportunity for community input for this project, I believe. The 09/25/2001, the booth at the farmer's market is gonna be four to 08:30PM, and there's also gonna be a community meeting.

I haven't confirmed the time. I wanna say it's gonna be at the October, six to 08:30PM, and it's usually at an elementary school. I'm not sure exactly of the specific date and time yet, but please stay tuned on the city website because I'm sure they'll announce it there. And at those community meetings, the consultants give everybody an opportunity to, like, mark up maps and make suggestions. And last time, anyway, throughout the process, they've gotten a lot of good feedback from residents, and I think that community feedback is super important to this project.

So please try to attend the ebike. You beat me to it. And I and oh, and we are also going to have a walk audit. Councilman Zara is hosting a walk audit to look at the area around Ladera Vista Junior High, and I'm going to help coordinate that. It is the the date is to be determined, but it will be early in the morning sometime in the middle of the week in October or November.

And everybody is certainly welcome. If you have ideas on safety, particularly school safety, please consider attending to help make our streets safer for everybody. And I think that's it. Any other items? Okay. Very good. In that case, I'll go ahead and close this meeting of the act oh.

Oh, I I had a comment. I went up to LA and joined the Ciclavie as I do with a a friend of mine every two months where they close off a street. Mhmm. And I would urge everyone to participate in that if you can. It's it's a wonderful event. Now Fullerton, I believe, has something similar to this, and correct me on this. Those of you familiar with it, I think on the July 4, Wilshire is blocked off. Right? And people ride from Euclid all the way to State College. Are you familiar with that, Vince? Or is anybody here familiar with that? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Because I know I tried to cross Wilshire a couple of times last fourth, and there are all these bicyclists. It was great. The street is actually blocked off. So which is our mini cyclavia?

We we blocked it from Roosevelt and then it went across Lemmon and I forget what was the last street, then they had to turn around and come back and they ended up back in the downtown area.

Okay. So it probably goes to Raymond then or Acacia? Or

what? Cornell.

Cornell. Alright. That's right.

That's right. The street is actually blocked off.

The street is blocked off and we had police out there helping guide everybody through, so they actually stopped traffic on Lemmon

Oh, okay.

To let the bicycles go through.

This is will be a tradition every July 4, is it?

There's a bicycle group that it just it was too many people for the one person to handle, so he reached out to the city and the city decided to partner up with him.

Okay. Now by the city, that that's you? Oh, okay.

City of Fullerton decided to help help get the but next year, if they wanna do it again, then well, no. But it's not a city event per se.

Well, it is if we're blocking streets off.

Right? Or we're we're helping, but we're not the one organizing Well,

yeah. Maybe if if they wanna do it again, it's it's it's I think it's a good event. Maybe could agendize it and have it done before us because certainly we we would wanna know about it and give them any advice or encouragement. Who who are what is this group? What are they called or who's the person involved?

I I don't remember. I don't remember

his name.

Okay. They have something They've been doing it for

me with with bicycles and tricycles, but I I don't think we closed the street up there in the up the Rolling Hills area. And have they done this periodically and then it just got so big we decided to help them close the streets?

Yes. I believe this was the fourteenth year. Oh. And it's just been growing, I think there were at least a 2,000.

That's a lot of people. That's a lot. Yeah. Well, if they'd like come and give us a report, I I think we ought to know about it. This committee ought to know about it. And, encourage them or facilitate it because it's and it's every July 4. Right? Yes. Okay. And it's, like, ten at ten ish, eleven ish in the morning?

Starts at 10:30.

Oh, okay. Good. Well, I'd like to hear about it. I wanna participate. When I saw them, I was, yeah, I'll get my bike and join them. But I wasn't sure if this was an all day thing or I was at it was a caravan that that went up and back, and then it lasts, what, about an hour or so?

Give or take.

It's about an hour. So this year was the twelfth annual

Does it have a name?

They just call it the the Fuller Fourth of July celebration. They call it the Fourth of July bike parade.

Oh, well, that's a good name.

I I would suggest

perhaps Have you been a part of it, or have you know about it?

I've certainly ridden in it. Yes. Oh,

you have? Oh, great. Okay.

I I would suggest perhaps we could if if there's there's interest from the committee, could make this an agenda item

Yeah. Right.

Discuss the detail more thoroughly

Because it's

opposed to the staff report.

Uh-huh. Yeah. The person is Tim Johnson. So he started it and then it kinda grew to where it's at now. I know a year ago they had a fire engine kinda marking the start. They were holding a flag and that was the start. But this year we actually helped close off the streets to

Oh, good.

Get cars out.

Yeah. I I don't I don't think I know Tim, but if you wanna contact him, see if he'd like to make a report here and put it on your future agenda, it'd be great with the chair's permission, of course.

Thank you.

I'm I'm sure he would like to. Oh, good. Good.

Alright. So I'll go ahead and close this meeting of the active transportation committee. Our next meeting is gonna be Wednesday, October 15 at 05:30PM right here. Thank you.