Planning & Transportation Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening everyone. I call to order this September 10th, 2025 regular meeting of the planning and transportation commission. Mr. Tetra, would you call the role please? Uh, Chair Aken here. Vice Chair Chang here. Commissioner Hecman, Commissioner James here. Commissioner G here. Commissioner Peterson here. Commissioner Templeton here. We have quorum. Thank you. Do we have any public comments for items that are not on the agenda? So, the chair, uh, I've received no, uh, request to speak online and no public comment cards at this moment and no one on Zoom.

Correct. Very good. Assistant Director Armor, do we have any agenda changes, additions, or deletions? We do not. All right. Then it is time for city official reports. So, Miss Armor, would you lead off?

Yes. Thank you. And good evening. We will quickly run through the director's report. Next slide. Uh, your upcoming meetings are going to be on September 24th and October 8th. On September 24th, we will be returning to you with a revised version of the project at 4075 El Camino Way based on direction from council. And we will be returning to you with the Crescent Park traffic calming project that was previously continued. On October 8th, we will be returning to you with a revised application for 660 University Avenue in response to previous comments and a zoning a new zoning code amendment request. This has to do with the shrink wrap rule that I think some of you may have heard about, but you will hear more about it uh at that meeting. And next slide. A few upcoming meetings of city council with relevant items. Some of these uh have been mentioned in the director's report before because there have been some shifting items moved to later meetings. So at this time on September 15th, we expect to have the 400 Mitchell Lane CUP listed on the consent calendar for council consideration and the PHC presing for proposal at 414 California Avenue. And then on September 29th, we have the work plans for PTC, ARB, and HRB, as well as on that consent same consent calendar, the rental registry one-year report, year one report, and the 70 NCAA tenity tenative map. So, none of those will be discussion items, just interesting information for your review if interested. And that concludes the director's report. We also have our

transportation uh man director here. Transportation official, right? Chief transportation official. I'm going to May I just say co?

Um so we have a number of updates. Uh South PaloAlto bicycle and pedestrian connectivity project. We had a community meeting for that uh last night, the 9th of September, and got a lot of feedback. At the moment there's eight alternatives which we're hoping to narrow down to one or two. Uh Crescent Park traffic coming will come back to PTC on the 24th of September. Uh the great separation projects for Church Hill, Charleston and Meadow. Uh we have community meetings for that on or community meetings on the 30th of September. Um, one is at 4 p.m. and then one is at 6 p.m. And then the bicycle and pedestrian transportation plan update will come to PTC on November 12th and go to council on uh the 1st of December and Quarry Road extension. There's a anou with Stanford that's going to be going to council at the end of the month on the 29th of September.

Thank you. Commissioners, do we have any questions for either Miss Armor or Miss Low? It appears that we do not. Thank you very much. All right, I believe we are ready for item number two, the Urban Land Institute initiative for the transit center. And do we have a presentation?

Good evening, Chair Aken and members of the planning transportation commission. Uh my name is Chantel Cotton Gaines. I'm the deputy city manager here with the city of PaloAlto. Thank you for having me today. The project that I'm briefly very briefly going over with your commission today is related to the PaloAlto Transit Center. So a little bit of background there. The um city council is working with the valley transportation authority as well as Stanford for thinking about the transit center, the future of it, how we can reactivate the space both short-term and long-term. There's an ad hoc that meets about once a quarter. Uh they had their most recent meeting a few weeks ago. uh and that group has decided that we'll be working with the urban land institute to help us in thinking about some of the longer term um how we activate that space, what the space looks like long term. So it's an exciting effort. We're able to work with the urban land institute who has done similar projects nationally. They bring professionals from all over the country to PaloAlto. We provide them with a lot of local information, probably more than one of us could read in one sitting. So, I hope that they will spend a lot of time going through that. Um, but they will be here for an entire week with us in Palo Alto. So, they're coming on October 19th and throughout the course of that week. On Monday, it's sort of just taking a tour of our transit center, getting able to see it themselves. On that Tuesday, there will be a lot of stakeholder interviews that they're doing throughout the day and their group interviews, sort of more think like a focus group workshop. and that will be with up to about a hundred stakeholders in PaloAlto. So we are looking at members of the planning transportation commission. Obviously you have a subject matter that really overlaps with this area in the city. We're also having representatives from a a few other city boards and commissions as well and members of the city council, some city staff, Stanford advocates, a lot of

other people that uh we're recommending to ULI to reach out to to participate in the focus groups. So on that Tuesday, October 21st, they will be doing a series of those focus groups. And as you choose your representative, I'll be able to provide more information as we get closer to the date in terms of times, etc. And then they go back, the urban land institute folks go back on that Wednesday and Thursday and are working through all the information they've received through those interviews as well as the briefing book and their tour. And that Friday, October 24th, I believe, if I'm counting the dates correctly, they'll make a presentation right here in this room of their findings and recommendations for us as a city. So, it's a really exciting opportunity bringing the partners together for this really important uh area of our community. So, my ask of you this evening is two things. One, that you uh can let me know sort of how you want to choose a representative of the PTC andor choose uh this evening. I leave that to you, Chair Aken, to let us know the process there. And then also I included the questions that ULI will be posing to participants in those focus groups is on the second page of the staff report. If you'd like to talk through any of those, I can provide as much as I can. Miss Low as well has been pretty active in this project. And so really just thinking through things you want your representatives to really carry into that space. Obviously, they can speak as an individual or individuals as well, but we really want to make sure if they're saying that this is information from the PTC that it's actually reflecting your actual commission. So, that is it for an overview and I can take any questions.

Clarifying questions from anyone. One for me just to make sure that we're uh on the same page. So, uh, my understanding was that we should discuss these questions tonight so that we have the, uh, the PTC senses captured in the public hearing. That works for me. Okay. You don't have to go deep into them, but yes. Right. Just guidance.

All right. Then, um, do we have any public comments on this item? to the chair. I received no public comment cards or request to speak on Zoom.

Thank you. Um All right. So, we have two choices before us. Um the first is to determine one or two commissioners who will represent us in these interviews. Um and we have quite a bit of freedom in how to do that. I would be happy simply to ask for volunteers and then appoint people if the commission is comfortable with that. If you are not comfortable with that then uh we will need to hold an election. So comments

I think that's fine unless there's overwhelming interest in this and then in which case maybe an election is the easiest way to or not the easiest but the most transparent way to do it the necessary way. Yeah. Commissioner or Dr. Peterson, I'd be happy to volunteer on this just because of the interaction in the integration of the different organizations is pretty interesting. Commissioner G,

I'd also like to volunteer myself. I have a background in a transportation planning and uh I think that would that's one of the reasons why I joined the PTC and so I think that would be relevant experience based on the discussion here. Very good. Any other comments, Vice Chair Chang?

I was just going to I I mean, I did speak to you briefly about this beforehand, but I thought that Chair Aken could be a very good representative because he's participating in the downtown um the downtown community advisory group and the I think that that interaction is actually really important. and he has perspective um from that as well as kind of like foot traffic background and retail background from serving on the retail committee. And I know that we're not talking necessarily about retail here, but I I thought that his experience actually would be really valuable. Commissioner,

one more thing. Sorry. Um, and that Commissioner G could be very helpful because he knows lots of people and I don't know who else here knows a lot of people who um, go up to San Francisco or use that train station. I think Forest uh, Commissioner Peterson may as well. Commissioner Templeton.

Um, I think it's really important for us to develop the newer commissioners and make sure they have leadership opportunities. um we did miss out when we chose the uh leadership of this body of inviting them in. So I'm really glad to hear that we have two people who are newer looking for leadership opportunities and we should support that.

And through the chair um I have gotten clarification that we could accept up to three participants if that was desired, but two would be plenty depending on the chair's preference. Yeah, my inclination is the two would be sufficient. Um, I will entertain other suggestions, but that's my inclination. All right, then. I have not heard a strong preference for an election. So, in the interests of uh time, uh perhaps I can simply appoint two representatives.

Sounds great. And um I think uh Commissioner Peterson and Commissioner G are both excellent choices here. Uh Commissioner Peterson because of his connections with two of the institutions that are involved here and uh his experience with uh transportation issues in general and Commissioner G because of his superb experience in transportation planning. Um, so my inclination would be to appoint the two of them as as representatives for the ULI interviews. So gentlemen, do you accept?

Accept. Accept. All right. So we have our representatives and now we can talk a bit about um the questions that have been asked and uh provide some guidance to our representatives. So, those of you who have questions uh or comments, please light up your lights.

Yeah, I just wanted to start off with a question. So, going through here, it talks a lot about the Palto Transit Center. I'm curious, are we talking about kind of the land itself as it is today, the potential lands around it? Like what is kind of the scope for the areas that we're talking about here?

Great, great question. Uh, it is the transit center itself sort of as an entryway both to Stanford and downtown, but not stretching to the downtown uses in terms of the different commercial and retail that's along University. So the map that we are sharing with the panel is dealing more with the strip of the actual station and then going towards the bus transit area behind that. Thinking a little bit of the MacArthur Park because that's right there but not coming into the downtown area if that helps. Thank you.

Commissioner Peterson. So, one of the questions I have is I saw the word uh gateway. And usually when people say gateway, they mean the train station, but Palo Alto is gifted with three train stations. We're the only one that has three. I know everyone thinks San Antonio is Mountain View, but we all know that's South Palto. At least that's how I get to South Palto. And so I want to just put out the the thought that if we thought about it as the gates of the gateway that Pow Alto has three gates in that gateway and that it is an expanded um concept of how does how does how do we encourage people to use public transportation through Palo Alto? And I did make the commute to San Francisco for two years uh from California Avenue. I've made that trip quite a few times.

Thank you. I respond to that. So I think that this analysis is specifically for the downtown mobility hub and transit hub, but we we note also that there are three gateways in terms of Cal Train. That's what I assume when I saw Stanford's name because I was like, "Oh, this is the station that goes to Stanford." Yeah. And if I can just add a small piece, part of it is because it's the second busiest station in the Cal Train Corridor, specifically this one downtown and then that gateway to both Stanford and downtown. Which one's the busiest one? Deeron or San Francisco? San Francisco. Yeah, we're still winning.

All right. If there are no other comments from the commissioners, I have a few. So, uh, if you do have observations you'd like to make, I'm happy to let you proceed. Commissioner James,

I just had a question about something, uh, discussion I had. It was was before my time here. I think at one point, sorry, I think at one point, um, there was some discussion about Stamford um, agreeing to build a mid-rise housing. uh complex there uh of some sort. I don't know I don't know the details on it. It was in casual conversation with one of the um city council members. Um and I'm just wondering if that is presumed to be dead or if that's something that that could figure into this. So, I don't know that I have all the history on that particular project, but if the commission did want to share through this effort interest in seeing some sort of housing at this site, I think that's fine for you to offer as an additional piece of information. I don't know what that will equate to at the end of the day, but I do think that this if it's an interest of this commission that it should be shared.

Commissioner James, do you have a followup? I I did and I'm sorry it was part of the same somewhat casual conversation so I'm I'm sorry to be referring to it so much but um is there also consideration long term for raising the tracks I believe there is right um or a study I should say um for that would that would uh impact at this stage there's no plan for for raising the tracks at Pelaras Avenue. Okay. Yeah. [Music] Oh, I'm sorry. Can you clarify? You mean that's because there are plans and they don't raise or because we haven't tackled that section yet?

Because there's that's not in conceptual planning steps. Right. So, I I think that's really important for us to know because yeah, saying that that we don't have plans is affirmative, but saying we haven't made any plans one way or the other is slightly different. Thank you, Vice Chair Chang. and Commissioner Peterson.

Uh so really quickly, one of the questions that's posed is successful models. Um and they the two that come to mind, I'm sure you're aware of them also are Redwood City and Mountain View just our neighbors. I think that for whatever reason sort of how the train station is laid out or visible or something, it's different and seems to like funnel people into downtown in a much different way from ours. And so, and both cities have done quite a lot of work around that. So, that's just a piece of feedback for you guys to take to them.

All right. Seeing no lights, I'll delve into my list. Oh, Commissioner.

Uh, so on the um I don't know if we're calling it the TR trench or the burm or or what ends up happening, but as soon as I heard the the concept that yeah, there is some discussion about uh a reprofile. I guess that's the technical term of the railroad alignment. Uh I did have the honor of being on the team that did the realignment of the other end of this railroad line where it crosses through Reno, Nevada for that three and a half mile stretch. We put it under the city of Reno. So I am familiar with a lot of the challenges. So, as soon as we brought that up, like, you know, it's some old memories, but it does change the way you think about things because we had to deal with challenges that have been made by the city of Reno before they realized they had the bonding to actually rep-profile the alignment and some of that was not very friendly to the the final design. So if there is any guidance like a preliminary plans that just says like we need this much width 60 feet I think is 60 foot by 30 foot is the number that reminds me of that of what we ended up with there and I think we needed 64 feet. So um that would be helpful or if not we can just you know build away. Well, gentlemen, I have u a dozen specifics or so here. So, rather than make you write them all down, I will send them to Miss Armor so that uh she can distribute them to you or to the commission as a whole. Uh starting with question number one. Um some comments on uh uses and features. Uh covered train waiting areas. Uh perhaps an arcade would be an architecturally appropriate um addition to the art deco. Um more physical access points for last mile

transportation of various types so that the connections are easier to make. Additional secure bike storage. Um, with regard to events, uh, there is possibly an opportunity for sports and entertainment events at El Camino Park, which could be tied into the transit center. Um, and related to that, uh, and Commissioner Peterson's earlier comments, coordinated events that cover wider areas, and I'm specifically thinking about downtown, um, things like the art fair, but, uh, that could also be extended to campus, the shopping center, um, and Calav station. So coordinated events for which the transit center is one node. Um finally uh a negative note I think it will be important to avoid competing with the downtown businesses. So what we elect to put there that's semi-permanent should be uh chosen with that in mind. Uh question number two, what could be done to make the transit center more accessible? All right, here's the big one. Uh, bike pedestrian access from Everett to quarry. So, this is essentially replicating what was done for the Homer tunnel, but um the passageway through from Everett to quarry. So that generates access from direct from uh downtown north and from people coming in from Menllo Park uh on either uh Middlefield or El Camino and Alma.

Um the goal there is to seek more capacity, more comfort, and um possibly more security than the university underpass. All right. Um, related to that, uh, friction-free access to the shopping center. Um, so that's a very open-ended suggestion, but one which in casual conversation I've heard come up a few times. All right. I have nothing really to offer on question three. On question four, I will revisit um the issue that Commissioner James brought up. What mix of uses would be most feasible? So, I don't know how feasible it is currently. Um but that immediate area has long been regarded as a target site for dense housing. Now, the ownership of the land uh complicates jurisdictional matters there. um but it should be brought up especially since Stanford is uh involved in this process and I have nothing to offer on question number five. So that's it for me. Do you have any further questions of us?

No, I just didn't want to interrupt. There was so much good thinking happening. Um, this is great. I I think this is definitely some guidance for your two representatives that will be participating and I think it covers the full scope of the work that your commission does. So, just as representative of our city manager's office here right now, I just want to again thank you for all the work that you do in general and for helping with this effort.

Thank you. We're encouraged by this and we certainly hope we get some good results. All right, commissioners. Anything further we'd like to add? All right, then that concludes this item. All right, now we'll move on to item number three, the uh San Antonio Road area plan, existing conditions, land use, and mobility priorities. Um, this item is listed as an action item, but at the premeating, we decided we could treat it a little bit more like a study session. So, we want to be sure to get everyone's thoughts in detail. Um, but we we don't really need a vote on a detailed motion. So, let's just concentrate on uh getting the information there. Miss Armor,

thank you. Um, I'd like to introduce the project planner for this effort, uh, Robert Kaine, and then he will introduce the consultants who are supporting us in this work.

Good evening, uh, Chair Aken, Vice Chair Chang, and commissioners. My name is Robert Kaine. I'm a senior planner on the long range planning team, and I am the project manager for the San Antonio Road area plan. Uh staff is really excited about this plan and the potential that it might have uh to help us reimagine land use and mobility in an important corridor in South PaloAlto. Um and we're really eager to get your thoughts and feedback uh that will help us as we develop the next phase of this project. Um and with that, I would like to turn it over to our partners from RA Associates who will be providing a presentation tonight.

Uh thank you commissioners. Thank you for giving us this opportunity to present some initial ideas and a summary of the existing conditions report. U Robert, will you be advancing the slides? Oh, sorry. Yeah, go ahead. So, um in terms of a brief agenda, I'll just give an overview of the project, where we are with some of our key findings and then what are upcoming steps in the process and um after a round of clarifying questions, we can go ahead to uh discussing some of the key questions. So that's I'll try and make it short because uh we've been told that you've you were given some advanced materials. We're very sure that you've been through all of them and I'm sure you have lots of questions. So we look forward to the discussion. So jumping straight in um just an overview of what the project is about. So what is an area plan? Um just to set everyone's expectations. An area plan is a comprehensive planning and zoning tool for a defined area within a community. So overall, it's at a finer level of detail than a comprehensive plan, but it has to be consistent with an adopted comprehensive plan for a community. It establishes the vision and the guiding principles for the area with very active and um hopefully comprehensive uh community input and it would provide guidance for future development by establishing land uses, implementation policies, priority projects as well as development standards. So uh with that in mind, the San Antonio uh road area plan will also be delivering some of these key uh components as part of the plan deliverables. It will provide a land use program which will be derived from land use and mobility alternatives. It will also provide development standards or recommendations that can be used to inform future zoning updates. the it'll include policies for all the various plan components such as mobility, sustainability, uh climate resilience, um land use, you know, all the good stuff as well as a recommended list of

public improvements and priority projects. Uh the implementation section will also include incentives, um you know, recommendations for zoning standard uh changes and updates as well as other strategies and uh incentives that can spur development. Next slide. So, um I'm not going to read out everything on this slide because it's similar to what you've read in the report already, but uh the current project is a city-led initiative to create a 20-year vision for this plan area. And uh again, community input is a very vital part of the project. And as you'll see soon in a slide that I'll show, uh this is a key component of every phase of the project. We want to get feedback and then proceed to the next phase and uh again get our work checked and vetted by the community. uh overall goals of the project so far are to create a more livable community. Now the word livable means different things for everyone but right now uh San Antonio Road is perceived more as a transportation corridor and we want it to gradually over time evolve into being more of a neighborhood. So how can that happen? um we'll we'll explore over the next few months. But that is the overarching goal that there should be a more livable community uh by uh improving the mobility and safety aspects within the plan area. All our plan initiatives would be in support of the city's goals regarding sustainability, economic vitality, mobility and other like city goals related to the plan. So a little bit about the project area. Uh most of you may be familiar with this uh part of town. The area plan covers an area of approximately 275 acres and uh it lies literally on the border between Mountain View and Palo Alto and the project area covers most of the boundary that is for the beayhore Alma San Antonio priority development area. So the PDA boundary and our current area plan boundary are almost the same but

not exactly the same. The length of San Antonio road is roughly around 1.8 8 miles across this uh plan area and as you can see from the graphic it's kind of long and skinny. So San Antonio is very much the focus of this plan area and the planning effort. The lower part of the plan area is adjacent to the San Antonio Cal Train station and uh in terms of land uses currently the plan area has a mix of industrial uh service commercial office and residential users. adjacent neighborhoods on either side in both cities are primarily uh lower inensity residential. So a little bit about the project timeline. Uh we initiated the project earlier this year in 2025 and across five phases we hope to complete it by early 2028. And uh across these five phases you can see that um each of these phases will result in a comprehensive set of very key deliverables. So in a way we are kind of completing out each phase with something very cohesive and like um something very actionable with uh community input and obviously input from commissioners um and you know the various city boards and council and um you can see the two arrows over there the different colored dots indicate the types of engagement that we are going to be having. There is very robust engagement with the community in the form of uh workshops, surveys, um also like various meetings with the advisory groups and of course with um the various boards and commissions and council. The next phase uh our current stage is phase one you know since we just got started and we're in the process of understanding existing conditions trying to derive some key findings and uh this will help us to try and establish uh the project goals the project vision again with community input. So there are nine analysis memos that are uh currently in the process of getting finalized and you have been provided the summary report

that takes the key findings from each of these uh memos, these individual memos and you can see that they cover a wide variety of topics that are all very important to the plan area um including land use, zoning, uh housing and related topics, transportation and mobility, market and economic analysis, hazards, parks, open space. So we're trying to cover every aspect that would be important towards making this more of a community in the future. Next slide. So in terms of location and context um as we know this uh and as we just described San Antonio Road is a key transportation corridor. It's one of the key connectors not just for the city of Palo Alto but for the region as a whole. and it has a number of um amenities and other community destinations in its close proximity and that is what makes this area like very viable for change. The current mix of users within the area is also seeing a slight transformation. You know some of these existing industrial and commercial uses are starting to transform to residential and mixed use. There has been a lot of emphasis on behalf of the city to um you know make this area basically set for gradual evolution with more residential uses and a very large percentage of the housing elements housing opportunity sites have been located within the plan area as well. So this is like an aerial graphic that just shows the extents of the plan area, all the various amenities which are nearby and um uh also some of the the rather large concentration of housing element sites that are within it. So we carried out a pretty robust set of analyses by topic and I'm just going to give like a brief overview. We can always come back and discuss these slides in more detail. But in understanding build character and open space within the plan area, the build character right now is a pretty diverse mix of different uses. And across the entire plan area, there is a lot of

variety in all aspects of build form, whether it's parcel sizes, building typologies, the form and scale, the way uh the different buildings address the street and sidewalk. But as you can see uh in the graphic which is in the middle there are certain character areas which are within this overall plan area where where there is a little bit more cohesion in terms of compatibility of use uh parcel sizes just the scale and form of development etc. So in a way this gives us a sense of what are potential future neighborhoods in a way to think about as we start planning out uh the entire plan area. And um in terms of open space, an interesting um finding of the analysis was that while we have a large variety of open spaces within PaloAltra as a whole and there are a number of parks and open spaces which are within like a 10 to 15 minute walking distance from the plan area, but there is a significant area within the plan area extends that is park deficient. That means a person would have to walk more than 10 minutes to get to even a nearby open space. And this area is also where a large number of the housing element sites are concentrated. So in a way kind of opens up or starts giving us some clues as to where the design decisions uh might kind of steer us. The next slide in terms of zoning and uh related development activity. We know the city has been very proactive in thinking about the future of this area. The 2023 2031 housing element identifies 53 opportunity sites in the plan area that are shown in the middle map in uh a blue outline. Also, there are several uh districts, zoning districts that have been designated as focus areas by the housing element. So again, uh housing is an allowed use and an encouraged use within these uh you know large portions of the plan area. And then the housing incentive program of the city applies to a significant portion of the plan area

as well. So and all these initiatives have automatically um started to show results already. There is a lot of recent development interest in the area and uh there are a large number of projects which are at different stages in the approval and um assessment pipeline. Um not all of them have been approved but they're in various stages and there is a potential for at least uh 750 new housing units should all these development proposals go ahead as proposed. Also the uh the reena allocation on behalf of the city for the plan area is about uh 1559 housing units and they're mostly in the lowincome um uh moderate income and above moderate income um categories. So in other words, the city's already looking at around at least 1500 potentially many more housing units uh that can be realized within the extents of the plan area. In terms of uh just understanding the situation of the existing housing and job situation within the plan area, currently there are 800 housing units which is about 3% of the city's total housing stock. Now a lot of this housing dates from the 1970s. In fact, just a couple of projects have been built since 1990. And predominantly, these uh housing units are in the form of two to three story low-rise uh rental units and small condo units and twostory attached single family or town houses. And uh an interesting fact that we found was that 30% of this housing, so almost like 252 units including 80 senior uh housing units are deed restricted affordable units. So that is like an important consideration as we think about what happens to these units and as well as to a large number of what we call naturally occurring affordable housing units in the plan area as this area starts to transform. Uh this area also has a

significant number of manufacturing jobs. So it has just 4% of the city's jobs, but 40% of all the city's manufacturing jobs. And a lot of it is concentrated in one part of the plan area around the Commercial Street Industrial Avenue uh neighborhood or at least that area of the plan area. And um uh again uh an elaboration on this is that the situation is starting to change like the largest number of job losses over the last uh six seven years has been in the manufacturing sector and an increase overall has been in the healthcare sector. So even though they these are vital jobs but some of them are starting to transform into other sectors. So the market analysis shows that there is a very strong uh potential for several kinds of future uses. We know that the housing market is very strong for rental and ownership products not just in the plan area or PaloAlto but frankly the whole region. And the most typical kind of development that's likely to happen here is midrise multif family based on recent development proposals and also the city's zoning initiatives. There is the opportunity thereby of trying to advance housing at various income levels. And there is the potential that as the population grows that there can be more local serving retail and amenities services even smallcale um like light industrial uses or maker labs, flex spaces. there's a possibility for having many different kinds of supporting users that can um that can support this new uh growth and these new housing units and the increase in population within this area. We talked to several like real estate brokers and some of the key areas where they see retail and other similar non-residential users working best are areas that are highly visible that are near these anticipated areas of housing growth and uh where they're easy to get to. So basically the intersections of San Antonio with some of the major

streets such as Middlefield and East Charleston. Uh we also took a closer look at multimodal connectivity because as we think about the area transforming into more of a mixeduse community uh being able to at least perform some of the daily trips by not driving. So in other words, I'll either by walking, biking or rolling in some form or the other would become very very important. And this is one of the aspects of the plan area that we really need to spend a lot of effort on because existing bike facilities are uh very limited. And uh the bicycle level of traffic stress which is uh measured on an a scale of LTS 1 to four carried out for the plan area showed that most of the um places where this was evaluated came in at a very high level of biking stress which is not surprising. And there are significant gaps as well not just in the biking network but also in the pedestrian network such as missing sidewalks, inadequate crossings, unprotected crossings and other such u conditions that make it not very safe and definitely not very uh enjoyable for someone to walk a bike in the plan area right now. and safety can um like or rather the lack of safety in the plan area can be shown by this graphic as you're looking at this map. This uh shows where there have been some uh recent collisions and over the past 10 years there have been a total of 143 collisions and we did do a little bit of um checking based on one of the questions that was asked I think by the chair and the vice chair. This area accounts for almost 5% of the fatal and severe injury crashes for the city as a whole. So this is also a place where um there have been a couple of fatal uh like results. I mean people have died because of collisions. So this is definitely a key uh concern that we

need to address when thinking about future development in the plan area and unsafe speeds uh particularly on the stretch of San Antonio between uh East Charleston and the highway. So basically as people are going on the on-ramps accounted uh for the higher speeds, highest number of violations and these unsafe speeds have accounted for the vast majority of these collisions that have happened in the plan area. There are several streets within the plan area that have been allocated as um as part of the key corridors to look at as part of the city's um SS4A safety action plan for um you know emilarating conditions over the high injury network. So basically all the key streets within the plan area need to um have significant safety improvements to make them viable for the kind of community that we envision. Excellent. We also looked at hazards and climate change because um a significant part of the plan area is pretty close to the bay. So overall uh this part of the plan area which is north and east of um East Charleston uh road falls into the FEMA flood zone AE and that means this is a special flood hazard area where uh there are slightly more stringent conditions for certain kinds of development for constructing basement and other such u development uh considerations. And uh this is of course under like this area is will be prone to inundation and excessive seage from the ground in the event of uh a sea level rise scenario of 36 in which is forecast as as a potential scenario within the next 50 to 100 years. Uh there are also portions near the bay and the streams which run through the uh and in the in proximity to the plan area that are at risk of ground liquefaction as the water table rises. The plan area is not located in a fire hazard severity zone, but we know that

wildfires are becoming a new reality for like almost all parts of the Bay Area. And even areas that don't have wildfires happening within them will be um will be impacted by wildfire, smoke, and other related impacts. Noise and air quality issues will need to be mitigated. We do have an airport nearby. We have highway 101. We also have through traffic on um the rail line and on Calrain. So these are all considerations as part of future development. And in terms of the physical um opportunities for development, this graphic tries to show um where you know would be some of the key focus areas for change and potential transformation. We know that the site has a mix of both challenges and opportunities. In terms of challenges purely from the development um aspect, we know that um there are limited areas for meaningful placemaking as we want to put it. You know, the opportunities for creating new open space, new retail space given that most of the land is privately owned and a lot of it is built upon. So, it's not like a very obvious um like choice in front of us as to where we can provide some of these community uh amenities. the redevelopment areas where we anticipate development happening are not all contiguous. There are like gaps in between. So how do we um encourage more placemaking and kind of knit all these areas together within uh the overall plan area and the fact that many of these development projects are already in some stage of design or approval means that they've already set some kind of a precedent for what um may happen in the plan area. So these are all considerations that we need to you know keep in mind as we think about what the design strategies might be but there are many opportunities as well. The the very fact that there are so many uh development projects in the pipeline means that there is development interest. So it's better than a situation in which no one's interested

in doing anything. So that's a big positive. It shows that there's a market interest. The housing market we know is very strong and there's the opportunity to again you know provide a variety of different um users in support of this anticipated new housing. We also know that there are significant properties under single ownership and we are also aware that there are a couple of developers or developer entities in the area that are trying to assemble parcels. So that that comes with both positives and negatives. But if there are larger development projects and the opportunity to leverage that development to get more community benefits is also higher. So again something that we can discuss and think about how to address and there are ample opportunities for improving just a general connectivity and safety conditions on all of the city streets uh especially along San Antonio. So in summary, here are the opportunities and challenges that we have identified so far. This is just a summary of everything that I talked about. Um, good access to jobs and amenities, good auto access from both El Camino Royale and obviously US 101. There is the proximity to Cal Train. Again, right now, uh, connectivity to Cal Train is pretty constrained, but at least we have a station nearby. So, uh, that gives us another design opportunity. We have a diverse mix of users to build upon you know which is much easier to kind of think about evolution as an area will transform. The city is definitely trying to push um certain kinds of development in this area and address the regional housing crisis through all the recent zoning initiatives and again you know the pipeline projects they are key to thinking about what can happen in the future. The challenges are also very clear. So uh we know that uh pedestrian and bike safety connectivity specifically along some of the key uh corridors within this plan area are absolutely essential to address. Similarly improving access and making it safe and convenient to access Cal Train

can greatly improve uh you know transit connectivity and improve other transit service within the area as well. Um we again have opportunities to uh provide community serving benefits and um those will need to be resolved and you know one thing to keep in mind is that almost all the development is going to happen on privately held land. So you know there are market uncertainties we can't like absolutely be 100% sure that everything is going to develop the way we hope it will. Right. Next please. So that was kind of my summary uh presentation. If there are any clarifying questions, I'll be more than happy to answer that along with support from my colleagues here. And in looking ahead to next steps, this is a summary of the upcoming meetings. Uh we had the the pedestrian and bicycle advisory committee meeting yesterday and we are here today on September 10th. Uh at this particular meeting, next week we have a similar meeting with the ARB and with the CSTSC. on September 25th. We also go to the city council presenting all the cumulative things that we've heard from all these various boards and commissions on October 6th and we have a community workshop that we're very excited about. This is going to be um on October 23rd and um we'll also organize a popup around that time just to spread u you know more awareness about the plan and um other related issues. Um do you want to talk about the payback plan? Yeah, thanks.

So, uh, we presented at payback last night. Um, this was a discussion item, so there was no motion or consensus that was provided by the the committee, but we did hear uh certain things from a lot of committee members that I wanted to pass along to you all. Um, first, there were uh a lot of support for improving connections to Cal Train for both cyclists and pedestrians. Um, there was support for improving the plan to explore different ways to improve cycling along the length of San Antonio Road by either rebuilding the road with improved facilities and or creating a parallel route through the neighborhoods adjacent to San Antonio Road. um and improving the crossings across San Antonio Road and Alma um to reduce crossing times as well as add additional safer crossings at some of the smaller streets as well instead of just at the major intersections. Um there was support for creating a local serving retail that uh is in a short distance or within um the plan area or a comfortable walk roll to um and the retail we heard from them that the retail should be clustered to avoid vacancy issues if it was dispersed retail. Um, and then the last thing that we heard was they wanted the plan to explore ways to mitigate increased traffic from both the new development within the plan area as well as other nearby projects such as the BTA project to uh upgrade the 101 interchanges. So, uh, before we jump into the feedback questions, um, any clarifying questions that we can address? Yeah.

Yep. I need to jump in there. Um based on the discussion at our retreat, we'd like our first round of questions, the clarifying questions to be um reasonably quick and to some extent enabling public comment so that we're focused on that and then we'll have an opportunity to get into the more detailed clarifying questions um during our discussions. So I have Commissioner Peterson and then Commissioner Templeton.

So I heard uh sea level change and climate change and that's fascinating. It was six years ago. I worked with Joe Smidian's office on a regional model early looking at a regional model the whole area and we had extra budget and we ended up putting in a sea level change uh component of the model to see what it would look like in the future and now you know we're more in the future. That was 10 years ago. Can you just elaborate on what's the what's the plan? Is it uh to put levies, you know, in there to roll back abandoned land nature buffer zones, all that? No plan.

Remember, this is that would be the shortest answer, but not the best one. So we do know that there are kind of regional efforts uh dealing with how to address like sea level rise and I think maybe the city could talk about that but I can uh so if you want to take that Jennifer and we can talk about more about the implications for the plan area after that.

What what I would say in terms of this evening's discussion is that is something that's going to be part of the consideration as we're looking at this plan. Um there aren't specific plans yet, but it is something that's being talked about whether PaloAlto needs to proceed or whether it's something that we can do in collaboration with other agencies in the area. Um but no details to provide you this evening. Commissioner Templeton,

just keep in mind we're just trying to keep this part short for the purposes of informing the discussion that we will have later. So, I apologize because I'm giving you a loaded one. Um, I noticed, and it's more of a question because I could have missed it, but I did not hear a lot of talk about including Mountain View as part of this discussion. What to what extent are you reaching out to adjacent cities? Yeah, that's um actually Robert, you may have more of the numbers.

Sure. So um we have included some Mountain View residents um in Mount Taloma um which is the neighboring uh part of Mountain View to the plan on the community advisory group and I also meet with the long-range planning manager from the city of Mountain View um to discuss this project specifically on a regular basis. Um, I know our uh chief transportation officer also talks to her counterpart in Mountain View about the the mobility portion of the plan. Um, we recognize that it's important that whatever improvements we're proposing um are work in concert with our neighboring uh jurisdictions. Uh, you know, some of these cross streets continue on into Mountain View. And we we don't want uh we would prefer not to have a jarring effect to people that are walking or biking along those routes. We also talked to the county and Cal Train as well.

That'll be great for now and we'll get into it in more detail, but I just wanted to make sure that that was information that was highlighted for any potential discussion with the public. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Chair Chang. Um, so quick question. Has the community advisory group seen this yet this uh existing conditions report and did they have feedback broad feedback?

Um, sure. So we met with the community advisory group and the technical advisory group before the full document was finished. um they were given a presentation on the highlights that's similar to the presentation um that you received tonight and we did have discussion and receive general feedback on things like what they like and don't like about the plan area. Um I don't know if you want to provide some more information.

So presumably this document in terms of its um opportunities and um challenges incorporates what the community advisory group has said. Yes, there was nothing that came out of that feedback that was not captured already in our opportunities and challenges. There is more detail. In fact, we have a summary of their feedback that I believe is also on the project website. So, um I mean there are like some of these finer details which are included in that. But we had a pretty robust uh discussion with a longer set of slides. So, we kind of went into some of them and discussed in more detail and we got some pretty good feedback. Yeah. And in addition to that, when it was published on the website last week, we did send email outreach to the members of the KAG, the TAG, and the uh community who have signed up to be notified of ongoing issues with this so that everybody is and the the city council as well um so that they're aware of the new information available and inviting any comments. Um so my second question is how are the school districts the two school districts that are impacted being um incorporated in the process like are they also on the CAG or the TAG and or is there a different method because in the in the Chevron chart I didn't see them listed.

Sure I can answer that. Uh we did not include members from the school districts in either the KAG or the TAG. um we decided that the best way was to do individual outreach to them to talk about the school specific issues. Um so that is part of our plan as we're developing alternatives is to have one-on-one conversations with all three school districts. There's also uh the Mountain View Los Altos Unified High School District which uh also would service um potentially students um in the plane area if the boundaries remain as they are.

And final questions. Um, so I I had asked sort of proportionality question about the um serious c the the serious injury and casualties and I was wondering if you also happen to have proportion proportionality information regarding the um pipeline units that you know like the 750 odd pipeline units and how they are looking how we're doing on affordability with respect to the pipeline units if that makes sense. Um as well as then the second proportionality question has to do with open space. So I know we are short but do you guys know how short we are with respect to the the small parks not the big open space but the goal the powalto goal is I think two acres per thousand for the small for the local parks. Um and we don't have any. So what does that mean in terms of the population for this area? If you don't know, that's okay. But I figured you you guys know so much because the report has so much.

Thank you for identifying that as something we should take a look at. I don't think we've got any details on it, but it's something we can look into. Yeah, we just know there is a deficiency because as you said, there are no current parks in the plan area at all. And um as we work on the land use and mobility alternatives and we have like a closer sense of what the final population might be that is when we'll get a clearer picture of exactly what the deficiency is. But this will definitely be looked at as part of the not just the SQA analysis but even prior to that in the alternative stage.

What about the pipeline projects that question? Yeah, that we'll need to do some calculations because not all the projects um have like some of them have a it's not a a uniform percentage of the units, you know, and again many of them not all of them may result in uh the exact same distribution of units. But one thing to keep in mind is that the Reena number is something that is more of a target for us which is like at least 1,500 like 1559 around 1,600 units at a minimum and the proportion uh within this arena chunk of housing units is all uh within the lowincome and moderate income and above moderate income categories. So in a way like workforce housing and slightly more affordable housing units will definitely be addressed as part of trying to meet this need. Thank you.

Okay, just a a process note. We are going to try to structure our discussion later a little bit more than usual. Um so we will have opportunities to talk specifically about what additional information we would like to see um in for the next phase. Commissioner G.

Yeah. Thank you, Chair. Um, I'd like to zoom kind of all the way out and talk a little bit about the project timeline. Um, I guess I'm wondering it could you be a little bit um can you clarify a little bit more at the end of phase one what the outcomes look like and how we can help participate specifically? I know that you've provided a list of questions on packet page 12. Um, but I'd love to also know like specifically what that looks like so we can provide you accurate feedback and the public can also give um appropriate comment.

Understood. So our phase one basically is looking at um like we've already developed an engagement strategy discussed it with the city and we are in our existing conditions analysis and what will happen as a result of that will be that we'll move into phase two in which we're going to be looking at land use and mobility basically design alternatives plan alternatives. So what we are u we know we've provided you a list of questions but what we're hoping to understand is where you like where what are the various project ideas or alternatives or concerns and issues that you all have that we must consider in the land use phase and at a more granular level are there issues and opportunities that you notice that are not included in the materials that we have prepared for you that we should uh look at. So innovate is more about guidance for the next phase which is uh getting into the alternatives because that's where we will really um look at a wider range of possibilities. You know we want the alternatives to address different ideas and concepts so that when we bring you those alternatives for discussion um we we're looking at a realm of possibilities and we can even mix and match to try and come up with the final alternative. So that's like a rough way of saying is that tell us give us your feedback on what we presented right now and help us formulate ideas or come up with a list of concepts that we will be exploring in the land use and mobilities um the alternatives phase which we're going to start very soon. So as a followup um are you implying that there also like in addition to the existing conditions report the alternatives I I like are in phase two but are you going to collect like a separate set of alternatives that you just collect as feedback for phase one to to uh inform what you're going to do in phase two. Is that an accurate way of describing that?

Um I don't know Chris if you want to chat.

Yeah. Hello Chris and associate principal with uh Rayine Associates. Um, so I mean the the feedback we're really looking for like to maybe describe it slightly different. Um, you know, we're we're going to go in and we're going to look at a number of alternatives over the next few months and then come back to you with these alternatives and describe their opportunities, their constraints, their positives, their benefits. And so, you know, if if there are certain things that you are really looking for this plan to have, if you have, you know, you know, it might be a pet peeve, it might be like something you're very passionate about that you want to make sure that we explore when we we work through these alternatives. That what that's what we want to hear today. And I I think you'll see when the questions come up, they try to kind of kind of focus in um on that. Is that that's it for now. Um, I can ask more specifics in the next round.

All right. As I said, we're we're going to experiment a little bit and I'm modifying the uh modifying the plan dynamically. So, we'll see how that works out. The Yeah, public comment will be next. The intent of this round was to ask clarifying questions to enable and support public comment. So if we are done with our questions on this end, Mr. Tveta, do we have any uh public commenters? Um through the chair, I have received no public comment cards. And if there's anyone on Zoom that would like to speak, I request that you raise your hand. I see none. Well, that's surprising. I thought we'd have more public participation tonight. Um so um at the premeating we observed that this item was likely to generate a lot of discussion. So we spent some time talking about how to organize that discussion. Um and the way that fell out is that uh I'd like to try structuring the discussion for the first round. uh then we can follow up with more traditional detailed rounds. Um but before I do that, I wanted to make sure that there were no more clarifying questions and state a little bit about what we hope to get out of the first round of discussion so you know how to draw the distinction between the two. Um, so the goal for the first round of discussion will be to cover as many of your main topics as possible. So make just a short and highle comment on each one. Don't necessarily get into detail, but staff needs your initial

thoughts and a list of things that you'd like to know more about. Um, so for uh an example, here's one of the things on my list. Um, I think we have plenty of good ideas for improving bike and ped infrastructure, but I'm worried that we are not dealing with the likely increase in vehicle traffic. I'd like to know more about ways we could improve the vehicle infrastructure as well. So, that would be the entirety of that topic for me. And the hope is that uh as each of us goes through the top uh items of this sort on our lists that staff will be able to consolidate replies and um use all of our time most efficiently throughout the rest of the meeting. And there will as usual be u rounds for more detailed questions and we can drill down into the issues that are important to us in depth. So what I would ask for now is if there are any other uh clarifying questions that have not already been addressed that don't fall into the category of expressing interest in your main topics which we will then cover in detail. So

all right, I see agreement generally. So no more clarifying questions. We are ready for the first round. Um so again uh please cover as many of your topics as possible in uh a concise way and make sure staff knows what you'll need to hear later in the more detailed round. So, Commissioner Peterson, then Commissioner Templeton. All right. So, we got is it 45 minutes each to speak?

I'm just going to stay on the climate topic because I think this one, you know, I want to take the big picture. Um, and then the climate, you know, is is biting us on both sides here, too. One, we have uh sea level rise. We also have a wild and urban interface which is quickly encroaching on the city. And from my best understanding is nobody has even had a chance to study where is the wildland urban interface with Palo Alto and Mountain View but you just look out the window you know it's there somewhere and so the one of the things is that highway 101 I think certainly has to be raised and I know that from my experience on the bond oversight with the water district uh we found out that there is no climate change. it's it's not certain and that the federal government's current u um policy is is that um so we got defunded on on the balance project which would have solved some of these problems and uh we have to wait until we are more certain about climate change before we can come back and reapply for that funding. So I assume uh the Federal Highway uh administration is probably in a a similar situation. So maybe Highway 101 is also waiting for funding for an uncertain future that right now is apparently not the future. So if we change Highway 101 to raise it, I assume that's the easiest one to get above the water, then um that changes maybe the the ramp there with San Antonio or maybe not. But it probably maybe it could change the clearance for the over uh the overpass. Is there an overpass there? No, there is there is an overpass. Yeah. So, the overpass clearance could start becoming an issue if you start raising things. Now, you got to raise the overpass and then you start raising all the connecting roads. So, where I'm going with that is trying to look at, you know, the plan just with

the the immediate stuff that's probably kind of clear that we know is already probably well past due um and is probably just waiting for a short time until all of a sudden we'll realize, yeah, we do need to have funding to change these things. But of course, it's it's all around the bay, too. It's not just where we are. But I think we're our section of Highway 101 is more at risk than even like Redwood City's section of Highway 101, which doesn't seem quite right, but that's how I understand it. And then of course, the wild and urban interface. I don't, you know, we don't normally think of San Antonio Road as being a wildfire hazard area, but I don't actually know if it's not. Uh because you know if you go up across El Camino it's pretty you know it's pretty wooded in there actually. Um as Commissioner Templeton mentioned earlier I I my home was in paradise and in 2018 you know everybody woke up one day and and opened their front door and there was embers blowing in their door and that was their first notice that there was a problem. So, I always want to be the first one to say maybe, you know, let's put some thought into where is the wildland interface and at least draw a line. And we know we're well away from it. But we do know that we are certainly getting our ankles wet if we're not getting our hair cinched. If that's a good example, sorry. Thank you. That's it.

Thank you, Commissioner Peterson. Commissioner Templeton.

Well, now I'm gonna cry. that's really um uh so morbid um and and interesting food for thought. So, I appreciate you bringing it up, but it's just it's tough to face that reality that we're talking about. Um, as far as just sharing the topics, um, one of my very first, uh, discussions on the PTC many, many years ago was about, um, that intersection there at Charleston in San Antonio and we wanted to make it safer. Um, I I vividly remember this discussion. and I had had just left Google where I had worked for 10 years and went through that intersection every day. Um I started on my bike. It was terrifying. I did not continue with my bike even though I live less than three miles from work. Um so that's something to think about. We did we do uh at the at that time we did have an underpass that was um under the highway that was closed half the year. Um, so you know, you're not going to be able to use that at other times, although we've changed and we have a different overpass, but it's not in the same location. We need to think about that. Um, so that's something I'm thinking about is safety um for the the bikes and the pedestrians. Uh, you know, there's a um community center there on that corner as well where the the former uh PAL one office building for the headquarters of Sun Micros Systemystems used to live, the little network, the dog house out front. Um uh so the the thing is when we had this problem why I'm sharing it with you is the other side of the street on the other side of uh San Antonio is Mountain View and we received a lot of push back from our staff that well we can't improve the safety of the intersection

because the other part's Mountain View. And so I really want to encourage our awesome staff here to like push back and reach out and and let's make this intersection which is really highly used um a major focus for our our safety our traffic flow um you know our our we may find as uh vice chair Chang mentioned children crossing there right elderly people crossing there. How do we provide the the refugees uh that we need to on a big street like that on two big streets with people coming at high speeds off the highway? So, there's so much to think about. I really want to um be proud of that intersection and we've made some improvements, but I think it could be so much better in terms of flow and that means reaching out um to our neighbors. Uh I think that is also true in terms of um our understanding of the Cal Train uh neighbor right that's a neighborhood it is very close by it's a area that many pedestrians in that part of Palo Alto near it um prefer to go to I know my kids have used it um Forest uses it all the time um you know it's it's very convenient and um so that we can't think about the artificial official boundaries, right, of our of our cities because that's just where we meet someone else with the same needs, right? They're they're our neighbors. They're right there. They're using the same space. And so, I hope I hope that we do a little bit more, maybe a little heavier hand with the outreach to Mountain View, especially with what we know is going to be happening, right? there's a tremendous high number of uh housing uh units and homes that would be built in that space. And so even the nature of it uh as we

understand it now, what we've studied now and what feedback you're getting now will necessarily change. So um the closer in step we can be with them, the safer and happier everybody's going to be. And yes, we want people to use that train station instead of the highway, right? All of this stuff goes together. So, safety, transportation, biking, pedestrians. That's my uh list of all the same things but in different perspectives. Thank you. Thank you very much, Vice Chair Chang.

Okay. So, um from the I've said some of this in premeating, but I think it bears saying just to share with the whole commission. Um the on the really big picture side, this is the first area plan that I know of in Palawat's history that essentially is along most of the length of one of our major arterials. And so because of that, it brings up many of the issues that our my fellow commissioners have already mentioned. But as I was reading this area plan, the perspective was very much, you know, we need to provide uh focus on improving safety and traffic within the area plan area. Actually, it's more safety than traffic. That's a separate point. But the bigger issue is we need it's not just within the area, it's through in this case. Because if we only did within, we're going to cause like a cascading um massive problems that will affect other cities, the freeways, like our whole city. And so this is a little bit different from say um NVCAP or Sofa. That's a very it's very different in in the sense that we need to think about the interaction with outside of the area plan. Um the second issue is I think we cover safety is very well covered in the report. I um in your final slide you did insert the word traffic but it wasn't on the slide and I will venture to say that this may be the I don't you know I know that you don't have the level of service data but this may be the worst traffic in PaloAlto and it has safety implications no doubt but the traffic itself is also a problem um because it's almost a standstill for like most of the

waking hours. Um, and I just did some quick back of the envelope where you said it was 5% of the fatalities and severe injuries today. So, it's a good baseline to have. Um, but there and then I did we it's only two and a half% 2.7% of the housing units today. And so, if we continue the ratio, it's going to be a disaster as you all know which is why you emphasize safety safety safety. But the traffic's very much part of that. Um uh the next issue is that I thought needed to be examined is um the RVs. So I know there's no mobile homes. That's zero um in one of the report pages, but there's a whole lot of RVs. And that's actually um even, you know, very recent phenomena. There's always been some Arby's, but it has just really ballooned and that that's a hot spot area right now in our city, but because of the displacement of Arby's from El Camino and Redwood City doing more and it pushing RVs into our area. So, we really need to get that in the baseline too. Um, and then the next issue is on schools. So you certainly mentioned schools and their ability to uh that the districts are underenrolled and that they have the capacity but that next level of detail and this is why I had asked you know to what extent are you involving PA USD as well as Mountain View Los Altos district in this um we have had a fairly recent example where 30% of the children in the Palvery neighborhood were overflowed to other schools some as far as Nixon in Addison. And so again, we need to think about uh mobility through the area and how we're actually going to get there. And this is not as simple as just re,

you know, having the district redraw the lines. It's like a cas a massive cascading problem. One elementary school is 400 to 600 students or even 200 to 600 students depending in this district. And if we're talking about, you know, 1500 units of housing, we may have brought a couple of elementary schools in depending on what type of housing that is. Um, and then finally, um, the affordability issue. And again, I don't have the data. You don't have the data. You haven't done the calculations, but based on the few projects and PCs that we've seen come through the PTC recently on San Antonio, we're getting nowhere near the number of affordable units. And so there's going to and Palots has always had that challenge. probably every jurisdiction has had that challenge where we meet the mark if we meet anything it's the market rate housing but if we don't want displacement of people here that's certainly going to have to be a big focus in the incentives for that um we might have to think really creatively about that partnering with for-profit corporations for example thanks gentlemen anyone up next commissioner Thank you, chair. Um, I apologize a little bit because it turns out that in preparing what I wanted to say, I came up with some questions. So, I apologize I didn't get included in the last section. Um, one of my questions is about the setbacks. So, I know that on packet page 12, I believe you ask about the use of special setbacks. Can you talk a little bit more about them? I didn't if I saw them mentioned, I didn't I must have missed it. Can you talk about where the special setbacks are? what the current state of them is.

Yeah. So, I I can address that. Um, basically along San Antonio Road, um, basically from the Toyota dealership north, uh, there's generally a 24 foot special setback. Now, we're we're just diving into the details on like the effects of this. Um, you know, we we have a work session tomorrow where we're beginning to to dive in more detail, but like just because there I I'll note just because there's a 24 foot setback does not mean it's really usable. For instance, on the on the the east side of San Antonio Road, there's lots of infrastructure already there and there's pinch points. So, we're going to be doing that analysis of really what can you get, where can you get it, and what is going to be the cost to get what we really need. Um, so we're we're looking in detail on that. And then there's there's some other kind of modest setbacks of 15 ft on some of the uh like Fabian and commercial and industrial. And then along East Charleston, there's a a 10-ft. But you know a as you know we're really scoped to look at you know this safety pedestrian bike vehicles in a lot of detail. So we'll be getting into what what those setbacks mean and what truly can we do with them if anything.

Yeah. Um I guess this dovtales into I guess it's more of a comment um on the PhD projects that I've seen so far. on my short tenure on the PTC uh have asked to remove the special setback. And so if we think that we want to use the special setback as part of the transportation and safety initiatives, I think it's incredibly important to make sure that we don't have these pinch points, right? Imagine you want to install a new bike lane, but a new project has decided to remove the special setback. All of a sudden, it becomes a lot more complex to build out what we'd like to see there. Um I uh I guess I like to particularly call out that you have some of the listed some of the existing projects that are in the pipeline. So I think it'd be really important to closely examine whether or not there are any setback um changes to those projects in particular. Um next um I also want to emphasize the safety aspect in regards to transportation. San Antonio, as you've identified, is simultaneously a truck route and a safe route to school. I think that's a little bit contradictory in its current state. Um maybe there uh I know our lovely folks from transportation are out in the audience here. Um but I'd just like to note that this is something that's near and dear to my heart. I biked to school every day growing up K through 12 here. Um would never have dared to go on San Antonio in its current state. So, I think there's a lot of exciting work. I know you've identified a couple different interesting points like a class 4 bikeway. There's a I think there's a lot of creative solutions to be done here. Um, but I just want to call that out again and I don't want to spend too much time on it. Uh, because other commissioners have mentioned that. Um, I also want to bring up as I am part of the KAG some of the points that I just want to share with our fellow commissioners as well that I heard there. Um, one is the bumperto-bumper

traffic. I think that was a pretty common theme amongst the folks that lived there. In addition, I want to um talk about uh Commissioner Templeton's point about engaging Mountain View. We had some great residents from Mountain View who had offered a lot of great perspectives. I think it was really interesting. specifically one thing that I guess I don't go to this part of mountain very often but a lot of uh overp parking because a lot of the areas there don't have enough parking and so the residential overflow in its current state is already a bit of a problem and so I think that's something to think about as we continue to expand um in this area in addition when thinking about transportation infrastructure right now I I took my first ride on the El Camino bike like the bike lane that they've now add on El Camino. And there are lots of driveways that are there on El Camino. I think that's also something to think about as we think add pedestrian and bike infrastructure on San Antonio with large projects. We expect lots of in-n-out traffic and how do we manage the intersection between these as well. Um, one other comment I had is I guess kind of related to Commissioner Peterson's comment, which is one of the public comments that came before the CAG was that the uh water table is only 10 ft deep. I I was wondering if um you all as experts could talk to me a little bit more about what the implications of that are because the public comment mentioned that it would be difficult to be building larger infrastructure projects because it's difficult to build the foundation because of the water table. Would just love some clarification on that. Yeah, generally um you know it's it's a matter of cost is you know you'll find in in some areas because of a water table certain developers are unlikely to go below grade uh because you're basically building a bathtub right but

you know you know so you're going to find and I think you you you've seen this on the projects that have already been presented on San Antonio road where there are there are some developers that are willing to go below grade and some developers that are going to like stay above grade for parking. So it's fundamentally cost. It's it's still possible. Um you know you can do it. It's it's just a matter of cost. Thank you. Um would also like to comment on that for uh since we saw something similar for 660 university which is in the same flood zone plane type. So, uh, there have some also some interesting difficulties with the parking situation and I'm worried about um under parking for lots of these areas here. Um, one thing I did notice that isn't quite mentioned and I'm not really sure what the future looks like is about the public transit. There's mentioned that it's pretty infrequent and I would agree as um as someone who has been there quite often. um not sure what we can do about it, but it's just interesting to think about as there is more density, as we have a Cal Train station on that corridor, um what we could potentially partner with VTA and others to to work on um that space as well. Um would also like to echo uh Commissioner Chang's Vice Chair Chang's comment about the schools. Um one other comment I noticed on packet page 57 where you talk about the fire um the fire engine. One thing I'm worried about is uh folks in the city know that fire and uh station 4 right now doesn't have their engine and I believe that would be the closest fire station to this area and so I think it's very important if we're going to be adding lots of units over here to uh manage the fire safety risk there appropriately. Um that's all for now.

Thank you. Good observations. Commissioner James, do you have anything you'd like to add at this point? Um just a few observations. Um uh I mean I am struck um a little bit. I don't I don't I don't see a creative solution for it but um you know gradual evolution evolution is going to happen based on you know market demand and and and a whole host of things. But um the um you point out that this is there are 50 small businesses. Um, it strikes me that there are some moderate income jobs and businesses that support moderate income jobs that are going to be displaced to create moderate uh, priced housing. And that does seem like sort of an odd paradox. I'm not sure I see a a solution for that, but it's a it's it's a little troubling. You you did mention some of the deed deed restricted um, units, and I'm not sure I fully understand. I feel like there's something implied in there. Is it is it that they might be displaced or or replaced through through uh redevelopment or I just feel like there's a you know something imply implied in there and I'm not sure I fully fully grasp what it was and I'd certainly like to um I you know am curious what the the mechanisms by which um green spaces and uh and um and sort of gathering gathering places. Um, you know, what are the what are the ways of doing that? Is that is that um is that land that can be sort of I imagine like land acquired by the city or is it sort of incentives to developers to to create that in exchange for more height or I just kind of don't think I fully understand how we get from knowing there's a deficit there to what are some of the cures for that. I I I

would be curious to know what what the range of options are there. Um, I did I did also notice that, you know, there are it seemed to me in in my reading that there are certain uh safe routes that seem to in my mind overlap with other high-risisks. And I uh and I just wondered if if those had been ever been mapped on top of each other because I I I got the sense that they were, you know, they were they were they were both, right? And um that was certainly concerning to me. Um but yeah, I think I think those are are just my observations

through the chair. There were some questions among the observations from Commissioner James that might be helpful for us to provide some context. For example, the question about how do you get open spaces if that would be helpful to the commission at this time? Let's do that and then uh I'll wrap up this round with my overview and then we'll be able to get into more detail for the next round.

All right. So, um there are a lot of different ways to to get open space. Um I'll kind of run through a list of here and let you know that like as we go into the alternatives phase, we are going to be looking at any and all of these as as possible um ways. One is the city could purchase land, right? Um there could be dedication by a property owner. There could be agreement with a property owner to develop a publicly accessible privatelyowned open space. Um you can use the collected park fees to either fund the purchasing of or or partially fund the development and maintenance of an open space. Um there of course you know like you like u many of you mentioned you know there's also Mountain View right so this might be an area of collaboration with Mountain View to get like one larger consolidated open space between you know the potential if you saw there's a large development site just across the border at where the PetSmart currently or has in um you know so there there's potential to work with Mountain View on that and then there's also just development agreements um that may come about because a a certain land owner wants a certain type of land use or or such so you can kind of extract potentially community benefit out of that but um you know there's limited space in the plan area so I think this is going to be definitely one of the the critical questions and critical puzzle pieces as we work through alternatives.

And if you would like additional information about traffic volume and growth uh as was observed, we do have transportation staff if there's anything that would be helpful um on that topic as well. Commissioner James, does that cover you for now?

Yes, thank you. All right, I'll run rapidly through my overview to make sure that you've captured all of these things and then in the next round I'm sure many of us will have uh the desire to drill down into a few topics. Um all right, just since perhaps we haven't said this strongly enough, this is really outstanding piece of work. So thank you very much. Um, you have posed some very challenging open-ended questions. Um, but we expect to uh talk about that more tonight and to follow it up in the future as well. Uh, I used the vehicle infrastructure and traffic issue earlier, so uh, as an example, so I won't repeat that. Um, you asked about office allowances. with the exception of neighborhood serving businesses. I'd resist larger office allowances. Uh we already have a huge jobs housing imbalance and I really don't want to get trapped in a feedback loop that makes that worse. So that's the general concern there regarding distribution of retail. Uh some kinds of retail work best if they're clustered um and some work fine if they're spread out. Um, I wonder if we can develop estimates for how much of each of those types we'd like to plan for, if we can come up with some basis for making those estimates. Um, the uh, thank you for the insight from the payback discussion on that point as well. Um, we've already relaxed development standards in much of the plan area. Um, and I'd just like to know if we have any sense of where within the plan area it makes the most sense to go beyond those.

Um, this has been uh discussed already, but I'll reinforce it. There's a lot we'd like to do along the streets, but we can't really see how much space is actually available. Uh so uh a map that shows us how much space we have until we hit the end of the uh from the curb until we hit a building, a driveway or a setback line is great for developing an intuition for what we can do there. Um, so I don't know that I've seen this phrase used before, but uh I'm kind of worried about business gentrification uh as we lose some of the u the light industrial and other commercial uses um that are currently supporting mid-range jobs. What are we going to get in return? and what does that do to the um to the uh distribution of incomes in the households in the area? And also, this has been touched on, but uh I'd like to know how the potential for sea level rise affects the different construction types. Um, and I appreciate the the uh distinction made between things that are impractical physically and things that are impractical economically. Um, but any guidance we can get about how to generalize that uh is well worthwhile so that we don't go down uh unproductive paths. All right, that's it for my overview. So, I'll be happy to talk about a few more things in detail, a few of those things in detail in the next round, but it's time for my fellow commissioners to get a shot. Commissioner Peterson.

All right. I'm going to drill down and try and tie together what I've heard from the other commissioners regarding the the climate change. Uh so, one with Commissioner Templeton. uh when you talk about talking with other organizations is there's also uh the Google plexes across the street and Google I think has a general use permit with Mountain View. I don't know how their general use permit agreements overlays with our corridor um plan but haven't been involved with the Stanford general use permit. I know there's definitely, you know, overlays on that and they probably have some agreements relating to environmental impacts and community mitigations that somehow tie into this. And then um Commissioner James talking about, you know, uh the economics of the buildings or what's feasible. Uh I did notice that the planned uh developments actually go up to basically that that flood boundary and I'm wondering if that's because maybe there's a flood map there and that's why you can't go below already. we've already got a decision made. Nobody's building past that line. Um, so it could be that that indust industrial area that we're talking about being gentrified. It could become swamp land very quickly as it floods a few times and there goes your industrial usage as everybody essentially has to leave and now we're left with a post uh post-apocalyptic industrial zone with unknown soil contaminations that we now have water flowing over to clean up. So, it would be nice not to throw that in there. But and then I also if we had I mean I guess I was saying I wouldn't hold this up but for lack of a better graphic we basically have two two zones we're planning there. We're planning one zone that's in the water shed and one zone that's not. And I think there two different plans going on there. And one of them might actually be uh what I heard earlier was land purchases and

actually um recreating wetlands there along Highway 101 on this side of it. I don't know if that's economically a good idea for Palo Alto or displacing jobs. But the other option is are we going to raise that entire industrial zone three feet and come in and with hall trucks and dump dirt because that's how it's done. So that's my detailed is I like to look at this as two zones. Thank you. Are you are we to respond to these? Are we This is a good time for that. Yes.

Okay, great. Um, so you make some great points about um the the two different zones and the sea level rise zones and I I think one thing um you know it it may just be time based like since you change the hip and the hip in that that area only allows up to 50 feet. Um, so it's kind of like to kind of go to your your thing, like that's an area where, you know, a 50-ft height limit isn't going to get you the new residential buildings. They really want right now to maximize mid-rise construction, which is eight, seven, eight, sometimes nine. But in this case, because of sea level rise, it's probably seven stories to be honest. but it's it's getting up. Um in in general what we've seen um around the South Bay in these areas that there is interest to develop in these areas and you're going to see larger um aggregation of land to to make it feasible and to make a more cohesive place because of that sea level rise stuff. because you you generally need to have the finished floor of the building above like 11 ft. It's about it might be 12 here. I'm don't have the number exactly but basically 11 ft and you're currently in that area between I think 5 and 10 ft in grade. Um so there are ways to to do that. There are ways still to have retail and and have that work. It's a little bit more complex and that's why you're not going to see much of like a

one-off development. Say, I'm going to come in and I'm going to take my 10,000 square foot lot and and build something. It takes a larger piece of infrastructure like that. But you can see it in the s in the the Mountain View site. There's interest, right? there is there's economic interest in redeveloping that area and making it happen. Um you know the larger sea level rise question it's really a regional it's really a regional question and you know I I don't have all the details in this but you know the the biggest economic engine is probably 101. So, you know, with this being upstream from 101, you fix 101 presumably, you kind of fix this area, too. So that's why I think you're you're going to continue to see economic and um interest in these areas because there there are bigger problems that the and solving those bu bigger problems will help the these areas.

Yes. So I think that's a perfect perfect example of um knowing that from your expertise that yeah it is probably economically viable the value of the land somebody will come in there and they'll figure out the the problem just to be able to have this space. But that also brings up another one is as planning have we decided that that's what we want to allow or do we want to do retreat because that's a policy decision as well that you know do we want infill up to the water line which I'm always a fan of I'm an engineer I like to build stuff but or do we want to you know go in there and you know like they're doing in the South Bay a lot of it is they're they're uh opening up the old salt salt ponds and returning them back to the bay. I mean I would say in a way a certain policy decision was made by um identifying housing element sites within this area.

Thank you.

Yeah. And if I could give another example like San Rafale like you know Sanfell downtown gets flooded right now you know even before sea level rises at the levels that we fear and especially when um it coincides with king tides you have flooding very much till the core of downtown Sanrafell but um there is still a very high level of development interest and one of the most recent projects that is currently getting evaluated and likely uh to go ahead is in the canal neighborhood which includes remediation for the fact that that area will definitely get inundated. So it involves a mixture of like you know raising the ground floor having non-residential uses on the ground floor having an elevated walkway next to the canal. So in a way what's actually a constraint is being spun around by that project to almost like think of you know 20 years down the line and um of using that almost as an amenity you know because otherwise the location is proximate to a lot of other good things including transit. So, you know, it'll be a mix. We'll see how the the city's policy aligns with some of these, but the technology is very much out there and not just in, you know, um, in the Netherlands. It's being tried out in different parts of our very own region right now.

This is going to be the Venice of PaloAlto. Oh my god, you can compete with Foster City now that they're going to get the dyke, you know. So,

I'll also add policies are always subject to change based on, you know, the elected officials and and other leadership in the city. Um but there was a purpose purposeful decision not to put housing element sites on the other side of 101 but there were also a decision to put them right along 101 uh on this side of it. So that's what the current policy is subject to change always. Thank you. I see no lights but I expected more discussion. Does anyone have more? Well, I feel like uh many of the things that I wanted to mention have already been covered. Um you skim them quickly to see if there are any details that would be of general interest. Uh um would you like to go before Ed,

give me give me a moment to look this over and in the meantime, please go ahead.

Okay. So um in premeating or prior to premeating I had asked some questions about whether transportation um because you're here um whether you guys can do some context setting for us in terms of um the traffic volumes that we see for San Antonio like uh relative to the other east west volume um arterials that we have is it more less. Do we know? If we don't know, that's fine. And similarly, um if we know with respect to the different 101 and 280, the freeway entrances and exits that we have, which ones are the most heavily used, the ones that are in that feed palato. So, I would say like University Oregon/barcadero, um San Antonio's Charleston, and page mill. If you don't know, that's fine. But I wanted to that that's good background.

Um hello Ria Hudber Lo chief transportation official. Uh we actually don't have counts uh recent counts for each of the corridors in the city. Um I think that there would be some recent counts for the interchanges because of the VTA project. So um that's in planning stages. So we could request those from VTA and we could also um if it's of interest we could um conduct counts along the different corridors using our on call contract if that's if that's helpful. My reason for this is as I said in premeating is um there's sometimes I think that the southern part of Palo Alto gets kind of neglected um or I think that we as Commissioner Templeton mentioned and you know there was a big intersection problem at Charleston and San Antonio and it was like well this is bordering Mountain View so we can't deal with it on our own and you know this whole plan area is now bordering Mountain View. So I think some context setting is really important to ensure that the right attention and resources um get put on this given that it is an area that's targeted to have like 25% of our arena and so I think that data like this is helpful and important um like you know that context setting piece about the percent of fatalities when you level set it relative to the population or the or the number of housing units here. It makes you realize, oh my gosh, this is one of the most dangerous parts of the city. Um, and so similarly, is this one of the most traffic intensive parts of the city? We could use LOS, that level of service data. So, like how long are these wait times at the traffic lights? Because I've personally gone through four cycles and not moved an inch. Um, you know, so that kind of a thing. And if that's today's baseline, then we know what we're facing and like how aggressive we need to be um

regarding public transportation, regarding whatever whatever other kind of like tools levers we can pull. Um cuz one of the levers that was mentioned already, for example, is heights for housing, but I think there's also levers that that that's a housing lever. Um there must be levers that we can pull with respect to uh mobility and uh traffic and and if but if we don't know the size of the problem relative to the rest of the city then we don't know how how heavy-handed we should be with respect to um uh addressing those challenges. And my sense is, as I said before, this area is very unique compared to the other area plans that we have looked at in recent memory in Palo Alto. That's it. Thanks. And it's fine. It's so I mean I think it would be lovely, but I don't think that I get to make the bud budget decisions here. I would love that data, but um so I kind of throw it back to the project team and um it to me it seems it would be wise if we want to get you know council and the powers that be to like really focus on this and like throw the resources or the mind share um because otherwise without the Yeah, I I don't think I've talked to multiple council members who are like what do you mean that I don't go over there? So, you know, we need to do some um for the public and for for uh for the powers of the be the decision makers, we need to do some context setting, I think.

Thanks, Mr. G. If I could follow up on that and then u return to you.

Yeah, I will I will jump in. Um with yet another budget breaking suggestion. Um, the thing I'm always after is origin destination studies because I really want to know where people are going. Um, and I'd like to think that that can drive some improvements that we suggest for the area. Uh, if we know that a lot of the traffic is through, then perhaps we can optimize for that. Um, improving both safety and throughput. Um, some of the things that I would consider would be, uh, should we make some streets one way? Should we prohibit left turns off San Antonio? Um, should we limit access to some streets? Um, we could even do something really exotic like making a lane reversible. But we can't do can't do any of those things without knowing a little more. um not just counts but also directions. What are the paths that are being taken? Um so that's the as I said that's my budget busting request. Um couple of other quick comments in the way of details for things that I mentioned earlier. When you look at the jobs housing imbalance, people often assume 250 square feet of office per person. And the uh surveys that I've been reading for the last few years are arguing that that is no longer realistic, that 150 square ft is probably closer. So, the rule of thumb I use to discuss this with um interested residents is if you can fit a worker in a 450 square ft one-bedroom apartment, then you've

covered 150 square foot of office space. So, you need about 3:1 ratio of floor area, housing to office to be balanced. So, just as a a rule of thumb people can use to evaluate proposals. Um, let's see. We covered I think I covered my concerns about retail earlier. Um, we've covered potential locations for um new development standards. We might also want to look at uh gathering information for things like um uh spaces where lot consolidation might be attractive. So I have in mind like a color-coded map um in which color indicates parcel size so I can see where the um see where the big areas are, where the small areas are um and maybe get some ideas from that. We've covered space along the streets and I think we've covered my concerns about uh business displacement and CO4. So, Commissioner G, you're next. And then Commissioner Templeton.

Thank you, Chair. I actually was also going to talk about origin destination counts specifically. I mean, we'll allude to item four, but the transportation team created a very um a very detailed origin destination document for the other projects. So, I'm very excited about that. Um, and I would like to echo that as well. Um, a couple other just kind of miscellaneous points I just want to bring up. One is I want to echo Vice Chair Chang's comment about the RVs. I believe last time during the CAG meeting we actually had the conversation got derailed even for a little bit because a lot of the folks who live in or near the plan area were worried about the RV specifically on Fabian I believe um Fabian East Meadow kind of the areas around there. I also had a quick question about the the gateway project that's mentioned on the oblique map that's in the Mountain View side but not quite in Paulo Alto. Do you know what that is? Like what kind of project is it?

Yeah. Uh we do know so it's it's called a gate gateway project what I believe because it's going through their gatekeeper um process in Mountain View which is involves you know a change of zoning and and other aspects. Um, let me get the I think I have the Yeah. Uh, so I I believe it's about 450 units um in total and I forget they they have a considerable amount of of commercial use on site two about 480,000 square ft of commercial area and 450 units. So, you know, this is, you know, a a a large project um that will have a a lot of impact on on this project.

So, that's kind of where I was going with that. Um can you for the commercial use, do you know if it's more like office type or is it more like retail type or undetermined at this time? It it's it's a mix there. There is a an office component to it. I'll also add that it was approved by Mountain View to go through their gatekeeper process. Um the last I checked, last time I checked in with their uh planning team, they had not yet received the actual application. So it's still very much in the conceptual stage. Okay. Uh but they did share with us what they're hoping to develop on that site.

Okay. Thank you. Um I think yeah I'd like to I think it's important to consider what is happening immediately adjacent to the plan area as well. Um I also just want to take a step back and just really commend the team on the the report. I thought it was very detailed. I really enjoyed reading through it. I think team did an excellent job. One comment I'd have is I think it'd be nice to I love the oblique map. I'd love to see that in the report. I think that really gives a good sense of the plan area. Also, because the the map on packet page 68, which I believe is supposed to be like a very large map, end up being actually really small on the PDF version. Um, so just kind of a side note about that. Um, I also kind of want to talk a little bit about um the intersection between what's existing there as a for businesses. So, at the at the KAG meeting, there was discussion about this ramen place, Dough Hudson Tuten Ramen. Um, and it's a it's a fan favorite, I'd say, for a lot of the folks that are over there. One might say it's the Happy Donuts of San Antonio Road. Um, it's it's very it's it's very popular. It's very popular. And, um, it also is on a HIP site. So that's um I think it's just really important to think about uh because as we saw with the El Camino area, there's a lot of these businesses that sit on hip sites and it's a little bit unclear about kind of their future with even though they have a lot of community support. In addition, uh I actually hadn't been here before uh last month. So, I just wanted to kind of learn a little bit more about the area. And one of the things that the owner had said was that it would be it'd be potentially difficult to afford rent if they were to have to rebuild. And so, talking about business gentrification, and I saw the term um naturally

occurring affordable housing, this is something I mentioned at the KAG where I feel like there's naturally occurring affordable retail for retail spaces that may not be able to afford new rent if we were to redevelop the area. So, I think that's something to really consider as we think about protection for retail and the space. Um, I also want to re-emphasize the traffic impacts. I know that we talk like I I think safety is mentioned a lot. I think that's very very important. But I also um think that as a major arterial road, as a major truck corridor, I think it's very important to consider the traffic implications as not kind of an oversight that is mentioned as as the last word on a presentation, but also very much involved in as part of the discussion. I really like Chair Akin's comments about creative solutions for how we might manage this. And those who know me about the bike plan know that for example, I'm not as strong on having the bike and ped infrastructure on the main road, but on side roads. So, for example, instead of San Antonio Road, you could have San Antonio AB, the little small parallel street. Um, in talking about origin destination pairs, you would probably expect that lots of folks here would be trying to go to schools, right? And so, how do we think about that in terms of making safe routes to school? So, San Antonio Road might San Antonio A might be an easy way that we carve out this to be primarily bike lane or we added like a bike lane as a significant component there. um or on other kind of side streets I think could be an really interesting creative way to think about that. I also just want to quickly address some of the other questions that you've identified on packet page 12. Um going kind of

order here. Uh preferred location for retail. Uh I think that on San Antonio between Middlefield and Charleston is one of the areas that I think is quite interesting for retail. Uh one of the other neighborhood uh neighbors have mentioned that the crossroads market I believe is also in this segment here which uh one specific neighbor had mentioned that with the increase of the hotels over there they've seen an increase in traffic of the market. So that could be really interesting to kind of collect more qualitative data or possibly quantitative data about the direct impacts of having more people on the local retail specifically. Um and then willingness to increase housing density height for office space. I'd like to echo chair Iken. I'm a little bit um reserved about changing the office space allowances. The project that's coming before us again at sometime 660 university. I believe the commission as it stands was also not super supportive of increasing the office allowance. That being said, uh I'd like to see more of the the current situation of the in of the housing density and height comparison. That way, as Cherry can mention, we can then make a judgment call about whether it's necessary to increase because I don't really know exactly where it is right now. And same with item four, the special setbacks. If I knew what the current state was, I could provide a little bit more feedback on that. And then I also kind of want to quickly address the topic that you had on your slide on the requested feedback section. Um, personally I think that uh for outdoor spaces I think that that's something that we could have some of the retail in conjunction with outdoor spaces I think could be a really excellent idea. Um, and then for the idea about locating outdoor space in Commercial Street Industrial A, I'm a little bit wary about that specifically given

Commissioner Peterson's comments about that area being underwater potentially. Um, I I think that idea might we might need to reinvestigate whether or not what we should be putting over there. Um, those end my comments for now. Do you need any response? I think I mostly gave specific comments, not questions. I don't know if the team would like to respond. You're happy to respond as needed. Okay, Commissioner Templeton.

Thank you. Um, first I'm going to ask the CAG and the tag. Are they I I still am unclear. Is it in the packet? Did I miss it? like a list of people who you've consulted who's working on the project. I don't think we provided those details in the packet. It is posted online. I'm sure it is. It is available. But thank you for that comment.

I I uh I think that's why I'm asking some of these questions and I I felt a little bit of well why don't you know this when I asked earlier? Well, I that's why um because I only read the packet. Um okay. So, um I'm going to ask again and you're welcome to pull it up as an auxiliary auxiliary resource if you want to if I can even pronounce it. Um but are you working at all with Google real estate and workplace services? You said that there is a Google facility involved in this space. It's just a Yeah, it's just just check and I'll tell you why while you're looking it up. Thank you for looking. The reason why um it seems like Commissioner G and I are sharing a brain again. Um uh the reason why it's important is we have um an incredible resource uh with how they have redesigned the Mountain View Google campus that could be uh applicable if we do bring them in and for us to think about how to look at the design um and flow of of traffic in the area particularly pedestrians and bikes which um the the design if you haven't walked the area I encourage you do um over on the Charleston campus um really completely separates um people in bikes from cars and this is great. Remember back when I was telling you I used to try and bike in and the bus would would hit the bike and and hit the pedestrians and now that doesn't that collision uh is minimized and it's really quite wonderful. However, they they um you know don't have a as big a road as San Antonio running through their campus. So, you know, they do have shoreline in Charleston, but um at those sections, it's a little different. So, I don't know to what extent we'd be able to

minimize our our roadways to make space for larger um pathways, but um tying this all together because uh one side effect of the way they designed this space um that is for transportation, right? Pedestrian and biking and cars. Um is that it became a a park. The pedestrian and bike space became a park. So you had this beautiful little path through what was a formerly industrial area and um it really changed everything about how you felt to be there. You didn't feel overwhelmed. You didn't feel the noise, right? It was mitigated by the plantings. Um so it it's been um an interesting experience to watch it change over the last 20 years. So I I would encourage you uh to take a look, but also to invite them in. So I I see we have an answer. So let's let's hear to what extent they're involved.

Sure. So uh we did not receive any applications from uh Google real estate team for the KAG. So we identified them as uh a partner we wanted to reach out directly to and have conversations with. That is fantastic. Um I don't know if he's still there, but we did have a office of transportation um a former office of transportation director uh move into that space and so they're familiar with working with the city of PaloAlto and might be a valuable resource to incorporate into your feedback system. Um, Commissioner Templeton, can I get a clarification on are are you talking about the greenway specific or are you talking about the shoreline improvements?

Um, for for San Antonio Road. Oh, no. For your your comparison to North Behore, I'm talking about the Plymouth. It's between um Yeah. Okay. San Antonio and Shoreline down along Charleston. Okay. And between Charleston 101. Great. Thank you.

Yeah. And I'm happy to like if we want to share if you want to set up an excursion where we can all go and take a look at it and get a personalized tour. I think it would be very inspirational for this particular project as we we're trying to take something that's been there forever and turn it into our vision of the future of this area and incorporate it into the community. So that's just a planting that seed. Of course, we wouldn't do it exactly. That's a workspace, right? We're talking about something different. But the ideas they used um about having a separate bike path, but but then incorporating the ideas of community there, safety and barriers to noise and visuals, um greenery, all those things can be something we can aspire to. Um anything else? I see people looking at me like you might have something to say. Did you have are you all good? Okay. Um the other thing I wanted to ask staff about um was we had some commissioners up up here um opining about the numbers that we should be using to understand um you know the balance of office space and housing. What is the city's official position on that? I do we have numbers that we use or should we take um Chair Akin's numbers? I want to make sure we're using the right numbers when we understand it. Thank you for that question. I don't have an answer, but I think posing the question so that as the consultants look into these details, they're aware that they're they should be questioning those numbers and then provide us a recommendation is very helpful. I think it's it's part of that and I it's also a question for you about every project because this comes up on every project and what we need to do is is come to like there's a source of the current truth and then how we want to shape it and that's part of the conversation that the chair brought up that we're trying to have with you guys is how do we um adjust that to the current times and bring it up to speed

all that but we need to be on the same page. So I just wanted to throw that out there as well. Um, is there I'm trying to find the slide. I'm having a hard time reading the light green on the printout. These are gorgeous printouts, by the way. But what's the slide with the questions you had, so I'm just requested feedback. Is that the one? Slide 18.

There's like three of them. Okay. Is I think I think everybody by the time we get through all six of us, it's going to be covered. But I hope that was useful. A little bit of a ramble, but the point is aim bigger. This is not going to be, you know, merging some lanes on Charleston Road. This needs to be a bigger project. Now, it's a lovely project. I'm not trying to diminish it, but we can do more to make that particular um area safer, especially as we look forward to all the people that are going to the types of people that are going to live there, what they're going to do, and everybody who lives on this in this area. last time we were had this conversation. They're just literally worried that children are going to die crossing the street and I'm looking at each one of you in the eye because I will come back and talk to you about it if and find out. Do you think we did enough? Right? That's the question. That's the question we all get. That's the question the council gets. That's the question you guys get. So we need to really understand that this is a a great opportunity for housing. It's also a very high risk at the current moment. So we have to measure how much progress we're going to make and what the price is. The price is increasing the safety. All right. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner. Um any further questions or comments? Right then I believe we have given you all the feedback we have for you tonight. Once again thank you very much. This is an exciting project. A lot of people are going to benefit from it. We appreciate the work. Thank you. Thank you and we appreciate all the comments that we've heard from you. This has been great. Thank you. All right, I think before we uh move on to item four, we should take a break. So, let's return at 8:30.

Welcome back everyone. We are ready to begin item number four, the South PaloAlto bike ped connectivity design alternatives study session.

Great. Uh good evening commissioners. My name is Charlie Cole, senior transportation planner with the office of transportation. Uh very happy to be here this evening talking about the South Palto bike pet connectivity project. I'm joined here with uh Ria uh Harboratlo Sylvia Starlac um uh Ria uh chief uh transportation official Sylvia the transportation planning manager in the office of transportation. We also have Amanda Ley and Hermanus uh Stain on the line as well from KD KDson and Associates. They're part of the project team supporting the city in this effort. Uh we do have a staff presentation. Is that up? Thank you. Thank you, Samuel. Um you can go ahead and advance to the next slide. Okay. So this is our overview for the study session this evening. Uh the staff report provides an update on the project and the work completed to date. And then we have uh recommended that PTC review and provide initial feedback on the eight potential crossing design alternatives and alternatives analysis. Um staff plans to return to PTC in November 2025 with a request to recommend up to two conceptual design alternatives to council. This is our agenda. Next slide. Um I'll spend a few minutes here just uh reminding everyone of the kind of the bigger picture um objective of this project. Um so just to reiterate what's shown on your screen, the objective is to identify additional locations and develop 15% design concepts for two additional grade separated bicycle and pedestrian crossings uh particularly rail crossings in the southern portion of the city. Our approach as approved by council on our scope of work with KDson and Associates involves a step-by-step process that starts with a comprehensive

look at the whole corridor in our study area um and identifying where there may be opportunities for future bicycle and pedestrian grade separated crossings. So this included an initial screening process of over 25 design alternatives that aligned with the project goals and design priorities. And the purpose of the initial screening was to identify the more feasible alternatives. That initial screening process resulted in the eight conceptual design alternatives which were advanced through the initial assessment of alternatives. And that's really the focus of this evening. Our scope of work provided the city with some flexibility to advance up to two alternatives to the 15% design level for further refinement. Um, and it's possible that these two design alternatives could be in the same location or next to each other. So, I just kind of wanted to make that a little bit clearer. Thinking longer term, our our kind of expectation um is once we've kind of gone through this preliminary design exercise of getting down to two designs um that have the most promise, we sort of suspect that one would be built. So, I just kind of wanted to frame that and make that a little bit more clearer. Um that's always that's also described a bit further if you're interested in the alternatives analysis which starts on packet page 95. So uh just kind of want to reemphasize again that the council approved this effort as uh really just the conceptual planning phase of a much bigger project. So really this this effort is just to get to that 15% design level. There's much more work to come. Um I would also like to make clear as it's shown on your screen that this effort is separate from the rail grade separation project. Uh that's looking at grade separated crossings at Church Hill Meadow and Charleston for vehicles, bikes and pedestrians. These would be uh additional bike pedon crossings.

Next slide please. So this is our project study area um focusing on the southern portion of the city uh which we've defined as south of Oregon Expressway. happy to talk more about this if you like during Q&A, but we can go ahead and proceed. Wanted to spend a little bit of time just talking about the background uh for why we're here, why we're u bringing this project forward um through the community at this time. Um the reason is because there have been several supportive uh council supported plans and studies that have identified a critical need for additional grade separated bicycle pedestrian crossings particularly in the southern portion of the city. This comes through in the city's comprehensive plan and the current 2012 bicycle and pedestrian transportation plan. There was a 2013 rail corridor study. There was also the recently adopted safe streets for all safety action plan. Um, and there are others that that mention this. In addition to the city's plans, there's the Santa Clara uh Valley Transportation Authority or the VTA and their countywide bike plan which identified the Cal Train tracks in the southern portion of the city as a key barrier to bicycle movement in the county. So, this project is really implementing the recommendations of previous council supported plans and other plans to address those mobility gaps uh for walking and biking. In addition to some of the things shown on your screen here, there are many other ongoing and future projects that's happening in this part of the city. This includes updating the bicycle and pedestrian transportation plan. Um, this is a citywide uh that's a citywide project looking at the future bike ped network, but that also includes southern Palo Alto. There's the housing element update and the recently approved um housing uh growth that would be occurring in the southern portion of the city along El Camino Royale and San Antonio Road in particular. There's the as you just heard the San Antonio road area plan which is just kicking off which is implementing the housing

element update work um and reimagining that San Antonio road area. There's also the Coverly Community Center project um that's also just go getting going. There's a rail grade separation work that's happening. So, it's really just a long- winded way of saying there's a lot happening in the city and all these things go together. Um, and I thought it's important just to uh to mention that this bicycle and pedestrian connectivity project is another project that will help to support all those other things that's happening in the city in that broader context just to help maintain the quality of life as the city continues to evolve. Next slide, please. So this is our project timeline. On September 9th, 2024, exactly one year and one day ago, um council approved our scope of work with KDson and Associates to provide the support on this project. In early 2025, we completed the review of the existing conditions and published our existing conditions report. that existing conditions work was used to identify crossing opportunity locations and develop um our design priorities and evaluation criteria which were shared with the community including PTC for review and feedback during the first phase of engagement in uh spring of 2025. In summer of 2025, uh the project team updated the design priorities and evaluation criteria. More information on that is found on packet page 73 if you're interested. And based on uh those updates were based on the feedback that we gathered gathered during the phase one um which was then used in the development initial assessment and comparison of design alternatives. We are now in phase two of community engagement that's happening fall of 2025 and we're gathering feedback on the eight preliminary concept alternatives. And the goal for phase two is to um obtain council um um well for council to

select two alternatives for further development and analysis. Following phase two, we anticipate there'll be some refinement of alternatives uh before packaging everything together in a public draft report that goes out uh for phase three. And then um for phase four, we're looking for council adoption of a final report before um or as we're looking to secure grant funding or other funding sources for the next phases of work. Next slide, please. I won't cover all this, but this slide just presents the tools and activities. some of the things that um were part of phase one of community engagement. I'm happy to talk more about what we did or what we heard, but for the time being, we can keep going. Um same thing here, there's more information on the updated design priorities and evaluation criteria. Uh that again, that starts on packet page 73. Happy to go through those definitions or how they've changed since we were last here. Um during the Q&A, just let me know. We can do that. For now, we can keep going. Uh I wanted to spend a few minutes just talking about uh the complexity of transportation projects and especially projects of this magnitude. Um, we again are at the very early stages of a very complex high-profile project that involves many stakeholders such as yourselves as well as many other public agencies uh including Cal Train, the city of Mountain View, County of Santa Clara uh in some cases valley water and all of these agencies have their own designs and standards. um eight the eight alternatives were developed in accordance with the design standards uh of those of those agencies but there are still many complex engineering challenges that will still need to be worked through. Uh so while all the designs are technically feasible um the alternatives

are still very fluid at this stage and u you can even think of them as modular in a sense so they can still be moved around right um further also just note as I'm sure you noticed all alternatives have right-of-way implications that need to get worked out once that list is narrowed down once we get down to maybe those two alternatives um this we've known from the very beginning will be a very big challenge for this due to just the physical nature of um the land use characteristics on both sides of the roadway. And to address this challenge as a public agency, we want this to be a public process and we want to be uh transparent about the trade-offs when you're looking at these different alternatives. Um all that being said, there's a lot more community engagement, a lot more technical design work uh that's to come. Next slide, please. Okay. So, here's a a slide that just shows all eight uh preliminary design concepts uh that the city commission for review and feedback from the community as part of this project. As a reminder, these are all very high level. Um they're very flexible, modular. Um I want to point out that these drawings were drawn to scale uh to provide a level of detail that's probably more than what's needed at this stage in the project. However, we wanted to include these details to give the community a sense of what these could start to look like, how they might function, uh what they might feel like, and what that um you know, particular how much space would be needed to actually build these. You will notice that some locations have multiple concepts under consideration. This is due to the crossing priority um crossing location priorities described in previous council plans as well as some of the feedback that we gather gathered during the first phase of engagement. Um you'll also notice that the alternatives have a wavy path. This

is the you know the really the amount of space that would be needed to accommodate some kind of a ramp and that length that would be needed to connect and provide an accessible path from the roadway level down to the tunnel. Uh finally, you will notice that there are many consistencies between designs. So the ramp width, ramp grades, tunnel widths, heights, um these were all generally kept consistent um to sort of uh keep things simple at at this point um or simpler if if you if I may. Um except for alternative H at San Antonio Road, which uses existing structures to to cross a railroad tracks. So as you're reviewing the conceptual designs, I would just recommend focusing feedback on the basic design concepts associated with each alternative um which in you know from our perspective is really the location and what do you do at Alma? Do you grade separate or do you do some kind of a signal or some other type of treatment to cross at grade? Um as I mentioned earlier there are many variations associated with each alternative. A lot of those variations are documented in the alternatives analysis. Uh but the goal for this com um for this project at this stage is really to get community consensus on the basic design concepts. So hopefully that helps to focus your attention. Um and I'm happy to walk through each of these alternatives during Q&A if that would be helpful. Next slide please. So this slide summarizes the results of the assessment of the alternatives that's described in your in your packet. Um starting on page 79 uh and in the alternatives analysis which was attached. Happy to describe um and talk through this in more detail or any elements here. Um just let me know during the Q&A portion.

Next slide please. Uh quickly just next steps, continuing to check the project web page for updates. Um there is an online survey that's available through September 12th. Uh that would be uh through this Friday. Uh look out for pop-up events over the next few months. And then um much like we're here today, we do have uh presentations scheduled at standing committee meetings over the next few months to um be gathering the feedback uh for this stage of the project. And I believe I have one one or two more slides. Um also just kind of wanted to end on this is stated in your um in your uh packet this evening as well just sort of next steps thinking bigger picture what are some of the the major things that will need to happen once we complete this project um there are many more steps to come including securing a uh Cal Train service agreement so similar to the work that's being done in the grade separation process eventually Cal Train would take over as basically the manager for this project once the city has decided on their preferred designs and gotten to that 15% design concept. Uh there would be grants and fundings that would need to be um identified to help to to pay for these um these efforts, additional engineering, environmental documentation, uh final design, inter agency coordination, right-ofway acquisitions, um construction, and then once all that's completed, the project's then handed back over to Palo Alto. So many more years of work to come for this project. Uh and I believe that's it. I have one more slide as just uh questions for PTC consideration just to help guide uh your discussion this evening. Uh we're really looking for input on any questions or suggestions that you have on the eight concept design alternatives. Then of course any questions or feedback that you have on the alternatives analysis, we'd be happy to entertain. That's it. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Kohl's. Um, do we have any clarifying questions? Commissioner Templeton, then Vice Chair Chang, then Commissioner G. Forgive me for asking this question. I think I know the answer, but I feel like it's worth stating. We can only choose one. No. So, um,

we can only build one. I think it's up it's up to uh council to decide, right? But I think the idea is that there's a need for for one at least one or or one at a minimum. Um and so the study the way we've scoped it is we've provided some flexibility in our scope where we have eight that we're coming forward with now. Uh we want to try to get that eight down to two and advance those further. But not necessarily to have both. But not necessarily to have both. Right. Okay. But it's I guess it is it is possible and it sort of depends on the combination of the two.

Right. Because there are some that are located at the same location but then there are some that are much further away from each other. And so it might make sense to have have two. So,

do we um I I assume the number of bikes going to cross Alma are equivalent for the different areas? I mean, is this is this high schools only? Is it middle schools? Is this elementary schools? We biked across Alma to get to elementary school. Like are we just looking at the design or Yeah. So, as part of

Seriously, we could literally be here all night. So, I'm just trying to figure out what exactly you want us to say this one's prettiest or or I want the kids going to this school to be able to safely reach without crossing, but I don't care about that other school or Yeah. So, I'm sorry I'm putting you on the spot. So I I'm not I'm not being very generous with my phrasing. So please reflect back in a way that is how you're looking at it. I I'm a little tongue and cheek here. So

absolutely. I appreciate the question. Um Samuel, if you wouldn't mind, uh can we open up slide uh slide 12, please? So as as part of this process um we we uh so as I as I described there was a process that we took where we were looking at we did started with a comprehensive look at the entire corridor to look to see where there were um potentially opportunity for future um bike ped crossings. That effort started with We ended up with around 25 to 27 different options and through that uh through an initial screening process we ended up getting down to eight um crossing alternatives. And so those are the eight crossing preliminary crossing design alternatives that are presented here this evening. Once we got down to our eight, we applied the um design priorities and evaluation criteria that uh are discussed in the packet. Um we also shared those with PTC uh when we were here last time to get feedback and uh what those uh what that uh evaluation criteria is essentially a series of metrics that we use to evaluate each alternative. Um so you sort of start to see how each of the alternatives compare. And so on your screen is really the summary table from the alternatives analysis. um and is one of the one of the elements that we think is um useful in helping to compare the different alternatives and and trade-offs.

I I understand all that, but thank you for going over it. Um I guess I will save that's the rest of my commentary is not clarifying in his response. So, thank you. Vice Chair Chang, then Commissioner G,

can you just help me understand my kind of stupid question about option H, which is the enhancement of the San Antonio one? Um, so am I understanding correctly that the proposal would be for the bikes? Well, so first of all, where do the peds go? Where do the pedestrians how do they cross? Are they using the existing crossing? And then second question is is the vision right now I know that this is just preliminary that the bikes would go up and over the same way cars do up which is kind of steep. That's why I'm I mean it ends because you need coordination with Mountain View. Um maybe we can pull this up so that members of if members of the public are listening or for the recording uh packet page 130

there. Thank you. Thank you. Slide slide 25. Clerk, if you if you wouldn't mind pulling that up. So, we have some backup slides with the exhibits um in the presentation as well. We can use that to take a look at it. Perfect.

And while that's coming up, I can Yeah, I think you generally have have the sense. So again, um this is uh one of the two designs that would require additional coordination with Mountain View as a half of it or big portion of it would be in in their jurisdiction. Um so as shown, the alternative would construct um or would install a 10- foot wide center running two-way uh I'm sorry, no um slide. Yeah, keep going to alternative H, please. Perfect. That's it.

That's the one. Yeah. So, here the yellow line represents the two-way separated um cycle track. And so, this would uh go from Nita Avenue in PaloAlto to um uh California Street in in Mountain View. And and you're correct in your understanding is it would be along the existing bridge uh the same elevation as as vehicles currently travel. um it would not or at least as as it's described here it would be for cyclists only. Uh the way pedestrians are accommodated is um enhancing the um uh the connectivity to the existing bike ped tunnel at the Cal Train Station and uh in Mountain View, the San Antonio station, by utilizing the existing uh San Antonio Avenue and the sidewalks there with the crosswalk at the intersection of Alma and San Antonio Avenue and then connecting along the um the pathway or the sidewalk really that connects San Antonio Avenue to the Cal Train station.

Okay. Thank you. And I know this is kind of not what we agreed to during our retreat, but because this is up here and I don't want to have to backtrack to it. Um, first of all, thank you for an amazing packet and I loved the fact that you guys had kind of looked at all the options and and there's that table in there that says uh why you didn't advance like I don't know the tens of hundred options that you that you had and how you kind of got boiled it down to eight. But um and I have to be I have to admit to not reading all of the options. Um but why the putting why not use the existing bike uh like enhancing the existing bike crossing here or is it right? Because right now the the bikes would go the way the pedestrians do. Correct. I mean or they or they could also just travel and along with cars.

Are you is just a point of clarification is the question why not enhance connections to the existing tunnel at the cow train station. Yes. Yeah. So I think that would be part of this that would be part of this design as well. But not but it's not sufficient for bikes is what you're saying. There's no way to turn that the existing thing the existing pedestrian route into the route for bikes as well. Well, yeah, I think that that could be Yeah, I think that's good feedback. Okay. Well, so I I just didn't know if that was already eliminated. So, thank you. Uh yeah, that's that's it. Thanks.

Thank you, Commissioner G. And then Commissioner questions covered. Ah, okay. Commissioner Peterson, you're up. Uh it's going to be a similar question. Uh so first a question is you don't show the baseline like the current situation with no option just as a way to start comparing. I'm I think option H is probably almost kind of this is the baseline and so and the reason why is because option H which is the the bridge. Sorry, just point of clarification. Do you mean baseline for the map that you're looking at?

I mean baseline like just the current situation if we had no if we had nothing no option at all. So we can see the improvement. Uh so H I think there's an issue because not only does H not look like it includes fully the the underpass the walking uh but even once you add the bike path I don't unless I'm not understanding the map maybe this is my question is why doesn't it show greater access to San Antonio road if you have biking over San Antonio bridge which map are you looking at I'm on H maybe packet page maybe. Yeah. 172.

Thank you. Samuel, can you bring up 172?

Yeah, Commissioner. Um, chair, I'm happy to um to weigh in here. So, the reason for on packet page 72, this um this is part of the accessibility analysis. So if you remember when we uh when we were here last time, we did the accessibility analysis as part of the existing conditions. And so that was the baseline analysis. This is now applying if you were to assume a uh a new crossing, what would the change in accessibility be? And so for alternative H on page packet 72, this is showing um how walking uh accessibility would change. Since we're not adding a new um uh pedestrian pathway, another way to cross the railroad tracks, there would be no change in different travel times.

Are the packets different? Cuz I'm on 172.

Yep, there we go. Okay. And then uh we don't have it on up on the screen. That would help. Then we're all looking at the same thing. There we go. So, at the top of the map, there we go. It seems that if you had the bridge enhancement, you would have greater access to the San Antonio corridor. But this is showing minimal. In fact, it just shows it goes up to the Google X development and basically stops right there.

This is for pedestrians. Do you care about bikes or just peds? At this point, I use the pedestrians kind of as a proxy because I know the bikes are going to do better than that. I see what you're saying because with the the bike path that it will give the greater access because Okay. So, this is showing pedestrian just with the underpass. The the bike diagrams on PE page 180. Okay. Yeah. So I think this this one here because of that this almost does show the current situation because it doesn't show the bike access. So that's where the two come together is this one here is probably the closest to what we have right now.

Thank you. Further clarifying questions vice chair. Oh, sorry. I did have one more. Um, so I noticed that all the bridge options were eliminated. Does that mean and it mentions cost as well as comfort for the pedestrians and bikes crosses crossing? Um, costwise, would it end up being more expensive than any of the current is costwise is the construction of a bridge kind of we think more expensive than any of like even our most expensive options right now in among the eight?

Yeah, that that's a really good question.

Perhaps I can respond to that. So the difference between a bridge and an undercrossing is that for an undercrossing you need a clearance of maybe 8 to 10 ft for the height of a person or a person on a bike. Um if you're using um a bridge you need to get up to the overhead catinary wires and then you have to have a 10ft clearance from that. So you probably I don't know how the high that is 25 ft or something. Um, and to do that with an ADA accessible path, you're traveling a very long distance. So sometimes it might be infeasible technically because you'd wipe out a whole lot of properties in order to get the ramp in front of their driveways.

Thank you. That's super helpful to understand um that it's kind of a a steepness issue that then drives the cost and the um associated issues. Thank you. Any further clarifying questions, Commissioner Peterson?

So, looking closer at this, I think there is a problem on page 172. I was confused a little bit between the pedestrian and the biking issue, but now I'm looking at it clearly just as pedestrian. So, if there was a way to zoom, is there a way to zoom in on just the top half of the map? Okay. So, if you look closely at the top of the map here, it shows the pedestrian underpass at San Antonio. And then it's showing a pedestrian route around the on-ramp, which is a little bit weird because pedestrians aren't going to walk on that on-ramp. But more importantly is it also doesn't show the connection of that you can walk across because you walk up Alma and there's a crosswalk there underneath the bridge and I don't know if it's just you don't see that because the bridge is quote unquote hiding it but I don't think this map is is three-dimensional like that. I think there's actually a missing connection of crossing um I don't know what the road is. is probably old San Antonio something. Um to get to south uh Palo Alto cuz I would think that that underpass you can walk pretty far up into like towards Cberly and stuff. Just wanted to point it out.

Yeah, we can we can look into that as well. I think I mean I'll I'll just add that um yes, I'm trying to say there's there's a better connection than what what your map is showing than what than what's currently showing. Yeah.

Any further questions, Commissioner James? All right, Mr. Divera, do we have any public commenters on this topic? Um, the chair, I've received no public comment cards, and if there's anyone on Zoom who would like to request to speak, I would request that you raise your hand now. Um, seeing none to the chair. I have none. Thank you. So, we are open for discussion rounds and I see Commissioner Templeton would like to speak.

Uh, yes. Thank you. Um, I want to look at the um the chart and I want uh you know, your pretty black and gray chart. Um, and I I wanted to just check and see um parcel impacts. Does that mean removing a home? I'm trying to translate that. Can you answer that, please? Yeah. So, in some in some cases it does. Yeah.

And are all these roughly the same number of homes? Is that why they're all How are we to interpret the different shades of gray? Could you put a number there of how many homes will be impacted? Yeah, we we do have that information in there. I'm happy to to pull it up if that would be helpful. You have it as a chart. That would be great. What What page is it on? I missed it.

Um if if uh someone from KDson on the line could help try to uh point us in the right direction or I can try to look that up as well. Thank you. Yeah, I I guess I was mesmerized by our our chart there. So, while you're looking that up, I want to go to the graph on page 77, and I want to look at this. And I'm um concerned about the potential general assumptions in the guidance that staff has received from um the project so far. in that I feel like the difference between A and H is so very very vast. Um I have walked I used to live um a block over from Matadero and um I walked my kids to preschool family once. Uh it was an interesting experience. Um the railroad track having an underpass would be really nice. Um but um that was so long and I don't think that I I went I didn't go all the way to H. I think I went down there to Charleston. It was it's imagine if you're living over here on Loma Verde and you're trying to get to gun like age makes no sense at all for that perspective. Now, on the other hand, there are people who do live down here in the San Antonio area of Fernav. We got some friends over on Fern. Um, that would be really ideal for them. Um, in that context though, I'm thinking back to our previous uh item that that's an area that's

currently under study and we're hoping that we can fit something good there in through that avenue if we do have to limit ourselves. So then I come back to how do we split the difference? Um given the rail crossing projects, what are you how how does that play into your chart? Let's put it that way. So that let's say we did do something down here on Charleston. So DF, how does uh for the rail um crossings, how does that show up in your chart in terms of would it be throwaway work if we were to build something like this?

Yeah, I think I understand what you're what you're getting at. So thanks. Um the I think you're speaking about correct me if I'm wrong the rail grid separation work at Meadow and Charleston recognizing that the construction footprint could be quite large especially if the city decides on the hybrid alternative.

Not even that like those projects incorporate already some bike crossing. Not sure I love them either. Um so that's that's the dilemma. For example, I like these better. I like what you've proposed better than what we've been looking at for the rail grade uh separation, but if we go with this, does that mean 10 years from now it's all going to be thrown out if we finally have a rail crossing, rail grade separation? Yeah, I really I really appreciate that perspective. So that something that we talk about in the analysis is how some of uh three of our alternatives so alternatives D, E, and F,

Yep. are all within the construction um proposed construction area for the Meadow Charleston hybrid alternative. So if the hybrid alternative were to be um selected um the uh crossings at DE and F would really need to be delayed until the construction um for the rail grade separation would begin because you need to coordinate the two projects. We wouldn't want to, as you're pointing out, build something that then gets torn up. I mean, it could be 20 years though. You going to delay it 20 years?

I think the I think the challenge here is just recognizing that there is the overlap and then um you kind of sort of start to add some complexity.

So, um I spent several years working on that project, just so you know. So, I'm I'm familiar with these things and I I really like the work you've done. and I think it is uh providing some superior alternatives. However, I will also add that in the in the world we discussed earlier tonight, if parts of this uh the train were to change elevation, then you'd have every one of those crossings. So, that's not what you asked us tonight, and we're not going to get into it tonight, but uh it's really important, and I'm saying it just for the record because hopefully somebody from council will be reading this. But every one of these is a great location and a great suggestion. Uh the ones in general um that I'm concerned about are the the the houses that will be lost. So, did we get that pulled up? It's packet page 82 also.

82 um talks about parcel impacts. Yeah, parcel impacts. You were you were at um commissioner that your question was what is each shade of gray kind of associated with? If you go to packet page 161 161 there's table 18 that shows uh how we scored the partial impact criteria. So it's a range from no parcel impact to full impact of two or more parcels. Again recognizing these are high level conceptual designs but generally drawn to scale.

Um thank you for that. That is um tangential to what I'm asking. I'm I'm asking if you could please improve this chart for community consumption by using numbers in that row and not 0 1 2 and more than two but actual numbers because you know you've already looked at it may as well tell it because this this is dominating the conversation about this in the community. I see it multiple places. Facebook, neighborhood chats, my friends texting me. Like it is causing suspicion and distrust. And so since you have the information, you should provide it. Um I do love a good chart. I love this chart, but it it that particular piece of information needs to be numerical. Um that's all I'm going to say for now. I'll get into more detail. Um, but the the bottom line is we need all these crossings. So, but I don't want to take all that many houses. Thanks. I have no other lights at the moment. Anyone else care to weigh in? Commissioner G.

Thank you, Chair. I have to say this report was awesome. I really delved into every single page. I did re spend way too much time reading lots of appendices. Um, and uh, I think this is probably not directly impacted by our PTC retreat that we had recently, but I know that's one of the things we talked about was having more detailed staff reports. And I want to say both this packet and the previous agenda item really delivered on that. So, thank you staff so much. Um so yes um I want to say uh wait I just want to ask chair are structuring conversation are we just kind of talking generally now or we want to talk about options or what what's the format we're looking

it's entirely free form now

okay so it's free form now okay so um thank you for all these options I'm particularly impressed with the analysis of the 27 different options I think it was really helpful in trying to hone in on the logic that we got to the options that we have today. Um, one note I when reading through the packet it said like option A which is Elorado Avenue tunnel and then for example C is a L mover tunnel with signal. I think it would just be helpful to clarify that some of the options that say tunnel also still have the signal. So for example option A Elorado Avenue tunnel my understanding based on the drawing is it also comes with a signal. So it for all the options that have a signal just to label that which kind of gets me to my next point which is I'm very strongly against having a signal on Elma. Um it took me 40 minutes today to get here from Mountain View on Central and my office is one block off of Central. Um and the only thing that I there was no accidents, there was nothing. It was just traffic lights at each of the different places. And I think specifically in South Palto, if you drive through this area, you couldn't I I've been trapped between Meadow and Charleston for

so so so many signals of it not moving. Um and I would like to not see a light. Um which probably is leans is going to indicate where I'm going to comment on for the discussion items. But I also um being interested in the data myself uh dug into the calculation as well. Wait, sorry, let me find it. Um on packet page 149 um chair Iken may be interested to know that there are origin destination pair data that is discussed here. Um sorry, I specifically mean on packet page 150 about the weekday trips. I think it's really helpful to have this this discussion about like how many more trips are going to be created and using the distances as part of the calculation. The idea being that if the distance gets shrunk a lot then more people will be traveling. But for me, one of the reasons why when I looked at this, I saw that options B and C, for example, LMA verde tunnel with signal and without signal are considered equal. But in my mind, they're very much not equal. So I went to Fair Meadow stopping like from the El Camino side of the train tracks, the traffic light was more than 50% of the total amount of time to get to the place. or when I went to gun crossing at El Camino was more than probably 40% of the amount of time I would spend on my bike trying to get there. And so while I mean we can talk about the the benefits of I love the table. I have to say I love the color table but also having these two options being considered the same I think is um a little bit misleading to the reality. For example, if I had to wait at LMA verde for a traffic light, that probably adds a significant portion of time to

the crossing. And if we're talking about connectivity, I think it's really important to to to be aware that these are pretty different from a day-to-day lifestyle change, even if from a distance calculation perspective, they're about the same. Um, so I that's something that uh is important to me when thinking about the options. The other thing that I want to call out about packet page 150 is the the is the demand impact. And I and I want to say that I guess I am not very supportive of building a tunnel in places with very low demand. Like it's pretty clear based on the analysis here and I think from people's lived experiences living in South Palto that adding a tunnel between Charleston and Meadow is probably excessive and I think um 450 trips is being pretty generous. Uh if there's a signal there I'm I'm it's unclear to me about um how much usage that will get. Um, and also I really appreciate the diagrams that are kind of appendices like towards the back. Whichever diagram that Commissioner Peterson had mentioned, I think that was really helpful because the highlighted areas that are nice and thick can really call out exactly where the where there's additional connectivity. And I think just for the public that would just be interesting to surface earlier. I don't know. I know there's a lot of already a lot of information in the main part of the packet but this way when I talk to my friends I can say hey if you live in Lom Verde now I have better connection to XYZ place right so being able not like oh hypothetically I have this tunnel that can now get me somewhere what does it actually mean to for my day-to-day life right so for example um if I look at packet page

uh 174 the bike with lom verde you can actually see that the darker area includes gun, right? So, what that means is if I live on the uh 101 side of Alma near Lomma Verde, I will be able to get to gun closer. And that's an easier story to tell for the people who live there than to say, "Hey, do you want to tunnel Elorado?" And I don't act like in fact these people don't know what's over there on the other side of the train tracks because it is very difficult to get there. So, having this kind of description is really helpful. And I would also like to echo Commissioner Peterson's comment, which is I think it would be I I guess like effectively H uh oh, sorry, the the pedestrian diagram on packet page 172 is the baseline, but I think it could be nice to have a baseline as well for the bikes to say, hey, this is how it was before, right? So like now on on the LMA verde tunnel I see that the time is like it's bright which means there is an impact but I don't know like now it's I don't know less than 5 minutes right but before what was it actually right and so being able to say like the savings is 15 minutes or whatever um could be nice so I'll I'll let other commissioners speak at this point

I have Vice Chair Chang and then Commissioner Peterson. Okay, I couldn't agree more with everything that Commissioner G has said. I thought it was uh in particular really appreciated his comment about how, you know, the two options at Lomie though they have approximately the same demand really might not have the same demand. Um so as I was looking at this kind of my favorite was B because of the c centrality because of the demand. Um unfortunately it's expensive. Um, but I was really trying to optimize when I was looking at this and thinking if we're going to be spending all this time and effort and interruption, it's actually got to serve a whole bunch of people. And so for that reason, D through G were just sort of not it just doesn't we don't think we get the bang for the buck. Furthermore, when you look at um where those connect out of kind of Green Meadow and the circles, Green Meadow and the circles are designed such that they are not commuter routes because people don't really go through them. I can see why bikes might, but it's just sort of not it's designed as a series of dead ends. And so that's yet another reason why. I mean, that's why the demand is lower, as you well know. Um and then in terms of um the other thing I was looking at is uh the lights on Alma and I completely agree with Commissioner G on that. We are going to have I mean we have potentially like a giant development coming in in Menllo Park. We have tons of development coming in in Mountain View. We ourselves are you know developing a ton. And I know I know that we don't want all these pe all these housing units to come with cars, but when you talk to the real estate developers and you say, "Well, how about you just don't park your project?" Well, they tell us. They've told us in this room. Nope. That's dead in the water.

So, the the the all same thing with the retail landlords. Nope. We are a car centric. Um we're carentric down here in the Bay Area. So, they're all coming with cars. And so if we add lights, we're essentially taking the one arterial arterial that we have that actually kind of works right now. Kind kind of, but it did take Commissioner G40 minutes. And then we're actually causing impediments. And then when you look at the um I know this is not popular for like bike advocates and stuff, but when you look at the numbers of people that would be benefiting. So let's take a look at Lumarie which 2500 crossings a day. How many people would we be slowing down by how much? And it's going to be kind of exponential I think with the train traffic. And so I just think a light is almost a non-starter. I mean, maybe there's maybe I'm not imaginative enough and maybe there's a way to execute it such that it would work, but I really think we would be cutting ourselves off at the knees with the light. So, that's why I think B and then H might be like a far second. I don't think it solves that kind of big um connectivity gap that we have. But when we look at um because it's relatively inexensive and when we look at the area plan and all the housing that's going to go in there and our hopes that those people hopefully will come in with fewer cars per unit then it might be really necessary to have that and so maybe maybe we'll get to Thanks.

Yeah. You you said that G was a non-starter and it has this slightly more but a same large number as the other things you liked. What what was your objection to it? Uh the demand. I just didn't think Well, how is that doing?

No, you're right. You're right. Maybe there's a hole there. I think it was just further away though from sort of the central part of um I think yeah I was also looking at kind of trying to council had when they said go with this project said let's focus on crossings from Cal a to like uh east meadow and so that's part of the reason because it's just at one end but I just think I thought it wasn't as uh powerful Commissioner Peterson Mike. Sorry. Screen share. Start broadcast action. Sounds like we have an instructor for our technology portion, right?

Need our class. Okay, we're looking at H here. And what I'm going to do, and the reason why this is going to tie back into G is because essentially I'm also going to fix option G in a way. So, I've had to work with some tedious software like this. So, I can see I think where some things came apart where I think you can tighten things up uh in the next iteration. Is it still possible to run these? Maybe I should ask that first. Or is the the simulations all done for the walking paths? Is it a massive change? I think we're open to hearing Yeah. hearing your comments and Okay. Yeah.

Whoever the consultant is that does these is like Yes. We need to look at our scope and and budget just

they'll probably Okay, so I should have the ability to draw now. This one somewhere in here. Give me one second here. I'm on the wrong just want to draw. There it is. Draw. Found it. Drawing tool. Okay. So, here's my edit. So, first there's a walking path there. It's through private property. It goes through a parking lot, but it looks like I've never walked that actual path myself, but I'm pretty sure you can walk between those two points, which really changes uh that dark blue street into a light blue and probably transitions and reaches further into that neighborhood, which is exactly what um option G is was reaching as well, that you can basically reach it from the Cal Train station though it's a little bit of a walk but then when you get to the cow train station the underpass is also not properly represented so I had to look more carefully and realize I think I jaywalk across Alma and I risked my life each time I I was talking about there's you can walk under the underpass you actually can't there it's not a continual walkway anymore so there is a a crosswalk here and then it's not really clear but there's a small walkway Okay. Underneath the uh there's a a hole in the fence, so to speak. Someone's actually made it that you can walk across the street, walk along the

tracks, and you're back at the Cal Train station, and then you can walk back underneath here. So, I think those two uh revisions to the model to allow it to better represent because now you can see that you're very clearly We'll use yellow, I guess. Oh, well, it's all going to be yellow. I won't try to be fancy with this. Obviously, now you can go up. I found out it's called North San Antonio is going to light up and then you're going to get these branch streets off North San Antonio are all going to light up and then anyway, so you get the idea. And I think that's going to give us a better representation that it'll probably it look a lot like option G does. Um, but we actually have it under H without knowing it. There you go. Thank you.

And that is the kind of technology use that I was hoping for. So very useful. Thank you, Commissioner Templeton.

Thanks. Um I I really appreciate the comments we've had so far. Um I want to agree with the commentary about not add lights to Alma like we will all agree to that. That's that's a bad move. Um so if if that helps you eliminate uh half of these then more power to you. Um but the the bottom line is uh where you stand um I think may depend on where you live. Uh so I'm I'm thinking that uh this is kind of the part of town I live in. I think I would be preferring um you know DE or F and the part of town that other commissioners live in might prefer something closer to them or that's areas that they frequent. So um you know that's something for us to think about and this is why I'm trying to say like we're going to be pitting the the uh what is it? The the sharks and the jets. I'm trying no from from I'm trying to remember from Westside Story. We're going to have, you know, people this part of town and this part of town kind of um on opposite sides because um it's just where their their haunts are. And so we could li eliminate. I bet we could get down to two options for you tonight. But then you're stuck because there's no rational way to deal with that because they're about the same in terms of usage and it just depends on which one you think would be easier for you. So I that's sort of what I was getting at with uh my earlier question about like what do you want us to use? And yes, I we have your chart and your chart if the chart was enough you wouldn't be here, right? there's some other things, some judgment that you're

looking for from us. And um yeah, I I guess um I like El Dorado. So A and I like Which one of D and E doesn't have a light? So D and I like G because G gets a lot of use, but as we just discussed, we hope that that's going to be incorporated into another eminent project. Um, is there someone here on this panel of staff that can say yes indeed, that's no longer relevant because we're absolutely going to put that in to to their project that presented last. Any any chance? Are you are you a CAG or a TAG?

Oh, you mean the San Antonio Road area plan? Yeah. So, I think it's just important to Yeah. recognize that we have the scope of work, eight designs, we're trying to get down to two, what happens there, right? I'm trying to help you. So, I'm trying to say if that's already taken care of, we can just eliminate it.

Right. And so I think it I think that yeah I think you're bringing up a really great point that um you know these these projects have already shown up or will show up in other plans and other studies. Right. So this there's the San Antonio road area plan. There's the current bicycle and pedestrian transportation plan that shows a crossing at in the Loma Verde vicinity. Um and we're city's currently going through their update of the bicycle and pedestrian transportation plan. Um it would also show uh where future crossings could be or uh you know what could happen at at San Antonio Road and the the interchange. So these again Yeah. So these designs or at least the the project so to speak um to do the work and advance the work could show up in many different plans and studies.

Okay. So, a A versus B. Uh, looks like A is takes fewer houses than B. Is that Am I interpreting our colors right? I've lost the numbers page, but I know I'm going to get numbers next time, right? Um, so if it came down between A and B and we It looked to me like how many houses do we have to take? I didn't think we do on A. Does what page was it? Do you remember what the chart about the number

82? Well, 161. Thank you. You guys are um just to clarify, we actually don't need to get down to two options tonight. We're we're looking for feedback. We expect to get down to two in the next several months. So if there are things I mean I think we've heard tonight that you're not preferring things that add additional signals um to Alma. So that might be some feedback that helps us to eliminate a couple. If there are ones that you definitely want to eliminate like one one or two then that helps us kind of to

Thank you. So that that is exactly what I was trying to ask. If we can eliminate H or G and H because of the area plan then you're down to three. and then we're done. I I tease a little, but um so I assume you want more from us. I don't know, but if you did, it'd be great to specify and say, "Well, you've given us enough to narrow it down to three." I agree, but I would I'm curious about X, Y, and Z. That's fine. But anyway, um being more transparent about the the houses and I assume people are living in these houses. That makes it that makes it tough. Um so um and are how long are all of these equally lengthy in terms of it sounds like age is not going to happen any time in this decade or the next in terms of the difficulty everything there is well okay is black the best

so it's the easiest one to do Okay. Although it does involve uh inter agency collaboration and this project was removed from the five-year CIP on the Mountain View side because they're focusing on their grade separations first. So they're not anticipating about that. That's an interesting approach.

Um wow. I It's almost as though we mentioned that tonight too and and it's it's great we're talking about this is such good stuff. we should definitely do it. But it is for me like the only people I've ever heard talking about this are the same people that sit on the rail committee because we understand how desperately interconnected they are. And so I'm I'm just a little nervous about getting excited and getting people excited about being able to cross when I know that if their children are already born, they're not using these tunnels to go to school, right? like this is long-term planning. So anyway, um I think one more reaction to share with you, not that you necessarily specifically asked for this, but it is my assessment of how these are coming across is This looks so cheerful to me when I'm reading this packet and I'm reading I I read the survey. I read this packet. I've listened to your presentation. Everything sounds so good. One of the things that I'm hearing when I'm hearing from the community is not that not that like there are a few of course of bike activists that were really excited about it and those are the people we generally are trying to please, right? This is our community. But there's people who don't want their neighbors house torn down and there's people who don't want to deal with new signals and people who don't want to deal with 10 years of construction. Like right. So we have to figure out how to like there's more to it than this chart. There's a bit of a a

sentiment measure that we may want to figure out how to incorporate so that when we're appealing to the community to get excited about these things that they know what the trade-offs are. And I I don't I'm not saying it's not in here. I'm saying we're doing a really good job of talking about the things that are exciting us and we're not doing a good job yet of reflecting the way people are experiencing the concerns shown in the chart if that makes any sense. Okay, I I'll stop there. Thanks.

Thank you. Um Commissioner G is waiting patiently, but if if I can No, I'd like actually Chair for you to go first because I realize you haven't got a turn yet. So

that's I was going to in fact I was going to uh request that but you anticipated me. Um yeah it's it's enlightening to hear the interpretations that my fellow commissioners are placing on the project. Um touching on some issues that um had not occurred to me. But I want to go ahead and give you my impressions um with qualifications. Um anyway, uh personally I thought this was really coming together well. Uh the analysis is um deep and thorough. Uh I particularly like the methodology discussion which managed to answer most of the questions I had without having to pose them to you tonight. Um my thinking about this assumed that we will have the grade separation at Meadow and Charleston with bike and ped capacity. Um, now yes, timing is an issue. That's one of the things I'm hearing from the rest of you, but I assumed that we would do that. Given that assumption, then the crossings that are nearby Meadow and Charleston have too little value to pursue. So if you buy that assumption, then um I don't find them compelling. Uh, I definitely am interested in option H because of the connection with the San Antonio area plan and I feel like the uh pedestrian um option down there is workable uh perhaps as Commissioner Peterson has suggested um but it does need to be um described more clearly in the uh the documents that go to the public. I really really really wanted to have

option B. Um but I just can't I just can't support it. The construction complexity and the cost and also the impacts on the Lum Verde properties. So there's a whole lot of um driveways that are going to become right in right out there. um as well as um some uh interesting constraints on how people use that intersection. Um so in addition to age, that leads me to A and C. And I had a hard time distinguishing I had a hard time rating the two of them uh because they each have different strengths. um lower impacts on adjacent houses, uh shorter paths, um better connection to uh demand, particularly school related demand. Uh there are just too many trade-offs there for me to make a choice between one of those two. So, um so I'm leaning towards H and one of A and C. about the lights on Alma. That's something I hadn't really considered because my initial thinking was we have a real problem with speed on Alma and a few lights might not be such a bad idea or perhaps even some lane narrowing might not be a bad idea. U so we could get some of that as a side effect. Um and I will reconsider that based on the comments that I've heard tonight. But I did want to point out that um in our packet it mentions that there are many signaling options for these crossings.

So we don't have just a choice of signal or none, but we have multiple types and it may be that some of those are more viable than others. So that's it for me. Uh Commissioner G.

Thank you, Chair. Um I think well one of my comments about H is I'd love to explore utilizing the underground tunnel at the CAL train a little bit more. I think there are lots of creative options in which we can formalize the path that Commissioner Peterson has been talking about. Um and in particular in relation to our last agenda item with the San Antonio Road area plan. I had talked about turning San Antonio Avenue, like the small little street potentially, into a biking path of some kind. And I think that that in conjunction with formalizing the Cal Train tunnel, I think could be a very beautiful synergy um there. So that's my comment on that. I also want to quickly um comment respond to something that Commissioner Templeton had said which is uh I believe my understanding is all of the options have some kind of signal except B&H. Are you aware of that when you made your comments about signals and also uh choosing options?

Yeah, I thought D was also without but Oh, sorry. Yes. Um, I mentally eliminated that because I thought I I I I personally agree with many other commissioners that the area between Meadow and Charleston I think doesn't quite make sense for location but amongst G A and C also have signals I believe. So that's my understanding. Um, so yeah, that's why I thought it would simplify things a lot.

Yeah. Um, so yeah. So, I think that zooming out, option B is a very strong uh my is is by far my favorite option for a couple of the reasons I alluded to in my first series of comments. But the the way I think about it is the the way in which I would use a tunnel where I don't have to wait at Elma vastly outweighs the uh the having to wait at a at the light. If we're going to go through with this process and spend a lot of money, I think I would like to make it such that someone who lives moderately close there would actively use it a lot of the time. And as someone who also drives on Alma a lot, if I think about the trade-off between additional cost and the additional traffic that builds up on Alma, I I I guess we don't have all the numbers and I think that that would help allude to some discussion like orders of magnitude and things like that for the cost, but I still think at this time that the simplicity for the pedestrians and bikes to have a smooth way to get between the two places without having to worry about a signal isn't very important to me. Um, I also wanted to comment on Chair Aken's statement about the different signal options and I think that's a really interesting idea. That being said, I think El Camino currently has a variety of different signal options. Uh uh I dislike most of them uh from both perspectives from both the car persp I think that folks still haven't really figured out the triangle shape the two reds and the

one below it like I don't I think people driving down especially if you've never seen one before still haven't really gotten the handle of that one and as a result it's still dangerous for pedestrians. if I'm trying to cross the street, I don't quite still feel comfortable to say, "Hey, like they're going to stop for me." Um, so I think who knows, maybe by the time this project is done, we'll have the world's best signal and there will be amazing ways for us to cross at Alma. But at this time, I'm not super confident on that. Um, and then I also want to address the location. I admit that based on our conversation about San Antonio Road area plan that that's an important area, but I I would suggest that we look into the alternatives previously mentioned about H as a way to resolve that. And then on the kind of north end, I'm supportive of B for the reasons previously mentioned.

Thank you, Commissioner Templeton. Then Commissioner James.

Thank you. Um, since we're talking about the grade separation as a reason we don't need to have D or F, let me throw out a conjecture here that might change your mind. Um if you've looked at those uh options that are being considered right now, um there is an significant amount of time and space that is being dedicated to making sure that bike and pedestrian uh access is included in those crossings. And some of those are pretty controversial. So, this might make those things easier if we had another way for bikes and peds to cross that didn't have to be tied in with the grade separation project. So, I wouldn't eliminate it out of hand just because the grade separation project exists because the grade separation project is difficult, challenging, problematic at times exactly because we don't have this. So, I'm going to throw that back in for you guys. Thanks,

Commissioner James.

Um, well, I realize you were asking for feedback and not votes. U, but there's been some voting. I liked um nothing is without trade-offs. Um, I liked the LMA verde when you came to visit us last time. I like it even more now. I think there's uh a lot um a lot of benefits there on on on so many um and so many different um sort of perspectives. Um there are some drawbacks that I didn't think of before this meeting that I that I also want to go back and consider and I appreciate those those comments too. But um I don't live near there. I like the way it connects both sides u the streets, the bicycle uh pathways. I like the way it connects to gun. I just think it, you know, I highlighted, you know, the routes and it just it fills in a very nice gap um just on a very, you know, sort of gut level eye check. Um, so I think and I think, you know, I love I love the report and how it drills down on all these different um u sort of perspectives on looking at it and I, you know, I think it looks like the best choice for me.

Commissioner G,

I didn't mean for this to be a back and forth conversation with me and Commissioner Templeton, but I did want I did want Um I did want to ask staff if for like let's suppose that for the sake of this discussion about south pole alto crossings for bike ped that we decide not to go with option one of options D through F. But can we suggest that the rail committee look into that as an alternative option? Like how how does that intersection look like? Yeah. So, one of the comments that Commissioner Templeton had said is we should be wary about ruling out D through F just because there exists the a grade separation project. However, is there a world in which we decide for the South Paul alto connectivity project that we don't pursue this, but we suggest to the rail committee that they should look into this in conjunction with their grade separation project.

So, the grade separation has been through a very extensive process. So, I don't think that we'll be changing those alternatives. There was there is one alternative under Churchill where there is a separate pedestrian bicycle undercrossing as part of the Churchill um grade separation project. But at this stage, council has already weighed in and and and selected their um top two for Charleston and Meadow and then the top one for Churchill with a backup as well. So, I think that we're settled on, you know, narrowing it down for for the grade separation at the moment.

I I will also add that this project was spun out of the grade separation project. So, no.

Commissioner Templeton, did you have something else to add? Okay. Actually, I had one more thing. Um, which is uh chair Aken, if you had uh talking about kind of mitigation measures for the neighbors for option B. Um, there also are quite interesting ones on back at page 105. That's right. Well, we may be winding down um at least in attentiveness if not uh creativeness. Um, all right. I think we'll I think I'll make this the last call for comments on this item.

And staff, do you have any further questions for us? This is excellent feedback. Thank you. Yeah, really appreciate it. Thanks a lot.

Thank you. Thank you. And like I said, I I really do believe this is coming together. It's just no problem is simple. All right, then. Um, I will declare this item closed. Thank you all. And that leads us to commissioner questions, comments, and announcements. Anyone have anything tonight? No. Then we are adjourned. Thank you everyone.