Council Transportation Committee - Regular Meeting

YOU SHOULD BE OKAY OKAY SO I'M GOING TO RESTART THE MEETING BECAUSE APPARENTLY PEOPLE ONLINE WERE NOT ABLE TO HEAR US UH WE'RE GOING TO START UH THIS IS WITH NUMBER ONE IT'S ALL ORDERED UH WELCOME TO THE COUNCIL TRANSPORTATION COMMITTEE MEETING AUGUST 31st 2026. THE MEETING HAS NOW STARTED STILL 601. UM This is a hybrid meeting allowing public comment both in person and virtually. Instructions for addressing the committee virtually may be found on the posted agenda. Now we're at item number two, which is roll call. The public works director will take attendance by roll call. I see Chair Hicks in person.

I see committee member McAllister in person. And do we have council member or committee member May online? I don't see her. Thank you.

Okay, so we'll assume that Councilmember May will arrive and attend with us virtually eventually. We are now moving to item number three, which is oral communications. This part of the meeting is reserved for people wishing to address the committee on a matter not on the agenda. Speakers are allowed to speak on any topic for up to three minutes during this section. State law prohibits the committee from acting on non-agenda items. So would any member of the public on the line or in person like to provide comment on non-agenda items? If you're online, click the raise hand button in Zoom. And I see someone in person has approached lectern in person first. And staff will display the timer on the screen.

Hi there. I'm Valerie Fenwick, a longtime resident of Mountain View, specifically of Rex Manor. I've been almost nearly 30 years. And I really want to thank the CTC and the council for doing the California Complete Streets Project experiment, all the things that we've learned. I now feel a lot safer walking there. I walked to San Antonio Center to watch movies or to go to dinner. And I really just wanted to thank you and say how much I really love that. And now I've biked on that road where I never would have before. And I still also drive on that road. I actually drive on it more than I ride or bike or walk. And it's still very awesome. And really, I'm glad.

i can't wait to see what the city has learned from that and what we can take to our other future projects i just want to say thank you thank you are there any other in-person speakers items not on the agenda i'm caroline horn i'm a resident of los altos but i go through mountain view very often from the train um station to my house. And I really also want to second that feedback about California Street. I find that it's so much easier and safer. It's really transformed my career. That combined with the El Camino bike lanes has really been wonderful. I've also enjoyed going on El Camino bike lanes and going to these restaurants and things like Providence that I haven't been to in a very long time because I'm usually doing some other... So it's been really great to be able to see this kind of coordinated infrastructure for bicycles. Also, I want you to know that Los Altos has a project, a grant, to work on San Antonio Road. And I would love to see all of the Tri-Cities, Palo Alto, Mountain View, and Los Altos work together to make a really wonderful San Antonio Road that gets us all the way down to Foothill and then up to the parks. Thank you very much for all the work you've been doing.

Thank you. ANY OTHER IN-PERSON SPEAKERS? SO DO WE HAVE VIRTUAL SPEAKERS FOR GENERAL PUBLIC COMMENT? THERE ARE NO RAISED QUESTIONS.

OKAY.

IN THAT CASE, WE'LL CLOSE ORAL COMMUNICATIONS AND GO ON TO ITEM NO. 4, WHICH IS MINUTES APPROVAL. THESE ARE THE MINUTES FROM JUNE 16, 2026. Would any member of the public joining us virtually or in person like to provide comments on the minutes? If so, click the raise hand button in Zoom or approach the lectern. Any comments on the minutes? Do you see any online? No. OK. Then I will bring the item back for committee deliberation and action. Are there any corrections or comments on the minutes. Councilmember May, is she here? I don't see her name there. Okay. Then would any of the members like to move the minutes? Okay. All those in favor, raise their hands. Okay. WE ARE NOW ON ITEM NUMBER 5, WHICH IS NEW BUSINESS. THIS IS, WE'RE AT 5.1, THE RENT STORE COMPLETE STREET STUDY, WHICH IS PROJECT 2539. THE STAFF PRESENTATION WILL BE PROVIDED BY PAYODI AHMED, TRANSPORTATION PLANNER, AND LAUREN LEDFETTER, TRANSPORTATION MANAGER. Adam Dankberg, Kimley Horne, consultant, will be available to answer questions after the staff presentation. And we're going to, at Member McAllister's request, try a slightly different order here. We're going to have public comment after the presentation and then counsel questions and comments. We'll see how that works. Okay. So with that, presentation, please.

um good afternoon uh cdc members i'm clearly a transition planner with video mountain view and we are here with an informational item on rainstorm avenue complete street study um This is a planning study, which is funded by Caltrans Planning Grant. To meet the grant deadline, this study will need to be completed by June 2027. And tonight, we are here to receive a correction from CPC on Rainstorm Avenue corridor priorities and on the three draft alternatives. So for the project schedule, we started this study in November 2025. Instead, we completed outreach round one and existing conditions and background review. We also developed a draft concept alternatives that will be reviewed tonight. So we are here. This whole month, we are doing our community outreach and receiving feedback from BPAC and CTC. And based on the direction we received tonight, we will be developing preferred alternative and cost estimates. And early next year, we'll be back in front of the community and to BPAC and CTC with the preferred alternative to receive their feedback. Based on their feedback, we'll be developing a draft and final plan for this study for City Council approval in April and May next year. For project goals, background, and ongoing projects, the goal of the project is to explore ways to enhance safety, incorporate green street elements, and improve multimodal access for people walking, biking, using public transit, and driving along Wingstorm Avenue, and to identify a preferred alternative and develop preliminary concept drawings and costumers for the preferred alternative. For the study background, this area was highlighted in Vision Zero Action Plan as the priority number one. This is also part of multiple Safe Routes to Schools, including Los Altos High, Monteloma, as well as Mistral and Astro. There are two ongoing projects along this corridor. First one is Ringstrop Avenue Great Separation, which will lower Ringstrop Avenue and Central Expressway intersection, add a bike and pedestrian bridge to maintain east-west connection between Leland and Frisanto Avenue, and will include upper bike lanes along Ringstrop within project limits with widened sidewalk and pedestrian refuge island. The second project is Ringstrop and Junction, which will include include installing pedestrian hybrid beacon with high-visibility crosswalk and advanced warning signage with signal street lighting. For the existing conditions, we gathered data on a traffic volume, traffic counts, speed, collisions, parking, transit ridership, as well as did field observation. Rainstorm is a 35 mile per hour road with four travel lanes with on-street parking. It also has on-street bike lanes known as Class Q. It has diverse land use with long crossing between intersections with VTA, multiple transit routes, including VTA. For this study, we have done a traffic collision from 2020 to 2025. For all cash truck crash types, there were 72 collisions with 21 being bicycle and pedestrian involved. The intersections with the highest collisions include Central Expressway, Middlefield, Rock Street, and Oldfield. For traffic operations, The intersection congestion is determined by level of service with A being no traffic and E and F being traffic congestion. For this corridor, vehicle congestion is highest at intersection of California and Central Expressway with moderate traffic along Montecito and Middlefield. Average traffic volume is number of cars on-race are for a 12-hour or 24-hour period. The highest average daily traffic is approximately 16,000 between Colony and Wyandotte. To look a little deeper, we also looked at this 24-hour period. It shows the morning peak between 8 to 10 and the afternoon peak between 4 to 6 and a steep decline in traffic starting 6 p.m. Looking at speeding along Red Star, speed exceeds the positive speed limit by four to six miles between Montecito and Jane Lane. We also have done on-street parking analysis. There are 253 on-street parking. Parking is allowed on 40% of corridor, limited on-street parking on south of Central Expressway. And high parking utilization, between San Luis and Junction, and between Old Middlefield and White Dot. Ringstrop Avenue is served by multiple transit corridor transit lines, including VTA, Mountain View Community Shuttle, and Envigo. The top locations are Ringstrop and California, Ringstrop and Middlefield, and Ringstrop and Langport. So to summarize, this corridor has diverse lanes including community center, parks, residential, commercial, and school. It has limited right-of-way, multiple severe collision along the way, including drivers, bikers, and pedestrians. It's a multi-motor corridor with bike lane, transit stop, vehicle access from El Camino to 101. It's heavy traffic during commute hour and speeding during non-commute. We have completed the first round of outreach that identified including pain points along rainstorm and improvement ideas. For this first round of outreach, we had a community-wide online survey. We did a walk and fight for school pop-up at Monteloma and notifications were sent through yard signs, postcards, email blasts, and social media. For the survey that was open from February 1st to March 2nd, we received 1,000 responses and survey responders could choose multiple options. So some of them will not have 200, it'll be more than that. So the question on which of the following best describes why you travel on a rainstorm, 71% indicated they live on or near Ringstorp, and 61% indicated they traveled for shopping, dining, medical appointments, and other errands. On question on how do you travel on Ringstorp, 90% identified as drivers, but as we looked closely to the data, we also found many of them also walk by or take transit. 80% reported they do not park on Ringstorp Avenue. Which of the following challenges do you experience on Ringstrop? On this question, traffic congestion was the highest, followed by speeding, difficulty crossing, conflicts with drivers and cyclists and pedestrians. Which of these safety improvements would be most meaningful on Ringstrop Avenue? The responses include safer intersection crossing, protected or improved in bike lanes, slow down drivers, greenery, improved sidewalk, better street lighting, and new mid-block crossing. We also held a walk and bike tour where 15 community members attended. Staff walked and biked with them along the corridor to identify existing issues and potential improvements. The desired improvements being consistent bike lane width, safer crossing at Central Expressway, additional mid-block crossing, and better enforcement for vehicle blocking bike lanes. So throughout outreach round one, what we heard was that improved safety at intersections and crossing, provide safer and more comfortable bicycle facilities, reduce travel speed, add greenery and landscaping, maintain reasonable vehicle circulation, and consider parking. Rainstorm has limited right-of-way, requiring trade-off, which we which we all took into account as we developed these draft alternatives. So tonight we have the three alternatives to seek your direction. Alternative A is improved intersection, B improved bike facility, and C improved pedestrian facility with greening. Each alternative maintains the existing travel lanes while emphasizing different corridor priorities. Concepts that were considered but not advanced. The first one was road diet, which would reduce travel lanes north of Central Expressway. Raindrop Avenue provides some major vehicle access to El Camino through 101 West. In our survey response, as well as community outreach for round one, we found that traffic congestion was their top priority. Existing congestion at California Street, Central Expressway, and moderate traffic congestion at J Montecito, Old Middlefield, and Middlefield indicated we already have congestion on Rainstorm. Initial analysis showed that road diets would worsen disc congestion, especially at two intersections, including Old Middlefield Way and Montecito Elementary. The second concept that we considered but not advanced is two-way cycle track, which creates a complexity around driveway as well as in intersection. It could be only accommodated on one side of the street, so bikers have to cross the street to access it on the other side. It would also require greater approval and coordination with Caltrans County Caltrans So for the first alternative A, the cross sections that are shown here will remain the same as existing. It will improve at specific intersections. So it will include two new mid-block crossing, one at Wyandotte and one near Waldrop School of Peninsula, and that could be with RRFB or PHB, that should be determined, but these are the two locations that we have identified. It would also include improving intersection. These are example pictures, but it could include enhanced crosswalks, curb extensions, ADA-compliant programs, green bike markings through the intersection, protected intersection elements where feasible. Alternative B, which is a bike-focused alternative, That includes, that is primarily north of Central Expressway by converting one side of the road of parking to separate bike lane and travel lane. So you can see we have added a planting strip and a three-foot buffer on the top to provide that separation. Along the corridor, it will zigzag because we have limited right-of-way and we're keeping the travel late as well as some of the parking along the corridor. So it will have some parking protected bike lanes such as on Castro and California. It will also have buffered bike lane, which has a bike lane, and there is a little bit of space on the side to provide that separation. And it also has a protected bike lane. For Alternative C, it's an improved pedestrian facility that has a wider sidewalk and greenery and added buffer for biking. And this is the north part of the corridor. This one has three bulb outs between the parking to provide greening, as well as continuous sidewalk of six feet with added greenery and buffered bike lane where it's possible. So to show the comparison among the three alternatives, All alternatives will include intersection improvements as well as mid-block crossing. Protected bike facility would be greater for Alternative B with separated bike lane and increased buffer, and it will have some increased buffer for Alternative C. For wider sidewalk, Alternative C will have a widening sidewalk to six feet, Additional greening, alternative B will have some landscaping, but alternative C will have more greening, including tree wells, landscaping, and bioretention. For alternative B and C, there will be parking impact. Approximately 60% of them will move to provide the bike buffers, and all three alternatives will provide result in various ranges of speed reduction given curve bulb outs, thin block crossing, protected cycling to calm the traveling speed as today. So outreach round two feedback as we are currently doing. So currently we are doing our community outreach on the corridor priorities as well as draft concept alternatives. Currently, we have a survey open, which will be closed on September 11th. Here's the QR code to take our survey. We received feedback from BPAC on August 15th. We had a community meeting last Monday, and we are here tonight to seek your direction. So BPAC reviewed this on the 18th and supported alternative A, with the following comments considering speed tables, protected intersection elements, and right turn on red. Support Alternative B with following comments to explore opportunities to provide added bike lanes and bike buffers, and explore ways to improve bike lanes by narrowing travel lane to provide wider bikeway painted buffer or raised bikeway path adjacent to Rainstorm Park. Regarding alternative C, supported additional landscaping with targeted improvements to address construction on the sidewalk. BPAC feedback also included, recognized that due to corridor constraint and high traffic volume, A road guide is highly infeasible, is likely infeasible. Restriving existing bike lanes to improve visibility for bicyclists and roadway users. Explore if Presumpto Avenue could be closed to vehicles in advance of rate separation projects. Explore if active transportation improvement at El Camino and Rainstorm could be part of this plan and consider implementing in phases with intersection improvement being prioritized for linear improvements. We also had a well-attended community meeting last Monday. We had 50 community members attend the meeting. The meeting notification was also featured in Mountain View Voice. We heard a very diverse set of experiences and priorities throughout the meeting. We heard that important priorities to improve safety for students traveling to Los Altos High School, provide protected bike lanes, reduce vehicle speed, and maintain travel lanes and on-street parking. For draft alternative, we had a very high-level DOT exercise to understand where people were cleaning. We had support for Alternative A, which is for mid-block crossing and intersection improvements, Alternative B is for protected bike lanes, and requested additional protection south of Central Expressway, and support for alternative B. Tonight, I also have some initial survey results. Survey will be closed on September 11th. So this is our first initial snapshot of the survey. The results may change from here until when the survey closes, but I wanted to share some of the high-level takeaways as we are looking at right now. So primary responses showed that approximately 60% live on or within block on Rainstorm Avenue. 80% traveled on a rainstorm to run errands or go to appointments. 90% drive, but we also have 25% to 30% who also buy and walk along the avenue to show a rainstorm is a multiple corridor. On corridor priorities by preference, what we are seeing is to maintain vehicle travel time and on-street parking, improving intersection and protected bike lane with greenery. The survey so far has about 1,400 responses. And on the question of what is your preferred alternative among the three, we see alternative A being the highest of 29%, followed by alternative B, 26%, alternative C, 23%, maintaining existing condition, 13%, non-listed, 2%, and other 7%. Looking at the other option, many have suggested to provide more bite protection and to combine B and C together as one option. So in reality, in our full analysis, ultimately B and C will come closer. So for the next step, And discussion question. So we are here tonight to receive your direction on the draft concept alternatives. Based on the direction, we'll be developing the preferred alternative with the cost estimate. And we'll be back early next year to seek your feedback. And based on your feedback, we'll develop a final report for council adoption April or May next year. So for tonight, direction on the corridor priorities include protected bike lane, additional mid-block crossing, improved intersection, greenery, maintained on-street parking and vehicle travel times, and slow or calm vehicle speed. RingStorm has a limited right of way and has demand for multiple nodes in this corridor. So we are seeking direction from CDC on how to prioritize these priorities to further develop that process to identify for an alternative and provide direction on the three alternatives that we have, either the three, the combination of three, or a long recommendation. So with that, I'll end my presentation.

very much. Okay. So for those of you who just arrived, under Council Member McAllister's request, we're switching the order of the agenda and we're going to receive public comment on this item before we do the council questions. We're going to see how that goes. I have also had, speaking of requests, I've also had a request that since this interfaces with transportation to them from Los Altos High School, that any students who may be here, who may be wanting to speak, be able to speak first. So if there are any students, so that they can go home apparently and do their homework. There may be no students here in person. Are there any students here in person who want to speak? Yeah, they may be on Zoom, but we'll start with you. Okay, I'm seeing no students who want to go home and do homework, at least. So we'll just take in-person speakers.

Hi, thank you so much all for what you do. It's very, it's a lot of work. I appreciate your efforts. I'm Deborah Tavoloff. I've been the neighborhood watch captain on Wienster for 31 years. So I know every infrastructure. I'm the one they call. I interface with the city public works. They're awesome. So from the water main blowing last October to gas lines to anything. So I have investigated both north and south. They're two different animals, two different needs. North Ringstorf is pristine, wide streets, wide bicycle lanes, five and a half lanes wide. We have very little pedestrian because people do not take a leisurely walk on Ringstorf when there's four lanes of traffic. They use Ringstorf as a point A to point B.

Same thing with through on south.

Now, North Wing Store, we have lots of greenery. We created it over 30 years ago because of the security for our front yards, the noise from the street and the buses and fumes. So we've already done the greenery part of it. And in reviewing all of these options, and I look at all of them very, very strongly. Most of us believe that Plan C is a replica of California Street, which everything green there is dead. The other option and the other issue is that our sidewalks we have underneath our public parking, our street parking and sidewalks, our water line, our sewer line, our utilities have to get to those things to clean them out. The main goal for those on North Windsor, we want to keep our on-street parking so it helps our disabilities, our elderly, our nursery school. Our auto repair has an overrun of automobiles using the next door lot. North is clean. We need great visibility. The main thing with choosing whatever it is you choose, is that we need to look at real time. Poor Ringstorf was in trouble in 2015. The last three years, it's very quiet. North Ringstorf has no combustion of traffic, just a four-minute wait at the intersection. Unfortunately, South Ringstorf is packed. It's only three and a half blocks. North is 10. South has all the traffic from California and El Camino. It's bumper to bumper. It has narrow bicycle lanes. We have on the Ringstorf Park side of South Ringstorf, no parking. Across the street is a sign that says between 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. You have five hours you can park there. Cars park there for days on end. So I highly recommend on South Wingstroke all the on-street parking go away. Increase the bicycle lanes to five and a half for our people. South Wingstroke has a lot of pedestrian and bicycle because of three points of interest, Wingstroke Park, La Plaza Grocery, and Five Guys. So it really helped the bicyclists there. On north and south for our bicyclists, I recommend the low protective markers that are on the bicycle painted lane. It's six inches wide, three inches high. It's great. North Wing Store for our bicyclists, I've been monitoring a video since last March. We have six to 10 per day on both sides because our bicyclists prefer side treats. Dyke Street's the shortcut on Permanente Creek under the 101 to Google. I asked them, if Reinstor gets fancy with bicycle lanes, will you use it? They say, no. I said, are you afraid of the cars? They said, no. We can see the cars. We've got great visibility, great width. What we don't want is we don't want to wait at the signals. And we don't want the bus fumes and the mailman truck fumes and our delivery trucks. So North Reinstor-

Oh, is it over? I had no idea. I know.

Hi there, Valerie Fenwick. I am speaking on my own behalf, not for my employer, nor for the Performing Arts Committee here in Mountain View. I have lived in the neighborhood for almost 30 years. I have lived on Montecito. I've never experienced what you're talking about with that traffic. I use Montecito almost every day, either by bike or by car. And I lived on Montecito for five years. That's confusing. I use RingSurf in order to get to Sunnyvale, Redwood City, Palo Alto, and Menlo Park, as well as Central Expressway. I agree with the points that were raised by Serge Bronte in his email, as well as Isaac Stone's recent blog post. The level of service, I'm surprised we're so focused on that number. It seems a very outdated model. But I really do appreciate you taking comments after the presentation. then makes us all more prepared. We really do need a left turn arrow for north and southbound traffic on Rigsorp at Jane and Montecito. I have seen some many horrific accidents there at the fire station, which is convenient location with the firefighters, but still really horrific things. And that... What happens, we get a lot of conflicts with pedestrians. I see people walking their kids in strollers and bikes because people are trying to make the unprotected left turn onto Montecito and not wanting to wait for pedestrians that are coming. I was driving Ring Surf on Saturday and saw a group of about 40 bicyclists on Middlefield going crazy. westbound on that road. And there was two bicyclists traveling southbound along with me on Ring Store. And that was two minutes that I was there. I drive that road every day. I live in the neighborhood. I would recommend for all of these that council and the transportation committee focus on kind of the middle areas, particularly great to hear about Junction. That's a route to school and people do not stop there. I've been almost rear-ended when I stopped for pedestrians at Junction, at Ringstorfen Junction. So I really appreciate you focusing like on the middle. We've got this big brain separation project coming up. We've heard that as we get nearer to one-on-one that people are less likely to cycle. There's fewer things to cycle to. But the Safeway from Middlefield and Bringsorp and the taco trucks and the restaurants and things there are very popular attractions. So focus on the middle, consider raised sidewalks, remove the pinch points on this, raised crosswalks, remove the pinch points on the sidewalk. It's very difficult for people with strollers and wheelchairs and other mobility devices. And yeah, that's it. Thank you very much.

Other in-person speakers?

Line up, go faster. That was actually you.

I won't say much. We did try to do a bike lane. I saw it on the website for Latham. And we did California instead of Latham. Latham, all you need to do is pay, because that's where most people ride. People avoid the streets that were four lane. Now California is narrow. I've been right there some time. It's OK for me, but I don't see a lot of students that sit right in the square. A rink store, if I've ridden that to the pool, and she's right, it's very bad between California and the recreation center because of bike lanes like this one. So those improvements and getting rid of the parking will help. As far as farther down, all you have to do is move the cars in, shift the bike lane on the other side, protect the bikes. Then you do the roll-up sidewalk, 45-degree angle or something round, so you can dodge out of the car dealers if the passengers open the door. But you don't have to be very fancy. You don't have to make it more narrow to achieve this. And all of this probably should go, you know, you may be able to get it in before the grade separation. And Ringstar, Fidel, Camino, just try, stop all the traffic, people, and the bikes go without the cars. You know, stop the cars in all directions, and that would make that safe. Thanks.

We have your name also. And I didn't ask if, are there blue cards for people to make out tonight?

I didn't see any blue cards.

Okay, then just tell us your name before you speak.

Hello, committee. I'll be brief. Alex Amoroso. I just wanted to rise and show support for the option B, especially with the alternative C elements there, because I will never say no to water greenery. That adds to our biodiversity, adds to our oxygen health, and also makes my city realize this. I also especially sense like option B, I thought, especially when you're talking about a lot of the conversation about make things narrow. This widens up walkability with our crosswalks, and that's another reason why I love to be here in Mountain View, whether we're downtown or off the outskirts of Montreal. Having that widened space for people to walk and to get through corridors, it's fantastic. And I would actually invite the committee to even consider other areas of this project when it comes to alternatives to driving with four doors when it comes to new housing development, because something I've seen with my neighbor in Sylvan, At the very end, we're building those new single-family homes over there, and there's been a lot of conversation with my neighbors when it comes to how is that going to interact with traffic. So I would ask for the committee to really consider how are we going to manage new traffic and new areas where there's going to be a lot of stopgaps with currently existing roads that's going to be a lot of stopbacks on that. And how we could communicate with that new plan and how that would communicate with we don't want to go in that direction.

Did you say option B, which is bike-focused, or option C, which is more pedestrian and greenery-focused?

How I understood it was option B was the bike-focused, but then there was an emphasis with option C as well. I would definitely lean more towards option C if you're going to choose one or the other, but if you're able to combine B and C, then that would be best of both worlds.

Thank you. My name is Christine. Like my last name too, that's a little complicated. Antoinette Cobliss. Good evening. I have been a resident of Mountain View for 25 years in the Calthro neighborhood. And I ride to work. I work at Los Altos High School. And so my, not argument, but the reason I'm here is based on observation, not based on data. I don't see enough of our youth riding to school. I see many dangerous pockets along the way to a Camino. There are no shortcuts. It's the only way to get there. One thing I wanted to bring to your attention is the fact that we share the road with big buses, tech buses, tech transportation buses, not just city buses or the shuttle, but the big buses that are chartered to bring their employees to work and a lot of construction trucks. And although I ride and I feel fine about it, I don't think a lot of the youth or the parents let the youth to bike to school. So with that in mind, I feel like the bike lanes have to be somehow protected. Somehow. Somehow we have to avoid near misses between the bikers and the big vehicles riding on the road. I love Mountain View. I love living here. I'm a proud resident of Mountain View. I love working where I work. I want to see safety for all. I want to see more riders coming out there and going to school and going to work and going to get their groceries and everything. I just want us to move forward as a city and make it safe for all of us. That's basically it. Thank you so much. I have a question for you, Chairman.

How are the kids using those e-bikes? Are they going to ditch the bicycle and do you use more e-bikes? Do you see a lot more e-bikes going this way?

That I cannot speak to. I can speak to the fact that if protections are being made for the riders, I feel more of them will be on there. Now, whether they will be on e-bikes or not, I can't say. I can't speak to that. But I would like them to be safe, whatever they ride. Thank you.

Next in-person speaker, and do tell us your name.

Good evening, Mary Danielle. I just was looking at the safe routes to school maps and Ringstorff is part of the safe route to school to. To Los Altos High School and it's also on the Castro School route to school and. In both cases, at least part of that is. South of that is between the Ringstorff Park and El Camino Real and. I took the community tour the day they did it. And that's the section I was on. And a city employee and I were on that as we headed back toward from El Camino back toward the park. We're very startled when the bike lane totally disappeared at an intersection. And just as one of those big buses somebody was talking about went by. So that was extremely scary. I don't know how I could ever think about if I had kids asking them to ride that to and from school. But we did see a bunch of students heading toward the high school that day. So I'd love to see more people on bike, but we have to make it safe. So I think my... I think really the top concern here needs to be safety, especially for kids and really for anybody else that's going to use that intersection. There's going to be more and more people around there with all the apartments going in. So I think at the minimum, there needs to be a continuous bike lane, which we don't even have that right now. So thank you. Thank you.

And again, tell us the name. Good evening.

My name is Terry Barton. I'm a member of the BPAC. I'm speaking as an individual. So first, my qualifications. I've commuted every day the full length of Ring Store for 13 years from El Camino to Garcia and North Bayshore. So my trip counts over 6,000 trips.

Wow.

Friday afternoon, I went out to try to get some high schoolers to come. I talked to about 10 or 12 out of 25 or 30 that were by as I was waiting. They said, it's not something for you. You're not comfortable speaking. So they are out there riding. And someone would kind of think when I said, well, what would you, how would you feel if you didn't speak and one of your classmates was killed in the future? Because you can see it's unsafe. You can see the bike lane disappears here across Central, across Westfield. at a couple other points. And you can see at the one-foot line bike line that you've heard. And you can see buses going by. So they know it's dangerous. It's just not here. In terms of... The key point I'd like to raise is you're going to see the... active transportation plan shortly. And I don't know if the notes captured, but I had motioned to try to include more processes, more standards, more best practices as what should be considered the active transportation plan. It did a lot, but that motion didn't carry. So what you see is things like the intersection at Ringstorff and El Camino, where there's only a crosswalk on one side. Nobody, there's no policy in the city said we should encourage pedestrians walking and ask for crosswalks on both sides of all intersections. So the staff felt it was up to you to use your judgment to call for what you want. If you want crosswalks on all sides of an intersection, when people cross from both sides of El Camino so they're not riding on the wrong side of the road or walking, jaywalking, as it used to be called, across the intersection, you need to demand that. If you want bike lanes that are standard, and the standard for the National Association of City Transportation Professionals is 14 and a half feet with parking. There's no place on Ringstorp that currently meets that standard. There are bike lanes painted and they're three feet wide. if that in some locations. So it doesn't meet any current standards for recommended parking or for bike lanes in many locations. So it is definitely unsafe. People don't ride it. I suspect that none of you have ridden it more than once or twice in the last year. And you can experience right now, there's a boat parked sticking out at 847 Ring. So I've been there for five weeks. I, you know, it's two feet away from the curb. It creates a hazard in a one and a half bike lane. So it's up to you to make your decision to recommend safety or not. The standards aren't currently being adopted. And I ask you to consider the students and the people that don't currently use it, but would like to.

Thank you. And a reminder, your name.

Yeah, of course. My name is Kian Shiant. Very recently, I did a project on El Camino's new bike lanes. I did a study on specifically the crossing at Rangstorf over to Distel, and I had realized how, yes, we've completed the El Camino part. Now looking at it, the Rangstorf piece was far from safe. Knowing that is, I have a fair amount of, what do you call it, a fair amount of kind of record of how many people are using it every day, like not just students, but like people are commuting to work and people are going to the shuttle there. I do feel like it should be important that people are coming up from Rangstorf as well. So I think that is just vital of an area as well. Also, I think it adds well that the buses should be separated because my dad who lived in Dublin for 25 years had to bike on a lane shared with the bus and he remembered how scary that is. Now we kind of have that at El Camino now. Maybe that's a question if we sometimes separating the better idea, you know, separating two modes of transit. They're two ones much faster and also much heavier. So, you know, one hits the other and we know who's going to get a lot more hurt. That really is all I had to note. You don't have to spare every minute.

You don't have another minute and 40 seconds of comment. Thank you very much.

I want to say that the extra note that it is popular and It has a fair amount of bikes both in the morning and afternoon. That's just what I had. I realized that in a second.

Thank you. And your name?

Sure. So my name is Serge Bones. I'm a member of BPAC, but I had to recuse myself during the deliberation. I was told that I could provide comments at myself, Serge Bones. And that's what I came to do here. So I send you some... kind of lengthy comments. I don't have time to repeat this even if I spoke in French. I wanted to first thank the congratulated staff on the quality of the existing foundation. That's a very detailed thing. There are two things that I One thing I think was missing for context is the R3 app zoning that's coming up. If you look at the map of the R3 app zoning, it's going for much greater density, I guess, on South Rengsdorf, and also increased density on North Rengsdorf, but only on one side of it. So it's going to be suburbia meets city. And I think it's a challenge. to have a treatment that works for a suburban style on one side of Franksdorf and a more city-like setting there. So I think it's somewhat relevant because it's upcoming. And the changes in densities are pretty high. They are pretty higher than what proposed in downtown, which has its own precise plans, or even Buffett, which has its own precise plan. So I can see as a challenge to do this. The other thing, too, and I'm not sure if you had done some modeling for the grade separation project, but I suspect that the traffic patterns will change quite a bit once we have grade separation. I know I live on the other side of El Camino, and I avoid rings off like the plague because it's stressful to cross the track, and it's also always congested, and sometimes minutes and minutes at the time. I suspect that once you have grid separation, you'll see much more traffic going through Branksdorf. And I think it's something to keep in mind. And then very briefly, there was suggestions to close precento ahead of the grid separation. I think that should be done ASAP, maybe by the end of the year. First of all, that's going to happen with the grid separation, but I think it would provide some immediate relief to people on foot. You know, you have one less intersection and crosswalk to deal with on bikes because you won't have to worry about, you know, people trying to sneak in there. And even for motorists, because, you know, you're essentially going to remove one slide there, and you won't have to deal with conflicts with people again from the center trying to defend. Thank you.

Thank you. More in-person speakers?

Hi, I'm Caroline Horn, and I'm a resident of Los Altos, but I work with a parent's group at Los Altos High School. We try to encourage our students to use ABC, anything but a car. And about half of our students do live in mountain communities, you know. But, you know, so often the barrier for many of them is safety. Parents don't think it's safe for them to bike on their own. And it's only about our school district is not huge. It's not eight miles through the snow. It's a couple of miles. It's maybe three miles at the most on the northern end of Springstork. And that's about a 15 or 20 minute bike ride. And it's actually so much faster than driving, especially when in high traffic time. And I know this because I bike six miles to work every day and rain or shine. It's just fine. Also as housing density increases, we need to encourage micro mobility. I'm seeing more and more people with families. I see more and more families with cargo bikes nowadays. been a really huge uptick in that. And I think we're only going to see more and more of it. And that's what we want. Because, you know, it's much less congestion, it's better for the air, it's better pollution, you know, pollution and everything like that. And we really need to be encouraging micro mobility. And I feel like options B and C, combine them, that would be great. Right now, I'm not loving either of them. And so that's probably, I guess, why you may not be seeing like a wholehearted agreement on each one of these options in a way. Thank you very much. Thank you.

My name is Tracy Chu. I live in the Shoreline West neighborhood and I walk and bike around the neighborhood a lot to Branson Park to downtown and everything. My office is actually where I have to go three days a week. It's actually near Crittenden on Terrabella. And so it's a prime area to like bike to. I also go to the Midwife and the Baker like once a week, which is also a great place to bike. But I never really consider it because I feel very uncomfortable. I feel it's a very hostile route to go down shoreline and there aren't really other options there. Um, so I, I definitely feel scared by, you know, being tempted by the parking on one side and then the buses, right. They are coming, you know, usually I'm seeing the VTA buses. So I feel a lot of insecurity there. And then also just generally speaking, I feel just the feeling I get, we talk a lot about like the direct safety impacts of, of, you know, protection and, you know, wider sidewalks and things like that. But I think that there, there's like an indirect feeling I get when I'm on rank surf, which is, it looks like a forgotten order. It doesn't, it does feel like everybody who's using that street is just thinking about their point B. They're not using the street mindfully at all. And that, makes me feel very scared, actually. That is one of the reasons that suppressed my use of the street. So I do think, because I live half a block off of California Street, and I know there are a lot of opinions on that, but as a primary walker, I feel a ton safer. A ton safer. I feel the infrastructure is very deliberate, designed. I feel much safer. I don't know what the traffic data will show, but Anecdotally, I feel like the traffic is much calmer, much slower. I feel much safer walking and biking along that quarter. And I think that whatever option, I'm very glad to hear that we're gonna combine elements of B and C into another option. But I would feel, I feel that the example of a more deliberate sort of design for the street will really have a lot of indirect and hopefully that will show through in the data. But I for sure would probably be more encouraged to bike to that really cool corner right on ranks on, you know, middle field with, you know, the Safeway and the Starbucks and, you know, all those things. And maybe even get down to Heritage Park, which I feel like, you know, I would like to explore more parks in the city. So. So, yeah, that's my those are my thoughts. Thank you. Thank you.

Hi, April Webster. I'm the Bike, Walk, Mountain View, Los Altos team leader, at least one of them. I want to start off, I'll just repeat what Tracy said about California. I've walked along and I'd bike. I drive most of the time, but it actually feels a lot more comfortable for me even as a driver. Just a lot less hectic and it feels like a neighborhood street. There are a lot more people walking out. But for this particular item, I want to start by highlighting a joint community letter that was submitted by MVCSP, Green Spaces Mountain View, the Santa Clara Bird Alliance, and Bike Walk MDLA. and the number of community members as well. And so I'm just going to read that out and paraphrase a little bit. We would like to ask the CTC to pass a motion that directs staff to use this next phase of the Rengstorp study to develop and evaluate a full green complete streets project. That's one that integrates both the safety concepts that you saw in A and B with the intersections and the protected bike lanes and also the green infrastructure structure elements. And in particular, I'm just gonna elaborate a little bit more. We want one to develop a full concept design that integrates continuous protected bicycle lanes, the protected intersections, all four of the mid block crossings with pedestrian hybrid beacons, which are a bit safer. And then also with street trees, regionally native and biodiversity supportive planting designed as functioning habitat and functional green stormwater infrastructure. Second, we would like to ask you to do the design work that's needed to determine how that can fit in. We want you to be creative and look where you can find extra space. So test 10 foot inner lanes. We understand that the outer lanes will be used by buses and larger trucks and the large tech buses. This is pretty typical to use the outer lanes for those purposes and then inner lanes to be much narrower, like what has been done on El Camino Real by Caltran. We also want you to explore reallocation of the 14-foot median, which seems to be non-functional land and could be moved to the outside and used to protect people or space for green infrastructure. And then also the city-controlled land, additional parking reconfiguration or removal. And then bring that full concept back to the CTC, the community and the BPAC so that they have the ability to understand what's happened, look at the costs that are associated with these different ones, benefits, trade-offs, et cetera. And I just wanna say Rangstorp is the city's highest priority Vision Zero project. That means it's the most dangerous one. And it's also our first Green Complete Streets project. So this is really an important task for the city to get this right. Thank you so much. Thank you. Good timing.

Yes, from State. Jennifer Sumat. I wasn't going to talk, but since you asked about e-bikes, as an e-bike user, I just wanted to speak up. So there's different types of e-bikes. Some are just mini motorbikes. They go really fast, and they're sort of scary. I personally use a pedal assist, and I want a little exercise, so I keep it on low, and it also keeps my speed. reasonable. What I've found is that it's perfect for California Street. If you want to go really fast on the protected bike lane, then people get really frustrated because the protected lane is narrow. So bikers who want to go really fast don't really like it that much. I really do like it because I just use the pedal assist. My daughter just graduated from Los Altos High School, so looking at their parking situation in terms of the bike racks, which are really full, I'd say there are quite a few, but it's not the majority in terms of e-bikes, and it's definitely more of those pedal assists that I see there. So I think a protected bike lane is really what I would propose. for Rangstorf. My son is in fifth grade. We have a bunch of friends. There's like a big housing element now on that Rangstorf area. And that street is just scary. I worry about those kids getting to school. So that's my first thought.

Thank you very much. More in-person speakers?

really prepare at home. I did receive a letter. I'm Dr. Tracy Faria. I'm with Los Altos High School Sustainability Team and Green Space Abound. So my main commissar, I did want to see a complete streets kind of program. And I'm kind of new to complete streets. So I can't use all the terms and all the phrases. But As one person said, it's kind of like an empty corridor or an unwanted corridor. We really need to improve the whole street. I didn't really like the way the survey was, which I did take. I do live over there and do newsrooms. It's like option B for bikes. Bold is like 60% of parking will be gone. I don't think we should be pitting teen bicycle riders against people, seniors and stuff who would be parking. I would like to see that we think about the street as a whole and that we, you know, maybe we can't do everything, but we shouldn't be choosing one. And then if I think about children going to school. My grandson went to LAHS, just graduated. He tried for the first week to go to school on bike. It's a three-mile bike ride. You have to go up and start. There's really no other way. And he had several incidents that like three different incidents within the week. And that was it. So the rest of the time, I had to drive him to school. It was terribly crowded parking, congestion, going through that intersection with the train in the morning, et cetera. So I would like to be able to ride on Riksdorf. And I do have some difference. I don't know. But it's just I do sometimes do my shopping. pretty dangerous. I do go the other way down Permanente if I can, but you can't do that going up to like Target or, you know, all those shopping centers or the high school. At El Camino, I really like to see the city work across cities. We kind of let some of these intersections where we're across cities, I feel like we let them go. Super dangerous. All our kids are crossing there. I heard some ideas. I think LHS is, I think we put some to this committee, one of these committees about Paseo. But I think we really need to be working there as well so that everybody is safe. And I worry as we go through with SB 79, we start building more and more housing. I want that for our people. But we have to be thinking about how we're going to get them safely to work.

Thank you. Are there more in-person speakers?

I'm Derek Mehar. I'm assistant principal at Los Altos High School. And my responsibilities include bicycles and parking. So what Los Altos did was they decided, the city decided to try to restrict parking, encourage people to do biking, said, hey, you know, we don't use much parking if people bike to school. However, Los Altos worked with Mountain View in order to make that happen because a lot of our bicyclists are coming from mountains. We have hundreds of students biking from Mountain View, many of them biking through, if not the majority of them, biking through Rangstorf. And it is a dangerous proposition for them. So I'm here just to talk for them, speak for them, to say that for those students who are doing what we ask, really kind of what we ask them to do, what we're telling them to do, what we're hoping that they'll do, that we'll make it a safe experience as we possibly can. I'm not good with the specifics. I'm not a traffic person, but I do know that there are folks out there, many students out there, We'll have a heroin ride to school in the morning and a heroin ride back. So I'm going to speak on their behalf. So thank you.

Thank you. Any other in-person speakers? Okay, seeing none, we'll move to online speakers. Kevin, can you hear us?

I can hear you. Can you hear me?

Yes.

Hello, council members. My name is Kevin Ma. I live within a quarter mile of Brookstuff on Latham Ortega. And I echo the sentiments of many of the commenters before that we should be focusing on the safety of the route. I bike on Rangstorf. It is not a great place to bike in any case. It is narrower places. There's the danger of getting doored at any time because of where the bike lane is. It is a place where cars are clearly speeding all the time, irregardless of the blinking lights. uh speed limit sign and i feel like we should be focusing on the safety aspect it is on the safe routes of school map but it's clearly not safe if you i do recommend the council members to take a bike ride see how it feels um And, you know, this would address some of the concerns from the neighborhood, right? People have brought up if people cannot bike safely to their schools, they have to get their parents or some other way to just drop them off by car. And that's clearly just going to add traffic everywhere on the route. And it is a pretty busy route, right? It is a lot of people's way, quickest way to get to one-on-one from a lot of neighborhoods. It is the quickest way to get to Costco. So... We should be focusing on that. I do have an objection that was also shared about members today was that I don't like the fact that the alternatives seem to be pitting different parts of the community against each other, right? We do want greenery. We do want safety for bikers. We want safety for pedestrians. If we are thinking alternatives, we should be thinking much more block by block because, yes, there is a budget in terms of space, unless we would like to remove a lane, which I personally prefer, but obviously that's broader conversation that was not touched upon in the alternatives. And I do wish that the city would focus more on ensuring that the public right-of-way is serving public uses. And perhaps I'm radical for things like price parking or residential parking permits, but it's what's necessary to make our city more vibrant and sustainable. As people have mentioned, there will be, I hope, more people living in the city. Thank you.

Thank you. for virtual speakers.

Cliff? Cliff, are you there?

I'm here. Cliff Chambers, Mountain View resident. I live about 100 yards from Ringstorf Avenue. I bicycled and walked a lot over the last 22 years along the corridor. Green Complete Streets, originally the direction that the council gave was a focus on making all users, bicyclists, pedestrian, auto users, rollers, all have a comfortable and safe user experience. The options that have been presented are not complete streets in their entire. As the previous speaker said, we can't pit pedestrians against bicyclists. We need to have an integrated options that promote the comfort of all users. And I really support, I was a co-signer of what April Webster had as a motion, and I hope that the Council Transportation Committee seriously considers it. And the reason I support this is that for many years I was a bicyclist on Rengstorf. I'd go to Rengstorf Park, I'd go to FedEx office when I was working, And the stretch, particularly between Central Expressway and El Camino is very dangerous. I have a junior at Los Altos High School, And it's not safe for her to ride. So she does take the bus, but I would like her to get more exercise and being able to do it. There's just no safe way to ride on a rink store right now. And I just want to echo that that's extremely important. The sidewalk, I now have low vision and I have to walk just about everywhere. I'm able to negotiate the sidewalks just fine. They don't need to be widened. What we need to focus on is the user experience of pedestrians and bicyclists. We need more tree canopy. This was pointed out in the biodiversity plan. We definitely at Central Expressway in Rengstorf, it's a hot day. It's not a good solution. So I hope the Council Transportation Committee focuses on the user experience And I hope that you can seriously consider the joint letter motion that was presented to you, because I think we all want a safe Rengstorf Avenue. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Oh, you know, I forgot to ask staff whether there are any, some people requested that high school students speak for us so they can go home and do it. So are there any noticeable high school students? They said if they came, they may label themselves. Do you see anyone labeled that way? No, all the names are either first name, last name or first name. We're not going to be able to honor that request. OK, so your next virtual speaker, Jesse. Jesse, do you hear us?

good evening i'll try to keep myself brief since my comments already recorded in many spots um i'm speaking for myself and i want to just emphasize the importance of prioritizing safety here as others have said this corridor is a One that appears on every possible metric of being critical to improve safety and is one where we should do so. It is difficult to make trade-offs on roads that have large numbers of driveways, large number of people living along them and are also arterials. But that doesn't mean we can't prioritize safety, make it so that we have continuous protected bike lanes, make sure the sidewalks are good and navigable and make it a good road for everyone. I do appreciate that some of the priority that staff did put into intersections on the project, since intersections are the biggest issue on these sorts of routes. But we also need to make sure the space between the intersections is safe for all the users. And the last thing I want to mention is that I want to make sure we don't take the wrong lessons from the projects along California Street. I think that one of the lessons there I saw was if you make the wrong compromises, you just don't make you make everyone a bit less happy. And if we fully embrace the need to make this corridor safer, I think that will be the right thing for the corridor. Thank you.

Thank you. Jesse is back.

Jesse, are you back? Okay, well, maybe we... Are you back now?

Yeah, can you hear me all right?

Yes, we can.

Oh, okay, great. Thank you. Sorry I had a little trouble getting connected, but I wanted to generally support the comments that April Webster made earlier referencing the joint letter that we'd just like to see all of these options combined so that we can have a truly complete green street and take Rainstar from one of the most dangerous roads to one of the nicest roads for residents and make it a really enjoyable experience, whether you're walking, biking, driving, and really put safety first. So if that is not possible, if council decides we really have to choose one of these three alternatives, then I would support alternative B. with the caveat that the bike lanes really need to be protected, physically separated, and continuous across the whole length of the corridor. As a previous commenter mentioned, there's a boat parked there that sticks its way out. I ride to Costco, Mirror West, the taco truck, partner acrobatics lessons twice a week at the Aikido gym. And yeah, there's just Definitely a stretch closer to the Costco area where the bike lane, while it technically exists, it's pretty much useless because there's so many oversized vehicles parked either right up to the line or into the bike lane several feet. So you kind of have to take the lane of traffic in order to be safe. And then motorists get mad at you. It feels very risky. And that's why a lot of people aren't biking there now. It's not because it doesn't go where they want to go or need to go. It's because it's scary. So please, please improve the safety and put safety first. All right. Thank you.

That's it.

John Scarborough? John Scarborough, are you there?

Yes, I'm here.

Okay, you can speak. John?

Oh, yes. I thought I unmuted, but did not. You did. Okay. Well, I'm John Scarborough. I've been in Mountain View for about 24 years now, biking a lot of places, driving some places, and walking. I live right off of Ringstorf between Middlefield and Central. So I biked to the north to Costco, sometimes to Shoreline, to the south a lot. And my kids were both going to Los Altos High School. So for about six years, they rode there most every day on their bikes, and I rode there several times a week. And What I would like to do first is mention some things about what's on the table now and then step back a little bit to give it a broader perspective. So I think for this, I agree with a lot of what I've heard that having the three alternatives that kind of pitted good things against each other rather than having a sensitive design to the specifics of each part of the street. like where there's pinch points, where there's plenty of room versus not enough room, it would be better to have a more specified rather than one size fits all and is exclusive of other things type of design. So I'd support a lot of what I heard on that. As I mentioned, my kids went to Los Altos High School, and for about six years we were riding there and back with both of them. And most of – well, any of the kids from west of Shoreline, north of Central, Ringstorf is pretty much their way to get to school. Of course, they could go via – shoreline or San Antonio or underneath the train station, but really Ringstorff is generally the quickest way to get there. So it's very important to get that better and to back out a little bit. We've got other goals in our community that would be helped by making the street greener and safer. like we want to have a better community for all. And I noticed when I walk on Ringstorf or when I ride my bike even, I have a lot more communication with folks than I do when I'm driving. And when I'm driving, the communication that I usually see is not really that friendly. So I... So I think the more we can get people walking and biking, that's going to be better for our community. The more trees we get, the more resilient we're going to be to the increased temperatures. And the more we get people out of cars and able to walk around, the better we're going to be for these gas price shocks that we're getting and will probably continue to get. And thinking even further, the kids that learn how to ride their bikes to school or to take transit or to walk, they're going to carry that with them through their adulthood. And whether they're here in Mountain View or somewhere else, they're going to help be more of the solution. So thanks for your work on this. And I encourage you to combine them to make the best plan possible.

Thank you. Right on zero. Are there more virtual speakers?

Daniel, you're next.

Hi. Yeah. Can you hear me?

I can. We can.

All right. Um, so I'm just, uh, calling in to support, uh, putting in as continuous of a protected bike lane as you can on Rangstorf, um, As well as improve all the crossings and do really everything to complete the street. I don't think we should be doing a complete streets project where we build an incomplete street. We want to have a complete street with as complete of a bike lane as possible. All of those gaps where there's just awful crossings, we got to address that. And, you know, because I heard about this, I decided, you know, I'm going to ride my bike on Rangstorp today. And a few things kind of came up to me. One was, wow. what a street with immense transportation value as a cyclist, because it goes from California Street, the street I live on, it crosses Central Expressway and the Caltrain tracks, and then it goes all the way up to major job centers, it goes to shopping, it goes to parks, housing. So really, really important and not really, there's no parallel crossing for Caltrain. It's exclusive. So really important. The other thing that kind of hit me was lots of people are taking this right now and it's not safe. It's just not safe. And that's why I've been avoiding it all these years. And so I think we've got to do our best to protect people. And that means as continuous as possible of a class four bike lane. And, you know, in addition to that, I think examining the traffic flow on the street, it's very much centered around the crossing, which we're going to resolve. If you go a little north of the crossing, there's not all that much traffic. And so you have this open roadway effect where you have like one or two cars going as fast as they can, which is a really unsafe situation. And so, you know, we should consider road diets, for example, to, uh, resolve that situation and have more laminar traffic flow. And in addition, we've got this VTA crossing for 101 that's going to put in a really nice crossing on Ringstorf protected from cars that we also want to integrate with that new crossing. And so I think as continuous as possible of a protected bike lane, that's my priority. We should have all this other stuff too. But yeah, let's not only do one thing, an incomplete street for a complete streets project. Let's not do that.

Thank you. And are there more virtual speakers? Rashmi? Rashmi, you're up. Hi, can you hear me? Yes. Yes, we can hear you. Are you still here? Sorry. Can you hear me now? I don't know what happened. Yes, we can.

We can hear you. I have to unmute again, but I will stay still and not touch anything. Okay. My name is Rashmi Sahai, and I'm a member of Green Spaces Mountain View, and I'm also a mom with a cargo bike. I have a four-year-old and an eight-year-old, and my eight-year-old is starting to bike on his own now, too, and we do... bike on Ringstorf because it is one of the only options to go places we need to go. It's pretty scary. I don't like doing it, but for example, for swim lessons, that's where we need to do it. And my son, when he's biking, I ask him to bike on the sidewalk because I just don't feel safe about it at all. So that's just kind of our background. We live about two blocks away from Ringstorf, close to the park. But I would like to join April and other speakers here today in requesting that the CTC support a full green complete streets concept that integrates the core safety and green infrastructure elements that were tested individually in alternatives A, B, and C, rather than selecting among the current alternatives as is. I also took the survey and I did not feel like It gave me many options, so I filled in other whenever possible. But specifically, we need to have a continuous class for protected bike lane and green infrastructure, including street trees, native and biodiversity supported plantings, and functional green stormwater infrastructure. And to be able to achieve this, it would be great to see some of the creative ideas that April had mentioned and were included in the letter. to get to where we want to go. I don't think that choosing one of the three options is an option. And yeah, I look forward to the next round and to see where we've gone from here. Thank you so much.

Thank you. And more speakers? Bruce England. Bruce, you're next.

Hi, all. Bruce England, Wiseman Station Drive. Let me get to my notes. So I'd like to thank everybody who's been working on this over time, including transportation staff and this committee. First off, I support the comment letter authored by April Webster, you've been hearing about from other people too, and I helped collaborate on the letter. I do have a few additional comments. I bike along Rangsdorf and Feeder Streets at least twice a week between Cresanto and Heritage Park with big old buckets of food scraps from Hope's Corner. And I actually choose Crisanto specifically because I don't feel that biking past the community center is as safe as it could be as it's currently set up. There's a lot of traffic, a lot of activity, people moving in and out of those driveways. Other adjacent project impacts. Such as the feed-in from Crescento Avenue with two right turn lanes for vehicles and no shoulder space. I mean, really, literally no shoulder space for cyclists. The Rangsdorf Avenue grade separation project and the Escuela El Monte project. such interfaces beyond the project boundaries are important too, so I don't see those mentioned. I'd like to see them included or addressed somehow. I'm also concerned that we see LOS measurements here rather than VMT and no consideration for narrowing traffic lanes. Lastly, I agree with Tracy Chu's comments from the last BPAC meeting that more cohesiveness across the plan would be welcome, and that attention to the natural details is essential, such as keeping tree planting options active for future planning. Then I've got a few additional comments. You've already heard this from some people, but the idea that staff is saying that A, B, and C are not mutually exclusive those options. They told us that they did that to isolate and test different features and that it would be possible to combine them in the next round of design. So something for you to think about and address in your deliberations and your questions, I suppose. And we would like to ask why the survey only allows respondents to choose one feature, as has been pointed out. And then lastly, what's important, and this has been alluded to, is having a strong connected network so that we're not creating bicycle islands and getting, you know, serving to get people out of their cars and vehicles as much as possible. And I agree with a lot of the comments that say that, you know, all modes of travel need to be addressed and also strongly agree that having this be a solid green complete street project is very important. And that's it. Thank you.

Thank you. We have one or two more speakers. No more raised hands. No more speakers. Okay. Okay. So with that, I'm going to bring it back to the committee for questions first.

Do any...

DO ANY COMMITTEE MEMBERS HAVE QUESTIONS? CAN YOU HEAR US? So you're muted and you can't unmute is what it looks like. And now you're frozen. Now you're unfrozen.

Sorry, it's not the best reception up here. But I heard a couple questions come up throughout all of the public comment. And so I didn't know if committee members were going to ask for those questions to be answered or if staff could answer some of those.

Why don't you single out the ones that you heard and staff can answer? Oh, you're back.

It would just be so much better if the two of you could ask some of those questions because I don't think my connection is that great.

Okay, we can hear you now, but Council Member McAllister, can you ask your questions?

Sure. Well, I had a boatload, but I'm just going to keep it simple. And I just want to start off I'm not opposed to bike lanes. 2015, I was one of the first ones, when I was mayor, we pushed for bike lanes, and we got a lot of them. But I put a lot of things more in context because that's my job. I got 85,000 people to work with, and put things in context. So I guess I'll just start to the big question. The grade separation is just going to change the whole landscape out here. how are you going to take what you're doing now? And then the last, the great separation we're moving forward with GTA and trying to get it. So that's five years, 10 years out, maybe for that. How are we working on this stuff? And we know that the streets are going to get torn. The roads are going to get stronger. The current streets feeding in will disappear. There's going to be, and someone wasn't sure about what they mentioned, Cassanto, there's a proposed bridge right now, pedestrian bridge going across. So how are you going to plan efficiently to do things that you know could be changed by the grade separation?

I'll start. I'll start. So Lauren Ledbetter, transportation manager. Thank you for the question. One of the things I want to point out is that this is the very first stage of the study. So there will be a lot. It's a longer term process, probably than the grade separation. So it is potential that the grade separation goes in first and then the study comes in next, just depending on the outcome of the study, how much it will cost, the funding for it. I don't know about that.

Yeah, so right now what we're looking at, oh, Jennifer Ng, Public Works Director, we're looking at currently phasing the Ringstorff Bridge Separation Project into two construction packages. The first one would be what we call the Leland Connector. It's really to align Leland Avenue. But as part of that first phase, we are also looking at making the disconnection of Persanto out to Ringstorff. So that... project is pretty well in design. It's at 65%. We're looking at possibly going out to construction as soon as about a year from now. So that first phase, we have enough money for, and we can proceed ahead of the actual grade separation, which will take the road down and underneath the country. So there is good news ahead for how the grade separation will be interfacing. Rengstorf Avenue. In short, it'll be in two pieces.

So, there's a lot of unknowns. So we're spending quite a bit of time trying to figure out all these parameters and ideas and so forth. But at the end of the day, when we get close there, what we're proposing here may not be applicable at all because the way the construction of Rengstorf and the grade separation morphs Hopefully it's going to be a good one.

You know, when it goes under, when the street goes under the Caltrain tracks, it will be wide enough to accommodate millions of traffic in each direction, as well as having a separated bicycle pedestrian facility to get us across the barrier of Caltrain.

So when you say this is a long-term project, that this is going to come after the grade separation?

It may.

It may. So chicken or the ape?

If I may, this project does not recommend any improvements within the footprint of the grade separation. And we've been coordinating with the grade separation team to make sure any recommendations would interface with the footprint of the grade separation. So the idea is that section will be addressed by the grade separation, and this project

So give us, remind us the length of the Great Separation. Where do you think it starts on the south? Where it's going to end up?

Where it starts to dive down is where the new Leland connector will come in. So it's a little bit more to the south where Leland currently comes in. And then it dives down, goes under the tracks, and pops up on the other side about just a little past the Shell Station.

It was mentioned, and I do appreciate the data, a lot of it in the report that you did recognize that this is a main artery, automobile artery. This shoreline, San Antonio, are the main ways to get people from the south to the north to 101. And I appreciate that you guys made comments that you recognize the importance of the vehicle. They need to make sure that we do get people going to the And it was interesting, I have to commend Serge. He made an excellent point. He said, if this grade separation, when this grade separation goes through, it's going to reduce, it's going to encourage people, more people to use it because it's going to be much easier to get through town. So the traffic probably increases because right now you have to go shoreline for San Antonio because it is a time consuming to go over the rainstorm. Is there any way to project that, the increase in traffic so far?

Yeah, I don't think we ran a model.

Okay. That's an excellent point. That brings up a lot of good points. I had another question. So when I asked about how many bicycles, I always ask for data. And then you had these charts on, Phoenix 8, page 70, 71, 82, 83, 95. How do I read those?

The existing condition of your car. Right.

Well, there's the diagram, and then there's this whole list of times.

The times are vehicle or delay.

Well, there was section said vehicle at the top, and then the other one said bicycle list.

Correct.

That's what I'm trying to understand.

So the bicyclist one is on page...

I'll go to page 70. That's the one I first looked at. And if there's any way you can throw it up on the screen for me. Let's go first.

Oh, so you're looking at the raw data.

Okay.

Yeah, so these...

If you go to... Like 70, 71, there was different segments of Green Star.

All right, so... Page 70, this is showing the raw data volume that's collected by . And to read that, you have, there's PEDS by, there's PEDS. These are prime, sorry.

Are we supposed to be hearing something?

Yeah. There's Paige.

I can't hear Adam. Can anyone else?

Adam, have you been speaking?

Yeah, Adam, most of us cannot hear you.

So these are bikes. So you say groups printed slash bikes and Ringstore southbound going toward El Camino, Leghorn westbound, and Ringstore northbound going to 101. And on the side, so it's right, left, through, and we have PET going across the two.

Right. So let's just say the 8 o'clock, if you go across, it shows one person going southbound on Ringstore towards El Camino. Leghorn or the other way around?

Southbound Wingstar going toward El Camino.

So we have one person at 8. We have one person at 8.15. We got two people. So I'm looking at then all of a sudden we go from 9 at 00000. Bunch of zeros. We don't have a lot of people, right? So help me understand how you're taking this data that doesn't show much activity and morphing it into something greater than it represents.

Yeah, each intersection has different events. So leghorn is in the lower side. But if you look at raw, California, Stanford, you will be able to see the sum of the peak hour that we are showing. So a better graph, I mean, the graph I have used to summarize it, actually done by Adam's team, our consultant from Kimalee Horan, is if you go to page 25. Yeah. Yeah, so this one is showing if you were a pet, you're going along California, 17 people crossing during AM.

Just which box are you looking at?

This one right here. I'm trying to show. On the right. The little person walking right on the right. Yeah, there we go. So. That's one of the high activity intersections. So this one, you can see there are 17 people walking, 23 people walking on the other side of California.

What time span is this?

This is the peak time, morning time. So it would be either 7 to 7.45 or 8 to 8.45 or 8.15 to 8.45. So we have 23 people walking. Yeah. And I'm sorry. A long-range driver would be the top two. So it's 16 people and then 27 people on the bottom. I'm talking about the morning peak time. Yeah.

Okay, that's Monday through Friday, I guess.

That's one day. So this is December 9th. I would say this is winter month. We would expect to see more during fall, summer, and spring.

And how many, at the same time, how many bikers do you... Yeah, so the biker is the little person on a bike.

So they're going along Rainstorm. If you think about going northbound, so you would add all of that, 6, 7. And on the other side, it's 19, 1. So it's 21. And that would be, I would assume, school traffic.

So is this a rush hour example?

That is a rush hour example.

What's a non-rush hour example?

That I would need to pull up longer data, but we look at the peak volume just at the car to estimate the traffic congestion. We would look at the peak time of bike and ped activity to understand that demand.

So would you, just you're a professional, did you think that the demand would change drastically by half maybe?

I am not sure because it's a lot of school traffic, and school traffic happens middle of the day between 2 to 3.30. I also do safe routes, so I tend to see traffic along that, and then you'll get commute time starting 3.30, 4. So that's something we would have to kind of plot it out like we did for our average daily volume, so I won't be able to confidently answer that.

So you mentioned safe?

It would be less. It would be less, okay.

Thank you on that one. So you're going to put in some cross-section, mid-sections. Can I ask the question, how far apart do you usually decide how far a mid-section is?

Yeah.

So I...

looked at what we have. So MUTCD says it has to be at least 300 feet apart from a controlled traffic signal. And both of these signals are about 500 to 700 feet. So we are meeting kind of the minimum threshold. As part of Vision Zero, we identified anything more than 700 feet to have a minimum crossing because that's when we tend to see people jaywalking or crossing when they're not possible.

I can see what's going on on the west side of the street. When you bring it over to the right side, to the east side, is there any particular... connection that you're looking for? Or is it just because on the west side, that's a good starting point to be set?

We were kind of looking at, we did a couple of field study and the walking tour and we saw where people were generally crossing. There was a pool, there's a nursery that they have to kind of go around and look like, if there was a middle of crossing, they would use it. So that's sort of one of the data point we use to identify. We also did, our first survey had where people can drop pins and that also was, kind of fake into our mid-law crossing recommendation um if you know that that's something we are still taking input on where exactly you put them these are kind of our first draft or take on this so you know so where you think first draft is based on the distance between other crossings or people said well this is a good place for us to cross um it is making sure there is enough distance between the two intersections and then identifying and then looking at our survey responses and our walking tour to see where people want to cross. And they usually match up because when they're far apart, people tend to cross in the middle.

How many people would you consider a good response?

For the survey, we received 1,000 response, the first one. And I need to look back at how many exactly responded to that specific measure, that specific idea that we have. And then for a walking tour, we did walking, and that was, I think that group was about seven, five to seven people that walked. And I know they talked about mid-block crossing patients.

You have junction as a crosswalk, but junction is sort of going to disappear into the They need separation, doesn't it?

Junction, I believe, that's actually an ongoing project. We are designing a pedestrian hybrid beacon. And that is further north up than... Is that right next to the Mexican restaurant? That's leaving a lot of shaking heads now. Junction is close to Monterey.

Oh, that's the street next to Safeway.

Yeah.

Okay.

It's north. It's north, north.

Okay. So you want to put a crosswalk there?

I believe there's an existing crosswalk there. So we are going to update it to put better warning signs for pet and bike so the car can see them as they cross. That's happening separately. It's in this time frame.

So I sent you a picture earlier today, Director, when I mentioned to you about in Santa Clara, that was the hybrid, that in Santa Clara, they use a sidewalk to have an arrow go in one direction, an arrow go in the other, and it looks like it's a combo walk-bike lane. Would that be something that might be considered to sort of accommodate, maximize space?

That's what's referred to as a class one multi-use trail where we have pedestrians and bicyclists sharing the same space. In the Santa Clara example, they just happened to put the arrows showing different directionalities. For something like that, we would need quite a bit of space in the public right of way. It's generally, I want to say 10 feet wide as a minimum to start with. And we generally don't have that much space on either single side of the street right now.

So the current CIP, that was just done for the study. Has the study been completed based on what the Caltrain grant was?

The current CIP is for this feasibility study, and Caltrain's planning grant is funding this to complete the planning study.

That's 25-39? 25-39, yes. Okay. So there was also another thing I saw in there. Was the Ringstorff Adaptive Signal Project. So there was concern about door dooring. Have we had much reports of people doorings, people hitting car doors as they're coming through?

I have not.

When we look... Police reports don't record specifically. They show the direction of travel. You wouldn't be able to tell if it's a door or other part of the vehicle. I have seen one, for instance, on my commute.

Yeah, it's not something that's recorded as part of the police reports. Although, if we had received a comment from Ask MB or a complaint specifically, they were recorded. have that information. We would have that information.

I can get back to you. I don't know that, yeah, but it would be an incomplete set.

Attachment 3, page 14. What do the different colors mean on the chart?

Yeah. I know the answer. Okay, so what was the page number again? It was page...

Fourteen. Fourteen.

Okay, so if you scroll down...

The three colors, I think, yeah.

So this question asks about what improvements would they like to see, and they could rank it. So between the three, they can only choose three top priorities. This corridor has very constrained right-of-way, so we wanted to see what people would really, really like to see. So rank one is that darker shade of blue. Darker one. grade two is the lighter and then you have the yellowish. So you can see frosting kind of.

Okay. So let's take the first one. There are safety crossings at sections. The green is let's say 25%. Okay. So that's the, this is the rank choice. And then the second ranking for all those people said that's the blue is their second choice. So this is a compilation of everybody. Okay. So the improvements for people with disabilities had the least amount of responses?

Yeah.

Okay. I saw that. Okay. This was a close to me. What happened to the comprehensive model?

It was adopted in 2021. And I know that we used that at least for the starting point for the, this is access empathy, that's what I'm talking about. And we used that as the starting point for the active transportation plan recommendations or holistic apps, I should say. And you refer to it on this study as well.

That was also, we also took some of, We also took the prioritization from that study as part of a Vision Zero Action Plan, which recommended this as a number one project. So follow on from that plan.

Okay. Those are my questions for now.

Okay. So Council Member Kamei, do you want me to go before you or do you want to go before me, which I'll go with whatever your preference is because of your connections.

No, no, I just, my question was just if staff had any comments on the questions that the public had asked, and I don't know if you were going to follow up on any of those, Chair Hicks, but I was trying to like note them down, but.

I took notes on what the public said, but I did not, I have my own questions. I didn't, I didn't, I guess you noted them differently because I didn't. There may be some that were left with my questions, but otherwise I didn't pick up more comments.

Well, I think one of the things that I heard over and over was what we got presented tonight versus, you know, being able to put kind of a more comprehensive instead of it being one of the three plans, being able to find something more comprehensive. And so that was a question that I heard over and over again and wanted staff to be able to answer that.

Yeah, I think that's the main theme.

Yeah, so that's my question. So are we able to, do we need to spend time focusing on the three various alternatives? Or if the committee is interested, are we able to do what the public had mentioned, which is they had heard feedback from staff that would all be incorporated and we could kind of do something more comprehensive. So that's the question.

I did have a tangential question, so maybe they can answer both yours. Okay. A bunch of members of the public and groups tried to address that same question about, can we kind of do a little bit of everything through a motion? And I was wondering whether the motion, whether adopting that motion would be helpful in terms of consolidating a lot of community input moving forward. So sort of the same question Council Member Kamei is asking from a different angle. Maybe we can answer both questions.

I can start on sort of how we developed the alternatives and what is our kind of purpose of this process at where we are. So we are kind of very beginning of this planning feasibility study and the way we crafted these alternative definitions and public input from round one and really try to understand Given rainstorm is constrained with two travel lanes on each direction, on street parking with high utilization on north part, and having a high bike and pet activity along it, what would it look like if we did intersection improvements where we do see some of the severe collisions? And then to further that, what would it look like if we did bike improvements? and then what we did what we and what would it look like if we did head improvements in doing so what we were hoping to do is highlight the trade-offs with that if we do a bike lane we are removing 64 percent of the parking sixty percent of the parking which we did did find have utilization along the corridor and that is something during our community meeting we heard sentiments that that is an important feature of their travel. We heard a lot about sidewalk widening and greening along. So if we did that alternative, what are some of the trade-off? One trade-off is that our bike separation, we're not able to provide a bike separation. the combination of it will have combination of the street off. It will have parking removal, perhaps one of the lane will drop because to take six foot of sidewalk and then another nine foot or eight foot for bike lane with separation will require that much of right of way. We are going into this with a very transparent, clear-eyed way that this is one of the hardest, lane-constrained space that I have worked on. So what does that mean in terms of developing a plan that is going to be meeting a lot of the expectation and need for this corridor? So that was the purpose. And I think, again, it's a draft. We are coming at the first time amalgamation of it is probably, you know, makes sense to kind of put together. This is kind of showing if you take one option all the way through, what are some of the trade-offs like, Lauren?

I was just going to, just at the very high level, we cannot combine all the alternatives together without making a trade-off in some other.

But what I'm hearing is you can't maximize all three, but you can do some of each.

In segments, I imagine you could. So what I heard was a request for continuous platform bikeways. And we cannot do that. We cannot do that with the alternative, which maintains the two travel lanes. And we did attempt to maintain the parking lot. It also provided the platform bikeway. we did look at removing a travel lane and the analysis suggested that the intersections north of central expressway would significantly be activated and we did not as staff feel that it was appropriate for that recommendation so i have follow-up questions but i don't want to trample all over council members questions

So thanks. So I guess I'm just trying to seek clarity as we like go into discussion tonight. So what was the answer to that? Ms. Ledbetter? Sorry.

We cannot combine all of the elements together into one unified plan unless we receive direction from the CTC on what trade-offs we need to make.

Okay. So there was also some comments about perhaps bringing in elements of alternative, what is it, A and, I'm sorry, B and C. Would that be, I guess, more amenable than all three alternatives combined into one? Could we work on

Would that be segment of, let's say, Montecito Rock, we say widening sidewalk because that's, you know, you see a sidewalk narrowing there and keeping class two or class two buffer, you know, fully protected by way in, in that I, you know, the trade-off is we are dropping bike lift on and off throughout the corridor. And I think what I also heard that we want to continue with bike lane. So, so I think I'm going to move our direction along those lines.

Yeah. So, I mean, I think it's important because if we're going to ask a bunch of questions, it's helpful to understand what kind of direction we can provide that will actually yield the tangible, I guess, tangible results, right? So if we want continuous bike lanes, then we need to choose B. If we ask for a combination of B and C, maximizing if we can, you know, bike ped friendly, then what I'm hearing from staff is it would not be continuous bike lanes on Rank Store for that segment.

Yeah, you would have to pick either of them. So option B, with the additional C, greening, not necessarily the sidewalk widening, you would need to get rid of parking in order to do the combination.

So can I ask a tangential, I don't want to interrupt you, but I have a tangential question. So tell me, I can just wait until it's my turn.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Go ahead. Yeah.

So it seems to me that with the trade-offs, it seems to me that most people want some elements of each of these three options. And that with the trade-offs, the one that most people brought up and that, frankly, I agree with is that we don't need to widen sidewalks here. We widen sidewalks where, you know, where they're, okay, I'm going to add a caveat, but you wind sidewalks in urban areas, in places where there are four, six, ten-story buildings, and there's just so many people on the street. That is not Rangstorf. Now, my caveat is with some of the housing element changes in Palo Alto in particular, some of this may be impacted by that. But discounting that for a moment, widening sidewalks, in a place like this, widening sidewalks will not serve any purpose. It won't encourage more people to walk. There's no, there are not people, you know, there are not crowds walking down the street. So, no, it's a question. You had run-ups to your questions, too. So, given that widening sidewalks is the, multiple commenters have said that's the least useful thing here. Can we get, if we drop that, can we get the other elements, which is a continuous bike lane and maximize, I mean, what does help pedestrians is tree canopy. So maximize that through some of the tools that you've shown. which are like bulb outs and things that don't take a whole width.

Intersection, yeah.

Yeah. Where you can, given those kind of judicious use of tree canopy, although maximum that you can do, and a bike lane seem to be the biggest priorities. And then the parking, there's some places where it seemed important and some where people said it was less important. So keep it where it's important, maybe not 100%, maybe with tree bulb outs or something, so maybe it's less than 100%. With those kind of trade-offs, can you put those three things together?

So other than looking at the tree canopy, alternative B as is getting at that. That is the maximum continuous bike facility we can provide with taking 60% of the parking. If we want to increase that separation, that would mean we are taking all the on-street parking that is available. I don't understand. Increase separation? What does that mean? we are taking 50% of the parking to provide that buffer, that continuous protected biking where we can. If we want to increase You know, there's certain area we drop, right? If we wanna close those gaps, that would mean we are taking all the on-street parking available because this area is just so constrained in order to create that, we have to drop it. We can look to go explore if we can narrow the median to see if that give us enough space, but that's something we have to go like block by block to kind of really make sure that's there. I think if we receive direction to take on more parking, I think that's going to alleviate a little bit of the constraint of how much biking, protected biking we can provide. And in the tree canopy, as of Alternative A, we didn't look into sort of what the greenery for the intersection looked like, but that's something we can consider.

Okay. So I'm not sure if other council members got what the trade-offs are and where, in terms of eliminating parking, where would you have to eliminate it? Because it seemed like it was more important on some parts of the road than others.

Yeah, we are already eliminating quite a bit of parking. And I can show you the places that we are keeping as is because we found that was a highly utilized area. And you'll see one side of the bike lane drops from a protected to a plus two buffer. One more. So the red area is where we are preserving parking. So right in front of the heritage park. So the right in front of Heritage Park is going to be providing parking and right along over here. So even with removing parking on this side, this will still be a class, still be a bike buffer. One thing we also noted along going through north like limit and colony and going toward old middle field that top section there are quite a bit of driveways for residential so a protected bike lane will have many berets that's one of the reason we are showing uh bike lane with buffers so the light blue are the bike lane with buffers and the dark blue are the protected bike lane so the areas that are dropping is keeping parking.

And is some of the parking that you're dropping there are some of the most used parking or the least used?

They are used.

Okay, well, I feel like my questions are answered in terms of trade-offs. I don't know if other I don't know, Council Member Kamei, if you've had other questions about trade-offs, because that seemed to be the major question you were on at that point.

Well, so, I mean, it well, I guess we can talk about it when we go into deliberations. I'm just kind of curious then if it seems that we're unable to kind of combine all three and we need, and even we can't combine B or C, then we really need to be choosing one. Is that what I'm hearing? And, you know, just want to make sure that I'm understanding correctly.

I've been just looking for Are you wanting us to be definitive or just giving guidance?

Yeah, because the council action in the report says to recommend an alternative. So that's what I'm trying to, or, you know, of the plan. So I'm just trying to clarify.

It's an informational item.

So there's no...

Yeah, my understanding was not that we could provide direction. But I would like to hear from staff whether, you know, if that's what Council Member Tomei is reading, I'd love to know which it is. Because I thought we could give direction that was not just... It's giving direction on the committee.

So I'll read what's in the report here. Staff request that CTC provide direction on what should be prioritized when staff develop a preferred concept. CTC may direct staff to develop a preferred concept from the alternatives listed below or to develop a preferred concept that is a combination of the alternatives or includes other recommendations. The primary request tonight is to provide us with direction so that we can move forward with that direction knowing what trade-offs, what elements of the roadways should prioritize. So that we can come back to you with a concept that does, that prioritizes it, you know, in a direct way.

Council Member Kamei, did you have more questions? Or are we saving those for comments? And let me see if I had any more questions. Let's see. Oh, so most of my questions were on timing, which Council Member McAllister did, and how we choose options and make comments, which we just did. And then, do you have any ideas for fixing, it seems like, any ideas for fixing the El Camino-Rangstorf intersection, which is an important element of the route to the Los Altos High School? Because I've heard a lot of comments on that.

Yeah. So there is the city's protected intersections that have been listed in our capital improvement program. So we are going to try to see if this feasibility study can include that intersection as part of the study.

And it seems like having crossings on both sides of the street might be super helpful. Is that part of that?

We can explore that as part of it.

um and i guess my last question is the um motion that a lot of community groups and so forth uh recommended would that be helpful in kind of consolidating to kind of say look that over and use that would that be helpful to you i think the challenge is it still doesn't give us what we need which is we need some direction on what to prioritize on the corporate one okay okay so okay So that's my last question. And now we go to comments, starting with whichever committee member wants to start. I mean, I'm open to what committee members think.

As this comes back, I think it would be helpful to provide more clarity on the trade-offs that would need to be made if we were going to be pursuing... as this comes forward. So that's the only thing that I think would be important. And I do feel, you know, I'm very grateful for the public providing engagement, both here in person virtually, but also over email. And people have been reaching out quite a bit. And so it makes me feel heartened that we all have the same goal, which is to make, you know, you know, our, our, our city street better for everyone. I think there also, I thought the survey results were also like quite interesting and that the greatest, you know, concern or response part was like traffic congestion. Right. I think that just kind of, to me, that shows a real need to mode shift and, To be completely honest, to make it a corridor that is more both bicycle and pedestrian friendly. And so I struggled on trying to choose between, in particular, alternative B and C, because our community has continuously asked us, to make our city a more walkable, bikeable city, especially as we're getting through what I'd call like major arteries within our city. How do we get north to south, but also east to west, which tends to be quite a pain point for our community. I think we really need to be thinking thoughtfully about that. And I do feel and appreciate those thoughts. you know, talking about their experience with their students, or if they are a student, we don't want to come up with a, you know, safe route that people don't use because it's not safe. Right. So I think those are just some of my initial comments as this comes back is that I'd love for it to feel like there's alignment on the community feedback that we continually receive and where we've been wanting to go as a council. Thanks.

Okay, well, I've said all that. I'm going to go before. So I really thank the community for all their valuable input, especially the people who've experienced being there and especially all the ideas about the safe routes to school element, which I think is one of the more important elements because they're not, I mean, to be honest with you, often I would say Maybe we should prioritize neighborhood streets as safe routes to school, but we can't always do that. So I think here we really do need to look at bike safety. And for me, the trade-offs, I think that we are not at this point near, you know, this is not city central, so we don't need one thing that we can ditch is wider sidewalks. And another thing is to look at the median. I think we don't need a 14-foot median that went I looked at it, it doesn't have, you know, like, really nice crease and so forth anyway. So I think that gives some width. And then in addition to that, I liked some of the, like, the pictures of bulb outs rather than a complete... strip of, although I love planting strips, here that might preserve some parking. And then I guess just looking at parking, where is parking most needed? I'm not as enthusiastic about eliminating parking as I know some people are. I know that's a controversial subject, but I know vulnerable members of our community who use parking to visit their elderly parents. in Walnut Creek or, you know, they need to use a car because they're divorced and they have no control over where their kids go to, you know, live and go to childcare, et cetera, et cetera. There's some people who need cars. So I would like, you know, I would like some attention to that. I think we have to probably eliminate some parking, but do it not, you know, do it with care. and intention, and then just put in as many green elements as possible, you know, like I said, through bulb outs and so forth. And then I would also take the motion that the community members made under advisement. I think they put a lot of, there's a lot of detail in that. And I'm not saying that every, I know there are trade-offs. And I'm not saying that you'll be able to follow every one of those details, but I think it would be helpful to really take it seriously. And then I guess my last thing is pay attention to where there's gonna be densification and how that might particularly interface with the housing element in Palo Alto and how that, may impact, you know, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it will be downtown. And also we have Charleston Plaza, which is, you know, probably going to develop and there's some similar developers working on those. So they're, and they're talking about people walking and biking and strolling their babies to daycare and so forth between those different developments. So although I'm saying don't wind up sidewalks, Okay. I think that's all of my comments. And Council Member McAllister.

Chair, your questions and your comments were helpful for me to get where I wanted to get. So when you were asking all those questions of trade-offs. But where I'm going to come from I'm still big on transportation, moving people. This is a corridor that we need to maintain. We don't have that many, and as traffic goes, we still need them. And that's my focus, because all the folks that we're today are speaking are great advocates for bike ped people, but they're only one group of the city of Mountain View, and we have to look at All the people. Not everybody can ride the bike. Not everybody can walk. People need to take cars. They're older. The population of Mountview is getting old. Demographics prove that. So we always got to be conscious of how other people can do it. We also have to be conscious that when BTA come along one time and they mentioned cities like Mountview have started doing things with the streets and they couldn't put in stops. So I was surprised to hear that. And I go, okay, we need to make sure that there are public spots for the buses to pick up public buses or shuttles. So if we're doing all this other stuff, how is the mass transit? And I'm a big believer in mass transit, getting people or shuttles in town, all the other, the Ubers, all the small cars, that they're going to be picking up people and they need people to do that. So I'm concentrating on that. It's my overall big picture and then filtering down. I believe that the quality of life for some people, especially those with parking, I've seen too much parking disappear in the city. And that's why I keep going back to the studies. Where's the data? How many people are actually using all this stuff at the time? And I don't see a lot of justification for against. What I did think about is like over at the school zone. So you have no parking in the morning or something like that. And I did look at the charts and I did see a lot of red or a lot of utilization of the parking on the charts that were here. But they were also time wise. They said, okay, maybe compromise. During the evening and weekends, they park. During the day when people are riding the bikes, it could be a compromise to say, okay, there. And so we're working with both people so we maximize parking. So I see that's important too. When you mentioned there's a lot of driveways and buffered bike lanes, look at El Camino. It's It's very confusing because there's a lot of driveways, and there's a buffer here and a buffer there, and I'd rather be consistent. I would like to be able to compromise and, say, reinforce or highlight the existing flask 2 bike, just as if we can do that and emphasize safety and still get the greenery in there. Because if we do put all the buffering in there, something has to go. But if we accentuate our existing bike length, not necessarily make it a buffer, but make it more noticeable, that we can accommodate some of those greenery items that are excellent, shades and so forth going down that way. So I'm looking at that. There was also, you were concerned about reducing speed. And I didn't ask, how are you going to reduce speed? Because if that's a major thoroughfare, We want to move traffic. We don't want people. If there's an event at the Ring Surf Center, you see the traffic backing up down to almost El Camino because there's nowhere to go because of the train. Now, that will change when a grade separation comes along. That signal really backs up everything. So that's important. I want to see how that's going to fit. So what else? If we're going to mix and match, but that's something we've got to look at. Well, that's pretty much the sort of your three deals in there. Use the data, figure out where people are going, what time they're doing it, see what you can work around it. I love wide streets, but I agree with you. And with people right now, if you look at bicyclists, some bicycles, they're using sidewalks anyway, wherever it is. They're using the bicycle. So if they're using, I'll use a bicycle sidewalk if I feel safer there, so I'll do that. But I don't want you to see if we can get a lesser bike lane, still have a continuous bike lane, save the parking, concerned about the traffic moving, and the signal.

Well, synchronization. Oh, signal synchronization. Okay.

I think I touched on everything you sort of mentioned.

Okay, are we all going in the same direction or different directions? Digest it. Digest it and come back.

I think we need to tell you what we heard. We need to do active listening here. Okay.

I can start. So I... took away from the discussion that Alternative A is kind of our baseline, we want to see it, which is the intersection improvements. Then for Alternative B, explore if there are more ways we can put more bike protection, either through narrowing sidewalk, and then also look at our parking study and identify where we are taking parking or keeping parking depending on usage. I also heard looking at the school route for Los Altos, which is south of the rainstorm and that intersection with El Camino, how they will work in terms of putting in a crosswalk and the bike connection. Densification part of housing element that's going on. And timed parking, if possible, based on our parking data, timed parking wouldn't work for a protected bike lane because parking needs to be acceptable. I know.

I didn't say protected bike.

But it's a kind of a bike lane. Today it's class two, but we can look into class two as possible.

But that's what I heard.

comment about narrowing the median to gain space yes and so in terms of what i heard that was i heard from all three of you is a desire to be intentional if we were to remove parking or or parking so what's the parking desire to see more greenery i heard from all three of you uh i heard no sidewalk widening from two maybe three You didn't?

No, because you're going to be giving away parking or something.

And then Safe Routes to School was mentioned by all of you. It's something we need to focus on. I heard transit stops. Yes. And I have one more. Okay, one more.

Cost benefit.

Tell me more about how you want that cost benefit.

Yeah.

So, I mean, okay. Everything, everything.

Okay.

And if there's, you know, the trade-offs, I mean, we got so much the city needs to do. Bike lanes, buffer bike lanes throughout the city. We would have a great bike lanes, but we would have a lot of congestion on the rest of the city. Deserting the greenery when parks and so forth. So if you look at it, like you were talking about, you know, Reducing the speeds of air. How are you going to do that? So is that going to cost? I mean, widening the sidewalk, that's going to cost money. Buffered lanes, that's going to cost money. But just look at, I mean, we're already going to be deep in money in this. It's going to take a lot to get this thing going. But look at something that actually can get something accomplished. Chair said the widening of the sidewalks, you know, that's not going to change things. So maybe don't even look at that. because that's going to be a lot of money to do that because the infrastructure out there, as the woman was mentioning, the utilities go through that. But make sure that we can justify that we're still keeping safe, always keeping safe, but does it make sense? Yeah, look at your professionalism with neutralized because you got a lot of advocacy and that we need you to make sure that there's some way

looking at the big picture one other item that i should have said in the commonalities all of you mentioned improving the bike the bike facilities in some way some yet how can we provide protected bikeways for more and you're specifically talking about not protected bikeways but enhanced screening that's my trade-off to give us a part to keep the parking right so i see council member committee wanting to make another

Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Chair. So just a quick question. So, you know, given the public transportation comments, so has committee member McAllister like brought this to VTA or I know that you said on the board. So with their comments on our routes or?

So we're taking away parking. Yeah. That they're having trouble, you know, finding the bus stops.

Okay. So maybe as this comes back, I would just request from staff that there be some more formal input from VTA on what their routes are going to be and what their services that they provide. If we're going to be asking for metrics as Committee Member McAllister likes, then it'd be great to know their ridership and their numbers as well on how they're best serving our residents along this route. And how maybe as other communities have looked at doing infrastructure improvements, they've been able to be a thought partner in that and implementing and making sure that it's successful. Thank you.

We can absolutely do that. We have ETA.

ETA. You get the name because it's a good job.

May I ask one more, just one more question because you brought it up as speed. and reducing speeds, and one of the thoughts was there is speeding along the corridor in certain locations, in certain times, and how I'd like to know from the committee on speed reduction strategies.

Well, I looked at the chart, and there's little bulbs, and the speed limit was 35, and I saw 35, 37, 38, so that's... I don't think it's going to really push the needle that you can find something different. Of course, but that's, I think the Great Cross, the nature operation is going to really see what's going to happen. That could speed up traffic, so you'll address it differently.

Yeah, my comment on speed is that I think at times when, as As it densifies, it probably will densify, but we're also going to get the grade separation should facilitate movement. So we have two. We don't know which of those forces will be predominant. But I would suspect that during heavy commute times for cars that That there's not speeding. I mean, that's what I'm reading in your reports, that there's not speeding, but that there's speeding at other times. So my concern is that if there are bicyclists in particular during non-commute times that we want to put out speeding during non-commute times. I mean, we don't want anyone going 50 miles an hour at any time, but I'm particularly concerned about those hours of the day. And particularly because people coming home from school at two or three, that's not during heavy commute times usually. So there may be speeding at that time. So I don't know if there's any strategies. You know, I think when everybody's, when there's a traffic jam, then you don't have to worry about speeding. But at other times, I'd like to know what kind of strategies there are.

I feel like we have the rest of it. And we've coalesced around some. Around some.

OK.

Yes.

OK. Any last comments from committee members? OK. If not.

I'll leave here.

I don't know. So now we're going to move to 5.2, which is the active transportation plan. I'm going to, because I think the thing that's most scarring the public from contributing is if we know all night their questions, I'm going to request that we continue allowing the public to speak before we speak, as Mr. McAllister first suggested. So OK, we're on 5.2. It's the final active transportation plan. The staff presentation will be provided by Jennifer King, the works director, and Lauren Ledbetter, transportation manager, Alison Boyer, assistant public works director, and Tracy McMillan from Nelton Nygaard. will be available to answer questions after the presentation.

All right, so I'm going to kick us off. Good evening. Again, Jennifer Ink is the first director of this NCP presentation. Alison Boyers is the public works director, is calling in from a conference. And next to me is Lauren Ledbetter, our technical manager. Next slide, please. So a quick overview of where we're going today in our agenda. I'll start by walking through the project background and how the plan was developed. Lauren will talk about outreach and what we've done for the project before moving into the components of the plan itself. And then she'll walk through the comments we received on draft plan and how they have been addressed in the final plan. And then I'll walk through next steps and implementation of HP. Next slide, please. We can skip this one. So the origin of the Mountain View Active Transportation Plan, is that in 2020, council directed staff to integrate and update both the 2014 Pedestrian Master Plan and the 2015 Bicycle Master Plan to get the transportation plan together into one combined document, which is now called the Active Transportation Plan. And in creating this plan, the council recognized that the public right-of-way needed to be reviewed as a whole system and not as a discrete pedestrian-only or bicycle-only plan, which is what we had previously, and that recognizing each of these components of the public right-of-way don't act singularly, but they act as a system. So the active transportation plan that you have before you tonight focuses on people-powered modes of transportation. It's a term that I made up. So essentially walking, biking, and rolling. And it sets a vision for how we want these improvements to be refined and implemented over the next couple of decades. So this plan, the active transportation plan, set the long range vision while still recognizing that our already built infrastructure, such as valued infrastructure like mature trees, are part of what gives Mountain View its character. Bye. So this plan, again, is a long-range plan. And by that, I mean like 20 plus years to complete. It's pretty ambitious. And it sets a vision for the future of walking and bicycling and rolling in our city. And the long-range visionary document sets a foundation to guide our staff and our projects moving into the future. So the recommendations that we have for you tonight stem from data and directly from the community. The plan does three things. It identifies projects, but it also outlines policies and programs for the city to undertake to promote walking, bicycling, and rolling in the city. And we also consider the city's sustainability goals through inclusion of street infrastructure. This plan builds on previous plans local to Map Review, including, as I mentioned before, previous pet and bike plans, precise plans, and other planning documents. Regional and state plan information were also incorporated. And because the transportation system has overlap with sustainability and green streets, those plans were also built upon also. Public right-of-way is a common connector across the whole city and therefore has a lot of overlap with just about every other plan that we have. The intent of this active transportation plan is to not hold all of the previous plans into one giant and ginormous document, but instead the ATP, or MVATP as we're calling it here, will act as a complement to other plans that we already have. So where we're at now. This plan, as you know, has taken a while to complete. We wanted to make sure that we had appropriate communication and collaboration with all interested parties all along the way. You can see on this slide that the plan was developed through a multi-year process and there were several community and council touchpoints throughout. The review of the plan along the way included technical analyses, extensive community engagement, inter-department collaboration. and community input as indicated by the blue arrow at the bottom was collected throughout and there were several midpoint touch points with the City Council. As the plan progressed, staff provided updates and requested feedback from various stakeholders and committees. And now we're in the final stages of the project. So a public review draft plan was released in April of this year, and we solicited feedback from the public, the Bicycle Ped Advisory Committee, and the CTC. There's been a lot of feedback provided to us along the way, both from the community and the BPAC and CTC committees. As we go through this presentation, I hope you'll be able to see how we've thoroughly and thoughtfully incorporated these comments into the document. And so the final plan has been edited to respond to those comments. And we're here before you tonight, hoping to get a recommendation, which will lead into taking this to council in September. And I'm going to toss the ball now to Laura.

Got it. Thank you very much. So I'll start with the public and stakeholder engagement. Go to the next slide, Laura. Thank you. We work with four stakeholder groups throughout the development of the plan. The first two groups were developed specifically to guide the ATP. They are the Technical Advisory Committee, which is an internal advisory committee comprised of 13 staff members from Public Works, Community Services, Fire, and Community Development Department, and from the City Manager's Office. We also convened an external-facing active transportation public advisory committee called ADPAC, and that was comprised of representatives from 12 community-based organizations, nonprofit entities, or advisory bodies, and a representative from the Valley Transportation Authority. The other two, of course, are the city's standing advisory bodies, the BPAC, which you can see on the slide. We engaged the public throughout the development of the plan. We used a multilingual approach with materials in English, Spanish, Chinese, and Russian in translation and interpretation services for key events. We used a variety of community engagement techniques to receive input and better understand walking and biking experiences in Mountain View, including guided walking and biking tours focused on vulnerable users and challenging areas. A multilingual online map-based survey with 655 respondents used to identify favorite areas and challenges. targeted small group multilingual meetings to reach underrepresented communities. And we looked at roughly three years of public feedback from the city's AskMB platform and solicited comments on the public review draft plan through Collaborate Camp B this past spring, as Jennifer mentioned earlier. Community engagement information was used as one of the 17 criteria we used to prioritize project locations. And we also looked at individual comments when we were developing potential concept ideas for those projects. So you go to the next slide. In terms of what we heard, the key themes we heard from the community are listed here. Strong support for trails and bikeways. The major streets are both key routes that people need and want to travel along, but also they are barriers. There's a need for safer crossings, improvements at intersections, and slower driver speeds. And we learned throughout that walking and biking are everyday transportation. People aren't just going for recreational rides or recreational walks. They're also walking and biking to work, to school, and for errands. So I'll walk through the contents of the plan that we're presenting tonight. You can go to the next slide. We did not restructure the plan from the last time you saw it. It's the same structure as the public review draft plan we presented in June. There's four chapters. The introduction introduces the plan, describes how we developed it, summarizes the public stakeholder engagement, and outlines the vision statement and guiding principles. Chapter 2 is essentially existing conditions. It gives an overview of the community, the demographics, the travel patterns, the infrastructure, and it also provides the holistic network maps for pedestrians and bicyclists. Chapter 3 is the recommendations. This highlights current ongoing actions in Mountain View and recommends the projects, programs, policies for the city. They promise to support walking and biking and rolling lanes. Chapter 4 is the recommendation or the implementation chapter. In this plan, we discuss considerations for phasing the projects, the costs and benefits of green street infrastructure, funding, and the importance of collaboration and commitment. The plan is also supported by five appendices. There's the project prioritization, which outlines the process and the criteria we use to identify the priority corridors. The cut sheets, which provide concept design for the priority projects. The recommended improvements appendix, which is a table of all the recommendations for bikeways, sidewalks, and crossing improvements, not just the priority projects. We've added a Vision Zero action plan, local roadway safety plan appendix outlining the policies and programs that are contained in that plan, because there's a lot of overlap between that plan and this plan. And we also added the existing conditions report that was presented to BPAC in 2020 as an appendix. I'll go to the next slide. So I'll walk you, for the next few slides, I'll walk you through some of the key highlights of the plan. The vision was brought to the BPAC, the CTC, and the council, and it reflects those bodies' input. You can see it here. The plan is guided by five principles, which support council strategic priorities. Mobility and connectivity is streets that are easy to use and well-connected for walking, biking, and rolling. Safety and comfort. Trails, sidewalks, bikeways, intersections, and crosswalks that are safe, inviting, and easy to use. Access and equity policies and programs that engage and protect vulnerable populations and increase mobility choices. Sustainability and biodiversity. Green streets that improve access to nature and open spaces while promoting sustainability via native habitats and stormwater management and action-oriented and forward thinking. An implementable plan with clear standards that are updated and aligned with adopted policies. The next slide. So the data in the community input show that Mountain View is already an active community. The residents want access to key destinations, but there are challenging areas for walking and biking. There are opportunities to fill gaps in the networks, to improve the quality of the infrastructure, to increase connectivity across the city, and enhance safety and comfort and support long-term sustainability. Part of the existing conditions assessment, we developed holistic maps that show all planned proposed and existing bike ped infrastructure in the city. These maps are intended to show the overall network the city is working toward. They allowed us to identify gaps in that network, and they're used as a reference for staff when reviewing private development projects. This map shows the holistic bike network map with the priority projects outlined in black. If you can see, it's two parallel black lines. Overall, the plan recommends a little bit over 10 miles of Class 1 shared use path, almost five miles of bike lanes, which would include buffered bike lanes, four miles of Class 3 bike route, and approximately 20 miles of what we're calling Class 3B, essentially bicycle boulevards. and 22 miles of class four separated bikeways. I note that with the bicycle boulevards, these could be considered in the future for treatments to turn them into slow streets, at least some of them could be for that. For the next slide, in terms of pedestrian improvements, again, we built off prior planning work and identified gaps in the sidewalk network and identified improvements The plan recommends 30 crossing improvements, the same 10 miles of shared use paths that I mentioned on the slide before, about 5 and 1 half miles of sidewalk widening, new sidewalk on one side for about 1.6 miles, and a small segment of new sidewalk on both sides. I note that we have updated the map and some of the narrative in the plan to indicate that sidewalk widening makes spot improvements. based on the recognition that sometimes the sidewalk widening area is not a sufficient right of way to do that for the whole length. So we use the guiding principles to prioritize projects and identify a subset of priority projects, which will be the city's near-term focus. The scoring criteria you see here were reviewed and approved by City Council, CTC, and BPAT. Four of the criteria directly measure the guiding principles, and a fifth criteria, feasibility, was added at the request of City Council BTC. These criteria are supported by 17 metrics that measure objective data or community comments or use professional judgment to make the measurements. We grouped bicycle and pedestrian improvements into defined capital projects. We looked at more than 100 of these and scored them against these criteria. And you can see the priority projects that we identified are shown here on this map. So the plan also includes more than 20 policy or program recommendations that the city can undertake for better support walking and biking. They include continuation of existing efforts, such as continuation of road safety education, expansion of existing efforts, including expansion of Safe Routes to School program to Safe Routes to Parks and Transit, new efforts, including updated design standards and developing and reporting performance metrics for the ATP implementation. Some of the policies and programs we received a lot of support for was establishing a note right on red policy pilot. I mentioned updating the city design standards and also updating the bicycle parking standards, all of which are in the plan. So once we had identified the priority project locations, we developed specific recommendations for concepts for those corridors. In developing the recommendations, staff looked at field visits we conducted, field visits at all the locations. We looked at the curve to the curve width, the lane configuration, the width of the sidewalk, the speed limits, the average daily traffic, the surrounding land uses, the community concerns, And we brought these concepts to internal review, to the internal TAC, which included, of course, traffic engineering and civil engineering groups. We also looked at precise plans and corridor studies that included specific recommendations for some of these areas. And we did not include separate concept plans or cut sheets for the priority projects that actually already had a future concept developed and already involved. You can go to the next page. In the implementation chapter, we developed two phasing options with priority corridors. There's the resurfacing, which could be considered a shorter-term approach, which considers routine maintenance and what could be incorporated into that in order to accommodate bicyclists and pedestrians. This could include pavement marking, signage, elements of class 4 bikeways, It assumes no curb line changes and no major civil war. The second option would be a longer-term option, and this would be reconstruction. This could include full demolition and rebuild the roadway. It allows curb line adjustments. We did assume, however, that there's no additional right-of-way acquisition. The implementation chapter also includes a discussion of green streets, the materials and costs, the benefits and trade-offs, and implementation strategies. We developed, I also want to point out, in Appendix B, we have concept designs for repurposing and reconstruction. You can see an example of it on the slide to the right. Go to the next slide. We also include a non-exhaustive list of potential funding sources for these projects, and we include a discussion of the need to collaborate with Caltrans VTA, the county, in order to deliver these. We can go to the next section. So I'm going to talk about how we address the comments that we received on the public draft plan. So the last time we came to this committee was June. We had just finished the, we were right at the, after the public review period. We had received comments and feedback. We had received comments on a public draft. We received more than 200 comments, actually nearly 300 comments on the public review draft. And if you go to the next slide. These are the themes that came out from those comments. Desire to increase the programs and policies, strengthen pedestrian focus, improve consistency, highlight sustainability and biodiversity, and a desire for us to add performance metrics or add the policy that we would develop performance metrics and report annually on land progress. So the next, I believe, two slides goes through more specifically how we address those large comment themes, and then I will follow with some slides that address specific comments from the CTC. So to address, we had a desire for additional round of review by the BPAC and the CTC. We went to BPAC two weeks ago, and we are now coming to CTC. We strengthened the Programs and Policies section. We added new policies, and in that section, we also added policy program sort of cut sheets with more detail and more information about specific policies and programs. We also, as I mentioned earlier, added a new appendix that includes the non-infrastructure recommendations from the Vision Zero Active Action Plan. To increase the pedestrian focus on the improvements in the plan, we updated the narrative and maps to better highlight Thank you. Okay. And the greater consistency, that was mostly ensuring that the cut sheets in the appendix for the priority projects were internally consistent. We did that. Go to the next slide. We added, in order to highlight the role in advancing sustainability. We added additional information to the Green Streets section, and we modified the project cut sheets to highlight how proposed improvements align with sustainability and biodiversity. We also, for the performance metrics, added a policy to develop and report on performance metrics. You can go to the next slide. So the next Three slides outline how we addressed the comments we received from this body. These three slides do not include the clarifying questions that we received from this committee, just comments that we believed required an action to adjust the plan. So there was a desire to strengthen the language in the implementation chapter to describe how we coordinate with various agencies. And we increased the language in the plan, talking about the need to coordinate with Caltrans, the county, VTA, and neighboring jurisdictions. And you can see I've put on the slide the locations and what we did. There was a question about Carroll Avenue sidewalk construction and is that proposal, which is in the appendix in the back, was it formally unincorporated county and why are we proposing to construct a sidewalk here? The recommendation did come from several points of community input and the desire to provide more access to the school. We confirmed that Carroll Avenue is covered under the unimproved streets policy, which means the city would not move forward with an improvement on there unless the residents were to form a method to pay for it. And we also added a footnote to Appendix C where Carroll Avenue is noted to reference the unimproved streets. In the implementation chapter, there was a request to strengthen the existing language on how the city will speak public input, and we added a section public input to the implementation chapter. It's three paragraphs long, so it's a pretty significant addition. There was a request to acknowledge the rides of e-bikes. We added a sentence to reference the ongoing e-bike safety training or the soon to be ongoing e-bike safety training in the what's working section under Safe Routes to School. And we note that we do reference bikes in policy education and enforcement on use of personal electric mobility devices. And then finally, oh no, there's one more slide after this, sorry. There was a significant amount of discussion about Latham Street and specifically the recommendation that the plan had to widen the sidewalk something. So I'm kind of concerned that that would potentially result in mature trees being opened. So we revised the narrative for Latham cut sheets to indicate that the sidewalk widening may be spot improvements, not the full length. We noted that the city's intentions to retain mature trees We also added a disclaimer on all the maps that had sidewalk widening shown that the widening would be spot improvements. So this would apply not just to Latham, but all the projects that include potential sidewalk widening. We'll go to the next slide. There was a suggestion that wider sidewalks should be considered where densification is planned to accommodate future pedestrian activity. So in the new design standards follow-up that we added to the plan, it includes a reference to developments constructing adequate pedestrian infrastructure. And we also added a section in the implementation chapter, private development and the ATP to note how the ATP would coordinate with private development. There was a request to describe how this plan and other city plans will coordinate on policies and projects. And we added a call out on greening and tree canopy improvements. We added an appendix on Vision Zero, as I mentioned before. And we expanded the narrative and needs summary to reference these various plans. So I know this is a lot. So that was the end of the CTC comments. Everything that I have indicated is in the plan that you see here today. We then, as you know, went to... Is that the Holy Grail? And more. It's also a rank story. It's everything, yeah. It's the CTC today. Yeah, this is the Holy Grail right here. So as you know, we went to BPAC in August. You can go to the next slide. So I'm going to walk you through. We have heard additional comments from BPAC and from council members since we put together the plan that you see in this packet. So I'm gonna walk you through those. The BPAC moved to recommend the plan for adoption by the city council unanimously and requested modifications, which I've listed here. Updating a photo, language around the bots on the delivery bots, Using language that references all ages and ability applies to both pedestrians and bicyclists. And some of that language is in Table 6, where we recommend improvements instead of just showing protected intersections. There's a request to have them say protected and enhanced so that it is not just exclusive to improvements for bicyclists. There's a request to add a statement or a few sentences in the implementation section about implementing smaller scale construction projects to improve safety. There was a specific request for us to note or highlight on the maps the intersections of El Camino Real and Reinsdorf and El Camino Real and Showers as intersections that should be improved. I note that both of those intersections are located within Los Altos, not within Mountain View, but we do can have a role in coordinating with Caltrans and the town of Los Altos to help make improvements on those. And then a request to add the Los Altos schools to the maps. So staff do recommend, I believe we can, we recommend making all of these improvements or changes.

The BPAC ones or the next slide?

All of them, but I'll walk you through them. There's... So that was the BPAC improvements. And then we offered council briefings at the beginning of August to council members. And we have a few slides of additional modifications we recommend we will include in the plan. And we'll get to the end of the motion. But what we're asking is for this committee to move the plan for adoption with the staff recommended modifications. So that's starting right here on this slide. So the first one is incorporate the BPAC requested changes. Based on comments and questions we received from this group and also council, we reviewed all of the priority projects, the specific recommendations, and We recommend, based on that review, one project to change the recommendation for the Dana Street project, which currently recommends class four bikeways between Bush and Moorpark. We recommend modifying that so that between Bush and Calderon, it is a bicycle boulevard and not class four bikeways. And then the next three bullets are not changes to what's recommended, but it is adding language to the narrative to clarify. So Wisman Road the resurfacing alternative. Recommends removing a lane of travel to provide class 4 bikeways. We recommend adding to that a traffic study will be necessary to evaluate feasibility. For California Street, between shoreline and showers, that of course is the segment that has the pilot going on right now. We recommend a note that says the final design will inform our results of the pilot project evaluation. And then Another section of California Street, Shoreline Boulevard to Bush Street, so in the downtown area. The map shows wider Class 2 bike lanes up to Hope Street. The narrative, though, says that it's the whole length, and so we just want to correct the narrative to note that the wider Class 2 bike lanes would only be west of Hope Street. And you can go to the next slide. So we also recommend adding numbers to the graphic scale in the legend for all maps that have heat maps. For the no right turn on red policy, which is on page 48, we recommend modifying that description so that a pilot of this would be at selected locations and or specific times we're adding the underlined. A REQUEST FOR TABLE 7, WHICH IS THE RECOMMENDED POLICIES AND PROGRAMS, WHICH IS APPROXIMATELY MORE THAN 20, THERE WAS A REQUEST TO MAKE IT REORGANIZED SO IT WAS EASIER TO READ AND ALSO IN THE PLAN ADD INFORMATION ON THE RELATIVE LEVEL OF EFFORT REQUIRED FOR THESE PROGRAMS AND POLICIES, THE RELATIVE COST, WHETHER THEY'RE EXISTING EXPANDED OR NEW EFFORTS, AND WHETHER IT'S A ONE-OFF ITEM OR NOT. And more specifically, the request was to add qualitative metrics to these programs and policies so that they were easier to distinguish between. So staff developed those qualitative metrics that we can put together without too much additional effort or time. You can go to the next slide. forward okay so in we also the following ones are more corrections rather than they're not changing any full recommendations corrections so in appendix B which has the priority project cut sheets there's a table in there that lists the priority projects in the order in which they ranked And we recommend adding in a project that was in the top list but didn't get added to. It was omitted inadvertently from this table. Now, that doesn't change the priority projects because we are not including projects on El Camino or on Caltrans right-of-way as projects that the city would consider priority projects. We instead worked with Caltrans to make improvements on there. But it's important for us to highlight that that segment is an important segment to work with Caltrans on. And so there is another El Camino Real segment in that table. This one was inadvertently omitted. And we have some additional minor tax corrections in Rule 1. You can go to the next slide. So similarly, we recommend on the priority map to highlight the two segments of El Camino Real that did score in the top 20 that are considered city-led priority projects and add an item to the legend that denotes them as important quarters for coordination of We also want to note on the maps, all of the maps that El Camino Real and Central Expressway are owned by Caltrans and County respectively. And then we had some minor changes we were going to recommend to make it easier to increase the . So on the holistic bicycle map where you see the priority projects outlined in black. We want to similarly add the two segments of El Camino, as I mentioned earlier, and update the legend so that we know that those are important to coordinate with. And California Street and Latham Street are priority projects. California has a long-term proposal, even though it's implemented right now as a pilot, And Latham Street has a proposal to implement as a bike boulevard. And so we would like to add those to the map to make the map consistent with the table sheets. You can go to the next slide. That's it. I know that was a lot. And I think we can probably walk rather than there's more. I want to hand it over to Jennifer.

So I'm going to pick up from here. And if we go to the next slide, you can see a timeline since basically this spring. Where we're at is the second to the last of bloom season. I guess I'll call it the CTC meeting. So we've used the summer to incorporate all of the comments received and did a draft final essentially of the ATP. We're still gathering data between the BPAC meeting that just happened and the CTC meeting that will happen tonight. And we're hoping to get recommendation for council approval to take it to the council on the 22nd of September. Slide 13. So just wrapping up where we're at with implementation, I mentioned earlier, there's three main buckets, I'll say, of this plan, policy program and priority projects. On the policy side, we have the standard details update underway. We can start looking at a pilot program and development for criteria for when no right on red would be appropriately deployed at signalized intersections. There are several guiding policy statements that included within the ATP, as well as coordination with other plants. One more slide. On the program side, we wanna report out yearly to the BPAC starting next fall. So that's fall of 2027. We'll develop reporting metrics over the next year. And then some of our program goals include expansion of safe routes to school, as well as looking at pedestrian sales of connectors through private development projects. And then we've already talked quite a bit about the top 20 priority projects, but the goal is to add these to the CIP as there's opportunities and resource availability. Each project will need to start with a validation step. So the question to be asked during validation is, is our vision in this plan still what is needed? Things change over time. This is, as I mentioned earlier, a long-range vision anticipated to take at least a couple of decades. And this will allow us to keep current as we proceed forward with the individual projects. And then the good news with projects is that we've got a head start with several projects underway. I'll just quickly list them. California Complete Streets pilot project. We're doing the post-construction survey now. Middlefield Complete Streets is underway. You recently saw that at Council in June. Miramonte Avenue is under construction and under design for two different segments. Rangstorf, we just finished talking about quite a bit. And Evelyn Avenue Complete Streets, we recently got funding for, and so we'll kick that off soon. And so the next slide is our recommendation, or what we hope to get from you tonight, is a recommendation that the City Council adopt the final Mountain View Active Transportation Plan, inclusive of the staff recommended modifications. And that concludes staff presentation. Lauren's happy to answer questions.

Yeah.

Okay. Thank you very much. So now we're going to, again, kind of switch what we usually do and take public comment first. So are there any, I see the public has thinned out a little. Are there any, I guess there are, members of the public in person who want to comment? And please state your name first.

Excuse me. Thank you. It's getting near my bedtime. Excuse me. My name is William Adler. I'm a retired corporate attorney and a 30-year resident of Mountain View. We have lived in the same house at Sylvan Park. for all of those 30 years. What got me interested in this, because I know I'm a daily mid-dollar short here, but what got me interested in this was actually the appendices, not the main part of it, when I saw the damage that was going to be done to my lovely street in Silicon Valley. The plan reflects a prodigious effort. And kudos are due. It really is quite a bit of work, quite a comprehensive thing. But as I was reading it, I kept thinking to myself, what am I missing here? The term holistic is used. I may not know how it's used correctly, but I don't see how it could be holistic when it completely ignores the vehicle transportation part of the city that we live in. I think I'll just read this, if you don't mind. Excuse me, I'm a little bit hoarse. The biking and the walking and the rolling have to coexist with cars and other vehicles on the street. There's nothing in the plan that I saw that indicates that's an important consideration or that that would be part of a holistic plan, or if they think it would, but really a holistic plan. The numbers that the plan gives us show us that fewer than 10% of our Mountain View residents are passing through use bikes or pedestrians, which means over 90% have to travel by vehicle. And they don't have a choice. We're talking about people that have to work, the people that have to get to school, that take their kids to school, which unfortunately doesn't have buses, which in itself is kind of a shame or scandal to me from where I came from. So a lot of regard has to be given to what's going to happen with vehicle transportation when you do this. No amount of study, in some cases there's wishful thinking, but no amount of study or anything proposed in the plan can convert Mountain View from a small sprawling suburban city with no central core into something that's not an urbanized area that can support alternative means of mobility. Our residents just have no alternative means. The other thing that struck me about reading this is that Mountain View isn't really an island in itself. We've got hundreds if not thousands of people driving through and around Mountain View every day from all our surrounding communities. Their needs have to be taken into account in addition, certainly not the highest priority perhaps taken into account. These workers have to get to work. They have to find a place to park. As we well know, there's some difficult areas in the city of Park for people who are doing construction jobs, including one right now in my neighborhood. But the appendices, I think, are the things that bother me the most. I think it undertook too much and too soon, especially when I saw the one about my street, as I mentioned, Solar Avenue. A lot of these things seem... to fall into a category of, or should be in a category of first do no harm. Because a lot of them would indicate to me that projects would be undertaken at a great expense to time and disadvantage the drivers. But I think ultimately the council would be to limit proposed findings. Based on the plan to improving pedestrian and bicycle safety, but without significant physical changes to the roads and streets. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, Valerie Fenwick, Rex Manor, nearly 30-year resident of the City of Mountain View. I'm not speaking on behalf of my employer nor the Performing Arts Committee. I was formerly a member of BPAC and part of the ATPAC as well, and I'm very happy to see this come to fruition. In fact, council years ago were complaining about the pedestrian master plan because we weren't making changes to it because the ATPAC promised around the corner. That's probably been about seven years. So I'm really happy to see this come. I think it's really important. I think I'm very happy with all the changes that you've incorporated based on feedback and CDC feedback. I think we can continue to go further and really closing those sidewalk gaps. I know we are in urban sprawl. We are But this is what we have, right? We have, so in particular, like I look at places like Wright Avenue, we have a swim school next to a ballet school with 35 mile per hour curbs, which means people can drive. That's what the curb tells you how fast you can go around the corner. And those are between, that's on Polaris Avenue and Wright. And there's no sidewalk in front of the ballet schools. And the city has said they'll be looking at it. And things like this would be a quick build. This is a very wide street. It's not a narrow street, according to the city survey. So it's about a 60-foot wide street, plenty of room to put in a sidewalk. I know the business technically owns it, but come on, we can do better. And I think this plan encourages us to do better as a city, to close those gaps wherever we can. Like even with the last project, maybe we can't get a perfect bike lane the whole way up and down Rangstorf, but where we can do it, Let's do it. I disagree about the sidewalks not being quote unquote being wide enough. Try doing it in a wheelchair mobility device with a walker. Try pushing your mother in a wheelchair on some of these sidewalks. You have a telephone pole in the middle of it or a no parking sign or a sometimes parking sign. The city likes to put those things and PG&E likes to put those in our sidewalks. It makes them inaccessible. Things that are called out here specifically about and also called in earlier about having directional crosswalks, directional curb cuts. So people with low vision or who are blind, who are relying on dogs or other systems to get them correctly across the street could do so safely. I mean, this is really about uploading how our Vision Zero plans work. And I relate to people who say, but don't impact traffic. I think we can be smart and we can come up with some quick builds and having this plan as our guiding light, it's going to help us do that in the future. So thank you so much for your consideration and all the many years of staff and council and BPAC and ATPAC effort. Thank you.

Hi, Mary Didio. I wanted to thank DAP and council members for the amount of time that's gone into this project. It's exciting to see that it's finally here and they're going to start implementing it. Especially one of the things I think that excites me a lot is that, I'm not sure I've got the right name of it, but that there are going to be design standards for safety that are going to be developed so that every time we have a new project, we don't have to reinvent the wheel, that We have an accepted way to make sure that things are done the same way every time and in a way that's going to encourage safety for cyclists and pedestrians. I am hoping that those include best practices too for encouraging drivers to respect the speed limits. So I'm not saying slow the drivers down, but I'm saying that someone in their wisdom has set speed limits on roads and that I'd like to see drivers drive those speed limits. So for example, I live next to Cuesta and frequently cars drive by at 45 miles an hour when the speed limit's 35. There's a park right there and it's on safe routes to schools and it's pretty scary. So again, narrower traffic lanes encourage slower driving. So that type of thing. So I'm hoping we can see that. And I think actually people are all respecting the speed limits that actually makes traffic flow more smoothly. And so throughput will be higher. Again, really looking forward to all the projects that are going to move forward as a result of this. Thank you.

Thank you.

So my name is still . I'm still part of BPAC. I'll be speaking on myself. So I didn't have to recuse myself from that agenda item at the BPAC meeting. So I wanted to thank staff to incorporate you know, tiny but still important modification we suggested. I wanted to highlight the addition of the highlighting of the two intersections at Reinsdorf and El Camino as well as Powers and El Camino. So there was a lot of talk about that intersection at Reinsdorf. So that's one that has crosswalk only on one side. That's part of the Seyfried to school. That's also... you need to cross El Camino to get the bus. And that's kind of, you know, that's a bus route that has actually has pretty decent ridership as far as ridership, VTA ridership goes. And the same is true for showers and El Camino. There is also a crosswalk only on one side. The bus stop there is actually the bus stop with the most ridership in Mountain View. So that's actually pretty important. I know that that's controlled by, at least on a map by Los Altos, but more importantly, that's controlled by Caltrans. So, you know, it's not going to be fun to work with them and things like this, but these are important sections. And, you know, the sections of El Camino that are covered by Los Altos, Caltrans was able to put bike lanes there. Los Altos just said, okay, do like Mountain View and things like this. I don't think there'll be really a big barrier to this as long as they're not the ones doing the work, but it's another story. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay. Everybody present has spoken. Are there virtual speakers?

April?

Can you hear me?

Yes. Okay. I want to start off by giving a huge thank you to staff. And I wrote this in a letter that a couple of organizations sent in. They, in the last round of feedback, they have done a really good job in integrating that. They've added in information about green complete streets and gone down into some sort of, you know, some detail. They included the existing conditions report from 2023 that was a draft and included at least some of the details from the, for standard details that need to be improved. There are a few others, I'll get to that. But I just wanted to, you know, huge thank you. It's really appreciated by the community. I think the others said that. I don't usually speak about this, but I also want to respond briefly to the idea that bicycle advocates' comments should be discounted because you hear from us repeatedly. I don't know that anyone in this group is a professional advocate. I'm not a professional advocate. I'm here, most of us are like living and trying to move around in a system that doesn't work for us, system that doesn't think about us, that hasn't for years, it's not designed for us. We maybe have like 15% of the road, it's dangerous and it's hostile. And that's why you don't see us in a lot of places like Rank Store. And the people you do see are usually pretty stubborn and they go through it, but most of us don't have a death wish. And, you know, I'm also here because I'm a systems analyst. And because the system isn't working for us, I really like to do a deep dive. I also am a usability analyst and I care about the policy and design. So when I'm here so much and talking about it, it's because I care a lot about it. And I like to understand what's going wrong and why I don't have space on the road and I have friends who are hit, I've had near misses. It's really dangerous out there. So I just wanted to set that. And then also the transportation system has prioritized motor vehicles for years. It's funding, it's the entire system is set up to fund that. So that's the perspective that we're coming from. Now, in terms of the active transportation plan, as I mentioned, it's like high level, it's in really good shape. And I think at this point, we're at the fine tuning stage. And what I've sent in comments about and a letter and what I would like to look at is the policies that you have in programs. And I think there's some things that we could do that would provide a lot of benefit. And one of that is how do we handle shorter term projects that are more cost-effective? I think this would appeal to council member McAllister and easier to do and quicker to do. And so one of those things is like a program for delivering these small scale safety projects and more proactive way I think they can partner very nicely with our traffic calming program. And we can use different elements. We don't have to use the plastic. It can be green. Someone talked about pedestrians. I think we should have a pedestrian program. And then finally, for the standard details, there are a number of ones that specific ones that were missed. I've listed them. Please take a look. Thank you so much.

Thank you. The next virtual speaker. Cliff, are you there?

I'm here, Cliff Chambers, resident of Mountain View. First off, I really want to give staff kudos. I've never seen such an excellent public engagement process as this planning process. It's been long, but I don't think anybody can possibly say they didn't have the opportunity to speak up. You can look at all the survey data, all the outreach. You get an A-plus for that effort, and it's very much appreciated. I also really appreciate the transparency of how you've responded to comments. And I would say many of the comments that I made have been successfully responded to. But there are a few that I'd like to point out that were not included on the comments received. First, Several times I've advocated for having modal objectives for bicycle and pedestrian increases as a percentage of travel as aspirational goals. And it's not in there. We're spending a lot of money. If the plan is actually implemented, we should know what we're reaching for in terms of the percentage of bicyclists and pedestrians. Greenhouse gas emissions are 60% of our carbon footprint in Mountain View. Increasing bicycles and pedestrian usage will only help. So I would like to see that. The only thing I'm really disappointed in in this plan right now is there was the advocacy and you mentioned the performance metrics. You've adopted a policy to develop this over the next year. We need to have a feedback loop that can be used now. I'm really disappointed that it's not part of the plan. We need to know and evaluate before different projects are done. I would really like to see the performance metrics developed as part of it. The other shortfall I feel is that now that the biodiversity plan has come out and the parks and recreation strategic plan, there's not enough integration. For example, We had advocated for targeting increased tree canopy to make walking more pleasant. I walk a lot and there's a lot of areas that could really use tree canopy. I think that's a shortfall in the plan. Also on the Middlefield Complete Streets, there was discussion about the part-time bike lanes are extremely dangerous. I live on Middlefield Road. It's incredibly dangerous and accidents waiting to happen. As a policy, the council needs to eliminate these part-time bike lanes. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Bruce, are you there?

I am. Are you all there too? Nobody asks, you know, I think it's only fair that I ask you. Okay. Wow. So much to talk about and so little time and it's late. I, like others who have spoken, I do think, I thank staff for all the work and the consultants and everybody. I really think that we're on the right track here, but do you hear me? Okay. Cause somebody just commented that I'm cutting out.

Do you hear me?

Okay. Thanks. Going back to what April was saying about the history of vehicle accommodation and i'm sure you all know this, but a lot of this comes from the. Motor vehicle industry and it goes back to the 20s and 30s, if you look at film clips of streetscapes prior to that time everybody's just going where they need to go the cars are going five or 10 miles an hour. cable cars horse carts and stuff and everybody else is just walking and biking wherever they need to go and it all just came to a crashing halt very quickly and here we are trying to bring back accommodation for people walking and biking um and it's taking us a really long time to do it maybe that's just the way the cookie crumbles but um It is, as April said, not hard to miss that most of the infrastructure accommodation is for motor vehicles and not for people walking and biking around. So we compare the number of parking spaces in a location with bike racks, if there are even bike racks existing, and if they're near the door so that people can keep an eye on their bikes and have something solid to lock to and all of that. Or try driving, like I'm in Wiseman Station, try driving from here to what used to be Knob Hill Market. You can get there within five minutes. You just zip along 237 and Grant Road and you're there. You bike that same thing, you're going all the way over to Calderon and on Phyllis. and through the back entry to get to the grocery store. And it takes you a whole lot longer. At least there's a way to get there, but it's really a different experience. I, like many people who've spoken, I also drive. I try to drive as little as possible, but I do drive. And I just find the experience of driving is a lot easier. It's just simply a lot easier to get around than if you're walking and biking. It's never going to be as easy to walk and bike, but we could make it easier here in Mountain View. My last point, and I just, this is kind of historical because I bring it up all the time, but we really need amenities and we need them throughout the city and not just in parks. We need the benches, we need the water fountains, hydration stations, and above all, restrooms. that are maintained and that are open as many hours a day as possible and not shut down at sunset. That's ridiculous. I could say plenty more, but I just wanted to cover those points. Thank you.

Thank you. Do we have more speakers? That is all. No worries. Okay. Okay. So now it's time for committee questions. Who would like to go first?

I don't have any questions.

No, go ahead.

Once I figure out how I want to address it.

No, my questions are about kind of how John started with timing last time. I first... Let me ask this. It appears to me that the cut sheets or the top 20 priority projects are kind of the heart of the plan because we have all this policy, but those are the things that will actually happen.

Is that true or am I reading it wrong? So the plan recommends infrastructure projects, which are the top one. It also includes programs. That's more than 20 of them. And I would say the heart of the plan is those two things combined.

So you're saying the policies will roll out. I'm trying to figure out how they roll out outside of those top 20 projects. They roll out like just wherever they apply in precise plans and other places.

I mean, giving, and part of this may be, you know, this might be one of the reasons why there were recommendations to organize the table, um, Looking at the plan, we have, for example, the top one, the first one. I don't want to say top. They're not in a priority. No right turn on red policy. Implement a pilot to prove it right turns on red. That would come out as a pilot. We would one time evaluate it. And so it would be implemented that way. So some of these are actually they could be CIPs in and of themselves. And then there's other things like staff continuing education.

Yeah, okay, you're calling out, you are calling out the ones that are not, but the ones that are CIPs, when do, what triggers them happening? Is it when they fall into these top 20 projects?

No, I think we would, I think the evaluation of, or I should say evaluation, the decision to decide when to implement these would be very similar to the decision on when we can implement the capital projects. If it was something that needed a CIP, it would be based on the capacity and the funding, the availability of people added to a CIP. If it's something that's more internal, we would need to evaluate other ways. That would probably be more of an example. But I will also let either Allison or Jennifer

Yeah, I mean, something broad like a no ride on red is citywide, right? We're not identifying that it would happen with the top 20. And so we would look strategically at any project that was moving forward, whether it was the top 20 or whether it was, you know, one that we had keyed up in design to see if it was a viable candidate for, you know, a location to implement a pilot of, again, back to no ride on red. So we would look for opportunities.

to include those because we have guidance and policy standards. And then as for the cut sheets themselves, they mostly consist of three parts. Now resurface, what happened during resurfacing and what happens during reconstruction. How likely are we to reconstruct within the next, I'll ask the same question in two ways. How likely are we to reconstruct within the next, say, 10 or 20 years? And to me, when I look at them, the green infrastructure only comes in with reconstruction. And so I'm thinking we don't get there within my lifetime. We don't get any green infrastructure within my lifetime is what I'm thinking. And it just seems like we're putting off the green structure approach. So am I reading that wrong? It looks like mostly everything just puts a bunch of bollards around when we resurface. And that's what the whole city kind of becomes. When do you expect to do reconstruction?

So I think for some of the priority projects, we actually are already implementing portions of it. Except for ranks. Well, ranks, but I believe that with the Miramonte, what we're constructing right now, we'll have some elementary structure incorporated into it. We just submitted a grant. We don't know yet if Festival for El Camino Real and Calderon, which would include the Calderon Phyllis, which would include a small segment of the Phyllis project. And that grant that we developed, we wrote it up to include green infrastructure in there. So as the projects move forward, we're looking for opportunities to do that. So some of the projects are farther along than others. So I would say

you would see some green infrastructure within your lifetime. Really nice thing about having pet sheets identified in an approved active transportation plan is that it says that we've contemplated this as a city. This is what we want as a city. And it provides us an ability to then go after grants because we can say, hey, this is what we want. We wanted it for a long time. Mr. Granting Agency, you know, give us your back.

So is there, I'm happy to hear that there are some that will, that there are places here and there that may be happening within my lifetime. But is, I still find the implementation of green infrastructure kind of slow with this program the way it is. And I, so I'm going to ask I'm going to ask whether you see a way to speed it up. And the thing I have in mind, I think the person who said it best was when Tracy Chu spoke in the previous iteration, the previous item. She said that Rengstorf seemed like a forgotten orator and she wanted more deliberate design and it would encourage her to bike and walk more. I feel like that about a lot of places, that more deliberate design and more Green infrastructure makes it feel like a real place, a community gathering space. And I just feel like that's really delayed in the way this is laid out. So I'm wondering if you have a way of speeding that up.

Do you want to start? You can start because I think there's a policy. Okay, go ahead.

Yeah, and so the... resurfacing project anticipates that the city would primarily use resurfacing, but it's paving limits, right? And those have a limitation as to what they can be utilized for. We get away with things like creating class two bike lanes into class four bike lanes because it's, you know, we call it part of the signing and striking along a corridor where the actual opportunity comes in is if we were to add additional resources to a paving project. Say, for example, we had enough space for a buffered bike lane and we could get it a green buff, right? We could get it, you know, live plantings in there. The paving money wouldn't apply to that. It's not something that is allowable for the funding sources that we currently get. And so then it would mean additional monies from another source be added to the project.

So it is a resource limitation. I see it. So you're saying due to resource limitations, there is no way to get in green infrastructure?

That's how we would add to, for example, resurfacing projects to get additional greenery. Doesn't mean we can get trees everywhere because there are subsurface utilities that run all along up and down the streets. But we should be able to get bushes. We should be able to get nice trees. nice things that are living things out into the street.

Oh, we have a staff member on the line, Robert Gonzalez.

I don't know if you wanted to chime in on this last question.

Good evening. Can you hear me?

Yeah, we can.

Okay, yes, I just wanted to add to Director Ng's comment on resource limitations. So we are kind of hamstrung by some of the regional funding sources that we get for pavement, they are exclusively tied to pavement. So for example, the SB1 funding is mandated that we use that for pavement first until we reach a certain PCI. So other parts of the CIP are specifically called out for pavement maintenance, which is the slurry program. So we're left with about one to $2 million of dedicated funding that we could use for reconstruction. So The portions we use for reconstruction would also be the ones that would be committed towards green infrastructure. So it really is a limitation on the resources. If you look system-wide in the Bay Area, you'll see that other jurisdictions that have higher PCI or have committed to some of their corridors with green infrastructure, those are all very much local funded. So those are measures that were put in in 2017 or 2020 or 2024 and were voted in by residents. That's all locally funded. Very few cities can actually reach, you know, some sort of green infrastructure goal with the regional funding alone. So I just wanted to add that. Thank you.

So what I'm hearing is the answer is we have to find local funding for those things to supplement, which is not insurmountable, but it's a matter of priorities. And how do we see the standard detail updates as they roll out?

Yeah, so we're just starting that process in the engineering group. We plan to follow the same timeline as CDD's objective design standards. I think what we're going to do is spend this fall and into the early winter doing the technical details behind the scenes. And then early in 27, Robert, correct me if I'm wrong, I believe we start going to the various committees and commissions.

I'm still wondering on many of the cut sheet examples why we would... widen sidewalks as opposed to what the cost benefit is, I guess, as opposed to closing sidewalk gaps and circumventing obstructions. Those make sense. But I think there's a huge cost to widening sidewalks. Many of these are in front of single family homes. And it just seems like like green infrastructure would encourage walking more than widening sidewalks. And we're putting probably much more money into widening sidewalks than into putting in the green infrastructure. So why would we be making those choices? Is it forced on us by funders or can we switch that sort of cost benefit? You know, can we, Can we just go around the phone poles? Yes. And fill in the gaps when there are no sidewalks. But all these places where it says we're going to widen them, we took those out. The money that would be available for greening would be astronomic because those are very high costs for doing something I don't do. And that is not going to encourage walking in the way that having shade.

So what we've proposed in the plan on the cut sheets is an initial take. And it all needs to be validated as we move forward. And we agree that it's challenging in some cases to do the full sidewalk widening without other implications involved.

It's not that it's challenging. It's not necessary. Many of these are in my neighborhood. They're single family neighborhoods. I mean, yes, if we, if due to SB 79, there's a seven foot apartment put in, then we rethink things. But to spend all this tax money or whatever, you know, funding money on widening sidewalks and single family neighborhoods that don't have trees, it makes, it's just a wrong spending money. And a lot of it. And it's something that, you know, I can't support it. And I don't know whether people have visited some of these places.

I was just going to say, the intent is to say that we need a name on specific corridors and places where we envision people could walk if there was a sidewalk. So you're right. new development is likely the most plausible way that we would get wider sidewalks in the future rather than spending money to grab an extra foot of sidewalk on an already built out area that single family homes. But an extra foot of sidewalk Gets you a better walking experience. You can get two people walking side by side or a mom with a stroller and another person walking side by side. That is much more tight and not as comfortable in a five foot width. Never mind even a four foot. So it's the vision. I wouldn't say that it would be our first choice for where to spend our CIP monies is to add another sidewalk.

okay i'll move on from this one but there are i would like to walk you through these neighborhoods because i've walked through i've walked through something um and uh okay i think i've i've asked most of my questions um council member connect

Thanks, I just had a suggestion, which is maybe for those if there's some follow up things, maybe that could be incorporated as part of the motion chair. If we're able to recommend that the plan go forward to the full council, we could also give staff feedback of some things that we'd like to see. as you were mentioning, and so maybe they could be incorporating that, and then it can, you know, continue to live on whatever feedback that we have. But just a question slash idea.

Okay. If I could add additional information, I wanted to flip through so I didn't quote the wrong information, but we did look at minimum widths. recommended widths for certain infrastructure. And for sidewalks, it was minimum width was five. So if there were locations where it was four, that would be lower than any of these.

Yeah, that's why I wondered why you had been to many of these places, because they are five feet and they have planning strips. And to tear those out and widen it, it would just be a very poor choice of how to spend money. Other people have questions?

Questions, comments? I really don't have any questions. Well, I have a ton of questions. You know where I'm going. So I'm not going to ask you tonight. Hopefully we can come together on some of the stuff. The concerns I've had always has been we've had that strong body of advocacy. I just like to see some neutrality from staff sometimes to say, okay, you may be doing it, but I just, you know, come along. And this has been going on for a long time before I, but they do are very effective on what they're doing. So, and that's why I continue to ask questions about the data. Show me the data or the question of peril. And by the way, thank you for incorporating all those things. So I asked Carol, what's community input? How many people was it? Was it a few? I mean, the reason I bring this up is because I live there. And then how does it make it more accessible to a place that's been accessible for 50 years? That how does it, and you hear these words, but I go, okay, how did you come to them? And did this really mean anything? I mean, people get down there back and forth and I have never, and I go to often, on my ass all the time and talking to the principal. I've never really heard anybody go, well, we need the sidewalks because we can't access them. I know you've resolved and said that, but just the thought process of how some of this stuff is brought up is what I like to see. The gentleman tonight is somebody that is on the other side and someone that I try to represent is, okay, you have these people that are very passionate about what they want. But there are other voices to be heard and they're not being heard. I'm not saying that they haven't had the opportunity, but they don't come out because it's not something until it affects my street that they come out and start saying. I mean, I was talking about next door. You see people just going across about California Street. I think California is an interesting thing and I'll reserve comment on it because you're going to go through it and hopefully, will it come to the CTC or you just, okay. Okay. Just to see a tweak. One of my questions was when we were talking about Ringstore, California Ringstore, you got a big bowl out there. If you got a truck moving people, I, you know, it's not going to be reviewed. And that's where I would hope to, we get some ground. You guys, I appreciate you listen to us and you accommodated the, which you could do for us, but I still... Is that a question? No, I said this is common questions. Is that okay? Okay. Since that was the last one. It's like the gentleman said, this document by itself is an excellent document. If we were just looking at this and we put the blinders on, it goes all the way. There's a lot of good data. There's maps. There's everything. But to me, it's not a stand-alone. has to incorporate cars, just like the gentleman said. It has to incorporate. We've got those other plants. And I just feel that it's strongly, so wrong and biased that people are going to say, well, we don't need cars. ATP says what we can do. And it doesn't say, this gives them credence or some empowerment to say, well, this is what, so we don't need to worry about this. And that's what the thing that concerns me is. I would like to see somehow it's, when you say, well, we're going to coordinate with other things, it has to incorporate transportation, cars, because that's not going away and it affects everything. So I will get with whoever would answer some questions that they so entitled to comments. I get a good report, but it's standing. It's making progress. I really appreciate you listening and trying and doing what you did to get the projects there. What is a bike boulevard?

There's not a Caldron designation for a bike boulevard. It's essentially a street where bicyclists share the lane with motor vehicles, but it is slow speed and it is low volume. And sometimes, often, to make it a bike boulevard, you incorporate things like little mini traffic circles or you do chicanes where you narrow the roadway for a little bit. The idea is that the traffic on the street where the motorists drive slow enough, the bicyclists can share the road with them.

That is narrow. You can only go slow.

That is how I drive to work when I drive to work. And I drive, yeah. It's okay. It's very narrow. May I respond just briefly?

Oh, respond.

So during the public engagement, we did hear from a lot of individuals at Sylvan and other locations specifically concerns about the proposals and the cut sheets. So we went in when we heard those specific concerns and we double checked what was in there. And in some cases, for example, at Sylvan, we looked at the roadway and the roadway widths and two of the concerns we heard were we don't need a wider sidewalk and we need our parking. Proposal in Sylvan, what you see on the cut sheet is the narrowest section and we looked and you actually can do a protected bikeway on Sylvan and include parking on one side of the road on most of it. So we added more context to the narrative to address some of the questions or concerns that people brought up for different projects. And I was going to comment on something else, and I don't know what it was.

Why are you taking part?

So Sylvan is a really important, I mean, it's scored, we use the scoring criteria to identify the locations. And that scoring criteria was based on, mostly based actually on quantity metrics. And community engagement was one point, nine out of a hundred possible points, so a small percentage. And the other thing I was going to mention is with the specific recommendations, we did look at the ADT for the vehicle volumes when we were determining what improvements would be in there.

Sylvan, I've always complained about speed.

So the proposal could reduce the speed.

They were going to say try to put a stop sign in, but we could talk about that later, but they didn't have enough. Data to justify stop sign.

So we really did try to listen and what's in here is solid. And I feel very comfortable with what's in the proposals with the data that we've written this all over the cut sheets that they all need to be validated because we don't have all the data right now. This is the first sketch of what would happen.

No, I appreciate it. That's what I'm still looking at the process, repeat. But yes, I appreciate you doing it. And by refining your process, you get it right. One that you can say. So that's all I have to say.

I don't remember if Mike has comments.

Well, I was just going to, I think we need to take a motion. So I'm happy to move that we refer the ATP to council. I think that's the action that's necessary. Is that right, staff? Right. Okay, great. So I'll make that motion and then I'll make a couple comments if that's okay.

Sure.

Okay. So just really want to thank staff. This has been such a, long, arduous process. And I really appreciate the revisions, even between our last council meeting, or sorry, our CTC meeting in June to now. And even the updates that you were able to share, I think some of the public comment also was thanking you for that. And I can just see how much people are engaged, and I'm really grateful for that. One of the things I just keep thinking as I'm hearing Chair Hicks and Committee Member McAllister kind of comment slash questions, and I think this came up when I commented back in June, is some sort of dashboard or interactive something so that residents can see the work in progress. So you know, it sounds like it's going to be iterative and that these, as it sounds like the cut sheets are the kind of first pass, but because it's on a cut sheet, it still can get feedback, it sounds like perhaps, or if residents want to, you know, keep engaged and, you know, speak with staff. I just feel like there's really an avenue there that could be helpful for individuals to feel like the needs in their community are being met as we're trying to you know, adopt this program and plan. I'm not sure if that's possible, but that's my, that would be my comment there. I think that, um, the reason why I'm wanting to bring this forward to council is I think it's a step in a direction that the city has tried to take, um, for many years. And we, um, think this is a good step. I do feel we want to make sure that there's, you know, um, stakeholder engagement beyond just the adoption of the ATP. And so just seeing just in terms of the outreach, you know, the in-person tabling at events, the multilingual engagement, we can keep this up to date. show that this is top of mind for us as we're implementing throughout the city and and let people know and also like provide updates so whether that's in like the view that goes out or you know through social media or other things I think residents would love to be updated versus you know, not thinking about the ATP till they see a project next to their home or where they live or where their kids go to school or where, you know, they have some sort of activity. So I think those are kind of just like my general overall comments. Thanks.

Can I add on to that? Sure. So with respect to dashboards, I think you've heard me talk about it before, but one of the project management tools that I'm looking at that started up for my team is the use of something called eBuilder. It helps us track capital projects from beginning to end. We've been asked for dashboards to work with different types of projects. Transportation projects are just one of. My goal was to get eBuilder stood up over the next fiscal year. And from that, I will have readily accessible information to be able to create all sorts of . So it's in the works, but sort of across a bunch of different topics, but all capital projects topics.

No, I heard motion. In terms of the motion, in order to support it, I'm going to need something. So there are particular cut sheets that I look at them, and I just know they're not viable, like really not viable. So I would like something. I can't vote for them when I... I could show you particular ones, but it's too late. I have to do that. So if they're labeled as, you know, all of them as really needing review. And then my second thing is that might be something that I and then I would like to show you actually shows some of them. And then the second thing is. perhaps there's a lot in this. And I really liked a lot of the greening, but I don't see when it's gonna happen or how it's gonna happen. And I feel like in order to support it, I need, that's the thing that I think really accelerates pedestrianism. And I don't, I see that not being addressed really. So is there some language that you think of about, and you mentioned, and frankly, looking for it, but the cut sheets are so obvious in terms of kind of, you know, these are the 25th. The projects that you mentioned are the policy. I don't see the prioritization or implementation for it. It's hard for me to figure that out.

For the policies and programs? Yeah. We don't have a prioritization in the plan for that. The recommendation, the request was not to go through a prioritization process, but instead provide information that would allow staff and the community and city council to better differentiate between the different components or the different recommendations. So some are recommendations that is just continuing what we already do. Some are expanding our existing programs. Some are brand new. Some require different levels of staff effort.

Is there a way to differentiate that? Is it already differentiated on that sheet?

That was one of the recommendations that we began to do as part of the edits to the plan.

Yeah. And so when this comes forward to council, sorry to ask this question, Chair Hicks, but when this comes forward to council, will all those changes that you all recommended be implemented in time for that September 22nd meeting, or will it be kind of the same presentation as tonight will go to council?

Our intention is to take the motion that you pass a motion with the recommendations, our intention is to very quickly turn around the plan.

And put those in?

Have it in the plan that goes to state council. Great. And what we have listed in the PowerPoint, we believe that we are able to do that quick turnaround. we're talking a matter of days in order to meet the deadlines. So if it's a larger, substantive recommendation, then we'll have to discuss the process to go forward in the schedule.

So I'm basically seeing one in terms of the policies and programs. I'm sorry, I'm late to this because I was focusing more on the questions. I see on page 50, Table 7, a list of recommended policies and programs. Actually, it starts on a previous page. It starts on a narrower page. 48. But on page 50, there's the greening and tree canopy improvements. That's the one. So that's the big thing that I think, one of the big things that I think it proves. walking. And it's one item among all the, I mean, I think in the cut sheets, it's going to happen on most streets very, very late. And out of all these different programs, there's just this one program. Can I ask that that be worked on and highlighted in some way? Because I think that's one of the things that I'm really feeling a need for.

So right above that, on page 50, right above the the longer narrative, there's the specific, incorporate greenery and street trees into larger infrastructural improvements along roadways. It talks about the benefit. If there's additional language you'd like us to add to that description, or even the other greening and tree canopies, or even a specific reference to use them. Okay. I mean, we could potentially look for, you know, one of the limitations we talked about is funding. So we look for funding streams or opportunities. I'm not sure Jennifer's okay with this recommendation to fund this improvement.

Yeah, I would say find a way to enhance it and say looking for funding streams and also prioritizing it as one of the primary ways of enhancing industrial ethics.

We can highlight. Yeah, we can put in the specifics. phrasing enhanced pedestrianism or enhanced- Yeah.

Yeah. So maybe if you can beef up that one and talk about funding streams, that would help.

I think we can also note that this is a formality with the biodiversity plan and therefore is I think we could just call additional attention to it in that way and just note that it's featured in both.

Additional attention, prioritization, anything you can do to move it up in time so it doesn't all happen 30 years from now.

And we can even add in there something about coordinate internally. Right.

identify opportunities because the the other part of the the the plan has a lot of good things around this a lot of great you know diagrams and so forth but i just have a feeling that it will that it's not a priority and it won't actually happen that will only be in the plan um okay so my thing is label the cut sheets as clearly as um uh you know not not the final product we can make reference back to validation Yes.

We do have a lot of that, but maybe we just draft. Put draft on all of them. I don't know. We have so much in the cut sheets. We have a lot of locations, and we say it in multiple ways. At the very bottom, it says, these concepts are drafted, not final. Final design of the proposed improvements will require further community input. Just say that in bigger letters.

It might get bigger. It might get bigger.

The disclaimer is larger.

Yeah. And the last thing I need to support it is the bike boulevards and shared streets to kind of, if there's a way of enhancing that. Because I think that's kind of a quick build thing. And this mainly looks at major streets, major thoroughfares, and not the neighborhood.

One of our recommendations is to add a sentence about quick or low-cost safety. Possibly we can make a concept in there, but we'll have flexibility to figure out how to do that.

So those are the three things I need. Council Member Kamei, if we can add those, then I'll go.

OK.

Okay. Council Member McAllister, do you have additional comments? Okay. Then...

There's time between now and then. So maybe a discussion at 2 o'clock. But I'm still pretty adamant about integrating traffic or the concept of the other part. There's not necessarily have to be traffic. How it's going to integrate. It's not a standalone...

Well, certainly I agree the things you're saying about bus stops and, you know, like delivery.

I still have concerns about the data that they get five people. I mean, it might be petty. Like, oh, we got five people. I just want to get their sense of it.

You want some metrics to see.

Well, the metrics, but the neutrality. Staff saying, okay, yeah, we hear all you guys, but. So it's a discussion I can have with the director and say, yes, we do it. We're professionals. They hear that, but I always keep hearing that everything they say is just not everything.

Council Member Kamei.

Yeah. Well, I'm hopeful, Councilmember Callister, that given some of the direction and the feedback that we gave tonight is to find a way to make sure that our residents still feel like their voices are heard. Everyone has different uses and different concerns. And so it sounds like we'll be able to keep providing feedback and get more information. And I think What was really encouraging between June and seeing it now is just how much staff reached out to those different entities we asked them to reach out to. And I think that'll kind of open, you know, communication between the city, the different, you know, entities. agencies, public agencies, at least, you know, Caltrain VTA, even, you know, Caltrans, how they're going to use their right of ways, the county, et cetera. So I think that this is all steps in the right direction. And I wouldn't want like, you know, it not being totally perfect to make it so that you won't vote for it tonight. So I'm trying to appeal to you that I think there's a path forward for the concerns that you have. So, yeah. Thanks.

Okay, should we take it to vote?

Sure, go ahead.

Okay, all those in favor, raise their hands. Okay, two people voted.

It looks raised. It looks raised over here.

Did you raise your hand?

No.

I hear you did.

Did we get an official motion? I mean, I know what the motion is. All the staff recommendations. plus the three additional items that you requested. Yes, but I haven't written them down. Do you want me to? I wrote them down. Let me read what I wrote. On page 50, enhance the greening and tree canopy improvements by including identifying funding streams, reference enhanced pedestrianism. I wrote down coordinate internally, but...

Yeah, and prioritize in terms of timing.

Oh, and prioritize. Okay. And then on the cut sheets, make the disclaimer that we have there. More obvious, larger, older. Yes. And then in the plan, in some location, enhance the discussion of bicycle boulevards and shared streets and how they could be or what they are and how they could be.

yeah and as as a possible part of the uh network traffic calming program as well and kind of a quick build solution okay so that is what that is what we heard we also have reported okay let's go back okay so is it recorded sufficiently do you want us to vote again or Now that you've read it? No.

I think everyone understood, right? I don't think we need to re-vote.

Okay. Okay. So now we will close item 5.2 and move to item 6, 6.1, which is committee comment. Do any of the committee members have comments or reports that you'd like to share? I don't see any comments. Would any member of the public joining us virtually or in person like to provide comment on this item? If so, please click the raise hand button in Zoom or approach the lectern.

Okay. No speakers.

I see no speakers. So we are now on item number seven, which is adjournment. Thank you so much for joining us. Our next Council Transportation Committee meeting will be on November 9th of 2026, and the meeting is adjourned at 1020 p.m.

Thank you. Bye. Thank you. Thank you.

Bye.