City Council - Regular Meeting

. . . . .

recording in progress well good evening everybody welcome to the regular meeting of the sustainability and infrastructure commission on this wednesday evening september 9th i now call this meeting to order please join me in the pleasure of elise I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

OK, thank you.

Madam Clerk, if you would, call the roll.

Commissioner Lee?

Here.

VICE CHAIR RENAUD? HERE. VICE CHAIR RENAUD? HERE. CHAIR CRANZ? CHAIR CRANZ?

HERE. HERE. COMMISSIONER RITA?

COMMISSIONER RITA? HERE. HERE. COMMISSIONER MICHAEL?

COMMISSIONER MICHAEL? HERE.

HERE. YOUTH COMMISSIONER SCOTT?

YOUTH COMMISSIONER SCOTT? HERE.

HERE. AND YOUTH COMMISSIONER ZING? AND YOUTH COMMISSIONER ZING? HERE. HERE. EVERYONE IS PRESENT.

Well, as I said, welcome. We're excited to be here in person with options for those who choose not to be in person, participate virtually. For those attending in person, complete the yellow request card, request to speak slip and hand it to our clerk. If participating remotely, use the raise your hand feature in Zoom. and you will be called upon at the appropriate time. If calling by phone, press star nine to raise your hand, and when called upon, press star six to unmute. These options for public comment will remain available until I close the public comment period for that specific item. Okay, final clerk, if you would please read the consent calendar.

Certainly we have the approval of the meeting minutes of the regular meeting of August 12 2026.

And are there any members of the public who wish to comment on the consent calendar now would be the time to do it.

Chair, I do not believe we have any public comment. I have no one in person. And I do have one person online, but they have not raised their hand.

All right. And then have we received any requests to speak on the consent calendar from online?

Through the chair? This is your time to ask if there are any commissioners who would like to pull the minutes.

Is there anybody who would like to pull anything from the consent calendar? OKAY. OKAY. IS THERE A MOTION FROM THE IS THERE A MOTION FROM THE COMMISSION TO APPROVE THE COMMISSION TO APPROVE THE CONSENT CALENDAR? CONSENT CALENDAR?

I'LL MAKE A MOTION TO I'LL MAKE A MOTION TO APPROVE IT.

APPROVE IT. I'LL SECOND IT. I'LL SECOND IT. OKAY. OKAY. IF WE COULD TAKE A ROLL.

IF WE COULD TAKE A ROLL. COMMISSIONER MICHAEL? COMMISSIONER MICHAEL? YES. YES. COMMISSIONER ARRIETA? COMMISSIONER ARRIETA? YES.

YES.

CHAIR CRANZ? CHAIR CRANZ? YES.

YES.

VICE CHAIR RENAULT? VICE CHAIR RENAULT?

YES. YES.

AND CHAIR LEE? AND CHAIR LEE? LEE.

Okay. Your comments may be referred to staff for follow-up. The public comment section is generally limited to a total of 15 minutes. However, that is subject to the Commission's discretion and can be extended if the Commission wishes to do so. And one more note. We welcome speakers providing public comment, but please be advised to be limited to public forum. As such, speakers must stay on topic, speaking to a particular agenda item. And if speaking during general public comment, they must address the matters within the subject matter jurisdictions of the city. Speakers who fail to follow these rules will be warned. And then if they continue to disregard the rules, their opportunity to speak will be terminated. All righty.

THROUGH THE CHAIR. THROUGH THE CHAIR. I HAVE NO ONE IN PERSON. I HAVE NO ONE IN PERSON. I HAVE NO ONE IN PERSON. I DO HAVE ONE ATTENDEE ONLINE. I DO HAVE ONE ATTENDEE ONLINE. I DO HAVE ONE ATTENDEE ONLINE. I WILL GIVE THEM A SECOND TO I WILL GIVE THEM A SECOND TO I WILL GIVE THEM A SECOND TO RAISE THEIR HAND IF THEY WISH RAISE THEIR HAND IF THEY WISH RAISE THEIR HAND IF THEY WISH TO SPEAK. TO SPEAK.

TO SPEAK. ALL RIGHT. ALL RIGHT. ALL RIGHT. IT LOOKS LIKE WE DO NOT HAVE ANY IT LOOKS LIKE WE DO NOT HAVE ANY IT LOOKS LIKE WE DO NOT HAVE ANY PUBLIC COMMENT. PUBLIC COMMENT. PUBLIC COMMENT. OKAY. OKAY. OKAY. LIKE A RECORD SHOW THAT WE'RE LIKE A RECORD Spotlight's on you now.

Great. Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here. My name is Cassie Halls. I am the project manager of this effort at Samtrans. I'm also joined by Aaron Ferguson from Farron Piers and also from Jacob Buffenbarger from Caltrans to present some of this information. And just to get us started, what we're talking about today primarily is the Central El Camino Real Multimodal Plan. I'll also be talking about our Grand Boulevard Initiative, which is our larger corridor-wide effort that is the umbrella program for this. But the main order of business is the Central El Camino Real Multimodal Plan. So our recommendation to Sustainability and Infrastructure Commission is in addition to having this informational presentation on the Central El Camino Real Multimodal Plan, we're also recommending that city council adopt a resolution to continue to support Sam Trans's effort in coordinating with Caltrans to implement improvements that may include Complete Streets elements on El Camino Real. So as representing Samtrans, we're hoping to get City Council adoption to indicate support for continuing this effort. And then lastly, we're asking for your feedback to inform next stages of engagement, as well as alternative evaluation process within the Caltrans project development process. So we have a lot of items on the agendas. I'm going to try to move quickly through these so we have plenty of time for Q&A. So starting with the Grand Boulevard Initiative. So I probably have come and presented to you all about this before. However, if this is a new concept to you, this is an effort that has been going on for a while now in the county as well as originally it was Santa Clara County as well. And in the past couple years, we've refocused the effort on San Mateo County and transportation improvements in particular. And the purpose of the Grand Boulevard initiative is to expedite improvements that will improve, that will enhance experiences for people biking, walking, taking transit, safety, mobility on the corridor. And every city, one exciting thing is that every city in San Mateo County has been working on a local complete street study for the corridor. And what GBI serves to do is to kind of knit all these efforts together and be a forum for collaboration and continuity across all the local studies. SO CENTRAL EL CAMINO REAL PLAN IS ONE OF THOSE LOCAL STUDIES THAT MAKE UP THIS BROADER SET OF THINGS THAT WE'RE CONSIDERING. SO WHERE WE ARE NOW, THIS IS A HIGH LEVEL OVERVIEW OF THE GBI PROJECT DEVELOPMENT PROCESS WHICH IS LARGELY DRIVEN BY CALTRANS GIVEN THAT EL CAMINO REAL IS STATE ROUTE 82. And right now we have, you know, just about completed the central El Camino Real multimodal plan. We're presenting the final plan now to all the councils. We've also started what is called the project initiation document phase. So this is the first step of the Caltrans project development process. This whole process will take 8 to 10 years. It is extensive. But the purpose of this initial project initiation document stage is ultimately a scoping exercise where you're defining the alternatives. So the big picture message here is we're still really early on in the process. This is going to take a while. And we're just going to keep you all involved as we move forward. Another big message is that this effort is huge. It's corridor wide. It's from all the way from San Francisco, Daly City to Menlo Park, Palo Alto. And it's going to cost up to a billion dollars based on initial estimates that may change. But that's for up to 22 miles of streetscape redesign. And so what is really exciting about the GBI model is we're bringing together regional and countywide agencies as well as cities ADVOCATES, BUSINESS GROUPS, BUT WE'RE BRINGING THOSE FUNDING PARTNERS TO THE TABLE EARLY ON TO ENSURE THAT WE'RE ABLE TO SECURE FUNDING FOR THIS EFFORT. AND UP TO HALF OF THE TOTAL PROJECT COSTS CAN COME FROM THE SMC TA, SO SAN MATEO COUNTY TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY MEASURE A AND W PROGRAM, SO FROM OUR LOCAL SALES TAX. THAT IS A COMPETITIVE PROCESS, BUT THE TA IS WORKING CLOSELY WITH US AND WILL CONSIDER, YOU KNOW, OUR APPLICATION TO THAT. AND THEN IN ADDITION TO THAT, UP TO 500,000 IS GOING TO BE, NEED TO BE IDENTIFIED THROUGH VARIOUS FUNDING SOURCES. THIS COULD INCLUDE FEDERAL OPPORTUNITIES, STATE OPPORTUNITIES, AND REGIONAL OPTIONS AS WELL. AND WE'VE LISTED SOME OF THE FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES HERE. So with that, I'm going to go into the central El Camino plan, which is a effort across San Mateo, Belmont, San Carlos, and the northernmost portion of Redwood City to reimagine what El Camino can be like. So we want to create a shared vision for the corridor. And the goal of the project is to improve El Camino Real to better serve people walking, biking, and taking transit. It's really important to note that there are very high collision rates on El Camino. It's not working as it currently exists, and so that's why we're going through this effort. And the plan will be advanced as a part of that Caltrans project development process that I mentioned before that is facilitated by the Grand Boulevard Initiative. So Jake, who's here from Caltrans, can also help speak to some of the Caltrans policies that we're working within. But given that Caltrans is the ultimate decider on the corridor, so this effort ultimately feeds through Caltrans since they are the right-of-way owner and the maintainer, we have to make sure that we are in alignment with Caltrans policies. So there are a variety of policies which we've listed here, including the complete streets policy, a transit policy that was recently passed, as well as design informational bulletins that exist. But this snippet here that's on the right is just an example of where Caltrans is going. So they're seeing where all transportation projects funded or overseen by Caltrans will provide comfortable, convenient transportation and connected complete streets facilities for people walking, biking, and taking transit. So that's what we envision for El Camino. A few notes on the timeline. So we started this project back in 2025. We've come to you all a few times now throughout the process as well as city council. And we've done multiple rounds of community engagement starting in phase one where we did our needs assessment. We had an online mapping tool, did a variety of listening sessions, pop-ups, walk audits, et cetera. And this was in San Mateo as well as in Belmont and San Carlos and Redwood City. Then we developed alternatives based on all of what we heard during the needs assessment process. And then we went into the next phase of engagement, phase two, where we gathered community input on conceptual alternatives. So we had an online survey at this point, which I'll show you a visual of. But this presented multiple options to the community, and we were able to get input. We also had more pop-ups, CBO outreach. Sorry, that's community-based organization-led outreach. And we went to city council. And now we're in phase three. So in that last box there on the right, from August to September. And so we're now at your commission. And we'll be going to city council on the 22nd. And ultimately, this is where we are right now on the far right, and the next step is that we're going to be doing extensive community engagement prior to selecting a preferred alternative. So I'll speak to that more, but in the 2027-2028 timeframe, we're going to be spending a lot of time doing very thorough engagement in San Mateo as well as other communities across EL CAMINO TO DO, TO SELECT THE PREFERRED ALTERNATIVE. SO THIS IS REALLY JUST TEAMING US UP WITH MULTIPLE OPTIONS THAT WILL LEAD US INTO THIS PROCESS. One thing I just wanted to make sure I noted is that this is different than the Caltrans repaving project that is currently underway in San Mateo that you may be familiar with. You know, Jake can speak to this further as well. But this Caltrans repaving project is really just kind of fixing the existing YOU KNOW, SURFACE, DOING SOME CURB RAMP UPGRADES, SOME TRAFFIC SIGNAL UPGRADES. THEY ARE ADDING TWO PEDESTRIAN HYBRID BEACONS BUT LARGELY THIS IS A PRETTY LIMITED SCOPE PROJECT. WE ARE, YOU KNOW, SAMTRANS AS WELL AS CITY STAFF HAVE BEEN ENGAGING CLOSELY WITH THIS PROJECT TO MAKE SURE THAT IT REFLECTS WHAT THE, YOU KNOW, WHAT SAMTRANS AS WELL AS CITY OF SAN MATEO WANT OUT OF THE PROJECT. BUT THIS IS A VERY LIMITED SCOPE EFFORT THAT IS SEPARATE. So I'll just speak too quickly about what our engagement looked like and all the various phases that I just went through. SO THESE ARE JUST SOME NOTES IN TERMS OF HOW MANY RESPONSES WE RECEIVED AND WHAT TYPES OF ACTIVITIES WE DID. A COUPLE NOTABLE ONES THAT STOOD OUT TO ME WAS WE HAD A MEETING AT THE PENINSULA FAMILY SERVICES IN SAN MATEO. GOT SOME GREAT INPUT FROM ALL SPANISH SPEAKING PARTICIPANTS. WE WERE ABLE TO PROVIDE A STIPEND TO EVERYONE THAT And that was just very helpful to get a group of about 25 people's input on the project who are maybe harder to reach in your traditional outreach efforts. We also did, we coordinated with Stanford to lead a walk audit in San Mateo as well as Belmont and San Carlos. And this was an opportunity for people to use an app that Stanford developed to document some of the issues on the corridor. And that was a very helpful exercise as well. Some of the other activities, I can't highlight all of these, but we presented to stakeholders, including fire, police. We had virtual listening sessions, pop-ups at San Mateo Public Library downtown. And an online community survey with a total, two surveys with a total of over 1,500 responses. So this is just a visual of the two online engagement methods. Of course, this was paired with a lot of in-person engagement. But our online engagement in phase one included an interactive web map where people could add, you know, issues or ideas they had for the corridor. And then on the right, you can see our phase two online survey where we asked people about various options, you know, various cross sections or alternatives and what they thought of it and got a lot of great input from that process as well. So I wanted to highlight some of the, comments we heard. I can't walk through all of them right now, but they're on this slide. Some of the takeaways we heard were that there's a lot of congestion on El Camino across streets leading to US 101. We heard a lot in terms of a need for separated bike facilities, issues related to SAFER PEDESTRIAN CROSSINGS, A NEED FOR MORE VISIBILITY. ALSO, ADHANCE BUS STOP AMENITIES AND OTHER BUS STOP, BUS-RELATED IMPROVEMENTS. MORE TREES, LIGHTING, THINGS LIKE THAT. AND IN SAN MATEO SPECIFICALLY, WE HEARD PEOPLE HIGHLIGHT THE RECENT BICYCLIST INJURIES AND PEDESTRIAN FATALITIES THAT HAVE HAPPENED AND THE NEED FOR SAFETY IMPROVEMENTS. We also heard from both this commission as well as from council and the public that there is a need for more protected left turn signals and turn lanes and concerns about congestion and business impacts. And then also a need for beautification and improved pedestrian environment. I'll just highlight really quick what we heard from you all last time as well as from a previous presentation we gave. So we came to you all in July of 2025, and I think I mentioned this, but, you know, we heard that restricting left turns during rush hour would be important. We also heard that there are accessibility issues, narrow sidewalks, all of those. We incorporated that feedback. We also came and presented to you all in October of 2025. And we heard strong support for GBI, concern about long project timelines, which we understand, and issues related to poor pavement conditions, all of that. And lastly, concerns about protected bike lanes due to the trade-offs. WE ALSO HEARD SIMILAR THEMES FROM SAN MATEO CITY COUNCIL WHEN WE PRESENTED IN FEBRUARY 2026 ON THE CENTRAL EL CAMINO PLAN. SO WE HEARD SUPPORT FOR DOING FURTHER ANALYSIS WHICH I BELIEVE CITY STAFF CAN SPEAK TO MORE. AND THEN ALSO A DESIRE TO QUANTIFY BENEFITS AND TRADE-OFFS OF DIFFERENT ALTERNATIVES AND OTHER POINTS AS WELL. OKAY. SO I'M GOING TO PASS IT OFF TO ERIN HERE.

ALL RIGHT. GOOD EVENING. GOOD EVENING. ONE OF THE UNIQUE PIECES THAT THE ONE OF THE UNIQUE PIECES THAT THE CITY OF SAN MATEO SELF-FUNDED TO CITY OF SAN MATEO SELF-FUNDED TO AUGMENT AND ADD TO AND SUPPLEMENT AUGMENT AND ADD TO AND SUPPLEMENT THE COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT THAT CASSIE THE COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT THAT CASSIE DESCRIBED FOR THE CENTRAL EL DESCRIBED FOR THE CENTRAL EL COMMUNO REAL MULTIMODAL PLAN IS A COMMUNO REAL MULTIMODAL PLAN IS A BUSINESS SURVEY. BUSINESS SURVEY. SO THIS BUSINESS SURVEY INVOLVED CITY OF SAN MATEO PUBLIC WORKS WORKING ALONGSIDE SAM TRANS TO REACH OUT TO NUMEROUS BUSINESSES ALONG EL CAMINO REAL SO OVER 400 BUSINESSES WERE REACHED OUT TO BY MAIL AND ONLINE AS WELL AS 120 PLUS BUSINESSES VIA IN PERSON DOOR KNOCKING. From that effort that just occurred this past July, August, 79 survey responses were collected. Most of the businesses were retail, service, and food establishments. THE FOCUS OF THE BUSINESS SURVEY WAS REALLY AROUND ON-STREET PARKING GIVEN THE PREVIOUS CONCERNS HIGHLIGHTED AT THAT FEBRUARY MEETING THAT CASSIE NOTED. AND SO THIS IS A SUMMARY OF SOME OF THE RESULTS FROM THAT BUSINESS SURVEY. SO 70% OF BUSINESSES REPORTED ON-STREET CUSTOMER PARKING BEING VERY IMPORTANT OR CRITICAL. Over 90% of the businesses that responded say they have employees and customers that drive and park. And 65% of the businesses who responded ranked nearby parking as their number one priority for El Camino Real. Other priorities that were expressed also include access for deliveries and wider sidewalks. THE CHART HERE ON THIS SLIDE IS THE CHART HERE ON THIS SLIDE IS SHOWING THE RESPONSE OF IF PARKING SHOWING THE RESPONSE OF IF PARKING WERE TO BE RELOCATED, SO NOT WERE TO BE RELOCATED, SO NOT DIRECTLY ON EL CAMINO REAL, THEN DIRECTLY ON EL CAMINO REAL, THEN BUSINESSES WOULD LIKE TO SEE BUSINESSES WOULD LIKE TO SEE 57% OF RESPONDENTS SAID 57% OF RESPONDENTS SAID PASSENGER LOADING OR UNLOADING PASSENGER LOADING OR UNLOADING ZONES USED IN THAT SPACE, 43% ZONES USED IN THAT SPACE, 43% SAID COMMERCIAL LOADING OR SAID COMMERCIAL LOADING OR UNLOADING ZONES AND 35% SAID UNLOADING ZONES AND 35% SAID DISA CASSIE NOTED THIS EARLIER IN THE BIGGER PICTURE TIMELINE, BUT WANTED TO REPEAT IT AND REINFORCE THAT THERE IS MORE ENGAGEMENT TO COME. CLEARLY ON STREET PARKING ON EL CAMINO REAL IS AN IMPORTANT TOPIC FOR BUSINESSES WITHIN THE CITY OF SAN MATEO AS WELL AS RESIDENTS, TOO. SO THERE WILL BE MORE FUTURE ENGAGEMENT AS PART OF THE CALTRANS PROJECT DEVELOPMENT PROCESS, PARTICULARLY IN THE PHASE WHERE WE'RE DOING MORE DETAILED ANALYSIS OF ALTERNATIVES BEFORE LEADING UP TO THE SELECTION OF A PREFERRED ALTERNATIVE. AND SO THE TIMELINE FOR THAT IS REALLY OUT IN 2027, 2028. THE OTHER SUPPLEMENTAL PIECE OF THE OTHER SUPPLEMENTAL PIECE OF THIS EFFORT THAT THE CITY OF THIS EFFORT THAT THE CITY OF SAN MATEO FUNDED TO AUGMENT THE SAN MATEO FUNDED TO AUGMENT THE CENTRAL MULTIMOTO PLAN WAS A CENTRAL MULTIMOTO PLAN WAS A DETAILED PARKING ANALYSIS. DETAILED PARKING ANALYSIS. SO I'M GOING TO COVER THE A LITTLE BIT OF INFORMATION ABOUT WHAT THAT PARKING A LITTLE BIT OF INFORMATION ABOUT WHAT THAT PARKING ANALYSIS INCLUDED SO THE DATA ANALYSIS INCLUDED SO THE DATA COLLECTION FOR THAT THAT PARKING COLLECTION FOR THAT THAT PARKING STUDY COVERED EL CAMINO REAL IN STUDY COVERED EL CAMINO REAL IN THE CITY OF SAN MATEO SO ON EL THE CITY OF SAN MATEO SO ON EL CAMINO REAL ITSELF AND THEN CAMINO REAL ITSELF AND THEN SURROUNDING PARKING WITHIN THREE SURROUNDING PARKING WITHIN THREE BLOCKS SO WE LOOKED AT ON STREET BLOCKS SO WE LOOKED AT ON STREET PARKING COLLECTED INFORMATION ABOUT PARKING COLLECTED INFORMATION ABOUT THE OCCUPANCY ON BOTH SIDES of both sides of el camino as well as cross streets within one block of el camino and then also looked at off street parking collected information at lots within one block of el camino and larger parking garages within three blocks of el camino real WE COLLECTED MULTIPLE TIME PERIODS, SO WEEKDAY, MIDDAY, WEEKDAY EVENING PERIOD, AND A WEEKEND MIDDAY PERIOD. WE LOOKED AT INVENTORY, WHICH IS HOW MANY PARKING SPACES ARE THERE, AND THEN OCCUPANCY DURING EACH OF THOSE TIME PERIODS TO SEE HOW MANY WERE PARKED WITH CARS. So the study area, this graphic is showing the study area. The study area was organized into a series of kind of 10 segments or 10 sub areas, if you will. And you can see we've labeled them A through J on this map. And what we're looking for to understand is kind of what's the opportunity, what's the inventory of parking spots in these catchment areas, but wanting to exclude streets that are part of the residential parking permit program. And so the colors for each of the sub areas help denote which streets we included as part of that potential parking catchment area. All right. So here on this slide, it's a lot of numbers. Stick with me. We're showing peak parking occupancy. The bottom there in the dark blue is a weekday midday, so the 12 p.m., and then a weekend midday, 12 p.m. AND SO THIS IS SHOWING EXISTING AND SO THIS IS SHOWING EXISTING AND SO THIS IS SHOWING EXISTING PARKING OCCUPANCY IN THE YELLOW PARKING OCCUPANCY IN THE YELLOW PARKING OCCUPANCY IN THE YELLOW TEXT THAT TOP ROW IS PARKING TEXT THAT TOP ROW IS PARKING TEXT THAT TOP ROW IS PARKING OCCUPANCY ON EL CAMINO REAL OCCUPANCY ON EL CAMINO REAL OCCUPANCY ON EL CAMINO REAL ITSELF AND YOU CAN SEE IT BY EACH ITSELF AND YOU CAN SEE IT BY EACH ITSELF AND YOU CAN SEE IT BY EACH OF THOSE CATCHMENT SUB AREAS A OF THOSE CATCHMENT SUB AREAS A OF THOSE CATCHMENT SUB AREAS A THROUGH J AND THEN THE SECOND THROUGH J AND THEN THE SECOND TH ACROSS BOTH TIME PERIODS AND EACH OF THOSE CATCHMENT AREAS, WHAT WE'RE SEEING IS THAT THERE IS AVAILABLE INVENTORY. NOT ALL PARKING SPACES ARE FULL DURING THE PEAK PARKING OCCUPANCY TIME PERIOD. EVERYTHING IS LESS THAN 100%. MOST TIME PERIODS ARE 50% OR LESS WITH A FEW RISING OR MOST CATCHMENT AREAS ARE 50% OR LESS WITH A FEW LOCATIONS RISING ABOVE THAT IN KIND OF THAT IN AREAS D, E, F, AND G THERE ON THE WEEKDAY MIDDAY. WHEN WE LOOK AT EVERYTHING AND WHEN WE LOOK AT EVERYTHING AND CONSIDER WHAT IF ON STREET PARKING CONSIDER WHAT IF ON STREET PARKING ON EL CAMINO REAL WAS REMOVED ON EL CAMINO REAL WAS REMOVED THEN AS WE LOOK AT THE EACH OF THEN AS WE LOOK AT THE EACH OF THE SUB AREAS AND THOSE CATCHMENT THE SUB AREAS AND THOSE CATCHMENT AREAS WHAT HAPPENS TO AVAILABLE AREAS WHAT HAPPENS TO AVAILABLE PARKING OR PARKING OCCUPANCY AND PARKING OCCUPANCY AND SO THIS SHOWS THAT EVEN WHEN WE SO THIS SHOWS THAT EVEN WHEN WE REMOVE ON STREET PARKING SPACES REMOVE ON STREET PARKING SPACES FROM EL CAMINO REAL FROM EL CAMINO REAL PROPER, IF IN THAT SCENARIO, THERE STILL REMAINS AVAILABLE PARKING SPACES IN THOSE CATCHMENT AREAS. SO THERE'S SUFFICIENT CAPACITY FOR THOSE PARKING NEEDS TO BE MET OFF OF EL CAMINO REAL BUT IN CLOSE PROXIMITY TO EL CAMINO REAL IN BOTH THE WEEKDAY, MIDDAY AND WEEKEND MIDDAY. So again, El Camino kind of stepping back, some of the key findings recognizing that El Camino Real currently accommodates 240 to 280 parked vehicles citywide at any given time. INDIVIDUALS WHO CURRENTLY PARK ON EL COMUNO REAL COULD TYPICALLY FIND ALTERNATIVE PARKING SPOTS WITHIN ONE TO THREE BLOCKS OF EL COMUNO REAL. AND SO THIS ANALYSIS SUGGESTS THAT THE SURROUNDING ON STREET AND OFF STREET PARKING WOULD LIKELY BE ABLE TO ACCOMMODATE THIS PARKING DEMAND AGAIN WITHIN THAT ONE TO THREE BLOCKS WITHOUT BEING MORE THAN THREE QUARTERS FULL OR THREE QUARTERS FULL OR THREE QUARTERS FULL OR THREE QUARTERS OCCUPIED. OCCUPIED. OCCUPIED. AND THAT'S ASSUMING NO NEED FOR AND THAT'S ASSUMING NO NEED FOR AND THAT'S ASSUMING NO NEED FOR PEOPLE TO BE PARKING ON STREETS PEOPLE TO BE PARKING ON STREETS PEOPLE TO BE PARKING ON STREETS THAT ARE PART OF THE RESIDENTIAL OK, SO COMING BACK TO THE CONCEPTUAL ALTERNATIVES THAT WERE DEVELOPED AS PART OF THE CENTRAL EL COMUNO REAL MULTIMODAL PLAN. I'M GOING TO COVER THOSE NEXT. AND AGAIN, THE INTENT HERE IS TO IDENTIFY ALTERNATIVES THAT WILL MOVE INTO THE CALTRANS PROJECT DEVELOPMENT PROCESS FOR FUTURE FURTHER DETAILED ANALYSIS AND EVALUATION. SO AS CASSIE MENTIONED, A KEY PIECE OF OUR CONSIDERATIONS AS WE CONSIDERATIONS AS WE DEVELOPED THESE ALTERNATIVES ARE DEVELOPED THESE ALTERNATIVES ARE ALIGNMENT WITH CALTRANS POLICY, ALIGNMENT WITH CALTRANS POLICY, COMPLETE STREETS POLICIES, ROAD COMPLETE STREETS POLICIES, ROAD SAFETY, CALTRANS TRANSIT POLICY, SAFETY, CALTRANS TRANSIT POLICY, AND THEIR NEW COMPLETE STREETS AND THEIR NEW COMPLETE STREETS DESIGN GUIDANCE THAT'S CAPTURED IN DESIGN GUIDANCE THAT'S CAPTURED IN THAT DESIGN INFORMATIONAL BULLETIN 94. THERE'S ALSO BUILT INTO THESE ALTERNATIVES ALIGNMENT WITH SAN MATEO'S OWN GENERAL PLAN, GENERAL PLAN 2040 AND A NUMBER OF THE POLICIES THERE AROUND SUSTAINABLE TRANSPORTATION, PRIORITIZING PEDESTRIAN AND BICYCLE MOBILITY NEEDS, IMPROVEMENTS TO EL CAMINO REAL, TRANSIT RIDERSHIP AND FREQUENCY AND TRANSIT IMPROVEMENTS. SO REALLY ALL OF THESE KIND OF STATE AND LOCAL POLICIES COME INTO ALIGNMENT AND GUIDANCE, COME INTO ALIGNMENT TO HELP INFORM THE ALTERNATIVES THAT WERE DEVELOPED. WE ALSO TOOK INTO ACCOUNT OTHER WE ALSO TOOK INTO ACCOUNT OTHER RECENTLY DEVELOPED PLANS THAT RECENTLY DEVELOPED PLANS THAT IDENTIFIED IMPROVEMENTS ON EL IDENTIFIED IMPROVEMENTS ON EL CAMINO REALS THAT INCLUDES THE CAMINO REALS THAT INCLUDES THE CITY'S BICYCLE MASTER PLAN, THE CITY'S BICYCLE MASTER PLAN, THE TRANSIT-ORIENTED DEVELOPMENT TRANSIT-ORIENTED DEVELOPMENT PEDESTRIAN ACCESS PLAN AND THE PEDESTRIAN ACCESS PLAN AND THE LOCAL ROADWAY SAFETY PLAN. THESE PLANS IN PARTICULAR REALLY HELP TO IDENTIFY SPECIFIC SPOT IMPROVEMENTS ALONG EL CAMINO REAL THAT ARE PART OF THE CENTRAL EL CAMINO REAL MULTIMOTO PLAN THE CITY OF SAN MATEO. THE CITY OF SAN MATEO. ANOTHER KEY CONSIDERATION FOR NOT ANOTHER KEY CONSIDERATION FOR NOT ANOTHER KEY CONSIDERATION FOR NOT ONLY SAN MATEO BUT FOR ALL OF THE ONLY SAN MATEO BUT FOR ALL OF THE ONLY SAN MATEO BUT FOR ALL OF THE CITIES ALONG EL CAMINO REAL IS A CITIES ALONG EL CAMINO REAL IS A CITIES ALONG EL CAMINO REAL IS A RECOGNITION THAT THERE'S RECOGNITION THAT THERE'S RECOGNITION THAT THERE'S CONTINUED LAND USE, GROWTH, AND CONTINUED LAND USE, GROWTH, AND CONTINUED LAND USE, GROWTH, AND CHANGES COMING IN THE FUTURE FOR CHANGES COMING IN THE FUTURE FOR CHANGES COMING IN THE FUTURE FOR EL CAMINO REAL. EL CAMINO REAL. RESIDENTS LIVING ON OR CLOSE TO EL COMMUNO REAL AND JOBS. SO IT'S ALREADY A VERY ACTIVE CORRIDOR AND ACTIVE PLACE AND FUTURE GROWTH IS REALLY EXPECTED TO INCREASE THAT DENSITY OF LAND USES AND THAT LEVEL OF ACTIVITY. So within the next 10 years, roughly, San Mateo, city of San Mateo is expected to see 9,000 new jobs and 10,000 new residents within a half mile of El Camino Real. So this is a substantial number of new trips and new people and an important part of thinking about making El Camino Real a better city. TRANSPORTATION FACILITY, AN IMPROVED PLACE FOR PEOPLE TO BE IS IMPROVED PLACE FOR PEOPLE TO BE IS REALLY THINKING ABOUT HOW CAN WE REALLY THINKING ABOUT HOW CAN WE SERVE THOSE ADDITIONAL TRIPS IN SERVE THOSE ADDITIONAL TRIPS IN THE MOST SUSTAINABLE KIND OF THE MOST SUSTAINABLE KIND OF EFFICIENT WAYS POSSIBLE. EFFICIENT WAYS POSSIBLE. AN IMPORTANT PIECE OF THAT IS AN IMPORTANT PIECE OF THAT IS GOING TO BE TRANSIT AND GOING TO BE TRANSIT AND CONTINUING TO IMPROVE, ENHANCE CONTINUING TO IMPROVE, ENHANCE BOTH FREQUENCY, SERVICE BOTH FREQUENCY, SERVICE RELIABILITY OF TRANSIT TO RELIAB LIVING ON OR NEAR EL CAMINO REAL OR WORKING ON OR NEAR EL CAMINO REAL. AND SO I THINK THIS GRAPHIC DOES A REALLY GOOD JOB OF DOING THAT SPATIAL COMPARISON OF TO SERVE THAT MUCH NEW ACTIVITY IT'S MUCH EASIER TO DO THAT THROUGH IMPROVED TRANSIT SERVICE THROUGH IMPROVED TRANSIT SERVICE THROUGH IMPROVED TRANSIT SERVICE AND BUSES RATHER THAN ASSUMING OR AND BUSES RATHER THAN ASSUMING OR AND BUSES RATHER THAN ASSUMING OR PLANNING FOR OR ATTEMPTING TO PLANNING FOR OR ATTEMPTING TO PLANNING FOR OR ATTEMPTING TO SERVE ALL THAT GROWTH VIA NEW SERVE ALL THAT GROWTH VIA NEW SERVE ALL THAT GROWTH VIA NEW CAR TRIPS WHICH IS PHYSICALLY NOT CAR TRIPS WHICH IS PHYSICALLY NOT CAR TRIPS WHICH IS PHYSICALLY NOT POSSIBLE GIVEN THE CONSTRAINTS I MENTIONED BEFORE, SPOT IMPROVEMENTS ARE INCLUDED IN ALL OF THE ALTERNATIVES, A NUMBER OF THEM FOCUS ON IMPROVING SAFETY, SO DIFFERENT MEASURES LIKE IMPROVEMENTS TO MEDIANS, LIGHTING IMPROVEMENTS, ADDRESSING THOSE CROSSING IMPROVEMENTS, SO ACTIVE TRANSPORTATION, CROSSWALK IMPROVEMENTS, STREET TREES OR URBAN GREENING OPPORTUNITIES AND TRANSIT uh improvements as well bus stop enhancements transit signal priority and access to and from transit stops All right, for the cross sections, the alternative cross sections for El Camino Real, they're organized generally into a few different sub-segments, if you will, or sections. This is because right-of-way along El Camino Real varies, and so the amount of space that we have to work with varies. So for the first stretch from Peninsula to Crystal Springs, what we're showing is the alternative cross sections are here on this slide. So under existing conditions, there's two travel lanes, two vehicle travel lanes in each direction and on street parking on one side of the street under what we're calling alternative one. AND TWO, THAT CROSS SECTION WOULD INVOLVE TWO THROUGH LANES IN EACH DIRECTION AND ADDING A LEFT TURN POCKET AND THEN LOOKING FOR OPPORTUNITIES TO INCREASE AVAILABLE PEDESTRIAN SPACE. ALTERNATIVE 3 FOCUSES ON KEEPING ALTERNATIVE 3 FOCUSES ON KEEPING THE NUMBER OF TRAVEL LANES IN THE NUMBER OF TRAVEL LANES IN EACH DIRECTION AS THEY ARE TODAY. EACH DIRECTION AS THEY ARE TODAY. REMOVES THE ON STREET PARKING ON REMOVES THE ON STREET PARKING ON ONE SIDE OF THE STREET AND ADDS And then alternative four is the alternative that keeps the existing cross-section elements on El Camino Real, but alternative four would include the spot improvements that we mentioned just as the other three alternatives would. FROM CRYSTAL SPRINGS TO 36th AVENUE, WE HAVE THESE ALTERNATIVE CROSS SECTIONS OF COMMUNO REAL RIGHT-OF-WAY GETS A BIT WIDER AND SO IN THIS CONTEXT UNDER ALTERNATIVE ONE, WE'RE SHOWING THE RIGHT MOST ARE OUTSIDE LANES IN EACH DIRECTION BEING BUS ONLY LANES WHILE THEN HAVING TWO GENERAL PURPOSE VEHICLE LANES IN EACH DIRECTION. MEDIAN IN BETWEEN INTERSECTIONS SO AT AN INTERSECTION THERE MEDIAN IN BETWEEN INTERSECTIONS SO AT AN INTERSECTION THERE WOULD BE A LEFT TURN LANE WHERE WOULD BE A LEFT TURN LANE WHERE THAT MEDIAN IS PRESENT MID THAT MEDIAN IS PRESENT MID BLOCK. BLOCK. ALTERNATIVE TWO IN THIS SECTION ALTERNATIVE TWO IN THIS SECTION IS SHOWING THREE GENERAL PURPOSE IS SHOWING THREE GENERAL PURPOSE LANES IN EACH DIRECTION SO BUSES LANES IN EACH DIRECTION SO BUSES WOULD TRAVEL WITH VEHICLES IN THAT WOULD TRAVEL WITH VEHICLES IN THAT RIGHT MOST LANE IN THIS RIGHT MOST LANE IN THIS ALTERNATIVE. STILL ADDING A MEDIAN AS WELL AS LOOKING FOR OPPORTUNITIES FOR LOOKING FOR OPPORTUNITIES FOR STREET TREES AND BETTER STREET TREES AND BETTER PEDESTRIAN SPACE. PEDESTRIAN SPACE. ALTERNATIVE THREE IS THREE GENERAL ALTERNATIVE THREE IS THREE GENERAL PURPOSE LANES IN EACH DIRECTION. PURPOSE LANES IN EACH DIRECTION. AGAIN, THE MEDIAN THAT PROVIDES AGAIN, THE MEDIAN THAT PROVIDES AN OPPORTUNITY FOR LEFT TURN LANES AN OPPORTUNITY FOR LEFT TURN LANES AND INTERSECTIONS AND THEN ADJACENT TO AND INTERSECTIONS AND THEN ADJACENT TO THE SIDEWALK ON EACH SIDE OF EL THE SIDEWALK ON EACH SIDE OF EL CAMINO FROM 36th AVENUE TO 42nd AVENUE, THE AVAILABLE RIGHT-OF-WAY BECOMES A BIT MORE CONSTRAINED. WHAT WE'RE SHOWING HERE IS ALTERNATIVE ONE HAS A BUS ONLY LANE AND ONLY THE SOUTHBOUND DIRECTION. PART OF THE REASON FOR THIS IS SAM TRANS HAS PREVIOUSLY DONE A BUS SPEED AND RELIABILITY STUDY AND THROUGH THIS PORTION OF SAN The need for a bus-only lane was only in the southbound direction, so that's why you see a little bit of a difference between southbound, which is shown on the left, and northbound on the right. ALTERNATIVE TWO SHOWS THREE SOUTHBOUND LANES AND TWO NORTHBOUND LANES FOR GENERAL PURPOSE AND BOTH ALTERNATIVE ONE AND TWO ALSO SHOWS STREET TREES AND THE MEDIAN THAT CAN BE USED AT INTERSECTIONS FOR A LEFT TURN LANE. AND THEN ALTERNATIVE THREE SHOWS THE SIMILAR BUT INSTEAD OF THE SPACE FOR THE STREET TREES ADJACENT TO THE SIDEWALK, WE'RE SHOWING A SEPARATED BIKE LANE IN EACH DIRECTION IN ALTERNATIVE THREE. PASS IT BACK TO CASSIE TO COVER NEXT STEPS.

All right, so right now I mentioned before that we are in phase three of our engagement. So right now we are, we have these concept alternatives that Erin talked about that we've identified for further analysis. We're not making any decisions today on which of these alternatives are being advanced. The idea is that all of them are being advanced and then the next phase is going to involve a lot of community engagement, a lot of analysis to determine which should be the preferred. AND THEN WE'VE ALSO STARTED AS OF SPRING THIS YEAR THE PROJECT INITIATION DOCUMENT PHASE WHICH I TALKED ABOUT BEFORE WHERE THAT'S WHERE WE'RE GOING TO BE REFINING THOSE ALTERNATIVES AND THAT WILL SET US UP FOR PANED WHICH IS PROJECT APPROVALS AND ENVIRONMENTAL DOCUMENT WHICH IS 2027 2028 AND THIS IS WHERE WE MAKE THE DECISION ABOUT THE PREFERRED ALTERNATIVE So just a reminder, this is informational primarily, but we're also seeking recommendation to city council to adopt a resolution to support this process that we've talked about today. And also gather your feedback on any ideas related to the next stages of engagement, as well as evaluating these alternatives within the Caltrans project development process. So thank you so much. We appreciate your time.

RED OR GREEN? RED. OPPOSITE DAY. OPPOSITE DAY. ALL RIGHTY. ALL RIGHTY. WELL, THAT WAS VERY WELL, THAT WAS VERY INFORMATIVE. INFORMATIVE. I'D LIKE TO AT THIS POINT OPEN I'D LIKE TO AT THIS POINT OPEN IT UP TO COMMISSIONER COMMENTS IT UP TO COMMISSIONER COMMENTS AND QUESTIONS. AND QUESTIONS. THROUGH THE CHAIR.

THROUGH THE CHAIR. WE HAVE TO OPEN IT UP FOR PUBLIC WE HAVE TO OPEN IT UP FOR PUBLIC COMMENT, BUT I THINK IT'S SAFE TO COMMENT, BUT I THINK IT'S SAFE TO SAY WE DO NOT HAVE PUBLIC SAY WE DO NOT HAVE PUBLIC COMMENT.

COMMENT. I DIDN'T SEE YOU. I DIDN'T SEE YOU. SORRY. SORRY. OKAY.

OKAY. I'D LIKE TO OPEN IT UP TO PUBLIC I'D LIKE TO OPEN

yeah online is uh associate so we have somebody online that would like to speak they are an associate so we are all good okay well like i said you can close public i'd like to comment a question um go ahead okay and no fighting

YEAH, I AGREE. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE PRESENTATION. IT WAS GREAT. THIS IS MY FIRST PRESENTATION OF THE GBI AND THE ECR MULTI-MODEL PLAN. SO I'M SORT OF BEHIND THE I think it's great to hear about the alignment of all the other plans. That's, I think, pretty important because that's the first thing I kind of thought of when I read this. I said, well, I've read so many of these other ones. You know, how are they going to knit this all together? So I think it's great that that's being addressed. I do understand, though, that the San Mateo's Complete Streets master plan is still on hold. So I don't know how you anticipate what's going to be played out there and how do you make sure – whatever ideas are expressed there or brought into this, what's the thought process there?

I CAN RESPOND BRIEFLY AND THEN INVITE STAFF TO ADD ON. A KEY PART OF WHAT WE'RE DOING NOW IS IDENTIFYING THE SCOPE AND KIND OF THE RANGE OF POTENTIAL ALTERNATIVES AND NOT, AS WE NOTED, NOT YET AT A POINT WHERE WE'D BE SELECTING A PREFERRED ALTERNATIVE. SO THERE IS STILL SPACE FOR THE CITY'S COMPLETE STREET MASTER PLAN OR OTHER ENGAGEMENT THE CITY WISHES TO DO TO HELP INFLUENCE AND INFORM THAT FUTURE DECISION.

If that's a higher priority, I'm sorry. YOU KNOW, ON THE COUNTY, THE RED LIGHT IS OFF. ON THE COUNTY LEVEL. ANYWAY, IT'S CONFUSING. SO ONE OF THE FACTORS THAT GO INTO DECIDING WHETHER A MEDIAN SHOULD BE IN PLACE, BECAUSE I SEE THAT IN SOME CASES IT'S 18 AND YOU REDUCE IT TO 16 AND THEN YOU HAVE A BIKE LANE AND A BUFFER. IF YOU CAN ACCOMMODATE THE BIKE LANES AND A WIDER SIDEWALK, What's the thought process in having a median, which, as I said, kind of luxury?

Yeah. Let's see. The purpose of the median, I guess from kind of a traffic perspective, is it helps provide a space at signalized intersections. The median disappears, and we carve out a left-turn lane. Sure. THAT MAKES IT EASIER AT INTERSECTIONS TO PROVIDE A LEFT TURN ARROW FOR TURNING CARS AT THE INTERSECTIONS, WHICH IS BOTH A BENEFIT FROM A SAFETY AND OPERATIONS PERSPECTIVE. AND SO TYPICALLY WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR IS AT LEAST THAT IF WE CAN HAVE THAT CENTER MEDIAN OF ABOUT 10 AND A HALF TO 11 FEET WIDE, THEN AT THE INTERSECTIONS WE CAN HAVE SPACE TO TURN THAT INTO A LEFT TURN POCKET. As we get further down into the kind of project development process and into more detailed design, there will definitely be refinement of some of the widths of the median, particularly as we lay it out in what we call plan view and kind of stitch it together along the corridor. THE WORK IN THIS PLANNING EFFORT WAS PRETTY HIGH LEVEL WHERE WE WERE JUST TAKING KIND OF SLICES OF THE CORRIDOR, LOOKING AT ROUGHLY WHAT'S THE AVERAGE WIDTH WE HAVE TO WORK WITH AND KIND OF WHAT ARE THE CORE ELEMENTS WE CAN FIT INTO THAT. SO THERE WILL BE MORE REFINEMENT COMING UP IN FUTURE PHASES OF DESIGN WHERE WE CAN LOOK AT, OKAY, IF WE

um you know are able to consistently have maybe a more narrow median what what might that open up more opportunities to do on the edges so there's no planning documents that actually say a median or a bike lane would trump a median you know i mean how how are they weighed in terms of priority

THERE ARE MANY PLANNING DOCUMENTS THERE ARE MANY PLANNING DOCUMENTS THAT HAVE MANY ASPIRATIONS FOR THAT HAVE MANY ASPIRATIONS FOR EL CAMINO REAL. EL CAMINO REAL. BUT I THINK FROM MAYBE STARTING BUT I THINK FROM MAYBE STARTING FROM KALTRANS POLICIES AND PLANS. KALTRANS POLICIES AND PLANS. KALTRANS DOES HAVE BOTH COMPLETE KALTRANS DOES HAVE BOTH COMPLETE STREETS POLICY AS WELL AS A STREETS POLICY AS WELL AS A BICYCLE PLAN FOR DISTRICT FOUR. AND THAT DISTRICT FOUR BICYCLE PLAN IDENTIFIES A NEED FOR A PLAN IDENTIFIES A NEED FOR A CONTINUOUS LOW STRESS BICYCLE CONTINUOUS LOW STRESS BICYCLE FACILITY ON EL CAMINO REAL. FACILITY ON EL CAMINO REAL. AND SO THAT IS A PRIORITY FOR AND SO THAT IS A PRIORITY FOR CALTRANS AS PART OF THIS OVERALL CALTRANS AS PART OF THIS OVERALL PROCESS. PROCESS. AND AS WE GET INTO EVALUATING AND AS WE GET INTO EVALUATING THE ALTERNATIVES IN THAT FUTURE THE ALTERNATIVES IN THAT FUTURE UPCOMING PHASE THAT'S WHERE SOME OF PLACES WHERE CERTAIN ALTERNATIVES OR CERTAIN FEATURES OF ALTERNATIVES GET SCREENED OUT OR MORE CLEARLY SOME PIECES, SOME ELEMENTS OF THE CROSS SECTION MIGHT MORE DEFINITIVELY TAKE PRIORITY OVER OTHER ELEMENTS. SO IT'S THOSE TYPES OF POLICIES AND PLANNING DOCUMENTS THAT HELP INFORM THOSE FUTURE PRIORITIES.

Just wanted to add, hi, Jacob Bovenbarger. I'm the system planning branch chief for Caltrans District 4 for San Mateo, San Francisco, and Marin counties. Thanks for having me. Just wanted to briefly mention that in that Caltrans project that was paving and ADA compliance stuff, Cassie mentioned earlier, 7W... 4W730 shop project. That originally did have bike lanes in the initial scope, protected bike lanes on El Camino. And then the public works director, Matt Fabry, wrote a letter to our office basically saying to please take out those bike lanes so that San Mateo had further time to develop their Complete Streets plan. Now I'm understanding that the complete streets plan is on some sort of hold. So I would encourage the city to, you know, follow through with that letter and continue to coordinate that complete streets plan because we already had bike lanes planned on the corridor in the early stages of that PID document. So, you know, I would encourage the city to continue studying within their own complete streets planning documents.

MAYBE IF I COULD PROVIDE A LITTLE BIT OF CONTEXT AS THE BIT OF CONTEXT AS THE PUBLIC WORKS DIRECTOR. PUBLIC WORKS DIRECTOR. I THINK PART OF THIS IS THAT WE I THINK PART OF THIS IS THAT WE ALSO KNEW THAT THE CENTRAL CAMINO ALSO KNEW THAT THE CENTRAL CAMINO PLAN WAS GOING ON. so we wanted to make sure that we had the opportunity to go through these planning efforts we had embarked on our complete streets planning efforts that did hit a stall but we are looking at continuing that but i think the the overall challenge with all of this especially putting in dedicated transit lanes or putting in dedicated protected bike lanes is that it does have an impact in terms of I THINK THAT'S THE APPROPRIATE WAY TO HANDLE THINGS. WAY TO HANDLE THINGS. WE WANTED TO GO THROUGH OUR WE WANTED TO GO THROUGH OUR PLANNING PROCESSES WHICH WE KNEW THE PLANNING PROCESSES WHICH WE KNEW THE CENTRAL EL CAMINO PLAN WAS GOING ON. CENTRAL EL CAMINO PLAN WAS GOING ON. WE DID NOT THINK THAT WAS THE WE DID NOT THINK THAT WAS THE APPROPRIATE WAY TO HANDLE THAT'S PART OF THE REASON WE SENT THE LETTERS TO MAKE SURE THAT SENT THE LETTERS TO MAKE SURE THAT WE HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO GO WE HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO GO THROUGH A PROCESS THAT ALLOWS THE THROUGH A PROCESS THAT ALLOWS THE COMMUNITY TO WEIGH IN ON THOSE COMMUNITY TO WEIGH IN ON THOSE PIECES. PIECES.

SO IT WASN'T JUST TO OPPOSE SO IT WASN'T JUST TO OPPOSE PUTTING DEDICATED BIKE LANES BUT PUTTING DEDICATED BIKE LANES BUT WE WANT TO MAKE SURE WE HAVE THE WE WANT TO MAKE SURE WE HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO GO THROUGH THE OPPORTUNITY TO GO THROUGH THE PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT PROCESS ON PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT PROCESS ON TH Did the parking include parking for the mall? Are those spaces considered available parking? Because it would change the numbers if there were land use changes with the mall and the parking structures.

I believe the mall, maybe city staff can help me with the map coloring and labeling. Which catchment area is the mall falling in? Is that H? Yeah. That's correct, it's H. Yeah, so there is a good amount of off-street parking included in that, kind of the purple polygons, if you will, in that area. SUB AREA H AND SO THOSE WOULD BE THE OFF STREET PARKING THAT WERE INCLUDED AS POTENTIAL AS INVENTORY POTENTIAL PLACES FOR PEOPLE TO PARK.

WHICH COULD CHANGE. OKAY. THANK YOU.

YEAH. WE COULD IF IT'S OF INTEREST WE HAVE ALL THE DETAILED INFORMATION AND WE COULD LOOK AT IT WITHOUT THOSE SPACES INCLUDED IF THAT WAS OF INTEREST TO THE COMMISSION.

OK, thanks, Mark. Every airplane ever flown, red is off. I'm with you. Who would like to go next?

Go, go.

Thank you.

And again, thank you for this Herculean project that once we retire, we'll see in fruition beautifully, I'm sure. I had a quick question about community engagement. There's a slide there. Have you done community engagement since you last presented to us?

Let me just go to that slide. So we last presented to you all, we presented to council in February, but we presented to you all in July, which I believe was at the end of phase two. Let me just. Oh, okay, okay. Yeah, so.

The only reason I asked the slide is because it looked familiar and I just wanna make sure that there hasn't been more since you presented.

So when we came to you all, it was during our phase one, I believe. So we did phase two, which included all that I talked about related to like the survey of all the options. We did all the information on this slide and also went to city council.

Okay. So you've done more since you've... Okay, great. That's good to know. It looked familiar and I felt like it's good to know. I would like to ask about alternative four. In the draft plan, it only mentions three. And then... All of a sudden, there's a fourth alternative, which is described as a City of San Mateo exclusive alternative. Can you just tell me how that came up?

So I can speak to that and then maybe pass to city staff also. So throughout the process, our priority, Sam Transit's priority, as well as all the cities we've been working with, is to redesign El Camino Real for people biking, walking, and taking transit. So we all worked on that goal together from the start of the project. And that's the lens we've been taking with this effort. And really, to go through the Caltrans process as we're going through it, it really makes the most sense to do major changes. If we're doing smaller fixes, that's something you can do through encroachment permits or shorter processes. So we've had this big picture lens throughout the project. and so that's how we came up with alternative one two and three and those were scored and we looked at them in various phases near the end of the process the city also expressed desire to look at another alternative that we ended up calling alternative four which is existing conditions plus looking at spot repairs or spot improvements, which I think Aaron spoke to, but intersection improvements, things like that. So we included that just to cover all of our bases. It's worth noting that since the Complete Streets plan has not been completed in San Mateo. San Mateo has not had the opportunity to have difficult trade-off conversations and really get into the weeds in terms of doing the engagement and all of that. The other cities that are involved in the study have done more of that work. And they've completed plans that were done either, yeah, before this study was started. So it put San Mateo in a, you know, tricky situation. So I think that was the idea with this alternative four. Happy to have staff also chime in. But just to have everything, you know, included so that when we go into the next process, we're able to do a very extensive community engagement and keep all the options on the table.

The only thing I would add is because we did our business targeted engagement as well as our parking analysis towards the latter half of this El Camino Real study, as you guys saw in multiple slides, parking is very instrumental to a lot of the hundreds of businesses in El Camino Real. and options or alternative one through three would remove parking at a minimum on one side in there. So we discussed this internally as well as what Sam trans to keep the door open, if you will, for an existing alternative that adds safety improvements.

Okay. So that was going to be my next question is that what is additive to alternative for it's just more parking. It's just responding to parking fears.

I think just to provide a little bit of additional context, I think we want to make sure that when we go into this next round of comprehensive engagement, that we aren't going to the community saying that an alternative has already been taken off the table, like parking is already gone. You guys don't get a choice to weigh in on that, that we wanted to make sure that there was an alternative that included safety improvements. I think we've heard loud and clear from a lot of the community that there are significant concerns about safety on El Camino Real. A lot of those happen to be at the intersection locations. And so that's really what alternative four is, is potentially keeping things more in their existing configuration, but having the safety improvements that are needed at these locations. but it's really to ensure that as we go into that next phase that we're able to have authentic engagement and not say that a significant uh aspect of the roadway that as jay mentioned is very uh important for our businesses that we have significant number of businesses in our section of el camino real to not go into that and just say that that's off the table that you don't get the chance to weigh in on that too so we want to make sure that there was the ability to have a authentic engagement process with the community as we go into that next section got it

Okay, thank you for that. Speaking of parking, my next question is about parking. Correct me if I'm wrong. Phase one, there's a phase one survey of 800-ish, right? And 500 community members. It was a phase two that did 700 surveys and 1,000 total interactions. And then there was another survey that was funded by the city separately, so the three surveys. The third survey, and correct me if I'm wrong, identified that there was parking available, not right on the street, but within the two or three block area. So one could read that as maybe there's parking, one could read it as, but that's a fact. Eventually, speaking of parking, how will you reconcile all these surveys to make an informed decision?

So as we enter the Caltrans project development process, the first step of that is to define for Caltrans, for Samtrans, for all the stakeholder agencies involved, what are the alternatives that we're going to be considering, and then what are the of criteria or ways in which we'll be evaluating those alternatives um and then there will also be as as others have already stated more engagement and so in that process the a first kind of activity is establishing a purpose and need for the project and then from that kind of flows those important pieces of okay what what are the the things we're evaluating to support that purpose and need for the project and then how are we going to incorporate you know input from the community given that that purpose and need so it's a future activity to take what is currently, for San Mateo, four alternatives and narrow it down to ultimately a preferred alternative. And so kind of that upcoming activity of scoping with Caltrans, Samtrans, INVOLVED IN THAT BROADER PROCESS WILL DETERMINE KIND OF HOW ALL OF THOSE PIECES GET FIT TOGETHER TO ULTIMATELY ARRIVE AT A PREFERRED ALTERNATIVE. THIS PLAN IS SIMPLY SCOPING, HERE'S THE UNIVERSE OF ALTERNATIVES THAT WILL BE EVALUATED IN DETAIL AND, YOU KNOW, AROUND WHICH THE COMMUNITY WILL BE ENGAGED IN MORE DETAIL.

Okay, cool. It's a little too early to ask this question, I guess. But as we move forward, I know we talked about parking a lot and thinking that parking means right in front of their place. And there's a survey that shows that there's parking. We have a couple blocks.

Anyway.

You know where I'm getting at. My next question is about safety. I'm wondering, because there's some pretty interesting statistics there, 19% of injuries are bicyclist and pedestrian related. and so on and so on. So my question is, is there a measure that at some point within this next few years that there's so many injuries that, is there a kind of stop gap where an alternative is taken off the table because it doesn't address the safety issue, right? Is there kind of like a red line where like this alternative, it's too much?

Yeah, as part of that future what we call the PAED phase where that evaluation takes place, that's where each of the alternatives will be evaluated and ones that don't meet or aren't SUFFICIENTLY MEETING THE PURPOSE AND NEED WHICH STATEMENT WHICH FOR EL COMMUNO REAL WOULD INCLUDE THINGS LIKE PRIORITIZING SAFETY IMPROVEMENTS, IMPROVING CONDITIONS FOR PEOPLE WALKING, IMPROVING CONDITIONS FOR PEOPLE BIKING, IMPROVING CONDITIONS FOR TRANSIT SERVICE. THESE ARE THE CORE ELEMENTS OF BROADER PURPOSE AND NEED STATEMENT FOR THE GRAND BOULEVARD INITIATIVE. SO AS WE EVALUATE ALL OF THE ALTERNATIVES, THE ALTERNATIVES THAT AREN'T DOING WELL, AREN'T PERFORMING WELL RELATIVE TO THOSE CRITERIA WILL BE DROPPED OR SCREENED OUT.

Yeah, I'll just add that, you know, at Caltrans, we have traffic safety investigators that will look at specific, you know, once there's enough incidents, that'll trigger a safety investigation that then will trigger a project with specific countermeasures that would address those, you know, deficiencies in the network.

Have you defined what that...

I'm not a safety engineer, and I won't, you know, pretend to speak for our traffic safety division, but... they would see some sort of pattern that then would require countermeasures.

Okay. I think people are very vigilant. They're just, you know, every time there's, it's news. So I would just, you know, at some point maybe make it clear whenever you're comfortable defining what that is so that people know that you have a plan to say alternative whatever is off the table because it's reached a red line and it's just not doable and it feels like you haven't yet gotten there but eventually... It would be reassuring to people to know that you're paying attention.

Sort of relevant. I'll mention, I'm pretty sure the bike lanes in Palo Alto were a reactive safety job that were, you know, a traffic investigation happened and then that project was put in place specifically for the countermeasures for cyclists.

Okay, thank you. I also have a question about benchmarking when it comes to the environmental rating. There's, you know, alternative one has a rating of high, alternative two has a rating of medium, three is high, and alternative four is low. What quantitatively defines high, medium, and low? What does that mean?

So I think what you're referring to is in October of last year, I think October 2025 it was, we at that point had three alternatives identified kind of throughout the study area and then through a number of criteria that we had, yeah. IS THAT IN THIS? OKAY. WE'LL FIGURE OUT HOW TO PULL UP THAT TABLE. BUT, YEAH, AT THAT POINT, WE, AS PART OF THIS CENTRAL COMMUNO MOTO PLAN, Qualitative used a combination of like some qualitative assessments and then available data. So this plan was pretty high-level plan We had some data to work with but these alternatives will be evaluated in greater detail in the future So we used available information to say across these different topics of how well does something align with Caltrans policy and how well does it align with local policy, how well or kind of what effect does it have on people walking or people biking, people taking transit, people driving, and then on the environment, and then... uh generally in comparison to to um uh kind of those criteria is it a significant improvement so a high benefit is it a moderate improvement like a medium benefit or is it a low or no improvement relative to to today and so IT WAS THAT LEVEL OF KIND OF IT WAS THAT LEVEL OF KIND OF ASSESSMENT. ASSESSMENT. AND THEN MORE RECENTLY WITH AND THEN MORE RECENTLY WITH ADDING ALTERNATIVE FOR CITY ADDING ALTERNATIVE FOR CITY STAFF DID A SIMILAR EXERCISE FOR STAFF DID A SIMILAR EXERCISE FOR ALTERNATIVE FOR WITHIN THE CITY OF ALTERNATIVE FOR WITHIN THE CITY OF SAN MATEO.

Categories around greenhouse gas reductions, transit principles, equity priorities, complete street requirements, street trees, landscaping. What is the difference between a low categorization of an alternative, let's just say for trees, versus a high? What does that mean? Is that a canopy percentage?

FOR, I MEAN, SO FOR GREENING OR STREET TREES, IT WOULD BE...

I'M JUST USING IT AS AN EXAMPLE.

YEAH. IT COULD BE THE EMISSIONS. AS AN EXAMPLE, LIKE, MORE SPACE IS AVAILABLE WITHIN THAT ALTERNATIVE CROSS SECTION FOR PHYSICALLY ADDING STREET TREES. AND SO THAT WOULD BE KIND OF THE WAY IN WHICH THAT CRITERIA WAS APPLIED OR, FOR EXAMPLE, effect on people riding transit if the cross section has features like bus lanes and that's a high benefit for people riding transit and so that would be given a high versus if the bus has to be in a mixed travel lane then that would be.

Are you coming up with that right now or is that going to be written somewhere that when the phase where we go back to people and give them the alternatives and explain the environmental benefits of each alternative that that is actually explained and not just put the word high. Because I wouldn't know what that meant.

I THINK IT'S A GREAT QUESTION. YEAH, UNDERSTOOD. YEAH, UNDERSTOOD. IN THE FUTURE WE'LL BE DOING MORE IN THE FUTURE WE'LL BE DOING MORE DETAILED ANALYSIS WHERE THOSE DETAILED ANALYSIS WHERE THOSE CRITERIA AND HOW THEY'RE CRITERIA AND HOW THEY'RE EVALUATED IS THOROUGHLY EVALUATED IS THOROUGHLY EXPLAINED. EXPLAINED. THE TABLE THAT YOU'RE REFERRING THE TABLE THAT YOU'RE REFERRING TO WAS PART OF THIS PLANNING TO WAS PART OF THIS PLANNING STUDY AND WAS PART OF A TECHNICAL STUDY AND WAS PART OF A TECHNICAL MEMO THAT WAS DELIVERED IN MEMO THAT WAS DELIVERED IN OCTOBER 2025 THAT HAS THOSE OCTOBER 2025 THAT HAS THOSE No, I'm not making it up, but it has been about a year ago, so I don't have exact recall of all the different pieces.

I just want to make sure that when the next alternatives are presented to the public, that they understand what that means and not have the word high or low. because I just wouldn't know what the difference is, right? So I just want to make sure that it's clear to people. I know you weren't making it up now. I just want to make sure that it's not, doesn't feel like we're reaching for information. As someone in the public who is, we're being asked for their information, is asking, what does that mean, high trees? Is that 30% canopy or is that 10% canopy? Yeah. Speaking of trees, my final question, and I just want to make sure, one of your slides says Sustainable Infrastructure Commission. We're sustainability and infrastructure, which is a big difference. That's why I'm asking about trees and environment, because we're both. There was a comment about, the need for street trees, but also at some places where street trees would need to be removed for the need for engineering purposes. How will you, who will decide who wins, the road or the tree? How will that make, how will that determination be made?

Yeah, so the selection of a preferred alternative and the kind of elements within it is part of that more detailed evaluation that we're going to be, that SamTrans has, and THINGS THAT ARE IMPORTANT TO US, HERE'S HOW WE'RE GOING TO EVALUATE HERE'S HOW WE'RE GOING TO EVALUATE HERE'S HOW WE'RE GOING TO EVALUATE HOW IMPORTANT THOSE THINGS ARE AND HOW IMPORTANT THOSE THINGS ARE AND HOW IMPORTANT THOSE THINGS ARE AND HERE'S HOW WE'LL COMPARE THE HERE'S HOW WE'LL COMPARE THE HERE'S HOW WE'LL COMPARE THE ALTERNATIVES. ALTERNATIVES. ALTERNATIVES. FOR EXAMPLE, IF THERE'S FOR EXAMPLE, IF THERE'S FOR EXAMPLE, IF THERE'S COLLECTIVE AGREEMENT THAT STREET COLLECTIVE AGREEMENT THAT STREET COLLECTIVE AGREEMENT THAT STREET TREES ARE IMPORTANT, THEN THAT TREES ARE IMPORTANT, THEN THAT TREES ARE IMP STREET TREES OR CANOPY, THE PERCENTAGE OF CANOPY CAN BE INCREASED WOULD BE AN EVALUATION CRITERIA. SO THOSE ARE FUTURE DECISIONS THAT HAVE NOT BEEN MADE YET BUT IT WOULD BE MADE AS PART OF THIS SCOPING ACTIVITY THAT HAS JUST BEEN STARTED AS PART OF THE PROJECT INITIATION DOCUMENT.

And the ultimate decision, I know we're far away from this, but while we're here, the ultimate decision making authority on that would ultimately rest on Caltrans?

That's correct. Yeah, Caltrans makes the final decision.

Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you for all your hard work. Okay, thanks for that. Kim, what do you got?

all right thank you so much nice to see you again um okay so uh i think first over to city staff just to be super clear on this like alternative for history was this like a city staff request to have an alternative for was it a city council direction that city staff then followed

It is city staff, it was something that we added in the latter half of the study.

Okay, and then I'm getting a little turned around and I appreciate Commissioner Renaud's last question of like who makes the final decision. The directors, the Caltrans, maybe Jake, maybe I need your help here, but the Caltrans director, statement like opening statement right was like we want to make El Camino structurally better right like Cassie you said that like that was like the first sentence out of your mouth was like the current we have a high collision rate this is not working so I sense a tension here between There's a high collision rate. El Camino itself is not working in this alternative four. And in the end of all things, though, even if we go through this entire public engagement process, and even if the public, for some reason in San Mateo, was like, man, everything is working, totally cool with 144 people being injured over the last nine years or whatever on El Camino, I really want alternative four. The decision does not rest with the city. Correct, Jake?

Correct.

So in the end, of all things, the decision rests with the state body, a state agency.

Correct. What I will say is, historically, it's a best practice for when there's parking removal to get city council sign-off. It's not required, but that's best practice.

It's a best practice. So city council sign-off on parking removal.

That's a best practice.

OK, that's a best practice. But I'm a lawyer. So legally, though, the state has the authority. So I think there's a tension that I'm observing here with Alternative 4 because if the state priority is we're going to structurally and foundationally change El Camino, and that's been very clear throughout this entire process, I feel like if we're offering Alternative 4 as a real alternative to our community, it lands. as we can actually create a situation that we don't legally have control over as the city. Because in the end of all things, it's very clear from the state mandate that foundational and structural changes are needed on El Camino. Where is my logic flawed? This goes to anyone, because I am genuinely confused. Maybe everyone can take a shot at this one for me.

I mean, I'll just say a first crack at it is that I think we've heard loud and clear from our community on other projects that we've gone forward that it's critical for us to hear from the community, and especially when we're talking about things like trade-offs between bike lanes and parking. And so it was critical to us at the staff level that we felt that if this plan went forward with only alternatives one, two, and three that assume removal of parking to a large extent, that we would not be giving the community an authentic opportunity to engage on the process.

And director, I completely understand your perspective. And given what happened with Humboldt bike lane, totally, from the city staff perspective, to represent city concerns, this makes complete sense. But this is fundamentally different, because we had authority and jurisdiction over Humboldt. And we do not over El Camino. So I'm getting concerned, because the framing seems strange to me because this is a limited public forum. You have to stay on topic here, right? You could have limited public engagement insofar as there has been a state policy decision that we are structurally and foundationally changing El Camino. We have $500 million, half of the funding already identified, to foundationally change El Camino. Now we need community input. to understand within this frame of structural change of El Camino, what do y'all want? So that's the concern and the tension that I'm seeing with alternative four. I completely understand from the staff level perspective why now you wanted to provide alternative four, but I think that there's that tension given the fact that this is a state call and this is like a state frame and El Camino is a state street as we constantly learn in our bike master plan and our pedestrian master plan. All these master plans have kicked the can down the road on El Camino because it's not our right of way. I'm genuinely concerned about continuing alternative four too far down the line, because instead, we might have a responsibility to our constituents, to our residents, to our businesses, to actually engage in the conversation that they need to have, which is, how would you envision structural change? What do you want with that structural change? What do you need? Rather than no change. because that's essentially what Alternative 4 is offering, right? Like no change other than minor maintenance and minor spot improvements.

I guess just to clarify, I think from our perspective, Alternative 4 is not just keeping it as it's providing critical safety improvements at intersection locations. So it's significantly increasing the safety of El Camino, but not necessarily going in and pre-assuming that we're going to take away parking or lanes of travel. So... I don't want, at least from staff perspective, is we aren't characterizing alternative four as just status quo, that it's keeping configuration consistent with existing, but providing significant safety improvements at intersection locations.

Okay. Do spot improvements not currently happen? So sorry. Spot improvements, and this maybe goes to Sam Tran's Caltrans team. So spot improvements are contemplated across all of El Camino. But is there going to be some sort of surge of spot improvements then, given this effort and initiative that's beyond what's been done as business as usual? Now I'm getting confused about what's What's the baseline of spot improvements versus what would be this alternative for souped up turbocharged spot improvement then?

So I can just speak to the process a little bit more and hopefully help clarify. So the reason why, as a part of the study, we had this alternative one, two, and three is that the goal of the project is to redesign El Camino. We know that making intersection improvements are not going to change the fundamental SAFETY OF THE CORRIDOR. IT REQUIRES A MORE DRASTIC IMPROVEMENT. SO THOSE WERE THE, YOU KNOW, WE SCREENED, WE USED THIS EVALUATION PROCESS AND ENGAGEMENT TO SCREEN THOSE THREE ALTERNATIVES. SO THAT WOULD BE FROM THE, YOU KNOW, SAMCHAND'S PERSPECTIVE, THOSE ARE THE RECOMMENDED ALTERNATIVES TO ADVANCE. CITY STAFF ALSO HAD INTEREST IN ADVANCING THIS FOURTH ALTERNATIVE. So where we are in the process, it doesn't necessarily matter if we have three or we have four. We're going to go through this very extensive engagement and evaluation process that will help us narrow that down. And I think it is worth noting now, and Jay could possibly speak to this as well, that we know what is going to score well and what is not going to score well based on our initial analysis. with Caltrans' own policies as well as with, you know, Samtrans, other city policies, all of that. And so we, you know, coming out of it, we know that El Camino is identified by Caltrans as a transit priority corridor, also a bicycle priority corridor. Caltrans is seeking to put bicycle lanes on El Camino in a recent repaving project. There's not really a scenario where San Mateo can keep El Camino the same. There are broader elements at play. This is what I'm saying though, right?

So why offer... I'm just concerned about, I guess, maybe it's the marketing or public engagement thing. You just said, Cassie, there's no situation in which El Camino stays the same. So I think in the communication about alternative four then, it has to be foundationally clear what will actually change under that alternative. Because based upon this presentation and the diagrams and whatever, it feels like it's Business as usual ish. So maybe that's like just a point of feedback. And as you guys go through the journey, like it is it is unclear to me how alternative for is anything different based upon the presentation that I just saw. Okay, Jake, I have a question about decision-making and alternatives. So for across the entire Redwood City, San Carlos, Belmont, San Mateo chunk, does Caltrans make one decision on one alternative? Like, we love alternative X, and we're going to implement that across the entire, that entire central, whatever it is, are we in central? Central El Camino Real corridor. Or does Caltrans decide across... South, Central, and North El Camino? What decision does Caltrans actually make?

First, I would like to stress that we would like to make these decisions with our local stakeholders and our regional stakeholders. We don't want to have to make decisions in a vacuum. We understand that projects are better when there's more collaboration with our local partners. I think To answer your question. Segment wise, like in Redwood City, if there's specific alternatives that cities would like to put forth and maybe do like a bike lane or bus lane or, you know, those can switch from city to city as long as there's good connections between those transition points. Right. I don't think there's one overarching decision that Caltrans is going to make on the corridor as a whole. But Yeah, we want those transition points to be well-coordinated and flow, which is why, you know, Sam Trans leading the Grand Boulevard initiative is such a crucial, you know, strategy because it is doing the hard leg work of getting everyone involved and on the same page.

And that's great. And so basically, even within San Mateo, Aaron, you showed the segments. There are three tranches even within San Mateo. So theoretically, even within those three tranches, the alternative that is picked could be different based upon the width of the right-of-way.

Yeah, so the alternative depends on the width of the right of way. And then as Jake is saying, what we want is if we're picking an alternative that has bus lanes, we want enough continuity in those bus lanes that they provide benefit and value to the buses.

Yeah, you don't get like a 0.5 mile bus lane that doesn't have any value to it.

So that would happen as part of the Grand Boulevard initiative and the bigger process that Cassie talked about. That's where we're stitching both. So we look at alternatives within a city, but also then across cities. That's where the overall project team is looking at, okay, what kind of continuity makes sense from one city to the next up and down El Camino.

Okay, awesome. And then maybe this goes back to staff. So that parking study that was done, I was curious, was there any analysis on safety or injuries of people who were parking on El Camino at all? It's terrifying. I do it quite frequently. It's terrifying because the cars go so fast. I'm just curious if that was part of the analysis.

No, that was not. The analysis is strictly based off of occupancy. Just the number? Yeah. Mostly supply and demand.

Just supply and demand. Okay. That's great. Okay. I will save that for comment. Okay. Going back to the community engagement, do you have a rough estimate of how many humans you've engaged with in a face-to-face fashion? I totally understand the online. You had something where it was like 23... people with CBOs that felt low to me. Like, are we, you know what I mean? Like, is it like roughly that's been only like a hundred humans engaged to date in real life, in like IRL, in real life?

It's worth noting that the pop-ups, this is just San Mateo. Pop-ups are humans, right? Pop-ups, we got a ton of interaction. We left our pop-up boards also in the San Mateo library and got a lot of input from people, even when we weren't staffing. But we did have multiple staffed events there as well. And this is just the... I can't remember if this is just San Mateo. I think this is just... I'd have to double check, but yeah. So you would look at the pop-up, total numbers. Okay. I have the slide up, but I don't think it's showing it. No, it's okay.

So the pop-up plus the attendees. I'm a little concerned about the CBO attendees. Like what number of CBOs were engaged? Because 26 feels low to me. Compared to like other engagements that we've had with CBOs, like for other projects and stuff, it feels... This is such a big project. I feel like more community-based organizations should be interested.

Yeah, so I think this was specific to San Mateo. We engaged the Peninsula Family Services, and we were somewhat limited in our budget for this project. So we had one CBO per city that we engaged. So, you know, some people maybe live in Belmont. They benefited from the CBO meetings that we had in Belmont. We had an event at the Midpen Housing and Firehouse Square there. Okay. So this is just, you know, the CBO meeting was just San Mateo specific. And we got good attendance at that event, but we had other events as well.

Okay. Got it. But in the future community engagement... you'll have a new budget for deeper and more extensive engagement. This is like the pre-design engagement process, but you're going to get into like full-blown engagement, like the platinum package later on.

So just to give some, I think we had some numbers on a previous slide.

It was like very impressive budget, I thought.

Well, so our current phase is only $800,000 that we spent on this project. But the next phase, the phase in 2027, 2028 is going to be $15 to $20 million because it's for the whole corridor. We're doing a lot of engagement across the corridor. And it's also for all the technical analysis.

Okay, great. And do you expect to provide some sort of honorarium for a subset of stakeholders who engage more regularly?

That is a best practice that we have through our government community fairs. For all the CBO meetings, we provided like a gift card to participants to make sure that we're reaching those harder to reach populations. Often the CBO would offer daycare or childcare for individuals who participated. So that is the best practice that we use. Okay, great.

And then I just have, I guess, a question about alternatives again. There was like one, there's like a framing thing that kind of like rubs me and maybe this is just a trade off that we're going to have to reconcile and deeper engagement. But two of the alternatives for like 36 to 42nd. um, it was like alternative two and alternative three. It really felt like the choice was between trees and bikes. And I was like, why not both? Is it like, and so far as you know, why, like, are those like the trade, like, are those the true trade-offs or like, will during the deeper analysis or whatnot about the alternatives, um, Are there ways to try to figure out if you can get more out of the right of way? Or are these alternatives, like, the true, like, you've exhausted all possibilities and, like, these are... We got to pick from these four. You know what I mean? Are there, like, hybrids? Are there hybrids potentially?

Hybrids could emerge, yeah. There's opportunities for refinement.

Okay. I just... I feel like, yeah, maybe in future conversations, the trade-offs piece will be particularly important. I'm a little confused about why we couldn't have a bike lane, a dedicated bus lane, two lanes of traffic, and a tree in the middle, stuff like that. But I guess it, oh, yeah, I guess I'm just confused about that. Okay, I think that'll come up later.

Sorry, one thing just to note is that alternative one that you see could fit both the transit lanes and the separated bikeways. But then you don't get the trees, right? Is that the cost, that kind of thing? Yeah, there's always going to be some.

Okay, no, yeah, that's fine. It's just like that's, I think that... IN YOUR PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT, ALL THE MARKETING AND SIMPLE COMMUNICATION ON THAT WILL BE REALLY IMPORTANT. OKAY. I'M DONE. ARE WE GOING TO DO ANOTHER ROUND JUST FOR COMMENTS?

EXACTLY. SHORT CAPTING PHRASE AT THE END, SHORT COMMENTS. GO AHEAD.

THANK YOU. THANK YOU FOR YOUR PRESENTATION AND ANSWERING ALL THESE QUESTIONS. I KNOW THE PLANNING PROCESS COULD BE QUITE BURDENSOME. I do have a question. In the beginning of your presentation, you mentioned the paving project, but it was up to Santa Ynez. What is the project from Poplar to Peninsula in El Camino? Is that separate from the paving?

I believe that's the larger reconstruction project that's happening that's going through Burlingame. Yeah. So that goes all the way into Millbrae. That's where they're doing the extensive removing the trees and doing a lot of significant improvements.

So is that not Caltrans? It is Caltrans, yes.

But it's a separate project than the paving project.

Okay. Yeah, it's interesting how these separate projects happen at the same time we're trying to figure out like cohesion between the projects. But this is a random thought, but I drive that part of the El Camino frequently. And if you do need to do a study on what happens when there's no parking and there's just one lane, I mean, this would be a perfect time to look at that section of El Camino. There's no parking for quite a long stretch. And it's been down to one lane. And I think it's going to be for months longer. So I think that could be interesting to take a look at what actually happens there. You know, sort of what Commissioner Narito is alluding to, you know, obviously we would want all of these, right, on El Camino. We just have these space constraints, so there's going to be sacrifices. So it sounded like that parking study you did, which is really interesting, I think it's really helpful to see what the capacity is at, is demonstrating that there are other options for parking. So similarly, I was wondering about the bike routes. Will there be studies similar to that to show like if the bike route, you know, because that's very clear that Caltrans wants bikes on a safe bike down El Camino, but will the study include an alternative route on the other parallel streets?

Yes, so one thing I didn't mention is that we are starting kind of phase two of our, we did this action plan in the early phases of GBI. We presented to council on that and adopted it in January, I believe. And that set the vision for GBI. I didn't get a ton of time to talk about GBI specifically. But that set the vision and made sure that all the cities kind of understood the universe of options that they could consider on El Camino. And that informed the central El Camino plan and other projects as well. We're going to be doing kind of a phase two of that work. We're still working with the SMCTA to scope that. but they're going to be funding an effort where we go take a much deeper dive into how are we going to fund this program, how are we going to phase all these different segments, and also how are we going to plan the parallel routes where we're not able to put bike facilities on El Camino. So that work will be happening over the next year or so, and that will be another opportunity to really engage all the GBI cities as well as key stakeholders, and we can come and present to you all again.

so if bikes if the bike lanes don't fit or aren't prioritized on el camino there's a commitment to create um routes on parallel roads it sounds like or to look in from caltrans perspective that commitment would come from the city the city would be the one identifying that alternative route for suggesting to Caltrans basically instead of El Camino we can do it here instead yeah I mean because as much as I'd want you know bike lane straight you know the connections between cities I don't know if El Camino is the best spot for it with the speed it's even if you know and the bus routes and you know I so I think that's worth looking at

I THINK THE ONUS WOULD BE ON THE CITY TO PRESENT A FEASIBLE ALTERNATIVE AND A SAFE ALTERNATIVE.

CAN YOU LOOK AT I THINK IT WAS SLIDE 16 OR 15. Yes, this, no, yeah, that one. So here, I didn't look, I didn't see the online survey myself, but it looks like here you have the existing conditions and then you have like one transit focus and then for the other images, is it like bike focused? like is to sort of guide or, and then like left lane focus. I think those are like the three focuses, like making left lanes easier, making transit faster or making bike lanes more, um, accessible.

Yeah, so for the survey screenshot you see on the right, we're only showing two, but we had three alternatives that we asked for input on. Actually, three plus existing that we asked for input on from the public. And we characterized them as kind of by their primary modal but also talked about the other kind of co-benefits. So there's a transit option. As Erin mentioned, there was a bicycle option and then also a pedestrian, like a wider sidewalk option.

Yeah, that makes sense. So Commissioner Renaud mentioned an appendix. I didn't look at that, but it is helpful to see from these options with the different focuses how well they're taking care of the goal of the project of safety. And because, sure, you know, you'll get all these bike advocates or all these transit advocates, but is it really going to make the El Camino safer? Maybe that was in the study material, and I didn't see it yet, but that would be helpful to have up front also. And I was also wondering about coordinating with different cities. Is there a plan to have joint meetings with other cities where Matt gets to talk to other cities and tell them what works and everyone gets to share that information? Or is it up to you guys to coordinate?

So through the central Camino process, this whole planning process, we had a external project management team that included all of the four cities that were engaged. And also all of the central cities are engaged in the GBI process. task force that we have that is all of the 15 cities up and down El Camino. So one of the great things about GBI is that it's really fostering these opportunities to learn and share from each other. So I know San Mateo has spoken to Palo Alto about their recent project. And it's a forum for collaboration in a lot of ways. And those types of conversations will continue to happen also through the Caltrans process.

Okay, so everyone's aware of what other cities will prefer and move forward. And I think I had... I also found, and I think it's just about like, I also found alternative four to be a little confusing. The way it comes off is, oh my goodness, there could be this huge multi-year plan and then we're gonna stay with what we have. So I think it's, you know, how to phrase that and explain it and really set the expectations to the public and to commissioners and the council that, and what the expectations are and how this alternative will serve meeting those expectations. And I don't think any of us want to end up with exactly what we have after this process. Oh, and then this may be a question for the city, but it wasn't clear to me why we needed a resolution for this next phase in the process.

We'll defer that one to Sam Tran.

Oh, sure. So this is not a mandatory thing, but basically we asked for all of the cities on El Camino that have active planning projects, we've asked them to adopt a resolution of support indicating that they're supportive of the process. Not specific to any alternatives, but just that Sam Tran is going to go through this process. And, you know, I think it's kind of another best practice, Jake can speak to that, just to indicate to Caltrans that we have buy-in from all the local jurisdictions.

Thank you. And then once this everyone picks, you know, their preferences and we have the projects and we're many years into it. Basically, from there, then we have this plan that cities can refer to and use when they do their different projects of, OK, we're fixing where we have a project here on El Camino and we see it. you know it's set for a bike lane and that sort of helps guide is that how we perceive working with this yes okay okay got it thank you that's it thank you

All right. Well, thanks for hanging in there with us. So here's, just to put a name to a face, I think what some of us are going through is not you guys. Some of the state agencies, maybe with, I don't know, housing, have mandates, and they're kind of steamroller. You know what I'm talking about. We're hoping you're different. We're hoping that you're not just checking a box, and you're going to do what you want to do anyway. I sense a real level of engagement. I want to thank you for that. So here's a question. And I think this might sum up with some of what we heard tonight. What problems are we principally trying to solve? And if you could ordinate them with numbers instead of high, medium, and low, to some of us, it would make a lot more sense because it's the difference between relative pitch and perfect pitch. We're trying to really understand this and boil it down, and it would be a lot helpful. So if the primary objective would be reducing fatalities, let's say, or with the serious injuries, or increasing the transit ridership, accommodating future increases once we start to build those buildings, the bicycle mode share, increasing the bicycle use, and a... ton of other things that that make more sense or are we trying to transform el camino into a different type of of urban boulevard you can have anything you want you just can't have everything you want and it's like somebody wearing a lot of hats it might you might get everything but it's structurally not going to work so and that's that's your job you're not going to build anything that's imperfect. So with the preferred design and how the objectives are weighted, it would really help us out a lot if we could understand that weighting process. What are you, with trees versus people with accidents and stuff, what does that look like? And you don't necessarily have to answer that. It's just food for thought. With respect to collisions, Especially vehicle to vehicle, vehicle to person, vehicle to bicycle, bicycle to people. I know we're tracking that stuff, but what do you see some of the big things that are waiting heavily on this? What are you seeing? Is it the Delta V? Is it kind of a line of sight? Is it the overall lighting, especially in the evening? What are your thoughts? What's causing most of these collisions?

Yeah, so I think there's... Let's see. So the purpose of this study was to be aware of what collisions have occurred and then be identifying what we would characterize as complete street improvements to improve safety as well as improve transit, walking, and biking. I don't have in front of me our crash data analysis from the existing conditions work that we did at the beginning of the project. And so, but I can tell you kind of generally when we look at a street like El Camino Real, where you have six or seven vehicle lanes of traffic plus on street parking. some of the challenges when it's not congested is that it's very easy for cars to drive fast you have big intersections that have a lot of crossing travel paths within those intersections that's a lot of conflicts or opportunities for people to run into each other it makes it harder for people to walking to physically you know cross the street You don't have bike facilities on El Camino Real, but you still have people, maybe not many, but some who try to bike on it or across it. And then you have people trying to access bus stops. And so the high speeds, the long crossing distances, those all create opportunities, unfortunately, for people to be hurt while traveling along El Camino Real. So a lot of the complete streets, complete street elements that you see reflected in alternatives one through three are intended to do multiple things they're intended to both improve safety as well as make things more comfortable and nicer for people walking or biking or improve safety and make the bus service more reliable along El Camino Real. So the elements don't just have one purpose. They often have multiple benefits. And so that's what's reflected in the alternatives. And truly, that's the intent of the overall Grand Boulevard Initiative. is to improve safety, make it better for bus service, transit service, better for people biking, better for people walking. All of Caltrans policies and plans say that all of those are important. And that's the kind of challenge in front of us, as well as opportunity through this process.

I'll just add one quick note, which is some of the unique collision patterns we saw in San Mateo were permissive left turns being a big issue. And we heard that very consistently when we presented to police and fire also. I think Monte Diablo is an example of a pretty dangerous intersection. I can't remember the other ones around there. But permissive lefts, just a lack of infrastructure, as Aaron was speaking to, for bicycles. unsafe, long and unsafe crossings. We know that there have been recent fatalities at the crosswalk where, you know, people are following all the rules, but there are visibility issues and other key, you know, speeding, other types of issues.

I brought this up at the last meeting. Would you consider something that New Jersey does where it's called a jug handle? We have to make a right turn before you if you want to make a left turn. Would that be feasible? Would that be something that would be advantageous for San Mateo and on El Camino specifically?

Possibly. That's not something we've evaluated as part of this particular plan.

Okay, you say you're evaluating it or you have not?

We have not evaluated it as part of this particular plan, so I can't say yes or no. I'm familiar with that type of improvement. If you're a traffic engineer.

Yeah. So the question begs, why haven't you, not you, but why haven't the Royal U been looking at that? Does it not seem to solve the left turn problem? No.

No?

No.

I've lived in New Jersey now. I'm sorry. It takes a huge amount of land, first of all.

I'm building jug handles, but you start a block early where if you want to make this left, you need to turn here and then come around the block. Oh, like around blocks. Yeah. I'm just trying to help.

Yeah, I appreciate that. I think the kind of functional way that could play out on El Camino Real in the future with one of these alternatives that gets picked in the future is there will likely be a need to restrict left turn movements off of or onto El Camino. And so functionally, you would then have people making that movement using the parallel streets. So I think that's a future opportunity for analysis and consideration.

Right, the rule on the street is if you're north or south on El Camino, stay out of the left lane, because inevitably, the guy in front of you is going to stop, and you're going to be stuck there for a while. So I think if you're looking for throughput, and again, I'm not a traffic engineer. What do I know? But if you try to increase throughput, if you could eliminate that left turn paradigm and you could charge from the side streets at the lights, for instance, theoretically, it might work in your favor. So here's a question. So where do I want to start? The hospital downtown San Mateo, my doctor is there. So if you ever tried to park in that parking structure, it's a nightmare. You drive around, you end up following people to try and find a space and then like that. They changed the rules of engagement really recently where if you're an employee, you can't park in the structure. And as if by magic, there's all kinds of parking now. They parked down at the train station and just walk two blocks, three blocks. It's not so bad. So it seems that if we could... Maybe for people that work on El Camino, have them park somewhere else and had better transit, i.e. buses, we may be able to incrementally nibble away at this parking problem. If 10 people work in a store, that's 10 parking spaces. It's just food for thought. I don't know if you guys have already thought of that. But that combined with... If you've ever been downtown Denver, I think it's 17th Street, Portland, Oregon, Vancouver, they've got buses that run up and down. The interval is about eight minutes, maybe 10 minutes. It's phenomenal. Could you see something like that on El Camino, where we'd have these bus lanes and more frequent travel and more reliable? You have a central maybe place to park where you could jump on one of these buses, do your shopping, take the reverse, get back in your car, and then drive home from there. Is that something that you think would be for consideration?

Definitely. Yes. So that's one of the benefits of having the infrastructure there. So if we add bus lanes and other improvements, it makes it so that the buses are more reliable and you could run more frequent service. So right now we have, you know, 15 minute service roughly. And it's really hard to run, you know, more frequent service because the reliability is such a big problem because the land use is not set up for transit. So there's a virtuous cycle in terms of once you add more infrastructure you can add more service you're saving a bus or two because you're not they're not stuck in traffic so you can reinvest in the in the system right i was looking at the parking business uh issue and just blow this up a little bit um

95% of the respondents said customers drive. That's believable. 92% said employees park and drive pretty close to the businesses. 70% rated on-street parking is critical or at least very important. 65% rated parking is their number one priority. Only 6% ranked improved bicycle access and 1% ranked additional transit stops. I'm taking that from your data. Do you care to comment on that? What are your thoughts?

I mean, Aaron can also speak to this as well, but I think if you're taking something away, people are always concerned. And it's harder for people to imagine, you know, more people biking, more people taking transit and walking if they're using one thing, you know, right now, and they feel that that's really important. So I feel like whenever you ask people questions, where the outcome is negative, you're going to get more of those types of responses. But I think the bigger picture thing I see out of this survey is that people could live with parking removal, but we understand that there are impacts and we want to mitigate those impacts. So I think um that is that's great to see that there you know there are places where you know in san francisco there is you know no parking and you just figure out a way to live with it so i think um given that we're going to see a lot of growth on el camino it's really important that we address these issues now because they're only going to get worse exactly and um

It's possible it's going to require a change in your head to think what's the new normal. I think I'm originally not from New Jersey. I'm from New York City. And I think... I'm an SME when it comes to traffic. Yeah, born and raised and live with traffic. I don't want to go back to that. I don't see there's a way to avoid it. So the work you're doing right now is going to affect generations and generations from now. And that's why this is so important. That's why the commission is just taking such an interest in this is because we want to make this not only for right now, but for decades from now, make sure that this thing works. We're currently at 103,000 people. We're expecting 7,500 housing units and an additional 10,000 more residents. So these are some of the big things we need to look at. OK, real quick, slide 26. I had a question on that. Yeah, there you go. So in section H, which looks like that's the Hillsdale Mall area, It says weekday, no parking. Is that, did I know that? Is that, so there's no parking in El Camino by the Hillsdale Mall? Correct.

Correct.

Okay. There's already a bus. It's a bus lane. Got it. Okay. And I think, last question, I promise. Quite often, especially with measure A and W, sounds like a root beer commercial, when we put roads up that are going to cut us off sections of town from each other, there's got to be mitigations. Just a curiosity, is any of this going to impact or create a bridge over crossing at, let's say, Hillsdale? Is that anything in the works? Asking for a friend. NOTHING PLANNED FROM THE CITY'S NOTHING PLANNED FROM THE CITY'S PERSPECTIVE. PERSPECTIVE. OKAY. OKAY. BUT I MEAN FROM CALDRAN BECAUSE BUT I MEAN FROM CALDRAN BECAUSE THIS WOULD BE YOUR BABY?

THIS WOULD BE YOUR BABY? I WOULDN'T SAY THAT'S A PART I WOULDN'T SAY THAT'S A PART OF THIS STUDY. OF THIS STUDY.

SAFE ANSWER. SAFE ANSWER. OKAY. OKAY. ALL RIGHTY. ALL RIGHTY.

THROUGH THE CHAIR. THROUGH THE CHAIR. OKAY. OKAY. I THINK I'M DONE.

I THINK I'M DONE. I'D LIKE TO TURN IT OVER NOW TO I'D LIKE TO TURN IT OVER NOW TO OUR YOUTH COMMISSIONERS AND SEE OUR YOUTH COMMISSIONERS AND SEE WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO.

Thank you for that turnover. Gotta take care of our baby. My first question was like, I know you guys were talking a lot about like collisions and safety. I was wondering if, Like I hadn't heard any mention of this, but if you were considering like any, like maybe speeding or red light cameras towards like more dangerous intersections or parts of El Camino, just to sort of as a maybe different way of like limiting those without really taking out more road space, like making like a protected bike lane or something like that. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, what I'll say is that typically improvements to safety don't come from just changing the numbers on a speed limit sign. It comes from design changes that geometrically change the road into a way that drivers then slow down because the road geometry is different. So typically we wouldn't be looking to just change the numbers on a sign five miles per hour down. We would rather have more robust design changes that encourage safer travel.

So does that relate to like cameras as well?

DOES GBI HAVE SPECIFIC VIEWS ON DOES GBI HAVE SPECIFIC VIEWS ON CAMERAS? CAMERAS?

SPEED SAFETY CAMERAS IN THE SPEED SAFETY CAMERAS IN THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA ARE CURRENTLY STATE OF CALIFORNIA ARE CURRENTLY ONLY ALLOWED IN SIX CITIES AS ONLY ALLOWED IN SIX CITIES AS A PILOT PROGRAM. A PILOT PROGRAM. CITY OF SAN MATEO IS NOT ONE OF CITY OF SAN MATEO IS NOT ONE OF THE SIX.

part of anything that is does that also like happen to red light cameras though like i know there's like that one intersection near 24 hour fitness like where someone recently died like do you think it was like related to red light so do you think like maybe like sort of putting in some of those could improve some safety without like i don't know maybe like geographical changes or no

So generally, yes, red light running cameras can help at signalized intersections. I think in the context of El Camino Real, that would be up to Caltrans traffic safety investigators and city staff to figure out. any new implementations of that type of automated enforcement. So that could happen regardless of this broader Grand Boulevard initiative.

All right, great. Thank you. And also, I noticed that you guys have these different zones with letters for areas where you're going to implement changes, and maybe those are independent of each other. But have you considered making changes for a specific part of one of these areas? I'm more concerned about like where Aragon Boulevard is. Like I know a lot of my classmates use sort of El Camino after school, maybe biking to downtown or things like that. Have you considered doing any sort of like maybe additions or prioritizations of things like bike lanes in those sort of maybe not whole general areas, but more specific things?

So I'll just note that this map is specific to parking. But I hear your point about just whether we're considering kind of improvements to specific parts of the corridor. So we do have a whole list of spot improvements that we recommend that are included in the plan. I would say anything off of El Camino would be up to the city to implement and deliver. And I know they have their own plans for priorities in terms of various corridors.

All right. Thank you.

Hi, thank you so much for your presentation. My voice is a little hoarse today. I'm coming off of a cold, but, um, I, I think this was in one of your earlier slides, but I think it was identified by city council in February of this year that they kind of wanted to zoom out and see more of the big picture and how, um, just look at other cities as well. So I was wondering like with the alternatives that we've seen today, And like going into the future, will these be continuous? Because I mean, looking at alternative four, we're like, we're considering keeping parking. And then there's alternative three where there's like a separated bike lane. I would prefer for the entire El Camino, the central El Camino plan to have that continuous experience for people that are using the road. But I don't understand how that's being approached.

yeah i did not get much of a chance to talk about that today because that's part of the broader gbi effort um so as a part of the project initiation document that i mentioned and just as a part of the the gbi task force that we regularly convene we do talk about those issues related to continuous facilities. All of the cities on El Camino are considering the same set of alternatives. You know, there's various differences in terms of right of way width, and you can do more things in some places. You know, Millbrae has a very wide right of way, for example. But the reason why we did this GBI action plan was to kind of come up with a universe of options that everyone is considering. And then throughout the next couple phases that we're doing with Caltrans, so both the project initiation document and then the PA and ED phase, we'll be making sure that, based on everyone's preferred alternative, that there are continuous facilities. So maybe there aren't going to be bus lanes up and down El Camino the full 25 miles, but there will be continuous segments that benefit the bus. Otherwise, that facility doesn't really provide any use. And same goes for bicycle lanes and wider sidewalks and other types of improvements.

Okay, kind of shifting in a different direction. Just clarifying, but there's no hierarchy to like the needs or like kind of the ideas that were put forth by city council or anyone considering like congestion or like safety. I mean, we're just looking at these like as like ideas that we all want to incorporate within this plan. There's no like, okay, congestions are number one thing that we're trying to solve here. or we're trying to add more bike lanes. There's no hierarchy there, right?

That's a great question. So I mean, there are various policies that we're referencing, such as the Caltrans policies, that do put some hierarchy of needs in place. So bicycle facilities, safety, having space for pedestrians are prioritized over parking, for example. And, you know, you kind of have to look at a variety of Caltrans policies to determine that. But through this process and through what Aaron spoke to in terms of like the purpose and need statement, that's how we're going to be calibrating that and quantifying it.

Okay, perfect. In terms of community outreach, I was also interested in how youth were incorporated. I know that like within like the San Mateo Union High School District, there is a youth board and like a board within I think the PTA for multimodal improvements and how those are going to be constructed and like just like working in collaboration with the city. So I was wondering whether there was any outreach done with them as well.

Yeah, so I will note that through GBI, we have a variety of community-based organizations and youth leadership initiative is one of them that's involved. We also present frequently at SAMTRANS to our community advisory committee, which has a very strong youth presence. And luckily, a lot of the cities have youth commissioners on their councils that we present to And a lot of the outreach that we did, we specifically tried to target, you know, places where people, coming to places where they are. So going to the library, making sure we're, you know, able to access seniors, access youth. But if there are specific ideas about youth engagement, we're definitely open to that. And yeah, excited to hear that there is excitement from the next generation.

Okay, I think this was like my last question, kind of a suggestion. I know that like amongst like in the business survey, there was an interest in loading zones. So I was wondering how that could be incorporated when you're going into your next stage of like refining alternatives, maybe an alternative for

So loading zones is something we'd consider in all the alternatives. It's kind of like a level of detail that we haven't gotten to yet because right now we're just kind of at this big picture, like what is the corridor going to look like at a very high level? And then as we get into more detailed design work, as I mentioned, that PA and ED phase, that's when we are able to kind of look with a magnifying glass at specific blocks and think about, What are the loading zone uses? And that's why it's so important we do very extensive engagement at that time. Because, you know, for example, talking to businesses, if we do have to remove parking, for example, is there an opportunity to add loading? Is there parking that can be, you know, parking colors that can be changed on, you know, adjacent streets, for example? You know, adding more temporary parking, things like that.

Okay, yeah, that's all for me today. Thank you.

Okay, well thank you very much for that. So I'd like to ask my commissioners to have a short capping phrase, a comment on what we've heard tonight.

Chair, could I ask one more question?

It's a dollar.

I'll pay you later. Youth Commissioner Singh reminded me of a question. Thank you. I was curious about, for the other cities in central El Camino, Do they also have concerns about parking? Like did this parking conversation come up in other engagements that you've had with other cities? All the cities have businesses like on El Camino. So I'm just curious about, could you give us a vibe check on like how parking was discussed in those other cities?

Yeah, so I would say that parking definitely always comes up, whether you want to talk about it or not. IT'S ALWAYS FRONT AND CENTER PEOPLE'S MIND. BUT I WOULD SAY THAT IT REALLY DEPENDS ON THE CITY. SO FOR EXAMPLE, REDWOOD CITY HAS DONE A LOT OF WORK ON EL CAMINO AND REALLY THERE'S A LOT MORE HOUSING. THEY'VE REMOVED PARKING AND OTHER PROJECTS. SO I FEEL LIKE THERE'S MORE UNDERSTANDING IN REDWOOD CITY OF PARKING REMOVAL. And, you know, there's a lot of collisions and bicycle users there also. So there's a lot of desire for bicycle lanes. So it's definitely something that comes up and is something that we have to address and mitigate. But I would say that that's just kind of understood as part of the larger ecosystem of choices, you know, trade-offs. And then in terms of Belmont and San Carlos, I mean, each... Both of those cities don't rely on parking as much on El Camino itself. I think San Mateo is relatively unique, especially in the southern portion where there are so many businesses that are facing El Camino and where you use that parking, where in San Carlos, And Belmont, I mean, Aaron can speak to this also, but I think that there is kind of dependent on the side of the street, more interest in maintaining the west side for parking and more acceptance of removing the east side because there's a Caltrain parking lot there. So I think it's really dependent on the city, but it's always going to come up. But I think it's something to weigh in consideration of other tradeoffs that you're considering.

Alrighty. Well, why don't we finish up the evening with some comments? What do you have? We'll start at the end.

That's you. I really enjoyed reading it. I think it was well done. It really checked a lot of boxes for me. I really feel like you guys are on the right track. And just let's keep pushing this thing.

Yeah, thank you for your hard work and for your continued hard work. I think Alternative 4 has been, we've all made a point about that. As it continues, I think there's a little bit of making sure the community understands the realities of those alternatives. And then on the community engagement as you go into it, I think what I mentioned about we would quantify some of those, kind of explain a little bit more. I don't think people just make sure that they're not reading your report and that they're understanding what they're choosing and that it's kind of accurate. For example, you mentioned in the CBOs that you're giving some stipends. I think I heard that you're expecting the CBOs to provide the childcare. Something to think about, whether those CBOs have the capacity to provide the childcare as well, making it easy for people, whether it's through vocabulary or through the choices or through Be But Attend, being able to make it easier for people to participate. Thank you very much.

ARE WE ALSO MEANT TO RECOMMEND APPROVAL FOR THE CITY COUNCIL TO GO AHEAD AND DO THE RESOLUTION?

I THINK ULTIMATELY WE WOULD LOOK FOR A MOTION AND A VOTE IN TERMS OF RECOMMENDING THE COUNCIL ADOPT THE RESOLUTION GOING FORWARD.

OKAY. SO I WOULD SUPPORT THAT WHEN IT COMES TO THAT. IT'S PAGE 12. YEAH. OKAY. AND THANK YOU FOR YOUR WORK.

Okay, great. So thank you so much for the presentation and answering all of our questions. You can see that we're very interested and the public should be interested too. Next time I expect people, public comment people to arrive. So, all right. cassie i think i said this before the last time you were here but you know this is a really exciting thing you're doing thank you for your leadership um this can has been kicked down the road so many times prior with prior you know gbi initiatives or equivalents um so just thank you so much uh this feels very real um with the money you know hopefully the money secure like part of the money secured on the table It just feels like this is this is it like we got to do it. Of course, it's millennials who are doing it. But, you know, it is what it is. So. I THINK THAT WE HAVE TO GO FOR BROKE AND HAVE TO ACTUALLY ENGAGE IN THE HARD CONVERSATION ABOUT FUNDAMENTAL AND STRUCTURAL CHANGES ON EL CAMINO REAL. AND THAT'S OUR OBLIGATION AS LEADERS AND OFFICIALS AND EXPERTS TO ENGAGE WITH OUR COMMUNITY AND OUR RESIDENTS AND OUR, YOU KNOW, THINGS HAVE TO CHANGE. AND SO I WANT US TO REALLY JUST AND SO I WANT US TO REALLY JUST THINK ABOUT HOW TO FRAME THAT THINK ABOUT HOW TO FRAME THAT AND I WOULD URGE CITY COUNCIL AND AND I WOULD URGE CITY COUNCIL AND CITY STAFF TO REALLY THINK ABOUT how to actually have those hard conversations. And what is the budget? You know me, I always like to talk about money. The budget, the capacities that the city staff need in order to really meaningfully figure this out with the backbone, not backbone, the back end reality of fundamental change. I really do think we need to move the conversation to that level. And I think the community members and residents need to hear that. They need to have the opportunity to think about what that proactive vision could be. And that's why I think GBI is very exciting. And I think that's why the general plan, 2040 that we did, THESE ARE PROACTIVE VISIONS AND THESE ARE PROACTIVE VISIONS AND THE GENERAL PLAN HAS A THE GENERAL PLAN HAS A CIRCULATION ELEMENT THAT TALKED CIRCULATION ELEMENT THAT TALKED ABOUT HAVING BRT ON EL CAMINO. ABOUT HAVING BRT ON EL CAMINO. I LOOKED IT UP. I LOOKED IT UP. THIS IS STUFF THAT WE'VE THIS IS STUFF THAT WE'VE ACTUALLY TALKED ABOUT AS A CITY. ACTUALLY TALKED ABOUT AS A CITY. TOTALLY UNDERSTAND THAT WE TOTALLY UNDERSTAND THAT WE HAVEN'T DONE OUR COMPLETE HAVEN'T DONE OUR COMPLETE STREETS PLAN YET BUT I DO THINK have been socialized. We have been going down the path of these fundamental structural changes, and I would like us to continue to engage in that style of conversation. Okay, that's the big stuff. Smaller stuff, in terms of more detail, I would love further data on Like, what is happening on El Camino vis-a-vis parking? Jay, I totally understand that wasn't in the analysis. I don't know if it's even possible. I don't know if the police reports or anything even track this. But it does, it is such a scary thing to park on El Camino. Like, the cars are so fast. You're on the outside, like, the driver's on the outside. Like, you're looking through your, like, you know, that rearview mirror or the side mirror, hoping for a break and, like, people going 40 miles an hour. to get out of your car, slam your door, quickly lock it, because I have an old car. It doesn't automatically lock. Lock your car, and then walk out. It's terrifying. And that's what I mean. I understand businesses want their parking. But what they actually want is they want the business. Right? The North Star outcome for our businesses and our community is continued or increased business. Parking right now on El Camino is a way they see that being enabled. But that can be enabled through other things. There is minimal foot traffic on El Camino right now because it's just a hostile place to walk. There's minimal bikes because it's a hostile place to bike. But if those people actually went into the business and bought stuff, then it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter how you get there. It matters that you go into the business and you buy something. So I think we need to have, again, that layer of conversation where the conversation is not about the proxy thing that gets you to the outcome. It's the outcome that you want. I like we want better, like not better. We want more business in our small businesses. straight up. That's what we want. We don't want parking for the businesses. We want more business. And I think having those types of structural conversations is what's needed next. And I would urge Caltrans, Samtrans, and the city staff to really think about that in this next big, lovely $15 million phase that you have for community engagement. These types of conversations is what we need. TACTICALLY, I ALSO THINK THAT THERE'S, YOU KNOW, IN ADDITION TO YOUTH LEADERS, LIKE I SAID, WE JUST HAD THIS AMAZING GENERAL PLAN FROM TWO YEARS AGO. YOU KNOW, ALL THE PEOPLE, ALL THE LEADERS WHO ARE ACTIVE IN GENERAL PLAN DEVELOPMENT, I WOULD ENCOURAGE REACTIVATING THEM, BRING THE AVENGERS BACK AND HAVE THEM ACTUALLY ENGAGE ON THIS TOO BECAUSE THIS IS SUCH A BIG AND IMPORTANT THING. WE JUST HAVE SO MANY AMAZING LOCAL LEADERS, SOME OF THEM WHO JUST RETIRED FROM THIS COMMISSION WHO MIGHT BE REALLY IMPORTANT AND INTERESTED IN GETTING MORE INVOLVED IN THIS SPACE. AND I THINK, LET'S SEE. I think that's it for now. Thank you so much. Really looking forward to the next time you guys are able to present to us. And public, please come and provide comments. We want to hear from you. Thank you.

And it's often said that if nobody shows up, it means you're doing a good job. So yeah, definitely. Thank you. It's always really interesting to listen to your perspective and what you generate. What Kim said really resonated with me, really, really resonated. We structurally need to figure this out. I used to race bicycles back in the day, and I'm pretty fearless. I would not ride an El Camino. I would not ride over Hillsdale Boulevard, you know, with those two lanes that are going on. No way. It's like Evel Knievel might do it. So how would we expect average people to do it? It's not going to happen. I think you're correct. There needs to be a mindset shift. I think... I could be wrong, but I think two things. If we could figure out how to get rid of the left turn, it would eliminate the clogging of El Camino and you get way more throughput, which is I think what you're after. And the other thing is, In your mind's eye, if you could picture, yeah, let's say we got rid of parking. But let's say we put parking in strategic areas and had robust bus service going back and forth that was reliable. If you missed this bus, you could see the next bus coming, like in Denver. It's really cool. I think people would willingly give up their parking spaces for that type of level of service, as opposed to it feels like there's one bus every 40 minutes. And especially in this modern era where we want instantaneous right now, I get it. I get how that works. So yeah, we have a lot of work to do. We're glad we have really smart people working for us. And think outside the box and not do traditional what we used to do. We need to come up with great suggestions. Okay. That's it for me. I think that's it for, for everybody, unless staff has anything they want to add. Yeah.

Just, I would look to the commission to consider the recommendation in terms of recommending the council adopt the resolution. So we'd be looking for a potential motion and second vote on that.

The words were just coming out of my mouth. So thanks Matt. So yeah, on page 12, I'm sure you're all read it. I'm not going to read it to you. Uh, we have, um, a motion, uh, ANY BRIEF DISCUSSION ON IT QUESTIONS OR DO WE WANT TO SOMEBODY WANT TO MAKE A MOTION TO APPROVE?

I CAN MAKE A MOTION TO APPROVE IT.

A SECOND?

I'LL SECOND.

PERFECT. OKAY. IF WE COULD TAKE A ROLL.

COMMISSIONER LEE?

AYE.

VICE CHAIR RENAUD? YES. CHAIR GRANTS? YES, PLEASE. COMMISSIONER RITA? YES. AND COMMISSIONER MAKEL? YES. MOTION PASSES.

Perfect. Well, thank you very much for that. And are there any other reports or announcements that we need to hear about?

I'll just say in terms of upcoming meetings, TBD in terms of topics. So that's where we're at.

Okay. Just like that. Okay.

Thanks for the summary. It was a good summary, too.

If there's nothing else, I'll hold the meeting adjourned. Thank you, everybody.

recording stopped so