April 10, 2023 Council Transportation Committee

Video

Agenda

Speaker Summary

(18 speakers)
SpeakerWordsTime
Chair Ellen Kamei3,48524m
Public Works Director Cameron3,33223m
Principal Civil Engineer Gonzales2,31315m
Member Lisa Matichak1,56611m
Member Alison Hicks1,74211m
Assistant Public Works Director Skinner1,2019m
Bruce England1,4848m
Unknown Speaker1,1457m
Jesse Cupp1,2176m
Associate Civil Engineer Cheng8846m
Cliff Chambers7104m
Serge Bonte6904m
Consultant Lightbody5403m
Albert Jeans5173m
City Traffic Engineer Lopez3522m
Philip Cosby117<1m
Transportation Manager Lo21<1m
Public Speaker5923m

Transcript

1. CALL TO ORDER

[00:00:03] Chair Ellen Kamei: Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the Council Transportation Committee meeting of April 10th. This private meeting allowing public comment both in person and virtually. Instructions for addressing the committee virtually may be found on the posted agenda. Committee member Hicks. Would you like to make a request?

[00:00:28] Member Alison Hicks: I suppose you want me to make a request. What is it? I have not been keyed on in on what kind of request I should make.

[00:00:38] Chair Ellen Kamei: Did you, if you go to your email? There should be an agenda phone. And you must announce that you are, uh, participating virtually, and I didn't know if you wanted to turn your camera on, we don't see you, but. So,

[00:00:54] Member Alison Hicks: yes, I'm uh, participating virtually due to illness. I've tried to turn my camera on several times, but it says you cannot start your video because the host has stopped it.

[00:01:07] Chair Ellen Kamei: Oh, yeah. How about now?

[00:01:48] Transportation Manager Lo: Council member Hicks, are you there? Are you doing it? sorry.

[00:01:56] Chair Ellen Kamei: Laura, you trying to get her on? No, like, yes. Oh, there we go. Great.

[00:02:02] Member Alison Hicks: I'm here. It still says that I cannot, I'll try one more time, turn my video on. Yeah, it still says you cannot start your video because the host has stopped it.

[00:02:13] Chair Ellen Kamei: We will work on that in the meantime between us.

[00:02:16] Unknown Speaker: So on this doctor video, which is traffic. This stuff, yeah, this podcast. So, um,

[00:02:24] Unknown Speaker: Just sign back out and sign back in. Or Or can she? I know you, can she sign back in as participant? We promote her back up to general. That's what's just how. Oh.

[00:03:01] Unknown Speaker: No, she had a lunch geopathic.

[00:03:05] City Traffic Engineer Lopez: Let me go to my office stuff.

[00:03:07] Chair Ellen Kamei: Okay, okay, all right. Okay, councilman or sorry, Mayor Hicks, um, Mr. Jensen will work on enabling your video. I think in the meantime, you'll be audio for now. Would you like to make a statement?

[00:03:28] Member Alison Hicks: So the statement, I suppose, is that I am participating virtually due to illness.

[00:03:35] Chair Ellen Kamei: Great. So, Mayor Hicks, do you have your agenda phone?

[00:03:44] Member Alison Hicks: I do not have the agenda flow, but I can get it up.

[00:03:49] Member Lisa Matichak: Because actually, it looks like she needs to add the

[00:03:51] Public Works Director Cameron: vote on it. Yes. The email would have come from lower low, sending you the agenda flow. Okay, great.

[00:03:58] Member Alison Hicks: Yeah, I haven't looked at it in the past 15 minutes, so I guess I missed it.

[00:04:10] Chair Ellen Kamei: So, uh, it's just the, it says pursuant to government code. Section 549 53. I am requesting to participate in this meeting remotely through both audio and visual technology under the emergency circumstances provision due to a contagious illness that prevents me from attending in person. And then I don't know how many other persons over 18 years of age are present at this remote location with you, but if you'd like to announce that, then I can add that for you and maybe you could just say, so moved and then we can have a motion from, um, Committee member Mattachek and I can 2nd it and we can move on.

[00:04:56] Member Alison Hicks: Okay, so is it, um, how many other persons

[00:05:01] Chair Ellen Kamei: over 18 are currently with you?

[00:05:04] Member Alison Hicks: There are no other persons over 18 or under 18 currently with me. Okay.

[00:05:11] Chair Ellen Kamei: All right. So if you don't, I guess, I'm hoping that you can say, um, You know, uh, so, so moved or, Did she say that? She have to read it verbatim or do I? Well, go ahead.

[00:05:25] Unknown Speaker: I think member Matachek should make the motion.

[00:05:28] Member Lisa Matichak: Okay, so I move that we accept, um, committee member or, yeah, committee member. It says, uh, absence pursuant to the government code.

[00:05:37] Chair Ellen Kamei: And I will 2nd that.

[00:05:39] Chair Ellen Kamei: So vegan... I think we'll have to do a roll call vote since we cannot see her visually. Okay. So, uh, Committee member Mattachek. Yes. Chair Kamet? Yes. And committee member Hicks.

[00:05:56] Member Alison Hicks: And I have one other technical question. How will you see me raising my hand? Should I use the raised hand or can you not see that?

3. ORAL COMMUNICATIONS FROM THE PUBLIC

[00:06:11] Chair Ellen Kamei: That says, yes. Okay, great. Raise your hand, and you may be getting text messages for text support as well at this time. Okay, great. Okay. So I'll move on to. Yes. Thank you. Uh, I'll move on to item number three, oral communications. This portion of the meeting is reserved for persons wishing to address the committee on any matter, not on the agenda. Speakers are allowed to speak on any topic for up to 3 minutes during this section. State law prohibits the committee from acting on nonagenda items. Would any member of the public on the line like to provide comment on a non-agenda item? If so, please click the raise hand button in Zoom, or you may approach the lectern. We'll take in-person speakers 1st and staff will display a timer on the screen. Hi, Mr. Jeans. All right, slides. Okay, oh, perfect. Okay, I'm assuming Steph has those. So I'll give them a moment. And stuff will also take time. Oh, do you have a slide?

[00:07:14] Public Works Director Cameron: Well, you have his slides, then you screen, you need to screen. Could you screen share his slides? and I'll run the timer on my iPhone for this one. Okay, number one, so.

[00:07:48] Transportation Manager Lo: Screen or just scroll through. Yes. Okay.

[00:07:56] Chair Ellen Kamei: Well, I'll start. Is that okay? Slide one please. Thank you.

[00:08:04] Albert Jeans: Good evening, Cher Kamei, Mayor Hicks, and Counselor Mata Check. Today, I would like to ask you to reconsider the necessity of continuing with the Shoreline bus light. You know, topic near near my heart. After COVID, commute change, patterns have changed. Shoreline Boulevard is no longer the parking lot that used to be, as you can see, comparing 2019 with today. Next line, please. This is a famous or infamous intersection of the shoreline and La Avenida and 101 off. Actually, some 2000 vehicles still enter North Bayshore through this intersection during the morning peak hour. But this is actually 400 fewer vehicles and pre-COVID. And that's enough to prevent the long queues we've seen previously. Although the shoreline bus line was immediately appealing because it would allow buses to bypass the long lines we used to see on shoreline. It's important to remember that it was only one of several measures that were seen as necessary to bring future commuters to a fully built out North Bay shore. The idea was that Caltrain and VTA would bring large numbers of commuters to an improved transit center. And then a fleet of buses within carry them to North Bay Shore. At the time that the bus lane was conceived, neither the fleet of buses nor the large number of North Bay Shore commuters. arriving via Couchman or VTA existed. Instead, Google used its huge private fleet of buses to bring people in on the freeways, as it still does. As you can see, there's a long way of buses on there. coming out of there this morning. Next flight, please. However, one of the parts of the solution is now in serious jeopardy. I recently learned a Caltrain writership. It was recently reporter that Caltrain writership dropped precipitally recently during the pandemic, is now only a fraction of what it used to be. Altron is project projecting an ever increasing operating deficit. for reach over half a $1000000000 per year. Within 10 years, unless actions are taken to reduce costs, like reducing the number of trains, not increasing the Next slide, please. The fact that the freeways are as crowded as ever, the fewer people are taking mass transit indicates that people have a continuing aversion towards public transit. Here we see the Caltrain parking lot mountain view, which has been pretty much vacant since the COVID start. With hybrid work schedules, even with hybrid work schedules, you know, fully built out North Bay Shore may not result in the congestion we saw before. Making a dedicated bus plane unnecessary. Xbox, please. In conclusion, almost all the assumptions made about future commuting into North Bay Shore are no longer valid. The number of on-site workers and their willingness to take a struggling public transit system, must be reevaluated. At the very least, we should pause for the construction of the shoreline bus lane, until it can be demonstrated that will actually serve a real need. And, you know, all the design work is done, but, you know, just pause it and see what happens. Thank you.

[00:11:08] Chair Ellen Kamei: Any other in-person speakers? All right. Not seeing any, I know we have someone virtually. So I believe Ms. Love will put the timer up. And then we will move on to Mr. England.

[00:11:27] Transportation Manager Lo: Okay, Mr. England.

[00:11:29] Bruce England: There we go Thank you, chair. This is really fast. You probably don't even need the timer for this. First off, I want to echo what Albert Jeans just said, I think pausing that project does make a lot of sense. I know they're moving parts. Um, that maybe we're not considering, but, um, the way he described it, I think it does make sense at least the way that he described it. And then the 2nd thing I wanted to bring up is just want to thank you, thank you, thank you for doing public facing hybrid meetings. Some of you know, I've been talking about this quite a lot. over past months as a community organizer. I really count on being able to ask people to attend meetings, at least listen to meetings, et cetera, without having to go to city hall and just be able to click on the link and go to it. So thank you for making this happen for this meeting and for any meetings. I know we don't have them 100% yet. But, um, we're getting there. So I'm feeling really good about that process. Thank you. Thank you.

4.1 Approve Meeting Minutes

[00:12:29] Chair Ellen Kamei: That concludes coral communication. So we'll move on to item four. Minute approval. The minutes for the May 3rd 2022 meeting are presented for approval tonight. Are there any corrections or comments on the minutes? Seeing none? Do we have a motion? Oh, sorry. Um, any public uh, input on the. Okay, see none. Is there a motion? Committee member Mazchek?

[00:13:01] Member Lisa Matichak: I know that we approved minutes from May 3rd, 2022, right? And mayor hits.

[00:13:10] Member Alison Hicks: Well, I wasn't there, but I can 2nd.

5.1 Latham Street Neighborhood Traffic Management Program

[00:13:13] Chair Ellen Kamei: Wonderful All right, so we have a motion in a second. So we'll do a vote by roll call. The vermata check? Yes. Uh, Member Hicks? Yes. And chair commit. Yes. Great. Thank you. So I'll move on to item number five, new business. 5.one. is the Latham Street neighborhood traffic management program. Sad presentation will be provided by Tim Chang, assistant civil engineer. Go ahead.

[00:13:43] Associate Civil Engineer Cheng: Thank you. Good evening, chairperson Kame and committee members. My name is Tim Chang, and I am with the Traffic Engineering Division. I'm here to present the proposed improvements on Latham Street following the neighborhood traffic management program process. That's fine. There we go. After presenting the status of the Latham Street, NTMP, thus far, I will be bringing the CTC, the staff recommendation to approve an exemption to the minimum 35% postcard ballot return rate, and the NTMP guidelines, and proceeding with the installation of traffic coming devices listed on the postcard survey. Speed humps and electronic speed feedback sites. Here is a quick overview of the 7 step NTMP process. A petition is received to start the NTMP process, which is followed by data collection to determine if the speeds on the street exceed the program thresholds. If so, staff holds a neighborhood meeting to discuss potential traffic coming devices, which are then sent via a postcard survey to the established voting area. If the proposed devices are approved by the neighborhood. They then go through the approval process and are installed. Speed data is later collected to determine the effectiveness of the improvements. For Latham Street, the city 1st received a petition for NTMP to address speeding between Ortega and RingStarf in September of 2021. Due to similar complaints previously received for the adjacent segment on Latham. Staff contracted the petitioners to reach out to residents between Bringstaff and Escoba. Their city received a petition for this segment in April of 2022. The city collected data, and both segments qualified to continue with the NTMP process. We held a neighborhood meeting in August 2022. The residents of the meeting came to the consensus that the best solution to reduce speeds on Latham Street is to install speed humps and electronic speed feedback signs. Based on the neighborhood meeting feedback, postcard surveys, including speed humps and electronic speed feedback signs, were mailed in September of 2022. And here is, uh, here are some samples of the proposed improvements that were included on the postcard survey. For the NTMP guidelines, a minimum of 35% of the postcards mailed must be returned. The return postcards, a super majority. Approval is required to approve installation of a traffic coming device. For Latham Street, a total of 1200 postcards were sent out. Staff initially received 101 postcard ballots back from their residence. We then perform 2 additional outreach efforts in attempts to meet the 35% minimum threshold. First, we worked with the interested community members who went door to door to encourage residents to return postcard ballots, providing them ballots in both Spanish and English. This was in December of 2022. Second, staff recent postcard ballots to residents who did not already return postcards, and this was in January of 2023. As a result of additional outreach, 236 additional postcards were returned for a total of 337 responses. Which is still short of the minimum required amount of 420 postcards per the guidelines. This slide here summarizes the results of the postcards that were returned, both the speed humps and electronic speed feedback signs receive strong support from the residents, showing over 80% support. We are currently in the approval process. And because the 35% postcard ballot return rate has not been met, staff is bringing a recommendation to CTC to approve an exception to the NTMP process, and to install traffic coming devices for the following reasons. One, staff believes we have done are due diligence in reaching out to Latham Street residence multiple times. Um, 2 meets NTM, P criteria. Uh, such as the speed speed thresholds. And three. Um, we have strong support from the postcards that were returned over 80% for each traffic coming device. Therefore, stuff is here to recommend that CTC approves an exception to the minimum 35% postcard ballot return rate in the NTNP guidelines and proceeding with installation of speed humps and electronic speed feedback stunts on Lathon Street. If recommendation is approved by the CTC, Staff will determine most appropriate location of speed humps and electronic speed feedback signs based on field conditions and complete installation of the improvements. After a one-year demonstration, period. Staff will collect speed data to determine if traffic speeds have been reduced and the installation should become permanent. Thank you.

[00:19:09] Chair Ellen Kamei: Great thank you very much. Does any member of the committee have questions? So, um, Mayor Hicks, I'm going to go with those who are present, and so, um, clean the matter check and then I'll send it to you. I see your camp, okay? Sure, great. Great.

[00:19:26] Member Lisa Matichak: You know, I just sort of had a general question about the NTMP. And, um, I guess I'm wondering, why is it that we have the meeting? And, uh, whoever attends that meeting. provides feedback on what things they would like to see, and those are the items that are listed separately on the postcard versus all the items, and then they can pick which ones. Like, what is that step forward? What's the theory behind, you know, like narrowing down at that meeting?

[00:20:03] Associate Civil Engineer Cheng: The rationale for having that meeting and having the people in attendance come to a consensus on several devices is because we want the neighborhood to, um, have the options that we know will already receive support or have seen support from from the residents that are there. If we went and listed all 10, say, 10 items on the toolbox. Uh, we, it's very unlikely that we're going to receive the uh, super majority support because there are just so many options. Does that make sense?

[00:20:36] Member Lisa Matichak: Right.

[00:20:37] City Traffic Engineer Lopez: If I can add Lorenzo Lopez traffic engineer. Uh, We we want to talk through with the residents what options are feasible. And in some cases, there are options in the toolbox that just aren't feasible for that particular street. So for example, um, Curbside trees is an example of something in our toolbox. And in some cases, there's just not an opportunity to plant mature curbside trees. you know, that is more for a new development, we would push. And that's that's really outside of NTMP. We would push for that in the development when the new development comes in to have curbside trees that will eventually become mature and have a canopy. Um, That meeting, the neighborhood meeting gives us that opportunity to kind of talk through those items and Basically, if they're interested in one, We can tell them, yeah, that's a good idea or not a good idea for whatever reason.

[00:21:39] Member Lisa Matichak: So, um, how many tools? In toolbox or possibilities on this street? Was it more than the speed humps and the computers per speed? Obviously, it wouldn't be the trees.

[00:21:56] City Traffic Engineer Lopez: Yeah, that's a good question. Sorry, I should have said the same. Yeah, um, off the top of my head, I don't recall. But it is a narrower street, so there's not a lot of opportunities when the street is so narrow to do other treatments. And, um, Yeah, I don't recall.

[00:22:16] Member Lisa Matichak: Yeah, no worries. Okay, thank you.

[00:22:18] Chair Ellen Kamei: Great.

[00:22:18] Member Alison Hicks: Thank you, Mayor Hicks.

[00:22:21] Member Alison Hicks: Ah, yeah. I may have a somewhat related question. Um, in that I was interested in that question and answer because I do see speed humps used over and over again. Yet I see a wider toolbox when I look in what our toolbox is. So, I'm, so I do have questions about, or I am wondering why that seems to be the regular go to a set of tools that are chosen. Uh whether others are regularly screened out at those meetings. I think I'm asking the same question in a different way.

[00:23:00] Associate Civil Engineer Cheng: Thank you, uh, committee member, uh, Hicks. Um, we like to recommend speed humps because it is one of the most proven devices, especially to slow down traffic. Um, a lot of the other toolbox items, um, It's not as proven, or they are better for different situations. And, uh, especially when we focus on specifically Latham Street, uh, because of the narrow street with, that's why we recommended speed humps. as a treatment. So,

[00:23:36] Member Alison Hicks: as a sort of related follow-up question, we got an email from a resident, um, saying that and I don't, I can't confirm that this is true. You can tell me, saying that, uh, Lakeham Street is a bike boulevard. I should know whether it is, but I don't know. My children did scoot and bicycle, uh, to school via Latham, as a lot of children do, as Castro and um, Nestrawler at the one end of that street. So this resident said that, um, that for a bike boulevard, uh, basically the resident says a lot of other things, that the National Association of city transportation officials or Nacto, I'm sure you're familiar with them, recommend should have been used as appropriate tools. And those are things like, um, uh, pavement. I think they mean spraying that bike stencil on the pavement. Um, a green infrastructure to slow traffic. They have, uh, I'm not going to read them off, 8 different tools that they thought were appropriate for bike boulevards, or that are supposed to be appropriate for bike boulevards, um, combined with street calming. So it did make me wonder why some of those tools don't seem to be used.

[00:25:00] Public Works Director Cameron: Thank you, committee member Hicks. This is Don Cameron, public works director. I'll take this question Actually, Nathan Boulevard is not a bike boulevard. Several years ago. There was a council plan work plan priority to study. Latham Boulevard is a potential bike boulevard. And staff conducted a full feasibility study for the necessary improvements to convert it to being a bike boulevard. And brought that to council in a study session. to receive direction and general support for putting forward those types of improvements. What we heard at that study session was that there, there really are 2 key things to do to create a bike boulevard. One is speed management. slow down the traffic. And you can use these various tools like speed humps or other methods discussed to help slow down traffic. But the other critical component is to reduce the traffic volumes. And there were sections of Latham that had volumes that were considered higher than you want to see on a bike boulevard. And therefore, the other components were things like installing traffic diverters, I think it was on Shoreline Boulevard and showers, as I recall, is that, Otega, excuse me, which basically limited which vehicles could turn on to late them and block it off to reduce the volumes. At the time, council did not support pursuing the methods to reduce the traffic volumes. So the staff responded and noted that It would then therefore not be a bike boulevard. But we would continue to pursue improvements to improve bicycling in general along late them, without all the features to call it a bike boulevard, just enhance it as a bike group. The speed humps being recommended here, which are a key speed management tool, as you heard, and a very proven measure to slow traffic. Will be of great benefit to bicyclists. And is one of the key ways that we can support. This is a bicycle group. But again, the greatest challenge with Latham is a narrow street, very limited right away. Um, there is a lot. There is not enough room to add a bike lane, even adding green infrastructure unless we're willing to remove all the on-street parking. There really is no right away to add these other types of features unlade them. So

[00:27:44] Member Alison Hicks: thank you so much for the clarifying details. I'm not going to go anymore deeply into it, I suppose, when we do our active transportation plan. As you said, it is a bike. It may not be a bike boulevard, but it is a common bike route to school. So, um, maybe we'll visit it again in some way, and thanks so much for the details and the history. Great,

[00:28:06] Chair Ellen Kamei: thank you, Mayor Hicks. And I guess just to, um, to tell off your question. The staff and vision, and I suppose when I was thinking of it, that this would, the calming might be similar to what we see on Danish Street. Like on your way to Lando's, Calderon, Dana, that would be. I guess that reading the staff report, thinking about things, is that kind of something? Okay, you're missing heads nodding. They will verbally for those who are participating hybrid will get a yes response. Yes, that is correct. Okay. Thank you. All right. Glad to know that I am envisioning it correctly. All right. Would any, does anyone else have any further questions? All right. Would any member of the public joining us virtually or in person like to make comment on this item? If so, please click with the raise hand button in Zoom or approach the lecture. We will take in person speakers 1st. Each speaker will have 3 minutes. And did you do a speak sign in, I think, for speakers? Yeah,

[00:29:10] Public Works Director Cameron: we just, you can do it after. sign in.

[00:29:12] Chair Ellen Kamei: I think I was signed. You did. Okay, perfect. All right. And staff will time you. Just one moment. Okay, go ahead.

[00:29:21] Public Speaker: All right, so, um, so I live on Latham and so, you know, residents always want to push for their own street and get more stuff for their streets. that bias, you know, acknowledging that. Um, I think, Latham probably needs more attention than maybe the scope of NTMP can provide. Um, so it's been mentioned that it's a common bike route to a school. Um, a 2nd school is being built um, in that parcel near San Antonio Station, San Antonio, between San Antonio and showers. Um, Another thing I wanted to point out is that in terms of walkable routes between our transit nodes. Lincoln is kind of really all you get in Mountain View. So between San Antonio Caltrain and Mountain View Caltrain. Um, you can take California or you can take El Camino. Both of those are uncommonly unpleasant places to walk. And maybe not the safest either, particularly of, you know, um, A lot of people live, only though, it, you know, has a lot of apartments. One of our more densely populated streets, actually. I haven't done the math on that, but just look on Google Maps. Or just walk down it. You know, it's it's dense. Um, It would have a lot more walking and biking on it if a little bit of investment went into it. And I know there are no easy answers there, you have to keep the vehicle traffic, the arcade, you know, the cars to go through and, um, you know, the street doesn't lend itself to certain improvements because of the, you know, heavy reliance on street side parking. And so, and so I get that it's hard. But, um, I want to make this point that like, if Mountain View will become more walkable, more bikable in the future, Latham is critical to that plan. A lot of people live there, a lot of people will want access to public transit if we are able to invest in that public transit later. And I think improvingly, the, for walking and biking is like a critical piece of investment or about people. I know that goes way beyond the scope of that camp. Um, I also want to throw out one other thing that was beyond the scope of NTMP was mid-block crossings. For length, this came up repeatedly in the community meeting and it's, you know, it's beyond the scope. So, you know, you got to keep it was beginning within scope. So I get why that can't come up here. But Latham is kind of unique in the sense that it has this really long lost. that forced you to go all the way around the cross and that's not great for encouraging people to walk. So it was mentioned by a number of residents that even found the benefits of a speed hump had fixed this problem at the same time, you know, ADA compliance willing that you can put a midwalk crossing there. So I wanted to advocate, um, for that in addition to all the other rambling that I did.

[00:32:13] Chair Ellen Kamei: Any other in-person speakers? All right, we have quite a few hands. So, uh, we will start with Mr. Finland. Just hold on just a 2nd Bruce. Okay.

[00:32:29] Bruce England: Thank you, chair once again. Bruce England, Lisbon Station Drive. I'm with Mound View Coalition for Sustainable Planning, Green Spaces Mountain View, and the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition Mountain View team. So I hear from a lot of people, about Latham Street in particular, and how people really want it to be something. A bike boulevard or some kind of a reasonable bike route. It's true that that it serves students to the schools. But it also serves other people. You know, it's a very long stretch. When you include Church Street, extending it, it pretty much goes all across town and people are very interested. They often bring it up as an example compared to El Camino. They say, don't improve El Camino, nobody wants to bike on El Camino, and they bring up Latham, and they say, can't you just improve Latham? So one of the problems of NTMP in a case like this is that there are more vested interests than what happens with Latham than the people who live directly in the place as the last speaker pointed out. Um, Also, Speedhumps is one kind of a one-size fits all solution, or is a common solution, is that you can wind up with situations like we have on that stretch of Dana where cars slow down for the hump and then speed up again and aggressively, uh, cut off bicyclists or honk at them or things like that, or easy street leading up to 85 or the new ones on Villa. where it just, I don't know, it just encourages people to do that stop and speed up sort of thing and just get annoyed, and then they're not in a good mood for accommodating pedestrians and bicyclists. Lastly, there has been a lot of discussion now about green complete streets and building this kind of infrastructure and biodiversity into our infrastructure and mountain view, across the board, which are really great ideas and really need to be incorporated. And that moves away from things like speed humps and speed signs, and towards really designing the infrastructure to make people slow down, be comfortable, relax, and just drive it at a pedestrian scale, in a pedestrian scale way, rather than, you know, like aggressive driver. So I don't know. I would like to see less emphasis on things like speed humps and speed signs and put more landscaping in, traffic calming, and things like that. So, um, I, I think having the NTMP program is great. It's really great. The city has it, but sometimes it points in a direction that I would consider unfortunate. I think this is one of those cases. Thank you. Great,

[00:35:05] Chair Ellen Kamei: thank you. Just the cup, just a 2nd. We'll clear the timer. There you go, Jesse.

[00:35:12] Jesse Cupp: Hello? Can you hear me? Yes. Okay, awesome. So, um, Let's see. I, I found it interesting, the discussion of whether or not um, Latham is or isn't a bike boulevard. So as we found out, it's not officially a bike boulevard, but a lot of people use it as a bike pass because the least bad option if you're going from. Say, San Antonio shopping center to downtown California is pretty high speed, pretty dangerous. El Camino is pretty high speed and dangerous. And so a lot of cyclists, myself included, use Latham. Um, since it tends to be less busy. So um, I would like to see some kind of volume control. I think that's a good idea. I think Don mentioned it was studied before where you would have some kind of partition or barrier, um, like they have, uh, on Brant Street in Palo Alto, where, you know, vehicle traffic, doesn't go through here, but, uh, pedestrians and cyclists can, and then that would, you know, discourage our drivers from saying, you know, oh, there's too much traffic on California, so I'm going to speed down, let them instead, or El Camino is too busy. I mean, to speed done, leave them, because I feel like that's how it gets used a lot. It's just kind of a shortcut for people who are, um, impatient and where where they want to get to by their car. So that could help a lot. Um. And Uh, I also just wanted to note that as someone who rides down Latham frequently on my bike, uh, the busiest intersection that, that I know of is Latham and Escuela. So that's where, There is a lot of, uh, confusion, sometimes, it's a 4 way stop and, um, A lot of times cars, I'm upset ends, both go at the same time or people go out of order or it just gets backed up and people are not sure who should go in. So, you know, whatever, whatever comes out of this. I hope that is addressed. Also about the speed humps. If we do go through with speed humps. I was recently made familiar with this, um, Term, I think it's, they're called fire truck cutouts. Um, but basically there's, uh, Cutouts of the speed hump where that are the width of a fire truck so they can go through quickly and not have to slow down for speed humps. They're also great for cyclists. And sometimes there's a middle cutout of the speed humper speed bump, and sometimes there's not. And I just want to advocate for it. If we do speed humps, I would like a little gap in the middle as well, because sometimes you want to take the side, um, area that's cut out for bikes, well, not for bikes, for fire bikes, but it's good for bikes. You want to take that, but it's blocked by like an oversized vehicle park there or some delivery truck. So it'd be nice to have a middle one as an option. And also I just want to say, um, infrastructure is not everything. It's great, but I think we need to consider enforcement as well. Enforcement of Amazon trucks, Uber, Grubhub, FedEx, uh, moving trucks, everyone who's who's park in the street. So, that would make a safer for cyclists, pedestrians, everybody. Thank you.

[00:38:14] Chair Ellen Kamei: Philip Cosby?

[00:38:18] Philip Cosby: All right, thank you. Uh, Philip Cosby with the Cavasito. St. Authanacious. I'd like to remind us that one of the original motivations for the petition, for the traffic calming on Latham, was that the neighborhood was being terrorized, on weekend evenings, cars raising off of El Camino, Down, Ortega, and then racing through Latham, with gunshots being fired into the apartments. So there was increased Police surveillance of that area. But this traffic calming measure was another, uh, component to try to reduce that. So while, you know, having, having bike lanes is certainly important. It's also important that the residents, And there are many apartments along that street that the residents feel safe. Thank you.

[00:39:17] Chair Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Cliff Chambers.

[00:39:27] Cliff Chambers: Thank you. Cliff Chambers, resident of Mountain View. Many of the previous speakers have made points that I wanted to make. And I guess I'll really just summarize, um, but Mayor Hicks brought up and, um, Don Cameron also brought up. We are going to be doing the active transportation plan. And this is a perfect opportunity to look at Latham in terms of its future role in the transportation network. Uh, given that we're gonna have green complete streets, hopefully, uh, on uh, California Street. And I think it's a perfect opportunity to look at making Nathan more walkable, bikable, safe, and I'm all for anything that we could do in speed management. We have way too much speeding in the city. It's a much broader issues than one street. We really need to have a broader public education campaign. Vision 0 is a top priority. And it all fits in together. I think, uh, this really can be addressed in a, a really comprehensive way in the act of transportation plan. So my only really request is that this do get the kind of uh, budget and focus when the act, active transportation plan is actually being conducted that it gets the attention it needs. Thank you.

[00:40:51] Chair Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Third box. Sir.

[00:41:24] Serge Bonte: Hello? Hello, yay. Oh, sorry, um, no problem. I forgot, I forgot how unmute on Zoom. I don't know. I used too many tours. Um, yeah, so I, um, I'm, I'm Selge Bond. I'm, I'm actually speaking tonight as um, uh, uh, the owner of a condo on Lefan Street by Ringsolph. Um, so I, I, I, I'm not sure if I got the card or, you know, if I did, if I received it, but I, I, I would have voted in favor, um, of a traffic calming. Uh, one thing I like about this program is that it, it enables neighborhoods to, to take action, uh, without waiting for, for lengthy plans and so on, and I think it's, uh, it's great that the neighborhood got together, essentially, to, to, to do something about the, the, the, the mini issues that people have brought up about Leifan. So, um, I'm all for this. Uh, you know, it doesn't serve everything. Uh, but it's actually something that can be done uh, in people's lifetime. Uh, and and something that the neighborhood can can feel good about uh, acting up on. Uh, one thing I wanted to mention is that I think the voting, uh, um, uh, uh, attendance wasn't as high as needed for for this type of program. I think it failed to reach the 35% limit. Um, I don't think you should deny the petition based on this, but I think it's, it, it, it goes into an issue where, um, I think it's much, much harder to do, uh, proper outreach and get people, um, connected in, in the street like Leifam, which is, uh, much more dance, much more, um, uh, with a lower socioeconomics, people with challenges. Most people living in apartments or condos, most people renters. Uh, and it's much more difficult to do outreach in in that situation than in single family homes, uh, where, you know, uh, you can literally go to door to door and and chat with neighbors. Um, so I think that the city needs to do a better job on, on, on, on doing Atridge on street like this. I think LeFan is one example, but I think you're looking at a complete street on California, and I don't know that the city has done all it can to reach out to the residents on California, whose input we should value. Thank you.

[00:43:55] Chair Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. All right, that concludes our public comment. So I'll bring the item back for committee deliberation and action. Would any committee member like to start things off? Marriots.

[00:44:14] Member Alison Hicks: Well, I'm ready to um, move the step recommendation. I, you know, taking into account everything that people said. I do think this is an important street for, um, much more than just this initial kind of traffic coming. So I do hope that we take a close look at it when we do the active transportation plan. It is a common route to school that I took every day for, I don't know, 7 years or something. Um, But also, as others have said, it's a common route for people who live in San Antonio to get downtown, people who live on, you know, closer to the downtown to get to the San Anio center. So I think it justifies a closer look, but that will be during the active transportation plan, and I'm willing to move the staff recreation in the interim. Thank you.

[00:45:07] Chair Ellen Kamei: So I'm going to take that as emotion then, Mayor Hicks, okay? Yeah. Okay, it is motion. Great. Okay, committee, member matter check. Yeah,

[00:45:15] Member Lisa Matichak: I'll 2nd the motion. I also want to add a couple comments. Um, I appreciate all the extra effort to get postcards um, and responses from people. That is definitely a very dense street and I can see why you might have challenges getting people to return the postcards. So thanks for the extra effort on that one. Um, I thought the comment was very interesting that people are not going to ride their bikes on El Camino. Yeah, we're putting a lot of effort into making El Camino, a nice place for people to ride bikes. So that's a little bit disconcerting to hear that comment. Um, I'm hoping people will feel comfortable riding their bikes on up, you know, once it's been repaved and the bike lanes are there. It should be, it will be much nicer than it is now. Um, so I hope people will use it. Um, but, um, I think this is um, appropriate for this area. Um, and It's emotion.

[00:46:16] Chair Ellen Kamei: Great. Okay, so we have a motion by Marys, um, 2nd day by council member Madachek. Um, and I'll be supporting the staff recommendation. I do agree. I appreciate the extra effort and the community members who gave public comment on this topic. I think it shows a lot of interest and I remember that people came to our council meeting in item 5 for oral communications asking us to do something. Um, and so really appreciate that we are acting on that. I think, um, some people have mentioned maybe we can take a larger look when we're looking at our home network as part of the active transportation plan. I would like to see that. I also would like to say, I would want people to want to feel comfortable walking, biking anywhere in Mountain View, not just on Latham Street, right? We want to try to improve and make our communable community as walkable and bikeable as possible. Um, and so that would be my hope, um, and to encourage, um, not being so car centric. And I think, um, you know, many people in this area do bicycle, um, because they cannot afford cars. So I'm hopeful that, you know, they'll be engaging when we go back. I think the other thing I'd like to add is that I appreciate, um, the in language postcards, I know that this community, some may be monolingual, and so it's really important that we are engaging, and I hope too, when we're having the community meetings, that we're doing translation services on the site. Um, in case people do that or know that it could be family friendly, if they if they need to bring their families to provide the if necessary. Um, so that we could get hopefully closer to the 35%. They really appreciate stops efforts. Great. So we'll take a roll call vote unless there's any other comments or okay. Hey,

[00:48:02] Public Works Director Cameron: uh, committee member hicks.

[00:48:10] Member Alison Hicks: how do you vote? Oh, sorry, I think my internet disengaged for a moment. I vote yes.

5.2 Bernardo Avenue Undercrossing

[00:48:17] Chair Ellen Kamei: Okay. Committee member, Mattachek. Yes. Chair committee. Yes. Great. Thank you to stop. All right, we'll move on to item 5.2 the Bernardo Avenue undercrossing. Sound presentation will be provided by Damien Finner, assistant public work director. Angela,

[00:48:41] Public Works Director Cameron: can you go ahead? Join us? We'll introduce you. Oh, yes, be careful for the court.

[00:48:53] Member Lisa Matichak: I need a better arrangement in the future. Yes. Along, of course. Yeah,

[00:48:59] Unknown Speaker: I need to.

[00:49:20] Chair Ellen Kamei: I'm sure my screen. Then before you but started to mind introducing. Yes. Sure.

[00:49:39] Assistant Public Works Director Skinner: First, allergy color? Now introduce yourself as well. Sure. good evening chair. And I think the camera's up. Yeah. Okay, yeah. Good evening, chair and committee members. I'm Damian Skinner, assistant public works director. I'm joined today by Angelo Beso, who's the principal transportation engineer for the city of Sunnyvale. And now we're going to provide a brief summary on the Bernardo Under Crossing and provide 2 concepts for your consideration. As soon as I get this PowerPoint up. Okay, great. Okay,

[00:50:08] Unknown Speaker: so I guess I'm sure here. There we go. Right.

[00:50:28] Assistant Public Works Director Skinner: So here we have the project location. You can see here in North and South Benora Avenue are divided by train tracks and Central Expressway, creating a physical barrier. Um, There is high density residential to the south. Including a recently completed affordable housing development in the southwest corner there. On the on the north, we have a commercial areas and uh, And we have some job centers. There we have an expanded view of the area. The Red Star shows Bernardo and Evelyn Avenue. The nearest crossing to the west, an Upper Blue Star is Wisman Road and it's about 3300 feet away. And the bottom star is Mary Avenue and it's about 2400 feet away. There we have the pedestrian level view of Bernardo Avenue and Evelyn facing north. Uh, the picture to the right is the same intersection facing east. And picture below is facing west. So, see the train, it's a nice view there. The larger picture. shows pedestrian level view of the same intersection, this time facing south. The picture to the right is intersection facing west and the picture below is facing east. The jurisdictions that have right away at the project location include Sunnyvale. Mountain View. Caltrain. And the county. And we have VTA listed here because they oversee measure B funds, and they're acting in a advisory capacity. This project is multi-jurisdictional, and it has been mentioned in various plants for over 20 years. The city of Sunnyvale completed an initial feasibility study on Bernardo Avenue under crossing. Mountain View entered into a cost sharing agreement with Sunnyvale in 2018 for preliminary design. and environmental clearance. Since then, uh, we've been coordinating with VTA County of Santa Clara, encountering staff to review and receive feedback on preliminary designs. And Develop 2 concepts, a Western and an Eastern alternative. The Western alternative shown here provides a long, straight tunnel with end to end visibility. It has a proposed skyline at edge of Central Expressway. This concept also includes high visibility crosswalks across Evelyn Avenue and Bernardo Avenue. Ramp entrances on the north side of Evelyn Avenue and Central Expressway. ADA compliant ramps, and removal of free running right turns on Evelyn and Central Expressway, to improve pedestrian and bike safety. This option, however, will impact more utilities. and trees compared to the Eastern option. And here's a zoomed out view of the alternative. Unlike the Western alternative, the Eastern alternative also uses 2 short tunnels, which provides significantly more light and amenities, thanks to use of county land for a plaza area at the mid-processing. Also, there are fewer impacts, utilities and trees, but this option. Like the Western alternatives will have high visibility cross walks across Evelyn Avenue and Bernardo Avenue. Ramp entrance is on the north side of Evelyn Avenue and Central Expressway, ADA compliant ramps, and removal of free running right turns on Evelyn and Central Expressway to improve pedestrian bike station. The only con to this option. Is the mid-crossing bin reduces anti-invisibility of the tunnel. However, it does have an open ear section with a lot more natural light. And here is a zoomed out, you know, this alternative. Here we have a table comparing both alignments. The green highlighted sales. Illustrates. which alignment is preferred for each category? As you can see here, the only advantage the Western alternative provides over the eastern is a straight tunnel within to invisibility. There are some sample. design elements that have been implemented at undercrosses and neighbor cities. This is the Santa Clara Caltrain station. You know, it's wide as arched cross section, some wall treatments. It's a mid-cross-opening. I think you could see the light in the tunnel there and some mirrors. Here we have the California Avenue and the crossing of Palo Alto. It's a little narrower. an older undercrossing, but it has park-like spaces at the entrances and they made use of wall funerals. So these are elements that could be considered for our crossing. We had a joint virtual community meeting on February 2nd to present both and across in concepts. 20 people attended the meeting. And they supported the Eastern alternative. Some of the feedback we received include requests for natural light, openings and separation of pedestrians and bicyclists. Concerns about safety, comfort, visibility, sharp turns, and drainage and undercrossing. And discussion about use of ballers and access to Eastbound Expressway. Then crossing concepts were presented to the amount of you beat back on February 22nd. They also preferred the Eastern alternative, and the feedback we received include providing our travel lanes and wider bike lanes on Evelyn. Do not use ballers, chicanes or sharp turns at entrances, ramps, or tunnels. Enhance light with median skylights and openings. The Sunnyvale beatback considered both concepts at their March 16th meeting. And like the Mountain View beat pack, they recommended the Eastern alternative as well. And the feedback we received include avoid use of bollards, provide wide cross sections, good lighting, and openings, incorporate art, reduce ramp grading at base, address drainage, and surface for ring, add traffic signals, and wavefinding for expressway cyclists, eliminate slip lanes and pork chops at intersections. In total, 21000000 and measure B. One barrier grand, cycle 2 and federal earmark funds have been awarded for the project, but 6000000 for final design. And 15000000 for construction. is anticipated that the project will cost in the range of 40 to 60000000 for final design and construction. The next step of the project is to receive Mountain View at Cityville, city council approval on the preferred alternative. From there, the next steps are environmental review. Developing a funding strategy. Final design, and construction. So we're asking the committee to provide a recommendation to the city council on the preferred alignment for the Bernard Avenue Across the Project. Thank.

[00:58:27] Chair Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Does any member of the committee have any questions? Okay, Mayor Hicks.

[00:58:36] Member Alison Hicks: Well, I'm not going to go against both B packs and recommend the other alternative, but I do have a question. The, the, um, For the Eastern alternative, you pictured, uh, gosh, I'm not remembering exactly what you referred to it as, but, uh, a sitting area, an open area, and I think maybe I don't understand exactly how that works. Can you describe it to me a little more than you did in the presentation? Sure.

[00:59:04] Consultant Lightbody: It was a mid. Yeah, thank you thank you for the uh, thank you for the question. Comedian member, Hicks. Yeah, the Eastern alternative, uh, is comprised of 2 short tunnels, and unlike the Western alternative, instead of being one long tunnel, it is broken up into 2 shorter tunnels with a, a kind of a plaza area, an opening. So it, So we're using county land to potentially, uh, make it into a plaza or some kind of space that would be below grade to the to the train tracks, but allow for a lot more light and um, just possibilities, really. So this is just a concept. We haven't designed that area yet, but that's just something that, you know, is available to us that we like to take advantage of.

[00:59:55] Member Alison Hicks: I see. So it's below grade. It lets in natural light and there's you can't describe it more because it has not been designed more than that. Is that what it is?

[01:00:06] Consultant Lightbody: More or less. Yeah. That's correct. Thank you so much. All right. So

[01:00:16] Member Lisa Matichak: is it open? Open air? So, or is it covered? It's open air. Okay, so I did attend the meeting. Um, between, uh, those on, was that March 20th? I think it was. Um, 2nd 2nd. The community room. Oh, that was. And I found the discussion really interesting. And I remember somebody asking if it's open, is that going to be a problem? It's going to be slick when it's raining. Um, and I can't remember what the answer is. It's, it will be wet.

[01:00:57] Unknown Speaker: The short answer is yes, it will get wet if it's open to the to the air above, but we have already been looking into. We have a consultancy looking at 2 pump station locations. We would have drainage, if you've ever visited the Santa Clara Caltrain station. In that tunnel, there are drains on both sides. And so it's it's designed such that the water drains away. We can also look into different textures of materials for the walkway to make sure that there's more friction, so that slipping hazards are minimized, things like that. So there are things we can do and we will have to do when it rains. Okay. And I assume

[01:01:38] Member Lisa Matichak: you would have some sort of a treatment, um, on the ramps as well.

[01:01:45] Unknown Speaker: It would be a very similar type of treatment, probably. Okay. And on the map, it wasn't clear to me, if I'm a pedestrian wanting to use this or if I'm on a bicycle. Do I have to enter at the beginning of the minute? Or can I enter anywhere along the way? You you would just enter at the at the beginning of the ramp? Yeah, because we have to come down. I believe it's about 20 feet or so to get underneath the tunnel or to get into the tunnel segment. And so that that would be at Evelyn and at central level. So you would come in there, ramp down to get underneath the train track, Central Expressway, and then ramp up. So it's not like there would be some steps or anything. We did look into stairs at the beginning of this process when we went to the joint B pack. I think that was back in 2020. Um, We did have stamps, uh, excuse me, alternatives with stairs and ramps. And, um, the community feedback we heard was we're so constrained with right of way that we know we need ramps for ADA requirements, bicyclists prefer ramps. So, Why use up the space with stairs? So we now we eliminated those. That is one of the changes with this round and we're just showing ramps. Okay. So

[01:03:08] Member Lisa Matichak: I was talking to our public works director before this meeting about. And it wasn't really clear to me what the pedestrian experience would be. I appreciated seeing examples, but, um, What what would it really look like if I lived the best? Um,

[01:03:26] Unknown Speaker: I think that the, the examples that Damien showed, uh, the Santa Clara station on the, uh, it's the Coleman side, uh, it's a very similar ramp and I don't know if we can show that that slide again. But that's a very similar experience where there is a ramp coming down from the street to go underneath the train tracks. And then with the opening in the middle, you get some sunlight, you get some air coming through. Um, so. Oh, you know, that's sure again, sorry. I will, uh... But to Damian's earlier point. This is all still very conceptual. And so what we're looking at right now is getting an alignment selected either Eastern or Western, and then that's what we'll get environmentally cleared, and then we'll go into final design where we will take all the feedback we've been hearing and incorporate that into the actual design. Um, So, so this is a good example. The larger picture there. You can see a ramp coming down. This is on, if you're familiar with this area, the Costco side of the train tracks, but this is on one side of the train tracks here and you can see the ramp coming down. There's a little bit of a distance between the retaining wall and the ramp. Our experience will be very similar, both on the Evelyn side and on the Central Expressway side. Um, it'll come down, you'll have retaining walls and then you'll go underneath the tunnel. One other option that some folks brought up that they like and Damon mentioned it in one of the sides was a separation between bicyclists and pedestrians. And so there's been some some discussion about how how do people like to see that? Homer Avenue under crossing in Palo Alto's, one example, where they have a vertical. I think it's like a 3 inch curb or differential between where the pedestrians walk and where the bicyclists ride in the center to kind of show people. Here's where you go and here's where you go. And so that's something that we could look at as well. So how wide is the homework? I can't remember off the top of my head, but I may have. Okay. Our proposal is 20 feet wide. The Santa Clara station, I believe, is 15 or 16 feet wide. And Homer, I think Homer is in the 18 to 20. So Homer is similar with to what we're proposing.

[01:05:53] Member Lisa Matichak: So the rants wouldn't be delineated, but the, um, underground part would be. Potentially.

[01:06:00] Unknown Speaker: Yeah. Because the ramps were much narrower, right? The ramps are proposed at 16 feet, so they're a little bit narrower. Okay.

[01:06:09] Consultant Lightbody: I just received word from Rio or transportation manager that it's 20 feet. Okay.

[01:06:15] Unknown Speaker: Thank you, Ria. You

[01:06:16] Consultant Lightbody: can be here today. She jet lagged. Um, let's

[01:06:22] Member Lisa Matichak: see. Is there a budget for public arts?

[01:06:29] Unknown Speaker: There will be. I understand that Mountain View has a public art program, Sunnyvale has one as well. And so I think the, we would, when we get to that point, we would figure out what is the percentage of our goal. And we, I believe in Sunnyvale, it is one% of the, of the project cost. And so we definitely are interested in that and that would be incorporated in the final design. Okay. And, um, Mountain

[01:06:55] Public Works Director Cameron: View's public art policy is 2% up to uh, cap of 400,000 per project. So given the scale of this project, even with splitting the costs with Sunnyvale. It will get close to the 400,000 from Mountain Bee. And then, see. Uh, in

[01:07:22] Member Lisa Matichak: the separate part, it referenced, um, front and future railroad standards that it has to comply with, a pastry. I was challenging to complain. And are they thinking of changing them?

[01:07:40] Unknown Speaker: So as we all know, Caltrane isn't implementing their electrification process right now. And so we have had multiple discussions and meetings with Caltrane about what could potentially become a standard that will impact this project. I know Mountain View and San Diego both, we're talking about grade separations as well. And so we've been very in tune. The 2 cities to what those standards are likely to be. So they will be challenging in some regards, but we are, I feel, as probably as educated as we can be about them at this point in time. So

[01:08:17] Public Works Director Cameron: as mentioned, those standards also are affecting our 2 great separation projects at the transit center and brain start. And it's a combination of your design standards as well as it can impact our construction. methodologies because electrified corridor, uh, can be more expensive and more challenging. For construction. Great, thank you. Um,

[01:08:53] Chair Ellen Kamei: I just have a little hiccup, which is the Wi-Fi went down on my laptop. Um, and I am trying to get re-ups with the Wi-Fi. Um, as I do that, maybe sapkin. Yes, definitely. That's okay. It's not showing any network. don't know. Um, The joys of hybrid. Thank you, everyone. Um, Mayor Hicks, do you have any other questions? No, thank you. Those were my questions. Okay, great. So I'll move on to public comment. Would any member of the public joining us virtually or in person like to provide comment on this item? If so, please click the raised hand button in Zoom or approach the lecture. We'll take in-person speakers first. each speaker will have 3 minutes. I am not seeing any in-person staff, is there anybody virtually? Yes, there are 4 attendees who have their answers. Yes.

[01:09:56] Public Works Director Cameron: Call the 1st name and then I'll give them permission to speak, and I'm going to restart my laptop.

[01:10:02] Chair Ellen Kamei: Yeah, reconnect. Can someone assist with them? Sorry, the timer? Yep, ready? Bruce England? Thank

[01:10:19] Bruce England: your chair and all. Bruce England Wisman Station Drive. Also, uh, we'll mention again, representing groups Found View Coalition for Sustainable Planning, Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition, Mountain View, and Green Spaces, Mountain View. I've been to pretty much all the meetings on this project. I've had conversations with Mound View Staff and with Angela on the Sunnyvale side, and also with the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition, Sunnyvale teams. So a lot of conversations about this. Um, a lot of good detail described about those meetings and um, the, I, so I won't repeat what was brought up there. I agree with everything that has been mentioned, the sharp turns, the 90 degree turns softening those in some way would be great. Something that isn't necessarily called out that I think is important is the public facing amenities at the 189 North Bernardo project. The developers have committed to putting things like benches, drinking fountains, public facing restrooms, and so on that can help serve people who are using it under crossing. And because that project is on the east side of Bernardo. It's another reason to favor the Eastside alternative. Um, The last thing I want to mention is that the speed limit along there on central is 45 miles an hour, and I would sure like the county to consider bringing that down, given all the new activity, the active transportation activity that we'll see in that area. I understand that they're looking at some kind of a complete streets treatment through there. I don't know if that's true, but if it is, then that could be another compelling reason to bring the speed limit down. So I'd like to see that. Um, yeah, I think I'll leave it there. I just, I like the other comments of it major in the various meetings. So in addition, the things I've said tonight, if you could consider those, that would be great. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Jesse cup. Hello?

[01:12:20] Jesse Cupp: Uh, thank you for your presentation, Damien. It was very nice. Um, and I did want to always uh, also offer uh, support for the suggestion that the bike line on Evelyn be widened. Um, I don't think it gets a whole lot of use right now, although I can't really say actually because I don't write it during the standard commuting hours, um, but when I, I go on there late at night sometimes, so it's, pretty empty. I could definitely see a lot more traffic there though. If it becomes, you know, the only available way to get through the train tracks for a long way in either direction. So at that increased traffic low, it makes sense to widen the lens. Um, I'm also excited about the public artwork going in there, and I'm happy to hear Sunnyvale also wants to pitch in. So if Mountain View and Sunnyvale both, uh, contribute our share, I think we'll end up with something really nice. And I think the plaza would be an ideal place to put public artwork. So, I support um, that option that includes the Plaza. Um, yeah, it sounds like a great project. So thank you very much. Thank you

[01:13:31] Chair Ellen Kamei: Chambers. Hi,

[01:13:37] Cliff Chambers: uh, Cliff Chambers, resident of uh, Mountain View. Uh, I really strongly support the staff recommendation. I think there's been a lot of good work that's gone into this, and I think the Eastern, uh, Recommendation is a good one. I really hope that the Homer Street division of bikes and pedestrians is seriously considered. I use that underpass quite a bit, and it works extremely well. The one concern that I have that hasn't been addressed in the staff, uh, Report or the discussion is you have a very significant uh, funding shortfall in terms of what's committed and what you actually need to complete the project. And I'm hopefully one of the council can ask staff about what are the strategies for closing that gap because that's a big gap. Uh, I really support public art in this. I've also used the California Avenue and some of the artwork that they've had is always, I smile every time I ride through there. Uh, smiles are good. Um, and finally, I just like to say that this project was initially studied back in 2004. Uh, it's taken a very long time to fruition and I'm, I think collectively, we need to think of ways to close the time gap from initial concept to actually project delivery. It always gets more complicated as more jurisdictions are involved. Transportation planners oftentimes say it's, you know, 10 years from a project like this from start to finish, but this is obviously taking longer, and hopefully we can find ways to improve transportation choices in a more expeditious way in the future. Uh, thank you very much.

[01:15:26] Chair Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Okay, I am back. I'm gonna ask stuff to make me a co-host again, but before that happens. We'll have search bones.

[01:15:40] Serge Bonte: Yeah, can you hear me?

[01:15:42] Chair Ellen Kamei: Yes.

[01:15:42] Serge Bonte: Oh, okay. No, because I don't have a clock, so, um, in front of me. Um, yeah, so um, I support the recommendations to go for the, um, I think it's called the eastern route, uh, that that makes more sense, uh, for, for this. Um, that's actually an undercross I could have used about 5 years ago when I was commuting to an office in Sunnyvale, and back when I was actually going to an office, but no, I'm working from home, but, um, but, you know, better life than never, um, I guess, uh, uh, I have, I wanted to raise one issue is that, um, this past Sunday, uh, a woman was assaulted in the California Avenue. pedestrian underpass. Um, and, uh, you know, I wanted to make sure that, uh, both cities would do, Take seriously into conversation, the safety, uh, because the, that belt underpassing would be much more isolated, uh, with less eyes on the streets or in the tunnel than than California avenue is. I mean, it tends to be pretty busy. It happened during the afternoon. Um, so, uh, you know, um, so I don't know if it, you know, it definitely means, you know, better, uh, lights, but um, maybe, you know, consider having cameras and things like this so that, uh, they would be eyes when, when, you know, um, you know, at night or or in evenings or or even during the day, like it happened there, because, uh, uh, as much as we want people to, to, to, to bike and walk, uh, Safety is, you know. Uh, it, it, is pretty much your, well. Thank you.

[01:17:31] Chair Ellen Kamei: Great.

[01:17:32] Chair Ellen Kamei: Thank you. All right. That concludes public comment. Will now bring the item back for committee deliberation and action. Do you ever like to start? Okay. All right, mayor hits. So

[01:17:49] Member Alison Hicks: I am gonna ask a member of the public, I guess it was Cliff Chambers, asked, what are the strategies for closing the funding gap, so I thought that was a good question and would like to ask that.

[01:18:02] Public Works Director Cameron: We took that. So Don Cameron Public Works director, and yes, that's a really important question as we showed that this project's actually been successful in getting already $21000000 or grant funding, and that doesn't count the money that Sunnyvale and Mountain View's already been put towards plulinary design and environmental, which I think combined add up to about 1200, I want to say. Uh, So, But we're still going to see a significant funding gap. When we 1st started planning this, pedestrian under crossings were 20 million, 25000000 to construct, given that this one is a much longer one than your typical one, it's not unusual to expect a higher cost. But we've really seen costs explode in the last 2 years on these types of projects. We're seeing it with our other grade steps as well. So a couple things from Mountain View side, um, we do have public benefit funds from development that's happened in this uh, Evelyn area that we have in the our current plan, CIP recommended go towards this project and have more of that staff's planning to recommend as part of the next 5 year CIP. In addition, this project is listed as an eligible project to receive the East Wisman precise plan traffic impact fees. This one is listed, so we're hoping to have money that will come from those traffic impact fees that could go towards this project. Now, even when you add all of that up and can't really speak for what Sunnyvale has readily accessible, we're going to need more grant funds. And one of the things by getting us through environmental and hopefully even having enough money lined up to get through final design and getting his show already as possible. really puts us in a good place to go after more grant funds. Is there anything you want to add from Sunnyvale site?

[01:20:07] Assistant Public Works Director Skinner: I think that that hit the biggies, um, you know, in addition, I think having 2 cities be the sponsors has helped us a lot because it not only shows the regional support between our cities, but we're sharing the costs as well. And so anytime we go after grants. We partner on that. And so if we're the lead on a grant, then Mountain View provides support letters and documentation and vice versa. So we've already been successful getting some money that way. And we are, as Don said, the closer we get to being ready for final design or shovel ready, the more commitment it shows to the funding agencies. And so, you know, every step closer we get, the closer we get to getting back up. And we're committed. Both cities, I think, are very committed to making this happen. Mayor,

[01:20:58] Chair Ellen Kamei: kids, do you have? Uh-huh, go ahead. No,

[01:21:02] Member Alison Hicks: that was that was a very thorough answer. Thank you very much. That was my only. I am ready to move the staff recommendation unless somebody else wants to recommend the Western alignment. I'm going to recommend the Eastern alignment. And that is emotion. Great. Thank you. Sorry,

[01:21:22] Chair Ellen Kamei: I, yeah, I can't, I can't see you, so. Thank you for, thank you. No, I understand. Okay. So we have a motion for the staff recommendation from Mayor Hicks. did you have anything? Um,

[01:21:35] Member Lisa Matichak: yeah, I'll stick up the motion, but, um, I wanted to add a couple of things. Um, I definitely appreciate the public art. I like the examples of the other in the other cities that have art in the tunnels. I think that makes what could be a boring walk or a quick ride. Um, more interesting. Um, and, uh, I definitely would prefer a separation between pedestrians and bicyclists. And while I understand this would probably be used more by bicycles than the experience. And I think, as was mentioned, there's different types of safety. And I'm concerned about all of them. But a separation between 2, I think. And so our chair knows is good. So yes, she was once hit by or had a collision. With a... And, um, also, you know, the physical safety of as a pedestrian music, this town. So, you know, I don't know what best, um, method is to address that. I think cameras are good, but I don't know personally if that's the best solution, but I think we should absolutely figure out what it is. It is kind of a nice labored area. I don't know that I would feel comfortable walking through it. Um And probably feel more comfortable. So it's so much faster. And so I, I do think we need to figure out vegetable solution. It's great. And let's see. Yep, I

[01:23:26] Chair Ellen Kamei: agree to Eastern. Executive, right? All right, so we have a motion by America, 2nded by a committee member Mattachek. Think the, I'll be supporting the staff recommendation as well. I think, um, What I, only thing I'd like to add is I think this is a real opportunity given that it will be, I guess I would call it like a non-traditional, um, design element with the opportunity on county land and property. And so I'm hoping that the community feedback from the 2 cities VPAC, from what you're hearing, from the council transportation committee, and then further as it goes along the design process. We can really capitalize on that instead of, um, maybe other examples that are, you know, more antiquated, it could really be something that is more inviting and safer at the same time. And I did kind of look up the, um, Homer, um, treatments as um, it was getting mentioned in the public comment. And I thought it was very interesting, the raised, um, the raised treatment. And I think maybe that whatever might be effective versus just the, you know, striping or colors or, um, for people to really change that behavior because I think especially as I've gone and thinking about, um, the, under crossing, um, over the Palo Alto Caltrain station, people really on pipes zoomed down and when you're kind of walking under and I just wouldn't want, um, the, And I think people run too. So I would think people running, would want to go through and connect. I think it makes a lot of sense. People want to go out to see this creek trail. So, um, really try to think about all modes, people scooter, do all sorts of things now. really kind of widening the scope there. Um, and I didn't necessarily, um, hear how the other entities might be able to participate in the funding gap, but I know that we are getting some measure B dollars from the county. I don't know if they're going, um, public works director was talking about grants, if that's, you know, if it's

[01:25:34] Member Lisa Matichak: Vagran, it's, it's, it's, it's more

[01:25:38] Chair Ellen Kamei: about that at a later point on how we can. So I'd love to see all the jurisdictions about participating. Land is always wonderful, but it's. It'll be more than just the land contraditional from. It's just so. Great, awesome. Thank you. So we'll do a roll call vote. Okay. Uh, committee

[01:25:58] Member Alison Hicks: member Hicks. Yes, I just wanted to add my comments as well. I realized when I asked the question, made them. I just want to strongly support, um, measures for C, and I do think, you know, I, I, like, uh, council member Matichk said, I don't know that cameras are the best, but I think both the, the bike pedestrians, separation, and safety of, of pedestrians, and especially women as they, um, you know, as they, they walk in a dark tunnel. Um, I think those are important if it's going to be used. And I also particularly like the murals that were shown. Um, I forget which committing members said, uh, that's antiquated, but I, yeah, I like the murals and the, um, and I would, uh, like something sort of up to date. And also the the comments that both B-Pacs made. I thought were very relevant. So, so I would follow along with those as well. And I'm voting yes. Hey. Committee

[01:27:02] Member Lisa Matichak: member of Mattachek, yes. And share committee. Yes. Great.

5.3 Transit Center Grade Separation and Access Project Update

[01:27:06] Chair Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Thank you. We'll move on to item 5.3, our transit center grade separation at access project update. South presentation will be provided by Robert Gonzalez, the principal engineer. Just

[01:27:29] Unknown Speaker: need a couple minutes to sign it. Yeah, no problem. For me plug in over there. Oh, where's Jim going? That's

[01:27:42] Public Works Director Cameron: good question.

[01:27:46] Unknown Speaker: Just a second. Oh, good. Plug

[01:28:22] Principal Civil Engineer Gonzales: in without audio. We

[01:28:23] Public Works Director Cameron: have a little turn on technology.

[01:28:38] Unknown Speaker: Oh, this is my... Good.

[01:28:45] Public Works Director Cameron: So while they're setting up, I'll just introduce staff. So Robert Gonzalez, our principal civil engineer of infrastructure development, is going to provide the presentation. Our project manager is Joy Hilton. And she is on vacation this week, so Robert stepped in for her. We also have Jim Lightbody, who I know you know, and he has been our consultant, uh, working as a project manager on the transit center master plan and continuing to provide his expertise and support to staff as we continue to work on the great separation project. Oh.

[01:29:26] Unknown Speaker: Getting the right button here.

[01:29:36] Unknown Speaker: Thank you. Robert

[01:29:47] Principal Civil Engineer Gonzales: Gonzalez, principal civil engineer. I'll be presenting on the trend the centigrade separation project. I'll be providing a short history, final design status. as well as design updates, we have several design updates. as well as funding schedule and next steps. And here we have the plan for the great separation project as well as some milestones. These are all in the in the memo, so I won't go through all of them. But in 2017, council approved the transit center master plan. And in 2018, council, uh, approved that the project be split up into 2 phases, one being the great separation, the other one being the development of the phase two. Um, so that the great separation could move forward expeditiously. So we did that. Currently, in 2019, we did a sequel approval of the ISMND. And we are currently in final design. We began the design in July 2022. The project team shows that we have Caltrain, BTA, and the city working together. They're in the design base movement partners since preliminary design. City led, the preliminary design phase, and Caltrance is currently leading the design phase and what would continue that into the construction phase. The project delivery method will be construction management and general contractors, CMGC for short. Um, and currently the cooperative agreement shows that we have, uh, This is an old slide. I apologize. 1000000 in uh, measure beef fund drink plus an additional 7000000 that we are in the process of amending the cooperative agreement, of 3000000 an additional for final design and an additional 4000000 for the CMGC preconstruction phase. Close this up and make sure I'm getting the red slots for some reason. And all set came into it. my apologies. No that's okay.

[01:32:04] Public Works Director Cameron: So, well, he's working on that again, as as mentioned, Caltrain is now the project manager and the lead for the project as part of final design. Uh, they did hire H&TB as the consultant to do the final design. H and TV besides the engineering expertise, has an architectural team of science project. And they also have Gil on as a consultant, a set consultant, to continue to advise more on the architectural treatments, and said skills, and our consultant lead on the Castro Ped Mall helping to us to integrate in what's planned for the Castro Ped Mall into the access point for the great separation project.

[01:32:51] Chair Ellen Kamei: Is it their consent? Yeah,

[01:32:53] Public Works Director Cameron: and in this case, yeah, well, Gill's Arkansas on the Peg Mall, it is Caltrain subconsultant on 13th for the great separation project.

[01:33:06] Principal Civil Engineer Gonzales: Thank you, Don. So I'm going to move on to the design phase updates. Yeah, currently we're in the 65% phase. So between 35% and 65%, some several, so a few things have changed, with customer refinements, and some adjustments that have been made, based on the direction of council, and some of them were due to, to site constraints, and then also the Castro pet. So, the elevator at Adobe Plaza, in 2019 staff went to council and presented a study session, and in that study session, council asked to evaluate the use of both escalators and elevators for the project. And so we did that, and what we found based on that evaluation is the escalators really do increase maintenance costs. So if you've been to other transit, uh, uh, platforms, you know the elevators, escalators go out of service and they're expensive to repair, especially when they're out of doors. Um, shown on the image on the right, though, we do have an elevator proposed for the elementopy site. So that was the proposed alternative as well as a staircase with a bike channel. So that's Adobe, the Adobe Corner is probably one of our tightest corners. Um, so right now that's in the final design, and it was approved through the sequel M&D. So this is the Evelyn Ramp to Shoreline. Um, this is the, uh, shown on the, the, the corner of this picture is the public safety building, the proposed multi-use path and the Evelope Avenue on ramp. So the ramp is a corridor to the downtown area. It provides connectivity from Shoreline Boulevard onto Evelyn and towards downtown, especially for buses and delivery vehicles. It's designed to bypass a lot of traffic on villa. Um, it would, it would, um, it would divert for 200 peak hours from Villa and improve the connectivity and it would be one of the 1st homes that we construct. The 2nd the next element here is the Evelyn Evelyn in realignment. So you can see over here, the what, the image on the left. you can see my cursor, the image on the left was the 35% design proposal and that has these 290 degree turns. After the Castro Street pedestrian mall was approved by council to move forward. We recognize that the through traffic on Castro would no longer be an issue. So we're proposing actually an S curve as an adjustment to this, as a smoother transition. So we don't have we don't have to worry about the 290 degrees. So a couple of things change here is that we have two, one, two, 3 pedestrian crossings here. We can combine all of all 3 of those into one wider pedestrian crossing for both mikes and pens. The other element that we can do at the very top of this page, we have a, um, We have a pedestrian ramp here. We can widen that as well for both bike and an improvements. It's hard to see because it's behind the trees, but that's a, that's the ramp going down to the, to the concourse, correct? Sorry, where you said? Uh, behind these trees, here you can see this little kind of, um, area that has a different color. So that's the ramp that goes down onto the concourse area. So you've got stairs over here and then a ramp for bikes and pits and as an alternative. And this is Moffat Boulevard. So this is a very challenging intersection for us. It's a very tight corridor. So in 2019, this is a rendering from 2019, we shared this with with Council. So we'd like to fit in grain infrastructure, bike improvements, pedestrian improvements, parking, and VTA. This is a VTA quarter. We need bust ups on both sides. So it's very challenging. We're looking at this. We're already reducing it from a 6 lane current configuration. at the intersection. It's still very challenging. So we'll be coming back to CTC with a proposed layout geometry for this in the fall. Between then and now, we're going to be working with BPAC and presenting some alternatives to them as well. Central Expressway improvements. These are improvements that we're prosing, uh, we propose for Central Expressway. We're going to move them out of the project. So we're going to deliver them separately. So Caltrain is delivering the bulk of the project. Caltrain does not need to deliver these elements since they're not on Caltrain right of way. They are on the central expressway right of ways. will be working with the county to deliver those when and if they're necessary. Oh, I'm sorry. This is the same drawings. These are the locations for the expressway improvements on Shoreline on Moffat and on East Street. We do have a public art element for this project. $400,000 is our limit, so that's what we're gonna spend. Um, The public art element and the architectural elements are too interrelated but separate processes. So, um, the architectural elements will be delivered and designed by HNTB and their architectural, um, consulting. So we're working with our public art process in conjunction with the architect and they're communicating with each other. So the 1st element on the left is a February ninth community meeting that was held in the Adobe Building. It's kind of an open house forum where folks, folks came in and they gave feedback to us on rails, fixtures, lighting in the tunnel, landscaping, wayfinding, all of these elements that they provided feedback on what the community wanted to see. Along with that, how our visual arts committee, staff liaison was there, to listen to for input on the public art element of that. So next we went to Visual Day, the March 8th Visual Arts Committee. We've got feedback there and they identified 3 locations for public art. So the one on the left is the upper concourse area. You can see the purple area there. That's for perhaps a vertical element. And then the 2 elements on the right, um, are the main undercrossing and the Castro stairway. And in the fall, we'll be going back to the visual arts committee. As part of the project, we do have some tree removals that we'll that we'll be looking into. Um, So, in 2019, there was a there was a preliminary arborist report based on the 15% um, layout, the preliminary layout. So that identified 445 trees in the project area, total. Of those, we're looking at 185 trees that were identified for removal, according to the preliminary report, and of those 24 or heritage trees. So some of those are on the county corridor and may be removed if we remove some of those elements that we talked about on the expressway. So we'll be reassessing those. The council did approve those as part of the MND, and we're preparing and updated our birth report based on the current design, 65%. Um, and so we'll see how those numbers, um, change. We'll be going this fall to the urban forestry board with a tree mitigation point. Funding and schedule, this project will cost $136 million. 94000000 is provided by BTA measure B. Thank you, BTA. $870000000 by the city. Um, and we do have some funding grants that we are, um, what we've, uh, applied for. So we're waiting for updates this summer, 25000000 from the state SB1 program. 5000000 from the transit and inner city rail program, and 5000000s from CPUC. Some of these Bernardo will also be, I guess, they could be available. When we get further onto this. These are in designs. We, we, we kind of pull the trigger on applying for these during design. And then the schedule is the final design completion is June of 2024, so about a year from now, over a year. And construction, we can move right into construction. That's one of the benefits of CMGC, as you can get an early start to construction, that would be July 2024 to December 2026. Next steps, we'll be going back to visual arts committee with selection of an artist and public art. And in the fall, architectural design concepts, and CTC project update. And then in December, um, going back to full council for approval of the design concepts and the public art. Um, and then the PRC and our beneficial forest report, as we mentioned, for a tree mitigation plant. So with that, I'll stop there. That's just some questions. you. Thank

[01:42:29] Chair Ellen Kamei: you. Thank you very much. Does any member of the committee have any questions? Committee was a matchup. Okay,

[01:42:42] Member Lisa Matichak: so the ramp, uh, Evelyn ramp up to shoreline. Um, is that... Intended, do we expect the people who are walking or biking to use it or are they supposed to use the path, the LA stuff there, well, but... So

[01:43:04] Principal Civil Engineer Gonzales: the geometry, it provides a bike, uh, a bike lane in both directions. So you can write it as a cyclist. It's not ADA compliant, it's not designed to be, so the pathway is the ADA compliant alternative from Villa up in that direction. So

[01:43:23] Public Works Director Cameron: the multi-use path will continue under the shoreline bridge, and it will connect to a new bike path that was put in along the west side of Shoreline by a development project, and that should be done by now, which then connects directly to Villa. um, and would allow that was part of allowing for the traffic to get pipe pet traffic to continue on villa. Um, but there are other options for bicycles and pedestrians, including using villa, taking Franklin Street down develop, or can choose to use the ramp, which will have a sidewalk and and will have bike lanes on it. Okay. Okay. Um.

[01:44:13] Member Lisa Matichak: When the VAC. Talked about locations for public art. I'm surprised, um, the stairs were never done. They talk about what they have in mind in the stairs. They

[01:44:28] Principal Civil Engineer Gonzales: did. We had a good conversation about that. So we presented some options for them when we showed them some examples of public art. And there are several public staircases that have like 4 by 4 or 6 by 6 tiles. So very vibrant, very colorful. Some of them are abstract, some of them represent something of a local nature, but they look like it was, it captured their attention. So they were very much in favor of that.

[01:44:53] Member Lisa Matichak: Is it on the rise or the tread?

[01:44:56] Public Works Director Cameron: on the rise and we showed them a lot of pictures of what's been done elsewhere and it is, it was pretty stunning. I will say also the VAC, one of the things they liked about doing the concourse area and one of the things they were exploring is, you see, in that middle drawing, that's the grand staircase at the ants, they could almost visualize the possibility that the art would be the same artist that would do that concourse area and would continue something up the staircase that was part of their brainstorming and hoping to see. So, and they were leaving the door open for 2 different artists to come in. One for the vertical element would potentially be a different artist and the one working with the staircase and or the concourse

[01:45:44] Member Lisa Matichak: concourse area. So how large is the upper concourse, that purple area? Well,

[01:45:50] Principal Civil Engineer Gonzales: you can see here that on the left side of this area is the Central Expressway. And then on the right side of this area is BTA. So it's tucked into that corridor between the expressway MPT. I don't have the dimensions, but it's it's, it's, large area.

[01:46:06] Consultant Lightbody: 20, 20 feet maybe, 25 feet, 25 feet.

[01:46:10] Public Works Director Cameron: They're thinking there was. One of the issues is, um, you've got pedestrians approaching from all directions practically. So you've, So any kind of vertical element might be something more linear, that pubs the area, the rail, could, um, we were, we were going to look into how deep could we be talking for 5 feet and then how high to avoid the rail lines? But um, as they discussed it, they were interested in something that was tall enough. that you could see it from Castro Street. You could see it from across central and operates part of the kind of the gateway to downtown. Those were some of the ideas they wanted to explore. Okay. Thank you. It was very helpful. Um, Let's see. That's

[01:47:03] Chair Ellen Kamei: it for questions. Thank you. Very nice. Yeah,

[01:47:11] Member Alison Hicks: I saw online, uh, some of the examples, I think, that the visual arts committee went through and they were, they were, I thought they were impressive, but that's a comment. Um, so I think I know the answer to this and uh, but I'm, but I'm not sure. So I'm going to ask, does the area around the adobe, the elevator, and so forth, does it affect or the wall that's currently around the adobe in any way? It's a tight fit, so I'm wondering. If the wall stays as is, or if it encroaches into the current wall around the adobe parking lot and outdoor area. Yeah,

[01:47:51] Principal Civil Engineer Gonzales: thank you for the comment. Um, that was a concern in 2019 when we went for uh, the public, um, the study session, and feedback from council at that point was that we would not be, um, encroaching on the on the adobe property. So that'll stop short of that wall. So we'll protect that in place. Okay, that's good because that's really part of the Adobia building, I think. Um, then, uh, as for, The, uh, new Evelyn alignment, I like it, uh, that it's away from the, where people are sitting and eating at some of the more popular restaurants downtown. Um, I'm wondering if the placement of the crosswalk is a little flexible. Um, given that depending on how when, uh, bike traffic and so forth. It seems like maybe it could move. uh, you know, a few yards in one direction or another. That's one piece of the question. And then also, are you open to a raised crosswalk that would act a little bit of as a speed bump, but it would also allow people to, um, you know, to, to clearly have a place to cross. Yeah,

[01:49:10] Principal Civil Engineer Gonzales: thank you for the question. So we are currently in the final design phases of 65%. Those are elements that staff is discussing right now, including traffic staff and transportation staff. So placement of the crosswalk, whether it's going to be raised or at level. And then also whether it's going to be a signal or if it's going to be a, uh, uh, you know, a pedestrian, uh, But, uh, crosswalk. So all of those things are in play right now, we're working with traffic as we speak, and we can bring that back to CPC as an update. Okay.

[01:49:47] Public Works Director Cameron: I will add that, you know, some of the issues that we're looking at in terms of placement of the crosswalk has to do with, it is on an S curve. So they're going to, you know, work to line it up best for sight lines and, um, and whatever other constraints that could be in the way for the placement. So, you know, if there is a comment, preferring that, it'd be slightly moved to the west or the or the east can definitely be looked at, but trying for the most, um, obvious pedestrian walk. in terms of crossing there to access both the transit center and the staircase. Thank you, Director camera. Yeah. Yeah,

[01:50:30] Member Alison Hicks: I'm thinking about how it would read to both pedestrians and bikers and what we're kind of telling them in terms of how to flow and what's ideal depending on how we figure all that out. And I don't know the answer right now. So I was wondering if it was a little bit flexible at this point. Um. So we're, we're, was Steph about to say something else or am I, am I interrupting? No,

[01:51:01] Principal Civil Engineer Gonzales: I appreciate it. not interrupting, but I was going to mention, it's on the slide, but the design curve here is 15 to 20 miles per hour, so it is designed for slow speeds. Okay,

[01:51:12] Member Alison Hicks: that's good. Thank you. Um, I liked seeing the adjustments for Moffatt Boulevard. Um, and because I do think that that's kind of, you know, as somebody who has, um, worked with transit oriented development over the decades, that's kind of, say, the ignored other half of our downtown, um, and I'm glad we'll be, we're looking at that more in terms of walkability and bikeability. I'm, I'm wondering, have you seen since, uh, have you seen, have you seen or do you expect with the, when you can't drive over there anymore? Are you expecting big changes in terms of the volume of traffic? Gym light body.

[01:52:07] Consultant Lightbody: Yeah, there was a traffic study done as part of the environmental document. Uh, and definitely reduced volume, it's because of not having the traffic through traffic on Castro, with the closure. I don't recall the exact numbers, but it was enough to to allow the reduction in the lanes that are currently there down to the current configuration that you see. So, but we can revert the details that are pulled out of the document. But

[01:52:37] Public Works Director Cameron: this is a substantial reduction going from what was 2 lanes northbound, down to one lane, northbound, and um, for the southbound, you know, a left turn lane in a right turn lane. Which was... Like 6 lanes, was it? Southbound, 2 through lanes. Oh, wow. Two through lanes. Okay.

[01:53:02] Member Alison Hicks: Yeah, so I'm looking forward to seeing how that can make it much less auto-oriented and um, and much more of a kind of walkable downtown and bikable too, of course. Um, And then can you remind me where most of the tree, not tree by tree, because that's a lot of trees, but where most of the trees are to be removed? Are a lot of them along Evelyn for the ramp or where are the bulk of the tree removals?

[01:53:32] Principal Civil Engineer Gonzales: I don't have those details, but there were there are improvements within Central Express within the Moffatt intersection. going to be improvements. Um, including putting in all the tunnels. So when, uh, so, that it was included in the project envelope at 15% because we hadn't really, Jim can correct me, but I don't believe we had already talked about tunneling methods at that point. Yeah. And so then that as well as the Evelyn ramp, uh, were, were probably the bulk of the tree remains. We were. And

[01:54:07] Public Works Director Cameron: we meant to look up the previous RWS report to see where they were all identified. I know our project manager did. She's on vacation. We know that there were a fair number of trees on Central Expressway that would have been impacted, um, including a lot of small trees. You notice how We talked 185 or 88 trees, but only 24 heritage, you know, because a lot of these are really tiny trees. By removing the Central Expressway improvements out of the Caltrain project scope. Um, we won't need to be recommending at this time removing those trees and as the principal, so engineer Gonzalez said. Um, You know, we may have to look at it again if and when we decide those central express improvements are needed, but since they're primarily we're there to support vehicle circulation and transit shuttle circulation. Uh, we think a wait and see approach is this best now for Central Expressway. There are, there would be trees affected by the ramp on, up to Evelyn and maybe some in the direct grade separation area as well, but we do definitely need the new artist report because the other pieces, you know, after 3 years of drought. For all we know, some of those trees may have died already. maybe in poor health, unfortunately, as well as as was being stated, as we know more about the construction methods, we have to reevaluate the trees. Okay. Okay,

[01:55:41] Member Alison Hicks: thank you. And then my last question, I'm going to raise question that members of the public raise, and I just don't know the answer. Um, So, Some people have proposed that, um, that the ever ramp not happen and that we traffic instead go, villa via Franklin. And that is, you know, it's not a small, the villa in Franklin are not small residential streets. They're like by the police station and we're making some changes there. So, um, So, I, and then also asking about limiting Villa crossing Castro to bikes. I thought those were, um, you know, they're very disruptive questions, but I thought there were good questions and I wanted to know the answer. Go

[01:56:33] Public Works Director Cameron: ahead and start and we do have our traffic engineer. Uh, Lorenzo Lopez still here just in case he wants to add to this. So this, um, a couple things as noted on this slide is, this Evelyn Ramp was proposed to provide an alternate route for vehicles to access downtown in the transit center, um, that avoids the core of downtown, and having more than one route that goes in, the Evelyn as well as Villa, and then you work your way a little further south on shoreline. How helps not only the traffic disperse. But one of the issues we definitely are seeing is that once we finish closing Castro to over the train tracks, remember today, the traffic leaving the transit center can still turn right on Castro and access Central Expressway in Moffat Boulevard. Once we close that down. That's more additional traffic being added, uh, along, you know, continuing towards shoreline than we currently have today. So our analysis showed that This ramp will help remove 200 peak hour peak hour trips from the Castro Villa intersection. And that intersection in particular has, um, already has a high traffic demand, um, the Castro Pet Mall advisory commit, um, ad hoc committee when they met, saw the actual vehicle numbers and the buy compared numbers on Castro, and they were almost equal. And we already have backups that happen on Villa Street regularly. So adding more traffic to Villa, uh, once we finish closing down Castro's can cause more backups. It will probably uh, creates, um, significant issues for the shoreline and villa intersection that we just improved with new signals and bike and bed features. And, you know, adding more traffic to that intersection. We're also thinking that it could create traffic volumes such that if the idea was to send by the cars down Franklin Street, it may require then a traffic signal at Villa and Franklin. Um, And Villa does have homes along it, and Evelyn does have the residential along it. Uh, we also, When we were originally doing outreach for the transit center master plan and for the great separation and talking to the businesses on Castle Street. They were very concerned about closing Castro at the train tracks. And this is before the pandemic and it was kind of we had to do it just to close the 100 block. But even during the pandemic, they continue to raise concerns about the impacts on their businesses because, you know, they don't, although we would like more people to walk and bike to their businesses and use the community shuttle. They would like to draw people from other cities and they are still looking at. You know, cars is one of the ways that they get their business. So, This Evelyn Ramp, during the whole master plan stage as well as the great suppliminary design phase, was one of the key things that the businesses felt, it provided them some relief and comfort knowing that there was a more direct way from Shoreline Boulevard to connect to those garages on on Cherry Lane, as well as, um, for everyone else to get to and from the transit center without going through the core of downtown. So these are the things, These are some of the key, um, features about the ramp and the benefits it provides and why it's part of the project. Okay, thank you. Great.

[02:00:40] Member Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Committee member.

[02:00:45] Chair Ellen Kamei: Yes, sorry, questions. Question slash comments, I suppose. Oh, yeah, right, because I said I had one

[02:00:52] Member Lisa Matichak: more. Yes. On page nine. Um, the changes to Month Boulevard. I forgot to ask, The Northbound, right most lane, is that parking? Or what is that?

[02:01:08] Consultant Lightbody: So as it's shown here, it's a through lane, but this is actually an old... No,

[02:01:13] Public Works Director Cameron: that's actually parking. was it shown as parking? The idea, that's parking, protected bike waste with the bike way on the right side. It's between the bike lane is between the sidewalk and those parked vehicles. the entrance here. Yeah. didn't find the trees. Yes, but that far right is parking. Uh, during the preliminary design that was thought to be a possibility for um, kiss and ride drop off during peak hours and then off peak hours, the businesses along there, could use it as street parking, those were some of the things that were being looked at at the time.

[02:01:53] Member Lisa Matichak: So right now, is there any, um, areas where you can't park. outside. So there's red curbs, because I seem to recall, we weren't taking away parking as things redeveloped, and then we undid some of that. So where are we on all this? Um,

[02:02:17] Public Works Director Cameron: I think this would be a good one for that kind of history of red curb and then take it away, um, our city traffic engineer. Lopez. Try

[02:02:26] City Traffic Engineer Lopez: to tell you what I remember. Um, there were some Lorenzo Lopez city trafficking chips. There were some, uh, businesses that were properties that we developed. And part of that, the front express parking was taken away. But, Property owner contacted the city and said, in the meantime, until these future, um, Like age of life facilities come in, are you able to undo that red curve and allow us to park and we agreed. So we agreed to do that. As far as I remember, it was only one property. Okay. But we did agree to allow parking for now until these future projects come in. But now, we could

[02:03:13] Member Lisa Matichak: open it all up, if there are any that still have red curves, that didn't ask to have them removed because this says we're going to have parking on there. And actually, the current parking that's there now is going to be, if I'm reading this correctly, where the bike lane will be. Is that true? And then the new parking lane is a former through lane. Is that right? That's

[02:03:41] Unknown Speaker: approximately. In part, it's actually, this doesn't show the whole block, but in the southern part of the block. It's, as you said, protected by plane with parking in where the North Bath lane was or loading zone. And then further up, it becomes a more standard because of driveways and so forth becomes a more standard kind of buffer by client type of approach.

[02:04:08] Member Lisa Matichak: Okay. So are there any businesses who still have a red curb on the southern part of this? I

[02:04:16] City Traffic Engineer Lopez: don't recall. I don't think so. Okay. I was out there not too long ago and there was a good amount of parking. Okay. Okay, thanks. So

[02:04:26] Consultant Lightbody: I'll just add to that. Thank you for the, thank you for both of you. So, along with that, what's not showing on here is a bus stop. And currently the Adobe Building has a drop off zone. So there's no parking there, and we will have to find a way of squeezing. It's a bus stop as well. So there are multiple demands. Okay. Great.

[02:04:50] Chair Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Okay. A few questions. For, I guess, for everything that's rendered, will there be signage and way finding? They didn't see any in the renderings, but I, but I feel like in particular, the crossing on Evelyn and, uh, principal engineering is also talking about kind of consolidating some of those. Will there be like app signage? My concern is, jaywalking is that cool? Um, and I'm concerned people will do that, especially along the best curb, excuse me. So, is there play outside? Yeah,

[02:05:37] Consultant Lightbody: thank you for the question. There are plan signages. There is, and this is a challenge. We have VTA as well as Caltrain as well as city signage. So we are looking at ways to make all of that understandable and cohesive. We don't have kind of a mishmash of of signage. Yes, that's part of the design. Thank you. And

[02:05:59] Chair Ellen Kamei: then, And this could be for later. Is there a possibility? I think uh, Dr. Cameron was talking about, I think it's called Park Villa or Villa Park Thought Project, right? Was, um, There was an update where they were going to build a pathway, right? That was going to connect to the Evelyn. And is that I had seen the construction? Is that done or it can be at a different date, but I think I have some curiosity on where we are with that. And maybe if we could get a future rendering of like that side and the connectivity flow from the other side of Shoreline and that community over with the Evelyn Avenue ramp just to see kind of the network that's getting proposed there as we're making the improvements and how they fit together, I think would be, um, Really helpful. Um, excited for which street? It's like a Prometheus project. Oh,

[02:06:56] Public Works Director Cameron: London list. Okay, right? Yeah, they, yeah, one of the conditions of their project list to build that pathway that connects from the cul-de-sac end of Evelyn. Okay. Down to Villa. Right. Okay. Which is infrastructure right now. Right.

[02:07:13] Member Lisa Matichak: I the look. It done. It's done. Okay. Okay. Let's go check it. It had all of the orange stuff around the trees. Okay.

[02:07:21] Chair Ellen Kamei: Okay, okay, great. Thank you. Yeah. Because I think that had been the idea when Council looked at it, right, is that we would also encourage people that travel like west to cross over and have access as well as those living in, like off it will. part of that experience. Okay. And then something I saw in the renderings from the visual arts committee was it looks like kind of landscaping elements. And some of them looked kind of like public art slash landscaping. Is there a budget for that or would that only fall into, like, would that take away from some of the visual arts funding? Or would it be? Some of the treatment or how would... So one of...

[02:08:11] Consultant Lightbody: We tried to be as clear as possible with the VAC, but when you're doing a visual arts effort, you're really commissioning an artist, an artist comes in and they install something, and then any changes to that art are really the responsibility of the artist. We would bring them back in, unless there's something that we could do is to maintain it. That would be something. So that that was a challenge to identify kind of a living wall. So that might be an architectural element that we can work with. with a consultant to see if that's appropriate. It would, again, irrigation, I'm an engineer, I need to know where the water's going to come from, and then selecting the right wall face so that it's either northern facing or southern faces, so it's appropriate. And then the right vegetation. So,

[02:09:00] Public Works Director Cameron: yes, landscaping in general is going to be an architectural treatment and it doesn't come out of the public art budget. Thank you. We have asked them to look at, is it possible to do a living wall, but, you know, besides the irrigation, not just southern and north facing, but looking at shadows. I mean, you're down. The question is when you get sun. So they are going to look at some of those opportunities. Um, great.

[02:09:31] Chair Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Um, and I think, I think those are my, um, Those are my questions. All right. Does any member, I'm sorry. Would any member of the public joining us virtually or in person like to provide public comment on this item? If so, please click the raise hand button in suit or approach the lecture. It will take in person public speakers first. Each speaker will have 3 minutes. Yes, we will, just one moment, we're going to get your timer. Okay,

[02:10:11] Public Speaker: go ahead. Okay, so this is really short. I just wanted to 2nd be a X recommendation of a race cross walk. I think it's really important and I would actually like to see more ways crosswalks in Sydney, but I think there especially would be really convenient if that was one. I don't mind the location as much, but I would just like it to be raised. Thank you very much. Thank you.

[02:10:33] Chair Ellen Kamei: So seeing no other public speakers, I'm moving on to those virtually. Bruce England.

[02:10:41] Bruce England: Thank you, chair. Bruce England again. Lisbon Station Drive with input from myself and Mountain View Coalition for Sustainable Planning, Green Spaces Mountain View, and Bike Coalition, Mountain View team. So, um, It'll be great to see these changes take place. A lot of them. But I do want to make some comments here. One is that it can be very confusing for members of the public to know what we're looking at, like what is the scope of a particular piece of this, because in my mind, at least, and I think in others' minds, we're talking about, overall, the transit center, the public safety building, the Evelyn On Ramp, Moffat Boulevard precise plan, the Ped Mall, and the undercrossing, and knowing when to bring things up at what time, without going too long, and then being told you should have brought us up earlier. too late. So some of these might or might not apply. I'm going to bring them up anyway, so it doesn't wind up being too light. Um, One is that the, on the Evelyn on ramp over to Shoreline, I actually like the idea that Serge Bond brought up earlier and that Mayor Hicks brought up and I understand the challenges of going, taking traffic from, uh, down Franklin over to Villa. And I respect city staff. what they have to say about that and the problems with that. Nonetheless, but I will just say that from a cycling experience going from villa, up the overcrossing, you're already going up a vertical, and then you're not even up at the top of that grade before you hit a signal, and then you come down and you've got another signal at right. It's not a particularly user-friendly experience. Also, the background of Bailey Avenue, which is what Shoreline Boulevard used to be has this sort of long and dark history of what happened there, how neighborhoods were broken up and the whole experience was changed. If you look at old photos of Bailey. It was a nice 2 lane residential street, and it really got wrecked, and we're dealing with that legacy today. And I fear that we might be exacerbating it by making the overcrossing there on shoreline even worse. As far as the transit center is concerned. I have ongoing concerns about the fencing along Evelyn there that really blocks pedestrians from getting in and out of that space. It's really designed for vehicles. And there just have to be public facing restrooms there, ultimately. That is my most important concern. Also want to support the race crossing at Evelyn on the curve. And uh, uh, also along those lines, fewer signals. I mean, adding signals in, they can be avoided, great. Lower the speed, make the road, tell drivers how slow to go and what to look for. Raising that crossing and bringing speed down. Maybe you don't need to have a yet another signal to direct crossing. But if it's needed for safety, I'm all for it. Thank you.

[02:13:34] Chair Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Cliff Chambers. With Chambers? Yeah.

[02:13:48] Cliff Chambers: Thank you. Uh, Cliff Chambers, uh, resident of Mountain View. Uh, I pretty much, uh, have been to, I don't know, at least a half a dozen or more of these transit center meetings over a number of years. Uh, I'm really happy to see the progress. I'm really happy to see that the Gale team has been added to both the pedestrian, uh, mall team and the Caltrain team. So there's there's some consistency. I really do like the uh, S curve uh, treatment. I am supportive of uh, a raised uh, crosswalk. However, that rendering of the S curve has no bicycles in it at all. Some of your other renderings do. And I'll have to say, I went to the February meeting. I'm very confused about, now that you're at the 65% design phase, about bicycle circulation. It was mentioned earlier about going back to the B pack. I'm hopefully you could have some use cases from different directions and different origins and destinations to make it much clearer about the circulation, particular bicycles. I think the pedestrian is fairly clear, but the bicycles are not. And I'm really also very supportive of a cohesive treatment between the public art and the various architectural elements. I really like to see some sort of theme selected, so you can go forward. Thank you very much.

[02:15:24] Chair Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Jesse cup. Oh, hold on, Jesse. Be there. There you go. Yep,

[02:15:31] Jesse Cupp: yep, I'm here. Um, what's your name? Could you go to the slide where you show the 3 different art locations? Um. So I'm not seeing it, but I just see a big timer. But in any case, I just want to provide a few clarifying, uh, comments, um, from the visual arts committee's perspective. Um, So, I think one of the council members had asked, um, if these were sites that the public, uh, sorry, that the video arts committee had had chosen, um, and we we don't get to choose where the artwork goes. I wish we did. But if we did, we'd probably say, oh, everywhere, let's highlight the whole thing. So these were presented to us by staff as the 3 options. Um, And, um, just so you know, the, the idea is to have one artist do the, the middle section and the right section. So that's like the walls of the tunnel and the stairway. Um, so that, uh, will be done by one artist. So that's kind of a cohesive underground experience, and then the 3rd artist will do that. That section on the left, the upper concourse, um. So. There are also some concerns about, um, I guess the the area that we have to work with the upper Concourse. Like, I feel like at, uh, parks and stuff that we've been able to do in the past and Ranchdorf Aquatic Center and the community center. A lot of times we get, you know, 8 options, 10 options of where to put public art. So this one was very limited compared to that. And then, um, We have just a, I believe, 5 foot diameter limit for public art in the upper concourse and we've, we've asked staff to, um, kind of reevaluate that a little bit or think, think about other options for that. So because there are some really creative things that that we get submitted that don't exactly fit that definition, but I think would still work with pedestrians coming and going through there, such as, uh, shade structures where they're taller and supported by poles spread out over a wider area, things like that. So I would encourage, um, Robert, maybe they come to our meeting this Wednesday and look at some of the, uh, submissions we've gotten of of artist prior work because there's a big variety. Um, and and some things that we will want to consider, and you should take a look at too. But yeah, I think it's gonna come out great. Um, just wanted to, yeah, let you let you know kind of where we're at. So thank you.

[02:18:12] Chair Ellen Kamei: Thank you. That concludes our public comment. I will now bring the item back for committee comments.

[02:18:27] Member Lisa Matichak: Thanks very much. Thanks. So uh, I do think it'd be good to have a raised crosswalk. So I appreciate the comments on that, you should absolutely consider that. Um, and I do think it makes sense to have the ramp. Uh, equivalent up to shore. I would like to produce the amount of traffic on Villa. Uh, as was mentioned, there are quite a few homes on that street. And I'm a villa a lot for some reason. And it really gets backed up right now. Um, and I think people who live on that street would like a better experience. Um, so I do support that ramp. Um, See. I Appreciate that we are having public art. And I do like the location in the main concourse itself. Um, I actually would like to see more art in the, I don't know what to call it, a like the plaza area. Um, And I don't necessarily want, um, Paul Bart. Um, I really appreciate. I feel like I've saw like a broken record when it comes to this. functional art, integrated art, something to make it interesting. Um, actually, I did notice that the art that's on the corner of Moffat and Central on the Northwest corner, that is going away. Is that correct? It's part of the one other model? I think the intent was to relocate it in that area, but it'll get moved a little bit. It would have to be moved. Yeah. Um, you know, to me, that isn't the kind of art I'm looking for. Sorry. It's just, I don't know what it is. Um, but it's not really interesting. It's not colorful. It's not engaging. And actually, I just recently told the developer that when they asked me what I thought of it. And so I would like something more interesting and I do think there are opportunities, um, in the, you know, you cross the, that very wide crosswalk. It be nice to have something engaging there. Um, Let's see. Uh I'm surprised at the, uh, It seems like a short period of time for construction. I'm thrilled. It's been a long time getting there, but then it seems like the construction is a fairly robust, um, scheduled, uh, to get it done pretty quickly. So that's exciting. And, and let's see, I think that's it. Thank you. Bear hits. Gosh,

[02:21:34] Member Alison Hicks: I made most of my comments in form in the form of questions, us just after. After, after, uh, what other people have said, I guess the only things I'll, I was glad, uh, Chair Kamei, that you brought up the question of landscaping, um, because I'm hoping we can have both, and it sounds like we can, both, you know, fairly lush landscaping and uh, public art as well. I liked that, uh, Mr. Cupp brought up the possibility of shade structures of the public art, if I heard him right. That sounds like it could be exciting. Um, And, um, And and the rest of the things, I think, you know, I support pretty much what people have said so far. Um, I guess the one thing we didn't talk about is, uh, the under, uh, you know, on the underpass, and I think that's something we need to pay attention to as well. And those are my comments.

[02:22:39] Chair Ellen Kamei: Thank you so much. Um, so I'll just add a couple things that I've heard. Um, well, and start off, um, by saying, I really think that this is such an opportunity. Um, you know, our Mountain View station is one of the most heavily frequented along the Caltray corridors and kind of hearing from my committee, member colleagues. I'm really hoping that we can be creative in how we can make it inviting, welcoming but also a presence. And so, whether it's through visual, you know, visual art that's not kind of plot bar. And also like landscaping and elements. I only brought that up to think about. It seems like, you know, $400,000 might not be enough, and I would ask, like, staff. Do we only get those 3 seconds? Um, because I do think placemaking is really important and it'll be very um, critical, I think, in how it's designed, but also the kind of visual and architectural elements so that people use every element. So that people are walking, people are biking, scooting, whatever. And, and, and so that's, those are, you know, part of why I, they mentioned it. And I think how we design it and through those arts also be like the hues of how we want the circulation to be. Um, So I wanted to add that, wanted to kind of highlight the restroom idea. I think that for a lot of people who commute. You know, it takes me 3 different transit entities to make it home to Wisdom Station. And so having restrooms would be really great. Um, the rays, crossing, or just some options, I think would be something of interest to myself. I do also, you know, continue to support the Evelyn Shoreline ramp. And I can't remember. I thought we had received federal funding, but that might be for the Evelyn Bernardo. Um, Yeah, Bernardo, one that makes sense. But I, but I could see this one also being an opportunity for, you know, continued funding, um, and I would like to, to have, uh, us pursue that. But I think in terms of what I was mentioning earlier, my question, it's like connectivity, not only across Moffatt, but across shoreline, it's something that's of reports to me, um, and so how do we help that? Um, and I do want to kind of circle back. One of the questions, um, in the comments was about phasing of when to provide the appropriate feedback and I think that, um, that would be, you know, helpful, um, for the public to understand and one of the things I did notice is I went to our transit, um, our transit center website, but I didn't see this item linked. There was this like linked to like related projects, but I didn't see this one linked to there, uh, on that, what kind of, area. So I'd love for this one to be also included because it sounded like we had separated the 2 so that we could pursue funding and I'd love for it to be like. Um, and that's it, but I didn't, I think that we don't need a book.

[02:25:55] Public Works Director Cameron: No, we just needed to give you an update. Your comments. I would like to just address a couple of the comments that we've heard. So when it comes to restrooms. is not something that is planned as part of this, but it is definitely something that can be planned or discussed as part of the transit center itself. Recalling that, um, There is still, as part of the transit center master plan that at the point that Caltrain is and and we as staff are ready to really engage in the, you know, complete renovation of the transit center, the redesign of it, possibly a development project on there. That's where public restrooms can be further discussed. Um, in terms of appropriate feedback and how things can come together. A lot of things sort of happened that we had not expected when we 1st planned this, like, gastro pitball. As an example. So one of the things we're watching out for a step is that while we're pursuing the great separation project and really need to get it constructed and we're doing the interim pet mall. We do see in, you know, 2 or 3 years, being ready to start engaging the community about the design of the permanent pet mall. And hopefully maybe around the same time, we'd all be ready, including our partners, Caltrain and BTA, to talk about the future of the trans center. And through, and do those together, which then creates the opportunity to put together the final integrated plan and how, and how all this will kind of flow together.

6.1 Staff Comments

[02:27:43] Chair Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you. wonderful. Any other additional comments from committee members? All right, I am not seeing any. Thank you to our staff and consultant. So we'll move on to item 6, which is our committee, staff announcements, updates, requests, and committee reports. We'll start off with item 6.one staff comments. On camera, public works director will provide staff comment. Well,

[02:28:09] Public Works Director Cameron: I want to start by saying thank you. This is our 1st council transportation committee meeting in a year, and you saw it was a very packed agenda, so I appreciate the fact that it did go on beyond 2 hours. Um, As, as we've pointed to counsel, we've just been working with a lot of agencies in our engineering project management, sections, and um, we found a lot of projects fell behind and our traffic engineering as well. But we've been hiring, we have high hopes that over the next few months we can continue to fill positions and we're really trying to get projects going again. I say that because you're actually going to have a pretty full schedule this year. We, you're meeting again May 15th. We have 3 items already on that agenda. They're all very interesting items. We have the Meramonte project, especially since we, um, as you may have heard. We've taken that project even a further step forward than originally planned in terms of bike improvements and changes the street. It's part of the upcoming pavement project. Uh, we have the Almonte Corps study, ready to bring to you before it heads off to council. And we had the results of the Castro Bikeway Study, which was looking at bike facilities between California Street and El Camino Real, for Castro Street. So, We want to keep these things moving. We are planning another meeting in September. We have to plug down the date. I already we already have 4 items listed, so we can't do all four. It'd be way too long of a meeting. So we'll probably end up having another meeting in October or November. But this again is, we're getting these projects moving again. We're getting out the door. We're really appreciating council transportation committee being willing to meet with us. We think it really smooths the way for when we take these projects to the council. It's my report. Thank you. Uh,

6.2 Committee Comments

[02:30:15] Chair Ellen Kamei: And we'll move on then to item 6.2 committee comments. Do any of the committee members have comments or reports to share with the committee?

[02:30:27] Chair Ellen Kamei: I do not have any comments to share.

[02:30:30] Member Lisa Matichak: I'll just say thank you. It is good to see. Um, I hope. The staffing all comes to fruition, and it's good to see Thanksgiving again. I know there was a lot of other things that had been taken care of thanks to the pandemic and changes of plans that we've had to Castro Street. So it's it's nice to see, you know, we're back to things that, uh, I think a lot of people expect us to be working on. So it's good seeing all the things. Thank you.

7. ADJOURNMENT

[02:31:02] Chair Ellen Kamei: Yes, I think uh, it's really exciting. Every item on our CTC agenda is going to be interesting. Um and so I'm really thrilled. Um, and just want to thank staff for all their hard work on, um, bringing these to fruition. And I'm really seeing the interagency partnership. Um, I had mentioned last week that I had gone to the ETA, um, for one of their tours of their yard, I think, was really seeing how we're all at, uh, transit in general has really tried to to move forward. So really great. All right. So I will move on to item 7, which is adjournment, just as my battery is running out on my laptop. That's very timing. Thank you all for joining us in our 1st hybrid meeting. Our next council transportation committee meeting will be held on May 15th, 2023. The meeting is adjourned at 9:02 PM. Everyone have a great night.