Dec. 2, 2025 Council Transportation Committee

Video

Agenda

Speaker Summary

(16 speakers)
SpeakerWordsTime
Chair John McAlister8,09454m
Member Alison Hicks3,32622m
Senior Civil Engineer Houghton2,86521m
Unknown Speaker2,51215m
Senior Civil Engineer Cervantes2,03015m
Member Ellen Kamei1,88511m
Assistant Public Works Director Arango1,4208m
Principal Civil Engineer Gonzales9866m
Bruce England8544m
Adrian Brandt5053m
Daniel Hulse4183m
Mary Dateo5273m
April Webster5003m
Public Works Director Ng3902m
Albert Jeans1811m
Public Speaker1571m

Transcript

4.1 Approve Meeting Minutes

[00:00:00] Chair John McAlister: Oh. Uh, people like that when I'm on. When they cheer the college, your name to provide public comment. If you're petitioned, we can via phone, please press 6 to unmute yourself. So if they're not here, how could they understand what we said? Members of the public wishing to comment on an item by email? Oh, okay, we don't need to worry about that. Okay, roll call. All members of the committee are here. Oral communication from the public. Is there any none here? Anybody online? No hands raised. Okay, no one from there, we will go with this. We will go now to item 4, the consent calendar. Any of the, any members had any, any changes or corrections to the meeting of September 2nd?

[00:00:53] Member Alison Hicks: I have no changes or corrections to that. I have a question, a friendly question about safe routes for school, final report. Well, we're not there yet. Okay, I just want to make sure you didn't skip either. We're

[00:01:04] Chair John McAlister: only at 4.one We got that. That's down their ways there. Okay. Um, any appearing, no corrections? Do I hear a motion to accept the minutes?

[00:01:17] Chair John McAlister: Sorry, motion to accept. Second.

[00:01:20] Chair John McAlister: Say it. Oh, a favor, say hi. Hi.

4.2 2026 Council Transportation Committee Meeting Schedule

[00:01:24] Chair John McAlister: Okay, unanimously passed. One.2. The transportation committee meeting schedule. And we don't know who's going to be on the committee next year. will approve it. to those people. any corrections or additions to it. Oh, okay. Uh, do I hear emotion?

[00:01:47] Chair John McAlister: I moved. Second?

4.3 Safe Routes to School Final Report FY 2024-25

[00:01:49] Chair John McAlister: Okay, oh, if they were approving, we didn't, uh, a minute, the meetings and the calendar for the next 2026? I passes unanimously. 4.3. For safe routes to school, final report. We received a report, and is there any kind of a staff? Uh, memo on this or participation or presentation. No, it is a consent item. Well, that doesn't mean. okay. Uh, I hear uh, Council member Hicks has... I

[00:02:21] Member Alison Hicks: have a couple of friendly questions about it since I have you all in front of me. I will, um, except I do intend to accept people right now, change it. But, um, I, I've been on the committee. I don't remember taking a deep dive into it in the past. So my 1st question is, is this the way we just get it submitted to us to read and receive is the way we do it on this committee. We never do it deeper done. So it was, so I'm just going to make a couple of comments. It was fascinating. And, um, and, you know, helpful because when, at least when I was last running, there was a lot of concern around safe routes to school and we talked about it a lot. So I liked being able to review it, it was interesting to me that it, it, talked both about safety and about mode change. Um, I thought the highlight would be on safety, but there's actually no safety data in it. I believe we get that through some other forum. Um, through. I know you do safety methods on the streets in general, but so one comment is it might be nice to have some safety reporting in the, in this report, since it's called safe routes to school. Um, and then the other thing is it would be nice to show more than one year change. I found the all the tables fascinating. Um, but it was only 2 years. And so it showed that Viking decreased from last year, walking increased, and there was virtually no change in driving alone. So no mode shift out of cars, all fascinating, but only one year is not much of a trend and it would have been nice to see multiple years. Um, and, um, my comment for, um, our chair, because I know that he, he's involved in, uh, in mass transit issues, is that, uh, talking to school board members, of MVWSD school board members, there's a big, there's an interest, they use the shuttle. students do, and there's an interest in getting more, um, getting more, uh, transit access. Uh, so maybe you put your thinking cap on that. Um, And then, the, my, it also says that I noticed that only 4% of grade schoolers bike, which makes sense, because mine were too little, you know, don't try to buy a 5 year old school. Um, But that goes up in middle school and then it's almost 20% of high schoolers. So it seems like all this training is in, mainly, a lot of it's focused in grade school, it's training them for later years. But my other comment is that, um, It also, I was very happy to see that it shows how many people scoop to school on scooters. And that's how I brought my grade schoolers to school because grade schoolers can scoop. And I would like more of a focus on that in the trend. So those are all my unsolicited comments. And I moved to accept the report.

[00:05:45] Unknown Speaker: Second. Okay,

[00:05:47] Chair John McAlister: discussion now. Of course, sorry. Um, There's no reason that this committee cannot look more into the details of the safe out the school since it's a high priority to a lot of people. Never, as long as I'm cherry, you could bring up anything at any time. We can dig into it. And I had some concerns about what I read, too, that the metrics of how they showed what was good or bad, and I thought the numbers were pretty low, and so they didn't put it in context. Of some of the stuff. What I saw, I go, okay, 98% of the schools participated. So 98? So how does, who's that 2% that didn't, just, it, he's a retardable thing, you guys don't have to. Who was in charge of this other house? Yeah,

[00:06:36] Unknown Speaker: we have, um, TMED, so I'll invite her up to speak. You have specific questions. No,

[00:06:41] Chair John McAlister: not at the moment. No. Oh, no. Okay. No, um, These are observations that I have.

[00:06:48] Unknown Speaker: Understood, yeah.

[00:06:49] Chair John McAlister: But if you want to come up and say what. But so how do you okay, come back. How do you get 98% of the schools to participate?

[00:06:58] Unknown Speaker: So, yeah, these are the students that they have to do a permission slip. So to do a safety training bike rodeo, especially bike rodeos. They're bringing in bike, and we also provide loaner bikes, and then they have to turn in the permission slip to, um, join the safety. Um. This year, past years, we also can do, they also do pedestrian safety, but the bike road, they check if they are actually on bike and stopping and looking at all of those other areas.

[00:07:29] Chair John McAlister: Because the way it was worded, they said 98% of the schools participated. And that's, so the wording on it was a little confusing for me.

[00:07:40] Unknown Speaker: So all schools this year participated, all elementary school and middle schools participated. It's the number of students.

[00:07:47] Chair John McAlister: Okay, so 100% of the schools participate. Yeah, public. Yeah, but I find that. Yeah, public schools. Um, Okay. And also, they, when I was reading it, they said staff. So was it the staff of life or bike moves or whatever, is that their staff versus city staff? Was there, did you use it the same people or was it their staff that participate in some of these things versus city staff?

[00:08:11] Unknown Speaker: So does anything that happens in the school? So that's the safety training and bike rodeos are provided by safe moves. They are the safety trained professionals that they bring their bike and all the props and set up the rodeo and the safety training and they go through the students. So that staff, meaning they are staff of the program as part of the subject. Okay. Um, Yeah,

[00:08:38] Chair John McAlister: so a lot of it, When I saw it, there wasn't, sometimes there was very, I wish I had more there. I won't dwell on it since I didn't. Yeah, but they had, uh, oh, here it is, but. What here is this? Oh, March 4th, never mind. Um, But yeah, it's a little more clarity of, if you only had 20%, is, is, it was a 20%, is, is an example of how you interpret numbers. 20% could be the same as 2 out of 10. So when you say 2 out of 10, that doesn't sound like much, but when you say 20%, it gives it more meaning. So that's why when we look at the context, is I always like to see the transactions or how many people actually participated in the whole thing versus percentages. Yeah. Um, But, yeah, next, next year, now, oh. Next year, we want,

[00:09:31] Member Alison Hicks: none of us will be on the commission.

[00:09:33] Chair John McAlister: We don't know. Yeah, we don't. But

[00:09:35] Member Alison Hicks: I think it would be nice for this committee to look at, to have it as an item to discuss. Do you train on scooters?

[00:09:43] Unknown Speaker: Uh, they do train on scooters as part of their rodeos. Oh, that's great. Yes. So they because most lot of the kids, as you said, second, third, and 4th graders bring their scooters to school, so they have that.

[00:09:55] Chair John McAlister: I have an item, but I don't know if I want to bring it up at 6.2. It's evikes. So would e-bikes be under safe route to schools or a total different, uh, category? Well, it's in the right part.

[00:10:08] Unknown Speaker: Yeah. So E guys have been kind of a topic with the middle schoolers and high schoolers and last year we saw a really big number of increase. So this year, we are working with a couple of things with the high schools 1st understand how many e-bikes they have, kind of talking about the volume. Uh, in terms of how many students are biking and how many of them are evikes. Second, uh, we are working with the schools to do uh, sort of a webinar type of educational. So somebody will be on a virtual and talk through the different safety measure that the school can play various times of the day. That's one way to kind of really reach that high number of students that high schools have. And the 3rd one we are working with uh, uh, PD to uh, distribute the flyers and all the educational materials within our the events, the safety training, the bike rodeos that we have. So those are the 3 ways we are currently addressing kind of the e-bike. Um safety concerns. Okay, um, Monday

[00:11:13] Chair John McAlister: before Thanksgiving. I was sitting at my Starbucks, uh, enjoying cup coffee, and all of a sudden I heard a crash. And the crash was a 7th grader, wearing on his e-bike, broadsiding a Highlander. So the kid was going rather fast, and I was, and I was talking to the chief about this, and I go, how can we get there resource officers? Because this is, this is going to get more. We're gonna see a lot more of these accidents occurring. And I said, how can we be proactive to educate? and also to follow the laws and so forth. Los Altos has done some, uh, tweaking of their code. And we need to do this same thing to get on bird, because we're just, they're riding all over the place. They're, um, they're enjoying our sleeper. Uh, Franklin, uh, bypass. Um, they're zipping right now, but they're all, you know, they're wheeling, they're people on them. I see people aren't wearing their helmets. I see not, uh, no lights at night. And So is that something that these safe routes group that can do the education work with the resource officers, that if we need to bring PD in to start sighting kids for that, can this, your group, your staff can bring that down.

[00:12:35] Unknown Speaker: We certainly will work with them on the education side of thing and things you said, helmets, lights at night and, you know, follow the rules of the road. Those are definitely, we have developed materials and information that we'll do, whether they're siding or not, that I think, for PD too, you know, determine. So

[00:12:52] Chair John McAlister: with the middle schools or the high schools. Are you working with the administration to, are they? Are they realizing the, um, what's happening with e-bikes and the, and potential out there to harm and riding all around? And are they addressing it? Or are they relying on us? Uh,

[00:13:14] Unknown Speaker: I think it's, uh, we are trying to find the right level of, uh, approach that works for both of us, uh, One of the issues with high school is there's 3000 students and they have been, we haven't find the right venue to kind of approach them. So for elementary and middle school, we do it through PE. We go through the whole PE for 2 weeks and we do safety training and bike rodeos. We haven't had that type of structure with high school students just because it's so big. So one of the ideas is there's 2 Right beginning of the school year we'll do kind of whoever has an e-bike, they'll take some sort of a training with us. And that's when we talk about how fast your e-bike can go, importance of wearing helmet, lights, rules of the road. And then we do this webinar approach where we develop something that's evergreen and they can play it throughout during assembly during, you know, they have like a flex period. They just have a little bit more flexibility of how they would educate. But they're very well aware of this is an issue. They're trying to grapple because I think it's a pretty, like, it started and then a lot of kids now got it. So it's a, you know, the change what had happened quite rapidly. So they're still kind of figuring out what is, how they can address that. But they're they're very well aware and they're willing to work with us. Can

[00:14:33] Chair John McAlister: they, um, Can they require kids that use e-bikes to, uh, pardon? Get a permit or record in there on campus? Have they started looking at consequences of, oh, enforced? We have

[00:14:49] Unknown Speaker: definitely talked about having a permit at consequences, meaning either sighting or if you don't have a health, you know, some sort of a enforcement that even school can do. Um, But I think they want to see a little bit more of an education approach rather before they're going into that. So

[00:15:07] Chair John McAlister: are you on a timeline or is it just sort of sporadic or as we say at our next meeting? You could give us an update on e-bikes? Is that something possible? If you're making conversations with PD in the schools. Uh,

[00:15:22] Unknown Speaker: so the program, the reports, we have presented today, it's yearly. So my program has started with, you know, school year and I'm working with the schools too. So the goal is really to provide education throughout the year, throughout the school year. Um, with those 2 different venues. Um, yeah. So I think, um, what

[00:15:43] Unknown Speaker: the team is trying to say is that an e-bike is still a bike. So all of the training that is being provided for the bike training will apply to e-bikes, there's just this additional nuance of the motorized bikes and the speed that they can go at that the team is looking to now incorporate because it's becoming more of a trend to see the e-bikes for the older kids. And

[00:16:07] Chair John McAlister: I would like us to be proactive on, uh, proper use of an e-bike. back the helmets and lights and not doing pop-up wheelies and not and 2 people. And that entails the PD. Are we is there... Start some conversations

[00:16:26] Unknown Speaker: with PD. I don't know that, you know, we can promise on their behalf that they will do certain enforcement actions, but we can certainly start up the conversation together. Is

[00:16:37] Chair John McAlister: that something that, uh, I like this community to be helpful or proactive, bring it to council and so forth. So, if we get some updates on that. I say, I'm already in communication with the chief about the last one. Uh, when I saw the kid hit the thing. Fortunately, he was wearing a helmet. He got up, but he did go to, uh, Stanford, or, uh, check out, he had a, sorry. Um, but this is not going to be the 1st we're going to see. So.

[00:17:03] Unknown Speaker: It is, yeah, it's a trend that's being monitored and we're looking to kind of continuously tweak our education programs to incorporate the trends. Okay,

[00:17:12] Chair John McAlister: so in our next calendar 26, Could we have an update on this? I think we can include some information? I mean, it could be written. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Anyway,

[00:17:23] Member Ellen Kamei: so parents, oh, sorry. Um, I think the, the only question that I might, like, that I reflect on is this is focus so much on, like, the youth, but I think from what I've been hearing and observing, a lot of it is those who are in the car. Um, and so I'm not sure what the city can do to kind of address like that component because we have, you know, 25 miles an hour in your school zones and yet I see people flooring it past schools all the time. Um, you know, there's a couple areas of particular, right? Like the Crittenden area where people have reached out to council quite a bit. And so, I know we're going to be talking about our active transportation plan, et cetera. I'm just wondering how we kind of address the vehicular side of things in the educational component in conjunction. Like we try to let people know we have a vision zero. We have a safe roots to school. But the onus isn't just on like the youth, right? It needs to be, um, A. Those who are behind the wheel as well. Yeah,

[00:18:29] Unknown Speaker: so, um, as part of the back to school, that's when we really push out the driver education. So that's when we we have like how to do drop off safety. Like, we know you have to do sometimes dry drop off, but how to do it. The safest way. Um, so we do do that during back to school night and throughout the year, especially our citywide event, so Monster Bash or the day, that's when we really try to talk to the adults to say importance of staying within the speed limit and pay extra attention because Fitzgerald bike and walking. Um, Yeah, so those are the ways we are doing. I mean, vision 0 campaign that was uh, that was another venue to reach drivers and educated about driver safety.

[00:19:14] Member Ellen Kamei: If there's any, I think that's a trend that we can monitor too with like other jurisdictions on how they may be like tackling that component outside of just, you know, because those are kind of really isolated events, but it feels like, um, you know, like the holiday season, daylight savings, it just, you know, is there something we could be doing, for example, like a tree lighting or other events where we can like, re-emphasize that? um, because I'm just We will

[00:19:45] Unknown Speaker: be back at tree lighting. Okay, yeah. Because I feel like we do a pet game, which focuses on driver and paying attention and all of that. focused. You know, a little bit older and then teen and the parents. Yeah. And

[00:19:59] Member Ellen Kamei: then, um, interesting too, the tracking on the shuttle. Um, so I think that, kind of goes in line with what I've heard too about, um, youth not wanting to drive. And so, you know, the utilization of the shuttle and continuing to monitor that, I think people have really kind of, like, use our shuttle even more with our expanded hours and expanded routes. So do we need to, does council need to do even more there and invest and as we're monitoring that? I just be curious. They would like us. The school

[00:20:30] Member Alison Hicks: runner would like us too. John, you're a big advocate of school. Oh, I am,

[00:20:34] Chair John McAlister: but this, but the school board does not want to touch it because of the cost and the

[00:20:40] Member Alison Hicks: consequences of it. It's an item.

[00:20:42] Chair John McAlister: But I always, yeah, the super deuce different thing. So I was hitting up when he was at Los Altos. Yeah, I think and if we want to do that, we really have to start seeing where we get money or save money to increase our shuttle service. Uh, when I was on the VTA board before, we were able to take a bus over in Los Altos. It went past the one of the middle schools in the homestead. And they were taking a stop at 7.30 in the morning at a senior home. They go, how many people are getting on a, from a senior, he's getting on the bus and they go, oh, about zero, but you're still stopping. Well, we were able to convince VTA to change the route to, to set us go into the senior home, they picked up kids from over the highlands over a grant area and take them to the middle school and to the high school. So, but they had a bus already going there. So if we can work with VTA or if we can preach our capacity of shuttle.

[00:21:40] Member Alison Hicks: I mean, I think those are the kinds of adjustments we should be thinking about. Oh, I would like to see the

[00:21:44] Member Ellen Kamei: data and you can see where people are getting on and off, right? Oh, but I would

[00:21:48] Chair John McAlister: just, just the congestion, the drive time, the emissions and so forth. Anyway,

[00:21:54] Member Alison Hicks: I was going to say great job. I wish this program were around when my kids were in school, really training for life, I think. you so much. Any

[00:22:03] Chair John McAlister: other comments from uh, was it steam body? Well,

[00:22:06] Member Alison Hicks: just I would like to, this, you know, I think council should check in on this and know where it's going because I think it's something we've all been concerned about.

[00:22:14] Chair John McAlister: Do you want to run across CTC or you want to hit the council? How would you like to, you don't need to have 2 reports, so. I'm, I agree with you. I just saying, let's pick one or the other. Or staff so they don't have to do it twice or. My

[00:22:30] Public Works Director Ng: understanding is typically in the past, it's actually only stopped at BPAC. It was just this past, past cycle or past year or something like that where it got requested to be elevated to the CTC. So

[00:22:42] Member Ellen Kamei: maybe this is our 1st time. So maybe, so maybe when we do our item 8 council reports as chair, you can talk about how we discuss safe routes at the school at our CTC meeting and highlight it and elevate it, and then you can via our clerk, um, past the report out, to general, to our colleagues. That would be my...

[00:23:03] Chair John McAlister: We are going to change the culture a little bit here. So, yeah. We'll talk about how the best way to do it. Is that fair? Sure, okay. I can do that. Thank you. Told you. Good. That was good way to start. Okay. Did we pass that? Yeah, we have to pass the consent calendar. Okay. It was just an information. Well, yeah, it's informational, whether the action island. I think

[00:23:26] Member Alison Hicks: it's done, then it's done. That

[00:23:28] Chair John McAlister: was an information line. Yeah, we had to do that. That was action Island, and the other 2 were just... Yeah, it's just information, so we don't need to put it on that, correct? Uh,

[00:23:39] Public Works Director Ng: it was part of the consent. So I would recommend it's part of the whole conceptual show. Okay,

5.1 Transit Center Grade Separation and Access Project (Castro and Evelyn Interim Improvements), Project 21-35

[00:23:44] Chair John McAlister: I moved to accept the report. We did 414. Seconds. Okay. Any discussion? Okay. All in favor, say I? The passage unanimously. Okay, we'll just test it. I'll talk to you about that. Okay, we are into new business. Oh, please stay. Young kids. We all have kids. Do you have kids, she wants about, oh, no, that's why he went to the party. Okay, new business. Transit center, grade, transit center, grade separation, access project. Interim improvements. Okay? And I did we, I saw we got a, uh, Do we have a city, uh, Staff reporting? You

[00:24:35] Public Works Director Ng: didn't have a presentation. I have

[00:24:37] Principal Civil Engineer Gonzales: a presentation. Joey Houghton, senior civil engineer. Okay. That

[00:24:42] Chair John McAlister: looks like boom. On to me. Good

[00:24:47] Senior Civil Engineer Houghton: evening, chair and committee members. Um, before I start, I want to confirm that the public is seeing the slides. has that issue with people.

[00:24:56] Chair John McAlister: for putting that up there. Is it showing? Is it one letter from...

[00:25:08] Member Alison Hicks: Former interim city manager. One

[00:25:11] Chair John McAlister: from someone in your home. Correspondence. Yes.

[00:25:18] Senior Civil Engineer Houghton: You can start. it's not. Good evening, chair and committee members. My name's Joy Houghton, senior civil engineer, with Robert Gonzalez here, principal civil interference, and public works. And we are here to present and receive input on the concept designed for the transit center grade separation and access project, or what we are now calling as the Castro and Evelyn interim improvements. To start with some background, grade separating Castro Street from the railroad tracks has long been a high priority for the city, aimed at improving safety for all modes of travel. Starting in 2015 when city council authorized the development of the transit center master plan, which includes the transit center grade separation and access project. And I will outline the scope of that project on the next slide. 2015 was a good year. Design work for the transit center, grade separation, and access project began in 2022 with Caltrain leading the project delivery. The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, providing measure B funding, and the city serving as the project sponsor. In September 2023 at the 65% design, Milestone, Caltrain provided the city the updated project cost, which was significantly higher than the Caltrain provided cost. At the 35% design stage. In January of 2024, city council received an update on the status and cost estimates for both Castro and rank store of grade separation projects. City council selected to prioritize Renzdorf and move forward with the Castro interim improvements to implement improvements at the upgrade crossing at Castro Street. In June 2025, staff received the 35% design submittal. And today we are continuing to progress design to 65%. Now I'd like to share some background regarding the Castro Street closure. Temporary signage and barriers remain in place to prohibit fecal movements and queuing at the rail crossing for southbound traffic on Castro, toward Evelyn Avenue to support both the Castro streets program, which was implemented in June of 2020. And the casture pedestrian mall, which was established in October of 2022. The transit center grade separation and access project is the 1st element of the transit center master plan implementation, the grade separation and access project proposes to eliminate, eliminate the vehicle at grade rail crossing. Construct a new vehicle brand from West Atlanta Shoreline. A shared use path on the south side of Evelyn between Franklin and the west side of Shoreline. And under crossings underneath Caltrain tracks and Central Expressway, with access points at Castro, Sterling Road, and Adobe. As previously mentioned, council selected to prioritize the ring-storf grade separation project, recognizing interim improvements can be implemented at the rail crossing at Castro, and with council support, staff has shifted focus on the interim improvements at Castro rail crossing. With what we now refer to as the Castro and Evelyn improvements. Cast history, including the Evelyn Avenue Crossing, is a critical gateway to downtown, and a key access point to the Mountain View Transit Center. The existing crossing at Evelyn Avenue and Castro Street carries heavy pedestrian and bicycle activity with more than 1700 pedestrians and 800 bicyclists crossing the railroad tracks each day. The Castro and Evelyn interim improvements project will remove the vehicle at 3 crossing at the Caltrain tracks at Castro Street, and provide a safer crossing for pedestrians and bicyclists across the rail corridor and central expressway, improving access to both downtown and the transit sun. The proposed improvements are organized into 3 segments and will be implemented altogether. Segment one is Evelyn Avenue between Hope Street and Bryant Avenue. Segment 2 is Moffett Boulevard between Central Expressway and Jackson Street. And segment 3 is the Castro Evelyn and Rail Crossing, um, area. Starting with segment one, Evelyn Avenue, east of Castro, between Hope and Castro. The project will install a class 2 buffered bike lane on the north side of Evelyn for wetbound bicyclist. And a class 4 separated bike way on the south side of Evelyn for eastbound bicyclist. The bike lane improvements in this section will result in elimination of 2 parking spaces along Avalon Avenue. In addition, the traffic signal at Evelyn and Hope intersection will be modified to accommodate the elimination of the eastbound vehicular traffic between Castro and Hope. Continuing on with segment one, Evelyn at Castro. The project will install class 2 buffer bike lane on the north side of Paveline that transitions to a class 3 bike route west of Castro for westbound by bicyclists. And a class 4 separated bikeway on the south side of Evelyn for eastbound bicyclists. Landscaping will be installed on the north side of Evelyn, which will include Curb and gutter to restrict vehicular access and green storm water infrastructure, And also on the west side of Castro, which will include trees and planter boxes. These landscape areas will not only serve to enhance the area, but also channelize pedestrian traffic to the marked crossings. The 2 pedestrian crossings on both sides of Castro will be upgraded with Americans with disabilities act or ADA compliant curb ramps. Pedestrian crossing signage, high visibility crosswalks and street light. On the westerly part of segment one, Evelyn Avenue west of Castro, this is between Castro and Brian. Class 3 bike route markings will be installed on the north side of Evelyn between Castro and Wild Cherry Lane for westbound bicyclist. And class 4 separate bikeway will be installed on the south side of Evelyn for eastbound bicyclists between Castro and Wild Cherry Lane. The bike lane improvements in this section will result in elimination of 10 parking spaces along. Next segment is 2 Moffat Boulevard north of Central Expressway. For orientation, Jackson Street is on the right and Central Expressway is on the left. The project will convert a portion of the existing southbound class to bike lane to a class 4 separated bikeway, utilizing the existing southbound vehicle lanes which are currently closed due to the Castro Street closure. No changes are proposed to the northbound traffic or bicycle facilities on Moffat Boulevard, North of Central Expressway. Future improvements will be addressed through the Moffat Boulevard precise plan, which is currently in development and will include recommended street cross sections for this segment of the corridor. Continuing on to segment 2, Bocket Boulevard at Central Expressway. The intersection will be converted to a T intersection with the elimination of the northbound vehicular crossing at Castro. The project will modify the intersection's traffic signal to remove the rail preemption, which is a safety feature that links the railroad equipment to nearby traffic signals to clear vehicles from the tracks when the train approaches. Eliminating the real preemption will shorten the pedestrian and bicyclists wait times at central Expressway, as their crossings will no longer be delayed by the gate downtime during train activity. On Castro. The project will also refresh the Central Expressway crosswalks and install ADA compliant curb ramps on the south side of Central Expressway. Additionally, green biclane striping and bicycle ramps will be installed for bicyclists um crossing the intersection. Next is segment 3, the rail crossing at Castro Evelyn. Um, again, for orientation, Central Expressway is at the top, and down at the bottom is the Evelyn Connection at Castro. The proposed improvements at this location include elimination of the northbound vehicular access at Castro and removal of the crossing gates, traffic signal, roadway, asphalt, concrete, and concrete track panels. Elimination of the westerly pedestrian at grade crossing and widening of the existing easterly pedestrian at grade crossing from 10 feet to 15 feet. Installation of curb, gutter, and concrete surfacing on Castro south of Central Expressway to permanently restrict vehicular access. Insulation of decorative fencing along Caltrain tracks and right away to enhance safety. And upgrades to street lighting to improve nighttime visibility. Staff is currently exploring the feasibility of adding landscaping along central Expressway to further enhanced user experience. As mentioned, the project will enhance pedestrian and bicycle experience by reducing wait times at central expressway. And eliminating the westerly at grade crossing, minimizing the conflict points at the railroad crossing. These changes will result in a minor adjustment to the bicycle and pedestrian circulation. For, for pedestrians heading southbound from the northeast corner of Moffat and Central. No change is proposed in circulation or access to the transit center or downtown. There is a minor adjustment for bikes and pets heading southbound from the northwest corner of Moffat and Central. Bikes and pets will cross Central Expressway and head east to the widened at grade rail crossing and continue on to Evelyn Avenue to the transit center or downtown. This new path adds a short distance up to the travel path from the west side of Central Expressway intersection. No change in circulation is proposed for bikes and pets on the east side of Castro heading northbound from downtown or transit center. For bikes and pets coming from the west side of Castro Street heading north, they will need to cross Evelyn Avenue, head east and cross at the easterly upgrade rail crossing to continue northbound. Similar to the biped circulation, there are also some adjustments proposed to the vehicle circulation. As a result of the elimination of the northbound vehicular access on Castro Street, Westbound vehicles on Evelyn heading northbound to access Moffatt Boulevard, or Central Expressway will be routed to Villa Street, through either Bryant Street. Or Franklin Street. From Villa Street, vehicles will use Shoreline Boulevard to connect to Central Expressway to head northbound on Moffat Boulevard or continue on to Central. Similarly, um, southbound vehicles originating from the north, heading into the transit center or downtown, will continue to have access via Shoreline Boulevard. Villa Street. And Hope Street. Staff presented the design concept to the bicycle and pedestrian advisory committee on November 17, 2025. The impact made a motion to request the CTC to have staff convey community desire to keep both pedestrian crossings at Caltrain right away. In addition to the motion, the beat pack provided the following feedback, including anticipate high pedestrian and bicyclist counts, convert easterly crossing on Evelyn to a diagonal crossing, remove parking between Wild Cherry Lane and Castro Street, conduct a walk audit with design team and the public. Add bicline improvements on Northbound Moffat Boulevard, um, north of Central Expressway. At the bicycle ramp near the easterly crossing on Evelyn Avenue. Add signals at the 2 Evelyn Avenue crossings, and add ballers to the south side of Central Expressway. Based on staff's initial assessment, staff will incorporate the, the elements highlighted in green. And staff will continue to evaluate the items in gray and need further feedback from the CTC for inclusion in the project scope. Moving on to project costs and next steps. The project is funded through final design, utilizing the 2016 VTA measure B funds, the current project cost based on the 35% design plan is 6.6 million. The project has sufficient funds to construct a project when design is complete. For next steps, um, staff will evaluate feedback and CTC feedback, and we'll forward a recommendation to city council to approve the design concept in advance to final design in early 2026. Final design of the project is expected fall of 2026. And construction is anticipated to begin early 2027. To conclude, I'd like to displace that recommendation to the committee on the screen. Um, we've, stuff has presented the project update and we welcome your feedback on regarding. Yeah, thank you. Oh,

[00:40:14] Chair John McAlister: awesome. Okay. Um, Okay, does any members of the committee have a following? Does any members have the, well, ask a question. Does any members of the committee have questions? My question. Okay, only one? I have more than one. Good, thank you. Okay, go for it. So,

[00:40:33] Member Alison Hicks: I think my questions fall into 2 categories, kind of the, um, This is a gateway to the downtown, so ones that, uh, that talk more about that. Um, and then the sort of more of the kinds of things that BPAC covers are 2nd, although maybe other people have those same questions. So maybe I, maybe I'll even let other Committee members ask those. Um, so, I'm wondering, oh, why should I have one that is not about a gateway? Since we're not doing the great separation. I read an article on, uh, the train station in Palo Alto that they're going to use, because they can't do their grave separation right now, either, um, they're going to use AI for safety, basically, what that seems to entail is that, um, with trans is they can stop on a dime. Um, so they get an advanced warning that there may be somebody or something in their way. Um, And is that something that we're looking at to enhance safety? So that software

[00:41:45] Public Works Director Ng: package, I'll call it, is called Rail Sentry. It's already being deployed in other places. Um, The city and VTA are looking to enter into agreement where VTA would give us some corridor improvement funds. Um, in order to have those installed at Sunnyvale, uh, not Sunnyvale, Mountain View locations. Sorry, I was there for 13 years. That's how it... Great,

[00:42:13] Member Alison Hicks: great. Since we can't do the great separation, I think that's a good safety step. Um, that's the answer I wanted. Then, since this is a gateway. Um, to the pedestrian mall and to, hopefully, an enhanced Muppet, you know, back and forth. Um, Okay, my 1st question on that is, what kind of planter boxes are these, is, and what's the reason for them? Is it because we expect to continually upgrade the area, maybe do a great separation at some point? So you want the trees to be mobile or?

[00:42:52] Senior Civil Engineer Houghton: Exactly it in the event that we find the funds to construct the great separation in the future. We want to minimize the impact, the trees in the future by being able to relocate them at a different location rather than cutting them down. And

[00:43:10] Member Alison Hicks: then, are you having, we have a, uh, designer for the downtown or we did in the past? Um, Are you running any of this? You know, the decorative fence and the, the, um, the container, the planter boxes. Are we running it through someone for, you know, let's see, not an interior decorator, an exterior decorator?

[00:43:39] Senior Civil Engineer Houghton: Not at this time, the decorative fencing will be consistent with what's already out there, um, which is a caltrain standard. The black ones with kind of the circular pattern on top. Um, and as far as the planters, we have, I believe other projects we can look into that have used them in the past that we can consider for this. this But just like some consideration

[00:44:05] Member Alison Hicks: that it is a gateway and that, and then the other thing is the, um, the pictures you showed, I don't know if I, they, when you showed the separated bike ways. It was, um, shaded in brown, I would say. And I think that it was, I think that what you were showing when you were showing the separation for the bike was, was stripes on the road. I think, but I might be wrong. That's how I was incorporating the graphic. And it

[00:44:38] Senior Civil Engineer Houghton: will also have vertical elements. Oh,

[00:44:40] Member Alison Hicks: we'll have vertical elements too. What elements? What are the? Oh, like, um, I don't know the technical name for them, but the black rubberized homes? Or armadillos.

[00:44:53] Senior Civil Engineer Houghton: Taller, higher vertical elements, um, some ballers and it will be consistent with the other ballers proposed for the downtown area. Okay. I

[00:45:02] Member Alison Hicks: just, you know, there's, there's many ways to do it, and since it's a gateway, since it's not, Frankly, the way we used to look at Moffatt was, this is a roadway off to Nowheresville. Um, and there was no thought put into it, and I think that makes a difference. That was not true. You know, in our downtown, there was a lot of thought put into how the sidewalks were designed and and trees and so forth. And I think it's time for us to look at this as what's, is right in the scent, part of our city, and to have some consideration of, um, what it means to be a gateway. So I guess that's, That's where my question is going, but I'll make that, that would be a statement, not a question. Um, So. The rest of my questions are. That, um. We had 2 resident make various kinds of requests, but I don't know if I don't want to dominate the question. I'll let, I'll let, you want me to ask because I'm just reading off. So we had a, um, We had a Mr. Bozels suggest a quiet zone. Is that something that, uh, could be looked into or is being looked into or cannot be looked into. We answer the resident's question.

[00:46:27] Public Works Director Ng: We have a quiet zone project on this year's CIP. Uh, the team that would be delivering the quiet zone has had several vacancies recently in recent times. Um, and so that'll be looked to get started up, uh, sometime in, Spring or so of 26. Okay,

[00:46:49] Member Alison Hicks: so if Mr. Bezos listening, he now has a timeline. Yes and a timeline. Um, he also asked whether it would be possible to do a pedestrian scramble. And I think if other committee members can help me. I think he means over Central Expressway. You thought that's what it meant to be. Where they are converting them to the

[00:47:09] Chair John McAlister: one side, it's. Yeah, a triangle alert photo. I guess that was some staff report, but. Yeah. To

[00:47:18] Senior Civil Engineer Cervantes: our knowledge, uh, this is a well, well, 1st this is a Santa Clara accounting intersection. So they would be managing. We can certainly communicate that to them as a as a question. Um, to our knowledge, I don't think there's another expressway intersection in Santa Clara County that has a scramble. That

[00:47:36] Member Alison Hicks: would make it super fun if it was here. People would come just to scramble. Possibly.

[00:47:43] Chair John McAlister: We could do that at Village.

[00:47:44] Member Alison Hicks: Well, ask the question and say, who knows?

[00:47:47] Senior Civil Engineer Cervantes: can do that, but it won't be part of this project. Okay,

[00:47:50] Member Alison Hicks: just answered it for you. Okay, just ask. Um, and then he also asked, but I don't know if this is in the category of future improvements. Moffatt Central Expressway Curb Extensions.

[00:48:07] Chair John McAlister: The right turn, if you're coming west on Central Expressway, and you're making a ride on the Moffat, you're going right into the bike, if you bring up the slide. Yeah,

[00:48:18] Senior Civil Engineer Cervantes: so the the project limits will not include the expressway. Um, so we, then we may do some striping in the expressway. Um, Based on the county's approval, but we won't put bowl bouts into the expressway. So if the question is, would we consider bulbouts into the, into Moffat? That is also part of the, we can communicate that out too, for future. We are we are working together with a precise plan. The Muffet precise plans also in development.

[00:48:50] Chair John McAlister: He's referring to the lower left hand corner. Where you can see the crosswalk, basically, is where people are turning right, so people would be going into the crosswalk. The cars potentially. Okay, so we

[00:49:03] Member Alison Hicks: have 3 answers here, the curb, curb extensions is refer for future improvements. Pedestrian scramble as we'll ask that question just as a point of interest and the quiet zone is we're working on it. Okay. And then, Mr. Kuzmo asked some questions as well. Um. Can the new updated signals provide a separate right turn phase for traffic coming from Moffatt. And implement a no right turn on red. So this, I imagine, was the BPAC question about signal? Maybe related to that. This

[00:49:50] Senior Civil Engineer Houghton: is something we can discuss with the county that, as principal civil engineer, Robert Gonzalez mentioned, this is a Santa Clara County owned and operated intersection. And any improvements to the signal facing, um, will need to be coordinated.

[00:50:07] Chair John McAlister: So similar to El Camino, we asked, but they said, no. Okay. Just to help you out on that one. Okay. Okay,

[00:50:16] Member Alison Hicks: so the answer to that is maybe. Um, Then uh, there was a request that sidewalks on Moffatt used smooth paving. I suppose that's rather than the paving type that is on Castro Street on sidewalks. That's

[00:50:34] Senior Civil Engineer Cervantes: how I read it too. Yes. So we'll communicate that, that's a design detail we haven't got to, but I agree.

[00:50:43] Member Alison Hicks: Will buses be able to use the new westbound Evelyn Avenue connector? Um, yes. Yes, okay. Can crosswalks across Evelyn be raised crosswalks?

[00:51:01] Senior Civil Engineer Cervantes: That has been considered substantially between our transportation group, our traffic group and the other design groups. For this particular layout, we think the, uh, the speeds are already low enough because of the 2 terms, and visibility is already high enough. We don't think there is a added benefit to raising the crosswalks. There's some detriments to raising the crosswalks. Now you have to deal with drains changes. Um, so we didn't see that as a as a marginal improvement. So we have a lot of, we have a lot of, Pedestrian focused safety elements in the, for those 2 crossings, and we didn't think the erased, uh, crosswalk would add a lot of, a lot more to that. Okay,

[00:51:46] Public Works Director Ng: one thing to add is that VTA, because of where the crosswalk is located at Castro, it's right at a bend, and VTA buses as they're going that way, then each wheel goes over the crosswalk as they're making the bend. So it's like double the rocking on a bus, which is pretty disruptive for a bus versus if it's just a raised crosswalk on a street. It's just over and over. So

[00:52:12] Member Alison Hicks: if answered, you've answered all the residents, my questions and the residents questions now, and that, so I'm done. Questions. Great. Okay. Well,

[00:52:25] Chair John McAlister: there's not too many people here. Yes, you are up.

[00:52:29] Member Ellen Kamei: Um, so my question, um, so can you, Um, Can you walk me through the decisions on the iPad, circulation, the vehicle circulation? So I think, um, I don't want to like teeter into comments, but I think like, well, oh, how about this? 1st question, how old do we actually think in Rome is going to be? Because I I think that affects. Right? Because I think, Prior, we thought inner Rome might be, Five. Ish years? I mean, I mean, a

[00:53:14] Public Works Director Ng: grade separation has several $100 million. So I think now we're until we find the money.

[00:53:19] Member Ellen Kamei: So I think now it's kind of like this. We're calling it interim, but we're not sure how long interim is going to be. So in a lot of ways we need to be thinking of it. I guess my scope has changed and that I'm thinking about things from a more permanent perspective and I just want to confirm with staff. This is likely. you know, asking about the trees and the planter podcast. about gateway. But it's a year. Yeah, you know, so I don't know what staff's thoughts are what you're, you know, willing to say publicly on all that, but I think as this has gone on, it's, I feel like, is it truly interim anymore. I don't know. And I don't know if how staff feels about that.

[00:54:01] Senior Civil Engineer Cervantes: So our approach has been, it needs to work. It needs to work on an interim basis and a permanent basis. So elements, elements such as trees, we can think of as temporary or interim and those things need to be moved. Um, but certainly any, any pedestrian vehicle safety elements need to need to function as if they were permanent. Okay. All

[00:54:23] Member Ellen Kamei: right, great. Thank you. So that kind of goes into my questions about, um, the bike pad circulation change and the vehicle circulation change. Can you just, so as we're making these decisions? Um, And I was trying to look through on the staff report to see like if I had missed it. So can you just share a little bit, like, how we, is there data that we evaluate that leads us to this, just a little bit more color on, on it, but. So that's what they stuff can provide or. Like I, I, I see that it says it'll reduce weight times. illustrated in the figure, but then that's it, and then it goes right into vehicle circulation. So I just, like I...

[00:55:09] Senior Civil Engineer Cervantes: So let me start with vehicle circulation, because that's kind of fundamentally what a great separation began as well. One of the benefits of the 5th grade separation is that you are eliminating conflicts, with the vehicles, separations that we're recommending here, the circulation patterns, is that we're closing the crossing of the rail, the rails. To the through direction of Moffatt and the right turn onto Central Expressway. So there won't be vehicle access there. So that kind of fundamentally redefines how circulation for vehicles is going to go. So everything else kind of, uh, is a domino effect is a is a downstream effect from that decision. And that was really keying off of the original grade separation intent. Yeah. So

[00:55:55] Member Ellen Kamei: we're still thinking about it from that original design that we had all seen, where it's rays, and then kind of the under, the underneath where, you know, we're telling residents, even though we're not at grade separation. That's the direction we would go to. Because that's right. Yeah,

[00:56:15] Senior Civil Engineer Cervantes: that's exactly right. We see the same fundamental purpose is pedestrian vehicle safety, eliminating the rail crossing, fundamentally improves that for vehicles. So that's that, again, that's how we get the vehicle circulation. The

[00:56:30] Chair John McAlister: pedestrian circulation.

[00:56:33] Senior Civil Engineer Cervantes: Similarly, um, just like the the original, the the permanent castro grade separation, our intent was to maintain and in some ways we could improve the the pedestrian uh, circulation of bike circulation across um, this corridor, through this corridor. So, with that, We're improving, um, elements, you know, from Evelyn all the way up to Moffatt. Um, and essentially showing how pedestrians and and cyclists would use the cord or, um, Caltrain emphasize that, When they look at it, they look at it from a, from a rail corridor perspective, and they see the elimination of a crossing as a net benefit. So that's why the elimination of the Western Crossing, um, was identified, um, from them was, One crossing a safer that's safer than 2 crossings, and then that kind of, um, kind of defines some of the circulation, uh, constraints that we have.

[00:57:34] Member Ellen Kamei: We should think of it as that would, it would only be one crossing anyways because people would be going underneath the grade separation from the original design. So it's kind of like the same. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good way to look at. Okay. I'm just trying to put the puzzle pieces together with, I guess, the hope that one day we will get that great separation. And I think be able, honestly, to be able to tell the stories to be able to tell the story to residents about why we're doing the approach that we are, because I just, in reading this report, I just felt like, maybe, well, I don't want to teeter to comets, but I think connecting those dots to the original design and why. There's a lot of moving

[00:58:19] Senior Civil Engineer Cervantes: parts in this design. Yeah, yeah.

[00:58:21] Member Ellen Kamei: Okay. So that's that's helpful. All right, okay. Those are my questions. Oh, one last question. Can we, for the community outreach? I know that typically we only do it in the, um, notices mail to residents and businesses within 750 feet, but given that this is, like, in our heart of downtown, everyone uses it? Is it something that we can expand or sent to all our res, you know, at least the list serves emails because I do think people would have an interest in knowing what we're doing. all the community groups because I say this where I wouldn't want it to get to cancel and then residents feel like they weren't, this wasn't daylighted enough. Um, given it's our, you know, it's one of the most highly utilized transit stops along. Thank you. Thank you, Cher. Okay.

[00:59:29] Unknown Speaker: Um, okay,

[00:59:30] Chair John McAlister: ask questions, comments looking later. Pick off our 1st slide on two. So 2015. I was here. And it took 7 years to get to, we are just to get started the project design. So I remember, it was, Ed, were you here in 2015? I was. Okay. And we, reminisce. So, um, yeah, because I remember a design that was presented at the time to do things and it looks like things are changing a little bit. So, um, just curiosity, why did it take 7 years to go from 2015 to 22. Anyway.

[01:00:13] Member Alison Hicks: Seven years to go from 2015 to 20. Yeah,

[01:00:16] Chair John McAlister: what, why did it take 7 years to get started on this project? The council just kept kicking it down the road. Okay, you can get back on me. It was just curiosity, I don't know. Um, we

[01:00:29] Senior Civil Engineer Cervantes: can we can come up with an answer on that one, but I did not prepare for that question. Oh,

[01:00:36] Chair John McAlister: well, you'll you'll figure this out soon. Um, Yeah, I'm looking at this and it, Let's go to, um. Go to the numbers where you show 17 pedestrians and 800 bikes. You know I'm big on data. And decisions should be based on data and not on a committee saying you should do this. So, when you say 71700 pedestrians did, Where are they coming from? What? There's many access points. So where are they coming from? They're just 1700 pedestrians, right? 700? 77 dangerous. Okay, what direction are they coming from? This is both directions.

[01:01:25] Principal Civil Engineer Gonzales: Okay. So they're coming. The counts were taking exactly at the tracks. So the bikes and pets are coming from both directions, southbound and northbound. Crossing the trucks.

[01:01:38] Chair John McAlister: Okay, so it's not east or west. Okay, so these 1700 pedestrians. are coming from Moffatt. And they're also coming. So they're coming both. Do we have a distinction between the two? We do. Okay. I

[01:01:55] Principal Civil Engineer Gonzales: don't know off the top of my head, but I couldn't. if you're interested. Well,

[01:01:59] Chair John McAlister: I am, because you're doing a lot of design by pets and all this stuff. And so, I like to know, if we're gonna do things. Just like on the shoreline, when you said 19 bicy, you know, pedestrian unit, I like to get a better idea to put the con, the concept there because you gave us $660000000 and it could change. So, If we're gonna build this interim, Let's do it sufficiently and effectively so that we know where people are coming from. And the 800 bicyclists, same deal. They're coming from Moffatt or whatever. Yes. Or okay. And do we know are they taking light rail or are they taking just transit? Are they taking buses? Do we know how they're divided up between light rail, Caltrain, and... Which is it important to know that? So

[01:02:52] Senior Civil Engineer Cervantes: that information may have been in the original transit center master plan. Some of that data may have been taken as a snapshot for this particular project. When we initiated it, we were decide, we had the decision to go into an, into an interim direction, and it dictated some of the design choices. Such as eliminating the rail crossing, moving everything in one direction. Um, but we did not, we did not pull additional data, particularly with destinations or origination points. We the data counts here were specifically at the rail crossing. So we did not track whether they were going downtown or to light rail or to Caltrain. Do you determine between morning and afternoon? I think we have some of that data.

[01:03:37] Principal Civil Engineer Gonzales: This is a full day, 24 hour count. Okay. Okay,

[01:03:42] Chair John McAlister: so at some point there's a big Russian. No, that's why I always like to know. And any real station. I like to know, okay, we're doing this and then all of a sudden gets quiet. Do we, do we spend money for the whole day or do we just spend? Let's take care of the half an hour slam period. And build and go from there. I'm looking for AMPM peaks. Yeah. Yeah. We

[01:04:07] Principal Civil Engineer Gonzales: have to counsel. We can share with you. Going

[01:04:11] Chair John McAlister: forward. I personally, for this committee, I like to see the data of how people are moving around. So on your slide here on this one, just take this one. At Evelyn, eventually, cars will not, well, cars always be able to make the S turn from Evelyn to the, uh, West side of Castro. Yes, this design. They'll always be able to do that. Yes, even so you're not cutting off separation. So they're okay, so that will continue. I on this thing, One thing when we were initially looking at the design of this on the North side of Central Expressway, we were looking at a spot for the commuter buses. So help me understand. We, if things get back to somewhat normal, These commuter buses are picking people up, and right now, you're gonna have them going all kind of convoluted, or once you get it figured out, routes, and they're gonna be going here. And I just see a lot of uh, noise, congestion, emissions. So how are we going to move these, and do we know how many commuter buses are coming in here now? I do not have that. Okay. So, with that, how do you expect the buses to do? Are you going to use that diagram where you show that they go this way and then go this way and then go back south again and then go? I mean, we need to find an effective way to get them in and out. And that's why the original design, where we're looking at something north of Central Express. And also we were looking at a site on Central Expressway, so the people can get them marked that way. So, How are you going to handle commuter processes?

[01:06:02] Principal Civil Engineer Gonzales: The commuter buses will. The northbound commuter buses will have to take the route as presented on the screen, the southbound direction follows what's existing right now since there is no southbound. Um, access to Castro.

[01:06:19] Chair John McAlister: why we're talking about that, please. Yeah. So

[01:06:35] Senior Civil Engineer Cervantes: this shows that the buses will remain at the transit center. We're not proposing to move those shuttle bus stops. On to the expressway side.

[01:06:44] Chair John McAlister: Well, I mean, this is the shuttles for North Bay Shore. So they're going to be taking this potential route. Yes,

[01:06:52] Principal Civil Engineer Gonzales: this follows closely what was proposed with the great separation project. The only difference is that they would continue on to Evelyn. That would eventually include a ramp that connects onto Shoreline. Okay. Wait, does this, and

[01:07:10] Chair John McAlister: then the reverse for, uh, well, would they, Well, some of them may not go back on the Moffat, they may just stay on Shoreline and go snow, okay. They won't. We not at that ramp a couple. They just go, don't we? Evelyn Ramp? It made sense at the time. But it's still. Okay.

[01:07:29] Member Alison Hicks: They won't go back, John. They'll go straight up shoreline

[01:07:32] Member Ellen Kamei: to go. Yeah, I think they'll, I think they'll take that ramp that we, I can't, was it this year, last year? I can't remember. But we talked about the ramp, right? Emily,

[01:07:40] Chair John McAlister: so they'll be coming up Evelyn, get onto Shoreline. So they won't have to kind of go that way. Okay, gerrymand around town. Now, if you got a 660000000 project, does that include the ramp?

[01:07:53] Member Alison Hicks: The ramps, this is what they'll be doing. Yeah,

[01:07:56] Chair John McAlister: okay. I'm trying to those things. You guys have been involved. I'm just seeing this for the 1st time and I'm sorry about this trip. Flow, the bus, uh, transit. Okay. Um, that one, so if you go back to some earlier ones. Um, so, when you count your, this, and the B pack suggests that they're going to be high volume. Are people going to start going on to Evelyn and riding their bikes? Where are you? Go back to the 17 that park, please. Where do you expect this heavy concentration of bike riders to be and pedestrians coming from? Where I all of a sudden, when you do this crossing that, you're going to have a heavier amount of people. No, it's

[01:08:39] Member Alison Hicks: the same people who are, it's the same people who are crossing now.

[01:08:43] Senior Civil Engineer Cervantes: Okay, no, well, PPAC mentioned 2 specific factors that may increase pedestrian traffic. One, is that there's a school on the, um, west side of shoreline, uh, connecting to, to Evelyn that's heavily used now. So if that school expands, then there's more traffic there. Second is more of a statewide, um, initiative, which is encouraging higher density housing near transit. So if there's higher density, so if more development in the transit area, um, ends up coming in the next several years, that would, that would, by implication, that's, that's more for traffic.

[01:09:23] Member Alison Hicks: But those numbers are for right now. Correct. But,

[01:09:26] Chair John McAlister: okay, so. The transit center, because we were looking at developing the Caltrain and the VTA lots there. So, there wouldn't be potential where you're saying, they would get on transit, or they would just live there, but take bicycles and leave the transit center to go throughout the area. I'm trying to anticipate, and you're saying you're going to increase the housing, so like on Moffat. The, um, Prometheus project is gonna potentially add people to it. You think they're gonna, This is where they're getting these high end, anticipate high pedestrian bicyclists counts. Well,

[01:10:04] Senior Civil Engineer Cervantes: like I said, BPAC identify 2 specific factors. One was increased housing, and the other one was the school at the western end of Evelyn. The

[01:10:16] Chair John McAlister: western end of Evelyn, you mean the, uh. Oh, uh, kind of, kind of, what's his name? That's right, that campus there.

[01:10:26] Senior Civil Engineer Cervantes: And they expect that to grow significantly? BPAC mention those 2 factors. I don't know if they've mentioned a growth rate or...

[01:10:34] Chair John McAlister: And the reason, well, you sounded like you were going to incorporate their comments in there, and that's why I was trying to get a better understanding, just 2 things that you went ahead and anticipated there. I

[01:10:47] Senior Civil Engineer Cervantes: don't know if that comment specifically changes anything as part of the design. That was one of their comments back to us to kind of keep in mind. Um, but it doesn't say change the width of a rail crossing or the size or type of, uh, bike, uh, bike infrastructure we would recommend. Okay. Um, Okay,

[01:11:10] Chair John McAlister: let's go then and see here, uh, So if I look at slide, 6, please. So, Is the bike lane going to be on both sides of the street or on the north side of the street? It's

[01:11:32] Principal Civil Engineer Gonzales: on both sides of the street. North of Evelyn is 4 westbound, um, bicyclists, and then the south side of Evelyn is for Eastbound, bicycles. Well, I'm looking at the arrows. Right

[01:11:45] Chair John McAlister: where it says 18 feet. The arrows are all heading north and miss. So, Where's are those? Why are those arrows there? Do they indicate flow?

[01:11:57] Principal Civil Engineer Gonzales: For vehicles? It's for westbound traffic only. So, for cars? Yes. Oh, okay. So that's cars. That's not the white planes. The bike lanes highlighted in yellow area,

[01:12:08] Member Ellen Kamei: you know? He's looking at the existing arrows. Great

[01:12:12] Chair John McAlister: arrows in the background? Yeah, I guess arrows. Yeah, there's this. Yeah, so the yellow rape. So

[01:12:17] Principal Civil Engineer Gonzales: the yellows, the bike lane going. No that's the bike lane going that direction. Okay, it goes that way. And then this one is going the opposite direction.

[01:12:25] Chair John McAlister: So why is that so much greater than the other one? There's

[01:12:30] Principal Civil Engineer Gonzales: a bigger buffer to make sure that the bikes are protected from the larger vehicle movements as they approach the S curves at this area. And that's why there's also vertical elements proposed to protect the bicyclists even more. Because that area is needed for buses and larger vehicles to make the turn. buses are

[01:12:52] Chair John McAlister: coming from Evelyn and they're going to make the Esther. Right? And so you have a bike lane on the right hand side for them. So, that's narrow, but I would. Okay, but I understand that it seems like the bike planes that are going, uh, southbound is much larger. The buffer is much larger, so you can see the hatched area is

[01:13:14] Public Works Director Ng: much larger, and that's really to accommodate like bus and large vehicles swing as they're making around the corners. So they'll swing. So the bike lane. Yeah, the bike lane itself is not super wide, but the buffer is much wider to accommodate the larger vehicles and you're going to make that movement.

[01:13:29] Chair John McAlister: You just said there's going to be class 2 and class 4 buffer bike lanes. If there's no cars coming down, East on Evelyn. Why do you need buffered bike lanes? There's no cars coming east. So it's like behind the police stations and there are, where you're losing the 10 parking spaces. I

[01:13:58] Public Works Director Ng: mean, it's still to protect, so as you can see the vehicle lane, sneaking up through and making that S curve. It's really still to protect the bicyclists from that vehicle overhang swing as they're making the turns. So, uh,

[01:14:12] Chair John McAlister: refresh my memory on a class 2 on a class 4 buffer. Bike planes? A class 4 will have a vertical element. Okay.

[01:14:22] Unknown Speaker: Class 2 does not necessarily have a class 2 is your basic striping. Last 2 buffer has the basic striping plus additional striping additional uh, paint on the ground, so to speak. Okay. Because

[01:14:35] Chair John McAlister: I'm trying to learn what, I have the conditions, make you put a 4 in. And where the tube would suffice. Okay? Saying that? Okay. Then, um, Um, 6 we're, okay, that's where those bike lanes are coming. Um, go to the next. But. Okay, uh, slide 7. Parking is tremendous per businesses. So why do you need to take out 10 parking spaces? If you have no trap. So the cars, well, if the cars, you're taking up parking spaces, where's the cars going to turn around? So that sort of, Yes, you don't need parking because there's no cars are going to be able to turn around. Right? Yes,

[01:15:24] Unknown Speaker: cars would have to go, um, Southbound on what?

[01:15:28] Chair John McAlister: Cars would have to go. Cars

[01:15:31] Unknown Speaker: would have to turn onto wild cherry. Well,

[01:15:35] Chair John McAlister: Cherry Lane is where you're losing the 10 parking spaces.

[01:15:38] Unknown Speaker: Yes, between Wild Cheerlane and Castro Street. So a couple on the south side of Evelyn and then a few of the perpendicular parking in between the boxes you see where the trees are. So, our

[01:15:51] Chair John McAlister: cars, I mean, I'm not that, refresh my memory. Are cars able to drive through there and go, onto Central Express right now? Yeah. So right now, there's... There is no connection to capture, so... People parked in them. So then they just sort of do that. It's essentially a dead end. Dead end, and then you just got to figure out how to... Okay. Um. So is there any way to save some of that parking? Yeah,

[01:16:19] Unknown Speaker: I wondered that. We are evaluating, um, Replacing the total 12 parking with additional maybe parallel parking on the north side. Uh, between wild Cherry Lane and Castro, because we are losing the perpendicular parking between those trees, it's too close to the crosswalk. We don't want the vehicles to back into the bike lane and the crosswalk. But perhaps some parallel parking could be reintroduced.

[01:16:48] Chair John McAlister: If you're no traffic is a dead end. Is are you putting in the, uh, class 2 buffers? The class

[01:17:00] Unknown Speaker: 4 on the south side. Why

[01:17:01] Chair John McAlister: if there's no cars coming through? Why couldn't you do class 2 and save the parking? If there's no, if it's a dead end street, cars aren't gonna be going there in a lot. So what protection are you? That's what I'm asking. And a two, since it's a dead end, you won't have traffic versus the 4 where I see the cross marks, is that correct? That's going to be a 4 versus a two? Yes. Um, so the, the

[01:17:26] Unknown Speaker: 2 there are 2 parking spaces that will be removed on the south side between Wild Cherry Lane and Castro Street, they are proposed to be removed because if we do not remove them. And if they park there, we don't have a way to kind of get them out safely again. How are they in and out now? So, we

[01:17:48] Unknown Speaker: are proposing Evelyn as a one way street. Okay. So, Right

[01:17:53] Unknown Speaker: now there's no opposing traffic.

[01:17:55] Unknown Speaker: So right now, correct. Right now there's no opposing type of traffic, if I'm, if I'm traveling eastbound towards Sunnyvale, I have to make that U-turn because there's a, there's a, there's a stop bar. We need to think about the circulation for those vehicles now. All those vehicles are turning onto West Cherry Lane. If we were to turn that into a, a class 2, to accommodate additional parking, you still need to have that vehicle circulation going on to West Cherry. Wild cherry. Thank you. So what we don't want to do is we don't want to create a situation where we're inviting eastbound traffic to try to park in those parking spaces. So we need to be thinking about how to create a safe environment for pedestrians and bikes, just in that wild cherry to Castro. That's a very tricky location. So if I knew that only westbound traffic was traveling there and only westbound drivers were going to park, It would be safe. But my concern is, actually, the eastbound drivers who choose to Cut through the wild cherry, go around the barriers and try to park there. Okay,

[01:19:05] Chair John McAlister: now you made me thinking. Can't you make those parking available to the people that are going westbound?

[01:19:14] Unknown Speaker: We would be making it available so people going westbound and we might do that for parallel. We mentioned that. So we can look into that. On the south side. If

[01:19:23] Chair John McAlister: they're going that way. So we still keep your dead end. You're still gonna have limited people going in. Okay, I would appreciate if you could save some parking. That would on the south side, maybe where

[01:19:34] Unknown Speaker: the buffer is? Yeah. Gotcha. No, we can explore that. Okay, okay. Thank you. I just wanted to make sure I understood. No,

[01:19:41] Chair John McAlister: no, thank you, because we gotta keep an open mind, especially for small businesses. We keep saying we're small business, but actors, and we're taking out tense bosses. Okay? Now, and well, Cherry, isn't that a lane versus a regular road? It's an alley. Alley. Okay. So let's distinguish, well, Cherry Lane is an alley, not a street. So that's, it's not intended. Are you intending to bring, have the buses come down wild cheeringly? No. Okay, thank you. Um. Go over to, uh, number 9 please. Okay, Ed. Remember, there was a conversation that on the westbound crosswalk? There was a young lady, Lisa Matt checking myself around the CTC and said, Fiad wanted to eliminate that, and we said, can't we just have them walk from the northwest side over to the northeast side? And they said, no. So they put in a, that crosswalk for $160000? And now you're eliminating it. So, I find that interesting. I just thought you guys, um, and here's an example where you sit. Okay. Or you're actually telling people you've got to change your route a little bit. President has been made. Okay. That's a comment I shouldn't be doing that. Um, Yeah, on slide 11 where you put the big X. Yeah. That whole lane was, did that way. So are we doing any accommodation? Are we, who's responsible for the signage? PTA? Or us to help guide people around this area? The

[01:21:41] Unknown Speaker: project will include signage too. To guide the bikes and pets. Okay. Um. Let's

[01:21:51] Chair John McAlister: let's flight 11, okay. Again, buses, slide 13. Oh, okay. This is the BPAC recommendations. Yes. Yeah, I'm still concerned about it. Okay. So, It sounded. could you show where now you're incorporating those into the project? Or you're considering those into the project? We

[01:22:20] Unknown Speaker: can incorporate those items without much impact to the project budget and schedule. Okay. I'm

[01:22:29] Chair John McAlister: a little concerned about. You guys getting direction from BPAC, but there are recommendations in your. Okay, and that's a comments now that I get back to that. You know where I'm coming from. Okay, um. Okay, so yours, okay. And then the 6.6 million. When was that budgeted? This year. So that money was, so the cost estimate is this year.

[01:22:53] Unknown Speaker: This year, but includes cost escalation anticipating construction will begin in 2020. Perfect. Um. Okay,

[01:23:02] Chair John McAlister: that's the end of my questions. So we will go to virtual comments. Would any members of the public joining us virtually or in person like to provide comments on this item? If so, please click the raised hand button and zoom or or approach. We will take him personal. Okay, never mind. You have 3 minutes. Bruce England? Hi

[01:23:28] Bruce England: everyone. Um, Bruce England. on Wisman Station Drive speaking for Mountain View Coalition for Sustainable Planning. Um, we did listen to the uh, the BPAC meeting, and there was a lot of really good discussion there. So in general, we are supportive of their recommendations over to you. There was some discussion when they talked about what counts as a recommendation and what counts as a comment and how things are recorded. They realized that that, um, the, the formal recommendations come from you on CTC to counsel, but there's hope that their comments and everything would be taken seriously. So we echo that at NBCSP. A couple of specific comments or things to emphasize. I have to go to my notes here on this. One is, Among their comments, the ones that perhaps are most interesting to us are the removing the parking between Wild Cherry Lane and Castro because it's probably not needed and it just helps to enhance safety for our bicyclists and pedestrians moving through there, particularly the bicyclists. We like the idea of a walk audit. Those have been done in the past by the city, and this would be a great opportunity to have that done in that area. The improvements to the northbound Moffat Boulevard bike lane are incredibly important, has been pointed out many times. There used to be a bike lane that went through, and now it just stops abruptly, and then it goes into a vehicle parking area, which forces cyclists out into the roadway. So that's not great. We for sure want to see that no write on red implementation at the northwest corner of Moffatt and Central Expressway, realizing that that's going to involve work with the county. There was a comment, I think that, um, Council member McAllister made it that El Camino, it was asked for on El Camino, and they said no, but they actually did put some, no write on red. I'm not sure exactly the locations, but I know there's one at Calderon, um, and it's adequately signed and everything, so it's great really improves safety at that intersection and perhaps at other intersections. along the way. Um, We do strongly support keeping both pedestrian crossings across the train tracks and central. Uh, again, knowing there's going to be pushback from the county, but we would like to see the city really push forward on getting these things done and, you know, trying to be optimistic about what the county will approve. I never know unless you ask. 2 other things are the lighting in the affected areas. We really want to that to follow the anticipated requirements and guidance in the in development. Dark Skies ordinances. So you don't have to light, um, the bejesus, not everything in there to make people safe. It's actually lighting needs to be done very thoughtfully, and that will be reflected in the ordinances, I'm sure. And then lastly, we'd like to see no use of artificial turf in any of the new landscaped areas, in any dripping or cone dropping trees, any of that sort of thing should be avoided around walkway and bikeway areas. That's all I've got. Thank you.

[01:26:30] Chair John McAlister: Anybody else? The Taylor Brown. Is that the Taylor Brown that used to be our former police chief? We don't know. I saw the name there. That's right.

[01:26:49] Unknown Speaker: He's a consultant with Joseph's

[01:26:52] Chair John McAlister: agent. So do we have any more? Yes,

[01:26:54] Unknown Speaker: Adrian Brandt? Good

[01:26:58] Adrian Brandt: evening, thank you. My name's Adrian Brant. They serve as the chair of the Caltrine Citizens Advisory Committee. I used to commute to and from the Mountain View Station, very familiar with that area. I want to commend the city of Mountain View. for coming up with a very a reasonable, affordable interim, um, alternative, uh, at 6.6000000 versus uh, nearly 3000000 for the full grade separation and ramp to Evelyn. So that's uh, that's really good thinking outside the box, something we can implement much sooner. And um, uh, as I think people have eluded. I have seen a lot of projects in my lifetime. of this nature, and uh, I believe, uh, there's a good chance this may be the permanent uh, solution. So I, um, 2nd any concerns or comments. Um, around the concept that this may be permanent. I wanted to comment on the uh, real sentry. That is primarily aimed at as a staff idea aimed at preventing and and, well, not preventing, but reacting to vehicle intrusions off of the crossings. Um, that's really not applicable for uh, bikes and pedestrians because they don't get stuck on the tracks by accident. By turning onto the tracks at night, which is the primary motivation for that system. The other thing is the bollards, the vertical delineators. that they've been using, again, also to discourage people from at night, mistakenly turning onto the tracks. I am sympathetic to the idea of keeping both crossings across the tracks. Currently, it's a full width crossing. And so there's really no compelling reason I can think of why you can't continue to be a full width crossing, only just for bikes and pedestrians. Uh, they could also be 2 separate pedestrian bike crossings. Uh, that act as one with the great, great crossing circuit, um, um, tied together. So those are those are definitely possibilities. Um, there was a comment asking for a scramble. Uh, that makes no sense at central because you effectively have a scramble with that little plaza, um, between the tracks and the crossing. Uh, I think on figure 9. It shows very well. What I mean by that. So there's really no reason for a scramble on central. I also agree with, um, I'm a Redwood City resident. I agree strongly with trying to ban, um, the right on red, as was discussed earlier by a number of people, um, in Redwood City, Caltrans, and the city together, um, have, have done some, uh, no ride on reds, um, near high schools and so forth, at busy crossings where there had been pedestrian um, safety issues. So that is something that's quite doable. And I would encourage pursuing that. Um, Let's see. I think, let's see, what was the other?

[01:29:55] Adrian Brandt: I had some other comments, but um, So, oh, yes, and on train, train, train horn, quiet zones. Atherton has it. Palo Alto Memlo Park and San Mateo are pursuing it, and I'd encourage it here too. Thank you.

[01:30:09] Chair John McAlister: Thank you How many are in the queue?

[01:30:18] Senior Civil Engineer Houghton: Three more.

[01:30:18] Chair John McAlister: Okay. Daniel Helsey? Can you hear me?

[01:30:31] Daniel Hulse: Yes Okay. So, um, I've got a few thoughts on this. I, uh, I'm really investing. I get, and uh, I, I move up to the Moffat field area and I have a lot of coworkers who do that same thing, uh, via bicycle. Uh, and we're all in game off it. And, uh, I, I tried to take care of Roberts, but a lot of people think about it, but he's unsafe. Uh, but it's the most direct wave, currently Caltrain station. Um, to Moffat Field on a bike. Uh, and then worry about, um, some of the improvements in this just being not playing Mark, um, particularly at the intersection between Moffatt and Central Expressway, you know, if you work, What is it? figure. Number 7, you have emerge. The bikes have to do going south to get into that life name. Um, get on the other side of cars who are turning right. Uh, that doesn't make any sense to have a protective bike home when you 1st have to do immersive cars. And it's not necessary. Uh, We, we could just have the micrane on the other side of a turn on the, of a morade on then. That would be much more line with how the city designs this kind of intersection than other parts of the city. Uh, And, you know, there's other problems here. I, I was. I've been very adamant to request more on the northbound, uh, in, in folk. Kind of a broader point that they have, thinking about how, how do we face this with the, um, they have a precise plan, uh, where there's been, in the public engagement, very strong support for bike lanes, and, you know, Campbell, maybe do that smaller, when this project happens, so that we aren't tearing up the street multiple. times Uh, something worth looking into. Um, Other thing, I would say, you know, there are some things. Yeah, that intersection that you would buy. Yeah. Staff keeps saying, uh, we gotta, we gotta have the county do this. And so, I, I would encourage the electives, we're on this committee. Because it would be a really, uh, this opportunity, let's say, if we can't put the things that we want by Central Expressway, while the, uh, product. And so that's my comment. Please, the county and and help them to, to give a bit of a project, uh, because we're maybe eating about this for a long time. Thank you.

[01:33:40] Chair John McAlister: Thank you. Mary Dario? Um,

[01:33:55] Mary Dateo: good evening. Um, I would like to ask that, um, you actually consider making both sides of the, uh, the bike lane, uh, be class 4 that you, uh, maybe, uh, let go of some of the buffer that's currently on the south side and add that buffer to the north side because as buses are heading north, and then making the turn around that corner to go west. There's, at least on the, on the staff report or the staff memo, whatever, the, the entire buffer on the westbound bike lane goes away and buses are kind of coming right at you there until they make the turns. So that looks pretty scary. I think both sides should be class four. Um, I really highly recommend that some walk audits be done of this. Um, because until like, um, there were some questions from council about, you know, what are the use cases here? So, um, I'll just give you my use case. I use this intersection to get across town. Um, across Central Expressway when I'm trying to head north and west on my bike because, uh, crazy as it sounds, um, crossing Central Expressway here feels safer than a lot of other places. So, um, I actually take Franklin Northbound, uh, because there aren't any traffic lights, and then I'm heading east on Evelyn. So if you're looking at one of the diagrams, I'll be heading east on Evelyn, and then I guess I'm going to have to make a sharp turn to take the crosswalk across traffic. to get to that plaza on the south side of the tracks. Then I go over to the 15 foot wide crossing, which, I don't know if it could be made a little bit wider to help separate the bikes and the pedestrians, that might be a good idea. Then I'm going to go ahead back over to the west because I'm trying to get to Sterling Road. Um, there's a bike path over there, a short class 4 separated bike path to Sterling Road, which then connects to the whole east-west bike way that we have up there. Um, so I'm going to be, I guess, sort of taking the bike lane, but in the illegal direction, if it's illegal. I'm not sure, to cross to the northwest corner. of, um, Moffatt and Central Expressway. So I'm at the northwest corner now, which is where I want to be so I can get on that class 4 bike lane and head up Sterling, which feels pretty safe. So, um, Because I'm riding sort of against traffic on that left side. Um, I'm not sure if that's part of the design because the, the, um, The circulation that was shown in the staff memo, uh, wasn't didn't cover everything. But any case, um, I'm also a big proponent of no right turn on red from Moffatt onto Southbound Moffatt onto Central Expressway. Um, so again, I think it would be really interesting to hear a lot of other people's cases about how they go through this area. Um, and so I highly recommend a walk audit.

[01:37:02] Chair John McAlister: Thank you. Before we get to the next person. Oh, I got it. The walk

[01:37:20] Principal Civil Engineer Gonzales: on it is an effort that designers will often use to look at existing conditions and observe how pedestrians, any types of users are using the space currently. And you can, from there, you could kind of imagine benefits and improvements and adjustments.

[01:37:37] Chair John McAlister: But it's, isn't that standard procedure? Recently, we've been inviting the public. residents.

[01:37:43] Principal Civil Engineer Gonzales: Yes. Yeah, so the clarity here is...

[01:37:48] Member Alison Hicks: Feedback would like to be included in part of that or members of the public.

[01:37:52] Member Alison Hicks: And a follow-up, does your walk audit include a bike audit, our bikers? So the last speaker just uh, walked us, walked us through how she bikes through the area. Would that be included as well? Um,

[01:38:06] Principal Civil Engineer Gonzales: as you were saying, as a standard procedure, like, yes, that's how a designer would look at the space. It's like all the users and how all the users actually go to the site and stand there. That's the expectation. Expectation. Thank you. Because

[01:38:22] Member Alison Hicks: I imagine you would invite people for a walk and bike water. If that's a fit. Right,

[01:38:27] Principal Civil Engineer Gonzales: so for city staff, our projects, it's, it's standard practice to go out and observe, and normal abnormal conditions, different days of the, uh, days, time periods, um, daylight conditions. No, I mean, it

[01:38:46] Chair John McAlister: makes common sense, makes great sense. Okay, I just, thank you. Sure. Well,

[01:38:53] Senior Civil Engineer Houghton: the last raised hand is April Webster. Hi,

[01:38:58] April Webster: thank you. Um, I've been biking through the intersection at Moffat and Central, um, for about 15 years, and I personally experienced, um, several near misses at that spot, um, once almost being hit by a large truck. And once, um, by a truck towing a boat, and this is north, um, of the intersection on Moffat. But the last BPAC meeting, staff stated that safety improvements won't be considered for several years, and instead addressed through the Moffat Boulevard precise plan. However, that still needs to be completed and improved. Only after that, a capital project created, then added to the CIP, prioritized for funding. And then finally designed, engineered, and constructed. Realistically, We're looking at about at least 5 years before we see any sort of substantial change to fix these safety issues, and that timeline is just too slow for issues that were actually worsened by some pandemic era design changes the city made when they created that class to hanging bike lane, um, just, uh, on the east side of Moffatt north of central. In the meantime, what happens is current design forces, people biking northbound to merge directly into a 40, 45 mile per hour traffic lane where the bike lane ends and parked cars begin. And this represents a noticeable safety regression from the previous design where bicyclists were instead encouraged to take the lane before the intersection, which meant they were already aligned with traffic, before they passed through and didn't have to merge into fast moving vehicles, um, after drivers had accelerated through the light. Um, this new configuration, uh, shift that merged after the intersection, um, precisely when car speeds are highest. And that new, the new design also exposes bicyclists to a right hook risk from drivers turning right from Moff, onto Moffatt from Central. A quick build solution could address some of these unsafe situations, paint only fixes, continuing the bike lane, maybe a paint road diet, extending the protection, maybe removing parking. All of these are reversible and low cost and fully compatible with any future capital work. I don't think we should wait years for a long-term plan. To address these hazards, you know, as Daniel mentioned and also marry. There are a lot of issues at the center section. Um, I would also like to ask if staff has conducted a recent traffic and speed study, and any other sort of field observations to evaluate driving driver behavior. Um, et cetera. And because, you know, as other mentioned, this geometry creates a really predictable right hook conflict at central, and at the other turns, a no right turn on red, restriction definitely would be great. Um, and as others mentioned, um, a community walk audit would be, um, would be, uh, of great benefit for this particular project, given how critical the corridor is as a gateway to downtown. Um, you know, with an area with significant plan growth, um, et cetera. Thank you so much.

[01:42:02] Chair John McAlister: Thank you. Anybody else? Formal residents. Okay, I will bring it back for any additional questions.

[01:42:20] Member Ellen Kamei: Uh, all of the recommendation to um, city council approval of the design concept for a transit center, great separation and excess project. Just, but, but including, I think, considerations, uh, we all put forward. Um, yeah,

[01:42:39] Member Alison Hicks: and then I thought some of the things that, um, I

[01:42:42] Member Ellen Kamei: don't know if we needed to list them. I'm sure staff, I mean, there's the BPAC recommendations. I think we all made some recommendations. Yeah, and I thought

[01:42:53] Member Alison Hicks: Mr. I guess it was Mr. Brandt said in particular, banning right on red, looking into that. Many people have said that. He also said the 2 law Saints. Keeping the 2 crossings might not be a safety hazard and the, uh, one of the residents when she was walking us through her bike ride. It seemed like losing one of those made it to make, if I'm tracking what she said right, getting onto the stair, staring, staring, am I staring? Very steriling. bike way. which a lot of people I imagine would be trying to do would make her loop back and forth a lot. So, boom, go north, make your left. It's gonna be like a lot. Anyway, I was interested in looking into that since, I guess, Mr. Brant said it wouldn't be. I don't know, you seem to be. Disagreeing with him, but.

[01:43:52] Principal Civil Engineer Gonzales: Going back to your 1st question, Mary Tadio, just to clarify, yes, it would be a longer distance compared to what she's experiencing now. Right now, it's an interim condition. The whole thing is open. So that's, that's not going to be how it's, that's how it's laid out as, as it's proposed. And I bet you'll maybe be the 32nd LA, the goods, the other bicycle. Reflecting back on some of the BPAC comments. There were pedestrians that described their pedestrian.

[01:44:30] Chair John McAlister: Just bring up the line where you were cutting out the one, the proposed purple route.

[01:44:37] Principal Civil Engineer Gonzales: So what I was gonna, just to finish my thought, for a pedestrian, that that can feel like, and a cumbersome route, if you're, you're kind of, Detouring yourself across a plaza northward and then back across to get through. So that was the comment that came across that the BPAC meeting was for a pedestrian, that might feel cumbersome. This one can judge for yourself for the, for, for that. So

[01:45:04] Chair John McAlister: they can go diagonal. Yes. Okay. Um, okay.

[01:45:11] Member Alison Hicks: Yeah, I think she's just talking about that she would go. She's coming down Evelyn. She would cross the street. Then take the diagonal. So it's some back and forth. Oh, there's that extra. you guys don't have... I

[01:45:30] Member Ellen Kamei: just, I tried to move the stop. I know, but I didn't get a sucked.

[01:45:34] Chair John McAlister: Well, we say I've also, um, comments too, that people would like to make some comments. Um, So, I, You had almost developed my comments, appeared, I

[01:45:47] Member Alison Hicks: can. I mean, my main comments are, you know, we can move the staff recommendation, but I guess nobody's 2nd and see, we can do it later. Um, my main comment is, I agree with what was said on getting more community input because this is a really central location and also, um, some, and also it's likely to be, nothing is permanent in this world, but it's semi-permanent. Um, and then getting in some, maybe through the community and put out some more design input because I would really like to make sure that, um, you know, the things that we choose for it are not, are the things that you would put in the center of a city that might be there for a while. Things including planter boxes and bollards. The fun. So, Oh, and the right of the no banning right on red. Um. Yeah. And oh, the one on both sides being class 4? Is that something that's part of the 5 lane, having more? I think she's saying a little more equal buffer so that, I don't know if that makes sense.

[01:47:01] Principal Civil Engineer Gonzales: Yeah, all things being equal, that makes perfect sense on this particular condition and this layout. It's really the bus turning movements that are really dictating the size of that buffer. What you say?

[01:47:13] Member Alison Hicks: Unless you get more community. But yeah, so it's community input. Design for a gateway. Um, and banning right on red are my 3 big ones. Um, thank you. I'm

[01:47:33] Chair John McAlister: a minimum, minimalist. Yes, Robert. Shakes is it. Um, I see this particular, just for this example here. We need make cost decisions, not jeopardizing safety. We want to get projects done. This particular route. It's perfectly sensible to me. We can't, if we accommodate everybody saying we take a walk here, take a walk there. We're never gonna go to the point where it makes sense dollar wise, and I'm not trying to say safety is more important to dollars, but we cannot do both. And this route, as I say, works fine. Um, And going that point, I don't think I would like to see bike lanes at the, and I, uh, this is projection or observation, and I could be totally wrong. And if you guys say this is what's required, then I'll go with it. But you're putting bike lanes. They want clashboard bike lanes everywhere. And do we really need it? Is there the data, and we don't have the data yet to say, we justifies this, and everything I like to see is data that justifies. A no red on Moffat onto Central Expressway. How many bicyclists are going that way?

[01:48:57] Chair John McAlister: I'd like to see the data on bicycles going and turning Westbound on Central Expressway. If we don't have that money, it doesn't justify it. Because we are still, this is still a major thoroughfare. This East, uh, Eastwest Central Expressway. So we want traffic to flow there. Was the parking on Moffat Boulevard going to be taken up, the removal of parking, on the Moffat precise plan, or is it involved with any part in this discussion tonight? So

[01:49:32] Senior Civil Engineer Houghton: this project does not include any removal of parking north of central. Um,

[01:49:37] Chair John McAlister: Public input, I would like to see strategic public input. I'd like to see it early on, where they give us their input. And then it goes potentially staff, then it goes to CTC, and then it goes to council. If we want to get any project, and I say, look at this 7 years, we need to be strategic in our public input. Get it? and make it go through the proper channels and not go back to one and say, oh, we want to look at committees, like, well, we want to look at. No, you had your opportunity to give us your feedback, and then we need the professionalism of the staff to evaluate it to say, this makes sense. This is makes financial sense, and it gives us on a timeline and keeps us on our budget. Because every time we delay, any project in this town, it's going to cost 10s of 1000000s of dollars because of inflation. So I'd like to keep us on track as much as possible. Um, I'm still concerned about the buses moving around. And that's a concern of mine. Yeah. The comments from the public. Oh, the B pack, their inputs. I appreciate this putting the input, but I like to make sure that Staff recognizes that it all it is is input and it's their recommendation and that not to anticipate putting things in unless you can justify it. Um, They have another input, they gave it to us. But I see, the council is the ones that say, yes, we accept them or we don't accept your ideas. So, I don't want to get the horse in front of the car to cart in front of the horse. And I've seen that done too much in my short time here. That staff will take this. And that could be very valid. But I'd like to have it vented a little more before us. Because we sometimes, they are concentrating on this. We, as a council, have to look at a big picture of what's, what's gonna work for 80,000 people in this community, and we need to make sure that our dollars are gonna be spent wisely and effect efficiently on these things. And so doing all these things or thing, and the walk, uh, conduct a walk on it. I, I experienced when we had a situation where a walk on, it really didn't take place to see a project and then once a week out there, it looked a way to move it around. So I would hope that was, somebody is on the ground, I was always looking at it. So would that be planning or would that be traffic? So planning looks at it, goes out there, and visualizes it? Or is there another department that goes out and also looks at it, visually? Who would conduct a block audit for this project? For any project, going for any crimes like this, wall of traffic. Um,

[01:52:34] Unknown Speaker: for this project, it's a capital project, so it would likely be a combination of staff and the design team. Um, and then if we chose to invite the public, then They could

[01:52:46] Chair John McAlister: attend. Okay. Okay. I just want to clarity. But yes, I appreciate that doing that. Okay, let's see. Any other comments? I mean, I heard the public, but again, they, I'd like to get this moving smoothly. And if you say 26 destruction? Okay. Oh, 27. Oh, design

[01:53:09] Member Alison Hicks: in 26. Okay. Okay, maybe I can make a motion, including your comments, John. Sure. So that would be emotion, uh, recommend city council approval, the design concept for transit, center grade separation and access project, um, with early strategic public input, and design with the possibility that it may be a permanent gateway to the city. That I keep in mind. And

[01:53:40] Chair John McAlister: I like the also just one point of data of how many people they expect on Evelyn? No, just saying highly anticipated. I like to see potential, if you have current data on people going wherever they're going. Let's see if that actually pans out to what we just fit. You do that. Um,

[01:54:03] Unknown Speaker: you're asking for not data in the motion, but data as side information to you. I would like data motion.

[01:54:12] Member Alison Hicks: Okay, so you want the motion to include that next time it comes back to us. The staff report includes data. Data where people are coming and doing why that would be. I think they could take it outside of the motion. We don't have a next time.

[01:54:26] Unknown Speaker: I mean, this is concept that we're taking to you and then if bits come in great. Right?

[01:54:34] Member Alison Hicks: Okay, I'm sorry. I thought it was coming back. So you would like a memo on that. Maybe, I'm not sure that has to be in the message. Well,

[01:54:41] Chair John McAlister: if, okay, we're getting to the design point. I want to see data that supports what they're doing.

[01:54:49] Member Ellen Kamei: I think that earlier when I was asking questions, part of what I was asking was, you know, telling the story behind this project, you know, it's interim, but as I was mentioning, it's going to be probably, you know, semi-permanent. And so my request is, you know, that we would tell more of that story in the stock report when it comes back to the full council. I think that some of the data points and the information that the 2 of you are asking for, staff can provide off one or can provide in that meeting. So I don't think we need. I think that things can, if the, if the idea is to keep things moving, then I would suggest that staff just incorporate our feedback and bring it back to council. And that would be an opportunity as, uh, as San Jose and they could look into, they had, I was taking notes they had, um, some data on the, the, um, Castro Evelyn, interim improvements, and they could probably just aggregate AMPM and they can get back to us. So I don't think that they need to do any more data collection. I think it's just maybe perhaps sharing it with the CTC. So I think that when this comes back to council, perhaps I could be as an attachment or however, staff would like to do that. I think there's a way to move this forward and Yeah,

[01:56:02] Chair John McAlister: I agree. So if it comes to, when it comes to counsel, have the data, included in the staff record. Yeah,

[01:56:07] Member Ellen Kamei: and I think that's a way to, to include that. Okay. And so that would, that's my, my emotion. So I would, Allison said that we didn't think it was coming back to us. Okay, great. So, my motion, 2nded, mainly... One

[01:56:18] Chair John McAlister: last question, but it'll be coming back to be back. We

[01:56:21] Member Ellen Kamei: don't have to. Okay. Okay. Oh, hi, thank

[01:56:26] Assistant Public Works Director Arango: you for like to add to the conversation, please. Edurango, assistant couple of work stretcher. Thank you for recognizing me. Um, I appreciate Kame's comments and that provides some clarification. Um, and I wanted just to provide context on timing, um, and sort of public input as well. Um, the BPAC, um, input, and then the CTC input is part of our public effort process, you know, to get get input to gain information. Um, And so, you know, I appreciate that context of, you know, there's a desire to do a walk on it. Um, and um, I'm hearing conflicting points on, um, go fast, you know, but get public input. So BPAC and CTC are opportunities for public input, and we want to use these venues for that. Um, and we absolutely can consider this going forward. You know, for just for a walk out. in the process. We are currently in design for this. You know, you heard, um, senior engineer how to speak to, you know, we got 35% this summer and we're now 65% design. We want to kind of give a layout to BPAC, which we did into CDC on what it looks like on concept level, and allow us to proceed forward. So next stop is plan to be council, approval of the concept. And

[01:57:40] Chair John McAlister: that would be another opportunity for public to give their hands. Correct. Yes. Okay, so there's 3 opportunities for public to put input. Okay. So

[01:57:49] Member Alison Hicks: at that point, though, what, I mean, effectively, what kind of input can you put in or is it too baked to really make any changes? So it's, um, Time

[01:58:00] Assistant Public Works Director Arango: is not our friend. As we, you know, develop projects. We try to get, keep them moving. And so early in the design concept, If we can include um, input. And that's why we use BPAC and CTC. That's the time. Now is the time. So we heard beat packs input. We heard the public's input. We're getting more input tonight. We're trying to incorporate all this into the next stage. If we're at, you're asking us to go to council and recommend a walk on it. That means, um, what happens if we get input that is inconsistent, and then we're coming back to CDC and Council for a change in recommendation, that slows down the project. I just took give you some context of timing, and that wasn't our intent. You know, if counsel, you access to do that? And there's a recommendation for CPC. We just need to provide that informational impact of the project as a result of that walk on it. I

[01:58:54] Chair John McAlister: can support that. But that, the question on the walk. I mean, Isn't that part of the just a normal product, but you said it's not normal process to walk. Not opening it up to everybody but just to walk it and see it. Is

[01:59:09] Unknown Speaker: that correct? The normal process is for the design team. So it's users and like oftentimes we'll work with the transportation team or other internal staff. Okay, so the staff does that anyway. That's correct. Staff is

[01:59:24] Assistant Public Works Director Arango: on the ground, in the field, evaluating current conditions, every time... This is my concerns. Okay, one more. Without the public. Correct. Correct. Uh, one more element that came up, um, at BPAC. They made a motion for CTC to consider the 2 crossings. And so we, we'd like some input on if CTC supports that or not on, um, um, putting more emphasis to Caltrain to identify an opportunity to keep the 2 crossings or, oh, just going with the one crossing. We

[02:00:02] Unknown Speaker: should give some context on Caltrain already stated L. Yeah,

[02:00:07] Chair John McAlister: yes. I'm favorable one. I don't... We just wanted that clarification. We say go out and be active and then we go, well, here's a shortcut. It doesn't take much to do the 30 minute, 32nd across the street. So I support that, not to do the 2 crossings. That was all I had. I just want some clarification. Thank you. There's emotion on the table. Or, shall we, any clarification on it, or we won't move, yeah, take the boat. On

[02:00:42] Member Alison Hicks: my 2nd name? All second? Okay. All

[02:00:44] Chair John McAlister: of it. Just staff.

[02:00:46] Member Alison Hicks: Can we clarify exactly what the motion is again?

[02:00:49] Unknown Speaker: I got lost along the way. At one point as soon as I start.

[02:00:53] Member Ellen Kamei: Okay, so I think it's the stock recommendation. Um

[02:00:59] Assistant Public Works Director Arango: Everything it said. Sure, I was writing it down, if I can help. Oh, wait, okay. Uh, so we heard a motion for the Saffron foundation. And then, um, after some clarification from council member Hicks, um, uh, additional input on the additional emphasis on providing design input for the gateway element of the project. So, um, and then, um, Again, this strategic public input, um, evaluating that, and so sort of it's, I'm hopeful that it could be going forward on projects. Um, as, you know, as I mentioned, BPAC and CTC here is a part of the public input. So, We get clarification on the 2nd part. No, you're good. I

[02:01:44] Chair John McAlister: got a 3rd part, but, VGA is giving out money for art, so we'll bring that up at another time.

[02:01:51] Member Alison Hicks: It can be part of design for, uh, possibility that it may be perfect. Okay. And

[02:01:57] Assistant Public Works Director Arango: then the last piece was the data that Councilman McAllister incorporated and um, committee outlined it perfectly well on, let us do that as part of the council report that goes full, perfect. Do you?

5.2 Interim Pedestrian Mall Improvements (Dana and Villa Intersections), Project 23-49

[02:02:10] Chair John McAlister: You guys are rented, so, you know, you know... Okay. Uh, voices call, all of favor. Pass unanimously. Okay. We will go to our next item. Soon as like, what's that doing? Anybody need a break? No, just keep going. Okay. Um, 5.2. Yes,

[02:02:44] Unknown Speaker: intro improvements, Dana Inville Intersections Project, 2349. Give us, I'm sorry. Give us a moment about, um, senior civil engineer. Joseph Cervantes is on the screen. How we doing? presentation. 3 minute break then. Three minutes? Three minute. Very good. Thank you, Joy. I'm

[02:03:14] Chair John McAlister: talking about that last time you heard all of them.. Looks good, Joseph. Laura. You guys see me? Yes. Yes. Okay.

[02:03:34] Senior Civil Engineer Cervantes: Maybe I'll hide my screen. But just my face.

[02:07:00] Chair John McAlister: Before I move on, I just want to say thank you to the staff. Uh, I never, you know, as I sat here and started looking at all the moving pieces, and tying it, that was tweaked, uh, a task of threading the needle and bringing all those things to make a mosaic of transit. like that very mosaic of China. That was very nice. And I just want to make sure that you guys realized that I appreciate that was that was quite a trick. Um, it's trying to juggle all the pieces and try to get it there. And then dig an RM, so I'm saying, Oh okay, good for that.

[02:07:34] Unknown Speaker: So, thank you. Thank you. That appreciates that input. We'll talk about another complex location. Um, item 5.2 interim pedestrian, uh, law improvements, Dana and Villa intersections, projects 2349. I'll let Joseph Cervantes introduce himself.

[02:07:58] Senior Civil Engineer Cervantes: Hello, can everyone? hear me? Yes. Yes. All right. Okay, well, um, good evening. My name is Joseph Cervantes, senior civil engineer with the public works department presenting on the Interim Pedestrian Mall Improvements Project at the Castro Street Intersections with Dana and Villa Streets. And apologies I couldn't be there in person. Switch Castro intersections are included in this project. The aerial photos shown here illustrates the project location and the 3 intersections propose to receive improvements. Villa Street, Dana Street, and finally California Street. Before we dive into what those improvements are, here's a little project background. In 2020, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, Castro Street between Evelyn Avenue and California Street were close to vehicular traffic to allow outdoor dining to support local businesses, and the Castro Street's program was implemented. In 2022, a council ad hoc committee was formed to review and provide direction for the design guidelines and implementation plan for an interim pedestrian mall along Castro Street. Later that year, the city council introduced and adopted an ordinance for establishing a pedestrian mall on Castro Street. In 2023, the ad hoc committee recommended that council approve a modified signal control at the Villa and Dana Street intersections. Council also approved the ad hoc committee's recommendation for a single centralized pedestrian crossing at Villa and Dana, and a roundabout at California Street. And finally, last year, city council authorized a professional services agreement with Kimley Horn for design services and construction support. At this council meeting, staff recommended phasing the project, and a design concept for Villa and Dana Streets was presented to council, and is shown here on the left side. This design includes Removing the 2 north-south crossings and replacing them with a single center crossing in the middle of Castro Street. Modifying street curves to shorten the pedestrian crossing distance. Installing new bullards and fencing to guide pedestrians towards the center crossing, and installing new traffic signal equipment. On the right side is an area of California Street where we are planning to convert the existing traffic circle into a modern roundabout. Due to the limitations in funding and to not delay construction of improvements at Villa and Dana streets, the project will be constructed in 2 phases. Phase one. Oops. Sorry, phase one will include the design and bid package for the Villa and Dana Street intersections. And phase 2 will include the design, And bid package of the California Street intersection. At the moment, only the phase one concept is being developed. This area shows the existing conditions at Villa Street, which are similar to conditions on Dana Street. We currently have, 2 crossings which do not allow pedestrians to continue along the center of the street. Ballards and railings. An outdated traffic signal equipment that require replacement to accommodate a center crossing. This next slide shows the proposed improvements at Villa Street, which also applies to Dana Street. The proposed design will include the following elements. Pedestrian crossings that align with existing sidewalks along Castro Street. A sensor street crossing that includes a 21 foot wide opening that lines up with the recently installed ribbons along the pedestrian mall walkway. Removable ballards to provide access to emergency vehicles. Reusing the existing colorful round ballards. Bow bouts to shorten pedestrian crossing distances. Existing decorative fencing will also be used to provide a consistent pedestrian mall treatment. New traffic signals and pedestrian push buttons. New uniform thermoplastic crosswalk treatment that extends the entire width of the street, and refreshed striping. These concepts for villain dentistries were presented to BPAC at their June 25 meeting. BPAC's motion was to recommend that the CTC approved the design concept, and added a few post-project recommendations, including, Adjusting the signal timing. Evaluating the posted speed limits. And considering the installation of speed humps. Staff will be adjusting the signal timing with phase one of the project. Once construction of phase one is completed, staff will conduct a speed survey to determine if villa and Dana streets are eligible for a speed limit reduction. Staff will also determine if the installation of speed humps at the side street approaches is warranted. So here are our next steps. We will seek council approval of the design concept in March of 2026. We anticipate phase one's designed to be completed by the summer of 2026 and construction to begin in the fall. Construction is to be funded through the upcoming CIP budget cycle. And we expect phase 2's design to begin in 2026, once construction funding for phase one secured. Staff's recommendation is to recommend that the city council approve the design concept for the interim pedestrian mall improvements. Dana and Villa Intersections Project 2349. Thank you. This wraps up the presentation. Thank you. And

[02:14:51] Chair John McAlister: I'll bring it back to the committee. Any questions from the committee? Questions? Um, so

[02:14:58] Member Alison Hicks: what is, I didn't get the full term, thermoplastic, something or other. Thermoplastic crosswalk. Yes, what is that?

[02:15:11] Senior Civil Engineer Cervantes: Yes, so we will be using thermoplastic uh, for the entire width of the crosswalk, and that's gonna show, you know, that pattern uh, that you see on that exhibit. And so it'll be, you know, instead of having, you know, stripes for crosswalk. You have that thermoplastic treatment. It's like a

[02:15:34] Member Alison Hicks: pink plastic brick. So,

[02:15:36] Assistant Public Works Director Arango: uh, Interringo, assistant book works right here. Let me see if I can help with that question. So the thermoplastic is a materials type that we use for crosswalks. So it's the white striking that you see at the standard crosswalks or sometimes yellows. Uh-huh. Um, there's 2 materials. just standard paint. And thermoplastic material is just it's a more durable material. Um, that lasts a lot longer and we prefer to use it. And so the intent is to use that same material, but in a pattern across the entire intersections.

[02:16:06] Member Alison Hicks: I say. Um, so, do we use it anywhere else in the city? We

[02:16:12] Assistant Public Works Director Arango: use it. Yeah. Again, there's 2 types of mature. So

[02:16:14] Member Alison Hicks: we use it as now we use it as planes, but there's a pattern that it's going to be used instead of the plane that we usually use. That's what you're saying. Correct.

[02:16:26] Assistant Public Works Director Arango: you can think of the white striping at the intersections, that's typically thermoplastic. It's a durable material that doesn't wear away like paint. And then we were planning on using that same material, but in the pattern across the intersection. So, uh, an

[02:16:42] Principal Civil Engineer Gonzales: example might be at Valley Fair Mall, where you're crossing to Santana Row, there's a thermoplastic kind of a grid pattern on the street that's just flat. in there, but I did not take a closet. It's white. It's white. If you're ever in Sunnyvale, uh, on Matilda, Avenue, going into downtown, it's thermoplastic fake brick where it's thermoplastic material, um, provides the color, and then there was a brick pattern stamped into the asphalt. Um, So

[02:17:14] Member Alison Hicks: I think when I was on the ad hoc committee. We looked at some of those and were like we were looking them over and some we felt or connected, you can see an inappropriate look. So that's in my deep past memory now. Are you going to use, are you going to work for some of these details like picking ballards? And so and and picking patterns and stuff like that. Are you going to, we used to hire gal design? When, again, when I was on the ad hoc committee, we had a designer we started with. Are we going to do that or their contract is long gone or?

[02:17:52] Senior Civil Engineer Houghton: So Gil provided design guidelines as part of their contract, and we've been adhering to those design guidelines as part of the interim improvements. And so these will be consistent with those design guidelines. Regarding the ballers. We're looking specifically at ballers that are consistent with the look and feel of the downtown. I don't know if Gail specifically dealt with ballers, but like all the fencing and all the color schemes are consistent with this project will be consistent with with the Gail design. Um, overarching design concepts.

[02:18:31] Member Alison Hicks: So, um, Let's see. Uh. I guess those, those were my main questions and they reflect some of my concerns that I can bring up. Bring up when we do comments and not questions.

[02:18:53] Chair John McAlister: Okay, so I'm gonna have to have you guys feel the way back machine and say, why are we doing this? I was here in 21, we closed it, but it says original projects go single, centralized, modified speed. So why are we going? What's the driving motivation of doing on this? Sure, the,

[02:19:15] Senior Civil Engineer Houghton: the driving motivation of doing this is to, this is part of the interim and penal improvements that were initiated. So, um, The, um, the decorative fencing around the restaurants, the striping down the middle. If you remember, a few years back before we did those, restaurants had an inconsistent use. Oh, yeah. So we wanted more consistency and we wanted a centralized walkway, um, up and down through 10, 20, 300 blocks. So what we're seeing now is that between those blocks, at the intersections, the pedestrians need to move over to the sidewalks. So council directed us to look at opportunities for us to, uh, create a centralized walk area across the intersections. So you have a more consistent look and feel to the mall as you peruse. They were her 3rd street promenades in a month. Uh, maybe vaguely. I'm not a southern California guy, but if you want to pay for a trip, I'll go. No,

[02:20:22] Chair John McAlister: like you're saying, you, the goal is to get people walk down the middle, not on the, go to the side of the curve and you cross.

[02:20:30] Senior Civil Engineer Houghton: We're almost there. We've got them walking down the middle within the blocks, and this would allow for that continuity across the intersections. So it says interim. How

[02:20:42] Chair John McAlister: is this interim, because we got the downtown vitality program, we got a group working on that, we got the precise plan that's gonna be 4 years out. Uh, and hopefully, isn't there a CIP to level the street across? That is the permanent. Yes, and when is that targeted to come on? It's

[02:21:03] Principal Civil Engineer Gonzales: on the unscheduled list because it is quite expensive to raise a street up 6 inches all the way across for 3 full blocks. Oh okay. We can work on that one. Okay, so, but, What

[02:21:16] Chair John McAlister: is the budget on this? Joseph,

[02:21:20] Senior Civil Engineer Houghton: do you have the budget numbers? Yes.

[02:21:22] Senior Civil Engineer Cervantes: So for these 2 intersections, um, we're expecting construction to cost about $one.7 million. For both intersections. And so that includes upgrading the existing traffic signal equipment and and all of the other, um, improvements that I mentioned in my presentation. With

[02:21:44] Chair John McAlister: the upgrading of the traffic signals. The part of our bigger strategy to have a centralized AI, uh, streets, signals, we were working that way, we were gonna, somewhere years ago, we were gonna get a centralized, uh, traffic center where we could see everything going and all that stuff. Oh,

[02:22:07] Principal Civil Engineer Gonzales: a traffic management center when we redo the traffic signal, it will likely get a new traffic controller, which would then be compatible for being able to have the communications back to a traffic management center if and when we get one. Okay,

[02:22:20] Chair John McAlister: last time, I just don't want to spend money on one. 7 and all of a sudden. Well, that's that's not gonna cut it. Okay. Um, The roundabout. We have a roundabout of California now. Are you gonna, I, I like roundabouts and they're coming more popular even on highways, so. What's the strategy on that? So we sort of already have one?

[02:22:42] Senior Civil Engineer Houghton: So California has a signalized intersection with Castro. Oh, okay, so you approach it, even though you go around, it's not a 2 round. Green, yellow, red, just like a regular intersection. It happens to have a round object in the center. So are you going to eliminate? That's what that would that would make it a modernized roundabout. Eliminating the signals and then we'll bring you back the layout, it will look substantially different because it will have pedestrian and and bike infrastructure. Um, so that it's more defined on, you know, uh, pedestrian areas, vehicle areas, uh, bike areas. Um,

[02:23:23] Chair John McAlister: I know it, it, I'd love to see the data on how efficient that's gonna make that intersection. It will make it more efficient. It

[02:23:32] Senior Civil Engineer Houghton: will make it more efficient. Yeah. Okay, good.

[02:23:35] Chair John McAlister: Because we're changing it to a pedestrian. No, down here. Yeah, but that's, but that's still, but that's just people, they don't, they won't sit there and wait time and drive time and omission. So, um, okay. And, wow. So we're gonna do the earlier project that we heard tonight, we got this project coming down the bike. Are they gonna clash? I mean, are we gonna impact businesses? Are we taking off parking spaces with all this stuff? How is the timing of these 2 projects? The Castro Evelyn Project in this gonna be? Somewhere along the line, looks like they're gonna cross over. So

[02:24:16] Senior Civil Engineer Houghton: these are discrete projects because we're talking about Dana and Villa as phase one. Um, I believe Joseph's, Joseph's schedule um, said that we would be approaching the end of design in the 1st half of 2026, moving into construction in the fall. So this will be ahead of the Castro Evelyn. And I thought we were going to in 27, we were also going to start construction there. So. So there might be some overlap. We'll have to work that out with the contractors. Okay, and we're going to be able to accommodate the businesses or minimize

[02:24:49] Chair John McAlister: the disruption. The,

[02:24:52] Senior Civil Engineer Houghton: for this particular project for Dana and Villa. The disruption will be temporary and it'll be typical traffic control. So, we'll be thinking about pedestrian movements, bike movements, vehicle movements. So, Dana and Villa. Um, not necessarily impacting uh, traffic on Evelyn, because we're not really closing down. Villa, for example, is a bus route. So we're not necessarily proposing that we closed down villa will be phasing that one area or the other. Villa

[02:25:26] Chair John McAlister: is going to be a major route for buses going in and out, going to the shoreline. Um, And so, and this other stuff. What are the, what's the thought behind the bull bus? We don't have a lot of. Yeah, why are the bulldogs coming? I mean, uh, taking the curves and bumping them out a little bit. A couple of feet or so, uh, is that anticipated to slow down traffic or to help people get across? Because we're not talking a lot of, you know, 10 feet maybe total on either side to walk. Yeah,

[02:25:58] Senior Civil Engineer Houghton: bobots are often used for the benefits of the pedestrian crossing. So we're shortening that pedestrian crossing. What we've seen over the past few years is pedestrians choose to do what they want on Castro, some of the rules that, um, you know, pedestrians often follow in other areas of the city, they have a little bit more, um, freedom of movement. So having a little bit more space behind a bulb out gives them a shorter crossing distance. It alerts, it alerts, the vehicles that they're, that the area is necking down, so there's a natural tendency to slow down as you're approaching these, these intersections, even with a green light. So all of these are... Have we met any issues before safer?

[02:26:43] Principal Civil Engineer Gonzales: Modern, I would say, modern practice is to where we can get bull belts put them in because it limits the exposure of the pedestrian for a conflict area with a vehicle. So the, to shorten the crossing distance limits

[02:26:58] Chair John McAlister: that exposure. I know. Well, I'm, again, Mr. Tight Money on, you know, spending that, and you got the signal like there's going to help them get across anyway, so, okay. So

[02:27:08] Senior Civil Engineer Houghton: these particular will be paint, we're not looking at making these into concrete curbs. Oh, maybe rubber eye, maybe a rubber curb, but nothing permanent. Okay, um, okay,

[02:27:22] Chair John McAlister: things got, beach. GSD. Um, Okay. Um, what's the length of this project gonna take? So, um, yeah,

[02:27:35] Senior Civil Engineer Cervantes: construction is gonna take about 6 months, and so we're gonna, this design is gonna be finished um, in the June, in June of next year. And so we're we're thinking that, you know, this phase one of the project will be completed by the early part of 2027.

[02:27:58] Chair John McAlister: I guess there's a lot to be learned about. Traffic construction, then how long it takes to design it, so. Yeah,

[02:28:05] Principal Civil Engineer Gonzales: there is a long lead time item on traffic signal polls. So I think what we're saying is active construction time is closer to 6 months, but there will be a delay as we're, I think there's only one like manufacturing plant that makes traffic signal poles and it's in the middle of the country. Um, and so it, you know, it's, it, it, runs about 9 months now. So

[02:28:26] Chair John McAlister: is that the same company that we had the issue on sleeper and grant because of the traffic poles were delayed?

[02:28:34] Principal Civil Engineer Gonzales: I mean, a typical time to receive a traffic single pole after placing the order is, you know, it can run anywhere from 910 months. So, How

[02:28:44] Chair John McAlister: soon do you place that order? Once

[02:28:47] Principal Civil Engineer Gonzales: we get the contractor on board, typically one of the 1st orders of work is to alert them of long league time items and to really just start working the schedule based off of things like that.

[02:28:56] Chair John McAlister: So, how well are we doing on coordinating product coming in and timeline with the construction? Even our track record?

[02:29:06] Unknown Speaker: I mean, I think we're pretty good at keeping the contractors moving, always we're at the mercy of the traffic signal whole plant, if that's the right words. And how quickly they can manufacture and, you know, other orders that they have, but, um, in general, our team does a pretty good job of staying on top of the contractors. No

[02:29:25] Chair John McAlister: tariffs involved here. Okay, okay. And will it be any conduit put in the ground to anticipate any advances in technology? So does this include tons of replacement?

[02:29:39] Senior Civil Engineer Cervantes: Yeah, I believe there will be conduit placement for the pedestrian push buttons, which will be going into the middle of the roadway. Um, And I think that's that's pretty much it, just some electrical. So there'll be push

[02:29:56] Chair John McAlister: buttons or waving the hand on all 4 corners plus in the middle. Yes.

[02:30:01] Unknown Speaker: Pedestrian buttons right next to the center of walk. So there'll be, how many buttons are everybody pushing? are available.

[02:30:12] Senior Civil Engineer Cervantes: There'll be, um, there'll be at least 4 on each side.

[02:30:16] Chair John McAlister: Well, so that's eight. Yes. The intersection. Wow. Okay.

[02:30:23] Chair John McAlister: Uh I have no more questions, but open it up to the public, and anybody else has any follow-up questions? Anybody virtual on this one? Yes. Bruce

[02:30:36] Unknown Speaker: England? Hi.

[02:30:43] Bruce England: Uh, Bruce England, Wisman Station Drive, I had my notes, and then I lost them, so I'm gonna have to try to remember. Um, so, one of the issues is the speed limits on those roadways. So on Dana, on Villa, and on California, looking at Google Maps and trying to determine what the speed limits are, it looks like they're between 25 and 35. I know that when I drive along there, which is unusual and rare, but when I do it, I'm bringing it down to about 15 miles an hour. I don't feel comfortable going any faster through there. Um, So I'd like consideration for that. And that came from the BPAC to bring the speed limits down, or at least look at them, and I would certainly like them far lower than what they are right now. Those intersections are just too narrow and small in scale to allow cars to go through much faster than that. The, um, there's a comment on the BPAC meeting about ADA ramps and that they oftentimes go off at weird 45 degree angles and don't really go in the direction of where the subsequent walkway is is going to be. And I think sometimes that's done because of space constraints and so on. But as much as possible, have those ADA ramps go straight along the way would be, um, great. And I'm also strongly in favor of doing something with that California intersection, that roundabout putting a nice big native tree, like an oak there. It's kind of a gateway for our city, and that would be a great presence to have in that location. Some cities do that. They specifically put large trees in their key intersections like that. Be a very nice touch in an area that's lacking in trees. That's what I remember that I wanted to say. Thanks. You were just... Alaska.

[02:32:30] Chair John McAlister: Thank you. Anybody else? Thanks. That's it? One Mars, no. Mary, Daniel? Hi,

[02:32:41] Public Speaker: um, actually just had a few questions, especially since traffic polls or long lead time items. Um, I was wondering about whether it's really necessary to add more buttons or if the same thing could be accomplished by having a, a timer at the intersections that just allowed for pedestrian crossings, um, on a rather frequent basis, or, um, or having a, a camera sensor to, um, to trip it for pedestrians, rather than having to run a bunch of wires and and put new poles in. I don't know if that would be a significant savings or not. I love the idea of an oak tree in the, um, in the, in the traffic circle. Uh, at California when you get to that. And um, I want to 2nd also the comment about, about, um, having the ramps, um, in the direction that the pedestrians are a month to go. Um, for um, ADA compliance. Thanks.

[02:33:53] Chair John McAlister: Thank you. Yes. Yes, there's. How many more are in the queue, please? Um,

[02:34:00] Unknown Speaker: just one more. Okay, thank you. Albert Jeans. Oh, Albert. Hi, can you hear me? Yes.

[02:34:10] Albert Jeans: Great. Yeah, and confess, this is the 1st time with the details of this project, but my question is, you know, now you have like 3 crossings at the street. Why not just get rid of those little fences there and just make it one wide crossing? Um, I was in Japan. You're probably all familiar with a Shibuya scramble. It's this huge intersection. You know, 5 speeds are coming together, and at one point, you know, all the cars stopped and everybody can cross. They don't need buttons in the middle of the street. They don't need a lot of extra signals. Everybody just knows, you know, when pedestrians similar goes on, you can go anywhere you want. And that's the case here now too. Because you can essentially cross, you know, Castro, if you wanted to, um, going diagonally across. So why not make that possible and simplify things instead of having those little fences and extra buttons and all that kind of stuff. Um, so that's just my, you know, suggestion and immediate reaction. Thanks a lot. Well,

[02:35:12] Chair John McAlister: let's jump on that. Why can't we just make it a scramble? It's not that big of an intersection. Oh,

[02:35:18] Unknown Speaker: society. So there is a balance here between openness and safety. Um, I think there's been some ongoing discussions at the staff level. Um, that we're recognizing that Castro, like a lot of other locations as a potential target. For somebody, malicious actor. Oh, okay. So having, having ballards is a protective element. So, why would that prevent people to do it? Scramble, everybody, drip, process at one time. My understanding from the question was, was specific to like opening up the whole thing, including the ballard. Okay, okay. My question is, Forget

[02:35:59] Chair John McAlister: the ballots, if you can just do a scramble and you don't, you know, people figure out how they're getting across. Um,

[02:36:07] Unknown Speaker: I know that our traffic group, um, considered that. Oh, I'm going to look over at Joseph to see if he has an answer for that because I can't remember if I can try. Who

[02:36:16] Assistant Public Works Director Arango: are you again? Again, Edorango says about works director. The way that we develop the concept is effectively a scramble. Um, when the pedestrians have the green to go, all vehicle traffic will be stopped on the side streets. So it's, it'll effectively serve as a scramble, um, which means that pedestrians will be able to go in any direction, um, north-south or from one side. Diagonal. Yeah, okay Yeah, we're just, um, trying to, you know, put clear, uh, um, indicators with the, you know, the signalized, um, pedestrian elements, um, to show that where those positions are already walking down the center of the pedmal and as well as the sidewalks, that it's just a natural progression for them to be able to push a button there and then keep going, but they could cross, you know, diagonally across the intersections they choose. Then

[02:37:08] Chair John McAlister: why do we need a... Poles to push the button, if we just figure out a button makes it a scramble for everybody. Why do we have to have somebody? Well, getting away from push buttons, aren't we, scanning that or wave in again? It's

[02:37:23] Unknown Speaker: it's for the people who are walking down the pet mall down the middle of the street, right? So they don't have to go to the corners to wave their hand to indicate that the traffic signal will allow them to green to cross it so they can stay in the middle, wave their hand over a pen push button in the middle and then continue down the middle. So,

[02:37:42] Chair John McAlister: we're accommodating people from walking 10, 15 feet, actually.

[02:37:49] Unknown Speaker: We are encouraging pedestrian activity up and down the 10200 and 300 blocks and free movement throughout those blocks. Oh, okay. Um, I

[02:38:01] Chair John McAlister: just had a question. Somebody wanted, uh, Speed bumps, but I don't think, uh, public safety would like speed bumps in that area. So. So. So

[02:38:14] Unknown Speaker: speed bumps are one tool, we can certainly evaluate it. I think that the, that evaluation is post project as some of the elements that we're putting in here with the ball ballots are already going to be traffic calming. But,

[02:38:26] Chair John McAlister: I mean, you have public safety, just trying to get there in a somewhat quick way. And just that would be an unnecessary. So okay, that's fair. Um, any questions? Then we'll go comments. Can

[02:38:41] Member Alison Hicks: you just podcast? Oh, I guess so. Oh, you mean our comments? Our comments. Oh, I have our comments. I thought you meant more public. No,

[02:38:48] Chair John McAlister: we have public is included. Right, right. No, yes, please. Start

[02:38:55] Member Alison Hicks: commenting? Okay, you asked for it. So, I'm, um, So I'm, again, even more than the last one, a little uncomfortable with how fast this is going with, this is the center of our town and I've seen other, when we did the previous, I was on the ad hoc committee. I should start with, I fully support the idea of enabling people to cross down the middle of the street and I support a lot of the configuration, but I feel like there's a design element that is lacking. And, um, so, I've seen other pedestrian malls where, kind of the, um, sometimes they call it street furniture. I feel that the fencing, it's not my favorite around the, around the tables, but it's interim and it's what's available on the market, but for fences. I just think this is kind of suboptimal and not appropriate for a downtown. And I've seen, for example, on California Street, and I'm not necessarily recommending this, but they have, uh, actually, our downtown is nicer than theirs, but in the, on California Street, where it's car free. They have instead of... Palo Alto. Sorry to interrupt. Yes, it is color. They have very large urns or vases with flowers in them. I mean, as large as a human being that would stop cars. I think there are other choices that are better than these. So I feel like some of the furnishings are trim are, um, are not appropriate for a downtown. And I also think that the roundabout, I'm a little scared when we, I know we're not talking about that necessarily now, but it was in the staff report. Um, The current configuration, this is our historic downtown and the current configuration is the scale of, you know, a gridded street. I'm a little afraid that it's going to be turned into something that you might put on El Camino Real or a very car oriented strip mall kind of entering the freeway kind of roundabout. And that's not what I want to end up seeing here. I don't want something that kind of, you know, takes over the, the sidewalks and, um, It, and is not appropriate for, you know, a small scale walkable. you know, window shopping kind of the only place we have in town. So I have a lot of fears about this, and I think we're kind of rushing through it. And I know that's probably not welcome comments, but that's how I feel. Thank you. And I think we could spend less money and get something nicer. I think we're focusing a lot on signalization and things that are not in in a walkable area of town or not where we should be spending the money. Mayor? Um... No, I mean, I think, um,

[02:42:17] Member Ellen Kamei: I'm just absorbing the comments. I think that, I think for me, it's always like, um, the project before in this one, we keep talking about interim, but I feel like how long is interim going to be? And so I think, um, reflecting on your, your comments, um, committee member Hicks, it's like, if it was interim, then I think this is like the treatment's appropriate, right? But I think that you're thinking, how long will we be with this situation, um, in kind of the heart of our downtown and I, and I understand that. And so, I think that that's where, for this is a little bit different. Do we know how long the interim is it? I miss it. Sorry, did I miss it in here? Is it 2 years? Is it longer? Oh,

[02:43:02] Chair John McAlister: 6 months and 20?

[02:43:04] Unknown Speaker: No, no, no, no. how long it is. Oh, yeah. The permanent pet mall project is on the unscheduled list. So it is, does not have a time frame. So when I last talked to Pat Berg.

[02:43:14] Member Alison Hicks: He's the last person, a council member I talked to in Palo Alto. And he said, they have a regular designer that they go to who picks out their street furniture. And I just think we need something like that. Not not to disrespect anybody. I wouldn't want to pick up street furniture. It's not my job. I'm not trained in that. And I think we need someone who does that. And I think it's pretty easy to get, but we don't have that. Is

[02:43:41] Chair John McAlister: that another preview? Public works, wouldn't that be more of development? Scheme of development. I

[02:43:49] Unknown Speaker: think what you're asking for are almost like downtown, like almost creation of like a downtown standards, right? And this is our 1st project. So what I'm hearing you say is, that you want. Um, the uh, certain amenities that we can control within the project, to be, um, I don't know, sophisticated the right word, more, more sophisticated than maybe what's shown on the plans. Um, what we do have here are, um, Concepts. I think if, you know, we were to, get some sort of recommendation to, um, have the design team reevaluate some of these elements or something that's more, you know, statuesque or whatever the right word is, is like more suitable to a downtown. is an abrupt end, right?

[02:44:48] Member Ellen Kamei: So we just talked about what we're going to be doing for, you know, well, we'll hopefully become our, um, grade separated, you know, transit center and it'll be really, I think, a really great opportunity for placemaking. A couple years ago we got to see the public art and then to go and end here. At this, at this rendering. I would say it feels just abrupt. I wouldn't call it. Um, I like the idea of, you know, continuing the traffic flow. Um, you know, um, But I, but I, but I hear what you're saying. So I think that engineered

[02:45:23] Member Alison Hicks: well. Yeah. I mean, you all did your jobs really well, but it's just the design element. So I think I'll

[02:45:30] Member Ellen Kamei: I'll look forward and I'll um, make the recommendation, with maybe an opportunity to have further discussions with the design team, on some elements, to create a little bit more, um, Urban pedestrian malls. Sense of place. Yeah. Yeah. So that'll be my recommendation. Okay. And I do think that's good feedback for us to talk about downtown design standards, and maybe that's part of the precise one. Is

[02:46:06] Chair John McAlister: that a recommendation or emotions? It's emotion, I just said. Oh, no. Yeah,

[02:46:11] Member Alison Hicks: I don't know, my 2nd question. Okay,

[02:46:13] Chair John McAlister: I got it. And we have a second? I'm a secondary. Okay, discussion? Before my chat? Okay, I'll didn't get a chance. Um, I'm concerned that there's a lot of moving parts with downtown, and I'd hate to spend money on a design, unless it was a comprehensive design, so that we spend money once, for what we get, and then it stays. So, even though it's interim, I don't want to, you know, so I would just want to spend our money wisely. And so I don't mind standards, but let's get a good concept of where it's going to fit in the whole part. So if people are doing parts, It's blended in. So that's what I, I'd like to see. If we can figure out how to reduce the number of buttons, if, you know, with a scramble or whatever. Uh, people are going AI, I would love to see us pilot. Some cameras, of AI, they are being done well, in other parts, so potentially, that could be a good place to do it so that you can pick a feed. So we would be, this, clarify that this would be a on demand, street crossing, and not a, uh, synchron. I mean, cycles. Right, fix time, correct. I

[02:47:36] Unknown Speaker: will say I have tried the cameras for pedestrians in another place. It was a couple of years ago, did not end up working well. There's a lot of shadows and things, you know, cats and stuff running by, you know, that just sort of catch the attention of a camera and, you know, cameras for vehicles work fine because vehicles are big and large and they actually, you know, stop there waiting for something. A pedestrian, sometimes they're moving around. Um, they're not always static. Okay, okay. So just a caution that it, you know, technology

[02:48:11] Chair John McAlister: may not be there. If you can find a way. I mean, if we're trying to reduce clutter, then no offense that these, this is going to be 8 polls, and I don't expect them, they could be... Yeah, or smaller. Okay. But still, if we could figure out how... Save some money and make it not so quick. Okay, ladies? Did you get my, uh, that cluttered and try to clean it up and, okay, standards? Um, does every... Sure.

[02:48:40] Member Alison Hicks: If you can reduce clutter. That's.

[02:48:43] Chair John McAlister: Well, I mean, if we had all those poles,

[02:48:45] Member Alison Hicks: there's a way to do it. Sure. Okay.

[02:48:47] Chair John McAlister: Um, and then I think somebody wanted to put a statue of uh, Washington in the center there. I think that was or a water fountain.

[02:48:55] Principal Civil Engineer Gonzales: So for the benefit for the benefit of the committee. The center of that circle in California has a sewer manhole, which means there's 4 intersecting sewer lines that go into that area. So, I can't promise, uh, I'm perfect for the water tree. That's true. I can't promise. Okay. That's right. Uh,

[02:49:20] Chair John McAlister: so everybody, yeah, we're out, any comp, you're there? Good. Okay, I have motion on the table. It's been 2nd in. All in favors, say ah, raise your hand. All right, okay. Hungry. Okay. Motion passes unanimously with various comments about standardize and efficiency and not letters. It's, and, uh, money would be good. Okay, next item? We go to 5 points. No, by three. Okay, we're out. Yeah. Oh, we're at 52?

6.1 Staff Comments

[02:49:58] Public Works Director Ng: Can't we finish five? Oh, oh, we're oh, okay. We're at item number six. Six, but 61 is staff comments, and I don't have Steph comments. So we can go to 6 tits.

6.2 Committee Comments

[02:50:08] Chair John McAlister: Six, two. Okay, I have some comments for you guys. And these are observations. This is for you. This is for you. This is story. You, you probably know what I want. Okay, these are just, I want, people don't, okay, I want for everybody. Yeah, you want to come by? Thank you. You guys are familiar with this, bro. Okay, that's one page just. Go with this page. Okay? I'm not an engineer, but I, I, so I just want to bring this to your attention to look at, how all things are, Are we over engineering? Are, are we just, so, this is Franklin and Sleeper Franklin, and if you count the polls, there are 10 polls that you see here, and this is just to make, and you turn left. So there's 10 poles there. I am working with the director and they are reviewing it. They were very, uh, open-minded when they were. Yeah, the trail interest. And so you can see arrows are going in multiple directions. Um, but they... They were helpful and helpful. This is okay. This is down Franklin's. Now you go and you look at it from sleeper, you see a lot of more pulls. Um, no, you went too far. Well, that's at nighttime. There you go. So it just, I'm looking at these things. Can we be do things a little. I mean, if you have to do them by the law, fine, if you can do them a little different. This is the, there's a night picture of where they sort of flash at you. And it gives you a little more, uh, context. So uh, we're seeing that. And then the last one. Uh, again, I'm just talking about Sleeper and Grant. We were talking about, I'm talking about efficiency. You'll see 2 green lines on the thing there, and you will see those are 2 crosswalks coming across. I am working with the director to help better understand what's being built here. But it...

[02:52:16] Member Ellen Kamei: Orientaries? Or are we? Here, this is...

[02:52:20] Chair John McAlister: This is Grant Road and this is Sleeper. So this project's been in the work for 8 years. Oh, I'm facing the park. You're facing the park. You're facing north. on sleep for crossing. You honestly for facing across. Yeah. And you can see the green line is where they have 2 crosswalks that piers, and I, for reference, I took the director's input and put PD one on there. But Arizona was on fan pace. This is this is sweet. So

[02:52:47] Member Ellen Kamei: you're gonna cross to grants. Let's just quest apart.

[02:52:52] Chair John McAlister: So the point I'm trying to get on both of these is, is there a way to be efficient, safety, and making things at a more reasonable cost so that we can get our roads paid and our downtown set up. So, I don't think you guys would have seen this or you think about, but just bring it to when you look at something, you go, wow. And I don't want to say the phrase over engineer, because I don't know what over engineering mean, and please forgive me for using that phrase, but, but if you look at this diagram, there's, oh, well, I asked the new question to you too. But, This is gonna, there's a lot of traffic on Grant Road, if you ever go down Grant Road, and it's very congested from about 830 to 9 and then 330 till 4 or no. This is going to affect traffic tremendously. And Is it gonna be a, is this gonna be a signal? Or is this just going to? This

[02:53:50] Public Works Director Ng: is a new signalized intersection. Correct.

[02:53:53] Chair John McAlister: So you're going to have Grant Road and Cuesta. This is going to be a signal, and then a signal at Eunice. This is a new single ice area. hybrid? This is hyperbacon. So it's pedestrian activator. So will one be pedestrian and one will be a traffic signal? Please, uh name

[02:54:14] Assistant Public Works Director Arango: again? Okay, that's right, go say some public works, director. If I'm hearing you correctly, you're talking about the grand sleeper intersection. Yes. Um, the intent is to put in a pedestrian hybrid beacon. Yes. So we've, uh, we've seen couch trans recently install those on El Camino. Oh no, I'm familiar with that. Okay. So that's the intent. So it's not a full signalized, traditional insurgent, a pedestrian hybrid. You still need all your... Okay,

[02:54:42] Chair John McAlister: so it's not a signal. But you're going to have it, but there's four, you're going to have 2 of those crossing the street. Because I saw 4 foundations on the corner. So

[02:54:54] Assistant Public Works Director Arango: there's crosswalks that are going to be crossing grant. Yeah Two, two. Right. And so then we're going to have, um, uh, symbolized, um, infrastructure to, uh, allow the pedestrian to push a button, activate the pedestrian hybrid beacon, and then cross pointed their...

[02:55:12] Chair John McAlister: But why do you need 2 crosswalks?

[02:55:14] Assistant Public Works Director Arango: Um, through the um, evaluation of the intersection. So this, as you know, has a lot of history. Um, we went through a study, um, as part of the, um, concept plan, we received feedback, um, we went through BPAC and CTC, that, um, a, I originally was just going to be a southerly lake crossing, not a northerly lake. And we request, there was a quest to allow for bike. Um, so the sleeper, um, Westbound sleeper approaching grant, bicycle bicycle movement, to allow that bicycle movement to cross grant and have a an ability to push a button and get across grant as a bicyclist without having to make that extra leg. That

[02:55:59] Chair John McAlister: extra layers mean the 20 feet to get to the other side of the... Going southbound

[02:56:03] Assistant Public Works Director Arango: on sleeper and then crossing of the southern lake, correct? Um, and so that was the request, and so Staff Incorporated. And then through the, who requested that? Um, that was requested, um, I believe it was through BPAC and CTC. And then as we evaluated it through the design, recognizing the importance of a pedestrian, um, again, um, leaning on the vision 0, um, another conflict point for, um, pedestrians to cross sleeper and then cross grant. And we were putting a crossing for bike across a northerly crossing anyway. Introducing a crosswalk for pedestrians made sense.

[02:56:43] Chair John McAlister: Will it be data collected as this project goes forth to see how many people actually use the bikes and bike? We

[02:56:50] Assistant Public Works Director Arango: can do that. We are already collecting data for the vehicle movement. As, again, if you remember, there's a lot of history on this project. The westbound sleeper approaching grant. turning left onto grant southbound. So we're restricting that movement. Buugles will no longer be able to do that. But we didn't put those as permanent improvements. We didn't put it as a concrete improvements in the median. We did sort of this rubber curve, um, delineators, which are the, the white yellow posts that you see, the plastic ones, and other signage, um, to allow us to collect data post construction, to identify how that's going so that way we can report back to, um, the committees and commissioners and identify what we recommend going fold. Because

[02:57:35] Chair John McAlister: if you're restricting the left turn lane, you're going to encourage people to use the South, Crosswalk versus the night. My, as Northwalk. So you can't, okay, you're coming off asleep. You can't make a left turn. Correct. So therefore, there will be less activity and it was safer to be on the south crosswalk. Because everybody's going to be those who can make a right. Okay. And so, uh,

[02:58:06] Assistant Public Works Director Arango: there's an additional movement, though. You would have to come and cross sleeper, but there's a conflict point there, and then cross grant. Yeah, but okay. That's

[02:58:15] Chair John McAlister: when I'm actually if you could review that conflict point of crossing from the north side of sleeper to the south side of sleeper. I don't, it's gonna be interesting. Because, again, I'm concerned about the traffic is just outrageous. I mean, pretty good. And, uh, there was a, it was a no U-turn. Considered for people coming down southbound on grant to do a U-turn there because right now you can't. Is there any consideration or not, no U chance there? I

[02:58:48] Assistant Public Works Director Arango: don't remember any feedback that we received regarding no U-turns. No, I'm just asking. Can it? Okay, I don't recall

[02:58:56] Chair John McAlister: that being a discussion item. It was in a discussion item. Okay. Just, because that, if with all this others going on, somebody does a U-turn, it's gonna bubble make it a little more. That's all I'm discussing. Okay. So I'm just showing you things that when we get up there and I'll say, hey, blah, blah, you're aware that maybe there are options out there. Well,

[02:59:19] Member Alison Hicks: comments on your comments? Please,

[02:59:20] Chair John McAlister: comment on my comments. Is that a nuts? If your,

[02:59:23] Member Alison Hicks: if your comment is that sometimes there's a lot of visual cacophonies, I think having children, I think I know what it means. Like, like, lots of stuff out there, talking. Watch. Tacophony. Okay. To watch. It's like tomato, tomato.

[02:59:37] Member Ellen Kamei: I don't know. Maybe, you know, there's been other present pronunciation.

[02:59:41] Member Alison Hicks: pronounce. Yeah. pronouncing it wrong. No, no, no, no. I think that it can sometimes make it difficult to drive and rest safe, and I particularly experience that when I teach kids to drive and they're like, so many signs to read. So, yes, I think, keep an eye on visual cat. Kikofenish. I learned another word. I understand. Uh,

7. ADJOURNMENT

[03:00:08] Chair John McAlister: that's the, those are right now, and then we already talked about the, um, the e-bikes that I'd like to get us to make sure that, we, on this committee, grab it, and then, um, champion Ford, uh, because we, we got a kid, you're on the, youth for destiny, and that would be your, suggestion, youth advisory board, right? So that would be a good place to talk it and say, hey, what would you do? Okay. Anything else we there? Thank you for the input. I think. Thank you for, uh, putting into this. Oh, okay. Thank you. Perfect. And I appreciate you guys listening to things. I mean, this could be throughout the city. I mean, we know we're looking at California Street. People are going, what's going on? And then, oh, one other incident? I think I mentioned it to you. Uh, people, there was a big truck making a delivery on El Camino. Uh, and he had to be in the, he had to take up a lane to do delivery because the bike lanes would not allow him to get into the commercial spot that he was going to. So that's something that we're going to be living with. So, uh, saying no more, I adjourn this meeting and they'll feel the next one that will be. March the 3rd 2026. This meeting is adjourned at 905..