Good afternoon and welcome to the Tuesday July 18th,
2023 special meeting of the Walnut Creek City Council.
We will start this special meeting with our council colleague
member Wilk who is going to announce that he is
basically participating remotely and why.
It's not basically. I am participating remotely.
It's because I'm in Washington DC for County Connection CCCTA
in meeting with congressmen that are part of the Transportation Committee for the Congressional
Office and doing that on behalf of looking for grant funding for our public transit.
And that's why I'm here. Thank you very much. Good luck. Bring home billions.
Otherwise, don't come home. No. This meeting is being conducted under the current rules and
regulations of the Ralph and Brown Act of the state of California because this
is a special meeting and under California law public comments will be
limited to subjects on the agenda only therefore public comments will be
received actually during the consideration of the item which there is
one item today and the council is considering the draft local roadway
safety plan and I'm going to turn it to our city manager to determined I guess
to pass it on to Heather Ballinger, to pass it on to Smithar Boardman. Well, we
just want to get you all a little opportunity at the mic. All right. Good
afternoon, Dan Buckeye, City Manager, and I will be quick here. I think we'll leap
frog Heather Ballinger unless you'd like and introduce Smithar Boardman, who is
going to give the bulk of our presentation this afternoon. Okay, good
afternoon, Smithar Boardman, traffic engineer with the city of Walnut Creek.
And today we will be talking about our draft local roadway safety plan. I also
do have additional staff and our consultant team in the audience here
today and they will be available to answer questions as well. So what we're
looking for today, this is a study session, we're looking for your feedback,
comments, questions on the plan and an overview of what we'll be talking about
today. So we'll go through the background, the collisions and the
countermeasures. That's really the bulk of the data discussion. Some of the
conceptual projects that were identified in the plan, understanding that balance
of how we implement these traffic safety improvements, next steps, and we'll
receive your feedback. So background. So generally speaking, over the last decade
plus, traffic safety has really risen to the surface as more of a concern, not
just in terms of quality of life, but also as a health concern. As a result, there's
actually been a lot of policies that have been passed in support by the state and federally,
and then locally, the council has actually prioritized traffic safety as a sub-bullet
under that social wellness and public safety item. Also, we do need a traffic safety plan
in order to be eligible for grants that we've already been selected for, but also additional
grant funding that is available for transportation projects. So really this is a shift in how
we think about traffic safety. So in the past we would say bad drivers are to blame, now
we're really thinking about how do we design for human mistakes. Before we would react
based on crash history, okay, how many crashes have occurred at the location, okay, so then
this is a problem spot. And now what we're doing is proactively identifying any risks
that could exist, because we have information about other locations, other cities, nationwide,
that may have similar characteristics to some of our roadways or intersections, and we can
apply that in a similar manner. And then, previously, we would try to prevent
all crashes. That's a huge burden in terms of resources, so we should really be focusing
on those crashes, either fatal or severe injury types of crashes, because those are the ones
that are most impactful to the community from a social aspect but also a fiscal aspect.
And then looking at vehicle speeds and how they should really just be context appropriate.
So this is the principles of the safe system approach.
This is a federal approach to traffic safety.
This is that shift.
And really it's a holistic and comprehensive approach to traffic safety that focuses
on human mistakes but then also their vulnerability.
If you're inside a car versus outside of a car,
there is a very different situation that could be going on
in terms of interactions.
And then designing a system that does have redundancies
and that's intended to protect everybody.
So some existing local efforts, just so you know,
we do have neighbors around us who of all are either
in the process of adopting or have already adopted
either a Vision Zero or a local roadway safety plan.
But point being, these are all traffic safety type plans.
So the plan itself, the city's draft plan right now,
the vision is to use the local roadway safety plan
as a framework for making the transportation system safer,
more comfortable, and more equitable
for users of all ages and abilities
through the safe system approach.
And the goal is to eliminate fatal and serious injury
collisions by 2034.
So looking at collisions and countermeasures,
This is a data driven approach.
You'll see the map on the right that actually is showing
this hotspot analysis of crashes based on the data
that we have available between the years 2015 and 2021.
These collisions are just those injury collisions,
anything from a minor injury up to a fatal type collision.
It doesn't include anything that's a property damage only
like a fender bender type crash.
And what you'll see are those,
the yellow is really those hotspots.
And then you'll see that sort of dissipate
in some of the neighborhood areas.
So overall, this is the trend
that Walnut Creek has seen in terms of crash data.
We actually added some 2022 information
that became very recently available.
This is not included in the plan
in terms of the analysis that was conducted,
but we're just providing this to you
because as we all know, 2020 and 2021
were oddball years due to the pandemic.
Even in 2022, things were sort of getting back
into the swing of things, but you can see that where we started and where we're going,
we're coming back to what was, you know, that 2019 sort of statistic of things coming back
up.
And then on the right-hand side, you can see that comparison of just looking at those KSI
collisions, which are the ones that we're really trying to focus on, bringing down to
zero.
And so you can see that 2022 data, again, it's risen up.
So overall, on the left side, you can see this all injury collisions, again, that's
for that 2015 to 2021 time period.
And what you can see here is that the proportion of crashes that have occurred where it was
vehicles only, it's about 80 percent, and then pedestrian and bicycle related crashes
are about 20 percent.
But then on the right-hand side, what you see is that those KSI collisions, it actually
is about 50-50 split where even though only 20% of crashes, period, were pet and bike
related, 50% were severe. So you can see that that vulnerable road user really does get
more impacted. They would have a more severe type of interaction with vehicles as opposed
to vehicle to vehicle.
So looking at observed speeds, this map shows these red lines and what those red lines show
are the segments where the median speed over the entire course of a day goes
five miles per hour or above on any of our street segments. This is in the plan.
There is a map that does get a little more detailed but this does show, and I
know it's only five miles per hour, what's five miles per hour, but we like
to use this graphic and that's on the bottom left. And what this shows is that
at every increase of ten miles per hour you actually have an exponential
increase in the impact to pedestrians and so at 20 miles per hour one in ten
pedestrians are going to die in a crash by getting hit by a car. At 30 miles per
hour that goes up to 44 out of 10 and then at 40 miles per hour it's 9 out of
10 so you do see that exponential increase. So this is a list of our 10
profiles and the profiles really just are indicators of a trend that have been
identified in Walnut Creek. So these are trends in our crashes and just trying
what we can do with this information is we can we can apply countermeasures to
it to try and address that issue but these profiles are DUIs, large
intersections with slip lanes, speeding along large roadways, large roadways
around downtown, intersections with permissive left signals, red light
running pedestrians in the dark pedestrians in residential areas bikes
along right wide roadways and then right-of-way violations in Rossmore and
that Rossmore that Rossmore profile is actually kind of unique because the city
public works really only has jurisdiction over public streets and so
just to make it clear Rossmore is actually consists behind the gate is
those are all private streets but we did want to do we did want to evaluate that
location because we've gotten lots of complaints before about traffic safety
so we did dig into the collision analysis in order to provide our
community partners in Rossmore with information that can help them with
them hopefully addressing these issues. So looking at these engineering
countermeasures again you what you do is you match these countermeasures to
those profiles so how do we address or counteract these the risks that are
are inherently associated with the design of the roadway
and how do we reduce the chance of a severe crash.
So there is a comprehensive toolbox
that's provided in the appendix
for the local roadway safety plan.
And it digs into all these different types of measures,
but generally they're improvements related to peds, bikes,
intersections, traffic signals,
and then signing and striping improvements.
And then on the non-engineering side,
The plan also proposes increased targeted enforcement or saturation patrols and potentially
automated red light cameras, routine maintenance changes, just making sure that debris is clear
out of the roadway and then also paired with education public awareness campaigns.
So the plan itself, and we'll talk about these concept projects, but it did identify six
projects and these aren't numbered in any kind of most important order of
importance. It's just really for mapping purposes. But our six our six projects
identified were Bancroft Road, Broadway, California, Walnut Avenue, Ignacio Valley
Road and Treat Boulevard. And what we're gonna do is we're actually going to walk
through just as an example how the plan looks at applying looking at the
profiles applying those countermeasures and what that could really look like in real life.
And so we'll walk through Bancroft Road. So just some safety context. This map is that
it's a blowup of that original map that I had shown you previously with that hotspot.
And you can see there's some hotspots, especially at those big intersections at Ignacio, Treat,
and David and Meinert. And so there is a fairly substantial history of collisions along this
corridor. And then there's also history of resident concerns. Traffic engineering police consistently receive calls related to Bancroft Road. And then just points of attractions, right, we do have at minimum like a medium density single family residential in that area. We have, we have elementary and elementary school Bancroft Elementary is right there.
We have a major trail connector that's a backbone as part of our trail system for the county.
And we also have, you know, the shopping center itself, Countrywood Shopping Center.
So looking at these collision profiles, okay, which ones are really, what trends are we
seeing along Bancroft Road?
And so we have these large intersections with slip lanes.
Think about Ignacio, Treat, those have that condition.
also you can stop me at any time if you have questions for clarifications. Okay,
yes. I think I know what a slip lane is but if you could educate me. Okay, okay I
anticipated this question and so I have a slide that demonstrates what what this
means and so on the left this is Ignacio as you're approaching California
Boulevard. What you see straight ahead of you is the BART station and then the
This is, on the right-hand side, that is that slip lane.
So it's physically separated by a little median island
that we usually call pork chops,
not to add additional lingo to our conversation,
but it is now yield controlled
instead of being controlled by the traffic signal itself.
And on the right side, that picture,
is Ignacio Valley Road going eastbound
right next to John Muir.
So this is at La Casa Villa,
and that's just a plain old right turn lane.
So does it just refer to that that part on Ignacio before you turn on to
California or when you get on to California? Is there not a dedicated
lane yet that you're turning into? Is that the whole thing? The slip lane? It
can. It's it just depends on the location. Sometimes we have what we call
an ad lane. Sometimes we don't. So just it's totally dependent on the location.
But really the safety concern is that what these do is they allow vehicles
to slip by actually going a fairly high speed.
And then that counter it's in direct conflict
with pedestrians who are crossing the street.
Thank you.
Sure.
Amy's been extremely helpful.
OK, so then this other additional profile,
so speeding along large roadways, permissive left turns,
that's where you have, you do not have a left turn
arrow when you're trying to make a left turn at a traffic
signal. Pedestrians at night and then bikes along these large roadways. So this
is just a still image from Google Maps showing our existing cross-section of
Bancroft Road. This is southbound Bancroft just north of Ignacio Valley
Road. It's also south of the Canal Trail. So some of the design characteristics
about this street is that we have wide lanes that are conducive to higher
vehicle speeds. So what happens is you provide a lot of space for drivers
to feel comfortable being able to go faster. And so in addition to that, while
we do provide bike lanes, bike facilities here along this roadway,
they're not comfortable. And so there's an issue with not providing some
separation between that fast moving traffic which is made even faster by
those wide lanes and and the bicycle itself. So this is just a little further
down. This is actually the Bancroft Contra Costa Canal Trail crossing
intersection and this is an example where we've already deployed these types
of countermeasures and they're proven countermeasures. We have data from
Federal Highway Administration on how we can help to reduce the risk of crashes,
and so that's how we were able to apply these treatments as part of a separate project.
We were actually able to add this on to a different bike project that we were working on in the area.
And so, on the left, you can see that we've created a separate bikeway
by providing a physical barrier between the bicycle facility and the moving vehicles.
The lanes were actually narrowed down, to again try to reduce that vehicle speed or you don't feel as comfortable being able to drive as quickly along that segment.
There was, we put in a high visibility crosswalk here, so that's an upgrade. It's more conducive to getting the driver's eye.
And then that green actually helps to signal to drivers that, hey, there could be bicycles in the roadway just that they're aware this is actually a trail crossing treatment rather than a typical pedestrian crossing treatment.
And then there's the refuge island which was already existing but what this does
is it helps provide a little bit of a break for the pedestrians who are
crossing the street. And then on the top right which is a little hard to see
there's a yellow border around the traffic signal head which helps increase
awareness for drivers that there is a traffic signal in that location.
Councilmember Darling. I just had a quick question. I was out checking out some of
separated bikeways the other day and I got to wondering can the street sweepers
still clean those because there's a risk that bike people will not ride them if
they're dirty because they'll crash yeah absolutely so this is actually a
difficult issue that the county countywide we haven't been able to figure
out so little tiny street sweepers with little kids I'm driving down the bike
yeah oh yeah let's put little kids in traffic we've been working really
closely with our streets maintenance division and trying to figure out how we can either
obtain equipment in order to keep these clean or if there's some kind of contract that we
can get put together in order to keep them clean. But for now the way that it's getting
cleaned out is we do have, we have like our normal landscaping crews basically blow it
to keep it clear of debris, which is more difficult
and more time-consuming than just a regular sweeper.
Can I build on your question?
Does this not present problems of actually sweeping
the regular portions of the road
because they don't have the curb against which
the brushes can work and what happens with trash capture
devices and everything that's in the gutters
and clean water issues?
That.
Yes, yes.
capture is fine. There's not a problem with trash capture, except for the fact that we
do have more sediment that we're not picking up with the street sweeper. But, you're right,
the street sweeper really can't function here because they can't get up next to the cork,
so you're exactly right. So, we've been, as Spadar already said, we're looking at ways
and somebody made a joke about tiny street sweepers. There are such, I mean, they're
that tiny, but they're much smaller than the ones that we have. So, we're looking at that.
as just an expensive piece of equipment, so.
And very time consuming in terms of manpower?
Yes, exactly.
So the other way around this too is that there are,
while this is an example of a short term implementation
using these, what we call paint and plastic,
longer term, and this is something that we are trying
to apply to our other, some other capital projects,
is actually just raising the bikeway
so it's at grade with a sidewalk.
And so you don't have that issue with maintenance,
but that is, it's a big consideration for the design.
Or somehow, can we design it in order
to accommodate the street sweeper in some kind of way?
So just there is a lot to consider in terms of design.
So it's not always a super easy thing to just implement.
It does take thoughtful consideration,
and you have to really think about how this could potentially
impact staff resources. Any other questions for staff on this? Thanks for
the interlude. So overall within the within the plan we do have a worksheet
that shows the countermeasures that would be applied along the corridor
itself and so just some high-level items to capture so included for
Bancroft Road because we're using this as an example. It would include installing
curb extensions, which are those bulb outs, intersections,
putting in that protected left turn facing,
or those left arrows at the signalized intersections,
providing additional median refuges,
or enlarging them for pedestrian use,
and then closing or modifying those slip lanes
that we talked about.
Before you go on, since this is an example of all of them,
now that I've seen that, perhaps it's OK
if I ask the questions that are related
to how we implement this.
First of all, this isn't a vision that would then feed
into the capital improvement program and then feed
to the capital budget.
But if we wanted to do this sooner, do you do these
in sections or do you have to do them in,
from Minert and David to YVR?
And are we able to do any of this type of work,
whether it's on walnut or YVR, as part of other work that we're already doing,
whether it's the roadway resurfacing, say that 12 times, I need to be an engineer,
roadway resurfacing that we do annually or other projects that we have in the pipeline.
Great question, so let me just skip ahead really quick.
Oh, then answer it when you get to.
Oh, no, no, that's okay, this is extra slides.
Okay, so the question really is how do we implement these traffic safety projects?
So, in talking about our capital projects, right, in terms of transportation,
we have those discretionary transportation projects,
and then we have the roadway maintenance types of projects.
And so, just to give you an example, recently we deployed these crosswalk improvements.
It was on Mount Diablo.
There's a couple locations on North Main Street and on Bancroft Road actually, and what we
did was we put in delineators between along the actual traveling striping itself, and
what it does is it helps to make that feeling of it being narrow, so it helps to slow drivers
down, make them aware of pedestrians potentially crossing.
So it's an example of one of our discretionary transportation projects where we are implementing
these exact proven countermeasures where we're trying to reduce speeds, trying to shorten
that pedestrian crossing distance.
And so that's how we are currently doing it in terms of institutionalizing traffic safety
projects into existing capital projects.
But then another example would be our South Main Street rehabilitation.
It's a pavement rehabilitation project.
And so this one's under construction right now.
But what we've done at, for example, South Main and LILAC, we were able to incorporate
that as part of the actual CIP project and include improvements that were related to
observations that were made during a Safe Routes to School walking audit or walking
observation.
And so that's where we're going to be implementing bulb outs.
So we're reducing the amount of time that those students are out in the street.
putting in a pedestrian scramble or an exclusive pedestrian phase so that they're not battling
any vehicles that are turning during that time period. And so that's really the piece
of we need to institutionalize the traffic safety components as just our daily work as
part of these capital projects. So it's safe—
Mayor, I—oh, sorry.
Oh, I'm sorry, Kevin. Just a moment. Thank you. I was like, where is the voice of God
coming from. So it's safe to say that every every year as we're looking at
what we're doing on our streets we're going to be looking at a plan like this
to see what else we could do and just get it done even if it's not a big whole
project all at once. That's correct. Alright thank you. Yes council member
Wilk. Thank you I'm not sure if we were asking questions now but it sounds like
we are at least as we're going through this. Just to what she has covered so
Yes. Right. So this was regarding slip lanes specifically and certainly I'm all for traffic
safety. But I have noticed in some areas that have been pointed out, especially on Bancroft,
when the Bancroft right lane is closed, let's say you're coming from Treat Boulevard towards
Ignacio, when that right lane is closed for whatever construction, there might be something
worked on PG&E or whatever, and that slip lane going towards downtown on Ignacio is
closed. It backs up traffic all the way back to treat. And I see this time and time again
because people have to wait to be able to turn right when normally it would relieve
all of that traffic. And I'm just concerned that we are going to, in the name of safety,
create some huge backups along at NACIO when areas like Bancroft, Civic, San Carlos and
Oak Grove don't allow for that right turn traffic. And traffic is going to be backed
up, especially during commute times, for a long way, and what are we going to do if this
then gets implemented and we see those delays come into effect?
Yeah, so I think first of all, something to consider is we are proposing closing or modifying
as part of that countermeasure, right?
So it could be that we discover that we really could, for the name of vehicle efficiency,
that slip lane, but we're going to modify it. We're not going to make it so you can fly through there at 30 miles per hour anymore.
Now you can take that right turn at 10 miles per hour, which would be more appropriate, or 15.
So that's the first thing. Secondly, we would definitely be doing an evaluation before we do any of these modifications.
This is, this plan is very high level in terms of recommending, again, we have six projects that's, you know, in the plan.
Those are not the only six locations that we need to traffic safety improvements in the city, period.
So, those were identified just as representative projects for what could be done,
but those countermeasures are really what we would be using, and those, those collision profiles or those trends
or what we're using to really look at as projects come through, how can we improve this?
Or if we receive, you know, a complaint, but then that's sort of backed by data
or what we know to be a design flaw, then we can go ahead and make those improvements
or plan to make those improvements in the future.
So, and I do like the fact of narrowing some of the lanes that would reduce speed as well
as modifying the sublanes like you mentioned.
I just hope that Public Works, as we're looking at this, would do a temporary measure, maybe
using combs to replicate how it would be if it were permanent, to get an idea of what
that backup or what that impact would be.
I think in some cases it would be fairly significant, but let's just do things on a temporary basis
so we can understand the ramifications if it becomes permanent.
So thank you, Councilmember Wilk, and hold your comment again and repeat it when we come
back to comments and direction and feedback to staff.
Thank you.
Yes, Mayor.
I'm going to elevate you if I'm tired of a job.
In terms of just on this slide, and I know they're conceptual projects.
Is there a step where we have to incorporate those, do these rise to the level that we'd
have to incorporate them in the CIP?
Or is it something that these could be implemented on more of an ad hoc basis through other projects
like the mayor talked about or just on a one-off basis.
Yeah, so really the bulk of this funding is either going to come from,
so for capital projects, you know, we look at gas tax,
which those are those roadway maintenance projects, we can get grant funding,
which we have received in the past, or it can come from traffic impact fees.
And that really ties to our capital budget.
Our capital budget already allows for us to make these traffic safety improvements
because they're inherently part of the projects that we already have on that list.
So looking at those un-signalized pedestrian crosswalks like I had mentioned previously,
that is exactly what that funding is intended for.
And then if you look at maybe just a slurry which is, you know, very light, a paving light
job, I guess, is a good way to say it, you know, what kind of striping improvements can
we make because we know, oh hey, this crosswalk is right by the high school, let's just toss
some more in. But from a routine maintenance standpoint, I just want to throw that out
there for that ad hoc basis because everything else is really capital project related which
we can add into the design and that can be accounted for. But some of the normal day-to-day
stuff that traffic engineering looks at is traffic signal timing. And actually, that's
component of traffic safety and so what I said general fund because we're paid
out of the general fund but for example we implemented leading pedestrian
intervals which are a proven countermeasure for helping to get
pedestrians out into the roadway first before vehicles have the opportunity to
turn into them so this is an example of how we're really institutionalizing
again those not the traffic safety concepts not just on the capital side
but in the everyday, on the everyday side of things.
So the measures in this plan generally are consistent with what's already in our CIP.
The CIP just might describe them at a more general level?
Yeah, I mean, we've been working on this plan for over a year,
and we did the CIP and the capital budget and brought it to you back in June,
and it already covers much of what's contained in here.
It may not call out a specific project.
For example, Bancroft Road is not specifically in the CIP but, generally speaking, we know
that Bancroft Road is due for a paving, for paving.
And so when that paving job comes up, that's when we're going
to incorporate these additional elements.
So let's go down this path a little further.
Of all of these ideas and potential projects,
what is not something you could just do operationally?
of all the things that have been in what we've read.
Like narrowing the lanes on Ignacio Valley Road.
Is that gonna have a more thorough conversation?
Well, we did narrow the lanes on Ignacio Valley Road
a little bit during the last paving job.
Okay.
Yes, so and it may not make a big difference,
but I was actually speaking
to one of our landscape maintenance workers
and what we did, which is kind of subtle,
but we actually added a yellow line next to the median,
next time we were driving down Ignacio Valley Road.
And we actually, so we stole a little bit of lane width
and threw that in.
And now what that did was it actually provided space
for one of our landscape maintenance workers.
What he does is he actually puts cones in that space.
So it actually gave them a little more reprieve
in terms of having that additional safety
from those moving vehicles.
And so these are these little incremental improvements
that you can start to add that, you know,
something like lane narrowing it it depends on how drastic it is but
sometimes you don't even notice it okay I will just add that there are projects
though that are in our CIP that are bigger projects what I think you're
getting at that aren't funded yet but they're in our CIP and that would be
more like the sidewalks that we don't have funded on Ignacio Valley you know
big capital projects that take more than just or the road diet on north Broadway
right things like that that are you know more of a waiting funding so this helps
get funding yes great thank you yes and we do have a specific line item it's
called local roadway safety and really it's it's through funded through traffic
impact fees and it's intended to be seed money for us to go after grant funding
for these larger jobs so hopefully you're able to get back on your track
and yes thank you where were we yes okay great okay so understanding the balance
So really the safe system in practice. So here's an example of a location where previously,
so this is Olympic and Locust, the city implemented a pedestrian scramble, again that's that exclusive
pedestrian phase, it's when pedestrians are allowed to go into the intersection, do whatever
they want, cross however they want, and that's a completely different time period than when
vehicles enter the intersection. And so under this circumstance, what was happening was
there's a lot of pedestrians, which is just, you know, speaks to the vibrancy and success
of our downtown, right? And that's all, it's great. And what ends up happening, though,
with the vehicles, they're not able to find gaps in order to be able to turn right or
left. And so they're waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting for other vehicles to come through,
waiting for those pedestrians. And so it creates a safety issue because you have drivers who
start to get more frustrated and then they may make a maneuver that is risky.
And so what happened under this circumstance is that that risky maneuver was completely
separated and really it was the win-win because now those vehicles, the drivers, are really
able to get through the intersection without any, without being impeded by those pedestrians
and then the pedestrians are able to cross in whatever direction or whatever manner they
want.
I think the result from this, because it's from before my time, it really was net neutral,
which is a success, right? You're making it safer for those pedestrians. It's a better
experience for those who are accessing, you know, the retail and the shopping in the downtown.
And yeah, so that's a great example of how that can be a win-win scenario.
So next steps.
So in order to implement this local roadway safety plan,
what we'd be looking from the council to do in the future
is to adopt the local roadway safety plan
in its final form, establish a goal and timeline
for eliminating killed and severe injury collisions.
That's that goal of eliminate KSIs by 2034.
Establish a standing working group to monitor progress
on how we're on the road to zero.
And then institutionalizing those traffic safety practices that we were just talking
about.
And then additional next steps, just this is separate from the local roadway safety
plan, but really a follow on.
So just so you know, city staff did apply for bipartisan infrastructure law monies for
the Safe Streets and Roads for All federal grant last week, and that would fund a demonstration
project which we were eyeing as actually those slip lanes, maybe closing some slip lanes to see
how they work, and then additional action planning. And so that action plan would help
us prioritize the process for identifying these traffic safety improvements, and then identifying
those timeframes, finding additional actions that would help us get to our goal, and then
Preparing guidance on how we monitor and report on how we're doing and so now we are looking for your feedback
but the just quickly I wanted to provide you with
Comments that we received on the draft plan
So it was posted on early April in a couple months ago
and then we did present on it in the April Transportation Commission meeting and
We also we we solicited public comments
At those meetings, we've brought this plan and pieces to the Transportation Commission
over the past year, but we also engaged the public at the Walnut Festival.
We went to a Rossmore community, or held a Rossmore community meeting.
We put together a traffic safety poll on Nextdoor.
We have like a list of engaged individuals who reached out after we've been publishing
articles in the nutshell. And then generally speaking, public feedback and commissioner
feedback was positive. I would say that the public feedback was, this plan is great, but
also my street needs this. And it was, so it was very specific, which is, which is great.
But really this plan is supposed to be a framework, right? So we would typically receive those,
they've been able to give us
And then additional feedback
that we received from the
Transportation Commission was
that they were interested in
getting the plan renamed to a
Vision Zero plan and that the
resolution itself would also
contain language about Vision
Zero.
Thank you.
So don't worry, I can take it
from here if you're done.
Perfect.
Thank you very much.
So before we open it for public comment, I want to see
if my council colleagues have any additional high level type
of questions that we would like the public
to hear before they make comments and then we can come back
for additional questions and feedback when we come back.
So I'm going to start with Mayor Pro Tem Haskew
because she represents us on trans pack and CCTA.
Hello. The first thing is a complaint, which is when I was going through the draft and I got
to the diagrams and things, KSI was there and I could not find where it was defined
and I know I'm supposed to know it but I don't and so you've done it much stronger here.
The other thing is I would like to have had an index because the definitions of the slide
and the other things that we ran into, I thought why am I struggling
to understand what you're trying to tell me in this section when if I had an index
to just flip to, that would be very helpful.
So I think there are some improvements for the reader which is not a question.
I understand, but I do have a question.
I have a couple of them.
One of the items in the plan was getting data collection on near misses and how do we do that?
And it's kind of, even when you're part of a near miss, your first reaction isn't
to call somebody up and say, hey, I can't see this person walking on the sidewalk.
I, you know, gratefully they waited to make sure I saw them before they walked in front of my car.
How do we, how are we going to encourage people to share that and will we be inundated with Wrecki phone calls?
So there's a couple ways to collect this near misinformation.
And first, there's the technology piece, which is you can't,
there are technology companies that utilize AI,
and I know that's the hot terminology right now, so sorry,
but there are these companies, and what they can do
is they can identify these near misses
by either coming in and recording some video
of the intersection and saying, oh yeah, no, we saw that.
We recorded those near misses, and we can give you feedback
or improvements that you could make in order to,
you know, those countermeasures that you could apply
to help reduce that risk.
The other option is City of Berkeley
has, like, scan this QR code if you had a near-miss situation
happen to you.
And it's mostly at crosswalks and some other big trail
crossing locations, looking at those vulnerable road users,
because they are more at the ground level,
as opposed to somebody who's driving.
But that's also part of the education piece, right?
We could say, hey, you know what?
But if you did have a near miss, maybe that's something that we want to pursue and provide that education,
feed that out to the public and give them an opportunity to give us that feedback too.
Thank you.
Second question is, we have recently had conversations at council level about enforcement
and that is one of our tools in the tool chest.
But the enforcement is being overridden by judges who say,
setting speed limit standards are pretty arbitrary.
And if the cars naturally travel at 45 miles an hour,
don't even bother putting up the 35 mile an hour speed limit things.
And point in question, we can now jaywalk if we determine it's
safe if I'm coming close to quoting what I heard. And what are we going to do about
saying, yeah, okay, this is how do we deal with the conflicts on the inside and the
outside?
Definitely. So fortunately the state already took care of the speed limit issue for us.
So posted speed limits had this really rigorous process. You had to use this 85th percentile
prevailing speeds. If you had a police officer pull somebody over and we didn't have a certified speed survey for that segment, you could say,
well, this is a speed trap, ticket gets thrown out. So that's actually changed because of this new law because what happened was the state recognized,
you know, and following with a safe system approach, that speed kills.
And so they made it so that they gave more power to jurisdictions to be able to reduce
that speed limit where it's not just based on 85th percentile speed.
You're taking a lot more of those contextual factors into play.
You know, is there a school?
Is it a business district?
Are there other considerations like there's a high incident?
It's part of the high-injury network. There's a lot of crashes along that street.
So that allows a traffic engineer to say, you know what, actually we're going to post the speed
limit at this and it is justified. And you get that certified and you can post it and it's
enforceable. And that will be allowed in starting in June 2024.
Well, good. Because I'm on CCT, I had to kind of blend something in.
that is how do we work with other other transportation folks and use their
expertise and then sort of part of that question is how do we blend in with all
the other cities and and some of the projects that you you highlighted are
really at the edge of a county and there are project ends here and their
project it starts here but it is the same street and people don't notice the
difference. So how do we blend the various organizations? Definitely so I
think best practice is first of all with neighboring agencies we need to be
consistent. We do have a couple routes of regional significance. We have a lot of
drivers driving through town but we also have quite a few that obviously live in
in town or their destinations are in town.
And so having that consistency across the county
is super beneficial because drivers know how to interact
with the roadway network.
We have CCTA available to us.
They have that Vision Zero framework.
This plan really aligns with that
and all of those neighboring agencies
are also following in those footsteps.
And so staff and either the board
or the council members for those neighboring agencies
are aligned in terms of what those improvements
really should look like.
But you definitely need that
cross-jurisdictional coordination.
Yes, you do.
So I did have a recent conversation
with somebody at the farmer's market
and it was in one of those little light blue areas
and that person brought forward
that they really were concerned
that traffic was going too fast
and their attitude was more prevention.
How does anybody get their concerns queued up?
And if that's the same as the other question,
it wasn't meant to be, but might be.
So do you mean how do we go ahead and address those concerns?
First of all, how do they get it registered
in your AI system and then, yes,
what do we do with it when we get the information afterwards?
That's a better way to ask the question.
So, in the way that we're looking at using the safe system approach, we have collision data,
which is just one piece of the puzzle.
We have remaining pieces, which is that near miss kind of situation or that speeding concern, right?
There's also these other contextual factors, like is the roadway wide?
But we might already have, so part of the design elements in and of itself sort of lend itself
to saying hey this might be risky we should look at how we can improve that
to reduce that issue or we may have complaints and so or you know a concern
right a concern from a resident so we do intake that that's not part of this
plan but traffic engineering intakes traffic safety concerns and depending on
the location if it's in is it on a residential street yes okay we do have
something called the Neighborhood Streets Program, which is all about trying to implement traffic calming measures on these
residential type streets. And so it's really aligned with this plan just sort of more on a reduced scope level. And we do have in our
capital budget funding specifically allocated for those types of improvements. So that's the quick to implement. But we also try to
work very closely with the neighbors so that we can all come into alignment on
what kinds of improvements should be made. Okay I think I'm getting close to
the last question and it it's related because you talked about education and
and one of the things that that I think we're not doing quite yet as well as we
might is educating. For example, the first time I drove down the street to get to Kaiser
in Shadelands, there were all these barriers and it wasn't altogether intuitive as I drove
where I could even think about turning into the driveway to get into the parking lot. How are we
thinking about doing the education for the public as we improve their safety in so many ways?
Yeah, I mean, I think this is twofold. One, we need to really bring to the surface
traffic safety. We know that it is a concern, but I think once people get behind the wheel,
a lot of times they don't really think about it. They've been driving for years,
right? So they know how to interact with the system, and then you also get used to it.
So, any kind of change can be very drastic because you're used to, you know, taking that normal route.
Like, there's, it's two pieces.
One, I would say that the actual education component, we really need to dig into that in terms of what kind of information we want to get out there,
how we do it because we've been providing educational materials, you know, in the nutshell, for example.
but is that really enough, how do we really engage the community on traffic safety
and getting them this information easily without overwhelming them?
And so, that would be part of our next step, that action plan, because we're as part
of that project, we are also looking for funding for, you know, public awareness campaign,
which also includes making drivers aware of how to interact with sort of these new,
fangled and you know implementations because it's it's strange it's new and
you're not used to it and so it's it's good to educate the drivers too yeah on
Main Street where all of a sudden all those barriers came up supporting your
concept I'm done now you're done now Councilmember Darling and I'm I'm
watching the clock so I thank you okay so we're gonna get back to how you handle
Because, for example, Red Gear Road, you look at it, and it's county on one side, city on the other.
How would you guys go about dealing with, you know, Red Gear Olympic Walnut Boulevard, where it's half one and half the other?
Do you guys have a regular sit-down with the county, or?
We're in very close communication with the county traffic engineer and county public works, their transportation division.
So, we feel comfortable with that. We feel comfortable with our connection with Pleasant Hill, Concord, Lafayette.
We have a great community, and our neighboring jurisdictions, we all work really well together, and we've been working on other projects together.
So, yeah, that's okay.
Now and then switching over to Rossmore where you've got private roads but I
assume that we are Walnut Creek PD is the the traffic enforcement there is that
true? Yes, Walnut Creek PD does have a contract to provide the enforcement for
Rossmore. So as far as implementing this in Rossmore, capital improvements will be
Golden Rain Foundation change education and enforcement will be us. That's
That's correct. And really that big, that education piece, even though that's sort of not dealt with directly, those drivers are the same drivers that we have within the city, otherwise on our public streets.
Which is why we did look at the Rossmore community because you want that consistency in terms of how you interact with the roadway network.
And so have you been able to work with the Rossmore community on the idea of consistency? They've been receptive to that.
So we're, we've, our, one of our stakeholders as part of this plan has been Tom Cashin,
who's the, yeah, he's the public safety lead for the person for Golden Rain Foundation.
So the idea is we're going to provide this information, provide them with recommendations,
and Tom reaches out to us all the time for recommendations.
And so, yeah, we'll continue to work closely because again, that population is part of
the city.
Yeah.
Okay, on the idea of a slip lane and a right turn lane.
So when you're going through and looking at a slip lane
and trying to figure out how to make that safer,
one of the options would be to convert that slip lane
into a right turn lane, question mark?
Yeah, you can do that.
You can also change what we call the radius,
so how big that curve is, because the bigger the radius,
the faster you can go.
You can make it tighter, so it's squared up.
reverse bank the corner and then people have to throw away their.
Nascar driving, yes.
And then you can also, for example, in places where you're worried about
the backup, can you include a right turn lane?
I know at the corner of Red Gear and South Main,
there's a right turn light that gets people to make the right turn more quickly.
Is that an option in some of the places?
Yeah, yes, exactly, so if we don't like the slip lane because again that's yield controlled
so then the vehicles don't feel like they actually have to stop for those pedestrians,
we could always put in something like a traffic signal for that return lane so then it's still
even though it's a slip lane, it's not you're not slipping by anymore, you're actually controlled
by the traffic signal.
And then there are some places on Ignacio where we have those funny bike lanes that
are just kind of meandering bike lanes. I always call them the drunk bike lanes.
And I've seen a lot of bike riders avoid those and ride on the street
preferentially. Do we know why they do that and is there anything we can do to
promote them back on the winding twisty ones? Yes, I mean this ultimately comes
down to you desire path and so you typically this is just normal human
behavior but you want to take the shortest path possible. Those riders who
are avoiding the serpentine path, those are very comfortable riders who they
feel comfortable under any condition. That is not a majority of our bicycle
riders in our community and so what you know one of the actually there it's a
a couple of projects in the CIP that was brought to you all last month or the month before.
So we are looking at improvements to adding what we call, it's called a multi-use path,
so it's a shared bicycle and pedestrian pathway that's nice and wide, has plenty of space
for pedestrians and cyclists to go through. It's really about providing a facility that
is desirable, but we can't necessarily enforce no bicycles on a roadway because they are
considered vehicles according to our California Vehicle Code, but that is something that we
can work with the police department on so long as we provide an adequate facility for
them otherwise.
Yeah, I saw somebody ride along the living wall and I thought, oh my God, they're very
the city of Toronto. So that's a good question. Thank you. I'm very comfortable out there. What is in the name vision 0 versus a roadway safety plan is there some. Meaning to it that I'm missing so vision 0 is philosophy that started in the 1990's out of Sweden and really just this road to 0 the vision is to get to 0 traffic fatalities or traffic. And so.
philosophy fundamentally it is exactly the same in terms of what the safe
system approach does which is trying to get to that to achieve that philosophy
it's truly a naming convention and in terms of the feedback I you know I have
this on on the slide actually but the the term itself is often more
recognizable especially for those who are interested in traffic safety or
familiar with traffic safety. More so than local roadway safety plan, which is a term that was made up by Caltrans. So that local roadway safety plan doesn't have any real like meet to it, except for traffic engineering professionals who are putting these plans together, just like everybody else in the state of California.
So the measures would be the same, the goal would be the same, reducing fatalities to zero.
That's just what we are essentially trying to do, and it's just one of them's groovier
than the other one or something like that.
Okay. You're dating yourself.
I think that was it.
Thank you.
So just to build on that, so we could actually have a subtitle to this,
which could be a systems approach to Vision Zero and everybody would be happy.
You could call this whatever you want.
Okay. Councilmember Francois, questions?
Okay, I think most of mine have been asked.
Just one, then, in terms of the Traffic Safety Working Group,
I wasn't quite sure what the scope was but I'm wondering if any consideration was given
to having our Transportation Commission serve in that, serve that role.
Yeah, so we've talked about this, you know, in terms of adoption of the plan and that resolution,
we just really need to establish the working group.
We don't have to identify yet who is involved in that.
But the intent of the group is to monitor and to report back on our progress,
and that requires staff time and technical expertise to really track that.
I think it would make sense for the Transportation Commission to be that sounding board where
staff brings information to them and we can provide those updates and that's in a as required
by the feds in terms of their the eligibility requirements for grants we need to provide
this information in a transparent publicly facing manner.
So providing that online and an online version but then also providing in a public forum
would be really beneficial, but either way it still would need it would require
staff input to get that information to them. Sure, thank you. So to continue on
that I will do it, but councilmember Wolk, do you have any additional questions? No
comments yet? Because I'm just still trying to get to the community. Yep, just one
question, and this regards enforcement. Are red light cameras allowed? I knew
there was an issue previously, but I know a lot of community feedback is asked about that.
I'm going to invite the Chief up for this question.
Good afternoon, Jamie Knox, Chief of Police. I'm sorry, Councilmember Wilk,
your question was related to red light cameras and are they allowed?
Or are they allowed in the state of California? I know there was an issue a few years ago where
suddenly there was a reason why red light cameras were not allowed anymore.
know they are allowed we don't have any in the city it's a complicated program you have to make
sure that you have an intersection with the volume of traffic that would support a program
because obviously it's not free there is an enforcement component and a review component to
that but i do have some additional information that i can send the council for consideration
thank you very much chief so follow up that question then to
would the city of California, the city of California, the city of California, the city of California, the city of California, the city of California, the city of California. Would the city of California qualify in terms of the amount of traffic? Is that considered a high volume road? Yeah. And it's I think what the chief was was trying to indicate was that those programs are really the red light cameras. In order to administer that program, it's actually quite costly because of the way that the California vehicle code has things set up. And so you would need.
like a certain amount of volume in order to help support that.
And so, yes, Ignacio Valley Road would be one of those locations.
Another example would be types of Caltrans off-ramps,
like freeway off-ramps and that kind of thing.
Thank you.
Those are my questions.
Thank you very much.
To continue, a couple of questions and you can short answers are okay.
Regarding the working group, it sounds more like what CCTA and Trans PAC
and many groups call the Technical Advisory Committee and that the working group,
you call it a working group because you're cross-functional because there is enforcement
and education as well as engineering issues.
Am I getting?
Yes.
Okay. Let's say Councilmember Wilk comes home with a bag of a million dollars tomorrow.
So I'm taking money, the money question off the table.
I don't know.
Let's say he came home with enough money to do Bancroft Road from Treat to Ignacio.
How long would it take and what would be the steps?
And if you need to punt that to Mr. Wehmeyer, that's fine too.
Well, I know a million dollars ain't going to cut it so I'll give you that.
So find more.
Relation, right?
No, so really, first of all, we need to figure out what we're going to do.
So, we have this concept plan that identifies a bunch of improvements that we could implement.
We would want to further analyze exactly how much space we have, so we'd really need to
push into the whole design piece.
So, a lot of engineering and design work.
Yes, that's right.
These are not design, they're not shelf-ready projects.
These are very high level, we need to take it through design and then we can pull it
into construction.
So, this is like a, you know, for Bancroft, it's probably five years out, which is why
for Bancroft, if we already know that this is part
of our paving program, that it's going to be scheduled
at some point, we can go ahead and take advantage of that.
So five years and then allow for a recession or two
and it could be seven years.
Possibly.
Okay. Thank you.
So what is a priority if somebody handed you $5 million,
whether it's OBAG or ARPA funds or something like that.
Where do you, in all these opportunities, what's your first priority?
So right now, and I don't mean specifically, it's our categories.
Maybe that's a better question.
So right now, the way that we've been addressing safety improvements is we've been prioritizing school areas.
But the intent is with the following action plan, we would have this prioritization process.
and that would have metrics and it would have this criteria
so that we could really figure out how we can prioritize
those projects and get them out there to make the most impact.
So schools and data driven?
Yes.
Another question.
Every time the word collision occurs,
is it an injury collision in this document?
In the document, yes.
Okay.
I was a bit confused, now granted I was reading this
on an airplane and the, when you say an auto,
Do you mean auto only?
Is that single auto as well as multiple autos involved?
Yeah, it's just a vehicle to vehicle.
It could be four or five cars.
But it could also be a single vehicle injury hitting a brick
wall.
Yes.
When you say bike collision, is that bike to auto
or is it also bike to bike?
It's only bike to auto.
We don't have any bike to bike or bike to ped.
And I assume ped to ped, you're not.
I mean, near misses maybe.
Thank you.
I just wanted some clarification.
Is there any rationale for the sort order of the 10 profiles?
No.
Because the first one was driving under the,
I was trying to figure it out.
It's not alphabetical.
It doesn't seem to be the percentage of killed
or serious injury.
No, there's no order to it.
And my last general question is, appendix A
is very nice explanations of all of the available countermeasures in the toolbox.
This plan needs to last for a while and must be in place and feels current so that we can get grants.
How do we ensure that Appendix A remains current as your colleagues across the world change their mind and have new ones?
Is there a way to make sure it will still qualify for grants?
Yeah, really, the biggest piece to that is that we need to have a traffic safety plan in place.
So even if some of the data gets a little stale, that's okay,
because we'd still be using the latest and greatest data to help support, you know,
figuring out what countermeasures make sense or don't.
So even if there's a great new countermeasure five years from now,
this plan is still okay to get the funding to do the improvement.
I mean, I don't know what the federal government is thinking right now, unfortunately.
None of us do.
I know, right?
So, you know, in theory, this is a plan, it is intended to be high level.
It should, you know, just so you know, the countermeasures that are contained in appendix
they have been around for a long time.
That was what I was noticing, and I thought, oh.
Yeah.
So we already have a lot of those out there.
So none of this is really all that new.
So there shouldn't be too many new drastic things that come through, just because our
industry is slow. Great, thank you. Stay tuned, stand by. We're now going to
open this for public comment. Since this is a special meeting for a specific
purpose, which is the review and comments on this local road safety plan,
our public comments this afternoon will be limited to this item on the agenda. We
will, I'm going to ask if there are any who are joining us virtually. If you
intend to speak to this item please raise your hand now using your raise
hand feature or press star 9 to advise our city clerk and if you intend to
speak to us today please stand over near the city clerk please be sure you have
filled out a speaker card there will be two minutes allowed for public
communication public comments and we'll start with you and I don't make before
you start. Do we have the clock working? Yes. Unfortunately, it's behind the
speaker. So I will give you a probably a 15 second warning. How's that? That
sounds great. Thanks. And it'll be about 15 seconds to warn you. Okay. Great.
Thanks. And then do we have speakers that are joining us virtually? Amy is
managing the zoom comments. There are currently no hands raised but one
speaker. Thank you. Welcome. I need to be careful to keep my head up because last
time I got a good few of my bald spots so I'll try to keep my head up when I'm
speaking today. Welcome to our world. So my name is Kevin Burke. Thanks very much
for the presentation in your time. This is really helpful. I'm a parent. I ride
my bike all over Walnut Creek. I live behind the Safeway about a half mile
from here. I ride my bike from our house to pick up my three-year-old son and his
daycare, which is near Northgate. In the afternoon, it's actually faster for me to go three miles
on a bike than in a car because I'm allowed to turn right onto Ignacio and a lot of people
aren't. And I can take the canal trail. And I think that that's something that, like,
as a community, we want to encourage because I'm not driving a car at rush hour. I'd love
for it to be safe enough for my kids to bike to Walnut Creek Intermediate in five to seven
years. That said, I do have to ride on Ignacio Valley Road to get to daycare because there's
There's no cut through street and it is really dangerous.
You can ride on the curb, but like two weeks ago we just saw that the curb doesn't really
protect you and cars are going 45 miles an hour and people are having a stroke or staring
at their phones or whatever they're doing.
I just say to council member Wilks comments, I think it's a mistake to think of the number
of cars on Ignacio as like a fixed quantity.
There's people who might be driving their kids to middle school or driving their kids
to Heather Farms where if it was safer they might just tell their kids to go get on a
bike instead or probably people who are driving from like Walnut Creek Bart to Pittsburgh
because you can go 45 miles an hour on the street. And if it was actually like slower
they wouldn't do that. So you'd have fewer cars on the street if you did make it slower
and more pedestrian friendly. Yeah, I also want to say I lived in San Francisco for a
while and they've implemented a lot of this stuff in a lot of really high injury dangerous
streets and it works. Closing clip lane works, narrowing lanes works, adding curb
bulb outs work those will help slow down cars and make our streets safer. So yeah I
just want encourage you to try your best to implement all the things that are in
the plan so we can make the city safer for pedestrian cycled children. I have to
go now because I have to go get my kids. So thank you. Thank you very much. Ride safely.
Next speaker please. Good afternoon Kathy Hemingway Walnut Creek downtown.
down. I appreciate Smedard's presentation and just wanted to put on the record that
for future efforts that are going to be making their way to the downtown, the greater downtown
area, for road improvement and traffic safety, I'd like to be able, for Walnut Creek downtown,
to be included in the conversation and probably the Chamber of Commerce as well. And that
we are more than willing to assist in the conversations, but then also help with the
the public outreach with public education through our marketing and outreach efforts.
So thank you so much.
Thank you. Now, as Madar explained,
this is really a framework, not a specific project.
So I think what you're asking is for the business community to be
included in the conversation around specific improvement projects.
Exactly.
Great.
Thank you.
Thank you.
any other speakers here joining us in the chamber or the room do we have any
commenters who are joining us virtually we don't have any hands raised then I am
going to close public comment bring it back to the council and with staffs help
council members does anyone have any additional questions for staff then I am
that I'm going to go back to
that.
And I'm going to start the
comments with mayor pro tem.
And the question is providing
feedback on the draft plan
because we're going to see it
again in 2 weeks to it for
adoption.
Provided we don't blow it up
right now.
I don't believe that this is on
the docket for adoption in 2
weeks.
I think that's going to get
pushed.
do do do you're gonna have 30 seconds you probably want us to give you the
feedback tonight and get back to us and adopt it because the longer we wait the
harder we our memories work okay great you would love to bring it back in two
weeks all right there pretend thank you so when I was first on council one of
One of the things that I did was at every council meeting,
tried to help with safety by giving a safety guideline.
Don't run through traffic lights, don't pedestrians,
make sure cars see you eye to eye before you cross the street.
And it was kind of fun,
but it also didn't seem to have any effect.
So like the story goes,
when my husband first moved to Walnut Creek,
a friend took him out and said, they're really rude here,
I'm going to have to teach you how to drive in Walnut Creek.
We have a big job ahead of us.
I think people are beginning to be anxious to do
what they want to do.
And if we can really, really emphasize
that this is for their own good, their kids' goods,
and things like that, that I think
we are going to have some very high success with reaching out.
I'm really excited about what I read.
I do think Vision Zero should be a little more highlighted
for those people who are used to looking for those words.
But I don't think and what I said before, which
is help us know ahead of time that we can look in the back
and just pay a little bit more attention
to unsophisticated readers.
I learned a lot reading it.
that we're going to be doing.
Thank you very much for your
efforts and thank you very
much for your dedication for
making Walnut Creek a better,
safer place. Councilmember Wolk.
Comments. Yeah, thank you. I
know that the hot spots are
always something that we're
talking about from the
community. I really appreciate
the work that's been done on
this. I do still have some
putting temporary measures into place
to see what it will look like
if we make things like slip lanes
modified permanently or close.
I think we need to do this during some high impact times.
I think there is going to be a challenge on that.
Like for example, commute times
to see what that would mean if we change the slip lanes
on Bancroft or San Carlos or Oak Grove Road.
I think that's really important
before we start investing a lot of money
the permanent changes of those. So I know that we would all love to see less
traffic. We would all love to see more people that are riding bikes and take
on taking public transit. The truth of the matter is Walnut Creek right now,
uh, we are not seeing those kind of changes that people are getting out of
their cars. In fact, unfortunately, it's just the opposite. Fewer people are
taking public transit post COVID right now, at least in our area. And so we
need to do what we can to make it safer, but we can't fool ourselves into thinking
that what we do is going to bring more traffic off the road right now. Personally, I mean,
a lot of us have children or have been had children, been participating in afterschool
activities in Walnut Creek. I wouldn't have my children ride their bike down Ignacio
Valley Road to Heather Farm for any kind of practice. I just wouldn't, even though it's
only about a mile, mile and a half away. I think that we just need to really take that
into consideration and I do think it's important to also see what are the costs of red light
cameras. If that many people are running red lights and we hear about this all the time,
especially on Ignacio, but I'm sure the other corridors like California, Civic and some
of the other ones too, what are those costs? Being expensive isn't giving me something
compare versus what the cost would be if it were changing the nature of intersections on high
traffic roadways. So I think that's going to be important to have as well.
But in terms of more visibility for crosswalks and lighting and flashing lights and stripes
and gentle speed bumps were able to do that, narrowing of lanes, I think all of that's great.
But I would be concerned if we were looking to actually close some lanes in some of these
high traffic areas but again thank you thank you councilmember Wilk good luck
tomorrow councilmember darling thank you and great presentation I really enjoyed
everything you guys have in here I support mayor pro tem's idea of getting
the words vision zero as like a descriptive you know somehow into the
the title just so that people who are used to seeing that see it somewhere I
I think having some additional, putting a little bit of additional framework about right turn lanes and slip lanes and helping people.
Because I think the reaction that, oh, if you get rid of the slip lanes, that's going to create a problem.
And helping people understand that it's not all one or the other.
That there's a way, there's in between.
I think you described it very appropriately in your comments.
So maybe including a little bit of that information here would be great.
I'm excited about this.
I think these are changes that will make our streets safer.
I've driven through a couple of the areas where you guys have the paint and plastic out.
And it's I think it really does make a difference in how people drive.
And I know from our farmer's market days, the way people drive will irritate each other and we need to drive better.
So I appreciate it and I'm supportive of this with those few comments.
Councilmember Francois.
Thank you, Mayor.
I, uh, but the plan was great.
Thank you to the consultant and thank you to staff and a lot of hard work went into it.
Um, on page 13, there's a description of the climate action plan, which will
probably need to be updated in light of what we do tonight.
I agreed with Councilmember Wilks' comments about red light cameras.
I think it's in there as a proven countermeasure and I'd like us to explore that.
Whether I'd leave it to you as the expert, whether it makes sense to do that kind of on Ignacio
or on other streets where there's likely to be more pedestrian vehicular interaction.
And I also agree with the approach of incorporating Vision Zero into subtitles instead
of renaming the plan per se, because I also want to be sensitive to the fact
that there's still operators out there.
Like we can set the goal and we can make improvements.
We can't get, and hopefully we can educate people to not be looking at their phones
and to slow down, but there's really only so much we can do, and then we're relying on people
to do the right thing and drive responsibly.
And, you know, I've gotten into the habit really driving around town of slowing down.
And it's happened really, it happened when I, you know, would get off the freeway,
go into our neighborhood, I would be going five miles an hour slower
than what the speed limit was.
And I've just gotten accustomed to doing that when I'm driving around town now.
And I get to where I need to go quite fine most of the time.
and and on time. And I feel safer and more in control that way. And I've seen people go by me at much faster speeds. And I think a program of, you know, slow down Walnut Creek, you know, you'll get there, it'll be fine.
The other thing I would point out and or I would that we're doing a lot of this already you and your team and public works are doing this in terms of I see the great work that's happening in front of Las Lomas
and the pedestrian scramble that's going in there and will likely be in place before the school year starts and the mid block crossing on
South Main near Kaiser is going in as well. So some of this is happening already before this plan is done.
One thing that we all hear at the farmer's market is from is from the like you said that great plan. Let me tell you about what's happening on my street and I kind of looked at the website and your name is there prominently. So I'm sure you get a lot of emails.
But I'm wondering if there's some sort of intake system website thing we can do where
you can and you can gather more data as a result of this too where people can be feeding
you information about things we might not be aware of because they're more local.
And those are my comments.
I think it's a great plan and thank you for all the hard work on it.
So thank you.
Thank you too for the work on this.
For your innovation and passion around traffic and traffic safety, it is refreshing and I
know the public truly appreciates it and those that work with you.
And thank you to the engineering department and the public works division and I got to
experience South Main Street this morning on foot where I went, uh-oh, I'm not going
to be able to cross South Main from one side to the other.
And I got an escort from Alex Wong because he wanted to make sure I didn't get hit.
And I was thinking just tell me where to walk.
I agreed that Vision Zero could be somewhere in the document
without changing the title of it, so it serves all purposes.
And that would be good.
I think this is a plan that is about engineering, education,
and enforcement.
I liked the three E's, and it was Tom Cashon that
helped me with that vernacular when
I spoke at the Rossmore Golden Rain Foundation
about some things that we're doing with them.
thank you for working with Rossmore and that community even though we don't own
the roads we can help them help themselves. In terms of education one of
the challenges that I don't that the plan doesn't recognize but I know we are
internalizing it. Ignatia Valley Road carries a lot of traffic and a good bulk
of those are not our people so how do you they don't read the nutshell etc so
So we're going to have to do a little more billboard on signage, et cetera, because you
have to see something over and over and over again to remember it.
I appreciate the comments about testing and piloting samples like you did on Lincoln Avenue
with the bike only lane, and it was two years ago, I think, that, because I think testing
allows people to comment on it, but it also allows them to get, adapt to, oh, another
might work. And I think incremental changes we don't have to always look for
the big bite and I'm appreciative that we have done all these incremental
changes over time that we're looking for the things that we can do while we're at
it. The thank you for the explanation of prioritization in terms of schools and
hot spots maybe that might be mentioned someplace in the front end that where
because it's it when you get data-driven people depending on how they look at the
data they're like well where would you start if somebody handed you a million
dollars or five million dollars the red light enforcement I think is a really
interesting question it really isn't having to do with this plan I think it's
an operational question and I think it it might start with PD bringing forward
something with your help I will make one comment there's terminology in here
that is not consistently used.
Collision means injury collision, somebody opening the book on page 35
and seeing the word collision, they're not going to know what is meant.
So if there's a way to pass through it and say, is there terminology that could be confused
if I open in the middle of the document?
And I know people don't read that way, they read electronically,
but sometimes they just scan till a page that they think is interesting because of a photo.
And the same thing with the term profile.
I had to figure out what that meant.
As the Mayor Pro Tem said, you get to a certain point
and you're like, well, what does this term mean?
So maybe take a fresh look.
It doesn't mean you don't bring it back to us.
It may mean that you have to fix that
on the after we're adopting it.
I think we are in a position, unless you see otherwise,
that this is will be is in really good shape 99 99% there so thank you for the
work any final comments council members any final comments from staff I was just
going to add for clarification to summarize as you did merit thank you for
your feedback I would highlight that most of the feedback was around
implementation and prioritization and the plan substantively itself is pretty
much ready to go so with that we'll work to make some of the fine-tuning that
was noted and then have obviously additional discussion about implementation
after the plan's adopted. I think it's a lot of clarity that might be just looking
at the front end and clearing things up so thank you. Thank you to all of you.
Thank you Council Member Wilk you've got 20 minutes to get a late-night snack
since you're in DC. This special meeting is adjourned.