Welcome to the March 21st, 2024, regular meeting of the Transportation Commission.
Will the Secretary please share the Zoom information?
Sure.
The meeting may be accessed via Zoom.
The number or the code to access is 821-6351-9958, and the passcode is 459-382.
The meeting is available through the code 821-635-1-9958,
that's the meeting room number,
and the passcode is 459-382.
Okay.
At this time, I'll ask our commission secretary
if any notifications or requests
for virtual meeting participation
has been received from any members of the commission.
Yes.
Thank you, Commission Secretary.
Commissioner Patch, would you please address the commission?
Hi, yes, I've requested to call in virtually
for just cause because of contagious illness.
Do I have a motion or, and just making sure, hold on, yep.
Do I, can I get a motion from the commission
to either approve or deny the request
from Commissioner Patch?
I'll move to accept the request for remote participation.
Do we have a second?
Second.
OK.
Can the commission secretary please take a roll call vote?
The member making the request will not vote.
Commissioner Kegel?
Aye.
Commissioner Carreeling?
Aye.
Commissioner Reese?
Aye.
Chair Ash?
Aye.
The motion carries.
The motion has been approved.
All votes tonight will be by roll call vote.
We'll now move to the next item on the agenda.
Would the secretary please call the remainder of the roll?
OK.
Commissioner Cagle?
Present.
Commissioner Creeling?
Present.
Commissioner Patch?
Present.
Commissioner Reese?
Present.
Youth Commissioner Yell?
Present.
Chair Ash?
Present.
We have a quorum.
This public communications, this portion of the meeting
is reserved for comment on items not on the agenda.
Under the Brown Act, the commission cannot act
on items raised during public communications,
but may respond briefly to statements made
or questions posed, request clarification,
or refer the item to staff.
At this time, I'll open this item up for public comment.
Do we have any members of the public wishing to comment
on items not on the agenda?
No, we do not.
Great.
If you're in the audience, sorry, consent calendar.
Next on ‑‑ hold on, sorry, I don't think I can do the consent calendar because we have
to go to roll call.
Sorry, bear with me one minute while we make sure we're following proper procedures with
the ‑‑ okay.
Next on the agenda is the adoption of the January 2024 meeting minutes.
Do I have a motion for the approval of the minutes
from the January 20th commission meeting?
I move to approve the minutes
from the January 18th commission meeting.
Do I have a second?
We're gonna have to-
Sorry, we're gonna-
Push this item until next meeting.
Can I have a motion to table this?
We don't have a-
Meeting.
This agenda item.
I'll move to table it to the next meeting.
We need a roll call vote on tabling it?
Yeah, it's okay. You don't need to vote on this. We don't have quorum for those who participated
to be able to pass these meeting minutes, so we just, they shouldn't be on the agenda.
You know what, that's okay. Just go ahead and we'll roll call vote it to move it to
the next meeting.
Can I bring up a point of order?
Yeah.
on some other boards, you may wanna just go back
and ask for the future, our city attorney,
I believe you can approve minutes
even if you weren't at the meeting, believe it or not.
But I'd ask our city attorney.
Okay.
So we have a motion to table it on the agenda.
Can we call the roll on that, please, Secretary?
Yeah, who was the second on that?
Okay, thank you.
I was the second.
Okay, Commissioner Cagle?
Aye.
Commissioner Creeling?
Aye.
Commissioner Patch.
Aye.
Commissioner Reese.
Aye.
Chair Ash.
Aye.
OK.
Motion carries.
Next on the agenda is an item for commission consideration,
the election of a new chair and vice chair.
At this time, I will open this item up for public comment.
Do we have any members of the public
wishing to provide public comment about the election
of chair and vice chair?
Okay, we, I think you have to read that.
We have no members of the public
wanting to provide comments on this particular agenda item.
So if you're, okay.
So we're gonna go to take nominations.
We're gonna skip ahead on the agenda.
I would like to move to nominate Commissioner Reese
as chair if he is so inclined.
realize it's a jump. Yeah it's a quite a jump. And if you're not comfortable with
it please you know feel free to let us know. I'm comfortable with it. Thanks. I'll second that. Thank
you. Can the secretary please call the roll on the vote of chair only at the
moment? Commissioner Kegel? Aye. Commissioner Creeley? Aye. Commissioner Patch? Aye.
Commissioner Reese. Do I abstain? No, I can say aye. Chair Ash? Aye. Okay.
Congratulations. I just have to hit it again. Sorry folks. All right. You take,
you get to read here. Give us one minute as we transition. As chair, do I have a
motion for the election of a new vice chair. I'd like to motion that Samantha
Cagle be our next vice chair. Do I have a second? I'll second that.
Would the secretary please call the roll? Commissioner Ash?
Commissioner Cagle? Aye. Commissioner Creeling? Aye. Commissioner Patch? Aye.
Chair Reese?
Aye.
Motion carried.
Next on the agenda is an item for commission consideration.
The local road safety plan, spring 2024 update.
At this time, I invite staff to provide their presentation.
Okay, good evening commissioners.
My name is Brianna Byrne,
and I'm an associate traffic engineer
here at the city of Walnut Creek.
Tonight, this is just a presentation
to provide you an update on our local roadway safety plan.
We last came to you all in 2023, summer,
right before taking this to city council for approval.
So an overview of this presentation,
we're gonna go over pretty much what happened,
the adoption, the city's goal,
and then the work that traffic engineering
has done since this plan was adopted.
and then what we're looking to do as part of the next steps.
Before we kind of kick off that,
I want to do a high level of the shift in traffic engineering.
So it's called the safe system approach.
And we kind of have just a quick overview
where traditionally, if anything were to happen,
bad drivers were to blame.
So the shift is we are designing for human mistakes.
We used to react based on crash history
at, say, a single location.
We're now moving towards proactively identifying
and addressing those risks before something could happen.
And before where we were trying to prevent all crashes,
we are now moving towards preventing
fatal and serious injuries.
So what this is really leaving out
is the property damage only.
So side swipes, rear ends, we're focusing more
on the serious injuries.
And all of this goes along with vehicle speeds
should be context appropriate.
So the adopted plan and resolution August, 2023,
city council adopted the plan and the resolution stating
that we have the goal to eliminate fatal
and serious injury collisions by 2034.
This is in line with our county
and other nearby jurisdictions.
The resolution also established
that we'd create a standing working group
to monitor progress towards this goal.
And then the commitment
to institutionalized safety practices.
So the updates, since that plan was adopted
and we talked to you all last,
we applied for what's called the Safe Streets
and Roads for All Grant, SS4A for short.
We applied and were awarded $240,000
to make this plan into an action plan.
So really the LRSP was a foundation
identifying traffic safety issues in the city
and this action plan moving forward
would establish these actionable goals and timeline
in order to reach the 2034.
It would help us create a prioritization process
and the criteria that would go along with that
and then assess our current policies.
As part of that grant, we also requested some funds
for a traffic safety outreach campaign
and a two-year pilot demonstration
where we'd be doing before and after data collection.
Another update was we created this Vision Zero dashboard.
It is housed on our local roadway safety webpage.
And it's a visual representation
of the data that the plan holds.
So it's another way that we're getting this out
the public. So we overlaid the crash data from that plan along with the capital projects
and daily maintenance that our staff did and has been doing along that timeline as well.
So it really overlaps those two to create a full story. So institutionalizing safety,
traffic engineering was doing this beforehand. So really, this is kind of just an update
of sense that plan was adopted.
So looking at our capital investment program, CIP for short, this includes our un-signalized
crosswalks, which will be one of our presentations tonight.
We have our annual pavement maintenance project this year that's in the La Vorna Estates area.
So as part of that pavement project, we're looking for neighborhood traffic calming solutions
and we'll be doing a pop-up demonstration
over the next couple of weeks
to kind of explore our options there.
And then also coming up this year
is we have the Wigget Lane Protected Bikeway.
This is an extension of the existing Lennon Lane Bikeway.
We have our Speed Cushion Pilot,
which is another presentation tonight.
We've done traffic safety improvements in our schools,
and this was right before this previous school year started.
We installed systemically those paddle signs
that you see on the roadway,
as well as installed leading pedestrian intervals,
which is where the pedestrians get to go
before the vehicles,
wherever there is a signal near a school.
Traffic signal timing.
Yeah, so near schools and also busy pedestrian areas.
So during the downtown peak shopping,
we pushed, we rolled that out.
So where feasible, we have that leading
pedestrian interval installed.
We also have an upcoming downtown
curbside management plan.
This is in the scope development phase,
but we've made sure that one of the requirements
to any recommendations is that it has to fall in line
with our local roadway safety plan.
We've incorporated it into development review.
And the last one here is this new daylighting law,
AB 413, and what this states is vehicles cannot park
within 20 feet of a crosswalk.
Enforcement starts in 2025, so at the staff level,
we've been identifying locations where we need to red-curb
and emphasize this new, this new restriction.
And then we have AB 43.
So this is the new speed limit law.
AB 43 gives staff additional allowances
in determining speed limits.
We still have to follow a process.
And we've presented to commission in the past
and I've noted the previous meetings
for anyone who is interested,
but this new bill allows for staff
to reduce posted speed limits
to a context appropriate speed.
So we're working on getting that scope
and a consultant on that work right now.
So moving on to next steps,
we're gonna move forward
executing the supplemental planning grant.
It is a federal grant,
so right now we're still working on
completing the contract and funding agreements.
And then the last one that we're doing next steps on
is establishing this core working group.
Currently as envisioned, given the technical knowledge
and the background required,
we're thinking this would be primarily city staff,
public works, our maintenance and our engineering division
along with police department.
That would be the core working group
and then from there we would reach out to other stakeholders
and disseminate the information from there.
One feedback that we received as part of the LRSP
development was that there is a strong public interest in traffic safety and
so we're envisioning that the Transportation Commission meeting would
really be that conduit for the public and staff and this core working group to
to pass information back and forth. And with that we are looking for
commissioners input kind of on that working group strategy. Like I said these
are the next steps so it's it's something we're moving towards. And with
that if there's I'll open it up for questions or comments. At this time I'll
open this item up for public comment. Do we have any members of the public
wishing to provide? Go ahead and ask. First you should take questions from the
commissioners. It's not on there that's on my part so apologies. Are there any
questions from commissioners? Commissioner Ash? For the the law adjusting
the crosswalk parking to the 20 feet how many and you might not know this yet so
I realize it still has to probably be studied how many spots do we lose and is
there gonna be an analysis or report on that? So we and for the whole city we
don't know. So we did look at the downtown area because of metered parking spaces and there's you
know those the revenue from the meter feeds into so many things and so we did look at what the
potential loss was for that and it was just one space. A lot of our downtown is already built out
to have that safety element. Yeah and I'll just add to that too, one of the capital projects that
will be occurring beginning in the summer is the locust street repaving job it'll also have some
sidewalk work as well and we were able to save some of the spaces just from restriping on locust
so overall the same parking quantity just slightly different shifted back. Okay thank you.
Any other uh commissioner Creole. Creline. Yeah thanks. A few questions um
start with the signal timing near the schools.
I think I heard you say the idea is to make it grant
the pedestrian access more quickly.
Correct.
So are there considerations given,
I think about there's that school coming down the hill,
westbound from YVR, on YVR,
and I don't know if it's already set that way,
but it seems like that's one of the stopping points on YVR
that my perception from watching is perhaps,
it's already giving preferential,
and then do we give some sort of balanced analysis to,
you know, if you back up a bunch of cars
to give that preference,
you get what I call idling pollution.
Just a lot of cars sitting there spewing stuff out.
So I'll address that in part.
So yes, we did add the LPI leading pedestrian interval there.
And when it comes to the preference,
there isn't a preference given to the side streets.
YVR is responsive timed.
It gets the green time it's allotted.
And if there are calls on the side streets,
that's when they get the green.
And just in the case of that location,
there's that much side street traffic.
Okay, thank you.
On the daylight law, does that apply to residential?
So if someone's house is there, and there's a crosswalk,
they lose 20 feet of frontage for parking?
Correct.
Would those get painted red or something like that?
So that's part of this rollout.
And to add further confusion, it's
marked and unmarked crosswalks.
So technically, at every single intersection,
there is an unmarked crosswalk.
So it's going to be a challenge, whether it's
education or whether it's installing all red curb,
it's going to be likely somewhere in the middle
just because all red curb is additional maintenance
that our staff would have to do.
But so we're gonna be looking at that type of rollout.
Okay, and thank you for bringing up
the unmarked intersection as a crosswalk
because I think all of our drivers don't know that
or a lot of our drivers,
which I had a question I wrote down,
Is there budget for painting crosswalks
in some of those unpainted ones that are trouble spots?
So adding marked where there are no marked.
So there is guidance to when you should mark a crosswalk.
And the guidance is you shouldn't just do it
at every single corner.
It kind of loses the effect.
Crosswalks are about funneling pedestrians
to a location that is designed to be,
you know, a safer location than say up and down the street.
But yeah, we do have budget for improving crosswalks.
They're just, we use it primarily
for improving existing marked crosswalks.
I have one last question.
Promise it's the last one.
I've started making my way
through the local roadway safety plan.
And one of the things that mentions early on
is some sort of citizens committee, I think being formed.
Is that this core working group
Or is that something separate that has been formed
or will be formed?
I think that was likely part of the countermeasures chapter
and that went over engineering countermeasures that
would possibly be its own separate working group
and maybe this platform.
But that citizens committee is separate from this core working
group.
okay thanks any other questions I do I have a couple for the unmarked does
that include alleyways yes okay yeah yeah it's the intersection of any public
streets okay I wasn't sure if that includes alleyways or not thank you I
think it I think it includes commercially that's that's the way we're
treating it okay right now interesting thank you and then as far as the working
group is concerned you said you want input from us and I'm wondering if
you've done and I feel like I've seen examples of this in prior presentations
from you but examples of who should be in this working group do you have
recommendations for us are there other cities maybe that have done similar
groups that we could we could look to to make sure that we cover everything yeah
so we've on the staff level done the research and one thing that's becoming
clear is that the the cities that have a more publicly laid out are larger
cities. So they have more staff to kind of handle multiple groups. So in talking
with agencies our size they're really kind of they're struggling to figure out
what this would be because there is a technical knowledge but there's there's
a lot of stakeholders that are interested. And so that's why the idea is
to keep the core within staff.
But the moving outwards, we've talked about,
including the school districts, parks and recreation
was another, I think, recommendation
that Commissioner Reese had recommended
was incorporating them as well into this dialogue.
But public health officials are another.
So it's about traffic safety.
It's about doing as a team.
So we understand that there's a lot of players there.
And when do you anticipate that to commence?
I mean, as soon as possible.
So once we start it, it's not set in stone.
Like we can continue to mold it and shape it.
OK, thank you.
Any other comments, questions, or questions?
I think we're doing questions.
Yeah, questions, right.
I have one question.
Regarding, could you share how the LPIs are being rolled out?
You mentioned by schools,
how are you doing the rest of the city?
So, and this is really limited by staff availability.
So we've been rolling it out, kind of,
we first did the schools.
Every school crosswalk, or every school intersection,
signalized intersection.
So these are when they have yellow crosswalks.
We implemented LPI there.
And then as the holiday season approached,
maybe October, November, it was actually probably
October when we had kind of the big downtown trick or treat
boost.
That was, again, shifting staff priorities
to implementing LPI there.
It is something that we could look
to do for all the intersections citywide,
but the emphasis and the priority for staff time
was getting the vulnerable roadway users
in the high pedestrian areas.
So LPI is, yeah, can you define that for us?
Yes.
So LPI is the leading pedestrian interval.
And it's the three to five, seven seconds
where the pedestrians get the walk symbol
before that complementary vehicle phase gets the green
ball.
At this time.
Sorry, can I ask one more question?
Sure.
Something else came up as a,
so I don't know, I'm back to this crosswalk thing
because I think the unmarked,
and so part of it is maybe understanding the state law
and the unmarked crosswalks.
That fundamentally changes residential streets, right,
and people in front of the home.
So like, is that enforcement up to the PD?
like is that in the state law sort of what is typical here in Walnut Creek maybe?
So yeah so the the rollout for enforcement is laid out in that state law and so for beginning
January 1st 2024 parking enforcement or you know police departments were able to provide warnings
not citations but warnings to those who are parking within that 20 feet of a crosswalk.
they're not actually doing that right now and that was something that traffic engineering had
discussed prior with parking enforcement because this is something that we want to roll out from
an educational perspective to the city as a whole so we'll be partnering with PD on that education
piece. Meanwhile like public works staff has been prioritizing locations where we might have more
issues so a place like a parking meter where it's a very designated spot right
we don't want people parking in a parking meter and then getting a ticket
because of that daylighting law that doesn't make sense right so those are
the locations that we wanted to fix like nip in the bud get red curb on along
with a lot of some trail crossing locations some of the other higher use
pedestrian crossings just to make sure that we get those sight lines in place
so that drivers can really see those pedestrians which is the whole point of
this law then the remaining areas in those residential neighborhoods that's
the question of okay this is a lot of red curb that we'd have to put out there
and I mean I'm gonna throw this out there but you're not allowed to park on
a corner where there's a radius you're not allowed to do that you're also not
allowed to park within 15 feet on either side of a fire hydrant it's not always
red curbed that's in the California Vehicle Code and so and it's hard to
right because not everybody remembers these things and that's totally valid so
there is a balance here of having to go back and maintain all this red curve
that we'd have to put in to meet the these requirements and you know taking
that educational approach so there's gonna be somewhere in between where
we're really prioritizing the red curve and then the following maintenance
efforts in those locations where the traffic safety component is critical and
that's really going to be those marked crosswalk locations the remaining
locations you know that's going to be education dependent and you know we'll
work with PD on how that actually rolls out. Thank you that was helpful. At this
time I'll open up this item for public comment. Do we have any members of the
public wishing to provide public comment? Yes we have one member of the public who
wishes to provide comments.
I think we're all gonna talk so.
On this item, on the local roadway safety plan item?
It's on the one for the Homestead.
Okay, that's actually, it's a different item on the agenda
and that's coming up.
Okay.
A couple and I think it's the next presentation.
So thank you, thank you so much.
If it's on this item, yeah, you know, actually,
so what I can do is we can actually have you talk
Brianna and you know outside later and yeah, she can probably she can answer your question or or get that comment. Thank you
for the chair
Okay
at this
At this time, are there any commissioner comments?
Commissioner patch do you have any comments? I do not thank you for checking in. I
I think I'm good and look forward to the continued work on this so thank you for the
staff report and answering some good questions.
And I'll just say keep up the great work obviously and I'm learning this is a new topic area
for me so I'm learning as I go along one of the things I learned is you guys had to do
this plan to be able to apply for certain funding and you'll be getting the funding
so obviously you did a great job so keep up the great work.
any other comments, Commissioner Gao?
I'm learning, too.
And you guys, as always, are doing a great job.
So I'm excited to see the leading pedestrian intervals
get rolled out.
It's great to see them around downtown.
And it'll be nice to have them elsewhere, too.
So thank you for that.
Next on the agenda is an item for commission consideration.
Walnut Boulevard and Homestead Speed Cushion update.
At this time, I invite staff to provide their presentation.
Good evening commissioners.
Good evening.
My name is Matt Redmond.
I'm Associate Traffic Engineer here.
And tonight I'll be providing an update
on our neighborhood streets program,
specifically the speed cushions that we installed
in the Homestead community.
tonight's presentation we'll start off with a little introduction to our neighborhood streets
program and kind of what that is and then i'll go into the specific treatments on homestead
for the speed calming that we've performed in the past including some pop-up demonstrations
and then i'll touch on the speed cushion pilot that's currently active so the area we're talking
about tonight is all south of ignacio valley road on homestead avenue as well as on walnut boulevard
you can see a map there of the exact corridor. So the neighborhood streets program is a program
kicked off in 2019 here at the city and really it's taking a focus away from our big arterials
and putting it more onto residential streets or neighborhood streets. And so the big item we're
going after with those streets is bringing speeds down. Speeds have a direct correlation to fatalities
As you can see here from this graphic linear increase in speed
leads to an exponential increase in fatalities.
And so that's what we're trying to combat with this program.
And it also helps the quality of life, especially for those
pedestrians and cyclists and vulnerable road users
also out on the residential streets.
So the program started with these two programs.
The first is a pace card pledge program.
Basically a pledge card saying you'll drive the speed limit.
it's a pretty simple form there and you get a sticker to display to others and encourage
others to join the program. And then we also provide free lawn signs. So you can see here
the different designs, you can see the popularity with the slow down sign, and overall to date we've
delivered over 300 signs. So it's been pretty successful, you've probably seen them around.
But the goal with these is really to encourage visitors to a street who may not know about it
or to spread awareness that your speed matters wherever you drive, and it's our first point
of engagement. And so speaking of engagement, we started engaging the Homestead community
back in 2020 or so when the police department here in Walnut Creek and resident feedback mentioned
the speeds on Homestead Avenue and Walnut Boulevard. And so while we heard this data,
we wanted to make sure it was true. And so we looked at our radar signs that are installed on
those streets and we were able to determine that the speeds were much higher than the posted speed.
And so for that reason we did increase our neighborhood participation with neighborhood
meetings conducting outreach to fully understand the issue. And so here from these neighborhood
meetings we learned multiple aspects of these streets that you know including driver behavior
and speeding. So there's lots of different use cases there. And so then we put our heads together
and tried to determine what would be some appropriate solutions. And so we're showing
temporary kind of quick build solutions here, including traffic circles, bulb outs, narrowing
and speed humps. And this allows for a little bit more cost-effective measures that we can implement
a little bit quicker than traditional concrete. And so we took some of those ideas and we actually
deployed them. So we partnered with our traffic maintenance crew and we put some cones out on
Homestead to try to provide a narrowing effect. And we learned from that pilot for two hours or so,
I think staff and the citizens there agreed that it wasn't very effective. And so then on
On Wanna Boulevard, same day, we deployed a neighborhood traffic circle in one of the
larger sections, intersections of the Wanna Boulevard, so that we could understand how
that would work.
And so we determined, so you can see here the straw water kind of creating that effect.
And then there's some straw water also on the sides creating kind of a buffer for pedestrians
and vehicles that maneuver around.
And so from this we determined that there's a little bit more design constraints than
we realize including drainage and the pedestrian walking path there.
And then there was additional outreach that's needed for something like this just due to
the nature of the design.
And so both of these, while they weren't fully successful in terms of implementation, they
did allow us to connect, conduct great outreach.
And so we were able to talk to a lot of residents informally and learn about the issues and
see it firsthand.
And we conducted a survey there on paper so we could collect additional input about what
we were trying to do.
So from there, we kind of went back to the drawing board and we said, okay, well, if
we did something more impactful, what would we want to do?
And I think driving, I think implementing something more impactful requires additional
data.
And so if we look at this chart here, a little technical, but on the left side, basically
that's like hard verifiable data that you could, you know, print out from a computer.
And then you have more hearsay data on the right-hand side.
And then if you go down on the graph, that's more instantaneous.
So you could think like maybe one second of data or you could go more up on the graph
and that would be more continuous, think maybe 24-7 data collection.
And so you could see we have lots of opportunities to collect valuable data including observations
from residents, we have radar signs that collect data, we can also go out and drive it and
collect GPS recording data, but you'll notice that that bottom right corner is blank.
But that's OK, because that's instantaneous,
and it may not be 100% reliable.
So overall, we felt like our landscape of data collection
could capture what we needed to do.
And so with that, we went forward
with exploring the speed cushion option.
Now speed cushions, if you're not familiar,
they are a bit more controversial
than traditional traffic calming.
However, one of the big pros is that they
are effective at reducing speeds.
And again, that's the whole goal
of the neighborhood streets program.
And then on these streets,
we have a pedestrian walking path,
not like a formal sidewalk.
And so reducing speeds would help improve
that pedestrian environment.
It would provide that traffic calming we were looking for.
And as you can see here tonight,
we would also increase engagement,
which, you know, positive or negative,
I feel like it's a good thing
because it provides opportunity for education.
Now there are some downsides to speed cushions,
including it can increase emergency response times,
there is noise, and it can create diversion.
So you could imagine, hey, instead of taking that street,
I'll take this other side street,
and now you're kind of exacerbating the problem,
and they can be discomfortable for drivers.
However, with all that,
we are able to conduct significant outreach,
including emails, next door posts,
posting on flyers on the street,
as well as letters to the individual residents
who are facing the street to make sure
that we got the word out.
And then we sent a map showing the locations,
the approximate locations of the speed cushion.
So we put five on Homestead
and six on Walnut Boulevard for this segment.
And we spaced them about 250 to 500 feet
for according to best practices.
So then last month we began installing,
You can see the crews here installing
and we now have some speed cushions out on the street
if you haven't heard already.
So I will say that these speed cushions
are drilled into the pavement.
They are made of rubber.
They are 10 feet long.
They are textured so you really have a full effect
of slowing down.
And the last point I'll mention
is that they are temporary.
They can be removed.
So they are not pavement, they're not designed
into the roadway, they are tacked down
and they can be potentially removed at some point.
So it's great for a pilot purpose.
So I'll provide some feedback on what we've heard so far.
It's been both positive and constructive.
There's been a lot of thank yous
and I appreciate the residents who've reached out
and let me know about that.
This isn't an easy project to move forward with
given the impacts that speed cushions have
on a wide variety of populations that use this street.
Many have waited a long time
and they're excited to see this
and they feel like it's a real improvement.
They've seen cars slow down
and they feel safer walking and biking on these streets.
And so that's great to hear.
Now, there has been constructive replies too.
I've heard some people didn't know about it
and they don't like the noise.
And so for that, that's one of the side effects
and we tried to get the word out.
We also, for this design of speed cushion,
it's 10 feet long, and it's made out of rubber.
So this particular profile encourages
more of a 10 mile per hour going over it,
rather than maybe a faster 15 mile per hour speed cushion.
And so that's good feedback to hear.
You can always do more outreach, and so that's
a lesson to learn there.
And then a lot of people will say
that they're not comfortable to drive over,
especially if you're going too fast.
so I'll leave that at that.
To finish up here,
I'll just mention the next steps kind of beyond this pilot.
So first off, we're gonna try to finish this pilot.
So we have a couple outstanding items with the contractor
to finish up before we can finally walk the site
and complete it done.
And then we're gonna wait and allow for an adjustment period
to make sure that traffic volumes have shifted
to this new design on the street,
and we're collecting,
and then we can follow up and collect data during this pilot
to fully understand and compare the impacts
from when we collected our before data.
And then we'll come back here
to the Transportation Commission and present our findings.
So I wanna address the one big question
a lot of people ask is, hey, these look great.
Can we put them on our street?
And so for that, I will say that we do start
with our behavioral-based programs.
When we pitched our behavioral-based programs
to the Homestead community.
There was a huge uptick in those,
both in the pace car pledge and the yard signs.
So we do start there, it allows us to collect emails
and start providing digital communication
and make sure that everyone's on the same page.
And then as for expanding additional locations,
we also wanna explore big data analytics.
So this could be, with cell phone data potentially,
you have lots of data points
And you may be able to understand
where speeding is occurring.
And then you can overlay that
with what type of trips are being taken.
So is it a cyclist, is it a walking?
And then you can say,
hey, where do we have people walking with high speeds?
And do we have pedestrian facilities there?
And then we can look at demographic data.
So looking at, you know,
maybe we have elderly population
where there's high speeds and there's walkers.
And so trying to look at, you know,
this kind of context for an equity point of view
of providing improvements.
So that's kind of where we want to take it next.
But with that, I'll open it up to questions and comments.
Commissioner questions?
First, I get the difference between these speed cushions
and the speed humps, which are like concrete and that.
So the results, what is the difference
between a result of a speed hump, speed bump,
and a speed cushion.
So results of the difference of those,
or what are the difference between those?
What is the outcome to the driver
and reducing the speed on the street?
Is one superior to another?
What knowledge do we have here?
Yeah, great question.
So I think on one of my slides, I kind of glossed over this.
But we installed our speed cushions.
They're all modular.
So they're made out of rubber.
So they're all modular.
So we installed most of them with nine feet width.
So that basically covers, a car is typically six or seven feet wide.
And so that would cover an entire car.
We do have some smaller cushions that provide cuts for emergency vehicles to basically go
through without slowing down.
So it kind of touches on this response time for emergency vehicles.
So some smaller ones, they may not be as effective for all cars, but you help the response times
for those emergency vehicles.
And so with this pilot, we can actually
determine what are the different speed profiles
we see over the different humps, because we have installed
both types.
So I don't have any preliminary data here tonight,
but that is something that we can determine from this,
because we do have the smaller ones as well as the larger ones
so we can kind of understand those different impacts.
So is that, and I get the idea that we're piloting something
versus if you put in concrete, it's more permanent, right?
But on the speed, a typical concrete speed hump,
does it have the same exact impact as this?
Oh, so how you actually install speed cushions,
you may do like a three inch high
and then like a six foot long kind of bump.
And there's different profiles.
Different cities adopt different profiles.
These speed cushions, like I said, they're 10 feet long.
I think they are three inches high.
And so that has a certain profile.
So that's something we're learning,
and that's something that we can determine
if we were to make a permanent installation.
Got it.
And since noise seems to be a big issue,
not that you might be able to fix the noise,
but can anything be done to reduce noise?
And is the noise coming from just the cars are there,
and that's it?
Yeah, so the noise is mainly the, it could be the braking.
It could be the acceleration afterwards,
because maybe someone wants to catch up,
or it could just be the shocks going over the bump.
The one thing we try to do is install it in between homes
rather than directly in front of one home
that would just shoot it.
Maybe in between homes could provide some sort of buffer,
but it's a difficult situation to address.
If effective, does this type of cushion stay,
and if so, what's the lifespan of it?
I don't know.
I don't know that we're gonna look at the data
and we'll bring it to you
and we can provide a talking points then.
The lifespan of the product, it's rubber.
I've heard good things, but it could only be five years
depending on the number of large vehicles
and the speed that people are taking it.
So there may be some maintenance there.
The process for installation is they drill down,
they drop like a casing, like a little plastic casing,
and then they put epoxy in there
and then they drill the bolt into that.
So it seems pretty secure, and again, like I said,
they're modular, so I think they're three feet by two feet,
maybe, yeah, they're kind of like a square,
and so there's lots of individual pieces,
and so they're all kind of tacked down.
So if one needs to be replaced, that's a possibility.
All right, thank you.
Okay, I really like that data slide that you showed.
My question from that is, do you have any kind of metric
as to how many contacts you got
from the public that feed into that.
Hmm, is it 100, 200, 25 or not sure?
I can say recently my inbox has been very busy.
I can say I've probably since the installation last month,
I've probably replied to around 50 individuals.
But that's just the ones that reached out.
There's a lot of people out there that maybe
are cursing my name as they go over them.
there may be people out there that are enjoying them,
they're not reaching out.
So that's just, you know, one act,
that's a one data point, right?
Yep, great.
And data wise, so I looked at the,
looks like we got about 17 emails for the meeting tonight.
And it actually wasn't as divergent as I thought.
I'll save that for comments.
What's the, like the installation goal here?
and things I'm thinking of are, what are we trying to get the speed to?
So it's a 25 mile an hour street.
Are we trying to get it to 25?
Are we trying to get it to considerably lower?
What's that strategic goal?
Well, so originally the goal was just to get it to the posted speed limit because it was
significantly higher where it wasn't, it was hard to reduce it down to 25, but we didn't
state any specific goal or metric to try to hit but we want that comfort level
for the pedestrians and so I have been hearing from observations that some
people have said that it is more comfortable as a pedestrian or a
cyclist to be on here and so that's kind of like the ultimate goal I think
not some specific number. And then we we keep talking about this as a pilot so
what are the is the long-term plan we are definitely absolutely planning on
putting in some kind of speed moderation and then if we are is the
permanent solution going to be these rubberized devices or would we ever
consider the more traditional pavement speed humps or we're just too early to
even ask that question well your first part I can't really touch on I don't
don't know how far this pilot goes.
But I would like to present the data here back later this year.
And then if they were to go through
and the pavement was going to be resurfaced here,
they would come up anyways.
And so then, at that point, if we had support,
we could repave them with the traditional profile
and our standard.
Thank you.
I had a question.
So was there a particular reason for choosing Homestead?
was that like a problem area with a lot of speeding?
Yeah, so Homestead's pretty unique in that it's not just,
it feels like, so we had reached out,
PD reached out as well as residents,
but it's unique in that there's essentially driveways
facing the street, but there's also people
that don't live in the neighborhood
that will use this street to get through town.
And so for that reason,
It was a high priority.
And then I know you also mentioned
that some complaints were that people
were going 10 miles an hour rather than the 25
that you guys were aiming for.
So was there increased congestion?
So it's 10 miles per hour just over the speed cushion.
But I think generally, overall, the average is lower than 25.
Sorry, your second part of there?
Oh, it's congestion.
Yeah, was there increased congestion?
You know, that's that's another metric that we should probably look at, but not that I know of.
Commissioner Patch, do you have questions?
I do. Going back to the noise complaint, have we looked at, like, if it's higher when there's low traffic and therefore people might be going faster or if it's higher during those high congestion commute hours?
So during the commute hours, I think it backs up a bit.
But I don't have a decibel meter out there.
I would like to get one.
But I will say I've heard people say at nighttime is one of the most.
I think sound travels a little bit more at night.
And there's less other background noise to kind of block it out.
All right, thank you.
This may be too early to ask the question.
But we were talking earlier about permanent installations
versus the rubber installation.
Is there a noise difference with the material?
And then the second question is the rubber seems
to be very preformed, it's monolithic down the corridor.
And I'm wondering if you've looked at permanent installations
and the feasibility of having basically a monolithic permanent installation that just
goes down the corridor, or is the construction so delicate, since you're talking about only
three inches or two and a half inches, is the construction so delicate that it's hard
to have a consistent permanent design for the speed humps in a corridor?
To answer your second point, I think it's possible to have a consistent design.
For the first point, just my personal experience, I think the permanent installation would have
noise more related from the vehicle's shocks, and for this installation, I think the noise
is more from the vehicle's tires with the rubber.
So I think the permanent installation, you can roll over much quieter, and it's more
about the shocks and then the speed and that relationship. So I haven't taken any
data on those but that's an interesting point that the permanent installation
could potentially be less noisy. Yeah thank you. At this time I'll open it the
item up for public comment. Do we have any members of the public wishing to
provide public comment? Okay I'm Michael Robertson I live on West Holly Drive
which is just off of Homestead. And first of all, we just want to thank Matt. I'm
sure there's a lot of people involved in this, but Matt's been our contact
person. We've been trying to get the speed down on Homestead Walnut for 42
years. She's been working on this and we're thankful for the speed bumps. No
mistake about it. Everybody who lives on Homestead, Roff, is very thankful about
that. So thank you Matt about that. Concerning the noise issue, there isn't.
We were just back there chatting about that.
I can look at my front door and see Homestead.
I live on this for Walnut and Homestead
kind of connect right there.
I live, I can see Homestead Walnut's right here.
And the noise is far less than it was before.
So I can see the first speed bump on this side.
I can hear the lack of traffic on that side.
So it's not a problem with that.
One thing that we read that my wife made sure on me
to make sure to tell you guys tonight, she has jury duty.
She walks the neighborhood, not only our side,
but also trying to cross over onto Hacienda
and all of that on the other side of Homestead.
And she said, since those speed bumps went in,
she feels so much safer crossing the street.
And one thing I noticed, I like to be outside
late afternoon, early evening,
and there's so many people I've met,
I've lived there 18 years, who I've never met before
who live on that side, the other side of Homestead,
who are now crossing the street and walking our back street,
side street.
So we just want to say thank you for that.
So our quality of life is improved, absolutely,
about this.
And there are people who are complaining about,
oh, I want the shocks on my truck.
Or there's too many bumps to get to Ignacio.
Or I've got to slow down.
Nobody's put signs up.
You're going to hear some comments about that.
I'm sure there are emails about this.
But really what it comes to for us, the neighborhood of Homestead and Walnut is it's about safety.
It's about our family's safety.
And so for the people who want those speed humps removed, I would only ask one question.
It is, at what time did you decide that the value of your time or comfort was greater
than the value of the safety of our children and pets?
So they can talk about noise or shocks, time.
We're talking about safety of our families.
Okay.
Thank you.
Next comment.
The map that shows the location of the speed cushions might be.
No, it's towards the end, I believe.
Is that a better map?
One on the left, I think, with a little dot.
Yeah, I guess.
Sorry.
It's just helpful for me to follow
as you're talking about where you might live or something.
Thank you.
Go ahead with your comments.
Thank you for all of your good work.
I have to thank Matt Redmond profusely for this.
My husband started on this 42 years ago, as we said.
And I know that's, but we've been
trying to get traffic to slow down to the speed limit.
It's not too much to ask.
Safety is involved.
A couple of comments positive, but could we
illuminate the white stripes on the temporary?
Because I've received lots of neighborhood comment
about they're not seen at night at all.
So people go charging over them, and it's kind of dangerous.
And that may be the noise we're talking about at night,
because they're not seen.
If there's fluorescence involved,
I don't know if you can do that.
I just want to thank you from the community.
I live at 1021 Homestead.
It's right in the middle of all of this on the Homestead side.
And I can get out of my driveway now.
I mean, I can't tell you the years that I would sit there
and have to jump out and have people screech to a halt
for me to get out of my driveway.
And that's real common to the residents on Homestead.
I'm more than happy.
The courtesy that's been extended,
I can't say enough about how much better this may not last but for right now it's really
a beautiful thing.
And there is a lot more neighborhood participation in the neighborhood now due to the safety.
It's much better safety.
And that's all I have to, I think.
Thank you.
Any other comments?
Hi.
Go ahead.
My name is Debbie Jennings and I live on Scotts Court, off of Scotts Lane.
I guess I'm going to be one of those dissenters of the Homestead Group, which I don't mean
to be other than I believe in safety, I believe we should do what we can to make safe neighborhoods,
streets, but I don't think that the installation of the speed bumps, uh, the
decision to make it wasn't democratic.
Everybody that lives in Walnut Heights in Rudgear, Merwood, Walnut,
Knowles, et cetera, use those two streets to get to the hospital, to
to doctor's offices, to WCI, downtown, and Ann Ann.
Most people didn't know that this was gonna happen.
And I don't think that you all gave enough attention
to those of us that have to use those streets.
We don't have any other way to go.
And I'm certainly not for speeding.
I think 25 is perfectly reasonable.
But I question the veracity of Homestead being a drag strip,
which someone said to me, I know that there was data on it
and the average speed based on the data that I saw
that Matt sent to me was 27 miles an hour.
27 miles an hour in a 25, does that really warrant speed bumps?
the 85th percentile, which is, you know, 85% of the people drive at that particular rate and less
was 32 miles an hour. I think you really have to question whether you need to put in speed bumps
for that kind of a difference. I just don't think it's practical for all the residents that live
here not just Homestead and yes our cars are you know going over those bumps
it's terrible I mean it's terrible you know you hit your head practically going
over them I can't get over a speed bump going higher than 10 and I've taken
video I've sent it to people it's awful if you keep speed bumps you got to
change that pipe and that design. But the other point is that for emergency
vehicles to get to the hospital, you know, everybody lives in my neighborhood.
We've got to go down homestead and to get to the hospital. My husband had a
stroke in August and if he had been, uh, going over those bumps, he probably
could have died literally. So, I guess my time's up. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you.
Any additional comments? Hi, my name is Deborah Carboni and I live at 1050
Homestead which is right in the middle of the street. I absolutely want to
thank Matt so much and I don't know exactly how to pronounce your name but
Ms. Boardman, I know you've been involved in all of this.
The speed humps have made an absolute 100% difference
for the neighbors on Homestead Avenue.
And I have to respectfully disagree with what you said
and I'm sure there were some miscommunication
because the average speed is absolutely not 25 miles an hour
on that street.
Before the speed humps were installed,
Absolutely not.
Right across the street from me is one of those speed signs.
So you can see the speed.
Out my front window, I see the speed.
The average speed of cars going down that street
was in the 40s and 50s.
It would get up as high as the 60s and 70s sometimes.
Nobody drives.
Nobody drives.
If you could address a side approach, we'd appreciate it.
I understand, I'm sorry.
I just want to say thank you, thank you so much.
The speed humps were not even fully installed
when I started noticing the difference already.
The ones that were installed near my house already,
and like I said, I've got this speed sign
out my front window so I can absolutely see it.
And I just can't thank you all enough.
Monica and some other people have been fighting
for 40 some years.
I've been here for 21 years trying to do the same thing.
And so I am just so thankful that Ms. Boardman and Matt
finally started listening to the neighbors
and did something about this.
And I would absolutely 100% appreciate
if you would keep them.
And I know that the neighbors would too.
We live on the street.
And yes, of course there are people on other streets
who have to drive down the street.
But like someone said,
Homestead is also a cut through street.
So people from all over the place come and go down
Homestead Avenue trying to get to Ignacio or from Ignacio
using us as a cut through.
And so we really need them to drive slowly.
And they now are.
And we can go out and have a walk on our street.
We can go bike riding on our street.
There's a lot of bicyclists who come down Homestead Avenue
on a regular basis.
It is so much safer and so much better.
So thank you so much.
Thank you very much.
Any additional comments from the audience?
No, you've made your comment.
You can speak with staff with Matt after the meeting
and you can send an email to Matt as well.
Are there any comments over Zoom?
Oh, they can't?
Oh, that's right.
Forgot about that, thank you.
Yeah.
At this time, are there any commissioner comments?
And I'll start to the left.
Can I ask staff a question for clarification?
Matt, can you help me understand what is,
I know you probably don't have the data in front of you,
but what is the average speed
that you were looking at here?
Yeah, so Debbie's correct with the data.
I sent her some preliminary data.
So when you set speeds, you look at the 85th percentile.
You look at what 85% of the vehicles are doing
because you don't want a huge differential in speeds.
And so you set the speed, the speed limit signs that are
posted, are set basically to the 85th what 85 out of 100 cars
are doing.
And so that's kind of the data we look at.
We don't look at the average.
And so that 32 number is more of what
we are looking at than the 27 that she mentioned.
Can we take it back to comments?
Yeah, thanks, that was helpful.
So the first thing I would do on outreach is,
I think we need to expand the outreach as we move forward,
especially if we move into another phase.
I know that it was concentrated
on the areas of immediate impact,
but as this pilot program moves forward,
I think we can, not to everybody in the entire city,
but if we could look at expanding the geographic zone
and knowing that people are using this as other arteries,
I think that would be helpful.
So just keep that in mind as you move forward.
I would also encourage, if you can get a decibel meter
or something out there, I don't know how easy or hard
that is just to see what the noise level is
and how bad it is.
Or staff can always take turns sleeping there
and reporting back.
So, thanks.
Yeah, just a few comments.
I wanna say thank you for your thorough work
in exploring so many different options
for this neighborhood in response to the neighborhood concern.
I think it's great that there already seem
to be some benefits to these.
I do think that communication to surrounding neighborhoods
might be important just to explain
what the issue is, what the safety goals are,
that kind of a thing moving forward.
But other than that, I just wanna say thank you
and great work to both of you.
Great, thanks.
One thing I wanted to share for the benefit
of the public attending tonight
is we're an advisory commission, not a decision making.
So we give our best advice and the,
but the final decision will rest with the city,
just with our input.
So I've driven Homestead a lot.
I'm one of those people.
And I understand the both sides
of what we're hearing from the public
and what we're hearing from the city.
My experience with the current setup,
and that's why I'm really happy it's just a pilot,
is I feel like in my car I've got to drop down
to about 10 miles an hour to safely go over those.
And then we also heard from someone else tonight.
One of the things that really stuck out to me is,
it's really hard for me to see those things coming up at night.
So I think anything we can do, and if it's not in the pilot,
in the final solution to make it easier for drivers
to know that's coming up at night would be really good.
The email feedback tonight was an interesting split.
There was 10 pro, 7 against.
So it was actually more evenly split
than I thought it would be
from the folks that actually emailed in.
I guess my final advice would be,
we need to balance the needs of the people
that live on this street
with the people that don't live on the street
that actually use the street.
I think it's very reasonable to do some kind of mitigation
measure to get the speed to the speed limit.
So if there's any way we can have a more moderate
compromise way of using, if it's gonna be some kind
of speed bump for lack of a better term,
where it can kind of get that traffic to moderate
down to the 25, that would seem to be the best compromise
between the people that just use the road in general
and protecting the residents.
I do see there's a lot of pedestrians,
people walking their dogs, riding their bikes,
and I'm always nervous driving on that street
when I see them there.
So I really, even though I don't live on the street,
I really appreciate and hear the concerns
for the people that live on that street,
but I'm also balancing it with the myriad
of other residential streets with driveways facing the streets
that are all supposed to be 25 miles an hour
and we have no mitigation.
I just think that these couple of streets are very unique
because they are cut through,
get away from downtown avenues.
So I think they're worthy of special treatment.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for your work.
And it was really nice to hear this presentation,
especially since last month, I think,
I went to give a presentation
to the Youth Leadership Commission,
and I got absolutely bombarded with questions
about the speed cushions on Homestead.
So, which I had previously not known about,
so hopefully now I can go back
and give a more insightful update.
And I really like how there's a lot of potential
and it probably already has like significantly
increased local safety.
And so I'm excited to see more data as it comes out
and hopefully there'll be like more improvements.
And I haven't driven Homestead yet
since I got my permit in December.
So hopefully if I drive there,
I'll be more comfortable knowing there's less speeding
and that the pedestrians are safer.
So thank you.
Commissioner Patch, do you have comments?
I do, yes.
I want to thank staff for this presentation.
This was really great.
For the next time that we hear a report on how
this pilot is doing, I also would
love to see some data around the noise
and connecting that to timing.
Because obviously, if it's happening at night
and keeping people awake, that's a lot worse
than in the middle of the day.
Also, you mentioned that the speed humps
that you have in there, or speed cushions
that you have in there, there's different styles
where you can have some cut through
for emergency responses.
So I would like to see how much adding these
have decreased the amount of time it takes,
or like increase the amount of time it takes
to drive on these roads for that emergency response time.
But also like what the impact
on some of our micro transit options are.
I use Homestead a lot on a scooter,
and there's no way to avoid the humps with the scooter,
and it's actually quite dangerous.
And you're not supposed to use them
in the pedestrian thoroughfare.
So something like that of what the impact is
for other modes of transit, whether that's
biking or scooter, et cetera.
Thank you.
Thanks for the presentation and for trying
to respond to the speeding that's
occurring in the public concerns for the people that
live along the corridor.
I think I'd like to see a few things.
And some of these you may have already addressed.
Commissioner Patch mentioned the scooters right off the bat,
bicyclists.
I noticed that the cushion design that you have
tend to look like it went across the entire lane
and I'm wondering if,
I would suggest that you consider a three cushion design
and look into the safety implications of that,
that would allow two things to happen.
One, the bicyclist and the scooters could stay
in the vehicle lane and avoid the bump.
And it also might allow for a slightly narrower middle hump
that the fire trucks could get through more easily
while still maintaining the benefit of slowing down.
So there might be some design solutions
that I'd encourage you to look into.
I know you have more flexibility
when you're putting in permanent solutions
versus buying something off the shelf.
So if you could take that into consideration.
I think on your before and after studies,
I'd really appreciate to see,
I know we get into speed and average speed
and 85th percentile speed and the highest speed.
I'd really like to see you look at travel time.
So when I'm starting at the beginning of the corridor,
how long does it take for me to travel through the corridor?
You have the before data, you know it's 32 miles per hour
so you can calculate that.
So what would be the speed or the travel time
to get through the corridor
if you had the lumps in place?
The aspect, I heard that you installed the devices
at different distances.
If so, I'd really appreciate understanding
what the speeds are in the middle between the lumps.
That would help us understand what the drivers are,
how the drivers are treating the corridor.
I've read that when lumps are spaced too far apart,
drivers tend to speed up,
which means there's more acceleration and more noise
and then they slam on their brakes.
Because the lumps are further apart, they do that.
but if they're closer, then drivers are less inclined
to speed up and slow down quickly.
And so you get, potentially could get a more smooth
speed characteristic along the corridor.
And if you're able to do that,
it would result potentially in more frequent speed humps
because they'd be closer together.
But you might be able to then lower the profile
which would have less noise for the cars
as they're going over the lump or the hump,
whatever you call them.
It would allow for a more consistent driving pattern
along the corridor because there'd be less incentive
to speed up, but the drivers wouldn't need to slow down
to five or 10 or whatever they're slowing down to
with the pilot program.
So I'd encourage you to look at some solutions
around those lines when you present the data.
And I think travel time data is really important.
I think that it would be helpful to understand
the safety implications of the different speeds.
So you had that generic chart up.
But if you know that your 85th percentile speed is 32
in your post or after condition speed is whatever it is,
maybe you could compare more precisely
those two differences to understand
what the implications are to people
that vulnerable users, pedestrians, bicyclists,
if they get hit at those two different speeds.
I think that would be helpful.
And then I would encourage you
to look at the 85th percentile speed
rather than the average speeds.
The manual uniform traffic control devices
talks about the 85th percentile speed.
Historically, since the beginning of driving,
we've been setting speed limits
based on the 85th percentile speed.
So that's the expectation that we should have
if we are driving a corridor.
And so when you post the speed limit at 25 miles per hour,
the expectation is that 85% of the people will drive
at 25 miles per hour or less.
And so I think it's important to use that value
when you are presenting either before and after data
rather than average speed
or the 10 mile per hour pace speed and what have you.
That's the number that the police use,
that's the number that traffic engineers use,
and so that's the number that we should be
designing to, in my opinion.
And then, I think I'll leave it at that for now.
Thank you very much, I really appreciate it.
Next item on the agenda is for commission consideration,
and it's the crosswalk treatments.
this time I invite staff to provide their presentation.
Okay. Hello again everyone.
I will be talking briefly about our recent crosswalk treatments.
My name is Brianna Byrne,
I'm associate traffic engineer here at the city of Walnut Creek.
So quick overview.
In 2023, as part of our un-signalized crosswalk budget,
made some treatments that were new to Walnut Creek.
We're going to go over
the challenges at these locations that we were facing,
and then what elements piece by piece went into this improvement.
Then we will go over the 2024, this next round.
These locations, we had a couple on North Main Street at the three locations,
Lesnick, Third Street, and SOS Drive, Bancroft Road at Stratton Road and
Gilport Lane, and then Mount Diablo Boulevard at Bont and this is ACE
Hardware and that's what's photographed below. So what are the challenges
consistent across these six locations? We have marked crosswalks here and
pedestrians when they need to cross they're crossing five lanes of travel so
that's two in each direction and then either a two-way left turn lane or a
a dedicated left turn lane. Each one of these roads have a posted speed of 30 to 40. And
again, when we talk about the speed of vehicles and the vulnerability of humans, you know,
the higher speed leads to the higher chance of fatality if there is an impact. And then
lastly, each one of these had a possibility of multiple threat pedestrian crash. So we'll
We'll go into what that is.
So in this image here, we have a similar situation.
This one just shows four lanes, but we have a crosswalk here.
Car A, maybe they were speeding or they didn't see the ped
for whatever reason.
They stopped very close to this crosswalk.
The pedestrian, they see a car is yielding for them,
so they proceed to cross.
What happens is there's a second lane,
And now car B, the view between the pedestrian
and this vehicle is blocked.
So this can happen multiple lane crosswalks.
It can also happen if we have parked cars
near these crosswalks.
We have this line of sight blockage.
It's one of the reasons we have this daylighting law now.
So our goals going into this, we wanted
to improve the crosswalk visibility.
Again, these are very wide roadways.
We wanted to reduce the speeds.
And again, to this point of the speed limits and the 85% tile,
we have people going above.
While 85% are going at or below, we do have people going above.
So we're trying to bring this down
as we have this ped vehicle conflict.
And then we did want to address this multiple point threat.
And this is what we ended up with.
Again, this is Mount Diablo at Bont.
but the design went across,
was the same for North Main Street and Bancroft as well.
So we're gonna go and break this down into four sections
with the first one being
this in-street pedestrian paddle sign.
We get requests for these a lot, pedestrians like them,
and they're very, very visible to drivers.
So we have that as a pro, it improves driver awareness,
The downside is that they only have so many impacts in them, and when it comes to traffic
calming materials, they're on the more expensive side, so we have both the cost of the material
and then the time to go out and replace them. So while they're great, there are some downsides
there on their own.
Then item B, we have narrowed lanes.
So it may not be obvious.
Most drivers don't really know how wide a lane is.
But traditionally, in traffic engineering,
they've been 12 feet.
There's been recent pushes for more narrow lanes.
Caltrans accepts 11 feet.
So as part of this design, we went down to 10.
Some agencies in the Bay Area go as low as 9.
So it's one of these very easily implemented means to narrow.
And when you narrow, you get more pavement width.
But the downside is on its own, striping does not enforce speed.
When there's no one else on the road and you just have striping,
it's more of a guidance.
A car can veer off.
So that's why when paired with a hardened lane line,
and that's the term here, the photo
shows a hardened center line.
So this is in Concord at Oak Grove and Treat Boulevard.
Around the city, we place them on striped bull bouts.
And then at these crosswalks, we place them
on the white lane lines.
So what a hardened lane line does
is it emphasizes and essentially forces the desired behavior,
the desired driver behavior.
So in this case here at Oak Grove and Tree Boulevard,
that striped median should be restricting turns
into and out of that driveway.
But without any type of physical boundary,
people were still doing it, so they installed this.
So when we implemented those hardened lane lines
at these crosswalks, we emphasized
that double white striping, that narrow and that narrow travel
lane. Oh, and then one thing to note here, the downside for these is they each post is an
additional asset that the art that the city has to maintain. And while they can take more hits
than the paddle signs, and that's generally true, where we've installed them around the city is
they can kind of take a beating. They do tend to not look as nice, and so we still end up replacing
them quite, quite frequently. And then the other item here is the shark's teeth. And this is
guidance in that case where we saw that car stopping very close to the crosswalk. These
sharks teeth paired with a sign right there that says yield here to pedestrians. It gives that
additional guidance for drivers saying that this is where you need to stop. And the pro there
informed drivers were to yield, again, the con is it's only striping.
But what we have when we combine each one of these treatments, so the paddle sign,
if you go and look at each one, there are signs of it being dinged, but what we've
noticed is that by placing these posts in advance, we're queuing cars up to not accidentally hit the
sign. So they've lasted significantly longer than ones where we didn't have this type of treatment.
The narrow travel lanes, striping on their own is one thing, but as soon as we get the actual vertical element to really squeeze it down, speeds have been lower, and again addressing this multiple threat of guiding vehicles and drivers about where to stop.
So looking at the locations for this next year, we are looking to do these same hardened lane line treatments at four locations.
We have Tice Valley Boulevard at the Safeway Shopping Center.
And then Civic Drive at Deidora Way,
which is north of Parkside.
And then also Arroyo Way and Carleback Avenue,
which are closer to here in that downtown Civic Park.
There is one more crosswalk on Civic Drive
that's actually split between Sagan County.
And we're coordinating with them so that whatever happens is we can
have a corridor, a uniform corridor treatment.
We have, we're incorporating pedestrian refuge islands
into a few of these.
So again, Tice Valley Boulevard.
But this is, there's a couple of mid-block crosswalks
in this area, one of them at the Tice Valley Community Gym,
and then this Tice Oaks Apartments.
It's those two mid-blocks in that same area.
And then Geary Road at Vessing Road,
which is a school crosswalk.
We, depending on budget, and I do have this note there,
we are going to be adding flashing beacons.
So where before we just had striping and posts,
we are doubling back pending budget to the 2023 locations
and in these 2024 where they don't already exist.
And then as part of that,
we do have some shade and business park locations,
mid-block crosswalks at Mitchell Drive and Shaylen's Drive and with that I'll
open up to the floor. Commissioner, questions? Commissioner, okay. I always have
questions, sorry. Pedestrian refuge island. Do we have a picture or can you
just describe one? So what a pedestrian refuge island, oh a good example. So Mount
Diablo, you're heading towards Safeway. And there's that
flashing there is mid block crossover with the flashing
lights. So you the pedestrians have to cross two lanes of
travel, and then there's a protected area, which is that
median, there's trees, there's rocks. And then they can then
proceed to cross the other direction of two lanes. So that
that middle area is called the pedestrian refuge islands. And
it's a relief between vehicle conflicts. Got it and then these are these beacons
you mentioned are they anything different than the only ones I'm
familiar with are you know I push the button and under the sign they've got
the you're talking about something different. It is those ones correct. Okay.
Those are great because they catch my attention when someone pushes it. I love
those. And then my only other question is, this is all really good stuff, what kind of
data and how do we capture data to support the efficacy of all these measures?
So we do have before data. We obviously want to collect after data, just again we're in
of very data is available to us right now.
I mean, we know the speeds have been decreased.
And again, this falls back to the safe system
and prioritizing safety.
The efficacy or whatever that was is these are safety
improvements at the end of the day.
And when we say we know the speed's going down, is it,
Are we measuring it with devices or is it more anecdotal?
So we have a lot of sources to collect data.
We have radar feedback signs.
Some of those are just constantly collecting data.
We have some big data sources that
use GPS and cellular signals.
Otherwise, we can just hire account crew
to roll out some tubes for us.
So I'll add to that.
We do have speed survey data, so that's
something that we're required to do
to make our speed limits enforceable.
So the last time we did that was 2019
was when the data was collected,
but then it was 2020 when it was adopted by council.
So that gives us some information.
These specific treatments that Brianna is talking about,
these are, it's these multi-lane streets, higher speeds.
And if you refer back to this local roadway safety plan
that was put together, this was specifically a profile
that was identified as, let's say, problematic,
that there is a safety issue between conflicts
with pedestrians and higher-speed vehicles.
So in terms of efficacy, we do have plenty of information
just in the traffic engineering world
related to any of these improvements,
singularly, but also combined.
These are pretty typical countermeasures,
and the countermeasures are discussed
in their effectiveness.
it's called a crash reduction factor
or a crash modification factor,
is also in the local roadway safety plan.
So this is us just combining everything together.
We basically tried it out,
and we're taking this systemic approach,
which is what I like to say is we're copy-pasting
the same improvements at all the locations
that have very similar characteristics.
So in terms of a data,
if we were to study it for efficacy or for data purposes,
it would really just be for us to,
the way I view it is it would almost be for fun
to provide from a traffic engineering data standpoint
to geek out on the data versus seeing
the actual yielding rates and being able to conduct
that kind of study, that would be something separate
that we'd have to do sort of following it.
But this does basically all that to say
this follows best practice and it follows
what's in the local roadway CT plan
and we're just doing the systemic roll out of it.
Okay and I would imagine also lots of other cities
are all throughout the state or country
are doing these things and seeing positive impacts.
So we're not reinventing the wheel it sounds like.
No, so yeah, since we've installed these,
I mean the county is interested, Pleasant Hills interested,
Like, it's in other jurisdictions and it's spreading, so.
Great, thank you.
Those are my questions.
Commissioner King.
These are in commercial corridors,
mostly that you've showed us tonight.
I'm curious if you've had any feedback
from the local businesses about the impact of these,
whether on business or their employees.
So prior to the installation, we reached out
to the businesses along these corridors through letters.
And then we had one of the engineers
literally go door to door to make sure
that they had the conversation with business owners.
And since then, we haven't heard a complaint or a positive.
We haven't heard either way.
I had a question.
For the narrow lanes, you mentioned
that there would be like extra pavement for other uses?
What are like examples of other uses,
like would they be like bike lanes or?
Potentially, yeah, so good, excellent point.
So if you look at the lower picture there,
just taking away the extra lane width,
we were able to do that buffer between the lanes.
We didn't change the location of that 2A left turn lane,
the yellow striping.
So all of this was done within the existing conditions.
So just taking away that extra lane width,
we can add the buffer, this location had a shoulder.
If there is a quarter that is in need of a bike lane,
then absolutely, and if anything,
we could maybe add an extra buffer
for that bike lane as well.
But yeah, it's reallocating pavement to other uses.
Thank you.
Commissioner Patch.
My question was actually very similar.
was wondering if you had looked at like compared the intersections that you're
doing this at with any intersections that maybe the sustainability action
plan or other plans the city council has passed about bike lanes so that you know
from a budgetary perspective we're not doing something that then six months
from now we're gonna have to change because we're implementing bike lanes
yeah so we're we're definitely coordinating with the same
sustainability group so we know that we have to increase our bike lanes by 25 percent. So yeah,
we've looked at the corridors, but something to note, these wide roadways that do have higher
speeds, the type of facility that's context appropriate for them is something more high
quality is the term. So it's not just a bike lane stripe next to higher vehicle travel lanes.
so something on this type of corridor. I don't know about Mount Diablo, but I know Bancroft has bike
lanes in the plan. So Bancroft long term would be something either a separated class four,
it's called class four, where there's some kind of vertical separation between the bikes
and the vehicles. That would be something that we would look for in terms of bike facilities there.
But then just to further, these are really affordable, temporary materials that even
if we put them in now and then five years later we have a project to make something more permanent,
we're not precluded from doing that with this type of improvement.
Okay, so your concern about like the cost of maintaining them is really about like if they
are the long-term solutions and we have to constantly change them. Not if we put them
and then need to take them out and adjust accordingly.
Correct, yeah. Thank you so much.
I had two questions.
You had mentioned the pedestrian refuges
that you're gonna put in in 2024.
Are there any vertical elements
that you're considering for those
or will it just be paint like the two-way,
on the previous slide you were on?
So these would be.
Right. The the two the middle two way left turn lane, it's just paint.
So there's there's a refuge, but it's just paint.
Will the refuges that you put in at other locations,
will they also be just paint or will they have some vertical component to them?
So these are these are vertical.
We're looking at concrete. We're looking at more.
We're still looking at material and again, that goes into the cost both of the actual material the cost the cost of construction the cost of maintenance we're looking at the cost but for these locations, the tights Valley Boulevard and then the Gary road.
These would be some type of vertical element some kind of it be additional buffer than just striping or just posts.
So something like on Mount Diablo, you had mentioned the buffer, the refuge at Broadway Plaza.
There's also a different style of a buffer, but it's at the trail crossing of Mount Diablo as well.
But they both have vertical elements, it's just that one is a lot more expensive to build and maintain than the other one.
So that's what you're looking at.
Yeah, it would be at least for these,
actually it's true for both of them,
they're just driveways in these areas.
So we're not looking to restrict movement
into another driveway so that we wouldn't be doing
anything long and grand like at Broadway Plaza,
it would be focused at the actual crosswalk.
Okay, and then the buffer width on the stripe
between the lanes, what is that?
looks like about maybe two feet or three or?
It varies, probably between two and three.
Yeah, the way that the plans had it laid out
was to give the 10 foot travel lanes
and that buffer width varies.
So I wanna say it was a minimum of two feet.
Okay, thank you.
At this time, I'll open the item up for public comment.
Do we have any members in the public that wanna speak?
we do not.
We do not, great.
At this time, are there any commissioner comments?
And I'll start to my left and we'll just proceed.
Great, thank you.
So I'd say the Mount Diablo crosswalk
and the tree, I am,
there are two places I'm very familiar with.
I get to drive past each one at least three times a week,
if not five, and I notice, and I know Treat and Oak Grove,
I think you were using that as an example,
but I don't think that was your work.
But I do notice that it makes a big difference
to your point about the data.
I'm literally driving them,
and that one in front of Ace on Mount Diablo,
like you could not really see people walking,
and now you're just, it does force you to slow down,
it does force me to be recognizing
that there may be people in there.
So I could hit the right pedal, I meant, sorry,
slow down and hit the left pedal.
And just be aware of that.
And on the Oak Grove and Tree,
like having those permanent barriers,
semi-permanent barriers there,
I have seen multiple times cars try to make a left turn
into the Trader Joe's shopping center
from the right-hand turn lane,
so going across five lanes.
And I have now seen a like that just slows everybody down.
It stops them from having the capacity
to go into that shopping center.
So to your point on data,
I'm living these intersections or these crosswalks
and I just want to compliment that and it's good work.
That's it.
I too have noticed a difference
and I want to say thank you.
Especially the Mount Diablo crossing
with that being so close to 24,
I mean, sometimes that before felt like a freeway entrance
already or getting off the exit,
cars were still going very fast.
So it's certainly nice to see the slow down there.
Something that I would love to see incorporated more
into some of this work is like pedestrian education signage.
I've seen this in some other communities,
even outside of California.
I don't know that I've ever seen it here,
but just reminding pedestrians to be mindful,
to make eye contact with drivers,
to also be advocates for themselves.
I think it's good to try to develop that
in our walking and cycling communities to be mindful.
We're trying to make the road safer for them as well,
of course, but just those reminders I think are good.
And then I know this is probably a cost factor,
but I know that we do invest a lot in public art
here in Walnut Creek.
And you see it on things like utility boxes
and things that are very practical,
but I'd love to see it incorporated into things
like crosswalks and some of our transportation structure
as well and I think this might be an area
that we can do that eventually.
So that's it for me.
Thank you very much for your work.
One of the things my wife used to always laugh at
is when we would cross from Ilfren, Iowa
over to Broadway Plaza Lane.
There's the crosswalk where you push the button in
and have the lights in the ground
And I always go, okay, we're doing the runway lights.
So giving aviation analogy, as a pilot,
the most effective thing the FAA puts at airports
to keep people from accidentally going into a runway,
known as a runway incursion,
are both at each end of the entrance to the runway,
the alternating yellow lights,
and then the flashing lights in the ground
before you get there.
So I'm a big fan of lighting devices
to wake people up for pedestrians.
Yeah, I really like the efforts being made
to increase pedestrian safety,
and I also like the variety of solutions
to address these challenges.
I would also suggest more methods
of increasing visibility at night,
and I look forward to seeing these in-street pedestrian
paddle signs, narrow lanes, hardened lane lines,
and truck teeth as I continue my journey
in learning how to drive, so thank you.
Commissioner Patch.
Thank you for this presentation.
I loved the combination of these different ways
of producing traffic speed.
I noticed when they went up
and I was actually in the car with somebody
who had no idea why some of these things
would be implemented.
So it was a cool thing for me to be able to educate them
about why our city would do something of this nature,
which to me just kind of points to like,
maybe the Transportation Commission can help staff by sharing why some of these things work
and why we've decided to do them because I think there's still a lot of confusion with people who
use vehicles like private vehicles as their primary transportation.
Thank you for these.
I drive Mount Diablo quite a bit.
And it's amazing the difference.
I've tried to notice if I slow down.
And I think maybe I slow down from maybe 35 to 32,
something like that.
But what I do do is I say, oh, this is a crosswalk.
And I look.
And I am more attentive.
I know it's anecdotal, it's just me,
but I am more attentive when I pass through these,
whether it's here or on the other corridors.
And so I think that they provide a benefit that is great.
I would, you might wanna check
the latest Caltrans design bulletin.
I think it's 94.
I think Caltrans has changed
and they allow now 10.5 foot lanes on state roads.
And so that just might allow you to do a little bit more
if you want as far as narrowing goes.
But I find these to be really great
and I wish other communities would install them.
They certainly, at least for me,
they make me more attentive now
than when it was your top photo.
So thank you.
Next on the agenda is an item for commission consideration,
Downtown Parking Guidance Project Update.
At this time, I invite staff to provide their presentation.
Thanks. Nice job, Brianna.
So we call that treatment the Fremont treatment
because we stole it from Fremont,
because one of our engineers saw it.
So we looked at Google Street View
and basically replicated it.
So if you're ever out and about,
and you see something interesting that could be good,
let us know, take a picture.
I know, it is, yeah.
Wait till that speed cushion update one.
Okay, the last item here.
Thanks for sticking with us, going on eight o'clock.
So this is kind of some work I've been doing
related to parking guidance.
So here's an update on this project.
Again, I'm Matt Redmond, associate traffic engineer.
So in this presentation, I'll cover the grant
that allowed us to start this project that funds it.
And I'll cover our existing parking signage
that you may have noticed.
And if you didn't notice,
you'll notice it after this presentation
because I'll point some things out.
Some parking sensors that we've installed,
our plans to digitize the curb and ideas looking forward.
So back in 2015, before I was here,
Before Smith and I was here,
MTC issued a grant to us to help reduce emissions
and reduce circling the block looking for parking.
So with this grant,
we've looked to improve our parking guidance
to allow people to find parking easier.
The first step of that has been to implement parking sensors
and provide this real-time occupancy information,
really basically putting a data aspect
to the existing parking conditions.
So first off, before we get into the sensors,
we started looking at our parking signage.
So we have lots of different static signs around downtown.
However, they may not be all uniform in design,
and they may not be in the optimal location.
And so we're looking to update that
and provide a list of recommendations
that can be prioritized based on the sign characteristics,
and then update those signs.
So you can see here a sample data sheet
with some basic information about a sign, where it is,
where the arrow's pointing, what type of design it's used,
and then some analysis,
and then the recommendations on the bottom.
So I'll go through a little bit of that.
So here's our different parking signs.
They're pretty scattered randomly throughout the downtown.
You can see the different colors correspond
to the different signs.
And basically it's a patchwork.
It's been built over time.
And so I think we kind of started with the green
and then there was a push for the purple.
And then more recently we've been going with the blue.
And so really the idea is to just make this consistent.
Parking is hard enough when you're frustrated and late
and you just want to find a place to park or get to a garage.
I should really emphasize this is all to get to a garage.
And so to change your sign can be very hard to understand.
So making that consistent uniform and then
making sure that the arrows are pointing
in the correct direction.
So just doing a full-on sign analysis.
And so what that looks like is we have some technology
to understand the visibility of these signs.
So using a mapping on the left with a corresponding video
on the right, we can understand when these signs become
visible.
So we can put a distance to how visible each sign is.
Now, if we know the speed limit of that road,
we can estimate how much time you
have to make your decision.
Following that, after the point where the sign is,
there is a time where you have to make a decision of turning.
And so I call that, I really call it the action time.
I'm sorry, I didn't update that.
It's an action time after the sign to make your turn.
So you can see here a sign on the right is visible,
and you have a time after it to make a right turn
to go to the garage.
So if we lay this out, we have around 56 signs, parking signs in the downtown, and we can
graph out the decision time, and so we can understand which signs are our worst performing
in terms of decision times and which are our worst performing in terms of action time.
Now you can imagine a sign that's in front of a garage that's saying it's a parking garage
that would have a zero for an action time because it's literally at the point of action.
you could imagine some site some sign that says parking guidance this way but
you're at the turn and you can't actually make that maneuver. So that's
some of these blue dots on the right hand bottom right hand side of this
graph. So basically we're doing some analysis on the sign. Moving on to
parking sensors in 2020 we installed around 1,200 parking sensors these are
flush mounted to the ground and they provide dwell time, how long people park, the occupancy,
if it's a covered spot or if it's used spot or not, and then turnover, how many cars are
going in there each day. And so these are on our downtown on-street parking spaces so we can get
this information and understand how the curb is being used. These are particularly helpful during
COVID when we had a lot of dynamic situations with our curb, outdoor dining, and curbside
pickup. And recently we promoted our curbside pickup to permanent spaces with poles and so we
were able to kind of help use this data to figure out where those can go. And so moving forward with
those sensors since we have that data it's really about not just using it internally for different
metrics but how can other people use it. And so there there's this foundation called the Open
Mobility Foundation, they're a non-profit, they kind of came out of the whole scooter and bike
share programs in LA. And so with the Open Mobility Foundation they have this curb data specification
that allows you to basically publish curb information to potential fleet delivery vehicles
or Uber and Lyft so that they know where curbs are, where parking spaces are, so they can route
directly to them and then with our sensors they can understand if they are occupied or not.
Then it can also give us metrics that we can understand at a more granular level about how
these parking spaces are being performed. So that's kind of our next push is to
publish these parking sensor data into this curb data specification.
And I would be, I don't want to forget that this is not, we don't just look at vehicle traffic
in downtown. We're also looking at other modes to get to downtown. And so recently we put together
a map of all the bike parking in the downtown. I shouldn't say all, most of it. It's hard to find
every little bike rack. But we basically took a big inventory of all the bike racks. So we have
their location, we have a picture of them, and we have a number of capacities. So how many bikes you
could park there or scooters. So it's a dynamic map. It's now available online. You can see the
link in the QR code here. And this is just something we're kind of trying out. So feedback
is welcome at this point. We just kind of want to explore this space and see how this information
could be helpful to people. So to kind of recap and look forward, with the parking guidance program,
we eventually would like to, after the digital push of this data, we'd like to kind of look at
a physical implementation of a monument sign. So you can see here on the right a sign providing
you know real-time information about garage availability and maybe directional arrows as well
that's something that can change. So we want to kind of evaluate that. We have that in front of
a lot of our garage that digital signage to show if parking is available but putting that you know
maybe a turn or two away from that garage to really broadcast it out or on the entrances of
of the city to kind of give you a heads up and plan ahead.
And then, you know, Park SJ in San Jose,
they made a nice online ParkSJ.com, I believe.
They have a nice web interface that's mobile friendly,
so you can check your garage occupancies.
You can also see a map of where to park.
So providing an online portal could also be very helpful,
given that, you know, most people have a phone
and they can kind of plan ahead.
And then continue to promote active transportation,
considering e-bike usage and other modes
that might get to downtown.
And then I also want to mention that we recently
received another grant from MTZ to just focus
on a downtown curbside management plan.
So this would look, this would essentially
use some of the data here we talked about tonight
to look at our policies and possibly provide
recommendations for changing those policies and then again using the
parking guidance project to implement some of those changes. So that's all I
have. Thank you for your time.
Commission or questions? Considering what we heard about that newer 20-foot
law? How much do you expect that to impact this moving forward?
We already did a really good job with that law in the downtown. Like I said, I think there's one
parking space being removed and then we're adding it back on locust. But this is the law, the red
curb in front of crosswalks. I think the curb management plan might look at it more. Yeah,
So in that downtown curb management plan,
we'll look at how we can assign the use of the curb.
It could be for parking, it could be for loading,
it could be for handicapped spaces, that kind of thing.
But like Matt had mentioned before,
we already did take a look at all of those
metered parking spaces.
Maybe there's a few, and sort of some of these
outlying areas, because this curb side management plan
actually extends a little further out
than just what the metered zone area is currently.
So yes, it's possible that there will be loss
of on-street parking, but it would address
if there is a need for red curb, period.
It would also look at, you know,
if there's a need for, let's say a bulb out,
that would also take up that same kind of curbside space.
And so it is accounting for it's not just for vehicles,
it's also for bike parking or for pedestrian space,
or it could be something, or even a bus stop.
Okay, and then thank you for that.
And I think when people think about parking
and parking garages, they're like,
ah, you know, I'm gonna have to find a spot,
I have to take a ticket, I have to keep track of that ticket,
I might have to pay, who knows how much it's gonna cost,
blah, blah, blah.
And so I'm wondering if you've looked at any ways
to ease that process as well?
Great question, looking at the full perspective
of that experience of parking, right?
You know, I haven't.
I've just been focused on getting into the garage.
But that's a good point.
And there is kind of, we hire operators for the garages.
And so there are stuff that, you know,
I don't have direct control over.
But that's something I can, so you're saying like more,
like maybe using your phone to kind of just drive in,
kind of make it less transactional.
Yeah, making it easier.
Some garages, you know, you can do credit card in and out
kind of a thing where you don't have to keep,
take a ticket and keep track of it and that kind of thing,
just making it a little bit more streamlined and easier.
Also maybe making sure that we're communicating,
you know, when the garages are free
or what, you know, initial time you get
for free of that kind of a thing,
just public communication kind of efforts as well around it.
Yeah, that's a good comment.
I'll add that.
Thanks.
The data from the parking centers,
I presume it's technically not available
to the public today in any form.
Is that true?
Put in a public credit request, see what happens.
Don't actually put it in a public records act.
No, no.
I don't think so.
No, we don't actually share it with PD.
It's just for traffic engineering
and kind of that kind of purpose.
Do you foresee it ever,
now I'm really fast forward into a future state
being pushed out to an app so that you know,
we could, you're driving downtown and I know,
I'm talking about someone looking at their phone
while they're driving, so it'll be your passenger,
but oh, there's two spots open over there.
You ever see it being used for something like that
in the future?
So yeah, I mean it has been in other cities.
They've taken these sensors and they have an app.
I've kind of moved away from an app
because it's a very specific, like a dedicated app
for downtown parking in Walnut Creek.
Doesn't seem like it would have that much traction.
That's a lot of effort for a little reward.
But then for providing parking,
we wouldn't provide it at the space level.
It would be more maybe block or kind of general street.
We don't wanna give exact spaces
because it's pretty busy down here.
And the app may say it's available
but there's a car waiting right behind it.
And so, and then there's a uptime frequency refresh rate.
And so we wouldn't provide it space by space.
but I could see something like that Park SJ map
where you could provide a block level kind of visibility
for occupancy.
I'll take a look at theirs, I've never seen that one.
And then my other question,
and it's the bicycle parking map that prompted it.
How about something similar for,
I'm gonna say the traditional scooters,
the Vespa type scooters and motorcycles.
And I don't, I've tried looking,
I know we have some little spots here and there
that are dedicated to motorcycle slash scooters.
Is there anything we're thinking of doing with that
similar to the bike where we would know where it is?
Yeah, I think I've thought of that
about adding those spaces,
but I don't think I've done it.
So I'll make a note,
and then we can kind of include that
as another option on there.
That's great, thanks.
Thanks.
I had a question.
So are the parking signs illuminated at night?
they like easy to see at night? No the blue ones they're no they're just
standard signs the blue ones may have a little bit more reflectivity than some
of the purple ones but generally just metal no lights which means it doesn't
have power. So are there like efforts to increase the visibility at night so that
drivers can know where the parking is? There's no efforts now but that's
something I can take note of about doing a nighttime visibility assessment of
these signs. It's another way to look at these signs. I appreciate your comment or
your question about that. Thank you. Commissioner Patch, do you have questions?
I don't have any questions at this time. I just had one or two. Are the bike
parking space styles are they uniform or do we have a plethora of different
styles for bike parking yeah they're probably similar to this map here with
the signs okay there has been a new like the new installs the new bike racks we
do there are more of an arch and I'm told that we got these from recycle
smart I think it's like recycled materials and so I don't think we pay
much for them but they yeah they we have different types. Okay and then I'm
curious with the real-time occupancy with the meters are this is sort of
we're talking about the pucks and whether PD has those does the parking
enforcement. So the parking enforcement officers do not have access to the puck
data to know how long a car has been parked there. Do the parking meters have
access directly to the parking enforcement so they can look at an app
and know that there's a violation two blocks away? Well they can check Park
mobile, I think they can see if it's been paid on Park Mobile.
Oh, let me put it this way.
The part our parking enforcement, because I've asked them about this before.
So first of all, the parking sensors are not connected
in any way to the parking meters.
OK. Period.
Parking enforcement does not access any of the parking sensor data whatsoever.
And in speaking with parking enforcement directly,
They don't look things up on, you know,
on Park Mobile to go target and find somebody
who may be out of, you know, like they've run out of time
or something like that because they follow a route.
They have a specific route that they drive every day,
the multiple times per day during those meter hours,
and that is how they either, you know,
give a parking issue, a parking citation, or they don't.
and it's just purely based on pretty much circumstance.
You happen to run out of time on your meter
and they happen to be driving by on that specific route.
So they're not utilizing data in any kind of way
to target any kind of citation.
Okay, thank you.
Okay, this time I'll open the item up for public comment.
Do we have any members of the public
wishing to provide comment?
No.
At this time, I'll open it up for Commissioner comments.
Are there any Commissioner comments left to right?
Sure.
Thank you.
Thanks for this.
It's, I love how you're incorporating technology and thinking about years to come and uniform
signage, such a simple concept.
And I'm actually really impressed that you know how many parking signs are out there.
And I know that sounds like, why wouldn't you?
But there's probably a lot of cities of similar or even
smaller size that don't.
And that's actually just an important thing.
And it just shows that you're running an efficient program
here.
My one big comment was regarding, particularly,
the Lesher Center Garage and flowing people in,
particularly on, what is that, locus,
you get a backup, particularly also related
to the leisure center and like a performance time,
and it like causes that left turn from civic
and it causes like a backup.
So if things could be done,
and you know this might go to the operator too,
but you gotta get people moving in there
a little bit easier into the process,
and that'll help, and it'll also just make people
more comfortable of going into the parking garage in general and I think
there are ways to embrace technology to speed that up as well. Great work. Thank
you for this comprehensive report. My comments kind of came out in my
questions. I just think looking at the ease of the payment process of the
garage and making that more accessible and approachable for people would be
great. Thank you for everything. Thank you so much for your work. I know parking is
Like really difficult to find downtown.
So it's nice to see like sign locations being optimized
and especially like looking forward to the monument sign
for digital parking availability.
And so I'm just like looking forward to seeing improvements
and making downtown more accessible
and like easy to navigate.
So thank you.
Commissioner Patch.
Thank you for this presentation.
Really cool to see that you're looking at the signs.
My only comment is I would love to see signs
in the future that show people to accessible parking spots,
especially given Walnut Creek's population.
We have a fair amount of people who probably need
those accessible spots.
So if we could highlight those in any of your updated
signage, that'd be a really innovative solution
for the city.
Thank you.
Actually the accessible spots, that was the thing
that really struck me are the blue signs
that you're now using.
I was like, oh, this is great.
Before you said it, I said, this is great.
This is gonna show us people that need an accessible space.
It's gonna show where those are.
So I would urge you, yes, I would urge you
to use a different color than blue
because that means, to me at least,
that means that that's an accessible spot
or it's directing me to an accessible spot.
And then just a comment on the,
or a question on the presentation.
It would be awesome when you show a graph like that you did.
Even with my reading glasses and looking really close,
I couldn't read anything on the graph.
And it would be really helpful
if you could enlarge the fonts.
So those of us that have site issues
can actually see the information.
It looked like great information
and I wish I could have enjoyed it more
but I couldn't read it.
And then with regards to the accessible parking,
I walk around downtown a lot
and I don't have an accessible parking placard.
So it could be that I'm just ignorant to it,
but I don't notice accessible parking spaces.
They don't stand out for me when I'm walking around
and I know that there are certain design elements
that have to go into them.
And I would encourage you to,
as part of the parking program,
to look at maybe some ways
to uniformly install accessible parking
so that those spaces are more visible
and maybe even more of them,
maybe your curb management study
can look at accessible parking and how it's being used.
I would encourage that as well.
And that's all I had, so thank you.
Item F is we move that to the beginning of the meeting
or no.
This is Commissioner Appointments.
Oh, I gotcha, okay.
Next on the agenda is an item for commission consideration.
The commissioners committee appointments.
At this time, I'll open up the item for public comment.
Did I miss, yeah.
There's no members of the public.
Okay.
Did I read the right one?
Since they're no members. Yeah, you're okay.
I really would just need to talk through.
Do you have a copy of this?
You don't have those, do you?
Okay.
No.
So I'll just, let me help you out here.
There's three committees that require assignments.
Yeah, yes.
Okay.
There's the mayor's bi-monthly breakfast.
There's the Contra Costa Transportation Authority
Citizens Advisory Committee,
and then there's the Shared Mobility Working Group.
Okay, I'll take commissioner suggestions
for the mayor's quarterly breakfast.
Do we, I guess the question for the commission
is do we wanna leave it with the chair and the vice chair?
I move to keep the chair and vice chair
attending the quarterly breakfasts.
Okay, do I have a second?
I second that.
Sorry, I heard a second
And so, Secretary?
Yes, Commissioner Ash.
Aye.
Commissioner Krilling.
Aye.
Commissioner Patch.
Aye.
Vice Chair Cagle.
Aye.
Chair Rhys.
Aye.
Next we have
Commissioner to sit on the Contra Costa
Transportation Authority Citizens Advisory Committee.
Do we have a discussion?
No discussion, but I would move to nominate Jared Ashe,
Commissioner Ashe, as I think he is currently serving
as the chair of that.
And it might be good to have him continue in that role.
Especially since you're...
Wouldn't look good if we did something else with it.
There's a meeting next week, yeah, so.
I'll second that.
Secretary, take the role.
Okay, Commissioner Ash?
Yes.
Commissioner Crawley?
Yes.
Commissioner Patch?
Aye.
Commissioner Cagle?
Aye.
Commissioner Reese?
Aye.
And last, we have the shared mobility working group.
Do we have a discussion?
Do we?
I have a couple of just questions.
Do they ever meet?
Like I know it's ad, whatever.
So it has not met since probably around 2020.
However, since the city council has adopted
the sustainability action plan
and hired a sustainability coordinator,
there is a lot of interest in shared mobility
or shared micro mobility.
So this is a standing working group that we do have.
I would suggest you do assign a commissioner
to this, you know, to this committee
and hopefully we'll meet and make some progress.
Sure.
Can I ask the history of this, how it was formed?
Was it the council that asked us to do this?
Was it something that came out of this body?
Is it considered an ad hoc group?
So it came from the rethinking mobility plan.
So I don't, it wasn't an action item from that plan.
It was, I think it was formed as that plan
was being put together.
That's our transportation demand management
or transportation strategic plan.
That is, it is a strategy that is included in that plan.
It's also, which is adopted, and it's also a strategy
that made its way into the sustainability action plan.
So the actual working group itself, it does,
you know, from what I know, it does consist of a commissioner and then staff.
So, wait, is it another question there?
Is there are you looking for two commissioners like we have now?
I think we only have one and it's just Rob, right?
We we had we had to. That's right.
David, then yes, we are looking for two.
So it's two commissioners and city staff.
There's no there are no other.
Okay. Can I recommend that the youth advisor be invited to attend as a non-voting member as well?
I think that's fine. I think this working group has flexibility sort of similar to what we had
talked about with the traffic safety working group. So yes, that would be if you are all
interested in that. I like that idea of having the youth commissioner participate if she's
willing. Yes. Right so that's one down. Do you does Rob do you want to stay or
it's it's really taxing to be on this working group but I think I could handle
it okay if there's no if there's no and then I'd like to ask our two new members
do any of you got have an interest in this one? I was gonna nominate if she was
Willy, Laura, Patch, for this one.
I wasn't going to nominate myself.
I'll go ahead and second that.
Since you scoot around town, I think that would be great.
This one reminds me of signed subcommittee
and my other commission.
OK, so I'll make a full formal motion.
Yeah, should I make a formal motion
that we appoint commissioners Reese and Patch
and include the youth commissioner
as well in the meetings as a non-voting member.
Second.
Do we have a second?
I'll second.
Can I second as-
Yes, chair.
I second then.
Okay, commissioner Ash.
Yes.
Commissioner calling.
I.
Commissioner Patch.
I.
Commissioner Kegel.
I.
Commissioner Reese.
I.
So moved.
I was gonna make a comment on the topic.
So on the quarterly breakfast meetings,
I always made myself available if someone couldn't make it
when I was on my prior commission to pinch hit.
And you might see me there anyway,
because I just enjoy those meetings,
but I'd just be sitting in the back
eating my breakfast and listening.
It, yes, it's from, what is the place it's from?
Sunrise Bistro, yeah, and I'd just like hearing,
you get to hear from all the commissions,
and it's a good meeting.
Okay, you're welcome to join.
At this time, I'd like to invite commissioners and staff
to provide their reports on activities and or announcements.
I have some, okay.
All right, so on May 16th, it's bike to wherever day.
The city will be hosting an Energizer station
on North Main right outside these windows over here.
We have very exciting prizes.
So come on your bicycle.
And I think it's actually the same day
as our next Transportation Commission meeting.
So my expectation is that you arrive here by bicycle.
Okay.
Yeah, it's easier to walk from where I live.
I was gonna say, I'll take my bike and park
like a block away.
Because that's a long haul from my end.
I'll go with you.
Okay, I hereby, let's see, yeah.
I hereby adjourn the March 21st, 2024 regular meeting
of the Transportation Commission.
Our next regular meeting is May 16th, 2024,
and I get to do this.
I don't know if you can hear me. Thanks Laura feel better. Thank you. Thanks for
accommodating. Feel better Laura.