captions test one two captions test okay everyone welcome to the November 21st
2024 regular meeting of the Transportation Commission would the
secretary please call the roll Commissioner Ash
as you're drilling present Commissioner patch is absent student Commissioner
Mr. Kirsh.
President.
Vice Chair Kegel.
Present.
And Chair Reith.
Present.
This portion of the meeting is reserved for comments 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,
refer the item to staff. At this time I will open this item up for public
comment. Do we have any members of the public wishing to comment on items not
on the agenda? Come forward. Good evening. My name is Rich Brightman and I'm a 25
year resident of Walnut Creek. I'm here to comment on the City Council's recent
approval of master service agreements of up to ten million dollars for eight
traffic engineering consulting firms over the next five years. I believe a
A $10 million commitment creates a fiduciary responsibility
to ensure that those funds lead to real results.
Therefore, I'm requesting that the Transportation Commission
seek a periodic inventory report of all outcomes produced
under those contracts.
The reason for this request, by way of example,
is that the city spent approximately $100,000
with one of those firms, Farron Peers, in 2019.
A portion of that was used on a traffic safety study.
The consultant produced data and recommendations
for the city to address significant issues.
However, as of right now, five years
since the study was published,
not one of the recommendations has been implemented.
Maybe it was a performance issue with the consulting firm
and that the recommendations just weren't practical
for the neighborhood.
And I say that with all due respect,
given the chairman's position as a 30 year principal
at Farron Peers.
On the other hand, maybe it was a performance issue
with the traffic engineering team
and that they spent taxpayer dollars
on a former employer for data and recommendations,
but then fail to use the information to implement anything.
Regardless, if these past results are any indication
of future performance,
I believe this commission has a fiduciary duty
to put something in place to ensure
that all outcomes from studies executed
under that $10 million umbrella are tracked
in this room as line items such that every recommendation
is logged as accepted, rejected, or deferred,
and if deferred, revisited within a specific timeframe.
Maybe 180 days, but certainly not five years.
In doing so, this Commission will drive the transparency and accountability that's required
to optimize taxpayer dollars.
Thank you for considering this recommendation.
Thank you for the recommendation, and I would pass that on to staff for consideration for
the next five years.
Are there any other public comments?
We have no other public comments.
Next on the agenda is the adoption of the September 19, 2024 meeting minutes.
Do I have a motion for the approval of the minutes
from September 19th commission meeting?
I move that we accept the September 19th minutes.
Second.
Would the secretary please call the roll.
Commissioner Ash.
Abstain.
Commissioner Curling.
Aye.
Vice Chair Cagle.
Aye.
Chair Reese.
Aye.
Motion carries.
Next on the agenda is an item for commission consideration,
Walnut Boulevard and Homestead Avenue speed cushion update.
At this time, I invite staff to provide their presentation.
I wanted to make a quick note
that I will be conducting ministerial duties as secretary,
but that I will be abstaining
from any discussion on this item.
Is everyone comfortable?
It's gonna be a while.
We got a big presentation here tonight.
Thank you for the public for coming out.
So my name's Matt Redman.
I'm a traffic engineer here at the city.
And I have a couple items I want to just address
that aren't really part of the slide deck.
If you're wondering why we're here,
why are we doing this project?
It really comes down to staff has a safety outlook.
So we have no intentions to try to have any exterior motives.
We're simply just trying to improve safety in Wanna Creek.
No consultants have been a part of this project.
This is all staff.
So keep that in mind in terms of staff time.
I am presenting some new data tonight
that was not in the staff report.
So keep an open mind, be open to this data collection
that we're presenting.
And then I do wanna thank the community
who I've corresponded with both in favor
against this. They have been very respectful and thoughtful throughout this process. And
then I have additional credit for my staff members who helped me significantly help me
put this project together. This was not done just by me. I had Rashad Culver who helped
put this project out to bid, helped with the design of the plans, making sure that we could
get this installed. Brianna in the back here was significant in bouncing ideas
off and understanding the different impacts that speed cushions have. Also
our staff such as Julie and Luis for additional work with this and our traffic
maintenance crew especially with the the pilot demonstration that we've done in
the past. So with that we'll move into the presentation overview. So I'm gonna
start off with some overview of roadway safety and kind of our approach to that
in the modern day. I'll work into, I'll lead that into speeds on our streets and
then I'll talk about this particular project on Homestead Avenue in Walnut
Boulevard and then I'm going to take a deep dive into multiple data sources
and the results of those data and then it's ultimately comes down to, you know,
do we want to keep them or do we want to remove them and so I'll kind of present
that option there and then I'll we'll open it up to kind of comment and I'll
gather all that input and we'll move forward. So in Walnut Creek the City
Council adopted a local roadway safety plan and essentially it adopts vision
zero policy for Walnut Creek. So really the goal here is to have zero serious
fatalities or injuries sorry serious injuries or fatalities by the year 2034.
So it's an aggressive goal but we have a federally adopted system called the
safe systems approach to help us get there. Really there's there's five
elements but I think the three that we kind of would focus on tonight are safe
speeds, safe roads, and safe road users. And then generally there's six principles
that are kind of outlined around this circle,
and three of those I think we can touch on.
So there has been changes in traffic safety over the years.
It has evolved from more of getting people
to their destination as fast as possible
to getting people to their destination
as safely as possible.
And so there's some trade-offs with that.
But really, it comes down to the principles of accommodating
that humans do make mistakes and then keeping
impacts on the human body at tolerable levels,
so bringing speeds down.
And then a safety should be proactive, not reactive.
And so really taking some of these principles to heart
and trying to ensure that no one should die
in a vehicle crash is generally the approach
that we're taking in traffic engineering here
in Walnut Creek.
So talking a little bit more about speeds.
So speeds on our neighborhood streets,
on our roadways can have a direct impact
on quality of life.
So when people speed by,
it can cause a bunch of anger or emotions,
but it can really change the way that, you know,
the way we live or the way we use our streets.
And then in terms of higher speeds,
as you can see in this graphic,
the higher the speed,
really the more energy that's transferred
from a vehicle to a pedestrian
could lead to a fatality. So just going from 20 to 30 miles per hour we see a
40 percent increase in the percentage or in the likelihood of a fatality and 30
to 40 it jumps up again it's just this increase with energy transfer from the
vehicle to pedestrian that really we're trying to combat with a lot of our
neighborhood streets programs. So I am going to be talking a lot about speeds
here tonight, and I want to mention speeds. Posted speed limits are really
based on this 85th percentile rule. So all posted speeds in the city, 30 miles
per hour and above, they are backed by a survey, an engineering and traffic survey,
so that we essentially know the data on that street and its relevant speed for
that street. So it uses the 85th percentile, so I have a graph here on the
bottom right showing a distribution of speeds on a particular street and
essentially you have them speeds on the bottom there going from 18 to 36 and
essentially if you capture the slowest 85% of those speeds that's where we're
setting the speed limit at and so if you think about the average the kind of in
the middle that would leave for a huge distribution of speeds from 22 to 34 and
and that that differential between those extreme speeds can cause for unsafe
situations. And so it's been determined many years ago to use this 85th percentile
rule to kind of capture most of the people, most of the vehicles driving at a
certain speed so that they can all go in essentially the same speed to eliminate
these differential between speeds. So keep that in mind with this posted speed
limits for neighborhood streets like residential streets.
Generally, we use 25 mile per hour as like a default speed
that we kind of default to.
And so generally, to combat speeding,
one of our quicker programs is this neighborhood streets
program.
There's really two parts to it with a pace car pledge program
where we encourage roadway users to drive the speed limit.
And they sign a pace car pledge, and then they
get a sticker that they can use to display on their vehicle
and let other knows that they drive the speed limit
and they follow the rules of the road
and they take it seriously.
And then we also have some yard signs available,
which you can see the popularity based on these.
So now going into the main event here
with the Walnut Boulevard and Homestead Avenue area,
you can see those streets in green,
just south of Ignatio here.
And we're really, we've kind of focused on these areas.
Well, there's many generators in the area
that I'll talk about.
So it is close proximity to downtown.
So we do have some walking facilities
that can get from these streets to downtown.
We also have a bike trail and some bike paths in this area.
We also, there is both of these streets
have unimproved sidewalks.
So we don't have the traditional curb and gutter paved sidewalk.
They have more of this berm sidewalk.
They have a school up in the North side of Ignacio,
and they have daycares along Wanna Boulevard
and Homestead Avenue.
But really I want you to consider these streets
are like a system.
And so what we do to Wanna Boulevard,
we really have to kind of be considerate
of Homestead as well.
They are kind of linked in that way,
just the way the city is laid out in that regard.
Looking at some of the collisions on this street
2020-18 to 2023.
We've had six injury collisions, and half of those
were with a bicycle or a pedestrian.
And then four of those were due to right-of-way violations
and two of those from unsafe driving.
So we have seen some serious collisions
that we hope to address.
So this is kind of the background of Homestead Avenue,
Homestead neighborhood, where we've
heard from police department about enforcing speeds
on these streets has been difficult.
We've also heard from residents who's
asked to help address the speeding
issue on Homestead Avenue in Walnut Boulevard.
We have existing radar sign data that
display the speed for drivers.
Those also collect data.
And so we are able to verify some of these requests being
valid with those radar signs.
And then talking with the neighborhood,
we are able to really engage with them.
And they picked up on the behavioral-based programs
I've talked about.
And they were able to uniformly communicate with city staff
in an effective way so that we could move forward pretty
quickly.
So just looking at a history here,
so we had some Zoom meetings in 2020.
We had outreach demonstration projects
to kind of understand some horizontal treatments
on the street and test some stuff out
based on the meetings discussion.
I'm not going into too much detail.
I presented on this before.
So I just want to make sure everyone's up to speed.
But we've talked multiple times.
We understood what their concerns were.
We tried to address them with some temporary
two-hour demonstrations.
We narrowed the roadway on Homestead and we had a traffic circle at Walnut Boulevard,
and we found that these were not 100% effective in terms of design constraints, and then in terms
of the Homestead Avenue, the narrowing of the roadway was ineffective in terms of speeds.
And the residents did come out there and we got to engage with them that way and learn their
perspective of these, and I think they would agree. Earlier this year, we did install these
temporary speed cushions. So they're made out of rubber. We drill them into the ground.
And you can see, since essentially March of 2024, they've been installed. And so the reason we're
able to install these is because we went through a process internally of the city to try these out
with a data-driven pilot. And so really, I mean, speed cushions are very, they can be a little bit
more impactful to residents.
And so we wanted to understand all these considerations
that they have, including do they reduce speeds,
and can it improve the pedestrian comfort
or environment, and then understanding
what the engagement looks like for installing something
like this.
We also want to understand the noise impacts,
if it creates additional diversion to other streets
and our fire and emergency response vehicles and trucks
are able to navigate them.
And so these are some of the considerations
that we brought up initially
that we definitely wanted to fully understand
with this pilot.
There's an additional aspect of doing something
as impactful as speed cushions
and that's really this amount of engagement.
So you could think of, let's say,
a project like repaving a street, fixing all the potholes,
basically, and doing a nice repavement and striping
on the street.
These projects may not need as much engagement
because most people will be for it.
And while it may have some impact in their lives,
it may be a short term.
It may be a week or less.
And so as we change to a different type of projects,
Maybe it's adding some posts for a bulb out
or reconfiguring some curb.
We would want additional engagement
to understand the residents' perspective on these changes.
And as we go up this curve here,
and we're looking at speed cushions,
we really wanna make sure
that our engagement increases as well.
And the solution matches
the unique neighborhoods' characteristics.
And so with that, because speed cushions
do have a bigger impact, we'd also
want to scale or increase the radius of influence
that we're reaching out to.
And so you could imagine that this creates additional work.
And remember, I said that there wasn't any consultants
involved.
And so essentially, this gets added on to staff workload
in terms of deploying this project.
So this is the main region why this does not
scale across the city and I think each neighborhood needs a unique perspective to install these
and why it can take years instead of months to get these done. So here's the speed cushions
that we installed. They are rubber, you know, they're drilled in with some glue and they're
drilled and then they put some epoxy and then they drill it in. They are three inches high.
We ordered them at 10 feet in length.
And then in our design, we spaced them 250 feet apart.
And if you look at this curve here,
it shows a graph of speed hump spacing versus desired 85th
percentile speed.
And so at that 250 feet spacing between speed hump,
we can essentially go for that desired speed of 25 miles
per hour.
Now keep in mind as you increase the spacing,
you're essentially increasing that desired 85th percentile
speed.
So let's go ahead and dive into the data.
So there's many data sources here,
and there's different types of metrics that we're looking at.
I'll start with speeds.
This is the main focus that we're trying to resolve here.
We collected speeds through tube counts,
which are essentially rubber, air, or pneumatic tubes
that go across the roadway that vehicles travel across and we can understand their speeds.
Those were collected in September 2023, which were before the speed cushions were installed,
and then we just collected it in September 2024. School was in session both times, very
similar conditions generally in terms of traffic. Speeds were also collected via the radar signs,
so we have these radar feedback signs, and those can log data for about three months
before they start to overwrite the furthest dated data.
And so we have that from October 23, as well as October 2024.
And we also have some in May that we'll use.
And then we also collected travel times.
So this is essentially driving the corridor
with the speed bumps and without the speed bumps.
We did this with GPS, as well as stopwatch or video,
essentially getting a start time and an end
time along the corridor.
That was done in February 2023 before the speed cushions
were installed and then again in October of this year.
We also have noise data.
This was collected just using a free phone app.
So it is limited in that regard.
But I think it gives us a little bit of perspective.
And this was just collected afterwards.
And then we have vehicle volumes, again,
using tube counts.
And we have turning movement counts at the intersection
so we understand where people were turning on Ignacio
at Walnut Boulevard and Homestead.
And then we have input from the community.
So we have emails and phone call discussions.
And that's been throughout the project.
So let's dive into the speeds.
So with the speeds, here we have Walnut Boulevard,
essentially a graphic version of it,
with Ignacio Valley Road on the left.
And it goes to Sierra Drive with that center stop sign.
And then on the far right, it reaches Homestead Avenue.
So Walnut Boulevard does keep going,
but this is our segment of study.
And you can see the black dots here are speed cushion.
The black little rectangles are speed cushions.
And the blue triangles are radar signs.
So those are the existing radar signs I talked about.
And from this, you can see in the blue,
the existing speeds from 2023 data
was above 30 miles per hour usually,
depending exactly where you were along the corridor.
So we have different spots where we have this data.
And so we're showing relatively where those spots are.
And then we have the 2023 data shown in green.
And you can see around a 20% reduction in speed,
which just shows the effectiveness
of the speed cushions.
So similar layout for Homestead Avenue.
We have one of Boulevard on the left there at a four-way stop.
And then it travels northbound all the way up to Lakewood Road,
and it keeps going up to Ignacio.
But this is our area of study.
I labeled some additional courts there.
Again, speed cushions laid out and the radar signs.
So again, we're seeing upwards of 35 miles per hour,
but generally above that 30 mile per hour,
85th percentile speed.
And then with the speed cushions in,
we see that reduction.
So we're seeing around that 25 posted speed limit,
desired speed.
Looking at travel time, driving the corridor,
Walnut Boulevard, northbound.
we saw a difference in speed of an increase of 27 seconds.
So going from Homestead all the way up to Ignacio
on Walnut Boulevard took an additional 27 seconds
after the speed cushions were installed.
Walnut Boulevard Southbound was an additional 16 seconds.
And again, if you're driving aggressively
before the speed cushions were in,
and then you drive now with them in,
you would see different numbers, obviously,
but I'm trying to drive the speed limit on these.
And so I'm just trying to be a good driver both times
and make it a comfortable ride.
Same thing for Homestead Avenue,
we're seeing a 20 second difference
between before install and after install.
And then along Wanda Boulevard,
we have six speed cushions.
So if we do the math,
we see about a 2.6 seconds average slowdown per cushion.
On Homestead, we see closer to a four second.
So it depends how you drive, but I've seen, you know,
up to six or seven seconds slowdown per cushion
depending on exact driving behavior.
So while they do slow people down, you know,
keep in mind, you know, how much it does slow people down.
All right, diving into sound intensity.
So, sound is measured in decibels and similar
to the Richter scale for earthquakes
that has essentially a 5.0 magnitude earthquake
is 10 times as less as a 6.0.
So it's a logarithmic scale.
Same thing here with decibels.
So as it increases, it can really get a lot louder.
And that's just the way that the ear and the brain interface.
So if we look a little closer here on this slide,
we can see a normal conversation
or a background office environment
would be around 50 decibels
and then normal conversation up to 60,
maybe some side traffic on outside next to a street
would be 70 decibels and a vacuum cleaner hum, a 80.
And there's variability in a lot of these measurements here
but just know that 60 to 80 is kind of the range
we'll be talking about tonight.
But really, when speed cushions generate noise
or vehicles generate noise on the side of a road,
there's many factors to consider.
There's tires, there's engine type,
if it's an electric vehicle, if it's a diesel truck,
we're gonna have different noise measurements,
depending if there's music or if there's equipment
in the back that could be shuffled from the speed cushion.
There's all these additional noise generators
that we'd want to consider.
But it's hard to in a simple study like this.
So I'll just go into some of the measurements
that I recorded for a typical vehicle passing by.
So you can see on the left side a truck going by.
Just 10 feet away, we have about 75 decibels.
So let me just go back.
So 75 is kind of that busy traffic,
which according to this published research article,
It's about, that's exactly what I found.
It's about 75, 10 feet away.
As you go farther away from that truck on the left,
it does go down to 64 decibels at 50 feet.
Now let's look at when vehicles travel over the speed cushion.
You can see it's a little louder at the speed cushion,
not by much.
But then the distance as you go away,
the decibel intensity does not decrease as much
as a typical vehicle traffic.
So it's almost like a peak sound that travels from the cushion.
Even though it may be short in duration,
it does have some traveling effects.
Because we're farther away, and yet the sound
is higher on that orange or on the yellow circle there.
So that's what I can say about the noise on the cushions.
Let's look at vehicle volumes.
So vehicle volumes is not the primary study
of what we're trying to do.
We're really focused on the speeds, but we have the data.
And so we're going to show it to you.
We want to be transparent here.
And so vehicles, essentially, they drive where they want.
But they keep in mind the knowledge
that they have of the local streets.
And because of individual needs or desires,
traffic volumes can vary.
So anywhere from 10% to 15% is considered
a nominal fluctuation in traffic.
And then if we look here at the vehicle volumes on Homestead,
we didn't see much of a drop in terms of volume.
So we see a 4% or 5% drop in volumes.
And on Wanna Boulevard, we see a bit more drop in volumes.
But we believe, well, it may be a factor of the speed cushions
was deterred.
It also could be that there is some construction
of 13 homes just north of Sierra Lane,
kind of in the middle of the corridor.
And so it may be that people don't
want to be slowed down from some construction traffic,
or they didn't like the speed cushions.
And so those are the volumes we're seeing,
which are not statistically significant in terms
of a drop.
But let's take a look at the individual day.
So if we look at one day during the September 1,
September 2023 or 2024, we can see
that we have a general rise in the morning of peak traffic,
up to 300, and then down in the midday,
and then back up in the afternoon.
And this really matches between years on this section.
So we're not seeing much of a change in differential.
And then if we look at Homestead,
we see that the similar peak, it matches.
And in fact, in 2024, it increased a little bit,
depending on the time of the day.
And so one of the side effects or secondary effects
of speed cushions is possible diversion.
And so we have limited data in terms
of some of these side streets.
But this Hacienda Drive off of Homestead or Mariposa Way
is a potentially parallel route to Homestead.
And so we looked at the counts that we did have
where essentially these bigger arrows are placed.
And we determined that 2023 and 2024
were essentially similar in their characteristics
where they had higher volumes on the edge
between the ins and outs of the corridor,
and then they both had lower volumes
on the middle of the corridor.
So we can't stay that people are taking side streets.
I've heard, anecdotally, that that is maybe the case,
but we can't say it's a significant number at this point.
Some additional secondary effects.
So zooming out a little bit from our corridor
and looking more to the north,
we can see above Ignacio,
Walnut Boulevard does continue up.
Homestead is a dead end north of Ignacio,
but Walnut Boulevard does keep on going.
And so we have data from there.
And so we can, since we have these 2023, 2024 dates,
we haven't done any projects here,
but we can see that the speeds have stayed the same.
We have a 34 mile per hour, 85th percentile speed.
And looking at the volumes,
we see a little bit of change,
but again, it's kind of within that variability range.
So going northbound, we see a drop in vehicle traffic
between these two dates by 6%.
And going southbound, we actually
see a little bit of an increase.
So totaling that as kind of like an ADT or average daily
traffic for the street, we essentially
get a net neutral in terms of change of number of vehicles
on the street.
So generally, we don't really see speed cushions
as a way to deter vehicles.
We see it more to combat the speed, which I think
shown clearly in these last two sections covering speeds and then covering volumes.
As for feedback, we've heard, you know, the positive in terms of improving safety and
that, you know, it's brought the speed limit down.
It includes the safety conditions for pedestrian, improved safety conditions for pedestrian
cyclists and pets.
But then there's, you know, then some constructive replies too, you know, mainly about noise.
Some have mentioned that the design of the cushion creates a little bit too harsh and
has to force them to slow down a little bit too much.
And so there is some aspects there that I hope we can address.
So let's talk about next steps.
So option A would be to, let's go ahead and remove them.
Let's go back to the way things were.
Things were fine.
No one was speeding.
And we can remove the speed cushions.
Option B would be to keep the speed cushions, but I'm not saying leave them.
I'm saying let's modify them.
Let's try to address some of what I've heard in terms of noise or in terms of in the long-term
design.
So let's dive into option B a little bit.
So that could be also additional striping.
So we could add some essentially thermoplastic reflective striping advance of the speed cushion
to give users advance warning.
We could shift some.
I've heard some noise issues from some of the way
that the house is situated close to the street,
especially with a bedroom.
You could imagine at nighttime that could be a little
frustrating when it's hot out and you're opening your window.
And so we could look at shifting some of those.
And then more in the long term, as the streets repaved,
we can look at more of a permanent solution
where we essentially lay down asphalt.
And with that design, we could design them
a little bit more custom.
And we can make a cut in the middle of them
to allow for emergency vehicles.
It could also allow for a cyclist or scooters
to go through that.
So it kind of gives us a little bit more flexibility
for those.
Now, when I mentioned the shift, keep in mind
that as you shift things, the desired 85th percentile
may change.
So that's something to keep in mind in terms
of how much flexibility we have to shift them.
And so I'll end there.
I'll open it up and I left some elements here discussed just
to keep it on the tip of your tongue for different topics.
Thanks.
Thanks for the presentation.
Commission, commissioners, do we have any questions
I think my only question is-and by the way, great amount of data and study, so thank you.
I hear-I understand the noise that kind of makes sense from going over.
I've driven over these bumps and they have-they're very sharp, right, and then they're plastic
and they, I think, add to the noise with the tire treads.
If we went the permanent route with the pavement,
would I be correct in assuming we'd have probably
a lot quieter, both from the wheels going over the hump
and less jostling of a panel truck going over it,
going chunky, chunky, chunky.
Yeah, absolutely.
More to the first one, I think there's
a little lip on the beginning of the speed cushion,
just because it's rubber and it's laying on the asphalt.
And so by designing that, you can
make that a smooth transition.
and so that eliminates actually one of the noise issues.
The other noise issues is the rubber on the rubber.
So the tire tread from the vehicle
onto the rubber on the speed cushion,
that interaction causes noise,
and so that would go away with asphalt.
As for the second item you mentioned
about the jostling of things,
that's more in the design of the speed cushion,
and three inches is pretty typical.
Maybe the length could be a little different
to kind of address some of that,
but yeah, we'd have a lot more flexibility,
I think that would definitely alleviate some of that issue.
Great, and just one other question.
Have we looked at,
because I would imagine a lot of the noisier bumps
in the night by people's bedroom windows
are probably from trucks, as opposed to regular cars
and passenger SUVs.
Have we ever thought about, you know,
no trucks over X weight or on these two roads?
So we have specific truck routes in our city
for the really big trucks, you could think on Ignacio.
And so typically they would need a special permit
to kind of go on a street like this.
As for putting up a sign essentially to discourage that,
I think a lot of these trucks,
they may be locally serving something there,
and so they have to kind of go that route.
But that is an interesting consideration.
I'll take that note down.
Thank you.
Commissioner Nash.
Yeah.
On the alternative route, can you get a count?
How hard is it to get like a counter out there just to see?
I don't know, we don't have the data pre, which matters.
But is it easy to put a counter out there and get that data?
Yeah, you know, we didn't think about it too much.
I thought we could do a pretty good job with the data that
was there.
But there's so many streets it leaves
for a little bit interpretability
in terms of those three stations on Homestead,
we can't solve the full puzzle, essentially.
So we don't have those counters.
We do hire a count company to essentially go out there.
And so, yeah, we could put counts on every street, right?
At what cost?
And so there's a trade off there.
We were trying to be focused specifically on these streets.
And, you know, it's a good,
I think it's important to understand the secondary effects
of the speed cushions.
But generally what we're, from just the data we have,
it's not significant.
But we don't have that device, although I've considered it.
And then, yeah, if we were to do it again,
maybe we could do a little more analysis
in terms of that effect.
Sure, thanks.
And then what is the, I know that for every street,
the city has like a timeline for repaving.
It does this one have a timeline yet,
and if so, is it one, 10, 20?
Yeah, so the paving project is done
by our CIP, and they do a great job.
They kind of basically break up the city into three areas,
ABC, and they rotate through each year,
and they hit certain streets in there based on,
we do basically an inventory of where our worst streets are.
And so then they kind of target those streets
in each area every year, so one year rotating through.
So for these streets, I imagine it would be
within a decade but possibly last given the pavement condition and then
possibly with this you know if these were you know to be approved and stuff
and supported then we could possibly move that up a little bit more. Commissioner
Kegel. Hi one question you presented here at the end a couple of options the
the additional striping and then the potential permanent humps.
For the permanent, you also mentioned the spacing
for emergency vehicles and cyclists.
Is there data on the efficacy of these versus the rubber
in slowing traffic down?
Like would these ones shown here maybe
be different in terms of effectiveness of speeds?
compared to the ones we have.
Yeah, I mean, anytime you change the design
of that speed cushion, you're gonna see different results.
But what I've seen is there's variability.
So a lot of the speeds, the 25 mile per hour speed
that we saw, those are between the speed cushions.
The speed you have over the bump,
that would probably change more significantly.
And so you could imagine, the slower you make people
go over the bump, the slower you would have
between the bumps because it takes time and acceleration
to get an energy back to get back up to a higher speed.
So yeah, anytime you change the bump
you're gonna change the speed.
And so something like this,
it's not as much of a bump in terms of what we have.
And so yeah, maybe the speed would be a little bit higher.
What's the height of the permanent bumps?
Well, so again, we kind of have that design considered.
So we could make it.
I've seen three inches is kind of a typical.
Much higher is a little absurd,
but you can go a little lower.
Okay, thank you.
Student member Kurtz, any questions?
Yeah, I had one question about the noise.
Is there data to see how is the increase in noise
from before we had the speed bumps to after we installed them?
Yes, so when I presented here in March to the commission, they mentioned collecting
noise data, and so I don't have any before, but you can imagine just a street, right?
And so I was able to just capture noise data from cars going by on the street, and so that's
what I showed on that slide with essentially a truck or any kind of passenger vehicle kind
of going by is essentially the before sounds, and then you have the speed cushion sounds.
I have a couple of questions from the presentation.
The crash data that you identified is from 2018 to 2023, and it was, I think, six crashes,
but that was also during COVID.
So just curious if we have or know of any data that is pre-COVID that might not be influenced
by the COVID situation.
Right.
Because COVID dropped the volumes on the streets significantly, but increased speeds.
Yeah, this was just a typical five-year kind of poll.
This is from Tim's, so, yeah, we didn't look much farther back, but that's a good point.
And then I know you were here before, and I don't recall that presentation.
I don't recall the specifics of the presentation, but you talked about your public engagement
process.
you identified that you did meetings, mailers,
and demonstrations.
I know it's not part of your presentation tonight,
but do you recall the level of outreach that you did?
Would you be able to summarize that now?
Sure.
Yeah, so we had these Zoom meetings
during COVID, which were essentially gathered
from a next door post.
So we could gather from the next door.
We asked people to spread the word.
Maybe some of the residents can comment on how
they heard about this.
But from there, we continue to capture email addresses.
And we tried to get a list of all the emails
that we could collect.
Once we knew the locations of these speed cushions,
we sent mailers to those directly adjacent,
so on Homestead or Walnut Boulevard,
so that they would know about it.
The lesson learned there is I wish I got feedback or return
mail saying that they got that letter because sometimes people
throw away their mail, if they didn't hear about it,
then they didn't know and they didn't have their input.
So we did the physical mailers to their snail mail address.
And then that pop-up demonstration,
some additional next door post, and then bringing it here,
really, to document and try to tell as many people as you can.
And the demonstration, was it just
for a couple of hours in the morning, or was it for a week?
Yeah, we did it on Homestead at Mariposa for two hours
or so, like nine to 11, or maybe an hour and a half.
And then I think we did an hour and a half
over on Wanna Boulevard in Greenway at the roundabout.
And then some people did show up to both
and give us their feedback.
Great, thank you.
I think that's good, thank you.
At this time, I'll open up the item for public comment.
Do we have any members of the public
wishing to provide comment?
Okay, come on up and have you filled out a card?
No, the comment process is more formalized.
You fill out a card, submit the card to the city,
and then come up one by one and provide feedback.
OK, that's a good one there.
Is there a possibility to have that raised median
closer to the center divider?
Because I see a lot of traffic.
I live on Walnut Boulevard north.
To make it toward the center line,
I'm seeing a lot of cars moving to the left
to avoid the left tires going over the bump.
Does that make sense?
The right tires go over the bump, not the left tires.
So you don't have as much jousting.
Is there a possibility of having that?
And then you might have a hit on accident,
two cars at the same time doing it.
And if you have one car doing it,
might be a problem, two cars doing it at the same time.
Does that make any sense?
So what other graphic you had here with the accidents
you had a second ago?
Yeah, I'm sorry.
If you could please direct your comments to the commission.
The staff hears all of the comments.
And that one, the lower one, the PCF, the primary collision
factor, the right-of-way for and the unsafe driving is two.
Any of those involving maybe a hit and run?
I'm just curious, maybe the hit and run.
And maybe if someone hit and runs
might have been a DUI, intoxicated drivers.
I'm just curious if.
Yeah, we, just to be clear, you provide comments.
We're taking notes.
Okay.
Staff is taking notes,
and then we will be able to look into that information.
At this time, we are not able to provide you
direct feedback either from the commission or-
I just find it'd be a good time seeing this out.
He's right here, he didn't-
Right, but that's-
That's my opinion, but I understand, okay.
And then I just have an observation to get them done.
Okay.
Go ahead and finish because I want a Boulevard
and I'm just curious.
I've talked to many, many people
on one of Boulevard North of,
and none of us recall ever having any input
on having been asked if we wanted to have the speed bumps.
I guess there was an inquiry
as to if we wanted to have a speed bumps,
But none of us that I've talked to have had any input
as to whether or not we wanted speed bumps north
of the Nation Valley.
But that's just my observation in talking to so many people.
And I know a little bit about traffic control.
I'm retired at Highway Patrol.
I've been around for a long time and what have you.
And I've been there for 34 years.
The traffic has horrendous, maybe double or tripled,
since I've been there since 1990.
And it's getting worse and worse and worse.
I just wish that we would do away
with a no right turn on red light,
but that's kind of a dead issue.
Yeah, okay, thank you, thank you very much.
Appreciate it.
Next speaker, please.
Hi, my name is Deborah Carboni.
I live on Homestead Avenue and I'd like to thank Matt
and the transportation commissioners
as well as the traffic department
for all that they've done with putting the speed humps
and doing this pilot program.
It's been really, really so helpful.
I cannot emphasize how happy I am that it's there.
I know that my neighbors are as well
because the decrease in speed has been very significant.
One of the speed readers that Matt mentioned
is directly across the street from my house.
And so, I can see it from looking out the front window of my house, and starting on
day one, we noticed a decrease in the speed, so it was, it's very significant.
It's provided safety not only for those of us who live on the street and are outside
just in our front yards, and we don't have these cars speeding by anymore.
It helps being able to back out of the driveway because the cars have to slow down at these
speed bumps.
to have the opportunity to get out more easily.
It's safer for the pedestrians,
for the people out walking their dogs,
for the children being pushed in strollers
and bicyclists and people taking walks,
it's just altogether safe for everyone.
I was very interested in the statistics
that came out tonight and to see that it only decreases 16,
I think you said between 16-27 seconds of time, the safety so outweighs the decrease
in seconds to get down the street.
So I was happy to see that and hopefully that speaks for itself.
As far as the noise, also you mentioned that a truck is 75 decibels, whereas the speed
hump is 76 decibels, to me that seems insignificant as well.
And then, as was discussed with the commissioners, once it becomes pavement—
Come to a close.
Yeah.
You'll have additional things—sorry, I just got distracted with that.
But anyway, thank you so much.
Everything's been great with the pilot, and I really hope that it will continue to become
permanent.
Thank you.
Next speaker.
Hi.
I'm Darcy Simons.
I live at 1053 Homestead Avenue.
I've lived there for 50 years, and I can tell you the traffic was so bad, but it is much
better now.
One of your, what do you call it, radar, feedback things is right in front of my house, and
it has totally decreased the speed of the traffic.
So I have a bedroom in the front, and I rarely hear the speed bumps.
So I want to thank you for considering making them permanent.
Thanks.
Next speaker, please.
Hi.
I'm Marty Jost.
I live on Walnut Boulevard, north of Ignacio, and we actually were not included in the trial.
I just want to say how anxious we are to be included in future phases and permanent installation
on these speed bumps.
The support for this is very broad in the neighborhood.
There's a couple exceptions, but a vast majority of people would like to go forward with this.
I think it was our feedback during the outreach from the city that caused us to be excluded.
I think there was just a misunderstanding.
So I just want to underscore that we very much want to move forward.
The traffic department has done actually a good job of communicating with the neighbors
in the area and that's why we gave the feedback we gave.
So thank you for what you did, south of Ignacio, look forward to be included moving forward.
Thank you.
Next speaker.
Hello, my name is Vanessa Sino-Hawk.
I also live north of Ignacio on Walnut Boulevard at 2084.
I am here also to encourage that we would love to be included in the program north.
I have a three-year-old and an eight-year-old, and I cannot let them play in the front yard.
There have been several times when they have been almost hit, even while I'm there, kind
of keeping them away, just because we're right near the curve, and the cars come quickly
around the curve.
However, I am also here to encourage the,
to keep the speed bumps permanent south of Ignacio
because my son goes to Walnut Heights
and he'll be in fourth grade next year
and that's when they get to start walking to school.
And I would love to be able to allow him to walk to school
to encourage that independence,
to create a more pedestrian friendly city.
We moved here from San Francisco just last year
and I grew up out here and it is less pedestrian friendly
than I remember and then I was hoping.
And I think that because it also is the corridor
to access the two trails that are nearby,
we just need to create space for pedestrians
to be moving through all the time and to feel safe.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Next speaker.
Hi, I'm Michael Robertson.
I live off of Homestead on West Holly.
That's right where Homestead and Walnut meet down there.
So I remember many of you from when I spoke before.
There was a picture on Facebook group
about a week or two ago.
It was taken at Civic looking up Ignacio,
but it was about 100 years ago.
And Ignacio at that time was two lanes,
not as a single stoplight in sight.
You could see where Walnut came up
because there was a stop sign there
and there was a stop sign up where Homestead came up to it.
There's probably about five cars on the road.
So obviously I came down to Ignacio to get here tonight,
but we all know what Ignacio looks like now.
However, Homestead hasn't changed.
It's the same street it was 100 years ago.
and it does incrementally more traffic than it did before.
The distance in the street to the edge of the sidewalk
is about the width of your desk.
And so when cars were going down there pre-speed humps,
it was scary.
You just didn't want your kids walking down there.
You certainly didn't take your dog
because that was just asking for problems down there.
So Matt came to our rescue after decades
of work with the city.
Thank you, we appreciate that,
and I'm just a full proponent of that.
One of the things that we've tried to do,
and I speak normally of Homestay,
because that's where I live,
but on Walnut, if you ever take Walnut,
northbound, look on the west side,
so on the left side as you walk up there.
About 15 years ago, if I remember correctly,
there was a woman who was walking on the street,
just in her neighborhood, she got hit by a truck,
and she was severely injured.
And the neighborhood at that time said,
Our kids walk on the street to WCI.
And there's no place to walk for them.
So as a neighborhood, we approach the city,
didn't have the money, didn't have the time.
So we built a sidewalk.
And it was much more of a trail at that point.
But the neighbors along that street gave up three feet
across the front of their property.
And over a summer, we came in and built a retaining wall
and then backfilled it with gravel.
So that's how much we need safety in our neighborhood.
and I think speed humps are a great start.
Thank you. Thank you.
Next speaker.
Thank you, my name is John Benison.
I live on Walnut Boulevard North.
I've been a resident there for about 30 years
and been one of the principal residents of that neighborhood.
Who've been trying to deal with the traffic issues
on Walnut Boulevard North.
Very quickly, I think Charles had a question
about large trucks on Walnut South.
I think there is a – if I'm not mistaken, there is a three-ton limit sign there that
is presumably restricting large trucks from going down that – to that – to that.
Marty spoke to a lot of people in favor of the – the trial speed cushions on Walnut
North as well.
That was contingent upon, I believe, the Traffic Commission Department required – or wanted
to remove the restricted through traffic, the regulatory signs prohibiting through traffic
on Walnut North, a vast majority of the neighbors assigned a petition saying we did not want
that removed, and that was the reason we understand that we were not participants in the speed
cushion trials there.
One of the things I didn't hear Matt address was the sheer volume, and there is a restricted
right turn on Walnut and Homestead from 4 to 6.30 in the afternoon on commute hours.
And I see cars regularly breaking that rule, in addition then going through and all the
way through Walnut Boulevard in spite of the regulatory signs prohibiting that.
We have thousands of traffic violations on a daily basis on Walnut North.
If the speed cushions would not reduce that volume, we still have the problem with the
volume.
I'm unsure why we don't equate the number of cars.
If the volume was significantly reduced, the chance of speeding vehicles would as well.
Neighbors don't speed on our boulevard and school drivers don't speed on our boulevard.
It's cut through traffic that still remains a problem.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Next speaker.
Good evening.
I also live on the north end of Walnut Boulevard
and I recognize I came in a bit hot tonight,
but please understand that it's just out of frustration.
It's been a long time
and we just have not seen any improvements.
We had the Zoom meeting back in 21
and we're told that we'd get deceptive striping
in spring of 22 and it warmed up and that didn't happen.
And then we got a notification
that they're putting in some trial speed humps
in our street and we even had the markings
where they're gonna get placed and then it didn't happen.
So I just want to reiterate for everyone
that in that Zoom call, the consultant study
that I spoke about was actually referenced.
And what happens is this isn't a situation
where it's binary where we do nothing or we do something.
As soon as that document was published,
the city of Walnut Creek has on public record documentation
of a known safety issue in its neighborhood.
And by not doing anything, they're creating a liability.
So when, not if, but when someone is killed
are significantly injured along there,
because cars are doing more than 50 miles an hour
through that stretch, next to a school zone.
There's gonna be a massive lawsuit for the city,
and given the fact that it's adjacent to a school zone,
you can just add zeros to the settlement.
So, if it's not life and limb
that people are really focused on here,
at least think about the implications
for the city and the liability,
because it's documented now, and it's part of public records,
so I encourage action,
I encourage something to be done here.
Thank you.
Next speaker.
Hi, I'm Charles Skoma.
I am a resident at Homestead, 1099 Homestead,
so where Homestead meets Mariposa.
Yeah, I want to come and congratulate you
on just a really well executed plan in terms
of how to go about implementing something like this.
It's really difficult to navigate community
conversations and things like that.
So one, I remember when we saw the demonstration,
we were like, I think they're doing stuff here.
and everyone was excited in the neighborhood.
Two, we moved it in 2020, right before the pandemic.
So two, once that was done, we're like, oh man,
it was like deflation from the general neighborhood,
like, oh, we thought something would happen here.
My wife and I moved to Walnut Creek
with the intention of doing family planning.
We're still like in that path.
A year or so after that demonstration,
we had someone from Mariposa was trying to take a left
And it's almost like a blind, it used
to be almost like a blind left turn.
And they got t-boned.
It just missed the driver's side,
the driver on the driver's side.
And they came right in and knocked out our whole fence
into our front yard, came into our front yard like 20 feet.
Had we had kids at that time, and a lot of the space
that we can use in our house is in the front yard,
had we had kids playing in that front yard,
they would have been hit.
And so we think about that with these now having been implemented
And we're just really happy they exist,
because it really has changed the way people behave
on the road.
Instead of zooming past us at like 50 miles per hour,
45 miles per hour, people will slow down
to see us cross the street.
So anyway, it's very tangible results.
The data supports it.
It speaks for itself.
However, I wanted to add that anecdote.
I'm a data scientist, so I appreciate the data.
However, the anecdote, I think, to go with it's important.
The last thing I'll say is we sleep on the roadside
in our bedroom and we have a dog very noise sensitive
and it's been almost very nominal difference in noise.
Next speaker.
So on the card I see it's either I wish to speak
on agenda item or public comment, which format are we on.
So I can speak to the.
To the agenda item, the speed humps on.
Thank you.
Matt Hendricks live at 1096 Hacienda Drive,
corner of Hacienda and Homestead,
lived in the house for 32 years.
I think it was in 1994 or something
who did original study about the traffic on the street.
I actually have some VH tapes, I think,
sitting in my closet of that recording
of the traffic on the street.
I'm basically in favor of the speed humps.
I think there's no other way we've seen
over the last 30 years to control traffic.
We don't have the police department to control traffic.
Signage doesn't really do anything.
I would say in the 30 years, this is probably our best shot
of slowing people down on the street.
And I don't know, I please come out to Homestead
and take a walk sometime, even with the speed humps,
the average speed is probably,
even with humps are in the 30, 35 range.
Prior to the humps, 50 at night, I don't know, off the chart.
I'm a car guy, I can tell how fast people are going in,
it's out of control.
So anyway, in favor of the speed humps
is probably the only option we have right now.
I know there's downsides from this,
I mean, I've gone through all the reasons why.
You know, it's unsafe for the fire trucks,
the police can't get there on time, it'll damage cars.
I mean, I've got the list, but again,
this is probably the only option we have
that seems to be working right now.
I totally appreciate the, I know they're quote temporary,
and that always scares me
because that means it can come back out.
I know the permanent option might be pavement I hear
or something more permanent that might be a little smoother.
They aren't the smoothest humps in the world,
which I think causes a little bit
of the noise problem we have with them.
My bedroom also is right on the street
and it doesn't bother me at all.
I'll add, thank you so much for putting them in
and doing the trial, I really appreciate it.
I think they're working and making a difference.
And I do totally agree with,
I'm not sure why we can't enforce the no turn restriction.
Just completely not enforce, it's ridiculous.
And that's really unacceptable
that we can't enforce a traffic sign in this city.
But anyway, so thank you for listening,
appreciate your help.
Thank you.
Next speaker.
Good evening.
My name is Kevin Lap.
I live at 2436 Walnut Boulevard.
It's directly across the street from WCI.
I've lived there for three years.
And the three years that I've lived there,
I'll say in the most recent past two years,
I've witnessed a vehicle traveling
approximately 60 miles an hour down the street,
hitting my trash can, launching it 100 feet
across my property, clipping their mirror on my mailbox
and exploding the mirror.
If a kid or any, this was during school pickup.
If there was anybody on my driveway
or near that edge of the street,
they would have been killed, no doubt.
Most recently, another vehicle,
I guess not paying attention,
drove off of the road and over the plants in my front yard,
just as the first vehicle had done too.
Walking down the street is a huge safety issue
and it is, I fear for my life every time I go do it
or even check my mail.
I think the trial speed hump locations for Walnut Boulevard North are farther north than
my property and I think that involves the school and considerations for that. Regardless
of the trial speed tests or speed cushions that are implemented on the Walnut Boulevard
North, I would encourage the city to consider something else in front of the school. A road
diet perhaps you know moving the location of the bus drop off and improving the the crosswalk that
you know connects the school to the east side of the street the crosswalk is striped on the ground
a sign was recently installed in the middle of the street there's no curb ramp on either side
it'd go from a dirt patch on my neighbor's property where he has a row of mailboxes to a vertical curb
face on the school side, you know, getting kids to the school is, I think, a challenge
in itself, and I think some serious improvements should be considered along the school frontage.
Before I close the public comment period, I just want to confirm there are no other
comments from the audience.
Okay, thank you.
the comment period, at this time, I'd like to, are there any commissioners with comments,
starting with Commissioner Prelling?
Yeah, thank you.
So again, really good study, good data.
It's always a pleasure to hear the community come in and complement a project and the staff.
I didn't hear a lot of that in Design Review Commission, so this was a pleasure.
Overwhelming support, I hear, from those that were able to come here tonight and speak,
and then I also quickly ran through the late correspondence and tallied up out of, I think
there were 39 emails, I would say there were 33 in favor, three against, and three kind
of on the fence. So again, overwhelming support. I've driven probably Homestead more than Walnut,
And I could see where if I lived on that street,
I'd want the traffic slowed down
because the houses are so close, there's no sidewalks,
I see people walking, they have their dogs,
I totally get it.
So I'm in favor of keeping the speed bumps or cushions.
My preference, my recommendation would be to go
with the permanent solution, some sort of smoother pavement.
I think it's, the goal is to get the cars down
to 25 miles an hour, but not rattle people's teeth out
or minimize the amount of the smaller local trucks rattling
as they go over the cushions.
So that would be my recommendation
is to go with that permanent style.
That's my comments, thanks.
Thanks, Commissioner Ash.
Well, thank you everybody for being here.
those of you that sent emails in, I just really appreciate. We don't always get a
lot of people, so it's nice to hear the results one way or another. I too live on
a very busy street, not in this area, but it's a wide street that people like to go
40, 50, 60 down, and a couple years ago we did have a meth head drive through our
trees when I was out front unfortunately it was not my kids at that time so I
relate to speeding on neighborhood streets and cut-through streets and the
impact of that and when the question becomes safety as the first priority for
the city and for the transportation in the Public Works staff that's what gets
addressed safety for the neighborhood and slowing the cars down seems to have
that effect and I just encourage I think like my colleague said here I would look
at the additional striping I would look at the permanent when it goes into
effect but I would encourage to keep this and I would encourage staff to look
at Ignacio North on Walnut, North of Ignacio on Walnut as we heard the public comments
and see if that can be incorporated into the next couple years of planning. So thank you
and I appreciate everybody being here and staff being so thorough.
Commissioner Kegel.
I'm gonna lob on the gratitude. Thank you for your work on this. Thank you for being
thorough with our communities.
Thank you for looking at this through a safety lens
to make our neighborhoods more safer for our community.
I'm really grateful to everyone who's come out
to give us feedback on this and those who emailed as well.
It takes time out of your busy schedules
to be able to provide us with that feedback.
So thank you for being involved in your community.
I like the current speed cushions,
but I do think that looking at the permanent option
might be something really good to do down the road.
I do have concern around emergency vehicles.
We have hospitals, a couple hospitals
with emergency rooms in our city.
And I think it's important that they have ease
in getting people to the hospitals
when there's an emergency seconds count.
So I like that the permanent option has
some something there for them.
So yeah, thank you for all of your work.
And I hope that we continue to do work like this
throughout our entire city.
Thank you.
I too have walked down these streets
and especially during COVID, that was like a project of mine.
I walked through multiple neighborhoods
and Walnut Creek just to check them out.
I had the time, I wanted to get the exercise
and get outside and I can say from experience
walking down these streets that this is needed.
So thank you.
Student member Kirsch.
Yeah, so I think we should consider
making the speed bumps permanent
because based on the data we can see
that they were effective at reducing the speed
and also the noise doesn't seem to be a significant issue
but also we should like think about the fact
that the emergency vehicles could be using these roads,
so we should also take that into account.
Thank you.
Yeah, I think the city did a great job on this.
I really appreciate that the city of Walnut Creek,
unlike a lot of other cities,
has staff resources that don't just sit behind their desks
and process paperwork, but get out in the neighborhoods
and connect with the community
and really try to have a positive effect,
positive change on our community.
And Walnut Creek is unique in many respects around that.
The drawback to that is that it takes time.
You have to balance all of your resources
and all of your responsibilities in the city
and so something that if you were just dedicated
to that one project, you might be able to do the whole thing
in six months takes a couple of years to do.
But I think it's worth it because it keeps our staff
engaged with the community and directly involved
with the community and so they have a greater appreciation
for what we experience every day as we live and work
in Walnut Creek, so thank you very much.
I think regarding the permanent versus temporary,
I think the benefit of going to a permanent solution
is that the designs can be modified in order
to optimize them for noise, for speed,
spacings can be adjusted and such.
I also feel that if I was a resident in the neighborhood,
I'd be nervous about a temporary solution
because as we all know, times can change,
people's perceptions can change, and you may get people that after a few years
that don't don't understand what it was like before they were installed, and they
may say hey why why do we have these they're annoying, and so by having a
permanent solution it it helps send a message to the community that they
belong here and and they're they're they're important on that respect on
that aspect construction wise it can be difficult to get them designed properly
and so when you if you move to a permanent solution be pay special
attention to that to make sure that they get dialed in correctly I also wanted to
say just from the standpoint of the City of Walnut Creek in general, I've lived here off
and on since the mid-80s and I can tell you that up until recently, we have generally
been a city that promotes the movement of vehicles as efficiently and quickly as possible
to get you from point A to point B and we didn't put a lot of thought in our community,
We didn't put a lot of thought into traffic safety.
And I feel that the city has made a tremendous change, probably within the last five to ten
years or so we've seen a change.
And that momentum is really important because while we need to move cars on YVR and some
of our other arterials, we need to have safe neighborhoods and the city focusing on neighborhood
safety is really important and I really appreciate the city for doing that and making that change
in attitude and where they spend their money on transportation projects.
And so thank you, and I hope this does become permanent and great work, and I look forward
to the next neighborhood that we look at, and maybe Walnut North of YVR can get looked
at too.
Thank you.
At this time, I would like to invite the commissioners and staff to provide their reports on activities
and or announcements.
Are there any?
You know, this is just a comment slash request to staff based upon, I reported out last time
I went with Commissioner Ash and Councilmembers Wilk and Darlene and traffic engineering
staff in the Citrus neighborhood to observe traffic.
There was a follow on demo that was done that I caught out of the corner of my eye and I
went up and visited after I went to the bakery,
which was the, you have the circle
and some other stuff that you were doing.
If it's possible, my request is,
and I'm only speaking for myself here
as one of five commissioners,
I'd love to be able to get heads up to things like that
so that I can intend and observe and, you know,
not participate because that's not my role,
but to be there for the community
and to hear what the community is saying real time.
So if there's any way we can get heads ups of demos
and other things, I've noticed over the last few months,
there's things I've learned a couple times
about things that sort of impact parking as an example
that I hear about it on Facebook as opposed to,
So I'm hearing it sort of late in the game
and people will ask me about it
and I don't know how to answer
because I'm not involved.
So to the extent that we can get better informed,
more real time and can do our best to help you guys,
would be great.
Thank you.
Yeah, I got to attend that demonstration
towards the end on citrus in the woodlands
and I just appreciate staff being there
And I got to learn a lot.
And I did not do figure 8s around the little circle
like I was advised.
But it was just good to see it in action
and see how this can impact things and just learn.
And so I just really appreciate the hard work of staff
in communicating that to the neighborhood and holding
the town forum.
And hopefully, we will see that neighborhood
discussed in the future here.
I also want to report on the CCTA Citizens Advisory Committee
that I am no longer chair after several terms.
I am still representing Walnut Creek on that.
And I am grateful for the opportunity to chair that.
And we haven't had a meeting in a while.
I guess they haven't figured out what to do without me now.
And so I have nothing specific to report, but.
Thank you for all the work that you did on that committee.
Appreciate it.
Staff have a report?
Yeah, I'm quickly going to announce.
So we do have a new traffic engineer for the city
and that's Matt Redmond.
So just FYI and then Brianna is going to take it from there.
Congratulations.
So my, yeah, I'm Brianna Byrne,
Associate Traffic Engineer at the city.
Several of you mentioned the Citrus Avenue
pop-up demonstration.
So we solicited feedback from the residents at the time
and then did a feedback survey afterwards.
It was an incredibly well-attended event.
Paper feedback surveys, we got around 40,
and then 70 from that email out to the residents.
The next steps, we've compiled the information
and we're coming up with essentially the plan A,
and that plan A will bring to the residents,
we'll bring to commission.
So stay tuned on that one.
Great, thank you.
Any other, no, all right.
I hereby adjourn the November 21st, 2024
regular meeting of the Transportation Commission.
Our next regular meeting is January 16th, 2025.