Commission cannot act on these items raised during the public communications,
but may respond briefly to statements made or questions posed, request clarification,
or refer the item to staff.
At this time, I will open this item up for the public comment.
Do we have any members of the public wishing to comment on items that are not on the agenda?
We do. I think we have two members of the public
who would like to provide comments.
If you'd come up and provide your card,
and then you have two minutes.
Two minutes, okay.
When I came here...
It's the microphone?
Okay. But it closed.
I don't know if it's too late for me to make comments
because it's about those pumps on the road.
And just, I just now talk to Mr. Redmond,
And he said they already decided, can I change your mind?
If I say something, why it shouldn't be,
they shouldn't be on the road?
Go ahead and tell us your comment.
OK, my comment is that a lot of I drive on that road
like three times a week.
And it's five bumps to go there, five bumps to go back.
Every bump hurts my back.
I'm trying to avoid those bumps.
And you know, and I see a lot of people do the same thing.
They don't go over by the kind of one wheel track,
but it doesn't help.
It exacerbates your arthritis, your back problems.
You know, a lot of people do that.
That's one thing.
Another thing, it's not good for tires.
It's not good for cars.
Also, you know, I wrote on that road just yesterday
and there was a big truck behind me
And I slowed down, because I have to slow down
up to like, down to five miles per hour
to go over that bomb, because it's really hard on my back.
And throughout behind me, he didn't slow down.
He just came, and he came so close,
I was like, like second away from him being hooked.
And I see a lot of people, half of,
half I would say, slow down,
and half of them go really straight at 25 miles per hour.
So also, somebody mentioned that ambulances
will have problem on this road with this bomb.
This person is injured, and it's how would they go?
And somebody also mentioned that fumes,
and there is more fumes and noise from bombs
and from constant acceleration and constant slowing down,
almost to stop to go in that, oh, sorry.
So I know I'm too late,
but I didn't know anything about this.
I was thinking about it, didn't know who to talk to.
So, and Mr. Redman told me that.
So thank you, this was very helpful in staff.
Yes, okay.
And staff has your name and your contact and.
Yeah, that's what I wrote, okay.
Thank you.
So like I didn't say, do I have a chance to change anything?
because I want it done permanently because it would be the same thing, only worse.
Thank you.
Next speaker.
And thank you for your time.
I use this Homestead Street not very often, maybe a couple of times a week, but I have
noticed these bumps, they are very big and it's really affect my back.
Even I slow down, I almost stop before bump, but still it jerks and it affect my back.
Not to mention that, I mean, it's also not good for the car,
which wears tire off and the parts underneath the car.
Besides, I noticed that not everybody slows down.
Some big trucks, they don't stop at all.
They just drive through it because they're big trucks.
They drive through these bumps, that's all.
And plus breaking frequently caused pollution,
caused more pollution as you know, of course.
This summer I was on vacation in Hawaii and I lived
on the third floor and windows were closed all the time
because of the heat.
And just beneath on the street there was a bump.
Can you imagine?
It was a disaster because of noise.
The noise was very significant because of one bump and we lived on the third floor.
Can you imagine what noise will be for people, for residents?
It will be pretty significant noise.
You probably want to consider this as well.
But the thing is the most important, it's a health because all these
It's effect spine, it's effect disk, spine disk, and effect joints.
So it's not as innocent as somebody might think.
Okay, thank you.
Okay, here's my card.
Is that the end of the public comment?
I'm seeing no other public comment at this time.
Okay, thank you.
Next on the agendas, the adoption of the November 21st,
2024 meeting minutes.
Do I have a motion for approval of the meeting
minutes from November 21, 2024?
So moved.
Do I hear a second?
Second.
OK.
Would the secretary please call the roll?
Student chair Kursik, Commissioner Ash?
Aye.
Commissioner Krelling?
Aye.
Commissioner Patch?
Abstain.
Vice Chair Cagle?
Aye.
Chair Reese?
Aye.
OK.
Next on the agenda is an item for commission consideration,
application for Transportation Development Act Article III
funds for the trail crossing improvements.
At this time, I invite staff to provide their presentation.
Hello, commissioners.
My name is Roshok Clover.
I am an assistant engineer with the CIP department.
And today, we are seeking a recommendation
to proceed with submitting trail crossing improvement
project for grant funding.
And a little background on the grant we're applying for.
we're applying for the TDA grant transportation development act it's
distributed by MTC for pedestrian and bicycle projects these funds are
allocated annually on a per capita basis to Contra Costa County and its
incorporated cities each city may submit one project and typically the city of
Walnut Creek submits a project for this.
We submitted last year, the year before as well.
And this year, city staff explored locations
with the potential for vehicle
and pedestrian slash cyclist conflicts.
And we determined a trail crossing improvement project
will not only be competitive for the grant,
but great for the citizens of Walnut Creek.
So just a little background on what we are proposing
for this project.
We're focusing on four trail crossings,
mostly in the Larky area.
We would like to install triple four high visibility pavement
markings.
It's a mouthful.
And here is an example of the triple four crossing.
This striping gets its name from the widths
of these actual stripes.
we have two four feet white stripes on the outer edges.
And in the center, we have a four foot wide
green pavement marking.
And we also propose installing rapid flashing beacons
with passive detection.
And we have shown here a typical rapid flashing beacon.
And a little background on our locations.
My next slide, we'll go into detail
on the areas that are improvements.
We've received citizen requests
for improvements at these crossings.
They were selected due to their proximity to schools,
to parks, the Rocky area has Contra Costa Christian,
Rocky parks in the area.
We have Lindsay Wildlife.
And also one of the locations provides access to the Greater County Trail Network.
A little more about the triple four striping, it's consistent with other crossings throughout
the city.
In the previous slide, we had Wigget Lane.
And this striping helps drivers locate the crosswalk.
And rapid flashing beacons are a proven countermeasure to increase driver yielding behavior.
It improves the visibility of trail users crossing the road.
And more specifically, passive detection ensures rapid flashing beacon activation.
A cyclist or a pedestrian may not always press the button approaching the crossing, however
were passive detections it will flash whether a button is pressed or not.
Moreover extended flash times are to be had if a person or a cyclist is detected
in the crosswalk. So as I mentioned this striping treatment is consistent with
other locations throughout the city. We have the Contra Costa Canal Trail
crossing at Bancroft Road, Ignacio Canal Trail crossing at Los Lomas Way, at
Meander Drive, at Cheyenne Drive, and not shown here is the Ignacio Canal trail
crossing at Wigget. So we have this striping on both sides of Wigget. We
propose improvements on the Briones to Mount Diablo regional trail crossing at
at St. Louis Road. As you can see, this location already has a rapid flashing beacon. However,
we propose installing passive detection and striping improvements. The crossing at Larky
Lane will receive striping improvements, as well as a rapid flashing beacon. Same for
Buena Vista Avenue and Jones Road, which provides access to the Greater County Trail Network.
We estimate this project costing $230,000, with $180,000 for construction costs, that's
labor and materials, and the last $50,000 for soft costs, including design, contingency,
administration, and inspection.
Based on previous emissions, we believe that $100,000 is appropriate amount to request
for this grant given the scope of work and previous submissions.
Currently, this project is fully funded through traffic impact fees.
However, if we receive this grant, this will free up money for other transportation projects.
And today, we request of the commission to recommend to the City Council for staff to
apply for TDA 3 grant fundings and submit the trail crossing improvements project.
And with that, I have my contact information on the slide and open for questions.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Commission, do we have questions starting with Commissioner Ash and we'll just come
down.
Yeah, thank you.
First question is just how did you decide these, they all make sense to me, but just how did
you decide these versus other areas? Do you have a second tier list of targets
you want to do the following year? At the moment we don't have a second tier
however we plan to improve these we plan to implement these striping
improvements at crossings throughout the city. The county has done improvements on
the Iron Horse Trail and we are making our way to be consistent with crossings
throughout the city and county thanks and from an engineering perspective how
what am I like where do you get power from because some of these places on the
trails I don't know that there's power there maybe there is I don't know these
are solar power systems they have self-contained power sources there's a
a solar panel and the battery pack sufficient for use.
Awesome.
Thank you.
All right.
Good evening.
Thank you for the presentation.
Just a few questions.
One's more of a curiosity.
On the passive detection, how fast does that trigger?
Because I'm thinking about a bicycle kind of barreling
through the crosswalk.
How fast will that trigger?
That's a good question that I don't have the answer to.
However, I can look into it and provide to you later.
Thank you.
That'd be great.
And I may have misheard, and if I do, I apologize.
On the presentation, I thought you mentioned Contra Costa Trail and Bancroft, but I don't
see that on this list.
That was a previous one.
Oh, okay.
Thank you.
Got it.
And then my other question is, are these grants capped at 100,000 because I was just looking
at wondering why don't we ask for the 230,000 and then we can take all that other traffic
impact fee money and put it to something else.
In an ideal situation, the grant would fully fund the project.
However, based on our previous experiences, we've submitted projects of similar scale
And we've requested upwards of 120 grand in the past and received only 80, for example.
So given the scope of project, we feel that this is appropriate.
However, city staff, we can look into requesting more if you would like us to.
I just kind of think, you know, because I don't know if there's limits to these grants,
the size, if we can get more money, let's go after it.
worst they can do is say no, right?
Worst they can do is say no.
Those are my questions, thanks.
Thank you.
Similarly, the detection, especially on some of the trails
where you'll have kids who tend to be, I would say go fast
because they find it enjoyable,
kind of little daredevil type situation.
How far is the detection set back so that like,
Will it go off before they enter to the crosswalk,
or is it just as they enter the street?
They will be detected approaching the crosswalk.
However, that will be finalized during construction,
the specifics of how far back.
Okay, cool.
And then I'm familiar with some of these spots
and there are bushes that also hide the trail crossing
from the car perspective.
is trimming bushes gonna be part of that
to ease that visibility issue?
Yes, staff can look at that during the time of construction
to make sure that all signs
and rapid flashing beacons are visible,
as well as sight lines for pedestrians.
Great, and then my last question
is specifically about the Jones Road one,
because that is a incorporated,
unincorporated Walnut Creek line.
So just curious if you're gonna address that
in the application process.
And hopefully that would like improve the chances
of getting money from the county,
since they own part of it.
Not specifically in the application,
however, it can be mentioned in our interview.
Thank you.
Before we go to Vice Chair Kegel,
Student member Kirsch, do you have some questions?
I was just wondering how long it would take
to complete these projects.
Oh, that's a good question.
I would say an appropriate amount of time.
This would be a 20 to 30 working day project.
However, I believe that construction
can be done sooner than that.
However, out of respect to our contractors
we understand that things may come up during construction
and I think 20 to 30 days is appropriate
for this type of work.
Vice Chair.
Yes, I was wondering if you have data
on what types of users use these trails.
I know that's probably hard to obtain
but I'd be curious to see what that is.
I don't specifically secretary.
Yeah, it's hard to get counts.
They do have some trail counters on the Iron Horse Trail.
So the East Bay Regional Parks knows some numbers.
We do have access to Strava Metro,
which is a segment of the users using the trail, right?
More of that tracking workout kind of type user.
But we don't have any demographic survey,
that kind of actual trail user for all the users.
OK.
Thank you.
And post-project, would there be an educational opportunity
for users, for instance, to educate
the users of the trailer, maybe have some sort of temporary
signage or something, that as you approach,
It may automatically sense you or you can use the call thing or whatever.
I mean, is there an educational opportunity for users so they can be smarter on the trail?
Definitely.
We can explore that, possibly posting signs to notify the public of the change of operation.
Staff, we will take that into consideration.
Okay.
Thank you for the presentation.
On one of the slides, you had indicated, and maybe I misunderstood it,
but you had indicated that if there is a pedestrian
in the crosswalk, that the system
will be designed to extend the flashing lights longer
than if the pedestrian leaves the crosswalk.
Could you explain that?
Yeah.
So the pedestrians, to my knowledge,
are detected via, I believe, the microwaves.
And depending on the aim of the detector, a pedestrian is in,
let's say, line of sight of the detection device.
The rapid flashing beacon will be actuated.
So pending aim of our detector, if the pedestrian
It is in the crosswalk and the detector picks up the pedestrian.
The rapid flaxion beacon will actuate and stay actuated while the pedestrian is within range of our detector.
Thank you, and kind of getting at the question that Commissioner Crelling asked,
Is on the grant funding, if you apply for the full amount, is there a chance that you
might not win it, but if you apply for less, there's a chance that you would win it?
Is that a decision that they make, or do they partially fund applications?
From what I've seen on previous distributions, no project is fully funded through this grant
and it's typically a partial funding.
Thank you.
Thank you.
At this time, I will open the item for public comment.
Do we have any members of the public wishing to provide public comment on this agenda item?
We have no members of the public waiting to provide comments.
OK.
At this time, are there any commissioner comments?
And I'm going to go ahead and start with Commissioner Ash
again and follow the same process.
I'm good.
This makes sense.
I appreciate you coming in and putting this together.
I'm a frequent traveler because my office is on Jones and Oak.
So I'm a frequent traveler of the Contra Costa Trail
crossing Jones Road.
And I think this is, I know that that trail is there,
so I slow down just because I don't
know who's going to fly through.
But I think this is a great thing, especially
for people driving down Jones, maybe speeding,
and they have no idea that trail crossing's there.
and I know the flashing lights
definitely grab the attention.
So I would assume the same argument
would apply to all the others,
but I just happen to be particularly familiar
with the one I'm talking about.
So I think it's a great use of resources to do this.
I'm also really excited to see
the Jones Road intersection on this list
because it's terrifying, like really terrifying,
both to drive and to use.
So, kudos on including that.
And I'm sure the other three are also really important.
I would encourage maybe considering
asking for a little bit more,
just because you said you've asked for 120 in the past
and gotten 80, so kind of asking for more
when you know it's not gonna be fully funded
seems like a good policy just to approach,
especially given, again, that one of these
is something that's on that unincorporated line,
which can be confusing and the county should pay
for some of it.
Student member Kirsch.
I'm okay, I don't have any comments.
Thank you.
Thank you for the presentation and your work on this.
I think that the consistency and the design
will be good for drivers to get used to
at these trail crossings and I think it'll be a great addition.
I'm passionate about educating the pedestrian
cyclist public so to the extent we can help people get to know what this is and
what we're doing to make their communities safer I think it's also good
for us to communicate how we're trying to help make our community safer I think
that would be good and then as far as money is concerned I'm always gonna say
shoot for the moon I leave it up to your expertise and experience in you know
going for these grants but I agree with my colleagues thank you thank you yeah
thanks for the presentation and really appreciate the projects and improving
safety at trails that's super important on the on the grant the it would it be
helpful not asking the question I'm suggesting that maybe there's an
an opportunity to get the county to write a support letter.
I know with a lot of grant applications that,
if you can get stakeholder agencies involved
and get letters of acceptance or support,
that that can help in the grant award.
I don't know about this particular grant.
On the request side, I understand the value
of not asking for all the money,
but showing that you're putting in local money
to show the money that the agency is providing is leverage.
You're leveraging local money to be successful,
but $100,000 compared to $230,000
seems a little short-sighted to me.
It seems, you know, maybe say 30% is coming from local
and 70% is the request, see what you get.
But right now with 100,000 to 230,
you're looking at what, 40%?
And so just it seems you're going to get cut short anyway.
So it seems like you should be higher recognizing
that you're going to get cut short.
But I would encourage you to have a significant amount
for local funding, because that does
help from a leveraged perspective.
On the passive detection, I'm not a fan of that,
not the microwave.
I know that I'm probably in the minority.
But I do like passive detection so that you
don't have to touch the button, but passive detection, setting up microwave, it sort
of sets up a shoot, and in my non-professional opinion, it makes it feel like I should just
ride right through when an RRFB is actually intended to be a warning to drivers that there
as a pedestrian or a bicyclist present that may be crossing the crosswalk.
And there's no studies that suggest that what I'm saying is fact, it's more opinion.
But I do really support the passive detection around the push button so you don't have to
touch it, but I'm not a fan of the microwave.
It would also save you quite a bit of money if you used a different detection technology.
And the microwave has some additional maintenance challenges with it that more of the basic
functions don't.
So take it for what you will.
But I thank you very much for doing this.
And I hope they can get built in 20 to 30 days.
Working days.
would be awesome. Okay so do we need a motion? Yeah we need a motion for support
for council. Mr. Chair would you like me to make a motion? Yes. I'd like to make a
motion to support the staff recommendation with the change to one
hundred and eighteen thousand seven hundred and fifty nine dollars. I don't
I don't like numbers that end in zero.
I find you get a much better response
when you have a specific number like that.
So I'd like to motion
that we move the staff recommendation forward
with $118,759 requests from the state
in the grant application
and that city council support this.
I would ask to amend the motion
to perhaps be a little more generic
to suggest additional funds as reasonably practical
versus 118,000, what, $579.12?
Totally butcher that number, man.
Accept your motion.
So we have a modified, a modification to the first motion.
I'll accept that, and so I'll just amend my motion
to include that to make it easier,
parliamentary procedure wise.
We really appreciate that.
Thank you.
Do we have a second for the amended motion?
I will second the amended motion.
Thank you, Commissioner Ash.
OK.
Secretary, will you call the roll?
Student Commissioner Kurlich?
Aye.
Commissioner Ash?
Aye.
Commissioner Krelling?
Aye.
Commissioner Patch?
Aye.
Vice Chair Kago?
Aye.
Chair Reese?
I. OK.
Now we'll go to the second item.
OK.
Thank you, commissioners.
Next on the agenda is an item for the commission
consideration, the draft 2026, 2027 capital budget,
and the 2026, 2035 10-year capital improvement program.
CIP transportation projects.
At this time, I invite staff to provide their presentation.
All right.
Good evening, commissioners.
My name's Alex Wong.
I'm the senior civil engineer of the capital equipment program.
And tonight, I'm here to present to you the transportation
projects for the proposed 26 and 27 capital budget
and the proposed 26 to 35 capital investment program.
This is a study session, so we can spend more time to go over each of the programs.
So just as an outline, first we review the discretionary transportation projects in the
proposed 26-27 capital budgets.
I'm going to take questions after that, and then I'm going to move to the proposed 26-35
capital investment program, and I'll take some questions after that.
And after that, we'll look for action from the Commission to receive feedback and including
questions, comments and priorities from the Commission of this proposed discretionary
transportation projects in both documents.
So the capital budget operates on a two-year budget cycle.
It's approved and adopted by council every other year and it allocates funds for specific
projects.
It's informed by the first two-year cycle of the 10-year CIP and incorporates or responds
to the grants that's awarded.
So just looking at the capital budget, it's separated into two main categories.
We have the asset management category and the discretionary project category.
In the asset management side, we have the roadway maintenance projects, building and
facilities, downtown parking and enhancements, parking and open space maintenance, and sidewalk
strong drains, traffic signals, and parking lots.
On the discretionary side, we have the parks recreation and open space projects, these
BROS projects.
We also have downtown parking enhancements, facilities projects, and transportation projects
and that's what we're here to go over tonight.
So the city collects developer fees to address traffic impacts from developments.
This is based on projected rate per vehicle trips for the number of vehicle trips generated
by project.
And these funds go into something called a TIF fund.
And with that, we have a TIF project list, and that's where the funds go toward.
So looking at this diagram here, we have the TIF list, which is a 30-year vision of projects.
From that, we get the 10-year CIP, which is a 10-year planning of priorities.
And then from that, we get the capital budget, which is a two-year spending plan.
So the current status of TIF.
So TIF funds are lower than what was previously anticipated, reflecting a slowdown of development
projects. This is inconsistent with the 10-year capital improvement plan projections. So the
projections in our current fiscal year 24-25 cycle, the funds have been substantially below
forecast. The TIF balance is currently over expanded. We're looking to close completed
projects or projects that have received outside funding and moving those funds back into TIF.
We're also looking to move projects in previous budget cycles that have stalled a change scope and move them back in the CIP in this freeze of the money back to put back into the TIF.
And those are just the projected funds for these cycles.
So this is what's the proposed projects for the 2627 capital budget.
We have two projects, the Affordable Housing and Sustainable Community Improvements Project.
It's also called the ASIC, it's ASIC grant that we received.
It totals 2.436 in change, million for that project.
The second project we have is the San Miguel Drive pedestrian improvements for $690,000
in the TIF funds, and I'll go into more further detail for each one of these projects.
So, the first project, this is the ASIC project, the Affordable Housing and Transportation
Communities Grant.
This is from the 699 Ignacio Valley Road Development, received this grant.
So what this project includes is pedestrian and transit enhancements, the project funds.
So in the 2223 capital budget, we included a project called the North Broadway Road Diet,
and 3.8 million in TIF funds has already been allocated toward this project.
So with this fund, plus the 2.46 in the grant, we'll supplement the cost of the work.
So another major component of this project is that there's a development at the former
DMV site and under their development, they're responsible for the improvements of that road
diet project on North Broadway from Royal to Ignacio Valley Road. So some of the highlights
on the bicycle improvements on North Broadway, there'll be a new protected bikeway from Ignacio
to civic and then also on a royal way a royal way for this project is a bike
lane or bike route that goes from the Orange Horse Trail all the way to North
Main Street on Walden Road a bike route from Jones Road to Civic Drive and on
Parkside Drive a protected bikeway from Rivera Avenue to Civic Drive and for the
pedestrian improvements with the roadway diet project. We have
wind sidewalks along North Broadway and also a new sidewalk along Jones Road.
This is behind existing curb and gutter between the part track fence for
sidewalk there. Transit improvements, so transit signal priority at signalized
intersections and then also some bus stop improvements for this, as part of this grant.
So that's this project. The second project that we have is this San Miguel sidewalk project.
This project's a joint effort with Contra Costa County. It's actually being led by Contra Costa
County. So overview of the project is to construct a new sidewalk along the west side of San Miguel
Drive. This extends from New Avenue to Adaline Drive. The City of Walnut Creek is responsible
for the segment between New Avenue and Blackwood Drive. So you can see on the diagram there
that shows it starts at the intersection of Broadway and Newell. There's existing sidewalk
going up the hill, up to San Miguel, and then you see the green part there. That's the city's
portion for this project to install sidewalk. And the yellow portion is the
county portion where they go from Blackwood up to Adeline. So purpose
close sidewalk gap and to complete the pedestrian network in the area. And again
this projects we're working of Contra Costa County as they all be leading
this project and that's the capital that's the 2627 capital projects
capital budget projects and I'll stop here to questions before moving to the
CIP okay Commissioner Ash do you want to start off with questions on just this
particular item. act I have no questions comment glitter I have question yes or
questions I'm just trying to make sure I understand we have this attachment to
trying to make sure I understand these schedules okay and so the this first
table talks about the estimated funds available, TIF and grants. You noted in
your presentation that the ASIC will have already has 3.8 million of TIF
allocated to it, but that doesn't show on this schedule, so I just want to kind of
understand, all it shows is the $2.465 grant money.
So it left me with questions like, well, is this a $6 million project and funded by the
$4 million TIF and the $2.5 million grants?
What's kind of actually happening there?
That's a good question.
So the previous, it's already been allocated in the budget.
of the funds have already been allocated.
So, you know, we didn't want to show that twice.
But it is a combined 3.8 plus the 2.6 for the projects
that were listed on that project sheet.
And that's enough.
It would be no unfunded need.
That's enough money for the whole thing, the combined TIF
and grant?
That's the plan.
Okay. Just a suggestion for the future.
I think on schedules like this,
it would be nice to see the entire cost.
Maybe it's another column previously allocated funds so that you can look at it and go.
It's a $6 million project.
We got the money for it. Good to go.
Good point. Thank you.
That was my only question. Thanks.
On the widening sidewalk portion, is that taking like is that gonna end up
narrowing the lanes? Where is the width of the sidewalk coming from? This is for
the Broadway Road Diet. Yes, it's a part of the north downtown specific plan.
Under that plan, the currently Broadway is to northbound to southbound. The road
that would change that into one northbound and one southbound
with a dual left turn in the middle.
And that gives you the room for the bike lane parking
and then the widen sidewalk.
Great. Thank you.
Student member Kirsch, do you have questions?
No questions.
Thank you.
One question that I have is, on the North Broadway piece,
when it gets to YVR, what happens north of YVR
on North Broadway?
There's a lot of pavement width there.
It does get narrower up by the post office.
But are we just dropping the separated bikeways at YVR?
and the what happens?
Yeah, no, that's actually a really good question there.
The project actually extends to Central Avenue.
We're looking into doing a treatment between Nashville
and Central on the north side.
Great.
That's just not part of the grant application?
It's a part of it.
It is.
Which is not, yeah.
It's just not discussed.
OK, great.
And then I have a question for the next go-around.
So why don't you actually.
Chair, can I ask one extra question?
She said pretty please, yes.
Pretty please.
OK.
Thank you.
With the road diet and losing lanes,
was our traffic impact analysis performed to, you know,
we can have a lot of spillover to the other streets.
What do you expect is going to happen when you put the road on,
put it on a diet. I'm going to defer that to the city engineer. Hello, Sumitar
Boardman, city engineer. So the North Downtown specific plan did evaluate
North Broadway with the reduction in lanes and it was envisioned in that plan
that's already been adopted. So this is simply the implementation of that.
Whatever findings were made in that plan it was found to be, you know, from a
policy perspective consistent with whatever was you know anticipated for
the plan so yeah that's that's the goal here okay thank you thank you um
before we proceed I have a question since we opened it up to comments in the
middle of the presentation do we then have to open it up to comments to the
public or do we wait till the end okay no okay I just want to make sure I was
following proper protocol because this is the first time we've phased it. Okay. If you
could proceed then with the rest of your presentation.
Okay. All right. The 10-year capital investment program. So let's start with some background.
So the 10-year CIP is a planning document. It's deliberately broad and long-term which
allows the city to identify, prioritize, and then schedule projects in two-year cycles.
The 10-year CIP does not appropriate funds that's done separately with the two-year capital
budget. The 10-year CIP is also a dynamic document that builds on previous work. It's
a valuable tool for grant applications as projects are identified in city planning documents.
So this slide illustrates the various inputs that go into the development of the 10-year
CIP.
The CIP posed a variety of stakeholders, including the staff, Transportation Commission, PROS
Commission, Council.
In addition, it posed projects from adopted plans, including the TIF projects list, asset
management plans, and pavement reports.
We're updating the CIP in conjunction with the development of the capital budget.
As you know, the 10-year CIP informs the capital budget.
Typically, the first cycle of the CIP is the proposed capital budget.
The CIP is a long-term 10-year planning tool, prioritizing programs and projects over five
two-year cycles.
This capital budget appropriates funds to specific projects, which means that money has been assigned
to project, assigned to fund of specific projects.
This here is an illustration showing the input that goes
into the traffic-related 10-year CIP.
Go through each one.
So funding source for the transportation-related projects.
So typically, we get general funds and gas tax.
So in general funds, we get about $3.6 million per two-year
cycle for all asset management projects. This includes all the infrastructure. We have traffic
signals and street light maintenance, sidewalk repairs, ADA upgrades, small amount for roadways.
And then we also have gas tax and measure J funds. These are the roadways, bridges,
storm drain maintenance, and anticipate about six million per two year cycle.
I just want to mention that the last couple of cycle projects we did, we used gas tax
and Measure J funds and some special district funds to repave Wigot and Lennon.
And with those paving projects, we also included pedestrian and bicycle improvements with
those projects.
So those do get incorporated in there.
So we've also to come back to funding, traffic impact fees with fees that's assessed to new
and expanded development projects.
And we anticipate about 750,000 per two-year cycle following the 26 and 27 cycle.
This is a little more conserved than what we've done in the past.
Also have grant funding.
They're typically competitive and it's not always predictable.
I think on the bottom right there just shows the different funds.
So for the 2635 10-year CIP, so we first look at the 2433 10-year CIP.
This is the previous year CIP and then we incorporate that into the 2635 CIP.
First we look at the first two years and then we look at two to four and then four to six
And it's OK to have unfunded projects, this planning document.
And the first two-year cycle is the 26-27.
That's already gone over with the ASIC grant projects
and also the semigail drive pedestrian improvements.
The next cycle to follow up is the 28-29 projects.
So I'll go through each of the projects.
So the first one, we have the pedestrian improvements
at non-signalized crosswalks.
Second, we have the bike facilities per master plan.
Third, we have the school area active transportation.
Fourth, we have the citywide traffic calming.
And the next one, we have the local roadway,
local road safety plan improvements.
These five projects were in the previous cycle
and we look to include these five projects
in each of the cycles afterwards.
And then after that, we have the three new projects
proposed for this NICS cycle.
The Treat Boulevard corridor improvement project,
the Ignacio Valley Road intersection improvements
and the highway safety improvement program projects.
I'll go over each of these projects after this slide.
So after those three new projects,
we have the traffic signal at Treat Boulevard
and Arkel Road.
project was in the previous CIP with the rest of them. The traffic corridor trail study,
connector study and improvements, environmental analysis and design. And then we have the traffic
monitoring and communication technology. And next we have the Shatland's multi nodal improvements.
After that Lincoln Avenue bike and pit bike path. And then the last one here is the Oakland Boulevard
and Mount Diablo corridor. Put a downtown specific plan, design component of that project
for this cycle. Wait, can I ask a clarifying question on that last slide? Yes, Mr. Chair.
Is this just in like title order or like priority order or just the list here? I'm just curious.
It's all the projects on the list, not necessarily. Okay, it's not in any particular order. Okay,
Thank you. All right, so this is the first new project here on the 2829. The Treat Boulevard
corridor improvements. So this is a joint effort with Contra Costa County. Just a quick overview
is that again it's participation with Contra Costa County to implement safety and active
transportation improvements along Treat Boulevard from North Main to Jones Road.
improvements in the Walnut Creek city limit includes safety enhancements for
treat boulevard and the north uh north main intersection
and this is also identified in the local roadway safety plan.
The city the city's share of this project is about 756,000
and some of the improvement highlights the treat boulevard
north main intersection improvements you'll modify
The westbound slip lane to slow vehicle turning modified the traffic signal to add
protected crossing and pedestrians for pedestrians and improve crossing for bicyclists.
They also installed striping for bike movements and then as for bicycle infrastructure it'll
install a protected bikeway along treat boulevard within those project movements
and the pedestrian enhancements improve safety and comfort for pedestrians.
So the next new project is the Ignacio Valley Road intersection improvements project.
So this project is funded with the Glenn at Heather Farm Developments. This is the development
that's in the county and they're contributing 1.75 million tort cities that work here.
Some project overview is that it's improvement at four different locations. Ignacio Valley Road
and March Banks Drive and Tampico Intersection,
Ignacio Valley Road and Kinross Drive,
La Casa Villa Intersection,
and Ignacio Valley Road, St. Carlos Drive Intersection.
The project also includes a traffic circle
at Kinross Drive and March Banks Drive.
So some of the highlights here,
it implements parts of the local
roadway safety plan improvements.
And it includes new traffic signals.
It's existing, it's a modify
the need of the existing traffic signal with left turn phasing at location with and without
dedicated left turn lane. It addresses conflicts between the left turn vehicles controlled by
permissive left turn phasing and pedestrians using the crosswalks across Ignacio Valley Road.
The next project here is the Highway Safety Improvement Program projects. This is an
H-SIP grants that the city applied for, for $1.2 million, with a local match of $300,000.
The project overview, it implements the local roadway safety plan improvements.
New traffic update of the existing traffic signals to add a new left turn phase and locations
with and without dedicated left turn lanes.
conflicts between left-turn vehicles controlled by permissive left-turn
phasing and pedestrians using the crosswalks across Ignacio Valley Road.
And the intersections included in this grant is Ignacio and Walnut Boulevard,
Ignacio and Wimbledon, Ignacio and Wiggett Lane, and Ignacio and Villa Montee.
I'm gonna stop here and just pause for questions on the 28 and 29 projects.
Yeah starting with the treat Boulevard yeah this just helped me so I can
understand you got a lot of things going on there you've got the highway
people coming off you've got overpass with the pedestrian bridge the BART
train I'm just I don't know I'm having trouble like understanding the the
engineering visual to these improvements I don't know if you can help if my
question was very clear or somebody can help me with that well you bring up a
good point because I think there's at least three jurisdictions with Caltrans
ramps the county and then the city but I think it's a is it removing Elaine I
think it's narrowing a bit I'll let you speak to the improvements so as chair
one suggestion it's a complicated project one suggestion might be to
offer to come back to this group at a later date and illustrate the project
and now you can go ahead and give okay thank you yes so this treat Boulevard
study was initiated by the county I think back in 2014 and they've been
I'm working with all of the jurisdictions
and coordinating with all of us,
completing the design and the operational analysis.
So coming back to your question,
what was your question again, please, sorry, huh?
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, sorry.
So yes, it would not remove a lane.
It would just be narrowing lanes.
There are some changes to the northbound off-ramp
for the treat Boulevard exit,
where they'd be removing the free right churn,
what we call a slip lane that Alex had mentioned earlier
and as part of this project at a different location.
And that was also evaluated by a traffic consultant
hired by the county, as well as the improvements
that are being proposed at the Walnut Creek intersection,
so treat in North Maine.
And does any of this account for the 680 improvements
that are gonna extend the paid for lane
and they were gonna make improvements
to a couple of like exits off going,
including I think North Main and Treat and other things?
Yeah, definitely.
So I think you're referring to the ramp metering project
for I-680 as well as the express lanes.
They're looking at adding a lane in part of 680.
Yeah.
And yeah, okay.
Yeah, so that's in the northbound direction.
The southbound direction, I think already has coverage.
And yeah, so there's no change
in terms of the number of lanes for this specific location
that would be modified within the city.
So again, looking at treat in North Main,
that would be signalizing that right now there
is a slip lane when you're going westbound along treat
and you're going to turn right onto North Main
to either loop onto the freeway to go southbound
or to go up North Main up to Pleasant Hill.
So what is proposed is to actually signalize that
so that pedestrians may cross.
And it would only be operational when pedestrians are crossing.
So, and that was already evaluated
from an operational perspective.
In terms of the ramp metering, that is a newer project
and was not part of the operational analysis,
but the location that we're talking about
at Treaton North Main is before another traffic signal,
before you can even get onto the ramps.
So it's unlikely that the queue
or like the vehicle spilling back
would impact this location in particular.
Awesome.
Thank you.
And if at some point there is a better visual
as you advance this project and get closer to the timeline,
I'd love to see that come back.
OK.
On this particular slide that's still up,
can the city share with the commission
via email or otherwise the traffic study related to?
I'm really interested in the traffic engineers
or consulting traffic engineers report an analysis
on the getting rid of the free right hand turn
from northbound 680 to eastbound tree.
I'm very familiar with that intersection as that corner.
As a pedestrian, that's like taking your life
in your own hands.
but I also, you know, we have to kind of take a balanced approach to things.
I'm I'm, you know, is it is it going to be a stop sign?
Is it going to be a signal?
How far back do we expect all those cars on that off ramp to back up?
Will they back up into the actual slow lane of the freeway,
increasing the propensity for a traffic collision?
They can lead to injuries, things like that.
Be just interesting to see that study.
Yeah, that's a good point.
We can we can follow up with that.
And then going back to the attachment to financial schedule
that we have, when I look at the 28, 29 list of projects,
it looks to be about $9 million worth of projects,
but about 50% unfunded.
So we have about 4.5 million of TIF and grants,
and then about 4.9 million of unfunded.
How realistic is this list given it's that underfunded?
It's, the CIP is a planning document.
It opens up the opportunities for applying for grants
and possibly receiving them.
OK.
Are the grants that are already listed in the grants column?
I'm assuming those are expected grants,
because we haven't gotten those grants yet, right?
Or is that, because it's showing about 3.8 million dollars
in the grants developer column?
Yeah, we've applied for them, but we haven't heard back.
OK, so those are applied for grants.
I'm just trying to get a, maybe think about, for the future,
trying to expand these schedules a bit
so that you've got to get a feel for the financial picture
of this set of projects because I'm just trying to be a realist, a realist, and I'm
looking at it from the perspective of how realistic is it that we'd ever get, you know,
half these projects done. And I, granted, it's a long-term planning document, but a
long-term planning document is the most valuable when it has realistic assumptions in it.
And when I look at a 50% unfunded,
I get a little itchy about it.
That was my question comment, thank you.
Commissioner Pat.
I just wanna second the request for the traffic study
on the Tree Boulevard improvements,
because I'm also very familiar with that exit
and removing that slip lane.
I'm worried we'll have impact on the previous entrance
because of the way the traffic flows.
So just curious what the study is.
Thanks.
Student Chair Kirsch, do you have any questions?
Yeah, I was just wondering what's the difference
between the discretionary projects
and the transportation projects?
Yes, so we have the asset management projects
and the discretionary projects.
The asset management is more toward
maintaining the existing infrastructures
while the discretionary is more added on at a discretion,
it's not toward maintaining existing assets
but adding new assets, does that make sense?
Thank you.
Questions?
Just one quick question about the Treat Boulevard Project.
You note the city's share of this
and talked about the complications
with working with multiple agencies on it,
how does the funding work for the other agencies?
Is it just respective to like the literal geographic
or space that they're working with?
How does that work in a shared project?
This one, I believe the 756 is the city's portion
from the city's right of way to inside the city's
right of way.
The city, this is a project that's being led
by the county I believe and then you know that's that's the portion they
allocate it's for the city and they've itemized the components that's the
city's got it and so the other jurisdictions the county has itemized if
if Caltrans has any costs associated and then their own county costs as well
do we know what those are for the total project no okay just curious thank you
much. So I have a couple questions and I think I'm starting to understand the
information. I noticed that in all of the future years you have a standard
amount of money for pedestrian improvements, bike facility improvements,
school area active transportation, citywide traffic calming, and it looks
like local road safety improvements but you have none for this year for this
year and for 2627 and I was curious as to why there's there's money in every
other year for those elements but not in the 2627 year yes it's a good question
so as I mentioned earlier our funding right now we're actually we fall over
expended and we're having to close already some of the right funded projects
or projects that's already done and moving those some of those projects back
in the CIP to put money so that's those projects are being moved back you know
to to actually fund the projects that we're already obligated for and it's
we also have a lot of projects that we haven't yet completed currently so we
we still have a lot of money in there to fund projects
that we need to work on this next two year cycle also.
So you have a backlog of projects
and so it's a staffing issue in part.
If you had more staff, you could do more projects
but you have a backlog that you're trying to work through.
Yeah, to catch up on it and then like the, yeah.
Yeah, the only, and I don't know the details
of your impact fee funding and how it's allocated.
But oftentimes what happens is that we push out a project,
and then we have construction, inflation cost, implications
to it, and then all of a sudden it becomes harder to fund,
because we've pushed it out a few years.
And then we end up compounding the financial problem
by delaying projects.
And so I don't know how your funding is set up.
I know you have to work out your resources
to be able to deliver the projects.
But these kinds of annual projects
just get more expensive each year.
And then your TIF program, you have
to make sure that you're keeping up with that.
And so I understand it, because I saw the highway safety
improvement program projects.
According to this table, has a lot of money available.
And the Ignacio Valley Road traffic signal improvements,
which also are safety improvements, has a lot of money.
But I just heard from a previous discussion
that we actually don't have that money.
Those the $1.75 million for the YVR signals and the $1.92
million for the H-SIP.
We don't have that money.
It's in applications that we hope to receive.
I think the one from the development from the developer
development.
The Ignacio Valley Road signals.
The Glen at Hutter Farm.
I think that's a part of development agreement out there.
I think they've started, but I think
We don't actually get the funds from development
until I think occupancy, so that's quite a few years away.
So I think by the time this next capital budget goes through,
it's about that timeline.
OK.
And then I guess just a very broad question.
There's been comments made about the difficulty of reading this.
I presume that this is the same way
that you've done this every two years,
that it's the same tables, it's the same summaries,
it's the same information, and you're just adjusting it.
And I just wanted to be clear that this isn't a new format,
because if it is a new format, I would
like to make lots of comments on it as other commissioners
have already made comments on.
But I'm assuming that this is a pretty standardized process
that you follow every two years, same forms.
It's a similar boiler that we use for previous cycles.
OK.
It could be changed, though.
OK.
It's just that there's a lot of questions about, well,
when I read this initially, I was highlighting
some of these projects where we have grant and developer
funding, and why aren't we allocating those
to be their urgent safety projects?
If we have the money, why aren't we allocating it
and prioritizing it more?
But it sounds like this table isn't really
intended to say what the money that we have is.
It's intended to say this is what we want to do,
And this is what the costs are.
And this is where we hope to get the money,
as opposed to having it in the bank.
Yeah, that's a forecast.
It's a forecast, yeah.
OK.
And I was here two years ago, so I guess I should know that,
but I forgot.
I don't have any further questions.
Do you have more in the presentation?
Oh, yeah, that's only the 4 of the 10 years.
Oh, wow. Okay. Let's proceed.
Okay. So moving on.
This is the 30 to 31 cycle of the traffic projects.
So, again, we have the five projects in there
for the un-signalized crosswalk bike facilities,
school area, active transportation,
city-wide traffic calming and local roadway safety plan improvements so the
five projects and then the other projects we have these are also from the
previous CIP cycle that we're just carrying it forward. The traffic signal
master replacement Ignatia Valley Road class one, ped and bike improvements
between Via Monte and San Carlos and then also the Ignatia Valley Road bike
and Ped, St. Carlos to Iron Horse Trail. We also have the Ignacio Valley Road, Bancroft
and Walnut intersection improvements, and then also the Ignacio Sidewalk Sound Law replacement
at John Muir to St. Carlos Drive. Another project here is the Main Street intersection
redesign. This project is actually already in the TIF and it's already in the CIP, but
We're moving it from the discretionary downtown parking enhancement to the discretionary transportation
projects.
Next slide.
So since I brought this up, so this project is, again, is already in the CIP.
This is the main street intersection redesign.
It includes the traffic signal and intersection improvements at North Main and Cypress and
North Main and Bonanza. The Main component is to improve the bow bouts out there, helps
with that pedestrian experience, and then also it replaces those concrete poles that's
out there right now and replacing with the modernized signal poles where you have more
functionality out of those. I'll stop here to take questions on the 3031 projects.
does the commission have any questions none yes on this main street weren't
there funds available from the city was working with businesses to pay for
improvements for people taking over the parking spaces and building permanent
outdoor structures. Wasn't there some fees that the city was collecting in
there that were supposed to be used for this project or help me understand that
whoever. Okay hello so so this location this is specifically the intersection
itself so any kind of outdoor dining what we call these outdoor dining
structures would not be at the intersection. Those funds actually cover
Um, some portion of administrative costs, some staff time,
and then there's also some funds that are going back to the parking enterprise fund.
Um, which to Alex's point earlier,
this is actually a project that had existed under as a parking,
a parking and downtown enhancement project.
Um, but we're actually shifting it over to a transportation discretionary project instead due to
the parking fund being underfunded generally for these types of discretionary projects.
Just so you know, in terms of the outdoor dining,
the funds that are available based on what we've received as a city,
there is not adequate funds and we don't really
anticipate enough funding to cover the cost of this type of
improvement with the income from the outdoor dining program.
Okay, thank you. That was helpful. The follow-up to that. Sorry. I just had a
follow-up to that. So I understand that with regards to the intersections. What
about the Locust Street improvements that were done, which look awesome? Or is
that also, is that out of the downtown fund, or is that out of the discretionary
transportation fund, or is there another way that those are funded? Alex can answer
this but I'll answer for him since I'm already up here so there it's that the
Locust Street project was a roadway maintenance project so that's one of
those asset management projects as opposed to these discretionary
transportation projects that are all so the discretionary transportation
projects there was that those boxes that slide those are all paid for out of
either TIF or grant funding and that's that's our only opportunity for funds
Locust Street was out of roadway maintenance that's an asset management
management type project. So it was gas tax, right? It was 100% gas tax. Gas tax and Measure
J funds were used for the Locust Street project. Thank you. Any additional questions? I guess
as we go to more electric cars we're gonna miss the gas tax money, huh? On the YVR sidewalk
sound wall replacement John Muir to San Carlos.
Are we 100% positive that's on city property?
I asked that because of, I was involved
with a similar sort of fence sound wall paint job
that the city was like, it's not ours,
it's on private property.
Do we know for sure this is truly the city's responsibility
or is it private property
and it's the homeowner's responsibility?
We had a right-of-way study done on the Ignacio Valley Road and it shows the city has a pretty consistent right-of-way out there
and I
Believe not knowing the information information right in front of me. I believe it is in the city right away. Okay. Yeah be worth
Double checking love to know for sure. Thank you
Commissioner batch
No questions
No questions
Getting close, okay. So moving on to the next cycle to 3233 cycle
Again, we have the same five projects the pedestrian improvements bike facilities school area active
transportation citywide traffic calming and local roadway safety plan
and then after that we have these carryover projects the
Olympic Boulevard corridor construction the wayfinding and parking signage
The Oakland Boulevard and Mount Diablo corridor percipit. Clan. This is the construction component of it
And then also the construction part of the main street intersection redesigns
These are the projects for the 22 23 I'll take any questions here before moving to 24 20
34 35
I
Any any
Yeah, I'm just curious why
One project stands out so much more in the budget. Just
What is that like it clearly entails a lot more the 11 million dollar project?
I mean the costs wise. Yeah, just curious what that is in a little bit more detail
So it's I think it's on the project list, but Oakland Boulevard, it's it's a full like the current
slope of the street. It's it's not like
It's it's more it's a slanted. It's not like a standard street where you have one sides a lot higher than the other side
So project there would require you know substantial
Adjustments and making things work. You'll probably be a separated roadway separated, you know on two sides and
It's a it'll be a costly project to construct
Okay, thanks
any additional any other
questions
Why why is one of them in red?
because there's a new project from the last.
Thank you.
Just one, I was just looking at the formatting,
and the table on the screen matches the table in our here,
except for the estimated funds available.
Our handout says $1,008,000, and this says $1,508,000.
And I noticed that there were a couple other times
where that number doesn't quite match what we have,
and I don't know if there's a reason for that.
And that was, so we submit the reports
like a week or so before the actual meeting,
and we've since met with our finance department,
and based on what they were saying
about some of the projections,
since these last couple of years have been so lean,
they weren't looking at such a high amount of fees coming in, so it was changed halfway
through.
It was good catch.
Well, I'm glad that we're checking everything and getting it refined.
So next two fiscal years.
Okay.
Last one.
This is the 3435, the last of the ten year cycle.
Again we have the five projects, the pedestrian improvements, bike facilities, school area,
active transportation, city wide traffic calming and local roadway safety plan.
The two other projects that's carried over from the previous CIPs are the Olympic Core
Door Trail Connectors Study Improvements and then also the Traffic Signal at Civic in a
Royal Way.
These are the last two projects and I'll take comments and questions on the 2635 CIP.
Wonderful.
Commissioner Ash.
OK, so thank you so much.
And thank you for your tag team help.
That chimed in to answer my complicated questions.
So great work on all of this.
I love the roadway diet on Broadway.
We've had a lot of conversations in here.
One of the best ways to slow traffic down and make things
safer overall was reduce the lane width.
And so I just, that fit into that, so I appreciate that.
The Ignacio and Treat intersections
coming up in the more, in the earlier years,
I appreciate those being priorities,
especially a lot of that area on Ignacio
where you're gonna do work,
there's a lot of student crossing.
And so I'm sure that was part of the reason
why it was considered and on there.
so I just appreciate those coming.
And then, I just wanted to bring up,
when you were talking about Oakland,
and I know you were, you pointed to Mount Diablo,
but on the other side on Ignacio,
where there's the multi-use pedestrian bike path
on the left, when you make the left from Ignacio over,
on Tuesday, it was the fourth time in the last two years,
I have seen a car miss the traffic lane
and go up on the multi-use path.
And if there's anything immediately you guys can do
to put like a red painted strip
or those little plastic like pedestrian things
before somebody gets hit.
And it's not drunk drivers.
It's just, it's a tough visual sometimes.
So I'm just gonna share that with everybody
to again on Tuesday I saw a car go up on that.
So those were my comments, thanks.
First off, thanks for walking through all of this,
a lot of materials, you did it efficiently, so thank you.
I think the projects are overall good projects.
I'm glad to see we have the year over year,
like I'll call it the core projects
that are always paid for that good prioritization.
The main thing, I know we're not really,
Our role here is not to really like approve or bless the budget that's counsels, but to
the extent that, and I'm making this comment based upon the chair's comment that was based
on my comment, which is, you know, hey, and I think you even said we could change things.
You know, process improvement is a good thing.
If there was a more comprehensive way we could see and understand, you know, this is what
we want to do.
This is where we think we're going to get funding.
This is where we actually have funding.
And then if we don't get funding, is there a prior- can the projects be listed in priority
of importance overall to all of our, you know, our pedestrian safety, local roadway safety,
goal zero mission of transportation here.
I mean, the injuries out there are real.
I live pretty close to Oak Grove and Ignacio, and it wasn't that long ago we had a pedestrian
hit out there.
So it happened.
It happens in all of our backyards, so keep up the good work.
This is great.
Thank you for the presentation.
I'm super excited to see how many class one bike lanes
are in this plan.
I just think that that's gonna be a huge improvement
for the city and for our safety of our bikers.
One thing that I noticed when I was looking at this
before this meeting is the way finding isn't listed
until fiscal year 32, 33, that plan.
And I'm just wondering if there's a way
that we could do some of that beforehand
because I think something like that is a small win
that can get people excited about what the city is doing.
And I know that some people still find parking in downtown,
really hard to find for some reason,
and bike racks where they can park their bikes
to be pretty hard to find as well.
So since it's one of the less expensive items
on this bucket if there's a way to like
do a little bit of improvement each year
instead of waiting.
That's seven years from now.
That would be really cool.
And then I also, I did find it a little difficult
to follow the priorities and why some of these projects
were in X year instead of Y year.
So some of that would be really helpful in future packets.
And then finally, just to note that
The order of this that we got from our packet
that was mailed to us beforehand was very different
than what was in the slides.
And I understand that you're updating
and that's great, love that we're getting the most up to date
but maybe there's a way that the slides could somewhat be
in the order of the package we got
because it was a little hard to follow.
Thank you.
Student member Kirsch.
Thank you for the presentation
and I'm looking forward to seeing the final results
of the projects, especially the one on San Miguel
because I go there almost all the time
and I've noticed that like there's a big need
for more sidewalks or pedestrians.
Vice Chair Cagle.
Thank you for all of your work on this.
It's, you know, it's a very big undertaking
to look at this and look forward.
The unfunded needs are kind of daunting,
causes me a little stress, I think,
with that column and thinking about, you know,
what we need to move some of this forward.
but here's hoping that, you know, things look up
and we get some good grants and things coming in
so that we can move some of this forward.
So I don't have any other comments other than thank you.
Yeah, thank you for the presentation.
It was excellent and appreciate all the work
that goes into preparing this.
And I know that it has to balance against resources
so available to the city.
So I appreciate all that.
What I also appreciate about our capital improvement program
is that as I look through here, and it's
very different than what I might have seen 15 years ago.
What I would have seen 15 years ago
is let's improve this traffic signal.
Let's get better green time.
Let's see more cars get through here.
let's add a left turn lane or add a right turn lane
or get rid of a crosswalk so that we can make
the cars go better, faster, more efficient.
And as I look through this capital improvement program,
I see very little of that.
I see improving intersection safety.
I see adjusting traffic signal phasing and timings
and operations to separate pedestrians and bicyclists
from turning automobiles,
which is a primary factor of collisions.
I see the class one, the trail crossings.
I see new class ones that were meant,
facilities, multi-use paths and such.
And those, these are all projects
that make our community more livable.
So I really appreciate that you have
almost all projects are geared towards that,
safety and livability and comfort for all users of the road,
rather than just the people in the cars.
I do remember that we had, in one of our previous discussions,
we had information about the downtown parking.
And we talked about the confusing signage,
the inconsistent signage, the inconsistent placement.
And just as Commissioner Patch said,
I think the wayfinding and cleaning that up,
I know the Locust Street project was expensive,
and it was an asset improvement.
So we didn't really do anything new, but it's wonderful.
The sidewalks that have been repaired
are much better to walk on.
I don't trip anymore, at least in those areas
where they've been improved.
Everything is better.
And it makes it more, it feels better
to be downtown with that asset change.
And it seems like signing, the parking signing,
and getting some consistency and consistent placement
of signs and bike racks and making it visible
would be a real asset to the downtown.
And so if there is a way to move that small item forward,
or maybe it's being supplemented with downtown money
from a different source, I think that would go a long way.
And then as far as the materials go,
It really would be helpful, I think, when looking at this.
Because I was going to move priorities and move projects
around.
And I decided not to, because during our discussion,
I learned that we don't actually have this money.
So it doesn't really help for me to move projects around
when you don't have the money.
And so maybe I should have known that, but I didn't.
And so I don't have a way of prioritizing these projects.
They're all important.
And it would be helpful to understand
why the priority is the way it is, at least,
if we can't understand what money is actually available.
And I understand that it's a projection of what assets
we'll have, what revenue we'll have in the future.
but it would help to understand the priority
of where these projects, why they're on the years
that they are in two years from now
when I may or may not be on the commission.
So thank you very much.
Chair, can I add one comment
in furtherance of your last comment?
Sure. Thank you.
If the city does not have,
it would be good to have like a scoring criteria
to help determine the appropriate criteria
to prioritize these types of projects,
regardless of what's funded or unfunded,
so that you can rate and rate the projects
and really look independently of money.
These are the most important ones to us.
So then if money pops up, you kind of already know
the money should go to the ones at the top of the list.
Yeah, thank you, Chair.
Thank you.
And I realize that I did not open the item up to the public
before giving our comments.
So at this time I'd like to open up the item
to public comment.
Do we have any members of the public
wishing to provide public comment?
We have no members of the public
waiting to provide comments.
Great.
Thank you very much.
And do we need to take any action here?
Just a study session.
There's no action, did you have anything else?
Just what's the next step is that we're gonna
incorporate your feedback into the capital budget
and also the CIP and then we plan to present this
to the city council and for their adoption,
at least for the, yeah, for both documents.
Great, thank you very much.
Thank you, Alex.
Before we move to the next agenda item,
I propose to take a five minute break, if you'd like.
Certainly.
Put the timer on.
OK.
The next item on the agenda for the commission
to consider is input for city council priority setting.
This is meant to be a discussion amongst ourselves
about priorities for the city council to consider.
Yes, so this is pretty informal.
Just want you to reflect on the past priorities
from two years ago and provide comments as well as ideas
for future priorities for the council to consider.
So this is kind of your input into what the council should
consider as a priority.
So if you look at the agenda report for this item in your packet, you can see a list of
the past priorities, including diversity, equity, and inclusion, DEI, economic development
and job creation, environmental sustainability and climate action, parks, facilities and
other infrastructure, and then the fifth one, public safety and social wellness.
there's some additional descriptions in there but really kind of want to capture
your thoughts here on on this and try to create a summary that we can then pass
on to City Council. Okay how would the commission like to proceed we can go one
by one is that the preference for now or do you want to just banter back and
forth one by one we can go one by one but if people like want to make comments
in the middle or ask questions then let's do that would you like to start
Commissioner Ash I guess I'd love to see a report on how did they do and how did
they score themselves so that would be my first sort of comment and question
right? Did they achieve these things? Did they meet their goals, and all of that. I
definitely think economic development and job creation should be in here, but I
would like to see specific things tackled, such as employee parking has come
up in a lot of conversations I've been in. So more and more, particularly of the
retail sector like the employees that work there are coming from further and
further away and they have to pay their own parking and some of them move their
cars they have to like leave their job every two hours to move their car to get
a free thing or it's not subsidized and we've got to figure out like a specific
economic development program like related to employee parking and stuff I
also would put under economic development and job creation I would
sorry thinking got to think through these these thoughts here I'm gonna hold
off but I would say be specific in there with the goals all right can you come
back to me for the rest yeah I want to phrase how I'm gonna think how I'm gonna
phrase things all right I did I did participate two years ago I didn't
participate but I went to the meeting to listen when the council was forming
their priorities. And I actually think, and there's some links in the back
here, I think there are some reports on their progress available out there on
the website. So looking at the environmental sustainability and climate
action I think is good. We make reasonable measured movement and progress
in that area, the one thing I would maybe ask to pull out because the city is not a
scientific organization, and I do not believe we have climate or weather scientists on staff.
I know it's a very politically charged area. There are, you know, there are scientists
on both sides and scientists in the middle. I think for our city to adopt a climate emergency
resolution is probably going a bit too far I would ask them to consider to not
have a political body go that far and declare a climate emergency on behalf of
the city of Walnut Creek yeah okay well thank you okay thank you probably my
big ones under public safety and social wellness and I'm sure others were gonna
bring this up too but I got to bring it up first if we think about what has
happened in Los Angeles with the you know lack of enough water to fight that
large of a fire I know it was unusual circumstances I as a pilot I get why
they weren't in the air with those winds and I hope we never have that kind
fire here in Walnut Creek, but it did get me thinking about, and this would be done I think
either in conjunction with or they would just get data maybe from Contra Costa County fire.
Do all of our hydrants have sufficient pressure? Is there enough water coming through those hydrants
to handle, you know, a house fire on the low end to, you know, we have a lot of multi-residential
buildings. We're building more multi-residential buildings. We're
building more single family homes in, you know, such close proximity, some as
close as the distance between, you know, Laura and Jared here on some of the more
recent projects. Is there enough? Is there enough water available at our
hydrants to feed, you know, Contra Costa County fires needs to put out these
fires. I think it was just sort of a, you know, a wake up call. You know,
fortunately, I don't think we're built as a city where we're likely to have, you
know, a firestorm like they experienced just because of our topography. And we
don't seem to get that level of wind, although I remember the heavy winds when
the fires were happening up north. So I I'd love to see something about
ensuring we have the water and sufficient testing of pressure so that
we in Walnut Creek, no homeowner, resident, renter, business owner, business
customer ever gets caught, you know, being surprised that the fire can't be put out.
That's my big one for now. I would I would add to that a little bit and it's
it gets at maybe some specifics but oftentimes when you have those big fires
you can't do much like we've seen in LA and so the important thing is life
safety and evacuation and so I would I would kind of add that to it beyond just
the functional aspect of is there a hydrant system and do we have adequate
water coverage but more importantly maybe do we have adequate facilities to
get people out if there's a fire or some other large emergency. Yeah that's a
great point because actually one of our public speakers tonight talked about you
know they were talking about the speed bumps but would any of our traffic
calming work, delay sufficiently the evacuation and or the ability of the
emergency vehicles to get in. I think I would not I don't think I would be happy
with going to say is it traffic calming because it's more than just traffic
calming. Yeah. It's how do you move people and how do you you you know what the
population is, you know, approximately what auto ownership is. So could you try to figure
out and assess if you can move a large group of people out of an area independent of what
well, let me rephrase that move a large people, large group of people out of the area while
still having based on the roads that they have for themselves.
So the roads in out where Jaret lives or
or Commissioner Ash lives are going to be very different than the roads in Markey.
Yeah. Park area versus the roads that where I live on the outskirts of downtown.
So I think more along the lines is generally evacuation.
How is that?
And the ability to fight the fire
or deal with the mass emergency
if it's an earthquake or something like that.
Very good.
So can I tack on to that, maybe creating a resiliency?
You stole my word.
Ah.
I'm thinking.
I was sitting over here waiting
and I've got it written down already.
And I think the League of Cities has done some work
and studies on resiliency and how cities can prep
and that includes preparing for fires.
I know we do a good job with the goats
and some of the canals at Lime Ridge creating barriers
but I think we should look at the fire,
the water that everybody's talking about,
the evacuation routes,
because if Lime Ridge and Mount Diablo
catches like a large scale fire,
and by the way, like last the summer,
we did have a fire in Lime Ridge
And before the fire trucks even got there,
there was helicopters and airplanes dropping on it.
So that was just very impressive to the response times.
But if we have to evacuate everybody from Clayton
and North Concord and all of Walnut Creek down Ignacio,
we ain't getting out fast enough, right?
And I know Moraga has those challenges.
So maybe overall, look at resiliency planning
with fire, water, evac, in a couple different ways.
Great, that could be.
Cool.
My understanding is that the city is gonna have to have,
the council is going to have to have,
it's one of their priorities, the general plan,
because it needs to be done.
And that was part of the discussion two years ago
if it was gonna be in this priority list or the next one.
So my guess is we won't have these particular priorities.
So I'm gonna weigh in on things
that I think that they should keep or add or adjust.
I think the DEI is really important to continue.
I would like to see some of the language
that this council and the city uses
around inclusion and equity include accessibility.
because we do talk about mental health
in terms of homelessness and public safety,
but not in terms of like how do we address it
on a day-to-day basis as well as mobility issues.
And from a transportation perspective,
there's still improvements we can do for that.
The economic development and job creation,
I love the idea of the economic diversification element
of it, but I feel like it's a little,
The, as it was written two years ago,
doesn't acknowledge work from home culture,
which, you know, there's a little bit of shift away
in the tech industry, but for a lot of organizations,
it is still people working from home.
And so how do we, like, is there anything
that they wanna do about those people that are here
and what that ends up entailing, right?
A lot of us that work from home
end up doing DoorDash a lot,
and that has having impact on our city
because you get the cars waiting and pickups
and all that kind of stuff in our downtown area
as well as other shopping centers.
I am mostly concerned that they won't have something
about the environment in their priorities,
and I think that that's a mistake.
I understand that the sustainability action plan
has been passed, but that doesn't mean
that it shouldn't still be a priority.
And along those lines, I think it needs to be
about environmental sustainability and resilience,
focusing on some of our like decreasing waste usage
because recycling is a very effective open space elements
so that we can prepare for if there's fires.
By decreasing the chances of fires,
trees in grassy areas helps a lot.
So would love to see that stay in the priority list.
And maybe that's the environmental sustainability
and resilience and the park's facilitation
and other infrastructure can combine somehow
because I think those align,
especially when we're talking about Measure O funding,
tree planting, those kind of things
that are improving the environment
as well as the citizen experience, I guess.
And then for public safety and wellness,
This blurb that they had two years ago, three of the five
talk about crime and police.
And I agree with what's kind of already been said
that safety needs to consider more than that.
And as we experience worse natural disasters,
flooding is gonna be an issue in the city,
fires obviously are going to be an issue.
I love that there is something about transit and traffic
pedestrian and bike safety want to make sure that that stays but maybe I don't
want to say a de-emphasis on crime safety but also an understanding that
safety doesn't just mean crimes and police force it also means our County
Fire Department and working with them for evacuation plans there's sandbags
for when it does rain but like do people actually know that they can get them
and where they are so better communication around that would be
really great and then what to do in case of a fire so maybe like some
residential education. Perfect timing. Student chair Kirsh. So yeah I think like
a lot of these priorities are pretty intertwined like the public safety and
and social wellness, as well as economic development
and job creation.
I'm not sure how I would rank them in order of importance,
but I would probably say that like the two biggest ones
would be public safety and social wellness
and the economic development and job creation.
And also maybe like affordable housing
or just affordable, like in the downtown area, for example,
there's a lot of stores that have had
to close down recently because like the lease is really high.
So maybe we should try to do something about that.
Okay.
So I think in light of the fires in Southern California
and recent other potential disasters
that have kind of been in our site,
whether it was the tsunami warning recently
from that earthquake up north
just different disasters, the Bay Area is disaster-prone, earthquake-prone, etc., correct.
So I think emergency response is something that would be smart to look at this year.
And from our transportation commission lens, of course, evacuation routes are going to
be important for a lot of those different type disasters.
And then in general, around some of these, I don't see them changing that drastically
if I were to look in a crystal ball of what the council is going to do.
But in general, I would encourage forward thinking when it comes to AI and technology
and how all of that is changing as far as all of the priorities are concerned and how
specifically we can make our transportation system safer using some
of that. And then also considering that when aligning our transportation
planning efforts with economic development. Just a more technology-savvy
Thank you.
I formulated some more of my thought.
Do you want me to go before you so you can go last or should I?
By all means.
I want to hear your well thought out thought.
Well, I don't know how well thought out they are, but they sound better than me just stuttering.
So along the lines that my colleague, Vice Chair Cagle suggested, I was going to suggest
that the city become a leader in adopting AI technology,
even willing to pilot programs.
And you could prioritize within that.
I wrote down public safety, traffic, public works,
streamlining, permitting,
are all tools that AI could really help with
and the resiliency thing, the evacuation routes,
the technology coming in AI
is gonna make a real difference.
I put down that the city council and senior city staff
should do town halls, and I hope that none of them
know that was me who said this,
but town halls per the neighborhoods.
Walnut Creek is very unique
that we have a lot of neighborhoods,
but not often is there a concentrated effort
for the city to go into a lot of those
different neighborhoods and I saw this year and Smitar was very involved, Matt
was very involved in like the Woodlands area, they hosted a public meeting at the
library, they got out and did a transportation display in some of the
neighborhoods and I think if the city can host these town halls and get out
there into those with a couple of key staff and one or two members of the
Council, I think that would be important to do
over the next two years.
And then because we're the Transportation Commission,
maybe we should have transportation as a priority.
And I noticed in all of our capital budgets,
improving the commute down Ignacio wasn't on there.
But I know there was a lot of important other things,
but maybe we should look at like
where is transportation going in the next 10, 15 years?
And how can Walnut Creek be a leader in that?
Because the traffic down Ignacio
isn't just people in Walnut Creek,
it's people from the whole region
that are coming through our city as a transit corridor,
connecting to other cities, but they're also shopping here,
which leads to the economic development.
And so if our city could sort of,
I think we could be more innovative as a city overall
in transportation and technology adoption.
So thank you.
I totally agree.
Like, I think it would be very cool to see transportation
and transit as a priority by itself,
because I think it like would allow us
for some of these cool projects
that staff has come up with to get priority
and funding that they might have to fight for.
And also, because we're one of the pilots for the AI driven buses and I'd love to see
more of those kind of programs in our city. And I think having it as a priority for two years might
allow for that. And I love the town hall idea. Getting out, I think that's great.
And then wherever you want to sequence me in chair, I do have one other thing I want to add
And I can go after you or whatever you want.
Go ahead and go.
I'll go last.
We're saving the best for last, the chair.
He's so polite.
Yeah.
So I'm going to bring forward something
from my Design Review Commission passion.
So I just looked up, as of 2023, we
had the population of Walnut Creek, about 69,050 or so
people.
So, a lot of people, and I would like to see the council start taking a more balanced approach
to development, to not just blindly go where the state says we shall go, but to be thoughtful
and balanced and think about the 69,000, maybe 70,000 people that live here now and not have
an attitude of hey the people have lived here forever you don't matter anymore
we're just gonna do all this other stuff with development and we don't care
what it does to your neighborhood or your you know your quality of life I'd
like to see more balance and more thoughtful concern for the 69,000 that
are already here. Anything else? No? I have 18 other items. You can wait two years from
now. So I think that one of the things that I struggled with when I saw this last time
And I did go back and look at the reports,
is that transportation is not here.
I mean, it is, we have improved traffic,
transit, pedestrian, and bike safety.
We have another place,
we use the term alternative transportation.
In another place, we say attractions and infrastructure.
So yeah, we could meddle in and say transportation.
But let me just say transportation,
starting with the emergency issue, evacuation,
that's transportation.
Getting the fire department to where they need to go,
that's transportation.
Getting the ambulances where they need to go,
where the hospitals go, that's transportation.
Getting the kids safely to places where they want to be
for recreation or for schools, that's transportation.
Getting the people to use the buses, getting, giving opportunities for people to use the buses.
That's transportation.
Giving people that live in Rossmer opportunities to not have to drive their cars as they get older,
but give them opportunities to use, like transit, to get to the downtowns,
to get to the community centers.
That's transportation.
I can go on and on and on and on.
It's, transportation is what our city is.
If we look at the infrastructure and we look at our assets,
look at what we did on Locust.
We improved the Locust corridor.
That is transportation.
And yet, transportation is not on here and it needs to be.
Transportation is also about sustainability.
If we have a balanced transportation system
where people have choices, they drive less,
that helps with the environment.
Whether you agree or disagree or have something in the middle
about climate action or climate change,
transportation as a balanced system helps that.
Your economic development and job creation,
you have people working at home,
you mentioned Uber and Lyft and Amazon
and all these, that's transportation.
Getting those people that are working at home,
an easy way to get to the local businesses is transportation.
Your development issue,
your concern about the 69,000 people that are here.
But we also have closed up retail downtown.
Putting housing downtown is transportation,
but it is also economics.
If they're living downtown,
they don't need to drive as much.
they can walk and bike and use transit.
And if they are living downtown,
they can support the businesses
so that the retail shops don't have to dry up
because they can't survive.
That's transportation.
So I've just shown how transportation,
parks, I could go on, I don't wanna go on.
Transportation is key to our city.
And yet, we don't have anything in here except throwing in a little bit of stuff under public safety,
a little bit over here and a little bit there, but it's so generic that there ends up being no priority in this city around transportation.
Now, I know that the city is shifting and it's moving towards a safety aspect,
But transportation is also economic development,
it's sustainability, it's safety, public safety,
however you want to use the term safety,
it's social welfare.
If we can provide ways of helping the people
that are either homeless, unhoused,
whatever the term is that we're supposed to use now,
or whether they need to get to services,
it's all transportation and yet we don't have anything.
And so I would ask that if you could,
you've heard a lot of information
from all the other commissioners.
If you could develop something that is related,
that relates all of that to transportation
and have that as a goal and integrate the other pieces
that are here, I think that that would be really important.
And I haven't written it.
I've thought about it, but I have not written it.
It's hard.
And I don't know what your next process is,
but I wish that you would, the city would do that.
So would you guys agree, would you all
agree that transportation should be
the priority with a lot of the discussions
that you talked about, including emergency preparedness,
environmental sustainability, pedestrian bicycle safety,
wrapped up into that transportation priority?
Is that what you're proposing, Rob?
That's what I'm proposing.
And then, yeah, how do you guys?
And you could even include economic development
and public safety aspects in that too.
Yeah, I agree.
I think that that covers a lot of it.
I think the DEI still needs to be pulled out
from transportation, because while there's elements of it,
it needs to be a broader category.
Yeah, so still having DEI.
And then, Laura, you also mentioned the general plan.
I wanted to see if we had any other comments on that
from the commissioners.
And Rob, you mentioned that two years ago
when I watched the video.
You did mention the general plan then, yeah.
Do you want to go for it?
So for the general plan, I do think
that the general plan, if it's approached the way I want it
to be approached, the general plan is a real opportunity
to illustrate how these elements in the general plan,
how they relate and are interrelated.
And I think that you would get a lot of, or some
of what we've, what I just talked about
and what the others here have talked about.
As long as we can approach the general plan not as silos,
which is what tends to happen in general plan processes,
we approach it as silos.
I'm my transportation expert.
I do transportation.
Others are the parks expert.
They do parks and no one,
no one looks at how they relate to each other.
and I think that's the piece that's missing in most cities
is the integration, how everything is integrated.
And I would agree that DNI doesn't really fit,
that's more of a personnel thing,
and it's a way that we treat people
and that sort of thing.
So I think that is different,
and I'm not saying that transportation
should be the only focus.
I'm just saying that it needs to be a key priority.
And the general plan is one way of getting a holistic shift, if we will, to thinking
about our city a little bit differently.
So I would say A, bravo to the chair for how you pulled that all together and, you know,
did all the different dots, transportation.
I think that's fantastic.
I generally agree with what you're proposing,
Matt, around trying to get transportation as the main theme.
I just think there's a few things.
I agree the DEI is a separate.
And I think some of the safety things we talked about,
like do we have enough hydrants with enough pressure,
are they being tested?
That piece, I think, is more of a safety piece than a,
A lot of the other stuff that the chair brought up,
connecting the dots between the safety
and the transportation is spot on.
But there's a couple things, you know,
that I was thinking about like the, you know,
do we have the right water pressure?
Do these things work?
When's the last time we tested them?
I think that's a core safety, not transportation issue.
And it's an outlier issue,
but it sounded like everybody was fairly concerned
universally about, are we prepared?
Well, and that element of safety should include things
like prepared, not just like responses,
but like preventative preparedness.
I agree, yeah, no, I think that was a great ad.
Yeah, and definitely.
For the general plan, I feel like I could see something
similar to what they have in the environmental sustainability
and climate action from two years ago,
where the goal is to complete
the city sustainability action plan.
The goal for having a general plan on the priority list
is to complete the general plan,
because we need one and they can't put it off anymore.
I would have personal thoughts on
what should be included in that,
but I think coming from the commission,
it's like acknowledgement that it needs to be there
and the goal needs to be written in past.
Yeah, and to follow up on what my two colleagues said,
yes, on the general plan, it's time.
It's been 40 plus years.
It's time for an update.
And yes, I still think resiliency
should be put in as a separate topic that
includes the fire, the water, and all of that.
Yes, and then I would love it.
And I don't know what our ability is from up here.
So staff, please correct me.
But per the discussion between the secretary and the chair
just a minute ago in the study session,
if you could write something up, I
don't know if we're allowed to.
We're not allowed to comment on that.
That was a group right out of here.
No.
OK.
So never mind.
Skip that.
That's why I was talking out loud.
but please include trees in the resiliency element.
I will never stop advocating for more trees.
Do you have what you need?
I am going to, yeah, so I'm gonna try to,
like if you were council, right,
let's think of your top five priorities,
and based on the discussion,
I'll put those together as DEI,
you'd keep that basically, general plan update.
To Commissioner Crelling's point,
I kind of combined safety and infrastructure.
So to the pressure of the water, kind of combining there too,
but so pulling like their safety and combining
with infrastructure.
And then the last one would be transportation.
And that covers environmental sustainability,
that covers infrastructure preparedness or resilient
Emergency response, it also covers technology, AI,
integration, and it speaks to economic development
considering transportation.
So trying to combine a lot of those topics
you discussed there.
How does that sound?
Could I make one suggestion?
Yeah.
Do public safety infrastructure and climate resilience?
I think that captures a little bit more.
I'm good with that.
And then I think you could throw the housing
under transportation.
It's really almost where you build the housing
so that you reduce the traffic as opposed
to increase the traffic.
Kind of fell nicely in there.
So totally agree with everything.
you did a great job putting everything together.
I would have technology innovation
and being a leader at adopting and piloting new technologies
under every single one of those categories,
not just transportation.
Because I think it should ring true
and I would love to see Walnut Creek as a leader
in that side of things.
You'd put it under DEI?
I'm curious just like what that would entail.
That might be a longer conversation, but I think,
yeah, I think you can, because,
I wanna choose my words carefully.
I think technology might not have the same bias
that a human eye does.
And I think there's ways that you could use it appropriately
to take away any preconceived biases
that us as humans are flawed with?
Oh, I was going to do just the opposite.
I was going to say the problem with technology
is that it does not follow DE&I.
It is only as good as the people that make it.
And therefore, technology and innovation
needs to be developed with DE&I as a focus
so that it is balanced in its development and application.
I think that's where I land a little bit more.
As an expert in digital accessibility,
there's a lot of AI out there
that claims it's going to fix accessibility
and it actually makes things less accessible for people.
Okay, so I'm corrected.
So everything but under DEI embrace technology?
No, no, no, I think it can go under DEI,
but it's like ensuring that technology is accessible
and follows DEI best practices.
Yes, yes.
I think we're all responding, well, we'll go with the theme.
We all have our own biases to what you might have
meant with your comment.
So my personal bias was, you know,
AI could maybe be a powerful tool in analyzing
is your DEI program doing what you want it to do
after you've defined what success looks like.
Yeah.
And we always forget that DE&I is also about accessibility.
It's about people with mobility hearing visual impairments
that need to be able to have equal access.
And doesn't technology and AI, can it lead to more of that?
Or make it worse.
Yeah.
Well, I'm going with the better side of how do we filter it in,
right?
I think, I think it's one of the items that we need to.
One of the things we need to consider when we are.
For that goal, that that priority, we have to recognize that
what goes in there is we want it to be balanced.
We want it to be accessible.
I mean, we could just, you know, have a
we believe a priority
from the five of us would six of us would be using using and adopting leading edge technologies
and being a role model for other cities to advance d eni no i'm making it more broad
to advance kind of everything we do to care and feed the city of walnut creek so are you suggesting
another priority yeah because i think yeah just like another priority that's really that it's
It's really Commissioner Ash's proposal and, you know, we've been talking about what does
that mean?
Does that fall under some of the others or is it, I'm starting to feel like standalone
might be better and because then that technology, the discussion can happen amongst the council
and throughout the city leadership and staff, if they adopted as a priority, you know, adopting
leading-edge technology is to further, you know, the growth, care, and feeding of Walnut Creek.
You're making a go to anything. You're making the argument that I made about transportation.
Yes, yeah. I don't have a problem with that. See, flatteries, I mean repetition or imitation,
this is there's form of flattery, right? Right, right. Yeah, that's why you're smiling.
one point I didn't want to cover is the town halls and the communication and maybe even education
could we combine that into the general plan as kind of the outreach for that general plan?
Yes, if they're gonna do the general plan as a prioritization item this could fall under that
because to do that that yes it would tie in together because to do the general plan you
should be having these very localized neighborhood meetings and conversations
in preparation for that. Yes. Yeah and it's a good it's a good up it's a good
opportunity to bring the community together and educate the community about
what the whole city is so I like that approach. So I did list off four so it
looks like we're adding another one with this technology and innovation priority
And then in there, we're describing basically proliferation of technology in all the above
priorities and the use of AI with pilots and just...
Innovation.
Technology.
And how we do business and...
And I like it having a little bit of a broad context of innovation, because then I think
that actually goes to our transportation too.
Maybe there's new pavement that we can try out
and that falls under the innovation aspect
and doesn't just have to be AI.
It can be new technologies that aren't digital based.
Right, do it to that priority.
So we're given a menu of choices to the council
that they can, you know, it was free
and that's what it was worth, right?
Yeah.
Well, we've got four.
I think we do.
We've got five priorities.
He got five good appreciate there we go appreciate the comments and input on that
Okay, next item
Yeah, great at this time
I'd like to invite the commissioners and staff to provide their reports on activities and or announcements
I
just was
Well, I have one question and one
recommendation for a future meeting is I would love to see what the parking revenue is at
What parking occupancy is at that's actually falls under the jurisdiction of this commission and we haven't
had any updates in a long time, so I would just
You know love to see what those numbers are how we're doing somebody said the parking revenue is down
Okay, why what what are the numbers for that right?
And if we could have that at another meeting at the next one or two, that would be great and then
Sminer just stepped out but I was gonna ask I know and I referenced it in the the town hall meetings
The work that was done in the woodlands and everything else and I just wanted to see Matt
Maybe you have do you have an update on what are the next steps and where we're going? I would love to
Do you guys want to finish yours and then I'll do all my staff updates and I'll include that I
Have nothing to report. Thank you
I was recently in New Zealand and Australia and saw really cool ways that they did pedestrian biking and
vehicle
Layouts and they had signs that included scooters and bikes
Which I thought was really inclusive and as were we talked earlier, you know
Wayfay way finding signs it would be cool if it included both bikes and other micro mobility
Options and so if anybody wants to see pictures
I can't really show them here in the council chamber, but I have cool pictures of how
New Zealand and Australia do those things
No announcements. I don't have any announcements but regarding the upcoming general plan as we move closer to that
I'd love to hear a little bit more about how the city's approaching it and
How we may or may not be involved
Ditto what she said?
That's all I have
So if I could provide mine
Yeah in regard to the citrus
We've developed some concept plans for different improvements and we hope to share those back with the neighborhood
This month early February so that we can get their comments and then we can go into a more detailed design
and then
Move forward
So it's it's a bit of an outreach
Was gonna say the same thing if you can keep us
Abreast of what those are directly that would be appreciative as individuals and and I was just gonna ask
What was the method of communication you were gonna use to go back to the neighborhood?
Yeah, so it was a series of outreach plans,
including emails as also possibly door-to-door information,
flyers, and then possibly a gathering if we needed to.
It depends on the cohesion of the neighbors
and making sure that we're in agreement with what
we're proposing.
And if we need to have deeper discussions,
then we can have a session.
But we're excited for the plan.
I think it addresses a lot of the issues
that we've been hearing.
And so, yeah, a few short weeks.
Just on the grant side, I'll give two updates.
We did apply for an MTC grant to receive funds
for redesigning the California and Ignacio Valley Road
intersection right near BART.
This is in our CIP.
Previously, it was unfunded.
It has some TIF funds already allocated.
And so this would help us complete the design.
And then we would have plans ready for a future grant
to help us construct it.
And then more recently this month,
Brian is focusing on some safety grants with OTS operation of traffic safety or office
of traffic safety with California and that those funds would actually go towards the
project that Rashad talked about tonight. So some additional funds for that two hundred
and thirty thousand dollar price tag on those projects. I'll leave it at that. Great. I
I hereby adjourn the January 16th, 2025 regular meeting of the Transportation Commission.
Our next regular meeting is March 20th, 2025.