It's become a through street to 680 and there's a lot of commuter traffic.
It climbs uphill going west so drivers come around the corner at the trail crossing and
put on the gas to climb the hill.
The other direction they get rolling down the hill and the 25 mile an hour speed limit
is really a joke.
I would say the average if an assessment was done is significantly higher than that.
I've talked to the Walnut Creek police and that's why I'm here because they said they
can't really do much about it.
They have given the temporary radar signs from time to time and I've asked them to come
write their reports and hang out and be on the street more.
You know I understand people aren't going to go 25 probably but they're going 35, 40,
45, 50.
So what I am asking in this letter is some kind of solution and I'm thinking I don't
I know that much about traffic,
but I'm thinking traffic calming strips,
permanent radar signs like there is down on San Luis road,
or just more police enforcement,
or other things that Matt and I have talked about.
So I hope you will consider it.
I hope you'll take a look at the letter.
It has more details on it.
Yeah, any questions?
No but did you fill out a speaker card? I did. You did okay and do you want to hand the letter to us?
It is. Thank you very much. Next speaker. Hi there again thank you for allowing us to come
here and speak to you tonight. My name is Ellen Castleman, wife of Ken, live on Kenehoe Way.
I could repeat a lot of what Ken said over the 30 plus years that we lived there you know traffic
has increased as well as the speed, the percentage of the speed of drivers on our street. Just
a couple of anecdotes. Driving on our street in order to turn into my driveway I need to make a
hard right 90 degree turn so of course I go out just a little bit not into the lane of oncoming
traffic but just a little and then to go in. Twice drivers have tried to pass me on the right.
I normally drive because I want to be respectful of our street between 25 and I'll admit 25 to 30
miles per hour. I mean I really do try to keep it slow. I routinely also had people pass me on the
left because they just want to, you know, go through. The street didn't used to be a through
way. At the trail crossing it used to be, I believe, too cul-de-sacs but way before we moved in
they opened it up and so I was going to check on Google Maps but I'm almost positive it will show
that as the way to get to the freeway. My son, who's 29, he's not a kid, when he's driving,
he just routinely pulls over and lets people pass because they're tailgating and driving too fast.
A lot of folks on the street have the slow down signs, they have the little person
attached the last page is a petition that some neighbors have signed on to it's just a start
that we wanted to get some initial signatures of people who support this effort but i mean
we've talked for years about how we really need something to help people not speed not just fly
down our street um yeah so anyway thank you so much for taking this into consideration thank you
any other speakers i'm not saying any these are extras enjoy dinner thank you okay uh
next on the agenda is the adoption of the january 16th 2025 meeting minutes uh do i have a motion
for so moved you're gonna let me finish wow wow i got places to go later you know do i do i have a
motion do I have a second well prior to the motion I have a question on the
minutes if I may sure it I believe it said in there we had an update on the
the woodlands traffic calming I'm not recalling that but will there be more
updates on that project down the road yes okay yeah cuz I don't think you guys
have gotten far enough probably to, with your studies.
Okay, thank you.
Then with that, I'm happy to second the motion.
Will you take the roll?
Student Commissioner Kirsch.
Commissioner Ash.
Aye.
Commissioner Krelling.
Aye.
Commissioner Patch.
Aye.
Vice Chair Cagle.
Aye.
Chair Reese.
Aye.
Okay, next on the agenda is an item
for commission consideration, the election of a new chair
and vice chair.
At this time I will open up this item for public comment.
Do we have any members of the public wishing
to provide public comment?
We have no members of the public looking
to provide comments on this.
That's your, so we missed some information.
Yeah, so I think here is where we open it
up for discussion amongst yourselves
about what you want to do.
Yeah, so I'm gonna now open up the discussion
for the commission to discuss who should be the next chair
and vice chair of this commission for the next year.
If she's willing to, I think Sam has the expertise
and the knowledge to lead us yet again.
This would be your second time, and it would be an honor.
If a motion was made, if you would accept.
I would be happy to.
OK.
Do I have a motion for the election of the new chair?
I would.
Do you want to?
I don't want to steal your thunder.
I think he was going to ask for discussion still,
so I wasn't that's why I had to make the motion.
Well, unless.
Do you want to have a discussion?
No, my discussion comment is Commissioner Cahill has served as vice chair and I think
in normal course of business, she should be chair.
Great, that's the second.
Secretary will you take the role?
Student Commissioner Kirsh, absent.
Commissioner Ash?
Aye.
Commissioner Crelling?
Aye.
Commissioner Patch?
Aye.
Vice Chair Cagle?
Aye.
And Chair Reese?
I'll now open up the discussion for the vice chair. Do we have suggestions for nominations?
I have a question for the secretary. Were both Charles and Laura appointed at the same
moment in time? Was one five minutes, like I think Sam Kegel was a week before me, an
official appointment, so she's more senior.
Do we know?
What an interesting question.
I know they had orientation at the same time,
so it was definitely twins at birth kind of thing.
Twins and born one minute apart, right?
Do we know who would win an arm wrestling match?
No, sorry.
This is recorded, sorry.
Second interesting question.
So I will offer myself up.
I'm an experienced chair from the Design Review Commission,
vice chair of the Design Review Commission,
and longtime chair of the Contra Costa County Merit Board.
That being said, I offer up my services,
but if the commission would like to choose otherwise,
I'm okay with that too.
Commissioner Patch.
I think that makes sense.
As somebody who has expertise,
that would be a great element for our vice chair.
So, Mr. Chair, can I make a motion?
Yes, you may.
I'd like to motion that this guy be appointed vice chair
of the transportation commission
for the 25, 26 calendar cycle.
And his name is?
Charles Keating.
Great, thank you.
Do we have a second?
Do we have a second?
I will second that motion.
Great, as secretary.
Well, I think before we vote though,
we should ask if like the, you know,
how many minutes apart was the motion
And the second, in the spirit of Commissioner Ash's questions.
What we're doing is we're delaying this commission.
So Commissioner Jared is late, wherever it is that he's trying to get to.
No, I was trying to, sorry, I was trying to look up his map and where he was.
And I don't know that Google, anyway.
Student Commissioner Kirsh, absent.
Commissioner Ash?
Aye.
Commissioner Crelling?
Aye.
I vice chair Kegel I chair Reese while they're moving seats I'd like to take a
moment of personal privilege to thank mr. Reeves to for his service to this
committee and for his expertise in leading us with the quorum in grace
thank you yes thank you very much Commissioner Reese now for your service
as chair you did an excellent job and led us through some of the busiest
Transportation Commission meetings we've had so grateful for your leadership
thank you okay so that moves us on to our next item which is the downtown
curbside management plan staff is going to do an overview of curbside management
strategies, existing city plans and goals, as well as preliminary findings from the
city's downtown curbside management plan data collection. I invite staff to make
their presentation. Thank you Chair Cagle evening. So my name is Brianna Byrne. I'm
associate traffic engineer here at the City of Walnut Creek and tonight I will
be presenting on the city's curbside management project. The agenda for
tonight, it is a bit long so I do have a break in the middle where you'll be
able to ask any clarifying questions. Each one of these slides has a slide
number, so as the question arises, feel free to take the note and we can
navigate back as needed. So the first item or the first discussion point will
be what's the role of transportation commission as it relates to curb
management. In part one we'll do an overview of the curb, what are the
demands for the space, what current curb management policies or sorry what
current curb management strategies we implement, and then moving into part two
we have our downtown curbside management plan. So this is the background, the goals,
the timeline will dig into some existing data, and at that point we are selecting or soliciting feedback.
So the Transportation Commission serves as the city's parking authority in the development review and
implementation of a city parking plan.
After the City Council adopts this plan, the Commission can alter the following, if applicable,
and recommended through the plan. So that's parking rates and hours of operation.
So going into part one is an overview of the curb space.
So for the purpose of this conversation and our curb management plan,
curb space is the area where you usually see people park, bus stops, loading zones.
But that space can be used for bike lanes, curb extensions or parklets.
When we talk about management, it's organizing these uses along the curb
based on transportation and community goals.
and it's about seeking the balance among all those users.
So, I have two photos, the lower left,
just a typical block, parking block in downtown Walnut Creek,
that's South Main Street, where we just have three hour parking metered spaces.
And on the right, we have a streetscape at Main Street and Bonanza,
So through the intersection it's bolded out.
There's, you know, from a safety perspective,
no desire for parking through the intersection.
And so it became a streetscaping opportunity.
So the curb space, it serves many different users,
different functions at different times in the day.
So it's about managing all of the competing interests.
So moving into vehicles, the one that likely comes
to mine is short-term and long-term parking.
Within the downtown, we have two zones.
We have a three-hour zone and a 10-hour zone.
We have ADA parking stalls.
These are spread out through downtown.
We know where streets aren't wide enough for parking
or loading.
That curb space is used as a vehicle travel lane.
We have emergency access needs, so fire hydrants and fire
lanes.
And that photo that we have there with the red curb
is an example of one of our aerial access points for fire.
So it's striped red for their purpose, for their needs.
We have commercial loading.
That's the yellow.
Passenger loading, it would be a white curb.
And think the curb space in front of the movie theater
for dropping and picking up moviegoers.
So then we have food delivery.
Think about our 15-minute pickup spots.
and then trash collection and pick up.
They need access to those bin spaces.
So the next one is streetscapes.
Think of these as the pedestrian experience.
So with that curb space,
it's opportunity for outdoor dining
with excess sidewalk width.
We can do signage, benches,
landscaping, green infrastructure,
shading trees lighting and at intersections there's the opportunity for curb extensions which is
that safety improvement to reduce the crossing distance for pedestrians. Moving on to bicycles
where where we don't have parking bike lanes can be curb adjacent so this would take up that curb
that curb real estate. Then we have a separated dedicated curbside and shared space enhancements,
so these could be along the curb. And I gave an example of a bicycle parking space here.
We were activating unused curb space on South Main Street, south of Cyprus. But this could be,
you know, in a shared space with pedestrians. Similarly, we have e-bike charging stations and
possibly bike repair stations or we could have as an opportunity.
Lastly we have transit. So infrastructure wise along our curb we have bus stops and these could be
in-lane stops. We have several downtown or they could be dedicated turnouts.
These are typically on maybe higher speed, higher volume roads. California Boulevard would be an
example, possible sidewalk enhancements as they relate to transit, shelters, route
signage, wayfinding information. So digging into curb management. So what
would our downtown look like without any type of rules or time limits or meters
on our curb? So downtown Walnut Creek we have an incredible amount of restaurants,
services retail and it would attract visitors so visitors they want to shop
they want to dine they want to patron these businesses if they could park
anywhere it'd be first come first serve they'd be parking right outside of their
business or their desired destination and without you know any reason to leave
they they shop they dine and then there's there's no incentive for them to
to to give that space up to someone else who wants to do the same. So we have
reduced turnover. People park and stay at these, you know, desirable spots for
longer. And what also happens is as more and more people come into the downtown,
these curb spaces are occupied. When there's, you know, no places to park and
where people are coming in, it increases traffic congestion. There's the potential
to lose new visitors, there's no space for them to pull into.
And when it comes to just operation of the businesses,
deliveries can't be made.
So looking at our current curbside management strategies
going down the list, so we, at our meters,
we have time of day limits.
So this is, it essentially establishes
when we're doing the parking management hours.
So for Walnut Creek, it's 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. every day.
Zone-based max duration.
So I'd mentioned this earlier.
We have two zones, essentially.
We have a green zone, which is three hours.
And a 10-hour zone, three hours is really
in that core downtown, as we think of it.
And 10 hours is on the outskirts.
The curb demand outcome, it's intended to create turnover.
On its own, it's not as effective, it's hard to enforce, from an operational standpoint,
so meters help with that turnover.
For our two zones, we have green, so that's $2 an hour, sorry, so for our zone-based pricing,
That core area is $2 an hour, and purple, on these outskirts, are $1 an hour.
That really incentivizes the turnover, puts a financial incentive to relocate if they're
not intending to stay longer or continue shopping.
We have our curb pickup location.
This is intended for a quick pickup of fast food restaurant dining options.
Commercial loading.
We have 20-minute commercial loading zones intended to deliver goods.
Accessible parking.
These are distributed through our downtown, providing parking for those with accessibility
needs.
Passenger loading.
So again, this is the white curb,
tended for pickup and drop off of people.
And then to help with the minimizing of congestion,
we have wayfinding signage to the garage.
So they're specifically to the garages
because we wanna get drivers to a place
with a higher parking supply where they're more likely
to get that parking space that they're hoping for.
So moving into this concept
of the 85th percentile occupancy goal.
So again, talking about that frustration
of if we didn't have any curb management,
there's nowhere for you to find parking.
This 85 percentile goal is a goal across the industry
where if you look at the bottom image there,
it's roughly one space available for every 10 spaces.
So as you're driving along a curb face,
you're gonna be able to find a parking spot.
So at that, at this goal, parking's easy to find
and our curb space, our asset is utilized effectively.
The target occupancy rate within the industry,
it can be set a little bit higher, 85 to 95.
And that's because those garages,
they're intended for more long-term parking
past say that whatever the meter is set for
and the turnover within those garages
where we have more spaces is less of a priority.
And with that, I will pause,
see if there's any questions so far.
Okay, any questions from the commissioners?
Yeah, start at the end.
Can you pull back the slide with the table
with all the numbers?
Yeah, so first question,
how do we get to 10 to eight,
Could we be more profitable at nine to nine?
I may hate that because I have a lot of 9 a.m. coffees,
but I'm just kind of curious.
Like, how do you get there, right, at that hour?
Yeah, so I can't quite speak
to where those specific hours came from,
but, you know, typically, the outcome,
the desired outcome is when we want
to be managing our parking, our curb space.
So it's, you know, when do we need
to start managing the demands,
the people coming into the downtown area.
That's kind of how you set those limits, yes.
Right, to keep that number managed, okay.
And then do we, are there, for the loading zones,
are there permits for that?
Is it, and how does that work?
Is there a charge for vehicles that use those?
How does that all work?
So commercial vehicle types, so like those larger trucks
I believe they have a permit or they're just,
they have a commercial permit.
I know business owners, they can register their vehicle
as a commercial vehicle and have access to that curb space.
But we don't currently charge to use it.
Okay, and then two more quick questions.
In the parking garages, how often do we have issues
with like the gates or the payment machines
where there might be a breakdown
or like some other problem that causes more problems?
I can't speak to the frequency.
I do know that say like when the ticket machines,
they run out of paper tickets,
the operators will just put out the gate arms.
So it doesn't create a traffic jam,
say at the entrance or you know maybe for a little bit until that problem is
identified and fixed but it does happen from time to time. Okay and then I heard
recently somebody talking on transportation that cities don't who
have meters don't actually use most of their parking space or don't meter most
of their spaces because you could only meter between like the those like
loading zones or the passenger drop-off or just places that don't make sense to
meter. They don't get metered. Do you feel like we have 10% like where we just
don't have physical infrastructure that would fit into our parking management?
20% I don't know. I would say we've very well utilized our curb space
especially in the downtown core. The example that of that bicycle parking
space it was you know an awkward spot it couldn't really be used for much else
so you know we've we've taken the opportunities where you can I think our
curb space is probably pretty full with with what we can do okay awesome
thanks thank you I don't have a schedule break in my questions but they're pretty
easy ones. How many downtown say downtown core curb parking spots do we have for
regular cars? Stay tuned for part two. Okay awesome. Have we ever, I know this is
gonna sound like blasphemy, have we ever done a study or thought about what if we
said no regular car parking you know other outside of like ADA in the
downtown courts, like all those other uses,
but no regular passenger cars.
Is that something we've ever thought about
and asked what would that look like and what would it do?
I know, so I've been with the city about three and a half
years and I started middle of 2021.
And that was when we had, you know,
coming out of the COVID pandemic,
we had those kinds of temporary parklets,
outdoor dining situation.
I know it was a conversation at one point, you know,
What if we turn some portion of the downtown
into what's, you know, pedestrian plaza or bicycle plaza?
Some internal staff time was put on that.
Outside of that, I'm not aware.
Okay, and I wasn't thinking of closing streets
versus what would it look like
if you just didn't have regular passenger cars
parking on the curbs?
It's for bikes, for the loading, unloading,
maybe more landscaping, maybe more parklets.
Just something to think about.
Okay, those were slide six, slide nine.
What is the demand, if any,
for those public transportation shelters?
And I ask that because they tend to be A, unattractive,
and worse, they tend to be magnets for graffiti.
I also don't have that off the top of my head,
but I do know we are doing a better bus stops project.
with, you know, looking at are these shelters
in the best, you know, the most popular stops.
So it is something that staff is looking at.
Okay, then slide 10,
because I think it talked about meters in here
and kind of controlling the curb.
And this is probably predates you,
so I don't expect you would have the answer,
but what impact did we notice,
if anything, when we changed the meter hours to 10 to eight
and when we went to seven days a week,
365 days a year of metering.
Did that have a negative impact or any impact?
And-
I cannot speak to that.
Looking around at staff who's been here longer,
I think it's all, that all predates us as well.
Okay.
And then I was just thinking, in looking at this
and the slide implies we want to increase turnover,
but there's a sweet spot.
If people can't keep their spot long enough
so they can both shop and eat
and have to rush out to the meter and move their car,
does that harm our commerce at all?
Yeah, absolutely.
And that's, as we look further into the strategies
based on the data that we'll get into later,
that's absolutely part of the conversation.
It's almost, it's like trying to,
from a staff's perspective and the management of our curb,
we're trying to get downtown visitors and users
to park in the appropriate location
based on how long they're gonna be there.
So if they intend to be there, you know,
less than an hour, less than two hours,
less than three hours based on our current meters,
park on the street.
Otherwise, let's get them into the garages
and keep that turnover on the streets.
Yeah, I was always curious what the impact was
on the Broadway Plaza parking lot, the one
that Massarich owns, when they went from free
to the first three hours are free.
And if that impacted people, they
may have stayed five or six hours shopping,
but they didn't want to pay parking.
Those were slide 10.
And then finally slide 11.
Do we have any level of complaints from people generated by the pickup drivers, the Uber
Eats, the door dashers, you know, I see them slamming in and slamming out, you know, when
I go walking downtown.
Is there any history of complaints from people about like, hey, all these pickup drop off,
you know, creating havoc?
Yes.
Okay.
Yeah.
So yes, we have received complaints and the big one is the use, they will use our 15-minute
curb pickup spaces, which were intended for all, but those are proving hard to enforce
as well.
So they are using those and, you know, double parking or being where they shouldn't be.
Thank you.
Commissioner Patch?
Since we're on this slide, we can start on this slide.
Okay.
Our vice chair kind of touched on this about when the time was changed and then moved every
day, but do we have any feedback on the 8 p.m. ending time specifically?
Have people complained to staff or anything about how late it goes?
Complaints, I would say, it's more like feedback so what I've heard anecdotally is so maybe
you come to dinner and you park maybe, I don't know, 6.37, you only have to pay an hour
and now you're there for the rest of the night.
So for those visitors that are coming maybe later into the evening, that they're not getting
that turnover, they're circling the block, they're ending up in the garage or somewhere
further out.
Alright.
And has there been any discussion about potentially like decreasing the time on the meters, like
from three hours to two hours or something of that nature?
that's that's something that we reviewed and discussed as part of this plan. Yeah.
Cool. Um, okay. Then can we go back to a slide or actually let's go to slide 12.
And do we know if we're hitting this goal? Are we close to it? Are we? Part two. Part two?
All right, I'm gonna
Do we have an occupancy occupancy goal for the
Garages so currently our muni code. It's it's a blanket statement. So 85% in downtown
So that's inclusive of our curve and our garages, but the goal of staff in general is to get people into the garages
Rather than Street if they're there for longer periods of time, right? Correct
Yeah, if they intend to stay longer
Okay, um, and does staff have any feedback on like
Location because you've mentioned a couple of times like circling around the block and stuff if there's if we're hitting
This 85% their space is available, but it might be
Three blocks away instead of two blocks away. Do you get any of that kind of feedback or have you studied that at all?
Yeah, and that's that's yeah about trying to
manage the curb in such a way that
There is like guiding people if they do want that street space
You know further out they may don't want to pay as much so they can go further out or they intend to stay longer
So they go further out
That's it's all part of like reviewing the strategies and and what can come from this plan so it's part of it
Cool, and then I have a question, but you don't have to go back to the slide on slide 8
you mentioned repair stations for bicycles do we actually have any of
those right now or is that just a so I would say we we had one oh at the
library so yeah we've we've looked we've done it I want to say it's there's been
an issue with like taking the tools and then and then the cost to keep to keep
up with our repair station but yes okay cool thank you commissioner East yeah
Thanks for part one. Looking forward to part two. On this slide, you talk
about the 85% goal. How do you incentivize people to park in the parking
garage over parking on the street if you intuitively want more cars in
garage. Yeah and that, you know, as we get further into this process and the plan, there's, there's
many strategies but I want to say one that San Francisco has been doing is playing with the
pricing of their meters, increasing where they see that 85% get hit, you know, routinely. They'll
increase it by a quarter quarterly and trying to hit that sweet spot so they've
been pretty successful with the pilot program revolving pricing correct do we
price the parking garages differently than we do the street so if I park in
the locust parking garage do I pay a different hourly rate than if I parked
on Locust Street near the Pete's so Matt correct me if I'm wrong but the parking
garages are 125 free for the first hour a dollar 25 after that I think it
depends maybe on the exact garage but yeah so they're cheaper than our green
polls and slightly more expensive than our purple polls.
Okay.
Great.
You mentioned that the business owners can get a commercial loading permit to be able
to use the yellow zone.
Do we monitor the yellow zones to see if those business owners are using it to park their
car all day or just using it to load or unload their vehicle and leave. So when
like an enforcement officer approaches a normal passenger vehicle they would scan
the plates and then the plates you know they pop up this is allowed to use it. On
the next round if that's still there at the discretion of the officer but... So we
have the we have the ability to check that okay I know the city of Berkeley
does not have that ability and so the loading zones are always full with
property business owners who park all day in a loading zone so I was just
curious if we have that enforcement have that issue here in Walnut Creek I will
confirm. And maybe you're gonna take care of this in part two. I was curious the
parking garages do have count. I don't know if all of them do but some of them
have counters out front so I know if there's available parking before I enter
the garage. Do we know how accurate those are and or is that a part two question?
I would say they're pretty accurate.
Yeah, it's gate up, add one gate, and then as you leave,
then it subtracts one.
So it's real-time updates.
So as far as I know, accurate.
Can you go to the table?
Yes, thank you.
That's not a question.
For the zone-based maximum duration,
you say that we have three-hour and 10-hour parking,
but I've seen one hour in the area.
And what is that for?
Do you have a specific location?
Pringle Avenue, next to the bar that opened up there.
And the Weymark.
It's one hour parking, and it's one hour parking
around the Weymark.
And so I was just curious why that one area is one hour,
but it's not in this table.
Yes, with our boardmen, city engineers.
So we do have a smattering.
This really speaks to the pricing of our meters.
But that duration, we do have some 30 minute spots, one hour,
in different locations, and they're really use-based.
And so I think we had a couple that were 30 minutes,
and those were based on having ATMs nearby or something,
so people could quickly pop out of their car and go over.
And then I think the one near BART
may be a legacy location based on what was around BART
previously, or maybe it was more related
to some of the uses in the ground floor
in the Golden Triangle.
So this plan will look at those, but they're not
Really, from a high level, that's not really intended
to be one of the strategies that are in place,
but there are some specific picks there.
Yeah, lunacy, that's the name of the bar.
So it's difficult to go there because it's one hour parking.
But anyway, that's a comment, so I retract that.
Those are the only questions that I have
for the first part, thank you.
Thank you, and welcome, Student Commissioner Kirsch.
You kind of walked in during the presentation,
so I don't assume that you have any questions, do you?
No questions for now, thank you.
Okay, and Commissioner Reese has one more question.
Sorry, I see that the parking hours has been mentioned,
it's 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. every day.
If we were to adjust those and say,
go to nine to nine or 10 to nine or whatever,
does that affect the staffing of the enforcement?
I know if we enforce longer,
it's naturally you're gonna have people out there longer,
but is the 10 to eight related to work hours
for the enforcement crews or is there?
So what I'd say, if we change the hours,
yeah, they would shift their schedule as well.
I do know in speaking with the enforcement officer supervisor,
this current 12 hour makes it easy to split shifts.
Because it's 12 hours versus 11, or 13, or things like that.
Yeah.
Correct.
Thank you.
OK.
So I have a few questions, and I have a feeling
you might tell me that some of these are for part two,
But I wanted to ask, what we're talking about tonight,
does it reflect the new daylighting,
I think it's called law, about parking 20 feet
from the curb and how our parking is impacted downtown,
both in quantity and quantity?
So yeah, the daylighting law that restricts parking
20 feet in advance of a marked crosswalk.
Tonight's presentation doesn't really speak
that specifically, but that's that's, you know, new curb space for for the city to essentially
activate in some other way, you know, whether it's with park parklets or street scaping.
But yeah, that's that's opportunity sites.
Okay, great.
And as far as the commercial loading zones are concerned, I'm curious if we've talked
little bit about those so far and I'm curious if we have looked at if there's
enough space for the demand. I know I've experienced commercial trucks loading
and blocking lanes and it's been a traffic issue so I'm curious if there
isn't enough or if those people are just breaking the law perhaps and didn't want
to park in the commercial zone that's however many yards away or whatever.
So I'd say jumping ahead to any presentation too but yeah so we are
doing outreach as part of this plan and we are asking about you know our
business owners hearing anything from their commercial drivers. I would say
from the enforcement side speaking of delivery drivers they they are also
using those spaces, not legally, and you know, so commercial drivers have to do
have to find other locations. Okay, and then have we in the past ever had any
programs for local, like retail and restaurant workers who need to find
parking downtown that, you know, could potentially be costly for a lower wage
worker because I know I've also experienced workers parking in places
that are free and scooting into downtown and that kind of a thing so I'm curious
if we've ever had programs for the local workforce. So yeah part part two but yes
yes and no. Okay all right I'll leave it at that and we can go ahead and launch
into part two and then we'll take questions from the Commission from part
to and then open it up for public comment. Thank you. Okay so part two is
really about this curbside management plan. So our ultimately we're
studying parking demand in our downtown area to create a management policy about
how best and efficiently to optimize our curb space. We're balancing parking,
loading, pedestrian, bicycle infrastructure, place making, accessibility,
safety and equity. So a lot of a lot of balancing act here. The work that's
being done in this plan we are building off of the city's rethinking mobility
plan. This is a 2019 plan and one or three of the strategies within that plan
were related to or tie into this curb side management plan. So we have improved
parking and curb management signage evaluate zone and demand based pricing
and consider municipal garage pricing and demand so this this project we're
working on now all will build off of the work that was done in that previous
plan so a little bit more background we're doing this work through an MTC
grant we received about a hundred about two hundred thousand in grant funds to
do the work. MTC assigned us this fantastic team. We have our plan
development, Farron Piers, Dixon Resources Unlimited. They're doing the data
collection and then Winters is doing our outreach and stakeholder engagement. So
we started this existing condition data collection in fall of 2024 and we went
went through very early January of 2025.
Right now we're at the Analyze Data and Existing Policy phase and looking to get this plan
in front of Council by the end of the year.
So between now and, you know, when this plan is getting finalized, we're doing a bunch
of stakeholder engagement.
One of those engagement opportunities we're using is transportation commissions.
So staff, we're anticipating a minimum of three presentations.
So the first one being tonight, May, we're doing project updates and looking to highlight
the input we received from all of our outreach or as much as we've been able to get to by
that May date.
And then for the summer, one of the summer Transportation Commission meetings present
that plan to you all.
So this is the study area that we are looking at as part of this plan.
So area A, again, we're talking about what we think of as a core downtown.
We did tuck in a couple outlier streets, so you can see Main Street.
in the Kaiser area of the Los Alamos area that got tucked into a there's some
meters over by Safeway off of Broadway and Mount Diablo and then Bonanza Street
and north of Civic these you know they have some similar land uses to downtown
and so we had kind of grouped them in to our area a area B this is you know our
north downtown specific plan area. You know, auto heavy heavy auto up there. And then our area see
our west downtown specific plan area, some residential, we lots of services, some commercial
so Long Mountain Diablo and Olympic and Alpine area. So as you can see, this is quite a large area
and this is a data-driven plan, and so we, in order to get as much data as we can,
we did license plate readers. So between 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., a vehicle equipped with license plate
readers drove every single street in each direction multiple times. So what this does is that as it
passes a vehicle, it creates a unique identifier for that vehicle. And then on
the second, third pass, fourth pass through, is that vehicle still there? It
tracks its duration. If it moves somewhere else through the network, where
did it move to? So we did this data collection in October on a weekday and a
weekend. Okay, so the question of how many spaces. So within that larger area,
ABC, are on-street parking. So this is metered and unmetered. We have about 1,500.
In that area that we were looking at, the city garages, and I have here listed the
Broadway garage, South Locust, Lecherin Library, and we'll see a map again
of where each of these are but between those garages also about 1,500 so the
within this study we're looking at 3,000 city spaces. Knowing that kind of parking
should be look at a holistic perspective we did also get some non-city operated
lots and garages the two big ones are Broadway Plaza garages so there's one
off of South Main and one off of South Broadway and then there's a couple small
lots through downtown that we got as well. Okay, so going into area A, so I think core
downtown we primarily have these green meter heads, so three hour on-street meters wherever
we could fit them. So the garages, this is also you know where because you have the peak
demand we have a lot of garages out here. So the Lusher Center city garage that's off
of civic and locust and serves our leisure center. The library, there is an underground
garage. So that's off of Broadway and Lincoln. We have the South Locust garage. This is near
you know, Pete's Sweet Greens. It's just north of Mount Diablo on Locust. And then the city's
Broadway garage. I'm going to be saying Broadway a lot so I'm going to try to distinguish.
So there's the city's Broadway garage.
This has an entrance off of Cyprus.
And then there's the Broadway Plaza garage,
as I mentioned.
There's two as part of that.
So one on South Main and one on Broadway.
So looking at the peak occupancy on a weekday on street,
we're at 88%.
So this is over that 85.
That goal of ours, 85.
So this is where that congestion, that frustration,
that circling the block, this is the situation
that's happening.
And in that same moment in time in the garages,
we're at 57% occupancy.
So there are spaces available.
It's just we're not getting the drivers
to these parking spaces.
Looking at our Saturday on street,
was actually lower at 82%, but our garages,
they jumped, they're at that 76%.
So the weekend drivers are going to our garages.
Breaking it down by garage.
So the first two here are the two Broadway Plaza garages.
So on a weekday, they're both ones, 48%,
and the other one's about a third full.
Looking at Saturdays, South Broadway jumps at 62,
but that South Main Street is at 90%.
So over that 85.
So it really serves that Saturday visitor crowd.
Looking at the city's Broadway garage,
it's actually more busy on the weekdays at about 58%
occupied and then 41% on the weekend on a Saturday.
Lusher and the library stayed consistent
generally between a weekday and a Saturday.
And then at our south locust garage,
that weekday peak was 62%,
but on the Saturday for that dinnertime rush,
it hit the 100%, it was at capacity.
So turnover, so again, looking at how long people are staying,
these are a typical October weekday and weekend.
So our on-street parking, on average between weekdays
and weekend, about an hour 20.
That's a pretty good turnover rate.
If you think someone pulls out, there's
the opportunity for some new visitor
to dine and to partake in what the downtown has to offer.
Going to the Broadway Plaza garages, we combine them here.
But those two garages, they saw about an hour,
sorry, two and a half hours, which did match our locust and library about three hours to two hours.
The Broadway and Lesher garages, as you can see here, the difference between how long people were
staying differed dramatically between, they differed between a weekday and a Saturday.
So that is digging into our monthly parking passes. So the city, we do have a monthly parking
Pass Program. It's $50 a month and the passes go to Broadway Garage, the city's Broadway
Garage, Locust and Lusher. The program itself is managed by Lazz Parking and the passes
were set at $600 available and this does include city employee passes. Those $600 spaces were
split up so lusher gets 360 of them, locust 40 and Broadway 200. All 600 of these passes
are claimed and there's a wait list. So while the program does exist, it's not automatic
to get on it. So if we separate out those pass holders from the visitors, we do see
between the Broadway, the Lusher, and the Locust people are getting close to that
three-hour mark and this is consistent with what we were seeing in the other
garages. So this data collection was done in October. Staff like we really
really wanted this to be a data-driven process plan. So we, Dixon, there's an
opportunity for us to get an LPR device and so I worked with I got us a vehicle
I worked with our parking enforcement crew we equipped one of our own vehicles
and we drove around downtown I drove around a full day we did a couple more
than a couple but for three weeks or so leading up to the Christmas holiday we
we got multiple more weekdays, Saturdays and Sundays
to really understand the peak of what happens
in our downtown outside of these typical conditions.
Okay, so starting with Saturday,
again, we're still talking area A here,
but on a Saturday, it jumped our on-street spaces.
So now our Saturday, they're getting that frustration,
they're getting that circling the block.
congestion is building. On the weekday, we actually saw a drop in this. If, as we
dug into the data, this had more to do with those outlying areas that we
included as part of the study. The core of the core, it's over the 85, but
it's these outlying areas that saw the drop and they were they were enough of
the network to bring that average down. Looking at the garages, we see that we
We are, many of these garages are being very well utilized, so looking at the Broadway
Plaza garages, weekday and a Saturday, both garages are over that 85%.
Our own city garage, our own city Broadway garage is actually similar to typical conditions,
So on a weekday, 76% and it dropped slightly on the Saturdays.
Lessure and locust at capacity on weekdays, and looking at the Saturdays for those two,
lessure peaked at 65% on a Saturday and locust at 100% capacity again.
similar to typical conditions stayed relatively consistent between weekdays
and weekends. Now looking at that turnover aspect, so on-street had the
largest jump in how long people were staying. So those three-hour meters,
people were getting closer to that limit. So between typical conditions and the
holiday time, an extra hour and 10 minutes.
Broadway Plaza Locust and Library really stayed consistent. Looking at Broadway
and Lesher, and these are where we have the employee parking, we dug into those
differences again. So the visitors, they also stayed similar to typical
conditions, three hours, the those who held passes stayed longer, and what we saw for
that weekday, and and keep in mind, Lusher reached capacity on that weekday in December,
and we had event. So during December, we have the Nutcracker, and whenever large events
come to the lusher we do five minute or five dollar event parking. So those users,
I mean those specific users that got that event parking rate on average
stayed about six hours. So that makes sense. You see the
production, you go out to dinner and you do the shopping and it's somewhere
between that typical visitor and those pass holders. A quick quick overview on
on areas B and C.
So primarily 10 hours where we do have meters.
These are the areas where if we don't have curb space
or if we don't have meters along the curb,
they're more likely to be in these areas.
And where we have off street parking,
they're typically provided by the business
that's right there.
So area B, on a weekday, so area B, this is the auto area.
The peak was actually in the morning between 9 AM and noon.
And that peaked at about 70%.
And it was still less than what we saw in area A.
On a Saturday, the peak was in the afternoon at 54%,
still less than what we were seeing for area A.
looking at area C, so this is that west downtown specific area, both weekday and a Saturday.
Their peak was that 12 to 6 period, and both significantly less than what we were seeing
in the downtown area A. So compared to area A, people in B and C, these are where we have
the 10-hour meters, they were staying somewhere around three hours.
So area B a little bit less than that three hour and area C a little bit more.
So as I had mentioned, LPR, license plate readers, they create unique identifiers for
vehicles.
We used that unique identifier to identify whether or not a car that was parked in one
area of downtown was found in another area of downtown. So this could be those
employees that don't get a pass having to relocate at some point through the
day. They could be delivery drivers, food pickup, but it is happening. And so over
those 11 days of data collection that we did, the top five block faces where
this happened. So North California, between Almond and Bonanza. And then
Locust and North Main. So these are right in that downtown area. And speaking with
our enforcement, kind of what they thought of this data, the California
jumped out to them as that would, of these locations, that would maybe be the
employees that are that are showing up over there. Those are the 10-hour spaces.
Okay so data takeaway here there is there is demand for parking in Area A
this is where we have our dense attractions but we do have excess on
street supply in B and C. So where we do see that over 85% typical conditions on
a weekday it's happening in Area A. On Saturdays add in the Broadway Plaza in
in our South Locust Garage.
During the holiday season where we get this over goal.
Weekdays, it's Locust Lusher, Broadway Plaza garages.
On the Saturdays, all of those,
and then in addition to this area A
on street parking supply.
Again, the duration that we're seeing,
area A, generally one to two hours,
area B and C, around three hours.
For those that pick the parking garage,
they're there for three hours or more.
And there is a demand for our monthly parking passes
given the wait list that we have.
And so really from this data that we've collected so far,
there is a need to reevaluate
what curb management strategies we have
and if they are working.
So when I was discussing their timeline,
we are doing stakeholder engagement.
So we've met with some people already,
and we're pursuing other meetings with other groups listed here.
So we have our parking enterprise fund team,
our parking enforcement officers,
our economic development team,
Walnut Creek downtown, and this covers restaurants,
retail services, county connection,
bicycle and pedestrian advocacy groups and to get that Walnut Creek Visitor input we're
looking to get a booth at the Locust Street Festival.
And with that, some questions that we're hoping to get some feedback on and it's, you know,
what are you hearing?
What are you experiencing?
And does that match what data that we have?
And then what would you like to see more along our curb?
And that's for cars, for pedestrians, for bicyclists, for transit.
And then of that list of stakeholders, and I do have them again here, is there anyone
that we should be reaching out to that we haven't identified yet?
And then do you, you know, have thoughts on any of these specific curb management strategies
that we had gone over in the beginning, those existing, our existing strategies?
Okay thank you for that presentation and before we give you feedback on the
questions you have here are there any questions of the commissioners? Okay we'll
start it let's start at the end student commissioner do you have any questions?
Okay thank you. Commissioner Ash? Yes this is a lot of information so thank you for
putting this all together and I know like collecting that much data was
interesting. So I really appreciate you doing this. I wanted to ask about first
the in those graphs with the parking garage occupancy and even the meter
occupancy, is there peak times, right? Because you say weekdays something could
be filled but is it really only over 85% for a two to three hour window or is it
like all day and I didn't see that you broke that down but you might not yeah so the yeah
the the answer is like there is that peak time and it's it's around lunch time so 12 one and
then again at dinner time those those are the peak areas for that area a in a smaller setting
or a smaller time period then what about the parking garage the same thing or
Yeah, I believe so, but off the top of my head do not I cannot say for sure.
Okay, just it's helpful to know right? Like are we dealing with a
two-hour window or is it all day?
So that would be good as a follow-up item if you could get back to us on that.
Is there a pay on the on the meters I know you can pay at the meters with coins or credit cards
Isn't there a pay-by-phone system that we have to?
Correct.
Pay mobile?
Park mobile.
And what's the adoption rate of that?
Do people use it?
Do people not?
Do we know?
So about 10% of people use Park Mobile, the Park Mobile
feature, and then the rest do the cards or coins or cash.
OK.
have we looked at, in the garages, there's clearly some garages that continuously get
more occupancy than others.
Is that because they're the location because they have better wayfinding?
Just kind of curious to get your take?
So I think there's, it's a lot of things.
So, you know, it could be wayfinding, but we do know that people want to park closest
to where they're going.
So that south locust garage, you know, it kind of, you get good access to the north
sides of services and restaurants as well as the south side.
So it's a very centrally located garage and it's also one of our smallest ones.
But yeah, so Wayfinding, we've put together, you know, we have signs throughout the city,
and you know, focused on people coming in, but you know, maybe they pass that one garage
at that capacity and now they're like, oh, where's the next one?
And so we're always working to improve our Wayfinding signage.
Okay, and then how have you looked to add in tech
and cool on the license plate reading
and assigning the numbers?
But I'm wondering how you've looked at incorporating
more tech into this and what you've seen and into the.
So we have those count boards outside.
I wanna say we have an active project to use technology
to create kind of gateway treatments
to let people know coming into the city,
hey, there's this many spaces at this garage,
this at this garage, and this at another garage,
and those are at gateway locations,
and that project is, we have that project.
And so that's one use of a technology
that we've kind of discussed in speaking about that.
San Francisco pilot, Dixon who did our data,
they're working with the city actually on theirs
and it's very data intensive.
A lot of LPR data collection has to be done
in order to do that dynamic pricing component.
So it's something that we're discussing
and looking at from, you know, as an opportunity.
Okay, just curious.
And then, I know you mentioned on the,
during like the rotation of people who are moving
and parking and all of that,
I know that has come up with employees that work here,
like in the downtown Walnut Creek,
the retail, the restaurant workers,
that there is a lack of parking in those parking passes.
And I don't know if you were able to collect
any specific data related to or maybe there's a way
to partner with Walnut Creek downtown and the chamber
to see if we can't reach out to some of those people
and study them because I know from talking to property
owners and business owners that there is a lack of parking
for the employees and the employees have to pay for it,
which cuts into us attracting enough employees
to work in all those businesses compared to other cities
where it's free.
Yeah, it's definitely a part of the discussions
that we're having with our downtown business owners.
We are hearing the same.
So it's something that we're looking at doing.
Cool.
All right, I think that was all of my questions now.
Thank you.
Great.
Vice Chair?
Thank you.
Thank you for part two.
Yeah.
Both presentations, that was clearly a lot of work.
And there's a lot of work that went behind PowerPoint,
very appreciative. When we first started on page 14 you mentioned things like
safety and equity being the part of the curbside management. I'm just curious can
you give me an example of how equity fits into the curbside management plan?
The example I like to point out is ADA spaces.
Very good.
Thank you.
This kind of applies both slides 15 and 36 to the extent that any of the stakeholder
engagement reach out are more of a meeting venue, getting together with groups of people,
Would you be willing to notify the Commission?
Because I'd love to sit and just kind of listen to people speak.
I don't need to say anything or participate.
Maybe other commissioners might be interested, too.
I would just want to sit and hear what people are saying.
On slide 17, I thought it was fascinating what
you're doing with the license plate readers
and the unique identifiers, but that also
led me to being worried about data privacy.
And I'd like to be sure that there's no way
that this data can be turned into,
well, Charles Parks in the library garage,
you know, four times a week, et cetera.
Yeah, absolutely.
And that was a concern that we had expected.
And so in working with Dixon,
so I said they created unique identifiers.
So that vehicle, unique identifier, the license plate, the information was completely scrambled
and completely separated from that person driving that vehicle information about that
person.
It was a unique identifier.
Did Dixon sign any kind of privacy agreement where if their raw data was hacked, they would
bear some responsibility for data privacy violations?
have to check specifically on that but I know what they did sign as they agreed
to delete the data after after this project was done. Great thanks. There are
state privacy laws that address those identifiers. Yes but unfortunately the level of breaches we see
kind of leads me to believe that the laws aren't really being. I just thought
of this on slide 18 by the general question can we get a copy of this
presentation? Yes. Thank you. I was surprised, by the way you answered one of
my part one questions, I was surprised at the number, the high proportion of
street parking spots that were compared to garage spots. That was eye-opening for
me. On page 20 we had a bunch of stats. I'm just curious if you've looked at how
we compare to or any of these statistical pages how do we compare to
other similar types of cities like maybe I don't know like a Palo Alto or other
places I want to want to try to compare us to San Francisco because you know
we're Oakland because it's so different more suburban cities so what I I've
seen the studies for the Oakland the San Francisco those are the very very
impressive data studies, so that's kind of what I've been looking at. What I will say
is that 85 percent, that's really an industry that's a regular goal, how we're doing compared
to other cities. I do not know. Okay. Slide 22 and 28. It's more of a comment.
asked a question earlier I think it got answered here I think well let me ask
you this the Broadway Plaza garage are we talking about the Mesa Ridge owned
one behind Nordstrom and Macy's or is that a different one yes that that large
one yeah yeah so it's very obvious even during the holidays people are very
mindful of the three-hour limit and you just kind of I kind of wonder data wise
you know that's the parking revenue earned or actually it's all mostly for
gone because people are trying to not pay how is that hurting the commerce in
the area so but the data you showed is great because it even on the holiday it
was two hours and 50 minutes people like I gotta get out of here I don't want to
Okay. And then finally rounding out to the end, back to your slide 37 with all the questions.
Let me make sure I'm not, you cannot make Walnut Creek down there. Okay. So I think
a stakeholder that's just blinking red lights to me that's missing, the Walnut Creek residence,
If we can do just questions right now, and then we'll do comments later if that's all
right.
Thank you.
Let's see here.
I'm trying to see if this is a comment or a question.
It's probably you know what I was doing, and I apologize.
I was trying to answer these questions, one, two, three, four, but they're comments.
You're right.
So I will hold off until we go to comments.
Lovely.
Thank you.
Commissioner Pat?
Thank you for this information a lot of data and just for clarification cuz I
know we have it written down in our handouts but in case anybody watches
this the MTC acronym is for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission
yes absolutely thank you thanks and then on slide 21 and 27 either one is fine so
So the breakdown here, because the library is so much lower
than the rest, do you have the number
of what that would change for the occupancy overall?
Like, if you just ignored the library,
would it get us into that 85% goal?
Oh, I see what you mean.
So we have that information.
Like, the number of spaces occupied,
but I don't know if that would push us.
I'll save why I asked that later,
not to a comment right now.
Okay, and then I just have a couple of questions
that aren't related to any specific slides.
I know that the Walnut Creek did a scooter pilot,
I forget which company, but like the electric scooters.
Do we have any data from that
to be considered during this process?
So I know we had Lime bicycles, and that was out in the Shade Lens area.
As for data, I, no, I don't know what was that.
Okay, that's good to know.
And then while you were doing this and driving around,
did anybody note the number of bicycles or how often bike racks were being used?
So I know for those October dates, I walked around myself and I took photos of where bicycles
were parking, racks are not racks, and have started the habit of since doing that, so.
Okay.
And then I am trying to understand the map, and I can't remember which slide it was on.
Is the movie theater parking garage, which I understand is privately owned, is that in
area C that is an area a okay but it wasn't one of the ones that you listed
correct so there's there are a couple additional garages downtown and it just
had to do with them that weren't they're not the cities and so we had reached out
to the garage operators and they just didn't have the data available for us
Thank you. All right Commissioner Reese. So the Broadway Plaza garages had the
data so you didn't drive with the license plate readers through the
garages. Correct. We we use the gate arm information similar to how the city
collects occupancy. On that with the license plate reading equipment how many
rotations were you able to do on each day and did you do it over multiple days
then so that you could get a good number? Yeah so we did nine to twelve, twelve to
three, three to six, six to nine so four rotations. Area A had to be split up
into two routes actually so when when Dixon did it in October they just they
had more vehicles driving around when I organized the city staff I'd split up a
day into area C plus one of the eight routes and then the next weekday area B
with the other area A routes so that you know people could get through the area
during that holiday congestion and still get a break between routes. So the
October data was they had multiple drivers and they did it over multiple
days. They did it over one weekday and one weekend with multiple drivers.
With multiple drivers?
Correct.
So do you know how many rotations they ended up,
I mean were they, in the olden days when you used to walk,
every 15 minutes or every 30 minutes
you would walk down the street and you would note right
down the license plate.
So were they going that frequently?
or I'm trying to get a sense as to how detailed the data is
because you could go through a garage at one p.m.
and it's packed and then you go through that same garage
at two p.m. or 1.45 after the lunch hour's over
and there's 50% available.
So I'm just trying to understand how good the data is.
Yeah, so area B and C,
that's once every of those three hours,
they do the pass going southbound and the northbound.
Area A, having driven this route,
there is a lot of backtracking.
So within that three-hour window,
you're double-backing, you're backtracking
on a couple of those.
We do have the information of how many passes each block had,
so I can get that for you.
Yeah, I'm just curious how much data you had.
On this map, I guess, on this map,
the two areas that stand out to me
are the Almond Shoey neighborhood and the Lincoln
Avenue neighborhood do we know there's no meters in those neighborhoods which
means you can go and park there all day all night do we know anything about if
there's parking overflow particularly from area a into those neighborhoods so
one of the curve management strategies that I didn't cover today is we the city
We have a residential parking permit program.
And so the Almond-Shoey area,
you have to have a residential permit to park in that area.
So any overflow from the downtown,
you're gonna get ticketed if you park in that neighborhood
without that permit.
Okay, great.
Speaking for the Walnut Creek residents.
Let's see.
And then. Sorry, where's the,
Can you just say where the Almond Shoey neighborhood is?
Yeah, the Almond Shoey neighborhood,
if we're looking at this map right here,
it's that big empty space bounded by the freeway,
to the south is area C, the blue to the north is area B,
and then downtown.
Yep.
Thanks.
It's an awesome neighborhood.
I don't live there, but it's got great old housing.
It's really neat.
Do we have with all the parking meters and the technology that we have,
do we have ongoing occupancy monitoring?
I mean, the garages with the gates,
we of course have access to that,
but do we have it for the on-street parking?
Yeah, we do.
So we have, they're called frog parking.
It's called frog parking,
but they're little sensors,
they're like pucks and they're actually inserted in the pavement
under most of our parking spaces, at least in Area A.
Over the summer or late summer, kind of right when we were doing this start to do the data collection,
we had done like an upgrade on a lot of them.
So we do have live sensor information currently right now, yes.
Is there a way to connect that sensor information to the parking meters to sort of moves you
into dynamic parking but just a separate.
So there is a way and Matt jump in at any point but there is a way as far as as I understand
the connection, there was like a sensitivity issue.
And so that connection, like even though the car
had never moved, the occupancy information
from the puck to that meter, it wasn't consistent.
And so that turnover maybe was still
a parked car the whole time.
Okay, yeah, I've noticed when I park,
when I do park in the Broadway shopping center garages,
that sometimes the little lights aren't functioning well.
And so it's a good guide, but it's not precise.
So, okay.
And then I'm curious, using the Locust Street garage
is the example, it seems to be the one that's the busiest.
Is there a scenario where that garage would have a higher
parking cost, parking charge to it versus, say,
the leisure garage?
Would that, by doing that, would I'm, when I park,
I'm parking agnostic as far as the cost goes.
I don't look for the cheapest place.
I just go park where I know I can find a space.
but other people wondering how many people that come to downtown would,
if would know that the locust garage has a higher parking price and therefore
choose to drive down the street and park in the lesser garage,
which has available space.
Do we have an understanding of if we can shift people with that
kind of precision pricing, if you will?
So if we if we think about it based on like the zones on the street and kind of the same idea
Um, yes, and it's it would be something reviewed and looked into as part of the plan. Okay, but yeah, it's
Um in your analysis in your data collection, do we know?
Um, I call it feeding the meter
Do we know how many but I think if you have the park mobile app
you can just continue to add money to your meter.
And so you could park all day
as long as you keep adding money.
So if you pay through the park mobile app,
it won't let you re-park in that same spot.
Okay.
More than the three hours.
So, but if you know you're using coins then.
Right. Yeah.
Do we know, do you know how many people
are feeding the meter?
I don't have a sense of that now.
Okay.
Yep, that's good for now.
Thank you.
Thank you.
My commissioners asked great questions,
so I think I just have a couple left.
Weekend drivers were more likely to use the garage.
I thought that was interesting.
Do you know why?
No, it's just based on my own observation
kind of the feedback we've been hearing, the weekends, the Saturdays, you know,
those are a peak and we do see a lot of maybe out of town visitors and those out
of town visitors, you know, before you get to your area, you're looking for the
parking garage, like where am I gonna park? I'll pass by the restaurant and then
if not I'm going to that garage. So there's that type of just user
behavior that that could probably contribute to that okay um the parking
pass the six there's a 600 max of that we have a waitlist how long is the
waitlist like how many active requests it would so that so for the locust
garage I mean I think it was like a hundred both of them were about a
hundred-something between 100 and 200 okay and the length of time on that
waitlist it depends on the garage but it's six months to a year to get to get
a pass okay and have we ever and those passes are to utilize those garages at
any time correct have we ever thought about doing like a weekday only pass
between certain hours for people who might be there more utilizing during
the day and then maybe something for residents who might be you know or those
who live in the area who might be more to likely to frequent our you know
downtown for entertainment in the evening have we ever thought about doing
something like that logistically feasible so it will we'll take a note of
it but yeah that my first thought is logistically enforcing that but yeah
something we can look into okay that's it for me for questions thank you at
this time do we have anyone here for public comment we do not have anyone for
the public okay so then we will take comments from the commissioners and city
staff has offered up these questions to get feedback from us so if you want to
touch on any of these and then any of their comments please do. We'll start at
the end. Student Commissioner, do you have any comments? I actually have a question
and a comment. Can I ask a question? Sure, go ahead. Okay. For the parking passes, why
are there only 600? Why not more? That's a great question. So 600, it was determined
some time ago. So it's that balancing act of that long-term parking versus the short-term parking.
We know that those passes are intended to serve those long-term parkers but we still want spaces
for the short-term. That 600 number spread throughout the garages. The idea was this is
the amount of passes that could be given at this garage and still allow those three-hour parkers
without being completely filled up with eight hours so that's that's where that number came from.
And then the parking passes that only specific to one garage or did it apply to multiple?
So the locust garage there's as far as I'm aware you cannot apply for that one any longer even
though it has 40 but the Broadway and the Locust I'm sorry can you repeat your question?
like so you would pay the monthly fee and then do you have access to different garages or is it
just like one? Yeah, so when you apply you're applying specifically to either the lusher or
the Broadway, you don't you don't get access to both. And then for comments, I think the question
about stakeholders maybe reaching out to local high schools because I know a lot of students have
issues with parking. So maybe that's something we're looking into.
Right. Thank you, Commissioner Ash.
Thanks. I believe on that.
Doesn't Los Lomas High School have an arrangement with Broadway Plaza
for students to park there during the day for free or for a fee?
It's if there's there is a cost associated with that pass.
I don't have that number off top of my head
or if they have their own type of managing of that permit process or that pass system.
I think one thing we should consider as part of this is an employee program, and I don't
know what that looks like, but I know from a workforce development standpoint, a lot
of the retail and restaurants are starting to raise concerns over being
able to attract workforce and that has to do with, right, like you could go to
the veranda and park for free as an employee. If you work here you have to pay.
You can go to a restaurant in Danville and park for free and so we need to
address that as part of this because long term that could hinder us from
hiring workers.
So that's number one.
I would say I'd love to see a technology element in this
where Walnut Creek engages with some pilot programs, maybe,
in state-of-the-art technology that can help with curb
management.
It was something we talked about for feedback
for the council priorities is it would
It would be great to see Walnut Creek as a leader
in trying new technology and trying innovative ways
to solve some of these problems.
It should be vetted, it should go through a process,
but I'd love to see us as an early adopter of things.
I would caution on the bicycle repair things
that while they are great, and I love them,
I know the orchards when they put them in,
because they have some cool bike lanes
there in that shopping center.
Within 24 hours, they are gone.
And then they are just like ugly red poles
that are useless there.
And I'd hate for that to happen downtown.
So just something to keep in mind.
And I think you mentioned that as part of your presentation.
I'm all for the concept, but that just is the reality of it.
I just look forward to just continuing being a part of this.
This is great work and you really match data
to try to understand this, so thanks.
All right, sorry, Vice Chair.
Waiting for my official permission.
I think in a prior meeting, the prior chair made me say
pretty pleased to do something.
I won't be.
Which I complied with.
So I did have one quick question
and that's on these parking passes.
Do they guarantee parking or is it just for the
fixed cost and convenience aspect. There's no parking uh like physical space provided for you
so yeah if if you come during the shopping season during the nutcracker um you're not guaranteed a
space. Got it thank you. Um so yeah on your question on constituents or stakeholders um
two thoughts, one was the Walnut Creek residents at large and what would entice them to come
to their own downtown more to spend their money here rather than going to Danville or up the
Clayton or to the Veranda, etc. You know, and then also it will be interesting for to get feedback
from I'll say the surrounding cities. Is there anything about our parking, curb management,
traffic that keeps someone who lives in Danville, Alamo, Concord, Clayton from
coming down here to spend their money and is there anything we can do about
that? From the one thing I hear a lot from people is just the you know seven
day a week meters you know maybe I don't pay a lot of attention to because a lot
of the other cities, I go to this free parking,
as Commissioner Ash was saying, you
go to Danville, park for free all day long,
and walk around downtown.
So just the seven day a week, gone are the free holidays,
I believe, and free Sundays.
To a lot of people, that's like a shock to the system.
And then finally just kind of an overall recommendation will be interesting to take this data, if
we can somehow, and maybe this is a part of the technology, could we somehow correlate
the cost of parking availability of parking data with the commerce data, how much money
is being spent.
You know, kind of going back to my comment about the Broadway Plaza Garage, people are
are trying to get out of there in the three hours so they don't have to pay even during
the holidays according to the data. So how much commerce and sales tax revenue are we
losing, you know, in lieu of the extra few dollars of parking revenue? And then I'll
just, my final comment would be on question two. I'd say everything and anything we can
do to make the downtown section a the core a better experience and a safer
experience for pedestrians would be paramount to me.
Okay so I'm a huge fan of parking enforcement because I think it actually
increases bikeability and pedestrian friendly streets which is great so I
Think it's it's fascinating to me to see that the like on street parking is so much higher than the garage parking
and a
Couple of comments that I have on that are I know I made this comment last
Commission meeting but our way finding signs could use them
Yes, right because I think that part of it is people don't realize that there are garages that they can use
and
And this got asked during the questions of part one.
But the signs that say the availability of spots,
those are great.
A cool thing I have seen in other locations
are having, in addition to just the general number,
ADA spots that are available,
and expectant mother spots that are available.
So just adding a little more data
for when people are looking for spots.
I will note that our garages are like what I would consider
on the outskirts of where people really want
to be doing the high activities, right?
Like on your map, the Broadway garage isn't actually
even in the green zone, it's next to the green zone.
So I know other cities have things like little golf carts
that get people around areas so that they don't feel
like they have to park exactly next to where they're going,
just as an easy way to get people around.
You know, and golf carts are electric,
so it doesn't add to any of the smog issues.
So I don't know if the city can look into
potentially doing a pilot program to see if that works,
or not, obviously that requires budget,
but something to look into,
especially since the bike share program wasn't successful,
and we didn't continue with that.
For the identifying stakeholders, I'm curious, because you have the Lotus Street Festival,
which is awesome, glad that we'll have a booth there.
I'm curious if you could ask the City Council if you can use their farmers market booth
one week or two and have somebody there.
I've seen the City Council have data about the parking, especially when we started doing
the zoned parking to educate people about it.
So it might be a great place to continue that education
and talk to folks about how everything's landing.
It seems like we could lower the time limit
from three hours to two hours and increase that turnover,
especially if we had better wayfinding to the garages
to get people to the garages.
And then just as you do more research,
Love that it's data informed.
Since we have so many spaces available in the orange zone,
I'm forgetting, is that B or C?
Orange is B.
B in the B zone, the one around Bart,
because there's lower occupancy there.
I would be curious to see how many long duration parking
you're getting on the side streets around that
with no meters.
having lived in that area I know people are parking there and walking to BART.
So just would be curious to see how that would impact our parking meters in that direction.
So there's no green but there is curb space that is unmetered out there. So if we have a meter it's
Purple, it's 10 hours.
But there is curb that commissioner Patches point
that's unmetered.
Yes.
So those are my comments.
Thank you.
All right.
Thank you.
Commissioner Reese.
Great presentation.
Thank you.
And a lot of data.
So enjoy playing with that.
where to start I think that what I found interesting about looking as you were
presenting the data is that we really have some there's a there's a very
little parking available in portions of a and then even within area a it seems
like there are areas that are less parked so Main Street is probably a
100% and California is probably 70% or something like that.
And so something, it lends itself.
And then the Locust Street parking garage is really full.
But just down the street, a block and a half away,
the garage, the Lesher garage has a lot of spaces.
And I will say that when I didn't
live in downtown Walnut Creek, and I drove here,
I always parked in the Broadway garage off Cyprus
because it always had parking.
Locust Street never had parking.
And so we really seem to have this really tight knit
of really fully occupied parking,
and then it dissipates rather quickly.
And where I'm going with this is I'm thinking that we need a better pricing strategy that
brings potentially brings more revenue, more parking revenue to the city at the same time
as trying to push people out a little bit.
So that those premium parking spaces cost more.
And we didn't hear anything about how the parking revenues are being used.
I'm assuming that that comes later.
But in a lot of cities, they use the parking revenues to improve the downtown
after they've paid for the parking enforcement and the parking operations and maintenance.
And it would be great if we could find ways to increase parking revenue in order to feed
it back into the downtown to make the, like other commissioners have said, make the environment
more aesthetically pleasing, provide more amenities for the people downtown, make it
more attractive, fix some of the cross slope problems with sidewalks that make
it difficult for somebody with crutches to walk down the sidewalk or a
wheelchair user. I think it would be great if we could start thinking along
those lines. And that has the benefit then of making sure that there is
available parking in the core area, the core of the core for people that are willing to
pay more for it or that need it because they have some mobility challenge and so they can't
walk a quarter mile to get to their destination. They can only walk, you know, 500 feet. Right
now the way it's being the way it's set up the way it's functioning that person
that doesn't have a placard to park in a blue zone but needs to be within a few
hundred feet of the Locust Street garage they're out of luck and they have to
walk further but if you if we price the parking differently that person could
get a parking space closer. Looking at the parking data it looks to me like
there's plenty of parking in downtown as long as you're willing to walk to it. The
people that are more likely to walk longer distances for parking are the
employees and so I think this is an opportunity others have brought up where
do employees park?
How do they park?
We do have 10-hour meters for them,
but it could be nice to actually increase the employee permits,
but have those permits apply only to areas B and C
where there is available parking right now.
That would do a couple of things for an employee,
especially a retail employee that's
making minimum wage or tips.
Rather than having to pay 10 hours a day for parking,
or eight hours a day, however long their shift is,
they are able to buy an employee parking permit for $50
for the month.
And they're able to park in the outer areas for less money
than if they had to pay every day.
Right now, they have to pay every day.
So I think that expanding the employee permit parking
important. I think that it's, I'm super happy that we shifted from an 8 a.m. to
6 p.m. philosophy in parking, free parking on Sundays, I almost feel like at
one point in the 80s that it was free parking on Saturdays too, but I'm not a
hundred percent sure about that. I love that we are parking seven days a week
because it allows people to come and visit the downtown on all days if if we
had free parking on Sundays or Saturdays or in the evenings the employees would
all be parking in area A and there would be no parking for anybody so I'm a strong
advocate of seven day a week parking and all day long. But one of the
commissioners mentioned what about going to nine o'clock. I think that should be
considered. It is hard to find a spot if you're coming to a dinner reservation at
six thirty seven o'clock. It can be a little difficult to find a spot and it's
it's because people are getting there
and they're able to park past eight o'clock
without having to pay.
So I could arrive at five p.m.
and I could stay all evening.
And I think if we extend to nine o'clock
or look into doing that,
it might allow for people to be a little bit more aware
of how long they're staying
and might open up some parking for the people that arrive
in the later towards the end of the evening parking
enforcement period.
I think the other issue, I think, going with the technology
is that I know it's expensive and it may be infeasible
financially, but it would be nice to have a dynamic parking
system in place so that you could make parking adjustments.
I know that we want to put a bound on that.
We don't want you to, we don't want you to charge two hours
and then all of a sudden it's four hours, $4, excuse me,
$2 an hour and then all of a sudden you make it $4 an hour.
But is there a way for us to develop a system
that gives the city flexibility within the program
to bump the parking up or down by 25 or 50 cents an hour
in order to better manage the system.
And I think you would be able to do that
if you had a program, a regular monitoring program,
so that once a quarter or twice a year,
you come in and check to see how the area is,
how the downtown is doing,
and you bump the parking values a little bit
in order to try to get some shift in people.
Talked about nine o'clock.
I guess the other aspect, probably the last item,
is you didn't talk about a reasonable walking distance
for the different users.
And that may help inform how our parking in downtown is doing.
It looks to me like there's plenty of parking in downtown,
if you include area A, B, and C. Looks to me
like there's plenty of parking available.
The question is, is it appropriately
located for the user?
So selfishly, why I like 10 AM start time
is it allows me to drive by Panama coffee,
park on the street, run in, get my croissant and cheese
and sausage sandwich and a coffee, and go back to my car.
And I don't have to find a quarter.
I do that in Oakland, which starts at 8 AM.
and I always get a ticket, which means my $12 breakfast
becomes a $57 breakfast.
So I really like the fact that we have adjusted the parking
hours for when the parking is really being used
by the community, by the employees, by the visitors,
by the workers, everybody, rather than just
having parking enforcement whenever
we feel like we want to have parking enforcement.
I think that we're doing the right thing
by having our hours different than what
a lot of other cities do.
But yeah, the reasonable walking distance.
Sorry, I got sidetracked.
The reasonable walking distance I think
would be important to then understand if maybe the employee permits giving more
of them to area B and C is okay because they're walking a quarter mile or if
they're having to walk three-quarters of a mile maybe that's not okay but if
there was some analysis or some assessment of that to explain some of
the recommendations that you come up with that would be great and then last
on the dynamic pricing it would be good to understand kind of order of magnitude
what the capital expenditure and the O&M costs would be for dynamic pricing and
if our parking system could accommodate it I would be while while dynamic pricing
would be really neat. I would be more interested in seeing parking revenue go
back into the downtown for aesthetics, amenities, and things of that sort that
make our downtown a special place. I will add, so that that is what our revenues
go to. It all goes back to downtown. Right, but if we if we put in a fancy dynamic
parking system that's gonna cost us, you know, 50% more to own and operate and
maintain that means we're losing that much money that was going into the
improvements of the downtown and so there's got to be a consideration there
we can't just throw money at technology because it's great when we have this
the the back end not the back end but we have the downstream of having a more
aesthetically pleasing downtown because we have more of a fundamental basic
parking O&M system and then the last is that along the aesthetics which I was
debating whether or not to bring up but I think parklets have can really be
additive if they're done right to a downtown and I know that we would be
putting them on area A which is where there's no parking available but if
If through your assessment you determine that there actually is enough parking, if we include
areas B and C, then maybe there is some value to having more parklets in area A, knowing
that the parking shed is acceptable in areas B and C as well.
That makes sense.
I'll be quiet now
Your turn. Can I madam chair? Can I ask a follow-up question to something? He said sure
so the money from the parking meters
Goes to the shut the green trolley shuttle. It goes to the beautification and a couple of other things
Based on the numbers. It seems like we're probably doing well with revenue
But does anybody know where we stand in terms of revenue and budget and everything?
Matt can you speak on that? No but I think we'll touch on it in part two maybe
a little bit what we can share about that those amenities where they're going
and and how that fund looks. I actually think that's important because it I mean
I know you there's only so much that you can share but we do we do need to if
we're going to be trying to push for recommendations to to apply technology
and increase costs, I think we need to understand the implications of doing that.
And it sounds to me like the implications of spending more money on operating and maintaining
our parking system takes away from some of the other amenities that we all enjoy.
And so I think there needs to be consideration there as we're making financial decisions,
And then that leads to the pricing decisions as well, which I believe this commission is
responsible for identifying.
Okay.
Thank you.
All right.
So, regarding curbside, curb management strategies, I do agree with the Parklets are fantastic
in their community building and I like that sense in a downtown when you're trying to
to get people to walk around and fill that community feel
and feel safe.
So, you know, to the extent that we can use
some of that extra curb maybe to put in benches
and little community boards,
and we can even use those community boards
for education around different things happening
in the city or even education around parking
for when you are in a car and how to find it.
I think for some of the curb management strategies,
it might be interesting too,
to talk to some of our other city departments
to see if there's opportunity to partner
to fulfill other needs,
whether it might be building art into our community
or maybe building toward our climate goals.
I don't know if there are opportunities like that,
but ways to build solar into our parking garages.
And some of this stuff can be projects
that are revenue generating to help subsidize costs
of implementing other technologies and things like that.
I agree around programs for local retail
and the restaurant workforce.
I think it would be important to look at doing something
to fulfill the needs of that community
because I do know that they park up into neighborhoods
where it can become problematic and crowded,
where there aren't necessarily neighborhood zones
for parking.
And I also want to be mindful that, yes,
there are communities around us who parking is free
and workers can work there and not have to pay for parking
and for lower wage workers, that cuts into wages, right?
So I want to be mindful to that.
As far as identified stakeholders are concerned,
I do think that engaging young people is important.
And I feel like every time I talk to a young person,
I learn something new about technology.
So it's always nice to engage them
and get their ideas around how our society is changing
and how we can accommodate them.
And then I think it would be interesting to talk to
like the commercial slash delivery.
I would almost consider that a separate stakeholder.
I think just because they're so prevalent now with Uber Eats
and DoorDash and all of that,
not to mention your FedExes and your UPSs
who are delivering on our city streets.
I hope that in the future,
well, I know we're gonna talk about revenues
and I hope that we not only include the parking revenues,
but also citations and what happens with that
and maybe how those ebb and flow throughout the year.
And then I hope that we have more discussions
around these parking passes.
I'm very intrigued and I think that a tiered system
might be something very cool to look into
because I'd be willing to bet there are definitely people
who use it during the weekday and folks who would be
interested in using it outside of that timeframe.
And I think it might be something
that we could capitalize on.
So I will leave my comments at that for now.
And I think we can wrap up this agenda item
unless anyone has anything else.
Okay, all right, thank you so much.
That was a very in-depth, kind of overwhelming presentation.
So, but I really appreciate your patience
and level of detail.
So with that, we will move on to,
and please feel free to speak out
if there's anything we did not address
that you want more feedback on.
So with that, we'll move on to item C,
Commission Committee Appointments.
This is for our consideration.
At this time, I will open up this item to public comment.
Do we have any members of the public wishing to comment?
We have no members of the public waiting to provide comments.
OK.
So at this time, I would like to invite the commissioners
to express their preferences for committee assignments.
Yes, Commissioner Ash.
I'd love to stay on the CCTA Citizens' Advisory Committee
because I'm doing some cool work.
But I know I have an alternate waiting.
but if I could have one more cycle.
I think my firm is working on the county-wide transportation
plan and all of that documentation.
So I have to recuse myself from being on that committee.
So I don't want to fight you over it.
Anyone else have comments on that?
Yes.
Yeah, so not to get into a boxing match for Commissioner Ash.
I just have a philosophical question which is, is there a desire
to rotate different commissioners in and out of these committees
or is there more desire to favor experience?
So, Commissioner Ash's case, a lot of experience being on there,
Is there is there a philosophy that the Commission as a whole wants to embrace?
Sort of like we, you know, we shift around Commission vice chair and chair.
I don't know that we've ever had a philosophy around that.
I think it's been who will do this.
I, for one, can't take another evening meeting in my personal life.
And so I am not interested in that.
But, you know, so I don't know that we've ever had.
anything around these appointments.
Does anyone else want to speak on that?
Yeah, we haven't.
It's a difficult situation because I'm,
I'll just say I'm of two minds.
So if it was purely on just who's on it and such,
I think that I would want to see Commissioner Ash leave the committee because the committee
is, I believe pretty strongly that we should be rotating responsibilities.
However, I know since I've been on this commission that Commissioner Ash has worked his tail
off to actually fill the committee and get representation throughout the County.
And I honestly, while my philosophy, this makes me go against my philosophy, I feel
like I want to give Commissioner Ash one more year because he didn't get a full committee
until last year.
And he had worked at it since the beginning.
and so I feel it would be nice to, if he wants it,
it would be nice to say congratulations, good job.
Thank you for getting people on board
and so we'll give you one more year.
So that's kinda where I'm headed
because of what Commissioner Ash has done
in the last couple of years to take what was a committee
that was just gonna disappear
and actually turn it into something.
So that would be my suggestion.
Thanks, and I'd like to wanna know
our calendar year to theirs doesn't line up
for our appointment, but I'd love to at least
serve through the remaining calendar year
and the term of the officers there,
which I think would take me through August.
So I'd be open to revisiting also in August too,
is a time but I appreciate actually all those compliments because well that
that's a question can we say Commissioner Ash for the remainder of his
term on that committee and then have Commissioner Prelick take over I I
would I like that idea and I like the idea of aligning our appointment with
that time frame that sounds like it would make more sense if someone from
this commission is serving in a leadership role, it'd be odd to step down, right?
Yes. The committee.
So I I like that idea.
Yeah. And thank you, Commissioner Reese, for, you know,
it wasn't obvious to all of us, all the work that Commissioner Ash
put in to building that committee.
So first, let me recognize you for that.
And gosh, I would just say, should we follow Commissioner Reese's precedent?
And should we ask Commissioner Ash to say, when he please?
And then he can say, well, I'm not a commissioner anymore,
but I'm willing to, I'll.
Pretty pleased with ice cream and cherries on top, sprinkles.
Oh, wow, that's really good.
Would you like to make an official motion,
Commissioner East?
Do you have, Commissioner, OK.
No.
I'm ready to second it.
OK.
I motion that we have Commissioner Ash continue with the CCTA committee up until August
at which time I would have Commissioner Kreling take over.
So I will second that motion.
Just let me add a comment.
I wasn't actually, in this case, I wasn't advocating for myself.
I think when we get to the, to a transition date, we should have another discussion
and see who's passionate about it and pick somebody.
I just, it was more about the philosophical question.
OK.
I'll amend it to just say Commissioner Ash
and we'll revisit in August or July.
July.
July.
And I second that.
Great.
I'll call roll.
Student Chair Kirsch?
Aye.
Commissioner Ash?
Aye.
Commissioner Krelling?
Aye.
Commissioner Patch?
Hi.
Vice Chair Kegel.
Sorry, Chair Kegel.
Going out of order.
Hi.
Vice Chair Reese.
Sorry.
No.
No.
Wow, you really messed that up.
Commissioner Reese.
Hi.
And Chair Kegel.
I.
Thanks.
Just to note, the CCTA committee,
They end as chair and then the new chair takes over
at a clean meeting, so it's not in the middle
where I think we had this trouble previously, too,
when I was chair here.
Yeah.
It's always been a challenge, this meeting,
with the shifting of roles.
Yeah, we did.
The mayor, vice mayor, happens for city council, too.
Yeah, I think all the commissions go through
this same thing where we're like,
oh, let's do the ceremonial chair switch.
Okay, so the mayor's quarterly breakfast,
this is the chair and the vice chair historically,
should be the chair and vice chair.
I don't know, I guess we can take this up
if we need to formally vote on it.
As long as you're okay with the chair and vice chair,
unless there's a discussion on that point.
So moved.
Is there any discussion?
Okay.
Good for me.
I don't know that we need to have discussion on this.
I do think that we need to have discussion on the next one.
Do you wanna run a vote for that?
Can I, just one comment on the quarterly meetings.
You know, I just go to those and I encourage others to,
just as a member of the public and sit in
and it's just a great way to hear
from all the different commissions, what's going on.
Even if you're not representing a particular commission,
it's still a great meeting.
If you're willing to get up that early.
Yeah, yeah, thank you.
I'm thinking that we should just do one motion
for all these approved changes.
Okay, all right, so let's hold on that then,
unless there's discussion on,
doesn't sound like there's discussion
on the quarterly breakfast.
The next one is the shared mobility working group
and in the staff report,
staff is suggesting that this group be dissolved
because it's been inactive for quite some time.
It was intended to meet at City Hall on an as needed basis,
typically during business hours?
Is there any discussion around
the Shared Mobility Working Group
and if we dissolve it or not?
Yes.
I have a question,
because I actually brought that up 12 months ago
and then I was told that there was a need,
there was a couple of projects for them to address this year.
Did nothing happen and there was no meetings?
Just, okay.
There have been no meetings.
This kind of came out of the Lime Scooter pilot that we tried.
And that network has evolved and changed.
And there's been no meetings on this.
I'm proposing to dissolve it just because it's not
been meeting.
But I am curious if there is interest in a safety group
and that kind of discussion talking about bike and ped
safety and what can be done there.
again, kind of meeting on ad hoc basis as needed.
We do have the local roadway safety plan,
which you've all seen,
and there are some ongoing action items
that we can update and kind of get opinions on there.
Yes, I understand the need to dissolve it
or the desire to dissolve it
since we haven't met in a very long time,
but I do think it's important
that there is some element of this commission
Being able to meet with staff about things like pedestrian,
biking, scootering, that elements of it.
Just because I think when we're in this forum,
we do end up focusing on cars fairly often.
So I guess I would be supportive of the safety committee
or whatever you want to call it,
where it does focus on those folks
but don't have airbags to protect them.
And whatever form this working group takes,
I certainly am in favor of Commissioner Patch staying on
because she is very passionate about these issues
and would also be supportive of Commissioner Reece staying on
if he so desired.
If I really liked the idea of shifting it
to the safety discussion,
I think one of the things that I've seen
in other communities that have transportation commissions
is that they are more involved on the safety side.
They are more involved in the project side
from the standpoint of safety.
And I think having opportunities
to have focused conversations around safety
is an important aspect of the work.
And I think we can be helpful to city staff.
So I would be encouraged by, I think that's a great idea.
And however we can help city staff
in that process would be great.
Any other comments?
Okay, I too really like the idea of a safety committee.
I feel like that's practically our main purpose
as a commission is safety.
So I love that idea.
Would anyone like to organize this into a collective motion?
Do you wanna do the motion?
You can, go ahead.
Sure, I'd like to,
so I'll do a dual motion I think would be the right process.
I'd like to motion that the shared mobility group
be dissolved and a new ad hoc committee be created
that focuses on safety and alternative transportation
and that those members be commissioner Patch
and commissioner Reese and report to the secretary
of transportation, this transportation commission.
I would second that motion.
Is that the proper motion we need
to confirm what the chair-
Can you just add the mayor's quarterly breakfast
will be served by the chair and vice chair as well
just to throw that in there so we cover all the.
Yes, so move that the chair and vice chair
serve as the reports to the mayor
and mayor's quarterly breakfast meeting and updates.
Okay.
I second that motion.
Student Commissioner Kirsch.
Aye.
Commissioner Ash.
Aye.
Commissioner Krelling, Vice Chair Krelling.
Aye.
Commissioner Patch.
Hi.
Commissioner Reese.
Aye.
And Chair Cagle.
Aye.
Okay, lovely.
Thank you all for that.
Thank you for your willingness to serve.
Okay, so we'll move on to our commissioner's announcements
and brief reports on activities.
Does anyone have anything they would like to share out
from the commission?
And then we'll go to staff.
Okay, we'll see if vice chairs memories serves him
It's not coming up. It was a suggested future agenda item. So
Whenever I remember it, I'll maybe email our Commission secretary. Okay
Stop do you have any updates for us? Yeah, I have a few
so we receive
Comments from the public many requests about how our city should change in terms of traffic
And so in 2023, we received 263 of these requests.
In 2024, we received 277.
Year-to-date, we're at 59.
So we're on pace for a little under 250.
So staff does have a backlog of these requests,
but I just want to note that they do take considerable amount
of our staff time and resources.
And it's a pleasure to see this feedback
and to have insights in the community
from residents themselves.
Our signal technicians have been adding
retro-reflective backings around our signal heads.
You may have seen this specifically
on California and many other signals around the city.
So they have plans to add it to all of them,
which is a great collision reduction factor.
And we're excited for that.
Some exciting news in the grant world.
We submitted, Briana submitted for the H-SIP grant
to modify some traffic signals on Ignacio Valley Road
to have left turn, protected left turns.
So we were awarded $1.9 million for that.
CCTA was awarded about $3.4 million
for improvements around BART
for a concept of a shared mobility hub.
And lastly, in January, Rashad Culver
brought the trail crossing improvements projects to you.
And you all suggested that we should ask for more money.
I think you said we should.
We suggested $100,000.
You all suggested $120,000.
And earlier this week, we found out we were awarded all $120,000.
So thank you all for your recommendations.
So we're excited to move that project forward as well.
and that's all for now, thanks.
Awesome, great work.
Yeah, congratulations.
So we do actually have a couple outreach events
before our next TC meeting.
So TC is May 15th, which is also Bike to Wherever Day.
In the past, staff has hosted a booth outside City Hall.
This year, we're looking to do it
at the Iron Horse Trail Crossing at Broadway Newell.
So we found out we got the spot.
And so for those watching, we'll be there, come stop by.
We are also looking to expand our hours
from morning to maybe early afternoon.
So stay on the lookout for posts from us.
Great.
What would be really cool is if you could do
a one-day pilot of the diagonal crossing at that time.
We've already been talking about it.
All right, well thank you for those updates.
Great work.
I hereby adjourn the March 20th, 2025
regular meeting of the Transportation Commission.
Our next regular meeting is May 15th, 2025.
You don't get to do that anymore.
Miss it.