Okay, welcome everyone to the November 20th, 2025
regular meeting of the Transportation Commission.
Would the secretary please call roll?
Commissioner Ash.
No, no, he's right there.
Oh, he is there, okay.
Commissioner Patch.
Here.
Commissioner Reese.
Here.
Student Commissioner Kirsch.
Absent.
Vice Chair Krelling.
Present.
Chair Brightman.
Present.
Okay, moving on to number two.
This portion of the meeting is reserved for comment
on items not on the agenda.
Under the Brown Act, the commission cannot act on items
raised during public communications
but may respond briefly
to statements made or questions posed,
request clarification or refer the item to staff.
At this time, I will open up this item for public comment.
Do we have any members of the public wishing to comment
on items not on the agenda?
we do not.
Okay.
All right.
Then we will move on to item number three,
the consent calendar.
Next on the agenda is the adoption of the,
and I believe it should be
July 17th, 2025, meeting minutes.
Do I have a motion for the approval of the minutes
from the July 17th, 2025 commission meeting?
So moved, if you can hear me.
Do I have a second?
I'll second.
Okay, would the secretary please call roll?
Sorry, I gotta get that moved.
Second.
Student commissioner, oh, he's absent.
Commissioner Ash?
Aye.
Commissioner Patch?
Aye.
Commissioner Reese?
I don't think I was here.
I was, so I'm gonna abstain.
Stained.
Vice Chair Kraling?
Aye.
Chair Brightman?
Aye.
Okay, thank you very much.
We'll move on to item number four,
we have a few items of consideration tonight.
The first is the Walnut Creek BART station
shared mobility hub project.
At this time I invite staff to make their presentation.
Good evening commission members.
My name is Jay Zhang, associate engineer
with Contra Costa Transportation Authority.
Tonight we have an informational item in front of you.
we'll be walking you over of the Wanda Creek Bar Station
share mobility hub project.
And I'll also introduce the Innovate 680 program
to you as well.
So before we get started,
I just wanna briefly describe what CCTA is.
That's maybe some of you don't know what we do.
So CCTA, we plan, fund and deliver transportation projects
in Contra Costa County.
We also manage our half cent transportation sales tax.
So the authority also works in partnership with local jurisdictions, transit agencies,
regional bodies, and private sector to address congestion, improve mobility, and ensure the
efficient movement of people and goods in Contra Costa County. Next slide, please.
So tonight's presentation will be broken into five topics. I'll be walking through the Inoue
6E program, and what is the share mobility hub,
and then I'll introduce our consultant
to come up here to walk you through the detailed design
of the project.
And also, briefly mention the outreach process and update
that we have, and also the next steps.
And so what is the Innovate 680 program?
The main goal of the program is to alleviate congestion,
expand mobility options, and enhance travel experience
on the 680 corridor.
We are hoping to achieve this goal
by implementing multiple innovative strategies
that can provide corridor-wide benefits.
And obviously I wanna recognize that the program's success
relies heavily on coordination
between all of the agencies in the county,
including Walnut Creek staff,
who's been participating in project meetings
and providing valuable feedback,
as well as Bar staff who's involved in project as well.
and so here's just a brief list of all the agencies
that's involved in the program.
And so there are six major strategies
under the Innovate 680 program.
Unfortunately, I won't be able to go into details
of each strategy but the Share Mobility Hub
is one of the major strategies that we came up with
in the county to address the congestion issue on 680.
I think the point that we were trying to make
is that the program will be most effective
when all of the strategies work together
and integrate all the strategies into the 680 corridor.
So what is the shared mobility hub?
Simply put, a shared mobility hub
is where multiple modes of transportation
converge and come together.
The benefit of the hub is that it
offers a seamless and reliable transfer experience
for the hub users.
Additionally, the hub may have amenities
that can help it integrate into the surrounding communities.
So how did the Walnut Creek Mobility Hub came about?
So back in 2024, CCTA conducted, sorry, back in 2023,
CCTA conducted a feasibility study
that looked at multiple hub locations
along the 680 corridor.
We were able to identify eight hubs in the corridor,
And from that list, we narrowed down to three priority
corridors that will also serve as the bus stops
for the future express bus service that's running
from Dublin, Pleasanton to Martinez.
And so, Walnut Creek Hub is one of the regional hubs
because it offers connection to BART, transit,
and other modes of transportation.
The other two hubs are the Martinez Amtrak Station Hub,
as well as the St. Ramon Bishop Ranch hub.
So in terms of funding for the project,
earlier this year in March, 2025,
CCTA received a mobility hub grant from MTC
to fund the design and construction of the project.
We have a very small grant of $3.4 million
for this project right now.
In addition, we were also allocating
some of the regional measure three money
to be used as local match for this project.
So I believe we have $700,000 from RM3 money.
450,000 of it we're using for environmental,
and then the remaining portion we'll be using
for construction management.
So our intent, original intent with the funding
is we wanted to clear the project environmentally,
design the project fully,
and also deliver a portion of the improvements
that are being proposed.
However, because of the expansion in scope
and also cost increases,
we are currently working with city staff
to identify and prioritize some of the improvements
at the site that we want to take it to full design
and construction instead of doing the whole design.
And so that's why we're here tonight,
is to seek your input on what you think
we should prioritize at the site.
So yeah, I just want to mention that upfront,
because you will see a concept plan for the Mobile Hub,
but we don't have enough funding
to deliver every improvement that's being proposed.
And so we're actively working with CSAP
to figure out a way to deliver some of the important pieces.
So yeah, next I'll introduce Adam Dankberg
from Kimbly Horn, our consulting team,
who's gonna walk you through
the concept design of the hub.
All right, good evening.
Adam Dankberg with Kimmy Horn.
Thanks, Jay, for starting us off.
I'll start with just a little bit of background on the site.
I think all of you are very familiar with this location,
but just some background.
The latest ridership we had when we were putting this together
was a little over 3,000 weekday riders at the BART station.
The station is, of course, not just BART,
but also a bus service as well, County Connections,
Solano Express, as well as several local shuttles.
The station already has a number of bike racks and lockers.
It has the bus transfer center, the new, relatively newish
transfer center underneath the south garage there.
In total, there are over 2,000 parking spaces there.
And there is a public restroom available as well.
I'm sure many of you are familiar with the transit
oriented development that has happened and is happening
or will happen at this station.
It was split into three phases.
Phases one and two are complete.
they included the parking structure as well as the recent mixed use development that has
occurred on the northern portion of that site.
Phase three is not built.
There's a fence there around that portion and the timing of that is to be determined
but it is notable just as it certainly has influenced our approach to circulation on
this site.
There's a number of priorities.
We did, there's been a lot of planning that has happened at this site.
A few years ago we did a feasibility study for CCTA
to look at opportunities and constraints
at a number of hubs, including this one,
which identified some challenges and opportunities
for circulation improvements,
and then that has led to this identification
of project priorities.
So they include safer walking and biking access
to the station from a variety of different directions
and portions of the community,
improving connections to and from the station,
specifically looking at taxis and ride-hailing services,
improved wayfinding and real-time information,
both for bus and rail users,
improving the public space that is there
with some additional opportunities for landscaping,
as well as just overall support
for improving sustainability of the area.
Obviously, walking and biking access is one portion,
but other elements include electric bike charging
and then improving, just in general,
the first mile, last mile access.
So that was our guidance.
That was what led us to identify the improvements
that I'll touch on in a second.
Do want to just emphasize all the partnership
that has occurred that Jay has alluded to.
CCTA has done a great job of engaging
the city of Walnut Creek, BART, and CCT,
well, I mentioned CCTA,
and so we have worked quite extensively together
within meetings out in the field,
meetings throughout the way
to review the improvements identified
and address any questions and comments.
Of course, we're still very early on
in the concept development process,
So a lot of partnerships still to come,
but it's been great collaboration
with city staff so far.
Okay, so in terms of the concept,
there's a lot going on and it's kind of spread out
in a bunch of different directions.
So we can't, so we're a little zoomed out.
So apologize for that, but I think that's just a good sign
of all the different improvements that are
in all the different ways of approaching the station.
So I'll highlight several of the key aspects.
One is on Riviera.
the inclusion of striped bike lanes on Riviera
that would run all the way from Parkside
to a connection to Hillside,
basically through the station area.
There's a little short stretch with bike lanes today,
but the idea would be to extend that in both directions.
This does require parking loss.
I'll touch on that with some cross-sections here in a second.
There's a multi-use path
that would extend underneath 680 along Hillside
to connect in, doesn't quite go all the way to Parkside,
but it gets to and across the Caltrans 24 on-ramp there,
with an RFP rapid rectangular flashing beacon at the Caltrans
on-ramp location.
And that is really to connect people
to the communities on that side of 680.
There is a pathway that kind of weaves its way back
behind there, which connects over to Buena Vista.
So there's a way to continue on through the neighborhood
there. On California, we have a Class 4 cycle track included there. That would be a raised
cycle track up on the curb, and that would connect between Pringle and Ignacio Valley
and connect to the bike lanes that exist today on California south of Ignacio Valley. As
part of that improvement, there will be significant modifications to the Ignacio Valley Road California
intersection with removal of the slip lanes extending the curb and really
slowing vehicle speeds down at that intersection for right turn movements
and that gives us a lot of space at the corner the BART station corner of
California and YVR and so an opportunity to do some really nice
placemaking and landscaping there we have a rendering I'll show in a few
slides there. There's a taxi and TNC loop in the middle that was something that
BART has had long planned. They did the pickup drop-off on station way with the
recent phase two work, but this would be to provide additional space for pickup
drop-off specifically for taxis and TNCs there. There's also a bike connection
there from the California cycle track into the station area. And then the third
major area for improvement is at Oakland Boulevard and the off-ramp there and
Ignacio Valley Road. And so from there, one of the key improvements is to create
a new connection from the BART station to the median path that's sort of running
underneath Bart on Oakland Boulevard towards downtown. So instead of having to kind of cross
all the way around the street, you can go directly across the intersection in a single movement
to that path. And there's some other improvements there and including modifying the existing pork
chop there to slow vehicle speeds down and make it safer for pedestrians. And there's basically
when the phase one was built, it was kind of an awkward configuration where if you're entering
the parking garage, you go underneath the Bart tracks. Again, I have a rendering that'll better
describe this, but basically the modification here is to provide a lot more channelization there
to slow vehicle speeds down, create more pedestrian space at the station. So wide
variety of improvements. You can see here there's additional wayfinding improvements, as well as
additional connection from the station directly to the Ignacio Valley and California intersection,
basically improving that existing walkway. Okay, so a few cross-sections. This shows Riviera,
And so, it is, Riviera is tight, it is fairly narrow,
but we are able to squeeze in buffer bike lanes
and portions and other portions to maintain parking
on one side.
So, in the top portion Pringle to Short,
parking would be removed on the west side.
On the Riviera from Short to Parkside,
parking would be removed on the east side there.
This number three up there is what would be happening
underneath the 680 overpass.
So there would be a shared use path on, I guess,
would be the north side there, connecting from the station
around underneath the underpass there.
Right now it's a very wide lane, so basically we'd
be just shifting the curb to create that path.
We don't have to lose any travel lanes or anything like that.
And then the last one, this is California.
So this is the class 4 raised cycle track.
So you can see here there is some parking that
would be retained in the northbound direction
on California.
And the bike would be behind that.
So it would be sort of parking protected,
but the bike would be elevated at curb level.
So here are some renderings to help better articulate what
I tried to explain in words.
So this is the bike connection from the station.
So this is looking towards the station.
You can see the station in the background.
And behind you is basically the YVR California intersection.
So right now, you can see the image on top.
There is a walkway, a covered walkway there.
There's fence on both sides.
That fence area is the phase three TOD development.
So the idea would be to move the fence on one side
and basically create a space for cyclists
to use that currently unused former roadway.
There used to be bus bays there.
That's why you see the sawtooth curb.
And it is concrete.
And so basically the bikes could just use that space instead
of crammed into that really narrow area that exists today
that's shared with pedestrians.
This is the California YVR intersection.
It's kind of a bird's eye view.
Sort of YVR is kind of on the top left there.
California is running on the bottom.
So up top there's that pergola there that exists today.
The idea is that would be removed,
the landscaping would be redone,
and we'd have a new ramp connecting
from that corner of that intersection
up towards that walkway, which we just saw on the last slide.
So there'd be a new, the staircase would generally remain,
but there'd be this new accessible ramp
that can be used for cyclists as well as pedestrians.
One note is that the phase three development
will be coming in here, so at some point in time,
they may be modifying this area.
So we wanted to keep the improvements
so that we weren't having a bunch of throwaway work there,
but something that would provide a lot of benefits
in the interim.
And then when the phase three development comes in,
it may or may not modify this configuration.
Next one is at Oakland in Ignacio Valley.
So the parking garage, the new parking garage
is what you see in the lower left there.
Bart, we kind of hid from view
just because it would block everything
and that runs kind of top left to lower right on the screen.
So, here you can see a significant reduction, just the amount of asphalt there, creating
a lot more pedestrian and bicycle space.
We're essentially maintaining the vehicle lanes, but reconfiguring them to create that
bicycle and pedestrian space, it allows us to have that direct connection across the
intersection in a way without significantly affecting traffic at that intersection.
Not depicted in the modifications of that pork chop, it's kind of just off the screen,
but we would also be modifying that pork chop to slow the vehicle speeds, and that's for
the turn from Hillside on to Oakland.
And then one more improvement which I haven't touched on yet is one of the things we're
looking at is really the path of travel for people transferring between BART and buses
because a big part of Mobility Hubs is about creating those seamless connections between
different modes.
And so one of the challenges with the current configuration is there's a lot of things in
the way.
You can't see where you're going.
It's not obvious what that path of travel is if you're not an everyday user.
So there's existing ticket vending machines,
there's some kind of awkward seating in the way.
And so the idea would be to clean that up,
replace the seating, provide some information kiosks
and wayfinding signage there
and create that more intuitive path to travel
between the fare gates and the bus area.
Okay, that's the quick summary of improvements.
I'll have a couple more slides
and then looking forward to your questions.
So we have been conducting public engagement.
We started a few weeks ago.
We've been out at the farmer's market,
couple farmers markets actually we're going to the one just out here this
coming Sunday so look forward to seeing folks out there we did a food
distribution pop up earlier today so we have an online survey that is collecting
feedback on these improvements the we have some this is just some of the
collateral we have we have almost 400 survey responses maybe we pass that
number by by the time I'm speaking here but only a few more days left in the
survey. We are planning on closing the survey on November 24th so just a few
days away so encourage folks if you haven't taken the survey to go online
and to do so. And then just to close this is the overall project timeline so you
can see we're you know we've been working on this for a little while but
there's still plenty to go. We were at just initial concept development 10%
design at this point. We are underway on the environmental analysis and have that
expect to complete that in the next couple of months. We'll be incorporating
the community feedback and as Jay mentioned sorting through the phase one
design that will then advance over the course of 2026. And with that and final
remarks Jay otherwise happy to answer any questions. Okay thank you for that
presentation a lot of information in a short time there. Do any of our
commissioners have any questions for our presenters looks like yes should we
start with down at the end you make me start but you don't have to I can start
this direction I just had one question if you could go back to the cross
sections for Riviera you'd said parking was on one side I thought for your first
cross section but it looks like there isn't parking so I just wanted to
confirm if you're removing on-street parking between Pringle and Short Street
total or the cross section shows there's no parking. Yeah, so this portion between
Pringle and Short, Short's this little one right here, so this stretch right now has
parking on the west side that would be removed. There's no parking that would
remain. For the portion north of Short, there's parking on both sides today, the
parking on the east side would be removed, the parking on the west side would
remain. Okay, great. Thank you. That's all I had. Okay. Commissioner Ash. Going back
to Oakland, is there a staircase going over the intersection or was it just
intersections? It's hard to totally see. No elevated crossing of Oakland, if
that's the question. Yes. No, it would be an at-grade crossing. And then are there
and I don't know if somebody from the City of Walnut Creek
needs to answer this one.
Is there developer fees that are still to come in
that could be, that third phase that could be applied
to making up the balance here?
Do we know?
Not know.
I always need to make SMEDAR come up.
Hello, SMEDAR Boardman and City Engineer.
So for phase three, the project currently has
their entitlements, they're in that planning phase.
whether or not they're gonna stick to those entitlements,
still sort of, we'll see what happens.
But we don't collect those fees
until issuance of building permits.
So that's in several years.
So basically when it's ready for,
they're like seriously,
they're gonna construct the building.
The other piece here is that
there's been several state laws
that have passed recently around developer fees
that we're able to collect.
Any kind of, just as a heads up,
these are traffic impact fees,
and so anything that is related to affordable housing,
we don't actually collect any traffic impact fees on.
So there could be a component of this project,
or phase three that has that, so.
So, thanks.
Can I ask a follow up?
So you said they have their entitlements,
so do they have site plans?
And so the pedestrian and bicycle kind of gateway
going through the middle of the site,
that's fits within their proposal,
or I had heard Adam say that it might change
and this might be temporary.
Yeah, so there, the site plan that they got entitlements on
does not align, that they move that pathway.
And so that was one of the ideas of let's come up
with an improvement that is very low cost
that provides benefit before that project moves forward.
They may, I mean, they may change their site plan,
they may not.
Yeah, we wanted something that would work in the interim.
But yeah, their current site plan
realigns the pathway a little bit.
Okay, and then my next question is,
what are the goals of,
well, I'm probably asking that wrong,
and I get what the goals are.
How would you can look into the future
and say five years after this is done,
we've achieved X and we're thrilled in that?
What is X?
So as I mentioned earlier, the hub
serves as a bus stop for the Express Bus service.
I think one of the ways that we will measure success
for the site is to measure the ridership for the Express Bus,
measure the congestion on 680 corridor
when the whole program goes live.
So that's a couple of ways that we can measure the success.
And the other side at the hub location
is to do pre- and post-construction surveys
to see if people are shifting out of their cars
to see if there's more access
from the bicycle and pedestrian side.
So that's a couple of ways that we can measure.
Okay, thanks.
All right, Commissioner Pech.
I have a question about this one.
Looking at it, the people coming
from the right bottom corner,
which I guess is Oakland Boulevard,
how many people are making that connection?
Like, is it a lot?
Or?
People on the path, basically using the Oakland path?
That, yeah, it would be that new path
that you're proposing.
Yeah, so the path exists today, right?
So we're just creating the new crossing.
I would have to pull up the number.
I don't know off the top of my head.
There are definitely, it does get used,
but I would have to pull that.
No?
So I don't have a number off the top of my head,
but this actually is a very popular pathway.
Kind of Boulevard Way, that pocket of county,
we have a lot of bikers that come through there
and they take Oakland Boulevard up
and then that connects to this pathway here
and then they can connect to BART.
So it's actually a very popular path for that side of town.
Thank you, that's what I was looking for.
And then can you go back to the diagram
that shows all of the, this might be for our staff
and not you, but on this proposed bike lane section
on California and Boulevard,
does it end up connecting to existing bike lanes?
Because I know that there's like some in that area
and then they disappear.
So is that just like connecting existing ones?
So, south of Ignacio, there are existing bike lanes.
They are just class two in road bike lanes.
And then on the north side there,
we do have some facilities on Pringle,
some long-term improvements,
they do have the bike lanes extending further north.
Okay, so people that would be taking this
to get to the transit station instead of Riviera
would be coming from Ignacio, you think?
So yeah, if you're, I guess the question is,
if you're coming kind of from the south from downtown,
what is your path of travel and how you, okay.
Sure, yeah.
Yeah, so we do have bike lanes on California.
So this would feed, those existing bike lanes
would feed into this intersection.
If they're going north towards BART,
they would continue through the intersection
and use that mid block crossing that we have marked here.
And then the reverse is they would kind of take that path
and then continue south along California.
Okay, thanks.
Nice chair.
Thank you, thanks for the presentation.
Since this project is connected to the high speed bus
up and down 680, this is a big picture question.
Are there any even super long range plans
for rail down the corridor?
Or is that just a non-starter question?
Yes, so the express bus, I believe it came about
from a feasibility, not a rail gap study
that was conducted by the state.
So it was actually one of the solutions
that was proposed to fill in that rail gap.
So I don't think there's a concrete plan
to have rail in this corridor.
Okay, yeah, rail would be awesome there.
One goal of this project is gonna bring, if it works,
more people to this BART station
on all the extra transportation modes there.
Are we thinking anything about having appropriate security
for all the people who are gonna be using this area?
Does that get covered in this project
or is that on the BART station police
or where would that fit in?
Yeah, I mean, it's not part of this project.
I mean, BART owns the property
and is responsible for the security.
So anything on site would be on them.
Okay, next question.
Parking costs, so right now you've got a reasonable charge
if you drive and get on BART.
Any conversation or thinking of is,
if someone's gonna drive their car there to get on the bus
to avoid driving 680, say to Pleasanton,
same cost of parking.
Parking fee is something different.
Is there any concept around that?
Yeah, I'm not aware.
I don't think in terms of drive access to the express bus,
I don't think that they've thought,
they haven't gotten to that point
of figuring out the pricing.
Okay.
Now this is from vague memory of looking on Riviera Drive
at a different project in the past.
Is there some residential on Riviera?
Yes.
So my question then is,
has there been any kind of impact study
with the parking reduction on Riviera,
any noticeable impact to the residents
that may be using that for themselves or for their guests?
And the reason we actually did keep parking
on the west side was because that's where the residential is.
So yeah, that was sort of intentional
to maintain that parking, that stretch.
So where there is the residential frontage
on the west side, there is parking.
There is some additional residential,
I believe, on the east side too,
but there's pretty limited spaces there.
Got it, yeah.
Okay, thanks.
And then, I'm almost done.
Is there any thinking about covered walkways, pathways,
and when I say covered,
so you're protected from the rain?
Because probably one of the most miserable things
when you're going from one mode to another,
transferring, say, from the bus to the back and forth,
and dealing with the rain.
Any thoughts about that in the plans?
Well, the connection to the YV intersection
has the canopy today, so that would remain.
In terms of onsite pathways, that's really
the modification now.
We aren't adding any other new onsite pathways.
Most of the other additions are at intersections.
So it's a good question, but yeah, we aren't really
adding anything new there.
Last question, the new charging stations
for cars and the bicycles, fee-based or free?
Well, there is a charge for bike parking.
So I think I would assume there would be a charge for the charging
as well.
So note that this project includes bike charging.
The Mobility Hub concept does include additional charging
infrastructure for vehicles, but that part
has a special program for vehicle charging.
So that's in their purview.
Okay, those are my questions, thanks.
All right, student commissioner,
do you have any questions and welcome by the way?
I have a couple.
In looking at this, the top right,
the real time travel information signs,
I see that there are a few of those
sprinkled throughout, would you mind touching on
what those are?
Yes, happy to do so.
So these are signs that would have information
on next train arrival or next bus arrival.
There's a couple different types of signs
were envisioning, some would be a little larger, some would be a little smaller.
MTC has developed regional wayfinding guidelines, so the actually format of
these is fairly well defined. The idea would be, you know, figuring out where to
place them. And so we've identified a few spots, I think I would expect these to
be refined as the design advances, but the general idea would be, you know, close
to the fare gates, in the bus area, kind of on the main access paths, to show
people, like, you know, do I have to run to that next train or the next bus or do I
have some time? And so that's the general idea would kind of have a listing of all
those transit services and when their next departure would be. Okay, fantastic,
thank you. And then you had a number on one of the slides that there are 3,000
plus something riders a day coming in and out of this station as of August
2025. And we're, I think, still trying to rebuild ridership. Will this help expand
capacity and if so to what, or will it just accommodate maybe what we were at
when we were at peak capacity before? Well, so these improvements don't really
change capacity. I mean, the goal is to change demand, right, to increase demand
because people feel like it's easier to get to the BART station, they don't have
to pay for parking, because they can walk and bike,
or it's easier to get dropped off there, that sort of thing.
So the goal is, this is a potential tool
to help BART get back to that previous ridership level
by overcoming some of those barriers to access.
So yeah, it's hopefully there's a motivator towards that.
But it's hard to say exactly how many more people are
going to use the train because of these improvements.
But it certainly will hopefully help drive additional ridership.
And that includes capacity of buses will also not change.
That's right, yeah.
So we're not touching the bus area
other than the wayfinding
and real time information signage.
You know, the bus area is pretty new
and it's also in the privately operated garage.
So there's some hurdles to modifying that.
So yeah, there's no changes to the bus area.
Okay, thank you for clarifying that.
Any other questions from commissioners
before I move to public comment?
Okay.
All right, this time I'll open up this item
for public comment.
Do we have any members of the public
wishing to comment on this item?
If you wanna make public comment,
please fill out your speaker card.
Thank you very much.
You'll have two minutes to provide your public comment.
Well, first of all, I'm thrilled to see improvements
being proposed for the bar station to encourage ridership,
bicycling, walking, busing, that type of thing.
I think that's great.
Maybe it'll correspond a little bit
to the $9.2 million that may be spent
for the Oakland Boulevard improvement.
Hillside intersection with a westbound state route,
24 on ramp, I'm a little concerned about would bicyclists
actually take the time to go through that intersection
and is that really gonna be a safety improvement?
So I hope that's looked at even more carefully
than the proposal.
the hillside cross section shows a bike path
that will be added to a multi-use bike path.
I'm wondering if that's gonna end up being used
as a two-way bicycle path to get from that community
over by Buena Vista, that's gonna encourage biceps
to go two ways to get to BART at least.
So that's something that should be looked at
to maybe make that sidewalk widening even wider
to accommodate people who wanna do that.
and that would require some little bit of a playing around
without access at the BART property itself.
Rivea era, I'm wondering about using station way,
if I remember correctly, the map show,
a sort of a bicycle facility going by in the,
where the bus station is, bus stops are,
rather than station way.
So considering using station way instead,
but also get them more directly to the fare gates.
What is it?
The North Downtown specific plan,
but a couple of years ago now,
was proposing some improvements to California
and further North.
And I'm wondering if that specific plan
is no longer in existence,
or if that's gonna be used to,
and reflect the changes that are being proposed here.
So there's compatibility between the two.
Thank you.
Thank you for being here.
And that might be good clarification for us, too,
if staff can touch on if that Buena Vista path is
going to be a two-way path for transportation.
So the hillside connection underneath 680 would be two-way.
OK, thank you.
And next, thank you for being here.
You have two minutes.
Thank you.
Hi, Jan Warren from the Woodlands.
I support the project.
I'm curious about two things.
One, the Oakland Boulevard new walkway
and where the traffic lights are.
Seems like you stop once and there's not another light.
You just get the left lane to go down Oakland Boulevard.
So I'm just wondering about the traffic light
and you just make it longer.
The other question has to do with bicycles.
Are we targeting these mostly for people
who want to ride their bike and put it on BART?
I mean, are we seeing more people doing that,
taking it with them?
They've got all these great, neat little things
that they can use and they're electrified or whatever,
and then take it off where they're going.
Or if not, what's the status of safe places
to keep our bikes so when you come back,
your bike is still there?
The last comment is about cycle track.
Is that simply just a special term
or some sort of pavement in which bicycles ride on
or any of the new mobility bikes.
I'm just not familiar with the term.
Okay, thank you.
Commissioners, do any of you need clarification
on any of what she just brought up?
Okay, I just wanna make sure we're good
and if staff can follow up with her questions,
that would be appreciated.
Thank you.
All right, so now we'll go to comments from commissioners.
Thanks.
Sure. Can we go to the concept plan and I guess I think this is overall I think
this is a great project. It's one of the difficulties with this station is that
it is so challenging if you're riding a bike. Walking is okay but if you're
riding a bike it's really difficult to actually get into the station. It's not
clear. A couple things that I think I'd like to have the team consider. On Riviera
there is a triangular apartment building there that's just to the, I guess that
would be to the south of Short Street and there's two single-family homes
homes there. I don't think that project has much on-site parking. I saw it go up in construction.
I didn't see a lot of parking with it. And I guess I would encourage CCTA to reach out
to that particular building because that parking is used on the street and they also have
a loading zone for their property, and so I'd encourage that to be looked at and considered.
I think that the phase three development does – it sounds like it's fluid a little bit,
the phase three residential development, and I appreciate that CCTA is trying to develop
something in the interim to get bikes up into the station, which is great and it's definitely
needed. One of the things that I would consider as an alternative that you might be able to do
that's a little bit more permanent is the first elevation on Ignacio Valley Road. You have the
sidewalk and then there's a retaining wall and then you have a tiered system going up.
That first tier, you have the elevations are reasonably appropriate to be able to bring
a class one bike, a class four bike facility, which is basically a bike path separated from
automobile traffic, you would have the ability
to put a bike path on that first tier.
And it lines up pretty well with the little Plaza
and the Pergola at YVR in California.
And it also, because it's elevated,
it actually looks like it can be designed,
especially since you're getting rid of that funky entrance
to the parking garage.
it looks like it could be designed to actually go directly
into the bicycle storage area.
The benefit of doing that is that it sets
the outer boundary for the residential
because you'd have the sidewalk,
then you'd have it tiered up,
and then you'd have the class four bike lane.
And that would be more likely to not then have
get relocated. One of the concerns I have with just putting in a temporary one down
the middle of the site is that the developer is going to want to move their project, and
it's okay to shift it a little bit for pedestrians. You can kind of make it meandering and make
it work reasonably well, but it becomes a little bit more painful if you're having a
bicyclist trying to wind through the middle of a residential development, and so I would
encourage CCTA to look at shifting that bike lane and making it more permanent to the south
along the Ignacio Valley Road frontage.
I think that would be a better use of dollars because then you wouldn't have throwaway costs.
I guess the last thing, it's about time that you're fixing Oakland Boulevard.
It's a great design because the Oakland Boulevard coming off the freeway has a really high volume
of right-turning traffic.
It overwhelms the intersection.
And the beauty of this design is that the bicyclists and the pedestrians in that cycle
track, in that facility that's crossing Oakland Boulevard, they would be able to cross at
the same time as the right turning traffic, because there's no conflict.
And the benefit of that is that one of the problems with that intersection is that everybody
has to sit and wait pedestrians, bicyclists, cars when that right turning traffic is going.
And it's super heavy and difficult to manage.
And this would allow the bikes and the pedestrians to access Oakland Boulevard at the same time
as that right turn movement, which is a huge benefit.
And so out of all this part of the project, that's probably the one that is going to have
the greatest value from a comfort and delay perspective
for bicyclists.
And I guess then I just reiterate that I'm super happy
to see that we're putting in separated bikeways,
class four bikeways on North California Boulevard.
We're setting the stage for what can continue north
and south of the project per the downtown specific plan.
So thank you for doing this and look forward to see it
get further developed.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Commissioner Ash.
Yeah, so great work on this and love the concept
of the shared mobility hubs,
but not just making it one location up and down the 680
as part of a plan.
If I recall correctly in the beginning,
you said that we would need to cut some costs
just because everything can't get done.
So two small things that I would look at in here,
I love all the bike lanes.
I don't wanna touch the bike lanes,
I think they're important,
and I think that will help increase bike users to the BART.
I don't think we need 20, if we're looking to cut cost,
I don't know what a cost
of an electric bike charging station is,
but 20 seems like a lot because the average electric bike
is like 25 miles plus on a charge,
And I feel like within 25 miles, there's
another station that might be closer to people.
Maybe if you're all the way out in Blackhawk, we're pushing it.
But those be a station for them.
And then the real-time travel information signs.
I'm all about the wayfinding, but on the real-time travel
signs, I get one or two.
But our smartphones are doing a good job.
And I got to imagine, fast forward five years,
that'll just increase that information too.
So just as simple ways I think where we can cut some costs.
And the other thing I will point out,
and some of the city staff has heard me bring this up before,
and I'll bring it up in our topic on Oakland Boulevard.
Also, just to make my point,
is when you make the left from Ignacio
onto Oakland Boulevard,
three times in the last year,
I have seen a car accidentally cut that left turn short
and that means that they end up
on that raised sidewalk pedestrian bicycle lane
and doing something in the front
to make it more obvious that it's there.
That is a blind sort of corner
and you couldn't see if a pedestrian
happened to be right there
and I think that is just dangerous
and something can happen tomorrow
where somebody gets killed right there.
And so I just wanna emphasize that point here
and please put that into this design, thanks.
Yes, thank you for this.
Glad to see it in these early stages.
I also will kind of be focusing on what you asked us,
which is priorities.
So that if you need to cut costs, you have ideas.
I think the three intersection improvements,
I know you didn't go into details,
but those are three intersections that are confusing,
so leaving those in the project and making them safer
is gonna be really important.
Particularly the one with the weird triangle
by Pringle and California.
And then I agree that that left turn onto Oakland
is not great, so safety elements to that intersection
will be a huge improvement.
I echo that five real-time travel signs seems like a lot,
especially because most of the time people
are gonna be there, they've already planned,
they're just gonna be there until the bus shows up,
it's a little late at that point,
or the BART train shows up.
So maybe cut a couple of those.
I would switch some of the electric charging
for the lockers,
because I think that's more helpful for people
who are commuting because they'll leave their bikes behind
and get on BART stations,
where I don't think people really do that necessarily
with the charging stations,
and also most people can make it to and from their house
on a single bike charge.
It's not like people are using it the same way
that they do EV charging stations.
I would also say if you do have to cut one of the bike lanes,
which I hope you don't in terms of cost,
that the changes on Oakland Boulevard and California
are more important than the Rivera class two bike lane,
just from a standpoint of how many people are using them
and the vehicle traffic that bikers have to contend with.
Thanks.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I think my fellow commissioners did a great job
on helping you with priorities.
So I'm gonna hit two different points
where based upon your answers to my questions,
you're not directly responsible
or it's not in the project, but you still have influence.
So just really asking you to be influential
with the other parties as much as possible.
One again is just security.
And we talked a little bit earlier about, you know,
trying to get BART ridership up and, you know,
security issues, whether real or only perceived,
partially contributes to BART ridership being down
or people wanting to use mass transit
or go to a large place, like a large shared mobility hub.
And then the other thing is I talked about parking
for trying to attract automobiles to come to the station
to then get on the express bus,
because I think you're gonna get with this plan,
you're gonna get a certain number of people,
a certain increase of people getting on their bicycles
to come, like people who are gonna walk there
live awfully close to the BART station.
I don't know that we'll get more people walking
from further away.
Bicycles and e-bikes will get people from further away.
But if I try to think about the larger strategic imperative
that this project fits into, which includes that rapid
transit bus up and down the 680 corridor,
the more cars you can get to drive to this BART station
and park and hop on that bus and keep them off of 680,
is a big impact in terms of, you know,
less pollution, less traffic,
less people on the roads, et cetera.
So those are my comments, thanks.
All right, student commissioner,
do you have any comments?
Yeah, so I agree with everything that's been said
and I'm excited to see this project become a reality.
That's it.
Thank you.
I'll just say thank you for the presentation.
This is a big project, a big undertaking.
I agree with most of what my commissioners have,
fellow commissioners have shared so far.
I will be an outlier and say,
I like the travel information signs.
I mean, train times change and to have it in my face,
rather than having to look at my phone,
I think is really helpful.
And I feel like I'm constantly running for trains.
And if there's one in two minutes and I can run
and not have to wait for a long headway,
I'm gonna run for it.
So I like those.
I also agree on public safety concerns.
We talk a lot about place making
on the Transportation Commission as well
with a lot of our projects.
And I think that's something important
to take into consideration.
And I know you have that to a certain extent
with landscaping and stuff like that.
But maybe there are revenue generating opportunities
such as bringing in vendors or doing evening
we're mourning mini farmer's markets or something like that,
or they can be revenue generating as well
to help with the costs.
But that's all I have to say.
Thank you for this.
All right, we'll move on.
Anything else?
Okay.
All right, we're gonna move on to item B.
This is an item for consideration,
the Downtown Curbside Management Plan.
I look forward to hearing where we've ended up on this.
We've heard about this a lot at our commission meetings,
and I now invite staff to make their presentation.
Yeah, so good evening.
My name is Brenna Byrne.
I'm an associate traffic engineer at the city.
And with me tonight to present
our final curbside management plan
is Terence Zhao with Farron Peers.
So for tonight's discussion,
it's gonna be a very, very quick overview
of what's in this plan, what are the plan chapters,
and how each one of these chapters
ties back to those previous presentations we had.
We're not looking to do a deep dive into those,
so if any viewers are curious about those chapters,
specifically, I'd recommend going back
to those Transportation Commission meetings.
So very, very high overview of the data findings,
our plan goals, the recommendations,
and then these next two are kind of the changes
that have been done since we last presented
and got feedback from Transportation Commission,
as well as feedback from council.
So what is this plan when we started it?
The goal was to set data-driven standards
to optimize our curb space
by balancing the sometimes competing needs
of parking, loading, pedestrian facilities,
bike facilities, infrastructure,
placemaking, accessibility safety,
and accessibility for all.
So this QR code will take you to the plan,
But the chapters we have laid out,
and then again where you can find information
in the TC presentations.
So we have background and introduction,
parking inventory, occupancy and duration data.
Both of those were in our March 2025 meeting.
Chapters three and four,
they cover kind of the existing city parking policies
as well as MTCs, metropolitan transportation commissions,
transit orientated communities policy compliance.
So those are two kind of just chapters
that cover what we have going on policy-wise
for the city and the area.
Chapter five, community and stakeholder engagement.
That was our May TC meeting.
We have since done more community engagement.
So there is some additional information in there
like our survey findings.
And then chapter six is the recommendations.
And so we presented that to TC July 17th.
And then we had a study session at city council
September 2nd. So the data takeaways, the photo on the right, this is the larger
study area where the color red, where you see red, this is where the block face, we
had parking occupancies over our stated goal. So this is where it can be
challenging to find an available parking space. Green, you're not gonna have any
problem. We also included some parking garages and those are the solid squares
within the study area and that was to get an understanding of what was
happening both on-street and off-street. So based on this data collection, the
finding was we have plenty of space downtown. It's in our garages. It's not on
our streets. There is some available capacity outside of the core downtown,
but within that shaded area, there's a lot of demand and it makes sense. This is
where all the land uses are.
So looking at plan goals.
So as we started kind of engaging with our stakeholders
and putting together solutions,
we wanted to make sure they all fell in line
with what we wanted for the plan.
So starting from left to right,
we first have the bike and ped safety.
So we want to ensure that peds and bikes could get to,
from and around downtown safely and comfortably.
sustainability, advanced sustainability through mode shift, and reduce that vehicle miles traveled.
Placemaking, it's the purple with kind of the family and the fountain. So use placemaking
to enhance downtown's walkability and charm. And then the fairness and accessibility,
consider users of all ages, physical abilities and economic standing to ensure downtown is
conveniently accessible. Then we have manage commercial loading, so where we
have the the red there, and the dolly. So manage commercial loading to make freight
and deliveries more orderly, efficient, and produce less conflict, and then
enhance downtown's economic vitality as a top retail destination for the region.
And then lastly, kind of just because this is a curbside management plan,
demand, manage parking demand, reduce the demand for street parking, and the difficulty
that finding street parking, and yeah, and reduce the difficulty finding the parking
and improve arrival experience.
So we're gonna go over the recommendations very, very briefly.
Again, we covered this in a previous presentation, but we have recommendations that go over curbside
loading and pickup, and if there's any questions about these, we can always toggle back.
And then we had a recommendation to address merchant parking, specifically for the vehicles.
We heard a lot about how our downtown businesses, there were no place for their employees to
park.
Transit and pedestrian spaces.
Traffic safety.
So again, this is in line with our local road safety plan and our Vision Zero policy.
And then the bicycle facilities.
And then for the street parking, wayfinding, and branding, I will read what we are proposing
as part of this, so improve instructions on the meters and signage.
Just within the last couple of months, we've already done some of this.
We have a single head meter at a lot of our spaces, so there's a left and a right.
We've since done an update where the screen for the entire process will tell you you're
paying for the left one or the right one.
So if by any chance you accidentally click the wrong one, you're now going to know before
you get to that payment stage.
Install and enhance wayfinding to direct visitors to the garages on the perimeter of downtown
and then enhance the city garage atmosphere.
So what has changed?
So based on the feedback that we got from city council as well as transportation commission,
the recommendation to raise the meter rates in that core downtown area as well as extending
the meter hours that's been removed from the recommendation the plan does have
like just a follow-up investigation so we we and I'll get to it but we have a
common action plan so it's as we roll this out just ongoing monitoring is this
working and go from there so and then based on the feedback as well we remove
the recommendation for a staffed bicycle repair station and then there's a lot of
we heard a lot of feedback kind of about scooter usage and e-bikes, true
e-bikes, and so we just added some clarification within the report, kind of
just there's a current demand downtown for these type of devices so let's make
sure our facilities can accommodate them, and then expanding the
implementation strategy. So as we went through each one of these
recommendations we got a lot of this is great but how are we gonna move forward
What are the next steps?
And so we kind of broke the recommendations
into two categories, the five-year action plan,
and then kind of the infrastructure, policy,
opportunistic chances.
So underneath that five-year action plan,
this is stuff that staff can do at house.
Or funding, we think funding can be available
and we can get it done.
So loading, curbside pickup, that merchant parking program,
Transit improvements and downtown activation for the curb think
place making and outdoor dining
Programmatic and opportunistic safety improvements. So if like a CIP or development project is coming in where possible we can tie in safety improvements
bicycle parking and funded new bikeways
we have several funded bikeways coming through downtown so
We can we can get those done in the five years
And then that parking way finding branding.
On the policy side, so there's additional bike ways outside
of what's already been done, larger capital bus stop
improvements and pedestrian infrastructure.
And then again, opportunistic, continue
to implement Vision Zero where possible.
And then at the bottom, the as needed,
like there is just going to be an ongoing evaluation
to make sure this is working and we're
moving in the kind of direction that we want to be moving.
So now moving to our plan.
So this is an example of one of our recommendations.
So using the example of improving wayfinding,
right below that we have some high level details.
Going to the right side here,
there are sub-recommendations
and each one of these are numbered.
So while the overall recommendation
is to improve wayfinding,
there are two sub-recommendations.
So, you know, place additional specific signage
at major arterials and explore coordination
with mapping providers to route visitors to garages.
So those are kind of just like the action items.
So it's improved way finding how here's one and here's two.
And then for each one of our recommendations,
we have that same plan goals graphic,
but where this recommendation
would meet those plan goals.
Those colors pop.
So the idea is it really emphasizes
how this recommendation ties back to those plan goals.
And then as we get into kind of that action plan,
we list all of the recommendations at the table
at the end with those sub-recommendation numberings.
And then again, those high level details are laid out
and kind of just the summary of the summary.
Project timeline.
So we start the data collection in the fall of 24.
This is our fourth presentation to you all.
And so the next step and the recommended action for tonight
is recommend the city council the adoption of the City of Walnut Creek's
Curbside Mansion plan.
And we're looking if that recommendation or if the action is taken,
taking this to council next month.
And then lastly, before I open it up for questions,
the acknowledgments for this.
This was a huge effort, and all of it
was through a grant from MTC, Metropolitan Transportation
Commission, and our consultant team.
As you can see, a lot of work went into this.
So Farron Peers prepared the plan.
We had incredible support from Winter, who did our outreach.
And then all of that incredible data collection
was done with Dixon Resources Unlimited.
What was that?
I will take questions.
OK, any questions from commissioners?
Commissioner Reese?
I think just one question.
You mentioned the recommendation is the merchant parking program.
Is that the idea of trying to restructure how the permits are?
We talked about at one of the previous meetings
about how some of the outer areas
are really underutilized and that might be a good opportunity
to increase permits.
So is the merchant parking program, is that part of that?
So it's something, it's reevaluating,
so it's nothing we've taken off the plate.
It's just one caveat to that is there
are a lot of private garages that we kind of
have our eye on that space-wise, capacity-wise.
There's more space in these garages
than say even on street in those areas.
So it's like, we want to get people there.
Is it the employees?
Do we want the employees in the garages?
It's all kind of just part of that big,
like where are we trying to move the desired population?
So you're gonna study it.
Yeah, so the kind of the two steps
that we're looking at doing.
So talking about those private garages,
the city act as a conduit between those private garages,
and then we have a lot of connections
with the downtown businesses,
figure out which one of these garages are open
to creating kind of that shared parking agreement,
and then connecting them with the businesses.
As a user type, the employees, it's always nice,
it's nicer if they know exactly where to go.
So it's like, it's kind of that match made in heaven,
so that's kind of the direction we would take first.
Yeah, and that takes some time, so I understand that.
OK, thank you.
That's all I had.
Commissioner Ash?
Just questions now?
Questions right now, yeah.
I'm kidding.
OK, Commissioner Patch, nothing?
Vice Chair Quilling?
I was just going to say I have no questions
because you did such a great job on the prior presentations.
So thank you.
Same.
And student, Commissioner Kirsh, do you have any questions?
OK, no questions?
All right, then moving on, we'll open this item up
for public comment.
Do we have any members of the public
who wish to comment on this item?
Looks like we have one.
Thank you.
You have two minutes.
Yes, yeah, I think it's a great project
with all the recommendations made.
I'd like to focus on recommendation nine on page 24.
I talked about improving the bicycle network.
It mentions recommending some high stress quarters
that could become low stress quarters, for example,
the east west streets of civic drive.
That's something that has been in the plan,
bicycle master plan for probably 30 years
and nothing's been done.
It would require most likely eliminating
some on-street parking.
So I know that would be a challenge
in this year's consideration,
but I think it should be at least considered
if the city wants to be serious about improvements like that.
Also sort of getting back to the, again,
east west connection, but to the BART plan
that was just discussed, trying to improve access
to BART for bicycles.
One way to do that is a favorite of mine
is to have a two-way bike path going from the Iron Horse
Trail to the BART station and have that all occur
on the north side of Ignacio Valley,
similar to what's already there between California and Main
Street.
The beauty of that is that if that's something
that the city would ever consider in dealing
with the property developers at the time,
but then that would require an improvements
to the intersection that are being considered
at Ignacio in California to sort of jive with those.
So I hope something like that can be considered
if not for civic and Ignacio Valley Road, thanks.
Thank you.
Seeing no other comments,
we'll open it up to comments from commissioners.
Commissioner East.
Do you have comments?
Yeah.
So I like the fact that you have a lot of recommendations.
And you're, well, I guess I should first
say thank you for the presentation.
You have a lot of recommendations,
and you've bucketed them nicely, which is great.
And I think that when those are done,
you're going to have a lot of cleanup in downtown.
it's going to, things are going to work a little more smoothly
and that sort of thing.
But in looking at the recommendations,
I think it's going to be difficult to drive some
of the complaints that we hear about.
There's not available parking on the street.
I can't find a parking space on the street.
That's the focus.
And I think that without doing some adjustments to parking
rates, you're going to always be challenged with that situation
because people are looking for convenient parking.
And if the price is just at an average level,
they're going to always focus on the convenience.
And you really need to consider parking pricing
as a way to incentivize people to say, well,
my convenience to park right in front is not that important.
I'm going to park in the parking garage.
And so at some point, I think the city is going
to have to deal with that issue.
I understand that there's the opposite from the public's
perspective of, well, parking costs are too high.
And so I'm just not going to come to downtown.
But I would say that we've heard that since parking
was almost free in downtown.
And we still have an abundance of people coming to downtown,
even though pricing has increased over the years.
The other is that, and this is a little bit,
we heard in one of the previous presentations somebody,
or there were some issues with people
coming to dinner at 5 or 6 o'clock, 6 o'clock, 7 o'clock.
And they are unable to find a parking space.
And what we learned is that part of the reason for that
was that parking meters end at 8 PM.
And so once you hit that 6 PM, I'm now an employee.
I'm going to be here till 10 o'clock at night.
I can start to move my car potentially
in order to take advantage of what ends up being essentially
free parking for them.
And I think that extending the hours further into the evening
would ensure that that parking is
available for late-time diners, people that come to downtown
around 7 or 7.30 or even 8 o'clock for dinner.
And so I think that's another area
that if we want to encourage and support people that eat dinner later,
that extending the parking hours would really be helpful for that.
I recognize that it also has ramifications for people
that want to be able to not worry about paying for parking
if they show up at 6 o'clock or 7 o'clock.
But it is an area that would, I think, both of those
increasing the meter rates on street and extending the hours
would actually, people would find beneficial
once we got over the hump of making those decisions.
But I recognize that's not going to happen now.
But it's something for the city to really consider going forward.
I mean with that, it'll be great, these changes for now.
But I think long-term we still have to deal
with those fundamental issues.
Commissioner Ash.
Thanks.
I agree with one of the comments
of my fellow commissioner here
in terms of the hours of the meters.
For the core downtown,
I do think it needs to get extended
for the reasons he talked about,
I'm worried that it is affecting the economics of downtown
and people coming in the availability of spaces.
I don't think it needs to be outside of that core area
because it seems like you have some better numbers
and there's the advantages of the purple meters
and we should keep that, those could say,
like at their timing.
And I will disagree where I'm okay
with the current pricing
because it actually is a decent price
And it is one thing I hear from Dan Villa a lot
is, hey, we're free parking.
Or the veranda is free parking, come here.
And that's some of the people who our restaurants
are competing with.
So if we go too high, we have to be cognizant of that.
But I don't think the extra hour has that same impact.
I think it'll help with curb management, which is our goal.
Overall, I really want to, my staff, great job.
This was a very comprehensive project.
It took a long time.
You came to us, you said this is the fifth time, four times,
like you've gone to council,
you've gone out to the public, like,
and I think a lot of my questions previously
were about future-proofing, right?
Like, how do you account for things that we know
are sort of coming in terms of autonomous vehicles
or sensors or new technology that isn't even here yet,
but I think this plan really does a good job
of getting as close as you can to future-proofing something
and having just that mindset.
So I just really want to congratulate staff
on a job well done,
and hopefully council will adopt it.
Thanks.
All right, Commissioner Patch.
I echo that, really great job, staff.
I know this has been a long process for all of you,
and I appreciate everything you've put into it.
I'm pretty excited by the recommendations
that did make it in.
I think those are great for a five year plan basically.
I agree that there's some additional research
and findings that we can do around parking
and parking meters specifically for future iterations.
I have one design comment which I'm sure
won't surprise anybody that I'm making this.
You have a couple of graphs where you're relying on colors
that aren't necessarily shaded enough that it's clear.
And those are mostly the column graphs for help.
So if you could just go in and take a look at those
before this is official, official.
I loved the graphics for the like priorities
and those are colored and labeled.
Those are fantastic, so thank you for that.
All right, Vice Chair.
So I think Commissioner Ash was inquiring
if you actually wanted to come back to us one more time.
Go to the City Council.
So first I want to echo, I actually wrote a note.
I actually really like the goal graphics as well.
I thought they were cute and well done,
when they communicate the information well.
I used to like this plan 95%.
Now I like it 100%.
And being the contrarian,
it's because as you know from prior comments,
I am against raising meter rates or extending hours.
And I think about the parking fees and the hours
is sort of like an additional tax
shopping in our downtown. And at a certain point, you have to, just like taxes, I always
ask the question, you know, when do we stop? How much of the consumer's dollars do we take?
And if you think of the state of the consumer in today's world, they're already paying
exorbitant money to eat out. That's gone up dramatically and I fear if we make it more
expensive, we just may lose people. It may not be to Danville, it may not be to Alamo
or the veranda it might be to just cooking at home and that wouldn't help our downtown thrive.
And I will say, I think I've said this before, as a Walnut Creek resident and as a commissioner,
I do sometimes go to downtown Danville to dine and part of the lure and to shop and a part of
the lure is the fact that the parking is free and plentiful. Now I know their downtown is not as
robust as ours as dense as ours so that the availability parking makes sense, but they're free parking
It's it's kind of appealing. So I moved to a hundred percent on this plan when
You put there in writing we are not considering raising rates or extending hours
And so I very much support that and the overall plan. Thank you
All right student commissioner curse do you have any comments?
Yeah, I just want to say that I agree about like the hours and the meter rates
I don't think that we should be increasing prices because I think that that's just going to drive people away and
I mean, I don't think it should be completely off the table. But for now, I don't it's something that we should be really
careful of and
Yeah, overall, I think it's it's a really detailed plan. And I think that once it goes into effect
We should have a way of assessing how effective it is and maybe having some
like regular like maybe
I'm not sure what the timeline is. I think it's around five years
but having some way of
Measuring your progress towards your goals and and if you're meeting them or not
Great. Thank you
Any other comments before I okay?
Great work. Thank you. Thank you. I'm looking at the plan
Online in its totality. It's it was like a trip down memory lane of all the educational work
You've done with us all the exploratory conversations you had with us, and you did a great job of incorporating a lot of our feedback so
Great work, and thank you and with that. I think you need something from us
Is there a motion to recommend to the City Council adoption of the city of Walnut Creek's curbside management plan?
I'll make a motion is there a second second
All right
their arm wrestling for the second and if you'll please call roll student
Commissioner Kirsch Commissioner ash what was the question sorry I motioned
Commissioner patch yes Commissioner Reese I Vice Chair Kreling I chair
Brightman. Aye. Thank you. All right, thank you very much. And moving on to our last
order of business under this, item C. This is an item for Commission
consideration, the Oakland Boulevard multi-modal improvements project. At this
time I invite staff to make their presentation. Good evening commissioners,
my name is Henry Roode, transportation planner for the Public Works Department.
Tonight I'm going to be discussing the Oakland Boulevard multi-modal
improvements project. This is in the very early stages and we are in the process of securing
the funding. So just as a quick overview, we're going to be going over the purpose and
existing conditions of Oakland Boulevard. This is primarily the stretch between Trinity
and Mount Diablo, although the official project scope does go all the way up to In the Valley
Road. I'm going to be talking about the funding and the process and then we'll be opening
it up for discussion. So to begin with Oakland Boulevard has a lot of potential in terms
of its access to BART and on the south end to downtown amenities but it's lacking continuous
sidewalks, bicycle facilities, and modern robust drainage infrastructure. So this project
aims to address that with improved pedestrian facilities, continuous sidewalk, bicycles,
improved ADA accessibility, better storm water management through low impact design,
retention and of course traffic safety. So as an overview, and this is very
early conceptual work, this divides the project stretch into five different
street segments each of which will have their own section design. So I have an
example section here between Mount Diablo and Almond Avenue. Where the
cross slope that is from side to side across the street is the steepest, this
will actually split the travel lanes. This allows us to separate the bikeways
more cleanly include bioretention in the center and ensure that basically each of
the travel ways for cars and for pedestrians and for cyclists is flat
and safe and accessible. And this will include class four grade separated
bikeways up the entirety of the project area in addition to the low-impact
design bioretention basins. So here's just a kind of an overview of the project
area. Each separate color has a different street section. I do have each of these
concept sections as reference slides at the end, if you'd like to see them later, but
I do want to note that this is very early.
The design phase of this project has not officially begun.
We just produced these concept plans to secure our grant funding.
And here's another section.
You can see that in other areas where the cross slope is not as steep, you get a more
conventional roadway section, but the bikeways are still separated at a different grade from
the car travel lanes.
So as far as the funding cycle, the ultimate source of these funds is from the state,
the state transportation improvement program, State of California.
Through that process, it first went through CCTA, and then now we're kind of going through
MTC.
So to be clear, the competitive phase of this project is complete.
City Council has appropriated $400,000 as a local match, which is 4% of the total project
budget.
And this local match also allows staff to begin working
on the early right of way and design phases
before the STIP funds are actually distributed.
So with the state funds and the local match,
the total project budget is $9,600,000.
And this does include the contingencies.
So just kind of to give you a timeline,
the Contra Costa Transit Authority, CCTA,
compiled the recommendation list
and their board approved it.
So this was then recommended and it pushed on to MTC,
the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.
And they had a few additional requirements,
the first of which was a resolution of local support
and that the city council appropriated the funds.
So this was passed on October 7th.
Another requirement is that the local bike
and pedestrian advisory committee,
which is all of you commissioners, provide comments.
This is going to be forwarded to MTC
as part of our complete streets checklist.
I've looked at the form and it's a pretty small summary,
but they may be looking at this meeting as well.
I'll be giving them the date of that.
So just know that your comments tonight
will be summarized and forwarded to MTC
as part of this process.
And then from there,
we'll proceed onto the California Transportation Commission.
In March, they're going to officially adopt this program.
And then the actual funds will be dispersed much later
in fiscal year 2029.
So with that I'm going to open it up for discussion
and questions.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you very much.
We will start with questions from commissioners.
Any questions?
No questions.
No questions.
I guess going back to my other comment,
as you go through this,
how can you help fix that left turn
so the cars don't accidentally cut it too short
and get on the multimodal?
This is the left turn from Ignacio into Oakland.
We were discussing it, yeah.
So this project is very much intended to integrate
with the shared mobility hubs
that we discussed earlier tonight.
So that intersection is more into the scope
of that project than this one.
But the idea is that they'll complement each other,
that we can get good, continuous infrastructure
for safe and accessible transportation
all the way from Mount Diablo to BART.
Any other questions?
Vice Chair.
Would you mind putting up, you had that big diagram.
Yes.
main? Actually it's right here. Is there any lane narrowing or any impacts to car traffic such as
that anticipated? So the travel lanes are narrower in some places. I'm just going to run you through
all of our concept sections. These as I mentioned are far from finalized design and in fact the
design phase has not even begun. Okay. So we want, yes we do want to ensure that you know travel is
is not too deleteriously impacted.
We've mapped out the sections to allow vehicle travel
while still providing these other pedestrian
and bicycle amenities.
Okay.
Yeah, I think that was it, thank you.
Okay, Student Commissioner Kirsch,
do you have any questions?
Oh, no I have.
Okay.
My only question is this project borders
non-Walnut Creek communities unincorporated, correct?
And, well maybe it doesn't.
You mean like at the freeway?
Towards the south in Mount Diablo.
It doesn't quite hit.
It doesn't, no.
It benefits them.
Let's put it that way.
Sure.
OK.
So I'm curious if there are efforts by the county
or any other jurisdiction this might benefit to also do
projects that would connect to this.
Yes, so the CCTA project list was looking at how best
to benefit the county when they were selecting
which projects went on their final approval list,
and Jay was actually involved with that,
just by coincidence.
So if you'd like, he might be able to speak more
about what other projects the county is looking at for this,
but that approved finalized list does detail all of them.
Yeah, sure, if you could quickly summarize
what else might be connecting to this
to make it of regional interest, that would be interesting.
Yeah, so the STIP process is a countywide process
and we did receive, I believe this cycle,
we received eight or nine applications.
So the two select the projects are this one,
the Walnut Creek, Oakland Boulevard improvement project,
and the other one is a BART access improvement
in city of Lafayette.
So unfortunately, there isn't any project that connects
at the south end of the project.
But like Henry alluded to,
it does connect to our Mobuli HUD project
and making it a continuous corridor.
I think that's the main benefit that we considered
when we looked at the project.
Yeah, cool, okay.
Are you asking because on the other side
of like 680 and Mount Diablo here,
there was a county bike program that we learned about
to help clean that up so it flows.
Is that what you're asking?
Yeah, I was curious if it was connected
to any larger projects that would benefit
from this project coming to fruition.
Either that, I guess, exist or have just happened
or that might be in the future, no.
Yeah, I'm not aware of that project yet.
All right, thank you.
I'll mention that I think this project
would put more weight to improve that connection over
to Boulevard Way, because we do see cyclists use this kind
of wiggle route from Boulevard Way under the bridge
and then onto Oakland Boulevard here.
We do have Caltrans right away under the bridge,
so there would be some constraints there.
But then there is a lot of right away on Boulevard Way
with two lanes in each direction,
and so I think we can encourage the county
to consider possible facilities along there.
Okay, thank you.
I can add one more comment to your question.
So I recently went to a design review commission
and on the Mount Diablo side of this chart,
just one partial down is a pretty large high density
apartment going in,
actually designed a really nice building, by the way.
And I think there's some other high density housing
going right on the other side of Mount Diablo up in that area.
So I think it provides better travel for people not using
cars to get from those developments to BART.
Yet that development that you mentioned about TRC,
that's a half mile from BART.
And so they are encouraged to use alternative modes.
And so this is a great connection for that reason.
OK.
Any other questions before I move to public comment?
All right, at this time I'll open up this item to public comment.
Is there anyone wishing to comment one more time? Come on up.
Um, I wonder if there were any bicycle counts that I could get a hold of or maybe
talk to Henry about. So I'm curious about that. How it compares to other, um,
how it compares to other roadways in the city of Walnut Creek.
There is a huge gap that people have identified already at the south end by
at Mount Diablo Boulevard and Oakland Boulevard
where they intersect.
I mean, it's such a unfriendly high stress area for bicycles.
It'll be great for the identity residential
that's being proposed along Mount Diablo
with some of the zoning changes and things like that.
But at the moment, any other connection going
to the other areas there, I think it's non-existent
and there's a huge, huge gap.
I'm not sure why the recent striping
curbside parking removal was done. I know this is a long-term project but
still I don't really understand why money was spent doing that because the
roadway pavement itself was not improved at all. Also Oakland Boulevard it's it's
not on the city's bike master plan is a high priority at all. I know the bike I
don't think the bike master plan has been updated for probably 30 20 years or
So the last one dated 2011.
Also, I just feel it would be better to spend $9.2 million
on some other project in the city rather than here.
I would take BART to work every day
when I worked for the city of Berkeley, walking down Oakland.
And not very many bicycles compared
to some of the other streets.
I just, I just don't think it's um, at least currently,
if the city has a great plan for residential density improvements along the area
or a Mount Diablo, maybe that'll work. But I don't,
I don't think it's a, it's a good, um, priority use of funds. Thank you.
Thank you for being here. Any other public comment? All right. Uh,
we'll open it up to commissioner comments.
Thanks. Um, thank you for, uh,
putting this project forward.
I have a slightly different perspective of it.
I used to live in this neighborhood,
and one of the frustrating pieces
about trying to go out for an evening walk
was that the neighborhood is really disconnected
unless you walk along Oakland Boulevard.
And it was probably the most uncomfortable part
of an evening walk is trying to maneuver
around Oakland Boulevard.
And I lived in this neighborhood for probably six or seven
years.
And so I looked from back in the 80s when I lived here,
I looked at this corridor.
And it just seemed like such a natural corridor.
It doesn't quite get us to the Sarah Knapp neighborhood
and community, but the roadways going into that community
from the Mount Diablo 24 interchange are extremely wide.
And there's lots of opportunity to provide good bicycling
and pedestrian connections there,
which would sort of go nowhere.
They'd end at Mount Diablo, but now with this project,
you can get all the way to BART.
And so I really see this as being an important,
I don't know if I'd call it regional in that,
but it is covering Walnut Creek and Contra Costa County.
It's going to provide a great circulation for people walking
and biking in the neighborhood.
There's a lot of high density housing in the area.
Some of the, there's both market rate and affordable housing.
so it's a mix of housing.
And they would all benefit from this project.
And it introduces a great opportunity
to connect this neighborhood to the BART station.
And I look at it as an extension of the Mobility Hub, the work
at the BART station, and YVR, and Oakland, connecting it
all the way through to Mount Diablo.
I really hope that the grant reviewers can understand
the importance of the connection and that it really
does benefit people that are both living and affordable
as well as market rate housing.
And it affects a large, benefits a large neighborhood
and potentially the Saranap neighborhood as well.
So I would encourage the city to use every opportunity they
can to get the money and promote the benefits of this project.
Thank you.
Yeah, I like it.
I get the bigger picture where this is going.
This by itself is questionable.
But it's not by itself.
It's connecting multiple neighborhoods.
You can't really see, but the overlooked neighborhood
that comes down that Oakville Road Lane.
There's a couple of apartment buildings there on Mount Diablo
and some crazy traffic there.
And like my colleague said, the whole Saranep area there.
and it connects to BART, it connects to the other side
and gets people maybe off of California
and away from Main Street on bikes
and just makes everything more friendly.
So I just love it, it's a good connection
in multiple ways that we're not seeing,
it's part of a bigger picture,
it's getting more people to transit.
Fits the transit hub, so just overall this is really good.
I would encourage city staff to check with county staff
for the unincorporated areas on the other side.
For some reason, I recall that there may be plans
for bike lanes or maybe we should just have a conversation
and encourage them to say, hey, can you pick this up?
But it goes back to the master plan, right?
Today we're working on this piece of this puzzle
and I think this really helps with that.
So thank you guys for your time.
And I will make my one comment again, though,
about that intersection turning left from Ignacio.
What's the issue?
That, I just feel like that's a place
that somebody's gonna get hit, a pedestrian,
when a car goes on the race bike lane.
It's just not marked.
So if I don't make it enough tonight,
I have the opportunity.
We're talking about that intersection.
Thank you.
All right, Mr. Patch.
I'm excited that this is moving forward,
But it's a great location.
Often when I'm asked about why bike lanes are important,
people are like, oh, well, you can just
use the Iron Horse Trail.
But this is a really good example
of why a bike lane is needed, because the Iron Horse Trail is
quite far from these people.
They're not going to go out of their way
to go take the trail to get to BART.
And so creating this is really important,
especially as we know that there's
to be more multifamily complexes going within this area, since it's so close to BART.
Also, what I'm kind of excited about is there are services along this route, like the Trinity
Center, or Planned Parenthood, or a couple others, that people who use transit are more
likely to use, and so this connects them in a safe way, which I think is fantastic.
thought that I had is as you're going into the design phase maybe like think
of ways to have little parklets or you know some shaded structure or something
if people want to take a break along the way just to make it feel a little bit
more like a neighborhood and not just here is a bike lane.
I don't know. Here's a bike lane. I'm just gonna second all the my fellow
commissioners comments. Commissioner Reese did a great job thinking about the
future bigger picture and articulating it and all third Commissioner Ash's can
you fix that left turn lane and those are my comments. I think it's a good
idea. It makes sense to me, I see the vision. So thanks. Student Commissioner
Kirsch, do you have any comments? Yeah, so I agree with the other commissioners. I
think it's a good project. The only thing I would say is that I noticed that the
price is 9.6 million and this is still in the early stages of the project, so
there could be even, could be even more expensive later on. So I don't know, I
I think it would be maybe worth trying to cut down on some of the costs or seeing where
you could maybe save some money.
If I could just address this briefly, that $9.6 million builds in an additional percentage
that's called contingency, that's kind of to get ahead of potential cost overruns because
we are aware that these projects don't always go exactly as planned.
So that kind of, yeah, exactly.
So that is kind of baked into the price, essentially.
So we did consider that when we were budgeting out
the whole project.
Did you also have something?
Yeah, so I just want to address that
intersection at YVR in Oakland.
So we did show a mock-up of the intersecting improvement.
I don't know if you still recall.
So there are a couple of changes at the intersection
that might address your concerns.
So with the closure of that right turn lane at Oakland
into the bar station, we're actually
able to move up the intersection westbound
on Ignacio Valley.
So now the turning radius is much smaller than before.
So now in addition to that, when we improve the crossing,
we'll build a little bit of protection island
that protrudes into the street.
So now the positions are a little more visible.
So now, you know, with a combination
of those improvements, we hope that could address
that left turn radius issue that you're concerned about.
So, yeah.
All right, thank you.
I think he can rest a little bit better now.
So can we?
I don't have much other than what my colleagues
have already said.
I think this is an important project regionally
and for this neighborhood.
and frankly, I think it'll connect folks
in both directions, which is important.
So thank you for your work on it.
And with that, if there are no other comments,
we are going to move on to item number five.
At this time, I would like to invite commissioners
and staff to provide their reports on activities
and or announcements.
Does anyone have any announcements, vice chair?
I have activities.
So I just wanted to first thank staff
for sending to the commission emails of upcoming events.
So last week, I came down here
for the Newell Broadway Corridor Improvements Public Session.
And then I also, on, I think it was Wednesday,
I joined the virtual Woodlands Traffic Mitigation Project
Public Forum, which I saw Commissioner Ash on as well.
So that's it, thanks.
Thank you, anyone else?
Commissioner Ash?
I just wanna echo that to staff, particularly Matt,
who did a good job presenting on that Woodlands forum,
and I know some of the comments prior at least
were not so nice, but I really appreciate you guys
really dove into the community you took input,
you listened and you altered your plans
based on that community feedback.
And that's just something,
whether it's that project or other projects,
I really appreciate, I've seen a change
in the last couple of years of staff
really engaging the community a lot better.
And so, thank you.
All right.
Any other comments from commissioners?
Anything to share?
Okay, staff, Matt?
Yeah, just to add on to the new outreach event
We held it at City Hall on the third floor.
And we had a decent turnout, a handful of people,
but they were engaged.
And we were also at the farmer's market
getting the word out about that project at Newell in Broadway
with the crossing.
And then I'll say we launched a newsletter.
I'll sign you all up.
It's part of the Safe Travelers Program,
which we rebranded the Pace Carp Pledge to the Safe Travelers
pledge and includes subscribing to the newsletter and getting updates on safety, traffic safety,
and various other project updates as well, including advertising for transportation commission.
And then we had a late October, we had a vision zero working group with one of the commissioners
here and then earlier today Henry Brianna helped prepare a grant for the
sustainability grant for studying civic drive to help understand that corridor
as a public comment mentioned tonight about civic drive to understand what can
be done there so we submitted a grant for that to study it and it basically be
like the curve management plan for civic drive in terms of outreach and effort and kind of
analyzing different concepts. So we'll see what happens with that one. That's all.
That's great. Thank you. Okay. So we're on to item number six. And that's adjournment.
I hereby adjourn the November 20th, 2025 regular meeting of the transportation commission.
Our next regular meeting is January 15, 2026.
Happy Holidays.