No.

And welcome to the City Council meeting.

This is the Alameda City Council.

Tonight is Tuesday, November eighteenth, twenty twenty-five.

And uh the I'm going to call this meeting to order the council is about to go into closed session.

But before we do, I'd like to ask City Clerk Laura Weissinger to please call the role.

Council members design.

Oh, bowler.

This is my day.

You got critical mass.

Okay, let's do it.

Uh prior here.

Mayor as the Ashcraft?

Here.

Five present.

All right.

And uh Madam Clerk, do you want to take it from here on this?

Sure.

So um the item on the consent calendar was withdrawn.

And there is no public comment on the closed session items.

So we are good to you want me to start introducing the three, and one item was also withdrawn for C.

So there's only three remaining items.

For A, public employee appointment hiring pursuant to government code section five four nine five seven.

Title Description of Positions to be filled.

I need to take a deep breath after listening.

So we are um about to adjourn into closed session.

It will be just the city council and our city attorney to start with.

Um, can I just check on logistics?

Has everyone gotten their meals out of um great.

Okay, so if I could have the council and the city attorney, and we are going to do our very best to be back to you by seven PM this evening.

Thanks, everybody.

Thank you.

How do we give us a h do we give us a h do we give us a hug From closed session, although we are going to return after this meeting because we didn't finish all our closed session items.

Madame Kirk, do you have an announcement to make?

In case anything gets resumed, the um the regular meeting, and we will start with a pledge of allegiance.

And I've asked our vice mayor Michelle Pryor if she would please lead the pledge.

All right, please stand if you are able.

Okay, ready?

Yeah.

Thank you, Vice Mayor Pryor.

Um, Madam Clerk, we have the uh special because I'm calling to order this special joint meeting of the city council and the successor agency to the community improvement commission, used to be known as the redevelopment agency.

Um Madam Clerk, is um the consent calendar.

Do you want to introduce the consent calendar?

Yes, and we'll quickly do roll call too.

Did we not do roll quickly?

Yeah, I'm trying to hurry.

Yes, why don't we do roll call?

Thank you.

Okay, uh Council Members Bowler.

Here.

Days on here.

Jensen here.

Prior here.

Mayor Ezie Ashkaff.

Also here.

Five present.

And for the consent calendar, there's just two items, and it looks like we don't have any speakers on it.

So you all are welcome to discuss or take a vote.

Okay, so this is the consent calendar.

And again, just for the successor agency.

Any um, do you have a motion to approve or questions, comments, motion?

Motion to approve.

Second.

Vice Mayor Pryor.

All those in favor, please signify by stating aye.

Aye.

That motion passes unanimously.

So I will now adjourn the successor agency meeting of the council and the successor agency.

And I will call to order the regular city council meeting, and we'll start with a roll call.

Roll call has been notified present.

Thank you.

Madam Clerk, are there any agenda changes?

There are none.

Alright, then we will move on to proclamations, special orders of the day, and announcements.

And I understand there's something exciting happening under this item.

Yes, there is.

And we're gonna, oh, I need to promote our attendee who is going to let me get um behind her really quickly.

Pardon me, and we'll get the slides up and so I don't know.

Danielle Miller is in the audience.

Should we invite her up?

She's over here on this side.

Um I'm gonna invite our sustainability and resilience manager, Danielle Miller, to come on up and do you um do you want to tell um the audience what this is about, this award?

Because you're an integral part of this.

Sure.

Well, um, we have a special guest here tonight to um share the award with us.

Hopefully, she's um there.

Okay.

Um so she's gonna share the award and uh explain exactly what we are being awarded with.

But the city of Alameda was um was awarded by the institute of local governments a number of awards recognizing our leadership as a community, um, as council and as staff of our achievements in climate action.

And I don't want to take away from what she said, so I'm happy to say more afterwards.

Okay, but I just want for everyone who's watching to know how fortunate our island city is to have Danielle Miller as our um, I always get the order wrong, sustainability and resilience, sustainability and resilience manager.

Um she takes good care of us, and she and the team.

And now um greetings, and would you like to um introduce yourself?

I think maybe from Sacramento.

Yeah, good good evening, uh Mayor Ashcraft and Council members.

Um my name is Nikita Sinha, I'm a program manager from uh the Institute for Local Government or ILG.

Um just a quick overview of ILG for those of you who may not be familiar.

We're the nonprofit uh education and training affiliate of the League of California Cities.

Um and you can move to the next slide here.

Um in 2010, we launched the Beacon Program, which is a recognition program focusing on acknowledging the steps that local governments are taking proactively towards addressing uh topics like reducing greenhouse gas emissions, becoming more energy efficient, and overall addressing climate change.

And over the past decade plus 15 years now, this program has evolved to include a framework where cities and counties can plan, share, evaluate uh innovative strategies and programs to address a variety of climate-related issues facing our cities across the state.

Uh the Beacon Program honors participants um for achievements in five different uh categories that we call the spotlight awards uh energy savings, natural gas savings, community greenhouse gas emissions reductions, agency greenhouse gas emission reductions, and sustainability best practices, which covers 10 topics across the broad field of sustainability and actions that the cities have completed under each of those 10 categories.

And then after uh receiving an award in all five of these spotlight categories, beacon participating agencies would receive a Beacon Vanguard award.

And if you move to the next slide, you'll see we're we're so grateful to have the City of Alameda as a participant in the Beacon program.

And we're really excited this year to recognize the city with two spotlight awards.

The first is a platinum level award for community greenhouse gas reductions, and the second is a silver level award for sustainability best practices.

And mayor Ashcraft, as you mentioned, those are those are a testament to both the city's leadership and your amazing team, including Danielle.

But that is not all, so I won't say congratulations just yet.

If you move over to the next slide, I will share that in 2021, the Beacon Program expanded to include five new award categories, which are the leadership and innovation awards, which celebrate the effort of local governments to implement collaborative, inclusive, and equitable climate resilience and adaptation programming and planning in their counties, communities.

Pardon me.

The Leadership and Innovation Awards recognize local governments across five different categories.

Leadership in climate resilience and adaptation, cross-agency collaboration and climate adaptation, equity and engagement and sustainability and climate, innovation and clean transportation, and innovation and clean energy.

We're so excited this year to celebrate the City of Alameda and its partners as the winners of the 2025 cross-agency collaboration and climate adaptation award.

The Oakland Alameda Adaptation Committee demonstrates what this award is really about, which is that there's power in working together to address climate issues, especially sea level rise, which don't follow any jurisdictional boundary.

So we're really excited to honor the city, City of Alameda, City of Oakland, Port of Oakland, East Bay Parks and Recreation District, and all of the other uh members, stakeholders, and community members involved with the committee for your ongoing efforts.

We're excited to see how the efforts of the committee continue to progress.

And so, on the on behalf of ILG, just like to say congratulations to the city of Alameda, and we're we're really excited to honor all of your hard work.

Thank you so much, and thank you for appearing remotely to uh extend this award.

We um some of us, Vice Mayor Pryor and Assistant City Manager Amy Woolridge and I attended the League of California Cities annual conference, and so we we did have a moment where we got this cool plaque.

Oh, I guess it's it's in our office, but uh we we took some photos, but we wanted to share this with the community.

So thank you so much for for being here.

Any questions or comments, Council?

All right.

Well, thank thank you again.

Lovely to see you.

Thank you.

You as well.

Thank you so much.

You're welcome.

Bye-bye.

All right, and thank you, the amazing Danielle Mueller, for all you do.

Alright, it's always fun to start with a celebration.

Okay, and so um, we are about to go into oral communications, non-agenda items, and before we uh kick off the meeting and our public comments and all that, I just want to go over, which I do most meetings, the ground rules for city council meetings, and um I like to remind people that this is a business meeting, and we are here to conduct the city's business.

So it's not um theater, it's not a sporting event, and therefore we don't applaud the cheer, jeer, or do the wave.

We just listen respectfully to speakers when they speak.

When it's our turn, we step right up, make that microphone whatever level you need, but then also please stop talking when the city clerk tells you your time is up.

And the reason that I I um give these reminders each meeting is that for many people, public speaking is one of the most stressful things they can do.

And for some people, they might even decide not to get up out of their chair and come to the podium.

And that would be a shame because this is your town hall, and this is where the people's business is conducted.

So we want to hear from you.

But if somebody finds the environment hostile, they just might stay safe in their seat, avoid eye contact and not speak.

And I also like to remind people that oftentimes there are young people in the audience.

Um and even if they're not physically here, they might be watching at home.

And we always want to set that example of good civic leadership for them.

So we remember that.

But at the end of the day, we just want this to be a safe place where we can speak, where we can listen, and we can we don't have to agree with each other's ideas, but we want to listen respectfully.

And there's always something we can learn, even from people we don't agree with.

If you have signs, signs are fine, it's your first amendment right.

I just ask that you don't hold them over your head and block the people behind you unless you're in that last row, and you can hold them as high as you want, but you know, hold them before you uh just so they don't block anyone's view.

And with that, we'll have um a wonderful civil meeting.

And I do need to read this magic language into the record.

This is from section 403 of the California Penal Code.

California Penal Code section 403 states that it is a criminal offense for any person to, without authority of law, willfully disturb or break up any assembly or meeting that is not unlawful in its character, other than an assembly or meeting referred to in penal code section 302 or elections code section one eight three four zero.

First violations will receive a warning, and continued violations will require additional action, which could include police intervention.

I just needed to read that, but that's all there is to that.

And with that, madam clerk, we will move on to oral communications.

This is where we take 15 minutes now at the top of the agenda to hear comment on items not on the agenda.

I think a lot of you are here for items that are in the agenda.

Um then there's another opportunity at the end of the agenda if we didn't get through all the oral communication.

Madam Kirk, do we have speakers under item four?

We do.

We have six, and so they'll get two minutes each, and we'll make it through in enough time.

Uh, the first speaker is Jay Ingram.

Welcome, Speaker Ingram.

Oh, I prepared three minutes worth of comments, so I'll cut it down.

So I'll talk quick.

Good evening, City Council.

Jay Ingram, former chair of Parks and Record or Recom Parks Commission.

Thank you for your time and thank your service to this community.

My concern is about the new full court basketball change of use at Little John Park.

I'm here to ask the city council to rec to direct staff to move one backboard down to eight feet while keeping the other at 10 feet.

This would match the court at Franklin Park, and as your recreational parks director says, would provide greater flexibility and enjoyment for players and skill levels.

My main issue is lack of proper noticing.

Neighbors were not notified of this change of use.

A frames were put at the park, and information was on the city website.

Most cities notify neighbors within 300 to 500 feet if there is a change of use.

Had I known about this change, I would have expressed concerns earlier.

I saw the court change.

I reached out to the city through the phone number on the construction fence, and I still haven't heard from the construction or from the project manager.

Little bit of history.

The previous two half courts facing Buena Vista um Avenue were intentionally placed that way after being a full court prior.

Discussions with the neighbors were held, and the solution was to remove the full court basketball court and place two half courts side by side, how it's been for many years.

Neighbors' concerns were related to noise and profanities at all times of day and night with an occasional fight breaking out.

Multiple neighbors' backyards are directly impacted by this conversion.

The conversion, as staff calls it, is more than just that, it's a change of use.

This project should have been notified or noticed to the neighbors, just like planning department notices the neighbors.

The recreation and parks director says the West End needs more basketball courts.

The Alameda Point Community Reuse Plan had a sports complex envisioned.

If the West End lacks basketball courts, let's look at Alameda Point.

A West End basketball court on Main Street was there, but it was removed to locate the community farm.

After talking with Mr.

Long, he stated he is committed to balancing the needs of neighbors and the community uh park use.

Placing the hoops at eight feet and ten feet will serve a wider range of ages and abilities.

Thank you so much.

Our next speaker.

Uh Yani Placo Placarakis.

Oh, Placarakus.

I know that name.

Yeah, I'm um I'm not seeing I'm not seeing Mr.

Placarakus.

Okay, well we're going to see.

Gordon Williams.

Welcome, Speaker Williams.

Thank you, and thanks for your time.

I want to talk about a traffic issue that's not given, so it's not agendized.

Earlier this week, I was driving.

I want to talk about another intersection that's uh Clement and Park Street.

Um, coming down, driving down Clement from the east end, looking to take a right on Park Street to go towards the Park Street Bridge.

Um we have that new double bike lane there, and then uh I'm in the uh go straight lane or the turn right lane, and then there's a left-turn lane.

And I'm sitting at a red light, and I'm trying to turn right, and the light turns green, and there's a left turn that arrow that turns green, but there's a right turn arrow that's red because the bike traffic also has a green.

And so I'm sitting there waiting to take a right turn, and the car behind me wants to go straight, but I can't move because I have the right red, and I just I bring this up to your attention um just because we're talking about other traffic issues.

Uh maybe this is something that needs just needs to get worked out.

It's confusing to me as a driver, and I think that it could result in an accident where um if I wasn't paying attention to see that because there's so many signs there to not see that right turn red, I I would have instinctively just gone because I have a green light.

Maybe we need like a green straight, and not just a general green or just better signage, and I'll just leave it at that.

And again, thank you.

Thank thank you.

Our next speaker, Jim Strelo.

Welcome, Speaker Straylo.

Good evening, Council.

I'm talking about Atlantic Avenue and Constitution Way's traffic signal.

Uh, because of Pacific Central and Maine's traffic circle, four-month detour.

In the rain, I have driven a vehicle a few times on westbound Atlantic Avenue past Webster Street with six cars in each of the two westbound lanes.

We got the green light.

The left lane either turned left onto northbound Constitution Way or went straight ahead onto along Atlantic Avenue because some vehicles needed to wait to turn left.

I waited and observed that the right lane did not move at all.

There was a red right turn arrow, halting turns onto southbound Constitution Way.

There was a green bicycle light.

I'm sure if there was also a pedestrian green light.

After the bicycle green light went red, the red right turn arrow was still red.

I saw the pedestrian green counting down from 20 seconds.

There were no more bicycles, and the pedestrian had already crossed.

No one there.

But the vehicle right hand, right arrow was still red for 20 seconds.

This is the year 2025 with artificial intelligence, AI, solutions and many software applications.

Guess what?

The state of Texas Department of Transportation has been using AI for several years now.

AI traffic signal programming uses a vision system that integrates video and radar sensors to handle unexpected traffic surges, resolve environmental concerns from air pollution from idling vehicles, and reduce traffic jams so that emergency vehicles can maneuver better through traffic.

The company no traffic.com is a strategic partner with Texas Highway Products, which supplies traffic control and safety equipment.

I encourage the city of Al Nada's staff to look into companies such as NoTraffic.com to better handle troublesome street intersection programming.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker, uh Barack Obama Shaw.

Welcome, Mr.

Obama Shaw.

Hi.

Didn't think you would get to me.

I didn't know.

All right.

Well, thank you.

So, first of all, I just want to make a little announcement.

I'm running for political office in 2026, running for governor in the state of California.

And uh also want to thank Miss Laura here who helped me out when I was running for mayor here in 2022.

I got beat out by the best mayor in the world.

Came in third here.

And uh, and I uh also want to acknowledge you guys for the beacon award.

I think that's extraordinary.

And to let everyone know here, you can reach me at Barack at Priceless Politics.com.

And my website is Priceless Politics.com.

And so anything that you need, I have questions, how I can be of service to anyone in the city or the state of California, you can reach me.

And uh I think we had uh with Jennifer Ott, we were looking at the time.

What we're gonna do about the city manager.

We needed to fill that position.

And I just want to acknowledge you because you're doing an extraordinary job in that position.

We knew we had the right person because I think you had been around before or something like that, and you just took your nose which and came back to work.

So we're very extraordinary.

Tracy Jensen sends the emails, lets people know what's going on.

She's doing an excellent job.

And I want to acknowledge Sarah Henry for like, hey man, tell people about what you're doing.

I did my first campaign rally here uh November 8th, right out front.

And uh thank you guys for being so amazing and have an extraordinary rest of your meeting.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker, Josh Altieri.

Welcome, Speaker Altieri.

Good evening.

Um my name is Josh Altier.

I'm the community relations manager at the Housing Authority of the City of Alameda.

Thank you for your time and service.

Uh just want to share a couple quick updates.

We hosted the grand opening of the North Housing Master Plan on September 25th.

Uh, it's the opening of the first two buildings, which is a Lynette Corner, which is 64 units of affordable housing for seniors, and 16 of those units are for uh previously uh uh military veterans disabled and previously unhoused.

Uh those 16 units are fully leased up, and the second building is estuary one, uh hundred percent leased up there.

Uh, again, those are all uh individuals and households that were previously unhoused.

I'd like to thank Councilmember Bowler, Councilmember Pryor, uh assistant city manager Woolder, uh City Manager Ott, and many uh city staff for attending the event.

Um, and we sincerely appreciate the efforts and partnership of the entire city.

And if any council members are interested in touring, please let me know.

Another update is we received the National Award of Merit from the uh NARO, which is a National Association of Housing Redevelopment officials.

Uh, this is related to our restore rebuild project at Independence Plaza.

It is the nation's uh first ever restore rebuild transaction uh focused on uh acquisition and preservation of existing housing instead of new construction.

And um again, we'd like to thank city staff, the council, as well as uh assistant city manager Woolridge, and then we'd like to also another project is the popular property.

Uh we've had three community meetings.

We've appreciated the feedback from the neighborhood as well as uh support from uh general support and uh recognition of the need of affordable housing in the city of Alameda from the broader community.

Um, we will be hope hosting two more meetings in early 2026, and uh when that information information comes available, we'll share with staff, city staff and council, as well as the general public can be found at uh www.

island city development.org.

And then uh the last update was seven seconds left is we would just like to thank outgoing uh city manager uh for leadership on affordable housing and wish you're well in her new position.

Thank you so much.

Our next speaker.

I I don't think that uh Yanni Placa Laura.

No, he hasn't come back.

So I think he's gone, and so I think that's it.

All right.

Well, with that, we will close oral communication non-agenda items, and we will move on to the consent calendar.

These are routine items that are approved by one motion unless council members remove an item for discussion, any removed items will be called after the regular agenda, and council members may speak for up to three minutes on the consent calendar.

So, first, are there any items the council wants pulled from the consent calendar?

Not seeing any.

So does council have any questions, clarifying questions about any um consent calendar items.

Councilmember Jensen.

I have a question or two about five.

Okay, um five Diaz and dog?

Yes.

Okay, so that's the um waterway study for the Oakland Alameda Planning, Building, Transportation Director Alan Ty is waiting in the wings.

Hi, welcome.

Good evening, Madam Mayor and Council.

Ready for your questions.

Thank you, Director Ty.

My question is regarding that this is a contract to um do a study on the pedestrian bicycle bridge project that and I appreciate that the funding is available and that there's been a an intermediate plan approved by the Transportation Commission and the Council, and that this is the result of past discussions, several past discussions.

Correct?

That's that is correct.

So the waterway study is a technical study.

So we've previously uh completed what's called a project initiation document to narrow what are the feasible options.

And at this point, the technical study really is to work with the users of the waterway to understand um more of the technical feasibility of the bridge.

Specifically, what is the span of the bridge and how does it operate?

Is it open, close?

Um so this is really the next step of the process.

So that's kind of gets to the my major my my substantial question, which is in the staff report there are three anchors in Alameda for this bridge project that are outlined in the report.

Are those are those um the final anchors in Alameda and or or are there going to be continued discussions regarding where the anchors will be in Alameda and Oakland as well?

There could be additional, but these are the three that came out of the project initiation document and phase, and that phase explored many more options and it narrowed it down to these three.

But through the waterway study, as we understand the operations of the bridge and the users of the waterway, there could be a need to look at even others.

Thank you, that's helpful.

And then my last question is was the and I know that I did see the schedule and I appreciate that.

And I know as I mentioned, there were a number of staff reports and and quite a lot of work that you and your staff did.

Thank you.

Uh how much two of the three anchors in Alameda are adjacent to Bay 37 to the housing development there, and I just want to get a sense of how much input was provided on those discussions and on those anchors from Bay 37 residents.

Yeah, thank you for that question.

So uh during the project initiation document phase.

So this would be 2024 and earlier.

Uh our project manager Rochelle Wheeler had uh met with the Bay 37 neighbors on multiple occasions.

Um I think there is a perception that there uh hasn't been a lot of communication the past year, and it's true because uh the project reached a phase where there was not a lot of public interfacing work.

So, for example, staff was busy uh obtaining the Caltrans grant.

We were coming before the council to get your approval, and then this year, part of this year uh we were busy uh with the RFP process to select the consultant.

So that's why the perception might be there is a pause and not much communication, but uh with the approval of this contract to Moffat Nichols, we're starting the work, uh we are going to have stakeholder engagement again.

Well, thank you, and it's great to know that we have the funding for this and we've received the grants for it and all the hard work that you've done, and I I know that a lot of people are looking forward to the culmination of this this exciting work and a pedestrian bicycle bridge, another way to get to and out of the West End of Alameda.

So thank you, and I'll definitely support this.

Thank you.

And I'll just not call on you just a minute, um, Vice Mayor, but I'll just say I'm really pleased to see the project moving forward in this manner, and especially as we approach the Oakland Alameda Access Project and the closure and partial closure of the tubes.

Um we are learning about how about how underserved the west end of the island is for ways to get on and off the island, and this bridge will be engineered to be able to accommodate emergency vehicles.

So if the tube was not available, we could still get those emergency vehicles on and off the island.

Um Vice Mayor Pratter.

Yeah, um yeah, I also had some questions on 5D.

So I was gonna ask you um I just uh well well to clarify, um, how many people are predicted to use the bridge each day or week or month or year?

I don't know how um it was in the report, and I don't yes, I should know this on top of my head, but I don't know if I can uh I remember 8,000, but I don't remember if it was.

Yeah, we I do have a lot of numbers on a daily basis, so sometimes I get the numbers confused.

Uh looking at Lisa Foss.

Lisa, the can we just channel our in our Michelle Wheeler?

There are estimated 8,000 9500 crossings of the bridge every week.

Oh every oh okay, so it was so during like Monday through Friday.

Okay, great, because I do remember the number 8,000.

So that sounds like I'm I'm very excited because that's a lot of people, you know, getting on and off the island every day.

Um not in the car.

So that's great.

Um, so can if you could elaborate, though, on the timeline of the study, like how long is the study gonna take?

Yeah, so uh we have this Caltrance grant until June of 2027, and the study is anticipated to take 18 to 20 months.

So we're really running up against the timeline, and so uh I would urge council's approval so we can get moving.

The other part of it too is this is a Caltrance grant, and the city is planning to ask for another Caltrance grant very soon for the wooden bridge.

So we want to show Caltrans that we are meeting our timelines.

Oh, excellent.

And then um, and then so after the study is done, everything is great.

Um, what are the next steps?

Uh so I the water we by the way, um Director Ty, Michelle Wheeler just materialized magically.

You would like to share the wealth.

I'll try this answer and then um Ms.

Wheeler can supplement.

Um so the waterway study is really our identified next step.

Uh completing the study will then provide the project uh uh opportunity to find a a project owner uh as well as um to begin uh doing environmental review.

Okay, so but the the the critical path is getting the study done so that we know what the project is, and so that could be costed, it could be studied for environmental impacts and and so forth.

Okay, thank you.

That was it.

Thank you.

Any other clarifying questions, Council?

Okay, seeing none.

Uh Madam Clerk, do we have public comment on the consent calendar?

We do not.

All right, we'll close public comment on the consent calendar, and we'll go to the council for any further comments or a motion and vote.

I'll move approval of the consent calendar.

We have a motion from council member Jensen seconded by uh second.

Okay.

Uh Vice Mayor Pryor, all those in favor, please signify by stating aye.

Aye.

Any opposed, any abstentions?

That was unanimous.

Thank you, everyone.

So then we move on to the regular agenda.

Madam Clerk, would you please introduce um item 7A?

Yes, adoption of resolution appointing Nick Shonek as trustee of the Alameda County Mosquito Abatement District Board.

Thank you.

Um Mr.

Shazak, correct?

Yes, yes, all right, and um the this is a countywide board, and it's a very important position because this board looks into ways to protect us all from things like West Nile disease and dengue fever, and um we will get a report from our representative at some time in the next year.

So do we have I think I see um so uh well first let's take the motion first.

I'm I'm pretty sure I know that how this is gonna go, but what I'm looking for council is um this is a ri resolution that we need to adopt to appoint Mr.

Shazik um to be our representative to the Alameda County Mosquito Abatement Board.

Do I have a motion?

Um I think I saw Ms.

I so Councilmember Bowler has moved and Councilmember Jensen has seconded.

Um any questions, comments, discussion?

All those in favor, please signify by stating aye.

Aye.

That motion passes unanimously, and then we'll ask Mr.

Schazek to come on up.

So City Clerk Laura Weisseger can administer the oath of office.

If you'll please raise your right hand.

Do you only clear up hold the constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California and that you will well and faithfully discharge the duties from your buttender?

I do.

Congratulations.

And as I always do, did you prepare them, Madam Clerk?

Oh, I yeah.

He's got this.

Um, do you want to just step to the microphone and just uh tell us a little bit about yourself?

Um I know him, but uh others might not.

Hi everyone, I'm uh Nick Shazik.

I am a uh six-year Alameda resident, live over on Alameda Landing.

Um, very excited about this opportunity to uh work with the Mosquito Abatement Board uh to kill some bugs and keep everyone safe from West Nile and the other diseases they carry.

Do you want to tell us a little bit about the background you bring to this endeavor?

Yep.

Um, so I um currently back on active duty.

I'm a Marine officer.

I work at the Defense Innovation Unit down in Mountain View, California.

Um, have served in the Marine Corps for getting on to I think 18, 19 years at this point, um, and also took a little bit of time to work as a business consultant in San Francisco before I came back on active duty.

He is also the father of twins who are almost six, yes, and uh almost three-year-old.

Yep.

And one of those you see riding his bike around with the kids on the back.

So yeah.

And you see the biggest bucket bike in Alameda.

You win that competition.

All right.

Well, thank you so much for offering to serve.

Thank you.

All right.

And then we will move on to item 7B.

Madam Clerk, would you introduce that item, please?

And staff come on up.

Recommendation to approve a quick build traffic calming in the neighborhood around Gibbons Drive, followed by long-term data collection and planning for the Fernside Boulevard traffic calming and bikeway project, an adoption resolution amending the fiscal year um budget um to support that.

And then, in accordance with the California Environmental Quality Act, this project is categorically exempt under CEQA guidelines section 15301c, existing facilities, minor alterations to existing facilities in section 15304, minor alterations to land on existing public rights of way.

Thank you, and welcome.

Um Ms.

Foster, would you like to introduce yourself?

Good evening, Madam Mayor and City Council members.

I'm Lisa Foster, Transportation Planning Manager.

Oh, wait, you know, before you start, Ms.

Foster, I think I heard a rumor that you might need some additional time.

What would you what's your best estimate that total time?

It would be wonderful to have 15 minutes.

Okay, so council.

What I need, we staff always has 10 minutes, but I need a motion passed by four or five would be preferable to add um five minutes to the staff presentation.

Do we have a motion?

Uh so moved.

Moved by Vice Mayor Bowler, um Vice Mayor, hello, prior, uh seconded by Councilmember Jensen.

All those in favor, please simplify by stating aye.

Aye.

Aye.

That motion passes unanimously, right?

Okay, you have a clock that will be is about to be set for 15 minutes.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

So our staff recommendation, as you know, is to approve and fund quick build traffic calming in the neighborhood around Gibbons Drive, followed by a temporary pilot uh at the Gibbons High Fernside intersection as part of long-term planning for the Fernside Boulevard Traffic Calming and Bikeways project.

So for some background, the Fernside project began work in 2023, and we're looking at implementation in 2026 to 2030 plus, and I'll give more details on the interim steps in the coming slides.

Considerations for the Gibbons High Fernside Intersection began with the Fernside Project.

Um in March, uh the City Council approved near and long-term design concepts for the Fernside Project, and the long-term design concept is pedestrian median islands with a two-way protected bikeway shown here, rendered here without the median islands.

Um and the Gibbons High Fernside intersection will be need need to be updated at least in the long term to incorporate these changes.

The long-term project will have safety and comfort improvements, including reducing speeds and reckless driving that we've heard for years from the community about this roadway, enhancing pedestrian safety with significantly shortened pedestrian crossings and a few other interventions.

And it also creates a low stress bikeway, seamlessly connected to the Cross Alameda Trail and Bay Farm Bike Bridge, and directly serving Lincoln Middle School, as called for in the active transportation plan, where it is a critical part of a connected low-stress citywide bicycle network serving all ages and abilities.

Gibbons High Fernside is a collision hotspot on the Fernside Boulevard, which in our high end in our Vision Zero Action Plan is a high injury corridor.

There were 30 collisions reported since 2017, not, of course, including those collisions that are not reported to the police.

So in March, this is what the city council reviewed for the long-term fernside project at this intersection.

And the long-term project is uh estimated for construction in 2030 or later.

It includes the removal of the right turn slip lanes on the northeast corner, which is crucial to protect uh cyclists and pedestrians.

And then it also included changes at the Gibbons leg as well on the southwest corner, squaring off the intersection by restricting northbound drivers on Gibbon Drive to right turn only.

On its own, this change could have benefits for the intersection even before the long-term fernside project.

But community members from the beginning have expressed concern about spillover.

So with these considerations, in March, City Council directed the team to evaluate the southwest corner changes in the near term as well as the long term with a study looking at how traffic circulation would change, reach out to the community, and then return to city council, which brings us to today.

Thank you.

Welcome, Mr.

Perisi.

Thank you.

Mayor and council members, David Perisi, traffic engineer with uh the firm of Parametrics.

And I'm gonna cover a little bit more about the intersection that we're talking about tonight.

Um, as you can see from the graphic here, it's it's very complicated to lay out.

There are five, maybe six legs as you look at the intersection, including uh crossings that are uncontrolled for bicyclists and pedestrians.

Some crosswalks are enormously long, up to 70 feet in length.

There have been uh we've we've observed lots of left turns coming into the wrong side of Gibbons and coming out the wrong part of Gibbons as well.

There is not a traffic signal phase or for pedestrians uh crossing the Gibbons Drive itself, so there's no walk, don't walk signal there.

And we have observed high speeds uh coming into Gibbons from southbound high street turning right, as well as uh traffic coming out of Gibbons to reach the green light and get on to the bridge.

Um, as far as some of the signal operations and uh how the intersection operates, like I mentioned before, it's five-legged intersection, provides a complication for operating a traffic light there, no pedestrian signal across Gibbons.

Um, and as Lisa mentioned, the future Fernside bikeway will provide a two-way cycle track across the north side of the intersection, which will have a signal phase.

We did some uh traffic analysis and safety operations work looking at the intersection, and Lisa talked about many of the safety benefits of the intersection, including reducing uh signal phases and the uh pedestrian crossings and really slowing down some of the turns at the intersection.

Um we know from the traffic work that we did if the uh turn out, the left turnout from Gibbons is uh removed, that the operations of the intersection would operate quite well, very similar to how it is today as far as congestion levels and delays at the intersection.

Safety would be would be greatly improved with the configuration that we're showing you here tonight.

We also took a look at a couple options that could potentially retain left turnout movement from Gibbons, so we called them option B and C, respectively.

Option B would actually uh do that by providing uh coordinated traffic light, which would be part of the system of the fernside high intersection.

All the same safety improvements as we've noted before.

However, that implementation of another signal phase would cause a lot of havoc and actually increase uh congestion and delays by two and a half to three times over existing conditions.

Alternative C, which we're calling low-cost improvements, would have some safety um uh effects, not as great as options B or C, because there'd be more um uh kind of quick build, lower cost improvements, particularly on the southwest corner.

And operations would also be jeopardized at the intersection with traffic delays increasing up to two times compared to existing conditions, and under both options B, alternatives B and C, the northbound queues on high street would be pretty excessive.

We also took a look at the possibility of a roundabout.

This schedule here doesn't look exactly round, but sometimes roundabouts have uh extraordinary shapes, and is it would be very difficult to fit a roundabout in this intersection and provide movements to and from every street without obtaining some right-of-way.

So that's what we were able to determine.

If right-of-way or property or two was obtained, it could be possible to get a roundabout to fit here, but that's not in the cards of what we're talking about tonight.

We did take a look at um alternative A to understand what the traffic operations uh would look like through the neighborhood, because that would that's the option that would restrict the left turn coming out of Gibbons.

Um, as I mentioned before, speeds coming in and out of Gibbons.

Uh we clocked at about 31 miles an hour faster than we'd like to see on a street such as this.

And we also know that in the morning time when the peak traffic is the highest going northbound, about 55% of the traffic coming on to the turn is cut through traffic.

It's traffic that did not originate in the neighborhood.

Uh we've taken a look at what we expect traffic volumes to look like in the future on different streets.

If the term prohibition for alternative A was put into place.

And this graphic here, um, is showing you daily traffic volumes on weekdays.

And it is also the green bars show what we would expect for a neighborhood greenway, which is a low traffic volume type of street.

With the project in place, traffic volumes at Gibbons would drop for about 22 to 1400 cars a day.

They would, however, increase on Bayo Vista and Cornell Drive and other streets if none of the traffic was mitigated with traffic calming options.

So this is looking at assuming all the same amount of traffic in the morning continue to come through.

This is what we'd expect.

And that translates to about less than additional car per minute on Bayo Vista and about a car every two minutes extra or so on Cornell Drive.

With that, I'm going to turn it back to Lisa.

Taller than me.

Thank you, David.

Um, so with that study in hand, we conducted public outreach in September, and we saw input on a three-stage implementation plan that aimed to balance safety needs with at the intersection with neighborhood traffic management, and that included step two, which was alternative A at the southwest corner, concurrent with neighborhood traffic calming in the neighborhood.

Um we received extensive input, uh, great participation, uh especially from the neighborhood, including about 120 people at our open house.

Many people emphasized the need to address safety in the neighborhood, and some provided us with specific locations of concern that have informed our current recommendation.

Many thought more study was needed before implementing a turn restriction, and our current recommendation does focus on study.

Residents on nearby streets had serious concerns about spillover and safety with alternative A.

And this comment diverting traffic to smaller streets is not a safe solution as a is a common one.

Um, however, more support and fewer concerns were seen from people who live on Gibbons Drive or in other parts of Alameda.

So based on that feedback, we created the updated recommendation before you today.

Um, and it starts with neighborhood traffic calming.

So phase one uh from 2026 to 2027 focuses on quick build traffic calming, including a quick build bullbout with uh at the Gibbons High Fernside intersection southwest corner, which would decrease speeds entering Gibbons and improves pedestrian safety to some extent.

Um it also includes a demonstration project of a quick build roundabout and new pedestrian crossings at Gibbons Northwood Southwood, as well as one at Southwood Bayo Vista Fairview.

We heard a lot about safety issues at both these intersections, both are large and skewed and good candidates for the proven safety measure of a roundabout, which reduces speeds and manages the intersection.

And both currently lack lack pedestrian ADA ramps and marked crosswalks because of the lack of ADA ramps.

At Southwood Bay O Vista Fairview, three on-street parking spaces would be removed to accommodate the roundabout, in addition to marking red curb at six spaces that are already no parking zones per existing state daylighting rules.

At Gibbons Northwood-Southwood, it's five spaces for the roundabout and eight spaces for the daylighting law.

Here are some examples of quick build materials we could use.

This does include temporary ADA curb ramps, which allow us to try out these safety measures, specifically the roundabouts, sooner and at low cost, so we can return with permanent materials with an improved design based on the demonstration project.

We also have four speed hump locations to manage speeds.

And then our current recommendation conducts further study of Gibbons High Fernside after the traffic calming is in place, beginning in 2028, including data collection, temporary pilot at Gibbons Fernside High, conducting long-term planning for the Fernside Traffic Calming and Bikeways project, and then upgrading those quick build demonstration projects in the neighborhood to permanent materials as funding allows with priority on those curb ramps.

The temporary turn restriction pilot would happen in 2028 and utilize simple, affordable materials.

This pilot would not test the safety benefits of alternative A because it doesn't square off the intersection or shorten the crossings, but it will provide us with real data and lived experience about the impacts of the turn restriction at the neighborhood rather than relying on projections and worries about what it could be than we'll actually know.

And since we're doing this after the traffic calming, there might be fewer drivers using the neighborhood to access the high street bridge at an already and at lower speeds, reducing impacts.

So as a reminder, our staff recommendation is to approve quick build traffic calming in the neighborhood around Gibbons Drive, followed by long-term data collection and planning for the Fernside project, and to adopt a resolution providing $200,000 in general funds for quick build traffic calming.

And with some time to spare for the QA, Mr.

Parisi and I will be joined by Scott Wickstrom, our city engineer, and Jimmy Jessup, an engineer from Parametrics as well.

Thank you.

Alright, thank you both.

So we have a lot of speakers on this 27, maybe in counting.

But before we get a public comment, are there any clarifying questions that council has for staff?

We'll we'll do our discussion and all that later, but any clarifying questions to start.

Council River Bowler.

Thank you.

So just to make sure we understand it.

Twice in the report, it mentions that the transportation commission asked that before any pilot was conducted that first the city return with the data from the traffic calming studies.

And that's not part of the recommendation as to the city council, or is it is it anticipated that it would go to the transportation commission and then city council before any pilot was implemented?

Is that part of the staff recommended recommendation or no?

That's thank you for asking for the clarification on that.

Um, the Transportation Commission recommendation was that we would come back to them with uh updated data after the traffic calming were in place before we start the uh turn restriction pilot, and then the plan would be after the turn restriction pilot is done and fully analyzed, we would come back to city council with um to uh to uh get a recommendation for next steps for that intersection.

But is it possible also to just do the the get the data first, come back to transportation, and then if necessary, city council before implementing the pilot?

Does that give you extra data as to whether or not you know the pilot makes sense at that point?

I sure we could um come back to city council, absolutely.

I'm not sure I'm following what say that again.

Um I'm just wondering if that's also an option to if it makes sense to come back to transportation committed commission and then possibly city council with the traffic calming data before making pulling the trigger on doing a pilot study.

And city manager, do you want to say anything?

Yeah, I mean, um so I think instead of just going to the transportation commission and then implementing the pilot, we'd also go to the city council, and I think at the direction of the city council, of course, we could do that.

Thank you.

Um I've noticed in that in the um well, first of all, how long is the pilot um contemplated?

Was it six months?

Yeah, it's contemplated at six months based on previous experiences from parametrics.

Okay, that's a good time frame.

The alternatives that are in the staff report, um the second one is a little bit difficult to follow.

I'm trying to understand what that means.

Um specifically of course, one alternative is to approve the staff recommendation, and then the second is to approve just the quick build neighborhood traffic calming in phase one, but not the turn restriction pilot in phase two.

And then the recommendation goes on to note staff does not recommend fast tracking traffic calming in this neighborhood without connecting it to a long-term planning for the fernside project.

Without the fernside project planning element, staff recommends the traffic calming in the area around Gribens Drive be prior prioritized according to the various city plans that are cited, um, speed hump policy, equity considerations and and those types of things.

So then it says this could result in some but not all proposed improvements being constructed in the next three to five years, and it notes that the long-term planning um issue and hit could be hindered and delayed without the ability to conduct that uh test of the turn restriction.

So is base is base is staff basically saying here that if we go with just phase one, that necessitates the flexibility for staff to decide how to implement both that and phase two that some things would not be able to, because it's do you understand I don't know if I'm making a very good question here, but I I'm not sure I understand the recommendation.

Sure.

Uh it is an alternative that we wanted to outline for city council, it's not a recommended alternative.

Um, and the the uh just approving the um near-term quick build improvements without tying it to the longer term planning for the Fernside Boulevard traffic calming and bikeways project, um, because we get traffic calming requests from all over the city, and so if if this isn't part of this broader project, this bigger project that we need to figure out to achieve our active transportation plan goals, then we believe that we shouldn't be in front of city council asking for 200,000 dollars to implement this in a more quick manner um in this particular neighborhood.

That would then it would be included, it would go into the mix with all of the requests we get across the city for for traffic calming, and you know, maybe in a couple of years, maybe some of these streets will be due for resurfacing and we'll be able to put some improvements in, just kind of out as we um the way we would make changes in any neighborhood.

Right, but let's just focus on one piece like the speed humps alone.

Wouldn't that change some data such that it might impact the ultimate design of the intersection just to know how many less people are doing that cut through speeding traffic?

Because they're gonna be deterred somewhat, right?

If there's speed humps there, I'm looking at city um engineer Scott Wickstrom, who the word speed hemp is just like music to his ears, but would you like to we were in a meeting yesterday?

Would you like to just amplify on uh the the question my colleagues asked?

My call was.

And it it's uh the way the alternative is written is makes it a little more complicated.

Um, you know, we believe that traffic calming in the neighborhood would um reduce speeds.

We believe that traffic calming in the neighborhood um should a turn restriction be imposed in the future, uh, result in fewer traffic or fewer cars being impacted and diverted to the side streets.

We don't know that, and we can't know that unless we actually uh put the traffic calming in and then do the data collection, and then really functionally do that pilot study.

They really are all three tied together.

Um, and I think what Lisa was saying, and she was saying it perhaps a little bit diplomatically, maybe it'll be a little bit more direct, is if we're not gonna tie it to the pilot project, um, we just start we step back a couple steps back.

We would not be asking city council for 200,000 in general fund monies tonight to fast track the implement implementation of these quick build uh traffic calming improvements in the neighborhood, and we would look at them in context with all the other recommendations we get throughout the city, and depending on where they score, some may get done when we do a pavement project, potentially as early as a couple years from now, and others might have to wait a little bit longer.

So we really are from our staff standpoint looking at that tie that connection, particularly with the general fund request that's attached on our recommendation.

And then um, thank you so much for that.

I appreciate that.

Um that's all I have right now.

Thank you.

Um, so seeing no other hands.

Oh, I'm sorry, um, uh, and then we'll get to the public very soon, I'm sure.

Councilmember Jensen.

Thank you.

Um, traffic engineer Wix, if we could I want to follow up on my colleague's question.

It the um recommendation is to do is to is for several steps is to do the traffic calming proposal, do data collection, and then do the pilot.

Is that correct?

That is correct.

Is it possible that the data collection would would not support the pilot?

Uh the um I don't see how that would not support the pilot.

The pilot project is really looking at the intersection of Fernside High and Gibbons and what a turn restriction would do in terms of diverting traffic to the surrounding streets.

That's the purpose of the pilot to really understand.

Um, you're gonna hear tonight from a lot of residents who are you know rightly concerned about potential increases in traffic on their relatively narrow neighborhood streets.

And we won't really know exactly how much traffic diversion is taking place unless we do the pilot.

We would we we could do what we might find is that as uh uh Mr.

President had mentioned 55% of the traffic right now is cut through.

Um that might drop down to 40% or 30%.

Um that would be wonderful.

That means fewer cars that potentially could be diverted, but that still doesn't answer the fundamental question of what happens if we actually close that through movement on gibbons.

The only way we can answer that question and where the traffic diverts is by doing the pilot project.

And the pilot project is part of the recommendation that uh of the three options that was recommended by through prior to the traffic study.

That was um we would do traffic calling, uh we would do data collection, pilot study, and additional data collection.

I I didn't I'm sorry, I didn't mean the pilot study, I meant the actual option for for eliminating the right hand for eliminating the the right turn or the the turn onto the bridge was part of the options that were presented to the council and to the community last year prior to the traffic study, and at that point the council asked that there be a traffic study.

So I guess where I'm going with this is that if if there is traffic calming, and to council member bowler's point, if there's traffic traffic calming without a pilot project, the actual traffic calming came after the pilot recommendation, after three options were recommended, one of which was to eliminate the the left-hand turn, the turn onto the bridge, and then after the traffic study came the traffic calming.

So I'm just pointing this out because it suggests to me that to Councilmember Bowler's pointing to um some other suggestions that perhaps we could do the traffic calming, collect data, and it those three options would perhaps be different.

Maybe that would the elimination of that particular turn in that option could change.

Is that possible?

It is it is possible, and I think a better way to look at it is I would say that we have heard the public comment and we've adjusted our recommendation that we brought forward last year to city council.

We've adjusted in a couple manners.

Last year we um the the thought was to go forward with what we're referring to as option A immediately, right?

To go ahead and build the the improvements with no real look at what's happening to the neighborhood traffic uh and and um no study, right?

So what we've done in listening to uh the feedback is we heard that there's a big concern about diversion within the neighborhoods.

Um our traffic study basically, and if and I will say that we have to make some assumptions about where traffic re redirects, but we were fairly aggressive in and pushing a lot of that traffic through the neighborhood streets.

We believe that if we did traffic calming, that would help mitigate that.

Um and then we would do revised traffic counts, do the pilot study uh with again additional traffic counts to understand what diversion would take place if you eliminate a turn.

After we do the pilot study, after we do that data collection, we come back to city council, and that's when we make a hard decision.

Do we go with option A in the long term?

Right?

We we're not asking to go with option A tonight.

We are act asking only to do a pilot study, which is basically as as Lisa was showing, uh can be done relatively easy with some K rails and some very inexpensive materials to simulate what it would be like to eliminate that that movement.

And we could do that over a six-month period.

We could collect the data, and if it turns out that it just doesn't work, um, that there's way too much cut-through traffic or there's a lot of concern and or delays, whatever the case may be.

We will find that out as we do the pilot study.

We have the data collection, we come back to council uh with a fresh look at that that option A for the long term.

And I think that's really where we want to go, is we want to go to a place where we can do the study that we can, you know.

We we heard the residents, we will we are proposing to do the the traffic calming, but we want to do the study to understand whether that option A is viable in the long term.

We are not asking to make any decisions where that option A happens in 2028, 2029, 2030 plus with the longer term project, that decision would be made only after we complete the pilot study and come back to council.

Thank you.

I have one question for um Mr.

Prezi.

And if um we could get to one the slide about intersection operations and signal parking, it's about the sixth slide, I think.

It's called intersection operations and signal phasing issues.

It shows the intersection.

Actually, it's a diagram of the intersection.

Uh, wait, yes, yeah, yeah.

So with this um diagram, if the recommendation that we're we're discussing the pilot rec the recommendation for a pilot, would that um have an impact on the make any changes to the ability of pedestrians to cross?

How would that eliminating the right-hand turn or eliminating the ability to access the bridge from the right hand lane?

Would that make it much safer for pedestrians who don't have a signal light at that intersection?

So I think um let me see what alternative.

No, we'd still retain that those those movements for pedestrians.

And it would be the left turn coming out of Gibbons.

That would be the uh barricaded one.

But pedestrians crossing at that at the end of Gibbons in that crosswalk would still not have a light or not have any way to know if there's traffic coming off the bridge into that crosswalk.

Um there would be some traffic calming on that corner.

So we'd reduce the speeds coming through and turning right onto Gibbons.

Um the barricade that would be uh that Scott showed for perhaps would be just in front or just to the west of the uh other crosswalk.

So there'd be some safety enhancements both for crossing the first crosswalk as you're as you're coming across from from fernside, um, right?

Because there'd be the um uh quick build and paint and tidy tightened up curb, and then the second uh crosswalk, the middle one would be barricaded off right to traffic.

So that'd be a safer safer location.

And then the third one would be just like it is today.

So those three three crosswalks.

I I as I understand it, the the exit from Gibbons Drive will be eliminated, so going from Gibbons Drive to the bridge, you will not be able to make that left hand turn.

But bridge traffic will still be able to access Gibbons Drive, correct?

Under the pilot, and and I'm just talking about the pilot.

Yes.

And so my question is there's no there's no other um no other uh parts of the project or the recommendation that would make any safety um improvements for pedestrians crossing there who would still not have a timed stoplight or timed pedestrian light to see that traffic is coming off of the bridge and into that intersection into their crosswalk.

Um there would not be a traffic light or pedestrian light with a walk don't walk signal, but there would be some enhancements that would occur.

So, for instance, for pedestrians crossing the first crosswalk from where that bus is located, for instance, um, and going uh again against the right turn coming off the bridge, there would be some quick build paint and whatnot to reduce the radius to slow down that speed that we are clocking at about 31 miles an hour for some of the fast traffic, and then the second crosswalk, which is the one in the middle where that dot is pointing that says no pedestrian signal, that'd be the one that would have a barricade in front of it, so there'd be no no cars coming out of that location, and then the third part of the crossing of Gibbons, the very south piece, there'd be no changes there, and that's the right turn that is a stop-controlled right turn.

Thank you.

My last question is for um Lisa Foster for the transportation manager.

Um, my this question is about the um parking spaces, it's about the roundabouts.

And um, I saw in the presentation that there would be a loss of parking spaces at Gibbons Northwood Southwood and at Southwood Bay of Vista Fairview.

And I understood when you did the presentation you said that the spaces would be there would be certain spaces lost there regardless of whether this project is approved and the quick build is approved, there will be lots of parking spaces at those sites.

Is that correct?

Through the daylighting.

There actually already are by state law.

State law has you know um requirements for no parking within uh at the approach of an intersection, and it it applies whether that curb is marked and whether a crosswalk is marked.

So effectively, those are already lost parking spaces.

This project would mark red curb to help people out.

So, how many actual parking spaces would be lost if these roundabouts were built?

Do you mean both the red day lighting and the no?

I mean just how many could be attributed to, I mean, it because you pointed out that there would be daylighting loss of parking, and there already is, even though it's not it's not um a red curb, but eventually we will have once the pavement management happens in that neighborhood.

I hope that those red curbs are painted so within the next two year and a half or so those there will be a loss that's not doesn't have anything to do with these roundabouts.

Is that correct?

Right.

And so with the roundabouts, how many parking spaces are just attributable to the roundabouts?

Sure, at Southwood Bay of Vista Fairview, it's three.

Three and at Gibbons Northwood Southwood, it's five.

Thank you.

Those are my questions.

I'm sorry, um Lisa Fostos.

Is that in addition, those three, and then separately five are those loss parking spaces in addition to to the daylighting, correct?

Yes, okay.

Okay, all right.

Any other clarifying questions?

Council Member Day side?

Yes, thank you.

Um, I'm not sure uh which uh who could answer this, but um so from um my calculations, um the distance from Santa Clara and Gibbons to Gibbons and high is roughly 2,709 feet, so if you're traveling at an average of 31 miles per hour, then that means that you should travel roughly 60 seconds from Santa Clara and Gibbons to Gibbons and High, and then if you factor in the two stops at Gibbons and Lincoln and Gibbons and Southwood, then it should take 68 seconds, assuming 31 miles per hour, right?

So, do we have any calculations as to how fast a driver would drive going from Santa Clara and Gibbons, and then making a left on Cornell to get to the same destination, the same endpoint of this time it would be fernside and high, because to travel to travel that distance is roughly 3012 feet, so if if a person's benchmark currently to travel um 2700 feet straight up Gibbons, if their benchmark is 60 seconds, so they expect to do it in 60 seconds plus eight seconds.

If they now are gonna travel via Cornell, but now for a little longer distance, in order to achieve their benchmark still of 60 seconds, how much faster are they going to drive through Cornell?

And who would like to take that?

Have we done that calculation?

You drew the shorts draw.

Yeah, I I feel like I'm in high school algebra class and working my way through this.

Um I uh let's start with uh 60 seconds for going from Santa Clara and Gibbons all the way up to high and gibbons.

Um if we implement traffic calming, the that time will increase uh because the 31 miles an hour uh when you hit a speed bar.

No, no, no, no.

That's the baseline.

That's the baseline.

So if you're I don't know where you're gonna implement the traffic calming, but are you gonna implement it at Corn uh at Cornell or we were doing speed bumps on Gibbons, Southwood, and Cambridge, uh and there would be a roundabout at Gibbons Northwood Southwood.

Um, but you would if to go from Santa Clara to Cornell, you would go through one roundabout that doesn't exist right now, you'd go over one speed bump that doesn't, or speed hump that doesn't exist right now, and then you'd get up to Cornell.

Well, I guess another simple way of asking the question is simply if someone if it takes someone 60 seconds to drive to travel 2700 feet and they travel at a rate of 31 miles per hour, how much do we have any estimates as to how much faster they might drive in order to achieve that same travel time of 60 seconds to get to the point of high street and um fernside?

Yeah, and I and I think you're trying to hold the time constant.

Yes, and I think what traffic calming does implicitly or even directly is to basically slow traffic down, not to hold that 60 seconds to make that 60 seconds that exist right now, closer to 70 seconds or 72 seconds, and the intention or hope, and this is something that we look to collect with both the data collection, be both before and after, is that people might look at alternate routes.

Perhaps they stay on Santa Clara all the way to High Street and go up high street.

Um, that's a and that's a good point, but no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

I'm not gonna I'm asking a question.

Actually, Council Member, let me let me know.

You know what?

Council Member Daysog, I'm the mayor, I'm running this meeting.

I'm gonna say something and you're gonna let me give me a minute to say something, not even a minute.

Just hold your thought.

What I was going to suggest to my colleagues is that I know we all have a lot of technical questions, and those questions would still be there to ask after we've heard our public speakers.

I am very well aware that we started a meeting late that we have 27 at least speakers waiting to speak, and we will have all of our time to deliberate afterwards.

It is your choice if you want to keep going, but I am also trying to balance my concerns for the um public.

So let me ask the question this way then.

And while it's not in the report, I suspect traffic also going up Yale.

Is there an any analysis as to what is their current miles per hour going up these streets?

Forgetting about you know traffic calming solution.

And is there any projections as to how their um uh the rate at which they will travel will change in in the new scenario?

Yeah, we haven't really gone that granular level of detail.

You can study and study and study, but what residents have told us and what they will probably tell you tonight, one of the reasons they're most concerned about the diversion of traffic to Cornell to Bio Vista and these other ones is because those roads are very narrow.

Uh and when road roads are fairly narrow, essentially you have almost like a yield flow kind of condition of the vehicles.

If two cars are coming at each other, somebody has to yield to allow one car to come past.

It's a natural kind of way to slow traffic down.

Um the concern that you'll hear expressed tonight is that if you have a lot of cars, that increases the risk, it decreases the the you know potential for more collisions.

Um I would not expect cars to go much faster on Cornell to make up for that lost time or BioVistor or any of these other narrow streets.

Um I think if people, and this is you know, again, you'll hear a lot of discussion tonight.

Um, and a lot of it, I mentioned that transportation commission.

I said there'll be a lot of conjecture, and we won't really know until we do a thorough study before and after a pilot project.

Um, but you know, I would expect that more vehicles are going to start diverting around using alternate ways to get from Santa Clara and Gibbons to Fernside and High.

And the you know, the the there will be it will take longer.

Um that's one thing we've kind of recognized in today's kind of society.

A lot of people use Google maps, Apple Maps, and Waze, and that directs you on the straightest shortest path.

Um, and that's why you get a lot of people going these directions.

If you start adding these other traffic coming features, um the algorithms kind of reselect after a certain point, but it starts pushing people to other directions.

People will also have experience and memories, like oh, I don't want to go down over the three three speed humps again, I'll I'll go around, and they'll use alternate methods.

That's that's what we believe is gonna happen again.

Um we won't know until we do a pilot project and have that data book.

No, I agree.

I think I think the point that I'm getting is agree that there's the two issues of potentially more traffic being diverted onto Yale and to Cornell, and there's the second issue of the fact that these streets are um narrower, I think roughly 25 feet wide versus Gibbons' 35 feet or something like that.

Um but I do think that there is the third issue though, is that I think third issue is they'll be driving a little faster to get to Fernside.

So that's that's I won't say that's outside the the Rummel possibility.

So I think that that is possible.

Appreciate it.

Any further questions from council?

Yeah.

Of course.

Thank you.

I just before we get a lot of comments about this, because it's been in the um public comments in writing, just want to give a chance to someone to reply to the notion that the city's crash data shows that none of the recorded collisions uh at the intersection would have been prevented by closing off Gibbons to that left turn going to High street.

Um yeah, we have looked at the crash data and and think that simplifying this intersection so that speeds are lower and the um intersection is smaller, will would have caused would have stopped some of these collisions occurring whether or not those drivers that were involved in the collisions were coming from gibbons specifically all right let's go to public comment madam clerk okay um so unless council votes otherwise there's 31 speakers and they'll get two minutes each um and I can call a few at a time uh Jenny Sue Vicky Tang and Cindy Mills when you hear your name be ready to come right up because that'll keep us moving and get you all um to have your chance to speak faster welcome good evening my name is Jenny Sue and I live on Bayo Vista for 21 years.

I'm strongly against closing Gibbons doing so will make it make our neighborhood less safe I'm against the roundabouts on Bayo Vista, Fairview and Southwood intersection I drive and walk on that intersection every day and it's never been a problem.

Having a roundabout in that intersection will make um large trucks and construction trucks vehicles have a very hard time making turns and I witnessed that the other day when I was following one and I it occurred to me that wow if there's a roundabout here it will make it very hard for that truck to turn so um I am not for it and I think you can do a stop sign on that intersection instead.

Thank you.

Thank you our next speaker uh Vicky Ting then Cindy Mills then Serena Hamm.

Hello.

Hello and thank you for your service I'm the mother of two young elementary school kids who walk and roll all over our neighborhood my little one started biking when he was three so I appreciate bike safety but I must say that while I support speed humps on Gibbons I do not support pilot closure.

A couple things I think one I think it's been exaggerated the current problems on the on the intersection that we're talking about even though it's been depicted as a high crash intersection the Alameda General Plan has not noted that it is a high crash intersection in all of Alameda and I think the city has also admitted that it's not one of the top 20 intersections that are high crash intersections in Alameda as well.

I also think that that last question was not fully answered in terms of whether or not the left turn would have actually caused any of those uh those uh in injuries before um I also worry that the there's a concerted effort to minimize the amount of safety issues that will arise and I feel like we're being gaslighted right now because Gibbons is a third wider than the other streets.

Traffic's gonna increase by 300 to 400%.

There's gonna be 500 more cars taking going from a protected left turn lane um onto the high street bridge to other streets like Bio Vista that has no crosswalks it has no left turn lane so that's gonna be increased safety and that that wasn't even factored into the green check marks that said the option to close was going to be you know much safer it didn't factor into the factor into the equation that that's actually going to make things a lot less safe and they haven't even calculated it.

And I just worry that all of this is being skewed and distorted to support a long-term plan to permanently close uh that left turn lane a lot of the things that are temporary here in Alameda have become pretty permanent for years and I worry that even just a pilot one is going to be used and distorted to justify a long term closure.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Our next speaker Cindy Mills then Serena Hahn then Lori Zupan welcome hello hi um thank you I want to say that I agree with everything Vicky just said I'm a lifelong resident of Alameda and I've lived on Cornell for more than 25 years, and I'm here to express my strong opposition to any closure, pilot or temporary, to the left hand turns from gibbons to on Gibbons drive to high street.

How and how changing how an intersection functions is a big deal.

That's an extreme measure.

And especially an intersection that serves as an entry and exit point to our island.

That is a critical intersection.

And such an extreme measure should not even be considered until every reasonable alternative has been explored and tried.

And that simply has not happened yet.

If the concern is safety at the intersection, there are numerous measures the city could implement without eliminating that left-hand turn.

They could work on better signage, they could work on speed off the bridge.

There are many, many things that could be done that have nothing to do with the traffic coming from Gibbons.

If speed on Gibbons is the issue, there are so many things that you have done around the island to deal with speed, and none of these tools have even been attempted on Gibbons yet.

Um it's difficult to understand why the city would consider closing a vital intersection, temporary or permanent, without trying all of these other low-cost alternatives first.

I really feel that voting to enact a temporary closure without first testing these options.

Well, in my view, it's it's just irresponsible.

I think there's so many things that you could do first.

The city city has identified it as a hot spot, but there's nothing to show that that's from Gibbons.

It's simply because there's so much traffic in that intersection.

It is a good thing.

Welcome.

Serena Hamm.

Hi, good evening, Mayor and City Council.

My name is Serena Haum, and my family and I live on Bayo Vista, and we are vehemently opposed to any closure of Gibbons, that will obviously reduce safety by increasing traffic onto the narrower side streets.

After many transportation and city council meetings on this issue and reading up on everything that I can, I still remain unclear on how closing Gibbons will actually increase safety.

As it is now, I can't drive our car in one direction if even a mid-sized sedan is coming in the other direction.

There's absolutely no room for simultaneously simultaneous passing on Bayovista.

We moved here when my son was two and a half, he is now 10.

He has had the freedom to play outside with abandoned because the current low traffic volume affords that safety.

He also walks to and from Edison unsupervised, despite the lack of stop signs and confusing intersections between our house and Edison.

It is already a very delicate balance.

So imagine closing the Gibbons left turn lane and all the eastbound traffic that will then flow into the smaller streets during commute hour, which is when all the neighborhood kids walk to school.

They will be accidents waiting to happen.

A pilot is ill-advised and dangerous.

The studies have already indicated that traffic will increase three to four acts on side streets whose width just simply can't handle the increased volume.

It is also unclear what is to be measured from a pilot.

What are the key performance indicators, and how would net safety actually be determined?

So let's continue the pursuit and study of the other solutions that calm traffic for fernside as an entire neighborhood, and not just one street as a beneficiary.

We implore the council to reject any closure of Gibbons Drive.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker.

Lori Zupan, then Nick Soil, thank you.

Uh John Puccin and John Buchine.

But Lori's a kind of person.

Welcome, Speaker Zupan.

We used to sit up here together on the planning board.

Hi.

Glad to be on this side of the diet.

Good evening, Madam Mayor.

Good evening, City Council members and city staff.

I appreciate your time volunteering and reading the huge amounts of correspondence that you have received on this proposal tonight.

I'm here to express my opposition to the closure of Gibbons Drive and to the traffic calming measures, which staff has specifically tied simply to the desire to put that turn light, or sorry, the signal light for the bicycles on Fernside for the fern side bike lane improvements.

The only reason there's any interest at all in this is simply to create that light.

Staff is not concerned about safety issues in the neighborhood unless they can close the street.

So there really isn't a safety concern here.

And when you look at all 22 accidents, none of those accidents point to Gibbons Drive being a problem.

It hasn't been a problem for a hundred years.

Neither have the other intersections in the hundred years since this has been built.

Yes, traffic does go too fast on Gibbons lately.

We don't have the staffed police to give tickets the way they used to when you go 27 and a 25.

But that is not really the issue for the safety here.

So I remain opposed to this.

I wrote a nice long email with lots of bowling as to why I'm opposed to all of these things.

But I appreciate your consideration.

I appreciate your no vote on these items, and have a nice evening.

Thank you again for your service.

Thank you, our next speaker.

Nixon, then John Puccini, then Matt Bartlett.

Good evening.

Oh yeah.

So closing the main thoroughfare on artery like Gibbons will not work.

Just look at the great highway in San Francisco and the repercussions that have occurred after.

I'm a res I'm a native San Franciscan and I've been here for about 28 30 years.

And I've also have a background of over three decades in transportation.

So I have some understanding of what's going on.

And uh hopefully you guys will take a second look at what you guys are putting together and uh go from there.

So if you have any questions, I can always answer.

Thanks, guys.

Our next speaker, John Buccini, then Matt Bartlett, then Glenn Yanko.

Welcome.

Good evening, Council.

Um, go ahead and bring that microphone up to where you need it so we can hear you.

Uh my name's John Pacini.

I live in the neighborhood.

Uh greatly opposed to the closure or any closure or any pilot of the Gibbons turn uh off.

I think taking away a protected left turn makes no sense, and creating at least four unprotected turns creates a whole nother safety issue.

So I think looking at alternative A where we're getting a green check for safety.

I think you're just ignoring the other safety issues that get created, but now having totally unprotected turns to leave the neighborhood.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker, Matt Bartlett, then Glenn Yadko, and then Gordon Williams.

Welcome, Speaker Bart.

Mayor, Council members, good evening.

My name is Matt Bartlett.

I'm a Fernstein resident, and I'm here tonight to strongly oppose any closure of Gibbons, pilot or not.

The proposed pilot is not about safety.

The city's own data show that.

In fact, Miss Foster's failure to answer uh council member Baller's question show that there have been zero recorded accidents caused by a driver turning left from Gibbons onto the High Street Bridge.

Rather, the city's data show that closing Gibbons will substantially decrease safety.

As the city's traffic study showed, blocking off the only controlled exit from the fernside neighborhood to the high street bridge will force drivers down much smaller streets that were not designed to handle this traffic.

We will also force drivers to make unprotected turns either onto high street or fernside to reach the bridge.

This is dangerous and it is not necessary.

We've also heard a lot about congestion.

Here too, the city's data do not support closing Gibbons.

The parametrics report found that the length of signal classification for both alternatives, closing Gibbons or leaving it open, were both within the acceptable range for these settings, there is no reason to close Gibbons here.

The data do not support it.

I urge the city council to reject any closure of Gibbons Drive, including the pilot closure proposed on the agenda tonight.

Without the closure of Gibbons, we don't need to spend the two hundred thousand dollars from our general fund for these traffic calming measures.

Let's save those dollars for other parts of Alameda that actually have significant safety risks.

Thank you very much for your time tonight for listening and for serving the city.

Thank you.

Next speaker, Glenn Yaka, and then Gordon Williams.

Good evening.

Right.

Thank you.

Um good evening, Madam Mayor and City Council members.

Uh, my name is Glenn Yaco, and I'm a resident of Bayo Vista, and I'm here to express my concerns about the proposed closure of the Gibbons left turn.

Uh left turn.

First, uh, I want to step back a minute and look and go back to March, uh, last March meeting.

Uh to my knowledge, I don't believe any traffic study um was even proposed prior to that council meeting on March 18th.

The neighbors who attended that meeting strongly encouraged that a traffic study be implemented before any action in this counts was taken and this council agreed, thankfully.

However, it should not have been triggered by because of a public request.

It should have been an automatic prerequisite.

Decisions of this magnitude should not be made without any data on how a Gibbons uh closure would impact surrounding neighborhoods.

Our street alone on Bayo Vista will see a 400% increase in total daily traffic.

And that came out of that study.

Uh, closing gibbons would also block the only controlled exit from our neighborhood towards the high street bridge.

This would force spillover drivers on Bayo Vista to make an unprotected turns onto a busy high street with only a stop sign to manage the traffic flow.

A closure is a closure, regardless of what it's called pilot or not.

For these reasons, I strongly oppose and urge you to reject any closure of Gibbons Drive, including the pilot closure.

Any version of this plan will make our neighborhood less safe.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you.

Speaker, Gordon Williams, then I'll go to some remote.

Okay.

Welcome, Speaker Williams.

Hi, uh good evening.

Uh, my name's Gordon Williams.

I'm a Alameda resident and one of the organizers of the 100-plus strong uh keep Gibbons open coalition.

Uh we submitted our petition with over 400 residents from Fernside and across Alameda who've signed uh opposing the closure.

Uh the community has spoken pretty loudly.

Please keep Gibbons open.

Tonight I want to focus on uh what through all these discussions that seems to be one of the core fundamental arguments that's pro-closing this off, and that's congestion.

Uh I want to explain plainly why the city's own data does not justify closing the left turn of Gibbons.

According to the September 2025 parametrics report, the current AM peak delay at high-end fernside is 31 seconds today.

With a future protected Brakeway, which is not funded yet, and may not be built for years.

This is going to increase to 50 seconds.

That's the do nothing case.

So alternative A that they're talking about increases at 31 seconds to 37 seconds, so it's a six-second increase.

Alternative C increases it to 51 seconds, so it's a 20-second increase.

So we're talking about close or not close, we're talking about 14 seconds.

14 seconds wait time is what we're talking about here.

Uh, tied to the future of this project this future project that may or may not get funded.

Uh, I'm talking about the front side project.

So, what are we trading off for these 14 seconds?

Uh the city's own modeling shows closing gibbons pushes significant traffic on a smaller unprotected streets.

I gotta go faster here.

I wanted to say that uh there's this loss of uh length of signal concept in the report.

They're both classified as D.

Both A and C are both uh loss of signal uh classification of D, which is considered acceptable.

It's not great, but it's acceptable for urban areas, and that's that is not the same as a green checkbox and a red X.

They're both the same classification.

And so uh one thank you.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you for your service to the city.

Thank you.

Our next speaker, we're gonna go remote.

Yeah, uh Maria Piper.

Welcome, Speaker Piper.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor and members of the city council.

I support staff's recommendation for a pilot that includes the left turn restriction on Gibbons for a few reasons.

First, I'm frustrated by the speeding and reckless driving that I've witnessed on Gibbons, often by people who turn left onto high from that street.

That intersection is complex, and this proposal is a reasonable attempt to simplify it to reduce driver error.

And like has been mentioned, it's a pilot.

If it's not working, it can be ended.

Moreover, traffic projections are estimates.

We don't know based on the report whether these numbers are based on current use, like current today's rates, or a projected increase, which is often done in traffic studies.

This proposal should, if done like this, reduce all traffic in the neighborhood by making it less desirable to use Gibbons or any of these streets as a cut through.

In addition to the changes staff as proposed, I would like to see additional signage on Gibbons from Santa Clara indicating there is no way to the bridge.

Similar to the fernside signage, encouraging airport traffic to use other methods.

I would also like to see changes to the entrance to Gibbons from Santa Clara that narrow the street entrance to make it less desirable to enter the neighborhood at all.

This should reduce the number of people who enter the neighborhood, therefore, reducing diversions into other streets.

In addition, I've heard a lot of people tonight who are seem very uncomfortable with change.

And this project is no different.

We're all uncomfortable with change.

However, we should be willing to embrace some discomfort and even accept a little bit of an inconvenience to try out solutions for the goodwill of our neighbors and other Alamedans.

I haven't heard anyone here who is actually lives on Gibbons.

I would love to hear from them to see if they support the project to see less traffic on their street.

I also think this would benefit neighborhood residents and residents of Alameda as a whole.

And if my assumptions are incorrect, the best news is that this is a pilot and it can be ended.

It doesn't hurt to try it.

I do not support traffic calming without the pilot.

That should happen with pavement plan if we're going to do it.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Our next speaker.

Welcome, Speaker Johnson.

Good evening, Mayor S.

Craft and members of the council.

I'm speaking on behalf of Bike Walk Alameda to urge your support for staff's recommendation, especially phase two C, the turn prohibition pilot.

We understand the concerns raised by neighbors.

However, we believe these issues have been carefully studied and thoughtfully addressed.

Even in a worst-case scenario where the turn prohibition is implemented without any other changes or additional traffic calming, nearby streets would still experience lower traffic volumes than even neighborhood greenways in Vision Delsewhere in Alameda.

With the planned traffic calming, any impacts would be even smaller.

The goal is to have through traffic not cut through at all but stay on our arterials.

And it's all these pieces working together that will make that a possibility.

The term prohibition pilot is important not only for progress on safer, more efficient intersection operations, which is the core purpose of this project.

But as the staff report points out, it's also essential for the long-term success of the fernside corridor redesign, which includes a critical bikeway for people of all ages and abilities.

This intersection and future bikeway and the future bikeway that depend on it are also part of the Bay Trail, so they have regional significance.

Because this term prohibition pilot is so important, we strongly encourage you to avoid any delay of its implementation.

Moving forward as proposed with it happening in 2028, better positions our city to meet its 2030 goal for completing bike alamedas or Alameda's backbone low stress network, which this intersection and the fernside bikeway are part of.

Staff and consultants have invested exceptional time and care into this project.

Their proposal is balanced, responsive, supported by the Transportation Commission, and aligned with Alameda's adopted transportation and climate commitments and general plan.

Thank you for your leadership, especially at times like this.

We hope you'll continue the momentum toward a safer, healthier, and more sustainable Alameda by supporting staff's recommendation.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker, Jake Garfinkel.

Welcome, Speaker Garfinkel.

Hello.

Mr.

Garfinkel, are you there?

Do we see him on the screen?

He he's there, but he's not on muting.

So maybe we can go to the next person.

Call him.

No.

Oh, he's there he is.

Welcome.

Hello.

Didn't click the right button.

Well, we just heard from our favorite special interest group here, the one supporting or initiated the uh project that uh sacrifices car neighborhoods for the cyclists.

Anyway, um the quick build discussed tonight has not been approved, and it is not included in tonight's uh resolution.

It's not on tonight's agenda, and I believe it would be inappropriate to uh approve it.

Uh well so even if it's described as temporary, we know how the council interprets the word temporary.

Just look at what temporary changes happened on Park Street and at the uh slow streets.

The resolution asked for funding, but it does not ask for approval of the project.

As it turns out, the uh plans are still in development and not adequately finalized to permit uh consideration for approval by the council.

The specific changes to the Gibbons High Street Fernside Intersection have not been approved, and so you really can't provide funds as costs cannot be projected.

Uh I believe it would be uh irresponsible uh to put any changes in place uh described as temporary as I mentioned.

Uh the quick build has not uh been approved and is not included in the resolution.

First approve the quick build and then provide funds if the uh uh quick build is approved.

Uh in my experience, once staff gets its collective toe in the door, all bets are off.

All potential uh future restrictions will evaporate, and council will automatically approve all future requests.

Thank you.

Time Zap, our next speaker, Carolyn King.

Welcome, Speaker Ching.

Hi there, my name is Caroline King, and I'm a resident of Cornell and uh mom of two young kids.

Um, I have a degree in urban design, and I'm a strong component of bikeable walkable street.

Yes, I strongly urge the council to reject any closure of giving drive, including a pilot closure.

What the traffic studies thought today did not study thoroughly nor mention is that any closure will force drivers attesting to access high state grid at each commune time to type unprotected left turn onto local from local street, that's by the Fairview and Thompson onto high.

So we're talking about folks needing to turn onto a major corridor like high without a light nor a stop by to slow down high street traffic.

My kids and I and likely hundreds of other families in the neighborhood and walk through these exact intersections every single day.

So even a six-month pilot will putting these kids and families' lives in danger.

I don't see how the city can ethically specify the closure without actually studying the downstream impact of closing one intersection on the rest of the alternative intersections that drivers will take.

These are things that can be studied and modeled without doing a pilot and putting real lives in danger.

Again, it feels like the studies done so far are myopic and they fail to look at the safety impact and cost-benefit analysis of these major changes to the neighborhood as a whole rather than at one intersection or street.

So I've encouraged the council not to gamble life here rather than to do true due diligence before such a major closure.

Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you.

Our next speaker, Andy Wang.

Welcome, Speaker Wang.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council members.

I'm Andy Wang, a Gibbons resident and dad of two Edison kindergartners.

Around this time last year, the city had decided to be pencils down on safety improvements in the Gibbons Frontside area.

The plan was to come back in five or more years.

Tonight, in contrast, the city is proposing a well-considered plan for safety measures, starting with the range of traffic calming measures next year for taking another look at that decision for coming back to our neighborhood and for the extensive outreach and work done in this neighborhood this year.

I'd like to thank city staff and leadership.

I understand it can be difficult to move forward when residents who care deeply about traffic safety differ so sharply in how to achieve it.

I only want to add one thing to the discussion tonight.

Frontside isn't about small side streets versus Gibbons the thoroughfare.

It's not about the safety of one street or some streets over the safety of others.

Frontside is the Edison Elementary community.

It's part of the Lincoln Middle School community.

It's the community that walks and scooters and bikes to Lincoln Park.

It's the community that's within a lovely 20-minute walk to Park Street shops and restaurants, or just a little more to Alameda High, or to City Hall.

It's one community, it's one neighborhood.

Kids and grown-ups alike walk and bike on all its streets, and calming traffic on its most central and most problematic street makes the whole neighborhood safer.

It raises the floor.

So I ask you to commit tonight to staff's full slate of recommended safety improvements.

And I ask you to remember what Mayor Ezie Ashcraft said earlier this year when this body voted unanimously to approve the Willie Starchal safety improvement.

We choose safety.

Please choose safety again tonight.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker will go back to in person.

Uh Christine Huddleson, Kelly Becker, and Ruben Ramirez.

Well, do we have Speaker Kelsen?

Come on up as soon as you hear your name called, and if you were one of the three, make your way over to the aisle so we can keep you all moving.

Good evening.

And go ahead and make that microphone your own.

Hi.

Hi, I'm Christine Haddelson.

I've lived in the Fernside neighborhood for about 20 years.

No closer to the bike.

Sure, near the intersection of Santa Clara and Gibbons, raised two kids walking biking to our local schools.

And I also live next door to a preschool.

I fully appreciate all that you're doing to promote traffic safety, manage congestion in this neighborhood.

I know how critical it is.

I'm strongly opposed to closing this critical connector in our neighborhood.

It will not.

I'm concerned about the safety issues that it raises, more so than any potential benefit to others other than on that very narrow and small part of Gibbons.

This is a neighborhood, it's a natural connector.

We need to be able to let traffic flow, stop the temporary slow streets, stop these fast track efforts to make changes that disrupt this flow of traffic, create more confusion, create risk for kids trying to cross these streets and understand what we're trying to do.

Uh we're just making it more confusing.

It's not the best use of these rare of the rare general fund dollars you found you potentially found to fund this.

We can spend it better elsewhere.

This is not the highest risk corridor.

Many other areas deserve this attention.

And as noted earlier in response to Councilmember Bowler's question, yeah, there are many areas that need attention.

Follow the normal process.

Don't fast track this.

Let's evaluate it.

Let's give due consideration and spend the money wisely.

Thank you so much for your service and for your attention to our concerns.

Thank you.

Our next speaker.

Kelly Becker, then Ruben Ramirez, then Beverly Ramirez.

Welcome, Speaker Becker.

Good evening, Mayor Ashcroft and City Council members.

My name is Kelly Becker, and I live on Fairview Avenue at the corner of Southwood and Bay of Vista.

I greatly oppose closing Gibbons Drive, including the pilot program.

I've heard a lot of discussion over the last several meetings of reclassification of Gibbons Drive to a local street, and it's even been pointed out by council members in previous meetings.

As if that's a reason to close off Gibbons or one of the reasons to push it.

However, should there be no bearing of that because you're just changing one local street and pushing that traffic to other local streets?

Drivers are not going to go out of their way to get to other connectors.

They will use the streets such as Bayo Vista, Harvard, and Cambridge.

Jimmy Jessup, a rest representative from the company that performed the traffic study specifically stated in a meeting in March that people would be using Cambridge and Harvard in order to minimize left turns and maximize right turns.

As it is, residents on Harvard have flags, stand up signs in the street to notify drivers to be careful of the children.

There's no fast tracking safety measures for that street.

So I just have a question to for you all to consider.

Which, why is it okay to move traffic from Gibbons, which is such a wider street and more accessible to uh and change it to streets that are smaller and more congested?

Why is the city willing to spend $200,000 that wasn't budgeted from the general fund to put safety measures in place to close Gibbons off?

And uh doesn't even have, I haven't seen a plan or device, uh design of these traffic circles.

We don't even know if they're gonna work.

I live where my driveway would potentially be in this circle.

It doesn't make any sense to me.

If Gibbons isn't closed, we don't need to fast track anything.

Um we need to take time.

You guys are pushing things through so quickly.

There are other parts of the city that need this money, and the funding could be used in such a better way.

Thank you.

Our next speaker, Ruben Ramirez, then Beverly Ramirez, then Marilyn Bow.

Welcome, Speaker Ramirez.

Yes, hi, I'm Ruben Ramirez.

I've lived on Northwood Drive about 43 years.

Um the last Zoom caller, talked about one community.

My concern is what we're doing to our fernside community.

We're fracturing them.

We have neighbors against neighbors, street against street.

You know, if we implement roundabouts here, but not there, there's going to be issues, speed humps or whatnot.

And uh as far as the roundabouts themselves, uh, I know Lisa Foster mentioned that it's at least for the main section, uh 13 total, and some of them would be gone because of the crosswalks and and the daylighting.

That's true, but they're not red right now.

And the additional loss spaces due to the roundabout is just gonna make that situation worse.

And then what you're gonna have is car dominoes with neighbors.

Once we implement this, you can't park in front of your house.

Now you're parking in front of another neighbor's house, and that just goes on and on, further fracturing the community that we have.

So my concern with all of this is just what's it gonna do to all of us that live there?

And what's already done?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker, Beverly Ramirez, then Marilyn Bow, then Walt Grady.

Welcome, Speaker Ramirez.

Hi, I'm not a public speaker, and I followed everybody, has been wonderful speaking tonight.

I'm third generation Alameda, 42 years on Northwood Drive.

I just wanted to say I strongly oppose closing Gibbon Drive left turn and all the quick bills.

We bought, we bring that microphone down just a little bit.

We all bought in our neighborhood due to the beauty of the historic neighborhood and the signage and the crosswalks are unnecessary at this time.

I realize the city of Alameda has a has a traffic problem.

Our neighborhood's not unique.

We have speeding.

I think the 200,000 could be used in parts of the city that needed a lot more than we do.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker, Marilyn Beau, then Walt Grady, then David Foote.

Welcome.

Thank you, Mayor and Council.

I'm Marilyn Beau.

I live on the exact corner, Bay of Vista, Southwood and Fairview.

And I've been there 36 years, and this is my third time coming to the council to support not closing Gibbons.

The first was a blockade up on 30 years ago, a blockade up on high street and Gibbons.

So no traffic coming down Gibbons, because they said their houses were more important than the rest of the neighborhood.

So we lodged a campaign saying this is not about one street or one house against another.

This is if you do something to part of that neighborhood, which is small, and Gibbons was made as our artery street, then it affects everyone.

So we need to, so anyway, we stopped that, and then they tried to stop Southwood, Northwood, and Gibbons, and again for safe routes to school, but the safe route was on Lincoln.

So we squashed that.

With the underlying fact of Gibbons, I don't care what anyone says or re-rates it, it's an arterior street built for Alameda from High Street to downtown.

It's 10 feet wider than all the streets in Fernside in Gibbons.

And it affects our little streets.

So on my corner where this quick route, quick installed roundabout is supposed to be put in like tomorrow, it funnels into little bitty streets, and there's no traffic.

But it's uh the rumor is that it's to get ready to close Gibbons.

So all these meetings and people are up in arms, and I just implore the council to think harder to use your head.

I worked at ATT for 30 years.

You know, we would have thrown everybody out if you came up with this hairbrained stuff, and everyone keeps having all these discussions that it won't work.

How will it work?

How does it make sense?

So please think about it.

You can't close Gibbons.

Willy-nilly.

Thank you, our next speaker.

Walt Grady, then David Foote, then Jim Stralo.

Welcome.

My name is Walt Grady, a 43-year resident of the Fernside area.

I live at 2947 Southwood.

I oppose any closing of Gibbons.

And it sounds like the proposal in front of the council is tied to at least a uh temporary closure of Gibbons.

So if that is absolute, if that's what it is, then the council should reject that proposal.

Uh I am in favor of traffic calming, start with speed bumps.

Uh, do traffic circles if you have to.

Uh, where I live on Southwood, I'm gonna be between two traffic circles and probably a speed bump in front of our house.

So I'd be drastically affected by it.

I'm willing to live with that, but no closure of Gibbons.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker, David Foote, then Jim Strelo, then Adam Garfinkel.

Welcome, Speaker Fitt.

Yeah, hi, I'm David Foote.

I'm a 45 year resident of uh on Lincoln near uh Broadway.

And uh I too am uh completely against any plan pilot or permanent that would close the left turn uh from Gibbons onto High and the High Street Bridge.

Uh I feel that uh this uh is not warranted that it would drive traffic off of a wide arterial street that's been used for decades to connect to the high street bridge onto smaller streets, and not only would they be smaller streets that they would turn on to initially, they would eventually get to either high or fernside, and then they would often have to make an unprotected uh right or left turn onto those arterials, and then another left when they get to the to the high street bridge.

I feel that uh a lot of uh I've heard a lot of good things mentioned today about possible improvements that are uh that would be advisable here.

I've heard about uh pedestrian improvements at uh at high and uh gibbons, where uh perhaps some kind of a pedestrian signal there could be installed.

I've heard about uh recommendations for speed reducing measures, and I think we all would agree that speeding is a bad problem in this town right now, possibly related to reduced police enforcement from when I first moved here.

I think that the city should investigate uh further speed calming measures.

I'd like to also ask the city to think about the plan that's just been instituted in San Francisco of speed cameras based on license plate reading.

Uh I think that that too might be something that the city of Alameda could use to uh reduce the speeding problem in this town.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker, Jim Strelo, then Adam Garfinkel, then Anna Williams.

Welcome.

Welcome, Speaker Strelo.

Good evening.

I'm a 69 year resident of Gibbons.

Gibbons is both a neighborhood collector being an important artery for many adjacent streets and a gateway on and off the island.

How do you get to Alameda from the freeway?

For years the answer was take High Street over the bridge, go on a beautiful liquid amber Gibbons Drive, etc.

Once Tilden Way was built, take high to Fernside to Tilden Way.

But once Fernside Boulevard is closed at Tilden Way soon, Gibbons Drive will again be an easy direct way to get to and from downtown Alameda.

Number two.

Remove the 70-foot pedestrian walk again across high along Fernside Southside.

The city added that complexity on its own.

Pedestrians have safely crossed Gibbons Drive at High without your new design.

Hardly any pedestrians cross either street where parametrics indicates.

Three.

Years ago, in order to install a dedicated bicycle light, it would be to that you'd have to delay traffic on other intersecting streets.

The core reason for closing Gibbons was to make programming the signalized intersection easier for the city engineers.

No traffic.com's artificial intelligence solution will help you to optimally program that intersection so you no longer have a reason to close off Gibbons.

Bernside was discussed for years with the closing of Gibbons and High thrown in at the last week.

Then when there were city workshops for that intersection, city maps just happen to include Gibbons from Lincoln Avenue.

There have been zero workshops on Gibbons as a neighborhood.

There have been no injury and accident data in Gibbons neighborhoods to warrant spending city general fund money.

Yeah.

You have held many workshops for other street projects, but no Gibbons Drive Safety workshops as its own project.

Sounds as if there's city discrimination.

You must bifurcate this intersection because you have incomplete warrantless data.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker, Adam Garfinkel, then Anna Williams.

Welcome, Speaker Garfinkel.

Hi, Mayor Ashcraft and Council members.

Thank you for your time and leadership tonight.

The route from Gibbons out of town is the safest route through the intersection.

Taking that away is less safe.

It's simple.

We all think that these bike lane changes are good.

It is nice to have more options.

I've been riding my bike around town my entire life.

The only time my life was put in danger was three, four weeks ago.

I was riding down Clement in a protected two-way bike lane.

Somebody driving the same way took a left and just about killed me.

It's a perceived safety.

It's their perception of what safety is, but we live it.

We know it.

Please stop listening to these people.

At the workshop, if you're presented with the option of close gibbons or install a roundabout, everybody's gonna say install a roundabout.

Because they know how stupid this is.

It's ridiculous.

Installing the route the roundabouts should be its own separate debate.

And I've as you've heard from so many people, we don't want it.

Spend the money on parks.

Spend the money on kids.

Don't create safety problems where they don't exist.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker, Anna Williams, then we'll go to remote.

Welcome, Speaker Williams.

Good evening.

I'm an Alameda resident, and for the past 15 years I've lived on Bayo Vista Avenue and I'm here tonight to ask you to please not close Gibbons even for a pilot study.

Closing Gibbons will divert traffic to neighborhood streets that are two-thirds the width of Gibbons.

And the city's own study found traffic would increase on those narrow streets by 400% that don't have protected left turns.

That's beyond unreasonable.

It's unsafe and unnecessary.

Looking at the safety for the whole neighborhood holistically, this matter should already be closed.

But it's not because a Gibbons closure is being touted as a solution to a future congestion problem caused by the Fernside Bike Lanes Project.

For what it's worth, I'm a cyclist of 30 years, and the fernside bike lanes are fine.

My kids and I use them all the time.

But the focus for tonight is this keep Gibbons open for the safety of our neighborhood.

When someone is injured in an accident due to diverted Gibbons volume, it won't matter that the closure was only a pilot or temporary.

Unsafe is unsafe.

Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you.

Our next speaker, Michael Sullivan.

Welcome, speaker Sullivan in the room.

Remote.

Oh, remote.

Okay.

Hello, Mayor and Council members.

I bike through the Gibbons High Fernside Intersection most days for years on my way to the Coliseum Amtrak Station for my commute to the South Bay.

So I know that intersection well.

It's a bad intersection, especially for biking.

It's always risky getting through there, and the intersection definitely needs to be fixed.

I appreciate all of the analysis by staff and consultants that says a term restriction is the right solution to make the intersection safer, and I fully support this.

The fact that this is needed to move the Fernside Bikeway project forward only strengthens the case.

I understand why some of the neighbors still don't want the turn restriction, but like many other Alamedans, I live on a narrow street that already carries more traffic than the diversion streets would see, even in the worst case scenario, and it's manageable.

So I think we need to look at the big picture and do what's right for all Allen medians to use this corridor.

The staff recommendation solve several problems and fairly addresses the impacts.

I feel that this is the best path forward, and I urge to support it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker, John Sweeney.

John Sweeney, welcome, Speaker Sweeney.

Hey, thanks.

Uh yeah, as John Sweeney, I live on the corner of Cornell and Gibbons.

I'm here in opposition of any closure of Gibbons.

Especially when it's being called a pilot.

It is obviously a significant change.

So it's also potentially an irreversible one.

I think it's we should be concerned that the movement didn't appear to be based on data.

The community pushed back and forced the data to be gathered.

That's concerning.

It's a known concern.

So any diversion of this traffic off of Gibbons, it's gonna have a knock-on effect that we haven't really considered yet.

So the families who walk or bike or drive these streets every day, this small increase is gonna spill over and make a big difference in our day-to-day life.

So I am not against improvements.

I'm a fan of change, and I do support traffic calming.

Um the speed humps sound great, sounds reasonable.

That's a low risk step that we can take that we can evaluate with real data.

My ask is simple that we prioritize thoughtful incremental solutions, avoid large, expensive structural changes that may not actually fix the issue.

Please reject the closure of Gibbons.

I am in favor and excited about the traffic calming, and I received a text message saying from my neighbor, hey, count me in.

Everyone who's spoken on behalf of not moving forward with closing gibbons, has had great points.

So uh thank you all.

Thank you.

Our next speaker, Travis Morgan.

Welcome, Speaker Morgan.

Thank you.

Hello, mayor and city council.

Uh thanks again for meeting to discuss pedestrian safety and fernside.

Uh, my name is Travis Morgan.

I'm a cyclist runner, parent of two elementary age children.

I'm a Gibbons resident and co-chair of the Edison Elementary Walk and Roll Committee.

In the interest of pedestrian safety, I support staff's recommendation to implement traffic calming measures and to pilot the effects of modifying the Gibbons and High Intersection.

If the intersection changes are found to be more negative than positive, I support leaving the intersection in its current configuration.

If the change is in that benefit, I think you should follow the data and proceed with the changes.

In prior meetings, most of tonight's commenters supported evidence-based decision making, and I think it's still a good idea.

Thank you for your time and disproportionate energy and resources to this one neighborhood traffic improvement proposal.

Have a good night.

Thank you.

Our next speaker, Frank Tang.

Um, in person?

Remote.

Welcome, speaker Ching.

Are you there you are?

Hi.

Yeah, hi there.

Uh, thank you for your time today.

Uh, my name's Frank Tang.

I live in the neighborhood around Gibbons for five, I've been here for five years.

Um, I'm also an avid cyclist, runner, and pedestrian who walks and bikes, my two elementary kids to and from school almost every day.

Um I uh implore you not to close Gibbons, including as a pilot, and uh as it is unnecessary and risky for a lot of the reasons mentioned today.

Uh, we would be replacing Gibbons at clear connector already with a protected left turn, crosswalks, and four way stops, with um in a focused street where pedestrians, both young and old.

They understand it.

They can navigate it accordingly.

Uh, it's been designed around that the higher traffic, and we would be pushing traffic onto smaller streets without four-way stops nor protected left turns, increasing danger, confusion for young and old.

Um, I embrace change.

I applaud the fernside corridor redesign and bikeway, um, but not at the risk of uh younger and experienced pedestrians and cyclists who are still learning the ways of the road.

Um I believe we can do better when putting our heads together and with community input.

And I urge the council to uh reject the closure of gibbons and uh seek other solutions for addressing these uh these uh complex problems.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Our next speaker, Zach Bowling.

Welcome, Speaker Bowling.

Uh evening, Council.

Yeah.

Uh I have spoken in support of this before, but I'm also just wanting to speak again on the um support of this quick build traffic uh traffic calming measure for gibbons.

I think a lot of neighbors have been told, uh, maybe through rumors that this is like a closure of gibbons, or that's the way it's being spun, which is a lot more extreme than what's actually happening here.

Um the only thing happening is paint posts, some temporary build outs, aroundabouts um, and safer crossings.

Um, but all the directions basically stay open except for that one left turn.

So I'm in favor of these like fast cheap measures that we can do to try to uh improve pedestrian and bike safety, but just safety all around.

Um that crosswalk is extensively wide, um, and this helps build out better signaling and and overall has Alameda become more better connected uh and gives us a better network across the entire city.

So I think this approach, this phase kind of approach um responds to a lot of the community concerns.

I'm really thankful that staff and everybody is uh had so many meetings to collect public input on this issue.

Um but it's really important that we get these kind of safety upgrades and uh collect the data that we'll get from a temporary build out from one of these things to know if we're doing anything better here, and I think it's important for us.

So it's a small investment, potentially a big payoff, and uh I think it really helps the neighborhood.

So I'm gonna leave it at that.

So thank you so much.

Thank you.

Our next speaker.

We'll go back to in-person.

Uh Jason Fang, Justin Fox, and Doug Letterman.

Speaker Fang.

Hi, I'm Jason Fang.

Uh my family moved here in 1988.

I have a brother and seven cousins in Alameda, so my roots are pretty deep.

I now have two kids of my own.

And we live on uh Cornell and Bio Vista.

My wife and I started a family here because of many reasons, but one of them is safety, and the proposal to prevent people from going onto high street from Gibbons seems like we're making a big jump in the wrong direction.

Um I'm opposed to that temporary measure um or permanent measure.

The closure of Gibbons will divert traffic to our little intersection.

The study shows a comparison of Pacific Avenue and Cornell, and these two streets are not the same kinds of streets.

I know because I grew up on Pacific Avenue.

Uh Pacific is in most parts almost as wide as Gibbons.

Um, so yes, Pacific should be able to handle more traffic than Cornell or Bayo Vista.

The original design of the traffic flow in the area was clearly designed to have Gibbons be the main artery.

I think a lot of people have mentioned this already.

Um closing it off will make the surrounding areas more dangerous.

If you think about someone who encounters the closed off left for the first time, they'll have to make a right onto high street, and what they'll logically do is make another right and get right back into our little neighborhood, which they were trying to escape.

Um I think some impatient drivers will maybe do some unsafe maneuvers of U-turns either on high street or in our neighborhood.

Um, and so I don't oppose the traffic calming measures of stop signs or roundabouts or speed bumps.

Um, I think those are reasonable if the concern is speed throughout the neighborhood.

Thank you so much.

Our next speaker, Justin Fox, then Doug Letterman, then Charles Varer.

Welcome, Speaker Fox.

Hello, members of the Council, Mayor, Vice Mayor.

My name is Justin Fox.

I'm a resident of uh Cambridge Drive, very near Northwood.

And I want to be on the record against close against any sort of closure of Gibbons Drive on a temporary or pilot or permanent basis for reasons that have much discussed tonight.

Most importantly, it will only shift traffic to narrower streets who just can't handle the volume.

Projected volume on Bayo Vista in the future is four times what it is today on a much narrower street.

I cannot see how that enhances safety in any way.

As regards to calming devices, in particular, I'm no fan of traffic circles.

This was tried before at Northwood, Southwood, and Gibbons about 10 years ago.

It was not popular.

People came out against it and droves.

I wouldn't recommend any further consideration of that here.

Thank you very much.

I think the money would be better spent elsewhere.

Thank you.

Our next speaker.

Welcome.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, City Council members.

I'm a resident Alvamita.

I live in Central Alameda, and I'm here to urge you to support staff's recommendation for Ed7B.

I've actually had a personal uh encounter with a speeding driver on Gibbons and Northwood.

I was nearly hit by a car, so uh I like the fact that this plan has the traffic calming improvements there with this traffic circle.

Um, a parent of a nine-year-old daughter, we frequently um walk and bike and run and even drive through the the um fernside neighborhood.

So these safety improvements are important to me because I want my daughter to she grows up be independent and um be safe.

And I think these uh these plans um set the fernside project up for success, and um I think it's important uh for the city's future plans for the streets and the traffic calming.

Uh I like the pilot because um one of the things uh I'm not a traffic engineer expert, but um I have heard that often when traffic improvements are made, traffic simply disappears.

We might see the cut-through traffic that they're seeing through the neighborhood right now simply disappear when these improvements are made.

Um, but let's find out.

So once again, I urge you to uh support this plan, staff's recommendation.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Our next speaker, Charles Varner, welcome.

Good evening, Mayor Ashcroft and uh council members.

Much thanks to you uh and city staff for your service towards an ever more prosperous Alameda.

The single most effective way to create a safer and more pleasant Gibbons High Fernside Gateway is to implement the facilities council already adopted in the active transportation plan.

As that plan makes clear comfortable low-stress neighborhood greenways improve walking safety and calm traffic via comprehensive treatments that achieve and maintain low vehicle volume and speeds, whether a speed hump here or roundabout there, or a closure on the opposite side from the high-speed inbound traffic would facilitate or hinder implementation of the Gibbons neighborhood greenway is a fundamental question that hasn't been addressed yet.

Will these measures yield the target average daily traffic of 1,500 vehicles or less and travel speed of 20 miles per hour throughout the neighborhood?

I really do wish we knew.

Unfortunately, the current traffic study tells us only that vehicle volumes will increase exponentially on several currently calm streets.

Thus, I urge you to return to the work of implementing the plan council has already adopted.

Instead of separating the fernside project from the Gibbons Neighborhood Greenway, design these clearly integrated work streams and build them together.

It would be wonderful to see a calm high street too.

The benefits and even more pleasant gateway would have for the East End and the city as a whole are enormous, but of course, you already know this.

Council already saw this bright future when it adopted the carefully considered active transportation plan three years ago.

Use the $200,000 to craft an evidence-based build out of the plan that's already been adopted.

Let's work together to get it right.

Thank you very much for your careful consideration, and I appreciate the efforts at compromise and medium term evidence gathering that I've heard in this room tonight.

The last one.

We won't take a break before the last one.

Who's our last speaker?

Elliot Blake.

Welcome.

Was that Glick?

Blake.

Blake.

Oh, hi.

Hi.

Hi, Madam Mayor and uh council members.

Thank you for your time and attention.

I'm a resident of Alameda cumulatively about 25 years.

I currently live on Southwood at the corner of Fairview and Bay of Vista.

I would like to voice my opposition as many have to the closure of Gibbons, even on a temporary basis.

So as we've heard, closure of gibbons based on the data, we'll divert traffic to smaller streets.

That is the knock-on effect.

And subsequently, further knock on effects are the requirement to slow down that traffic.

Well, we're all concerned with safety, and safety means slowing down the cars.

Closing gibbons does not slow down the cars.

There are other measures that people have talked about.

Two slow cars, yield signs, stop signs, speed humps.

The closure of Gibbons ultimately is not about safety, it's about congestion caused by the fernside project and the signal pattern coming from the new bike lane.

Stating that it's safety is, as it's been stated, conjecture.

Similarly, as uh roundabouts might do, which has been mentioned would cause issues with large vehicles, work vehicles.

Um let's slow it down.

Thank you so much.

Your time is up.

And that's our last speaker, Madam Clerk.

Okay, with that, we are closing public comment on item 7B.

We are going to take a break.

I have a uh a rule.

Really, it's from psychiatrists at UCSF back during COVID that um taught me, and they still did this at USASF, there's no meeting longer than two hours without a break.

We've gone in two hours and 20 minutes, and it's hard on staff who are doing a lot of technical work to follow this, and it's hard on all of you to be sitting there.

So it is now 9.40.

Um, let's take a 10-minute break.

Actually, we're gonna make it 15, and we'll be back at 9.55.

Everybody in your places, uh, staff and council anyway in your places at 9.55, please.

Thank you.

Thank you, I think we give us a hug Balcony.

The balcony is ready.

We're all ready.

Okay.

Hello, staff.

Um, so we're back.

Um before we go to our deliberation, um, Madam Clerk, can you just so here's what's happening.

Um, this is as much for council and staff.

We have a couple more regular agenda items.

However, we did not get to some of our um closed session items that are time critical.

So we're gonna have to get to to those.

So what we're going to do is we're gonna wrap this one up.

Um, but we are not gonna hear items seven C and seven D tonight, and the city council, the city clerk is going to explain how that will work.

Cause she's so much more articulate than I am.

So um the city council has a section of the agenda called section six that's continued agenda items.

So the council has the option of tonight designating if you would like to move either or both of those items to section six continued agenda items on December second, twenty twenty-fifth, and that would require a vote.

Um what I would suggest we do our agenda meeting tomorrow, so I'm not sure what's on the agenda.

Um staff uh is it a heavy agenda?

We have one item that is park fees, and then uh the last work session on our infrastructure related to sea level rise on flood protection.

Okay.

Um the fees are time sensitive.

That one is time sensitive, although we might be able to look to December 16th.

But I think we have to do it before the end of the year.

Um, and um we shouldn't have to come back afterwards for a closed session.

So, um I okay, I'm not picking favorites, but the Mylar balloon one isn't doesn't rise quite to the, I'm not sure I want to bump it to section six.

It could just go wherever it falls on the regular agenda.

Would that be okay with you, Councilmember Jensen?

Okay, so what I would suggest council is to keep item or to to move item seven um C perround.

Yes, seven C is the about the end of the feet.

Yeah, yeah.

Um inclusionary housing workshop.

I would suggest we move that one to item six and let the mylar balloons fall where they may.

Um no, that's a bad joke.

Um, the and then we'll work it into the order of the regular agenda for next time.

Okay.

So, so um, and that's all we need to do is take a vote on that.

Yes, all you need to take a vote on is the moving the 7C, the uh workshop to section six of the December second agenda.

And then we'll address the other.

Could I get a motion a second for that, please?

Um I move that we uh make this agenda adjustment.

Okay, and seconded by Councilmember Jensen.

Move by Vice Mayor Bull Um Vice, hello.

I want to just merge the two of you, Vice Mayor Pryor and Councilmember Jensen.

Um, so all those in favor, please signify by stating aye.

Aye, and that was unanimous, right?

Okay, that passes unanimously.

Thank you.

All right, with that, we are back in business, and apologies for those to those of you who are waiting for that I item.

Um, apologies.

Okay, um I'm gonna lead um with a few comments, um, and then we can get into some more discussion.

Really quickly from our um uh from city attorney's office, um Ms.

Carsilver is um there was um an allegation or an assertion made that somehow we hadn't properly noticed this item about the quick builds.

Could you just because I know you you staff the these items these issues, so could you please clarify for us what's what's happening?

Sure.

So under the Brown Act, uh the city is required to uh notice an item using 20 words or less, and so you typically have an abbreviated title, and so this title uh referenced um the overall project and it referenced um uh traffic calming and data collection and the appropriation of the 200,000 dollars, which is the major actions that you're being asked to take.

The staff report also referenced particular recommendations that you um are being asked to make, and that included um the you know, all of the traffic calming um and the pilot program as well.

Um, and then it um certainly we saw a lot of folks come out in connection with the um closure of of Gibson as um which indicates that there was appropriate notice on on that particular issue, but of course the the council does not need to um take an action on every aspect of the project, but you certainly have the discretion to do that under the but you're fine, you you find that it was adequately noticed exactly and I will add for the benefit of the public that the city attorney's office reviews every agenda item before it goes on the agenda.

So a couple things I just want to raise um is that um I appreciate everyone for coming out and all you stalt words who are still in the audience.

Um, we listened to all of you, read your correspondence.

I so appreciate those of you who expressed your views and their strong views on these topics, but you were civil.

I was saddened that a few folks found it necessary to insult our staff.

That is never acceptable, and I will also point out that it doesn't bolster your arguments.

In fact, the opposite is true for me.

When someone needs to say things like staff isn't concerned about safety issues, they are extremely concerned about safety issues.

The people who were talking to you go to the scenes of fatal accidents the following day, and they analyze everything that happened and they talk with the police, and they are very concerned with safety.

We don't all have to agree, but please don't insult our hardworking staff.

We're all hardworking people.

You are we are let's not insult each other.

Um we and I said this in the beginning, we don't have to agree, we do need to be civil.

This is Alameda.

Um, and just um a little bit of um clarification.

I um I heard it said by a couple of people that roundabouts will make it hard for trucks to make turns.

Um Scott Wickstrom, can you um come and and also, there's a difference between um in terminology.

I mean, then the terminology makes a difference, right?

So tell us what we're talking about and what we're not.

Yes, thank you, Madam Mayor.

So there are different sizes and types of we'll call them roundabouts or traffic circles.

I think if the most one, the one we most recently installed is on Pacific.

That is what we call a traffic circle.

It's a very tight intersection.

It's also not really, it's really intended to slow and mitigate traffic there.

When we start shifting over to Bio Vista and North in Southwood and Gibbons, Northwood, Southwood, those are very, very large intersections and can handle basically a full-size roundabout.

They're almost equivalent to what we are constructing on Central and Third Street, that size of a roundabout.

Those roundabouts are designed to basically slow vehicles down as they come around the corner, but they also are built in such a way that they can accommodate larger trucks, that they can kind of say cheat into the apron a little bit.

We design it to accommodate that to accommodate the larger trucks to get through those intersections as well.

So both these intersects are plenty large enough that we'll be able to design them to accommodate truck traffic.

Thank you.

And this came up in a conversation we were in yesterday.

Don't go away.

A fire truck needs to get down the street in a hurry.

Do they have to go around, or can they just go over?

That would be up to the individual truck driver.

What we've worked with the fire department on is they have established what they consider primary response routes, and then there's secondary response routes.

Gibbons is not one of their primary response routes.

We we clarified with that with them before we came forward with the proposal for traffic calming.

Um they would only come to Gibbons to respond to a call on Gibbons, they would take alternate routes to get close to there.

Um, but in the specific case of the roundabout, um, they have the ability to it's really up to the driver's quicker to go around or to to uh take their wheels up and over it.

Thank you.

Thank you for that.

Um, so what um what I would oh and there's another um someone raised the issue of um why can't we do an Alameda?

What San Francisco is doing with um red light cameras, city attorney one of you, do you want to talk about why San Francisco is allowed to do red light speed cameras?

Yeah, like sure, madam mayor.

Um there's special state legislation that authorized San Francisco to do so, and that legislation does not apply to the city of Alameda.

There's a few cities in the state that are pilot programs.

We did not get chosen.

Um I sit on the board of the League of California Cities.

We have been just you know lobbying strenuously for this, and I it'll happen, but um it's got to go through the pilot program first.

Um so that's why.

Um what I would like counsel, and I'm very interested to hear from all of you, what I would like us to contemplate is uh we need to do something.

I would be prepared to follow the staff's recommendation, but I'm not sure everyone would, and we've heard a lot from neighbors.

I've also um organized a field trip and a few of us went um out to see that area at eight o'clock.

Um the streets were talking about on eight o'clock on a weekday because that's when the school kids are coming and going.

And as we were walking around with our clipboards and in the middle of these big round intersections or big round areas where the traffic um sort of the speed bumps, so traffic circles, roundabouts are um being proposed.

A number of parents of Edison children came over to ask us what we were doing, and when we told them they said yes, we need this, thank you.

There's these big wide round, I mean, we saw it in the in the um proposals.

Those are good things to do.

I this year have been part of the mayor's institute on pedestrian safety, one of a dozen mayors across the country that has been in this year-long program.

Um after the in-person session in DC, we've had almost monthly virtual sessions, which I've had city staff um from planning and building and the police department join me.

And we've learned a lot, and some of the proposals you're seeing have been tried and tested in other places, and they really do work to slow down traffic.

It's a combination of that experience, but also hearing from parents who were either walking their kids or on their way back from walking their kids to school and just seeing.

I mean, it is great to see how many kids of all different ages are riding their bikes, mostly wearing helmets that are mostly fastened.

And there was an adorable little girl who might have been reading a book the whole time she was walking, including across the street.

It wasn't a busy street, but she was so cute.

But we even anyway, but we do need to make our streets safe for all users.

I would love to see us at least approve the speed humps bumps on Gibbons, the um the traffic calming that is proposed for those two different big round intersections.

If you haven't already visited Pacific, where these some of these traffic calming measures have been installed, please do there it's it's pretty impressive.

And as was said when we were talking about roundabouts for another, I'm not even gonna remember which intersection it was, but that no one accelerates into a roundabout.

You can't you have to slow down to go into it, and so these are the sorts of things that I think we should be moving forward with.

Um City Manager Ott, I'm gonna put you on the spot a little bit because we were talking at the break about um fernside and how that all fits in.

She's very good at threading the needle.

So let's read that one for us if you would please.

I think we were, I think staff's recommendation was trying to thread the needle.

Like we we had community meetings, we heard that folks are really concerned about neighborhood comming, not wanting to rush into making the safety changes to that intersection.

So that was why we proposed this kind of phased approach.

So I don't know that I have a lot of other creative ideas.

I mean, I think I would just say if you just do the neighborhood traffic calming, that's not staff's recommendation, but if you did just do that, I think we just want to acknowledge that the two-way bike long-term concept on fernside kind of depends on something happening at that intersection.

And we've studied it, we've hired you know the best engineers around to try to help us figure out what to do there that wouldn't require that right turn only.

And we don't know that we don't know that where there are other solutions.

We don't think there are other solutions to that.

So, this if we don't move forward with the pilot or we're not in the future willing to kind of rethink how gibbons works.

We may have to revisit that two-way bike concept.

So I just want to disclose that.

Um, and that is something that we'll just and that that implies that implicates a much larger neighborhood, and in a lot of ways the whole city because that really creates a really important connector to the cross Alamina Trail.

So I just want to, you know, if you want to do something incremental, do some neighborhood comming.

That's obviously part of our recommendation.

We think that would make things safer.

It does, it does kind of bait one of the reasons we really wanted to tie this together was because we wanted to be really transparent that we've got a we have a problem though in the future.

What do we do with that two-way bike way along Fernside and this intersection that we know isn't safe?

So at some point, we're just kind of we're gonna have to figure that out, and if we don't want to do that tonight, that's fine, but I um I think we're gonna have to call that question at some point or change that long-term concept along Fernside.

So I'm sorry, I don't have a great thread the needle here because I feel like we spent a lot of time trying to thread the needle with the recommendation that we have we put forward tonight.

I appreciate that.

And then, and as you noted, it's not just the Fernside Bikeway, which I very much um support.

This is part of how we are going to address climate change and getting people out of their cars, but also as councilmember Jensen alluded to earlier, that intersection crossing fernside is is risky for pedestrians.

Crossing Gibbons is um crossing high streets, so we have work to do.

Anyway, those are my thoughts.

I want to hear from my colleagues.

Who wants to start.

Uh Vice Mayor Prior.

Um, yeah, and I also want to thank everybody for coming because I know this is not going to be an easy discussion.

You have all lived here for very long time.

But I do want to start with to acknowledge staff.

I do think that everything you've done has been very has been slow and thoughtful and studied decision making.

Phase one, that would be the quick build traffic calming and intersection improvements.

And phase two, which is the temporary pilot, is proposed for 2028 up to 2030 or even later.

So none of this is rushed.

It's all very thoughtful.

Taking everyone's considerations.

Sorry, it's late, but with the fernside project, I think it just makes sense to do this, but I also agree that it makes sense to go slower.

As someone said tonight, you know, changing an intersection is a big deal.

It is a big deal.

So I I do believe I do agree with the with the recommendations, but because it is measured and slow and there are many steps and also data collection along the way because as smart as we all think we are, we all are also all of us smart enough to know that we don't actually know.

So it just gives us an opportunity to like in the worst case, like, oh well, we have these wonderful traffic calming measures all over that neighborhood.

But you know, the the you know, it was a it was not a great idea to cut off the northbound traffic off of Gibbons.

Um so I I am in agreement for those reasons, um, because I don't feel like it um it doesn't, it's not permanent.

Um, and we're just agreeing to try it out and to collect data and then make uh decisions, and and I don't and I I trust staff and I trust people on council that they would make an evidence-based decision.

And uh those are my comments.

So just for clarification, you're saying that you would support the staff recommendation I do support staff recommendation okay um who wants to go next well I'm happy to go next council member design thank you um no I won't be supporting staff's recommendation I do think that our consultants and our staff have provided us enough um data and evidence um on which at least speaking for myself to make a decision um clearly the problem um is speed speeding traffic along um gibbons drive um and um to borrow um uh former vice president kamala Harris's um concept you know we're we're of concentric circles you know where there are concentric circles overlapping consensus so to speak um is certainly on putting some kind of um uh traffic calming measures on gibbons um whether it's um um a traffic circle or or speed lumps I mean I was amazed to hear a resident um who uh lives um near one of the intersections himself say he would welcome a um uh a traffic um uh circle so so clearly I think um uh that that there is um consensus um in the neighborhood um for for traffic calming measures um where there is clearly not consensus is um you know uh precluding um gibbons drive northbound um uh commuters on gibbons drive precluding them from traveling directly to the high street bridge and force and forcing them to make a a right turn um over at where uh gibbons um meets um high street i clearly there's not consensus there but what is there is is is data demonstrating the extensive uh amount of um traffic spillage that would occur in um uh on cornell street and while um no data was uh presented with regard to yale i have to believe that yale would also experience um substantial amount of traffic spillage um as well as obviously bay of vista so you know when you stop um um people who are driving from santa clara gibbons uh who want to drive towards gibbons and high when you stop them from from you know crossing gibbons and high you know clearly they're gonna find a different route and that route is Yale Cornell or or Bayo Vista you know I think from the outset the concern that I have about that is not just you know the two um issues that our staff had uh rightly pointed out that there's a there's substantially more uh numbers of of traffic going along those um uh narrow uh and but B the the fact that the those streets are narrow but I do believe that C that there's every reason to believe that um uh that you know the the cars that are diverted onto these narrower streets will drive faster I mean there there's no reason to believe that they would not drive faster because they're trying to you know everyone at least in the morning is trying to get to the to high street bridge and and so they're gonna rush at it because they're having to travel a longer a a longer distance and B frankly because there there could be you know traffic calming solutions that slow their drive so once they get on to Cornell or Yale or once they get onto Bay O Vista um they're going to drive faster along those narrower streets so the issue isn't just more cars but the degradation of the quality of of life of those neighborhoods as a result of faster cars.

And for those vehicles that that uh traverse Bayo Vista and get to Bayo Vista and high to make a left towards high street bridge you know I think that that does um pose uh a problem not just for vehicular traffic but for kids who are coming from east of high street wanting to cross the street anywhere around there in order to get to Edison Highs.

I'm in Edison Elementary School.

So um so I think this isn't just, you know, a fernside problem uh west of high street, but this is um a fern side problem east of of high street.

Um so I I think the the the evidence is is there that um I I that I think staff had done their their their work in in providing us council members the the data on which to make you know uh the decisions as you know we in our um uh as as we each individually um see fit for me um I believe that that you know I I don't see myself supporting um the um not allowing um the the traffic to flow through gibbons but forcing them to make a right onto high street I do support you know um traffic calming measures along um gibbons um like the circles and the speed lumps thank you thank you council member bowler uh thank you um adaptive traffic control control technologies use sensors like cameras radar loop detectors to monitor traffic flow in real time and dynamically adjust signal timing to optimize track traffic flow so in fact a smart adaptive intersection system can be programmed to skip an entire signal phase a leg of the intersection if there's no detected demand such as when the other legs are experiencing far worse congestion could I just ask staff to respond to that concept uh yes happy to uh there are new technologies that are coming out more commonly just referred to as AI for traffic signals um and they do have the opportunity to really make traffic signal flow much more efficient um the way I've often described it is it's a good way to think of it is you're actually having a traffic cop standing at the intersection and saying hey there's only one car waiting on this uh approach but there's 30 cars over here I'm gonna let these cars go through and make that one car wait a little longer and then after a certain point start rotating the traffic around it's it's an intelligent way to look at it and what it does overall is reduces the delay at an intersection um we don't have any of that currently in the city um it's something that there's a lot of vendors coming forward with these type products and it's something that I'm sure in the coming years we will definitely be implementing.

Thank you so much.

May I just ask a follow-up question to your question.

So does that technology do anything to improve traffic uh pedestrian safety if say um an intersection was a large one longer than normal uh not by itself no um it it doesn't shrink the intersection it does it what it what it potentially could do is look at reducing delay at the intersection but it wouldn't necessarily it's it doesn't make the safety improvements that are reconfigured intersection would make it it's based on moving cars more efficiently correct there are some that could look at uh pedestrian movements as well but that's a frankly it's harder to track pedestrians than it is to track larger vehicles but yeah you are correct.

Thank you.

Um thank you and I just you know in looking at the uh traffic calming measures we have some stop signs already in the neighborhood there's some speed humps that are recommended there's of course the new bullbout quick build that's on the diagram too and it's part of the staff report at the Gibbons uh intersection and then finally there's the new roundabout quick builds which if there's an equity sort of concept being applied here I would assume are the most expensive and piece of this I do think that staff makes a good point about if we're not going down this route then you know um there's an equity issue although that's mitigated somewhat by the fact that there's still a decision to be made and there's some data that can be collected after traffic calming measures are put in place and that adds a little more information and we just heard technology is changing and that could add a different equation a year or two from now.

So I am not in support of the staff recommendation but I I would um encourage the council to possibly look at phase one with the exception of item B which is the quick build roundabouts and phase two with the addition of item A of adding city council action before after Transportation Commission before any decision for a um temporary pilot.

So with those changes I I could I could um support an alternative.

And you would support the quick build roundabouts and the speed humps and all that.

I mean, unless I mean I don't know if staff wants to call I think it'd be good for staff to comment on that concept.

I'm saying I'm saying no.

Because of equity concerns and some of the comments that we heard and just the data we have before us, why not just do the speed humps and the new bullbout and not the roundabouts?

If we want to address the neighborhood um comprehensively, I think we think we have a good uh proposal here, and then also we have the additional in terms of equity for these two roundabouts.

They have we have the additional factor of the ADA transition plan and the fact that these round these intersections don't have curb ramps or crosswalks, so they actually rise up a little bit because of that.

And you could do those without doing the roundabouts though, right?

You could also make some ADA improvements in those intersections if you if you wanted to.

If we're talking about accessibility, we're really talking about two intersections in particular Northwood, Southwoods Gibbons, and then the biovista one.

Um, if you go to those intersections, and this is where it was helpful walking with Maryland, um, the Mayor Ashcraft, um, it there's no obvious place to put a crosswalk as you would a standard right-angled intersection.

The most logical place and where people often cross is actually behind the stop bar.

Um, it's a very awkward position where functionally that turns out to be a mid-block crosswalk about 50 feet behind the intersection, 30 feet behind the intersection.

Um, one of the drawbacks about roundabouts is they push the pedestrian crossings further away from a normal intersection.

On these particular intersections, it actually is a benefit.

It pushes the crosswalk further away from the center of intersection to a narrower, narrower throat.

It's a shorter crossing, it'll be a safer crossing, and it's a very clear way to do it.

Um the the roundabouts do really serve a dual purpose in the sense that it's traffic calming, but also addresses a known accessibility shortcoming that these intersections have.

So, and what is the cost for those two roundabouts?

Uh we did a lot of it's gonna depend on the exact materials we have.

Um, we looked at 200,000 for all, map of my head.

There's about a hundred and fifty, I think, for the roundabouts.

They're definitely more expensive than the uh then the speed humps for sure.

But I do encourage people to do site visits.

Um Councilmember Jensen.

Thank you.

Oh, you can come back, Mr.

Wix.

One of the um traffic calming measures that hasn't been discussed, uh, wasn't really brought up much in public comment, it hasn't been discussed at length in the presentation, is the um traffic the speed hump on Cambridge.

And so I wanted to just ask you if you could provide a little more information about the the safety that that would provide at that part of the um the neighborhood.

Yes, one of the concepts we look at when we're looking at traffic calming is to try to have some measure every 350 to 500 feet uh along a corridor that's about you know not too close that they're too tight and not too far away that people speed between them, and then and as we look at how people are coming up gibbons predominantly, um, we heard a lot of complaints about people speeding up Gibbons.

We also heard a lot of complaints and even observed coming up and going up uh Cambridge as well.

Uh that's also on the safe routes to school to Edison that that crossing right there at uh at Buena Vista.

Um, and so we basically uh elected to propose a speed hump just past that intersection.

Cars will slow down before they get there as they see the speed humps.

Um but yeah, that's definitely something we looked at.

So we would have speed humps on Gibbons on Cambridge, and then also one on Southwood is what's being proposed.

And um, with regard to safe routes to school, there was a mention that um Lincoln is the safe route to school in public comment, but um I understand that there are and I, of course, I live in the neighborhood, and my son did go to Edison School, and I I um know that you did a um a recent walk around, and there are many students unfortunately crossing from um the the part of the inside part of um northwood-southwood over to get across to to Gibbons, and they were either gonna have to cross Thompson without any stop sign or crosswalk if they're if they're on the Southwood North South.

They're gonna have to cross an unrestricted street to um often either Thompson or Gibbons to get to Edison School.

Is that correct?

So my question is uh is the Gibbons roundabout.

Would that be considered part of Safe Routes for school as well?

Um Safe Rouse to school is merely just available.

But at least that's as much better.

The Alameda County Safe Rats to School program did a school safety assessment for Edison School and putting uh um roundabout at that location was one of their recommendations.

Thank you.

That's very helpful.

So that would be improved safety definitely, and as we've all noted this.

My um I I I've heard from my colleagues as well as from um the community, and so I my next question is um I as I look at phase one and two, and I I appreciate that the Fernside Boulevard Traffic Calming and Bikeways project was approved, but I've also uh am aware as you presented in the past um and the city manager has that that there's no funding, and that's not that's not pending.

That project is likely not to be started until after 2030.

And so then my question and my suggestion is that we we continue with phase one and we move to with regard to phase two rather than collect data after traffic calming and then proceed immediately.

We collect the data and come back to the council with the data as my colleague recommended and has um councilmember Davis Soggs said that he supported that for a temporary pilot with to the city council, and that is in 2028 between 2028 and 2030.

So there's sufficient time to install these these youth student children protecting these these roundabouts or the and as well as the the speed humps that will make the neighborhood safer that have been demonstrated by not just us, and I again I completely agree with the mayor that our staff has done a tremendous job with a lot of data, a lot of information, and making the recommendation that they as professionals can make.

Only they as professionals can make.

So my suggestion, my uh what I would be supportive of would be to do the although apologies to staff, and I know how hard you've worked with this recommendation, but there will be an opportunity to come back.

There will be an opportunity to do the the left-hand turn restriction, and we're we're not going to be losing any grant money, we're not gonna be losing any potential um time on the fernside bikeways project since that is not funded at this point anyway.

So that's what I'm suggesting, and I'm I would like to hear support or suggestions or um the city manager's thoughts.

I know that this isn't exactly the recommendation from staff, but I think it's um given all the work that's been done and given the the concerns from neighbors that might be the best approach.

Please, city manager, no.

So I think because we're already we would do the traffic coming, which is part of our phase one recommendation.

The transportation commission's already asked us to go back to them with that information after we've done that, and we could just add the city council to that decision.

I mean, that we could go back to you as well with the data, and then you can decide at that point do you want to continue with the pilot or not?

And have that be part of your decision making then.

But so it's not that different than what we're recommending.

You're just not giving us direction for sure to do the pilot, which yeah.

And that's what I my suggestion would be to collect the data after traffic calming, go take the recommendation from staff to that point to phase two, the first point of phase two, collect data after traffic calming, and then as mentioned was to come back to the Transportation commission with data, which would be fine.

There's nothing in the recommendation that that defines what they the traffic commission may do with that data, and I um would prefer and and think it would be ideal if the city council were able to see that data and then be presented with options based on that data for a temporary pilot if necessary.

So Councilmember Jensen, if I could ask, I'm looking at page four of the staff report, and it kind of sounds like you're suggesting that we approve phase one.

And then I have a question of I don't know anyone who wants to answer it.

Does when the data is collected, does it have to go back to the Transportation Commission?

Can it not just come to the council?

I mean, it's not like we need them to translate or interpret for us, right?

Um that's absolutely in your discretion.

It was just their recommendation.

Obviously, they're a recommendation body, so you could decide whatever you'd like.

I'm just thinking about expediency and how long things take to come before the body.

But Councilmember Jensen, is that if you're looking at the phase one recommendations, is that what you would be prepared to support?

Yes, I I definitely would.

I think and I think what what I why I'm I'm looking at this this option is because it doesn't change the schedule.

It does the improvements that that are necessary, and especially now that we've heard that this the Gibbons Northwood Southwood intersection is a safe routes to school priority.

So I I think if we do this part and then it comes back to the city council, we are well, whoever of us are here at that time are able to to look at the data and make a recommendation about the the temporary pilot, or maybe there may be information that would suggest a permanent pilot.

Your time just ran out.

However, um, and I am also mindful that Councilmember Jensen spent a lot of time on the school board and is very mindful of student um safety.

So I'm thinking I hear that I would have gone for the whole entilada, but you know, you have to be able to count to three, but I think the phased approach makes sense and chronologically it's logical.

Would you want to make that as a motion?

Yes, I make the motion that we accept staff's recommendation, adding in in phase two that after collection of data after traffic calming in phase two that the next step be come back to council with data and present options for a temporary pilot.

Let me just ask it for clarification.

Are you are you accept your recommending staff's recommendation?

Is that what you're or just the phase one part of it?

Well, I said to accept staff recommendation, except that yeah, it I didn't accept completely accept staff's recommendation.

I made a change to phase two to um all the way up to collect data after traffic calming and then come back where it said to come back to the transportation commission.

I would sub in, come back to the council with data and present options for a temporary pilot.

Okay, is there a second?

And we'll get to your question.

Uh second, okay.

I've had a motion by council member Jensen, second by Vice Mayor.

Um prior council member bowler.

Um thank you.

Because I'm I would note that the collect the follow-up data and and speed data along gibbons is uh part of phase two, actually, it's item A.

So I think the motion, if I understand it correctly, is to include that as in addition to phase.

Right.

It collect data after traffic calming under phase two, and then come back to council with the data and present options for a temporary pilot.

And just a question for staff, which is that as to the roundabouts, because there was some new information there, um, because those are quick build, it's fair to say that those in essence are temporary.

If something's really not working with that, that's not a big deal deal to change that, right?

Yes, that's correct.

For the record, yes, thank you.

Um, and um councilmember Jensen, the um B under uh phase two implement permanent accessibility and safety upgrades.

You're you're that would okay.

Okay, okay quick question, and and the second would apply to that too, correct, Vice Mayor?

Yes, so basically um letter A and letter B of phase two would be included in the motion.

That's what I'm understanding.

Okay, questions.

Questions?

Um, you know, I heard Councilmember Desag asked for a question first, then we'll go back to you.

Councilmember Desag.

Uh I just want to clarify that the phase two item C would not be included.

Is that correct?

So we're not doing a precluding left term.

Not at this time.

Okay.

Councilmember Bowler.

Thank you.

Just phase two item B talks about upgrading roundabouts, and I assumed that meant taking the quick builds and making them more per permanent with upgrades.

So is that right?

That's a good point.

Can we remove that portion?

So that's it.

So they remain flexible until later action.

Wait, you want to remove the ADA improvements?

Say it again.

Well, I believe there's two things going on in phase two item B.

One is upgrading ADA curb ramps.

And the second is upgrading roundabouts as funding allows.

And maybe they're combined is one thing, and and it could be so I thank you.

Yeah, uh Mr.

Wickstrom enlighten us.

If I may talk a little bit more about the roundabouts, um we are wanting to get the roundabouts installed relatively inexpensively, hence the quick build materials.

Um, we have is there are very few, if any, curb ramps out there.

So we'd be looking at some interim kind of temporary curb ramps.

If after a year or so we everyone community public up uh accepts the roundabouts, they're working for us.

We would make an upgrade to make more permanent curb ramps for that accessibility.

Uh and then there's potential further uh upgrades in terms of the materials we're using on the on the actual roundabouts, a little more durable.

And Mayor, can I just I just want to make sure you clarify that because you the roundabouts push the the crosswalks farther down and the curb ramps, if you didn't like the roundabout, you can't put the permanent ADA ramps in without keeping the roundabout.

So I just want to make sure you that is clear.

Is that correct?

Yeah, yeah, we would start off with some sort of a uh uh I'll say a temporary accessibility measure, temporary curb ramps.

Uh if the roundabout turns to be successful and and and uh um uh then we've moved towards a more permanent curve.

Thank you.

And so the motion does include both um paragraph lowercase A and lowercase B of phase two, correct?

I could restate if that would be.

I think it's just fine.

Well, quick question just so we're clear, like the the ADA curb ramps improvements, temporary ones are already included in phase one under phase one item B.

So why if there's a lot of debate about this?

If we want to have the flexibility on these roundabouts, maybe we just do phase two item A.

The verb is upgrade.

So that's what we'd be looking at.

Okay.

Right.

The only question is does upgrade mean it makes it permanent or not, it makes it permanent.

Yes, I have another I I I'll change my motion.

Um you know, we're gonna have to make a motion to extend time because you're out of time, but I was actually prepared to call for the vote because I think we have a majority, and maybe we have four.

I don't know.

Um we've heard the city man city engineer explain that the ADA improvements would not be effective if that roundabout wasn't there because of the relation to the so it's hard for me to understand why you might want to remove them later.

Um, so item let me if I could just finish because there will be time for it to be tested, and as you noted, it's quick build.

If it's really awful, it can come out.

And that's compelling as long as there's flexibility with staff being able to adjust.

I think you know, that's that's the that's the uh intent here of the questions to see if there's good flexibility on that because there is pushback to these roundabouts, and um it there is an overall design that is sort of contingent going forward as to what's happening with funding and everything else and years away for the full vision.

So, um and there was this equity issue too.

So I I I do think some flexibility is is a good thing, and I think it's there, Councilmember Desak.

Really quickly, I want to confirm that phase one item D is seeking funding only for A, B, C, D in phase one and A and B in phase two.

So seeking funding is actually for the long-term fernside project because that a plan that concept plan was approved by the council, and so not we already you are already allocating tonight if you approve the 200,000 dollars.

You're already you're already funding A1A, B and C, and A of 2A.

2B would be subject to other funding.

Um so we'd be seeking funding for not only 2B, which would be the implementing and the permanent accessibility.

Some of that we might be able to fit in through some of our existing funding.

The larger, really, we're talking about the long-term fern side project, which is going to be millions of dollars of yeah, that the uh cross Alameda bike.

Yes, that's the fern side two-way bikeway that connects across Alameda Trail with the wooden bridge.

Yeah, so since two of my colleagues are out of time, I want to suggest that we vote to um give everyone three minutes, not three minutes more, but you will have three minutes.

Vice Mayor Pryor has been very judicious with her words, and she's I will move to add three more minutes.

All right, second.

All right, and we need four affirmative votes.

All those in favor signify by stating aye.

And that's to bring everyone up to three minutes.

Okay, but you, my friend, have anyway.

Um, council member Jensen, you were wanting to say something more.

Well, I would just wanted to amend my motion.

Um, given all the discussion, I would um amend the motion to to move that we accept staff recommendations for phase one quick build traffic calming and neighborhood improvements, and phase two collection of data after traffic calming.

Then in addition, we would have staff come back to council with data and present options for future traffic calming measures, which may include making the roundabouts permanent, eliminating the left turn from Gibbons to High Street, or other options based on the data and recommendations from staff.

Oh, okay, we can do that.

Okay.

Did you get that, Madam Clerk?

I Vice Mayor is still willing to second.

Yeah, I just like to question, Councilmember.

Did I just hear that the motion?

I heard reference to eliminating the left turn, but how was that stated?

It sounded like it was to be included that that there would be I maybe I miss her, that's all.

I'm just thinking it was after the data.

What I suggested was come back to council with data and present options for future traffic calming measures, which may include making the roundabouts permanent, eliminating the left turn from Gibbons to High Street, or other options based on the data and staff recommendations.

May include.

Okay, I see.

All right.

We've had a motion, we've had a second.

I'll make a comment.

I can make a comment.

Okay, my comment is so my understanding of the motion now is that there that the possibility of eliminating the left turn where where gibbons meets high street is basically still on the table.

It's just T B D.

Um, so for that reason, then I I won't support the um motion as stated.

I prefer I prefer phase one, a, b, c, d, phase two, a, and b, and that's it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

We've had a motion, it's been seconded.

All those in favor, please signify by stating aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

Aye.

So that passes four to one.

Thank you, everyone.

Okay, we are now going to move on to um what are we moving on to, madam clerk?

City manager communication.

Yes, madam, uh city manager.

Uh I'll try to I've got a number of things, but maybe I'll go a little faster, reduce the number.

But the city is launching 12 days of Alameda, our annual shop local campaigns starting on small business Saturday, November 29th, and running through Wednesday, December 10th.

So during these 12 days, Alameda shoppers collect tickets as they make purchases at more than 100 participating businesses.

Then on December 12th at 12 noon, the city will announce 12 winners of 12 giveaway baskets, each filled with more than 200 of goodies from Alameda Businesses.

So an economic development, small business promotion.

On December 6th, the city will host its annual winter lights celebration where we will light the holiday tree in front of City Hall and enjoy performances by the Tap Dancing Christmas trees and a number of other community groups.

And the city has sandbags available to pick up at the Alameda Point Self-Serve Sandbag Station on Lexington Avenue and West Ranger for those who need assistance.

We'll have staff available to help out at the station on Saturday, December 6th from 7 a.m.

to 12 noon.

And I'll just end there.

Wonderful.

Thank you.

And then Madam Clerk.

No more speakers on oral communications.

And then 10A is a council member Desocks referral.

I'm I'll quickly read the title so he can make a statement.

Consider directing staff to temporary lease a private parking lot bounded by the former US bank on the north and Croll's building on the south for the public free parking for the month of December.

Yeah.

Did you want to comment?

Yes, please.

Councilmember Design.

First of all, I appreciate the uh work that um uh you just kind of like not deep and heavy work but um or uh assistants uh that the assistant city manager um uh Amy Woldris had provided and just basically determining whether or not the property owner is interested in it, and the reality is unfortunately the property owner is not interested in uh for a while.

I thought he was interested in and some business owners thought as well.

Um, but I do want to just briefly say the reason why you know I even brought this up is because there are businesses uh where um Webster Street and Central Avenue intersect, particularly on the north side of Central Avenue, some businesses who um have uh um expressed to me um exasperation at the continued um placement of of no parking signage um and and I think they appreciate the fact that the no parking signage um had been changed instead of from all the time uh to five until 5 p.m.

Um, they appreciate that, but nonetheless, you know, those signs are back until the end of December.

Um but the exasperation comes in the form of that these signs that have precluded parking along Central Avenue, you know, anywhere between uh McDonald's and and the Krolls building.

Um, the park, the no parking signage had been there for many months when, as expressed to me, there has been little work actually being done.

Um, and you know, they just um as expressed to me that that it's affected their bottom line.

So for that reason, you know, given the hardships that they had faced, um, not uh not just um businesses on the um eastern side of Central Avenue and Webster, but also on the western side of uh Central Avenue Webster.

Um given the hardship that they faced, you know.

I wanted to see if if we it was possible uh to lease out this space, but unfortunately the the owner um of that parking space is mostly interested in renting out the building as well as a parking.

So I appreciate staffs looking into this.

Thank you, Councilmember Days.

So I'll get a drop this.

So that's thank you.

This is withdrawn.

And so we do move on to council communications.

You obviously have the right to say whatever you want as long as you want.

We still have to go back into closed session for two rather meaty topics.

So if anybody wanted to just skip their announcements and take it up at the next meeting, that would be okay.

Is that okay?

Okay.

Then I'm just going to announce I do have um a nominee for social service human relations board, and you will um meet her and vote on her next time.

Her name is Chantel Carter, and she is um very talented.

Uh she works in the field of crisis management for some major corporations, but on top of that, she was a law enforcement officer back in the District of Columbia.

She has been a professional rugby coach.

She works with the urban YMCA in San Francisco on their philanthropy board.

She does a lot of really um interesting things.

And I just think you will enjoy meeting her, and that she will be an excellent addition to the social service human relations board.

So and this is for a term that is ending this December, and she would start in I'm January assuming the council votes for her.

So my nomination for Social Service Human Relations Board is Chantal Carter.

And with that, I am going to um, we're just going to join this meeting and return to closed session.

And so first, we want everybody on the labor negotiation issue, right?

Okay, come on back if that's your item.

And thank you, all you start words in the audience.

Yes, yes.

Sorry, I just got panicked, but I didn't have to do that.

All right, the um city council has just returned from closed session.

And I would like to report that the city council conducted interviews for the interim city manager position and provided direction to the city attorney.

Okay, and I'll report on the other.

Okay, just one unanimous vote.

So on item for B.

Staff provided information and council provided direction by uh two votes.

The first vote was uh 4 1 with council member Daysog voting mo.

No, the second vote was by five eyes.

4C was not heard, and 4D, uh staff provided information and council provided direction by five eyes.

All right.

Okay, and with that, um at 12 o'clock midnight, this council meeting is adjourned.

Thank you, everyone.