Everyone, welcome to the City of Alameda Transportation Commission meeting for Wednesday, December 17th.

We will begin with roll call.

Lisa Foster, take it away.

Commissioner Dara Abrams.

Here.

Commissioner Kim.

Here.

Commissioner Gloin.

Present.

Chair Whitesy.

Vice Chair Sue Thanthira.

Yeah.

Commissioner Johnson.

Present.

And Commissioner Nockdagal.

Here.

Seeing the presence of a quorum, we will continue.

Let's move to agenda changes.

Any proposed agenda changes from the Commissioners.

Seeing none, let's move on to the next item.

Staff communications.

Staff communications from Lisa Foster.

Good evening, Chair Whitesy and Transportation Commissioners.

I'm Lisa Foster, Transportation Planning Manager.

I'll give a few updates.

Since our last meeting, the City Council did review one of the items that you all have taken action on, and that is for the Gibbons High Fernside project and the Gibbons Area project.

So their motion was to accept the staff recommendations for Gibbons Drive traffic calming phase one, quick build traffic calming and neighborhood improvements.

And phase two collection of data after traffic calming.

And direct staff to return to the city 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.

Some potential uh agenda topics for those two meetings are uh update from AC Transit on our transit signal priority on their transit signal priority project on Park Street, um some planning for Lincoln Ave and Walnut Street and in February our transportation 2025 annual report and 2026 work plan.

Our next transportation 101 and clipper cards for seniors event is on January 2nd.

So, starting off the new year.

And then in some project updates, the water shuttle began its winter schedule on November 2nd with continued service on Tuesdays.

I'm glad to say it's still six days, but shorter weekend hours.

And then the Oakland Alameda Estuary Bridge, a city council approved a consultant contract to uh undertake a waterway study to analyze the number of types of boats using the estuary and model how vessels might navigate a narrower opening, and we anticipate completing that in 2027.

And I think Scott Wickstrom City Engineer might give us some construction updates.

Just a few construction updates.

Uh, if you've been driving around town, you might have seen these yourself, but if you haven't, well, I'm not here for you.

Excuse me.

Uh Central Avenue, the roundabout at 3rd Street and 4th Street are complete and open.

The striping work is largely complete, not 100%, but largely complete.

Um and really the project by that extension is almost done between Sherman Avenue all the way to Lincoln Avenue.

Uh, if you're savvy eyed, you'll recognize there are some traffic signal improvements that still need to be done with the mast arms and the signals at 8 and central and also at uh Webster and Central, but those will be forthcoming.

Long lead items when you've got mast arms and stuff like that.

So they'll be coming.

The um uh Pacific Main uh intersection is closed for that roundabout.

We fully close that to allow them to expedite the construction.

Um assuming we have uh a decent weather window, they're looking at early spring for completion and open up of that on that section as well.

So that's moving along.

Uh our paving project, our annual paving project, which is primarily focused in Bay Farm Island, a couple things on the east end.

Uh, we are complete with all the slurry work and all the paving.

Um the bike paths are in the process are being uh repaved, so that's the uh pathways along Island and also McCartney and also on Veterans Court, those are in process.

Again, we're getting caught up here by weather, we've got a little bit late start this year.

Um, striping will occur as weather permits.

Uh, and again, that's likely going to be in early January, along with the roundabout that ends up at uh Maitland, McCartney, and Melrose.

Uh one of the things that we are going to take back and kind of take us a little bit of a lesson learned is we came before this body and kind of presented our our striping options and changes and modifications.

Um we are going to consider about what level of notification and input we want to get from the community.

We did receive a lot of feedback in the last few days about our cat tracking that's on the ground.

So we want to evaluate how to best do that going forward to make sure we get that we have both an expedited or streamlined process, but we still uh have that uh the notification and input as appropriate.

Um a subtle little small thing.

If you're a cyclist, you probably noticed this already, but the cross Alameda Trail, the section at the former Penzo site is now opened, and so the cross-alameter trail is is complete and fully functional between Seaplane Lagoon all the way to Broadway.

So that's a small but pretty subtle and important big deal.

And then lastly, uh Tilden Clement.

Uh they've been doing clearing and grubbing uh on the north side of the roadway between the roadway and knobhill.

Uh pulled out the old railroad tracks.

Last night city council approved the formal removal of a bunch of the trees.

So those will be coming out in the next couple of weeks, along with some concrete work.

You'll start to see impacts.

The first impacts that we're gonna see is that the uh southwest uh inbound lane on Tilden will be cut back from two lanes to one lane, um, and then it'll uh before it approaches the intersection, and then as we get into late January uh or early February, again, weather and a few other scheduling things we're working at with contractor.

There'll be some more significant impacts where we're gonna have to close blanding for a portion of time and allow fernside to have to basically come into a T intersection, then we'll likely have to flip that and uh close fernside for a fairly long time, basically the duration of the project, and have landing open uh during that time frame.

Um, when we get close to those those bigger closures, uh there will be a fair amount of outreach on our website and to not build uh uh the shopping center and the local residents as well.

So available for any questions.

Oh, um, get my brain together.

Um, thanks for that information.

That's really great.

Um I noticed um on Central between Webster and the first roundabout.

You know, we have the bike lane, and it's it hasn't been striped yet.

And there's a lot of delivery trucks.

There's a lot of people that are parking in those that space because I walk wide every day.

Um, one of my questions is are we going to um stripe the curb red as an indicator that it's no parking?

Because people are just they're just parking in that in that in those areas, like it's you know, yeah.

We'll take lessons learned from both Clement and most recently uh Grand Street, and for Clement in particular, because that was my bike route and I was on it most every day.

Uh, there was a lot of vehicles that parked in that area until it was paved and striped, and the parking stalls that are proposed outside of that were were striped as well.

So it's until we get the full striping in there.

A lot of um say drivers might not be fully aware.

Um as soon as we get the striping in, um, we'll basically start monitoring it.

We can uh talk to our uh parking enforcement.

They start doing some targeted enforcement on that.

We're also then uh putting delineators at the start and the finish.

I see those, yeah.

Um what we did on grand.

It this is a dilemma that we sometimes have is the wider the bike lane, which is it'll say more pleasant for the bikes, it's easier for a car to drive on in there.

So you'll see them on portions of uh Clement where we have the three rather thin kind of delineators, uh mid mid-mid uh lane.

Um, we add those in on uh grand as well, along with some bumper stops as well.

So that seemed to work.

So we're gonna we're well aware that we need to get our striping, and then we'll start pushing that enforcement and pushing if we need to do additional uh work we will.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Um thank you for the update.

Um, and my question is um on the payment in the Bayfaw media.

And you mentioned about uh community outreach and uh community feedback.

Can you expand on that?

Um we've got a fair number of uh emails um that are concerned about traffic capacity, concerned about the loss of going from two lanes to one lane on McCartney, um, and also some of the the lost turn restrictions.

If you well, historically there was a double right turn going from island on to McCartney.

Now there's gonna be a single right.

There's concern about capacities and delay uh there's also some concern about the we remove the left turn pockets at Augenbaugh and McCartney um there's concern about uh the impacts that has when people come off of the when the ferry um comes back in the afternoon and a big line of cars comes through and and that potential impact on fire station four which is right there at that intersection as well so we're looking at those things um there we may have some opportunities to to make some adjustments but you know i i think from the other thing that we heard uh through a lot of this communication was the the notification and you know their ability at least to be heard or to have some kind of awareness and input was was kind of what a big component okay now what is the timing for I mean you mentioned of course weather permitting um uh for the markings to be done because right now it's a temporary marking and that's fading away and I see many near misses because you know people can confused with whether it's one lane or some people go aspoon lane and so yeah that for striping to adhere to have a good quality product and you want the asphalt to be dry for 24 hours prior to and you know we just finished up some of the last bit of paving um this last weekend or this last week and you look at the weather forecast it's basically 10 days of showers right so that doesn't go well so we might be in the early January and that that's that's that's a uh you know this is a uh one of the issues that we'll talk about in terms of R in from from a notification standpoint um we to add any more outreach we push later into our construction season what we're planning on doing is to start if you will planning two years ahead which is not what we have traditionally done with our paving plan but that's I think what we need to do in order to get ourselves a little bit further ahead.

Ideally we're paving in midsummer striping comes shortly thereafter um yeah it was dry for a bit we caught up on all the paving now we're kind of in a wet window and we're kind of forced to wait okay okay all right thank you thank you uh with the conclusion of staff communications we're gonna move to the next agenda item non-agenda public comment again this is for public comment on transportation related topics not specifically on this agenda do we have any speakers?

If you'd like to speak online please raise your hand for the non-agenda public comment we have one online and we have one in person.

Let's do in-person legimistry a little good evening commissioners I the other day I went to Alameda Point on the north end stayed there in the afternoon then uh left on the south end of Main Street to central and I'm talking about Central now I'm talking about at nighttime that even though I'm very familiar with the roundabouts and stuff like that's the first time I had to drive it at nighttime and as I was going westbound along Central Avenue that I noticed where's the signs telling me that there's a roundabout ahead because all I can see is darkness and then when I'm down looking at the street that I see the reflectorized those little square things that are for the pedestrian crosswalks but when you see those that you're not sure if those are for the pedestrian crosswalks or whether or not it's a detour that it's going to be a lane shift type of thing.

So I entered in the first uh westernmost uh cross um roundabout uh you know say what the heck is going on and stuff and then see it's just normal roundabout and nobody is there and stuff and I could enter in uh safely but again the lighting is so poor in that area it's not well lit and not seeing signage you know that there's roundabouts I wonder about you know other people that are not familiar with the area how easily that they can uh decipher you know the what's there on the street because it it's heck and then I get to the next roundabout now the guy's coming off a third street going over to uh Bayena Bay and he's going at 25 miles an hour because he's local and he knows the area so he goes zooming right through it.

But again uh I'm not seeing signage.

I'm not seeing it well lit uh and you know, seeing the reflectorized things again on the ground that realize it's the the the pedestrian walkway areas, but at night it's completely different.

And I'm just wondering how many other intersections are like this or going to be like that, because lighting is important for safety.

And if you're making safety improvements, that wasn't safe.

I felt very uncomfortable and you know, strange and not in my normal uh you know comfort zone uh encountering those two at night time.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jim.

We have any additional comments online?

Next we have Jay Garfinkel.

Jay, we heard you for one second, come on back.

My concern, are you hearing me now?

Very quietly, but yes.

Talk louder.

My concern is with the specifics of the current projects.

Are you hearing me?

We are okay.

But the system use the planning process.

You know, planners plan.

That's what they do, that's what they're hired to do.

Uh and generally they do a good job.

Unfortunately, after they are satisfied that their plan is uh you uh useful, they then uh strive to have it uh uh approved by uh the appropriate authorities.

They defend their plan as if they were prosecutors intent on winning their case or having their plan uh adopted.

They don't involve the uh residents of the area, they don't look at the consequences to the residents, uh they simply move ahead.

And when they do uh contact the residents, it's usually after the plan is so complete that they're just waiting to get their first rubber stamp from the relevant uh commission, be it the transportation or planning or whoever, and then their second stamp from the council.

They don't really involve the residents.

When they do have a meeting, they uh don't accept questions from the floor.

Uh they will talk to you individually, but they don't want anyone else to hear the points that individuals uh are making.

Uh they tend to justify their plan by presenting surveys.

I have never seen a statistically service statistically significant survey from any of the planning projects.

They are there can be no statistical significance to them simply by the way they're uh uh constructed.

You know, the individual residents are really uh at a loss here.

We're not organized, so when something is gonna happen to our neighborhood, we can't really do much about it, especially when we're uh going against the city's most organized special interest group, bike walk alameda.

Since the uh the last few years, everything is being done to uh satisfy them.

Uh and the individual uh motorists, we're being thrown under the city's bus.

I think it's uh high time that we took a more positive and constructive approach to planning and involved the citizens at a point that we can actually contribute to what's being done.

The recent uh Gibbons uh fiasco came about only because the planners were acceding to the wishes of bike walk alameda with a uh two-directional uh bike path.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comment.

Any additional comments online?

There are no other speakers, and none other in person as well.

Okay.

Uh see no other comments for non-agenda public comment.

We will next move to the consent calendar item 5a approve the draft minutes of the October 22nd, 2025 Transportation Commission meeting.

I will recuse myself from voting for this.

I move the approval of the minutes, second.

Third.

You take it all in favor of.

So motion has been made for approval.

It has been seconded.

All in favor of the motion, please say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any against?

And I will abstain.

I'm staying as well.

Thank you.

Okay.

Uh let's move on to item six, six A, regular agenda items, receive an update on neighborhood greenway implementation and provide input on the Pacific Avenue pilot.

This is a discussion item, not a voting item.

Let's go to our first presentation with Rochelle Wheeler.

Hi, good evening, Chair Whitesy and Commissioners.

I'm happy to be here tonight.

I'm Rochelle Wheeler, the senior transportation coordinator.

I'll be presenting this item tonight, and I am joined also by our uh esteemed project manager from Tool Design, Alison Mills, who is the project manager on the consultant side.

So as Chair Whitesy mentioned, this is a discussion, not an action item.

I'm here to give you an update on the neighborhood greenways implementation.

The last time I came before you was over a year ago in August 2024, and a lot has transpired, and I'll review that.

And then also, one of the things we've done is implemented and constructed a pilot section of Greenway along Pacific Avenue, and we've collected some input on that and would like to hear your input as well tonight.

But to step back for a second and just again ground us in the larger context for these greenways, the neighborhood greenways come out of our active transportation plan, which was adopted by the council in uh 2022, and that plan has a broad vision to make Alameda City where people of all ages, abilities, income levels, and backgrounds can safely conveniently comfortably walk, bike, and roll to their many destinations.

And the greenways are really a key part of that.

And again, as a reminder, what are neighborhood greenways?

They are bicycle and pedestrian priority streets that are designed to allow bicyclists and motorists to safely share the road together.

They're on low volume, low-speed local streets.

And there also is a goal to make the crossings of the larger streets easier and safer for people walking and biking.

Also for these streets, which we are monitoring, and I'll talk a little bit more about that.

So again, why or why are we using this new tool for Alameda, this new facility type called Neighborhood Greenway?

A really important uh reason is that the neighborhood greenways help us to create a connected low-stress bikeway network, again, allowing people of all ages and abilities to connect to their destinations, schools, shopping, transit, recreation.

Um the neighborhood greenways are a piece of that um connectivity fabric, I guess you could say, along with separated bike lanes and off-street paths, that all together they create this network, which is essential for meeting our climate safety and transportation goals.

Um they also can help encourage more people, being low stress facilities, encourage more people to bike.

Uh, we do know from our um the survey we did with the active transportation plan in 2022, which was a statistically significant survey, that 46% of Alameda residents are interested in biking, but concerned, and they really um need uh to be they they desire to bike if they can be either further away from cars or there are fewer cars around them.

Um so yeah, these uh these neighborhood greenways, which are shown in, it's a little hard to see the colors here, but basically the dashed lines are the neighborhood greenways on this map.

You can see how they really fill in a connected network.

Um there's the the darker pink color, which is our separated bikeways that are either constructed or very close to being constructed, like Central Avenue, and then our pathways, which are in green, and the neighborhood greenways are a key part of kind of connecting all of this together.

Our active transportation plan includes nine neighborhood greenway streets, which total 10 miles that are um part of the 2030 low stress backbone network with the goal of implementing those by 2030.

Um, so I'm gonna talk now about implementation and our uh where we're at in our implementation strategy for the neighborhood greenways, which was first presented to you last year in August, and we've made a lot of progress.

So we've separated this into three phases.

Um sorry that this is I did make it darker, but it's still a little bit faint to read.

But um we have three phases, and the first phase we're starting with is implementing the slow street segments of Pacific Avenue, San Jose, and Versailles, and those were chosen because there was a desire to accelerate the removal of the slow streets, and so that's uh partly why we're focusing on those segments, and the goal here is to have those completed by next year.

Um, and so to that point, we um have done a lot in the last year.

We um collected existing conditions data that's on speed and volumes on all of these streets, and also on some nearby parallel streets.

Just in summary, this is in the staff report, but we did find that generally these street segments are meeting our volume targets, but they're not meeting our speed targets.

The speeds are generally which is 20 miles per hour on neighborhood greenways, and the speeds right now are um uh the 95th percentile, which means 95 percent or of the the cars or 95 percent are going um well, let's see.

95% uh are going at or below 25 to 30 miles 30 miles per hour.

There are a few that are going over that, but that's kind of the range that we're seeing it in.

So we'd like that 95th percentile to be at 20 miles per hour.

Um we also developed draft concept plans for all three of these street segments, uh, and in developing those and in developing the designs.

We've been collaborating with our fire department and others, including ACI, which collects the trash.

So we're very much integrating their needs into our plans.

We've engaged with the community through three pop-ups, one for each of these street pop-up events, one for each of these streets, one community workshop, some online surveys, and some an interactive web map to collect input on the existing conditions.

We secured uh funding that the council allocated to fully implement this phase one, and as you know, we constructed the Pacific Avenue pilot.

Still underway in this phase is to refine the traffic calming treatment designs based on that experience with the pilot, which is part why we're here tonight to get input on that, and uh, and then to finalize those plans, bid the project and construct these remaining phase one streets by the fall of next year.

Phase two was projected to be completed between 2026 and 2030, but we have actually been doing some work on this phase two, and this is to implement those remaining six neighborhood greenways that are part of that 2030 low stress backbone network.

Um, one of the things we did in this last year is applied and for and were awarded a $2 million grant for making improvements of four of our major intersection crossings, and uh mention those in a minute, but they're listed on the screen.

Um, and then also the city council did with their budget this year, allocate 1.2 million for one mile of phase two neighborhood greenways.

Um there are another after that would be another about uh five miles to implement, but um, but that gets us started on some of the phase two.

So, what we'll be doing from 2026 to 2030, and it's starting next year, is doing outreach design and construction, starting with the outreach at least and the design on the Pacific Avenue Wilmachan intersection.

That's one of those that was funded by this grant.

Right now, we um are tentatively thinking that would be a pedestrian hybrid beacon there.

We will be doing some community input, and we're doing a lot of data collection.

Uh, we'll be doing a lot of data collection on that to start.

Um, the other major intersection crossings will be implemented, one of them with the phase one greenway, which is to put um the improvements at Pacific and in Sherman, will be done in concrete there, not in quick build, but we're able to do that with quick build bulbouts and also put in an RFB.

And then the other two intersections at 9th and Lincoln and at 3rd and Pacific are part of the Lincoln Complete Streets project and would be implemented with that project.

We will also next year be deciding on what that additional one mile segment of phase two would be.

We'll be looking at particularly, you know, thinking about where we have some gaps that we would like to focus on, and then after that, designing and constructing that.

And then also we'll be developing the implementation approach for these remaining phase two streets and importantly securing funding so that we can implement this.

Phase three is for the implement the remaining greenways in the active transportation plan.

These are a lot of short little kind of connector segments, and those are anticipated to be implemented after 2030, and we'll be developing a more specific approach to that when we update the active transportation plan, which is anticipated for 2027.

So with that overview, I'm going to go into the Pacific Avenue pilot neighborhood greenway.

This pilot, as you know, is between was constructed between Lafayette Street and Oak Street, and we did this section in part to kind of match the funding we had and also to be able to try implementing the different newer traffic calming devices in one segment so that we could see how those work, both from a staff perspective and community perspective.

That was completed this year over two phases.

We did the stop sign installation in April, and then in November we completed the rest of this, which includes everything listed on the screen, the quick build neighborhood traffic circle at Chestnut, some painted curb extensions with bollards at four intersections, six asphalt speed humps between Chestnut and Oak, new four-way stops, as I mentioned at Willow and Walnut, hardened center lines at two intersections, painted share rows, daylighting at all the intersections and crosswalk markings, including some high visibility crosswalk markings at intersections.

So we are now, as I said, collecting community input and your input tonight, and doing some internal department review and input before we finalize the designs of this traffic calming devices, and then take that forward into the designs for the remainder of the phase one implementation.

So we're really focusing on three new traffic calming features that we have tried out on this neighborhood greenway.

A lot of the other things have been implemented before, like painted paint painted bulbouts with bollards and share rows.

We've seen those before around the city.

We've been using those for many years or multiple years at least.

Then the three features that are newer that we particularly wanted feedback on from the community and would like feedback tonight.

Are the neighborhood traffic circle, which is at Chestnut, the asphalt speed humps, which is a design that we have we have some plastic speed humps in Alameda.

We do have some older asphalt speed humps, but this particular design is new.

It's the actually the same design that the city of Oakland uses.

And so we have installed that here.

And then we also have the hardened center line, which in this photo is on kind of the far left.

It's in the mid, it's the center line of the street.

There's kind of a bump, a black and yellow bump in the middle of the along that center line.

And a lot of people just say now have been confused about the purpose of this.

And that's something we heard in the survey.

And the purpose is really to, it is something that is a proven uh vision zero or traffic calming device, and it's it's to slow turning traffic, particularly left turning traffic, both off of the neighborhood greenway and onto the neighborhood greenway.

So people can't kind of cut the corners when they're making their turn.

So it requires a slower, more thoughtful turn.

So we did conduct a community survey, and the results of that were posted to our to this agenda item today, and they're also on our website the results of this survey.

The survey we had 221 responses during our survey period from December 4th to the 14th.

And we just asked a few questions, the same questions that we're focusing on with you guys tonight.

One of the first things we just asked to understand who we're hearing from is how respondents had experienced the street.

We allowed people to choose more than one mode, so whether they were driving, biking, or walking or scootering, and you can kind of see that it's about a third, a third, a third of how people have experienced the street.

Again, this is not individually.

People could have experienced the street by biking, walking, and driving, but when we look at kind of those experience how they've approached the street, it's I think it's useful to see that we've heard from a wide variety of users.

So overall, and all the responses.

We asked how the greenway is working now, and again, people were able to select multiple choices here.

You can see the highest percentages around people saying they liked it 52%.

It's working well, people are feeling safer when traveling along the street and at the intersections.

Obviously, it's not at 100% for all of all people, but those were the highest responses we got overall.

And then we broke that down by mode to see how people are experiencing the street who are walking and biking, walking, biking, scootering, versus people who are only driving along the street, so or have only driven on the street.

So again, for this first column, people who experience the street, they could be biking, walking, and driving, say, but we wanted with we looked at people who selected at least one of those non-driving modes.

And of those 153 respondents, quite a few like it a higher percentage here.

62% like the neighborhood greenway say it's working well.

57% say it feels safer.

Generally, they do feel safer.

They like the changes, and they have fewer issues with the overall design.

20% had some issues with the overall design.

When looking at people who experience a street only by driving, that was 63 respondents.

You can see generally they have more issues with the design.

43% had issues with the design.

They feel less safe compared to those people who are biking, walking, and scootering.

30% say they feel less safe on the street, less safe at the intersections, and they're less likely to kind of like these changes overall.

32% of them thought it was working well.

So that's a summary of the individual kind of checkbox responses, and there were a lot of free form, and you probably saw this.

If you glance, there's many pages of comments.

We tried to kind of summarize we heard a lot of feedback overall and tried to just summarize at the high level, kind of what we were hearing the most about through those through those free form comments.

Um we heard a lot about the traffic circle, the neighborhood traffic circle, which is not surprising because this is a new device in Alameda.

Um at the majority, or many, many people I would say said they liked it, that they're affected, they're slowing traffic, they would like people would like to see more.

Um so I'd say that was that was quite a high number.

We didn't count to every every you know, categorize each of them, but that was a lot.

Um, there were quite a few comments from people saying that actually it wasn't slowing the traffic enough that some modifications needed to be made to slow people even more through this intersection.

Um there's some people who felt like drivers are confused about how to navigate the traffic circle, they're not yielding, they're going the wrong way.

Um, in some ways, this is not surprising to me.

We've been hearing that about the roundabout.

I think people in Alameda are getting used to circles in general in the city.

Um, so hopefully that will improve over time.

Um, there was um people who are wanting the traffic circle to be more visible, particularly with something more vertical elements in the center of the circle, maybe some better signage approaching it.

Some folks felt like the lanes are too narrow, they're forcing drivers towards the crosswalk.

Um, and a few people felt like a four-way stop would be better here than an all-way yield.

But again, overall, I would say that there was a lot of support for the traffic circle.

Same for the speed humps.

Whoops.

A lot of people like them and feel like they're great.

We should install more of them.

They're slowing the traffic.

There were some comments from folks that they're not quite tall enough, or they're not slowing the traffic enough, they're not kind of abrupt enough, they're not harsh enough, they're a little too easy to go over at a high speed.

There maybe should be more of them, or they should they should be more frequent within one block, or just more of them in general.

A few people were suggesting that we add cutouts through these traffic circles for bicyclists to not have to go over them.

The hardened center line again, as I mentioned, some confusion.

This was we didn't receive quite as many comments on this on this device, but some confusion about why we're using it, a couple of safety concerns that bicyclists might hit them the wrong way, and that would be dangerous, although nobody had actually experienced that.

And some people like them and would like more of them.

Finally, overall other comments that we received again, overall, many people like the changes, said they love it, they want more of it, they're glad we're finally implementing this.

Um, yeah, and just asked for more of these kind of traffic charming devices around the city in general.

There were some comments about considering adding more bollards within these painted bulb outs.

Um there were a few comments which I thought were interesting about the slow streets, both people feeling like the slow streets, they kind of wish they were still there because they did more to slow the traffic and reduce the traffic.

Also, we heard from some people who are very glad they're gone, the barricades.

Um, and then there were a couple people who felt like overall this was not a good use of city resources.

Um, so we are requesting your feedback tonight again.

These are some questions, basically the same questions we asked in the survey, but just in different language.

Kind of how do you feel like this is working as an overall corridor, particularly for people walking and biking?

Is it helping people feel safer and more comfortable?

And then any specific feedback on these individual traffic calming treatments.

And with that, I can take questions and look forward to your feedback.

Thank you.

Thank you, Rochelle.

So we'll start with clarifying questions.

These are just questions of fact in the presentation, not ways to improve the project, not opinions about the product, just questions of fact in the presentation.

Do any commissioners have clarifying questions?

Please, Commissioner Glyne.

Thank you.

Uh thank you for the presentation.

That was all 99.9% very clear.

The only thing that wasn't clear to me was you mentioned the speed of the traffic being too fast, let's say.

That was uh prior.

That was our pre-existing condition.

Yeah.

Thank you.

And we don't, I'm guessing have an update on that.

That's correct.

Okay, thank you.

That was an on point clarifying question.

Thank you, Commissioner Goine.

Commissioner Kim.

Um thanks for the presentation.

Uh I was looking through the materials and for the Pacific Avenue draft concept.

Um, it shows speed cushions while the other two showed speed humps.

Um, I just wanted to clarify, and you've only showed speed humps in the presentation.

So on Pacific, are they speed humps or speed cushions?

So since that design was that draft concept was developed, we further iterated on the design and decided on using speed humps, the full length of the street rather than cushions.

So speed humps is what is on the streets and what we are planning to move forward with at this point.

Okay, great, thank you.

Also on point.

Any additional clarifying questions?

Let's go three for three.

Commissioner Derrick Abrams.

Excuse me.

Sorry.

Um, thank you for the presentation, Rochelle.

I just wanted to clarify.

You could point out where the locations for that 2030 plus um tranche you were you were hinting at.

What those locations are.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I just wasn't clear.

Yeah, um, I'm not sure I can rattle those off my head, but there are a lot of like, I would say one, two, three block segments that are really kind of connecting between separated bike lanes or um, yeah, connections just to to make a continuous network.

So I'd have to look at a map, and I don't have that map in this presentation, so yeah.

Sorry.

Any additional clarifying questions.

Okay, let's move on to public comments on this agenda item.

Are there any public comments?

If you wish to speak online on item 6a, please raise your hand.

And so far we have two in person and two online.

Let's go with online first, please.

First, we have Cindy Johnson.

Good evening, commissioners and staff.

I bike down Pacific pretty frequently and really appreciate the changes.

I still see people driving faster than I'm comfortable with between speed humps and around the traffic circle, but with some tweaks, I feel like we're on the right track.

I'm eager to see the feedback you've been getting incorporated into the designs and more of these rolling out throughout our city.

Thank you.

I also wanted to take this opportunity to share a point that was made in a letter from Bikey's Bay on an item that was before council last night.

The item was referral about a 15 mile per hour speed limit for bikes on trails and paths.

Biking space supported the limit for the multi-use trails, where bicyclists and pedestrians mix, but did not support it for facilities like the Cross Alameda Trail, which have separately striped or and otherwise delineated bicycle lanes exclusively for bicycles.

How this relates to neighborhood greenways is in a point made at the end of the letter.

I'll read it verbatim because I don't think I can say it better.

We also encourage Alameda to investigate 15 mile per hour posted speed limits on neighborhood streets, not only trails with a priority for shared lane cyclist slash driver bike routes.

Cities in California are now allowed to lower posted speed limits to 15 miles per hour on any local road, i.e., non-RTRL or collector, without the need for a speed survey or any other justification.

Not many cities have taken advantage of this opportunity yet, but UC Berkeley Safe Track has confirmed that it is available.

If 15 miles per hour is a good idea for trails of people on foot and on bike share, then it certainly follows that it's also a good idea on neighborhood streets around town that people in cars and on bike share where there's no dedicated bike infrastructure.

These shared lane bike slash car streets are associated with much more significant traffic safety issues compared to multi-use trails.

Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you, dude.

Next speaker, please.

Next we have Denise Trapigny.

Hi, thanks, Commissioner.

My name is Denise Trapenier, and I'm the board president for Bike Walk Alameda.

I appreciate the opportunity to speak tonight about the neighborhood greenways program.

As you know, neighborhood greenways are critical to our low stress network, and I want to thank you and staff for your continued support for this program.

I know you've been hearing a lot of opposition to the neighborhood greenways from community members that are concerned that they'll see increased trap increased traffic or diversions and parking losses on their roads that they live on as we continue to implement this critical safety feature.

But I'd like to highlight a couple of points about those comments.

First, you and council have affirmed over and over again as part of every document driving this design that our priorities are safety and climate change.

Even though our priorities are not parking and driving convenience, it seems like at least 90% of the discussion, both in the community and from the dais, is about parking loss and driving convenience.

So I implore you and city council to remember why we're making these changes and why we're getting our low stress and why getting our low stress backbone built as soon as possible is critical.

If we have any chance of meeting our vision zero and climate goals, it would be great if we could stop talking about traffic diversion concerns or parking loss and focus on the disfocus the discussion on what we've agreed are our priorities.

While it's important to recognize that there are downsides to these implementations for drivers, and I think staff's been very upfront about those.

Those downsides do not outweigh in any way, shape, or form the benefits that we've all said we need to prioritize, specifically road safety and climate change.

And lastly, I just want to take this opportunity to thank this commission and express our deep gratitude for the work that staff is doing on this.

This has not been easy.

We know that there are some community members that are deliberately spreading misinformation, making personal attacks, and just honestly flat out lying in their attempts to derail these improvements.

And we want you to know that there's a strong, large majority of folks who support and applaud your work and are extremely grateful for your staying the course and achieving our community's agreed upon objectives.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any additional online comments?

There are no more online speakers.

Let's move to in person, please.

Next we have Mitch Ball.

Hi, Mitch.

Hello.

First off, I want to say that I really appreciate this project and the fact that this pilot is complete.

Overall, this is definitely an improvement, and I'm pressed with the price as well.

Well, 300,000 sounds like a big number to some.

I'm sure you are all well aware that it is a lot smaller than many other transportation infrastructure projects and is much cheaper than the cost to the public when a fatal crash occurs.

I first visited the pilot on a Friday evening after work after the sun had set, which is typically one of the worst times for traffic accidents.

While riding my bike through, I stopped to take some notes.

With my notes, I also took some photos and drew some diagrams that you can refer to in my written copy of this comment.

I recommend taking a look at these images as a few of these notes may be somewhat hard to follow without the visuals.

Number one, the hardened center lines seemed really helpful for keeping left turns wide with a wide field of view.

I've never seen them before, but my first impression is that they're even better than speed bumps, as they're not intended to even be driven over.

Number two, the beige ballboat painting seems very visible but not unpleasant to look at.

The lack of beige paint on the crosswalks was a really nice touch that I think will help make the pedestrian pass more visible than just a ballbound throughout.

Now I do want to offer some opportunities for improvement.

Number three, I did see a car partially parked on the outbound ball boat, which did not contain ballards.

Uh there was enough room for them to move a few feet forward and not be in the ballboat.

So I feel like this could have been prevented by having the ballboats end at sharper angles or by painting a separate white line after the ballbout to denote where parking begins.

Number four, when cars go straight at intersections without traffic circles, they successfully avoid the ball bouts.

However, when cars go straight in intersections with traffic circles, they successfully avoid the inbound ballboat with bollards, and they successfully avoid the traffic circle, but they often drive over the outbound ballboat without ballards.

Uh, likely because driving over this outbound ball boat allows them to make their turn out wider.

Well, it appears that ballards are only necessary at inbound inbound ballbouts for intersections without traffic circles.

I think intersections with traffic circles could benefit from ballards placed in the center section of the ballbouts nearest the traffic circle.

I did not observe many left turns of traffic circles, but I believe that the same concerns with vehicles driving over the outbound ball boat to widen their turn applies to this use case as well.

In total, I believe that while the current design could use a few tweaks, they are very effective, and I'm excited to see the implementation throughout the rest of the island.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Next speaker, please.

And next we have Jim Straylo.

Hey Jim.

Evening, commissioners.

I've been riding my bicycle.

I also drive, but uh riding my bicycle across Alameda, East West, uh, since about 2000, when 2009 happened, and they said every street in Alameda is bikeable and walkable.

Fantastic.

And they then said that there is a bike boulevard along Pacific.

So I said, okay, let's see what's special about the Pacific and using it as a bike boulevard.

I hated it.

There was so in the, yeah, it sometimes there'd be stop signs and sometimes there'd be yields and what it was so mismatched that I didn't feel safe at all riding it on my bicycle.

So when they came around to say, hey, we're gonna build a project on this, I said, I don't know why you're wasting your money on it.

Nobody uses it except the people who actually live there.

So you're kind of wasting your money on it.

Anyway, uh the other day I was uh on climate and needed to go over to the public library, and uh so I was westbound on Clement, decided to turn up the chestnut and happen chance and saw the traffic circle there.

And it looks like you can just kind of go go straight and you know not worry about the the yield sides.

You don't really see the yield sides.

A lot of times I see yield ahead before yield.

I don't remember seeing any yield aheads, and the yields are like right there at the end, and yeah, that's like an after effect afterthought.

Um, but the traffic circle is so small that uh it just seems like you can go straight if you're going, you know, northwest, uh north, south, or east-west, and not need to slow down.

You'd you kind of are mesmerized more by the traffic circle than by the yield signs.

And in fact, if you just had yield signs, people would say, Oh, I see the yield sign, I'm gonna slow down to 15 miles an hour because I know what a yield sign means.

So, hate to say it, but uh I think the money's been wasted on you know this as a pilot project.

People that ride bicycles are gonna be using Clement going east-west, uh, no reason to use uh bike boulevard, so to speak, anymore along Pacific.

There's gonna be other uh improvements on other streets like uh Lincoln.

Uh so I just say what a waste of uh of a project.

It only is gonna affect mostly the people who live there.

So I think you should be mostly concentrating on the people who live there comments to see how it really affects their neighborhood.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comment.

Any additional in-person comments.

Yes, we have one more speaker, Catherine Hunch.

Catherine.

Hi Catherine.

Thank you.

I've never done this before, but it seems important enough.

You're doing great.

And I'm sorry I came late because I read in the Alameda Post that this meeting started at 7 30, and I was wrong.

So sorry.

What happens at that intersection is people come from below Lincoln, and when they have a clear way to get across Lincoln, they zoom up Peru Street and they don't slow or stop at Pacific, they just zoom straight through to Buena Vista.

And we've had many incidents there where people, especially kids riding their bikes along Pacific.

Um the cars don't stop to look or check that there's cyclists or pedestrians.

My concern is that with the traffic circle, the pattern is that the traffic circle just ends up being part of a slalom course to zoom around, and it doesn't slow enough, and it also has I went and looked at the new one.

It has a visual like impediment for the cyclists and the cars to see each in particular cars seeing the bikes coming, and people don't slower yield.

So what we did is we did uh uh a petition around the neighbors one block in each direction, and along Pacific towards Little John Park, we only did half a block because that's like a really long block, um, and of the neighbors that answered their doors over a weekend.

85% of them were strongly opposed and signed that petition that we submitted to I think y'all.

Um, I got a lot of comments from the neighbors, and one of them told me that um some of the residents like the traffic circles seem to work really well in places like Gilman or larger traffic areas, but in small residential neighborhoods, there's kind of a kerfuffle because I think motorists don't know how to yield or even to stop to look.

So, what we're proposing is to just and I know this doesn't help with the climate change issue, but I do think that safety should supersede the climate change issues on this one.

So the neighbors are all telling me that they want, I thought speed bumps to really slow the cars, and they all pretty much said no, we want a four-way stop there.

That'd be cheaper.

Thank you for your comments.

Any additional in-person comments.

There are no other speakers.

Okay.

Thank you.

Uh hearing all the public comments completed, let's move on to discussion with the commissioners.

Who has a question, a comment, a suggestion, or an improvement.

I do want to highlight that the request here is really three questions.

Is this working?

Is it safer and design critiques of phase one of the Greenways project?

So is this working?

Is this safer?

And design critiques.

That's sort of our scope for tonight.

Who has something within that scope?

God, did I did I make the scope too small?

Sorry.

Please, Commissioner Knockdown.

I think I can follow those guidelines.

So thank you for the great presentation.

Um, and thank you for providing just this afternoon the survey responses.

I didn't make it through all of them, but I think in your presentation you did capture it pretty well that they were sort of like all over the place, you know, some were good, some were bad, and there was some feedback as well, some good feedback.

Um I would say that in general I am in favor of uh a low stress bike network in Alameda.

I have consistently been so, and I believe that pedestrians benefit from it as well.

Um I'm gonna speak to my experiences with the new pilot.

Uh, as a pedestrian, I have experienced some of the benefits of the new increased visibility for the crosswalks and also the additional stop signs, such that when I was ushering a big group of scouts for scouting for food and trying to get them all across said crosswalks, it was a real benefit because everyone could see us, everyone could see the crosswalks.

It was they were really thumbs up in my perspective.

Also, additional stop signs at some of those dangerous intersections are a real benefit as well.

Um I will say that as a driver, I regularly drive through the new chestnut street traffic circle.

I'm I'm a relatively slow driver anyway, and I really do slow down to go around this traffic circle, and I'm very mindful because it's a tricky intersection, it's hard to see bicyclists in general there, and you want to be able to see pedestrians too.

I think it does its job as far as helping to control traffic flow, and I would be concerned about putting anything very vertical, because anything vertical in that traffic circle may obscure uh the folks who are walking and rolling.

Uh so I haven't had a chance to bike the full pilot yet, but today I made a point before this meeting about 4 30, so it was still light out.

To drive the full length of the pilot to make sure I understood the different elements that had been uh implemented.

Uh some of them are, you know, I'm familiar with some of them are straightforward, traffic humps, things like that, more stop signs.

I would say that I'm in favor of how they worked.

I think they worked well for the most part.

I had compared them to some of the other placement for future plans, and I think they make sense.

Um I would say that the the hardening line is one that as a driver, I actually fumbled with today because I was trying to go around and give birth to a person who is running in the road, and I didn't know if I was allowed to straddle a hardened center line, and so I just kind of stopped.

And so it's it's a new thing.

Sure, we all have to adjust, but it was a it was a sort of awkward placement for me of that, and uh I didn't want to hit a person running.

Also, on the way here, I saw somebody at Oak turning off of oak onto Pacific.

Really have a hard time with one of the hardening lines, hardened hardened lines, such that they went so far around it and so slow, and then finally went into.

So there's a a serious learning curve with these is what I'm trying to flag, and so if we're gonna have a lot of them, you know, you think we're hearing about traffic circles now, we're gonna be hearing about hardening.

Yeah, for sure.

Um, I so in general, though, I think that they're all you know, good benefits to the to the greenway.

I think that I look forward to the flashing beacons at some of the problematic intersections for sure.

I would personally say that greenway is a bit of a misnomer because there's no green, but you know, I get it.

Um I think that's I think that's all my feedback.

I so as far as safety goes as a pedestrian, I definitely felt safer.

Haven't had to bike the opportunity to bike yet.

Kind of like this as a driver.

So there's my my two cents.

Great.

Thank you for your comments.

Actually, if it's okay, I think we would all benefit from talking about two items and then get back into comments.

So one of the things that came up in multiple public comments, it came up in the presentation today, came up on public comments today, is specifically this traffic circle and why it's not a four-way stop.

And so I think it just a brief discussion from staff and and from experts we have here on why that choice was made as opposed to a four-way stop right there.

Would really maybe help neuter some of these questions.

So could we talk about that a little bit?

Sorry, Commissioner.

I just want to clarify because we're talking about Paru as one, but there was also chestnuts.

Okay, thank you.

I don't know if I asked, but um, yeah, I'm happy to answer that.

Um the traffic circle is proposed at Peru, it's not installed yet, just to clarify that.

Uh, we've only we haven't done the work that far to the west yet.

Um the traffic circles are generally proposed at intersections where we had stops along the greenway.

So there was a two-way stop, not a four-way stop at um Chestnut, um, along Pacific.

So the the green the Pacific Avenue traffic stopped, and as someone mentioned, there are a lot of stops along Pacific, which makes it not a very comfortable biking route.

There are a lot of stops with high speed cross traffic, so and it's really pretty irregular.

So you don't know, like as a cyclist.

Like, am I supposed to stop here or do I is there a cross traffic stop, or do I have to watch out for the um crossing traffic or not?

Um, so that is one of the reasons how we've selected where the traffic circles go is to be able to remove those stop signs, but slow down the traffic, make it easier for everybody to navigate those intersections.

So the two-way stops along the greenways is generally where we've proposed the traffic circles.

Um traffic circles and like roundabouts are uh meant to slow people through the intersection.

Um so having stop signs at them is a bit redundant because um you might as well just have a four-way stop and not have a traffic circle as well.

Maybe if you had some greenery in it, it would be pretty, it might kind of reduce the visual long core straight corridor view.

Like if if there were trees in them with the stop signs, I mean, but otherwise we feel like the you know, a traffic circle and generally the intention with the traffic circle is that they're all-way yield.

Now, other cities don't always install them that way, or they put them in where they already have a four-way stop.

Um, that's been done a lot in Berkeley, for instance.

Um, but we felt like um, you know, the idea is to slow all the traffic, and also particularly the cross traffic on the greenway, and then um also to make it easier for cyclists to kind of travel more continuously and not have to do a lot of stopping and starting, and that's about making the greenway more comfortable.

Want to see if Scott or Alison want to add anything?

Okay, yes, I uh Rochelle covered it really well.

I think what I just want to add is that um it's four-way stops are specific in the manual of uniform traffic control devices.

Basically, the thing that basically normalizes all the traffic control throughout the entire state, are not meant for traffic control.

Four-way stops are not meant for traffic control, they're for right-away control.

And in recent times and and you know, for certainly as long as I've been practicing, um, there are now warrant analyses that are required in order to uh substantiate new stop signs.

Um the fear is if you overpopulate a corridor or stop signs, they basically um are the the uh they're they're not uh um uh uh people drive through them.

They don't stop, right?

They basically will skip through it.

And so our concern is to not have that and not create that tendency for people to to roll through a stop sign or not stop at all.

And we felt that the traffic circles were a great uh solution that basically, as as even Jim mentioned, I will say is when I've written through that, it's really awkward if you don't know the side street stops.

But when you come to a traffic circle, it's very clear that everyone's yielding.

Um we did add two all-way stops on this pilot corridor.

Those are both at Walnut and Willow.

Those roadways in particular are very narrow, and they're so narrow in such a way that we could not fit a traffic circle within that right away and still get the traffic around to manage that.

So we did make that exception uh specifically for those two because of the the narrowness of those roads.

Please.

Um I have a follow-up question on that.

You know, in terms of positioning our um uh deciding to place the traffic circle.

Did you look at the space?

And you said below and uh mobile intersection is too narrow, and then you decided to go for a four-way stops.

What about this location where uh chestnut and uh uh Pacific?

But Chestnut and Pacific was we found it was large enough to accommodate the uh the traffic circle, so that's why we put it in.

Yeah, okay, okay.

I did right through.

Our preferred our preferred approach if we're looking to kind of if you will remove the stops on the neighborhood greenway, and particularly where it's a two-way stop, is to add the traffic circle as an all-yield condition.

And that is precisely one of the things that we did part of this pilot project, and also to get the feedback and um, yeah, it is definitely a change to be very clear.

It's for a little bit for the public, but yeah, we have roundabouts, which are what we've designed on central what third and fourth, and these are traffic circles.

They're they're really meant to be just slow traffic on a very small neighborhood thing.

It's a slightly different approach, but that is that is what we look at and specifically why this we selected it.

Any additional comments specifically on the traffic circle there?

Mr.

Gloyne.

Let's specific to the traffic circle.

Um I'm a big advocate of roundabouts and traffic circles, and the main reason I'm an advocate is because you don't have to stop.

Um I do like in this instance, the fact exactly as City Engineer described.

The fact that it's predictable in a way that some of the stop signs on Pacific are not, because as you say, some of them are four-way stops, some of them two-way stop.

When you're traveling on the street, unless you are really really paying attention, it's not always obvious until you get to the intersection, whether you're at a two-way or a four-way stop, and that is confusing.

And a little disorienting potentially.

Whereas I I agree that the traffic circle in this case does eliminate that confusion.

Um, I having traveled that way on the way here today.

Um, I do agree with some of the comments that the um, and I know this is a quick build, which is perhaps part of the issue.

Visibility of the traffic circle itself could maybe be a little more obvious.

Uh we talked a little bit, I think one of the comments talked about the bulb outs and the fact that drivers might cut the corner on the on the way out of the traffic circle, which could potentially be resolved if this was a permanent installation with curbs and and that sort of thing.

Um, but in general, I do like the traffic circle because it makes you slow down, it's predictable, you don't have to stop, and it's uh easy to navigate once you've done it a couple of times, right?

There's always a bit of a learning curve.

That's what I call it.

Thank you.

Any additional comments specific to traffic circles?

Commissioner Kim.

You've been waiting, you want to go.

Or Commissioner, Commissioner Kim, let's roll.

Sure.

Yeah, yeah, please.

Comment about this traffic circle, which um it is interesting that this is the first one we've installed because on Chestnut at Pacific.

This is of at least of this first phase of implementation.

This is probably the busiest street that we're installing a traffic circle, cross street that we're installing a traffic circle on.

Um maybe there might be one other street that would have this.

A lot of these streets are gonna be much lower volume, so just that's also just something to keep in mind that there's not going to be as much traffic.

Um it'll be much more intermittent than what we're seeing at Chestnut.

So I so, in some ways, maybe the way that that this street that intersection feels and works is not necessarily gonna feel the same as um the other intersections will, which will generally just have a lot less cross traffic on them.

Cool.

That's helpful, thank you.

Commissioner Kim.

Uh so this is kind of going back to the traffic circle versus four-way stop discussion.

Um, so I know you mentioned with the four-way stop, uh, that's kind of um a space constraint, and that's kind of part of the reason why we're chosen because you couldn't fit a traffic um circle in.

Um, is there I guess I'm trying to ask, is there any additional benefits to a four-way stop?

Like, is there any reason where if there is space to put a traffic circle, will we put a four-way stop, or do we feel like the benefits of traffic calming are about the same?

Or I'm kind of wondering if there's a yeah.

I can start on that.

Um at this point, I don't believe we're uh recommending for any of these phase one streets any additional always stops.

We're not.

So um some intersections already have allway stops.

We're going to leave those in.

We're not going to add in a traffic circle, we're not going to remove the four-way stops.

Um the four-way stops are not.

Um, just to reiterate, uh what Scott said, they're not a traffic calming device.

They're a traffic control device, so that you know, to you know, indicate right of way, like who gets to go first.

So um, so we would not be installing always always stops for traffic calming.

Does that answer your question?

Uh I think so mostly, yeah.

You want to know what the what the positive use case would be.

Yeah, I I guess I'm just trying to figure out is there under what conditions other than space constraints would we put in a four-way stop as opposed to traffic circle, or is there any?

Along the neighborhood greenways or just in general in the city?

Uh let's say along the neighborhood greenways.

Um, I guess if it were warranted, you know, if there's enough traffic, if there's enough people, you know, and they're that's done through a traffic study.

Um, like if you have enough people going both directions, and it's like people just don't know who has the right of way, then we might change that to a four-way stop.

But again, at this point for the phase one, we're not anticipating adding any additional um stop signs.

So sorry, I just I just want to confirm one point that I think is implicit in what we're saying here.

So what the space where we're talking, the space where there is a traffic circle installed that sounds like it's not popular, has not because you made the comment that this is probably the busiest place we're gonna put it, right?

There's this one place that's the busiest place we're gonna put it, but it also does not re reach the traffic warrant necessary to put a four-way stop.

So is it in that weird sweet spot where it's high?

So it's like, but it's the highest we have, but it's also low because it doesn't quite reach the four-way stop.

Like is is that just the coincidence we're dealing with?

Yeah, I'll let you stood up, so I'll let you answer that.

Yeah, in in the stop sign warrants, there's the major travel direction and then the minor travel direction.

Um, so in this is as Rochelle described it, the uh chestnut has probably the the highest crossing volume, um, but the volume on Pacific is not enough.

Largely by design because it's a neighborhood greenway, it's not gonna be high enough to to trip the warrant, right?

So you you really need to have them in both directions.

So that's super helpful.

Thank you.

Any additional questions about traffic circles, please go ahead.

Yeah, if I could combine just a few general thoughts and then traffic circle and then I'll turn it back.

I just super high level I'm thank you to staff and everyone who's been working on this project.

I know it's been a while since we last saw it and I I just want to speak again to um how important this is as a means to enable um more of Alameda's seventh graders to ride their bikes to school every day.

The Alameda Post um called me out on that as being a little overly specific at our last meeting but I think it makes it super concrete like that is I and I'm I'm using that as an example use case because I think we can kind of imagine seventh graders as standing in for a lot of other attributes we want to cover here.

And that means like a network it means collecting kids where they live they might not live on a one of these nice cycle tracks they live where they live um they might not be going to a place on a cycle track.

Or maybe they do maybe they are going to wood middle school but they need to first get to one of those those um great new cycle tracks um and also like um so um I I do want to kind of also reiterate the point that a network is only as good as its weakest link.

Cause I think um you know you can appreciate this as a motorist too you're like why isn't there a connection from this freeway to that off ramp.

It's the same when a kid gets to a spot and they're like how do I get from here to there so I I would like to give some specific feedback and ask if staff would consider um doing a review of those 2030 plus spots and the next time this comes back just making everyone aware of what to realize the full network like what are some of those key points um because that's just some of them might be costly some of them might involve other work um everyone who cares about realizing the network will benefit from knowing sooner rather than later um at that that level um and yeah again like that's where I just think like this example of like ES end your your seventh grader I don't have a seventh grader but I will and I just I want to have that confidence to be able to let them let them roam uh free using this network.

Now just to the the round the mini neighborhood traffic circle is that it um neighborhood traffic circle at hand um the one part I wanted to ask staff about that it kind of to echoing some of these thoughts is as we saw different iterations the actual physical feature got that marks that circle got shorter and shorter and shorter and now it's it started out as a continuous ring that seemed to kind of look like something you wouldn't want to drive into and now it looks like something you could drive over and I'm curious to hear just what are the constraints you all were working with when building that that unit right now.

And I I know what you mean when you say like you think of the renderings and how they progressed and it went along with um our continued discussions about um the different quick build materials that are available to create a traffic circle.

So one thing the lower profile does is it um adds more um flexibility for the larger vehicles we're trying to like accommodate, and so we felt the vortex kind of um struck this balance as far as um high enough to be a deterrent from vehicles like regular passenger vehicles, which is what you see the most at the intersection to avoid hitting it, but um larger vehicles like a garbage truck or a delivery truck.

If it um needed to make some of those turns, it would be more difficult for them.

Um they could mount it without any fear of uh damage or anything like that.

Um another thing that we considered was just what we knew as far as durability of some of these materials.

So specifically that material that we showed in like the original rendering from our experience that dislodges more easily, and so the maintenance costs of that would be greater and staff time um included.

So yeah, those are a couple of reasons that we landed on this vortex project uh product, which in our experience is uh sturdy and um shouldn't require as frequent maintenance as other quick build materials might have.

Can I ask a follow-up question to that?

So, with this lower profile for all the reasons you just talked about, is there any evidence that cars are going to start ignoring it because it is lower profile and therefore it's not going to serve its purpose?

Um, I don't think there's any evidence of that.

Um, I mean, I think so far from the observations the team has made largely people are shying away from it.

So far, seems to be doing its job as far as um being something people want to avoid.

Additional comments.

Um yeah, thanks for the detail.

I think also a lot of us have appreciated learning about some of the maintenance constraints that drive the choices you all make.

It's just it's it's fascinating to know.

I'm but I'm just gonna speak as someone who's now walked ridden rid of bike and driven down that street.

I I think they're real trade-offs to I think the profile would be more effective, and I think some of the concerns that are being voiced about entry speed of motorists um and um the exterior could be addressed by considering something with a different profile in the future.

So those are all the comments I wanted to share on that.

I have thoughts on other treatments, but you can take us through.

Well, if it's okay.

Sorry, if there are other questions about the traffic circle, we'll finish up with those and then move on to our other most controversial topic, hardened center lines.

So who else has questions about the traffic circle or comments?

Okay.

Seeing none, let's move on to hardened center lines, which seems like a good portion of the feedback, both in person uh and what was emailed in.

Could you talk us through the uses of a hardened center line and also I actually thought Bike Walk Alameda had a really good suggestion, which was can we raise the profile those with flags or something to prevent them from being easily driven over or not spotted by bicycles?

Tell us why that's a bad idea.

Yeah, so I'll I'll reiterate a couple of the points that Rochelle had made earlier.

But um, so the point of the hardened center lines is um not only to slow vehicle turns, but also to make where the vehicle is turning more predictable.

Um it can really vary as far as where vehicles are um, you know, turning when they take the left.

So um that is part of what the safety benefits of the hardened center line are.

I could add on to that with the vertical.

I mean, it's it's an interesting point what bike walk alameda suggested.

Um I think that um it's something we're thinking about.

Um, I think we have concerns that people would probably um hit them, they'd get knocked over.

Um you may remember with the well, we still have some of the barricades up.

We have a uh we have a um flex post on the center line.

Those often are getting replaced, they're getting hit.

So um these, you know, hardened center lines are a much more durable product.

Um and um yeah, so but we are you know it's a it's an interesting idea and we have we have been talking about that.

Mr.

Gay, Derek, sorry, I can add a little something to that.

I had the privilege of um getting toured around the city by a New York City DOT a couple years ago, and we talked about turn calming and this hardened center line quite a bit, and they you know it's a big city, lots of intersections.

They've had a they've had the opportunity to test a lot of different um materials for them.

And initially they were doing ones with quite significant vertical elements, and then their most recent ones they were just doing exactly pretty much what we've done here, and they said it is they're finding them just as effective for safety.

Um and they are finding them, the turn uh turn calming, the hardened center line to increase safety significantly.

Did they see so I guess one of the concerns of bike walk alameda was an increase in potential bicycle accents when they're not spotted?

Did they was there any report on that that they saw that with or did they look for that?

I don't really had a conversation with them, so it's an unfair question, but did that come up?

No, I haven't talked to them since then.

Um, but it definitely didn't come up.

I can say that.

Can I say clarifying question?

Sorry to come in.

Um are the hardened center lines uh designed to be rolloverable, if that makes sense.

Um I just wanted to clarify that.

Is it for access and things like that, or is it just so if someone hits it, they're not gonna flip completely flip off their bike?

Is it so I'm just kind of wondering like um kind of the give and take of the low profile versus a higher profile, right?

Yeah, so there's um overlap with some of the things I was explaining about um the choice around the profile of the traffic circle material, um, but again, uh that lower profile hardened center line material is going to um make it allow for the larger vehicles like fire trucks going through um feedback that we've received or I've received over the course of multiple projects is um it can be damaging to fire trucks if they have to go over something that's like a vertical element.

So again, that's trying to strike that balance between um the tools that we can use to achieve the goals and still vehicles, but also um make sure that the intersections are like still accessible for um those larger vehicles.

But you know, so it has a a beveled edge on it.

It's not a hard, you know, 90 degree edge.

So I mean that's also a benefit for bicyclist, right?

You're not like hitting you know a vertical curb.

Um and again, this has been used in in two places along the neighborhood greenway.

Um it's not used at every intersection, it's used at Oak Street, which is a major street.

Um, so um really wanting with a lot of traffic, so wanting to slow the traffic there, and then we also have used it up our paint and post intersection.

So at Lafayette, you know, we are have been talking about like is that maybe we are a little more selective in where we place these, and maybe we consider some thresholds, maybe it's around traffic or major streets.

Uh I mean traffic volumes or major streets, so something just that we're thinking about.

Yeah.

Um so I really like the goal here.

I think hardened center lines, a lot of utility around the city.

I think uh that oak street location, it's exactly that that type of scenario where ton of traffic on on oak.

It's really tempting for people in cars to um take a tight turn.

Um I I think this is one where where it seems very reasonable to just take a fully wait and see evaluate approach where like I I um, you know, I I think we had um some more concrete feedback on the um traffic circle, but in this case of the um uh the uh hardened line center excuse me, center line hardening.

I think it would be just interesting for you all, you know, to tell us what the next time, you know, what's it like in a year I will say I debated this a bit with an SFMTA staffer who said these are these help X percent and they sent me a web page and I looked and I'm like well yeah that that's great you 50% improvement in these certain safety conditions and the there's a picture of flex posts as part of of that treatment.

It's recessed like it's like uh like there's like the centerline hardening starts at maybe the crosswalk I don't know if you and then it goes and then back a ways is where there are maybe you know one to three flex posts and um so like I'm not a professional in this I don't have the confidence to recommend that but like I I it just struck me as like maybe if you had an opportunity to put something like that maybe this is a treatment where just some more observation of behavior would would help target um the locations where it's going to be most beneficial.

Other commissional comments Commissioner I'm gonna lift that up and say I agree.

I'm gonna lift that up and say I agree being mindful and and seeing what the best approach is for these center lines.

Hardened center lines and it sounds like we have spent all the time we need to spend on hardened center lines who else has other topics they would like to bring up Commissioner Susan Thera sorry vice chair student.

For all the work and all the comments here I know we are looking at our this is the pilot project and we are discussing the treatments and the effects of the treatments and how the responses we have received and um again the pilot is part of the network I'm just taking us taking a step back and um looking at the purpose.

And in in implementing this do we have any data in terms of um because the purpose is again making it more low stress for the bike and um walking and rolling right so any before and after data because the parallel roads are pretty uh you know speeding roads in general can you know opinion and which means that the bikes are bikers should have shifted once this pilot is implemented.

So do we have any data of uh the before and after could I ask a clarifying question to you do you mean uh in addition to the survey data that was yes okay yes numbers traffic comes right so this was installed in mid-November is when it was finalized so about a month ago is when it was installed um so for this particular pilot section we have not collected post installation data in the last month um we have seen there's been suggestions to do that we've talked about it internally we've shied away from doing that partly because um it has it's just so recent um we feel like people are probably still adjusting to it um we made a lot of changes at one time we removed the slow street barricades and we put in these new devices um we think for some of them people are it's gonna maybe take them a while to get used to what's on this street now versus what was how people people are learning about that how they navigate it learning that there are speed humps on the street um uh so we have not collected post you know data yet on this the survey is kind of more qualitative and we we were hoping to see you know if everybody said you know this is way worse and like, you know, or you haven't done enough or something, then, or like, you know, there's speeding cars all over, then I think that would be very informative to us.

I don't feel like we heard that.

We heard some selective people say some a few people saying that, um, but it wasn't universal.

Um, also, um, you know, we're trying to tweak and refine these designs as much as we can with the understanding that the neighborhood greenways will be monitored over time.

We have a data collection plan which calls for a year after installation to then do additional um speed and traffic counts and bike counts and head counts to see how those match with the before counts.

Um, and so we will be doing that, and then at that point we may come in and need to do additional changes to the street.

So we kind of see it as an iterative process to you know install these neighborhood greenways, and then once um the um changes have been in place for a while, it may be that it's mostly working well, but there's like a couple blocks that still are not working well, right?

And that we need to do further traffic calming efforts on, or potentially the next step could be some semi-diverters or something like that to reduce the traffic volumes.

Although, as I've said, the volumes have not, at least with our pre-project counts, have not been the biggest issue as the as the speeds have been.

So, just in case it wasn't clear, um the before data, since you asked about before and after, the before data was collected.

Yes, okay, and neighborhood greenways do have specific volume and speed targets that they can compare against.

Yeah, so we have the before data for all three of our slow street segments.

We've already collected all of that, and that helped informed also the design recommend the concept plans, yeah.

And we've also collected data on the um select like nearby parallel streets where we have thought we might see some diversion.

So we've collected that baseline data as well.

I will say that having, you know, also at the same time removing the slow streets barricades is sort of, you know, messing with things a little bit in terms of the changes.

Um but uh and you know, the before and after data.

But um, but yeah, we will we do have that.

You you still have barricades, isn't it?

Like, uh not on this pilot section.

So we've removed them on this pilot section, they're completely removed from Lafayette to Oak.

Okay.

But the other the existing segments that we haven't implemented yet, yes, that was been the council direction is to leave those barricades in place until we implement the greenways.

Okay.

I I drove just before coming here, and it was pretty dark, and then a couple of locations I had difficulty because, you know, it was not well lit.

Um, at least uh, you know, the center hardened central line, and uh so because I read the staff report I knew what I what I am coming up against, so I was able to navigate better, but the you know, that's about the specific um, you know, the treatment um comments related to specific treatment, but still I'm thinking about um the purpose again, you know, and uh it's just one month old as you say, and uh we are fresh and we are just getting a response and then survey um you have done and and we are trying to move forward based on this.

So I think it's a little too soon, is my opinion to make a decision on which is really working well, which is not, you know.

I so I think it'll be better.

Um it may be better like in another few months, check it out and um then um go forward for the yeah, or identify how you want to move forward for the next phase.

Okay, so that's why.

May I just add around the purpose that um, you know, we are you we're these are neighborhood greenways, perhaps a misnomer there, at least for now.

Um, and you know, in the future there there could be, you know, more greenery installed.

Um, but um, you know, these are similar to bicycle boulevards, which are a vetted, you know, um bicycle uh treatment, uh bicycle type bikeway type, um proven to be effective, proven to be low stats, to encourage more people to bike, just like, you know, we've, you know, this isn't we're not we're not inventing something totally new.

Obviously, we're tailoring it for Alameda, but it is a typical bikeway kind of device.

I'm I'm totally for that.

I I yeah, I agree with that, but I was just in terms of the timing is what I was uh commenting.

One other related comment on the network.

Um for the future, um, yes, like um Commissioner Dera Bruns mentioned, you know, this is um I'm looking at how the school kids access it, and it's really important for this network to connect on so all the schools.

Um, and um I noticed that it's not properly connected.

I think you have identified work street, but it's like it's not really in the next phase per se.

So um, like to hear a little bit about that.

I think I can also add uh regarding the timing.

Um we don't have a lot the benefit of a ton of time on this.

There's a lot of pressure to get those slow streets barricades out.

Um and so this was the timing that worked best to be able to get some feedback before finalizing the designs.

But like Rochelle talked about, there will be other touch points where we get to continue to iterate these designs.

Sorry.

Yeah, sure.

I've asked um Jamie to bring up the slide of our 2030 low stress network.

So um, and this addresses a point also that that Drew was making earlier.

I'm sorry, Commissioner Jerry.

I'd rather everyone just call me Drew, but chair's rule.

Um was making of, you know, again, we're striving towards a connected low stress network.

Um definitely in designing this, uh, we did try to connect to schools, um, in addition to you know, shopping districts and um senior centers and libraries and you know, major destinations, transit, major transit, like the ferries.

Um so um so this is uh the 2030, the goal to get to, where this is not fully funded, but this is the goal to get to by then.

And so this is fully connected.

There are none of those kind of what we were calling it talking about, those those, you know, those little missing gaps.

Um, and this was this this was designed to be connected network.

Obviously, it's it's not all of our facilities, it's not connecting everywhere.

We have bike lanes, they're not showing up on here because those are not low stress facilities.

Um a lot of people are not comfortable in biking and bike lanes, especially with higher traffic volumes.

Um, so Oak Street is on here or Oak or Park is and so that would go by Alameda High School.

Um the, you know, that is a kind of a separate, very tricky, complex project of deciding if the low stress facility is gonna be on park or oak, and that's something that needs further study, but that would the idea is that would connect to the high school.

So that would be one connecting to the high school at some point, yeah.

Any additional commissioner comments.

Um yeah, I just want to say thanks again for the presentation.

I think a lot of these treatments are great.

I think we're I'm fully supportive of most of them.

I think the uh one that I kind of going back to the hard and center in the line, um I agree with uh Commissioner Derry Abrams.

I um like admittedly I think I've rolled over it multiple times.

Um so it's uh maybe it's not doing as much as it could be doing, right?

Um so um I would like love to maybe see if there's um kind of alternatives that maybe work a little bit better, um, kind of for for sp for that specific treatment.

Um I think a lot of the other treatments um seem to work pretty well.

Um I've driven through the chestnut um traffic circle a couple times, um, and it I instinctively I think the first time I stopped before I went in just as an instinct, but I so I think it's one of those things people are gonna have to learn.

I think a lot of the public comments kind of noted that as well that people just kind of have to learn how to use these things.

Um, and the more of them there are in the city, the more people will learn to use them, right?

So um yeah, I do think these are all kind of great treatments.

Additional commissioner comments.

Drew, please take away.

Thank you.

Um, thank you, Chair Scott.

Full respect.

Um I wanted to ask uh two final things.

Um one on um so speed limits.

I know a speed limit is, you know, it's not it's not why we're here.

We're here to you know help improve the physical design of the road to encourage good behavior.

Um, but I just since it came up in public comment, I was curious to hear staff's thought on if at any point it would make sense um to consider signing these at 20 or a different speed limit.

Um, again I I'm just interested in the clarity of if that's relevant to to long-term plans for these uh um these corridors.

Yeah, I think definitely um the goal is 20 miles per hour for these streets, and so we have talked about and it's possible that we would could sign them for 20 miles per hour.

Um I would say since that's the goal speed, we probably wouldn't sign them at like 15 miles per hour.

Um yeah, so it's something we're we've we've considered, yeah.

That ruled out, but we're not doing it, we haven't decided to do it right now.

Oh okay, fair enough, because you know, to be honest from my outs my non-expert perspective is just it's a bit of a distraction from the actual work at hand.

Of like if the signs just changed, well, didn't do it the real work, hard work, but if if at the end evaluation is showing that that these are working, maybe there is a place for that to be part of a city making or a city decision making process.

Um the the one other thing I wanted to ask about is uh we didn't see I know Rochelle you spoke to traffic volumes not being a problem on Pacific, but in this toolkit we're not seeing um uh diverters or motor modal filters.

Um I'm just curious to know when you're thinking of the toolkit for this broader network.

Um are there some options that might be coming up there?

I know just like an extreme example.

I did when I lived in Berkeley, I lived on one of those streets where there were planters diagonally across an intersection that um were meant through movement for cyclists and pedestrians, uh and motorists could only take right turns.

I know that's the most extreme of these interventions, um, and they're less extreme forms, but just curious to hear if that may be in the toolkit in the future.

Um I would say yes, definitely, for I think that our sense was let's start with these traffic calming devices.

Um it's been interesting to see that the volumes are generally within our targets, which speaks to not necessarily that we kind of made the right decision not to focus, which are you know, as you can understand, those can be a lot more controversial to be installing diverters, and I think we also didn't want to wait into that if we didn't feel like we really had to at this point, and kind of we can see how this works again, do the the collect data collection a year out, see how th and then I feel like it's probably gonna be something that's just gonna be a little more um targeted to specific spots along specific sections of of greenways, not something that we necessarily need to do like universally um, but you know, we'll monitor it and we'll see and and they could be considered in the future.

Okay, yeah, because and again, I'll just say just from the Berkeley experience, I worry that is a little too extreme and it encourages a zero sum type of thinking where like ideally ideally these greenways are benefiting the people who live directly on their street, but not overly impacting side streets and just like those Berkeley planners, like they do they're great at the spot where they are, but it reconfigures the network.

All that said, like, just like I I think folks would be curious to know like if on future the future greenways, if there is an opportunity for like a selective modal filter or like these write-in-write-out type of things, um, where like motorists can, it's not dividing the city, it's just trying to um do a little bit of surgery.

So um but anyway, those are all my thoughts.

Thank you, Chair White C.

You're welcome, Joe.

Additional comments from commissioners.

Thank you.

Uh I have some slightly fluffy comments about the way that certain things make me feel.

Um, but I think might be relevant here.

Uh first of all, I just want to say, isn't it kind of wonderful that we live in a place where despite society's addiction to cars, we have an active active transportation plan that encourages more um biking and walking, and we have a uh low-stress bike network throughout the entire city, which is well underway.

This is all fantastic.

As I travel to the Transportation Commission each month or two, I come along Pacific, even though arguably as a cyclist, it would make more sense for me to take Clement.

And I do take Lament often, but for some reason when I come here, I always take Pacific.

And as I was thinking about why do I do that, it occurred to me that there's something aesthetically pleasing about Pacific because it's a neighborhood street rather than Clement, which is more like a connector, I guess.

It feels feels like a it's not it doesn't feel like a neighborhood street in the same way.

And so as I was coming here on the way today, I obviously noticed that the parakeets are gone, we now have the traffic circle that we've talked about.

Um we have the speed humps, um, and I think what I realized was with the barricades gone, it's no longer as obvious when you are traveling along Pacific, that you are on a what you we used to call a slow street, we're now calling a neighborhood greenway.

And even though the speed humps are there, which I'm sure are having an effect, and obviously we will try to find out what the speed of the traffic is and whether we need to take additional actions.

I just wonder if there's more we can do to make it feel like this street is primarily for walking, biking, people on skateboards, one-wheels, hoverboards, whatever other methods of of transport we have, and that cars should be very much secondary to that.

I don't know exactly what that looks like.

I know I remember from previous conversations, City Engineer telling us that green paint is one of the most expensive substances on earth.

So that's probably not the answer.

But I just wonder what else we can do to remind people at all times, not just, you know, when they're reaching a speed hump, not just when they're you know turning on to Pacific.

How can we make it feel like this street is different from all the others?

And because the more we do that, the more it's gonna encourage people to bike, the more it's gonna feel safer, more comfortable.

You know, we talked about bike boulevards, bike boulevards to me don't feel that safe.

You still get a lot of traffic, the traffic doesn't necessarily slow down that much.

Um, so as I say, I don't really know what the answer is, but I wonder if there's more we can do to make it visually obvious that this street is not like others.

And that is my point.

I'm gonna second that comment.

I think the aesthetics are actually a good idea, and I agree that it is a little different without the barriers because you are, again, it's even probably a safer street with all these implementations, but it does not quite feel like you're on a separate street.

To your point, I want to make sure I was right about this.

San Francisco installed those damn 49-mile scenic drive signs with the seagull on it.

I don't know, at this point, 50 to 100 years ago.

They're still mostly up, and it's the kind of thing that the city should look at is like here's our greenway, here's where you take bikes, because it's a more permanent thing, and it's not green paint, which is helpful as well.

So, yeah.

Other comments.

I like the fact that we can do this within the $300,000.

Well said.

I have a couple of very last qu last comments and then I think we can wrap up actually.

I wanted to understand the location of speed hump speed humps, speed bumps, how those were chosen, especially because there's several comments about public outreach, and I think we all drove through Pacific on the way over here and did definitely notice there's there doesn't seem to be any sort of um spacing away from residences.

And that may just be because they need to be where they need to be, which is fine, I get that.

But I was curious about first why they are exactly where they are, because there are some downsides to speed pumps and bumps from an aesthetic, but also just like the person that lives in that house point of view.

Um and I was curious a little bit about, I don't actually think we talked too much about outreach, my own opinion, but I was curious about the outreach specific to those property owners that abut those places that we had speed pump speed bumps because that is a pretty big change in potential lifestyle there.

So just I was those two questions, if I can understand those.

Okay, so one thing we considered is spacing when it comes to treatments in general along these neighborhood greenways.

We're going for 300 to 500 foot spacing between the traffic coming elements, a stop sign, and so on.

So that was definitely part of it, like making sure that when they were placed, we were um getting within that particular range.

Um another thing is she can see there's a lot of driveways along these sections, and so it was actually pretty limited where we could place them.

Um, but in these places that were it ended up being feasible, we were looking to um get them at least, I believe it was five feet from driveways.

Um, so yes, in these cases, there actually weren't a whole lot of options for places where we could put them that they wouldn't be obstructing a driveway on one side or the other.

And was there specific outreach to those places that were most impacted by the location of those speed bumps?

I will answer that part of it.

Um, we did not do specific outreach for the placement of the speed humps.

Um, and we you can um through the survey, through like people reaching out.

We have not really heard from any homeowners who have complained about the location of the speed humps.

You can park on a speed hump.

Um, and um it's not yeah, it's not restricting parking at all, so yeah.

Sounds like success so far.

Um, I did want to follow up on one of the comments.

I think it was a submitted comment about and actually was here today, uh, cutouts for bikes uh to get through these speed pumps.

I I actually disagree with that comment.

I'm generally personally very pro-bike and pro bikes in this location.

I do actually think the comment that was made uh was illuminating because they wanted cutouts because the going over the humps is uncomfortable over 15 miles an hour.

I'm actually very comfortable with bikes having to be less than 15 miles an hour, so let's keep doing that.

That's perfectly fine.

We can all share the road in equal directions on that.

Um my other comment is pointless.

I'll let it go.

I'm good.

Any other questions?

Any other comments?

Okay, great.

Um, so the questions at the beginning of this were is this working?

Is it fair to summarize that commissions feel that it feels like at least as a start it's working?

Generally speaking, does it feel safer?

Data's not quite in yet, but it certainly sounds like from our own experiences here at least, and from at least some of the community feedback, it feels safer.

We definitely offered design critiques as well.

Good job, everyone.

Um I think we can with your permission close off this item and move to item six B approve the 2026 Transportation Commission meeting calendar.

This is an action item.

Lisa Foster, please take us through this.

Thank you.

Um, every year at the end of the year, we approve the calendar for the regular meetings.

And you know, as you all know, our general schedule is the fourth Wednesday of every other month on the odd numbers months at 6 30.

Um, uh, but we do ask and we continue to ask this year that commissioners hold the fourth Wednesday of the other months, in between months, in case we need them for special meetings, which we frequently do.

Um, I think our last just the way our agenda items worked out the last couple meetings.

We've canceled the regular meeting and held a special meeting.

So we really appreciate your flexibility.

Um, but it still makes sense to for us to just adopt the every other month's schedule.

Um the recommendation we make this made this year of meetings on January 28th, February 25th.

That's uh um additional meetings so that we can do our annual report.

We've been doing this for the last few years.

March 25th, May 20th is a little earlier, uh third Wednesday because of to avoid eid, I'll adha.

And then um July 22nd, September 23rd, and then November 18th, avoiding the Thanksgiving holiday.

Um, this is a little bit different than what we've done the last couple years, few years in that it calls for a July meeting and um does have an August meeting.

So before our reasoning was our since we're the fourth Wednesday, everybody's back in school by the end of August, uh, but they're not in July.

But this year we're recommending that we go have our normal, you know, odd number July meeting because um because council takes a recess in August, and they're we've had some questions about um, you know, why we meet in the month that council is on recess.

So recommend that you guys adopt the schedule.

Any commissioner comments, questions, suggestions, revisions.

I will be unable to make the January meeting, but you guys do fine without me.

So actually, me too.

Oh, interesting.

Um I will think that through.

Why don't we why don't we follow up with on email and if we need to request it?

Yeah, we can cancel if we need to adopt it, but that sounds good.

With that follow-up action, uh I'm gonna motion to approve, I'm gonna make a motion to approve the 2026 Transportation Commission meeting uh calendar.

Do I have a second for that?

Seconded.

Again by Commissioner Gloyne.

All in favor of the motion, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Motion passes unanimously.

Uh, let's move to item number seven, commission communications specific to Transportation Commission issues.

Does anyone have any comments?

Commissioner.

Two things.

First, happy happy Hanukkah, happy upcoming Christmas and all other winter holidays.

Um I want to briefly um share some thoughts for parents of other parents of kids, specifically parents of teenagers.

Um this is about battery-powered vehicles.

Unfortunately, federal regulators have failed you.

Uh, Amazon.com is failing you.

Um, and the state of California is failing you.

Um, I'm gonna keep this short and targeted, but um, every currently it's really unclear what sort of e-bike can be purchased for a teenager.

Um, unfortunately, this is falling back on to parents to understand what they're purchasing.

Um, the classification system is broken.

It's not even adopted by a federal regulating agency.

Um, I'm sharing this as a fellow parent who knows that it is ineffective to um rant at kids.

Um, I'm personally very concerned about adults who are going who um see kids on e-bikes and make a lot of assumptions and want to enter into this topic.

So I just wanted to personally share this from the perspective of for parents who probably have already purchased presents for Christmas.

It's already well, is it the fourth night of Hanukkah?

But um, unfortunately, we have to do our own checking.

Um, if it's an e-bike with, if it's a battery-powered device with a throttle, or sorry, if there's no throttle, it's clear, it's fine.

If there is a throttle, parents need to understand if the device can be hacked.

Um, there are TikTok instructions for how to override the controls, and parents need to understand the wattage of the motor.

Um, and again, unfortunately, this is the nature of the products that are being sold and are entering the Bay Area.

Um, I think I've been talking over the last 18 months with any parents of teens I can find who just want to talk one on one about this, because I don't think it's yet a productive public conversation.

It's very much about, you know, where people are at, what what um and so I am going to just finish this thought by saying I would very much be open to any parents uh who are challenged by these issues to uh drop me an email.

I really I'm just curious to hear how everyone's navigating this.

And I think it should be uh pursued from the perspective of trying to to um uh to regulate these unregulated um uh marketplaces um not lecturing kids in a way that's just not gonna work.

It's gonna be counterproductive.

So those are my personal thoughts, and uh, for anyone listening, um, feel free to reach out to me if you would like to uh share a perspective because I think this I'm just fascinated uh for the parents I've spoken with.

So thank you.

And happy holidays.

You too.

Thank you for your focus on safety.

Chair Lighty, I'm not a commissioner, but can I add to that?

You can, Lisa Foster.

Jump on in.

I just wanted to let everybody know related to this topic that the police department has recently published a web page with information about rules around e-bikes and e-scooters and advice about how to spot a legal e-bike versus uh one that is not street legal.

One is actually an emoto.

And that uh URL is Alameda CA.gov slash e-devices.

Um just today or yesterday, our city public information officer did a post on on Facebook for anybody who's on Facebook with some advice for um parents who are shopping for their kids as well.

Very relevant and timely information.

Thank you, Lisa.

Any additional commissioner comments on transportation issues?

I have one quick one.

I wanted to compliment the responsiveness of the Transportation Commission or Commission, you guys do, transportation department, um, and also especially public works in the city.

Um you guys know that there is a roundabout going in corner of Pacific in Maine.

That project is essentially shut down that street.

I will say the first day of that project was enormously bumpy for that entire portion of the West End due to sign placement due to other issues that diverted essentially every car in Northern California onto one street, which was an amazing sight to see, almost worth living through.

Um but there was a lot of community feedback, and I will say the next morning there had been a ton of work to fix it and it worked.

They moved signs, they change things, they move barriers, they put up other notices, they did great.

And so I think it's easy to have people complain about things, there was a problem, it got fixed literally in 24 hours, and then going forward it's been great.

So I just want to compliment great job public works, great job transportation.

With that, I would like to motion to adjourn on that very positive note.

Let's all go have our holidays.

Anyone want to second a motion to adjourn?

Second.

All in favor.

I anyone want to skip their holiday.

No, no one says no.

Fi.