Good evening, everyone.

Welcome to the City of Alameda Transportation Commission meeting for Wednesday, January 28th, 2026.

We will begin with roll call.

Commissioner Dara Abrams is absent but planning to join us later.

Commissioner Kim.

Present.

Commissioner Gloin.

Present.

Chair Whitesy.

Present.

Vice Chair Suth Amtiera.

Present.

Commissioner Johnson.

And Commissioner Nockdagal.

Here.

Seeing that we thank God have a quorum.

Let's move on to any agenda changes.

Any requested agenda changes from Commissioners.

Seeing none, I will move on to item number three, staff communications with Lisa Foster.

Good evening, Chair Whitesy and Transportation Commissioners.

Lisa Foster, Transportation Planning Manager.

Starting with City Council actions taken on items reviewed by the Transportation Commission.

We're early in the year, but there has been one item related to something that you all reviewed, which was our mostly Bay Farm pavement program.

So on January 20th, City Council opted to take no action on a council referral that asked to consider placing the McCartney Road configuration update on a future agenda.

So that did not happen.

Our upcoming Transportation Commission meetings are February 25th and March 25th.

And our next meeting will be doing our transportation 2025 annual report and 2026 work plan.

So you can look forward to that.

For events, Caltrans is hope is hosting three informational events for the Oakland Alameda Access Project next week.

Construction is you know coming sooner.

And so it will be good informational events for folks to attend.

There's one in Oakland on Tuesday, the third.

One here at City Hall on Wednesday, February 4th, 5 to 7 p.m.

And then on Thursday, the 5th, there is a virtual one in the evening as well.

And we have a transportation 101 and clipper cards for seniors event on February 6th.

A couple of updates, one that wasn't quite ready when we went to press with this agenda, but that we do have a new security guard and paid parking beginning at Seaplane Lagoon to launch on February 3rd.

So that will be midweek paid parking only at $3 a day to help improve space parking space availability on these busy weekdays where we are seeing parking overflowing in this lot.

We did, of course, start paid parking at McCartney Ferry Terminal last fall, and it by all accounts has not reduced ridership and it's going well.

The rate is $3 a day, and we recommend that people download the Park Smarter app so you can pay while waiting for your ferry or after you get on board.

And the Clement Avenue Tilden Way Improvement Project, as you know, the construction's underway.

Lots of information on the web page for that.

Safe Roots to School Striping Project was substantially completed in December.

Lots of improvements around a few schools that have had a number of schools that have street safety assessments conducted.

The Civic Center parking structure renovation is also underway.

So that is going to increase security and make a better environment for parking.

And oh, good news is that the two-way separated bikeway on West Midway, built as part of our Alameda Point adapted for use, was recognized as one of the best new U.S.

bike lanes of 2025 by people for bikes.

So we like awards.

Good for us.

And I'll stop there.

I think that's enough.

So thank you.

Congratulations to all who worked on and voted on that project.

Great job, everybody.

Let's move from staff communications to our next item, non-agenda item public comment.

Again, this will be items that are not on the agenda that are related to transportation or transportation commission issues.

Are there anyone for non-agenda item public comment?

So far, I have two in person.

And if you are on Zoom and wish to speak on the non-agenda item, you will have three minutes to do so.

Please raise your hand.

While those are getting set up, let's go to in-person.

Come on down.

First, we have Jeff Noth.

Hi, Jeff.

Good evening.

Good evening.

Uh my name is Jeff Kinoff.

I live on the corner of Lincoln and Walnut, which we will get to shortly.

But a general set of observations.

Uh, 35 years ago when I moved to Alameda, people who exceeded the speed limit got tickets.

Alameda had a reputation, and not so today.

Speed is a huge issue in the accidents that we see across the island.

I've spoken to police officers, recently the mayor, city staff, and it comes up consistently that speed is an issue.

Recently, I have been riding around the neighborhoods of Berkeley and Oakland, Livermore, and they have speed humps.

You know what they are.

Low relief, wide asphalt barriers in the middle of a street that slow people down.

The culture in these neighborhoods in Berkeley is that there are speed humps everywhere on small streets, not the major thoroughfares, but in small streets.

What I would love to see is the culture of Alameda, and I appreciate everything that city staff and city has done to mitigate accidents in and around where I live, but speed is still an issue.

And so this is one of the ways, a low-tech way, for some of the small streets to slow people down.

So I just want to put that out there that there are other cities that do this, it is part of their culture, and I would love to see that part of the culture of Alameda.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comment.

Next up in person.

Next we have Jim Straylo.

Hi Jim.

Happy New Year.

I'm concerned still about the lighting at the traffic circles at Central Avenue.

That uh I've gone there at night and I've seen the improvements.

A lot of, you know, you know, those reflector things that are up so that and there are better signage to let you know that there's a traffic circle.

I still don't know how important it is for safety to have more lighting at those intersections.

Number two, lighting.

Parking meters.

When I go and try to put money in the parking meters, it's damn difficult to be able to read the things at night.

They don't seem to have much, you know, intensity in order to see what I'm putting in, especially when it says credit card only, and I've already lost 75 cents, and you know, putting coins in, so that's uh uh that should be addressed somehow.

Uh lastly, uh regarding the uh climate, the bike, you know, improvements there.

That I'm wondering why the roadway is not available for Clement between Grand and Hibbert.

That it seems like there is artificial fences put up for the real estate people to stop people to you know try to get you to you know buy into their nude property there, but those are fences on city streets.

So I'm wondering what gives them the right to block the the streets, you know, so that the cars can't use that connector now between Grand and Himbert uh that connects uh climate all the way through.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Any other additional in-person comments?

Uh no.

Uh now we have one online.

Let's take and go to the online comment.

Jay Garfinkel.

Good evening.

Excuse me, good evening.

Um, you know, we've been going through uh quite a deal about the McCartney uh uh project, and it was discussed at the council meeting on the 20th.

But you know, I think they missed the point.

Everybody was talking about we need this by claim, we need that uh all kinds of uh changes.

The issue though for me is that the Transportation Commission drops the ball here.

You guys tend to accept whatever staff comes to you, comes hands you.

You don't even look to see if there's community engagement, and that's the was the missing part on McCartney.

Uh the neighborhood did not know that uh the changes were coming.

The uh uh large homeowners association, Harbor Bay Isle, eventually found out about it and they voiced opposition, which the city engineer ignored.

Um, I think that when a project is brought to the commission, you need to find out what the public thinks about it.

The engineers do what have a general broad mandate to make things better or safer.

Then, within that, they look at various options, and they they don't look at it.

Is this good?

But it will the is this theoretically gonna help?

And they don't give any attention to what are the people who live in the area think about it.

It's up to this commission to dig in there, but uh, but when they bring it to you, you should have it all cleaned up so that the council can simply ask a couple of questions and pass on it.

I know that a couple of you guys are are aiming to eventually move down to the council level, but uh this would be a good thing to work on for you and get used to uh making some significant decisions here.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comment.

I will not be running for city council.

Do we have any additional comments in person or on Zoom?

Um sorry, Jay Garfinkel has raised his hand again, but we don't get another chance to speak, correct?

Thank you.

Thank you.

And we have no other speakers.

Great.

Thank you for your help.

Uh with that, we will move on from non-agenda public comment to the consent calendar item 5A to approve the draft minutes.

Uh draft minutes of the December 17th, 2025 Transportation Commission special meeting.

Please take a moment to review the provided copy of the draft minutes.

Any changes, any requested revisions, any corrections.

Do I have a motion to approve the draft minutes?

Commissioner Noctigall, take it away.

I'll make a motion to approve the draft.

Do I have do I have a second for that?

I second, Commissioner Kim.

All in favor of the motion, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Motion carries unanimously.

Let's move on to our next item, regular agenda item 6A, AC transit update on Park Street transit signal priority and signal optimization project.

This is a discussion item, not a voting item.

I believe we'll have a presentation.

Welcome.

Thank you.

Just a matter of protocol.

Should I use this?

Okay.

Thank you.

All right.

Good evening, members of the Transportation Commission.

My name is Maria Henderson, External Affairs Representative, Legislative Affairs and Community Relations at AC Transit.

I am here this evening with my colleague Will Bueller, traffic engineer with AC Transit, and Ryan Dole, engineering design consultant from Kinley Horn.

Tonight we are presenting on the Park Street Transit Signal Priority and Signal Optimization Project.

In the city of Alameda, funded by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, bus accelerated infrastructure delivery program, also known as bus aid.

It is an initiative that reduces transit travel times, improves transit reliability, and emphasizes short-term quick build solutions at locations identified by transit operators.

This project focuses on improving transit operations along the Park Street corridor between Blanding Avenue and Otis Drive through targeted signal timing upgrades, the installation of transit signal priority technology at key intersections, as well as the installation and configuration of wireless devices along the project corridor, which together serve to improve transit reliability through integrated and efficient signal operations.

City staff have been involved since the launch of the project and have provided input since the beginning of our design development.

AC Transit staff have also provided regular updates to the city council at the AC Transit City of Alameda Interagency Liaison Committee meetings.

Another update will be provided to that body at the February 12th ILC meeting.

AC Transit staff will also keep the mayor and city council informed with regular project updates.

And I want to thank the City of Alameda for being great partners to AC Transit.

Alright.

Tonight, Ryan Dole from Kinley Horn will begin with a brief overview of the project improvements, the project scope, and benefits of transit signal priority.

Will Bueller, our traffic engineer, will then discuss the overall project schedule and key milestones.

And lastly, I will wrap up the presentation with resources on how the City of Alameda can stay informed and engaged throughout every step of the project.

I will now pass it on to Ryan Dole from Kimley Horn, who will discuss the project improvements.

Thank you.

Good evening, everyone.

I'm Ryan with Kimley Horn.

And Park Street is a one and a half mile corridor that is very critical to AC Transit and the city.

It's been identified by AC Transit as one of the major 11 corridors throughout the district, and so it is very important to them.

And so this project is looking to help the efficiency for those lines.

Following COVID, the Park Street experience a road diet implemented by the city to be able to provide the bike lanes as well as maintain parklets.

But due to the reduction in vehicle lanes, the corridor does experience congestion, particularly during the commute hours.

And so together, the city and AC Transit identified transit signal priority and this project, other elements in this project as some solutions to improve overall transit operations.

This project will include three key elements to address these operational issues and improve the transit reliability.

The first element is transit signal priority or otherwise TSP.

That will be implemented along the entire stretch.

There's actually some elements that were previously installed between Blanding and Alameda Avenue, or sorry, Central Avenue, and this project will be installing new ones from Alameda Avenue to Otis Drive.

Additionally, or sorry, to explain TSP how it works, when a transit vehicle approaches an intersection, onboard equipment on the buses will signal to the equipment using GPS and radio technology that they're approaching and ask for additional green time.

Through that, once the request is received by the traffic signal controller, it will evaluate whether the time is available in the cycle, generally by taking time from unused movements, side streets or left turn phases, and then only at that time grant it to that additional uh transit movement.

But I want to emphasize that it is only given if there's time in the cycle and it to hope minimize impact to overall traffic operations.

The second key element of the project is to extend wireless interconnect system that is actually also been previously deployed by the city from Blanding down to NCNL.

So this project will be adding uh wireless devices that extend to San Jose and Otis Drive, as well as evaluate and make sure that the existing equipment is operating as intended.

By installing that wireless interconnect, the intersections will be able to communicate with one another and uh maintain signal coordination between them and hopefully uh and uh with the main goal of moving traffic efficiently.

The third key element of the project is the improvements at San Jose and Park Street.

That intersection is quite old, and so this project will be installing a new controller cabinet as well as replacing some old wiring and old underground conduits.

Those improvements are really necessary to be able to add the TSP and the wireless and make sure it's up to date and provide those functionality.

So this is just a quick map of the corridor as explained.

Much of the equipment is already in place between Blanding and Central Avenue, but then we're also doing some of the implementation at the intersections between Alameda Avenue and Otis Drive.

Something that will build upon this, the last element of the project is going to be the signal timing and coordination that will be facilitated through those other devices.

The signal timing will look at all the different intersections, all the different phases, and look for ways to optimize traffic flow, both for Park Street as well as the side streets.

So just to give the public a little bit of an understanding of what to expect during construction, we kind of want to review some frequently asked questions about the about what people could expect.

First, will there be closures or detours?

During the installation of the equipment, particularly the TSP and wireless devices, those do go up on the poles.

So there is expected some time where a bucket truck, like what you see in the photo here.

Contractors will be working overhead, both to aim the radios as well as install the equipment.

During that time, the public could expect closures, those are expected to be about half day closures with work either in a single lane or in the shoulder.

But the most important thing is at the end of the day, all closures will be opened, and so traffic will be disruption will be minimized.

At the intersection of San Jose and Park Street, closures of lanes and sidewalks are needed to install the new cabinet as well as the underground conduits.

So during that time, traffic may be lanes may be closed, though flaggers may be used under alternating conditions as lanes have to close for that work.

For sidewalk closures to install that equipment, alternate detour routes for pedestrians will be provided to ensure safety and accessibility around the work area.

To support construction activities, there may be some temporary parking loss or parking restrictions.

Sorry, and bust-up relocations may also be necessary as uh vehicles queue up in those areas, but relocations are expected to less last uh expected to last less than a day.

The last um will there be uh traffic impacts during construction?

We do anticipate due to the closures some minor delays along Park Street and the intersecting streets during the specified lane closures.

These closures are expected to occur on weekdays and will avoid morning and evening commute periods to reduce inconvenience to travelers.

Also, nighttime closures are not permitted on this project.

Generally, construction will occur at one intersection at a time to limit uh the amount of impacts during construction.

At this San Jose Avenue intersection, the traffic signal may be temporarily switched off or into red flashing mode to facilitate the rewiring and the controller's changeover.

So that could be an experience for some people.

How long will uh the construction take?

We are estimating that the construction period will be about three months.

Uh however, we do anticipate the active transportation active construction to be on a much shorter uh duration, uh, approximately a month, and that's when the lane closures and the sidewalk closures would take place.

Uh, following that phase, the remainder of the construction period will be the programming and the fine-tuning of the signal timing and the equipment.

For all construction activities, AC Transit will send out radar rider alerts and post notifications at bus stops.

Um register uh writers can register for rider alerts through the AC Transit website at actransit.org forward slash subscribe.

Next uh Will we'll talk about the project benefits and the schedule.

Good evening, Will Buller, AC Transit Traffic Engineer.

Very nice to see you all.

So the improvements Ryan just um described on the previous slide are gonna result in several key benefits for park street users and for residents of Alameda.

First, the project will improve transit reliability and efficiency by helping buses move more consistently through signalized intersections to help reduce delays and improve transit time for AC transit buses.

These reductions and delays will encourage more residents to use public transit and reduce the number of vehicles on the road, thus reducing the congestion.

Secondly, transit signal priority reduces AC transit passenger delays by minimizing necessary unnecessary stopping at red lights and providing more reliable transit pickup and drop-off times for AC Transit riders.

Third, by improving traffic signal coordination, the project helps decrease corridor-wide congestion and travel times for all users, including vehicles, cyclists, and pedestrians.

And finally, these improvements are designed to have minimal impacts on other modes, including vehicle pedestrians and bicycles, as the green time needs for the transit vehicles will only be taken if green time is not needed for these other modes of transportation.

Regarding the project schedule, the current uh project schedule is in the design phase of the project, and the design is expected to wrap up in February and shortly after the project will be ready for the construction contract uh bidding process.

The construction along Park Street is anticipated to begin in spring and completed in the summer.

And after construction is complete at the end of summer of 2026, additional fine-tuning of the traffic signal timing would take place.

The planned project closeout and new transit signal priority along Park Street will be ready and in use by the fall of 2026.

I'll now hand it back to Maria to discuss additional information resources and wrap up the presentation.

Thanks, Ryan and Will.

So to stay updated on the Park Street project, we've made several resources available online.

The primary hub is our project webpage on the AC Transit website.

That's ACTransit.org forward slash park-street-project.

That's where you'll find the latest background and project details as they evolve.

If you're looking for a quick summary, we have a fact sheet that covers the project scope, the timeline, and the specific benefits we're bringing to the corridor.

We've also published an FAQ that explains exactly how transit signal priority works and why it was selected for Park Street, including details on funding and the long-term benefits for the community.

So that concludes our presentation on the Park Street Transit Signal Priority and Optimization Project.

We appreciate your time and your continued partnership as we work to improve transit here in Alameda.

You can monitor our progress through every phase of this project again at ACTransit.org forward slash park-street dash project.

The site is available in English, Spanish, and Chinese, but you're also welcome to reach out to us at um planning at actransit.org.

We have a phone number that you can call and leave a voicemail and someone will get back to you.

Or you can also send us postal mail at AC Transit's General Headquarters, 600 Frank Cliffe Street, Oakland, California.

Thank you again, and we're happy to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you for the presentation.

Lisa Foster.

Just for the purposes of the minutes, I wanted to note that Commissioner Dara Abrams joined us during the presentation.

He joined us.

You do not have to note that you all missed a really great ORF music or f instrument concert by fourth graders.

So back to you, Chair.

Now I regret being at this meeting meeting on time.

Thank you, Commissioner.

Um so let's open with clarifying questions.

So clarifying questions are just questions of fact about the presentation, not opinions, not questions about what else could we do, but just questions about of fact.

Are there any questions of fact from the commissioners?

I have one.

I want to confirm my understanding of TSP, and it sounds like I can go to the FAQ and probably get this answer, but I'm gonna ask it anyway.

So as I understood what you said, essentially TSP elongates green signals, and that is the extent to which TSP affects the timing of lights, the default settings.

In other words, it's it says can we keep a green on an additional few seconds based on the all traffic coming into a particular intersection and just perpetuates a green state in a longer way.

Is that correct?

And if not, please help me understand.

Um yeah, it's correct.

Along most, most of the time along the main arterial, only if the time is available in the normal process of the site of the um of the cycle for all the modes.

Only if the green time is available.

And I'll let Ryan explain that a little bit more.

Okay.

Yeah, uh it's not too much different than how um you notice with vehicles as they approach and uh at night and uh a main street that they'll stop at the stop line, and if there's nobody, it will switch over.

It it's just using a different technology and it's focused on transit, um, but similar concept.

If a bus is approaching, a lot of times what we're trying to time it is um uh a certain fit ten, fifteen seconds ahead of time.

Hey, we're coming.

Can you uh is there any time to borrow?

Uh so that it that is it.

Sometimes it might put it on the front end, it might truncate a side street because a side street doesn't have any demand uh and give extra green on the front end.

Otherwise, it may be, hey, I'm approaching on green.

Is there any extra time on the tail end that I can have?

So it could do early or late.

So truncating a side street, bringing that green up front, if you will, means there is no car there, and therefore there is not a car that will be surprised by a change to red because there isn't a car in the first place.

Or PID.

Got it.

Got it.

It definitely I say truncate, it might just uh yes, um, it doesn't do it if there is demand.

Got it.

Thank you.

That's very helpful.

Well, and uh as opposed to fixed time where you're always pulling up side street whether or not there is anybody there.

Got it.

And just to let you know, we're only talking about eight to twelve seconds most of the time, the extension.

Great, thank you.

That's very helpful.

I appreciate that.

Any other clarifying questions?

Okay.

I don't know if this is a clarifying question.

I promise I'll stop you if I feel you that it's not.

Go ahead.

Uh, how much time for the average bus on Park Street do we think this is going to save in terms of the journey for the passenger?

Let's say that.

Let's say they get on at one end and they're going all the way to the other end.

How much time do we think that will save on average?

Well, we hope it saves a lot of time.

Uh the before and after is what will reveal that.

Um sometimes you can save on any particular trip one to two cycles if they get through a cycle, which is uh typically a minute long, and so that can save two minutes in one direction.

You know, and that's just a hopeful average, right?

But um we'll see how it how it turns out.

Can I follow up on Commissioner Glenn's question?

Sorry, so in other intersections though, TSP exists now, right?

And so we have that data.

What is that number?

That's really what you're asking, right?

Yes.

I don't have that up top of my head.

That seems like a good number to know if we're putting in more.

And how well did the first words work?

For those intersections where TSP was working, how well it's been functioning, how whether or not it's even been kept track of.

Because I know that when it was implemented, I don't know that it was uh fine-tuned.

I just it was a long time ago, and uh was done by the city, as I recall, and I just don't know what the where it was left and its state, but we're gonna bring it up to good current uh bill of health.

I see Scott Wickstrom walking to the corner, which I bet means he has some information on this clarifying question.

Yes, uh Chair White C members of Transportation Commission, Scott Wickstrom, City Engineer.

Uh much of the TSP that's in Park Street that was mentioned during the presentation was put in right about 2020, just at the start of the pandemic.

Um as we went through the pandemic, we had some staff changes and turnover.

We really haven't had that TSP fully functional in its most efficient way.

So this is almost a what they're talking about is we have the existing equipment in the cabinet, they're gonna add additional equipment, particularly to the intersections to the south, and then we're gonna functionally turn the entire system on.

Uh it's a subtlety that is uh also a huge benefit for all residents, not those just only on the bus is the signal timing of the corridor.

Um, anybody who's driven up Park Street right now knows that there's no signal coordination between the individual signals.

Um the communication that was talked about, uh, the wireless communication is that's so we can get all the signals if you will on the same clock, so they can run a coordinated signal timing pattern.

It's not gonna necessarily get you from ODIS all the way to blending without stopping, but it will definitely be an improvement over the disconnected um signals that we have right now.

So that's another huge benefit that that factors in.

So we're we as a city are looking forward to this project as well.

It will definitely help the buses, it'll also help out all residents driving on Park Street as well.

Thank you.

Claire clarifying questions.

Clarify, um Scott, could I ask this?

This will just be clarifying.

Has does the city have a target speed in mind if you are coordinating uh signals along the corridor for drivers?

Yeah, we we haven't got to that level of analysis, and it that's a um I will say for the benefit of this group, um, we are gonna bifurcate the corridor into two sections.

We're gonna basically go from Otis to Lincoln or no Buena Vista, I guess it is, uh Otis uh to Buena Vista, and then the last two signals, uh, Clement and Blandine, we're gonna basically time separately as a little couplet for those two signals separate from the rest of it, so they have a little more flexibility to push the cars through those last two intersections and over the bridge.

Um we do not uh presumption that it's gonna be 25 miles an hour, perhaps even a mile or two slower than that, but we haven't got to that level of detail yet.

The clarification question if asked Vice Chair of Susan Theorem, go ahead.

Thank you, Chair.

Um thank you for the presentation.

Um question is um so a portion of the corridor has some uh TSP elements from 2020, and then now the new ones uh the rest of the corridor will have new.

So the technology is always uh changing, right?

So have this new set of equipment, are they the same technology or how's how's that?

Yes, it's the same system, same system, it hasn't changed in since then, and uh the the gadgets overall, all of the systems.

Are they flexible?

Um, to adapt to any new changes in the technology in the TSP technology in the future, like everything is evolving still.

So yeah, the these this system is a roadside unit system, right?

It's not a cloud-based system.

Um cloud-based requires very very strong uh communications.

We're looking into that for the future, but right now uh it's very reliable, and it's what we have throughout the rest of our system, and um it's gonna be very it's gonna work really well in this particular.

Never say that in a meeting, they will quote you later, watch out.

Okay, man.

So ultimately it comes down to uh controllers, the controller that operating the signal is the brains behind it.

This is a technology that helps communicate to the controller that uh the bus is coming.

And so, as Will said, that that technology, it's more of a communication device.

Uh, but the city actually has upgraded all the controllers on the corridor except for San Jose.

Uh so that's where we're coming in adding that additional functionality, and so you have new equipment there that provides uh that the the ultimate functionality through the controller so uh you you are at least future proof for that right now that's still but if better controllers come along then that's another day got it all right thank you any additional clarifying questions which often begin with when you said this I did not understand this any additional clarifying questions Commissioner Blood uh the funding for this project is this coming from AC Transit it's coming from MTC's um accelerated infrastructure well bus accelerated infrastructure um delivery program yeah because okay I'm gonna move on from clarifying questions uh I'm going to move to any public comment on this agenda item any public comments so far we have two in person and one on zoom let's go to in person first we have Jimstrelo.

Hi Jim good evening again commissioners uh I ride the F 51 and the O bus regularly and I'm glad to see things uh that will improve uh bus you know getting through intersections and reason why I'm interested in this is is that because of the Oklahoma Media Access project that there's bound to be more detours in ahead for Webster Street and whether or not it will detour more uh bus routes to consider going along Park Street in order to get and service Alameda because it might be such a traffic jam through the tubes during the the OAP that um to see improvements such as this on Park Street uh is really uh important because other lines may need to use Park Street just besides the ones that are currently scheduled so this is rumor spreader Jim here or the seed planter Jim saying you know what in the future we might need Park Street even more than order to service because of the unavailability at other uh points off the island thank you thank you for your comment next comment in person please next we have Christy Cannon hi Christy.

Good evening commissioners yes I'm Christy Cannon I'm with community action for a sustainable alameda Casa and we're of course supportive of anything that improves transit and I'm in particular personally I'm a bus rider um I ride the 51 mostly but I also ride the 30 which used to be the 20 but I'm getting used to it so mostly I I have a couple of questions and I know this isn't really it's time for comment but something to think about because this isn't something you're voting on yet um I'm curious about experiences in on other corridors in other cities how has that gone and you know we've heard a lot of positives but I imagine there's some negatives there usually are and so I'd be curious about digging into that a little bit finding out what that might be um I'm also kind of concerned about scheduling so there I assume there will be a transition period um we don't know how this is gonna go AC transit is gonna have to see if it really improves the speed of the buses and in the meantime um when I'm waiting for the bus down at South Shore is it gonna come early and pass me by because the schedule hasn't been updated um or is it gonna be late because it isn't working very well and I'm sure AC Transit has experience with this and we'll work it out.

But I it's something I'm concerned about as a writer and would be interested in getting more information about.

And then the last point is if this works really well, how about Webster Street?

Good night.

Thank you for your thoughtful comments.

Anyone on Zoom?

Uh yes.

So far we have one on Zoom and Jay uh Garfinkel.

Okay.

Let's go to Jay.

Hi, Jay.

Unmute.

Um I'm back.

I'm one of the several thousand second-class citizens here in Alameda, uh, second class in that as far as transportation is concerned.

We we drive cars.

Uh we've been experiencing increasing barriers, obstructions in the road uh in the name of bicycle safety.

Um this is a little bit like the McCartney issue in that I was not aware that this was going on.

I was not aware that there were any community meetings to discuss questions, ask questions or discuss concerns.

I'm not aware of whether or not the council approved it.

I assume that they might have done it as a consent item.

Um I uh I'm concerned about what would be the effect if say somebody's gonna you're gonna give a few more seconds at Buena Vista.

What happens to the traffic that's sitting between Incennel and Alameda Avenue?

How are they impacted by this?

Um and also uh how soon does a controller get signaled with a request for more time?

In other words, if the bus is halfway between Central and Santa Clara, is a decision made uh or does it have to wait until the the bus approaches Santa Clara uh directly?

Also, is there any interaction with the police and fire department?

I don't know if they have uh priority um abilities.

Um another question.

Yeah, I personally I just I just see that switching the uh priority to the buses at the at the expense of the people sitting at the crossroads.

Um I'm can confused as to how the controller is going to um allot the time between the cross traffic and the uh park street traffic.

Uh the gentleman explained that if the uh and I'm not clear on this, if there's a car sitting, say on Santa Clara waiting to cross, will additional time be denied to the bus?

Um, or does it have to have 10 cars sitting uh on Santa Clara?

Um, you know, you get used to the flow of traffic for for the one or two of you who drive cars.

You get used to the timing of the cycles.

You know that after a s there's a left turn or there's something happens, you're gonna get to go in a few seconds.

Now it could be twice as long to wait.

Eight seconds is not long, but when you're sitting at a signal, it's long.

So maybe some of these questions can be answered.

Thank you.

Thank you for comments.

Any additional comments?

We have no other speakers.

So you know the public comment.

Let's move on to discussion and questions from my fellow commissioners.

Who has some questions or comments?

Commissioner, happy to go first.

Uh thank you for the presentation.

Um I have uh two specific.

Well, uh first I want to say um, very supportive of this project.

Um I would love for us to be relatively aggressive in terms of the signal timing changes on park to get buses really moving, um, because I feel like if we're not, it kind of defeats the purpose of doing all this, so love to kind of see us do as much as possible.

Um two questions I have uh are kind of I guess mostly related to the 51A, right?

Um the 51A crosses this corridor, um so I'm kind of curious about uh how signal timing is going to be handled at um park in Santa Clara specifically.

Uh and then um kind of relate to the public commenters um question.

Are we thinking about expanding additional signal timing changes uh and improvements in other places in Alameda?

Um with regards to the second part of that question, yes, we're doing uh these similar projects all over, getting good results, starting with different types of corridors, corridors that don't have any coordination uh similar to part to ones that already have, but uh we're upgrade up to you know, like PASS program usually did as they come along and then they redo the coordination and so that the agencies are very grateful for that.

Um then in on the first question, remind me really quick.

Um the intersection of Park and Santa Clara uh conflicting bus needs across the corridor, just how that's gonna happen.

So when you have uh competing coordination, I'll I'm gonna defer to Ryan on that one.

Great.

So it it is possible to do uh TSP for both directions.

Typically what will happen is it's more of a first come, first serve.

So if it is the side street uh that gets the call, um we can we have some flexibility on how we program it.

Uh so um it it really just comes down to signal timing programming and what we're gonna prioritize.

Um if there's greater frequency, uh well, in past projects what we tend to do is defer to the primary route because that's where you're going to get the most benefit.

You have higher uh demand, you have higher uh frequency in routes, uh though line 51 might be more frequent overall.

It it all depends on every cycle, and do the buses arrive all at the same time, or let's say two directions opposing at 90, right?

At the same cycle, then you have a priority corridor.

That's the way it generally works.

Uh so then I guess related questions.

So does 51A actually have priority as it crosses Park Street today?

I I believe that corridor has more frequent uh usage, so yes, that would be the case.

We we haven't actually conducted the the signal timing analysis yet.

When we get there, we'll probably have to make that decision one way or the other.

Uh there was a couple comments about uh Webster.

Um actually Will and I about 10 years ago were in front of you all.

Uh we did that as part of a line 51 project.

Uh so there is TSP and there was signal timing done as part of that project uh to benefit the line 51.

So it it's out there um and operational.

We confirm that whether it just might yeah.

It's out there.

Yeah, and this situation of having crossing corridors with TSP and competing uh demands isn't uncommon either.

We have that in a lot of places.

Um I wonder if I can answer or attempt to remember all the questions that were posed by the public.

And yes, I you're actually under no obligation to go into QA with the public.

If the commissioners want to ask a question, then certainly we can do that.

Just yeah, okay.

Trying to be trying to be helpful.

Any other commissioner questions?

Perhaps following up on a public comment.

Any other commission questions?

Drew.

Um, I'll just say thank you for coming.

Um, I also want to acknowledge that um uh AC staff have come here before on this specific project.

So um all of us members of the public have been aware of this work going on.

Um, and also in the bigger picture, um, this is happening across the region.

So I'm glad MTC is getting a little shout out.

My understanding is um this week MTC approved uh Bay Area wide policy for funding more of this work, um and just for everyone's sake, like a minute saved is like that is true value, like that is the cost of that driver and the cost of that bus, and so I hope everyone every minute saved on this corridor adds up to more service for riders because at the end of the day that's what we all want.

Um I also want to highlight um it sounds from city's staff like there's a little Easter egg here of like coordinating signal timing for drivers as well.

Um I know that's not the focus tonight, but this does this project does sound like it will use regional money, bring some MTC money here, and AC and the city are putting it together to benefit transit riders and drivers.

Um the one final thought I want to offer is um I think the city could do a little better for pedestrians on park street.

I know this body before I joined adopted a policy on conduct how signals are set.

I honestly don't know if that's what's being programmed into those controllers.

I don't know how program how signals are programmed, and I imagine if they're not coordinated, there's work to do.

Um and that's a little out of scope here, but I I just want to end by saying that I hope the city, and maybe as a comment for Scott Wickstrom that the city will when the time is right, just take a run through the entire corridor, make sure where PED recall should be turned on, ped recalls turned on, and this really sounds like it's gonna benefit all modes.

Bus bus riders, bus drivers, people driving the whole corridor, and pets too.

So thank you to everyone involved.

Thank you for comments.

Any other questions or comments?

Mr.

Noctical.

Thank you.

Um I want to lift up all the positive comments that the rest of the commission has said, and I want to say thank you.

I also want to ask for a tiny other bit of coordination.

Um, and I'm gonna look to the city for this too.

I'm I'm anecdotally at this point aware of some roadway construction fatigue that's going on in the city, and so as and if it's possible when you're doing construction to coordinate with other nearby city roadway construction projects to mitigate that impact on the travelers because yes, transit is important, yes, bikes are important, yes, pedestrians are important, and and and driving is important too.

All of the modes need to have some coordination and some fair prioritization.

So just to mitigate the construction, but otherwise, I really am very much in favor of this.

I just want to say, noted commissioner, and um we plan on doing another round of community outreach, and our outreach is continually ongoing throughout the entire duration of the project.

Thank you.

And and again, I am in favor of this project.

Thank you.

Yes, and we will we're closely working with the city staff as well, and so we will continue to our coordination efforts.

Thank you.

If it's okay, I'd actually like to follow up on that line of questioning.

So, two things that struck me as I guess I would like to talk about it briefly.

Why is work starting at 8 30 a.m.?

Is that a default choice for transit and construction?

Because I hear 8 30, and I I don't know that the morning commute is done.

We have definitely had an elongated commute here in Alameda.

And if we're talking about convenience and traffic fatigue and construction, do you help help me understand 8 30?

Um it's usually we we follow what's usually on the permit, and which you as a city issue on that permit.

So the city could push that towards more compressed hours later in the morning if the city made that choice.

Okay, that's helpful.

Um, second question on that.

I think I heard that these intersections are going to be each worked on individually, not together.

And I to me that sounded strange.

Because it seems like this construction project creates a lot of bottlenecks at the at the loss of a lane.

And a bottleneck inherently is a bottleneck.

There's no way around it, right?

And so it seems to me you are at some fundamental level better off creating a longer single lane closure because you've created a bottleneck either way, and you could get this project done faster as opposed to a bottleneck that is then resolved and then another bottleneck is created, which is going to cause the exact same problem.

Help me understand why we're not working on this all at the same time to wrap up the project instead of having individual bottlenecks sequentially on that road.

Well, and if it's resources, that could be the answer.

That is perfectly fine.

Well, that's the word I would use first, but to explain a little bit further, um, the way we've delivered most of our projects is sequentially, a crew or two crews, whatever the contractor has bid to deliver the project, right?

The the kind of option you described could possibly cost a lot more.

If he has to take his entire crew.

Remember our project is relatively small.

A large amount of people for a short amount of time, he'd have to pay them for however long he thought it was gonna take to get another job to keep these people busy.

So they're floating a lot of crews over a lot of different projects.

It's it's a little complicated, but so they've done that, and so they might have two or three crews, and they might propose to leapfrog each other.

Um and so the answer, the typical answer was that they would do it sequentially.

This one's gonna be very simple.

We expect them to be able to do three or so every single day or even more, depending on how easily it'll go.

And so we're we're giving you worst case scenario.

Okay, additional commissioners.

Commissioner Centera.

So overall, support the project, just like all other commissioners said here.

Um the clarifying question, or actually, not clarifying this.

Um the comments are mainly to add value or get further clarification here.

And one question is I'm going to go off of the coordination of other activities.

One is the the high school is right there, you know, at uh park and central.

So, and then around lunchtime, all the high schoolers are out.

I mean, if you see you can't really drive through, I mean, it's like everybody's walking around there looking for lunch, and it's just forty-five minutes, and uh so they I know it's kind of uh towards the school ending, you know, the time period, but it's not in terms of the months, it's still you're looking at late spring, so the school is going to be in session.

So you may want to coordinate that schedule so the kids can have their lunch, you know.

So that's one.

And uh my other question is who maintains this equipment, the new ones that you're installing, um, the equipment, the signals, so there's a lot more than just TSP put in there.

TSP is extremely reliable and robust.

If there was something to happen to TSP, the city would coordinate with us for replacement parts and/or the expert support to install and re-coordinate, you know, replace all the rest of the equipment is normal infrastructure upgrade that the city maintains.

So there's an agreement between the city and AC Transit on that, and all that equipment's passed off to the city.

It's only the TSB that we share.

And um comment uh from the public, I'm going to kind of um ask here.

So can the emergency response be benefiting from this one?

I'm looking at our staff here, city staff.

I can start.

Uh uh to my knowledge, I don't think the city currently uses emergency vehicle preemption, but the one um potential benefit to the city is this equipment can be used for emergency vehicle preemption.

So it's available.

And I'll I'll add that uh the last capital budget, the city council approved an emergency vehicle preemption capital project.

Really, the big thing is getting the transponders on the fire equipment.

Uh we have the it's basically transit signal priority emergency vehicle preemption that the same module works for both.

We have that in a fair number of intersections throughout the city, it's really getting the equipment on the on the fire trucks and get it all linked together.

So that is uh a capital project we intend to get started in 2026.

Okay, thank you.

Good questions.

Any additional commissioner questions or comments?

Thank you.

Um, as the other commissioners have said, uh, supportive of this project.

I'm excited to see um how much time we can shave off that that journey from one end to the other, and I would just like to suggest or request.

Um maybe you're already planning to do this, but it would be great to have some data captured on the current time to um travel that corridor.

Before and travel time.

And after, yeah, before and after.

Exactly.

Yeah, but one of the biggest challenges about that is the Oakland Alameda Access Project and when it will come into effect.

So trying to get a clean before and after is gonna be very difficult that isn't impacted by that project.

But we'll still look at small segments to try and get some show some benefit.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, as best we can.

Any additional commissioner questions or comments.

I have a couple of very small ones.

Does TSP induce speeding from side streets to a main thoroughfare?

I can understand the human inclination if they know that that's the one that turns because a bus is coming and I'm going to speed to get my green light before it is preemptively turned to red.

You guys must have some sort of stats on that.

Do we see that or do we not see that?

In general, it doesn't.

TSP doesn't really change the typical operations of a signal.

It's a little um it's kind of behind the scenes.

So operations with the yellow phase, all red phase that allows for the safe clearing of an intersection will operate as um as normal.

The public general public won't be able to tell on a given day.

Okay.

Um, you know, the type of driver behavior you're describing is uh a driver speeding over the speed limit to try and catch a green.

They they really won't really know whether that green light is at its end or at its beginning, regardless of whether a transit vehicle is there.

They'd have to be sitting there counting the entire cycle and know that cycle.

So I don't it's really the question comes back down to is that driver inclined to speed to cap to catch the green light.

And of course, that behavior unfortunately is out there, but we hope they won't need to because they're gonna see that they can travel at the speed and make it all the way through the entire corridor because they'll be coordinated so well.

But on that we agree, we all hope for better drivers.

Um uh no, my other question was covered.

I am fine.

Any other additional questions, comments, suggestions?

Thank you for the presentation.

Thank you for answering questions.

Um, I'm going to close out this item if that's okay.

Let's move on to our next agenda item.

Next agenda item item six B.

Review and discuss proposed quick build improvements to the Lincoln Wallet intersection.

This is a discussion item, not a voting item.

We have a presentation with our own Scott Wittstrom.

Yes, uh hello again, uh Chair White C, members of the transportation commission, Scott Wickstrom, city engineer.

Tonight before you we have a proposed diverter island at the Lincoln and Walnut intersection.

Um little bit of agenda.

We'll talk a little bit about vision zero, uh, policy and action plan really from the early uh 2020 era.

Uh we'll look at some of the improvements that were done in 2020.

We'll come back to some vision zero actions, some preliminary data review, what was done in 2025, and then kind of lead into the diverter island for that discussion.

So as we start talking about a data-driven approach, this figure should be hopefully familiar to the transportation commission.

It is our high injury corridor network.

It's based on uh roadway collision data from I believe 2009 through 2018, a 10-year period.

Um it identifies high injury corridors, uh, which are the lines that are in yellow, red, and orange, um, and it also uh identifies high collision intersections, which are where you know uh either severe or fatal collisions have occurred or just a large number of occlusions that occurred.

The stat on the lower uh left corner is always kind of telling 73% of crashes that occur on 20% of elementers roadway.

So we did really want to focus on uh, you know, this is a basis to where do we start focusing our efforts for for traffic safety throughout the city.

Um little red arrow, that's Lincoln and Walnut.

Uh it wasn't too hard to find out that Lincoln and Wallet stood out as had having a high number of collisions, and so we took a crack at it in 2020, right?

In 2020, we basically, if you remember back to pre-2020, it was a four-lane road through this intersection.

The merge actually took place east of Walnut Street as you approached Oak in front of uh the um, well, as you get to the police station basically.

Um, and what we did is basically did a road diet from four lanes to three.

Uh, we pushed the lane merge west of the intersection, so between Willow and Walnut.

Uh, we added left-turn pockets, we added red curbs to improve visibility, so you can see the cars coming either way, painted bulb bouts, uh, and high visibility crosswalks.

And and um that was kind of our effort, it was a fair amount of effort to put in there, and you know, it was like you know, I absolutely the right decision to make at the time.

Um, and then we sat for a little bit.

So I'm gonna jump back here now to a little bit about vision zero, and and maybe this talks a little bit to the construction fatigue that Commissioner Notnegal was referring to.

But uh if we look at our high injury corridors, I've highlighted here in green work that we have done on those high energy quarters, that's complete.

Uh, in yellow, that's in construction, including central and now Tilden Clement.

Um, and then blue, what's in design and has funding, which includes Lincoln Marshall Pacific, Stargil, the second phase of Grand Street.

It's 120 million dollars plus or minus.

Uh, 40 million dollars constructed, 40 million dollars in construction, 40 million dollars coming that's in design.

That's a lot of work that we've been putting into our our high injury quarters.

It's something to point out.

Um, yes, it does lead to a little bit of collision fatigue, but we've been charged to kind of do the best we can to kind of reduce uh collisions and improve safety.

So we've we've kind of uh done this here.

Um, we also went through intersections, and I love when it's blurry and you can't read it, that's kind of deliberate.

Um we've done safety improvements at uh 48 of the top 75 intersections.

Um this would be through a combination of corridor projects, your Central Avenue, your um uh uh what else we do, Lincoln, we did a um Clement, um our annual paving projects, we've done slow streets on Pacific uh and San Jose and Versailles, those are now being converted over to neighborhood greenways, and we've also done some very targeted safety projects as well.

Why do I bring this up?

Um we have a a preliminary data set that we've got from APD that is basically nominally a 15-year period between 2009 and 2024.

And I somewhat arbitrarily just said, okay, let's separate the data between 2009 and 2019, an 11-year period between and then nominally five years between 2020 and and end of 2024, nearly the end of 2024.

So, overall looking at that data, uh, there's about a little over 10,000 crashes throughout the city.

Um, and there's overall about a 9% reduction in collision rate.

Um we start looking at corridors with road diets, it's been pretty significant.

So Main Street had a road diet in 2019, data's not quite exactly right.

Otis drive was uh 2020, Park Street and Webster because of the uh commercial slow streets was in were also in 2020, and I'm only looking at the the areas that were reduced if you will, the road diets.

Um, and then to come here with uh some of the intersections, those 48 of the 75 collisions where we've made improvements, we see a 39% reduction in the collision rate.

Which seems to be that a lot of the work we're doing, is starting to show some results, which is which is good.

Um zooming in here, maybe you could read this one.

I was hoping you could be able to read some of this anyway.

I'm gonna I'm not gonna let you spend too much time on it though.

Um so these are the top 20 intersections within the city based sorted by collisions in the the nominally 15-year data period.

Um, you know, and what's important is you have a a collision rate and uh in the first phase, and then you've got a collision rate in the second phase for the first 11 years and then the the last five years, and you either have a reduction in your collision rate or an increase in your collision rate, right?

And the about the fifth or sixth column over there is a one I add in their collisions avoided.

If you basically take those two rates and do your math, you can basically say this many collisions did not occur.

Um, for these top 20 intersections, we basically there's 40 collisions that theoretically haven't occurred during this five-year period.

That's a good number to have.

We could also look at this data a little more closely and start pointing out a few things.

There's a few streets here.

Main Street and Willie Stargil.

Um, that's one of the early kind of road diets.

Now, granted, the ferry terminal is, you know, the seaplane, the goon ferry terminals change the traffic patterns in there.

Um, but there's been a dramatic reduction in collisions.

Oh, it is in Westline, it's kind of tough to say how we went from 24 collisions in the first 11 years to zero, but it's still a pretty impressive reduction, right?

Um, you can also look at this data and tease out.

Well, we've got some areas where we have issues.

Uh, and you look at these things.

Well, it's park and blanding.

It's park and clemented.

So the the intersections that we were just talking about in the last presentation about how we want to do some traffic signal timing improvements.

Perhaps the backup is creating a little bit of frustration.

People trying to push through uh through a light that they shouldn't.

Tough to really understand, say.

Um, and then we've got uh Clement and Oak and a couple others there.

So these are ones that we look at and say, okay, we need to try to understand what's going on here.

Our presentation tonight is about Lincoln Walnut, which is up here on the top.

And despite the efforts that we did in 2020, um, we really didn't see a significant traffic reduction.

Uh, it's a bit of a surprise.

I I frankly would have thought the road die at the high visibility crosswalks, everything else would have would have made more of a difference than it did.

Um, and it and it's just basically made a relatively minor difference.

You could almost say it potentially is in line with the rest of the reduction throughout the city.

Um, so we are in 2025.

There was a pedestrian fatality in 2021, and so the city is part of our fatal collision response program.

Look to do some additional enhancements out here.

Um flashing beacons have been installed, they're on both sides here.

Uh the lane merge was moved further west such that the lane merge starts almost immediately as you cross willow and starts merge inode to to try to prevent people from racing to get ahead of each other to get to the merge and then get to this intersection.

We have higher visibility bulb, higher visibility bull-ups or longer the brighter that was all put in uh with the effort to kind of if you will try to do what we could to further reduce collisions.

Um again, we talked about before there's only been a 7% reduction in collisions, and I think most critically when we look at this thing here, as you start looking at the collisions, there were 38 reported in that nominal 15 year time period, 30 of which were broadsides.

Um broadsides are fairly common when one car is trying to go straight across the road and another one hits them in the side.

Broadsides are T bones, you sometimes hear what we refer to as so um it's it indicates indicative of a vehicle trying to cross the cross Lincoln and being hit, is what we see.

So we'll see how well this works here.

Is it gonna is it gonna play?

Oh, there we go.

It's playing a little bit slowly here.

Um, uh one of the neighbors has a ring doorbell camera and took some videos, and so if this is a little bit glitchy here.

There you go, the red car.

If it was a little bit glitchy there, but the red car hardly even stopped uh as they're crossing Walnut.

Walnut is on your right, they're going kind of north-south.

We're looking southbound on Walnut, right?

Um that was in August.

Here we are in um uh November.

And you can see, you know, one car is stopping to make a left here.

And one comes through, you know, it just it'll it'll play on for a few seconds.

You kind of get a sense of how busy the traffic is, but there's that southbound car coming through.

A second car is coming through, or they're going right.

You know, in in it's it's not that terribly busy of an intersection.

Um, but whoops, there's our collision right there, right?

And it's again it's another broadside, someone trying to cut through the intersection.

And then we got one more here, and then if you could push this one up to about 28, yeah, they're about yeah, save us a little save us a little time here.

And you might have to push the play.

There you go.

Is it going?

All right, well, let's oh, we'll give it a second.

If it doesn't work, we will jump on.

You'll you kind of get the idea.

Um we've got three collisions in a relatively short period of time, all almost immediately after the city council accepted the second round of improvements we did in 2025.

They're all broadside collisions here.

So we advance the next.

Oh.

This is the first time I've ever tried to do a video inside of the uh might be might be the last.

Apologies.

Alright, there we go.

Yeah, we'll go and skip that one.

I don't want to temptate.

Can you go to the next one?

It's clean.

Yeah.

All right.

So it would have been a third broadside collision, very similar to the other through.

So Lincoln Walnut options, yeah.

We did traffic counts.

We took traffic counts again this fall.

We did recognize that there was a slight increase in the amount of traffic from the traffic counts that we had from 2019, maybe 10-15%.

Anecdotally, you know, there's been a lot of talk about Park Street with uh with the commercial uh slow streets that happen there, the road diet on Park Street that maybe additional traffic is being funneled this way.

There's a slight increase in traffic, right?

Uh not a significant amount, not enough to to meet the warrants for a stop sign.

If there was a stop sign at this location, it would be the only stop sign on the entire Lincoln corridor, at least a section of Lincoln Corridor, as you most traffic kind of continues up through Tilden, and you'd probably anticipate you'd have some fairly low compliance for that stop sign.

Similarly, it doesn't meet the warrant for a traffic signal, and and frankly, traffic signals are very expensive.

They're about $800,000 when you include design and depend on the mast arms and a few details, maybe six to eight hundred, but they're they're they're expensive any way you look at them.

So we also in the past there's been discussion about a one-way couplet with either willow or oak.

So one you'd have a one-way northbound and a one-way southbound to help kind of improve proof traffic.

That's certainly a much larger area that would be impacted, many more residents would be affected.

Um and it really doesn't address the broadside collisions.

Um, somebody's still gonna be crossing either northbound or so or southbound on uh uh on walnut at this location.

So we basically kind of worked our way towards um a measures to prohibit through and left turn movements, and we've been calling this a diverter island, and really the intention is again to to limit the exposure to broadside, right?

So we jump here to this proposed diverter island, it's a little bigger picture than what was shown in the first slide.

Um we would construct a an island in the middle of the road that allows um the it basically prohibits the through movement and the left turn movement, but allows the right turn movement to continue.

The way this one is designed and laid out, it also allows the left turn movement from Lincoln onto walnut, whether you're going northbound or southbound.

And I think this would be the preferred option that we like to start with as a early quick build option.

Um, what are the impacts?

So our traffic counts from earlier this year.

Uh, these are both AM peaks.

They're both uh the little bit higher counts for uh uh either direction, AMRPM to AM was a little higher.

And you know, if we if we start looking at these numbers, you've got 75 people going northbound in the peak hour, right?

This is a one-hour count.

And you saw the videos, it's a little less, obviously, other times of the day.

Uh and you have 34 vehicles going southbound.

Of those, um, 56 northbound movements would be affected.

So it's not insignificant.

I mean, that's a fair number of people that are gonna be forced to turn right and or or make a decision earlier on about whether they're gonna stay on walnut or take some other parallel path.

Similarly, on the southbound, you have 32 people that would would be affected by by this based on based on those counts from that one day.

So it's not a uh an insignificant impact, but but um what it would do is it would basically really limit the exposure to the broadside collisions that we've been seeing here, and so that's the the recommendation we're making.

So proposed diverter island, you know, obviously reduces those exposure.

It would allow bikes and peds to continue to use walls uh um walnut street.

Uh bikes would or peds would use the uh the PED crosswalk, the pet push buttons are the flashing beacons would remain in place.

The bikes could ride just to the right of the diverter island or or walk across in the sidewalk if they so chose, maintains the left turns.

Uh we have talked this through with the fire department.

They do not use walnut as their primary response route.

They never go to a fire on walnut.

They if the if the call is on walnut, they're on walnut, but they don't use walnut to get through the city.

So this this would be acceptable to them, and it can be quick and relatively expensive, relatively inexpensive.

Something we could do as a pilot, evaluate it, try to get an understanding of what the impacts would be.

We did as we collected traffic data uh earlier this year or late this fall.

Uh we also collected traffic data at uh Willow and Lincoln and also Oak at Lincoln.

So we have a baseline for which to uh compare that to all right.

So a couple things about the proposed diverter island.

It does alter vehicular access and operations.

I guess I just talked about the the baseline traffic counts that were already collected because it alters the vehicular access.

Um we no longer allow through movements.

This is an item that we are going to bring to city council because it is a fundamental change.

Um there was a lot of discussion last week about authority of that's been delegated to the public works director and effectively the city engineer versus what is explicitly reserved for the city council.

I can be very clear that the the delegation does not do not allow the uh public works director to restrict a through movement without some legislative body to lay it.

So with this would go to this would go to council.

Um there's a couple of general plan items that we want to uh keep in mind just so you're aware of as we talk through this.

Uh mobility element goals to safety, eliminate fatalities of severe injuries, right?

Avenue sidewalks, crosswalks, etc.

by 2035.

Um we started out by saying Lincoln Walnut is the second heaviest or second highest collisions uh of any intersection in the city.

Um and it is but it is certainly by far the the highest of any non-signalized intersection.

Um so it's it's it's kind of stands out there.

Um so you know, to to look at this goal, we're it's kind of imploring us to do something.

Uh a little bit further in the general plan mobility element policy, so not a goal but a policy below it.

The Alameda Street grid, um, manage and extend the street grid to maintain the character of Alameda, which kind of tends to imply that to maintain that kind of street grid network.

Um, you know, reducing traffic, maintaining, but and also for safety of all modes of transportation.

So we are kind of fracturing that grid a little bit if we do not allow that through movement to go or that left turn to go.

But our our you know, as city staff, our our judgment and our recommendation is that the impact the potential positive impacts to safety um are much greater and outweigh the the breaking of the grid, so to speak.

Um, and so our recommendation to bring this forward as a quick build.

Um, and as a quick build, we can again evaluate evaluate the data, and if DB, we can we can go back to its previous configuration as well.

So uh bring this to commission, hear the presentation, provide feedback, um, recommend any alternatives you may have as appropriate.

Um, you know, this is as I kind of say before, we thought we had this figured out in 2020, and it turns out maybe we didn't, and it's still uh a challenging intersection.

So, open to hear suggestions and thoughts.

And then ultimately um we would love for you guys to endorse this to go forward to city council as as appropriate.

Available for any questions.

Any clarifying questions, questions of fact about the presentation?

I have a clarifying question.

Lisa, you have a clarifying question, yeah.

Um it was agenda, it says review and discuss.

Are you looking for an action from the commission?

Um, an action would be the desired, yes, you know, it was agenda as review and discuss.

Um this relatively late that uh based on last week's kind of McCartney discussions that we uh decided that this should definitely go to city council.

So, sorry, the recommend so the the request is for us to recommend this to the council to vote on it to endorse.

Yeah, so that's what to do.

Thank you.

Okay, this is no longer a discussion item.

This is a voting item.

Uh with that, I should then mention I believe Commissioner Kim is recusing himself um from this now voting item based on proximity to the project, so just for the minutes to um have them there.

Any other clarifying questions?

Oh, do I actually have to leave?

Commissioner Kim has to leave.

Commissioner Kim, we will miss you.

Well, I guess I will go home then.

You can go home.

No, I think you can.

I mean, you can you can we have a lot to come back?

You are you okay?

Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.

He's a he's allowed to he's allowed to leave if he needs because we still have quorum, but we recommend you stay.

Yes, let me know when I can come back.

Okay, we will.

I'll come let you know.

We are not prisoners here.

If you need to leave, you can leave.

It's okay.

Um I have a clarifying question actually.

So the the diagrams exhibit one exhibit two, I think it's item six, but yeah, exhibit one exhibit two.

It does a great job of talking about the diverter or demonstrating the diverter from above.

Help me understand what is the diverter look like from the driver's point of view.

Is it a six foot thing?

Is it a two-foot thing?

Is it a what is it?

It it's gonna be a six-inch thing.

Um that's gonna be out of concrete or some other kind of plastic material, similar to what we did the traffic circle on uh Pacific and Lafayette, is that correct?

Um, Pacific and Chestnut, right?

Um either some sort of material that'll be about six inches in height, and then we are gonna have some vertical elements on top of that, some ballards that can be collapsible.

Fire department would like the to maintain the ability to drive straight through if they needed to, but that is not going to be their primary mode of transit.

So we're not looking at a solid wall thing, but it's something that is gonna basically um, you know, most most, you know, cars will go around it and they'll have some vertical elements as well to kind of uh highlight it.

Does this build include some sort of signage that says no left turn somewhere?

Where does that go?

Does that go on the diverter or does it go on the corner of each of each of those two corners on the street?

It's gonna go on the corners of the street, and we'll also have we'll probably also have striping as you approach the intersection as well.

Okay, thank you.

Any additional clarifying questions?

Commissioner Noctagal, you think you have a question?

I think it's a clarifying question.

It can get punted, but it's related to a slide that I didn't have the question until we were past this.

Oh, sorry.

Hi, can you hear me now?

Better.

Sorry.

I didn't have a question until we got past the slide, and so I think it's a clarifying question as relates to one of the slides, and it was the vision zero work with the all of the colors.

Can we bring that one back up, please?

That 100 some odd billion.

Keep going, keep going.

That one.

Yeah.

Is the blue in the middle in Design Lincoln?

Lincoln Marshall Pacific, yes.

Okay.

So it is part of this intersection, is included in that project.

Yes, that is correct.

Okay.

And at the moment, um there's we are looking at the same design team that is looking at the larger corridor.

Is that helping out in this intersection as a method to advance um some potential kind of uh things that we can implement now, evaluate how they how they function, and um then incorporate into the larger project as appropriate.

Okay, so it's not that it would be built now and then rebuilt again necessarily.

It could potentially be integrated in.

There's a slight offset in the center line, so there will be some work that has to be redone that's unavoidable, unfortunately.

But what it what it does for us is nothing else, um, and what you can almost think about it as a as a pilot project, you know, it's a quick build item that we can get out there quickly and understand how it functions, how well it works, if we have a year, perhaps even two years worth of data to kind of get a sense of are we are we getting the desired impact and then you know incorporate it permanently into the larger project or or look at again other alternatives for the intersection.

Okay, thank you.

I have another question, but I can't wait on it.

No, I can wait on it.

Cool.

Any other clarifying questions?

Questions of fact.

Commissioner Drew, go ahead.

Um, well, thank you for the data dump.

This is fascinating.

I won't ask about it, but I just want to thank thank for the thorough uh vision zero update.

Um I did want to just understand a little bit more about the potential uh uh procurement and construction process because the in hindsight it looks like that last project took a really long time.

Don't want to open it up for discussion, but the 30k number you're bringing up here.

Um is maybe uh something that could fit into existing contracts and so on.

And so my my question is just did the previous project and its delays due to external factors maybe present some options so that whatever whatever the staff and council decide to proceed with now, could that get in the ground more quickly?

And if so, what would the do you have a plan?

It's a very good question.

And the improvements that were done in 2025 uh exceeded the threshold in which we had to go to city council.

We also had some staff shortages about two years when this was going through design, so there's any number of reasons.

It doesn't excuse it, but it took a long time to get that project done.

There's no no two ways about that.

Um, when we have thresholds less than $75,000, we have alternate construction um methods that we can use that uh you can can expedite the bidding process and the the contract award process.

So that is another advantage of the quick building, keeping it on the relatively inexpensive side.

We do also have some autocall contracts that can we might be able to piece parts of it in there as well, but we have to look at that.

Definitely that keeping the keeping the value down less than 75,000 is significant in terms of us being able to implement quickly.

Okay, thank you.

That's my one question.

Cool, thank you.

Uh with that, we'll move on from clarifying questions to public comments specifically to this agenda item.

Are there any public comments in person or on Zoom?

Yes, so far we have three in person and two on Zoom.

Let's go to in person.

Uh first we have Bill Wylan.

Hi Bill.

Hello.

Uhsportation commission members and Alameda City staff.

My name is Bill Nyland, and I'm here to ask you to approve the proposed diverter islands at Lincoln and Walnut, which is the item that we're all been talking about for the last 20 minutes.

My wife and I have lived on Walnut Street for about 44 years and are four doors from the intersection of Lincoln and Walnut.

I was also going to point out that my kids used to play on Walnut Street when they were small.

I wouldn't recommend that now, just because it's become kind of a speed uh center, and the traffic is way too busy to do that.

So the point's made that the there have been a lot of changes since we've lived on the street.

Um as you may know, the neighborhood is within blocks of many daycares.

Alameda High School, Lowe Elementary, and is where a young woman was struck in the crosswalk on September 24th, 2019 by an auto that was traveling east towards City Hall, and a pedestrian crossing Lincoln was killed in an accident on June 27th, 2021.

Over the years, there have been many multi-car collisions, and in some cases, cars have crashed into homes at the corners of the intersection.

We have very much appreciated the time and attention that the Transportation Commission, city staff and city council members, both past and present, have spent consulting with us about the safety concerns at the intersection over the years, especially the flashing lights for pedestrians installed at the intersection recently.

And we wholeheartedly support the proposed changes to the intersection.

According to my records, there were seven collisions at Lincoln and Walnut in 2025.

Those were on January 3rd, hit and run on February 22nd, the crash that ran over a fire hydrant and ran into the fence of a neighbor's home on June 26th, a two-car crash on July 10th, a two-car collision on November 2nd, a crash on November 7, and a two-car collision where multiple police, fire, and ambulances came to the scene because of injuries on December 5th.

In that case, at least one driver was taken away by ambulance.

Thank you for thank you for your comments.

Unfortunately, your three minutes are up.

Thank you.

If you can also submit that to city staff for the record as well if you'd like us to read additional.

Thank you.

Appreciate that.

Absolutely.

Thank you for your comments.

Next public in-person comment.

Next we have Jeff Canoth.

Hi, Jeff.

Hello again.

Uh, just as a point of information, I used to be on the Transportation Commission years ago when I was working for the Alameda Unified School District.

I really appreciate what you do.

Thank you.

And I appreciate Scott and that presentation is a lot of data, a lot of information for our one intersection among many in the island of Alameda.

Um I'm here to advocate for this diverter.

And I'll tell you why.

I live on that corner, and my living room looks out onto that intersection.

I've got a ringside seat to the Carnage.

I've had one car totaled.

Recently, a car went through my fence this close to going into my house, took four months to get the money to repair the fence.

I've lost a brick wall.

Every single corner, every single house on a corner has had a car run into it.

The house across from me on Lincoln had a car crash into the house where a woman and two young children live.

The neighbor across from me on Walnut had a car come around and crash through his fence.

He's lost two cars.

I'm a witness, a personal witness to this.

I'm terrified to back out of my driveway.

This is an experiment that needs to happen.

It will impact other streets.

But it has to be tried.

They've tried a number of things.

I really appreciate what the city has done to restrict twice.

It hasn't worked.

People go down Lincoln at 45 miles an hour regularly.

Please, I really encourage you to pass this.

I want it to go to the city council.

I want to be, I want to see it done.

It's not expensive.

And it's an experiment.

We deserve to try this.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Next in-person speaker, please.

Next we have Jim Strelo.

Hi, Jim.

The statistics do not surprise me at all.

The city doesn't get it.

The engineer doesn't get it.

You're punishing good drivers for the results of bad drivers.

You actually saw at least two incidents where it was the driver, you know, going down Walnut, you know, violating the traffic code and stuff.

I'm dressed in black right now.

I often see people crossing walnuts dressed in black.

Don't push the button to cross, you know, did say I'm here.

They don't wear anything glow, nothing white or you know, glow to be able to be seen.

People cause these accidents, and you're spending money to try to fix a problem that is a social engineering problem.

The city of San Francisco.

Well, excuse me, you see, on uh the highways on the freeways where they have traffic fines are doubled or tripled in work areas.

And San Francisco has put up signs, you know, that uh that uh difficult, uh dangerous intersections along Vaness or other places that say we're doubling or tripling the fines there.

Punish the people that are causing the accidents.

You're actually going to create a huge inconvenience to good drivers around the island.

You're spending money to try to solve a social problem.

Um I'm I am so mad at vision zero at the city, adopting thinking that you can engineer away bad behavior.

We're those people, those drivers that caused those accidents, you know, fined, you know, uh set to prison, you know, you know, double, you know, been uh gone to civil courts, you know, to have to pay industrial fines to the neighbors that are inconvenienced.

Sure, the neighbors need uh, you know, uh solution, but you know, if you might need to adjust, might need to look at this at a different way that just spending money on a little thing that's gonna probably look just as silly as that traffic circle at Chestnut and um Pacific that people are just gonna go right around.

I can imagine people looking at whatever thing you're gonna build there and say, Well, if there's a left-hand terrain there, I can still go straight ahead and kind of get around the thing because that's what they're doing now at Chestnut and Pacific.

So you're you're gonna be wasting city money on things that need to be uh addressed in a different manner.

Thank you for your comments.

Any additional public comments in person, a lot of speakers.

You put a slip, if it's okay, uh if you'd like to speak, go ahead and put in a slip and we'll go to Zoom first, and we can come back to public comment in person.

Yeah.

Uh first next on Zoom, we have Jay Garfinkel.

Hi, Jay.

Hey, I just can't stay away.

Uh I would second what uh Jim just said.

Um anybody who's driven, especially at night around Alameda sees all these people walking in black uh during the day.

I've seen families where the father and mother are pushing uh a carriage of some kind, they don't look, they just go right out into the street.

I've seen them crossing fernside that way.

So I would say, yeah, we do need to get a little bit more responsible pedestrian and bicycle users.

Um if a car is stopped to let you cross, make sure somebody isn't going to be coming along on the right side of them.

The pedestrians have to be a little more responsible.

Um you mentioned that uh Chestnut and what was it, Chess and Pacific didn't qualify for stop sides, didn't have a warrant for it.

What does it take then to qualify for a roundabout?

Uh it just seems like the roundabout is a workaround for uh the failure to qualify for a uh a stop sign.

Um I drove through that intersection a while back and uh navigated around the roundabout.

But when I got to the next block, I think it was Lafayette, totally blown away.

Pacific had a stop sign, the cross street did not.

You expect the main street to uh if it has to stop, the cross street needs to stop.

There's several places down the meetup where the uh uh much less important uh cross street does not stop, and that and that sucks the other driver into going ahead thinking that there's gonna be a stop.

Uh I would also encourage the placement of reflectors on these various obstacles that the city is placing.

Uh I remember on I think it's Atlantic where Atlantic uh approaches towards Webster, it splits uh there's a divider.

Um and you're sucked into going left, you go around the divider in the wrong way direction.

There are numerous places that could benefit from reflectors on uh the various uh intersections.

Um also um at uh duo and island, you could put uh a reflector on that uh uh concrete there, uh although that might be Caltrans, I don't know.

But there are plenty of places that we need uh reflectors.

I'm not against making uh the area safer.

I'm all for that.

Uh I note though that if you have three accidents one year and two the next, that is not a statistically significant decrease.

Uh I would ask for a uh statistical analysis of these numbers.

Thank you for your comments.

Any additional public comment online?

Yes, one more comment online.

Christian Kazakhov.

Hi, Christian.

Oh, I here we go.

Any luck with Christian.

We're waiting for Christian.

If there's been a public speaker submission for in-person comment, why don't we move to that?

Oh, here, there you are.

For some reason, for some reason it muted me.

I hear you.

Anyway, I have I have one of the I'm one of the homes on the corner there and and I've been here about 20 years and I have seen a lot more accidents in the last five or ten years than than I have from the the previous uh ten before that.

Um I have had my house uh hit by a car, but you know, right uh driving through the intersection very fast.

And I like the idea of this experiment of the um the media or the the island in the middle of the intersection.

Um I would also like to see a little bit more visibility um and to comment on on a couple of the other guys that that were up there earlier.

Um speed is a is a major factor.

Um I think pedestrians are also a major factor of just you know not being aware that the the uh intersection is can be lit up.

Um but the the idea of it being kind of an experiment to to see if this can work, I think is is worth the time to do that.

And that's all I have to say.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Any additional online comment?

Uh we have no more online, and our last in-person speaker is Tyler Yeager.

Hi Tyler.

Hi.

Sorry about that.

First time here, and uh I was not familiar with the process.

We welcome you.

Thank you.

Good to be here.

Uh I guess first and foremost I want to say thank you all.

Uh Commission and Chair for being here today, taking questions and uh looking at these sort of issues that are on so many residents' minds.

Um I myself uh have been a resident of Alameda for about five years now.

Five years come May, and uh I'm currently working for Caltrans as uh employee engagement, so a bit different.

Um I'll try to keep this short and uh simple.

Uh I'm not too familiar with the issue on Lincoln and Walnut, uh, but it sounds like it's been a pretty large problem for quite some time.

Uh kind of looking at some of the different solutions.

It reminded me of a problem that my own hometown back in Arkansas faced.

We had a main thoroughfare that was constantly plagued with side swipes, T-bones, different things.

Uh and they implemented various solutions, brighter lights, uh different sort of crossing lights.

They even put an island in the middle, and all that served to do was as a ramp to distracted uh drivers.

Uh I'm not saying that it doesn't work, but uh a solution that worked for my hometown uh was actually removing said island and they implemented kind of speed bumps and rumble strips on the kind of main cause uh of the pat uh of the roads.

For instance, if they were finding that most of the T-bones were happening to cars driving on the highway, they decided to put kind of segmented speed bumps leading up on the perpendicular road.

That way it br uh it brought attention back to the drivers as they were coming up to that intersection, making them more aware that hey, this is an intersection I should pay be mindful of.

And to my knowledge, that it's sharply reduced the amount of accidents at said intersection, and it was a much more cost-effective solution.

Uh that's really all I've got on my end.

Uh, thank you for your time.

Thank you.

We hope to see you again.

Any additional public comments?

We have no more public comments.

Having no more public comments, let's move on to commission discussion and questions.

Do any commissioners have a discussion or questions?

Commissioner Gloin, take it away.

Jamie.

Thank you.

Um, thank you uh City Engineer for the very thorough detailed presentation.

That was very well.

Um I have a couple of thoughts on this.

The first thought is obviously we are very keen to reduce the collisions of this intersection.

This treatment that we are considering seems to me very unusual, which is not to say that it's necessarily wrong, but because it's very unusual, I wonder if people are going to be confused by it at first, until they, you know, develop new habits and new routes to um uh to get around.

And I wonder how many of them might try to drive around it initially, if they're not familiar with how it's supposed to work.

So that's one thought.

The second thought I have is we watched a video of one of the collisions in which a vehicle looked like it was going south, I think, on Walnut, tried to cross, and was hit by a vehicle that was traveling east on um Lincoln.

When the vehicle traveling south was at the stop and pulled out, it should have been able to see that there was a vehicle traveling east on Lincoln, and it should not have pulled out, which made me wonder, and I happen to I just looked.

If you're driving down Walnut, when you cross over Buena Vista, there's a four-way stop.

When you cross over Pacific, it's Pacific that has the stop, and you have um you can continue.

And then, of course, when you reach Lincoln, it's Walnut that has to stop.

And so, and I noticed this when I travel here along Pacific.

The way that stop signs work, it's not super obvious unless you're really paying attention which ones are two-way stops and which ones are all way or four-way stops.

And that means that when you reach the stop, you have to think: is the is the other direction, do they have a stop as well?

Because if they do, then potentially you can go.

If they don't, you have to wait.

And I wonder if that particular collision, if that was a factor, perhaps the vehicle on Walnut thought that Lincoln also had a stop because they had not realized.

All that is to say to the extent that we can improve signage for these kinds of intersections.

I think there is potentially a lot of benefit in that.

At the risk of Chair Whitesy telling me I'm going off topic, maybe this is a broader issue in the city.

Others will stop there.

Okay.

I'm just thinking signage is important, and I wonder if that's a factor in this particular intersection.

And um, I hope we can improve the signage to make that much more obvious what people are supposed to be doing.

That is all.

Thank you.

But let me follow up on your question and your comment.

My understanding is this stop sign, these stop signs that are actually on walnut do not include the fairly common cross traffic does not stop sign.

It's just a stop sign, correct?

There's no additional information.

Okay.

I thought we had added those in 2020.

Yeah, I thought I had cross traffic doesn't stop.

We've created controversy, sorry.

Commissioner Knock, Alicia, go ahead.

Can we see the um design and the intersection again, please?

So I mean, I I will agree, I know that this has been a problem intersection for a long time.

It needs help, and I'm open to incremental improvement for sure.

And I think that there's the opportunity here for incremental improvement and potentially folding it into this other.

Which slide do you need?

Bigger problem.

Which slide do you need?

Sorry.

The one that shows the design from overhead.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Okay.

So, I understand it's not it, it is incremental.

It may or may not fold into the larger Lincoln project later.

I have I'm I'm interested in seeing improvements at this intersection.

There's too many collisions.

There's too many problems here.

I let's do it right, however.

So to Commissioner Goines comment, it's an unusual one.

Doing this is unusual.

We don't want to end up with some of the odd problems we've had, for example, at Grand and Otis, where we we have people trying to turn right from Otis into Grand in the bike lane because it's unusual and you can't see drivers can't always see.

So let's make it.

If we're going to do this, let's do the best iteration of this that we can.

So one of the questions that I had was how tall is this?

The ballards and the ball, you know, how tall is this island?

Not that tall.

Well, we don't want people driving over it.

We don't.

We we want to make it as visible and and signage doesn't always work.

So how are we gonna make sure?

You know, is is signage going to be enough?

Is it going to be clear that people can't go forward, right?

So it's thinking of these things to do the best version of this can't that we can, that the city can with the money available.

Also, looking at this people turning right from Walnut onto Lincoln.

How visible are the oncoming cars going to be for them?

Is there been, you know, has there been enough day lighting of the intersection there?

Because we don't want to make something worse with collisions there because of lack of visibility.

So these are some of the the concerns I have.

I'm not against this, but I do want to make sure that whatever does go in, if it does, that it's the best version that it can be to properly divert traffic and not just make a nuisance.

Can I also follow up on that question?

Because I something was said that I just want to be sure I understand.

So the diverter is six inches tall, it's a piece of concrete, but then I thought it was said that ballers will be placed on it on top, and so ballards are two feet tall, two and a half feet tall, something like that.

The kind of the ubiquitous white ballers or the ballards are the one we're talking about, correct?

Is the entire diverter covered with bollards or is it is there space?

I'm gonna go somewhere later with a question.

Is there space on there for a pedestrian?

I wanna I want to know how close the ballards are.

What's the plan?

I want to know what's gonna happen with this six-inch tall thing.

We have not gotten to that full level of design.

Um part of the reason you put the ballards up there is they have reflective elements on them as well.

So at night time, that they'll reflect off the car headlights.

Um, presumption is that they'll be probably two feet apart on center.

You've probably got around a 24 or 4 uh or 20 to 30 foot width there.

Um so yeah, you'll have you'll have enough ballards that is highly visible.

Lisa, did you feel like your question got addressed?

You go on.

I just am gonna have a follow-up question as relates to that, but only if you're done.

No, oh yeah, okay.

So are those bollards tall enough that they're going to obscure pedestrians?

So when a pedestrian is crossing, is it is are they going to be obscured and not visible from oncoming?

We would almost certainly be using the shorter what we call the K-71 ballers, they're about to be tall.

Okay.

And so yeah, yeah.

Another concern though, right?

When we're looking at safety, it's safety for all modes.

Yeah, one of the, you know, when you start thinking about site distance and stuff like that, you typically look at uh, I believe it's uh 36 to 42 inches, one of the two up there.

We will definitely be below that so you can see over the top of these things.

Okay, thank you.

Commissioner Susan Sarah.

Sir Valley, go ahead.

Um thank you for the presentation.

And um, as others said, I like the mission zero and all the rating comparison and how what we had potentially avoided in terms of collision.

Um I so we are we have this proposed potential solution for a problem, very pronounced problem.

Um, and uh we are kind of uh wondering around this is basically because this is new solution, you know, we haven't seen it.

So has this been implemented anywhere in the Bay Area?

Um there are examples.

Um we are working with Parametrics, who is the design engineer for the Lincoln Marshall Pacific Corridor.

They're obviously open on this.

They have done these implementation implementations in Berkeley, and I think there's some other ones in the East Bay as well.

So they're they're not very common, that is correct, but they there are examples that are out there that we can look to.

And the um results from that.

Did it work?

Yeah, and I mean, did it work?

Like people, I mean, all the um comments you heard about how people could move or you know, drive over that in a different direction and all that and drive over it, you know.

I I don't have that level of detail of that information, but they do vary in um whether there's actually a crosswalk there or not a crosswalk there, and and so there are some, you know, each each each situation's gonna be a little bit unique, um, but there are examples where there are diverter islands in place that that have functioned successfully.

So having, I mean, this being uh relative different.

Okay, I'm using the word.

Um, have we thought about doing a pop-up?

As a temporary measure.

I I know what you're kind of where you're going at it.

And what what we our dilemma sometimes we have is it kind of goes back to exactly what Commissioner Nostigall said, is basically if you're gonna do it, let's let's let's do it well enough that it's visible and obvious.

Um are you are you when you say pop-up, you're talking about doing it for like a uh a week or so?

You know, here we have it for without uh any concrete work on the ground, just uh temporary markup and then you know keep the ballers for uh about a week or or a couple of days, and then you observe how the traffic is uh behaving.

Um we haven't well um we haven't really considered that.

I'm what I'm afraid of is that it's not gonna be a long enough period of time to what what you're what you what you'd be getting at is public acceptance, but you're not necessarily going to be getting at is it effective in in reducing the collisions in that short of a time period.

I think that's our our concern.

And um there's sometimes we need to do pop-ups.

The you know, if we start putting in there was discussion at city council a little while back about um uh Gibbons Drive and Northwood Southwood and and possibly getting a roundabout in there.

That might be a case where we put a roundabout there as a pop-up because that will get people to potentially to kind of get used to the idea of it.

Um, and how do they like the idea of a roundabout?

I think for pop-up in this case, it would it would be up there for a week or two.

People might get used to it, then they would be gone, and it I I think we're leaning more towards doing something that's um a little more permanent as a pilot, um, but something that's still relatively inexpensive in terms of all the different um options that are out there.

I like the word pilot.

Yeah, okay, and uh because we don't know the what the unintended consequence may be, right?

So, correct, but I but I'm still I I I'm you know, hearing what Commissioner Notnegall said is that you know, we want to and we want to make sure that as you approach this intersection, there's adequate striping that someone goes up the intersection, they know that they're not allowed to go through through our left, that it's a right turn only.

So we have the appropriate signage on the ground, we have the appropriate signage in place, um, to get that level in there.

Now, granted, it is a little bit of a cost, but you know, considering the number of collisions at this intersection, I think it's a it's a it's a it's a small cost considered uh the impacts that it's had on on people who are in collisions and the neighbors at large.

So um, yes, a pilot.

Um, and you know, the the way to think about the pilot and the duration of the pilot is we do have the larger Lincoln Marshall Pacific Corridor project coming on the heels, and that would be the time to either go all in with a full implementation or or consider something else.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good questions.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

Additional questions or comments.

How long would the pilot be?

Um we at this point we have not really set a time frame on the revenue for six months and then remove it.

Our intention is to get it installed to collect some traffic data probably two, three months after installation when people are fully accustomed to what it is.

Um it's gonna take a little time.

You know, I think one of the callers basically said that you know, one collision less one year is not statistically significant.

You kind of have a little bit of time, but I think we'll get a sense of what the public um appetite is for it.

We'll get some indication of what the diverted traffic is to the adjoining intersections.

Um I would look at the pilot being from when we get it installed, presumably, and hopefully this summer, until when we have the Lincoln Marshall Pacific project come through.

And at that point is when we make a decision.

Does it does it stay and be made permanent, or do we do we look at some alternative?

So perhaps a year to year and a half.

Once we get that information from the pilot, do we go back to the community to the people like gentlemen living in the neighborhood for 40 years and saying this is what we have, this is this is how we're gonna move forward in terms of like doing outreach.

Uh we haven't gone through that level.

It's a very good question.

Um we could come back to you know, I we're it's always easy to go back to the immediate community members, but we can also come back to this body if that would be uh your desire.

We could certainly come back and and kind of you know present several months later um after we have traffic counts and and we can you know certainly reach out and do the same noticing to the community and invite them to uh to come to this this forum as well.

Okay, okay.

Commissioner Johnson, additional comments, questions.

Drew, go ahead.

Um, I guess I missed first name basis this evening.

Um thank you, Chair Scott.

Um, so uh well thank you just I know I'm going last thank you to the public commenters here.

Also, I just want to say I think staff did a really um useful presentation, just the granular detail videos, it's it's it's helpful to see um if that's possible in the future.

I think that would help uh with our discussions.

Um what I'm I'm hearing, and I'm kind of agreeing with a couple of the other voices here on the commission tonight is I I think staff and the public and the just the track record establish a very good um uh case to take to council to uh remove some auto movements through this intersection.

Um, the I I mean I think everyone knows that that's you know that's a move that affects the whole transportation grid, and it shouldn't be made lightly.

Um and it shouldn't be over overdone like I um I did for a while live in Berkeley, where you know those diverters if if if they match with where you live and where you're going, they're lovely, but it's a zero sum it's zero sum.

So but but like super selective use, like I I think staff and the members of the public and just you know the headlines too, like the headline from 29 2019 or 2020 of the the six-month-olds in their bedroom.

Like I think that makes us makes the case for removing some auto-turn movements here.

Um I would like to hear maybe Scott, if you could speak more to like this proposed solution doesn't uh seem to do much for pedestrians, and I'm curious to hear what options you could share with us that would either give pedestrians uh refuge in the middle or reduce the crossing distance.

I'm sure there are lots of constraints, but like, you know, the pedestrians hit in the middle and um the fellow killed.

We know there are other factors there.

This project is not gonna solve, you know, drunk driving, but like we need to add in layers when possible, and could this like I think this layer, the layers being proposed here, get at the broad side issue.

So I'm I'm curious to hear if you could maybe talk us through some options that could maybe benefit pedestrians simultaneously.

Yeah, that's a fair question to bring up.

And you know, in 2025, adding in the the flashing beacons is a is a substantive improvement.

And that's relatively new.

Um, I would also point out that while there have been you know a couple of fatalities, um, you know, looking at this intersection over the course of the 15 years, the bulk of the the collisions, uh 30 of the 38 are are broadsides and the vet and and most of them are car on car.

It's not known as a high pedestrian in uh uh uh collision or crash location.

Um adding the flashing beacons definitely helps.

When to get to layering additional things, um I would basically probably suggest that um we would go forward with this diverter island as a layer that's added on to the layer that's already existing, which is the ped push buttons, and then if we have maybe have some additional considerations that's done with the larger Lincoln Marshall Corridor Pacific project.

When you start talking about pedestrian refuge islands, um i it gets challenging because we have the the dedicated left turn pockets.

That's one of the main safety features that we're installing on on the entire corridor from Lincoln Marshall Pacific.

And it's tough to put a pedestrian refuge with that there.

Um you put a pedestrian refuge island in, you then also then have to put a ped push button in.

Um electronics and vertical things in the middle of the road tend to get hit, knocked over and need to be replaced regularly.

Um so yeah, maybe there are some things we could look at.

Um, but those kind of solutions uh also if you add a refuge island, you're suddenly restriping pretty much from willow to you know a little bit past oak to get our alignment to work out.

I would suggest that would be done with the larger corridor project.

Um that and and maybe we we look at this as a as a layer.

We're we're we did a we did improvements in 2020, we and bolster those improvements in 2025, adding in specifically the the the flashing beacons.

This is just another layer on top of that to kind of address the broadside collisions, um, and we still have the larger project coming down down the road as well.

Um I I will say that most of the other intersections we haven't considered pedestrian refuge islands, but that doesn't mean we can't uh can't talk about it internally.

Well, maybe the way thank you for that detail.

The word layer was maybe imply I was trying to I didn't mean to imply separate things.

So I'm kind of wondering, can this concrete island accomplish multiple goals?

And I just want to say also the the flashing beacons are have been hit and knocked over on the sides too.

So yeah.

Yes, they have you all for better or worse there.

Um and so I've I'm also kind of riffing on our I maybe it was Chair White C just asking you if if uh if a um if a crosswalk were to reach this island.

I'm just wondering, have the the engineers involved in the plans tonight, did they consider any variations that could possibly do double duty?

The one this one, you know, island being installed, or the diverter being installed, could it do double duty to benefit pedestrians somehow?

There were a few different options that were looked at and presented.

Um if we wish to keep the the left turn movement from Lincoln onto walnut, um, you get into the position where you can't extend the diverter island to um you know uh across the pedestrian.

That that really is the the uh the issue that I think that that kind of kind of gets it that that limits it, right?

Um we were looking to maintain that left turn movement from Lincoln on to walnut.

If you if you take away that that movement, um you're restricting even more access to the people who use walnut, the people who live on on walnut.

And so, you know, our as we looked at the different options, we one of the things we're trying to maintain was that left turn movement uh for for ease of use for for some from and and really looking predominantly at at the collisions that we are seeing.

The problem we're trying to solve is the broad sides, and that is the through movement.

Oh go ahead.

Um sorry, can I interrupt on that?

I actually don't understand that comment.

So could we put that the overhead view picture up that we've gone back to a couple times?

The item one, yeah, one of these.

Yeah, it's a ways down there.

Oh, you went fast.

Yeah, there you go.

Yeah.

Okay.

So you can leave it on the title.

Fun with PowerPoint today.

Wasn't it the one that we it's yeah, it's the overhead, the overhead view of the proposed diverter.

After the third video.

I promise I won't make us watch the date again.

This oh, go back, go back, go back.

Perfect, great.

Okay, so this is the part I don't understand.

And I and I'm trying to support, I think, yeah, part of what uh Commissioner Abrams is talking about.

So I so you said that we're trying to maintain the left-hand turn from Lincoln onto Walnut.

And we can't extend the any part of this diverter.

We've also heard, I actually agreed with the public comment that said, well, some people are gonna come at this from walnut, they're gonna basically sneak around this thing so they can go the direction that we don't want them to go.

Help me understand why I cannot just extend the two tails of this thing, which are skinny, which give plenty of room for vehicular passage.

They also prevent a sneaky left turn.

They also enter the crosswalk, which kind of taught gets a little bit at his refuge island, although I want to talk about that in a separate way.

But like tell me why I can't do that, because from this diagram, if I just extend the skinny part of those two ends, it seems to accomplish a lot of those things.

We obviously are not gonna have a six-inch high um raised uh median component in the crosswalk itself, right?

Because that that then we get into accessibility issues.

So we have to then create a pedestrian refuge island by code, pedestrian refugee islands are six feet wide minimum.

So I'm suddenly six feet wide as I so that tail, that little little tiny tail that might be a foot wide or eighteen inches wide that you're seeing butting up against the crosswalk, now has to be six feet wide in order to go through the crosswalk because I if I have a pedestrian refuge, you have to you have to make it wide enough for the for the to feel safe for the for the pedestrian.

You have to have truncated uh domes on either end.

It's a minimum six feet.

There's just no two ways about that.

And suddenly we're into restriping the whole street here.

Um we, you know, you're you're taking six feet or or or we're or eliminating the left turn movement.

And so if we wish to keep the left-turn movement, um we it it's a choice.

Um we were leaning towards uh maintaining the left turn movement.

Uh you know, again, the the broadside collisions, the the primary issue we're trying to solve here are the through movements predominantly being being struck.

Um to add the refuge island, you would functionally have to eliminate the left turn pocket here or restripe um you know a substantial diff distance on both sides to accommodate that.

Okay.

And that's that's that's well outside of our you know quick mandate pilot seventy-five thousand dollars or less.

Let's go quick on it.

It's a bigger it it starts unraveling as a bigger project.

Commissioner Abrams, thank you for letting me peggy back on your question.

Back to you, please.

No, I I appreciate it because I I'm I'm I hope I'm echoing some some thoughts here and wonder here, and and you know, I will and you know I I pre also appreciate the can the kind of conflicting goals here of like keep it keep it small, keep it targeted, keep it achievable.

Um at the same time, this is at least the third time the city's addressing this place, and so just from uh from a high-level strategic perspective, this would seem to be this would seem to call for um for uh a larger response um and to effectively address the issue.

Um, you know, yes, we're dealing with a societal issue here and dealing with people looking at their phones, people drinking, people speeding, but you know, concrete is the tools available to us um so if um i know this this this i'm i'm curious to know in terms of directionality if if the city considered closing one of the left turn pockets which could accomplish more overall for the safety of this intersection would you have a if I may would you have a pedestrian refuge only on one of the two crosswalk legs then if you closed only one of the left turn pockets per perhaps I I know I'm asking this as a non-expert but I'm hearing thoughts yeah we haven't we haven't looked at the the the the traffic counts data uh we were looking predominantly at the the Walnut Street movement we do have the traffic count data but I don't I don't have it um immediately in front of me to look at what the uh the the the opposite directions are okay um and I will if if I may for some of the other commissioners I'm and I'm curious to your thoughts I'd like to consider making a motion that would endorse the overall approach here but would maybe give staff some some direction to do some research on into options here because I think we've raised some uh questions that could be addressed by making with the solution but making it bigger um and maybe that does mean opening the question of removing a left turn pocket but it sounds like there's there would be questions that would need to be answered in advance to even address whether that's relevant.

Correct including reaching out to fire department for their uh emergency response as well as understood understood so yeah and just just for everyone that's on the commission um yes we could given that this will become a voting item yes we can vote to endorse and yes we can amend that endorsement to include conditions that can go to council that can go to however we want to do that so just just for clarity on that um commissioner abrams Dare Abrams any other questions comments no I I shared my thoughts well thanks George uh other commissioners I have a couple brief ones um sorry Scott so it's funny I I understand the pedestrian refuge approach and why that was an item of discussion I also kind of have the opposite concern because we've put this island in the middle of the road it's gonna have a bunch of things on it and I kind of look at that and I'm like are we creating people that just want to skip diagonally across a pretty busy intersection in an unconventional way because now they have a place that they can sort of I'm a kid I'm busy I want to get I want to get across this thing fast I'm just gonna go right through the middle like we're in Japan.

And so like is there some concern about that?

Because it seems like this sort of creates a place that would invite people to step in the middle so that they can just go diagonal like has that been thought of as a concern.

Frankly no it uh second comment um I actually wanted to I'm gonna echo what's been said here multiple times this was a great report like the stats were interesting all the questions that came up when I read it were immediately answered by a table it for the members of the public you should totally read the executive summary which is publicly available it like the background is good the discussion is good the alternatives are good the the fiscally all the stuff you want in a in a city report about what are we thinking about doing and all the stats that support that genuinely impressed just wanted to put that out there so but that I think that's important also talk about the other thing that was good about this um the city said the thing that they did didn't work and they provided stats and I think that's a super valuable thing because when something doesn't work, it's good to try something else after you collect a certain amount of data.

But it's also like that's good for transparency.

It's just good for like we looked at a thing.

We tried a thing, we thought it was gonna work, we collected data, we clearly see it didn't work, and we're gonna try again.

And honestly, if this doesn't work, we're gonna try again because it's a bad intersection, we got to do something about it.

So I just I think that's that's good governance and good city work.

That's what I'm trying to get at.

Um yeah, I don't have I guess again, I think this is gonna create a situation where some bad drivers are straight up gonna come from walnut and they're gonna skip around this island, they're gonna treat it like a roundabout, and that's actually gonna cause some accidents because it actually becomes less predictable that someone is gonna cross in front of you because they're gonna skip around, you're gonna see that person driving that way, and then they're gonna cut back because they're annoyed, and you're not gonna see them coming, and there's very little time between them seeming to go that way, but they're cutting around illegally.

I think we should look at that.

I don't have a way to solve it, but I think that that is going to happen occasionally, and we should think about how to reduce that possibility as much as possible.

I generally endorse the idea of this.

Um if I had a better idea, I would say it.

I just get a little bit more.

Commissioner Galine, you look excited.

Tell me, please go ahead.

Well, I have a thought on that topic.

And I was which I was sort of thinking about anyway, because we've talked about the fact that speed is an issue here, particularly on Lincoln, and one way to pre reduce speed is to make the road feel narrower, and a way to make the road feel narrower would be to potentially put divider posts between the lanes close to the intersection.

And if you put them between um the left turn pocket and the and the through traffic lane, and you could even put one, I think perhaps without causing a um accessibility issue on the crosswalk.

You might put them outside the crosswalk, you put a to the outside, you put them to the outside of the side, the diverters in the middle.

But you might even put one in the we might be able to fit one in the crosswalk and not cause a uh accessibility issue.

Maybe, I don't know.

But regardless, is that a possible is that something we could consider to address the concerns that have been raised?

Yes, um, we've talked internally.

Uh, we we often just refer to it as centerline hardening.

Um, and so you know, on central, if you've been on central and and uh Webster, that's a pretty extreme case of centerline hardening, some vertical elements and and very severe.

Um we do need to be mindful that uh to allow a uh fire truck to turn left, they need to be able to go over that.

They their trucks are too big that they can't stay in that narrow spot.

Um, but we can add uh vertical elements there that would further discourage cars from doing that loop around maneuver.

Um, you know, it doesn't preclude the fact that we have a 10 foot wide sidewalk and most cars are gonna be about seven feet wide that they could just drive in the crosswalk.

That's kind of hard to preclude.

Um, there's not a lot of ways around that, but but yeah, that is something we can consider.

Or should I are considering and we'll be looking at in detail, so Chair White C.

Uh Scott, I think we might have David Parisi available online if he could add insights if you would like.

Sure, hi, hi everybody.

Um not sure if you can hear me.

We can.

I've been I've been here the whole time and uh trying to figure out how to how to put my hand up as a panelist.

But I do have a few follow-up thoughts.

Um the proposed diverter island that Scott has presented tonight.

It is a tool, and the access management toolbox is pretty is pretty common.

Um it's been designed many places throughout the US, and it's often referred to under the category of reduced conflict intersection.

And I'll add a couple other points, uh, besides the K-71 posts, the short ones that Scott also alluded to, the curbs of the island would likely be painted yellow.

Um, and there could be reflectors on those as well to really uh increase visibility.

A question was asked about how the treatment could also benefit pedestrians.

Uh, well, certainly if left turns are not allowed, uh that potential conflict would certainly be reduced uh across the crosswalk.

And of course, if broadsides are also uh eliminated, um any pedestrians that may be nearby uh would be um less susceptible right to a crash.

I think that one of the commissioners brought this up uh just a moment ago.

A question was asked about extending the islands to help uh better prevent drivers from on one from sneaking around.

I think uh that's what I understood.

Again, hardening or putting some devices up uh in a by the left trend lane could certainly be uh a looked at as well.

And then um I think that's that covers the points I've been been thinking about tonight.

Great.

Thank you for jumping in.

Actually, what while we have David here, do any commissioners have follow-ups?

Any other additional comments?

Thank you, David, appreciate that.

Thank you.

Thank you for jumping in.

Uh any other questions or comments generally?

Commissioner Doctor, Alicia.

I just want to be clear on what we'd be voting on.

That's what I want to understand.

I mean, if we're voting on it being a general concept that we're okay with and it needs improvement, that's one thing, right?

But so yeah, so we so we could do this lots of different ways.

We can so as written, it would be something like move to endorse the proposed quick build improvements to the Lincoln Walnut intersection to Lincoln Walnut intersection, and then a condition.

If you want to add a condition to that data to be provided with additional hardening of to be examined, etc.

etc.

That that would so I'm gonna read that again, just or and again, we can do what we want with this, but it would be something like move to endorse proposed quick build improvements to the Lincoln walnut intersection, perhaps a condition, and then we would vote that that is what we would be voting on.

And potentially even the condition could be considering the concerns raised tonight, we we can do that.

I my opinion is it's generally better in this kind of it's better in a motion to be very specific about like general condition, like general concerns are they're gonna have to go back and watch the entire video and then you know good luck.

But it's like so what are if there's a specific concern that we want them to address when this goes to council, we should attempt to get it into the language here as the thing we're approving because there's lots of concerns, some of which we actually don't agree with, and there are some that we do, so we should we should be precise about what we're voting on, I think.

Are there con there conditions we want to add to this?

Or just move not to endorse it.

We can do that too.

Um, and uh the data collector be presented to us in terms of how it is performing after three months or six months.

I'm just thinking I'm thinking aloud and also proposing.

Yeah, no, that's great.

I that came up actually as when we were talking about pilots and the time frame of this idea.

I would ask for staff guidance on this.

What is a good, what's a good, we want to we want to see this again.

We want to know what the data looks like.

Is three months too short, feels short, is a year too long, feels about right, is two years way too long.

Like give give us in your mind what a number would be if we want to see did this work.

There's two separate data points you could look at.

One would be traffic diversion.

We would understand that within about three months.

The traffic would kind of re resettle into a pattern and follow that pattern.

If you're really trying to get at, are we making a significant improvement as it relates to collisions?

Um the true answer is you need a fairly long time period, at least a year, right?

And I think a year I would I would ask for at least a year before we come back to it to say have we, you know, have there been any collisions as as Mr.

Nyland was saying, he he um had uh record of seven this last year.

You know, statistically, this is something that point that another uh caller made was you know you gotta be very careful about statistics between one year very short data points.

But um to answer your question, if you're really looking at the traffic diversion, we could have that information within three months.

If you're looking at the reduction collisions, I would say we need at least a year to come back and and that's that.

So it's a bit of a question to the transportation commission, what what kind of data would you like to see?

What's what's most important here?

That's good.

So how do you feel about that?

I mean, so one way you could do this is we could just so three months from now we could bring this back as traffic diversion data, and then we're gonna have that discussion here when that data comes back.

Then if we decide after that data is available, we could say, well, nine months from now to meet the guidance of did this actually avoid accidents, that would be that could be an additional motion making three months after we have that initial data.

Does that sort of get your concerns?

Does that get does that get us to a yes, I guess, as an endorsement?

I think the three months for traffic diversion is um reasonable.

And also, because only in the last three months we saw a lot of uh collisions, I mean the broad side, right?

So we can do a comparison, same the next three months of click.

How is the behavior, right?

You know, driver behavior.

I I think you have the you have the videos, you know, it's like the cameras are on.

Uh, we have our uh neighbors over there, right?

So they go back in three months.

So there you go.

So, I mean, if anybody is really, you know, circumventing the whole thing and then going in the wrong direction, and then worse uh broadside um accident.

So that's that's my thinking.

Okay.

So that's fine.

We can look at traffic diversion rates and see if there's an accident rate and then decide if we if three months is sufficient data to feel good about it or if it's changed, may not, but that's fine.

We can look at it.

Does anyone else have anything that I'm trying to wordsmith this here?

Does anyone else have something they want to add without?

We want to we don't want to write a book.

We want to write a this discrete thing here.

So go ahead.

I was going to propose that we endorse the um proposal with the condition, the specific condition that um staff consider um laying hardening or whatever words we want to use to um take into consideration our concerns around um traffic going around the the diverter.

So, or something like that.

Go ahead.

Commissioner Nochtgall.

And I just I feel like that's one of the concerns that was raised, but there were other concerns that were raised, and maybe we won't get to include all of them.

And so, that's why I was going for the concerns, the general concerns that were raised, because there was improved signage, there was making sure there was visibility, right?

There's the safety-related concerns that can't be impacted by this change.

I I guess where I get sorry, I'm not trying to be difficult, I'm just trying to get us to a discrete statement.

I I get a little worried that when we say we're endorsing this, but also we have a we have a 55 minutes of concerns, which is the opposite of an endorsement.

And so I think that we kind of fundamentally need to be like, we endorse this, direct city staff to look at additional options to reduce blank or increase blank and come back with data in three months.

That's those are three discrete statements, but like the thing in the middle, like what's the thing we're asking for?

And if the thing is all the concerns we just talked about, then we actually should not endorse this because we don't feel comfortable with this as proposed.

Commissioner Day.

Sorry, Drew.

Go ahead.

Um I I'm just to reiterate, I I agree with the I think we can endorse this plan in terms of it uh removing some auto um movements through the intersection based on what we've been presented with.

Um I agree with the way um sorry, I were on first names tonight.

Commissioner Saravana uh requesting this as an opportunity to come back with um uh comparison data because you know we've been presented with a good amount tonight, and um I I leave it at your discretion to pick the time frame.

Um I think Commissioner Going really, sorry, Commissioner Jamie put on uh the um a finger on I think calling out um center line hardening um and some vertical elements.

Um and I'd I'd like to propose for consideration asking staff and consultants to evaluate before they take to council whether um considering uh the left turns off of Winken, if that would open up additional design possibilities.

Um, for their consideration for and review before they take this to council, because um it seems like again, this needs to be a quick targeted project at the same time if this is gonna take the full cycle of going up to council.

Um, I would like to propose that as a way for staff and consultants to internally um consider some options and at their discretion uh bring bring something to council based on that.

So you want additional you sorry, you want additional options to be examined that provide give me a word that provide hardening of what Bill I heard return with return with, return with data as specified.

Include center line hardening, and um staff consultant team evaluate options that include uh one or two left turn pocket removals and um at their discretion bring designs to council um based on based on that evaluation.

My opinion to be continually difficult, I'm sorry, is that is asking for six things that is asking for additional hard hard line, sorry, additional hardening of the center line, traffic diversion rate data, traffic accident data in three months, examine if we're getting rid of left turns or not, and provide additional options, and that is not necessarily an endorsement, that's a list.

And I I I can so I guess what I would propose is something a little simpler, like we we all agree this is a pilot.

I think that's the first thing that like we need to get to.

And so if a pilot is just come back with traffic diversion and accident rate in three months, provide additional options for center line hardening, then the city council has a much more discrete project that we actually looked at, the thing we did, and it's not saying that oh, and also come up with different ways that we might get rid of left turns because then we didn't do our jobs of looking at it first.

That's our job.

And then we should decide if we agree with getting rid of left turns or not, and then it should come back to us before we send it on.

That's that's our commission job.

This is what I have.

Endorse the recommendation including improved safety measures, and bring back the data after three months with the comprehensive performance uh data on comprehensive performance of the diota or imp.

What are what are improved safety measures?

Oh, this is what you said.

So I didn't want to say that.

So no, I'm not being general.

I'm just saying, you know, they heard there can be list of um safety measures.

So the sorry, the the proposal as written and as essentially presented to us is left-hand turns with a center diverter that is doing certain things, and we can ask for specific alterations to that.

But if again, if the alt I I'm sorry to disagree with you, if the alteration is also get rid of left turns, potentially, but we don't see it first, that is our role.

So I actually more agree with you than that, to be perfectly honest.

I also think we should just ask for a specific discrete thing to be added so that the department has a has a thing to look at, not safety measures.

Okay, what can be the safety measure?

I think I I I heard consistent signage um better signage is what one thing I heard.

And then um, do you want to add the center line hardening?

How about try sorry, move to endorse propose quick build improvements in the Lincoln Walnut intersection with with data on traffic diversion rates and accidents to be returned to the Transportation Commission in three months and providing additional options for center line hardening period?

That is a very simple discrete doesn't it it leaves out the other things.

I agree with that, but it's also we haven't looked at those things.

We haven't we should either not endorse it, bring it back next meeting, we have another meeting.

I may just a basic thing I might be.

Commissioner Blind.

I was going to say I think staff probably has heard all the things that we have said and proposed and we'll take those into consideration before they go to council, regardless of what we write in here.

Ooh, I actually disagree with that.

I think our I think our actual job here is a sorry.

I think our actual job as a commission is not to provide to not provide nebulous guidance and have a discussion that then is not specifically codified in something we approve.

Our job here is to approve something or not, or to reject approval.

Endorse, thank you.

Endorse something or not endorse with discrete conditions that are then carried forward.

And we should give them specific things to work on, period, and not say take this conversation, review it, come up with the 50 bullet points we just discussed here and work on them in a way that fits back together.

I just I just I don't agree with that approach because it it's our job is to give them a discrete approach.

I'm sorry I'm being difficult tonight.

I just I feel that we should that is part of our job.

I will say as a commission, we probably shouldn't get in the way of ourselves too much, right?

So if in general we agree that we want to endorse it, even if we only said we endorse it and want to see data later, and react to that data later, that moves it forward so that we can hopefully see what the success rate is and see some benefit.

And if that benefit isn't realized, then react to it then.

I think that's very well said.

So things like center line hardening and all the other options we talked about, that is something where I agree with you.

That is something where if the data indicates this is continuing to not work based on the initial data, then this uh commission should come back and say, Well, what else can we do?

Center line hardening, killing left turns, etc.

That's very well said in my mind.

So how about this?

So let's simplify this down to the move to endorse proposed quick building improvements to the link and walnut intersection with data on traffic diversion rates and accidents to be returned to the Transportation Commission in three months, period.

Three months after completion of the project, Lisa, you're telling us we're wrong.

Tell us why.

I um I just wanted to make sure you that three months is the you want to give such a detailed time frame and that's so short.

You know, collisions, like like Scott said, you need more time to see uh trend in collisions.

I agree, but I also think that Commissioner Susan Theorie's point is that if we suddenly see in three months a we how about this, we would not want you to withhold accident data, and so I think we're directing to see accident data, and if the answer is zero, which it probably will be given the shortness of the time frame, then great.

But if suddenly in that three months, which we're looking at diversion rate anyway, that should be part of the reporting that we see.

I just want to add, like in terms of as staff and what we are able to do with the direction that we receive from you, I think you know, if you were to choose to endorse this the staff recommendation plus a few stipulations or things you want us to explore, I think that's fine.

Um we can work with that, it's still useful to us.

It's not kind of an all or nothing thing.

Um, is the laundry list good?

Is that where we're asking for?

What's that?

Is the laundry list good?

Do you want us to take the bullet point?

I don't think you need to go to into every detail, but something like you know, address I don't want to put words.

Yeah, no, I think.

I have heard ideas around the table that I thought were workable that we could work with.

I think returning with three months after three months of data, I'm not sure how useful that is from what I understand of of collision data.

But would the three months of data at least address the um the traffic patterns?

It would at least tell us if people were driving around the diverter and continuing straight up walnut, I think.

That's what I meant.

So performance, so yeah.

And if they and if they were not, and if they weren't driving around it, then the centline harding becomes less important.

For that issue at least.

Can we ask the question?

Please.

Okay.

So how many months did we give for gibbons?

For gibbons, we were gonna do um, what did we say, six months?

Six months pilot period.

That's fine.

Again, I I'm just going off of what the initial the initial suggestion was, eh, three months you might start to see something.

If the I don't I don't actually care what the number is.

If we're comfortable with six months, great.

I'm just trying to get to a an agreement.

Fine.

Okay.

Move to endorse the proposed.

So I'm gonna make a motion.

The motion is to move to endorse the proposed quick build improvements to the Lincoln Walnut intersection with data on traffic diversion rates to be returned to the Transportation Commission in six months.

A second.

Is it traffic diversion and collision rates?

Traffic diversion.

I'm gonna I'm gonna read so again, some of the reporting has been from staff.

That's probably too short to actually see an accident issue.

Do you again this is part of part of your motion?

Do you want accident rates in there as well or just diversion rates?

Both?

Okay.

I'm going to revise my own motion to say move to endorse proposed quick build improvements to the Lincoln Walnut intersection with data on traffic diversion rates and accidents to be returned to the Transportation Commission in six months.

Do I have a second for that motion?

Could I make a friendly amendment?

You could try, sure.

Um, I think Lisa are staff do um review accident reports on an annual basis.

Is that correct?

I'm just thinking, could that?

Yes, with our vision zero annual performance metrics, we do.

In January.

Could this be just a little easier on staff's burden if that number were increased to 12 months?

You want traffic diversion rates in 12 months also, or are you?

I don't I'm just looking for I'm all I want to propose is a number that might make us a little more efficient for the nine months.

Whatever hit fits your annual number.

Sorry, that's a great question.

How easy is it for us to actually get traffic specifically traffic diversion rates in three or six months?

How much work is that?

Very fair question, fair point.

Yeah, and I was gonna point out that um three months or six months.

Either one is fine.

I think six months, well, I'll come to that in a second.

Getting the traffic diversion rate is a matter of going out and collecting traffic counts.

Our biggest issue when we collect traffic counts is you want to do while school's in session.

That's so we have a couple months in summertime.

If our three months is exactly in July, it's a little bit awkward or August.

Um we can work around that.

We'll let you know, keep you informed.

Um, but it's easy to get the the traffic counts to kind of do an estimate on the diversion.

The trap the collision data, again, it's one of those things statistically, you don't know.

Uh we have three very tight window here, we might go three months or four months with not a single action in this current configuration.

There's just natural variability.

We can bring back the collision data that is available at the time that we come back, whether that's three months or six months.

I would recommend six months because there'll be a little longer window period to collect that collision data.

Now, is it gonna be statistically significant?

No, not necessarily, but it'll provide some indication.

Um Commissioner Gloin was talking about, you know, people going around.

I will say, quite frankly, I'll I'll be speaking to the neighbors afterwards that you know we will be asking them.

They you know, they they are gonna be the ones that are gonna be letting us know um how this is going.

We don't we don't have a mechanism necessarily to count that.

We don't have cameras hit up the section intersection to look at that to monitor that on a regular basis.

Um but that is very important information to to understand how successful this diverter island is going.

So we'd be looking to, you know, the sources we have, frankly, it's gonna be the the neighbors to help us out, that kind of thing.

Helpful.

Okay, scratch that.

I heard Scott say six months.

I see the engineer say six months.

So I'm gonna so friendly amendment to the amended motion that's amended.

Move to endorse proposed quick build improvements to the Lincoln Walnut intersection with data on traffic diversion rates and accidents to be returned to the transportation commission in six months after completion of the project.

Fair?

As as originally made.

Yeah.

Do I have a second for that?

A second.

All in favor of the motion as written, which I will read one more time to avoid any confusion.

Move to endorse proposed quick build improvements to the Lincoln Walnut intersection with data on traffic diversion rates and accidents to be returned to this transportation commission in six months after completion of project.

All in favor of the motion, please say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Motion carries unanimously.

That was okay.

Thank you for your patience.

We appreciate it.

We always agree, but we're trying to be thorough.

All right.

Let's move on.

Let's move on to commission communications.

Item number seven.

Any commission communication.

Oh, sorry.

Someone go rescue him.

Who I am sure he's like, what is happening out there?

Because it's been a while, poor guy.

But he's hungry.

Someone get him a granola bar.

Where is Scott?

He says Scott is going to come back.

What's that?

Scott.

Is he going to come back?

Welcome back.

Commissioner Kim, sorry, missed dinner.

That was our fault.

We had a robust discussion.

I can tell.

Let's move on to uh our last couple items.

Item number seven, commission communications.

Any commission communications?

I have a comment.

Please, go ahead.

Oh, sorry.

Go ahead first.

Vice chairs isn't there, please.

So um, you know, this is about the signal functioning on high street, high and uh front side.

If you come off of high from 880 high street, and then try take left, we have to wait, and it doesn't turn on.

The left left arrow doesn't come on after ten o'clock at night.

And uh this has happened several times with my friends, with my family.

I mean, actually a couple of times my family experienced it, and then they came.

So they just started driving at the after two cycles, waiting for two cycles for the left arrow to turn on, it didn't.

So then they started going in high street and then took the Otis.

That's how it was.

I missed the intersection.

What was the high street and way?

High end front sight.

And for instance.

So just coming come off of the bridge to into Isle, I mean Alameda, and then want to go left on front site, it just doesn't turn on at night.

Late night.

May I ask if you've submitted this on C click fix under signals, traffic signals?

There was oh, so I asked them.

Okay, did you take a picture or something?

Sure.

So that's no.

The team that manages signals will receive that on C click fix, but I can also get it forwarded.

Okay.

Thank you.

Any other transportation relation related comments?

Commissioner Abrams.

I came with a couple visuals.

I'll try to keep this short because we've been going on long.

Okay.

So I wanted to share this as a as an example for the commission and um and listeners about well, kind of an application of the topics we discuss here.

Um, so at Otis Elementary School, that's where my kids happen to go.

It's on the east end.

The good news is that the majority of students arrive by walking, biking, scootering, and so on.

Um, and on the next side, I've got the challenging news.

The challenging news is that for the next two school years, all of the Otis students will be going to um AUSD's temporary campus.

It's um the former lum site.

Um it's about um six hundred something students in total.

Um this is just under two miles distance, and it's a kind of that's a really interesting distance.

Um, just like you know how the majority of trips in Alameda are under four miles.

This is the kind of distance that under the right conditions, it's walkable or bikeable.

I mean, it's also not constant.

This is the map of the different um elementary school zones for so for a handful, it's actually gonna be a uh shorter trip to the temporary campus, but for a lot of families, it's now going to um turn from something where they walked with their kid or they sent their kid by themselves, um, to a bit more of a trek.

So on the next slide, um I've got this is we all know this, we already saw this slide already.

The direct route is a high injury corridor.

Um, the direct route also is partially owned by Caltrans, and they have you know told us that they're aiming to fix that and make it better.

Um 2032, so all the current Otis elementary students will be in middle or high school.

Um, but this this is the um so that's the reality with a direct route.

That may be the route that parents who choose to drive use.

So one more slide, and I've got um this is gonna be an interesting test of the city's all ages and abilities network that we keep on talking about in different ways.

Um it is it's incomplete, um, there's still work to do.

Um but I wanted to just bring this, share some visuals because I think this is a um, and this is not, you know, a lot of folks and organizations are working together on this, the school district, um, the city, the county safe routes to schools, AC Transit, working on solutions, but I just want to offer this as sort of an example of like what is a resilient transportation network in Alameda.

Because when we see the headline resilient transportation network, sometimes it's you know billions of dollars to build big things, but like can Alameda's transportation network adapt to a school of 650 students moving just two miles, only two miles, but if that means that all those parents are instead driving their kids, that upends a lot.

Um, but but there's a real possibility that if as the city builds out uh the neighborhood greenways uh makes targeted improvements, it's not going to solve the next move for everyone, but just gradually make it more possible and make it more possible for every other kind of situation where people of different ages find their job moves or they're they move apartments, and they're just less dependent on the exact place they live and the exact destination.

So thank you for letting me share some visuals.

Um I think this is gonna be an interesting challenge for Otis families, and um I think it will this I know city staff, county staff, AC Transit are all working with the district to figure out what can be um done here.

So, uh thank you.

Can I actually actually ask a question about that?

So is part of our job, or do you feel part of our job, given that this is incomplete, it's a temporary state, but it's also like a time critical state, is part of our job here in your mind to move parts of that project forward to fill this gap between now and when the plan as planned is complete.

Like what do you what what would you want out of the commission in an ideal scenario?

Oh, I am we do is really what I'm asking.

Um I think I mean Lisa can speak more broadly to just this this call, this is being supported by a number of different different avenues already.

Um I mainly want to bring this as an example of how all of those links that we talk about and we look at on the neighborhood greenways maps, and when we hear the 2030 plus definition, that you know, realistically, like changes aren't gonna be made for next school year that aren't already in the pipeline.

Um, maybe I don't know what could possibly be cued up for the following school year, but this is gonna keep on happening.

Um, you know, the district is in a good place to do these types of renovations.

I'm not sure what future plans are.

Um, and we also know that like the district does close school sites, um and kids have to shift, you know, Bay Farm Middle School is being phased out.

So anyway, I bring this more as just an example of why a full network with as much connectivity as possible really benefits residents.

Thank you.

And the only reason I bring that up in part is um we're a newish commission as a group.

Um, I just as a reminder, if we see any item that we feel needs to be worked through in this commission or is helpful, like we are not, this is this is both a city staff generated agenda, but it is also a commission generated agenda, and if we think there are things that we should be doing or should have oversight over, that we are not currently doing that improves the city.

So just want to like highlight that that is part of like our jobs here.

If we see things that gaps that need to be filled, we are all at some fundamental level obligated to put them on the agenda so we can work through them.

I actually wanted to make a comment about the agenda itself.

Um I think this new way of approaching meetings is actually working.

I realize it's a little late now because we got going a bit, but we um historically have had meetings a little less frequently, but we ended up with some monster agendas that went long, we got tired, it was hard to work through them at the end.

I actually think that these more frequent meetings with shorter agendas has been, it's a short study so far, but has been much better because we can get through, we can get into details as needed, and then we come back next month and we do more of that.

But I just I just want to highlight, I think that's a good improvement for how we've done things so far this year.

That was the suggestion of city staff that we have the more frequently so far endorse.

Any other comments?

I didn't think I had one, but I do have a little comment uh as it relates to Commissioner Dara Abrams.

Um, in fact, this is why year after year after year, I have come and said, so where are we with the Cross Alameda Trail?

When is the Cross Alameda Trail going to be completed?

And this is very exciting.

And what it does is it helps to make those the strong backbones, those strong connectors so that there isn't this fragmented system.

So that is supposed to be a big key piece of this system, and so that's one of them.

And thankfully, the the South Shore is one of the key pieces that the students will have access to.

But that said, ensuring that those those broken links, if you will, those fragmented areas connect is very important.

Very well said.

Any other commission comments?

I got one more, sorry, then we're going home.

Uh, I want to thank my wife for picking me up at the airport on short notice when I took the earlier flight, because I wasn't sure we were going to have quorum.

She got me dinner, she brought my paper copy of the agenda, which I hadn't seen yet because I've been out of state for two weeks.

She got me to this meeting.

Um, she's great, and I would like the minutes to reflect that.

So thank you, everyone.

Uh with that, I would like to move.

You Hillary.

Thank you, Hillary.

Who I hope is not watching and is doing something more fun.

Um, with that, I'm gonna move to adjourn this meeting.

All in favor of adjourning, please say I.

Okay, I want thank you.