Good evening, and welcome to the City of Alameda Transportation Commission meeting for Wednesday, February twenty-fifth, twenty twenty-six.

We will begin with roll call.

Commissioner Kim.

Present.

Commissioner Gloin.

Present.

Chair White Sea.

Here.

Vice Chair Suth and Fira is absent, and Commissioner Johnson is absent.

Commissioner Dara Abrams.

Here.

Commissioner Noctigall.

Here.

Seeing that we have a quorum, we will move on to the second item.

Second item is agenda changes.

Any proposed agenda changes from the commissioners.

Seeing none, we'll move on to item number three, staff communications with our own Lisa Foster.

Good evening, Chair White Sea.

I'm and Transportation Commissioners, I'm Lisa Foster, Transportation Planning Manager.

Upcoming public events include a transportation one oh one and clipper cards for seniors event on March sixth and also April third.

She has moved on to another position that she's excited to uh do.

She did that for quite a few years.

And um, just to note with Gail's departure, we're reducing transportation planning staffing.

Uh by the third that was of her time that was dedicated to transportation planning, we're reducing that down.

So um just because that is necessary for our budget.

So the next announcement is that you may have heard we got the we were the City of Alameda was awarded the gold level bicycle friendly community award.

Of the 444 communities receiving awards this year, only 32 are at the gold level and three were at the platinum level.

And we have been working our way up.

We were bronze in 2016 and silver in 2021.

And some of the recent commitments that helped get us here that you all reviewed were the active transportation plan, advancing the cross Alameda Trail to near completion, and launching our Oakland Alameda water shuttle.

And I always like to remind that you know these initiatives, like all bicycle infrastructure projects in Alameda include safety or access improvements for pedestrians as well as bicyclists.

It's in stage one with one southbound lane on Tilden Way closed.

And then the next stages are anticipated to begin in late March pending weather.

And at that point, there will be a low road closure on Fernside Boulevard approaching Tilden Way with a detour in place.

Um expanded weekend hours again, starting early month uh early March, just in time for the Oakland Alameda Access Project to begin construction.

And then this is the expanded service along with continuation of the Tuesday service, is paid for by the Alameda CTC grant for 19 months as part of the to cover the specifically the construction period for that project.

And speaking of that, um Caltrans and Alameda County Transportation Commission announced that the Webster tube construction, it is starting in a matter of days, I think next week.

Um although and that it will be completed in the Webster tube with full closures on weeknights instead of the all-hour single-lane closure that you all reviewed and discussed, which is great news.

Um overnight closures won't start until April though.

And then just to keep it in mind, posy tube construction cannot be done with just nighttime closures.

There will be some period of a continuous single-lane closure, and we will be working with them to try to minimize what that looks like for uh travelers in PoseyTube.

And then SF Bay Ferry has announced a new South San Francisco schedule after their South San Francisco study.

It's pretty good news for South San Francisco riders, so um uh you can check that out on their web page.

And that is all I will break protocol, but I would be remiss if I did not uh highlight Gail Payne moving on.

Um I interviewed with her when I first joined this commission, a lovely person who did amazing work for the city.

So we're sad to lose her, but wish her well.

She she was great.

Uh moving on next to please could go ahead.

You can break protocols while I've already done it.

So I'm a newcomer here, and whenever I've asked questions, oftentimes the answer has been, oh Gail created that project, or even more often, Gail got the funding for that project just to be specific.

Like it's not about money, but that's what makes makes things happen.

Um big big organizations often have like you work at a university, there's a list of like the top 10 revenue getters for the university, and if the city of Alameda had one, I bet Gail would be like way up there.

So I I just want to add on a super concrete, not just a thank you, but just like that is the work that serves the residents and the taxpayers of Alameda and um the residents and taxpayers of Richmond will be very lucky to have those capabilities.

I'm I mean the staff are great, you all are great.

I just want to go on you chair.

Would would anyone else like to continue to break protocol?

Please, Commissioner Noctigall.

I really just want to echo and lift up the comments that both of you have shared because Gail was really uh wonderful asset to the city of Alameda for many years, and so thank you for her great work.

Did any of our other commissioners that did not get a chance to meet Gail Payne want to say anything just to keep it going?

We sure we are sure you appreciate her service.

Don't worry.

Okay, with that, we're gonna move on.

Thank you for your comments, everyone.

Agree with all of them.

Uh to number four, non-agenda public comment, which we sort of just did ourselves.

These are for non-agenda items public comment.

Any non-agenda public comment?

Yes, we have three speakers.

Uh the first is William Morrison.

Good evening.

Uh very quickly, just a couple of things to bring out or work.

I know this is a business meeting for you, and so public comment is somewhat of a nuisance.

And that's why I'm here to be a nuisance.

The the basic thing I'm after more so than anything else is I want you to remember that you are transportation commission oriented.

You're not bicycle, and you're not pedestrian only.

And that's one of the things I've seen as is a difficulty is all the great things that are happening, basically are making the city bike-friendly and also car averse.

To go a little bit further than that, another thing that you're doing is you're taking steps, or at least shall we say um not necessarily making allowances for the fact that we used to have railroad service in this city all the way from Fruitvale to the Naval Air Station.

And one of the little things about that is railroads are something that once they're there, they can stay for a long time.

You take them away, they don't come back.

Uh um economist, one of the things we look at in in things associated with location analysis was the various modes of transportation that a various site had.

Eliminating the possibility of rail would have a let's say a negative effect.

Uh I bring this up because there is efforts at the Tilden Way area to actually eliminate any rail in that actual project area.

Leaving even a small portion so that it could be connected to if somebody had the bucks and wanted to would be very worthwhile.

Taking it all the way, all the way, you have to go back and repermit.

And I think everybody here knows what what that means.

So basically, I just would like for you to remember that in your considerations.

I bicycle a lot, always have.

When I came here, I only had one car.

I used public transit, and then when the bicycle was faster than the bus, I took it.

All right.

So I've been around and I've done that for a long period of time.

But guess what?

I like my automobile as well.

I got a nice Lexus, and I'd like that.

I like to drive it.

So that's kind of where that is.

Other than that, the same thing is I do miss the fact that we might be how we just say preventing ourselves from maybe getting into something with BART if we get rid of our rail lake into the area.

So just leave that with you at this point in time.

And like I said, I'm here to be a nuisance.

So you'll probably see me again.

Have a good evening.

Not a nuisance at all.

We thank you for your comment.

Next comment, please.

Jim Strelo.

Yeah, a little louder.

Good evening, Commission.

Kind of a little redux from the last meeting uh regarding uh Lincoln Avenue and uh Walnut.

That you folks are the city is reacting to those incidents where a vehicle was crossing along uh walnut and getting broadsided off of Lincoln.

And it and it gets it abounced to that a very small minority of things happening affects the whole island.

Uh everybody's gonna affect is going to be affected by the changes that you recommend and do.

And it's just that sort of trend that I see happening constantly by city staff, by the council, by this commission, by engineers.

Uh, that it seems like a very small number is overly affecting the majority.

And it just seems so unfair.

It almost sounds un-American, uh, that I thought the majority was supposed to be attended to.

And I just hate to see how the the bad actions of a couple of uh, you know, I think they showed two or three of the incidents.

Maybe those people were wrong.

Or maybe that you know the signage is poor, that it needs to say you know, Lincoln doesn't stop.

You know, that uh, you know, there's other ways to mitigate other than you know the heavy-handedness of redesigning that intersection.

Uh the other topic I want to hit briefly is just simply how long it takes for a project to be uh completed uh because when we see uh an earthquake happen and a roadway goes down, that's somehow they're able to get things back up and going in a week to maybe two weeks, and these traffic circles seem to be taking three months, four months, and I wonder sometimes if there is a incentive to draw things out long enough so that the people get paid more that it would be interesting and the annual report or other times that the citizens understand why things take so long when you know if you say, hey, and if we give an incentive to do things faster, you get a bonus or whatever, because to the citizens, time is important.

The amount of time that an intersection is closed and not available is so important to the daily lives of people that you know are incentives needed, or at least justify why things are taking so long, because I look at the intersection at uh Pacific and uh Maine Central, and hardly see anything ever happening, and just wonder what the you know what motivates them to get things done so that it opens faster.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comment, Jim.

Next comment, please.

Christy Cannon.

Evening.

Evening, Commissioners.

I've almost forgotten why I came because I'm so stunned by the news about Gail.

Um I'm a volunteer in transportation issues because of the model of staff for this city that Gail set.

And um I'm struggling to be happy for her.

I you know, by the time I leave, I'll be really happy for her, but I will miss her, and I'm sure the city will miss her, including the staff.

I know how much uh the staff get along and and support each other.

But I really did come just to give you some information.

I live on the West end.

I'm not sure if any of you live on the West End, but there's too much vehicular traffic in the bike lanes.

The bike lanes are just wide enough that even a trash truck can go down.

I've seen an Amazon delivery truck, I've seen a USPS truck driving in the bike lane.

Um, a friend who lives in Bellina Bay reported to me today that she saw a uh fire truck in the bike lane.

And maybe you know, fire trucks are sometimes emergency vehicles, and that may be appropriate.

Um I will say this.

My husband told me as I was leaving for this meeting that he rides in that bike lane all the time.

I'm more of a walker and a bus taker, but he is definitely a very active bicyclist, and he saw a street cleaner that's properly sized for being in the bike lane, and that put a grin on my face.

So I appreciate that a lot.

Uh I'm also kind of stunned by the previous gentleman's mention of rail.

Wow, that's gonna keep my mind spinning around for the rest of the evening.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for your comments.

Any additional speakers?

No further speakers.

I will close out non-agenda public comment and move on to the consent calendar.

First item is 5A to approve the draft minutes of the January 28th, 2026 Transportation Committee Minute Commission meeting.

Are there any revisions?

Perhaps, Commissioners, to the meeting minutes.

Commissioner Noctegall, go ahead.

Thank you, Chair.

I would like to request a revision to the number seven commission communications.

I'd like the item that I that quotes me to reflect that I shared that the Otis school issue and the need for completed low stress a completed low stress bike network is a reason why I continuously ask about the cross-allight trail.

Can you repeat that one more time just for the record?

Okay.

That the Otis school issue and the need for a completed low stress bike network is a reason why she was constantly asking about the cross-alameter trail.

Any objections to the revision?

Any other revisions to the minutes?

Technically, I thank my wife for picking me up at the airport and bringing me dinner, but I will let it go.

It's fine, it's mostly correct in here.

Um seeing that I would move to approve the revised meeting minutes.

Um, all in favor of the approval of voting of approving the revised meeting minutes, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Motion to pass the revised minutes uh is approved unanimously.

Let's move to as I find my agenda.

Thank you.

Let's move to regular agenda items.

They're kind of implied.

Our first regular agenda item is 6A to endorse a voting item to endorse the Transportation 2025 annual report and 2026 work plan.

So again, this is uh it will be a votable item, and we will go to our own Lisa Foster.

Good evening again.

I'm happy to be presenting this report.

Uh our annual report fulfills reporting requirements for council priorities adopted with our transportation plans, including the goals set by these plans, such as eliminating traffic fatalities and severe injuries by 2035, enabling people of all ages and abilities to walk, use mobility devices and bike safely and comfortably, improving uh alternatives to low-ing low occupancy automobiles, and providing for the mobility needs of a full spectrum of Alamedans.

And of course, as you know, in the T in the Transportation Commission bylaws, uh one of the responsibilities of this commission is to review our progress on our plans.

So that is why part of the reason we do these as well.

Um also wanted to mention and clarify that this report represents the work of a lot of different departments, but mostly uh transportation planners in the planning building and transportation department and um engineers in the public works department.

And to reflect this, I'm joined tonight by Scott Wickstrom, City Engineer and Public Works Deputy Director and Susie Hufstadter and um Rochelle Wheeler, um senior transportation planners.

So oh that's not doing what it's supposed to do.

Thank you.

Um tonight we will start with our 2025 accomplishments and then talk about the facts and performance measures from 2025, and then Scott Wickstrom will take over with what to look for this current year, 2026.

But before I want launch into all of that, I wanted to put this work in context.

Um there are reasons why we can't do everything all at once, and um part of that is staffing limitations.

Um with the reduction of the one-third of gale pain, we're looking at a total staff of a little over eight and a half FTE between both transportation planning and public works, and that reflects in part the fact that not every engineer who works on, or in fact, most of the engineers who work on transportation also work on other kinds of items, and it also includes time from like our department heads.

And then, of course, we have limited funding, can't do everything that okay.

Starting with top accomplishments, 2025 was another banner year.

We built 1.5 miles of all ages and abilities bikeways.

We um upgraded curb ramps for disability access at 25 locations.

We improved safety at intersections at 79 locations.

Umakland Alameda water shuttle carried over 125,000 riders, and our free bus pass program serving older adults and people with disabilities who are low income, took over 225,000 rides on AC Transit.

We also constructed our first segment of a neighborhood greenway on Pacific Avenue between Lafayette and Oak.

It includes speed humps, crosswalking walk enhancements, stop signs, bikeway markings, and a neighborhood traffic circle.

Um, and then this year we are working on design and construction for the next slow streets to neighborhood greenway conversions to complete that process, and that is for SAI, San Jose, and the rest of Pacific AV.

We also launched uh citywide mobile parking payment, and um enabling people to pay for parking more conveniently at all paid parking locations citywide.

Um then we also started mid-week paid parking and enhanced security at the Harbor Bay Ferry Terminal last year, which has been going well.

The seaplane lagoon ferry terminal, as you know, started this year in February.

We the city repaired sidewalks at 8,000 locations, over 8,000 locations.

That includes some sawcut trip hazard repairs, but also full sidewalk replacement as needed.

And this year we launched a new program allowing homeowners to partner with public works for repairs, allowing this to happen more easily.

And then wanted to highlight our successful Alameda Bike Festival.

Last year it was at Payden Elementary School.

We do this in conjunction with Alameda County Safe Roots to School program.

It's always fun, always has hundreds of kids, and included bike repair, helmet decoration and giveaways, bike education classes and more.

Okay, sorry.

So on to facts and performance measures from last year.

As a Vision Zero City, no traffic fatality is or severe injury is acceptable.

And we know that they change lives and cause grief to our communities.

Last year we had one person die on our streets.

It was a pedestrian at Ralph Oppazado and Poggy slash Coral C and struck by a driver, and then we had eight people who suffered severe injuries.

This graph here shows rolling five-year averages so that you can see trends by mode.

Because if we didn't do the rolling five year averages, it's just all over the place because these numbers are fairly low.

But you can see that you know, since 2009, our trend line for pedestrians has been generally heading the right direction.

And I will say that trend line being flat during the pandemic is very counter trend nationwide.

Um, so we can feel good about that.

Uh we see motorcyclists doing well and bicyclists, it was going well for a while, but it has increased recently.

Um there might be any number of explanations for that that we can discuss during this discussion time if you're interested.

And then in a motor vehicle has been going up.

I will say I have not crunched all the numbers to do this, but I continue by reading these crash reports.

Think I am seeing a greater number of um reckless driving incidents that cause severe injury or death to people in motor vehicles.

Um City of Alameda continues to have a lower rate of traffic fatalities and severe injuries than Alameda County and then the and then the or the state.

And we did, you know, since 2015 it was trending down, it went up with the pandemic, which matches trends nationwide.

You can also see California and Alameda, and then it has been going down again, which we're also nationwide seeing some improvements there just in the last year, which is good.

Here are where we've had fatal and severe injuries since we adopted Vision Zero Action Plan at the very end of 2021.

I will say the high injury corridor maps that have been guiding our work have been pretty predictive.

A lot of these have taken place on high entry corridors according to that.

Although when we do know our our next high injury corridor maps, I would expect to see Broadway on it, which it's not on it right now, and perhaps Central.

Severe injury collisions on shoreline.

We're solo intoxicated drivers.

So we'll be pending funding availability.

We plan to do a Vision Zero Action Plan technical update toward the end of this year, beginning of next year, and we'll be doing an in-depth uh analysis of our crash data.

The police department increased their moving violation citations and warnings by uh 72% last year compared to the year prior and the year prior to that.

Uh so they they really were prioritizing traffic enforcement, and they did that by using patrol officers when possible.

They still are a little low on the motorcycle officers that are specifically trained and focused on this, but they really made it a priority last year, and they continue to be doing most of these on high entry corridors where the danger is highest.

We also report out on our street safety concern reports.

And these are self-reported data that people submit to us via C Click Fix.

Uh getting about 400 a year seems to be about our standard.

So we get quite a few.

And staff do use these reports when we're planning and design and doing design for projects.

And then we also we have a Vision Zero implementation team, which is an internal staff group, and we review clusters of these reports each month.

Bus ridership, we are waiting on data.

So we can uh send that to you guys when that's available.

We're hoping that we will have it for the version that gets published for the city council.

Um look for that.

And then importantly, last year, AC Transit's realign service changes went into effect in August in coordination with some bus stop changes by the city.

Ferry ridership grew 18% in 2025 compared to 2024 to 732 boardings in 2025.

In 2025.

And then system wide SF Bay Ferry is at almost 90% recovery to 2019 levels.

And now I'm going to pass to Rochelle Wheeler to discuss our active transportation plan performance measures.

Thanks, Lisa, and good evening, Chair Whitsey and Commissioners.

I'm Rochelle Wheeler, Senior Transportation Planner.

And part of this annual report includes our active transportation plan performance measures report.

This is our third year doing this.

It's at the very end of the report document that you got after the Vision Zero report.

And just I'll highlight a few of the things that are in that report.

We look at different areas that align.

We developed different performance measures that align with our goals in that plan.

And so for equity, we look at what we're doing in equity areas.

And this past year, we found that 11% of the intersections where those safety improvements were made were in equity priority areas.

None of the bikeway corridors were this year.

We do expect that to be changing in future years.

And 31% of the events were in those areas.

A total of 2.1 miles of new bikeways were constructed in 2025.

So that brings us to 600, sorry, not six.

That would be nice.

61.3 miles.

And almost 50%, we're getting closer, 41% of those are low stress facilities.

And I am happy to report that this is the I don't know that maybe the second or third year that the majority of the new bikeways we're building are low stress at this point.

We also have all of our public schools enrolled, all 18 in the county wide safe routes to schools program.

And along with our partners, we had 13 walking and/or biking events or campaigns last year.

So I'll just review a couple or highlight a couple of the performance measures.

Both of these from the from the report, both of these are under mode shift, the mode shift category.

So for counting bicyclists and pedestrians at count sites, we have three automated bike and ped counters in Alameda.

Two of those are owned and operated by the East Bay Park District, one at Bay Farm Island near the bike bridge, and one at the Crown Memorial Beach.

And then we, the city own and maintain one on the Cross Alameda Trail near Fifth Street.

Unfortunately, due to some functionality issues, we did not have continuous bike and ped data for the whole year.

And so what I was able to extract was January through March, only the bicyclists counted at those counters.

And we did see year over year increases for all three of these locations between five and 14%, with the highest increase percentage increase being on the cross at the cross alameda trail counter.

And you can see that number has gone up every year in the past three years.

And then another way that we're measuring, we're looking at mode share from at multiple different performance measures for this because we don't really have one good performance measure unless we were able to do like a statistically significant survey every single year in Alameda, which we cannot do.

So we look at multiple things, and one of the things we look at is the American Community Survey data.

We take three year averages of how people are getting to work on bike walking and driving alone.

And we set target percentages in the final column there for those.

And we look at three year averages.

Kind of holding steady for bicycle trips and then the drive-alone percentage going down.

Commute trips are not the majority of trips that people make, but this is just another data point for us to look at.

And there's others that are also in the report.

With that, I am going to pass it over to Scott.

Thank you, Rochelle.

Good evening, Chair White C, members of the Transportation Commission, Scott Wickstrom, City Engineer.

What to look for in 2026?

We'll talk about the big projects right off the top.

Obviously, Central Avenue completion.

We are targeting completion sometime this spring.

And for those, I always like to remind that spring actually technically ends in June 20th.

So we're looking April, May ish kind of time frame for that.

Hopefully, for most of that work to be done and wrapped up.

Clement Tilden is underway.

We are going to keep two-way or uh continuous traffic traffic lanes through for the Tilden Avenue approach.

So that should certainly help the people on and off the island.

And we're working with the uh parents and teachers at Edison Elementary to kind of help facilitate appropriate routes for school children to get to work and also kind of managing the detour that works around that area as well.

So repaving uh this year's paving project is uh a lot smaller in size than the 10.6 miles that we did last year in 2025.

Uh we are really focusing on a couple streets, uh, fernside, which has been before this commission before, both as the two-way cycle track, but there's some interim striping improvements that are going to be done on the section between Tilden and High Street, uh, essentially to eliminate the two-way left turn that's there now and go to a single lane each direction with buffered bike lanes.

It's equivalent to what's in place east of high or east southeast of high.

Uh, and then on Fernside, um, you know, uh, we do have a neighborhood greenways project coming up that's uh looking at for instance uh for for sorry for San Jose.

Um we have a neighborhood greenway coming up for San Jose and and the pavement's in poor horrible condition, and we want to get some treatment on that pavement before we invest in our neighborhood greenway.

So that's the other focus on that.

And then there's a few other minor residential streets beyond that.

Oklautta Oakland Alameda Access Project will be a tremendous impact to the city and a long-term benefit, which I always like to add and make sure that's that that that's brought forward.

Uh the impacts in 2026 should be relatively minor.

Uh as uh Ms.

Foster had already mentioned, the big thing is that when the Webster tube work is done, that work will be done at night from I believe we're looking at a time frame from 10 p.m.

to 5 a.m.

Um and that should take about eight months during that time frame.

During during the nighttime and overnight hours, Sunday night through Thursday, traffic will be detoured down Lincoln across the Park Street Bridge and back onto the freeway.

Um the the next big stage uh which would be much more impactful is actually looking to take place in early 2027, early to mid-2027, and that's the single lane closure of the POSI tube.

Uh, we have had good working relationship with both Caltrans and ACTC and looking for ways to how we can one keep all that information communicated, and then also kind of work to minimize the length and duration of those of that of that closure specifically.

Uh, last thing that needs to be done, and maybe I'll have this pulled together before the next uh transportation commission meeting.

Um there are uh six or seven planned 55-hour weekend closures of both tubes.

Um, those are necessary closures because there are superstructure elements uh that need to be dropped down, and there's no safe way to do that with the roadways open.

Uh the contractor has a does have a schedule out there, and we can begin to start um putting them out there about when those closures are going to be occurring.

Um, clearly that timing and schedule is subject to change as they work through progress, but at least you have a little bit of awareness to the public about what these what these impacts may be to the public here.

So lastly on there was a little note.

Uh we do have email lists uh and you can click on them.

There's project-specific web pages for Central.

There's project specific webpage for Clement and Tilden.

And then in a minute or two, we'll get to the OAP specifically.

And there are some there's a project specific webpage for that as well, in which you can receive updates.

Okay.

Jumping to the cross Alameda Trail.

The little red circle that's there at Penzoil, arguably is complete because the two-way cycle track is open, and you could access as a pedestrian the sidewalk on the south side of the road.

The sidewalk on the north side will remain closed.

The contractor is pulling building permits, and they're going to start work going vertical on the buildings immediately north, and that requires that sidewalk to remain closed for safety as they construct those buildings.

And so that's a big gap that's closed.

And obviously, Tilden Clement is in construction right now.

So it's a big piece for us as well.

Repaving and safety improvements, talked a little bit about this for both San Jose and for Fernside.

You know, we will have traffic calming, painted curb extensions, bicycle facilities, particularly improvements on uh on Fernside and also on San Jose.

This here represents a one of the blocks on uh Fernside, where we're gonna basically uh create a pseudo-pedestrian refuge with a paint and post bulb out and kind of a little bit of a diversion to kind of do a little bit of traffic calming in the area as well to both shorten the crossing, give a little bit of protection for pedestrians if they feel they get halfway across and then go through.

So it's an example of some of the types of improvements we're looking to do.

Um bike racks, this is something that's long been on our agenda.

We our staff is built up, we're catching up on some of our later projects, and we're we're looking to knock a few more out.

So we are intending to install 100 racks uh throughout the city, focusing on schools, businesses, other destinations where they're most commonly used and scenes.

So and then Oakland Alameda Access Project, I probably went out of order, should have left all those updates to here, but um on the bottom, uh WW Oakland Alamedaccess Project.com is the website.

Uh, that is Caltrans.

Um, Caltrans, in particularly, they're they get a three-week and a six-week look-ahead schedule from the contractor.

They will filter that, and they are uh will be very clear about trying to get as much information out to the public as they can about when closures are going to start, the duration of closures, um, and and when they may end.

And in particular, those those 55-hour full weekend closures are going to be a big deal when uh will be communicated out to through this channel and and as as many other means as possible.

And this one's even worse than normal.

And and um one of my favorite slides.

Uh, we got lots of things going on in the city here.

Um, and and um I can't hardly read that even myself here.

But I'll point out a couple of big ones here.

The orange are the stuff that's actually in construction right now.

Uh, the big ones that are up there working on the west is uh you've got West Midway, which is on in Alameda Point.

Um that's a developer-funded project.

Um we are working with a developer to continue to advance that project.

Uh you have Central Avenue, which is well under construction, again, hopefully finished by spring this year.

Uh San Jose is also kind of a nice prominent east-west one.

Uh, the north-south one, you have uh Versailles, which is a neighborhood greenway as well, and you have Pacific, which is the third uh neighborhood greenway that we're looking to get done in 2026.

Um to jump a couple of their other notable ones that are on here.

Um, you do at Gene Sweeney Park uh construction and and some fencing has started about those uh the um new access points to the gene sweeney trail from the business park to the north, and then we're also gonna be working on the access points to the south.

Uh Caltrans has awarded their contract for their state Route 61 maintenance project.

Uh, that's the line that goes down Broadway, east on Otis across the bridge and out doolittle.

Um that work, the pre-construction meeting I know happens in early March.

Um so I would anticipate them we get started uh within a month or two after that.

Um always be mindful that that is a large project for them that extends all the way into San Leandro.

Not clear whether they're starting on the east end, the west end when they'll actually be in Alameda.

Uh, through a lot of the work of our transportation planning group, uh, we were able to work with Caltrans to do improvements at uh Mound and Burnside Oversight, yeah, Mound in Versailles, uh, where we're going to base basically be adding in uh uh rapid rectangular flashing beacons at all four crosswalks.

And we'll have crosswalks at all four legs, two at each of those intersections, our RFBs at each of those crosswalks, and we're also gonna have a pedestrian refuge island in the middle so that uh pedestrians as they're crossing that busy street can cross two lanes, get to a safe protected place, then cross another two lanes.

Um, not quite as beneficial, perhaps to say a road diet, but um, it's what we were able to work with Caltrans to get implemented into their shop project in a relatively quick manner and will be a substantive improvement for for the pedestrians in that neighborhood.

Uh, and then we we talked about oh well, so that's the the bulk of the projects there.

The blue are the ones that are in design, um, and those are the ones that are coming.

So way off to the west, um, that is base reuse phase two as we like to refer to it.

Um, you've been out, you know, we're former palladium now, the hub and so five and and almanac, all those road reconstructions that the city did as a capital project.

We are in planning for that second phase, which extends those improvements all the way out to Monarch or Spirits Row or Spirit Alley.

Um, and that's really functionally dependent on the city being able to sell buildings to fund the capital projects to get that done.

Uh a little bit to the east of that, you have Stargil, uh, that is a grant funded project that we are in 35% design right now, looking to get that moving forward.

Um in 27 or 28, we have to look at timing about our conflicts with other projects as well.

The blue is uh link in Marshall Pacific.

We are um at 95% design.

Uh, have to work with our federal partners about our our grant and and what we can actually accomplish with the money they're going to provide with us.

There's an ongoing store, and there'll be updates provided in the future to this commission.

Um, but we're at this point, we're looking at that being a 2028 project, somewhat deliberately.

Um, because what we're also trying to be mindful of is the POSI tube would be closed for much of 2027, and we don't want to be given a double hit to a residence of of Alameda.

So we are somewhat deliberately looking at a 2028 construction start for that project.

Uh the blue line going north south, that's Grand Street phase two.

Um we are at uh 65% design pushing forward to 90, and are able to squeeze in with a lot of effort and work and elevated two-way cycle track on the east side of the road and and and largely make that function.

So uh those are the big highlights of the projects coming forward.

So um it'll be opportunity for questions on any of those projects coming forward.

So transportation links up here on the page, and then lastly, uh staff recommendation endorse the annual plan and report and work plan.

I think all three of us are available for questions.

Any clarifying questions again?

These are just questions of fact about the presentation.

I have a couple, if it's okay.

Uh, I think it would actually serve the commission well to understand how you define an equity priority area.

We haven't talked about that for a while.

Can I add something to that?

Um also if we know how much of the city is uh defined as an equity priority area, like um percentage-wise.

Umes the uh BCDC social vulnerability maps.

Uh we had a um we had somebody do a lot of research for us on various equity priority definitions that are available from different agencies, and you know, even considering doing it ourselves, and found that that one used a broad spectrum of um factors in identifying the areas.

I do not know what percentage is covered.

Any of you have a sense of um I don't know.

I can find out.

Could you talk a little bit more about what those factors are?

We talked about those factors, but specifically what are the factors that define equity priority areas.

I'm gonna start, and then if any of my colleagues can think of others, or we can look them up.

I know they they you know include low-income households, access to vehicles, um, disability status, uh uh no English speaking households with nobody who speaks English.

Um factors like that.

Additional questions on this item.

Uh sorry, please go ahead.

Clarifying questions.

Yes, I think this is a clarifying.

I'll stop you at the time.

Um you mentioned that um in the last couple of few years that both motor vehicle and bicycle accidents have been increasing.

You mentioned that both motor vehicle and bicycle serious accidents have been increasing over the last few years.

And I think you said we're going to do some analysis of that date.

I just wanted to clarify that's what you'd said.

Yes, what I said is pending funding availability.

We are planning and hoping to do uh technical update to the vision zero action plan for the our five-year vision zero action plan update uh late this year or early next year, and that would include a new high entry corridors map, because our existing one relies on 2009 to 2018 data.

So it's it's time to see what's happened since then.

Um and then the scope beyond that and uh depends on what in terms of uh really solid um analysis of our crash data uh kind of depends on on our access to resources uh and we would likely bring to you some kind of spoke scoping discussion for that.

Great.

Thank you.

And one other clarifying question.

You showed some numbers I which I believe were um violations or citations um by APD.

Did you also say that number has gone up since previous years?

I did indeed.

They did uh per our analysis 70 percent more citations and warnings with traffic stops last year in 2025 than the previous year in 2024.

And to my memory, the 2023 number was similar to the 2024 number.

So this was a big jump.

Okay, thank you.

I should ask another clarifying question, perhaps overreading into a picture that was shown.

So it was mentioned that a hundred bicycle racks are going to be installed per the picture.

It looked like they are not the bicycle cages, and I just want to confirm that that's the current plan to have the horseshoes, if you will, but not the cages, correct?

Um yes, I think you're referring to the lockers.

Yes.

Yeah, okay.

The cages for the bikes, the lockers.

There are bike cages, but they're usually they're massive.

Um yeah, uh it would be a hundred um mostly probably single URACs, we call them, which each hold two bikes, so that would be 200 new bike parking spaces.

Yeah, this is purely just a rack installation program.

Yeah.

Thank you.

And just want to confirm one more thing that was said, but I think it's important to repeat.

So the plan to continue the build out of infrastructure to Monarch, as I under, as I understood what you said was planning is going to continue in 2026 for construction to begin in 2027, but there is no way that construction will begin in 2027 without sales of the buildings.

Correct.

That is correct.

So Alameda Point is kind of a self-funded portion of the city where sales of buildings uh get reinvested into the infrastructure.

And so, yeah, we're continuing the plan, the design process.

But yeah, great.

Appreciate it.

I have no more clarifying questions.

Anyone else have clarifying questions?

With that, seeing no more other clarifying questions.

Let's move to public comment specifically.

Oh, except Lisa Foster has one more comment.

Then we'll move to public comment.

Rochelle Wheeler kindly pulled up a little tidbit that answers partially your question.

Great.

When we did the Vision Zero Action Plan, um, 30% of our roadways fell within a equity priority area defined by the BCDC social vulnerability areas.

Um but I will say that that has been updated since then.

And and Alameda did has a somewhat l smaller coverage now.

So is that good, Commissioner Kim?

Good.

Oh, that's great.

Uh seeing no other clarifying questions, let's move on to uh public comments specifically on this agenda item.

Are there any public speakers?

So far we have two in person.

Uh William Morrison.

Hi, William.

Uh once again, the nuisance appears.

So here we are.

Uh went through the the report with a little bit more of a uh attempt to get into various things.

And kind of like a semi-apology, one of the things that I'm not supposed to talk about is in public in the non-agenda comment was something I did talk about, which was the railway, the railway bridge.

I see a comment hidden here on page 20 of the draft report.

Army Corps fruit veil rail bridge hazard removal.

Okay, that's back to what I'm talking about.

I would caution you, and I would also like to shall we say recommend to you that you don't be too, shall we say, accommodating for the U.S.

Army Corps of Engineers.

They have a odd sense of capacity to stiff you right and left.

I've done work with them in the past.

So that's kind of like where we are.

And again, from the viewpoint of just in time or just in case, just in case somebody really wants to develop something that requires rail into Alameda, that bridge is going to be very expensive to replace.

If it's there, it's going to be cheap.

If it's not there, nothing's going to happen.

That's one.

The other little thing is uh Scott.

If I'm correct here, everything that's going to happen on Fernside is paint.

Am I correct?

You're not going to go out there.

So the way that this works with public comment is you just direct it directly to the chair.

Sorry.

Yeah, the basic point is then if it's paint, I'm I have no problem with what is going to be done at Burnside.

If you start constructing again that's spending money that you might want to change later on.

I am of the opinion, which is a little bit different from what is being stated in here, that the fern side uh let's say re-styping, calming safety situation is still a shall we say, a concept in flux.

And so I recommend to the Transportations Commission that you if you if there's something you want to cut, do it there.

Because it's still there, you know.

I have at least 50 people that I can bring in here to talk to you about how they feel about this.

I know you've seen them already once or twice.

So and I'm not trying, it's just a point.

The last time we thought things were still not settled, but not cast in stone.

This looks like it's cast in stone.

So that's the only other comment.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Next next speaker, please.

Next we have Jim Stralo.

Hey Jim.

Good evening.

So if injuries are no longer lower in Alameda than the California statewide numbers, then why is it such a priority in Alameda?

And I also just don't understand uh that you should be eliminating DUI and medical accident, you know, from your statistics because right now you're including.

Oh, well, that included two DUIs.

I don't understand how Vision Zero is ever going to stop a DUI or someone who has a heart attack while driving.

Vision zero should include a year-round education in all representative languages.

Uh safe route to schools is simply you know the not addressing 95% of the rest of the people that need to be educated.

Uh you know, whether or not it's at Massacre Senior Center or at the library or other things, that should be a pretty high number to be included in a budget or in a priority because people are not being educated.

It's the people wearing black at night, uh not carrying flashlights or you know, you know, all those sort of things that affect some of the accident rates and are not being addressed because the public is not being educated about these problems.

I'm glad you mentioned the the parking meters because I mentioned at an earlier meeting that I can barely read the parking meter when I try to put money into it, at least at the one at uh Santa Clara and Webster near Cafe Jolie.

And I think that they're kind of all that way, and whether or not that that the readability of them needs to be addressed during the year, because it's not fair to the people paying to not be able to see what's happening.

My personal vehicle preference when I'm driving is to avoid all intersections with the dedicated bike signal, either left or right.

Those intersections are so messed up with those signals that I just simply choose my route to avoid them, huh?

And that I wonder how many other people are doing it.

In other words, when you're making these changes, you are doing traffic diversions, uh, because people are just gonna be sick and tired of waiting too long at these intersections, and uh that it's you know you you just you're just frustrating drivers.

Um when you install speed humps, your track record so far is to not inform the impacted residents in front of their residence where those speed humps are gonna be installed.

I mentioned that because of uh Versailles, uh, and that uh one of the speakers here on the commission said, Oh, Oakland has a resident veto.

Uh Alameda does not.

If you don't, if you feel that you know the speed hub makes a noise while you're trying to sleep at night uh and you don't have a veto.

Thank you for your comments.

Any additional public comments uh no, none none at this time.

Seeing no other public comments, let's move on to discussion and questions by the commission.

I usually try to narrow the focus on a specific issue.

This is one of those meetings where there's lots of issues, and you can talk about essentially anything you want.

So here's our opportunity to do that thing.

Any questions from the commissioners?

Not those.

Commissioner Derrick.

Drew, please.

I've got tons.

This is my own.

Do a couple of things.

Do a couple and then we'll.

No, seriously.

I I actually was going to propose that.

I I wanted to just speak first to the uh the topic of traffic safety, and then I'll mix it up.

But um just want to underline that um so this is good news and bad news.

Um fatality in in the calendar year is compared to previous years um is is a meaningful improvement.

Um, but it happened at the at an intersection with a similar pedestrian fatality.

Um, and so that's that's that's that's bad.

Um I I really do want to thank staff.

I know um Lisa Foster puts a lot of work into this.

The report has a table that describes um, and maybe other staff are involved too.

So thank you to the others.

Thank you, Susie Hofstead as well.

Um but well, because like um uh police records are opaque to the public.

The public can't know what happened other than seeing you know the flashing lights.

Um, and so having these stories about well, what happened in terms of just the relevance to understanding how that situation could be avoided in the future is very useful.

Um, I just wanted to flag that again the good news of the number of um fatalities being down, but this this hits the trends of um the youngest and the oldest are most vulnerable.

Um pedestrians, people outside of vehicles most vulnerable.

Um I'm I'm not gonna read this aloud, um, but the 88-year-old senior hit in a wheelchair by a driver at high and ensinal is it's shocking.

It's not like these are issues beyond um, these are societal issues, but I I think these stories really can kind of help direct resources towards where they can make the most uh most impact.

We can see a lot of factors here, like cars are too big.

The city can't regulate that, but the city can put um engineered solutions in the right places.

So I I just wanted to begin by really just maybe grounding a little bit of that, appreciating the work staff does to dive into this and flagging that um it's bad news that two pedestrians have been killed along um Ralph Opposado Memorial Parkway in uh very close proximity to each other.

Um if if staff have something to add there, I'd be curious to hear what options might be on the table for ramp.

Um but we um are planning, you know, as part of the fatal crash response program.

We are planning to look at this corridor as a whole, and we have started that that work in public works department.

Um the you know, when we have a fatality and we go to the site and we review what happened, we stand in silence and think about the everything that happened.

Um in this case, we we had just done improvements at that intersection.

Um right before this happened, and so we saw no low-hanging fruit.

The fatal crash response program is intended to be things we can do relatively quickly and without public outreach.

And so, you know, a change to the configuration of that roadway is a much bigger project.

So we do have it on our docket, but not for this year because of that staffing and um funding limitations and also just general working on a lot of things for the community as well.

Completely understand the the limitations.

I I appreciate the context, Lisa.

Um I do want to um just uh say again, one of one of the one of the kind of non expert positions I like sharing of just that harder materials are more effective, and it's it's interesting to see when public works makes those decisions.

So like at uh Park Street and Belanding, where um uh drivers have taken out the control box for the the signals multiple times.

Um city engineers put in hard metal posts there.

It's the clear zone, but they justify putting in hard metal posts.

There are uh concrete barriers protecting the wrought iron fencing at Lincoln Park now.

Um I'm just sharing these examples to to hopefully um maybe equip equip engineers with examples of how the city um can deploy harder materials.

Um again, many factors go into these understood that you're balancing many priorities.

Um but I just wanted to begin some thoughts this evening on the the both on how the good news of um having such a short list of fatalities and serious injuries, but also needing to um uh continually reevaluate the toolkit um that can be deployed to address those.

So I will pause there and let you mix it up.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Commissioner Kim.

Yeah, I I kind of have a related question kind of about the data and different things, but um, so the agency I work for um actually defines accidents as avoidable or unavoidable, but we you know we do it for various other reasons, right?

Um is there like um a way of doing that for this data, or is it just way too subjective to do it?

I'm just kind of curious.

Um exception we make, you know, as a matter of policy is that if we do if somebody has a medical event uh and they get into a collision and they're the one that dies, uh we don't include that in our vision zero data, because that is where you really are talking about an accident.

Um and whereas the vision zero world, you'd you're you talk about collisions and crashes, they're generally considered preventable by some means.

But vision zero is very expansive.

It's not just about roadway design, it's also about you know enforcement and uh car design and um culture, you know, attitudes about driving and safety and being a pedestrian and a bicyclist as well.

So um it kind of it would be very difficult to come up with a another clean way to bring pull more out of of the data.

Okay, yeah, that's kind of what I was expecting.

I just want to kind of ask, anyways.

Um, and then the other question I had is um the data that we're showing is really just pure number of incidents, while um it kind of feels like a lot of our numbers are showing like um a big increase in bicycling, a big increase in walking, uh decrease in driving.

Is there uh well, I guess what I'm wondering if we normalize the data by like actual amount of travel or something.

Is there a way to make would the data look a lot different to us?

Like would it change our the way that we're making these decisions?

I'm just kind of wondering.

Like how many accidents per bike trip that's yeah, or something like that, or like you know, um auto accidents by VNT or something like that.

Yeah.

That would be nice.

Um we don't have the denominator.

It's expensive to get.

Um, but yeah, you know, when we look at the increasing number of of crashes involving bicyclists, you know, you do ask like how many more bicyclists do we have on our roadways now?

You know, maybe um maybe this statistic is not as bad as it looks.

There's uh um the state does some data looking at pedestrian and bicyclist collision rates in different cities, and you know, it's Berkeley frequently shows up as the worst city for bicyclists.

Um, and it is not and but but we all know that they have a whole university and a lot of people who ride bikes, and so if you did it per mile of bike riding, um the they would not be at the top bad, you know.

We have a lot of suburban places where it would be much more dangerous per ride, but like they it's just hard to get that kind of data.

Sorry, don't you have proxy data though for the actual increases in bike trips?

Because you showed a couple, you showed an intersection that it's gone up by whatever it was 134 to 153, and it seems like unless we know differently, that's a great proxy for and we probably have a similar ratio increasing throughout the city, and so you can just use that number and look at the bike crashes and see if that number gets better over time.

Yeah, I think that same slide showed like a mode split change and things like that.

So I I don't yeah, I am I would defer to staff like if that is a good proxy or not, you know, but um yeah.

It's the kind of thing we'll be thinking about with our scoping.

Um I will say there is no just, you know, we we there are there are probably ways for us to come up with this, but that it's not gonna be that simple.

Um Rochelle standing up.

Yeah, I'll just add that I think we are kind of trying to get to what you're talking about, Commissioner Kim, but in a very qualitative way, you know, like in looking at like these different data points for mode share and like I know for like bike and head, like each year we're like, okay, overall, hmm, seems like things are holding steady or they're going up, and then you know, we can kind of then in our heads think about like what was happening over here with the crashes, and you know, kind of you know, do some sort of comparison, but like trying to get to like take that and like you know, you know, get some specific numbers, I think would be a much bigger effort that may not actually be that accurate.

I can add one thing, and that is with when it comes to fatal collisions and and severe injuries, our goal is zero.

So we can normalize data, but you know, that's what we're trying to achieve is zero.

Commissioner comment on that topic, which is I'm looking at the state and county comparison, and relative to that, the city alameter is doing better, but that's because at the state level in the last 12 years that number has gone up by about 40 percent, which is a lot.

And I wonder if the state has any research, shall we say, on why that might be that might be relevant to our to this discussion?

Probably we can do more more digging in.

I will say the state's line looks more like the national line.

You know, Alameda has gone it, you know.

If you look at what happened between 2015 and 2019, you know, we were counter trend.

Um that could be because we are, you know, making safety um efforts.

And it when I look at this just for more context, um, it's not quite a fair comparison because we don't have freeways.

Um so what I pay I'm looking at more is the um is how our line how are we farther apart or closer than we were, and we are farther apart overall since say 2015.

Yeah.

Oh, absolutely.

No, I I think my I guess my point was we've talked about the fact that it's pending funding to do some of this um investigation in more detail.

And I guess my point is at the state level, and as you pointed out, at the national level, there is probably a lot more funding for those kind of um investigations, and I just wonder if as you say, we we're sort of counter-trend there, but having that information from the from a much larger um data set might be instructive.

Like, sorry, isn't the data set similarly sized cities in California?

Like it seems like it's fine to compare against improvement is good, but it's also like we actually we're we are spending correctly, by the way, lots of money to make these things safer.

And it seems like the actual comparison is supposed should be what do sa cities of our size that are doing things or not doing the same things we are, where are they at on the number?

And does that does that mean what we're doing is really working relative to the cities.

Anyway, Commissioner Octaval.

And this through this discussion, it re reminded me of a thought I had as we were looking at this during the presentation.

And to clarify, both Alameda County and the state include freeways.

Is that correct?

So it's not quite apples to apples in that regard, but we do want to see lowering into uh Chair Chair Whitesy's point.

If we were able even to compare more comparable cities, that might help to give a better picture.

That said, it is good that it's lower, but they aren't quite apples to apples.

Other commissioner questions or comments.

Well, please go ahead.

Go in some more specific directions because I should have begun with this.

This annual report always shows how the city punches above its weight, you know.

I know it we're fewer than 10 staff members on so many different topics.

So if could I ask about so I'm I'm glad the city is working on demand-based uh parking pricing and just managing parking across the city.

Um I was curious to know the Civic Center garage work was flagged as coming along.

And is that going to involve moving a monthly pass holders over into that garage?

That decision is not made yet.

Um, but you know, staff did a review of that monthly parking pass of the um business district parking pass program.

Um that was the recommendation was to move those uh parking passes that are currently in the surface slots into the garage.

Um because actually the reason that those permits are in the surface slots, which are more popular for people who are coming and going and um giving business to our our businesses uh is because the garage didn't exist when the when the permit program was created.

Good reason.

Um but we held off on bringing that recommendation any further until we could make improvements in that garage so that it would be a better place for people to store their vehicles while they work.

And uh so yeah, the next steps will we'll have to finish this construction and then we'll consider next steps.

Okay, I'll I'll just say as a um I I can appreciate that the there's something to navigate with the with the businesses that have those monthly passes, but um the just the value of that surface lot is like you like you said, it's very useful to promote high turnover there.

So I think if the city can um you know with both carrots and sticks um move monthly pass holders over into the garage, um that that will really just benefit the the experience and the um you know and like also a lot of what we all hear about and think about are the you know the appearances and the availability of parking in that surface lot will be beneficial.

Um else want to talk about parking.

If not, I'll move on to neighborhood greenways.

Thank you.

Um I um so I'm curious to hear about this the San Jose repaving, what what length that that will cover.

Um, and the annual report flagged a question of where the next mile will go of the program.

So also curious to hear how you all are thinking of picking that mile.

Sorry, two questions different.

Yeah, so the first question I'll answer and I'll shall come up with a second.

Uh the San Jose, we are looking to essentially go from Oak Street all the way to the far west end of San Jose, um, which is the limits of the neighborhood greenway for for this segment, anyway, that we're looking to do.

And then so for the next uh next segments.

Yeah, and it actually will continue up Morton.

Morton is one of the additional streets that is going to be repaved as well.

So beyond even the current slow street.

Um for the second phase, phase two, um, we are um haven't determined what that additional mile will be, but um in the ideas that we have right now are to look at where we can kind of fill in the network.

And so um they might end up being like some different smaller segments that can create more connectivity rather than another long corridor.

For instance, we have a project to do um some traffic signal or some crossing improvements at Wilmachan and Pacific Avenue.

We got grant funding for that, and that's only two blocks from the current end of the neighborhood greenway on 9th Street, which well, the end of the slow street, which is what we have the funding to the east to implement.

So we're looking at well, maybe those two blocks or another two good two blocks to continue between 9th and Wilmachan.

Um there's a planned neighborhood greenway between Pacific and Gene Sweeney Park on 8th Street.

So we're looking at maybe that would be a good segment to add to Target.

So we'll be looking at the network to see where there are other opportunities like that to implement.

Okay, great.

Glad to hear that maybe a mile can go a long way.

Um it's okay.

I'm just gonna for just a second.

Any other commissioner questions?

Yeah, sure.

I'll jump jump in with one.

Uh question about the transportation capital projects map um and kind of what's coming up.

Um I noticed it kind of shows like a lot of projects in construction and a lot less projects and planning.

Uh, and I guess I'm curious.

Is there um like a reason for that?

Like, are we doing too much right now?

Is it just available funding?

That's just kind of how things are shaking out.

Um I'm just kind of curious, like um, because it yeah, I guess it feels like when you look at this lots of stuff's happening now, but I I don't know how much stuff's gonna be happening like four or five years from now, you know.

It's a fair question.

And to look back at a little bit of history and some background, Central Avenue was a 10-year gestational process until we got to construction.

Um, you know, uh Clement, I think was five or six, Tilden, four or five.

We're getting more efficient in terms of initial kind of outreach to to construction.

But what that means is we have this pretty big compression of projects and work.

Um, you know, it and really, you know, it's a fair question.

What are the next large grant funded projects?

But these are projects that are going to be out of beyond 28, 29, 29 construction, 2030 construction.

You know, that's when we start talking about burn side uh two-way cycle track, of which we have to still you know look for and secure funding for, etc.

But yeah, that is a fair statement.

The other thing that you're not seeing on here is we did not include the planned uh repaving projects, which adds a lot of blue in the background that makes it look a little more impressive.

Um I will add that um we did uh um kind of in response to uh a lot of the uh um public input we received over on McCartney are going to break up our paving project a little bit differently so we have a little more public outreach and engagement.

Um, this next year, just as a high level, uh Fernside and San Jose are the highlights with a couple other residential streets, Morton and and I think uh Peru might be the one.

Um then uh in 2027, we're gonna have a series of smaller residential streets on the west end.

But really, when we get to 2028 is when we get to some more larger streets, and again, 2028, that puts us beyond OAP.

Um, that is when we're looking at Ralph Opposado Parkway, right?

From from Webster all the way to Maine.

It's also where we're looking at from Atlantic going east to uh to Sherman, uh Challenger and uh Marina Village Loop, and those streets have much more opportunities to do substantive kind of changes and street safety improvements.

Um it's a couple years out, which means that um with being mindful of outreach and timeliness, that later this year we'd want to come back in front of this body to kind of start um bringing that that those kind of proposed changes here to the public.

Um, but yeah, those we did not uh include the uh the paving on here this particular one.

Okay, yeah, that's helpful.

Thank you.

Commissioner Blind.

I feel like we're jumping about a bit, but I wanted to go back to the greenways just um for a moment.

Um just to reiterate something that we I think sort of touched on when we talked about Pacific in a recent um commission meeting, which is that obviously it's fantastic that we are expanding the greenways as we have discussed, and um in multiple places.

Um I would like to know if we have given any consideration to the fact that these streets were for the most part previously slow streets, which meant they had at every intersection a barricade, which made it very obvious that um driving was discouraged on that street, and once the street becomes a greenway, the barricades go away, and obviously we introduce new um traffic calming measures.

Um I would like to know if there's anything additional we can do to make it more obvious that those streets uh discouraged, shall we say, for through traffic, because my sense is on the section of Pacific where this has happened, it is now less obvious, even though we have the speed humps and everything, it's less obvious that this is a street where driving is discouraged.

Because my sense is on the section of Pacific where this has happened.

It is now less obvious, even though we have the speed humps and everything, it's less obvious that this is a street where driving is discouraged.

You want better branding essentially on Greenways.

I do.

Thank you for the question.

That that's something that we are considering as we move this forward.

Um we haven't landed on what that will be or the timing of that yet, but we are considering that and heard those comments.

Um we did um partly as a result of the community input, take some um speed and volume data on Pacific on that section that was implemented.

Uh I don't have the full data in front of me, but in general, we found that the some of the volumes did go up a little bit.

Uh, but our um threshold of 1,500 cars per day or less.

We're we're still well below that on Pacific.

Um, we started off pretty low before with the slow street barricades, and so it's still well below that.

And we did find that the speeds have come down by um multiple digits.

So um, yeah, so that was good news to see that.

Okay, thank you.

Other commissioner questions.

Please.

Oh, nope, go ahead.

Commissioner Noctigall, go ahead.

So I feel like this is kind of an easy question.

It's not a test, it's okay.

But with the Oakland Alameda Access Project and the weekend closures, please just tell me that when the city is working with Caltrans on planning those closures, none of them will happen on the first weekend of the month.

Yes.

That would we made that very clear early on that uh the um antiques fair, which includes a lot of traffic on and off the island using the tubes happen on the first uh Sundays of the month.

And so, yes, it's been very clear to the uh to Caltrans in the in the contract, it's actually written the contract as such.

Thank you.

I actually have a follow-up question on that.

Um, first, thank God.

Uh second, so what changed?

So how I guess so the so Caltrans came in here twice, I think, and they're like, we've got to we gotta shut down one lane, it's gonna last forever, it's gonna happen on both sides, there's nothing we can do.

And then here last week they announced great news, at least half this project.

We're gonna shut down just at night completely, but we're not gonna do single lane closures 24-7.

Who did that?

How did we do it?

What changed in their minds?

Help me understand how something that was like basically impossible suddenly because maybe it was Lisa was basically impossible, and now suddenly it was like we can do this.

So, what did we or someone else do?

It's a combination of multiple kind of things, and I'm there's a little bit of guesswork I'm going on here.

But we, and I'll say Lisa, um, early on, we uh we, the city of Alameda pushed uh the Alameda County Transportation Commission about like, hey, this is critical to us.

The duration of these closures directly impacts both our residents and our businesses, functionally the well-being of the city of Alameda.

And so we were really aggressive with working with Caltrans, like, hey, what can we do?

What can we do?

Um, we did bring a consultant on board that proposed um functionally exactly this situation, um, and was basically uh kind of kind of told um that they weren't sure.

Caltrans basically said that they were not ready to do that.

Now, Caltrans, from their part, and I'll I'll give their give them their due.

Um, they're very concerned about safety and worker protection.

That's a big deal for them.

There's far too many highway workers that have been killed over the years, right?

So they have a policy that they instituted essentially called positive protection, where you want a physical barrier so that there's no delineators to protect workers, right?

You gotta have something more positive that you have to have K-Rail functionally.

Um, and so that was really what was proposed.

Now, the big concern they had with uh the the work that our our consultant was proposing was um it's not so much that you couldn't get positive protection, you close the tubes and nobody gets through there, you've got positive protection by default.

It's how do you actually do the construction and then open up the roadway, two lanes of the roadway in the next morning safely for the motoring public, right?

We've got formwork.

We got demolition, we got formwork, we got curing, we've got other facets and and things that are happening to build that walkway that are going to extend out into the roadway a little bit.

And and that really um was the the biggest concern now from a consultant.

You're like, well, I here's what the contractor may do.

It's only when you have a contractor that they can basically definitively say, hey, here's what I'd want to do.

Now here's me kind of doing a little bit of surmising, which is to say Caltron's idea of putting a K Rail in there, you had a six-foot area to work in.

How are you gonna get your people and your equipment down there to actually do that work during the daytime?

That's the challenge.

And I think for the contractor, it probably works out easier for them to get their materials and and bodies and men to get down there to do the work with the full lane closure, driving down the lanes, and then have much more elbow room to work during the nighttime, then they just got to make sure they make it safe for the neighborhood.

That was the big big difference.

Um on the other end, we've been on the posey tube, we've been pretty clear with them pushing them to what can be done to reduce the timing that minimize the duration.

And initial engineers' estimates were at uh 18 months closure for Posey tube.

Um that is now that from the engineering standpoint, which pushed down to 12.

And the numbers we're seeing in their um the the uh critical path schedule by the contractor are are in line and in factually a little bit less than that.

So we're looking at we'll be on the lower end of that uh that uh 12 months.

Sounds like everyone on the West End should buy Lisa Foster a beer.

Okay.

Additional questions.

I have one more, but I just want to underscore this more that like the amount of work the city of Alamedo went into on behalf of residents.

Like, I mean, Scott said consultant.

My understanding, correct me if I'm wrong, the city hired contractors to effectively argue the case.

That's true, with sufficient, or at least to make an informed case.

Sorry, I'm going, I don't want to actually open the all I wanted to do.

Let me let me take some phrase, get up there.

It's fine.

No, no, no.

Let me just say that I from my my position as a resident, it looked like the city went above and beyond on behalf of residents for a city for a smaller city in the region to work to effectively work with larger regional bodies.

Um, and I I take back all I said that may have been mischaracterizing details more just to say I think residents can be pleased by by the city's um advocacy.

So exactly why I wanted it set out loud in this meeting.

Okay.

Any additional commissioner questions?

Lisa, please go ahead.

Okay.

If you want to buy somebody a beer, you can buy them for Scott and me.

Okay, that's fine.

Okay.

Could I actually ask one more final?

Of course.

I I want this is actually going back to Scott's earlier point on kind of further out in the pipeline of projects.

And um, I I think this I know you all have resource constraints, but I did want to flag, I think the city should be thinking about when Webster and the park corridors are on the um enter some amount of pre-planning.

Um in terms of like 2030 is coming sooner than we all think.

Um the there continue to be like the city is doing great with the east-west corridors for all modes, um, and just keeps there just these geography these geographic constraints, like to get back to even this the the our public commenter mentioning the legacy of the rail lines has led to these um sufficient corridors for east-west travel.

I will say the future of rail is linked 21, it's underground, but we've we have flexibility for east-west corridors, and it's that north-south that's just keeps on being a challenge.

And so I I'm curious to hear if if there are any thoughts tonight, but more just to say that like if there are ways to start the right amount of planning the planning for for those the park oak and the Webster corridors.

Um I I wonder if that could prime the pipeline for for the future.

Rhetorical question or question question.

Um I'll just say I think that it's a good point, and and we can take that into consideration.

And you know, we're always thinking about grant opportunities, and this is definitely an area where we would need grant funding.

So that would be the planning before the planning.

So yeah.

Well, that thank you for taking an open-ended question.

I'll just say I imagine I know Webster and Parker are very important places for lots of stakeholders.

So maybe there are opportunities to just for the city to think strategically about what is the right type of conversation that starts planting the seats.

So I'll leave it at that.

And those were all my thoughts other than to say the city punches above its weight, and thank you to staff for all this work.

Thank you, Commissioner.

Additional commissioner questions or comments.

I have one that's somewhat minor and probably doesn't have a simple uh answer.

But we talk a lot about the various bike infrastructure that has been implemented and is on the um uh calendar to be implemented in the next um year or two.

And all of that is fantastic.

Um but I want to just briefly touch on um all the other streets in the city that don't have um explicit bike infrastructure.

And um I want to bring up one point, which is at many, I don't know if it's most intersections in the city um that have uh stop lights.

Many of those stoplights are responsive to the traffic that arrives at the intersection, normally due to an I think an induction loop in the roadway itself.

And if you are traveling by bicycle, those that functionality doesn't respond to the presence of a bicycle, which means there are a number of intersections in the city where if there is no traffic, there is only uh at least in the direction that the bicycle is traveling, there's only a bicycle.

That light will not change in favor of the um the direction that the bicycle is traveling.

I'm sure that is a very difficult problem to solve because streetlights are very expensive and have not replaced very often, and the technology to even do that is complicated.

But as we think since this is a uh uh a very wide-ranging um uh agenda item, I wanted to bring up that topic and see if the city engineer had any thoughts on it.

Um I totally understand the question.

And one of the things is whenever you have a bicycle facility, so if you actually have a strike bike lane, it's required that you have detection for that bicycle facility.

Um, as a matter of practice, um, we want bike detection at all the intersections.

So there's two different, there's multiple different ways things set up within the city.

Um we have a lot of older uh traffic signals, ones that have technology, frankly, that from the 80s and 90s, really old and outdated.

Um detection systems are old.

They're functionally going just fixed time, 30 seconds one direction, 30 seconds the other.

You show up, you're gonna wait 29 seconds, and that's that's the fact.

Um, there are other ones in most of our network, we are moving away from the induction loops and towards video cameras.

Um, so if we have the infrastructure, if you will, the the computer, the controller at the intersection that can accommodate video detection.

Um, we would we would prefer that in most of our intersections are set up that way.

That can detect uh bicycles and cars, um, and it's pretty pretty effective in doing so.

And so what I would recommend that anyone do, and this is both for you and as commissioner and for anyone in the public, if you do come across uh specific signalized intersections where a bike's not being detected, um submit a C click fix um request, and we will look into that and under and try to get a sense of what that is.

And and you know, again, some of them may be fixed time that you you'll have to wait the round, but you should always be detected as a as a cyclist.

If you're um in in the lane, now you have to be careful sometimes if you're way too far over by the park lane, it could be out.

Um we also can do is uh and it's a little bit tricky on uh areas where there's no bike lanes, but the little the little uh indicator bike, right?

You see the little line there with the bicycle that indicates where you should position your bike such that the camera can see you and and be detected.

So um we do endeavor to have detection at all signalized intersections.

Um it's quite possible because I don't ride every intersection, nor do our traffic signal techs ride every intersection, so that having that information coming from the public is is beneficial for us.

That's very helpful.

Thank you.

Additional commissioner comments or questions.

So I would be remiss if I didn't comment on the fact that the cross alameter trail is nearly done.

And I think that's great.

And I after all my years of asking when is the cross alameter trail going to be done?

It is almost there.

And I also wanted to say that the continued fine-tuning of some of the trickier spots along the cross alameter trail.

I'm glad that's still occurring as well.

I think that it will be a great asset for the for the um community when it's really truly complete.

And then it fit fits together with the low stress bike network.

So thank you.

And to lift up what Commissioner Darrell Abrams has said, the city does a lot.

So thank you.

We can read world class biking city and getting better every week, which is great.

If it's okay, I have a couple of comments, uh, a couple questions.

Uh first, uh this might be mistaken, but I believe we have always had one or two holdouts from the safe route to schools school list and to see 18 of 18 way to go.

That's great, getting it past that one yard line.

So that's that's great to see a literal perfect score on that.

Um that's exciting.

Um it came up in public comment.

I don't know if we have the information at hand, but I remember the numbers large.

I believe there was a study that was the cost to rehab the fruit veil bridge, and there was a ginormous number back in the day.

But if and if we don't have that, that's fine.

We don't have that, which is okay.

It's a large number, I promise you.

It's on the internet somewhere.

Um I wanted to talk a little bit about a decision that I maybe don't agree with.

So these 100 bike, what's nah, mail?

Let's find if I do agree with it.

These 100 bike racks that are being installed at various points in the city, to have none of them be the cage.

Um I found a little surprising because you know, there are some comments about bike theft.

It feels anecdotally like bike theft is down, which is great.

But I I was curious why that option was not considered or if it is still on the table.

Because it my understanding is those are popular with a certain segment of people with expensive bikes that are a little uncomfortable leaving them not in the cage.

Yeah, it's a good question.

I mean, our goal is to do both.

Um, so it's not an either or um we have not been had installed a kind of a um we've been installing bike racks more like one or two, but there we have a long list of requests, and we definitely have areas where there really are no racks, like some of these kind of station districts, like along Encinal.

And so we really want to fill that in.

And so um we feel like this is important.

It's something the community has been asking for um a lot.

Uh at the same time, um, we know the community would like more of the bike lockers.

Um they're much more expensive per parking space.

We not only have to pay to purchase the locker and have it installed, we then pay a um annual fee for maintenance of all of those lockers.

If any, you know, if the door gets broken, which happened a couple times this year and two different uh locations, uh the city pays to have those, you know, replaced.

Um so so it's a little harder to just um to go out and do that, but we're there are some grants that we look at and um decide if between the grant um and what that will cover and if you know, and do we have other funds that can supplement that or not?

Um so we're you know, we're definitely keep our eyes on where we could put in more more of the lockers, and then also there are now um larger lockers that will more easily accommodate the longer bikes and the wider bikes.

So we're definitely eyeing opportunities for where we could get funds to put some of those in and where we would put those.

Um and then the other thing we're doing is our thinking about whether or not our current bike lockers are um in the right places.

And some of them, like the ones in the back of the garage, for instance.

I don't know if any of you have been down there.

It's not a very pleasant place.

Um, those are some of the first lockers that were installed in the city in 2015.

So they're kind of starting to reach the end of their life.

But what part of this garage um uh project is going to do is we're going to pull the lockers towards the front of the garage so they're much more visible, much more accessible.

Um there are not people sleeping behind the lockers, there are not, you know, things you know, trash isn't building up around there and and other awful things.

Um and we're also gonna pull out half of them because they're not being used efficiently, and we're looking at ways where we could um after doing some um re refurbishment of those lockers where where else we could put them.

And so um, so those are some of the other things that that we're thinking about.

It's just how to use the ones we have a hundred and thirty-four bike parking spaces and lockers right now, and like you know, I think there's some ways that um some of those are used much more highly than others.

Sorry, can I ask a couple follow-ups if it's okay?

Just give when we say it's a lot more expensive to ballpark.

looking at ways where we could um after doing some um re refurbishment of those lockers where where else we could put them and so um so those are some of the other things that that we're thinking about is just how to use the ones we have a hundred and thirty four bike parking spaces and lockers right now and like you know I think there's some ways that um some of those are used much more highly than others so can I ask a couple follow-ups if it's okay just get when we say it's a lot more expensive ballpark what's it what's what's the initial there's maintenance an ongoing thing but just on an installation basis what's a is it a tenfold is it a hundredfold difference what's the difference between the horseshoe and the locker um that's a good question I would say at least 10 times more expensive to purchase and install and you said there's a hundred and thirty four spaces that are in the lockers how many how many locations is that though there's four per location there's eight per location about maybe ten I'm gonna say okay interesting okay that's helpful speaking entirely for myself I actually think one of the ways to support a certain segment of nervous ish bike riders is to give them this opportunity because there are going to be people that have spent a lot of money on bikes that they will eat will not want to let out of their sights unless they can very securely lock them up and so if we have this significant commitment to infrastructure and quite frankly culture that involves biking I would definitely recommend the city continue to pursue that at least that option certainly not all spaces can be lockers I get that but there's going to be some people that just probably will not bike and will drive if they don't have a place to securely put their bike so thank you that's actually very helpful comments.

Yeah and I'll I'll just add that we do have one of the C click fixed categories that we have is bike parking request and so anybody can submit for either a rack or a locker via that and then we put that add that to our continuous list and and keep that in mind.

So that's great thank you.

Yeah Commissioner Blank I ask a related question please about bike racks um the I think you said a hundred racks that are being planned can I ask how they will be attached to the ground because there are certain bike cracks that are set into the concrete and then there are certain bike cracks that they appear you could remove from the ground with a wrench and um I imagine I'm not the only cyclist who is nervous with some of these racks that look like you know I could remove it myself.

You can't take it with you we we at the city try not to do that.

I will say there have been some developers who have put in some that uh we're not very fond of but they will not be in concrete um the cities ones um and uh we use a combination of um bolts and what is the name of the other thing that you hammer into the you want to and the hammer an anchor that that you can't yeah that we could have Scott come up and describe that in more detail if you like have one installed next next meeting here right in the office great yeah well the the ones outside the city hall uh potentially could be improved in that way okay good to know maybe we should have one installed during a meeting additional comments or questions excellent rigorous and actually very focused conversation great job everybody uh so I'm going to move to endorse the transportation 2025 annual report and the 2026 work plan do I have a second for that motion second second seconded do all in favor of the endorsement please say aye aye any opposed motion carries let's move on to number seven commissioner communications on transportation related issues any commissioner communications seeing none let's adjourn i make a motion to adjourn at 819 p.m all in favor please say aye have a great night everyone