HomeMy WebLinkAbout2018-11-14 Planning & transportation commission Summary Minutes_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Planning & Transportation Commission 1
Action Agenda: November 14, 2018 2
Council Chambers 3
250 Hamilton Avenue 4
6:00 PM 5
6
Call to Order / Roll Call 7
6:06 pm 8
Commissioner Alcheck arrived at 6:10 pm 9
10
Chair Lauing: Ok we’re going to bring out the lights. I’d like to call to order the Planning and 11
Transportation Commission regular meeting for November 14 of 2018. And Yolanda just 12
disappeared, we need to have her call the roll. Oh, there she is. Thank you very much. 13
Oral Communications 14
The public may speak to any item not on the agenda. Three (3) minutes per speaker.1,2 15 16
Chair Lauing: The first item on our agenda is oral communications and we have one card for 17
that, Mr. Aaron [note- Andrew] Boone. 18
19
Mr. Andrew Boone: Good evening Commissioners, my name is Andrew Boone, I have lived on 20
Woodland Avenue in East Palo Alto for the past 8-years and would like to share my thoughts on 21
the City’s plans for taking action on climate change. I think the City’s programs and plans are 22
insufficient now, in 2018, given things that have happened recently. The election of Donald 23
Trump as president has taken a major step backward towards taking action on climate change; 24
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement and many other bad policies; trying to cancel 1
California’s stricter vehicle emission standards so all of those things we need to do more. If the 2
federal government is going to do less and in fact be hostile to protecting the environment the 3
City of Palo Alto has to do that much more. Now, of course, the City is not a large City so the 4
reductions that we make in our own emissions are a small part of the total of course for the 5
county, the world, but the point is to be a leader. Is to demonstrate what can be done so what 6
can be done in a City that is well poised to do it? A City that already residents and workers use 7
alternative modes of transportation at high levels, where the residents are well aware of the 8
environment and climate change as an issue. So, I would recommend that this Commission or 9
whichever appropriate body of the City its for look into updating the Climate Action Plan. To be 10
something that is the actions we really need to take to avert catastrophic climate change. 11
Thank you. 12
13
Chair Lauing: Thank you. 14
Agenda Changes, Additions, and Deletions 15
The Chair or Commission majority may modify the agenda order to improve meeting management. 16
17 Chair Lauing: Are there any agenda changes, additions, or deletions? Ok, seeing none we’ll stay 18
with the agenda as is. 19
City Official Reports 20
1. Assistant Directors Report, Meeting Schedule and Assignments 21
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
2. Draft 2019 Meeting Schedule and Assignments 1
Chair Lauing: So, we have the City Official Report… Assistant Director’s Report? 2
3
Mr. Jonathan Lait, Assistant Director of Planning: Thank you Chair and good evening 4
Commissioners. Just a couple of items to report, some projects or reports going to Council that 5
you may be interested in tracking. One is on November 19th the City Council will take up the 6
housed roof deck request and the broader policy for downtown roof decks on non-complying 7
facilities and that happens on the 19th. 8
9
On November 26th the City Council will have a public hearing on the Housing Work Plan for 10
2018 that the Commission has discussed and forwarded recommendations onto the City 11
Council. 12
13
And then on December 3rd, there’s a couple of items going forward. One is when the City 14
Council reviewed the ADU and JADU revisions to the City’s Ordinance they had directed Staff to 15
return with an amendment – Resolution to not charge the development impact fees for garage 16
conversions – a garage conversion to an ADU and so that’s going to go to the Council on the 3rd. 17
18
And we have a – this isn’t something that we’re getting into right now but at some point, we’re 19
going to be working on the Housing Element update for the next regional housing needs cycle. 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
In anticipation of that, the City Council’s already signaled its interest to engage with the county 1
and other interested Cities in the county to form a subregion. This would allow Palo Alto to 2
work with its neighbors to identify the best opportunities for providing and addressing the 3
regional housing needs for the county, instead of it being established by ABAG. 4
And then another item going on the 3rd is the Downtown Cap. The Planning Commission I think 5
had a discussion on this in January. This is the repeal of the 350,000-square foot limit for non-6
residential development downtown. That’s going to go to the Council on the 3rd as well and that 7
concludes the report. 8
9
Chair Lauing: Ok one of the items in the Official Reports is there’s a draft 19 [note – 2019] 10
meeting schedule and assignments. 11
12
Mr. Lait: Yes. 13
14
Chair Lauing: That’s obviously kind of loose right now because there will be additional 15
Commissioners joining the Commission. I just want to point out that being ever optimistic I 16
think we should look forward to booking our second annual retreat as the year gets underway 17
in 19 [note -2019]. So, we’ll look to do that as probably a special meeting and at the next actual 18
meeting, which is December, maybe we can get into the specifics of a date for that. 19
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Mr. Lait: Sure. 2
3
Commissioner Riggs: We can’t schedule that now? 4
5
Chair Lauing: We could try, sure. 6
7
Commissioner Riggs: My schedule (interrupted) 8
9
Chair Lauing: I like your optimism. 10
11
Commissioner Riggs: [unintelligible – off mic]. We can schedule something now. 12
13
Mr. Lait: We would have to check for room availability but if we get a sense for… are we talking 14
evenings, weekends, mornings? Whatever the… I mean if we can narrow that piece down it 15
would help us. 16
17
Chair Lauing: Ideas on that go-ahead Commissioner Riggs. 18
19
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Riggs: Well I mean if we could do mornings during the week that would be – I 1
would love that. 2
3
Chair Lauing: That’s what we did last year as I recall. Is that alright? 4
5
Mr. Lait: Is there a day that’s better than others? We’re thinking in January, right? 6
7
Commissioner Alcheck: I’ll throw (interrupted) 8
9
Chair Lauing: It’s January. 10
11
Commissioner Alcheck: If our first meeting is January is on the 30th, is that what you just said? Is 12
that right? 13
14
Mr. Lait: Yeah, that’s right, [unintelligible] be February. 15
16
Commissioner Alcheck: So, I would suggest that we host the retreat after the first meeting 17
because I assume at our first meeting, we’ll be nominating new leadership to our Commission. 18
So, it seems like a prudent… to first select our leadership and then do a retreat. 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Vice-Chair Monk: [unintelligible – off mic] 1
2
Chair Lauing: Right so you’re saying push it to February? 3
4
Commissioner Alcheck: I’m saying do it after the first meeting. 5
6
Chair Lauing: Right, eventually that does put it in February. 7
8
Commissioner Alcheck: So, we’re one meeting in November, one meeting December, one 9
meeting in January? 10
11
Mr. Lait: I’m sorry? 12
13
Commissioner Alcheck: The idea is one meeting in November, one meeting in December, one 14
meeting in January? 15
16
Mr. Lait: For the new calendar? 17
18
Commissioner Alcheck: For just… 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Lauing: Yeah, the new calendar doesn’t show any meeting in January until the 30th. 1
2
Mr. Lait: I wouldn’t say it’s a standard but just the way the holidays fell. 3
4
Commissioner Alcheck: Got it. 5
6
Chair Lauing: Yeah Commissioner Monk [note-Vice Chair Monk]. 7
8
Vice-Chair Monk: When does Council set its priorities? 9
10
Mr. Lait: It’s typically the last weekend or near the last weekend in January I believe that they… 11
12
Vice-Chair Monk: We’d probably want to wait till after they set priorities for the week and align 13
with their priorities or is that not necessarily the case? Chair I was just recommending that you 14
might want to consider waiting till the Council sets its new priorities so you get a more 15
productive conversation that would have alignment with Council priorities for the coming year. 16
17
Chair Lauing: Yeah that’s always a far debate. Last year we did not do that but we felt like it was 18
80 percent in place so I don’t think we were far off on that. 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Vice-Chair Monk: We had Council priorities when we had our retreat last time. 1
2
Commissioner Riggs: I would like to potentially get something on the calendar if that’s ok. I 3
don’t care when it would just be great to have something to shoot for so I can block it out. 4
5
Mr. Lait: Ok so we’ll try to find a date in February, probably mid-February, somewhere around 6
there and send an email to get your feedback. 7
8
Commissioner Alcheck: I’m not opposed to… sorry. I’m not opposed to making time for a mid-9
day – I – since – I don’t think that’s what we did last year. I think last year we were evening 10
again but I’m open to that. So, in case – if it does work out, I’m always willing to make those 11
sorts of… 12
13
Chair Lauing: Ok I can work the details with you. Ok, thanks. 14
15
Vice-Chair Monk: I had a question on Item 2 if that’s what you’re going onto. Do we have 16
annual – a requirement for an annual read of the Comp Plan and is that suppose to be on our 17
agenda for December? 18
19
Mr. Lait: As a matter of fact, you do have that requirement and we’re working on it actually. 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Vice-Chair Monk: So, it might show up… 2
3
Mr. Lait: It’s not going to show up this year… 4
5
Vice-Chair Monk: Ok. 6
7
Mr. Lait: …but we are working on it. 8
9
Vice-Chair Monk: So, are we compliant with the annual requirement if it shows up next year? 10
11
Mr. Lait: Yes. 12
13
Vice-Chair Monk: Ok thank you. 14
15
Mr. Lait: There’s two… and just to add a little bit, we have a local requirement and there’s a 16
state requirement. And so, what we’re looking at now is how do we report this in a way that 17
we’re not doing duplicate of work and we’re trying to make the report even more meaningful 18
than it’s been in the past. So, it’s going to take us…we have a new Comprehensive Plan, we’ve 19
got a lot of implementation policies that we need to address, and so we’re taking a little bit of 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
extra time to get a nice format for the Commission and for the community to see what we’re 1
doing and we hope to roll that out in the first part of next year. 2
3
Chair Lauing: Ok so the next Item if Item Number Three, a study session… 4
5
Commissioner Alcheck: (off mic) Oh, before we jump… 6
7
Chair Lauing: Go ahead, yeah. 8
9
Commissioner Alcheck: I may have missed this. I’m – I feel like there’s a lot of information out 10
there, I don’t always look to just rely on single sources we have. So, do you – is there anything 11
you can share with us about the President’s Hotel situation? I read a couple – it’s not even 12
worth quoting actually. I don’t know what I read but I’m curious to know if there are any 13
developments that you can share with us? 14
15
Mr. Lait: I can tell you that there’s no application that’s been filed and I’ve read what you’ve 16
probably read in the paper as well but I don’t have anything new to report on the issue. 17
18
Commissioner Alcheck: Ok. 19
20
Study Session 21
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Public Comment is Permitted. Five (5) minutes per speaker.1,3 1
3. Provide Feedback on Conceptual Design Options to Improve Multimodal Connectivity 2
and Safety along El Camino Real Between Stanford Avenue and Lambert Avenue. 3
4
Chair Lauing: Ok so Item Three is a study session on the conceptual design options to improve 5
connectivity on El Camino. I’m going to start with the Staff report and then do public comment. 6
7
Mr. Jonathan Lait, Assistant Director of Planning: Thank you Chair. I’m going to just introduce 8
Sylvia Star-Lack to my right and Jarrett Mullen to her right. Jarrett is going to give you a brief 9
introduction and then introduce our consultants. 10
11
Mr. Jarrett Mullen: Good evening Commissioners, my name is Jarrett Mullen, I’m with the 12
Office of Transportation, and tonight we’re bringing before you the conceptual ideas for El 13
Camino Real between Stanford Avenue and Lambert Avenue. This focuses on responding 14
documented incidences – collision incidents with bicyclist and pedestrians. So, I’d like to 15
introduce to my right Kendra Rowley from Fehr & Peers. She’s a Senior Engineer with that firm 16
and she’s been the project manager for the past year or so as we’ve been going through the 17
process with this planning study. And she can explain the background and some of our findings. 18
19
Ms. Kendra Rowley: Thanks, Jarrett. Good evening, so I just want to give you a little preview 20
about what we’re going to talk about tonight. I will go over why we are doing the study and a 21
little bit of context about the project and what we’ve heard from outreach efforts so far before 22
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
we dive into the draft design concepts. And then we’ll follow up with some discussion and 1
feedback from you guys. 2
3
So, this project falls under the umbrella of the Grand Boulevard intuitive which is a partnership 4
of agencies along El Camino Real from Daily City to San Jose that was formed to create a vision 5
for the corridor but the primary focus for this study in Palo Alto is safety. So, from 2006 to 2015 6
there were 51 people walking or biking that were involved in a collision with a vehicle. And the 7
City was awarded Caltrans grant funding on the basis of these collisions and because of the 8
opportunity to improve safety within the corridor and within the City with the additional goal of 9
developing guidance for the rest of the El Camino Real corridor. 10
11
A collision data is summarized into eight trends or collision profiles that get at the heart of the 12
safety issues for those traveling along and across El Camino by bike and on foot. Several of 13
these trends indicate the need for better bicycle crossings and connections between 14
destinations. So notable trends are high speed and shared traveling which accounts for a third 15
of the bicycle collisions. These are mid-block sideswipes, rear end, and lane changes, so this 16
indicated that people are biking along El Camino Real. Another third of the bike collisions was 17
wrong way bicycle along El Camino Real so this may be people that are biking for a short 18
distance, for example, to get to a destination. Trends for pedestrians indicate the need for 19
better visibility and also newly enhanced crossings. Over a third of the pedestrian collisions 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
involved seniors, 65 or older, and more than a third occurred at a side street with a stop sign. 1
Also notable are the red-light violations that are common among both the pedestrian and 2
bicycle collisions. 3
4
Another issue on El Camino Real is connectivity and access. So, collision trends indicate a 5
demand to bike along El Camino Real and we also know that there are many destinations on 6
the corridor that are difficult to access directly without traveling along El Camino Real, even just 7
for short distance. So, this includes bus stops at the Cal Ave Business District, office buildings 8
and community facilities in addition to several bicycle routes that cross El Camino Real that are 9
shown on the slide here. And we also heard that point reinforced during outreach and in some 10
cases, El Camino Real is the most direct path to get to these destinations by bike. 11
12
And the street is not just a bearer for bikes but also for pedestrians so currently the existing 13
controlled crosswalks are spaced 1,000 to 1,200-feet apart where the maximum distance that a 14
pedestrian is willing to talk to get to a crosswalk is 300 to 400-feet. 15
16
So, I want to add a little bit of additional context and go over what we’ve heard so far during 17
outreach before we share the draft concepts. First is vehicle access, just to round out the 18
discussion on access El Camino Real is classified as an arterial which is meant to focus on 19
mobility and moving vehicles along the roadway. Then there are no plans to modify that as we 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
are not proposing to remove a travel lane in either alternative. So, one thing the El Camino Real 1
does have is on-street parking which conflicts a little bit with the arterial classification and lends 2
itself more to a local street. In public opinions verged during outreach we’ve heard pretty 3
strongly for maintaining the on-street parking, especially from the Cal Mocha Business 4
Association [note – unknown group] but also, we’ve heard from the public that they are in favor 5
of removing it. So, given that one of the alternatives being studied requires removal of all of the 6
on-street parking along the corridor we did collect parking occupancy data which is shown here 7
on the screen. We collected data for three different periods, weekday lunch period, the 8
weekday dinner period, as well as the weekend lunch period. The dark red color shows the high 9
level of parking when parking becomes difficult to find. So, you can see that’s most common on 10
the -- towards the north end of the segment during the weekday lunch period. 11
12
Since the project began, we’ve done three rounds of outreach in various formats. The dates and 13
formats are listed here on the screen. For Stage One was – the purpose of Stage One was 14
envisioning the corridor so this was – we presented our collision analysis results and asked for 15
issues and opportunities and also what goals were the most important to people. Stage Two we 16
displayed our initial improvement ideas which were linked with specific needs on the corridor, 17
as well as trade, offs for Design Alternatives One and Two which I’ll go into more detail shortly. 18
State Three presented draft concepts for Option One and Option Two so these long examples 19
that are here on the wall today. And Stage Three is currently underway so we have an online 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
survey that closes at the end of the month. For Stages One and Two, the previous rounds of 1
outreach, we received over 1,600 comments overall and we estimate that we reached over 700 2
people. And then the current stage of outreach, again is ongoing and so far, we’ve heard from 3
over 100 people and the survey closes at the end of the month. 4
5
Some of the common themes that we’ve heard – comments that we’ve heard are to improve 6
bicycle and pedestrian crossings, that roadway maintenance is needed, many people that are in 7
favor of the bike lanes prefer the direct route that El Camino provides, destination by bike, they 8
think the bike lanes improve safety and it may also encourage alternate modes other than 9
driving. And then many people say that they want to preserve the vehicle access at 10
intersections, specifically the ability to make a right turn on red. A couple additional comments 11
were related to congestion on the corridor and wanting to see some sort of signal coordination. 12
And then also we’ve heard both that people are in favor of bike lanes and also that they 13
prefer… from a separate group of people, they prefer to focus improvements on parallel routes 14
for bikers. 15
16
So, I’m going to share just briefly the two alternatives that we’re presenting today and that 17
we’ve… that we were presenting during this current round of outreach. So just as an overview, 18
Option One includes protected bike lanes and this does require the removal of all of the on-19
street parking. Option Two does not have a bicycle facility on El Camino Real and the focus 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
again would be on potential enhancements to parallel bike lanes. Some on-street parking would 1
be removed for safety benefits, just at intersections to improve visibility there. The trade-offs 2
between the two, Option One would result in safer bicycle access to destinations and along El 3
Camino Real and respond to known bicycle collision patterns. But it would require additional 4
parking management analysis so that the impacts of removing the parking were minimized. 5
Option Two does not provide an equivalent degree of bicyclist connectivity or safety and both 6
of these alternatives are consistent with goals and policies and programs in the current 7
Comprehensive Plan. So, both options also include pedestrian enhancements at intersections to 8
shorten crossings, to improve visibility, and to slow down vehicles. There’s also streetscape and 9
placemaking opportunities to beautify the corridor with landscaping, street trees, and ped scale 10
lighting – pedestrian scale lighting. For both alternatives’ buses would stop in the land with 11
passenger amenities at bus stops like transit shelters and pedestrian scale lighting. And Option 12
One would focus a little bit more on addressing safety at intersections for bicycles because you 13
do have the bike facility on the corridor. So, that’s what you’re seeing here, on the left side, is a 14
potentially protected intersection at Cal Ave so this is to address conflicts with right turning 15
vehicles. 16
17
Some additional highlights of the design concepts here, improvements at Stanford focused on 18
connecting bikes to the existing Stanford trail, as well as improvements to the bus stop there. 19
There are some signal timing changes that we’re recommending at Stanford to address bicycle 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
conflicts at intersections. For example, adding a separate bicycle signal phase so that the heavy 1
southbound right turn goes separately from bikes. There’s also bike boxes there to 2
accommodate transitions and turns which would require prohibiting right turn on red to 3
protect the bikes that are waiting there. At Cal Ave, again bus stop improvements and then in 4
Option One as I mentioned earlier a potentially – a protected intersection to address right turn 5
conflicts with bikes. And then at Hansen Portage intersection and offset intersection, there are 6
short sections of protected bike lanes to connect those off-set side streets through the 7
intersection. So, to make that transition for bikes easier and safer and the designs for One and 8
Two at that intersection are similar. So, there would be a short section of protected bike lanes 9
in either option. 10
11
So finally, I wanted to share some initial studies that we’ve been doing for Page Mill Road 12
where we’ve looked at the potential for bus queue jump lanes. Just as some background to the 13
idea, the transit priority treatment or transit priority treatments, in general, are identified as a 14
mitigation measure in the Comprehensive Plan EIR and were conceptually developed with 15
feedback from VTA. So, we tested multiple alternatives and this is the one that came out as the 16
preferred. Which is adding a dedicated right turn lane in both the north and south directions for 17
vehicles which would then be shared by buses as a through lane as a way to skip the queue of 18
vehicles that are going straight. This would require about 11 to 20-feet of widening of the 19
intersection and property acquisition in order to accommodate this extra right turn pocket or 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
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queue jump lane. And the widening would be on the west side of the road only along the 1
frontage of the Palo Alto Square and Mayfield Soccer Complex and in both cases impacting the 2
landscaping bordering the parking lots. At a high level, the results show a substantial reduction 3
in delay for transit at the intersection and also a moderate reduction in delay for vehicles. 4
5
So that is actually all I have today. This last slide just shows some of the topics that we want to 6
focus on in terms of feedback from you all and for discussion today. So, we want to know what 7
you think about the on-street parking removal, also if there are any additional studies or 8
research that you would like to see related potentially to the parking occupancy, just where 9
should we focus any additional studies, and then finally the queue jump lanes that I showed on 10
that last slide if you guys had any thoughts on the tradeoffs there. In particulate related to the 11
right of way acquisition and the removal of landscaping. 12
13
Chair Lauing: Ok thanks. Any other additions from Staff? If not, we’ll go to public comment, we 14
have three cards. The first one is Andrew Boone. 15
16
Commissioner Waldfogel: [unintelligible – off mic] 17
18
Chair Lauing: Larger version he is asking for. 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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Commissioner Waldfogel: (off mic) On this… 1
2
Ms. Rowley: That’s actually a snapshot of what’s up on the wall. 3
4
Commissioner Waldfogel: [unintelligible – off mic] 5
6
Ms. Rowley: It may not have been. Oh no, it was right because it’s part of the improvement or 7
the concept. 8
9
Mr. Mullen: Commissioners, it was in the Packet and it will be in a substantially reduced format. 10
This is probably something that you’ll need a magnifying glass to look at and I do apologize for 11
that. It was… I should have done a compressed version but we do have the full-size roll out. 12
That’s actually what they were reduced from over there. 13
14
Commissioner Waldfogel: [unintelligible – off mic] 15
16
Mr. Mullen: Ok. 17
18
Commissioner Riggs: (off mic) If you have your computer it’s pretty resolute… it's pretty 19
resolute in the PDF. 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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1
Commissioner Waldfogel: Yeah. 2
3
Chair Lauing: Mr. Boone, you’re up. 4
5
Mr. Andrew Boone: Yes, good evening Commissioners, my name is Andrew Boone and I live on 6
Woodland Avenue in East Palo Alto. I bike and walk often in this area and including on El 7
Camino crossing, El Camino Ave for many years. There isn’t really a practical way to avoid the 8
street when you want to go shopping on… somewhere on El Camino and then you want to go 9
somewhere else that’s also on El Camino. So, this option to – of not doing anything to improve 10
conditions for biking on the street doesn’t make any sense to me. This is exactly what Palo Alto 11
should be doing. El Camino Real, there’s no reason why it should be excluded from our set of 12
complete streets. No reason why we cannot make it a complete street. Right now, bicycle on 13
the street and walking across the street they’re hazardous. People get hit by cars, get injured 14
and the effect is suppression of walking and bicycling as modes of transportation. People don’t 15
choose to walk and bike even if it’s a short trip sometimes because of the condition of El 16
Camino. So, this project isn’t just for improving safety for these modes of transportation but the 17
benefits go far beyond in protecting the natural environment and improving public health. So, I 18
would urge you to recommend this Option One, the one that is… includes separated bike lanes 19
to the City Council. I know that the City Council, some members are going to have some 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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skepticism about this concept and the ideas even controversial unfortunately among the public. 1
The right thing to do is think about it carefully and look at examples in other Cities what has 2
been done. These kind of bike lanes are very common in many parts of the world and have 3
been successful in getting lots more people to ride bikes and to be able to do it safely, even on 4
busy roads like El Camino Real. I think my main concern about the design is how wide are those 5
separated bike lanes. If they are only 8-feet wide, that doesn’t give you an opportunity to pass 6
someone else who’s bicycling in the lane and so you have traffic congestion. It would be nice to 7
avoid that unfortunate reality. What you want is something very comfortable, very covenant, 8
wide and especially here at – where El Camino crosses Page Mill Road. The priority in this 9
design is being given to car traffic. There’s a total of 10 lanes on El Camino Real up from the 10
existing 8 lanes for car traffic. And so, the resulting bike lanes are narrow and get the left-over 11
space. That is not how it should be, people walking and bicycling should be put at the front in – 12
when we are redesigning streets and intersections. Thank you. 13
14
Chair Lauing: Thanks very much. Next speaker is Wayne [Note – Wynne] Furth. Wynne, I’m 15
sorry. 16
17
Ms. Wynne Furth: Good evening. My name is Wynne Furth, I’m the Chairmen of the 18
Architectural Review Board of the City of Palo Alto and I’m glad to know that – we are glad to 19
know that you all are working on this project. We have reviewed a very large number of 20
_______________________
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projects along this stretch of El Camino Real and also north and south in the past – in the recent 1
past. Most of them are still being built and more of them are coming to us. Some of them are 2
hotels, some of them are all residential, some of them are all commercial, some of them are 3
mixed-use. They all intensify the use on their sites which are sometimes a bit small. They are 4
often adjacent to these rather narrow side streets with rolled curbs which have their own 5
transportation, pedestrian, bicycle problems because that leads to parking half on the sidewalk, 6
half on the street. And as we’ve looked at them our charge is to make sure that they work well 7
for pedestrian and bicycle traffic on and off the site, there’s adequate loading, that they 8
basically function and one of the – we do pretty well I think in dealing from the curb to the 9
building. I mean there’s… we have the south El Camino and the El Camino Design Guidelines 10
that's all for these wider sidewalks, we have street furniture, we have trees but the thing that 11
keeps coming up which is really more in your jurisdiction is what I understand is called curb 12
management. And that is what happens between the curb, what happens beyond the curb and 13
most of these projects assume that they will have less use of cars by the people coming to the 14
project or in the projects. That they’ll use ride-sharing service, that they use bikes, that they will 15
walk but they don’t necessarily come to us to designed that way so we do what we can about 16
their design. We try to make sure that the driveways are designed in a way so that people 17
walking or even bicycling along the sidewalks won’t have lethal conflicts with the cars coming in 18
and out. But we make assumptions and Staff tells us that space will be available for example on 19
the curb for commercial loading and for laundry services and for deliveries. And we make 20
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assumptions that when we can, which is usually the case in a hotel, we make sure that they are 1
designed so that anybody waiting for a ride service has a place to meet that ride, not on El 2
Camino but we can’t do that for some of these projects. They’re simply… if you look at that one, 3
if you look at the top left-hand corner I think where it says bus stop, that’s the new small unit 4
housing project which is designed on the premise that people will use alternative forms of 5
transportation. It’s a snug site, those people want to be able to get around to the Cal Ave 6
District, they want to get… I always think of it as North… towards San Francisco on El Camino 7
and then hang a right and then they are fine once they cross the way but it’s hard for that. So, 8
as you do this we would very much appreciate if in thinking about this you think about how 9
those on street support functions of these new and old developments interact with what you’re 10
thinking. Thank you for your work on this. 11
12
Chair Lauing: Great, thank you. Ken… is it Joye? 13
14
Mr. Ken Joye: Ken Joy, I’m a resident of the Ventura neighborhood and I want to thank Staff for 15
the work preparing this and you all for considering it. I have to say I went to one of the data 16
collection meetings that the consultant mentioned at the farmer’s market and I probably 17
marked something on the form there that I’ve since then changed my mind about. At one point 18
I want to affirm is in the belief that bicycles were better served by going parallel paths but my 19
mind has changed. And I think the key thing was something that was referred to as the 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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Peninsula Bike Way or the Manager’s Mobility Consortium where people are trying to look at 1
how you get from Redwood City to Mountain View on a bicycle. And it seems to me that the 2
best place is probably El Camino Real and the plan that’s put forward here is Option Number 3
One would really serve that so I encourage you to consider that as a strong option. I do have 4
one question, I know that this has been addressed but I’m not sure where northbound cyclists 5
would be coming from as they move from Lambert forward to Portage? How does this plan tie 6
into the existing connection between the ballpark path along Margarita to Park Boulevard? One 7
other thing I’d love to see if 24 by 7 automated data collection of all bicycle movements on El 8
Camino Real in this project so if you could toss that in there that would be super. Thank you for 9
your time. 10
11
Chair Lauing: Thanks. David Coale. 12
13
Mr. David Coale: Yes, my name is David Coale and I’m a Barron Park resident. I also went to a 14
meeting just earlier this week about this project and as a cyclist and cycling advocate I actually 15
support Option Two. I think that parallel routes get you away from the most congested, highest 16
possible accident place to put a bike path. Even if you had a protected bike lane, you do not get 17
rid the right hooks and the two lower sections of accident reports that were on the Staff report. 18
Those don’t go away and protected bike lane on El Camino will never be an 8 to 80 bike path, it 19
just would never feel safe. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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1
As far as having a connected route from Redwood City to Palo Alto, that’s a tough one. I think in 2
our area between Lambert and Stanford Avenue we do have very good parallel routes. I would 3
rather see money put into Park Boulevard and to unfreeze those funds. And finish that project 4
and those projects, the bike boulevards, to make that the safest alternatives so the people 5
would be gravitated to that area. 6
7
On the bulb-outs, learn from Arastradero. They redesigned all the bulbs out because they were 8
too sharp so they paid twice for that. So, start with the Arastradero radius and reconsider that. 9
Also, reconsider and have modeled the amount of rear-end collisions that happen when 10
somebody slams on the break to make these 90 degrees turn when you have bulb-outs and 11
how sharp that should or shouldn’t be. I know you want to reduce that crossing lane for 12
pedestrians but consider the back up of traffic. 13
14
On the jump queue lane, if you’re heading northbound in the morning on El Camino toward 15
Page Mill Road, it backs up all the way to Matadero. So that this little jump in and out of lanes 16
that they show along El Camino is totally not feasible. So, the jump lane should be redesigned 17
or considered because it’s just not possible with the flow of traffic. In the morning at 8:30 I 18
couldn’t – you know it was jammed up to Matadero, all lanes, so I think that needs a little more 19
thought. Thank you. 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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1
Chair Lauing: Thank you. Cedric de la Beaujardiere. 2
3
Mr. Cedric de la Beaujardiere: Hi, I’m Cedric de la Beaujardiere, I live in Barron Park, I am what 4
you classify as a – what is it, a strong and fearless rider. And I do ride down El Camino quite 5
often on my bike when I am going to businesses on California Avenue for instances is the most 6
frequent thing. If I’m not going on Cal Ave I go to Park and Park is a much more friendly bicycle 7
route but I do often go on El Camino and even as a fearless rider it is absolutely terrifying. So, I 8
strongly support Option Two, I think it would be a great improvement to bicycle safety. As we 9
saw there were 31 accidents… 31 collisions between bikes and vehicles in that area so that’s 10
significant. So yeah, it would increase safety and I think as others have mentioned it would also 11
potentially increase the mode share, including all those developments that are depending upon 12
increased mode share of bicycling and walking. 13
14
If you do, do Option Two instead, I noted that there is some places where there’s the… where 15
there’s kind of a wide bus stop connected to the sidewalk. And the idea is that the bus stops 16
basically in the traffic lane and the idea is that a bicyclist should stop and wait for the bus to go 17
and then go forward. As a cyclist who rides on pretty burly streets like El Camino, I can tell you 18
that a cyclist like me is not going to wait behind the bus. It’s going to go around the bus and 19
then there’s the risk of getting hit by a car behind them. So, given the… that Option Two has 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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some slight improvements for bicycling but not very much and doesn’t really address the bulk 1
of those collisions there; the behind swipe collisions. I think that that aspect of it really needs to 2
be considered and take that… allow the buses to pull out of the way of traffic and let the bikes 3
go past. Thank you very much and please support Option Two. 4
5
Chair Lauing: Thank you, helpful. Kelsey Banes. 6
7
Ms. Kelsey Banes: Good evening Commissioners, my name is Kelsey Banes, I’m a resident of 8
University South and I just want to start by saying I support these efforts to generally make El 9
Camino safer for pedestrians and bicyclist regardless of which redesign you go with. However, I 10
would favor the redesign that creates protected bike lanes over retaining on-street parking. My 11
reasons for this are about traffic, so traffic is one of the main concerns in Palo Alto. And if we 12
want to really make an effort in reducing traffic, I think we should make it feel much safer and 13
make it more pleasant for a bicyclist to run errands and go out to eat and things like that. So, 14
basically making the experience of biking a more pleasant one. And I think that even if it’s just a 15
small barrier I hope you would explore ways to make it even safer because of the comment that 16
it’s not going to be 8 to 80. And I think that’s important but even if it’s a minor improvement I 17
think that could change behavior. 18
19
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The other thing that wasn’t really mentioned that I would be curious about is if removing on-1
street parking, just given that cars take time to pull in and out of spots and wait for spots to 2
open up, if not having the on-street parking could actually reduce traffic. And I just had some 3
more questions about bus priority and how that will work because ideally it will be set up so 4
that buses can have priority over cars. But I thought the gentlemen who spoke before me who 5
talked about the danger of blocking bikes made a really good point. So, just looking for ways to 6
make bus travel more quick and favorite over cars but not get in the way of a bicyclist. Thank 7
you. 8
9
Chair Lauing: Ok thank you. That completes the speaker (interrupted) 10
11
Mr. Beaujardiere: I’m sorry I miss spoke, I meant Option One, support Option One. I was told… I 12
said the wrong thing. Option One, thank you. 13
14
Chair Lauing: Alright it comes back to the Commission for comments and I think we’ll just look 15
for lights. Mr. Riggs. 16
17
Commissioner Riggs: I have… so I don’t… I’m just going to structure my comments on this 18
because they’re comments and questions and I need to kind of unpack them so maybe we 19
could stop and… if you want to dive deep. I… so I guess my first comment is I feel like there may 20
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be some embedded bias in the locations that you’ve gathered some of the feedback. They all 1
seem very concentrated around Cal Ave so they seem to be targeting a certain type of user and 2
that user may be already bias towards… maybe already have other cognitive or availability bias 3
that is already slanted towards biking or walking. Particularly if you’re doing it around the 4
farmers market so I would just caution you to maybe expand the type of event that you’re 5
doing. Maybe put somebody out there at Mayfield during the day to talk to the people… you 6
know all the people that are there waiting to get their kids after soccer practice or something 7
like that. That may be a good idea and maybe you go further up or down Cal Avenue but I just 8
think expanding that audience might be a good strategy. 9
10
I guess my second big question and/or comment is I think its really clearly… I mean the physical 11
design options here I would suggest similar interventions but I feel like you’re giving us to ends 12
of the spectrum with nothing in the middle from a physical intervention standpoint. One is 13
basically a… almost a status quo alternative with certain minor augmentations and one is 14
exactly another extremely -- a super enhanced completed street. And there could be many 15
different permutations in the middle of that, let alone many different options at any of these 16
intersections. I mean you mentioned a Phase for the bike… for the cars and I immediately 17
thought well why not do a full bike phase at Cal Ave which I didn’t… maybe I’m 18
misunderstanding your statement. But it sounded like there was… there would be a right-hand 19
turn phase as opposed to a full stop phase which I know Caltrans will allow. Caltrans will allow 20
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for a full bike crossing phase where the intersection becomes an effective scrambler. So, I don’t 1
see… I think we just want to make sure that we looked at the full… I would want to make sure, 2
let me not speak for the rest of the Commission, you’ve looked at the full range of options. And 3
I’ve not been presented those options and I don’t know that they’ve been dialogue, I see two 4
ends of the spectrum. So maybe… I don’t know that we need to dive into that but I just see a 5
limitation. I think the… I would say personally I favor the kind of the more aggressive… just 6
based on my personal bias the more aggressive complete street. I think that the curbside 7
management piece is better facilitated by removing the parking particularly for all the housing 8
that we’re… and other active serving uses that we’re putting along El Camino. 9
10
But I would say that I have one concern and this is, I’m chewing down to the meat of my 11
comment, is that I’m really concerned about embedded bias in the original… the first slide… you 12
know 51 collisions. You haven’t told me anything about traffic volume, you haven’t told me 13
anything about bicycle volume, you haven’t told me anything about pedestrian volume, you 14
haven’t told me anything about parking occupancy, and I want to believe that these 15
interventions are appropriate. I don’t know what the travel… what the current patterns are if 16
this type of investment per volume is wanted. What we know is that this… these 51 collisions 17
wouldn’t stand up in a traditional [unintelligible] statistical model. We know that this is not a 18
significant sample and that this is mainly… this is most likely randomized… this is random. And 19
so, unless I can get the volume data, I don’t actually know that I’m making… that we would be 20
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making a good use of prioritizing limited transportation funding along this corridor. And I think 1
we heard that from… in my opinion, we heard that from a couple in the audience who felt like 2
prioritizing off El Camino was the better option for their own commute. But I haven’t seen the 3
cyclist data on each of these corridors to know whether or not we would induce… we would… I 4
don’t believe that we’re going to induce…. I think we have to be cautious in saying that we’re 5
going to induce mode shift by physical intervention because there’s very little [unintelligible] 6
that shows that but we’re going to choose people traveling differently. And I just think that 7
we… I haven’t seen convincing data from what you’ve presented that this is actually… these are 8
justified. And that… I just… I think its maybe time to step back and maybe take a data-driven 9
approach to what I want which is this awesome cycle track you’re pitching but I haven’t seen 10
the data-driven argument here. And I… maybe I’ll just let it be at that, I have some other 11
detailed design options if that Option One, that sexy El Camino awesomeness is going to 12
happen but I think it’s not worth maybe diving into that until we know that that’s the right 13
policy chose. And that would be the only… that’s the real concern that I have starting off with 14
here. 15
16
Chair Lauing: Ok you don’t (interrupted) 17
18
Commissioner Riggs: If I said anything to fast, I’m happy to go back. 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Lauing: You don’t need to respond but you can respond just so you know the ground 1
rules. So, if you wanted to give him any feedback on that or we can continue until you have 2
more… 3
4
Commissioner Riggs: You don’t have to respond. 5
6
Chair Lauing: I mean I’m talking about clarification. Ok, let’s go on to the next one then. 7
8
Mr. Lait: Oh, I’m sorry Chair, so we may have some information to inform the conversation. It 9
may not… I don’t think we got to the level that you have but if we have some traffic… we may 10
have some traffic volume data that we can share with you at least. 11
12
Commissioner Riggs: I think that would help, for me, to justify whether or not we can… I mean 13
because if we have a high-volume intersection, both high volume for multiple modes, then that 14
actually… and that is consistent with the collisions than we maybe have a logical argument. But 15
I still think there either could be a degree of randomness in these collisions and so we 16
necessarily aren’t making collision-based decisions, we’re making a volume-based decision. So, I 17
think it’s… collisions drive emotion but they can happen anywhere. 18
19
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
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Mr. Lait: Sure. We’ll have to do… get some more data but for information that we have 1
available now, we’re happy to share that. 2
3
Commissioner Riggs: And let me say, for you Staff, I have an Eco counter, it just happens to be 4
one of the… if my lab will allow the City to use it, we can install it somewhere out there if you 5
want to use it. I’m happy to do that for a little while. You may have one in place but we can 6
figure that out and dialog it later. It’s… mines at Hoover Elementary School right now counting 7
little people so we can figure out if that’s a resource that I can provide to you. 8
9
Mr. Mullen: So as far as… I can speak to the data question about traffic volume. The El Camino 10
is around 40,000 cars per day, it’s given or take and it fluctuates but that’s what we’re looking 11
at. And then we also do have parking… the parking stall counts as well. It’s a bit of an estimate 12
because the stalls aren’t formally marked but throughout the corridor, it’s 154 stalls and that’s 13
the study [unintelligible](interrupted). 14
15
Commissioner Riggs: But I would just say that we have to take a… have you looked at a 16
probabilistic approach. That’s a lot of volume for not… I mean so… there are far more vehicle 17
collisions for example at 19th Avenue and Highway 1 [note – maybe Highway 101] in the City. 18
So, I just… I would like to see a probabilistic approach to that. Not just… and you can’t do that 19
without the pedestrian and cyclist data. You can tell me 40,00 trips but… 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Mr. Lait: Sure, no I don’t… and we’re not questioning that. I think we just want to share what 2
data we had available now and understand that we may just need to do some more work. 3
4
Commissioner Riggs: So, one of the things that embedded in my suggestion is if there are not 5
great spot counts on bike/ped volume. That could be something that we asked Fehr and Peers 6
to do during peak hours to compliment and reinforce maybe some of the argument. And I don’t 7
know if that’s being done, maybe that’s something that we can ask Stanford about. I don’t 8
know if Stanford… if some of this seems… I’m done, sorry. 9
10
Chair Lauing: Ok, you're done as well? Ok. Commissioner Gardias. 11
12
Commissioner Gardias: Thank you very much for your report and thank you very much public 13
for just arming us with a different perspective. It’s always usefully to hear what Palo Altans 14
think so thanks very much. So, a couple of comments and I think the discussion will continue, so 15
it probably would be useful to see what others are doing. We had this conversation with 16
Commissioner Summa and I’m sure that she’s going to speak to it as well but the concept of 17
Grand Boulevard has been here since I was here. Since maybe not forever but at least 5-years 18
but so it would be interesting to see the… how the whole concept is implemented or is 19
discussed in other municipalities. And I understand that this is not… we’re not talking about the 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
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whole boulevard, we’re just talking about the streetscaping. The discussion about the 1
boulevard would be much greater than this but I’d like to understand what is the continuity of… 2
whether the decision in Mountain View and then further south, Sunnyvale, in regards to the 3
same throughput of the bikes and cars. Are they just leaning towards allowing the bikes running 4
along the El Camino or they are precluding this giving that there’s a limitation? At least in 5
Mountain View and Palo Alto, there is a limit of the width. I think that further south El Camino 6
goes then it… the wider it gets so they have broader opportunities over there but at least 7
adjacent municipalities I would like to understand what is their thinking in trying to align the 8
bikes with the street or not so that’s number one. 9
10
In terms of the… I’d like to also understand some other items that… because I get it, we just 11
focus on the small section of… that is prone to some accidents. So, I’d like to understand more 12
about… also about the bike traffic. I’d like to have… besides the cars, I’d like to know how many 13
bikers are there, how many potential bikers would it be if we opened this to others because it 14
would be much safer? So, I’d like to see the current count and I’d like to just see some estimate 15
based on some scientific data what would be increased traffic if we opened this to others. This 16
would also allow us just too… and the counts to judge from the perspective of the investment is 17
that the money well spent if it’s going to be say small volume open maybe to some stronger 18
bikers. I don’t remember what the gentlemen was calling himself but would it be open to 19
everyone or it would be open only to a few? 20
_______________________
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1
And then I would also like to understand and maybe that’s a different option, this current 2
design although segregates… and this is Option Number One. Although it segregates bike traffic 3
from the street it still… the bikes are still aligned with the street. That may be a nuance but it’s 4
a very important one because in some other municipalities bike traffic is aligned with the 5
sidewalk. Pretty much those bike routes are parts of the sidewalk which is totally a different 6
thing. It’s the same surface, pretty much there is a very small separation between the 7
pedestrians and the bikers. That extension may be used by the pedestrians due to some… I 8
don’t know maybe due to some… during some other hours but then it’s a different concept 9
than to separate a lane that is part of a street. 10
11
Also, I would like to see an option that would allow us maybe not use… my question would be 12
like this. Is there any other option the using of Park Boulevard as an alternate route? Perhaps 13
there is not because we are all going to look at Park Boulevard and say ok, there’s already a 14
bike route there. Do we really… is there any other alternative to pretty much allow bikes just to 15
go in parallel along El Camino as opposed to in a distance which is Park Boulevard. 16
17
Also, I have a couple question so maybe you can just help me on this. What is the cost of the… if 18
those bus queue… jump queue lanes would be entertained what is the cost of the acquisition of 19
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those properties that are in… that would be subject of that acquisition? And you don’t have to 1
provide that answer at this moment but probably somebody will ask this question. 2
3
There is… there was… we have the Chair of ARB and she brought the question that or the 4
comment about the properties that are along this stretch of El Camino Boulevard. And then I 5
think that it may impair those properties if you’re going to take away the land as it is in Option 6
Number One. I don’t think its part of Option Number Two as, well right? It’s Option only One 7
when you acquire some land from those properties. Are you going to pretty much impure those 8
owners so their properties will just not have much of the value because it becomes so small, so 9
inaccessible, and if this is the case why do we even bother with this? Has this been thought 10
through or it was just drawn because it’s pretty? So, I’m just throwing this, don’t answer it right 11
now but you should have those answers in the [unintelligible] because somebody is going to ask 12
us this question. 13
14
And then also just a question that you may tell me… answer right now. In Option One when 15
bikes are run along the El Camino Boulevard, that stripe of route that is taken away from the 16
street it makes it narrower right? Is it… is that… that strip of land that’s designated for a bike 17
lane, it’s… how wide is this and is it taken away from the road or is it taken away from the 18
sidewalk? 19
20
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Ms. Rowley: So, it actually converts the on-street parking lane to a bicycle lane. That’s how the 1
parking would need to be removed in Option One. So effectively the width of the travel way is 2
the same although we may have recommended actually slight reductions in the lane widths but 3
we’re not removing a travel lane to accommodate the bicycle lanes. It's just in place, kind of 4
right on top of where the parking is. 5
6
Mr. Mullen: I’d like to add to that too, we also looked at some earlier plans along El Camino 7
Real. Including El Camino Real Master Plan from 2007 which was never adopted but it 8
progressed to a pretty mature draft that had some conceptual design ideas in it. One of which 9
was to narrow the traffic lanes from 12-feet to 1-feet… 1-foot sorry to accommodate a slightly 10
wider median. Specifically, in the area between… sorry, I have to look at these S streets, 11
Sheridan and Stanford Avenue which currently has no planting in most of it and the idea was to 12
try to facilitate more landscaping in the median. So, we are trying to pick off of or use that as a 13
starting point along with some of the other feedback we received. So, the lanes are narrower 14
going from 12 to 11-feet and then the parking would be removed in Option One as Kendra 15
noted. 16
17
Commissioner Gardias: And probably there is no option just to accommodate the bike lane and 18
then still allow for the car parking along El Camino? Just removing the or narrowing or totally 19
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removing the median. I believe in… around Charleston that median disappears… in some areas, 1
it disappears completely right? It’s just a concrete curb. 2
3
Mr. Mullen: So that is one thing that the El Camino Real Master Plan draft actually looked at 4
was looking at striping on-street bike lanes next to parallel parking. And you could smoosh 5
everything in there actually but with the current guidance, we wouldn’t recommend that 6
because you would just have a standard 5-foot bike lane between on-street parking next to 7
very high speed, high volume automobile traffic. So, we wouldn’t recommend that with our 8
current design guidelines. 9
10
Commissioner Gardias: Thank you. Thank you, I’m glad that you had the answer from the top 11
of your head. So, my preference would be, just so you know, to allow the bike lanes with… to 12
have bike lanes being a part of the sidewalk. Not being a part of the street as it’s currently 13
proposed if this Option Number One is going to be preferred by others. Thank you for now. 14
15
Chair Lauing: Commissioner Monk [note – Vice Chair Monk]. 16
17
Vice-Chair Monk: Thank you and thank you to all the speakers that came out tonight. I think the 18
comments were really useful and I’m particularly grateful for our Director or Chair of the ARB 19
who came out. That was very nice to hear from you. Just as a preliminary question, can you 20
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kind of explain to us this grand boulevard concept versus the safety issues presented because 1
it’s a little convoluted as to what we’re supposed to be… what lens we're supposed to be 2
viewing this as. 3
4
Mr. Mullen: Sure, so the grand boulevard is basically a… it’s not an agency, it’s not a regulatory 5
government agency. It’s really more of a coordinating group of agencies along the corridor… the 6
El Camino Real corridor from Santa Clara County all the way up to San Francisco. And the idea is 7
to use it as kind of a brainstorming session to come up with ideas for really approach El Camino 8
Real which has a very strong presence in all of these communities. And there’s a lot of shared 9
issues but really to develop approaches that Cities can pick and choose from that fit their 10
individual unique needs. So, the grand boulevard is not a prescriptive agency that… top-down 11
agency. It’s a brainstorming idea bank basically. So, this project is done in partnership with the 12
grand boulevard. It’s a bit of a complicated funding structure (interrupted) 13
14
Vice-Chair Monk: Jarrett, I’ll spare you for all the details. I really wanted to know if other Cities 15
are viewing the grand boulevard implementation or concept in terms of addressing safety or is 16
there some other aesthetic that we should be considering? Because what I’m looking at that 17
we’ve just been presenting this… it’s been presented to me mostly as a safety concern. That’s 18
how I’m viewing our report today. I don’t know if others are sharing that sentiment but that 19
was something that I took away from the report so I’m a little confused by that. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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1
Mr. Mullen: So, safety is usually the highest priority in all of our roadway designing efforts but 2
the grand boulevard does touch on placemaking and aesthetics as well. 3
4
Vice-Chair Monk: And then we’re designating, just to confirm so that folks are aware, we’re 5
talking about .8 of a mile here. So less… you know close to ¾ of a mile so I wouldn’t really view 6
this as an extensive amount of travel that someone will be doing if they want to travel from 7
Palo Alto to Redwood City or to Mountain View. You’re not going to be utilizing this ¾ of a mile 8
stretch together because it’s many more miles beyond that. So just to clarify that we’re talking 9
about a pretty small stretch. 10
11
In regards to the connectivity that Kendra brought up, you mentioned the arterial designation 12
which I was surprised to hear because to me El Camino Real is quite a major thoroughfare. Did I 13
hear you correctly and can you elaborate on that a little bit more? And the reason I’m asking is 14
if we’ve got bike boulevards and other streets that we’re trying to divert bicycle traffic onto, 15
how does that intersect with that current designation? 16
17
Mr. Mullen: So, I’m sorry you mentioned the (interrupted) 18
19
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Vice-Chair Monk: I just want to confirm, you said it was an arterial designation. That sounds like 1
any other [unintelligible](interrupted) 2
3
Mr. Mullen: Yes, in our Comprehensive Plan it’s designated as an arterial. 4
5
Vice-Chair Monk: Versus a major thoroughfare? 6
7
Mr. Mullen: You could see them interchangeably. 8
9
Vice-Chair Monk: That is interchangeable. 10
11
Mr. Mullen: Those are kind of interchangeable terms but it’s… I referred to the Comprehensive 12
Plan designation of arterial. 13
14
Vice-Chair Monk: Ok. I have a few more questions and I’ll try to go as quickly as I can. This is 15
my… I do want you to consider and look into for additional study when I… you know I’m an… I 16
consider myself very much a novice local cyclist. And when I tried to go from here to Redwood 17
City or other communities [note-using] Google maps using the bike app it puts me on El Camino 18
but I know I do not want to be on my bicycle on El Camino Real at any point in time. And in the 19
brief conversations I’ve had with Google I understand their maps team is located in Switzerland. 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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And the bicycle people… I don’t even know but we have contacts… I know that the Planning 1
Department has some contacts there but I think it’s a big issue that they are diverting traffic. 2
And I do believe I have some… it may not be reliable but some good insight information that 3
Google is intentionally diverting cycling traffic to paid advertising businesses and to me that is a 4
very competitive safety issue. If they are actually intentionally putting cyclists on busy roadways 5
because that’s their -- they are getting sponsorships for their Google map applications and 6
things like that. So, I would like additional study and investigation because you’re using Google 7
maps and you’re relying on that icon for cycling and it’s not even showing a bicycle boulevard 8
that’s right here that’s only two blocks away. It’s adjacent, it’s much longer, it's much safer, it’s 9
a parallel street, there’s something wrong that we’re not getting that map so I really do want 10
additional study on that. I think it’s really critical and also with Park actually because if the 11
segment is south of where Bryant stops, it would be… I guess the [unintelligible] boulevard. 12
13
In regards to the number of crashes, you said that there were 50 crashes over the last 10-years. 14
I think it would be interesting to know the number of pedestrian incidents versus cycling 15
incidents. I don’t think it was detailed in here and when you were… I mean do you know the 16
answer to that now or did you have that data point? 17
18
Mr. Mullen: Yes, I believe it was… yes, it’s on the Packet Page 13, there are two tables that 19
break out the total collision by mode. 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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1
Vice-Chair Monk: So, can you just… how many pedestrians and how many were cycling? 2
3
Mr. Mullen: Twenty pedestrian collisions, 31 bicycles. 4
5
Vice-Chair Monk: So slightly more bicycle versus pedestrian? Ok well, that’s helpful because to 6
me when you look at the two options. One of them really looks more bicycle oriented, slightly 7
pedestrian, and then the other one looks like status quo as Commissioner Riggs was eluding 8
too. They look kind of extreme so just quantifying it in terms of where the data is at is helpful. 9
So, when you look at the proposals that were given to us, the two options, and that one of the… 10
you said one of the issues was high speed. That was… those… you gave us a third, a third, and a 11
third. I think those were for cycling accidents, is that right? The high speed, going the wrong 12
way and seniors? 13
14
Ms. Rowley: (off mic) Seniors where pedestrian. 15
16
Vice-Chair Monk: That was the pedestrian, ok? So that was the total number? So in regards to 17
high speed… so I’m just wondering… what I want to know is how are these proposals solving for 18
those issues? What are… where are you doing… what’s being done to address high speed and 19
this is just for you to consider? Are you putting any signage up? Are you putting any markers to 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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indicate how fast people are traveling? Share the road? I know we have rules about to much 1
signage in Palo Alto. We don’t want to… I know we have other rules that we need to comply 2
with but is that happening because I would prefer to see that the solutions being presented 3
actually solve the very specific problems that are identified. That they are being caused by 4
people speeding so is this slowing people down, yes or no? People going the wrong way, is this 5
addressing that particular issue? Seniors, I don’t know what to say about that if that’s… because 6
it’s more likely that seniors walk versus young people and that’s just how the demographics 7
turn out or are seniors doing things that are problematic? I don’t know. So, I think it was 8
Commissioner… both Commissioners that spoke before were wanting a little bit more 9
information on that and I think it would be useful. 10
11
I’m trying to read my own handwriting which is terrible. I’ve got a… I can’t even write right now 12
so I apologize. I’ll just try to read it and see if it makes sense when it comes out. If the concern is 13
over the bicycle and pedestrian accidents then why does it seem that the options are kind of 14
extreme that I had just mentioned? I mean are there other scenarios that were considered for 15
the issues presented that were not presented tonight? That might be a question more for 16
Kendra, I don’t know but it just looked like we just got two extremes (interrupted) 17
18
Mr. Mullen: I can speak to that. 19
20
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Vice-Chair Monk: Options and nothing like midway. 1
2
Mr. Mullen: The options are… they’re really making use of the [unintelligible] right of way all 3
priorities considered. I’d actually… if we were looking at more extreme options that would 4
probably involve repurposing motor vehicle travel lanes and we are not considering that in 5
these options. 6
7
Vice-Chair Monk: Yeah, I’m not saying that we need to consider more extreme options but what 8
I’m saying is that I think Commissioner Riggs eluded to it. So, I’m just concurring with his 9
position that one of them looks like its more or less maintaining status quo and one of them is 10
pretty aggressive with bicycles was kind of what I took away Commissioner Riggs if I’m correct? 11
12
Commissioner Riggs: [unintelligible – off mic] 13
14
Vice-Chair Monk: That’s sort of my take away just on the two here. It doesn’t seem like there 15
are other options presented. 16
17
Commissioner Riggs: I think that I’ll just weigh in. It’s basically either Class One or Class 18
(interrupted) 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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Vice-Chair Monk: Kind of all or nothing. 1
2
Commissioner Riggs: I called it Class Four but it seems like there are variances like you could do 3
a Class Two protected bikeway. I don’t think there’d be anything inconsistent and I would 4
[unintelligible] on that. And I just feel like we’re only seeing… what I was saying is we’re only 5
seeing one variance of aggressive bike options when there may be… we haven’t seen pure Class 6
Four (interrupted) 7
8
Vice-Chair Monk: Yes, I’m just (interrupted) 9
10
Commissioner Riggs: Bi-directional bikeway here and that… you could do that. 11
12
Vice-Chair Monk: Yeah, I’m concurring with that, for example, I’m seeing that you’re taking 13
parking on both sides of El Camino when maybe you should just have bicycle lanes right next to 14
each other going either direction. Put them in the middle of El Camino or put them on one side 15
so that you’re not taking away parking on both sides of El Camino. I just would like to see 16
additional creativity and study on that. Particularly given the comments that were made from 17
the Chair of the ARB that we’re looking at a lot of driveways and the curb to building issues. I 18
really think that… I don’t know how deeply explored that was and I definitely encourage a 19
further analysis of that. It seems to me on the… I’m calling on the west side of the street I guess 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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there’s less… it seems like less driveways. And maybe that would be the area to focus on a bike 1
lane rather than the east side where you’re seeing a lot more driveways and buildings and cars 2
that might be going in and out. 3
4
So on to cars and traffic and parking do we know how many spaces are going to be removed 5
under either option? It might be in here but I don’t recall exactly where it’s located because I 6
know that spaces are going to be removed in either option. 7
8
Mr. Mullen: That’s correct, as far as the total number of existing parking stalls that figure was 9
not in your Packet so you weren’t imagining that one. But the total number of parking stalls 10
along the corridor… along the studied corridor is 154 and that’s between Stanford and Lambert. 11
Some of that is an estimate because many block faces do not have formally striped parking 12
stalls but when we did estimate we estimated on the more conservative side. 13
14
Vice-Chair Monk: I think it would be useful as you go forward to know how… what percentage 15
that 154 is on the east side versus the west side of the avenue and the proximity to businesses 16
and the frequency of drivers accessing those businesses? Are they sitting there all day? Are they 17
coming in and out? Those are things that you really need to be conscientious of, especially if 18
we’re trying to accommodate for cyclists. Because you can put in these beautiful bike lanes, but 19
if you’re having cars come in and out every half hour at this one particular block or cars sitting 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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there all day and dealing with doors opening and closing, things like that, it’s going to be a 1
factor. So, just… so I am concerned about Option One, I prefer Option One over nothing but it 2
doesn’t seem like the right solution at the time. And I don’t think it necessarily worth taking 3
away necessary and desperately needed parking for roughly ¾ of a mile. So, I just don’t have 4
enough data to fully get behind that idea. I know Ed is giving me the eye here and wants me to 5
hurry up, I think. So yeah, I would recommend if we had to vote on something today, I would 6
say more on doing Option One. But maybe on Cal Avenue specifically, my concern is that you 7
have bike lanes that direct people to that intersection on either side but then there’s no way to 8
really cross over El Camino. You have to go in the crosswalk as a cyclist or you have to be 9
concerned about a car making a left turn and crashing into you and likewise the competing 10
interest with the pedestrians as well. I do have more things, I’m taking a bit more time than… 11
I’ve got more issues. I think I brought them up at the pre-meeting Chair so if you want to relay 12
that to the consultant you may. 13
14
I was curious why we didn’t hear from any cycling groups; SV… what are they called? Which 15
one? 16
17
Commissioner Summa: [unintelligible – off mic] 18
19
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
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Vice-Chair Monk: No, the SV… the one that puts on the bike Palo Alto and S… did you consult 1
with any of the local cycling group to get their opinions and I just didn’t see… I don’t know if 2
that was part of your outreach or not. I think it would be relevant to find out who the 3
stakeholders are in the community and get their input. I didn’t see any letters come in either, I 4
was kind of surprised by that. 5
6
Mr. Mullen: So, we didn’t ask for letters at this time. This is structured a little bit differently in 7
that this PTC meeting is more of a piece of the outreach, the final kind of stage of outreach. And 8
that’s partially because of the way the grant was structured but not to go into too much detail 9
there. I did speak with a representative from SVBC at the College Terrance open house and was 10
reminded of the coordination with neighborhood Cities which I can speak to later if that’s 11
requested. And we did bring this… the same information you’re getting tonight before the 12
Pedestrian Bicycle Advisory Committee earlier in the month. 13
14
Vice-Chair Monk: Thank you. 15
16
Chair Lauing: Yeah ok thanks. I’d just like to get everybody else in for… everybody’s light is on. 17
This is a topic that we’re interested in so I just want to make sure that everybody gets in kind of 18
a first chance before we go around and second, so next up is Commissioner Waldfogel. 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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Commissioner Waldfogel: Thank you. I’ll try to be brief at least on this pass. I think this is the 1
first transportation agenda item we’ve seen this year (interrupted) 2
3
Chair Lauing: That’s right. 4
5
Commissioner Waldfogel: And I would really like to see an El Camino Master Plan come back to 6
us for a discussion. If there some policy around that I’d like to know what it is. I don’t know that 7
I have that and (interrupted) 8
9
[note-male speaker spoke off mic]: [unintelligible] 10
11
Commissioner Waldfogel: Around El Camino Master Plan and I’d also like to get a presentation 12
on the grand boulevard. I mean in 3-years we have not had a presentation on the grand 13
boulevard and what the status is. I mean I’m not up to speed. Is BRT still under discussion for 14
the grand boulevard? 15
16
[note – male speaker]: No. 17
18
Commissioner Waldfogel: Has that ever been told to us officially? 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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Mr. Lait: So, I don’t believe its still on the table. I think the… if… backed off of that for the lack of 1
response from different Cities. 2
3
Commissioner Waldfogel: Ok well I mean that’s just not something that we (interrupted) 4
5
Mr. Lait: Yeah, we have a broader conversation that we need to have about how Staff and… is 6
engaging the Planning Commission on transportation-related issues. This has been a 7
conversation point that we’re having now (interrupted) 8
9
Commissioner Waldfogel: Right right. 10
11
Mr. Lait: As we talk about the Office of Transportation and how we support those interests. 12
13
Commissioner Waldfogel: No, I’m just sort of pointing out that it’s hard to jump into this 14
because we don’t have a lot of contexts that would be quite helpful. The other thing that I think 15
we really need to hear about is how committed VTA is to transit in north county? You know the 16
522 bus or some extension of the 520 bus. You know there’s been a lot of debates about 17
frequency on those buses and so it’s hard for me to know how much investment to make in bus 18
lanes when I don’t know if the operating agency is really committed to using them. So, do you 19
have any comment on that, on their long-term commitments? 20
_______________________
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1
Mr. Mullen: The latest point of reference we have where the service plan assumptions from the 2
VTA Next Network which was basically, for those who aren’t familiar, was a complete top to 3
bottom network redesign proposed by VTA. And that hasn’t been implemented yet due to 4
delays with the rollout of the incoordination with the [unintelligible] Bart extension. However, 5
the bottom line is the service on El Camino increased from what there was today. So, El Camino 6
Real -- in all of VTA’s long-range planning documents, El Camino Real is their core highest 7
ridership transit corridor and that’s really because of the land use around it. So well into the 8
future, it’s probably pretty fair to say that service will stay frequent along the corridor. 9
10
Commissioner Waldfogel: Ok it would be helpful if we got a report on that again because it’s 11
just hard to know what kind of investments to make if we don’t know what the operating 12
agencies commitments are. 13
14
One other just area of background, you mentioned at the front of this report that El Camino is 15
an arterial and could you just list out what are the north/south arterials? What’s the list of 16
them? 17
18
Mr. Mullen: I’m going to be working from memory here so (interrupted) 19
20
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Commissioner Waldfogel: Memory is a pretty good start. 1
2
Mr. Mullen: We… it's principally El Camino Real and Alma Street. Other streets such as 3
Middlefield Road are actually kind of a subclassification called a residential arterial which is still 4
intended to move traffic but through… it acknowledges the residential contexts. So, it 5
emphasizes a little slower vehicle speeds and more landscaping and aspects like that. I cannot 6
recall if West and East Bay Shore are classified as arterial roads. Those are the Highway 101 7
frontage roads so you’ll have to forgive me for that. 8
9
Commissioner Waldfogel: That’s fine so from a classification standpoint you’re saying that El 10
Camino and Alma are the same category? 11
12
Mr. Mullen: Yes, that’s correct. The… El Camino is a little more unique because of its land use 13
context. There’re commercial services on El Camino and also the changing land use on El 14
Camino is unique as well and Alma does not really possess that characteristic. Additionally, El 15
Camino Real is a designated state highway, it’s under the jurisdiction of Caltrans. But they are a 16
project partner with this grant so they have been collaborating with us on these designs and 17
participating in review all along the way. 18
19
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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Commissioner Waldfogel: So, does the arterial classification then put any responsibility for 1
throughput analysis or are we forecasting how much north/south traffic that we’ll need to carry 2
through Palo Alto over the next two or three decades as we look at this project? Also looking at 3
things like Alma might get shut down for some period of time due to Caltrain construction. Are 4
we just sort of looking at all these things in the broader context of movement? 5
6
Mr. Mullen: Yes, absolutely. As far as these plans go, they really actually add motor vehicle 7
capacity with the Page Mill/El Camino intersection. The remainder of the corridor is really… not 8
really a change on motor vehicle capacity and operations overall. 9
10
Commissioner Waldfogel: That word overall has me worried. Ok, it doesn’t really… I don’t think 11
the report really gets to that or whether it’s… I mean do we expect that the demand will stay 12
the same, will grow, will shrink, over the next two decades, three decades? 13
14
Mr. Mullen: The general assumption is traffic volumes. This is simplifying it but you generally 15
see an interest of increase of 1 percent per year. That’s generally what models boil down too. 16
17
Commissioner Waldfogel: Ok no that’s helpful so have we built in 30 percent capacity growth 18
over the next three decades in this plan? 19
20
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Mr. Mullen: That would involve changes to roadways capacity and widening or other 1
treatments that actually increase motor vehicle capacity. And that… we haven’t looked at that 2
principally because the policies in the Comprehensive Plan do not… generally, do not speak to 3
expanding roadway capacity. 4
5
Commissioner Waldfogel: So, I guess what we can expect is that delays will just increase. I mean 6
it’s not linear but whenever we hit the inflection points with that 1 percent a year growth, we’ll 7
see delays going up exponentially. Is that a reasonable expectation? 8
9
Mr. Mullen: In the Comprehensive Plan Environmental Impact Report a full comprehensive 10
traffic impact analysis was performed generally using those growth rates. I’m simplifying it but 11
it generally used those growth rates to try to estimate or project future automobile demand at 12
the peak hour. And it did project significant delays at intersections… major intersections in the 13
City. Not all of them but some of them so there’s… it basically poses a challenge to try to plan 14
for that and make policy decisions to address that. 15
16
Commissioner Waldfogel: Yeah so what could we do to anticipate or to mitigate those? I mean 17
are there things that we could do in this… within this scope to mitigate those impacts? 18
19
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Mr. Lait: So, I’m just going to insert myself here, I think that there’s a… you’re talking about a 1
broader conversation. I think this ¾ mile segment isn’t going to answer the question that you’re 2
posing. 3
4
Commissioner Waldfogel: Well but El Camino and Page Mill/Oregon is pretty impacted today. 5
6
Commissioner Riggs: Well let me just… I mean I (interrupted) 7
8
Commissioner Waldfogel: Please. 9
10
Commissioner Riggs: Think that you’re… we… you can’t talk about a 1 percent increase in 11
isolation of efficiency gains and we see massive efficiency gains just in the technology we’re 12
seeing in current vehicles. So, the idea of the linear relationship with traffic growth, even if 13
that’s what they’re plugging into the model is not rational. We’re not going to see a linear 14
increase and that’s… I know that he just… I know that was just said. No offense but that is 15
actually… that is overestimating volume increase so dramatically that’s it’s not worth… I know 16
you pitched back 30 percent increase over the next 30-years but that’s like so far away out 17
there that I do think it’s going to distract us from our purpose tonight. And it doesn’t consider 18
the amount of innovation we have in this sector right now so I apologize Mr. Chair for 19
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interjecting myself but I just think that is a huge zinger that we probably shouldn’t go there. 1
And we can… I’m happy to talk offline because that’s… it’s not a rational argument. 2
3
Commissioner Waldfogel: Right but with all due respect then we do need to look at those 4
models so that we understand impacts because we’re talking about something that will take a 5
couple years to implement. It will certainly have a 20 or 30-year lifespan so 30-years is actually 6
a reasonable interval to be thinking about what it does to north/south circulation. 7
8
Commissioner Riggs: If I can just throw out a statistic from… we… from my discipline in 9
engineering. We are anticipating at least 90 percent capacity green due to technological 10
innovation in the automotive sector over the next 30-years. 11
12
Commissioner Waldfogel: So, I’d like to see those studies because I’ve been working the 13
automotive sector and I’d be shocked if the technologies are doing what you think they are 14
doing. So anyway, there’s a (interrupted) 15
16
Chair Lauing: Ok so that’s a point for us to take a look at in the future. 17
18
Commissioner Waldfogel: I think that’s for another day. 19
20
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Chair Lauing: Yeah, that’s for another day. Did you have other comments Commissioner 1
Waldfogel? 2
3
Commissioner Waldfogel: I think I’ll leave it at that, thank you. 4
5
Chair Lauing: Ok Commissioner Summa. 6
7
Commissioner Summa: Thank you and thank you for your presentation and also to everybody 8
who came tonight. At a very high level, I agree with a lot of comments that my colleagues have 9
made and I just… yeah, it would be perfect to have a fully multi-modal road with very wide, safe 10
bicycle and pedestrian. How to shoehorn all that in with what we have without losing vehicular 11
capacity or taking some in the transit queue jump or taking some land? How to fit it all into the 12
time when we’re going to have increased… we’re going to increase the needs for El Camino. 13
Especially when we think about all the construction along El Camino and a taking of a lane for 14
construction which is typically what happens with these projects because they cannot contain 15
their construction vehicles and needs on site. And we have concentrated a lot of the growth in 16
this same area interestingly enough and I think someone else mentioned it but we may have 17
Alma closed for a couple years at least which means all the construction traffic through the City 18
will come on El Camino. So, I see a lot of constraints and I’m not sure how to get what we want 19
out of this street without a lot of tradeoffs. I… and I am concerned that this piecemeal approach 20
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on this one little not quite mile corridor with all this new stuff on it I don’t see how it’s really 1
addressing the problem throughout the City, much less the region, and I don’t see really what 2
we’re getting from it. I really… I’m terrified for bicyclists, I’m glad that we have some fierce 3
enough to ride on El Camino but I have always thought the approach of parallel bike routes on 4
safer streets was a better one. 5
6
I’m wondering… I think a red light… I live really close to El Camino so I… and I walk a lot. I don’t 7
bike a lot but the speed at which people are driving and the red-light violations have become 8
alarming to me in the last year. I see someone run a red light at either California or Cambridge 9
every single day whether I’m walking or I’m in my car waiting to turn left. And its… I’ve seen 10
giant double haulers do it, I’ve seen articulated buses do it, I’ve seen regular cars do it, I’ve seen 11
motorcycles do it, I have not seen bikes do it, and I worry that some of these… some of those 12
problems. So, safety would be best addressed through police enforcement and I think that’s a 13
real immediate need for that stretch of El Camino as I know it. 14
15
And I’m worried that… I don’t know if you’ve taken into consideration that on the north half of 16
this project on both sides of the street there are neighborhoods that have RPP restrictions. So, 17
there’s already a huge need for all that parking along El Camino. I don’t experience it as being… 18
as empty as some of your studies show so I’m not sure how often you got to go out and do 19
those stall counts. And I don’t know if all of the merchants along El Camino would be 20
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represented in the… I don’t know how many of them you talked to outside of the Cal Ave 1
merchant group. And I think that you’d find that a lot of them really depend on that… on those 2
parking stalls. 3
4
I also note that we have a lot of tour buses parking on El Camino taking up those spots so 5
there’s a lot of moving parts on El Camino. I’m not sure at a high level how to shoehorn it in. I 6
worry about some of the data that we don’t seem to have. I worry about spending a lot of time 7
and money on a little short segment that isn’t going to make the kind of improvements that 8
bicyclist really need so those are some of my high-level fears. 9
10
Your transit queue jumps at Page Mill Road, I think you should look at on the northbound side 11
just north of Page Mill. You have… you indicate taking a part of a lane there and actually that 12
bus stop… there’s a project that’s been approved there. And for that project to happen the bus 13
stop has to move up to the next block so I’m not sure that would even work there. 14
15
And I wonder if you have done any sort of interface with emergency… with the police and 16
emergency vehicle coordination because I have seen more than once the lanes being so full and 17
all the parking full-on El Camino that an emergency vehicle has to go down the wrong side. If 18
they are heading south and they go down the northbound lanes because they are emptier. And 19
that’s pretty scary so I wonder if we’ve really coordinated with the emergency people. 20
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1
And I do worry also that we have had a trend lately of moving loading zones off of sites off onto 2
streets which is also taking up parking. So those are just some of my fears and I wonder if it’s… 3
if we have really looked at all these things and if we have all the data that Commissioner Riggs 4
was talking about to make the best decisions about this going forward. So, I will leave it at that 5
for now, thank you. 6
7
Chair Lauing: Thanks. Commissioner Alcheck. 8
9
Commissioner Alcheck: Good evening, thank you for the presentation. Well, first I just want to 10
recognize just how exceptional it is to have a member of our Commission with such in-depth 11
knowledge on transportation. I think every Commissioner brings a unique perspective right and 12
your expertise here is profound, your comments are invaluable and enlighten to me personally. 13
So, not that there was ever a doubt of your value but I just want to reiterate it, I mean what an 14
asset. 15
16
Ok, I think it’s worth pointing out that the grand boulevard initiative was first presented to this 17
Commission on April 30, 2014. I want to share a thought I had at that meeting since I was the 18
only person in the room that was at that meeting. And I think it helps… I was, I was the only 19
person. You were not yet on the Commission in April 30th of 2014, it was Carl King who was a 20
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member. Anyways I think this sort of sets a little bit of the context here that I think we’re 1
missing which is that the vision of the grand boulevard was not that residents from all over the 2
corners of Palo Alto would get in their cars and drive to El Camino, parking, and walk up and 3
down the sidewalks of the boulevard all day. And nor was the idea that we would provide 4
bikers from one side of the City a safer path to the other side of the City. The idea is… actually, 5
I’m quoting… I’m using the notes from that meeting, I keep all my notes. The idea… I should say 6
what the idea was to create a more inviting framework for mixed-use residential, intense 7
development all along El Camino. So that future residents of the boulevard could enjoy a vast… 8
the future residents of the boulevard could enjoy a vastly more walkable and retail and 9
restaurant friendly streetscape. The soul of the grand boulevard was essentially about 10
increasing residential density on the boulevard. So look, in my notes it’s a guy named Garvey, 11
the consultant at the time, who had been involved since 2006 I guess had suggested that in the 12
8-years since the initiative began it wasn’t surprising that the regional idea was struggling 13
because the local municipalities didn’t love the idea of not having full autonomy over what 14
happened in their community and they wanted to be able to control the changes that were 15
made. I think as a result there are some communities in… on the peninsula that are like 16
crushing their “grand boulevard” process which San Mateo is one of them and I think Redwood 17
City is making a lot of progress. We aren’t and one of the things that we talked a lot about that 18
day was gap tooth development. So, when you look at Page Mill and El Camino for example 19
there’s that theater office structure that is set really far back from Page Mill and how allowing a 20
_______________________
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development like that in interferes with creating a walkable streetscape because some of the 1
buildings are so far away and some of the buildings are right on the street. And it doesn’t create 2
continuity for pedestrians and I think we’ve addressed some of that. I think we’ve encouraged 3
housing development on the boulevard. I’ll refer to it as the boulevard but I don’t think Palo 4
Alto is served by having a sutto-freeway [note -unknow phrase] cutting it in half. I don’t think El 5
Camino really serves the residents of Palo Alto in its current form. I think that it allows a lot of 6
people from outside of Palo Alto to get in and through Palo Alto and it’s kind of a mess. 7
8
And I still very much prescribe to the view that El Camino and the grand boulevard has a 9
tremendous amount for high-density residential housing. I think it’s exactly where we should be 10
focusing our intense support of residential housing development. I think that if you… I mean 11
this picture is so pretty compared to what it looks like today. The notion that you could have 12
let’s say a 5-story condominium complex right here overlooking what’s there today is an 13
unappealing residential space. The idea that we would… look, what are the consequences of 14
this option or these options, yeah, it’s going to reduce throughput. It’s going to make it more 15
difficult for people to park on the street. I think one of the things that we didn’t really touch 16
upon or we didn’t… I don’t think we… it’s in… on the radar today is some of the changed 17
circumstances. So, Palo Alto’s El Camino Real, our boulevard, has actually experienced an 18
increase in residential density in the form of mobile RVs. I don’t think we really talked about 19
that. What does eliminate parking on our stretch of El Camino do for those residents if they can 20
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be called residents? That’s got to be a component of it. But I think… I don’t... don’t get me 1
wrong, I am a big fan of the experts and the data but I don’t need any transportation data to 2
inform the notion that if we slow down this street, we will make it more appealing for 3
residential density and for walkability, for restaurants and retail. And I think that has to be our 4
goal. I do not think we should consider El Camino our contribution to making the path from a 5
resident’s home in Belmont to his office on… at the Stanford Research Park or something on 6
that vain. I think we need to think about how Palo Alto can serve our goals for housing more of 7
our ABAG allotment and I think when we think about how to create housing, I think we have to 8
think about how to create the feeling that we want. 9
10
So, it’s very hard for me to sit and look at Option One and Two and suggest that I prefer… that 11
the… I think the rubric I would use is does this play into the larger grand boulevard initiative 12
framework? So, does… it seems to me like the gap that we were… that you were… that is 13
illustrated here between the street and the bike lane, the larger that gap or the more often that 14
division… I don’t know, what are we calling that? What’s the term of art? The planting area or 15
the hardscape feature that separates the street from the bike lane. I think that the significance 16
of that feature to anyone walking on the sidewalk is dramatic. I imagine the sidewalks suddenly 17
becomes a lot more pleasant when there’s maybe 12-feet between the sidewalk and the cars. 18
And so, look, I don’t want to belittle the consequences of slowing down traffic on El Camino. I 19
suspect that if El Camino got tremendously slower that would be a problem for a lot of 20
_______________________
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individuals on the peninsula who are trying to get through Palo Alto. Maybe if we do this… I 1
mean this is going to sound a little ridiculous and naive but maybe if we incorporate a design 2
scheme like the grand boulevard initiative in these major thoroughfares, we would encourage 3
the housing development that so many of us talk about. And then some of those people who 4
are finding it really hard to get through Palo Alto on their way home to other Cities on the 5
peninsula or across the bay will move into some of those residential units that we have made 6
more appealing to developers. 7
8
I mean it’s a chicken and an egg problem but I look at this... there are two major questions for 9
me or two major ideas here. The first is any effort… any funds invested by the City to enhance 10
the boulevard in a pedestrian and bike friendly way I think are an incredibly positive tool to 11
increase residential development along the boulevard. And number two, I think in this 12
particular time, something that we didn’t have to deal with in 2014, is addressing what it means 13
to remove some of the parking that may currently be used by mobile home… I should say 14
mobile home, by RV users. And I think we need to be particularly sensitive to that situation 15
because it has become a very significant tool for individuals who are finding it difficult to find 16
housing. 17
18
So, I can’t say which particular option I support except to say that I support the option that 19
most significantly advances pedestrian and bike-friendly space. And I would encourage even 20
_______________________
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greater beautification or curb appeal… curb enhancements to continue to further the notion 1
that maybe one day someone would like to have dinner on the curb of El Camino Real. That 2
should be our… that is the vision of the boulevard and I support that vision. 3
4
Chair Lauing: Thanks. That would look a lot like Nice I think in France and it worked for them so. 5
I just want to make a few comments just on my own and then we’ll go back to some second 6
rounds for folks who have their lights on. This .8-mile has gotten a lot of focus obviously and I 7
guess the question is, is this the worst .8-mile in the City? Is that why there’s so much focus on 8
it? We don’t have any comparison here to any other collisions from any other areas so it’s kind 9
of… there… it’s just out of context for us to take a look at. 10
11
Ms. Rowley: So, we did take a look at the collisions on similar lengths of road for some of the 12
neighboring jurisdictions along El Camino Real. So, for the same time period, same 10-year span 13
in Mountain View for a 1-mile section they had 22 collisions. Sunnyvale had 27, Atherton had 14
16 so around half of the amount that we’re looking at on this section in Palo Alto. 15
16
Chair Lauing: And within Palo Alto are you saying that this is the worst? 17
18
Ms. Rowley: That was just in comparison to other sections (interrupted) 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Lauing: Right but within Palo Alto which is obviously our purview. 1
2
Ms. Rowley: That is something that we can look into. I’m not… I don’t know the answer off the 3
top of my head. 4
5
Chair Lauing: Yeah not at all discounting that this is a problem, I’m just trying to see where it 6
ranks in the (interrupted) 7
8
Ms. Rowley: Sure. 9
10
Chair Lauing: In terms of this intense focus on this. Just going back to one of the basics it 11
seemed to me as I was reading this report a couple times that your comments and graph on 12
Page 16 suggested that there really wasn’t at this point a parking problem. Although some of 13
the merchants might of disagreed but other than that one point that was read on Page 15. So, it 14
seemed to me like you were saying we don’t need to worry about taking out these parking 15
spots so I’ll give you the chance to speak to that. 16
17
Ms. Rowley: I’m not necessarily saying that just presenting the data for the three time periods 18
we looked at which are the time periods that we understood to be the busiest on El Camino 19
Real in terms of demand for parking. So, if there are other periods that you guys want to see 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
studied that would be helpful to hear but the periods that we looked at were the weekend or 1
the weekday lunch period so from 12-2, the weekday dinner period from 6-8 pm, and then the 2
weekend lunch period from 12-2. And so that’s the data that we’re showing there that we 3
collected… which we collected this year and the dark red zones show up predominantly in the 4
weekday lunch. 5
6
Chair Lauing: Yeah, let me rephrase that. You’re not showing that there’s zero demand for 7
parking (interrupted) 8
9
Ms. Rowley: No. 10
11
Chair Lauing: But you’re showing that its relatively low compared to the old 80-85 percent 12
when it’s (interrupted) 13
14
Ms. Rowley: That’s correct. 15
16
Chair Lauing: So, it seemed to me to indicate that wouldn’t be a crisis if that came out so that’s 17
just what I was trying to – excuse me – to confirm with you. 18
19
Ms. Rowley: Sure. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Chair Lauing: The… it’s been very helpful [unintelligible], the public is very informed as usual 2
and as are my colleagues. The idea that you point out in here is that land use probably drives 3
those bikes going down El Camino and if you make that shift to parallel are we convinced that 4
behavioral that’s going to go away? And what do we have to do there if not? Is it just… I mean 5
you’ve got…the bikers got to come up a learning curve. So, I guess it’s just to get all the people 6
that are biking aware of it but where I’m going with this is I don’t think we can make the 7
assumption that it’s going to go down to zero. So, whatever we do to bikers we also have to 8
address the pedestrians and the trucks and the buses that are driving through red lights. And as 9
Commissioner Summa added which I’ve witnessed many times on El Camino, the emergency 10
vehicles were having to drive up on sidewalks sometimes to let the emergency vehicles 11
through. So repeating point which I’m trying not to do but I thought those were valuable points. 12
The land acquisition process, is that just a matter of emanate domain or is it negotiations? Just 13
a process question. 14
15
Mr. Mullen: That would require further study. Usually its… Albert can probably correct me but I 16
don’t want to go to into this because we’re really not at that stage but generally you look to 17
make a deal or try to acquire (interrupted) 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Lauing: Right which again the point that I want to make there’s… if that’s the case which I 1
expected then we’re talking about years out. Many years out before this thing could get 2
resolved and we’ve got a problem now and we’ve had a problem for the last 10-years. So even 3
though I asked the question before about this is only .8 of a mile, we need to do something 4
here. So, I think you might want to come in with some interim solution in the meantime to help 5
our residents who are there as this bigger picture gets solved. 6
7
One other just process point that I want to make is it seemed like you’ve had about 10 meetings 8
with the public and I wasn’t aware of any of them. I don’t think any of our Commission was so 9
we’d like to have… be able to help you sooner than when it comes to us as a body. Listening 10
directly to some of the on the street interviews would be quite helpful. 11
12
I won’t repeat my questions, there’s just been a lot of very excellent comments from the 13
Commission. So, I’d like to go to second rounds and the first on up was Mr. Gardias and I just 14
wanted to ask you, your lights still on, right? I wanted to ask you if your last comment there was 15
on Option Three essentially when you talked about having bikes up near the sidewalk. So, like 16
others here, are you proposing that there are more than just these two options and this would 17
be an example? 18
19
Commissioner Gardias: So (interrupted) 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
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1
Mr. Lait: I’m sorry, just… I’m sorry, just before we… I’m also just noting the time and 2
understanding where we are in the stage of this process. I think we have received a lot of 3
feedback from the Commission so to the extent that we’re doing another round maybe it can 4
be focused on a couple of key outstanding issues. 5
6
Chair Lauing: I don’t expect 7 speakers but there were a couple of lights on that I wanted to 7
cover. 8
9
Commissioner Gardias: Thank you so what I was speaking to was that pretty much from the 10
perspective of separation is the same [unintelligible] plan but in terms of the… of where does 11
the bike lane belong to, is it part of the street as it’s currently… as this currently shows or is it 12
part of the sidewalk? Pretty much it’s elevated and then there’s a different level of landscaping 13
or hardscaping that pretty much separates the combination of the sidewalk plus bike lane from 14
the street as opposed to pretty much separating the sidewalk only from the bike lane and then 15
separating the bike lane from the street which those are totally two different concepts. I’m sure 16
that you guys can look at European and see how it has been resolved. It’s been resolved in 17
1,000 of cases so take a look but it looked and feels completely different. There is also an 18
important thing that of course, you may have brave bike riders that will be using both options 19
but in terms of luring more bicyclist, you have a much larger population including children, 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
maybe more women participation riding on those bike lanes which are part of the sidewalk as 1
opposed to those that are part of the street itself. 2
3
Chair Lauing: Did you have other comments? 4
5
Commissioner Gardias: Yes, I have some other. 6
7
Chair Lauing: Ok go ahead. 8
9
Commissioner Gardias: Thank you so just very brief right because I know time is high. I think 10
that… I… it may be small and cosmetic but I think you have to change the project name because 11
listening to my colleagues they have very right comments. Colleague Alcheck, Waldfogel, pretty 12
much they long for some session about the grand boulevard concept which is totally different 13
from what you’re proposing today. So… and I can… and then you have some other 14
Commissioner that was confused with this is what you proposed? Change the title, it’s a small 15
effort, and pretty much we don’t want to have any misnomers, here right? You’re not just 16
proposing any grand boulevard. For me grand boulevard it’s a space, for maybe for some others 17
it may be a street, for me it’s a space between the facades of the buildings on the opposite 18
sides. That’s how I felt about the streets for the last 45-years so there’s a significant difference 19
and you will not be confusing people this. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
There is also from the perspective of the project, others spoke about this but I want to 2
emphasize this. I’m not really sure if that this… I know the basis for this project but I’m not 3
really sure if this in terms of just this… of what comes to the Commission if this is the right 4
approach. There should be some other approach in terms of the… of really first thinking about 5
El Camino as the hall and then we would just… this should be one of the offshoots of the larger 6
thinking. Otherwise pretty much you’re just coming to us with a piecemeal and then pretty 7
much people don’t know where to put it in the hall. And that’s so… so I would just… I know that 8
we were granted… that we were ensured about some grant but this should not be a trigger of a 9
project. It should be pretty much in tandem with some larger strategy about the space. 10
11
And then the last time is pretty much I thought that you came to us with the most important 12
question which I thought by looking at these plans was shall we have the bike lane along El 13
Camino or maybe we should not have it. That’s how I read it. Maybe you had some other 14
question but when I’m looking at those two options, I think this is the key and then I cannot 15
give you the answer. If you’re going to return to us with some other research, I would just like 16
to simply have pretty much pros and cons. You heard comments from my colleagues and based 17
on those comments you may just define a table that will list the pros and cons and then pretty 18
much we’ll make the decision. Me, as well as the others, we cannot give you a straight answer 19
because I’m indifferent. You can convince me very easily if there should be a bike lane or there 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
should be a parking lane along El Camino. I think I see benefits for both, I don’t think that one is 1
superior over the other, but I would like to… I see that there is a number of issues with each 2
concept because there is an impact on a variety of items. So, if you construct the table it’s going 3
to be clear for us, we can just compare the number or the weight of each one of those and then 4
we can make the decision. Thank you. 5
6
Chair Lauing: Thank you. Commissioner Riggs. 7
8
Commissioner Riggs: Well first off, I wanted to make sure that… to Commissioner Waldfogel to 9
make sure that I have full respect for your ideas and your questions are really important. I want 10
to make sure that you’re not offended by me getting brash and I’m not questioning your 11
intellect. I want to make sure (interrupted) 12
13
Commissioner Waldfogel: [unintelligible – off mic] all of your questions. 14
15
Commissioner Riggs: Yeah, I know, I appreciate that, and I’m going to say I’ll send you some 16
papers. I definitely will do that because this is something that’s really close to me right now so I 17
just want to make sure I offer that sign of respect to you as a peer and as a professional. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Just I have some really detailed, quick comments. First off, I know that… I really… thank you for 1
the edification (interrupted) 2
3
Vice-Chair Monk: [unintelligible – off mic] 4
5
Commissioner Riggs: Well I was trying to figure out outgoing Vice Chairmen how to put it and I 6
think thanks for that edification. I think my detailed comments were actually more about 7
experimenting with the intersection design. I think there’s… the exploration on different 8
options particularly might… intersection design really has a lot of options as well which is why I 9
mentioned the different phasing options as well as a scramble option and things like that. So, I 10
don’t know how many permutations are viable based on a limited real estate available with the 11
Class One versus Class Two bikeway and I threw out Class four. That wasn’t intended to be a 12
zinger but I probably think you’ve probably have thought through some of that. I was thinking 13
more by intersection design because I saw basically more or less two scenarios presented there 14
but I do think that I don’t want to disagree with that. It may be that there are other variances 15
and particularly as we think about this is a mesh network. Usually when you look at the 16
problems that happen at the scene so Commissioner Summa’s point about how this fit into the 17
broader plan and Commissioner Waldfogel’s point about how this fit into the broader El Camino 18
plans. We’d want to think about the scenes a lot and the transition from the cyclist 19
experiment… experience. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
So that said I wanted to… I like the idea that Commissioner Gardias was bringing up. I would 2
just suggest that you… before you spend a bunch of time on that I’m not sure that its consistent 3
with the highway capacity [unintelligible]. So, because of its adjacency to the pedestrian 4
thoroughfare, I’m pretty sure that a Class One bikeway is limited when it’s adjacent so that 5
could not be a multi-use path because of the adjacency issue. But I have a very literal read on 6
that so it’s Section 1,000 I think in the Highway Capacity Design Manual so you might just want 7
to check that before you spend time thinking about whether or not that’s viable. 8
9
And then I think the… I would… I appreciate the dialog and asking the VTA questions and I think 10
Commissioner Waldfogel is totally appropriate to ask that question but I would step back and 11
challenge our Commission. We are totally appropriate to anticipate… it’s appropriate to us to 12
anticipate changes, not only in service but in platform. And I think the VTA will be reticent to 13
keep up with changing platforms and changing styles as we see more mobility of a service 14
platform become prevalent. And so, I think we want to anticipate changing service styles along 15
that, even if VTA is not planning for that right now. I mean I don’t think they’re ready to come 16
out and say that they are going to be using autonomous micro transit in 10-years but we very 17
well might be looking at privatized autonomous micro-shuttles in 10-years. So, I think that we 18
would be astute as a Commission to start thinking like that because that’s the only way we’re 19
going to evolve policy faster and fast enough to really respond to new mobility. And we heard a 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
little bit of that earlier so I would just maybe… I think that’s appropriate to ask that question 1
but I also… I think that’s kind of our job to think beyond what we’re getting from VTA so those 2
are my points. 3
4
Chair Lauing: Ok thanks. Did you have one? No. Commissioner Waldfogel. 5
6
Commissioner Waldfogel: Whoops, first of all, I want to thank Commissioner Alcheck for his 7
notes on the grand boulevard, that was very helpful. I just… one final question for Staff given 8
that this is a state highway, how much discretion do we have to say… I mean let’s say that we 9
want to really slow down traffic on El Camino through Palo Alto. Do we have the discretion to 10
do that? 11
12
Mr. Mullen: Any changes to El Camino Real do require approval from Caltrans. 13
14
Commissioner Waldfogel: So, if we envisioned it… I mean supposable we went full on and 15
envisioned the grand boulevard as a residential mixed-use that had organically slower traffic 16
movement. Is that something that we could persuade VTA was a good idea? 17
18
Mr. Lait: (off mic) Sorry, could you repeat the question? 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Waldfogel: So, suppose that we embrace the vision, the grand boulevard vision 1
of El Camino as a mixed-used residential boulevard and that as part of that we envision is as 2
having much slower traffic movement. That we just wanted to slow down traffic, we wanted to 3
make it a genuinely pleasant place to say sit on the sidewalk, would we have the discretion to 4
do that? To turn it into that kind of a residential boulevard? 5
6
Mr. Lait: Well it’s… so we don’t have control over the traffic volumes on El Camino Real. It’s still 7
an arterial street, it is not in our jurisdiction. 8
9
Commissioner Waldfogel: Well but what does that mean? I mean what I’m trying to get to is if I 10
wanted to embrace Commissioner Alcheck’s memory of the grand boulevard vision, I wanted to 11
fully embrace that. That this would become some kind of beautiful residential mixed-use street 12
with, I don’t know, Kurfurstendamm in Berlin or something like that. I just want to know how 13
much discretion we have because if we wanted to go in that direction then I would say that I 14
don’t like Options One and Two. I would say let’s widen the sidewalks and let’s take some other 15
approaches to turn this into a much more inviting residential setting. Let’s slow down traffic 16
organically and I just want to know how far we can go in this grand boulevard visions because 17
we haven’t been briefed on it. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Mr. Lait: Right and we’re not going to be able to brief you on that tonight but I will say that I 1
think your vision of… your interpretation of Commissioner Alcheck’s vision is not probably 2
aligned with his vision of the boulevard that you described. There is degrees of tolerance for 3
vehicles and how you create a pedestrian environment that serves folks while still also 4
providing sufficient multi-modal transportation. I do think that this meeting highlights again the 5
ongoing challenges that the Commission has had relative to transportation planning in the City 6
of Palo Alto; which is why there was recently the transportation community forum that took 7
place a month ago… within the last month and why the City is currently looking at how we 8
reorganize our transportation operations, how we engage the community, and Commissions 9
and the Council in implementing our various plans and advancing these programs. So, I 10
appreciate your question, I’m not going to be able to answer it to the level that you would like 11
it to be answered. And it ties into a lot of land use policy conversations that we’ve been having 12
relative to growth and parking and so it’s… there’s a whole mess of stuff there that we still need 13
to unpack. 14
15
Commissioner Waldfogel: I appreciate that there’s a whole mess of stuff. I think my take away 16
is I mean I think we need to fix some intersections I think Commissioner Riggs mentioned. The 17
bike circulation issues, I’m struggling over that one because I’ve ridden my bike on El Camino. It 18
scares the crap out of me and it’s not something that I would recommend that anybody do and 19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
I think that absent this bigger policy discussion, it’s really hard for me to come down squarely 1
onto of either of these recommendations, One or Two so that’s where [unintelligible]. 2
3
Mr. Lait: Yeah, I think we’re hearing that not just from you but from other Commissioners as 4
well and I (interrupted) 5
6
Chair Lauing: I think that’s the conclusion is that we can’t put this even to a straw vote because 7
of the everything else in between. 8
9
Mr. Lait: And that’s fine, I don’t… you know we’re having a public meeting, we want to get 10
feedback, this is part of the public feedback process, and it sort of touches that nerve of the 11
broader conversation that we need to have and resolve relative to City governance and 12
transportation planning in Palo Alto. 13
14
Chair Lauing: Ok, very sensitive to the time but I’ve got a bunch of lights lighting up. 15
Commissioner Riggs had one more thing that he forgot. 16
17
Commissioner Riggs: I have… they… Item Number Four right here. 18
19
Commissioner Waldfogel: [unintelligible – off mic] 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Riggs: No, you did not and this actually… it’s a nice segue, you provided me a 2
nice… not referencing a transportation vote. Sorry. You know I just feel like I don’t share the 3
same concern about… I don’t think we have big problems… structural problems with regard to 4
our capacity to handle transportation. The funny part is that this is the real first meaty item that 5
I’ve been able to weigh in on transportation on this Commission so it’s actually awesome, I love 6
it but I actually see this as an opportunity. I’d recommend that maybe Staff go back and dialog 7
this with both the City Manager’s Office and with Council Members. I feel like this is a great 8
opportunity for tackling urbanism… for tactical urbanism. There’s no reason why we couldn’t do 9
a full-fledged experiment of this scenario for a month, for a couple months. You know we have 10
a really nice natural experiment right now where they are putting up the barriers on Charleston 11
for example where at least for the time being there is in effect what is a protected bikeway. 12
And so why wouldn’t we try to do some similar experimentation with something like this and I 13
know Fehr & Peers… Fehr & Peers has a lot of experience doing this, particularly in East Bay. 14
Let’s run an urban experiment and let’s see if it works? I mean I feel like we’re operating in a 15
data vacuum on some of this but these are great ideas. This is a potentially transformative 16
opportunity but there’s nothing that says we have to install a permanent structure. So, I would 17
just challenge us to maybe make an incremental decision that maybe we want to do something 18
with straw bales or plastic bollards or things like that, rather than actually operating in a 19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
vacuum. So that would be my final suggestion and it feels like a great tactical urbanism 1
opportunity. 2
3
Chair Lauing: Ok Commissioner Summa you passed? 4
5
Commissioner Summa: (off mic) No, I’m fine. Commissioner Alcheck. 6
7
Commissioner Alcheck: So, are you both consultants? Sorry, I may have missed it, you’re both 8
new faces to me. 9
10
Mr. Mullen: I’m with the Office of transportation, I’m City Staff and Kendra is with Fehr & Peers. 11
12
Commissioner Alcheck: Ok, alright, so this comment is sort of directed to you. I subscribe to the 13
comments that Commissioner Riggs just mentioned, I like his suggestion a lot. And I would also 14
suggest that I think we could all really benefit from a broader understanding of what San Mateo 15
and Redwood City have done in the vain of the grand boulevard since I know those two Cities 16
have had a lot more progress than we have. And so, what do I mean by that? What… it might be 17
as simple as a telephone call to Redwood City for example because a lot of our… actually the… 18
Steven Turner and Aaron Actin [note -spelling] who were both at the April 14th… April 30th, 2014 19
meeting are now in Redwood City. So, they… I just suspect that they would be happy to sort of 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
share knowledge with their old colleagues in Palo Alto and I just mention that because I think 1
it’s hard sometimes for us to operate in a vacuum of examples. And so, to the extent that they… 2
they may have… they may not have the exact same arterial map as we do but they have more 3
than likely addressed curb and bike traffic, pedestrian traffic on the boulevard. And I just think 4
maybe they have some slides they could send down here and say here’s what worked because 5
they’ve certainly have had a lot of success in enhancing the residential … I’m not saying what 6
worked. Here are examples of the envelope changing and the landscape changing and I think 7
that helps the community and the Commission understand better what it really looks like to 8
affect that landscaping. 9
10
Chair Lauing: Alright, is yours on now? Uh-oh. 11
12
Vice-Chair Monk: [unintelligible – off mic] 13
14
Chair Lauing: One more comment from Vice Chair Monk. 15
16
Vice-Chair Monk: Again, I agreed and we talked about it at the pre-meeting about Redwood City 17
has done in the past. Regards to what Commissioner Gardias has said earlier asking about more 18
bike data, I don’t know necessarily that we need more bike data but I really want to see data in 19
this section compared to other sections if we’re doing this for safety reasons. If we’re doing it 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
for bike grand boulevard reasons and these other reasons, I just want to distinguish between 1
that. And then also why are we choosing this area only and this length… this segment versus 2
going a little further south? We’re updating the North Ventura Coordinated Area Plan and 3
Commissioner Alcheck and Commissioner Waldfogel kind of eluded to that as well so I think 4
that’s something to consider. Thank you. Oh, and lastly to also prioritize the other streets as 5
alternates for that north/south bicycle transport. Thanks. 6
7
Chair Lauing: Ok thanks to the presenters and thanks especially to the public for sharing your 8
views on which alternative where pluses or minuses, thanks. Let’s take about a 6-minute break 9
while the other… the next agenda comes up. Five sounded to traditional. 10
11
[The Commission took a short break] 12
13
Commission Action: No Commission action was taken. 14
15
Action Items 16
Public Comment is Permitted. Applicants/Appellant Teams: Fifteen (15) minutes, plus three (3) minutes rebuttal. 17
All others: Five (5) minutes per speaker.1,3 18 19
4. PUBLIC HEARING. Recommendation to the City Council an Ordinance Amending Palo 20
Alto Municipal Code (PAMC) Title 18 (Zoning), Chapter 18.31 (CEQA Review) to Add 21
Environmental Review and Compliance Regulations for Development Projects in 22
Furtherance of and to Implement the Comprehensive Plan Environmental Impact 23
Report (EIR) Mitigation Measures, as Documented in the Mitigation Monitoring and 24
Reporting Plan Adopted by Council Resolution 9721 on November 13, 2017. 25
Environmental Assessment: Not a Project. 26
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Lauing: Ok let’s call the hearing to order. The next Action Item is relative to CEQA, Item 1
Number Four. I don’t have any cards on that from the public so you can launch. 2
3
Ms. Claire Hodgkins: Good evening Commissioner, Chair Lauing, I’m Claire Hodgkins and I’m the 4
planner for this ordinance. The project before you today is an ordinance to amend… oh, I’m 5
sorry. It’s an ordinance to amend Chapter 18.31, a CEQA review of the Palo Alto Municipal Code 6
and there were six mitigation measures that were identified in the Comprehensive Plan 7
Environmental Impact Report that required the City to amend it’s local CEQA guidelines to 8
include additional requirements for certain types of development projects. So, these measures 9
are required to reduce impacts City-wide on-air quality and aesthetics. The proposed language 10
in the ordinance mirrors the exact requirements outlined in the adopted mitigation measures 11
identified in the Comprehensive Plan EIR and the City is required by law to implement these 12
mitigation measures. The ordinance also includes three additional best management practices. 13
Staff proposed to codify these best management practices to ensure that they are implemented 14
as applicable on the ministerial projects or other development that may otherwise be 15
exempted from CEQA. And Staff recommends that the Planning and Transportation 16
Commission recommend approval of the proposed ordinance amending Palo Alto Municipal 17
Code Chapter 18.31 to the City Council, including approval of the relevant standards and the 18
List of Standard Requirements for development projects that are included in your Packet. And 19
I’ll leave it at that and let you ask any questions. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Chair Lauing: Ok questions from Commissioners on any part, turn on your light? Commissioner 2
Monk [note -Vice Chair Monk]. 3
4
Vice-Chair Monk: Thank you for that brief report, Claire. Just a general question, how many 5
current projects are compliant with BAAQMD… whatever it’s called and what effect would this 6
have on any new development? 7
8
Ms. Hodgkins: I don’t know that I can speak to how many projects are currently compliant with 9
the BAAQMD requirements. I can say that the BAAQMD Guidelines are only recommendations 10
and unless we have a project that is subject to CEQA for which we prepare an environmental 11
analysis, we don’t really have a way of incorporating or requiring the preparation of some of 12
these policies. We can include some of them as Conditions of Approval but most of these are 13
analysis in advance to analysis the project to determine for example if it’s a… it impacts on air 14
emissions or whatever Citywide. Sorry, what was your second question again? 15
16
Vice-Chair Monk: What impact would it have, if any, on new development? 17
18
Ms. Hodgkins: So new development would be subject as applicable so it’s kind of outlines in the 19
ordinance some of these are applicable to all new development. Some of them are applicable 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
to only certain types of development, but it would be something that is as stated in the 1
ordinance applicable to all new development projects that meet those specific requirements. 2
Which is something that was again outlined in… as a requirement for implementation of our 3
Comprehensive Plan. 4
5
Vice-Chair Monk: Ok and then I also… thank you for clarifying. If you just want to look over on 6
Packet Page 30 under the MMAR [note – MM AIR] -3A, I was just curious if there were 7
examples you could give that have to… that could rise to this 100 or more diesel truck trips per 8
day. 9
10
Also, I wanted to point out that it appears that the second paragraph here, the HRA shall be 11
prepared in accordance… I don’t know if that match with what’s in the ordinance which is on 12
Packet Page 40. It just… the language looks a little different so just for consistency, I don’t know 13
if it’s anything that’s [unintelligible] to what you’re trying to implement but it just didn’t look 14
like it was lined up. You can look at that offline. If you want me to… its basically if you look at 15
Packet Page 40 under C, kind of smack in the middle there it says the HRA shall be prepared in 16
accordance with the methodology described… That sentence is a little bit inconsistent with 17
what’s listed on Packet Page 30. It might just be how you drafted it, it might not have an impact 18
so I'm just pointing it out. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Ms. Hodgkins: We just… what we did was the… we outline in the Standard Requirements for 1
development projects we listed out the methodology of where we can find or developer can 2
find the methodology but it still reflects back to… BAAQMD actually depends on it called 3
CAPCOA which is the… I’m trying to remember what that stands for. 4
5
Vice-Chair Monk: Is that different from the State Office of Environmental Health Hazard? Is it 6
related to that maybe and that’s why you just (interrupted) 7
8
Ms. Hodgkins: It is related to that, yeah, so all of those… all of what’s included in the Standard 9
Requirements for development projects reflect back to those same standards. 10
11
Vice-Chair Monk: Thanks. 12
13
Ms. Hodgkins: And you asked about what projects might reach these thresholds? I don’t know, 14
we haven’t had a project recently that has gone through that, but again all of these numbers 15
and information were all derived from what was identified in the Environmental Impact Report 16
for the Comprehensive Plan Update EIR. And it was identified that this is what was needed to 17
reduce air emissions throughout the City. This along with other mitigation measures from full 18
build-out of the Comp Plan. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Vice-Chair Monk: Thanks, and I know that also drafting this or codifying rather these… I don’t 1
know what to call it… these regulations… yeah, I don’t know what you’re referring to it but 2
you’re codifying it and a lot of that to also help with SB-35. So, I don’t know if other 3
Commissioners are going to ask about that but if you wanted to explain that to the Commission, 4
they might want to hear how this addresses that potential impact. 5
6
Ms. Hodgkins: Sure. I mean just the additional three requirements we’ve added we just felt like 7
it was a good opportunity as we were updating this chapter to incorporate these three 8
additional measures because there’s something that we require for a lot of different projects. 9
But as more projects move forward and with new SB-35 regulations there may be projects that 10
move forward that might not be subject to CEQA or may be ministerial in nature that we would 11
still want to capture and require these standard requirements for. 12
13
Vice-Chair Monk: Thank you very much. 14
15
Chair Lauing: Commissioner Waldfogel. 16
17
Commissioner Waldfogel: Thanks. I also appreciate the brief presentation, just a couple quick 18
questions. Can you just clarify what projects this applies too? Does this apply to single-family 19
residential construction? I mean I’m trying to work that out from the table. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Ms. Hodgkins: So, the tables just identifies the mitigation measures, the actual language in the 2
ordinance it depends on the measure. In some cases, it applies to all developments, for 3
example, the EIR mitigation measure for MM Air -2a was something that required all 4
development projects. So, it’s basically just standard things to reduce dust emission such as 5
watering a site or sweeping at the end of the day and making sure dust is not in the street at 6
the end of the day. So that is something that would be required for all development projects 7
including single-family residences. However, there are… if you go into each section for example 8
as Commissioner Monk [note - Vice Chair Monk] pointed out MM Air -3 only is a requirement 9
for a very specific subset of projects that meet very specific requirements. 10
11
Commissioner Waldfogel: Ok, no, that’s great, so just to fall into that so who’s responsible for 12
enforcing? Since we just had a newspaper article, I guess we have a City Auditor’s Report that 13
Code Enforcement is not always doing their job. 14
15
Mr. Lait: I think there’s a lot of unpack in that audit and certainly there’s more work that we 16
need to do. But I don’t think it can be summarized in a brief sentence like that, but in any event, 17
when we’re looking at these, we have… there are a couple things that we need to do. One is we 18
work without consultants to develop these standards and we are… it’s through our inspection 19
process and also through the planning inspection that we implement and enforce these. I do 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
think that there are some additional enhancements that we can make that might come out as 1
apart of the audit to ensure ongoing monitoring. 2
3
Commissioner Waldfogel: Ok but the point is there’s an intent to enforce if we (interrupted) 4
5
Mr. Lait: Yes. 6
7
Commissioner Waldfogel: Ok that’s really what I wanted to understand. Two more question 8
then I’ll be done. Do we need to consider the costs to implement? Is that something that needs 9
to be part of our scope 10
11
Ms. Hodgkins: No, I don’t believe so. 12
13
Commissioner Waldfogel: No legal requirement for that? 14
15
Ms. Hodgkins: No. 16
17
Mr. Lait: No, not for this. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Waldfogel: Ok great, if there’s no requirement we won’t go there. Final 1
question, would maybe a different ordinance to look at but Construction Noise Standards. Do 2
they potentially fit somehow into this umbrella because just as a, for instance, our Construction 3
Noise Ordinance allows 10-hours a day of emission of a noise level that OSHA only allows 15-4
minutes a day of unprotected exposure too? So, there’s kind of a gap between what we allow, 5
120 Db, that we allow at the lot line versus OSHA standards. So, would that be… I… it’s probably 6
not tonight’s scope but is that something that we can come to under this rubric? 7
8
Mr. Lait: So yeah not tonight and the City has a Noise Ordinance Chapter, I think it’s Title 9 or 9
something. I forget what the title is so it would be an amendment of that section. It wouldn’t 10
come under this section under the Zoning Code. 11
12
Commissioner Waldfogel: So, there are no CEQA standards on noise? 13
14
Mr. Lait: There are CEQA standards for evaluating noise and we would do that as part of our 15
review process but we would default on our City’s Noise Ordinance. And if that’s out of date 16
and things that we need to update then (interrupted) 17
18
Commissioner Waldfogel: Yeah, we should look at that but not tonight. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Lauing: Commissioner Gardias. 1
2
Commissioner Gardias: Along with my colleagues I want to thank you for the presentation. So, I 3
[unintelligible] with this question so the plumb area that is defined here and with the 4
composite insulation of membrane detectors and stuff like this. So why is it defined as between 5
Olive and California? It has a different shape or different area so why are we just picking up this 6
specific perimeter? 7
8
Ms. Hodgkins: So, we’re not only limiting it, that’s just the name of the plumb that Regional 9
Water Quality Control Board has for the plumb, California/Olive/Emerson Plumb but it’s not 10
limited to that area. It is defined… you know we have maps that define it and it is outside just 11
that area. 12
13
Commissioner Gardias: Sure, thank you very much and so is this truly… the City code the true 14
place or proper place for this building related requirement? I guess… I’m just questioning from 15
the technical perspective shall we just have it in the… as part of the Municipal Code or maybe 16
there is another place under the Building Department documents? 17
18
Ms. Hodgkins: Do you mean for all of these or just specific ones? 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Gardias: No, I’m talking about only the plumb area requirements. 1
2
Ms. Hodgkins: You know I’m sure it certainly could fit under other sections but we felt like this 3
was a good opportunity when talking about CEQA because these are things that we require a 4
lot of times in CEQA documents. As I mentioned a lot of projects may otherwise be exempted 5
from CEQA or be… when we have SB-35 projects coming in they might be ministerial in nature 6
and therefore they wouldn’t be required to implement these measures which are for the 7
protection of the environment. So, we felt like this was a good place to kind of help add it in as 8
we’re updating this Chapter. 9
10
Commissioner Gardias: Sure, I understand but I think that this is… it’s not the right place. I just… 11
it doesn’t matter… I mean I’m not hard on this but from the perspective of just a clean 12
documentation allocation. And then the last question is pretty much those are specific… and 13
then again about the plumb area. Those are specifically tough requirements; ventilation, 14
sensors, right? Where does this come from? The reason that I’m just asking about this is 15
because it’s going to increase cost and this is a very attractive area. So pretty much it’s going to 16
add substantially to the cost to the area that this… probably will be subject of the future… near 17
future development. So, we’re pretty much just asking the developers to add additional costs 18
which will be passed onto the inhabitants. Why do we have these specific requirements which 19
are really tough the way that I see them? 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Ms. Hodgkins: This came from language that we’ve been using on development projects that 2
was prepared by some of our consultants that are experts in hazardous materials, but we can 3
reassess that and just make sure that it actually is accurate. I tried to add some language in 4
there that gave some flexibility. If they could show that they were below screening levels or if 5
they can show that they have an alternate design that was appropriate that it would give some 6
flexibility for alternative options for a developer. 7
8
Mr. Lait: Maybe just a question and then I’ll… are there… is there a universe of projects that 9
may not require if they’re not excavating for instance? I mean could we consider a group of 10
projects that wouldn’t have to implement this? 11
12
Commissioner Gardias: Yes, or if I may add to this, sorry for interrupting, but you know for 13
example if there was an underground… because we’re talking if the containment is in the soil. 14
So pretty much if there was an underground parking maybe parking or garage doesn’t have to 15
be, in my perception, subject of these rules. And then if there’s an above ground apartment or 16
residential part if they prove to you that pretty much, they don’t… that there’s no hazards post 17
occupancy maybe they could be exempted from this requirement. 18
19
Ms. Hodgkins: Department of Toxic Substances Control. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Mr. Lait: [unintelligible - off mic] 2
3
Ms. Hodgkins: We can look into this further. It’s partially regulated by the Department of Toxic 4
Substance Control but it really is a variety of projects. If you’re doing basements and you 5
absolutely need to ensure that the actual excavated garage is… if you’re in that garage that it’s 6
properly ventilated, but it can also affect if a volatile organic compound rises up through the 7
soil. So, if you have an enclosed space that’s placed above it then that can also be impacted. 8
9
Mr. Lait: We can take a look at it. 10
11
Commissioner Gardias: Yes, thank you. 12
13
Mr. Lait: Yeah, we’ll take a look at that on the way to Council to see if we can fine tune that a 14
little bit. 15
16
Chair Lauing: Commissioner Summa. 17
18
Commissioner Summa: (off mic) Oh yes, thank you very much. I had a couple of questions 19
(interrupted) 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Chair Lauing: Mic. 2
3
Commissioner Summa: And I’m referring to… oh, thanks. A couple of questions and I’m 4
referring to the actual draft ordinance so G, the Director shall be authorized to promulgate blah 5
blah blah. Does that mean that there could be changes to this over time that wouldn’t go 6
through a public hearing? 7
8
Ms. Hodgkins: Yes, so that’s what our… what we’ve said is it wouldn’t require a public hearing. 9
The goal of that is simply that sometimes the Bay Area Air Quality Management District or 10
other agencies will update their guidelines. I think that the BAAQMD Guidelines were updated 11
within the last 2-years so we just want to make sure that we are providing the most up to date 12
guidance always and ensuring that developers are following the most recent recommendations. 13
If they change their screening levels slightly, change their threshold slightly, we want to make 14
sure they’re complying with that most recent requirement. So that was the goal of including 15
some of these details of how to implement the measure in this additional development 16
standards. So that we can regularly update that without having to go through the process of 17
Planning Commission and Council again. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Summa: Ok so that would be more for regulatory updates but if there were big 1
substantive changes it would come to a public hearing is what I’m hearing. Ok and then in J, 2
during construction on any site in the City, if previous unknown archaeological, cultural, or 3
paleontological blah blah blah. So that also includes historic resources under cultural resources 4
that had not been identified yet and requires that say some sort of historic resources hadn’t 5
been identified but through the application project… process for a project it was identified as 6
being historic. That would be taken into consideration? 7
8
Ms. Hodgkins: Yeah, I think the… yeah, this is really for you’re doing a development project and 9
you’ve already gone through the entitlement building process. And they’re digging and nothing 10
we found during the planning process identified anything, but you find something on the site. 11
You still have an obligation to ensure that you’re properly treating that resource and protecting 12
it whether it removing it and properly treating it or avoiding it in place is dependent on the 13
resource. But that was the goal of this, it’s more unearthed… resources that can’t be known or 14
unknown during the planning process. 15
16
Commissioner Summa: Ok I guess I would have a preference when you use the word cultural 17
resource to me means historic also. So, I would have a preference of making that clear if that 18
was the intention or including that if it wasn’t what you were intending. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Mr. Lait: I think these are really related to archeological artifacts and a lot… I mean this is really 1
below grade stuff. Not buildings that we typically have conversations about with respect to 2
historic resources, but yeah, we can take a look at the language and see if there’s some 3
refinement. 4
5
Commissioner Summa: Ok, I guess that was my reading of a cultural resources and I just 6
wanted to clarify that. I would be… of course if you… as a recommendation, I would be in favor 7
of broadening that to include cultural resource but… and thank you very much for adding these 8
last three because I think they’re really good. Those are my comments. 9
10
Chair Lauing: I had one question on 18.31.10 and .30 about (interrupted) 11
12
Vice-Chair Monk: Packet. 13
14
Chair Lauing: Packet Page 39 so the Director… rather the decision maker has the authority to 15
make these decisions except if it’s a statement of overriding conditions and then it goes to 16
Council? Ok, so I understand that we’re making a distinction there. On 18.31.030 it says any 17
person can appeal to City Council. That means one person so is there any consideration given 18
to… I mean they're a lot of statistical corner cases in environmental stuff and it seems like it 19
could be capricious or arbitrary for just somebody to kind of hold up a project. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Mr. Albert Yang, Senior Deputy Attorney: So, I think what we’re trying to do here is create an 2
administrative process where a Staff person’s CEQA determination can be reviewed but without 3
having litigation be the first opportunity for that. 4
5
Chair Lauing: Sure. 6
7
Mr. Yang: And so, any person could bring a CEQA lawsuit saying the Director shouldn’t have 8
approved this negative declaration. We’d like to have our Council be able to consider that 9
before it got to… instead of having it show up first in court. 10
11
Chair Lauing: Right but if one person objected then it’d have to go to Council automatically, is 12
that what this says? 13
14
Mr. Yang: If they wanted to appeal the CEQA determination. I think in general for our 15
discretionary decisions we also allow on a person to appeal the architectural review 16
entitlement. That’s usually what gets appealed rather than the CEQA review so I think this is 17
largely to create an administrative process. I think it's rarely used, its more often that the 18
substantive decision on the project gets appealed. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Lauing: Yeah, I mean generally I would… I’m generally in favor of more latitude to the 1
public so that they can get a review by more than one person, but I’m just aware that in these 2
circumstances they can be very esoteric which means it could slow down process. And I guess 3
what you’re saying is it’s better to go to Council than to defend a lawsuit but they could also do 4
a lawsuit after that, right? 5
6
Mr. Yang: Yes, but the fact that we have an administrator process also helps to constrain any 7
potential lawsuits. So, if you don’t bring up an argument before our Council then you can’t 8
bring it up in court. 9
10
Chair Lauing: Right, right. No, I get that it’s just that we’re trying to make it easier for 11
developers to get things done within the rules and this seems like it could arbitrarily delay 12
something. So, I just wanted to probe that a little bit. 13
14
Ms. Hodgkins: I just wanted to note also that under state law under the CEQA Guidelines if the 15
decision on the CEQA document is not made by an elected body, they… anybody is allowed to 16
appeal to an elected body already. 17
18
Chair Lauing: Ok, good, thanks for the clarification, that was my only question. Commissioner 19
Gardias. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Gardias: Well I mean I’ve… I’d like to just ask Commissioner Waldfogel if he has 2
any comments because I was about to propose a motion. No? 3
4
Commissioner Waldfogel: Make your motion. 5
6
MOTION 7
8
Commissioner Gardias: Thank you. I’d like to propose that… I’d like to propose the approval of 9
the CEQA and three best practices inclusion into the Palo Alto Municipal Code that’s proposed 10
by the Staff and also allow Staff at their discretion to make some modifications based on 11
comments they heard from us and afterthoughts. Thank you. 12
13
SECOND 14
15
Vice-Chair Monk: I second. 16
17
VOTE 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Lauing: Ok any further discussion or comments? Alright, all in favor please raise your hand 1
and that is 7-0. 2
3
MOTION PASSED UNANIMOUSLY 7-0 4
5
Vice-Chair Monk: Unanimous. 6
7
[many Commissioners started talking at once off mic] 8
9
Vice-Chair Monk: let's eat cake. 10
11
Chair Lauing: We’ll just have Commissioner Gardias make all the motions if they are going to be 12
7-0. That’s good. Ok thank concludes that item 13
14
Commission Action: Motion was made by Commissioner Gardias to accept Staff’s 15
recommendation seconded by Vice Chair Monk. Motion Passed 7-0. 16
17
Approval of Minutes 18
Public Comment is Permitted. Five (5) minutes per speaker.1,3 19
5. September 26, 2918 Draft Planning & Transportation Commission Meeting Minutes. 20
21
MOTION 22
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
VOTE 1
Chair Lauing: And then we have two sets of minutes to approve. First of all, the September 26th 2
minutes and again if anyone was absent please abstain. So, all in favor of those minutes? So, it’s 3
6-1 I think, right? Ok. 4
5
MOTION PASSED 6(Lauing, Monk, Alcheck, Summa, Gardias, Waldfogel)-0-1(Riggs abstain) 6
7
Mr. Lait: (off mic) Who was the one? 8
9
Chair Lauing: Riggs. 10
11
Commissioner Riggs: No sorry, yeah sorry, I lost focus. 12
13
Chair Lauing: Yeah, I didn’t cross reference but (interrupted) 14
15
Commissioner Riggs: [unintelligible – off mic] 16
17
Chair Lauing: We’ll just cross reference it. October 10th Commissioner Riggs was not here so 18
that’s an abstention. 19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Mr. Lait: So, I mean it’s fine. Whether a Commissioner is present or not you’re just moving the 2
minutes. It’s not critical to abstain. 3
4
Commission Action: Motion to approve minutes made by Chair Lauing seconded by Vice Chair 5
Monk. Motion Passed 7-0. 6
6. October 10, 2018 Draft Planning & Transportation Commission Meeting Minutes. 7
Chair Lauing: And then the 11/14 minutes. All in favor? November (interrupted) 8
9
Vice-Chair Monk: October 10th. 10
11
Mr. Lait: (off mic) 10/10/18. 12
13
Chair Lauing: I’m sorry, I was looking at the meeting date. It's 10/10. 14
15
Commissioner Riggs: Yeah, the first ones were the 26th and the second was the 10th. 16
17
Chair Lauing: Correct. 18
19
Commissioner Riggs: Fine I’ll move… that was the day I wasn’t [unintelligible]. 20
21
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
MOTION 1
VOTE 2
3
Chair Lauing: Correct. Ok, unanimous? Ok, it’s unanimous, alright. 4
5
MOTION PASSED UNANIMOUS 7-0 6
7
Commissioner Riggs: I was checking my (interrupted) 8
Commission Action: Motion to approve minutes made by Chair Lauing seconded by Vice Chair 9
Monk. Motion passed 7-0. 10
Committee Items 11
Chair Lauing: Ok so then I don’t think there are any current Committees so we don’t have any 12
Committee items. 13
14
Commissioner Questions, Comments or Announcements 15
Chair Lauing: Just general questions, comments, announcements and or discussion of future 16
agenda items? Did you want to address the last item first or just go with what’s on here of 17
future agenda items? 18
19
Commissioner Summa: [unintelligible – off mic] 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Chair Lauing: Ok Commissioner Summa. 2
3
Commissioner Summa: So, the North Ventura CAP Group is meeting for the second time 4
tomorrow night actually. So, the first meeting was sort of meet and greet and get used to each 5
other and that sort of thing so I’ll keep you guys posted. 6
7
Chair Lauing: What’s the total number of people in that? 8
9
Commissioner Summa: Fourteen I think, yeah fourteen and a lot of Staff and consultants also. 10
And we had a good turn out from the public at the first meeting actually so I’ll keep you guys… 11
we didn’t do much substantive and so I’ll keep you informed going forward. 12
13
Chair Lauing: Ok, great, thank you. Any other comments, announcements? 14
15
Vice-Chair Monk: My lights on. 16
17
Chair Lauing: It is? Oh, Commissioner Monk [note -Vice Chair Monk]. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Vice-Chair Monk: I wanted to thank Staff for that incredible Commissioner recognition. I don’t 1
know that they are here in this room tonight but maybe they will get wind of this transcript. It 2
was a really beautiful ceremony and the gifts were really lovely. I thought that was really nice. 3
For those who attended, I’m sure you share that sentiment. I was really blown away by it. 4
5
And I also just want to thank Staff for everything that they’ve done. As you know I’ve sent a 6
letter out today that this is my last meeting and I wanted to just tell each and every one of you 7
that you offer a very unique perspective and I truly learned something from every one of you. 8
And I feel very humbled and grateful for having served on this Commission with you and this is 9
an experience that I will keep close to my heart and I’m going to get emotional here. I really 10
love it here and I actually don’t want to be moving. I’m really sad so I wish I could stay here. I’m 11
envious that you get to live in this spectacularly beautiful community. We have our issues but 12
this is a fantastic place to live and I would choose to stay here if I could. And I’m not going to a 13
bad place because I’m going to San Diego so that’s a lot to put out there. So be grateful for 14
what you do have and enjoy your Thanksgiving Holiday and also, I believe we have a birthday 15
coming up for Commissioner Alcheck. Happy Birthday to you and thank you again, everyone. I 16
hope we all stay in touch. 17
18
Chair Lauing: I think you can count on us to keep the confidentially from the Chamber of 19
Commerce of San Diego for everything you just said. We will keep your secrets. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Vice-Chair Monk: They don’t want me, they are very Republican, and I’ve already reached out 2
to them. 3
4
Chair Lauing: But I would like to thank you for your (interrupted) 5
6
Vice-Chair Monk: I mean before I moved here many years ago, I’ve been in touch, not this time 7
around. Sorry, go ahead. 8
9
Chair Lauing: No, I was saying but I’d like to thank you for your 2-years of being a colleague and 10
your preparation and your work. And maybe you can someday help them down there or maybe 11
you’ll come back but I’m very appreciative of your efforts and your results. So, I’d like to 12
adjourn the meeting in honor of her but if anybody else wants to make a comment first. 13
Commissioner Alcheck. 14
15
Commissioner Alcheck: Yeah you know I’ll say this to you one on one too but it's worth 16
acknowledging now. I can’t imagine working on this Commission the last couple of years 17
without. You’ve been a very strong ally on so many important issues and you’re going to be 18
really missed. And if you know you need any letters of recommendation for your application 19
(interrupted) 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Vice-Chair Monk: I will. 2
3
Commissioner Alcheck: To the Planning Commission in San Diego I’m sure they benefit from 4
your involvement down there, but really thank you. 5
6
Vice-Chair Monk: Thank you. 7
8
Chair Lauing: Ok in honor of Vice Chair Commissioner Monk we stand adjourned. 9
Adjournment 10
9:45 pm 11
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Palo Alto Planning & Transportation Commission 1
Commissioner Biographies, Present and Archived Agendas, and Reports are available online: 2
http://www.cityofpaloalto.org/gov/boards/ptc/default.asp. The PTC Commission members are: 3
4
Chair Ed Lauing 5
Commissioner Michael Alcheck 6
Commissioner Asher Waldfogel 7
Commissioner Przemek Gardias 8
Vice Chair Susan Monk 9
Commissioner William Riggs 10
Commissioner Doria Summa 11
Get Informed and Be Engaged! 12
View online: http://midpenmedia.org/category/government/city-of-palo-alto or on Channel 26. 13
14
Show up and speak. Public comment is encouraged. Please complete a speaker request card 15
located on the table at the entrance to the Council Chambers and deliver it to the Commission 16
Secretary prior to discussion of the item. 17
18
Write to us. Email the PTC at: Planning.Commission@CityofPaloAlto.org. Letters can be 19
delivered to the Planning & Community Environment Department, 5th floor, City Hall, 250 20
Hamilton Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94301. Comments received by 2:00 PM two Tuesdays preceding 21
the meeting date will be included in the agenda packet. Comments received afterward through 22
2:00 PM the day of the meeting will be presented to the Commission at the dais. 23
24
Material related to an item on this agenda submitted to the PTC after distribution of the 25
agenda packet is available for public inspection at the address above. 26
Americans with Disability Act (ADA) 27
It is the policy of the City of Palo Alto to offer its public programs, services and meetings in a 28
manner that is readily accessible to all. Persons with disabilities who require materials in an 29
appropriate alternative format or who require auxiliary aids to access City meetings, programs, 30
or services may contact the City’s ADA Coordinator at (650) 329-2550 (voice) or by emailing 31
ada@cityofpaloalto.org. Requests for assistance or accommodations must be submitted at least 32
24 hours in advance of the meeting, program, or service. 33