Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout2004-09-27 City Council (4)TO: City of Palo Alto City Manager’s Report HONORABLE CITY COUNCIL FROM: DATE: SUBJECT: CITY MANAGER SEPTEMBER 27, 2004 DEPARTMENT: PLANNING AND COMMUNITY ENVIRONMENT CMR:428:04 DISCUSSION AND ACTION ON HOMER AVENUE INGRESS AND EGRESS TO AND FROM THE NEW BICYCLE/PEDESTRIAN UNDERCROSSING OF CALTRAIN AT HOMER AVENUE AND THE PALO ALTO MEDICAL FOUNDATION. ALTERNATIVES FOR CONSIDERATION AND POSSIBLE ACTION ARE: (1) DIRECT STAFF TO STUDY THE CONVERSION OF HOMER AVENUE BETWEEN ALMA STREET AND HIGH STREET AND HIGH STREET BETWEEN FOREST AVENUE AND CHANNING AVENUE, FROM ONE-WAY TO TWO-WAY TRAFFIC; (2) ADOPT A RESOLUTION ESTABLISHING A CONTRAFLOW BICYCLE LANE AND ELIMINATING PARKING ON HOMER AVENUE BETWEEN ALMA STREET AND HIGH STREET, AND CONVERTING HIGH STREET BETWEEN FOREST AVENUE AND CHANNING AVENUE FROM ONE-WAY TO TWO-WAY TRAFFIC; AND (3) DIRECT STAFF TO ACCOMMODATE BICYCLES ON ALMA STREET THROUGH IMPLEMENTATION OF SIGNAL TIMING FEATURES RECOMMENDATION Staff recommends that Council approve the retention of the existing lane configurations along Alma Street, Homer Avenue and High Street following the opening of the Homer Undercrossing. The Planning and Transportation Commission does not concur with staffs recommendation, and instead recommends implementation of a contraflow bicycle lane on Homer Avenue, as described under the Board/Commission Review and Recommendation section of this report. BACKGROUND The Homer Avenue Caltrain Pedestrian/Bicycle Undercrossing is scheduled to open in November 2004. The undercrossing will provide a connection for bicyclists and pedestrians to cross under the Caltrain tracks and access the South of Forest Area (SOFA), downtown Palo Alto, the Palo Alto Medical Foundation and surrounding areas. Projected daily usage of the undercrossing is approximately 1200 pedestrian trips and 600 bicycle trips. CMR:428:04 Page 1 of 4 Because Homer Avenue is a one-way street in the westbound direction, there is currently no direct route for bicyclists using the undercrossing to proceed ~eastbound from the undercrossing and access the downtown and SOFA areas. Staff has evaluated.several options for .accommodating the anticipated eastbound flow of bicycles from the undercrossing. These include: (1) convert Homer Avenue between A!ma and High, and High Street between Forest and Channing, from one-way to two-way streets (Alternative 1); (2) provide a contraflow (eastbound) bike lane along Homer Avenue between Alma and High but retain one-way westbound vehicle traffic, and convert High Street between Forest and Channing from a one-way street to a two-way street (Alternative 2); and (3) make no changes on Homer Avenue and High Street, but implement traffic signal timing features at the Homer/Alma intersection to minimize vehicle traffic on Alma during the time bicyclists would be traveling from the undercrossing to Forest along Alma (staff recommendation). A complete description of each alternative, along with the related advantages and disadvantages, is given in the staff report presented by the Transportation Division to the Planning and Transportation Commission (Attachment A). BOARD/COMMISSION REVIEW AND RECOMMENDATIONS Staff presented each of the above alternatives, along with the recommendation to endorse the staff recommendation, to the Planning and Transportation Commission on July 28, 2004. After a lengthy discussion, including public comment both for and against the staff recommendation, the Commission voted 4-1 to (1) implement Alternative 2 as soon as practical; (2) implement the staff recommendation during any interim period between when the undercrossing opens and when Alternative 2 can be constructed, and (3) study the feasibility of converting Homer and Channing from one-way streets to two-way streets from Middlefield to Alma as a long term solution to the eastbound bicycle egress issue. DISCUSSION Staff believes it is prudent to proceed with the simplest, most cost-effective solution that provides safety for bicyclists first (staff recommendation), and proceed to more extensive measures only if subsequent observations indicate that such measures are necessary to ensure bicyclists’ safety. However, should Council support the recommendations of the Planning and Transportation Commission and direct staff to design and implement Alternative 2, staff will work with the Palo Alto Bicycle Advisory Committee (PABAC), experts in the field, and other stakeholders to create a contraflow bike lane which maximizes bicyclist safety, minimizes vehicle conflicts and minimizes potential driver and bicyclist confusion. The contraflow bike lane would most likely incorporate the following general features: []Separation from vehicle lanes would be provided by double yellow centerline and/or raised physical features such as "bots dots" or "chatter bars" []Signs at the intersection of Lane 8 West (the alley) and Homer Avenue, warning drivers exiting the alley about bicyclists in the contraflow lane CMR:428:04 Page 2 of 4 Implementation of. Alternative 2 .would result in the loss of eight parking spaces along the south side of Homer Avenue between Alma Street and High Street. The loss of these spaces could be absorbed by existing on-street parking along Alma Street south of Homer, and in the future by the new underground public parking that is being provided by the 800 High Street project (63 parking spaces). Staff has included a resolution establishing a contraflow bike lane on Homer Avenue (Attachment C), including the removal of these eight parking spaces along the south side of Homer Avenue and the conversion of High Street between Forest Avenue and Channing Avenue from a one-way street to a two-way street, should Council direct staff to implement Alternative 2. Due to a heavy workload, staff does not recommend undertaking a study of converting Homer and Channing to two-way operation at this time. Should Council direct staff to conduct such a feasibility analysis, a number of difficult issues with respect to the satisfaction of stakeholders; including Whole Foods Market, Channing House, and South of Forest Area residents, would need to be resolved. The study would include a traffic analysis of both streets, including a signal warrant study of the intersection of Channing and Alma, an analysis of traffic flow, queues and likely changes in vehicle speeds and crash rates; an evaluation of alternatives for truck loading at Whole Foods; an analysis of the safety effects of a conversion to two-way operation on Homer, on pedestrians at Whole Foods; and an evaluation of the effects on mitigations for Channing House drivers exiting and entering from Homer or Channing. Such an undertaking would require a full year and staff reassignment. Extensive outreach and consultation with business, resident, and commuter stakeholders should accompany and inform the technical evaluation. As a result, the Transportation Division work program for the year would have to be re-prioritized and some priority tasks would not be undertaken. ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW As indicated in Attachment A, the staff recommendation is exempt from environmental review under CEQA Section 15301(c) (Existing Facilities). Should Council direct staff to implement Alternative 2, the project would be exempt from environmental review under CEQA Sections 15304(h) (Creation of Bicycle Lanes on Existing Rights-of-Way) and 15301(c) (Existing Facilities). ATTACHMENTS A.Staff report to Planning and Transportation Commission B.Minutes from July 28, 2004 Planning and Transportation Commission meeting C.Resolution to establish an eastbound (contraflow) bike lane, including removal of eight parking spaces along the south side of Homer Avenue and the conversion of High Street to two-way traffic. CMR:428:04 Page 3 of 4 PREPARED BY: DAVID STILLMAN Transportation Engineer DEPARTMENT HEAD: STEVE EMSLIE Director of Planning and Community Environment CITY MANAGER APPROVALs_ EMILY Assistant Manager Palo Alto Bicycle Advisory Committee City/School Traffic Safety Committee Ole’s Car Shop Palo Alto BMW, Inc. Honda Small Car Shop Doug Ross Attendees of 5/20/04 stakeholder’s meeting CMR:428:04 Page 4 of 4 ATTACHMENT A TRANSPOR TA TION DIVISION STAFF REPORT TO:PLANNING & TRANSPORTATION COMMISSION FROM: AGENDA DATE: David Stillman July 28, 2004 DEPARTMENT: Planning and Community Environment SUBJECT:Retention of Existing Lane Configurations Along Alma Street, Homer Avenue and High Street, for Egress from New Bicycle/ Pedestrian Undercrossing of Caltrain at Homer and Alma RECOMMENDATION Staff recommends that the Planning and Transportation Commission (PTC) endorse staff" s recommendation to retain existing lane configurations along Alma Street, Homer Avenue and High Street following the opening of the Homer Undercrossing. BACKGROUND At the meeting of July 14, 2003, City Council approved the award of contract for construction of the Homer Avenue Caltrain Undercrossing Project. The purpose of the project is to construct approaches and a new pedestrian/bicycle undercrossing under the Caltrain railroad tracks between the intersection of Alma Street/Homer Avenue and the bike path near Urban Lane, just east of the Palo Alto Medical Foundation (PAMF). The Homer Avenue Caltrain Undercrossing Project will provide a connection for bicyclists and pedestrians to cross under the Caltrain tracks and access the South of Forest Area (SOFA), downtown Palo Alto, the Palo Alto Medical Foundation and surrounding areas. The project is scheduled to be completed by September 2004. DISCUSSION Staff anticipates a high usage of the undercrossing by pedestrians and bicyclists. It is projected that daily usage of the undercrossing will be approximately 1200 pedestrian trips Retention of Alma, Homer and High Lane Configurations Page 1 and 600 bicycle trips. Pedestrians may use the existing network of sidewalks to access the SOFA and downtown areas from the undercrossing. However, an equivalent network of bicycle lanes does not exist. While bicyclists who wish to access the undercrossing from the east will be able to proceed westbound along Homer Avenue with the flow of traffic, a bicyclist proceeding eastbound from the undercrossing would have to either walk his/her bicycle along the sidewalk network, or ride the bicycle northbound or southbound from the undercrossing along Alma Street to Forest Avenue or Channing Avenue, and proceed eastbound from there. Alma currently lacks bicycle lanes and bicyclists would be required to share lanes with vehicles. In order to accommodate anticipated bicycle and pedestrian traffic at the intersection of Homer and Alma, current plans call for an additional phase to be added to the existing signal phasing. This phase will be an exclusive pedestrian/bicycle phase, which will allow bicyclists and pedestrians to cross Alma Street while vehicles on all approaches are required to stop (by means of a red signal phase) and right tums on red will be prohibited. Current plans also call for the creation of an exclusive bicycle lane for westbound Homer at the intersection. This lane will serve to keep westbound bicycle traffic separated from right-tuming vehicles on Homer, and the lane will also keep vehicles on Homer from tripping the bicycle signal loop and thus activating the exclusive bicycle/pedestrian signal phase when no bicycles or pedestrians are present. Staff has evaluated several options for accommodating the anticipated eastbound flow of bicycles from the undercrossing towards the downtown and SOFA areas. These options include (1) convert Homer Avenue between Alma and High, and High Street between Forest and Channing, from one-way to two-way streets; (2) provide a contraflow (eastbound) bike lane along Homer Avenue between Alma and High but retain one-way westbound vehicle traffic, and convert High Street between Forest and Channing from a one-way to a two-way street; and (3) make no changes on Homer Avenue and High Street, but implement traffic signal timing features at the Homer/Alma intersection to minimize vehicle traffic on Alma during the time bicyclists would be traveling from the undercrossing to Forest along Alma. This option would also consist of studying the possibility of providing an additional traffic signal on Alma Street, perhaps at Forest, so that option (1) above could be implemented in the future. The exclusive bicycle/pedestrian signal phase and exclusive bicycle lane improvements described in the paragraph above will be implemented regardless of which option is ultimately chosen. All three options have advantages and disadvantages, and there is no ideal solution. However, due to the potential for substantial safety and/or congestion issues associated with the first two options, staff proposes endorsement of the third option. Bicyclists wishing to travel eastbound from the undercrossing would be encouraged to either walk their bicycles Retention of Alma, Homer and High Lane Configurations Page 2 along Homer Avenue and High Street sidewalks, or ride their bicycles from the undercrossing northbound along Alma to Forest, then ride eastbound along Forest, to their ultimate destination. The traffic signal timing at Homer/Alma would be designed to facilitate the use of Alma by bicyclists. The level of service (LOS) and average delay per vehicle at the Homer/Alma intersection, and average queue length on the Homer approach to the intersection, under the existing and proposed scenarios are as follows: Existing Proposed Los B+ C+ A.M. Peak Hour Avg Avg. Queue Delay/veh Length, vehicles 11.5 4 20.1 5 LOS B C P.M. Peak Hour Avg Avg. Queue Delay/veh Length, vehicles 14.4 5 23.0 6 Despite the fact that no lane configurations are being changed,, the LOS, delay, and queue lengths degrade under the "Proposed" scenario due to the fact that an additional signal phase is being added, the exclusive bicycle/pedestrian phase. Consequently, there is less time available on a percentage basis to serve vehicle movements at the intersection, and additional delay would be expected. The analysis assumes that the exclusive bicycle/pedestrian phase will be displayed every signal cycle, which is likely during the a.m. and p.m. peak periods due to the volume of pedestrians and bicyclists expected to use the undercrossing. The primary concern with this option involves the use of Alma Street by bicyclists, especially younger and less experienced bicyclists. In the vicinity of Homer and Forest, Alma carries approximately 25,000 vehicles per day. The east (northbound) side of the street has on-street parking, and no bike lanes. Bicyclists would be required to share the number two lane with vehicles for 425 feet, the length of the block between Homer and Forest. Staff proposes to mitigate this concern in the following manner. Staff will use the traffic signal timing at the Alma/Homer intersection to the bicyclists’ advantage, to provide a relatively vehicle-free period of time for bicyclists to travel northbound along Alma from Homer to Forest. Consequently, the potential for bicycle/vehicle conflicts along Alma can be significantly minimized. As mentioned previously, there, will be an exclusive bicycle/pedestrian phase, during which all vehicles must stop and no right turns by vehicles will be allowed. The precise length of this signal phase has yet to be determined, but willlast a minimum of 20 seconds (the time it takes for a pedestrian to safely cross Alma Street) and can be programmed to be longer if desired. Because a bike needs only about six to eight seconds to cross the street, the bicyclist can proceed northbound along Alma for about another 10 to 15 seconds before any vehicles will approach. Following this exclusive Retention of Alma, Homer and High Lane Configurations Page 3 bicycle/pedestrian phase, the westbound Homer phase, rather than the northbound and southbound Alma phases, will be served. Because the number of vehicles turning right from Homer onto Alma is a relatively smallpercentage of the total number of vehicles at that approach (approximately 30 percent during the p.m. peak hour), there Will be little traffic on Alma for the .duration of that phase, and what traffic there is will consist of a single line of vehicles, rather than a solid platoon. The maximum duration of the Homer vehicle phase will ¯ be about 35 seconds, and may average 15-20 seconds during non-peak hours. A bicyclist traveling 10 miles per hour will need 30 seconds to travel the 425 feet from Homer to Forest, so under typical scenarios a bicyclist will be able to travel from the undercrossing to Forest before being approached from behind by a northbound platoon of vehicles. The traffic signal will also be programmed so that, in the event there is no call from a vehicle on Homer waiting at the intersection,the Homer signal phase will be serviced anyway for a minimum of 10 seconds anytime the exclusive bicycle/pedestrian phase has been serviced. This will guarantee a minimum window of at least 30 seconds when little or no northbound traffic will proceed along Alma from Homer. The primary disadvantage of this proposal is that some bicyclists may choose to not use Alma, either out of lack of awareness of the traffic signal timing changes or because of a predisposition to avoiding Alma Street, and will choose to use Homer anyway, riding the wrong way either along the street or on the sidewalk. The other disadvantage is that there is no convenient route for bicyclists who wish to ultimately proceed southbound, due to the fadt that all bicyclists would be encouraged to ride northbound to Forest under this scenario. Staff believes that the majority of bicyclists will learn to use Alma between Homer and Forest as a result of the protection provided by the traffic signal timing, and that southbound bicyclists will accept a one-block detour. Active outreach should be undertaken in conjunction with the Palo Alto Bicycle Advisory Committee to increase awareness of this option. Staff will monitor the situation once the undercrossing opens in order to observe any potentially unsafe behavior by bicyclists. If a significant amount of unsafe behavior is observed that cannot be easily mitigated, staff will return to the PTC with a recommendation for further action, perhaps consisting of one of the following alternatives, Alternative 1 ~ Convert Homer between Alma and Highi and convert High Street between Forest and Channing, from one-way to two-way streets. Alma/Homer intersection Under this altemative, Homer Avenue would be converted from a one,way street to a two- way street between Alma and High, and High Street would be converted from a one-way street to a two,way street between Forest and Channing, Homer would remain one-way east of High; and High would remain one-way north of Forest and two-way south of Channing. Retention of Alma, Homer and High Lane Configurations Page 4 The advantage of this alternative is that bicyclists would have a legal, direct, and relatively uncongested route from the undercrossing to the downtown and SOFA areas. Bicyclists could travel eastbound along Homer from the undercrossing, with the flow of traffic, to the intersection of Homer/High. From there, bicyclists could make either a left or right turn onto High and travel with the flow of traffic northbound or southbound to their destination. On- street parking along Homer and High would be unaffected. There are several disadvantages to this alternative. First, vehMe congestion would significantly increase along Homer. Second, but related to the first, is that motorist safety could be compromised if motorists divert to other locations, or become frustrated, as a result of the congestion. Third, the left-turning bicycle movement from eastbound Homer to northbound High may be intimidating for some bicyclists. If Homer Avenue is converted from one-way to two-way, the existing number one left lane will be converted to an eastbound lane. Consequently, westbound movements on Homer will be confined to a single lane, which will be shared by both right- and left-turning vehicles at the Alma/Homer intersection. Because all vehicles will be confined to a single lane, the westbound queue lengths at the intersection will be substantially longer than they are currently. There will be an increase in delay for these vehicles and there will be a slight increase in delay for all vehicles using the intersection due to the increased green time the westbound phase will require. Level of service and average delay at the AlmaJHomer intersection, and average vehicle queue lengths along Homer, under this alternative, as compared with that under the existing and proposed scenarios, are as follows: Existing Proposed Alt. 1 LOS B+ C+ C A.M. Peak Hour Avg Delay/veh 11.5 20.1 24.9 Avg. Queue Length, vehicles 4 5 11 LOS B C C P.M. Peak Hour Avg Delay/veh 14.4 23.0 30.2 Avg. Queue Length, vehicles 5 6 15 The analysis assumed that the existing turning movement volumes remain unchanged, an additional 50 vehicles turned right from northbound Alma to eastbound Homer and left from southbound Alma to eastbound Homer during the peak hours, and that a pedestrian/bicycle call was received and corresponding phase displayed by the signal each cycle. The 50 vehicles turning assumption is an educated guess, as staff does not expect a large number of vehicles to turn onto eastbound Homer because there is little benefit for motorists to use Homer for eastbound travel unless their destination is within that first block of Homer or in Retention of Alma, Homer and High Lane Configurations Page 5 the immediate vicinity on High. However, LOS and delay are relatively insensitive to that parameter, and so the’assumption is adequate for comparison purposes. The queue lengths in the table are average,. that is, 50 percent of the time queue lengths would be expected to be longer, and 50 percent of the time. queue lengths would be expected to be shorter. At a 90percent confidence level, queue lengths during the p.m. peak are 24 vehicles long. This means that 10 percent of the time during the peak hour the queue would be greaterthan 500 feet if confined to a single lane along Homer. There are two primary reasons for the long queues. First, the same number of vehicles that are currently accommodated in two lanes, would be accommodated in only one, effectively doubling the queue. Second, because there is an additional signal phase at the Alma/Homer intersection, the percentage of the total cycle time that can be devoted to the westbound vehicle phase must be reduced. Some motorists not wishing to wait in the long queues may seek alternative routes to access Alma: The available alternatives are Hamilton, Forest, and Addison. Channing is one-way in the eastbound direction and so is not a viable alternative. Hamilton is often congested during the peak hours, and so there would be little benefit to using Hamilton. The Forest and Addison intersections with Alma are not controlled by traffic signals, and as a result any vehicles who wish to turn left onto Alma would be making an unprotected movement. This could result in a potential safety issue. Consequently, the potential of traffic shift to Forest or Addison under this alternative is a significant drawback. Homer/High Intersection At the intersection of Homer/High, eastbound traffic approaching the intersection on Homer Avenue would be required to tum left or fight onto High, and westbound traffic in the number one lane on Homer Avenue approaching the intersection will be required to turn left onto High. The queueing analysis showed that during peak periods vehicles will likely queue past this intersection towards Emerson Street. Because the left lane on Homer approaching High will need to be converted to a left-tum-only lane, the queueing will mostly occur in the right lane and the left lane will be underutilized. Vehicle turning movement counts conducted at the intersection showed that during the p.m. peak hour 500 vehicles approached the intersection along Homer, and of those, 25 turned left onto High. It is likely that some westbound vehicles may attempt to avoid long queues in the right lane in the vicinity oriole Foods by driving in the left lane around the stacked vehicles, and cutting in to the right lane at or near the Homer/High intersection: This behavior could result in safety problems, as well as increased congestion due to the extra friction it creates. Retention of Alma, Homer and Higi~ Lane Configurations Page 6 It should be noted that the LOS and delays tabulated above likely overestimate the performance of the intersection under this alternative. Theanalysis.assumes ~at approaching traffic has unrestricted access to the intersection, whereas in reality the all-way-stop Homer/High intersection introduces a significant friction point in the westbound queue, exacerbated by the fact that once the undercrossing opens more pedestrians are expected to use this intersection. The result of this would likely be a lower level of service, perhaps by a whole grade lower, and longer delays for all users of the intersection. This alternative poses some difficulties for bicyclists at the Homer/High intersection as well. The typical bicycle movement would be to turn left from eastbound Homer onto northbound High. The bicyclists performing this maneuver would initially be faced with opposing two oncoming lanes of traffic, and would then turn left in front of those movements onto High. While experienced bicyclists .would likely have no trouble with this maneuver, novice riders may be intimidated and would need to exercise extra caution due to the unusual configuration of the intersection, and the fact that motorists on Homer at the High approach would, at least initially, likely not be expecting the left-turning bicycle movement to occur in front of them. Alternative 2 - Contraflow Bike Lane along Homer In this scenario, Homer Avenue would remain a one-way street throughout, and High Street would be converted to a two-way street between Forest and Channing. An eastbound bicycl.e lane would be installed along the south side of Homer between Alma and High inthe eastbound direction, hence the "contraflow" lane. The lane would be separated from the westbound traffic flow by a double yellow centerline and perhaps physical features such as "chatter bars", in order to safely separate the eastbound bicycle traffic from the westbound vehicle traffic. The advantage of this alternative is the same as for Alternative 1 in that bicyclists would have a legal, direct and relatively uncongested route from the undercrossing to the downtown area. However, this alternative has the disadvantage of being a potential safety issue. Palo Alto does not currently have any contraflow bike lanes, so there is no driver expectation for them. Similarly, installing a contrafiow bike lane on a one-way street has the additional disadvantage that drivers who may be pulling onto Homer from an intersecting alley or driveway would likely only be looking in the direction from which they expect traffic to be coming, and may never look the other direction for oncoming bicyclists. It is possible that this issue could be mitigated somewhat through the installation of signs at the alley and driveway approaches onto Homer, which warn drivers of the bicycle lane and have wording to the effect of "Drivers Look Left". An additional drawback to this scenario is that, due to limited right-of-way on Homer, parking would need to be removed along the south side of Homer Street for the length of the Retention of Alma, Homer and High Lane Configurations Page 7 contraflow bike lane.: Approximately: eight parking spaces would need to be removed. Consequently, there could be an-adverse impact .for ~businesses located along Homer as a restilt of the loss of on-street parking. " Finally, this alternative poses the same difficulties for bicyclists at the Homer/High intersection as described in Alternative 1 above, and perhaps more so. The typical bicycle movement would be to turn left from the contraflow bike lane on Homer, onto northbound High. Because Homer would remain a one-way street under this scenario, this would be an even more unexpected movement than it would be under Alternative 1, and additionally the bicyclist would be initiating the left tum from a point closer to the fight curb, rather than from the eastbound vehicle lane as they would in Altemative 1. The bicyclists would consequently be more out of drivers primary field of view, and more exposed to oncoming traffic, than in Altemative 1. Communi _ty Input ¯ A public meeting to discuss alternatives was held on the evening of May 20, 2004. Meeting notices were mailed to all property owners, business owners and merchants within the two- block-square area bounded by Alma Street on the west, Forest Avenue on the north, Emerson Street on the east and Channing Avenue on the south, Meeting notices were also mailed to the members of the Palo Alto Bicycle Advisory Committee (PABAC). Approximately eight property owners/merchants attended the meeting. Because no members of PABAC were present at the meeting, staff presented the alternatives to PABAC at its regularly scheduled meeting on June 1. The pros and cons of all options were presented at both meetings. At the May 20 meeting, all in attendance were in unanimous agreement that the current staff recommendation was the preferred alternative. The primary reasons for opposing the alternatives were (1) the congestiort/queueing, and the resultant driver frustrations, that would occur on Homer under Alternative 1; (2) concern regarding the safety for bicyclists making the left-turn movement from eastbound Homer onto northbound High under Alternatives 1 and 2; and (3) the loss of parking on Homer which would occur under Alternative 2, One business owner who could not attend the meeting informed staff later by phone that he preferred Alternative 2, because it provided a way for bicyclists to access the downtown area without causing the level of congestion that would be caused by Alternative 1. At the PABAC meeting, there was no clear consensus on a preferred alternative although there was general agreement that the current staff recommendation was the least favorable. The primary reasons for this were (1) the feeling that most bicyclists would prefer not to use Alma despite the fact that the signal timing at the Homer/Alma intersection would be designed to keep Alma relatively clear of traffic; (2) bicyclists wishing to proceed south Retention of Alma, Homer and High Lane Configurations Page 8 would need to first ride north to Forest and east to-High before proceeding southbound, and (3) bicyclists would not,realize that the signal timing was designed to help, and consequently wouldn’t use Alma even if they would be inclined to use it if they had that information. Regardless, the result would be that bicyclists would ride the wrong way (eastbound) on Homer from the undercrossing, either on the street or sidewalk. POLICY IMPLICATIONS Staff’ s proposal is consistent with Comprehensive Plan Policy T-14: Improve pedestrian and bicycle access to and between local destinations, including public facilities, schools, parks, open space, employment districts, shopping centers, and multi-modal transit stations. Although no physical roadway changes would take place, traffic signal timing features are being designed to facilitate and encourage bicycle travel between the undercrossing and the Downtown/SOFA areas. ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW This project is exempt from environmental review under CEQA Section 15301 (Existing Facilities). NEXT STEPS As stated above, the staff recommendation involves no additional work above what has already been previously approved as part of the Homer undercrossing construction. The exclusive bicycle/pedestrian phase traffic signal improvements will be completed by the time the undercrossing is opened to the public. The current staff recommendation was chosen because it represents the least amount of change that is consistent with safety and provides for bicycle access from the undercrossing. Alternatives 1 and 2 have significant drawbacks, which could ultimately result in degradation of safety even though a bicycle route away from Alma is provided. Should one of these alternatives be implemented immediately and safety problems materialize, staff would be forced to follow one significant change with another, and the resultant confusion to both bicyclists and vehicles would almost certainly result in safety problems. Finally, the implementation of Alternative 1 or 2 would involve a cost to modify signing and striping along Homer and Alma. For these reasons, staff believes it is prudent to proceed with the simplest, most cost-effective solution first that provides safety for bicyclists, and proceed to more extensive measures only if subsequent observations indicate that such measures are necessary to ensure bicyclists’ safety. Staff will observe bicyclists’ behavior following the opening of the undercrossing, and return to the PTC with a recommendation for further changes, if necessary. Retention of Alma, Homer and High Lane Configurations Page 9 Additionally, as mentioned earlier, staffwill study the possibility of installing a new traffic signal on Alma, perhatJs at Forest, in order to be able to ultimately implement Alternative 1. A new traffic signal would provide a relief valve to safely accept some westbound traffic that currently uses Homer, so that the single westbound lane on Homer Would not become congested and result in driver frustrations and safety problems. This solution would necessarily not be implemented until 2005/06,’however, as funding would need to be secured, the traffic signal designed and built, and the proper public outreach performed. COURTESY COPIES: Palo Alto Bicycle Advisory Committee ......... City/School Traffic Safety Committee Prepared by: David. Stillman, Transportation Engineer Division Head Approval: ~~ ~-----~- ~pl~Kott, Cl~ef Transportation Official Retention of Alma, Homer and High Lane Configurations Page 10 ATTACHMENT B 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 ~MEETINGS ARE CABLECAST LIVE ON GOVERNMENT ACCESS CHANNEL 26 ROLL CALL: Wednesday, July 28, 2004 SPECIAL MEETING @ 6:00 PM REGULAR MEETING @ 7:00pro City Council Chambers Civic Center, 1st Floor 250 Hamilton Avenue Palo Alto, California 94301 EXCERPT 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 10 Commissioners: 11 Michael Griffin - Chair 12 Phyllis Cassel- Vice-Chair 13 Karen Holman 14 Patrick Burt - Absent Bonnie Packer Annette Bialson Lee I. Lippert Robin Ellner, Staff Secretary Staff: Steve Emslie, Planning Director Dan Sodergren, Special Counsel to City Attorneys Lisa Grote, Chief Planning Official Joseph Kott, Chief Transportation Official John Lusardi, Planning Manager, Special Projects David Stillman, Transportation Engineer Curtis Williams, Consultant Susan Ondik, Planner AGENDIZED ITEMS: Zoning Ordinance Update: Form Based Code Zoning Ordinance Update: Auto Dealership Overlay Zone Retention of Existing Lane Configurations Along Alma Street, Homer Avenue and High Street for Egress from New Bicycle/Pedestrian UnderCrossing of Caltrain at Homer and Alma. SPECIAL MEETING: 6.’00 PM STUD Y SESSION: Roll Call- 6:03 p.m. Chair Griffin: I would like to call this Special Meeting of the Planning and Transportation Commission to order. Will the Secretary please call the roll? Thank you. We will begin our Special Meeting with a Study Session. We have just one item on the agenda for our Study Session relating to the Zoning Ordinance Update where the Commission will hear a presentation and discuss the proposed format for the so-called Form Based Code component of the ZOU. Would Staff please make a presentation? City of Palo Alto Page 1 1 2 Chair Griffin: Commissioner Holman. 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 3O 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 4O 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 Mr. Emslie: I think we would recommend that we take a three-minute break to allow Staff to be present. Chair Griffin: Sounds like a reasonable suggestion. We are taking a five-minute break. NEW BUSINESS: Public Hearings. o Retention of Existing Lane Configurations Along Alma Street, Homer Avenue and High Street for Egress from New Bicycle/Pedestrian UnderCrossing of Caltrain at Homer and Alma. http ://w~vw.cityofpaloalto.or~cityagendaipubli sh/planning-transportation- meetings/3575.pdf Chair Griffin: We can now reconvene. StaffI already announced the item so Joe, if we could hear the item we are ready. Mr. Joseph Kott, Chief Planning Official: Thank you very much Chair Griffin and members of the Commission. I have with me here this evening David Stillman, Staff Engineer in the Transportation Division. David has come here from home where he has been with his wife who delivered a baby Sunday morning. So David is going above and beyond the call of duty here by coming to the Commission he is so committed to these bike facilities. The item before you is a question of egress from the Homer bike and pedestrian tunnel, which is expected to open September 2004. There is no ideal solution to the egress problem, a~ you will find out this evening. We have analyzed several options and as the Commission knows we recommend what we consider workable but a minimally feasible option. David will discuss that as well as two alternatives .this evening. David. Mr. David Stillman, Transportation Engineer: Staff’s recommendation this evening is that the Planning and Transportation Commission endorse Staff’ recommendation to retain the existing lane configurations along Alma Street, Homer Avenue and High Street following the opening of the Homer Undercrossing. The map you see on the overhead shows the existing lane configurations along Homer, Alma and High Street. ! will go through it briefly with you. Currently Homer is a one-way street in the westbound direction all the way to Alma Street where it terminates and directly across the street from the end of Homer is the new construction of the Homer tunnel. High Street is a one-way street southbound all the way to Channing. South of Channing it is a two=way street. Once the Homer tunnel opens bicyclists will easily be able to access the tunnel from the east heading in a westbound direction. They can just proceed directly westbound along Homer Avenue until they get to the tunnel. Once the undercrossing opens bicycling toward the east will be a little bit more problematic because they cannot go directly City of Palo Alto Page 20 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 3o 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 4o 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 along Homer eastbound they will be going against the flow of traffic. So Staffhas been looking at ways to accommodate this eastbound flow of bicyclists from the tur~el once it opens. I will add while I have this on there as far as existing conditions two conditions that are not existing now but will exist once.the undercrossing opens involve a traffic signal change that will-be occim-ing at the intersection of Homer and Alma. That will consist of an exclusive bicycle/pedestrian signal phase that will be incorporated into the traffic signal. The purpose of this phase is to allow bicyclists and pedestrians to safely cross Alma Street without any vehicle conflicts, So during the time that phase is operational all vehicles will be required to stop at the intersection and there will be no right turns on red allowed for any vehicles during that phase. The other change that will occur will be. a short bicycle lane if you will, a westbound bicycle lane right at the intersection along Homer. It will be about 20 or 30 feet long at the most. Basically it is just a bicycle pocket that is a storage area for bicyclists waiting to cross Alma Street to access ’the tunnel. Another purpose of this bike lane is to keep vehicles that are on Homer that wish to turn right on to Alma from tripping the bicycle loop detector that will be against the right curb line. Should a vehicle do that it would activate the pedestrian/bicycle phase and that would cause further delays for. vehicles because cars aren’t allowed to turn right on that phase so it would cause serious degradation in the operation of the traffic signal. So both of those will be existing conditions once the tunnel opens regardless of which recommendation we have tonight on the lane configurations along Homer and High Street. So as I mentioned, Staff studied ways to accommodate this eastbound flow of bicyclists and we looked at three general methods of accommodating the bicyclist. There might be fine-tuning for each of these small changes and permutations possible but the three general ways are first to turn Homer Avenue between Alma and High Street and High Street between Forest and Channing from a one-way street to a two-way street. So basically you would have a one block long section of Homer Avenue that would get bicyclists. This section of Homer here, this one block long section would be turned into a two-way street and these two blocks of High Street would also be turned into a two-way street. So in that way bicyclists coming from the tunnel would be able to proceed directly eastbound along Homer and if they wish to access the Downtown area they could make a left turn, travel along High Street towards Downtown. They couldn’t go any further along High because this would still be one-way but they could make a right turn and continue into Downtown in this section. Bicyclists wishing to travel southbound would be able to turn right on High Street and travel southbound to their destination. I will describe in more detail each of these once I give you a general overview of the three. Second we looked at an installation of a contraflow bike lane, which is a bike lane that accommodates bicyclists traveling opposite the direction of the traffic on the street. For this option we would provide a contraflow bike lane along this one section of Homer but Homer would remain one-way for vehicles in the westbound direction. So there would still be two lanes for vehicles westbound, there would be a single bicycle lane in the eastbound direction. High Street would be converted to two-way operation similar to the one I just showed you so that when bicyclists reached the intersection they could either turn left to go towards Downtown or turn fight to go towards the South of Forest area. The third alternative we looked at is to retain the existing lane configurations. In other words, we would keep Homer and High one-way streets where they are currently but we would modify the signal timing at this intersection in order to accommodate bicyclists using Alma Street to go to Forest and then on to their destinations. This third alternative is Staff’s recommendation City of Palo Alto Page 21 1 tonight, So what I will do now, is describe in further detail this recommendation as well as ~the 2 other two altematives.~. ....... 4 Let me describe how we will modify the signal phasing to accommodate the bicyclists. As I 5 meritioned earlier the phasing at this signal will be changed to include aphase exclusive to 6 bicycles and pedestrians. All vehicles will come to a complete stop at the intersection during 7 that phase. ,The length of that phase is not certain at this time but it will be on the order of 20 8 seconds which is the amount of time it would take a pedestrian to safely cross Alma Street. So 9 during those 20 seconds there will be no cars traveling northbound on Alma Street within this. 10 block save for an occasional car that might be pulling out of a parking space along here. Other 11 than that vehicles won’t be allowed to proceed northbound through on Alma past Homer and 12 they won’t be allowed to turn right from Homer onto Alma. So during that 20 seconds a 13 bicyclist could come out of the tunnel tum left and proceed along Alma Street with minimal 14 conflicts from vehicles behind them. It would take a bicyclists about 30 second to travel from 15 Homer to Forest along Alma Street and that figures about ten miles an hour which is an average 16 pace for bicyclists. School children might be a little slower, probably not much, seasoned 17 cyclists maybe 15 miles an hour, they could probably do it in about 20 seconds but ten miles an 18 hour and 30 seconds is a good typical time that it. will take a bicyclists to travel this block. So 19 during this 20 seconds of this exclusive pedestrian!bicycle phase a typical bicycle could travel 20 say halfway up this block towards Forest. If they were waiting when the phase turned green they 21 would be able to travel a little further up the street because they would have the full 20 seconds. 22 If they got there a little late maybe not quite so far but about halfway up the block. What we 23 could do to the signal operation to make it easier for the bicyclists to proceed all the way to 24 Forest is to follow that exclusive phase with the westbound Homer phase. So what that would do 25 is the vehicles that are queued up at northbound Alma would still have to wait there during that 26 phase. The vehicles on Homer could proceed left out of the intersection or right out of the 27 intersection. Most of the traffic that is on Homer westbound is left turning vehicles. There are 28 . about 30% or so that are right turning vehicles so there will be a few cars that will make this 29 right turn but they would be a single line of vehicles not a solid platoon as you would get coming 30 straight up Alma Street so there would be minimal conflicts. That would allow the bicyclists to 31 travel to Forest before this traffic that is waiting on Alma Street is released to proceed 32 northbound. We could design the signal phasing so that even in the absence of a vehicle call on 33 Homer that Homer phase is serviced following the exclusive pedestrian/bicycle phase so we 34 would always allow that time for the bicyclists to proceed to Forest regardless of if there is a 35 vehicle on Homer to trip the traffic signal. 36 37 Our recommendation has some disadvantages or potential disadvantages, Probably the most 38 significant is that there may be bicyclists that would still choose to use Homer to access the 39 Downtown and South of Forest areas because it is shorter and they don’t want to take this longer 40 route. For example is they are going southbound they would need to do this as opposed to that. 41 So they may choose to take the shorter route in order to go this way. Also some bicyclists might 42 be predisposed to avoiding Alma Street regardless of any traffic signal timing changes that we do 43 because they may perceive it as being a less safe alternative. Also bicyclists may not know that 44 we incorporated these traffic signal timing changes to ease their route up Alma Street so out of 45 this lack of knowledge they may not realize it has been made safer and they would continue 46 down Homer Street. Now we could do some things to bring that knowledge out to the bicycle 47 community, some outreach working with PABAC, fliers, posting at the bicycle tunnel, postings 48 at the Palo Alto bicycle shop. There are ways to get that word out. We feel that most bicyclists City of Palo Alto Page 22 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 would get. that word and they would use Alma Street to Forest and then proceed on to their destination and there would be very few. bicyclists that would choose to ride in the wrong direction along Homer. This is something that we cOuld observe if were to implement this recommendation. If it appears that there is a problem that could not be easily mitigated we can m6ve to a next step, which would be one of the alternatives that I will ’explain to you now. The alternative number one would be the two-way conversion of Homer Avenue on this first block and these two blocks of High Street. The obvious advantage of this alternative is that it provides a relatively safe direct route to the Downtown or tothe South of Forest areas from the Homer tunnel. It also retains all parking along Homer Avenue and along High Street, which the next alternative won’t, which I will explain a little bit later.11 13 A disadvantage is the amount of vehicle congestion that will happen as a result of this ..... 14 altemative. Currently we have two vehicle lanes in the westbound direction. If we were to 15 implement this alternative there would only be a single vehicle lane. As you all know there is 16 quite a bit of vehicles that use this street especially during the PM peak hour, people that are 17 leaving the Downtown area to head home typically use Homer because it is relatively un- 18 congested. Hamilton tends to get a little bit more congested. Forest doesn’t have a traffic signal. 19 Channing is one way the other direction, Addison doesn’t have a traffic signal. Homer is the 20 obvious way out of the Downtown area. Currently the queues on Homer Avenue during the PM 21 peak are about five vehicles long,.which brings you back to about mid block. This is confirmed 22 by both computer analysis and visual observations out in the field. It varies but that is an 23 average. If we were to implement this alternative we would be looking at queues along Homer, 24 which may say ten percent of the time extend all way back to Emerson. We are looking at fifty 25 percentile queue lengths of about 15 vehicles which means half the time during the PM peak 26 hour the queue would be at least 15 vehicles long, half the time it would be more and half the 27 time it would be less. The 90th percentile we are !ooking at between 20 and 25 vehicles, long 28 would be the queue which means ten percent of the time during the PM peak it would actually be 29 longer than those 20 to 25 vehicles. That takes you all the way back to Emerson. What would 30 likely happen as a result of that is vehicles would either start to divert, no one wants to wait in a 31 two block long queue so they would be tempted to either use Forest or to come down here and 32 use Addison at theuncontrolled intersections along Alma to make their left turns which is not a 33 safe alternative because of the traffic along Alma Street. We would likely be inducing accidents 34 at those locations if there were a significant traffic shift to those intersections. Another problem 35 would most likely occur at the Homer/High intersection. Under this alternative this lane here, 36 the one along the Whole Foods parking lot side would be required to be a right turn only lane 37 because it could not proceed across the intersection due to this oncoming lane here. So these 38 folks would be required to tum right. That would be a very underutilized lane. There are only 39 about 25 vehicles that make this right turn currently during the PM peak hour. So this lane 40 would be empty most of the time once you got past the Whole Foods parking lot. 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 Chair Griffin: That is a left turn, right? Mr. Stillman: It is a left turn. Did I say right turn? Yes, they would be required to make this left turn. What would likely happen is because of the long queues you would see cars using this lane to come as close to the intersection as they could and then either cutting over here in the intersection or cutting in at the head of the queue right here which would create additional friction and delay and be a potential safety problem if they are aggressive about cutting in. The City of Palo Alto Page 23 final disadvantage with this option is the left tum that northbound bicyclists would make from Homer onto High street. They would be facing two lanes of oncoming traffic, which would be an intimidating maneuver for some bicyclists. Making this left turn may be intimidating for some bicyclists. It could be a potential safety issue. That is our alternative number one. The altemative number two is the contraflow bike lane. As mentioned before the contraflow bike lane would extend for this single block. These two blocks of High would be two-way traffic. The advantage is the same as the previous alternative in that the bicyclists would have a direct, relatively safe un-congested route from the tunnel to the Downtown and South of Forest areas. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 The first disadvantage would be loss of parking along the curb for this block. Currently there are 13 eight parking spaces on this side of Homer Avenue, which are used by the general public, most 14 often by Ole’s car dealership, which is right here, BMW dealership here and in the future the 800 15 High project which is right here. These eight parking spaces would need to be eliminated under 16 this option. The second disadvantage is driver expectation or lack thereof of contraflow bike 17 lanes. We have an alley, which is not shown on this map but there is an alley, which extends for 18 the length of this block and continues here. It is a northbound alley that intersects Homer. A 19 typical problem that occurs, existing contraflow bike lanes around the county is that minor street 20 approaches such as this where a vehicle that is traveling northbound along the alley, stops here 21 waiting to turn left onto Homer, looks right for oncoming traffic, doesn’t think to look left for an 22 oncoming bicyclist and there is a conflict at that point. This could be mitigated somewhat 23 through signs, striping in order to bring awareness to both the driver and to the bicyclist that 24 there is this potential conflict point here. I have a few slides I can show you of treatments around 25 the country at contraflow bike lanes to mitigate these potential safety issues. This is Eugene, 26 Oregon. This is the contraflow bike lane it travels from left to right and in the distance is the 27 vehicle lane, which travels from right to left. Typical separations double yellow center line 28 because we have two opposing directions of traffic and also an eight or twelve inch line brings 29 awareness to drivers traveling along the main street as well as drivers approaching on the minor 30 street that this is a bicycle lane and there is something different going here and they need to pay a 31 little bit more attention. Also this is also Eugene, we are looking down the contraflow bike lane 32 here you will notice this stenciling say ’watch for cars.’ This is a note for bicyclists who are 33 approaching a minor street to keep an eye out for vehicles that may not be keeping an eye out for 34 them. Of course it is the driver’s responsibility to keep looking for the bikes, the bicyclists have 35 the right-of-way but the reality is the bicyclists often times need to be vigilant in making sure 36 that a car is not going to pull out in front of them. They have had some success with this type Of 37 stenciling for the bicyclists. Here is just another photo of Eugene. A contraflow bike lane here 38 with a double yellow centerline and the white stripe and vehicles traveling in the other direction. 39 Just another view here of a bike lane. Here they have a bike lane along the curb, some parking 40 along here and the vehicle lane is in this direction. This is an example of a sign that is used to 41 warn drivers that are approaching on a minor street that they need to look both ways, one 42 direction for the vehicles as they are used to and the opposite direction for the bicyclists in the 43 contraflow bike lane. The sign here is a bicycle symbol, these are arrows pointing two different 44 directions which says ’two-way bike traffic.’ Finally this is Madison, Wisconsin. This is a 45 different type of separation treatment for contraflow bike lanes. This is the contraflow bike lane 46 here. These are the vehicle lanes. What they have done is provided a physical separation. This 47 is a raised curb between the contraflow bike lane and the vehicle lanes. At the minor street 48 approaches to that what they have done is made this curb mountable so they have continued this City of Palo Alto Page 24 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 median, this island if you will, past the driveways, the minor street approaches but they have made it such that the car pulling out can mount it; cross it, to get into the primary vehicle lane. This is also a.good way of bringing further awareness to the drivers on the minor street approaches that there is a contraflow bike lane there and they need to look the other direction for th~ bicyclists. The final disadvantage of this option is similar to alternative number one in that bicyclists that are traveling toward the Downtown area would need to make this left turn from Homer onto High Street across two lanes of oncoming vehicle traffic. ~s one is a little more extreme than the previous, alternative because the bicyclists are further over, they are actually very near the curb in this situation and they are crossing two complete through oncoming vehicle lanes. There would also be less driver expectation from the point of view of the drivers here for bicyclists making this maneuver because they can continue straight down Homer as they have always done it remains a one-way street all the way through so they are less likely to be looking for different conditions which this left turning Would be. So that concludes my description of the Staff recommendation and the alternatives. Again, we recommend maintaining existing lane configurations. We will monitor the condition once the undercrossing opens in order to assess conditions, make changes if necessary to accommodate conditions. If we move forward with the Staff recommendation we will look at the possibility, of installing a traffic signal in the future at either Forest and Alma or Addison and Alma so that one day we may be able to go to two-way configurations here without causing the congestion I described. The vehicles would be able to use Forest or Addison as the case may be to also make left turns onto Alma. There are advantage and disadvantages and there would be studying required but it is something that Staffwould look at. Thank you. Chair Griffin: Does that conclude Staff comments? Mr. Kott: It does, Chair Griffin. Chair Griffin: As colleagues can see we have a number of members of the public here who will be talking to us this evening and I would like to encourage any of the rest of you who have yet to fill out a speaker card now would be a good opportunity to do that. Meanwhile if Commissioners would care to pose a few questions here to Staff before we open to the public that would be appropriate. Lee. Commissioner Lippert: I would like to open the public hearing as soon as possible and the reason being that they have been kind enough to accommodate us in terms of changing our hearing and I think it is important that they all be heard this evening. Chair Griffin: That is a point of view although I think there is another argument to that which is it does give members of the public an opportunity to hear a little bit about what is on our minds so that they might wish to respond in their comments and make sure that we get an alternate viewpoint. Annette. Commissioner Bialson: Can I ask a question? Chair Griffin: Would you please? City of Palo Alto Page 25 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 Commissioner Bialson: -With-regard to the last alternative that you were discussing, the contraflow bike "lane, how much room is there to provide some sort of physical barrier? Mr. Stillman: There would be about two or three feet to provide a physical barrier. Currently th~ street is 36 feet wide, the lane line runs right down the middle of the street so we have 18 feet between the lane line and the curb. We would need about ten or 11 feet for vehicles which would leave about eight or so feet for the contraflow bike lane and whatever separation that we -put there. The bike lane would be five or six feet wide and the balance.would be for the separation. Commissioner Bialson: Can I ask a follow up? There are a lot of truck deliveries at Whole Foods. Would that physical separation perhaps impact trucks especially as they are making that turn on Alma because they have to use Alma to get in and out due to our restrictions with regard to commercial trucks. I have seen some of those trucks making rather strange turns as they go out of Homer. Could you just give me a little more explanation on this physical separation and the impact? Mr. Stillman: You are referring to this left turn here from Homer onto Alma Street? The separation should not affect that left turning movement for trucks. The existing lanes will not be moved from where they are currently so the location from which the trucks are turning now will be the location from which they would turn under this alternative. The separation would end or begin here and continue this way so the trucks would be driving past the separation before they make their left turn or more likely would actually make their left turn from this lane because it gives them a wider turning radius. If it turns out there was a conflict between turning vehicles and the separation we could start the median or whatever we have there a few feet back to accommodate that. Chair Griffin: I will ask a question having to do with experience other cities have accumulated with this contraflow technique specifically I am thinking of the safety aspects of it. Were you in your investigations able to determine the safety record that Madison, Wisconsin and some of these,other communities have experienced? Mr. Stillman: Yes we have. We contacted four or five cities Madison, Cambridge, Eugene, Seattle, unfortunately none of them have a situation which is exactly similar to the one we have here but some conclusions that can be drawn are generally there has been some conflict at minor street approaches. Eugene had a little bit of conflict, which is why they felt the need to incorporate that extra striping within the contraflow bike lane that says ’watch for cars.’ That seemed to improve things. They had a few conflicts there. Generally this left turn movement that I have described for both of the alternatives at all of the cities that I talked to none of them had a four-way stop situation but this intersection for example would be controlled by a traffic signal and this left turn would be a permitted left turn across oncoming vehicle traffic. So in other words, the oncoming vehicle traffic and these bikes would have the green at the same time and the bikes would have yield to the vehicles. No conflicts generally with that configuration that left turn was safely made at the signalized intersections. All the cities I spoke to have learned a little bit from their experiences but did say that they would install another contraflow bike lane generally if given the chance so they were able to manage whatever safety issues they had come up. City of Palo Alto Page 2~ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 i6 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 Chair Griffin: Annette, ¯ ..... Commissioner Bialson: The response to your question gave me pause, You said that you would be.putting a traffic signal up at the intersection of High and Homer? Mr, Stillman: No, no, what I was describing was the cities that I spoke to on their typical road segments where they had contraflow bike lanes they had traffic signals at the major intersections not a four,way stop as we do so their experiences all had to do with t-raffle signal operations and not all the way stop operations but we would not be installing a traffic signal at that intersection. Commissioner Bialson: We have no plans to but if we had some conflicts we might end up having to, It just sounds like a possibility. Mr. Stillman: It is something we would need to study. Commissioner Bialson: Thank you. Chair Griffin: Bonnie. Commissioner Packer: You said at the end of your presentation that one of the possibilities was putting traffic signals at Forest and Alma and Channing and Alma. Did you do any preliminary counts as to how that would impact the queuing problem that you described on Homer? If people could make those turns safely at Forest rather than going to Homer there would be fewer cars there so did you do any analysis of that? Mr. Stillman: We didn’t. It is very difficult to assess those kinds of impacts especially on local streets for example. It is difficult to determine the traffic shift. It would most likely shift to the point where Homer and say Forest would have about equal levels of delay for the vehicles .waiting at the intersection so you would take the queue that I described on Homer generally maybe divide it by two and you would have the resultant impact on Forest. It is difficult to really do detailed analysis on an impact such as that. Mr. Kott: IfI may, one consideration on a signal at Forest is that we would add delay to motorists proceeding on Alma and that would be something we would have to look at. We try to keep Alma as efficient as possible. Adding a bike/pedestrian phase will add some delay to motorists on Alma for a good cause certainly but additional signal delay need to be traded off against benefits like safety, Chair Griffin: Go ahead. Commissioner Packer: When we first looked at the plans for the Homer tunnel back in 2002 the Staff Report referred to the Comp Plan suggestion that conversion of Channing and Forest from one-way to two-way traffic be evaluated, Can you explain why that issue was not in the Staff Report and why you didn’t look at that as another one of the options? This is one-way to two- way throughout the length of those two streets. Mr. Kott: Well that is certainly a much more ambitious project because of the number of users of Channing and Homer that would be affected and need to be consulted and have input. There City ofPalo A lto Page 2 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 3O 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 4O 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 are some very difficult problems further up stream from the High intersection including that at Whole Foods and at Channing House.that we haven’t yet really resolved. We have had some conversations with the stakeholder groups but our view is that it will take some time to resolve some really important issues about track off-loading and vehicle turns out of Channing House against opposing traffic and other issues have been raised. We have a need to create safe egress as soon as we can before we can resolve all the other issues on Homer and Channing. We do have Homer and Channing conversion on our plate. In fact we have funding in the CIP to do design work on Homer and Channing conversion but we are not ready to present a plan to :do that yet. Chair Griffin: Commissioners, if there are no further questions at this time I will in fact open the public hearing. We have enough cards to have a good input from the public. Ihave ten cards at this stage I will give each of you five minutes. If you don’t need all of those five minutes that would be appreciated to keep our proceedings moving. So I will open the public hearing and our first three speakers will be Bruce Cancilla, Ed Holland and Matthew Ingco. So if we could hear from Bruce. Pease come down and introduce yourself. Mr. Bruce Cancilla, 774 Emerson Street, Palo Alto: I am the General Manager of the Whole Foods on Homer Street. We have been a proud member of the Palo Alto community for 15 years now and we have evaluated this situation carefully. We feel that any change of the street direction would have a very detrimental effect on our ability to do business. The parking lot is our lifeblood and as explained by the engineers the traffic backup by a directional change would cause a stoppage of traffic back to Emerson, which would cutoff access to our parking lot. So we support the recommendation and for safety reasons we also have concems about the contra bike lane. Any backup along Homer toward Emerson would impact a lot of pedestrian traffic coming in and out of the store and the parking lot. It is already touch and go with traffic coming up there. We are concerned about drivers who are aggravated by trying to get past a crowded intersection and may put a lot of our pedestrians in that area at further risk. That is all I have to say. Thank you. Chair Griffin: Bruce, we have a question for you. Commissioner Lippert: Why is it that during the day the majority of trucks that do offioading there are double-parked on the street? Why aren’t they accommodated in the alleyway where they are supposed to be or on your own private parking lot? Mr. Cancilla: They are accommodated in the alleyway if they choose to use that. My understanding is they have the option to double park and I believe that’s the reason they take advantage of that. It is not because we are preventing them from using the alleyway. We try to keep that clear to encourage the use of that alleyway. We have respect for our neighbors who have a driveway that access their parking lot, that would be Pete’s Coffee, so we struggle to make sure that delivery trucks are into the alley far enough to keep that parking lot clear. So our goal is to have them not cause any more congestion than is absolutely necessary. commissioner Lippert: My understanding, Staffmight correct me ifI am wrong, is that in fact commercial vehicles are allowed to double park up to a certain hour and then they have to give way to other vehicles. City of Palo Alto Page 28 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 Mr. Kott: Yes, that is correct. I think the manager could correct me on this one, Occasionally, there is a convergence of delivery vehicles and they all can’t be accommodated in the alley. I understand that to be the problem that occasions the legal offloading on the street. Cdmmissioner Lippert: Why not encourage your commercial vehicles to use the Whole Foods parking lot during the times of low customer usage? Mr. Cancilla: Many do use the lot as typically the delivery vehicles that are van size those are the ones that do use the parking lot and we don’tprevent them until such point when it may prevent customers fi’om finding a parking spot. The only problem would be if the alley is being used to the extent that more trucks in-the alley would cutoff access to the parking lot of the Pete’s building at that point there may be overflow onto the street and then they use double parking but it is not because we are asking them or encouraging them to do that. Commissioner Lippert: Thank you. Chair Griffin: We have another question for you. Commissioner Packer: Your parking lot that is across the street from Homer is the access into that parking lot also from Emerson? Mr. Cancilla: It is typically used.as an exit but it can be accessedover there also. Commissioner Packer: So the only access is not from Homer? There are two ways to access the parking lot. Mr. Cancilla: There are two driveways on Homer, one in and one out. On Emerson there is only one driveway so it is much more limited access on Emerson. Commissioner Packer: Thank you. Chair Griffin: Lee. Commissioner Lippert: !just want to say also there is access from High Street. Chair Griffin: Our next speaker is Ed Holland. Mr. Ed R. Holland, 1111 Parkinson Avenue, Palo Alto: Two years ago there was a bicycle study for Palo Alto and an outside organization did this study and this is result. One of the things on there is turning Homer into a bicycle boulevard in both directions going through this underpass that we have just built and continuing on into Stanford which would be a fantastic way to get people in and out of Stanford. It is something we want to do encourage them not to drive their cars. There is nothing wrong with this, It has none of the dangers that we have talked about on these other three sorts of kluge ways of getting around it. It certainly will cost more money. It would involve turning both Homer and probably Channing back into two-way streets, which would probably increase the safety for people in the City of Palo Alto because you tend to drive a little more cautiously on a two-way street than you do on a one-way street. At one time I am sure it made sense to have one-way streets when the Palo Alto clinic was right there in the City of Palo Alto Page 29 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 middle.of a resi~tential area and there was lots and lots of traffiC. It of course is gone now, it is being turned back into a residential area and as far as I can see there is absolutely nothing wrong with implementing this plan and the only thing is the cost. It probably would not cost any more than.the cost of a human life when we kill the first bicyclist. Thank you. Chair Griffin: Our next speaker is Matthew Ingco. Mr. Matthew Ingco, 571 Scale Avenue, Palo Alto: I have been fortunate to live and commute to my job in Palo Alto for 20 years. I think part of that is that a lot of times I try to avoid bad traffic situations. I will actually ride my bike a little bit out of the way to avoid some traffic. I would like to support the Commission’s recommendation to not make any changes. I think the two other changes proposed are very dangerous and will put bicyclists in uncomfortable situations. I have a couple 0fquestions. First to the Staff, in your report is a vehicle delay the same as the pedestrian!bike delay when we are talking about the delays at the intersection? Mr. Stillman: No. Mr. Ingco: How can it be different? Mr. Stillman: Well, the analysis does not figure in the pedestriardbicyclist delay at the intersection. Mr. Ingco: What I was trying to allude to was how long could a bicyclist or pedestrian expect the maximum delay to cross to be if they push the button to get across at Alma? What would that delay be at a peak hour? Mr. Stillman: You could probably look at the vehicle delay to give you kind of an order of magnitude. Mr. ingco: Which is 23 seconds on average. So what would the max be? Mr. Stillman: It is hard to say. The maximum would be the length of the signal cycle. Mr. Ingco: But certainly to come up with an average you must have known what the minimum and-the maximum were .... Mr. Stillman: The way the average is figured is you look at the total delay at the intersection divided by the number of vehicles which use the intersection and you get an average delay per vehicle. Mr. Ingco: So anyway, my point was I am a 20 year old commuter, been commuting for 20 years and I am not as fast asI used to be. I can ride from the undercrossing at University to the new undercrossing in 35 seconds on a mountain bike with fat tires with my bike bag with my clothes and lunch in it. That is riding fast. IfI want to tool along it is 50 seconds. So I am kind of wondering bicycle commuters are also very much like drivers that they are always looking for the fastest way through an intersection. City of Palo Alto Page 30 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 Another question I have. for both the Staff and the Commission, has anybody ridden that x~ery nice new bike path we have on the west side of the railroad tracks? Chair Griffin: Matthew, would you just continue your presentation, please? Mr, Ingco: I kind of think it is important because this is the path to this undercrossing and if the Commission has not looked at actually using this as the commuters are going to use it well, the point is that if a bicyclist doesn’t like riding along Alma Street he can use the next northern undercrossing in only 35 to 50 additional seconds. He also doesn’t have to wait for a light up there to get to Downtown andhe is closer to Downtown University Avenue. So that is the point I am trying to bring up. I do think if you are our Transportation Commission it would be very nice to see these nice features that we have in town and that you should be riding through these intersections and if you are making decisions about what the bicyclists are going to do put yourself in the bicyclists place and ride as a bicyclist through there, Anyway, I support your decision to make no changes because I think the easiest thing for bicyclists to do is to continue on to the next northern most crossing which is uncontrolled and they won’t be waiting your average 23 seconds to make a crossing. It is essentially an uncontrolled crossing underneath Alma and onto University Avenue where the first time you will come to a light is at High Street. Thank you. Chair Griffin: Thank you, Matthew. Our next speaker is Joyce Yamagiwa followed by Winnie Lewis followed by Richard Swent. Welcome, Joyce. Ms. Joyce Yamagiwa, 700 Emerson Street, Palo Alto: Thank you. I am here to support the recommendation by Staff. I believe it is the least invasive solution. I had a shoulder problem recently and the solution was to take ibuprofen and see if the problem goes away and then move on to something more serious such as cortisone. The ibuprofen worked. Life is fine and I kind of see the signalization as a similar kind of a treatment. I am also very opposed to option number one, which is to convert to the two-way. I. am a commuter to Downtown and I believe that that change will make my commute untenable. So what I would do then is seek alternate routes and it wouldn’t be to travel south from Forest or from Channing because you cannot get onto-Alma. So I am going to then seek out residential streets to make my travel down to Churchill. So as a resident of that area I am opposed to that because I think we will inherit the rerouted traffic. ................ Then last as a property owner I think it is important to retain the vibrancy of Downtown and to support businesses that are doing business in Downtown. Without that business people aren’t going to want to ride their bicycles into Downtown and we won’t have to worry about it. So I think it is important to keep that in mind. That we need to be Sensitive to maintaining that balance so that businesses can conduct their business but maintain the safety of the bicyclists, pedestrians and commuters. Thank you. Chair Griffin: Thank you. Winnie Lewis. Ms: Winnie Lewis, 436 Webster Street, Palo Alto: Hi, I am a resident of Downtown Palo Alto. I also work in Palo Alto and I represent the owner of the building at 151 Homer, which houses City of Palo Alto Page 31 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 Pete’s Coffee. They are right next to Whole Foods. We support the Staffrecommendation .~ because that is the one that actually also takes into consideration pedestrians that are walking across to have a drink at Pete’s Coffee, say across High Street. Secondly, our building is also home to a four story self storage unit that is used mainly by Downtown residents. The entry bay to bur building is on the one-way High Street. If you tum it into a two-way street it would be quite impossible for our people to get in and out safely at the bay. Also for Pete’s Coffee we worked out with Brace, Pete’s Coffee has their deliveries on High Street so that they can double park for a moment on the two lane High Street going one way safely. If you change High Street to a two-way system then right at the comer where you can see Homer and High so if you change High Street to a two-way street from a one-way street that is going to have a big_impact on our tenants who want to make. deliveries. They will end up fighting for room with Whole Foods. Thank you. Chair Griffin: Richard Swent. Mr. Richard Swent, 2950 Clara Drive, Palo Alto: Good evening. I am a Palo Alto resident, I am a bicycle educator and I am a member of so many bicycle organizations and committees I am not going to waste your time listing them all. I have a tremendous amount of respect for David and Joe but I have to disagree with them in this case. I think that full two-way conversion is the good solution in the long term but we have to do something now so we have to come up with some kind of a hack. I think the alternative three is a very clever engineering solution. It is very efficient in terms of its resources and I can appreciate it from the technical point of view but I don’t think it will work. I don’t think most people will understand it. My experience is that most people don’t know what makes lights turn green and they are not going to take the time to read a sign or a brochure to understand how they are supposed to behave at this intersection. I don’t think that any public outreach is going to be very effective. Relying on PABAC to do the outreach is a little bit ironic because they oppose alternative three. So I don’t think that people are going to understand that they are being protected by the signal timing there. I also think that even though some people may understand it they are not going to want to ride on Alma period. There is a very strong negative emotional bias against tiding on Alma Street. As an example of that when the bicycle plan came before this Commission a year or two ago one of the Commissioners proposed banning bicyclists from Alma Street entirely. She.felt that strongly about it. So now is she going to support a plan that would recommend bicyclists ride on Alma? The numbers that are proposed here are something like 600 bicyclists a day. Many of those are going to be Paly High students. They don’t drive, some of them are of age where they can drive, they are not that familiar with traffic flow and how it works and when you start putting them in situations like that they and their parents will probably not feel comfortable with them riding on Alma. So what is going to happen if you choose alternative three is people will sit there and they will be faced with three choices, I can bicycle on Alma, I can bicycle the wrong way on Homer or I can bicycle on the Homer sidewalk. Which one do you think most people will choose? Staff seems to think that people will learn to ride Alma. I think they are going to ride on the sidewalk on Homer. That is not a safe solution, it is not something we want to encourage, it is not something we recommend but I think that is what is going to happen. Alternative two seems to sort of have the worst of both alternatives one and three. It is like riding on the sidewalk except you are out on the street, maybe some of these technical means can mitigate the fact that you are riding against traffic and none of the drivers will be looking for you but you are relying on drivers’ understanding of a very nonstandard situation that they are City of Palo Alto Page 32 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 supposed to look for bicyclists where they don’t expect them and I don’.t feel comfortable~:elying on drivers to do that. Alternative one seems to me to be very simple and straightforward, Everybody will understand it Without having to read the manual and that is why it will be safe because it is just a normal intersection. The main drawback to that is the increased congestion. If you look at Comprehensive Plan policy T-39 it says prioritize pedestrian, bicycle and automobile safety over vehicle level of service at intersections. So you do not tradeoff level of service for safety, safety wins. So all the level of service arguments against alternative one really have lower priority. You need to consider safety first and alternative one is a step towards full two-way conversion and that is the safe alternative. Thank you. . Chair Griffin: Thank you~ Our next speaker is Ellen Fletcher followed by Paul Goldstein followed by John Ciccarelli. Ellen, are you here? Ms, Ellen Fletcher, 7775 San Antonio Road, Palo Alto: Hi. I can’t remember having a problem with Staff’s recommendations. They have done so much and they are still doing so much to make Palo Alto bicycle friendly, winning a national award. In this case I must disagree.. It really isn’t realistic or a good solution to expect bicyclists to go on Alma Street. As to the timing I was just thinking about Staff’s contention that people ride ten miles an hour. You may know I ride a three-speed and I ride ten to 12 miles an hour. I think I pass as many bicyclists as pass me if not more, which indicates that maybe half the population would ride less than ten miles per hour. I realize that none of the solutions are easy they all have some problems. I am thinking back that Homer and Channing used to be two-way, of course we didn’t have Whole Foods then, but ultimately I think the problems should be worked on to see if we can’t get rid of that and go back to the two-way street which would make it more compatible with the residences along the way. As to that same solution to expect bicyclists to go down Alma Street as Mr. Swent pointed out it " is not realistic. I know there are some bicyclists who would do it, most of them wouldn’t. And most of them would ride against the traffic on Homer, which makes a point for having it a designated contraflow lane so that the conflict would be reduced considerably if it is a marked lane for the bicyclists. It would need more than the normal signage because of the driveways and at the intersection of High to warn everybody that bicyclists are going to go this way and that way. So I don’t know whether the two-way on that one block is preferable to the contraflow but I wouldn’t rule out the contraflow. What I would rule out is Alma Street. Thank you. Chair Griffin: Thank you. Paul Goldstein, John Ciccarelli and our last speaker will be Audrey Alonis. Welcome, Paul, Mr. Paul Goldstein, 1024 Emerson Street, Palo Alto: Hi, I am the current Chair of PABAC, the Palo Alto Bicycle Advisory Committee and you should have a letter from me. We met extensively with Staff over this and then we had a subsequent discussion and as you know from my letter we are unanimously opposed to the Staff recommendation and feel that it is an unacceptable alternative in terms of safety. Our primary issue with it is that we feel that it is unsafe because bicycles will in fact not go on Alma Street but will in fact just proceed directly on Homer either on the sidewalk or we have all seen bicycles ride against traffic. It is one of the most dangerous things you can do but I believe that is what many of the people will do. City of Palo AIto Page 33 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30, 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 The contraflow bike lane at least provides a designated place, it provides some waming, il~ gives some engineering solutions and as David mentioned in.the other cities in which it has been attempted granted there is not a situation that is directly comparable they said they would install another one. PABAC feels that we could work with Staff and mitigate some of the safety pr6blems that are clear. I do want to say also what Ellen said. We have worked with Staff it is extremely unusual for PABAC to be in opposition to a Staff recommendation. The Staff has done great things for bicycling including producing the bicycle plan and it feel unusual but in this case I am in fact very disappointed. One of the reasons I am disappointed is I feel like it is clear from all of the speakers that you have heard already that there is no good alternative at this point. I don’t think we had to be at this situation. I think we had enough time to look at some of the alternatives. Living just off the map to the right, I live just off Addison Street, Alma Street doesn,t do any good at all unless I make a right turn on Alma and then all of the timed signaling that is proposed here doesn’t do me any good because I am going to have hang out making a left turn on Alma Street onto Addison in order to get home. So there has been absolutely no attempt to solve the problem for people who want to head south from that intersection, I have spoken to the folks at Stanford they are fully committed it is on their plan to create a link from the traffic light at the medical clinic across onto campus. It would make it a very low volume safe route to get from the Downtown area across Alma Street, across the clinic, across E1 Camino at a fairly simple interchange onto campus on basic bike paths or what we call class one paths. So I feel that we have a potentially very good route here and it works great heading onto campus or onto the clinic but basically as you exit that tunnel and you come to Alma Street if you adopt Staff recommendation you have a big do not enter sign in front of you. In spite of everything it is just so unwelcoming and so much against the kind of plans, the kind of environment that we want to create for bicycling in Palo Alto. I sort of hate to get it to that level but I just think it is incredibly unwelcoming. I want to acknowledge I shop at Whole Foods, I am extremely happy that Whole Foods is there. I drink coffee at Pete’s. I have had a locker at the storage place. All of those businesses have become accustomed to the one-way situation there as is natural. You have situations in Downtown, San Francisco where there is loading and unloading and high volume traffic on two- way streets. I am sure I have confidence in our merchants and our businesses and in our Planning and Transportation Division Staff that those problems could be solved. There are one- way streets there now, people have adapted to the one-way streets but in general two-way streets are safer, they have lower traffic volumes, they have lower speeds and they are safer for pedestrians. So we have adapted to a situation but I think all of you know who have been in front of Whole Foods at five o’clock when there are pedestrians and traffic and everything like that it doesn’t feel particularly safe. My guess is it would be safer with two-way although there would be changes involved. Those are I think my major points. I want to say one other thing. When I leave my house by car, which I sometimes do, ifI leave around five o’clock I will go to Homer to make a left turn because it is the only signalized light. I think we need to get more signals there. That’s why there is so much volume there at the present time. Thank you very much. Chair Griffin: Our penultimate speaker is John Ciccarelli. Welcome, John. City of Palo Alto Page 34 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 Mr. John Ciccarelli, 2065 Yale Street, Palo Alto: I wanted to second the comments of sex)eral of my predecessors that I urge the Planning and Transportation Commission not to allow the Staff recommendation to go,forward for concerns already expressed. I wanted to offer a different perspective though. I likewise am not accustomed at all to speaking contra to Staff ..... recommendation but I am going to do so tonight. I want to wear a couple of hats here. First is my former hat as Stanford University’s Bicycle Program Manager from 1995 to 1998. IfI learned one thing at Stanford it is that attempts to markedly go against user psychology, bicycle - driver psychology, despite your best intentions are bound to fail. We had a lot of landscape designers before Stanford had a bicycle position that were trying to put lines on maps and say cyclists thou shall go there. It just didn’t work. Once we started to honor the psychology of the user, at least acknowledge the psychology of the user, and design routes that supported the natural line of flow we were better off. The natural line of flow coming out of the Homer Undercrossing is to go where you need to go, largely straight up Homer. As Paul acknowledged if you have anywhere to go up Homer or to the south of Homer the natural movement is not to detour one block around Forest. All considerations about bicycling on Alma aside and I second those considerations it is natural to go where you need to go. The contraflow bike lane solution although unconventional and the first in Palo Alto if it were implemented is the simplest compromise between a long term desire to study and perhaps implement a two-way network on Homer and Channing which has a lot more study before you want to consider that and the Staff recommendation which I think is fundamentally flawed. I believe like others do that if the Staff recommendation is implemented cyclists will ride directly into Homer. So for the first block you are going to get a similar situation to the contraflow with none of the engineering safety advantages, none of the ability under engineering to put heavy stripes down, put signs, islands, whatever you need to separate the two directions of travel. It gets worse. Because nothing will differentiate the first block from the second block they will both be two ways, what is to stop a cyclist who has already made a wrong-way decision from continuing wrong-way as does not happen now up past Whole Foods? So I think once the ball is set rolling they are going to go. The contraflow solution puts signs on the alley warning people not to ignore cyclists coming from the back of Ole’s car shop. We can do all sorts of engineering treatments at the next intersection. Some of the commentators expressed fears that even a change to the first block with a corresponding change to two-way on High would cause irreparable harm to businesses. I don’t think I support that. That sort of thing happens all over Downtown on two-way streets and it is solved with loading zones not with clinging tightly to a one-way street. I love Whole Foods and I strongly support the viability of Whole Foods and I think subsequent to whatever you decide for this first block a detailed analysis of what goes on at Whole Foods and the way people cross the street and the way loading is done could come up with some solutions that haven’t been shed light on yet. I for one think that it is possible if that block went two-way and the rest of the traffic issues could be solved to your satisfaction that a median refuge could be put between the two directions so you could stop halfway across the street with your grocery cart or your kids.. So I don’t think fundamentally changing from one-way to two-way need impact Whole Foods negatively but that is for another day. Another speaker made a medical analogy something along the lines of cause no harm. But that is a flawed analogy with regard to what’s going to happen on opening day of this undercrossing. Opening day will cause harm unless you have an engineering solution that matches the user’s psychology. On day one you are going to have chaos if the signal approach is taken. I hate to City of Palo Alto Page 35 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 sound like a Pollyanna but my feeling is that most of the people that I educate in my bike ’classes and there are other educators here, Rich is an educator, it is amazing to watch their eyes light up when we tell them how signals work, how you trip a signal, how does it really work? Even if you know how signals really work and I know how signals work and Rich knows how signals work and a lot of savvy cyclists do we also know signals can change their behavior during the day based on programming. So I don’t get a good feeling thinking that I have to depend on the signal behaving for me to turn.left on Alma and thinking it might do that differently some other time of day. So even if you believe in signals can you believe in them 100%? So what am I asking you to do? I am asking you to please strongly consider the contraflow lane situation and to realize that several other states have it in their state design manuals. There is also one in San Francisco if you would like to look at it. Chair Griffin: Thank you, Our ultimate speaker is Audrey Alonis. Ms, Audrey Alonis, 2870 South Court, Palo Alto: Hi. I am a Midtown resident and I am speaking tonight as the incoming Chair of the Paly Traffic Safety Committee for this coming school year. I have to admit I don’t support the Staff recommendation either and I am sorry to have to say that. My concerns about the Staff recommendation pertain to the bicyclists who are expected to use this undercrossing primarily in the eastbound direction. I am confident that the pedestrians will be fine and those going westbound coming from Homer to the tunnel will be fine. Those going eastbound crossing Alma from the tunnel to the Downtown streets I don’t think they will be safe with this plan. To quote the Staff Report the traffic signal timing will be used to provide a relatively vehicle free period of time for bicyclists to travel northbound along Alma from Homer to Forest. I don’t quite understand from the Staff recommendation how this will take place. How are the pedestrians and the cyclists who are existing the tunnel going in the eastbound direction going to be staged for the signal phase? You have an exclusive pedestriardbicycle phase that is proposed, you have all the pedestrians going straight across, you have the westbound cyclists who will be going straight across and then you have eastbound cyclists that you want to have make a left turn. How is this going to work? If you have a conflict of them flowing through each other, against each other, those eastbound cyclists are going to lose the benefit of the time that they had with that signal phase. It is going to be a mess, it is going to be unsafe, there ig going to be more conflict on Alma between vehicles and bicyclists. Furthermore most of the high school students who are expected to use this bicycle route have not yet driven an automobile. They do not anticipate the nature of or the risk of the movements that cars make when there is a street that is crowded with moving vehicles, parked vehicles and bicyclists and without the benefit of a bicycle lane for these cyclist I just do not believe that they can be safe. Furthermore, if you get to Forest safely Forest is not so wide that you can safely accommodate vehicles parked on both sides, vehicles traveling in two directions and bicyclists. It is just not that wide to provide that safety there. When the PTA Council Traffic Safety Chair originally supported this tunnel it was with the understanding that Homer and High Streets would be converted to two-way traffic and to allow for these bicyclists to get beyond Alma, not onto Alma but beyond Alma. That the egress would be provided for in a safe manner and that is not provided by this recommendation, So I don’t consider this recommendation to be safe and therefore I can’t support it. City of Palo Alto Page 36 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36, 37 There have to be better engineering solutions.than that which is:proposed here. Whether ~,ou are working with two-way streets, whether you are allowing for bicycles on a sidewalk for a block, come up with something different but I can’t support this, I also would like to observe that none of these alternatives were discussed at the City School Traffic Safety Committee prior to school ending in June. As the Paly Traffic Safety Chair who advised kids on ways to get to school safety using alternate means than cars I would not be able to recommend bicycling on Alma for a block. I just can’t see these kids being safe doing that if they had to interact with any kind of a vehicle. It says in the report that the Staff believes that the majority of cyclists will learn to use Alma~ Do you really believe that.’? If not, where are they going to go? Other speakers have addressed that point. They will undoubtedly do unsafe things or things that we don’t want them to do. So I encourage you to go back and find a different solution than this one that is proposed. I cannot support this one~ I.would not be able to encourage it and the burden would be upon the City to promote the use of this undercrossing and to educate people on how to use it because I couldn’t do that as the Paly Traffic Safety Chair. To me the only safe way to move the bicycles from the tunnel to Downtown is with bike lanes or some way of specifically accommodating the bicycles. I think it is far better to lose forever ten highly prized parking spaces than to lose one teenager. Thank you, Chair Griffin: Thank you. I am closing the public hearing now and bringing the discussion back to the Commission. Phyllis. Vice-Chair Cassel: Can we ask a few questions of Staffat this time? Chair Griffin: Please. Vice-Chair Cassel: My understanding is that there are eight parking spaces along Homer at the south side of that street. Are there alternative ways to park those cars? Mr. Kott: There is a public parking facility, which will be available in about a year as part of the 800 High project. It is possible to consider those spaces as being alternatives to the spaces that would be lost on curbside since they would be available for public use. But there will be a time lag between any removal of parking and the availability of the new public parking in the structure at 800 High. Vice-Chair Cassel: Related to that, is you used a contraflow lane how would you keep people from parking in that lane? 38 Mrl Kott: Well;we would have a legend and we would have signs, We would very likely want 39 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 to color or tint the lane particularly with the view to making the lane highly visible to the exiting drivers from the alleyway between 800 High and Ole’s garage. It is not to say that there may not be scoff laws but it is unlikely we would experience very much of that. Mr. Stillman: I can follow up on that. One of the cities I spoke with, I think it was Eugene but I am 100% sure, they did have a problem with vehicles using the contraflow bike lane for parking at a six foot wide contraflow bike lane. When they narrowed it to five feet the problem went away. Chair Griffin: Lee. City of Palo Alto Page 3 7 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 2 Commissioner Lippert: First I should state for the record that I was contacted by a member of 3 the public, Paul Goldstein, and I didlisten to his comments and concerns. I have a couple of 4 questions for you. I withheld my questions until the public had a chance to speak. In doing your 5 analysis here did you take into account the new Summerhill projects that would be coming online and the added traffic from those new housing units? Mr. Stillman: The traffic that was used in the evaluation, the analysis used the existing traffic levels in the evaluation. So if you include Summerhill affects there may be some additional delay, degradation from what I had shown in my analysis. Commissioner Lippert: Okay. Did you take a look at 800 High Street and what additional loads there would be with regard to traffic from the 800 High Street project? Mr. Stillman: No, again it was existing traffic conditions. Commissioner Lippert: Okay. With the number of people that live in SROs they are more prevalent to actually use bicycles than they are to use automobiles did you take a look at the added load of people that would be living in the Opportunity Center that might be bicycling to the Downtown? Mr. Kott: We stand by our estimate about 600 bicyclists each weekday, bicycle trips and that is considering the nature of the Downtown area. Commissioner Lippert: Okay. Chair Griffin: I see Annette. Commissioner Bialson: Following up on asking what you considered and what you didn’t consider you may notbe able to answer me on this but how long will it take you to do a thorough study of the impacts of changing Homer and Channing to a two-way street given the fact that we have senior citizens to deal with and the outreach to go to them with this additional traffic of the Summerhill property users and all those various things? Mr. Kott: I will start and David please feel free t~ add on. Dave’s analysis really suggests to me that we really can’t do a partial conversion of Homer to two-way there is just that one block. If we do a conversion it needs to be both Homer and Channing and it needs to be an extensive section of each street. That also suggests to me and we need to do further analysis of that that we will likely have to signalize Channing to accommodate those left turn movements onto Channing which would possibly be created if we made it a two-way street. My guess is we would need another at least nine months of consultation, process, analysis and so forth before coming up with a workable recommendation that is not only feasible but has adequate buy-in to implement. Commissioner Bialson: One more follow up: How many units are going in between the 800 High and the S~erhill multiple family housing that is going in there now? I have a sense it is going to be quite large but I don’t have a firm or approximate figure. Do you happen to have that figure? City of Palo Alto Page 38 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9, 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 Mr. Kott: I am sure that my boss here, Steve Emslie, hasone right at the tip of his tongue~. Mr. Emslie: If you count the units that are not yet occupied the second multi family.phase is not yet. finished, Oak Court is not yet finished, 800 High is under construction. I would say probably close to 200 units if not a little more. Mr. Kott: Commissioner Bialson, ifI may add on about this Homer/Channing conversion the concerns about all the queuing and delay on Homer would really go away if we converted both streets to two-way because we will have this queuing and delay because we will have only one lane going in one direction and we will have three going in the westbound direction. So if we have two and two it will balance and the traffic will just redistribute. There will be traffic that will be going one lane eastbound on each street and one lane westbound on each street. Chair Griffin: Joe, I take it that at the moment we don’t have any plans to have signalized intersections at Forest and Alma or at Addison and Alma and that is not even in long range planning down the road or anything that is just not being looked at. Mr. Kott: NO it is not being looked at although we have considered it in the past and we will consider again signalizing Channing particular in conjunction with this two-way conversion., Chair Griffin: It seems to me building on some of the comments that other Commissioners have made about the volume of new housing coming on stream and the additional passenger loads that those streets will be expected to carry egress and ingress off of Alma Street has got to be a big item for us. Mr. Kott: One consideration on these one-way couplets is that they are convenient to getting out of town so to speak but they are not very convenient to accessing properties. So as you have more properties developing and redeveloping and more trips internal to the neighborhood then you really are better off having two-way streets because it means you can access properties from both directions. Chair Griffin: I am agreeing to that and I am saying likewise that signalizing additional intersections along the Alma corridor would facilitate people being able to make safe turns out of the Downtown area. Mr. Kott: Absolutely, yes. The left turns out and left tums in, yes; Chair Griffin: I did see Lee first and then Bonnie. Commissioner Lippert: With regards to Whole Foods Market have you given any thought to allow for truck loading and unloading along the curb during restricted hours? Mr. Kott: Yes, we have given that some thought. We did some analysis quite awhile ago on alternative loading zones for Whole Foods. Our understanding in conversing with Whole Foods is that the alley itself is not adequate as a loading area there needs to be some curbside loading. So we looked at the possibility of creating some curbside dedicated loading zones on Emerson as well as on Homer. There are some issues about how convenient that might be. For example if it is on Emerson it is really kind of opposite where they Want to do their loading into that is why City of Palo Alto Page 39 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 2O 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 we need to have a lot more dialogue with them so we can come up with a solution that is a win/win solution. Co~issioner Lippert: With that curbside loading there would un,obstruct that main thoroughfare on Homer, is that correct? Mr. Kott: Yes, absolutely. Commissioner Lippert: We wouldn’t see a doubling up of trucks that are parked along the curb and then double parked in the street would we? Mr. Kott: No, We are not that comfortable with double,parking when you have a lot.of pedestrians around for obvious reasons. We would like to eliminate the double-parking if possible. Chair Griffin: Bonnie. Commissioner Packer: This just raises a question about whether we do engineering of traffic patterns based on the convenience of retail establishments and weigh that against the safety of pedestrians and bicyclists. You don’t have to answer that I just want to point that out that we are talking about the safety of pedestrians and bicyclists not the convenience of loading stuff into stores. My question is about of the alternatives one and two which of those would be the segue into before a full two-conversion of Homer and Channing? Mr. Kott: We would not wish to do a partial conversion because of our concerns of it being untenable just untenable in terms of traffic loadings. The contraflow lane would seem to be the reasonable alternative to our recommendation. We would likely convert the contraflow lane into a regular bike lane later if we have a two-way conversion or eliminate the contraflow lane later if we have a two-way of Homer and a two-way of Channing. Chair Griffin: I am going to start making comments here. I am persuaded that the Staff recommendation might be further complicated by the fact that the northbound Alma Street routing that you are talking about is also in addition to being complicated and non-intuitive at least as far as I am concerned and apparently from what some of the people here are saying is also an uphill grade. I am wondering if any Staffmembers actually bicycled that section. I presume you did. You did do that. All right. Mr. Kott: David and I have, yes. Chair Griffin: And you fellows are not the occasional bikers to be sure. Nevertheless I am having a hard time imagining what it would be like coming out of that tunnel and being faced with what I am going to call a trick signal gyration. I am just wondering how many people are really going to click on what it is that they are supposed to do. I am wondering can you speak in defense of your recommendation in terms of signage or is there going to be something that is pretty easily assimilated to allow people to know what to do? Mr; Kott: First we would like to say that the people who spoke against the recommendation are among the most enlightened people we deal with and we are very glad that they recognize that City of Palo Alto Page 40 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 .17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 we usually don’t disagree withthem: Visualize this intersection as being what it will be, it will be an all walk. All vehicles will stop. It will be a dead zone for vehicles and it will be a clear zone for bicycles and pedestrians. With really quite a bit of time to clear that intersection and to make substantial progress along Alma to make a right turn if you are going in that direction on Forest. There are a lot of good reasons to disagree with us and you have heard all of them tonight, I think. The fact is bicyclists who are considering going straight, that is eastbound, are facing oncoming traffic or will soon face oncoming traffic. We just don’t think bicyclists will do that and both David and I are bicyclists and not only David and I but also others on our staff are quite active bicyclists but it is a matter of a difference of opinion. It is a genuinely valid difference that people have with us on this. We do have some concerns about this contraflow bike lane although it is a very intriguing idea and we are well aware that it is used in other communities around the country and in Europe. Although it is not common as we all know as drivers and as bicyclists. We are concerned about the first implementation. Bicyclists and drivers will really have to be quite a bit aware that there is something counterintuitive happening. Bicyclists making that left turn from Homer from the curbside contraflow bike lane at Homer onto High will have to face this opposing traffic. Drivers may not be cognizant of them necessarily as they look straight ahead toward Alma. So we have some concerns about that. We don’t think that that’s a showstopper and we are really intrigued by the contraflow idea. We had a vigorous debate on Staff, Commissioner Griffin, as you know our Staff is not united on this one we have had a very passionate dissent on our Staff but we think the minimum feasible action is prudent and then we will definitely evaluate the situation and then come up with an alternative as we need to. A likely alternative would be a contraflow bike lane in the shorter term. In the longer term it would be a conversion of both streets to two-way operation. ~ Chair Griffin: Bonnie has a follow up, Commissioner Packer: Had you considered having the contraflow bike lane for that one block and keeping High Street one-way which would encourage bicyclists, it may take a little bit longer, but to just go that one block to Channing and make a left to Channing and then another left up on Emerson to go up north? That way they don’t have to make a left turn where all that stuff is happening at Homer and there is less traffic and it is less congested down near Channing. That might be one way and if you kept High Street going southbound then the bicyclists couldn’t turn left there and it would be a little bit circuitous but it would be a little safer. I might even do it. Mr. Kott: Commissioner Packer that is a good point. We did as David said there are some penmutations on these three alternatives that we considered and that was one of them. I think we were concerned about violating some driver expectations. You would have a couple of transitions that drivers would have to make not just one from a two-way street to a one-way street but there would be a two-way street and then as I understand it to a ..... Commissioner Packer: I wasn’t recommending changing any of the, if you have the contra not changing the direction on High Street, you are not changing any of the auto traffic. Mr. Kott: I understand, yes. City of Palo Alto Page 41 1 Commissioner Packer: All you.are doing is putting in this protected contra bike lane and the 2 only thing that cyclists could do when they reach High Street is to turn right and then depending 3 on where they want to go, go south or they can go down Channing and up Emerson or wherever 4 to get wherever they want to go Downtown. 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 Mr. Kott: Forgive me I was tumed around. Yes, we did consider that and it is feasible. It would mean that cyclists would go the extra block, a block up and a block back, and that is just a time cost to cyclists. Chair Griffin: Lee. Commissioner Lippert: In looking at scheme number three, the contraflow bike lane, did you consider reversing direction of the one-way alley as a safety measure? Mr. Kott: I may have to ask David to jump in but we did not consider that. I am trying to reach now about why we recommended the one-way alley to begin with going northbound. It has to be one-way because it is not adequate width for a two-way operation. Chair Griffin: As I recall it had to do with the hardware store and access to their alleyway loading docks. Mr. Stillman: Yes, it is the hardware store as well as Ole, everybody in that block had a preference for a one-way northbound and there was no reason at the time to do otherwise. Commissioner Lippert: I have one other follow up question on that. With regard to the automobile services in that area they currently take up all the parking spaces when they are working on servicing automobiles and they also take up the sidewalk as well. Is there a way to have them relocate those to other spaces? Mr. Kott: As David said, one driveway at the BMW, the one nearest to Alma would have to be closed. So that will enforce a little bit more discipline on the sidewalk encroachmeni~ problem. They use up all their surface space. It is kind of hard to see how to shrink down their need. Hopefully they would use some of the public parking spaces at 800 High. Chair Griffin: Annette ...... Commissioner Bialson: The substation, which is on Alma between Channing and Homer we have plans to move that do we not? Mr. Emslie: Yes. Commissioner Bialson: When is that scheduled for? ......... Mr. Emslie: The engineering is proceeding. The Council included the initial relocation cost in this year’s CIP. It is viewed to be an 18 month period from now is the soonest it could be relocated. City of Palo Alto Page 42 1 Commissioner Bialson: When it is relocated is that property going to be a possible alternative 2 for these businesses to use as access to their loading or as parking? Would it be something that 3 we could use to accommodate the businesses which are going to be harmed especially Palo Alto 4 Hardware? I am grabbing here because there is no good solution to this. 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 Mr. Emslie: We didn’t see it as a permanent solution, if anything it might be a temporary between the time that the substation is relocated and such time as an affordable housing project may be initiated on that site which we do hope would be fairly closely following the relocation of the substation. Commissioner Bialson: I hear your comments and what I am looking at here is we have a period of time until we can fully vet this issue of a full two-lane for both Channing and Homer and have the outreach, the education, etc., get people at Channing House to understand, get seniors to understand that we are changing things and understand the full impact of these 200 units that are going ,in. There is a time lag here and if we can give with one hand which is the possible use of that site for the period of time that it would take to do the full study and prepare people for the change to a two-way on those two streets, which I think is ultimately going to be what happens, it makes it far more appealing for the business owners near there. So Steve, can you see how that might work during this sort of period of upheaval where we deal With the tunnel being there, it is going to be there no matter what we do, and finally getting to an ultimate solution? Mr. Emslie: I think that there is a possibility for some interim use of that but I do think that the parking will be more convenient in the new structure adjacent to these sites and we do have full use of the top level of parking, over 60 spaces, and certainly that offers some alternatives as well as a way to program those parking spaces that might address retail and auto service needs as well. Those are probably more deliverable than the substation site. Commissioner Bialson: I am not concerned about parking I am concerned about delivery trucks and businesses having to deal with how they get deliveries during a period of time when we are going through this process. Chair Griffin: My own thought is I am leaning toward the contraflow alternative. I am wondering if other Commissioners want to get out on the limb and offer different opinions. It looks like that produced some. Phyllis. Vice-Chair Cas~el: I wasn’t going to offer a different opinion. My sense is to go with the contraflow, I think the first thing we have to face is the plan for this street and Channing was to be two-way. We did hold public hearings at the Planning Commission level on this subject some time back. I can’t now remember which project it was we were working on, SOFA, yes, we did have very strong objections from Channing House and from Whole Foods, Pete’s and from the owners of those properties. But it still needs to be worked on. There is nothing in my view that indicates another solution is better it just means we are going to have to work on solutions for those properties. That is going to take some time in the meantime we have to find a short-term solution to this issue and soon, not in 18 months, So I guess my sense is that I prefer going with the contraflow with these suggestions that you have been making that include signage, coloring the road, special lines, possibly marking a berm on it, whether that is safe or not I don’t know and making some accommodations for those eight parking spaces that would be special and interim while we have to do this. That is the direction I think I would like to move. City of Palo Alto Page 43 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 Chair Griffin: Lee, I saw you next. Commissioner Lippert: I think that the plan here, the StaffReport, is somewhat flawed. I think thdt has come out in my line of questioning., What it does is it really looks at it in a very, very small area and really doesn’t take into account much larger problems or impacts on this intersection. I can see this potentially being a real traffic jam and a mess going with the Staff recommendations. You are going to have bicyclists, you are going to have automobiles, you are going to have more automobiles, you are going to have trucks, you are going to have pedestrians and they are all going to be coming together at different times of the day, at different rates and different flows. This is going to go from something that is a very quiet and benign sort of intersection into something that is going to have a tremendous amount of activity along it, we hope, because that is going to become a main connection from PAMF to Whole Foods. The people who used to work at PAMF when itwas located in the SOFA area are used to going to Whole Foods. They like Whole Foods Market, they like Pete’s, they like going Downtown. They are going to be looking forward to ways of being able to do that. In addition to that we are going to behaving a number of housing developments that are coming online very quickly which the residents are going to want to be able to not only go to Whole Foods but get out of the area pretty quickly to get to work. So I see large traffic impacts on people wanting to get out to Alma Street and go either north to Menlo Park or south to Sunnyvale to get to work. What I think has to happen here is a couple of things. Number one, we need to find the safest solution that accommodates the bicyclists for the time being and I am leaning towards the contraflow solution, however, I don’t think that’s the final solution. I think what the final solution is is to do an analysis of what the overall impacts are going to be and look at whether we Change the flow of Homer, what it means to impact Whole Foods with regard to their loading and unloading as well as Pete’s and the storage area as well as what it means to the automobile business there. As you said yourself this is a nine-month endeavor to be able to do that. Tonight I think we find the best solution that will work and make a recommendation that it be put into place for a year but within nine months we need to have a solution ~hat is going to work for this community. Chair Griffin: Annette. i Commissioner Bialson: I appreciate everything that my fellow Commissioners have said but I am going to respectfully disagree with them. I have great regard for Staff and the fact that so many members of the public pointed out this is the only time they have had a disagreement points to how difficult this situation is. I appreciate we got a grant, needed to deal with it quickly, put in that tunnel quickly and that is what created this situation and I think we should all be aware of that. What Staff is recommending is essentially a situation that while not the best and which could be picked apart is what we can possibly do at this point in time so that we accomplish moving forward on this pending a thorough study. Mr. Emslie: I just want to offer a perspective. I think maybe we are looking at this as the two choices that I think the Commission is grappling with right now. The Staff recommendation and the contraflow are not exclusive and perhaps in a situation where we don’t have a clear choice in City of Palo Alto Page 44 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 4O 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 terms of the safest alt~ative perhaps looking at the two as a blended,, that you.can have both, you can change the signal timing and offer maybe a subtle choice perhaps bicyclists like Joe and David who feel more comfortable using Alma would receive the maximum protection of the all- way stop but you would also provide the choice for what we are heating from the bicycle community is the intuitive choice is to .travel directly across Homer having that well marked and having the safety improvements incorporated there. So perhaps that is another way of looking at it is that if we provide the maximum degree of safety that we know we can and not exclude one or the other choice then perhaps we can appeal to the psychological behavior of individual cyclists and making the safest choice for them. I think it is about expanding, choice and that may be one way to look at this. Commissioner Bialson: I appreciate your comments and I will go on with where I was headed. Part of what I was hearing was the fact that this would not be that attractive a route for bicyclists with the contraflow, with the signalization, etc. and my reaction to that is good. I think that at the time we get our act together and have a full two-way or some better solution I don’t want to necessarily attract a lot of bicyclists to this. I don’t think it is a safe solution. What we are suggesting here or the contraflow I think what we have to do is recognize that we are going to be having a lot of bicyclists here whether they come from the new units or they come from Stanford finally getting a full connection, Paly students can continue taking Embarcadero for awhile. We got this gift so to speak of the Homer tunnel and we got it a little earlier than what our Staff resources were able to fully study this issue. So I have no problem and I see it as an advantage that we are not attracting bicyclists at this time. If we do a contraflow I would like to see a barrier there. I think that would be necessary. I would not like to impact the businesses but maybe before 800 High is completed it won’t be that bad. I don’t know what the cost is for having the physical barrier but I do think that that is important. Not attracting bicyclists for a matter of nine months or a year is fine. We might not have been able to get this tunnel and we would still be searching for a grant but having it not used very heavily for a period of time until we get what I think is probably going to be the final solution, a two-way on Homer and Channing and signalization, again fully studied is the route I would like to take. I am going to vote for the Staff Report and if we do have some Commissioner desire for a contraflow I am going to hold out to make sure that there is a physical barrier. Chair Griffin: Bonnie, MOTION Commissioner Packer: Having listened to what people are saying I think I am going to take a stab at a motion. I will do it in two parts. I am going to say the second half of the motion first because I think it is very important. I would like this Commission to recommend to City Council to direct Staff with all due speed to study the conversion of Homer and Channing from one-way to two-way for the full length and to make that a priority because it needs to be done now that we have a tunnel. The second part of my motion is to recommend this temporary solution to the eastbound bicycle traffic from the Homer tunnel. One, have the signal phasing as proposed which allows an all-walk situation. I know there are some like that at the school sites, I know there is one like that at Waverley in front of JLS where everything stops and everybody just walks around. That would give the brave bicyclists the. option if they want to go north on Alma to do that but not to encourage that. Have a contraflow lane with a barrier for the first block with all the signage and neon flashing lights, everything to warn people of this change and to really City of Palo Alto Page 45 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43- 44 45 46 47 48 consider not encouraging bicyclists to make a left turn on High but to keep High one-way for now and I think that would make it a little bit safer so that bicyclists can get a little bit extra exercise by going around these short blocks. If they want to go north they can go down over to Emerson via Channing and this way they can also go south. I believe that is my motion. Chair Griffin: Let’s see if you pick up a second. SECOND Commissioner Bialson: I will second. Chair Griffin: Does the maker wish to discuss her motion further? Commissioner Packer: Yes, I will. I would like to say in 2002 the option of studying the one- way conversion to two-way was there but for whatever reason we didn’t take advantage of pursuing that and I feel that was a lost opportunity. So-we have lost another nine months to a year before that can happen. But it seems to me that for some of the reasons that Joe said two- way traffic on all the streets that make up the grid of Downtown is the only way to go, it is the safe way to go. The two-way traffic is really a form of traffic calming. Channing is crazy when people are speeding down there. I think if the senior at Channing House had a two-way street to deal with they wouldn’t be as concerned because the traffic would be calmer. We need to plan our traffic patterns with regard to the safety of pedestrians, bicyclists and motorists and a sub issue is the convenience of the businesses. They can adapt. I don’t think that should be a factor in our consideration. As to the contraflow proposal I guess that is the only thing on the table that we can deal with right now. You have to have something for those bicyclists to go into when they come out of that tunnel. They are going to be rating to go and it is the best thing we can do right now. In my mind it is clearly a temporary solution before we have the full two-way conversion. Chair Griffin: Seconder. Commissioner Bialson: Thank you. There is no good solution here and a lot of people are going to be unhappy and maybe if we make everybody unhappy it means we got a good solution here. I agree with most of what Bonnie said. I disagree with regard to the businesses will ...... accommodate to this. I think it is up to the City to assure that the businesses will get all the consideration, suggestions, bending over backwards use of City property, whatever is necessary to assure that delivery vehicles and parking, of secondary importance, are maintained and honored. It is not merely a convenience to these businesses that they have use of whether it be the street or whatever the alley for their deliveries. We can’t after approving 800 High say to the hardware store and to others we got you once and we are going to get you again. It has been a year so maybe they will have forgotten. We are trying to keep businesses in this town and I think they can see that death by a thousand cuts may be occurring here. I am concerned that we recognize that the reason we did not study the two-way is because there were a lot of other items that were City Council directed to have.a hirer priority such as Charleston and various other things. Iris not up to us to determine what the workload of Staff is and that may come up again. All we can do is say that we think it is important this be fully studied and I don’t think a nine month period; Joe, as well as most of your approximations are is enough time on this one. I City of Palo Alto Page 46 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 1 think what we are looking at is more like a one year to 18 month for purposes of gauging ~vhat 2 the full effect of the development of those 200 units is going to be, in making sure that we 3 accommodate the needs of the businesses and recognize that things happen and your workloads 4 are going to be tinkered with. So don’t give people a false expectation of a nine-month period of time that is unrealistic. I think I have gone on long enough. Chair Griffin: I would like to ask for a clarification of the motion. Bonnie, as I understand it the first part is to encourage a examination for make Homer and Channing two-way, the second part was to approve the Staff Recommendation for an all-point stop signal phase as per the Staff recommendation and the third part had to do with High Street iraffic direction. Did you say that you wanted to have High Street be a two-way street as the Staff has recommended in their contraflow scheme or did you say something else? Commissioner Packer: What I said was I support having a contraflow lane, a designated lane with a physical barrier like a little raised curb to make it really clear and protect the bicyclists and keep the cars out of it and unlike the Staffrecommendati~)n that would change those two streets of High Street to two-way to keep it one-way for now so that bicyclists when they come to the corner of Homer and High are not encourage to turn left, to go north, because of all that vehicle congestion that is going to be at that intersection. Chair Griffin: I would like to pose a friendly amendment, which is that in fact I would support the main body of your motion except for keeping High Street one-way. I would like to support the Staff idea of allowing the bicycle traffic as it comes to High Street to either go left or right. Commissioner Packer: Maybe that is something that could be further studied. I really don’t know. I am not a traffic engineer. I don’t know really which would be best. Maybe the bicyclists would make the choice depending on the situation and that would work too. The bicyclist would make his or her own safety choice. Chair Griffin: But if the traffic only can turn to the fight they can’t make that choice. Commissioner Packer: What I could do is I could amend my motion to have Staff consider the possibility of keeping it one-way and I am okay with your recommendation that we do two-way but if the Staff decides on further consideration the one-way is okay too after maybe talking more with PABAC about what would work. I just thought it might be a little safer but if we can give more opportunities to bicyclists, it is not a strong issue with me is what I am saying. Chair Griffin: Seconder? ....... Commissioner Bialson: I have a real problem with it and my problem is that I see this as an interim solution. The more you change around streets the more you are going to confuse drivers. To change it to a two-way and then want to change it back to a one-way I think all changes should be made at one time. I see this as an interim solution and I think that adding this language that you are suggesting would sort of go against the thrust of this being a temporary measure. So I would not accept the addition of that language because I think it is dangerous both for the pedestrians, the bicyclists and you are going to have a lot more collisions there. Chair Griffin: All right. I saw Phyllis next. City of Palo Alto Page 47 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 SUBSTITUTE MOTION Vice-Chair Cassel: Okay, let me try a substitute motion in which we will include all of what Bonnie wanted except that we make High two-way as per the Staff recommendation. SECOND Chair Griffin: I would second that. Vice-Chair Cassel: Do you want me to talk to that? Chair Griffin: Yes. Vice-Chair Cassel: I support the contraflow as a temporary measure with the phasing that allows people to go north as Steve has suggested. It needs all of the protections that it has and it needs some lining. As a kid I was taught to take my bike and my walking opposite the traffic. So it isn’t for me so contra-intuitive. I did this because out of safety on roads that had no sidewalks and were naturally narrower than most of our city streets it was the way you found out if there was a car coming at you so you could get out of the way. So it isn’t contra-intuitive for me. What is contra-intuitive is it is on the left side instead of the right so I was really walking down where the bicycles are going the other direction. We talked about having special bike lanes on Charleston that are colored. We have plans in place for how that can be done. When we .get to the intersection what we can do is mark thatintersection the same way we would make a turn lane or down on Charleston as we have been talking about how to handle some of those roads. So we may be able to mark right across the intersection that there is a bicycle tum lane there. People, if they are going to be forced to go south on High are not going to go down to Channing they are going to go through the Whole Foods parking lot in order to go north and that is not going to be a good solution either for the bicyclists or for Whole Foods. That is not fair to them. So I think it will be better to go north. Now there are some other people who have discussed the fact that they think it will negatively impact their business if the traffic goes two ways. This way when people come in they can come in Channing and go north on High to get to the businesses along High and north of High. So people have more than one way to get to them instead of having to go all the way up to Forest and then back down south. There are other alternatives for people to reach the road on High, which is typical of all over town where we have two-way streets. The plan anyway was to make High Street two-way from Homer to Channing and I do not remember what the decision was as to where we would start that one-way but there was in the plan conversion of at least part of that and it doesn’t necessarily have to change back. Chair Griffin: I support this motion as seconder because I think that it does allow bicyclists to have a choice. When they exit the tunnel they have a choice of either taking the contraflow lane and going up to High Street and then making a decision as to howto deal with that intersection or if they are more experienced bicyclists like Joe and other members of the Staff turn left and stay on Alma Street. That wouldn’t appeal to me but I am not a very experienced bicyclist. So the contraflow lane looks like the safe and sane way for me to go but I can certainly appreciate that other people would rather be risky-frisky and use Alma Street. The next part of it is once you get to the end of the contraflow lane you then need to be able to make a choice of going either north or south and to me the Staff recommendation here of two-waying High Street makes City of Palo Alto Page 48 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 sense to me. The third aspect would be to as soon as practicable for Staff to start getting into a study ofreconfiguration for this one-way couplet that we have facing us at Channing and Homer. I think at that stage I will stop and move to the next person in line.; Lee. Crmmissioner Lippert: Thank you. Your amendment with regard to High Street isn’t going to keep me from voting in support of this motion. I think what the real concern that I have is similar to Commissioner Bialson which, i~s that this is an interim solution and so we are very quickly moving in a direction where we are making such recommendations that are going to become institutionalize, everybody is going to feel very comfortable .with this and it is still going. to be ignoring the elephant in the room. These two. streets, Channing and Homer, have been studied and studied and over studied. It was part of the SOFA II working group, which ......... convened and met for over a year and ahalf and looked at this. It was part of 800 High Street, which has been looked at even longer. It has been part of the Summerhill study and the final recommendations with regard to their rezoning and their apartments. It has been in just about every single discussion, every single project that has happened in the SOFA area over the last six years. It is finally time that Staff make the time in an expeditious manner to finally study both Homer and Channing and make the final recommendations as to what is going to happen there. I think it was very short sighted that over a year ago the ARB as well as several other Boards made their recommendations on the Homer tunnel and at that point it was vocalized that it was to be a bicycle tunnel as well as pedestrian and that it wasn’t dealt with at that time either. So I will support the recommendation but I think that there really needs to be some serious time and effort put into completing the Homer and Channing Street plans. Chair Griffin: .Commissioner Bialson. Commissioner Bialson: I support everything that Commissioner Lippert said and I thought it was very well put, however I want to add something naturally. I think that we have to make a study of this area as a whole and making sort of spot solutions, sort of hints of spot zoning, I just don’t think it is a good idea to sit there and to talk about the impact on businesses, on drivers, etc. we sound like traffic engineers and I don’t think we are there yet. I don’t think we have the background to make those sorts of assumptions and analyses. So I want to leave this to Staff to do, recognizing this is an interim solution. I think once you start tinkering just as Lee indicated it starts looking a little more institutionalized and that is not going to encourage Council to make this a high priority and allow Staff to spend the time necessary to study this area as a whole. So I am going to continue to support Bonnie’s original motion. Chair Griffin: Bonnie, your comments on the substitute motion. Commissioner Packer: Well, I agree with everything that Lee and Annette said about the status of Homer and Channing and what needs to be done and that we should have been looking at this in a broader perspective. We have to do something tonight to deal with tho’se bicycles that are going to-come pouring out of the tunnel. So we have to do something. Even though I did recommend keeping High Street one-way after listening to the other comments on that I think I will support the substitute motion for this additional reason. I really would like us to get rid of these one-way streets including High. If we change High to two-way and we find that for those two blocks the businesses that are used to one-way learn to get used to two-way again it may set a good example for hopefully the future conversion of Homer and Channing. So I will now support the substitute motion, which in essence changes my original idea for those reasons. City of Palo Alto Page 49 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 MOTION PASSED (4-1-0-2, Commissioner Bialson opposed, Commissioners Holman and Burr absent.) Chair Griffin: We will vote on this item then. All those in favor of Phyllis’s substitute motion say aye. (ayes) Opposed? (nay) That item does carry with Commissioner Bialson opposed. And Commissioner Bialson has a comment. Commissioner Bialson: For the record since we have been asked by Council when we have this type of split vote to explain the minority position. Again, I want this to go to Staff to make the decisions with regard to how certain streets should be. I do see this as an interim solution. I think we are creating a trap for bicyclists who use this tunnel until we figure out what the heck we do with regard to finalizing this and if it appears to bicyclists that we are changing streets, etc. we are going to be representing that this is a safer route than I think it is. So I think it is dangerous and I wouldn’t want Paly’s Traffic Coordinator encourage students to use this until we get this right. Whenever that occurs that would be great with me. I appreciate all the effort that Staff has put into this and I realize it has been very difficult for you. Thank you. Chair Griffin: Thank you colleagues for your hard work tonight, This has been a dam difficult decision to make and I hope we made the fight decision and it has indeed been a good discussion. So that takes us to the end of item number three and to the remaining part of our agenda. I have a question of the City Attorney. Normally, our agendas provide an item called Commissioner Comments and I notice that on this agenda tonight we don’t have that item. Does that mean that we are forbidden to make Commissioner Comments if it is not on the agenda? Mr. Sodergren: No, Under the Brown Act you can still make those types of comments even though it is not listed on the agenda. Chair Griffin: I will start offwith the first comment, which is to reiterate what I have said the last few meetings. These agendas are still not calming down. They seem to be inconsistent to me and have errors in them and I am just pointing out that here is another opportunity for tightening it up and if supervision is needed to bring that about then I encourage supervision to devote the time and effort to get it done. That is number one. I have another Commissioner that wanted to make a comment and I will recognize Commissioner Bialson. Commissioner Bialson: I hope there isn’t a meter running on this microphone because this is more than I usually speak. I just wanted to say that I had been contacted by a representative of the developer with regard to a project I think is scheduled for August 11. What I told that person was that it was now the policy of the Planning and Transportation Commissioners not to speak separately or meet separately with a proponent or a member of the public who is a proponent. I just wanted to make sure that that still is our policy as we expressed it at our retreat I think twice. Is that correct? I just wanted fellow Commissioners to let me know ifI am wrong in that. City of Palo Alto Page 50 1 2 3 4 ~5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 Chair Griffin: That is my recollection that we are to discourage d6~dopers and others from providing input outside of this room. The fi~al comment I have has to do with the sound system which I again am having a hard time wi~h and would encourage management to talk with the IT people and see if in particular that public microphone can be adjusted so as to avoid the booming type of background reverb that at least I am heating. Mr. Emslie: Maybe we could get a time where we could set the,room up and have you and the IT staff here and we can get it adjusted to the fight level. So maybe we could set that up if we set up a time next week to do that I think that would be good. Chair Griffin: That is a great suggestion and I do appreciate you making it. There is no approval of minutes. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: None. Chair Griffin: Our next meeting will be a regular meeting on August 11. Vice-Chair Cassel: No. Chair Griffin: So we have a special meeting on August 4 not August 11 as it is written on the agenda. NEXT MEETING: Special Meeting of August 4, 2004. Commissioner Lippert: It is posted on the door as well. Chair Griffin: That is fine, I would like it in the agenda as well. I declare this meeting adjourned. ADJOURNED: 9:50 p.m. City of Palo Alto Page 51 NOT YET APPROVED ATTACHME~ RESOLUTION NO. RESOLUTION OF THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PALO ALTO ESTABLISHING AN EASTBOUND BIKE LANE ON HOMER BETWEEN ALMA STREET AND HIGH STREET, ESTABLISHING A NO PARKING ZONE ON HOMER AVENUE BETWEEN ALMA .STREET AND HIGH STREET,AND CONVERTING HIGH STREET TO A TWO-WAY STREET BETWEEN FOREST AVENUE ~AND CHANNING AVENUE TO FACILITATE BICYCLE TRAVEL FROM THE HOMER AVENUE UNDERCROSSING TO THE DOWNTOWN AND SOUTH OF FOREST AREAS WHEREAS, a new bicycle/pedestrian undercrossing crossing under the CalTrain railroad tracks at Alma Street and Homer Avenue and connecting the Palo Alto Medical Foundation, South of Forest Area, downtown Palo Alto and surrounding areas is scheduled to open in the near future; and WHEREAS, daily usage of the Homer Avenue Undercrossing is estimated at six hundred bicycle trips; and WHEREAS, there is currently no direct ~route for bicyclists using the Homer Avenue Undercrossing to proceed eastbound from the undercrossing to the Downtown and South of Forest areas; and WHEREAS, Homer Avenue is a two-lane street with both lanes traveling in the westbound direction, and High Street is a two-lane street with one lane traveling in each direction from Channing Avenue to Embarcadero Road, and with both lanes traveling in the southbound direction from Lytton Avenue to Channing Avenue; and WHEREAS, to facilitate eastbound bicycle travel from the Homer Avenue Undercrossing to the Downtown and South of Forest areas, it is necessary to create an eastbound bike lane on Homer Avenue between Alma Street and High Street and to extend two-way travel on High Street for an additional two blocks between Forest Avenue and Channing Avenue; and WHEREAS, to establish the eastbound~ bike lane and maintain the safe and orderly flow of traffic, it is necessary to establish a no parking zone where parking shall be prohibited at all times; and 040921 sm 0100301 1 NOT YET APPROVED WHEREAS,.~Palo~ Alt~ Municipal Code section 10.44.010 enables the City Council ,to establish by resolution such parking restrictions or prohibitions as~may be necessary. NOW, THEREFORE, ~he Council of the City of Palo Alto does RESOLVE as follows: SECTION i. An eastbound bike lane is established on the South side of~Homer Avenue between Alma Street and High Street as shown on Exhibit~ ~A" attached to and made a part of this Resolution. The bike lane shall be posted with appropriate signage to notify drivers and bicyclists of the presence of the bike lane and indicating the proper travel direction. In addition, the bike lane shall provide for appropriate separation from vehicle lanes. SECTION 2. A "no parking at any time" zone is established on the South side of Homer Avenue, between Alma Street and High Street, as shown in Exhibit ~A." The City Manager shall cause appropriate markings and signage to be posted in the no parking zone at which time the prohibition on parking shall become effective. SECTION 3. The northbound and southbound travel lanes on High Street shall be extended from Channing Avenue to Forest Avenue, allowing a travel lane in each direction on High Street between Forest Avenue and Channing Avenue. The northbound lane shall terminate at Forest Avenue and thereafter High Street shall be a one-way street in the southbound direction. The City Manager shall cause appropriate markings and signage to be posted along High Street, at which time the changes in lane travel direction established herein shall become effective. // // // // // 040921 sm 0100301 2 NOT YET APPROVED ~ SECTION 4. The Council finds ~hat this project is categorically exempt from the California Environmental Quality Actunder Title 14 of the California Code sections 15301 (existing facilities) and alterations to existing public facilities) environmental assessment is necessary. INTRODUCED AND PASSED: AYES: NOES: ABSENT: ABSTENTIONS: ATTEST: of Regulations 15304 (minor and no further City Clerk APPROVED AS TO FORM: Mayor APPROVED: Senior Assistant City Attorney City Manager Director of Planning and Community Environment Director of Administrative Services 040921 sm 0100301 3