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HomeMy WebLinkAboutFullBikePlanRpt (1) City of Palo Alto (ID # 2742) City Council Staff Report Report Type: Action ItemsMeeting Date: 7/9/2012 July 09, 2012 Page 1 of 10 (ID # 2742) Council Priority: Land Use and Transportation Planning Summary Title: Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan Adoption Title: Public Hearing: Adoption of a Resolution Amending the Transportation Element of the Comprehensive Plan Incorporating the Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan and Approval of a Negative Declaration (continued from May 21, 2012) From: City Manager Lead Department: Planning and Community Environment Recommendation Staff recommends that Council adopt a Negative Declaration (Attachment B) and adopt the Resolution (Attachment A) amending the Transportation Element of the Comprehensive Plan to incorporate the 2012 Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan. Executive Summary The existing Bicycle Transportation Plan serves as the City’s guide for identifying and setting priorities for bicycle transportation projects and programs in the community. The last update to the Bicycle Transportation Plan occurred in 2003. The current update includes a Pedestrian element for the first time. The new format will provide an opportunity to include more robust projects and programs that benefit additional transportation modes, including trail projects for recreational and commute use. An up-to-date Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan is also essential for acquiring funding from regional grant sources. In December, 2009, City Council directed staff to proceed with the update to the 2003 Bicycle Transportation Plan with the added pedestrian element. In 2010, staff contracted with Alta Planning and Design and began the process of updating July 09, 2012 Page 2 of 10 (ID # 2742) the Plan and spent the past 18 months reaching out to the community to develop the Draft Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan. The document was released for public comment on July 26, 2011, and again on March 2, 2012. A negative declaration was circulated for public review beginning in September 2011. On November 7, 2011, City Council considered adoption of an initial draft of the plan and directed staff to modify the report and conduct additional outreach to various residents and groups, particularly in south Palo Alto (City Council Staff Report with Attachments http://www.cityofpaloalto.org/civica/filebank/blobdload.asp?BlobID=29268). In addition, Council directed staff to return to the Parks and Recreation Commission (PARC) and to the Planning and Transportation Commission (PTC) with the revised report. Staff has incorporated many changes to the Draft Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan based on input from City Council, PARC, PTC, PABAC, as well as several community groups and members. A copy of the plan was distributed to each councilmember as part of the agenda packet for this meeting but the full report is also available for viewing online at: www.cityofpaloalto.org/bike. Major comments collected from City Council, various commissions and committees, and the public since the November 2011 hearing are summarized with responses in Attachment C. Background The Draft Final Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan 2012 includes an evaluation of Existing Conditions and Deficiencies of the current bicycle network and provides a Needs Assessment and Recommended Network in response. The document also includes a Best Practice and Design Standards Tool Kit within the report that includes various treatments for bicycle facilities and bicycle parking standards. To ensure successful implementation of the plan, an Implementation Strategies section is provided that includes suggested high-priority categories and projects for the City to focus resources over the next five years before another update to the Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan is pursued. The intent of the Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan 2012 is to recommend improvements to the City’s transportation network to better integrate bicycle and pedestrian accessibility through the City. The Plan provides a Recommended Network Map (Figure 6.1 of the report) that shows how the July 09, 2012 Page 3 of 10 (ID # 2742) various shared, dedicated and exclusive facilities tie together and connect varying land uses including open space areas and schools. Top Priority Projects are recommended by Categories including:  Across Barrier Connections  Trails  Bike Lane/Sharrow Roadway Striping Projects  Bicycle Boulevards  Intersection Spot Improvements  Programmatic (Infrastructure)  System Rehabilitation Preservation  Design, Feasibility, and Planning  Non-Infrastructure (Education, Encouragement) The Plan also provides for flexible implementation to accommodate the desire and tolerance of various neighborhoods and available funding. Discussion Community Outreach Summary City staff and Alta Planning + Design held several public meetings throughout the development of the Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan in 2011 including focused meetings with the Palo Alto Bicycle Advisory Committee (PABAC), the Parks and Recreation Commission, and working group meetings of the City-School Traffic Safety Committee. Two citywide community workshop meetings were held on March 24, 2011 and July 26, 2011 to highlight the project and solicit public input on recommended projects and to solicit community-preferred improvements. July 26, 2011 also marked the start of the first public comment period for the Draft Report. After the November 2011 City Council meeting where the plan was previously considered for adoption, an additional community workshop was held on December 7, 2011 at the Council’s request, and focused on south Palo Alto neighborhoods (Monroe Park and Greendell) with specific connections to Mountain View and Los Altos. Due to the most recent revisions to the Draft Report, a second 30-day public comment period was advertised and held beginning on March 2, 2012 and ended on April 2, 2012. July 09, 2012 Page 4 of 10 (ID # 2742) Areas that have received multiple comments and recommendations since the November 2011 Council hearing include:  Connections through the Monroe Park Neighborhood  Barron Park Neighborhood (lack of sidewalks, narrow streets, Bol Park path)  San Antonio Road Area and connections to Mountain View  Improve connections to: o Routes within Stanford and west of Palo Alto (Foothills) o Town and Country and connections to downtown o Connections to Mountain View, Los Altos, and East Palo Alto  Concerns of overly impacting vehicle traffic  Accessibility for pedestrians as well as mobility impaired  Provide more East-West connections to link the Baylands with Foothills Park Palo Alto Bicycle Advisory Committee Over the past year, PABAC has provided on-going detailed comments on the Draft Plan. Since the November 2011 City Council hearing, PABAC has provided additional comments (Attachment D). Focused discussions have been held each month at the regularly scheduled PABAC meetings. The more detailed comments from PABAC as well as comments from individual members are included in Attachment C. Some of the primary comments from PABAC include:  De-emphasis of “Innovation” as a major scoring criteria when judging projects  Emphasize and provide a stronger endorsement for a network of Bicycle Boulevards  Define and justify the need for a “Civic Loop” that includes enhanced bicycle facilities through downtown  Recommend new project to remove or replace bollards from entrances to bicycle paths and bridges  Concerns with many of the innovative treatments promoted by the current plan in Appendix A. Staff concurs that tried and true design practices should be used where most effective and safe and the need for a more pronounced network of bicycle July 09, 2012 Page 5 of 10 (ID # 2742) boulevards throughout the City. The innovative treatments identified in the Appendix A toolkit are intended for locations where typical treatments may not be the most effective. While some of the techniques are not currently recognized in State engineering standards, they are in use in other cities throughout the country, and staff expects to work with others to achieve their formal certification. Any of these treatments, if used, would need coordination with the State of California for trial in Palo Alto, including additional community input. Parks and Recreation Commission The Parks and Recreation Commission (PARC) has also participated and provided staff with valuable input toward the Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan. Comments from the PRC emphasized the addition of new Class I (off-street) bicycle trails, safe connections and wayfinding signage to key recreational destinations such as open spaces and neighborhood parks, and safety improvements to existing trails and pathways such as improved gates/bollards and lighting improvements. On February 27, 2012 the PARC discussed the most current version of the Draft Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan and provided the following additional input:  Prioritize the Adobe Creek Reach Trail Project to connect E Meadow Drive to the 101 Underpass  Identify community centers and parks as key destination sites on future way-finding programs  Participate in future Safe Routes to Parks and Greenway programs The PARC voted 6-1 to recommend approval of the Draft Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan. The one dissenting vote was due to concerns related to proposed facilities across school properties, which have since been modified. The minutes of the February 27 PARC meeting are included in Attachment E. The PARC also discussed the Draft Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan 2012 at its April 24, 2012 meeting and approved a Transportation recommendation to include two new Bay-to-Ridge alignments within the proposed Bicycle Transportation Network in the draft plan along on-street routes. Planning and Transportation Commission July 09, 2012 Page 6 of 10 (ID # 2742) In September 2011, the Planning and Transportation Commission voted unanimously to recommend that City Council adopt the then Draft 2011 Plan, with the additions of a more established project scoring criteria and to further define the relation to the Citywide Comprehensive Plan and provide any recommended changes for the Transportation Element. On March 28, 2012, the Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan returned to PTC and was discussed with several recommendations for staff to follow up with the expressed public comments and concerns. The PTC unanimously voted for recommendation to City Council for adoption of the Plan. The minutes of the March 28 PTC meeting are included in Attachment F. City Council Hearing Comments On November 7, 2011, City Council directed staff to coordinate further with PABAC, PARC, PTC, and specific members of the public to further enhance the details (City Council Staff Report with Attachments http://www.cityofpaloalto.org/civica/filebank/blobdload.asp?BlobID=29268). In addition, specific comments were provided by each of the council members to further enhance the direction of the Plan. The main highlights from Council’s comments included:  Increase discussion related to recreational cycling and connections to recreational destinations (note: two new bay-to-ridge trails have been proposed and added)  Emphasize the need for east-west corridors and connections across existing barriers  Strengthen language related to pedestrian conditions (esp. narrow sidewalks)  Emphasize education and enforcement as well as health benefits  Additional outreach is necessary as each individual project proceeds The comments received at the November Council hearing as well as comments received since from various commissions, committees and the public are presented in Attachment C along with subsequent responses. Next Steps – Transportation Element Update July 09, 2012 Page 7 of 10 (ID # 2742) The City began an update of the Comprehensive Plan – Transportation Element this Fall and will incorporate policy recommendations from the Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan 2012. The Recommended Bicycle and Pedestrian Network will be included in the update for coordination with other capital projects, to help build public-private partnerships with the development community, and to pursue grant-funding opportunities. Next Steps – Plan Implementation The City is already pursuing implementation of the Plan including:  Additional enhanced green bicycle lane facilities on Channing Avenue between Lincoln Avenue and Guinda Avenue. The City’s completed installation of the first green bike lanes in Santa Clara County on Channing Avenue between Middlefield Road and Lincoln Avenue in the Fall 2011  Contra-flow green bicycle facilities on Homer Street between Alma Street and High Street  Enhanced sharrow marking facilities on Lytton Avenue between Alma Street and Florence Street with the City’s first green Bicycle Box at Alma Street and Lytton Avenue  Enhanced bike lane facilities on Fabian Way between East Meadow Circle and Charleston Road  A new bicycle-focused traffic signal at the intersection of Oregon Expressway and Ross Road. This improvement also serves as the start of the implementation of the Ross Road Bicycle Boulevard.  Phase 1 signage implementation of the Park Boulevard Bicycle Boulevard between Churchill Avenue and Castilleja Street and Park Boulevard and Lambert Avenue  Design competition for the Adobe Creek/Highway 101 crossing. This project also includes completion of a feasibility study to implement a new bicycle trail along the Adobe Creek levy maintained by the Santa Clara Valley Water District. Many more projects are planned over the next two years. The proposed projects take advantage of active capital improvement projects (CIP) for implementation, including the Public Work’s resurfacing program. Some of the current CIPs that are set up to help fund projects identified in the Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan include: July 09, 2012 Page 8 of 10 (ID # 2742)  PL-04010: Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan Implementation Project  PO-12001: Curb and Gutter Repairs  PL-00026: Safe Routes to School  PO-89003: Sidewalk Repairs  PO-05054: Street Lights Improvements  PE-86070: Street Maintenance  PO-11001: Thermoplastic Marking and Striping  PL-05030: Traffic Signal and ITS Upgrades Some of the projects that are currently in progress include:  Adobe Creek Undercrossing Feasibility Study  Park Boulevard Bicycle Boulevard Project  Oregon Expressway / Ross Road Intersection Traffic Signal Design  Channing Avenue Striping Enhancements To help expedite implementation, staff recommends that a more refined Priority List of Projects from the report be developed and presented to the City Council for the consideration of the use of Community Benefit funds from the Stanford Medical Center project, when discussions on the use of those funds occur. Staff also recommends updates to the City Council, Planning and Transportation Commission, and Parks and Recreation Commission twice a year via informational reports to help monitor implementation progress of the Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan. Policy Implications The update to the Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan is being implemented at the direction of the City Council and will follow policies consistent with the most current Comprehensive Plan and/or update the policies identified in the 2003 Bicycle Transportation Plan. The Plan specifically implements Palo Alto Comprehensive Plan Goals:  T-1, Less Reliance on Single Occupant Vehicles;  T-3, Facilities, Services and Programs that Encourage and Promote Walking and Bicycling;  T-6, a High Level of Safety for Motorists, Pedestrians and Bicyclists on Palo July 09, 2012 Page 9 of 10 (ID # 2742) Alto streets. The Plan includes an extensive list of relevant Comprehensive Plan policies and programs and discussion of how the Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan further those objectives. The proposed Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan also includes potential policy recommendations and changes that will be incorporated into the upcoming Comprehensive Plan Update. Resource Impacts The update of the Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan is funded through capital improvement program fund sources. The City has two main CIP Projects used to fund bicycle projects:  PL-04010, Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan Implementation Project funded with $50,000 annually  PL-12000, Transportation and Parking Improvements funded annually with $225,000 Additional CIP partnerships occur with the annual street resurfacing program and the Safe Routes to School program. The City also pursues grants regularly for the implementation of large scale projects and has two active funded bike projects using a grant from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) - Transportation Development Act (TDA) program ($80,000):  Park Boulevard Bicycle Boulevard – Phase 1, Signage and Markings between Churchill Avenue and Castilleja Avenue and Park Boulevard and Lambert Avenue  Fabian Way Enhanced Bikeways between E Meadow Drive and Charleston Road The implementation and related costs of the proposed bicycle and pedestrian improvements are outlined in Chapter 7 of the Draft Plan, and are summarized above in the “Implementation” discussion. To summarize, the total cost estimated to implement the Plan improvements listed in the four primary improvement categories would be approximately $9.5 million, and major “barrier” crossings, July 09, 2012 Page 10 of 10 (ID # 2742) (e.g., Highway 101 at Adobe Creek, South Palo Alto Caltrain undercrossing, etc.) would likely cost an additional $20-25 million. Staff anticipates that approximately 70-75% of program implementation costs would be leveraged from other sources, with the remaining 25-30% ($7.5-10 million) coming from the City’s Capital Improvements Program Infrastructure Reserve, over a 5-10 year timeframe. Project funding requests would be submitted in the City’s Capital Budget process. Environmental Review Environmental review for the Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan has been completed. A Negative Declaration (Attachment B) has been prepared, pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), and has been recommended for Council approval by the Planning and Transportation Commission. In addition, as each individual construction project is implemented, if required, a supplemental project level environmental review will be prepared. Attachments:  Attachment A: Resolution to Adopt the Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan (PDF)  Attachment B: Negative Declaration (PDF)  Attachment C: Comments and Revisions Matrix (XLS)  Attachment D: PABAC Bike Ped. Plan Comments - Version 2 (PDF)  Attachment E: February 28, 2012 Parks and Recreation Commission Excerpt Minutes(PDF)  Attachment F: March 28, 2012 Planning and Transportation Commisison Excerpt Minutes (PDF)  Attachment G: "Power to the Pedalers" Planning Magazine, May/June 2012 (PDF) Prepared By: Rafael Rius, Traffic Engineer Department Head: Curtis Williams, Director City Manager Approval: ____________________________________ James Keene, City Manager Not Yet Approved 120514 jb 0130967 Resolution No. _____ Resolution of the Council of the City of Palo Alto Amending the Transportation Element of the Palo Alto Comprehensive Plan to Incorporate the Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan 2012 WHEREAS, the City Council adopted the 1998-2010 Comprehensive Plan in 1998, including the Transportation Element; and WHEREAS, Policy T-14 provides that the City shall 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; and WHEREAS, Program T-18 provides that the City shall develop and periodically update a comprehensive bicycle plan; and WHEREAS, Program T-19 provides that the City shall develop, periodically update and implement a bicycle facilities improvement program and prioritize critical bicycle links to parks, schools, retail centers and civic facilities; and WHEREAS, the City adopted the Palo Alto Bicycle Transportation Plan in November 2003; and WHEREAS, The City Council directed staff to proceed with an update to the 2003 Bicycle Transportation Plan with an added pedestrian element; and WHEREAS, the City has conducted a public outreach program in developing the Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan 2012, (the “Project”), including facilitating outreach to the community and coordinating with other City departments throughout 2011 and 2012; and WHEREAS, the Planning and Transportation Commission released the document for public comment from July 26, 2011 through September 7, 2011; and unanimously recommended the Council approve the plan at its meeting on March 28, 2012; and WHEREAS, the City Council heard public comment and reviewed the Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan 2012 on _____________, 2012; and WHEREAS, the Council desires to amend the Comprehensive Plan to incorporate the Bicycle and Transportation Plan 2012. NOW, THEREFORE, the Council of the City of Palo Alto does HEREBY RESOLVE as follows: Not Yet Approved 120514 jb 0130967 SECTION 1. Program T-18 is hereby amended to add the following underlined language: Develop and periodically update a comprehensive bicycle plan. In 2003 the City adopted the 2003 Bicycle Transportation Plan. In 2012, the City Council updated the Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan, which updates and supersedes the 2003 Plan. The 2012 Plan also includes an added pedestrian element. SECTION 2. The City Council adopted a Negative Declaration for this project in accordance with the California Environmental Quality Act. INTRODUCED AND PASSED: AYES: NOES: ABSENT: ABSTENTIONS: ATTEST: APPROVED: _________________________ ____________________________ City Clerk Mayor APPROVED AS TO FORM: ____________________________ City Manager _________________________ Senior Asst City Attorney ____________________________ Director of Planning and Community Environment city of Palo Alto Department of Planning and Community Environment 250 Ham! ltoo Avenue, 5th Floor Palo Alto, CA 94301 (650) 329-2441 . FAX (6501 329-2154" www.cityofpaloalto.org Notice of Intent to Adopt a Negative Declaration AITACHMENTC The Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan ' 2011 Update (BPTP) updates the 2003 Bicycle Transportation Plan to Include a new policy tramework, Innovative facillty design strategies (such as green bike lanes, cycletracks, and intersection through-markings), and a revised bikeway network and priority project list amohg other changes. The BPTP maintains many of the 2003 Plan recommendations and provides additional project recomm8ndatlo~ [ncludlng Pedestrian facilities to help better Integrate fac~itles such as parks and community trails. The BPTP provides project recommendallons by categories to help prioritize Implementation over the next five years, by which time another update to the BPTP Is antlclpaled 10 occur. The recommendations Included the Bicycle and Pedestrian Transporta\1on Plan 2011 Update al8 as follows: Bicycle Related: (1) Improve bicycle route wayflndlng with Improved slgnage and road marldngs;(2) Enhance the Bay Trail and Ihe Bay 10 Ridge Trail; (3) Improve connectivity betwee~ on and off·road fac II Itles; (4)lmprove time-restricted bike lane corridors and Imbalanced bike lanes along the corridors; (5) Upgrade sldew~lks to Class I sldepalhs and re-strlplng of roadways to Include two·way cycle tracks; (6)lmprove and or extend tralls and trail crossings; (7) Expand the bike boulevard network; (8) Enhance existing corrldom with bike stencil markings carried through Intersections, green colorized pavement Indicating potential confilci zones or exclusive bike facilities, Improve bike detection, and conversion of substandard bike lanes 10 wall designed shared roadways; (9) Improve access to neighborhood commercial centers with added bl.ke lanes; and (10) Improve bike parking and use the bike corral concept for high demand areas. Pedestrian Related: (1) New sidewalks should be a minimum of six feet 01 unobstructed \lne~n space (clear of streQt trees, planters. furniture. poles, etc.); (2) Eliminate sidewalk gaps; (3) All curb ramps should be ADA compliant; (4) Cons1der curb extensions where appropriate; (5) Minimize curb radii to slow vehicle speed and reduce pedestrian crossing dIstances; ·(6) Improve pedestr1an crossings with more visible crosswalks and pedestrian countdown signals, and add mid· block crossing on longer blocks; (7) Consider Intentionally designed shared spaces for pedestrian and vehicle traHk; for optimal usage. The purpose of this notice is to Inform you that the City of Palo Alto PlannIng Staff has recommended that a Negal1ve Declaration be approved for this project. City Planning Staff has reviewed the Inillal Study tor,the project, and based upon substantial evidence In the record, finds that no slgnlflcant environmental effects will occur. It should be noted that Ihe approval of a Negative Declaration does not constitute approval of the project under consideration. The decision to approve or deny the project will be made separately. Public Comments regarding the correctness, completeness, or adequacy of this negative declaration are invited and must be received on or before the end of the public review period. Such comments should be -based on specific environmental concerns. _. Written comments should be addressed 10 the City of Palo Alto, Planning Department, 250 Hamilton Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94301. For additional Information regarding this Nega,ive Declaration, please contact Clare Campbell at 650-617..a191 PlannlrlO Department, 250 Hamilton Avenue, Palo Alto, (2) Development Center, 285 Hamilton Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94301 SCH for distribution NA Prepared by: Clare Campbell, Planner Signature Page 2 012 DRAFT ADOPTED ON: _________ _ City of Palo Alto Departme.nt of Planning and Community Environment California Environmental Quality Act DRAFT NEGA·TIVE.DECLARATION I. DESCRIPTION OF PROJECT Date: August 26, -2011 Project Name: Project Location: Applicant: Owner: Project Description: Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan 2011 Update City of Palo Alto City qf Palo Alto Department of Planning and Community Environment Clare Campbell, Planner City of Palo Alto 250 Hamilton Avenue Palo Alto, CA 94301 The Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan 2011 Update (BPIP) updates the 2003 Bicycle Transportation Plan to include a new policy framework, innovative facility design strategies (such as green bike lanes, cycletracks, and intersection through-markings), and a revised bikeway network and priority project list among other changes. The BPTP maintains many of the 2003 Plan recommendations and provides additional project recommendations including Pedestrian facilities to help better integrate facilities such as parks and community trails. The BPTP provides project recommendations by categories to help prioritize implementation over the next five years, by which time another update to the BPTP is anticipated to occur. The recommendations included the Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan 2011 Update are as follows: Bicycle Related: (1) Improve bicycle route wayflndiJ;lg with improved signage and road markings;(2) Enhance the Bay Trail and the Bay to Ridge Trail; (3) Improve connectivity between on and off-road facilities; (4)Improve time-restricted bike lane corridors and imbalanced bike lanes along the Corridors; (5) Upgrade sidewalks to Class I sidepaths and re-striping of roadways to include two-way cycle tracks; (6)Iroprove and or extend trails and trail crossings; (7) Expand the bike boulevard network; (8) Enhance existing corridors with bike stencil markings carried through intersections, green colorized pavement indicating potential contlict zones or exclusive bike facilities, improve bike detection, and conversion of substandard bike lanes to well designed shared roadways; (9) bnprove access to neighborhood commercial centers with added bike lanes; and (10) Improve bike parking and use the bike corral concept for high demand areas. Pedestrian Related: (1) New sidewalks should be a minimum of six feet of unobstructed linear space (clear of street trees, planters, furniture, poles, etc.); (2) Eliminate sidewalk gaps; (3) All curb ramps should be ADA compliant; (4) Consider curb extensions where appropriate; (5) Minimize curb radii to slow vehicle speed and reduce pedestrian crossing distances; (6) Improve pedestrian crossings with more visible crosswalks and pedestrian countdown signals, and add mid-block crossing on longer blocks; '(7) Consider intentionally designed shared spaces for pedestrian and vehicle traffic for optimal usage. II. DETERMINATION In accordance withlhe City of Palo Alto's proc~dures for compliance with 'the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), the City has conduc~ed an Initial Study to determine whether the proposed proJect could have a significant effect on the environment. On the basis of that study, the City makes the following determination: X The proposed project COULD NOT have a significant effect on the environment, and.a NEGA TIVE DECLA~ TION is hereby adopted. Although ~e project, as proposed, could have a significant effect on the environment, there will not be a significant effect on the environment in this case because mitigation measures for traffic impacts have been added to the project and,therefore, a MITIGATED NEGATIVE DECLARATION is hereby adopted. The attached initial study incorporates all relevant information regarding the potential environmental effects of the project and confinns the determination that an EIR is not required for the project. Projec Planner Adopted by City Council, Attested by Director of Planning and Community Environment Si!J.ned after the Negative Declaration has been approved Date lUi Page 2 of2 Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan . Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan 2011 Update Initial Study Prepared by City of Palo Alto August 26, 2011 Page 1 Initial Study Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan Page 2 Initial Study ENVIRONMENTAL CHECKLIST City of Palo Alto Department of Planning and Community Environment TABLE OF CONTENTS I. PROJECT DESCRIPTION ............................................................................................. 4 II. ENVIRONlVIENT AL CHECKLIST AND DISCUSSION OF IMP ACTS ..................... 8 A. . AESTHETICS ................................................... ~ ..................................................... 9 B. AGRIClTLTURAL AND FOREST RESOURCES .............................................. 10 C. AIR QUALITY ..................................................................................................... 12 D. BIOLOGICAL RESOlJRCES .............................................................................. 13 E. .ClTLTURAL RESOURCES ............... ~ ........................................ ~ ..................... · .... 14 F. GEOLOGY, SOILS AND SEISMICITY ....... ; ..................................................... 15 O. GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS ..................................................................... 16 H. HAZARDS AND HAZARDOUS MATERIALS ................................................. 18 I. HYDROLOGY AND WATER QUALITY .......................................................... 19 J. LAND USE AND PLANNING ............................................................................ 20 K. MINERAL RESOURCES ...................................................................................... 21 L. NOISE ................................................................................................................... 22 M. POP~ATION AND HOUSING ......................................................................... 23 N. PUBLIC SERVICES ............................................................................................. 24 O. RECREATION ...................................................................................................... 24 P. TRANSPORTATION AND TRAFFIC ................................................................ 25 Q. UTILITIES AND SERVICE SYSTEMS ...................................... · ........................ 26 R. MANDATORY FINDINGS OF SIGNIFICANCE .............................................. 27 III. SOURCE REFERENCES ............................................................................................. 29 IV. DETERMINATION ...................................................................................................... 30 Bicyc1e and Pedestrian Transportation Plan Page 3 Initial Study ENVIRONMENTAL CHECKLIST Department of Planning and Community Environment PROJECT DESCRIPTION 1. PROJECT TITLE Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan 2011 Update 2. LEAD AGENCY NAME ANI) ADDRESS City of Palo Alto Department of Planning and Community Environment 250 Hamilton Avenue Palo Alto, CA 94303 3. CONTACT PERSON AND PHONE NUMBER Clare Campbell, Planner City of Palo Alto .. 650-617-3191 4. PROJECT SPONSOR'S NAME AND ADDRESS City of Palo Alto, Transportation Division Jaime Rodriguez, Chief Transportation Official 5. APPLICATION NUMBER Not Applicable 6. PROJECT LOCATION The Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan 2011 Update applies to the City of Palo Alto, which is located in the northern part of Santa Clara County, bounded on the west by the San Francisco Bay, city of Mountain View to the south, city of Meruo Park to the south, and the Santa Cruz mountains to the west, as shown on Figure 1, Regional Map. Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan Page 4 Initial Study Figure 1: Regional Map Figure 2: Palo Alto Bicycle and POOeStri.an Transportation Plan PageS Initial Study 7. GENERAL PLAN DESIGNATION The Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan 2011 Update would apply throughout the City of Palo Alto and, therefore, there is no specific General Plan designation applicable to this project. 8. ZONING The Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan 2011 Update would apply throughout the City of Palo Alto and, therefore, there is no specific Zoning designation applicable to this project. 9. PROJECT DESCRIPTION Background The Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan 2011 Update (BPTP) builds on existing goal statements from the City of Palo Alto Comprehensive Plan in an effort to provide direction and accountability for implementation. The BPTP serves as the City's guide for identifying and prioritizing bicycle transportation projects, policies, and programs in the community. The last update to the Bicycle Transportation Plan occurred in 2003. The 2011 update includes Pedestrian "element-for the first time, providing an opportunity to include more robust projects, programs, "and" general policies that benefit additional transportation modes including trail projects for rec~eationa1 and ~ommute use. The BPTP identifies and prioritizes projects by category (i.e. bicycle boulevards, across barrier connections, etc.), and provides a framework for a proposed bicycle and pedestrian network that guides City Staff with building and improving the City's bicycle network. The plan identifies and recommends technical design guidelines for current and new facilities, and the use of new and innovative treatments that have been implemented in other jurisdictions. From planning "citywide networks to reviewing private development proposals, the BPTP is intended to provide the vision, design toolkit, and specific recommendations that would increase walking" and biking in Palo Alto now and for years to come. The BPTP expands the 2003 Bicycle Transportation Plan to include coverage of pedestrian issues, priorities, and design standards in addition to revising the proposed bikeway network and design guidelines. Proposed Project The .2003 Bicycle Transportation Plan identifies existing bikeways; analyzes bicycle and pedestrian accident data; and recommends new bikeways, bicycle education and safety programs, and bicycle support facilities (including bike parking). The recommended bikeways network features bicycle boulevards, bike lanes on arterial streets, new bicycle/pedestrian grade separations, and spot improvements at key intersections. The 2003 Plan also details recommended best practices for bicycle education and outreach programs, bicycle facilities design and maintenance, and enforcement. Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation flan Page 6 Initial Study The BPTP updates the 2003 Bicycle Transportation Plan to include a new policy framework, innovative facility design strategies (such as green bike lanes, cycletracks, and intersection through-markings), and a revised bikeway network and priority project list arriong other changes. The BPTP maintains many of the 2003 Plan recommendations and provides additional project recommendations including Pedestrian facilities ,to help better integrate facilities such as parks and community trails. The BPTP provides project recommendations by categories to help prioritize implementation over the next five years, by which time another update to the BPTP is anticipated to occur. The recommendations included the Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan 2011 Update are as follows: Bicycle Related: 1. . Improve bicycle route wayfinding with improved signage and road markings; 2. Enhance the Bay Trail and the Bay to Ridge Trail; 3. Improve connectivity between on and off-road facilities; 4. Improve time-restricted bike lane corridors and imbalanced bike lanes along the corridors; 5. Upgrade sidewalks to CI~s I sidepaths and re-striping of roadways to include two-way cycle tracks; 6. Improve and or extend trails and trail cro&sings; 7. Expand the bike boulevard network; 8. Enhance existing corridors with bike stencil markings carried through intersections, green colorized pavement indicating potential conflict zones or exclusive bike facilities, improve bike detection, and conversion of substandard bike lanes to well designed shared ~oadways; 9. Improve access to neighborhood commercial centers with added bike lanes; 10. Improve bike parking and use the bike corral concept for high demand areas. Pedestrian Related: 1. New sidewalks should be a minimum of six feet of unobstructed linear space (clear of street trees, planters, furniture, poles, etc.); 2. Eliminate sidewalk gaps; 3. All curb ramps should be ADA compliant; 4. Consider curb extensions where appropriate; 5. Minimize curb radii to slow vehicle speed and reduce pedestrian crossing distances; 6. Improve pedestrian crossings with more visible crosswalks and pedestrian countdown signals, and add mid-block crossing on longer blocks; 7. ;Consider intentionally designed shared spaces for pedestrian and vehicle traffic for optimal usage. Palo Alto Review Requirements The implementation of the physical improvements that are recommended within the BPTP, unless related to maintenance of existing facilities, requires Architectural Review by the City of Palo Alto. All projects are required to conform to the designated zoning and related Comprehensive Plan polices. Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan Page 7 Initial Study 10. SURROUNDING LAND USES AND SETTING The· City of Palo Alto is surrounded primarily by other urban uses, but has two significant natural and sensitive areas on the most eastern (San Francisco' Bay/Baylands) and western (Santa Cruz MountainslFoothills) edges of the city. The map provided above shows these adj acencie~. 11. OTHER PUBLIC AGENCY APPROVALS REQUIRED This list is dependent upon the proposed activity, not all agencies listed are required to review all elements of the implementation of the BPTP. • U.S. Army Corps of Engineers • U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service • California Department of Fish and Game • Regional Water Quality Control Board • California Department of Transportation • Valley Transportation Authority • Santa Clara Valley Water District ENVIRONMENTAL CHECKLIST AND DISCUSSION OF IMPACTS EVALUATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS 1) A brief explanation is required for all answers except ''No Impact" answers that are adequately supported by the infonnation sources a lead agency cites in the parentheses following each question. [A "No Impact" answer is adequately supported if the referenced information sources show that the impact simply does not apply to projects like the one involved (e. g. the project falls outside a fault rupture zone). A "No Impact" answer should be explained where it is based on project-specific factors as well as general standards (e. g. the project will not expose sensitive receptors to pollutants, based on a project-specific screening analysis).) 2) All answers must take account of the whole action involved, including off-site as well as on-site, cumulative as well as project-level, indirect as well as direct, and construction as well as operational impacts. 3) Once the lead agency has determined that a particular physical impact may occur, then the checklist answers must indicat~ whether the impact is potentially significant, less than significant with mitigation, or less than' significant. Potentially Significant Impact" is appropriate if there is substantial evidence that an effect may be significant. If there are one or more "Potentially Significant Impact" entries when the determination is made, an EIR is required. 4) "(Mitigated) Negative Declaration: Less Than Signifj.cant With Mitigation Incorporated" applies where the incorPoration of mitigation measures has reduced an effect from "Potentially Significant,Irnpacf' to a "Less than Significant Impact." The lead agency must describe the mitigation measures, and briefly explain how Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan Page 8 Initial Study they reduce the effect to a less than significant level (mitigation meaSures from Section 17, "Earlier Analysis," may be cross-referenced). 5) Earlier analysis may be used where, pursuant to the tiering, program EIR, or other CEQA process, an effect has been adequately analyzed in an earlier EIR or negative declaration. Section 15063 (C)(3) (D). In this case, a brief discussion should identify the following: . a) EarHer Analysis Used. Identify and state where they are available for review. b) Impacts Adequately Addressed. Identify which effects from the above checklist were within the scope of and adequately analyzed in an earlier document pursuant to applicable legal standards, and state whether such effects were addressed by mitigation measures based on the earlier analysis. c) Mitigation Measures. For effects that are "Less than Significant with Mitigation Measures mcorporated," describe the mitigation measures which were incorporated or refined from the earlier document and the extent to which they address site-specific conditions for the project. 6) Lead agencies are encouraged to incorporate into the checklist references to information sources for potential impacts (e.g. general plans, zoning ordinances). Reference to a previously prepared or outside document should, where appropriate, include' a reference to the page or pages where the statement is substantiated. 7) Supporting Information Sources: A source list should be attached, and other sources, used or individuals contacted should be cited in the' discussion. . 8) The explanation of each issue should identify: a) the significance criteria or threshold, if any, used to evaluate each question; and b) the mitigation measure identified, if any, to reduce the impact to less than significance. DISCUSSION OF IMPACTS The following Environmental Checklist was used to identify environmental impacts, which could occur if the proposed project is implemented. The left-hand column in the checklist lists the source(s) for the answer to each question. The sources cited are identified at the end of the checklist. Discussions of the basis for each answer and a discussion of mitigation measures that are proposed to reduce potential significant impacts are included. A. AESTHETICS Issues and Supporting Information Sources Potentially Potentially Less Than No Resources Significant Significant Significant Impact Issues Unless Impact Would the project: Mitigation Incorporated a) Substantially degrade the existing visual 1,2,5 X' character or quality of the site and its slUToundings? b) Have a substantial adverse effect on a 1,2-MapL4, X public view or view corridor? 5 c) Substantially damage scenic resources, 1, 2-Map L4, X including, but not limited to, trees, rock 5 outcroppings, and historic buildings within a state scenic higllway? . d) Violate'existing Comprehensive Plan 1,2,5 X policies regarding visual resources? e) Create a new source of substantiallight or 1,5 X Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan Page 9 Initial Study Issues and Supporting Information Sources Potentially Potentially Less Than No Resources Significant Significant Significant Impact Issues Unless Impact Would the project: Mitigation Incorporated glare wI,.ich would adversely affect day or nighttime views in the area? f) Substantially shadow public open space 1,5 X (other than public streets and adjacent . sidewalks) between 9:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. from September 21 to March 21 ? DISCUSSION: The 2011 BPTP includes recommendations for minor modifications, which include both new elements and enhancement of existing (e.g. road stencils, wayfinding signage, colorized pavement, etc.), that would be subject to the City's Architectural Review process (maintenance projects of an existing facility are exempt from this review). The Architectural Review entitlement is required for all the exterior improvements to ensure the proj ect is designed with high aesthetic quality and is hannonious with its surroundings. The Comprehensive Plan designates Arastradero and Page Mill Road and Skyline Boulevard as scenic routes; Skyline (Highway 35) is also a State Scenic Highway. The proposed revisions to the BPTP are not anticipated to significantly degrade the existing visual character of these scenic views. The proposed revisions to the BPTP will not create any new aesthetic' impacts. All projects that fall under the BPTP are subject to Architectural Review to address aesthetics, and once fully developed, all individual components of the BPTP that the City is seeking to implement will be further reviewed for impacts and additional CEQA analysis will be determined at that time. Mitigation Measures: None Required B. AGRICULTURAL AND FOREST RESOURCES In detennining whether impacts to agricultural resources are significant environmental effects, lead agencies may refer to the California Agricultural Land Evaluation and Site Assessment Model (1997) prepared by the California Dept. of Conservation as an optional model to use in assessing impacts on agriculture and fannland. In detennining whether impacts to forest resources, including timberland, are significant environmental effects, lead agencies may refer to information compiled by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection regarding the state's inventory of forest land, including the Forest and Range Assessment Project and the Forest Legacy Assessment project; and the forest carbon measurement methodology provided in the Forest Protocols . adopted by the CaHfomia Air Resources Board. Issues and Supporting Information Resources Sources Potentially Potentially Less Than No Significant Significant Significant Impact Would the project: Issues Unless . Impact Mitigation Incorporated a) Convert Prime Farmland, Unique Fannland, 1 X or Fannland of Statewide Importance Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan Page 10 Initial Study Issues and Supporting Information Resources Sources Potentially Potentially Less Than No b) c) d) e) Significant Significant Significant Impact Would the project: Issues . Unless Impact Mitigation Incorporated (Fannland), as shown on the maps prepared pursuant to the Farmland Mapping and Monitoring Program of the California Resources Agency, to non-agricultural use? Conflict with existing zoning for agri~ultura1 1,2-MapL9 X use, or a Williamson Act contract? Conflict with existing zoning for, or cause 1 X rezoning of, forest land (as defmed in Public Resources Code,section 12220(g)1) or timberland (as defined in Public Resources Code section 45262)1 Result in the loss of forest land or conversion 1 ! X of forest land to non-forest use? Involve other changes in the existing 1 X environment which, due to their location or nature, could result in conversion of Fannlimd, to non-agricultural use or conversion of forest land to non-forest use? DISCUSSION: The revisions to the BPTP do not impact lands that are located in "Prime Fannland", "Unique Farmland", or "Farmland of Statewide Importance" area, as shown on the maps prepared for the Farmland Mapping and Monitoring Program of the California Resources Agency. The areas affected (primarily street/sidewalk right-of ways and existing trails) by the BPTP are not zoned for agricultural use, and are not regulated by the Williamson Act. The are8:s affected are within a developed urbanized area and have no impacts on forest or timberland. Mitigation Measures: None Required 1 PRC 1 2220(g): "Forest land" is land that can support IO-percent native tree cover of any species, including hardwoods, under natural conditions, and that allows for management of one or more forest resources, including timber, aesthetics, fish and wildlife, biodiyersity~ water quality, recreation, and other public benefits. 2 PRC 4526: "Timberland" means land, other than land owned by the federal government and land designated by-the board as experimental forest land, which is available fOf, and capable of, growing a crop of trees of any commercial species used to produce lumber and other forest products, including Christmas trees. Commercial species shall be determined by the .board on a district basis after consultation with the district committee.s and others. ' Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan Page 11 Initial Study c. AIR UALITY Issues and Supporting Information Resources SOlirces Would the projectT a) Conflict with or obstruct with implementation 1,5 of the applicable air quality plan (1982 Bay Area Air Quality Plan & 2000 Clean Air Plan)7 Potentially Sign Iflca n t luuet Potentially Slptfl can t Unless Mitigation Ineor orated LwThan Slgnffkant Impld No Impact x b) Violate any air quality standard or contnbute substantially to an existing or projected air u811 violation indicated b tile followin . I: . : ,II' . . ,.',": I' ':.. . ,. I I ,I , • ~ II . i' :. 1 , ~ t. ". .1\ . . '. - . _.: .I Direct and/or indirect operational 1,5 emlssions that exceed the Bay Area Air Quality Mapagement District (BAAQMD) criteria air pollu~ of 80 pounds per day and/or 15 tons per year for Ilitrogen oxides (NO), reactive organic gases (ROO), and fine particulate matter of less than 10 microns in diameter PM10 ; ii. Contribute to cmton monoxide (CO) 1,5 concentrations exceeding the State Ambient Air Quality Standard of nine parts per million (ppm) averaged over eight hours or 20 ppm for one hour( as demonstrated by CALTNE4 modeling, which would be performed when a) project CO emissions exceed 550 pounds per day or 100 tons per year; or b) project traffic would impact intersections or roadway links operating at Level of Service (LOS) D. E or F or would cause LOS to decline to D, E or F: or c) project would increase traffic volumes on nearby roadways by 10% or more? c) Result in a cumulatively considerable net 1,5 increase of any criteria pollutant for which the project region is non-attainment under an applicable federal or state Ilrnbient air quality standard (including releasing emissions which exceed quantitative thresholds for ozone recursors ? d) Expoae sensitive receptors to substantial levels 1,5 of toxic air contaminants? . i. Probability of contracting cancer for the Maximally Exposed Individual (MEn exceeds lOin one million ii. Ground-level concentrations of non­ carcinogenic T ACs would result In a hazard index greater then one (I) for the MEl e) Create objectionable odors affecting a substantial number of eo Ie? t) Not implement all applicable construction Bioycle and PedestrilUl Transportation Plan Page 12 x x x x x x x x Initial Study Issues and Supporting Information Resources Sources Potentially Potentially Less Than No Significant Significant Significant Impact Would the project: Issues Unless Impact Mitigation Incorporated emission control measures recommended in the Bay Area Air Quality Management District CEQA Guidelines? DISCUSSION: The City of Palo Alto is located within the jurisdiction of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) , the regional agency empowered to regulate air pollutant emissions from stationary sources in the Bay Area. The BAAQMD regulates air quality through its permit authority over most types of stationary emission sources and through its planning and review process. All development in Palo Alto is subject to the BAAQMD regulations. The proposed revisions to the BPTP will not create any new significant air quality impacts. During constrL!ction activities, related to the components of the BPTP, it .is expected that temporary minor air quality impacts would occur, b\lt not to a level of significance. Once fully developed, all individual components of the BPTP that the City is seeking to implement would be further reviewed for potential impacts, and additional CEQA analysis will be determined at that time . . Mitigation Measures: None Required D. BIOLOGICAL RESOlTRCES Issues and Supporting Information Resources Sources Potentially Potentially Less Than No Significant Significant Significant Impact Would tbe project: Issues Unless Impact Mitigation Incorporated a) Have a substantial adverse effect, either 1,2-MapN1, X directly or through habitat modifications, on 5 any species identified as a candidate, sensitive, or special status species in local or regional plans, policies, or regulations, or by the California Department of Fish and Game or U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service? b) Have a substantial adverse effect on any 1,2-MapN1, X riparian habitat or other sensitive natural 5 community identified in local or regional plans, policies, regulations, including federally. protected wetlands as defined by Section 404 of the Clean Water Act (including, but not limited to, marsh, vernal pool; coastal, etc.) through direct removal, filling, hydrological interruption, or other means? c) Interfere substantially with the movement of 1,8-MapN1~ X any native resident or migratory fish or wildlife 5 species or with established native resident or migratory wildlife corridors, or impede the use of native wildlife nursery sites? d) Conflict with any local policies or ordinances 1,2,3,4,5 X. protecting biological resources, such as a tree Bicycle and Pedestrian TrWlsportation Plan Page 13 Initial Study Issues and Supporting Information Resources Sources Potentially i»oten ti ally Less Than No e) Significant Significant Significant Impact Wou~d tbe project: Issues Unless Impact Mitigation Incorporated preservation policy or as defined by the City of Palo Alto's Tree Preservation Ordinance (Municipal Code Section 8.10)? Conflict with any applicable Habitat 1,5 X Conservation Plan, Natural Community Conservation Plan, or other approved local, regional, or state habitat conservation plan? DISCUSSION: It is anticipated that the recommended improvements of the BPTP would cause a less than significant to no impact to biological resources within the City. The areas primarily affected by the BPTP are existing streets and sidewalk right-of ways and existing trails, all of which is fully disturbed. Once fully deyeloped, all indiviq.ual components of the BPTP that the City is seeking to implement would be further reviewed for potential impacts, and additional CEQA analysis will be detennined at that time. Mitigation Measures: None Required E. CULTURAL RESOURCES Issues and Supporting Information Resources Sources Potentially Potentially Less Than No Significant &ignificant Significant Impact Would tbe project: Issues Uniess Impact Mitigation Incorporated a) Directly or indirectly destroy a local cultural 1,10 X b) c) d) e) f) resource that is recognized by City Council resolutiQn? Cause a substantial adverse change in the 1,2-MapLS X significance of an archaeological resource pursuant to 15064.5? Directly or indirectly destroy a unique 1,2-MapLS X paleontological resource or site or unique geologic feature? Disturb any human remains, including those 1,2-MapLS X interred outside of formal cemeteries? Adversely affect a historic resource listed or 1,2-MapL7, X eligible for listing on the National and/or 10 California Register, or listed on the City's Historic Inventory? Eliminate important examples of major periods 1 X of Cali fomi a history or prehistory? DISCUSSION: The proposed revisions to the BPTP recommend minor physical improvements that involve minimal construction activities within the public right-of-way that is located within a fully developed and or previously disturbed area. It is not anticipated that the improvements will create any cultural impacts to the affected area. Once fully developed, all individual components of the BPTP that the City is Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan Page 14 Initial Study seeking to implement would be further reviewed for potential impacts, and additional CEQA analysis will be determined at that time. For all projects, if during grading and construction activities} any archaeological or human remains are encountered, construction shall cease and a qualified archaeologist shall visit the site to address the find. The Santa Clara County Medica1 Examiner's office shall be notified to provide proper direction on how to proceed. If any Nativ~ American resources are encountered during 'construction, construction shall cease immediately until a Native American descendant,' appointed by the Native American Heritage Commission of the State of California, is able to evaluate the site and make further, recommendations and be involved in mitigation planning. Mitigation Measures: None Required F. GEOLOGY SOn.S AND SEISMICITY Issues and Supporting Information Resources Would the project: a) Expose people or structures to potential substantial adverse effects, including the risk ofloss in' , or death involvin : Sourca Potentially Slgnffic.ant IHUes Potelltially Signlfieant Unless Mitigation ltd I Less Than Significant Impact No Impact ! 1 \ , .. : I ,~ • '. \ " ': • \. t -~. l" I 1'1 ~ • ' '. ,~ ". J '1 I " . . . I I I ' ~ ':~': ~.: .:~ 1-' :: .. ' .. ': 't. ,.' ••. ; •• r~:<.·~ ':·'l,::-:"\~,,l ! i) Rupture of 8. known earthquake fault, II x b) c) d) e) as delineated on the most recent Arquist.Priolo Earthquake Fault Zoning Map issued by the State Geologist for the area. or based on other substantial evidence of a known fault? Refer to Division of Mines and Geoio S ecial Publication 42. Be located on a geologic unit or soil that is unstable, or that would become unstable as a result of the project, and potentially result in on· (Jf off·site landslide. lateral spreading. subsidence, liquefaction or colla se? Be located on expansive soil, as defined in Table 18-I-B of the Unifonn Building Code (1994), creating substantial risks to life or e ? Have soils inca able of ad uatel B icyc!e and Pedestrian Tl'IlDSpOrtation Plan x X 2,..M NS X X X 2-MapNS X 2-MapNS X X Page 15 InitJal Study supporting the use of septic tanks or alternative waste water disposal systems where sewers are not available for the disposal of waste water? g) Expose people or property to major 1,5 X geologic hazards that cannot be mitigated through the use of standard engineering design and seismic safety techniques? DISCUSSION: The proposed revisions to the BPTP recommend minor physical improvements that involve minimal construction activities within the public right-of-way that is located within a fully developed and or previously disturbed area. Generally, the City of Palo Alto would experience a range from weak to very violent shaking in the event of a major earthquake along the San Andreas or Hayward fault. Although hazards exist, development would not expose people or property to major geologic hazards that cannot be addressed through" the use of standard engineering design and seismic safety techniques, as required by building codes. With proper engineering new development is not expected to result in any significant adverse short or long­ term impacts related to geology, soils or seismicity. Once fully developed, all individual components of the BPTP that the City is seeking to implement would be further reviewed for potential impacts, and additional CEQA analysis will be determined at that time. Mitigation Measures: None Required G. GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS Issues and Supporting Information Resources Sources Potentially Potenti.lly Less Than No a) b) Significant Significant Sign itieant Impact Would the project: Issues Unless Impact Mitigation Incorporated Generate greenhouse gas emissions, either 1,5,9 X directly or indirectly, that may have a significant impact on the environment? Conflict with any applicable plan, policy or 1,5,9 X regulation of an agency adopted for the purpose of reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases? DISCUSSION: The San Francisco Bay Area Air Basin (SFBAAB) is currently designated as a nonattainrnent area for state and national ozone standards and national particulate matter ambient air quality standards. SFBAAB's nonattainment status is attributed to the region's development history. Past, present and future development proj ects contribute to the region's adverse air quality impacts on a cumulative basis. By its very nature, air pollution is largely a cwnulative impact. No single project is sufficient in size to, by" itself, result in nonattainment of ambient air quality standards. Instead, a project's individual emissions contribute to existing cumulatively significant adverse air quality impacts. If a project's contribution to the cumulative impact is considerable, then the project's impact on air quality would be considered significant. Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan Page 16 Initial Study The Bay Area Air Quality Management District's (BAAQMD) approach to developing a Threshold of Significance for Green House Gas (GHG) emissions is to identify the emissions level for which a project would not be expected to substantially conflict with existing California legislation adopted to reduce statewide GHG emissions needed to move us towards climate stabilization. If a project would generate GHG emissions above the threshold level, it would· be considere~ to contribute substantially to a cumulative impact, and would be considered significant. The Thresholds of Significance for operational-related GRG emissions are: • For land use development projects, the threshold is compliance with a qualified GHG reduction Strategy; or annual emissions less than 1,100 metric tons per year (MT/yr) of CO~e; or 4.6 MT C02e/SP/yr (residents + employees). Land use development projects include residential, commercial, industrial, and public land uses and facilities. • For stationary-source projects, the threshold is 10,000 metric tons per year (MT/yr) of C02e. Stationary-source projects include land uses that would accommodate processes and equipment that emit GHG emissions and would require an Air District permit to operate. If annual emissions of operational-related GHGs exceed these levels, the proposed project would result in a cumulatively considerable contribution of GHG emissions and a cumulatively significant impact to global climate change. The BMQMD has established project level screening criteria to assist in the evaluation of impacts. If a project meets the screening criteria and is consistent with the methodology used to develop the screening criteria, then the project's air quality impacts may be considered less than significant. Below are some screening level examples taken from the BAAQMD CEQA Air Quality Guidelines, 06/2010 (Table 3-1, Operational-Related Criteria Air Pollutant and Precursor Screening Level Sizes). Land Use Type Operational GHG Screening Size ** Single-family 56 du Apartment, low-rise 78 du Apartment, mid-rise 87 du Condo/townhouse, general 78 du City park 600 acres Day .. care center 11,000 sf General office building 53,000 sf Medical office building 22,000 sf Office park 50,000 sf Quality restaurant 9,000 sf .. **IfproJect Size IS => screerung Size, then It IS conSidered slgruficant. The proposed revisions to the BPTP recommend minor physical improvements that involve minimal construction activities within the public right-or-way that is located within a fully developed and or previously disturbed area. It is not anticipated that these improvements Will create any new significant operational GHG emissions. The intent of the plan is to encourage bicycle and pedestrian modes of transport and it is not anticipated to create any additional vehicle trips beyond what already occurs. During the related construction activity there may be a temporary increase in emissions; this discussion is provided in the Air Quality section of this report. Once fully developed, all individual Bicycle WId Pedestrian Transportation Plan Page 17 Initial Study components of the BPTP that the City is seeking to implement would be further reviewed for potential impacts, and additional CEQA analysis will be determined at that time. Mitigation Measures: None Required H. HAZARDS AND HAZARDOUS MATERIALS Note: Some of the thresholds can also be dealt with under a topic he.ading of Public Health and Safety if the I d b' h h h d . I przmary Issues are re ate to a au ~ect ot er t an azar ous materia use. Issues and Supporting Information Resources Sources Potentially Potentially Less Than No Significant Significant Significant Impact Would the project: Issues Unless Impact Mitigation Incorporated a) Create a significant hazard to the public or the 1,5 X environment through the routing transport, use, or disposal of hazardous materials? b) Create a significant hazard to the public or the 1,5 X environment through reasonably foreseeable upset and accident conditions involving the release of hazardous materials into the environment? c) Erriit'hazardous emissions or handle hazardous 1,5 X or acutely hazardm,ls materials, substances, or waste within one-quarter mile of an existing or proposed school? d) Construct a school on a property that is subject 1,5 X to hazards from hazardous materials contamination, emissions or accidental release? e) Be located on a site which is included on a list of hazardous materials sites compiled pursuant 1,2-MapN9 X to Government Code Section 65962.5 and, as a result, would it create a significant hazard to the public or the environment? t) For a project located within an airport land use 1 X plan or, where such a plan has not been adopted, within two miles of a public airport or public use airport, would the project result in a safety hazard for people residing or working in the prQject area? g) For a project within the vicinity ofa private 1 X airstrip, would the project result in a safety hazard for people residing or working the project area? h) Impair implementation of or physically 1,2-MapN7 X interfere with an adopted emergency response plan or emergency evacuation plan? i) Expose people or structures to a significant risk ofloss, itUury, or death involving wildland 1,2-MapN7 X fires, including where wildlands are adjacent to urbanized areas or where residences are intermixed with wildlands? j) Create a significant hazard to the public or the 1,5 X Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan Page 18 Initial Study environment from existing hazardous materials contamination by exposing future occupants or users of the site to contamination in excess of soil and ground water cleanup goals developed for the site? DISCUSSION: The proposed revisions to the BPTP reconunend minor physical improvements that involve minimal construction activities within the public right-of-way that is located within a fully developed and or previously disturbed area. These improvements do not involve the use, creation or transportation of hazardous materials. The implementation of the BPTP is anticipated to have no impacts with regard to public safety, hazards and hazardous materials. Once fully developed, all individual components of the BPTP that the City is seeking to implement would be further reviewed for potential impacts, and additional CEQA analysis will be determined at that time. Mitigation Measures: None Required I. HYDROLOGY AND WATER QUALITY Issues and Supporting Information Resources Sources Potentially Potentially Less Than No Significant Significant Signincant Impact Would the project: Issues Unless Impact Mitigation Incorporated a) Violate any water quality standards or waste 1,2,5 X dischal'ge requirements? b) Substantially deplete groundwater supplies or 2-MapN2. X interfere substantially with groundwater recharge such that there would be a net deficit ·in aquifer volume or a lowering of the local groundwater table level (e.g., the production rate of pre-existing nearby wells would drop to a level which would not support existing land uses or planned uses for which permits have been granted)? c) Substantially alter the existing drainage pattern 1,5 X ofthe site or area, including through the alteration ofthe course of a stream or river, in a manner which would result in substantial erosion or siltation on-' or off-site? d) Substantially alter the existing drainage pattern 1,5 X of the site or area, including through the altemtion of the course of a stream or river, or substantially increase the rate or amount of surface runoff in a manner which would result in flooding on-or off-site? e) Create or contribute runoff water which would 1,5 X exceed the capacity of existing or planned stonnwater drainage systems or provide substantial additional sources of polluted runoff? f) Otherwise substantially degrade water quality? 1,5 X g) Place housing within a lOO-year flood hazard 2-MapN6 X Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan Page 19 Initial Study area as mapped on a federal Flood Hazard Boundary or Flood Insurance Rate Map or other flood hazard delineation map? h) Place within a 100-year flood hazard area 2-MapN6 X structures which would impede or redirect flood flows? i" i) Expose people or structures to a significant risk 2-MapN8 X· of loss, injury or death involve flooding, including flooding as a result of the failure of a levee or dam or being located within a 1 OO-y~ar flood hazard area? j) Inundation by seiche, tsunami, or mudflow? 2-MapN6 X k) Result in stream bank instability? 1,5 X DISCUSSION: The proposed revisions to the BPTP recommend minor physical improvements that involve minimal construction activities within the public right-of-way that is located within a fully developed and or previously disturbed area. It is not anticipated that the improvements will create any new hydrology and water quality impacts·. Once fully developed, all individual components of the BPTP that the City is seeking to implement would be further reviewed for potential impacts, and additional CEQA analysis will be determined at that time. All development is required to comply with building codes that address flood safety issues. Development projects are required to implement Best Management Practices (BMPs) for construction activities as specified by the California Storm Water Best Management Practices Handbook (CASQA, 2003) and/or the Manual of Standards for Erosion and Sediment Control Measures (ABAG, 1995). The BMPs include measures guiding the management and operation of construction sites to control and minimize the potential contribution of pollutants to stonn runoff from these areas. These measures address procedures for, controlling erosion and sedimentation and managing all aspects of the construction process to ensure control of potential water pollution sources. All development projects must comply with all City, State and Federal standards pertaining to stonn water run-off and water quality. Mitigation Measures: None Required '. J. LAND USE AND PLANNING Issues and Supporting Information Resources Sources Potentially Potentially Less Than ·No Significant Significant Significant Impact Would the project: Issues Unless. Impact Mitigation Incorporated a) Physically divide an established community? 1,5 X b) Conflict with any applicable land use plan, 1,2,3,4,5 X policy, or regulation of an agency with jurisdiction over the project (including, but not limited to the general plan, specific plan, local coastal program, or zoning ordinance) adopted for the purpose of avoiding or mitigating an environmental effect? Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan Page 20 Initial Study Issues and Supporting Information Resources Sources Potentially Potentially Less Than No Significant Significant Significant Impact Would the project: Issues Unless Impact Mitigation Incorporated c) Contlict with any applicable habitat 1,2 X conservation plan or natural community conservation plan? d) Substantially adversely change the type or 1,5 X intensity of existing or planned land use in the area? e) Be incompatible with adjacent land uses or with 1,5 X the general character of the surrounding area, including density and building height? t) Contlict with established residential, 1,5 X recreational, educational, religious, or scientific uses of an area? g) Convert prime farmland, unique farmland, or 1,2,3 X farmland of statewide importance (fannland) to I 'non-agricultural use? DISCUSSION: The proposed revisions to the BPTP recommend minor physical improvements that involve minimal construction activities within the public right-of-way that is located within a fully developed and or previously disturbed area and does not impact the existing land 'uses within the City. The improvements are intended to compliment and enhance the existing conditions and are not anticipated to create any land use impacts. Once fully developed, all individual components of the BPTP that the City is' seeking to implement would be further reviewed for potential impacts, and additional CEQA analysis will be determined at that time. Mitigation Measures: None Required K. MINERAL RESOURCES Issues and Supporting Information Resources Sources Potentially Potentially Less Than No Impact Significant a) b) Significant Significant Would the project: Issues Unless Impact Mitigation Incorporated Result in the loss of availability of a known 1,2 mineral resource that would be of value to the region and the residents of the state? Result in the loss of availability of a locally-1,2 important mineral resource recovery site delineated on a local genera] plan, specific plan or other land use plan? DISCUSSION: The City of Palo Alto has been classified by the California Department of Conservation (DOC), Division of Mines and Geology (DMG) as a Mineral Resource Zone 1 (MRZ-l). This designation signifies that there are no aggregate resources in the area. The DMG has not classified the City for Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan Page 21 Initial Study X X other resources. There is no indication in the 2010 Comprehensive Plan that there are locally. or regionally valuable mineral resources within the City of Palo Alto. Mitigation Measures: None Required. L. NOISE Issues and Supporting Information Resources Sources ' Potentially Potentially Less Than No Impact Significant Significant Significant Would the project: Issues Unless Impact Mitigation Incorporated a) Exposure of persons to or generation of noise 1,2,12 X levels in excess of standards established in the local general plan or noise or4inance, or applicable standards of other agencies? b) Exposure of persons to or generation of 1,2,12 X excessive ground borne vibrations or ground borne noise levels? c) A substantial permanent increase in ambient 1,2,12 X noise levels in the proj ect vicinity above levels existing without the prQiect? d) A substantial temporary or periodic increase in 1,2,12 X ambient noise levels in the project vicinity above levels ,existing without the project? e) For a proj ect located within an airport land use 1 X plan or, where such a plan has not been adopted, would the project expose people residing or working in'the project area to excessive noise levels? f) For a project within the vicinity of a private 1 X airstrip, would the project expose people residing or working in the project area to excessive noise levels? g) Cause the average 24 hour noise level (Ldn) to 1 X increase by 5.0 decibels (dB) or more in an existing residentiai area, even if the Ldn would remain below 60 dB? h) Cause the Ldn to increase by 3.0 dB or more in 1 X an existing residential area, thereby causing the Ldn in the area to exceed 60 dB? i) Cause an increase of3.0 dB or more in an I X existing residential area where the Ldn currently exceeds 60 dB? j) Result in indoor noise levels for residential 1 X development to exceed an Ldn of45 dB? k) Result in instantaneous noise levels of greater 1 X than 50 dB in bedrooms or 55 dB in other rooms in areas with an exterior Ldn of 60 dB or greater? I) Generate construction noise exceeding the 1,12 X daytime background Leq at sensitive receptors by 10 dBA or more? Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan Page 22 Initial Study DISCUSSION: All development, including construction activities, must comply with the City's Noise Ordinance (P AMC Chapter 9.10), which restricts the timing and overall noise levels associated with construction activity. Short-term temporary construction that complies with the Noise Ordinance would result in impacts that are expected to be less than significant. The proposed revisions to the BPTP recommend minor physical improvements that involve minimal construction activities within the public right-of­ way that is located within a fully developed and or previously disturbed area. Other than elevated noise during temporary construction activities; development related to the BPTP will not create any new significant noise impacts. Once fully developed, all individual components of the BPTP that the City is seeking to implement would be further reviewed for potential impacts, and additional CEQA analysis will be detennined at that time. Mitigation Measures: None Required M. POPULATION AND HOUSING Issues and Supporting Information Resources Sources Potentially Potentially Less Than No Impact Significant Significant Significant Would the project: Issues Unless Impact Mitigation Incorporated a) Induce substantial population growth in an 1 X b) c) ., d) e) area, either directly (for example, by proposing new homes and businesses) or indirectly (for example, through 'ext~nsion of roads or other infrastructure)1 . Displace substantial numbers of existing 1 X housing, necessitating the construction of replacement housing elsewhere? Displace substantial numbers of people, 1 X necessitating the construction of replacement housing elsewhere? Create a substantial imbalance between 1 X emplQyed residents and jobs? Cumulatively exceed regional or local 1 X population projections? DISCUSSION: The proposed revisions to the BPTP recommend minor physical improvements that involve minimal construction activities within the public right-of-way that is located within a fully developed and or previously disturbed area; the plan does not encourage development and therefore will not create any new population and housing impacts. Once fully developed, all individual components of the BPTP that the City is seeking to implement would be further reviewed for potential impacts, and additional CEQA analysis will be detennined at that ,time. Mitigation Measures: None Required Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan Page 23 Initial Study N. PUBLIC SERVICES Issues and Supporting Information Resources Sources Potentially Potentially Less Than No Impact Significant Significant Significant Would the project: Issues Unless Impact Mitigation Incorporated Would the project result in substantial adverse physical impacts associated with the provision of new or physically,alterec;i governmental facilities, need for new or physically altered governmental fa~i1ities, the construction of which could cause significant environmental impacts, in order to maintain acceptable service ratios, response times or other perfonnance objectives for any of the public services: a) Fire protection? I X b) Police protection? 1 X c) Schools? 1 X d) Parks? I X . e) Other public facilities? 1 X DISCUSSION: The proposed revisions to the BPTP recommend minor physical improvements that involve minimal construction activities within the public right-of-way that is located within a fully developed and or previously disturbed area; the plan does not encourage growth and development and is not anticipated to generate significant numbers of new users as to create impacts to the existing public services for the City. The improvements are intended to encourage residents to better utilize the bike and pedestrian amenities that are throughout the City. Once fully developed, all individual components of the BPTP that the City is seeking to implement would be further reviewed for potential impacts, and additional CEQA analysis will be determined at that time. Mitigation Measures: None Required o. RECREATION Issues and Supporting Information Resources Sources Potentially Potential1y Less Than No Impact Significant Significant Significant Would the project: Issues Unless Impact Mitigation Incor'porated a) Would the proj eet increase the use of 1 X existing neighborhood and regional parks or other recreational facilities such that substantial physical deterioration of the facility would occur or be accelerated? b) Does the project include recreational 1 X facilities or require the construction or expansion of recreational facilities which might have an adverse physical effect on the environment? Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan Page 24 Initial Study DISCUSSION: The proposed revisions to the BPTP recommend minor physical improvements that involve minimal construction activities within the public right~of-way that is located within a fully developed and or . previously disturbed area. The plan does not encourage growth and development in the City and it is not anticipated to generate new users as to create impacts to the existing City recreational facilities. Once fully developed, all individual components of the BPTP that the City is seeking to implement would be further reviewed for potential impacts, and additional CEQA analysis will be determined at that time. . Mitigation Measures: None Required· P. TRANSPORTATION AND TRAFFIC Issues and Supporting Information Resources Sources Potentially Potentially Less Than No Impact Sign ifieant Significant SignifICant Would the project: Issues Unless Imp~ct Mitigation Incorporated a) Exceed the capacity of the existing 1,5 X circulation system, based on an applicable measure of effectiveness (as designated in a general plan policy, ordinance, etc.), taking into account all relevant components of the circulation system, includmg but not limited to intersections, streets, highways and freeways, pedestrian and bicycle paths, and mass transit? b) Conflict with an applicable congestion 1,5 X manageinent program, including but not limited to level of service standards and travel demand measures, or other standards established by the county congestion management agency for designated roads or highways? c) Result in change in air traffic patterns, 1,5 X including either an increase in traffic levels or a change in location that results in substantial safety risks? d) Substantially increase hazards due to a 1,5 X design feature (e.g., sharp curves or dangerous intersections) or incompatible uses (e.g., fann equipment)? e) Result in inadequate emergency access? 1,5 X 1) Result in inadequate parking capacity? 1,5 X g) Conflict with adopted policies, plans, or 1,2,5 X programs supporting alternative transportation (e.g., pedestrian, transit & bicycle facilities)7 h) Cause a local (City of Palo Alto) intersection 1,5 X to deteriorate below Level of Service (LOS) D and cause an increase in the average Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan Page 25 Initial Study stopped .delay for the critical movements by four seconds or more and the critical volume/c~pacity ratio (VIC) value to increase by 0.01 or more? i) Cause a local intersection already operating at 1,5 .X LOS E or F to deteriorate in the average stopped delay for the critical movements by four seconds or more? j) Cause a regional intersection to deteriorate 1,5 X from an LOS E or better to LOS F or cause critical movement delay at such an intersection already operating at LOS F to increase by four seconds or more and the critical VIC value to increase by 0.01 or more? k) Cause a freeway segment to operate at LOS F 1,5 X or contribute traffic in excess of 1 % of segment capacity to a freeway segment already operating at LOS F? 1) Cause any change in traffic that would 1,5 . X increase the Traffic Infusion on Residential Environment (TIRE) index by 0.1 or more? m) Cause queuing impacts based on a 1,5 X n) 0) p) comparative analysis between the design queue length and the available queue storage capacity? Queuing impacts include, but are not limited to, spillback queues at proj ect access locations; queues at tum lanes at intersections that block through traffic; queues at lane drops; queues at one intersection that extend back to impact other intersections, and spill back queues on ramps. Impede the development or function of 1,5 X planned pedestrian or bicycle facilities? Impede the operation of a transit system as a 1,5 X result of congestion? Create an operational safety hazard? 1,5 X DISCUSSION: The proposed revisions to the BPTP recommend minor physical improvements that involve minimal construction activities within the public right~of-way that is located within a fully developed and or previously disturbed area. It is not anticipated that the improve.t:nents will .create any new transportation impacts. The recommended improvements consider safety concerns of the pedestrian, cyclist, and vehicle driver and an improved bike network is .expected to improve the existing vehicle congestion. Once fully developed, all individual components of the BPTP that the City is seeking to implement would be further reviewed for potential impacts, and additional CEQA analysis will be determined at that time. Mitigation: None Required Q. UTILITIES AND SERVICE SYSTEMS Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Pl"an Page 26 Initial Study Issues and Supporting Information Resources Sources Potentially Potentially I Less Than No Impact a) b) c) d) e) f) g) h) Significant Significant Significant . Would the project: Issues Unless Impact Mitigation Incorporated Exceed wastewater treatment requirements of 1,5 X ,the applicable Regional Water Quality Control Board? Require or result in the construction Df new 1,5 X water or wastewater treatment facilities or expansion ~f existing facilities, the construction of which could cause significant envrronmental effects? Require or result in the construction of new 1,5 X storm water drainage facilities or expansion of existing facilities, the construction of whi~h could cause significant environmental effects? ~ . Have sufficient water supplies available to 1,5 X serve the project from existing entitlements and resources, or are new or expanded entitlements needed? Result in a determination by the wastewater 1,5 X treatment provider which serves or may serve the project that it has inadequate capacity to serve the project's projected demand in addition to the provider's existing commitments? Be served by a landfill with sufficient 1,5 X permitted capacity to accommodate the project's solid waste disposal needs? Comply with federal, state, and local statutes 1,5 X and regulations related to solid waste? Result in a substantial physical deterioration 1,5 X of a public facility due to increased use as a result of the project? DISCUSSION: The proposed revisions to the BPTP recommend minor physical improvements that invplve minimal construction activities within the public right-of-way that is located within a fully developed and or previously disturbed area. The plan does not encourage growth and development in the City and it is not anticipated to increase the demand· on existing utilities and service systems or impact these services. Once fully' developed, all individual components of the BPTP that the City is seeking to implement would be further reviewed for potential 'impacts, and additional CEQAanalysis will be determined at that time. Mitigation Measures: None Required R. MANDATORY FINDINGS OF SIGNIFICANCE Bicyc1e and Pedestrian Transportation Plan Page 27 Initial Study Issues and Supporting Information Resources Sources Potentially Potentially Less Than No Impact a) b) c) Significant Significant Significant Would the project: Issues Unless Impact Mitigation Incorporated Does the project have the potential to 1,2,3,4,5,10 X degrade the quality of the environment, substantially reduce the habitat of a fish or wildlife species, cause a fish or wildlife population to drop below self-sustaining levels, threaten to eliminate a plant or animal community, reduce the number or restrict the range of a rare or endangered plant or animal or eliminate important examples of the major periods of California history or prehistory? Does the project have impacts that are '1 X individually limited, but cumulatively considerable? ("Cumulatively considerable" means that the incremental effects of a project are considerable when viewed in connection with the effects of past projects, the effects of other current projects, and the effects of probable future projects)? Does the project have environmental effects 1,5 X which will cause substantial adverse effects on human beings, either directly or indirectly? DISCUSSION: The proposed revisions to the BPTP recommend minor physical improvements that involve minimal construction activities within the public right-of-way that is located within a fully developed and or previously disturbed area. As discussed in the Biological Resources section, this project is anticipated to have a less than significant impact on sensitive wildlife and plant habitats because the project improvements fall within an area that is already disturbed. ' The project's cumulative impacts are limited to the ORO emissions. A project of this minor scope is not anticipated to create cumulatively considerable impacts of any other nature. See the Greenhouse Gas Emissions section for further discussion. Once fully developed, all individual compbnents of the BPTP that the City is seeking to implement would be further reviewed for potential impacts, and additional CEQA analysis wlll be determined at that time. Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan Page 28 Initial Study DETERMINATION On the basis of this initial evaluation: I find that the proposed project. COULD NOT have a significant effect on the X environment, and a NEGATIVE DECLARATION will be prepared. I find that 'although the proposed Pl"9ject could have a significant effect on the environment, there will not be a significant effect in this case because revisions in the project have been made by or agreed to by the project proponent. A MITIGATED NEGATIVE DECLARATION will be prepared. I find that the proposed project MAY have a significant effect on the environment, and an ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT REPORT is required. I find that the proposed project MAY have a "potentially significant impact" or "potentially significant unless mitigated" impact on the environment, but at least one effect: 1) has been adequately analyzed in an earlier document pursuant to applicable legal standards, and 2) has been addressed by mitigation measures based on the earlier analysis as described on attached sheets. An ENVIRONMENTAL IMP ACT REPORT is required, but it must analyze only the effects that remain to be addressed. I find that 'although the proposed . project could have a significant effect on the environment, because all potentially significant effects (a) have been analyzed adequately in an earlier EIR or NEGATIVE DECLARATION pursuant to applicable standards, and (b) have been avoided or mitigated pursuant .to that earlier EIR or NEGATIVE DECLARATION, including revisions or mitigation measures that are imposed upon the proposed project, nothing further is required. Project Planner . Date Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan Page 30 Initial Study Source ID Comment / Revision Response Public Comment 1 Remove references to Ross-Louis Cubberly BB, replace with Ross Road Bike Boulevard Revised references in report (Chapters 6-7); Public Comment Show future potential connection and/or short-term ideas for making connection to California Avenue/Newell Road for Ross Road Bicycle Boulevard. Added (long-term) recommendation for trail connection through Jordan campus on proposed bikeway map; reviewed Jordan bond measure plans (no material impact on trail feasibility). Note: This trail connection would most likely require ROW aquisition Shorter-term routing options are either Middlefield or Louis Rd. Unclear what measures would be appropriate, if any, beyond signage.Parks Commission 2 Add Sterling Canal and Barron Park Connector Trail segments to Proposed Network Included to network; revised proposed trail mileage and cost references; added as a related project to existing relevant priority projects. Added two creek bridge crossings (at Barron and Matadero) as ABC projects, although not high priority.Parks Commission 3 Add policy statement concerning future potential trail connection between El Camino Park through Transit Center to Caltrain/Paly HS path Include supportive policy language under Objective 3 in Chapter 2; repeat in Chapter 5 Recommended Policies and Programs; and in Chapter 6 sub-area discussionParks Commission 4 Add recommendation for lighting Lefkowitz Tunnel as short-term improvement for park connectivity due to 101 skylight displacement Included in description of Existing Trail Access Improvements priority project TR- 3; in Chapter 5 discussion on trails; in Chapter 6 sub-area discussion Parks Commission Include labels of key destinations in Map 6-1, such as….Added destinations to Map 3 (Existing Conditions). Do not recommend adding info/labels to 6-1 as additional information about specific projects and spot improvements has been added. Avoiding overcrowding on map.Public Comment 5 Network omissions in Monroe Park neighborhood; general lack of discussion of issues in neighborhood, including access to San Antonio Shopping Center Revised proposed network map now includes the correct location and extents of the Dinah's/Summerhill/Palo Alto Bowl Class I pathway. Sections of Monroe Drive and Cesano Court added as a proposed Bicycle Boulevard spur from El Camino Real. Alta to Include greater discussion of neighborhood connectivity issues in Priority Pedestrian Areas (School Zones) and in Sub-Area discussion within Chapter 6.Public Comment 6 Prioritize Wilkie Way segment south of Charleston Road of proposed Bicycle Boulevard with current BB project Revise project description for BB-1 to include new segment as part of initial phase? Public Comment 7 Barron Park sidewalks -map is "wrong" there are existing sidewalk segments and we do not want sidewalks Comment noted. Map in Chapter 3 does not discern which side of the street has a sidewalk gap. The report/plan is not recommending new sidewalks in Barron Park, but identifies the gap and potential need for pedestrian improvements through additional community outreach and creative solutions.PABAC (Paul Goldstein's email) 8 In several places, a bike lane with shared parking is mentioned at a 12' width. Although the Cal MUTCD allows lesser width, the VTA Bicycle Technical Guidelines recommend a minimum 13' width for low-speed streets, and this should be the Palo Alto minimum standard. I would rather see sharrows than 12' shared parking lanes. Change language in Appendix A to identify preferred sharrow placement 13' from face of curb where parking exists to comply with VTA Technical Guidelines. Unclear how to proceed with further emphasizing removal or modification to existing sub-standard bike lanes. 5' bike lane next to 7' parking lane may be sufficient/preferred for streets with low parking turnover and/or higher traffic volumes. May review plan for language and reference that these cases need to be reviewed by PABAC and CSTSC (when relevent to school commuting) on a case-by-case basis.PABAC (Paul Goldstein's email) 9 Page A-4 A buffered bike lane is further separated from a travel or parking lane by a striped “shy zone.” The buffered zone can be demarcated with hatched striping and/or raised pavement markings (bots dots) or soft hit posts. Strongly object to delineating bicycle facilities with soft hit posts. These can be a definite hazard. Likewise, I do not like bots dots on bike facilities. Comment noted. Agreed that bot dots are not preferrable and reference can be removed. Soft hit posts would not automatically be incorporated and would need further evaluation on case-by-cas basis. Soft hit posts can be a useful tool for providing greater visual and physical separation from trafficbut is heavily dependent on context and facility details. Report will indicate indicating potential as a hazard and a recommendation to review with PABAC on a case-by-case basis as installation potential emerges. PABAC (Paul Goldstein's email) 10 Page A-38 Trail/Shared Use Path Lighting Any trail built with transportation funding must be open 24/7 and should be lighted. Added language. PABAC (Paul Goldstein's email) 11 Page 6-30 Alma Street: Add Class III signage and markings south of Lytton Avenue, and provide enhanced bicycle lanes and/or a Class I trail adjacent to Caltrain north to El Camino Real. I would also like specific mention of a continuation of the sharrows from Homer to Lytton, over the University Ave overpass. Added language in identified section. PABAC (Paul Goldstein's email) 12 Homer/Channing couplet: Prioritize this corridor with the goal of implementing enhanced bikeway facilities; at minimum, consider two-way bicycle travel on Homer Avenue from Alma Street to either (a converted two-way) High Street or to Emerson Street to connect with downtown. PABAC is on record as supporting a contra-flow bike lane to High, and conversion of High to two-way. I would prefer to see the other alternative removed. Agreed that doing nothing but the contraflow lane is problematic and that either extending to Emerson or conversion of High Street to two-way traffic would be necessary. PABAC is on record as not supporting a contra-flow lane to Emerson, and prefers conversion of High Street to two-way traffic. Staff will conduct a more detailed assessment of both alternatives and evaluate sightlines at the parking lot exit, and finalize the details prior to future implementation. Attachment C Draft Final Plan Comments Since Nov 2011 Council Meeting 1 Source ID Comment / Revision Response Attachment C Draft Final Plan Comments Since Nov 2011 Council Meeting Public Comment (Penny / PTA) 13 Concerned with sharrows for school commutes - not visible enough. Also, continue to have concerns with potential for cycletracks and confusion among youth. Comment noted. No significant changes identified, although case-by-case implementation should consider shorter spacing standard for sharrows along the school commute network. Similarly, carefull evaluation of cycletracks is needed. Both comments can be reviewed more thoroughly at school sites through the SR2S VERBS Project. Note: No cycletracks are expressly recommended in this Plan; they are simply an option to consider along several corridors. PABAC (Paul Goldstein's email) 14 Page 6-38 Bol Park Path: Improve accessibility at Miranda Road and Laguna Avenue (removal of existing trail barriers and curb ramp upgrades). The City should work with Stanford University to reach agreement on extending the current month-to-month lease. There should be specific mention of a connection to the VA hospital from this path. This connection would serve workers and at the VA and others. This has been discussed at PABAC many times, and I believe the VA is on-board with opening up the gate at their side. This is referenced in project TR-4 on page 7-7, but the reference in chapter 6 is not consistent with that. Revised 6-38 to be consistent with comment/priority project description. PABAC (Paul Goldstein's email) 15 Addison Avenue: Once (and if) a dedicated facility is developed on the Homer/Channing couplet, remove from the bikeway network along with the proposed Melville Avenue bicycle boulevard further south (providing better network spacing and connectivity to both the Homer Avenue and Embarcadero Road undercrossings)... Addison Ave, as well as several other well-documented streets in our current network, have sub-standard bike lanes that actually are hazardous, create the wrong impression for both drivers and school children, and should be removed. At the very least, substandard lanes on these streets should be replaced with sharrows. This has been a long-term priority of PABAC's and I am surprised it did not make it into the plan in an emphatic way. Comment noted. Add language to indicate either removal from network (bases on changes specified) OR modification to comply with preferred cross section. Whether it's sharrows or a modified cross section with narrower travel lanes and more balanced bike lanes (see Chapter 5) TBD by SR2S VERBS project or with direction from City staff. PABAC (Paul Goldstein's email) 16 Page 6-42 Palo Alto High to the Castilleja-Park Bicycle Boulevard: Improve the unsignalized crossing and connection to the Embarcadero Road trail. The bike path should be called the Caltrain bike path, not the Embarcadero Road trail. The unsignalized crossing, is at Churchill, I presume. Add language for improving intersection (an identified spot improvement location). Review plan for consistent reference to trail as Caltrain bike path. PABAC (Paul Goldstein's email) 17 Page 7-8 The Everett Avenue BicycleBoulevard is on the map, and is referenced several time, but it is not listed as a priority project. Given that the other east-west bike routes in the downtown area are on busy streets with lots of traffic signals, I think this is a high priority project. This corridor is not identified as a high Bicycle Boulevard priority project since it already has several traffic calming elements and bicycle priority treatments, and is assumed to be "implemented" in large part by BB-2 - Comprehensive Signage and Wayfinding. That said, it's deteriorated pavement condition makes it a high priority maintenance project (R-5), and thus should be considered a short-term priority if the corridor is scheduled for repaving by Public Works. It's a minor distinction, but I think it's the right one to make. CC - Pat Burt 18 Add language in Chapter 2 on the "Why", including more emphasis on the wide-ranging benefits of walking and biking Added section on benefits in Chapter 1 CC - Pat Burt 19 Expand bike parking discussion. Including reference to existing cost-sharing program The recommendations section will be expanded to include more detail of parking types, land use code references and standards, and a refined approach to implementing citywide. Proposed changes to the Municipal Code are provided in a new Appendix (Appendix B, all others slide down a letter). Existing private property cost-sharing program is informal, and a program could be created and would be great to highlight for commercial shopping center access improvements.CC - Pat Burt 20 Add recreational value to plan Comment noted. Added language in Chapter 5 to supplement "user types" discussion with section on importance and value of recreational riding in Palo Alto area. Also included in benefits discussion in Chapter 1.CC - Pat Burt 21 Reference East Palo Alto gap in facilities Add in Chapter 6 sub-area discussion. Unclear of specific gaps referred to, although several do exist. CC - Pat Burt 22 Add specific references to Alpine Road, Stanford/280 gaps and connections. Highlight further in Neighboring Community Connections sections in Chapters 3, 5, and 6. Alta needs guidance on what to show or recommend along Apline Road since the decision by San Mateo County to refuse Stanford mitigation funds.CC - Holman 23 Most comments addressed by previous public speakersCC - Holman 24 More reference to El Camino real narrow sidewalks Comment noted. Language in Chapters 3, 5, and 6 will be strengthened. CC - Schmid 25 Need more emphasize on east-west connectivity, including consideration of Matadero Creek trail for Bay to Ridge Trail designation Agreed. East-west connectivity support will be emphasized in the plan with recommendations to complete the Bay to Ridge Trail . A graphic will be included in the revised draft highlighting other potential corridors, which may likely include: - the SFJPA trail concept/Sand Hill Road/Alpine Road - Civic Loop Concept consisting of Channing/Homer/Caltrain path/California Ave - Existing Bay to Ridge Trail alignment - Bol Park Path/Hanover Street/Frye's connection/Matadero Creek Trail/Matadero Creek ABC - Charleston/Arastradero corridor 2 Source ID Comment / Revision Response Attachment C Draft Final Plan Comments Since Nov 2011 Council Meeting CC - Schmid 26 Wants discussion of "what went wrong in the past" in terms of funding for creek trails Comment noted. Do not recommend adding that language, but instead focusing on strategies (i.e. feasibility studies) that will position the City best to compete for fundingCC - Schmid 27 Add reference to LEED-ND Comment noted. Will add LEED-ND status and include recommendation to explore for private/public partnerships in report.CC - Schmid 28 In regard to community survey in Appendix C, not a true cross section of public. Explore adding a question or two to existing "Services and Accomplishements" annual survey and report Comment noted. Can add under recommended programs and policies (Evaluation) in Chapter 5 CC - Shephard 29 Greater emphasis on Rules of Road enforcement, for bikes and all roadway users Reinforce/expand recommendations under Enforcement in Chapter 5, Recommended Programs and PoliciesCC - Shephard 30 Wondering why Quarry Road ABC is not included in Priority Projects, since it was discussed in Stanford Hosptital EIR and previous plan? Comment noted. Identified as a spot improvement and to coordinate with El Camino Park and Palo Alto Transit Center to develop "through" access between Downtown and Stanford Shopping CenterCC - Scharf 31 Agrees with City Council comments mentioned above to improve bike parking and east/west trails discussions and emphasis. Agreed. See previous responses. CC -Scharf 32 Hesitant to approve of "non-motorized" travel mode language in plan based on potential future of electric bikes Comment noted, however non-motorized is a well-accepted term and not in the title of the report. We could remove all references to non-motorized travel, OR identify first reference and add footnote explaining that it does not nor is meant to preclude use by electric assist bicycles.CC - Price 33 Commented on need to address relationship with health, potential for health impact assessments Added language with further emphasis on comprehensive benefits of walking and biking CC - Klein 34 Prefer that you use professional judgement when reviewing and incorporating comments. Don't include them if you do not think they are appropriate, just document reasons why. Agreed and noted. This reference is most applicable to specific treatments and innovative facility types and guidance under existing CAMUTCD. Alta and Staff do not propose any changes or specific treatmetns in the plan. Many comments raise valid concerns which are articulated in the plan. Several facility types identified are neither straightforward and easy, nor to be completely dismissed automattically. We anticipate detailed conversation and review with PABAC on all potential project with non-standardt treatments, but stress that the Plan include multiple options for consideration and not include direct, blanket recommendations on specific corridors.CC -Yeh 35 Refine (add nuance) to "Friends of" recommendation. This is important. Agree. To include in Chapter 5 Recommended Policies and Programs. Will also expand discussion in Chapter 7 with regard to private/public partnership opportunities and specific mechanisms.CC - Espinosa 36 Emphasize that further outreach will be conducted during implementation. Most other comments already addressed. Outreach summary to be revised based on additional efforts in 2012 and with each significant project.City Council 37 Add reference to past Parks Commission meetings in Chapter 1, Appendix C Add, along with additional meetings with Parks Commission and PTC meetings. 3 Source ID Comment / Revision Response Attachment C Draft Final Plan Comments Since Nov 2011 Council Meeting Name ID Page #Comment Response Chapter 2 Paul Goldstein 2 2-2 I would like Objective 3 to be expanded out of its purely recreational focus, I suggest: Objective 3: Develop a core network of shared paths, bikeways, and traffic-calmed streets that connects business and residential districts, schools, parks, and open spaces and promotes healthy, active living. Changed to, "Develop a core network of shared paths, bikeways, and traffic- calmed streets that connects business and residential districts, schools, parks, and open spaces to promote healthy, active living." Paul Goldstein 3 2-7 Suggest changing the following sentence: "with innovation also comes the need for additional education and outreach, which will be especially important as IF the City introduces new types of pedestrian and bicycle facilities/designs." Changed to clarify that the facilities may not be familiar to Palo Alto residents, independent of how 'new' they are, "which will be especially important as the City introduces types of pedestrian and bicycle facilities/designs that are new to Palo Alto residents." Paul Goldstein 4 2-8 Table 2-1 and Table E-1 seem to be the same table. Remove duplicate. Table 2-1 only has information for the Transportation Element. Removed that section from Table E-1 and referenced Table 2-1 in the appendix. Chapter 3 Paul Goldstein 5 3-2 What is the extensive trail network "behind a recent development near Loma Verde Avenue and Matadero Creek"? I am not familiar with this? Is this correct?Changed to, "planned trail connections in and around Sterling Creek" PABAC 6 3-3 Map 3-1 "Evergreen Park" should be replaced with "California Ave Shopping." The "Jewish Community Center" location downtown is misplaced. It should be moved to the "mixed use" zone at Charleson-San Antonio.Incorporated Rafael 32 3-5 Identify pedestrian gap/improvements along West Bayshore between East Palo Alto and Channing. Sidewalk gap added to Map 3-2 Pedestrian Existing Conditions. CM Keller 7 3-11 Consider Early Ped Release signal timing features in the future The Plan recommends Leading Pedestrian Interval signals in Section 3.1.3 PABAC 8 3-15 and throughout: Replace "Embarcadero Bike Path" with "Caltrain Bike Path".Incorporated Paul Goldstein 9 3-23 Map 3-4 Hanover Street does not have a Class I bike path from Page Mill to the junction of the Class I path to Matadero. The east side of Hanover has a wide sidewalk that acts as a bike path, however will be changed to reflect only the striped bike lane. Chapter 4 Andrew Boone 10 4-x Update in-trip from new studies. Update data for children biking to school for year 2011. Updated with ACS 2006-2010 data; new data for school commute trips not available. Chapter 5 PABAC 11 5-1 The committee strongly endorses the high priority placed on data collection, and is very pleased to see it in the document. Data collection is also an essential tool to be used in analyzing the success of any project, and particularly projects that employ innovative treatments. More on this may be found in Alan Wachtel's comments below. Added, "Data collection, including traffic speeds and volumes, crashes, compliance, delay, or other factors is also an essential tool for analyzing the success of any project, particularly projects that employ innovative or new treatments." Alan Wachtel 12 5-1 Data collection needs to include more than just counts. Where safety improvements are implemented, and particularly for experimental or innovative facilities, it should include any before- and-after measurements of bicyclist and motorist roadway position, crashes (if any), compliance, conflicts, delay, aggressive behavior, or other variables, as appropriate, to determine whether the installation has produced the desired effect. Added, "Data collection, including traffic speeds and volumes, crashes, compliance, delay, or other factors is also an essential tool for analyzing the success of any project, particularly projects that employ innovative or new treatments." CM Fineberg 13 5-1 Traffic tests should be done so we have the ability to understand what impacts can be. Be careful of social networks and panic response. Tests will always have opponents so tests can be relied upon the absence of common sense. Alan Wachtel 14 5-2 "Similar early coordination within the City has provided for the equivalent of a future cycletrack facility on San Antonio Road between Charleston Road and Middlefield Road, planned for implementation in 2012." What is this all about?Changed to "future bikeway facility" Chair Martinez 57 5-2 Look at new Comp Plan priority policies for multi-modal streets Added a note about the City's new focus on MMLOS in Table 2-1 and discussion about need for data collection in Chapter 5 under Engineering. Alan Wachtel 15 5-12 "The bicycle network should accommodate…" This is a laudable sentiment with which no one could disagree. The types of facilities identified as suitable for less confident bicyclists, however, in reality often present greater hazards and challenges than conventional ones. Modified to highlight that some cyclists are not comfortable riding on streets with large number of motor vehicles or high vehicular speeds. There is considerable support that bicycle boulevards are less dangerous than major streets. Alan Wachtel 16 5-12 "Recent development in bicycle facility planning and design have focused largely on one principle: separating bicyclists - visually, psychologically, and physically-from automobile traffic." It is not generally possible to separate bicyclists fully from automobile traffic. Interactions must still occur at intersections and driveways, and by concentrating these interactions into a confined space, rather than allowing merging at a safe time and location, "separation" runs the risk of intensifying the conflict. Added, ", or on mixing bicyclists with low volumes of traffic traveling at low speeds." Treatments such as bike boxes and intersection through-markings improve visibility at intersections and create visually separated space. Alan Wachtel 17 5-13 "According to the bicycle coordinator with the City of Portland, OR: 'Riding a bicycle should not require bravery. Yet, all too often, this is the perception among cyclists and noncyclists alike…" It is unclear whether the speaker endorses the view that routine bicycling on streets is a dangerous activity that requires bravery, or is merely describing a prejudice. But reinforcing this attitude would certainly be a deterrent to cycling and should not be part of the plan. Comment noted. This quotation is intended to indicate that riding a bicycle should not be a dangerous activity or one that people are scared of, and that people have a perception that it is dangerous. The recommendations in this Plan improve facilities for less-confident bicyclists. Attachment C - Pt. 2 4 Source ID Comment / Revision Response Attachment C Draft Final Plan Comments Since Nov 2011 Council Meeting Alan Wachtel 18 5-13 "Based on a theory developed in Portland and corroborated elsewhere in the U.S., planners often refer to four types of bicyclists…" How are these descriptive categories corroborated? Again, the implication of a 'strong and fearless' category is that ordinary cycling requires fearlessness or indifference to risk, and this is an attitude that ought to be discouraged.Comment noted. PABAC 79 5-13 There are references to "Civic Loop". Please define this term/concept and justify it. What and Why? Added text in 5.2.2, "• The Civic Loop. This loop concept would promote a continuous loop in the city's center, to help people navigate by bicycle. It would link the existing Embarcadero/Caltrain trail, the Castilleja- Park-Wilkie Bicycle Boulevard, and the California Avenue Enhanced Bikeway with consistent wayfinding." Alan Wachtel 19 5-13 "Cultivating these potential ['interested but concerned'] bicyclists demands both engineering solutions that reduce motor vehicle interactions and education/encouragement efforts to proactively engage and support reluctant populations." 'Separation' is not the only way to reduce motor vehicle interactions: bicycle boulevards are an excellent way to do so without the problematic engineering of 'separated' facilities. Education and encouragement efforts should attempt to reduce unwarranted fears and should provide opportunities to increase skills. After all, the majority of bicycle travel still must take place on streets without special facilities. Comment noted. Bicycle boulevards reduce motor vehicle interactions by promoting bicycling on streets with low traffic speeds and volumes. The Plan provides a network that serves as an alternative to streets without special facilities, which improves visibility and drivers' awareness of bicyclists. Alan Wachtel 20 5-14 "Like most other U.S. cities, however, existing design and funding constraints have thus far limited opportunities for substantially expanding trail and protected on-street networks (and education/encouragement programs) to attract even more bicyclists." The word "trail" is imprecise, since it is not a defined type of bicycle facility and carries inaccurate connotations of rustic seclusion. "Protected" is likewise imprecise, since the 'protection' breaks down at intersections and driveways. Comment noted. The use of "Trail" here is as an off-street route, such as the Bay Trail or Bay to Ridge Trail. The protection refers to the continuous element. Alan Wachtel 21 5-14 "In response to the need for innovation and advocacy…" NACTO is not a recognized practice-setting body like AASHTO or ITE; I doubt that many people, including transportation professionals, have ever heard of it before it developed the Urban Bikeway Design Guide. That guide was an ad-hoc effort, produced to provide a rationale for the roadway treatments it describes, which were specified in the RFP, rather than evaluated independently. It has been heavily promoted through political and public-relations efforts. Comment noted. NACTO was a collaborative process involving cities with direct experience implementing these types of facilities, which have been used in Europe for a long time and have established design practices. Alan Wachtel 22 5-14 "While all have been implemented in the U.S…." In California, it is the Caltrans Highway Design Manual (HDM) and California MUTCD that govern, by law, regardless of the funding source. In any case, the statement that "none are expressly prohibited or contrary" to standards is incorrect. For example, bike boxes require nonstandard duplicate stop lines and colorization in the travel lane. Buffered bike lanes employ a nonstandard striping and hatching scheme whose traffic law implications are murky. The HDM prohibits physically separated bike lanes. Cycletracks can, for the most part, be implemented safely only if intersections are signalized and display separate bicycle phases. The national MUTCD does not provide for bicycle signal heads. The MUTCD does, but only under strict warrants that would not necessarily be met for cycletracks. Cycletracks may also use nonstandard YIELD TO BIKES signs, whose efficacy has not been investigated. At http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/bikeped/mutcd_bike.ht m, FHWA describes whether certain bicycle facilities, signs, and markings are permitted by the national MUTCD, experimental, not allowed, or are not traffic control devices and therefore outside of its scope. Note that when the FHWA says that cycletracks, for instance, are consistent with the MUTCS, is not necessarily endorsing or approving these facilities. It is only saying that they can be implemented with existing approved traffic control devices, or that they are not traffic control devices and therefore not regulated by the MUTCD. There currently exists a procedure for experimenting with traffic control devices, by a Request to Experiment (RTW) to the FHWA and the California Traffic Control Devices Committee (CTCDC). There is no procedure for requesting permission from Caltrans to Modified section to discuss pros and cons of non-traditional facility types. PABAC 23 5-15 5.2.3 Bicycle Boulevards. Please consider changing the first sentence to a stronger endorsement: A network of bicycle boulevards is the most direct and cost-effective way to increase bicycle mode share, safety, and mobility. (Please see also comments below on Project BB-2).Added recommended sentence 5 Source ID Comment / Revision Response Attachment C Draft Final Plan Comments Since Nov 2011 Council Meeting PABAC 24 5-15 Please replace the purple Bicycle Boulevard and street sign illustration with standard signs. Rationale: Non-standard purple signs are inadvisable, and perhaps contrary to California law. Bicyclists expect green wayfinding signs; purple wayfinding signs are confusing. Purple street name signs are contrary to the Palo Alto standard of black lettering on a white background. When a street sign design changes, it generally means one has crossed into another city. Comment noted. Palo Alto Bicycle Boulevard signs have since changed to Blue. All wayfinding signs proposed are standard green. Purple signs are used in Berkeley and other jurisdictions in the Bay Area and are recognized as being identification for bicycle boulevards. In some jurisdictions the purple or blue signs are also used for wayfinding, but that is not proposed for Palo Alto. Paul Goldstein 25 5-15 I find distasteful, the statement "the City should establish and brand much of the network quickly…" "Branding" is not something the City needs to do or should be doing. We need to promote the network, and we need to provide wayfinding signage, but establishing a unique "Palo Alto brand" is contrary to our transportation responsibilities as a member of our region and partner in the regional transportation network.Removed the recommendation for branding the network. Alan Wachtel 26 5-17 Enhanced Bikeways "Enhanced" seems to be code for "nonstandard" and should be used with care. Bicycle stencil markings through intersections are inconsistent with the California MUTCD, and would have to be conducted through an RTE. The reason for dropping or dashing bike lanes at approaches to intersections is that right-turning motorists must merge toward the curb at a time and place where it is safe to do so, and bicyclists my need to merge left to avoid being to the right of right turns. I don't necessarily object to these stencils-after all, markers are sometimes used to guide left- turn lanes through intersections-but I'd like to see more information about their purpose and implementation. Comment noted. There are various standard treatments that are intended as guide lines through intersections. It is not anticipated that an RTE is necessary for such markings, however, if deemed necessary, the proper testing procedures will be followed. Alan Wachtel 27 5-17 Likewise with green colorized pavement, which has received interim approval from FHWA and the CTCDC, and can be used provided the proper notices are given and guidelines observed. How the green color is intended to affect bicyclists and motorist movements, and how it does affect them, remain unclear. My concern is precisely that the color will discourage proper merging movements; Palo Alto has an opportunity to study this question. Bike boxes are a fundamentally bad idea. As discussed above, they require nonstandard duplicate stop lines and colorization in the travel lane. "Promote bicycle priority" means cut to the head of the line. They are also sometimes presented as providing an opportunity for less confident bicyclists to merge away from the curb into the stream of traffic to avoid right-turn conflicts at intersections, or to position themselves for a left turn. All these claims may be true when the signal is red. If it is green, however, or if it is initially red but changes to green during the approach, the green bike lane marking directs bicyclists along the curb. Meanwhile, the green bike box and bike lane markings actively prevent motorists from merging safely to the curb or into the bike lane to begin a right turn, whether they're approaching on a green indication or stating up on a new green, in direct conflict with California traffic law. (I'm assuming that right turns on red are prohibited and that motorists obey the prohibition, which may be generous.) This arrangement also seems to guarantee right hook collisions. The NACTO Guide recognizes this conflict to the extend to recommending that a "Yield to Bikes" should (not "shall") be post- mounted "to reinforce that bicyclists have the right-of-way going through the intersection." The signs shown are nonstandard variants of similar signs to yield to pedestrians. But it is not Comment noted. Disagree about bike boxes being fundamentally a bad idea, and in some intersection configurations, may be appropriate. Bike Boxes have been shown in many studies to reduce the incidence of right-hooks by positioning bicyclists in front of turning vehicles. They are widely used in Portland and are used in other jurisdictions. 6 Source ID Comment / Revision Response Attachment C Draft Final Plan Comments Since Nov 2011 Council Meeting Alan Wachtel 28 5-18 Time-Restricted Bike Lanes Full-time parking restrictions would permit a full-time bike lane. "Dedicated bicycle space to one side of the street" is exactly the problem. With a one-way cycletrack, you have three destination movements for vehicles (left, right, through) positioned entirely to the left of the same three movements for bicyclists in the cycletrack. If the cycletrack is two-way (as p.5-12 says it would be), the number of conflicts multiples enormously. (This forms a striking contrast to more accepted innovations such as roundabouts, which seek to reduce the number of crossing conflicts.) These are the same conflicts, of course, that occur on sidewalks or sidepaths. Cycletracks may have some advantages compared to sidewalks: they're straight, while sidewalks are not always, and they're not shared with pedestrians or street furniture. They are also (sometimes) one-way. But against those advantages must be weighted bicyclists' higher speed and expectation of right-of-way at driveways and intersections. These conflicts can be reliably resolved only if every intersection is signalized and displays separate signal phases for bicyclists, and there are no driveways. The separate phases introduce additional delay for all modes, and right turns on red must be prohibited, which can lead to compliance problems. Traffic law does not require bicyclists to use the cycletrack, and those who recognize its dangers and ride in the street face narrower lanes, possible harassment by motorists, and confusion about whether to follow Roundabouts serve a different purpose, and can be quite challenging for bicyclists, depending on the number of lanes and exits. Cycletracks are recommended to complement the bike lane system and appeal to biyclists who are less comfortable riding in a main street with cars. Intersections along cycletracks must be well-designed individually. Alan Wachtel 29 5-18 "These facilities are more attractive to novice bicyclists..." Door- zone bike lanes, sidewalks, and wrong-way riding are also attractive to novice bicyclists. It is not clear that cycletracks are an improvement. The survey in Appendix C showing that 61 percent of respondents would feel safe riding on a cycletrack than in bicycle lane does not validate the design. Recognizing that they require a limited number of major intersections is unusual for this plan; there may be no corridors that qualify. Added need for proper design to reduce safety hazards while encouraging less- comfortable riders. Alan Wachtel 30 5-18 "The 2003 Bicycle Transportation Plan..." One of the basic principles of vehicular cycling (and of traffic law in general) is that bicyclists should not approach a conflict point from a direction and at a speed at which motorists cannot see them in time to avoid a collision. For example, a motorist who is scanning left before turning right at an intersection cannot see wrong-way bicyclists approaching from the right on the intersecting street or sidewalk, and likewise cannot see bicyclists on the motorist's street or the adjacent sidewalk who overtake in the motorist's rear blind spot. The consultants imply that through geometric design, traffic control devices, and educational outreach, motorists can be trained to look where they would not normally look and to see where they could not normally see. But there is little evidence that this is even cognitively possible, much less that motorists can be relied on to do it when their attention is necessarily occupied by traffic approaching from other directions. Facilities that implicitly rely on such claims need to be examined critically. A second significant risk from sidewalk riding is that it promoted wrong-way travel. Some "innovative" facilities also either If implemented with proper signs and intersection treatments, cycletracks improve safety and do provide a separated space for bicycling. Bike lanes have a similar danger from right-hook collisions. Alan Wachtel 31 5-19 "Understanding reasons for sidewalk riding…" Again the terms "protected" and "modern" may be misleading. The burden should be on the consultants to demonstrate why sidepaths, which have long been known to increase collision rates, and two-way cycletracks, which not only exacerbate intersection conflicts but incorporate wrong-way travel, are appropriate and safe at the recommended locations. Section 5.2.7 addresses the different design standards of cycletracks vs. sidepaths and sidewalks. Sylvia 5-30 Confirm this with City staff, PABAC representatives, and police. Maybe you have already worked through this with them? [Not sure we want to propose stings when Palo Alto has locations where sidewalk riding is allowed by posted signage (Middlefield) and areas where it is tolerated, even by the police. I may be wrong.Removed recommendation for sting of sidewalk bicycle riding. Chapter 6 Sylvia 6-1 numbers don't add up. Table 6.1 has been updated with latest project cost assumptions. However, the total project cost figure is necessarily an approximation, due to both the variation in Across Barrier Cost Estimates and the fact that a number of improvements are represented in multiple categories (i.e. a spot improvement that is also part of a bicycle boulevard project) and thus double counted. A note has been added below the table to explain this phenonemon. Sylvia 6-3 Map 6-1 seems to show Portage as the proposed route, but the text here designates Lambert. Please clarify in the text and on the map where the route is. Also, the map shows the proposed bikeway on Portage as going straight through to Park, but Portage curves around to Lambert. Not sure if your recommendation is to do something with the Fry's parking lot on Portage. Corrected to Portage. Route through parking lot is intentional, as specifics will be determined in construction plans. 7 Source ID Comment / Revision Response Attachment C Draft Final Plan Comments Since Nov 2011 Council Meeting Bill Courington 33 6-3 Several places, including Map 6-1 (6-3, Table 6-5 (6-10), 6-28, 6- 31. Reroute and extend future Kingsley Bike Boulevard to give direct access to Lucie Stern and Main Library/Cultural Center, eliminate the cost of a new signal at Kingsley-Webster-Melville- Parkinson. New route could be called Kingsley-Parkinson. While certain corridors have been identified as bicycle boulevards, this does not exclude short connections from being signed to provide specific access to nearby destinations. No change. CM Kellar 34 6-3 Match colors on Proposed Network to legend Use different color for Further Study Needed Class III Incorporated CM Kellar 35 6-3 Contraflow bike lane on Homer should include a westbound connection as well The Plan recommends allowing two-way bicycle travel on Homer from Alma to either a converted 2-way High Street or Emerson St. CM Fineberg 36 6-3 Add in Bike Map the W Bayshore Enhanced Bikeway from Edgewood Plaza to EPA Added to 6.4.1, "In addition, a sidewalk or Class I path should be provided along West Bayshore between East Palo Alto and Channing Avenue to provide access in the area around Edgewood Plaza." Alan Wachtel 37 6-5 "multiple sidepath segments are recommended…" If these paths are to serve bicyclists, what benefits do they offer to offset the well-known hazards of sidepaths due to intersection conflicts and wrong-way riding? An earlier draft described the visibility challenges as "huge". The restriction to "long, unobstructed frontages" does not seem to have been heeded. These facilties connect to other sidepath facilities and assume an appropriately high level of design. Alan Wachtel 38 6-6 "The BPTP 2011 recommends an emphasis on removal of and enhancement to existing substandard bike lanes…" What benefit will these nonstandard markings confer?Added, "that improve bicyclists’ visibility" Alan Wachtel 39 6-8 There is no virtue in attracting "interested but concerned" riders to facilities that are promoted as "separated" or "protected," but that intensify intersection conflicts and encourage wrong-way riding. Proper design of these facilities discourages wrong-way riding and improves safety. PABAC 40 6-11 Map 6-2 Street closure symbol (black triangle) at Lowell on Bryant Bicycle Boulevard is missing.Incorporated Alta 6-18 None Added shared space/festival street photo simulation and plan concept for Emerson Street/Ramona Street at surface parking lot N Rafael 32 6-21 Loosely identify long term pedestrian improvements along West Bayshore between East Palo Alto and Channing. Added to pedestrian map and to section 6.3.3 and 6.4.1. Robert Moss 1 6-23 Clarified sidewalk installations in Barron Park. Sidewalks in Barron Park not allowed without a vote of residents to install them, 1971. Concerned about bike boulevard on Matadero Road. El Camino & Matadero intersection improvements - concerned. Text specifies that. "City staff would work closely with the neighborhood to develop any proposed changes." Alan Wachtel 41 6-30 Bike boxes should not be installed at Lytton and Alma, or anywhere. The Walter Hays/Rinconada sidepath (under "Trails") crosses only one driveway (at the fire station), but it presents intersection conflicts at both ends, especially for wrong-way riders, and it may encourage two-way sidewalk riding at both ends. See previous bike box comment response. Cycletrack recommendations include a sufficiently high level of design. Alan Wachtel 42 6-30 Homer/Channing couplet. I agree that a contraflow bike lane on Homer would be workable and desirable, but it isn't currently allowed by the HDM. If Caltrans adopts a procedure for bikeway experiments, this would be a good opportunity for one. Comment noted. The HDM does not explicitly prohibit contraflow bike lanes. The contraflow lane would be treated as a two-way roadway. There are many examples of this type of facility nationwide and planning of the facility should account for cyclists entering and exiting it. Rob Robinson 43 6-31 Discussion of Park Boulevard and Matadero Avenue should be moved from NE to the NW detailed discussion.Incorporated PABAC 44 6-32 The map of southeast Palo Alto is cut off on the north side; it should extent to Oregon. Compare the quadrants map on page 6- 27.Incorporated Rob Robinson 45 6-32 Discussion of El Camino should be moved from NE to NW detailed discussion.Incorporated Paul Goldstein 46 6-33 Here and in several other places there is a note to "see Appendix A for additional guidance on retrofitting rolled curbed streets," but I do not see such guidance anywhere in Appendix A. The guidance is on the queuing streets sheet; added reference to citations in the document. Pamela Radin 47 6-33 6.4.2 Southeast Palo Alto Recommended Treatment and Locations Add - Adobe Creek Bridge Over Crossing The Adobe creek crossing is currently listed under the trails section. Pamela Radin 48 6-33 6.4.2 Southeast Palo Alto Re-enter "Stripe sharrow markings on Ames Avenue." Provides Bicycle access to back entrance of Palo Verde School. [Ames Sharrow called out in 6.1.3 p. 6-8&6-9. Info not carried over to above Section 6.4.2.]Incorporated Pamela Radin 49 6-34 6.4.2 Southeast Palo Alto Add: …"Provide a safer attractive connection between Midtown retail and Mitchell Park Library Provides direct access to Ramos Park and recreational opportunities to the North of Oregon Expwy. Added, "These routes provide an attractive connection between Midtown retail and Mitchell Park Library, as well as direct access to Ramos Park and recreational opportunities north of Oregon Expressway." Robert Neff 50 6-35 6.4.3 Southwest Palo Alto, El Camino Way - Meadow to Maybell The plan should address the connection from the end of Meadow to Maybell, on El Camino Way. Currently this is a narrow, 2-way street with parking on both sides. It carries at least half the Gunn HS traffic that goes up Meadow. I think it could benefit from sharrows. My suggestion is to add a bullet for this in the "Bike Lane/Sharrow Roadway" bullet section on page 6-39 for southwest Palo Alto. "El Camino Way - Consider Sharrows from Meadow to Maybell to enhance this safe-routes-to-schools connection."Added a recommendations for a Class III facility in this location. Rob Robinson 51 6-37 In the first paragraph, there is a missing parenthesis at the end.Incorporated Rob Robinson 52 6-38 Figure 5-18, the key box is too small to read, please enlarge.Incorporated 8 Source ID Comment / Revision Response Attachment C Draft Final Plan Comments Since Nov 2011 Council Meeting Alan Wachtel 53 6-39 El Camino Way and Los Robles. Why a shared use path, and how does consolidating bike lanes into a path constitute an enhancement? Traffic speeds and volumes indicate a need for higher-order bicycle facilities at this location. Combining the sidewalks would result in a shared use path, which could improve visibility of bikes and peds by consolidating users and providing high-quality crossings. A detailed analysis would be necessary prior to any significant reconfigureation of bicycle and pedestrian faciltities here. Rob Robinson 54 6-41 Bullet: Churchill Mall/Road crossing is probably meant to be "Churchill/Alma Crossing"Incorporated Alan Wachtel 55 6-43 Class I bikeway on the north side of Churchill Road. What is the Churchill Mall path? This sidepath would cross major driveways at Palo Alto High School and the Palo Alto Unified School District office. The Churchill Mall Path is within the Stanford recreation fields. It makes a connection between the Embarcadero Path to the fields, without requiring users to cross Churchill Avenue twice. CM Kellar 56 6-43 Consider widening bike lanes and sidewalks along El Camino Real Section 6.4.3 recommends evaluating Class II bike lanes on El Camino, and 6.4.4 recommends intersection through-markings on the roadway. In addition, sidewalk improvements and widening are recommended in 6.4.4. Chapter 7 Alan Wachtel 58 7-1 See my comments to p. 5-10 and to Appendix A. "Innovative" and "latest" are not equivalent to safe or effective. The reference to FHWA is misleading. The Secretary of Transportation has informally recommended the guide in the context of a press conference. There has been no technical or official approval.Comment noted. See previous responses. Bill Courington 59 7-2 Innovation criterion It's hard to understand what the preceding section means. I think it means: Projects tagged Innovation = yes are those that are likely to require an extra educational effort to convince the public and government of their benefits. Examples include green bike lanes and bike boxes. Innovation = yes does not affect a project's priority. Can the section be clarified? Changed to, "to help identify where innovative projects may require additional education…" Bill Courington 60 7-2 Institutional partnerships criterion This section should say whether Partnerships=High affects priority, or it's just an "attribute" of a project, similar to Innovation. It also seems to say that the Partnership attribute can be good (cost sharing) or bad (need approval) for a project, which isn't very helpful. Can the meaning and intent of the Institutional Partnerships criterion be clarified? Perhaps it should be split - something like Partner Funding and Inter-agency. Or the values of the criterion could be changed from Yes/No to Funding/Approval/No. Clarified that this improves the project ranking, but noted the increased need for support. Rob Robinson 61 7-3 ABC-7 Innovation: "Medium" should be changed to "varies"Incorporated Bill Courington 62 7-3 Project categories. I suggest adding this para after the list of categories. The plan does not prioritize project across categories. For example, it does not assert that a particular bicycle boulevard project is of higher priority than a cross-barrier connection, or that bicycle boulevards in general are higher priority than cross- barrier connections. Those decisions should be made by the City project by project. Agreed. The prioritzation is not intended to compare projects across categories, and these decisions are to be may by the City project by project. Bill Courington 63 7-3 Adobe Creek Overcrossing is marked Innovation=yes. I don't understand why. Highway bridges are commonplace. In addition, I suggest adding the following to the Project Description: In addition to recreation access, this project gives year-round access to the Google/Intuit employment center in Mountain View.This depends on the ultimate project, but innovation is a potential. No change. Alan Wachtel 64 7-4 Project TR-1 is a wide sidepath on Embarcadero Road from Newell Road to Middlefield Road. This may be the same as the Walter Hays/Rinconada sidepath discussed on p. 6-30. TR stands for the perhaps inappropriate "trail." This is the same path; changed name in Chapter 6. See previous response to comments on use of "trail."Alan Wachtel 65 7-6 Project TR-5 is the Churchill path discussed on p. 6-43.Changed name in Chapter 6. PABAC 66 7-8 Project BB-2 Bicycle Boulevard Comprehensive Signage and Markings. Change title to Signage and Markings for Future Bicycle Boulevards.Incorporated PABAC 67 7-8 Change description to: As an interim measure, sign appropriate segments of the future bicycle boulevard network streets (Map 6- 3, page 6-25) as Class III Bike Routes. Use California standard Bike Route signs. Some network segments may not be appropriate, for example. Webster near Embarcadero, which needs a signal for safe crossing of Embarcadero. Changed text to, "New text: As an interim measure, sign appropriate segments of the future bicycle boulevard network streets (Map 62 on page 6-11) as Class III Bike Routes. Use California standard Bike Route signs (CAMUTCD Sign D11-1). Some network segments may not be appropriate for interim treatments prior to other bicycle boulevard elements. For example, Webster Street requires a signal for safe crossing at Embarcadero. Streets developed as bike routes in anticipation of future bicycle boulevard improvements should follow the following minimum design standards:- Less than 3,000 cars per day- 85th percentile speeds of 30 mph or less- Pavement quality of fair or better (as determined by PCI and field review)- Provides reasonably safe connections to/from existing bikeways and destinations and across arterials " Alan Wachtel 68 7-9 Project BB-7, the Amarillo-Moreno Bicycle Boulevard, includes consideration of a bike box. Project BK-1 for a Charleston/Arastradero "enhanced bikeway" includes green lanes and intersection through markings, whose purpose, as previously discussed, should be defined. Intersection through markings are nonstandard. It also includes bike boxes, discussed in the comments to p. 5-17. These treatments are used in many jurisdictions throughout the country and are recommended because of their demonstrated benefit to bicyclists. They are discussed in Appendix A, Design Guidelines. 9 Source ID Comment / Revision Response Attachment C Draft Final Plan Comments Since Nov 2011 Council Meeting Sylvia 7-9 Amarillo - Moreno Bicycle Boulevard: "Consider bike box westbound on Amarillo Ave at Louis Road and eastbound on Moreno Avenue" - Please confirm this project. The intersections of Louis road at Amarillo and at Moreno are unsignalized. Should bike boxes go in at these intersections? Changed to, "Consider bicycle boulevard offset intersection treatments such as signs and pavement markings to assist with wayfinding at Louis Road where the route jogs." Alan Wachtel 69 7-10 Project BK-2, the California Avenue enhanced bikeway, suggests a cycletrack on a business street that has many intersections at cross streets and alleys, and parking that cannot be removed. The potential for conflicts is enormous. These treatments are used in many jurisdictions throughout the country and are recommended because of their demonstrated benefit to bicyclists. They are discussed in Appendix A, Design Guidelines. Alan Wachtel 70 7-10 Project BK-3, the Channing/Newell enhanced bikeway, proposes unspecified bicycle markings or a potential two-way cycletrack from the Homer/Channing enhanced bikeway to Jordan Middle School. What on earth can be the purpose of a two-way cycletrack, whose physical separation, whatever the details, would create innumerable turning conflicts at residential driveways, and whose wrong-way bicycle traffic would be a major hazard? This corridor has high motor vehicle speeds and volumes, and requires a higher- level of facility than standard bike lanes. Alan Wachtel 71 7-10 Project BK-4, the Lytton Avenue/Alma Street/Sand Hill Road enhanced bikeway, includes a possible cycletrack along the El Camino Park or Caltrain frontage. The details are unclear. How will the wrong-way and intersection issues be handled? Appendix A provides information about cycletrack at intersections, and the details will be determined by City engineers. Alan Wachtel 72 7-11 Project BK-7 proposes yet another potential cycletrack on Los Robles/El Camino Way between La Donna and West Meadow Drive, giving rise to the usual questions.Comment noted. See previous responses. Alan Wachtel 73 7-12 Project BK-9: another potential cycletrack on Fabian Way. What is the need?Comment noted. See previous responses. Alan Wachtel 74 7-14 Project INT-6, Churchill Avenue at El Camino Real, proposes another bike box.Comment noted. See previous responses. PABAC 75 7-16 Please add a project (PR-8?) to remove rigid (e.g., metal) bollards from entrances to bicycle paths and bridges. If blocking access to motorized vehicles is a genuine problem at a particular location, use a mechanism that is not hazardous to cyclists. Refer to Chapter 1000, Index 1003.1(16), of the Highway Design Manual for guidance and alternatives. The Manual section is currently in draft form, but is expected to be adopted around the end of March. Added, "Remove rigid bollards from entrances to bicycle paths and bridges. If blocking access to vehicles is a program at a particular location, a mechanism that is not hazardous to bicyclists should be used. The Draft Highway Design Manual, Chapter 1000, Index 1003.1(16) provides guidance and alternatives." Alan Wachtel 76 7-19 Project F-7 is a general feasibility/design study to assess potential for cycletrack design in Palo Alto. That should be a prerequisite to any of the specific cycletrack proposals in the plan. The Plan recommends data collection and consideration when developing cycletracks. Rob Robinson 77 7-21 Table 7- under Bicycle Boulevard, Traffic Calming, Quantity listed as 30. Should be a 3 (or a range 3-6 to be generous). Using 3 and a length of Park BB (3.25 miles) results in $115,375 which is close to stated $150,000 for BB-1 on page 7-7. Also, Bryant BB has three traffic calming means (two auto barriers, one circle). This will vary widely. Changed to 3, and added note, "Treatments will vary based on operational characteristics along the route; cost for planning purposes only. Treatments will vary based on operational characteristics along the route; cost for planning purposes only." Alan Wachtel 78 7-22 Bike boxes should not be included in the cost estimate table or the plan.See previous responses. Appendices PABAC 80 A-x Background: PABAC has serious concerns with many of the innovative treatments promoted by the current plan in Appendix A. Some of these treatments appear to violate known safety guidelines, such as minimizing the number and intensity of potential conflicts at intersections. Other might be effective in large urban environments where there are no driveways and all intersections are signalized, but unsuitable for locations in Palo Alto. We recommend that tried-and-true designs be used whenever feasible, and that innovative, nonstandard measures be considered only when there is a situation that cannot be treated by a standard solution or there is a clear expectation that the innovative treatment will be safer and more effective than a standard solution. Incorporating into Appendix A detailed design sheets for buffered bike lanes, bike boxes, and cycletracks is redundant because design may be found elsewhere, and the designs might be improved over the lifetime of the plan. In addition, there is no mention in Appendix A of bike boulevards, an accepted and Bicylce boulevard design guidelines added to Appendix A. Other comments - see previous responses. PABAC 81 A-x Retitle the appendix to something like "Options for Innovative Bicycle Facilities: The Appendix provides information about a variety of infrastructure; disagree that everything is innovative or that it needs to be marked in that way. PABAC 82 A-x Wherever possible, cross-reference design details to another document, rather than repeating them verbatim.Incorporated; the guidelines sheets refer to guidance documents. PABAC 83 A-x Identify currently unapproved treatments, acknowledge their potential disadvantages in Palo Alto, and emphasize the need for approved experimentation. Projects that are not explicitly allowed in the HDM or CAMUTCD are discussed and NACTO guidance provided. PABAC 84 A-x Specify that Palo Alto should always conform to applicable federal and state laws and standards. Comment noted. The Plan discusses the disadvantages of non-traditional facility types, as well as the benefits of experimentation, but does not provide specific recommendations for "innovative" treatments and doesn't commit or eliminate any specific treatments. 10 Source ID Comment / Revision Response Attachment C Draft Final Plan Comments Since Nov 2011 Council Meeting PABAC 85 A-x Specify that experimentation with currently unapproved facilities is welcome, provided that standard protocols for experimentation are observed. Added, "It should be noted that some treatments may be unsuitable for locations in Palo Alto, particularly treatments that were designed for large urban environments with few driveways or unsignalized intersections. Established facility types are recommended where feasible and appropriate to the roadway conditions, while innovation may be considered when such treatments may be safer and more effective than standard solutions. Palo Alto should collect data to identify whether innovative facilities are appropriate in the suburban setting. Before and after data about motor vehicle and bicyclist volume and roadway position, crashes, compliance, conflicts, delay, or other variables should be collected as appropriate on experimental treatments. " PABAC 86 A-x Specify that in any experiment, before/after data on vehicle and bicycle volume, bicyclist and motorist roadway position, crashes (if any), compliance, conflicts, delay, aggressive behavior, or other variables, as appropriate, should be collected, analyzed, and reported to determine whether the installation has produced the desired result, and so that others can benefit from Palo Alto's experiments. Added, "It should be noted that some treatments may be unsuitable for locations in Palo Alto, particularly treatments that were designed for large urban environments with few driveways or unsignalized intersections. Established facility types are recommended where feasible and appropriate to the roadway conditions, while innovation may be considered when such treatments may be safer and more effective than standard solutions. Palo Alto should collect data to identify whether innovative facilities are appropriate in the suburban setting. Before and after data about motor vehicle and bicyclist volume and roadway position, crashes, compliance, conflicts, delay, or other variables should be collected as appropriate on experimental treatments. " PABAC 87 A-x Specify that PABAC should review potential installations, and if applicable, experimental protocols.Incorporated Paul Goldstein 88 A-x Chair of subcommittee that reviewed Draft Plan. Main concerned with Appendix A and innovative standards. PABAC feels strongly that Bike Blvd implementation is most effective method of increasing bicycle activity. Bang for Buck is converting bicycle to Bicycle Boulevards. Additional discussion encouraging expansion of Bicycle Boulevard Network and cost-effectiveness to implement to be added. The identified treatments are intended to provide additional options. They are discussed in Appendix A, Design Guidelines and are not intended to replace Bicycle Boulevards. Alan Wachtel 89 A-1 "However, not all are approved for use by Caltrans…" The last sentence deserves emphasis, because for certain traffic control devices and bikeway designs, compliance with Caltrans standards is mandated by law.See previous responses. Alan Wachtel 90 A-1 By now it should be clear that claims to be innovative, up-to- date, separated, protected, modern, widely used, best practice, and so on should be viewed skeptically. The USDOT Secretary's casual endorsement was casual and informal. Many of the NACTO designs appear to violate basic engineering principals or traffic law by introducing ambiguous or unexpected right-of-way, impaired sight lines, nonstandard destination positioning, and unrealistic scanning patterns. The design guidelines and research cited often overlook or dismiss these issues. Each design should be evaluated on its own merits, rather than as an authority. Incorporating detailed design sheets for buffered bike lanes, bike boxes, and especially cycletracks is redundant and acts primarily as padding and PR to lend these treatments an undeserved legitimacy. At a minimum, unapproved treatments should be identified, their potential disadvantages acknowledged, and the See previous responses. Alan Wachtel 91 A-?Guidelines for bollard alternatives Added alternatives to bollards sheet in Appendix A. Rob Robinson 92 A-11 Caption under picture: the word "permits" should be "prohibits".Incorporated Bill Courington 93 B-1 The Arc Racks installed by the City appear to violate this section. I don't object to these violations, I'm just pointing out the discrepancy. Maybe the rules are too restrictive. Would a Lighting Bolt rack qualify as "two points of contact with frame"? [Paul] I do not see the need for these statements in the bike plan. I think the Transportation Division should keep a list of acceptable bike racks on file, and developers can petition the Director, if they want to install something not on the list. PABAC should be consulted in developing the list, and in granting exceptions. Rack technology is constantly evolving. Changed to "frame or wheel" and added a footnote about specific frames and intent to provide stability for the bicycle. PABAC 94 C-3 Table C-2: Estimate of Current Walking and Bicycling Trips. This table is hard to understand. For example, how the totals are derived, why "commuters" are represented in multiple rows, whether "walk- or bike-to-transit" refers only to bus or also to Caltrain. If this table is important, please try to clarify it. Added explanatory text; commuters includes walkers, bikers, and walk- and bike-to-transit commuters. PABAC 95 D-1 The URL www.paloalto.org/bike goes to some kind of sample site. Fix or explain.Removed reference to site. Bill Courington 96 D-11 Importance of Trail Improvements. For clarity, change title to Importance of Off-Street Trail Improvements Incorporated PABAC 97 D-3 Remove Figure D-3 Bicycling Experience which does not show Experience but repeats in a bar chart the same Confidence data as D-4's pie chart. If there is data on Experience add it as a new section.Incorporated Bill Courington 98 E-10 Table E-1. Explain the significance of gray italicized versus white policy cells.Grayed boxes are policies; white are Programs. Bill Courington 99 E-17 I don't understand this sentence: Due to fiscal constraints, the Police Department does not currently remove abandoned bicycles on a consistent basis. However, residents may bring an abandoned bicycle to the Police Department office.The Police Department released abandoned bicycles every Wednesday. Should "released" be "releases"?Changed to "releases" 11 Source ID Comment / Revision Response Attachment C Draft Final Plan Comments Since Nov 2011 Council Meeting Bill Courington 100 F-16 There is a suggestion of charging commercial parking businesses a fee. Are there any such businesses in Palo Alto?Section removed Pam Radin 101 ? Oregon Exp Project - Since this is 100% designed and we’re in the process of finalizing funding agreements, let’s include a brief description of the project in the plan.Added information to 6.4.1 Pam Radin 102 ? Consistent Comments for Signage on Bike Boulevards Some descriptions of bike boulevards reference signage as part of them and some don’t, let’s be consistent and include a signage element on all bike boulevard project descriptions. Signage has been added to project descriptions and cost estimates for all bicycle boulevards. 12 DRAFT February 28, 2012 Draft Minutes 3 The Commission provided their comments. Commissioner Losch commented on page 3 Goal 2 – Not sure how we would tackle this strategically specifically with private partnerships. Commissioner Crommie commented on page 12 - expressing her concern on making sure the language covers identifying an area for new parks for the equal distribution of facilities within the community. Commissioner Hetterly commented on page 17, C4.7.3 would like to make sure the word athletic facility was included somehow. On page 13 C3.2.5 would like to include the word “ongoing” in the sentence “Conduct ongoing comprehensive analyses…” Page 14 C3.4 – insert the word and athletic with existing park facilities. Commissioner Ashlund commented on page 14-15 accessibility, would like to see the language revised and on C3.9.2 – change it to read “increase the percentage of accessibility” Commissioner Walsh commented on wanting more information included on expanding opportunities within parks. Possible area would be C4 “Planning for the future” Staff de Geus encouraged the Commissioners to email him with other comments if they weren’t included in this discussion. 5. Review and comment on the revised Bicycle Pedestrian Master Plan update – Jaime Rodriguez, Chief Transportation Officer for the City spoke on the latest updates to the Draft Bicycle Pedestrian Master Plan which incorporated the comments and suggestions from the last time the Plan came before the PARC. It also included comments from the other stakeholders, PAYBAC, Planning and Transportation Commission, and from the outreach meetings. He also informed the commission that Planning and Transportation plan on holding another Public meeting in March to allow the public a whole month to provide input to the Plan. Public Comment Heather Rosmarin – Spoke to the Commission on the concern over the safety of bicyclists and pedestrians who use West Bayshore Road between San Francisquito Creek Bridge and Edgewood Plaza. She came before the Commission to encourage Planning and Transportation to include this area in the Bicycle Pedestrian Master Plan. Commissioner Crommie and Hetterly members of the Urban Creeks and Trails ad hoc committee presented their feedback on the Draft Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan to the Commission and Chief Transportation Office Jaime Rodriguez. After reviewing the document they had some questions that needed some clarification (see attached) Mr. Rodriguez answered what he could and said he would look into what he didn’t have answers to. The Commission then was given time for questions and comments. DRAFT February 28, 2012 Draft Minutes 4 Commissioner Ashlund commented on a concern about a path that enters Mitchell Park from Charleston that has had some vehicles mistake it for a road. Commissioner Losch provided his input on ensuring that it is important to have connectivity within surrounding communities. He also added that when prioritizing Planning and Transportation should consider focusing on the higher density traffic areas. Commissioner Markevitch commented that it would have been helpful to have a summary of what changes occurred to the Plan from last year to now. She also suggested that the word “traffic calming” should stay consistent throughout the document, as there were different words used meaning the same. She had concerns about the potential connectivity though or around Jordan Middle School to Newell Rd. Council Liaison Espinosa reiterated what Commissioner Markevitch had said on providing a summary. With documents of this size it is helpful to have a direct form of information to help with understanding the changes for Council and the public. Commissioner Walsh entertained a motion to approve the plan. Commissioner Markevitch remarked that she would not be voting “Yes” on the plan due to the fact that in her reading of the large document she had found too many things that needed clarification for her to vote with a “Yes”. Motion: The Parks and Recreation Commission recommend to Council that they approve the Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan as revised and presented to the Commission on February 28, 2012. Approved: 6:1 (Markevitch) 6. Parks and Recreation Commission Ad Hoc Committee Updates – 1. Palo Alto Municipal Golf Course reconfiguration project – Chair Lauing spoke on the item – Next step: Finance committee on March 6th. A summary was provided on what had transpired from the study session that occurred with the Council by staff de Geus. An expansive outreach has taken place related to this project staff de Geus said. There was strong support for the Golf Course. Staff de Geus added that the presentation and questions are available online at www.cityofpaloalto.org/golf. There were 4 options A, D, F, and G that were presented for review, the cost ranged from 3.5million – 8 million. Council Liaison Espinosa provided information on the Council’s position, and remarked that the timeline to make a decision in fast approaching. 2. Evaluate staff recommendations to place limits on amplified sound at Lytton Plaza. Chair Lauing reported that there is another upcoming meeting to discuss this issue and that it will probably be coming back to the Commission next month. 3. Urban Creeks and Trails Page 1 Planning and Transportation Commission 1 Verbatim Minutes 2 March 28, 2012 3 4 DRAFT EXCERPT 5 6 Review and Recommendation to Council for Adoption of the Revised Draft Bicycle and 7 Pedestrian Transportation Plan. Environmental Assessment: A Draft Mitigated Negative 8 Declaration has been prepared. 9 10 Chair Martinez: Welcome back. We shall resume with Item 2, which is Review and 11 Recommendation on the Bicycle Pedestrian Transportation Plan. We will begin with a Staff 12 Report. 13 14 Mr. Jaime Rodriguez, Chief Transportation Official: Good evening Chair Martinez and 15 Members of the Commission. My name is Jaime Rodriguez. I am the Chief Transportation 16 Official for the City of Palo Alto and if I may before we start this item I want to introduce a 17 couple of key Staff members who have been involved in this project. First Casey Hildreth, he’s 18 the Lead Consultant on this project from Alta Planning and Design. Rafael Ruis is here from our 19 transportation team as well and I want to introduce Kimberley Leung in the audience. Kimberly 20 just joined us on the transportation team and will be working on design plans and the 21 implementation of the Draft Bike and Ped Plan that is before you tonight so welcome Kimberly 22 and you’ll be seeing more of her in the next near future. 23 24 So what I’d like to do first is give you a short recap of how we got to where we are today and 25 highlight the rest of the presentation on changes within the bike plan since the last time you saw 26 this back in October. We started this project off a little over a year ago and had a very extensive 27 community outreach process to solicit community input regarding the community’s preferences 28 and thoughts regarding bicycle pedestrian facilities throughout Palo Alto. We had a very 29 innovative online survey that generated 500 responses online and we used a lot of those online 30 responses to generate recommendations that are in the plan before you tonight. 31 32 We took this Draft Bike and Ped Plan to you back in October for consideration of 33 recommendation to the City Council for adoption and we did in fact receive that 34 recommendation from you so thanks again for that and what we’ve done since then is when we 35 went to City Council in November of last year the City Council asked us to take a step back from 36 the Bike and Ped Plan work we had done and asked us to go back into the community and focus 37 a little more input with the South Palo Alto Community to make sure there were enough facility 38 improvements within that area and asked us to make sure we highlighted a lot of input we 39 received from the Parks and Rec Commission when we went to the City Council as well as some 40 additional input we received from our Palo Alto Bicycle Advisory Commission as well. 41 42 In response to that input from the City Council we held a South Palo Alto open house workshop 43 on January 12th and received a lot of positive feedback from the community regarding the plan 44 and they did in fact look for us to try to tighten our connections with the Safe Rides to School 45 side with the project and the town of Los Altos and they also had some minor improvements, 46 Page 2 corridor improvements along Wilkie Way, along Monroe Street, comments about the Charleston 1 Arastradero Road project and that core area, the connection along the Wilkie Way bridges and 2 then we advanced our presentation with the Parks and Recreation Commission in February as 3 well and this was before you guys for consideration last month. 4 5 Some of the comments we received from the Parks and Rec Commission at that time was to 6 strengthen the east west connections along the corridor which was consistent with comments of 7 the City Council, asked us to advance way finding projects, to build connections to parks, safe 8 routes to parks along with implementation of the plan. 9 10 To talk a little bit about the plan itself, when we typically talk about transportation projects and 11 public works projects we build them around the five Es of projects, Engineering, Education, 12 Encouragement, Enforcement and Evaluation. When we kicked this off with Alta, Alta came up 13 with a very innovative concept to rather than build a project around the five Es, they came up 14 with a brand new framework around the five Is. That included looking to identify projects and 15 prioritize implementation of projects based upon integration opportunities to link bike and ped 16 projects together, looking for ways to include pedestrians within projects for construction areas, 17 to be innovative in the types of projects proposed for consideration in the community, to try to 18 identify and try to build an institution of partnerships with VTA for bike share programs and to 19 make sure we tie the program around investments that the City is already making so that when 20 we are trying to advance the program the CIP programs for the bike projects are taking 21 advantage of other programs such as the resurfacing program. 22 23 When we came to you last, the Planning Commission had a few very specific recommendations. 24 Some of those were to actually evaluate how this would actually fit into the Comprehensive 25 Transportation Plan Element Update and we did in this Draft before you include a brand new 26 table, 2-1 which looked at every policy program within the transportation element of the current 27 plan and made an evaluation to make sure that anything within the draft plan was consistent with 28 the transportation plan at that time and included notes whether it was or was not and that was a 29 direct change in response to input from the PTC. 30 31 The Commission here also asked us to refine our cost estimates for the projects and that’s 32 included in Table 7.1 of the project itself. The last comment from you guys was to also make 33 sure we are trying to advance into jurisdictional projects, like Page Mill to 80, Page Mill to Sand 34 Hill, Page Mill Alpine Road and San Francisquito Creek. We’re looking at bridge opportunities 35 happening in East Palo Alto area and Mountain View area to make sure those paths we are 36 proposing and that those other districts are integrate together for the betterment of the 37 community. At that time you did provide a recommendation that this be recommended to the 38 City Council. 39 40 The Parks and Rec Commission, I gave you a brief summary earlier but when they saw this plan 41 they gave a recommendation to City Council for adoption and asked us to prioritize a few 42 different projects. They asked us to prioritize the Adobe Creek Reach Trail Phase 1 project. 43 That is a new trail project that would take advantage of an existing Santa Clara Valley Water 44 District frontage road along the creek to provide a connection along East Meadow and the 45 existing Lefkowitz Tunnel or the future Adobe Highway 101 project. That’s a project we’re 46 Page 3 currently working with Public Works to advance into the feasibility stage starting in the May 1 June timeframe. 2 3 A big priority for the Parks and Rec Commission was way finding. They asked that we try to 4 advance that as an element within the program so we build connections for Safe Routes to Parks. 5 Palo Alto Bicycle Advisory Commission has been extremely instrumental in the development of 6 the plan to date and held a monthly feedback session during 2011 to review and provide 7 comments back to Staff and to Alta Planning and Design and probably the most important 8 comment we got from them is to make sure we do lots of data collection and data collection is 9 something we’re beginning to advance this year. We’re taking advantage of grant projects to 10 deploy microwave detectors along our existing bike corridors along Bryant Street and other key 11 corridors where bike boulevards are planned for deployment such as Oregon and Ross. We’re 12 going to begin that data collection there on a daily basis once those systems go in. 13 14 We’re also looking at taking advantage of our partnerships through our Safe Routes to School 15 programs which Alta is helping us with to deploy counting stations around the City so we can 16 track that bicycle usage and pedestrian usage throughout the community. PABAC also wanted 17 us to focus on clear definitions within bicycle boulevards. In previous drafts of the plan we had 18 two types of classifications for bicycle boulevards and PABAC wanted us to include one 19 definition which is not included in the plan. Another important element for PABAC was they 20 wanted us to look at advanced conversions on High Street either to the north of Forest or up to 21 University as part of the implementation of the plan contraflow bike plan on Homer Street for the 22 one block between Alma and High Street. That’s a Condition of Approval of the mixed use 23 project that’s currently under construction at the corner across from the Homer Tunnel so they 24 wanted to make sure that contraflow bike lane was implemented they wanted to make sure 25 bicyclists could get into town via High Street. 26 27 The PABAC also wanted us to focus on some of the regional connections specifically around the 28 San Francisquito Creek area and focus on improvements for the public right of way and not take 29 advantage of valuable open land space within the creek itself and was also wanting us to not 30 consider innovation as too high a priority in the programs that we implement to try to focus first 31 if we’re trying proven methodologies that we know work to try to put those in the program as 32 priorities first. 33 34 We also spoke about education within the community and we’re taking advantage of that right 35 now as part of our Safe Routes to School Program. We’re advancing education programs within 36 the middle schools, and developing brand new adult based bicycle education programs that will 37 be launched later this year. 38 39 Just to summarize some of the City Council comments, we’re again to focus on east west 40 connections, specifically connections that would take advantage of non-roadway space such as 41 Matadero Creek and look for opportunities to provide connections there and access so vehicles 42 and bicycles would not need to mix. There was a strong request for education and reach to that 43 South Palo Alto community which again we had done and to focus again on areas that we know 44 are of importance to the community. Specifically Page Mill to 80 is an area that has continually 45 come up from the City Council as an area of concern and we have actually kicked off already a 46 Page 4 feasibility study with the County of Santa Clara and Cal Trans to try to identify opportunities to 1 actually reconfigure that interchange and we have been working with the State. They are going 2 to move forward with some traffic signal improvements at that interchange later next year. 3 4 Some of the other community comments we received from the community focused around the 5 pedestrian connections and in response to those concerns we have been implementing things 6 such as dismount zones to encourage where bicycle zones and pedestrians do need to mix that 7 we’re encouraging bicyclists to adhere to the rules of the road where there are sidewalks itself 8 and to actually look at identifying gap closures in our sidewalk system so you here saw the 9 Edgewood Plaza project as an example about a month ago and one of the concerns that came out 10 of that project was that there was a gap closure that needed to happen on West Bay Shore Road 11 from Channing up to the north to the East Palo Alto city limits. That’s a project we’ve noted 12 here within this plan and is shown here in this particular spot so that is something we committed 13 to do to the plan at that meeting and I wanted to make sure we highlighted that here tonight. 14 15 Again I do want to focus on some of the regional institutional projects we want to pursue within 16 the plan because there has been a lot of interest from the community and the Council. These are 17 specific changes that were added to the plan since you received the Draft a month or two again. 18 These are the interchange improvements at 280 at Sand Hill Road, Alpine, improvements at Page 19 Mill 280, introducing connections at the San Francisquito Creek area for improvement, at the 20 Geng Road area and highlighting the Matadero connection with the Santa Clara Water District. 21 22 Another institutional project we want to highlight tonight is our potential Bike Share program 23 with the VTA. The VTA just closed an RFP process about a week ago to hire a vendor to 24 actually deploy bike share stations within Santa Clara County, 100 of which would be located 25 here in the City of Palo Alto at Stanford, downtown and in the Cal Ave. business district. 26 27 Very quickly just to recap what we’ve done with CEQA so far, you reviewed the Negative 28 Declaration back in October when you saw this plan last and as part of the update that we’ve 29 done since you last saw this project there have been no substantial changes to the actual 30 description of the project itself. So with that I’m available to ask any questions or Casey is as 31 well. 32 33 Chair Martinez: Thanks. We’re going to open the Public Hearing. We have six speakers from 34 the public and you’ll each have three minutes to speak. Vice Chair. 35 36 Vice Chair Fineberg: First speaker to be Robert Moss followed by Paul Goldstein. 37 38 Mr. Robert Moss: Thank you Chair Martinez and Commissioners. First I want to make some 39 corrections. On the Council minutes that you have on Page 3 where I’m quoted, its incorrect. 40 First thing Bol Park is spelled b-o-l. Second I didn’t say that the consultant map showing 41 sidewalks was inadequate, I said it was wrong and I also strongly opposed the proposal to put 42 sidewalks along Los Robles between El Camino and La Donna. Sidewalks shall not and will 43 not be installed in Barron Park by the Planning Commission or by the City Council. That is 44 forbidden. When Barron Park mixed in 1975 one of the agreements made was that the sidewalks 45 would not be put in unless and until the people in Barron Park voted specifically to add them. 46 Page 5 Mayor Norton then sent a letter in 1975 to all of the people in Barron Park promising sidewalks 1 would not be added so the proposal to put sidewalks along Los Robles is off the table. 2 3 Secondly there is a comment that you have to have sidewalks or people won’t walk. On an 4 average day I see between 125 and 150 people walking past my house. Walking dogs, pushing 5 strollers, jogging. People walk in Barron Park. We don’t need sidewalks. Second in the 6 specifics of the Bike Plan I’m kind of puzzled as to why it’s considered important to call 7 Matadero a Bike Boulevard. That street is approximately 24 by 26 feet wide. It is not the 8 busiest street in Barron Park. The busiest street is Los Robles and I noticed on Los Robles 9 you’re talking about enhanced bike paths. Los Robles is 26 feet wide and that includes the bike 10 lanes. Where are you going to put enhanced bikes? 11 12 I also thought it was interesting that at the end of Los Robles it shows a shared roadway. That 13 section of Los Robles is 16 feet wide. You barely can get two cars passing on it. You’re going 14 to put that through as bikes? Bikes use it anyway. Nobody needs anything to tell them you can 15 bike through Barron Park. I see hundreds of people biking past everyday so I think a lot of this 16 needs to be rethought, especially when you talk about putting shared bikes on narrow streets 17 which is all we have at Barron Park so some of this I think should be reconsidered so the last 18 think is talk about changing or improving the intersection at El Camino and Matadero. My 19 understanding was that that meant prohibiting left turns from Marguerite onto El Camino. That 20 would be a disaster. You don’t want to prevent people from getting onto El Camino. 21 22 Chair Martinez: Thank you. 23 24 Vice Chair Fineberg: Paul Goldstein to be followed by Irvin Dawid. 25 26 Mr. Paul Goldstein: Hi I’m Paul Goldstein. I live in Palo Alto. I am a member of PABAC and I 27 was Chair of the Subcommittee that was called upon to make comments on the Bike Plan. At the 28 regular March 7th meeting you should all have copies of this letter. I’m sorry we didn’t get it to 29 you before but I made copies and they should have been at your places. At the regular March 7th 30 meeting of the Palo Alto Bicycle Advisory Committee, PABAC, the Committee endorsed the 31 recommendations of its Subcommittee regarding the Draft Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan. 32 Unfortunately, Staff did not include these recommendations in your packet and therefore I’ve put 33 the most salient ones here. Although these were summarized in the Staff memo I don’t think you 34 have the intensity or the context of our recommendations. Probably the most significant one is 35 on Appendix A. PABAC has had serious concerns with many of the innovative treatments 36 promoted by the current plan in Appendix A. We feel that although innovation is generally a 37 good thing, the plan gives over emphasis to innovation in contrast to some tried and true 38 accepted measures that work extremely well in Palo Alto. Palo Alto has a very fine network of 39 low volume streets that could easily be turned into Bicycle Boulevards and PABAC feels very 40 strongly that Bicycle Boulevards are the best and most effective way to improve bicycle 41 conditions and improve mode share. 42 43 If you look at one of the goals of the Bike Plan, it says that we want to improve bicycle mode 44 share, we want to get more people on their bikes and at the last meeting of the Planning 45 Commission, you recommended that we look at bang for the buck. Bang for the buck is 46 Page 6 converting local streets into Bicycle Boulevards allowing bicycles, giving them priority over 1 other streets and I see in the plan that there will be a better definition of what Bicycle Boulevards 2 are but you can just look on Bryant Street, see how many people use it and know if we had other 3 streets like that you would have more people biking in Palo Alto. 4 5 I’m not going to go over the rest of the memo but you have the points here. We feel quite 6 strongly that innovation can be a good thing but that it’s not the first place to go when you’re 7 looking at improving bicycle mode share. Thanks very much. 8 9 Vice Chair Fineberg: Irvin Dawid to be followed by Mike Aberg. 10 11 Mr. Irvin Dawid: Thank you Planning Commissioners. Irvin Dawid, 753 Alma. I think above 12 all it’s the time to adopt and then implement. That’s my strongest message to you now. I just 13 wanted to touch a few things that were said but first I want to express my appreciation to Staff 14 and to the Palo Alto Bicycle Advisory Committee for the superb work. I think this plan is really 15 quite good. I really don’t recall the previous bike plans but now we hopefully will soon have a 16 real bike plan and we can be able to refer to it. 17 18 Jaime mentioned the contraflow lane that is going to be on Homer Avenue even though it’s just 19 going to be on one block. I think that’s huge. It’s true I happen to live right on the corner there 20 but I am really looking forward to seeing a contraflow lane go up there. That’s an innovative 21 facility but its not just innovative, its really very necessary. After all, that Homer Bike Tunnel 22 lets off people there and what are they faced as soon as they get out from the tunnel going out 23 from El Camino? A one way street going the wrong way so we need to do something and the 24 contraflow lane fixes it. 25 26 In terms of one of the things that Paul just mentioned, in terms of the best bang for your buck, I 27 always think the best bang for your buck is just infrastructure. I respect all the cyclists in Barron 28 Park but the more infrastructure you get up, the better it is. It attracts people. One form of 29 infrastructure that Staff is doing a great job on now is bicycle parking. The more you see them, 30 they have done a beautiful job with these new corrals with the sign on the top, I think it’s great. 31 It helps to get people biking. I’ve said this before but if you have a chance, please visit the cities 32 that I know of that are super bike friendly which are Davis and San Luis Obispo. When you go 33 and you walk through their downtown you are flooded with bicycle parking. It’s incredible. 34 35 Also generally speaking of Davis, they have a much wider sidewalk. They have much more 36 room to put those racks. We don’t always have that wide sidewalk. In fact, I was just at Phil’s 37 Coffee and I was sitting in one of the new tables that is fronting on Alma and its not really that 38 wide there and sure enough because its Alma Street and a lot of bicyclists still bike on the 39 sidewalk, some cyclists were just zooming by and I thought they were going the wrong way and 40 it was dangerous. The reality is that’s a tight sidewalk so thank you for all your work and I look 41 forward to coming back and speaking about the implementation of what’s in the Bike Plan. 42 43 Chair Martinez: Thank you. 44 45 Vice Chair Fineberg: Mike Aberg to be followed by Pamela Radin. 46 Page 7 1 Mr. Mike Aberg: Hi. I’m Mike Aberg. I’m a midtown resident in the sometimes forgotten 2 section of Southeast Palo Alto in terms of a lot of bike improvements. I have three young boys 3 who all love to ride their bikes and I also like to ride my bike. I just want to say first of all 4 thanks for all your work and to pretty much everyone in this room. I think implementing this 5 bike plan is going to make a big difference. 6 7 I want to speak for my little area near midtown. I think the biggest improvement we can see is 8 the quick implementation of the Ross Road Bike Boulevard. It is right near my house and it 9 would allow us north south access to a lot of areas of Palo Alto including Mitchell Park and its 10 one of the closest and friendliest spots that we could use, me and my three boys. I just want to 11 add quickly that the Ross Road bike light, there’s a bike light crossing that’s at Ross and Oregon 12 and will be implemented this year. It would be nice to get Ross Road signed in time to coincide 13 with that bike light being implemented. The only other thing I have to say is not to just look at 14 Ross Road but there are a few other arterials such as Middlefield Road right in the midtown 15 section that might also be looked at. I think that arterial could be improved quite a bit with 16 maybe some small changes to make Middlefield Road a little bit more bikeable right through the 17 midtown area so thanks again you guys. I appreciate all your work and let’s get this thing 18 implemented. Thank you. 19 20 Vice Chair Fineberg: Pamela Radin to be followed by Andrew Boone. 21 22 Ms. Pamela Radin: Hi I’m Pam Radin. I’m a member of PABAC but tonight I’m speaking for 23 myself and I’d really like to say again or repeat what Mike Aberg just said that we just really 24 want to see Ross Road go ahead with planning and engineering and signage while Park Bike 25 Boulevard is being designed so it matches up with the light implementation at Oregon and Ross. 26 It’s so important to us, I can’t tell you enough. Also, I sent in a letter earlier and I hope you had 27 time to review that and maybe consider more enhancements to Middlefield Road. Also, thanks 28 for the great plan Jaime and Alta. I really appreciate it. 29 30 Chair Martinez: Thank you. 31 32 Vice Chair Fineberg: Andrew Boone to be followed by Jo Ann Zausen. 33 34 Mr. Andrew Boone: Good evening Commissioners. My name is Andrew Boone and I live near 35 the Main Library. I ride my bike almost every single day unless I have nowhere to go. It’s my 36 only means of transportation except walking for short trips and taking the train for long trips and 37 I agree with the previous speakers Paul Goldstein and Irvin Dawid on what should be the highest 38 priorities for implementing the Bike Plan, that’s Bicycle Boulevards and bike parking. We have 39 really only one Bicycle Boulevard now and there is a limit to how useful that is. We need a 40 network of Bicycle Boulevards that were identified in the old plan nine years ago. That should 41 be the highest priority to build Park Boulevard as a Bicycle Boulevard, Ross Boulevard, all of 42 them. 43 44 Other cities such as Portland, Oregon that the Council admires for their promotion of bicycling 45 has built a network of Bicycle Boulevards meaning interconnected grid of streets that are all 46 Page 8 Bicycle Boulevards. I usually bicycle on the busiest streets, the arterials, El Camino Real, 1 Embarcadero, Alma Street, Oregon Expressway because they are the fastest for me to get to 2 where I’m going. My concerns in the beginning of this process were mostly about bicycling on 3 the arterial streets and those have been addressed for the most part. There is some language in 4 the draft now so my comments are quite minor. 5 6 The plan refers to on Page 4-1 statistics for how many Palo Altoans bike to work but these 7 statistics now are out of date since the plan has taken so long to write. They refer to the 2005 to 8 2009 American Community Survey. Now there is data available from the 2008 to 2010 9 American Community Survey which has a 1.5% increase of biking to work from the old number 10 so the new number should be put in the plan which is 8.6%. Also there should be updated data 11 for the children biking to school also for the year 2011 that Staff should be able to get from 12 Kathy Durham. That’s all thank you. 13 14 Chair Martinez: Thank you very much. That’s the last speaker. Okay Commissioners, let’s do a 15 round of questions or comments starting with Commissioner Keller on the left. 16 17 Commissioner Keller: First some simple things to get out of the way, in this nice chart and 18 thanks for giving this big enough so we can easily read it, the colors under existing don’t match 19 the colors in the actual diagram itself. They are lighter. So it’s a little hard to match the colors 20 so if you can make all the colors match that would be helpful. 21 22 Secondly I notice that Class 3 are Shared Arterial or further study needed seem to be coalesced 23 into the same diagram and I would suggest that you use different symbols for further study 24 needed and for where you’ve already decided that you should have a Class 3 Shared Arterial, in 25 particular while I’m supportive of the idea of bike lanes on Alma Street south of Charleston 26 where the right of way is pretty wide, north of there is problematic and probably fits under the 27 category of for further study rather than the category of we’ve already decided to put Class 3 28 Shared Arterials considering the traffic volumes that are on the chart elsewhere there so I’m a 29 little concerned about that and the distinction would be make it clear as to what you mean. 30 31 Next there is an interesting distinction of some other cities have the idea of putting the bicycles 32 between parked cars and the curb as opposed to putting them between the parked cars and the 33 street and in particular we didn’t take advantage of that opportunity to think about it on 34 Arastradero when we did that and I think it would be worthwhile thinking about safety on that 35 and I’ve seen other cities do that and that is something worthwhile if it considers safety and it 36 means that the bicyclists aren’t further out when there are cars there. 37 38 With the notion of the contraflow lane on Homer, there should be a connection between Homer 39 through Alma and Channing so people who use the Homer Street Tunnel and then take the 40 contraflow lane on Homer can then go south on High and east on Channing and so that 41 connection makes sense to make because otherwise you have to head through downtown when 42 you’re really trying to bypass it if you want to make a bike so that would be a worthwhile 43 improvement. 44 45 Page 9 I was in Washington D.C. not long ago and one of the things they have and other cities have is 1 early pedestrian crossings at light, in other words delay traffic green. It gives the pedestrians and 2 bicyclists an opportunity to start crossing the street before cars start making a right or left turn so 3 the pedestrians or bicyclists get the right of way and as you start providing more traffic signals 4 where you have the pedestrian count down it might be useful to coordinate that with a delayed 5 green at the same time because that’s going to require reworking of the traffic signal and thereby 6 enhance bicycles and pedestrians getting across the intersections, not being blocked by cars who 7 are not following the right of way. 8 9 There was a mention by Jaime Rodriguez, our Traffic Official, about the connection on Greer to 10 help with the Edgewood Plaza however that connection on Greer ends in the middle of there and 11 does not connect all the way to the West Bayshore path to the creek and I thought that that’s 12 what was being proposed to support the people in East Palo Alto coming to shop in our 13 neighborhood was that there would be some sort of pedestrian crossing there and I don’t see that 14 being marked here so in some sense I’m not sure how you would mark that but some sort of 15 pedestrian path along West Bayshore from the creek to Edgewood Plaza seems to be missing 16 from there and I’m not sure how you annotate that. 17 18 There are some places in the Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan where it refers to BPTP 2011 versus 19 2012 and that probably should be consistently 2012. 20 21 This might be an opportunity to think about widening the sidewalks on El Camino Real to the El 22 Camino Real design guidelines if we’re trying to increase that use of pedestrians. They are 23 having more setbacks so the buildings are further away from the street and this is something that 24 should be in this plan. I think the comments on Ross Road are worthwhile in terms of the 25 timeliness of that and making that in coincident across the Oregon bike lane. 26 27 With respect to Middlefield Road in the midtown shopping district I think that’s worthwhile 28 considering but caution needs to be done in that particular area because I’m sure you’ve heard 29 about the story of one day when a former Transportation Official decided to put cones there and 30 narrow it to one lane and there was a revolt and there was a traffic jam that was caused with it so 31 I would suggest doing appropriate traffic analysis and studies there to proceed with caution. 32 33 In summary, I think this is a really good plan. I think there are a lot of great improvements here 34 but where we have high traffic volume arterials, we have to consider how best to have the 35 bicycles coexist with the cars and in particular it may make sense to encourage bicyclists where 36 it is feasible to use lower traffic things like Bike Boulevards. I know there are some people who 37 feel it’s a good idea to bike on Alma Street all the way but I think that that’s for most of Alma 38 Street would not be very safe and it will never, no matter what we do, sharrows are not, would 39 not be a safe proposition. I think it’s going to be hard in a lot of places to narrow from multiple 40 lanes to take drop off lanes to add where there is a high volume of cars to add bike lanes or 41 remove traffic lanes so I think that that should be considered as a balance and to the extent that 42 we could have more bikes flowing through our neighborhoods, we are trying to discourage 43 through traffic and encourage through bicycles. I think that would be a good thing. 44 45 Page 10 Commissioner Tanaka: First let me thank Staff and also our Consultants as well as PABAC and 1 the members of the public that came tonight. This plan seems to be very comprehensive and 2 looks like it addresses a lot of the issues that were brought up. A few of the speakers mentioned 3 sidewalks in Barron Park and a few other issues. I was wondering if Staff could quickly address 4 some of the public comments because I think some of those were good points. 5 6 Mr. Rodriguez: What we do within the plan is identify sidewalk gap locations. Those aren’t 7 necessarily locations we want to propose sidewalk installations but we did feel it was important 8 to identify those areas in the City where that was a deficiency. I think the improvements we can 9 do on those areas in the future as part of the implementations of Bike Boulevards can include 10 improvements that will be done in Barron Park where we add valley gutters and sidewalk areas 11 fluxed with the rest of the roadway. The intent of the plan was to just highlight those facilities. 12 There are opportunities within Barron Park where the streets begin to meet El Camino Real and 13 those are areas where sidewalk improvements may be appropriate for less than 100 feet entering 14 the neighborhood. That was the intent of the plan, not to recommend sidewalks in the 15 neighborhoods. 16 17 Commissioner Tanaka: I can’t remember if it was I who said bang for the buck but I’m a big fan 18 of that concept because I think what’s great about the plan is that it is comprehensive and I think 19 that’s one of the challenges and there are more projects than we have money and trying to 20 prioritize them for the implementation part is going to be the key to finding the maximum 21 amount of our dollars at work and so one thing is, I like what Staff has done here is really try and 22 get some measurements going on bikes, pedestrians. They are really trying to figure out what 23 projects are going to help the most number of people and that’s a good thing and I like that kind 24 of thinking and the process that you guys are trying to do to make this happen so keep it up and 25 this way we have good metrics as to what’s supposed to happen. 26 27 Three weeks ago I had a business trip to Barcelona and it was actually my first time there and 28 one thing I saw was that they have a really active Bike Share program. It was everywhere. A lot 29 more people rode the Bike Share program than rode bikes. People would take them casually and 30 use it all the time and so I think if we had that here in Palo Alto what would happen. The Bike 31 Share program was called Bicing. They had them stationed all over the mass transit areas and 32 public areas and it seemed to be a program that could really change how things happen so I’m 33 glad to see that moving forward and we’ll have a hundred or so here in Palo Alto. If its 34 successful we can try and get more of that happening. 35 36 In regards to narrow roads and bikes, that’s definitely a challenge and another interesting thing I 37 saw in Barcelona is people were biking on the sidewalks and it was legal and encouraged which 38 for me was interesting because I’m not really used to that and so I was walking in Barcelona in 39 the bike lane on the sidewalk thinking why are these bikes on the sidewalk. That’s kind of an 40 interesting approach where they have super wide sidewalks, more than we have in Palo Alto so 41 that’s a problem. Sidewalks are made really wide, that’s another possibility where you can get 42 wider sidewalks or have a bike lane that’s part of that so the bikes are safe on those busy 43 arterials. 44 45 Page 11 My last point is its kind of back to City Council comments, kind of like the park let. I think 1 those kind of things actually make streets much more interesting. I think what Staff is trying to 2 do and encourage is a good thing and I think it makes Palo Alto a nicer place to live so I think 3 this is a really nice concept and something that I hope can be developed further. Thank you. 4 5 Commissioner Michael: I’m coming to this process late and it’s very impressive. I also want to 6 extend my appreciation to PABAC and the members of the community who have commented 7 and to Staff for their work so as I’ve heard all these comments and gone through the plan and 8 looked at the diagrams, I’m reacting not so much as a Commissioner but just as a resident of the 9 City. I’ve been a cyclist for 56 years and I think I rode about 3,000 miles last year and I’m on 10 track to ride 4,000 miles this year and I’m thinking how does this affect me and my children 11 because we’re pretty avid cyclists. 12 13 I think the comments about the priority of the Bike Boulevards are really really important just 14 from my personal experience. Particularly, Mr. Goldstein noted the identification of streets with 15 low car traffic volume. I just instinctively search those streets out and those are the streets I use 16 and interconnecting the Bike Boulevards with other natural ways to get across town is pretty 17 significant. 18 19 Just analytically the curiosity how this plan will evolve over time probably relates to the different 20 communities, school children, how people commute to work on their bike, maybe more 21 experienced cyclists who would be more safe on an arterial road that will get them a longer 22 distance in the shortest amount of time, people who are recreational or competitive cyclists who 23 will hop on their carbon turbo bike and head to the coast for an 80 mile loop, how they get out of 24 the City safely, people who want to go shopping so you want to get into the shopping districts. 25 26 I think the issue of assuming that a cyclist will always stay in a bike lane or will be able to use a 27 Bike Boulevard exclusively, you’re always going to be transitioning off to different roadways to 28 get to your actual destination and to get to my house off the Bryant Bike Boulevard off 29 Embarcadero I get off onto the sidewalk because then I go off onto Melville because that gets 30 you to my house so you’re always going to have those interconnections and in general this is 31 profoundly impressive and a big step forward. I think it will continue to evolve and the safety 32 and health benefit to the City, the multimodal business of transportation is all good and I’m very 33 pleased to see it. 34 35 Commissioner Tuma: So this is one where I tend to leave it to the experts meaning you all and 36 the folks from PABAC and the community that has been involved more. Along those lines I 37 wanted to ask Jaime if you would be in a position to address the issues that were raised by the 38 two memos we had from members of the public. One was an email dated today I guess from 39 Pam Radin and the other one is the memo from Mr. Goldstein. 40 41 Mr. Rodriguez: Thank you. I don’t have the email from Ms. Pam Radin but I do have a copy of 42 the letter from Paul Goldstein and his specific concern as Paul mentioned during his presentation 43 here was the concern regarding innovation and potentially using that as a method to prioritize 44 projects. One of the changes we actually made within the plan over the last few months was 45 initially when we took this plan to you there were recommendations for within the Bike Plan in 46 Page 12 Table 7.1 we tried to tie back each project to those five Is I described to you at the beginning of 1 our presentation and try to make a connection in each project towards Integration or Inclusion or 2 Innovation. Initially we had this project before you and innovation as kind of high, medium or 3 low and that was a specific concern from PABAC and one of the things we did to emphasize 4 innovation within a category for selecting project we noted whether innovation was part of the 5 project was a yes or no category so that’s how we addressed that concern. 6 7 Within the Bike Plan on Appendix A we wanted to make sure we had an extremely robust 8 Appendix that we could look at for best practice within the United States and other parts of the 9 country so we didn’t want to limit ourselves in removing innovative options. Whether they 10 applied to Palo Alto didn’t really matter to us. We just wanted to document the fact that there 11 are innovative communities that are out there, whether they are appropriate or not for use within 12 Palo Alto, that would be dependent upon the comments from the community and we will begin 13 implementing projects within those specific neighborhoods. For example on a street like Homer 14 and Channing with couplets there are ways to do cycle tracks or bicycle lanes. We don’t know 15 the right thing to do, that’s really community driven but we wanted to highlight those. What we 16 ended up doing in the Bike Plan as part of our update is we called them enhanced bikeway option 17 and then included the label such as the cycle track or other types of facilities. That was our 18 method to respond to those concerns because the plan is built around concepts for enhanced 19 bikeways within our legend so we wanted to stick to that legend and not change it from what we 20 had already done in the previous plan. We thought that would be a step backwards. 21 22 Some of the other comments are very good comments so if we did implement an experimental 23 type of a treatment we would need to follow the state process and it would cover us from a 24 liability perspective from the state to do an experimental task. The methods would include 25 reaching out to what’s called a California Traffic Controlled devices community. We actually 26 started that process and began to implement it on our own and so we definitely would agree with 27 Paul on those comments that if we wanted to implement those types of treatments we would need 28 to outreach to the community and follow those external processes. 29 30 Commissioner Tuma: If you look at the bottom there are some items highlighted or bolded that 31 carry over to the back so there are six areas that I’m reading as the areas of concern if that helps. 32 33 Mr. Rodriguez: It does, thank you. We talked a lot about the signage at Arastradero Blvd. and 34 other meetings and all the Bicycle Boulevards within Palo Alto. We do have a lot of very good 35 candidate low volume streets as Paul and other members of community really called Bike 36 Boulevards but in this particular case we strongly agree with PABAC that even though it’s a low 37 volume street that alone shouldn’t allow us to go in and assign that facility. There will always be 38 treatments that would be necessary to ensure that those low volumes also turn into low speeds. 39 Treatments along bicycle routes will always be necessary and more important for Bicycle 40 Boulevards we want the community outreach to say do you have any concerns with your street 41 becoming a Bicycle Boulevard and educating them to what that means and they will see a change 42 to the character on the street with increased bicycle activity so we’ve been hesitant and reserved 43 to deploy Bicycle Boulevards on any street until we begin that CEQA process, that outreach 44 process and that’s what we plan to do. We do agree with a lot of the concerns you heard tonight 45 that there needs to be more premise to Middlefield Road and what we did in transportation just 46 Page 13 last year when the Valley Transportation Authority was beginning developments on Valley 1 Transportation Plan 2040, we implemented some new projects and programs that were not there 2 before. One of them was specifically midtown districts transportation improvements and that 3 was for us to begin to look at how can we best treat the midtown district of Middlefield Road to 4 be more Bicycle and Pedestrian friendly. I don’t know what the answer is but I do know that 5 anything that we do do right now without any improvement will result in a significant loss of 6 parking and we can’t support that type of change today so I can say we hear the comments of the 7 community. I can’t say we strongly agree with those comments but we need to be cautious and 8 reserved on how we implement improvements to make sure they won’t have a negative impact 9 on the community as well. Did I miss anything? 10 11 Add diverters and road narrowing to the tool box. We can definitely do that. 12 13 Commissioner Tuma: Okay and then just one other quick bit of information would be helpful 14 and obviously this is a plan that takes significant time to roll out to implementation. Can you 15 give us some idea of what we might expect to see within the next couple of years in terms of 16 percentage of completion if there is a way to talk about that easily and then probably more 17 importantly than that the plan for education as these things happen, its been talked about a lot in 18 the public but how does the average person begin to find out now there is connectivity from my 19 house or where I’m going to work. What’s the education program there? 20 21 Mr. Rodriguez: I’ll start with the implementation. I think a lot of people called last year the year 22 of the bike. I was always saying the year of the bike should be 2012 and I say that because we 23 have a lot of things we planned in 2011 that we are implementing now in 2012 and specifically, 24 I’ll highlight projects because I can’t really put a percentage to them but some of the projects that 25 are already designed and going into construction include enhanced bikeways on San Antonio 26 Road from the 101 border out towards Middlefield Road that will lead to future connections for 27 bicycle lane extensions on North Field Road itself. We’re looking at extensions of bike lanes on 28 Charleston Road to Fabian to the southern part of the City with Mountain View. We’re looking 29 at starting a community outreach process in the next few months on Fabian Road itself and that 30 would potentially include lane reduction projects to go from four lanes to three lanes and we’ve 31 outreached to members of the mobile residences and other space to be supportive of those 32 concepts. 33 34 Again the feasibility studies we talked about for the Reach Train project at Adobe Creek. I 35 highlight those projects specifically because we’re trying to build a message in South Palo Alto 36 that we want to make sure we get a brand new bridge crossing at Highway 101 and all those 37 projects that I described to you create that link to the South Palo Alto community towards 38 Mountain View to make sure that when people are in that area they can get to that bridge and so 39 that’s something we’re emphasizing a lot within that community. We’re definitely trying to 40 partner with existing CIP programs so you will have already seen some recent bike 41 enhancements on Channing Road. We did our first green bike lane facilities at Center Road and 42 at Newell. We will be doing the second phase of that program this year and that will include 43 Lincoln out toward Guinda and set this up for future studies to look at one way conversion type 44 projects for enhanced projects on Channing and Homer west of Middlefield Road and then we’re 45 also looking at enhanced bikeways on Lytton Avenue within the downtown corridor to look at 46 Page 14 other issues such as early release ped signal timing on that corridor as well and just a bunch of 1 things in the queue so I can’t put a percentage to it but there is definitely a lot of planning in the 2 parks as well and the connections with the Safe Routes to School. The second part of your 3 question? 4 5 Commissioner Tuma: How do you plan to let everyone know that they can ride their bikes in 6 various areas? 7 8 Mr. Rodriguez: Definitely what we would want to do is as we are kicking off the design phases 9 for a lot of these different projects we’ll want to encourage the types of marketing events we did 10 last year where we invite the community to ride with us and emphasize those types of rides. 11 That’s something we heard from the community during this process is that they learned from this 12 process and we advertised it and rode it with them and the people are appreciative of that type of 13 input and wanted more of those as we kick of design projects. 14 15 We’re actually promoting a lot of these facilities in our Safe Routes to School program as we’re 16 working with the community and working with parents to let them know good alternatives for 17 their students to get to school and we’re referring them back to the Bike Plan and ensuring them 18 there is integration between the two. The other way is education through the Safe Routes to 19 School program and highlighting rules of the road for parents so when they are driving they 20 know what to look for when kids are on the roads themselves. Things like that. 21 22 Vice Chair Fineberg: I’d like to echo other Commissioners comments to thank Staff and 23 members of the public who have worked long and hard to bring this plan to where it is. It’s not 24 perfect. There are things in it that probably shouldn’t be in it. There are things in it that maybe 25 need to be tweaked. There are things in it that need to be added but it is such a quantum 26 improvement over the plan we have in place from 2003 and it is such a significant improvement 27 that it gets us most of the way to being where we need to be. We need to get it approved and in 28 place and Staff I believe is already doing something but I would like it to be quite formalized. 29 We need to keep a list of all the improvements suggested and changes, corrections, tweaks, 30 brilliant ideas, bad ideas, whatever and then we can incorporate them as amendments if they are 31 significant or hold onto them until our next revision whether that be three, five, seven or ten 32 years but I’d like in the process on this to try to describe what a live paramecium looks like and 33 the instant you’ve done it it’s different. The instant a day in Palo Alto goes by there is a different 34 need. There is something that Council says is important. There is something a member of the 35 public says that’s important. There is something somebody decides they don’t like and that’s 36 going to continue to happen as it does on many of our projects so I’d like to see that we have this 37 adopted. It’s going to allow us to accomplish a lot of projects throughout the City in getting 38 grants and working with other agencies to have improvements that we can’t and that we need this 39 tool for. It also helps us prioritize. It gives us the ability to get guidance from where we should 40 be spending our money so I think it’s a good thing and we need to approve it without finessing it 41 until the paramecium has changed its shape again. 42 43 I want to just talk about a couple specific things. Regarding some earlier comments about traffic 44 tests, I agree that traffic tests should be done so that we have the ability to understand what the 45 impacts and trials are good however I would also like to caution that even the test on Middlefield 46 Page 15 was subject to I don’t know what to call it other than possible manipulation due to social media. 1 I was on two lists that sent out these, individual members on the Yahoo groups sent out panic 2 messages. The world is coming to an end, get in your car and drive down that street so it fails 3 the test. There is always the potential for that to happen and its hard for Staff to conduct a test 4 and not have opponents either support it or make it fail. So tests can’t be relied on in the absence 5 of common sense and some of the data if the data makes sense. 6 7 The other thing I’d like to talk about, why I believe its important for us to get this in place, this 8 isn’t quasi-judicial and I don’t know if I need to disclose it but I had a conversation with Penny 9 Ellson and she just said something that it was amazing to think about our youth learning to bike 10 and navigate through town and I’d always thought about it in terms of my own kids, that they 11 would have a level of independence and confidence but she drove it home even to a greater point 12 and I’ll have to rely on Penny to provide the scientific citations but she talked about there being a 13 number of studies where our children develop neural networks in their brains and linguistic 14 words in their language when they are allowed to find their way around at a young age. When 15 we protect our kids and don’t let them out on bikes and don’t let them walk because the 16 sidewalks and bike lanes or biking areas are dangerous, the kids don’t develop as advanced 17 neural pathways for way finding. They don’t develop the words to describe the directions they 18 are going in so we are making their functioning as adults smaller by overprotecting them and that 19 to me was astounding because I never thought about by having my children ride to school, my 20 daughter who is going to be subject to all the classic constraints of not being able to have spatial 21 relationships in math in high school because she’s a girl, I’m holding her back if I don’t let her 22 figure out if she turns right or turns left, gets lost and figures out where she wants to go so if I 23 can help her with her high school math by letting her ride her bike on a safer street, go for it. So 24 that’s enough of theory. 25 26 In answer to Commissioner Keller’s comment about the sidewalk closure gap north of 27 Edgewood that Council recommended addition, I’m not trying to wordsmith their Motion but 28 this document we have in front of us was a Final Draft as of January 2012 and items like that one 29 and some others have come forward that didn’t exist as of January 2012 so my understanding is 30 that the maps and this draft will add that list of items and then what goes to the Council as final 31 will include those items so do you have a list or is it only two or three items that we know are 32 being added to this draft? Can we just know what they are so that we know its in good hands 33 and then I don’t know, do we need a Motion or is Staff already doing this but is this list of future 34 suggestions, is that something that could be on the City’s website so people know it’s not getting 35 lost? 36 37 Mr. Rodriguez: That is something we can definitely do. We can go ahead and create a running 38 list of the improvements we know we’ve added in specifically the sidewalk gap closure along 39 West Bayshore. It actually is shown within the plan and the gap closure map we talked about 40 earlier. As I’m hearing you talk it would be a good idea to show on this plan some sort of 41 enhanced bikeway so it’s shown on the gap closure map and the post bikeway network itself 42 which is originally put in there because it’s a bikeway network, not necessarily the sidewalk but 43 its okay to do that, to show it in. Then when we’re addressing the sidewalk concerns in the 44 future, we try to make sure there is some sort of a bicycle connection that makes sense into East 45 Palo Alto as well so we can make that change. 46 Page 16 1 Vice Chair Fineberg: Thank you. 2 3 Chair Martinez: Jaime can you show us the slide with the five Is? I think I would suggest one 4 more. Inflation. Because every time you go to a public meeting there are more good ideas to 5 add to the plan so when does the plan stop planning and complete as what this document is 6 supposed to be or is it supposed to be like the Winchester House and just never ending? Can you 7 respond to that? 8 9 Ruis or Aldreth?: Our plan is to get through this evening and hopefully with a positive, I think 10 we’re on good track but then we’ve been collecting all the comments and are going to do a final 11 revision after this evening for City Council with tracking those changes. Some of the typo 12 changes I won’t track but significant changes we’ve been tracking along since our initial 13 outreach after the Council meeting last November so all of those, some of them have already 14 been made that we’re just holding off on publishing but then this is going to be the significant 15 revision cycle that will go to Council presumably. 16 17 Mr. Rodriguez: If I may Chair Martinez I just have one other comment in response to your 18 comment about inflation. It’s a good point because one of the things we heard a lot from the 19 community is that it’s a great plan. I’d love to see Bike Boulevards here, bike lanes here, but one 20 of the comments echoed from the community is to make sure the pavement is in good condition 21 and that ties back to inflation and investment and its why we want to be cautious when we assign 22 facilities such as Bike Boulevards and bike lanes. We don’t want to add in bike lanes as an 23 example on a street where the pavement is in poor condition and it has a low pavement index. 24 We can wait a year if we have to, wait until the street gets resurfaced and then do the 25 improvement at that time because then the improvement has value so that’s back to your 26 inflation comment. 27 28 Chair Martinez: Good segway for me. As you know we are in the process of reviewing the CIP 29 for the coming year. It would be very helpful if you looked at that document and highlighted 30 those proposed improvements that relate to the Bicycle Pedestrian Transportation Plan because 31 that would answer some of our questions about which projects are going forth in the next five 32 years, what are the priorities that we should be looking for in terms of this plan that I think we’re 33 about to recommend and it gets those Planners in the mode of thinking about the Comp Plan and 34 the plans that the City is adopting and how they fit into the CIP so it would be really helpful to us 35 and also it would be helpful not to us but just to the whole plan itself is to really, I know you did 36 a great job of finding all the policies and programs in the Comp Plan that this supports but it 37 would do great benefit to the plan to see a couple of new ones that said you know, it’s a high 38 priority for multimodal streets and in that when we see a project coming through we can look at 39 it in that regard and we can look for why isn’t that present on Lytton or whatever street the 40 project is on so I think it really behooves us all and to our Subcommittee on transportation to 41 take this plan and help all of you really come to some really innovative, not innovative in the 42 way you are proposing here but innovative ideas about what it is that should go into our future 43 planning about bicycles and pedestrian circulation that really makes it a priority for us and when 44 it comes before the Council we could say, this is what the 2020 or the 2075 or whatever we’re 45 shooting for, Comp Plan says we really are supporting and so I’m happy with all the citations 46 Page 17 you made of the Comp Plan and how its supportive but I didn’t see the innovation and how we’re 1 thinking about really what’s in this document and how it could go forward and maybe our 2 Commissioners that are working on this with you can really put some thought into it because I’d 3 really like to see us push it as much as we can and I’d like to thank you myself for a good job. 4 5 Are we ready for some action? Commissioner Fineberg? 6 7 MOTION 8 9 Commissioner Fineberg: I’d like to move that we recommend Staff’s recommendation that the 10 City Council adopt the 2012 Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan including the revisions 11 that Chief Transportation Official Jaime Rodriguez has mentioned are in progress. 12 13 Chair Martinez: Okay a Motion by Vice Chair Fineberg, a Second by Commissioner Keller. Do 14 you want to speak to your Motion or are you done? 15 16 Vice Chair Fineberg: Walk and bike. 17 18 Chair Martinez: Commissioner Keller final words. 19 20 Commissioner Keller: First of all, what’s really important about this plan is that Palo Alto has 21 more people who walk to work or bike to work than take all forms of public transit combined 22 and that means this is a really, really important document for Palo Alto besides the people who 23 also take bike and walk for recreation, for shopping, for other purposes so I think that 24 underscores the importance of this document. 25 26 I was quite pleased and distressed to see Map 3-5. I was distressed about how much stuff was 27 there in the blue range and I was pleased to actually see a map and it might help to update this 28 map annually and include it as part of the CIP document we get and I’m not sure how hard it 29 would be to do that but it’s Map 3-5 which is on Page 3-31 and so that’s something that it’s a 30 great piece of data, lots of wonderful data in here and so I appreciate the work of Staff, of the 31 Consultants, of PABAC which for the benefit for the person who types this up is PABAC not 32 payback. To the other members of the public who’ve participated today and at other points in 33 the process of development of this plan. Thank you. 34 35 VOTE 36 37 Chair Martinez: With that, let’s call for the Vote. All those in favor of the Motion say Aye. 38 Aye. None opposed. The Motion passes unanimously with Commissioner Keller, Tanaka, 39 Martinez, Fineberg, Michael and Tuma voting in support. Thank you all. Good job. 40 41 MOTION PASSED 42 43 1 Planning — May/June 2012 Power to the Pedalers A variety of innovations is making bicycling safer than ever. By Adam Regn Arvidson Sometimes I take my son to preschool by bicycle. It's about a mile round-trip, and there are no trails between my house and our destination. I ride in the street until I reach a highway intersection; then I switch to a sidewalk and pedestrian crosswalk. Two more blocks on a busy unmarked roadway and I turn onto a bicycle lane leading to the preschool. I'm always on the lookout for opening doors and cars making right turns in front of me. On the way home after school, part of the trip involves a new bicycle lane on a wide concrete gutter integrated with the curb. The city banished parking along one side of this street just last year and striped lanes in each direction all the way to my street (this is part of a cross-city bicycle boulevard). A few blocks short of my street, I merge with traffic crossing the highway and pedal as fast as I can, my son usually whooping with glee at the sudden speed. At my street, I turn left, ride the quiet roadway to my alley, and park the bike back in the garage. It's lucky for me that most of this route is quite bicycle-friendly. The bicycle lanes help, but I admit that I don't feel completely safe, especially when the trailer is full of preschooler. This bike trip occurs once or twice a week, and only in good weather. Roger Geller, the bicycle coordinator in Portland, Oregon, would call me an "interested but concerned" bicyclist. This is the third in a continuum of types that range from "the strong and the fearless" to "the enthused and the confident" to me to "no way no how." Bicyclists like me are the sweet spot for bicycle planners like Geller. He says they (we) constitute about three-fifths of the total population and, if convinced to bicycle regularly, could transform transportation in the U.S. (as in Europe). Portland's city traffic engineer, Rob Burchfield, puts the group in context: Potential bicyclists want bicycle facilities with fewer cars or with greater separation from motor vehicles. Cities across the nation are working to provide exactly those types of riding experiences, mainly by improving on-street facilities. Transportation planners everywhere say they would love to build separated paths wherever they could, but in fact there is neither space nor money to do that in today's cities. So we are left with existing roadways. 2 On road In 2006 New York City announced that it would implement 200 miles of new bicycle infrastructure within three years. It succeeded, by building a combination of vehicle-free bike paths (separated trails), on-street bicycle lanes, and signed routes. New York's approach covers the range of options for accommodating bicyclists. Signed routes typically use local streets with minimal traffic, while the separated trails are the marquee (and often expensive) backbones of any citywide system. In the middle are the on-street facilities, which are catching on nationwide. These include the typical striped bicycle lanes that exist in most cities, as well as more innovative, European- inspired designs like cycle tracks, buffered lanes, and colorful intersection treatments with unusual shapes and signage (more on those later). Emerging between the signed route and the bicycle lane is the bicycle boulevard, sometimes called a neighborhood greenway. This hybrid typically uses quiet local streets and makes them even less attractive to cars by blocking automobile through-traffic at major intersecting streets and sometimes by reducing speed limits. According to city staff and bicycle advocates in Portland, this is where most facility development is taking place. These boulevards appeal to "interested but concerned" bicyclists like me because they have hardly any car traffic. Bicyclists like me are most concerned about the inexpensive, easy-to-implement bicycle lane. Am I safe there? What about pulling kids in trailers? What about kids on their own little bikes? How can we encourage the next generation of cyclists when we don't feel completely comfortable on the roads? Are my safety fears founded? 3 New York's 2006 initiative was driven by an earlier study that tracked bicycle injuries and fatalities in the city between 1996 and 2005. During that time, 225 bicyclists died in New York — only one of them in a bike lane. New York also publishes a "Cycling Safety Indicator," which considers fatalities and serious injuries. Between 2000 and 2010, injury risk there dropped by 72 percent. Even more notable: The risk number stayed relatively stable between 2003 and 2007, then dropped by 29 percent in 2008 and by another 30 percent in 2009. All this was happening as the city was completing its bike lane blitz. What the numbers say These New York data are some of the most compelling available on the safety of bike lanes. According to Carl Sundstrom of the Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center, a Federal Highway Administration-funded clearinghouse at the University of North Carolina, bicycle crash data are notoriously hard to study. "The state of the [research] right now," he says, "is that we don't have a lot of crashes, which is good, but we also don't have a large sample size." A key early study of bike lane safety was completed by the Federal Highway Administration in 1999. This comparison of user practices on bike lanes and wide curb lanes (a type of on-road facility that provides space for cyclists to mix with traffic in one lane of a multilane roadway) used video and questionnaires to gauge how cyclists were using both facility types in three selected cities. Although the study's official stance is that both facility types are generally safe and could increase bicycling, data indicate that bicyclists are more likely to do something unsafe (such as riding the wrong way) in wide curb lanes than in bike lanes. Joseph Perez, Phoenix's bicycle coordinator, says the FHWA study is a tacit endorsement of bicycle lanes — and that this stance led to a surge in bike lane construction after 2000. His city performed a safety study of its own in 2000, written by the traffic engineering supervisor at the time, Michael Cynecki. The city had more than 200 miles of bicycle lanes then. The study found that the bicyclist was at fault in more than half of the 682 bicycle-motor vehicle crashes that year. It also found that 95 percent of crashes occurred on streets with no bicycle facilities at all. Only 13 (about two percent) occurred in a bicycle lane. Perez, who has been with Phoenix for five years, references a 2007 bicycle collision study that shows a steady decline in bicycle crashes, even as bicycle use has increased. No comprehensive study has been undertaken since then, but Perez notes that crashes between 2006 and 2010 hovered around 450 per year, compared with the more typical 750 to 800 per year before 2000. Because the 2000 study spurred Phoenix to continue to build bicycle lanes, Perez suggests that the precipitous drop in crashes could be attributed to new facilities. 4 Safe and sound The Phoenix study also found that more than half of all crashes occurred when a bicyclist was crossing a street. Intersections are scary. So is dooring: being clipped by a parked car opening its door into the bicycle lane. Officials, researchers, and bicycling advocates across the nation say that these are exactly the two realms where the most innovation is taking place. Many cities are trying to minimize dooring and the fear of it by creating more exclusive space for bicycles. There are several ways to do this. The bicycle lane can be widened from four or five feet (typical widths) to six. Alternatively, planners can consider the total width from the curb to the outer edge of the bike lane and provide up to 14.5 feet for parking and bicycle facility. Wider lanes allow a bicyclist room to get around an open door without entering traffic lanes. Another way to make space between doors and bicyclists is to create a striped buffer between parking and the bike lane. Buffered bike lanes allow for a driver "loading zone" that does not conflict with through-riding bicyclists. A cycle track takes the buffering concept one step further by placing the bicycle facility at the very edge of the roadway, separated from the traveled lanes by a raised curb, a planted median, or parking. Cycle tracks can be one- or two-way. They essentially create a trail at the side of the roadway. When a cycle track is located between parking and the curb, the thinking goes, it is safer from dooring because many cars lack passengers. 5 Intersections can be difficult for bicyclists, especially those turning left. Historically, transportation engineers, fearful of liability, abandoned bike lanes short of major intersections — to let bicycles flow with the vehicular traffic. The nation is peppered with signs saying "bike lane ends," which might as well say "you're on your own now." The major roadway crossing on the striped-lane bicycle boulevard I use on my way home from preschool is like this. I must contend with four lanes of traffic in all four directions, plus a free right-turn lane. Lessons from Europe Bicycle transportation planners are now taking cues from Europe by providing specific facilities for bicycles at intersections. Some of these look quite strange to the uninitiated, but the general idea is to give bicyclists a way to stay within their designated space and keep out of cars' designated spaces. The simplest of these is the through bike lane, which features dashed striping or repeating icons across the intersection linking bike lanes on either side. This system shows bicyclists where to ride and alerts motorists to the likely presence of bikes. To aid in turning movements, many cities are beginning to implement bike boxes: exclusive bicycle waiting areas located ahead of vehicle stop bars at signalized intersections. A bike box lets a cyclist literally get out ahead of traffic and move to the left during a red light. Even stranger to American drivers is the two-stage turn queue. Bicyclists can have a difficult time turning left from a cycle track or buffered lane located on the right side of the street. They are blocked from moving into traffic and must often resort to pedestrian crosswalks or making a very long left through the middle of the vehicular intersection. A two-stage turn queue creates a special bicycle waiting zone right out in the intersection. First, a bicyclist moves from the bike lane or cycle track straight ahead on the green light, ending in the waiting zone, which is a colored box located in front of traffic on the cross street. The cyclist stays there until the opposing signal turns green, then proceeds across the intersection, ahead of the cross-street traffic. Though rare in the U.S. (there are examples in Portland and New York), this design is fairly common in northern Europe. Biking through a two-stage turn queue is sometimes called a "Copenhagen left." Some cities are also experimenting with bicycle-oriented signals at intersections, adapting some of the improvements in pedestrian signals for bikes. Some examples give bikes a head start into the intersection, others offer bike-only phases. Far more noticeable at intersections and in bike lanes in general, though, is color. Turn queues, bike boxes, through bike lanes, and entire cycle tracks are being painted green. Blue and red have been used, too, but green has become the standard — mainly, according to Carl Sundstrom, because the other two colors already had designated purposes in the all-powerful Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices. New York City painted its entire Prospect Park West cycle track green. Madison, Wisconsin, and Chicago recently added green paint to their most conflict-prone intersections. Madison's pedestrian and bicycle coordinator, Arthur Ross, says the green paint serves the dual purpose of getting cars to watch for cyclists and getting cyclists to be extra careful. Green, he says, "helps to make sure people are watching for each other." 6 Pedaling onward Do these innovations make cycling safer and more comfortable? Ross says that in Madison the city has gotten requests for bike lanes even on streets with wide curb lanes. He believes people see bike lanes as "an invitation, as an encouragement to bike." A few recent projects seem to prove Ross's point. In 2009 Portland installed two different facilities on downtown streets: a cycle track on Southwest Broadway through the Portland State University campus and a pair of buffered bike lanes on adjacent one-way streets in the heart of downtown. Portland State University completed a study of both facilities in January 2011. Like the 1998 FHWA study, this one used video and questionnaires to determine bicyclists' use and preferences, but the Portland study also questioned motorists and pedestrians. Cyclists overwhelmingly liked the cycle track, with 70 percent saying it made cycling safer and easier on SW Broadway, which previously had a bicycle lane next to parking. The new project eliminated one lane of traffic and created a buffered track between parking and curb, with queue boxes at cross streets. Only 35 percent of bicyclists were concerned about being doored, compared to 95 percent in the conventional bike lane. However, bicyclists don't have a good grasp of intersection treatments, and there has been an increase in pedestrian-bicycle conflicts. Forty percent of cyclists and 12 percent of pedestrians reported being in a near collision on the cycle track. On SW Oak and SW Stark, Portland removed one lane from each one-way roadway (leaving just one each) and installed on each street a six-foot bike lane with a two-foot buffer against the parking bays. The Portland State study found that bicycling has almost tripled in some spots. Ninety percent of cyclists said they preferred a buffered bike lane over a standard one, and 70 7 percent said they would go out of their way to ride on a buffered lane. On the other hand, motorists and local businesses have expressed some concerns about increased travel times, confusion about crossing the bike lanes to park or turn right, and managing deliveries and customer parking. In June 2010, New York City built a two-way cycle track on Prospect Park West. The project converted a three-lane one-way street with parking on both sides to a two-lane one-way street with two parking bays and a two-way cycle track between parking and the curb on one side. This project has been controversial (residents sued the city over loss of parking and other issues, though the suit was dismissed), but its functional success is nearly beyond dispute. Since cycle track implementation, weekday bicycling on the street has nearly tripled, according to a New York City Department of Transportation study, while weekend cycling has doubled. Motor vehicle volume on the street has been unaffected, but speeds have dropped. The proportion of vehicles breaking the speed limit has dipped from 75 percent to 20 percent. Vehicle travel times have remained stable (within 10 seconds of existing). Perhaps most illuminating is the crash data. In the project's first year, crashes of all types were down almost 16 percent and crashes with injury were down more than 60 percent. It appears that the cycle track has not only increased bicycling, it has made the entire roadway safer. According to Rob Sadowsky, executive director of Oregon's Bicycle Transportation Alliance, "bike lanes are a traffic calming option." Intersections are still a concern, though, he says. The new standard The next big step is standardizing these innovative on-road bicycle facilities. Drawing on 20 years of municipal experiments, the National Association of City Transportation Officials' 2011 Urban Bikeway Design Guide is meant to fill a gap in the standards offered by other national transportation guides. The NACTO document provides detailed guidance on urban bicycle infrastructure, illustrated with easy-to-understand sections and renderings. The innovations described in this article appear in the guide, and the standards and recommendations are currently at various stages of approval by the Federal Highway Administration. NACTO has found a key ally in U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who has repeatedly endorsed the guide as a way to increase bicycling and diversify transportation options. Many of the most innovative ideas have been pushed by city transportation planners (often bicyclists themselves) based on precedents from Europe. That worldwide cross-pollination has led to a book of standards, which will offer some clarity and support to other cities. Chicago and Missoula, Montana, have already adopted the standards for their future improvements. At the same time, funding for these facilities is evaporating. The loss of the transportation enhancements program in the most federal recent transportation bill may significantly decrease the mileage of bike lanes, cycle tracks, and bicycle boulevards implemented in the near future. Adam Arvidson is a Minneapolis-based writer and a fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects. 8 Sidebars: "5 Essential Elements of a Bicycle-Friendly Community" and "Safer Bike Lanes Coming to Cape Cod" Resources Images: Top — A one-way cycle track in New York City, where biking injuries have been dropping dramatically. Middle — Weekday bicycling has tripled since the 2010 installation of a CYCLE TRACK on Prospect Park West in Brooklyn. Bottom — To create the TWO-WAY TRACK, vehicles gave up one lane of travel. The move has helped to keep cars within the speed limit. Images courtesy NYC DOT. NACTO's Urban Bikeway Design Guide can be downloaded for free at http://nacto.org. The Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center is at www.pedbikeinfo.org and www.bicyclinginfo.org. To find the 1998 FHWA study on bike lanes and wide curb lanes, visit www.fhwa.dot.gov and search for "1998 bike lane study." The Portland State study of a cycle track and buffered bike lanes is at http://bikeportland.org/wp- content/uploads/2011/02/PSUCycleTrackBBLReportFINAL.pdf. Information on New York City's Prospect Park West cycle track is at www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/bicyclists/prospectparkwest.shtml. Controversy about Prospect Park West can be found on the New York Streetsblog. Visit www.streetsblog.org and search "Prospect Park West."