HomeMy WebLinkAbout2003-07-28 City CouncilTO:
FROM:
HONORABLE CITY COUNCIL
CITY MANAGER DEPARTMENT: PLANNING AND
COMMUNITY ENVIRONMENT
DATE:
SUBJECT:
JULY 28, 2003 CMR:241:03
PLANNING AND TRANSPORTATION COMMISSION
RECOMMENDATIONTO THE CITY COUNCILTO APPROVE
THE PERMANENT INSTALLATION OF THE CORNER
MODIFICATION FORTHE LOUIS ROAD TRAFFICCALMING
PROJECT
RECOMlVIENDATION
Staff and the Planning and Transportation Commission recommend that the City Council
approve the permanent retention and construction of the corner modification at the northeast
comer of the Louis/Charleston intersection, consisting of the reduced vertical curb radius
and the raised concrete centerline.
BACKGROUND
First Trial Traffic Calming Plan. In November 2000, residents of Louis Road between
Adobe Creek and Charleston Road sent a petition to the Planning and Transportation
Commission (PTC) requesting speed bumps. This request was forward to the Transportation
Division and it was handled according to the guidelines of the Neighborhood Traffic
Calming Program (NTCP) approved by Council in April 2001. A working group of Louis
Road residents was formed after the first neighborhood meeting, which agreed on a
proposed plan with five sets of speed cushions and a modification of the northeast corner of
the Louis/Charleston intersection. The purpose of the comer modification was to address
one of the residents’ specific complaints about westbound drivers on Charleston turning too
fast onto northbound Louis into the neighborhood.
Following the NTCP procedure, a four-month trial of the proposed plan was implemented in
February 2002. However, the speed cushion portion of the plan was not successful. After
considerable discussion, staff decided in October 2002 to recommend to the PTC that the
CMR:241:03 Page 1 of 4
speed cushions be removed, the corner modification be retained permanently, and a new
residents’ working group be reconvened to develop another traffic calming plan. The PTC
recommended approval of staff’s recommendations. The new working group developed a
much-reduced trial plan utilizing two speed tables and Staff brought the new proposed plan
to the PTC on May 14, 2003. The PTC recommended approval of the trial. A figure
showing the new speed table plan with the existing corner reduction is included in
Attachment A of the May 14, 2003 staff report to the PTC.
According to NTCP procedure, the approval, modification and removal of traffic calming
trial measures for a collector street project are made by the Director of Planning and
Community Environment based on the recommendation of the PTC. City Council approval
is required only for permanent retention of traffic calming measures (in this case only for
the corner modification element of the Louis Road project).
Corner Modification. The corner modification at Louis/Charleston consists of two parts, as
shown in the photograph in Attachment A of this report. The first is a reduced curb radius
on the northeast corner (from 30 feet to 20 feet), constructed for the trial with an arc of
three-inch high concrete bars ("chatter bars"). The second part of the corner modification is
a raised concrete centerline on the first 30 feet of Louis north of Charleston, also constructed
of chatter bars, with adjacent yellow striping. Both elements work together to reduce the
speed of westbound Charleston traffic turning right onto northbound Louis. The reduced
radius at the corner requires westbound Charleston drivers to execute a slower right turn
onto northbound Louis. The raised centerline forces these drivers to stay in the northbound
lane while making the slower turn forced by the new radius. Without the raised centerline,
some drivers could offset the slower required turn by swinging wide over the Louis Road
centerline, thus canceling the slowing effect of the tighter inside radius. The raised
centerline has a secondary desirable effect of slowing the eastbound left turn onto
northbound Louis. A permanent standard six-inch vertical curb with a corner radius of 20
feet would replace the arc of chatter bars forming the radius reduction. The chatter bars
forming the raised concrete centerline are intended to remain as-is for the permanent
configuration.
The corner modification received little attention in public discussion of the first trial, given
the major concerns about the speed cushions. In the first project area survey, 76 percent of
survey respondents, representing approximately 50 percent of project area households,
favored keeping the corner modification. Few complaints were received about this element
of the plan. The speed of northbound traffic on Louis just north of Charleston was reduced
from 23 mph before the trial began to 19 mph after the trial. After the speed cushions were
removed, staff re-measured the speed at this location and found it to be 21 mph. This data
ClVIR:241:03 Page 2 of 4
shows that the speed cushions helped reduce northbound speeds, but the corner modification
also played a role. Based on the evaluation data from the trial, staff recommended that the
PTC approve the permanent retention and installation of the corner modification.
The corner modification, though a minor element of the traffic calming plan, still plays a
traffic calming role by itself. A few residents submitted specific comments to the PTC
against the radius reduction, mostly from a bicycle safety viewpoint. Some residents’
concerns related to the temporary use of the concrete chatter bars to imitate the reduced
radius curb. They believed that the low chatter bars were hard to see, and had edges and
gaps that might catch the wheel of a bicyclist riding too close to the bars. Other concerns
related to the reduced radius itself, even if it were permanently reconstructed as a standard
vertical curb. They believed that the reduced radius removed needed roadway space at the
corner (about three feet of width at the apex of the turn) that is needed by a bicyclist turning
right, who needs to keep to the right to allow space for a turning driver.
At its October 16, 2002 meeting, the PTC recommended that both elements of the corner
modification be approved permanently, conditioned on follow-up review and approval by
the Palo Alto Bicycle Advisory Committee (PABAC).
DISCUSSION
Staff took the corner reduction item to PABAC, which discussed it on November 12 and
December 3, 2002 (a quorum was not present for the first meeting). A petition signed by
eight Palo Alto resident bicycle riders was submitted to PABAC. The basis of the petition
was that the radius reduction (one of two elements of the corner modification) created a
more hazardous situation for bicyclists without a demonstrated benefit in traffic calming.
The petition claimed that the traffic calming benefit was minor and/or was unproven
because it was not thoroughly studied independently from the speed cushions or the raised
centerline (the second element of the corner reduction). As described above, the petitioners
believed hazards to bicyclists resulted from less width at the corner for a bicyclist and a
driver to turn side-by-side and/or the nature of the temporary devices (chatter bars) used to
imitate a future permanent vertical curb.
Staff’s viewpoint is that reducing a corner radius is an accepted, simple method of reducing
speed at a corner. The reduction of the radius from 30 feet to 20 feet results in a radius that
is the same as the southeast and southwest corners of the same intersection, and is a
common radius at other major intersections in Palo Alto and other cities. Typical new
suburban construction has favored large radii to allow drivers to turn more easily. However,
this trend has been slowed in recent years as new planning has turned toward "friendlier"
designs for pedestrians and bicyclists that aim to reduce vehicle speeds and make road
crossings easier and safer through narrower streets and intersections. Staff has installed an
advance warning sign on westbound Charleston warning drivers of reduced speed at that
corner (10 mph). There is no bike lane on westbound Charleston as it approaches the
intersection, and a bike lane is present on Louis. The reduced radius removes only about 3
CMR:241:03 Page 3 of 4
feet of width from the apex of the turn--the width of the gutter. According to the Caltrans
bicycle design guidelines, the gutter area is not considered part of a bike lane. Cyclists are
typically taught not to ride close to the gutter edge, as it could catch the front wheel and
cause a cyclist to lose balance. Horizontal traffic claming measures reduce speeds by
narrowing lane widths and/or shifting traffic laterally. These measures may thus reduce the
roadway space at these points that is used by a bicyclist, who may then have to °’take the
lane" ahead of or behind a motor vehicle. This tradeoff is noted in the City’s Neighborhood
Traffic Calming Program Guideline #3, which states in part: "Any localized impacts on
bicyclists must be balanced with the overall benefit to bicyclists and neighborhood residents
of lower vehicle speeds and/or lower traffic volumes attained through traffic calming." The
reduced radius thus removes the gutter from the cyclist’s riding area (which, as stated above,
is not a recommended riding area). The new reduced radius will have a new gutter, and
cyclists will most likely have to "take the lane" while making a right turn in the reduced
corner width and to avoid riding in the new gutter. Some bicyclists are not comfortable
riding in this manner. Staff believes that this negative impact on some bicyclists is offset by
the approximately 2 mph reduction in speeds of drivers turning right onto Louis from
Charleston that has resulted from the combination of the reduced radius and the raised
centerline. Small reductions in speed have been shown to have proportionally large safety
benefits.1
PABAC reviewed the residents’ petition, listened to residents’ testimony and discussed
staff’s recommendation. PABAC unanimously supported the staff and PTC
recommendation to leave the temporary reduced radius in place and to proceed with
construction of the permanent radius reduction.
RESOURCE IMPACT
The design and construction of the permanent reduced curb radius with standard vertical
curb will cost approximately $8,000, to be funded through the residential street traffic
calming program capital improvement program (CIP). This project, if approved by Council,
would be constructed this summer by the Public Works Department in coordination with a
separate improvement at that intersection--installation of a median opening and new
crosswalk on Charleston Road along the east side of the Louis-Montrose intersection. As
noted above, the raised concrete centerline would remain as-is, constructed of chatter bars
with adjacent striping.
POLICY IMPLICATIONS
Traffic calming is strongly supported in the Comprehensive Plan. Policy T-34 states:
"Implement traffic calming measures to slow traffic on local and collector residential
1 A recent study of fatalpedestrian accidents in Adelaide, Australia concluded that a 30 percent reduction in fatal
pedestrian crashes could take place with only a 3 mph (5 kph) reduction in vehicle speed. See McLean, et. al., Vehicle
Travel Speeds and the Incidence of Fata! Pedestrian Collisions, University of Adelaide, 1994.
CMR:241:03 Page 4 of 4
streets .... Include traffic circles and other traffic calming devices among these measures."
Program T-43 states: "Implement a Neighborhood Traffic Calming Program to implement
appropriate traffic calming measures ...." The proposed project is consistent with this policy
and program.
ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW
This specific element of the Louis Road traffic calming project--the corner modification--is
categorically exempt from the provisions of CEQA under Section 15301--"minor alteration
of existing public structures".
ATTACHMENTS
A. Photo~aph of Coruer Modification
B. May 14, 2003 Staff Report to the PTC (includes October 16, 2002 staff report to the
PTC)
C. Minutes of October 16, 2003 PTC Meeting
PREPARED BY:
DEPARTMENT HEAD:
CARL 5
/ Trans, g@tion Engineer
//~’~TEVE EMSLIE
Director of Planning and
Community
CITY MANAGER APPROVAL:
EMILY HARRISON
Assistant City Manager
PABAC
Eight residents submitting the November 4, 2002 petition to PABAC
Louis Road Working Group Members
CMR:241:03 Page 5 of 4
ATTACHMENT A
ATTACHMENT B
TRANSPORTATION DIVISION
STAFF REPORT
PLANNING & TRANSPORTATION COMMISSION
FROM:DEPARTMENT:Planning
AGENDA DATE:
SUBJECT:
May 14, 2003
Louis Road Traffic Calming Project--Recommendation of Trial
Implementation of Speed Table Plan
RECOMMENDATION
Staff recommends that the Planning and Transportation Commission recommend approval
of a four-month trial of the second Louis Road Traffic Calming Project consisting of two
speed tables located as shown in the exhibit of Attachment A.
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
Prqiect History
In November 2000, residents of Louis Road between Adobe Creek and East Charleston Road
sent a petition to the Planning and Transportation Commission (PTC) requesting speed
humps. Following the procedure of the Neighborhood Traffic Calming Program (NTCP),
staff and residents designed and implemented a four-month trial of Speed cushions on Louis
between East Charleston and East Meadow. The plan also included a comer modification
involving the curb and centerline at the Louis/Charleston intersection. After a three-month
trial, the speed cushion component of the plan proved to be unacceptable and they were
removed. The Commission approved the comer modification for permanent installation and
also recommended that staff reconvene a new resident working group to develop a possible
new traffic calming plan for the same area. (Refer to the October 16, 2002 Commission staff
report and minutes--Attachments B and C.)
Louis Road Tdal Speed Table Page 1
The Proposed Traffic Calming Plan
Following the PTC’s instructions, staff organized a new residents working group consisting
of ten members--five living in the original area (Louis between East Meadow and East
Charleston and the Bibbits cul-de-sac) and five residing outside the original project area. The
five project area representatives favored a new traffic calming plan for the area. Of the other
five, one specifically represented the bicycle community; three were generally opposed to
traffic calming; two were generally in favor. This 2:3 ratio represented the approximate
percentages of favorable/not favorable views of traffic calming as reflected in the survey of
wide area residents for the speed cushion project. It turned out in reality that these five
members were not cleanly divided in their support/non support of traffic calming; rather there
was a range of support or non support, depending on the number, type and location of
measures discussed. The working group met four times in January and February 2003. After
lively discussions of the various possibilities, including "do nothing", the group developed
and strongly recommended a new traffic calming plan consisting of two speed tables to be
located on Louis between East Charleston and Adobe Creek. The group decided to remove
the portion of Louis between Adobe Creek and East Meadow from the project area and return
to the area of the original residents’ request. The proposed plan and the project area are
illustrated in Exhibit 1. The plan is described in more detail in the letter that was sent to
project area residents (Attachment A).
Neighborhood Meetin~ and Survey of Proiect and Wide Areas
Following the same procedure as the prior residents survey for removing the speed cushions,
staff mailed a survey to households in the project area and the wide area (Attachment A). The
project area consists of 37 households. The wide area consists of approximately 1100
households between East Charleston, Loma Verde, West Bayshore/Fabian and about 1½
blocks east Of Middlefield, except for the 37 households in the project area. A neighborhood
meeting was also held on March 19 to provide residents of both areas a chance to discuss
their views with staff and ask questions, attended by 13 residents. The results of the survey
are presented below.
No. of % of Survey No. of % of Survey
Responding Responses Responding Responses in
Households in in Project Households Wide Area
Project Area Area in Wide Area
Support the proposed speed table 20 20+23=87%151 151 +382=40%
plan
Do not support the proposed plan 0 17 17+382=4%
but might support something else
Do not support the proposed plan 3 3+23=13%214 214+382=56%
Total Responses+total households =23+37=62%382+1091
overall response rate =35%
Louis Road Trial Speed Table Page 2
The NTCP procedure requires that a simple majority of survey responses in the project area
indicate support for the trial (not 50 percent of total project area households). The above
results indicate strong support among project area households for a trial of the speed table
plan. Support in the wide area is not required for a project to be considered for approval, but
the PTC may wish to consider that opinion in formulating its recommendation. The
approximate 44 percent wide area support rate for the proposed project or some other form
of traffic calming is a little higher than the prior wide area survey support of 38 percent for
the speed cushions or a gentler measure. Staff considers 44 percent support as surprisingly
strong for traffic calming on Louis by those who do not live there.
Because of the strong project area support, staff recommends that this project move to Step
7 of the NTCP procedure--PTC review and recommendation for a four-month trial. Staff
supports this project as an effective, fair replacement for the unpopular speed cushion trial.
The tables are much gentler measures than the cushions; the speed table design solves the
safety problems of the earlier trial; and the number of locations has been greatly reduced--
which were the three major problems with the prior project. The final decision would be
made by the Director of Planning and Community Environment.
POLICY IMPLICATIONS
Comprehensive Plan
Traffic calming is strongly supported in the Comprehensive Plan. Policy T-34 states:
"Implement traffic calming measures to slow traffic on local and collector residential
streets .... Include traffic circles and other traffic calming devices among these measures."
Program T-43 states: "Implement a Neighborhood Traffic Calming Program to implement
appropriate traffic calming measures ...."The proposed project is consistent with this policy
and program.
SUMMARY OF SIGNIFICANT ISSUES
Speed Tables
This traffic calming measure is described and illustrated in the residents letter in Attachment
A. Speed tables of a slightly different design have been in place on Terman Drive and Bryant
Court in Palo Alto, but have gone mostly unnoticed since these are relatively minor streets.
None have been installed yet on typical residential streets, and none like the Menlo Park
design are proposed for Louis Road. As a result of a prior City Council directive, staff is
planning to install a speed table of this design on Channing near Lincoln, probably preceding
an installation on Louis Road. Residents involved in two other traffic calming projects
currently underway are also considering speed tables. Speed tables are the only vertical
displacement traffic calming measure that the Fire Department can "live with" on collector
streets, since collectors form part of the emergency response network. Staff is hopeful that
speed tables will prove to be a popular measure because they provide speed reduction with
Louis Road Trial Speed Table Page 3
less abruptness (i.e., "penalty") for law-abiding drivers, than do speed cushions or standard
speed humps. Menlo Park has about a dozen tables installed on major streets and they appear
to be effective and popular.
ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW
A trial traffic calming project is categorically exempt from environmental review per the
California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) Article 15306. If the trial is approved, is
successful, and staff recommends its permanent installation, staff would conduct an
environmental review for the permanent installation based on the results of the trial, likely
leading to a negative declaration. The City Council would be asked to approve the negative
declaration as part of its approval of the permanent installation.
Staff has analyzed the potential impacts of this trial project, focusing on impacts to public
and emergency services and the potential for traffic diversion to adjacent local residential
streets. As noted above, speed tables are not expected to significantly impact the ability of
the Fire Department to use Louis Road. The Police Department has generally not experienced
negative impacts from traditional speed humps in the past. Because tables are easier to drive
over than humps, it is anticipated that the speed tables will not substantially impact police
vehicles. The evaluation at the end of the four-month trial will include reports from the Fire
and Police departments about impacts to their services. Due to the use of only two tables and
their relatively gentle profile, staff does not expect any diversion of traffic to adjacent streets.
PUBLIC NOTICE
All of the households in the wide area and project area were notified by mail of the PTC
meeting and the availability of this staff report.
NEXT STEPS
If the PTC approves the staff recommendation, the final decision about proceeding with a
four-month trial would rest with the Director of Planning and Community Environment. With
that approval, staff anticipates that the trial could begin in mid-summer. After approximately
four months, staff would return to the PTC with an evaluation of the trial.
ATTACHMENTS/EXItIBITS:
A. March 5, 2003 letter to residents and speed table plan
B. Commission staff report of 10/16/02
C. Minutes of 10/16/02 Commission meeting
COURTESY COPIES:
Louis Road Project residents working group
Prepared by: Carl Stoffel, Transportation Engineer, NTCP Manager
Division Head Approval://@~~ ~5/~--~
( ~t~s~ph’Z~ott~ (~hief Transportation Official
Louis Road Trial Speed Table Page 4
Merch 5, 2003
ATTACHMENT A
Cityof Palo Alto
Department of Planning and
Community Environment
Dear Resident:
Transpo~ationThe purpose of this letter is to announce a neighborhood survey and meeting for a second
DMsion proposed traffic calming plan for Louis Road between East Charleston and Ross Roads.
Your participation is requested.
Background. Last summer, a trial of speed cushions was implemented on Louis Road
between East Charleston Road and East Meadow Drive. This project was unsuccessful,
primarily due to the poor placement of some of the cushions and the unexpected
abruptness of this new measure. In October 2002, the Planning and Transportation
Commission directed that the speed.cushions be removed, which was done in November.
The Commission also directed that a new group of residents be convened to investigate
whether another, "friendlier", traffic calming plan might be feasible. In response, the
Transportation Division convened a working group comprised of ten members, with half
from the original "project area" (Louis between Charleston and Meadow) and the other
half representing a larger area beyond the project area. This group met four times in
January and February. After animated discussions of the various possibilities, including
"do nothing", the group developed and strongly recommends a new proposed plan for
residents to consider, as described below.
Proposed Speed Tab& P/an for Louis Road. The residents working group was very sensitive
to the problems with the prior plan, as well as to the desire of residents in the southern
blocks of Louis Road to reduce speeds. The group decided on a new traffic calming
proposal that is greatly reduced in scope and severity from the prior plan. The proposed
plan is limited to just the two blocks of Louis where speeds are the highest, resulting in a
project area that is only about !/3 the length of the former area. The plan consists of two
speed tables--a substantially friendlier speed reduction measure than speed cushions or
humps. This is a major reduction from the five locations of speed cushions in the previous
plan. Speed tables have been used successfully in two neighboring jurisdictions--Menlo
Park and Stanford. The tables are 22 feet in length in the driving direction (compared to
six feet for the speed cushions) and are flat on top, giving them a much gentler profile
than other measures. They extend across the entire street from gutter to gutter,
including the bike lanes, with no gaps. The Fire Department judges these measures to be
acceptable on emergency response routes such as Louis Road. The tables are proposed to
250 Hamilton Avenue
P.O. Box 10250
Palo Alto, CA 94303
650.329.2520
650.617.3108 fax
Printed with soy-based in~ on 100% recycled paper processed "without chlorine
Louis Road Traffic Calming Project
March 5, 2003
Page 2 of 3
be located between Bibbits Drive and Gailen Avenue. No measures are proposed between
Adobe Creek and Ross Road, due to the proximity of the creek hump and stop signs; nor
between Bibbits and Charleston, due to the proximity of the stop sign and the presence of
the corner modification at Louis/Charleston (which will remain permanently as part of the
traffic calming plan). Refer to the enclosed map and photographs of speed tables.
Most drivers can drive over speed tables at the residential speed limit--25 ralPh--making
them much less of a driving impediment than the prior speed cushions. To be conservative,
however, the City will post the advisory speed at 20 mph. "Bump" signs will be installed at
each table location to highlight their presence. Speeds before and after and between the
two tables are expected to be about 30 mph, compared to the current 35 mph. This
reduction is realized from greatly curtailing the "outlying speeds" (above 35 mph), with
less impact on the slower drivers. Due to the gentler nature of these measures and the
number limited to two, no noticeable traffic shift is expected. The Transportation Division
encourages residents to experience the speed table design proposed for Louis Road by
driving over the tables in Menlo Park at the locations listed on the enclosed photograph.
The total cost for installation of the two speed tables is approximately $:[6,000, to be
financed through the neighborhood traffic calming program.
Neighborhood Survey. This letter is being sent to all residences receiving our prior
correspondence about the speed cushions--i.e., all households between East Charleston to
Lama Verde, and from the eastern residential boundary to a line a few blocks east of
Middlefield. A survey card is included in which you can indicate whether this trial Flan is
acceptable or not. Only one vote per household is permitted. Your return address is
required on the front of the postcard to help us track and control the survey process. In
order for the Transportation Division to consider recommending implementation of this
plan to the Planning and Transportation Commission, a simple majority (50+ percent) of
survey responses indicating "yes" is required from the project area (i.e., properties
adjoining Louis between Charleston and Ross, plus the Bibbits cul-de-sac). In addition, it is
desirable that a majority of residents in the remainder of the area indicate their
willingness to support traffic calming for the Louis Road residents. Please mail the
enclosed survey card anytime between now and March 25 (23 cents postage required).
Neighborhood Meeting. A informational neighborhood meeting is scheduled as noted above
to present this proposed plan to interested residents. Transportation Division staff will be
present to discuss the details of the plan and answer questions. After this meeting, you
will still have a week to consider this proposal before returning your survey card, or you
may bring your card with you and turn it in at the meeting.
Next Steps. Depending on the outcome of the residents survey, the Transportation
Division will decide whether or not to recommended a trial installation of the proposed plan
to the Planning and Transportation Commission. The Commission meeting should occur in
LOuis Road Traffic Calming Project
March 5, 2003
Page 3 of 3
May. If the Commission recommends approval, the Director of Planning and Community
Environment would make the final decision. If so approved, installation would occur this
summer. The speed tables would initially be installed for four months, after which an
evaluation and resident survey would be conducted and presented to the Planning and
Transportation Commission and later to the City Council.
The Transportation Division supports this new project as a very fair compromise for the
area, potentially providing residents of the project area with the speed reduction they
desire, with minimal impact on other Louis Road users. If you have any questions, please
contact me at (650) 329-2552 or carl.stoffel@cityof paloalto.orq; or Ruchika Aggarwal at
(650) 617-3136 or ruchika.aqqarwal@cityofpaloalto.orq.
Sincerely,
Carl Stoffel, P.E.
Transportation Engineer
Enclosures (2)
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Louis Road
Traffic Calming Project
Proposed
Speed Table Plan
This map is a product of the
City of Palo Alto GIS
SPEED TABLES IN MENLO PARK
These speed tables are located in the Linfield Oaks neighborhood, on Laurel between
Ravenswood and Burgess; Alma between Willow and Burgess; and Willow between Middlefield
and Alma. Others are on Bay and Van Buren north of Willow (near 101 freeway).
NCOMPARISON OF SPEED T.~d3 LE A. D SPEED CUSHION
CROSSECTION PARALLEL TO RO,~) CENTER LINE
Note: R~r clauit5. ve nicM scale bus been e nlaged tam, pared to horizontal scale.
Di re,:t io n of Tra\ el .....>
Specd Table Speed Cus hit) n
’~------- 6.6 feet
feel
3 inches
ATTACHMENT B
TRANSPOR TA TION DIVISION
STAFF REPORT
TO:PLANNING & TRANSPORTATION COMMISSION
FROM:Carl Stoffel DEPARTMENT:Planning
AGENDA DATE: October 16, 2002
SUBJECT:Louis Road Traffic Calming Project--Evaluation of Speed Cushion
Trial
RECOMMENDATIONS
1. Staff recommends that the Planning and Transportation Commission recommend to the
Director of Planning and Community Environment to:
o
(a)Remove the five sets of speed cushions on Louis Road;
(b)Reconvene the Louis Road residents’ working group to develop a new speed-
control traffic calming plan, if so desired by the residents.
Staff recommends that the Planning and Transportation Com~ssion recommend that the
City Council approve the permanent installation and construction of the comer
modification at the northeast comer of the Louis/Charleston intersection, consisting of
the decreased curb radius and the raised concrete centerline.
BACKGROUND/PROJECT DESCRIPTION
In November 2000, residents of Louis Road between Adobe Creek and Charleston Road sent
a petition to the Pla~ming and Transportation Commission requesting speed humps. Residents
representing all of the 18 households on that segTnent of Louis signed the petition. The
request met the qualification criteria of the Neighborhood Traffic Calming Pro~am (NTCP),
and the study began in June 2001. Staff extended the project area a few households north to
Ross Road, a more logical northerly endpoint for the project than Adobe Creek. Shortly
thereafter, a group of Louis Road residents between Ross Road and East Meadow Drive
requested to join the study area, supported by a petition signed by representatives of 12 of
the 31 households on that street segment. Staff decided that the project area would also
include the ten households on the Bibbits Drive cul-de-sac west of Louis. The total project
City of Palo Alto
h:\cmrs\p-tc\louis road trial evaluation 10-16-02.doc
Page 1 of 13
area therefore consists of 68 households with frontages on Louis between Charleston and
East Meadow, and on the Bibbits cul-de-sac. Refer to Attachment A for a map of the project
area.
Staff explained to residents that speed humps were not permitted on collector streets
according to the NTCP guidelines, because the Transportation Division and the Fire
Department have agreed to maintain the collector and arterial street network as the minimum
emergency response network (refer to Chapter V of the NTCP guidelines). This network
must remain as unencumbered as possible by measures that would substantially delay
emergency response. The NTCP guidelines permit speed tables on collector streets with Fire
Department approval, but the Fire Department has resisted tables citing that they cause
almost as much delay as standard speed humps (speed tables are a gentler version of a
standard speed hump and are explained in greater detail in Attachment B). During the study
process, staff became aware of a new traffic calming measure--speed cushions--that had the
potential to provide the speed reduction desired by residents, yet not materially delay Fire
Department vehicles. The Fire Department agreed that speed cushions should be tested on
Louis Road for this project (more details about speed cushions are included under "Smr~’nary
of Significant Issues" below). Residents in the project working group were anxious to
proceed with a project and agreed with staff’s proposal to have speed cushions be the basis
of the traffic calming plan.
Staff and the working group then developed the "Proposed Plan", consisting of (a) five sets
of speed cushions on Louis between Charleston and East Meadow, and (b) decreasing the
radius of the northeast corner of the Louis/Charleston intersection, combined with a raised
concrete centerline, to reduce the speed of traffic turning right onto Louis (see Attachment
A). This plan was sent to project area residents for a survey in January 2002. The results
indicated that 82 percent of households responding to the survey supported a four-month trial
of the plan (i.e., 36 households of the 68 in the project area). Following NTCP guidelines,
staff brought this proposed project ~o the Planning and Transportation Corm~ission on
January 30, 2002. The Commission forwarded aunanimous recommendation to the Director
of Planning and Community Environment, who approved the four-month trial on February
! 1,2002. Refer to Attachment C for the January 30 staff report, the Commission minutes and
the Director’s decision. The trial began in mid-July, 2002.
TRIAL PERIOD
Survey and Notification Area for the Trial
The NTCP guidelines require that households with property frontages on the street where
traffic calming measures will be installed, including cul-de-sacs, be included in the "project
area". Also included are streets that might be affected by such measures. ’~Affected" streets
include streets where substantial diversion of traffic might be expected. Staff estimated that
about 10 percent of the existing volume on Louis would be diverted and dispersed to other
streets (about 500 vpd). Since there were no clearly parallel routes to the project street, staff
expected that the diverted traffic would disperse in small amounts throughout the area onto
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primarily the arterial and collector streets of Middlefield, Charleston, Fabian, West Bayshore
and Loma Verde. The NTCP guidelines, focusing on "spot treatment" projects and a
streamlined procedure, do not require resident notification beyond the immediate project
area’ Accordingly, only the 68 households in the project area (Attachment A) were directly
aware through mailings that the speed cushions were going to be installed. For the January
30 Commission meeting and staff report, staff notified the 68 households directly and placed
display advertisements in the local newspapers to inform the wider community of the
proposed project and Commission meeting.
Resident Complaints
Immediately after the start of the trial in mid-July, staffbegan to receive comments about the
speed cushions. By September, the rate of comments dwindled and the number had reached
about 75, of which about 10 were in favor and the remainder were opposed to the cushions.
Most of these communications were from residents living in the area bounded by Loma
Verde, Charleston, Middle field, and West Bayshore/Fabian (but not including the project
area of Louis between Charleston and East Meadow). Almost all of those registering
complaints had been surprised by the sudden appearance of the speed cushions. On
September 20, staff mailed an informational letter and a return-postcard opinion survey to
this wider area (discussed in more detail later in this report). Shortly thereafter, complaints
resumed at a rapid rate until about 35 more e-mail complaints had been received (this does
not include e-mails addressed to the Commission for the October 16 meeting). Staff was told
(but did not confirm) that a citizen had posted hin~herself on the street asking dissatisfied
drivers to e-mail staff about the project.
The majority of the approximately 100 complainants believed the speed cushions were too
abrupt, inappropriate for the type of street, and/or unsafe. Some cited safety problems for
bicyclists. Many felt that any traffic calming was inappropriate on a major road and/or that
police enforcement should be used instead. Many complainants were very passionate about
their statements. This level of concern and passion during a trial is unusual. (Even during the
controversial Ever~een Park neighborhood street closure projedt in the 1980s, staff does not
recall such a high level of unsolicited complaints during the trial.) In the case of the Louis
Road speed cushions, the high level of initial complaints was likely due to a combination of
three factors: (i) a collector street like Louis Road serves a large area beyond just the "project
area"; (ii) many drivers were unaware of the project because of the limited notification area;
and (iii) testing of a new traffic calming measure that seemed to many residents to be too
harsh.
SafeW Concerns
Many of the residents who contacted staff described unsafe and i11egal driver behavior. Some
northbound drivers were reported veering into the bike lane and even onto the sidewalk to
drive over a narrower cushion without slowing down (this also occurred in the southbound
direction, but to a much smaller de~ee because the southbound bike lane cushion is not
narrow). Residents also reported that some drivers were slowing down too much at the
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cushions--some almost stopping--rather than proceeding at the advised speed of 20 mph.
This action would sometimes upset drivers behind the driver who slowed gown, as they did
not want to slow down that much, or would surprise drivers, causing them to brake suddenly.
Many residents also complained that there were too many cushion locations, and the ones
near stop signs (within 150 feet) were unnecessary since drivers had to slow anyway. There
were also a few reports that frustrated drivers would pass over the double yellow centerline
to pass slower drivers. There were a handful of citizen reports of drivers behaving as above
causing near-misses with bicyclists and pedestrians.
In response to the safety concerns, staff developed some changes to the cushions to be
implemented as soon as possible during the trial. These changes would have taken at least
two v~eeks to implement and could have resulted in extending the trial period. Instead, since
there were so many resident concerns, staff decided it would be better to focus on shortening
the trial, obtaining the evaluation data, and taking the project to the Commission as soon as
possible. -Proposed safety-related changes, to :the project could be: implemented if the
Commission were to approve the project for permanent installation (see footnote below).’
EVALUATION OF TRIAL PROJECT
Evaluation of the trial included the following elements (each is discussed be!ow):
¢" Resident surveys
¢" Before-after speed and volume data
,/ Behavioral survey
,/ Fire Department tests and evaluations of speed cushionsand Menlo Park speed tables
,/ .Evaluation from Police Department
,/ Evaluation from Public Works Operations Street Sweeping
¯ / Evaluation by Palo Alto Bicycle Advisory Committee (PABAC)
v" Evaluation from Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority
v" Evaluation from Palo Alto Sanitation Company (PASCO)
Resident Surve¥~
Staff conducted two resident surveys for this trial project--the °°project area" survey, and a
"wide area" advisor?, surv’ey. The purpose of the surveys is to ask residents if the trial traffic
calming installation should be made permanent.
Project Area Survey. A letter describing the project, including preliminary evaluation data
1. The following changes would be made to the existing speed cushion installation: (1) The "20 mph" speed advisory
sians would be replaced with "15 mph" signs. (2) The set of cushions located between Ross Road and the creek would
b~’removed. (3) At the remaining four locations, the narrow speed cushion in the northbound bike lane would be widened
by t~vo feet towards the neighboring cushion, so that it is the same width as the other three cushions. Optional additional
modifications: If the problem persists, a flexible 4-foot post would be installed at the front edge of the sidewalk to further
deter drivers from using the bike lane and gutter areas. At each location, the cushion in the southbound bike lane might
also be widened to extend to the edge of the gutter.
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and a stamped survey return postcard, was mailed to residents in the 68 households of the
project area (comprised of 58 Louis Road frontage households and 10 on the Bibbits cul-de-
sac), plus 9 non-resident owners of properties in that area for a total of 77 survey cards. For
all resident surveys, one vote per household is pernaitted. For a permanent installation, a non-
resident property owner also has a vote. A total of 49 cards were returned, for an overall
response rate of 64 percent.
Table 1:
Retain speed cushions with
safety modifications
Remove speed cushions
Retain comer treatment
Remove comer treatment
Remove cushions and replace
with something gentler like
speed tables
Sum of responses for "retain
speed cushions" and "replace
with something ~entler
Total survey cards received 49 !*
¯total is more than 100% because multiple boxes could be checked
21 43%
28 57%
37 76%
12 24%
10 20%
31 63%
27%
36%
48%
16%
13%
40%
According to NTCP procedures (Steps 10 and 1 !), 50 percent of survey responses, including
50 percent of a!l households with Louis Road frontages, must indic~ite support for the
permanent installation. The above results show that these requirements are clearly not met
for retention of the speed cushions. Staff neglected to request a return address on the survey
cards, so it is not possible to disaggregate the survey results by location. Even if the 21
responses for "retain cushions" were theoretically assumed to all be from the 58 Louis Road
frontage households (36 percent), this is far less than the required 50percent. Thus, there is
a strong mandate among the project area residents’not to retain the speed cushions.
In the survey, staff asked project area residents to consider a "gentler" measure such as speed
tables. Speed tables were not specifically described in the materials sent out, but "gentler"
conveys the idea of another speed control measure that is not as abrupt or slowing as the
speed cushions. A majority of responding households (31, or 63 percent) favor some forn~
of vertical speed control (either cushions or something gentler). It is reasonable to theorize
that some 27 to 29 of these responses could be from just the 58 Louis Road household
frontages, resulting in close to 50 percent of Louis Road households favoring some form of
vertical speed control measures. Staff is willing to ~ve the benefit of the doubt to the Louis
Road residents and request that the Comrnission recommend that staff return to the Louis
Road residents working ~oup (NTCP Step 4) to discuss and formulate another traffic
calming plan, possibly using speed tables, if so desired by the residents. The proposed plan
would be presented to the project area residents for another survey to determine if a four-
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month trial should be implemented with the new plan. Finally, the plan would be brought
back to the Commission for discussion and approval to proceed.
The survey results indicate that the "corner treatment" component of the project (decreased
radius and raised centerline) is favored by close to 50 percent of project area households.
Again, because staff did not record which survey responses came from Louis Road residents
themselves, staff is willing to consider this result close enough to 50 percent of Louis Road
frontage households to recommend that the corner treatment be retained and made
permanent.
I4Zide/1tea Survey. A letter describing the project, including preliminary evaluation data and
a stamped "advisory survey" return postcard were sent out to a wide area of approximately
1100 households. This area included al! residential households between Loma Verde,
Charleston, West Bayshore/Fabian, and about 1-1/2 blocks east of Middlefield, except for
the 68 households in the project area. An advisory survey is not included in the NTCP
procedures. Because of the large number of citizen complaints, staff decided it would be
appropriate to have such a surveyl The purpose of this survey was to give the residents who
potentially use the project segment of Louis Road regularly, the opportunity to register their
opinion in a comprehensive manner. The results of this survey are provided to the
Commission for its consideration as part of the evaluation of the project. Staff has not
mingled the results of this survey with the project area survey, nor used its results in
determining the minimum 50 percent of project area household. A total of 614 cards were
returned, for an overall response rate of approximately 56 percent.
Table 2: Wide Area Advisory Survey R~sults
Retain speed cushions with
safety modifications
Remove speed cushions
Remove speed cushions
and install something
gentler like speed tables
Sum of "retain speed
cushions" and "install
something gentler"
No opinion!not aware
Total survey cards
returned
78
366
156
234
13%
6O%
25%
38%
14 2%
614 100%
An overall response rate of 56 percent is high for such a wide area that is relatively distant
from the actual project location. This shows the residents’ keen interest in the speed cushion
issue. It is clear that the overwhelming opinion among those responding is against the speed
cushions. This is not an unexpected result for any traffic calming project. It is usual for
residents not living on the actual project street to not support traffic calming measures on
another street. For this reason, surveys of residents for traffic calming projects in most, if not
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all cities, include only the project area residents and those living on streets directly affected
by any diverted traffic. In the case of the Louis Road project, staff believes that the
overwhelming opinion against this project by the non-project area residents is due to the
choice of the particular measure--speed cushions--for a collector street that many of the
wider-area residents view as a proper street for access to their neighborhood. Many of these
residents believe there is not another acceptable route for them to use.
When looking at resident support of either speed cushions or some other gentler measure, 38
percent were in favor of one or the other. While this is not near 50 percent of the responses,
it is a notable level of support for traffic calming on a street segment where the residents do
not live. It is reasonable to surmise that this support is from road users who would be more
comfortable with slower speeds as they drive, bike or walk along this or perhaps another
segment of Louis.
Speed and Volume Data
Speed and volume counts were conducted at four locations on Louis Road May 14 to 16,
2002, before the trial project Was implemented in mid-July. Locations are shown in
Attachment A. "’After" counts were conducted approxhnately three months after installation,
in mid-September. A count was taken on Gailen only after the project was implemented.
Some "after" counts on Louis were conducted during restriping work on Louis, but these
were repeated September 24 to 26 and September 30 to October 2, after work was completed.
The "after" counts used for evaluation in the following table are those taken be~,een
September 24 and October 2.
(m
"Before"1 2965
5/14-5/16, 2002
"After"27 1630
9/24 - 10/2, 2002
Absolute Change -4 I -1335
Porr’Pnt C~h~nc~-13%J -45%
All measurements are for both traffic directions.
Speeds are 85~ percentile.
Table 3: Before/After Traffic Count Measurements
~olume I Volume
4260 23 443032284035
28 1725 21 2775 19 3000 27 225
-4’-1115 -14 I -1485 I .4 -1430
_13%1 -39%t -40%1 -35°/o ! -17%]-32%
Speed reduction to 27-28 mph between cushions (locations 1 and 2) is what staff had
projected before the trial was implemented. Speed reduction to 21 mph at the cushion
(location 3) is what staff had anticipated and corresponds to the 20 mph posted advisory
speed. The 21 mph measurement at the cushion itself is surprising given the number of
residents who have commented that they have to slow drastically, or nearly stop, to cross the
cushions (see possible explanation in following para~aph). Volume reduction is far ~eater
than the 10 percent estimated by staff before implementation. Thelarge reduction indicates
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that a large number of drivers fred it worthwhile to seek out an alternate route to the project
segment of Louis. Many residents have stated in their comments that they now avoid using
Louis, or at least that section, due to the harshness of the cushions. Staff did not measure
"before" counts on adjacent streets because it did not appear that there were any viable
parallel through routes adjacent to the project street. Looking at a map of the wider area, it
appears that the most lo~cal alternatives would be the arterials, Middlefield and Charleston,
the industrial collectors, West.Bayshore and Fabian, and possibly the residential collector of
Loma Verde (for some traffic to get to Middlefield or West Bayshore).
The .intention of the speed control measures is primarily to lower speeds, but with minimum
diversion to other routes--up to a maximum of about 15 percent. The volmne reduction
seems to substantiate what many residents have stated--that the speed cushions are too
abrupt and/or harsh and/or too frequent for this application. Oddly, however, the speed data
do not show the substantial speed reduction that residents seem to report, especially crossing
the cushions (location 3). An explanation is that those .drivers .who shifted to other routes are
the ones who found the cushions the most abrupt and therefore the ones who slowed down
the most. Thus, the remaining drivers on Louis are the ones who are not as intimidated by the
cushions and slow down less, producing the speed reduction data shown in the above table.
Staff concludes that the large volume reduction is another indicator that the speed cushions
and/or their number or locations are not appropriate for this street.
Behavioral Surveys
Staff conducted two short behavioral surveys of the traffic calming measures. A staff person
observed driver behavior in both directions for one hour at each of two cushion locations, out
of plain sight of drivers. The survey indicated:
About 20 percent of northbound drivers veer into the bike lane to traverse the narrower
cushion; southbound it is about 7 percent where the cushion is not narrow (illegal and
unacceptable behavior).
About 1 percent of northbound drivers drive partia!ly on the sidewalk (illegal and
unacceptable behavior).
About 15 percent of drivers stay in their lane but move toward the bike lane line to use
the slot next to the bike lane line (lega! and acceptable).
The remainder of drivers stayed in the middle of their traffic lanes.
This survey indicates that up to about 20 percent of northbound drivers inappropriately and
illegally leave the traffic lanes to.avoid the cushions. The remaining 80 percent stay in the
traffic lanes, either in the middle or toward the outside of the lane next to the bike lane. (In
the southbound direction, driving in the bike lane is much less of a problem.) Many residents
have complained about drivers in the bike lane and the safety hazards this presents. The
extent of these comments seems to indicate that the proportion of such drivers might be
higher than what staff observed. At any rate, staff has concluded that such behavior presents
an unacceptable safety hazard. Staff has proposed modifications that would alleviate most
of this problem, should the cushions remain permanently (see footnote on page 4).
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Staff also observed driver behavior for two hours at the westbound Charleston rum to
northbound Louis that is most affected bythe corer modification. Left turns from
Charleston were also monitored. Staff observed good lane discipline with drivers of
passenger cars not hitting the raised concrete bars. Staff did not observe any following
drivers on westbound Charleston having to slow abruptly or honk horns or other frustrated
behavior due to the preceding drivers slowing down for the right turn. Large vehicles, such
as VTA buses, come close to the raised centerline bars as they make the turn, or hit them
sometimes. The centerline bars are designed to be driven over safely by large vehicles if
necessary, and this is expected for the largest vehicles. Staff concludes that this CoRer
modification has performed satisfactorily from an operational and safety viewpoint.
Fire Department
The Fire Department reports that the speed cushions are a significant improvement over the
City’s standard speed humps, as the cushions have significantly less impact on delay and
vehicle suspension. The Department finds the cushions to be acceptable for Louis Road and
other collector streets. This is as staffhad believed it would be, as the cushions are designed
to allow wide track vehicles (fire trucks and buses) to straddle the cushions with the wheels
on the low sides of the cushions or on the pavement between them. Thus, the Fire
Department considers the speed cushions to be a successful traffic calming measure that can
reduce.passenger car speeds without causing unacceptable delay to Fire Department vehicles.
Staff also asked the Fire Department to evaluate the new speed tables on Menlo Park
collector streets. Though the Menlo Park Fire District is opposed to the speed tables, the Palo
Alto Fire Department has concluded that the tables are far less traumatic on their vehicles
than standard speed humps. They also conclude that the speed tables are even better than the
speed cushions, since fire truck and ambulance drivers experience less impact and speed
reduction than with the cushions. The Fire Department concludes that speed tables would be
the best vertical traffic calming measure for any street, including collector streets, surpassing
the speed cushions. The Fire Department continues to emphasize that any traffic calming
measures, even the speed cushions and tables, have some measurable impact on its response
times. The Department understands that there is a high resident demand for traffic calming
and is willing to allow measures to be implemented that meet the desired traffic calming
goals with the least impact on the Fire Department’s mission.
Police Department
The Police Department reported that, as of October 4, no reported accidents occurred in the
project area during the time the cushions were installed. The Police Department did not have
concerns about impact on its emergency response. However, the Police Depamnents’ primary
concern was the illegal and unsafe behavior of driving in the bike lanes and it recommended
removal of the cushion in,mediately south of Ross Road, since it is so close (150 feet) to the
four-way stop Louis/Ross intersection. Some enforcement was provided during the trial for
driving in the bike lane. As noted earlier in this report, if the speed cushions remain, staff
would modify the layout to reduce or eliminate this problem. Successful traffic calming
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measures should not require additional police enforcement, as a major goal of traffic calming
is to lessen the need for police enforcement of speeding and other driving problems.
Public Works Operations--Street Sweeping
The Street Sweeping Division reports that the speed cushions and raised centerline negatively
impact its operations, similar to other types of speed humps and traffic calming islands. The
cushions cause street sweepers to lose part of their load as they cross over them. This would
be especially problematic in the fall during leaf collection. The Division is also concerned
that, in the long run, the edges of the cushions could curl and snag a gutter broom on a
sweeper. The raised concrete centerline will tend to collect debris (as with any median
- island), which would have to be hand cleaned occasionally. In general, street sweeping
operations are negatively impacted by most traffic calming measures. Though the Division
did not comment on speed tables, it is possible that the asphalt speed tables, being.
substantially less abrupt than the cushions and not having edges, would cause less impact on
street sweeping.0Perations~ ~
Palo Alto Bicycle Advisory Comi~ittee (PABAC) "
PABAC carefully reviewed the proposed speed cushions before, during and after installation.
PABAC was most concerned about drivers veering into the bike lane during the trial. If the
cushions remain on Louis, PABAC recommended that the cushions be removed from the
bike lanes and flexible posts be installed to prevent drivers from entering the bike lanes. Staff
has concluded, however, that posts on the bike lane line would interfere with street sweeping
and would tend to be hit by drivers since they would be so close to the travel lane. After the
trial period, PABAC has concluded that speed tables should be used in place of the cushions
on Louis Road, and that speed tables and standard speed humps should be used instead of
speed cushions on any street, regardless of the street desig-nation. The primary reason for
PABAC’s conclusions is that speed tables and speed humps are gentler and thus easier for
bicyclists to cross. PABAC also believes that the tables and humps create less incentive than
the cushions for drivers to veer into the bike lane or gutter to lessen the impact.
Valley Transportation Authority (VTA)
The VTA reports that 80 percent f the coach drivers on the Louis Road route find the
cushions acceptable and they do not affect their operations. A few drivers even promoted the
use of the cushions because they slowed down other drivers. The other 20 percent of coach
drivers drive narrower vehicles that will soon be replaced with wider vehicles that will
probably not be impacted by the cushions.
Palo Alto Sanitation Company (PASCO)
PASCO does not report any problems with the speed
accepting of most types of traffic calming measures.
cushions. PASCO is generally
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SUMMARY OF SIGNIFICANT ISSUES
Speed Cushions
This is the first traffic calming project in Palo Alto and the local area using speed cushions.
This measure has been used in many traffic calming projects in England where the product
originated and is manufactured. The City of Mobile, Alabama, has had extensive experience
with speed cushions and provided the Transportation Division with a detailed before and
after study of its speed cushion project--conducted by the civil engineering department of
Auburn University. The cushions have been very successful in Mobile and about 100 sets
have been installed since the Auburn University study. Recently, several California cities
have installed speed cushions permanently, including Orinda,.Elk Grove, Glendale and Palm
Springs. Before recommending the cushions for the Louis Road trial, staff arranged two brief
demonstrations--one on Louis Road itself. In both cases, staff and the public drove over the
cushions in normal passenger cars and with bicycles. The Fire Department conducted tests
with a fire engine and paramedic van. Speed cushions provide vertical-displacement speed
control for norma! passenger vehicles, but allow wide wheel base vehicles, such as fire and
paramedic trucks and transit buses, to pass over them without the physical displacement and
delay caused by traditional speed humps. Understandably, the-Fire Department was the
primary impetus behind testing the speed cushions for use on collector streets.
Based on the evaluation results discussed above, staff has concluded that speed cushions are
not appropriate for collector streets. They are too abrupt for many citizens who rightly use
collector streets to access their neighborhoods. This can lead to too much traffic diversion
from a road that should be carrying traffic from an area wider than just the immediately
abutting properties. The cushions, however, have been very successful for the Fire
Department and have effectively reduced overall traffic speeds. For these two reasons, staff
concludes that speed cushions are acceptable for future local street traffic calming projects,
in contrast to collector street traffic calming. Most drivers on local streets are (or should be)
accessing their immediately abutting residences. These are the residents who would have a
direct voice in whether or not speed cushions would be installed. Based on the Louis Road
experience, staff plans to limit the use of speed cushions to low volume local streets (< 800
vpd) that are not designated or proposed as bicycle facilities. The primary advantage of the
cushions over standard speed humps for local streets is that they lessen the negative impact
of speed control measures on Fire Department emergency response times. This would help
the Fire Department support speed control measures without causing a detriment to its
primary mission, and should reassure local residents that speeds can be reduced without
materially sacrificing emergency response times. On streets with rolled curbs, the cushions
might have to be accompanied by flexible posts at the front edge of the sidewalk to deter
driving in the gutter or sidewalk.
Appropriateness of Speed Reduction Measures
In their cormaaunications to staff in response to the speed cushions, many residents stated that
it is inappropriate to place obstacles in the street that cause them to drive less than the speed
limit, or that no traffic calming measures whatsoever should be placed in the street. Many
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advocated for more or better police enforcement instead of physical measures. Staff’s
response is that the 25 mph residential speed limit is a prima facie maximum speed, not
minimum. The maximum speed is appropriate where conditions warrant, but sometimes a
slower speed is necessary. All roadways have stop signs at one or more locations and many
have curves or other features that require driving less than 25 mph. Staff’s goal is to use
speed reduction measures that do not require slowing to less than 15-20 mph on a local street
or 20-25 mph on a collector street. In between these measures, the goal is to reach a speed
of about 25 mph on local streets and about 30 mph on collector streets. In general, staff
strives for traffic calming measures that do not lower speeds to less than 15 mph, to avoid
creating too many speed differentials along a busy road. In the Louis Road trial, based on the
distribution of speeds at the cushion (not presented in this report), the substantial reduction
in volume, and resident’ s feedback, it appears that the cushions cause drivers to slow down
too much for a collector street application.
Collector Street Notification Area
As discussed earlier in this report, and as noted in the Transportation Division’s September
25, 2002 staff report to the Coriiinission on the Churchill traffic calming project, it has
become apparent that a wider area needs to be notified directly by mail if a collector street
project is undertaken under the NTCP. Staff already made a recommendation to the
Commission in the September 25 Churchill report for a collector street notification area and
an advisory survey. The Commission approved this recommendation, which will go to the
City Council for final approval and inclusion in the revisions to the NTCP.
ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW
No environmental review of this traffic
installation has been recommended.
calming project is required because no final
NEXT STEPS
If the Commission approves staff’s recolrnnendation to end the speed cushion trial, the
recommendation would be approved by the Director of Planning and Community
Environment within a few days, and staff could have the measures removed within
approximately two to three weeks. If the Commission recommended that staff return to the
working group to consider further traffic calming measures, staff would initiate that process
as soon as possible. After repeating the process with project area residents (NTCP Steps 4
to 6), staff would bring a new plan back to the Commission for approval in about three
months.
If the Cormnission approves staff’ s recommendation to retain and penaanently construct the
comer modification, the recommendation would need to be forwarded to the City Council
for final approval. After Council approval, the design of the project and retention of a
contractor would require approximately six months.
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ATTACHMENTSfEXHIBITS:
A.Traffic Calming Project and Project Area Map with Traffic Count Locations
B.Speed table details
C.January 30, 2002 Transportation Division staff report to the Commission, minutes of
meeting, Director’s Decision
Prepared by: Carl Stoffel, Transportation Engineer
Division Head Approval:~/~------~~ n
~seph K(/ott, Chief@ransportatio Official
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3709 i37~
3713\
3817
3827
3833
#3 Speed CUshi
~TRAFFiC
", LO(
The City of
Palo Alto
J
COUNT
ATTACHMENT A
Louis Road
Traffic Calming Project
and Proj ect Area Map
with Traffic Count Locations
Project Area Households
This map is a product of the
City of Palo Alto GIS
ATTACHMENT B
2 pages
SPEED TABLES
Speed tables are a "longer" version of a standard speed hump (the latter are those installed in Palo Alto on
Ross, Cowper, Colorado and other streets). Both rise from street level to a maximum height of three
inches. In the direction of travel a standard speed hump is 12 feet long in the travel direction, comprised
of a 6-foot approach ramp and a 6-foot departure ramp with an overall circular or parabolic profile. A
speed table as constructed in Menlo Park is 22 feet long in the travel direction, comprised of a 7-foot
approach ramp, 8-foot flat section three inches high, and a 7-foot departure ramp. Because of the wide flat
section, speed tables can also be used as raised crosswalks. Both speed tables and humps extend from
gutter to gutter with no slots. By comparison, the speed cushions on Louis Road are only six feet long in
the travel direction, comprised of a 2-foot approach ramp, 2-foot flat section three inches high, and a 2-
foot departure ramp. They are installed with slots between them to accommodate fire trucks and buses.
In comparison to Palo Alto’s speed humps, speed tables are "gentler", or more accommodating, to all
users, due to the longer overall profile, the 7-foot ramps, and the flat section on top. They are much
gentler than the speed cushions, due to the substantially longer profile and gentler ramps. Because speed
tables are not as abrupt as speed humps, the Fire Department has accepted them for use on collector
streets. Until the recent test of speed cushions on Louis Road, the Fire Department was not willing to
consider speed tables for collector streets. The Palo Alto Bicycle Advisory Committee prefers tables over
speed cushions on any street. Speed tables will not reduce traffic speeds as much as speed humps and
cushions. The speed tables have an advisor?, speed of 20 - 25 mph at the table. Depending on the spacing,
speeds between tables are expected to be about 30 mph. Because of their lesser speed reduction, speed
tables are most appropriate on streets with higher existing speeds, which is a characteristic of many
collector streets. They are also appropriate for collector streets and transit routes because fire tracks and
buses can cross them with minimal impact. To the average driver approaching from a distance, the speed
tables will not look much different than standard speed humps. The signage and striping will be different.
The speed table design that would be used in Palo Alto can be found in Menlo Park on Willow between
Alma and Middtefield, Alma between Willow and Ravenswood, and Laurel between Burgess and
Ravenswood. Similar designs, but with different signing and striping, can be found on Bay and Van
Buren north of Willow. The following photogaph is a speed table on Bay Road. The following page
illustrates the crossection of a speed table.
..9-..F
.-.z..-2_~
NOTES;
SPEED TABLES SHALL BE CONSTRUCTED IN TWO LIFTS.
ELEVATION AFTER COMPACTION OF FINAL LIFT SHALL BE AS SHOWN IN SECTION A-A
WITH TOLERANCE OF 0.25" +.
CONTRACTOR MAY WEDOE CUTAS SHOWN OR GRIN’D TI-IE AREA FOR A DEPTH OF I".
CITY OF PALO ALTO
TRANSPORTATION IJlWISION
SPEED TABLE SECTIONS
DRAWING #9 OF 9 .
ATTACHMENT C
19 pages
TO:
FROM:
TRANSP OR TA TION DIVISION
STAFF REPORT
PLANN~G & TRANSPORTATION COMMISSION
Carl Stoffel DEPART1V[ENT:Planning
AGENDA DATE:
SUBJECT:
January 30, 2002
Louis Road Traffic Calming Project
RECOMMENDATION ¯
Staff recommends that the Planning and Transportation Commission recommend approval
of a four-month trial of the Louis Road Traffic Calming Project consisting of the following
elements:
Speed cushions at five locations as shown in Exhibit 1.
Reduced curb radius on the northeast corner of the Louis/Charleston
intersection and a raised concrete centerline divider on the north leg of that
intersection.
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
Project History
In November 2000, residents of Louis Road between Adobe Creek and Charleston Road sent
a petition to the Planning and Transportation Commission requesting speed humps. The
petition was sig-ned by residents representing all of the 18 households on that segment of
Louis. The City’s Neighborhood Traffic Calming Program (NTCP) was still undergoing
Commission discussion and did not receive final approval by City Council until April 2001.
Staff contacted the neighborhood representative in January 2001 and gathered speed and
volume data in February. The 85~ percentile speed was 35 mph with a daily traffic volume
of 4200. This traffic calming request met the criteria for a traffic calming project under the
new NTCP. Staff awaited approval of the NTCP before proceeding further.
City of Pa!o Alto
h:lcmrs/p-tdLouis Road Speed Cushion Trial 1-30-02
Page 1 of 8
In June 2001, staff re-contacted neighborhood representatives. In accordance with NTCP
Step 2, staff determined that the logical project area should extend north of Adobe Creek to
the next intersection (with Ross Road) adding 9 households to the project area, for a total of
2? (refer to map, Exhibit 1). Staff organized a project area meeting in July for residents of
these 27 households. Approximately 15 residents attended this initial meeting, two
households were represented from.the segment of Louis even father north between Ross
Road and East Meadow Drive. The propose of the initial project area meeting was for staff
to explain the traffic calming program and hear what problems the residents were worried
about and any potential solutions they had in mind.
Staff explained that speed humps were not permitted on collector streets according to the
NTCP guidelines, and that a new measure, speed cushions, could be tested instead (more
details about speed cushions are included under "Summary of Significant Issues" below).
Residents and staff briefly discussed other ideas such as traffic circles. Residents were
anxious to proceed with a project and their general preference seemed to be speed humps or
cushions. Following Step 3 of the.NTCP procedu[e, a small volunteer working group was
formed with which staff could work to formulate a traffic calming plan to present to the full
project area.
Later in July, staff organized a two-hour demonstration of two speed cushions on Louis
Road. Residents from Louis Road were invited, along with residents of another traffic
calming project area on Churchill, bicycle representatives, and fire and police department
representatives. After the demonstration, some residents were skeptical that the cushions
would slow traffic sufficiently, but the working ~oup still decided that speed cushiens
should be the basis for the traffic calming plan. The working ~oup also a~eed to consider
an extension of the original project area north to include the segment of Louis between Ross
and East Meadow, based on a request by some residents of that area. This extension was
supported by a petition from residents requesting to j oin the traffic calming study, signed by
representatives of 12 of the 31 households on Louis between Ross and East Meadow
(exceeding tt~e minimum 25 percent thr&shold required by the NTCP guidelines). Staff
a~eed that the most logical street segrnent for the project would be this larger area between
an arterial street (Charleston) and a collector street (East Meadow). Staff also decided that
the project area would include the ten households on the Bibbits Drive cul-de-sac west of
Louis, but not other adjacent streets that were not tree cul-de-sacs. The expanded total project
area therefore consists of 68 households with frontages on Louis between Charleston and
East Meadow, and on the Bibbits cul-de-sac.
The Proposed Traffic Calming Plan
Staff proceeded to develop a traffic-calming plan for the area, consisting of five sets of speed
cushions placed about 400-500 apart. Staff estimates that the existing 35 mph prevailing
speed can be reduced to about 28 mph bet-ween cushions and less where they are near stop
signs. Also included is a reduction in the radius of the northeast comer of Louis and
City of Palo Alto
h:lcmrslp-tc/Louis Road Speed Cushion Trial 1-30-02
Page 2 of 8
ROSS ROAD
3851
Th~ Ci~y of
Palo Alto
(chatter
3972
Louis Road
Traffic Calming Project
(rev 12/5/01)
E~IT 1
This map is a product of the
City of Palo Alto GIS
Charleston along with placement of a three-inch-high raised concrete berm for the first
approximately 34 feet of Louis. The.purpose of the intersection narrowing, is to reduce the
speed of the heavy right-ram traffic from Charleston to Louis. Following Step 5 of the NTCP
procedure, this plan was sent to all project area households for review, followed by a second
project area meeting in December. Twelve residents representing ten households attended
the meeting, and one written response was received. The consensus from this limited
response was that the proposed project was acceptable and should go forward to project area
residents for the formal survey.
Proiect Area Survey
In January 2002, staff mailed the proposed traffic calming plan and a survey card to the 68
households of the project area to determine their opinion about a four-month trial. Only
residents of project area households were included in the survey. Non-resident property
owners were not: included, nor were residents of adjacent streets. Project area residents were
given three choices regarding the trial and a chance to write in comments. Survey cards were
returned from 44 households, or..65 percent of project area households. The results of the
survey are as follows: Number of % of Survey
Households Responses
Support the proposed traffic calming plan 36
Something should be installed but this plan isn’t it 1
Nothing should be installed _2_7
TOTAL Surveys Returned 44
82%
2%
16%
NTCP procedure (Step 6it) requires that a simple majority (50+ %) of survey responses
indicate support for the trial (not 50 percent of total project area households). The above
results indicate that support. This project is therefore eligible to proceed to Step 7--Planning
and Transportation Commission review and recommendation to consider a four=month trial.
It is important to note that the final decision to proceed with a trial will be made by the
Director of Planning and Community Environment, based on the recommendation of the
Commission.
POLICY IMPLICATIONS
Comprehensive Plan
Traffic calming is strongly supported in the Comprehensive Plan. Policy T-34 states:
°°Implement traffic cahning measures to slow traffic on local and collector residential
streets .... Include traffic circles and other traffic cahning devices among these measures."
Program %43 states: "Implement a Neighborhood Traffic Cahning Program to implement
appropriate traffic calming measures .... "The proposed project is consistent with this policy
and pro~am. The Louis Road project is the second traffic calming project started under the
City of Palo Altoh:lcmrslp-tc/Louis Road Speed Cushion Triat 1-30-02
Page 4 of 8
new NTCP, and the first project to be ready for a four-month trial. The project embodies
speed reduction measures rather than volume reduction, reflecting the emphasis of the NTCP
on speed reduction.
ApproYal of Director of Plannin~ and CommuniW Environment
One purpose of the new NTCP is to simplify and shorten the procedure for spot traffic
calming requests. In the past, City Council approval was required for a trial of any traffic
calming project. The new NTCP guidelines permit traffic calming trials on collector streets
to proceed with the approval of the Director of Planning and Community Environment, based
on the review and recommendation of the Planning and Transportation Con~-nission.
SUMMARY OF SIGNIFICANT ISSUES
Process
Staff has conducted this project in accordance with the NTCP procedures and guidelines.
This project has moved rather quickly through the. process because project area residents
have been united in their desire for speed reduction and agreed to try speed cushions. This
unity has allowed this project to proceed without any working group meetings, shortening
the procedure by at least two months. Staffbelieves that, so far, the new procedures seemed
to have worked well for this project.
Speed Cushions
This will be the first traffic calming project in Palo Alto and the local area using speed
cushions. This measure has been used in many traffic calming projects in England where the
product originated and is manufactured. The City of Mobile, Alabama, is the only U.S. city,
of which staff is aware, that has thoroughly tested and is extensively using speed cushions.
Mobile provided the Transportation Division with a detailed before and after study of its
speed cushion projects and numerous photographs of speed cushion installations (refer to
Exhibit 2). Each of the five locations on Louis Road will have four speed cushions-one in
each traffic lane and one in each bike lane--each outlined by the "picture frame" striping
shown in the photograph.
Speed cushions are made of hard rub.her and are bolted to the street surface. Like traditional
speed humps, they are three inches high and have approach and departure tapers. Unlike
speed humps, they are only 6-1/2 feet long in the direction of travel (12 feet for speed humps)
and have side tapers with spaces between individual cushions. The proposed use of speed
cushions has been favorably reviewed by the Palo Alto Bicycle Advisory Committee and the
Public Works Engineering and Operations Divisions.
Because collector streets are part of the Fire Department’s emergency response network, the
Fire Department does not perm{t the traditional speed humps unless there are other overriding
factors present. Speed cushions were developed primarily to address this issue. The cushions
City of Palo Alto
h:/cmrs/p-tc/Louis Road Speed Cushion Trial 1-30-02
Page 5 of 8
provide vertical-displacement speed control for normal passenger vehicles, but allow wide
wheel base vehicles, such as fire and paramedic macks and transit buses, to pass over them
without the physical displacement and delay caused by traditional speed humps and tables.
The Fire Department has been impressed with the ease with which they can drive over the
cushions in demonstration tests. The Department is anxious to test speed cushions in a traffic
calming project on a collector street to see if they can offer speed control to residents while
permitting little compromise to the ability of the Department to maintain emergency response
speeds on these streets. Staff expects the average driver to naturally seek out the gaps
between the speed cushions in order to lessen the impact of the cushions. Therefore, speeds
will probably not be ~educed to as low a value with cushions as they are with the traditional
speed humps employed on local streets. Speeds on collector streets are usually slightly higher
than on local streets because collector streets, by function and design, are supposed to be
more efficient traffic carriers. In the Louis Road trial, if.speed cushions provide the desired
speed control for normal passenger vehicles while not substantially impacting the emergency
services, these devices could see wider use in collector street traffic calming projects in Palo
Alto.
Because speed cushions are relatively unknown in this area, staff has spent considerable time
¯ in gathering information from the local vendor, the manufacturer, and the City of Mobile.
Additional time was spent arranging for demonstrations and meetings with staff about
possible impacts. Despite this necessary additional effort, this project has, so far, been able
to move forward relatively expeditiously. There is a potential three- to four-month lead time
in ordering the cushions from England, but staff has been working with the vendor to reduce
this time substantially. Hopefully, staff will not encounter difficulties with this new product.
ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW
A trial traffic calming project is categorica!ly exempt from environmental review per the
California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) Article 15306. If the trial is approved, is
successful, and staff recommends its permanent installation, staff would conduct an
environmental review for the permanent installation based on the results of the trial, likely
¯ leading to a negative declaration. The City Council would be asked to approve the negative
declaration as part of its approval of the permanent installation.
Staff has analyzed the potential impacts of this trial project, focusing on impacts to public
and emergency services and the potential for.traffic diversion to adjacent local residential
streets. As noted above, speed cushions are not expected to significantly impact the ability
of the fire department to use Louis Road. The police department has generally not
experienced negative impacts from traditional speed humps in the past. Because cushions are
expected to be easier to drive over than humps, the police department does not anticipate that
the cushions will substantially impact police vehicles. The evaluation at the end of the four-
month trial will include reports from the fire and police departments about impacts to their
services.
City ofPaloAIto
h:/cmrs/p-tdLouis Road Speed Cushion Trial 1-30-02
Page 7 of 8
Staff estimates that the speed cushions at the proposed 400- to 500-foot spacing could reduce
the daily volume on this seg-ment of Louis Road by about ten percent (about 400-500 daily
vehicles)--primarily short-cutting traffic or traffic associated with neighborhdods
considerably north of the study area. With one exception, there are no immediately adjacent
parallel local streets to which this diverted traffic could move. Staff expects that the majority
of any diverted traffic would disperse in small amounts over several collector and arterial
streets in the general area: Fabian (commercial collector), East Meadow (commercial and
residential collector), Charleston (residential arteria!) and Middlefield (residential arterial).
Some traffic to/from the west might use Grove and Gailen to avoid two cushion locations,
so staff will conduct before/after counts along this route to determine the amount of diversion
with regard to the permitted threshold (25 percent of existing traffic volume). Staff
anticipates that the impact of diverted traffic on any one of the adjacent streets will be
negligible.
PUBLIC NOTICE
As noted above, only project area residents were notified by mail. The general public was
notified via notices in the local newspapers--a brief description oft he project accompanied
the required legal notice of the Commission meeting in the PaIo Alto Weekly; the project
description and staff contact information was punished in display advertisements in the Palo
Alto Weekly and the Palo Alto Daily News.
NEXT STEPS
If the Commission approves the staff recommendation, the final decision about proceeding
with a four-month trial would rest with the Director of Planning and Cormnunity
Environment. With that approvaI, staff anticipates that the four-month trial could begin in
April. After approximately four months, staff will return to the Commission with an
evaluation of the trial.
ATTACHMENT S/EXHIBITS:
1. Neighborhood Traffic Calming Pro~am Booklet (Corrmaissioners Only)
Prepared by: Carl Stoffel, Transportation Engineer
Division Head Approval:<--~ -
~s/@h Ko/tt; ~CMef~Transportation Official
City of Palo Alto
h/cmrs/p-tc!Louis Road Speed Cushion Trial 1-30-02
City_ of Palo Alto
Department of Planning and
Community Environment
City of Palo Alto Neighborhood Traffic Calming Program:
Director’s Decision on a Proposed Four-Month Trial
Traffic Calming Plan for Louis Road
Planning Division
February 11, 2002
BACKGROUND
The City of Palo Alto Neighborhood Traffic Calming Progam was adopted by Council
on April 9, 2001. The Progam provides for Planning and Transportation Commission
review and Department of Planning and Conamunity Environment Director approval of
all proposed traffic calming trials of complex projects on collector streets, and all projects
with street closures or diverters. Full details on Neighborhood Traffic Cahning Progam
procedures and criteria as adopted by Council are contained in the Neighborhood Traffic
Calming Program booklet.
On January 30, 2002, the Planning and Transportation Commission forwarded a
unanimous recommendation to the Director of the Department of Plarming and
Community Enviromnent in regard to the four-month trial traffic calming plan proposed
by Transportation Division staff (see attached staff report and Commission Minutes) and
a working goup of Louis Road residents. This plan was supported by 36 of 44
households voting (82 percent) in the project area.
Description of the Traffic Calming Trial
1)
2)
3)
Speed cushions at five locations, as indicated on Exhibit 1 of the attached staff
report.
Reduced curb radius on the northeast comer of the Louis/Charleston intersection.
A raised concrete centerline divider on the north leg of that intersection.
A before and after comparison will be made of vehicle volumes, speeds, and crashes.
After the four-month trial period is completed, households in the project area wil! be
asked to vote on making the trial a permanent installation. The Planning and
Transportation Commission will review results of the trial and the project area household
ballot, hear public testimony, and forward a recommendation to the City Council. The
Council will then decide whether to make the trial permanent.
FINDINGS A_ND DECISION
I find that the proposed Louis Road Traffic Calming Plan complies with the intent of the
Neighborhood Traffic Calming Progam as follows:
1)A projected reduction of prevailing vehicle speeds from 35mph to 28mph, if
realized, will enhance safety for vehicles, cyclists, and pedestrians in the project
area, without reducing safety or amenity on any nearby streets.
250 Hamilton Avenue
P.O. Box 10250
Palo Alto, CA 94303
650.329.2441
650.329.2154 fax
Director’s Decision on Louis
Road Traffic Calming Plan
Page2
2)A projected reduction of average daily vehicular volume in the range of 400-500
vehicles, if realized, will el~ance safety for vclaicles, cyclists, and pedestrians and
also ci~ancc residential amenity in the project area, without reducing safety or
amenity on any nearby streets. Specifically, the projected traffic slfift is well
below the Neighborhood Traffic Calming Progran] threshold of a 25 percent
increase in average daily vehicular volume on any ~vcn street.
Therefore, I approve a four-month tri al of the proposed Louis Road Traffic Cahning Plan
practicable.
STEVE SLIE
Dircct~ ,t~Department of Plaiflihag
and Community Environment
ATTACHMENTS
A. Louis Road Traffic Calming Project StaffReport
B. Minutes of January 30, 2002 Planning & Transportation Corrm~ssion Meeting
City Council
Plam~ing and Transportation Commission
Frank Behest, City Manager
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January 30, 2002
REGULAR MEETING - 6:O0 PM
City Council Chambers
Civic Center; Ist Floor
250 Hamilton Avenue
Palo Alto, California 94301
ROLL CALL: 6:J5 PM
Commissioners:
Patrick Burt, Chair
Bonnie Packer, Vice-Chair
Karen Holman
Kathy Schmidt
_Michael Griffin
Phyllis Cassel
Annette BiaIson
st ff:
Lisa Grote, Chief Planning Official
Wynne Furth, Senior Assistant City Attorney
John Lusardi, Current Planning Manager
Joseph Kott, Chief Transportation Official
Tricia Schimpp, Consultant Planner
Carl Stoffel, Transportation Engineer
Zariah Betten, Executive Secretary
Chair Burr: Our next item is the Louis Road Traffic Calming Project.
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The Louis Road Traffic Calmin~ Pro]ec_t. A trial traffic calming project is proposed for
Louis Road between Charleston Road and East Meadow Drive. The primary purpose of th~
project is to reduce vehicle speeds. The proposed traffic Calming measures are five sets of
speed cushions between Charleston and East Meadow and a narrowing of northeast comer
of Charleston at Louis. Staff recommends that the Commission recommend approval of a
four-month trial of the proposed project. For questions about this project, please contact
Ruchika Aggarwal, Transportation Division, (650) 617-3136.
Chair But’t: We have a Staff presentation. Mr. Kott, welcome.
Mr. Joseph_Kott, Chief Transportation Official: Thank you Chair Butt and members of the
Plarming and Transportation Commission. This is the first project that you have had a chance to
review under our local street or neighborhood traffic calming pro~am, guidelines for which
Council adopted last year .after this Commission’s review and recommendations.
We have received eight petitions in response to initiation of the traffic calming progam. We
have now four project in hand and a fifth about to start and another one waiting in queue. We
have 12 petitions being circulated and one street was found not to qualify under the guidelines
that Council adopted.
We are excited about this particular project because we have a chance in it to demonstrate the
functionality of a device called a speed cushion. Carl wil! be describing that in more detail and
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showing a picture of it to Con-m~ission members and to the audience. We have gotten a lot of
support from the neighborhood at least in terms of the enthusiasm of our advisory goup on
Louis and the mail-in ballot results from the affected households.
I’d like to now turn the pro~am over to Carl Stoffel who will describe the Louis Road
recommendations.
Mr. Carl Stoffel. Transportation Engineer: Chaim-~an Burr, members of the Commission, I just
have a few brief introductory comments. This shows you where the project area is with
relationship to the wider neighborhood. There is a more detailed plan in your report. The
residents of Louis Road, actua:lly they are just the very bottom part of Louis Road below the
creek, which is kind of that white line that cuts across the bottom third of the project area. They
submitted a petition to the Planning and Transportation Commission for speed humps back in
November of 2000. We took some data measurements in February 2001 and determined that it
would qualify for the neighborhood traffic calming pro~am which was still actually in.
development but nearing approval. We did not take any further action until the pro~am was
approved in April of 2001. We started with another project first, Churchill Avenue and then it
was not until June 2001 we actually started the Louis Road project and we had our first
neighborhood meeting in July. This is the second neighborhood traffic calming project that we
have started. This is the first one to come to the Planning and Transportation Commission. We
actually have four of them going right now. One of the projects actually has already been
implemented on Ross Road. That was actually an e~fforcement and education pro~am that does
not come to the Planning Commission for any approval. It is only the collector street projects
that actually come to th~ Planning and Transportation Commission for approval for a trial plan.
So Louis Road is a collector street and the next one that we are working on is also a collector
street, which is Churchill Avenue.
The residents wanted speed control from the be~nning. This is included in their petition. They
were not particularly interested in reducing volume and that is fortunate because it makes the
process move much more quickly. Besides that the primary goal of traffic calming projects on
collector streets is to reduce speed and not so much to reduce volume.. Residents were quite
united and in fact We expanded the project area, actually more than doubled it, all the way up to
East Meadow because residents of that area heard about the project and also wanted to get
involved. So both ~oups which is now one united area have been quite united all along and
have really wanted to move quickly. We actually developed the project without any need for any
working ~oup meetings which is fairly unusual. We did a few communications by e-mail but
there was so much desire to keep moving and unanimity in what they wanted that we managed to
cut down the number of meetings.
Collector street projects, as I mentioned, do need to focus on speed control. Things like traffic
circles, speed tables, bulb-outs, median islands and most of this is due to keep the street open for
emergency response, fire and police. Speed tables are sort of modified version of a speed hump.
It is a flatter longer version of a speed hump but nevertheless the fire department doesn’t really
even like speed tables on collector streets. Just about the time this project was coming along we
became aware of a new speed control device called a speed cushion, which is yet something
different than a speed hump or a speed table. We have a local vendor who has made us aware of
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the product and interested the fire department. We did have a couple of demonstration projects
at the City Works project. Here is a picture of a speed cushion installation in Texas. So the fire
department, because.there have been so many good reports from other fire departments about
this device, decided they would like to see how well this works before they consider any other
speed control installation on a collector street. The only other one that night be possible would
be the speed table. They would like to have this one tested very thoroughly first.
This has been used in the City of Mobile, Alabama and they have a few hundred speed cushions
and the fire department has been very pleased with how it has worked. It has also been effective
at reducing speeds.
So oddly enough our first project is recommended to go forward with a measure that is not even
in our list of devices, the appendix of our traffic calming mmaual. So this is something new for
us. It is new for the residents. They are willing to try it even though it is an unknown. We do
have some idea of how much speeds will be reduced but we really can’t be sure until we have
our own experience with it. The results from Mobile have been very promising and I understand
a new trial of six months has just started in Santa Barbara. So they are also working with it.
The plan is developed around speed cushions in five locations. I think you will be able to see
them more clearly in your Staff Report. Down at the corner of Louis Road and Charleston we
are planning to nazr. ow the turn a little bit so that the radius is a little sharper. There is quite a bit
of traffic that comes westbound on Charleston from the direction of 101 and makes a right turn
onto Louis and it is a fairly heavy right turn and fairly fast. So by tightening up the corner, still
a!lowing room for vehicles to turn but slowly we will be able to get a little bit of speed contro! in
that one movement.
We followed the new neighborhood traffic calming procedure that you approved last year in
April and followed by City Council approval. We have been following those steps and at this
point I believe it is step number seven which is Planning Commission recommendation or
discussion and possible recommendation for a trial. Then the approval would be ~ven by the
Director of Plarming and Community Environment. Then this would be coming back to you at
the end of the trial with an evaluation and final approval if it succeeds and should be made
permanent by the City Council. Therefore we are recommending your discussion of the project
and approval for a four month trial for the Louis Road project. Thank you.
Chair Burr: Thank you, Carl. Questions or comments from Commissioners. Annette.
Commissioner Bialson: One of the big issues has always been how the fire department and other
pub!ic safety departments view the use of these traffic calming devices. What is that reaction?
Mr. Stoffcl: I forgot to mention that I do have about 30 seconds of two small videos and one of
them is a fire department reaction to the speed cushions in Santa Barbara. Anybody interested in
seeing those? It is purely optional and they are very short.
Chair Burt: Yes, if it is short that would be geat.
City of Palo Alto
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Mr. Kott: We did have a sh6rt field demonstration of these cushions on Louis. We invited fire
department personnel and residents and members of the Bike Advisory Committee to take a.look
and everyone was impressed.
Mr. Stoffel: I thi~k this volume might be quite loud and I understmad there is not a good way to
tuna it down. The first little dip is maybe 20 seconds. It is from the manufacturer in England
and it is just basically a video that shows how to install them. We have just the last few seconds
after they are put in and they show a few vehicles driving over it.
[video tape] ...holes are covered and installation is now ready to be trafficked. [music] The
preformed traffic hump system gives you a consistent profile every time. It requires no road
excavation. It is quick and easy to install and provides quite and effective speed reduction. It is
environmentally friendly..For more details on the unique traffic hump system
[end]
Mr. Stoffel: The second tape preceded the installation in Santa Barbara. It is from a TV station.
7[ think unfortun~tdly when it plays down here it has Some black spots in the video but I think the
sound may continue. ’
[video tape] How can you use a speed bump to slow cars but not slow emergency vehicles?
There is a way and it was demonstrated in Santa Barbara on Ontair Road where many cars speed
by at well over the 40 mile per hour posted speed limit. The new speed cushion is just the right
size to effect the normal car wheel base but also the right size for a fire truck to go through
without a delay. A !ot of the speed bumps we have in town are about this higk and they are
really short so you hit it and it is hard on the track because the track suspension is very stiff. It is
hard on the people riding on the truck because it is a big bump like that. This one is much easier
on me. I can come here at low Speed. The firefighters .sitting in the back were happy, they were
comfortable with it. So it is a nice improvement over the other things we have. The city will be
asked to buy several speed cushions and install them in September for a six month test.
Mr. Kott: This is one of those rare multimedia shows that we provide to the Commission.
Chair Butt: You have new technology in the bumps and the media. It’s fantastic. Annette.
Commissioner Bialson: So the fire department and everybody else is very happy with that, I take
it.
Mr. Stoffel: As I mentioned, our fire department really is very anxious to try these. They really
want to see how they work. I am kind of surprised they are so excited about them but they are.
Commissioner Bialson: One further question. If it is so easy for the them that they actually are
willing to go along with them, what keeps a car from sort of avoiding going over them as well as
the cars the manufacturer showed which seemed to go straight on and do exactly what they were
supposed to do. I went by there and the street is pretty wide and it is easy to sort of slalom
through there.
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Mr. Stoffel: That is what we are going to be testing. The idea is that the wheel base of most
normal passenger vehicles I think even including the SUVs, the width that is not the wheel base,
is enough that they cannot really straddle the hump. They actually roll over’more of the height
ofit and they can choose to put one wheel in a gap but then the other wheel needs to go pretty
much over the full height. So they get hit with a bigger hump than the wider vehicles like the
buses and the trucks that can pretty much straddle the entire thing. My understanding of what
happens is that I guess we all most naturally would try to seek the slots in between the cushions
or at least put one wheel in it or perhaps try to straddle it but that is part of what we are going to
be seeing. Our understanding from the other cities, especially Mobile, is that it is fairly
siganSficant slowing for the smaller cars just because it is harder for them to get around them.
Mr. Kott: It is not necessary to displace all the wheels, just one or two wheels.
Chair Burr: Bonnie and then Karen.
Commissioner Packer: On that issue there are marked bike lanes on Louis Road. So would you
consider placing the cushions into the bike lanes so a car doesn’t try and go into the bike land in
order to go around the cushion? -
Mr. Stoffel: We developed several layouts and took them to the Palo Alto Bicycle Advisory
Committee. They were also there at the two hour demonstration that we had on Louis Road.
They, as did we all, concluded that we definitely needed the speed cushions in the bike lanes. So
there will be speed cushions in the bike lanes. In fact they will cover the entire bike lane. Bike
Advisory Committee felt it would not be advisable to have a little narrow slot left where they
might get squeezed up against the edge. I think we will have one of the five layouts with a two
foot area of the bike lane open just to see if some bicyclists like that better and see if it works
without drivers going over there. But they will be in the bike lanes.
Commissioner Packer: My other question is about the turn from Charleston and how that is
going to be engineered. I take that turn a lot and I slow down a lot to take the turn but I am
always afraid I am going to be rear-ended by people who tend to go very fast once they finish
stopping at the light at Fabian. They are always in a hurry and they just go down Charleston
really quick and don’t realize somebody is going to slow down right away and turn onto Louis.
Is there going to be some signage or something to make people realize that once you finish the
stop at Fabian you can’t speed up?
~4r. Stoffel: The turn will definitely need to be made more slowly than now. Actually, that is a
driving behavior that we would like to change so people are more careful when they make turns.
Understandably if somebody is right behind you hopefully drivers will ~ve their signals a little
more in advance. We have not yet decided if we should put some kind of signing on Charleston
to somehow, at least initially, let people know that the curb is a little bit different. That is part of
the test, to see whether this works. Whether there is some kind of problem like that. In fact, it is
put in temporarily, it is not actually done completely with an actual new curb. So if it turns out
there is a safety problem that somehow can’t be remedied it actually can be taken out rather
easily.
City of Palo Alto
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Mr. Kott: More than likely,.Conm~issioner Packer, we will install an advance warning sign with
initiation of this project and then monitor the safety affects.
Colrunissioner Packer: I ~know I found myself, mad I do take it slowly even now. There may be a
pedestrian or bicyclist right there who doesn’t expect a car to be swinging around. It is a hairy
area.
Mr. Stoffel: The new radius is the same as over on the Montros side. The ones on the Louis side
are wider turns than on the Montros side. We are just making it the same as on the other side of
the street.
Mr. Kott: IfI may add this, in terms of Charleston Road speeds at some point we will need to
revisit Charleston Road traffic calming.
Chair Burt: Karen.
Commissioner Hotman: I have a lightweight question. One of the visuals that you put up here
showed the speed cushions being bright blue. Do these come in desig-ner colors? Bright blue
could be pretty darn distractive and detractive from a neighborhood.
Mr. Stoffel: They only come in two colors, black and red. These are black thanks to color
photography. They don’t recommend the red because it is not very stable in sunlight and starts
to look a little ratty. So they will be black with a white picture frame stripe to kind of emphasize
their presence. We do unfortunately need to make them look visible and there will be a yellow
bump sig-n in each direction at each of the five locations.
Chair Burr: Michael.
Commissioner Griffin: Carl, I have a question about the process. You did work with a ~oup of
determined people that were fairly unanimous in what they wanted to see out there. I’m
remembering my experience with traffic calming and once it ge..t~ some visibility then people
tend to come out of the woodwork so to speak. Did you enlist the help of the neighborhood
association to advertise that this trial was going to take place and get any more input from people
that perhaps didn’t live immediately on the street itself?.
Mr. Stoffel: This being the spot treatment progam, which is a fairly small and fairly low-key
project, doesn’t really call for much noticing beyond the immediate project area which is the
homes that are in back there. Unless we think or our calculations show that some other adjacent
street or cross street will be impacted to the point that they should be concerned unlike in
Downtown North where we were closing streets that moved a lot of traffic around. Here we.
don’texpect many people to actually leave the road. So the people that are living on Louis plus
the one cul-de-sac that really is a dead end, Bibbits, those people have been involved in the
mailings and the project plans and actually the voting. The other people on even the very close
by adjacent streets were not included in those mailings but they were notified by means of
reading the newspapers. We did put some display ads in the PaIo/iIto T’Vee]cly and The Daily to
explain the project and gave some information and phone numbe}s. We actually never have
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gotten any inquiries from anybody. Now what is going to happen is when they go in there will
be a lot of people that somehow just don’t know about it and we might find that people are not
happy with them. That is the purpose of the trial and then they will come back to the Planning
Commission when we talk about the trial. So we don’t expect any adverse impacts. I think we
will take a volume measure on one possible short-cut route using Galen and Grove just in case
but we don’t really expect anything substantial to divert over to that street.
Commissioner Griffin: Okay. I hope that it works out like you forecast. The other question I
have and we discussed it before is the relative ease of avoiding the speed hump with at least one
side of your car. I am speaking from experience here. I am pretty skilled at doing that actually.
I am wondering is it worth the trouble to go through all of this if you are going to have people
splitting that groove raising just one half of their vehicle? Is it really going to slow the cars
down enough to make all of this worthwhile?
Mr. Kott: Carl may want to add something to this. Our best estimate is a speed reduction of
about seven miles per hour. That is because some wheels must get displaced. There is no way
that cars can avoid at least mounting a couple of their wheels on it. But we will monitor speeds.
If they don’t reduce much then that’s a maj or indicator that the trial is not successful.
Mr. Stoffel: The City of Mobile has had a very significant speed reduction. It is hard to believe.
They have them spaced much more widely than ours. Ours are four to five hundred feet apart.
They had very significant speed reduction even with some wider spacing. Our drivers are
probably different so that’s really what part of the trial is about. Also, the profile of these even
though they are as high as speed humps you’ve seen on other streets in town the len~h of them
as you drive over them is quite a bit shorter. So they actually, in my mind, look a little more
ferocious than the speed humps. I think even driving over them with one whee! there is a little
bit more of a bump to it than a normal speed hump. So i~ may be that even if it is just one wheel
there is a littlebit more of a bump so it kind of gives you a similar need to slow down. We will
be experimenting with these.
Chair Butt: I just would like to take a moment to commend both the Staff and the neighbors.
This seems like an innovative trial and a technology that I know Staffhad demonstrated at the
City Works Day. It looked very promising there. I think the neighbors are to be commended to
be open minded to try something new that looks extremely promising. Under our Transportation
Department we are showing a leading edge approach to new and innovative technoloNes and it
really fulfills the Comprehensive Plan goals of providing neighbors with traffic calming and not
primarily being a traffic diversion measure. I am enthusiastic to try it. I have to apologize to the
neighbors that they will have at least one extra trip in their neighborhood to evaluate this model.
I look forward to seeing how it works.
Mr. Kott: Thank you, Chair Burr.
Conmaissioner Cassel: Do you want a motion?
Chair Burr: Please.
City q/’Palo Alto
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MOTION
Colrm-dssioner Casseh I move that we adopt-the Staffrecormnendation.
Chair Burr: Commissioner Schmidt has just reminded me that because I didn’t see a card I
didn’t properly open the public hearing. Were there any public speakers for tNs item? In view
of that Commissioner Cassel, please proceed.
Commissioner Cassel: I have moved the motion and just for the record I want to make these
comments. This program meets the qualifications for the program. We do not expect a great
deal of traffic shifting within the neighborho.od because of this. There are just too few places to
cut through. It meets the guidelines of the neighborhood traffic program. There are already
some other traffic calming mechanisms on this road. There are some stop signs. There are
already bends and curves in the road natmally within a fairly short distance. What you can’t see
on the map is the hump that goes over the creek. Yo.u can’t seeto the other side of it, Those
obviously are not totally effective. There are some problems with using the other alternatives so
this new alternative is great to have come up with. The road is wide. It is two lanes of traffic,
one in each direction, one lane ofp~rking, two bike lanes and rolled curbs. Someone parked in
front of me as I was walking down the street. They parked on the sidewalk, left the car going,
walked across the street in the middle, put their mail in the local mail box, walked back behind
the car that was parked to let me cross through the middle of the street. This is what happens
with rolled curbs. It makes it very difficult to use bulb-outs and things of that sort. Bulb-outs
don’t look like they would work because they would get in the way of the bicycle traffic. The
fact that this ends into Charleston as a collector street means that we need you to do something
with it. So I think that this new technique is great. This is a good chance to try it and I’m
looking forward to see it in place.
Chair Burr: Do we have a second?
SECOND
Commissioner Schmidt: I second the motion.
Chair Burr: Any other comments? Bonnie.
Corrmaissioner Packer: I am real excited about this new technology, if you will. Depending on
how the evaluation goes I can even envision the use of these on approaches to stop sig-ns as
sometNng to consider without necessarily a traffic calming program but in areas where people
screech to a stop or forget to stop entirely especially in areas where there are a lot of children
walking to and from school. It might be something that we want to explore.
Chair Burr: Kathy.
Commissioner Schrnidt: I just wanted to thank Staff and neighbors and note that there are no
neighbors here who are against what is going on. That seems to be a rarity so t very much look
forward to seeing this go on.
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Chair Butt: Okay. Karen.
Commissioner Holman: I also want to commend Staff on their manner of handling tNs and I
sort of feel c~mpelled to say I’ d like to see something in taupe.
MOTION PASSES
Chair Burt: Any other comments? Then Fll call the question.
All those in favor? (ayes) Opposed? That passes unanimously. Good luck.
Mr. Kott: Thank you, Chair Burt and members of the Conmaission.
Cio’ of Palo ,4 I~o
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ATTACHMENT C
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~MEET1NGS ARE CABLECAST LIVE ON GOVERNMENT ACCESS CHANNEL 26
October 16, 2002
SPECL4L MEETING-7:00 PM
City Council Chambers Room
Civic Center, 1st Floor
250 Hamilton Avenue
Palo Alto, California 94301
ROLL CALL:
Commissioners:
Annette Bialson, Chair
Michael Griffin, Vice-Chair - absent
Karen Holman
Patrick Burt
Bonnie Packer
Phyllis Cassel
Staff."
Steve Emslie, Planning Director
Joseph Kott, Chief Transportation Official
Carl Stoffe!, Transportation Engineer
Zariah Betten, Executive Secretary
Chair Bialson: I’d like to call to order the Planning and Transportation Commission special
meeting of October 16, 2002. Will the Secretary please call roll. Thank you. The first item on
the agenda is Oral Communications.
ORAL COMMUNICA TIONS. Members of the public may speak to any item not on the agenda
with a limitation of three (3) minutes per speaker. Those who desire to speak must complete a
speaker request card available from the secretary of the Commission. The Planning and
Transportation Commission reserves the right to limit the oral communications period to 15
minutes.
Chair Bialson: I have no cards so we will go on to the next item.
CONSENT CALENDAR. Items will be voted on in one motion unless removed from the
calendar by a Commission Member.
Chair Bialson: There are no items on our Consent Calendar.
AGENDA CHANGES, ADDITIONS AND DELETIONS. The agenda may have additional
items added to it up until 72 hours prior to meeting time.
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Chair Bialson: No Agenda Changes, Additions or Deletions. No Unfinished Business.
UNFINISHED BUSINESS.
Public Hearings: None.
Other _Items: None.
Chair Bialson: So the item we are mining to at this time is New Business. And that is Item
Number Two because Item Number One, 706 Los Trancos Road has been continued to the
October 30 Regular Meeting.
NEW B USINESS.
Public Hearings:
NOTE: Item No. 1 Is Continued to the October 30, 2002 Regular Meeting.
706 Los Trancos Road’S: [02-V-07] Request by Clare Malone Prichard of Stoecker &
Northway Architects, Inc. on behalf of Mr. & Mrs. Irving Grousbeck for consideration of
a Variance and Site and Design review for improvements to an existing single-family
residence. The variance request is for an additional 1,510 square feet of impervious site
area, consisting of a 399 s.f. room addition and a 1,217 s.f. already-paved driveway, less
a 106 s.f. decrease in the size of a new mechanical equipment pad versus the existing.
The total impervious site area proposed at 14,625 s.f. exceeds the maximum allowable
site coverage of 13,115 s.f. established by a variance in 1986 (86-V-02). Environmental
Assessment: Categorically exempt fzom the provisions of the California Environmental
Quality Act per Section 15301. Zone District: OS.
Chair Bialson: So we are on the Louis Road Speed Traffic Trial Report. Would Staff please
make their presentation?
Louis Road Speed Traffic Trial Report: Report on evaluation of the Louis Road
Traffic Calming Trial, including findings and recommendations.
Mr. Joseph Kott. Chief Transportation Official: Thank you Chair Bialson and Members of the
Commission. Good evening. I am Joe Kott the Chief Transportation Official for the City of
Palo Alto. To my left is Steve Emstie, Director of Planning and Community Environment
Department. To my right is Carl Stoffel, Transportation Engineer in the Transportation Division.
This evening we are discussing our recommendations to the Commission with reference to the
Louis Road Traffic Calming Trial. I will begin this presentation with some overview statements,
particularly on lessons learned. Carl Stoffel will walk through the trial evaluation results and
reiterate our recommendation. Our recommendation, by the way, to the Commission, is to
recommend per our traffic calming process to Steve Emslie the removal of the five sets of speed
cushions on Louis Road and the reconvening of the Louis Road residents Working Group to
develop a new speed control/traffic calming plan if so desired by the residents. The second
recommendation is the retention of the tightened curb radius and raised centerline berm on Louis
at the approach to Charleston.
City of Palo Alto Page 2
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This is the second collector street traffic-calming project that we have approached the
Commission to report on. Not surprisingly we found this one to be a complex, as we did
Ctiurchill. A lot of our colleagues in the Bay Area and around the country don’t even do
collector street traffic calming because of its complexity much less arterial street traffic calming.
So we discovered once again that collector streets because of their nature and their function, that
is they serve the catchment area of a much wider scope and scale than the actual street itself
creates particular complexities. As you know Louis Road is a transit route. Louis Road has
bicycle lanes on it. Louis Road intersects with an important arterial street in Palo Alto which
although it is a residential arteria!, is an important route for a lot of through traffic.
We learned again the value of trials before permanent placements. It is interesting to note that
not every community in the Bay Area much less the nation has a process of trial before
permanent placement. Lots of times communities and departments like ours with the blessing of
Council in many cases simply just does it. That has some problems associated with it including a
loss of learning opportunities.
We learned again the importance of objective evaluation. I think the Staff Report details pretty
well the evaluation steps taken, the data collected before and after, the consultation we did with
the various stakeholders not only Louis Road residents but (not always in an organized fashion)
the wider area residents, as well as VTA, the police and fire departments, PASCO and our Public
Works street sweeping operations. The evaluation I think was careful and deliberate. It was not
in any sense a product of panic. It was with a calm and deliberate attitude, which I think is very
important in terms of serving the community.
We learned again about the benefit of stakeholder consultation. We really need to find out as
much as we can from people who use these streets, the streets in Palo Alto, their experiences on
the streets. Users of course range from folks who drive professionally, VTA drivers, PASCO
and so forth, emergency services drivers, to rank and file drivers, people who are driving on the
streets for any number of reasons. We learned, again that in Palo Alto as in most communities
what I will call in a kind of twenty-five dollar phrase, "Pareto" optimal solutions are hard to
come by. It is very hard to find win-win solutions. You might look at this by way of the analogy
of the low hanging fruit. In a built up mature community like Palo Alto more or less all the easy
solutions have all been found. So we have hard problems without particularly easy solutions left.
We found I think again that the benefits of speed control need better, I’ll use the twenty-five
dollar word again, explication or explanation. We don’t do that well enough. I think the benefits
of speed control go way beyond what is traditionally thought of. We have had discussions
before this Commission on our Comprehensive Plan Transportation Element. The fact is that
unless speeds get moderated you don’t have much walking and cycling. You don’t have really a
multi-modal travel environment and the benefits that come from that which include not only
safety for kids commuting to school, which is probably the most pressing issue but also the air
pollution and the vehicular traffic congestion relief that comes from a multi-modal transportation
system.
What when right? Of course there is a companion slide on what went wrong. What went right?
We found speed cushions based on our before and after comparisons to be effective. Some of
our residents have told us possibly too effective in terms of what we would consider creating a
speed differential a lot of motorists apparently were s!owing down much more than anticipated
which can cause some problems in terms of the driver’s expectations behind them. We did find
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that our fire department and VTA accepted in fact enthusiastically the speed cushions as a device
to have on the streets for speed control. Our fire department, this Commission might recall from
our earlier discussion with them on this, has not been in favor of placement on collector streets of
speed humps or other devices that range across the entire cross section. We have found that once
again in Palo Alto, it is not the first time we found this out, but we have had the benefit of, and I
say this quite sincerely, the benefit of very extensive and practical resident feedback. We got
many, many emails and many letters and notes. Some of them, I would say actually a very small
number just expressed how upset the writer was but the vast majority contained very practical
notes about experiences the driver had and observations and suggestions. All that gets fed in.
every single bit is read and considered. We learned again I think the value of objective and calm
and thoughtful evaluation. Sometimes it is very hard to keep a calm and thoughtful perspective.
When you do that you really allow yourself the benefit of considering a whole range of things
plus and minus about what you are evaluating. I think we were able to do that and I am very
pleased that Carl performed again so well on this.
Our recommendation to this Commission therefore and I think in the sense of the best service to
this community was based on thoughtful consideration and a deliberate analysis and not on any
psychological pressure and so forth and I think that is very important.
What went v~a-ong? We got lots of feedback from motorists, primarily residents of Palo Alto it
would seem. The speed cushions by their design were too abrupt. Now we weren’t the first
community in the country to try speed cushions. Several other communities have. We did our
best to determine the experience of these other communities. We knew very well and this
Commission knew that we were testing them here in Palo Alto since this is our first experience
with them. Many residents told us that by design they were simply too abrupt. In other words it
caused to sharp a decrease in speeds. Possibly because of this, my own view is likely because of
this, we underestimated the traffic shift occasioned by the placement of these speed cushions.
We don’t really understand well enough, and this is a lesson learned, about the distribution of the
traffic shift. We would hope that the traffic stayed on the arteria! roads or went to arterial roads.
We think not all of it did. We think it is highly likely that we had some shift onto other local
residential streets which in our view and we know the Commission’s view too is unacceptable
and undesirable. We did not do well enough early enough in the neighborhood consultation
process. This is an interesting issue and problem. This is all arg-uable but people who live on a
street their opinions might have a greater weight because they have to experience whatever
happens on the street in front of their house 24 hours a day seven days a week. But that doesn’t
mean they are the only stakeholders. Lots of other people depend on that street. It is the
weighing of those opinions and the extent of the consultation with others that sometimes is
difficult. I think we clearly need to do a better job in casting a wider net and getting more input
earlier. We did end up consulting with a lot of people. We sent out, I don’t know just how many
opinion solicitations with ballots and so forth and we need to do that earlier and better. I don’t
think we communicated the intent and scope of the process of the tri!l well enough. We are
absolutely convinced of the benefits of traffic calming and of speed control. I think we are quite
willing to argaae those. All these things are quite debatable and we need to get out and dia!ogue
with people much better, much more effectively and learn from people more.
Before it turn this over to Carl I would like to put up a little bit on speed control. As this
Commission knows there are a lot of ways to control speeds. Traffic calming is one and we like
it because it is 24 hours a day, seven days a week while police enforcement is also very
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important but not always practical 24 hours a day, seven days a week because of our limited
number of officers and the inability to have a wide enough coverage that we do need. Before I
show this I want to put up the actual report cover. This is a report that recently came out from
the Surface Transportation Policy Project, which is a national reform group on transportation
policy, on pedestrian safety. I was really taken by this chart and some f these numbers. In terms
of accidents, accidents as we have told this Commission based on the data, accidents are rare
events. It is just a matter of probabilities. You may not have an accident on a street that
otherwise is an unsafe street for a long time because most drivers drive defensively and a lot of
people are very lucky. This is quite telling. In terms of pedestrian fatalities a large share of
pedestrian fatalities occur on the lower traffic streets including the collector roads and that is the
category of street we are talking about tonight. This is across the United States, about 15% of
pedestrian fatalities occur on collector roads. Locals show 18%. So about one-third of our
pedestrian fatalities occur on the streets covered by our neighborhood traffic calming program.
So we think there is a pressing need for speed control but how to do it is always debatable. We
do have some ideas for streets like Louis, our collector streets like Louis. We don’t believe that
the speed cushion approach is desirable on Louis. We believe that the traffic shift is just too
great and we are disappointed with I’d say the performance of the speed cushions in terms of
driver behavior, inducing driver behavior, which is arguably unsafe. With that as a very long
preface, I would like to invite Commission questions or if Commission wishes not to ask
questions right now pass the microphone on to Car! who will discuss our recommendations on
Louis in detail and our evaluation in detai!.
Chair Bialson: Let me ask the Commissioners whether they have a question for you, Joe, at this
point. Maybe Carl can speak now. Thank you.
Mr. Carl Stoffel. Transportation Engineer: Actually I was just going to very brief. The material
is in your Staff Report. I just wanted to highlight a couple of aspects on the speed cushions. It is
rather ironic that when we first tested we had a short demonstration test of the speed cushions,
one on Louis and one over at the MSC at a public open house. Especially on Louis, we just put
one out, where residents came out, bicyclists and fire department the main concern was I don’t
think these are going to be effective enough. Nobody is slowing down. So it is very ironic that
actually the opposite happened when you get the full thing out there with several in a row and
you give people a chance to drive on them repeatedly.
I would like to emphasize that as you know the fire department is one of the critical players in
traffic calming and we have always had back and forth with the fire department on us wanting to
slow people down through traffic calming and they don’t want to be slowed down. Their
primary mission is to get where they want to go as fast as possible. It is the speed humps,
anything raised, that is the worst thing for them. So we are very happy that the City had the
nerve so to speak, the courage, to try this new device. It was really because of the fire
department that we became aware of these. The fire department said lets try these out because
right now even though your booklet says that speed tables, a longer speed hump that we don’t
have in Palo Alto, is acceptable for collector streets we are still not willing to try that yet and we
want to try these speed cushions first because we think they have the possibility of speed control
that residents want but are going to allow us to proceed without delay. In fact that is what
happened. They were very pleased with the results of the speed cushions. So I am real happy to
find that out as a result of this trial. Joe mentioned of course the obvious advantage of the
cushions was they were quite effective in speed control as we!! as being acceptable to the fire
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department. Again the disadvantages were at least for collector streets where traffic volumes are
higher than other streets we think the speed and volume reduction was too much at least in this
particular case and probably would be on other collector street cases. There seems to be a
tendency for drivers to seek out the gutter and that certainly was understandable in one direction
where we had a narrow speed cushion but it seemed to happen in the other direction as well
where there is really not much advantage to leaving the traffic lane because the same speed
cushion is over on the right. It may be kind of an aspect of human behavior to see the gutter that
is a little bit wider space, kind of combined with a rolled curb. I think in a vertical curb situation
we probably wouldn’t have near that problem. Despite our Palo Alto Bicycle Advisory’s
Committee recommendation they looked promising at first but we found that they really are not
very accommodating to bicyclists. You can ride over them but cyclists don’t really like to and
inexperienced ones or somebody who is not looking might find a rea! problem so they tend to go
around. It is the going around that sometimes just doesn’t work very well. Also they are more
expensive than normal speed humps. One other reason just to emphasize behind our
recommendation of removing the speed cushions other than some of these operational factors
that we have mentioned is that in fact the project area when the survey came in, as you see in
your Staff Report, they did not support the speed cushions. We needed 50% of the 68
households in the area supporting them and it was quite a bit less than that. So again the
outcomes of this trial, Joe gave us some. One is that we think speed cushions are still effective
for certain situations and that would be on streets where we wouldn’t have near the problem of
density of traffic following somebody that wants to slow down. In other words, a low volume
local street that doesn’t have any bike lanes or bike facilities, where the residents clearly want
them because of their effectiveness and because the fire department at some point they are going
to say you have too many speed humps particularly if a lot of them start to get installed in certain
areas. They may say no to more speed humps so the speed cushions would be the answer to that.
Of course our residents are concerned they want to keep the response time of the fire deparmaent
from being impeded. So this is another reason why residents might want these so they can have
their speed control and yet not worry too much about delays to emergencies, fire and medical
responses. Another interesting outcome was we asked the fire department to look again and
reevaluate speed tables, which is a longer more gentle form of a speed hump, it is just as high but
is longer. The reason being that okay, fire department, we have tested the speed cushions though
they work for you they don’t seem to be working for a lot of the residents, so please take a look
at the speed tables again. In the meantime Menlo Park had installed a slightly different version
of speed tables that we have had around that the fire department had tested several years ago.
Their locations are mentioned in your Staff Report. They went over and found that they liked
them a lot. In fact they liked them more than the speed cushions. So that was a rather interesting
finding on the part of the fire department. The Menlo Park Fire Department apparently does not
like them but our fire department says they can live with them on Louis, on collector streets and
in other applications. Each time though we would be seeking their approval but they are willing
to see these be used as a speed control device on the collector streets because they don’t think
they impede them that much. But, as mentioned again in the Report, the fire department does
emphasize that anything in the street especially a vertical measure does slow them down but the
speed tables don’t slow them down enough that they are willing to live with them knowing the
strong demand for traffic calming in the community.
If you are interested later on in the discussion I have a number of photographs or just a few
photographs of the speed cushions of the corner treatment and the tables from the Staff Report
we can put up on the screen. That concludes my presentation.
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Chair Bialson: Thank you, Carl. Do the Commissioners have any questions for Staff?. Phyllis.
Commissioner Cassel: Carl, in Menlo Park they have now put in their speed tables. How
effective are they?
Mr. Stoffel: Unfortunately, I haven’t had the opportunity. From what I remember they did not
do an extensive before and after speed study. I need to confirm that I just haven’t had time to go
find that out. I know there is other information available. I do know that because you can go
over them faster, you can go over the tables at normal speed limit. They are not going to be as
effective as the cushions or the humps. That is actually one reason why they are good for
collector streets because we don’t want to cause big differentials in the speed and frankly we are
not looking to slow people down as much as on the local streets. I don’t actually have the
detailed data that I think you were looking for.
Chair Bialson: Bonnie.
Commissioner Packer: I have a question about the recommendation to go back to the Working
Group. I was wondering whether there was any reason why you could not reconstitute a working
group to include a wider scope of residents.
Mr. Stoffel: I can ~ve an answer to that and then maybe Joe would like to step in. Of course the
Working Group represents the project area. They are a subset that is willing to work with us.
Perhaps what you mean is why don’t we expand the area? The reason that we are working with
the area we are now is that those are the residents who expressed interest in this project. It
started with a smaller group south of the creek crossing then another section extending up to East
Meadow heard about it and got interested and got together following our procedures a petition
with the required number of signatures to join the group. Nobody else at that time expressed
interest and it is not the policy of our spot treatment program to advertise and to expand the area
lest it become a neighborhood study. As you know there is kind of a delicate balance there that
perhaps Joe can talk a little bit about if he likes. We want to keep the area manageable and at the
same time we want to include as many people as possible but the project area as it stands now is
about half a mile in len~h and we did have in our recommended changes to the program we
established a sort of size limitation that I think was somewhere around half a mile. Basically, the
answer is if we expand it another half a mile of Louis or so on the project area gets bigger the
procedure gets longer and it gets more complicated. It could be done. I don’t know if you have
any thoughts on that, Joe.
Mr. Kott: As innovative as we style ourselves we are constrained of course by the Council -
adopted procedures on the Neighborhood Traffic Calming Spot Treatment Program. However,
we have been learning as we go along. Frank Benest likes to describe ours as a "learning
organization", which I think is just a great concept. I think a good way to approach this is to
reconstitute the Working Group of Louis Road residents and work up some preliminary ideas for
another plan and then have a wider meeting with all interested stakeholders. What I would like
to do, I love field trips, we might include in that meeting or maybe separately a trip over to
Menlo Park to look at and experience the speed tables. Something like that might accomplish
what we really want to do which is earlier and more effective consultation with a wider affected
area.
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Chair Bialson: Pat.
Commissioner Burt: I had a question but before asking that I just wanted to share with Phyllis
and other Commissioners that this evening before coming home I went back and drove Willow
Road again because I had been very impressed a few months ago when I had first seen them and
timed myself and kind of observed my reactions and others to those. What I saw was that it was
very comfortable to drive over them at 20 miles per hour. At 25 it was a slight jarring. It wasn’t
an abrupt jarring like we had on these devices. So 20 to 25 miles per hour seemed to be a
comfortable range. The other interesting phenomena that I observed in my own behavior was
that unlike abrupt humps where you have to slow so much that you get over it and you have a
temptation to want to accelerate in between these were gradual enough that there really wasn’t
much temptation to accelerate and try and catch up your lost ground in between. You just found
yourself going that speed or nearly that speed maybe a few miles an hour above that but it was
quite different from what I had seen in other drivers and am tempted to do myself when you get
these sharp jarring bumps. The other thing that I saw there and that I have seen in past speed
humps including on Campus Drive at Stanford is that many of them are not only speed humps
but strategically located at crosswalks or at crossing points that might not otherwise have a
striped crosswalk and they serve a dual purpose. At the very place that you are sensitive to
slowing down and observant that paving differences are even more visually apparent than a
normal crosswalk. I think it provides a significant amount of pedestrian safety as well there.
Did you have a comment on that before I ask a question?
Mr. Kott: Commissioner Burt, ifI may, there are a couple of hesitations about using the speed
tables as crosswalks. One is drainage. We have to make sure that we have these locations well
drained and the curb to curb creates some difficulties in that. Secondly, in terms of where you
need the speeds tend to be moderated at intersections. Even without stop signs drivers tend to
believe in self-preservation. All that said though speed tables as crosswalks strikes me as being a
very good idea. Raising the visibility of pedestrians is just ipso facto good so if you can combine
that with speed control for vehicles that is also good for pedestrians, arguably good for vehicle
drivers too. So one last tag on, when Carl talks about speed differential that is a very serious
issue for us. In terms of safety wide differentials in speed are worse than uniform high speeds.
That is why freeways are relatively safe until they have the phenomenon of lots of people trying
to change lanes and even worse people sneaking from a congested lane to a free flow HOV lane.
Those kinds of differentials are really dangerous. That is why we really pay attention to that.
Mr. Stoffel: Just one technical comment on these raised crosswalks that may not be immediately
obviously is there are t~vo ways to construct them. One is to bring them flush all the way over to
the curb and that way the pedestrian just has an even crossing and never actually has to go down
to the street grade. That is when you get into your drainage problems because you are blocking
the gutter and you have to do your storm drain work and so on and it gets quite expensive. The
other way which I think Menlo Park did is the pedestrian goes do~vn the handicapped ramp into
the gutter and it immediately rises back up again but on a taper that is quite a bit longer for the
ADA taper. So the pedestrian goes down and comes up so it is not quite as nice of a pedestrian
experience. Then also because the table has to have a more-gentle ramp off into the gutter you
have a more exposed area over by the gutter where you don’t have much in the way of height.
So it might draw drivers more over towards the gutter area than a normal speed table would that
goes almost to the gutter and then drops rather sharply.
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Commissioner Butt: IfI might just add one other observation about the use of them at crossing
points is that there seems to be an additional advantage in the intersections that we have in Palo
Alto that are two-way stops where there is an implication to the unencumbered drivers that they
can just blast through that intersection. Someone who comes to a stop and looks carefully both
ways often is still in danger as they try to cross there. So at a two-way stop if the unencumbered
driver has a speed table then they are forced to slow down and make a safer interchange there.
Chair Bialson: Thank you, Pat. Karen.
Commissioner Holman: Yes, addressing the Public Works issue of street cleaning that came up
and was presented in the report, are the speed tables less of a hindrance to Public Works in the
aspect of street cleaning than the speed cushions? Is there information on that?
Mr. Stoffel: Since we don’t have them in Palo Alto our own street department wouldn’t be able
to comment on that. Now obviously there has got to be some experience in the other
communities, which I don’t have but I would suspect that because the ramping, the ramp is the
same height, but the ramp is gentler that there would be less tendency to drop the load so to
speak, which is what happens when they go over those. I think there is still going to be some
impediment to their operations because they pick up leaves by having a very tight fit between the
brushes and the curbing and the street. Any time there is anything in the way they are going to
tend to lose some of that but I would think it would be less of a problem.
Chair Bialson: Any other questions or comments? I believe you have one Pat. Okay, Pat.
Commissioner Burr: I would just like to make a comment on the process that has occurred in
advance of the public testimony. I think that we saw there was, as Staff acknowledged, a number
of unanticipated responses, which is what one might expect in a trial of a new innovation. I think
that Palo Alto has a long history of being innovative as a community as does Silicon Valley and
it is a lot of what makes it an excellent environment and an excellent economy. Innovation
doesn’t occur without risk taking. Risks implicitly mean that some are not going to pan out. In
reading the email from the public over the last couple of weeks I saw that a minority of them
were particularly harsh and I think not appreciating that this was a valid trial of a well-considered
project that has been learned from. I would just like to encourage everyone, whether this project
or future innovations that are attempted in this community, to appreciate that we won’t have
improvements and breakthroughs without a little bit of risk involved. I think Staff is to be
commended for being willing to do something that involves some risk and exposed themselves to
criticism and to be commended for their willing-hess to promptly respond and listen to those
responses from the public and come back with the sort of response that they have here. I just
hope that the public will be constructive in their approach in this and in future efforts that we
have.
Chair Bialson: We ware now going to go to the public input. We did, as the Commission,
receive over 40 email messages on this item. I understand copies of them are all available in the
back. A lot of those messages went several pages and they were very thoughtful and very
helpful to I think Staff and the Commissioners. We have quite a few speakers tonight and I
would like to hear from all of you but I will limit the communication by each speaker to three
minutes. There may be questions that the Commissioners have of you, which obviously will not
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count toward your three minutes. The first speaker is Roland Finston to be followed by Jim
Dinkey. I apologize if I mispronounce any name.
Mr. Roland Finston. 856 Thornwood, Palo Alto: Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you
this evening. I live about a block and a half off of Louis and about a block north of the East
Meadow terminus of the trial area. I am primarily a bicycle rider but I am also a driver. I want
to address you this evening on the issues of bicycle safety and about another aspect of the
recommendation that has not been discussed. I think we diverted our attention totally onto the
cushions and away from the other aspect, which is the corner treatment and how that effects
bicycle safety.
I certainly support the removal of the cushions for the reasons given in the report. Before talking
about the corner treatment I would like to also mention, however, that Commissioner Packer’s
suggestion that the reconvening be broadened to include the perhaps 2,000 other participants in
the Louis Road question be taken seriously by the Division. Not brought in after the 82 families
who are involved with the immediate project get together to reconvene to come up with new
ideas and then tell us what their ideas are. I believe it would be important to invite
representatives from the broader area to participate on the ground floor so that we do indeed find
the [perital] optimal solution that Mr. Kott mentioned. So I think that is the issue and I would
like to recommend that amend the first recommendation, part B, to say not only reconvening the
Working Group but also inviting in representatives from the broader area to that initial phase of
the discussion for the future.
Now as far as the corner treatment is concerned I sent you an email. You have that? Fine. This
is the corner of Charleston and Louis. There are two devices that were used to reduces the radius
of curvature in an effort to slow the cars down. The two devices were a set of concrete berms
shown here on Charleston mining right onto Louis and secondly a raised divider here on Louis
which cuts down the radius of curvature for vehicles turning left. Here for ex ~ample the bus
would be turning left and going here. They would not be able to cut the corner so tightly and
thus reduce their speed. I assume that is the philosophy behind this. When I first saw this I was
rally taken aback by this string of !ow concrete berms that were placed to create this temporary
reduction in curvature. As a lifelong cyclist I have come to experience that if your front wheel
without your paying attention to it should brush up against a slight elevation, and this happens
when people drive into parking lots at shopping centers where the curb is maybe a half inch to an
inch elevated at the lip of the driveway, if you are turning right and your tire hits that curb just at
a slight angle it may not rise to the new level. Instead your tire continues along the edge or the
lip and of course your body is leaning to make the turn and the result is you lose your balance
and the bike slips out from under you. For this reason I strongly urge that no matter what you do
permanently at this intersection that you take these out along with the speed cushions. If I might
have just a second to talk about the permanent aspect, I will try to be very brief. The other aspect
of this reduced curvature is of course that it removes from the traffic lane approximately three
and one-half feet of width going around the curb. This is an area which many bicyclists use now
to get around this curb in a safe manner so as to avoid being sideswiped by a concurrent car
passing on their left. Now, as far as I can tell there is no data that we have in hand as to how
effective either this right or this left hand modification technique has been in reducing the speed.
We do know that the overall speed 100 feet north of the intersection of this curve was dropped
from 23 to 19 mile per hour. We don’t know if it was this amendment or this amendment that
was the major reason that the speed dropped four miles per hour. My recommendation to you is
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to amend item two to after removing these berms to study what is the effect of leaving the central
medial on the resulting speed. So that we can get some handle on whether one or the other of
these is a more important technique for reducing speed and then come back to you with the
results of that study so that you can decide whether it is worth increasing the risk to the cyclists
by tightening this radius or it is more of a hazard to them and not effective reduction in speed.
That would be an amendment to item two. I thank you for your attention and the extra time.
Chair Bialson: Appreciate it. Does Staff have a response?
Mr. Kott: We do appreciate that very thoughtful contribution. That’s the great thing about
working in Palo Alto; we get a lot of very thoughtful advice. In terms of bike operations we
would respectfully disagree on safe operation of turning cyclists. We are both quite avid cyclists
ourselves. The safe position of a cyclist turning right at a location like that would not be
alongside a vehicle. Bicyclists should either take the lane in front of the vehicle or lag behind
and let the vehicle turn first. In no instance should the cyclists be along side. The reason is that
drivers often have a blind spot to their right. Sometimes drivers also have difficulty judging the
angle of their entry and so forth so it is generally not considered safe to have a parallel vehicle
and bike turning. So we don’t think that is a particular safety concern that cyclists are forced
into a kind of lane discipline the way drivers are. Of course the reason to have this tightened
radius is to enforce a lane discipline. It is to kind ofreengineer the street, which is over-designed
in our view in terms of speed. Secondarily in terms of the study we could do that. We could use
our radar gun rather than a speed tube to isolate the effects of this device. In fact it might be a
very good idea if the cushions are removed that we leave the raised berm in and we could do a
isolated study on that if the Commission wishes. As Mr. Finston pointed out with the data that
we have it is very hard to disentangle the effects of the intersection treatment from the speed
cushions.
Mr. Stoffe!: That is tree that we don’t really know if it is the speed cushion coming up that may
have slowed people down or a combination of that plus the curve. Now as far as these two
particular aspects at the comer whether a driver turning right on Louis is influenced more by the
curve reduction or the centerline or both Mr. Finston is right, we didn’t study that. Probably the
only way to know that is to take some time and to take one out measure the speed with the one in
and put that back and take the other out. I am not sure that it is worth that trouble. I think these
little berms are clearly temporary. It is not good to have little low things right there but as Mr.
Kott said, most bicyclists would probably not be riding in the gutter or too close to the gutter
joint. They should probably be more out in the street and not next to the car. In the final run it
would be a regular vertical curb that we would construct there so there wouldn’t be that issue of
perhaps hitting that kind of device. It definitely takes space out of the comer. Radius reduction
is a very common traffic calming treatment and that’s why it slows cars down and because we
don’t think cyclists should sharing side-by-side anyway we think it should stay that way. I think
Joe and I did discuss the Palo Alto Bicycle Advisory Committee and we could have them took at
that. They did not comment on that. We didn’t really ask them to but they didn’t volunteer
anything. We could take that back and get some comment from them. If in fact it is adverse we
can go from there.
Chair Bialson: Thank you. The next speaker is Jim Kinkey to be followed by Ted Noguchi.
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Mr. Jim Dinkey: 3350 Corina Wag, Palo Alto: Good evening Commissioners. The problem that
has not been discussed here at all is the damage that each of these tables is causing to all of the
cars going over that are front drive specifically the CVJs, the Constant Velocity Joints. The
construction of these vehicles is such that the tire is expected to move up and down three or four
inches, etc., and no side forces have been allowed for by engineering personnel. I am especially
sensitive to this because when I got the car I realized it wasn’t tracking very well and the way
that the various cars are put together is they put the parts in the jig and then they weld things into
place and that is your alignment for the life of the car. I didn’t think it was as good because I
have driven my own and done my own alignments and I knew what I was doing. I decided that
wasn’t good and talked to somebody, got referenced, went down and had the welds broken and
had them measure before and after and we set the car the way it should have been and should
have come out of the factory. Now I have a lot of money, effort and time wrapped up in these
things and these things put into the equipment that I drive but I do not intend to have the
equipment broken up by the fact that these things are spreading the front CVG joints and pulling
on the gearing and the bearing surfaces in ways that were not designed. I do not intend to pay
for the repairs myself. I guarantee you that. I don’t want to have this and everybody else’s cars
damaged. These things have got to go for that reason.
Chair Bialson: Thank you. Ted Nogushi to be followed by Louise Lyman. Please indicate your
address when you do speak. If you are not going to use the device you can speak right where
you are standing.
Mr. Ted Noguchi. 3832 Nathan Way: Palo Alto: My comments will be relatively brief. I just
wanted to support the Staff recommendations. I think a couple of things that may be technical in
nature that I think need to be addressed. One is the vehicle that I think the Staff evaluated
probably did not include different types of vehicles with different types of shock absorbers. That
is why when you talk about 20 miles per hour that is fine for a certain type of vehicle but pick
ups and some pick ups particular have also the hard shock absorbers and they can’t take those
speed bumps at that particular advisory speed. The other thing was the 85th percentile I am not
sure those take into consideration in the analysis. I think that was established to look at not just
the average but I assume the table that they have in the report is an average speed. With an
average speed that’s okay but they should also assess the 85th percentile speed. Finally I think
the previous speaker addressed this point and that is if you are going to have a study group then
increase the network to a broader base. It is always difficult to assume what that broader base is
but if a street parallels Louis Road for example, you have Nathan Lane, you have Ross Road
which are directly affected by everything that goes on on Louis Road. So I think the people that
live on those particular streets need to be included in the network. Thank you.
Chair Bialson: Thank you. Louise Lyman to be followed by Kerry Yarkin.
Ms. Louise Lyman. 3945 Louis Road. Palo Alto: Good evening. I have been living at the corner
of Louis and Charleston, that famous corner that you have been showing in all those pictures. I
can tell you that this issue is very important to me. We have lived there about 20 years and I can
say that the traffic has about doubled both on Charleston and on Louis since we have been there.
Many times I have heard screeches as cars turn the corner. When thdy showed that one picture
you could see before they put up those little white knobs, I forget what they are called, you could
see the tire tread marks on there because many times you would have cars come around there so
fast they would kind of come up on our driveway and then straighten out again. As you see I
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brought these nice quiet grandchildren with me tonight because I didn’t have anybody to sit with
them and they came all the way from Mexico City so I felt I had to be with them. This issue is
not a safe issue for the way the cars have been speeding. We have cars go on Charleston at 50
miles per hour and on Louis probably at 40 many times before the speed humps were in. I was at
first concerned that they would not be effective enough. Then I as I saw that that they were
effective in s!owing down the traffic I was very pleased. Now I am concerned to see that there is
such a protest of people that don’t want them. We drive on them too. We live on that road, we
drive on them too and I myself think it is a good trade-off. I slow down. I have to go over them
but to me it is much safer. People that I know that live on the street don’t even let their children
out in front to walk down the sidewalk because they are afraid of the cars that are going so fast.
Those speed humps are not noisy. They have decreased the speed and they have slowed down
the people turning the comers. I believe that this is a good trade-off for our inconvenience.
Thank you for listening.
Chair Bialson: Thank you. Kerry Yarkin to be followed by Jim Swan.
Ms. Kerry Yarkin. 135 Churchill. Palo Alto: Good evening Commissioners. I am here tonight
because I am completely sympathetic to any person who lives on Louis Road because they have
had a very huge increase in traffic. I have grown up in Palo Alto so I have seen it through my
lifetime as well as some other streets you have designated as collector. I just have some
comments because we were also involved with the trial for the speed humps. What you are
seeing right now is just the traffic calming measures that are put throughout the City. As you can
see there are many, many closures here, street diverters, closures all over here. When you get to
Ross Road, Ross Road has many speed bumps and they didn’t have them so long. So when
those speed humps went through obviously there is going to be more of a diversion of cars onto
Louis. If you see also on Colorado and Capra there are many speed bumps. Now I am just
bringing this up because I really want to show my support for safety and safe speeds on
residential streets, which have been designated as collector streets. I also have ridden over these
speed humps and rode over them with my car and I was fine going 20 miles per hour. I am going
to go back to the first demonstration but the day I went over to just drive over the speed humps
on Louis I continued along Louis, I went by the school and I thought the school needs speed
humps, it should be carried on further. Then as I kept going along Louis a car decided that I was
going too slow going 25 miles per hour and just completely went over the lane and crossed to
bypass me and get in front of me to get over to Embarcadero five seconds faster to make a right
turn. So you have cars that are treating these residential streets as just roadways to speed. I
don’t know what the accident rates have been but they must be pretty high when I saw that
happen which doesn’t happen very often to me.
My other comments will go back to July of 2001. I ran off five different email messages that we
had because the Churchill calming traffic committee also was involved with the speed hump
trial. This was one of the suggestions that we would go with the speed hump. Now when we
discussed this in detail our group of about seven members most of us at first said speed bumps
are great. Let’s get Ross Road. We love Ross Road. Let’s get the speed bumps on Churchill.
We could live with that. Try them out there. Then we found out no, you are a collector street so
you no, you can’t have them. So now we are going to try something else. Quite a few of us
went out to the speed hump demonstration on Louis Road of July of 2001. I have different
comments and I thought I would read some of them. I have about five email messages and I
made you all a little packet so you could read through them. Basically most of the people on our
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street when we went out and tried the demonstration trial over a year ago ttiought they didn’t do
enough, that they weren’t effective, they didn’t slow down speeds. So we were then not in favor
of using them because we didn’t think they were effective enough in slowing down speeds. So I
am actually happy that they actually do work. I would just say I really support livability of
neighborhoods and schools and for pedestrians and bicyclists and for people who live along the
street in a beautiful city like Palo Alto, that we all deserve that kind oflivability. I will just pass
these up. Thank you.
Chair Bialson: Thank you very much. Jim Swan to be followed by Oswald Thompson.
Mr. Jim Swan. 3939 Louis Road. Palo Alto: Thank you. We have a speed cushion directly in
front of our house. I am not wedded to speed cushions. I think we need something to slow the
traffic down. One statistic that didn’t come up this evening is although fewer than half of the
people on our street supported the speed cushions, 63% wanted speed cushions or something else
not just to remove the whole process of slowing speed down. I have a little statement about the
nature of our street. We are a collector street. I can live with the traffic volumes and I
understand why they are there. I think Carl can corroborate the fact that the maximum speed on
our street before speed cushions were put in was in excess of 65 miles per hour. That is a
freeway speed. We have children on our street. We have increasing numbers of children on our
street. I think it is the responsibility of the community and the neighborhood to prevent that kind
of speed. So whatever it takes to do that that’s fine with me whether it be the speed table
concept, which I think a lot of us would be in support, whatever we need to do to get the speeds
down on our street. We don’t have any distribution data for the speeds, we have an average but
in order to have an average of 30 miles per hour clearly we have a tot of vehicles going in excess
of that. Thank you for your time. I would like to be part of the committee and continue to seek a
solution. Am I right about the maximum speed prior to?
Mr.Stoffel: I have a vague recollection of that. I have the data here.
Mr.Swan: It was 69 miles per hour.
Mr.Stoffel: I guess there was a reading like that somewhere in that area.
Chair Bialson: Thank you. That is quite an interesting figure. Oswald Thompson to be
followed by Bob Reklis.
Mr. Oswald Thompson. 843 Ross Court. Palo Alto: I use Louis Road quite a bit. It is an inter
street to 101. I come back that way also. I do pull a trailer. The cushions on Louis do create a
problem if you drive a vehicle and pull a little trailer. Everything gets turned around. I would
like to leave with you some of my observations. The guys on skateboards just love them. They
do interfere with traffic some times. The guys on bicycles don’t like them. They get into the
automobile lane and the automobile gets into the bicycle lane. It is common that this happens
anywhere that there are bumps. The feeling that I have is there is a need to reduce the speed. If
anyone can remember there were many, many accidents on the corner of Louis and East
Meadow. Many. Also on Ross and East Meadow because there was not stop sign. Whoever
lived on that corner had their car wrecked four times because of speed. The stop sign was put up
and in the past few years I have not seen an accident. I am not saying that they are not running
the stop sign. Stop signs do not make individuals stop. Policemen make individuals stop. My
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one recommendation is that if you would like to leave bumps or some form of design to slow
down the traffic if you have ever driven on the highway and you approach a certain area where
you want to be cautious about your driving there are the little bubbles. They are about four
inches wide and they make a little noise like when you run off the side of the highway, bump,
bump, bump. This will reduce speed or encourage individuals to reduce speed and would not
affect the driver, their cars and I don’t think it will affect bicycles because you don’t have to use
the bicycle lane to install those little bubbles. Maybe we should try that. There is a lot of money
being spent on "maybe this will work" so maybe we can spend a little money on trying this
particular suggestion. Thank you.
Chair Bialson: Thank you. Carl, can you tell me what those things are called so we can
reference them?
Mr. Stoffel: That the gentleman was referring to?
Chair Bialson: Yes.
Mr. Stoffel: There are a number of ways of constructing what he was talking about but a
common way is to use what we call "box dots." We have actually those on Embarcadero going
west after you get off the freeway and before you get to St. Francis. There are a few of them
there. There are other ways to construct what he was talking about though.
Chair Bialson: But they are known in the trade as box dots?
Mr. Stoffel: Yes, the round ones that are about four inches in diameter and maybe a quarter of
an inch high or something like that. They are also used as lane markers.
Chair Bialson: Thank you. The next speaker is Bob Reklis to be followed by Ted Stephens.
Mr. Bob Reklis. 3410 Janice Way, Palo Alto: I live somewhat north of the section of Louis
Road. I drive through there quite frequently. I bicycle through there probably more frequently.
Those bumps are painful. They are intended to be painful. They are inconvenient and should
only be put in if there is a real reason for having them. I don’t see anything in particular about
that section of Louis Road. It is very much like many, many other sections and streets around
town. If we are going to put in speed bumps in a place like that we will end up putting in speed
bumps all over town. I think the population will come up in arms. Those things are just not
something that you want to drive over if you have to all the time. Same point I would like to
make is as a bicyclist I find them dangerous. They force me out into the street. They force the
cars into the bike lane. I find cars driving down the bike lane. Those particular bumps
particularly in the northern direction are not well marked. They are big white angles on the ones
going south and there aren’t on the ones going north. They are hard to see particularly at night. I
come through there at night fairly frequently and I suspect anybody that came through there at
night and didn’t know those things were there would hit them, they are not well lighted. I think
they are very dangerous. Thank you very much.
Chair Bialson: Thank you. Tec Stephens to be followed by Carl Jones.
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Mr. Ted Stephens. 3860 Corina Wag. Pa!o Alto: My residence is just adjacent to the intersection
of Louis and Ross. The day those traffic calmers were installed changed my life in a way that
was for the negative. What I found was that I could no longer ride my bicycle on Louis Road for
fear of being run down by cars avoiding the traffic calmers by driving either in the bike lane or
up on the sidewalk. Second, I drive on Louis a lot in my own private vehicle and found that it
was really inconvenient to go over those speed bumps and found that to do so really was putting
my car at risk in terms of doing some damage to the front suspension. It seems to me that if we
are really going to have a effective way of calming traffic on Louis Road which I would really
support that should be a job that should be turned over to the Palo Alto Police Department. I
think it would be far more effective to have a police office stationed there at Louis Road three to
four hours a day and that would really calm traffic. It also seems to me that the money that we
spent installing those speed bumps probably would have paid for an officer’s salary for a few
months at least. Thank you very much.
Chair Bialson: Thank you. Carl Jones to be followed by Gerard Wen.
Mr. Carl Jones. 3465 Kenneth. Palo Alto: As I approached Charleston on Louis one day a car
turning from where the bus is cut the corner as people mostly do the driver looked up saw the
white barriers on Louis probably said something to themselves and then drove on the left hand
side of the barriers facing me. I had to quickly stop to avoid a head-on collision. So I agree with
the restriction there but that was pretty scary for me. I wonder if it is possible to also include
something if you will see where the bus is, is it possible to include something along the edge
there to force the drivers who are in fact making that left hand turn to come all the way down and
turn rather than cut. I think that that might be something to consider along with the barrier in the
middle of Louis. The other thing that I would like to mention is I would like to agree with the
gentleman who spoke first about the berm here and the bicycles at the turn. If you are going to
reduce the radius then that’s fine but please don’t leave those bumps the way they are right now.
With all due respect to the people who said how their cars and bicycles ought to behave at this
corner, bicyclists do not want to be in that lane where the traffic is making a left hand curve on
Charleston. The traffic is going quite quickly there. Bicyclists do not take a spot in that lane
because the cars are going quite fast. So they do in fact ride in the gutter and they do in fact
make that turn there. So the situation that you have as it is right now is quite dangerous. If you
are going to make that a regular curb that’s fine but don’t leave them the way they are now.
Chair Bialson: Thank you. Gerard Wen to be followed by Peter Taskovich.
Mr. Gerard Wen. 3839 Corina Wag, Palo Alto: Madam Chair and Members of the Commission.
Corina Way is parallel to Louis Road. A number of my neighbors are here tonight and I also
know some people who are not here tonight who live on Louis. So my first comment has to do
with the possibility of expanding the committee to incorporate more individuals. I have no
objection to that I just want to make sure that the comments and opinions of the people on Louis
Road have more weight because they are directly affected by the traffic there.
The next comment I want to make is on page eight of 13 in the Report where it talks about the
fact that the speed data did not show a substantial speed reduction that residents seem to report
especially crossing the cushions. I have a 2002 Ford Focus, front wheel drive those CV joints
that the earlier gentleman mentioned, and because of this suspension you can go across those at
30 or 35 miles per hour very comfortably. I also have a Suburban and those I try to straddle on
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the bumps. I can go 20 or 25 comfortably. So it just depends on the suspension of the vehicle as
to what it can and cannot do. Vehicles are designed to be able to go over those bumps in a safe
On page nine there is a reference to the fire department. In all due respect to Fire Chief Ruben I
have been involved with what we ca!l Class Eight trucks. A fire truck is a Class Eight truck. It
is the heaviest duty frame. It is the same kind of chassis that is used for over the road and for
garbage trucks. I find it amazing that PASCO who also has the same type of trucks, a Class
Eight chassis, can handle those kind of bumps but the fire department cannot. I think the fact
that you have to slow down momentarily and speed up unless all the equipment gets jostled and
gets disarranged I don’t see what the issue is.
Going on to the specific recommendation by Staff, recommendation number two, I like the idea
of the chatter bars or berms. When they were first installed I thought the benefit of that was to
impose lane discipline. I did not know it was there to reduce the speed. I fully support the idea
of putting them something in there permanently to enforce lane discipline. I have seen too many
times drivers cutting the comer too close.
Lastly, I think we should still have two sets of speed bumps at point number one and point
number four as shown in the diagram. Thank you.
Chair Bialson: Thank you. Peter Taskovich to be followed by Thomas Brennan-Marquez.
Mr. Peter Taskovich. 751 Gailen Avenue, Palo Alto: Basically I support the Staff
recommendations and I just wanted to bring out several points. I can see where there are
locations where reducing the speed is more critical than Louis Road especially the straight-aways
between East Meadow and Embarcadero. In this study area the only place that really needs
speed reduction is where there isn’t any calming device, which is right here before Gailen fight
after the crest of Adobe Creek between 3896 Louis Road and 805 Gailen Avenue. That is
because cars do tend to accelerate over this steep embankment and then there is a residential
street fight there. In fact that is the only place I would actually support in this segment. The
other thing I was wondering is maybe to help have the natural curbs reduce the speed. If they
could tie in, I forgot what they call them the stand up little things fight here to make the curb
slightly tighter, have the curbs naturally reduce the speeds of the cars to 25 miles per hour. I
have no qualms about the residents wanting on Louis Road to have the cars travel at or near 25
miles per hour. I have a big objection of cars forced to drive slower especially lower than 20
miles per hour. I live on Gailen Avenue and as I wrote in the letter we have always actually had
a problem with cars especially in the morning taking this little shortcut from Gailen Avenue to
Grove to bypass the natural morning back up on Louis Road. Now with these speed bumps I see
these cars going down all day long avoiding the number four and number five. So I am totally
opposed to those two bumps because it just forces cars onto our street, which is a purely
residential street. I do support the concept of the speed tables because it seems like speed tables
seem to be more effective at keeping cars at the 20 to 25 miles per hour range, which cars should
go down on Louis Road. The one more thing is I would hope the Planning Commission would
recommend to the City Council to change the criteria of the study that any time you recommend
a calming on a collector street that not just the residents of the collector street be involved in the
initial study but the nearby residents also. So I would hope that you recommend to the City
Council to change the criteria for these calming studies in the future. That’s al!.
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Chair Bialson: Thank you very much and thank you for your email. It was quite helpful. Next
is Thomas Brennan-Marquez and I do not have any cards after his.
Mr. Thomas Brennan-Marquez, 3991 Bibbits Drive, Palo Alto: Hi. 1 live in that little cul-de-sac
there that got miraculously included in the study area. I just had two things I wanted to say. One
thing I want to ask a question about. The first thing I want to say is I am a bicyclist and I also
agree with the two gentleman that suggested that the berms to reduce that radius, the way it
stands now is really hazardous. It is a really bad idea. I would recommend that you get rid of
them really soon. The effect that the first gentleman described going up a driveway that has a
small lip and you could fall, I have been riding my bike since I was ten years old I have only hit
the street once and it was in that kind of a situation and it was bad. So I think that is a bad idea.
I want to ask a question. It seems to me that we have in Palo Alto a huge traffic speed problem
that is not being addressed. We have 25 mile an hour zones on Middlefield and Charleston and
this street and people are going 60 miles per hour. You can’t safely drive. The differential thing
is really an issue. I drive as a matter or principle I drive 25 on Charleston and people are furious
with me. I am totally convinced, based on no data at all, that if we stationed a police officer we
could have one officer who’s whole job was to randomly pick places and to give people tickets
that officer could stand there and just let people come and just say you, here, write the ticket and
the second that ticket is done, you, here. The cost of those tickets and the money you would save
by not putting physical barriers plus the funds that we would collect because of all these people
that speed all the time. If they didn’t know where it was going to be but if you put up a sign that
said this 25 miles per hour we mean business. We are not just putting it up here for fun. I think
you would have people slow down everywhere and it would be a huge improvement. So my
question is why don’t we do that? I am sure there is a reason that it is not done because it is so
obvious that everyone has thought of it. Thank you.
Chair Bialson: Thank you. It might be helpful if Joe, you spoke to the issue of enforcement and
I know you mentioned the 24 hours a day, seven days a week previously but if you could expand
on that and give us a little bit of background.
Mr. Kott: I would like to begin by saying we would be delighted to not be in the speed control
business. We have a lot of other jobs expected of us. The practical fact is that it is very difficult
on an arterial road to enforce a speed limit that is way below the prevailing speeds because of the
state’s 85th percentile, the so-called "speed trap" law. We have to document the ability to
enforce based on our speed survey data that we collect every year. In practice it is very hard for
an officer to go to court with a citation for going 35 in a 25. The officers are also very thinly
spread. Some of this data is pretty formidable. We have about 1 or so controlled intersections in
Palo Alto give or take I am talking about stop signs and traffic signals. We have more than that
that are uncontrolled. Given that most accidents occur near or in intersections just the whole
idea of stationing officers even in peak periods of traffic within sight of the top ten percent
intersections is a terrific staffing issue for them. Jon Hemandez and the others in the police
department are more eloquent about this but I think the top availability they have is six officers
and that is assuming they are not doing other things that they are not on other police duty, they
are not in training and they don’t have vacancies. All are very tenuous assumptions. They are
just not staffed up to do the level of control necessary. I wish they were. I wish we didn’t have
to recommend traffic calming 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If you cost it out traffic
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calming is pretty cost effective given that it is likely to cost something on the order of maybe
$90,000 a year per officer including fringes. I am just throwing a number out, I am not sure that
is right.
Chair Bialson: I think you probably have understated it a little bit. I will close the public
testimony period and take this back to the Commissioners. Do I have any questions or
comments that the Commissioners wish to make at this time? Phyllis.
Commissioner Cassel: I have a question. Joe, I have been over these bumps too. Today I had
fun I went down and I went over them at the slow speed, and a faster speed, and a faster speed,
etc., to see what I could do without getting a ticket. There wasn’t a policeman around but I
thought maybe the neighbors would think this was strange. It didn’t seem to make much
difference what speed I went over it but I found it very hard to get centered on those berms.
What would happen if they were actually a little narrower so that what you were doing was
centering yourself to go over them without actually being on them? In other words you were
taking the time to be centered and then you wouldn’t actually lift up.
Mr. Kott: I think that would make some improvement. They got placed and it is very hard to do
it exact the first time. We can change the exact placement. We could for example change the
width. We could more or less cure the veering into the bike lanes but we are still left with the
abruptness issue. Just by the data that we have they are too abrupt for many motorists and
because of that motorists are diverting. Motorists who stay, many of them are causing an
unacceptable differential in speeds. There seems to be something about the abruptness itself that
is the ramping is not gradual enough that is inducing this behavior. We are not condemning
people it is just the way it is.
Mr. Stoffel: I think they are modular and they do come kind of stock in different recommended
widths. The width we uses was what was recommended to really control speeds. If they get
narrower then people can go over them faster. Now given our experience it would seem that if
they were a little bit narrower if drivers wheels didn’t actually encounter so much of the ramp
because they were more off to the sides they might not be as abrupt. But to be honest there are a
lot of different permutations we could narrow the cushions, we could change the spacing
between them, we have to address the issue in the bike lanes, they would actually be made
longer. It gets rather time consuming and actually very expensive to go out and start playing
around with these. We don’t exactly know if we are going to do it right. So in a sense it is kind
of impractical to start playing around with them for that reason. It may be that there is a more
optimal shape or width and configuration but I think in trying to find it we may just spend a lot
of time. If we do use them which we are recommending for certain local streets where residents
do want them and the volumes are low enough we could try, if they have two locations, putting
in a slightly different width and then see what happen but probably not here on Louis.
Chair Bialson: Thank you, Carl. Any other questions or comments? Pat.
Commissioner Burt: On recommendation !-B one of the questions I would have is what lessons
have we learned from the two different studies that we have done, first on Churchill and now on
Louis, and a number of the members of the public commented on this issue of how broad should
the outreach be and how should the representation be formulated. In each of the circumstances
we had an initial proposa! that was favored by the most impacted immediate residents on those
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particular collector streets and then later strongly opposed by perhaps an even greater number of
perhaps less impacted but still very concerned residents on the surrounding areas. So the
dilemma becomes how do we balance those interests and do it up front in a way that doesn’t
cause us to go too far initially in response to the valid concerns of the residents of the collector
street and then overreact and lose all progress because of the reaction of the neighboring
residents. What do you think about a concept of a focus group that would be representative of
each of those and perhaps evenly divided in numbers of participants? That somehow there
would have to be a selection process but that it would mean that we would deliberately try to
have equal numbers of highly impacted residents and residents from the outlying areas that also
would be indirectly impacted.
Mr. Kott: Commissioner Burt that is a very creative solution. We hadn’t thought of that, the
focus group idea. As the Commission knows the risk of expanding a spot treatment program to a
wide area is to engage in a neighborhood study. Our experience with Downtown North and
years ago with other neighborhoods is that these kinds of efforts neighborhood wide are very,
very intensive in terms of time and resources, way overshooting what we have available. A
focus group is a very efficient way to tap into attitudes. If we could follow that up with a
meeting in which we engage a larger number of people that is great.
I would like respond to your comment about the differenti!l impact. We all love the idea of one
person - one vote and in the United States it is a deeply cherished value but the fact is that
people are differentially impacted. If you live on a street you have a real big stake in it. If you
drive on it but don’t live on it you have a stake but it may not be as large. It is a real difficult
balancing act. That is more philosophical. The practical concern is we cannot engage in big
neighborhood studies. They are extremely time intensive. A compromise solution like the one
you mentioned is extremely creative and I think a very good idea.
Mr. Stoffel: Let me reiterate what are the basic tenants of the way traffic calming programs
especially these smaller programs that many or most of the cities have, not the neighborhood
study, the basic tenant is that the people on who’s street these devices are placed, and here we are
not talking about closing streets we have already don’t have that now in the program but speed
humps and traffic circles and various things, the people on who’s street those devices are placed
are the ones who should vote as to whether they stay or not. It doesn’t mean you don’t listen to
other people but as you know in our proposal for expanding the notification area for collector
streets that are used by more people we proposed a survey, just as we did for this project, a wider
area survey but we did not use those survey results in looking at if we had our 50% in favor or
not. That is there for us to consider and for you to consider but the people who are most affected
should be the ones to vote. The ones who are the most affected are the ones who live on the
street, the ones on cross streets where you have a traffic circle because it is at an intersection and
for an unusual if we expect a lot of diversion perhaps an unacceptable amount to a particular
street, they should also be included. So we obviously have to make a few judgrnent calls about
the traffic diversion issue but otherwise if we had a much larger area it would be really unfair to
have them or their vote actually determine whether the device should stay on another street
unless they are really directly impacted by having it on their street or an inordinate amount of
diverted traffic which we now hope to avoid by not having street closures. If we don’t have
speed cushions on busy streets we won’t have the kind of diversion we have seen here on Louis
either.
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Chair Bialson: Thank you, Carl. Any other Commissioners? Karen.
Commissioner Holman: I have a question about the bumper sticker program and what kind of
response you have gotten to that in this neighborhood. I know I am not very much a fan of
bumper stickers and I did sign up for the program and have yet to put the bumper sticker on my
car but I want you to know that just even signing up for the program I.have become so much
more cognizant, because I signed something, I have become so much more cognizant of my
driving patterns and habits. I found it to be really helpful. It makes me that much more
responsible. So I am just wondering if you have a handle on what kind of response you have
got~ :: ~ in this area to that program.
Mr. Kott: Well we have gotten some-response. We haven’t gotten an overwhelming response.
It does take a commitment. Palo Altoans are pretty conscientious. If people here sign up for
something they tend to do it. We would have to have a very substantial market share, you might
say, of people making this pledge. It is a pledge that heretofore I will not speed unless there is
some dire emergency. Those who do, I was taken by the gentleman’s comment about driving at
the speed limit on an arterial road which is posted at 25 miles per hour people behind them get
awfully frustrated. So there is a personal price to pay too for people who make that commitment.
The jury is out on it but we would like to see much more participation before we can say it would
likely be an effective speed control measure.
Mr. Stoffel: As far as I know in this project area there may not have been anybody that has
signed up for the bumper stickers. This was not one of the methods that this particular group
was interested in. There is a group further up on Ross Road that in fact that was the only thing
they were interested in so far was the bumper sticker program. We leave it up to anybody in the
City including these folks can participate but it is strictly up to them and I don’t believe we have
had any requests. Maybe a couple of them in this area here.
Commissioner Holman: Has Staffpromoted that? I know you discussed it with them. Have you
promoted that program? I am basing this on my own personal experience with it. Have you
promoted that program pretty strongly with the people on Louis and also the surrounding area?
Mr. Kott: We haven’t promoted this program strongly. We do have a website as the
Commission may know. We do need to market it more. We are not particularly good at
marketing. We do need help and we would appreciate citizen help on that.
Chair Bialson: Thank you. Bonnie.
Commissioner Packer: I don’t really have any questions I just have comments. One I of all the
Commissioners live closest to this area. In fact many of you out there are my neighbors so I use
Louis Road probably as much as anyone who spoke here. I have to say my husband did send in
a postcard opposing this process. This whole experience in the Staff Report made reflect on the
issue of the problem of collector streets. I think I want to take issue with what you just said,
Carl, about the people who live on the collector streets should have a greater weight on what is in
front of their houses. As much as I want to see people slow down and I should slow down more
when I drive and all this the streets they way they are designed, they way they are built, they are
used probably by a lot more people than those people who actually live on them. So you have
that tension be~,een the users of the street and the people who have to experience the traffic.
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People are aware when they live in their house that they live on a collector street or on a busy
street versus people who live on cu!-de-sacs. I think it is very ironic that the two requests for
traffic calming in the South Palo Alto area that I am familiar with, the Ross Road one and this
one on Louis Road, come in areas which are not straight-ways, where the streets turn, where in
order to maneuver the streets you have to go a little bit slower than you would on the straight
parts of those streets. That is interesting that the people on Ross Road which is a straightway
from Clara to Loma Verde you can go very fast and we all do. I try not to but we and yet that is
the area where people said no we don’t want physical bumps we want to do the pacer car
concept. So I think we may have to rethink this whole concept of spot treatment in order to deal
with the real behavioral problem of speeding and bad traffic habits that we all have. I don’t think
you are going to solve problems by having bumps here, tables here, speed cushions here, a
barrier here. It might make life a little bit nicer for the people live right on those streets but it is
not going to really change the major problem that we have in this City. I don’t know if it is
enforcement, I don’t know if it is really promoting the pacer car making us all feel guilty for
going faster than we should. We all learned how to recycled and at first we thought we wouldn’t
do it and now we do it, it is a habit. Maybe we do need a really strong marketing effort to make
everybody feel good about going 25 in a 25 zone and focus our efforts on this rather than these
spot treatments. I think they are just band-aids and the wounds are going to leak out from under.
It is just not going to work.
Chair Bialson: Thank you, Bonnie. Phyllis.
MOTION
Commissioner Cassel: I am going to make a motion to support the Staff recommendation.
Chair Bialson: Is there a second?
SECOND
Chair Bialson: I will second your motion.
Commissioner Cassel: Thank you. I make this motion with regret because I had really hoped
this was going to work. It sounded like it would be a little softer. We were trying something that
was a little different. I want to give great credit to the people on Louis Road for trying
something new and for the people in the area for helping us with that. I think it is the only way
we are going to work with these problems and find something that works out is if we try
something a little different and keep working at it. I to disagee with Bonnie in one sense and we
have already agreed that we need larger representation on collector streets and there are some
problems on collector streets and we have already worked on that some. We are never going to
have policemen everywhere. We would need 130 policemen if we have 1,300 intersections and
they each are responsible for ten intersections. It takes two policemen to do a speed trap on
Middlefield Road. I call it a speed trap and it isn’t quite. You set up a radar on Towle and then
you put the policemen down on Wellesbury Way and one triggers to the next. There are usually
two policemen sitting on Wellesbury Way and one on Towle to do the monitor. To do that is a
lot of staff time and it isn’t 24 hours a day. We can’t find policemen to man the police we have
now never mind another 130 or finance it. So we need to work and keep working at ways in
which we can monitor ourselves and physical changes will ultimately be I think the way.
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Chair Bialson: As the seconder I have a question. I imaNne that Staff is the best to answer this.
In your I-B where you are asked to reconvene the Louis Road Residents Working Group how do
you define that working group? We have had lots of suggestions of the expansion of it.
Mr. Stoffel: Well as intended in this motion before any other discussion it would be the Working
Group that represents that same project area from East Meadow down to Charleston. It could
even be the same people. If it is to be a wider area, the Working Group needs to be not verybig,
it needs to be people who are willing to meet several times and who can get some things done. if
we are going to have a couple of focus groups or a bigger Working Group I guess we need to
discuss how that would be done. If it would be a wider area we would need to have a bigger
Working Group to cover that wider area.
Commissioner Cassel: Could you have a wider or larger Working Group but have some specific
numbers and look for specific areas so that you are representing different neighborhoods around?
Mr. Kott: Commissioner Cassel I do think we need to be pragmatic about this because it is a
collector street environment. I like the idea of the focus groups a lot but I am remembering a
comment that was made earlier by a resident that no one wants to be presented with what
amounts to a fait accompli. "We have it figured out, what do you think?" It would be good I
think to have some additional members on the Working Group but with the caveat that the
people who agree to join may have to do a little bit of work and devote a little bit of time. It
might be if the Working Group wants to consider speed tables very advisable to go over to
Menlo Park for example.
Chair Bialson: Thank you.
Mr. Kott: I would say perhaps a dozen members or so is manageable.
Chair Bialson: Pat.
AMENDED MOTION
Commissioner Burt: I would like to offer a friendly amendment along the lines of this issue that
we have been discussing of the composition of the Working Group. That would be that the
Working Group be composed of equal numbers of residents who reside on the collector street
and those that reside in the nearby areas. I would just like to offer that, is that an acceptable
amendment?
Commissioner Cassel: Yes.
Commissioner Burt: This is an attempt, shall we call it a trial, at addressing this dilemma. We
have I think an ac ~knowledgement as Carl had said that those people on the collector street are the
most affected per household. Yet we have a greater number of people who are affected to a
lesser degree. So how do we balance those? As Joe had mentioned this whole question of how
do you create a democratic process where you have people who are unequally affected? I think
this would be a fair stab at that. It could be composed of whatever size Staff determines is a
practical size. We certainly have found from the community a large number of very interested
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1 residents both on the street and on adjacent streets. So I think we have a great pool of people
2 who have an interest and who are thoughtful on this subject and seem to be willing to participate
3 and would welcome the participation. Of course it does recognize that this is not going to be an
4 elected group and there would have to be some process for determining representation but I think
5 in the net it stands a chance of resolving or having a better resolution to the problem than we
have had to date at both Churchill and here where we have ended up on Churchill with no
progress for the very same reason that we are pulling back here. So those are my reasons for that
recommendation.
Chair Bialson: Pat, in your friendly amendment did you wish to consider some representation by
bicyclists on that committee? I know we have the assistance of the Bicycle Advisory Committee
but we are hearing a lot of people speak to issues of bicycling on that particular street itself.
Commissioner Burt: Yes, I guess better stated it would include a 50% representation from
residents on that street and 50% representation from other stakeholders who would be both
nearby residents who might have spillover and other interested participants such as bicyclists.
Commissioner Cassel: Then you could look at not having all these extra people from one street
but from two sides.
Chair Bialson: So is that agreeable to you Phyllis as the maker?
Commissioner Cassel: Absolutely.
Chair Bialson: That is agreeable to me as the seconder. Do we have some comment? Karen.
Commissioner Holman: I just want to get a clarification on the Staff’s second recommendation.
It is talking about decreasing the curb radius. Just to clarify the berm aspect that is there now or
whatever those are called, that would go away and it would be a regular curb. So that sloping
aspect that causes bicyclists problems would no longer be an issue. I just want to get
clarification on that.
Mr. Kott: It would go away but we, the City, would not be able to do it right away. It will be
either a Public Works project or a project we will have to have a contractor do for us. We would
have to go through the City process in order to accomplish that. We do intend if the corner
tightening remains, the center median treatment remains, we do intend to create a permanent
solution. I should say we respectfully do not agree that these are safety problems. As the
Commission knows we are extremely firm about safety concerns. We don’t believe these are but
the Commission of course is empowered to have a contrary view and we would concur with your
recommendation.
Mr. Stoffel: Can I mention something just to clarify here? This corner treatment has two parts
to it. The one part we have been focusing on mostly is the radius part. Joe, I think we discussed
that and to get the Bicycle Advisory Committee feedback on those particular elements.
Mr. Kott: It would be advisable to go to the Bicycle Advisory Committee specifically on this.
We didn’t really think about asking them about the corner treatment itself. We were much more
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focused on the cushions and that is what the discussion at the Advisory Committee was about not
about the comer treatment. We need to go back to them.
Mr. Stoffel: I suspect that had there been a serious problem there they would have brought it up
and they didn’t. But we need to direct them to say something about that. Now there are two
aspects here. The comer part is an imitation of a pe.,-manent curb that would be reconstructed
later. It would be a real vertical curb. It would just be a 20 foot radius along the line of we call
these chatter bars. There would be the handicap ramps and so on. That is why that gap is there
for the crosswalk. Now the centerline is meant to be permanent. That is meant to be a
permanent treatment that stays. I have seen that in other cities. These devices are three inches
high and they are sloped. They can be driven over that is why if you were to construct for
instance the center line as a real six inch curb you have a median there that would be unforgiving
for the occasional large vehicle like the bus that makes that left tum off of Charleston. It is okay
for them to roll over that. Or the driver that inadvertently cut the comer, he could have driven
over those bars and been on the right side of the road. So those are intended to stay permanently.
Just so that’s clear. But it is the comer that would be rebuilt and it really needs to be approved
by City Council first because it is a permanent element and it is going to take at least six months
to design it and get it built and so on. So it will be there awhile in that form unless some other
action is taken.
AMENDED MOTION
Commissioner Holman: I guess my difficulty here is you two, who are seasoned bicyclists, don’t
seem to have a problem with it. We don’t know how many bicyclists in the community really
like it. A lot of people who are in favor of something don’t comment. But we have had a
number of comments saying that they found them unsafe. So I am sort of wanting to do
something like say pending concurrence with the Bicycle Advisory Committee and the bicyclists
that you have on this reconvened Working Group rather than just saying go do it. So I guess I
will make that as an amendment to your motion, pending agreement with the Bicycle Advisory
Commission and bicyclists on the Working Group.
Commissioner Cassel: Let me work on this just a little more. I hadn’t heard that people are
really upset with the permanent one they are really upset with the temporary one. That if this is
to remain while you work on the permanent one you may need to do something to that comer to
make it a little easier to see or a little less dangerous to hit that comer with a bicycle wheel.
Chair Bialson: Karen, is that correct? It is the issue of the temporary, radius change.
Commissioner Holman: I think it is both. There were also comments from folks, as t
understood them, saying that changing the radius of this comer threw them into the traffic. So it
is both things as I heard it.
Mr. Stoffel: There were two issues. I think the predominant one was that the choice of this
particular device that is kind of low and perhaps hard to see, which is the temporary
configuration. The other is there is some concern that even a permanent regular curb there with a
sharper radius takes up some of the space. But I think that was less of a concern than the way we
did it with these chatter bars, which could be removed. They could come out but then the
residents on Louis Road would lose the benefit of that traffic calming measure for that period of
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time. But they could come out. We have proven, we think to some degree, that they work.
They could come out in the interim but then we would just lose what it does for that period of
time.
Chair Bialson: Was I hearing you correctly when I heard that the Bicycle Advisory Group did
not direct their attention to this comer?
Mr. Kott: No, they did not. In our view it is important that they do. Not to sound at all cynical
but cyclists including myself can be quite iconoclastic about bicycle operation and bicycle
movement. The Advisory Committee though is quite good and we would be real happy to go
back to them and we almost automatically take their recommendations to heart.
Commissioner Holman: I think I would still suggest a friendly amendment to say that a
permanent installation would happen only pending approval of the Bicycle Advisory Committee
and the bicyclists on the Working Group.
Commissioner Cassel: That is pretty narrow and unless you are really happy with that because
this motion does not limit the exact shape of this comer or the exact shape of that median. It just
simply says it will be done. So we are not discussing the exact details of how it is going to be
laid out or when it is going to be put in or anything of that sort.
Mr. Kott: If I may Commissioner Cassel, without presuming, the Bicycle Advisory Committee
is pretty well established and it is essentially a seminar. These people are just so good.
Bicyclists are iconoclastic. If you get three cyclists together they are likely to three opinions. A
small number of cyclists may very well have a skewed view. The Bicycle Advisory Committee
in Palo Alto is I think the best in the whole country and it liable to have a very sound
recommendation.
Commissioner Cassel: Could I do this, before doing it maybe Pat has the right idea that they will
consult with the Bicycle Advisor?, Committee before doing the permanent installation?
Commissioner Holman: If you want to word it that way it is fine that is my intention and what I
thought the motion was stating but I am fine with that wording as we!l.
Chair Bialson: Maybe what you also want to say is that the Advisory Group would be consulted
to the continuance of the temporary measure as well as the placement of the permanent.
Commissioner Cassel: That would be good.
Chair Bialson: Bonnie.
Commissioner Packer: I am very glad that Phyllis is accepting these friendly amendments
because I would have made the same ones. Also, I would like to add a little bit to the issue of the
temporary chatter bars that your request to have the Bicycle Advisory Committee look at those
be done with the utmost speed because, the issue of safety has been raised by some people. I
don’t think you want to put the City in a situation where it has been advised of a potential hazard
and didn’t do anything about it. So I would if there is a way add speed to your motion I would
encourage that.
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Chair Bialson: It seems that Staff has heard us loud and clear. Yes, Carl.
Mr. Stoffel: A point of clarification since you mentioned speed. You mentioned to have it
reviewed by the Palo Alto Bicycle Advisory Committee and some of you also said the Working
Group. Now it will slow down a lot if we include the Working Group because it is going to take
a while to assemble that. So I would recommend just the Bike Advisory Committee who do
represent all bicyclists by the nature of their committee. They would be the ones to pass
judgment on that.
Commissioner Cassel: We are specifically dealing with number two, which is your
recommendation for a permanent installation so that doesn’t go back to the Working Group.
Mr. Stoffel: No, but I think Ms. Holman had the bicyclists on the Working Group be included
but I think it should just be the Bike Advisory Committee. It would be more expedient.
Commissioner Holman: That is fine if it would be more expedient since there does seem to be a
safety issue here that is fine.
Chair Bialson: Pat, do you have anything to say before we vote?
Commissioner Burt: Yes, two comments. One is that it perhaps goes without saying that as we
are going through these experiences with the Neighborhood Traffic Calming Program after we
go this round these could be some very constructive pieces of input for modifications to the
Traffic Calming Program itself when we revisit it this next year. On that same subject I think
that we may need to revisit what are the most important objectives when we are looking at these
measures. Often the residents of the street perceive traffic volume reduction as an important
objective but I think that that is one of the most problematic because of the spillover issues. It is
very rare that we would have a circumstance where we could create spillover onto a residential
arterial instead it is more likely to be on adjacent neighborhood streets. So I would just like to
suggest both for the overall plan and the reconvening of this Working Group that we would try to
look at a couple of other thoughts of what the objectives may be. I think that one of the highest
objectives is a way to address the most egregious speeders and the most dangerous drivers. So it
is really on a 25 mile an hour street it is those that are driving above 35 miles an hour that
present the disproportionate problem. I think ideally we would love to see everyone be right at
the speed limit but I think if we can look at measures that will first address that problem then we
may have a perception that the problem is not acute.
The second suggestion had going back to the Downtown North project and even Churchill and
that is that when we finally reach a threshold which a neighborhood or residents on a street
demand that something must be done to address the deterioration of their quality of life and their
safety it didn’t happen overnight. My suggested threshold is that we ask ourselves would we be
satisfied with the way things were ten years ago. In most circumstances the residents say yes, if I
could get back to the way things were ten years ago I could live with that. So that might be a
useful benchmark for looking at ~vhat we are trying to achieve and to avoid overshooting and
creating a reactionaryism that causes us to not have any progress. So those are just two
suggestions I would have.
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Chair Bialson: Thank you, Pat. Does the maker wish to speak?
Commissioner Cassel: Yes, a couple of comments that are related to that. Maybe in the
Working Group we need to sit back and ask a free for all question of what is the problem. I
remember one of the problems on Embarcadero is backing out of driveways. One of the
problems on Churchill is I can’t get out of my driveway. And one of the problems that came up
here was I can’t get out of my driveway. So there may be some issues that we are missing in this
process. We focus on one and not the others. I don’t know if they are solvable but they may
help us recognize what the true problem is. The other is diversion here. Much of the diversion
here may have actually gone to major roads. Although I know it has gone on to some of the side
streets you didn’t expect that because they don’t go too far in most cases. There are people who
actually drive down from Arastradero/Foothill for some reason and turn up onto Louis to get
onto 10!. I don’t know why they do that because 101 is very crowded there and why they don’t
go down Oregon Expressway, which is the way I went. I don’t know but they do that and I think
the other thing is people may have moved to Fabian to avoid them. We also have had a situation
where we have lost a lot of jobs in that area and there may be some reduction in the actual
number of people that are in the area.
Chair Bialson: Karen.
Commissioner Holman: Just two more comments. One spins off of something Pat said that I
already had notes down here for. I understand that there can’t be police enforcement 24 hours a
day, seven days a week but I would certainly like for Staff to suggest, recommend, promote
getting periodic and revolving spot enforcement. Getting a ticket now and then does help the
situation. Then the other thing and this is one of those egg on my face kinds of things because
when the pacer car aspect came to us I rather dismissed it and thought it isn’t going to affect
anybody, and a bumper sticker and somebody signing a card. Based on my own experience I
would say it would. So my recommendation is for Staff to actively promote the pacer car
program in this area. My recommendation also to the people who live on Louis and the
surrounding neighborhoods is to sign up for this program and do it. It is one of those things in
quote "if you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem" end quote. So if you want
to be involved in an active way to calm traffic in your neighborhoods then do this.
MOTION PASSED
Chair Bialson: I think it is appropriate to vote on the motion at this time. Is everyone clear as to
what the motion is? Fine. Let’s have the ayes, please. (ayes) That is five in favor with none
opposing and with Michael Griffin absent.
I think Staff has the direction you need at this point. Is that correct?
Mr. Kott: Thank you Chair Bialson and Members of the Commission,
Chair Bialson: Thank you very much. Pat.
Commissioner Burt: I would just like to reiterate on behalf of the Commission the appreciation
that we have for the public participation in this. As Staff has stated it really has added to the
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