Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout2000-07-31 City Council (18)TO: City of Palo Alto City Manager’s Report HONORABLE CITY COUNCIL 9 FROM:CITY MANAGER DEPARTMENT: PLANNING AND COMMUNITY ENVIRONMENT DATE: SUBJECT: JULY 31, 2000 CMR:341:00 RESOLUTION APPROVING INSTALLATION OF A MID-BLOCK CROSSWALK ON EAST MEADOW DRIVE NEAR EAST MEADOW CIRCLE RECOMMENDATION The Planning and Transportation Commission recommends that City Council approve installation of a mid-block crosswalk on East Meadow Drive in front of the Pacific Graduate School of Psychology near East Meadow Circle, with the following features: a median refuge island, highly visible advance pedestrian crossing signs, and highly visible striping (e.g. "zebra" crossing stripes) on the street. The Pacific Graduate School of Psychology will be required to fund design and construction of this facility and post a removal bond in the event that the crossing improvement is no longer needed.A resolution authorizing installation of the crosswalk is included as Attachment A. PROJECT DESCRIPTION On April 17, 2000, Council considered a staff report (CMR:216:00) recommending a mid- block crosswalk on East Meadow Drive near East Meadow Circle. The Pacific Graduate School of Psychology, which requested the mid-block crosswalk, has buildings on either side of this portion of East Meadow Drive. Council referred this request to the Planning and Transportation Commission with a request that the Commission recommend to Council a set of guidelines for the evaluation of this and all future mid-block crosswalk requests. These guidelines are being submitted to Council on the same meeting date as the East Meadow recommendation, in CMR:338:00. COMMISSION REVIEW AND RECOMMENDATIONS On July 12, 2000, the Planning and Transportation Commission reviewed the staff recommendation on the request for a mid-block crosswalk installation on East Meadow Drive near East Meadow Circle. The staff report prepared for the Commission is appended as Attachment B. The City’s Chief Transportation Official has reviewed and approved the proposed mid-block crosswalk. The Commission endorsed the staff recommendation by a 5-1 vote. Pertinent Planning and Transportation Commission minutes are included as Attachment C. CMR:341:00 Page 1 of 2 POLICY IMPLICATIONS Installation of crosswalks (not necessary mid-block crosswalk) is consistent with Comprehensive Plan Goal T-3: "Facilities, Services, and Programs that encourage and Promote Walking and Bicycling." It is specifically supported by Program T-32: "Improve pedestrian crossings with bulbouts, small curb radii, street trees near corners, bollards, and landscaping to create protected areas." Safe and convenient pedestrian crossings encourage walking. Pedestrian travel is environmentally beneficial, energy- Efficient, and supports public health through exercise. ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT Installation of crosswalks and related signing is considered to be a minor operational improvement and is therefore categorically exempt under the California Environmental Quality Act section 15301. Therefore, no environmental assessment is required. ATTACHMENTS A.Resolution Approving Mid-Block Crosswalk B.Planning and Transportation Commission Report dated July 12, 2000 C.Excerpt of July 12, 2000 Planning and Transportation Commission Minutes PREPARED BY: Joseph Kott, Chief Transportation Official Dil~ector of Planning and Community Environment ~’~MILY HARRISON Assistant City Manager cc:Calvin Allen, Pacific Graduate School CMR:341:00 Page 2 of 2 ATTACHMENT A RESOLUTION NO. RESOLUTION OF THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PALO ALTO ESTABLISHING A CROSSWALK BETWEEN INTER- SECTIONS ON EAST MEADOW DRIVE BETWEEN LOUIS ROAD AND EAST MEADOW CIRCLE WHEREAS, pursuant to Vehicle Code section 21106, the legislative body of a city or county, by ordinance or resolution, may establish crosswalks between intersections; and WHEREAS, the Council desires to approve the establishment of a crosswalk on East Meadow Drive between the East Meadow Circle and Louis Road intersections, as shown on Exhibit i, attached hereto and incorporated herein by reference. NOW, THEREFORE, the Council of the City of Palo Alto does RESOLVE as follows: SECTION I. The Council hereby establishes a pedestrian crosswalk on East Meadow Drive, between the East Meadow Circle and Louis Road intersections, as shown more specifically in Exhibit I. SECTION 2.The Council finds that this project constitutes a minor alteration to existing highways and streets and as such is categorically exempt from the provisions of the California Environmental Quality Act ("CEQA"pursuant to Section 15301(c) of the CEQA Guidelines. INTRODUCED AND PASSED: AYES: NOES: ABSENT: ABSTENTIONS: ATTEST:APPROVED: City Clerk APPROVED AS TO FORM: Senior Asst. City Attorney Mayor City Manager Director of Planning and Community Environment 000314 syn 0090608 Director of Administrative Services EXHIBIT 1 ATTACHMENT B TRANSPORTATION DIVISION 3 STAFF REPORT TO:PLANNING & TRANSPORTATION COMMISSION FROM:Christopher Thnay DEPARTMENT: Planning AGENDA DATE: July 12, 2000 SUBJECT:Application of Mid-Block Crosswalk Guidelines to a Request to Install Mid-Block Crosswalk on East Meadow Drive near East Meadow Circle RECOMMENDATION Based on the City’s adopted mid-block crosswalk guidelines, staff recommends that the Planning and Transportation Commission recommend to City Council approval of installation of the request to install a mid-block crosswalk in front of the Pacific Graduate School of Psychology, with the following features: a median refuge island, highly visible advance pedestrian crossing signs, and highly visible striping (e.g. "zebra" crossing stripes) on the street. PROJECT DESCRIPTION The Pacific Graduate School of Psychology is located in two buildings on the corner of East Meadow Drive and East Meadow Circle. One building is located on each side of East Meadow Drive (see figure to buildings are located approximately 100 feet west of the umr~arked crosswalk on East Meadow, Drive at East Meadow Circle. This intersection is controlled by all-way stop signs. According to the school official, approximately 320 students, faculty, and staff may pass between the two school buildings at class change and other times H:\cmrs\p-tcVnidblk_eastmeadow.doc Page 1 of 4 during the day. The most direct pedestrian route between the buildings is straight across East Meadow Drive, where the walkways of the two buildings reach the sidewalks. The school reports that nearly all of its students, faculty, and staff use this route at one time or another rather than crossing at the intersection. This is most pronounced under the time constraints of class change time. The school director believes that simply painting a crosswalk at the intersection would not provide enough incentive for pedestrians to make the 250-foot detour to the corner and back just to cross a 50-foot-wide street. Thus, he has requested City approval to install a crosswalk at the location where people are now crossing. Evaluation Based on Adopted Criteria The avei:age daily traffic (ADT) on East Meadow Drive near the project site is approximately 3,000 vehicles per day (vpd). The 85th percentile speed was measured at approximately 23 mph. Pedestrian volumes were also measured on two days between 9:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. The peak one hour pedestrian Volume was measured to be approximately 45 pedestrians per hour (pph) between 2:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. on a Tuesday. Three criteria of the proposed mid-block crosswalk guidelines were met. This includes speed (below 40 mph), traffic volume (below 12,000 vpd), and pedestrian volume greater than 40 pph. However, the qualifying criteria that any proposed mid-block crosswalk to be centrally located within a block was not met, since the proposed crosswalk will be only approximately 100 feet away from the intersection of East Meadow Drive and East Meadov~ Circle. This is an important criterion not to be satisfied since drivers might not expect a pedestrian crosswalk at such a short distance from a controlled intersection. It is possible that a driver traveling westbound on East Meadow Circle and stopping at East Meadow Drive would proceed to accelerate and then be surprised by a pedestrian that might insist on having the right-of-way since he or she is in a marked crosswalk. In addition, drivers traveling southbound on East Meadow Circle making a right-turn to travel westbound on East Meadow Drive might also be surprised to encounter pedestrians using a crosswalk situated so closely to a controlled intersection. The California Vehicle Code guidelines prescribe five basic requirements for all devices. They must: 1. fulfill a need. 2. command attention. 3. convey a clear, simple meaning. 4. command respect of road users. 5. give adequate time for proper response. H:\cmrs\p-tc~nidblk_eastmeadow.doc Page 2 of 4 Staff believes that merely striping a mid-block crossing would not fulfill the Vehicle Code’s basic requirements to command respect of road users and give adequate time for proper response. Therefore, it is necessary to call attention to this location through highly visible advance warning signs and striping, as well as to provide additional protection in the form of a center median for pedestrian refuge. This treatment is less intrusive to motorists than raising the crosswalk at this location, as initially recommended by staff. On the other hand, it should be equally effective in heightening visibility of the crosswalk location and will provide a protected refuge not afforded by raised crosswalks. Alternatives to Staff Recommendation The most obvious alternative to installing the crosswalk at this location is to instead install a standard painted crosswalk (with or without refuge islands) at the existing stop- controlled intersection of East Meadow Drive with East Meadow Circle. That location is approximately 100 feet east of the proposed location. The advantage of this alternative is that the crosswalk would be at a stop-controlled intersection, rather than mid-block. Visibility at the proposed intersection crosswalk could be enhanced by providing a zebra crossing crosswalk and a pedestrian refuge island with pedestrian crossing signs installed. These designs are more visible to the driver and offer some additional safety to pedestrians compared to standard crosswalks. Staff believes that this increased visibility causes more drivers to stop for pedestrians in the crosswalks. An advantage of higher visibility marked crosswalks (compared to random pedestrian crossings at unmarked locations) is that pedestrians tend to shift their crossing location to the single marked location, providing drivers a focussed location at which to expect pedestrian activity. One potential disadvantage of this alternate location is that student and school personnel might not use it. Public education and encouragement, however, may cause naore pedestrians to use a higher visibility crosswalk at the intersection of East Meadow Drive/East Meadow Circle. Students, however, could, and many probably would, continue to cross in front of the school. A review of the crash data in the State Wide Integrated Traffic System (SWITRS) since 1990 indicated no collision data reported for this location. The results of the crash data analysis supports many studies that showed no significant advantage in marking a mid- block crosswalk that has relatively low pedestrian volume on a low volume street (below 3,000 vpd). POLICY IMPLICATIONS Staff used the adopted Mid-Block Crosswalk Guidelines to evaluate the request. H:\cmrs\p-tcVnidblk_eastmeadow.doc Page 3 of 4 ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW Installation Of a crosswalk and related sign!ng is considered to be a minor operational improvement and is therefore categorically exempt under the California Environmental Quality Act section 15301. Therefore, no environmental assessment is required. NEXT STEPS Staff will forward the Planning and Transportation Commission recommendation in this matter to Council for its consideration. COURTESY COPIES Allen Calvin, Pacific Graduate School of Psychology Prepared by: Christopher Thnay, PE, Acting City Traffic Engineer Reviewed by: Joseph Kott, Chief Transportation Official Division Head Approval: ~ !w’),~ ~ J’se~ Kott~/, Ch’ief Tra~spor£ation Official H:\cmrs\’p-tc~nidblk_eastmeadow,doc Page 4 of 4 ATTACHMENT C DRAFT EXCERPT PLANNING AND TRANSPORTATION COMMISSION VERBA TIM MINUTES JULY 12, 2000 NEW BUSINESS. Public Hearings: 3.East Meadow Crosswalk Request: Request for mid-block crosswalk near the intersection of East Meadow and East Meadow Circle. Mr. Kott: Yes, Vice Chair. Now that the Commission has adopted criteria for mid-block crosswalk evaluation llappily our recommendation to you does conform to the criteria you’re recommending. This instance is, as you may all be aware, at East Meadow Drive and East Meadow Circle. The Pacific Graduate School of Psychology has facilities on either side of East Meadow Drive. The distance from the crossing location that is used by many students and staff, and we’ve done data collection which is in your Staff report, is approximately 100 feet from the intersection at East Meadow Circle and East Meadow Drive. We were approached by the Graduate School to evaluate the desirability of a crosswalk at this location. Our original report and evaluation recommended a raised crosswalk at this location. We have since subsequently revised that recommendation and we’re recommending a raised median. The raised median allows for the placement in the median of retlectorized advance warning signs for motorists. It provides refuge in the middle of the road for pedestrians, imposing on them as I said earlier the obligation to look only one direction at a time, and giving them some place collect their thoughts before finishing their pedestrian trip. We think at this particular location those attributes are more desirable than a raised crosswalk. We would not recommend a painted line crosswalk. In locations like this the safety data is not encouraging at least not in a statistical sense across the country. This location does conform to the guidelines that you have just recommended. We would recommend that the Commission recommend to the City Council approval of this location as a mid-block crosswalk. Commissioner Bialson: Thank you Joe. Any questions by Commission members? Phyllis. Commissioner Cassel: I’m sorry I think they’ve all been answered. They are paying for it. I was there today and it appeared to me the biggest problem for people crossing at this location was that cars were parked in the obvious place to cross, where you could look either way. That made it physically impossible to cross the street at this location although there was very little traffic. I’ve been on this corner many times over the last eight years that I’ve been on the Page 1 of 9 Commission and never found any traffic in this area that would impede me from crossing these streets. In order to physically get from one building to the other there were indeed cars in the way. Is there any other way besides pedestrian lines to make that easy to walk? Mr. Kott: At the proposed mid-block location? Commissioner Cassel: Yes. Mr. Kott: We would need to remove four of the six parking spaces. Two or three on each side to make room for the cross and to provide adequate sight distance for the crossing. Commissioner Cassel: No, I meant if you didn’t put in this crossing, could you just in some way restrict parking in front of those buildings so that you have a place people could cross the way they do every other place on this circle? Mr. Kott: My providing any recommended own view is that would be an inducement for additional crossing without additional enhancement to the safety of the crossing. That’s why we that we physically enhance the safety of that cross. Commissioner Cassel: Let me reverse the question. I don’t understand what the hazard is at this comer. I know there are a lot of adult students crossing at this point but I do not understand the hazard at this particular location. Mr. Kott: Well, the hazard is really theoretical. We’ve looked back to 1990 at accident data and there have been no accidents at this location. But that’s not surprising. Actually accident rates on lower volume streets in Palo Alto tend to be very low. It almost gets to be kind of a stochastic issue. You have an accident and it may be an anomaly. It may not suggest anything really bad about the location. So we’re not surprised about that. We were concerned that people are actually crossing in an unprotected location. They are doing it and we know they will continue to do it. There frankly is a question of benefi!!cost. We can’t recommend using public funds at every location like this. In this case we are convinced we could enhance safety. People are going to walk there anyway and the public cost was zero, at least up front. Commissioner Bialson: Any other questions from the Commission? Pat. Commissioner Burt: Joe, I was skeptical based upon the relatively short distance to the comer of 100 feet but in the report seeing that there are as many as 300-plus students at a class change that cross at that location. Mr. Kott: The actual volumes that we counted were not that high. The highest volume that we counted was 45 in one hour. That’s both directions. The population is over 300. Theoretically 300 could cross at some point but during the time we took our sampling that didn’t occur. Commissioner Burt: The Staff report says that according to the school official approximately 320 students, faculty and staff may pass between the two school buildings at class change and other times. Did those officials claim that there were 300 students at a time that crossed? Page 2 of 9 Mr. Kott: No. I think the important word is "may." That’s the population of the school. Every individual could at any given time I suppose while they are on site cross. We didn’t find anything like those volumes. Commissioner Burt: Okay. What about the curb treatment at this crossing? Are you planning on doing anything on restricting parking to improve sight line or other methods to address the visibility of the pedestrian to the automobile? Mr. Kott: Yes. We will be removing up to six parking spaces, from four to six depending on what the final design ends up being. Commissioner Burr: When you do curb treatments to remove parking spaces do you do them equally on both sides of the crosswalk on one side of the street? So that if you have a car coming from say the lower part of the map toward the upper, the sight line that is needed seems like it would in those cars spaces immediately preceding the .crosswalk but not necessarily on the far side. Is that the way that you would design this. Mr. Kott: That’s a good point Commissioner Burt. In fact, each location as I mentioned earlier is unique because the geometry is different as are other characteristics of what it looks like. There is no cookbook uniform approach. Our estimate is we would take four to six spaces and likely in equal amounts. I’m not sure though, it would depend on the final design. Commissioner Bialson: Any other questions? Commissioner Cassel: Could I make a comment that there are no parking spaces from 12 walking steps from the center of.that crosswalk towards the intersection at this time because those are both bus site pads and it is currently redlined out to the intersection. Commissioner Bialson: Bonnie. Commissioner Packer: I have a question about the structure of the median. How wide would that be and is there room on East Meadow? Is it a median that is parallel? I’m trying to visualize this and understand how it is going to look. Mr. Kott: The median as I recall is about three feet wide at the crosswalk line. The street cross section there is about 36 feet at the crossing location. You’re question was about East Meadow? Commissioner Packer: Yes, the length of it, it’s three feet wide and about six feet long? Mr. Kott: The median no. It is about three by three but it’s not square. It is ovaled in the outward direction, pointing away from the crosswalk. There is a median on either side of the crosswalk. Commissioner Packer: I was at this site two or three years ago when Sand [Akins] and the director of the school invited me to see it because I live in the adjoining neighborhood. What I remember is that coming up East Meadow Circle, it is a very wide intersection because the curb seems to be a little shorter and cars once they stop at the stop sign tend to make a wild left to go down Meadow. They seem to be in a hurry a lot. The habits of the drivers in that area was one Page 3 of 9 of the concerns of having that crosswalk so close to that intersection. Was that something that you observed as well as something you would be concerned about? There would be no visibility for people coming up East Meadow Circle. Mr. Kott: We’ve been at that site, I.have and other people from the Transportation Division, recently six or seven times and over the last few year maybe a dozen or two times. The road does flare. I think it flares out to maybe 50 feet. We think the sight distance is adequate, yes. Otherwise there is no way we would have recommended this. Commissioner Packer: What kind of arrangement do we have with the applicant to ensure that the entire cost will be borne by the applicant and that the City will not have any cost? It isn’t clearly reflected in the report. How can that be reflected so if we do vote on this? Mr. Kott: Yes, it would be a condition of approval that the applicant fund the design, the final design. We’ve just done the conceptual design but the final engineering design be funded and the implementation of the raised median be funded by the applicant. However, it is important to point out that since it is our right of way we would incur, albeit a marginal but we would incur, ongoing maintenance cost. Commissioner Bialson: Owen. Commissioner Byrd: Can I try a motion? Commissioner Bialson: I believe Phyllis has one more question. Commissioner Cassel: I think we have to hear from the applicant. I have another question and that is do you know why there are no marked crosswalks at that intersection? There is a four- way stop there and no marked crosswalks. Do you know why? Mr. Kott: We have not been marking crosswalks without signal protection for awhile. It has sort of been a Staff level de facto,policy. Commissioner Cassel: Because that intersection in general is not considered dangerous. Mr. Kott: No, it’s not considered dangerous. We don’t have the data that proves that. Our tradition, if you will, in the Transportation Division is that we’ve been very impressed by the studies around the country, particularly the San Diego study. We’ve done some rethinking and my own view is that our approach has been doctrinaire, and there are special treatments in special locations that require a little more thought. Commissioner Bialson: Thank you Joe. I have one question myself and that deals again with cost. In the applicant’s assumption of all the costs related to this except for maintenance cost, is there going to be a bond or other deposit made for removal of these items should they no longer be necessary? In other words, I don’t know if they own those two buildings, they may not continue to have a school there, and removal of these items and the reversion to a regular mid- block streetscape would be appropriate. So are we going to be getting deposit or a bond? Page 4 of 9 Mr. Kott: Commissioner Bialson that is an excellent suggestion. We hadn’t even thought of that. We would certainly recommend that as a condition. Commissioner Bialson: Thank you. I’d like to open the public portion of this matter. The first person to speak is Allen Calvin. You have five minutes. Mr. Allen Calvin, 940 East Meadow Drive, Palo Alto: I’m the President of the Pacific School of Psychology. I really don’t have much to add other than to say that this was started by the students and they filed a petition with the City Council, 250 names, that they would like to have this. Each year, it’s been going on now for about three years, the students have petitioned or asked. They asked me to come this evening just to convey to you their strong hope that you will support their wish to have some sort of safer way to cross this street. We do own both buildings but we’d be happy to do whatever you asked, in fact, what you ask we would do or the students will be very unhappy with me. So we’re happy to do whatever we can to move the matter forward. I would say of course it’s actually the student’s tuition that will be paying for this. If you have any questions I’ll be glad to answer them otherwise I’ll let you move on. Commissioner Bialson: Thank you. Phyllis. Commissioner Cassel: Can you tell me the age range of the students? Mr. Calvin: Yes, they are mostly in their early 20’s. I would say probably the youngest is maybe 20 or 21. We have some that are older but I would say the average age is maybe 25 to 26. It is mostly women, about two-thirds women. A number of them come from the Palo Alto area and then some come from all over the world. Commissioner Cassel: What hours is school open? Mr. Calvin: The school is open from 9:00 to 5:00. It is not open during the summer, There is no summer session. Commissioner Cassel: When do most of the students cross the street? Mr. Calvin: They usually cross when there is a class break. The only time you get more than 50 students crossing is if there is a large meeting over in the student lounge. Then you could get as many as 100 or 150 crossing. I can’t conceive of there ever being 300 people at one time crossing the street. I think it would be a large number for it to be 150. Commissioner Cassel: Is school out exactly at 5:00 and everyone leaves at 5:00? Mr. Calvin: No. I don’t think there are any classes that actually go to 5:00 but there is a lot of research groups. We have a clinic there and there are relatively large number of students who work in the clinic. We serve the largest number of people without resources who have mental health difficulties in the county. So a number of students work in the clinic and work with in that situation. So they are there at different times. Commissioner Cassel: Are they crossing the streets or at that point are they having an appointment with someone in an office? Page 5 of 9 Mr. Calvin: Well, there are some students who cross the street all the time. There are two buildings with a large student lounge on side. There are some other specialized rooms, research laboratories, there is actually a room that is basically like a chapel on one side, and there are other specialized rooms on the other. The only time you would see more than the 40 or 50 that’s reported is if there were a speaker on one side of the street. Classes would let out and the students would come across the street. It would be surprising to me to see that happen more than once every couple days. Mostly I think you’d see 30 to 40 students crossing the street during an hour. Commissioner Bialson: Thank you Mr. Calvin. Any other questions? No questions Mr. Calvin. Mr. Calvin: Thank you. Comnfissioner Bialson: Thank you. The next speaker is Bob Moss. I have no other cards. If anybody else from the public would like to speak please fill out a card. Mr. Bob Moss, 4010 Orme Palo Alto: Thank you Chairman Bialson and Commissioners. I happen to be in an interesting position for almost five years. My office has been in the building fight next door and my wi.ndow looks directly out on the street and the school. So I see what goes on as far as crossing the street and traffic. This is not a hazardous location. It is impossible for them to have 300 or even 200 people on site at one time because both buildings combined only have about 80 parking spaces max. So even if you add say 20 parking spaces on the street, including staff, you’d have a tough time getting 100 people on that site at one time unless they all carpooled or took the bus. So the 320 would be the total number of people you’d see all week. Frankly, in our buildings we have more people than that every day. We walk across that street all the time. I cross Meadow twice today, I crossed it four times yesterday. At no time did I have to pause for traffic. People in my building or my department have never complained about traffic hazards on Meadow. They’ve never complained about the street. As I say, we have a lot of people. We have buildings down Meadow on both sides. We do a lot of traveling between buildings and we don’t have any traffic hazards. As for the throngs of students crossing, the maximum number of people that I’ve ever seen cross at one time is eight. That doesn’t mean that I’ve seen every possible permutation. Let’s be generous and say there might be 16 crossing at one time. But the traffic there is quite manageable. Speeds are low. The report talks about 25 mile per hour. It is not a hazard. I’ve gone through several iterations on how I felt about this. When I first heard about it, I said this is nonsense. I asked to have it pulled from the Consent Calendar and it was and it was eventually sent back to Staff to look at getting guidelines which you’ve heard tonight. I think it is nice to have guidelines so we can do these thing rationally though I still have some hesitation. about some of the details of the guidelines. There also were to be studies and detail about this particular location. I just feel that there is no real problem. There is no need. There is no danger. Let me give you a couple of examples. ! saw the director of the school the day after this was pulled from the Calendar cross the street five times. That doesn’t mean he crossed only five times, that’s what I happen to see. Four of those five times he walked directly across the street Page 6 of 9 with no interference from cars at all. The fifth time he had to pause about two or three seconds while a car went by. On one occasion I saw two of the staff people have to wait on the far left side of Meadow while six cars and trucks came down from Meadow made left turns and went down about lunch time. That is the maximum wait I’ve ever seen. On one occasion about six weeks ago a pick up truck towing a boat stopped and let a woman go across the street. She was one of the staff people. So I just haven’t seen where there is a real problem. I don’t see there is any real danger. The thing that bothers me is what I keep coming up with again and again and again. We put a crosswalk in and people are going to think it’s safer and it’s actually going to reduce the safety and make it more dangerous. It is true that people turning off of Meadow Circle, making a left turn to go down Meadow, tend to accelerate. If they see people in the crosswalk thinking that the car is going to stop it is actually a more dangerous situation than if there is no crosswalk and people are alert and watching for traffic turning on them. So I just think it will create more problems than it solves. I just don’t see where there’s a real hazard. I’ve got five years of experience looking out the window and don’t see a problem. As I say, nobody in my department, nobody in my building, and we have a couple hundred people in the building has ever expressed any concern about crossing that street. Thank you. Commissioner Bialson: Thank you Mr. Moss. With no further speakers from the public I’ll close the public portion of this matter and go back to the Commission. Any comments or motions? Pat. Commissioner Burr: I have one follow up question for Joe. What level of hazard do you perceive at this location? How necessary or appropriate is this crosswalk? Mr. Kott: The way I think about it is that this location is not particularly hazardous. We don’t have any data that suggests that it is. But we do have data that suggests that people are crossing in an unprotected environment. So there is a possibility that there will be accidents in the future. The recommendation of a raised median provides some additional safety. In fact, it’s quite a bit safer than either an unmarked location or a merely marked location. So that it strikes me anyway as being worth doing. Now in terms of demand and cost/benefit there certainly are locations in this community that would rank higher in the use of public funds. But I’m convinced that this proposal will enhance safety at very minimal public cost. So it strikes me and it strikes the Transportation Division as being a good thing to do. Commissioner Bialson: Thank you. Phyllis. Commissioner Cassel: I don’t see this as a very intense use and as you can guess from my other comments I’m very concerned about putting a crosswalk this close to an intersection. Now I think there are some exceptions where we want to do that and we’re going to need to do it very carefully with very visible crosswalks. We’ve got an example we’ve used Downtown where that is the case. But in this case, the intensity here for this use is so low that the four-way stop sign doesn’t even have a crosswalk in it. That’s how low the intensity of use is. Every time I’ve been through that intersection there has been a pedestrian crossing. There is a great deal of crossing from pedestrians all around this circle. The traffic level, when I’m there, is usually a car coming, a car going, a truck coming, a truck going, a pedestrian walking, a pedestrian crossing, all around the circle. But there isn’t a lot of stopping for this because there isn’t a lot traffic. I have a Page 7 of 9 family member who comes through this intersection on a bicycle at rush hour and has absolutely no problems in this area. No intensity of problems. The traffic volume in this area is I believe 4,000 cars according to our studies. You have 3,000 cars per day. So I’m concerned that if we put a special crossing here we are setting a precedent for very low threshold for putting in mid- block crosswalks that are too close to the intersection. My feeling here is that this is not necessary. These are adults and graduate students. These are not undergraduate students attending this school. Commissioner Bialson: Any other comments? I have one. I have the same concern Mr. Moss does with regard to individuals using the crosswalk thinking they are safer than they otherwise would be. I can only extrapolate from the situation on Welch Road where there are crosswalks to Packard Children’s Hospital and also between the parking lot and the medical facilities on the other side of Pasture Drive. That is that as I go by there generally two mornings a week around the time when most people are crossing individuals will step of into those crosswalk without looking in either direction with a sense of sort of possessing that area. So having seen how individuals who have a crosswalk in those situations act I have a concern for the crosswalk perhaps causing more safety concerns than others. That’s my only comment. Anybody care to make a motion? Jon. Commissioner Schink: I will move the Staff recommendation. Commissioner Byrd: Second. Commissioner Schink: If I could speak briefly to the motion. In my nearly 20 years of service to the community I cannot remember once when Mr. Moss has been wrong on an issue but I’m going to take a chance this time and ignore his advice. I do so because I in fact believe that we have experts that work for us and work for the City and I feel confident in their expert advice that this would be a safer situation with a crosswalk. I’m not going to rely on my intuition when I can rely on an expert opinion. So for that reason I’m comfortable with Staff recommendation. Commissioner Bialson: Any other discussion. Speak to the second. Commissioner Byrd: A substantive comment and a procedural one. Substantively I like the notion of mid-block crosswalks. I like the idea of giving pedestrian some additional priority in our circulation system. I think they have an indirect traffic calming effect because I think that some drivers who see them tend to slow down. I think that’s a good thing. Admittedly the data that we saw on the last item before us is still inconclusive on this subject but that is what my gut tells me. So I’m generally in support of the use of these devices. I think it makes sense here. My procedural comment, and I apologize for being out of order prior to the public testimony, is that all of us, Commission and Staff, are still feeling our way with this new transportation jurisdiction that we have. While it was entirely appropriate to agendize this for discussion tonight, I remember when we spoke in favor of transportation subjects coming to us we said let’s do policy and not installations. So we might want to look closely at the slippery slope there. We said we didn’t want to do stop signs. We may not want to do crosswalks and whether that means that in the future these just go to Staff or they are on our Consent Calendar or something, I think it’s something worth looking at. Page 8 of 9 Commissioner Bialson: I appreciate that and I think that should be something that’s put on the agenda perhaps as a separate item. I too recall that discussion and I we are very close to what I don’t want to discuss right now. Bonnie. Commissioner Packer: I may need some help procedurally. I think I’d like to make an amendment to the motion to insure that we include as a condition of approval that the applicant or the Graduate School of Psychology fund the final design and the implementation of this crosswalk. Commissioner Schink: That’s acceptable to the maker of the motion. Commissioner Packer: And also whether there has to be a bond for that as well as well as for the removal so that we could ensure that the payment is made. The reason I feel this is important is that if this were a situation where it was a question of public funding or not I don’t think I would vote for it if it were a City funded project. It doesn’t have that level of urgency. I do like the idea of the median in the crosswalk because it will hopefully force these otherwise [scoff-laws] to cross there, stop, look and listen, and then continue on. So that would help give them a sense of ownership because the students will own this median since they are paying for. Commissioner Bialson: Thank you. Any other comments on the motion? If not, let’s vote on that motion. All those in favor please say aye. (ayes) All those against say nay. (nay) Thank you. That passes with six Commissioners voting, five Commissioners in favor, Phyllis Cassel against and Kathy Schmidt not in attendance. Mr. Kott: Thank you very much members of the Commission. We will endeavor never again to bring a crosswalk before this Commission. Page 9 of 9