Exhibit 10:
Public comments submitted
on
Final Draft Active Transportation Plan (November)
Includes:
1. Comments submitted to Transportation Commission, for their 11/17/22 meeting From: Maria Piper
To: Lisa Foster
Cc: Transportation
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Alameda needs the Active Transportation Plan Date: Monday, November 14, 2022 10:16:19 PM
Hello Alameda Transportation Committee,
I am sorry I am unable to attend the Transportation meeting on Wednesday due to a school fundraiser.
However, I wanted to voice my whole-hearted support of the Active Transportation Plan. Alameda needs to adopt the plan to reach our safety and environmental goals. Adopting this plan will help us move forward and make our Island a safer place to bike, walk, and roll.
Until this past May, I was an “interested but concerned” person who was nervous about the idea of riding (and also did not own a bike). Seeing others use cargo bikes and the additional investment in bike infrastructure around Alameda helped convince me it was feasible to replace many of my daily trips with a bicycle. I bought a hybrid bike to use for myself and loved it so much that we invested in an electric cargo bike to transport my kids to their activities. My husband and I purchased the e-bike instead of replacing one of our cars.
Since purchasing these bikes, I’ve replaced more than 50% of my regular trips with a bicycle, which adds up to about 1600 miles that I’ve ridden instead of driven. While I have found it easy to replace trips to the grocery store and kids activities with a bike and usually find riding more enjoyable, I do find some aspects regularly challenging, including:
Lack of safe, secure bicycle parking that can accommodate cargo bikes Vehicles parking in bike lanes force me to take the car lane where cars are regularly speeding Poorly maintained paths and streets (Broadway’s bike lanes are pretty challenging and the Bay Farm shared-use paths need a lot of maintenance)
Having to “double back” to find safe routes to ride to my destinations (i.e. I want to go from South Shore to the other end of Park Street and either take Oak or Broadway which is out of the way) Difficulty moving between bike infrastructure as it is not well connected or directed (ex. Going from regular bike lane on Fernside into the protected bike lane towards the Bay Farm Bridge) The Active Transportation Plan will provide additional infrastructure to solve many of these issues and increase the safety for those of us who are already cycling. These changes will also motivate others to try replacing their car trips with active transportation too.
Thank you very much for your consideration of the Active Transportation Plan. I’m excited to see these changes in Alameda!
Sincerely,
Maria Piper
Alameda Resident
(510) 516-0497
P.O. BOX 2732
ALAMEDA, CA 94501
www.bikewalkalameda.org
Board of
Directors
Denyse Trepanier
President
Brian Fowler
Treasurer
Tim Beloney
Secretary
Cyndy Johnsen
Board Member
Lucy Gigli
Founder,
non-voting
November 16, 2022
RE: Item 6B (Draft Active Transportation Plan)
Dear Transportation Commissioners,
We greatly appreciate the outreach and many updates staff has made — or will make per the staff report — for this version of the Draft ATP. It’s a great and long-overdue plan, and we urge you to recommend adoption.
There are just a few items we’d like to add, and hope you will consider as well:
● Promote 8th Street/Westline Drive between Central and Otis to the 2030 Low Stress Backbone Network (map on page 65; Table 10, line 25 on page 63). Completing a safe north-south connection from Central to the Shoreline cycle track will be a huge step forward for connectivity that’s missing in this area.
● Since 8th Street would represent additional work, and staff resources only cover existing projects (pg 67), please recommend that Council take the next opportunity to augment staff and/or contracting resources to ensure that this and other final “fine tuning” projects related to the plan can be done without compromising other plan elements. Ideally, we hope you'll recommend an even greater staffing budget commitment, because existing staff is stretched too thin right now as is, and some breathing room will make successful and timely project delivery more likely. If street safety, climate, and equity are the imperatives we say they are, we need to invest in them accordingly.
Thank you for your consideration, and for your contributions to this very important effort.
Sincerely,
Bike Walk Alameda
From: Brian Tobin
To: Lisa Foster
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Written comment on topic of Active Transportation Plan final draft Date: Wednesday, November 16, 2022 8:54:33 AM
Hi there! I'd like to post the following short comment. Thank you! As a parent of young children who bike and walk to school, I enthusiastically support this transportation plan. I want to thank the commission for prioritizing their safety (not to mention my mental well-being not worrying about them getting run over by a speeding car). This plan does not have everything that I want, but I recognize that it is a compromise. Any cyclist will tell you that when bike lanes are defined by only paint that it's far too common to find trucks and cars parking and driving in them – I wish this plan had more physically separated lanes. In my opinion this plan also doesn't adequately address North/South bike traffic near Park Street – calling Oak a bike route is generous and I would never allow my children to bike that stretch. Finally, I wish Park Street were closed to automobile traffic entirely, creating a pedestrian-only plaza. This would be amazing for our businesses and our community. But still, despite wishing for more I wholeheartedly appreciate this effort and encourage its passage.
BT
---------------------------------------------
Brian Tobin
415.518.4918
From: Carol Gottstein
To: Lisa Foster; Gail Payne
Subject: [EXTERNAL] ERROR in Alameda Active Transportation Plan / Vision Zero: Street Characterization Date: Wednesday, November 16, 2022 11:44:54 AM
RE: Erroneous characterization of Grand Street as a Tier 1 High-Injury Corridor, especially between Encinal and Palmera Court.
Dera Transportation Commisioners:
I have been the vice co-chair of the Alameda Restoration Advisory Board (RAB) for several years now. I've been a RAB member since 2010. Maybe I've been on the RAB too long. I am used to one of us RAB members calling out the Navy on some incorrect or misleading information and actually getting a response. Usually the Navy or contractor will apologize and clarify or explain the situation. If data really is incorrect, it gets corrected.
Not so the City of Alameda.
I went through the 171 pages of Correspondence for the Grand Street bike lane agenda item at the June 21 City Council meeting. Fourteen of the letters in support of the radical new street reconfiguration cited the following city "finding": "Grand Street has been designated a Tier-1 high injury corridor based on the number of accidents that have already occurred in that area." (quoting from the official AUSD support letter of Jennifer Williams, Esq., AUSD Board President). The other 13 letters make an identical or similar paraphrased statement in each writer's own prose.
And they are correct. In the City's Vision Zero documents, the High Injury Corridors and Severe Crashes maps all showed Grand Street in dark red as a "Tier 1 High Injury Corridor"
The definition of Tier 1, per the Map legend, is: "...with Tier 1 indicating the streets with the greatest frequency and severity of crashes." The definition of High Injury Corridors is found on page 31 of the Alameda Vision Zero Action Plan: "corridors...identified...as having a disproportionately high number of fatal and serious injuries." The only problem: Grand Street from Otis to Encinal hasn't had any such fatal or serious injuries during the time period cited on the maps: 2009-2018.
I asked City Engineer Robert Vance to provide me with the month, day and year of each of the "KSI (killed/serious injury)" crashes on which the Tier 1 High Injury Corridor designation was based. His email to me identified exactly one fatality in the studied time range: on 10/3/16, wherein a solo bicyclist fell off a bike and died. Apparently no motor vehicle was involved (or even another bicycle). Therefore this isolated incident does not even meet the KSI Definitions on page 55 of the draft ATP Appendix E Detailed Crash Analysis Report (Exhibit 6 2022-2607) which requires that a motor vehicle be involved for the incident to be called a "crash".
This fatality, while tragic, seems no more related to motor traffic than if someone walking down the street had a fatal heart attack.
So if the number is literally zero, why do all the Vision Zero documents call the number "disproportionately high"? Is this a math problem? Is there something about the new math I still don't understand?
Since my first email to Senior Transportation Coordinator Gail Payne on May 24, 2022; I have repeatedly pointed out to City staff that, by its own definitions, Grand Street did not meet the definition of a High Injury Corridor.
Alas, I have never received any explanation from anyone or even an acknowledgement of the problem. There's been no correction in the documents. The errors just keep getting carried forward and more and more people believe them without question. It's almost as if: "a lie told often enough becomes the truth".
It's never a good idea to spend millions of taxpayer dollars trying to correct a problem that does not exist. You might create a new one by doing so.
This matter is of personal concern to me because I have lived on Grand Street south of Encinal for 65+ years. I remember when Grand Street had no traffic light at Encinal and it really was a high injury corridor. There were fatal motor vehicle crashes at each corner before the City finally responded to neighborhood calls for a controlled intersection. Despite the hyped perception, the reality is that Grand Street is much safer now. This is borne out by the actual statistics which show no crashes at all. Visible injuries and subjective reports of pain are, by law enforcement definition, designations that only refer to less than serious injuries. Sometimes they are used to commit insurance fraud. They may not even involve a motor vehicle, as we now see with the reporting of the "fatal solo bicycle crash" used to falsely elevate Grand Street between Otis and Encinal to High Injury Corridor status.
Vision Zero's Goal 5: (Alameda Vision Zero Action Plan page 4) is: Improve the use, collection, and organization of data to allow for evaluation and reporting that fosters transparency and creates trust with all stakeholders and residents. The handling of Grand Street data certainly has not met that goal.
This document is still at the Draft stage. I urge you not to rubber-stamp it until you have at least corrected this incorrect designation of Grand Street (and any others that might be in the document).
Thank you,
Carol Gottstein
1114 Grand Street, 94501
From: Levis Owens
To: Lisa Foster
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Traffic plan tonight
Date: Wednesday, November 16, 2022 11:55:18 AM
Hi-
I am a homeowner on Sherman street- between Clinton and San Antonio. I have no problems with the proposed plan AND think it is great! As a driver, biker, pedestrian and parent, I am in full support of safer streets. I was surprised to see that there is no plan to slow Sherman street down. As traffic is slowed and made safer for main arteries, it is going to continue to push people onto Sherman/Clinton. People routinely speed down our street, there are no speed bumps and not enough stop signs. We have been advocating for years to have some kind of traffic calming intervention on Sherman, but to no avail. Please make our street safer. I really would rather not have another pet hit on our street or have a person hit by a speeding driver.
Levis Owens-Iton
From: Abby Tuttle
To: Active Alameda
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Keep Santa Clara Slow until Central is safe!!!! Date: Wednesday, November 16, 2022 12:28:18 PM
Dear Alameda City Council,
I understand when the council adopts the infrastructure plan, Santa Clara Avenue will no longer be a slow Street and that a adoption of the plan may happen tonight. I am writing to request that you please keep Santa Clara a Slow Street until the work has been done to make Central Avenue safe.
I am a parent of two small children and walk them to Paden Elementary from our home at 416 Santa Clara Ave. I am also a cyclist and a driver of a car. Everyday before and after school we see so many students riding bicycles and walking safely down Santa Clara Ave. to get to and from Paden, Encinal Jr and Sr High School, the Academy of Alameda, and other local schools and childcare centers. We also walk through teens biking on the sidewalks of Central Ave to get to Encinal. Per the plan, Central is not slated to have bike lanes until 2024.
Until the bike lanes on Central are finished, removing the Santa Clara slow street may increase the number of teens riding their bikes on the sidewalk on Central which is not safe for pedestrians including families walking kids to Paden, nor does it feel safe for these teens to bike on Central.
Please keep Santa Clara a slow street until Central bike lane work is complete.
Thank you,
Abby Tuttle
From: Drew Dara-Abrams
To: Lisa Foster
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Recommendation to Adopt Final Draft Active Transportation Plan Date: Wednesday, November 16, 2022 3:13:51 PM
Dear Transportation Commission members and Planning staff, Thanks to staff and consultants for all of the revisions to the ATP. I can't say I've fully read all the changes, but I very much appreciate the bullet-point summary of the updates in the staff report. Thanks for refinements that reflect some of the input that BWA and as well as individuals like myself have provided on the initial draft.
Re Park St and Webster St: I appreciate seeing a more explicit plan to eventually upgrade to permanent materials. For Webster Street, I would be curious if staff could share more about the plan to "design and build lower cost pedestrian safety improvements and bicycle lanes (standard and buffered)." Would this mean Class II bike lanes in ~2025, and then Class IV bike lanes in ~2030?
Neighborhood Greenways
: It's exciting to see all the neighborhood greenways planned to be completed by 2025! Throughout the entire process, please keep in mind that each neighborhood greenway won't be finished until there are appropriate design treatments along its entire length and at every single one of its intersections/crossings. I don't mean to raise the bar too high and expect perfection... I'm more giving this suggestion because less confident cyclists and pedestrians would probably benefit from a staged rollout. If an entire corridor isn't ready to be called a neighborhood greenway, please consider just putting signage/branding on the portion that is ready.
Bay Farm: While I'm less personally familiar with the walking and cycling routes around Bay Farm, I have experienced the jarring bumps in the shared-use paths, and I can appreciate that pedestrians and cyclists have to contend with faster traffic on those wide, curving post-war roads. It's good to see this draft of the ATP firming up plans to improve both Alameda Island and Bay Farm active-transport facilities.
Program 4: For what it's worth, looks like $7,500 per year for a city of Alameda's size to join NACTO as an affiliate member: https://nacto.org/membership/ Program 9: Great to see a counting program proposed as part of the performance measures. In addition to manual counts performed by volunteers in the field, please consider ways to install a few more automated counters like the Eco-Counter sensor at one point along the CAT. The team at Toole could probably give some great advice on how to locate a couple more counters in order to provide the city, ACTC, and advocates with an ongoing view of how the city's cycling network is being used (which can then be combined with manual counters to produce estimates with both geographic coverage and temporal/seasonal coverage) Thanks again to staff, TC members, and also the long-time advocates via BWA who are refining the Active Transportation Plan with care and attention to detail. It's exciting to think ahead to all the safety and comfort improvements planned for pedestrians and cyclists in the coming years!
Sincerely,
Drew Dara-Abrams
Calhoun St.
From: Rochelle Wheeler on behalf of Active Alameda
To: Lisa Foster
Cc: Jennifer Warner
Subject: FW: [EXTERNAL] Please Coordinate Santa Clara Slow Street with Central improvements Date: Wednesday, November 16, 2022 4:14:38 PM
For Item 6B tonight.
Thanks,
Rochelle
Rochelle Wheeler, Senior Transportation Coordinator, City of Alameda (she/her) 510-747-7442 | [email protected]
From: Paul Rosenbloom
Sent: Wednesday, November 16, 2022 2:12 PM
To: Active Alameda <[email protected]>
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Please Coordinate Santa Clara Slow Street with Central improvements Dear
Alameda
City
Council,
The
Santa
Clara
Slow
Street
provides
a
safe
biking
alternative
to
Central
Avenue.
As
a
resident/homeowner
at
417
Taylor Ave
I
see
the
safety
benefits
of
the
slow
street
as
an
alternative
to
Central.
I'm
very
excited
about
the
planned
improvements
on
Central
but
we
aren't
there
yet.
Furthermore the
construction
process
there
will
decrease
safety of
surrounding
roads
and
displace
bikers/drivers
alike.
Please
keep
the
Santa
Clara
Slow
Street
in
place
until
Central
safety
improvements
are
completed.
This
is
sound project
coordination
that
promotes
community
safety.
Thanks,
Paul
Rosenbloom
417
Taylor
Ave
510-387-0545
From: David Amamoto
To: Lisa Foster
Subject: [EXTERNAL] YES on a permanent San Jose Ave Slow Street Date: Wednesday, November 16, 2022 4:50:00 PM
I live on San Jose Ave along the current Slow Street section. Every day I see how well used the street is for walkers, cyclists, and scooters. There are several schools along this section and a steady stream of kids use streets to riding to & from school.
A lot of car traffic with people going to work & dropping children off can make for hectic traffic patterns. The people using the Slow Streets know they are in a safe zone & they use it accordingly.
Cyclists use it since nearby parallel street are bumpy or not especially safe from speeding cars.
Please make San Jose Ave. a permanent Slow Street!!
Sincerely,
David Amamoto