From: [email protected]
To: CityCouncil-List
Subject: [EXTERNAL] In support of more bike parking
Date: Tuesday, March 19, 2024 5:48:22 PM
I am going to attempt to make it for comments in tonight’s City Council meeting, but we are fighting COVID in our house and I may run out of steam, so here are my comments.
My wife and I moved to Alameda 17 years ago for the schools and the safety. Today, we live and work here and raise our 11-year-old Lincoln Middle School student here on the island.
The ability to walk and bike around town safely is critical to our family’s mental and physical health and I have seen the safety of our streets improve through the years.
Thank you for continuing to plan and push for improvements to our infrastructure with us in mind. But, if there is one area I would ask you to prioritize, it’s bike parking.
We live on the east end of Alameda and we would like to encourage our kids to ride to Park Street, South Shore and beyond so they can socialize, feel a little independence, and even spend their own money, but the lack of secure parking in these places can deter them from going.
As bike ridership in the area and visits from e-bike riders continues to soar, we’re competing for rack and locker space more regularly.
Please consider installing more bike lockers and racks in our shopping and eating districts. The ability to park your bike securely while you shop or eat helps our local businesses and our helps keep our community healthy.
Thank you for all you do.
Brian Fowler
2922 Johnson Ave
Alameda, CA
From: Timothy McQuillan
To: CityCouncil-List
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Public comment on Item 7-D
Date: Tuesday, March 19, 2024 12:34:51 AM
RE: City Council meeting 3-19-24
Agenda Item 7-D, Accepting 2024 Transportation Work Plan Hello Council,
My name is Tim McQuillan. I am a stay at home parent to a 7 year old and twin 1-year-olds.
I live in central Alameda near McKinley Park. My family was drawn to Alameda just a few years ago for many reasons, but mainly because of its reputation as being a diverse, safe and welcoming place to raise a family. Part of what drew us here was the City of Alameda (including this council) repeatedly making public statements committing to implementing Vision Zero. Since traffic crashes are the leading cause of death for children the same age as mine, Vision Zero is common sense to me.
On December 5, 2023, my daughter was scooting in the crosswalk at Willow and Pacific when an SUV careened around the cars that had stopped for her. I had said it was safe to go. I didn’t have any time to react, as I might have once imagined. Instead I had just enough time to stretch out my arm, and watch. Mercifully, gratefully, this was a newer model SUV with safety features that probably saved my daughter’s life. The vehicle’s sensors detected my child and its brakes automatically engaged, sending the driver of said vehicle bodily into his steering wheel and setting the SUV into a stuttering, screeching halt, its front bumper just over the crosswalk line inches away from my daughter in her sticker- spackled helmet.
After this incident, I followed up with city staff and engaged with county Safe Routes to School coordinators. This particular crosswalk at Willow and Pacific is part of the designated Safe Route to School for children traveling to and from Love Elementary. The School Site Assessment (SSA) for Love Elementary was completed 8 years ago , prior to
many changes in traffic and environs, including the Pacific Ave Slow Street as well as a completely rebuilt school site with a new pick-up/drop-off lane on Lincoln Ave. The existing SSAs for many schools including Love do not encompass the safety improvements needed to ensure that children can get to school in a safe manner in 2024, and they are certainly due for an update.
Despite being completely outdated, many SSA recommendations made in 2016 have still not been implemented. For example, notably Love is the only School Site with SSA recommendations of adding “advance stop bars” that have not been completed. Advance stop bars are literally just paint. It should not take 9 years to get paint, especially when those intersections have had crashes involving pedestrians and are on a high-injury corridor.
As you accept the 2024 Transportation Work Plan, please consider the following: More staff is needed for Safe Routes to School infrastructure. Specifically, I am asking for multiple FTEs to be assigned exclusively to the thorough, thoughtful, time-critical design and implementation of safety features which ensure that children can freely and safely navigate to and from school.
This staff time should be focused on new or updated SSAs in addition to the (already delayed) work which is optimistically slated for completion by 2025.
Roughly 15% of Alamedans are school-age children who have their own commutes each day, and they are more likely to walk, scoot, or bike than drive to school. Please consider their lived reality when you make budgetary and staffing considerations today and in the future.
Sincerely,
Tim McQuillan
From: Michael Sullivan
To: CityCouncil-List; City Clerk
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Item 7D
Date: Monday, March 18, 2024 2:16:47 PM
As a resident who values safe and sustainable transportation options, I am writing to express concern about active transportation project delays, and to support investment in more staffing and resources necessary to get projects completed more quickly.
I am especially interested in slow street conversions to neighborhood greenways, and the network of neighborhood greenways that are planned. Traffic calmed neighborhood greenways will offer numerous benefits. By prioritizing pedestrian and bicycle traffic over motor vehicles, they will provide safer routes for residents of all ages to walk and bike. This will encourage active lifestyles, thus enhancing community well-being, contributing to better air quality, and reducing carbon emissions. The implementation of neighborhood greenways will also demonstrate our city’s commitment to equity and accessibility, as they will provide safer and more inclusive transportation options for individuals with diverse abilities and economic backgrounds.
I urge the City Council to invest in these efforts to create a more sustainable, healthy, and equitable city for all residents, without further delay.
Thank you for considering this important matter.
Michael Sullivan
From: Christi Toa
To: CityCouncil-List
Cc: City Clerk
Subject: [EXTERNAL] City Council Meeting 3/19/24 - Item 7D - Support for Critical Transportation Projects Date: Sunday, March 17, 2024 9:15:49 PM
Dear Mayor and Councilmembers,
I echo BikeWalk Alameda's plea to the city council for action on critical infrastructure projects like Safe Routes to School and Neighborhood Greenways. While cycling along Central Ave (west of Webster), I once had a driver dangerously passed me, while shouting and demanding me to vacate the road. It is crucial for our city to prioritize these projects to ensure the safety and accessibility of our streets for all residents, especially considering the urgency of achieving our Vision Zero target by 2035. I urge the council to allocate sufficient resources and staffing to expedite these projects and uphold our commitment to creating a more walkable and bike-friendly community.
Sincerely,
Christi Toa
From: Cyndy Johnsen
To: CityCouncil-List
Cc: [email protected]; City Clerk; Jennifer Ott Subject: [EXTERNAL] Comments on Item 7-D
Date: Saturday, March 16, 2024 9:15:14 AM
Attachments: 3_16_2024 CC 7D Comments_ Plans.pdf
Dear Mayor Ezzy Ashcraft and Members of the City Council, Please see our comments, attached, regarding Item 7-D on Tuesday's agenda.
Thank you in advance for your consideration,
Bike Walk Alameda
Board of Directors
Denyse Trepanier
President
Brian Fowler
Treasurer
Tim Beloney
Secretary
Cyndy Johnsen
Board Member
Maria Piper
Board Member
Lucy Gigli
Founder, non-voting
March 16, 2024
RE: 3/19/2024 City Council Agenda, Item 7-D
Dear Mayor Ezzy Ashcraft, Members of the City Council, and Staff, We very much appreciate the responsiveness to our concern about delays for so many transportation projects . And it’s great to hear some hires have been made.
However, we remain concerned that we’re still short on staff, because we continue to see projects getting pushed out due to staffing constraints. Please invest more robustly in staffing at the earliest opportunity , so our projects are not further delayed. We believe that without this course correction, our climate, safety, and equity targets are in jeopardy.
Additional comments we hope you will consider:
● We support Staff’s proposed budget amendment planned for the mid-cycle budget update, and urge you to support this recommendation. ● Regarding the 2024 Work Plan, we have asks around several projects, which would be doable with sufficient staffing levels, namely:
○ Conversion of Slow Streets to Neighborhood Greenways — please direct Staff to provide detailed installation plans, timelines, and any resourcing needs prior to the mid-cycle budget update. We support hiring a contractor, and streamlining implementation, as Oakland has done with its Slow Streets, for a faster and more equitable roll out. We also support a quickbuild iterative approach, but only if coupled with a clear strategy and timeline for permanent infrastructure.
The Active Transportation Plan calls for completing our Neighborhood Greenways by 2025, so progress here is urgent. ○ Construction of Safe Routes to School infrastructure — this was supposed to happen last year and now is proposed for next year.
Please move it back into this year’s plan.
○ Daylighting of Tier-3 High-injury Corridors — this was supposed to happen last year. Please continue this program this year. ○ Bike parking — while we wait for the official initiative next year as proposed, please continue to address pressing bike parking needs around the City this year, by installing a percentage of top bike parking requests in SeeClickFix.
● We suggest including in future reports a view of project status over time, mapped to timelines and targets in plans like the Active Transportation Plan and the Vision Zero Action Plan, so tracking is easier for Council and the public.
We wanted to close with a note of appreciation for our Staff, who have clearly been punching above their weight for many years. Progress this year on better
cross-estuary connections for the West End was especially impressive. As a result, Woodstock, the water shuttle, should see a ribbon cutting this summer, and we can look forward to a final report soon for the Oakland-Alameda Estuary Bridge Project Initiation Document, a major milestone for this project. This work doesn’t see immediate, tangible returns, but it is crucial investment in our City’s future. We need to keep at it.
Our City is very fortunate to have such talented Staff, and we’ll be truly blessed if we can hire more like them.
Thank you for your consideration,
Bike Walk Alameda
From: [email protected]
To: Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft; Tony Daysog; Tracy Jensen; Trish Spencer; Malia Vella Cc: [email protected]; [email protected]; City Clerk; Planning Subject: [EXTERNAL] ESSENTIAL FOR VISION ZERO SUCCESS: BIKE PARKING RACKS AND LOCKERS Date: Tuesday, March 12, 2024 11:28:27 AM
Dear Mayor and City Councilmembers:
From a policy standpoint, a precedent has been set for allocating car parking EVERYWHERE in the city, not just on Park & Webster. If the policy is to replace cars with other transportation devices under Vision Zero, then logically, we need safe parking for regular 2-wheel bikes, my e-trike (pic attached), fat-tire e-bikes, mobility scooters, cargo bikes, etc. in lieu of car parking, for those of us who have car alternatives. While the installation of old-school bike corrals is helpful toward the goal of meeting some of the need for bike parking, they are too narrow to accommodate the larger, and more expensive, mobility alternatives that many residents have purchased.
Please see the attached photo of my e-trike. At the widest, it is 33” at the rear and the total length is
59.3”. Imagine trying to park this bike at a bike rack installed on the sidewalk – it would potentially block the sidewalk, which is illegal. If I were to try and park it in a bike corral, I could use the end but, often, those spaces are taken by owners of expensive bikes who don’t want their bike scratched by sliding it into the narrow space. I haven’t even checked to see if the bike lockers will accommodate my e-trike (guessing no). My e-trike will not fit in the middle spaces of bike corrals. There are few bike parking options in the City for my e-trike, so I ride it around town for enjoyment and use my car for utility trips.
I understand that the reconfiguration of both Park and Webster Streets has business owners concerned about the loss of business due to removal of car parking. If the City’s Vision Zero is successful, and more of us are using alternate vehicles to get around town, we are more likely to patronize businesses around town (not just on Park and Webster) IF there is appropriate and safe bike parking. I have submitted SeeClickFix bike parking requests at business locations in town that I patronize where there is currently NO bike parking, such as Everett/Central (Stanford/Park Centre Vet Hosp), Weber/Central (Westside Joes/Robert Lupo Salon/Beauty Unlimited/Tea Room), Willow/Clinton (I could not find a single bike rack at Alameda Hospital!). These requests were acknowledged and referred to Alameda Dept. of Transportation months ago.
I would add that it makes more financial sense to plan for installation of additional bike racks when the City is already planning ANY construction/reconfiguration of City streets when construction crews will be excavating anyway (e.g., sidewalk repair, remove hard curbs for disabled use, reconfiguration of bike/car lanes, repaving, etc.). Sending a crew to install a single bike rack outside places, such as Island Savoy Market, is not smart planning as there are many businesses in that stretch, so why not install more than one while crews are onsite?
PLEASE FUND MORE CAR ALTERNATIVE PARKING OPTIONS NOW!!!
Julie Hoffman
104 Cypress Street
Alameda, CA 94501
[email protected]