From: Cyndy Johnsen
To: CityCouncil-List
Cc: City Clerk; [email protected]; Jennifer Ott Subject: [EXTERNAL] Item 2-C: Mid-Cycle Budget
Date: Monday, June 17, 2024 9:15:33 AM
Attachments: 6_18_2024 CC 2C Comments_Budget.pdf
Dear Mayor Ezzy Ashcraft and Members of the Council,
We hope you will consider our comments on Item 2-C, attached.
Thank you,
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
June 18, 2024
RE: Item 2-C Mid-Cycle Budget
Dear Mayor Ezzy Ashcraft and Members of the Council,
We very much appreciate your clarifying during the last budget discussion that Staff is comfortable with existing resourcing levels for transportation projects.
We’re also heartened to see movement on the Neighborhood Greenway program with the recent public communication about Slow Streets conversions. However, it’s still unclear to us why, if Staff is sufficiently-resourced, the broader Neighborhood Greenways project looks to be delayed two or more years (from 2025 per the Active Transportation Plan to 2027+ per the recent update, as we understand it). These new Neighborhood Greenways include streets like Third, Eighth, Ninth, and Chestnut, which will provide safe north-south connectivity and are critical for our Low Stress Network. It would be good to get clarity here around the timeline and obstacles, and remedy the delay as possible. Two years is a really significant loss.
Further, the idea that surfaced recently of removing Slow Street barricades without any traffic calming to replace them is in our minds a major step backwards for this program, and we were alarmed to hear it. The barricades are imperfect, to be sure, but many of us prefer them to nothing at all. We’d hoped — and would still like to see — momentum moving forward with street safety and livability, not backwards. Instead of removing them prematurely, we’d prefer that the implementation of traffic calming improvements be prioritized.
We urge you to continue your efforts to understand what’s needed to get the broader Neighborhood Greenway program to more closely track the Active Transportation Plan timeline, and ask that you do not approve the removal of the barriers without first installing alternative traffic calming that’s at least or more effective in their place.
Separately, but potentially budget-related, the restriping of Park and Webster has exposed some enforcement gaps we wanted to be sure are on your radar.
If you’ve had a chance to bike down either street, you’re probably well aware that illegal parking in the new paint-only bike lanes is a big problem. Hopefully you’ll consider those needs in this discussion as appropriate, as late as it is.
Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Bike Walk Alameda Board