From: Christine Huddleson
To: CITYCOUNCIL-List
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Nov 18, 2025 Alameda City Council Agenda Item 7-B: Closure of Gibbons Date: Tuesday, November 18, 2025 2:59:50 PM
Please oppose any closure of Gibbons Drive, including any pilot closure.
This closure would negatively impact safety and congestion throughout the rest of the neighborhood and the city overall, for the benefit of a small few who live on Gibbons.
As a longtime resident of the neighborhood, I am extremely concerned about multiple aspects of this recommendation:
Negative safety and congestion impact - Reducing the number of routes through the neighborhood, particularly routes designed to collect and facilitate traffic flow, will likely create more problems than it might solve. Per the City's own estimates, traffic volume may triple or quadruple on nearby, smaller streets, increasing danger for pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers alike. Blocking off a primary controlled exit from the city toward the High Street Bridge forces cars to make more dangerous unprotected turns onto High and Fernside, and/or diverts more traffic to Central and Santa Clara, which are already higher risk corridors, while doing nothing to calm traffic or increase enforcement on these streets.
Inequitable use of city funds for traffic calming in one neighborhood - I support consideration of traffic calming efforts for Fernside. However, I also understand that the City has a process to evaluate and prioritize traffic calming requests from across the Alameda, and our neighborhood should not get preferential treatment. Any traffic calming changes for our neighborhood should go through the standard process.
This recommendation essentially lets our neighborhood "jump to the front of the line" by directly linking traffic calming to the Gibbons intersection changes. The Gibbons intersection changes were, in turn, proposed due to the recent assessment of the potential implications of the Fernside redesign. Given that the Fernside plan is expected to cause more congestion and safety issues than the Council was aware of when approving the plan in March 2025, wouldn't it be more prudent to reconsider that plan prior to the start of construction? Instead, this would perpetuate this domino effect, escalating cost and disruption.
As one Transportation Commission member emphasized repeatedly in the October 22 meeting, funding for this recommendation would draw from the "most valuable funds,” General Fund dollars. I agree these funds are extremely valuable and should be used for the City's most important needs. This is not it.
Inadequate planning for disruptive change - The introduction of roundabouts in particular should not be fast-tracked. These are still a relatively new traffic pattern in Alameda. The City should carefully consider their safety, congestion, and aesthetic implications, as well as the direct impact on homeowners whose driveway access would be directly affected. While I do not live directly on the path of a proposed roundabout in this recommendation, I am concerned for my neighbors' quality of life and property values, just as I would expect similar support and consideration if my property were directly impacted.
Temporary "Pilots" are rarely temporary - I also have concerns about the "temporary" nature of a Gibbons closure pilot. Alameda’s “Slow Streets” were also introduced in response to the pandemic as a temporary program, yet years later, most of those barricades remain -- creating more hazardous intersections and increasing traffic volume on Moreland and Cambridge without relief.
Lack of transparency regarding the 2022 reclassification of Gibbons Drive as a local street
Finally, I want to raise concerns about these changes being proposed to realize the "target" of making Gibbons a local street. The City's description of the classification history and rationale does not make sense -- that this was just a simplification of the 2009 guidance and classifications, and that the 2023 classifications reflected “target goals.” Why is the City required to follow the 2009 guidance for Gibbons, yet free to change classifications for other streets?
As a Fernside resident living on Santa Clara Ave since 2005, I do not recall public outreach or communication regarding any of these changes. I was surprised to learn about the Gibbons change, and I am not alone. I was also surprised to learn that my own street’s designation changed from "Local" in 2009 to a “Neighborhood Connector” street in 2023. I doubt so many of us in the neighborhood would be unaware of these changes had they been communicated transparently. I am now much more curious about how these decisions were made, who was involved, and the intent behind them. These reclassifications deserve public review and reconsideration, and should not be used to justify a closure that would impact the entire neighborhood.
Regardless of its current designation, Gibbons was clearly designed to function as a critical connector. It follows a diagonal path through the grid of the neighborhood. It continues to serve as a critical connector. Attempts to close it and turn it into a "greenway" do not make sense.
Please reject any closure of Gibbons.
Thank you,
Christine Huddleson
2841 Santa Clara Avenue
Alameda, CA 94501