From: Ken Kershner
To: Council, City
Subject: Prioritizing Active Transportation for Palo Alto’s Future Date: Friday, January 24, 2025 2:54:33 PM
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Dear Palo Alto City Council,
As you prepare for the upcoming Council Retreat and set priorities for the coming year, I urge you to place active transportation—particularly the Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan (BPTP)—at the top of the agenda. While past Council priorities have included important issues like climate change, community health, and economic development, active transportation uniquely touches all of these areas, offering benefits that extend across the community.
Active transportation, including biking and walking infrastructure, provides multi-faceted but often diffuse benefits that ripple through every aspect of city life. From reducing emissions and relieving traffic congestion to improving public health and economic activity, the impact of prioritizing bike and pedestrian infrastructure goes far beyond a few more bike lanes.
Climate Change and Sustainability:
While electric vehicles are a crucial part of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, they don’t address our city’s growing congestion and parking challenges. Biking is not only more resource-efficient—an e-bike can travel up to 60 miles on the same amount of energy that powers an EV for just three miles—it also frees up space, reduces reliance on fossil fuels, and promotes a truly sustainable mode of transport.
Community Health and Wellness:
The health benefits of biking and walking are well-documented, promoting physical activity that reduces healthcare costs and fosters a healthier population. Palo Alto’s Safe Routes to School program is a testament to this—each ride taken by a child means fewer cars on the road, less congestion around schools, and more independence for our youth. Expanding this philosophy to the entire community would improve quality of life for residents of all ages.
Economic Development:
Biking supports local businesses and drives economic activity. Studies have shown that car- free zones and bike-friendly infrastructure encourage people to shop more locally and frequently. Reducing our reliance on cars also cuts down on the economic costs of fuel and healthcare, creating a more resilient, vibrant local economy.
Housing and Livability:
As the city works to meet its housing goals, especially in areas near transit, prioritizing bike and pedestrian infrastructure will ensure that new housing developments remain accessible without increasing parking and traffic pressures. Bike/ped-friendly cities are often rated as more livable, and by accelerating the BPTP, Palo Alto can better align housing development with sustainable, community-friendly transportation options.
With the near completion of bike lanes on El Camino Real, it’s clear that progress is being made—but more can and should be done. Projects like additional bike and pedestrian under- crossings of Alma and the Caltrain tracks are overdue and would significantly enhance connectivity across the city, especially for students and commuters. These investments would also contribute to reducing the city’s 9% shortfall in meeting its SCAP GHG goals, while ensuring safer, more efficient travel for everyone, regardless of whether they bike, walk, or drive.
Imagine a Palo Alto where active transportation is not just an afterthought but a central element of city planning: a city where bike lanes are safe, connected, and buffered from cars, where way-finding is clear, and where cyclists can navigate easily between neighborhoods and surrounding towns. This would not only benefit those who bike or walk, but also those who drive, as it would reduce congestion and free up parking. Active transportation is a key part of the solution, touching on every aspect of the city's priorities—from climate action to health, housing, and economic vitality.
By making active transportation a top priority, Palo Alto can continue to lead by example, showing how a city can thrive by investing in sustainable, community-friendly infrastructure. I urge the Council to elevate the Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan and related initiatives to ensure these projects receive the attention and resources they deserve.
Thank you for your time and dedication to creating a better, more sustainable Palo Alto.
Sincerely,
Ken Kershner
--
Ken Kershner | Co-Founder & CEO
Cell 650-248-9059 | Email k [email protected]
Trio Motors | Palo Alto
From: Susan Stansbury
To: Council, City
Subject: Council Priorities
Date: Friday, January 24, 2025 12:07:37 PM
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Dear City Council,
Thank you for your commitment to our city. I am grateful for the time and effort that you spend to address issues that impact our city, our region and our world.
Please keep Climate Change and Natural Environment- Protection & Adaptation as a top priority.
There are a few specific areas that I think our city could improve upon in this category in the near term.
1) Before grade separation projects start at Meadow, Charleston, and Churchill, ensure that other safe routes are in place for bicycles and pedestrians to cross the tracks and Alma in the vicinity. Our community has made a lot of progress on Safe Routes to Schools and we have many dedicated people in our community who ride bikes and walk around town. Let's keep our bike/ped travellers safe.
2) Create a mechanism for property managers and building owners to engage with the Palo Alto Transportation Management Association (PATMA) to satisfy their Transportation Demand Management (TDM) agreements through the provision of PATMA's services. 3) Create a Pesticide-Free ordinance throughout Palo Alto. Organic Materials Review Institute (OMRI) -certified pesticides should be applied only by licensed professionals and only as a last resort after other Integrated Pest Management (IPM) solutions have been exhausted. We find bees who come into our organic landscape who have been poisoned from pesticides. They don't understand individual property rights and they need to be protected. Additionally healthy soil is filled with life and acts like a sponge. When we kill our soils with poisons (pesticides, herbicides, etc), we lose soils' functions of sequestering carbon and absorbing rainwater which protects us from flooding.
Finally, I recommend that we create a new priority for the city to protect democracy such as protecting access to the polls, protecting undocumented workers, Dreamers and any other targeted community, and protecting people within our city from federal government retaliation.
Thank you for your consideration and implementation of these ideas. --
Susan Stansbury
(650) 353-1994
From: [email protected]
To: Council, City
Cc: Guagliardo, Steven
Subject: council committees for 2025
Date: Friday, January 24, 2025 10:48:10 AM
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Dear Mayor Lauing and council members,
Please continue a board committee focusing on filling vacant sites and economic development.
While council has made significant progress, there are many unresolved issues.
Instead of calling it the retail committee, I propose a committee focused on vibrancy, economic competitiveness and reducing vacancies which embrace a much wider set of options
than focusing on retail stores.
thanks
Stephen Levy
From: Michael Regula
To: Council, City
Subject: Prioritize Active Transportation
Date: Friday, January 24, 2025 9:31:18 AM
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Dear City Councilmembers,
I am writing to express my strong belief that this city council must make Active Transportation a top priority this year. Communities built around walking, biking, and public transportation rather than privately-owned vehicles have been shown to promote thriving local economies, to improve air quality, to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, and to ensure everyone moves around in the community safely.
As a nation, we have done a nearly 100-year old experiment around private-vehicle centric infrastructure. While it provides high precision and convenience, the drawbacks to our economy, environment, and safety are immense. Millions of dollars leave our community every year due to the high cost of private vehicle ownership, greenhouse gas emissions continue to reach untenable levels, and millions of people suffer life-changing injuries every year, including over 40,000 deaths per year (it happens in our community far too often ). The
time for the benefit of the doubt is over. It is time to start a new experiment in which transportation options that promote the health of our environment are given priority over those that don't.
Our community takes great pride in our Safe Routes to Schools initiative. Palo Alto's government should take immense pride in this program. Let's double, triple, quadruple down on expanding it and making programs like it to impact the broader local economy! Thank you all for your service to our community. I am excited to see this year's city council make a strong public commitment to Active Transportation, one that will benefit the city now and for generations to come.
Regards,
Mike
Dr. Michael Regula
University South Resident
Battery Materials Engineer
Email: [email protected]
From: Hamilton Hitchings
To: Council, City
Cc: Eggleston, Brad
Subject: 2025 City Goals Input - Please Prioritize Climate Change Adaption & Community Safety Date: Friday, January 24, 2025 9:14:58 AM
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Dear City Council,
Many homes are being destroyed by fires in Los Angeles. Climate change will continue to cause more severe weather events, both fires and floods and we need to invest in mitigating them now.
For Crescent Park and Duveneck/St. Francis neighborhoods it is essential to reduce flood risks by prioritizing the Newell Bridge improvements, Hamilton Avenue storm drain expansion, and San Francisquito Reach 2 widening.
Please continue prioritizing Climate Change Adaptation and Community Safety in 2025 by funding critical flood protection and wildfire mitigation efforts. These investments are key to preventing homes from becoming uninhabitable. Thank you.
Hamilton Hitchings
From: Robert Neff
To: Council, City
Subject: 2025 Priority - Active Transportation.
Date: Thursday, January 23, 2025 11:11:05 PM
Honorable City Council Members,
I hope you will adopt active transportation developments and improvements as a council priority for 2025. I think the development of our Safe Systems Approach, and progress towards adoption of a new Bike/Ped Transportation Plan are key steps the city should take this year. Improving bicycling and pedestrian connection, safety and convenience will enable more citizens to choose to get around our community by healthy active transportation. These efforts can lead to improvements in the way we live in our community, towards better people connection, better city vitality, better sustainability, a better sense of community, and a healthier population. I hope you will strongly consider this for 2025.
Thank you for your work for our city,
-- Robert Neff
on Emerson near Loma Verde.
From: Frank Viggiano
To: Council, City
Subject: Please prioritize active transportation as a component of PA"s Sustainability and Climate Action Plan Date: Thursday, January 23, 2025 7:12:27 PM
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Dear Members of the Palo Alto City Council:
In recent years the CIty of Palo Alto has made fighting climate change a major priority, as manifested by our S/CAP “80 by 30” initiative. This program has primarily promoted the electrification of transportation and the electrification of energy use within our homes and buildings.
While I commend these efforts and believe they have been effective. one area we have not put as much focus on in recent years is the promotion of active transportation as a tool to reduce the generation of greenhouse gases and pollution. An electric vehicle (EV) is certainly a cleaner and more climate-friendly alternative to driving an internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle, but we all know that replacing a car trip with a walking or bicycling trip is another whole order of magnitude cleaner. Walking or riding an unassisted bicycle doesn’t produce any greenhouse gases at all. And even an electrically assisted bike (ebike) uses only about 1/16th of the electricity per mile that an EV uses. So we would be well served by including such a focus as part of our climate-change Mode shift to active transportation has other benefits besides energy savings and reduced pollution, most notably reduced traffic congestion. Traffic is one of the most commonly mentioned complaints from Palo Alto residents when addressing concerns about our local quality of life. When we each move around town in our own 6 ft by 18 ft, 4000 lb. steel box, that inevitably consumes a lot of energy and space. Active transportation also increases social interaction, improves health, and generally makes our community more vibrant.
How can we promote active transportation? One of the most often mentioned reasons people don't walk or bike is the perceived lack of safety. We can address this by making all of our streets fully safe and accessible to all modes of transportation. We need streets that are designed for safe and inviting use by cyclists and pedestrians as well as autos. We also need to provide safe passage for non-motorists across our busy thoroughfares and across obstacles such as freeways and the railroad tracks. The City’s transportation department is producing a Safety Action Plan which specifies how the City of Palo Alto can implement a Safe Systems approach to achieve Vision Zero (something other communities across the state and country are putting in place). I strongly urge the City Council to provide funding to begin implementing these improvements to our streets.
In summary, I encourage you to look at ways to allocate some of our climate fighting budget to retrofit our non-complying streets and to provide safe crossings and secure bike parking so that residents feel safe getting out of their cars for local trips. This increased focus on active transportation will help us reach our S/CAP 80 by 30 goal, and also bring the other demonstrated benefits of having a more walkable and bike-friendly town.
Thank you for your consideration.
Frank Viggiano
Decades-long resident of the Palo Verde neighborhood
From: Garrett Clark
To: Council, City
Subject: Public Comment on 2025 Annual Council Retreat; Item 4 Date: Thursday, January 23, 2025 5:33:31 PM
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Dear City Council,
I am writing to urge you to prioritize Active Transportation and implement Vision Zero principles in Palo Alto’s annual priority setting. Active Transportation, including biking, walking, and public transit, offers significant benefits to our community, and Vision Zero provides a clear framework for improving safety.
Additionally, prioritizing active transportation helps address the racial and economic disparities in how people access Palo Alto. Many lower-income and communities of color rely on public transit or active transportation to reach the city, while wealthier residents and visitors are more likely to drive. By improving biking, walking, and transit infrastructure, we can create a more equitable transportation system that better serves everyone, regardless of income or background.
Prioritizing active transportation also supports other city goals, including economic vitality.
Better infrastructure attracts businesses, increases foot traffic, and improves access to local shops, making Palo Alto a more vibrant and sustainable place for both residents and visitors.
To make progress, I recommend prioritizing the following actions:
1. Invest in infrastructure: Build protected bike lanes, daylight intersections, and maintain safe sidewalks for all users.
2. Implement traffic calming measures: Slow traffic with curb extensions, raised crosswalks, and roundabouts.
3. Prioritize safety: Design streets for people walking, biking, and taking transit, even if it slightly delays cars.
4. Expand bike parking/sharing: Encourage cycling with more bike racks and shared bikes.
5. Improve public transit: Work with VTA to enhance Line 21 to better serve our community.
I hope the Council will take bold steps this year to make Active Transportation and Vision Zero a top priority.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Garrett Clark
Resident of Downtown North
From: Zafarali Ahmed
To: Council, City
Subject: Active Transportation and Vision Zero for Palo Alto Date: Thursday, January 23, 2025 2:45:21 PM
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Dear City Councillors,
I am writing to urge you to make Active Transportation a top priority for the City of Palo Alto and to incorporate Vision Zero principles into our transportation planning.
Active Transportation, which includes walking, biking, and using public transit, offers numerous benefits to our community, and Vision Zero provides a framework for achieving our safety goals.
Active transportation can: Reduce Traffic Congestion, Improve Air Quality, and Make Ourselves Healthier. It has already been shown that if there were safe and accessible routes for all, we should be able to increase our active transportation use. How can we achieve this?
We can start by making our streets safer for ALL users:
Invest in infrastructure: Build more protected bike lanes, universally daylight all our intersections, and maintain sidewalks everywhere, with an emphasis on safety for all users.
Implement traffic calming measures: Slow down traffic and make streets safer for pedestrians and cyclists through measures like curb extensions, raised crosswalks, modal filters and roundabouts.
Prioritize safety over speed: Design streets to prioritize the safety of people walking, biking, and taking transit, even if it means slightly longer travel times for cars.
Bike Parking / Sharing: Provide public bike parking and bike-sharing schemes.
Public Transport: Encourage VTA to improve line 21 that goes through our community but doesn't meet the needs of most of our residents due to its infrequency.
Last year when I spoke up to to encourage you to improve the bicycle experience on University Avenue, you instead directed staff to encourage cycling on Lytton and Hamilton which is on the high-injury-network (Page 35 of Safe Streets for All Safety Action Plan Draft from December 2024) instead of making it safer for the 100s of people who ALREADY come to University Ave via bike and encouraging even more to do so. Let's try to change that! Let's provide protected bikeways as well as significantly traffic-calmed streets into our downtowns, there is no reason that motor vehicles (EV or gas) be given all the space in our city.
I hope the council adopts a bolder vision this year and takes action to make Active Transportation and Vision Zero top priorities for the City of Palo Alto.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Zafarali Ahmed
Resident of University South
From: [email protected]
To: Council, City
Subject: 2025 Priorities
Date: Thursday, January 23, 2025 2:42:01 PM
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Honorable City Council,
This year’s City Council Priorities should be more specific and focused.
Planning For Cubberley Should Be A 2025 Priority.
There is a bond measure deadline, and an operational Cubberley facility will be needed in short order to meet increased demand for services as nearby housing development progresses. More than 40 years of neglect, fire and water damage have made this facility unattractive, uncomfortable, unwelcoming, and (parts of it) unsafe and unusable. I was glad to see progress in the agreement with PAUSD. Good work there. Subsequent planning work has not yet been visible to the public, and I look forward to learning more. Focused Council attention on Cubberley progress will help prevent another derailed Cubberley process.
Multi-Modal Transportation Should Be A 2025 Priority
We are entering a key period that should define transformative changes to transportation policies, programs and projects:
Safe System Action Plan
Bicycle & Pedestrian Plan Update
Rail Grade Separations Next Steps
Area planning for new state-mandated housing
State mandates for transformative housing growth over the next seven years necessitate urgent
attention to transportation facilities improvements in affected upzoned areas of the city.
Planning is underway for transit-rich University Avenue (and some rezoning for housing on a smaller scale).
Area planning for the massively upzoned San Antonio Area is lagging. Public outreach has not yet commenced. (One cannot help but notice that the Draft Safe System (SS4A) Action Plan clearly points to significant existing transportation deficits and provides no mention of aggregate impacts of projects that have been approved and/or upzoned on San Antonio Road.
The SS4A Action Plan offers zero solutions in its recommendations for this area—not even a placeholder that points to the upcoming San Antonio Area Planning process. We already can see land use transformation of the San Antonio Road area is well underway in both Palo Alto and Mountain View with several high density projects proposed, approved, completed, or under construction. Further, VTA has just announced a major project closing the Charleston/101 S Interchange and moving the 101S Interchange to San Antonio Road. This will likely add even higher volume of trips to San Antonio. Despite all of this massive change, the transportation facilities that serve this area are essentially unchanged and progress toward Area Planning for the Palo Alto portion of San Antoino Road seems to be stalled.
Why This Focus Is Needed
Though it’s true that Transportation relates
in some way to every goal in the 2024 Priorities,
lack of focus on multi-modal transportation and myopic focus on the SCAP (which did not give due attention to active transportation) has led to increased city focus on promotion of electric cars
over other modes of transportation that are much more sustainable, have fewer safety, congestion, parking/land use impacts and help people enjoy healthier, more active lifestyles by including walking, running and bicycling in their daily activities.
Please make Multi-Modal Transportation a 2025 City Council priority to ensure it gets focused attention that will be needed to avert severe impacts on traffic congestion, emissions, parking, safety, health & wellness & belonging that come with increasing car traffic from increased density. (Electric cars contribute to all
of these impacts even though their emissions are lower
than gas powered cars.) If road users don’t have a safe and convenient alternative, they will drive.
Please make Multi-Modal Transportation a City Council Priority this year.
The need is urgent for the city to give focused attention to safe, convenient, multi-modal transportation this year—especially in areas the city has massively upzoned areas that will be transformed from low density commercial uses to high density residential uses. A concerted effort must be made to catch-up comprehensive transportation planning work to keep pace with state-mandated housing development in targeted areas.
Please Make Cubberley A Priority This Year
Thousands of new city residents living in smaller spaces will generate much greater demand for our limited community service and activity space.
Thank you for considering my comments.
Penny Ellson
Virus-free.www.avg.com
From: David Sacerdote
To: Council, City
Subject: Active transportation
Date: Thursday, January 23, 2025 1:32:27 PM
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I urge you to make active transportation, such as walking or cycling, a major priority when planning. Actually hitting our greenhouse gas emissions goals means not just EVs, but less driving, which in turn means getting people both onto their own feet, bikes, and into mass transit.
Finding ways to expand the existing system of bicycle boulevards, ensuring good interconnection with systems in adjacent towns, and providing for safe use of major roads will both benefit the health of Palo Alto residents, and make it possible to achieve stated goals.
Thanks
From: Jeralyn Moran
To: Council, City
Subject: Biking & Pedestrian infrastructure must be a top priority! Date: Wednesday, January 22, 2025 1:55:59 PM
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Dear Council,
I am a Wildlife Biologist, and continue to stand up for the Natural Environment, when needed, to balance the knee-jerk prioritizing of human desires.
Pushing for more comprehensive biking/pedestrian infrastructure in our community is a win-win for human health AND the Natural World! It is as simple as that.
Please consider this important point in your upcoming decision-making.
Sincerely,
Jeralyn Moran
--
Jeralyn Moran
[email protected]
....... the Time for Climate Action Is Now.
From: David Coale
To: Council, City; Shikada, Ed; Abendschein, Jonathan; Luong, Christine; Eggleston, Brad; Lait, Jonathan Subject: Please make bike/ped infrastructure a top priority Date: Wednesday, January 22, 2025 1:00:19 PM
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Dear Mayor and Council members,
Please make bike/ped infrastructure a top priority for Palo Alto. Listed below is an op-ed that I wrote that will be printed this Friday in the Weekly. I am including it here so you have time to read it and follow the links provided it you like.
Bike/ped infrastructure has been a missing part of the SCAP/City priorities and has many benefits as numerated below. All we have to do is look at our European cities to see what they are doing and how much farther they are ahead of us with addressing climate change, transportation, housing, health and quality of life.
Project Drawdown listed bike infrastructure as the most cost effective solution to climate change that cities can do: https://drawdown.org/index.php/solutions/bicycle-infrastructure Locally we have huge success success story with our Safe Routes to School program where over 50% of our school kids take active transportation to school. Imagine the grid-lock that would occur should all these kids be driven to school.
Please make bike/bed infrastructure a top priority for the City this year.
Sincerely,
David Coale
—————————
Opinion: Make bike/ped infrastructure a top priority
Each year, the City Council reviews its priorities for the coming year at its annual Council Retreat. A Council priority is defined as a topic that will receive significant attention during the year. Topics are fairly broad and usually have a three-year time limit, although some may continue beyond that time period.
Last year’s priorities were:
Climate Change & Natural Environment - Protection & Adaptation Community Health, Safety, Wellness & Belonging
Economic Development & Transition
Housing for Social & Economic Balance
From year to year, the priorities are often the same or similar as it takes more than a year to address them adequately and allocate City resources to realize these goals. They are also similar in that Staff presents the priorities from last year as a starting place for what the Council wants to address in the coming year. The staff and Council also take public input through a survey and letters to Council on this subject and at their Council retreat in January.
Staff then comes up with key objectives for each priority so that the City can focus on these and have a work plan in place. The 2023 priorities were almost exactly the same as the 2024 priorities. As mentioned above, this is somewhat expected as it takes awhile to make plans and get them implemented, especially with the Palo Alto Process, where every last detail is fleshed out and analyzed to death. That said, good progress was made in the last year on all topics.
While all these priorities are good and progress was made, there is also the problem of some items that continually fall through the cracks and are not addressed in a timely manner or are taken for granted. I am talking about the Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan and its
implementation. While I certainly don’t expect everyone to jump on their bikes tomorrow, allow me to show you how bike/ped infrastructure and use can benefit everyone – including car drivers.
Climate change: While EVs are good
and their use is expanding very rapidly, they do not do anything for our congestion and parking problems. Bikes are even lower emission than EVs, and you can park 10 bikes in one car parking space. EVs get about three to three-and-a-half miles on one kWh of energy use. An e-bike (for example) gets 40 to 60 miles on one kWh of energy. This makes the e-bike 20 times more efficient than an EV and this is just for the energy usage. If we are to measure resource efficiency, the e-bike is even more efficient and regular bikes are even better still!
Community: Health and Wellness come under this heading. The health benefits from the exercise of biking and walking are well documented
and should be promoted as part of a
healthy community. Palo Alto’s Safe Routes to School is a huge success that is taken for granted. Every bike ride to school and back eliminates four car trips by parents. Just imagine if the congestion around our schools doubled or tripled. Kids riding to school also promotes independence and improved self-confidence as well as freeing up tons of time for parents and frees up road space for those who must drive.
Economy: The economic benefits of cycling
are many. Reducing our dependence on gas cars
and the fuel that pollutes our planet is huge. Reducing healthcare cost is another benefit, as alluded to above. Studies also show greater economic activity in car-free zones as people are more likely to shop locally and more often.
Housing: With the new housing element in place and no parking minimums in areas near transit, getting around by biking and walking will allow the housing, and the housing affordability we need, to meet our goals. As far as I know, parking availability has never been a measure of city livability, but availability of good bike/ped infrastructure often is.
With the almost-completed bike lanes on El Camino, the City should double down and expedite the Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan, which is two years over-due. One of the items in the last plan, and supported by the rail committee, is adding bike/ped under- crossings of Alma and the Caltrain tracks. This would ensure the safe transit of our school children during the rail crossing construction and would be a game changer for the community as now it would be faster to bike all over Palo Alto than take a car.
With all the benefits listed above (and more), we would be much better off putting active transportation at a higher priority. What would this look like? This would be a safe connected network of bike lanes buffered from cars where riders felt safe and comfortable while riding their bikes. This would include safe crossings of our major roads and be connected to our neighboring towns with good way-finding signage and plentiful bike parking. With these investments, it would help address our 9% shortfall in our SCAP GHG goals while realizing all the other benefits of active transportation listed above. Already our Safe Routes to School program has over 50% of our kids riding or walking to school, so we should be able to do this, but only if these programs are put at a much higher priority and not left as just a few objectives in a long list of actions for the coming year.
While some folks may never ride their bikes, some will do even more, and everyone will benefit. Imagine free bike valet parking at all major City events: the Chili Cook Off, the music series, the Glass Pumpkin festival, and safer streets for all, etc. Besides, when was the last time you had a nice friendly conversation with a fellow motorist? Almost never! And with a friendly fellow cyclist, quite likely.
While there is no silver bullet to solving all our problems, bike/ped infrastructure is part of the silver buckshot that can play a big part in every aspect of our solutions and should not be overlooked.
David Coale is a board member of Carbon Free Palo Alto and team member of Bike Palo Alto.
He can be reached at [email protected].
From: [email protected]
To: Council, City
Subject: City of Palo Alto priorities
Date: Wednesday, January 22, 2025 11:45:53 AM
Importance: High
CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of opening attachments and clicking on links.
Dear members of the Palo Alto City Council,
Please consider the deaths and serious injuries that have already occurred in Palo Alto (e.g. https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/News-Articles/Police-Department/Police-Investigate- Fatal-Collision-on-Embarcadero-Road,
https://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2023/09/19/after-two-students-are-struck-by-cars- parents-call-for-more-traffic-safety/) as a result of drivers hitting cyclists and pedestrians with their vehicles, injuring or killing children and adults who were in crosswalks, in marked cycling lanes, and not walking or cycling in a manner that should have put them in danger, even just in the past year. Yes, important steps have been taken in terms of cyclist and pedestrian education and infrastructure, and the incidence rates reported are on a decline , but
also as a result of curtailed cycling and walking due to safety concerns, resulting in more driving (e.g. more parents driving their children to schools, individuals driving to work, and for errands) adding to traffic congestion, pollution, and more.
Knowing that you will be setting forth plans and priorities for our City Staff, I write to encourage you to make our community safer for pedestrians and cyclists. Others will write about cycling and pedestrian infrastructure, which is valuable. But policies and plans are not enough. There are many
recommendations of the 2012 Palo Alto plan to improve cycling and pedestrian safety that still, 13 years later, have not been implemented, and should be with all due expedience.
From my perspective, however, far too little action has focused to address the behaviors of the drivers of motor vehicles, and it is they who are making our pedestrian and cycling activities increasingly less safe. Not only do these behaviors lead to safety issues, but they defeat our City’s sustainability goals, as well.
Speeds on Embarcadero Road, just to take one example, routinely exceed the speed limits by 10-25 MPH, and red light violators are observed regularly. Thanks to new information available through apps designed to help drivers find the most expedient routes to their destinations, there is far more traffic on neighborhood streets. Through traffic on narrow neighborhood streets cannot be slowed through the City’s current traffic calming policies and practices unless many criteria are met, and speeds are not considered excessive unless they are considerably above the posted speed limit, a limit which is often too high for the conditions anyway.
This is not a Palo Alto problem alone, but the City has its part to play and can particularly help on the streets under its jurisdiction. Consider that nationwide, both speeding and driver distraction (often due to mobile device use) have notably increased, making roads everywhere less safe for everyone — drivers, as well as cyclists and pedestrians, though it’s the latter two who particularly pay the price in terms of their lives, given that motor vehicles often protect their occupants even if they sustain damage in a crash.
Maybe some thinking “outside the box” of the good measures already taken by the City of Palo Alto could help.
What might work? The National Highway Safety Administration has a research-based guide on countermeasures that work (see https://www.nhtsa.gov/book/countermeasures-that- work/speeding-and-speed-management/countermeasures and
https://www.nhtsa.gov/book/countermeasures-that-work/distracted-driving/countermeasures for a good summaries related to speeding and distracted driving). It notes that "What is done is often less important than how it is done. The best countermeasure may have little effect if it is not implemented vigorously, publicized extensively, and funded appropriately.” Would it help if the City Council requested monthly reports on traffic enforcement related both to speeding and mobile device use? (You will know better than I.)
Palo Alto, of course, has already taken measures of various kinds, including adding a couple more police officers for enforcement. But enforcement alone is insufficient when so many are speeding, using mobile devices, and racing through intersections. Could a highly visible, well- publicized, well-designed campaign to slow traffic in Palo Alto to both legal and reasonable speeds, and to make drivers focus on safer driving, that appeals both to residents and to those who travel through the City en route to work and for other purposes, make a difference? Palo Alto has many assets, including those who are experts in behavior and those who are real experts in publicity — that expertise could be tapped.
Thank you,
Carol B. Muller
199 Heather Lane
Palo Alto, CA
From: Eric Nordman
To: Council, City
Subject: Make active transportation a priority in Palo Alto Date: Sunday, January 19, 2025 1:18:45 PM
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Dear City Council Members:
As you look into priorities for 2025 I suggest you look into active transportation since it has many benefits for Palo Alto.
For addressing climate change and the environment benefits bicycling and walking are hard to beat. When people can walk or bike to address daily needs this reduces greenhouse gases, noise and traffic congestion. Project drawdown https://drawdown.org/
evaluated 100
ways to reduce greenhouse gases. Simon Clark used their data and evaluated which solution had the most bang for the buck. It turns out bicycle infrastructure had the most bang for the buck.
E-bikes are attractive for longer trips. While EVs are better for the environment than gas powered vehicles, E-bikes are much better as they consume dramatically less energy to produce and operate. Almost 2,000 times more particle pollution is produced by tire wear than is pumped out of the exhausts of modern cars, a problem EVs don’t address.
Active transportation has additional benefits. For affordable housing, households with fewer cars are cheaper to build and maintain. For health, bicycling and walking avoid pollution, noise and provide much needed exercise.
While there has been some progress for active transportation, the development of a bicycle boulevard network has had zero progress in 5 years.
Building a bicycle boulevard network is critical to addressing key Palo Alto goals to double the bike commute rate and cut greenhouse gas emissions by 15%.
This is not just my view. Sam Adams, when Mayor of Portland said:
“... we did a lot of research and we did a lot of focus groups on what it would take to get from 8% to 25% of all trips by bike. What we learned is that bike boulevards ... are the way to go.” Many people at the Ross Road council study session said they loved Bryant and thought that is what they would get on Ross. Unfortunately, staff was directed by the council to not use street closures which were used so successfully on Bryant. This led to the use of more expensive traffic calming measures that were not well received by many people.
Please work towards making active transportation a priority for Palo Alto.
Sincerely,
Eric Nordman
From: Jo Ann Mandinach
To: Council, City
Cc: Landesmann, Jennifer; Mary Gallagher; Port Ross; CeCi Kettendorf; Ann Balin; Jeanne Fleming; Rita Vrhel Subject: Setting City Priorities
Date: Saturday, January 11, 2025 3:39:28 PM
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Hello. I'd like to echo Jennifer Landesmann's points about how city priorities are set, especially since the priority surveys often get few responses and ignore priorities of concern to many of us.
I therefore urge you to consider these long-overdue priorities of concern to many residents:
1) Delivering COST-EFFECTIVE services with an eye toward ensuring fiscal responsibility (the constant CPAU rate hikes when you're already overcharging us $24,000,000+ a year is a case in point).
2) Accountability of staff and consultants to elected officials and taxpaying residents to ensure OUR concerns are addressed rather than allowing staff to spend our money on a bevy of consultants with little or no local knowledge.
Example: For years we've requested Asian and other food markets, concerns ignored by the consultants who recommend sleeping pods instead and have only YEARS later finally addressed OUR request for more street cleaning which is much cheaper than spending $43,000,000 on the disruptive construction of wider sidewalks.
3) Making Outreach to Resident / Taxpayers a top priority 4) Expanding Public Comments and City Council's responses to the Public Comments since many feel that residents/taxpayers views are being ignored by staff and that the City Clerk is changing the rules on comments with little or no public warning so we don't waste our time on presentations that can't be heard.
Example: The clerk's Administrative Assistant III told us at 4:57 PM -- 3 minutes before the close of business on the Friday before the change in council leadership -- that our group of long-term residents was barred from speaking. When / why was this policy changed and by whom?
Sincerely,
Jo Ann Mandinach
From: Jennifer Landesmann
To: Council, City
Subject: Item #2 Jan 13 Council meeting- City"s Priority Setting process & Consideration of Performance Measures Date: Saturday, January 11, 2025 2:48:10 PM
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Dear Mayor Lauing, Councilmembers, and City Manager,
As the City's 2025 Council priority-setting retreat is coming up, I appreciate that you will be addressing on Monday the City's priority setting process and find it promising that the Policy & Services Committee voted on December 10, to make improvements to the process and for "the consideration of performance measures." Another topic was postponed by P&S related to the lack of impact that Councilmembers have on setting the public Agenda because it is largely set by staff.
Stepping back, my frustration has always been that the City's priority setting process is used to create headlines that appear great, but then it's an arbitrary "fill in the blank" process where months after the headlines, a spreadsheet of 70 plus objectives (to advance priorities) is produced using past City workloads and eventually the headlines morph into objectives that the public has no way to engage on. Last year the Health and Safety priority that citizens have long worked to put and to keep on the Agenda was diluted by the addition of "wellness and belonging" which are very different portfolios; the issues I care about never made the agenda and actually there's no way to tell the relative attention to the new priorities either. Now there is a proposal to add the word "action" to the Climate priority when "action" should probably apply for other priorities as well, especially the ones that have been neglected.
The first step for performance measurement is that the City's priority objectives/headlines/criteria are not arbitrarily adjusted to suit how the specific body wants to measure itself on a given day. Regularly checking in with the public that works to put some of the issues on the City's radar and involving and informing the public at large is critical.
The topic of performance measurement and "how topics make the public Agenda" are tied and should be discussed together. Investments in how much the public has been allowed to weigh in on a topic is a performance metric. Zero public agenda time for an issue means that you are either making decisions in a non-transparent manner or not making decisions at all.
Not even to adjust course or to make improvements. The P&S Committee has so far postponed the discussion about how the public Agenda is set; one reason given (to not change anything) roughly was that some issues are too complex to put on an Agenda, or to be careful about overburdening staff. Lack of public engagement and limited transparency is actually a recipe for neglecting complex issues and why planning, prioritizing and performance measurement is needed.
Which brings up another topic that you may be discussing, the use of Ad Hoc Committees; possibly how some of those issues could be going to the Standing Committees. Please note that some priority issues may not have a standing committee or an Ad Hoc, please address this, and as regards Health & Safety (loss of property, life, environmental hazards). Finally, another performance metric is of course the amount of money invested in an issue. As you are responsible for these strategic allocations, it is necessary to please have reporting on these decisions to track over time.
Thank you for your leadership, I wish everyone a Happy New Year! and congratulations to the new Council members!
Best,
Jennifer
From: [email protected]
To: Council, City
Subject: RE: 2025 Priorities
Date: Sunday, January 5, 2025 2:31:44 PM
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Honorable City Council,
RE: 2025 Priorities
This year’s City Council Priorities need to be more specific and focused.
Planning For Cubberley Should Be A 2025 Priority.
There is a bond measure deadline, and an operational Cubberley facility will be needed in short order to meet increased demand for services as nearby housing development progresses. More than 40 years of neglect, fire and water damage have made this facility unattractive, uncomfortable, unwelcoming, and (parts of it) unsafe and unusable. I was glad to see progress in the agreement with PAUSD. Good work there. Subsequent planning work has not yet been visible to the public, and I look forward to learning more.
Multi-Modal Transportation Should Be A 2025 Priority
We are entering a key period that demands transformative transportation changes on policy, program and project fronts:
Safe System Action Plan
2012 Bicycle & Pedestrian Plan Update
Rail Grade Separations Next Steps
The State is driving transformative housing growth over the next seven years that will create urgent
demand for improved transportation facilities in affected upzoned areas of the city.
Planning is underway for University Avenue (and maybe some rezoning for housing).
At a slower pace, we understand that planning for the massively upzoned San Antonio Area will get underway, though that planning process is not yet visible to the public. (One cannot help but notice that the Draft Safe System Action Plan clearly points to significant existing transportation deficits on San Antonio Road but offers zero solutions—not even a placeholder that points to the upcoming area planning process. People already can see land use transformation of the San Antonio Road area is well underway in both Palo Alto and Mountain View with several high density projects proposed, approved, completed, or under construction. Nonetheless, the transportation facilities that serve this area are essentially unchanged and unplanned in the Palo Alto portion.
In addition, Caltrans is repaving and restriping El Camino Real, but Council-requested crossing safety improvements are not complete and require city follow-up, including signalization and RPP program improvements to serve nearby neighborhoods and businesses after these changes.
Why Focus This Focus Is Needed
Though it’s true that Transportation relates
in some way to every goal in the 2024 Priorities,
lack of focus on multi-modal transportation and focus on the SCAP (which did not give due attention to active transportation) has led to increased city focus on promotion of electric cars over other modes of transportation that are more sustainable, have fewer safety, congestion, parking/land use impacts and help people enjoy healthier, more active lifestyles by including walking, running and bicycling in their daily activities.
2024 City Council Priorities
Economic Development & Transition
Climate Change & Natural Environment—Protection & Adaptation Housing for Social & Economic Balance
Community Health, Safety, Wellness & Belonging
Please make Multi-Modal Transportation a 2025 City Council priority to ensure it gets the focused attention that will be needed to avert severe impacts on traffic congestion, emissions, parking, safety, health & wellness & belonging that come with increasing car traffic from increased density. (Electric cars contribute to all
of these impacts even though their emissions
are lower than gas powered cars.) If road users don’t have a safe and convenient alternative, they will drive.
Please make Multi-Modal Transportation a City Council Priority this year.
The need is urgent for the city to give focused attention to safe, convenient, multi-modal transportation this year—especially in areas the city has upzoned for high density residential. This transportation planning work must catch up with the state-mandated housing development.
Please Make Cubberley A Priority This Year
Thousands of new residents living in smaller spaces will generate much greater demand for community service and activity space.
Thank you for considering my comments.
Penny Ellson
Virus-free.www.avg.com
From: Carol Kiparsky
To: Council, City
Cc: Clerk, City
Subject: Council priorities
Date: Monday, December 30, 2024 5:09:43 PM
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Dear Council members,
For some reason, I was unable to submit my priorities through the survey on the OpenGov website. Right now I don't have time to work through this so I hope you will add my input into your survey results.
Happy New Year,
Carol Kiparsky
800 Cowper St
************************************
Priority #1: The health of the environment, with emphasis on open space, trees, native plants, and far fewer car trips. Environmentally sound building and re-purposing of existing buildings. Less emphasis on electrification and EVs, it’s time to go beyond the “low hanging fruit”.
Additional priorities:
A. REAL public transportation, not just subsidized taxis which tend to be single occupancy.
For example get Stanford to extend the Marguerite through town.
B. Ban single-use plastics and greatly reduce plastic use in general.