From: [email protected]
To: Council, City
Cc: [email protected]; "Andrea Eckstein Gara"
Subject: Please Make Cycling and Pedestrian Infrastructure a Higher Priority Date: Sunday, February 23, 2025 6:44:51 PM
CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of opening attachments and clicking on links.
Dear Mayor and City Councilmembers,
52 volunteers from 350SV Palo Alto Climate Action have signed on to David Coale’s letter on Bike and Ped Infrastructure.
Bike and ped infrastructure needs to be at a higher priority. The Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan (BPTP) is two years late and the last plan spanning over 12 years is only 30% built-out. We need to do better than this. In reading through the packet for 2025 City Council Priority Objectives I have some suggestions on how to make Palo Alto a leader again in serving our community with better bike/ped infrastructure. 1) The BPTP needs to be at a higher priority. Consider bringing this before the Council in Q3 (ASAP). Objectives #23 and #24 are not time sensitive and can be done in Q4 to make room for the BPTP in Q3.
2) There needs to be a better review of the BPTP. This should be done at a ½ day workshop with the PABAC and PTC committees. The BPTP is a complex plan and needs the expertise of these two groups. One workshop for this with both groups would make best use of Staff time and committee members.
3) The BPTP should have tick marks in both the Climate Action and Public safety priorities. It could be argued that good bike/ped infrastructure should be in all the city's priorities as our housing plans will be inadequate without it, and good bike/ped infrastructure is essential for local retail and adding to the vitality of our community. 4) Make sure the Safe Streets for All Safety Action plan is not delayed as this is essential for the BPTP. How many more lives do we want to lose to poor design of our streets and crossings? The SS4A also needs to be listed as a Public Safety priority as well as a Climate Action priority.
5) Add the east-west bicycle and pedestrian crossing project, as noted in the Rail Ad Hoc Committee, as its own objective with timelines and reviews. This should go under the Climate Action and Public Safety priorities. This is a must build item before any rail crossings are built and has been a priority of the Rail Committee for a while. This will reduce congestion and increase safety for our school children and others and could be a real game changer for how Palo Altans get around our city.
6) All of the above measures are needed if we are to reach our SCAP goals of a 20% increase of bike/ped mode share in the next five years; from 19% now to 40% by 2030. The SCAP has done pretty well in many categories but has not yet addressed this mode shift, and it needs attention if we are to meet our goals. This could also help make up the 9% shortfall in the SCAP 80 by 30 GHG reduction goals.
It is interesting that there is no mention of bike/ped or even transportation in any of the objectives regarding housing. Without good bike/ped planning and transportation integrated into our housing plans, they will fail miserably. These items must be included and called out as such to make sure it really happens.
If you build it they will come, so let’s make sure we build the right things, no more parking garages that promote car use and congestion while increasing GHGs at a very high cost. We need more bike/ped infrastructure, which reduces congestion, parking problems and GHGs while making our community more healthy, resilient, and supports our local businesses. This is the most cost-effective way to reduce our GHGs as noted in Project Drawdown that studied the top 100 actions that can be done to reduce GHGs.
Thanks for your consideration of these changes to make Palo Alto more livable, vibrant and safer for all road users.
Sincerely,
David Coale, Carbon Free Palo Alto (CFPA), Bike Palo Alto, and SVBC Palo Alto team Elaine Uang
Nils Angliviel de La Beaumelle
Joel Davidson
Michael Slinger
Cynthia Chinlee
Jay Whaley
Steven Atneosen
Virginia Tincher
Mary Lou Meeks
Ava Kwok
Marilyn Keller
Tobias Wolff
Edward Miszkiewicz
Tom McCalmont
Aiden Miao
Michael Saunders
Santiago Olvera
Kelly Miller-Sanchez
Jordan Briskin
Nancy Krop
Aditee Kumthekar
Sheila Gholson
Gail Price
Guoping Su
Tom Malzbender
Barbara Peters
Sean van Dril
Leticia Gonzalez-Ratchev
Dirk Hoekstra
Mel Kronick
Myrna Rochester
Nancy Martin
Kevin Coleman
Steve Eittreim
Luke Beckman
C Ruth
Celeste Crystal McGurl
Carl Trumello
James Felix Cook
John Van Horne
Margaret Rosenbloom
Ezra Kainz
Emily Zurcher
Matt Schlegel
Peter Cross
Scott Mellberg
Mark Hoffberg
Andrea Gara
Hilary Glann
Lawrence Garwin
Lynnie Melena
Jane Gwin-Kerr
From: [email protected]
To: Council, City
Subject: Regarding the 2025 priorities - Make Palo Alto great with bicycling and walking infrastructure! Date: Saturday, February 22, 2025 1:52:50 PM
CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of opening attachments and clicking on links.
Dear Mayor and Councilmembers,
Thank you for the opportunity to comment during your deliberations on the 2025 priorities. I have the following comments on this item 10 on the February 24th agenda.
Please raise the priority of the Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan. Facilitating active transportation is arguably the most effective way to make Palo Alto a more attractive, productive and engaged community. Pedestrian zones, safe and direct walking and biking connections are essential to addressing our housing, transportation and environmental problems. They also have important co-benefits of health and socializing that are withering in face of our increasingly isolated, on-line lives these days.
Please also push to accelerate the east-west bicycle and pedestrian crossing project. I am a long- time Palo Alto cyclist and sorely miss a direct and safe route across the south area of town between Middlefield and the El Camino corridor. I hear year after year that the old Bryant Street bike boulevard is the best thing that ever happened to cycling in Palo Alto. So there should be room to save money and time with simple, utilitarian approaches that often serve better.
Thank you for your consideration.
Bret Andersen, Palo Verde, Palo Alto
From: Ken Joye
To: Council, City
Subject: 2025 City Council Priority Objectives
Date: Friday, February 21, 2025 10:10:35 AM
CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of opening attachments and clicking on links.
Item #10 for the 24 February council meeting is "Approval of the 2025 City Council Priority Objectives”
I ask you to direct staff to prioritize work on our active transportation efforts, which will be instrumental in meeting our SCAP goals.
At the annual kickoff meeting of Emergency Services Volunteers on 20 February 2025, Mayor Lauing and others talked about the PAFD mutual aid offered to the communities in Los Angeles hit by Santa Ana driven wild fires. We must do what we can here in Palo Alto to diminish our contributions to the climate crisis.
Please:
(1) have the BPTP emphasize mode shift for those commuting within, into and out of our city and focus on that plan update in the Climate Action and Public Safety priorities (2) ensure that the Safe Streets for All and South Palo Alto Bike/Ped Connectivity projects are both reflected in the Climate Action and Public Safety priorities (3) see to it that new housing built along the San Antonio Rd corridor has adequate pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure
thank you for your service,
Ken Joye
Ventura neighborhood, Palo Alto
From: David Coale
To: Council, City; Shikada, Ed
Cc: Abendschein, Jonathan; Eggleston, Brad
Subject: Please make Bike Ped infrastructure a higher priority Date: Thursday, February 20, 2025 11:01:12 AM
CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of opening attachments and clicking on links.
Dear Mayor and City Councilmembers,
Bike and ped infrastructure needs to be at a higher priority. The Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan (BPTP) is two years late and the last plan spanning over 12 years is only 30% built-out. We need to do better than this. In reading through the packet for 2025 City Council Priority Objectives I have some suggestions on how to make Palo Alto a leader again in serving our community with better bike/ped infrastructure. 1) The BPTP needs to be at a higher priority. Consider bringing this before the Council in Q3 (ASAP). Objectives #23 and #24 are not time sensitive and can be done in Q4 to make room for the BPTP in Q3.
2) There needs to be a better review of the BPTP. This should be done at a ½ day workshop with the PABAC and PTC committees. The BPTP is a complex plan and needs the expertise of these two groups. One workshop for this with both groups would make best use of Staff time and committee members.
3) The BPTP should have tick marks in both the Climate Action and Public safety priorities. It could be argued that good bike/ped infrastructure should be in all the city's priorities as our housing plans will be inadequate without it, and good bike/ped infrastructure is essential for local retail and adding to the vitality of our community. 4) Make sure the Safe Streets for All Safety Action plan is not delayed as this is essential for the BPTP. How many more lives do we want to lose to poor design of our streets and crossings? The SS4A also needs to be listed as a Public Safety priority as well as a Climate Action priority.
5) Add the east-west bicycle and pedestrian crossing project, as noted in the Rail Ad Hoc Committee, as its own objective with timelines and reviews. This should go under the Climate Action and Public Safety priorities. This is a must build item before any rail crossings are built and has been a priority of the Rail Committee for a while. This will reduce congestion and increase safety for our school children and others and could be a real game changer for how Palo Altans get around our city.
6) All of the above measures are needed if we are to reach our SCAP goals of a 20% increase of bike/ped mode share in the next five years; from 19% now to 40% by 2030.
The SCAP has done pretty well in many categories but has not yet addressed this mode shift, and it needs attention if we are to meet our goals. This could also help make up the 9% shortfall in the SCAP 80 by 30 GHG reduction goals.
It is interesting that there is no mention of bike/ped or even transportation in any of the objectives regarding housing. Without good bike/ped planning and transportation integrated into our housing plans, they will fail miserably. These items must be included and called out as such to make sure it really happens.
If you build it they will come, so let’s make sure we build the right things, no more parking garages that promote car use and congestion while increasing GHGs at a very high cost. We need more bike/ped infrastructure, which reduces congestion, parking problems and GHGs while making our community more healthy, resilient, and supports our local businesses. This is the most cost effective way to reduce our GHGs as noted in Project Drawdown that studied the top 100 actions that can be done to reduce GHGs.
Thanks for your consideration of these changes to make Palo Alto more livable, vibrant and safer for all road users.
Sincerely,
David Coale
Carbon Free Palo Alto (CFPA), Bike Palo Alto, and SVBC Palo Alto team Additional signatories:
Amie Ashton, Palo Alto Forward, SVBC-PA
Debbie Mytels, long time cyclist and environmental educator LaurenWeston, Acterra ED
Frank Viggiano, SVBC-PA
Garrett Clark, SVBC-PA
Bruce Hodge, CFPA
Audrey Gold, Bike Palo Alto
Ofer Ben-Shachar, SVBC-PA
Bret Andersen, CFPA
Zafarali Ahmed, SVBC-PA
Roy Kornbluh, SVBC-PA
Michael Regula, SVBC-PA
Tim Oey, League Cycling Instructor, SVBC
Jeralyn Moran, Wildlife Biologist, Palo Alto
Mimi Wolf, Palo Alto
Randi Bethel, SVBC-PA
Sven Thesen, Project Green Home Palo Alto
Kate Kramer, MD Palo Alto
Jennifer Wells, Los Altos
Lynn Hollyn, Palo Alto
Nincole Kenneny, 350 Silicon Valley
Mark Hoffberg, CFPA
Susan Chamberlain, Palo Alto
Carol Muller, SVBC-PA
Shannon Rose McEntree, PAF
Peter Phillips, PAF
Joby B Bernstein, PAF
James Cook, Palo Alto
Marilyn Keller, Palo Alto
From: Mark Shull
To: Council, City
Subject: Prioritizing and Improving BPTP in City"s Strategic Plan Date: Wednesday, February 19, 2025 2:27:47 PM
CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of opening attachments and clicking on links.
Hi,
I would like to join and support David Cole's excellent letter below to Make Bikes a Priority in the City's strategic plan. I would also add three points to it:
1) Electric bikes are an absolute necessity if the city is actually going to reach its goal of 40% of trips by 2030. There is simply too low a ceiling if the city's bike plan is limited to non-assisted bikes. Electrics dramatically expand those who can or want to use a bike rather than a car. Firstly, this means a better understanding of the differences in eBikes -- pedal assist vs throttle -- and new motor vehicle laws related to types of eBikes -- eg. Class 2 riders must be 16 yo and must wear helmets. In other words, the state already has relatively nuanced eBike regulations under motor vehicle law, and the City should start form these, not a repeat of it legally questionable, under CA law, restrictions on eBikes.
Related to this, the City is not allowed under CA law to restrict eBikes outside of '"trails and paths" in parks, but even in parks, not on roads. To the contrary, the City should encourage them, and look for opportunities, such as along major roads and in terms of parking or charging facilities (eg. in multi-tenant housing) to encourage them.
E-bikes, love them or hate them, is almost certainly the most promising way to make a dramatic difference in the number of car trips vs alternative modes of transportation. 2) Don't Forget the importance of efficient inter-city and longer distance bike routes. Most of the draft bike plan seems to focus on intra-Palo Alto routes. Frankly, the current city bike paths within the city are pretty good, but extremely convoluted, poorly connected and unnecessary long for those who commute across cities. (It is frustrating to hear opinions like riders should take Park Ave if they want to ride from Menlo Park to Mountain View -- no one would take this meandering and clumsy route twice.) The new El Camino path will go a long way to alleviate this problem, but the BPTP plan should give much more attention to efficient
inter-city paths.
3) The draft BPTP dramatically overstates bike parking facilities because much of the city's bike parking -- including on city property and garages -- is unusable. In many cases, the shapes are simply a poor design, are located too close to buildings to be usable -- as is the case in the city garage across from the new police station -- or place bikes too close together to work. The upside down U shaped installations are the most flexible. (Frankly, sign poles are the very best design, yet for some reason the only place they exist is when actually being signs, rather than bike parking facilities.) My point is, we need practical bike parking, not unusable installations, faked numbers, or art projects.
Lastly, while I hope for these changes, I sincerely appreciate that I live in one of the few places in the US where I have the opportunity to use my bike as a primary mode of transportation for work, pleasure and shopping.
Thanks,
Mark Shull
2020 Tasso St.
Palo Alto
301-466-9836
Dear Mayor and City Councilmembers,
Bike and ped infrastructure needs to be at a higher priority. The Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan (BPTP) is two years late and the last plan spanning over 12 years is only 30% built-out. We need to do better than this. In reading through the packet for 2025 City Council Priority Objectives I have some suggestions on how to make Palo Alto a leader again in serving our community with better bike/ped infrastructure. 1) The BPTP should come before the Council in Q3 (ASAP). Objectives #23 and #24 are not time sensitive and can be done in Q4 to make room for the BPTP in Q3.
2) There needs to be a better review of the BPTP. This should be done at a ½ day workshop with the PABAC and SRTS committees. When I look at the reprocess for the BPTP listed on the transportation page, there is no review by the SRTS committee. The BPTP is a complex plan and needs the expertise of these two groups. One workshop for this with both groups would make best use of Staff time and committee members. 3) The BPTP should have tick marks in both the Climate Action and Public safety priorities. It could be argued that good bike/ped infrastructure should be in all the city priorities as our housing plans will be inadequate without it, and good bike/ped infrastructure is essential for local retail and adding to the vitality of our community. 4) Make sure the Safe Streets for All Safety Action plan is not delayed as this is essential for the BPTP. How many more lives do we want to lose to poor design of our streets and crossings? The SS4A also needs to be listed as a Public Safety priority as well as a Climate Action priority. 5) Add the east-west bicycle and pedestrian crossing project, as noted in the Rail Ad Hoc Committee, as its own objective with timelines and reviews. This should go under the Climate Action and Public Safety priorities.
This is a must build item before any rail crossings are built and has been a priority of the Rail Committee for a while. This will reduce congestion and increase safety for our school children and others and could be a real game changer for how Palo Altan’s get around our city.
6) All of the above measures are needed if we are to reach our SCAP goals of a 20% increase of bike/ped mode share in the next five years; from 19% now to 40% by 2030. The SCAP has done pretty well in many categories but has not yet addressed and needs attention if we are to meet our goals. This could also help make up the 9% shortfall in the SCAP 80 by 30 GHG reduction goals.
It is interesting that there is no mention of bike/ped or even transportation in any of the objectives regarding housing. Without good bike/ped planning and transportation integrated into our housing plans, they will fail miserably. These items must be included and called out as such to make sure it really happens.
If you build it they will come, so let’s make sure we build the right things, no more parking garages that promotes car use and congestion while increasing GHGs at a very high cost. We need more bike/ped infrastructure, which reduces congestion, parking problems and GHGs while making our community more healthy, resilient, and supports our local businesses. This is the most cost effective way to reduce our GHGs as noted in Project Drawdown that studied the top 100 actions that can be done to reduce GHGs.
Thanks for your consideration of these changes to make Palo Alto more livable, vibrant and safer for all road users.
Sincerely,
David Coale