From: Bruce H
Cc: -- City Clerk; Kevin McDonnell; John Shribbs; Karen Nau; Quint, Frank; DeCarli, Alex; Barnacle, Brian; Janice Cader- Thompson; Bjorn Griepenburg
Subject: Bruce Hagen"s final thoughts on Active Transportation Plan: May the Fourth be with us! Date: Sunday, May 4, 2025 10:56:41 PM
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Dear City Council and Staff:
It's been a couple of weeks since I submitted my comments on the draft ATP. Since then I've had a chance to reflect on it, and discuss it with other people in the community. Two things are worth noting here and now.
First: we included an article about the
ATP in the Safe Streets Newsletter May 1 edition.
That article summarized the Safe Streets Petaluma response to the draft, and is worth repeating:
“Overall, this draft is a great effort. AND we need to set our sights even higher! People throughout Sonoma County (and beyond) see Petaluma as a leader in many important areas. Like most other cities in the U.S., we are still in the habit of designing our streets as a means of moving vehicles from place to place as fast as possible. (But) many American cities have started to view local streets as serving a much broader purpose: namely, as a way for people of all ages to move about on foot, by transit, and on all sorts of wheeled devices, as a way for people to interact with one another, and as a place to reconnect.”
Here are some of our important specific recommendations:
Immediately revise design standards to apply to all street projects. Those standards must:
give priority to bikes/pedestrians over cars and trucks. include green/natural systems such as street trees, vegetated areas, and stormwater management.
design our streets for the desired vehicle speed without reliance on traffic calming “add-ons” like speed bumps and speed limit signs.
Save taxpayer money while reducing vehicle speeds by creatively reducing the millions of square feet of pavement needing regular and ongoing maintenance.
Facilitate a repaving project rollout process that avoids unnecessary and expensive delays.
Ensure that third-party design consultants who are responsible for our street designs are willing and able to follow these standards.
Provide for adequate staffing and budget to meet these goals Set bold annual goals for mileage of repaired sidewalks and low-stress
bikeway completion
Second: Today, I tabled for Safe Streets Petaluma at the Cool Petaluma Future Fest event. I focused on Tree Parking and Greenway Paving since they are unfamiliar ideas to most people. The reaction of dozens of people I talked with was uniformly enthusiastic. They agreed "we have too much pavement in this town, and cars go too fast."
The Tree Parking and Greenway Paving ideas address both of these. They should be vigorously explored and pursued. I spoke with a PBAC member who told me PBAC was forming an ad-hoc committee to develop Neighborhood Greenway standards. "Hooray!" I told him. "I volunteer as a citizen member." Thanks for everything.
Han Solo is cradling an oak seedling, and saying,
changes.
OVERALL: This a complete, well-organized and clearly-written report that details the elements needed to rapidly progress. HOORAY!
INTRODUCTION
Plan Development and Community Engagement
Good! This covers a wide variety of sources. While we
were disappointed with the delays due apparently to
the consultant’s lack of progress, we applaud Staff
and PBAC (and its ATP Ad-hoc Committee) for getting
it across the finish line.
Why Invest in AT?
I love this short and sweet (one-page) summary
(including source citations). This is an essential
ingredient for gaining the public support necessary to
make fast progress. Too often in the past, proposed
improvements were made out of context, so to the
neighbors it looked like all cost and no benefits. SSP
would like to use this and similar material to help
educate the public to the benefits of this work.
VISION & GOALS
Vision
where people of all ages and all physical and
economic abilities prefer choose to use active
transportation. Economics is an important factor,
worth mentioning here. "Choose" is active, "prefer" is
passive (i.e. preferences can be frustrated by lack of
practical choices.)
Goals
Good!
BASELINE REPORT
Existing Conditions
Add “note: we use the term “bikes” to mean small-
footprint mobility devices that are too fast for
sidewalks and too slow for traveling in the traffic
lanes other than traffic-calmed neighborhood
greenways with design speeds of 15 mph or less.”
Travel Behavior
Good that you mention “open enrollment” for
schools, a problem not just for transportation but for
economic opportunity and social justice.
ACTION PLAN
Intro
“The target years included here assume current
staffing and funding levels.” Understandable, but as
per recommendations from City Thread, we should be
“setting bold goals" and aggressively pursuing
necessary funding.
“Staff will maintain a spreadsheet of the Action Plan
that tracks progress on each item and is shared in an
annual presentation to the Pedestrian and Bicycle
Advisory Committee.” This is good. It should be more
frequent than annually. If they don’t already have it,
Staff should develop some standard milestones that
can be used for every project, such as:. Conceptual
Design Complete; Construction Drawings Complete;
Public Notified (assumes notification is all that is
necessary; there is no public “review” because
design is determined by ATP and City’s Design
Standards); Contract Awarded; Construction Started;
Construction Complete and celebrated. This should
include a dashboard that displays these milestones,
updated regularly, accessible to PBAC if not the
general public. This should enforce a culture and
assumption of on-time completion.
Infrastructure Planning and Design
IP - 2a: Street & Trail Design Standards
Update City Standards to incorporate best
practices in safe, green, and accessible street
and trail design, focusing on implementing
design elements that reduce traffic speeds to
20 mph on neighborhood streets and 15 mph
on designated Neighborhood Greenways.
Establish quick-build and hardscape standard
details for safe streets elements.
Timing: 2026-27 Interim 2025, final 2026.
Immediately obtain and pilot test the best
practices from other municipalities to cover the
next round of street resurfacing projects.
Finalize standards ASAP in 2026. Petaluma is
not so different from other municipalities that
we need to take 1-2 years to develop and begin
implementing the essential architecture of safe
and complete streets.
IP-2b: Neighborhood Greenway Construction Cost
and Traffic Speed Reduction
Pilot test implementation of a “Greenway
Repaving” approach, treating only the vehicle
traffic lanes in the middle of the street.
Timing: 2025-2026
Stop spending precious resources making
parking lanes suitable for fast-moving cars and
trucks. For a typical 32’ wide street, repaving a
16’ traffic strip down the middle will accomplish
speed reduction while reducing paving costs by
50%. For a one-mile stretch of slurry sealing at
$.50/sq ft, that’s roughly $50,000 saved. For
asphalt overlay, it would be six figures.
Preliminary research shows that this would not
pose safety risks or increase long-term costs.
Parked cars don't need expensive smooth
streets. In addition, small sections of
underutilized parking lanes can be replaced
with “tree parklets” to provide additional choke-
point traffic calming as well as all the benefits
of street trees.
This should be tested ASAP on a stretch of
street designated as a Neighborhood Greenway
in the ATP (e.g. St. Francis Drive).
Since Greenways are one of the three “legs” of
the complete low-stress mobility network
“stool”, it’s important we find ways to
effectively and affordably calm these streets.
Narrow lanes with "tree parking" pinch points
and chicanes should be the preferred method.
IP-3: Safe Routes to Schools Audits
Kudos to the City (and SCBC and City schools)
for quickly creating the SRTS Task Force and
completing these audits! We look forward to
seeing the lowest hanging fruit of these audits
prioritized for completion in the coming 12