City of San Jose, CA Transportation & Environment Committee, 31 Aug 2020

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From YouTube: AUG 31, 2020 | Transportation & Environment Committee

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City of San José, California
Transportation & Environment Committee of August 31, 2020.

Pre-meeting citizen input on Agenda via eComment at https://sanjose.granicusideas.com/meetings.

This public meeting will be conducted via Zoom Webinar. For information on public participation via Zoom, please refer to the linked meeting agenda below.

Agenda https://sanjose.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=A&ID=797867&GUID=E721BF62-62C4-4ACB-B5F3-276B0AEF661B

A

And we can go ahead and get started um tony, do you want to call the roll? Yes yep.

B

Uranus here esparza here, perales davis- here you have a quorum.

A

Great, thank you. um So I don't see any items to review for the work plan and council member depp has joined us. Hello.

C

A

Just in time, we're um reviewing the consent calendar.

A

Are there any members of the public that want to speak on that? If oh looks like, we have one person who wants to speak on the consent. Calendar two people.

B

Yes, blair, beekman.

D

Is the consent calendar, the airport commission items.

A

Yes, it's the airport commission work plan.

D

Great. uh Thank you. uh Thank you that it's a good way to start your uh new process. This fall with the airport commission. They do some really good, detailed work and I'd like to thank them at this time. um There was quite a to-do. You know in the last few years about high-rise developments in the airport runway and the airport commission.

D

I think really tried to do a great job to offer a very sober account of actually how to talk about the future of high-rises. In that area. They were fully giving to the ideas of the sjda city, government and google. um You know on their on their proposals, but simply offered what I felt was a really sober assessment and real decent way to to to monitor to and to gauge the future of the high-rise situation, and I I can't thank them enough for those for that work and effort that they did.

D

What we all went through during that time was a lot, and um you know all sides contributed to, I think, trying to address basically the situation we are now in, and that takes a lot of courage and everyone was heroic for that. Now. It's out of that time period. I hope we can really. You know, sit down and address what the airport commission is working towards and saying at that time and really respect what they've had to say overall and uh again just a a thank you to their work and their efforts.

D

A

All right, thank you. Next is scott mace.

B

Hold on just a second.

E

Thank you hi. Can you hear me.

A

E

Is this also time to speak on the better bike plan? That's on the consent, calendar.

A

It's the that is not on the consent calendar. That's a separate report. There will be time to speak on that later.

E

Okay, I'll wait for them.

A

Okay, thank you all right. Those are all our public speakers on the consent calendar. I would like a motion move to approve. Second, thank you tony. Do we need roll for consent? Yes, yes, yep.

B

Aye arenas, aye esparza.

F

B

Perales davis, aye.

A

Thank you and uh tony, I think raul will not be able to make it today.

B

Yeah, I would I hadn't, checked my email. I thought I heard something about that. Yeah.

A

I got a text all right. We can move along to reports to the committee, including the better bike plan 2025, who am I handing it off to john jessica? I don't have a note. I'm sorry.

G

Yeah, I think thank you, councilmember and we're actually really pleased to be here. It's been a while, since we've had the tne committee, so we've got two items today. The first one up is the better bike plan. uh Both jessica and john brazile are going to present this one. So I think it it's a great plan and we just want to get started on it, so I'm just going to turn it over to jess and get her started on presentation.

G

A

H

All right and some humor for those who are watching closely as we start, I'm jessica, zanck, I'm the deputy director for the city's department of transportation, and I'm really pleased to be here with john brazil to introduce the the draft of the better bike plan 2025..

H

um So as john will go into much further and we're happy to take your questions and comments about um this. Is the city's uh proposed second bike plan? Our first bike plan was adopted in 2009 and a lot of times. We um we adopt plans and then they sit on on shelves and we're really proud that in that plan bike plan, 2020 adopted in 2009, we set forth a vision for 400 miles of on-street bikeways to complement our trail system, and today we have 392 of those miles in place.

H

We expect to have more than 400 to complete the plan by the end of this calendar year, so it's exciting and timely to bring you our thoughts on the city's next iteration of a bike plan for san jose.

H

Moving forward, the vision for this new bike plan is about people of all ages, all abilities and all backgrounds feeling truly safe and comfortable biking anywhere. They want to go in san jose.

H

This plan is a lot about listening to what makes community members feel safe, feel willing and able to really use a bike as part of their transportation network, and that has us focusing on quality, not just quantity, as john will describe further throughout this plan.

H

John, do you want to take it from here with our goals for this bike plan.

I

Yes, thank you jessica. Can everyone hear me? Okay,.

A

I

Yes great, so, as you can see on this slide, the plan focuses on three goals: to achieve its vision. First, get more people biking. This school aligns along lines with long-term goals in the city's general plan and in its climate. Smart plan second, make it safer to ride a bike in san jose.

I

This goal aligns with the vision, zero plan, which seeks to eliminate traffic deaths and third apply equity principles. To make sure the voices of traditionally underserved communities are engaged, empowered and represented next slide. Please.

I

I think this slide is really fascinating. San jose has historical roots in bicycling and they run deep. For example, in 1884 san jose's first fight club was formed. They were known as the garden city cyclers and in 1895 san jose's adelia allen. An african-american woman set the world mile coast record. She was a member of the african-american san jose cyclers racing club in 1936.

I

The first velodrome, which is a banked oval racing track west of chicago, was built in san jose and in 2007. Local cyclists formed the first bike party, which has spread worldwide next slide.

I

Please, before we just describe the draft plan, it's helpful to understand a few key points. This plan is based on. I know most of you aren't familiar with this so, but it's helpful just to remind folks first here are pictures of different types of bike facilities we refer to in this plan. Don't worry about the details. What's important is that as we'll see later in this presentation, our surveys found most people prefer the three facilities you see on your left. First shared use paths also known as trails.

I

These are off-street facilities away from cars, and their development and implementation is managed by our parks department, with whom we coordinate closely second separated bike lanes which are on street and have vertical elements such as posts separating bikes from cars and third bike boulevards, which are calmer, neighborhood streets with traffic calming features that prioritize bikes.

I

These three types are generally called low stress bike facilities, because when you're riding in them, you feel less stress from traffic and they form the heart of this plan. Next slide.

I

Please now, for the second key point, using traditional practices of the past building, these low stress bikeways took a long time and cost a lot to address those challenges. This plan recommends using a quick, build construction strategy which you may have seen in the downtown area, with our better bikeways project.

I

These quick, build strategies, cut costs in half and take half the time to plan design and build quick build will be the main implementation strategy for this plan in the future. As additional funding becomes available, quick build facilities may be enhanced to add additional features.

I

Next slide. Please.

I

Over the last two years, city staff and consultants have been busy looking at existing conditions talking with neighbors and community groups, to understand their goals and developing this plan. This effort began with outreach to understand how people think about biking and what their perceived barriers to biking are as we'll see in a moment, the outreach and engagement effort dug deep and wide, with an emphasis on one gathering, underrepresented voices and getting meaningful feedback and two creating a plan. That's meant for everyone next slide. Please.

I

We used a variety of outreach and community engagement strategies to understand what people in san jose want in a bike network and I'm going to go into a little detail here, because I think what we did was really at the time cutting edge and something that's being adopted more and more in plans and planning efforts in the city to best reach, diverse communities within san jose d.o.t and the consultant team partnered with three community-based organizations: latinos united for a new america, veggie lucian community farm and vietnamese voluntary foundation.

I

These community partners were selected from a long list of local cbo's based on two criteria: one their immersion in traditionally underserved san jose communities and two their interest and capacity to partner.

I

The role of these cbo's has been to host meetings, workshops and events about the bike plan within their communities to attend community working groups to assist with translation and interpreting needs to review materials and review the draft plan. Their efforts included hosting meetings in spanish and vietnamese the lower photo shows a vivo organized meeting held entirely in vietnamese and I'll just add that these efforts really emphasized reaching out to people who don't already bike, because it's we don't want to just be reaching the choir. So to speak.

I

We want to reach people who aren't yet biking, we'll talk more about that in a moment, outreach included presentations, gaining feedback from local community groups, tabling at events and hosting workshops. All outreach included materials or translation services in vietnamese and spanish outreach also included online surveys and the wonderful project website at bike, san jose dot com, which includes a detailed wiki map and comment tool. During the project we hosted three technical advisory committee committee meetings and gave presentations five times to the city's bicycle and pedestrian advisory committee receiving great feedback.

I

We also hosted focus groups, including one exclusively in vietnamese, that I mentioned earlier and again shown in the picture on the lower right and during covid. We pivoted to online outreach, including 12 community group presentations and two live town halls which were available for later viewing online.

I

Next slide, please.

I

So I find this slide really fascinating. Our sub-consultants emc research conducted a detailed survey in three languages, and this slide highlights a key takeaway. The map on the left slide shows that currently, the percent of people who bike now is moderately high, ranging from six to twenty three percent, depending on what council district.

I

But on the right we see the percent of people who, from the survey said they want to bike more and it's two to seven times as high ranging from 42 to 66. So that is a really promising survey result. This information aligns with what we heard during outreach. Many people want to bike more, but they don't always feel safe.

I

Safety concerns usually involve the desire for separated bike lanes or calm bike boulevards. In some instances, safety concerns involve neighborhood criminal activity that caused a lack of feeling of lack of personal safety to ride a bike.

I

Finally, secure bike parking, a connected bike network and links to transit were also key priorities in the survey responses next slide. Please.

I

With this information from our community engagement and survey, we set strategies on how to advance the three plan goals, which of course, are increasing safety, increasing bike mode share and increasing equity. First, since most trips are not commute trips to work, we focused on all trip purposes, such as shopping and trips to school.

I

Second, we focused on creating a low stress network of bikeways that connect neighborhoods, low stress bikeways generally feel safer and are safer, as you can already tell I'll, be repeating this point, often because it's key to this plan.

I

Third, we focused on short neighborhood trips and those that can be made by combining a bike trip with public transit. Finally, we applied an equity lens to address needs in neighborhoods that have been traditionally underserved by biking. Investments next slide. Please.

I

The recommended bike network is a key part of the plan. It's based on deep analysis by the consultants and dot it includes information and related plans, such as the city's vision, zero plan and the old bike plan network analysis that looks at safety and equity goals, tools that measured traffic stress and outcome, and connectivity, as well as community input from a variety of sources.

I

Next slide, please.

I

Here's some of the work from the bike network development. The map on the left, shows bicycle level of traffic stress red streets are more stressful to bygone, and blue streets are more comfortable to bike on on the right. Neighborhoods in darker red have more characteristics that indicate higher demand for bicycling.

I

These neighborhoods are more most likely to see an increase in the number of bike trips next slide. Please.

I

As I mentioned, our survey of san jose residents found that people in san jose feel more comfortable biking on paths which are off street on separated bike lanes and on bike boulevards.

I

The bar chart and numbers on top show san jose residents who feel comfortable on each type of bike facility again, because people are more comfortable on the types of facilities you see on the left, they will form the backbone of san jose's low stress bike network next slide. Please.

I

Based on the work, I've just summarized: here's the total network map of existing and planned bikeways. Don't don't worry about the details from this slide, we'll be able to zoom in on the wikimap and talk more about it? In general, we plan for separated bike lanes on bigger busier streets and bike boulevards on smaller calmer streets to see details. The project website, bike, san jose dot com, includes a zoomable interactive map and provides details on specific streets now I'll show a few highlights from this map next slide. Please.

I

This plan recommends that most new on-street bikeways be low stress, which means, of course, either separated by claims or bike boulevards on calm streets. Many existing basic bike lanes will be enhanced to become separated bike lanes. This map shows the recommended network of separated bike lanes totaling nearly 400 miles next slide. Please.

I

This map shows the recommended network of bike boulevards totaling approximately 100 miles. Remember that bike boulevards are low, speed streets where people can share the travel lane. Bike boulevards include some basic traffic, calling features that give priority to bikes next slide. Please.

I

The long-term goal is to eventually complete a city-wide network of low-stress bikeways. However, however, because the city is so large and this effort focuses on the next five years, the consultant team analyzed different parts of the city to see where we should start work to most effectively advance the three plan goals, which of course, are mode shift safety and equity to accomplish this consultants emphasized use of quick, build strategies and coordination with other programs such as the city's annual pavement program and the city's green stormwater infrastructure program.

I

This analysis identified the five focus areas shown on this map. In these focus areas, we will use quick, build strategies to create smaller, connected networks that emphasize shorter trips and bike plus transit trips. This map is also viewable on the project website's interactive map at bikesan jose.com next slide. Please.

I

In addition to a network of bike facilities, this plan also recommends policies and programs to achieve the three plan: goals of mode shift, safety and equity in developing these recommendations, san jose and the consultant team studied best practices of cities with high rates of bicycling best practice. Examples of encouragement include improving weight, finding signs and expanding bike to school programs, best practice, examples of policies to make bike biking safe, include, lowering speed limits and restricting motor vehicle right turns best practice.

I

Examples of improving process and design include updating, city design policies to reflect new design standards.

I

Next slide, please, as you know, our customers don't necessarily distinguish between on-street facilities, which are developed by dot and off-street trails, which are developed by pr s. The network functions as a whole. To that end, we made sure to coordinate this effort with prns's trails, strategic plan, which is an appendix to this plan.

I

A prns trail program staff person served on our technical advisory committee. That said, we need to acknowledge the different challenges for each program. Trail development generally faces additional regulatory hurdles and higher capital costs next slide. Please.

I

In conclusion, this draft plan recommends the most effective and efficient facilities, programs and policy goals to advance the city's safety mode shift and equity priorities.

I

Staff recommend accepting it and referring it to the september 29th 2020 council meeting for consideration and approval I'd like to acknowledge our lead, consulting team at tool, design managed by brook dubose, who is online with us, also our sub consultants, winter consulting crossroad, lab and emc research.

I

Finally, ryan smith, on my team who covered for me during the last 2.5 months. While I was on medical leave, we welcome your questions or comments, and I thank you for your time.

A

Thank you, john we'll go to the public first, we have multiple public commenters tony. Do you want to call them, or do you want me to call them.

B

I can call them it's it, whichever scott mace is up. First, okay, thanks.

E

Yes, thank you. I am a san jose resident and a cyclist.

E

I am also the district director for california, association of bicycling organizations primarily made up of bicycling clubs and uh seasoned bicyclists. I wasn't planning on submitting any comments on the bike plan at all. Until I made a note of how much existing class iii roadway miles exists in the final plan and then also attended the july b-pack committee meeting, at which I believe this was brian smith, stated that uh shared lane markings or sharrows were, in his words obsolete.

E

I wrote a letter to this committee that you should have received last night or this morning we are very concerned as a bicycling organization that these class three shared lane markings or sharrows not be deprecated or eliminated over time, we'd like to see a strong statement of support by this committee, endorsing that these are all vital uh bike, bikeways that are going to continue to serve a big purpose in getting bicyclists around the city, even in this new plan.

E

So I hope that uh staff will consider uh re-characterizing uh shared lane markings as something that continues to play a vital role. Indeed, they are in fact mentioned in the plan, but it was these extemporaneous comments that had my organization concerned. Thank.

A

A

Blair beekman.

D

Hi, thank you um this. This side of my feel can actually uh blend in nicely to the ex to the next item, but to speak on uh the bicycle issues. uh This is a very interesting uh topic. Good luck with your issues of equity uh you're, reaching out to different parts of the community.

D

um Thanks, uh never forget to reach out to like the people of the of story and a king area.

D

That can be of interest as well. um I what else have I wanted to say about this item? The vta is doing their own important work on pedestrian and bicycle highways. At this time. It's an interesting concept that I feel means I can. Hopefully, you utilize the the advances in asphalts and concrete uh production right now, and and how can those can be more green, green, uh sustainable uh in its thinking.

D

um Of course, uh the ideas of surveillance and technology will be a factor and I've always I'm reminding yourselves of good accountability practices. There are, and in fact, with your wildlife trails things the city of davis, california, they've they've, created a really comprehensive guideline plans for surveillance and technology on their wildlife trails that I always recommend san jose look into in times like this, and so just to remind that of yourselves and.

D

Ten nine seconds left. Thank you for these efforts. uh It's it's incredibly innovative, much more innovative than the av stuff that I'll be talking about next. Thank you.

A

Thank you, sanjia.

A

C

Oh hi, everyone, my name, is sandhya laddha and I work at silicon valley, bicycle coalition.

C

Thank you so much for this uh opportunity today and thank you for the city staff for their extensive time and effort put into this plan. We are especially excited about the goals the plan mentions, which are complete the 30 projects within five years and add 372 miles of protected bikeways within this time. So that is super exciting and we're really really really looking forward to that in the near future.

C

We would love to get more details about how the city plans to procure funding for completing these projects and plans for working with neighborhood cities for border crossing routes and also some budgeting requirements for various programmatic elements that the plan details we'd like to urge all of you to move this uh plan and approve this plan so that it gets adopted as soon as possible and implementation of the same can begin.

C

So thank you for listening to us. That's it from me! Thank you. Thank.

B

You I was in this is tony, I was going to say I accidentally lowered brian prescott's hand, but it looks like he's: got it back up? Okay,.

A

A

J

All right, um hi for the record, my name is brian prescott and I'd like to start by thanking the uh transportation and environment committee for putting this plan together and for inviting public comment. um I'm a member of the silicon valley, bicycle coalition and I would like to speak uh in favor of this plan. I really think it's wonderful, so a couple of personal stories. I grew up in dallas texas, in a family that included some bicycle enthusiasts and we would go right around.

J

We would do uh rides of multiple dozens of miles a lot of the time and and after moving to san jose. I live in downtown where we have a lot of the separated bike lines.

J

I have to say that in my entire life I have simply never felt safer riding a bike than in this urban core, where we have those bike lanes, um because I'm positioned here, I'm able to get around to most of my basic needs only on my bike, and I really wish that that was a lifestyle that we could extend to people who don't live in this urban core. um I really can't stress enough that the investment we make publicly shapes the choices that people make.

J

For instance, we spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year uh to make roads that are dangerous by design for cyclists and that are safe for cars and this forces people essentially to choose a car centric lifestyle which is expensive and dangerous for others, and I know there was also a time in my life where I uh had a surprise loss of my mode of transportation when I lost my car and my city at the time did not accommodate a bike-centric lifestyle and I would have had a hard time replacing the car, but I could have easily put myself on a bike, so I know that when we're reaching out and our concerns with equity here being able to get around with a bicycle, can be a life changer for families that are low income or historically not helped by bike infrastructure.

J

So thank you so much for trying this. I really want to support this. I think it's a wonderful and ambitious uh plan. uh Thank you. So much.

A

Thank you, brian roland you're.

A

K

um Thank you. Can you hear me now.

A

K

So, thank you and uh good afternoon. um I would like to actually speak on the next item. The problem is, I got some audio issues with the mic on my laptop and the phone instructions on the website are not working. It's telling me to call 888-27549 followed by the webinar id, but I'm getting a message that that webinar id is invalid for that phone number. So, if somebody could please repost the correct instructions on the website uh before public comment on next night and be much appreciated, thank you.

A

Thank you tony. Is that something that.

B

We can, I don't think I can get it fixed in time for the next item. I need to look into why that's not working, um but I will look into it right now. Okay,.

A

Thank you. um I will take comments from my colleagues councilmember esparza.

F

Thank you. Yes, I have a question um so in looking at the memo that talks about the bike lane the bike plan and the trail program safety plan. Can you talk a little bit that about that? um I am in particular through looking at it through the lens of connecting guadalupe with coyote creek trail and the build-out, and how we're going to look at trail safety to encourage people to use bikes.

H

Sure, thank you councilmember esparza and I I think um you know connectivity between and among the two trails is cool as they you know, parallel each other throughout the the area. I think that the particular question about trail safety is one that eve zooty who's on the line with us um is, you know most ready to to comment on so eve, I'll turn it to you.

L

Thank you, jessica. Thank you, council member um eve, zooty, division manager with parks, recreation and neighborhood services. We um we've got about three miles of coyote creek trail under development here in the next year, or so, with an item on council coming up toward our first construction contract from story road to palin avenue. So um the the issue of safety and management of that trail is of timely and key importance for us.

L

The approach we're taking the to the trail safety plan is to it's it's a new effort for us, so we're taking a pilot program approach, we're looking at the the wide range of services paired with the wide range of challenges we face in creek channels.

L

A lot of the issues pertain to encampments, but but the other challenges, environmental pollution, just a sense of safety and visibility. Are there things we're looking at so we're trying to break up those pieces and align them with city departments, non-profits and other organizations that might be party to the plan and then organize it in a way where it's well coordinated and and thoughtful so that we we make the best use of the resources we have. um The the intent is, as we move to construct the story to fail in project.

L

We have about a year worth of time, so we're doing the investigation now to outline the pilot program. So we can launch the pilot at time of completion of that project and use that as our first area to beta test what we can do to improve safety in the corridors. If we do our job right, we'll come back to council with a solid set of proposals.

L

If we're not doing the job well enough to tackle that, we'll be working very closely with the nse committee to make sure we make adjustments so that, as we add, additional trails, we're also coming in with proposals to to fund a trail safety plan that that can improve trails, both along coyote creek guadalupe and the entire trail network.

F

Thank you, yeah. I think that alignment is really important, especially considering the study that was quoted earlier about people not biking certain parts of the city, because they don't feel safe and well. Certainly a part of that is, you know, speed and things.

L

Like that, the.

F

Other part, is they don't feel safe, and so um so I just asked that we continue to to look at that alignment.

F

I had another question in looking at the focus areas of the bike plan it- and I and I understand, because it's new construction and all that kind of stuff, but it doesn't necessarily overlay with vision, zero. How is it going to complement or how are you gonna?

F

How are you gonna connect the work of vision, zero with this bike plan.

H

Yeah, absolutely that's a great question, so um we have these overlapping opportunities and areas and as as outlined in the plan, we selected the focus areas for kind of more detailed plan level work because of the combination of opportunity for mode shift, the equity goals and the safety, and that does not preclude us. However, from taking advantages of the opportunities of aligning with the vision, zero program with the green storm water infrastructure program and with other new development and paving as we can opportunistically throughout the city.

H

So it's a great question to make it more tangible. Our primary grant efforts over the past roughly four years since we adopted vision, zero midway through 2015, have been about getting grant dollars into our vision, zero safety, priority corridors, and so all of those are being designed with a complete street approach. Prioritizing these bikeways and incorporating these bike plan recommendations wherever possible.

H

So I think you'll see that over the next five years we are building out and have a little bit of a leg up intentionally within the focused areas, but we're also taking those grant opportunities, especially along vision, zero corridors to really implement uh both plans and address the safety needs within the priority safety corridors.

F

Yeah I'd appreciate that, because when I look at the map on page 73 and I look at the focus areas and the explanation of the focus areas, so I'm not disputing that. It makes sense right. But it's hard to have a conversation about equity when we're not including some parts of the city where we really do need some equity, particularly around safety.

F

And so um I just ask that, as we continue to work towards the plan that we don't ignore the vision, zero areas that need that attention and the funding um to uh to make them safer. And that's all. I have.

M

Yeah great point, thank you.

A

You don't see any other hands from my colleagues. um I did want to ask the question that that was asked by the um by the public about oh council member arenas. I see your hand now. No, please chair you, you, you started.

M

A

I was just gonna: ask the question about about sharrow's. If there could be some clarification about the about cherish, sure.

H

And if he that uh john brazil or brooke wants to take this john, why don't you go ahead.

I

Sure yeah, thank you. That was a great point and scott's a wonderful advocate having served on cable, forever yeah. I think that was just a little bit of confusion about what we were trying to describe, as you all probably can imagine. Cheryls are those painted marks on the pavement with the chevrons above a bike symbol and that's that's all asherow is what uh I know. Ryan was trying to communicate to bpac. Is this plan says sheryls alone aren't enough.

I

They need to be installed with other elements that combine to make a bike boulevard, which basically means usually including a traffic calming element, so we will use gerald where appropriate. It's just. We won't use them by themselves. They need to have also some trouble calming features.

A

And- and am I correct in saying that sharo's won't be removed from anywhere as we're as we're going along.

I

That's correct: we don't have any intention at this time to remove any just to enhance them.

A

All right great, thank you. Councilmember arenas.

M

Thank you so my question um and- and I just want to thank ramses and and john um for meeting with my team. um I have some bike enthusiasts on my team, and so we look at this quite closely and um and I've become one myself during shelter in place, uh so I'm getting to appreciate what you all have been loving for for many many years.

M

um So one of my questions was- and I think you've already acknowledged this with my team and that's that there were some segments that were missing in the bike plan um that included uh thompson, creek and uh capital expressway to aborn. And so I just you. I just want you to um assure me that you'll continue to work with us to make sure that those are included.

H

Yeah absolutely we talked about that this morning, john.

I

Thank you, jessica, yeah, councilmember arenas. Thank you for your staff, your chief of staff and team, being so proactive and reaching out to us last week and saying hey: we've. They really drilled down into the details about a few uh corrections that we need to make. Fortunately, we do have time to make those. So I thank you and your staff for for doing that.

M

uh No thank you for for accommodating us. Like I said we we have, uh and bike enthusiasts um and um and I've got to say that I I have like I said, I'm I've become an enthusiast and, as I saw the results on the um survey, I I recognize that my um area 42 percent, said that they would like more um uh bike uh barriers or protection or for them to feel more uh um safe.

M

But the the plan is- um and I think currently it was like a one digit. I think it was six or seven percent that actually um get on our bike lanes and and actually bike.

M

um So there's quite a difference in between those the folks who want to and and though those who actually do and and in looking at your implementation and schedule, um the five focus areas for on-street bikeways are in north san, jose, east san jose, west san jose and downtown as way as well as edenvale development area.

M

um So how? How are you matching up? What you found in the survey and what people actually want and what you're going to focus in.

I

Jessica, would you like me to respond.

H

I'm I was on mute. No I'm not. I did stick up that that slide, so that everybody could see it, because I think that was a great point, councilmember arenas but john. Why don't you go ahead? Just I have the the figures for district 8 and the rest of the city up in terms of that slide.

I

Yeah, this slide was really powerful from emc research. Their survey, which uh was we ensured, had a statistically significant number of survey responses from every council district, so really deep and meaningful, and- and yes, we see opportunities in all parts of the city and in the long term strategy we definitely intend to make huge improvements in all parts of the city. The plan right now is focusing on um in the near-term areas, where we see the the most highest greatest opportunities based on the consultant's analysis.

I

That does not mean I'm going to give you a double negative. That does not mean we won't build facilities in every district. Let me rephrase that we will, in the near term, build facilities in every district. It's just that where the greatest opportunities are may be focused on some areas, more than others.

M

And when you say opportunities, do you mean um that there's already uh so say like in? I don't want to pick on any districts, but whatever whoever already has a double digit and also matches up with an area the focus, the five focus areas of an implementation.

M

Is that partly the analysis that the consultant or your office took to determine the focus areas like well, we can build on the 23 percent a lot better than we can on the 7, um or is it because there's more um potential bike paths that um are almost ready for or take very little in terms of of getting them ready for for um some kind of bike path?

M

um If you can help me understand how how those got focused on.

L

And I appreciate.

M

That every district is going to have uh some level of attention for bike paths, as you can see, you know jessica thanks so much for for for putting that picture, my district is relatively large, and so it provides for, for, I think, for more leisure um biking than it does for biking.

M

That is intended um to get you to work or maybe get you to the doctors or anywhere else, um and so I I I know that my district, I know who my district is, and so I know that it it involves more of a leisure. This is an activity for leisure, um and so I hope that that that you could also acknowledge the potential for some of our districts to offer some of that recreation and leisure right, because I know that last time we had a team san jose update. You know two years ago.

M

One of the number one reasons for people to visit san jose was recreation and leisure yeah. So not, why not build that up? For for our folks who are visiting.

H

No, absolutely those are those are excellent points.

H

I think um I did go to the one of the other maps just because it it can give a sense of the analysis that did influence the the um choosing of the first focus areas in terms of bicycling demand for transportation and, as john said, uh the intent of the focus areas is not to preclude um implementation of of projects throughout the city, we're in fact going to be seeking those opportunities and, at the same time, we recognize that we have 180 square miles, so starting without any focus is, um is also daunting for progress in general um john, if it's comfortable with you, I think brooke dubose from tool design is on the line and brooke.

H

If you want to add anything about the the bicycling demand analysis um that might be helpful to council member arenas. That would be tremendous.

I

And brooke, if you're, okay can, I just say a few words before you dive in great so brooke was our project manager from tool design who did a fantastic job and is still working away and anxiously awaiting your comments, so we can get to a final plan to council. I just wanted to mention a a couple of perspectives in response to your question council member annas one is you know, I you heard me during the presentation, almost uh excessively repetitively saying what our three goals are.

I

You know to make it safer to get more people biking and to expand on equity, and so those were kind of three lenses that we applied to help us identify. You know which parts of the city are most ripe to advance those goals. There are lots of things that influence that, for example, our city is pretty spread out, most of it so areas that have transit.

I

That may be better more ripe because people can accomplish long trips by taking their bike on transit, but I'll now pass it on to brooke, because she did she and her team did some deeper level analysis of this thanks.

N

Sure, absolutely, um I guess I'll start by saying that um I've worked on probably 60 of these types of master plans at the city or county-wide level, and um the san jose better bike plan is, is far and away the most data-driven and intensive and thoughtful process around this analysis that I've ever had the opportunity to work on, and that is largely driven by the dot's team, as well as the the robust data set that you all have and being able to apply it to this project.

N

So your questions are excellent and the good news is that a lot of thought went into every layer and the three goals around equity safety and no share were reviewed and analyzed as like the benchmark. Each time we made decisions around focus, areas or priorities, and that kind of thing, so I just wanted to start there.

N

The demand analysis map that you're, seeing up on the screen on the right is essentially taking a snapshot of where we expect to see people bicycling, given that the right infrastructure is there and it's if there are a number of socio economic demographic factors, there there's also ones around land use considerations.

N

Interestingly, the the number one uh kind of factor or criteria that that helps to find whether people are willing to bike or not is intersection density and and how dense and how connected your, your city or area is, and so the areas in red um around downtown and areas are, are you know, they're and then also areas around your your rail stations, places of employment?

N

um Those kinds of elements are that are really the indicators that that we help help define whether demand is most likely there.

M

Well, I'm glad you brought up um that land use was one of the considerations and I you know it's it's hard to to consider something.

M

That's not on them on the map, and I totally get this, but my district does have, I think, um typically, the highest transit center, which is located at east ridge, so there's tons of buses that come in and out and people use it, of course, to get to work and not necessarily to the mall, because you know we're not shopping like that anymore and uh and that shopping center that has the highest transit uh activity, is also going to have um a extension to the light rail, so they're gonna break ground next year.

M

You know, I'm gonna knock on wood. If I can find some and um and eventually you know the our our streetscape down on capitol expressway, where it's a route that people take to get onto either 101 or 680 or 280, other 280 680 entrances will look a little different and you know.

M

We also hope that they will accommodate um a bike um uh cyclists so that they can also get two um in an you know to the light rail extension and all of that- and I don't know if that was one of the considerations or any of the considerations for any of the.

M

Since you mentioned, you had land use considerations um in terms of where you were focusing uh along with you know the bicycling demand and the density of intersections, and just the multiple other reasons why you would consider some um places so was that in any way considered.

N

That's right: yeah, we did take into account um future land use changes based on your general plan um and certainly sort of attractors and generators of activity like a rail station or a shopping. Mall certainly would affect a demand score um and was something that we took into consideration when generating this map.

M

Even though the light rail extension to eastridge would not be in our general plan, since it's it's a vta plan, so you won't be able to consider it unless you know it, and you know that it's going to have a tra impact to our transit. um So is it safe to say that this was not considered.

I

Hi, this is john, so it was considered. I I know, because we had a vta staff person on our technical advisory committee and also, I think, brooke if I, if he was just using the general plan. As an example of I know that brooks team looked at plans from the city and bta and the county and caltrans councilmember. We did look at the light rail extension.

M

Got it okay? Well, I I appreciate that. I I appreciate the the focus and the consideration. I um I know that my district um has two very different um needs. One is the actual need to get to work and use and the reliance of public transportation to do that, and then the other half of my district um could probably work from home, but they choose to go to a campus or to their work somewhere, um and so so I'm trying to balance both of those needs.

M

um One is of leisure and one is out of necessity for work, and I I appreciate that you took into account um equity and the mode shift and and safety um uh it it just. I guess, for for a district like mine, we have both of the needs. We have like opposite needs right when you're talking about uh john, you were given an example that was kind of uh you know opposed what you just first said right um so anyways.

M

I I'm glad that you consider that I hope that we can, um as you drill down further, that we can see some very specific sites. I know right now it's general areas, um but very specific sites and then um move on from from there. So those are my questions chair. Thank you.

A

Thank you and uh I don't think we've said it yet, but can we just acknowledge and celebrate that we we made a goal and we're going to not only meet but exceed the goal for our first bike plan for 2020.

A

It it requires some celebration, so I'm I'm excited about our I'm here for it there you go all right. Thank you, councilmember as far as us, um so I'm excited that we've got. We had the bike, pant bike plan 2020 and now we've got better bike plan. 2025 and I'm just wondering. Are you planning john best bike plan 2030 for the next one.

I

We're open to suggestions.

A

All right, um I totally. I think that I know you guys have spent a ton of time, and I think this is a great plan. Clearly, we've we've already heard that from our our public as well, and I think the goals are completely in line with what they need to be. um I love the quick build, not not only because it costs less and takes less staff time, but because it gets it gets us more for our money and we get we get a better network over time.

A

So I think that's awesome. I I do have to say first of all that both jessica and john just on a personal level have helped me overcome their on page 31.

A

It talks about the largest group of respondents, people who say they want to bike more, but they don't because I think what they call them interested but concerned, and both jessica and john have have held my hand a little bit and helped me to become more comfortable with all my various uh all my various reasons for why I don't bike the two to two and a half miles to city hall from my house or didn't before shelter in place.

A

Obviously now I'm just in my garage, but um I just want to thank you guys for helping kind of knock down those barriers. The one thing that you haven't been able to do yet and- and I don't know it's not in the bike plan- is overcome.

A

My laziness so nobody's nobody's gotten to that one yet, but you do continue to take away all my other excuses, so we're going to be left with my laziness, I think, by the end of this pipeline, um and I wondered how many other people who said they want to bike more but didn't give that as one of their common barriers.

A

If that just wasn't one of the options, so I always think about that when we're talking about the bike plan like.

H

I I do think giving up a gym membership, then just getting your exercise on your way to work is is a real, is a real thing.

A

It's true, and- and it is, it definitely requires a mindset shift in terms of like okay, I'm integrating this into I'm integrating my workouts into my life and changing your kind of changing your timeline for things. So.

F

A

M

I would add that helmet head is also another factor, um laziness and then, on top of that helmet head. You know it's hard, although.

A

Jessica's, hair always looks great, so we really don't. I don't know, that's one of the things I haven't asked you about.

H

The offline suggestions for my pair.

A

Definitely um so I don't, I mean I have no other real real, like burning questions. The only thing I did start to play around, as you were talking, john about with the the map. I didn't realize that there was the interactive map I must have like when I was skimming the report didn't catch that hey. I can play around with an interactive map on the bike, san jose.com website, which is super cool and I'm looking at it, and I see there there are overlays of colors on some areas.

A

So of course I go straight to um right around my house and I'll see like there's blue, which says bike lane and then there's um like the dash lines, it's hard to see which one is dashed, but there's a bike lane and then there's maybe protected bike lane is dashed.

A

So is that kind of what we have now versus what we plan to have with this 20, like moving from 2020 to 2025.

I

Yeah, that's right, jared you're, correct and we realized the map is really data rich and we, the consultants, did a great job in trying to make it as legible as pos possible. We have a lot of info on there, so you can click on and off different layers, but you have it correct, dashed, planned and solid existing.

A

Okay, great yeah, I think it's fantastic. I had um the only other question I had about the map there. There were a couple of places where it looked like. There was a a plan for a bike lane and I just wondered when, when we have those those plans for a bike lane, do we know already that there's enough space to to put a bike lane in or did we just say hey?

A

This would be a good place for a bike lane in terms of connectivity or do we know like the roadway width and and um the the situation there conditions. That's the word I was trying to think of.

I

Another great question and very important: we did have our consultants team, do analysis using our data and collecting additional data to confirm if there would be any impacts to travel lanes or parking as well. As uh you know, parking utilization in some instances and whether the street could accommodate a lane reduction or not so feasibility was also analyzed.

B

Okay, cool. Thank you uh cherokee. If I could just ask a question or maybe make a point, is.

J

It fair to say to the dot team that that a lot of this plan really is enhancing the network that we really put in place with the 2020 plan, and a lot of it is just upgrading improving the quality. The safety usability of the network that you've put in place already.

H

That is a lot of it. I would um not want to put a percentage to it, but either brook or john could certainly put a percentage to it that it's really about um taking the quantity filling in gaps where they remained existing and then upgrading the quality of that network, because you know these streets, these same streets are how you get from here to there at the end of the day. So.

J

It's filling the gaps to really make a dense network and then improving the overall quality of as much of the network as we possibly can exactly. Thank.

B

N

To put a number to it, I I would venture to say that about three quarters of the network is existing and on the ground and is being upgraded um to current best practice conditions. Yeah.

A

Great, do any of my colleagues have any other questions.

F

I'll make a motion great I'll, make a motion to accept the plan and refer the plan to the full council for consideration. At the september 29th meeting.

M

A

A

Can we get a roll call vote? Please? Yes, yep.

C

B

Arenas, yes, esparza, yes, davis, hi. um I did test all four numbers that zoom allows us to use. Three of them are not working. One is I'm going to share the screen right now with the nut? The one number that's working.

B

I have contacted it, who has direct access to zoom people, whereas I don't um to ask them why the other numbers are not working um and I will be testing all of the the council meeting numbers for tomorrow, as well as any other meetings that we have going on this week to see if they're all having the same issue, I apologize to the public. This has not happened in the several months that we've had zoom.

B

I have not had the numbers just stop working, um so please call I'm going to say it for those of you who might might not be able to read the screen. The number is 213.

B

338-8477, that's two one, three three, three, eight eight, four, seven seven and the id is nine. Five, five, seven, six, four, three seven 7230! That's.

B

A

And tony, you can go ahead and leave it up for a second just so people can write all those numbers down if they need to and they need to click uh they need to press star 9 if they want to raise their hand to speak on the phone. Is that correct.

B

That is correct.

B

Okay, there, I zoomed to make it a little bigger. Yes,.

A

Great, thank you. um So we will.

A

The next item is our local and regional transportation planning and project update, and I know there is a presentation.

G

Yeah, thank you john russell, director of transportation again, and um this one is our typical report on regional projects and our planning efforts.

G

Although in the memo we cover a description, short description of all of the projects that we're working on we've chosen to focus on two city planning efforts that ramvus madhu is going to cover in the december meeting, we'll be bringing back some more detail on some of the other uh key regional projects, like the light rail extension to eastridge that councilmember arenas mentioned and some activities that caltrain and high-speed rail and some of the other projects that are regional so in december, we'll bring some of that back today.

G

We're going to focus on a couple of key local transportation planning projects, and these are really the front end work that we do. That then translates into priority setting for the council for projects that we undertake and sets table for rest of what what the transportation system looks like to support land use, changes that go on in the city, so ram just take it away.

O

Thank you, john um afternoon, chair and uh committee. I'm pretty excited to talk about some uh big projects here um that have been waiting in the wings for your attention uh through this covet closure. um First, one we're going to talk about is a multimodal transportation improvement plan. I'm going to start off from the high view here. Here are the four multimodal transportation improvement plans that are going on right now.

O

um There's the berryessa uh urban village and transportation plan going on around the bart station there in yellow and blue is the one we're talking about today and that's the movement, uh the multivoter transportation movement plan for the east.

O

San jose is, of course, the downtown plan, um as well as the west san jose m, tip again we're going to focus in here on the blue um all right, so the moviemento um is uh planned for the area we just looked at and is really working to develop ways for the area to become much more multimodal and accessible than it is today, with the centerpiece of the bart station right on 28th street there, the project has gone through its normal planning life and is now coming in for a review from leadership and hopefully going for adoption.

O

We started back at the end of 2018.

O

And developed of course, evaluations, recommendations, cost estimates, implementation strategies um and our final plan was done in spring uh 2020.. um All right.

O

So, for uh these were the work products uh from the plan um and I think uh this one's uh public engagement, our public involvement plan, um kind of starting this off. uh Following from some of the lessons actually learned from the better bike plan, you just heard.

C

O

We built a pretty interesting community engagement strategy that really worked with the public first to understand, uh not only you know who we should be interacting with, but also how in learning and getting advice and input from there.

O

um We uh of course went through a network plan uh and and uh kind of device what the whole area will actually look like through all the different modes that need to move around there um and uh went through project list and prioritization and the like. We'll talk through each of these, um the word product flow.

O

uh We started with each work, product really developed by a consultant and um and staff that went through a larger staff, review across dot and other departments where network, where necessary um and then went through intergovernmental review, and this is something else we're really trying to do. You know we know transportation just doesn't stop um at a a a border or uh anything like that and a lot of times there's a lot of, especially in transportation, overlapping jurisdictions.

O

You know caltrans vta city um and so we're really trying to make sure that, as we develop plans that those voices and those institutional uh that institutional knowledge is being shared as we develop it, so we don't end up kind of like the good question that was brought up earlier. Is that did.

E

O

Include uh you know the the light rail on eastridge in the plan. You know we're making sure we're doing those things up front and then, of course, bringing that work product as it's as it's been uh put together to the community to understand if it really meets what communities are asking for.

O

So the community engagement plan for this uh for this plan uh started out. Like I was saying before the plan, um we also use the community-based organizations model where we go and we find community-based organizations, in this case almost mayfair and vivo, to help us bring in voices that we usually don't hear from in the public process right, there's those who are very, very uh good at understanding these processes learning how to make comments and all that we need to hear from them.

O

But we also are trying to get a broader sense of what people think around these issues with them, as well as the other known, there's, actually quite a lot of active community groups in the area of this plan, and so we made sure we worked with them as well and together we created a general strategy for outreach. um Here you can see the kind of the planning uh rounds uh ce one, two, three and four- that we use to kind of go out to the public and get further feedback, and then uh we are also.

O

We also have a post planning uh engagement where we actually did create a community advisory group to kind of shepherd this plan, um as it goes forward and talk about that at the end. Here.

O

All right what happened there? Oh this is okay, this is animated, um so the prioritization method, um one of the other things we're really trying to do um in dot's planing efforts is create prioritization methods. You just saw it in a bike plan, spent a lot of time. Understanding, okay, you know we create a big list of projects now, which ones are actually the biggest bang for the buck right, how which ones are the most effective in meeting equity goals um and the life?

O

And so in this one uh we prioritize first based on how well does the project align with community goals? How long? uh How well does the project align with city policy goals um and then uh what are the obstacles to delivering this project right?

O

There's a quite a lot of spreadsheets and and quantitative information that we used um to kind of be able to do this and bring these out.

O

But again, this is kind of you know, another sign for the times of our work that we're really trying to be data driven in terms of one finding what projects are needed, but also which ones are the ones we want to chase after first, so that when we come to you and say hey, we want to go, spend money on projects, we're really clear as to why and how that fits within the larger context.

O

So what did we get out of all this? um This is a map. The kind of uh london underground shape the circle with the bar through the middle is the entire planning area, and you can see these are the the major uh types of projects uh color-coded here you know green, is as crossings over the highway blue is by boulevard bark connections, light luke, so on and so forth.

O

We're going to talk a little bit about one of the transit priority ones, which we see is one of the most important projects here.

O

So here we see, what's proposed for east santa clara, um we're proposing it as a transit priority project, and it would continue on from the current end of the brt system um on the east side of 101 and carry that um carry those buses over the um uh yeah in the downtown um on their own. What we're calling a public service lane? We wouldn't have the large stations and an other brt kind of build out.

O

That's happened in the middle and the median and the earlier in the east side, uh current brt, but we would have it on on the outside either running next to parked cars or the curve, um we'll call it a public service lane, because it would also accommodate any public uh any emergency vehicles in emergency mode and the fire department has been quite happy uh with with us discussing this kind of idea.

O

um This will cut down, obviously transit times quite a bit really creating a better capacity for that connecting the east side with downtown. You know all the way down to east ridge, all the way across really creating a really fast transit.

H

O

And will also be coupled with a whole bunch of improvements for pedestrians, including crossings and timing and medians, and things like that, all right. So here's the entirety of the prioritized project list. Of course we don't mean for you to read it here, um but we ended up with about 40 uh uh 7 48 projects, um kind of 28 individual projects. 18 of these are the quick, build uh types of projects. um uh Sorry great way to say that is of the total 47 projects. 18 of them.

O

uh We were able to come up with quick, build versus the kind of traditional build models, and so we're pretty excited to see how we can get those going quickly. um Four of the projects nominated here here um are already in process. um We have the 10th and 11th street major street.

L

O

That's also part of the better bikeways uh program. um We have the east santa clara uh 101 over crossing improvements for pedestrians um happening as well as the san antonio there. It is my else, um a san antonio uh bike, boulevard project as well as san antonio major uh streets project.

O

The implementation strategies um are key implementations so for each project, we're looking at you know really what are the major things that we need to do um and looking for for how we can uh bring those in line and then opportunities to include projects with an ongoing city program, so you're, seeing a lot of this through a lot of the planning work, we're kind of we're making sure all of the work is being weaved as much as possible.

O

So that's a really great question earlier on from council member esparza about vision, zero and and the focus areas right. That's that's exactly the kind of thinking we're trying to do across the board right when, when can we make uh the pavement program and vision, zero and the bike program and some of these multimodal transportation improvement plans and whatever caltrain is doing over there? How do we really align those that we're getting?

O

uh You know the ultimate outcome, that's in the plans, um driven by all the different uh kind of mechanisms that are out there for that. So we spend a lot of time at the end of plans now really making sure that we've thought as far as we can down that chain before we go forward um yeah and then of course, a lot of implementation strategies are going to be grant funds and then looking at the avenues that we can use there.

O

E

K

O

We have the movemento community advisory group. um This is really meant to maintain the community's involvement, as we kind of go forward, uh keeping public buy-in and keeping the public uh apprised. uh What is coming down the pipe as well as when decision points come up right. So uh when we brought the four projects forward for implementation, we got feedback from them on that um and uh yeah uh the the members are of the nine different uh are from nine different uh uh community-based organizations um in the area.

O

um So we're pretty happy to see such commitment. um Oh, are my talking notes showing. I just didn't know that all right, um let's see here, it's gonna, do that yet do that here.

O

Sorry, real, quick! Let me see if I can get the right screen.

E

O

Green two: there we go. Thank you um right. So the group's already met once um in june. They gave us both, as I said, uh input on our implementation plan for this year, um but also uh gave us a bit of information that we need about what people are experiencing through the shelter in place and how that might help us uh plan or prioritize better and our next planned meeting is in september.

O

um uh Let's that's the end of this presentation. We have another presentation coming up. Would you like to do both in a row, or would you like to take questions in between? I am open to whatever works, for you.

A

Let's go ahead and finish with the presentations and then I'll all remind my colleagues that for any advisory boards or regional boards that they serve on they're also welcome. After these presentations to to give a brief update and then we will go to public comment and then we'll go to questions all.

O

Right there we go all right um and then um tony could you bring in john tsugami from the I think, he's in the uh the wrong room should be on the panelist. He may want to speak to this item. I think I see him in the other room. Yeah he's coming in now. Okay, all right, so uh the tasman comp uh quarter complete street study.

O

um This study is a long time coming um and is really looking to transform uh what tasman corridor is going to look like with some pretty big changes coming in and down that corridor, especially with bart opening and the transit changes that are happening there and with some really important.

C

Connections and.

O

And the life there, those are the project uh objectives. Well, one so vta ran this study. We were a party to it, um so this is an interest jurisdictional plan.

O

uh I'll show you the entire map here in a second, um it enhanced the really look to enhancing the comfort reliability of all modes, while, while still trying to accommodate drivers right, so we're really looking to see how can we make bikes, pedestrians and transit riders uh feel more welcome and safer in this courthouse in this corridor, really look to build community support for it and did a lot of work on implementation.

O

This is the entirety of this. The study corridor really really big area right all the way from the new uh uh bart station in milpitas uh to the end of the road there um out in sunnyvale, um almost at 237., all four jurisdictions had multiple meetings, talking about uh corridor issues and- and and you know we all learned about each other's uh little pet peeves and projects across the entire uh thing.

O

uh uh One really interesting thing to realize is how, at the ups facility right in sunnyvale north of where it says, tasman drive, but there's.

C

O

You can literally touch the backs of the trucks parked on the other side of the fence from from the road. So it's a very uh diverse area, all right, so the plan went through somewhat traditional planning process where we brought together background and existing conditions and moved through developing alternatives and refining them and then coming to a preferred alternative.

O

You can see the the community engagement workshops and online surveys here, sprinkled throughout in the blue and yellow bubbles, and we have been mostly done with this for a while, again kind of waiting uh to get through covet.

H

O

Bring it to you guys all right, so what were identified as the basic means we kind of already talked about it a bit, um but through all the existing conditions um and the purpose of the study right. One.

P

O

Bicycle and pedestrian connectivity, um especially in north san jose uh for a san jose's portion of the study. We have two uh just world-class uh bike facilities being uh either completed or being uh built in coyote, creek and guadalupe, and that run just north south of these really great facilities, but getting from those facilities over to the businesses and workplaces is pretty, uh is not well built out enough.

O

Of course, safety and comfort already talked about that. um There's also a lack of weight, finding signage and lighting for people who aren't driving, um and so you know if you're walking around or biking- um and you don't kind of already know where you are. It can be hard to kind of find your way around. Some thought about that and then, of course, liability and travel time um for uh for pretty much all modes, um especially if you get to that first, uh north first and tasman intersection things.

B

G

O

Down so there's a lot of work to be done there.

O

um Here's a map of current uh average speeds for the light rail activity uh for light rail through the area and, as you can see in places where uh it's grade separated here by that great mall in milpitas, you're, really getting great speeds and as you get down into the city, so sorry, you start slowing down a bit again that first and tasman intersection is really a huge uh impediment to the system that you can see.

O

Those problems throughout this is really relevant because the uh the milpitas bart station is really going to drive a great deal more transit users once we get outside of the the shadow of coronavirus um and uh we really and there's already a new line. That goes straight across this um this corridor, and we really need to see this uh improve.

B

O

Terms of timing, and to make people want to do this instead of packing more cars into the area, all right, so community feedback, there was a lot of community feedback on this. um There was a lot of use of of online tools, uh twitter, facebook uh and uh blogs um using the uh um the vta website, and things like that um community meetings as well. I had about 184 community members, show up to meetings around this plan. um Another great number there is a 1356 responses to the online survey.

O

um You can imagine that's quite a lot of folks expressing their opinion. um It's a good thing. So what do we learn from that um priorities? Is the thing that we really got from this? You can really see with that much that many people kind of coming in what where people put their their desires here, one really making sidewalks making the the pedestrian environment uh safer and more comfortable just stood out for so.

K

O

People um really something we need to work on and after that bike facilities and then light rail service and then fourth was reducing vehicle congestion. So you can.

L

O

Why we're focusing on those first three items really standing out for people to really see this place and get better all right? So what are the proposed project improvements?

O

um So you can see here I'll, give a little context before I jump in uh into the actual improvement description, um uh our fun colorful little modes there on the bottom, the bike and train and bus and the like right right now you actually have a pretty good mode split. You got about 29 of trips.

G

O

By transit, um which is pretty nice, um but you still have 70 percent happening by by automobile, I'm expecting quite a lot more trips to come into this area and can't accommodate it in that same mode, split.

B

O

Do uh uh project out that we will see a.

B

O

Increase in train uh usage on the light rail, especially if we can, we can accomplish some of the improvements to the.

I

O

And a large increase in bicycling, so we're really trying to design for that future to be able to bring folks uh into the area and these other modes and not just be stuck on tasman and the light getting on the highways. So how we're going to do that? um Well, one! You can see here a kind of a cross-section um looking uh that kind of the general plan for the for the corridor. Right is a protected bike lane and anywhere we can fit it.

O

um Continuation of travel lanes now in some places, it'll still be two and some places it'll still be three. This is just a representative thing, of course, the light rail in the middle, as well as some expanded pedestrian facilities where that can be fit in.

O

So here's what it might look like um in san jose again similar uh setup, but just kind of seen in that larger view. Some other things to highlight here not only that cross section of the protected bike lane, um but also real improvements at the light rail stations, particularly for pedestrian crossing, so creating those those nicer noses in the bulb out at the stations.

O

So people's crossing of the street is faster, less less area to cross and safer if they get stuck in the middle and better lighting, better uh signal timing, all of these kinds of things will come together to help make uh these kinds of areas a lot more comfortable for folks taking transit and walking one more example of the kind of work that's being done here. Here's plan view kind of looking from above what this might look like at tasman zanker.

O

You can see here again the protected bike lanes uh shown with the blue line on the on the north side of the road there um and emerge into the into the intersection, as well as some other treatments like the the kind of green bulb there on the left side of the picture, kind of helping steer cars to slow them down right in those turns so they're taking safe returns all right. So what are the project next steps?

O

uh Well right now, we're going through city, presentations, uh vta and city staff are bringing this plan to committees and and councils uh where uh needed, uh get uh get the socialized after that, bta will be adopting this he'll be going to the board there and, after that, it's time to get to work um and trying to coordinate uh with btn cities to get funding and get to those next steps.

O

After the planning steps, we'll say, we've already started trying to get grant funding for certain portions of this plan um going without success yet, and that is it. So our recommendation is to accept the status report on these on this work.

A

Thank you. Thank you. Ramses. um Are there any council members who would like to have who have an update on any of the regional transit boards that they are on.

A

uh Yes, I have an update uh training. Thank you. I wasn't sure if your hand was still up from the last time or not, it.

M

Was um but it's it served me okay, so update on um this is the eastridge to bart regional connector project, and um you know, as you know, I'm on the policy advisory board and we met back in june, um where vta shared with us some of the completed and work and some of the anticipated work, and some of that has been completed, work utility, design for pg e electricity transmissions lines, so that's complete and they have a construction utility schedule to begin this upcoming september.

M

um Vta is still in the process of acquiring um property and in total, there's, 18 and so um eight um have been. Oh settlements have been executed already, and so we got some ways to go, um but I think they're still on track.

M

um We have an faa approval, that's still underway and um last thursday on the 27th vta kicked off their first stakeholders working group meeting, and that is made up of a lot of community members that had been nominated by the policy advisory board, and these folks represent the different stakeholders in that area, from businesses to neighborhood associations um and parents all like, and so they are going to be meeting and providing some input to bta, um especially around the construction impacts, and you know to disseminate information, as we all learned last year that transportation infrastructure is one of the ways that a lot of small businesses get displaced and we want to make sure that doesn't happen.

M

But you know covet got ahead of us on displacing a lot of folks. So um we have to be extra careful uh for those uh businesses that have managed to hold on so that they're not then impacted by uh construction, um and then there's also this artwork. That is really exciting um and it's going to be implemented along the corridor.

M

The artwork agreement is between the vta and and the city and that's been approved, and so um I believe, we're in the process of the city and department of transportation is in the process of selecting an artist for that artwork implementation and so that's absolutely exciting.

M

um Let's see construction for the structure of the project is expected to be awarded in early 2021, with an official construction beginning in summer 2021 in passenger service by 2026, which doesn't seem very far away, um so I'm gonna knock on wood again and in anticipation that this um sticks and uh and that we will well be underway and soon we'll see light rail extension to eastridge.

M

That's my report. Thank you.

A

Thank you, councilmember arenas. That's great news. One more reason for us to get over 2020 um is to get that eastridge project going very cool. I I have an update. If, if no one else does council member esparza, did you have an update.

F

uh Just a quick one, I'm sure councilmember yep can um make any additions, but the um at e-bag abag has been doing a lot of work around merging um with mtc and then also recently approved. um So it's not transportation related but recently approved some affordable or some housing goals for the entire bay area region, and there was a lot of discussion and debate around that, but the group was able to come to an agreement.

F

A

Thank you, council, member jeff. Did you have something you wanted to add to that.

C

uh No, my memory's a bit shaky lately so, but but apparently we're whatever numbers are agreed on per the public is, is not enough. So.

A

Got it thanks for that? I have a a short caltrain update. Caltrain did have success in getting a regional sales tax measure on the ballot. uh As many of you know, it was touch and go there for a while, but it it will be measure rr on the san francisco, san mateo and santa clara county ballots for an eighth cent sales tax for 30 years, and that is a dedicated funding source for caltrain to to continue on with it's it's.

A

The electrification project is, is happening and is fully funded and um is moving forward. Although we do have um the electric train sets. Are some of those materials come from europe and they are delayed because of covid and and because of travel restrictions.

A

um But the work continues here on on the line and electrification on on the train. Tracks themselves is, is continuing to happen and in fact, we've been able to to maintain that schedule and increase the amount of time that that construction is happening on the train tracks, because caltrain, as many of you know have had, has had to drastically cut its service in order to preserve funds.

A

So uh moving forward with that project and then what what the dedicated sales tax would allow for is really an expansion of that service, um which is still there's not an updated schedule, but it's still hopefully going to be fully electrified and in service by the end of 2022 and the dedicated sales tax would allow well, first of all for caltrain to continue to survive.

A

um Given the fact that we may have lower ridership for a while post covid whenever post code happens, um this would provide a dedicated funding source because caltrain is run over 70 percent by fare box uh recovery. So the revenues from fares is, is the majority of the funding for caltrain, so a dedicated sales tax would allow us to bridge the time and and then allow for expansion of service over time as trent as writers come back to transit.

A

So that's my update on caltrain and um if my colleagues don't have any more updates I'll go to public comment and then we'll and then we'll get questions and comments from the committee.

A

Okay, so let's go to public comment.

A

um Roland your hand is up and we have a couple of phone numbers too. So it looks like some people were ready. uh Tony, do you want to put up the number again just in case people didn't get it.

B

B

And then um I have roland, I have a number ending in 5140 I have player beekman and a number ending in 6262 with their hands raised.

B

Let me know when you want me to unmute the first caller.

A

We can go ahead and unmute the first column.

B

Okay, so rolling juror up first.

B

K

A

You got some feedback there rolling.

K

She's rolling looks like I'm back on my.

K

K

Because that's me um now, where was I um I don't know if you can hear me clearly, but I could barely hear a ramses just now. I don't know what was up with that.

A

We can hear you.

K

um Quickly to what you went through a bag, yes, consolidation with mtc is useful, but we have found out that plant barrier 2050 has got some serious issues.

K

Supervisor haggarty is trying to address this by somehow getting the assaycock and the san joaquin cog involved, and you know what the issues he's got to be: san joaquin identical with the issues we've got in the south, so what I'm trying to get them to do is to basically align their planning area with what is known as the san jose auckland and san francisco communist statistical area, which is a federal, a designation with 14 counties, and hopefully that's going to get some subtraction we're going to be able to move forward with that uh on caltrain.

K

I think the most important thing is that for this measure to be on the ballot is we change the balance to make sure that we will transition out of same trains in the not not more than two years? Let's put it that way, and hopefully a lot sooner than that.

K

The reason why the fair box, basically tanked, is because they kill the baby bullets, which were the only trains that were turning in a profit, so guess what they're, not five percent ridership when they could probably be higher than ten percent, maybe even heading for 20 percent, if they ran baby bullets but you're, saying principally centuries um I'll, be back later um to talk a little bit about what happened last week at various committees, at the cpc and and diriden, and one of the suggestions are going to make is that we combine the three projects: that's the derivative bar station derivative itself and downtown west into a single eir.

K

A

Thank you. The phone number ending in five one four.

P

Zero hello hi. Can you hear me? Can you hear me hey? uh Yes, just first of all thank tony kaber for uh getting right on it with the problems you're having with zoom zoom is terrible. You should flush it right now, uh but tony got back to me quicker than san jose pd or san jose. Fire department shows up to a call by the way.

P

They also need a little bit of work too, but uh this is coming from a city that likes to find and tax you and they can't even get presumed the zoom right. You guys need to work on that now going to transportation. This city needs to get off the light rail uh off the light rail. It doesn't work it it's a a waste of money, every city likes it because you get a lot of money towards the transportation. It doesn't work. I've been to the original one in switzerland and it's it's a pile of crap.

P

You need to either get you need to get rid of light rail and run buses frequently, and that would solve the transportation problem. Secondly, get rid of those rubber blue baby, bumper bike bumpers that are all around the downtown. It's an eyesore. It's gotten rid of a lot of parking, it's complicated, not just for a bicyclist but for a driver, and that was santa ricardo's idea. He doesn't need to be present today. Maybe he's scrubbing off some spray paint off the front of his parents house. I don't know, but this this city.

P

If you want to do it right, you got to get buses and you got to make proper bike lanes without those ridiculous plastic. It's the most disgusting, looking thing in the whole world. If you watch people driving around downtown, they can't even park their car.

P

It's the stupidest thing in the world and if you want transit to be right, don't have google involved with it either I mean the google transportations that come on it'll, it's going to be a nightmare, and how are you going to have public transportation in in in with the with kovid how's that going to work?

P

I'd like to know I'd like to have some answers from city hall, once again, I'd like to thank tony taver. She and a couple other people got back to me rather quickly, but she solved the problem thanks a lot.

A

Thank you, blair.

D

Beekman hi um for this issue, this item- uh you know my words in my previous comment. I think I ended a bit strong and I'm sorry about that. um You know it the bicycle: uh the the transportation uh project. It's got tons of stuff, including the av stuff, and you know I I, the previous project, the bicycle project. To me: that's got ideas that are both.

D

uh You know, they're, like they're, practical and, and you, and it was explained you know, you're in on things, you're working on things and accomplishing goals and tasks and taking it step by step. That's the kind of innovation, that's innovation! You know, that's the future of san jose innovation. I feel you know where you work on your tasks, complete plans and all of a sudden. We have a really good project and really good process and that's what the bicycle things are, and I just think it's really practical, it's more practical than the av stuff.

D

I I'm accepting of the abs stuff. I wish you waited until the beginning of next year to start on the av stuff. But if you have, you know a good perspective at this time and just simply treat it as a kind of a thought process more as an instead of an action process. I think that's an important component and thank you very much again that uh council, person, uh perales and and uh carrasco will be on the project.

D

How the av can move to the east side is just an incredible concept and has to be considered for the future of the project um with 30 seconds left uh interesting mention about abag and and ftc, I think stuff, and uh how that related to housing. I know that uh the mtc was very much involved with housing issues uh in the past year.

D

They needed serious reports about the future of mixed income, housing ideas that san jose and the city of santa clara have been doing great things with, and I hope we can learn how to bring up those ideas again in this uh in this time of code. Thank you.

A

Thank you and we'll go back to my colleagues for questions or comments.

B

Hi, this is tony brian prescott raised his hand. Oh I'm sorry. I missed it.

A

Thank you go ahead.

J

Brian all right hi, so thanks again again for the record, my name is brian prescott, I'd again like to thank the dna committee and staff for for putting all this together. uh I'm not going to filibuster you here, but I just wanted to say that the en movimiento plan, I'm really in support of it full disclosure. I don't live in the neighborhood, that's addressed by that plan, uh but considering the goals of equity that are espoused in the san jose uh general plan for 2040.

J

um I I just find it very encouraging that we're acknowledging that access to transit is a major factor in economic mobility, and so when we can put that in neighborhoods that have previously been ignored by infrastructure plans.

J

That's a really big deal and I think that's a really good move, so I'm very proud of the city for um moving towards that, um and also one thing I would like to say is that, um as we are developing uh things like emma miento and the transit urban villages, one concern I have is that the vta and other of the transit orgs around here are facing funding shortfalls uh because of ridership declines.

J

That we've seen- and I hope that outside of this committee, where any of y'all are serving on the boards of those organizations that we would continue to see, funding there, because that's going to um obviously have a lot to do with what what these developments can actually do to help our citizens uh make use of the resources and take their lives into their own hands. uh So thank you very much.

B

A

You clerk are there any more um commenters? I don't see any. No. Okay just want to make sure, since I missed it last time um all right back to my colleagues councilmember.

M

Arenas that that was still from the last last time getting a chair.

A

You're tricking me sorry.

C

So ramses uh thanks for that presentation, um I, like the the rendering- and it was good to see- I'm curious. I remember um from well very long ago, actually um that there were. uh You know, complaints, issues, concerns uh regarding a left turn and regarding the signaling uh down tasman, because because the flow of traffic and some employers nearby were concerned about their employees getting to child care facilities and whatnot um and we've resolved all that.

O

Yeah, thank you. uh Councilman. uh We were able to um uh resolve um and find a good balance between cisco's concerns around access from their primary facilities over to their uh their support facility there on first street, and we did decide.

L

O

To affect the left turn as at some point had been proposed.

C

So I understand this is a vta site and you're with the city, so so feel free to say you can't answer this, but uh I I know that that vta had a kind of a larger uh regional plan right to do these, I forget what they were called: they weren't just protected by planes.

C

It was like a bike freeway or something like that, um but but the the weakness or the challenge for vta was getting approval from every section, as you saw in the map, as we went through each jurisdiction, milpitas and san jose and santa clara, and then in our area along tasman, we had the concern about the left turn right. So could you kind of just give us a?

C

I don't know like a health check on the status of that vision in terms of if I'm a biker and I'm really into the bike super highway or whatever that was um have we regionally not just san jose, but is that plan still intact, more or less, or has it been cut by a million paper cuts.

O

I'll, I can say two things about that and then I'm going to pass it on to john sagani from vta who's also here on the panel. uh So one the corridor is, is working right in san jose.

L

O

To kind of uh with some really great work from our design division get better.

C

O

And than we originally expected, not even though we weren't able to get that two-way cycle track on the south side, like we tried for a while to do, milpitas in particular, is really working hard on a new bike plan as well.

N

O

Incorporating the kind of the recommendations here um then.

L

There's also the bta.

O

Super uh bike super highway study, which is ongoing. um It's early stages right now, just trying to figure out exactly what corridors are going to be used.

L

O

Kind of how to figure out um how to make that all work, but I'll pass it off to john tsukami. Here.

E

Yeah, what rhymes is saying is correct. um That study has just started at the regional level. Npcs actually looked at kind of a regional bicycle network. I believe at one time they're looking at completing the bay trail, but then now it's kind of morphed into other counties.

E

Apart from our county, to look at a network of bicycle facilities that has you know, uh least amount of traffic interaction, uh anything that helps it basically, whether it be great separations or any other facili type of facility that would improve bicycle speeds uh is, is kind of at the forefront there, so they are looking at those particular locations, and I want to say also for tasman. This is not the only study we're doing with the city of san jose.

E

We've also done the story, keys, complete street study and we've just recently finished our uh bascom complete street study that is uh kind of on in the same path. Where we're looking at improving. uh You know facilities not only for bicyclists, but also the pedestrians and making sure uh equitable transit access. Is there as well. So uh this is all kind of a big uh effort, not only by vta but all the cities within our county and special. Thank you to ramses for working on the tasman with us and other staff.

E

That's helped us with the basketball story. Keys, really helped us kind of push the vision for not only better bicycle travel but also implementing uh uh you know, pieces of your general plan. That's part of your urban villages.

C

Okay, well, thank you to both of you that that was all uh chair.

O

Sure could I ask for one moment of time I was remiss to do something during my presentation, which.

I

O

B

Thank peter rice.

O

For his work on he's the project manager and- and he really deserves to be noticed for his his incredible work there um and getting that plan over and working with the community so well and yeah just wanted to make sure. I said that before we got out of here.

A

Thank you. um I did want to ask about you. You had shown on on the tasman corridor project that light rail slows down, especially, I think you had mentioned first in tasman um at at certain intersections. Do they does vta light rail, have signal priority there, or is that something that's in the plan?

A

If you said it, I missed it. Ramses.

O

Yeah I'm trying I'm trying to get the picture back up john. Do you want to take a crack at that? First.

E

Yeah yeah at that location we do have single priority. um However, remember we also implemented the orange line. That's a direct line, basically from east san, jose all the way towards mountain view.

E

um There may be there were some timing challenges with that, but I think we've worked with the city of san jose to try to address them and we're continuing to look at what we can do to improve first and tasman at the intersection with the city uh in the future as well.

O

I'll add to that there is right now a funding agreement almost completed that we'll be getting bta more money to work with.

I

O

On improving signal timing that includes both hardware purchases, because there's some degraded hardware in terms of sensors, that the light rails need to be seen by the signals, as well as signal, timing studies and some other things that we're jointly working on throughout the whole north san jose area.

A

That's great, so one part of the um the complete streets study and the plan is, is really to improve that light. Rail kind of throughput, so it can go faster. Is that correct.

E

Yeah and the the plan that we've just completed is about 10 design, so this is what we're really trying to do with. The study here is to kind of set a vision for the corridor and there's still more work to be done. There's still more, you know environmental work that needs to be done and design work, that in engineering work. That needs to be done to kind of make sure we can implement all these improvements and we are working with the city. I know on the bascom corridor.

E

The city did get some funding to move forward with some of the design work. So for the for the other corridors, we are looking for not only funds through our measure b program, but also through other regional or state funding that we can help the city uh implement some of these projects.

A

And ultimately is the is the goal to have the to have light rail be faster than driving along the corridor where they, where they parallel each other.

E

Yeah but we'll take some more engineering work to look at signal timing and how that works, to fully implement everything.

A

Okay, okay, thank you. um I did have one other question and it wasn't on, and so if this is like totally out of left field staff, you can just tell me we can take it offline. um It wasn't part of the presentation today but part of the the memo the staff memo was about the access and mobility plan, and I may have asked this before, but we haven't had a meeting for so long that I don't remember um in terms of the access and mobility plan.

A

Are we taking taking special account of um ada accessibility in that? Not just so. Equity can be along many lines and I'm I'm it's it's been. um It's just people have been talking to me about ada accessibility in particular recently, and so I wanted to make sure that that's a feature of that plan, and not just an afterthought of that plan. Yeah.

O

Thank you. That's a really really important concern, especially when thinking across the entire city um and part of our community-based organizations is. We have got the assisted living center. The silicon valley assisted living center on our on our uh our equity.

H

O

um And so they're they're, exactly like you said, equity, has many many different uh ways to be thought of, and that's one of them and we've specifically chosen a group to represent that perspective.

A

Great, thank you I just um because this is the first meeting we've had in a while, and I I've um I know some people have had trouble getting around and as we have more people on on the streets we've, I it's just become more clear for people with walkers people in um in wheelchairs and even people who um who can walk, but maybe don't have the um the speed or or the um the balance, as as we would kind of.

A

You know it on the in the typical range that that there are a lot of obstacles just on our, even just on our sidewalks, that you wouldn't necessarily think about, um because as we're walking as I, I tend to walk pretty fast and kind of weave weave in between people, if they're, if there's a crowd um but now with needing to keep distance, it's it's becoming clear that we have poles that um that may have signage on it.

A

We have garbage cans, trash cans that that may be offset and getting around them to the um the accessible curb on the sides can be an issue, and I just wanted to to bring that up and to ensure that that's something.

A

That's being looked at on the in the access and mobility plan, I know rem says you when, when you were talking about the um the kind of innovative ideas for the airport, connector and stevens creek boulevard, you did mention that that there were some drawbacks to some of the the um responses to the to the rfi that we put out that there weren't they weren't all accessible. So I know you're thinking about it, but I just wanted to to bring that up, because it's not something that we that normally comes to this level.

A

We don't talk about it that often.

O

Yeah, thank you very much for bringing that up and we're. It is.

A

O

A

Great, I'm very glad to hear that I think we need a motion to accept the report. Does this? No, this doesn't go on to full council.

M

A

Approve second, thank you. We have a motion in a second. Can we get a roll call yep.

B

Hi arenas I esparza yes, davis, aye. Thank you.

A

All right, thank you, and our last item of the day is open forum.

O

uh Chair can I have one thing uh just to make sure everybody's aware: movemento will be going to council uh later this year and we're still just making sure just want to make sure you guys are aware of that. It just didn't come now for a recommendation. Great.

A

B

Okay for open forum, we have blair, beekman and roland with their hands up. Currently, if you want to speak, please raise your hand.

A

Great, thank you go ahead and um I see there are there's one more too go ahead. Blair.

D

Hi, thank you uh for public open forum today, uh I there, um the housing uh initiatives up in uh sacramento 1436 is not going through. At this time, there's been a switch to uh three zero. Eight eight, I think, is what its build title is it's somewhat similar to 1436.

D

uh It's been authored by a few different people. Ash kahwer may actually be around it still. uh Also, um um I'm wondering you know I I I really want to convey the idea this time how we have to consider the overall purp things that have happened with kovid and our place as a local community.

D

Out of that and how I really feel we are deserved, as tenants of full rent forgiveness practices, and so are, owners and owners are getting great uh deal out of this, and it's now that that same deal has to be applied to tenants as well, and it's with that same thinking that I hope that you will be considering uh transportation, fair ideas and the ideas of no fair ridership that has to be considered at the state level for the funding to make it so so local transit agencies can get no fair ridership plans in place a bit, possibly it's a concept that the vtas will have to consider in the following months.

D

I know they have many options and I, I hope, they're no, fair ridership I just wanted to mention it here is how we need to think of things at this time with 45 seconds. I also wanted to remind um with all the work with the vta at this time. You know I wanted to stress the importance of being a separate agency.

D

uh Then bta, the city of san jose, is they're, doing some very good work and we're relying on them considerably. With things and thank you to them for that and with the high-speed rail project and possibly with the downtown duradon station project, you know those are concepts that I hope the city government can learn how to talk more openly with the public about. I will try my best to uh to offer honest matter of fact uh facts about the process. I hope you can do the same. Thank you.

A

Thank you, roland.

K

Can you hear me now.

A

K

Okay, great so um I'm just gonna go through what happened last week and the kind of mess we into so we had multiple meetings with the vta.

K

We are the capital programs committee, and then we had the derivative meeting on friday afternoon and it's been all over the press with a single ball tunnel and bus station entrances in the north. When everybody knows everybody will be accessing bar from the south, and it is particularly a problem at the rhythm I mean these stack platforms.

K

Are therein are never going to work here at the end of discussion, so the question is what to do about it and um well, then, let me talk about the rhythm itself and the mess that we saw over there. The first thing we discovered is that now somehow seymour is involved in the rhythm and see maf. Is you know it's a long pole in the tent? Well, do you know what, over two years ago, I decided to design the station just to make sure there would be no nexus. Receivement would be completely separate.

K

We spent the entire weekend going through all the calculations. I can assure you. Cmov has got nothing to do with what's going on uh with derivative and the question, and now we have got this bart station and the vta. Somehow it's got two separate projects, and here the idea and then we got google want to do downtown west and guess what ram cessna wants to do his april connector.

K

So to close a long story, short he's my recommendation to the council moving forward. Google have been a really really good citizen. They approached us they reached out to ssc. Could you please, you know, help us out design our downtown west village, and I think we should return a favor. I invite them to help us design all our transportation infrastructure, the airport, connector dear rhythm and the bus station and at the end of the day, we'll have a much better result and guess what they're ready up they're ready for environmental heroes. Thank you.

B

A

You um the person with the phone number ending in 5140.

P

Hi yeah I've called before, and I just can't I have to reiterate that light rail should be phased out. It doesn't work you need to you need to have frequent buses. You need to get rid of these bike lanes. I can't say it enough: it's awful and I I don't think that investing in all this mass transit right now is a good idea who can use it. Nobody can use it without wearing a freaking body suit.

P

I think that that the the city is being misguided by all this sexy money that you get for the light rail it doesn't work. I told you, I've been to the one in switzerland, it's just as crappy, if not crappier than the one.

P

We have here same rusty wheels that squeak complicated ticket machines expensive because, as I can tell you again, it's expensive who's going to use mass transit when, when these these month-long passes cost hundreds and hundreds of dollars you could you could lease an electric car for god's sake, I'm telling you there's transit, you got it. It's not working certain that that light rail's been there for how many years does anyone? Does anyone in that meeting use it I'd like to know when's the last time I used it.

P

I don't know in the late 1980s I'd like to know. I want you guys to answer me. The question who there uses light rail on a daily basis. I'd like an answer. Thank you.

A

Thank you. Next person is scott mace.

E

uh Yeah I live in downtown san jose and I wanted to bring to this committee's attention what I see as a disturbing increase in the number of high-speed drifting and uh doughnut making. That seems to be occurring in intersections all over the city and for evidence of that look for these circular skid marks at large intersections. They are multiplying greatly.

E

I don't know whether people are going crazy from the pandemic or whatever it's probably only a matter of time before somebody gets hurt or killed, uh probably something to refer to the police department, but if people aren't aware just be aware that in certain parts of the city, this is a growing problem and it's not only unsafe, it's certainly noisy as heck too. I happen to live near where some of that is taking place. Thank you.

A

Thank you. That concludes our public comment and our meeting is.

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