[15:17] Speaker 1: Good evening. We'll call the November 9th, 2026 regular City Council meeting to order. If the clerk can call the roll.
[15:24] Speaker 2: Vice Mayor Stone?
[15:25] Speaker 1: Here.
[15:25] Speaker 2: Councilmember Burt?
[15:27] Speaker 3: Here.
[15:28] Speaker 2: Councilmember Lythcott-Haims?
[15:29] Speaker 1: Here.
[15:30] Speaker 2: Councilmember Liu? Councilmember Rekdal?
[15:33] Speaker 1: Here.
[15:34] Speaker 2: Councilmember Lowing?
[15:35] Speaker 3: Here.
[15:35] Speaker 4: Mayor Vincker?
[15:38] Speaker 2: For the record, 5 present.
[15:40] Speaker 1: Wonderful, thank you. And you may have noticed that Mayor Vincker is, is not here, so I'll be, uh, I'll be taking over the meeting tonight. Mayor Vincker is out of the country and will be unable to attend tonight's meeting because she is in Turkey attending the 31st UN Climate Change Conference. She asked me to just share this quote from the conference press release. It says, today America is all in. The US Climate Alliance and Climate Mayors announced a US delegation of more than 120 state, local, and cross-sector leaders who will participate in the 31st UN Climate Change Conference. in Turkey from November 9th to November 20th. The delegation, which includes U.S. governors, mayors, and other top city and state officials, will be led by America Is All In Chair Gina McCarthy, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico, Mayor Vicki Vinker of Palo Alto, California, and Mayor Janet Cowell of Raleigh, North Carolina. So that is where Mayor Vinker is tonight. And We will then continue on. So we have item 1, special order of the day, a proclamation recognizing National Police Records and Support Personnel Week. I've asked Council Member Reckel to read the proclamation. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Yeah, this is for Law Enforcement Records and Support Personnel Week, November 8th through 14th, 2026. Whereas law enforcement agencies throughout the state depend on law enforcement records and support personnel to provide them with vital services; and whereas law enforcement records and support personnel are crucial to helping law enforcement agencies identify, pursue, capture, and process suspected lawbreakers; and whereas these professionals continually use their expertise and experience to assist in tracking felons, maintaining criminal statistics and improving apprehension strategies. And whereas, the California Law Enforcement Association of Records Supervisors held its annual training and technology conference on November 2nd through 6th, 2026. And whereas, it is important to recognize the city's— City of Palo Alto's law enforcement records and support personnel for their valuable contributions to our law enforcement system. Now, therefore, Vicki Vanker, Mayor of the City of Palo Alto, on behalf of the entire City Council, does hereby proclaim November 8th through 14th, 2026, as Law Enforcement Records and Support Personnel Week.
[18:25] Speaker 5: Thank you.
[18:25] Speaker 1: Thank you. And do I know we have some of our, our records specialists and support personnel week uh, sorry, support personnel here in chamber, which is wonderful. Do we have any from— and from anyone from the city speaking on this item? Yes, wonderful. Welcome.
[18:45] Speaker 2: Good evening, Nicole Frazier, Technical Services Deputy Director for the Palo Alto Police Department. Uh, thank you, Council Member Richtel, members of the council, Vice Mayor Gerstle. Police records professionals play a vital role in public safety by ensuring that accurate, timely, and secure information is available to officers and investigators, prosecutors, and the community. Their work supports everything from emergency response and criminal investigations to transparency, accountability, and the protection of individual privacy. We are proud to recognize the dedication, professionalism, and essential service of our Police Records team. Thank you.
[19:25] Speaker 1: Thank you so much. And if you and your team would like to come up for a photo with the, with the council, we'd be happy to have you.
[19:35] Speaker 6: Thank you.
[19:42] Speaker 7: Thank you.
[20:14] Speaker 1: All right, let's move on to agenda changes, additions, and deletions. City Manager? Uh, no changes other than to note, uh, for perhaps just public awareness, we will end your evening this, uh, tonight with a closed session. Thank you. All right, move to in-person public comment for anything that is not on the agenda. Madam Clerk?
[20:37] Speaker 2: We have one request to speak.
[20:44] Speaker 4: Ken H.
[20:45] Speaker 1: Thank you.
[20:51] Speaker 3: One, I want to thank the city for a wonderful Veterans Day event that was just held at MacArthur Park.
[20:59] Speaker 1: The speakers were wonderful and the food was even better. Number 2, I want to say how, as a Palo Altan, I was pretty upset last week with the language that was used by another citizen of our city. And just so upset by the whole thing. And I apologize. I can't speak for that individual, but I apologize for the rest of the city over that kind of language. And number 3, I wanted to play a little video clip. It's about a minute, and I'm not going to talk about Measure J, but I'm— I just want you to listen to it, and then I'll leave after that. Thank you.
[21:44] Speaker 2: My policy headline is, Cubberley will be the hub of Southside.
[21:52] Speaker 5: And I chose that.
[21:54] Speaker 2: Obviously, there's so many issues. We want to headline in every single thing that happens. But for me, Cubberley is an example of a topic that is gnarly and intersected.
[22:05] Speaker 5: We can figure it out.
[22:06] Speaker 2: It's going to, for example, provide a wonderful place to gather and be for all the folks we've identified might go on the south side of Palo Alto in our housing element. Um, so it addresses housing, it addresses wellness, it addresses nonprofits, and the imperative that on, uh, in South Palo Alto that we have amenities and opportunities that are as gleaming and beautiful as we come to expect in other parts of Palo Alto. Thank you. Thank you for that.
[22:39] Speaker 4: Member Lowing.
[22:44] Speaker 2: And that concludes public comment for in-person comments on items not on the agenda.
[22:49] Speaker 1: Thank you so much. All right, then, council member questions, comments, and announcements. Councilmember Liff Cuttings.
[23:04] Speaker 2: Thank you, Vice Mayor. Just want to give an update. As everyone knows, the city placed Measure J on the ballot. The voters voted last Tuesday, and here we are 7 days later. And as of a few hours ago, or within the hour actually, we are at— yes vote is 51.08%. And in order for this to pass, the city needs to be just over 50%. There's still a lot of ballots still to be counted. Our county is big and has a lot of other things to do besides count our ballots, but we hope to have an answer before long. Thank you.
[23:48] Speaker 1: Thank you. And hey, there are some wider margins in some Senate races right now. Any others? Seeing none, I'll just say that, uh, Myself and Council Members Rechtel and Burt just came from a wonderful Veterans Day celebration that was hosted at MacArthur Park. I appreciate Dr. Horowitz, your comments. I agree food was better than my comments, although the colonel might have just beat the steak that was on the menu. But it was a wonderful, wonderful event and a great time to be able to celebrate the veterans who have given so much to this city and our nation. So I appreciate everybody who attended. And as a reminder to everybody, on Wednesday, on Veterans Day, Veterans Day to do what you can to be able to honor our nation's veterans who have sacrificed everything for, for us and our freedoms. And with that, we'll move on to our, our first of 2 study sessions. So the first one is 720 San Antonio Road. Turn it over to staff. All right, thank you, Vice Mayor.
[25:19] Speaker 2: 2 words.
[25:20] Speaker 1: Good evening, City Council. Jonathan Late, Director for Planning and Development Services. here with Kristen— I'm sorry, Claire Raybold. I don't know where Kristen came from. But we're here to give a presentation on the study session item once that gets loaded.
[25:58] Speaker 2: Good evening, council members. Claire Raybold, manager of current planning. Project before you today is a study session prescreening for 720 San Antonio Road. Next slide. Council prescreening process requires a study session in front of the council for any legislative changes. So that's why we're here tonight. This is intended to solicit early feedback on the proposed project. It cannot result in any formal action. So City Council should refrain from forming firm opinions supporting or opposing the project. Next slide. So the conceptual project is a proposal to rezone from service commercial to planned home zoning to allow for construction of 200 rental units in an 8-story structure. With 2 levels of parking, and there's a 3rd story courtyard open space on 2 sides of the building. Next slide. The project is located at 716 to 720 San Antonio Road. The current uses is a Crossroads Specialty Foods and other small commercial uses. This is within the San Antonio Road area plan area. Some of the nearby uses include AC Hotel and Hotel Citrine to the north. That's a 5-story building. Coverley Community Center across San Antonio Road. Some recently approved projects, including 762 San Antonio Road that was approved just north of the plan area. And Projects under review include 690 San Antonio Road, 788 San Antonio Road, and 808 San Antonio. Next slide. This is just a brief comparison for zoning purposes. So the height— I won't go through all of these, but just for context, if we want to come back to this, the height is 89.5 feet, which is slightly more than some of the other housings that have been housing projects that have been proposed along San Antonio. And they're asking for some exceptions to floor area, parking, and open space typical of other planned home zoning projects. Next slide. So some of the key design considerations. This is within the San Antonio Road Area Plan. It is consistent with the special setback requirements along San Antonio Road of 24 feet. As I mentioned, this is slightly taller than some of the other projects that are being proposed in the immediate vicinity. For utilities and refuse disposal, they will need to accommodate onsite transformers outside of the front setback. And they will need to accommodate onsite refuse staging and pickup, including a K-turn within the garage, which staff does expect will change the design to some degree. Next slide. So just some of the public benefits of the project. They're proposing 50%— 15% onsite VMR units. So a 30— total of 30 units. And they are providing it at lower income levels. So 8 very low income and 12 moderate income. To meet the 20% weighted minimum based on the income level restrictions. Next slide. Some of the other public benefits that are not proposed right now, but that staff is considering for this project, would be an opportunity to connect to Wyandotte Street in Mountain View. Office of Transportation was interested in having some sort of bike or and/or ped connection through the site from San Antonio Road to Wyandotte Street. And then the easement that's been requested for several other planned home zonings along San Antonio. We're interested in requesting a 24-foot required setback easement within that setback area for future transportation improvements consistent with the San Antonio Road Area Plan.
[30:36] Speaker 1: Next slide.
[30:36] Speaker 2: So this isn't a formal project under the California Environmental Quality Act because no action is proposed. Full review in accordance with CEQA would be initiated with the formal filing of a development application. Next slide. And staff recommends that council conduct a prescreening, provide informal comments regarding the applicant's request to rezone the properties at 720 San Antonio Road from service commercial to planned home zoning. And comments provided during a prescreening process are not binding on the city or the applicant. And with that, I'll turn it back to the mayor and recommend that you hear from the applicant.
[31:20] Speaker 1: Alright, thank you. Yeah, we'll invite the applicant forward. We have 10 minutes. All right, welcome. How you doing?
[31:41] Speaker 3: Thank you, Claire. Great.
[31:47] Speaker 1: Thank you, Claire. Good evening, Mayor or Vice Mayor, Council members.
[31:54] Speaker 3: My name is Brian Schmidt.
[31:55] Speaker 1: I'm a Vice President with High Street. Residential. Thank you for your time this evening. As Claire mentioned, we're here to introduce 720 San Antonio Road and to get your early feedback on the project and the planned home zone process. And we prepared a presentation which I'll take you through.
[32:16] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[32:17] Speaker 1: So to start with the project team, High Street Residential is the developer and applicant. That's who I represent. Our architect is BDE, and John Cozy, who's a principal, will be speaking at the second half of this presentation. And our civil engineer is Kieran Wright. Also with us this evening is Brian Bianca, who is the head of our Bay Area residential for High Street Residential, and Bryce Costley, also with BDE.
[32:47] Speaker 3: Next slide, please.
[32:47] Speaker 1: Before we get to the project, just wanted to give a little bit more background of who we are and what we do. High Street Residential is the development arm of Trammell Crow Company, and we're a very active Bay Area multifamily developer. And across the company, we are currently— we have more than 11,600 units in process and more than 3,000 in our pipeline. And then in the Bay Area specifically, we're currently developing 3 buildings. 1 in One Meadow Glen, which is in Millbrae. It's a 278 podium-style multifamily project, and we're developing 2 buildings in Redwood City at Elko Yards, totaling 501 units. And both of these projects are mid-rise podium-style developments, which is the same product type that we would build here at 720 San Antonio. So with nearly 800 homes currently under development in the Bay, we are one of the most active multifamily developers here in the Bay Area.
[34:00] Speaker 5: Next slide, please.
[34:02] Speaker 1: So we've covered some, some of this with Claire, but just to touch on it, the location, 720 San Antonio Road, we're across the street from the Summer Winds Nursery and directly south of the AC Hotel. Next slide, please. So these photos show the site conditions of the site currently today. The 1.36 acres, as Claire mentioned, home to the Crossroads Specialty Foods and 2 single-story office kind of R&D warehouse-type buildings and a surface paved parking lot in between. In short, it's a well-occupied but ultimately underutilized site, and one that doesn't reflect the vision of the San Antonio Road Area Plan.
[34:50] Speaker 3: And the next slides will show how our project aligns with the vision of the San Antonio Road Area Plan.
[35:02] Speaker 1: So a couple high-level project statistics echoing a lot of what Claire said. We're proposing an 8-story podium with 200 homes and about 169,000 rentable square feet. 30 of those homes would be designated as affordable units, or 15% of the project. Of the 15%, 9% would be very low, and 6% would be moderate, which blends to over 20% affordability percentage. And the project will also include 214 parking stalls.
[35:35] Speaker 3: Parking was a key focus of ours as we designed this project. We want to make sure we had at least 1 stall per, per 1 housing unit.
[35:44] Speaker 1: And with this count, we're a little bit over that. We're at 1.1. I will now turn our presentation over to John Kozi with BDE, who will walk through the design in a little more detail.
[35:56] Speaker 2: Thank you.
[35:56] Speaker 1: Thank you, Brian. Next slide, please. Hi, my name is John Kozi. I'm with BDE Architects. Thank you for having us tonight. We're really excited about this project. It's a really, you know, when we, when we really took it on, we looked at, we looked at the San Antonio area or San Antonio Road area plan and really, while it's still in progress, you know, we took the overall design strategies and really embraced them in our design and we really agree with them a lot. And, you know, those 4 overall strategies really have to do with taking the underutilized land. And turning it into the much-needed residential in the area.
[36:39] Speaker 3: The second, creating these community nodes that, you know, really promote walkability and convenience within the area. And then the third big one is really to de-emphasize the vehicle and encourage biking and walking, which is—
[36:55] Speaker 1: which we really agree with. And then lastly is really providing that access to Caltrain and, you know, establish that convenience for For transit and help take cars off the road. Next slide, please. As Claire had mentioned, that there are currently within a block, there are currently 4 projects that are all much, much, you know, they're same typology that we're proposing today, and it's really exciting to see.
[37:25] Speaker 3: And we're using those kind of—
[37:27] Speaker 1: they're a little bit ahead of us. So We're looking at them and taking P's and Q's as it comes to the design so that we create this whole holistic kind of feeling along that as San Antonio Road starts to grow. Next slide, please. This is a ground floor plan of the first floor. You can see along San Antonio, we have that 20, you know, nice 24-foot step back along the frontage. Because this is really an urban infill site, we don't have— we really have exposed garage on 3 sides, but on the main frontage, we put as much active use as we can. We have our kind of lounge, or, or not a lounge, but our, our leasing office, our main leasing office with a main lobby, really inviting. But we also have a cowork space at the ground floor. The cowork space is for the residents to be able to, to, to do the work from home in the, in this whole new era.
[38:21] Speaker 3: They could have meetings there.
[38:23] Speaker 1: They can, there'll be different offices in there. They'll have all the stuff that they need to, to really run their business when they are working from home. So we'd have that there. We also have along there for— it's actually at the second level, but we have our bike room, which would be a place to securely storage, to store all the bikes, and they'd have all the facilities to fix your bike, fill them up with air, fill your water bottles, things like that. It's placed at the second level for safety. People, a lot of people have these really expensive bikes and they don't want them at the ground floor where, you know, where they can potentially get stolen or messed with. So, so we intentionally put them there from a security standpoint. So we move up the building to, to the, which is going to be now the 3rd level. So the first 2 levels is really a lot of double-height space, and then 2 levels of parking. That's all above grade. Again, it's all— none of the garage is— none of the parking is exposed from the 2nd level. Can you go to the next slide, please? At the 3rd level, again, you can see we start to step the building back from, from San Antonio. So the building steps back about another 6 feet. At a portion of it again to create, promote that kind of base middle top along the, along the hotel. We have a setback of about 20 feet from face to face to building at the closest point. But then we also carved in a courtyard, which gives you about 50 feet of relief from the other buildings. Those would all be side-on units. So a lot of the hotel units are side-on, so they're not facing our building for those ones. And for the ones that do face, there's that courtyard to give that relief. The courtyard will be landscaped and, and create a nice little buffer between the 2 uses. At the bottom courtyard, we opened up this, this greater courtyard that is a much more active courtyard. Off that courtyard, we're gonna have our main residence lounge as well as a fitness and gym inside of there with a pool that, and again, that would be opened up kind of the southwest.
[40:19] Speaker 3: And it And it's, it's open to the, it's open to the outside.
[40:24] Speaker 1: They get, you know, long views.
[40:26] Speaker 3: And, and also it helps when we get into the massing of the building, it helps break down the massing so we don't have these long continuous frontages of buildings.
[40:35] Speaker 1: So we intentionally break down the building so that it's much more relative to the scale that we see in the area. If we go to the next slide. This one, I, this one is just a, you can see that the buildings do stack as they go up, but there will be at the 8th floor, it's not not shown in this slide, but there is going to be a lounge at the top. It's a sky lounge that's going to be at the 8th floor, which will also have a small outdoor space for the residents to relax, go up there and take advantage of the views. We go to the next slide. In this slide, you can see that this is the massing of our building. You can see on the left side, that's one of the new projects that's in design review right now. So from a scale standpoint, you can start to see the— we're starting to suggest the, the ins and outs that they're doing there. You can see that there's a, a, a strong, like, kind of top middle base to it. And then you can see that there's a, an old commercial building in between, and then you have the, the hotel. So you can see from a scale standpoint, there's some breakdown. We started looking at the breakdown when we, when we're looking at ours into how do we break our building, scale it so that it doesn't feel so massive. And you can see, you can see from this view, there's the courtyard that we, that we created that opens up to the, to the hotel. And you can see a strong base, middle, and top to that. And then at the corner, which would be the furthest, I guess, kind of east, we're looking to the right. We created a strong kind of iconic marker, which this is really the heart of the whole San Antonio Road area plan. So that's kind of the gateway. feature that we're looking at. And then again, you can see that we, on the east-facing side, we have that big court that opens up to that. Again, a lot of this is done to help break up the massing. When you're looking at this, you can see that it starts to, if it was a solid building, it would feel much too massive. So we're starting to break it down to be much more sensitive to the area. We go to the next slide. Unfortunately, you are past time.
[42:38] Speaker 2: Okay.
[42:38] Speaker 1: But Well, if we have questions, you're, you're here, and council members can, can follow up. Okay, in our discussion. Great, thank you. Okay, let's go to public comment on this item, and then we'll bring back to council for questions and comments.
[42:52] Speaker 2: No hands are raised, and there are no requests to speak.
[42:56] Speaker 1: All right, then bringing it back to the dais.
[43:09] Speaker 3: Councilmember. All right, thank you. A couple of questions. Claire, I think you said something on the ground floor retail, but can you clarify what would be happening here on that?
[43:20] Speaker 2: This is exclusively residential, so no retail is proposed.
[43:26] Speaker 3: And within our intended San Antonio Road Area Plan, or SARAP, we would be developing retail guidelines, and as I recall, specific node areas. I don't know if we had tentatively identified that. This is one area that has been retail for a long while. It— even though it's a specialty market, it's the only groceries in short walking distance for these communities, and we'll definitely, uh, you know, that building will be replaced. But, um, I'm, I'm concerned that we are developing or approving projects because they're coming forward before the SARA plan and, uh, undermining whatever, uh, requirements we might put in place on, uh, ground floor retail. So, and then do we know the distance of this to the San Antonio Caltrain station and whether it would potentially be under any of the laws that might apply there?
[44:42] Speaker 1: Well, just while Claire's looking up the distance, if you have that, just the laws, and perhaps you're thinking of Maybe 2097 with parking or other—
[44:53] Speaker 3: Well, both that and SB 79 at some future date. And one thing to just make sure everybody's aware of under SB 79, if we had adopted what were the recommendations, for instance, for the Greater Cal Ave and University areas, SB 79 does not allow us to require retail, and we would be Basically abolishing our ground floor retail districts in those areas. Now, this is less of a retail-oriented area, but still, as we're building this new neighborhood, we have a really important question of what are going to be the services that are pedestrian-oriented. Yeah, understood.
[45:41] Speaker 1: And I think Just drawing from memory when the hotels were being reviewed, I think this is more than a half mile from Caltrain station.
[45:52] Speaker 3: So, yeah, that's close.
[45:54] Speaker 2: So, 0.8 miles, it looks like.
[45:57] Speaker 3: Okay, thank you. And then on the open space, I saw on the slide it says open space, 130 square foot per unit. Is that the rooftop? That is the primary open space?
[46:12] Speaker 2: Yeah, there's the rooftop and 2 courtyards at the 3rd level.
[46:17] Speaker 3: Okay.
[46:18] Speaker 2: So those are the common open spaces, and if there's any balconies, those would be included as well.
[46:26] Speaker 3: Okay, so it's 20 square feet less than requirement. So just on kind of comments, I— we've all been supporting intensification on this corridor and doing so ahead of, beyond what we had set in place for our housing plan and ahead of our San Antonio Road Area Plan. And what we're seeing is that the density and the height, it's almost every project creeps up a little bit. And now we're 89 feet. One of the things that's been important to me is that kind of the new urbanist concepts of what's most important is what, what does it feel to human beings on the street? And that's why on the San Antonio housing priority area, We were able to put in upper floor step backs. And I am very interested in some form of that, whether it's the same as what we have on the San Antonio corridor or slightly different. Do you recall at what— was it 5 stories we had it or 6?
[47:46] Speaker 1: Yeah, on El Camino Real, roughly at about 50 feet, there was a 10-foot step back. Maybe it was like 55 or 60, but it was at that threshold.
[47:55] Speaker 3: Yeah. And just for colleagues, it has— having that step back is the difference between this feeling like it is a tunnel of, we say mid-rise, but for our concepts, you know, 8 stories is really historically a very tall building for our community. And you have an entire corridor that way. And with just the step back, it has a completely more human scale. And that's been one of the guiding principles. Peter Calthorpe, who was one of the founders of New Urbanism, who had proposed the densification of the El Camino corridor. In that case, he was actually proposing 4 to 5 stories up and down the corridor, and just 3, 4 years ago, that was thought to be a huge densification. So we're talking about almost double that in height. of what was being advocated by strong development and housing advocates at the time. So, um, want to put those things on the table.
[49:01] Speaker 1: Thanks.
[49:02] Speaker 3: Yes, thanks. Um, this is meant to, in this initial design, have all the exit and entrance on San Antonio. Do we think that's a good idea versus is there any other option that's Not going to slow down traffic on El Camino— sorry, on San Antonio, or have we looked at that yet?
[49:22] Speaker 2: There would be no other option for this because that's the only access to the site. It's not at a corner.
[49:29] Speaker 8: Okay.
[49:31] Speaker 1: I thought I saw a side street there.
[49:36] Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks for pointing out that the transformer and utilities has to be adjusted. I'd be surprised if you can come back that way. But that's going to have to be redesigned, as you say, in the packet.
[49:46] Speaker 5: The—
[49:51] Speaker 1: as Councilmember Burt said, you know, their setbacks are not matching with what we had originally designed and envisioned on the El Camino Real focus area.
[50:03] Speaker 3: And there's a whole litany on page 12 of other relaxations, shall we say, that we want in these—
[50:11] Speaker 1: that the developer wants. And when it gets down to like a 6-foot-9 setback instead of a minimum 10, I mean, really, we still have to even negotiate about that?
[50:20] Speaker 5: I mean, why don't we just put in the 10 feet that we, that we like there?
[50:24] Speaker 3: So there's just a lot of asks here.
[50:28] Speaker 1: I'll just, I'll just put it that way.
[50:31] Speaker 3: And then I get the math and I get the ratios and I understand the BMR housing very well, but the net-net is that there's about I think there's about a dozen fewer affordable housing units there.
[50:44] Speaker 1: So there's a dozen fewer folks that are going to have a below-market-rate home.
[50:50] Speaker 3: So I would always like to optimize as much as possible for the number of units, and we're not getting that here.
[50:57] Speaker 1: So that's something I'd love to have folks take a look at.
[51:01] Speaker 5: And that's it.
[51:08] Speaker 1: Thank you. Okay, thank you. In general, I'm supportive. It's a big building.
[51:14] Speaker 5: We're talking 90 feet.
[51:16] Speaker 1: That's like 1.5 times as large as the JCC. And so JCC feels very massive at times. And when this is built, it's going to also be massive.
[51:26] Speaker 5: You know, that said, we are short of housing, and so I appreciate this is a good place for density.
[51:31] Speaker 1: I do think ground floor retail really is essential in this area.
[51:34] Speaker 5: We don't want to have a retail desert here. So I think we really do need to find some way of putting in ground floor retail here. That's going to be an asset for the people who live there and also in the neighborhood.
[51:44] Speaker 1: We don't want— there's some parts of the city up by Legun where there's no retail at all.
[51:49] Speaker 5: If you want to go anywhere, you have to get in your car, and we don't want this area to do that. We really want to have this walkable, bikeable, and have retail nearby. The El Camino focus area has been mentioned.
[52:01] Speaker 1: It's a question for staff. How does this compare?
[52:03] Speaker 5: Is it consistent with the El Camino focus area guidelines?
[52:07] Speaker 2: It has not been fully compared to the El Camino Real focus or El Camino Real guidelines. We could evaluate that. Typically, we would look at it as any formal application. We would look at it against the typical objective design standards. standards and could provide additional input about how it relates to the El Camino Real focus area. But technically, the El Camino Real focus area doesn't apply here.
[52:41] Speaker 1: So— But that's kind of become our blueprint for high density. Yeah, and it's close. I mean, I think the focus area talks about 85 feet in height and a 4.0 FAR, and I think this comes under at about a 3.5 FAR, 90 feet. So it's in the ballpark, at least as to the form.
[52:58] Speaker 6: Yeah.
[52:59] Speaker 1: The 90 feet is the top of the parapet.
[53:02] Speaker 5: I think for Class 3, you only can have the average roof be 85.
[53:06] Speaker 1: So I assume that the average roof on this design is, is a Class 3 construction.
[53:11] Speaker 2: They mentioned that it was— they have a rooftop deck. So I assume that it's— they can maybe provide that to you.
[53:20] Speaker 1: The project is Type 3A, which would be— it would be 85 feet to the top of The, of the roof, not the parapet. The parapet's not included in that height. Understood. What do we do for El Camino focus area? Do we specify the rooftop or do we specify the top of the parapet?
[53:34] Speaker 2: We do actually specify the rooftop is where we measure specifically. All other heights measurements in the city are typically to the top of parapet.
[53:46] Speaker 5: Okay, so we're in the ballpark of the El Camino focus area, at least for height.
[53:53] Speaker 1: Let's see the 24 special, 24-foot special setback.
[53:56] Speaker 5: That's really important.
[53:57] Speaker 1: So I appreciate that you're following that. That is also going to help the neighborhood.
[54:01] Speaker 5: I like the potential for the bike ped connection to Mountain View.
[54:04] Speaker 1: That'll have more interoperability. Do we have any option of using that back cul-de-sac? Follow Councilmember Lowen's question. Or car access?
[54:16] Speaker 2: We can certainly look into it. I, I'm not sure how complicated that would be to use another city's kind of streets as a primary access to lots in Palo Alto.
[54:29] Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'm not sure if transportation thinks that's a good thing or a bad thing.
[54:33] Speaker 5: That would be at least a good question to ask.
[54:36] Speaker 1: Bike parking. We have 280 bedrooms in this, and we only have 120 8 bike spaces. And this is 3/4 of a mile from the Caltrain. That's a little too far to walk, but perfect to bike. So I think there's going to be bike demand today. And as e-bikes develop more and more, there's going to be even more. I think a decade from now, you're going to wish you had more bike parking. So I would revisit the bike parking and say, what is our real demand for bike parking? You know, I always say that when we lived in a A 2-bedroom apartment. My family of 4 had 4 bikes, and we took up 4 bike spaces in that bike room. And there are going to be families like that living in your neighborhood, in your development. So half per bedroom, we're even less than that, 4/10 of a bike spot, bike space per bedroom is, I don't think, enough.
[55:28] Speaker 5: And then the trash staging you mentioned, that means that the trucks will be going in and picking up there.
[55:36] Speaker 1: We will not be hauling out trash into the front. Is that correct?
[55:40] Speaker 2: Yeah. So staff just noted that if they were to pull out trash to San Antonio Road, because the trash bins would be set back so far, there would be pullout charges, which are often pretty difficult for housing projects to meet. And so it is anticipated that they need to revise their design to have a K-turn. on-site for that trash pickup. Additionally, we don't want the bins to be located in our right-of-way on San Antonio, especially as we're looking at potential bike lanes and whatnot.
[56:21] Speaker 5: Exactly.
[56:22] Speaker 2: Okay, thank you.
[56:24] Speaker 1: Overall, good project.
[56:25] Speaker 5: If we can make some improvements, I think we can build this. Councilmember Lu.
[56:29] Speaker 1: Thank you. I'll basically second Councilmember Rechtel. I think it's similar enough to existing projects. I think the floor area And the height are fine. I think the setbacks are fine and certainly appreciated in the front, because we do want to respect that. I think massing is something that we'll just get more feedback on, I'm sure, through the process. I similarly had some questions, and rather than just sort of hash them out, I'll just sort of plus one Councilmember Reckl. I think Exploring ways to use Wyandotte Street either for trash or as some sort of entryway would be, I think, interesting and beneficial. I do like the idea of a paseo. I think in the long-term development of a neighborhood, having some sort of access to Wyandotte Street and a shortcut through that would be actually really beneficial as this neighborhood actually gets built out. I am a little bit unsure about the bike parking situation. I've not seen bike parking moved to the second floor for the purposes of security. I would generally think that that is an inconvenience, but something that I'm open to. I am also concerned about the volume of bike parking, and if in the process, like throughout the process, I hope we really sort of critically examine where that bike parking actually should belong to maximize both use and convenience. Let's see. The last point I'll make is just that I think having some sort of engaging ground floor is really important. I understand that there's a leasing office and a coworking space. That's maybe okay, but not good per se. I think retail is great, but just having something that can activate the street in some way in terms of landscaping as you figure that out, or sort of non-traditional forms of, or like non-retail forms of engaging ground floor use like a dentist's office or something would be Anything that's sort of better and more inviting to the public would be appreciated there. So those are the sorts of things that I'd look out for as this moves along. But overall, I think this is a good outline and a good first step.
[59:16] Speaker 2: Thank you, Vice Mayor. First, I want to just thank the applicants for your efforts regarding multifamily housing in the Bay and your interest in being a provider here in Palo Alto. We welcome you. Thank you. I'm very much in favor of this project. Not concerned about the height. We're not going to put this height anywhere else. This will be a neighborhood of multifamily homes. Agree with the concerns about ground floor retail. For that reason, we want to be sure that people can walk and bike to shops and services near where they live. We'd rather them shop in Palo Alto than a mile up the road in Mountain View at the plentiful shopping available right there in El Camino in San Antonio. I agree with the point that we've got to try to really align this with the San Antonio area plan objectives. We are— that process is underway. We've got to take care to uphold those standards rather than make exceptions here and exceptions there, because we might end up with a corridor of buildings that feel incoherent in the context of one another. And I realize this is tricky because you're coming forward now, which is wonderful. And yet the San Antonio area plan process is underway and not complete. So it's sort of like you're approaching the tarmac and we're still building the airport, which is terrifying but also exciting. We know we'll get there. We just want to be deliberate and thoughtful about your project in the context of everything else that is to come. I had a question about the blue market unit allocation. I saw that the applicant is proposing very low income and middle income or moderate income units. moderate income, I should say, but no low income, whereas our housing element opportunity designation did have some units there in the middle. Perhaps staff can explain to me, and if not, the applicant, what would be the reason that the mix from the applicant's perspective is better the way that they proposed it versus the way that you had articulated it in the housing element opportunity?
[61:20] Speaker 6: List.
[61:26] Speaker 2: So the way our regional housing needs allocation works, the low income and very low income are actually mixed in terms of reporting. And so from that perspective, having the very low income would be better than having the low income. It restricts it further. Making it more affordable to those with lower income. In terms of— we still have assigned RENA that we are looking at, but right now low income isn't a particular area where we are, you know, not meeting what we're expecting to. And so some of the moderate and the very low income our units that we're looking for.
[62:16] Speaker 1: So.
[62:17] Speaker 2: Great, thank you. That's all for me.
[62:19] Speaker 1: Question on— I'm so trying to understand the estimated capacity of the entire site under the housing element. I was a little confused by one thing in the staff report on packet page 11 states that it's a housing opportunity, housing element opportunity site. with an estimated capacity of 43 units. But that seems to be the estimated capacity of the affordable units there. Or is that—
[62:52] Speaker 3: is that the—
[62:52] Speaker 1: was that the total capacity that was estimated? Can you clarify that?
[62:56] Speaker 2: So I'm just reading to try and remind myself.
[63:08] Speaker 1: Well, Claire's looking at that. My recollection when we were doing the housing element is that the sites were conservatively estimated at about 40 units per acre to evaluate the number of units that would be generated so that we weren't overstating how much could be built. I don't think it's necessarily a reflection of just the affordable housing.
[63:33] Speaker 2: Yeah, it might have been a site where we were only looking at below market rate too. So it's just—
[63:44] Speaker 1: So we can do a little bit more digging on that, but I think for now that's sort of our take. Yeah, just, I mean, and yeah, I don't need, I don't obviously don't need an answer tonight. Just struck me. I was trying to understand that. Okay, thank you. So there's no loading space here. Does that, I can't remember, does that, do we count loading space as also like rideshare space as well?
[64:18] Speaker 2: So objective standards require 1 car loading space. So we only require a full-on Truck-size loading space. If there's a retail or office component, residential doesn't require that under our code. But when we develop the objective standards, we require 1 car space that's meant for services like pickup services or drop-off, DoorDash, etc.
[64:50] Speaker 3: Okay.
[64:51] Speaker 1: And was that included in the plans as of yet?
[64:53] Speaker 2: No, they're not proposing that.
[64:56] Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, overall, I agree with what most of my colleagues have said. I mean, obviously, it's a great location for housing. I agree. I think it's close enough in the context of the surrounding buildings and other projects that we've approved. It's not a perfect project. I think there are some issues with massing. I have a concern. That this is an underparked project with 217 spaces where 276 would be typically required. And I think at times, given the context of a project or its proximity to public transportation, then I think that's fine to kind of have that, to not be as concerned about a project being adequately parked. I think, given a lot of the concerns with this project, With this project. I mean, the too few bike spots, not having a loading zone for rideshare companies, not being easily accessible to public— as easily accessible to public transportation as other areas. I think this is gonna be a very car-centric project. But as of now, I can't remember the comment about the loss of retail along San Antonio. I think many of these residents are going to be relying on cars to be able to get to jobs and retail. retail and everything else. And so I'm concerned about that piece to this. I think, yeah, absolutely. Sorry, on the special setback, is this now— is this in compliance with the San Antonio corridor that we're looking for? Yes, it is.
[66:39] Speaker 2: Okay, great.
[66:40] Speaker 1: So glad about that. I think that was an absolute must. I also really appreciate that this is Rental project. I know that's one that we've been trying to get, get more rental units within the city. I love the mixed number of unit sizes ranging from studios to 3 bedrooms, and the focus on very low-income housing is another strong need for the community. So I think this addresses a lot of those, but I'm hopeful it will be tweaked as it continues to move through the city process to address some of the other concerns that were raised tonight. that I share. All right, I see Councilmember Repo. Yeah, just one follow-up. I was asking about the loading zones also. So DoorDash and Uber, where would they park in this current configuration if we have no loading spot?
[67:31] Speaker 2: It's a good question. Maybe one for the applicant.
[67:37] Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, this is again a preliminary plan set.
[67:40] Speaker 1: So we flagged this for the applicant as an issue, and this is something that we would want to we'd want to take a closer look at it because we'll be addressing this during planning.
[67:49] Speaker 5: Okay, thank you.
[67:49] Speaker 3: Thank you. Uh, well, just following up on that, uh, so currently we require 1 space per 50 units for common. I, if anything, I think in our— where we are today and where we're heading, uh, that may be, uh, a lower requirement than we should have between the proliferation of common carriers and rideshare. Look at the trend we've had over the last 10, 15 years in those directions, we have such a higher percentage of car trips that are that way. It's even before we see what is the transformation from autonomous rideshare, which we're witnessing in the community, but it hasn't gotten to its— whatever adoption it's going to see. So I would say that we should be looking at, do we need more than that 1 space per 50? Not whether we need up to it. Second, as I noted before, for me to be supportive of this height, it would have to have a step back so that it doesn't feel like 8 stories from the street. It feels like closer to 5 stories. As far as on the transit, actually, you know, we're— I guess it's 0.8 miles from the Caltrain station, which now has strong service at the San Antonio location. And at VTA, on our new— now that we've passed the regional transit measure, one of the areas that the North County cities is advocating is increased bus service on the San Antonio corridor. It's the only corridor that affects all 4 cities in the North County, and we're all building housing, even Los Altos Hills with student housing. Every city is adding thousands of housing units in aggregate there. And then I think it is an important question what's in our housing element, what's on packet page 12. After it lists 43 units, it lists a breakdown of affordable housing units adding up to 43. So it may be, as Claire said, that we were envisioning this as an affordable-only site, but that appears to be the number of units. And then there's another question of whether we were designating them of certain income levels. So if it's a— If it was only that number of units, We'd be greatly increasing the total units of market rate units, but are we even meeting the number of low and very low and moderate that were in the housing element? So those are important considerations. And lastly, I do want to say on I'm I'm not it's not the fault of these developers that this rental housing, but actually what we've been getting is overwhelmingly rental housing. The only models we we have that is working for housing ownership are ADUs and 3-story townhomes. And that's because the state has not yet reformed the condo liability laws, which they almost did this year. But my understanding is that's a big part of the barrier from developers really having mid-rise condos in California. Uh, including us. So hopefully that will change, and hopefully there'll be a strong market for that, because we've been— we and other cities have been approving disproportionately rental housing and very little ownership housing. So thank you.
[71:36] Speaker 1: Then we will close this item and move on to our next study session. So thank you to the applicants. Thanks to staff. Moving on to item 3, review and provide feedback on 60 On 60% design plans for the Quarry Road Transit Connection. Turn it over to staff again. As we have our staff switching positions here, I want to note that I will be recusing from this item, given Stanford University's involvement in this project and my wife's employment with Stanford Healthcare. Thank you. And I believe, Councilmember Liu, you have a recusal as well. I similarly need to recuse. My Wife works at Stanford. All right, don't go far. We'll see you soon.
[72:58] Speaker 2: Good evening. I'm Sylvia Starlack, Transportation Planning Manager, with an update on the Quarry Road Transit Connection project. I'm joined by Leslie Lowe. Stanford University Transportation Director, and TY Lin design team members Aaron Baca and Manmukh Narwal. The project is the first step in retooling the Palo Alto Transit Center for enhanced efficiency and safety. Next slide. The goals of the project are to enhance public transit efficiency, reduce traffic congestion, improve safety and convenience for cyclists and pedestrians. And increase active transportation mode share by extending Quarry Road to create a direct connection between the Palo Alto Transit Center and El Camino Real for use by public buses and shuttles, and by constructing a protected intersection at Quarry Road and El Camino Real. This project has many constraints that restrict the degrees of freedom the city has to design, to design the project. These have to do with Caltrans standards and for El Camino Real and the need to minimize utility conflicts. The city's several roles include obtaining and managing grant funds, sharing costs with Stanford and MTC, and partnering with Stanford on design and community engagement. Council will ultimately approve the design and construction contract that must be compliant with Caltrans and city requirements. Next slide. Palo Alto Transit Center is a key regional transfer point with the 2nd highest ridership in the Caltrain system, served by multiple transit service providers. This Quarry Road project is occurring in the context of several regional efforts listed on this slide. Staff is collaborating with Caltrans on the El Camino Real Comprehensive Multimodal Corridor Plan, with MTC on the regional mapping and wayfinding pilot at the Transit Center to improve signage and wayfinding, and with VTA and other transit service providers on the forthcoming Palo Alto Mobility Hub Plan, which seeks to improve the Transit Center's efficiency, layout, and comfort and convenience to users. Ahead of the mobility hub work, we met with the transit providers to discuss a long-term vision for bicycle circulation through the Transit Center. As a result, maintenance responsibilities for the pathway along El Camino Real between University and Quarry have been clarified, and the pathway and adjacent landscaping within this portion of El Camino Park have now been added to the city's park maintenance efforts. This Quarry Road transit connection is the first step of many in improving the Transit Center for all modes of travel. Next slide. As background, the project was included in the 2017 Comprehensive Plan, and beginning in 2024, steps were taken to place a ballot measure before Palo Alto voters to undedicate a portion of El Camino Park to create a transit connection to the Transit Center. The project began in late 2025, and the project has reached 60% design. Next slide. This is a graphic of the project's main elements. The project includes First, the transitway at the top of the screen. Second, the large median between the transit lanes, which is needed due to utilities located in that space. Third, the realigned multi-use path in white at the top right corner of the intersection. And fourth, the new protected Dutch-style intersection on El Camino Real. The bus-only transitway supports the goal of more reliable and faster transit travel times. The dedicated transitway reduces the number of signals for exiting buses from 3 to 1, and over half of daily movements in or out of the Transit Center could be shifted to the Transitway, which is nearly 700 buses. Next slide. The other design feature I wanted to highlight is the protected or Dutch-style intersection. Pictured here is an example at the Mountain View Googleplex. The design uses corner islands, protected bicycle space, bike-specific signals, and pedestrian head starts. Together, these features slow vehicle turns, reduce conflicts, improve visibility, and provide clearer crossing locations. Next slide. The project is now at the 60% design stage. As the design has progressed, several unanticipated tasks have arisen, increasing the original design budget of $878,000 to $1,005,000. The new scope items listed here are required to complete the design and will be funded by Medical Center Development Agreement funds, Stanford University funds, and an MTC grant. Next slide. To obtain Caltrans acceptance, roadway features along or connecting to the state highway system must conform to Caltrans design standards. However, where an existing or proposed feature does not meet those standards, a Design Standards Decisions document, or DSDD, is used to document and evaluate the nonstandard condition and support Caltrans' decision on whether it can be retained. One of the additional scope tasks includes a DSDD to retain trees. The existing receiving lanes on the west leg of Quarry Road are approximately 10 feet wide, which is less than the Caltrans standard lane width. Bringing these lanes up to standard would require reconfiguring the median and would likely result in removal of several existing trees. The design team will need to generate a DSDD in order to retain the existing lane width the median and avoid tree removal. Next slide. As design advanced, the project team also took a closer look at how the bike lanes transition through the northwest and southwest corners of the intersection, the bottom 2 corners in this image. They evaluated 2 configurations. Option A keeps the bike lanes at street level, while Option B raises the bike lanes to sidewalk level. The main difference between the 2 is how each option balances the pedestrian and bicycle experience. With constructability, cost, and project delivery risk. Tonight we are asking for council's preferences between options A and B. Next slide. Option A maintains the bike lanes at street level through the northwest and southwest corners. One of the primary advantages is that this option fits within the established project footprint, minimizing the need for additional utility investigations, relocations, and adjustments.
[79:05] Speaker 1: Next slide.
[79:06] Speaker 2: From a drainage perspective, Option A allows the project to maintain a more conventional layout and avoids triggering additional stormwater treatment. The smaller disturbance area also helps limit environmental and permitting risk. The trade-off is that pedestrian crossing distances are slightly longer than under Option B. There is also a less direct bicycle connection at the southwest corner. An eastbound cyclist connecting to the Stanford Perimeter Trail would need to make a relatively sharp right turn. Onto the corner ramp to access the sidewalk. Next slide. Option B raises the bike lanes to sidewalk level. This creates additional pedestrian refuge space and shortens the pedestrian crossing distances. The raised configuration can also make bicyclists more visible as they approach and move through the intersection. However, these benefits come with additional cost and schedule impacts. Next slide. Based on the current estimate, it would add approximately $284,000 in design and construction costs, and at least 3 months to the project timeline. Option B would also have greater utility impacts, which could require additional investigation, relocation, and/or adjustment. Because the bike lane is raised, drainage becomes more complex and would require a less conventional layout, as well as additional stormwater treatment. The larger disturbance area would also increase environmental permitting risk. Both Payback and PTC straw polls selected Option A, and details from committee feedback are in the staff report. Next slide. Tonight we're here to receive your feedback regarding Options A and B. Does Council concur with Payback and PTC on Option A? Next slide. Through October and November, standing committees, Council, and the VTA ad hoc will review the 60% concepts. Coordination with Caltrans is ongoing. After plan revisions this winter, we hope to finalize design with another round of engagement in the spring for eventual submission and likely resubmission of the Caltrans encroachment permit. Pending Caltrans approval, construction could begin in late 2027 or early '28. Thank you.
[81:11] Speaker 1: Thank you. And no other presentations, right? Okay, then let's turn it over to public comment.
[81:25] Speaker 4: No hands are raised and there are no requests to speak.
[81:31] Speaker 1: All right, then bringing it back to the dais. Councilmember?
[81:41] Speaker 3: Not because I necessarily want to go first, So thank you. This has been an exciting project to see moving forward, and I really want to express appreciation that the plan now seems to really embrace the need to improve the bike circulation to and through the station from all directions.
[82:09] Speaker 1: Thank you.
[82:11] Speaker 3: Directions. It's a bit of a challenge because this scope of work is kind of within a box, and— but it needs to anticipate the flow throughout the station area. And what we now have on packet page 27, laying out the additional routes for biking, is really a step in the right direction. And when it went to the VTA committee, we had only the new bike crossing on the east side of El Camino crossing the quarry extension. And my understanding is that's still planned to be part of this plan. Is that crossing at that location a signalized crossing or not?
[83:01] Speaker 2: I'm not sure which one you're talking about.
[83:04] Speaker 3: Talking about if a bike is coming from Menlo Park on along on the east side, maybe I spoke, misspoke. I might have said west, east side of El Camino. There was a— the plan was to have the bike stop at that signal there to cross Quarry.
[83:29] Speaker 2: Yes, we still have that.
[83:30] Speaker 8: Okay.
[83:30] Speaker 2: That there.
[83:31] Speaker 3: So that may still be a right approach. My concern when we first heard it was that there'll be bikes who take that route, and they may be, if we do this other extension looping behind the quarry dead end, bikes that are going to the station or through the station southbound, I would think we'll probably take that route depending on how it is able to trans— uh, uh, pass through the station area. But if you're going to Stanford coming from the north there, um, then, uh, it would be more likely this, this one right at, uh, El Camino and Quarry. My concern is that bikes would do one of two things. They'll have to wait for a whole bunch of signals on On El Camino, or more likely because bicyclists may not wait, they will go and run that light and create either— so we've either with that light, we've done 2 things for biking at that location. One of 2, we've slowed down biking through that area significantly, or we've made it significantly less safe. So I, And I don't know that we have a good solution, but one possibility is that we would move and put a pedestrian-only signal somewhere in between El Camino and the new bus loading area. And would there be— if— can we model it to see that we could have a signal that's triggered by pedestrians and bikes? Would hold buses, or would the bus traffic be too heavy to allow that and risk backing up onto El Camino? And I don't know if we've looked at that yet, but either way, I would really encourage that to be evaluated, whether it's feasible, because that would mean that the bicyclists could have a quicker signal to cross that quarry extension, and they wouldn't be prone to run it. And there we get the safety and the better bike flow.
[85:48] Speaker 2: Leslie Lowe, Stanford University Executive Director of Transportation. To respond to Pat's question, we can definitely look into it, but there's a couple concerns I would have right out the gate is that But it would— because the signal at El Camino itself would be triggered when there are buses approaching, it would be very similar if buses would still be in the corridor the same way, in the same manner as if they were in the mid-block crossing as well. Because most of the time the light on El Camino will be green unless the vehicles, the buses are approaching.
[86:32] Speaker 3: No, I appreciate that. It's a question of how many buses will come through in a signal cycle. And if it's 1 or 2, they could be queued up at this pedestrian crossing, maybe even if it's 3. And that's what I don't know the answer to, but would suggest to be modeled. But the fact— the question is, do you have buses wait for the pedestrians or vice versa?
[87:00] Speaker 2: We're asking our design team if—
[87:05] Speaker 3: Yeah, and I'm not necessarily expecting an answer on the fly.
[87:09] Speaker 2: Okay. I will say we've done the traffic modeling for this, assuming the maximum number of buses. So, you know, that number has not been settled. Ongoing discussions with the transit operators.
[87:31] Speaker 3: Thank you.
[87:32] Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you. This is a good project. I hope we can build this soon. You mentioned utility investigations. What does that mean?
[87:49] Speaker 2: So in the context of Option B, We— Option B actually is beyond the footprint of what we were originally looking at. So we would need to do like potholing and figuring out where is the stuff under the ground. So it would just add more cost because we'd have to expand the zone that we're interested in.
[88:12] Speaker 1: Is it primarily storm sewer, or what other utilities are you worried about?
[88:15] Speaker 2: Everything that's under there.
[88:18] Speaker 7: Yeah.
[88:18] Speaker 5: Okay.
[88:19] Speaker 1: And we don't have knowledge of what's under our streets. Typically, we do potholing.
[88:26] Speaker 2: We have maps of where things are. Sometimes it turns out that things are not quite where they say that they are in the maps. The depths may be different and the locations may be slightly off, so it's always good to verify.
[88:37] Speaker 1: Okay. Can you bring up slide 5? And this is a really wide intersection.
[88:49] Speaker 5: And one of the concerns I have is the pedestrian refuge islands. So slide 5 is a good—
[89:03] Speaker 1: and on the left side there on El Camino, it looks like that's wide enough to have a person stand on it if they don't make it all the way across. But on the right side, that doesn't look wide enough. Can we somehow make that wider?
[89:27] Speaker 2: We could look into that, but it's already— we're using the right-of-way that we already have, so that would require more of those investigations and the land that we would—
[89:39] Speaker 1: Well, Well, I mean, even if you look on the right side here, there's a rather thick separator between the straight line on the far right and the rest of the roadway.
[89:51] Speaker 5: Could we shrink that down and add more so that we have a pedestrian refuge island in the middle?
[89:56] Speaker 2: Yeah, we can, we can see what we can do. We have to have the lanes going across the intersection have to kind of line up. So that's generally the thing that we're Trying to make sure that we don't end up with confused drivers when they get across, if we've shifted the lanes over too much.
[90:13] Speaker 1: But yeah, we understood. But we're gonna have seniors crossing here, and that's a long crossing for a senior. And I don't want it all or nothing. If they have a refuge island, that's much better.
[90:25] Speaker 3: Thank you.
[90:26] Speaker 1: Can you go to slide 5, please? I'm sorry, slide 3. And I'm worried about the bike routes through the— In particular on the right side. So I'll bike up on the right side coming from the south. And during rush hour, that University Circle, there's a lot of traffic there. And is there some way to— we follow along the top of that University Circle, can we first of all widen that path for the bikes?
[90:59] Speaker 5: But then can we also have some better way of crossing that?
[91:03] Speaker 1: Because you're crossing that and a lot of cars, people are busy because they want to, they're late for the train, they're dropping their spouse off or something, and they don't always drive carefully. And so what can we do to improve that crossing both on the right side and the left side of the circle?
[91:20] Speaker 2: Yeah, so one of the Key interactions in this location is actually not so much the cars dropping off, but the Marguerite services that drop off and pick up in this location. So what we could look at is some of the VTA's bus bike facility recommendations and see how those might be adapted to this kind of location.
[91:46] Speaker 1: If there are no buses at the top of the circle, I'll just go along the loading platform. But when there's a bunch of people coming from the train, you can't do that. Now you have to cross the— anyway, I think that's a weakness here. If we can address that and improve the crossing, because a bike has to cross that circle twice, and both times they're vulnerable.
[92:06] Speaker 8: Hmm.
[92:08] Speaker 1: Okay, that's all I have.
[92:10] Speaker 7: Thank you.
[92:22] Speaker 1: Others?
[92:22] Speaker 3: Yes, just following on to Councilmember Rekdal. As you pointed out, the circle on both sides of Caltrain creates choke points where we lose a bike path on Alma just before that area, and then we lose it currently Uh, in the, um, on this side, what, uh, what I think is being represented here is a future need to address the issue you're describing, and whether that can be done and fit with allowing the Marguerite buses to remain there, or the entire bus bay area, bay set of bays, is the next step in redesigning that whole area. And so that's something that is yet to be worked out, but I fully agree that we need a safe, 2-directional protected bike lane through that general space.
[93:30] Speaker 1: Thanks.
[93:36] Speaker 3: Thank you.
[93:37] Speaker 1: I'm very impressed with the obvious team effort that went into this.
[93:41] Speaker 3: And particularly when it came to the votes and you got unanimous from PTC and good support from Payback, and Stanford's not giving us any objections here. And so, and amazing progress on a really crucially important project that we've already been working on for a couple years, but it's making really good steps here. So I'm really pleased with the adjustments I'm seeing and also hearing that as we go forward. There's other adjustments that we're going to make for safety and transport fluidity. So I'm strongly in support of this and would be happy to make that kind of motion.
[94:16] Speaker 1: Just a study session. Oh, right. Sorry. All right. Can I make a motion that I like it?
[94:22] Speaker 7: All right.
[94:25] Speaker 1: Record reflects. Thank you. And Councilwoman Liskott-Haymes?
[94:29] Speaker 2: I have no questions. Appreciate the work. Thank you.
[94:33] Speaker 1: All right. And I will just second Councilmember Lowing.
[94:36] Speaker 3: Great work.
[94:36] Speaker 1: I support the recommendations of advancing Option A and appreciate the ability to be able to address concerns raised by Councilmember Nektal and seconded by Bert. But I understand the limitations in this space is going to make that challenging. And with that, looks like we are done then with this item. We will close it out unless staff has anything to dialogue.
[95:03] Speaker 2: Just want to understand, is Option A the thing that everybody wants, or did someone want B?
[95:09] Speaker 1: That's why I was thinking motion.
[95:11] Speaker 2: I didn't hear anything.
[95:14] Speaker 3: Yeah, I didn't speak to it, and I'm, I'm fine with the recommendation of A.
[95:19] Speaker 1: Yeah, the footprint to me is the big thing, and if we don't have to expand the footprint, then that makes sense. But if we find that there's some law that expanding footprint helps us, then maybe we want to reconsider that. Okay, thanks. Thank you, staff, for seeking that clarification. And wonderful, then we are done. We'll now move on to our consent calendar and take a minute while City Manager and Councilmember Liu rejoin us. While we're doing that, do we have any public comment on the consent calendar?
[96:01] Speaker 2: No hands are raised and there are no requests to speak.
[96:04] Speaker 1: Thank you. Then back to council. Do we have any no votes or requests to pull on the consent? Seeing none, do we have a motion to move the consent calendar? I move the consent calendar.
[96:18] Speaker 2: Second.
[96:19] Speaker 1: When the clerk is ready, we can take the vote. Reminder, the voting is on the screen now.
[96:50] Speaker 2: Motion carries 6 to 0 with Councilmember— Mayor Vinger absent.
[97:10] Speaker 4: Thank you.
[97:12] Speaker 1: Thank you, City Manager. Okay, well, Vice Mayor, you're gonna put the mayor to shame with the efficiency of this meeting, and it's not a competition, but keep you on pace. Just have a few comments this evening. Can I get the city clerk's assistance? Let's go to the next slide, please. Just a couple of notes for community awareness. We will have our annual emergency alert test on December 10th. At noon, it's still a few weeks out, but want to put this on folks' radar screen. Expectation that it's coming up, and again, this will be our opportunity to test our alert system as we enter into winter season. Again, December 10th at noon. Encourage all community members to sign up for Alert SCC. Next slide, please. And then just looking forward to upcoming agendas. Next week, we have a joint study session with the. Utilities Advisory Commission on the topic of water supply reliability. We have the return of the 470 Olive Avenue proposed rezoning continued from a prior meeting, and your council-appointed officer employment agreements. That's the action agenda for next week. Then there's no meeting on Thanksgiving week, so your following meeting will be on November 30th.
[98:36] Speaker 3: This was a special added meeting again on November 30th.
[98:40] Speaker 1: We'll have 2 closed sessions and 1 open session action item that's related to a public hearing on the proposed development at 450 Lytton Avenue, or also known as Lot T, our parking lot. Then looking forward to December 7th, action on grid modernization as well as accessory dwelling units. Again, a continued item from a prior council meeting. Then noting several items listed as December 14th and beyond.
[99:08] Speaker 3: Not all of those will be on December 14th.
[99:11] Speaker 1: Obviously more than could fit fit on that agenda. So we're finalizing, but we do expect to have the ALPR FLOC topic as well as OSV next steps on the tentative agenda. With that, Vice Mayor, back to you. Thank you, City Manager, and thanks for being a good team player on the efficiency tonight. Uh, to my colleagues, we have our break scheduled right now. Um, that— we're We're about an hour and 40 minutes ahead of time on that break. Is there a desire to take the break now or get through our action item? That way we can, you know, figure out our break and closed session and try to be more— Councilmember Lowry, any thoughts? Could we shift to the first closed session, which doesn't involve the public? Yeah, is that an option? It's certainly an option. We'd need to juggle a bit with staff, but suspect we can accommodate that if that would be your preference.
[100:13] Speaker 6: Okay.
[100:14] Speaker 1: If staff is— yeah, if staff can accommodate that, that'd be great. Why don't we do that?
[100:20] Speaker 2: Okay.
[100:23] Speaker 1: Yeah, well, sure.
[100:29] Speaker 3: I think we're good to go.
[100:31] Speaker 1: I think you just need a motion to go into closed session.
[100:33] Speaker 3: So moved.
[100:36] Speaker 1: Oh, and public comment.
[100:37] Speaker 3: Sorry, you need to take public comment.
[100:39] Speaker 1: Yeah, we will. So there's a motion.
[100:42] Speaker 5: Second.
[100:45] Speaker 1: Okay, perfect. We've got the motion, and let's take public comment, then we'll take the vote.
[100:50] Speaker 2: There are no requests to speak, and no hands are raised for a closed session item.
[100:55] Speaker 3: Okay, then we'll take the vote.
[101:28] Speaker 2: Motion carries, uh, 6-0.
[101:30] Speaker 1: Okay, thank you. Then we will go into closed session, and then we'll be back for our final action item, item 11. Um, thank you. We are coming out of Closed session. Thank you for your patience. We have no reportable action. And now we will be moving to our one and only action item, item 11, an authorization to advance the Bryan Street Bike Boulevard and Lincoln Avenue traffic calming project to its final design. Turn it over to staff.
[186:53] Speaker 2: Hello, I'm—
[186:57] Speaker 1: Staff on their feet this evening.
[186:59] Speaker 2: Chief Transportation Official, and I have with me Ozzy Arce, Senior Transportation Planner, and Sylvia Starlack, Transportation Manager. And Ozzy will take it from here.
[187:11] Speaker 1: All right, I will jump right in. Good evening, Council members. My name is Ozzy Arce, Senior Transportation Planner with the City of Palo Alto's Office of Transportation. Tonight we are presenting on the authorization to advance the Bryant Street Bike Boulevard and Lincoln Avenue traffic calming project to final 100% engineering design. This is about an 8-minute presentation. The recommendation— next slide, please— is split into 3 parts. First, direct staff to advance all the elements listed on the slide to 100% engineering design. Second, direct staff on a preferred phasing approach, if any. Third and last, direct staff to return for approval of the construction bid package on the consent calendar in 2027. Next slide, please. The Bryant Street traffic calming project helps the city efficiently deliver on several goals simultaneously. First, as many of you know, Bryant Street holds a historic place in our community as the nation's first bicycle boulevard established in the 1980s and later named the Ellen Fletcher Bicycle Boulevard. Protecting and enhancing this vital school commute corridor is a core priority reinforced in both our 2030 Comp Plan and the recently adopted 2026 Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan. Second, this project directly responds to a neighborhood traffic calming petition submitted by residents along this portion of Bryant Street and Lincoln Avenue who raised concerns regarding vehicle speeds, and cut-through traffic. And lastly, this is also a test case for a more streamlined approach to deliver traffic calming improvements in preparation for considering a potential update to the city's 2001 neighborhood traffic calming petition process. Next slide, please. The project area covers Bryant Street from Embarcadero Road down to Homer Avenue and Lincoln Avenue between Waverly Street and Emerson Street. Street in Professorville. Key goals are to enhance the boulevard as it approaches downtown and discourage cut-through traffic. And like I mentioned, consider ways to improve the traffic calming process here in the city. Next slide. So how do these streets measure up to our goals and best practice targets? So in May 2026, our project team collected new volume and speed data And current conditions on Bryant Street exceed best practice targets for bicycle boulevards. For volumes, we are currently seeing about 2,000 vehicles per day, which is well above the best practice of 500 to 1,000. And for speeds, the 85th percentile sits at 28 miles an hour, higher than the 15 to 20 target recommendation for a bicycle boulevard. Next slide, please. Also, for collisions and cut-through traffic, vehicle volume suggests drivers are using Lincoln Avenue to cut through and avoid arterials like Embarcadero Road and University Avenue. And between 2016 and 2024, there were 10 reported collisions along this corridor segment. Notably, 30% of those collisions involved bicyclists. And half were broadside. Next slide, please. So how are we proposing to tackle these issues? Effective traffic calming, bike optimization, and safety enhancements relies on 3 pillars: reducing vehicle speeds, reducing traffic volumes, and improving the street's bicycle boulevard identification so everyone knows it's a bicycle priority corridor. Next slide, please.
[191:14] Speaker 5: Next slide.
[191:15] Speaker 1: To address these challenges while balancing community needs, we've developed a comprehensive package of proven safety countermeasures. This includes traffic circles at key intersections, curb extensions, also known as bulb-outs, high-visibility crosswalks, Bicycle Boulevard pavement markings, a short-term parking zone outside of the Palo Alto Subacute and Rehab Center, And a pilot left turn restriction from eastbound Embarcadero Road to northbound Bryant Street using interim materials to better understand impacts. Next slide, please. This package is shaped directly by robust community engagement, including an online survey and well-attended in-person neighborhood meeting on September 10th here at City Hall. There was a strong desire to accelerate implementation as a complete package. And crucially, neighborhood feedback prompted a major refinement. While initial concepts included a diagonal diverter at Bryant and Lincoln intersection, community members expressed strong concerns that a diverter would restrict local access and divert traffic onto parallel streets like Waverly and Emerson. So in response, staff replaced this diverter with a traffic circle at Bryant and Lincoln, and that's what you see reflected on the concept plans. before you tonight as Attachment A. And lastly, on September 30th, staff presented these updated concepts to the Planning and Transportation Commission, who voted unanimously to support the staff recommendation, praising the balance between safety and community access. Commissioners also recommended a phased rollout approach, starting with the most challenging intersections. Next slide, please. And just to focus a little bit on this phased approach, we have structured accordingly. If council wants to direct staff to take on this phased approach, here's a potential one that we've thought through, with phase 1 being the initial pilot with the installation of traffic circles, high visibility crosswalks, and including that left turn restriction from Embarcadero, with a phase 2 interim focusing the improvements on Channing and Homer intersections. And lastly, looking at making some of those pilot and interim improvements into permanent installations post-evaluating key performance indicators. Next slide. And I believe this is my last slide. In summary, these design concepts aim to bridge community-driven neighborhood safety petitions with our long-term citywide bike and ped master plan goals. They would enhance safety and the commute for school children and vulnerable road users, and directly incorporate resident feedback on access and parking. Staff recommends that council direct staff to advance these conceptual plans as a package to final 100% construction engineering design and return with a construction bid package on the consent calendar in 2027. Thank you. I'm available to answer any questions.
[194:31] Speaker 3: Great.
[194:34] Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Let's turn to public comment.
[194:36] Speaker 2: We have 2 requests to speak. Our first speaker is Barbara H. Good evening. My name is Barbara Hazlett. I'm a resident in the 1100 block of Emerson Street, just north of Embarcadero in the Professorville neighborhood of Palo Alto. First, I want to thank Council, city staff, and the O'Grady Construction Company for this past summer's Embarcadero Road improvements project. The project, located at Embarcadero Road turning north onto Emerson Street, carries tremendous bike and ped traffic to and from Palo Alto High School, Town and Country, and Stanford. This $3 million project provided critically needed safety enhancements Included, including upgraded crossings and calming measures. Having lived at this location for over 40 years, I have witnessed a child riding a bike hit by a car, heard about our neighbor's dog being killed by a speeding car, and I watch multitudes traverse this crossing daily. I know this project is a tremendous safety improvement, and I thank you. Please do not degrade this project by an unnecessary closure at Bryant Street, which will force more traffic onto Emerson and Waverly. We live in a busy urban environment in North Palo Alto and need all of the artery streets open, not selectively closed. This creates neighborhood inequities and unintended consequences. Just when you completed a desperately needed safe zone, you would immediately be diverting more danger to the area you just fixed. This is dangerous and incomprehensible. If the objective is traffic calming and increased safety, the number one need is speed enforcement on Embarcadero. Cars are driving 50 to 60 miles per hour or more in 25-mile-per-hour zones. with 3 schools directly on its border. This clearly should be the focus of the city's traffic calming efforts, not street closures. Therefore, I respectfully ask Council to not approve a Bryant Street closure either east or westbound off of Embarcadero as part of this project. Thank you. Our next speaker is Tom K.
[197:38] Speaker 1: Hello, I'm Tom Kellerman. I am a neighbor of Barbara. So we live on the same block, and I echo all of her comments about the improvements to the Embarcadero-Emerson Street intersection. Work took a long time coming, but it's very big improvement over what it was before. So we really all appreciate it. With respect to the plans for Bryant Street, Also, we're very much in favor of traffic calming. There's no doubt that anything that can slow down the traffic in probably any neighborhood, but certainly Professorville, is very welcome. So we very much are in favor of that.
[198:12] Speaker 3: With respect to changing or closing, partial or full closures of streets or intersections, I think we would ask that the department and the council look at that very, very carefully before making any decision to do that. Because clearly any closure is going to divert traffic to adjacent streets.
[198:32] Speaker 1: The way, if people aren't familiar with it, most of you probably are, on Embarcadero, if you were heading eastbound, you can currently turn left at Bryant or you can turn left at Waverly. There's no ability to turn left onto Emerson Street. But then heading westbound on Embarcadero, you can turn right northbound on any of those streets.
[198:56] Speaker 3: The Emerson corner is, I think, the busiest as far as the pedestrian and bicycle traffic. And so adding additional traffic turning right onto Emerson Street would enhance the hazard there.
[199:11] Speaker 1: And so I think it's, in my view, and I think our neighborhood's view, spreading traffic across all the available streets to just keep to as minimum as one can is probably far safer than concentrating the traffic onto a relatively smaller number of streets, particularly the 2 adjacent streets.
[199:31] Speaker 3: So that would be our request.
[199:33] Speaker 2: Thank you. Our next speaker is Jack T.
[199:37] Speaker 1: Good evening. I'm just here to speak out in support of this measure, although I live at— on Bryant Street between Kingsley and Lincoln, and while I would love for there to be less volume of cars on Bryant, I think that what these other folks are saying makes perfect sense. And if I were in their shoes, I would be hesitant as well to close off Embarcadero, because I do think that it would divert traffic over to Emerson and Waverly, and I think that would just kind of shift traffic. So I'm in support of slowing traffic, but I am not in support of closing Embarcadero either, in spite of the fact that I think it would make my little stretch of street more hospitable. So thank you.
[200:34] Speaker 2: Our next speaker is David E.
[200:46] Speaker 1: Hi, thank you.
[200:47] Speaker 3: David Epstein. I'm a resident of Emerson Street, which is part of the Cloverleaf that goes from Alma to Embarcadero. I also want to just ask you to consider carefully when you are closing parts of streets for the action that happens on the other streets. On Emerson, we're very grateful for the changes that were just made. They have— they've significantly improved the issue of where our— a lot of students going to Pali and going to all the different schools where there's a crossing in front of Embarcadero at Emerson. That's helped a lot.
[201:31] Speaker 1: We ask you not to change the The right-hand turn onto Bryant Street, which I know isn't on the plans right now, but I know that there's some requests to do that.
[201:46] Speaker 3: We would like that to not be considered because of the additional traffic that you just started to fix on our proper— on our street, and that would just make it worse again. So I would just like to—
[202:00] Speaker 1: Thank you.
[202:01] Speaker 3: Register my support of the changes that were recommended, but not any additional things that might increase the traffic on our, on our street again.
[202:10] Speaker 5: Thank you.
[202:11] Speaker 2: And that concludes public comment for action item 11.
[202:14] Speaker 1: Okay, well, thank you to all the members of the public, and let's return back to the city manager. Vice Mayor, I just wanted to note, I believe we have Bart Heckman, who Maybe representing our PTC this evening. PTC heard this item and I think is available as a resource for your discussion.
[202:33] Speaker 9: Great.
[202:34] Speaker 1: Thanks for being here, Commissioner Heckman. Okay, back to the dais. Yeah, overall, I like the project. This has taken a long time.
[202:59] Speaker 5: The neighbors have been complaining for a long time, and we finally are getting around to it.
[203:03] Speaker 1: So I don't want to slow it down.
[203:05] Speaker 5: My biggest concern, though, is I really don't think traffic circles are very effective. The current traffic circle at Addison and Bryant, the cars zoom by that and they hardly slow down.
[203:17] Speaker 1: And now I look at the What is slide 5? They have a whole bunch of traffic circles we're putting on Bryant. And are we solving the problem, or are we just creating a slalom course for cars? I mean, broadly speaking, it's a known traffic calming device and best practice used by other cities, as well as recommended under the National Association of City Transportation Traffic Officials. under their bikeway design guidelines. So it's one of the tools in our toolkit. Yeah, what about speed tables? I would think speed tables would be a lot more effective than the— because the traffic will slow down for the speed tables, and they're not really slowing down, at least not at Addison.
[204:05] Speaker 2: If Council would like to add speed tables, we would recommend them mid-block rather than at the intersections. Because at the intersections, there's also drainage considerations.
[204:19] Speaker 1: Okay. And so how do we get speed tables added?
[204:24] Speaker 2: That can be direction if that's of interest. Yeah, we actually— yes. So I should mention that we did go through a process with the neighborhood in terms of appetite for different types of treatments. So That's something to consider.
[204:45] Speaker 7: Okay.
[204:48] Speaker 1: But when I went to the public meeting, and we didn't talk about speed tables at all at that public meeting, so did we have— was that part of the options that were given to the neighbors? Not the initial concept designs.
[205:02] Speaker 7: We—
[205:03] Speaker 1: some— a comment that we have heard from community members is a sense that they don't want projects to feel Over-engineered. So we landed on the traffic circles, not really entertained the speed tables for that reason, but we can go back and have those conversations internally as well as with the fire department.
[205:22] Speaker 2: Sylvia Starlack, Transportation Planning Manager. I think also that the rationale for the circles is that collisions are happening at the circles. I mean, at the intersections. And so the circles really clarify what is happening. We do also believe that the Addison Circle that you mentioned is not— well, it's not ideal. Yeah, it's not ideal for the amount of traffic that is now there. So that would be upgraded.
[205:56] Speaker 5: But I know when I, when I'm biking on Bryant and I come to Lincoln, There's so much traffic there, and quite often the cars are just coasting through the stop sign.
[206:06] Speaker 1: And quite often I'll be coming up and they'll be coasting through and have to put on their brakes at the last minute.
[206:11] Speaker 5: And I could see that being a dangerous intersection there.
[206:16] Speaker 1: If we had elevated crosswalks there, would that deter people from rolling through the intersection? Well, while staff is contemplating their response to your question, I did want to note one element that I don't think was addressed specifically, which was this concept of quick build and really trying to get through both the neighborhood process and to implementation of improvements as quickly as possible. I think the PTC acknowledged through its discussion, and staff presented that all of these issues and the methods used for traffic calming can be subject to debate, and they can be subject to debate forever. And so it was really from that perspective that staff was moving as quickly as they could to bring forward recommendations that could be implemented quickly. I think that the specific discussion was around treatments that would cause a traffic diversion, and a recognition that if any of the treatments used would cause a traffic diversion, then there would be a need for additional outreach.
[207:29] Speaker 3: So I offer that as, you know, the council is considering it.
[207:32] Speaker 1: Quite frankly, if you're putting new things on the table, that it does beg the question of how quickly it can be implemented, what additional community engagement should be undertaken so that those can be fleshed out.
[207:44] Speaker 2: Thank you.
[207:46] Speaker 1: I understand not wanting to overengineer things, but I would think a speed table isn't any more complicated than a traffic circle. And at least in my opinion, I think speed tables would be much more effective at cutting down speed than the traffic circles. To be honest, Councilmember, what I'm suggesting is less about the device than the process used to get to this point, and really a question of whether the council wants to reopen that, that discussion all over again.
[208:12] Speaker 5: Okay.
[208:18] Speaker 3: Councilmember Herbold. So let me first go to that issue on the traffic circles because I doubt that too many of my colleagues are familiar with the difference between modern roundabouts with a full set of safety features like we see on on Stanford campus versus what we're able to do in a very constrained area. Staff said that— acknowledged the one at Addison really has problems. We didn't hear anything about what would be the design improvements that you could actually fit in in a constrained area. And from my understanding, there may be some, but there's not a lot. And there's a difference. So on roundabouts, there, we really have separations that protect pedestrians. We have low impact and low speed movements. But there are issues with 2-way traffic circles. And what I found on research was just what I've observed. That twice a day, that on average, that I ride this very area. And at Addison, with a 2-way stop on a traffic circle, I'm— I am scared every time I ride through there and I look and get eye contact with a car that has cars that have stop signs. And I will not go in a traffic circle where they have If I have a stop sign and I'm unimpeded, in theory, I will not go forward without eye contact with them because they do one of two— well, they do one of three things. They obey the stop sign and see me. That's the ideal. The other two things that aren't good is they roll through it and they treat it as a yield sign, in part because they— at a two-way, they're also assuming that the other direction has some kind of a stop. Or just that somehow intuitively at a traffic circle, they tend to roll it through there, that stop sign, as much or more than they do a full stop sign. I'm not saying nobody elsewhere rolls a stop sign. Or the other thing is, and this is in the literature, is at a 2-way stop, they're assuming it's actually a 4-way stop. And so they're thinking this car or this bike bike coming also has a stop sign, and they don't. And so I am really nervous about going all in on the traffic circles. One, I am— we— I didn't see anything in the presentation on how this is going to be a more effective traffic circle, significantly more effective than what we have at Addison. They're with 2-way stops. They're the same basic design. And so I, I'm really interested in the other set of things we could do in a— in the major first phase, and whether we should reexamine whether we utilize traffic circles, diverters, which I don't think we want to do, or raised speed tables and raised crosswalks. As far as the other issue that was examined on diverters, you know, the staff report said this item will not advance as discussed below. I, I'm a little taken aback by the staff report saying it will not advance because that's up to us here. The recommendation may be for it to not advance, but then the reasoning is that there was neighborhood pushback because a diverter would divert traffic. That's exactly what they do by definition. So the whole notion that we wouldn't consider a diverter because it does what it's supposed to do is a little nonsensical. It is a valid question of would it over-divert traffic and is that therefore not what we want to do? And that's a valid question, but not whether diverters should be ruled out because they divert. So then as far as the issue on whether we use a diverter at Lincoln or we have the no eastbound left turn at Bryant from Embarcadero. If concentrating on just that one movement on Embarcadero, I am very sympathetic to the concerns of the people on Emerson about not wanting to undermine those safety improvements. I've battled for, for the last several years, and I'm really pleased that we've done them, and they were as well designed and executed as they were. I just didn't think we'd get as good outcomes as we did. And— but if you're going eastbound on Embarcadero, the proposal in the staff report is only that eliminate that in the left turn. There's nothing about eliminating the no right turn on Bryant. So that would not add traffic to Emerson. It would add traffic to Waverly and potentially other streets downstream. But nobody can make a left turn on Emerson. So we'd still have the same condition of making southbound right turns from Emerson onto Embarcadero. And, and you could right turn in. to Emerson, but nothing else would change. And, but if we in any case have diversion to Waverly or Emerson that is problematic, then that's where we could also look at speed tables on those streets. Because so often neighbors say, well, it's the volume of traffic I'm most concerned about, and they're really concerned about those outlier they're speeders. That's the danger, not a bunch of slow-moving people who are riding it, driving at proper speed. So, um, I think that would be something that we'd have to anticipate we may need to do going forward, perhaps even on Waverly, maybe on Emerson if it's needed. Um, but I would, uh, I would support, um, the recommendations Except perhaps I'm depending on our discussion whether we hold off on the traffic circles, which are a high expense. I mean, these are not simple to do, and look at whether that's the best alternative to achieve the ends that we have. Oh, and the other thing is, I didn't see any data on the current traffic volume on Emerson and Waverly, and where does it stand? And so if we're going to be diverting some traffic because of the no left turn and some because we've calmed things on Bryant. Where might it go, and what's the volume on those streets today?
[215:26] Speaker 1: Would you like a response on a few of those?
[215:30] Speaker 2: So we actually have one of our consultants online, Hugh, and perhaps he can speak to the question. There were a couple of questions that I heard in there. One of them was to do with the performance of traffic circles, and then the other one was to do with the volume on Emerson and Waverly.
[215:49] Speaker 5: Yeah, thanks, Rhea, and thanks, members of council. Happy to be here. Hugh Louch, Farron Peirce. So on the traffic circles, but I guess to note a couple of things, one of which is that the plans do include a proposal to upgrade the traffic circle at Addison today to make it more like a true roundabout. cause more actual kind of deflection of the vehicles as they go around it. So they can't just travel in a straight line or in a sort of very minor deviation through it. And that would be by adding kind of a truck apron around the outside of the existing circle so that a larger vehicle could use that space if needed, but smaller vehicles would, would not. And the other traffic circles or sort of mini roundabouts are all kind of conceptually designed in the same way where they would have more of that kind of horizontal deflection effect on vehicles, which would both slow them as they kind of approach into that space. So they are different than what you have out there today and should perform much better from a safety and a slowing vehicle perspective on that. And happy to take any other further questions about that. We already noted that the idea of— because there's a lot of cross traffic at Lincoln and Bryant in particular, doing speed tables, while it certainly could reduce speeds, wouldn't have any actual impact on that kind of cross traffic at that specific location. So that's something to take into account. And then we do have data on the traffic on Waverly, which I can pull up. But we don't have anything on Emerson. And as Councilmember Bert correctly observed, the proposal is only a left-turn restriction onto Bryant, not a right-turn restriction. That's the only thing that was evaluated. And so we did not anticipate that that would yield specific, you know, diversion onto Emerson necessarily. And as you say, entirely any change in any street will yield unexpected and expected changes. So certainly something that could be evaluated. evaluated, but I do have the ability to pull up some data if you're interested in what the counts are on Waverly. And we did look at that and think about that in the context of that left turn restriction.
[218:17] Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't want to hold things up more, but if subsequently we could see that data, that would be great.
[218:26] Speaker 1: Great. We'll circle back when you have that data available. Councilmember Lifcott-Hames.
[218:32] Speaker 5: Thank you, Vice Mayor.
[218:33] Speaker 2: Thank you very much for the presentation. You know, sort of ironically, I was at an event at— was it First Presbyterian Church? The YCS and Project Safety Net event, sort of announcing that they're now working very closely together. And I'm not in that area of the city very often, and so I ended up being on Addison at Bryant and having to navigate the thing. And I was really confused. And it, you know, the sign said through traffic does not stop. And I was like, but I'm so familiar with roundabouts from having lived back east. So I approached what looked like a circle and then was told by a sign that there's different rules than what my instinct was telling me. So, you know, I stopped and I proceeded very cautiously, but I just found myself thinking, wow, I bet there's a lot of accidents here.
[219:19] Speaker 1: Turns out it's not the greatest number of accidents.
[219:21] Speaker 2: I'm looking at your figure 1 that shows Greater to the right and the left on Lincoln and Channing. But, and then I read the staff report. I was like, oh wow, okay, I just experienced, you know, the vicinity of what we're talking about. So I found myself curious as to why we're looking at traffic circles instead of what I would call a traditional roundabout. And actually, your consultant just mentioned when Addison and Bryant are improved, it will be more like a roundabout.
[219:50] Speaker 7: out.
[219:50] Speaker 2: But this notion of not everybody stops and instead only the cross traffic stops still concerns me as a matter of safety. Now, you guys are the experts.
[220:00] Speaker 1: I'm not.
[220:01] Speaker 2: But I just, having been confused at one of these just yesterday, I just wanted to check. And actually, I guess it was— was it Saturday? Yesterday? It was Saturday. Anyway. Yeah. So why was this the preferred— is this the You know, state of the art, the traffic circles are considered safer on a bike boulevard than a roundabout. So I think roundabouts are considered safer. However, they require more geometry, and perhaps you can speak to that a little bit further.
[220:33] Speaker 1: Yeah, sure.
[220:36] Speaker 5: So these are more than traffic circles. You know, a traffic circle is typically a, you know, Just as like what you have at Addison today, where it doesn't actually necessarily require the type of, again, sort of shift of a vehicle, that kind of horizontal deflection. And what we have, or we're looking at out there, might be thought of more like mini roundabouts. So there are actual sort of formal classification of roundabouts, but they're smaller than the ones that were referenced on Stanford campus, where you have a lot more space to put kind of a full-size roundabout in. And because the dimensions are smaller, you can still get, you know, that same kind of behavior, and they can work in residential areas or in sort of lower volume streets well. But, you know, they wouldn't work in a higher volume street. So it's a little bit like a more restricted version of that. But the whole idea, the same concept is being applied where you're getting folks in and they are deflecting. And then, yes, It's a little bit atypical, although maybe not totally uncommon, to have them have stops on any of the approaches. So a normal roundabout, right? Everyone enters and yields to the traffic at the left, and they— and you could sign them that way. I think the stop signs really reflect the sort of bicycle priority of the street more than necessarily the design of those intersections. You have a lot of people biking on Bryant. That is, the objective is to build up the bike boulevard nature of that street in this segment. And so, you know, that sort of again signals to folks that like this isn't really a way that's meant for vehicles as much. It's really meant to prioritize the through bicyclists.
[222:19] Speaker 1: And just the piece that I would add is there is inconsistency in Palo Alto. There are some roundabouts with no stops, and then there are some Traffic circles with the 2-way stop, as you mentioned. So our community should be used to seeing both.
[222:39] Speaker 2: Well, I think that last comment, with respect, ignores the fact that we all take different routes. Not every one of us is traversing every street and encountering every round thing, or roundabout or traffic circle, you know. I mean, I drive a lot of places in the city. I don't think I'd been on that particular segment before. So I don't know that that's a compelling argument. If there is interest in having it function more like a roundabout, that's something that we can explore. Definitely.
[223:19] Speaker 1: And just what I would just add is, I think it's also Depends on the neighborhood and the feedback that we receive from residents. The city has installed roundabouts in the past with all yields, and because of neighborhood feedback, we have shifted those to 2-way stops. And so it varies, and I think it's just based on neighborhood feedback. So I definitely hear that. that folks travel, uh, in different ways. Um, and as the director noted, uh, we can look into the feasibility of the all-yields as part of this project too.
[224:02] Speaker 2: Thank you. That's it for me.
[224:04] Speaker 1: Councilman Lowy.
[224:06] Speaker 3: Thank you very much. I know this has been many, many years in process, uh, and in the last 4 years I've heard about it frequently from From folks that want this thing done, and still am. So I hope we can move forward here as appropriate and get these things done. When you're talking about the phasing plan here, I think, again, speaking for the neighbors, they want to make sure that this is not, you know, we'll put this up and we'll come back and do the next traffic circle in 3 years, and then we'll take a look at it and take the— this is a whole project. for the whole boulevard that we're approving.
[224:45] Speaker 1: But of course, we're not going to construct it all at the same time.
[224:48] Speaker 3: So that's what you mean by phasing, correct? Yeah, I just want to— I want to get this out in the public.
[224:56] Speaker 1: Yeah, if we could go to— I believe it's slide 10. Yes, the potential phasing plan.
[225:10] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[225:10] Speaker 1: So, as you mentioned, staff's recommendation is to move forward with a complete package. However, PTC had suggested to consider this phasing approach and first focus on the, the most concerning areas or intersections. So we've presented this potential phasing plan. That focuses on the traffic circles improvements at the various intersections, as well as that left turn restriction. Following PTC's recommendation of focusing on those more— most concerning areas, and then the second phase looking at the curb extensions just at Bryant and Chaney and Bryant and Homer. So it's— that's more location specific. And then the third phase being the installation of permanent improvements based on KPIs such as speed, vehicle volumes, collision, bike volumes, and public feedback. So that would involve another community engagement process. Okay.
[226:20] Speaker 3: So yeah, thanks for referencing slide 10 because it ties exactly right in here, which I noted when you were going over that slide. But the, the, you report out to the committee members provided the following feedback to the initial design concept: strong support for 1 to 5 and a desire to accelerate implementation and obtain PT recommendation to move to 100%. And then another recommendation below is to lower speeds now, which I'll comment on later. What would be— what would you be evaluating and permanently installing in Phase 3?
[227:03] Speaker 1: We would be looking— we'd be looking at permanently installing the left-turn restriction as well as the curb extensions.
[227:13] Speaker 6: Okay.
[227:15] Speaker 3: And that was actually going to be my next question, which What— you say that that's a pilot, and that's fine. What are the criteria that you're using to evaluate, is this successful or not?
[227:25] Speaker 1: The KPIs that we listed are the ones that we would be looking at. The speed volume, collisions, bike volumes, public feedback.
[227:35] Speaker 3: Okay.
[227:37] Speaker 1: And typically in transportation, we like to say that a pilot is at least 6 months to a year. to at least a year to really understand the movements and let people settle into the new street improvements and really start to learn about those outcomes.
[227:58] Speaker 3: Yeah, that's exactly the next comment I was going to make. Do you think there are any downsides to this or risks other than that, which is that it's going to be all new to people, so they're going to make some mistakes? But is that the only kind of risk of this pilot?
[228:12] Speaker 1: Right, as with any other street improvements, just trying to get the neighborhood to understand what the new movement will be. So yep, that's part of the educational campaign.
[228:23] Speaker 3: Okay, and it'll be signed, of course, to help people exactly what to do. And okay, the— you also made a decision not to review the speed limits right now, and you sort of punted this down to the next tranche of improvements. of speed surveys. Could you comment on why and also when that happens?
[228:43] Speaker 2: So it's a slightly different kind of a process. So this, that would be, so I think last year, Council approved the latest version of the speed surveys for a lot of our streets that didn't include any of the neighbourhood streets. So we do plan to have like a separate process where we go through and look at the next group of streets. I think that there's a little bit of cleanup on part of Arrastadero. And as part of that, we were proposing that we would also add some, some local streets that serve as bike boulevards to consider the potential to lower the speed limit below the existing 25 miles per hour in line with AB 43, kind of exploring what's possible as a result of that new legislation. For reducing speeds along there. So it's, it's a different kind of a process to the design project that we're doing for this. But what that also may tie in with an update to the traffic calming policy and program, which we're also learning from as a result of this project.
[229:49] Speaker 3: Okay, I'm over. I don't have too much more. Should I just continue?
[229:53] Speaker 5: Okay, thank you.
[229:55] Speaker 3: And then you also mentioned that PTC had some reservations on curb extensions for cycle travel paths, pushing them into the lanes, which I totally agree with. And sometimes when you have those bulb-outs on the corner, you not only push the bikes into the cars, potentially you push the cars when you're making a right-hand turn, you push that car way out into the intersection for the cross pedestrian. For the crosswalk, for the cross street, sorry, that is in the right-hand lane. I drive down one of those most days, and I mean, you talk about, I mean, I'm stopped to try to get around there and usually wait when I don't have to because it's just so tight. So those, I think those really need a close look, sort of intersection by intersection. And I do hope we can get, uh, Vice Mayor, the, uh, perspective of Commissioner Heckman, uh, on this. Uh, I highly respect the work that they put into it in many meetings, and I know that they've listened to a lot of neighbors. And then we have a unanimous decision, so I'd like to suggest that we, that we hear from him as part of our deliberations.
[231:07] Speaker 5: That's all.
[231:08] Speaker 3: Thanks.
[231:08] Speaker 1: If you have a question for Commissioner Heckman, go ahead.
[231:13] Speaker 3: No, just overall, some of the things maybe as he hears all the comments, you know, what he might comment on the traffic circles or some of these other speed limitation devices.
[231:23] Speaker 1: Sounds good. We'll invite Commissioner Heckman after we get through our first round. Commissioner Lu? Sorry, Councilmember Lu. Thank you. A few questions. On Lincoln and Bryant, it seemed like the feedback was mixed. There were 15 people who wanted divert or 15 people who wanted traffic circle. I guess people who didn't want to divert felt strong, more strongly about that, presumably. So to me, it seems like there's a lot in between, or potentially a lot in between a diverter, which really meaningfully changes traffic patterns and reduces traffic and makes the street much more safe, I think, than a traffic circle, which I understand these traffic circles are somewhat better, but Still not maybe that different from the condition at Addison. So is there anything in between a diverter and traffic circle that we considered or could consider? We're going to call on the consultant to speak on the toolkit of items. The one that we considered, as mentioned, was a diverter and the traffic circles here. But yeah, there's an expansive toolkit.
[232:48] Speaker 5: Yeah, thanks, Aarthi. Yeah, and so, I mean, there are kind of a variety of tools, but they all kind of do sort of a few similar types of things, right? And so typically we talk about, and you've kind of covered the basic ones here tonight, talk about Things that cause horizontal deflection, that cause vehicles to shift, you know, horizontally, and vertical deflection like speed humps or speed tables. And then there are a variety of other kinds of things you could use. You know, sometimes you'll see chicanes where the whole like road sort of shifts and things like that. But, you know, traffic circles, mini roundabouts, things like that really are meant to kind of shift traffic, you know, sort of slow traffic and cause that sort of deflection of vehicles as they travel. And so there are other various things. And then the third category is really, you know, things that actually restrict, as you mentioned, the volume of vehicles. And there are a variety of ways you could do that, you know, directly with traffic diverters, or, you know, in some places on Bryant you have modal filters, right, that prevent vehicles from traveling through across the street, which helps, of course, restrict the amount of vehicles traveling through on maybe more minor streets in the way that you'd be trying to achieve with a bike boulevard network. So there are like variations, but I would say a lot of them are kind of variations on a theme, right? Different kinds of things that you might do in various places. And then there's a whole category of like other treatments you do to streets like bike lanes and other uses of space that aren't really what we're trying to do with a bike boulevard type treatment, right? Where it's about share— about how do you make that space shared and feel safe for people who are biking and who are traveling in vehicles.
[234:29] Speaker 1: One intervention I'm curious if we've considered at all is something like what San Francisco does for its designated slow streets, where they have bollards with a sign that says sort of slow streets, you know, drive 50 miles per hour. And but the bollards are sort of placed in a way that makes turning onto the street and leaving the street extremely inconvenient, such that we could put that on the entrances to Lincoln and Bryan and on the Lincoln side, or potentially other parts of Lincoln as well, so that Lincoln is really sort of designated more for local traffic, and it's very inconvenient to try to cut through on Lincoln. Have we considered anything like that? Is that part of the toolkit?
[235:12] Speaker 3: That's—
[235:13] Speaker 1: or is that just not well studied or understood?
[235:16] Speaker 2: That is part of the toolkit. It's something that they use in some locations.
[235:21] Speaker 1: In terms of this location, I think the 911 Bryant, they—
[235:26] Speaker 2: it actually gets a lot of emergency vehicles going there. And so we would want to consult with colleagues from the fire department to ensure that those types of features are suitable for fire trucks getting around them.
[235:42] Speaker 8: Okay.
[235:45] Speaker 1: So sort of thinking about what's next, quick build was said a few times. Are these traffic circles planned to be quick builds for the 6 to 12 month pilot period? And how much would they cost? How flexible could we be to piloting a diverter if we needed to after the traffic circle implementation? The idea is to install the permanent installations of the traffic circles. Okay. Those are not— Those are not— the only pilot that staff is recommending is the left-turn restriction from Embarcadero Okay. And the bulb-outs at Cowper and Channing. And did I miss this, or were there any costs associated with the permanent traffic circles in the staff report? Are there costs associated with installing the—
[236:44] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[236:45] Speaker 7: Yeah.
[236:45] Speaker 2: Yes, there would be.
[236:46] Speaker 1: We would come back to council with the costs associated with them.
[236:50] Speaker 2: Okay.
[236:51] Speaker 1: And they're not at the engineering point where we know what they cost yet?
[236:53] Speaker 2: No, not yet.
[236:58] Speaker 1: Okay. Okay, just in my last minute, on Embarcadero, you mentioned that the right turn, that restricting the right turn was maybe not thoroughly considered. I'd like you to elaborate and sort of pick up on that point and talk more about the left turn versus right turn and Yeah, what we expect would happen or why you picked one and not the other. Yeah, I can speak to it at a high level, and maybe I'll pass it over to Hugh to speak more on the specific traffic counts because I know they vary by time of day. But roughly high level, it's about split between eastbound and westbound. The high-level thinking for a Eastbound north onto Bryant restriction is that folks can still make that left and access downtown from Waverly. That also has a left turn pocket and is signalized. So staff felt like that was appropriate, and hence why then we coupled that with a recommendation to install a traffic circle at Waverly and Lincoln to mitigate And to add one other thing, my understanding of the speeds that we noticed was that there was speeding coming from Embarcadero.
[238:32] Speaker 2: And so that was kind of the key direction that we were concerned about. I guess you could address that with a right turn on or a left turn on.
[238:41] Speaker 1: But yeah, selected one. Okay. So there's not like a specific thesis about like a school or hours or traffic patterns. We just thought that doing the left turn there was not going to be— or blocking left turn was a reasonable option. So you want to pilot it and see what happens.
[239:03] Speaker 5: I might just add, I think there's a little more left turn traffic from Embarcadero at some of the peak periods. And so we did want to capture that. Also, there is a sort of relatively easier to restrict a left turn, and then there's no restricting a right turn that also isn't also restricting a left turn, really, because once you do that, there's, you know, if you— there would be nowhere for the left turn really to go in the way you would restrict the right turn. So if you're talking about just sort of bringing traffic volumes down, you're going to start with the left turn in any event.
[239:35] Speaker 1: Okay, that makes more sense. Thank you.
[239:42] Speaker 7: you.
[239:43] Speaker 1: Commissioner Heckman, would you like to weigh in on the conversation from the PTC's perspective?
[239:47] Speaker 10: Uh, absolutely.
[239:49] Speaker 3: Uh, thank you for inviting me to do so, uh, Vice Mayor. Uh, so I think really 3 items that, as I've listened to the presentation, public comments, and council, uh, deliberation tonight, uh, first, uh, uh, among the council, there's been fair amount of discussion about the efficacy of the various tools. I would say that there was some of that at the PTC, but not as extensive as I've heard tonight from the members of council. That while in isolated areas, and in fact the existing traffic circle at Addison was mentioned a couple of times as a, I guess, a worrisome example. Really, the A bigger focus of the PTC was to provide some relief. You know, we have this series of intersections where I think there have been 10 accidents in 8 years. And we were, I think, as a group struck by the fact that the— as this came to us with this complete package installation concept, But, you know, we were informed by staff that some aspects of this package require further modeling. And so if you're going to wait to put anything in until you put everything in, that could delay some much-needed relief, perhaps unnecessarily. And so that was really the genesis of the concept of phasing. And of course, we didn't design in any way the phasing. We asked staff to do that. And from, you know, my review of your staff report, I think they've done a a thoughtful job of that.
[241:27] Speaker 1: The last thing I'll mention is on the no left turn off Embarcadero.
[241:36] Speaker 3: That had some discussion at the PTC, and one of the things we noted was that the staff, in describing sort of the volume problem on Bryant and noting that there were perhaps at least twice the volume of cars if not more than what's desirable for a bike boulevard. Our staff report had peak volumes from Embarcadero left onto Bryant in the AM and PM, but it didn't have a daily number. And we were thinking, since we're talking about a street that has something approaching 2,000 daily trips traveling on it, it would be useful to know the number of daily left turns that we would be eliminating through this possible restriction. And we're hoping that the staff and the consultant might be able to provide that to you when it came to you so that you'd have that additional information. And members of the public who, you know, a number of whom tonight have expressed expressed concerns about how much traffic is being diverted to other nearby streets. So those are, I think, the highlights of the PTC deliberation, which, as mentioned in the staff report, resulted in a unanimous recommendation too. Thank you.
[243:02] Speaker 1: Thank you for your insight, City Manager. Vice Mayor, if I could add one more comment, and Commissioner Heckman can correct me if incorrect, but I will tell you, having watched the PTC discussion, that I was also struck by the level of both consensus and support from neighborhood, uh, from residents, uh, at that meeting that, uh, for whatever reason have chosen not to come to your council meeting tonight, uh, as well as, uh, the, quite frankly, the, the complementary discussion, uh, that the PTC had on, uh, as it relates to the staff implementation of this effort. And I gotta tell you, that hasn't always been the case. So, uh, it did strike me. And, uh, again, Commissioner Hackman, if, if If that's an overstatement, please feel free to correct. No, actually, I was kind of struck tonight.
[243:52] Speaker 3: We had 6 public speakers, and I always expect that we get the short end. People want to save their powder for council, but tonight I think you had 4.
[244:02] Speaker 1: So I agree with the city manager.
[244:05] Speaker 10: Hard to explain.
[244:05] Speaker 1: Thank you. Yeah, just to elaborate on that, I think it was Bryant Street residents that were at the PTC.
[244:14] Speaker 3: strongly in support of the recommendations that we're coming forward.
[244:18] Speaker 1: That's helpful. Thank you. Uh, all right, let's see if we can maybe get to a motion, and then we can work off of that, off of that motion to get to a conclusion here. Councilmember Burt?
[244:29] Speaker 3: Yeah, I just have a couple items, then I came to make a motion. I do want to comment on that consensus. Um, and, uh, you know, I've had numerous discussions over the last couple years with Brian Street residents, and their concerns are not about being bikers on that street. Their concerns are about the undue traffic and the accidents that have been happening. So it's good that they had consensus, but it was around that point of view as opposed to what makes it the best and safest biking street per se. We may have alignment on those things. But I just want to make that distinction. And then one of the things we didn't talk about when we— one of the big problems on this street is the cross traffic and the accidents that happen there and the dangers there, whether it's at our existing traffic circle at Addison or Lincoln or other locations like Channing, where I will say at Channing, Cars really roll through there. And what I've noticed for a long time and been— I've brought it up multiple times— is that when cars approach the Bryant Street Bike Boulevard, including in Old Palo Alto and elsewhere, they— unless they are conscious that they, from their own knowledge, are crossing a bike boulevard, they generally are intuitively looking for cars. They're not saying this is exceptionally a bike street. I need to look for bikes. And that's a different, different caution. If I'm a car rolling up, I can just easily see another car, and I know I shouldn't go out in front of it, but I'll miss the bike. And what we don't have is signage that says you are crossing a bike boulevard. And it is an awareness to drivers to look differently. And I know that just intuitively. And it is, I think, a real missing link that we have, not just here but in Old Palo Alto, where we have similar circumstances. And so I plan on offering that as part of the motion. I do like the idea of eventually getting to a lower speed limit. We did have— the staff report noted this issue on daylighting. I'm glad to see that part of the plan is to have the 20-foot put red marking at, I think, all the crossings. I do want to say that at where it was put in at Lincoln and Bryant, it went from no red marking to 120 feet. And on 3 different— if people don't know it, on 3 of the 4 corners you have shrubs that are there. The 120 feet does zero good, and yet the staff report relies again on some national national standard that is completely irrelevant when you can't see past 20 feet or whatever it is. So there's no point in having a red curb that is blocked for 100 of those feet by shrubs. And we went from no red curbing to overkill. And I just do not understand. I think it undermines our credibility when we do things like that. And, uh, and undermines the neighborhood goodwill. So let's fix that. There's really— I, I, it should have been fixed immediately after it was done. And I'm— and I was one of the people saying we need to red curb, but we didn't need to red curb 120 feet. Okay. So I would— oh, one last question. As we were talking about phasing, the traffic circles and the curb extensions look to be the primary capital expense. Do we have that in the budget, and are we going to be held up until we can put it— fund it? Whereas most of these other items seem like they're relatively low cost. And so I'm really wondering whether we really do, by nature of the funding, have 2 phases. Not that we wouldn't desire to do them all at once.
[248:33] Speaker 2: Yes, so we do have this. This project has been placed on the program of projects for Local Streets and Roads Measure B funding.
[248:42] Speaker 1: And so we're planning on utilizing that for this.
[248:44] Speaker 3: So you think you'll have enough? So if there was any holdup, I wouldn't hold up the other things to be able to do those measures. Great if you can do them all at once, but I don't want to say that we will only do them if we can do them at once, but a high preference and encouragement to do I appreciate that. Okay, so I would move, um, the staff recommendation, uh, for the 6 items and add a 7th to, um, add signage on, uh, perpendicular streets to warn of crossing a bike boulevard to, uh, and then 8th is to remove excessive red curbing at the Lincoln and Bryant intersection. And then 9th, to pursue the lower speed limit on Bryant. Second.
[249:53] Speaker 1: I should speak to you, Mr.
[249:57] Speaker 3: Uh, no, I, I've spoken enough. Thank you.
[250:00] Speaker 1: No. All right, any further discussion? Councilmember Liu? Were, uh, for Councilmember Burt, were you referring to the, uh, daylighting on Lincoln and Bryant, or Lincoln— or I just want to confirm the, uh, intersection.
[250:21] Speaker 10: They didn't—
[250:22] Speaker 3: they weren't able to paint all directions there, but most of both Lincoln and Bryant to that intersection has had a long red curve.
[250:33] Speaker 7: Okay.
[250:36] Speaker 2: Okay.
[250:36] Speaker 1: Just confirming. Would you be open to consideration of speed tables or, I guess, sort of designs like that along Well, I wanted to speak to it at the beginning of this discussion and actually inclined to do so.
[250:58] Speaker 3: I was glad to hear, although we haven't seen any really design elements, that we're not proposing a repetition of the existing Addison traffic circle. And I'm taking on good faith that those improvements will be adequate. I do have trepidation. But I think at this point in time, with 3 traffic circles, which is a lot, I don't think that we need that, except I would— what do you have proposed again at Channing?
[251:37] Speaker 2: That's the curb extensions.
[251:41] Speaker 3: Okay. And can I ask Thoughts on a raised crosswalk crossing Channing? It would be only on the, on the west side there, which is where the cars roll through. And so it would be both a speed— serve as a speed table and a raised crosswalk, so they just don't roll through it, which they do today.
[252:02] Speaker 2: I mean, that's, that's a possibility, but we would need to look at it in an engineering design to see how it affects drainage.
[252:11] Speaker 3: Councilmember Lew, I'd be glad to ask staff to explore speed tables or raised crosswalks where they would be advantageous, with a focus on Channing and Bryant as a priority.
[252:31] Speaker 1: Would you be open to also considering those as needed for Lincoln and Bryant? Just thinking about—
[252:39] Speaker 3: Well, it would be included there. I, I, you know, if we have a traffic circle there, I don't quite— are you, you're saying instead of a traffic circle?
[252:48] Speaker 1: I'm thinking in addition, sort of at the entrances and sort of ends of the block around Lincoln.
[252:56] Speaker 3: Oh, I see. And sort of like you would have in a roundabout where you might have a raised crosswalk preceding the entrance to the roundabout. So I— that would be something to ask staff to explore as opposed to stipulate at this time.
[253:14] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[253:15] Speaker 1: And I think the last thing is just that signage on perpendicular streets. I think that's important. I think it's also nice to have signage on Bryan itself so that if you turn onto Bryan from Embarcadero or on it, you sort of know that you're on a— you also know if you're not just coming off from perpendicular street. So maybe number 7 could just be add signage. signage to warn of crossing a bike boulevard. So it's not just perpendicular streets, or signage on perpendicular streets and Bryant.
[253:47] Speaker 3: Okay, I'd be fine to ask staff to explore that. I guess I think we already have signage telling people they're on a bike boulevard, so I'm not sure Yeah.
[254:03] Speaker 5: Okay.
[254:04] Speaker 1: I still have this picture in my head of like these very obvious purple signs they have in San Francisco on slow streets as you sort of go through them. There are just sort of bollards you could—
[254:16] Speaker 3: okay.
[254:16] Speaker 1: Or just like signage you can't miss.
[254:18] Speaker 3: Then I would describe what you're saying as enhanced signage on the bike boulevard.
[254:26] Speaker 1: Sure.
[254:26] Speaker 3: So we would just add Add perpendicular signage to 7th and explore enhanced signage on Bryant.
[254:35] Speaker 7: Great.
[254:41] Speaker 1: And the only clarification question I have is there was around the exploring of the speed tables you mentioned with a focus on Channing and Bryant, and we're also recommending the curb extensions at Homer and Bryant. add Homer and Bryant also to that list? So it would be advantageous with a focus on Channing and Bryant and Homer and Bryant?
[255:09] Speaker 3: Sure.
[255:09] Speaker 1: Okay, thank you.
[255:12] Speaker 3: Thanks.
[255:13] Speaker 1: You guys are allowing me to accept those?
[255:17] Speaker 6: Yes.
[255:23] Speaker 1: And the language is captured correctly? Is the language captured correctly?
[255:28] Speaker 7: Great.
[255:28] Speaker 1: Any further discussion? I have one question for staff.
[255:31] Speaker 2: Councilmember Recktal.
[255:33] Speaker 1: I mean, a separate issue is Lincoln itself. There's a lot of traffic on Lincoln cutting through, and especially by Addison School, there's no speed bumps or anything to slow down traffic there and to encourage them to not use Lincoln and to use Embarcadero or some other route. Why do we evaluate that, or is that something that we just—
[256:00] Speaker 2: So the traffic calming process is kind of petition-driven, and we focus on those neighborhoods.
[256:07] Speaker 1: We had a whole study on Lincoln and Middlefield, and that was an extensive discussion over the last— well, it must have This 2 years or so ago, maybe a little more. Okay, but I would think that a school would be a tug on the heartstrings, and we would want to really slow down traffic by the school. Lots of different ideas on what should be done.
[256:30] Speaker 3: City Manager, didn't we focus though on the hazards of the Middlefield and Lincoln intersection area?
[256:37] Speaker 2: Yes.
[256:38] Speaker 3: And I think what, um, uh, Councilmember Rekdal may be talking about is Given that Lincoln, we have those problems at Middlefield and Lincoln because it's a cut-through. Should we be looking at speed tables on Lincoln wherever that— to both slow the traffic and everything that slows it in a way acts as, to a degree, as a diverter, a limited degree?
[257:06] Speaker 1: I think this does relate to what Director Lowe was referring to as the traffic calming policy, which this project is really intended to poise an update to that policy to bring back to council on setting those priorities.
[257:22] Speaker 3: So that potentially would be a follow-up?
[257:24] Speaker 7: Yes.
[257:24] Speaker 1: Thank you. Okay, thank you. Seeing no further discussion, let's take a vote.
[257:54] Speaker 2: Motion carries 6-0.
[257:55] Speaker 1: Thank you. Okay, moving on now to our final, uh, item, our virtual public comment. Do we have any virtual public commenters?
[258:09] Speaker 2: No hands are raised on Zoom.
[258:11] Speaker 1: Great, thank you. And just a point of personal privilege, I'd like to adjourn tonight's meeting in honor of my father-in-law, José Oropeza, who passed away sadly last week. He was a great man and birthed the most incredible woman that I've ever known. So I'd like to adjourn the meeting in his honor. With that, We're adjourned. Good night.