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Home My WebLink AboutBicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee 2024-03-12 Minutes1 BICYCLE AND PEDESTRIAN ADVISORY COMMITTEE (BPAC) Wednesday, March 12, 2024 AT 6:00 P.M. SPECIAL MEETING MINUTES CALL TO ORDER • Chair Bergman called the meeting to order at 6:10 P.M. ROLL CALL Commissioners Present: Chair Bergman, Vice Chair Mooney, Member Marc Solomon Commissioners Absent: Member (Alternate) Anne Coyne, Member Mark Kyle Staff Present: Staff (Traffic Engineer) Nhat Phan, Staff (Director of Public Works) April Miller, Staff (Assistant Public Works Director) Joanna Kwok, Staff (Mayor) Kate Colin, Staff (City Manager) Cristine Alilovich, Councilmember (Maika Llorens Gulati) SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS No special presentations. OTHER AGENDA ITEMS Selection of Chair and Vice-Chair Representatives for BPAC Committee Chair Bergman nominate Vice-Chair Mooney to become Chair and Member Mark Kyle to Vice-Chair. Motion approved by BPAC Committee and will start roles at next BPAC Meeting scheduled on April 3, 2024. Downtown Transit Center Relocation Project Update Presentation by Kimley Horn on behalf of Golden Gate Transit Downtown Transit Center is located at 3rd Street and Hetherton Street. It is the largest hub in Marin County and has over 700 daily bus-trips. The Transit Center will be relocated to one block north from its current location. The presentation by Kimley Horn provided details on Project background, public engagement activities, bicycle and pedestrian improvements, North-South Greenway configuration, and 4th Street crossing. For additional details, please view the BPAC Special Meeting recording. Listed below are comments from BPAC Members and the public. Member Marc Solomon – For the summer public engagement, is it just a community gathering or not defined? Will the schedule be impacted by supply chain issues? Response: Not defined. Golden Gate Transit is working with the Canal Alliance, reaching out to stakeholders, and having discussions with equity communities. In the summer, another open 2 house event will be held. The Project is currently working through environmental clearances. Being able to obtain NEPA and CEQA clearances will be impacting the schedule timeframe of the Project. Supply chain impacts will be evaluated in the future. Vice-Chair Mooney – Drawings included path of 2nd and 3rd Street, but doesn’t include other areas outside. Why is that? What will happen to the current property? Response: The Project will only implement improvements to areas that would be impacted due to relocation efforts. Golden Gate Transit will sell the current property to help fund the Project. Chair Bergman – Crossing at Tamalpais and 4th Street, Pedestrians and Buses would have exclusive phases. Why would there be an issue if they have a red? Alternatives such as example 2, movements for pedestrians and cyclists would have their own phase. Response: Challenge with operation is that we would make it insufficient for vehicular movements given the fact that we are adding so many different phases. Councilmember Miaka – For the Crosswalk at Hetherton and 3rd Street, can we relocate it closer to the train tracks? Response: There’s a desired line on Hetherton Street for pedestrian movement. Elimination of the crosswalk would not occur on this Project. Public Comment No. 1 – WTB-TAM passed letter to City Council. Propose that the City look closely at all routes outside of the Transit Center area. Encourage Golden Gate Transit and City to consider additional safe passages while moving this Project forward. Public Comment No. 2 – Recommend Option 1. Option with different pedestrian and bicycle pathway elevations would cause tripping hazards. Would not recommend a share-use path because people utilize the area differently and conflicts would arise. Separating transit, pedestrians, and bicyclists is the best option for this area. Public Comment No. 3 – Really glad to see this Transit Station Project come to fruition. Agree with comments from WTB-TAM. It’s a special location with historic recreation and need to make it available for all parties to utilize. Option 3 would be the best option because it would create a shared space. Public Comment No. 4 – Are you narrowing 4th street? Where do cars go to for unloading? Response: Loading zone will be on the west side of 3rd Street and then vehicles would continue onto 4th Street. Public Comment No. 5 – Is the sidewalk bumped out on 4th Street? Would like it separated from bicycle paths because they would become a hazard. Like the option of shared utilize space for these new proposed paths. Public Comment No. 6 – Question on crossing on alignment near 2nd Street. Option would allow a lot of vehicle traffic to travel through area. Long-term and short-term parking solutions? Are they just an afterthought? Public Comment No. 7 – Thank you for all the public engagement for this Transit Center Relocation Project. Glad to see separation and bike parking options in consideration. Public Comment No. 8 – Has Golden Gate or bus transit considered electric buses and overhead power charging? Buses should make it a goal for a trip every 15 minutes. Current 3 wait time right now is 30 minutes. Can we just try to run a network like San Francisco? Response: Golden Gate Bridge District is considering electric buses, but determination hasn’t been made yet. Public Comment No. 9 – Things are very different now. People are distracted these days. I like the idea of separation of bicyclists and pedestrians since communication is not there. Need to design routes that are user friendly for cyclists to travel safely without other obstacles. Public Comment No. 10 – I am a pedestrian that gets around by walking frequently but would need to also use a vehicle occasionally. I believe we are too focused on bicyclists and need to be more considerate of pedestrians and driving needs. Movements and turns along the 3rd Street corridor seem to be an issue. Staff April – We have been working to build the path that leads up to the Transit Center. Our intent is to apply for grants to improve the rest of the North-South Greenway and 4th Street corridor improvements. BPAC Committee Discussion - Even though there are items mentioned today outside of the scope of this Project. BPAC Committee would like to emphasize the importance of bicycle and pedestrian improvements throughout the City. Local Road Safety Plan Update Presentation by Parametrix on behalf of Transportation Authority of Marin Local Road Safety Plan (LRSP) is a roadmap to help identify, analyze, and prioritize roadway safety improvements on local and rural roads. A LRSP helps the City of San Rafael identify safety problems, recommend safety improvements, develop local agency partnerships, and create a prioritized list of improvements and actions. This will help the City move forward with obtaining funding from future grant opportunities. Based on the collision data overview in Marin County, City of San Rafael is equating to approximate 25% of collisions between 2017 to 2021. Primary factors of collision in San Rafael are unsafe speeds, automobile violations, and signage violations. Hot spots where pedestrian collisions are occurring are at Lincoln/Mission Street, Grand/Third Street, and Transit Center. Based on collision rates along road segments and at intersections, the top segments are Tamalpais: 3rd to 5th Street, Lincoln: 2nd Street to Mission Avenue, A: 2nd to 5th Street. For additional details, please view the BPAC Special Meeting recording. Listed below are comments from BPAC Members and the public. Public Comment No. 11 – Thank you for the great work sharing this data with the Public. Public Comment No. 12 – Strongly recommend for the City Council to help adopt Vision Zero in our City. Public Comment No. 13 – Recommends the City to look at improving intersections with more protected left turns. The risk of leaving it up to vehicles to stop or make way for others is not enough. 4 Public Comment No. 14 – The data shows that it is dangerous for pedestrians to cross the roadway. The City needs to do a better job of making more improvements to stop these types of collisions. Public Comment No. 15 - Would love to see City Council adopt Vision Zero policy. Public Comment No. 16 – Support Vision Zero policy. Right now, there is a pilot study happening for license plate cameras to help enforce bad drivers running red lights. Think it would be a good idea if the City would consider this as an option. Public Comment No. 17 – San Francisco has pedestrian timers when people are crossing at a crosswalk. San Rafael is very inconsistent. Some intersections have counters for time left to cross and some don’t. The City needs to fix this. Staff April – City is in discussion about the adoption of LRSP and Vision Zero with City Council. STAFF LIASON AND COMMISIONER REPORTS No reports. ADJOURNMENT Next scheduled meeting will be held on Wednesday, April 3, 2024, at 6:00 P.M. Meeting minutes approved this 3rd day of April 2024. Nhat Phan __________________________________________ Nhat Phan, Traffic Engineer