History
Design started in 1998. Scott Mace of Mid Pen Bicycle Coalition warns about danger to cyclists and pedestrians. There are three authorities. Redwood City is the lead authority. Belmont and Caltrans are the other two.
Issues from the past
1- Belmont and Redwood City decide that bike accommodations are not necessary because a parallel bike bridge will be constructed shortly. Government penalizes walkers and cyclists today, for some Clean Air Act fix in the future, like the TDA-3 over-crossing of Ralston 101 which is now ten years late.
2- Caltrans accommodates compromised access provisions despite its district protests over such design elements on Page Mill Road at 280 and the resulting bicycle fatality that required an interchange restripping plan.
3- Redwood City is able to add two north bound ramp lanes in front of Oracle to 101 from Marina Parkway (which is what Ralston is called on the Redwood City side) to meet their Congestion Management Level of Service (CM-LOS) provisions because of acceptance of compromised access for bicycles and pedestrians today. (See Plan Expectations item 7 below.)
Status-
1- Interchange is still not signed off by Belmont because the landscape provisions have not been completed.
2- The onramp to 101 southbound from Ralston has the most pedestrian bicycle crashes in Belmont.
3- The bicycle bridge ten years later is less than 25% funded, mostly from TDA-3 funds (See Plan Expectations item 7 below.)
4- Numerous complaints about the interchange safety for bikes and peds followed from 2002 onward on the lines of the Scott Mace's notice of dangerous conditions. Peter Voramasenti, Peter Ingram, Dwight Caldwell, Ray Davis, and Julian Caroll were involved. The bridge was opened in 2004.
5- A subsequent meeting in May 2008 with Rich Napier, Dwight Caldwell, Paul Pang, Tom Madalena, and Peter Voramasenti resulted in a decision to review the striping of the interchange.
6- Redwood City painted a dashed pocket lane left of the two onramp lanes from Oracle as part of a larger (well done) restriping program in Redwood Shore in September 2008.
Paint Expectations
1- Caltrans will complete their restriping plan from the May 2008 meeting to allow a bike lane to the gore when westbound on Marina Parkway past the two onramps.
NOTE: subsequent update- Peter Dalgado in RWC said that RWC, as the lead authority on the unsigned off plan (see item 1 under status) would paint in the lanes on their dime if Caltrans can finish the drawings.
2- Belmont will draw and paint bike lanes from Ralston and Hiller to Ralston and Old County.
NOTE: subsequent update- Council member Bill Dickenson, lead to the Belmont Green Advisory Committee, said he would take this provision up with the Belmont City Council.
3- Peter Delgado in RWC said he might paint the pocket lane on Marina Parkway in solid lines after a bike lane to the gore is painted in. This would made the automotive design elements in the present striping plan safer since it causes motorists to rethink cutting in at the last minute.
Plan Expectations
1- CCAG will write a policy for interchanges that requires routine accommodations- bike and ped access will be designed into all projects and fully funded at the design stage. Sandy Wong, assistant director at CCAG acknowledged before the CCAG board, July 10th 2008, in response to question from Kelly Furgusson on item 4.10 pulled from the consent calendar, that this would be necessary.
2- CCAG needs to address how its CM-LOS goals result in designs like this 2004 interchange which compromise bicycle and pedestrian safety, comfort, efficiency, health and access elements.
3- Todd McIntyre of the Transit Authority was asked by Committee For Green Foothills, the Sierra Club, and Gladwyn d'Souza in the reauthorization of Measure A to only include funding for road projects that fully include bicycle and pedestrian access in August 2008.
4- Rich Napier said in May 2008 that he would look into getting full funding of bike and ped access in road projects from other road funding sources like the project budget itself. CCAG needs to write this into their project design requirements.
5- Belmont's unfunded bike bridge takes riders almost a mile off course with severe egress and exits time compromises. Egress issues are prevalent for all POCs including the Belmont Bike Ped bridge which seeks to provide access to the Bay Trail and links an east 101 Belmont neighborhood with Nesbit Elementary School. Caltrans is looking into egress and comfort issues on the upcoming Woodside interchange which could be a model of how future projects are designed. General plan circulation elements should state that POCs should be part of an Urban Trail System that provides complete regional access for children's land uses.
6. Caltrans District 4 needs to fully implement DD-64
7. MTC and the TA needs to review how CM-LOS provisions results in denied access and the resulting role of TDA-3 funds in compromised safety and access for non motorized modes.
Monday, January 19, 2009
STRS funding needs effectiveness appraisal.
As the state gears up to release $48.5M in Safe Route To School funding they need to look how jurisdictions are spending the money and what the planning agencies are doing to the reduce the occurrence of problems from Level of Service "enhancements."
Measure A money is used by the Transportation Authority in San Mateo County to "relive congestion" from low LOS grades at interchanges with planning through CCAG. The larger permitted traffic take away pedestrian and bicycle facilities. For example the Ralston 101 interchange in Belmont CA took the sidewalk away on the north side and has street furniture in the narrow five foot sidewalk on the south side. The doubled up right turning freeway access lanes to 101 northbound took away a shareable bike lane westbound. Some cyclists began riding wrong way on the south side sidewalk interfering with peds on the narrow sidewalk. And cyclist-vehicle collisions have increased where the sidewalk crosses the access lane to 101 northbound.
Belmont told Caltrans at the interchange design phase in 1998 that they would be building a Pedestrian Over Crossing which is why the ped and bike facilities were compromised. The POC has only secured twenty five percent of its funding ten years later. The city has applied for a stimulus grant because they say it is a shovel ready project. Because of the topography it will add, if and when completed, 7/8s of a mile to a ped trip!
In the neighborhood on the northwest side of the interchange complaints of cut through traffic resulted in a 450k SRTS grant for bulbouts. This was installed without any neighborhood meetings. When other neighbors complained that the bulbouts only made it difficult to get in and out of their side streets and did nothing for cut through traffic on the collector, the city took them out for $500k.
The larger interchange has resulted in higher traffic volumes and off peak speed increases. Complaints from parents of school aged children resulted in a couple of SRTS grants to install lighted crosswalks and a couple for Automatic Speed Radar Display signs. One of the intersections where the SRTS lighted crosswalk was installed is more than 70 feet wide and complaints have persisted from parents about near misses with children. The city is considering removing the lighted crosswalk and going with a zebra crossing instead.
Meanwhile the off peak speed increases have raised complaints that the ASRD signs are routinely ignored. The response from public works is to point to enforcement and the response from police is that the Prima Facie Speed law conflicts with the Speed trap law and they can't do anything about it. However when San Mateo City police chief Mannheimer tried to get the state to allow ASRD signs to also write speeding tickets none of the surrounding jurisdictions supported the effort. In the neighboring city of San Carlos a the police say the same thing after an SRTS funded ASRD sign was installed on San Carlos Ave. When a senior was killed crossing SCA a couple years ago the city's first response was to try and take away the crosswalk. However after protests, I saw this last weekend, that they have paid to signalize the intersection.
Measure A money is used by the Transportation Authority in San Mateo County to "relive congestion" from low LOS grades at interchanges with planning through CCAG. The larger permitted traffic take away pedestrian and bicycle facilities. For example the Ralston 101 interchange in Belmont CA took the sidewalk away on the north side and has street furniture in the narrow five foot sidewalk on the south side. The doubled up right turning freeway access lanes to 101 northbound took away a shareable bike lane westbound. Some cyclists began riding wrong way on the south side sidewalk interfering with peds on the narrow sidewalk. And cyclist-vehicle collisions have increased where the sidewalk crosses the access lane to 101 northbound.
Belmont told Caltrans at the interchange design phase in 1998 that they would be building a Pedestrian Over Crossing which is why the ped and bike facilities were compromised. The POC has only secured twenty five percent of its funding ten years later. The city has applied for a stimulus grant because they say it is a shovel ready project. Because of the topography it will add, if and when completed, 7/8s of a mile to a ped trip!
In the neighborhood on the northwest side of the interchange complaints of cut through traffic resulted in a 450k SRTS grant for bulbouts. This was installed without any neighborhood meetings. When other neighbors complained that the bulbouts only made it difficult to get in and out of their side streets and did nothing for cut through traffic on the collector, the city took them out for $500k.
The larger interchange has resulted in higher traffic volumes and off peak speed increases. Complaints from parents of school aged children resulted in a couple of SRTS grants to install lighted crosswalks and a couple for Automatic Speed Radar Display signs. One of the intersections where the SRTS lighted crosswalk was installed is more than 70 feet wide and complaints have persisted from parents about near misses with children. The city is considering removing the lighted crosswalk and going with a zebra crossing instead.
Meanwhile the off peak speed increases have raised complaints that the ASRD signs are routinely ignored. The response from public works is to point to enforcement and the response from police is that the Prima Facie Speed law conflicts with the Speed trap law and they can't do anything about it. However when San Mateo City police chief Mannheimer tried to get the state to allow ASRD signs to also write speeding tickets none of the surrounding jurisdictions supported the effort. In the neighboring city of San Carlos a the police say the same thing after an SRTS funded ASRD sign was installed on San Carlos Ave. When a senior was killed crossing SCA a couple years ago the city's first response was to try and take away the crosswalk. However after protests, I saw this last weekend, that they have paid to signalize the intersection.
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Measure A strategic plan
Meeting with Todd McIntyre of the Transportation Authority and Lenny Roberts of Committee for Green Foothills.
Anticipated revenue over 25 years is $1.5B
Estimated funding match $2.2B
There was almost nothing for bikes and peds in the last cycle except for the bike map. This was because the funding pot was .5% Marginally better for transit because Caltrain got the bullet and shuttle service and Burlingame got a station upgrade from a 30% funding pot.
Still a problem- Highways, local roads make up 50%. Only an additional 1% goes to management.
Comments due- by the end of September. Series of meetings are going to be scheduled around the county. We need to get more pedestrian and bicycle comments in. Todd McIntyre of the TA who gave the presentation was in Public Relations, been on the job only two months, and really knew his material well.
Purpose- the usual: What's worked well, how do we get a better Return on Investment, leverage more value with the matching funds. (We can point out here that building access into projects returns value.)
Goals- Safety, Capacity. (We point out that wider roads are more dangerous that bikes and peds make up 20% of fatalities and historically less than .5% of funding, and that capacity is greatly improved if more butts are on bike seats or walking.)
New Allocation- 3% bikes and peds, 15% grade separation, 30% transit, 27.5% highways, 22.5 % local streets and transportation, 1% management.
Electrification is in the transit dollars. I asked for solararizing ten platforms at 40MW per day or 40,000 panels to meet the 400 MW demand of the system at full electrification. http://cogsmac.blogspot.com/2008/08/electrifiy-caltrain-on-solar-pv.html
The 27.5% highway fund should be 50% discretionary for management programs by cities and county to reduce the need for expansion. This would be in addition to the available flexibility. Prevent Ralston/101 bicycle access deterioration by requiring that all projects need to incorporated and fund multimodality out of the roads budget and not the bike ped account.
The local shuttle program should include a bike sharing program and bike stations. Add downtown area shuttles like SCOOT.
Under accessible services include car sharing and ride matching.
Provide money for an electric bus line on El Camino that would continue the SF line from Daly City.
Highway and Roads program: Sierra Club is opposed to two of the four programs- widening and adding auxiliary lanes which is seen as widening. The Highway parallel Arterial Streets needs to removed or changed to 20 mph streets for alternate vehicles like golf carts. Need to add in hearings for the Environmental Impact statements and include wetlands and water mitigation. The interchange reconstruction component needs to take into account that interchanges have become barriers to accessibility for bikes and peds. (need a Ralston 101 study versus the bike bridge on how the matching funds line up.)
Bike ped program: saw very little of the Comprehensive Bicycle Plan built in the last iteration of Measure A and not building in bike access on the Ralston/101 interchange has ended up requiring funding for a ten million dollar plus bike bridge which is already four years late since the interchange opened. Add multimodaltiy criteria to come out of the interchange and highway budget. Midcoast Coastal Conservancy (?) MCC needs sketches for possible alignment, more bite sized trail chunks funded and built, and an assessment. Need an Urban comprehensive trail and highway plan. Bike lane improvements along highways like skyline. A connected off road trails where the gaps are identified and connected. An Urban Trail System where bike boulevards combine traffic calming to deliver a connected alternate mobility system utilizing trails, POCs, and traffic calmed streets. Trails consume $2M per mile. The pedestrian requirement are immense. So the $60M budget over the next 25 years will only meet about 2% of the bikes, ped, and trails needs. This means serious gaps in the system and a continued emphasis on driving resulting in more safety and capacity problems.
Alternate Congestion Relief program needs Next Bus Locator and a Fast Pass style ticketing system. Add Grand Boulevard, electric buses on El Camino and a bus/bike only lane for improved service under AB32.
Program categories: need parallel tracking for freight to rail. HSR will pay for its own ROW. Don't know what the FEDs will require in GreenTEA (begins negotiations in Congress next year and has serious budget shortfalls from the gas tax because of reduced driving.)
Evaluation Criteria- add access to effectiveness distinct from mobility. In other criteria add design review for multimodality.
Anticipated revenue over 25 years is $1.5B
Estimated funding match $2.2B
There was almost nothing for bikes and peds in the last cycle except for the bike map. This was because the funding pot was .5% Marginally better for transit because Caltrain got the bullet and shuttle service and Burlingame got a station upgrade from a 30% funding pot.
Still a problem- Highways, local roads make up 50%. Only an additional 1% goes to management.
Comments due- by the end of September. Series of meetings are going to be scheduled around the county. We need to get more pedestrian and bicycle comments in. Todd McIntyre of the TA who gave the presentation was in Public Relations, been on the job only two months, and really knew his material well.
Purpose- the usual: What's worked well, how do we get a better Return on Investment, leverage more value with the matching funds. (We can point out here that building access into projects returns value.)
Goals- Safety, Capacity. (We point out that wider roads are more dangerous that bikes and peds make up 20% of fatalities and historically less than .5% of funding, and that capacity is greatly improved if more butts are on bike seats or walking.)
New Allocation- 3% bikes and peds, 15% grade separation, 30% transit, 27.5% highways, 22.5 % local streets and transportation, 1% management.
Electrification is in the transit dollars. I asked for solararizing ten platforms at 40MW per day or 40,000 panels to meet the 400 MW demand of the system at full electrification. http://cogsmac.blogspot.com/2008/08/electrifiy-caltrain-on-solar-pv.html
The 27.5% highway fund should be 50% discretionary for management programs by cities and county to reduce the need for expansion. This would be in addition to the available flexibility. Prevent Ralston/101 bicycle access deterioration by requiring that all projects need to incorporated and fund multimodality out of the roads budget and not the bike ped account.
The local shuttle program should include a bike sharing program and bike stations. Add downtown area shuttles like SCOOT.
Under accessible services include car sharing and ride matching.
Provide money for an electric bus line on El Camino that would continue the SF line from Daly City.
Highway and Roads program: Sierra Club is opposed to two of the four programs- widening and adding auxiliary lanes which is seen as widening. The Highway parallel Arterial Streets needs to removed or changed to 20 mph streets for alternate vehicles like golf carts. Need to add in hearings for the Environmental Impact statements and include wetlands and water mitigation. The interchange reconstruction component needs to take into account that interchanges have become barriers to accessibility for bikes and peds. (need a Ralston 101 study versus the bike bridge on how the matching funds line up.)
Bike ped program: saw very little of the Comprehensive Bicycle Plan built in the last iteration of Measure A and not building in bike access on the Ralston/101 interchange has ended up requiring funding for a ten million dollar plus bike bridge which is already four years late since the interchange opened. Add multimodaltiy criteria to come out of the interchange and highway budget. Midcoast Coastal Conservancy (?) MCC needs sketches for possible alignment, more bite sized trail chunks funded and built, and an assessment. Need an Urban comprehensive trail and highway plan. Bike lane improvements along highways like skyline. A connected off road trails where the gaps are identified and connected. An Urban Trail System where bike boulevards combine traffic calming to deliver a connected alternate mobility system utilizing trails, POCs, and traffic calmed streets. Trails consume $2M per mile. The pedestrian requirement are immense. So the $60M budget over the next 25 years will only meet about 2% of the bikes, ped, and trails needs. This means serious gaps in the system and a continued emphasis on driving resulting in more safety and capacity problems.
Alternate Congestion Relief program needs Next Bus Locator and a Fast Pass style ticketing system. Add Grand Boulevard, electric buses on El Camino and a bus/bike only lane for improved service under AB32.
Program categories: need parallel tracking for freight to rail. HSR will pay for its own ROW. Don't know what the FEDs will require in GreenTEA (begins negotiations in Congress next year and has serious budget shortfalls from the gas tax because of reduced driving.)
Evaluation Criteria- add access to effectiveness distinct from mobility. In other criteria add design review for multimodality.
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