 time is now 8 30. Seeing that we do have all these great people here. Let's just let's do a roll call. Let's get the party started up. Morning. Good morning. Good morning. Chair Alvarez. Present. Member Sawyer. Here. Let the record reflect that all members are present with the exception of member Rogers. Very well. Yeah, let's go ahead and move on to public comment. I have number two. This is the time when any person may address matters, not listen on this agenda, but which are within the subject matter of the jurisdiction. The public may comment on agenda items when the item is called. Each speaker is allowed three minutes. Do we have any recorded messages or calls this one? We have there are no raised hands at this time. And there are no message general comment messages. However, there are messages. There is a recorded message for item 3.1 today. Very well. We'll see. And I take it we'll read or listen to that item once item 3.1 is presented. Correct. That's correct. Very well. With that being said, let's go ahead and move on to as close public comment and move on to item three. If you'd like to present this item, we really appreciate it, sir. Sure. Good morning. Good morning, Vice Mayor Alvarez, Council Member Sawyer and everyone else on the call. Item 3.0 is new business and therefore 3.1 is Mendocino survey results and proposed design. And we have Deputy Director for Traffic or TPW, Robert Sprinkle making a presentation this morning to the enemy. And I am attempting to, oh, there we go. There's Deputy Director Sprinkle. I will be pulling up the his presentation in just one moment. Good morning. Can you hear me okay? We can. Thank you. Great. Great. Thanks. And I apologize for the delay. It'll just be one more moment. Morning, Rob. And welcome to the downtown subcommittee. Good morning. Thank you for having me. I will go ahead and whenever you are ready. I am ready. So thank you for having me this morning. My name is Rob Sprinkle. I'm the Deputy Director of Traffic Engineering for the city of Santa Rosa. And today we discussing the Mendocino Avenue reconfiguration. Go to the next slide, please. So briefly go over our agenda for today. So I'm going to go over the background for this project, how it got started, go over the timeline briefly. We'll look at survey results that were taken over the summer. Talk about the proposed implementation plan and get comments back from the committee and from the public. Next slide, please. So the city is embarking on a project to restart several streets in the downtown area. One of the streets being Mendocino Avenue between 4th Street and College Avenue. So this gives us a perfect opportunity and kind of a blank slate for the street to restripe it in a different configuration if we choose to do so. So we've been working with the public and we've had a public meeting and I'll get into that a little bit more to talk about some of the different options for this roadway. So this is the segment we're looking at on the aerial here from College to 4th Street or to the downtown courthouse square. Next slide, please. So the existing configuration of this segment of road is by and far two lanes in the northbound direction and one lane in the southbound direction. So this is a cross section of the roadway configuration. Looking north, you see the taillights of the two in the in the center lane and in the right lane. And for the majority of the street, there's parking allowed on both sides. And some of the intersections that parking is stripped in order to provide the left turn movements and left turn lane at the intersections. So with the construction of Old Courthouse Square, or the square being reunited basically, that really decreased the amount of traffic that has been on Mendocino Avenue in the segment between 10th and Old Courthouse Square by about 60%, which is quite a bit. This has allowed us to kind of reimagine what we want to do with this segment of roadway and remove one of the travel into the northbound direction without really affecting the the mobility of the traffic in this segment of roadway. So so we're recommending that yet we don't need that extra capacity and we want to we went out to the public to get comments back on what the best use of that would be. So the project that we're moving forward with is is a slurry project. And so that basically allows us to change, like I mentioned, change the striping. So with this project, we're not looking at changing the with the sidewalk, installing bulb outs or doing street trees. It's that's out of the scope of this project. But it does allow us to move forward with some some other options with the striping. Next slide, please. So some of the preliminary concepts we had that we brought to the public and wanted feedback on were these three concepts. One was changing the center, the north one of the northbound travel lanes into a center turn lane. The other was to the second was to install angled parking along the side of the street to increase the number of parking spaces. And then the third was to add bike lanes along the segment of roadway. Next slide, please. So looking at the timeline, we had intended to meet with the downtown subcommittee in May and that meeting was canceled, unfortunately. So what we did continue to meet with our downtown action organization, we held a community meeting in May 17. I went to the by school pedestrian advisory board May 19. And then we had a held an online survey from May to the end of June, where we received with a questionnaire and we received results on what the public was interested in in seeing the segment of street look like. So and there's a there's a little gap in our schedule here because we unfortunately did lose our active transportation planner Bjorn Grievenberg. He moved on to another position in another jurisdiction, unfortunately. And so there has been a little bit of gap, but we're trying to get this back on track and and move forward with our final design for this project. So we're going to be meeting we're sort of meeting today with the subcommittee, and then we're going to be meeting again with the downtown action organization in the middle of October and back to the bicycle pedestrian board advisory board in the middle of November. Next slide, please. So some of the themes we heard from the stakeholders at the community meetings, that was that they wanted to create a more friendly pedestrian friendly experience. There's complaints about speeding along the segment of roadway. They wanted to see more aesthetics are planning outdoor dining. Some suggested closing a portion of the road to vehicles entirely. Some looked at maybe closing it to traffic in one direction. But overall, the the concept of having a lower stress segment of roadway was one of the kind of prevailing type of themes that we heard from the public. Next slide, please. So we also heard relatively little about increasing the parking supply in this segment of roadway with the angle parking. But there was a strong contingency that that really likes the concept of parklets in the area and and wanted to retain the parklets that were there and proposed, you know, proposed business would be adding parklets along the segment of roadway to have a more pedestrian friendly and more vibrant type of segment of roadway. Next slide, please. So there is very little feedback on the center turn lane option as the segment of road really doesn't have a lot of left turns that or driveways that need a center turn link for access. So that was and that was recognized by the community. Next slide, please. Mr. Spriggle, I'm through the mayor or through our chair. Do you want questions while you were presenting or would you prefer that we wait until the presentation is complete? I prefer if you wait till it's complete, but I'm happy to go back to slides and reference them. No, that'll work actually. I might be answering your questions as we go. True. Thank you. I appreciate it. So the surveys, as I mentioned, were open from the middle of May to June. We had over a thousand responses, which is great. Here's a couple of samples of the questions we wanted to know how people use Mendocino Avenue and if they were the business owners, if they were downtown, if they lived in the downtown, if they visited the downtown. So it gave us a framework of people who are answering the questions what their frame of reference was from. Next slide, please. So going over some of the survey results. So this is an overall ranking of the surveys that received. They have the overall at the top and then broken down underneath that is the rankings from people who visit downtown, live in the downtown, work in the downtown, have a business on Mendocino or a business in the downtown area. So from the results that we received, there was they're all actually fairly close and we see that kind of throughout the surveys that, you know, everyone has a different perspective and are bringing their perspectives to our attention. The parklets and the desire to have parklets more outdoor dining ranked the highest overall, then bike lanes, then down the traffic circulation and on-street parking. And then if you look at the breakdown of the different who is responding favorably to each one's on the on-street parking, for example, the Mendocino business owners ranked that very high as wanting to have the on-street parking 4.7 out of 5 and the downtown business is also supported that. Whereas overall the bike lanes from people who live in the downtown was a very high ranked item as well at 3.9 and outdoor seatings for people who live downtown is 4.1. So different perspectives and different, which is exactly what we wanted to see. We wanted to see who is responding to what different items more favorably. So it helps give us a frame of reference of where people are coming from. Next slide, please. So we also had the survey look at the three options that we presented and got feedback on what was preferred from the overall survey results. So and the highest ranking one came back was to install the bike lanes. There's an A and B down here and those are related to two different layouts on the bike lanes at intersections and those related to whether we wanted to strip parking at the intersection to provide buffer bike lanes, which is the B, or to maintain one side of parking at the intersections and include the left turn lanes, which is A and we actually decided to go a different route than A or B and eliminate the left turn lanes at the intersections to help calm the traffic and and reduce the speeds in the area. Next slide, please. So moving on to the proposed design from the feedback that we heard from the public, you know, and we're taking the public these 1054 surveys and trying to consolidate them into the overall views of everyone providing input. So bike lanes was definitely something that was proposed and I know that the protected bike lanes was specifically proposed and in reading some of the comments and the attached letters to the committee, I understand the desire to have the protected bike lanes in this segment of roadway. However, there's also a strong feeling for the parklets and in order to have protected bike lanes with parklets, those, if you shift the parklet, you know, over to the travel lane and have the protected bike lane between the curb and the parklet, then there's, you can't have a bike lane between a parklet and the curb because people are then crossing to get to the parklet over the bike lane and that creates a direct conflict. So our proposal was to install the bike lanes, reduce the number of left turns along the street, not prohibiting them, but reduce the left turn lanes to help induce traffic calming and also by doing this we're also allowing for more parking spaces along Minasino Avenue and those 15 extra parking spaces that would be added aren't necessarily parking spaces, but they would be for parking or bike corrals or parklets, but they afford the opportunity to use that space that would otherwise be able to use. So this option also maximizes the parking opportunities, which was one of the highest things that we saw from the community. And then with that, John, I'd be happy to go back. This is the end of the presentation. I'd be happy to go back and answer your question. Sure. Thanks, Rob. And I'm not sure if this is for you or for Raisa, someone who is directly knowledgeable about the current status of parklets on Fourth Street. If it's, if I'm not mistaken, I have seen a fair number of parklets being removed and I assume that I don't know if they're being removed permanently or if they're just being redesigned and then replaced. This is why, right, so you could probably address this. If they're being removed because of, for whatever reason, whether it's, it's a lack of desire to participate in the program or if they feel they're not, they're not as necessary anymore, whatever that might be. And you could probably answer that piece too. But if, if indeed the parklet program on Fourth Street is being abandoned by the merchants themselves, then what, what confidence do we have that, for some reason, Mendocino Avenue is going to be more successful than Fourth or Fifth Street has been with this program? Okay. So firstly, Caden's Allyson is also on the call and she's been amazing in helping us coordinate with the merchants. At least in the rural square area in particular. So if you could, yes, she's been elevated. But just to set the groundwork on this, we did once we, once council passed the permanent parklet program, we did give the, those with a temporary program from leftover from the, you know, the pandemic, a timeline in which they had to remove their parklets. And so if they didn't submit an application for a permanent parklet, they had to remove them by a certain date. And only some of the restaurants are deciding to move forward with a permanent parklet. I'm going to let Caden's answer this more, more completely. But I will say that anyone who is interested, even including those who are already moving forward with a permanent parklet, they are, the costs for building those out are an applicable expense for our facade improvement program. But I can have Caden's talk about who at this point has submitted and what the status of that is. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Robbie, Caden's was going to answer that question. I'll just chime in quickly and say of our downtown businesses who have parklets, who have temporary parklets, the majority are keeping or are interested in keeping space outdoor for dining. So some of those will not have parklets. They might have sidewalk seating. For instance, Russian River is expanding their sidewalk seating. On fourth, we have I think five or five businesses who have submitted applications for parklets, plus four others who are aiming for sidewalk seating because it's more suitable for their physical space. And then on Fifth and Mendocino, there's one each. And then with new restaurants coming in, they're being made aware as they look at space for lease that this is an option for them as well, which makes it really appealing. And I will say that the costs have not been, all of the business owners are pretty pleased with how, what the city has done, what race and her team and Gabe and his team have done to reduce the costs to, I mean, practically nothing. And then also supporting them with the facade improvement program funds, that's made a big impact for a lot of them as well. So most of them right now are moving forward with the permanent process through Gabe with the permanent process. So just working to support them getting those done as soon as possible so we can get the final pallets out as soon as possible as well. Great. Thanks, Caden. Because one of the concerns I had, and I know that it's shared by staff, and I would hope that it's shared also by those that are looking to install a more permanent parklets, is the consistency of design and the aesthetics. And we all could see that there was, that it was just leaving it up to the, kind of about whatever they wanted to do wasn't a particularly pleasing result. And so I'm pleased to hear that the restaurants are looking forward to this program in its new iteration with consistent appearance and an eye on aesthetics and therefore the quality experience of the downtown. So I'm optimistic and I just wanted to clarify that piece because I was concerned that if it wasn't working on 4th or 5th Street, you know, why would we think it would work on Mendocino? So I'm heartened to hear that it's moving in a great direction. I appreciate it. Thank you. Yeah. Well, thank you. And to add to that, I do want to thank Grafa for assisting a couple of additional business owners who are planning to move forward with the with the parklet program. So there's definitely movement and intent to to participate in there. Now, for those of us who might not know what the Foucault Improvement Fund is, can we explain that, please? Yeah, we can go into that under department reports. We're going to cover that there. Thank you. Perfect. Perfect. Now, if there's no additional questions for staff, let's go ahead and open up the public comment on item 3.1. Can we do the, so we don't forget, can we do the recorded message for that first? Absolutely. I believe that I was online. Absolutely. Okay, perfect. Thank you. And while we do have a number of people waiting to provide public comment, I just wanted to let members of the public know that if they wish to speak during this item, they will be able to do so by utilizing the raised hand feature in Zoom or by pressing star nine on their phone and then they will be given the ability to address the committee in just one moment while I... Thank you, Secretary Clu. Thank you, and I'm just going to pull up the public comment screen and we'll listen to that voicemail first in just one moment. You know what? We seem to be having an issue with that recording. If you can hold just one moment, I will pull it from another source. Very well. Eileen, if it's easier, we can do the public comment and you can pull it while the other people are speaking. Certainly, that sounds good. Thank you. Okay. I apologize. I'm just having a small technical moment there. It gave me a chance to go find a new pin since I dropped the other one, so you're perfectly fine. Great. So the first caller is Adrienne Covert. You have been given permission to if you would please confirm your ability to see the screen and introduce yourself for the record. I can. This is Adrienne Covert. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Great. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for the presentation and for the opportunity to make public comment. I live in downtown. I bike downtown virtually every time I go. I've got my toddler on his toddler seat on the bike. We go all the time, but you know, I'm pretty rare because I've been biking for years and feel very comfortable on a bike. But we really need protected bike lanes to induce bike demand downtown. There aren't safe opportunities to bike downtown. There isn't a single protected bike lane in the city of Santa Rosa. And I was really excited about this project as an opportunity to do that because currently car infrastructure currently occupies half the entire surface area of downtown Santa Rosa, and parking alone is half of that. So about 25 percent downtown is Santa Rosa's parking. And the city's recent downtown parking analysis showed 75 percent of all downtown parking spots are unused on a typical busy day. This is a tremendous waste of public space. Yet I was dismayed, frankly, to find that this plan proposes adding, creating additional public space to parking with 15 parking spots, which could make Mendocino even less welcoming for pedestrians and bikes despite the road diet, which I appreciate is otherwise good. This plan proposes unprotected bike lanes adjacent to traffic. And just for the record, an unprotected bike lane isn't a bike lane at all. It's just a car shoulder with a bike painted on it. So I would recommend this plan enhance the use of public space by reducing parking and not adding. And I understand the issue with the parklets. So whether or not they're installed is hypothetical. Some future businesses might do it. But as of now, real people want protected bike lanes like right now. So there's that also. Fourth Street has only, I believe, three parking parklets on it. And Mendocino has even fewer storefronts, dining storefronts than Fourth Street does. So you were looking at maybe two or three at the most parklets on this entire stretch. It seems a bit excessive to preclude safety for cyclists for a hypothetical one or two, maybe three parklets. But second, even with parklets, there are options to protect the bike lanes. You could put the bike lane between the parklet and the sidewalk as is already done in New York City. And yes, that does create a conflict, but it's a less dangerous conflict than cars posed to bikes. Alternately, we could lump North and Southbound bike traffic on the west side of the street. And that would free up the east side of the street for parklets. And it could help feed car traffic into the bike lane that already exists north of college on Mendocino. Thank you all for my comments. The next speaker will be Jenny Vard, followed by Chris Eggers. Ms. Vard, do you have been given permission to speak if you would confirm your ability to see the timer? And yes, good morning, everyone. Thank you for bringing this item forward. And I also support the comments that were submitted and Adrienne's comment just now. One additional consideration would be looking at lane width. It's currently 11 feet for the two drive lanes. And if you look at the National Association of City Transportation officials, their urban street design guide state that lane widths of 10 feet are appropriate in urban areas and have a positive impact on a street safety without impacting operations. Additionally, they suggest parking lanes can be seven feet. So with that, you would have two additional feet just by rethinking the widths of the lanes and certainly many cities all over the country use nine-foot lanes. I remember when Dan Burden came to the city of Santa Rosa and led us on a envisioning process for Mendocino Avenue many years ago, he said the lanes could be 19. So that was long ago. And it certainly is worth looking at for this section, especially since I imagine buses and trucks aren't going down this lane. They're going down Healdsburg Avenue. And so this is a prime street to re-envision for bicyclists and pedestrians to really bring forth all of the components of what makes a bicycle-friendly street, including I love the idea of bike corrals and bike parking in front of every business. Secure bike parking in front of every business. This could be accomplished. If there's not room, it's not on the property, then it could be in the in the Corral area. So I definitely want to highlight that. In addition, I really want there to be good thought on what happens when you go from Mendocino across college down to 4th Street, that intersection specifically. I know the the border of this project seems to end more at where it tees off at Healdsburg, but we really need some good bike markings there to help people know where they're supposed to go. The cars know where the bicyclists belong and have a right to on the road to get across college and begin the merge over to the left to get on to that Mendocino stretch. I was just in Mill Valley this weekend on Camino Alto. They have big huge letters. Bikes merge left, huge lane, huge words to warn cars that they're going to be moving over to the left to get into that Mendocino Avenue portion. So I'd like us to really think of other ways to to utilize best practices. Thank you. Thank you. The next caller will be Chris Eggers, followed by Gekaito. Mr. Eggers, you have been given permission to speak if you would confirm your ability to see the timer and introduce yourself. Good morning. This is Chris, Ms. Chris Eggers and I can see the timer. Thank you. I just wanted to say I'm really thank you for this project for the work you've done on it so far and I'm excited to see that parklets and bike lanes have our priority from the people of survey. I don't think they're mutually exclusive. I think that the design can be made to have both parklets and protected bike lanes. Right now, the way it's designed, the bikes are put between traffic and protected by a painted line and we need protected bike lanes in three nationwide surveys. 60 to 70% of the people surveyed said that they would do their local errands on bike if there were protected bike lanes and paint is not protection. You're putting people right there between the cars that are parked and between the traffic and if someone opens their door and they're parked, that bicycle is going to have to go into traffic so it's just not a tenable solution. We need protected bike lanes in the city of Santa Rosa and like the previous caller said currently we have zero protected bike lanes and so there are 60 to 70% of people who would ride bikes who don't. I'm a fearless cyclist so that's not necessary for me but I'm concerned about the families and the people who'd like to go downtown but aren't able to do so on their bikes because it's not bicycle friendly. When you travel the world and you go to cities like Amsterdam and cities in Germany and other European countries, their downtowns are vibrant and alive. There are people in the cafes, there are people in the restaurants, there are people walking in and out of the stores and it's because it's pedestrian and bike friendly environment and I think that's the key to revitalizing downtown Santa Rosa is to make it welcoming, to make it a magnet for people to come in and to do their shopping there and currently when people drive down the Mendocino corridor they're usually on their way to somewhere else and it's not on their agenda to stop on Mendocino Avenue they don't and slowing that whole situation down and making it open to people who are using active transportation is a way to continue to bring in business and to get to people to go to stores and restaurants that they might not necessarily have planned on going to. So I'm in favor of bike lanes but I think they need to be protected bike lanes to be actually serviceable and used. Thank you. Thank you. The next caller will be Gig Hightown followed by Steve Bertelbaugh. Mr. Hightown you've been giving permission to speak if you would confirm your ability to see the timer and introduce yourself if you so choose. I see the timer and my name is Gig Hightown. I live downtown. I work downtown and I'm a downtown business owner and I prefer bike lanes yes parklets no. I do sometimes ride my bicycle on Mendocino Avenue so having a bike lane would be really nice. It would protected bike lanes are definitely better but if that's an issue I'd rather have a bike lane than no bike lane. So I don't really personally care about the protected it'd be great if you could do it but if not just to have a bike lane would be better than nothing. As far as the parklets go my wife and I like to enjoy the restaurants and bars downtown and sometimes we like to sit out on the sidewalk but not in the street. So I like open air dining outside on the sidewalk but not parklets in the street where cars are driving and there's exhaust and everything. So the only other comment I would like to make is on your survey you had over a thousand results that's a very good margin of error so I think you should give a lot of weight to the results of the survey because the people who responded are people who are interested and so those are valid results. So that's it. Bike lanes, yes. Parklets, no. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Thank you. The next speaker will be Steve Bertelbaugh followed by Eris Weaver. Mr. Bertelbaugh, you've been given permission to speak. If you would confirm your ability to see the timer and introduce yourself. Yes, Steve Bertelbaugh with the Transportation and Land Use Coalition and yes I do see the timer. I want to commend the effort that's been put into this and I want to say a few words about the width of the traffic lanes downtown. The design of the road has much more influence on the speed that cars travel at than the speed limits. So nine foot lanes in the city can easily be the norm and provide more space for the cyclists whether the lane is next to the sidewalk or between the parked cars and the lanes. There are ways to protect those lanes besides moving them next to the sidewalk. You can put in bollards. It's important to have safe bicycling as well as safe driving and safe walking. So please focus on making those bike lanes safe and attractive for users. You've got to move from our traditional car culture to one that involves much more cycling and walking. And this is a good step in that direction. Thank you. Thank you. My apologies. The next speaker will be Aries Weaver. If you would please confirm your ability to see the timer on the screen and introduce yourself if you so choose. You've been given permission to speak. I don't see her speaking. Oh, there she is. Here I am. There you are. Aries Weaver. Hi. I'm the executive director of the Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition and I'm going to do my best to not repeat anything that has already been said by the previous speakers. You have passed a climate emergency resolution. Your own city's done a parking study saying that there is way more parking than is even used. To even consider an option that increases parking is unconscionable. It's against all of the stated values of the city. I'm like Ms. Eggers a fairly fearless cyclist but you know you don't have to go to the Netherlands to see better bike infrastructure. I feel safer bicycling in Oakland and Richmond than I do here in Santa Rosa. And that is because they have prioritized cyclist safety and put in protected cycle lanes and that's what you need to do here. I walk, ride and shop on that stretch every single work day. And many more people would use it if it were protected. The other thing I want to say about the parklets on the bike parking. Okay, with the parklet thing during COVID we've already shown a willingness to turn car parking into something else. Don't say oh we're going to put in extra parking and maybe turn it into bike parking in parklets. If because as soon as you've got a parking space nobody ever wants to give it up even if it's they're not getting used nobody. Everyone wants to take away a parking space. I think every block should have the equivalent of one car parking space turned into a bike curl. Especially now you've added these scooters and they all there's 200 scooters in town that have to be locked to something. The city already doesn't have enough bike parking and you've added 200 things that need to be locked to something. So the city really needs to up your game on getting more secure bike parking not just downtown but throughout the city. So follow the best practices and make protected bike lanes. Don't add more parking add bicycle parking and follow your own stated goals towards climate change and livability downtown. Thank you. Thank you. I apologize we're clearly having some issues with our timer this morning. Not a problem. The next speaker will be Colin Thomas. You have been given permission to speak if you would confirm your ability to see the timer that would be great. Thank you. Good morning everyone. My name is Colin Thomas. I can see speaker at the time of study and I am an assistant train advocate with this various services at McGill Center. Having bike lanes or protected bike lanes are a must for people with disabilities. They may have a bike that may be lower to the ground to accommodate the disability and we'd be harder to be seen by a moderate by looking close. They may have a standard bike but may have a disability that can peed limitably on a bike or may be less comfortable and more free for biking circles because having protected bike lanes also allows someone to avoid heavy foot traffic on a sidewalk or an obstacle. This is especially true for those who have a mobility disability or use a mobility device. I also agree with past comments that 15 extra bike lanes 15 extra parking spots seemingly are necessary and parking should be redone so it's more a more bike and pedestrian friendly area. My last comment is I do agree with the mention of causing some part of avenue to vehicles. So there's a true coffee lockable family bike and pedestrian network. Thank you. Thank you. Just one moment while we get this reset. The next speaker will be Callum Weeks. Mr. Weeks, you've been given permission to speak if you would confirm your ability to see the timer and introduce yourself. I can see it and good morning. My name is Callum Weeks. Thank you very much. Vice Mayor Alvarez and Council Member Sawyer for being here this morning. I am actually here in my personal capacity as a member of the JC neighborhood and as a member of a local advisory board for the City of Santa Rosa. I would just like to offer brief comments at the risk of repeating myself. I think Mr. Covert might have been recommending and I would echo this proposal. I don't know why we can't just shift over the bike lanes to the eastern side excuse me, the western side of the street so that it's a two-way bike lane and we have parklets on the eastern side which to me seems like a solution in the sense of that we could have the protected bike lanes two directions and then still have the parklets. So it seems to me like that would be a win-win and this is not a common. I mean, if you go to Seattle you see two-way bike lanes all over the city. It's actually quite common in a lot of cities and I'd very much like to see us adopt something similar and consider, you know, as Ms. Weaver noted, also expanding our protected bike lanes south of downtown area as soon as possible specifically along B Street and other core arteries. I can tell you in the past two months alone I've almost been clipped twice. I ride my bike almost daily to my office which is in the co-lab of the Press Democrat Building. It is not safe to drive or excuse me, to pike downtown without the risk of potentially getting clipped by a car. And I would really encourage serious considerations for the protected bike lanes as I noted. Oh, I don't think I actually mentioned this to you but one of the things that I think is kind of a secondary benefit is in addition to having protected bike lanes it creates an opportunity for potentially public art displays an opportunity for people to get creative to help brighten our downtown area which I think we should be encouraging and to also echo Ms. Weber's comments we are facing a climate crisis. There's no doubt about it. There are ways to adapt there are ways that we can actually I think sufficiently meet the demands of everyone but we need to be intentional about our designs and about our approaches to things and that certainly starts with reducing and not creating more parking. I don't see why we can't take the existing parking spots and slant them whatever the terminology is I just can't imagine a world where we need 15 additional parking spots unless it's legally required for disability reasons there's no reason they should be added. With that again thank you very much for your time I do appreciate staff's efforts on this but I do hope they hear our comments and that they take them in consideration. Thank you very much. Thank you. The next speaker will be Andy Rich. Mr. Rich you've been given permission to speak if you would confirm your ability to see the timer and introduce yourself. Thank you. Yes I can see the timer. My name is Andy Rich. I live downtown. I walk the a portion of the Mendocino Ave that we are discussing today basically daily. My wish really would be to see the whole Mendocino Ave closed off from vehicle traffic. I know that's not under consideration here so as an attempt of that would be nice to have protected bike lanes to be able to ride safely downtown. I think especially given that B Street is such an easy corridor for vehicles to get downtown we do not need to give vehicles precedent along Mendocino Ave along this portion of downtown. As many other callers have noted many other flourishing downtowns have emphasized the access and safe use for bicycles and pedestrians. And I think for overall downtown Santa Rosa it would be greatly beneficial to add more bicycle lanes protected bicycle lanes and emphasize the use by pedestrians and bicyclists. I don't have too much comment on the parklets. I think parklets are a good use of public space but I think in the Mendocino Ave location if it's one or the other I think protected bicycle lane would be more important than additional parklets. And I also say one thing about the survey that we were discussing I used the survey as well but we didn't really see great options there for really reducing vehicular traffic in the Mendocino Junction. So while the results might show that vehicle should retain precedent in Mendocino Ave I don't think we're really given an option to reduce vehicular traffic downtown. With that I will yield my time. Thank you very much. Thank you sir. Thank you. The next speaker will be Chris G. Chris you have been given permission to speak if you would confirm your ability to seize the timer and introduce yourself. Thanks I can see the timer. My name is Chris G. And I work downtown and frequently travel and patronize several businesses on this corridor by bike and on foot and occasionally by car. Although I'd like to do that less. I'm really pleased and excited about aspects of this plan you know particularly fewer traffic lanes the traffic calming measures and indeed new bike lanes. When we met on this in May I really felt like option three the one that was being presented as the preferred option now is kind of the absolute bare minimum. And I said so at the time but I really want us to do better than the bare minimum. The feedback at that meeting and of course in all the comments we've just heard is that we need alternatives that further prioritize pedestrians and cyclists particularly the consideration of alternatives that would allow for protected or buffered bike lanes which are attractive for a much wider variety of cyclists. Certainly understand that that would require trade-offs so giving up parking and potentially closing down some of the opportunities for parklets at least where we would sacrifice parking. And I think those are trade-offs that are worth making. As others have pointed out it's well known that we have too much parking downtown so it is really hard to understand why this plan would propose more parking. It's only because well that's how you get more parklets and parklets are nice but I think we're really over prioritizing them here relative to other interests as the subcommittee and some of the other callers have alluded to there are fewer of them now than there were during COVID and I can appreciate that businesses want the option for parklets but I think it's unfortunate to sacrifice the option of safer cycling and the systemic benefits that come with that and to effectively commit to a lot more parking if people don't use the parklets for the sake of a few businesses that might want to install parklets in the future. Similar to what Adrian said earlier you know instead of saying we need this option along the entire corridor I'd really prefer to see some deeper consideration of the types of businesses that are here where the parklets are most practical or desirable on how to accommodate those without sacrificing all the other interests. On this point I really want to emphasize that this is a public right of way and to the extent that the interests of a handful of individual businesses which are important but to the extent that those are in conflict with those of the wider community I think there's really a case to be made for tilting more toward the latter and finally you know I think a number of folks have you know underneath a lot of the comments here is the recognition that this is a really important marquee downtown street so what we do here has really important symbolic value so in light of all of this I think it's unfortunate that we're not seeing any new alternatives versus what we saw several months ago and would love to see ones that consider some of these other possibilities. Thanks so much. Thank you. I will now pull over the public comment the voicemail public comment. Thank you. I apologize. The way file does not appear to be connecting to the meeting. I will transcribe this individual's comment and share that with the public and with the subcommittee. I apologize for the difficulties that we're having with this today. Very well. I appreciate it and I take it that will be on a later Secretary. Yes it will. In which case no not a problem. In which case we'll go ahead and close public comment and bring it back. Member Sawyer are there any questions that you may have for staff today? I have a question and a couple of comments. I'm curious about as far as the study went Mr. Sprinkled were protected bike lanes studied as a potential option in this part of Mendocino Avenue? They were looked at, yes. And as mentioned the difficulty that we had in looking at implementing them would be that where we'd be putting a protective bike lane in between the parklet and the curb and that didn't seem like a good design to have that pedestrian cross traffic from a parklet potentially to a restaurant serving across the bike lane. In my understanding that's not something that's typically done. Maybe it is and we could do some more research on that to see if that is something that could be of a benefit. We did also look at the cycle track option of having the two-way bike lanes on one side of the street and we could look at that and for the detail my recollection was that we didn't have enough width to install the two bike lanes and then the required buffer there's another three-foot buffer that's required when you do that and I don't believe I think we were short maybe a foot and it was close so that's something we could look at further and see if we can and come up with something a little more innovative to help that but my recollection in working with Bjorn was that that didn't meet the requirements that are required for that type of installation so and oh I'm sorry there was one other item regarding protected bike lanes and the ballards so that again is an option in a way to install protective bike lanes adjacent to parking however it basically precludes any parking along that segment if you have ballards with a bike lane and then the parking against the curb you obviously don't have and a way to access to get to the curb anymore so um you can see this is a a delicate balance between the needs and desires of the community and the and the use of the of the public right away here thank you for that I know this street was built probably close to 100 years ago they never anticipated some of these potential uses it's often a challenge with an older city the width of our streets not only were they not actually probably built to carry as much traffic as they're carrying they in many cases unfortunately they certainly weren't anticipating the use of bicycles so it's it is it can be a major challenge when dealing with older streets especially near our city core and our downtown core I would offer a major caution in having two bike lanes between the sidewalk and the parklets I mean I can only imagine and it just looks like a disaster waiting to happen a waiter coming out with four plates of food having to look in both directions to make sure a bicycle does not come in in their way and if they were not totally careful I just you know people are people tend not already pay much attention when it comes to vehicles both bicycles and automobiles so I just I think that as as as much as one might be optimistic as to have that it's an alternative I just think that that is like I said a disaster waiting to happen both for the people that are on the sidewalk crossing over to the parklet as diners and then the waiters having to deal with that traffic between them and the diners as well it may it may sound like a safe environment to some but I think it is not I think it is a creating an unsafe situation um the the other issue has to do with diagonal parking I know myself it's easy to get into a diagonal space getting out can be a completely different story especially when you're dealing with the multitude of of RVs and dark windowed vehicles you know where you have to edge out inch by inch backing out into the into a traffic lane they have that situation on 4th street between E Street and Brookwood at least on one side I know I think on both sides and it is a real challenge to to back out so I think that's also so diagonal or or horizontal not horizontal just the straight the standard parking if we if there is parking there I would not be encouraging diagonal because one could be backing out in into a into a potentially into a bike lane I think it's dangerous and and difficult to to use as a driver so I love the idea of protected lanes for bicycles I wonder whether or not we can have all of our desires here on this one or two block stretch potentially where there is less retail further north on Mendocino it might might work more easily but that of course doesn't get people into the core and I'm not sure what the solution is I just see I can understand the challenges and I would love to be able to have a safer way for people to bicycle but getting all of the uses onto onto this particular stretch of road an old road way that actually used to be a highway is is not easy it was it was built for parking and traffic and little else unfortunately but that's that's the reality of what we're trying to to evolve this particular roadway into something that accommodates other uses that were never envisioned by the people that designed our downtown so I wish you all all the best of luck in in helping to design something that is both safe convenient and attractive to all of the users and I see a fair amount of compromise on the horizon so thank you thank you there was a comment made about the the width of the lanes the ability to have them being narrower could you speak on that Rob? Yeah we we do have 10-foot lanes and we would be willing definitely willing to go down to 10-foot lanes in the segment between 10th and 4th street when we get north of 10th street that's where our buses start using the lanes and they require 11-foot travel lanes for to make sure their mirrors aren't overhanging and and make sure they have the adequate width to to move through that segment so we we can definitely look at redesigning the that southern section or looking at that southern section to accommodate extra extra width and potentially put in and I know this isn't isn't what the community is asking for but it I think we could you know reduce the bike lane to 5-foot have a 2-foot buffer and then a 10-foot travel lane and that would provide a little bit more of a separation granted it's not a vertical separation or a protected bike lane but it would provide a little bit more separation in that southern section of the roadway there so that could be an option where we kind of combined a couple different alternatives along that segment and you actually answered my second question which would be what difference with the extra feet provide so thank you for that clarification as well now there was a question about the 15 additional parking spaces were the 15 additional parking spaces by design or as a unintended consequence or reward and does ADA have anything to do with that number so the 15 extra spaces were actually not we weren't looking to install 15 more spaces it was because of the design that we're doing at the intersections and reducing the left turn lanes that added additional space that could use either again for bike corrals or for parking or for parklets so it wasn't that we were intending to it's basically a byproduct of the design that it allowed for more parking thank you for that clarification I know it don't heavily on a lot of our constituents that here we are with the surplus and we're adding more to it but nonetheless that was not the intended outcome and now I also heard placing both bike lanes on one side of the street and I've heard also arguments against why that would not work and you know if we were looking at the street from west to east what I envisioned and please tell me what does Ronald just design if we had parking on the west side or west most side of the street and then we had our southbound northbound lanes and then we had both bike lanes on the eastern side followed by a parklet program on where most of our small businesses are located with that be something that could be considered and I'll repeat myself just for those that are listening parking on the west side traffic lanes to follow both bike lanes and a parklet what do you foresee at first glance with that recommendation and I also heard from one of our callers that gave us something similar but what I was able to come up with was what I just spoke of so right when you install the that's what I mentioned a little bit of go regarding the cycle track and when you have a cycle track typically there's a a three foot separation between the travel lane and the cycle track and when you add up that with in conjunction even I think with reducing the travel lanes to 10 feet you still are you're still over the allotment of our curb to curb width along there and we I'm willing to to look at that again but that's that's what I recall when we were doing the initial designs is that we had some width limitations related to that and you know taking this a step further is I know that also this is only a striping project there's also I know desires to increase sidewalk width along several of you know along this area so all these things are going to be competing for one another in the future with we want more pedestrian sidewalk width if we want more bike lane width if we want something at some point we'll have to we'll have to give this and I was hoping that the extra added feet might be able to give us that needed buffer sun but it sounds and you're absolutely right we're definitely seeing which one is the best fit and I understand the concern of both one bike lanes especially protective ones and parklets see the question becomes do we create a downtown that invites the bicyclists to downtown or do we create a bicycling that leaves us to a failing downtown corridor so it's definitely conflicting to understand why members Sawyer are there any additional questions or from staff comments or questions that in regards to this item no thank you chair alvarez I think I voiced my cautions and my questions I don't have any additional thank you absolutely it's going to be interesting what the future input from our community as well as our fellow colleagues will be you know kind of reminds me of a story that my dad tells you know so everybody will tell you put the door but ultimately there's only only one place that's correct for the door and it's not in the second story that I do know to be true with that being said we will go ahead and and move on to the rent updates on item rent updates summary right so I believe this is your department if I'm not mistaken yeah so we do receive we move from from oral reports to written reports for the two community benefit districts downtown and railroad square as well as parking and our special events and so I do encourage people to to access those on the agenda but just to give a very quick summary on those from the from the written report from the downtown community benefit district left edge theater is now open so we now have another performing arts theater this time on the courthouse square side on 7th street it's amazing have seen I think all of us in economic development have seen the first play there and also 3rd street L works Bayou on the bay is now the pop-up restaurant at 3rd street L works they just had an opening and so encourage people to go there in terms of events that are listed on their report on October 28th there's the fall fun fest and then winter lights and skating is coming back in November and December speaking of events in railroad square the events that they highlighted on October 9th is the last summer music stroll event that they have and then in December November and December they're planning their to return their traditional holiday activities so like carriage rides and such what so that's always a good fun tradition down there also in railroad square their business directory sign should be coming in October and I just wanted to highlight this because there might be some confusion on wayfinding so the city is doing a wayfinding program through the transit department working with MTC and this is really more of a business directory thing so those should be up I think in October November and then also they have some new businesses coming down there Papillon's Laurel is now in railroad square as is the princess boutique which is a kid shop and where the old Tony's restaurant I think was called Tony's Zinn restaurant is going to be coming but we don't have an opening date for that yet and then the last thing I wanted to highlight was from parking just to give a little heads up that the lot 10 reconstruction in lot 10 is the lot behind Russian river brewery the reconstruction of that lot starts in fall of 2023 and then importantly we are having the surplus land act study session discussion on um intensifying the uses of some of our aging downtown assets most are mostly lots of garages and that study session is happening on October 11th and the surplus land act process is the thing that we're required to go through or cities are required to go through in order to use to release city parcels for other uses and it goes through the housing and community development department of the state so that's just the process we have to do in order to release to consider the release of properties that the city owns so that's the highlight of the written reports and that's all I that's all I have for that just want to raise something could we um maybe the definition of the cotton improvement funds for those of us who who haven't heard what what what funds are being made available to work through any sure so um what if we do public comments on the written reports and then I'll get in straight into the the department reports and we can do I'm sorry I did jump but you did tell me that it was going to be for the department not on the written updates with that being said let's go ahead and open up public comment on item four 4.1 through 4.4 we have no raised hands at this time nor were there any additional public comments for these items good deal good deal so go ahead and bring it back let's go ahead and move on to item five department reports so I'll do something really quick and then we'll get into that a lot of people all right very well so so um but I love your enthusiasm because it's a good program so the first thing I want to let you know is that um in working with the city manager's office we are going to be moving from monthly downtown subcontinue meetings to every other month um this allows us a moment to because we've got two subcommittees that are pretty hefty or sometimes pretty hefty in terms of policy items the economic development subcommittee and the downtown subcommittee so we're going to alternate those on a monthly basis which means that the downtown subcommittee is going to move from monthly to every other month so I just wanted to give you a heads up on that it allows us some time to develop the agendas between the meetings and then we have two other unless Tara and Raphael have other things they want to talk about but we have two other department reports and so I'm going to hand it over to Tara because she can talk about the facade improvement as well as the public art program in the arts district stuff great we appreciate it thank you hi good morning chair alvarez a number four good morning hi thanks for having me this morning I have a few brief updates to provide on the public art program and I'll include a few other department reports as well including the facade improvement program thank you so first off the unum sculpture for courthouse square we are working with the artist blessing handcraft and her fabrication team to accommodate the ADA requirements for the base of the sculpture that's where we're at right now in the process the timeline is still estimated that the sculpture will be installed by the end of this year probably just right under that and I'll provide more updates at the next meeting as we get closer to knowing the specific dates of being on site and the work scheduled for our conservation and maintenance that's ongoing the peanuts bronze and depot park has been fully cleaned and treated this happened over the last month or so and then the fence surrounding it the the low green fence was also repainted and all of the plaques on it with the peanuts characters polished it looks great our conservation team did an excellent job the Schultz family had been taking care of all of the bronze pieces that are part of the city's collection and so now we've transitioned to having the city's conservation team do this work but the Schultz family foundation is still contributing to their maintenance the other two bronzes that are part of our collection the Marcy bench near the library on 4th street and the Schroder and Lucy piece at the Finley courtyard will also be treated soon the Asawa art panel the engineering and design drawings are currently being finalized and will be sent over to the fountain contractor as soon as possible so that they can incorporate that into their submittal to the city to start construction for the fountain so we're getting closer that's it for the public art program but then I have two other department reports that I'll briefly go over so starting with facade improvement grants so the small business support program is something that we're working on it's an ARPA funded project and the goal of this program is to encourage economic development and destination awareness of historically under invested areas by enhancing the exterior exterior appearance and commercial viability of the storefront businesses one element of the program is to provide facade improvement grants to small businesses that include expenses towards paint signage landscaping exterior lighting awnings canopies windows parklet build outs is included and compliance with ADA requirement another component of the program is to do place making facade improvements and so we're partnering with the public art program to have murals or other public art be put on building on the exterior of the buildings or on the exterior of parklets participating businesses will be paired with a public art project manager who will work with them to design public art onsite at no expense to the business and so the eligibility that's been determined for that is essentially a small business you have to meet the definition of a small impacted business as set by the final rule as determined through the ARPA funding and so it's less essentially the business has to have 500 employees or less and experienced impacts due to COVID financial impacts due to COVID and we have come up with two phases hopefully two phases first phase is prioritizing the Roseland commercial areas San Rose Avenue Petalima Hill Road commercial areas and downtown commercial areas so we actually have a website that has a map on it so businesses can go check to see if they're in that phase one in those phase one areas and eligible to apply hopefully if funding allows we would be launching a phase two in mid of mid 2023 where the other commercial areas on on our eligibility map would become available so the application will be coming soon it's not quite open yet we just completed a survey of businesses to gather feedback on program elements and the structure of how we would roll out the support program and we anticipate the applications will be available online later this month thank you yeah and then one last small update and please chime in Raphael if you have more to add to this but we the public art program and the economic development division in as a whole we're participating in the Bay Area manufacturing week and it's a sponsored by SF Made it takes place October 7th through 14th and the two events that are coordinated by the public art program are really meant to highlight artists as manufacturers so we have a bodywork anesthetic artist and a clothing artist lined up to give studio tours and demos here in Santa Rosa during that week and Raphael I know that you've coordinated many of the other events that we are highlighting so please chime in yeah there's a couple of thank you Tara and it's very exciting it's our second time participating we are a a sponsor of this initiative initiative as well so we're working very closely with the Bay Area manufacturing folks and there'll be three coordinated tours so be on the lookout on our social media channels as well as on the SF Made.org website it's very exciting and we are including one at the taking place at the Hattery on Petaluma Hill Road and folks will be able to view the hat making at that shop on Saturday October 8th October 8th perfect and then we have the other breweries right Raphael? yes oh there'll be a tour open to the public and there's already event bright links created so again be on the lookout on our social media channels as well as the SF Made.org website but we have one schedule at the Old Possum on October 8th from one to one to two one at Henhouse on Wednesday and one at Coopridge on Thursday also from well from three to four and those are also promised to be very exciting very well we're thank you for those reports member Sawyer do you have any questions or comments on item five? I don't thank you Mr. Chair I'm good to go I was going to say I'll see you at any one of those establishments here pretty soon huh if there were no no further comments or questions on item five let's go ahead and open it open it up for public comment we have no raised hands at this time very well go ahead and close public comment on item number five additional comments on from me it's it's you know we spoke about the the funds for for the for kind improvements and and I believe member Sawyer spoke to this in August in August meaning that we had the support from our colleagues to small businesses is is absolutely true and non faltering so we're hoping that we can continue to support our small businesses especially to the I through the pandemic that we've all just survived so with that being said you know when when downtown San Rosa thrives all San Rosa thrives and I say that for every every different shopping center for every shop that exists within our city of San Rosa and even our county of Sonoma so with that being said let's go ahead and move on to item number six future agenda planning so that really is a question if you have anything that you as members of this committee wanted us to look into and we will work with the city manager's office to to see if we can accommodate that so any special items that you guys have member Sawyer would you like to determine you know I feel like the this committee has a fair amount on its plate being nice to be able to concentrate on those issues that we already are working on and to be able to come to where there is completion somewhere ongoing and will always be on the agenda but there are others that require staff time and at this point especially you know as we move into the holiday season I know that the DAO is actively involved in creating an experience for for shoppers and families and the downtown so I don't really have anything to add to our to the agenda and there will be new council members coming on and after the next election and that that may change or there may be issues that they would like to bring forward so I personally I think there's plenty on the plate of both of staff and and then ultimately the committee I think they're moving to every other month is a good idea one can always ask for a special meeting if necessary but I think that again there are we probably have more subcommittees act active and moving along now so where we can reduce some of the activity on the part of staff and council for that matter I'm supportive of that so I have nothing to add to your plate at this point staff and and again if the need presents itself this committee can always have a special meeting to deal with something that might pop up that we did not anticipate so I'm comfortable with the schedule and the agenda as it sits and the future is agenda as well I'm comfortable with that thank you for the offer thank you member Sawyer for myself I think I'm going to echo those statements we have the Mendocino corridor that we really need to focus on we have and actually that the the pending question of the development fees and how they can be used to to for the park or downtown and the different interpretation of of how those fees can be used and seeing how we're expanding the uses of our downtown corridor and it's really a question that that is I won't say pending but definitely important for how we move forward and how our future council members interpret those funds especially when it being applied to our downtown area and again how important the the the health of the economy here within a downtown is for the rest of Santa Rosa and and for me as as stayed before tying up those loose ends and seeing what 2023 brings hopefully a lot of good stuff for for the city of Santa Rosa with that being said if nothing if no other comments let's go ahead and open up the item for public comment and hopefully the the community can let us know what some of those future agendas should look like we do have a public comment just one moment will I pull up that screen and I apologize for the delay and the first the speaker will be gig Hytale Mr. Hytale if you would confirm your ability to see the timer and introduce yourself if you go choose I see the timer gig Hytale I live in the Burbank gardens neighborhood and I would like to see the police report which used to be an agenda item I don't know if that was in your written reports or not but I think it would be good to have a police report at the downtown subcommittee meetings just to you know hear what they're saying but also because there are a lot of issues that happen in our neighborhood and surrounding neighborhoods which some of which are appropriate for police officers to be involved and many of them are not appropriate for police officers to be involved that the citizens need to take the responsibility themselves to be dealing with these things but I think just by having a police report at least we get to talk about that so that's my only suggestion thank you thank you sir and we have no additional hands raised at this time perfect we'll go ahead and close item 6.0 and and is it possible to add to the police as we did in the in the past to our reports absolutely yeah we'll reach out to chief Cregan and see you know it might be I think it probably better to be an oral report versus a written report it's just easier to be excuse me more fluid and excuse me and I was going to say myself I was going to say also for the for the conversation with with the community or at least be able to answer the questions in real time exactly yeah so we will ask that someone be made made available and I think it'll be easier and better now that the cadence of the meeting is every other month I think it'll be easier for them to do that nominal thank you well if there are no additional comments or questions I think we can move on to item 7.0 which is the adjournment of our meeting being that there are none the time is now 9.54 and enjoy Santa Rosa have a great day