 Good evening and welcome to this community meeting for the city of Santa Rosa's local road safety plan focusing tonight on the designs for the roadway corridors on 4th street and Montgomery Drive. I'm Rob Sprinkel, the deputy director of engineering for the city of Santa Rosa, and I want to thank you for joining us tonight. Before we begin, I will ask our host Steve Brown to let you know how you can participate in tonight's meeting. Steve. Thank you Rob. As community members join the meeting, you'll be participating as an attendee. Your microphone and camera will be muted. Only today's panelists will be viewed during the meeting. Please know, the city of Santa Rosa is committed to creating a safe and inclusive environment free from disruption. We will not tolerate any hateful speech or actions and will monitor that everyone is participating respectfully, or they will be removed. If necessary, we will also immediately end the meeting. This meeting is being recorded and will be placed on the city website. srcity.org backwards slash L R SP. Following the meeting. At the end of the presentation, Rob will open up the meeting for public questions and comment. Great. Thank you, Steve. Once again, I want to thank you all for joining us tonight. Your participation and input are important to us as I present the roadway design options for improving safety on our city streets for all road users. The guidelines are based on community feedback we received during the city's outreach in the spring, as well as some requirements from stakeholders in our initial meetings that were held. We'll. We'll start tonight's meeting within overview of the agenda and topics we plan to cover in the presentation. So first we'll go over our project description. We'll cover some timeframes for the project. So now run through the presentation. We'll open it up for public comments and then go over our next steps. So for the project description. Tonight we're going to meet. We'll be reviewing the community feedback from the survey results that were received during the spring from our outreach on our local road safety plan. You can go back one screen please. Thank you. We'll also be, and we'll be checking, we'll be doing this, excuse me, for the fourth street between East Street and Farmers Lane and the segment on Montgomery Drive from Alderbrook to Harmon Drive. We'll walk through several different segments that have different designs and go over those designs with the public. So for timeframes in the spring of this upcoming year or in the spring of this past year, we reached out to you to get feedback on the initial designs we held a meeting in February of 2022 and recommended made some recommendations to the public received feedback and today we're bringing back the feedback that received from the community. Everything was able to be incorporated into the design and we're still making some fine tuning options to the design as we're moving forward. But we're at that point where we want to get further feedback from the community to make sure at least on the right track. So as we as we go through this project this project will be initiated through a slurry seal project and during a slurry seal project, we are given the opportunity basically to restripe the roadway. So this portion of the product is basically related to the restriping. We won't be installing any overhead flashers at this point or bulb outs or hardscape with this specific project but we still want to hear that feedback from you so we can incorporate it into future projects that may require some grant funding or other capital improvement funding options. So at this point I'm going to start the presentation and go through some of our design options for 4th Street and Montgomery Drive corridors. Next slide please. So during the presentation I will cover what a little bit about the local road safety plan. We'll go over the server results and propose designs for 4th Street between E and Farmers Lane and between on Montgomery Drive between Alderbrook and Harmon Drive. We'll open it up for public comments and then go over the next steps for the project. Next slide please. Thank you. So about the local road safety plan. So this is a, the city center has received state grant funds to conduct a corridor analysis on several different corridors throughout the city. Those included 4th Street, Montgomery Drive, Stony Point Road, College Avenue, North Dutton and sections of the Rosen Creek Trail. What's important about this is going through this process and getting, gathering the status not only helps us design what improvements we need to make but it also helps us or lets us become eligible for the Highway Safety Improvement Program grant. And that's a grant that the state puts out. And the only way to become eligible is to go through this process so it sets us up for future funding sources. Next slide please. So also a part of this engagement process. We held some stakeholder meetings with our city staff, including police, fire, our transportation and public works department parking and transit. We also met with our bike and head board or advisory board representatives. We met and discussed things with the Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition, as well as other stakeholders along the corridor, both business owners and schools. We held a community meeting back in February, as I mentioned, 2022 and then open online surveys to fill this together feedback from the public. Next slide please. So let's get into the design options for 4th Street first and we're going to look at between East Street and Farmers Lane. This is the aerial of that segment that we'll be covering. Next slide please. So the first section we're starting at the west end near East Street and looking between East Street and Brookwood. So feedback we received from the public in this segment was that they were in favor of removing the angled parking on the south side of the street so that we could accommodate narrow lanes and bike lanes along this segment of the roadway. They also wanted to see some wider sidewalks and some more beautification related to trees and such. And as I mentioned before, this portion of the project is only focusing on the striping portion in conjunction with our slurry, but we still do want to hear other options that people have because as you might understand, if we're going to widen the sidewalk substantially then that also takes away spaces for travel lanes, parking buffers and bike lanes. So they all, they're all competing for the same space. So if we need to widen sidewalks, it's better to know that now than to save that for the future. Next slide please. So these are the two options that we presented to the public. Option one was back angled parking with some buffered bike lanes along the segment of roadway. And option two was to have a protected bike lane on the north side of the street, separated with head in parking, and then the south side of the street, we were converting the angled parking to parallel parking and having buffered bike lane. Next slide please. So from the survey we received 115 responses. And from those responses, improving the bicycling was identified as the top priority, followed by aesthetics and walking improvements along the segment. And option two was, which is the one that shown above here was the preferred alternative. Next slide please. So from the aerial view of what option two would look like on the segment near Hope Street, which is near Fremont Park. It shows the bike transition lanes where there would be, we would install green paint where we're transitioning bikes, either across a traveling or across a north side of the street, there are the top side near what says Hope Street. That's where we're transitioning them to in front of the vehicles that would be parked along the street in the protected area. Next slide please. So the next segment of roadway is the segment on four street between Brookwood and Brighton Lane. The segment of roadways currently a four line street that we'd be converting to a three lane road diet. And a road diet is would maintain the parking on both sides, it would add buffer bike lanes and center turn lane. So what we heard from the public on this segment was that they did want to see the road diet installed with the added bike lanes, they'd like to see wider sidewalks again. And as well as more trees for street beautification. And there's also several comments about exploring some different options for the intersections for crossing at Talbot and Alderbrook. And they also thought it'd be good to consider a future roundabout at the intersection of fourth and college or fourth street comes into college there. And then the last item that was brought up in this segment was to widen the sidewalk on the south side of four street between Alderbrook and Brighton. And I think that a lot of school kids go from the neighborhood to the south over to get to Proctor Terrace to the north and it's currently it's right up against the travel lane. Next slide please. So this is a cross section of what's being proposed for this segment, which includes retaining the parking where there currently is parking, adding a six foot bike lane with a two foot buffer. Some foot travel lanes and then maintaining a 10 foot center turn lane. So from the 150 responses on this segment. Again, they identified improve bicycling as their top priority here followed by walking and then aesthetic improvements. And 67% of the respondents here were in favor of the road diet. Next slide please. So this slide shows a aerial view of Alderbrook and what we're planning to install at this point with just the striping improvements. So you'll notice on the north side of the street parking is retained on the south side of the street we currently do not have parking and are not proposing to install parking. We're proposing to basically install a quite wide buffer zone in this area, and that is in attempt to help make the sidewalk along the segment of roadway between the neighborhood south on Alderbrook. More comfortable walking along the south side of the street as they go towards the signal at Bryden and four street to make that a more comfortable, comfortable journey by pushing the cars quite a bit away from that sidewalk. And then in the future, as we come up with grant funding or other funding for a capital project. We would look to be installing a wider sidewalk along that segment of roadway. Next slide please. So the last segment along this second, this portion of four street is the segment of from Bryden to farmers lane. And as mentioned in the meeting prior this segment is actually has too high of a of an ADT or of an average daily volume, which is near over 28,000 vehicles a day to accommodate a road diet. So we did look at some other options. One was to eliminate the parking and that would be the only way to get one bike lane in a direction. So we did look at that next slide please. And we sent surveys out to the all the residents and businesses along the segment of roadway and of the 10 businesses and and respondents of the 10 businesses and residents along there. All of them responded that this would have a significant impact to their business or residents along the segment. Next slide please. So that information we looked at ways to improve the the cycling to Bryden over to the shopping center at Safeway. Because we figured this was would be the likely route of travel that people would be wanting to get to along this portion of roadway and we were looking for other options that would be comfortable for a cyclist. Next slide please. So we looked at for the eastbound direction. We looked for a route crossing at the intersection of Bryden and four street, and then using gross turning right on gross right next to the elementary school and going up to El Camino and over to La Paloma to gain access to the shopping center. And then alternatively on the way and I'm sorry that was that's the picture on the on the right that's the eastbound direction. And then back from in the westbound direction from the shopping center which is shown in that top left picture in it's a kind of a larger gray area on the on the slide. You would return on La Paloma over to Gary and then down to Morley and Clyde back on the fourth street or you could continue through the neighborhood. As that's also a very comfortable place to ride. Next slide please. The next thing that we just decided that we would implement along with this is in order to cross four street. For a cyclist we would install a bike box which is that small green. It's a little small in this picture that small green square, just north just up on the picture from the crosswalk on four street. We would put a bicycle button there to cross the street and a bicycle signal to allow the bicycle to cross on their own phase across the street and gain access over to gross so that it could comfortably navigate that intersection without using the crosswalk or they basically use their own signal phase to do that. So that concludes the segment of fourth street and the improvements there and now we're going to transition over to Montgomery Drive on the section between Alderbrook and Harmon Drive. So next slide please. So this next segment of roadway is quite narrow as everyone who's either been on here or lives in this area or lives on the street knows that's nothing new to you. It's very narrow and cars do frequently park up on this on the sidewalks which limits some of the pedestrian activity. And because from what we heard from some of the surveys is that people's cars get hit if they don't do that so that's a concern for us as well. Next slide please. So we came up with some options that do help with that and also help facilitate bike access along the segment of roadway. Two options were proposed in the meeting in February option one was to eliminate the center turn lane and add bike lanes in their place. Option two was to eliminate the center turn lane as well as parking on the north side of the street and add buffered bike lanes. Next slide please. So we received 186 responses to this and improving cycling was still identified as a top priority for this segment of roadway. And 75% of the respondents did want to see bike lanes installed. However, it wasn't entirely clear if it was option one or option two which was being and it may have been part of our survey results that were that were being in favor of. So any information we can get on that from people who comment tonight would be definitely helpful for us. Our, our take from it was that if these are all residents residential homes along the street, and if parking was limited or removed from in front of someone's house on the north side of the street, they would likely have to either park in their driveway and if they couldn't they'd have to park on the south side of the street, which would inherently then produce a crossing across the street, which is something that we didn't want to basically impose on the residents. That they would have to cross the street every time they park their car on the street, if they lived on the north side of the street, because they would have to park on the south side of the street. So because of that we didn't want to increase that number of crossings along mid block and we proposed to maintain the parking on both sides of the street while adding the bike lanes. Next slide please. Also mentioned a lot in the surveys were requests to install a crosswalk at short. So this is a plan view of what that may look like. And if you go back between this slide and the other slide I know some of the dimensions are a little bit different these dimensions so actually show actually a five and a half foot bike lane, where the others show a a five foot bike lane. So depending on if the survey was the more accurate survey is is this one that was done with our CAD drawing versus the other drawing so there is a little bit more room out there then. We had an originally anticipated, and we would propose to put some into the parking lane this is seven and a half or yes seven and a half feet there, and some into the bike lane to make those a little bit wider as well and all more comfortable. Next slide please. So the other segment of Montgomery Drive between was between farmers and common. And this is a little bit different feel this is a more commercial area. And we're looking to add bike lanes here which would actually make the final connection to the section of Montgomery Drive that does have bike lanes to the east. So we're able to redesign the section to accommodate the existing parking add bike lanes and remove some travel lanes in a small median in order to have everything fit in this section. Next slide please. So here's a cross section of what that would look like. So we'd maintain a 10 foot right turn lane. This is looking in the east, down direction near the intersection. Six foot bike lane, one foot travel lanes, one foot center turn lanes, and then on the other side at six foot bike lane and a foot parking lane, and 70% of the respondents proposed supported adding bike lanes in this segment as well. Next slide please. So this is a little bit different view of what the section would look like with some green lanes in the merge areas between the bikes and vehicles where they cross that's our conflict zones are. And then the other striping is indicative of our standard pavement striping for lanes and turn lanes. Next slide please. At this time we'd like to actually hear from the community. I know I went through that. I didn't go there super fast but there's probably a lot of information so if you have questions you'd like to go back a certain slide. Please let us know. And at this point I'm going to. Sorry I got off track. So comments on a specific design aspect. It's also important for us to know if you're a resident in that neighborhood, or if you are specifically if you're on like Montgomery Drive you're on the street and you're making a comment it's good for us to have that perspective to know that perspective from you as well. So please provide that, or if you use it as you're passing through and use as a route to somewhere. That's also important for us to know. If you could provide that information when you're giving your input that would just give us a little more perspective on where the comment and how the comments being generated and what perspective you have. So we would appreciate that. So before I begin answering all your questions I'll ask our host Steve to review how you can participate by asking live questions and comments Steve. Fantastic. Thank you, Rob. So, once Rob calls for public questions or comments. We will announce for anyone wishing to ask question or comment to raise your hand and zoom for individuals participating in the meeting by telephone. You can dial star nine to raise your hand. We will then call on the public one by one, who have their zoom hand raised. Your microphone will be unmuted. So you can ask your question. Once you've raised your hand and asked your question or shared your input, your hand will be lowered and your microphone will be muted. So our panelists can respond to your question. So yes, I believe we're ready to begin Rob. Are you ready. I'm ready. Let's go. Okay, our. Again, anyone wishing to ask a question can do so by raising your zoom hand or dialing star nine if you're calling in. So the first person in our queue is eris weaver. Your microphone eris has been unmuted. You can state your name for the record if you so choose and then ask your question or make your comment. Thank you. This is eris weaver. I'm the executive director of the Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition. I don't live in that neighborhood, but I do ride both of these quarters fairly regularly to access various businesses and services along the area. And I have three, three pieces of this, I'd like to comment on the first one is in that in several sections of the fourth street corridor you have buffered bike lanes. I don't see any with parking next to the curb and then a buffered bike lane. I would really love to see that reversed and have parking protected bike lanes that adds an additional layer of protection to the cyclists and the pedestrians and kids walking along that road to get to school. That it's, we don't have any of those right now so people aren't used to it yet, but it is adds another layer of protection for those who are in the bike lane from the folks parking and driving and so I would really love to see that swapped and I don't see any reason in the dimensions given that that couldn't fit. My second comment, or sort of a question. Actually turns out I have four and not three is it's really hard when you're doing pieces and pieces across a corridor. You know, we, we don't travel in pieces, we travel a whole distance from one place to another and so it's always hard for me to visualize the transitions from now we're looking at it from, you know, this block to this block and now we're looking at that block and it's hard to then visualize. Okay, how is it going to continue across that because there are plenty of places around town where, you know, bike lanes stop and start as the lane is the street gets wider and narrower and and that is always a big conflict zone when something that comes and goes like that. Three. There was the slide. On this stretch as you're getting towards farmers lane and take the detour through the neighborhood that you showed a bike box crossing the street and that was a little confusing to me if you can put it back up that could make my comments make more sense or maybe be able to answer my question, but it looks like you're expecting yeah that's the one there on the right that you're expecting a cyclist who's moving. I guess it's an upward on the way the slide is stopping pushing a bag button and then crossing and taking that little jog to go on to gross as opposed to coming up forth here where those arrows are and you could do either you could do either so there's a camera there so that has it does have detection if you if the cyclist wants to take the lane. That's absolutely would work as well, but we thought it would be beneficial to have a button there for those who weren't comfortable doing that. Okay, okay, thanks and then just my last comment when you were talking about the parking on Montgomery and about you can't take the parking away on because that people might have to park in their driveway and even though the vast majority of people taking the survey said that they want to see things be better for bikes and it sounds like you're actually prioritizing. The storage of private property in the public right away. Right. We need more infrastructure for the people moving the vulnerable users on bikes and on foot and to not put in better bike infrastructure, because people might have to park in their own damn driveway is a misuse of public space and public funds in my opinion. Thank you. Thank you, so I'll address the first comment was that I thank you for bringing that up actually that's something that we did discuss with in our stakeholder group with and our fire department actually has some concerns because four street is so one of the things by converting this and taking away a traveling was that because this is an evacuation route that is definitely heavily used for when the valley area has to evacuate in that area. They want to be able to have the space so that we can still have two lanes of two vehicles of traffic, exiting the area, going towards the one on one or towards the downtown area. So that's an integration that we propose meets that criteria as it still provides enough room with the bike lane and the buffer lane for there to be a potential enough width for the travel lane. In conjunction with the other traveling is already there. And then the fire department would still also need the center turn lane in order to be able to respond to emergencies as that's occurring. So that criteria is that they had that we that we needed to meet. I can tell you that with our design, we are definitely taking a consideration that we are not intending to drop any of the bike lanes along the route. That was something that we've heard in the past and we are doing our best not to do that I can't think of one location where we're going to actually have to drop the bike lane as we're putting them in here. And then your last comment I talked about the bike box your last comment about prioritizing. So if we're not prioritizing the vehicles to park there where we are prioritizing that we don't want pedestrians to have to cross the street. Those are the most vulnerable users, and we don't want them crossing in front of vehicles and and and not that they will have to cross in front of vehicles, even if or if they're a visitor and they're visiting someone they have to cross even if it's not the person who lives there to take away that the parking in front of those those residents says could have a detrimental impact on the safety of the pedestrians so we're trying to balance the pedestrians, the bikes in the vehicles all the users of the street. So thank you Steve pick the next call please. The next person in the queue is Deb Hoskins. Deb your mic microphone has been unmuted. You can state your name for the record if you so choose and then ask your question or make your comment. Hi, this is Deborah Hoskins I live just off of Junior Street off of fourth. And we frequently I'm delighted you're putting more bike lanes in because we ride over to Safeway frequently and interestingly we end up taking the pathway that you have marked out for bike lanes and then in the neighborhoods. So I would, I'm really pleased that there's going to be more bike lanes on fourth street up to that point because that will, that will be very helpful. The other is, and this does not have to do with the striping but a little while back you all put in and crosswalk lights at junior and fourth street there where the foster freeze is, which I much appreciate but they don't hang out the street. So this would be for the future I understand your parameters for the monies you have right now, but I just wanted to comment we frequently almost daily cross that street. When people are traveling west on fourth straight in the evening which is late afternoon evening. We often are crossing there to go for a walk, and they cannot easily see the flashing light on the side of the street, and it's quite dangerous you have to. You have to really wait for everybody you pretty much stop before you venture out we've had one person almost run over us because they just I'm sure they didn't see the flashing light as they were heading west into the sun. So if there's any way to make that more visible. That would be greatly appreciated as the crosswalk is a little bit further west there by the copy shop, where they have the overhead arm that comes out something like that would be appreciated but, but in general thank you so much for more bike lanes are very much appreciated. Thank you. Okay, the next person in the queue is Alexa forest. It looks abbreviated so Alexa, your, your microphone has been unmuted. You may state your name for the record if you so choose and then ask your question or make a comment. Hi, thanks Steven and thank you, Rob for this presentation my name is Alexa Forrester. I am a bike commuter and I use my bike for transportation through all of these areas very frequently. And I just want to echo Debs enthusiasm for many of the proposed changes that will be very beneficial to me and my family. And I do have a few comments. The first is just because Deb was mentioning that crossing there at Foster's freeze. I am often riding my bike from the junior college back to my house in Montgomery Village, and that crossing, trying to figure out how to get from the monk or the McDonald neighborhood across fourth street always just feels like I'm taking my life in my hands and sometimes I get off my bike and walk across a crosswalk or try to sync it with pedestrians but especially in the setting sun as she mentioned so if we could have a bike bag button at that crosswalk as well that would be super helpful. Again, long term. The other thing I wanted to say is that I very much support parking protected bike lanes wherever they are feasible, especially in the portions that are closer to downtown where there are more businesses. And as a cyclist one of the things that I am always very cognitive of is being doored. And so I do not feel very comfortable riding in buffered bike lanes next to parked cars. It's actually true in business districts where the cars are coming and going and people are getting out more frequently. I ride by parked cars on like Hoenn Drive and I'm not as worried about that because there's not as much coming and going. The other thing I wanted to say is that I highly support raised cycle tracks where essentially those sidewalk is widened and the bicycle lane shares the sidewalk with the pedestrians but it's much wider. I know that that's out of the scope of this product but if you build the parking protected bike lanes temporarily with paint then in future iterations, they're already in the right place for the raised cycle tracks. And the other thing that I really wanted to comment on was this route to get to the Safeway. I'm happy for Deb that it's where she already rides but I will mention that I'm coming from the Montgomery Village area. That route adds 1.5 miles to my commute from my house to the Safeway I just did a mapping of it. If I drive my car it's a mile if I ride my bike it's two and a half miles and that's just not a good way to because I'm coming from the east of the fourth and farmers intersection. That's adding a lot so long term I believe this is in the bike and pedestrian master plan but I'm going to keep mentioning it on every call. Short Road south of the Safeway parking lot on the other side of the street dead ends right into that intersection at the corner of that shopping mall. And if we built a bicycle and pedestrian crossing across Santa Rosa Creek from the dead end of short road over to the east or the west side of that shopping center. It would create a short convenient and very safe route for everybody south of four street to access that shopping district and I would use that all the time. Yeah, so those are my comments for now thank you for your presentation. Thank you Alexa. I will comment that that is that bridge is actually in our creek master plan. So that is it has been identified. There is a current funding for it but it has been identified so someone has seen what you have seen. And I took your other comments on the the big button and a better way to that's one of the fine tuning that we're looking at actually is is intersection I believe at Talbot and how to improve that intersection to link to the McDonald area. Whether it would be a hawk signal or something to help to make that connection between the two neighborhoods along there, more more viable. So that's something that, like you mentioned is not part of this project but is something that we are are looking at to improve following this project. The other thing I didn't want to mention is, and I didn't mention it with devs comments but you both brought up just the visibility of the lights. Another thing that will be helpful with the, and I think you might know this already but with the three lanes versus the four lanes is you only need really one person to stop before you need to cross the street in one direction you don't have the multi threat or you don't have one person who stops and the other car might come around them and and not see why they're stopping and continue and if they're blocking that light that's on when they stop. They may do that they may go around and continue on and not know that someone's in a crosswalk. So by having the single lane in each direction that helps dramatically reduce those types of collisions so that's another benefit for the road diet there. All right, Steve, let's go. The next person in our queue is David long, David your microphone has been unmuted you can state your name for the record if you so choose and then ask your question or make your comment. Great. My name is David long. Rob Thank you so much for succinct and clear presentation. I live in the proctor Heights neighborhood and I regularly use the fourth street corridor, both with the car and bicycle to go downtown and to access the one on one highway. I really enthusiastically support the road diet in that stretch between college and Brian, and, you know, I traveled that stretch for many, many years and so the left turn thing with the center left turn lane is really going to help but I'm wondering if, in addition to that. There will be some turn movement limiting done at the acute intersections where Saint Helena and 13th hit fourth street and spring and 12th hit fourth street. And I'm not really sure what those, you know, limitations would be but giving people all of the options to turn either left or right at those four intersections coupled with a single travel lane in each direction and people waiting in a center lane it just seems like a recipe for more accidents and so maybe limiting people to only turning right or something like that so has that been thought of along with this plan. So, no, we, we haven't thought of restricting left turns there. There aren't left turns restricted there currently so we weren't imposing on on changing the travel patterns necessarily, but facilitating actually the safety aspect of it by giving someone a place to stage to turn left. So, what currently happens now is, you know, someone is staged there to turn left. They can have a car behind them makes moves to go around them while they're waiting to turn left or rear end them if they don't know understand that they're waiting there to turn left so this, this removes them from the travel lane so but I'm not talking about the people turning off a fourth street I'm more thinking about the people coming on to fourth street. So this also gives an opportunity for people to merge into the center turn lane, and then continue if they're making a left turn, and then continue their movement. So it's, it's more of a two staged approach. So, it may be actually easier to actually, you're only looking for basically one gap in one direction when you're doing that so it may. I don't know, I don't think that it would be necessarily an issue. Okay, that's good to think about using that Turner center turn lane when you're coming out it just after many many tries of doing both of those movements there. Those acute angles are really a wonky situation for people to negotiate and maybe with just one traveling distraction. Yeah. Thank you, David. Okay, sure. Okay. The next person in the queue is Dixon. Delzel Dixon, your microphone has been unmuted, you can state your name for the record if you so choose and then ask your question, or make a comment. I believe you're muted still Dixon. Excuse me, thank you, Rob. Rob, I want to say this is Dixon Delzel. I live on the southeast corner of Montgomery and Alderbrook so the very westward edge of the study area along Montgomery Drive, and I lived here for 20 years. By way of bona fides I was staffed to the Salana Transportation Authority staffed to the plaster transportation authority and staffed to the Placer County Regional Transportation Agency was also included Lake Tahoe. So I have a certain eye to look at this neighborhood that I've lived in in 20 years. Thank you, Rob, for sending Shane out also to speak to me that was very proactive on the part of the city to send someone out to actually knock on my door and talk to me. I just want to thank you for that. I'd like to make a comment regarding the comment about people along the corridor actually having to park in their driveways as opposed to on the street. Keep in mind, this is a very particular neighborhood this neighborhood was developed in 1947 1948 1949 the majority of the houses along Alderbrook to four street are single car garages with single car driveways. The setbacks are also very limited to minimum so at best you can park a single car garage in your driveways. Also, there's a high percentage of rentals so we know that that increases the occupancy and also increases the vehicles and the demand for parking along the stretch of Montgomery Drive I just wanted to get that into the conversation. One of the very first statements that you make that the city has made about the study area is the narrowness of the streets and with relationship to parking and vehicles being broadsided so let's really drive that home and understand what that means. When you are traveling eastbound on Montgomery and you get to the Alderbrook intersection and you cross the Alderbrook intersection, Montgomery is reduced in size by 20 feet. That is two of your standard travel lanes. That's a dramatic effect it creates a funnel effect and it's more the funnel effect that has had vehicles get broadsided than the actual travel lane with and the parking situations when you on on the westbound side of Alderbrook. You have parking, bicycle, travel lane, center multiple turn lane, traffic lane, bicycle again and parking. You've got everything you'd ever want in your smorgasbord of a vehicular travel for across all modes. The Alderbrook intersection traveling eastbound is only 38 or 40 feet wide in there it's actually 38 feet on the on the south side curb to curb. If someone is actually traveling at 30 miles an hour they cross the intersection of Montgomery and Alderbrook in about three quarters of a second. And in that three quarters of a second you are funneled down by 20 feet 10 feet on both sides. With the current configuration with your center parking lane, at least you have consistency as people are funneled across the intersection. You maintain your center, a multi turn lane, and you maintain your two travel lanes, and you maintain your parking lanes. I can't imagine what it's going to be like traveling across that intersection, the 38 feet with a completely different configuration taking place, where you have parking, bicycling in the elimination of your center turn lane. You think there's problems now, I can only imagine it getting worse. I'm going to park directly in front of my house because the curb is painted red because of of that funnel effect. I found it necessary for the 20 years that I've lived here to back into my driveway. It is far far safer for me to back into my driveway, then it is for me to back out in traffic, a mere 40 feet from the Alderbrook intersection, which means that I've been sitting in front of my house, waiting to be able to turn into the center turn lane so that I can back into my driveway safely for 20 years. If you calculate that I did that once a day for all those years it's about 300 hours. I've got a lot of time sitting at the intersection of Alderbrook and Montgomery Drive looking at what goes on. I'm walking around the intersection from Alderbrook making the right hand turn eastbound on to Montgomery Drive without even looking in the at the oncoming traffic they're often making the S turn to come briefly on to Montgomery and slide over on to on to Sherwood or to continue on up the street. I guess my point is this is a really special little neighborhood, and I'm questioning the entire value of even putting bicycle lanes there. This sounds way more like a bicycle plan, then then then really anything else, and you've got really underdeveloped on lanes on Sonoma Avenue, I'm a bicyclist, I got two bicycles and two e bike sitting in my garage I'm not anti bicycle. This is a very, very narrow strip of property by your of roadway by your own admissions. It's really important to look at the safety value of that center turn lane. When you only have two lanes of traffic without a center turn lane in here. What are you going to do when you have your trash pickup that happens with with you know what once a week. When you have emergency vehicles traveling down. It was stated in your plan someone stated well it's a good idea to remove the center traffic lane because it will cause traffic to stop while people are making a left hand turns into their driveways or left hand turns into any one of the five streets. You know what, that's congestion. That's not slowing down traffic. If your interest is in slowing down traffic from Alderbrook to farmers, all that you need to do is stripe for parking. You know that striping for parking just like you've done on the side streets like you've done on Alderbrook and Rosedale and Talbot creates an optical illusion. It makes people think the streets are more narrow and they slowed down. That will alert people that are driving through so you don't have to worry about the parking taking place and then being side swiped. It will slow people down in terms of their vehicular travel, and it actually can double as a bike lane because there's not much parking there during the day. It's a two fold solution without eliminating parking or installing bicycle lanes whose utility has to be questioned. And I would like to see some documentation about the validity of the necessity of bike lanes on this section of Montgomery Drive, other than it completes the bicycle map. I think that concludes my comments. I appreciate your time. Thank you. Great. Thanks, Dixon. I appreciate your input. We don't have a time clock tonight, but I would like to, I mean, that was quite a quite a lengthy discussion. And if you have, you know, exceptionally lengthy discussions you'd like to have with me, I am more than happy to have conversations with you on the telephone and I will present my information or the email. I will present my information at the end of this presentation at the end of the slides. So you could write that down and contact me as well. I do appreciate the information you provided Dixon. So thank you for that. And I understand exactly what you're saying. So we are looking at that section of road specifically to come up with a design that will be beneficial for cyclists and for the vehicles. Our intent is absolutely not to make things worse than they are today. Our intent is to make them better, obviously. So, and even, even saying that this is striping, striping can be changed. If we do make a mistake, or if we, if we do something that doesn't work as well as we think it should, it can always be modified. So it's, it's not, it's not something that will be, you know, it's not cast in stone forever necessarily. So Steve, can we go on to the next call please? We can. Thank you. The next person in the queue is Stephen Maples. Stephen, your microphone has been unmuted. You can state your name for the record if you so choose, and then ask your question or make a comment. Yeah, thank you, Stephen arrived. This is really exciting to see some of the proposed changes to Montgomery Drive. Stephen Maples, my wife and I are residents and homeowners on Montgomery Drive near the intersection of Short Road, so within the project area. I'm an avid bicyclist, and I really support the implementation of a protected bike lane on Montgomery Drive, as well as additional traffic calming infrastructure and pedestrian safety measures to help reduce vehicle speeds and increase pedestrian and bicyclist safety on Montgomery. Based on the current project timeline, it sounds like the protected bike lanes are the only thing that's being considered right now, but based on what I see every day, the parking on Montgomery, and especially on the north side is really underutilized. So I just took a peek out my front window right now and I don't see any vehicles parked on the two blocks between Short and Yates on the north side of Montgomery. Where we live, you know, Montgomery Drive is a three quarter mile straight shot between Farmer's Lane and the hospital cuts through our neighborhood and allows drivers to speed accessively past many homes, a church, a preschool and a hospital. And I think the best way to increase safety for folks parking on the south side of Montgomery and crossing the street would be to reduce vehicle speeds, increase enforcement of speed limits and implement other traffic calming and pedestrian safety measures. I think this would greatly improve the safety both for bicyclists and pedestrians, not to mention just increasing safety generally for folks in cars. And folks that live along Montgomery Drive and make this whole corridor, much more welcoming for folks. So with that, I'll conclude my comments. Thank you. And yet the section between I think Jean Drive and Gilbert was a section that we're thinking of that maybe we could do kind of a hybrid approach potentially and in and that section that section of road has only side on has mainly side on housing house access. And they also have the the interior of the neighborhood, because they're corner homes. So those may be areas that that segment may be a segment that we could install the buffered bike lanes with with limited impact on on the residents it's more the section between short and Alderbrook I think or or yes, short and Alderbrook that we'd be concerned about that. But thank you for your comments definitely appreciate those. You Steve next. The next person to queue is Janice Oakley. Janice your microphone has been unmuted you may state your name for the record if you so choose and then ask your question, or make a comment. And yeah, thank you for the presentation and the opportunity to comment. I live on Sherwood Drive, which is between four street and Montgomery in the area that we've been talking about. I am a bicyclist for commuting to the point that some people don't know that I own a car. So, one of the proposal in general I support the, the proposed projects. One question I have because it's been brought up by a couple of the respondents in various community meetings is having the buffered bike lanes with parked cars in them. And I wanted to know about, and you may not have that answer and that's because it's not even part of these proposals. But what would garbage pickup look like where would the garbage cans be, how would the trash and recycling get picked up, and also about like street sweeping. There's a lot of glass that's already out on the roads. So would having a buffered bike lane with that end up having the trash cans in the bike lanes and then how would bicyclists have to maneuver around that so that's one of my concerns with the proposals that I've heard about having the protected buffers containing parked cars. So you may not have that answer but something I'd be interested in if you know as these discussions progress thanks go ahead Rob. And don't mute her yet please. So I just want to get some clarification on when you're saying so a buffer bike lane is a bike lane then has a small buffer area between the car and the bike lane itself trash should be placed at the curb. So it should be not be placed in the bike lane. Period. I know people do. And I'm sure a lot of people on here are, you know, commenting to themselves right now but and I've seen it myself because I ride a bike to people do put their their garbage can especially like on home and into the bike lane because parking is so so much is is you so much or isn't that much curb space. So that's an issue regardless if there's a bike lane striped or not that the that the garbage can encroaches out into from the curb. The, and I think your question was if we did put the parking and flopped it with the bike lane, then how would garbage pickup occur. And at that point, we would ask the the residents or the businesses to put the garbage can in the parking area which would not be blocking the bike lane not against the curb. So it is still in a parking area. So not to disrupt the flow of the bike lanes. But one of the things we did mention was street sweeping and that is something that we have to consider and how we are going to street sweep areas that have these protected bike lanes and because a street sweeper needs I believe about nine to 10 feet to the area that needs to be swept. And so in our proposal I believe we have nine feet. For the protected bike lane that's on four street in the section between Ian Brookwood to so that we can maintain some level of street sweeping in that section. So that is something that we do have to consider when we're looking at installing protected bike lanes if we do flop them with with parking. The other option is to prohibit parking during certain days that they do the street sweeping so that you have full access to those to those areas. Did I answer your question? Thank you very much. Okay, thanks. That was really helpful. Thanks. Okay, the next person in our queue is Francine Garra Francine your microphone has been unmuted, and you can state your name for the record if you so choose, then ask your question or make a comment. Hi, my name is Francine Garra. I've lived on Montgomery Drive just just West Farmers Lane for 17 over 17 years. I have a dog. I walk in this neighborhood every morning. And I'm often, you know, having to walk around pickup trucks that park on the sidewalk. My neighbor has decided to pave over his front lawn and park his pickup trucks on the front lawn so that they don't get hit by cars whizzing by our front. Montgomery Drive on because they drive so fast they just hit off side mirrors or one of his trucks was actually completely totaled by a head and run driver. We do have a business on the corner of farmers and Montgomery Drive that has employees that can't park in the parking lot. So that for the most is the most parking that we have on the street during the day from the employees to park along and basically they've been parking along the north side of the street. Other than that, they don't. We have very few on street parkers unless someone has an excessive number of vehicles. There was one color who stated that we do have small driveways. And, you know, if you have more than one vehicle, it's, it's, it's sometimes hard to keep your all of your vehicles in the driveway or the more the garage. I really appreciate the expansion of Montgomery Drive. I have championed this for years because of numerous circumstances. We have a lot of bicyclists who ride on the sidewalks. When you're backing out of your driveway. That is a very dangerous situation you look right you look left you look again, and I'll say boom there's a bike bicyclist there, who is riding on the sidewalk, very dangerous and it happens almost every morning. The other one is the very fast drivers on Montgomery Drive. I don't care if there's a center turn lane I don't care if it's a narrow road. These people drive fast, it's a through through way, and they drive like it's 101. So, pedestrians like myself and my dog are always in danger crossing the street so an added crosswalk at shore is always very appreciated. I just wanted to say thank you for listening to me. I do champion getting that center turn lane taken out the the narrow roadway has never been a good idea. It is never worked, and I think it is definitely time for a change to get bicycle lanes and wider roadway so people can actually park on their on the street. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, Steve. Next, the next next person to queue is a need, Mars. I need your microphone has been unmuted. You may state your name for the record if you so choose and ask your question or make your comment. My name is Marcus Myers in it as my wife. We're on her computer. Thank you so much. I'm concerned that we've had since the whole present. Oh, I'm sorry. And we are also residents. We live right up the street from Dixon a Dixon, and down the street from David, who's on Montgomery, and since the proposals first came out, and we have lived in this house coming for 14 years, we have watched the flow of traffic increase. And as Dixon had pointed out, this is an older neighborhood, and the driveways are very narrow, they barely fit a single car, and eliminating or adding a parking lane and a bike lane, not only is it increased the danger to both the bicyclists and the vehicles that are parked on the road already. I am the victim I've lost two cars here, completely totaled by speeding drivers, being funneled off of at Alderbrook on the Montgomery Lane. Our neighbor to the right of us has lost his vehicle as well it was totaled with people speeding down this lane. And this concern that we have is the speed, you know, and the parking and Sonoma has such a wider street for bikes lanes, and not just for them to have to detour that way, but just for safety reasons. I am I too like Dixon back into my driveway because trying to pull out on the Montgomery Drive in reverse is just horrific. On the Montgomery Lane I mean this week alone I've known that we've had this seminar coming up. I have seen people passing cars in front of my house here on Montgomery Lane because that person was following the speed limit. We only have two speed limit signs posted in this area and our speed limit here is 30 miles an hour which no one does on this street. But I think eliminating the buffered bike lane, only due to safety reasons and concerns for bicyclists should be of the utmost importance. The center lane, it doesn't matter if we're trying to use that center lane to turn or back into I mean we have to back into the center lane, if we're backing out of our driveway for safety reasons to get into the flow of traffic. There's a way that gets other drivers who are traveling either east or westbound, hyper critical of what's happening. They're slamming on their brakes, or they're not actually understanding what it is that we're doing trying to get out of our own driveway. I think that Dixon pointed that out. I'm glad that David talked about the speeding. I mean, up the street but the speeding on on our section of road between farmers Lane and Alderbrook is just, it's absurd. We don't have enough police presence here to monitor the speed I've never seen any ticketing going on in here. It's just, it's a very unsafe section of roads, even though trash cans are placed on the sidewalks. It's still a very narrow, narrow street I think Dixon said it was by 20 feet from Alderbrook, West, eastbound. So our concern is, is safety. I'm not really concerned with parking. I'm concerned with people safety. I'm concerned with the speed and we appreciate you guys putting out this proposal and making some recommendations for it and to see where that goes but I think that in the overall picture no matter what you do you really need to think about the speed limit that's posted and what we can do to to bring that down the other lady was speaking who's west of farmer Lane is the same thing you know it's narrow and then it widens up and Sonoma Avenue is just much more safer for bicyclists. In my opinion. So we appreciate your time. Thank you very much for having us. I have one question for you. Marcus. So you mentioned the, I think you said you didn't care about parking on, I think you're talking about on street, you didn't, you don't necessarily use the on street parking, but you do, but you do use the center turn lane for access to your driveway. We will we have to with the flow of traffic. If we were trying to turn into our driveway from just the street. And you know that's these are small driveways and some are tight we've actually widened our driveway so that we could eliminate some of the issues that most of those, these folks have with the single car garages is that you know you still have to swing left a little bit to get into the driveway and center lane people just fly right down it and pass us, you know, so I'm not sure if eliminating the center lane is the best scenario for this whole proposition. I mean, so you would have a better turning radius, turning into your driveway with the bike lane there because it's actually pushing you further into the middle of the street. You would not have people passing you potentially because there won't be a center turning for that to occur. Well, that's correct. So there's pluses and minuses right so that pluses and minus and on the buffered bike lane, I think it was dead with the coalition earlier. I mean, the more protection of bicyclists gets from this stretch of road. I mean pushing them farther into the road even with a buffered bike lane I mean, I mean, you've got to actually live here to experience what it is that those of us that live here are trying to explain to you about how dangerous it is and how how speed speed is the main thing, especially like Dixon pointed out, we're we're we're losing 20 feet of road when you cross Alderbrook into and you're being funneled into this portion of Montgomery Drive. Yeah, I definitely get it. And then part of yeah, and part of, you know, our, our design is to actually do some of what Dixon was was mentioning it's actually putting the lines on the road for a 10 foot lane which is very narrow for people to navigate. Which does help with which should help with speed. And it's it's pushing them closer to basically also closer to the oncoming traffic. So the perception of the drivers on Montgomery Drive with the proposed layout is going to be much different than it is today when you are separated from the other oncoming vehicle. That's that's moving. It's going to it would be quite a quite a bit different experience. So even even if that's done, and you're giving us a little bit more space to make those terms. It's not going to eliminate the driver that's in a big hurry to get to McDonald's or wherever he's got to get to that's going to be still passing us on the left into oncoming traffic, because I don't know how to put this there's there's no we can't control people who are well you can't control we can control speeding, we can, you know, ticketing. Yeah, we're never going to we're never going to get a speed bump on the street because of the hospital, but I mean marsh road. Marsh road is a residential neighborhood that has speed humps in it because people speed up and down the street, you know, and we see way more traffic than marsh road. And so it's just, you know, I'm all for anything that's going to increase safety. Absolutely. But this stretch of road safety and widening that and putting those lanes there isn't going to change much for the safety of everybody with the way people drive here. I mean, I think you've heard that from most of us on online tonight, but you know we're interested to see what you guys come up with and and see you know what happens. Thank you, Marcus. Thank you. So we still, we still have several hands raised so I want to remind people. If you have succinct comments that would be great if they're just, yes, we like it that's great. Keep it concise if you have specific if you have specific issues. Bring those to the forefront so we can help address them and and make sure we get everyone's input tonight. So we still have several several hands up. So thank you. The next person in the queue is Tom Helm. Tom, your, your microphone's been unmuted. You can state your name for the record if you so choose, then ask your question or make a comment. Hi, I'm Tom Helm. I've been riding my bike around town a long time. I thank you, Rob and the city for your sharing input from the citizens and responding with designs. I have, I used to ride down 4th Street to get from Farmer's Lane to Brighton Lane. And it takes a little hutspot to do that. You have to just take the lane. There's nowhere else to go. And it was okay because well, it was two lanes in one direction and they could always go around me. I don't do that so much because I kind of like the idea that Rob said, well, just go down Montgomery. It's a lot less traffic and it is, it's a lot less traffic. But now I hear that from the comments that even Montgomery has problems, design problems to try. You can't solve it all. So what I would really like to focus on is the alternative route to get to Safeway using Geary and Morley or Rogers Way. And if you can pull that slide up. I won't take too long. Shelly, can you go back about four or five slides? One more. There we go. Thank you. In my route to get from Montgomery Village to say Kaiser on Mendocino, I would never take these things, but I can see the benefit for people who say, oh no, I'm not going to be on 4th Street and there isn't much of an option. How are you going to sign that to make it clear? It's very convoluted to, to anybody who wants to go through the district. And that's one, one issue. The other issue is this gets you to Rogers Way at the edge of the Safeway shopping center. It doesn't get you to Farmers Lane. And I don't know if it's just unspoken, but you're kind of expecting people to go through the Safeway parking lot to get Farmers Lane. And the other part of the issue, which isn't solved is people from Montgomery Village. How do they get to Safeway? Well, they would go up Farmers Lane, which is a pretty busy street and get in the left turn lane like all the cars and get to Safeway that way. And that is not incorporated in your plan. So, I'm saying that the designs are improvements, but there are things that they don't address. I'm sorry I can't have, I don't have any answers for you. I just want to point out those two things. The circumnavigation route is too complicated. And how do you get to Safeway from the each side. Thank you very much for your work. Thanks Tom. So, we do plan to put a way finding signs for a bike route to and from the Safeway. The other point I'll make it, we didn't do a study on on Highway 12 Farmers Lane. That was not part of our corridor study at this time. So we weren't addressing that road and specifically we actually don't have a jurisdiction over Highway 12. That's Caltrans's jurisdiction. And my understanding is that they don't have, they don't intend to put bike lanes on on Farmers Lane Highway 12. The other piece is that as part of as part of our, there are any other bike lanes, I don't believe further east, I think it's just shoulder further east on Sonoma Highway. So our, our stopping point was the destination of the Safeway shopping center. And it did not include going, going south on Farmers Lane so strictly just related to the fourth street. I think I addressed both of this questions Tom. So, next caller please. The next person to queue is Manona Heveland. Manona, your microphone has been unmuted, you can state your name for the record if you so choose, and then ask your question or make a comment. Hello, my name is Manona Heveland, can you hear me? Yes. I am very excited to see this project coming forward and I just can't wait to see the road diet on fourth street and bike lanes there I think it's going to be such a great improvement. I just wanted to comment that the way I live in the McDonald neighborhood area, and I bike over to Sonoma Avenue and directions over there. And I usually go on 13th Street and then cross at by the fosters freeze, and then go down fourth street for just one little tiny block and it's usually pretty frightening and then go on to Talbot. And so I just wanted to encourage the improvement of that crossing going south from 13th Street over to Talbot and then north from Talbot over to St Helena or 13th Street as a route and I've heard the other cyclists use it also. And then the, the other thing I'm also excited about the bike lanes on Montgomery, I would definitely use them when I'm going a lot of times and I'm going to the east I'm trying to get to the brush Creek bike trail. And so, going on Talbot to Montgomery over to Yalupa will get cyclists to the brush Creek trail. And so, I just wanted to make sure I know when you're restriping doesn't really show the intersection so I'm always concerned about the intersection so I just wanted to. So I know there isn't much time here but just make sure that there's thought that intersection at Farmers Lane, and also at Brookwood those big intersections it's always a little bit challenging to get through as a cyclist. So whatever can be done to improve it and then the last I appreciate the comments of the gentleman that lives on Montgomery about the speed of vehicles because it is still concerning when there is a bike lane on that new bike lane stripe in the section on Montgomery. Unless there's something done to control speeds, it still will be a little precarious for young for cyclists, particularly young cyclists and families. But if the vehicles are traveling at 40 miles per hour, you know at 3040 something like that that it's not there. There are safety concerns so I just wanted to I know that the thought is well there's nothing can be done about speeding but I think that it would be beneficial for the city to think about. Education and outreach and more signage to reduce vehicular speeds wherever bike lanes are or pedestrians are because you say oh you don't want anyone to cross the street because it's dangerous well. Sometimes people have to cross the street and it wouldn't be as dangerous if vehicles were not traveling so fast if they were at the speed limit of 30, or maybe even lowering the speed limit to 20 or 25. And if there was more enforcement and outreach around lowering vehicular speed limits. Wherever you're doing improvements for bicyclists and pedestrians, it would really be an official to all the rest and everybody who lives on those streets and everybody who's traveling outside of a car. So, those are my comments. And I look forward to seeing the improvements. Thank you. Thank you. So, I did just want to cut the 13th street yes that is a location that we have been looking at, and intersections in general do get a lot of our attention when we're doing the designs we need to make sure that the bike lanes are lining up the travel lanes are lining up that we're not dropping the bike lanes we're focusing on really trying not to do that because we understand what a how complex that is for cyclists when you're pushing your section that all of a sudden there's not a bike lane that's not helpful we get it. So thank you for those comments and I don't think I said nothing can be done on about speeding we do we absolutely are talking with our police department. When we do these designs to narrow the lanes we are attempting to help people help remind them and make it. So, more difficult to go speed, a faster speed if you had a 14 foot traveling versus a 10 foot traveling that is a huge difference. And the perception is that you're going faster if the lane is narrow or so we are attempting to help address the speeds. Next caller Steve please. The next person to queue is Jim Maas. Jim your microphone's been unmuted. You can state your name for the record if you so choose and then ask a question or make a comment. Jim you're still muted. Hi. Can you hear me. Yes. Okay, sorry we had two devices going. I'm Sandy Mazza and Jim's wife. I live on California Avenue very close to Montgomery and I've lived here for 34 years. And I'm at the point where California, although this is one block west of the area that you're talking about California is where Montgomery widens. I just wanted to say that Montgomery is a very narrow street and Sonoma is a much wider street and I think that this proposal for Montgomery might be trying to do too many things. My major concern is that if you remove the center lane turning lane that you will back up traffic in both directions all day long. There's a lot of neighborhood feeder streets that people are coming both east and west to turn into. And if they have to wait for the traffic to clear in the oncoming direction, they're going to back up everything behind them while they wait for a clearance and that's one of the benefits that Montgomery has is this center turning lane and I hadn't heard any other comments about the. I wanted to address that. I'm all for the types of improvements that you're making, but I propose that you move that all over to Sonoma Avenue where you have a lot more street real estate to work with. And it's a very short black block from from Sonoma Avenue to Montgomery. There were there were two other speaker speakers Dixon and a husband who's both on his wife's computer, but I think made some really good points about people need to be able to park on Montgomery on the side of the street that they live in otherwise people are going to be running on the street, not going to an intersection they're late for work the kids got to get to daycare what have you. So I think their parking needs to be preserved on both sides of the street. And I think the center lane, their turning lane needs to be preserved. Thank you. Great thank you Sandy. Okay the next person to queue is Carmen Huddleston. Hi Mike has been unmuted. You may state your name for the record if you so choose, and then ask your question or make your comment. Yes, my name is Carmen Huddleston and thank you for the presentation this evening. I'm not a cyclist I'm a pedestrian so I live in the Sherwood Forest areas I'm walking the streets all the time. I want to reiterate what other speakers have said is between college and Brighton and the traffic is very, very fast, and I have tried to cross an altar broke which is impossible using the flasher people just don't stop. And the flasher is just a marked walkway, and then further down a towel but with a flasher is again, you press that button and cars just don't stop I think there's, whether they're going, you know, west or east they're just in a rush and they don't stop. So, slow down some wondering if there's going any plans for any kind of a stoplight between college and Brighton and then my other comment I wanted to make and I'm not sure if this was mentioned at the beginning I was a few minutes late, logging on. At Brighton and forth where Proctor Terrace grammar schools right there. And if you've ever in that neighborhood drop off timer, primarily in the pick up in the afternoon that it backs up traffic onto Fort Street sometimes because you know, parents are trying to turn down to go to pick up their kids. If they, has that been considered in the redesign of that. Are they going to design that change that intersection anyway so that there's going to be fewer lanes. I'm just wondering that that's it. Those are my two comments. Thank you, Carmen. So no the intersection actually at Brighton and forth will maintain the lanes that are currently there just south or west of the intersection is where the transition will occur so the intersection of fourth and, and, and and will retain the same number of lanes. And then your other question was, is there any plans for a traffic signal only on the segment of roadway currently there's not. And one of the reasons is that we are getting very close to the, the capacity of a road diet along that section of four street between Brighton and college. We are so any type of traffic signal device along that segment that breaks the flow of the traffic there would potentially then back traffic up and then divert it into the neighborhood which is something we're very cautious about and don't want to don't want to shift people into the neighborhood because they think they're going to be getting somewhere faster by going through the neighborhood versus staying on the arterial street which it is. So currently we do not have any plans for for a signal. And those are those two questions. Steve next person please. The next person to queue is Andrew rich Andrew your microphone's been unmuted, state your name for the record if you so choose and then make a comment or ask your question. Thanks and thank you for the time in your presentations. I think generally the approaches taken of adding bike lanes, where possible are good and positive. I think however that there should be more emphasis on protected bike lanes whether that be through some form of infrastructure or through parked car protected bike lanes would be great. I regularly ride my bike through the Montgomery section west of farmers, and it is a real gauntlet making it through there. The proposed solution of having buffered bike lanes isn't adequate. And I think that you're doing that with preference of the local homeowners on the north side of Montgomery. And given that there are, I'm sure many more bicyclists passing through there, the kind of frequency of collisions for bicyclists is likely much higher than the number of people that are having to cross that section of Montgomery so I think that it would be. If we're talking about safety which seems to be people's rationale for not including bike lanes and such that I think that the best best improvement of safety would be to remove that north side of parking. I don't think that we need to give preference of people's parking of their private vehicles on public property I think that the overall common good is more important here and I think that removing those northern. Park cars would be best. I also want to comment on the improvements to the east of farmers lane on Montgomery and that area is also a real gauntlet and I am happy to see changes in that area. And I guess also I'd like to hear the response of. I believe it was Chris Rogers in a meeting a couple months ago he said that he wanted the kind of default to be protected bike lanes for downtown for the downtown area and I'm not really seeing that it seems like we're really. If there's ever any excuse to make a bike lane not protected than that excuse is used as reason to not have a bike lane protected so I appreciate the time and appreciate the ability to give my comment thank you. Thanks Andrew. Yeah we heard that comment too from Mr Rogers. From there Rogers, and we did follow up with him on four streets specifically regarding the the evacuation route there. And that was the reason for. Not putting in protected bike lanes there. If you come to our meeting on the November 16th, you will see. A lot of locations that we're being able to put on North Dutton with protective bike lanes. So it's, it's not something where we're ignoring by any means it's something that we are trying to develop where we can and where we have the option to do so where we can continue to the street sweeping. Because we know that that's another issue for cyclists is when the street doesn't get swept in the bike lane gets dirty and then it tires get popped in and that's another issue so there's there are definitely a lot of different competing interests and we are. We are incorporating the designs where we can so thank you I appreciate that. Next, please. Our Q is Sarah Jones. Sarah your mic has been unmuted. You can state your name for the record if you so choose and then ask your question or make a comment. Hi, this is Sarah Jones. I am teach over at Santa Rosa junior college and I live over in the grace tract. And so my comment was that can you hear me. Yes. So, I would very much like to see a crosswalk. I'm at Geary and Bryden, where you have that planned route going through there. I walk that way and I ride that way all the time. And it's a great path through this neighborhood I actually ride through this neighborhood from safely that way, all the time. And, but it would be much safer if there was a crosswalk there. The second thing is I often go over to Montgomery and I'm a very timid bike rider I like riding on very slow streets so I'm really excited about your bike lanes on Montgomery Avenue because I do think they will slow traffic considerably along that route. And the bike lanes will make it much safer for me to get from my home to Lincoln Valley, but more importantly the bike lanes along that route will make it possible for my students who live in Lincoln Valley to get to Santa Rosa junior college on the safe protected bike lanes so the more protected and the safer you can make them and the slower you can make those roads the better for for those bicyclists. I actually did walk by one of my students who was fixing a flat tire today, because it got popped. And so keeping those bike lanes clean is really important. And there is a protected bike lane on Ridgeway. Thank you. There is a protected bike lane on Ridgeway. That's not getting swept. Because there's no way for the street sweepers to get in there because there's curbs between the, there's parking things in the way the street sweepers can't get in there and nothing can get in there to clean that area. So I know that the junior college has smaller operating street sweeper things that they use to clean our parking areas. I was wondering if maybe the city might be getting some of those to help clean those protected bike ways. I think that's all I needed to comment on but I but I really am so excited to see all of these routes going through town and you're putting them in whenever you do the street slurries, and I just would highly recommend prioritizing figuring out ways for people to get through town like from Lincoln Valley all the way to the junior college, or from Bennett Valley all the way to the junior college. Those routes are really important. And we need to as the city moves forward with their bike plans. Prioritizing making sure that there is a safe route for the timid bike riders that bike riders that aren't going to get on to a busy street to get all the way to school it would be really wonderful. Thank you. Thank you. We are looking into some other street sweeping options. And for for some of the narrow sections. However, we don't have that currently so that's another reason why we are hesitant installing a lot of different of the protected bike lanes when we don't have a means to sweep them effectively so thank you for that. Steve next. My question to you is Michael lapel Michael your microphone has been unmuted. You can state your name for the record if you so choose and then ask your question or make your comment. Yeah, hi, thanks, Michael appels. I live in the McDonald area. And I want to thank everybody for all the time and energy put into these proposals. It's a matter I don't even tell you that it's always harder to retrofit than to start from scratch to build out a livable city. So I encourage everything that you're doing to increase our bike networks, so they connect as our last speaker spoke about so that we have strategic ways to get east and west to the downtown core. So I encourage you to go to the south, particularly up in the scene or to the JC, the high school, and to the county area and Kaiser. So that being said, I'm, I really am. I'm talking about parking protected bike lanes and parking protected bike lanes regarding street sweeping every city that has those. You know the one day a month that you have street sweeping, they have signage that says that warns people not to park there. So that's the simple low cost solution for that. And that's a component of that and also for buffered bike lane. You could use ballards on the traffic side of the buffer bike lanes and removable that would add additional protection because as a last speaker spoke about we need to encourage people of all ages and abilities, particularly when we're in urban infill. If we don't have networks for bikes and cyclists to get to and from work to meet to meet their daily needs. We're going to have a horrendous traffic problem. And the people that made comments on Montgomery, the best way to reduce the number of cars particularly in the city limits are to have more bike lanes. I find myself riding on sidewalks particularly on the farmers area from the Safeway shopping center because it's totally unsafe to ride on farmers lane. So if we have more safe protected bike lanes, we wouldn't be riding on sidewalks. That's why people do that. And I totally agree with speed being an issue. When you have straight, wide streets. You're going to have people traveling and being unaware of posted speed signs or just ignoring them in particular. And the last comment I want to make is on Kelbot. I often try and use that to get from McDonald area over to Montgomery or Sonoma Avenue. Using a separated bike phasing traffic signal would really be helpful so you don't have to get off your bike, walk over 20 feet to a signal to trigger that, particularly when you have an e bike that weighs 70 pounds. You don't have to get that around. So I applaud you for being visionary. We need to think of getting more people out of vehicles and more people on bikes for our future for our children. So thanks again for all the work you've done. Thanks Michael. Next please. The next person in the queue is Michael clinic. Michael your mic has been unmuted, and you may state your name for the record if you so choose, and then ask your question or make a comment. Hi, my name is Michael clinic. Thanks for the great conversation. I commute from east of farmers lane across either Sonoma Avenue or Montgomery Lane, typically. The intersection across farmers lane is quite challenging on either street, our kid attended these French American Charter School so we tried to facilitate children community school, but ultimately decided that the intersection was just too dangerous after too many close calls with inpatient drivers. Nonetheless, my comments. Are regarding Sonoma Avenue and Montgomery Lane in particular, following up on the comments about parking, turning into driveways and speeding. I am wondering if it is on the table to make Montgomery Lane westbound or eastbound and Sonoma Avenue, one way street the opposite direction in order to facilitate more space for bicycle traffic as well as parking for pedestrians while making that a less attractive mode of transport. So that there will be less speeding, because we would would prefer other streets for their, you know, faster mode of transport. So I'm wondering whether no constricting fourth street and slimming down car access on on on that street is going to actually become a productive and create more high speed traffic on Sonoma Avenue or Montgomery Lane. That is considered. And lastly, I am wondering whether it is feasible for the creek to be expanded into having bike paths near it to get traffic bicycle traffic completely off the road and protected, much like it is. And so I'm going to turn this lane towards mission where there is a really nice bike path that contours the creek itself. I myself lived in Boulder, Colorado. The majority of our bike paths there are constructed around various waterways, and they only periodically cross onto the traffic. They mostly protected and that seems to work really well. And with that, I'll end my comment. Thank you, Michael. We do. We actually don't have plans I don't think for there's a segment of creek that does have a plan for a path. However, the segment between for farmers and the Talbot area. That's all privately owned the creek is actually there. The property ones I believe go to the center line of the creek in there so we don't have any jurisdiction over that second segment of the right of the waterway to install paths although I think that's a great idea. And let's see other questions. Yeah. Oh, the intersection of Sonoma. We're actually looking at some plans to modify the segment of Sonoma between homin and farmers as well to hopefully put in some a little bit better bike lanes in that segment with a reconstruction project that's going to be happening there. We have not looked at making East Montgomery and Sonoma basically a couplet that would be a much larger study related to traffic circulation that actually probably involve the general plan as well. And that wouldn't necessarily reduce the amount of traffic it may increase the amount of space but typically when you do have one way streets you actually increase speeds along streets because there isn't any other kind of there isn't as much friction. So that may be counterproductive for for the speed issue along there. And then, I think that was, I think I covered most of those points. So Steve can we go to I think so we have one or two more callers, we do. And our next person to queue is Chris Eggers. Chris, your microphone has been unmuted, you can state your name for the record if you so choose and then ask your question or make a comment. Good evening. This is Chris Eggers and I just want to really appreciate all the work that has gone into thinking about these designs and getting public input and trying to make it work for everyone. It's a very complicated puzzle. What I, I just wanted to say briefly was that, you know, would there be a way to test out the plan of parking protected bike lanes on Montgomery with a temporary quick build that would cost nominally, and would give the people who live there a chance to see it how it worked for them because they are important as well. And I'm wondering if a quick build might give everyone cyclist pedestrians and people who live in that neighborhood a chance to get a feel for what it would be like before making it permanent. Thank you. Thanks Chris. That's a good question. I don't know if we have a means to do a temporary, a temporary installation that would really give the residents a, I'm just thinking cost wise. So the, the benefit to doing this as part of a slurry plan is that it doesn't incur costs really we have to replace striping in one form or another. So those costs are covered with that project. This would be an additional cost to that. And to be honest, I don't know where we would get the money to do that. I don't know if you still have talking, but I did have one question for you. If you could. Steve if you could give her talking permissions. You mentioned a quick build to put in the the protected bike lanes are you meaning with a car parked away from the curb and then the bike lane next to the curb is that what your question is. Okay, that I'm always for protected and connected bike lanes I'm a very, I'm not a timid cyclist but I know like 65% of people who would ride their bikes are timid and are fearful for their children and their families and so I'm thinking of a system that works for citizens of all ages. So this, this would be a, this would be a definitely tight place to put in protected bike lanes and may actually exacerbate the issue with cars that are there now getting sites wiped because the parking link is is quite narrow. And you're then pushing that car out to even a narrow or traveling than they have currently. That I would have some hesitation in doing that on Montgomery Drive. And I think that would, that might be an issue on Montgomery Drive. We have one more caller. We do. The next person to queue is Tom helm. Tom your, your. Mike has been unmuted. So you can state your name for the record if you so choose and ask your question or make your comment. Hi, it's actually Barbara molten. Hi, Rob. Barbara. Thanks for this, all your work on this. I want to suggest that in the narrow reaches of Montgomery Drive that the speed limit be lowered to 25 miles per hour with those solar powered your speed signs you know, and that that would help. I also have to take a lot of issue with the suggestions that bikes just go over to Sonoma Avenue. It just makes cycling even less convenient when we what we want really is to get more people using bikes. Better to send all non-emergency motor vehicles over to Sonoma Avenue and keep them off of Montgomery. Those are my thoughts for tonight. Thanks. Thanks Barbara. Do we have any more pans. That is. Oh, we do have. We do have, I think I might have missed one here. Alexa Forrester. Alexa your mic has been unmuted. Thank you for your name for the record. Then ask your question and make your comment. Hi, this is Alexa again. Thank you for sticking in with us. And I just had a question, especially because I'm concerned about the speed limits on Montgomery and hearing from a lot of the residents along there. I understand that we can't have speed tables because of the hospital. Is there any way to put in ballards that interrupt the through traffic but could be removed in the, that would allow bicycles and pedestrians through but block traffic. But then could be removed in the case of an emergency. You know, the Montgomery drive is identified as an arterial street. Unfortunately, there are housings houses that front it. But because it's an arterial street, it's part of our circulation network so we will not be installing ballards on on on Montgomery to to decrease the vehicle traffic. And then what about traffic circles. Traffic circles could be a potential they wouldn't fit on any of the locations except for when it gets wider like down at California or Alderbrook in those in those areas. Traffic circles would, would potentially fit. Again, we haven't, we haven't looked at things on that nature with this project is strictly a slurry project we're restriping. So we didn't go into any type of design for traffic circles. So in the future, if a traffic calming for traffic calming project that could definitely be a potential to be looked at and designed. Thank you. Great. Thank you. I think with that, that concludes the comment portion of our meeting. I'd actually like to thank everyone for providing your comments tonight. And Steve, am I, am I correct? We're all done with the comments. Point wrap. I don't see any of the hands raised. Great. Thank you. So with no further questions, I'd like to express my appreciation for all the members of the public that participated. I really do appreciate you spending your time with us in. And I recognize this, this was a large chunk of your evening. So thank you. I appreciate the time and for those who stuck in through the entire, the entire presentation and comment section. We, we appreciate your, your feedback and it is important to us. And if you could put up the next slide with my contact information. Oh, let me do next steps real quick. I'm sorry. So our next steps, we are actually going to our bike and pedestrian board on November 17. And we'll be presenting this item to them as well to get final input from our bike and pedestrian board. I have everyone's comments here, but you're welcome to attend that meeting as well. And then following those comments that we'll kind of refine our final design implementation with our slurry project. Next slide please. So this is my contact information you're welcome to reach out to me by email or via phone. A lot of times, these type of conversations are actually much easier if you if we talk on the phone so I appreciate, I do appreciate phone calls. So it doesn't things don't get lost in the translation of email, plus they usually go a lot quicker. And time is very important to all of us I know so if you can send me a phone message and leave your, your name and a voicemail. I will get back to you at my earliest convenience to do so and if you leave a time for me to get back to you that even be better and I will try to meet your timeframes as well as what I could. What can you need as well. So that I'd like to thank everyone once again for joining us this evening if you'd like to attend a meeting on Dunn Avenue that will be at 530 on November 16th. So we look forward to seeing you then that's the section between West college and West third will be talking about. Great. Thank you again, and good night.