 Good evening and welcome to this community meeting for the city of Santa Rosa's local road safety plan focusing on the road to corridors along 4th Street from East Street to farmers lane. And again we drive from Alderwick Drive to Harmon Drive. I'm Rob Sprinkel, the deputy director of traffic engineering for the city of Santa Rosa. And I want to thank you for joining us tonight. A live interpretation can be heard on the Spanish channel. You can join the Spanish channel by clicking on the interpretation icon that resembles a globe in the zoom toolbar on your screen. Before we begin the presentation, our host Lauren Wiley with the city Santa Rosa and our translator Marina Martinez will explain how the meeting will work. Marina, if you'd like to translate. Okay, bienvenido al proyecto, la presentación del proyecto esta noche. Vamos a pedirle a learn que nos explique cómo se ocupa la interpretación. Go ahead Lauren or Shelly. Thank you Marina. As community members join the meeting you will be participating as an attendee. Your phone 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. The meeting is being recorded and will be placed on the city's website following the meeting. At the end of the presentation, Rob will open up the meeting for public questions and comment. Great thank you Lauren. So once again I want to thank you all for joining us tonight, your participation and input are important to us and so we discussed the best practices for improving our safety on our city roadways for all users. The meeting with a quick overview of the agenda and the topics we plan to cover in the presentation. So the project description for tonight's discussion, the local road safety plan will focus on the roadway corridors from fourth street on fourth street from East Street to farmers lane and Montgomery Drive from Alderbrook Drive to Harmon Drive. Improvements being considered along these corridors include installation of bike lanes lane reductions and pedestrian enhancements. We will get into the details in the presentation, but this is where we're really looking for feedback from our community. For example, when we're looking at options on Montgomery Drive, we want to hear from you regarding issues with the existing conditions. If our design addresses those concerns, or if the concerns if there are concerns with our proposed design. The options we're presenting. We're discussed during our stakeholder meetings with our police fire transit and some other folks that we covered on your presentation. And we have concurrence on our options that were presented from that stakeholder group. There are likely other options that you can present and potentially construct hybrid of different options of those that are being presented to propose to us. So we're looking for, we're honestly just looking for feedback from the community on these options that we're presenting. So the time for for this project. We are very far out ahead of this project for any implementation for any other striping related issues for these projects are intended to get feedback on the initial design now and then return back to the community in late summer or fall with a final design. We're looking for the implementation to be constructed with our slurry seal project, which is planned for spring summer of 2023. So we are very far out ahead of this project and really want to get your input. I would now like to turn this over to the presentation and to Catherine Klein Schmidt. She's the project manager consultant from GHG Consulting. We're looking at the data and the potential improvement options for the roadway corridors along four street and Montgomery Drive, looking at the data driven collision analysis and roadway connectivity obstacles identified in our pedestrian, our bicycle pedestrian master plan. Following her presentation, we will open it up for comments and questions and concerns for the community. There will also be information on how you can provide your comments online. Thank you, Rob. Good evening everyone. Next slide. It's my pleasure to work with the city of Santa Rosa on their local road safety plan tonight where I'm going to be presenting on two of the corridors that we studied for street and Montgomery Montgomery Drive. Next slide please. I wanted to touch on our agenda for tonight. I'm going to go over the background of the local road safety plan program as well as how it complements the bicycle and pedestrian master plan. We're going to look at the collision and goals and our stakeholder working group meeting, as well as I'll get into the two different study corridors, Montgomery Drive and four street. We're going to look at the collision data, the existing conditions as well as the proposed options we're wanting to get feedback on tonight, as well as we'll look at the other ease, the different traffic safety ease and then public engagement. I think there's a website link. I'll get to that at the end of the presentation where you can leave feedback. If you want to do it through the web portal format. Next slide please. Today and the background, the city of Santa Rosa did receive funding through Caltrans to perform a local road safety plan in 2020. This is because Caltrans is now requiring every agency in California to have this local road safety plan to be eligible for highway safety improvement program funding for the next cycle, which actually cycle 11 it opens in April this year. And this is just a background of how the funding kind of rolls down it comes from the federal government the US Department of Transportation through Caltrans they administer that the state is required to have a strategic highway safety plan and then now every agency is having a local road safety plan. Next slide please. So the city of Santa Rosa has a bicycle and pedestrian master plan that was updated in 2018. This plan is complimenting the vision goals that came out of that plan. The vision of that plan is what they're trying to accomplish is Santa Rosa is a community we're walking and bicycling are comfortable, convenient and common for people of all ages and abilities. The vision goals is how they're going to get there they're going to increase access comfort, maintain expand the network, as well as support a culture of walking and biking. Next slide please. So this plan studied the entire city and they looked at where there was high injury collisions for bicycle and pedestrians and two of the corridors that were identified we're going to be discussing tonight corridor one is four street from D street to farmers lane. It is a high injury network it has limited space so it was recommended to have further studies done to look at developing alternatives, as well as corridor for Montgomery Drive from Alderbrook Drive to Harmon Drive is also identified to be looked at further and that's why we're evaluating it in our local road safety plan. Next slide please. So some of the guiding principles of this plan is vision zero we do want to create a plan where we acknowledge that we can create a systems approach in preventing fatal and severe injury crashes and traffic deaths are preventable. So how do we get there this actually right now the county Sonoma County has a vision zero to that's being ran by the health department and so they're also spearheading that effort and looking at how to holistically create a system where we can really strive to reduce fatal and severe injury collisions. Next slide please. As I mentioned the state does have a strategic highway safety plan. It's right here is California safe roads. So this plan is complimenting that states plan and out of that states plan is the five traffic safety ease. So not only do we want to look at engineering countermeasures when we look at how to improve the safety of our roadways but we also want to understand that there's other ease that can help and those are enforcement education emergency services and emerging technologies. Those other ease are also opportunities to improve safety. Next slide please. As I mentioned we did have a stakeholder working group meeting last year at the end of June June 30 and we did discuss four street and Montgomery drive corridors at length and coming up I'll show you kind of the recommendations that came out of those meetings but we got a representative group of the different stakeholders with the city the Santa Rosa fire department the police department as well as Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition the city bus and the different schools that are affected in those areas. Next slide please. So this is a look at the past six years of collisions in the city of Santa Rosa, and we've separated out on the left. Those are non pedestrian bicycles collisions so those are vehicle to vehicle collisions and we're looking at it by severity. So we can kind of see that there was a fatal in 2015, 2016, you know there was, there was four fatal severe injuries, but overall when you start comparing the severity of collisions to the graph the bar chart on the right or we're looking at pedestrian collisions, you're starting to see that there are more severe injury collisions as well as the fatals. So we really want to target on how can we bring those injury collisions down as a as a whole and focus on reducing the overall severity. Next slide please. And I'll get into the Montgomery Drive corridor. Just looking at the collision analysis we pulled 2015 through 2019 and looking at the severity there. We did notice a concentration at the intersection Montgomery Drive and farmers lane, as well as homin lane, and then there was some along the corridor. It's just Sherwood. There was a bicycle to vehicle collision that was an injury, just a west of short street as well as there was a severe injury pedestrian to vehicles collision at the intersection of farmers lane and Montgomery Drive. Next slide please. Through the working group meeting we got feedback about the conditions along this roadway. And we looked at first the section of Montgomery Drive from Alderbrook Drive to farmers lane. That section is, you know, narrow, there's cars that are parked on the sidewalk due to the narrow section of the roadway you can kind of see it in the picture there. There's a center to a left turn lane that could possibly be, you know, utilized for other space and adding a facility for bike lanes. But we do acknowledge that neighborhood engagement is needed. Next slide please. For existing conditions, there's about 44 roadway with along that section. There is one lane in each direction with the two a left turn lane as well as parking on both sides. Low traffic volumes about 8500 vehicles per day. Next slide please. Getting into the proposed conditions. We've got two different options and utilizing some of the roadway with we can look at eliminating that center turn lane and then providing bike lanes in each direction adjacent to the parking. That would help to separate the bicycles and the vehicle traffic. It can also provide a traffic calming, you know, effect because the turning traffic will now be in the through lanes. Other option was option two where you look at, okay, if you could even utilize more space and buffering the bicyclists from the vehicle travel lanes, you could look at removing the parking on the north side. And that was due to the way the cross section there is that the, you know, the way that the direct access for the dryways are is more on the other side. So this would help to provide a buffer between the vehicles and the cyclists. Next slide please. On the other section of Montgomery Drive from Farmer's Lane to Hammond Drive, we evaluated that and with the working group and we got feedback that we could look at how to resign, redesign that to accommodate parking bike lanes and travel lanes. But there's a very small median that would be required to be removed. Next slide please. The existing conditions it's 63 roadway with and there's two lanes, going into the eastbound direction and then one lane wide lane going in the westbound that kind of breaks off into a right turn lane at the intersection you can kind of see that typical section above is right in the middle of the roadway. There is parking along that southern side. And so, and, and there is a two way left turn lane, there's around 16,000 vehicles per day with, and there's also sidewalks along both side. Next slide please. So evaluating the proposed conditions we're looking at okay how can we incorporate the bike lanes by utilizing some of the roadway with, and just by reducing the lane widths, the two way left turn lane to 10 feet and the travel lane with to 11 you can utilize some space to free up for a six foot bike lane in each direction, and then keep that parking along that side that would help to separate the cyclists from the vehicles, and kind of creates a buffer for the pedestrians from the vehicles, as well as it can slow the vehicle speeds due to the narrow travel lanes. Next slide. So for street corridor we're going to cover next. This corridor length went all the way from East street to farmers lane as shown here in the map. Next slide please. And evaluating the five year collision and the severity of those collisions. I feel that there were some severe injury collisions at East street, Brighton and farmers, and then there's concentration of collisions, typically at the intersection that Brookwood, there's a concentration there, college, but there is some in the mid block. And then there's a concentration of Brighton and farmers. Next slide please. And evaluating the pedestrian to vehicle collisions. This slide is showing you where those were occurring and the severity that severe injury that we saw on the previous slide at East street was during the day it was a vehicle to pedestrian collision but there's other two other injury pedestrian to vehicle collisions that occurred at night. And there's other collisions with pedestrians and vehicles one at Brookwood and Brighton that are injuries, and then farmers had a couple one in the day and the night, as well as just west of farmers. Next slide please. And evaluating the bicycle to vehicle collisions there was a concentration of those at the Brookwood intersection. There was one at elder book and East street, as well as one west of farmers. From our meetings with the, from our meeting with the working group. We did discuss that section from four street from East street to Brookwood and looking at that section here it's quite different with the angled parking on both side, and the wider travel lanes so we were evaluating how can we free up some of that space to incorporate some bike lanes. And feedback from that working group was looking at converting that angle parking on the south side to parallel can really free up some roadway with as well as if you can narrow those travel lanes down to 11 feet. That's the minimum for the city bus and this is a route of theirs, as well as look at winding the sidewalks with incorporation of the bike lanes and adding some street trees and other forms of beautification. Next slide please. One of the main conditions along this section of four street from East street to Brookwood is there's wide traveling 16 feet in either direction with the angled parking and then the six foot sidewalks. Not a lot of vehicles through this area around a 200 vehicles per day. So there's a couple options that we came up with the working group and looking at the first option option one is both options are, you know, re evaluating though the parking and converting that southern side from the diagonal to the parallel but the option one is looking at back in angled parking rather than pull in front and that's the reason for that there's been a lot of safety benefits when the vehicle backs up they can't see directly to the cyclist or the bike lane you know it's kind of over the shoulder back in and then pull out they have eyes on the roadway. And so the visibility to the cyclist is a lot clearer that way, as well as you can load your car off this, you know, from the sidewalk area not be in the travel way. The option is providing a buffered bike lane option one has a six foot bike lane with a two foot buffer that's between the travel way and the cyclist, which is proven to provide a, you know, more of a level of comfort. So looking at option two, you look at another option where you not only have the diagonal parking still on that north side but you look at flipping that with the bike lane in providing a protected bike lane. The cyclist is along the sidewalk and buffered from the parking. And so that's that's even more buffer from this for the cyclist and the pedestrian from the travel way, and then you have your 11 foot lanes, and then you have a three foot buffer with the six foot bike lane and eight foot parallel parking. So there's different, you know, there's different ways you can look at the two different options they both have good improvements that can provide added safety for the cyclist. Next slide please. So in evaluating that section of four street from Brookwood Avenue to Brian Lane, we got feedback from the working group about how we could utilize some of that space for bike lanes, as well as looking at white and sidewalks. Just looking at the section here it's two lanes in each direction you could utilize some space by converting one of those lanes to a two way left turn lane so then your turning vehicles are now in a two way left turn lane instead of stopping in the through lane. One of the other recommendations was looking at how to improve the crossing enhancements at elder book, as well as considering a future roundabout at that intersection of fourth and college with all those sweeping movements there, and looking at how to widen the sidewalk on the south side of fourth between elderbrook and bright and it's pretty narrow along there. Next slide please. So looking at four street from Brookwood to Brighton. This section has two lanes in each direction with parking on both side. The volumes are very different from Brookwood to college you've got around 11,200 vehicles today. Vehicles a day but then from college to Talbot you've got closer to 23,000 vehicles per day. So we do recognize that the volumes are increasing along that east side, but there's really no choke points you know there's only a signal at college and then there's one there at Brighton so it's more or less free flowing traffic there. Next slide please. So the proposed conditions for the section from Brookwood to Brighton is looking at how to utilize space for buffered bike lanes by converting one of those lanes to a two way left turn lane so having a 11 foot traveling in each direction with the two way left turn lane and then you can have a nice buffered bike lane adjacent to the travel way and parking. This is going to provide enhancements not only for the cyclists and having a separated lane from traffic but also for the cyclists who are more buffered from the travel way. And then we would look to put those green conflict markings at the intersections for the bike lanes and, you know, different improvements with the turning traffic will now go in the two way left turn lane instead of stopping in the through lane. Next slide please. So here's a drawing of that corridor and looking at where we would, you know, put those green conflict markings. There's a call out there at college for the potential of a future roundabout there. So here's a overall concept of how we can, you know, kind of re-stripe this corridor to provide accommodations for all road users. Next slide please. Other recommendations is looking at sidewalk and bike improvements, especially in that area from Alderbrook Drive to Brighton Lane. In the interim, you know, there could be wide buffered bike lanes in the eastbound direction to provide people on foot and bike with additional buffer from traffic, but long term we do recognize that the sidewalk needs to be widened and it would be nice to have a bicycle waiting area and bike signal at Brighton. Next slide please. So this is looking at the proposed conditions along this section here from Alderbrook to Brighton. Next slide. We're looking at enhancing this crossing in Alderbrook and providing kind of a bulb out curb extension there to increase the site distance to the vehicles along Forestry for the pedestrians crossing. Next slide. We're looking at the crossings treatment. Next slide. As well as looking at how to widen the sidewalk along that southern side, it's very narrow. Next slide. And then bike signals at that signalized intersection there to facilitate that movement up north. Next slide please. So for the last section on Forestry from Brighton Lane to Farmer's Lane, we did discuss this with the working group, it has much higher traffic volumes we've got about 33,000 vehicles per day. There's not with that much volume there's not a lot of opportunities to take away a travel lane, you'll get a lot of congestion. There's two lanes in each direction with the two a left turn lane and there's parking on the south side. So feedback we got is, you know, to look at how can you incorporate, you know, with some way finding another route that could possibly go through the neighborhoods with lower volumes as an alternate bike route. So these are some alternate routes, as I mentioned, if these are proposed to move forward there'd be way finding signage installed but the general routes. I'm not going to read off all the names of the roads that they go through but you know for the west bound you're kind of going up Clyde and well I guess you're going over to the shopping center but you're kind of going to be a Gary Morley and Clyde to kind of you know, many other streets to get over there but that kind of gets you over the shopping center and then eastbound, you can look at going up right in and then kind of over there on gross and then over to the shopping center. Next slide please. So other items I'm going to cover tonight. So as I mentioned not all safety issues can be mitigated with engineering countermeasures we also need to look at the other traffic safety ease. So there's different education strategies, looking at driver education, especially distracted driving campaigns, bicycle pedestrian safety campaigns and use a light at night where bright clothes, continuing the safe school maps and outreach. A lot of different things can be through, you know conveyed through social media blasts with some different quick education tools with the stakeholders, as well as partnering with your regional partner Sonoma County City of Santa Rosa already has kind of the keep kids alive drive 25 speed management campaigns, as well as emerging technologies looking at improving your ITS infrastructure, smart city type practices, getting video detection devices. So other bicycles are detected at your intersections, looking at more leading pedestrian intervals at your intersections as well as installing this, the accessible pedestrian signals that are now touchless you just wave your hand. Next slide please. As well as there's, you know, other ways to mitigate speeds with enforcement focus those on the school zone areas as well as where there's concerns from the residents. So we're really reducing the DUI is with some saturation patrols, and looking at, you know, how to increase the traffic enforcement in the area, as well as, you know, we want to, with all, you know, solutions we want to acknowledge how important it is to have emergency response and have that the roadways, you know, always look at how to provide that access and reduce conduct congestion and potentially shorten response times, as well as have that vehicle preemption of the signalize intersections. Next slide please. So this is the timeline of the local road safety plan. As we presented the stakeholder meeting was back in June on the 30th and 2021. Here we are tonight at our public meeting 2222 kind of interesting on the dates worked out. So we're looking to have another public meeting on that Navin me on March 2. And then looking at a final public meeting and September. We do have a public engagement opportunities at the end of this presentation as well as through the website. Next slide. So through this website that's live now, you can go in it has a Google translate option and it'll actually sense your browser settings so if you are browsing in a different language would automatically asked to translate but if it doesn't you can hit the Google translate option and pick the language. So this has an interactive map. So you can see the city of Santa Rosa you can zoom in you can add an aerial on it and you can pinpoint your areas of concern for either vehicles, bicycles, pedestrians, schools. So we really want to collect comments to the interactive map. Next slide please. So as well as the surveys we developed two surveys for the two corridors we discussed tonight one for Montgomery Drive. We would like your feedback on those this will all be captured through the plan, as well as for street survey. Next slide please. So it was my pleasure to present to you tonight. I'm going to turn it that concludes the presentation and I'm going to turn it back over to Rob. Great thank you Catherine. So my information is up on the slide currently that's how you can reach me through email or through phone emails preferred that way I can get back to you probably sooner. At this point I want to take the opportunity to hear from youth our community. So we will now move on to our question answer portion of the meeting. However before we begin, I will ask Lauren to review how you can participate by asking live questions and comments. Thank you Rob. Once Rob calls for public questions or comments we will announce for anyone wishing to ask questions or comment to raise their hand and zoom. For individuals participating in the meeting by telephone you can dial star nine to raise your hand. We will then call in the public one by one who have their zoom hand raised, your microphone will be unmuted so you may 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 muted so our panelists may respond to your questions. Shelly are we ready for our first meeting attending to ask your questions or provide a comment. Yes we are. Thank you Rob. If you need to have your question translated, please let us know once you've been called, and then allow us a moment to confirm that the translator is ready. Please remember to speak a little slower so our translation team can relay your question. If you're wishing to ask a question or make a comment, you can raise your zoom hand. Again, as Lauren said, you can also if you're calling in by phone, press star nine, and that will raise your hand for you. Your phone numbers have been changed to reflect the last four digits of your phone number, so I will call on you by that. So the first person we have in our queue is Michael Michael I'm going to ask you to go ahead and unmute yourself. Go ahead Michael. Michael lapel. You have a comment. Alright Michael will come back to you. Sarah, we're going to ask you to unmute. Go ahead Sarah. Okay, I had a question. So I bike everywhere and I live right near proctor terrace school, and I bike a lot downtown and to Montgomery Village and I try to do everything on my bike. One of the issues that I find beyond just traffic is the fact that businesses and places don't have any place for bike racks. And so you end up having to put your bike like on a traffic like on a parking meter, you know, and there it's in the way of pedestrians so will there be like sort of a business buy into because even like at Montgomery Village there are not many bike racks. So it makes it harder to bike. And it also means that you feel sometimes in those places like you have to go on the sidewalks and interfere with people walking. So great thank you for the question. We do have contacts with Montgomery Village. So we can ask them for additional bike racks we also are actually doing a bike rack inventory in our downtown. And I think it's actually just recently completed. I'm not sure if we'll be able to map that information or not. But that would be, I'm sure a great help if we could provide something of that magnitude for for bike racks. So I'll put that on my list. Thank you. We also have some people that are sending in questions for q amp a those will be addressed at the very end after we've called on all of our our hands that have been raised. Michael we're going to go ahead and ask you to unmute Michael are you ready to speak. Go ahead Michael. Okay, some technical difficulties will come back to you okay Michael. Jennifer, we're going to ask you to unmute. Hi, thanks so much for hosting this meeting tonight. I wanted to ask about the section of Montgomery Drive heading from Haman East towards mission or summer field. And I was taking a look at the city's bicycle and pedestrian plan and notice that we have a very high number of vehicle pedestrian accidents and bicycle pedestrian accidents. In fact, we're one of the high injury networks in the city's area for bicycle and vehicle accidents. And so it seemed like, you know, of course, there are needed improvements over towards the area that is being studied but I was wondering, why is this section of Montgomery Drive not being studied and when can we expect to see improvements on our road. Great. Thank you that's a great question. So, you'll also find in the bike and pedestrian master plan that there were some segments of areas that had not been previously studied that were prioritized by our bike pedestrian board for the highest locations that you'd like to see studied first. So although there are needs throughout the community you're absolutely right. The ones that we're looking at today were the ones that were brought to the highest level from from the board. So that's why we chose to address those locations first and I'm not saying that there aren't needs in other locations throughout the city they're absolutely are, but we have to start somewhere. So that's, that's where we began. Thank you. I'm going to try Michael again Michael. We're going to try you again go ahead and unmute Michael we're still unable to hear you. Michael maybe you could put your question into the Q amp a question chat instead. Thank you, we're going to move on to. No no. No no. Go ahead. Hi, good evening. Can you hear me. Yes. I had a question about the section of Montgomery drive from farmers Lane East. I wasn't aware that there was parking on the side of the on the south side of the street there, because I almost never see anyone park there, except for a few random cars and it's parking that's adjacent to a large parking lot. So I was wondering if you would consider eliminating parking on that side of the street to allow for more space for the bike lanes. I had another question also about East street. The crossing at Talbot ab I've seen used by a lot of cyclists I use that section. And I was just there the other day and saw a cyclist there. And was one of you would consider improving that crossing for cyclists. Right now there's a pedestrian blinker. I've seen when cyclists come along sometimes they go over to the crosswalk. I saw one got off her bike to walk across the crosswalk. And if there was another crossing that was closer to St Helena, that was more convenient for cyclists that would, I think really improve. I'm really crossing at that section rather than elderbrook because the visibility the sight lines are better. And I think it's a safer spot to cross, although I think the road diet will make the whole section safer so I'm really excited to see that you're going forward with that. Yeah, those are my main two questions. Great. So there is parking allowed currently yes on the south side of Montgomery between farmers and homin. Our goal is to try not to take that parking away if at all possible. And we did manage to find a way to incorporate the bike lanes without removing that parking. So we can reach out to the Montgomery village to see if how much that is utilized. I have seen people park there quite a bit but maybe I'm there during a specific time of day when it's, it's, it is being utilized. As for Talbot, the we, we are looking at the possibility of putting in a hawk type flasher at that location. So first we want to do the installation of the road diet because we really feel that that's going to accommodate a lot of the, the needs of both pedestrians and cyclists who will be crossing there. By changing the section of road from a four lane to a three lane, you basically almost eliminate the, the multi threat collision which is where one vehicle stops in one lane. The vehicle in the adjacent lane doesn't know why they're stopping and they continue to go and then all of a sudden they see a pedestrian or someone in front of them who they need to stop for. So changing this to a road diet will definitely have a lot of benefits for both pedestrians and cyclists who are attempting to cross that that location. And I do agree with you the visibility is better at the, at the Talbot crossing then Alderbrook, which is why one of the reasons why we're proposing to put in a bulb out at that location. Steve, we're going to ask you to unmute. Go ahead Steve. Hi, can you hear me. Yes, we can thank you. I want to thank you for the presentation there are a lot of good ideas here. The bulb outs bike lanes sidewalks being expanded the road diet, all really, really good to pursue. I'm going to speak a little bit more on four street because I live near there. I do want to say something about accident data though, because most people I know don't even try to cross four street, it just is really dangerous in spite of the crosswalks that have been the lights that have been put in. It's a very wide street. The drivers, you know, they don't always even see you once you start walking. And as a four lane street it's very challenging to cross it. So I think it's just as intimidating. One thing that I wanted to bring up is, is to expand the order to improve the street markings and the lights on those intersections you know where the pedestrian in ways are across the, the street on fourth. But two other things occur to me. One, I think there should be more enforcement considered. They're never police in the area. And I think it's an important thing to establish some presence of enforcement, but I have yet one more suggestion, lowering the traffic speed from 35 to 30. My understanding is that local jurisdictions have a lot more influence now in terms of studying the lowering of traffic speeds. When you're talking about that curve between Brighton and, you know, Alderbrook. And, you know, that is a really, that's a really dangerous kind of curve in there along towards spring street there. So I'm just wondering about traffic speeds. Have you considered lowering them. So thank you Steve. Yes, we so when we set speed limits throughout the city of Santa Rosa we do it using the engineering traffic survey guidelines, which are in the manual manual of uniform traffic control devices, which is set up by Caltrans and it's a standardized way that's used to set speed limits throughout the jurisdiction. So we just did change a state assembly bill that will allow us to lower those speed limits and have them be radar enforceable. But not until the legislation won't be effective until July of 2024 so we have about two years, two and a half years until that change is made. So that will give us additional flexibility that we currently don't have to lower the speed limits and maintain that radar enforceability. One of the main things about keeping it radar enforceable is that. And what's important for that is is that's the primary word primary way excuse me that our police do enforcement throughout the city. So, we can post a speed limit. At any speed. Say you posted it at 25 on 4th street. People would tend to keep going at the at the speed that they're going because that's the comfortable speed, which is probably more around 35 miles an hour maybe 36 miles an hour and that's why it's set near that speed limit. Once the modification to the roadway is made. Also give us flexibility some flexibility in lowering that speed limit. Typically when we change a roadway from a four lane to a three lane facility, we've seen this in three or four of our streets, we were able to lower that speed limit because you're basically, people aren't racing each other anymore, they're, they're going a speed and it feels narrow or they'll be going to speed that's a little bit slower than it was before. So, it really does give us an opportunity to set that speed limit legally at a lower, at a lower place that's still enforceable for our police officers. So I appreciate those comments. Thank you. Thank you. Catherine, we're going to ask you to unmute. Hi Catherine. Hi there. Hello. I unfortunately tuned in about 15 minutes late so you may have already addressed this, but I think I tuned in right when you were discussing. I live on the segment near Montgomery and short. And we don't have any crosswalks between Alderbrook and farmers Lane and it's really hard as a pedestrian across through there and we have lots of people at Walker neighborhoods including a lot of people down from the hospital. So I was wondering if there were any discussions of crosswalks in that area. That's, that's okay. That's absolutely something that we can look at. Are there, is there a location. Sorry to ask you another question, but is there a location that you feel is is mostly lies by pedestrians along that segment, because what we don't want to do is we don't want to put crosswalks necessarily where we where we don't really want to utilize pedestrians to use so that people can use them and vehicles will know that this is the location that people are crossing. So if there's a location that you feel is higher utilized, that would be great information for us to know. Thank you. Our next. Is she still there or. No, oh, sorry. Catherine Catherine you could send me an email if you could I would be that would be great my my emails on the on the slide currently. Our next hand is named zoom user zoom user go ahead. I'm using can you hear us. You have no name on your screen. It says zoom user. Okay, we're going to move on to the next one. We'll try zoom user again later. Alexa, we're going to ask you to unmute. Hi there, can you hear me. Yes, thank you. Thanks. First of all, thank you for this amazing presentation and for all the work that went into this studying and and and devising this. I echo the sentiments of other speakers who have said that it's a lot, a lot of great ideas and I'm very much looking forward to this infrastructure being implemented. A little bit about myself just so you understand the context of my concerns. For about 10 years now I've lived just off your loop on the east side of Montgomery village. I have two children, and I work full time at as a professor at the JC. I'm also a very experienced cyclist I spent three years of my life leading bike trips and bike commuting and other cities in which I've lived so I'm not afraid of cars. I'm not a timid rider, but I would say that in my extensive experience trying to ride my bike to work and to ride around the city. I have had a lot of experience in these areas and overwhelmingly they have been very negative and stressful. It would be my preference to ride my bike to school to campus, but in all of the time that I've done it. I've never had an experience I would consider safe or comfortable trying to get through Montgomery village from the east side to the west side. And to echo, you know, one of the commenters earlier. I think her name was Jennifer mentioned the other stretch of Montgomery. There is a bike lane there that dead ends when you get to common so it would be great to see that extended. But I, I just want to make a comment about the overall presentation, which is that it's clear that cyclists and pedestrians were an afterthought in the planning of all of the stretches of roads currently, and that the streets are designed to make people convenient and safe for cars and everyone else is supposed to work around and defer to them. And if we have any hope of meeting our cities traffic safety, social equity and climate commitments, this type of street design just has to go. So there were a couple points in the presentation tonight, where you mentioned trying to preserve parking in that stretch of between farmers and homin on Montgomery. I just think I agree with Manona who was one of the previous speakers that parking just has to go it's not really heavily utilized I go by there all the time. And it's taking up space. And it, and I understand the concerns of the Montgomery Village shopping center but that is my understanding is that city property and we should use it for our goals, which is to reduce climate climate emissions and increase traffic safety and secure equity so I really think that dedicating that space to even improving the cyclist route through there so that that could become the primary cycling route through Montgomery Village rather than one block south on Sonoma. There's a few blocks south on Sonoma where the bike lanes compete with the buses, and it's horribly paved and there's cars turning in and out of the parking lot. So, that's one place and then the other place is on fourth street. Thank you. I understand the concerns about traffic volume, but I also want to say that if we're doing our jobs right as planners and advocates, people will use their cars less. And part of the goal, you know part of the thinking has to be that it's not just a fixed number of cars that are always going to be coming through here. I will ride my bike to campus more and thus won't be driving on fourth street, if the streets are safer. So I also want to echo better crossing at Talbot which is the only safe place that I have found to cross fourth street coming from east heading to the JC neighborhood. Thank you for listening to me. Thank you very much. Because we've had so many hands up. I just want to do a quick reminder that we do have translators working behind the scenes so as you're speaking, please be mindful of their ability to translate at the speed that you're talking. So thank you for that. Tom, we're going to go ahead and ask you to unmute. Go ahead, Tom. Yes, hi, can you hear me. We can thank you. Thank you. First, I'm always impressed when the city is working towards pedestrian and bicycle safety. I see a lot of effort that way. And I appreciate this effort you're doing now. I ride those streets a lot Montgomery and poor street. I have two points. First, I want to go back to Sarah at the beginning said she'd like to ride her bike but usually there's often nowhere to park her bike when she gets where she's going. And I suggest for all the work that the city is doing to improve bicycles safety. The route of the labor would be encouraging more bike riders out there. And to do that, it would be good to encourage destination places to put out bike racks. You know, I think there'd be a direct relationship between putting more bike racks out for parking and people riding their bikes. And that would be that would make the effort that the city is doing seem justified to all users of the road. The second point is, I'm, I'm disappointed but I understand that the stretch of four street eastbound between farmers and Brighton, mostly between Rogers and Brighton can't be changed. That's a hard spot for a bike rider to get through. And your suggested alternative route is putting bikes back into their place or making them not as valuable on the road as the cars. I can understand the safety part. When I ride through there. I have to be very aggressive and take the lane, the slow westbound lane, and the cars see me, and they won't hit me, but it's not comfortable. But anyway, I'm just, I'm sorry, there's nothing we can do apparently about that stretch between Rogers and Brighton westbound. But thanks again for all the work you guys are doing. Thanks Tom. I do want to make one comment relating to that and, and one of that's related to hopefully being able to establish bike lanes on Montgomery Drive. And by establishing some of the lanes on Montgomery Drive and having that link to Alderbrook or Talbot, hopefully will help give it an additional alternate route, other than using that segment of farmers lane. But that's just, that's just some another, another thought. Thanks Rob. We are going to call on Elizabeth, Elizabeth we're asking you to unmute. Sorry, I'm so very horse and raspy. Let me know if at some point I've become unintelligible. Thank you very much for the presentation. I like the plan a little bit better every time I see it but I still continue to have some feedback. The first, it's probably this is probably as much a question as anything, the lane layouts that we've seen our mid block, but they don't show us what this is good what any of this new design might look like intersections, and I find that that is what is lacking in the city's bike infrastructure that we have segments that are acceptable and feel okay to bike on, but then when you get to the points that are actually more stressful for a cyclist. We sort of get abandoned by the infrastructure and so I would love to see how these revisions would play out at intersections in particular so for example, what does Montgomery look like for cyclists at farmers, you showed us what it looks like for cyclists at block off farmers, but not right at farmers just the bike lane disappear are we sharing a turn lane. How does that look. And same question basically threw out the corridors we've discussed tonight, what does it look like at the intersections. So that's my first thing and if it'd be possible to see what that layout looks like in advance of it actually happening that would be great. The second is I'd like to reiterate what a couple other speakers have said, and that is that I find fourth street a significant barrier to north south travel on a bike. And I know that the road diet will make it somewhat easier to cross, but I'm concerned that Alderbrook isn't a great option because if you want to continue. Travel for a while, I think, on fourth, if you're crossing it Alderbrook Alderbrook to Clyde and so it doesn't feel as direct and as convenient as being able to cross it tell that to St Helena where it's a little bit more of a straight shot. So, I would love to see some better north south crossing options for bikes, especially ones that don't require getting off and walking. And then related to that I was wondering if the design would include protected islands in the middle of the street there at the. So that the turn lane would not be available to cars and it would be a protected refuge in the middle of the road for people who are crossing. Thank you. Great thanks Elizabeth. I'll start with your first intersection question, and we have looked at most of the intersections to make sure that we can accommodate the bike lane, at least up to those intersections. We'll bring back those designs in the final design that when we come back to the community in September so that we'll be able to show those for. I got your comment on the north south and the barrier with four street and trying to improve that without getting off the bike I understand your comment there and we'll we'll look to see if we come up with a good option for that. And then your last the median, the median was your last comment. And unfortunately that's something that we is one of the requests from the fire department in order to maintain their emergency response with the reduction of the lanes from for down to two. They requested that we did not put any median islands along that segment. Additionally, that can be used as an evacuation route. And so the two a left turn lane they asked for that to be maintained open in case you need to use it as an evacuation route as well. So that is a constraint that we have. Thank you. Sarah, we're going to call on you ask you to move. Thank you. Um, I wanted to go back a little to what Tom said. And that is to really think about a public campaign to get more people onto their bikes, so that we, the bikering community feels like more a part of Santa Rosa, because right now when I bike around a lot, I see a lot of bikers, like people who are fast bike riders. But I don't see a lot of people going from place to place, like bicycle commuters like there are in some towns. And I think, you know, public campaigns to really work with the public and business communities and all of Santa Rosa to really make it feel like we are a bike friendly town, and that it's really great to be able to go and do a lot of your errands on bikes, because that just means fewer people on the roads, and that improves road safety and also safety for bicyclists and pedestrian so I don't know if that's all a part of the plan or whether that's even under your umbrella of what you do, because I think there's like the other people said there's a lot that's gone into this and a lot of it is seems really great. And the work seems really good, but I think we have to work together as a whole community for really making the reduction of climate change something that really can happen. And to do that, we have to get out of our cars. And I think in the future, I'm actually going to have our transportation planner pipe in and address some of that question. Yeah, good, good evening. This is Nancy Adams. I am Rob's colleague in traffic engineering and, you know, these are these are all really have enjoyed and listening to all the comments from the community and really am very happy to see such a good So in regards to the campaign so the city council, I think it's been two years ago they, they actually approved a position for an active transportation planner that we hired just a year ago January, so he's been on our team for just a year and that's one of the one of the areas that he's going to, you know, continue to explore and enhance for for us as a community so I just wanted to let folks know that we have been very happy to have the council approve this position and know they know how important bike and head mobility and San Rosa San Rosa is so, you know, he'll, he'll be working on on those types of activities as he moves forward so so very good suggestion and appreciate your thoughts. Thank you. We're going to call Chris. Chris, go ahead. Hi there. I have a general comment and then a couple of questions. My general comment is, first of all, I'm feeling really encouraged by this plan. Some points where I've had difficulties that looks like those are being addressed. I'm wondering in general about the idea of a network bicycle network, not just piecemeal but how does a person who wants to get from point A to point B, get there using a constant network instead of piecemeal pathways and then the other thing is have you considered quick build options for bike ways so putting up paint maybe on a temporary basis and testing out some of these ideas to see how it works, instead of going through a really lengthy process. It's proven successful in other cities, and it gives people an opportunity to experience what it might be like without being a super permanent option, and then my I'm pausing for a minute. And then my final comment is, I wanted to piggyback on, I think it was Elizabeth, who was talking about the intersection at farmers and Montgomery Drive and westbound at that intersection. There's a turn lane, and there's a traffic lane, and there's no place for a bicycle and I get, I get sandwiched between cars there a lot and it's, it's very high risk and a very dangerous intersection and so I'm feeling encouraged as well that there will be more focus and discussion and planning focused on intersections. So I think that's it for now thank you very much. Thank you Chris. Sometimes we do have to piecemeal some things together. Sometimes our funding is limited and other times development puts in a part of a project, either before us or after us that we know is that might be coming. So, sometimes, unfortunately that is how things are developed and and funded. We haven't done any of the, you know, restriped repaint without telling people and see how it goes. So where we've where we've made changes without notifying the public first we have heard from the public that that's not necessarily the way they'd like to see it done. That's one of the reasons why we're here a year plus ahead of this potential project from moving forward to try to get the feedback from the residents in and in here from the public to make sure we're heading down the right, the right path. So, I appreciate the comment I would love to put things in quicker. But we understand the value of getting the input and the feedback from the community ahead of time. And I thank you for your comment on farmers link. I, when we do the intersection design and bring that back. We'll make sure that we are accommodating the bicycles through the intersections. Thank you. Thank you. Jenny, we're going to ask you to unmute. Yes, thank you so much for this very informative meeting and information and I am happy to see all of the efforts city is doing to make our city safer for cyclists. And I totally agree with so many of the speakers. The lower speed is really critical to help cyclists feel safe and pedestrians to are trying to cross four street. I also agree with the need to really identify Talbot as a crossing for cyclists and to consider what infrastructure additional infrastructure could be put there. I think it is certainly the one that I would use. I usually use Humboldt bike Boulevard to get on the north side of the city. I'm down by the highway 12. But I also to get into that to the project terrorist neighborhood I would take Talbot. And I do think it is a much easier crossing. I'm interested in what exactly the city is doing at Alderbrook. I couldn't quite understand what what the specific improvements are there if you wouldn't mind just touching on that again because I agree. It really is for very experienced cyclists. And I appreciate that we're going to try to do what we can to make it safe for them, including someone suggested I noticed on the map a little bit, but it's where you have a protected bike lane, but it's on one side and both, both the, the, the different directions are on the same in the in that same cross. I can't remember the name sorry you know track cycle track cycle track someone suggested a cycle track on four street so I hate to give it up also. So people who are brave enough to use it. Well we should make it safe for them, and the cycle track wouldn't take as much room, and could be a way to make it and make the full length of four street with with bike lanes. So would like to know just what you're doing at Alderbrook. So, I guess I want to really emphasize what several people have said is looking at our bicycle network, and really identifying corridors for cyclists where they know and feel that this is a place for them where it's safe and well identified and doing what we can with signage and street markings and whatever other best practices are out there to really identify which streets are going to be comfortable low stress for cyclists. And I know that our, our bike and pet master plan has wonderful goals and a wonderful vision, but it has three miles of protected bike lanes in it. And that's not enough. I think we look at this planning process has to figure out how we're going to get the majority of people who will not ride a bike because they don't feel safe. So those are the people that we want to help in our city, feel comfortable to get on their bike so I appreciate that we're looking at four street, but I also appreciate that we're looking at and Montgomery, but I also appreciate that you're looking at the people that are there that can get people north south east west and protected bike lanes are the way that most people are going to feel safe riding a bike so I will note here that the Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition has adopted the city manifesto and there's, if you go to bike Sonoma.org and scroll down you'll see it there. But one of the things that it says is that we should be doing default to protected bike lanes for on street bike facilities, because that is going to be the best help reduce collisions injuries and fatalities for all road users, not just cyclists. And, you know, class two bike lanes really do not those are for very experienced brave cyclists, and the majority of people who we want to get on a bike. Safety, the sense of safety of a protected bike lane. So I, I just wanted to throw that out there that the importance of really highlighting corridors and establishing protected bike lane corridors in our city even just getting a few started. You know, right now we have humble bike Boulevard and that's barely a protected bike lane. But we need much more in our city to have the corridors north south east west, where people can get across busy roadways to get to where they need to go safely. I'll stop there. I appreciate you taking all of our comments and look forward to this project going forward. Thanks Jenny. I do want to just I'll revisit Alderbrook very briefly. So at Alderbrook at that crossing our plan is to add a bull bow on the north side in the very near future. And as the sidewalk to the south would be constructed and widened than that would also bring the southern section out to make the crosswalk of the crosswalk distance shorter and to make the pedestrians more visible and to give them better visibility prior to crossing this so that they can have the appropriate sight distance. Along with the signing and striping. And I did hear all your other comments regarding regarding the networking and I appreciate those and we are looking at starting with some small way finding routes and see how those how those go through our city. So thank you. All right, thank you zoom user we're going to try you one more time. And then Michael will try you after that. Go ahead zoom user. Zoom user, can you hear us. We cannot hear you. Okay, please feel free to email Rob your comments. We're going to move on to Michael. Michael. Can you unmute. Okay Michael again we still cannot hear you so we're going to ask you to send your comments to Rob at his email address please thank you. Okay, I'm going to read the questions and answers. Rob about will be you. One, have you considered underground pedestrian and bicycle crossings at farmers lane and fourth street Montgomery and Sonoma at farmers lane and fourth under the creek that would be a potential other than otherwise know that has not been considered as a, as a option, potentially under the creek. I don't think there's a lot of free board between the water line and definitely not this time, maybe this time of year if it's not raining. We do have some under creek crossings or some under roadway crossings at creeks that are utilized quite a bit on the Santa Cruz Creek path which work very well. So if there is a location that we can implement something to that matter yes but as far as just an underground type crossing know that has not been considered. Thank you. Chris he asks, are there any plans to repave Montgomery Drive between farmers lane and Summerfield wrote. So we do you have part of this project and. And one of the reasons why we're looking at will not the reason but one of the opportunities we have to implement this project on a sooner basis then maybe would have otherwise is that these streets that we are have identified in the community would have identified are slated to be slurried, which is basically a new paving where course. So it gives us an opportunity to basically have a blank canvas when it gets this new treatment. So, for street will be done and Montgomery will be done to farmers and I believe to homin. However, I'm not. I don't know off the top of my head if Montgomery between homin and Summerfield I believe was the limits is on that list so I'd have to check on that. Thank you. Danielle asks, she actually has two questions. So I'll ask the first one and second question will be hers to fourth street westbound traffic is often at a very high rate of speed approaching Alderbrook. So what measures can be taken to slow down traffic, especially to the addition of crosswalks. So as I mentioned in with one of the other questions was just by reducing the amount of distance from four length facility to a thrilling facility will help address some of the speeding that occurs. Basically if one person is doing a speed limit and you're behind that person, it forces you and everyone behind behind you to do that speed limit or less. So, by virtue of making a one length facility in each direction really does help address some of the speeds that maybe people are seeing today. Thank you. Danielle also makes a comment, making left turns from either Alderbrook or Talbot on to fourth street is treacherous high speed vehicles sneak up fast and the visibility is minimal. And then her question is, when school gets out at St. Eugene's the traffic, the traffic is a complete bunch, and also on Sundays, what analysis is included mitigating traffic motions causing congestion. So we are we on that segment of farmers, we are basically reassigning the width of the lanes to allow us to add in the bike lanes in that segment so we aren't reducing the capacity on that portion of Montgomery Drive. So, if it's a, unfortunately if it's a mess now it will probably continue to be a mess but it shouldn't be worse of a mess than it is. I know that's not a great answer. And with that comment we will actually take that information and look and see if we could make sure that we won't make things worse and maybe be able to help some things with the design of the road with striping out there. So we'll take that into consideration when looking at the striping section in particular. Thank you. Matt says, asks, is there any plan to connect bike paths to the smart train bike paths to the smart train. Yeah, a bike path to the smart train. Yes. There's a multi use path that currently does go along north south along the rail from currently only goes from Gernville down to I believe six street and then there is a small gap to the station. And as part of a development that will be constructed on the west side of the rail there, an additional pathway will be installed to get to the station. And then from the station to the south. We do have a project to install a signal at the rail crossing in conjunction with a new roadway that will connect over from third street to sixth street. The signal will also facilitate access across third straight to the Joe Radota trail and the bike path that's the multi use path that's on that side of the street. So as far as bike paths that go east west to connect to this station directly. So Santa's a creek trail, which connects to them up the multi use path. And, and that's the only one I could think of at this point. Thank you. Nancy would like to answer the next question for our anonymous attendee. This is on fourth between the and brookwood. Is it possible slash good design to have the parallel park cars on the north side buffering bike lane to Nancy's going to answer that question. Yeah, this is Nancy Rob I'm not sure why they're asking me to answer it I think you're probably more the appropriate person. Oh, sorry. I'm sorry can you read, restate the question. Absolutely. Thank you. So the fourth between E and brookwood is it possible slash good design to have the parallel park cars on the north side of buffering the bike lane to So the, the, the buffered bike lane the separation between the diagonal parking and the bike lane was on the north side. The parallel parking was on the south side. So I think the question is. Can we make both of them parallel and have them be protected bike lanes with the bikes between the park cars. And this is what I'm anticipating the question is the park cars and the sidewalk. There's a possibility and it is a design concept we can look at one of the issues is that it does reduce. It does reduce the amount of parking that is on that segment and I did hear people and I understand that parking is, you know, a minor portion for a lot of the people on the call and however there is a very large development that's being constructed down in that location right now and it is an unknown of how that parking will impact the area. So, not that I am necessarily opposed to removing parking. But what I don't want to have happen is there won't be parking available and impacts the neighbors and the neighborhood in that area adversely so I want to make sure that that doesn't happen. But that is a design concept we can look at. Thank you anonymous attendee. It also asks on fourth between Brookwood and Brighton. Why not bike lanes buffered by cars. I believe the bike. I think that's the same. bike lanes buffered by cars. Yeah, this one is a fourth between Brookwood and Brighton and the other one was. Okay, I think it's I think it's the same concept is having the parking adjacent to the travel lane and having the bike lane adjacent to the curb, one of the issues that is a potential with that and I understand the concept I've, I've seen it done before. One of the concerns with that is that the passengers aren't always aware that that that bicycles are in that zone and don't necessarily expect them to be so that's where that's where kids get out and they open the door and that's where passengers get out and aren't expecting necessarily to be looking for a bike whereas on the driver's side, they're more accustomed to that so it could be applied but there would be definitely a learning curve for the users of those. So we would also have to make sure that we would set up a way to be able to do the street sweeping which I don't think would be an issue there because it's typically those are businesses and typically it's not parked at night so that shouldn't be an issue. Sorry, I'm just talking through this. So Zoom user type their other response. And I'm going to read it. Okay. Just, I just want to say, one, the section of Montgomery, Heyman to Summerfield must be high priority. We need to slow down traffic on for college to Alderbrook, especially at Alderbrook Bridge, capitalized enforcement. Three, we need to secure bike parking at destinations. Why don't you feel it's important to save parking on Montgomery between Heyman farmers question, get rid of it, and then not really questions but confirmations. Was there, was there, those are more comments. Yeah. Okay, so he's saying not really questions. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. And that is all we have for comments. So I guess I'll ask if any of those comments or questions brought up any other comments or questions from the other users before we sign off. And I'm not seeing any hands raise. So then at this point, no further questions I really like the express my appreciation to everyone who participated in the meeting the public are panelists interpreters and the host for participating tonight. We really appreciate everyone taking the time to listen through our local road safety plan. And I'm sure in the last year or so, we had so many participants here today. As I mentioned earlier, in addition to your participation in the meeting, we would also like you to visit the project website. That's listed on the screen and take a short survey for either for both fourth street improvements and further improvements along Montgomery Drive. And you can also provide your feedback on the interactive map. We appreciate your participation in tonight's meeting and we hope you can join us on March 2. We'll be focusing on the roadway safety improvements over on Dutton Avenue between West college and West third. So thank you again for, for everything tonight. Good night. Lauren I've re promoted you to host.