Your response requested re Comment letter on the El Monte Avenue Corridor Study to B/PACv

[Bruce England]

Hello, all:

I'd like to know your thoughts on a potential letter this week on the El Monte Avenue Corridor Study to B/PAC for their Wednesday meeting. My intention would be to have it joint for Mountain View Coalition for Sustainable Planning (MVCSP), GreenSpacesMV, and the SVBC MV team.

https://mountainview.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=6178204&GUID=780D1309-6140-4B94-A38A-57D8EBA5DDBF&Options=&Search=

I'd need to put this in letter format, but I want to hear your feedback while I do this. Here are the points I'd like to make so far:

• In general, we like Alternative 3 the best, and we like the intention to eliminate the free right turn onto El Monte from eastbound El Camino. 
• While Alternative 3 seems to be the best choice overall, it lacks any refuge islands. Why can't these be included in areas not needing left turn lane space?
• Even though the Staff Memorandum says "As shown in Table 1, the key community concerns identified were vehicle speeds and safety of pedestrians and bicyclists.", there is no discussion on lowering the speed limit to, for example, 30 mph.
• The Staff Memorandum and appendixes do not show travelway width dimensions. This is crucial for helping us compare the three alternatives, so we would like to see them called out in future documentation on this project.
• For the eastbound right turn onto El Camino, we would like to see a no right turn on red restriction there.
  
• For the center median at the north end of El Monte at El Camino, can that include landscaping or, at least mulch for future planting options? This will help serve city goals related to biodiversity, carbon emissions reductions, and green complete streets.
• For the bike lane buffers, can the bikeways be raised to the height of any included buffer structures? This has been done, for example, on parts of Charleston Road in North Bayshore.
• We have some concerns about limited public outreach where project impacts affect others beyond the immediate area. This is a general comment, though certainly applicable in this case.
• For lighting improvements, please be mindful of anticipated dark sky ordinances work by the City in the months to come.

Please let me know by 11am tomorrow, Wednesday.

Thanks!
Bruce 

[Chris Parry]

• For the bike lane buffers, can the bikeways be raised to the height of any included buffer structures? This has been done, for example, on parts of Charleston Road in North Bayshore.

The combination of 30 mph speed limit plus only a buffered bike lane, not protected, was my biggest concern.  Even if the City lowered the speed limit, drivers are used to driving over 30 mph on that road, and anyone who had driven that road for years may resist prods to slow down.

I assume that the plans don’t use physical dividers between the car lane and bike lane because of all the driveways facing El Monte.  At least, that was the reason given for not protecting the southbound lanes on Miramonte during the prior BPAC meeting.  

The idea of raising the curb is an interesting one.  I assume you would need lots of curb cuts for all the driveways unless the City flipped the order and put the bike lane behind the sidewalk?  Also, who knows what that would cost.

I had been wondering whether we should suggest flex posts?  Not those, dinky flex posts that the City uses near Graham Middle School that keep falling over, but something more substantial like Santa Clara uses on Monroe Street between San Tomas Creek and South St (picture below).  I’m not a huge fan of flex posts, but they are better than nothing.

What if we offered up both alternatives:  Suggest the raised curb as our preferred option because it is safest, but if that is for any reason impractical, can the City at least consider adding some real flex posts.

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[Serge Bonte]

Hi Bruce,

Personally I think the most important goal is to get Alternative 3 adopted (as the road diet part is what people would likely be pushing back the most against ....if we go another round of public outreach and more delays). Once adopted, there is still plenty of design to do and  plenty of opportunities to tune the details.

So I hope that any letter will strongly endorse Alternative 3 and highlight the many positives in that road diet and its strong public support (survey results...)

- less lanes --> lower speed, less road conflicts
- new high visibility crosswalk at Hollingworth --> huge improvement for pedestrians (only crosswalks are ECR, Shopping Center and Springer/El Monte "Y" intersection) and also for cyclists (safe way to make a left to/from El Monte, makes for safe route to school from Gemelo to Graham and Bubb)
- marked crosswalks at all intersections --> safer for kids, seniors...
- removal of remaining street parking (MV side from Springer to Lloyd, from ECR to in the slip lane) --> less (zero?) dooring, more room for biking,
.....

As to improving from what's been proposed:

re: no rights on red, if possible sure, I'd like them banned across all of Mountain View as standard policy. The only lights are on El Camino Real so...Caltrans might have a say
re: refuge island, doesn't hurt to ask but none have been planned on El Camino Real where they would be needed the most :( so not holding my breath.
re: speed limit, it'll be a good follow-up after the road diet as El Monte might be able to then pass the stringent 85th percentile speeds threshold.(El Monte in current lanes configuration didn't pass that threshold when we asked almost 8+ years ago :( )
re: outreach, personally I feel it's been adequate (10 years of input on El Monte Corridor, many years on El Camino StreetScape) and I certainly wouldn't want to see more delays on that account.
re: lighting, not to reopen a can of worms, but it really depends on what's in the ordinance (smarter lights vs. ban/curfews on street lighting) Worth noting that the fatality on El Monte occurred early AM in poor lighting conditions (City greatly improved visibility , lighting at that crosswalk).
re: bike lane buffers, it might be too early in the design but worth seeding ideas for safer lanes.I'd personally trade for wider buffers and wider bike lanes rather than raised ones (there is room -no street parking- and it won't break the bank). Protected bike lanes (bollards ,,) would be nice (challenging as you get closer to ECR, also need to keep driveways functioning for residents living on El Monte).

For the Escuela/ECR/El Monte intersection, if I had a magic wand I'd close the Walgreens's parking entrance/exit in the middle of the intersection. Route traffic to other entrances/exits in shopping centers. This is nerve racking for all street users, Closing it would greatly reduce the amount of turn conflicts.



Serge



 

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[Simeon Frank]

Hey Everyone,

I really like the idea of asking for the bikeways to be raised to buffer or sidewalk level. I know it will be a big ask but as Chris said, we can ask for more than we expect and then hopefully get better buffers out of it. The painted buffers with nothing there are a waste of high value space, in my opinion. They could be strips of greenery, planters, or at least some form of vertical delineator like a flex post. To leave them as a striped wasteland of asphalt would be so unfortunate, but still better than no buffer at all.

As for the curb cut concern, the sloped section would need to be outside of the bike lane as to keep the bike lane level. They could put the curb ramps in the buffer zone effectively creating continuous sidewalks and bike lanes which cars would be forced to slow down when turning up into them. This is a very common design in the Netherlands. I included an example image below from Cambridge, MA.

https://nacto.org/publication/urban-bikeway-design-guide/cycle-tracks/raised-cycle-tracks/

The only additional comment I would provide is a request to swap the right turning lane from El Monte to Southbound El Camino and the through bike lane, getting rid of the bicycle/car merge (I call them “death merges”). Forcing cars and cyclists to swap lanes with always create a high stress environment, regardless of how good the rest of the network is. My firm belief is that bicycles and pedestrians should always be kept to the right of >15mph car traffic so conflicts are minimized. To get around the law that allows cars to merge into the bike lane when turning right, they can extend the raised bike lane or physical buffer all the way to the stop line of the intersection, making it impossible to merge into the cycle track when turning right. See image from Amsterdam below.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/ToPd9XGpxYi5qscD8?g_st=ic

Best,

Simeon

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/a/bikesiliconvalley.org/d/msgid/mountainview/D718A9F9-F201-45FB-8AF3-9CD96FDD16DC%40gmail.com.

[Bruce England]

Local example: The posts on Winchester Blvd are more visible, but, for the same reason, they're kind of ugly. Natural landscaping is so much better.

On this one, I'm inclined to shoot for the moon and ask for what I think would be the best solution and not provide easier outs. 

In some cases, I would take your argument and provide alternatives. Here, I truly want to see MV start to move robustly in the green complete streets direction.

Thanks!
Bruce 

On Tue, Apr 25, 2023 at 4:18 PM Chris Parry <kah...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Bruce England]

Some responses inline below...

On Tue, Apr 25, 2023 at 6:09 PM Serge Bonte <sbo...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Bruce,

Personally I think the most important goal is to get Alternative 3 adopted (as the road diet part is what people would likely be pushing back the most against ....if we go another round of public outreach and more delays). Once adopted, there is still plenty of design to do and  plenty of opportunities to tune the details.

Tweaked letter draft for this 

So I hope that any letter will strongly endorse Alternative 3 and highlight the many positives in that road diet and its strong public support (survey results...)

Tweaked letter draft for this  

- less lanes --> lower speed, less road conflicts
- new high visibility crosswalk at Hollingworth --> huge improvement for pedestrians (only crosswalks are ECR, Shopping Center and Springer/El Monte "Y" intersection) and also for cyclists (safe way to make a left to/from El Monte, makes for safe route to school from Gemelo to Graham and Bubb)
- marked crosswalks at all intersections --> safer for kids, seniors...
- removal of remaining street parking (MV side from Springer to Lloyd, from ECR to in the slip lane) --> less (zero?) dooring, more room for biking,

Added to draft letter 

.....

As to improving from what's been proposed:

re: no rights on red, if possible sure, I'd like them banned across all of Mountain View as standard policy. The only lights are on El Camino Real so...Caltrans might have a say
re: refuge island, doesn't hurt to ask but none have been planned on El Camino Real where they would be needed the most :( so not holding my breath.
re: speed limit, it'll be a good follow-up after the road diet as El Monte might be able to then pass the stringent 85th percentile speeds threshold.(El Monte in current lanes configuration didn't pass that threshold when we asked almost 8+ years ago :( )

Added to draft letter 

re: outreach, personally I feel it's been adequate (10 years of input on El Monte Corridor, many years on El Camino StreetScape) and I certainly wouldn't want to see more delays on that account.

I made this more of a general comment in the draft letter 

re: lighting, not to reopen a can of worms, but it really depends on what's in the ordinance (smarter lights vs. ban/curfews on street lighting) Worth noting that the fatality on El Monte occurred early AM in poor lighting conditions (City greatly improved visibility , lighting at that crosswalk).

The lighting needs to be appropriate for the location and taking both dark sky policy and safety into account. 

re: bike lane buffers, it might be too early in the design but worth seeding ideas for safer lanes.I'd personally trade for wider buffers and wider bike lanes rather than raised ones (there is room -no street parking- and it won't break the bank). Protected bike lanes (bollards ,,) would be nice (challenging as you get closer to ECR, also need to keep driveways functioning for residents living on El Monte).

My preference is to shoot for green complete streets solutions here (and elsewhere in MV for that matter). 

For the Escuela/ECR/El Monte intersection, if I had a magic wand I'd close the Walgreens's parking entrance/exit in the middle of the intersection. Route traffic to other entrances/exits in shopping centers. This is nerve racking for all street users, Closing it would greatly reduce the amount of turn conflicts.

Yes, truly horrible! I wonder how much clout the City and/or Caltrans has on this, if any?

[Bruce England]

Good point on the curb cut bit. I'll include this in the draft.

Cheers,
Bruce 

[Bruce England]

Letter draft now set up for your review and commenting:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Y497W5GpPgHcSyKAFyZ-gUCpf3ls3S9JmJyXDpc2JT0/edit?usp=sharing

Cheers,
Bruce 

[Serge Bonte]

btw: there are also three VTA bus stops on El Monte (bus route going to FootHills College) that protected bike lanes would need to accommodate.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/a/bikesiliconvalley.org/d/msgid/mountainview/CAOh0-R34SmooM40-cvWqTDwBpODDDNuFnVE0PJmBSWLrpQ9MdQ%40mail.gmail.com.

[Mary Dateo]

Regarding the intesection at El Camino & Escuela,

I've tried submitting a ticket to Caltrans, requesting that they change the traffic light cycle,
to give Escuela a separate green light, and also Walgreens to have a separate green light.
While not perfect, this could make a big difference.
I didn't think to request no-right-turn-on-red, but that would have made it even better.

I think it's still somewhere in their queue, I haven't heard an update since the day I logged it, when Customer Service transferred it to Traffic Ops.

It truly is an awful intersection for cyclists and pedestrians.
I wonder- if they got lots of similar requests, would that help?


Here's what I requested 10/19/22, via Ticket #: 917546

Description:  This traffic light cycle, with Escuela and the parking lot both having a green signal at the same time, is unsafe for cyclists, coming from Escuela, making a left turn onto El Camino, and for cyclists making a left turn from the parking lot onto El Camino: they are in conflict with cars going straight. It is unsafe for pedestrians crossing El Camino, in conflict with cars making left turns. Please change the cycle so that Escuela Ave. and the parking lot each have a green light separately.

Geographic Location: Traffic light at intersection of El Camino Real and Escuala Ave. in Mountain View, also serving the parking lot directly across El Camino from Escuela Ave. Current traffic light cycle: it is green for both Escuela & the parking lot at the same time. El Camino is at least 7 lanes wide at this intersection, maybe more. This intersection is 2 blocks from Castro elementary school on Escuela Ave.

Here is the Caltrans response on 10/19/22:

Thank you for contacting Caltrans, we value your request for service. Because your concern is a recommendation for alteration to existing infrastructure, your request for traffic signal timing investigation has been referred to our Traffic Ops Division for review and feasibility; the six-digit ticket number will remain the same, and should you have further questions, please contact us by email at Caltr...@dot.ca.gov or phone at 510 286-6173. You will be notified by email once a determination has been made. Thank you again for your interest in the safety and operation of California's highways.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/a/bikesiliconvalley.org/d/msgid/mountainview/CAOh0-R1sVt0c4gEj5qz-sANPuzKWSzVOm%2BfhNnuvYVS9LrE5Zg%40mail.gmail.com.

[Serge Bonte]

Btw the meeting is I. Two physical locations Los Altos and Mountain View as well as zoom …. It’s going to be  looong meeting :)

[Bruce England]

Will you be mentioning this during the meeting, Mary? It sounds like a good idea to me! (But the joint comment letter has already been submitted on the project.)

Cheers,
Bruce 

On Wed, Apr 26, 2023 at 5:11 PM Mary Dateo <mda...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

[Bruce England]

At least there won't be any proclamations requiring each member to say why what's being proclamated is so wonderful.

[Serge Bonte]

It speaks volume that each commission meets on opposite sides of el Camino real :)

[Mary Dateo]

My initial ticket on this topic was logged to Mountain View. They told me that Caltrans controls this intersection, so I'm not sure what, if anything, Mountain View can do.
Unless- is it possible the the city can add their voice to this at Caltrans?

- Mary

[Serge Bonte]

Mountain View should not have allowed that parking entrance in the first place :(