Minutes of September 13, 2012 Palo Alto Team meeting

Sep 18

These minutes are DRAFT until approved at a subsequent meeting.

Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition Palo Alto Team Sept 13, 2012 Meeting Minutes

Members Present: Eric Nordman, Adina Levin, Andrew Boone, Jack Miller (SVBC board), Margaret Pye, Jeremy Shaw, Jane Rostein and Pamela Radin.

Arastradero Road Striping Trial:

Speeding has gone down and crashes are also down.
Strong support from Safe Routes To School, who are leading the advocacy effort to make the trial changes permanent. Penny Ellson is coordinating these efforts.
Making the trial permanent is to be decided at the Oct 1 City Council meeting.

=> Voted to support conversion of striping trial to permanent road hardware.

Santa Clara County $10.4 million recreational trail funds:

Multiple proposals submitted (from Palo Alto & Stanford, Menlo Park, Midpeninsula Open Space District, Los Altos Hills, Portola Valley - a total of 15 projects).
Bay Trail gap closure funding not included Palo Alto application, but applied for my Midpeninsula Open Space District.
Discussion on what is considered “Recreational” by law. Adina agreed to distribute findings by Santa Clara County attorneys. Andrew volunteered to create a Google Doc or Google Sites page on which we can collaboratively analyze the 15 projects

Ravenswood Bay Trail project update:

Facebook Development Agreement requires Facebook to construct Bay Trail along University Avenue but this is currently envisioned to end at the Dumbarton Railroad tracks, near the Menlo Park/East Palo Alto border leaving a 0.6-mile gap (called the “Ravenswood Bay Trail”).
On Sept 24 there is a Ravenswood Bay Trail Open House hosted by the Mid Peninsula Open Space meeting at East Palo Alto City Hall. Andrew will distribute information about the meeting and plans a bike ride to the meeting via the Bay Trail.

Fabian Way Road Diet design:

Fabian Way road diet (4 lanes to 3) striping plan was reviewed near the end of the Sept 4 Palo Alto Bicycle Advisory Committee (PABAC) meeting. PABAC didn’t have any problems with the striping. Rafael Rius said the lane is designed unusually wide (14 feet) because of periodic oversize shipments to/from Loreal (a satellite equipment company).
Andrew asked whether a buffered bike lane was discussed. It was not. Andrew had emailed Rafael about using buffered bike on the street since space was available and it’s been shown to reduce vehicle speeds. Eric agreed this had merit and said he would write a letter to Rafael.

Parking Day Sep 21:

On Park(ing) Day, people worldwide transform vehicle parking spaces into productive public space. San Francisco, San Jose, Redwood City, and Los Altos are planning parking day events.
Pamela said Café Venetia would like bike parking and perhaps this would be a possibility. Pamela said that while time was short she would try contacting Claudia (Cafe Venetia manager) and Jaime Rodriguez about a possible event.

Palo Alto Parking Policies Studies:

Adina, Andrew, and Irvin met with Russ Cohen (Executive Director of the Palo Alto Downtown Business and Professional Association) regarding the city’s upcoming vehicle parking studies. He said downtown businesses would be receptive to new ideas that improved the vehicle parking situation for employees and customers.
Mountain View has completed a vehicle parking study that might be helpful to learn from. Eric agreed to work with Adina to create a presentation on parking options that could be presented to the downtown business group.

Bicycle + Pedestrian Transportation Plan Implementation:

Jaime Rodriguez provided a list of projects (Eric sent out to the group).
The SVBC-PA subgroup has generated a prelimary ranking of projects using Trello.
Concern was raised about lack of progress in the past.

=> Voted in favor of recommending that Palo Alto hire a Bicycle and Pedestrian Coordinator as other cities have done (such as Berkeley).

Andrew advocated the effort go begin tracking what projects have been implemented, using an appropriate online tool - probably our Google Sites website.
Eric thought providing the city with feedback on which projects bicyclists felt ware the highest priority and why each was critical would be useful.
It was suggested that a spreadsheet might be a good way to manage the bike plan list. It was unclear on the appropriate columns. Eric agreed to create an example spreadsheet to start discussion on what should be included.

SVBC:

Adina mentioned that when talking to people (media, city personal, etc) that only two people are allowed to represent SVBC (Corinne Winter and Colin Heyne). To avoid problems people we should always say we are members of SVBC.

ANNOUNCEMENTS: