Recommendation to adopt Plans and Specifications No. R-6984 for Improvements of the Bicycle System Gap Closure and Improved Los Angeles River Bike Path Access project; award the contract to Sully-Miller Contracting Company, of Brea, CA, in the amount of $1,051,223, and authorize a 10 percent contingency in the amount of $105,122, for a total contract amount not to exceed $1,156,345; and authorize City Manager, or designee, to execute all documents necessary to enter into the contract, including any necessary amendments thereto, and consider Categorical Exemption No. 54-10 (15301 Class1).  (Districts 1,6,7,8,9)
Next report from Public Works and Financial Management Recommendation to award a contract to Sally Milliken Contracting Company for improvements of the bicycle system gap closure and improved Los Angeles River Bike Path Access Project for a total contract amount not to exceed 1.1 million districts one, six, seven, eight and nine. Thank you, Mr. Awesome. Before I turn it over to him to go to start first. Or did you want. Okay, Mr. West, why don't you provide a staff report? Mr. Mayor, council members. This is a project that started back in 2011 with a huge $1 million metro grant, and we're happy to bring it to fruition tonight. So I'm going to transition it to our Malloy and our public works director to walk us through the project. Honorable man, honorable council members. This project project is one of our most important bike closure projects in the city, and I'm kind of proud that after six years of hard staff work, we're here tonight to be able to get this approved. This is this project connects the south basically from Ocean Boulevard all the way to City nine. It's it's about 8.4 miles of bike connection. It has class two and class three bike lanes. And we have worked very closely with the council offices, with the communities community meetings. I have to say that we had over 18 community meetings in the last six years or four years, which my staff has been actively working on. This project starts from ocean and continues north to four or five, connects at San Antonio Boulevard and then makes a left on the Alamo and also a portion of Harding Avenue and City nine gets gets to have this this treatment. Um, that that is basically the, the gist of this project. This was competitively bid. We had several bidders and the lowest bidder is, is Sally Miller. So most lowest responsible bidder is Solly Miller. And we're here to get your approval for this contract. Thank you. And turn this over to Councilman Austin. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And thank you, Mr. Malloy, for the staff report. I must concur that there is this is this project has been a long time coming and has been a lot of work put into it. There's been a lot of community outreach. We've heard from many residents of the community regarding specific aspects of this. I think this this project obviously encompasses several campus council districts and will go a long way toward proving our our bike infrastructure, which has been a goal of this council for many years. This project has had, as Mr. Malone has mentioned, over 19 community meetings that I know of regarding this route. I've had a number of residents continually ask me when this project will actually get going, because there's been much anticipation over the last couple of years. I'm pleased to now see that we're now able to truly say it's starting shortly. I know that some residents had some concerns and come before the council to voice their concerns on some of the elements of the project. And I appreciate staff's work to try to address those concerns as much as access, this project is really about safety. I can tell you specifically in the eighth District, this project will provide safer routes to schools at least two or three schools, Longfellow Hughes, as well as Little Cerritos. And while not everyone agrees, I know that the new traffic signal with Pacific and Wardlow will address an intersection that has a significant number of accidents over the years. And the traffic circles will help with traffic calming and esthetics in the Los Cerritos neighborhood to address concerns that were raised that some of the initial community meetings and look forward to this project getting underway and utilizing this bike route by myself. I would ask that the council support this. I know two of my colleagues are here tonight. Councilmember Rex Richardson and Councilmember Urunga did tell me that they support the project and wish they could be here to vote. Thank you, Councilman. We have a second with a motion and a second by Councilwoman Gonzales. Do you have any comments? Yes, I just wanted to thank Ora and his staff. I know this has been a long time in the making, and this is it's a great project because it does cover so many different parts of the city. So I just want to commend you in that and thank you. Thank you. Let me do any public comment on this item. Please come forward. Good evening, Mayor Garcia, Vice Mayor Lowenthal, council and elected officials. My name is Rene Lawler. I live in the seventh District. It'll sound as though I am opposing this project. I don't oppose the project. I don't oppose the enhancement of biking. But I do continue to have a consistent concern with respect to multi-use trails in the city and the safety issues that continue to prevail without safety signage for multi-use trails. So with this project, and as you've heard me speak several weeks prior, the consistent problem with these types of projects is that there's not safety signage alerting the public about the the crossings at the multi-use trails. So, for instance, with the volume of users that are being brought into the L.A. River and the enhancement of the bike paths, what happens is that all those user groups are being brought into the existing historic equestrian trail areas. They're crossing the equestrian path, but they're not being alerted as to the fact that they're even coming into an equestrian zone, that there is a trail there and what the protocols are for the crossings and yield. So I would respectfully request that if you're going to approve a project like this or any other project along the L.A. River on a regional basis, as per A.B. 530, which is new state law, that these projects be reevaluated so that you do include education to the public and safety signage. There's a federally approved sign by the NPS and at every gateway, every destination, every crossing, as well as the entry signage where you're giving wayfinding signs, those signs for this project really need to be multi-use in in their demeanor so that instead of just focusing on the fact that you're entering a bike path, that you do really alert the public that there are the crossings. This has been a consistent message that we're seeing with the equestrian community. The numbers are diminishing because the equestrian community's voice is not being heard. The preservation of the trail and the safe connections for the equestrian trail. As additional user groups are being brought into these areas, the original user group's needs are not adequately being addressed. It's unfortunate that this project was given a a waiver with respect to Sequoia, because in actuality, the L.A. River Master. Plan. Never adequately addressed the cumulative negative impact that the equestrian community is continuing to experience with projects along the L.A. River. So I would request that you have a friendly amendment with this type of project and any other project like the Forest Wetlands that you're going to be reviewing in the future to have an amendment that really addresses the multi-use signage. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker. Hi. My name is Sue Baden and I live at Country Club Drive in the seventh District and I appreciate the opportunity to address the council on this. And I love the idea of more bike lanes in the city, and that's absolutely, perfectly wonderful. I'm a cyclist, so I like to make use of these lanes. But one portion of this project that Councilman Austin brought up was the roundabout, in particular the roundabout at the corner of 36th and Pacific. When our community first heard about this and I opposed as opposed. To this, I remain opposed to this. When our community first heard about this even a. Couple of years ago, we did have some community meetings and they were very emotional meetings and many people were very opposed to this. And the reason brought up at that time. Was because of the. Speed and the volume of traffic on Pacific. I wondered aloud at that time, and I wonder aloud now if there were any other any other ideas that were brought up as for how as far as how to deal with this with this traffic problem, even the idea of perhaps minor undulations or speed. Bumps or something on Pacific fiscally. That would be less of an impact. And I think that it would be less of an impact on our community members that live on and near the corner where this roundabout is going to be. I know that there are according to the last plans I saw, a couple of our community members will lose the parking in front of their homes. I don't think that's fair. I think it will affect their property values. I don't think it's right for them to bear the brunt, ah, the. Brunt of this, of this. Issue. And so I'm really concerned about that. I feel very badly for them and I just don't think it's fair. Second thing is that, again, I'm a cyclist and I would like to I don't know if there's any solution to this, but so many of the cyclists that are in our city now totally ignore the rules of the road. I live at the corner of Bixby and Country Club. Nobody stops at those stop signs. They just go right through the stop signs. Some of them I have seen barely missed some cars that are at their stop the stop signs. I always stop. I always stop at signals, but rarely do I see our cyclists doing that. And we're being very fair to the cyclists and offering them many of these bike trails. But I would love to see if there's something that can be done to let them be made aware that they're responsible for. The rules of the road. It just kind. Of irks me because I do and I and I just don't like it when when they just ignore the rules, the rules. And I don't know if there's anything that can be done for that, but I just did want to express my opinion on that. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thanks, Speaker. Mr. Mayor, city members of the council, my name is William Kessler and my wife and I are married, live at the corner of Pacific and 36th Street, are directly affected by this project. And our opposition is not about the bike lanes. It's about the same thing that Sue talked about is the roundabout right at our intersection, the design that we were we're familiar with replace a stop signs with the yield signs. We think that's a safety issue for the reasons that Sue enunciated here. The bicyclist come barreling through that intersection really fast and it's a yield sign is just going to exacerbate that. The other the other thing that I would like to enunciate is the same thing that Sue mentioned, and that is the the parking is going to be confiscated as a result of this of this project. There's going to be several parking places along Pacific. Avenue that are going to be taken. And no parking put put there. And that's going to have a big impact on on our neighborhood. You may or may not be aware of it, but the blue line overflow traffic. Is getting to be more. And more. Significant. The cars park. Two or three blocks. Away from the blue line just to catch the blue line. They come to our they come to our house in front of our house and in front of our neighbors houses to park the. And there are also other community activities in the area, church activities and the like that create create a parking situation that's. That's really getting to be pretty bad. There. The when you when you add to the confiscation of extra parking spaces along Pacific Avenue, that's going to make it make it a lot worse. So we're not against bike lanes and we're not against most of this project. But we ask that you oppose this project until the safety issues and the street parking concerns are are addressed. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Mr. Mayor, city council members. My name is Mary Kessler. I live at the corner of 36th and Pacific where this roundabout will be. I strongly oppose the the roundabout for many for many angles. The Los Cerritos Neighborhood Association took a vote on this project about a year ago, and 75% of the members of the neighborhood association oppose this. And our issues have not been addressed. They've been ignored. It's the safety issue, the way we are, the way you're proposing to narrow Pacific Avenue, cuts down the visibility. And if and as Sue pointed out, the bikers and never stop at the stop sign and they're not going to go around that traffic circle, they will cut the other way. And since the visibility of the drivers has been obscured, I'm afraid it's it's an accident waiting to happen. I'm afraid there's going to be a lot of accidents. There are a lot of bicyclists hurt. As my husband said, we're not opposed to bike lanes. We would like to see lots of bike lanes. We like to see continuous bike lanes the way they are now. You have a nice bike lane for about a block and then it disappears. They come and go and they come and go. And and in this proposal, there's also the proposed bike lanes come and go. They're on one side of the street, not the other. Also. Of course, the parking is terrible, though. We are half a mile from the blue line. We get people from the blue line parking there because there is inadequate parking. But one thing you could do is have hidden parking on Pacific Avenue on the one side of the street, and you would double the amount of parking there. And that would only take a little bit of paint. That is basically a long off ramp. That's not two way traffic at all. It's a divided street. So like I say, or our concerns have not been addressed. They've been ignored and. I really think there will be. A lot of guilt for a lot of people who planned this, for the people that are hurt in this intersection. Thank you. Thank you very much. Turn this back over to the council, Councilman Austin. Yes. In response to one of the public comments regarding the, um, the multi-use trails, I'm aware of at least one location in the Dominguez gap where there is equestrian and bike traffic that, that, uh, that may happen at the same time. Have we taken any consideration to that, taking that into consideration, and are we amendable to, to doing signage in the areas where we can do that? Councilmember Austin. Absolutely. We're we will work with the community and install any signage that it's necessary to create safer and eliminate any confusion possible. So the signage is not an issue as far as installing new signage. So, yes. Okay. And specifically, I know if I if I'm telling you right away, I think you're talking about the Del Mar that that area. Yes. Actually, I'm talking about. Everyone. There needs to. So. So I think that's a fair and reasonable request. And it's not something you necessarily need the emotion or to be built into the the item. I'm just going to ask them to take that into consideration because I think that that's very reasonable. And I'd just like to just just also just elaborate on the the process and the the many surveys. I know my office did a survey. I know we hosted a number of meetings along with our traffic engineers. And the community is truly there's a split. There's there are people who are bike advocates and and who are concerned about the safety of their children getting to or from schools. And then there are folks who are concerned about losing a parking spot or or the traffic. I think, to reiterate, the roundabouts are being planned by our traffic engineers are being planned to mitigate traffic in the slow, slow down traffic on Pacific Pacific is one of the widest streets, I believe, in the city. And I have heard nothing that would make me feel like this. This was less than beneficial for the city. This is, I think, a well thought out process and well thought out project that is going to benefit our infrastructure for for many years to come. And so, members, I would ask for your support. Can you think of any other public or council comment? I'm sorry. Any council comment? I see no other council comment on this. Members, please go and capture voters emotion any second by Councilman Austin and Councilman Gonzales. Motion carries. Okay. Thank you. Moving on the agenda, please, madam. Quick report from Development Services Recommendation to receive and expand grant funding from the Department of Justice for the Fiscal Year 2015 Youth Violence Prevention Enhancement Project and State and Community Development Awards Citywide.