Presentation on Proposed Process for Preparing Approach to Comprehensive Citywide Transportation Planning and Implementation Effort. (Base Reuse 819099)
Presentation on Proposed Process for preparing approach to comprehensive citywide transportation planning and implementation effort. Good evening, Mayor. Councilmembers. My name is Jennifer, our chief operating officer. I'm at a point in this particular case, I'm kind of wearing a citywide hat. I'm helping out. We're all busy and just I'm helping take care of these issues. We're working at our main point on a lot of TDM implementation issues with different consultants, and so I offered to kind of help move this forward and but it's going to be a inter-departmental team working with all of the different departments and very focused on citywide. So just because you're seeing me up here does not mean this is going to be a point centric. But really, we're going to be coming back on March 10th as part of a workshop, but just wanted to check in. We'll all listen to the tape from the 21st, January 21st. We just wanted to make sure we our process that we outlined here is okay with the council. I think we heard a couple of things. One was that you definitely want to involve the other commissions and boards, Transportation Commission, Planning Board. The council ultimately wants to take the lead in really directing this work. And to be honest, we actually the reason we have the process before you today is we took advantage of the fact that there was already a schedule transportation planning board committee meeting. It is, as the city manager mentioned earlier, it isn't an easy thing to schedule. And so to have that already on the calendar perfect with our timing, we've kind of jumped on it, got things done. And so we hope that you're okay with us, going to them first, talking to them about it, kind of giving it almost like a dry run presentation of what, you know, some of our ideas and thoughts about how we address the referral and then come back to you on March 10th with those their comments, the same presentation, maybe tweaked a little bit based on some of their comments and a staff report kind of outlining our approach to the referral and how we think the city should proceed. Also, just another thing to note is that at that particular meeting we find ourselves with staff and I know it comes up in the public conversation as well as when we start talking about transportation, we end up talking about housing. And when we start talking on housing, we start talking about transportation. And there had been a direction by the Council on January six to look at the density bonus ordinance and to address some issues related to density bonus ordinance and then the larger development occurring in the Northern Waterfront housing element. And so we decided there will be two staff reports, but it will be kind of a workshop housing, a transportation workshop. They're such dense topics. We do have two staff reports. City planner Thomas will give the housing the density bonus presentation and I'll do the transportation one and and then but we can talk about the issues together , how they're interrelated. But we wanted to put them in the same night at the same special meeting. So I just wanted to brief the council, make sure since we, you know, it's not exactly what you directed, but we wanted to make sure we thought it was in the spirit of what you had said, just to make sure that you were okay with that process. Council Comments. Vice Mayor I think this is extremely important because I've talked to some people who've been involved in the discussions around safety and they didn't realize that there was northern waterfront burden in 2245 homes just in the inventory, and that's density bonus aside. So I think it's very important to understand. From the public point of view in a workshop setting, I think is the way to do that is. What is the implication of the development up at the top of the island? The development here and the transportation, because it is it's not the number of people. It's the number of vehicles that go through the tubes is the problem. Mm hmm. And. The and that's why I brought up the question of commercialization out at the point, because the assumption is that people are going to work where they're live, where they live. But if there's no solid commercial base out there, you're going to have people living there and going to work someplace else. And I think we really the the March 10th meeting. In a workshop setting away from a council agenda, I think is a good way to start fleshing out the talking points and also to start informing us on what kind of decisions we're going to have to make. So I appreciate this approach. Good. And I appreciate you combining them. Good. Great. Thank you. Mary Ashcroft? I think it's a great idea. I think it's well thought out. And meeting with the meeting to discuss both of these topics makes perfect sense because it's really hard to separate them. So thank you. We look forward to. It that you. Day. Thank you. Well, thank you for the way that you outlined it. I think what we're doing is we're creating a framework from which even more precise follow up tasks will emerge. But we just need to know what the framework is. Right. So, for example, I do not have the expectation that on February 25th that we will we will know that we want a shuttle and we want a shuttle with ten minute headway. We want and we want to spend as much as the city of Emeryville spends on Emery go around, which is roughly $3 million. I do not have the expectation that that will emerge on on February 25th or soon abouts. But I do have the expectation that out of it will emerge a desire to as next steps to begin. What does it take to begin to get these kinds of an understanding as to the different types and levels of of transit solutions that we that we might go after a first we have to have some shared agreement that that that is in fact the approach. And I think in having the February 25th meeting that you're having and then subsequently the march, it begins to outline that. Okay. I was just going to say, if I may, I just I want to I think that's exactly right. And that's what we've thought, too, is that, you know, and I'm glad I wanted to make sure, you know, and hopefully when you actually read the report, you still agree. But the intent was really we're not going to come to you with a detailed scope of every single thing that is going to be addressed in this scope of work. But what we are doing, though, is kind of setting out some I mean, we are going to, you know, staff's job, we believe, to make some recommendations to of, you know, look, we went back and looked at all the documents we have. We've talked to you know, we've really analyzed things and really thought through it. And so we do have some recommended approach to it and a process that we think might make sense to help figure this out. Some principles, some goals and things of what we might accomplish in the study. But that's exactly right. Like creating that framework, helping everyone to understand what that framework is that we already have. And then where are the holes? How do we fill them? What should the study do? And so that's what we've tried to make that approach or we're trying to take that approach. And I am more than happy to kind of just type out. People still use the word type, type out. Some of the thoughts as to why I thought that when I mean, I, I acknowledge, you know, there there is a lot of hard work that went into the different teams. But in my opinion, I did think that there were some extra level steps that were still needed and that was the whole one of the points of it. So I'm more than happy to type out even more, you know, what do I mean by extra level steps and how does that sync up? Ultimately with the process that you're putting in place. Right. And so we'll hopefully whatever we put forward will facilitate a productive conversation about that. Thank you. Brody. So I also agree that this is, you know, a good plan, I guess. And thank you for expediting it. I have two questions. The last one, based on feedback provided by the council staff, prepare periscope and budget and consulting contract. So I know we kind of haven't had the February 25th meeting. We haven't had the March ten meeting, but know can you can you give me a ballpark on one the time frame to finish the finish, whatever the end product that we asked the consultant to deliver will be the deliverable and then kind of a ballpark on , on budget because I saw some number on the Internet today. And, you know, I'm not sure if that's a that's a lot of money. So our ballpark for what we're proposing and it really is it's a range and it's a wide range because it really does depend on a couple of different factors, which I'll mention in a second. But is 250000 to $400000 to do a study like this? It really depends. And you'll see. And then the schedules are affected by the same thing. But we've outlined in the staff report that'll go out tomorrow for the joint meeting and then ultimately for March 2010 is a very detailed process scope and that is about it estimates. You know this is based I do a lot of consultant studies so went through is about 17 months. And 4 to 6 months, if you do an RFP takes 4 to 6 months to do and after being selected consultant and then probably another, you know, maybe if it's expedited, it could be 12 to 18 months. But it really in the factors that really is how much community participation do you want? How many times do we come back to the Transportation Commission Planning Board? We've taken a pretty aggressive, you know, a lot of that. So if you look at it and say, maybe we could save here, we could save there, we could cut down the time. But every time we go to the Transportation Commission, Planning Board, City Council, it's a month ahead of time essentially for the staff report, for each of those. And then if you want to actually have the council respond to what the Transportation Commission, the planning board says, you can't do them to close because you need time to turn around a council staff report. So those meetings, how many of those formal meetings we have make pretty much a a big difference in terms of cost and schedule. And so we've done the kind of very intense community engagement. And if, you know, if that feels like two months much, then we can scale that back an RFP, you know, maybe we could do it for months, but it usually, you know, depends on how much again, how much community stakeholders do you want involved in the selection of the consultant scheduling those things? It unfortunately just takes time, but that is that is what we're estimating at this point. So the 250 to 400 is that include staff time or is that just the outside consulting. Just outside consultant. Time? Well, that's still less than the number I saw online. Oh, okay. Well, that's good. That's good news. Hopefully we're right. Ultimately. We do have a speaker for this. Thank you. So unless there's more questions, then I'd like to go ahead and call the speaker. Thank you, John Spangler. Thank you again, Spencer. Members of the council. I appreciate the vice mayor. His remarks early on about the connection between the number of people needing to be moved from A to B and the number of vehicles. And I'm glad this plant gestation process is underway. But I want to say that in the many months leading up to tonight's presentation on Alameda Point and on the Del Monte, I heard a lot of people saying. The traffic is terrible. First of all, it's not terrible. If you've ever driven into downtown San Francisco at rush hour. Okay. We have no problem at all. And an extra 2 minutes in the tube at 8:00 or 5:00. It's peanuts. We don't know how good it is. And if anybody has trouble parking on Park Street ride a bicycle, it's really easy. There is no parking shortage there of. The problem with most of the comments I've heard about traffic and congestion in the last 15 years I've been in Alameda is that people are thinking that everybody gets to drive his or her own car everywhere he wants to go. We are no longer doing that. When I helped the bikes onboard BART Task Force two years ago with some research, we found out that bike commuting in San Francisco and most other Bay Area communities is up 70% over less than ten years. And that is a trend line that is not changing. The same is true of BART ridership. It's going through the roof. And so is AC transit ridership. We don't have to worry so much about the number of cars in the tube because people are giving them up. And we need in our transportation planning process that was now underway. And I I'm glad to hear the organizational scheme that's that's been adopted. We need to look at making sure we rebalance the skills not only so that there's more rental housing and only to point, but so that there's more access to transit choice in Alameda. If our transportation is working on transit transportation choices, this is a major sea change. They are finally paying attention to what's been going on in the Bay Area for three decades. So we need to not be stuck in 1960s or 1950s thinking when we're talking about transportation problems and worry about how many cars are going to go through the tube with rush hour. We need to look at how we're going to move people and make rational choices based on how you move the maximum number of people. Given currently available technology it means you put more AC transit number 51 a busses on the road and it's very easy to do. We just have to build more housing that has higher density in more concentrated places like we're doing in the North Waterfront, like we're doing on measure a at site a rather so that we can justify sustainable, convenient service that takes care of the problem. That's all we have to do. Thank you very much. You. He was our only speaker on the item. So my comments go to a. And I'm assuming the council members are done. My cases go to the notice on the for the February 25th meeting. I don't know if other council members are interested in attending that. I would like to attend and I don't know if we need to give notice to include city council members so that we could all attend if we wanted, if that's possible. We can post that. So I'd appreciate that. And then that was my only turn on that. And we're all welcome to attend. Thank you very much. Next item six E and that was for information only. Right. Next item six. Adoption resolution declaring the city's intention to revise the sewer service charge and establish procedures for accepting protests pursuant to Article x i d of Section six a of the California Constitution regarding property related fees and charges. Good evening, Madam Mayor.