Recommendation to Endorse Next Steps and Projected Costs for Commercial Streets (Parklets) Two Year Extension. (Planning, Building and Transportation 20962740)
Recommendation to address next steps and projected costs for commercial streets, which are parklets for a two year extension. A Q and so I am seeing a city of Alameda zoomed to. Does that indicate or is that you, Madam Kirk? Mr. LEVITT. We're working on promoting the planning, building and transportation director. There you go. Okay. So we will bring up I believe that would be Andrew Thomas and. And. Then Councilmember Harry Spencer. You'll have somebody to ask your questions or make your comments to. I'm ready to make comments, if that's all right. I would like to give the planning, building and transportation director the courtesy of we don't want to make him out of breath by ready to get to the zoom. Theory is like it. It's daytime, wherever. It's apparently sunny at that point. Yeah, it's always sunny in El Reno. All right. So went, hello, we have a mr. Thomas. Do you want to just introduce yourself and your colleague there? Oh, yes. Andrew Thomas, planning building and transportation director. I'm joined tonight by Robert Vance, our city engineer. The item before you tonight is really just a status report on our ongoing effort to manage Parklets and the next steps for the Commercial Streets program. We will be coming to the council at a in the next couple of months with an actual contract for what we described in the staff report. So the actual decision making and voting really will be occurring when you authorize the money for the next step in the project. But we wanted to give you an update on where we are at and the direction we were headed. So that was really the purpose of tonight's report. I think Mr. Ransome myself are here to answer any questions you might have about those next steps. Perfect. Well, Councilmember Harry Spencer pulled this item in some way to turn the floor over to her Councilmember Herr Spencer. Thank you, Mayor. I don't have any questions. I just have comments. So I'm happy to actually thank staff for their comprehensive report of this item. I have thought that we should follow what other jurisdictions, some other jurisdictions are doing in regards to having payrolls for the parklets and not as opposed to decorative concrete barriers that are the reason I want I want to commend staff because they were very forthright in saying that, yes, in fact, the corrals are not only less expensive than the anticipated cost is almost the approximately $200,000 difference at the corrals or less, while also acknowledging that the crews are safer. And so I appreciate that that's my position. So I will not be voting for this. I think it's critical that especially when we can save money, $200,000, that that be made very clear that rather than doing something that is safer and less money, the recommendation of the council's direction has in fact been to do something that provides less safety and at a higher cost. So I will be voting no for this. Thank you. Okay. Kelso, Woodside. Well, I appreciated the staff analysis indicating K rails are safer and and less expensive. So to me, I think I would rather just adopt the K rails as opposed to the, the what the, the, the alternative. So I'll, I'll move adoption of this with the proviso that that we pursue k rails and kiwirail's in place of the the the what's on the table. Okay. And let's hear from what did you want to second that Councilmember Harry Spencer. Okay. Is that decorative, concrete barriers? And then I see Councilmember Enough hands up. Councilmember That's why. I. Know we have our our city engineer on the line. And I believe that the misrepresentation of what the staff report says about safety, I think needs to be clarified. I'll ask it is a leading question. My understanding is that it is the position of the engineers about who are in charge of safety on our streets, that the proposed decorative barriers are actually just as safe at 25 miles an hour and provide the level of safety as necessary and the rails which are designed to tip for freeway medians. In terms of the level of say that many in most cities don't aren't even putting barriers out, let alone decorative ones. And Mr. Vance may be calling you to comment. Thank you, Madam Chair. City Council Members. Yes, it is our position that the these concrete barriers to provide a satisfactory level of safety to protect the the parklets. We haven't done a side by side comparison of the rail versus the the concrete barriers, but my research has shown that they do provide the protection that we're providing that we're asking for. Whether they get it at speeds above 25 miles per hour. I don't have crash data that shows exactly how these two would perform side by side. So I can't make it. I can't. I mean, that was. We haven't done testing to show that. But I mean. But we've determined that these are safe for the conditions that are on the street today. Thank you. Councilor Harris Spencer. And then if I could. Sorry. I guess I was going to say I won't be supporting the motion simply because I believe that almeida's actually even with these decorative concrete, more decorative, nicer looking concrete barriers is going far and above what most cities in our in the Bay Area are doing for Parklets. And also that I think designing our downtown business district so that they look like freeway medians would be a problem. And since we're doing this as a place, a way to kind of increase the placemaking on Park Street in Webster Street and the increase in them being a place where people want to be. I fully support the staff recommendation. Thank you. Thank you, Carlos, from the site. Back to you, Councilmember Hurst. Let's hear from Mr. Thomas. Mr. Thomas. I just from a process perspective, we don't need a motion. We don't need direction at this point. I think what I'm hearing, though, is we have to come back. Our plan is to, first of all, come up with a striping barricade plan. Then we can cost it out. Then we bring it to council to contract out for a single contractor to buy the barricades for us and place them for us and do the necessary striping of the striping on the street. So we plan on coming back. But I think, you know, if you would like what we can do is come back with a contract proposal that prices both options and the council can make that decision at that time. Just one quick point that I think we I hope we emphasize in the staff report, I can't remember a while ago we wrote the staff report visiting with the business community, talking to all the businesses. There was a feeling of the current situation with the water filled barricades and just the appearance made. The entire street, particularly on Park Street, look a little bit like a construction zone. And the Kay Rails, everybody felt the highway corrals will perpetuate that for another two years. So the decorative concrete from a bit from the business's perspective and I think from staff's perspective, we felt like since the goal of this program is to support our business community, help them survive through COVID and out of COVID, this this concern about trying to make Park Street look a little bit more uniform, less of a construction zone for the next two years. So that's why we were recommending the decorative. But at the end, all we can do is we can price them both out, bring them both forward for the final contract. And the council can make the decision at that point whether you want to do the more expensive rails or the or the the less expensive excuse me, less expensive rail versus the more expensive decorative. The other option is you can tell us right now. Don't come back with that other option. And just we just want one option. And you can determine right now what that option might be. And I like the sound of your approach because what we're hearing, Spencer Then I have a thought and then decide and then I have good council rehearsed back there, so I would just like to read from a staff report. That's why I want to commend staff for being forthright about this, the safety issue in the report. And it does say from a safety perspective, staff believes the decorative concrete barriers provide a significant increase in safety and esthetic improvement over the current water filled barriers, which is great, although a K rail is heavier and would provide additional collision protection from staff's perspective, that extra protection is not needed for a street with a 25 mile per hour speed limit. My position is that safety is the most important when we have an accident and we have had accidents here in town. You can go out and you can see the areas where they've been hit. We've been fortunate that we haven't had people being injured. However, not every city or jurisdiction has been so lucky. And so for me, safety is, in fact, the most important. And I appreciate the esthetics and other cities do, too, that do have rules. And what they have done is they painted them. They decorated them to blend in or put planters on one side of them versus the other to try to address that. That city throughout the state and I believe Fremont in Northern California from my research is using the K Rail. So I appreciate being able to share that. And I do like the staff being upfront about the safety issue. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Desai. Thank you. I just want to say overall in I'm incredibly supportive of the program on Park Street and Webster Street. I know, you know, people are concerned about, you know, the reduction of the to two lanes in one direction, two lanes in the other direction to one lane in one direction. But but I really do feel it slows things down and it does make life a lot more enjoyable on the on on either street. And and I will say, you know, I think just more information. I think would be great. You know, I think the mayor, for example, raised, you know, what if. How does it how does the decorative barrier hold up at maybe 30 miles per hour or 35 miles per hour? If we could just get more information, that would be great. So, you know, I could be convinced to support the decorative. So but, you know, I think what the planning director had suggested is just, you know, holding off, bring more back, more information, I think is a thought is I can live with that. So I if we pursue that that direction, I'm more than happy to withdraw my motion. Okay. Well, I would side with you on that. And what I just wanted to add is that cost isn't my primary consideration, it is safety followed by a statics. And the the thing about, you know, noting that this is a street with a 25 mile an hour speed limit. I think we all know that most of our streets have a 25 mile per hour street speed limit, but unfortunately, people exceed the speed limit and sometimes terrible things happen. And we have had on Park Street twice the same Parkland has been hit. And mercifully, one time the most recent was after hours and nobody was there. But the first time people were injured, not seriously. But I so what I would love is to pursue the planning director and with the city engineer's input, obviously suggestion that they just come back with those comparisons and side by side of the cost, the benefit and maybe they really are comparable. And so, you know, here we've got the data to go with one over the other. But I think at this point, I just you know, I think we do have to do our street designs with the understanding in mind that not everybody is a law abiding driver. And we but we just want to protect people. I do like the program. So. So Councilmember, they said, what's your pleasure? I'll withdraw my motion and take up planning director Andrew Thomas's suggestion as to how he will proceed and will look for more information. Just to persist after action. Okay, so good counsel, everybody. Nodding heads, casual remarks. Wait, your. Thoughts? I think it's great. At the end of the day, we can I mean, we could remove cars that would be the safest. I don't see anybody. It's but again, everything can always be safer. The question we need to ask is, does it add and does it provide an adequate, good faith effort for safety? We have people driving up on the side under crosswalks and sidewalks all the time. We're not building concrete barriers at the car, at the at those intersections where people are driving under the sidewalks. So I think, you know, it's our engineers say. The question shouldn't be how can we go even further? The question should be, ah, is it safe enough? And for me, that's the that is the analysis I'll be looking for. Okay. Well, we'll look forward to deciding coming back to us. Thank you so much, Mr. Thomas and Mr. Vance, as always. Okay. Thank you. Okay. And moving down the alphabet, we go next to item five H. Madam Kirk, would you introduce that one for us and why you're introducing it, city manager or whomever? Would you please bring the annex team in on this? These are the CFOs, right? Okay. Go ahead. Or will we? I don't think Mr. Thomas and Mr. Vance, are they. Yeah, we're both bringing the people here. Talk it out. Yeah, we can. Public works director. We can ship everybody away. Yeah. Five Each has adopted a resolution declaring intention to establish the city of Alameda Community Facility, District number 22, dash one Alameda Marina and authorize levy of special taxes there in an adoption of resolution declaring it.