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BPC 10-20-20211 Bicycle Pedestrian Commission Regular Meeting October 20, 2021 FINAL MINUTES MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE BICYCLE PEDESTRIAN COMMISSION October 20, 2021 Final Minutes The meeting was called to order at 7:01 p.m. ROLL CALL: Present: Jack Carter, Maanya Condamoor, Gerhard Eschelbeck (Chair), Ilango Ganga (Vice Chair), Erik Lindskog Staff: David Stillman, Staff Liaison Others Present: Lillian Tsang, Principal Transportation Engineer, City of Sunnyvale Vision Zero Program; Jesse Mintz-Roth, Vision Zero Program Coordinator, City of San Jose; Lily Lim-Tsao, Deputy Director, City of San Jose APPROVAL OF MINUTES 1. September 15, 2021 Minutes Commissioner Carter motioned to approve the minutes as presented, Commissioner Condamoor seconded the motion. Motion passed 4-0, Ganga Absent POSTPONEMENTS None. ORAL COMMUNICATIONS Lisa Warren, public speaker commented on a discussion at a previous Council meeting regarding setbacks between the building line to the curb line and how this relates to new bike lanes that were constructed. She suggested the new bike lanes be monitored to see if they are being used as hoped. David Stillman, Transportation Manager remarked that there was a pilot program along De Anza Boulevard with cameras that would perform bicycle, pedestrian and vehicle counts; this provided data on the usage of the bike lanes. Vice Chair Ganga joined the meeting at 7:08 p.m. WRITTEN COMMUNICATIONS 2 Bicycle Pedestrian Commission Regular Meeting October 20, 2021 None. OLD BUSINESS 2. Future Agenda Items Carmen Road Bridge Public places for bike racks Education on how to use two-stage left turn boxes Path between Lincoln Elementary and Monta Vista High School Touchless pedestrian push buttons The impact of semi-rural designation on bike and ped projects/priorities Adaptive traffic signal pilot update Multi-modal traffic count pilot update Junipero Serra Trail Reassess the Intersection at Bubb Rd/McClellan Rd Stevens Creek Boulevard, Phases 1-3 Bicyclists legally allowed behavior at stop signs Vision Zero 2022/2023 Workplan discussion 3. City of Sunnyvale Vision Zero Program (Tsang) Lillian Tsang, Principal Transportation Engineer, City of Sunnyvale Vision Zero Program gave a presentation on the City of Sunnyvale Vision Zero Program. She discussed the background of the Program and explained some of the lessons learned in its implementation. Chair Eschelbeck asked how the City of Sunnyvale began their engagement model. Ms. Tsang said they hired a consultant and looked at various development phases. The first phase was “project initiation and existing conditions assessment.” During that first phase, the consultant looked at various types of collision conditions and what the existing situation was. After that initial phase, they developed a “priority project development phase,” which meant identifying where the major collisions were, based on data. They tried to understand where the fatalities took place. They had a public workshop and a stakeholder meeting to gather more information and understand where the issues might be; they looked at trends. Next, they worked on the “Implementation Strategy Phase,” which meant looking at collision profiles. They then presented this information to the public and to their commission, to gather feedback. They provided walking tours at three of the sites identified as needing improvements and gathered further recommendations. They also provided an on-line survey where they asked questions to the community and tried to understand their concern. 3 Bicycle Pedestrian Commission Regular Meeting October 20, 2021 Commissioner Carter asked if there was significant pushback from the community. Ms. Tsang did not recall any pushback but said a challenge was bringing this idea to the different entities. She explained that at first, it was an education effort because staff had to explain why the city was asking for certain improvements from developers. Commissioner Carter asked if any projects with Vision Zero implementations were finished. Ms. Tsang said there was a project happening now, which would be complete sometime next year. Vice Chair Ganga asked if Sunnyvale’s Action Plan was separate from the Vision Zero Plan. Ms. Tsang said they identified the Vision Statement, what the goals were, but they did not identify additional policy statements. The main goal identified was to achieve a 50% reduction by 2029 and to continue to work toward zero in the years that followed. Their plan itself included information related to different collision profiles and what types of measures worked well with each individual collision profile. In their report, they included a long list of actions they could implement. They had difficulty pinpointing what to focus on first. Vice Chair Ganga asked if there were ongoing data collection reports and if there was a task force to assess progress in the Action Plan. Ms. Tsang said there was no task force. Sunnyvale did not have the funding for a designated person to focus on just Vision Zero. Their staff tried to prioritize projects to figure out the easiest way to implement actions. The second piece was education, to influence people’s behavior. In terms of data collection, they will do collision analysis every two years to understand what types of injuries there were, in comparison with the past. Success criteria was based on collision data. Commissioner Lindskog inquired why vehicles were left out of the ‘Implementable Actions’ in the Sunnyvale presentation. Ms. Tsang replied that some of the operations focused on pedestrians and bicyclists and others focused on drivers. Commissioner Lindskog replied that almost all collisions involved cars. He also questioned the training Sunnyvale listed because he noticed it was for pedestrians and bicyclists, but not drivers. Ms. Tsang relayed that vulnerable road users were typically children and the elderly. Commissioner Lindskog thought the focus should be on the driver, not the victim. Chair Eschelbeck asked about a series of improvements Sunnyvale made and if they looked at the changes as small. He wanted to know how Sunnyvale incorporated those, how that drove some of the bigger projects out of the Vision Zero Program. Ms. Tsang replied that their Vision Zero Program identified locations that consisted of a corridor 4 Bicycle Pedestrian Commission Regular Meeting October 20, 2021 where they could make improvements. There were 10 locations identified and they were currently working on two of them; both were in the design phase. David Stillman, Transportation Manager declared that Cupertino was developing a Local Roadway Safety Plan (LRSP), and he understood Sunnyvale had one. He wanted to know the similarities in Sunnyvale’s Vision Zero Program and their LRSP. Ms. Tsang said they selected locations by looking at where there were serious injuries or fatalities. Then they focused on what would make things safer. The LRSP had a slightly different focus, and they were looking to get grants for those projects, which had different requirements. Sunnyvale looked at how much of a benefit the improvements were, versus the cost, as they might not be able to implement certain projects associated with the LRSP because the cost might be too high. Also, regarding the LRSP, they tried to identify systematic improvements that could be implemented to similar roadways. Vice Chair Ganga asked if there were specific funding sources for Sunnyvale’s Vision Zero Program. Ms. Tsang said no but they tried to find grant opportunities. Vice Chair Ganga asked if significant funding was needed to develop the Vision Zero Plan. Ms. Tsang said yes, there was a lot of coordination between the departments as well. 4. City of San Jose Vision Zero Program (Mintz-Roth) Jesse Mintz-Roth, Vision Zero Program Coordinator, City of San Jose gave a presentation regarding creating a Vision Zero Action Plan. Commissioner Carter asked about the ‘areas of concern’ and if that was because more people were walking. He also wondered how San Jose determined why things happened in certain areas. Mr. Mintz-Roth said the areas of concern were discovered by tracking police reports where fatal and severe accidents occurred. They used that data to create the Vision Zero Action Plan and focused on those areas. Commissioner Carter concluded from the presentations that there was going to be a two-year implementation process for the City of Cupertino. Lily Lim-Tsao, Deputy Director, City of San Jose said that depended on how much data Cupertino had; this was the basis for building a plan. Chair Eschelbeck recognized San Jose did a thorough job on data collection and thought it was good that they did future planning on infrastructure, which was based on their data analysis. He commented on the Vision Zero Program satisfying the funding needs, but he wanted to hear more. Mr. Mintz-Roth said there were many grants available for street redesign work but the one that was closest to Vision Zero was called Highway 5 Bicycle Pedestrian Commission Regular Meeting October 20, 2021 Safety Improvement Program (HSIP.) In order to apply for grants through HSIP, it is required for municipalities to have an Local Roadway Safety Plan (LRSP.) There was more philosophy to a Vision Zero Plan than there was to an LRSP. Chair Eschelbeck asked if the LRSP was implemented by agencies in the area. David Stillman, Transportation Manager responded that Cupertino was initiating a process to develop an LRSP. Cupertino has a $72,000 grant for development. Chair Eschelbeck wondered if that was in alignment with the Vision Zero Program. Mr. Stillman referred to the discussion with Sunnyvale regarding the difference between Vision Zero and the LRSP. Cupertino does not have a budget right now for hiring a consultant for the development of the Vision Zero Plan. Cupertino was looking at a paired down version of the plan, spearheaded by the Bicycle Pedestrian Commission (Commission) and staff. It was possible to use some of the data from the LRSP toward the Vision Zero Plan. Chair Eschelbeck was doubtful that Cupertino was going to be successful in the Vision Zero Plan without any funding. Vice Chair Ganga agreed. Vice Chair Ganga recalled that San Jose had three Vision Zero Action Plans; he wondered if San Jose began with a Vision Zero Policy and then worked on the Vision Zero Action Plan. Ms. Lim-Tsao said 2015 was when large municipalities signed on to the philosophy that all fatalities could be avoided. The beginnings of the discussions related to bringing more safety to the city, including strategic plans. By 2017, San Jose had an extensive list of improvements that could be constructed to make things safer. They did not focus just on infrastructure improvement, but on the multi-disciplinary task force, which helped brainstorm the process. They then committed to a meaningful plan and delivering on that plan. Vice Chair Ganga thought it was good to take San Jose’s 2020 Plan as a model. Ms. Lim-Tsao said yes. Vice Chair Ganga remarked that it looked like San Jose was collecting data continuously. He wondered if they were using consultants to collect the data. Ms. Lim- Tsao said San Jose developed their own manual process where they took police reports and manually entered that information in their own data collection program; they used that to apply a predictive model. San Jose did not have automatic data transfer from their traffic systems. Vice Chair Ganga asked what San Jose’s success rate was because it looked like their collisions were increasing. Mr. Mintz-Roth answered that capital programs took a long time to implement, including the ability to gather enough data. Commissioner Carter commented that the data for the last two years was not normal data because of the pandemic. The roads were being used, temporarily, differently than 6 Bicycle Pedestrian Commission Regular Meeting October 20, 2021 they were before the pandemic. Mr. Mintz-Roth agreed and said they like to use multiple data years, typically five years. Vice Chair Ganga wanted to hear more about the educational programs. He was interested in two facets: 1) enforcement and public safety; and 2) education, going to schools to help the children to learn about road safety. Mr. Mintz-Roth said San Jose has a Walk and Roll Program, which includes about 52 schools. The biggest project they were starting was the Strategic Communications Contract. This had to do with educating people about issues such as speeding. The other types of education they did were safety walk audits, which were formally done in-person but were now done on Zoom. Regarding working with law enforcement, they did not work too much in engagement, only a little. Chair Eschelbeck said tonight’s information was good and Vision Zero will be a continuous topic on the agenda. NEW BUSINESS STAFF AND COMMISSION REPORTS 5. Staff Update and Commissioner Activity Report (All) David Stillman, Transportation Manager relayed that the 2021 Bike Fest was last month. He thanked everyone and said it was the biggest one yet. He was continuing the pilot on Traffic Adaptive and Multi-Modal Data Collection Count; they were in a data collection mode right now. Staff was on phase two of the Stevens Creek Boulevard Class IV Bikeway Project. Staff has passed the 35% percent level design of the De Anza & McClellan Road upgrade, and they were at 35% for the eastern segment of the Junipero Serra Trail Project. Staff was also moving forward on the Carmon Road Bridge Project. Vice Chair Ganga wanted to know more about the Multi-model Traffic Counts. Mr. Stillman said the software for the Multi-Model Traffic Counts was very similar software as the Traffic Adaptive software and two projects were interrelated. The City of Cupertino received an award on the McClellan Road Separated Bike Lane Phase II Project from the American Public Works Association. Commissioner Lindskog updated the commission on the Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) Bicycle Pedestrian Advisory Committee (BPAC). 7 Bicycle Pedestrian Commission Regular Meeting October 20, 2021 Commissioner Condamoor attended the Safe Routes to School (SR2S) and Mayor’s Meeting. Commissioner Carter will attend the SR2S and Mayor’s meeting for November 2021. ADJOURNMENT Meeting adjourned at 9:06 p.m. SUBMITTED BY: ____________________________ David Stillman, Staff Liaison Note: Any attachments can be found on the Cupertino Website https://www.cupertino.org/our-city/agendas-minutes