3A Public Hearing 2010 0517 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Plan~zing Commission Special Meeting Minutes March 25, 2010 Ageiufa No. 10-03 Page 8 of 20 Chair Dlugosh opened the public hearing, explaining that each speaker would have up to three minutes. Kathy Banks, 964 Hutchings Drive, said that she lives in San Leandro off Davis Street. She said she wants the City to reconsider BRT as an expensive boondoggle. We are in the middle of a "recession/depression" with financial proble-ns in California, in AC Transit, and bus service is being cut back. She asked, "How are you going to get people to your wonderful bus lines... getting rid of the 55 on Davis" and other lines leading into San Leandro. She considers BRT a waste of money. She said senior citizens won't be able to get to these bus lines, people with small children and infants and people with disabilities will have difficulty. "If you're going to get people out of their cars, you have to make it better...You're only making it impossible for the general public... This is a big mistake. We can't even fix the potholes and the cracks in the sidewalks." Peggy Combs, 61 Georgia Way, said that she can speak on behalf of everyone who lives on her street when she says, "We all feel like we've been thrown under the bus." She said the staff could not be more mistaken about the impacts of dedicated bus lanes in the north area. She described Georgia Way as a dead-end street with access only from East 14th Street. Sometimes drivers have to wait five minutes for traffic to clear enough to make a right turn; left turns are even more difficult. The only way to make turns is to use the center lane on East 14th Street, which is already used by delivery trucks taking food, liquor, etc., to businesses. To say there would be no impact by having a dedicated lane from the monument at Broadmoor Boulevard down three or four blocks to Georgia Way is "simply ridiculous." She says she is speaking in opposition of any dedicated lane continuing any further into San Leandro than Broadmoor, when it will have such a huge impact on the neighborhood, prevent residents from being able to use East 14`x' Street, increase traffic congestion, severely affect local businesses in serving their customers and receiving deliveries, decrease already limited parking, create more air pollution from additional idling cars and cars taking shortcuts through neighborhoods to avoid congestion, which makes it more dangerous for children and pets. She also noted that San Leandro has 25-30 percent senior citizens, the highest percentage of seniors of all cities in Alameda County, and they won't use BRT unless they drive to Georgia Way to get on the bus. She said she believes the proposal is ill- conceived, unnecessary, detrimental to residents and businesses and environmentally unfriendly. Gary Kruger, 1359 Santa Rosa Street, who noted that he happens to be a traffic engineer, said that he agrees with the staff's position, that BRT would attract more riders, cut down or constrain traffic growth and provide a lot of other benefits that have not been articulated tonight. Among them, the addition of signals will give pedestrians more places to cross East 14th Street, which is daunting for pedestrians with between 18,000 and 25,000 cars traveling the street daily. In addition, even with properly coordinated traffic signals, he said it is not uncommon to see 10-15 cars lined up to go through even when the light is green. The dedicated lanes would reduce that delay for the bus. He says that a succession of a number of things provides the benefits and the additional efficiency over today's priority bus service. Light rail is desirable because it is fixed and people can rely on the availability of transit service and make investments in the corridor. With dedicated lanes, BRT provides some fixed facilities and thus some assurance to people investing in businesses and multi-family housing developments, for example, that they can count on the availability of major transit service. An additional 20,000 riders daily would probably eliminate 100-200 cars per hour in each direction during peak hours, he said, which is fairly substantial. In his experience, Mr. Kruger said, the maximum per-lane flow on East 14th Street can be managed, especially if improved signal systems are part of the package. Al Frates, 2062 Evergreen Avenue, has lived in San Leandro 46 years. He said he has attended just about every BRT meeting over the past three years. He reported that he and .his wife have done traffic counting and observing the priority buses. He says most of the buses carry 8-10