PC 061114 - Laserfiche WebLink

Mike Tassano stated that Black Avenue is a residential collector street and is given that designation because it collects traffic from neighborhood streets and brings them to the arterials, Santa Rita Road and Hopyard Road. He indicated that Black Avenue is one of the City's higher volume residential collector streets with 6,000 -7,000 vehicles per day. He noted that the General Plan identifies the range for collector streets as between 3,000 and 9,000 vehicles, and staff prefers to see it as something more around the 3,000 -4,000 range per daily trips. He continued that because of that volume and some concerns from the residents, especially since there is an elementary school, a middle school, and an aquatic center in the area, the City has initiated a traffic - calming program in 2012 at the residents' request. He noted that there is a very strong resident involvement in that neighborhood; about 50 -60 residents attend traffic meetings, which is equivalent to over half of the residents who live on that roadway, where usually only 10 to 15 percent of residents attend neighborhood meetings. He added that the Black Avenue neighbors are very involved and active, and some of their concerns include volume, speed, and children's safety crossing the roadway, so the traffic - calming plan was developed to help with that. Mr. Tassano stated that there is not much staff can do with respect to volume, as a lot of volume uses that roadway as it provides access to the post office, to Alisal and Walnut Grove Elementary Schools, and to Harvest Park Middle School. He indicated that, therefore, the approach for the traffic - calming program is not to reduce volume but to try and control the speed and make the crossing safer. He added that although a $400,000 estimate was presented for the improvement, the project is going forward with some of the improvements based on the $130,000 proposed to narrow the roadway at intersections or in one location, probably at the Aquatic Center right across the street from this project, to help with the crossing, such that instead of crossing a 36 -foot wide Black Avenue, it would be reduced to20 feet and would take less time to get across. Mr. Tassano continued that Black Avenue is also a test location for a speed lump, an effective tool for slowing traffic. He explained that speed bumps are what the Safeway parking lots have, and speed lumps are 12 -14 feet long and give an undulation, making it a little less comfortable to drive over. He indicated that what the City installs now are speed lumps, which comes from the fact that two little grooves of about eight feet are cut out with a separation so fire trucks can move over and straddle and drive over those without having to slow down. He noted, however, that the Fire Department has some concerns about installing speed lumps on collector roads such as Black Avenue because with a volume of about 6,000 -7,000 vehicles, the likelihood of an oncoming vehicle being there at the same time that the fire truck is going the opposite way is greater, and when there is an oncoming vehicle, the fire engineer will not straddle but will end up going over that lump. He indicated that the Fire Chief was willing to try this on Black Avenue and see if it impacts the Fire Department's response times. Mr. Tassano stated that with respect to traffic - calming, tutoring centers are a little tough to gauge. He noted that what Traffic Engineering staff commonly does is look at the worst hour, which is between 5:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. He indicated that Traffic Engineering staff did a study a few years back on Lil Ivy League, a similar tutoring facility located in Hacienda, to try and gauge if the trip generation numbers of the PLANNING COMMISSION MINUTES, June 11, 2014 Page 4 of 12