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Commissioner Ritter inquired if the project can be approved pending Caltrans' approval to put in two extra lanes. Mr. Beaudin replied that the City would not like to have an approval that is contingent on another agency's decision; the preference is to take action and make it stand alone. He added that the Draft Supplemental EIR is set up that way for legal reasons. Commissioner Nager noted that traffic is obviously a big item here and inquired how the City would potentially approve a project to move forward, knowing that traffic has a very significant environmental impact without any indication that it can be, in fact, mitigated. He pointed out that this is an ambitious project with a lot of moving parts and inquired how the City would approach this, since one cannot ask for a decision if one does not know if it is implementable. Mr. Beaudin replied that that is the reason the impact is significant and unavoidable. He indicated that there is a technical solution; it is just a third party process the City has to get through to undertake the improvement. Mike Tassano stated that the General Plan right now includes an improvement at that location that is actually two lanes to get onto the northbound direction and three lanes over the top. He explained that what the General Plan states is that only projects that do not drop the level of service below LOS D can be approved, and new projects cannot be considered for approval even if they are zoned for it. He noted, however, that there is a more recent condition that states that at the City's gateway intersections, lower levels of service can be accepted, which is actually an exemption from the LOS D standard; hence, this project can be approved because it is impacting a gateway intersection. He indicated that that is not the normal way the City wants to go about approving projects and dealing with its traffic, but as earlier mentioned by Mr. Weinstein, the City has a good working relationship with Caltrans. He stated that the City has sent Caltrans this project with some of the design alternatives, and staff has already received feedback from them. He noted that Caltrans does have some concerns about having freeway volume, even though it will drop down to a single lane, and Caltrans recognizes that this project does bring more traffic to the area but understands development in general. He indicated that the City has a good leg to stand on, which is the fact that the improvements to this interchange are already in the General Plan, and these are improvements Caltrans has already seen and approved. He reiterated that this would be that type of leverage and working relationship that the City would use. Commissioner Nagler commented that Caltrans' staff level or technical level approval is obviously different than whether the funds exist to actually do the construction, so, again, it speaks to whether or not the intersection improvements or freeway on -ramp improvements would occur. He inquired how the City has a sense of where in the world of transportation funding this project might fall. Mr. Tassano stated that Caltrans does not pay for any local interchange improvements; Caltrans did not pay for the interchanges at Bernal Avenue Foothill Road or Sunol Boulevard. He explained that the City will have to come up with a way, and as Mr. Beaudin has stated earlier, the funding mechanism has not been established with PLANNING COMMISSION MINUTES, September 23, 2015 Page 9 of 19