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Mayor Hosterman said we keep talking about the 50% increase in cut-through if the extension were built tomorrow, and she asked what the 50% was representative of or of what volume. Mr. Tassano said the roadway capacity is 1,800 and it matters a little bit on where they can go. If we extend it and they cannot go anywhere but the freeway and they are metered at 600, then you are at 600, or 50% of 600, or up to an additional 300 cars. Councilmember McGovern confirmed that the 50% cut-through seen on Stoneridge was a run from the Triangle Study, and she asked if that run was based on the 1996 General Plan. She said in the 1996 General Plan, they had Highway 84 as 6 divided lanes, so she felt this was run with 6 divided lanes on Highway 84. Ms. Sterner said the decision at the time was the land use would be the 1996 General Plan but the Triangle Committee decided what network improvements they wanted to have regionally and they decided, since they were trying to determine what they could do with Highway 84 as an option for a regional improvement, this was not included as a given but as an alternative that was run, so it was run with 2 lanes up to Pigeon Pass. For the EIR, they must use the 1996 General Plan both land use and network alternatives, so West Las Positas will be included as well as the General Plan improvements elsewhere. Councilmember McGovern said when you look at the tests done for 2030 and you look at Highway 84, it shows on page 7 that an HOV on north 680 from Milpitas to SR 84 was included in that run, and we had always talked about the fact that if you actually stopped that HOV lane at SR 84, you will produce a huge amount of traffic at that spot and then having it be dispersed, which would mean to her that you would probably increase the cut-through traffic through Pleasanton if that HOV lane ends there. She asked if this was part of the run, and Ms. Sterner said she wanted to clarify that they do not allow the volumes in the peak hour to go over- capacity. So there is a constraint. When we talk about gateway constraints, this is one of the issues we are talking about. I-680 can only handle a certain amount of traffic coming up, so if we say that the HOV lane is dropped and we have 3 lanes northbound, we can only carry enough traffic up into Pleasanton into the peak hour. So it will queue on I-680 South and you will have a demand that wants to go through Pleasanton or up and around, but it will have to do it outside of that peak hour. There are only so many trips that can get there in the peak hour. Councilmember McGovern suggest then to increase the queue that is on the freeway because the cars have no where to go, and Ms. Sterner agreed, or said they just spread to the shoulder. Councilmember McGovern said even though you say that so many cars are going through, the delay that is occurring can be much greater than what is anticipated as far as cut-through. Mr. Tassano agreed and said you start to see longer peak hours. She felt the city would still have problems created by that; problems on city streets when you are ramp metering and only 600 vehicles can get on, and some of that traffic must stay in Pleasanton and have to keep queuing back. The same thing happens on SR 84; when they drop there, they will just queue back on I- 680. She believes these were things we do not talk about and feels they are really important because they do add to pollution. Commissioner Olson asked Mr. Tassano to provide a concise description of how cut-through assumptions are arrived at. Ms. Sterner said there are land use assumptions in the model for general plan build-out for Pleasanton, Livermore and Dublin. Additionally, there are assumptions that have been worked with using MTC data as well as San Joaquin Valley information about travel patterns to and from the Altamont Pass. They have the Altamont Pass Survey that provides information about who is out there, and then there is growth out in those areas also. There is only a certain amount of traffic that can come into the Triangle area from the Altamont Workshop Minutes 8 April 24, 2007