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Mr. McKrank said there was a traffic count. Mr. Brown asked about the flyover and thought it would be more efficient if the flyover would have its own lane rather than try and merge into the traffic that is going 60 miles per hour. Mr. McKrank said the traffic does have its own lane. Carl Pretzel said the numbers are pretty close. He said it should be easy to identify if the meters work because if they do not work the traffic will back up immediately in the West Las Positas intersection and Santa Rita. He said if traffic starts to back up on the city streets, more cars would be let onto the freeway by the meters and the analysis shows that turning the meters on reduces the backup. So if the meters are turned off it would create an opposite dynamic effect than what Caltrans predicted. Mr. McKrank said the easiest way to shorten the queue on the ramp is to tighten down the meter letting fewer cars on the freeway. People will only accept a certain amount of delay at the meter. But if it is determined only a certain number of cars can be allowed on so the freeway traffic will not be interrupted, then the delay may or may not be longer. A balance has to be worked out. He said each ramp is looked at individually. When the meters are first turned on, there are people watching each of the ramps so adjustments can be made. Mayor Tarver appreciated Mr. McKrank's presentation and said it would be referred to the priority workshop and then give staff direction as to how Council would like this moved along. An unidentified speaker, said Santa Rita is the bottleneck not the flyover com~ector. The flyover has room but not Santa Rita. In five years when the connector is completed, the demand on northbound and southbound 1-680 will increase from 1500 to 2500 trying to go on 1-580 eastbound. So this will create a bottleneck. He said Pleasanton is in the middle of all the improvements on 1-680/I-580 and Hwy 84 and there is bound to be delays. He said a traffic count done at 3:30 p.m. at Santa Rita showed approximately 8000 vehicles going through but when the Santa Rita got crowded it dropped to 7400. The merging traffic slows done the traffic. But when the meters are turned on and vehicles are allowed on one by one it shows an increase in capacity. He said if all the ramps are metered it creates a balance and this improves the flow on the freeway and the meters can be adjusted to the demand rate. Mayor Tarver said there needed to be more information. He said if 1-680 is not metered that will platoon an unbelievable amount of traffic which will only allow one vehicle at a time to enter the freeway at other intersections. The previous speaker said 1-680 would be metered in the second phase sometime in 2010. Pleasanton City Council 19 05/21/98