CCMIN050107 - Laserfiche WebLink

high capacity, efficient parallel freeway route and terminating the existing street, Los Positas Boulevard, along a residential neighborhood that was in the 1984 General Plan. When the specific plan was later completed 4 years later, rather than zone the area along the new parallel freeway commercial office, it was thought that this would compete with the planned Hacienda Business Park. Therefore, most of the area was not re-zoned from agricultural to commercial office, but residential. As you know, MTC, in its latest state of the system report, has two segments of I-580 ranked just below the most congested section of the Bay Area freeway transportation system. I-580 eastbound from PM Hopyard to El Charro has 4,320 vehicle hours of delay and I-580 westbound AM North Glen Boulevard to Airway has 5,120 vehicle hours of delay. Combined, this is over 9,000 hours or the equivalent of one year, one month of delay per day. The Hopyard/El Charro segment was ranked number 13 in the year 1998-2000 and now is up to number 3. The Northland Airway segment was ranked 26 in 1998 and now it is number 3. In an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, Steve Creel of the CHP was quoted as saying, The traffic no longer goes away; it just changes directions. Every usable County road is filled with commuters. We have roadways that 5 years ago only handled farmers and a few lost commuters. Now these are bona fide commutes with thousands of vehicles. Even in an economic downturn, the roadways in other parts of the bay area have had some relief but that’s not true of I-580. According to the MTC report, these increases can probably be explained by the substantial number of households that have moved to the eastern fringes and beyond in search of affordable housing in recent years. Even during a slowing economy, large numbers of workers still throng highways in Alameda and Contra Costa counties in route to jobs in San Francisco, the peninsula and Silicon Valley. In 2002, the City of Livermore adopted the North Livermore Urban Growth Boundary Initiative that basically said north of I-580 there will not be arterial routes built. When this was discussed, this was in the 2002 minutes of the Livermore Plan and brought to their attention. When 1985 happened, the City Council never could anticipate the congestion along the I-580 corridor.” She asked the City Council to delete the Stoneridge Drive extension from the current General Plan Working Circulation Network. James Scanlin thinks what is needed is an addendum to the model that includes other definitions of cut-through traffic to provide a more complete understanding. He felt the model used an extremely limited definition, wanted to discuss our Community of Character and felt this was not an “us versus them” issue. He said we are all affected by traffic and affected by the Valley and Santa Rita intersection. He quoted from the Mayor of West Palm Beach, Florida who was able to revitalize the community by prioritizing pedestrian and bicycle traffic rather than automobile traffic. Benefits included reduced speeding, reduced prostitution and reduced drug traffic. Urban streets can be safe and friendly if and only if the streets are designed to physically and emotionally foster active behavior of all users. Conventional engineering theories be damned; the true test of success for urban streets is if a child pedestrian can independently get from there to here safely and pleasantly. He felt everyone could support the Mayor’s sentiment, felt extending Stoneridge Drive perpetuates the dominance of automobile traffic over pedestrians and will make the community less livable, asked the Council to help protect the community and remove Stoneridge Drive extension from the General Plan. Brian Arkin, addressed the City Council, displayed a slide, said there is only one section of the traffic report that has the raw data and what is seen, in the AM, it is far better to not have Stoneridge extension in. In the PM, it is 41% versus 58%. He felt if Stoneridge extension is built, 85 intersections get harmed or stay the same and 55 PM intersections as far out as Foothill Drive, and he did not believe it was beneficial to the whole City Council Minutes 13 May 1, 2007