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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2022-04-04; Traffic and Mobility Commission; MinutesPage 1 of 9 Public Works Transportation 1635 Faraday Avenue  Carlsbad, CA 92008  442-339-2746 t Council Chambers 1200 Carlsbad Village Drive Carlsbad, CA 92008 April 4, 2022, 4:00 p.m. CALL TO ORDER: 4:01 p.m. ROLL CALL: Linke, Penseyres, Fowler and Newlands Absent: Perez, Coelho and Proulx PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE: Acting Chair Linke led the Pledge of Allegiance. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: None PUBLIC COMMENT: None CONSENT CALENDAR: None DEPARTMENTAL REPORTS: 1.POLICE MONTHLY REPORT – (Staff Contact: Lieutenant Jason Jackowski, Police Department) Staff’s Recommendation: Receive a presentation Lieutenant Jackowski presented the report and reviewed a PowerPoint presentation (on file in the Office of the City Clerk) Commissioner Newlands inquired if the Lieutenant Jackowski has an insight about the collisions rising year after year. Lieutenant Jackowski responded that as people are back out on the road, the increased number of cars might play a role on the increasing number of collisions. Commissioner Penseyres inquired about the results of the DUI checkpoint that was scheduled to take place last month at the north end of the city. Lieutenant Jackowski responded that the DUI checkpoint was cancelled due to insufficient staffing. 2.SANDAG 2021 REGIONAL PLAN – (Staff Contact: Tom Frank, Public Works; Marisa Mangan, and Tuere Fa’aola SANDAG Senior Regional Planner) Staff’s Recommendation: Receive a presentation and provide input Page 2 of 9 Public Works Transportation 1635 Faraday Avenue  Carlsbad, CA 92008  442-339-2746 t Tom Frank and Marisa Mangan presented the report and reviewed a PowerPoint presentation (on file in the Office of the City Clerk) Commissioner Newlands inquired if the hours of operation of the Coaster will be extended? Transportation Director Frank responded that there are plans to increase the service of the Coaster. The hope is that increasing the service would also increase the ridership. Commissioner Fowler commented that the proposed SANDAG Regional Plan is maintaining 50% of the budget through 2050 to be spent on public transportation but the statistics show this does not change the aggregate behavior of commuters, 65% of the population is still riding the freeways. We need to emphasize public transportation over freeway building. The interchange between I-5 to 78 will not be good for the local community. Commissioner Penseyres commented that if we want people to utilize the trains, we need better frequency and longer hours of service. Also, E-bike ridership has increased dramatically, but the issue is how can the riders get to the beach from inland. Can we put pressure on Caltrans about this issue? There is no way for the riders to get to the coast without crossing the I-5 freeway, which is dangerous. Transportation Director Frank recommended that we bring these issues to Caltrans and North Coast Transit District when they join us at a future meeting to present their comprehensive multimodal planning efforts. Acting Chair Linke commented on cars using Carlsbad surface streets such as Jefferson, College Boulevard and El Camino Real as cut through routes when I-5 is congested and how that is hurting the local community with increased traffic, decreased safety for bicyclists and an increase in greenhouse gas emissions. Fixing the I-5 to 78 interchanges could help to fix these issues. He commented that the Environmental Impact Review, or EIR, process is starting this fall which is great but is it necessary for the EIR process to take five years before the project can more forward? We need to improve conditions on our surface streets for other modes of travel soonest and the time frame of five years is not practical. Sustainable Communities Program Manager Fa’aola responded that the EIR process is long and there are a lot of requirements from the State of California. She cannot speak on behalf of CALTRANS and whether they could abbreviate that time frame. Acting Chair Linke asked about the line item in the SANDAG budget that mentions connecting the managed lanes from freeway 78 to I-5. Does that mean some of the lanes will be connected and some will have a stop light? Page 3 of 9 Public Works Transportation 1635 Faraday Avenue  Carlsbad, CA 92008  442-339-2746 t Sustainable Communities Program Manager Fa’aola explained that the interchange will have two improvements, one is for the managed lanes in order to provide the connection from 78 to I-5 managed lanes but then also the general freeway connector which would serve for the general-purpose lanes. It is two separate projects, but CALTRANS could speak to the schedule and how that would encompass both. Acting Chair Linke is concerned about future plans for Palomar Airport Road to convert one travel lane in each direction to a transit priority lane. Palomar Airport Road is very congested, and the road is exempted from the growth management plan because it is failing the level of service minimum standard. If we take three already full lanes and convert one of them to transit, then how will we move 1/3 of those cars to take an alternative mode of transportation or a different route. We need the transit lane to allow the bus to get to its destination faster to convince riders to take the bus. The map also showed a transit lane on El Camino Real. How will this look in Carlsbad? How will transit riders get around Carlsbad using transit on just those two roads? Sustainable Communities Program Manager Fa’aola responded that they recognize that travel in North County is much different than what you might see in San Diego. They believe having flexible fleet’s that are more of an on-demand schedule will be more beneficial in these more spread-out suburban communities. Fixed transit service that travels along one route at fixed times during the day will not be the most advantageous in these areas. SANDAG is looking at how we can deploy more of these flexible fleet services and encourage ride share. When we do have those locations specified for the fixed transit service, we are looking at how we can utilize the existing system that is there to enhance it with the multimodal aspect of adding priority for transit or people who walk or bike. The Regional Plan is a very high level look at how we would propose to put these services forward. Additional studies would have to be done and we would need to look at the alternative analysis. There would be public engagement and outreach involved in that process as well. This process would have to happen for any route within SANDAG’s entire plan. SANDAG’s goal is to give people options that don’t exist today. It won’t be one solution but many coming together that will make an impactful change. Acting Chair Linke inquired about funding. There is controversy around the road user charge or charging people for the number of miles they are driving. This approach makes a lot of sense as long as it is fair to those people who have jobs and need to be driving. The gas tax will be going away as more people buy electric vehicles. The driver should be charged a higher rate based on how much damage their vehicle is doing to the freeway. An example would be a hummer would cause a lot more damage to the freeway than a small sedan. There are three tax increases proposed due to this plan which is concerning. The immediate increase which is coming in November is concerning because it doesn’t appear that we have flushed out exactly how the money is going to be spent. It is also concerning that SANDAG is relying on the Citizens Initiative. What if it fails to get on the ballot or what if it is not promoted well enough? Page 4 of 9 Public Works Transportation 1635 Faraday Avenue  Carlsbad, CA 92008  442-339-2746 t SANDAG cannot be involved in the promotion so if the Citizen group does not properly promote and it fails then what would happen? Sustainable Communities Program Manager Fa’aola responded that it is correct that it will be a citizen-initiated ballot measure and SANDAG is not the sponsor of the measure and can’t be involved. SANDAG’s plans are updated every four years so if we should see the measure for the citizen-initiated ballot fail then they would look at how to change the funding revenue assumptions in their plan and whether or not that would impact any of the projects. The short- term outlook is for 2025 which is typically those that are programed as part of the regional transportation improvement program which has funding sources to move them forward. We would need to identify if there is funding available for those projects slated for the later years in order to move them forward. There is federal funding and the Infrastructure Jobs Act and there is opportunity for some of that funding to come to the San Diego region. 3. AVENIDA ENCINAS COASTAL RAIL TRAIL AND PEDESTRIAN IMPROVEMENTS– (Staff Contact: Hossein Ajideh and Brandon Miles, Public Works) Staff’s Recommendation: Receive a presentation and provide input Engineering Manager Ajideh and Associate Engineer Miles presented the report and reviewed a PowerPoint presentation (on file in the Office of the City Clerk) Commissioner Penseyres supported the staff recommendation for Class II bike lanes. The Class IV bike lanes would work better along the beach in Carlsbad, especially southbound. Commissioner Penseyres inquired if educational opportunities will be provided to drivers with guidelines to yielding and making legal right hand turns as close as possible to the right edge of the road per the California Vehicle Code. He also asked about educational efforts regarding left turn crashes, where drivers can turn left without stopping and without traffic controls. Will Carlsbad put up portable digital signs as is being done along the Coast highway in Encinitas? What about direct mail flyers to the residents? City Traffic Engineer Kim responded that they don’t have any of those things concretely planned, but they are great suggestions. All these suggestions are outside of the scope of work for this project, but staff will consider all these options, especially the portable digital signs. Acting Chair Linke asked staff if they had any input that they wanted to provide on the Class II versus Class IV bike lanes in the specified area along Avenida Encinas between the Poinsettia COASTER station and Carlsbad Boulevard. City Traffic Engineer Kim responded that staff feels that buffered Class II bike lanes are the right choice in this situation due to the number of driveway conflicts on Avenida Encinas. Page 5 of 9 Public Works Transportation 1635 Faraday Avenue  Carlsbad, CA 92008  442-339-2746 t Transportation Director Frank agreed that buffered Class II bike lanes are the preferred option in this situation as there are a lot of intersections/crossings and most of the incidents that happen with bicyclists happen at intersections. Acting Chair Linke brought up a public comment from Mr. Pierce who suggested a protected intersection scheme called a Dutch intersection. Is this possible when you have Class II lanes leading up to the intersection? Transportation Director Frank replied that they did not have the Dutch intersection in the scope of work and that it is a relatively new concept in the country and in California. Staff would need to do thorough public vetting on an improvement of that sort. The Dutch intersection would work better with a Class IV bike facility and may not be appropriate with Class 2 bike lanes. Acting Chair Linke inquired about the Ponto Drive intersection and whether the proposed design would be ready for the planned development of a resort and hotel in the area. City Traffic Engineer Kim responded that the planned project would make the necessary modifications to allow appropriate access at this intersection. Acting Chair Linke stated that a public comment from Mr. Schulte suggesting that we have a pedestrian crosswalk added near the railroad bridge where the Batiquitos Lagoon bluff trail connects with the San Pacifico Community trail. Is this something that could be considered? City Traffic Engineer Kim responded that staff will look at that area. Acting Chair Linke added that Mr. Schulte proposed to have a pedestrian crossing at Dorey Lane. What does staff think of this location? There was also a concern about the elimination of some left turn lanes on Avenida Encinas. City Traffic Engineer Kim responded that they did not think that Avenida Encinas at Dorey Lane was a good fit for an uncontrolled pedestrian crossing. A controlled crossing is out of the budget and therefore staff did not consider putting in a marked crosswalk. City Traffic Engineer Kim further clarified that the proposed design did remove left turn lanes on Avenida Encinas at Dorey Lane and Portage Way. Transportation Director Frank added that where the City of Carlsbad is providing a marked crosswalk, they like to have intersection control of some kind. There are often directional access ramps that addresses the ADA issue at many unmarked intersections and, as per State Law, pedestrians can cross at any intersection. If there is no marked crosswalk, staff finds that pedestrians are more cautious with their decision to cross. Page 6 of 9 Public Works Transportation 1635 Faraday Avenue  Carlsbad, CA 92008  442-339-2746 t Commissioner Newlands as well as Acting Chair Linke recommended adding a crosswalk across from the shopping center at the southern entrance. There are many pedestrians who currently cross at this location and there is no marked crosswalk. City Traffic Engineer Kim pointed out that there was no apparent pedestrian access from the residential area to Avenida Encinas in that area so no marked crosswalk was considered there. Transportation Director Frank commented that for the development on the northeast side of Carlsbad Boulevard and Avenida Encinas where the land use is for a resort, at Ponto Drive there would be intersection control and protected crossings. Motion by Acting Chair Linke, seconded by Commissioner Penseyres to support staff recommendation to provide buffered Class II bike lanes along Avenida Encinas between the Poinsettia COASTER station and Carlsbad Boulevard. Motion carried: 4-0 Acting Chair Linke requested a break at 6:55 p.m. and the meeting resumed at 7:03 p.m. 4. MULTIMODAL LEVEL OF SERVICE UPDATE – (Staff Contact: Nathan Schmidt, Public Works) Staff’s Recommendation: Receive a presentation Transportation Planning and Mobility Manager Schmidt presented the report and reviewed a PowerPoint presentation (on file in the Office of the City Clerk) Commissioner Fowler inquired about the consequences if a developer fails to meet the requirements listed on the presentation. Transportation Planning and Mobility Manager Schmidt said that it goes into the scoring calculation for the project and will vary based on the distance to the transit stop. The last criteria where it states that if an area is governed by an adopted Transportation Demand Management, or TDM, ordinance currently addresses the need for the project to meet these specific criteria however this criteria is being proposed for removal as part of the methodology updates. Acting Chair Linke commented that Carlsbad has had a vehicle level of service for many years but in 2015 the general plan added pedestrian, bicycle and transit level of service. The vehicle level of service is straightforward where you count the cars and look at the capacity of the street. If the population grows or there is a new development that adds residents with cars you can predict that there will be more cars on the road. In contrast, with pedestrian, bicycle and transit level of service it is based on the quality and not the quantity of users. Page 7 of 9 Public Works Transportation 1635 Faraday Avenue  Carlsbad, CA 92008  442-339-2746 t So whatever grade a street gets it is not predicted to change over time unless improvements are being made to the street. He suggested that we make a change to the Citywide Facilities and Improvements Program to bifurcate the monitoring that the city does versus what a developer is expected to do. One of the main goals of the MMLOS system in our growth management plan is to have developers pay their fair share toward the projects. Staff came up with an alternative where they categorize certain criteria as a local mobility analysis only. That applies when the city or a developer does a project but not the annual monitoring. However, when we do the first annual monitoring, how are we going to address the deficiencies? Transportation Planning and Mobility Manager Schmidt said that this is the first time that we will be preparing the results, so we don’t yet know the degree to which our system is failing in regard to the MMLOS. The city will present a method to address the deficiencies once the MMLOS monitoring results are presented to the T&MC. Acting Chair Linke mentioned that some of the suggestions from the ad hoc committee were not included due to the fact that developers could not be compelled to do the projects. The question is which of these criteria can the developers not be conditioned to do? Transportation Planning and Mobility Manager Schmidt replied that for private development projects we are limited to having developers correct deficiencies along the project roadway frontage or those that are created by the project itself. We cannot have them correcting pre- existing deficiencies. The City of Carlsbad intends to use the monitoring process to identify gaps in our network and develop a project list to address those gaps. These identified projects will then be included in our CIP and may also be included as multimodal improvement projects as part of the Traffic Impact Fee update which is currently in process. Transportation Director Tom Frank commented that after we receive the results of the monitoring, when a development does come in, we will look for every opportunity to get the improvements completed. We want to get the improvements conditioned and for the developers to pay their fair share. Acting Chair Linke mentioned that the city’s engineering documents state that all signalized intersections must have a marked crosswalk. He suggested that as part of a new development we compel developers to add a marked crosswalk across the nearest intersection if it is signalized. We would need to cap it at E and not at D. City Traffic Engineer John Kim responded that his concern to this suggestion would be that if a requirement is made for a signalized intersection to have high visibility crosswalks installed that the crosswalks be pre-existing. That is in consideration of some of the legs on certain traffic signals that have pedestrian crossings prohibited. We do have this situation in a number of locations, and we do not want these locations to be changed to allow pedestrian crossing. Page 8 of 9 Public Works Transportation 1635 Faraday Avenue  Carlsbad, CA 92008  442-339-2746 t Acting Chair Linke responded that we should follow the city engineering standards, and that should separate out those legs that should not allow pedestrian crossings. He recommends that we follow the city engineering manual and state that whenever there is a leg that the manual states should have a crosswalk, that should be an essential feature under the LMA category. The developer should have to do a warrant study, and therefore it should be capped at LOS E so they perform this study. Acting Chair Linke asked about the essential criteria for bus stops which are bench, trash can, shelter and lighting. Will all of these amenities be required? This will help promote transit and these stops could be used for ridesharing as well. Transportation Planning and Mobility Manager Schmidt replied that they are hesitant to include shelter as an essential feature as this might be difficult to accomplish at some stop locations with constrained available right-of-way. Commissioner Penseyres commented that he would like to see the test cases and what we end up with for scores and how it all plays out. The city has made a lot of changes regarding the design of bicycle facilities and have done a great job. He is requesting another sub-committee meeting to discuss the scores after they are received. Motion by Commissioner Fowler, seconded by Commissioner Newlands recommending several revisions to the City’s Multimodal Level of Service methodology including additional provisions for high visibility crosswalks, essential transit stop access and amenities, Transportation Demand Management requirements, and additional bicycle lane requirements. They also suggested that staff schedule an ad-hoc committee meeting after the scores/tests are completed to review the results prior to conducting the monitoring analysis. Motion carried: 4-0 CITY TRAFFIC ENGINEER COMMENTS: Transportation Planning and Mobility Manager Schmidt announced that May is bike month, and he challenged everyone to commute by bike. Bike-to-work day is the third Thursday of the month (May 19th), and the city and other businesses will be organizing fun pit stops. There will be additional bike events in May that will be announced soon as well. TRAFFIC AND MOBILITY COMMISSION COMMENTS: Commissioner Newlands introduced himself and stated that he is very happy to be part of the T&MC and is impressed with everything that he has seen so far. Acting Chair Linke and Commissioner Fowler are serving on the Growth Management Citizens Committee. The Growth Management Plan was adopted by voters and the City Council back in 1986 and the MMLOS is part of that. Now that the city has almost reached full buildout of the Page 9 of 9 Public Works Transportation 1635 Faraday Avenue  Carlsbad, CA 92008  442-339-2746 t street system, they are switching the focus. The Growth Management Plan will now have to be changed and updated. ADJOURNMENT: Acting Chair Linke adjourned the Traffic & Mobility Commission Meeting on April 4, 2022, at 7:55 p.m. ___________________________ Eliane Paiva, Minutes Clerk