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What new policies and programs would you add to the Transportation Element to incorporate the concept of sustainability?
What new policies and programs would you add to the Transportation Element to incorporate the concept of sustainability?
Share your ideas on sustainability.
How do you consider the question of regional opportunities and solutions be part of an updated Transportation Element? Would you consider regional cooperation important?
How do you consider the question of regional opportunities and solutions be part of an updated Transportation Element? Would you consider regional cooperation important?
Share your ideas on public transit.
Do you find that traffic calming is an effective way to slow traffic in your neighborhood?
Do you find that traffic calming is an effective way to slow traffic in your neighborhood?
Share your ideas on traffic calming and neighborhood impacts.
Given Palo Alto’s aging population, what are the most important improvements the City could make to ensure that seniors are able to get around safety?
Given Palo Alto’s aging population, what are the most important improvements the City could make to ensure that seniors are able to get around safety?
Share your ideas on mobility for people with special needs.
What are your thoughts on addressing parking in the University Avenue/Downtown and California Avenue business districts?
What are your thoughts on addressing parking in the University Avenue/Downtown and California Avenue business districts?
Share your ideas on parking facilities.
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Select one of the goals below to read an annotated version of the existing Transportation Element and provide your ideas and comments.
ABOUT THE TRANSPORTATION ELEMENT
The Transportation Element fulfills State requirements for a “Circulation” Element. The State requires this Element to address transport of people and goods and related infrastructure such as streets and highways, truck and transit routes, bus and rail stations, bicycle and pedestrian facilities, and airports. Its policies take into account the physical, social, and economic effects of circulation, as well as regional impacts and coordination needs.
A significant focus of the Transportation Element is congestion, which contributes to air, water, and noise pollution, and to frustration for drivers, bicyclists, and other travelers. Increases in roadway capacity are not anticipated in Palo Alto, so the Transportation Element addresses congestion with policies aimed at reducing automobile dependency, increasing travel alternatives, and encouraging fewer trips. The Transportation Element encourages a land use pattern that supports reduced dependence on cars and guides City decision-makers to take into account the environmental and social costs of increased traffic when considering future projects.
Click here to view the current Transportation Element.
Click here to view the Planning and Transportation Commission’s recommended changes.
Click here to view the existing Transportation and Traffic conditions report.
What follows is a digital, annotated version of the existing Transportation Element with questions and annotations intended to highlight potential changes that the Citizens Advisory Committee will consider.
How would you incorporate current thinking on GHG reduction strategies into the Transportation Element? What new policies and programs would you add to the Transportation Element to incorporate the concept of sustainability?
POTENTIAL NEW GOAL ON SUSTAINABILITY
REDUCING AUTO USE
GOAL T-1 Less Reliance on Single-Occupant Vehicles
This goal focuses on land use decisions that encourage multi-modal transit options and the true economic cost of local transportation decisions.
With a changing population, what other forms of transport should be included for discussion?
POLICY T-1: Make land use decisions that encourage walking, bicycling, and public transit use.
PROGRAM T-1: Encourage infill, redevelopment, and reuse of vacant or underutilized parcels employing minimum density requirements that are appropriate to support transit, bicycling, and walking.
PROGRAM T-2: Promote mixed use development to provide housing and commercial services near employment centers, thereby reducing the necessity of driving.
PROGRAM T-3: Locate higher density development along transit corridors and near multimodal transit stations.
How can we expand what should be considered as part of our overall transportation decision making? What programs would you include?
POLICY T-2: Consider economic, environmental, and social cost issues in local transportation decisions.
PROGRAM T-4: Consider the use of additional parking fees and tax revenues to fund alternative transportation projects.
POLICY T-3: Support the development and expansion of comprehensive, effective programs to reduce auto use at both local and regional levels.
PROGRAM T-5: Work with private interests, such as the Chamber of Commerce and major institutions, to develop and coordinate trip reduction strategies.
PROGRAM T-6: Expand Palo Alto’s carpooling incentive programs.
PROGRAM T-7: Encourage the Palo Alto Unified School District to use parking fees, regulations, and education to discourage students from driving to school.
PROGRAM T-8: Create a long-term education program to change the travel habits of residents, visitors and workers by informing them about transportation alternatives, incentives and impacts. Work with the Palo Alto Unified School District and with private interests, such as the Chamber of Commerce, to develop and implement this program.
PROGRAM T-9: Support the development of regional on-line transportation services to provide current information on transit, parking, and roadway conditions, as well as computerized trip planning. Provide information kiosks at locations such as University and California Avenues.
PROGRAM T-10: Expand the range of City services that can be received via computers or through the mail.
PROGRAM T-11: Promote private delivery services to reduce the necessity of driving.
PROGRAM T-12: Encourage telecommuting, satellite office concepts, and work-at-home options.
Do you have other ideas/comments about reducing auto use?
PUBLIC TRANSIT
GOAL T-2: A Convenient, Efficient, Public Transit System that Provides a Viable Alternative to Driving
This goal focuses on improving multi-modal transit stations, accessing regional destinations, promoting shuttle services to employment areas, supporting the development of a fast rail system, and integrating public school commuting into the public transit system.
Should the City add a policy with specific requirements that proposed development demonstrate that adequate public transit is available and that the design of the project supports transit?
POLICY T-4: Provide local transit in Palo Alto.
PROGRAM T-13: Establish a jitney bus system similar to Stanford University’s Marguerite Shuttle.
How would you define success in a multi-modal station?
POLICY T-5: Support continued development and improvement of the University Avenue and California Avenue Multi-modal Transit Stations, and the San Antonio Road Station as important transportation nodes for the City.
PROGRAM T-14: Pursue development of the University Avenue Multi-modal Transit Station conceptual plan based on the 1993-1994 design study.
PROGRAM T-15: Improve the environment at the University Avenue Multi-modal Transit Station, including connecting tunnels, through short-term improvements and regular maintenance.
How do you consider the question of regional opportunities and solutions be part of an updated Transportation Element? Would you consider regional cooperation important?
As the region has changed, pressure for transportation between cities and counties has grown.
POLICY T-6: Improve public transit access to regional destinations, including those within Palo Alto.
What are your thoughts on rail (in this case, Caltrain) in Palo Alto? Do you have additional suggestions on improving Caltrain services?
Since the last Transportation Element was adopted, there has been a significant expansion of rail as a way to move people around the Bay and thru and to Palo Alto. The “Next Generation Caltrain” idea focuses on improving Caltrain through electrification, improved train car design for expanded capacity and faster loading/unloading methods.
POLICY T-7: Support plans for a quiet, fast rail system that encircles the Bay, and for intra-county and transbay transit systems that link Palo Alto to the rest of Santa Clara County and adjoining counties.
PROGRAM T-16: Evaluate the extension of a light rail line from Mountain View through Palo Alto to Menlo Park.
PROGRAM T-17: Support Caltrain electrification and its extension to downtown San Francisco.
What role should employers play in transportation?
POLICY T-8: Encourage employers to develop shuttle services connecting employment areas with the multi-modal transit stations and business districts.
Given the significant changes since the adoption of the existing Transportation Element in 1998, what is the role the local transit system should be playing in public school commuting? How can that role be defined when thinking about the various ways people move around today in Palo Alto?
POLICY T-9: Work towards integrating public school commuting into the local transit system.
POLICY T-10: Encourage amenities such as seating, lighting, and signage at bus stops to increase rider comfort and safety.
POLICY T-11: Support efforts to integrate train, bus, and shuttle schedules at multi-modal transit stations to make public transit use more time-efficient.
What are your thoughts on continuing to include specific time goals to decrease wait times in the Transportation Element? Are there better ways to address this problem?
POLICY T-12: Support efforts to decrease wait times for intercity transit to a maximum of 20 minutes between 6:00 AM and 10:00 PM. Design for a maximum wait time of 12 minutes for intra-city transit, if feasible.
How can technology and ride sharing services be part of the solution to traffic and movement of people in Palo Alto?
POLICY T-13: Encourage a responsive private sector taxi service.
Do you have other ideas/comments about public transit?
BICYCLING AND WALKING
GOAL T-3: Facilities, Services, and Programs that Encourage and Promote Walking and Bicycling
This goal focuses on improvements to pedestrian and bicycle paths to provide access to local destinations, create continuous paths, and promote the implementation a county wide bicycle system.
After reviewing the Bike and Ped Plan's com plan summary, what do you see as priorities for an updated com plan? Would you want to see bicycle transportation prioritized over other modes in the new Transportation Element? If so, how?
POLICY T-14: Improve pedestrian and bicycle access to and between local destinations, including public facilities, schools, parks, open space, employment districts, shopping centers, and multi-modal transit stations.
PROGRAM T-18: Develop and periodically update a comprehensive bicycle plan.
PROGRAM T-19: Develop, periodically update, and implement a, bicycle facilities improvement program and a pedestrian facilities improvement program that identify and prioritize critical pedestrian and bicycle links to parks, schools, retail centers, and civic facilities.
PROGRAM T-20: Periodically produce a local area bicycle route map jointly with adjacent jurisdictions.
PROGRAM T-21: Study projects to depress bikeways and pedestrian walkways under Alma Street and the Caltrain tracks and implement if feasible.
PROGRAM T-22: Implement a network of bicycle boulevards, including extension of the southern end of the Bryant Street bicycle boulevard to Mountain View.
PROGRAM T-23: Develop public sidewalks and bicycle facilities in Stanford Research Park and other employment areas.
PROGRAM T-24: Provide adequate outside through-lane widths for shared use by motorists and bicyclists when constructing or modifying roadways, where feasible.
POLICY T-15: Encourage the acquisition of easements for bicycle and pedestrian paths through new private developments.
POLICY T-16: Create connecting paths for pedestrians and bicycles where dead-end streets prevent through circulation in new developments and in existing neighborhoods.
How do we balance improved bike paths with our natural environment?
POLICY T-17: Increase cooperation with surrounding communities and other agencies to establish and maintain off-road bicycle and pedestrian paths and trails utilizing creek, utility, and railroad rights-of-way.
PROGRAM T-25: Evaluate the design of a Bay-to-Foothills path.
PROGRAM T-26: Complete development of the Bay Trail and Ridge Trail in Palo Alto.
POLICY T-18: Support the development of the Santa Clara County Countywide Bicycle System, and other regional bicycle plans.
POLICY T-19: Improve and add attractive, secure bicycle parking at both public and private facilities, including multi-modal transit stations, on transit vehicles, in City parks, in private developments, and at other community destinations.
PROGRAM T-27: Work with Caltrain, Amtrak, and public bus operators to expand bicycle storage on public transit vehicles during both peak and off-peak hours.
POLICY T-20: Improve maintenance of bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure.
PROGRAM T-28: Adjust the street evaluation criteria of the City's Pavement Management Program to ensure that areas of the road used by bicyclists are maintained at the same standards as, or at standards higher than, areas used by motor vehicles.
PROGRAM T-29: Provide regular maintenance of off-road bicycle and pedestrian paths, including sweeping, weed abatement, and pavement maintenance.
PROGRAM T-30: Develop cooperative programs with the City and businesses to keep sidewalks clean in the University Avenue/Downtown and California Avenue business districts, and other centers.
POLICY T-21: Support the use of Downtown alleyways for pedestrian- and bicycle-only use.
PROGRAM T-31: Test the Downtown Urban Design Guide emphasis on the use of alleyways for pedestrian- and bicycle-only use. Allow controlled vehicle access for loading and unloading where no alternatives exist.
Do you have creative ideas for public-private partnerships that could support new and improved bicycle and pedestrian facilities?
POLICY T-22: Improve amenities such as seating, lighting, bicycle parking, street trees, and interpretive stations along bicycle and pedestrian paths and in City parks to encourage walking and cycling and enhance the feeling of safety.
POLICY T-23: Encourage pedestrian-friendly design features such as sidewalks, street trees, on-street parking, public spaces, gardens, outdoor furniture, art, and interesting architectural details.
PROGRAM T-32: Improve pedestrian crossings with bulbouts, small curb radii, street trees near corners, bollards, and landscaping to create protected areas.
Do you have other ideas/comments about bicycling and walking?
ROADWAYS
GOAL T-4: An Efficient Roadway Network for All Users
This goal focuses on roadway maintenance, comprehensive solutions to traffic problems, maintaining appropriate street capacity, regulating truck movements, and designing new roadways that that encourage multi-modal transit options.
POLICY T-24: Maintain a hierarchy of streets that includes freeways, expressways, arterials, residential arterials, collectors, and local streets.
What other factors should be included when considering new roadways or significant modifications to existing ones? Examples might include prioritizing pedestrian/bicycle safety or aesthetics.
POLICY T-25: When constructing or modifying roadways, plan for usage of the roadway space by all users, including motor vehicles, transit vehicles, bicyclists, and pedestrians.
PROGRAM T-33: Develop comprehensive roadway design standards and criteria for all types of roads. Emphasize bicycle and pedestrian safety and usability in these standards.
PROGRAM T-34: Establish procedures for considering the effects of street modifications on emergency vehicle response time.
What is your experience travelling to the Stanford Shopping Center? What thoughts do you have about transportation and parking there?
POLICY T-26: Participate in the design and implementation of comprehensive solutions to traffic problems near Stanford Shopping Center and Stanford Medical Center.
PROGRAM T-35: Consider increased public transit, a shuttle, and other traffic and parking solutions to ensure safe, convenient access to the Stanford Shopping Center/ Medical Center area.
PROGRAM T-36: Extend Sand Hill Road to El Camino Real and construct related improvements consistent with neighborhood and community interests. Do not extend Sand Hill Road to Alma Street.
PROGRAM T-37: Provide safe, convenient pedestrian, bicycle, and shuttle connections between the Stanford Shopping Center and Medical Center areas and future housing along the Sand Hill Road corridor, the University Avenue Multi-modal Transit Station, Downtown Palo Alto, and other primary destinations.
POLICY T-27: Avoid major increases in street capacity unless necessary to remedy severe traffic congestion or critical neighborhood traffic problems. Where capacity is increased, balance the needs of motor vehicles with those of pedestrians and bicyclists.
Is Level of Service (LOS) as a metric useful?
POLICY T-28: Make effective use of the traffic-carrying ability of Palo Alto’s major street network without compromising the needs of pedestrians and bicyclists also using this network.
PROGRAM T-38: Implement computerized traffic management systems to improve traffic flow when feasible.
PROGRAM T-39: Maintain the current program of not adding traffic signals on Alma Street north of Lytton Avenue and south of Channing Avenue to Churchill Avenue; and on Middlefield Road north of Lytton Avenue and south of Channing Avenue to Embarcadero Road.
POLICY T-29: Regulate truck movements in a manner that balances the efficient movement of goods with the residential character of Palo Alto’s arterial street system.
PROGRAM T-40: Evaluate the feasibility of changes to Palo Alto’s through truck routes and weight limits to consider such issues as relationship to neighboring jurisdictions, lower weight limits, increased number of routes, and economic and environmental impacts.
Do you have other ideas/comments about roadways?
NEIGHBORHOOD IMPACTS
GOAL T-5: A Transportation System with Minimal Impacts on Residential Neighborhoods.
This goal focuses on reducing the impacts of through-traffic on residential areas by evaluating traffic flow in commercial areas, providing alternate routes, implementing traffic calming measures, and reducing neighborhood street and intersections widths.
How should the new Transportation Element address cut-through traffic in residential areas?
POLICY T-30: Reduce the impacts of through-traffic on residential areas by designating certain streets as residential arterials.
PROGRAM T-41: The following roadways are designated as residential arterials. Treat these streets with landscaping, medians, and other visual improvements to distinguish them as residential streets, in order to reduce traffic speeds.
PROGRAM T-42: Use landscaping and other improvements to establish clear “gateways” at the points where University Avenue and Embarcadero Road transition from freeways to neighborhoods.
POLICY T-31: Evaluate smoothing and slowing traffic flow in commercial areas by reducing through-traffic lanes and trading the area for improved turning lanes, landscaping, and bicycle lanes.
POLICY T-32: Design and maintain the City street network to provide a variety of alternate routes, so that the traffic loads on any one street are minimized.
POLICY T-33: Keep all neighborhood streets open unless there is a demonstrated safety or overwhelming through-traffic problem and there are no acceptable alternatives, or unless a closure would increase the use of alternative transportation modes.
Do you find that traffic calming is an effective way to slow traffic in your neighborhood?
POLICY T-34: Implement traffic calming measures to slow traffic on local and collector residential streets and prioritize these measures over congestion management. Include traffic circles and other traffic calming devices among these measures.
PROGRAM T-43: Establish a Neighborhood Traffic Calming Program to implement appropriate traffic calming measures. Consider using development fees as a funding source for this program.
PROGRAM T-44: Evaluate changing Homer and Channing Avenues to two-way streets with or without redevelopment of the Palo Alto Medical Foundation campus.
POLICY T-35: Reduce neighborhood street and intersection widths and widen planting strips as appropriate.
POLICY T-36: Make new and replacement curbs vertical where desired by neighborhood residents.
POLICY T-37: Where sidewalks are directly adjacent to curbs and no planting strip exists, explore ways to add planting pockets with street trees to increase shade and reduce the apparent width of wide streets.
POLICY T-38: Continue the current “guard and go” system of having stop signs approximately every other block on local residential streets to discourage through-traffic.
Do you have other ideas/comments about neighborhood impacts?
TRAFFIC SAFETY
GOAL T-6: A High Level of Safety for Motorists, Pedestrians, and Bicyclists on Palo Alto Streets
This goal focuses on improving road safety through city transportation planning, improvement projects, and law enforcement, with a particular emphasis on school travel routes.
POLICY T-39: To the extent allowed by law, continue to make safety the first priority of citywide transportation planning. Prioritize pedestrian, bicycle, and automobile safety over vehicle level-of-service at intersections.
PROGRAM T-45: Provide adult crossing guards at school crossings that meet adopted criteria.
PROGRAM T-46: Encourage extensive educational programs for safe use of bicycles, mopeds, and motorcycles, including the City-sponsored bicycle education programs in the public schools and the bicycle traffic school program for juveniles.
PROGRAM T-47: Utilize engineering, enforcement, and educational tools to improve traffic safety on City roadways.
Are there any additional Safe Routes to School you would like to add based on new residential developments happening in South Palo Alto?
POLICY T-40: Continue to prioritize the safety and comfort of school children in street modification projects that affect school travel routes.
POLICY T-41: Vigorously and consistently enforce speed limits and other traffic laws.
Do you have other ideas/comments about traffic safety?
SPECIAL NEEDS
GOAL T-7: Mobility For People With Special Needs
This goal focuses on compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and paratransit services.
Given Palo Alto’s aging population, what are the most important improvements the City could make to ensure that seniors are able to get around safely?
POLICY T-42: Address the needs of people with disabilities and comply with the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) during the planning and implementation of transportation and parking improvement projects.
POLICY T-43: Provide and/or promote demand-responsive paratransit service.
PROGRAM T-48: Monitor Santa Clara County’s paratransit program to assess its adequacy.
POLICY T-44: Support transit agencies in implementing or continuing reduced fare or no fare voucher systems for selected populations.
Do you have other ideas/comments about mobility for people with special needs?
PARKING
GOAL T-8: Attractive, Convenient Public and Private Parking Facilities
This goal focuses on providing strategies that promote the efficient use of parking near the business districts and Stanford Medical Center while protecting residential areas from parking impacts.
What are your thoughts on how to address parking in these areas? What are your thoughts on parking fees? If fees were implemented (there are no plans to do so at this time), how would you like to see the money used?How does the increase of electric cars change decisions in high parking areas?
POLICY T-45: Provide sufficient parking in the University Avenue/Downtown and California Avenue business districts to address long-range needs.
PROGRAM T-49: Implement a comprehensive program of parking supply and demand management strategies for Downtown Palo Alto.
PROGRAM T-50: Continue working with merchants, the Chamber of Commerce, neighbors, and a parking consultant to explore options for constructing new parking facilities or using existing parking more efficiently.
PROGRAM T-51: Work with merchants to designate dedicated employee parking areas.
Do you have any creative ideas to address commuter parking?
POLICY T-46: Minimize the need for all-day employee parking facilities in the University Avenue/Downtown and California Avenue business districts and encourage short-term customer parking.
POLICY T-47: Protect residential areas from the parking impacts of nearby business districts.
PROGRAM T-52: Evaluate options to ensure maximum use of the City parking structures in the University Avenue/Downtown and California Avenue areas.
PROGRAM T-53: Discourage parking facilities that would intrude into adjacent residential neighborhoods.
POLICY T-48: Encourage parking strategies in the Stanford Medical Center area that maximize the efficient use of parking and, in the long term, consider the possible use of remote parking lots with shuttle bus service.
Do you have other ideas/comments about parking?
REGIONAL LEADERSHIP
GOAL T-9: An Influential Role in Shaping and Implementing Regional Transportation Decisions
This goal focuses on collaborating with interest groups on regulatory changes and participating in initiatives to reduce congestion and manage regional transportation with the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), Caltrans, the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, and the State and federal governments.
What are your thoughts on addressing each of these issues?
In recent years, many proposals and programs have been implemented by regional transportation and planning partners that affect access to and from Palo Alto:
POLICY T-49: Lead and participate in initiatives to manage regional traffic.
POLICY T-50: Collaborate with public interest groups and local, state, and federal governments to study and advocate transportation regulatory changes, such as an increase in the gasoline tax and market pricing efforts.
PROGRAM T-54: Work regionally, and in particular with adjacent communities, to establish a system of parking fees that discourages single occupant vehicle use and encourages other transportation modes.
POLICY T-51: Support the efforts of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) to coordinate transportation planning and services for the Mid-Peninsula and the Bay Area that emphasize alternatives to the automobile. Encourage MTC to base its Regional Transportation Plan (RTP) on compact land use development assumptions.
POLICY T-52: Where appropriate, support the conversion of existing traffic lanes to exclusive bus and high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes on freeways and expressways, including the Dumbarton Bridge.
POLICY T-53: Participate in seeking a regional solution to improved roadway connections between Highway 101 and the Dumbarton Bridge without construction of a southern connection across environmentally sensitive baylands.
POLICY T-54: Support efforts by Caltrans and the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority Congestion Management Program to reduce congestion and improve traffic flow on area freeways.
PROGRAM T-55: Support provision of a new southbound entrance ramp to Highway 101 from San Antonio Road, in conjunction with the closure of the southbound Charleston Road on-ramp at the Rengstorff Avenue interchange in Mountain View.
POLICY T-55: Support the application of emerging freeway information, monitoring, and control systems that provide driver assistance and reduce congestion.
POLICY T-56: Support state and federal legislation to reduce motor vehicle emissions, noise, and fuel consumption.
PROGRAM T-56: Implement as appropriate the “local action list” of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) and work with the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority's Congestion Management Program (CMP) and other jurisdictions to implement those actions that require a multi-jurisdictional effort.
Do you have other ideas/comments about regional leadership?
AIRPORT
GOAL T-10: A Local Airport with Minimal Off-site Impacts
This goal focuses on supporting the continued vitality and effectiveness of the Palo Alto airport.
Now that Palo Alto Airport is managed by the City, how should we address capacity and usage issues? What issues do you wish to share about the airport in general?
POLICY T-57: Support the continued vitality and effectiveness of the Palo Alto Airport without significantly increasing its intensity or intruding into open space areas. The Airport should remain limited to a single runway and two fixed base operators.
PROGRAM T-57: Provide a planting strip and bicycle/pedestrian path adjacent to Embarcadero Road that is consistent with the open space character of the baylands.
PROGRAM T-58: Encourage Santa Clara County to relocate the terminal building away from the Runway 31 clear zone, allowing for construction of a new terminal.