Bike Subcommittee for the City Transportation Commission
City of Berkeley Wednesday 7/5/06   4:00-6:00 pm
1947 Center Street, 3rd Floor, Dawn Redwood Conference Room
Berkeley, CA 94704
1. Meeting Administration
    Present: Transportation Commission: Dave Campbell,(Chair of Subcommittee)  Marcy Greenhut
    Public: Claire Risley, Hank Resnick, Dave Coolidge, Lena Gomes
    Staff: Heath Maddox,  Peter Ecklund arrives 5:25pm
    Minute Taker: Claire Risley
    Approval of Agenda:Change: Add 3rd bullet point in item 8: APC Bike Parking
    Announcements: Cafe Gratitude will write letters for the TSF; Claire.  
    Marcy reports the Ashby Bart West Parking Lot, (Task Force)
    Dave Campbell asked about the West/South Berkeley Transportation Plan: Transportation Commission Meeting will be 7/20/2006  at the South Berkeley Senior Center (note change of venue from North Berkeley SC to South)

2. Public Comment: None

3. Ashby Adeline intersection:
    Marcy brought the item because she hears about it in Ashby BART Task force meetings, and rides there
    What can be done to change it in the short term and long term?
    Heath: In the breakout groups for the Ped Plan, the South Berkeley Residents were concerned.
    Dave Coolidge has to cross that intersection 2 to 3 times a week. He travels from Berkeley Bowl  to Essex or Emerson down to Oakland.
    Dave Coolidge has noticed that because there was historically a Rail Track in the middle of Addison Street, the Right Turn off Ashby to Adeline, cars turn right at 30 miles and hour "on the cell phone". There is a bike lane on Adeline, but it is hard to get to it. Going North is better.
Dave asks how much bike traffic he sees on Ashby near Adeline, and Dave Coolidge says "Virtually none".
Discussion of ways to get through the Intersection
Marcy notes that the green lite to get across Ashby at Adeline is extremely short.
Heath says that the changes we want (signal change, and striping) will be done in-house. We have a striping Contract in the summer for this area. However,
Heath does not think the engineers will change the signal timing.
Dave asks about a sign: "Right turn only:  yield to bicyclists"  He has seen this in other cities.
Could you start the bike lane right after the intersection, and give the cyclist somewhere to go?
Marcy says there are signs that show markings of where the bikes go, or where the cars go, so we could perhaps install those to direct the bikes.
David Coolidge leaves after this item.

 4. Shared Lane Pavement Marking (Sharrow)
    Heath shares a packet with drawings of Sharrows. This is what he wants to take to Hamid. (City transportation planner)
    The packet includes the legal directive for sharrows,and where they are to be applied. This is only a draft map, says Heath. Locations can be added.
    Hank wants to add the un-marked area between Shattuck and Rose. This is where he bikes a lot.
    Heath figured out what width a street needs to be without getting "doored" is 11 feet and 6 inches.Dave leans toward having no defined sharrow "line"
    Only on on-street parking locations, but on Bay Street where the bike lanes on Shellmound in Emeryville end, there are signs for Aquatic Park, but no bike lanes, so sharrows could be used there to notify motorists that bicyclists are present.
 Heath notes the other place the sharrows could be used is Spruce. The last page diagrams would be in yellow, which is a warning, not a plea.  On Gayley and on Oxford there are signs which are not yellow. Shared lane (the second diagram  on the right). White signs are only advisory of the law.
 Hank asked about Spruce. Heath answers that  it  was supposed to have Bike Route signs last summer, and it hasn't been done.
Heath says we could add some signs to existing signs. Marcy says white might be better.
Dave says that in 2003 Carolyn Helmke staff for  the subcommittee approved: "Pass with care" uphill on Spruce, and downhill "Full use of the lane".
Dave thinks there should be a study to see what might be the better use of sharrows  and where they would be placed, and what kind of speeds apply.
Hank asks about the map of potential sharrow locations. Do these conform to all 2.5 roads from the Bike Plan. Hank asks about Tunnel and Rose, Spruce
where it connects to Shattuck.
Dave says review this map and compare it to the Bike Plan and give Heath suggestions. A good task.
 
5. Residential Bike Parking Requirements -continued discussion
Dave says we have been discussing this for a few meetings, and I think Berkeley should have a bike parking ordinance, a zoning ordinance. The best ordinance is in  Davis which was 2:1. San Francisco just passed one rack for every 2 units of housing in an apartment building.
Dave thinks the Subcommittee will have the discussion next time (August  9, 2006)
Marcy thinks this would be good for residential parking as it is already in place for commercial buildings.

6. Caldecott Tunnel 4th Bore Bike Mitigations
    Peter Ecklund joins us at 5:25pm
    Dave asks what Peter's opinion is about the numbers' increase in cars if the 4th bore of the Caldecott Tunnel is built.
    Peter's opinion: On Peak, no difference, Off Peak toward Contra Costa, also.
    It is the PM west bound. In the PM. there will be a bottle neck at the 80 interchange at Ashby and Powell. People will be  at the end of a line of traffic(queue) and will increase traffic on side roads (Tunnel and  Vicente)
    Peter E. introduces us to the concept of "Peak Spreading". When a commute that took one hour and now takes three hours, people begin riding on the shoulders. (I think this is illustrated by the peak hour parking/no parking on Ashby)  If there is reduced capacity, the shoulder will shrink. The town of Pleasanton timed their signals to keep the people timed to  adapt to the queue. There has to be a time savings to convince people to do it. Put up "time to destination" signs, and tell how long it will  be if one takes Ashby, for example. It is the employers in Contra Costa who want to get more people to work over there.
Dave says he has figured 120 cars per hour more on Telegraph, that's 2 cars a minute. Ann Smulka suggests that Corve knows about this, and they will send it to us.
   
7. Seir (Southeast (UCB) Campus Integrated Projects Tiered Focused EIR
Peter Ecklund goes to the board and draws the map of where there might be a bike lane parking will be removed on piedmont which will hurt bus traffic and  on the city property. All the pedestrian  stairs and crosswalks will be removed. The exit of the 900 unit parking structure will be on Rim Road. Peter thinks the exit will be on Piedmont but that is not in the EIR. They want a signal at Bancroft and piedmont, which they will pay 5%,  
Hank wants a bike lane and sharrows after rim road.  People will all be lined up at rim road on piedmont . Marcy asks where the bike lane will go; bike lane for a block or two, and sharrows the rest of the way. San Francisco didn't study right turn pockets.
Discussion of bike lanes there. Peter E. says with a 19 foot lane,  you could put in 2 10 feet and one 4 foot for bikes. So the right turn lane could even be a 9 foot lane to give the bikes more space. See Heath's map with sharrows (Item 4, this meeting) on Gayley and Rim Road.
Dave asks: Can the committee  support a bike lane on Piedmont if the parking is removed, from Bancroft to Rim Road?

8. Updates on Ongoing Projects
     Telegraph Bike Lanes : Nothing
     9th Street Bicycle Boulevard Extension:
     Heath has an update, but nothing is settled yet.
     Bike Parking at the Aquatic Park Connection
     Claire asks for the West Berkeley PAC, for we  recommend  parking and how much: Dave says  need more than the 9  proposed. 3/3/3  on each street, Addison and 4th to Hearst. We will look at diagrams and meet on 8/9/2006 to discuss it before the PAC meeting 8/10/06.
Marcy asks about Derby farmer's market for Linda and Heath  to meet to explain where the bike parking should go.

9 Adjournment 6:15pm