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The Pleasanton City Council on Tuesday again declared its support for the one-lane configuration along a stretch of Owens Drive near the eastern Dublin-Pleasanton BART station that has drawn the ire of some residents and commuters for more than a year.
The 4-1 vote came after a follow-up discussion on traffic patterns along the segment of eastbound Owens Drive, an update the council requested last March in asking city staff to monitor the effectiveness of the long-planned reduction from three lanes to one between Willow Road and the Iron Horse Regional Trail.
“Owens was a six-lane freeway before these changes were made,” Councilman Jerry Pentin said, alluding to safety concerns that exist in the corridor. “When we talk about changing it back instead of moving forward, I just can’t go with that.”
Councilwoman Karla Brown cast the dissenting vote at the end of the 90-minute discussion Tuesday night, arguing instead for adding a second lane back to eastbound Owens Drive.
“I think it’s ridiculous, sorry, with all due respect,” she said. “You’re taking a main corridor road in the city … and to take it from three lanes to one is just so counterintuitive. There are other options.”
The council majority instead supported leaving the one-lane layout in place permanently after hearing from city staff that traffic flows have remained mostly smooth for months after big backups initially seen after the new configuration became prominent last winter.
That, as opposed to endorsing an estimated $1 million reconstruction of the segment to add one more lane or exploring options to rework the Owens Drive-Iron Horse Trail intersection that would increase delays for bicyclists and pedestrians — whom the lane change was meant to help. The council did direct city staff to identify a funding source for a $90,000 “adaptive timing system” for traffic signals in that area to provide relief to vehicle traffic spikes during peak evening commute hours.
“At this point, I can’t justify spending a million dollars of taxpayers’ money to make Owens Drive two lanes in each direction in order to gain 22 seconds,” Councilwoman Kathy Narum said.
A majority of the 14 resident speakers urged the council to restore a second lane. Some also reported having hundreds more residents in their corner who supported a petition against the single-lane setup.
Critics spoke strongly against the current configuration, calling it “unbelievable,” “against common sense,” “a stupid decision” and “misconduct” on the part of city staff.
“It’s counterintuitive. It doesn’t make sense,” resident Julie Testa said. “While a million dollars does seem like a lot of money, seems like a lot of money to correct a mistake that shouldn’t have happened. But it should be corrected.”
“This planning shouldn’t have happened from the very beginning,” An Li added. “We just need that courage to really fix this, and I think this council can do it … Consider people’s voice.”
The four speakers in favor of maintaining the one-lane layout were bicycle riders or advocates who lauded the safety and usability of the reconfigured corridor.
“Our money would be poorly spent if we tried to make expensive modifications,” resident David Fisch said. “Decisions, I think, should be based on anything you do that encourages people to walk or take public transportation or use their bicycle to commute.”
The lane reduction first came online in 2015, but it didn’t become a source of real angst until late 2016 when fencing came down around the four-story apartment with ground-floor retail complex being built at Owens and Willow, revealing that the one-lane configuration was permanent, as opposed to temporary due to construction as some residents thought.
Eastbound Owens Drive became one lane for cars plus a buffered eight-foot bicycle lane for the long-block stretch. Westbound traffic remains two and three lanes in different parts of the segment.
Narrowing the eastbound side and associated roadside changes, first approved in 2012 as part of the mixed-use development application, serve to help encourage pedestrian and bicyclist use in the area because wide roads with longer crosswalks and higher vehicles speeds are often deterrents, according to city traffic engineer Mike Tassano.
The council heard resident feedback last March and opted to leave the one-lane configuration intact and have traffic circulation studied for six months around the lane reduction.
Tassano presented that analysis by Hexagon Transportation Consultants — with traffic data from the site in April, May and September — and his conclusions Tuesday night.
He recommended leaving the segment at one lane with pedestrian-signal adjustments at the trail intersection alleviating most driver delays as expected.
“The vehicle delay on Owens Drive is really a few minutes where there’s congestion, and the rest of the time it operates really well,” Tassano said.
During the peak evening commute between 4:30-6 p.m. those months, the average queue length was about eight vehicles, with the exception of one to two minutes during peak time when the queue spiked to 21 vehicles — all of which were able to clear in a single signal cycle, according to Tassano.
After initial complaints of severe traffic backups late 2016, city officials in January 2017 changed the 30-second continuous crossing at Owens and Iron Horse Trail to a two-stage crossing of 10 seconds for the eastbound lane and 20 seconds for the westbound lanes, having trail-users wait at the median in between if they can’t make it across.
That move appears to have alleviated the major backups over the past year, except for the brief spikes in the evening commute, Tassano said.
The consultants also looked at four possible changes to the intersection to reduce driver delays, but none was endorsed by city staff.
The first called for reconstructing Owens Drive to add in a second eastbound travel lane, a project that would involve shifting the median north and repurposing one of two existing left-turn lanes. But at approximately $1 million, that project proved too costly to recommend, Tassano said.
The three other options were creating a traffic signal coordination plan for evening commute that focuses on vehicle progress by itself or combining the coordinated traffic signal with either redesigned trail curb ramps or with single-stage crossing at the trail intersection.
Those alternatives would reduce corridor delay in a more cost-effective manner, but they would increase pedestrian delay too much, by a minute or more, Tassano said.
City officials supported looking at an “adaptive timing system” for traffic signals in that area that would be responsive to vehicle and pedestrian volume, whereas the current system is capable of only fixed-time signal intervals, Tassano said.
At Narum’s urging, the council majority directed city staff to find funding to implement the new timing system on the Owens Drive stretch — rather than wait for the outcome of pending grant-funding applications, as city officials recommended.
The lane reduction, though approved in 2012, actually dates back to 2010 and 2011 as part of the city’s public consideration of the Hacienda Transit Oriented Development Standards and Design Guidelines, according to city staff.
Long-range plans call for Owens Drive to be a two-lane roadway, one lane in each direction, between Willow Road and the Kaiser Permanente driveway, if development were to occur on the Dublin/Pleasanton BART parking lot.
Can we get this put on the ballot? If we have had to endure so many silly ballot measures and attempts, why can’t we get this—something that is clearly wrong and needs reversal?
This was a bad plan that should never have happened, it is currently planned to be Repeated in the westbound direction also. Traffic will increase with continued development, most CC members indicated the likelihood that the restoration to two lanes will need to be done at some point. At that point, $1 million will be $2 million or more. What was the cost of the gerrymandering of the pedestrian crossing that the consultant recommended returning back? What was the cost of the consultant, and more than a year of staff time so far, now let’s add the $100k for new software to put another band-aid on this bad plan that should never have happened. The nearly 1,000 residents (petition signers and those who attended many meetings) who brought forward a real problem that impacts commuters, struggling to get to work then home, are not responsible for the cost to correct this bad plan that should never have happened.
Currently, there are three lanes westbound and ONE eastbound, shifting that to two and two would not change the impact on bike and pedestrian (red herring). TIF, traffic impact fees are an appropriate funding source for the city to correct this bad plan that should never have happened and should NOT be repeated.
With the exception of Karla Brown the council did not represent the residents last night.
I don’t know who can do it, but if petition signature collectors showed up on a plan to reverse this and dedicate Owens to at least two through lanes its entire length, I know a lot of people who would gladly seek out the collectors and sign.
Hey Grumpy – Maybe you can get Matt Sullivan and his minions to help you out with the petition. Feel free to waste more of our tax dollars with another worthless initiative for something that affects very few citizens.
Oops, jerry-rigged not gerrymandering.
@Help, you missed my point completely. I think the Costco measures were a total waste of time, and money for the first one. What I’m saying is that, instead of people wasting our time on Costco fighting, they could have been productive and stopped Owens from being stupidly reduced to a bottleneck. Surely, if measures are for one purpose, they are for stopping dumb decisions that a great majority disagree with. And in this case, I suspect a great majority do dislike it.
You’re welcome.
There was a petition at a time, and I signed it. I am not sure whatever came out of it.
This is such a bad decision on the part of the City Council that it makes me wonder if a payola was involved.
And although the traffic bottleneck might not effect everyone, the ceding of public land to the benefit of a developer and the plan to spend millions more to narrow the other side without public approval is a problem.
Don’t have a special election. Just add this to November’s ballot. In fact, I’m surprised the city council didn’t want to do this on their own motion, given that there is clearly a question of some public import.
I think the Council consciously or unconsciously ignored the elephant in the room. They gifted tax-payer owned land (2 lanes of Owens) to the developer for them to use for parking. Was the City compensated for the gift? Were we the tax payers reimbursed for losing our street lanes? The developer could have easily designed their property to fit into the existing footprint without annexing two lanes of Owens Drive, but that would have cut into their profits. The City could have easily engineered other traffic calming solutions to mitigate any perceived issues at the intersection. I won’t go as far as saying there was collusion, but something sounds fishy.
Where does this stop? Will the City Council continue to give away tax payer owned land and streets to developers framing it as being for the greater good? It appears from the article, westbound lanes will be reduced as well. Who gets that land?
Shouldn’t the tax payers be given a say in the annexation of public property by a private developer?
Help Grumpy, Matt Sullivan was the councilmember who really pushed for this to be a transit oriented development. I don’t think he’ll be collecting signatures and besides he’s busy with the Costco lawsuit. Also, notice how he has disappeared on this issue.
If Owens Dr isn’t on the traffic impact fee (TIF) project list then the fees can’t be used to change Owens dr back to two lanes in each direction. That would mean using capital dollars for the change.
Having one lane reduces cut through traffic. We have one free way. We don’t need another.
If Oracle had placed their just opened school on property in Pleasanton rather than in Redwood Shores, I would bet the city and school district would have gone all out to block the Oracle school in Pleasanton. They would say the 1 lane road on Owens could not handle all the school traffic.
The bottom line is that with the dysfunctional city and school district government, no new tech companies or corporations that hire educated people with high salaries will dare locate in Pleasanton.
It also isn’t surprising that in order to maintain productivity of their work force, the large corporations in the area are placing their own schools on site in the Silicon Valley and Peninsula. This way the employees of the corporations don’t have to waste valuable time picking up and dropping children in some sort of ‘staggered’ schedule, communicating with the drama filled local school district and/or personally shuttling their children back and forth to after school tutoring facilities (or having to figure out some other mode of transport).
It isn’t surprising that the C-level positions know full well about the reputation of the community government. Companies outgrowing Silicon Valley/Peninsula/SF office space that need expanded facilities seem to completely skip Pleasanton as a possible location (Hacienda has very little Class A office space anyway) and its no wonder.
As it is, Oracle got the school approved in Redwood Shores in a matter of months. Pleasanton would have rejected it completely or sat on the application for 15 years.
Amazingly enough, I’m siding with the Council majority on this one. I WAS on the Council when this was approved, and contrary to all you “Grumpy” people, this IS good planning. When BART develops the other side of the road this will be a transit-oriented, walkable, mixed-use neighborhood. An example of Sustainable Development, something we vitally need in the face Climate Change and the traffic impacts of sprawl. The old six lane configuration was indeed a “freeway” and was dangerous to bicyclists and pedestrians trying to access BART, and would make the access to small-scale retail and the walkable nature of the neighborhood untenable.
It is the opposite of “Unsustainable, Automobile Dependent Development” as characterized by Costco. Now, I better get back to paying attention to that lawsuit!
@Matt Sullivan
Wow another stellar accomplishment and feather in your oversized hat. Dreamworld built on simulation scenarios. What then happens to all of the cars traveling eastbound as the city grows-do they just vanish? Maybe we should dispatch rickshaws throughout the city.
Hope you are preparing for your Valentines Day hearing disappointment.
Best wishes for a wonderful day.
@bartrider Reducing cut through traffic can be easily done by adjusting the traffic light timers during the rush hour, instead of “gifting” the public roads to developers.
Matt, I fear you do not understand how mixed use developments work. It would be nice to have a real transit oriented development here. But that would require solid anchor stores and sufficient demand. I don’t believe either of those are available. In part, that’s because Dublin already has successfully attracted enough anchor stores, and most of those stores require sufficient parking to justify their rent.
I’m reminded of Fruitvale station, which certainly is better than what came before, but is nevertheless not a success. Unfortunately, real estate development is hard. Santana Row exists because a Town and Country came before it, there was a real demand for luxury stores and restaurants as the area gentrified, and the developer had the resources to sign up solid tenants. I don’t see anyone who can attract an Amber or Straits, or even a Yard House (come on, that’s not even hard!). In any event, the users of the Pleasanton station are Central Valley and Livermore valley commuters and not shoppers. When Pleasanton ceases to be a terminal station, then things may become ripe for such a development. But, as I mentioned before, at that time the plan will be quite different and whatever was built now on Owens will need to be demolished. If such a mixed use development is truly dreamed of, then the street will have to be reconfigured to be a walking street, or at least to have pleasant sidewalks. Besides, at that point, the developer and not the city will pay for it.
Therefore, what I am arguing for is that we leave Owens as it was until a full, properly constructed and diligent plan has come together, and then we proceed. That will remove the element of wishful thinking and require the not too high bar of actually having a workable plan before we make changes.
I’m not sure why you would agree with the piecemeal and premature development of Owens but not the well thought out and simultaneous development of the Costco site. I suppose you have your reasons.
@Jim
With all due respect i think you are over-simplifying the issue. The silly nomenclature you use with reference to automobiles shows your bias. Honestly, a short section of “protected” bike lanes is really going to make the difference? What about the sections before and after the protected zones and what about the other side of the street that has no such arrangement? Please site a reference to support your claims.
You ask the question: “please ask yourself: what safety improvements would YOU want to see before you’d consider encourage your loved one to take a bike to BART, school, or shopping?” Well, lets start with BART making it much safer to actually RIDE their trains without fear of being assaulted, injured or robbed. Thats the first improvement I want to see.
P.S. They can go further in making their trains a lot cleaner too.
Making safe and practical bike and walking paths is a laudable goal and very high on my list.
However, I’ve always found the “get out of your car” argument as profoundly ablist and privileged.
Older people, children, and those who have minor but real injuries and conditions are unable to do as you say. Their equally convenient access to developments must be protected. Furthermore, those among us who work far from home to afford this area and cannot fit a bike in their car are shut out of your plans.
So yes, more bike safety. Do it like in Amsterdam. But don’t be silly about it and frustrate drivers as a plan. It’s not a zero sum game.
I don’t think the Council also considered the impact of the lane reduction on other buildings and offices. I visit the John Muir Health building on the south side of Owens Drive regularly and the lane reduction creates a significant delay in getting there — and leaving — when coming from Downtown. The same is true for other office buildings on the south side of Owens Drive.
I’m all for transit-oriented development and bicycle and pedestrian safety, but this is not a good location for an unneeded traffic bottleneck. Sometimes a little gentle social engineering is a good thing. This is not one of those times.
“Don’t drive” also presumes you are a 9 to 5 – er like a government worker. With the long hours tech workers work in the South Bay and Peninsula that is infeasible. Businesses are exiting the HBP because of the supposed ploy to build a k8 (that will in reality become housing instead of a school). Who wants to end up in condemnation proceedings or end up next to condemned property seized by the PUSD?
I am completely outraged by the intentional and expensive removal of 2 necessary lanes of traffic from Owens Dr. Traffic congestion is dangerous. Most of this town has good roads and traffic management, but it takes a special type of idiot to think
this is a good idea for the majority of residents.
My wife was very nearly involved in an altercation in that area early this afternoon.
She was on her way to Rosewood from Hopyard, and forgot about the bottleneck.
Traffic was very congested, she was doing her best to merge, and had a great deal of trouble with an aggressive driver of a silver Chevy pick up. My wife drives a Honda Civic, and felt threatened by the other person’s tailgating and aggressive moves.
The other driver only backed off when my wife took a cell phone picture.
All because of a artificially created bottleneck.
I came upon this area 1 time, and could not believe that this was done on purpose.
I avoid the area like the plague.
Intentionally causing a bottleneck on a good stretch of road is selfish and stupid.
Mike, thanks for sharing that. I’ve heard other similar stories, often when coming out of John Muir.
I don’t know why the council didn’t take safety into account. I also don’t know why the traffic studies they did didn’t take this into account as well…or if they did, why they didn’t predict this actual problem we’ll enough.
Again, I’m all for an upscale retail mixed use area there—when it’s done competently. What was done now wasn’t.
Look, I just want the trains to run on time. Is that too much to ask? That’s why I’m grumpy…my friends, my kids doctor, everyone says that San Ramon schools are far better, that we should love to Danville or Lafayette or Moraga. I don’t want to. I want them to want to move to Pleasanton. It’s not like it’s cheaper here, so why can’t we be an example?
*move to
While listening to the Council meeting last night, I was struck by the unsound rationale used by 4 members. Karla Brown is the only one who made sense! The other four stated that changes to the road would cost about $1 million for very little return. Safety isn’t so valuable I guess. The council would not spend the money to correct a bad decision by the previous council. Despite some of the comments herein, the idea of retail at that location is simply ludicrous. The hypocrisy was shocking. Just last year, the council approved more that $1 million dollars for 2 additional tennis courts at the corner of Hopyard and Valley. That, despite the fact, that the then existing courts were under utilized. I walk in the park and have never seen all the courts used. So, the Council thinks that it is OK to spend the funds for 2 unnecessary tennis courts satisfying the needs of a few citizens but ignore spending the funds to improve the safety of many. Time to vote them out, folks.
The debate seems divided along thinking about the future vs. thinking about the “good old past.” I think many will agree that the latter is a sad illusion. More power to our forward-thinking council members (and booo to the lone backward-thinking one)!
The incident with my wife alone in the car really bothers me, although I don’t know what I would have done. It’s scary, because people get shot nowadays over minor incidents.
I feel like it’s part of the increasing amount of people behaving badly in our town.
Street crime in broad daylight, muggings, purse snatching.
We are becoming a part of the SF East Bay Area, and I moved here in 73 to get away from that.
As for Owens Dr, follow the money. Who benefits from the traffic reduction, who got a large campaign contribution, who got bribed?
This artificial constriction of traffic does not serve the majority of users. No matter how much we spend on bike lanes, trails etc, the vast majority do not use them.
It’s time to serve the people, not the minority.
I for one am happy the Council did not reverse the plan. As a BART rider, and commuting via, walking, car and bicycle I feel much safer on all accounts. I’ve never experienced a delay of more than one signal cycle coming out of the BART parking lot in my car. The added benefit of traffic being metered and slowed down is a definite plus compared to the raceway and lane jockeying it used to be in a car. For walking and cycling, hands down the right decision, as it is much safer to cross at the Iron Horse Trail now (I guess that is a plus for cars too, if you have been stuck at the crossing on West Las Positas you know exactly how much more time would have to be added to the cross signal on Owens if it was still 6 lanes). I find most of the arguments against the one lane result are emotional and not based on fact. This is truly one of those situations where perception vs. reality is obvious when facts are taken into consideration. Kudos Pleasanton Council for doing the right thing and not caving to emotion…I would rather lose a second of my life, than my life in a second the way it used to be.
@Johmmy, I don’t think it is either-or. The fact that the street is safer for bicycles and pedestrians is commendable. But that has very little to do with the way the lanes are suddenly reduced, causing danger for cars. And it has little to do with the problem of the city spending money and ceding land for the benefit of a singular development. No one is suggesting to go back to increasing the danger. The signalizes crossing at Iron Horse trail is a great idea, and makes it safer for you and others who cross. Will you allow those who drive to have a little more safety too?
I didn’t make the meeting but isn’t it a fact based on data presented from Traffic Engineers tasked with studying this section for some months and was presented at the meeting that once the intersection timing was adjusted for efficiency that: on workdays, there is only a measurable delay for motorists during a total of 1-2 minutes, and during those periods the average delay per motorist is 22 seconds- so for about 99% of the day, there is in fact no delay?
Was any other data presented that might be useful in the debate in rationalizing if anything actually needs “fixing” rather than just general mudslinging?
Pedestrians and folks using BART are not any less important in managing transport infrastructure or how funding is spent. Money to save those 22 seconds would be better spent on safer crosswalks at schools and where children/pedestrians need safer routes.
There absolutely may well be lessons that need to be learned in how these changes initially occurred and finance arrangements and what should/should not have happened within the community upfront- but if this data is accurate then it would seem irresponsible to just argue to spend $1M to change it back just for the sake of it.
John, I agree. Don’t spend $1m to put it back. That’s a waste of money. But stating that either a) the work is done, ignoring vehicle safety, or 2) that this was done right and is a part of an effective plan for creating a live-shop district would both be wrong. That’s all.
It’s not black and white. There’s a lot of in between to process here. I would like to know why the city isn’t solving the problem of an unsafe bottleneck—note that average and peak delay are not measures of safety, only of inconvenience. Perhaps the answer is to narrow Owens to one one earlier on, and remove the sudden bottleneck. Perhaps the answer is to remove the newly added divider and make the parking parallel again. I don’t know. But the city needs to seriously present those middle options too.
Moreover, that the city ever thought that the ceding of land for parking was ever a good idea is something with investigating. It boggles the mind how that was assumed to be a good idea. And it boggles the mind how the defense of it is for a future project that hasn’t even been put together and is highly speculative. Note that this has nothing to do with the trail crossing or with pedestrian and bike safety—it has to do with civic planning and right of way encroachment issues, as well as needless spending of public funds outside of safety. Those two points your message doesn’t address. Of course, it’s not your job to address them. It’s the city’s.
I was on the ’94 to ’96 General Plan Open Space subcommittee and am confident that this development violates the General Plan in multiple ways. Also I am astounded that the city is talking about taking the BART parking lot away from Pleasanton commuters.
First of all the development has no park and violates the General Plan one-half mile rule. Any surrounding park requires a crossing of multiple arterials like Hacienda Drive. Also the development came with no Public Facilities and violates these policies in the Public Facilities Element.
Program 10.8: Locate parks within one-half mile of the residential area they serve. To the greatest extent possible, such parks should not be separated from the neighborhood they serve by major arterials, commercial centers, and topographical or other features which create a direct or perceived physical barrier to the park. (This used to be in the Open Space and Conservation Subelement Chapter in the 1996 General Plan with the exact wording but it specified “Locate neighborhood parks…”
Program 7.2: Encourage school enrollment sizes that maintain neighborhood character, provide facilities for specialized programs, and promote more personalized education. The current target is 600 students per
elementary school, 1,000 students at each middle school, and 2,000 students at each comprehensive high school, with a 10 percent contingency planned for each site, subject to board discretion and financial considerations.
Also, narrowing for no purpose a key circulation arterial would seem to violate multiple policies in the Circulation Subelement chapter.
I can only conclude that for people that voted to approve this plan in the first place including Sullivan (if that is actually Sullivan posting) either chose to ignore the General Plan or does not know what policies are in the General Plan. Also taking away the BART parking lot and developing it like undeveloped land is detrimental to the community at large. I suppose this is so that union BART janitors can all gross $270K in pay and benefits per year.
Thanks to our council members that listened to data on the actual traffic situation and are moving our beautiful little city into the future. We need to make our city more people friendly, which means we should be able to move around without a metal box protecting us.
What? Owens was never a thoroughfare. It’s access for BART and the big employers. There are plenty of other roadways in the area. And if it helps funnel Oracle traffic away from Hopyard, that’s a win.
I was one of the speakers as well. I’m both a driver and a cyclist, and I admit to a degree of impatience in both roles. The big difference: The consequences of impatience as a cyclist can be life-ending. So, I came to the meeting with a bias toward bike and pedestrian safety in a zone where cars, bikes, and pedestrians converge. That critical confluence makes it reasonable to seek safe crossings, reduce lanes and reduce auto speeds — measues routinely implemented around schools.
Some of my takeaways from the meeting, which I recommend watching when it is posted:
— It is counterintuitive to reduce the number lanes, especially if you put drivers’ interests ahead of pedestrians and cyclists. But he city’s study shows the palpable delays only occurred for a few minutes each day. That means drivers who choose that route will be unlikely to be inconvenienced.
— There is clearly pent-up anger and confusion over the arrangements with the developer. Critics want to a re-do, but it comes with a $1 million price tag. I’d ask any stewing Driver who pays taxes in Pleasanton to ask themselves, “Are these few seconds of delay worth $xx of tax, or would I rather see that money invested in another project?”
— City staff evaluated a number of options. Among them: Making pedestrians and cyclists wait about 87 seconds (I’m working from memory here). That’s nearly the same amount of time that there was a traffic backup into the “box.” Imagine yourself standing at that light when you need to catch a BART (or it’s raining or you’re wearing high heels or are physically slower). That would be an inconvenience, just like a traffic delay — so the question is whether we prioritize drivers’ inconvenience in a critical transportation hub. The reality is many of us would cross against the light. If the road were wider, that would mean more distance to cross, and more and speedier cars to dodge.
Anyone with half a brain would know it’s a terrible design. Obviously the city council sold out.
In other news all the city council members were seen driving new cars and paying cash for new houses. Hmmm
I agree that the move to one lane seems counterintuitive. But with the changes made to the crosswalk, all data seems to show that it works. Traffic impact is just 22 seconds and only during a 2 minute time span. The rest of the day, no impact. Yet it provides a safer access for those using the crosswalk. I see no conspiracy here. Looking at the bigger picture, we do have major traffic challenges particularly getting on to our freeways in the morning and navigating 680 North or 580 in the afternoon. There’s no easy solution to this and the traffic delays are in the hours not seconds. Alternative modes of transportation and carpooling help and anything we can do to encourage this helps all of us. The changes to Owens are a step in this direction and pose a minimal impact on motorists.
You people don’t really think that the city planners will ever admit to making a mistake and fix it??? Oh wait a minute what about that traffic calming circle they put up on vineyard a few years ago then ripped it out after getting grief from the Ruby Hills drag racing team, they found the money to appease that group really fast. @ Alex. Good call on those under used tennis courts the city found a cool million for that without blinking an eye, even with considering the first time they tried to sneak those 2 courts in the price tag was $500K, why did it double?? Who benefitted from giving our public streets to that developer on Owens
After all that has been posted,
the bottom line is Selfish Matt Sullivan ruined this city.
Expand the one lane back to two lanes at least on Owens. This restriction to one lane was done for the new residential housing only. – – Pleasanton is set to face the greatest gridlock issue ever, it is already leading to people running redlights again as opposed to waiting again to get through an intersection. – – You will see gridlock go bonkers when and if Costco opens on Stoneridge Drive, and contrary to “City Council claims to mitigate” – there is no way to mitigate near gridlock already with a monster shopping destination like Costco with a fuel station. – – Final comment: in gridlock scenarios, bicycles and auto’s traffic do not compliment each other, they detract and make traffic issues worse. Believe me, more biking is not going to cure anything other than bring more business to the coroner.
1. There seems to be a consistent pattern where council supports/gifts chamber of commerce/ biz lobby at the expense of common tax payers. Eg. Owens drive 2 lanes given free to builder who charges $3k rent.( No subsidy for tenants in rent )
2. Costco $16 million is given to come to Pleasanton. The earlier measure failed because the sponsor wanted to stop all big box stores.Instead if he had focused on this 16 million subsidy to Costco, the measure would have won
3. More downtown planning(read congestion) with multistorey condos with some subsidy to builders at tax payers expense?
Finally Pleasanton is no longer a city of integrity. Councilman Pentin claims owens lanes were reduced to cut traffic, but the same council spent money to widen Bernal at First St lane from 1 car lane to 2 car lanes due to traffic bottleneck. BTW, Pentin and some council members live close to Bernal.
Lastly to our biker friends, we are not saying remove bike Lanes for cars, but you guys are saying remove car lanes for bikers when population is increasing by at least 10k thanks to our council rampant construction of homes(way past the court mandate). The parking land given to builder is not used for retail anyways.No shops. Why can’t council get our land back if the builder never wanted it (as said repeatedly by our Mayor) Then we can have ample car lanes and our bike lanes both?
And it looks like it might work.
We really need to get this giveaway of public roads FIXED, if just as an example to discourage such theft in the future.
Having three lanes reduced to one for one block is just madness,
an example of planning gone amuck.
I’m sorry if it costs money, but it is money that should never have been spent.
Q. Who is responsible for this atrocity, anyway?
I was one of the four people speaking in favor of keeping potentially life-saving improvements that were made for pedestrians and bicyclists on Owens drive. Although I ride my bike nearly everywhere, I’m a motorist too. Yet in my 30 years in Pleasanton, it’s become more dangerous to ride your bike for transportation purposes. Councilwoman Narum opened last night’s meeting by encouraging people to stay active, and counteract our nation’s obesity epidemic. We also need to fight the effects of all these Spare the Air days, while also have a safe alternative to having mostly single-occupancy, 4,000 pound, isolating boxes to get from point A to point B. Until we make it safer for people to walk or take a bike in our mostly-sunny locale, people just won’t consider anything but the box rolling box-on-wheels. Safety first, then cyclists will start to take advantages of alternatives second. If you’re reading this, please ask yourself: what safety improvements would YOU want to see before you’d consider encourage your loved one to take a bike to BART, school, or shopping? Let’s think outside the 4,000 pound box for a change, and give people options. No one wants to see motorists inconvenienced, and last night’s council decision helped give Pleasanton residents and employees transportation options.
To City Council members in favor of a 1 lane Owens:
Let me remind you that Pleasanton is in fact a suburb. Most of Pleasanton consists of large residential neighborhoods where virtually nothing is within walking or biking distance. The neighborhoods are set up such that a car is required to do pretty much anything. That is not going to change anytime soon.
While you may have create a pedestrian and biker Utopia that benefits a few people, you have inconvenienced a much larger number of people, many of them Pleasanton residents, who used Owens to get around town. You and your predecessors turned a perfectly good, traffic free road into a congestion nightmare and are unwilling to fix the mistake. This lack of concern for what the majority of Pleasantonians want, congestion free roads, will be remembered when it comes time to vote for new Council members.
Oh brother! People want to spend a million dollars so BART commuters dont have to wait another 20 seconds. It will be less time now that the City will change the pedestrian crosswalk timing. Maybe those grumpy out of town BART riders leaving the lot and trying to get on the freeway feel our residents should pay the big price tag because they cant handle 20 seconds. Or perhaps they dont know our streets well enough and cant figure out they can go to Gibralter or Hopyard instead if they are really that inconvenienced.
And Ms Testa as usual has to fan the fire about corruption. OMG, if you read her comments on other blogs, she is a serial complainer. She thinks she knows it all but could not even handle filing her campaign application on time to run for city council a couple of years ago and then classically said the city clerk was corrupt!
Im shocked that Matt Sullivan actually admitted that the neck downs and diagonal parking design for the development was his idea.
Matt, a blog comment is nice but in view of your City Council and Mayor bashing history, and given the level of accusations lodged against them regarding this design, dont you think you should stand up and forward your blog as a letter to the PW editor.
By the way, adjusting signal timing on major streets meant to carry traffic to alledgedly reduce cut through traffic has to be the dumbest Idea and a failed auporoach.
WOW, this is a switch!! Julie Testa is now concerned about inconveniencing commuters when she has advocated for keeping out commuter cut through traffic in Pleasanton for years. Talk about someone who casts a wide net to get anyone to support her. And Im still waiting for Matt Sullivan to submit a Guest Opinion article to the PW to explain that he advocated for( aka required) the street neck downs as part of this project when he was on the City Council. In other words, instead of just posting a small paragraph.
Truth is more people will walk to BART from Hacienda employment centers and apartments over time and Id rather wait for pedestrians than vehicles. Drivers will figure it out and take Hopyard or Gilbraler to get to the freeway or Stoneridge. Paying another million dollars of public money to return it to the original condition is suburban entitlement in the extreme and the developer should get compensation for removing the diagonal spaces mandated by the City for the retail and office space use.