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TRANSPORTATION THINK TANK NOTES FROM MEETING #20: NOVEMBER 3, 1999

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<> NEXT MEETING: WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 17, 1999 <>
<> Starting at 5 pm, at the APTOS FIREHOUSE <>
<> 6934 SOQUEL DRIVE, APTOS <>
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NOTES FROM NOVEMBER 3:

We met on the deck at Emily's Good Things to Eat (very pleasant) with
Debbie Bulger, Bill Fieberling, Fred Geiger, Dick Little, Emily Reilly,
Wolfgang Rosenberg, Peter Scott, Janet Singer, Michael Singer and
Richard Stover attending. Michael Singer facilitated the discussion.

The agenda included (1) update re the proposed city's ($500K)
transportation plan (2) update re bike-path-along-the-rail right-of-way
(3) update re metrobase (4) discussion of ped counts on mission (5)
discussion of problem of heavy trucks on neighborhood streets and
(6) update re flight lights on bay street.


1. relating to the the $500K plan:

a committee (does it have a name?) composed of reps from the city
transportation commission, the RTC, the SCMTD, UCSC, and city staff
(both fred geiger and bill fieberling are alternates on this committee,
and emily is a member of it) is now in the process of selecting a
consultant to guide the creation of a transportation plan for the city
of santa cruz. at least two consulting firms are under consideration:
(a) DKS Associates [(web site at dksassociates.com), based in Oakland,
and with offices in Bellevue WA, Las Vegas, Pasadena, Portland OR,
Sacramento, San Jose and Tampa FL], and (b) Fehr & Peers Associates
[web site at fehrandpeers.com, (under construction, but with a good link
to a sub-site devoted to traffic calming) based in Roseville, CA].
[NOTE: initial interviews of these two consultants took place last week
on nov 4 i think. a choice has yet to be made. on perusing the
internet i notice that DKS seems more spread out with its many offices,
and appears to have a more traditional orientation. Fehr and Peers may
be a bit stronger in areas of public participation and in areas dealing
with bicycles and pedestrians. they are listed in a couple of sierra
club compendiums, which i guess means they are thought well of by the
sierra club.]

Dick worried that a plan would be created with insufficient public
involvement, and also expressed concern over domination by UCSC with
their $250K contribution.

Richard asked "is there another task force?" (we did not know of any)

Debbie asked about "neighborhoods": how are they defined, and how will
they be used to create a plan?

later in the evening, bill mentioned a conversation with the City Public
Works Director (John Clement) involving the matter of public input
relating to the study goals and selection of the consultants. for
example, bill felt that the study should not prepare from the start a
brand new bicycle plan, but rather try to incorporate what we already
have.

fred mentioned that there was discussion of the plan as an agenda item
for the next transportation commisssion meeting 11/11.

janet noted that we should try to avoid re-inventing the wheel, and that
groups that have been working on aspects of the plan should be
consulted.

debbie asked about the goals of the study, and expressed concern for
early public involvement relating to goals and objectives.

wolfgang opined that we not waste $$$ for a "cookie-cutter" plan.

we concluded that we should send a letter (on behalf of the TTT) to the
commission noting our concern vis-a-vis early public involvement, and
nominated dick to draft a letter, to be sent to peter who will "massage"
it. [NOTE: peter received such a draft from dick on 11/9, "massaged"
it, and circulated it to those who attended the TTT meeting of 11/3/99.
no doubt it will be further edited and forwarded to the Transportation
Commission soon.]

2. relating to the proposed bike-path-along-the-rail right-of-way:

peter noted that he had called Congressman Sam Farr's office, had spoken
with Alison, who promised to contact Sam and get back to peter. [NOTE:
i received today a nice letter from Congressman Farr, saying "Dear
Peter: Thank you for contacting me recently regarding a bike path around
the Bay, and other transportation issues. I appreciated hearing from
you, and was interested to have the opportunity to review your thoughts.
As you may know, I am supportive of such a project, and I look forward
to speaking with you about it. Again, thank you...". (we should pursue
this contact further.)]

3. relating to the proposed MetroBase:

at the time of our meeting we did not have any new information, except
that architectural design consultants (Waterleaf Architects and
Planners from Portland OR -- a minimal web site is waterleaf-ai.com) are
likely to be selected to provide guidance for this project; this is on
the SCMTD agenda for November 19. [NOTE: regarding our earlier question
about the possibility of the golf course near Aptos as a metrobase
venue, Jennifer Bragar, in a separate communication, noted that
"Although members of the public continue to find potential alternative
sites, the staff of the SCMTD will not engage in additinal site
selection activities unless directed by the Board. Although no formal
site selection activities are under way, staff at the SCMTD does have
some reasons for why the golf course near Aptos would not adequately
serve as a location for the MetroBase. The golf course by Seacliff has
several operational concerns: ingress/egress, zoning, and environmental
(wetlands) to name a few."] We continue to work toward the sponsoring
of a forum on this issue to take place early next year.

The SCMTD web site (www.scmtd.com) contains extensive information,
including a FAQ sheet, maps and figures, and a down-loadable pdf file
containing the entire 210-page Initial Study. (approx 10 megabytes)
[NOTE: appended to these notes is a text version of the first 5 pages of
the Initial Study, including a table of contents and an executive
summary.]

we talked again about either producing and distributing a questionnaire
to gather concerns relating to metrobase, or producing (maybe
subsequently) a FAQ sheet of our own. fred said he would speak with
jennifer bragar about these ideas.

4. relating to pedestrian counts etc on Mission Street:

Several of us had volunteered to tally numbers of pedestrian and
bicycles at several Mission Street intersections. The data, which are
fairly extensive, were requested by the City Planning Department, to
provide input to the streetscape design consultants (Wallace Roberts and
Todd -- fancy website at www.wrtdesign.com).

peter asked "what will be done with the data?"
debbie noted "we don't know for sure."

we urged that WRT talk with us (poll-takers) directly. among our
observations:

* there were more bicyclists than we expected, in many cases greater
than the number of pedestrians, with lots of both.

* generally the crossings, even at signalized intersections, are not
kind to pedestrians. for example at bay/mission, one leg has no legal
crosswalk, and the phasing of the signals requires peds who wish to
make two consecutive crossings are obliged to wait nearly an entire
cycle for the second one, with consequent frequent risk-taking
violations of signals by pedestrians.

* emily noted that at mission/laurel the rear wheels of large semis
often run over the curb in the process of turning.

* motorists often do not yield to peds in crosswalks.

5. relating to heavy trucks illegally driving on neighborhood streets:

dick was particularly concerned with what seems to be increasingly
frequent use of Western Drive (as an alternative to Bay) by large trucks
involved in construction and logging operations, and wondered if
anything could be done about it. we will attempt to get more detailed
information.

6. relating to the "flight lights" on lower bay:

these are now being tested, and the response seems favorable. we'll
have more info by a future meeting.

7. relating to the conference the week of november 1 in carmel;

finally, peter and emily gave a short summary of the recent conference
in carmel, which they attended on nov 3, along a substantial contingent
from santa cruz, including our own peter beckmann and several others.

highlights from the afternoon of november 3: a presentation by Dietmar
Hahlweg, the former mayor of Erlangen in Germany, making a presentation
on "Green Transportation". everywhere, people say (1) there's too much
traffic, (2) people drive too fast and (3) there's not enough parking.

his ideas: give pedestrians, bicyclists and public transportation a
"fair chance", which everyone agrees is a "good idea".
the problem: this means you have to minimize the monopoly of the car.

to change: you need (a) a council majority, (b) money (not the biggest
problem) (c) start with a concept and do what's possible, and (d) make
sure that management staff understand, ideally through experience.

he spoke of three urban areas: (1) munich (pop 1.3 million)
(2) freiburg (pop 200 thousand) and (3) erlangen (pop 100 thousand), and
described how the use of public transportation and bicycles has
increased in the past 20 years to 28% and 29% of the trips, while the
use of autos has decreased over the same time from 60% to 43% (this is
for freiburg, but it is similar for the other two areas.) he also
pointed out that people will walk farther than 1/4 mile if the walking
is pleasant, and that discouraging walking means "we become less human".

we also heard from tom gustafson, bubbling with ideas and positive
energy, speaking about how to create "transit greenways". he is from
florida, where he served on the state assembly (as the speaker of the
house, i believe). he described plans for fort lauderdale, st augustine,
and fort pierce. his main idea involves what he calls a narrow-gauge rail
vehicle. apparently, to judge from a search of the internet, while some
studies of such transit greenways have been funded, none have as yet
been implemented, and there is opposition both from the governor of
florida and from anti tax groups. [subsequent to our meeting, the singers
forwarded some informative web site URLs. here are a couple:

http://www.staugustine.com/stories99/072599/transit_greenway_closer.shtml
http://orlandosentinel.com/news/rail/051499_rail14_40.htm]

THAT'S IT FOR NOW...

next meeting is Nov 17 in Aptos, as noted above.

-- peter scott, note-taker.

===================================================================

HERE IS THE TEXT VERSION of the FIRST FIVE PAGES OF THE 210-PAGE
METROBASE INITIAL STUDY:

Santa Cruz Metropolitan Transit District
Consolidated Facility Initial Study

Prepared for:
Santa Cruz Metropolitan Transit District
230 Walnut Street,
Santa Cruz, California, 95060
(408) 426-6080
June 1998

Prepared by: EMC Planning Group Inc.
99 Pacific Street, Suite 155F
Monterey, California 93940
Phone: (408) 649-1799
Fax: (408) 649-8399
E-Mail: emcgroup@emcplanning.com

Table of Contents
Executive Summary........................................... i
1.0 Introduction ......................................... 1-1
Authorization and Purpose ................................ 1-1
Initial Study Overview.....................................1-2
2.0 Project Description................................... 2-1
Project History........................................... 2-1
Project Location.......................................... 2-3
Existing and Surrounding Land Uses........................ 2-3
Project Characteristics .................................. 2-4
Consistency With City Plans............................... 2-12
Agencies With Permit Approval..............................2-12
3.0 Environmental Evaluation.............................. 3-1
Drainage ................................................. 3-1
Biotic Resources.......................................... 3-2
Visual Resources.......................................... 3-6
Traffic And Circulation................................... 3-7
Noise Impacts............................................. 3-10
Air Quality .............................................. 3-11
Cultural Resources ....................................... 3-13
Water and Sewer Services.................................. 3-14
Hazardous Materials....................................... 3-15
4.0 Mandatory Findings and Environmental Determination.... 4-1
5.0 Report Preparers and Bibliography..................... 5-1
Report Preparers ......................................... 5-1
Bibliography...............................................5-2


List of Appendices
Appendix A Initial Study Checklist
Appendix B 1996 Adopted Initial Study Negative Declaration,
Findings of No Significant Impact and Site Plan
Appendix C Drainage Report
Appendix D Adopted Mitigation Monitoring Program
Appendix E Traffic Report
Appendix F Environmental Site Assessment

List of Tables
Table 1 Existing SCMTD Facilities ........................ 2-2
List of Figures
Figure 1 Regional Location................................ 2-5
Figure 2 Project Location................................. 2-7
Figure 3 Existing Conditions.............................. 2-9
Figure 4 Site Plan........................................ 2-13
Figure 5 Conceptual Drainage Plan ........................ 2-15
Figure 6 Arroyo Seco Basin ............................... 3-3


Executive Summary
Introduction and History

The Santa Cruz Metropolitan Transit District (SCMTD) currently
occupies fourteen separate facilities, some owned by SCMTD, and
some leased. These facilities accommodate a variety of
administrative, maintenance and operations functions, and also
include five transit centers and a park-and-ride lot. SCMTD is
proposing to consolidate all of its administrative maintenance
and operations facilities at one site in the West Side industrial
area of Santa Cruz.

In 1996, the Final Initial Study/Environmental Assessment for the
Santa Cruz Metropolitan Transit District Consolidated Facility,
SCH # 95123035 (Strelow Consulting 1996) was prepared for the
consolidated facility at the same general site. The SCMTD, acting
as the lead agency for CEQA review, adopted a negative declaration
in compliance with CEQA, and the Federal Transit Administration (FTA),
acting as the lead agency for National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)
review, adopted a finding of no significant impact in compliance with
NEPA.

In 1998, the SCMTD revised the site plan to delete the
parcel fronting on Swift Street and add a parcel fronting on
Delaware Avenue. This revision to the 1996 plan became necessary
when the parcel fronting Swift Street was sold and subsequently
developed. Automobile and bus access, which had been provided
via the Swift Street parcel, also changed. Automobile access
would now be provided via Delaware Street and bus access would be
provided via an easement on the Union Pacific Railroad
right-of-way from Swift Street to the northern project site
boundary. This bus access had been suggested in the 1996 initial
study as a means of moving bus access farther from residences.

The SCMTD has determined that these changes (a new five-acre
parcel and revised vehicle access) are significant enough to
require further environmental review under CEQA. Therefore, this
initial study has been prepared to address the potential impacts
resulting from the changes in the project description.

This initial study focuses on the proposed changes in the project and
will be used to supplement the analysis of the previously proposed
project in the 1996 environmental document (Strelow Consulting 1996)
and subsequent adopted negative declaration.

Conclusions

The analysis undertaken to prepare this initial study
indicates that the proposed project, as revised, will not result
in new significant environmental impacts. The previously adopted
negative declaration, including the previously adopted mitigation
measures, is still appropriate for the proposed project. An addendum
to the negative declaration will be prepared. The FTA is considering
a categorical exclusion for the proposed project, as allowed by the
National Environmental Policy Act.