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TOM WHEELER:

Welcome to the Econews Report. I'm your host this week, Tom Wheeler, Executive Director of EPIC, the Environmental Protection Information Center. And I'm joined by my friend and colleague, Colin Fiske, Executive Director of the Coalition for Responsible Transportation Priorities, or CRTP. Hey Colin!

COLIN FISKE:

Hello, Tom and everybody.

WHEELER:

All right. Well, I'm glad to have you back. You've just been on a little bit of vacation. We've all really missed you, Colin. So the streets are safer now that the watcher of our streets, Colin Fiske, is back. All right. We are also joined by Jeff Pimentel, Project Manager at Caltrans. Hey, Jeff.

JEFF PIMENTEL:

Good morning. Thanks for having me. All right.

WHEELER:

All right, we are going to be talking about all those like cones and temporary bollards and little things that you might be seeing pop up on South Broadway in Eureka. And we're going to be talking about the reason behind those and the data that Caltrans is hoping to capture. So Colin, I'll let you set the scene. Tell me about what Broadway is like for a pedestrian.

FISKE:

Not good. Yeah. And I think anyone who has tried walking on Broadway or just crossing Broadway as a pedestrian or as a bicyclist will tell you that it's not comfortable. It doesn't feel safe. And really it isn't safe. Broadway experiences the highest concentration of collisions for people walking and biking in our region. And so, yeah, there's a real need for that, particularly because people do walk and bike there because lots of folks in that area use those modes of transportation to get around. Some of them can't afford to buy a vehicle. Some just choose to do that. And we want to be encouraging that. And to do that, we need to make it safer.

WHEELER:

I heard from you once this, this idea, and it's forever kind of changed the way I look at streets, which is any person should be able to get to any place by foot or by bike. And that should just kind of be like our, our right as citizens. And right now it's somewhat difficult for crossing Broadway for accessing shops on Broadway. So I really like this idea that we're going to invest time and energy in trying to fix Broadway to make it a little bit better. Jeff Caltrans, where is Caltrans approaching this problem? How have you been thinking as an agency about the various kind of needs trade-offs between having a road that vehicles can utilize and access as well as the needs for pedestrians, bicyclists, other road users to cross that same infrastructure, use that same infrastructure. What is the thought within the agency?

PIMENTEL:

Yeah, well, I think historically there's been more of a focus on motorized users. Just historically looking in the years past and in the last few years, and it's been picking up more and more to where the culture and the focus and mission of the department and Caltrans is really built around meeting the needs of all users. And so it's no surprise when you go and look at Broadway, the facility is not well-designed to meet the needs of non-motorized users.

And so that's really at the focal point of what we are trying to accomplish out there from a safety perspective. And it also enhances safety, not only for non-motorized users, but for our vehicles and our motorized users as well, when we can enhance those, those features throughout this corridor. There's been a lot of construction activity out there in the last two, three, four years, currently there's construction going on out there now, and we have more construction planned out there, all centered around improvements to enhance safety in this Fourth Street, Fifth Street, Broadway corridor, and kind of this urban downtown area of Eureka.

And with the Broadway pop-ups, we're looking at doing a little bit of an unconventional approach to project development. Normally the way we would initiate a project and the way the public would interact with it is, it needs identified, whether it be a collision concentration and we develop a concept and a scope for a project, we see it through the early preliminary engineering phases, it gets around the environmental document project approval phase, and around that time, typically we'd have a public meeting. The community will come, they would see project information and layouts and drawings and Caltrans is saying, this is what we're going to do. We get some feedback, there might be some tweaks. And then we have a project that's constructed and everyone kind of lives with that.

So the difference with the Broadway pop-ups is, it's an opportunity to test concepts and actual have people interact with them and utilize them. And for us to get feedback and data from that, which then can inform what we actually build permanently in construction. So I think that's kind of the thought behind it is rather than going in and based on our best knowledge and engineering judgment and taking a stab at what we feel is the best fit out there, let's try the features that we want to actually build in permanent fashion, but let's let people interact with them and let's get data on that and see if that might change our mindset and concepts around what we feel we should be constructing out there.

And there's no doubt going to be tweaks from what we learn. They could be significant or they could be minor, but we're right in the middle of those pop-ups right now. They were installed middle of May and they are planned to be removed right around the middle of this month in June.

WHEELER:

All right. And I think that this is kind of a trend that we're seeing now with other agencies, other local governments with transportation related projects. The city of Eureka has done a number of pop-ups testing potential couplet, a one-way street road configuration around Sequoia Park. We've seen pop-ups used to evaluate the H and I street lane reductions and bull bouts there. So this is an increasingly popular tool, it seems, for gathering information about how road users will actually use these kind of new features. And it also is somewhat startling, I think, for road users as well.

So I just want people to know, as you said, that these things aren't necessarily finalized, but to give them deep thought about how they impact you as a driver, as pedestrian, as a bicyclist. How are you utilizing these features? Do they make you feel more safe? Do they make you slow down? Do they improve how you look at an intersection? Are you more present and seen pedestrians? If you're a driver, if you're a pedestrian, are you better able to kind of see traffic and make smarter decisions? This is all really important data that we can gather. Colin, looks like you had a thought.

FISKE:

Yeah, I think it's important because we're starting to see more and more of these pop-ups to talk about what they are and what they aren't. I think they are, as Jeff was saying, a really great opportunity for people to interact with potential changes to the streetscape and really provide maybe more informed feedback in that way. So I think they're really great as like a public input and participation tool.

But I also think it's really important for people to know that pop-ups, they aren't exactly what would be built or could be built. They're kind of like a sketch of what might go there. And so like one example is on Broadway, a lot of these pop-ups, it may be difficult for pedestrians to interact with even some of the things that would be meant for pedestrians. Like you have demarcated areas where in the future there could be a bulb out into the street, but right now there isn't one. And it might be more similar from a driver's perspective to interact with that than from a pedestrian's perspective.

Well, maybe Jeff could talk a little bit about this. On Broadway right now, there's a couple of different options for protected bike lanes, and both of those are supposed to represent a different kind of protection that could be given. But they are not exactly what would be there, right? So I think it's important for people to understand those kind of limitations too when they're interacting with it.

WHEELER:

Let's walk through some of the different things that we're testing out and we can hear kind of the perspective of Caltrans of what they are hoping to achieve or what is the like intent behind this item. So Colin, you first mentioned bike lanes. Jeff, can you talk about some of the temporary bollards that we've seen as a measure to protect bike lanes and other measures that you're considering for making it feel safer to ride your bike on Broadway?

PIMENTEL:

Yeah, so there's kind of four features we're testing. One of those, as you mentioned, is a bike lane, bikeway, and that's specifically a class 4 bikeway, which would have some sort of a physical barrier between the traveled way and location where the bikes are traveling. So, as you've noticed, between Wabash and Hawthorne, in both the north and southbound directions, we have some temporary channelizers that are placed on the roadway. In the southbound direction, they're a little shorter and stubbier. I believe those are called K71s.

And then, in the northbound direction, we have more of our traditional channelizer, just in a white color, but more traditional than what you would see in a construction project utilized to delineate some feature. So, they're two different types of channelizers, and just using them and getting data and seeing what people feel about those. But that would be fairly similar in terms of what would be installed in a permanent fashion. And we do have a project, South Broadway Complete Streets, which goes from Valharrick Avenue up to the South Bayshore Mall entrance, where we are planning to install a class 4 bikeway with some sort of a soft barrier of that nature that would be located in a buffered area that would be striped out, I think, three feet in width. So, we want to encourage people to go out there and utilize it and let us know.

And I don't know if we've mentioned it this morning, but there's the survey, and that's really key in terms of us getting feedback from people utilizing it or not utilizing it, but interacting with it from a different vantage point, whether they're a pedestrian, they're driving a vehicle. So, yeah, that is one feature that we're testing and something that we're looking at that would be implemented kind of Broadway-wide, at least north of Wabash, where we have the shoulders sufficient to be able to accommodate that space. Thank you.

WHEELER:

If you want to find that survey, it is available on the Lost Coast Outpost, where we post every episode of the Econews Report. If you're listening to this as a podcast, it's also in the podcast notes section. Or you can just search for Broadway Pop-Up and you'll find the link midway down the page right under a map of the project area. It's at SurveyMonkey.com slash r slash Broadway Pop-Up.

FISKE:

pop-ups. Jeff, one question specific to those bike lane bollards that I've heard from several people is, these are plastic, they're lightweight, these are temporary materials, and some folks are wondering, would that be the same for a permanent installation or would it be a more robust material like cement or some kind of metal or something that would provide more protection against a fast-moving vehicle? Could you speak to that a little bit?

PIMENTEL:

Yeah, and in its permanent construction, it likely would be something similar to what's out there today. And a couple reasons for that. One is the intent behind the class 4 bikeway, at least in our application, our environment where we're at, it's not intended to be a physical barrier that would stop a vehicle. So I know there have been questions about, could we just put a solid barrier that would extend that whole stretch?

I know this question came up in our South Broadway Complete Streets public meeting. It's still important since the vehicles no longer have that shoulder that they, for an emergency situation, disabled vehicle, that they're still able to pull off the roadway. And that would be where they would pull off. Now, the amount of times that happens and the frequency of it would be very minimal, but we still need an opportunity to be there. And that's, again, balancing the needs of all users. While we do have that bike lane, we still need to provide that area for a disabled vehicle to be able to get off the roadway. And then another feature there is in terms of fixed objects that close to the roadway with a clear recovery zone and whatnot with vehicles driving at certain speeds. But we need those to be flexible. But I see on your other side where I feel like you're going with the point of some sort of a physical barrier that would stop a vehicle.

The intent really behind the Class 4 Bikeway in this application is to bring, I think, more visibility and buffered area between the bikes and the vehicles. Notifying drivers of where to expect bikes to be, as well as communicating to cyclists where they're supposed to be in terms of travel along Broadway. But not so much that it would prevent a vehicle from going into that space.

FISKE:

Well, and that's something that maybe CRTP has a different perspective on than Caltrans, but I would encourage folks to weigh in on that survey and provide their feedback.

PIMENTEL:

Yeah, and another another point on that Colin and Tom too is I think in a community where there's been a lot of maybe development done at once through large swaths of area and I think a lot of thought can be given on where access points are for maybe a large area and and not that every single little property has one or more driveways. That also makes it rather challenging because we have to maintain access to those driveways all those parcels and that really starts to make I don't know if Swiss cheese is the right comparison here but you've got a lot of breaks in in those bike lanes that will be needed for that as well.

That's kind of feedback we want and I'm not I'm not here to say that there have been final decisions on anything but based on the information we have now and assumptions we're making now that's a little insight to to what the department's thinking but this is why we have the survey this is why we're putting things out there to get people to interact with them and give us feedback so I definitely encourage you to take Colin's advice and and let us know what you think.

WHEELER:

The EcoNews. We're talking with Jeff Pimentel from Caltrans about the Broadway pop-ups that you may have seen. So a feature that I've personally really enjoyed is the temporary curb extensions, bulb-outs, we can call them a lot of things. So you might notice these as you're driving or walking at curbs that meet Broadway. There'll be kind of an extra little area that has been cordoned off using these temporary bollards. Jeff, what is the thought behind these curb extensions?

PIMENTEL:

The curb extension, you'll see what would look in a more, I guess, permanent fashion along Fourth and Fifth Street, where we have a lot of what's called bulb outs, where the curb extends out into the shoulder area. And that is intended to accomplish a few things. One is bring more visibility of the pedestrians to the vehicles by bringing them closer. That also will shorten crossing distances for pedestrians as well, and also will force vehicles to slow down a little bit more in terms of navigating that turn. So it requires a little more of a tight turn. You get a little negative feedback expected from vehicles that are used to making those sweeping turns a little higher speed, but that really is the intent, is to slow people down. And when we do that, I think we can bring more visibility to our more vulnerable users, our peds and bikes, and subsets of those groups as well.

But yeah, that's really the intent behind those. And that's it.

WHEELER:

I love that behavior forcing effect, right? It is a less soft turn, so you do have to slow down a bit to be able to make that turn. It just naturally forces drivers to do things that are going to be safer, both for them as motor vehicle operators, as well as for pedestrians and bike users. And I also should say that I think that Caltrans has proved the efficacy of this as a device by just reading the comment section online.

A lot of drivers are angry because they are forced to slow down. And it's like, well, yeah, that's the point. It is good design. In the past, when we allowed people to just whip around curves, pedestrians are less visible. You're traveling at a higher rate of speed, which is going to mean more extreme impacts if a collision were to occur between a car and a pedestrian. So this is all by design. This is good design, I should say. This is modern thinking in transportation infrastructure. So count me as a fan of those bulb outs.

PIMENTEL:

Yeah, I see the interesting comments and my wife sent me an interesting picture. I think it was on a, some social media post of all the photos of all the pop-ups and not, not very nice things being said about it. But I think the thing to remind the community about is that we have a lot of different users out there. We've got vehicles, we've got pedestrians, we've got cyclists, and we have subsets of our non-literate users from visually impaired to disabled community. There's so many various types of uses that we're trying to accommodate out there.

And so I can see that if you're used to going a certain speed, navigating a certain way to get in and out of a property, and that changes. Humans by nature, we don't like change. We like what we're used to. But the thing I think just to remind the community about is that we got a lot of different users out there and there's one facility we all need to use. And so we need to make it best fit so that safety is enhanced for everyone and really that's at the core of our mission at Caltrans is safety. And we want everyone to get home, get to their destination safely. And so it's going to cause some frustration to some people because there is going to be a change from what they're used to.

But I think hopefully the community and those people that have that frustration can just maybe have some internal thought and think about really why we're doing it. We're not doing it to inconvenience people. We're doing it to, to really serve everyone and make sure that everyone's needs are met out there.

WHEELER:

Absolutely. I think the point about change being scary is so true. Give it two years, everyone will forget what the road looked like previously, and this is just going to become the new normal and it's going to be fine, everybody. It's going to be fine. It'll be great, in fact. It's going to be better. We're going to have a better road. So, yay. Here's one that confused my wife when she first saw it. In the middle turn lane, the left turn lane in the middle of the road, and there are these kind of islands of cones every once in a while. What's the deal with those?

PIMENTEL:

Yeah, so those are what we're calling median refuges. And again, like Colin mentioned earlier about our bulb out with the channelizers and the curb extensions, that PEDs aren't really able to utilize those as they would if they were constructed permanently because there isn't a curb ramp and the curb and sidewalk doesn't extend out to that limit. It's more of a test to see how vehicles interact with it. Similar thing here where those are really potential opportunities for pedestrians, but we're not able to really, we're not testing them as a pedestrian crossing per se.

So they're doing a couple things we're testing. One is a traffic calming element. And by nature, if you can create a more tight visual cross section to the roadway and not as expansive and wide, by nature, vehicles and people want to slow down as they travel by that. It has kind of like this feeling and appearance and experience that you're traveling faster than you really are when things seem a little bit closer to you. So we're testing those for that reason, but also in locations that could be potential pedestrian crossings. So similar to over by the Broadway Cinema, we put in the pedestrian high intensity activated crosswalk. It could be opportunities for similar systems like that.

But one of the big pieces we're testing with that as well in terms of getting feedback from is our emergency responders. So that two-way left turn lane is highly utilized by emergency services to respond. So that we are communicating with them to really see how those might be impacting their response and navigation to various incidents they need to respond to within the city. Because that's been a big feedback from them in terms of raised medians and things of that nature and not being able to navigate those and something we've also looked at in the event that we have a refuge of that nature in the future and a permanent project that those medians have like what's called a rolled curb or mannable curb so that an emergency vehicle could still traverse over it at a much lower speed, but they would need to find an alternative route to respond to a call.

WHEELER:

One of the things I like about it is probably the thing that emergency vehicles don't is that it prevents people from just using that left turn lane as a travel lane. One thing I think I see a lot when using Broadway is that when traffic does get a little bit backed up, people who are going to need to make a left-hand turn a couple blocks down in the future, they'll just get into the left-hand turn lane and zoom past traffic for a block, two blocks, three blocks, and it's kind of dangerous. They're traveling at a high rate of speed. They are kind of laughing at everybody that they're passing to their right, but they're using this feature in a way that it's not supposed to be used for. It is interfering with folks who might have to make a left-hand turn coming from the other direction. It just is kind of dangerous and reckless to me. So I like it for that reason, which is probably the reason that emergency vehicles don't. Colin.

FISKE:

I guess I'll just editorialize for a second that it's not safe for anybody to drive at a high rate of speed down the center lane when traffic is stopped, whether that's an emergency vehicle or not. I guess this is another one where CRTP would advocate for and is advocating for facilities that will actually be a safety barrier for people walking and biking. And really it's just, I think, a change in the mindset and the behavior of motorized users of all kinds that some space is just going to have to be set aside for the safety of other users.

WHEELER:

users. All right. Let's see. The other thing that I think I know about the pop-ups is that around Papa and Barkley down kind of in the south end of the project, some acceleration and deceleration lanes have been taken away. What is the thought process behind that?

PIMENTEL:

Yeah, so in certain locations, I believe that at signalized intersections, we're testing removal of those acceleration deceleration lanes. And those would be opportunities for a few different things, namely looking at transit stops. So having bus stops and it's convenient and nice to have them at signalized intersections, especially on the downstream side, which makes it much easier for the buses to re-enter traffic and easier for them to find gaps when everyone is stopped at the signal. It also provides an opportunity to place the pedestrian and cyclist lane behind that transit stop between what would be the sidewalk and a transit stop.

So we're testing that in those locations, mainly to see how vehicles interact with them and what kind of feedback we get. But that's that's what we're testing there. We're also testing that down by, I believe, at the South Bay Charmant entrance. We've closed that one as well.

WHEELER:

Alright, are there other features other things that you're testing that I can't remember I I've just traveled the road in my brain trying to picture the things I've seen. Oh, there's there's the revision to the turn. What's that Street called that goes up by by Winco. Harris. There's the new island thing there that restricts it to only one turn lane instead of what was once two turn lanes to get up that street

PIMENTEL:

Right. And that has a similar feature to almost the closure of the accel lanes. We're putting the bike lane on the backside of that, providing space there in a path for cyclists to navigate, but also it has that traffic calming effect. So for people currently, before that was installed, you're just at speed, just kind of sweeping up the hill, really at whatever speed you want. Oftentimes people accelerate up there. So this is really requiring people to do that by design. They have to slow down and make that turn. And I've seen some negative feedback that mainly from the vehicle user that isn't liking the fact that they have to slow down, but that is the intent behind that traffic calming, providing that space between vehicles and cyclists and giving them a path to navigate that hill.

WHEELER:

And we should also say that there are some things that people might believe are part of the project part of this pop-up that aren't included and so you might be like what what are they doing around 14th street? Why are they doing this? This doesn't make any sense! Jeff, explain what is and isn't part of this project design?

PIMENTEL:

Yeah, so it's a little unfortunate it had to happen at the same time, but it did. This is the time that the contractor who was installing the pop-ups was available to install them. So it just so happened to coincide with when a safety project was also starting construction. So we have a Fifth Street and Broadway safety project that goes from Wabash North along Broadway and then also all its entirety along Fifth Street. And so there's even more channelizers than the pop-ups are utilizing in that section. And the community has noticed that through segments, the two-way left turn lane that sits in the middle of north and southbound, that that is taken away at night. And so that is part of an actual construction project where we are replacing most all of the driveways and curb ramps to bring them up to current ADA standards. We're also going to be installing a fiber optic line that will be connected into our district office at Union and Wabash for a traffic management center so that we can better manage and coordinate our signals throughout the city. So that's a pretty exciting feature to get added.

And a number of our projects, including the safety project we did on Fourth Street and our South Broadway Complete Streets, as we're going and building, we're trying to get all the various assets included in those projects. So we got a whole system in place to be able to manage our signals better. So that's part of that. And then we'll also be doing some drainage enhancements and drainage improvements along Broadway and on Fifth Street. So that project is expected to last approximately two years. So it's not planned to be completed until the end of 2024. We should see the work, since we're starting on Broadway and getting through that, that shouldn't last the entirety of that time.

But we just ask the community to be patient while we have a limited width along Broadway. We don't have shoulders there. So that's why we have to take out that two-way left turn lane at night to allow the contractor to have space in that first lane to be able to construct the sidewalk, sidewalk repair, driveway replacement, curb ramp replacement. And then that will actually flip to the other side. So the construction will occur on both North and Southbound. And we'll be doing that closure of the two-way left turn lane kind of segment by segment as we march along Broadway to do those improvements. So those are two separate features that are not tied at all together. The best way to think about it is Wabash South is all Broadway pop-ups. Wabash North is an actual construction, active construction, safety construction project.

WHEELER:

Well, I want to encourage everybody to go and take this survey. Again, you can find it on the Lost Coast Outpost. We post every episode of the EcoNews Report on the Lost Coast Outpost. It'll be there. If you search for Broadway pop-ups, Caltrans on Google, you'll find the project page. There's a link there. You can also go to SurveyMonkey.com slash r slash Broadway pop-ups, as well as the link is in the notes. If you're listening to this as a podcast. So everybody go take that survey. Go take it now because the Broadway pop-ups are about to be removed. And Jeff wants to have all that data that you possibly can so that Caltrans can make the best decision that they possibly can about how to make the road safe for all road users. Jeff, thank you so much for coming on the Eco News Report. Look forward to having you back maybe in the future when we have more discrete project plans for making Broadway safe.

PIMENTEL:

Yeah, definitely. And just one thing I'll add, we have a pretty convenient URL web link that everyone easy to remember. You just go to BroadwayPopups.com. It'll take you to the Broadway Pop-Ups webpage and the link to the survey is on there as well. Easy peasy.

WHEELER:

Even better. All right. Well, thank you so much, Jeff, for joining us on the Econews. Join us again next week on this time and channel for more environmental news from the North Coast of California.