Title
Recommendation to Endorse the Design Concept for the Lincoln Avenue/Marshall Way/Pacific Avenue Corridor Improvement Project. (Action Item)
Body
To: Honorable Chair and Members of the Transportation Commission
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The City has identified the Lincoln Avenue/Marshall Way/Pacific Avenue (Lincoln/Marshall/Pacific) corridor between Alameda Point at Main Street/Central Avenue/Pacific Avenue and Broadway in the east end of town as a high priority for safety and mobility improvements. The Lincoln/Marshall/Pacific corridor is over three miles long, serves multiple destinations including schools, commercial districts and parks, and is also a Tier 1 high-injury corridor. The concept includes a road diet - going from four to three travel lanes with a center turn lane and bike lanes - as well as roundabouts at Lincoln Avenue/Wilma Chan Way/Eighth Street and at Lincoln Avenue/Fifth Street/Marshall Way, flashing beacons, modernized traffic signals, crosswalk improvements, school frontage improvements, stormwater gardens, street trees, improved lighting and bus stop enhancements. The concept will likely be phased in over time, as street sections are resurfaced and constructed with grant funding. Immediate action will occur on Lincoln Avenue at Walnut Street with the installation of flashing beacons and increased intersection visibility. Public on-street parking will be maintained except adjacent to the roundabouts and at intersections and select driveways to improve visibility.
BACKGROUND
The City has identified the Lincoln Avenue/Marshall Way/Pacific Avenue (Lincoln/Marshall/Pacific) corridor between Alameda Point at Main Street/Central Avenue/Pacific Avenue and Broadway in the east end of town as a high priority for safety and mobility improvements. City staff is working with Parisi Transportation Consulting (Parisi) to develop the concept for the corridor. The Lincoln/Marshall/Pacific Corridor Improvement Project includes the following related City Council actions:
• In January 2018, the City Council adopted the Transportation Choices Plan, which included the Lincoln/Marshall/Pacific Improvement Project as a Vision Zero project to reduce traffic deaths and severe injuries to zero. The Plan states that the next step would be a feasibility study for a four-lane to three-lane street conversion with bike lanes.
• In June 2021, the City Council approved $200,000 in Measure BB Local Streets and Roads monies for fiscal years 2021 to 2023 as shown in the Capital Improvement Program to evaluate safety improvements for this corridor.
• In December 2021, the City Council adopted the Vision Zero Action Plan, which identifies this corridor as a High Injury Corridor that should be prioritized for safety improvements.
• In December 2022, the City Council approved the Active Transportation Plan, which identifies this corridor as having buffered bike lanes west of St. Charles Street, standard Class II bike lanes east of St. Charles Street to Park Street and a neighborhood greenway east of Park Street to Broadway. A neighborhood greenway also is proposed for Pacific Avenue just north of Lincoln Avenue.
For the Lincoln/Marshall/Pacific Corridor Improvement Project, the City seeks to:
• Promote safety by prioritizing Vision Zero, which the City Council approved as a policy in 2019 to reduce traffic deaths and severe injuries to zero.
• Improve mobility for all roadway users, including AC Transit buses.
• Improve pavement for better operations and user experience, and to reduce maintenance.
• Provide flood reduction and landscaping opportunities including to reduce the heat island impacts that occur in urbanized areas.
• Reduce greenhouse gas emissions by improving traffic flow and shifting trips to walking, bicycling and riding transit.
• Comply with City plans and policies, including the City's General Plan update, the Active Transportation Plan and the upcoming Urban Forest Plan.
The Lincoln/Marshall/Pacific corridor connects neighborhoods across Alameda, is over three miles long, and serves multiple destinations including schools, commercial districts and parks. It is also a high-injury corridor with four high crash intersections according to the City's Vision Zero Action Plan. The City staff/consultant team evaluated the current uses, intersection controls and crash data and engaged with community members to develop the design concept. The final concept will likely be phased in over time, as street sections are resurfaced and improvements are constructed with grant funding. The City staff/consultant team will continue to engage with community members and key stakeholders as the project progresses through implementation.
The purpose of this agenda item is to request the Transportation Commission to endorse the concept of the Lincoln/Marshall/Pacific Corridor Improvement Project. The project webpage is www.alamedaca.gov/LincolnMarshallPacific
DISCUSSION
The Lincoln/Marshall/Pacific corridor is one of the widest corridors in the City with four lanes of motor vehicle travel and a two-way left turn lane in some sections. Only the eastern sections of the project corridor are narrower with two lanes and a two-way left turn lane west of Park Street and a two-lane street between Park Street and Broadway. The roadway carries 200 to 700 vehicles per hour in each direction, and the corridor’s capacity is over two times what it currently carries. The average daily traffic (ADT) for the corridor, which the consultant increased by 18 percent to reflect pre-pandemic conditions, is between 3,900 and 11,000 vehicles per day. The corridor has an existing speed limit of 25 miles per hour (mph), and observed speeds are often higher ranging between 29 and 34 mph for 85th percentile speeds. There are no bike facilities, and AC Transit bus lines serve Pacific Avenue, Marshall Way and Lincoln Avenue west of Webster Street.
Lincoln Avenue is a high injury corridor with 258 crashes from 2017 to 2021. Out of this total, 17 crashes involved pedestrians and 11 crashes involved cyclists. There were 3 fatal crashes, which included 1 pedestrian fatality, and 2 crashes that resulted in severe injury. The majority - 67 percent - of the crashes did not result in an injury, and 31 percent resulted in a minor injury. Hot spots for all crashes increase to the east with the highest frequency occurring between Willow Street and Park Street. Two hot spots for bicycle and pedestrian-involved crashes are near Webster Street and Park Street. Bicycle and pedestrian crashes accounted for 13 percent of all crashes but almost 33 percent of all injuries.
The adjacent land uses are primarily residential with a mix of commercial. According to the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC), the Lincoln/Marshall/Pacific corridor sees different levels of equity priority areas with the western portion as having the highest level of social vulnerability in the city and the area east and west of Park Street as also having high social vulnerability characteristics. Traffic signals are spaced on average one quarter mile apart, and there are 11 traffic signals over the 3.1 mile corridor. Marked crosswalks are spaced an average of 400 feet apart, and 54 percent of them are at signalized intersections. The Pacific Avenue crosswalk at Fourth Street in front of the Academy of Alameda has a flashing beacon system. Even though there are no bus routes directly on Lincoln Avenue east of Webster Street, there are bus routes to the north on Buena Vista Avenue and high ridership bus routes to the south on Santa Clara Avenue, which generate pedestrian travel across Lincoln Avenue.
In 2022, the City staff/consultant team completed two rounds of community engagement, which consisted of two online surveys (480 and 155 respondents), three project development team meetings (averaging 16 participants at each meeting), two letters to adjacent properties (3,000 and 6,000 letters), several email blasts to about 2,000 recipients, two virtual community workshops (26 and 14 participants), two in-person open houses (15 and 4 participants) and 625 unique project webpage views. The key stakeholders include city staff, business communities, neighborhood community members, AC Transit, Alameda Unified School District, Love School, Academy of Alameda and Bike Walk Alameda. The City staff/consultant team also analyzed street safety concern reports submitted to SeeClickFix, which showed that out of 56 submittals, 45 percent pertained to unsafe crossings, 18 percent pertained to other safety issues, 14 percent concerned speeding, 12 percent were related to a walking near-miss and 9 percent were about a driving near miss.
The project webpage - www.alamedaca.gov/LincolnMarshallPacific - shows the detailed results from the surveys, virtual workshops and in-person open houses as well as video recordings of the virtual workshops. The main themes from the community outreach include a concern about safety, speeding, lack of enforcement, pedestrian and bicycle crossings, parking loss in high density housing areas, citywide congestion, emergency response, lack of bike facilities as well as school access issues at the Academy of Alameda and Love School. The majority of the survey respondents stated that they are dissatisfied with the safety and operations of the corridor. Survey respondents ranked core maintenance and safer speeds/traffic calming as the highest priority, and prefer protected bike lanes over traditional bike lanes adjacent to the travel lane.
Concept Overview
The concept includes a road diet - going from four to three travel lanes with a center turn lane and bike lanes - as well as roundabouts at Lincoln Avenue/Wilma Chan Way/Eighth Street and at Lincoln Avenue/Fifth Street/Marshall Way, flashing beacons, modernized traffic signals, crosswalk improvements, school frontage improvements, stormwater gardens, street trees, improved lighting and bus stop enhancements. The concept will likely be phased in over time, as street sections are resurfaced and constructed with grant funding. Immediate action will occur on Lincoln Avenue at Walnut Street with the installation of flashing beacons and increased intersection visibility. Public on-street parking will be maintained except adjacent to the roundabouts and at intersections and select driveways to improve visibility. Green infrastructure such as landscaped medians, stormwater gardens and street trees will improve aesthetics and will provide flood and heat island effect reductions. Some street sections also will have resurfacing treatments when pavement preservation is needed such as between Eighth Street and St. Charles Street as well as the Park Street and Broadway section.
Road Diet
The City staff/consultant team recommends a road diet because the Lincoln/Marshall/Pacific corridor’s capacity is over two times what it currently carries. Road diets have the potential to reduce crashes by up to 47 percent when going from four to three travel lanes with a center turn lane and bikeways. The reduction of motor vehicle travel lanes provides an opportunity to reallocate space for other uses such as bike lanes and a center two-way left-turn lane. According to the Federal Highway Administration's (FHWA) informational guide, streets with motor vehicle travel lane reductions have multiple benefits for people driving, walking and bicycling, such as:
• Decreases vehicle travel lanes for pedestrians to cross;
• Allows for better visibility of pedestrians waiting or attempting to cross the street;
• Improves circulation for bicyclists when a bikeway is added;
• Reduces rear-end, sideswipe and left-turn collisions by at least 19 percent and up to 47 percent through the use of a center two-way left-turn lane;
• Improves speed limit compliance by three to five miles per hour, which reduces the severity of collisions; and
• Improves travel flow since through vehicles are separated from left-turning vehicles.
The FHWA has a case studies document and additional resources for road diets. FHWA Video and Fact Sheets are as follows:
• Video
• Economic Impacts fact sheet
• Myth Busters fact sheet
• Proven Safety Countermeasure
Bike Lanes
Bicycle lane additions can reduce crashes up to 30 percent for total crashes on two-lane roads and up to 49 percent on four-lane roads according to the FHWA. In late 2019, the City of Alameda conducted a statistically significant citywide survey, which showed that 73 percent of respondents agree that Alameda needs to do more to make it safer for people to bicycle. On Pacific Avenue and Lincoln Avenue west of Morton Street where a wider street exists, the recommended bicycle facilities are buffered bicycle lanes similar to Otis Drive. East of Morton Street where the street is narrower, standard bike lanes are recommended similar to Santa Clara Avenue and Broadway. Due to the lack of driveways west and east of the Academy of Alameda and in the St. Charles commercial area, the concept recommends parking protected bicycle lanes in these areas to allow for more protected bicycling with minimal parking loss. A neighborhood greenway is recommended for Lincoln Avenue between Park Street and Broadway, which is consistent with the Active Transportation Plan and includes a mountable neighborhood traffic circle on Lincoln Avenue at Everett Street. The Active Transportation Plan also proposes a neighborhood greenway on Pacific Avenue, which is just north of the Lincoln Avenue study area and will allow for a low stress bikeway option in this neighborhood parallel to the Lincoln Avenue corridor.
Pedestrian Crossing Improvements
In late 2019, the City of Alameda conducted a statistically significant citywide survey, which showed that 81 percent of respondents agree that Alameda needs to do more to make it safer for people to walk across busy streets. Pedestrian crossing improvements include the following treatments at various locations throughout the corridor:
• High visibility crosswalks, which can reduce pedestrian injury crashes by 40 percent;
• Intersection lighting, which can reduce pedestrian crashes up to 42 percent;
• Advanced yield or stop markings and signs, which can reduce pedestrian crashes up to 25 percent;
• Medians with marked crosswalks, which can reduce pedestrian crashes by 46 percent;
• Medians with pedestrian refuge islands, which can reduce crashes by 56 percent; and
• Flashing beacons can reduce pedestrian crashes up to 47 percent, and can increase motorists yielding rates up to 98 percent and are recommended at the following locations:
o Lincoln Avenue / Concordia Street
o Lincoln Avenue / Ninth Street
o Lincoln Avenue / St. Charles Street
o Lincoln Avenue / Stanton Street
o Lincoln Avenue / Walnut Street
o Lincoln Avenue / Broadway
Roundabouts
For the Lincoln/Marshall/Pacific project, roundabouts are recommended for Lincoln Avenue/Fifth Street/Marshall Way and Lincoln Avenue/Wilma Chan Way/Eighth Street, and a roundabout already is approved and funded at Pacific Avenue/Central Avenue/Main Street as part of the Central Avenue Safety Improvement Project. Roundabouts reduce the types of crashes where people are seriously hurt or killed by 78 percent when compared to signalized intersections. Roundabouts result in lower vehicle speeds, generally 10-15 miles per hour in the circular intersection around the roundabout. Crashes that occur will be less severe because of this reduced speed. Pedestrians are generally safer at roundabouts, and are faced with simpler decisions at a time. Roundabouts also reduce delays compared to traffic signals, provide landscaping and flood reduction opportunities, and have lower maintenance costs. Videos and presentations on roundabouts are as follows:
• Roundabout Education at City of Alameda Transportation Commission (Jan 27, 2021) - Staff Report/Presentation - Video (at 30 minute mark)
• Metropolitan Transportation Commission Roundabout Videos
• FHWA Roundabout Safety Resources
Signal Modernization
Enhancements for signalized intersections include left turn arrows, leading pedestrian/bicycle intervals, adjusted signal timing, yellow change intervals and backplates with retroreflective borders. Yellow change intervals can provide a 36-50 percent reduction in red light running, an 8-14 percent reduction in total crashes, and a 12 percent reduction in injury crashes. Backplates with retroreflective borders can provide a 15 percent reduction in total crashes. Leading pedestrian intervals can provide a 13 percent reduction in pedestrian-vehicle crashes at intersections. The Park and Webster Street signals already have some modernization treatments, and the remaining signalized intersections are expected to have more extensive upgrades.
Bus Stop Enhancements
The City staff/consultant team recommends improved operations and safety of the AC Transit bus lines. Enhancements include bus stop islands and bulb-outs, benches, ADA improvements, consolidated bus stops for faster operations and bus stops moved to the far side of intersections. For consolidated bus stops, the bus stops on Lincoln Avenue at Sixth Street are recommended to be removed and the bus stops on Lincoln Avenue at Fifth Street are recommended to be shifted east to Lincoln Avenue at Linden Street adjacent to the park and school facilities. Bus stops are preferred on the far side of intersections to improve visibility at intersections, especially for bus riders crossing the street who would do so without a bus blocking their visibility. Far side bus stops are recommended on Pacific Avenue at Second Street/Santa Clara Avenue instead of on Pacific Avenue at Main Street/Central Avenue.
Green Infrastructure
Potential locations for green infrastructure such as street trees, landscaped medians and storm water gardens at curb bulb-outs are identified. The green infrastructure includes landscaped medians similar to the ones that currently exist on Lincoln Avenue by St. Charles Street and Bay Street. In addition to flood and heat island reduction benefits, landscaped curb extensions also prevent people from parking adjacent to intersections so as to improve visibility. These landscaped bioretention curb extensions are considered sustainable systems that reduce flooding on adjacent streets, slow stormwater runoff and allow for cleaner runoff into the bay and estuary. These enhanced streetscapes also will promote Bay Friendly landscaping with California native, drought tolerant species and will help implement the upcoming Urban Forest Plan, which is in the process of being updated.
FINANCIAL IMPACT
The Lincoln/Marshall/Pacific Improvement Project (C65700) concept phase is funded by Measures B/BB, Alameda County’s transportation sales tax, which is administered by the Alameda CTC. The City staff/consultant team submitted a grant application to the Alameda CTC in June 2022 totaling $14 million, which to date has been unsuccessful. The City staff/consultant team is anticipating a phased implementation of the project as grant and resurfacing funding becomes available.
MUNICIPAL CODE/POLICY DOCUMENT CROSS REFERENCE
The Lincoln/Marshall/Pacific Improvement Project is consistent with the General Plan (2021) and makes progress towards meeting the four goals of the Mobility Element, which are as follows:
Goal 1 - Equity: Provide for the mobility needs of all Alameda residents, workers, and visitors regardless of income, age, ability, or neighborhood.
Goal 2 - Safety: Eliminate fatalities and severe injuries on Alameda’s streets, sidewalks, crosswalks and trails by 2035.
Goal 3 - Choices: Expand and improve alternatives to low occupancy automobile trips to incentivize mode shift to more environmentally sustainable modes of transportation while recognizing the diverse needs for mobility.
Goal 4 - Sustainability: Reduce the impacts of transportation systems on the environment, and transition to a more resilient transportation system to address the impacts of climate change.
Vulnerable users are supported in the Mobility Element under ME-6, the Safe Streets section as follows: Policy that aims to provide safe and convenient access for vulnerable users (including children, seniors, people with disabilities, and people walking and bicycling) designing, redesigning or resurfacing streets.
Roundabouts are supported in the Mobility Element under ME-7, the Safe Streets section as follows:
e. Roundabouts. Increase the use of roundabouts at intersections to improve the safety and lower maintenance costs compared to traffic signals.
j. Intersection Safety. To improve safety at a stop controlled or signalized intersections, consider a roundabout design or eliminating right turns on red and adding pedestrian scrambles to existing signals.
k. Roundabouts and Traffic Circles. When considering modification to an intersection, prioritize roundabouts and traffic circles for consideration recognizing that land acquisition needs, operational considerations, or other engineering factors or constraints may result in other intersection solutions on a case-by-case basis.
Road diets are supported in the Mobility Element under ME-8, the Safe Streets section as follows:
Roadway Diets. To reduce speeding and collisions on 4-lane roads on high-injury corridors, consider converting the 4-lane road to a 2-lane road with turning lanes, transit lanes, or bicycle lanes.
ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW
Approval of the Lincoln/Marshall/Pacific concept is categorically exempt pursuant to California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) Guidelines section 15301(c) Existing Facilities (Minor alterations to existing facilities including bicycle facilities) and Section 15304(h) Minor Alterations to Land and the creation of bicycle lanes on existing public rights-of-way.
CLIMATE IMPACT
Since vehicle miles traveled in Alameda is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in Alameda, City staff is expecting that the Lincoln/Marshall/Pacific Corridor Improvement Project would have a positive climate impact. The concept is being developed to make it safer and more convenient to bicycle, ride the bus and walk and to reduce congestion and idling motor vehicles.
RECOMMENDATION
Endorse the design concept for the Lincoln Avenue/Marshall Way/Pacific Avenue Corridor Improvement Project.
Respectfully submitted,
Andrew Thomas, Director of Planning, Building and Transportation
By,
Gail Payne, Senior Transportation Coordinator
Exhibits:
1. Concept: Central/Main/Pacific to Eighth/Wilma Chan Way/Lincoln
2. Concept: Eighth/Wilma Chan Way/Lincoln to Grand Street
3. Concept: Grand Street to Broadway
4. Presentation
5. Correspondence - Batch 1