To: Planning and Transportation Commission
Subject: Opposition to proposal for 195 Page Mill Road and ... Park Blvd by Court House Plaza Company
Date: 2004-08-10
From: Douglas B. Moran
790 Matadero Avenue, Palo Alto 94306-2734
650-856-3302

Overview

This response focuses on the traffic aspect of the proposal. The staff report contains no information on the derivation of the trip counts. However, some basic calculations from the numbers provided indicate that the applicant's projected peak AM and PM trips are a mere fraction of what might reasonably be expected.

The staff report also fails to mention multiple significant conditions affecting traffic in this immediate area, such as immediately abutting an intersection that already has major congestion problems during the PM peak.

Consequently, the application should be denied on the basis of transportation issues alone: It is too large for the existing traffic infrastructure.

Relevant statistics

Note: The computation in the staff report yields a requirement for 30 more spaces than that in the applicant's proposal. I will use the applicant's numbers here.

The applicant's proposal has 392 parking places (20% reduction for mixed-use plus 6.5% for being in a transit-oriented area), but they predict only 87 and 114 peak trips in morning and evening respectively. With 304 bedrooms in the apartments (52 one-bedroom, 123 two-bedroom and 2 three-bedroom), this trip calculation works out to

1.29 parking places/bedroom
0.29 peak AM trips/bedroom
0.375 peak PM trips/bedroom
0.22 peak AM trips/parking space
0.29 peak PM trips/parking space
These peak-trip numbers seem absurdly low, especially the peak trips per parking space. My expectation for people living in apartments next to railroad tracks is that they have jobs that are less likely to have flexible hours, and thus they are less able to shift their commutes outside of peak hours. I would also expect that there would be few "excess" cars (cars that are used infrequently).

Peak trip calculation are not credible

The reduction in the parking requirement for mixed-use was 104 spaces (from staff report). The very reasonable rationale for this reduction is that the parking places used by residents who drive to work (or other day-time equivalent) are available for use by office workers during the day.

This number of 104 spaces provides a reasonable first approximation of the number of vehicles that are leaving and arriving at the site during peak hours. If all of this switch from residential to office use occurred during peak traffic hours, you would have 208 peak trips for both AM and PM just from this alone (not counting any trips for any other residents). This is more than double the predicted AM traffic (87) and almost double the PM prediction (114).

It is a bit of an simplification to model the situation as a complete switch-over that occurs during peak hours: The requirements for both residential and office are supposed to have some buffering (guests, visitors) that somewhat reduce the need for exact synchronization at the beginning and end of the work day. However, even assuming that only half the switch-over occurs during peaks, the projected trips still seem much too low.

School trip generation - apparently ignored

The development's location is far from schools, both physically and, more importantly, psychologically. The psychological factors involve major streets that children must cross, and to a lesser extent ones that they must walk along.

My guess would be that parents will be driving children to school, adding to AM peak trips. This does not seem to be included in the applicant's calculation.

One of the questions that repeatedly arises for traffic impacts of apartments and similar higher-density housing is the demographic mix. Anecdotal evidence is that Palo Alto deviates significantly from national norms because the premium that parents are willing to pay to have their children in the PAUSD outweighs the premium that others are willing to pay to be closer to their jobs.

Transit-oriented development - any vetted numbers?

Part of the reduction in parking requirements comes from the site being near a Caltrain station, but remember, California Ave is not a "Baby Bullet" stop, making it a far less desirable location for someone planning to use the train.

On the utilization rate of public transit, I have asked various people at the city whether there has been a local study, for example of the current transit-oriented housing in the California Ave area. None of them has been aware of such a study. My personal experience from being at the California Avenue Caltrain station at various times at evening peak (between 5-6pm) is that relatively few people left as pedestrians. My sample set is too minuscule to draw any conclusion other than to raise doubts that projections based upon experiences in more traditional cities is probably inapplicable here.

El Camino "Transit Corridor" in theory only

The designation of El Camino as a "transit corridor" was highly controversial even before the VTA cutbacks (both existing services and expansion plans). Experience and observation suggest that the buses along El Camino are little used by residents - that much of existing usage comes from people who work here but live elsewhere.

Street grid - limitations of

I am familiar with the traffic situation on Park Blvd both as a bicyclist and as a motorist - my route to the California Avenue area (and north) is via Margarita (bicycle) or Lambert (car) to Park.

In the evening, the on-ramp to 101-bound Oregon Expressway (from Park via Page Mill) is backed up on Park, often to Sheridan and sometimes almost to Grant. At times, the situation approaches grid-lock (the queue is lengthening and drivers decide to try alternate routes). Traffic also backs up on north-bound Park because vehicles wishing to get onto the ramp have difficulty merging into the queue (involves a left turn across traffic).

The entrance to 280-bound Page Mill is at Birch and is a difficult and low-capacity merge.

Access to El Camino from this site is very poor. To the north, California Avenue is the first intersection with a traffic light (after Page Mill). To the south, the first traffic light is Portage Avenue, but that requires winding around Fry's. The next light is at Margarita/Matadero and requires winding through a residential neighborhood (Park to Lambert to Birch to Fernando to Orinda to Margarita) with narrow streets - on-street parking is the norm, reducing them to effectively single lane.

Existing commercial uses along Park Blvd result in not infrequently short-term blockages of the street. Deliveries to the auto dealers routinely result in prolonged blockage of a single lane. Longer tractor-trailer rigs making deliveries to the MaxiMart site (back side of Fry's) often having problems maneuvering into the driveways, producing complete blockages that are several minutes long.

Note: Opposition to retaining Fry's at its current location often cites its poor access to the major arterials. This project's access to those arterials is even worse.

Other traffic impacts

Park Blvd is a secondary, but still significant, entrance to Fry's and an important entrance to the California Avenue business district. Congestion could be detrimental to their businesses.

The courthouse may be a significant generator of peak hour trips in this area.

Park Blvd Bicycle Lanes

Park Blvd is a heavily used bicycle way (marked bike lanes) and serves as a collector for broad areas of southern Palo Alto commuting to northern Palo Alto. The section of Park between Page Mill and Sheridan is already a hazardous segment, especially southbound (heavy traffic, lane shifts, speeding). The additional traffic from the proposed project would likely make it much worse. The volume of traffic entering/exiting the proposed project would also likely be detrimental to safety on this important bicycle way.

Vacating Page Mill Road segment

The segment of Page Mill Road adjacent to the propose project that the applicant requests that Palo Alto cede to this project is one of two back entrances to the Caltrain parking lot. My observations are that it is typically the second choice for people using the back entrance, but is an important "escape valve" during periods when the Sheridan-Page Mill segment is virtually grid-locked.

Competing land uses

Putting housing so close to the train tracks seems imprudent, especially in light of the complaints by residents near the California Avenue business district about noises associated with a business district (refuse pickup, sidewalk cleaning, ...). Remember, it is not just Caltrain using these tracks - there are also freight trains at various times throughout the night (I don't have recent info or experience on the frequency of such trains).

The existing light industrial or similar zoning would seem to provide a better transition between the railroad tracks and the city.

For example, Park Blvd already has a miniature auto-row, and given the city's recent moves to provide a more supportive environment for auto dealers, such a use would seem to be a better fit for the area.

Minor Comments

On page 24 of 27 in the staff report, the applicant's comment to Program T-2 states that
"The project would include a small retail store to serve the residents of the project and workers from nearby businesses thereby reducing the necessity of driving."
At 2000 square feet, this retail is more likely to be a coffee shop or cafe (as stated in the "Subject" of the staff report), thereby having significantly less value for trip reduction.