A Scoping With No Hope of a Scope

BY LIONEL EMDE, RIPTIDE CORRESPONDENT
 
Approximately 75 people crowded into a small room in Pacifica Community Center March 3, with inadequate seating and no sound system for presentation of a plan to widen Highway 1 that appears to be already decided. The meeting was limited to 90 minutes, ensuring limited scope (pun intended).
 
Joseph Hurley of the San Mateo County Transportation Authority (SMCTA) opened up the meeting, noting the presence of all five Pacifica City Council members and the the city manager. He turned the meeting over to Brad Leveen, of Mark Thomas & Co., who gave a "project overview" and acted as moderator for audience comments.
 
The highway project, which was not revealed to the public until March 1, and then only partially by Web site postings that some found very hard to find, is a six-lane freeway between Fassler/Rockaway Beach and Reina del Mar. The project includes concrete walls bordering the roadway that supposedly will keep wildlife from trying to cross the highway and becoming roadkill.
 
No staff report was on offer, even though local activist Todd Bray noted that there have been previous Environmental Impact Reports (EIR). Bray asked agency staffers whether they were starting from scratch or building on previous work. They said they were indeed building on previous work. Staff stated that other alternatives to the present plan had been considered and rejected, but when asked by whom or for what reason, they didn’t answer. In fact, data was missing in action at this meeting. The audience treated to the amusing sight of Mr. Hesler, the EIR expert, waving his arms about at the map on the wall that none of us had ever seen before, trying to explain why various alternatives did this or did that.
 
The secrecy and inadequate noticing that surrounded this meeting were mentioned by more than one audience member. Staff never directly addressed the secrecy aspect. Bob Pilgrim, longtime Sierra Club activist, was not alone in asking for a second "scoping" meeting; another audience member asked for the same thing, with the request that staff come "better prepared." The atmosphere in the meeting toward the proposed project was chilly, to say the least.

SMCTA board member and Pacifica City Council member Jim Vreeland promised to bring up the possibility of a second scoping meeting at the March 4 SMCTA board meeting, to address residents’ concerns and to "slow down the aggressive timetable" of SMCTA for the project.

Comments

[l pollock]

I have been reading this discussion and just wanted to weigh in with my 2 cents. I may or may not be rehashing any discussions that have taken place, since there have been many discussions and I am not quite up to speed. In general, I think like many pacificans, I'd like to see elegant solutions to problems, that work, while promoting lifestyle and local business concerns.

What Highway 1 means to me as a Pacifican, is something that seems important to ask. The freeway runs through it, imho, is not good for our community, since our businesses need people to stop and shop in order to continue developing and hopefully at some point to thrive. OTOH, many do need to travel since most non-telecommuting work is done either in the city, or on the peninsula. I can also clearly see at the manor overpass gridlock, how perhaps the best intentions can fall short of what a community needs.

When traffic doesn't move between Sharp Park and Rockaway, I think of the lack of alternatives and wish we had a frontage road, as well as, better flow patterns. This is a big disadvantage of being on a small stretch between mountain and sea and if/when we ever have a major earthquake or other major disaster may be a critical problem.

In looking at the plan(s) presented on the SMCTA website, I am concerned that the widening doesn't seem to do much long term good and is $$$$$$$ and lots of effort. There seems to be more exhibits than articulated plan on the website and the articulated scope doesn't say why it is the scope, but I gather that is a reason there is so much questioning. To me a goal might have been, To reduce current traffic in the Linda Mar to Sharp Park corridor (including potential growth in the quarry).

If widening the highway were best idea (?), I would anticipate a bottle neck at the lanes ending at Vallemar, unless the lanes were carried till sharp road, the logical point where much traffic diverges.

The ideas about buses and transit are excellent forward thinking. Reviewing previous considerations is plain essential thinking. The frontage road idea is to me something worth exploring, as are ideas that have people who would otherwise drive through town to stop and shop, without putting undue burden on commuters.

Sometimes brilliant insight happens at the precipice, when the pressure of impending action causes wheels to turn and synapses to fire.

Remember that one of the results of the Loma Prieta earthquake was to tear down the elevated freeway and open up San Francisco's waterfront.
It reminds me that we live in Scenic Pacifica.

I don't have the answers, but hope my neighbors might. Whether wholesale change or small clarification, to improving a situation that seems to call out for one. Thanks.

[Jim Currie]

Well put. Pacifica has grown tremendously through the years due to urban sprawl. I agree that housing needs to be centered near transit and urban centers.

[mike bell]

Todd Bray said: "The problem isn't the road, it's us. We need to think of ways to make the road inconsequential."

No truer words ever written on this topic. The greenest human habitat in the USA is New York City, a dense development with amenities to live and work without a car.
Stop blocking high-density live/work development, start solving the problem.
Sprawl=traffic=sprawl=traffic -- ad nauseam.

[Bruce Hotchkiss]

I see a real solution here. If the problem is too much traffic, and if the traffic is worst during the school year, it is obvious that schools are the problem.

We also know that we (the USA) can no longer compete in a global marketplace because our cost of living is too high. So--

If we get rid of the schools, we can solve both problems!

That's right, without schools there will be a drastic reduction in traffic on Highway 1. And without schools we will no longer be creating educated, overpriced future workers.

There will be a huge added benefit over time -- reduced air pollution. Few of the new, dumbed-down class will be able to afford automobiles.

So now can we all stop arguing and start returning our little town to the dawn of the 20th century?

[Sean Woods]

Mr. Bray has an excellent point: We need to change how we use the road. If you're interested in seeing how quickly the traffic problems on Highway 1 can be circumvented, hop on a bike for your commute to work one morning. Admittedly, it won't work for everyone, but it's more accessible than you might think.

In anticipation of the volley of replies decrying the idea as impractical, off the top of my head I can think of three others within spitting distance of my house in Vallemar who make a daily commute to SF by bike -- rain or shine, day or night. I'm sure there are others. Additionally, each year on bike-to-work day I see dozens of folks heading out of Pacifica on their bikes. Certainly this doesn't have to be a once-a-year occurrence.

If you're motivated enough to give it a try, you can find a lot of resources to get you started here: http://www.bayareabikes.org. Or you can email me (sewoods at gmail dot com). I'd be happy to share route ideas with anyone interested.

[Matthew Levie]

Laurie, I understand the appeal of frontage roads. But I don't even think the traffic is bad enough to justify even the $35 million to $45 million solution. Mr. Hurley claimed a grade separation would be triple that WITHOUT a frontage road.

Even if triple is an exaggeration, that's a lot of money. Assuming it costs $90 million, and we could get it, I would much prefer that we had $3 million a year for 30 years to spend on school buses and other forms of transit.

Those things could be implemented almost immediately and begin working. Any improvement to the highway will take years to happen and cause misery in the interim.

And who knows what will happen in 30 years? Heck, I'm trying to figure out how the traffic 30 years AGO could have been so awful that they were considering widening the road then.

[todd bray]

I'm the last one to kill your dream, Laurie, rock on.

[Laurie Frater]

I'm glad that we agree on something, Todd, but I heard them say only that grade separation was too expensive -- not all those other arguments (valid though they may be) that you listed. They said all those things about the tunnel, too, in the beginning.

"Widening, grade separations, or roundabouts are not going to change much of anything," you wrote.

Widening and roundabouts would be expensive and wouldn't change much of anything, so we're agreed on that, too.

But grade separation (even more expensive still) would separate the local traffic from the through traffic, making every day seem as if there were no school (for those coming from the south) or as if the slide were closed (for those doing a school run). Problem solved!

[todd bray]

Laurie,

The projected LOSD is a target of the project, not me, but I understand your confusion. To go through all this rigamarole to get to LOSD is silly and useless. I agree with you there.

You are advocating for a grade separation solution, with some sort of frontage road. I think it was addressed at the scoping and was described as too expensive, too complicated, and beyond the ability of SMCTA to coordinate construction because diverting traffic was inconceivable, given land use restrictions in the area.

I've advocated for roundabouts, as you know, which have their own limitations, similar to your ideas.

The problem isn't the road, it's us. We need to think of ways to make the road inconsequential. Widening, grade separations, or roundabouts are not going to change much of anything. We need to change how we use the road.

And we are talking about a short period of time twice a day.

[Laurie Frater]

Todd,

I think that you must be confusing other people's posts with mine. Nice try, though.

I've been arguing all along (for about 10 years now!) -- in this forum and elsewhere -- that the solution is to separate the through traffic from the local traffic. That means starting the freeway next to Sea Bowl, having underpasses and on/off ramps at Fassler and Reina Del Mar, with frontage roads connecting the two. Anything less is a temporary, partial solution. As Peter wrote, we aimed for a tunnel and (against the odds?) we got it. Why shouldn't we at least try to do the same for this problem?

Another thought on your post yesterday: You argued that your proposal would improve the situation from LoS-F (level of service F, the lowest on a scale from A to F) to LoS-D. Is that all we're aiming for? Leo Leone asked the very first question at the scoping meeting, which was (paraphrased): What LoS would the widening achieve, and how long would it be until increased traffic negates that improvement? That was never answered, but I think it's a key question. We need a long-term fix, so that we're not having this argument again in our lifetimes.

[Steve Sinai]

"We all agree that six lanes are not the answer."

Bad assumption.

[todd bray]

Laurie,

None of the funding is guaranteed, neither county nor state funds. The projected numbers welling up due to the tunnels are simply conjecture; one call to the county planning director will put your mind at ease about that. We all agree that six lanes are not the answer, and I haven't to date heard any ideas from you or others offering alternatives, besides shooting down others' ideas in the usual personal-feelings kind of way.

Our local Share portion of Measure A money is greater than the amount our city contributes to the fund, so we are already way ahead of the game as far as that goes.

So what, if anything, do you want?

[Lynn Schuette]

As someone who commutes through two cities (Pacifica and San Mateo) every day, I add my vote to the observation that traffic usually gums up where schools exist. When I travel through San Mateo, I can avoid those areas by rerouting my travel through areas not directly impacted by schools. Problem solved.

But as a resident of Linda Mar, I have no such luxury. We have only one way in and one way out of/through the southern end of town -- Highway 1. But even if every child takes a bus to school -- since most of us use a car to commute -- the traffic will remain tough.

There are some who say traffic from the south is about to get worse because the tunnels open soon and development continues south of the slide. Can we afford to wait and see how much worse is worse?

Consider that even if busing happened and increased car pools materialized in time to buffer any potential increased load from the south, we still have the problem of getting out of/into town when there is a problem on Highway 1 (e.g., a car accident or traffic light failure), which can snarl traffic deep into Linda Mar neighborhoods.

We need a solution -- and sooner rather than later.

[Laurie Frater]

Todd: Your suggestion, like Ian's, seems to be a good solution -- until you work through the details.

To replace those 218 cars, you'd need at least 8 buses for those 400 Vallemar kids alone. The current going rate for a school bus is, I believe, about $150K. By the time you find and add the cost of a maintenance facility in which to house them while not in use (most of the time!), fuel, drivers (with all that entails), insurance, mechanic(s), depreciation, someone to manage it all, etc., etc., you're talking about an average operating cost of well over $100K per bus per year.

And don't forget that the high school district recently voted to cut three buses serving Terra Nova (because they coudn't afford to continue to operate them -- I think that the annual savings for the three buses was listed as $362K), so there'll be three buses' worth of replacement cars added to the traffic, starting this fall.

The cost of operating those 11 buses would likely be between $1M and $1.5M per year -- in perpetuity, or until Hwy1 is fixed properly. Where would that money come from?

To paraphrase what I wrote elsewhere recently, it'd be like choosing to make very expensive but short-term repairs to an old clunker that should be scrapped and replaced, throwing good money after bad. You know that you're going to have to upgrade eventually, so why not do the prudent thing and plan for a proper fix now? Not widening, not roundabouts, not buses, but separating the through traffic from the local traffic!

[todd bray]

Laurie,

If 400 students are being driven into Vallemar every day, then that right there could be the solution. In 2002 the traffic counts for the highway widening featured in Trammell Crow's Pacifica Village DEIR said that the morning LOSF amounted to 1,088 cars per hour and that the widening would lower that number to LOSD at 979 cars, a difference of only 218 cars. Being generous, if two kids per car are put on school buses, that's your 218 cars right there, meaning an LOSD could be achieved simply with school busing.

Great comment, Laurie!

[Laurie Frater]

"One partial solution: give residents who live in Vallemar first dibs at attending Vallemar School."

That sounds logical on its face, Ian, but (as of a couple of years ago), about 180 elementary school kids live in Vallemar, 150 of whom attend Vallemar school. Of the remaining 30, about half attend other district schools by choice.

As Matthew stated previously, the school has a capacity of 560, so even if all 180 were forced to attend Vallemar, you'd still have nearly 400 kids from outside Vallemar being brought in every day.

Unintended consequences? Even though your proposal might seem to take 12-15 cars off the road every day, you'd have a group of parents who'd be very unhappy that they couldn't send their kid(s) to the school(s) of their choice. And if they move those kids to private schools as a result, those cars are back on the road and the school district has lost enrollment revenue.

[ian butler]

One partial solution: give residents who live in Vallemar first dibs at attending Vallemar School.

The way it is now, all Pacifica residents are given equal opportunity to attend any school in the district, with no preference for those who live nearby. I know this because years ago my boy had to go to Oddstad School for a year and a half, even though we lived a block from Cabrillo. I've always thought that detracts from a neighborhood's sense of unity, and causes a lot more cars on the road.

The idea behind the present system is to give all students equal opportunity to attend their school of choice, but there are other unintended consequences from that policy that detract from everyone's quality of life.

[todd bray]

The current estimate is $35 million to $45 million (source: Joe Hurley, SMCTA).

[Dan Underhill]

I am not sure where the $53 million came from either, but even assuming that it is (only) $25 million to $30 million for a project that many of us have serious objections to (and whose most enthusiastic supporters have a "whatever" attitude about), can no one think of a better place to put $25 million to $30 million?

[Steve Sinai]

"It would be interesting to see how SMCTA arrived at a $53 million solution so quickly, without sharing sources."

How did the proposed cost suddenly shoot up from $25-$30 million to $53 million?

How long will it take opponents to begin quoting an exaggerated price tag of $100 million for the project? A month or two?

[Laurie Frater]

Just a reminder that anyone who wants to make an "official" comment on what was presented at the meeting has until March 19 (though that may have been extended?) to do so.

[Kathy Jana]

It would be interesting to see how SMCTA arrived at a $53 million solution so quickly, without sharing sources.

[Steve Sinai]

In response to Peter's question, it wouldn't bother me if the highway were widened.

It seems kinda unfair to assume that anyone who doesn't outright say they're in favor of the widening is assumed to be against the widening. As I said before, most people probably have a "whatever" attitude.

[todd bray]

Blue Bottle wrote: "I want to stand on its jugular and rip it to pieces with my knife."

[Peter Loeb]

I don't know anyone who has seen the plans for the widening project who says they are in favor of it. If you want that project to be built, please say so. Let's find out if there's support for it.