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HomeMy WebLinkAbout7/19/2022 Item 7a, Schmidt (3)Re: Anholm Bikeway/July 15, 2022 Dear Council, I am writing again on this project to make sure the Council understands what it is endorsing (if it votes to proceed) and why this project as designed is undeserving of your endorsement. (Only one of you has ever voted for it.) This is the city's last chance to get this right. Till now the city has got just about everything wrong. For cyclists, from the freeway to Foothill (the area of my concern), the design is dangerous and fails to connect the most frequented locations. For neighborhood residents, it unnecessarily assaults the livability of their homes and their personal well-being; saddles them with huge additional costs for normal home operation and maintenance; stifles the ability of seniors to maintain in-home friendships due to massive parking removal; has been brought to be by studiously excluding resident input, by floating ageist and ableist memes, even by bike fanatics' accosting and harassing older neighborhood women. The story is tawdry, nothing for anyone at the city to be proud of. We would not have got to this point with the fair and decent practice of government. Residents turned out at 3 public hearings, made their case, won concessions. The council (twice) and the planning commission sided with residents over the insistences of bike fanatics. Then, in a disgraceful insider subversion of good government that stands as our local variant of Jan. 6, everything was turned 180 on residents, and we are where we are today. Such were the actions of the mean-spirited and arrogant Harmon council. Times have changed. Our current mayor is a decent human being, there are fresh faces on the council, and I hope the Stewart Council will correct the inequities of this project while it still can. Below I will outline in some detail key features of the projects' shortcomings and the ugly story of the project's politics, but I want to begin with the "bottom line," a proposal for a revised much simpler project that will make biking safer, connect the most frequently sought bike destinations, and lift a huge burden of city -imposed inequity from neighborhood residents. A Better Plan. There are three street components to a better plan. • Chorro. Chorro is a heavily -trafficked narrow residential street. It's a dumb place to route bikes if there's an alternative, and there's an excellent alternative: Lincoln/West to the east of Chorro, a street with only a few hundred vehicles per day which requires zero construction to become the safe and comfortable bike route linking downtown to Cal Poly, which is where the majority of bikes headed north on Chorro are in fact headed. (More detail in subsequent sections of this letter.) • Broad. Even narrower than Chorro, this residential street has serious resident parking issues already (and halving parking with this project will make them onerous). Broad has less traffic than Chorro, and is well traffic -calmed (the current modest measures of humps and stop signs have brought daytime speeds down from 70mph to the twenties). Broad is used by few bicyclists, and it's a comfortable and safe -feeling ride; bikes are just fine mixing with traffic here. There is no need for a cycle track or dedicated bike lane here; the city implicitly admits that by offering one for only one direction. So that one-sided track/lane can and should be eliminated. Any issues that may develop in the future can be handled with more robust traffic calming building on what already exists. So, eliminate the track/lane on Broad and keep the much-needed residential parking it would displace.' • Ramona. The two-way cycle track on Ramona is a death trap. It crosses a busy commercial driveway with shoppers not expecting bikes coming from the "wrong" direction, and a second heavy truck commercial driveway blind to on -coming bikes from the west because it's adjacent to where the bikeway makes a right-angle turn to the north. That this second drive is used as a shortcut by impatient hurrying motorists makes the death trap potential even worse. So what to do? Frankly, I don't think there's a great solution, though anything would probably be safer than what's designed. Perhaps move the cycle track from the north side to the south side, where there's only a driveway into the Village, and place a Ramona crossing to the "safe route to nowhere" through the Mormon property on a speed table with another set of blinkers like at the nearby Village -shopping center crossing. Or, calm traffic and let bikes ride in traffic lanes, as works at present. (With bikes in traffic, they are plainly visible, an essential beginning for safety.) So, the Better Proiect in summary: Chorro, move route to Lincoln/West; Broad, eliminate cycle track/lane and consider more traffic calming if ever needed, Ramona, move track or try traffic calming. There's more detailed rationale for this below. Why is the proposed project wrong? Here are some summary thoughts. 1. An intrusive project that meets the needs of neither bicyclists nor neighborhood residents should not proceed to construction. It's a lose/lose when the city should seek a win/win. 2. Safety. The pretext for a project like this is it will make bicycling safer. But there are two problems with that pretext: • There is no demonstrated safety issue along the streets of the project from freeway to Foothill. A 5 -year public records search resulted in the police department's response there were zero bike -vehicle incidents or accidents on record for this residential area. (That changes at Foothill, which is very dangerous.) 1 Some at the city say parking impaction in our neighborhood after removal of half the parking can be solved with a parking district. That is false. Parking districts work when the parking is by people who don't live there. Our parking is by people who live right there and need a place to park. So a parking district solves nothing, it simply plays off neighbor against neighbor. What's more, there'd be no alternative place for Broad residents to park since parking districts prohibit parking on a street other than one's own! Such are the problems an unnecessary bike track on Broad imposes on a largely elderly populace. • The adopted Anholm bike plan is an incoherent mish-mash of features, some of which (like two-way on -road cycle tracks crossing driveways) are themselves notoriously unsafe, and others are just plain nuts (like directing bike traffic in diagonal zig-zags across 3 high volume vehicular intersections, including one that's filled with impatient, distracted drivers coming from and going to the freeway). Bicycling will be less safe after this is built than it is today.Z Z Our city tells us 2 -way on -street cycle tracks (Chorro and Ramona), that include street gutters and cross dozens of driveways, including commercial driveways, are safe. Better, more experienced experts disagree. The city of Davis warns against cycle tracks crossing driveways; each of the several dozen driveways SLO's cycle tracks will cross amounts to a dangerous unsignalized intersection. Davis, arguably the most experienced American bicycling city, doesn't build infrastructure like this. An Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) study of bike facility safety concluded 2 -way on -street tracks like those designed for Anholm are less safe than bikes riding in traffic. Arguably, the best facility designers are from northern Europe, where biking is much older than in North America. In Denmark 2 -way on -street tracks like proposed here were dropped from best practices about 30 years ago. Says the blogger at Copenhagenize, Denmark's foremost bike consultant (which has a Canadian office), "The thought of putting such cycle tracks into cities that are only now putting the bicycles back - cities populated by citizens who aren't used to bicycle traffic makes my toes curl." He continues, "The bi-directional cycle tracks we see in emerging bicycle cities can't possibly be put there by people who know what they're doing... If someone advocates infrastructure like this and actually believes it is good, they probably shouldn't be advocating bicycle infrastructure." The 2 -way track on Chorro requires drivers backing out of driveways to negotiate not only vehicles going both directions but also bicyclists going both directions. Drivers must back through two separate 2 -way traffic streams. To turn into a driveway requires crossing the 2 -way track, with bicyclists approaching in the driver's blind spot whether turning right or left. What could possibly go wrong? This 2 -way track on Chorro has northbound cyclists riding in a narrow lane between southbound bikes and southbound vehicles. Is that safe? It's certainly terrifying and not a relaxed, pleasant ride. One little mishap and a cyclist is under a vehicle. The 2 -way track on Ramona crosses the main neighborhood vehicular entry/exit from a busy shopping center. Exiting right turners are going to be looking left for on -coming traffic, not right for bicyclists. There's an existing crosswalk just to the right of the exit, and pedestrians who use it are well aware of the dangers from right -turning drivers looking left. Again, what could possibly go wrong? To get into the two-way cycle track on Chorro, bicyclists heading north will have to make a diagonal movement (footnote continues) 3. Route of Project Doesn't Go Where Most Bikes Go. The meandering route appears to have been selected due to pressure from special interests rather than on the basis of where significant numbers of bikes actually go. The route proceeds north on the wrong side of Chorro for several blocks to Mission, then swings west to Broad, then to Ramona, to the million dollar Mormon 'safe -route -to -nowhere,' to Ferrini. • Main Bicycle Destination Not Served. Meanwhile, the main destination for bikes proceeding north from downtown on Chorro, Cal Poly via Murray/Casa, is unserved because the route swings over to Broad (which takes bikes away from Cal Poly). Poly -bound northbound bikes using the two-way cycle track on the left side of Chorro must recross Chorro to the right side at Mission, then pedal uphill in -traffic to Murray. If the idea is to serve actual (as opposed to hypothetical) bicyclists, this is bad route planning. Oh, but wait. The city put out a publicity release contradicting what I just wrote above, stating the route's purpose is to link downtown to Cal Poly — uh, via the Highland entry to Poly. Sure. To get to Highland requires a very steep uphill climb on Ferrini. Plus that route is 1.1 miles longer to the campus core than Chorro to Murray. (From the point where these routes diverge, Chorro/Mission, the Highland route is twice as long as the neglected Murray route.) Much of what's being said to make this project sound good is, upon examination, as fatuous and fluffy as this claim of downtown -Poly linkage.3 • Mythical Bicycle Destination Served Instead. The westward swing to Broad and Ramona, away from where most bicyclists go, is based on a sentimental belief there are tons of little through the busy Lincoln/Chorro intersection, from the right to left side of the street. This intersection is full of impatient drivers coming from or heading towards the 101 freeway. Requiring bicycles to make this diagonal maneuver through hostile traffic is insane. Is this a good design for 7 -year-olds on bikes? To get out of the Chorro cycle track at its north end (Mission Street), those continuing to Cal Poly, which is where most Chorro bikes are headed, will have to make another diagonal through an intersection to get back to the right side of the street where they will mix with vehicular traffic. Further illustrating the fallacy of "improving safety" as a rationale for cycle tracks, on Broad Street there's to be a 1 -way track headed south — for "safety," but northbound bikes will continue to mix with traffic, as at present, which the city says is also "safe." There's no safety difference in the two directions. The factual reason for this oddity is bike advocates demanded a track but the street's too narrow (34 feet at its widest point!) for anything more than one way. Given the scant bike use of Broad, there's no need for any cycle track there. But when politically -powerful bike advocates demand them, we get cycle tracks, needed or not. Finally, it's worth noting few bike accidents occur mid -block compared with at intersections. Nothing the city proposes makes intersections safer. The cycle tracks end at intersections, leaving bikers unprotected, and the forced diagonal movements into and out of cycle tracks at Chorro/Lincoln, Chorro/Mission, and Broad/Ramona simply make those intersections more dangerous for bikes, especially for children. ' A shiny mailer the city just sent out is captioned: "Cerro San Luis Greenway Project, Your Safe Path From Playground to Plaza." The hordes just waiting to get from playground to plaza safely will be ecstatic. children on bicycles coming from who knows where' who need this route to get to school north of Foothill. For 50 years I've watched Broad, and never seen any sign of this mass of cycling children. Each year there are a handful of parents who ride their kids to school, and seem to feel quite safe doing so on the street as it is; this past school year I identified 3 parents who did this regularly. So the numbers aren't there to justify spending millions of dollars for that alleged purpose. As for other bicyclists, there aren't many on Broad; I'd estimate a couple of dozen per typical day; staff's claims of larger numbers don't float. In fact, I see no more cyclists on Broad today than at any time in the 50 years I've lived there. And no need for cycle tracks and parking removal to accommodate southbound cyclists who seem comfortable on Broad. Northbound cyclists will remain in -traffic as the plan has no provisions for them, due to the narrowness of Broad. Since the city obviously feels in -traffic riding on Broad is safe, why take away resident parking for even a one -direction cycle track? It seems as if some of this project is about "doing something" just to be seen doing something rather than because what's being done is good or needed. 4. A Safer, Better Project Can Be Completed Now, Quickly and With Huge Cost Savings. Arguably the safest bicycling takes place where bikes have the least potential contact with vehicles. A dangerous two-way driveway -crossing cycle track on Chorro clearly does not meet that criterion, and the discomfort for northbound cyclists in a narrow track with on -coming vehicles immediately adjacent is palpably dangerous, disconcerting, unpleasant and certainly not relaxing. This is a rotten cycling setup. Further, cycle tracks leave bicyclists with zero protection at intersections, where most mishaps with vehicles happen. Zig-zagging back and forth across the entire street width at 3 intersections (to get into and out of cycle tracks) ups the danger. One block east of Chorro is the Lincoln/West street loop, with a few hundred vehicles per day rather than Chorro's thousands. It is nearly level as it rises gently to rejoin Chorro at West/Chorro, which is 3 houses from Murray. Cycling on Lincoln/West is a quiet, relaxing cruise. Furthermore, it can take northbound bicycles from downtown on a gentle ride to where most actually are headed — towards Cal Poly, bringing them back onto Chorro a mere 3 houses before they'd turn right on Murray. Making a bike route on Lincoln/West would require zero construction, minimal signage, and no disruption of neighborhood life. Once back to Chorro, the short distance to Murray, some of which is already a no -parking zone, could become a two-way cycle track. OMG, did I actually say 4 At a public hearing, a tearful mother from Sinsheimer lamented how her 7 -year-old couldn't ride to school north of Foothill without this project. And I'm thinking anybody sitting at the front of the room who believes this is nuts. She'd be dumping her kid solo on the railroad bike trail (invisible from public right of way and allegedly populated by unsavory sorts), to the Rachel bridge (from which there's been an actual murderous abduction of an adult), through congested railroad station parking lots and across busy Santa Barbara to Morro (which is protected for a way but then becomes a congested, narrow downtown street), somehow negotiating downtown, after which the status quo north of the freeway would seem a piece of cake. And I'm thinking, "Call Child Protective Services on this irresponsible parent." that? But listen up. This short connector is exactly where this controversial infrastructure might make sense and facilitate cycler security. In this case the northbound direction is straightforward, bikes ride beside the curb. The southbound, from Murray, could pick up from the westbound side of Murray, direct bikes south along the east side of Chorro, and shoot them into West. The track would cross two driveways. Only one house on Chorro would lose its on - street parking (the other two are corner lots) — and of course the city must treat these residents with more respect than it has treated Anholm residents to date, consulting with them and listening to their needs as part of the design process. This seems a perfect solution for both bicycles and the neighborhood, so why isn't it being implemented instead of the dangerous and resident -abusive Anholm plan? Because the bike faction, to whom the city has dealt exclusive authority to do bike planning, vetoed it. Why? Because, they said, biking Lincoln/West takes one minute longer! One minute! Intolerable!' But I think there's another, more palpable, reason. Like male dogs marking their territory, bike advocates like to mark their territory. A few signs on Lincoln/West isn't much of a mark, while blocks of green paint, "neighborhood branding," cycle tracks, removing residential parking, zig- zagging bikes through traffic, screwing up life for residents, confusing drivers — that's getting something done, like a dog with a thousand fire plugs. Seriously, this is what this project is about — the city's giving an unregulated bike advocacy faction the exclusive right to get whatever they want, no matter who's harmed or how excluded those affected are from the process, and to veto good, safe, economical solutions they find unexciting. After all, it's other people's money being spent, so why not spend it freely? The Council should pull the plug on this wrongness, and make Lincoln/West the backbone of bike travel from downtown through this neighborhood. From planning to construction - readiness such a simple project would take mere weeks if the Council so directed. 5. Harms to Neighborhood Residents Have Been Maximized Then Summarily Denied and Dismissed by City. In a good city, improvement projects provide a "win" for all parties. They provide a way for a city to improve life generally. This project is not like that. It provides a putative "win"' for a small bike faction while making losers of neighborhood residents whose homes abut the "improvements." Making losers of people -- that sounds Trumpian to me. Hopefully, that is not this council's philosophy. The principal harms to residents come from massive removal of on -street parking needed by residents of this dense neighborhood. Being an early 20th century subdivision, homes lack the generous off-street parking of late 20th century subdivisions, and some homes have no off - 5 This hollow argument ignores the fact bikes can use any street, and bike fanatic type riders are free to remain on Chorro if one minute's extra relaxation on Lincoln/West is offensive. In fact, I am quite sure serious bicyclists will not use the dangerous rinky-dink cycle track on Chorro, and will prefer to remain in traffic. 6 A putative win because I don't think the bikes are winning anything at all other than a propaganda win. Dangerous cycle tracks a win? The Chorro facilities are so rinky-dink I believe serious cyclists will prefer to ride in traffic rather than use them. street parking at all. In presenting this matter to the council, staff has consistently misrepresented the quantity of parking to be removed (numbers too low), the current usage of streets for resident parking (again, numbers low), and the resulting impacts on residents (we'll be able to park within 1,000 feet of our homes, so we're fine and shouldn't fuss about having to lug multiple bags of groceries a fifth of a mile). On Broad, resident parking consumes well more than half the existing parking spaces during the school year. If approximately half those spaces are removed (and it may be more than half as it seems the plan has some "surprises" likely resulting in parking loss on the non -cycle track side too), it's obvious we've got a problem, a problem caused by deliberate discretionary city action. Since this problem is 100% avoidable by not arbitrarily removing the parking on Broad for an unnecessary one-way cycle track's monopolization of an entire parking lane, it behooves the city to not cause this problem in the first place. Due to the city's permissive attitudes towards densification and permissive new state housing laws, parking demand in our neighborhood will increase. We are seeing the first of probably many densification projects — a house remodel with multiple ADUs, 3 garage conversions, and inadequate on-site parking. Facing such a future, wholesale removal of street parking is crazy. In addition to loss of parking, the city has remained blind to impacts of having cycle tracks with no parking lane fronting homes, and has had no response to my repeated questions: How do plumbers with trucks full of equipment access our homes? How do home remodelers work if they can't park on our side of the street? Where do they put their construction -waste bins? Where do moving vans park? How do we get deliveries? How do we get Ride On service if we have no place for them to stop in front of our homes? Etc. We've been unable to get a straight answer to matters as simple as where do we put our garbage wheelers if there's a cycle track in front of us? I have sent the council photos of deliveries being made in parking lanes due to disappear. How do such deliveries continue to happen, or can they even continue to happen, and if not, then how do we live in our homes? I have provided the council with evidence of the "cycle track tax" you're imposing selectively on neighborhood residents for the increased cost of everything involving labor due to massive parking removal. (I provided the example of an actual $1,600 tree trimming job estimated to go up to $3,000 if the chipper had to be on the other side of the street. How can a good city dismiss such impacts it is imposing on residents?) Then there are the sociological impacts. Many neighborhood residents are frail, or just old, or disabled. For them, parking 1,000 feet from home isn't an option. Is it the city's intent to force them from homes they'd planned to live in forever? What does lack of parking do to in-home friendships if friends cannot find a place to park nearby? Is it the city's intent to disrupt seniors' "support systems?" Clearly, a project with such extensive negative impacts on a neighborhood's residents is the wrong project in the wrong place. A good city doesn't do these things to a neighborhood. A good city reinforces a neighborhood's streneths. not undercut them. The basic starting point of this project — massive neighborhood residential parking removal — is evil. You've got to find a better way forward. 6. Let's Be Blunt: The Political Process That Got Us Here Stinks and Is Nothing To Be Proud Of. This project has been propelled to its present point by the simple-minded political ideology that anything involving bikes is automatically good, anyone who opposes those is bad, and by the city's complete lack of commitment to due process for and fairness towards affected residents. Here are some highlights: • Never during the development of plans has staff sat down with residents to discuss how the desires of cyclists and the needs of residents can both be satisfied. In a good city, this should be the starting point for anything of this sort. Residents would be at the table, not on the menu. • "Planning" began long ago, without the knowledge of residents. A city-wide 1990s bicycle plan showed a North Broad Bike Boulevard (like Morro Street) with a freeway overpass linking to downtown, but we knew nothing about that. When I discovered the plan for my street several years back, I thought it meant no harm as it didn't involve major neighborhood changes beyond vehicular traffic management. • Then, suddenly, we discovered we were on the menu for a radical restructuring of our neighborhood for the alleged benefit of non-existent masses of cyclists. The radicals on staff and the Bicycle Advocacy Committee were mulling over several options, all of them unnecessary and unreasonable and extremely harmful to residents. One came to hearing before the council, a BAC -backed scheme to turn Broad and Chorro into one-way streets with a single lane of vehicular traffic too narrow by state law to accommodate emergency vehicles that use these streets.' Distraught residents turned out, filling the council chamber, the overflow room and the corridors, offering hours of testimony after which the council rejected the design and directed staff to draw up a new plan.$ ' I asked the fire chief about this. He answered, "We'll have to work with whatever the council orders." So the alleged needs of cyclists took precedence even over public safety. 8 (From a blog post — lightly edited). Listening to the People! Near the end of a nearly three-hour SLO City Council hearing on ramming a bike freeway through a neighborhood between Foothill and Highway 101, a large audience consisting of people who seldom go to council meetings got a peep down the rabbit hole into which SLOcity government has jumped. (footnote continues) • That's when the radicals came up with the present plan, again without ever sitting with residents to talk through possible alternatives.' When the plan went, miraculously, to the The subject was council review of the Bicycle Advisory Committee's recommendation Chorro Street be narrowed to build a physically separated bike freeway, and that Chorro and Broad be turned into 10 -foot -wide single -lane one-way streets too narrow — by law -- for fire engines, despite Chorro's being the fire department's essential access to downtown. Two other bike freeway "alternatives" were on the table, both rejected by the bike committee. I refer to these as "bike freeways" based on physical character, but also metaphorically because city technocrats would ram this one through a neighborhood with the same disregard interstate highway technocrats rammed their freeways through urban neighborhoods in the 1960s, indifferent to the destruction they are causing and the people they are hurting. Neighborhood residents, who would be hugely affected and whose desires were shut out of the rigged planning process, turned out in mass — more than a hundred filled the council chamber plus an overflow room with huge TV screen, and spilled out into the hallways. Dozens spoke, and most were somewhere between concerned and livid about the city's wrecking their neighborhood and destroying its quality of life. Some bicyclists opposed the plans as misguided overkill. Those supporting the bike freeway could be counted on fingers of one hand. While this bike freeway is of major concern to residents, it should also be of concern to drivers who might not appreciate dodging traffic circles and other proposed loop -de -loops. Daily vehicle load on Chorro/Broad is about 11,000, compared to the city's claimed 300 bicycles, a count that from actual observation seems highly inflated. Towards the end of the council session, after lecturing neighbors about "change" and "progress" and telling them parking cars in front of their homes is illicit "storage" of private property in public space, the council discussed what to do, and it became clear where they were headed: ram something through the neighborhood whether it made sense, whether residents could live with it, whether the city could afford it, whether it would infuriate drivers, whether it would discriminate against the old and the disabled, whether it was needed or not, whether it would even work for bicyclists. They did agree to bypass what the Bike Committee recommended, but told staff to continue to ram the bike freeway by zagging it out Chorro to Mission then over to Broad, removing parking along many blocks to make this possible. This would dump unprotected bike traffic onto Foothill at the 14th most dangerous intersection in town. To a person, the council had no qualms about taking away much-needed resident and visitor street parking in this early 201h century subdivision lacking the off-street parking amenities of recent subdivisions. Speaking last, as is her custom, Mayor Heidi Harmon announced it was important to move ahead because "so many people want this." It was a climactic moment, the mayor deaf to what had happened in the previous hours of public testimony: "so many people want this." The rabbit hole of authoritarian propaganda -driven anti -democratic leadership had opened and swallowed the evening's events. 9 At this point there were "community meetings," to which residents were "invited" only to find staff uninterested in their input; if a bike radical wanted something, and ten residents said it was a bad idea, staff accepted what the radical wanted and ignored residents' input. planning commission, the commission rejected it and recommended a traffic -calming plan instead.lo • Another council hearing, more resident pleas, and the council followed the planning commission lead. Residents had every reason to believe, after turning out to three hearings and getting three favorable rulings, that things were settled. But not in dirty -trick city. • At the very next council meeting, a cabal of staff, the mayor, and some council members committed an extraordinary breach of public process. Using as an excuse a bogus11 consent agenda item, the mayor and a council co-conspirator rallied a social media -based astroturf bike faction to demand to be heard. The mayor then held an unagendized public hearing, at which only those summoned by focused social media were present, at the end of which the council reversed their vote of the previous meeting. Residents, with no knowledge of this fraudulent "public hearing," had no clue any of this was taking place." 10 It was the intent of the bike faction the plan could be steered through a buddy council and would never have to go to the planning commission, thereby avoiding scrutiny by a body with a broader sense than the Harmon council of what's good for the city as a whole. But the bike faction apparently forgot that changing the general plan, which their radical plan required, necessitated PC review. 11 The item was a "ratification" of the previous meeting's Anholm motion, something completely unheard of in my experience since a resolution, unlike an ordinance, requires no second reading. I asked why it was there, and was told the clerk had failed to write down the council motion, so this was staffs way "to get it right." In other words, I was told the clerk was incompetent since writing down a council motion is part of her job, and if need be she clarifies the council intent before a vote, not a week or two later. I don't believe for a moment our clerk is incompetent. I believe the consent item was nothing more than a Trojan Horse the mayor got on the agenda. 12 Neighborhood residents, shut out of planning the bike route and finding it adversely forced upon them, turned out in large numbers at planning commission and city council hearings to voice their concerns. This was a spontaneous unorganized upwelling, unlike the talking -point -testimony -and badge -wearing social -media -based regimentation of the bike contingent. The planning commission listened and dialed back the worst aspects of the plan, including the massive loss of parking, recommending a plan closer to the adopted North Broad Bike Boulevard. (Remember, this came to the commission as a general plan amendment, because the North Broad plan was what was in the general plan, and the Anholm plan required changing the general plan. So the commission had every right to do what it did.) At the city council, person after person spoke to the problems that would stem from implementing the plan. Faced with a room -full of upset adult constituents, the council adopted a compromise plan, which tilted back towards the North Broad Bikeway plan and avoided wholesale removal of residential parking. Residents left pleased with the vote, believing that reason had prevailed and they would be spared the worst. Immediately, behind the scenes, the dirty politics began, engineered by our unscrupulous mayor and a young councilman who'd been the paid director of BikeSLO when elected, employment he ended after the Fair Political Practices Commission suggested it might present a conflict of interest due to his soliciting contributions for BikeSLO from developers to whom as a council member he was granting favors. (footnote continues) And that, dear council members, is how we got to where we are today. Your proceeding with a plan delivered in such an underhanded dirty fashion would add your culpability to theirs. • None of what's described in this section on politics would have happened without an outrageous conflict of interest at the heart of the city's bike program, namely the intertwined Bizarrely, ratification of the already -adopted compromise was placed on the next council meeting's consent agenda. (Consent items are labeled "non -controversial.") When I learned that, my head was spinning; it was an extraordinary and unprecedented maneuver, but for what end? I smelled a rat, so I contacted Derek Johnson, learned the official story (that the clerk had no idea what the council had done). It was a preposterous claim that made no sense to me. So I asked Derek, point blank, was this placed on the agenda so the council could decide it wanted to change its vote? He said no, it was what he had told me. He assured me that they couldn't change their vote at that meeting because it would be a violation of the Brown Act. If the council wanted to change their vote, he said, they'd have to schedule a new hearing for a future meeting. I thought to myself that at least the city manager understands the Brown Act. What happened at that next council meeting, however, was unbelievable. The two council conspirators had packed the room with bike advocates. With no notice to the public such a thing could happen, the mayor pulled the item from the consent agenda and proceeded to hold a lengthy non-agendized public hearing offering the bike faction full stage without counter -testimony from uppity neighbors, who were at home with no idea the just - adopted plan was being relitigated. I watched, incredulous that this was happening and that the city attorney was allowing it to happen. I have known and worked with more city attorneys than most people. Almost to a person I have found them to be dedicated to open government and to protecting the public's right to know and right to participate in decision-making. That's the crux of the Brown Act. I have seen many city attorneys gently intervene as conversations headed towards Brown Act infringements — I've even been on the receiving end of such admonition. Yet here, there was a clear and blatant violation unfolding: an unadvertised hearing was taking place with only one faction's knowledge and ability to be involved, and the attorney sat there and did nothing. So I did something I never dreamed I'd ever do. I wrote on a sheet of paper "Why is this not a Brown Act violation?" and passed that to the attorney, thinking it would spur her to intervene as every other attorney I'd known would have done. To my amazement, she scribbled something on the paper and motioned to me to come get it. She wrote there was no Brown Act violation. So the fix was in. I couldn't believe it. The attorney was facilitating this subversion of good government. After this ersatz public -hearing -without -public -notice, the two council conspirators moved to rescind the previous meeting's compromise and to proceed with cycle tracks and massive parking removal — the exact plan they'd voted down at their previous meeting when neighborhood residents were present begging for something better. This was very well planned: with residents present one week the council cynically adopted a compromise, then at their next meeting staged a turnaround knowing residents would be absent and bike advocates could be summoned to be present. This colossal Brown Act violation is how the "Anholm Greenway" came to be before you for bid letting. It is our own city's contribution to the catalog of insider -instigated subversion of democracy, and it's as corrosive of democracy as Donald Trump's Jan 6 attempted putsch. It's a disgusting moment in the governance of this city, and it's what going to bid is based upon. relations of the city, city staff, city council13, and Bike SLO, an alleged independent non-profit which would not exist (at least in its present prominent form) without sustained city subsidy. Among the issues this conflict presents: a. The city (i.e. public money) is subsidizing a lobbying organization with its own parochial agenda. b. The pretense that this is an independent organization with expertise to share, when in fact it's a city -subsidized advocacy organization, imbues its input into city decision-making with undue authority when what it actually does is bias decision-making. c. The city Bicycle Advocacy Committee 14 is nothing more than BikeSLO's official presence within city hall. There is no daylight between BikeSLO and the committee. This is unfair. 15 It is especially a problem since under the city's current "streamlined" process BAC recommendations typically go straight to the council without vetting by a more neutral group like the planning commission. d. The city's bike planner is completely aloof to Anholm residents, not even responding to their questions. Why? Perhaps because he's a member of and financial contributor to BikeSLO. This blatant conflict of interest raises the question: for whom does he do his work, BikeSLO or the public who pay his paycheck? No wonder the Anholm plan is so tweaked in favor of what the radicals want and against residents' interests. In a good city, this sort of conflict of interest and the policy bias it produces would not be tolerated. 7. Neighborhood Residents Treated With Disrespect and Contempt by Both Bike Advocates and City. To me, one of the most shocking aspects of the fight to preserve our neighborhood's viability has been the utter contempt, meanness, ageism, ableism, general disrespect and plain old nastiness coming at us from city staff, elected officials and bike advocates. It's shocking because it shows nasty Trumpism is not limited to the political right, but is integral to "progressivism" as practiced in SLO. It's shocking because it shows our city, in which right once made right, in which neighborhoods once were officially cherished, now subscribes to the notion that might makes right — again, to Trumpism. We have a city concerned with DEI, and the city has even stated the Anholm project is about DEI. In the Anholm fracas, we residents agree with the city this is a DEI project; for us, that's Discrimination, Exclusion and Inequity. A catalog of inappropriate behavior would be long, so let's just look at highlights to set the tone. "The mayor's council co-conspirator was the director of BikeSLO until conflict of interest charges caused him to change jobs. 14 1 know, that's not its name but that's what it is. " Not only unfair, but it narrows the breadth of decision-making. For example, I twice applied for the committee to be a primary walker representative during the time they were working on a pedestrian plan. Instead of appointing at least one primary walker (meaning a foot person), more bike radicals were appointed both times. And the resulting walking plan suggests that nobody involved in preparing or adopting it is a primary walker — it's a complete farce of a plan. • Staff has consistently understated (i.e., mislead the council) about the extent of resident parking removal the project requires. This matters. I have corrected those numbers repeatedly (on Broad, for example, the correct number of lost spaces is about double staff's claims) but staff continues to repeat its old numbers. On the other hand, after I wrote the council about inequities for seniors, noting my neighborhood was senior dense and likely the most senior dense neighborhood in the city, citing ages of residents in my block16 and noting the Village in the next block, staff told the council the neighborhood wasn't senior dense, claiming census figures show a wide age distribution (a point not in contradiction, by the way, to this being a senior -dense neighborhood). Why nit-pick a demographic fact? Is this mere immature truculence, or is it ageism and ableism? Why dismiss a resident's demographic observation as unfactual while failing to correct their own substantive errors of fact? I don't know why, but this echoes the ageist disrespect staff has shown throughout. • In response to my statement removing half the neighborhood's already heavily -used resident parking would make finding parking spaces difficult, especially for those of us with less than 20 - something mobility and no off-street parking, staff responded on more than one occasion we could find someplace to park within 1,000 feet of our homes, noting that might be "inconvenient" for the disabled. You think? Inconvenient for anybody's more like it. Especially with a half dozen bags of groceries in the trunk. Again, the ableist and ageist mean-spirited dismissal of resident welfare stands out as something inappropriate at city hall. • When funds proved insufficient for doing everything promised in this project, where did staff make cuts? Not in the bike program for the able-bodied but in the number of corner curb cuts promised to correct the city's on-going failure to provide that long -overdue basic public right of way service to conform with the 32 -year-old Americans With Disabilities Act. More ageism and ableism. (The cuts were about the only benefit of the project for residents along the cycle track street sections. We've waited far too long for curb cuts already.) Now we get some corners fixed but not all. • The problem with such ageism and ableism is that it permeates the project. The youngsters designing and justifying this just don't get it, which is perhaps understandable given their limited life experience, but those above them should be educating them to be inclusive and seeing to it they are. The issue goes well beyond mere consideration and kindness, for persons with disabilities enjoy the same legal civil rights protections as other protected minorities, and any city claiming to advance DEI should get that! This project shows, however, SLOcity doesn't get it. • Elected officials have contributed their own forms of abuse, beyond the political trickery outlined above. Our former mayor heaped public abuse on residents testifying before the council, blaming them for sowing acrimony. Really? Testifying about the faults of a bike plan is sowing acrimony? The mayor voiced consistent generational bias against residents, even to being deaf to whatever they had to say. (But I perhaps got the crowning glory of her royal treatment: when I stepped to the lectern to speak, she left the room. Later in meeting, I personally got the acrimony speech while she stared me down.) 11 OK here it is again: 12 properties on my side of my block, 9 with occupants in 60s, 70s, 80s (3 each) and 3 in 40s. There's also a vacant house typically rented during school year to 20 -somethings. Is that not senior dense? Why is staff disputing such facts? Ageism? • One council member, noting testimony of hardship to seniors and the disabled due to parking loss said harms to such persons are "a tradeoff worth making." So for him the old and disabled are a "tradeoff." • Another council member, who drives a pickup truck, belittled those concerned about parking loss; nobody, he said, should park on Broad Street because parking there raises sea level in Los Osos. This fellow, in explaining his vote against what residents wanted, cited a city poll (74% of affected residents against the plan, the remainder split between "like" and "don't know") and stated, "The neighborhood's split, so we had to decide." • The meanest, most insensitive, most ageist and ableist abuse came from the bike radicals who with the mayor and her council co-conspirator steamrolled the plan through. One leader of this group, a Broad Street resident, testified, while snickering, that there should be less parking on Broad; she has 6 off street parking spaces, more than any other house, in contrast to many of her neighbors who must park on the street. • Another leader penned a Tribune op-ed denouncing the affluent, privileged, old white people selfishly protesting the project. Apparently that wasn't enough abuse, for a group of which she was a part authored a second op-ed attacking us old people again. • Another leader said the city should eliminate all resident parking on Broad so bike tracks could be installed on both sides of the street. • One guy, an M.D. no less, said protests from elderly persons were ridiculous since even hundred year olds should ride bicycles. • Finally, there's the guy who showed a jiggly video of riding on Chorro that he characterized as showing an outrageous assault on bicycledom by a motor vehicle (I watched it several times, and couldn't figure it out, but council members were on board, nodding in agreement; the video did appear to show the bicyclist blitzed through a stop sign). This guy was subsequently identified as the notorious serial harasser of elderly women in Anholm, shouting abuse at them as he rode by. In one case he came up behind a woman bent over in a garden and screamed "the bicycle rapist is coming, the bicycle rapist is coming," scaring the dickens out of her. Meanness and total lack of empathy. Such are the niceties of those who think this project worth ramming through our neighborhood. 8. When Bicyclists Are Being Killed Regularly on Foothill, Why Are Bike Lanes on Safe Side Streets a Higher Priority Than Fixing Killing Grounds? A 5 -year public records request revealed zero reported bike -vehicle incidents or accidents on the residential Anholm route, whereas the adjacent section of Foothill is one of the most dangerous in the city, with two fatalities in about three years. Messing with safe neighborhood streets prior to fixing actual bicycling killing grounds is irresponsible, constitutes government malfeasance and is a disgraceful misallocation of resources. Dealing with death and mayhem should be the city's first and topmost bike priority. The city's misplaced bike safety priorities are unconscionable. Why does the Council tolerate this malfeasance, because it reflects poorly on you? Conclusion: I ask two things of the Council: 1. An immediate pause to implementing the existing Anholm bike plan (i.e., NOT going to bid on the existing plan at this time), and 2 A directive to staff to present to the council within 4 weeks a plan involving no significant Anholm resident parking removal on Broad or Chorro, with Chorro bike traffic routed along Lincoln/West to Murray, to serve the primary need of a relaxing, comfortable through bike route to Cal Poly, together with a schedule to implement such a plan this calendar year 17. And that any funds so saved be used first of all to provide corner disability ramps at ALL Anholm area corners currently lacking them on Broad/Chorro/Lincoln/West, a feature promised as part of this plan but reneged upon by staff. And that any remaining saved funds be spent, in consultation with neighborhood residents, on other neighborhood improvements. (This approach is consistent with the state "greenway" grant.) This is consistent with "good city" policy of making winners of all parties. Sincerely, Richard Schmidt 17 Don't let staff tell you this fast schedule can't be done. If the plan is simple, involving mainly signage, staff can "build" it with no need to go to bid. More complex features like a West -Murray cycle track on Chorro could even be provisional using things like removable bollards rather than permanent construction for test -of -concept prior to permanence, a thoroughly sensible way to approach matters like this.