On a wing and a prayer
On Tuesday night (actually Wednesday morning) the silent slate of Alameda’s city council voted unanimously (5-0), as they often do, to approve the Alameda Landing project on the West End.
The council worked to fix concerns about traffic generated by the project, by attempting to strengthen proposed traffic mitigations (more here). Changes include having the Transportation Commission and Planning Board set mitigation goals for the project and create a Transportation Demand Management (TDM) plan as well as allowing the funding for the TDM to be renegotiated if the Tinker Ave. Extension is not built.
Concerns were raised regarding the capping of TDM funding before we know what the program requires. However, 2 hours of speakers saying “pass the project tonight” had its desired effect and the council approved the project including the proposed TDM funding cap.
Ironically, they were cheered on by an outgoing-member-who-will-remain-nameless {paraphrase ahead} “Let’s not get bogged down in detailed concerns about traffic mitigations and retail mixtures, let’s approve the project tonight and work to amend the deal when it causes problems in the future.” Because when a city is developing 77+ acres of land into homes, commercial and retail uses. One doesn’t want to ask questions and wait 2 weeks to approve it. Right?
Traffic was and is the elephant in the room. The city is now going to have to work incredibly hard to establish a real TDM program for the project with limited funds. Setting a cap before the project is designed leaves the city open to one of two likely options (1) an ineffective program that does little to mitigate traffic or (2) kicking in city funding of a program to reach its goals.
Along the way, the TDM program will have to contend with up to 30% of its first year funding going to an estuary water shuttle that will most likely be fighting for financing after a year (I like the water shuttle idea, but I can’t see it sticking around without identifying another source of funding) and another 24% or so going to a coordinator of the program. Both of these items are called out specifically in the “Day One” TDM program the council passed.
Alamedans and their council are going to have to work hard in the coming years to make sure that the proposed traffic mitigation program is put together in a way that benefits the residents of the west end of Alameda as well as the rest of the city.
Each individual piece will now be designed and go through public processes. The city’s residents, boards and commissions will be wise to hold the project more to the spirit of the Master Plan Amendment’s vision (transit-oriented, mixed-used (as much as it’s allowed under measure a) design and a de-emphasis of the Automobile) than early designs actually point to.
Popularity: 4% [?]
Michael Krueger
December 7th, 2006 at 7:21 pm
I noticed that the development issues of Alameda Point and Alameda Landing are featured on the San Francisco Cityscape Web site, published with the RSS teaser, “Can forward-thinking residents of the island of Alameda build a bridge to a better future?”
One thing I like about Cityscape is that its publisher is not afraid to think big. For example, as part of its updated Urban Bay Area Rapid Transit Vision, Cityscape dared to imagine what form the City Of Alameda General Plan’s talk of “de-emphasis of the automobile” might take — if we really meant it, that is:
Given the boldness of its earlier proposal, I was just a tiny bit disappointed that Cityscape’s piece on Alameda Point and Alameda Landing approached the transportation issue with joyless resignation:
Granted, this is probably a much better reflection of political and economic realities, but I do miss the big dreams. Maybe running trains through the tubes is a non-starter politically, but the Alameda Point and Alameda Landing developments are so huge that I think we should at least consider some bolder transportation solutions, especially if we can view them in a regional context, as part of a larger system.
Even if all development in Alameda could somehow be halted, the freeways and streets of the East Bay are only going to become more and more congested as time goes on. Unless we plan on becoming a completely self-contained and self-sufficient island, we would do well to consider ways to build up and connect into alternative networks for regional mobility.
Mark
December 7th, 2006 at 9:10 pm
Michael,
Transportation for the Point may be an unsolvable conundrum until the entire planet gets serious about “de-emphasis on the auto” big time. It’s too bad that what it will take to push that agenda is really ugly, but one way or the other it’s coming.
Al Gore was talking on morning TV yesterday and his answer about what we are doing with global warming was essentially “Iraq”. He had just told Matt Lauer that everything bad that has happened in Iraq was known before we wnet in but we ignored it and now we are in deep shit. Ditto for global warming if we don’t wake up.