350 means stop moving cars.

Stop trying to figure out how to move cars. Moving cars is just a substitute for producing CO2. We are at 384 ppm of CO2 and we need to get to 350.

350 is our challenge and our goal.

We should instead do the opposite of the last 50 years. Gum up the works for cars. Make it more difficult. That is the only way to make it easier to walk and bike and help the environment.

Take South and Ralston. We are obsessing over the crash rate, making a left turn eastbound on Ralston, should we have a stop light or a traffic light? The costs keep rising. The problem arises because there is not enough traffic on South to justify any fix. Meanwhile this is one of the worst intersections to cross over to Twin Pines when walking literally across the intersection. A pity because the views from South are dramatic and complement a walk to the park.

So lets take the half block from Holly to Ralston on South and convert it to a neighborhood pocket park. The little traffic from South can use Norte Dame or Middle to get out. Walkers would now have a nice means of getting to the intersection which can be narrowed to benefit the crossing. Autos would not have to worry about turning traffic and can go gum up another intersection. A two lane street on Ralston would also be feasible now.

350 allows us to re-imagine the whole street from 101 to 6th. Instead of the townless highway, one slab of asphalt from San Francisco to South San Jose, we can build a nice multistory office housing park gateways at 101 and turn the rest of the street into a Disney land main street like Santa Cruz in Los Gatos. A first step is a stop sign that meters traffic off the highway so that it can be slow and appreciate the town.

What have we got to lose its a complete loss right now, a speedway through a slum, the other side of the tracks.

Get rid of traffic to make a livalbe city

Cities need to figure out how to live without the pollution the traffic, & the crime. Restricting or getting rid of cars, with development by transit, and Transit Oriented Development will solve the first two. Removing the residential parking space requirement, allowing the transit agency to control streets and parking landuse decisions within a 1/4 mile of the transit center, and unbundling parking will solve this issue.

Eyes on the street via good development around a plaza will solve the third. By collecting streets into a public open space we can reduce the opportunity for anonymous crime that cities become plagued with. The plaza should collect the parking of Caltrain, Blockbuster, Walgreeen, and City Hall along with the already mentioned church and Safeway into one underground charged parking lot. Reducing parking and charging for the rest will allow us to free space for viable city development and extend the reach and viability of Twin Pines.

The incentive to do so is happening around us, driven by fuel prices. Last year a house on 6th street sold to a family from Tracy. They shortened their commute and saved on gas by moving to Belmont, near work. They have still not been able to sell their McMansion in Tracy. Another friend of ours say their fuel, insurance, and repair bill exceeded $1000/- last month for their commute car from Tracy to Cupertino. For most of us this is an affordable number which means that gas is still low and we need to do more as a city to deter driving.

And as discussed at the council last night, under Item 6C, cities need to be cautious how they give away crucial resources on local institutions. Carlmont and Norte Dame for example have statistically our worst drivers. Socially these students should be getting better grades to benefit our property prices- not spending their time earning money for gas and insurance and repairs. Creating pollution, traffic, and crashes within less than a half mile of the transit center is not good policy. Yet it was appalling to hear the Dean say that there was no alternative to driving and that we need to adjust to pollution, traffic, crime, and stressed out students.

Council Member Christine Wozniack was right on when she said we should stop making it easier for cars and in the process making it difficult for people to walk or bike. We got to make it worse for cars, like gas prices are presently doing, because that clearly benefits the environment, bikes, and peds.

The NY Times article goes on to say "In March, Americans drove 11 billion fewer miles on public roads than in the same month the previous year, a 4.3 percent decrease — the sharpest one-month drop since the Federal Highway Administration began keeping records in 1942.

Long before the recent spike in the price of energy, environmentalists decried suburban sprawl a waste of land, energy and tax dollars. Governments from Virginia to California have in recent decades lavished resources on building roads and schools for new subdivisions in the outer rings of development while skimping on maintaining facilities closer in. Many governments now focus on reviving their downtowns."

We should focus on a plaza downtown too and a systemic solution to traffic. We can't let the tide of history sweep us toward another untenable development.

Comments on the June 24th Council meeting

4.0 specific items to be removed for separate action.
B. Resolution Approving the Filing of the BAAQMD BFP Grant Application for City Contract Number 433 - U.S. Highway 101 Bicycle/Pedestrian Bridge Project for an Amount of $57,500 and for Installing Bicycle Lanes on Alameda de las Pulgas South of Ralston Avenue for an the Amount of $15,000.

I commend the council for considering bicycle lanes on the Alameda.

I ask you to please consider complete systems. Often the facility is incomplete and terminates in the most unfortunate situations. We build astounding levels of redundancy into automotive systems and take overcapacity for autos for granted despite an immense cost to the city. The energy output of the different modal groups are orders of magnitude apart. Its much easier for autos to have to go miles between connections. Instead all streets are auto accessible; but when you get over two lanes, the speed deferential, space allocation, priority, and position puts bicyclists and pedestrians at a life threatening disadvantage. Incomplete bike lanes on Ralston are a prime example of disparities caused by incomplete systems.

We have opportunity to reach out to our neighboring cities to ensure that multi modal access is achievable via the San Carlos Train Station where more baby bullets stop and to Samtrans by extending the bicycle catchment around our local stations. Providing a connected infrastructure for zero co2 modes like walking and biking to transit, can benefit both cities regionally by reducing congestion, pollution, and costs from expensive auto infrastructure.

With regards to Ralston 101 the council should CCAG to adopt a platform of Routine Accommodations so that bicyclists are not penalized today for the promise of future infrastructure.


6. OLD BUSINESS
B. Discussion and Direction Regarding Striping Plan for Alameda de las Pulgas

Please consider multimodality. Narrow sidewalks and wide streets force pedestrians into the street while giving fast traffic a free pass. Fast turn lanes create unique opportunities for automobiles to collide with pedestrians. Wide streets force seniors to try and jog unsuccessfully arriving stranded in the middle while traffic shamefully asserts its right away- for example in front of the library. Bicycles are challenged to take lanes to the left of stopped buses or vehicles parked for free. Belmont in turn responds with expensive enforcement fixes like lighted crosswalks and police officers to nab offensive drivers enabled by poor multimodal designs.

A stripping plan with parking, narrows lanes and clearly marked bicycle lanes can calm traffic and provide pedestrians with a refuge before crossing auto lanes. Seniors drive at a speed that feels cautious and safe which benefits city dwellers. Youth drive at a speeds that feels dangerous. Our infrastructure should enable the former not encourage the latter.

At a minimum, arterials need a complete bike network because they go where people want to go.


C. Discussion and Direction Regarding Traffic Conditions along Ralston Avenue between Notre Dame Avenue and Sixth Avenue
Increased auto capacity only comes at the expense of diminished bike and ped access which affects the quality of city life.
1. Walking and cycling are an integral transport mode and need to be given
our attention.
2. More capacity with lights and lanes is not the answer and cities that have been built around the car have been "destroyed". San Francisco and Berkeley have reponded by pulling down freeways and blocking roads to make the city more accessible to safe clean and quite modes like pedestrians and bicyclists.
3. Rail systems are good but enormously expensive and we already have one. Shuttle loops, taxi scripts and BRT is far more effective in delivering high-capacity public transport in a city, and can offer an alternative to NDNU and Carlmont.
4. Finally it doesn't make sense to be addressing congestion problems with scarce city resources at Carlmont and Norte Dame. These are statistically our worst drivers and socially they should be using transport modes that can get better grades instead of spending all their time trying to earn money to pay for gas and insurance.


D. Discussion and Direction Regarding the Collection Request for Proposals for Solid Waste/Recycling Collection Alternatives

Dual stream recyclers like South City Recycling allow for some level of reuse. Local enterprenuers can access resources. Single streamers like Allied only shift the waste problem to far away landfills; polluting water resources and making it convenient to load barges and carry the problem out of sight. Any innovation from resource reuse must come from where the barges stop. Raw material use continues unabated.

Extended producer responsibility and zero waste programs are really the way for us to conserve air, water, and land resources by shifting costs upstream.


9. MATTERS OF COUNCIL INTEREST/CLARIFICATION
Items in this category are for discussion and direction to staff only. No final policy action will be taken by Council.
A. Consideration of renewal of membership in the Housing Endowment and Regional Trust (HEART) (Lieberman)

Green House Gases are caused by our consumption patterns. The two biggest contributors to green house gases are cars and houses making up more than 80% of the total community and government footprint. How we address these issues are critical to how we solve our environmental. While HEART does not approach housing from the angle of green house gases they do understand the jobs housing balance, transit connection, green housing, and have been able bring resources to address the issues in San Mateo. They are a critical component to making San Mateo County function and cities like Belmont should be members of this group.

B. Consideration of a resolution against light brown apple moth aerial spraying (Feierbach)

- The problem with LBAM comes about because the food is transported by air these days. It used to, and should, come by ship, which is a lot more fuel efficient and the long trip was detrimental to the moth which would metamorphosis and then die at sea. Today's airborne moth, while generating tons of green house gases, gets to arrive, metamorph, find food and raise a family here.

- The fix against this moth used to be "targeted pheromone baited sticky traps" tied to a fruit tree. This works for small farmers with a few acres under cultivation. It doesn't work for corporate farmers who farms hundreds of acres and won't hire the labor to bait all the trees each month. Therefor USDA's spaying essentially supports large farms and is an anti local, one more disincentive, against small local farms.

- I buy from the farmers market which is where small local farmers go to find consumers like me who want fresh tasty food. These farmers are now in competition against an imported airborne moth with more frequent flyer miles than the average consumer arriving on fruit picked early so it can travel well and whose price is artificially low because of global subsidies like the war in Iraq.

- The moth has been in CA for years with no damage. However exporters, large farmers with global connections, again in competition against my farmer market supplier, have to spray outgoing shipments, and it is this "perpetual quarantine" that worries USDA which has no interest in the family farm or the consumer. This business model doesn't add up in an era of climate change.

We should instead-
fight global warming and protect the family farm by not spraying. Instead give a portion of the money allocated to this emergency to family farms earning under $30,000/- per year to pay for targeted pheromone baited sticky traps and let larger corporate farmers pay for their own programs while the destroy the air, soil and streams.

Shoreway is ideally located for low CO2 strategies.

In "City eyes luxury hotel off highway" reporter Oremus says that "higher and better uses of these parcels" would entail "a new full-service hotel, offices, shops and restaurants just east of Highway 101 and south of Ralston Avenue."

Caltrans 2007 report on low VMT (vehicle miles traveled) development says:
"In the past decade, frustration with increasing congestion, air pollution, and suburban sprawl has led to a resurgence of interest in land development patterns, often labeled as “smart-growth,” including: mixed land-uses, urban and suburban infill, pedestrian and bicycle-oriented design, and transit-oriented developments.

For example, clustering of services such as dry cleaning, day care, restaurants, and stores near major employment sites can provide the opportunity for workers to take care of personal errands on foot from work and possibly avoid unnecessary motor vehicle trips."

Belmont should consider a movie theater, a mix of services and housing, including studios, and SWKs (studios without kitchens) that would benefit Oracle engineers, use a means of capturing the land value in the businesses, so that the housing can be built free of the land cost, use unbundled parking, and develop a walking link to the west side of 101 on O'Neil with a prefabbed metal bridge that would arrive in the shopping area at Shoreway Place.

This is an ideal location to develop alternate parking strategies. Since its close to work at Oracle and Twin Dolphins, people can walk to work. Charge for parking. There is sufficient employment to justify services for live work arrangements. The city should use its Floor Area Transfer Policy to enable walkable and distinct neighborhoods with a 1/1.5 transfer ratio so that open space, parks, wildlife corridors, and trails can be enabled.

If Ralston from 101 to 6th was a single lane in each direction, bike lanes, and wide sidewalks with outdoor mall type shops, restaurants and seating, with housing above, this whole area could be transformed into a gateway to the Belmont Open Space with things for visitors to do and a viable link across the toxic barrier of 101 to the Bay Trail.

Why should Belmont do this? Because Jerry Brown has aggressively defended AB32. And Caltrans is now requiring MPOs to reduce VMT. Meeting the blueprint can get funding. And various guidelines are coming down on how to include green house gases in the RTP process. CEQA updated with AB32 will make it impossible for cities and Caltrans to slip though on a negative declaration such that "When approving developments, local officials have sidestepped laws meant to limit the effects on traffic." So why not set an example for what we'd like to see at Bay Meadows and RWC Downtown Specific Plan?

PAT Brown Kids.

Is it possible to have green kids? No. AT (Affluence x Technology), the emissions in PAT, P for population, causes a problem.

Two examples-

We live by transit, two blocks from El Camino and four blocks from Ralston. We own two cars. My wife drives one to work- she can take transit to Cupertino, her work has a shuttle from the MountainView train station, but needs the hours to finish her work past when the shuttle runs. The other is a backup for emergency- a dubious proposition since Merit Taxi runs an efficient service here in Belmont. We don’t sell it because we can afford to keep it. But the kids know we have the car. They will refuse to go places on their bus passes and want to get driven or picked up.

And we are not talking miles here. Carlmont is 1.2 miles away. Ralston is 2.2 miles. I can bike there and pick them up on our tandem if they gave me adequate notice or hung out with their friends. But they will say they have homework or something and must be picked up in five minutes and my wife will agree.

By affording to compromise and let the technology into our lives we have turned them into brown instead of green kids. And the city accommodates us with wide streets, free curb parking, unrestricted connections across El Camino and Caltrans and over Hallmark at 50 mph, and a mandated requirement for a two car garage- the infrastructure we build without regard for emissions.

We have three showers because we can afford to have three showers. The result is that the kids expect privacy and will get into a screaming fight over who is in “their” bathroom. They don’t clean or pick up in “their” bathroom- privacy doesn’t extend that far. They also will not conserve water or paper- not their green problem either. But a space, heated and cooled and cleaned with chemicals, just themselves behind a closed door is an essential expectation. OK its solar hot water heated and on a northern wall with a window for cooling and we use vinegar to clean, but still, can't you see the infrastructure for emissions and the expectations that are bred into browning the kids?

One of the principle characters in the Poisonwood Bible, a teacher, is talking to an American child, in a village in the Congo, and is disbelieving when he hears, that their family owns two cars in America. Why he asks, one is sufficient for a whole village and can go pick up supplies for everyone once a week?

AT leads to emissions. Indirectly it threatens the kids since they could be called on to fight another pocketbook war for another Cheney that transfers another $2T to another set of Exxons. But try and make them see that. Once A brings T into our lives there are no rules on usage that can apply even if grandma gets run over by a thirteen year old.

population x affluence x technology

We know the problem- the resource limited carrying capacity of the earth is caused by population x affluence x technology which attenuates toward a point of no return.
The evidence is everywhere- reduced snow packs, water shortages, overfished resources, spreading ocean dead zones, bee die offs, pesticide pollution, air pollution, oil wars over scarce resources, depleted soils, struggling infrastructure, polluted air and water.

Removing affluence and technology has a big impact. Africa, 57 countries, 12% worlds population, has less than 3% contribution to world Green House Gases. But if you look at where the GHG originate, Nigeria, Angola, and South Africa, and how, from the production and shipment of resources like oil and gold to the developed world, Africa's contribution to world GHGs is less than 1%. Taking into account deforestation and the mechanics of poverty creation from displacement of indigenous populations still leaves a negligible GHG number. We in the developed not only have a disproportional share of GHG production we are responsible for the third world's footprint in providing resources to us.

Making people work only one day a week would solve the affluence technology disease. But are there other solutions?

Consider another example: ONLY 8M people own cars in India. 350 M can’t afford a bicycle. Yet the demand for fuel for the 8M drivers (and the transfer of critical local resources for roads and infrastructure) added to already fuel tight markets between the US, China, and Europe cause prices to rise four fold. Additional perturbations in the food markets with biofuels cause food riots. Its increasingly likely that the 350M will never partake of the industrial revolution.

Our lifestyle sets a wrong and unfair example on how to install infrastructure worldwide. We need to know how we’ve paid to allow ourselves to produce so much GHG. Adding roads brings cars and unsustainable infrastructure needs to unmanageable slopes while taxing runoff at the sewer plant. Belmont is struggling with these infrastructure issues. On 4/18/08 Thomas Fil supplied council with a model on charging for infrastructure through a Community Facilities District plan.

How do we change it around? Do we use the easement law? What goals, indicators, and measures do we develop that are different from business as usual? Can we use brown fees and green credits to guide affluences uses of technology?

Al Gore condensed the infrastructure problem down to Coal Cars and Buildings. Elizabeth Kolbert wrote in the May 9, 2005 issue of The New Yorker that the longer we wait – and the more infrastructure we build without regard to its affect on emissions – the more daunting the task of keeping CO2 levels from increasing beyond dangerous levels. And McKibben sets the goal post with Project350 where we need to get back to 350 ppb of CO2.

Bill Howard writes in FIDIC 2005 CONFERENCE, WORKSHOP 7: Sustainable Municipal Infrastructure Workshop Introductory Remarks: New approaches to restoring and managing urban environments and infrastructure are appearing everywhere. Concepts like “livable cities,” “urban sustainability,” “green buildings,” and “smart growth” all focus on balancing urban infrastructure, environmental values, quality of life, and economic opportunities.

Sustainability means balancing needs with environmental protection to improve the quality of life for us and for future generations. sustainable development provides a framework under which communities can find the efficient use of resources and infrastructure to protect and enhance the quality of life and strengthen the economy.

Models like STELLA can be used to generate information and promote more informed and balanced decisions via rapid comparison of the performance of alternatives using physical, environmental, and economic metrics.

An opportunity to reinvent community

We need to say NOW where our infrastructure dollars will go. The problem is that business as usual will continue to drag us off to Iran and Kazakhstan from Iraq to control the next scarce resource. Like Al Capone we will go in search of other peoples property to satiate our out of control appetite.

On the one hand, the painful lesson of resource shortages, salmon, or gasoline, take your pick, should be obvious today. Shouldn’t these lessons apply to other areas of shortages like water and fire, an unlikely yin yang twin hovering like death angels over Belmont today, sewer and roads maintenance, parks and open space, trails, etc.?

On the other hand, we know that Cheney and Bush are morally crippled by their petrol interests and transferring $2T to their pocketbooks in oil profits is completely normal. But we are unable to intervene and change the infrastructure that allows these tax subsidies to flow uphill. And while McKibben and Hansen tear off their cloth and cry on the mountain the California Climate Action contingency plan has quietly proceeded and will be found lacking because of the lack of citizen participation.

There is considerable reluctance to see a new future, like the new mobility paradigm, beyond the entrenched interests of business as usual.

The good news is that in three year we could convert parking to housing, put pocket parks in intersections and convert streets for playgrounds and housing; removing the infrastructure that accounts for more than 50% of Green House Gases in Belmont today, in the form of free curb side parking and easy pedestrian killing access across El Camino, Caltrans, and over Hallmark at 50mph. Walkable transit friendly cities will benefit all other sustainable indicators by helping people reduce their cost of housing, healthcare transportation and DALY- disease adjusted life years. While the paragons of business as usual, like McCain/Clinton/Obama are worrying how to keep auto companies in business who brought us the Cheney pocketbook war in Iraq, and the New War Times is worrying about how to keep housing unaffordable, we continue to face an opportunity to reinvent our community.