Monday, July 14, in City Hall Council Chambers, 120 Vista Avenue, Piedmont, the Piedmont Planning Commission will consider the Bike and Pedestrian Improvements planning progress presented by the City’s consultant, Niko Letunic. The item is the last item on July 14 Planning Commission Agenda .  The meeting will be broadcast. 

At previous hearings, citizen recommendations included additional street trees to enhance the pedestrian experience, attention to the intersections of busy arterial routes and local streets for better pedestrian comfort.

Several citizens were unable to find their recommendations in the list of survey results, including:

• safe pedestrian walkways along Moraga Avenue to Blair Park
• a pedestrian path on Moraga Avenue next to the Mountainview Cemetery wall from the bus stop to Ramona Avenue
• a pedestrian median needed for pedestrians crossing the overly wide Monticello Avenue at Moraga Avenue
• consideration of the special needs of pedestrian senior citizens

These suggestions were also not  found in the February 2014 preliminary Bike/Ped Improvement Options report by consultant prior to input from Piedmont residents.

A recent suggestion was made that the Piedmont General Plan should provide consideration and direction on pedestrian, vehicular, and bicycle safety prior to the addition of new uses to already congested areas such as the Civic Center and Grand Avenue.

A presentation on recent progress in the planning process for the City’s Pedestrian and Bicycle Master Plan (PBMP) will be made.

The purpose of the meeting  is for City staff and its project consultant to present and receive feedback on the “implementation strategy” for the plan—namely the prioritization, funding and phasing of projects and other improvements that will make up the plan. The implementation strategy is an interim step in the planning process; based on feedback at the hearings, the list of high-priority projects (and other aspects of the strategy) will be refined and presented more broadly to the public as part of the draft Pedestrian and Bicycle Master Plan, beginning in August.

“The prioritization of projects will be based in large part on feedback received from Piedmonters and other stakeholders on ideas presented to the community in recent months. An important opportunity for feedback was through an online survey that ran for four weeks in February and March and received more than 260 responses. For a summary of the survey results, as well as the full [partial] list of comments received through the survey, click here.

The meeting will be an additional opportunity for the public to find out more about the plan and to voice their opinions. The City’s project consultant and City staff will be available to answer questions from the Commissioners and members of the public.

For more information about the PBMP, contact Kate Black at kblack@ci.piedmont.ca.us or at (510) 420-3063. If you would like to stay up to date on the development of the plan, contact Janet Chang at janetchang@ci.piedmont.ca.usor at (510) 420-3094 to be added to the email list for the project.

Get involved—these are your streets and sidewalks. Your voice is important!”

In August a draft will be available of the prioritized pedestrian and bicycle improvements to make walking and biking safer, easier and more popular.

Read the July 14 Planning Commission Agenda where a reference to the Bike and Pedestrian Plan can be found at the end.