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CITY NEWS

Council Gets Traffic Report; - Weighs Options for Future Development

John VanLandingham
The Emeryville Connection Staff
August 2007

After more than an hour of studying how four major development proposals will affect Emeryville traffic, the City Council on July 17 agreed, without making any decisions about the proposals or their effects, to hold a special meeting on the matter.

The council and staff will tackle the proposals during a meeting Saturday, September 15th at City Hall. No time for the meeting was announced, although the meeting likely will start in the morning.

Developers have submitted plans for four major sites in the city, called the “Big Four” in the study:

• Bay Street Site B, located to the north of the Bay Street mixed-use development. It will serve as an end cap to the shopping and dining area, just as AMC Theaters does on the south end. Proposals are for 170 residential units, 180,000 square feet of retail and a new, 250 room hotel, which would be Emeryville’s fifth. Madison Marquette, the developer of Bay Street Emeryville, is the developer for this project.

• Marketplace, an expansion of the popular Emeryville Public Market, which contains the International Food Court, the United Artists movie complex and many other stores. The proposed expansion would be a phased project with 77,000 square feet of additional retail and up to 340 residential units. TMG Partners is the developer.

• The Transit Center for which 250,000 square feet of office space is proposed, on Horton Street, between the Emeryville Amtrak Station and the Emeryville Post Office. Wareham Properties is the developer.

• Gateway where up to 280 residential units and 10,000 square feet of retail space are proposed, on the site near the intersection of Christie and Powell Street, behind the Denny’s and the Union 76 Station. BRE Properties is the developer.

Cumulatively, the city is looking at nearly 800 residences; 267,000 square feet of retail space and 250 hotel rooms as well as 250,000 square feet of office space prompting the planning staff to analyze what will Emeryville traffic be like in 2030 with and without the proposed projects.

Planning Director Charlie Bryant said in a report to the council that environmental studies accompanying the development proposals only addressed each one out of context of the other three.

Such studies prepared for individual projects will not provide an accurate assessment of the traffic scenario that account for regional growth as well as all four projects at one time. For this reason, the city commissioned Fehr and Peers to conduct a quantitative analysis of the cumulative impacts of the four projects. In addition, the city also hired Kimley-Horn and Associates to conduct a qualitative analysis including various innovative circulation enhancements.

Fehr and Peers analyzed level of service or how fast traffic flows through at 37 intersections during weekday evening peak hour and at 22 intersections on Saturday during peak hour. It also studied “queue spillback” or traffic backup lines at four intersections in the Shellmound-Powell-Christie loop area and suggested road and signal improvements.

Kimley-Horn also conducted peer reviews of Fehr and Peers work.

Bryant, using a slide show presentation guided the council through a series of findings and recommendations from road widening to pedestrian signals. He concluded with a series of recommendations:

• Study further the feasibility of Fehr and Peers’ street widening and reconfiguration recommendations to mitigate effects of approving the Big Four.

• Pursue widening Powell Street in conjunction with the Gateway project.

• Use three “out of the box” concepts including a one-way Shellmound-Christie loop, widen Powell and Christie streets to improve lane configurations and have a pedestrian recall at all intersections in the “loop” area during peak hours.

After considerable questions about the various findings and recommendations, Mayor Nora Davis declared that the council needed to address all its questions about the study and its recommendations during a special meeting devoted only to that topic.

John VanLandinham is a writer for The Emeryville

Connection. If you have a question or comment, please contact him at ecocnews@gmail.com