New Policies for Safe Schools Despite of SB 50, by BC

Better Cupertino
Date: Tue, Oct 20, 2015 at 3:14 PM
Subject: New Policies for Safe Schools Despite of SB 50
To: City Council <citycouncil@cupertino.org>, planning@cupertino.org
Cc: board@cusdk8.org, School_Board@fuhsd.org


Dear Mayor Sinks, Vice Mayor Chang, Councilmembers and Planning Commissioners,

Policies to consider school impact before a development project is approved were simply removed due to SB 50 in the new General Plan. There was no attempt to rephrase the policies to comply with the law, but still consider other aspects of school impacts.

SB 50 still allows traffic, air quality, noise and other environment factors to be considered around schools as a condition of approval on projects. New policies should be put in place to ensure a minimum level of standards for these environmental factors when a development project is considered and especially when GPA is considered to increase the building density and intensity.

New policies should be put in place to ensure that development projects provide more than sufficient traffic mitigation measures to improve traffic condition not only around school, but also all routes leading to schools for either biking, walking, driving or shuttling. It is not sufficient to leave it up to the Environment Impact Report to protect the environment around schools.

SB 50 should not be used as an excuse to ignore impacts on schools. The City should be proactive and introduce new policies that both comply with SB 50 and protect schools from negative impacts created by new development projects.

Perhaps, a special School Traffic Fee could be created to cover the expenses to provide safe routes for schools for all modes of transportation. Such fee could cover:

- bike paths around schools and paths from various parts of the attendance area to schools.

- pedestrian sidewalk enhancement for safer routes.

- speed limit meters to show drivers their current driving speed to promote safer speed around schools and routes to schools.

- signaled side walk to raise awareness of pedestrian sidewalks.

- traffic lights around schools that are activated only during school rush hours.

- funding for school buses for those who live further away from schools.

- bus pull off area so that school buses do not block the traffic.

- And fund a garbage pickup program modification so that garbage cans do not block bike paths. Either pay an extra driver or designate a special area on the sidewalk for cans.

Regards,

BetterCupertino