Liang - Vallco impact on traffic should be based on realistic data

From: Liang C
Date: Mon, Nov 16, 2015 at 12:26 PM
Subject: Comment on Vallco EIR - traffic based on realistic data
To: "City of Cupertino Planning Dept." planning@cupertino.org

RE: Comment on Vallco EIR

From Parking-Drawing.pdf submitted by The Hills at Vallco, here are the parking spaces available.

Total parking spaces = 9,175.

Office: 5033; Retail: 2,500; Residential: 1,427; On-street parking: 215.

The number of parking spaces for the 10,000 workers is apparently insufficient.

Even using the low estimate of 8,000 workers (250 square feet per worker), 5033 parking spaces only provides spaces for 62% of 8,000 workers.
5033 parking spaces only provides spaces for 50% of 8,000 workers.

And some more space has to be reserved for outside visitors for the 2 million square feet of office. So, the actual number of spaces available for employees would be even lower.

If the EIR will assume that some of the workers will use other modes of transportation, such as light rail, biking, walking or carpool, please use realistic assumption that's reasonable.

The 2 million square feet of office will not have only one or major employers. There could be 10 or 20 or even 200 office tenants. If assumption is going to be made about any shuttle service provided by the office tenants, it has to be based on actionable plan that's committed in the Development Agreement. And all office tenants have to be disclosed of the limitation and sign onto any traffic management plan.

Based Apple EIR, even at Apple Inifinite Loop, where the culture promotes biking and other modes of transportation, 72% of the employees arrive in single-occupancy vehicle, another 10% arrive in carpool. So, still the number of parking spaces needed is 82% of the employee population.

With Apple Campus 2, Apple has committed to reduce the number of single-occupancy vehicle trips to 60% with the best efforts. The Hills at Vallco with simply an office park with any number of tenants cannot assume to do even better.

If any assumption is made about the number of single-occupancy vehicles or carpools, please provide realistic data to back it up.

Apple EIR also pointed out the difficulty of using public transit: (Page 38 of Apple EIR Appendix B Transportation Impact Analysis)

"Although there is a fair amount of transit service within the vicinity of Apple Campus 2, there are no easy public transfers to existing high capacity transit corridors such as Caltrain commuter rail and various bus lines along El Camino Real. Express transit services typically operate in directions that inhibit travel using solely public transit to Apple Campus 2 from residential areas along the Peninsula. Furthermore, the poor walkability of the streets around the project site, due to higher traffic volumes, discourages people from walking longer distances to transit stops or stations.

To make some of these Caltrain stations more accessible, Apple provides daily shuttle service to the Lawrence and Sunnyvale Stations. The travel time on Apple shuttles between these Caltrain stations and Apple Campus 2 is approximately 15 minutes to 20 minutes.

Most commuting cyclists travel at a rate of about nine to 10 miles per hour, meaning the Lawrence, Sunnyvale, and Santa Clara Caltrain stations are located about an 18, 23, and 28-minute bicycle ride away from Apple Campus 2, respectively. Only the Lawrence Caltrain station has continuous bicycle infrastructure that connects it to Apple Campus 2 in the form of Class II lanes along Wolfe Road, Reed Avenue, and Aster Avenue."

The condition for taking transit and biking or walking hasn't changed, since Apple EIR.

If any assumption is to be made about the percentage of employees who are able to use public transit or walk or bike, please use realistic data to back it up.

If shuttles are going to be used to transport employees or shoppers to The Hills at Vallco, please study the impact on the parking facilities at each pick up location. Are there sufficient parking spaces today? How many more parking spaces will be necessary for the shuttles of The Hills at Vallco?

A large percentage of passengers riding buses in Cupertino are the 30,000 students at De Anza College. They are provided a free bus pass to encourage bus usage, since it is already charged as a part of their tuition. They are also single young adults who do not have other family responsibilities so that they have to be at multiple places in one day at a fixed time.

So, any statistics about bus ridership should only account for non-student population, unless The Hills at Vallco is going to hire only single young adults and provide them with bus passes for free.

Liang Chao