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18 November 2008

Revised Plan and Notice of Preparation submitted

Early today, the A's submitted their long awaited Notice of Preparation, along with a revised site plan. This time, the site plan is much shorter, as it acts mostly as an addendum to address concerns about traffic and parking:
  • Parking for fans at The Fountains Business Park (north of Auto Mall Parkway) has been eliminated. Instead, the A's aim to replace 2,600 spaces there with a similar number east of 880. Fans would access the ballpark and village via a pedestrian bridge over the freeway. The purpose is to mitigate congestion at Auto Mall. The parcels haven't been acquired by Wolff/Fisher, instead they intend to work with area businesses and landowners to provide the spaces. The Fountains would still be used for employee parking. The plan provides scenarios in which the "East of 880" parking is used either immediately or in the long term as major development is completed.
  • The three primary stadium lots would provide 10,990 spaces. This includes the "Interim Lot" immediately to the south of the ballpark. Given the likely delays in housing development, this lot may be less interim than previously planned. In addition, the "Municipal Lot" along Auto Mall near the railroad tracks is planned to have 2,500 spaces.
  • Traffic routing has been designed to direct cars from specific exits to specific lots. Some of the streets would be designed or widened to include center reversible lanes, which would change direction before and after games. Electronic signage from the freeway and arteries and optimized signal timing would help control traffic management, similar to the system used for HP Pavilion.
  • The A's would staff a parking monitoring system (tire chalking) which would identify violators, including frequent ones. A sort of soft validation system would be instituted, in which repeat violators would be warned after the second offense, and towed or booted after the third (I am refraining from the obvious sports metaphor).
The deceptively eye-popping takeaway from the plan is that a project alternative will be included that decouples the ballpark from the rest of the development, placing Cisco Field near the planned Warm Springs BART station. This should not be interpreted as a preference, as the whole, contiguous plan is obviously more synergistic. Still, having the alternative should make for some interesting discussion on this site and others - I didn't see it coming. The A's have not bought any of the land surrounding the BART station. It is not clear that any area landowners have any interest in selling to the A's. NUMMI, in particular, may look at the ballpark's location and use as a threat to their operations, for reasons discussed previously.

The City of Fremont has scheduled a community workshop for Monday, December 8, from 6:30 to 8 p.m. The session will be held at the usual location, City Hall's Council Chambers.

Interested parties can start submitting comments on the Notice of Preparation immediately, they have until December 18 at 4 p.m. to submit comments. Keep in mind that this is not the EIR. Instead the comments will help guide the Draft EIR, which may not be released until early spring.

13 comments:

FC said...

ML,

Any idea why the A's would go through the effort of putting out an off-site alternative? Seems to me this just muddys the water.

Marine Layer said...

It could muddy the water but that's part of the process. The two EIR's I've recently studied - BART and HSR - had a dozen or more alternatives before being whittled down to a few workable ones. There's no legal obligation than to provide a single alternative. This study will have two: "No build" and the decoupled project. If anything, it's a show of good faith. It's something that Fremont citizens have asked about to some degree, it's nice to know it will be formally acknowledged and addressed.

Anonymous said...

Any idea why the alternative?

Why yes ... it might be that the first one is not viable.

Marine Layer said...

Anon - You base this on what exactly?

Jeffrey said...

ML, Thanks for the info as usual.

Tony D. said...

R.M., could the "decoupled" alternative be the result of Measure B; now passing solidly at 67.74% and rising? I don't know about you, but I kind of like the idea of Cisco field being adjacent to the Warm Springs BART station (vs. Pac Commons). Easier transit access from downtown San Jose! Can you do a post on the Warm Springs site again as a refresher?

Tony D. said...

R.M.
Regarding NUMMI. Isn't the Warm Springs site south of the auto plant? If so, my guess is that it would have less effect on operations because most of NUMMI's traffic (shipments, receiving, etc.) would be to the north on 880/680 (shipments to the Port of Oakland, railyards). Just my guess; you're the expert on this kind of thing.

Marine Layer said...

I won't do another post on Warm Springs, but I will cite some previous posts I made on the area:

What effect Warm Springs?"
Satellite photo with labels
Satellite photo zoomed in with routes

Marine Layer said...

BTW that's 66.74%, not 67.74%. Big difference, about 6,000 votes. The margin of victory is now 482 votes, <0.1% of the electorate.

Anonymous said...

ML, are they suggesting decoupling the ballpark and the village from the rest of the development, or just the ballpark from the village/rest of development?

Marine Layer said...

Just the ballpark and parking. The village has a housing component, and that's a nonstarter for NUMMI.

Tony D. said...

R.M.,
Thanks for the links to the older WS posts. And I stand corrected; 66.74% it is! Although the Merc stated the difference being 1,444 votes above the 2/3's requirement (with 3,000 ballots left to count).

Anonymous said...

That would be a shame. Part of the appeal is having the village surrounding the ballpark. I must say, I would never see the village if it was located out of the way to the ballpark.