Residents of west Hollister had a “What were they thinking?” moment last month when city officials offered them bicycle lanes on Central Avenue. The problem was that the plan would eliminate 250 street parking spaces.
The bike lanes were to come from a $1.08 million Active Transportation Program grant the city received in 2016.
West Hollister residents voiced their opposition to the plan at an Oct. 16 meeting, which was captured on video by Hollister City Council District 2 candidate Rolan Resendiz, who then posted it on Facebook (see it here).
Though city officials believed in 2016 that bike lanes would be a welcome improvement to the area, residents said they were not brought into the conversation until last month.
“These are not the first two meetings,” Councilwoman Mickie Luna said. “These are the first two meetings that actually got more people on because people were given wrong information.”
Luna, who is running for re-election to her District 2 seat, said somebody went door to door on Central Avenue passing out information that parking was going to be taken away from them.
Mary Paxton, program manager of the Hollister Development Services Department, said the city had community meetings and workshops beginning in July 2015. Part of the meetings consisted of conducting surveys to gather the affected residents’ opinion.
Objections to the bike lanes were based on two factors. First, homes along the stretch of Central Avenue between Bridgevale Road and Line Street are occupied by extended families, making street parking a necessity. Second, it turns out that this part of Central Avenue is too narrow to accommodate both street parking and bike lanes.
At the Oct. 16 meeting, resident Ignacio Ponce asked which community members were receptive to the project, adding that he was not one of them. Veronica Lezama, San Benito County of Governments (COG) transportation planner, repeated the question to the group, and Ponce said “her,” indicating Luna.
Luna shook her head in disapproval. “It’s on video ma’am,” he said. “Watch your own video.”
Ponce was referring to the Oct. 1 Hollister City Council meeting where Luna said, “I believe we already have passed out information in the area and people are very receptive.” The video of the council meeting can be found here. (Luna begins to speak about the meeting at 1:49:12.)
Though she didn’t identify on Oct. 1 the parties who were receptive to the bike lane plan, Luna later identified someone who wasn’t.
At the Oct. 23 San Benito County Board of Supervisors meeting, Luna thanked the supervisors for support she’d received in improving west Hollister.
“Unfortunately,” she continued, “during our meetings with the westside constituents, there has been non-support coming from elected officials such as Supervisor [Jaime] De La Cruz. I really feel at this time I need to make that public because we cannot afford to lose one penny in funding for anywhere in the city or the county.”
Later in the meeting, De La Cruz said he supports any beautification projects, but that it was a bad move by the city not to inform “key members” about the proposed bike lanes and elimination of parking spaces.
“As a county supervisor, I will support what the wishes are of that public in that community,” De La Cruz said. “If the majority of the public doesn’t want it, that’s the way of the public. It’s not my will. We are all elected here, we all have bosses. And let me tell you something, I listened to the bosses in two different meetings and I got it loud and clear.”
Regarding her statement that the people were receptive, Luna told BenitoLink she was referring to herself.
“I was receptive to receiving the grant,” she said. “I think that was under my report at the end of the meeting. I was receptive to the fact that we, and I knew we still had to have meetings with the community, but I was receptive to the fact that we were receiving this grant.”
Asked to elaborate on her “people are very receptive” statement at the Oct. 1 City Council meeting, Luna said that when she had talked to people on Graf Road, business people on Fourth Street, and others in the area, they have always been receptive to projects to improve the area.
“We need to honor the request of the people,” Luna said.
The City Council is expected to decide whether to withdraw the Active Transportation grant at their Nov. 5 meeting. While it’s clear that a class 2 bicycle lane—consisting of bike lanes on both sides of the street—is a non-starter for Central Avenue, the city is asking the California Transportation Commission and Caltrans for permission to install a class 3 bike lane on the street instead. According to Caltrans, this would consist of bike routes on the streets shared with motor traffic and are established by placing bike route signs along the roadways. There would be no loss of parking on the street.
Paxton said the Active Transportation Program is meant to encourage people to walk and bicycle to destinations and to change human behavior in order to reduce greenhouse emissions.
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