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Frankie Frost
Rebuttal to letter by Don Herzog on Alto Tunnel
The following letter was sent to Dan Dawson, Senior Transportation Planner for the Marin County Department of Public Works, in response to comments made by Don Herzog in his letter from Friends of Alto Tunnel.
Dear Mr. Dawson:
You recently received a letter from Don Herzog, aka Friends of Alto Tunnel, which addressed some of the statements in my letter to you of 1/6 regarding the Draft “Marin County Unincorporated Area Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan”.
This letter will rebut some of the errors, omissions, and obfuscations in Mr. Herzog’s letter.
- The Class II bike lane on the west side of Camino Alto is intact nearly all the way from E. Blithedale to just short of the summit, and is only slightly narrower than the required 3’ for two very short sections; it’s much safer now for both cyclists and motorists, as it creates separation between them.
- No matter the source, the claim Mr Herzog repeats that 370,000 pedestrians would use a reconstructed Alto Tunnel per year is absurd, especially given that scenic alternatives exist; that’s over 1,000 per day. This projection, like so many made by bicycle advocates and their supporters, is aspirational in that no real pedestrian need exists here, but the claim is made solely in order to justify the enormous expenditure of a re-constructed Tunnel. Incidentally, the County reduced its usage estimates for a reconstructed Tunnel by cyclists by approximately 63% (from 1,850,000 to 680,000 per year), and by pedestrians (from 370,000 to 170,090 per year, or 54%), a fact that Mr. Herzog neglected to mention. (See Footnote 1.)
- The numbers backing my statement that the enormous expenditures for bicycle improvements made to date have not made an impact on bicycle commuting (key word) come from the County’s own actual bicycle counts, from page 4.2 and 4.5 of the Draft Plan, not from projections, nor from the wishes of the cycling community. They’re the County’s own actual numbers. (See Footnote 2.) Recreational use by cyclists may have increased in the County, but bicycle commuting has decreased here since 2011; therefore, there has been no decrease in vehicle miles traveled (VMTs) attributable to bicycles for transportation purposes.
- The actual estimated 2010 cost of the improvements required to access the Alto Tunnel is $10,181,996, not $5,544,893 as Mr. Herzog asserts. I believe the estimate of $1,500,000 for access issues is far too low, as is the figure for improvements to Redwood in Corte Madera, and rounded up the County’s estimate to the $11,000,000 figure Mr Herzog attributes to me. Note that this number is based on a 2009 cost analysis, which is now nearly 9 years old, and therefore should be adjusted upward for inflation since the height of the recession. For the detail of the $10,181,996, see Footnote 3 below and the attached Appendix L from the 2010 Study.
- The collapsed section of the Alto Tunnel in which the easement, whose legality is disputed, is owned by the County is in the center of the Tunnel, with no homes or structures anywhere near or above them. The disputed easements which are near homes or structures are owned by the UP Rail Road; therefore the County has no obligation to repair sections of the Tunnel owned by the railroad. The “liability” issue Mr Herzog raises is a red herring posited by cycling advocates to make people think the County is on the hook for repairs to the Tunnel or liability for damage to homes – it’s not.
- Mr. Herzog’s final paragraph points out the absurdity of the 370,000 pedestrian user projection. He states: “The Tunnel study reports that 370,000 pedestrians a year would choose to use the (well lit) tunnel as opposed to only 100,000 who would use Camino Alto and 36,800 who would choose to use Horse Hill.“ NOTE: The correct word should be “projects” not “reports”, and as I noted above, the County revised these figures down drastically.
Do any pedestrians actually use Camino Alto to commute today? There is a class II bike lane there now and one can cut off to scenic side streets at the summit, which pedestrians can use, but no one does, and I travel this route multiple times every day I’m in town. Why would 100,000 start tomorrow? All these user projections are just that, with no real basis in logic. That’s why I used the County’s actual counts for my conclusions.
Thank you for considering these points. Sincerely,
John Palmer
Footnote 1: From the updated 2010 “Mill Valley to Corte Madera Bicycle and Pedestrian Study” (the Study.)
“An estimated daily average of approximately 1,863 bicyclists and 466 pedestrians would use the Alto Tunnel based on the assumption that the volume of bicyclists and pedestrians would be approximately half the volumes on the Mill Valley-Sausalito Pathway and the Sandra Marker Trail in Larkspur.”
This is the downward revision I referred to above. (1,863 x 365 = 679,995, and 466 x 365 = 170,090). Even these figures, especially for pedestrians, are too high.
Footnote 2: Table 4.1 on page 4.2 of the Study demonstrates that the cost of upgrading both the Horse Hill and Camino Alto routes would be approximately 1/5 the cost of reconstructing the Alto Tunnel, and Table 1-2 on pages 1-14 show that the combined use of these two routes would result in a savings of 75% of VMTs of the projected savings of the Tunnel.
That’s 75% of the benefit for 1/5 the cost, according to the County’s own figures and projections. A logical taxpayer might ask: “Why spend 5 times as much for a relatively modest increase in benefits?”
Footnote 3: (From Appendix L to the 2010 Study, Courtesy Copy Attached)
Segment 1 | $ 926,325 | (end of existing path to Vasco Ct.) |
Segment 7 | $1,000,647 | (rail bed from Vasco to Tunnel) |
Design + Admin for Seg 7 | $ 411,162 | |
Segment 9A | $1,785,893 | (Tunnel to Montecito) |
Design + Admin for Seg 9A | $ 770,075 | |
Segment 9B | $ 215,697 | (Montecito to Redwood) |
Segment 10 | $ 115,632 | (Redwood to Wornum) |
Design + Admin for Seg 10 | $ 48,565 | |
Easement and Access | $1,500,000 | (could be much higher) |
Blithedale Crossing | $3,408,000 | (to get the bikes across E Blithedale) |
TOTAL | $10,181,996* |
* Note that this total does not include any of the improvements Corte Madera officials have stated they will seek in order to get bicycles across Redwood, should the Tunnel proposal advance.