Moraga Canyon disaster waiting to happen
| I am opposed to the sheer scale of 197 units being installed in our steep-sided high fire zone Moraga Canyon. Moraga is a 2 lane road and always will be no matter how you doctor up the diagrams. It is a very heavily travelled roadway (11,000+ cars daily) which begins and ends in Oakland and this project affects Oaklanders profoundly. It is a major evacuation route for both Piedmont and Oakland. We are extremely concerned about the safety aspects of disaster evacuation with hundreds of added cars thrown into the mix with the existing hundreds trying to escape on a 2 lane road, with bikers and pedestrians using the bike lane to also escape. Your fire Captain suggested that a “third lane” for cars could somehow be created in the bike lane which defies imagination. Those using the bike lane would be sitting ducks. A retired Oakland Fireman says that Piedmont would depend on OFD heavily to help your small fire dept but how on earth would they get into Piedmont on that narrow 2 lane road with everyone fleeing in a panic? This is not safe. Please rethink your locations for this housing which we realize is much needed. At least scale back down to 133 units, your original number (how did that get increased?). And where on earth will you put that many parking spaces (400 not including visitor parking)? And your driveways did not pass the 2010 CalTrans LOS (Line of Sight) test for the proposed but defeated soccer fields plan, why would they now??? This plan is beset with problems and it is hard to imagine new residents getting insurance as many in the area have had their insurance dropped b/c of fire/earthquake hazards and being next to the Hayward fault. Also children crossing Moraga Ave to go to school, or Coaches Athletic field are endangered by the hi volume speeding (40 MPH average in 25 MPH zone) traffic with poor LOS for the stoplight you are proposing. A traffic island has been described by some experts as more dangerous than not having one because people get over confident when caught on one; it is also very small in your design, very close to the whizzing cars. Also Blair Park is a wildlife corridor. This is not a not a safe project. Also, we have placed some yard signs reflecting what the proposed units might look like and they are being stolen from Oakland private property which does not reflect well on the prodevelopment folks from a free speech standpoint. A sensitive topic these days. |