My wife, Jeri, asked Greg Carr, San Ramon ex-mayor and ex-City Council member to help with a Norris Cyn Ramps presentation showing why the ramps are bad for SR. This is his response: ---- Some of my thoughts regarding the HOV Ramp: My one and only contact with Alex Mehran Jr. was when Jim Blickenstaff and I met with him about 1+ year ago at his office in Bishop Ranch to discuss his views on the HOV Ramp issue. I was curious where he really stood on the issue; and, I wanted to hear directly from the person whose company I feel would primarily reap the benefit of the HOV Ramp. Alex was accommodating and met with us. Alex was quite fixed on having the HOV Ramp at the Norris Canyon Road overpass. We talked about several other options, including the no project option. But, that concept was DOA with him. He also told us that he does not want the HOV Ramp at Executive Parkway. I suggested that he might reconsider putting it on Executive Parkway with east-only access, and thereby gain the favor of the community by being sensitive to their concerns and wants. I suggested that doing so might improve the view of him and Bishop Ranch within the local residential community, especially when he comes to the city for something else in the future. That idea seemed to fall on deaf ears. He was adamant about the HOV Ramp being on Norris Canyon Road; and, he added that he plans to put the transportation center somewhere in Bishop Ranch near Norris Canyon Road. That location is curiously consistent with the city's current North San Ramon Specific Plan. Remember, having a HOV Ramp at Norris Canyon Road provides Alex one of the key environmental mitigation tools he needs to greatly expand his Bishop Ranch Business Park. What would that expansion look like? Only Alex Mehran Jr. knows. My guess is that such expansion might include adding more stories onto existing office towers, replacing low office complexes with high-rise office structures (as they are now doing at Camino Ramon and Bollinger Canyon Road for the City Center project), and otherwise increasing the density of development throughout Bishop Ranch. That is why he needs the HOV Ramp. I have heard talk that Sunset Development, Alex's company, wants to attract high tech businesses to Bishop Ranch. Such an expansion might very well result in San Ramon becoming a mini-version of Silicon Valley, which I think would make it a less desirable place for residents to live. Think of what San Ramon would look like, if the high rise office area of downtown Concord was plunked down in Bishop Ranch along with the traffic such development would bring. I don't think the residents of San Ramon would find it very inviting. Something else very few people know is that San Ramon gets very little tax benefit from Bishop Ranch, because Sunset Development, the owner of Bishop Ranch, made a special deal with Contra Costa County before San Ramon was incorporated, wherein any incorporation of San Ramon into a city would exclude Bishop Ranch from San Ramon for most tax purposes. What does that mean? Well, San Ramon gets to pay for some services in Bishop Ranch without full tax compensation from Bishop Ranch, such as the police. To me, the reason for the HOV Ramp is quite simple as follows: Alex Mehran Jr. wants to expand the size of Bishop Ranch and possibly turn it into a high tech business destination, because that seems to be where the money is these days. It also helps his plan to attract such businesses, because San Ramon is still a very nice place to live and has good schools (though probably not for long on both counts, if his plans for Bishop Ranch expansion are realized). His problem is that adding more square footage to BR means you have more employees. Adding more employees means you put more commuters on San Ramon streets, most in single passenger cars. When he does that, he faces the problem of how to show in an Environmental Impact Report (EIR), that will be required for expanding Bishop Ranch, how he plans to mitigate the increased traffic flows that such an expansion causes at Crow Canyon and Bollinger Canyon Road overcrossings and off-ramps. The traffic level of service at those two locations, which is one of the key elements that will be analyzed in an EIR, is already maxed out with existing rush hour traffic flows. So, Alex's only easy option for mitigation of increased traffic flows at those two existing locations is to have a HOV Ramp at Norris Canyon Road. Alex can easily find a traffic engineering firm to show how the HOV Ramp solves the traffic level of service problem in the EIR. But, anyone who watches traffic on the streets at rush hour in San Ramon already knows that carpools and other HOV forms of transportation just aren't being used adequately. Just look at the empty buses rolling in and out of San Ramon. So, such thinking about mitigating increased traffic with a HOV Ramp is fallacious. Another thing that Alex can do in the future, if he is successful in getting the San Ramon City Council to approve and the Contra Costa County taxpayers to pay for the HOV Ramp, is to convince the San Ramon City Council to widen Norris Canyon Road from San Ramon Valley Blvd. up to Bollinger Canyon Road. Widening will require condemnation of existing homes along at least one side of Norris Canyon Road, in order to get four lanes. Widening Norris Canyon Road would definitely provide another route for mitigating increased traffic flows, by rerouting some of the traffic from Bollinger Canyon Road all the way across I680 to the new transportation center Alex plans to build in Bishop Ranch. That will probably provide more real mitigation of increased traffic than the HOV Ramp. How does he do that? Simple. He just makes three calls to City Council members and gets them to agree with the idea, the City Council puts the item on the agenda and votes 3 to 2 to widen Norris Canyon Road, and the result is that San Ramon residents pay for the widening of Norris Canyon Road and another increased traffic mitigation for Alex. In 1988/89, San Ramon had an item in the city's capital improvement plan to do just that. It was only thwarted then by the community on and around Norris Canyon Road turning out en masse in opposition to it. The then City Council saw the collective disgruntlement of the residents for the idea and permanently took it out of the capital improvement plan, thereby showing an enlightened sense of duty to the residents. What is the result of all of this? If the HOV Ramp is built on Norris Canyon Road, Alex Mehran Jr. gets what he needs and wants without paying for it. It really only benefits his company's interest. The residents of San Ramon and the taxpayers of Contra Costa County pay for it, all under the guise of traffic improvements paid by an underfunded bond measure that will have to go back to the voters for more funding. The residents and businesses in the vicinity of the HOV Ramp get to suffer forever after from its impacts. What residents and impacted businesses want, under such a scenario, is probably not of any concern to Alex. Take another look at how to solve this situation: If having an HOV Ramp for Bishop Ranch is so important to Alex Mehran Jr., why can't his company (Sunset Development) build it at their expense, and not with tax money from Contra Costa County and San Ramon residents. Such a dedicated HOV Ramp, however, must only be placed at Executive Parkway and be designed to only access the east side of the freeway into Bishop Ranch. That would have no impact on the community and it would provide Alex the EIR mitigation benefits he seeks for Bishop Ranch expansion. Of course, he would still have to prove that his HOV Ramp would in fact provide the traffic mitigations the traffic engineers say would accrue in the EIR. The reality is that I don't think any HOV Ramp will provide enough real mitigation of increased traffic in San Ramon, because people want to drive their own car to work for the convenience and flexibility. But, the real problem with this idea of placing a HOV Ramp at Executive Parkway is that such a dedicated HOV Ramp would cost Alex. Why pay for it if you can get San Ramon and Contra Costa County to pay for it?