Residents Reject Safety Improvements
In Which: Acting CM leans into his role, Mayor Salinas puts his thumb on the scale, And Wildfire risk management falls to the individual homeowner.
Acting City Manager Brings Some Pomp
The City Attorney, Michael Lawson, was appointed to be the Acting City Attorney after the former City Manager, Ana Alvarez, was placed on administrative leave. Tuesday was Mr. Lawson’s first meeting as City Manager and he brought a sense of pomp to his brief comments.
After encouraging everyone on the Executive Team to stand briefly to be recognized, rather than focusing on community announcements like the usual City Manager Comments, he spoke about the budget. “We’ve got a serious budget challenge that we’re taking on,” he said while projecting a slide with the City’s budget breakdown.
The slide showed that around 80% of the General Fund is spent on people. “We are aligned with the challenges that many public agencies are facing,” Mr. Lawson said. “We’re looking everywhere for additional savings.” He said that the projected $12,600,000 deficit may actually be larger than expected when presented at the June 17 meeting.
For long-time watchers, this was a sharp departure from usual City Manager Comments. The serious tone was even more marked coming from someone in an acting capacity. It is unclear how long Mr. Lawson will be in the position, but the last City Manager search took several months to complete.
Hills Residents Reject Complete Streets
Hayward Boulevard, which runs from Mission Boulevard up past CSUEB and on to Stonebrae, is scheduled to be repaved for much of its length. The City thought it would be a good time to revisit how the street is designed. Given recent fatal collisions in the area, City Staff recommended reducing the lanes from four to two, adding a bicycle lane in each direction, and connecting the sidewalks along the road.
Staff’s primary reason for the changes is because of speeding and safety. According to a 2024 traffic study, average speeds can be up to 15 mph over the posted speed limit of 25 mph. The 85th percentile of drivers on multiple sections of roads neared 50 mph.
Staff’s secondary concern was traffic volumes. According to a 2024 traffic study, traffic is only a big concern to the west of the shopping center on Civic Avenue (where Bronco Billy’s is). Any further up the hill, traffic drops off to well under 10,000 cars per day. By comparison, the section of road between Carlos Bee and Campus (between the CSUEB exit and where Bret Harte will be) has traffic volumes of 16,000 per day.
Despite the evidence, community backlash forced changes to the plan. The initial recommendation was to have bike lanes separated by bollards. After residents expressed concern about traffic congestion and evacuation routes, the bollards were removed and Staff added a center turn lane. There would then be up to 5 lanes available in an emergency—one more lane than is currently available.
But vocal residents in the hills remained unsatisfied and continued to push for maintaining four lanes of traffic. “They’re concerned about the congestion,” Staff said, “They’re concerned about the analysis that shows there won’t be congestion.” Despite wanting to keep four lanes of road, the residents were open to pedestrian safety improvements.
Mayor Salinas Puts Thumb On The Scale
Hayward Mayor Mark Salinas used his privileges as Chair to steer the conversation even before opening public comment. He was concerned about the impact of the new Bret Harte campus on traffic and insisted that any changes—even the Staff recommended changes that kept 4 lanes at the nearest intersection—would exacerbate traffic.
“The impact of traffic is going to be incredible,” the Mayor said and alleged that there hadn’t been a traffic study for the new school. “There has been a traffic impact study done for the school,” Staff said—this was also mentioned during a recent HUSD presentation on the project. They explained that there is no direct access to the school from Hayward Blvd as the current plans place the entrance on University Ct.
The Mayor was dismissive of the Staff traffic analysis and highlighted the traffic issues around Stonebrae Elementary as being part of the problem. The Mayor did not, however, point to any elementary school that has no traffic during peak drop-off and pick-up times.
Before any discussion or public comment, Mayor Mark Salinas recommended against any changes. “I would recommend we defer this project,” he said. He asked Staff to find other ways to slow traffic without altering striping, though he did not specify any methods in particular.
Residents Overwhelmingly Against Changes
At least eight residents called in about the plan and they were almost universally opposed to any changes—everyone was supportive of improving pedestrian safety. Almost everyone insisted on maintaining two lanes in each direction, despite recognizing that speeding is a problem. The only solutions offered for speeding were speed cameras—which are illegal in California—and posting a Police Officer on the hill to ticket people.
One of the concerns was with traffic congestion—insisting that any reduction in lanes would make driving impossible. As Staff mentioned, residents were dismissive of the traffic studies and invented scenarios like a cement truck possibly breaking down, forcing people into the opposing lane. Others complained about the already high traffic to Stonebrae getting worse.
The other concern was about the ability to evacuate the hills. Since the recent fire hazard maps were released—more on that below—residents in the hills have expressed concern about their ability to leave in the event of a wildfire. Many insisted that two lanes of traffic downhill were necessary for evacuation purposes.
Commissioner Michael Stevens also called in—he had been critical of any changes to the lane configuration—but he pushed for a robust plan: reducing lanes from four to three (two downhill, one uphill), physically protected bike lanes in both directions, wider sidewalks, and fixes to the crosswalks. His plan ensured that two lanes were available for evacuation purposes while also increasing safety and reducing speeds. “The safety impacts are too important to delay for another year,” he said.
What About Second Comments?
After public comment, Mayor Salinas again jumped in to highlight the impact of Bret Harte on traffic. “We haven’t had a through impact on what that school is going to have,” he said. He also called for reducing speeds, as a matter of safety, he was unwilling to entertain any changes that would reduce lanes out of concern around traffic at Bret Harte.
Let’s Slow Traffic Without Making Changes
When the rest of Council was able to make comments, they generally agreed with the Mayor and the residents from the hills. Councilmember Zermeno suggested making no real changes other than adding pedestrian improvements later, and that was broadly supported by the rest of Council.
Councilmember Goldstein’s primary concern was evacuation plans during an emergency. He spent some time relaying the issues people face during an emergency and recommended more study. “I just think we need to study this,” he said. “I think we need to look at this a little bit more.” He pushed for speed reduction, but the only idea he put forward was education. “People need to be educated about why it’s important that they observe the law.”
Councilmember Roche sided with the residents’ desire for keeping lanes while also improving pedestrian safety, calling for bulb-outs or stop signs to improve crossings. Staff said that the pedestrian safety measures were going to be implemented no matter what but admitted that “having flashing beacons on a four-lane road is less effective.”
Councilmember Andrews had a very particular area of focus. “Focusing on intersections is really what I would like to see in a lot of these projects,” she said. She supported keeping four lanes, as well, but didn’t seem worried about how wider streets would impact the intersections.
Community Engagement And Compromise
Councilmember Syrop, whose future District will include this area, stressed that the Staff plan would give residents five lanes in an emergency situation, despite residents not believing it. “I also want to make sure we’re not making disingenuous comments,” he said.
Councilmember Syrop suggested focusing improvements between Civic and Campus Drive due to students at CSUEB and the upcoming Bret Harte location. However, he was willing to let the rest of the street stay as it is. “Maybe leave the rest of the hills alone for a little bit,” he said. “Let’s not do work where it’s not necessarily wanted here.”
Councilmember Bonilla seemed to feel that more discussion with the community was needed. “How can we come together with the community to think just a little bit more creatively about what those solutions might be.” Though he admitted it was mostly because of community pushback, not the analysis from Staff. “When nine out of ten people are telling me, ‘Ray, you might want to rethink that,’ it does give me pause,” he said.
The Plan: Do Nothing
In the end, most of Council appeared to settle on leaving Hayward Blvd in the same state for now. However, Mayor Salinas insisted that the conversation isn’t over. “This is a topic that is probably not over,” he said. Councilmember Syrop pushed for changes between Campus and Civic, though perhaps as a pilot project with more community feedback.
The issue with the plan Council settled upon is that nothing was done to address speeding in any meaningful way. Councilmember Roche asked what could be done, but without changing lanes, Staff did not have many options. They plan on adding speed reduction markings but said, “These are very minor. Don’t expect a ton from them.” The only other option was installing speed feedback signs, but Public Works Director Ameri said that they would look at their options and get back to Council later.
Fire Hazard Zones Approved By Council
A member of the Fire Department presented the Fire Hazard Severity Map to the City Council. It was mostly an informational item, because the only change that the Council can make is increasing the severity of an area, which none of them want to do. An image of the map is below
As you can see, most of the problem areas are way up in the hills—mostly the Hayward Highlands and Stonebrae areas—near the Wildland Urban Interface. One thing that the Fire Department wanted to stress was that the maps are not used to determine insurance eligibility. It was such a big deal, he said it more than three times.
He also stressed that the map isn’t affected by the various risk management strategies that the City has implemented to help reduce the risk of wildfire. Most of those management strategies, however, fall on individual homeowners—things like defensible space, home hardening, and the like.
Education Is All We Can Do
Councilmember Roche asked what strategies the Fire Department was using around educating the public. The Fire Department does annual inspections, supports vegetation management, and also tries to share important lessons learned from other fire disasters throughout the State. Despite that, he admitted “the real community risk reduction is done at the home,.”
Councilmember Andrews asked if the Fire Department had done any outreach at schools around wildfire risk reduction, which they said they hadn’t. Only one school within City limits is in the risk area, and that’s Stonebrae Elementary. She also pushed for partnerships and shared messaging with HARD and BAWSCA, which is a regional water control agency.
Councilmember Andrews was concerned that homeowners may be confused on the messaging between drought tolerant landscaping and fire risk mitigation. It’s important to note, however, that only very specific portions of the City are in a fire risk area. So advice on what is best for your individual home is highly contextual.
Councilmember Syrop suggested adding a metric to the Fire Department’s review. “What number of Hayward residents houses are being hardened per year?” he suggested. “How do we get residents to let the fire department know ‘We’re good to go’?”
For those who chose to live in the hills near the Wildland Urban Interface, it will ultimately be up to them to harden their own homes and build community resilience. But if they take it as seriously as they take street improvements, they may not have too much to worry about.