City Council and Authorities Concurrent on 2025-12-16 5:30 PM - Dec 16, 2025
meeting
Santa Clara City Council
6h 1m
11 speakers
8 agenda items
transcribed 2 days ago
official recording ↗
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What is the purpose of the study session and the new traffic signal at Great America Parkway?
Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the study session of the Santa Clara City Council Stadium Authority Board Meeting. So I'd like to call the meeting to order a confirmation of a quorum. Assistant City Clerk.
Thank you, Madam Mayor. Yes, confirming quorum.
Thank you so much. All right, we have one item for our study session, and that is a study session on the new traffic signal at Great America Parkway and Hitchborn Drive related to the Irvine Company project at 2518 Mission College Boulevard. City manager? Where is the city manager? All right. Staff, would you like to start? i saw you here and then you were gone city manager sure
thank you mayor thank you council uh the first item is a study session about a traffic signal at great america parkway in hitchborn drive related to our a specific plan for the Freedom Circle area and also related to a prior development that you approved. You may recall when you discussed that development, there were concerns related to the Hitchborn traffic signal that were raised and we committed to schedule a study session with the city council. No action is planned for tonight. However, there are significant implications with both cost to the project as well as traffic impacts should we not proceed with this development, with the signal included. If there's direction from the city council to take an alternative action, we will need to schedule that at a later time.
And so I will now turn the presentation over to Steve Chan, our transportation manager.
Welcome.
Chan, transportation manager. For tonight's agenda, we are going to go over the Irvine Company project background, their project impacts, project traffic improvement identified in the area, which is a new traffic signal at Hedgeborn and Great America Parkway. and also for tonight, we're gonna go over the traffic operation simulation with the new signal in place along Great America Parkway, as well as scenario where Freedom Circle is completely built out, how that will operate with the new signal. Additionally, we're gonna review stadium event operation, how the new signal would interact with current stadium event operation, and finally, we're gonna summarize impact of the signals. Background, the Freedom Circle focus area was approved by council on June 7, 2022, which identifies a new traffic signal at Great America Parkway and Hichborn Drive to support increased development in the area.
On recently, March 25th, 2025, Council approved the Irvine Company project located at 2518 Mission College Boulevard, consisting of 1792 residential units as well as 3,500 square feet of retail space. The project's transportation operation analysis, although not required by CEQA, determined a traffic signal is needed to address the project-related impacts. Specifically, the impacts identified as part of the analysis for the Irvine Company project is that the signal at Great America Parkway and Mission College Boulevard would operate at a level of service F under PM commute peak hour, as well as at the Mission College Boulevard and Freedom Circle West intersection, it would also operate at a level of service F, oh sorry, this should be, correct, that's PM peak hour as well.
Vehicle level of service F generally indicates a vehicle would experience long queues and it may wait through multiple site code to get through the traffic signal. And for tonight's study session, we will review the area traffic circulation with the new signal that council raised during the approval of that project. So this map shows the project impact, essentially the, highlighted circle here, Great America Parkway and Mission College Boulevard, and the Mission College Boulevard and Freedom Circle West. The red and green line identified the key inbound movement and outbound movement for the project. They will essentially, the green line showing the Irvine Company or Freedom Circle development will access or get out of the area via Mission College Boulevard,
and onto Great America Parkway to head down to Bowers or 101, get on the freeway.
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Agenda
8 items
1
What is the purpose of the study session and the new traffic signal at Great America Parkway?
2:24–27:52
2
How does the transportation manager’s presentation explain the traffic‑signal simulation and its impact on congestion?
27:52–1:29:48
3
What concerns and questions do council members raise about the smart signal, lane configuration, and project funding?
1:29:48–2:33:19
4
What are the specific questions and concerns about Bay FC’s use of the fields and the matrix flooring system?
2:33:19–2:34:03
5
How do council members discuss field replacement cycles, insurance coverage, thatching costs, and community‑benefit calculations?
2:34:03–2:57:06
6
What do public commenters and NFL representatives say about field usage plans for Fields 1, 2, 3 and the protection measures for the upcoming Super Bowl?
2:57:06–4:31:52
7
Why is the city proposing a 4% utility rate increase and building larger reserves?
4:31:52–4:59:09
8
How do load‑development fees and the upcoming cost‑of‑service study impact residential electricity rates?
4:59:09–6:01:28
Speakers
11 identified
Lisa Gillmor 55 min
Jovan Grogan 39 min
Kevin Park 21 min
Raj Chahal 12 min
Kelly Cox 9 min
Karen Hardy 8 min
Albert Gonzalez 8 min
Suds Jain 6 min
Eric Crutchlow 2 min
Ellen Kamei 1 min
Rafael Mandelman
Officials recognised by voice; public commenters shown as “Speaker N” unless they state their name.
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