Shifting gears

Lately I keep finding myself walking and driving by the two projects underway on Jefferson Avenue, at Clinton Street and at Cleveland Street. As a motorist, the construction is proving a bit of an annoyance, particularly at Cleveland Street, where the outside lanes have been blocked off for weeks. The pedestrian within me tempers that annoyance, however, since both should ultimately improve the experience for those wanting to cross Jefferson Avenue.

At Cleveland Street, Redwood City is installing traffic signals and adding “bulb-outs” to the four corners. This will not only make things significantly safer for students walking or riding to and from the many nearby schools, but will also improve traffic flow for the many cars and buses heading to and from those schools. Thanks to a long lead time in obtaining the needed signaling equipment, the project ended up being implemented in phases. The bulb-outs and associated sidewalk work was done in November, while the signal poles and associated equipment were installed just last month.

One block to the east, at Clinton Street, the city is upgrading the flashing beacons pedestrians and cyclists use to alert traffic when they need to cross. The old beacons were small and easy to miss, whereas the new ones will be more visible and thus much harder for motorists to overlook. As for why we are ending up with traffic controls on two adjacent Jefferson Avenue intersections, Cleveland Street is a primary walking route for students at North Star Academy, McKinley Institute of Technology, Sequoia High School and Our Lady of Mount Carmel School, whereas Clinton Street is a key part of the Peninsula Bikeway, which connects Menlo Park, Mountain View, Palo Alto and Redwood City.

Flashing beacons and signals are useful tools for helping protect pedestrians and encourage cycling, but they aren’t the only tools Redwood City is using. For a number of years now, Redwood City has been trying to get the Hopkins Avenue Traffic Safety Project built. After years of planning, plus numerous public meetings and votes by the most directly affected residents, a pilot version of the project was built using temporary, easily removed materials. Thanks to COVID-19, the pilot remained in place longer than planned, but at long last the City Council seems poised to approve the full project installation later this month. This project, which includes flashing pedestrian beacons at intersections at either end of Stafford Park, also includes median islands (making the road feel narrower, something that has proven to slow traffic), speed humps and bulb-outs at a number of corners along Hopkins Avenue. Together these new elements should make Hopkins Avenue safer for the many of us who walk along and across the street, and safer for the cyclists who use it as a direct route to downtown Redwood City.

For the past two years, Redwood City has been reconstructing Middlefield Road between Maple Street and Woodside Road, and now, with the project close to completion, I find the results simply stunning. This part of Middlefield Road has, in the past, been a wide, fairly utilitarian road with narrow sidewalks and a complex web of overhead wires. Although the wires still mostly remain — they should be moved underground very soon — today the street is newly paved, the sidewalks are wide and inviting, there are beautiful new streetlights, and there is new landscaping alongside and down the middle of the street. Middlefield Road has been transformed from a utilitarian street many residents used almost exclusively to get to Costco into a grand boulevard that is a pleasure to use, whether one is walking or driving. Middlefield Road has become transportation infrastructure at its best, and its visible success should be a hopeful sign for project like Hopkins Avenue.

Whether one drives, walks or cycles, we all can appreciate good streets, sidewalks and safe crossings. With so many to maintain, Redwood City’s Department of Public Works can only do so much. But these latest projects show what Redwood City can do when it shifts into high gear.

Greg Wilson is the creator of Walking Redwood City, a blog inspired by his walks throughout Redwood City and adjacent communities. He can be reached at greg@walkingRedwoodCity.com. Follow Greg on Twitter @walkingRWC.