GILROY
– Both foot-bound shoppers and drivers will have a more
attractive – and more smoothly flowing – experience in Gilroy’s
downtown core starting this fall thanks to a $1.6 million city
project.
GILROY – Both foot-bound shoppers and drivers will have a more attractive – and more smoothly flowing – experience in Gilroy’s downtown core starting this fall thanks to a $1.6 million city project.
The Monterey Streetscape Improvement Project will target the block along Monterey Road between Seventh and Sixth streets for several improvements designed to beautify and add charm to the area while making it more pedestrian-friendly.
The improvements will be similar to those already installed between Seventh and Eighth streets across from the city’s transit station, said Kristi Abrams, the city’s traffic engineer. Existing 10-foot-wide sidewalks will be widened to 15-foot sidewalks and studded with decorative street trees and pedestrian-level lampposts with an old-fashioned wrought iron appearance. Trees will feature hookups for decorative lighting.
Median and corner areas will receive new landscaping, and the contractor will install a mid-block crosswalk with an in-ground pedestrian-warning light system similar to the one leading from the train station.
“There will be some more light for downtown and a new face to the streetscape,” said Councilman Al Pinheiro, who has made downtown improvements a priority since joining the Council. “With the folks coming to the table to (use) Old City Hall, it will certainly give them a better atmosphere around there as well.”
Meanwhile, a related project will also make the downtown area a little less frustrating for drivers coming to or passing through the area.
The Monterey Operational Improvement Project will feature timing improvements to stoplight systems along the downtown core, including the intersections at Third, Fourth and Fifth streets.
Currently, the stoplights in the area sometimes stay red even with no pedestrians or potential vehicular cross-traffic in sight – because they automatically assume a pedestrian is crossing the street.
But new pedestrian push-buttons to be installed through the project will allow the lights to cycle faster if there’s truly no one there to cross, officials said. While signals currently provide a roughly 20-second minimum crossing time for pedestrians, the new system may be able to cut that wait for Monterey Street drivers in half if there’s no one actually crossing.
“The signal light won’t time for pedestrians (automatically) every time it cycles through,” Abrams said. “If there’s no person there, we can keep the green time on Monterey Street where the majority of traffic is and keep the traffic moving.”
Meanwhile, new detection devices with the improved signals will also monitor for the presence of cars on side streets.
“When you’re driving down Monterey, you won’t get a red light when there’s no one on the side street,” she said.
Emergency-vehicle access should also be improved. The signals will receive special monitoring boxes that will pick up signals from transmitters in the city’s fire trucks and automatically turn lights green in their direction, potentially improving response times and reducing the risk of accidents.
The Sixth Street intersection near Old City Hall will receive similar improvements, but that scope of work is included in the streetscape project.
The City Council authorized award of a $1.65 million bid for the two projects to Golden Bay Construction at Monday’s meeting.
Roughly $1.24 million comes from a federal Transportation for Livable Communities grant. The remainder is a local match from the city’s Community Block Grant funding.
But whether the city will be able to continue the streetscape improvements northward along Monterey Street anytime in the near future remains to be seen.
City officials are still looking for money to complete the rest of the program, which many downtown leaders think is crucial to improve conditions and appearance for shoppers in the area and provide incentives to spark further investment there by developers and property owners.
While the city has had success with grants for initial phases of the program, officials say they’re less likely to land similar large grants in the future – and there is no funding allocated for the next phases of the plan.
Meanwhile, city officials have said funds are already tight or nonexistent to fund increasing employee costs or planned expanded emergency services – let alone the money needed to bond for capital projects like the streetscape project.
But a discussion on how to finance any of the improvements begun months ago was already delayed until at least spring, when more solid budgetary figures are due. And that was before the state government threatened to yank up to $1.8 million a year in funding due to its $30-plus billion shortfall.
Meanwhile, the streetscape project also would have to compete with millions of dollars in other unfunded capital projects, including up to $4 million in sidewalk repairs, more than $9 million in street repairs and $18 million in repairs and improvements to crumbling storm drains.
Not counting the side streets or the work that’s already done or budgeted, finishing streetscape improvements along the rest of Monterey Street between First and 10th – including the new, landscaped center median, wider, patterned sidewalks, new street trees and lampposts – is estimated at $12.3 million, according to a cost summary prepared by city engineers late last years.
By keeping the sidewalks between First and Fourth streets their current 10-foot width and avoiding the median work there, the total cost would be a little less at $10.8 million, according to the report. In both cases, the block from First Street to Leavesley Road would not include the landscaped median or widened sidewalks.
Deciding whether to expand the cost and scope – and potential benefits – of the program by extending it down side streets will be an added factor in that policy decision.
Meanwhile, it would cost approximately $4,660,560 to fund a total package of side-street enhancements, which would extend improvements such as the patterned sidewalks, street trees and new streetlights – but not the landscaped medians – in varying lengths off Monterey Street itself down each side street from Second Street south to Ninth Street.
