Livermore Celebrates Completion Of Temporary East Avenue Improvements

LIVERMORE, CA — About 30 Livermore residents have been hard at work helping institute various safety improvements along East Avenue from Maple Street to Hillcrest Avenue. Changes include curb extensions, painted median refuges, and high visibility crosswalks. But before anyone gets too upset or too happy, be advised that these changes are temporary.

The adjustments are part of Tactical East Avenue, a six-month pilot project that will test elements of design alternatives produced in Phase I of the East Avenue Corridor Study, a large-scale project aiming to make the well-traveled road safer and more pedestrian-friendly. Elements include bike lanes, intersection treatments, and traffic calming interventions.

The temporary improvements are informed by “Tactical Urbanism,” a city-building method that uses low-cost, temporary materials to test out proposed permanent improvements before spending millions of dollars on them. After the installation, the project team will compare data on metrics like collisions, vehicle speeds, bicycle and pedestrian counts, and cut-through traffic.

The project team working on the city’s 2018 Active Transportation Plan identified the area between Livermore and Madison avenues as an unusually dangerous stretch. Since January 1, 2019, there have been a total of 68 collisions on East Avenue between Livermore Avenue and Vasco Road.

Between 2020 and 2021, the project team conducted extensive outreach and analysis, and designed multiple design alternatives for the corridor. From Sep. 19-22, 2022, the city and consultant Street Plans facilitated a Design Week, which included workshops for the community to provide feedback, stakeholder meetings, a drop-in design studio for community members to speak to the project team, and a final “pin-up” in which the community indicated which designs they wanted to see in the pilot project.

Videos of the public outreach campaigns can be viewed at eastavecorridorstudy.com.

Several online discussions indicate a mixed response to the temporary changes. Some users feel that the changes will make driving more confusing, and cumbersome barriers will make it harder for larger emergency vehicles to navigate. Other users feel they will deter speeding along the road, which project designers determined to be commonplace.

“Those are a nightmare for first responders trying to drive to emergencies,” one user wrote. “Plan on it taking longer for help to arrive.”

“Turning left from Dolores to East Avenue was ridiculous!” wrote another user. “You have to stop like almost a full car length before the light, and they narrowed the oncoming lane with barriers. A car could barely squeeze through when turning left onto Dolores.”

“I feel like those are so dangerous,” another commenter said of the new barriers. “They are easily unnoticed. I always fear I’m going to run into one not meaning [to] and [ruin] my car.”

Others welcomed the changes. “Long overdue. Slow and steady wins the race,” wrote a commenter.

“As an East Avenue resident with a child at East Avenue Middle School - I’m very excited about this!! I constantly get passed aggressively when driving the speed limit or, God forbid, I stop at a [crosswalk] for a pedestrian.”

However, another commenter felt speeding should be solved by adding more patrol cars to give out more tickets.

“I think it’s awesome and I’m thankful that volunteers having been working all week setting up barriers and making crosswalks more visible!” wrote another. “With schools, businesses, daycares and homes along East we need it to be safer and include bike lanes for use.”

The project employed volunteers, mostly to help paint. According to the project website, “Engaging volunteers in this tactical urbanism project provides an opportunity for members of our community to learn about this city project, the design elements and the intent behind it.”

The city will host a grand opening event to celebrate the changes at East Avenue Middle School from 4-6 on Friday.

For more information, visit eastavecorridorstudy.com.