Safety Initiative Comes To St. Helena Thanks To Blue Zone Project

ST. HELENA, CA — The City of St. Helena announced a partnership with Blue Zones Project® Upper Napa Valley and the Napa County Bicycle Coalition to improve safety and quality of life for St. Helena residents by bringing a "quick-build" traffic calming project to a key intersection for local schoolchildren.

The project at the intersection of Kearney Street and Madrona Avenue, where students go to and from school at Robert Louis Stevenson Middle School and St. Helena Elementary School, will be completed in coordination with Public Works staff and volunteers, the city announced Tuesday.

The initial project was presented to the Active Transportation and Sustainability Committee (ATSC) in December 2022, and to the full City Council in February. It will serve as a temporary test project and is expected to take about three months to install traffic control equipment that mimics the function of sidewalk bulb-outs, new high-visibility crosswalk striping, and temporary artwork to bring additional visibility to the simulated bulb-outs.

"We are really looking forward to this temporary ‘quick build’ project," said Joe Leach, public works director for the City of St. Helena. "If this is successful and the community is receptive to these types of measures, this could become a model for future traffic safety and calming measures throughout the City. This project will use temporary utility paints that will fade after 3 to 6 months and we will be studying traffic and speeds before, during, and after the installation to see what impacts, if any, the temporary measures had at the intersection.”

Blue, green and white dots — colors that coincide with the colors of both schools — will be painted within areas demarcated by white "delineator posts." After the temporary installation is removed, the high-visibility crosswalk markings will remain.

"To improve the safety of St. Helena elementary and middle school students walking and biking to school, Blue Zones Project Upper Napa Valley looks forward to bringing a demonstration traffic calming project to the community," said Kelly Bond of Blue Zones Project Upper Napa Valley. "We could not do this work without the partnerships of the City of St. Helena, Napa County Bicycle Coalition, and Innovative Health Solutions. The project will allow students to have a sense of ownership by including them in the installation through painting the artistic design. We hope this project will be the first of many traffic calming initiatives throughout the City."

Leading up to the volunteer work, City of St. Helena Public Works staff members will begin setting up signage and doing other advance work.

The volunteer work, which includes painting and installation of the delineators, is being coordinated by Blue Zones Project with completion scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 9. Sign up here to volunteer.

Blue Zones Project: What To Know

In the world's original five blue zones — Okinawa, Japan; Sardinia, Italy; Nicoya, Costa Rica; Rica; Ikaria, Greece; and Loma Linda, California — people not only regularly live into the triple digits, but they thrive. At advanced ages, their bodies are still healthy and their minds are still sharp. A team that included National Geographic researchers eventually pinpointed commonalities among residents of these places. The Blue Zones Project® took the learnings from this research and started working with communities across North America to transform environments. After one year, participants reportedly added nearly 2.9 years to their average lifespan. Since that pilot program, the Blue Zones Project has expanded to over 70 communities across North America, including the Upper Napa Valley.