Safety improvements in action: Alameda, California

The city of Alameda is a growing, low-lying island community of 76,000 residents located in the San Francisco Bay between Oakland and San Francisco. Faced with a wide variety of physical, land use, and transportation-related challenges, the city embarked on a $16 million safety improvement plan to improve mobility options for Alamedans traveling in cars, on bikes, using transit and walking along the high-traffic areas of Central Avenue and Clement Avenue.  

“The project is part of a citywide strategy to create a safer, more integrated network of Complete Corridors, reduce the number of drive-alone auto trips and vehicle miles of travel, and encourage the use of transit and non-motorized travel,” says CDM Smith senior project manager Stefan Schuster, PE, PMP.

At its start, the project area had several problem zones: a lack of access to sidewalks, high collision rates among motorists, pedestrians and bicyclists, and speeding conditions that made travel on bike and on foot dangerous especially given the 4,500 students attending Central Avenue-adjacent schools as well as nearby parks and senior care facilities in the area. “We focused primarily on multimodal safety and accessibility improvements for all users by incorporating traffic calming measures—road diets, lane reductions, dedicated lanes for buses and bikes, and roundabouts—as well as high-visibility intersection and curb ramp upgrades that enhance traffic operations and comply with ADA requirements,” he says.  

As with most Complete Corridors projects, Central and Clement Avenues must serve the needs of many users and a design that asks drivers to safely share space with cyclists, pedestrians, and transit. This can evoke strong reactions in drivers who are happy with the existing status quo. At the same time, conversations about design and ideas for potential solutions will not be effective if they attack or alienate existing residents, particularly those for whom biking or walking may not be a realistic choice.

To accomplish the project’s lofty safety goals, Schuster says outreach was critical. “The city understood the need to combat public apprehension to certain project elements like parking losses and congestion caused by the proposed road diets. They were committed to garnering public support from the beginning, and conducted over 10 years of public workshops, stakeholder coordination and focus groups to make sure everyone in the community was on the same page,” he says. The team even utilized innovative tools like virtual open houses via the Gather platform to keep the community informed when in-person meetings were halted during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Our Alameda project provided an amazing opportunity to implement the most current best-practices in terms of urban mobility, pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure, and stakeholder outreach. The city is a model example of successful improvements to become a more safe, efficient multimodal community,” says Schuster.  

As transportation professionals, we have a responsibility to serve all members of the communities in which we live and work. That means building safer roadway systems that minimize conflict points between vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists

Jenny Humphreys, Senior Trans­porta­tion Planner

A full transition to a Complete Corridors design model requires leadership, elimination of barriers, and development of new policies, rules, and procedures to prioritize safety. Roadway design will need to continue evolving to accommodate the range of future mobility needs, but proactive and holistic corridor planning can be a great starting point.