Politics & Government

More Money Needed to Complete Petaluma Boulevard "Road Diet" Project

President of downtown association says reducing street to two lanes, eliminating parking will drive businesses out

Sideswiping is a common problem downtown as drivers try to maneuver around cars waiting to park, trucks making deliveries and bicyclists.

But city engineers hope that a project to turn four lanes on Petaluma Boulevard between Washington and E streets into two will make the area more safe for cars, pedestrians and bicyclists by creating a wider lane, two-way turn lanes and a bicycle lane that would be shared with motorists.

The plan is called the Petaluma Boulevard South “road diet” and was approved last fall. It’s mostly funded by a $708,000 federal grant, with the city paying another $200,000. But because of unexpected costs from CalTrans, the city will now have to pay an additional $40,000 to conduct new archeological and historical assessments of the area, even though the work is being done on an existing street.

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Public Works Capital Improvements Division Manager Larry Zimmer admits he and his staff were “a little taken aback” when CalTrans informed them that “historical, archeological and cultural studies” would have to be done of the area before any work could proceed.

“Anytime there is federal money, we go through CalTrans Local Assistance and they have certain requirements that are triggered,” Zimmer said.

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“From an archeological standpoint, there will be some digging, with a couple of locations where we are replacing traffic signal poles,” he said. “If you are going to dig and if there is something of significance underground, you’re at risk.” 

The only problem is that if money for the “archeological and cultural studies” is not found within the existing project, it will come out of the street maintenance fund, which usually covers things like pothole repair.

Zimmer said he was optimistic that money could be moved around within the project, specifically from savings on construction costs, which were lower than anticipated. But if not, it could mean even less funding for the city's streets.

Meanwhile, Jeff Mayne, board member of the Petaluma Downtown Association, said he worried that the project would leave no room for delivery trucks to stop and unload, and would reduce the number of available parking spots, especially between Western Avenue and Washington Street.

“Even though it’s a great goal for the council to improve pedestrian and bike access, the restrictions on cars is going to be severe enough that it will increase vacancies downtown,” Mayne said. “People are not going to want to drive downtown and some of these businesses depend on car traffic.”

He added that a study conducted by public works did not take into account traffic caused by the freight and SMART trains. Another concern is that drivers will take side streets to avoid the congestion on the boulevard, much like they are doing now north of Washington Street, where lanes were reduced from four to two in 2008,  Mayne said.

Public Works has said that traffic on side streets such as Keokuk, Liberty, Keller and Kentucky has decreased by up to 50 percent, for which they credit the road diet. Read the details here.

If the council does not approve the revised budget, the city will have to return the $708,000 to the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, part of the federal Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement (CMAQ) program, created to improve air quality and relieve traffic congestion in cities through the United States.

Correction: Jeff Mayne was incorrectly identified in an earlier version of this story. Mayne is a board member of the Petaluma Downtown Association, not the president. Patch regrets the error.


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