Stretch of Santa Rosa Avenue to see overhaul, one of several road projects planned downtown

A prominent section of Santa Rosa Avenue will undergo a face-lift this year as the city seeks to beautify the southern entrance to downtown and improve connections for cyclists and pedestrians.

Rows of plastic orange posts have lined the street in recent weeks as road crews kicked off a monthslong project that will see lanes of traffic between Sonoma and Maple avenues reduced from four lanes to two to improve traffic flow.

Plans also call for installing new bike lanes to help close gaps in the city’s bike network along Santa Rosa Avenue.

“This is the last link on Santa Rosa Avenue that doesn’t have any bike lanes, and there has been a lot of interest from the community in making it more pedestrian and bike friendly and in making it more attractive,” said Rob Sprinkle, deputy director with the Transportation and Public Works Department, who oversees traffic engineering.

The road work, estimated to cost $2.2 million, is being paid for by a combination of county and state transportation dollars. It is scheduled to be completed by the end of the year.

It’s one of several downtown road projects this year. Crews will also repave residential and arterial streets in the downtown core and make minor road reconfigurations.

Sprinkle said as the city envisions a more livable and walkable downtown, it must update road, bike and pedestrian infrastructure to encourage people to use different modes of transportation.

Many of the businesses on Santa Rosa Avenue welcome the change despite the impact on traffic and parking.

Bob Guffanti, co-manager of the Astro Motel, hopes the changes help change negative perceptions of the neighborhood and make the area more inviting and accessible, which could help drive additional visitors and investment to the corridor.

Others were less sure.

Mark Dierkhising, owner of neighborhood staple Dierk’s Parkside Cafe, said temporary road closures have already affected sales, and he worried any plans to take away street parking would hurt businesses that have already taken financial hits from pandemic closures and inflation.

“A lot of us have been through a lot of things down here, so my feeling about the project is wait and see,” Dierkhising said.

Work will help calm traffic, improve bike and pedestrian safety

Plans to re-imagine this segment of Santa Rosa Avenue have been in the works for more than a decade.

Dotted with small businesses from tattoo parlors to a popular taqueria to used car dealerships and body shops, the nearly half-mile stretch serves as a gateway between the commercial strip south of Highway 12 and downtown Santa Rosa.

Vehicle traffic on that stretch of Santa Rosa Avenue has dropped since the 2017 reunification of Old Courthouse Square, which gave traffic engineers an opportunity to re-imagine road design and implement several traffic calming measures, Sprinkle said.

Santa Rosa Avenue currently features two northbound and southbound lanes and parallel parking along portions of the road.

There are two midblock crosswalks connecting Juilliard Park to Luther Burbank Home and Gardens and further south near Oak Street.

Crews will reduce traffic to one lane in each direction and add a two-way center left turn lane and left-turn pockets, Sprinkle said.

A buffered bike lane is planned from Sonoma Avenue to Oak Street. Regular bike lanes are planned south of Oak that will connect to the existing bike lane that starts south of Maple Avenue and extends past the southern city limits to about Todd Road.

The city plans to add a flashing beacon at the Oak Street crossing to help drivers better see pedestrians and two “z-crossings” at Wheeler and Pine streets where pedestrians will cross to a median first and then make their way across the rest of the street rather than cutting straight across, Sprinkle said.

Improved streetscaping and lighting, new benches and bike racks will also be installed.

The changes are expected to help slow vehicle traffic, provide space for drivers to turn left more easily and improve bike and pedestrian safety without reducing parking, Sprinkle said.

That’s key for tattoo and piercing shop The Hole Thing, said apprentice piercer Gigi Cuevas.

The shop has a small parking lot with only two spaces and relies on street parking near the Wheeler Street storefront, Cuevas said.

Work last week blocked off access to Wheeler Street which made it hard for customers to get to the shop and the few parking spots out front were cordoned off.

“We had an entire day of business lost,” Cuevas said.

Despite the temporary headache, Cuevas said the shop gets a lot of foot traffic, and the new crosswalk will make it easier and safer for clients to come into the shop.

A second project will add a two-way protected bike lane, known as a cycle track, on the west side of the street between First Street and Sonoma Avenue to help riders exiting the Prince Memorial Greenway connect to the bike network on Santa Rosa Avenue.

The new bike lanes will be separated from traffic by small green delineators, similar to a cycle track recently installed on Armory Road between Elliott and Ridgway avenues in the Junior College Neighborhood.

Downtown streets to see pavement improvements

Beyond Santa Rosa Avenue, construction crews will repair broken pavement and slurry seal and re-stripe several residential and arterial streets in the downtown corridor from Cleveland Avenue east to Farmers Lane between College and Sonoma avenues.

The road work, part of the city’s annual pavement preventive maintenance program, is expected to start in mid-August.

Segments of Morgan and A streets, Mendocino Avenue, First through Fifth streets and D Street in downtown and Wilson Street in Railroad Square will be affected.

Slurry seal treatments are meant to extend the life of road surfaces. The city seals about 2.5 million square feet of pavement each year.

City staff will publish a road map with daily road work schedules before work starts.

As part of the project, street engineers will reconfigure several downtown streets to add improved bike and pedestrian infrastructure.

A half-mile segment of Mendocino from College Avenue to Fourth Street will be reduced to one lane in each direction with 5-foot bike lanes and 2-foot buffers between Fourth and 10th streets and a 6-foot painted bike lane north of 10th Street.

Bike lanes are also planned on Fourth Street from E Street to Farmers Lane and Montgomery Drive from Alderbrook to Hahman drives.

Improvements to turn pockets and other minor road modifications are planned on Healdsburg Avenue and B, First and Seventh Streets.

Changes welcomed but some call for more work

Abby Mielcarek, who opened high-end pawn shop Abby’s Pawn & Coin just north of Oak Street on July 1, said the road work on Santa Rosa Avenue made for a slow opening week as the segment around the shop was closed.

She worries construction could affect her business just as she’s getting started.

But she said the improvements will help beautify the area, and she supported the addition of bike lanes and new crosswalks, which she hopes will help residents from the Luther Burbank Gardens neighborhood and surrounding areas more safely visit the corridor.

Drivers traveling through Santa Rosa Avenue could expect some additional delays during construction as traffic is reduced to a single lane during construction and side streets are closed, city staff said.

Alexa Forrester, a lead with Bikeable Santa Rosa, a coalition of residents of all ages and abilities pushing for a safer and connected bike network throughout the city, said members are excited for the road to get a face-lift.

The group has coordinated rides through stretches of Santa Rosa Avenue and she said the lack of a bike lane can make it unsafe, especially for young or inexperienced riders sharing the road with fairly fast traffic.

“I’m excited by the idea that families will be able to choose to ride with their kids to the park or to the school behind the park or the Roxy movie theater,” she said. “It’s not just a healthy activity but it’s also good for the city to have people out and about and enjoying the city.”

Still, Forrester and other cyclists said it’s a missed opportunity on the city’s part to add protected bike lanes — echoing similar criticisms from community members last year over plans to add buffered, rather than protected, bike lanes on Mendocino Avenue.

“It seems a step in the right direction but it’s also throwing money and resources without fully thinking through the outcome,” said Nicholas Haig-Arack, a cyclist who has lived in the Luther Burbank Gardens neighborhood for 14 years.

Haig-Arack said cities have long defaulted to adding painted or buffered bike lanes when improving bike infrastructure but in the long run it would be more beneficial to add protected bike lanes to truly create a more accessible road.

Forrester said that could have been done on Santa Rosa Avenue by moving the bike lanes inside and separating them from vehicle traffic with street parking, which would provide additional safety for riders and keep existing parking intact.

You can reach Staff Writer Paulina Pineda at 707-521-5268 or paulina.pineda@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @paulinapineda22.