Paving and heavy construction are well underway on Alameda's 1.7-mile Central Avenue Project, which will incorporate traffic circles, protected bike lanes, and a road diet. From the city of Alameda:
Major paving efforts along Central Ave between Fifth St and Sherman St took place Thursday, 10/1, Friday, 10/2, and Monday, 10/6. One-way westbound-only travel near Encinal School remains in place. Traffic is detoured in a clockwise direction through the construction area: westbound on Central Ave to Pacific Ave, then eastbound to Fifth St. Construction at Ballena Blvd/Fourth St/Central Ave prevents drivers from turning turn right when leaving Ballena Bay. Instead, drivers should enter the roundabout and continue straight to stay on Fourth St, then turn right at any street north of Central. Pedestrians exiting Ballena Bay should use the western sidewalk and crosswalk until the eastern side is complete. Two-way travel near Encinal School will resume mid-October once the Contractor determines it is safe to do so. Temporary lane markers will be in place for a few weeks following paving, until permanent striping can be installed.
As covered last January, the protected bike lanes run between Eighth Street at Washington Park and the Main Street/Pacific Avenue intersection at Alameda Point. Unfortunately, east of Eighth, the physical protection ends.
This does allow, however, more-or-less continuous protected riding from the schools on the corridor to the Point development as well as east to Webster and to the Shoreline protected bike lane, one of the first built in the Bay Area, via side streets and Washington Park (see map below).
Streetsblog decided to do an update on this project now because of posts on Bike Walk Alameda's Facebook page about a problem that's arising: enough of the construction is underway that cyclists are starting to use segments of it, as seen in the image below:
However, in some places, scofflaw parkers are taking it over.
I encountered some blocks where there were entire lines of illegally parked cars, none with tickets on them. Other blocks were completely clear. I reached out to the City of Alameda to find out if it plans to do any parking enforcement. Advocates commented that the blocks have too many gaps that allow drivers to pull into the lane. "Although it wasn't in the plans, we're really hoping that additional flexposts can be installed where needed to discourage drivers from entering or parking in the cycle track, as was done along Clement," wrote Bike Walk Alameda's Cyndy Johnsen.
Amusingly, there are already car-tire marks and chips missing from the protective curbs on Central, demonstrating that the California DMV continues to give licenses to people who are too busy texting to watch the road.
I had that reinforced while riding east on a completed section. A driver in a BMW SUV cut into a driveway right in front of me, clipping and causing further damage to the curb in the above photo. This was despite the fact that I was blasting my loud bicycle horn as I saw them starting to turn, obliviously, into the bike lane where I was riding. Of course, I'm glad they hit the curb instead of me, but these curbs are probably going to need enlarged and reinforced or they won't last very long.
That said, the roundabouts at Third and Fourth Street are mostly complete, and already seem to be calming traffic. Alameda seems to have delineated a route for cyclists in the works too, going by the green and yellow strips below. It's a shame, really, that the crosswalks aren't raised so drivers go up a ramp instead of sending cyclists and pedestrians down to street level. This design, while a great improvement over what was here before, still prioritizes drivers.
All in all, the project seems to be coming along nicely, and some of the problems with it will hopefully be sorted out with the proper paint and markings to make it clear who is supposed to be where. For now, a couple more pics:
