San Luis Obispo City Council approved the application process for the Federal Safe Streets and Roads grant Tuesday night.
Up to $500,000 that the city’s Active Transportation Manager, Adam Fukushima, said would help with the planning and demonstration portions of the project.
“[We are going to] test out some features that we may see to see how it works before coming in with some permanent construction improvements in the future.”
Chris George owns Cucina Kitchen and Baths on the corner of Broad Street and Woodbridge St. where he said he’d like the crosswalk on Broad Street addressed to help avoid confusion, traffic congestion and the near accidents he sees every day.
“It's really hard for cross traffic on Woodbridge to access Broad Street once that lights been triggered or a biker or a pedestrian goes across."
Next to George’s business is the Golden Paw pet groomer owned by John Salmeron since 1997. With the growth of San Luis Obispo, specifically in the last ten years, he said traffic on Broad Street has become difficult to navigate.
“Depending on the time of day, early mornings, midday, and starting at about 3:00, the traffic is pretty heavy. It can take people just so long to get from one area to the other side of town. I think a lot of people it puts them in a bad mood.”
It’s a concern the city is also aware of.
“We've heard concerns about trouble during the peak hours trying to get in and out of Broad Street," Fukushima said.
The South Broad Street Project goes from High Street to the southern part of the city borders near the airport. In February, the city council allocated $800,000 to start the planning process and are now hoping that with the possible federal grant, they can continue moving forward with the process.
“When you're doing a project like this, [you have] to do the early planning, get some data, look for grant opportunities to kind of start the public input process.”
Fukushima tells me they're planning a public input forum for sometime this fall where they'll detail more of the improvements that can be made as part of the project.
