The Healdsburg City Council meets in session tonight, at 6 p.m. Of the several agenda items included, one arose only two weeks ago when three speakers during the opening Public Comment section called the City’s attention to the absence of a safe crosswalk between the Presidential Estates development, on the south side of Healdsburg Ave., and the rest of the city.
One of the speakers was Vanessa Wong, who presented the Council with a petition signed by 133 residents, presumably of the affected neighborhood surrounding Kennedy Lane. Kennedy takes off south from the Memorial Bridge across from Front St., arcs westward through the development and spawns a couple side-streets, then returns to Healdsburg Ave. near Adeline, across from the L&M Motel.
The council agreed it would be worthwhile to take a look at the situation, and asked staff to do so. The staff report will be presented to council, but a couple key results of that report have been published with supplemental packet information to tonight’s city council agenda.
One is that, according to staff research from Public Works and the Police Department, there is no statistical difference in pedestrian safety between marked versus unmarked crossings of an arterial, such as Healdsburg Ave. is in this section (one lane in each direction).
However, very few of the marked crosswalks in the study had any “traffic-calming measures or special pedestrian devices,” such as zebra striping, speed bumps or the type of in-pavement lighting recently added to crosswalks at Healdsburg Ave. and Plaza or Healdsburg and Mitchell Lane, both downtown.
But if the Council wants to install a cross-walk – and with over 100 signatures on an ad hoc neighborhood petition, it seems likely they will – the suggested location is where Kennedy returns to Healdsburg Ave., at the intersection of Adeline.
The crosswalk would be installed just east of Kennedy St, and cross over to Adeline on the west side of that street, where a sidewalk extends to Exchange Ave.
Estimated costs in the report are $10,000 to extend the sidewalk from Kennedy to the east, add curbs, gutter and an ADA ramp, and another $1,000 for zebra striping the sidewalk. Additional flashing lights or in-pavement lighting would add another $10,000 to $75,000 to the project.
Other matters on the agenda include a final okay on payment to complete construction of North Street and Center Street improvements, and vacating the city’s claim to a section of residential neighborhood between University St. and White Gates, which had been considered as a possible extension of Sherman Street.
