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Plans to underground utility lines along a 3-mile stretch of Stanley Boulevard bordering the train tracks are moving full steam ahead.
The Alameda County Board of Supervisors approved the project at its March 3 meeting after no objections from the public were made.
The work, estimated to cost roughly $5.5 million, will be conducted by PG&E, Comcast and AT&T between Bernal Avenue in Pleasanton city limits and Isabel Avenue in Livermore city limits. The public utility companies are now designing the project specifications, according to James Chu, an associate engineer for the Alameda County Public Works Agency. Chu said there isn’t a specific timetable for when the work will begin.
The project’s cost will be paid for through the California Public Utilities Commission’s Rule 20A funds. The funds are used for projects in community areas where there is a high volume of vehicular and pedestrian traffic and where the street, road or right-of-way passes through a civic or public recreation area. The stretch of Stanley Boulevard includes Shadow Cliffs Regional Recreation Area. The money is regularly collected in a pot on an annual basis to pay for these types of projects.
County officials have said they want to underground utilities for both safety and aesthetic reasons.
Concurrently, the county is working on a beautification project for the same segment of Stanley Boulevard, with plans to construct a multi-use pathway along the south side of Stanley and widen, widen shoulders to include a bicycle lane on both sides of the heavily-trafficked roadway and landscape the median and both sides of the thoroughfare. The aesthetic improvements are slated to cost $10 million and will be paid for by the county.
The streetscape improvements are being made to better pedestrian and bicycle access and make the roadway more visually appealing, the county has said. Highway lighting and traffic signal systems will also be changed, as well as pavement surface and drainage systems.
Timelines call for the streetscape improvements to begin early next year, with completion next summer.
That 3 mile stretch has seen many a fatal accident. It’s about time some improvements to the area are in the works. It’s a main artery during rush hour traffic. Here’s where the Stoneridge extension would have been a good thing to pick up some of the rush hour traffic the construction will cause. All in all it’s a good thing.
We are fighting over a parcel tax that would bring in $4.5 million while spending $5.5 million to take a few telephone and power poles in order to beautify the road. I think I can find a better use for that $5.5 million, OUR SCHOOLS!
So they can’t fix up the pot holes left by the old train tracks that cross stanley and get worse and worse verytime it rains yet they can spend that money by putting poles underground? Makes perfect sense to me.