Mowry Avenue lane closures planned until early December for upgrades to medians
In an effort to reduce water use and spruce up a major thoroughfare, the city of Fremont is upgrading nearly a mile of medians along Mowry Avenue, forcing multiple lanes to be closed through early December.
The $839,000 project will remove the high-water-consuming trees and shrubs, and replace them with “a variety of low-water, decorative tree and shrubs,” and some decorative boulders, according to Suzanne Wolf, Fremont’s community services director.
An antiquated irrigation system laden with cracks also will be replaced.
“We have limited resources for maintenance, and so we want to make sure we’re efficient where we can be, and irrigation projects are a great way for us to do that,” Wolf said.
The new water controller systems being installed can be managed remotely through a computer system, and city workers will be able to tell if there are issues at an area of the median without having to visit it.
It will give the city the flexibility, for instance, to reduce the amount of water being sent to the plants in the median when it rains, Wolf said.
The project upgrades also could help reduce runoff into the storm drain system, as the material surrounding the plants will be switched to paver stones that will allow water to drain through from the current solid concrete.
The work is being done in medians between Farwell and Logan drives, 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday to Thursday. On Fridays, work will conclude at 3 p.m., but the schedule could shift slightly.
For the safety of workers, the lane closest to the median in each direction of Mowry will be closed during those times through Dec. 7.
Roger Ravenstad, the city’s landscape architecture manager, said the traffic impacts have not been severe, partly due to the work schedule, which will largely occur during nonpeak commute hours.
He said about half the work could be completed by October, which would allow some lanes to reopen.
A similar project was completed last year on Walnut Avenue between Argonaut Way and Fremont Boulevard.
Ravenstad said the city has been setting aside $250,000 each year in the capital improvement budget to help fund future median upgrades and other water-saving projects, so another stretch of medians can be upgraded in 2019.
Ravenstad said that about $540,000 of the funding for the Mowry project came from capital improvement funds previously set aside, as well as $300,000 from the city’s share of the 2016 state gas tax.