City to upgrade road near future BART station
Project aims to increase safety for people walking, biking in the vicinity
FREMONT >> To make it safer for bicyclists and pedestrians, the city of Fremont plans to spend roughly $1.3 million to upgrade an intersection near the site of the future Irvington BART station.
The intersection of Washington Boulevard and Osgood Road — which was elevated above railroad tracks in 2010 — is “overbuilt for cars” and doesn’t suit pedestrians and bicyclists, according to Hans Larsen, Fremont’s public works director.
Though the future BART station is still about $110 million short of what’s needed to build it and likely won’t be completed for several years, Larsen said the city wants to finish the intersection upgrades before people start flocking to the area to catch trains.
The intersection upgrades, expected to begin in the fall, will accommodate all users, Larsen said in an email.
The changes also will be tied to a leg of the planned East Bay Greenway Trail, which is envisioned to run from Oakland to South Fremont near BART tracks, as well as the city’s planned Sabercat Trail extension project.
Larsen said the right-turn-only lanes will be removed “to create a wider, separated and safer space for people walking and bicycling.”
They’ll be replaced by green “buffered” bike lanes, he said, adding that concrete corners will be installed for bicyclists and pedestrians, and the traffic signals will be upgraded.
The number of left-turn lanes won’t change and drivers heading straight will share the lanes with drivers who want to turn right.
Larsen said removing the right-turn-only lanes make it safer for pedestrians and bicyclists “who are vulnerable to being injured or killed by cars” because drivers in those lanes “tend to look left and not see pedestrians crossing from the right or bicyclists traveling straight from the right.”
Overall, the intersection will look similar to Paseo Padre Parkway and Walnut Avenue, Larsen said.
He said the project will align with the city’s broader goal “to optimize increases in walking, bicycling and transit use,” and will help accommodate a “surge” of people walking and biking in the area when BART trains eventually start running in the area.
The Irvington BART station is in final design stages after a nearly $3 million reevaluation of plans a few years ago, Larsen said.
Though the station was pegged to cost roughly $136 million as recently as 2017, Larsen said newer estimates that reflect construction cost increases raised the estimate to $230 million.
That figure includes about $36 million for planning,
design and land acquisition, some of which was done as part of the Warm Springs BART station extension project.
About $120 million in Alameda County Measure BB money has been earmarked for the station’s planning and construction, but no other funding source has been identified yet, Larsen said.
The upgrades to the Washington and Osgood intersection are expected to cost about $1.28 million for construction, engineering and design, as well as inspection and administration, according to city reports. The city also budgeted about $85,000 for construction cost overruns. The money is largely coming out of the city’s leftover redevelopment money and its allocation of state gas tax funds, plus a smaller portion from the city’s traffic impact fees paid by developers. Hayward-based Golden Bay Construction was awarded the nearly $849,000 construction contract for the project, approved by the City Council at its July 13 meeting. The city expects work to be finished by next spring.
At the same meeting, the council approved spending nearly $600,000 for additional bicycle path improvements on sections of about a dozen roads in downtown, Warm Springs and South Fremont. But the council put on hold the planned upgrades for Paseo Padre Parkway from Driscoll Road to Washington Boulevard, citing concerns about narrowing Paseo to a single lane for cars and an enhanced bike lane.