Plastic orange barriers and “ROAD CLOSED” signs are typically associated with construction and maintenance projects, but in Palo Alto these streetscape features serve another function: as a gateway to the city’s second downtown, California Avenue.
As far as branding goes, the orange barriers are both sadly appropriate and, to most observers, completely unacceptable. Even though the commercial strip between El Camino Real and Birch Street has been closed to cars since June 2020 and there are no plans to ever reopen it, the streetscape of California Avenue still feels improvised and haphazard — a hodgepodge of parklets and outdoor tables with no unifying aesthetic.
The “ROAD CLOSED” signs don’t help, said Bruce Fukuji, an urban architect who is working with the city to improve the California Avenue streetscape, at a March 20 meeting of the council’s newly created Retail Committee. If anything, it has the opposite effect of what’s intended.
“The intent of the sign is to show that the street is open for business because the current impression, with the ‘ROAD CLOSED’ sign, is that it’s not open,” Fukuji said.
Fukuji has a mission that has taken on an increasing urgency: to make California Avenue look pleasant and inviting. Last week, the Palo Alto City Council adopted its economic priorities for the year, which included engaging area merchants on “high priority, rapid implementation projects, i.e. barrier replacement, street cleaning, maintenance, access, signage and outdoor dining guidelines” and developing a permanent car-free streetscape design, which may include new bike lanes or other road markings.
But words like “high priority” and “rapid implementation” are terms of art when it comes to the Palo Alto process, which isn’t known for speed. Even though the council directed staff in November to install new gateway and wayfinding signs, that effort has proceeded at a glacial pace. A stakeholder meeting that city staff and consultants had scheduled with area merchants for early March to evaluate designs for new signs was abruptly canceled because not enough people were willing to attend (a new meeting has just been scheduled for March 26). And the street looks today much like it did last fall.
“When I drive past, I’m struck by the fact that the old tired barriers are still there and the weeds and the turn lane are still there,” Council member Julie Lythcott-Haims observed during the March 11 discussion of the council’s economic priorities. “It still sort of looks like we haven’t yet moved to the next phase of what Cal Ave. will look like.”
Council member Pat Burt was blunter, saying the California Avenue changes that the council requested last November are moving too slowly. Some, he said, are in the “no-brainer category” and should be implemented immediately. These include signs on El Camino Real directing drivers who pass California Avenue toward parking areas on Cambridge Avenue or other nearby streets.
“We’re frustrated that it’s been going so slowly over the last couple of years, and since we set that priority last fall,” Burt said.
Residents and area merchants have taken notice of the lack of progress on California Avenue since it became a car-free street during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Just before the council voted last November to make the street permanently car-free, Michael Eager, who lives nearby in Evergreen Park, complained about the city’s failure to beautify the street.
“We have a vision of Cal Ave. We want it to be an indoor and outdoor dining destination; we want it to be a public gathering space; we want it to be attractive and well-designed, serve neighborhood needs and have vibrant locations for shopping, events and music,” he said.
But in reality, California Avenue is “disorganized and has no aesthetics,” he said.
Jessica Roth, whose family owns The Cobblery on California Avenue, said during the March 20 meeting that she is excited about some of the city’s recent efforts, including its hiring of an economic consultant to help address the vacancies in the commercial district.
“It’s really scary being on this street and seeing business after business leave,” Roth said. “Building owners come in and build the building and then it sits empty for so long.”
The new Retail Committee, which is composed of Vice Mayor Ed Lauing and council member Lydia Kou, is hoping to speed things along. In its inaugural meeting, the committee received presentations about ongoing plans to improve both California Avenue and University Avenue, which is undergoing its own streetscape plan.
But while the University Avenue streetscape project — which envisions wider sidewalks, more uniform dining areas and various bicycle improvements — won’t be completed for four or five years at the earliest, the city is looking to move much faster on California Avenue.
Fukuji said that the highest priorities for California Avenue are installing new road signs, covering the orange barriers with new banners that better channel the street’s brand, and putting up a new gateway sign to improve the street’s visibility to cars zooming by on El Camino. He suggested that the sign should be about 15 feet tall and between 5 and 6 feet in width.
“We’re looking at how to make that as large as possible so it really addresses the vehicle traffic along El Camino, so it’s much more visible,” Fukuji said.
The road signs, he said, could be modified so that instead of “ROAD CLOSED,” they read “ROAD CLOSED TO VEHICLES. OPEN TO PEDESTRIANS AND BICYCLES.” The changes would be implemented in May or June under the schedule that Fukuji presented to the committee.
Once these beautification measures are made, Fukuji and the consulting team from Urban Field Studios would spend the summer months working on California Avenue’s new street design, which may include either a single cycle track on the north side of California Avenue with two-way bike movement or two separate bike lanes, one on each side of the street.
The committee endorsed the strategy and recommended proceeding expeditiously with the road sign and branding improvements. Lauing said that the biggest problem that he’s been hearing about from merchants is that existing conditions make it look like Cal Ave. is closed. Just about any new measure, however temporary, would be better than the orange barricades that block off car entrance to California Avenue today.
“If we have to spend money on it and throw it away in a month, that’s OK, because we’re starting to identify to all the people who are going past California on El Camino that we are open for business,” Lauing said.
Council member Lydia Kou urged staff to ramp up enforcement of parklets that don’t comply with the council’s recently adopted regulations, which govern parklet sizes and features like tents and sidewalls, both of which are now prohibited. She was assured by Public Works Director Brad Eggleston that city staff have been doing site visits and notifying parklet owners if their parklets fail to comply with local law.
“I think that we need enforcement so that business owners know what to expect,” Kou said.
