Public Works transportation planner Henry Rood presented concept designs Nov. 20 for multimodal improvements along Oakland Boulevard from Trinity to Mount Diablo (with the official scope extending to Ignacio Valley Road). The concept includes continuous sidewalks, Class 4 grade-separated bikeways, improved ADA accessibility, low-impact stormwater features (bioretention) and traffic-safety design changes such as narrowed travel lanes where appropriate.

Rood said the competitive funding phase is complete and that City Council has appropriated $400,000 as a local match (about 4% of the project budget), enabling early right-of-way work and preliminary design; combined with State Transportation Improvement Program (STIP) funds the total project budget is about $9,600,000 including contingencies. He said the design phase has not yet begun and the team prepared concept sections to secure grant funding and meet MTC's checklist requirements.

Commissioners asked whether travel lanes would be narrowed and how the project will coordinate with the Walnut Creek mobility hub and other county projects. Rood said lane widths are narrower in some concept sections but the design team aimed to avoid materially degrading vehicle travel and stressed the project's intent to complement the mobility hub to create a continuous corridor to BART. Public commenters asked for bicycle counts and questioned whether current ridership justifies the investment; staff responded that the corridor will better serve existing and planned high-density housing near Mount Diablo and that protective intersection geometry and islands are being considered to reduce vehicle turning radii and improve safety.

Next steps: staff will incorporate commissioner feedback and forward comments to MTC as part of the complete-streets checklist; if STIP and subsequent approvals remain on schedule, construction funding could be disbursed later in the STIP cycle and design will proceed as funds become available.