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Lakeside Path to Open Soon! Update on Lakeshore-El Embarcadero and Measure DD Improvements

I’ve received lots of questions about the construction work between Lakeshore Avenue and the Lake. The good news is that the path at the edge of the lake will open by the end of April. Many of us who have missed walking and running next to the lake will welcome the reopening of the pathway.

Work has seemed to progress very slowly in the Lakeshore project during the fall and winter as crews re-contoured the site, built forms and then poured concrete for a continuous path curb and concrete benches, constructed a retaining wall, and laid conduit for electrical lighting. All this work was preparation for the shoreline path’s new surface, which will comply with Americans with Disabilities Act requirements. The surface will be made of decomposed granite with a polymer added as a hardening agent in order to support wheelchairs. The hardening agent is a stabilizer that requires five days of dry weather and at least 60-degree daytime temperatures in order to set up. Now that spring weather has arrived, the conditions are right for pouring the path’s surface.

When the lakeside path is ready to open later this month, the contractor will move the fence to allow access. Then work will begin on creating the new multi-use path and planting strip next to the street. During this work, you’ll be able to use a couple of crossing points between the path along the lake and the street in order to access the new lakeside path. The new multi-use path adjacent to the street is expected to open for use in June.

Work is underway at El Embarcadero (near the Lakeview Library) to increase the parkland in front of the Pergola. Over the next four months the contractor will finish the widening to three lanes of the two-lane roadway next to the Lakeview Library, remove the existing slip turns at Lakeshore and Grand Avenues, and install a traffic light at the intersection with Lakeshore Avenue. By mid-summer the widened roadway adjacent to the Library will open to two-way traffic and the lane closer to the Pergola will be reconstructed to become a pedestrian promenade.

In September the roadway surface of Lakeshore Avenue from E. 18th Street to MacArthur Blvd will be ground down and a new surface laid, then striped for one vehicle travel lane in each direction, a continuous left-turn lane in the center, and on either side of the travel lanes there will be Class II bike lanes next to parking zones. I have asked our City staff to look for funding to extend the resurfacing work on Lakeshore from MacArthur to Lake Park where the northbound lanes of Lakeshore are in deplorable shape. Finally, new landscaping will be planted in the fall throughout the project just before the project wraps up in early November and winter rains begin.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 6th, 2009 at 4:53 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.