Hollister residents will have a chance to share their opinions on a revised Complete Streets Plan that includes potential updates to the McCray Street corridor as well as the Nash-Tres Pinos-Sunnyslope Roads corridor at a public hearing scheduled for Tuesday, Jan. 20, at 6:30 p.m. in the City Council chambers.
City planning staff are asking the city council to adopt the complete streets plan and a mitigated negative declaration.
The final plan that city staff will ask councilmembers to approve at the Jan. 20 council meeting includes plans to install roundabouts on Nash-Tres Pinos-Sunnyslope Roads at the intersections with Rancho Drive and Ladd Lane and on McCray Street, where it intersects with Park Street and Gibson Drive. The two thoroughfares receive a high volume of vehicular traffic as well as bicycle and pedestrian traffic due to their proximity to San Benito High School and Rancho San Justo Middle School, according to the report included in the agenda packet for the Jan. 20 council meeting.
According to the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety, as reported in the 2012 CHP Roundabouts Inventory report, roundabouts reduce overall collisions by 37 percent; reduce injury collisions by 75 percent; reduce pedestrian collisions by 75 percent and reduce overall fatalities by 90 percent.
In addition to the roundabouts, Tres Pinos Road, Sunnyslope Road and McCray Street would have the width of theroadways trimmed to allow for bicycle lanes with the additional impact of increasing the space between motor vehicles and pedestrians.
The proposal calls for a 200-foot-long raised street on Nash Road between Monterey and West streets, meaning the roadway would become an overpass to allow foot traffic to cross beneath it. The stretch of Nash Road between Monterey and West streets has a high volume of foot traffic as the roadway bisects the main San Benito High School campus from the newer campus north of Nash Road.
City planning staff hired consultants Nelson Nygaard Consulting Associates, Inc. to put together the original draft plan that was presented to the city council in July 2014. The city of Hollister received an $150,000 Environmental Justice Transportation Planning grant from Caltrans to prepare a complete streets plan for the two corridors in Hollister.
According to a report from the consultants, “complete streets” is a concept that is gaining followers nationwide as a way to create transportation systems “that are designed and operated to function for all users of all ages and abilities, including pedestrians, bicyclists, transit riders and motorists.”
In an initial draft plan, a proposal to close parts of Prospect Avenue along the railroad tracks was also included with the potential for the area to be used as open space for a multi-use path. The property owners, Hollister Railroad LLC, expressed opposition to closing the roadway as they said they would prefer to preserve the potential for future railroad uses. The consultants and city staff have included their correspondence with the property owners and removed the closure from the final plans.
In preparing the initial draft of the plan, the city staff held community workshops, stakeholder meetings, conducted an online survey and coordinated with the nonprofit Youth Alliance to conduct a bilingual survey to get input from community members. Community members also had a chance to comment on the plan during the public comment period after the environmental review was completed, from Nov. 14-Dec. 14, 2014.
Information on the project can be obtained from the Development Services Department, 339 Fifth St., in Hollister, or by calling 831-636-4316.