San Jose revitalizes San Fernando Street through downtown

The San Fernando Streetscape Improvement Project is under construction from Cahill Street in Diridon Station to 10th Street on the east side of San Jose State University. The City of San Jose obtained a $1.4m grant to for this project, which also includes improvements to street lights, street trees, sidewalks, ADA curb ramps, and crosswalks.John Brazil, of the City's newly renamed Active Transportation Program, says "San Jose’s San Fernando Streetscape Project provides a better place to bike and walk in the heart of downtown San Jose. In recent years, bike trips on San Fernando have grown to more than 800 a day. With these improvements, we hope to support continued increases in that number.”At this stage, enhanced white bike lane striping with buffers is essentially complete, and the first three blocks of green paint has gone down (along the west end of the project). The remainder of the green paint is expected to be completed by the end of the month, pending rain. The entire project will be completed in early 2014.The San Fernando project is a significant link in the larger downtown bicycle network, which will allow people on bikes to enter, exit, and traverse the downtown area seamlessly by bike.