Willow Glen begins pilot road diet

di·etnounnoun: diet; plural noun: diets

1. the kinds of food that a person, animal, or community habitually eats."a vegetarian diet"2. a special course of food to which one restricts oneself, either to lose weight orfor medical reasons."I'm going on a diet"

road di·etnoun:1. Like #2 above, but with stripes on roads."This street is scary! I wish the city would put it on a road diet."

A major thoroughfare/quaint business district main street in San Jose is going on a diet - temporarily, at least. Lincoln Avenue in the Willow Glen neighborhood will begin a trial road diet at the end of this month. San Jose District 6 Councilmember Pierluigi Oliverio has been working with the Willow Glen Neighborhood Association (WGNA), the Willow Glen Business Association (WGBA) and the City's Department of Transportation (DOT) to plan and implement a temporary re-striping of the neighborhood's main drag for three months. The hope is that, by taking the road from two lanes in either direction to one lane either way plus a center turning lane, speeding will be reduced, pedestrians will have an easier time crossing the street, and space on the road will be freed up for bike lanes.SVBC was in favor of a road diet for this section of Lincoln since we first saw a proposal for nearby bike lanes a year ago. As part of San Jose's impressively proactive effort to reach its goal of 400 miles of on-street bikeways, the DOT was proposing bike lanes on the northern section of Lincoln Avenue, stopping at Willow Street. Where Lincoln passes through the downtown Willow Glen area, between Willow and Minnesota, the street is narrow, crowded, heavily traveled, and loaded with on-street parking. Bike lanes would require a road diet, and that was a non-starter, we were told. Even without considering potential opposition from residents and businesses, a road diet would probably trigger a long and expensive environmental review, which the City didn't have the budget for.Fortunately, things change. It turns out that there were residents and businesses that were actually pretty keen on the idea of a road diet. Several years ago, our then advocacy coordinator Carlos Babcock had discussed the idea several times with Willow Glen community leaders. Councilmember Oliverio was similarly intrigued, but understandably didn't want the City to invest in environmental review if the project didn't have robust community support, backed up by data that showed the redesign worked.And so, after two community meetings and three working group meetings, the Lincoln Avenue Road Diet pilot project will begin in March. The existing striping will be scraped off the road and the new layout will be painted in temporary water-based paint. Measurements of vehicle and bicycle traffic, both on Lincoln and surrounding streets, have been taken. Follow-up measurements will be taken several times throughout the three-month trial. In June, Councilmemeber Oliverio, the DOT, and the business and neighborhood associations will look at the data and take public comment. If the data don't show benefit, or there is significant controversy surrounding the redesign, the road will be restored to its current four-lane design. If the data show benefits as a result of the redesign, and the community agrees, the road diet will go to the full City Council for a vote.We encourage you to go check out Lincoln Avenue's new look for yourself, starting March 1. Do you feel safer on a bike? Are you more inclined to visit the neighborhood businesses? Share your comments with the Road Diet Working Group. This is a San Jose first, and we're excited to see the results. Our thanks to Councilmember Oliverio, the WGNA and WGBA, and San Jose's DOT for working diligently and carefully to involve the whole community in this experiment!