When Daniel Chavarria was hired to lead Richmond’s Department of Public Works in October 2022, he was tasked with leading a significantly short-staffed department.
“At that time I remember coming to the city hall and asking where our engineering staff was,” he said during a recent city council presentation. “They pointed me to… our intern. That was our engineering staff.”
Since then, according to Chavarria, the engineering division has filled 17 positions, thanks to the city council prioritizing improving the city’s infrastructure.
Chavarria and other public works staff were updating the council during a Nov. 26 budget session about the city’s Capital Improvement Program (CIP), which has 88 active projects.
Local governments invest in capital improvement projects to upgrade, repair or expand public assets. These projects aim to extend the life of the city’s infrastructure, increase property value, or improve community facilities. Examples include library renovations, replacing old water pipes or repaving city streets.
Chavarria has led the development of the CIP Dashboard on the city’s website, which makes project information more publicly accessible by displaying information about the projects and how they’re funded.
Of Richmond’s 88 active CIP projects, according to Chavarria, 19 were “substantially completed” this year, meaning that the physical work is complete. In the 2024-25 fiscal year, the department expects to complete an additional 28 projects — some of which include revitalization projects at Boorman and Shields-Reid parks, electrical maintenance at Point Potrero Marine Terminal, ongoing citywide street paving and traffic improvements at 18 locations.
Since becoming director of Public Works, Chavarria said the city has funded and defined three CIP programs: pavement management, traffic calming and traffic safety.
He explained that traffic calming refers to discouraging speeding on residential streets using humps, signage and pavement markings while traffic safety work is focused on implementing tools such as stop signs, crosswalks and traffic circles to address specific types of hazards like reckless driving and illegal sideshows.
Chavarria has also advocated for the city to transition into grouping individual projects under the umbrella of a program so that grant funding can be more attainable. In addition to the already established three programs, projects would fall under: General and public safety facilities, parks and recreation improvements, streetscape rehabilitation, traffic safety improvements and transportation improvements.
Chavarria said the city would need to allot $100 million annually to cover the cost of the city’s infrastructure needs — $83.5 million plus an additional 22.5% of that total to account for inflation, the cost of maintenance, grant management and a public arts fee.
Chavarria cautioned, however, that those projections could change in the next year after city staff work with a consultant on a facility needs assessment to better understand the needs.
More than a third of Richmond’s streets said to be in ‘poor’ or worse condition
Richmond’s 290 miles of roads are the city’s biggest public infrastructure asset for local taxpayers and are valued at $590 million, Chavarria said during his presentation.
A survey of Richmond’s road conditions by a city consultant in February gave the roads an average score of 60 PCI, meaning the pavement is in “fair” condition.
“PCI” stands for Pavement Condition Index, a numerical rating system used to measure road conditions. The ratings scale is as follows: failed (0-30), poor (31-50), fair (51-70), good (71-90) and excellent (91-100).
According to the survey, about 35% of Richmond’s roads were considered “poor” or “failed.”
California’s Metropolitan Transit Commission (MTC) ranks city streets using a slightly different scale: Poor or failed (0-49), at risk (50-59), good or fair (60-79) and excellent or very good (80-100). In late October, the MTC’s annual report of Bay Area roads found that Richmond’s streets in 2023 were considered “at risk” with a score of 59.
The city has allocated $7.7 million for street paving in the CIP budget for the 2024-2025 fiscal year, but it needs to spend about double that annually — $15 million — to improve street conditions, according to its consultant.
Chavarria encouraged the council to continue funding the paving program and consider increasing the budget to improve road conditions.
“Right now with the work we’ve done this year, the estimates discussed with the consultants is that we’ve probably raised the PCI by 0.6 so we are not even at 61 yet, but we are getting close,” he said. “Keep investing in the biggest infrastructure asset you have so we can bring it up five points, which would bring it to 65. And five points, believe me, makes a big difference on the residents and is very noticeable.”
How far along are the 18 traffic calming projects?
In November 2022, the city council voted to address speeding and reckless driving at 18 high-priority intersections.
The intersections identified at the time were South Garrard Boulevard and West Richmond Avenue; Macdonald Avenue and 15th Street; Macdonald Avenue and 16th Street; Esmond Avenue and 26th Street; Howard Street and Vale Road; 32nd Street between Esmond and Garvin avenues; South 37th Street and Wall Avenue; Key Boulevard and Barrett Avenue; South 49th Street and State Avenue; Carlson Boulevard and Bayview Avenue; Carlson Boulevard and Carl Avenue; Mariposa Street and Carl Avenue; Merced Street and Carl Avenue; South 55th Street and Santa Clara Street; Carlson Boulevard and Tehama Avenue; Shasta Street and Plumas Avenue; and Carlson Boulevard and Sutter Avenue.
During its June 4 meeting, the council unanimously approved creating a new two-person traffic calming division to help address pedestrian and bicycle safety concerns.
Currently, seven of the 18 intersection improvements have been completed and another five are underway and expected to be finished by the end of the year, according to Josef Munoz, CIP projects manager. All 18 improvement projects — which range from speed humps to bike lanes to traffic signs to sidewalk repairs, are scheduled to be completed by March 2025.
In the coming months, according to Munoz, the city will open up bids for a contract to install rectangular rapid-flashing beacons along Carlson Boulevard. Such devices aim to help drivers more easily see pedestrians crossing the street.
The initial 18 improvements, according to Munoz, were chosen by the city council but, since then, the department has begun identifying locations in need of improvements using a scoring system based on criteria from existing evaluations of streets in the city’s Local Road Safety and Bicycle Pedestrian Action plans. In the Bicycle Pedestrian Action Plan, for instance, about 111 locations were identified as not being safe for pedestrians.
“There was some overlap,” Munoz said. “Potentially moving forward we can use the money from the traffic calming program to help facilitate and implement the bicycle-pedestrian spot improvement locations.”
Munoz said that since the council told city staff in July to an online page for the public to make traffic calming and safety requests, they have received 495 inquiries. The city and a consultant reduced that list down to 190 specific locations they plan to address.
If there are multiple reports of problems in one area, traffic engineers work with consultants to streamline the process by examining adjacent sites and combining them.
Of the 495 requests, Munoz said, about 40 were related to stop signs, which the department plans on analyzing the need for, to see whether it could solve problems by painting curbs red or making crosswalks more visible.
The city will do its analysis this winter and post the list of its recommendations so the public will be aware of what’s planned.
Residents who wish to submit traffic calming inquiries can do so on the city’s website and will be notified if their suggestion has been accepted, though whether any work is done depends on whether money is available.
If a project gets funded, the public works engineers work with consultants to design the traffic problem solution, and the construction can begin. According to the city’s website, the construction timetable can be affected by a variety of factors such as funding, the number of projects for the fiscal year, weather, and the availability of crews to do the work.
While a good start, that “traffic circle” won’t stop sideshows and donut spinners. We all have seen those glued on traffic markers knocked over after a couple of weeks and they require ongoing replacement. Also, sideshow cars can just run over them with little impact.
Instead, a true traffic circle like this is probably what is required and likely what the neighborhood envisioned: https://www.restreets.org/sites/default/files/uaCStraffic2.jpg
What you shared is exactly what we were hoping for. We’ve been asking for this for years now, working with the City Council and Traffic Department, but hoping for a permanent solution. This is supposedly the pilot. It’s not a great solution from what we’re witnessing on Key, lots of confusion, reduced visibility for pedestrians (a day after putting up all the bollards they removed half of them because you couldn’t see oncoming traffic), and it turns out no one understands that you must stop then yield. There are no signs, so we see people turning left instead of right. Hoping people get used to it so we can get a better and more attractive solution.
My truck has a bad turning radius and cant make the turns in the roundabout, its too tight and goes over the bumps. Glad the bollards were removed at least. Key and Barrett.
A map would be helpful!