When roadwork began on the stretch of San Leandro Boulevard in front of San Leandro BART, I initially breathed a sigh of relief. The roads in our city have been in need of some TLC for a while now, so it was nice to see improvements being made where they were needed most. My pleasure soon gave way to dismay when I started paying closer attention to the roadwork itself.
At the corner of SL Blvd and West Juana Avenue, there was a dedicated crosswalk that cut through the center median and lead right to the BART Station. A second crosswalk, at SL Blvd and about a block from the corner of West Estudillo Avenue, was also present with similarly smooth access to the BART station. When construction began, I immediately assumed that the two crosswalks would remain situated as they were, particularly because of their proximity to the signal buttons. Throw in the inlaid crosswalk that's part of the walking path that leads through downtown to the BART station, and it seemed like a no-brainer. Those details, sadly, seem to have escaped the planners.
Construction began, which involved demolishing and rebuilding the center medians. Instead of making the cutouts in the new medians line-up with where the crosswalks already were, each one has been moved several feet in the opposite direction. The crossing signal buttons are where they were before, the inlay is where it was before, but the cutouts aren't. To which all I can ask is, why?
These changes seem to be permanent, as the yellow bumper strips have already been installed, but I still can't help but shake my head with confusion. It cost money to put that inlay into the road, and now it's nowhere near where it needs to be in order to remain functional. What a waste of our money to just thoughtlessly cast it aside. Also, instead of the signal buttons being near the crosswalks, they're now feet away for no reason.
"No reason" being the main issue at hand, here; these changes are completely senseless. Even if the bumper strips had to be put in to make them more accessible to handicapped people, there's no reason they couldn't have been installed where the crosswalks were already situated. It seems to me to be a prime example of shortsighted planning that could have easily been prevented. Unless city hall has some reason for why that inlay needed to be sacrificed for a five to ten foot re-positioning and moving the crosswalks away from their signal buttons, it seems to me like someone lazily dropped the ball on this one. Even if the project isn't under the total purview of San Leandro, I don't see why the mayor couldn't have made a quick call to the people in charge and asked, "is it ok if we move the cutouts over a bit to line up with the old ones? Thanks". Just another missed opportunity in San Leandro, I guess.
