Project Status: Implementation Complete
In January 2020, Street Plans was hired by the Southern California Association of Governments to implement the Go Ojai Demonstration Project, a six-month interim design project testing the permanent redesign of a .7-mile segment of Maricopa Highway in Ojai, CA.
Street Plans led the public engagement and branding effort at the outset of the project, facilitating the convening of both a Community Advisory Committee and Technical Advisory Committee. Over the course of the public engagement effort, Street Plans hosted three TAC meetings, over nine CAC meetings, and three public “Q&A” sessions. These engagements were all virtual as a result of COVID-19 travel and in-person meeting limitations. Street Plans also collaborated with the City on the design of the project webpage, to include the list of public engagements, surveys, and other project documents.
The interim design project includes a travel lane reallocation in each direction with the addition of the City’s first parking- and barrier-separated bike lanes, which will accomplish the following goals:
- Help provide safe access to the high school within the project segment for those walking and biking;
- Promote Ojai as a walkable and bikeable community;
- Slow travel speeds and turning speeds along the corridor to improve the safety of intersections;
- Minimize pedestrian crossing distances; and
- Contribute to the building of an on-street bike network, connecting the existing Ojai Valley Trail with the city’s street network.
Street Plans led the design process with the City of Ojai, Caltrans, and the Technical Advisory Committee, as well as the materials budget and implementation timeline. A technical report was produced outlining existing conditions and previously collected data, to use as a baseline for evaluating the impact of the interim design project.
The project was implemented in December 2020 by a combination of contractors, City labor, Street Plans labor, and volunteers. The project reallocated a travel lane in each direction for the City’s first on-street protected bike lanes, complete with planters and low-profile delineators.
Street Plans produced a detailed Evaluation Plan for the six-month evaluation period, and worked with a data collection company that provided sensors to be used to help evaluate the project’s impact and capture project-specific metrics and conclusions.
