A Boulevardier First

A FOB sent photos from his iPhone showing concrete being poured for the westbound I-580 offramp to Redwood Road. Your Boulevardier's favorite shot is reproduced here, within 10 minutes of the picture being taken.

Sidewalks Are Optional

Your Boulevardier mentioned a few days ago that curb cuts and ramps were being constructed around town and that he was certain he had seen ramps in locations where there were no sidewalks.

Turns out one such ramp is among those recently built: this one at Redwood Road and Jamison Way. There are uneven dirt paths on either side of the new concrete ramp, and on the Jamison Way side there are multiple obstacles -- a signpost and a telephone pole guy wire -- that would prevent a wheelchair or double-wide stroller from approaching. The photo does not do the situation justice.



Your Boulevardier is not opposed to public works or government spending, but he does not like waste. Can readers convince Yours Truly that this ramp serves any purpose, and was therefore a good use of public funds?

Ramp to Somewhere

Your Boulevardier noticed this recent addition to the onramp to eastbound I-580.



A couple of things strike one as odd about this. First, what's it for? Your Boulevardier's best guess is that it's for Highway Patrol or other emergency vehicles to sit in before they enter the freeway.

Second: the drainage from it. Note, if you can in the photo, the contours of the ramp and the wall behind it. The wall drains into the grate (currently surrounded by sandbags) while the pullout itself drains onto the sidewalk, or maybe into the adjacent gutter.

Thirdly: the tiny fence atop the small retaining wall. What is its purpose? A person can walk twenty feet to get around it, so it can't be to keep someone from what's on the other side. If it's to keep people from above from falling onto the ramp, another question arises: what are they doing up there in the first place?

None of this is earth-shattering news, or even the least bit important. It's just curious. If any readers know about civil engineering, an explanation would be most welcome.

Ramping Up

Progress continues on the Highway 580 / Redwood Road interchange. For a long time the work seemed largely confined to the south side of the freeway, but in the last few weeks crews have taken out trees, built a retaining wall, and carved off a portion of the Spencer Mortuary parking lot for the westbound offramp. (Click the photo for a larger view.)



The pace of the project is to be commended -- especially when compared with the interchange modifications at Strobridge Avenue. Your Boulevardier commented on the problems with this project way back in January; only recently has the vacant lot been cleaned up, but the trash along the fence under the freeway remains, and lanes -- both on Strobridge and on the eastbound onramp -- continue to be inexplicably blocked off. (Your Boulevardier does not refer to the closing of Strobridge at Gary Drive, which he approves of in spite of the fact that it makes access to his own neighborhood more difficult.)

Back to the Redwood Road interchange, a number of questions remain in Your Boulevardier's mind, regarding both the roads and the sidewalks. He will post these questions in the near future. Meanwhile, as a pedestrian, he hopes the walk/don't walk signs and buttons will be connected soon.

Measure for Measure

Your Boulevardier walked down Redwood Road yesterday, passing under I-580 near BART on the new sidewalk. He noticed that this:



The railing for the new faux-stone retaining wall seems to have been manufactured dramatically off-the-mark. It's assumed that the railing was supposed to match the curve of the wall and fit neatly into the hole provided. No such luck. Somebody didn't measure.

One wonders where the SNAFU entered the project, and how it will be resolved. Certainly it would be easier to re-weld the railing to match the wall than to reconstruct the wall to match the rail.

Related: the westbound onramp to I-580 at Redwood Road is a strange thing. A turnout has been constructed partway up the ramp on the left. (Perhaps Your Boulevardier will snap a photo next time he's in the area to illustrate.) If anybody can figure out what that's for, please share.

Traffic Gets One's Goat

Your Boulevardier was driving home from Oakland last evening around 9:45 p.m., but when he reached the mouth of Castro Valley -- just past the 164th Avenue offramp, and before 238 splits into downtown Hayward and west to San Lorenzo -- traffic came to a halt. Not just a slowdown, mind you; it was a shut-off-the-car-get-out-and-chat-with-other-motorists dead stop. After about 15 minutes it cleared, just as quickly as it had occurred. (We were allowed to continue east on 580, but vehicles were prevented from going on 238 in either direction.)

A traffic report on the radio a few minutes later announced the culprit: a herd of goats had gotten loose on the freeway! However, Your Boulevardier has not been able to find any other confirming media reports of this event. If readers hear anything, please post details in the comments.

Build It Up, Tear It Down

Your Boulevardier walked around the neighborhood just east of the BART station yesterday afternoon. This area is choked with trucks and workers right now because of two big projects.

First is the new Castro Valley Library. The building is crawling with workers who are attaching bright yellow gypsum board exterior siding to its metal skeleton. It looks like roofing panels are stacked on the building's top, but are not yet attached. It still remains very difficult for Your Boulevardier to envision the finished building based upon the construction to date and compared with the artist's rendering that appears on the billboard on Norbridge Avenue. Perhaps it's just a matter of where the front of the building is.

Speaking of the library, Your Boulevardier notes that Don Jose's Restaurant in Castro Village will donate ten percent of its sales during the week of April 13-19 to the library. (It's not clear from the flyer posted on Don Jose's door whether the funds will go toward library construction or to the Friends organization.)

The second project that is clogging the neighborhood just east of the BART station is the reworking of the I-580 interchange with Redwood Road. When completed, there will be a full set of on- and off-ramps here, eastbound and westbound. Yesterday, workers were breaking down the soundwall and ripping out trees along the highway's north side. This is the neighborhood along Juniper Street, behind the Jess C. Spencer Mortuary. (Where, it is noted, Madame Boulevardier was cremated.) Several homes have been demolished, but a few remain defiantly standing -- though it's not sure if they're occupied. It's assumed that Spencer's will lose a good portion of its parking lot to the project as well. Progress is visible on the other side of the freeway as well, with the former professional building having been demolished a few weeks ago. A fairly clear aerial representation of the project can be found here.

It seems the hangup in government budgets has not put either of these projects on hold, which is a good thing because they seem like they would be quite disruptive to the residents of the neighborhood.

Strobridge Interchange Questions

The new interchange from Eastbound I-580 to Strobridge Avenue appears to be nearing completion. Most barricades have been removed, and crews appear to be in cleanup mode. Still, four questions remain in Your Boulevardier's mind about the project. They are, in no particular order:

How will the odd patch of earth between the freeway and the onramp be maintained? One finds it hard to believe that a crew will get way up there regularly with a lawnmower to tend the narrow strip. Your Boulevardier is no fan of pavement, but it would make sense in this case to not make the area a haven for unwanted vegation.

Will CalTrans remove the fences that run along both sides of Strobridge Avenue under the freeway? It can't be argued that the fence on the west side keeps anyone out, since it stops abruptly on the south side of the underpass with no gate or structure to close the end. For now, all the fence does is collect trash, and it's very rarely cleaned out.

What will happen to the CalTrans corporation yard on the north side of the underpass? Like the aforementioned fence, the yard is an unmaintained haven for trash. Illegal dumping occurs regularly, and many piles of construction materials and debris remain there as well.

What is the purpose of the metal box at the top of the onramp? Will it be relocated, and if so will the temporary barricades and sand barrels around it be removed?

Maintenance of this offramp has long been neglected by CalTrans. Indeed, one of Your Boulevardier's neighbors left the Baywood District because (among other things) he felt the area gave a slumlike first impression, what with the litter and ill-kept homes along Strobridge Avenue. (And, perhaps ironically, this person drove a garbage truck.)