The 23rd Street Streetscape Project is a collaborative effort between the City of Richmond and the Richmond Community Redevelopment Agency involving the redesign of 23rd Street from Bissell Avenue to Costa Avenue. The improvements will help revitalize the 23rd Street Commercial Corridor and encourage private investment by businesses and property owners.

Public input has been essential to the planning process. Outreach consisted mainly of five community workshops, two days of on-street interviews with community members and merchants, and meetings with stakeholder groups. Summaries of each workshop are available for download in both English and Spanish.

Workshop 1: English | Spanish
Workshop 2: English | Spanish
Workshop 3: English | Spanish
Workshop 4: English | Spanish
Workshop 5: English | Spanish

Multiple design alternatives were explored during the planning process involving different lane configurations, parking types, varying degrees of bicycle access, and different thematic elements. The following six design alternatives were explored and presented to the community: 

• Aesthetic changes to the street only
• Angled parking with bike access 
• Angled parking without bike access
• Parallel parking with bike access
• Reverse angled parking with a median
• Reverse angled parking with two traffic lanes

After extensive planning and community outreach a consensus was reached, and the parallel parking with bike access design alternative was selected.

The preferred design alternative promotes the pedestrian experience, improves bicyclists' visibility, calms traffic, and creates a unique sense of identity to better define the 23rd Street Corridor. The preferred design alternative features:
13-foot sidewalks
8-foot wide parallel parking stalls
a 14-foot wide vehicular / bicycle sharrow
a 10-foot wide center left-turn lane

The project summary and the presentation of the preferred design alternative will be reviewed by the City Council in early 2009.

Michael Williams 
Project Manager
Richmond Community Redevelopment Agency
(510) 307-8140

Hector Rojas 
Associate Planner
Planning & Building Services Department
(510) 620-6662

For project status see monthly report
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