Watsonville moves forward with downtown revitalization
The Watsonville City Council is moving ahead with a major downtown revitalization project. Part of it will be a huge change to people who live and work in the area.
By reducing the lanes on Main Street, the idea is to have fewer cars and more pedestrians and bicyclists enjoying the downtown corridor. Fewer lanes means bigger sidewalks, which frees up more space for beautification projects and more opportunities for outdoor dining. Council member Felipe Hernandez says investors are already eyeing properties to potentially open up business. In essence, if you build it, they will come.
However, some people are questioning it.
“Well there’s already a lot of traffic on Main Street,” Pamela said. “I think it would be highly congested.”
The city knows it’s going to be a huge change for residents. That’s why some council members pushed for a pilot program to ease drivers into the change. A temporary barrier would be constructed to emulate what the final outcome would be.
“Let’s make sure we’re doing this progressively, correctly, and right in making sure everyone is involved in what we are taking on,” said Council member Trina Coffman. “It is a huge change for our city and we are making some good progress, positive progress downtown and this is just one of the steps we should be putting into place in order to do that effectively.”
Council members visited other nearby cities to see how they handled downtown revitalization projects. Some include Morgan Hill, Gilroy and Livermore. But not everyone was on board. Council members Hernande and Karina Cervantez both voiced opposition.
“You’re going to have all the negative impacts but none of the positive impacts,” Hernandez said.
Those positive impacts would be the bike lane, bigger sidewalks, outdoor beautification projects and more outdoor dining opportunities. Mayor Nancy Bilicich also wants to see how this change would affect nearby streets, namely Rodriguez and Union.
“It will be interesting to see how the traffic does divert,” Mayor Bilicich said. “Where does it go? What do people choose?”
However, Hernandez fears the pilot program could lead to the project’s demise.
“I believe this pilot project is going to garner enough support of complaint to kill the project,” Hernandez said.” I think it’s the poison pill.”
Despite passing the pilot program, the city hasn’t decided when it would begin. The council is meeting back up on August 25. They hope to have bids from companies wanting to pursue the project.
