CLEARLAKE, Calif. – A week of workshops focused on reinventing and revitalizing Clearlake’s Lakeshore Drive drew significant attendance this past week.
Officials said that the participation in the events dedicated to the Lakeshore Drive Downtown Corridor was very high and extremely positive.
On Friday evening, a final workshop and community reception were held, which included the unveiling of the preliminary designs that a design team came up with based on community involvement. Lake County News will have a followup article on the specifics of those preliminary designs.
The “Envisioning the Future of Clearlake’s Downtown Lakeshore Corridor” events earlier in the week began with a walking assessment followed by a workshop in Clearlake City Hall on Tuesday evening.
Mayor Joey Luiz welcomed participants at the workshop at city hall and Paul Zykofsky, associate director of the Local Government Commission, moderated the evening’s event.
Special guest, Irwin Kaplan – former interim city of Clearlake Community Development director and head of the City’s Vision Task Force – discussed how the task force’s document and design guidelines that were used as blueprints for the current Lakeshore Drive planning project.
The Vision Task Force Report can be found at http://theclearlakevisiontaskforce.wikispaces.com/Report .
Kaplan reiterated a quote that still holds true, five years after he said it during the presentation of the task force’s report: “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.”
With the new Caltrans grant that is helping to fund the Lakeshore Drive Downtown Corridor project, rather than reinventing the wheel, the Vision Task Force Report is an informative blueprint containing, “precious things to the community,” Kaplan said.
He reminded the audience and community that they were stakeholders, “with a chance to make things better.”
Alluding to the majestic trees that fill the city of Clearlake, Irwin compared improving the city to, “precious oaks – they don’t grow overnight.”
Zykofsky asked the audience for their vision of the Lakeshore corridor in 10 to 20 years down the road.
Community members were asked to write their answers on index cards that were provided. Then, they were asked to put down five different words about what they valued and why they connected with the city. These words were written on sticky notes and pasted together on the wall behind the audience.
The goal for improving Lakeshore Drive was to help design a livable and healthy community, and to “encourage your hopes, not your fears,” Zykofsky said.
Advisory and focus group meetings, along with the Lake County/City Area Planning Council, had weeks earlier helped set the tone for the evening’s events and the rest of the week’s.
Community members would become community designers, using aerial photographs to sketch suggestions and communicate their ideas for changes to the project area.
A slideshow was presented by Zykofsky, with projected improvements, including complete streets that support safe, comfortable and convenient routes, where transit, pedestrians and those using wheelchairs could proceed on the roads. The vision was for streets designed not only for cars but for people.
Several different towns were highlighted, showing their progress. In Shasta County, Cottonwood’s Main Street was featured, with new curb extensions and planters, bringing plazas and parking to life. Its roads, speed zones and gateway designs all changed positively with improvements.
Other examples presented included having 5-foot buffers, for side by side walking, crosswalk visibility and crossing islands. Street improvements included having skewed intersections and right angle-cross walk intersections.
Popular features on Lakeshore Drive are its bike lanes. Ten feet of space is needed for lanes, but it was explained that 12 feet would be even safer.
Back-in angled parking is a feature that is developing in numerous towns. Off Highway 16 in Esparto, the feature, with directions posted, allowed cars to back in, leaving their trunks facing the sidewalks, away from the main road, and car doors opening to a point of safety as well.
Roundabouts, a modern feature, can be found in two places in Lake County. Instead of a three- or four-way stop, roundabouts move traffic at a better capacity, according to traffic studies. Clearlake’s Olympic and Lakeshore Drive was deemed a good example for such a feature. The design team suggested that beautiful intersections could be created with roundabouts.
The city of Clearlake has three lakefront parks, and suggestions for improving them offered at the workshop included farmers’ markets and the kinds of improvements made at Lucerne’s waterside parks, where new grass, benches, lighting and other features were installed.
Having places to sit, lighting, murals and fountains also were highlighted in the presentation.
Kaplan reminded the audience that few cities have a main road that caters to tourist traffic as does Lakeshore Drive.
Community members then became “community designers.” They divided into several smaller groups for the design workshop portion of the evening. At each design table, groups were to design their solutions, writing and sketching their ideas, issues and concerns and present to the rest of the group.
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