SLO street project was called ‘seductive’ in the 1970s. This is why
For more than a century, the mantra for street and road design was “wider, smoother and faster.”
In the late 1800s, San Luis Obispo had uneven street setbacks and buildings had to be moved.
The high water mark for what we can call the fast-and-wide era was the early 1970s, when critics defeated a proposal to re-route Highway 1 from Santa Rosa Street to along the flank of Cerro San Luis and connect with Highway 101 near Marsh Street.
The budding environmental movement blocked that roadway but there was no vocal opposition when Caltrans got a green light from the city to broaden Broad Street, also known as Highway 227.
An article called a proposed design “aesthetically seductive.” To be fair, undergrounding the utility poles made the street more attractive.
Three years, later business owners on Broad Street attacked the completed project because lanes for cyclists had replaced on-street parking.
One of the business owners threatened a lawsuit, compared a bicycle advocate to Adolf Hitler and vowed to mount a recall election.
However, as a Telegram-Tribune editorial noted in an April 20, 1977, article, the time to change the plan was when it was first discussed and approved three years earlier. The bike lanes stayed.
Over the following decades, as traffic engineers began to include pedestrians in their calculations, the city added traffic circles, pedestrian beacons and bulb outs.
San Luis Obispo recently installed a pedestrian hybrid beacon at the intersection of Broad and Woodbridge streets to help people safely cross the wide corridor without disrupting fast-moving traffic. It’s the third of its kind in the city.
The following story by Bob Anderson was published Aug. 20, 1974, when the city approved new plans for Broad Street. It has been excerpted for length.
San Luis Obispo eyes ‘New Broad St.”
The audience at the Monday night meeting of the San Luis Obispo City Council was treated to a dazzling sneak preview of a vision of South Broad Street of the future.
Colored slides of South Broad in its current state — two-lanes clogged by utility lines, in many places lacking curbs, and generally bereft of aesthetic values — faded into colored sketches of a broad, tree-lined boulevard, without a utility line in sight.
A bank of four automatic slide project(ors) cast images on two screens while City Planning Director Robert Strong narrated his department’s proposed plan for Broad Street from High Street to Capitolio Way at the southern city limits.
Strong finished his report Monday on what the city might do to make the Broad Street project more than just a repaving to speed up traffic.
The state has been preparing its widening project for several years, but the city only recently thought to introduce aesthetics, said Mayor Kenneth Schwartz.
It is too late to change the state’s plan, a state Department of Transportation spokesman told the council. The contract for the $5.75 million project for widening Broad Street and Edna Road (Route 227) to Edna must be awarded during the current fiscal year if it is to be done at all in the next nine years or so. To incorporate the design changes the city wants would mean delaying the project past expiration of the deadline.
The major feature which would cause a revision of plans — which are already being prepared for bid — and which Strong said in his report is “perhaps the most controversial proposal,” is a recommendation for a landscaped median. The state has been planning a two-way left-turn lane in the center of South Broad from High to the city limits.
Among a series of aesthetically seductive sketches which Strong showed Monday nigh were several showing in place of the left turn lane, a built-up median landscaped with trees and flowers. In his report he notes that both the state and the city engineer are proposed to such a median because of ”safety aspects” and “traffic problems.”
The second phase, possibly about 1980, would include completion of medians, undergrounding of utilities, possible architectural and land use revisions and a variety of additions such as special crosswalk treatment.
Strong agreed that it is too late to change the state project. However, he noted that the state has said it is willing to help the city with future separate projects to add whatever amenities the city desires.
“We’re seeing one of the rare things that should become more commonplace … a comprehensive plan,” said Schwartz.
