Barricades, cones, and fluorescent orange signs are some of the all-too-familiar hallmarks of construction and delays on the road.
“It’s probably the most frustrating thing I hear from residents when they have no idea there’s construction that’s going to be on their route to work, on their route to dropping their kids off to school,” District 1 Councilwoman Sukh Kaur said. “Then, all of a sudden, they’re late, and that can ruin someone’s day.”
Kaur said after hearing from her constituents, she filed a Council Consideration Request (CCR) to have city staff look into creating a “no surprises construction” policy.
“There should be a policy in place for minimum communication regarding construction that goes over and beyond what we are doing currently,” Kaur said, “which I don’t think is sufficient at all.”
The policy proposes a standard permit for construction companies to close public streets and sidewalks or to modify driveway access for more than a week, and share the information with navigation apps like Google Maps, Apple Maps and Waze.
“We want to be able to receive text notification, so stuff that goes directly to your phone, updates that go directly to your phones, and they wanna be to select projects that are close to their house but also on their route to work,” Kaur said.
Alerts through emails, mailers, door hangers, social media, and dedicated project websites are also being considered.
Kaur also proposed requiring stakeholder meetings for small businesses that will be impacted by street closures and modified access for more than a month.
“We started having monthly stakeholder meetings (on the South Alamo Street project) because for business owners, if they don’t know what the schedule is, if the project manager doesn’t know the schedule is, and they’re not telling the business owners, it’s really hard for them to be able to tell, hey, customers, you know, this is what you should be doing to get here,” Kaur said.
Kaur said the goal of her proposal is to reduce construction frustration and minimize disruptions to people’s daily lives.
Once city staff completes their exploration of the policy and lists their recommendations, the recommendation would then be submitted to the governance committee.
Kaur said that could happen in December or maybe January and added that once that committee reviews it, the proposal would then go to the city’s public works department, which she said would have the capacity to oversee the policy if passed.
After PWD reviews it, the city council will then be briefed.
Kaur said there will be a stakeholders meeting for business owners on Hildebrand and San Pedro to discuss construction at 9 a.m. Monday.
