The Autumn Parkway Project
Location
Coleman Avenue to West Julian Street
City or County Responsible for Project
City of San Jose
Category
Complete Streets Projects
Author
Lam Cruz
Department of Transportation
200 East Santa Clara Street, San Jose, CA 95113
408-794-1962
Project Description
The Autumn Parkway Project is a vital transportation investment which supports the City of San Jose’s long term economic success strategy. The City has identified the development of the Diridon Station Area as an important area of job growth and the Autumn Street Parkway provides a new connection to this area. The Diridon Station Area currently includes the SAP Center as well as transit services such as Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) light rail, VTA bus service, Caltrain, Capitol Corridor, ACE rail, and AMTRAK. In the near future Diridon Station will expand as a major Bay Area transit hub with new transit service including BART and California High-Speed Rail coming to San Jose. In order to improve north and south connectivity into the Diridon Station Area, the City developed the extension of Autumn Parkway from Coleman Avenue to Julian Street. The first section of the Autumn Parkway extension was constructed between Coleman Ave and the Union Pacific Railroad (UPRR) tracks as part of the Market Center Development Project in 2005. A continuation of the extension between the UPRR tracks and West Julian Street was completed by the City in various phases. Phase 1 was divided into three sub-phases. • Phase 1A addressed the requirements of the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) and Union Pacific Rail Road (UPRR) that constructed a 200-foot roadway section as a condition to activate the new crossings and close the two existing crossings at Cinnabar Street. Phase 1A was completed and accepted by PUC in June 2014. •Phase 1B demolished all existing building structures along Autumn Parkway alignment and addressed all issues related to hazardous materials and historical and archeological resources in advance of Phase 1C. Phase 1B was completed in March 2014. •Phase 1C constructed a new roadway consisting of four lanes of travel including Class II bike lanes. Place 1C was completed in May 2017. The Autumn Parkway Project integrates complete streets features to create a safe new roadway for all users. Improvements include beautifying the street with a median and trees, enhancing night time visibility with streetlights and pedestrian scale lighting, installing a new traffic signal to minimize vehicular conflicts and provide pedestrians a safe crossing along West Julian Street, and improving storm water quality and groundwater replenishment with 16 new bioretention cells. The project also completed a missing section of the existing Guadalupe River Trail adjacent to the new roadway. In addition to improving connectivity and increasing roadway capacity into Downtown San Jose, this new connection epitomizes Complete Streets and Green Streets principles and provides a safe multi-modal transportation option to all users of the local street and road system. When funding is available, Phase 2 of the project will complete the design and construction of the full extension between West Julian St. to Hwy 280.
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