Politics & Government

Mill Valley Looks to Get $20M Miller Ave. Transformation Back on Track

On Monday night at City Hall, council considers a $650K contract for a consultant to refine project's estimated costs and come up with a construction phasing plan.

Over the past 20 months since the Mill Valley City Council approved the Miller Avenue Streetscape Plan – a massive overhaul of one of the city’s main two arteries that has an estimated $20 million price tag – Mayor Andy Berman has had plenty of “What’s up with the Miller Ave. project?” queries.

Berman said questions about the project, whose origins date back nearly 12 years, have come from both the “I hate to ask because I like it the way it is” and “please improve this street yesterday” camps. His response has been that despite the lack of major progress to tout publicly, there’s been plenty of behind-the-scenes work being done to get the project ready for primetime.

“Nothing is dormant,” Berman said. “We need to get this right. You can’t just rip up an entire street that everyone uses every day. This is such a big project that we really have to have all the steps in place.”

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The council looks to take the next step in doing just that Monday night as it considers a $650,000 contract with BKF Engineers to manage the planning of a project that will involve multiple agencies and take an estimated three-plus years – from spring 2014 to the end of 2017 – to finish.

Berman said the consultant would serve a vital role in the planned renovation of nearly two miles of Miller from Sunnyside Ave. to Almonte Boulevard.

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In addition to the agencies involved – Pacific Gas and Electric, Marin Municipal Water District, AT&T, Comcast and the Sewerage Agency of Southern Marin (SASM) are among those that will have to relocate or upgrade their facilities as part of the project – the project also calls for an overhaul of pavement, sidewalks, sewer pipes, storms drains, lighting, landscaping and the creation of a multi-use bicycle and pedestrian path adjacent to the traffic lanes.

“We need someone who wakes up everyday and thinks of just this project, period,” Berman said. “This will be a time consuming process.”

According to Public Works Director Jill Barnes’ staff report on the contract (attached at right), the consultant’s job would run the gamut from developing improvements to storm drainage and sewer systems to establishing the location, down to the nearest .01 foot, of road and streetscape features like curbs, gutters, sidewalks, trees, lights and “enhanced pedestrian plazas along the corridor.”

Funding and Phasing

The two biggest components of the work, according to city officials, focus on finding the money to pay for the project and making sure its impact of on residents is minimized.

City officials want the consultants to give the estimated $20 million cost of the project a serious once over, especially considering that the city currently has only $13 million to pay for it. Going over the project detail to find cost savings, including finding innovative strategies that cut costs on things like pavement rehab and identifying changes that reduce costs without compromising its intent or application, is key, Councilwoman Stephanie Moulton-Peters said.

“We have a $7 million budget gap, so we’ve got to really look at every place possible to save,” she said.

Barnes noted that the city also has applied for $1 million in Proposition 84 funding to make improvements to enhance storm water quality, as well as a $2 million Clean Beach Initiative Grant for sanitary sewer upgrades. She said she expects to find out if the city will receive that funding in the next few months.

In an effort to minimize the impact on one of Mill Valley’s two busiest roads, city officials want BKF to come up with an implementation plan for doing the project in phases. The project is currently broken down into five “rooms,” moving from downtown to Almonte Blvd.:

  • Passage: From Sunnyside Ave. to Millwood Ave.
  • Parkway: From Millwood to Willow Street
  • Main Street: From Willow Street and Reed Street/Valley Circle.
  • Gateway: From Reed/Valley Circle to Camino Alto.
  • Marsh: From Camino Alto to Almonte Blvd.

The implementation plan, Barnes said, will establish the order of construction through each of those areas, as well as the duration of each.

Barnes said the first phase of construction, which is expected to begin in the spring of 2014, will likely be utility relocations and improvements to the storm drain and sewer systems. The first phase of actual streetscape improvements would kick off in mid-2015, she said.

While the consultant is doing its work in 2013, city officials hope to make minor improvements that improve conditions on Miller, particularly for bicyclists and pedestrians. That includes installing bike racks along Miller in the Main Street segment, restriping the Passage segment to one traffic lane in each direction to allow more room for bicyclists and pedestrians, and striping changes near Almonte Blvd to address safety issues.

Barnes said the city will also do a pilot test on “back-in angled parking.”

Moulton-Peters said she understood that some residents might be getting impatient for a Miller Ave. overhaul. But she credited Barnes and City Manager Jim McCann for “wanting to pull together a full plan of how we’re going to get this done so that we don’t end up with the very same situation we have on Miller right now,” she said, referencing the aborted Miller Ave. overhaul in the mid-1970s that saw the creation of frontage roads between Locust and Evergreen avenues.

“We really want to make the whole street happen this time and that takes some extra work to do that – being more thoughtful about it,” she said. “This is a project that is going to be around for 50, 60, 70 years.”

The 411: The Mill Valley City Council considers a $650,000 contract with BKF Engineers for the Miller Avenue Streetscape Plan at its March 18 meeting at 7:30 p.m. at City Hall, 26 Corte Madera Avenue. To watch the meeting onlin, click here.

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