Palo Alto – California Avenue Improvement Plan

Note: California Avenue was closed to vehicles in June 2020.

Vision (2024)

 Enhancing the community experience and economic vibrancy of Palo Alto. This is a Council-supported effort enabling outdoor dining, retail, and personal services in business districts such as California Avenue and the downtown core.

Current Status (February 2025)

For four years, California Avenue has been stuck in planning limbo as city leaders, merchants and community members brainstormed and clashed over ways to enhance the car-free segment of Palo Alto’s second downtown.

“Next month, that effort will finally yield some concrete milestones, as the city’s contractors launch a five-week program of “rapid” streetscape improvements; the City Council weighs in on broader aesthetic enhancements; and the city’s planning commissioners delve into the environmental analysis that will allow the city to formally designate the street as a permanent promenade.

The construction is set start on Feb. 18, according to a new report from the office of City Manager Ed Shikada, and will include resurfacing the street, adding stamped crosswalks at intersections and replacing the orange water-filled barriers that have served as entry points to the business district since the street was closed to cars in 2020. The barriers will make way for planters and bollards at the El Camino and Birch Avenue entrances to the commercial district.

At the same time, the city is preparing for broader and more ambitious improvements to celebrate and enhance Cal Ave’s identity as the chiller, funkier and more neighborhood-serving alternative to the city’s more prominent downtown artery, University Avenue. This includes rows signs that brand Cal Ave as a destination to “eat, shop, play,” a prominent monument at the El Camino Real entrance, a bikeway in the middle of the street and a rearrangement of plazas and parklets to better “activate” areas all around Cal Ave for public use, according to a concept from the architecture firm Urban Field Studios.” (Source: Palo Alto Online February 2025)

“Adoption of the plan coincides with the city’s ongoing $7 million renovation of California Avenue, which includes widening of sidewalks, creation of two new public plazas, replacement of all street furniture and reduction of lanes from four to two. The project, which aims to turn the eclectic strip into something more like University Avenue or Mountain View’s Castro Street, kicked off last month after about four years of planning and litigation.” (Source: Palo Alto Online – 2014)

Resources