Community
Richmond residents packed into Café McBryde on Saturday morning to review long-planned safety and street improvements for the corridor, a project the city says will add bike lanes, repair pavement, and slow traffic on a stretch many neighbors describe as feeling more like a freeway than a neighborhood street.
The November 8 open house centered on the city’s McBryde Avenue Safe Routes to Parks project, funded through the region’s One Bay Area Grant program to improve access to nearby Alvarado Park and Wildcat Canyon. The city must use the grant funds soon or risk losing them, officials said.
“We’ve had about 80 percent supportive feedback today,” said Hillal Hamdan, a senior civil engineer with Richmond Public Works. “We want to rehab the pavement, add buffered bike lanes, improve signage, and address safety issues from the park all the way to 37th Street.”
Big street changes planned for McBryde Avenue
The City of Richmond Public Works is working to create a safe and comfortable walking and biking route on McBryde Avenue by removing traffic lanes and adding bike lanes from 37th Street to Wildcat Regional Park. The McBryde Avenue Safe Routes to Parks project will reduce the street’s four
Soren Hemmila
Hamdan said the city hopes to finalize the design and put the project out to bid in time to begin construction in summer 2026.
Residents have long complained about speeding on McBryde. Plans call for reducing much of the corridor to one lane in each direction, adding high-visibility striping, and installing a small traffic circle near the Wildcat Canyon Regional Park entrance at Arlington Boulevard.
For longtime resident Marcy Greenhut, the project represents years of pushing the city to fix the corridor.
“I asked the city years ago to pave McBryde because it was awful from here to the park,” Greenhut said. “I’m excited about everything in the plan. It can’t come soon enough.”
Greenhut said she also supports additional crosswalks, more native trees and intersection “bike boxes” that give cyclists a visible position in front of cars at stoplights.
Engineers from BKF collected comments throughout the morning. Armando Lara, a senior project engineer, said safety concerns topped the list, though some residents questioned whether reducing lanes could worsen peak-hour congestion.
“What we’re hoping is that reducing speeds will actually improve flow,” Lara said. “But we’ll need to analyze the traffic questions we heard today.”
City staff said community comments will guide the next revisions.
“You can’t please everyone, but if 80 to 90 percent of the community is supportive, we’re on the right path,” Hamdan said.
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