Redwood City El Camino Real Corridor Plan

El Camino Real is a historic highway that connects communities from San Francisco to San Jose. Over time, it has evolved into an auto-oriented thoroughfare with inconsistent facilities for pedestrians, bicyclists, businesses, and residents. In Redwood City, while the El Camino Real Corridor crosses the edge of the city’s blossoming Downtown, it has generally not experienced the same level of economic growth and success.

To address these issues, Redwood City enlisted the help of Dyett & Bhatia and sub-consultants W-Trans, Bottomley Design & Planning, and Economic & Planning Systems to develop the El Camino Real Corridor Plan, which directs investment to the Corridor by establishing vibrant activity centers, promoting affordable housing, supporting existing residents and businesses, and enhancing its character. In addition, the Plan fosters multimodal mobility through streetscape redesign and reallocating the right-of-way. The The project also buildt on Dyett & Bhatia’s completed work on developing a framework for a new Community Benefits Ordinance for the City, which aims to ensure that development impacts are appropriately mitigated and that residents stand to benefit equitably from new development.

Adopted in December 2017 following a 2½ year process, the Plan has received overwhelming community support in large part due to a robust outreach effort that featured a highly productive Citizen Advisory Group, stakeholder interviews, community-wide workshops, pop-up booths at community events, direct in-person outreach to Corridor businesses, and numerous meetings with Caltrans, the Planning Commission, and other relevant groups, committees, boards, and agencies.