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The city of Hollister is looking to give a large portion of San Benito Street a makeover to address speeding concerns.
At the Feb. 5 Hollister City Council meeting, Derek Wu with the planning consultant Kimley-Horn, presented a proposed design for the project involving the section between Nash Road and Hawkins Street. The city is considering extending the project north to South Street.
Features under consideration include narrower vehicle lanes, striped buffers and class II bike lanes, which are marked paths along the street. Features at intersections may include raised curbs, sidewalk extensions and raised curb blocks in the middle of the street.
Kimley-Horn plans to conduct public outreach about the design and revise the concepts based on input before submitting a final report to the city in the spring. The firm analyzed current conditions and gathered traffic data on Aug. 27 at different times of the day. It found that the street experienced 3,656 average daily vehicle trips northbound and 4,626 trips southbound in the section near Palm Street. Closer to downtown, near Haydon Street, it found the average daily trips northbound was 4,042 and southbound was 4,834.
Kimley-Horn also examined collision data from 2012 to 2023 in three categories: vehicle only, vehicle-pedestrian and vehicle-bicyclists. The data was not discussed or presented at the meeting but was included in the agenda packet.
There were 31 reported vehicle-only collisions, of which 13 resulted in minor injuries. The other collisions did not result in injuries.
In the other two categories it found four reported pedestrian collisions and 10 involving bicyclists. Of those, one resulted in a serious injury.
Contrary to the data collected by Kimley-Horn, City Manager David Mirrione said the project was prompted by a pedestrian fatality.
Hollister contracted with Kimley-Horn in 2024 for an amount not to exceed $66,974 to complete four tasks:
- Traffic data collection
- Traffic calming layout
- Public outreach, community surveys and meetings
- Traffic calming report
According to the staff report in the agenda packet, Kimley-Horn is scheduled to hold two public meetings virtually. There were no dates discussed at the meeting.
Mirrione said the next step, should the City Council decide to move forward following the final report, would be to contract with an engineer to design the project. At that stage the city would receive an estimate to complete the project.
He said by fixing the street, the city would also update the water and sewer lines, storm drains and sidewalks
“I will give a spoiler alert,” he said. “It’ll be very expensive.”
Mirrione said the city would pursue grants and funding from state and federal representatives because the project is such a large undertaking.
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