Contra Costa Public Works and Alamo School Families Dedicate Creek Footbridge and Crosswalk Beacons at Rancho Romero Elementary

Traffic safety engineers with the Contra Costa County Public Works Department, campus leaders from the San Ramon Valley Unified School District (SRVUSD), and the Alamo Municipal Advisory Council dedicated a 42-foot timber-and-steel pedestrian creek footbridge and high-visibility Safe Routes to School crosswalk improvements on Saturday evening along Hemme Avenue at Rancho Romero Elementary School at 180 Hemme Avenue in Alamo. Connecting the Iron Horse Regional Trail Hemme Station access path to the school's front courtyard, the corridor carries more than 380 daily walking, scootering, and cycling elementary students as well as neighborhood dog walkers.

Previously, children walking east along Hemme Avenue had to squeeze onto a narrow asphalt shoulder across a 1962 concrete box culvert over a seasonal tributary of San Ramon Creek. During the autumn infrastructure project, bridge crews set a separate eight-foot-wide prefabricated weathered-steel and Alaskan yellow-cedar pedestrian and bicycle footbridge just north of the roadway guardrail, completely separating young pedestrians from morning drop-off vehicle queues.

At the main campus driveway and Camille Avenue intersections, county road crews constructed permeable river-cobble rain-garden curb bulb-outs that shorten the crosswalk distance by eleven feet. Crews also poured high-contrast continental thermoplastic striping and installed dual-sided solar Rectangular Rapid Flashing Beacons (RRFBs) activated by touchless infrared wave sensors.

The $385,000 Safe Routes to School project was funded through Contra Costa Transportation Authority Measure J pedestrian safety grants and County Road Funds endorsed by the Board of Supervisors. Parents can download updated school walking and bike-bus route maps on the Rancho Romero Elementary Campus Portal.