Residents chime in on Chester connectivity plans

The Plumas County Transportation Commission (PCTC) held an open house in April to garner input from the community regarding what residents would like to see changed or improved on Chester’s Main Street when the anticipated Caltrans project goes through town.  That kick-off meeting was quite well attended and many ideas were voiced by the community.

After reviewing and consolidating those ideas, the PCTC hosted Workshop #1 at the Almanor Rec. Center on July 20 to further refine the most sought-after requests.  Jim Graham, executive director of PCTC, started of the meeting with a re-cap of the April activities and then introduced Todd Tregenza, senior program manager for GHD, and Jeff Schwein, president of Green Dot transportation solutions. These two companies are heading up the efforts to plan ahead for possible improvements in areas of streetscape beautification, ease of use and business accessibility, and most importantly, safety for vehicles, bicycles and pedestrians. With about 30 local residents in attendance there was lots of discussion on both the ideas from April and new thoughts for the day.

Attending residents were asked to “vote” on what they would like to see accomplished by attaching colored stickers on photos that represented different ideas. The top three improvements selected were: more crosswalks with flashing lights and signs, shade trees along the roadway, and physically separated bike lanes.  This workshop is just the first of several that the PCTC has planned over the next few months and all the folks working on the project encourage the community to by active in the process.