The “Water Cooler” is a feature on Claycord.com where we ask you a question or provide a topic, and you talk about it.
The “Water Cooler” will be up Monday-Friday at noon.
Today’s question:
QUESTION: Do you the City of Concord should do something to freshen-up or modernize Clayton Rd., and the surrounding area, or do you like it how it is? Also, do you like the variety of businesses, or would you like to see something new?
Talk about it….
I loathe Clayton Road between BART and Ayers, but not sure that freshening it up is a good use of taxpayer funds.
It’s an eyesore and a safety hazard. But I don’t know what would work to improve it, short of a major, major project.
Bring back the spirit poles!
Ha! Good one!
Here’s link to the Concord map of pedestrian collisions. Note the Clayton Road part.
https://www.cityofconcord.org/DocumentCenter/View/1058/Pedestrian-Collisions-Map-PDF
That’s an eye opening map. Why is Clayton Road so much worse than Concord Blvd? I have not paid much attention to Clayton Road but hasn’t the city installed white picket fences or dense bushes in the median?
A law firm has created a similar and rather cool map for Walnut Creek that’s at https://www.appellawyer.com/accident-map/ Unfortunately, it appears they have not updated it since 2015 and it only covers Walnut Creek.
They need to do something about the empty, dated strip malls. The center at the corner of Bailey Rd & Clayton Rd had Salvation Army Thrift store go into the old Beverly’s, March of 2019, The filled the store with goods, ready to open, only to have a complaint of what was going in there. It is still just sitting there full of goods, but can’t open until the city approves it. Kmart store parking lot has become an RV/Commercial truck parking lot. what are these people doing for sewage disposal and restroom facilities. I’ve heard tha the CCC Food Bank is renting the Store space, but whiy are the lights in the store on 24 hour per day. Do they have that kind of $$$ to waste per month?
Cities have bigger problems. Now is not the time to put lipstick on the deck chairs of the titanic
Clayton Rd is just like every other boulevard in every city in the state. It’s a way to get from one side of town tho the other. They all look the same and I can’t think of any doable changes that would help.
Save the money that we don’t have and do nothing but maintenance for now.
Yes definitely! The palm trees on the side of road must be cut down. The branches are creating a hazard. Most of the store front of businesses should be give some incentive money to improve their curbside.
Good call re the palm trees! Property owners are not keeping them pruned for safety; and those dead, rock-hard fronds with huge serrated edges are a serious hazard to pedestrians (and auto safety, too. It is a fact that drivers would reflexively swerve if they saw such an “oncoming” object.
Ok, I’ll play:
It needs an “OLIVE GARDEN” !
Did I do that right?
🙂
Silva…… pssssst…. “Cracker Barrel”!
Pweeeeeeze?
Let’s fix the roads and sidewalks before we do anything else.No brainer morons.
Pretty tough to freshen up or modernize an area where theft and vandalism are effectively legal.
Gun Range and a Strip Club
One more thing, a Homeless RV Park.
Good thoughts Only.
No! Spend the money on the streets that are in dire need of repair. Meadow Lane comes to mind, so does Oak Grove Rd. As for a variety of businesses, what good would it do? The libs want to shut everything down
They don’t need to vote for it….. the ‘crats can program the voting machine to do it for them.
I for one dislike the Pine trees in the center divide. I had one drop on my car once already. That sure was a bright idea.
Want to freshen Clayton Rd?
Want to modernize it?
Make it safer?
Attract retail?
Try paving it. Do it before it goes back to being a trail.
On the other hand, a trail would cut down on reckless driving, aggressive muscle cars, and repais needed to houses, cars, and businesses that keep getting smashed up by the aforementioned reckless drivers.
The sidewalks on both sides of Bailey from Clayton Road to Concord Blvd., and beyond, have major trip hazards. If there are sidewalks at all. Someone painted the cracks orange on the raised concrete where the cracks are.
When is Clayton at Bailey at the stoplight in the left turn lane going to get street swept? It’s always full of leaves and dirt and growing weeds. Trees along Bailey Rd need to be cut back so drivers can make left and right turns safely. Residents have been trimming the suckers growing out of the bottom of some of these street trees for YEARS.
All along Clayton Rd the areas around the places of business and the parking lots are FULL of trash. Why can’t the city make the property owners clean up more often than they do? And.. is it legal to make a left turn from Bailey Road on to Clayton Road? Someone blacked out the left turn arrow painted on the street but the sign on Clayton Road indicates an arrow to make a left turn.
The Veranda has certainly made Diamond Blvd more active.
Number 1 priority should be pedestrian safety and proper sidewalks. It is pathetic how in disrepair some of the sidewalks are in the area, many of them simply END with a sign saying “pedestrian prohibited” with no way for pedestrians to continue legally and safely.
Should bulldoze all those crappy looking apartments and put in single family homes and watch the school ratings go up
Ash is totally correct. 8 out of 10 times I see someone jaywalking/running on Clayton Rd. One day there were 3 separate groups in the median between Bailey and Thornwood waiting to cross.
Tear down the KMart building and build an IMAX Theater….. well…. whenever the Democrat overlords are done screwing around with our freedom & the economy that is.
Eminent domain everything and put in ranches and honky tonks all the way to Clayton…
Plant all the walnut orchards and fruit trees that were there in the early ’70’s!
Jose is right on that. also horse and buggy only with dirt roads. we’re on our way back to the old days anyway. get rid of cell phones, internet. maybe people would learn things again. A bunch of dough heads. the city of Atlantis will sink again.
Clayton road needs a French Laundry; it will be a drive-through however.
Enforce the speed limit!!!!!!!
Clayton Road from Ygnacio Valley Road to Ayers is a washboard. It is beyond ridiculous. The whole street needs repaving and remarking. The signals need to be precisely timed to reduce frequent stopping along the way, all the way from Ygnacio to Willow Pass Road. And, some sort of design consistency to unify the numerous shopping districts along the artery certainly wouldn’t hurt. It has developed in a piecemeal, haphazard way, and it shows.
Driving down Concord Boulevard yesterday from Thornhill Drive all the way into Clayton, I can see why everyone speeds on it. It is a broad, nicely paved and clearly marked street with few signals or impediments to travel. Clayton Road should be at least as easy to drive, especially since it doesn’t route you through a residential area. It should serve to remove traffic from these residential areas rather than encourage their use.
That should be Thornwood Drive not Thornhill. You can see how often I use Concord Boulevard.
Oh thank you. Yes fix up Clayton Road and free up Concord Blvd from traffic.
Bring back the Zig Zag Club
Perhaps Concord should have a empty store front tax for owners that don’t care like the owner of the strip mall on Treat where Staples is located – San Francisco has delayed their empty store tax a year because of Covid-45. In 2021, owners or tenants would have be taxed $250 per street-facing foot; In 2022, owners or tenants would be taxed either $250 or $500 per street-facing foot if the space was kept vacant in the immediately preceding year; – .
How about a push-button pedestrian crossing at 7-11? There is a big “dash migration passage“ of jaywalkers right there.
They would have to put a jug of hand sanitizer right next to it so everybody could kill the cooties after they push the button.
You need businesses willing to open, build, and invest. And why would they do that in the most small business unfriendly state in the nation? Want to make things better? Then you need to change the business environment here to one that is more business friendly. Just open your eyes to see businesses leaving in droves. Some of the bigger ones in recent years: Del Monte, Toyota, Elon Musk and Tesla, Bank of America, etc etc.