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Unpaving Paradise

For years, the downtown business district in the city of Martinez has flooded almost every other year. Last year, however, the city undertook an ambitious effort to provide environmentally friendly flood control that rescued a block-long section of Alhambra Creek from entombment beneath an office building (the former City Hall) — and even added a few new parking spaces.

"We decided that we needed to revitalize our downtown in a way befitting the fact that we are John Muir’s hometown," says city councilmember Mark Ross.

As part of the project, the city re-routed the creek around the office building and ripped out an adjacent parking lot, where the creek now meanders freely. More parking lots up- and downstream of the daylighting project were torn out as well to make room for the creek, an impressive feat in light of the fact that the city had a severe parking shortage, according to Igor Skaredoff with the Friends of Alhambra Creek. At the former parking lots, the creek’s constricted banks were graded back and floodplain created. Meanwhile, the city made up for the parking loss by making some streets one-way and adding diagonal parking. The net result was an increase in parking spaces, says Ross.

Finding a solution to the city’s flooding and parking problems took several years and a visit by Ross to San Luis Obispo. There, shops and restaurants focus on San Luis Creek, which runs through the middle of the downtown and has become somewhat famous in the urban streams movement. Inspired by what he saw there, Ross returned to Martinez and convinced other councilmembers that a creative solution could be found. "We realized that we had a choice," says Ross. "We could keep the mud every two years or work on a sensible parking solution and a companion solution to the flooding."

But the downtown daylighting and restoration projects are only a piece of larger restoration efforts going on throughout the city. Farther downstream, as the creek nears the Carquinez Strait and begins to receive tidal action, the channel was widened and marsh habitat restored alongside it, providing additional, natural flood control. And as part of the city’s new intermodal transit station project, two railroad bridges were rebuilt with funding from transportation grants, to accommodate 100-year storm flows. A greenway will soon run alongside the creek, from the mouth of the creek through the downtown.

City officials, downtown businesses and creek-lovers are thrilled with the new focus on the creek — and the lack of mud on their doorsteps. "We had a creek that was a liability and turned it into an asset," says Ross.

Contact: Igor Skaredoff (925) 229-1371; Mark Ross (925)372-8400

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