To help curb a lingering safety concern, the city of Solvang is preparing to renovate a 2,400-foot segment of Fredensborg Canyon Road. While there are residential driveways on both sides of the route, neither side has a sidewalk.
Public Works Director Rodger A. Olds referred to this stretch of Fredensborg as “the greatest danger to pedestrians on our local roadway network” at the Solvang City Council’s March 11 meeting.
During the hearing, city officials and staff discussed the potential pros and cons of narrowing the route’s lanes to reduce speeding and developing a new multi-purpose trail, for both walkers and bicyclists, along Fredensborg.
“This project has been on the CIP [capital improvement program] for the last two years,” said Olds, who explained that staff began inspecting the site in question after receiving complaints from a few locals.
“There’s no pedestrian facilities along that route, and people drive pretty fast,” Olds said. “We saw a need and we’re looking to fill it with this project.”
Olds led a presentation on staff’s proposal for the city to contract with Tetra Tech, an international engineering firm with a Buellton office, to begin design work on a multi-purpose trail. The $145,079 contract also directs Tetra Tech to plan for pavement edge treatments along existing bike lanes on Viborg Road—which intersects with Fredensborg—and additional repairs on and near Fredensborg.
“I’m not a big fan of paying for this study,” Councilmember Robert Clarke said. “As far as the bike thing goes, I don’t buy it. … There’s miles and miles and miles of places people can ride their bikes. So the bike thing to me is out of the question.”
Clarke said he wants to see safety-related renovations for pedestrians on Fredensborg in the future, but doesn’t “think the money’s there right now.”
“That really is a dangerous street,” Clarke said, “but I think a lot of locals know that.”
Both Clarke and Councilmember Elizabeth Orona suggested that staff look into alternative options, since Tetra Tech’s contract proposal was the only formal proposal submitted to the city, although 20 companies expressed initial interest in response to a request for proposals (RFP) initiated in December of 2023, according to the staff report.
“Without a competitor, how are we assured that this is an optimized bid?” Elizabeth Orona asked Olds. “Did we negotiate? How are we assessing this against other bids that we’ve seen? You’re saying it’s reasonable, but what are we comparing this to?”
Olds explained that issuing another RFP could potentially lead to Solvang partnering with a more expensive firm than Tetra Tech, based on the city’s RFP rubric.
“This is an RFP process not a formal bidding process, so we don’t automatically award the lowest bidder,” Olds said. “It’s the most qualified proposal that gets scored independently. In this case, we had one to score. We still scored it and it hit on all the points. It was a legitimate proposal.”
The Solvang City Council ultimately decided to contract with Tetra Tech with a 3-2 vote. Clarke and Elizabeth Orona dissented.
