Grand Boulevard Initiative Debuts New Interactive Story Map Feature

The Grand Boulevard Initiative has added a new interactive map feature to its website, allowing community members, planners, and decision makers to view and track progress of plans and projects that have been undertaken since the Initiative began in 2006.

The Grand Boulevard Initiative (GBI) is a unique coalition of public agencies and organizations working to reinvent the El Camino Real Corridor into a people-friendly boulevard where residents can live, shop, work and play. While GBI provides a forum for the Corridor Vision and encourages planning and investment in the Corridor, the true measures of success are the plans and projects of the member agencies.

The new web feature, the Activity Along the Corridor Story Map, highlights the member agency successes, and can be found on the GBI website here. It is a living platform, where visitors to the site can see a visual representation of all the transportation and development projects that have been completed, or are in progress, along the El Camino Real Corridor. It will be updated on a quarterly basis, so people can check out the status of the improvement programs as they’re happening.

Along with giving Peninsula communities a contextual sense of progress along El Camino Real, the new interactive Story Map serves as a data source for planning and development efforts on the Corridor, as it will include information on building height, housing units, parking spaces and commercial square footage proposed for each undertaking.

The interactive and visual nature of the Story Map makes it a significant tool for community outreach, as well as for communication with elected officials, agency planning staff, and other stakeholders. The Map tells the story of what has been accomplished along the El Camino Real Corridor, what projects and plans are in the pipeline, and where potential opportunities are for further development.The GBI has no binding resolutions, but its goal is to transform the Peninsula’s most important arterial into a pedestrian-friendly boulevard that hosts mixed-use, transit-oriented development.

The GBI includes cities, counties, transit agencies, labor, environmentalists, business, developers and community leaders in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties. The San Mateo County Transit District staffs the Grand Boulevard Initiative with support from co-sponsors the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, City/County Association of Governments of San Mateo County, Joint Venture Silicon Valley Network, and San Mateo Economic Development Association. 

El Camino Real is 43-mile stretch of state highway that connects San Mateo and Santa Clara counties in the Peninsula. To find out more about the GBI, visit http://www.grandboulevard.net/.

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The Grand Boulevard is a collaboration of 19 cities, counties, local and regional agencies united to improve the performance, safety and aesthetics of El Camino Real. Starting at the northern Daly City city limit (where it is named Mission Street) and ending near the Diridon Caltrain Station in central San Jose (where it is named The Alameda), the initiative brings together for the first time all of the agencies having responsibility for the condition, use and performance of the street.