Starting in September of last year, Kitchell Construction and Delta College began construction in the Shima parking lot as part of the Path of Travel project. That work has moved out of the Shima lot itself and onto West Burke Bradley Drive, near the Athletics complex.
“This whole project was prompted by [Americans With Disabilities Act] compliance… This is the third phase, it’s part of just getting the whole Path of Travel, all the pathways throughout the campus, to ADA compliance. So, that’s what pretty much drove the project,” said Kitchell Project Manager II Marina Nunez.
Upon completion, the Stockton campus will have accessible sidewalks and extra parking on the north side of the campus, reaching from the Budd parking lot to the stop light for Burke Bradley Drive and Pershing Ave.
Currently, the sidewalk along North Burke Bradley Drive, as well as an entrance and exit to the Shima lot, are being worked on, according to Kitchell Project Manager II Jaime Elias.
The sidewalk will extend into the Budd area.
“The concrete pathway that will take you from North Burke Bradley, it will take you into almost the Ferguson pool area,” said Elias.
He said the curbs of the new Shima lot entrance and exit are in progress, and the road itself should be paved by this week.
The new entrance and exit for the Shima lot will have one entrance lane and two exit lanes. The flow of traffic should remain the same.
Kitchell will inform the district, so they can inform the campus about anything the students should know about the project, Elias said.
The overall Path of Travel project is expected to be completed this summer, according Chris Nguyen, Delta’s Vice President of Administrative Services.
The project began as an expansion of the parking lot, initially removing green spaces and walkways from the Shima 2 parking lot.
Some of the work was initially planned to be completed in December, according to a traffic alert posted on the Delta College website in September 2019.
Elias said he was unaware of this projection, but the initial alert remains available at bit.ly/shimaLot
The Path of Travel project is part of an effort to promote safety on campus, according to Nguyen.
“Not only on the ADA, but the safety front, if you walk the path of travel, the existing one and then where it’s going to be resurfaced, you will find a lot of them have blue phone poles in proximity, and that’s to increase safety awareness for anyone who stays late for classes, that they have easy access to emergency police contact,” Nguyen said. “It’s strategically placed along the path of travel to increase safety and ensure safety for users of the campus.”
To be environmentally conscious, these phones are solar powered.
At the beginning of last semester the campus watched the berm removal, and the beginning of this semester the actual sidewalk path was visible. According to Nunez, the trees taken out for the project were declared dead by the district’s arborist. There are plans for future beautification efforts in the area.
“In some areas we’re really considering the conservation of water, so in some areas we’re only going with bark, that type of material so we don’t overuse irrigation water available in our campus. It was one of the main points in this design. As well, we are adding new trees and plants throughout this pathway,” said Elias.
According to Nguyen, smaller projects are planned to continue ADA compliant changes, but not to the same scale of the one seen in the Shima parking lot.
Other work is planned, as well. Mark Showers, Delta’s manager of Maintenance and Operations, also has plans to continue beautification all across campus.