Kaiser Permanente wants a new crosswalk mid-block near its Napa facility to protect employees and patients, but is running into roadblocks.

The health care provider on Permanente Way asked the city this spring to paint a crosswalk halfway between Claremont Way and California Boulevard so pedestrians can reach a distant clinic parking lot.

Public works staff shot the proposal down, saying that mid-block crosswalks are inherently unsafe. Motorists don't expect them, giving pedestrians a false sense of security, Farid Javandel, the city's traffic engineer, told the Traffic Advisory Committee last week.

Lyn Howard, site coordinator at Kaiser's Napa clinic, insisted that something had to be done.

Motorists are flying down Permanente from California in an effort to avoid traffic on Trancas Street, Howard said. Meanwhile, large numbers of pedestrians, including patients in wheelchairs, are crossing mid-block between the clinic and the parking lot on the north side of the street, she said.

"We really want a mid-street crosswalk," Howard said. "It's very difficult."

The Napa clinic serves nearly 40,000 Kaiser members with a staff of more than 250 employees, Howard said. For years, Permanente was a dead-end street, with far less traffic than today, she said.

Employees are supposed to park in the northside lot, saving spaces closer to the clinic for members, but some are balking because of the danger of crossing mid-block, she said.

When city staff rejected a painted crosswalk, Kaiser countered with plans for pedestrian-activated flashing lights and curb bulb-outs to narrow the crossing distance. Kaiser's estimated cost: $50,000.

City staff said the city doesn't have the money. Howard, meanwhile, is asking Kaiser to come up with the funds. "I'm pushing in both directions to get it to happen," she said.

A modified bulb-out design, with a single flasher in the center of the road, would cost $45,000, according to Kaiser's estimate.

Councilman Jim Krider encouraged Howard to continue to seek funding from her organization, while agreeing with city staff that a painted crosswalk would not work. "It may open us all up to a higher degree of liability," he said.

Howard predicted that the traffic situation on Permanente Way would only get worse when new commercial development comes to California near Trancas.

The safest way to cross between the north parking lot and the clinic is to go to the intersections with California and Claremont that have marked crosswalks, Javandel said.

Because these intersections are hundreds of feet away, few people will walk that far, he said.

Kaiser shares the north parking lot with the Trancas post office.