The City of Davis just finished its comprehensive remodel of Second Street, with the help of grant funding. Now the city will look at redesigning Third Street, pending council approval of the plan.
According to the staff report, “The Third Street Improvements project is a streetscape design and construction project of the two-block segment of Third Street between A Street and B Street as well as the B Street alley between Second Street and Fourth Street.”
The plan presents two design concepts. The first is the “Diamond and Stripe Paving Pattern & Gateway Arches” and the second is the “while creating a ‘gateway’ connection between Downtown and UC Davis.”
The staff appears to be recommending the second design option which “features a circular paving pattern that is reminiscent of bicycle wheels and gears. Gateway features include a Bicycle Counter Gateway Marker feature in the center of the project site at Third and University, with smaller complementary gateway pylons at Third St. and A/B St.”
The staff report continues, “The gateway marker serves as central focal point on the street at the intersection of Third and University and is incorporated into the traffic diversion island here. Similar to devices in Copenhagen, Denmark, the monument would incorporate a mechanism for measuring and displaying the volume of bicycle traffic on a daily and yearly basis, creating an interactive experience marking the passage through this gateway by bicycle, and encouraging and measuring the successful growth in cycling through this corridor.”
Here are the renderings of Design A and Design B.
To be honest, I am not sure I am all that fond of either one. I will discuss this more at the end.
In the meantime, the staff represents three circulation concepts. Writes the staff report, “Circulation Concept 1 preserves existing automobile circulation access and patterns. Circulation Concept 2 removes the bollards at the Third Street/University Avenue intersection, allowing a greater range of vehicle manuevers. Circulation Concept 3 would restrict automobiles from Third Street.”
“After considerable analysis and exploration, staff recommends Circulation Concept 1, which maintains existing access and circulation,” they write. “While automobile access will be maintained, by carefully designing a pedestrian-like street surface, narrow travel way, and removal of on-street parking, automobiles will feel uncomfortable traveling on Third Street.”
The staff considered and evaluated closing Third Street altogether between B Street and A, but rejected that idea based on a number of considerations.
While Second Street was funded nearly exclusively with Grants, the funding for Third Street appears to have multiple sources.
The first phase is complete and funded through the Capitol Improvement Program and a Caltrans grant. “The existing agreement for professional services related to Phase 1 total $90,068 and is funded by CIP #8164 ($50,168) and a Caltrans grant ($39,900).”
The second phase is pending council and Redevelopment Agency approval. Writes the staff, “Phase 2 is funded with $40,000 in unused Community Development Block Grant funds from the 1st St Garage and South Fork Preserve Public Access CIP’s and $435,980 from RDA Capital 2011 TE Bonds fund balance. The Redevelopment Agency will be reimbursed a proportionate share of costs from Water and Sewer funds at an appropriate point during Phase 2.”
Overall, here is how the city intends to fund the entire project.
The Third Street Improvements project supports four Council goals, according to city staff. First is sustainability, as it supposedly “reduces the community’s carbon footprint, focuses on mobility systems that will reduce carbon emissions, reduces automobile and energy use, and creates a people-centric urban design environment.”
Second, it supposedly helps Downtown Davis as it “improves downtown as a bicycle and pedestrian friendly location.”
Third, it improves “Community Strength and Effectiveness” because it “actively seeks input and feedback from the community and strives to provide transparency and valuable information to citizens in a timely and respectful fashion.”
Finally it helps improve infrastructure since it “Sustains and/or enhances existing infrastructure and contributes to a safe and efficient circulation system.”
There are a lot of buzzwords thrown out in the staff report. But this all gets back to the initial objection I had to the whole 3rd and B revisioning project. As I have related on a number of locations, the section of Third Street between A and B is one of my favorite portions of town.
Davis does not really have a classic college town feel in most portions of it, but it does in this section. It is difficult to square the college town and old town feel with the very modern redesign of Third Street they propose.
Of the two options, the first one is far too ostentatious with its grandiose welcoming gateway. It doesn’t feel like you are about to enter a world class university.
The second design tones down that approach, but you are still basically entering an artificial facelift on the current street. Why not block it off to traffic and deal with the traffic flow problems elsewhere if you truly want to create a gateway?
But to me, the old cottages and student rental units are part of the charm and that will be gone. I just feel that we will lose a lot of our identity by removing this portion of the city’s history.
And it is not a true transition to the downtown, as the core is really several blocks away. Instead it appears an enclave walled off by B Street, which has become a dissecting thoroughfare choked with traffic.
I know a lot of people disagree with me on this, but if you want to improve the transition to downtown, you have to figure out what to do with B Street. Everything else flows from there.
One more point, looking at the complex funding scheme, I think council needs to remember that we are at a time when we are having to use general fund money to pay for basic road repairs, and yet we are finding five million dollars plus in all sorts of places for an elaborate project. These may be needed changes, they may not be. But it seems logical that we ought to at least try to do basic road repairs and other unmet needs first before elaborate projects.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
[quote]One more point looking at the complex funding scheme, I think council needs to remember that we are at a time when we are having to use general fund money to pay for basic road repairs and yet we are finding five million dollars plus in all sorts of places for an elaborate project. These may be needed changes, they may not be. But it seems logical that we ought to at least try to do basic road repairs and other unmet needs first before elaborate projects.[/quote]
Bingo! You would never know from this project that we are in an economic crisis. This is exactly why taxpayers are reluctant to vote for being taxed more, or to even continue the current tax levels that exist. Gov’t seems to find ways to spend inordinate amounts of money on frills. And this is most definitely a frill, IMHO.
On the other hand, if the grant money is out there, I cannot fault our city staff for going after it. But I also don’t quite understand how water/sewer funding are somehow finding their way into this project. And $1.5 million in RDA funding is being used for this project, when it is not clear RDA’s are going to even be in existence by next year. Is part of the reason this project is being pushed now, is to use up existing RDA funding before the state can get its hands on it?
If anyone wants to know why I think Davis should dissolve its RDA and use the incremental tax revenues that South Davis residents are paying elsewhere in the city, look no further than this project. $1.5 million of South Davis residents’ property taxes are going to make a fancy facelift for 3rd Street. Is this area blighted?
This part of the Third Street Improvement Project (CIP #8164) caught my eye last night. (Does anyone know when it got added to the project?)
“6. Direct staff to evaluate conversion of existing on-street parallel parking to diagonal
parking on the east side of University Avenue between Fourth Street and Russell
Blvd to compensate for parking removal on Third Street.”
This is the block face right next to the University Avenue side of Davis Townhouse Apartments, where I lived for 22 years.
Unless staff also contemplates removing the permit-only parking rules along that block face, I don’t think the current parkers along Third Street will benefit from the new diagonal parking because much (all?) of the parking along Third between is not permit-only, if memory serves.
Even worse, removing the permit-only rules along east side of the 400 block of University Avenue would return the area to the bad old days of the cars circling over and over–often too fast–and idling in the street while hunting for parking. The circling would affect a larger part of the neighborhood than this one block.
Also, it is tight enough now for two cars going in opposite directions to get past one another on that block when both sides are parked up, which happens most weekends. Adding diagonal parking on one side could only make this worse.
I agree with Don. Sometimes it appears RDA funds are like a slush fund for pet projects. I’d prefer to see more posts related to redevelopment agency funds and less about Zipcar.
If the Council approves the E/F parking garage, the RDA will have no funds for this project or any other. The 4.5 story parking garage will use up ALL of the RDA money and then some, according to what Katherine Hess told me last night when she presented that project to our HRMC meeting.
Note: I am not exactly sure why the HRMC is being kept up to date on the E/F parking garage project (which is near just one historic property) but we have never had the 3rd Street project on our agenda, despite the fact that it abuts a Landmark and it will affect (probably for the good) a number of Merit resources.