On Thursday, the city of Davis announced that SACOG (Sacramento Area Council of Governments) awarded the city with $5.4 million to fund five different transportation-related infrastructure projects, with a focus on projects that will improve the safety for cyclists, pedestrians and students throughout the community.
“These projects, including those funding street maintenance, were selected by SACOG because of their emphasis on improving access and safety,” explained Brian Abbanat, city of Davis transportation planner.
According to the city’s release, “The City submitted proposed projects using a ‘complete streets’ philosophy, with emphasis on the projects’ proximity to schools. Complete Streets emphasizes street designs that provide safe and convenient travel for all segments of the population and for all modes of transportation.”
The city’s active transportation coordinator, Dave “DK” Kemp stated, “The City of Davis is striving toward creating an integrated and seamless bikeway network comprised of both on and off street bicycle facilities. This diverse mix of ‘complete streets’ projects will improve bicycle access to schools locally while integrating bicycles with transit on a regional level.”
The projects include: Third Street Improvements connecting city and campus from A Street to B Street ($1,900,000); Regional Bike Share System with Sacramento and West Sacramento; L Street Safety [and access] Improvements ($1,386,000); Mace Boulevard Safety [and access] Improvements ($1,912,000); Bicycle and Pedestrian Wayfinding and Data Collection Program ($192,000); and Bicycle Friendly Business Program ($15,000).
Mayor Joe Krovoza, commenting on the grants, stated, “Our success here is tremendous. We started planning for this important two-year cycle of funding over a year ago, and the results show. Thanks to great community planning by our staff, Bicycle Advisory Commission, and community groups, our success here is the best for Davis in at least a decade.”
“We are deeply appreciative of SACOG and their recognition that the safety benefits these projects will support more exercise and clean transportation community-wide. Our bike network is fantastic most places, but does have difficult spots for some users. These grants will make huge stride,” he added.
Councilmember Lucas Frerichs, who serves on the Executive Committee of the Regional Bike Share System, added, “We’ve worked hard for decades to establish Davis as one of the nation’s most progressive bicycling communities, and the Regional Bike Share System is a next logical step in advancing our city’s goals. I applaud SACOG’s decision to commit funding to this project. Being a healthy and active community is also quite important to us, so the new Regional Bike Share System is a natural fit to expand sustainable transportation options for Davisites and visitors to our city.”
In addition to serving as improvements to bike and pedestrian safety, the grants will allow the city to repair pavement that is badly in need of rehabilitation. The city finally allocated several million a year overall to pavement improvements after reports showed the city in danger of falling hundreds of millions behind.
According to the city’s release, the Third Street Improvements (B Street to the UC Davis campus) stem from a community outreach process that was completed in 2011 to redesign 3rd Street to better serve its primary users: pedestrians and bicyclists.
“Improvements focus on bicycle and pedestrian safety, dramatically improved aesthetics, creation of a university/city gateway, and undergrounded utilities to support mixed use on Third Street from B Street to the UC Davis campus,” the release continued. “The $1,900,000 grant supplements earlier awarded funds to construct bicycle/pedestrian and streetscape improvements on the city-owned segment west of B Street.”
The City is coordinating with UC Davis on additional funding support to cover the unfunded improvements that extend onto campus.
The Regional Bike Share Project (Davis, UC Davis, West Sacramento, Sacramento)was sponsored by the Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District. The city release notes, “This $3,905,000 program will implement an interpretational regional bike share program in Davis, Sacramento and West Sacramento.”
Bike Share programs allow a user to pay a small fee to gain access to a fleet of bikes, which can be checked out and returned to multiple locations.
For Davis, this program will initially host six stations within the city and four stations at UC Davis’ campus and provide the overall community with approximately seventy bicycles for short trips.
“This project is primarily designed to foster bicycle transportation between the downtown train station and the UC Davis campus; however, Davis users will also have access to bike share stations in both West Sacramento and Sacramento,” the city release stated.
The L Street Improvements (Claremont Dr. to 8th Street) will rehabilitate L Street, where the pavement is in need of repair.
According to the city, “This rehabilitation will include complete streets improvements to make the corridor more accessible and safer for all modes of transportation, including cyclists and pedestrians. Bike lanes will be improved, ADA compliant ramps will be installed, and bicycle and pedestrian access will improve the connectivity to Covell Boulevard.”
The Mace Boulevard Complete Street Project (Cowell Blvd. to Redbud Dr.) will increase bicycling and walking and reconstruct pavement in the project area.
According to the city, “Changes include transformation from four vehicular travel lanes to two, rehabilitation of the pavement, addition of buffered bicycle lanes and a two-way buffered cycle track, improvements to the Mace and Cowell intersection for pedestrians and cyclists, and installation of a bicycle/pedestrian traffic signal at Mace Boulevard and San Marino Drive.”
There will also be a city-wide Bicycle and Pedestrian Wayfinding and Data Collection Program that “will implement a bicycle and pedestrian wayfinding system to assist residents and visitors in locating important destinations from bike paths and streets in Davis.”
According to the city, “This is particularly helpful in Davis, where the high number of college students move into and around town each year, often unaware of the bicycle network as part of the overall transportation system.”
The project also includes the installation of permanent and temporary automated bicycle and pedestrian counters at strategic locations throughout Davis “to help city officials gauge bicycling levels, measure the efficacy of new facilities, and determine areas of the city that need improvements.”
Finally a Bicycle Friendly Business Program which is a $15,000 Transportation Demand Management award that will allow the City of Davis to work with local businesses to assist with the application process for the League of American Bicyclist Bicycle Friendly Business designation, “with a goal of getting 50 businesses to earn this designation. One of the goals of this program is to increase employees bicycling to work and to integrate regional transit options as a preferred commute choice. Currently only the City of Davis and UC Davis are designated as Bicycle Friendly Businesses by the League.”
The city had previously received over $800,000 to partially fund the Fifth Street Redesign, which is finally commencing this fall after years of planning. The city also received a HSIP (Highway Safety Improvement Program) grant up to $200,000 and a CDBG (Community Development Block Grant) grant up to $50,000 to cover costs for that project with the remaining funds coming from transportation funds covered by this Capital Improvement Project and the Transportation Road maintenance Program7252.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
Today driving in to work on Fifth Street, I had the thought that residents will likely be more complementary of the road diet once it is complete because of the pent up frustration of impacts during the months of construction. By the time that project is done they won’t remember how well the old design worked.
I do agree that L street needs improvements. There is more traffic there coming from Second street due to the Target area retail and the lack of shopping options in the rest of the city. Bikers are in increasing danger around the area Second Street transitions to L Street, and then along L Street to Fifth Street.
But my hope is that once the Fifth Street road diet plan is complete more bikers will opt to head up and down Fifth Street instead of Second Street.
And related to bike safety, I would like the city to publish and mail a map of suggested bike routes and safety tips. I remember one time at a stop on a busy Davis street to take a right turn… waiting for an opening in a long line of cars coming from the left, as I see the opening and start to go forward, a student biker suddenly appears in front of me crossing the street from the right. A little older with narrowing peripheral vision and I would have likely ran him over. But I stopped in time… just barely.
He yelled at me to watch where I am going.
I yelled back that he may be right but he was almost killed.
And that is the point.
The bicycle activists make it clear that they have the right be be everywhere and anywhere cars can be.
But then they can be hurt or killed by those cars.
And because Davis is so stuck on surrounding the city in a farmland moat and limiting the locations for retail, it creates more auto traffic bottlenecks as residents HAVE to all visit the same location.
We continue to increase the number of people per square mile and number of people per retail location, and we will continue to increase auto-bike encounters. So, we better start an education program for bikers on the safest routes and the safest biking practices.
it worked so well i sat waiting for the light to change for two minutes at 1 am last night with no one on the road.
it worked so well i almost got him a few weeks ago as a car whipped around another car turning left.
it worked so well traffic stopped because of a bicyclist a few months ago.
sure, the current road works well.