A letter writer driving through the Richards Boulevard and Olive Drive area on Sunday afternoon described the situation as getting worse. She even saw perhaps nefarious intentions on the part of the city “for not passing the most recent proposal.”
Sunday was a chaotic day in the downtown anyway. The downtown was bustling with young students arriving for school and their parents – people unfamiliar with the idiosyncrasies of driving downtown and getting around. Are things worse or have we simply forgotten what happens when the college downtown is actually filled with college students – plus their parents?
That is not to say things won’t be getting worse – there are 1000 more students or so enrolled this year than last year, with very little new housing coming on line. That will mean more people filing into Davis each morning and hence more traffic on Richards.
While you can point to things like Redrum Burger, air quality and affordable housing, the chief reason why Nishi lost by some 600 votes was traffic, traffic and more traffic.
While the city has improved on the lighting sequence, which at times last year brought forward a painful trip from Cowell to Richards to the downtown, the main problems still remain. A majority of traffic that goes through Richards is coming from the I-80 off-ramps, which never looked like they were designed to handle such capacity.
The traffic then converges onto the one-lane Richards Blvd. at the tunnel, and continues to press through lights not built to handle such large capacity. First Street is a single-lane street that easily backs up traffic, even as it gets through the tunnel. The majority of traffic turns left on First, and then either heads directly to campus, or much of it heads north on B Street, and left on Russell Boulevard before entering campus either at the north or the west.
A simple answer to Richards that would not generate a huge amount of engineering and construction costs would be figuring out ways to convince those headed to campus from westbound I-80 to use the UC Davis or Hutchison entrances to campus.
Would Nishi have improved the situation? The developers at Nishi would have at the very least created a new option. It involved widening West Olive Drive, creating two turn lanes from Richards, and then an underpass that took vehicles onto campus, dumping them off on Old Davis road near the parking garage.
That change would have at least thinned the jam of traffic headed for the tunnel, but may have triggered the need for upgrades along Old Davis Road.
The second part of the problem on Richards is that the I-80 interchange is completely illogical. That is particularly true of the traffic exiting on westbound I-80, where the off-ramp attempts a merge onto Richards. During peak hours, the off-ramp backs up and you have this mesh of cars – some of which are merging onto Richards, some of which want to go right onto east Olive Drive, and they mix with bikes and buses to form what could be a deadly cocktail of interactions
There is a corridor plan that would change the configuration.
First, it will widen the westbound off-ramp to three lanes, which will “prevent cars from dangerously stacking up on I-80. This will provide a smoother transition and added capacity for people traveling to downtown, campus and south Davis.”
Second, it will move the off-ramp closer to the bridge, with a tight diamond to create more distance from the Olive Drive intersection. “This will eliminate the dangerous weave conditions from the existing cloverleaf reads that conflict with cyclists.”
However, with the loss of Nishi, one of the big questions is whether this corridor plan will get funded and, even if it does, we are still looking at five years or more before completion.
In our view, the city probably erred in attempting to put Nishi on the ballot before dealing with Olive Drive. Nishi may or may not come back as soon as 2018. If the developers bring it back, it would be in everyone’s best interest to attempt to fix Olive Drive.
How the city is going to do that without the $23 million or so in infrastructure improvements that was promised by Nishi is a tough question. But it is hard to see the community approving additional development along Richards, even as the Hotel Conference Center is limbo, without first addressing traffic.
Again, in our view, the easiest and lowest cost is to find a way to change driving behavior – a tall task to be sure, but something that should be prioritized now while we have the chance.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
” A majority of traffic that goes through Richards is coming from the I-80 off-ramps which never look like they were designed to handle such capacity.”
The freeway ramps were rebuilt in the 90’s to handle more capacity in anticipation of a tunnel expansion that got voted down. Its the tunnel that was never rebuilt that creates the bottleneck.
As has been shown many times, “rebuilding” the tunnel moves the bottlneck into downtown one block.
Caltrans is not in the habit of rebuilding interchanges for unsure outcomes. The interchange needed improvement regardless, and the tight diamond offers several capacity advantages while using less land and is safer.
As a new guy it seems that a significant problem is that going through the tunnel takes you to an intersection where most people turn left instead of going straight through. There are a couple of ways to deal with this. The first would be to prohibit left turns on first and push the traffic onto E street. The other would be to eliminate the crosswalk at 1st and E and push left hand turns through more efficiently.
The problem is there is no better capacity on E St to handle the traffic
then you need to reduce the number of options of what people can do at that intersection. For example you could make the first block one way north bound which would give two lanes to absorb traffic and would eliminate needing a light sequence for people on E to enter the intersection. This would cycle the intersection faster and reduce back-up through the tunnel.
Thankfully people only travel one direction.
And the peds/bikes would do what, run across the traffic with no protection? That idea isn’t even sane.
Since most of the traffic during the peak is turning left, pushing it into downtown filled with stop signs would create traffic constipation and cause all so going to make three extra turns.
My apologies for violating DV tradition by proposing an actual workable solution. To make amends I will first propose that someone else has to do what I say:
“UCD should fix this”
Second I will propose something that is not workable no matter who does it:
“We should have sky hook dorms that float above the campus and use teleportation for transit”
Now that I have appeased tradition the basic principle is to reduce the number of actions people can take and optimize flow for the given actions. Approaching the intersection of Richards/E and 1st each direction of travel should have two options. Each option can slow down the cycling of the light and present a possibility of backup. There are a number of ways of doing this though the ped/bike access will be relocated to the safest position given the traffic flow. If E street is routed south only then the access will be to the traffic island, if E is north only then the access will be at D street.
I disagree that making this intersection better for cars is our highest priority. I think the higher priority is bike access over the tracks for Olive Drive is the higher priority.
I agree about the Olive access over the tracks
Build the access before Lincoln40 is completed ?
That’s what the form-based consultants said after the meeting. They recommended (unofficially) that the City pass a resolution that bikes and peds come first in planning, not cars. New paradigm.
The Davis Arch solves problems for all three forms of transportation at this intersection. The Arch should be a top priority — it is a great design.
whats the latest arch design look like ?
“A simple answer to Richards that would not generate a huge amount of engineering and construction costs would be figuring out ways to convince those headed to campus from westbound I-80 to use the UC Davis or Hutchison entrances to campus.”
As a close neighbor and frequent user of this intersection, I have at times wondered why there is no signage indicating that there is no direct campus entrance from the Richards off ramp,or to designate the best routes ? Is this something that takes an “act of Congress” to achieve? I remember former Mayor Krovoza managed to get a freeway sign changed when there was an error in number of miles. Perhaps something like this would help to redirect west bound traffic to the more direct campus entry points ?
Yup.
But not for these Davis voters.
They reap what they sow and then whine about it.
Yup.
What a novel idea David has: fix the road system BEFORE approving bunches of new high density development.
You all know, right, that UCD planners want nothing to do with Nishi and tunnels and a high density congested road through the middle of their core campus housing locations ?
Thank you, No on A voters
Of course Michael, but UCD has no problem using our roads and tunnel to get people onto campus. How convenient.
I’ll “yup” that statement as well.
That is how it works in the real world Mike. You approve developments and include the road infrastructure improvements as a requirement of the project. How else does it get paid for?
I’ll “yup” on that, too.
What we have to avoid is (we thought) promised improvements that don’t materialize because they weren’t actually “do”-able, such as the Cannery – H Street vapor trail. Building after is OK (not optimal), if there is a DO-able way to achieve it. Trotting it out as a “wouldn’t it be nice” doesn’t actually build infrastructure.
UCD should house most of their new students
UCD should take most of the traffic that goes onto campus
Could it be that you are both correct? Come on guys, win/win sometimes.
I think JB is right on this. UCD should house a lot more students, and more traffic could be directed to the Old Davis Road and Hutchinson on/off ramps.
There is the long term (growing) capacity problem, which I don’t think we can address in a comments section – it involves a real whole picture approach to Richards/Olive/Nishi.
However, in the short term, some simple fixes could be implemented to make travel over Richards safer for bikers by discouraging cars.
I’ve never understood why so many people use 1st street to access campus. Hutchison and Old Davis road have much more capacity and, if you time it out, it is almost always faster to use one of those off ramps. Why not simply stop the access to campus from 1st St to Old Davis Road?
For example one could make it a “bus only” ingress to old Davis Rd from 1st St. This would greatly discourage traffic coming Westbound on first, with the consequence of dissuading the use of Richards I 80 exit to access campus.
This is not a permanent fix, and will, of course, create some inconveniences for people. However, it will greatly reduce the use of Richards for campus car access. That’ll increase bike safety over the bridge.
Sometimes a little paint and a sign is purely cosmetic … sometimes a little paint and a sign is can actually fix a problem. I think that, in the case of Richards, it would go a long way to fixing a problem – in the short term.
Interesting idea. For discussion sake, what if only buses could turn right from Old Davis road to first street from 4pm-6pm.
Yeah, something like that! If we think of this as a load balance problem, not an infrastructure problem, some creative redirection would go a long way.
I wouldn’t say “no” to any idea until a real brain storming session is played out. But you need folks to be open minded and willing to accept a little inconvenience for the greater good.
I see only one short-term solution: selectively close or congestion-meter the campus entrance/exit at 1st and Old Davis. Attenuate in-bound (to UCD) traffic in the morning commute and outbound in the afternoon. Erect signs at the Southern UCD garages to emphasize alternative routes to/from I-80. No, UCD traffic is not the only problem. But it’s probably the only part of the problem that can be addressed in the short term.