This is the single most powerful chart on travel in Davis. It comes from the UC Davis Travel Survey and what it finds is rather profound while, at the same time, almost obvious.
If you are concerned about traffic impacts in the city, then there is a simple answer – build more housing close to campus.
The dividing line in how people get to campus is rather clear. If you live within 4.9 miles of campus, the vast majority of people either use the bus or bike or walk. If you live outside of that 4.9 mile radius, the vast majority of people drive alone.
You may say, duh. Naturally the closer you live to campus, the less likely you are to actually drive to get there. But the striking feature is just how profound those numbers actually are and their implications for land use decisions.
At the first level, within a mile of campus, 76 percent bike to campus while another 17.4 percent walk or skate. That means that within that first mile of campus, nearly 94 percent of residents use modes of transportation other than motor vehicles. And if you add in that 4.3 percent take the bus, nearly 98 percent of all people within a mile of campus do not drive.
So for those looking toward Lincoln40 this week or Nishi in June, if you want to reduce VMT (vehicle miles traveled) to campus, if you want to reduce traffic congestion during peak hours and on Richards Boulevard, if you want to reduce GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions, building projects close to campus that allow students to walk or bike is a game changer.
That might seem obvious and perhaps it is. What is always striking to me is that the next two levels are robust as well.
Modes of transportation shift when you get within 2.9 miles of campus, but not by as much as you think.
It is probably important to understand distances. From Sterling to the MU (Memorial Union) is 1.7 miles. From South Davis Nugget to the MU is 4.2 miles. In the other direction, Sycamore Lane Apartments to the MU is 0.7 miles. To the Arlington Farm Apartments it’s 2.4 miles. To the Silverstone Apartments north of Covell, it’s 2.7 miles.
The vast majority of the city of Davis is within 2.9 miles of campus. They project in the survey a population of 34,500 within that distance. At that distance, just 15 percent drive while 52 percent bike and another 31 percent take the bus.
If you go out one more level, there are another 2000 or so people within five miles of campus, and even there 57 percent bike or take the bus, versus around 43 percent who drive.
Get outside the city of Davis, and over 75 percent drive alone, and really the number is over 90 percent for those who use some sort of vehicle. Busing falls to less than 10 percent across the board outside of Davis. Only when you get to 20 or more miles out, still about 3000 projected population, do you get a significant number, 10 percent, who use the train.
The lesson here is obvious. One of the complaints about Nishi 1.0 was that it would supposedly add traffic impacts to Richards Blvd. One of the current complaints about Lincoln40 is the same. The traffic analysis does a poor job – in my opinion – of modeling the decline of traffic that has to use I-80 to get to campus via Richards Blvd.
But what this chart demonstrates and demonstrates very clearly is that the more housing you put close to campus, the less people will drive and the more people will walk or bike. People complained 
that Sterling was too far from campus. Well it’s 1.7 miles from the MU. As we pointed out at the time, at that distance, you are looking at a 15 percent drive rate to campus.
Some believe that the additional biking through the Richards-Olive Drive intersection will cause traffic delays. The city is hoping to fix that intersection through the creation of an overpass. The developers at Lincoln40 are going to contribute to that. The city has also applied for a grant.
Staff believes that the EIR has adequately addressed the issue with expert analysis and potential mitigation measures down the road. The overpass will not be required as a condition of approval, rather it is a down-the-line solution. Some believe that is not sufficient, but I think the immediate problem is vastly overstated.
Yes, there are going to be 708 additional residents but it is not like they are all coming out of the apartment project at once.
That is not the case, and the intersection can handle pretty easily the additional volume of traffic and bikes expected to be generated per hour by Lincoln40.
Fehr & Peers did the Traffic Study for the Richards-Olive Drive Corridor. Keep in mind that not only will there likely be an overpass at some time, within five years, the Richards-I80 interchange and the configuration of the Richards-Olive Drive intersection will be reconstructed.
The corridor study concluded that, even with the planned development at Mace Ranch Innovation Center (MRIC, currently on hold), the Hotel Conference Center (which has since been downsized) and Nishi (defeated at the polls), there is sufficient capacity to handle the vehicular volumes at the Olive-Richards intersection. And that is under an existing conditions analysis.
The corridor study further notes, “The final memorandum on the Lincoln40 trip generation and distribution shows lower traffic volumes of 45 AM and 63 PM peak hour trips based on further trip generation studies.” (The original estimates were 62 in the AM and 85 in the PM during peak hours)
There will be more bicycles coming through that intersection, but at the rate of perhaps 1.3 per minute additional at the peak. That’s not going to cause problems for the intersection.
The bigger picture is building more housing within that one mile distance from campus will fix more problems than will be caused by additional residents. That is what we want.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
Here is the part that I wish were more obvious:
We give lip service to reducing motor-vehicle trips, while we continue to do everything we can to make car use easy and convenient at the expense of our money, land, the environment, and all other forms of transportation.
Of course it is best to live near our daily destinations. Next step is to create the balanced transportation infrastructure that is needed to support the live/work/school dream. It is time to stop being “friendly” to active transportation, and time to start prioritizing it. Let’s make a town to live in, not to drive to and through.
>>Some believe that the additional bike(s) through the Richards-Olive Drive intersection will cause traffic delays.<<
This sort of thinking is destructive to proper planning. Read that again; the bit about traffic delays. Traffic is the transportation of people and things. People on bikes do not delay the traffic. They ARE the traffic. And incrementally more riders will not increase the riders’ delay. The people who chose to drive might be delayed if there are more people on bikes. Isn’t the stated goal to reduce driving? Yet the plan is to dump a bunch more money into motor vehicle infrastructure to reduce the delay of driving (note that I do not say “traffic”). And yes, I understand that there will be a bit of bike/ped infrastructure installed around the edges because, Davis. The active transportation part will cost pennies on the dollar compared to what we will provide for the people who choose to drive.
If we continue to prioritize motor vehicle transportation, why bother to build more things in town to avoid car trips?
Stop with the stupid scarcity mindset and build smart developments and robust public transportation infrastructure. We prioritize nothing because of the stupid scarcity mindset.
Hi Jeff
You really didn’t think that you were going to bring up scarcity mindset unchallenged did you? You are completely ignoring the fact that not all items or processes are created equal. Let’s look at a few things that we would be better off with less of. Cigarette consumption – if we cut back ( scarcity mindset) the population would be healthier. Same for alcohol and recreational drugs. I would take this a step further and say that we would have a healthier population overall as Ken alludes to in his 9:35 post.
I am all for abundance of those items and activities that contribute positively to our environment and our lives. While the gas burning automobile allowed for advances in our lives, we took the “abundance mindset” with regard to cars and infrastructure designed for cars, but detrimental to people to an extreme. That extreme led to abundance of things that are not good for us such as smog, miles of strip malls, parking lots, freeways, a sedentary lifestyle causing health problems and premature deaths. I know you like to think in terms of black and white, since you have said so, but with transportation, the situation is far more nuanced and it is rarely a simple matter of abundance vs scarcity.
Force scarcity Tia.
For you to argue that forced scarcity is good for all of us free people means that you have to first assume that there is a qualified ruling class of people that make these decisions for the rest of the ignorant masses too stupid to make their own good choices in life. And second, you ignore negative consequences of forced-scarcity as just an inconvenient means to your desired end.
From the larger perspective this is the trend toward totalitarianism and then the end to collectivism (because it eventually requires a larger police state to enforce all those forced-scarcity rules you can concoct).
Interesting that you bring up cigarettes since the forced-scarcity rules caused a larger police state that killed Eric Gardner.
If you want more people to ride bikes or take public transportation, then advocate for abundant bike and public transportation infrastructure. How about advocating for ending our practice of million dollar retirement benefits for 50-something year old government employees and instead use the money for abundance in city services that encourage people to make these good life choices?
The problem with forced-scarcity is that it can also be forced on you and cause you to lose freedoms and values you cherish. It is a much better path to advocated for abundance of things that offer the better life choice. For example, I see development in motorized bikes as an abundance solution. The cities that have installed the ebike infrastructure have all noted a big increase in bike ridership. These are abundance solutions. Not only do they work better, but they do so in a way that promotes freedom of abundant choice… which makes for a much more enjoyable way to live.
Jeff,
Unlimited abundance isn’t possible–it’s a myth that we don’t need to make tradeoffs. We also do things that impact other people, e.g., pollute the air with our cars. Unfettered markets can’t address all of these interplaying factors, in part because it’s not possible to define individual property rights in many things, such as air quality. But as a society we can exercise our collective property right by limiting use of these types of resources by individuals. (I’ll leave the methods of limitation to the unstated details.) These situations are why we have governments. It’s not a trend towards totalitarianism (unless you consider the rise of the corporate state as the real threat)–it’s an awareness that our interactions impact others, and that becomes more evident as our planet grows more crowded. Freedom and liberty is valuable but so is responsibility. Too many people ignore their responsibilities to others.
Are you not championing forced scarcity of active transportation infrastructure?
Has the “ruling class” decided that billions for car infrastructure is better for us than millions for cycling infrastructure?
>> The cities that have installed the ebike infrastructure have all noted a big increase in bike ridership. These are abundance solutions. Not only do they work better, but they do so in a way that promotes freedom of abundant choice… which makes for a much more enjoyable way to live. <<
And this is why I advocate for infrastructure that allows the freedom of choosing the the most appropriate transportation for a given trip. We don't have that when we continue to prioritize for the automobile. In this last paragraph you pretty much sum up my advocacy life. Yet you see the result of what I want as "forced scarcity." So I'm confused. I'm simply arguing against motor vehicle abundance that we have now.
I ride a bike most days in Davis so I am not “anti-bike” but just like a couple old people with walkers will “slow” the flow of people on a sidewalk or in a hall people on bikes will tend to “slow” the flow of traffic on any road that does not have a big bike lane.
I’m not happy that so many Americans are big and fat and don’t want to ever ride a bike or walk over a 1/4 mile, but the reality is that most Americans are out of shape and don’t ride bikes or like to walk very far so if (as a city) we don’t make “car use easy and convenient” most retailers in the city will close and and office buildings in the city will be mostly empty.
When Darrel says “why bother to build more things in town to avoid car trips?” I’m wondering if he knows people in Davis who are driving to work and shopping every day and saying “I would be riding my bike every day if David built _____ so I could cut back on car use”.
Every now and then I’ll here parents shocked that we let our kids ride bikes to school on the street say “I would let my kids ride to school if they did not have to go on the street, but even at the Davis schools with direct bike path access where a huge number of kids can ride to school without ever going on a street not many more kids ride to school (and a scary number of young kids are out of shape).
“I’m wondering if he knows people in Davis who are driving to work and shopping every day and saying “I would be riding my bike every day if David built _____ so I could cut back on car use”.
We exist. When I was raising my family, I would have said exactly this when I lived in Northstar not by my choice but because my ex was adamant and I was still trying to preserve family unity. As soon as I had a reasonable opportunity, I moved to OED specifically to wean myself off car use. I am being reasonable successful. Same with my partner who for several years was able to trade in driving solo into Sacramento for walking to the train station.
As a side note, one does not have to depend upon proximity to Amtrak for public transportation to Sacramento. Yolobus commuter lines also do so, quite well. Did it for years, myself. Completely subsidized, by my employer. (I wonder if UCD has a similar arrangement, for Yolobus commuters to campus?)
I would like to see a survey of the adult bike riders in this town to understand the cohort of life-styles they live.
– UCD employee?
– Works from a home office?
– Retired or partially retired?
– Perpetual student?
– Otherwise does not have a regular job?
– Lots of free/leisure time in their schedules… or has a lot of flextime in their schedules?
– Works in town in a job that requires no meetings or travels outside of town?
– Lives in the core area and not the periphery?
– No kids?
– Kids but none of with hauling needs (lots of activities and/or large equipment to move around)?
– No senior relatives that need to be transported?
– No physical impairments?
– No shopping needs outside of Davis… because Davis has everything a person needs to shop for.
My sense is that most that advocate for forced scarcity of auto travel support are fortunate in lifestyle and simply intolerant of those not like them.
Why do you wish to survey only adults? The thousands and thousands of kids who cycle in this town don’t have a lifestyle that we should serve? Because they don’t have “regular jobs” and such? Is our town to be built around only working adults?
And why is the implication made that those who advocate for better infrastructure for active transportation want forced scarcity of auto travel? I thought the article was on naturally reducing auto travel by building more stuff near where people want to go. And with less auto travel would come with it less need for the car infrastructure, yes? Does our current transportation infrastructure equate to forced scarcity of bike and ped travel? I argue that it does. But that scarcity doesn’t seem to matter?
Those who transport themselves by bike and foot when it makes sense, also generally drive when driving makes sense, assuming that they *can* drive. So the either/or implication of your questions is not relevant. Can you imagine someone who rides into town to work, has their kids ride themselves to school, and then hops into a car when a huge load needs to be hauled out of town, or for a family vacation? That’s my life. Transportation is not black and white.
For fun, I thought I’d take your survey:
– UCD employee?
No, but I do have meetings on campus.
– Works from a home office?
Mostly. But also visit clients.
– Retired or partially retired?
A qualified yes, but I’ve never worked more in my life, so maybe not relevant.
– Perpetual student?
Ha. No.
– Otherwise does not have a regular job?
I’m not sure what a “regular job” is these days. Still defined as 9-5? I have more work now than at any other time in my life. None of it is “regular.”
– Lots of free/leisure time in their schedules… or has a lot of flextime in their schedules?
I created my life around flexible time. And because I don’t need to carve out time to work out at the gym, nor do I watch much TV, I have some “free” time that others might schedule different.
– Works in town in a job that requires no meetings or travels outside of town?
Nope. I work were the job is. In town or out of town.
– Lives in the core area and not the periphery?
Periphery. Or at least the other side of the freeway from downtown.
– No kids?
Wife, kid, dog.
– Kids but none of with hauling needs (lots of activities and/or large equipment to move around)?
Lots of hauling needs. Tandem bicycle. Panniers. Cargo bike. Trailer. And if the need is big enough… car!
– No senior relatives that need to be transported?
Three who can no longer really transport themselves.
– No physical impairments?
More than I can count, and this is why I’ve begun using a pedal-assist bike. And why I sometimes drive.
– No shopping needs outside of Davis… because Davis has everything a person needs to shop for.
I have plenty of shopping needs outside of davis. Just yesterday I brought home a heavy tool from Woodland. I used my car.
Fair enough. Good to understand that you also need a car at times and thus must value the ability to drive on the roads.
I think with a working life that allows for schedule flexibility you are much more able to ride and can shed the car more often.
Personally I have two jobs and often need to travel to both location and otherwise have meetings to attend in Sacramento and other surrounding places. There are morning where I wake up thinking I am going to peddle to work, and then check my calendar and realize that I need to take the car. I am thinking about getting a plug-in or hybrid vehicle and leave it at the office to use.
I have seven employees that live in Sacramento and commute to and from Davis every day. At least four of them would prefer to live in Davis but cannot afford it due to the forced-scarcity of Davis housing.
There are some people who can’t drive, and that can be for many, many reasons. Old and young age, vision, health and other impairments, cost, licensing, etc. And if we optimize our society for private motor vehicles, we sideline these people.
For those of us who make the choice to not drive for short/easy trips into town, we mostly also drive when that’s the most practical and convenient choice. And that is usually OUT of town. On the freeway. Indeed, most of us who choose bicycle transportation also own cars, drive cars, and are licensed. And each time we ride instead of drive, we create a better experience for those who DO need to drive. Why cyclists aren’t thanked (instead of ridiculed) is beyond me. Every cyclist in town is one more open parking space for a driver who needs his car. Every cyclist represents that much less congestion, air pollution and road wear. And cycling significantly decreases the danger to other road users.
It is not uncommon for me to ride for an in-town errand and then a meeting, then ride home, get in the car, and drive to Sacramento. There is no black-and-white here. There is no one-size-fits all here. Using the right tool for the job–if you are fortunate enough to have the choice of tools–is the answer. If folks who didn’t need to drive, did NOT drive, we’d have 10x more parking than we could use, and our roads would be so much more useful. Instead, many people would like to assert their “right” to drive because that’s what they prefer. This means that the people who *need* to drive, have a tough time of it. And for some reason, angry motorists often point at cyclists and the related infrastructure as the problem, instead of the solution. Why drivers don’t point at other “convenience” drivers is beyond me.
>>I think with a working life that allows for schedule flexibility you are much more able to ride and can shed the car more often.<
Quite true. And purposefully so, as I’ve mentioned before. But I should mention here that I often ride for work so that I’m not late, by being stuck in traffic in my car. Many people think that driving places in town is much faster. It isn’t.
Daily I see thousands of able-bodied people driving to lunch, dinner, movies, hair-styling, coffee, beer, window-shopping. These activities don’t strike me as being “inflexible” errands that somehow require a car. So how my working life is scheduled really isn’t all that important here. There are many, many people who drive in Davis who aren’t restricted from riding due to job scheduling. And why so many of our downtown employees feel the need to drive a mile or two or three is also mystifying (sideways glance at David).
They prefer to drive. You seem to be having a lot of trouble with this concept.
If we make it easier for cars to get around we actually make it easier for those “who can’t drive, and that can be for many, many reasons” since they almost always travel by car (with parents driving for the young and with kids or Uber or cabs for the old). We are not going to have any more kids riding to concerts in Sacramento or old people riding to doctors appointments in Sacramento if we had better bike lanes…
“I would be riding my bike every day if David built _____ so I could cut back on car use”.”
I have to built it?
That would be super if you’d get on that David. Thanks.
>> I’m wondering if he knows people in Davis who are driving to work and shopping every day and saying “I would be riding my bike every day if <<
Wonder no more. The answer is yes. They’re all around us. Every member of my family fits this to some extent. We would ALL ride more in town if the transportation system was not so amazingly skewed toward the mighty motor vehicle. And parents of school kids? Consistently we hear that the kids are not allowed to ride because of all the dangerous car traffic.
Parents are polled somewhat regularly. And we consistently hear is that their kids would ride to school if the parents felt that they would be safe. To make kids on bikes safe, Davis needs to build ____ so they could cut back on car use.
The supposition that many (most?) kids who can ride on “direct bike path access” and choose not to has no supporting evidence. And just because there is a bike path, does not mean that it is good/safe/comfortable to use. H-Street tunnel, anybody? Making cycling possible is not the same as making it practical. Printing “Bike Lane” in the door zone of our streets, and allowing giant root heaves in our paths is not what we’re after. If you look at any other place in the world that truly prioritizes active transportation, you will see that the case of “build it and they will come” is usually accurate.
The 5th Street redesign is an outstanding bit of evidence.
Repetitive articles from David, again. Again, the chart shows that approximately 37% of Davis residents drive to campus.
As darelldd notes, bicyclists are part of traffic. However, adding more residents who travel through city streets and intersections increases congestion for all traffic, regardless of mode of travel. That’s simply common sense, and seems to be a point that is (sometimes) ignored by my bicycling friends. And, it doesn’t make much sense (other than $ concerns) to add new developments that require new bicyclists, pedestrians, and new auto drivers to negotiate impacted, dangerous intersections prior to constructing “promised” dedicated overpasses.
Sure, those who live closest to campus are generally less likely to drive to campus, then those who live farther away. Of course, driving is not limited to trips to campus. (As a side note, it does seem that public transportation options are improving, since new commuter lines were added in recent years. However, these might be better-suited for faculty/staff, than students.) In any case, those who live in the city often drive through it, vs. those who might exit from Highway 113, for example.
In any case, David is ignoring the obvious solution for students, which is on-campus housing (which doesn’t require expensive, taxpayer-funded infrastructure, to access campus).
If you expect both overpasses for Lincoln40 to be built anytime soon, perhaps one should refer to the effort at the Cannery.
“In any case, David is ignoring the obvious solution for students, which is on-campus housing”
I’m not ignoring it, I have addressed the issue many times. The university is planning to build 8500 beds in the next ten years. Adding additional off-campus help will help alleviate the housing crunch as well as reduce traffic impacts.
At the same time, I’ll continue to point out, on-campus housing is 60 percent more expensive than off-campus housing.
Not sure that your percentage is correct. However, if so, perhaps that’s another reason to pursue an agreement with UCD. How much will it actually help, if the 8,500 beds are more expensive than what can be obtained in the city (or in surrounding communities)? Also, do you think a developer and UCD are willing to actually build units that are not priced competitively? Seems like they’d have trouble filling them, if not competitively priced.
Note the agreement between Santa Cruz and UC Santa Cruz, which requires the university to help pay for off-campus transportation improvements, and includes requirements regarding student housing, number of enrollments, and the number of motor vehicle trips, to campus.
http://lrdp.ucsc.edu/settlement-summary.shtml
I’m sure that my stats are correct as I pulled them from the university’s own data.
Seems to me that you were comparing on-campus housing that included meals. And, may not have been accounting for the fact that on-campus housing might not require a full year commitment.
I’ve seen advertisements for off-campus housing, in which a student is “stuck” with a year-long lease, and therefore wishes to sublet the unit for a short period (e.g., after a quarter ends).
In any case, you may be pointing out a bigger problem. If so, then the “8,500 plan” that you keep referring to may not even be viable. (Perhaps about as viable as building bicycle/pedestrian overpasses, without sufficient funds!)
I recall that Don posted a link for another university (a UC, I believe) in which a particular on-campus housing development was required to be less-expensive than off-campus housing. Perhaps he could repost that.
I ran a full article on the numbers – you can take a look
https://davisvanguard.org/2018/02/monday-morning-thoughts-got-blame-uc-davis-narrative-wrong-student-housing-campus/
Ron, I really don’t understand what your point is. It seems that you just get irritated with data that does not support your views and start typing.
Are you really taking the position that there are not a significant number of UCD employees and students driving to and from the campus?
Jeff: Not seeing a connection between what I actually said, and your interpretation of it.
I’ve noticed that neither David nor you have actually responded to the points I made.
Ron: I am seriously not sure what your argument is against the chart posted by David in this article. Is it that you don’t believe that we have about 6,600 UCD employees and/or students driving to and from the campus every day?
Jeff: I’ll just repeat some comments I’ve already made, since it hasn’t been responded to (and addresses your point):
Not necessarily, but I will certainly agree that it should mitigate the increase in traffic outside of campus.
You have to assume that students only travel to and from campus, and will not need to travel to services outside of the campus. Adding campus housing will add traffic and use of city infrastructure without any increase in tax revenue to deal with it.
I think it is reasonable for UCD to help pay for the city infrastructure costs resulting from student growth. Are you working on that?
>> However, adding more residents who travel through city streets and intersections increases congestion for all traffic, regardless of mode of travel. That’s simply common sense <<
It may be common to think this, but that does not make it true. A street that can handle 100 cars per unit of time, would be able to handle thousands of bikes. As a thought study, imagine if every one of the cyclists that you see bunched up in the tiny space allotted to them at the intersections near campus was instead each driving his own car. If we put all cyclists into cars, our city would be in gridlock. If instead we put all drivers onto bikes, we would have gobs of extra pavement and money and safety and clean air.
I am a driver, a cyclist and a pedestrian. I don’t want “what’s best for cyclists.” I want what is best for my city, and the people who live and visit here.
darelldd: You’re referring to replacing current car drivers with bicyclists, vs. adding more bicyclists, drivers, and pedestrians to an already-existing situation.
As a side note, things get “messy” (and likely more complicated) when mixing different types of traffic.
On-campus housing is really the only alternative that doesn’t “add more” to city streets/intersections, regarding the commute to campus. (And, doesn’t require taxpayer-funded bicycle/pedestrian overpasses, to reach campus.)
“You’re referring to replacing current car drivers with bicyclists, vs. adding more bicyclists, drivers, and pedestrians to an already-existing situation.”
I believe you are incorrect.
Again, this is not black and white. And in that post, I was merely refuting the “fact” that adding more people on the road created the same amount of congestion regardless of if those extra people were in cars or on bikes (or even on foot).
It simply is not true, and is being used as a reason to continue building car infrastructure…. so all those cyclists and pedestrians don’t slow down the cars.
If we wish to add more people who are on bikes, the extra congestion that may be created should be dealt with my optimizing for that mode of transportation. Instead, we will “relieve the congestion” by making car travel more convenient.
>> I believe you are incorrect. <<
I'm happy to stipulate "correct yet irrelevant."
I’d not use the term “incorrect”… I’d choose another, but would get moderated for sure.
Not necessarily a comment regarding Davis in particular, but it seems to me that we aren’t building a whole lot more infrastructure for cars. For example, – other than roads specifically intended to serve new developments, I can’t think of a single road that’s been built in recent years, throughout Northern California. (And, very few that have been widened or significantly improved.)
And yet, we keep adding more development and residents, and “hoping” that they won’t drive. And, we keep witnessing the results.
“yet, we keep adding more residents”
I would argue we really need to re-think how we define this. Are we adding residents? Some. I think the population of Davis has gone from 62,000 to 68,000 in the last 18 years. But most of these apartments are taking existing people who drive to the university and instead put them in town. So what we are really doing here through building apartments is reducing cars and replacing them with bikes, peds, and bus riders.
Yes. Well-beyond the one percent growth cap and SACOG requirements.
Again, no one is “making” UCD pursue thousands of non-resident students (who pay them $42,000 per year in tuition).
>> As a side note, things get “messy” (and likely more complicated) when mixing different types of traffic. <
Correct. This is why it is prudent to prioritize the traffic that makes us healthier, and doesn’t kill us as easily. Mix implies dumping everybody into the same bowl and stirring. Let’s not do that.
>> I can’t think of a single road that’s been built in recent years, throughout Northern California. (And, very few that have been widened or significantly improved.) <<
And one huge reason? They’re super expensive to build. And guess what? We can’t afford to maintain the millions of miles of road that we’ve already built! So how in heck can we build more, and then maintain more? We can’t. And we need to stop pretending that we can pave our way out of every transportation problem we face.
Yeah, so where does it end, right? We continue to prioritize private automobiles running on those roads we cannot afford. And we keep putting more and more cars on them every year, destroying the roads faster….and… THIS is why we need to stop spending all of our money to accommodate the private automobile. If we can’t keep up, we’ll certainly never get ahead.
And yet. We really like to drive. And it’s cheap because the costs are externalized. First step is to start charging what driving costs us. Then, maybe we’ll have a few more people interested in trying something different. What percentage of Davis residents would modify their ways if it cost them $15 every time they drove into down town. Not as a “stick” but as a reasonable cost of their action… the same way that being asked to pay $2 for a cup of coffee is not a stick.
Amen.
Moi, aussi. Called mobility. Also includes those who need to use wheelchairs, walkers, etc., which I believe you intended, which appeared to be everyone.
Thanks, Howard. Yes, brevity often gets in the way of being fully inclusive. Recently I was a member of the wheelchair and crutches group. And wow, how much did that suck?
A lot.
Been there, did that, it indeed sucked. Only good that came out out of that experience… gave me an even greater appreciation for what some have to deal with all the time. A greater empathy.
“Repetitive articles from David, again.”
I don’t understand the need for you state that
“Again, the chart shows that approximately 37% of Davis residents drive to campus.”
Doesn’t actually. It should that 37 percent of those traveling to campus who live between 3 and 4.9 miles from campus, drive to campus. (And as I demonstrated in the article, that’s a small portion of people). The majority of people are within 3 miles of campus and do not drive.
Actually, it appears to show a “cumulative” total, showing that 37% of those who live within 5 miles (essentially within city limits) drive to campus. As a side note, how was this study conducted (e.g., self-reporting, by those who chose to respond)?
Again, I’m not arguing that those who live closest to campus are less likely to drive to campus. (It seems like a rather obvious premise to base an entire article on. Let alone post it, day-after-day.)
In any case, those who actually live on campus have no “commute” to campus, at all. And, don’t require unfunded bicycle/pedestrian overpasses, to do so.
If you look at the weighted sample, it does not appear to be a cumulative total.
I missed that. So, more than 50% of those who live within 5 miles drive (alone) to campus? And again, is this based upon self-reporting, by those who chose to respond?
Define “commute”… the campus is big. Students/faculty do not live in the buildings the study/teach in… then there is ‘staff’… clarify your point, if you will… think I see where you are heading, but but until every student, faculty, staff, contractors live exactly where they study/teach/work, there will be a ‘commute’… only variables are distance, origins/destinations, and modes.
““Repetitive articles from David, again.”
I agree with David on the spurious nature of this comment. Does anyone who posts on the Vanguard truly believe that everyone who visits this site reads exactly the same articles and commentary that they do. I personally know people who read the Vanguard daily, and others who may check in once weekly or once monthly.
I myself, a usual daily reader have missed many articles and had to ask David or catch up on comments that I did not understand because I had skipped a previous article.
Jeff
“Interesting that you bring up cigarettes since the forced-scarcity rules caused a larger police state that killed Eric Gardner.”
Please. Absolutely no one was forced to kill Eric Gardner. Actually, I am surprised that you as a supposed believer in individual responsibility would claim that anyone other than the involved officers were responsible for his death. Certainly you in the past have posited that no one but the criminal involved is responsible for theft, even when that theft is for food.
Forced-scarcity has zero to do with not removing pressure from the throat or upper body of a person who is informing you that they cannot breathe, no matter how much you might want to claim that.
Ironically, I started using public transportation only after I changed my work location (from Davis, to Sacramento). Before that, I regularly commuted to work (by driving alone) entirely within Davis. (Rather disgraceful, I know.) 🙂
>> I regularly commuted to work (by driving alone) entirely within Davis. <<
All humor aside, I think that says a lot about what we encourage in Davis. If the first thought after “I need to go somewhere in town” is *always* “where are my car keys?” we have a problem.
When it becomes obvious that I want to encourage active transportation (by making it safe, practical, comfortable) by using a carrot, it is amazing to find how many assume that I wish instead to use a stick.
I am not waging any “war on cars” as some seem to infer. I own cars. Too many of them, in fact. They’re great tools for foul weather, long-distance, heavy cargo, multi-person, high-speed door-to-door transportation. They simply SUCK for solo, intracity transportation in a small town. Oddly enough, I’m about to go hop in my car right now. Yes, I *must* drive, because it is to have the car itself worked on. :sigh: