By David M. Greenwald
Executive Editor
Davis, CA – The city council will have a Re-imagine Russell Blvd Corridor Study Check in, which is part of an ongoing Russell Blvd Corridor Study in partnership with UC Davis to identify needed improvements in cooperation with UC Davis and adjacent city neighborhoods.
The city and university originally reached an agreement to not allow West Village to have connectivity by automobile through Russell Blvd. That never made sense – it essentially cut off West Village will eventually have not only student housing, but faculty and staff housing from the rest of the community.
Now should be time to revisit that mistake.
In the staff report, it notes that “In 2018, UC Davis updated their LRDP, stemming from a multi-year planning effort to understand and anticipate the necessary steps to realize the campus of tomorrow.”
As part of the MOU between the city, council and university was a commitment made by UC Davis for $2.3 million in traffic improvement projects.
The city is now working in partnership with UC Davis to conduct “a planning effort for street design, public outreach, landscape and gateway master planning and design, for Russell Boulevard. The Plan is a collaborative planning and conceptual design effort to reimagine the 3.0-mile shared road boundary between the City of Davis and UC Davis from B Street to the City’s western jurisdictional boundary west of Lake Boulevard.”
Part of what they looked at was removal of on-street parking between B St and 113.
Concept 1 would “remove on-street parking and add buffered on-street bikeways.”
Concept 2 would also “remove on-street parking and add fully protected on-street bikeways.”
During outreach meetings last month, “The overall consensus was a preference towards removal of on-street parking and introducing continuous bicycling facilities shown in Concepts 1 and 2; however, there were some concerns expressed about the impact of displacement of parking.”
They were also asked where they would like to see transit connect to the West Village. The presentation presented options at Eisenhower, just west of Eisenhower or at Arthur.
Overall, the community that they talked to seemed against the idea of a connection at Eisenhower.
“Most groups noted there are ongoing issues with the development of the West Village in the community, with a history of community protest,” staff notes.
“Participants had many concerns and questions,” staff noted. Their preference was to discourage connection at Eisenhower, they prefer a “natural connection” which “won’t create additional traffic.” They are “not opposed to transit connection but it needs to be mitigated.”
“If we block Eisenhower then we have transit exit here,” they said.
To me it never made sense to not have traffic access to West Village. There is already a lot of the infrastructure needed at Arthur St, you simply connect the roads. How much traffic would that generate for Russell? I think we could study it. But that would definitely help to bring West Village into the overall community and the worries about massive traffic impacts are probably overblown, even with plans for West Village connection.
Even discussing transit options which I assume did not include full traffic access, there seemed to be a good amount of pushback.
In a discussion on NextDoor a few weeks ago, former Mayor Joe Krovoza noted, “One of the worst public meetings ever in the history of Davis was at the Emerson MPR about this issue. UC Davis promised no connection to Russell. I don’t recall any caveat. The public behavior at the meeting was terrible and threatening, and there was a physical assault on a UC Davis staffer, and the campus halted the meeting and John Meyer had his staff leave. That was the right call. I attended to speak and was so intimidated that I stayed back and kept quiet. I certainly hope nothing like that happens again. It was unbecoming a community like Davis.”
The overall reaction was somewhat mixed with many stating that they are opposed to this.
Others noted, “I think that there should be connections. It would benefit the West Davis community to not force all traffic onto Russell.”
But the reality is that right now, everyone is forced either onto the highway or to come onto Russell at Anderson and LaRue.
Providing another access point might have only minor impacts on overall traffic. However, given the history of the contentiousness from a little over a decade ago, neither side may be eager to revisit it. Nevertheless, it seems like bad planning and probably bad for VMT and GHG.
As one person put it, “An environmental assessment report will be able to determine the need and effect of a road on to Russell to existing neighbors. Especially increased traffic, noise, and impact on surrounding area.”
Seems like that might be a good start for a discussion – but in the end, panicked voices are likely to prevail.
Imagine West Davis neighborhoods having access to Hutchison and not having to only choose Russell or Covell? I think having access would benefit the City more than it would benefit West Village. The University may not like City traffic going through the neighborhood to get onto Hwy 113 or to get to parking on the other side of the University, but it would relieve the traffic on Russell.
There is no need for West Village to open out onto Russell Blvd.
The present configuration onto LaRue works fine. I can’t imagine who is clamoring for traffic flow from campus onto Russell. Cutting through onto campus would sacrifice even more of UC’s high-quality land that is currently used for ag research.
In fact, there is no need to “re-imagine” Russell Blvd at all. This is a consultant-driven planning process and is following, like a cooke-cutter formula, the usual methods of faux outreach and carefully constructed surveys that are intended to drive input toward the usual cooke-cutter outcomes. This whole thing is a caricature of New Urbanism. Hopefully they won’t do too much damage as they spend a half-million dollars to prescribe transit hubs and new greenery.
Issues with Russell traffic flow could be handled in-house by a couple of traffic engineers. They may wish to put a couple of stop signs, maybe even a traffic signal or two. There is already a brand-new bike lane. Tree Davis has planted new oaks along the entire stretch. UCD is going to relandscape their area and has already graded the site for water retention and drainage. I doubt there is much dissatisfaction with the present traffic flow.
The opinions of those who actually attend or participate in these things very likely bear no relationship to what the public might actually wish for the corridor (think about the demographics of who actually participates in these things). And I don’t think we’ve even actually seen the results of the online survey (quick, how many of you took it?).
There is more dissatisfaction with the part of Russell that was reduced to one lane each way from two that caused the predictable congestion. Just like at Mace reinventing the streets with a preconceived pro-bicycle agenda causes auto congestion.
Not true at all. 5th street was dangerous AF for bicycles. I rode it to every council meeting and said several times in public comment that if I got hit by a car on the way to the meeting that I was being a martyr to the cause of putting in bike lanes. I wasn’t kidding. Having bicycle lanes on a busy street isn’t some ‘bicycle driven agenda’, it’s sanity.
Thank God the City finally is fixing Pole Line to L Street. That’s the stretch I had my worst automobile caused bike wreck in Davis, and this should have been fixed 30 years ago. Would have been nice to have it done B4 Stirling opened, but what’s a few months, eh?
They’re not completely done. In the next year or so, we’re told, they’ll be removing the center planting strips and putting in turn lanes.
It was a safety improvement for bikes and pedestrians when they reduced 5th from two down to one lane. The problem is congestion entering the constricted lane at B St.
Ron G,
Are you talking about congestion on 5th St (rather than Russell–I don’t remember any stretch of that being reduced to 1 lane.)
If so, the fact is that there was NO increase in congestion on that stretch. It is about as congested as it was before the lane reduction. I’ve followed this very carefully. I lived in West Davis before the change so I was driving this section frequently. Now I live in Central Davis and cross this street frequently. I never see cars unable to get through in one light cycle except when a train is passing.
It’s much safer to ride down 5th now.
Go observe the intersection at 5th and B St. during times of high traffic flows. I think you will see the bottleneck reducing the lane creates.
Except that before you had the same problem even with two lanes.
This map illustrates the problem. If you live at the north end of West Village – the area of expansion now, btw, the red line shows what you can do with access, the purple shows what it looks like now to get to Trader Joe’s
Even more ironic a better path is to go down to Hutchinson and up 113 to Russell then turn right on Russell to get to Trader Joe’s.
So this is all for the auto convenience of West Village residents? Presently they can walk or bike to Trader Joes with no problem by following your red dashed line. There’s an opening in the fence.
I didn’t think West Village residents were supposed to be using cars. UCD certainly discourages it officially. Why are we spending a half-million dollars to embark on a multi-million dollar reconstruction of Russell in order to make it easier for campus residents to drive to Trader Joes?
Agreed. The better solution is to create a transit pull out stop just west of Arthur, and running a shuttle down to where the old Sycamore housing units were.
Actually they can drive anywhere they want.
David
Looking at your map, have you ever ridden at bike? That’s the mode that this designed for. Time to think outside of the car!
Are you freakin’ kidding me?
No. Did you have something to say?
Yeah. It should be reimagined.
“Concept 1 would “remove on-street parking and add buffered on-street bikeways.”
“Concept 2 would also “remove on-street parking and add fully protected on-street bikeways.”
Another Mace mess from the traffic planners. Although there is that Waze thing going on there is also the protected bike lane that constricts traffic. Doing the same on Russell will make driving on that street jam up too. Of course the bike zealots will think that is great because they believe that the more inconvenient the traffic the better. Also don’t expect them to ever blame the protected bike lane just as they refuse to do on Mace. Instead they will blame West Village. Its Wazy thinking.
As Don Shor correctly points put there is already a bike lane along Russell all the way from B St to Cactus Corner.
The ones kow-towing to the ‘vox populi’ expressed by some commissioners, and some vocal activists… it is what it is, not a rational, ‘scientific/fact-based’ approach, but a ‘political’ one.
Same thing happened with Mace Blvd… there are other examples, too numerous to list…
Same s true for original decisions re: West Village connection(s) to Russell
As of this week, with re-striping completed on Fifth Street yesterday, there is an unimpeded bike lane all the way across town from Mace Blvd. on the east to Cactus Corner on the west.
Sorry RG, you can’t throw Mace Mess at everything. I’m against what was done on Mace Blvd. I am in favor of what is being done on 5th Street, and you are ignoring what a dangerous mess 5th Street was before it was re-striped for a single thru lane. You are also ignoring that left turning cars no longer park in a through lane, but pull into turn lanes to thru cars may continue on. 5th is a busy street that always had backup during peak times. Now it is much safer. Mace is a ridiculous mass of concrete that was way overbuilt.
SSSSHH! Don’t tell the Tree Commission, Natural Resources Commission!
We’ll have another Sutter Hospital debacle…
I doubt anyone is going to cry over the loss of that planting strip.
I fully agree with DG on this – the path to Russel should be opened. The U has as good as built the infrastructure for the day this happens – which I usually find obnoxious (they did this by the Domes, breaking a promise to keep the street there closed with bollards), but in this case I agree with the U and DG. The diagram DG put up shows one of the problems. In most cases, more access points is better. For instance, at the Cannery I supported the idea of an outlet on the NE side to Moore as proposed by the owners of the Covell Village property. Made total sense, but instead it’s isolated with a single exit, just like West Village.
Orchard Park Drive opens right onto Russell, right across from the U Mall. UCD can connect through from West Village if they so desire; there’s already a bridge over 113 for that purpose. People who want to drive on wider roads can go out to LaRue, then left on Russell and into the U Mall.
None of this would be of any benefit to Davis city residents, nor does UCD need their input on the topic.
UCD wanted it to open onto Russell, so not sure I understand the point that they wouldn’t ‘need’ city resident input on the topic. Question mark.
They needed CC concurrence… CC members are City residents… beyond that, no they didn’t “need ” the input, just approval by the CC…
Seems to me it went down like this:
City: “Hey UCD, if you’re going to dump a bunch of people onto our road (Russell Blvd.) you gonna chip into to upgrade it?”
UCD: “Nah, it’s cool the kids can bike and walk”
From a long term planning stand point; I wonder what the actual plan for Russell Blvd. is. You’d think student housing and student oriented retail would be a good plan for that area. But then didn’t the University Mall project get shot down?
That is not how it went down. The people in West Davis sued to stop the project and the only thing they won was UC not using Russell except for emergency vehicles.
Instead of only considering West Village access to the City, consider the benefits of City residents having access to West Village. Right now everything is funneled onto Russell.
I’m not familiar with the specifics of the West Village project. Other than student (and some staff) housing what else is there? Are there some local neighborhood oriented retail that would draw outside customers? Any entertainment? Why would the city residents want to drive into the West Village community?
Sac City has a campus there with intention to expand it. I’ve had a couple of employees take classes there.
https://westvillage.ucdavis.edu/los-rios-community-college
They’ve commented on the lack of amenities there in the past, but I’d imagine that will expand as the housing fills up.
They are supposed to start building faculty and staff housing at some point.
And, and some point Halley’s comet will appear again… both are certain…
Don’t be surprised if they coincide…
Having been a part of the neighborhood team negotiating with UCD at the time in 2005, I particular insights and opinions about this.
First, as Martin Luther King said “riots are the voice of the unheard.” People can be pushed to the brink by institutional managers who refuse to concede key points in any way. In this case, UCD was unwilling to go back to its employees, the faculty, and tell them they were going to have to end a couple of their pet projects (one being a tractor shed, the other a climatological station that was going to be rendered useless by the new development) so the project could be aligned down 113 and connect at Garrod next to the medical school. We’re already seeing the problem we predicted as the buildings stretch toward Olive Lane. If it had been laid out north-south instead, the visual and air flow impacts would have been minimal. All of these issues would have been moot if UCD had listened to the West Davis interests. Fundamentally, UCD made a major configuration error that is now coming back to haunt them.
Second, UCD made an unconditional commitment to the West Davis interests never to connect to Russell. If UCD backs out of that commitment, then we can NEVER again trust a commitment from UCD. (I know some of you are already at that point–I don’t want to revisit that here.)
Third, one of the points of cutting off Russell was to make driving into Davis inconvenient. The bike route is still there which is what we’ve been trying to encourage.
Sounds like somebody is a NIMBY.
You’ve got an ally on the council, regarding that.
Do you think anyone is entertaining a possible lawsuit, again?
Did you really mean,
??????????? just asking…
@ B/Russell/Fifth both the EB and WB Fifth/Russell legs were 4 lanes…
Seriously Bill, I don’t get you sometimes. You know I meant two automobile lanes in one direction, so yes, four automobile lanes overall. Did we really have to clarify this or do you think people knew what I meant?
I knew what you meant
http://documents.cityofdavis.org/Media/Default/Documents/PDF/CityCouncil/CouncilMeetings/Agendas/2021/2021-11-16/06-Russell-Blvd-Corridor-Plan-Check-In-Presentation.pdf
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the City will be as one
“re-Imagine-ing” Russell Blvd.
The plan is only for transit, right? That seems fine. At Arlington.
Only if the intersection is entirely reconfigured. A complete “re-do”…
If not a “re-do”, it would need to be a RTO or LTO, even for a ‘transit only’ connection.
A “transit only” connection would be best @ Lake (with signalization) or @ Eisenhower (with signalization, likely). Both would have their “challenges”.
Best would be a full intersection @ Lake. It’s not “in the cards”! But for best flow, best access, given what’s already on the ground, that would be the best option for another full connection between West Village and the rest of Davis and the rest of the world. But, for many reasons, mostly (90%) political, it is “not in the cards”… but it would be good planning… for the future of UCD/West Village and Davis… but decisions, however bad, are made in the “here and now”…
What do you mean Lake? West Village doesn’t get anywhere near that far west, and won’t for quite some time. There is no purpose in building almost a mile of road west to Lake for a ‘transit connection’. I don’t understand your suggestion at all.
What Alan said though Lake would be good if West Village is built out this far and I hope it never is. Russell – Arlington needs a massive change.
Alan M … Full (all modes) connection sorry I didn’t make that clear…
I’m talking planning … not 1-5 years out, more like 20-50…
But as I also posted, “not a happening thing” in the here and now… the “no growthers” would say that would be “growth-inducing”… the Druids would say that would take down (declining) walnut trees [which would probably occur in any case, including the “do nothing”]…
But, I assert, it is perfectly logical if you are planning 20-50 years out… 50 years ago, there was little in SoDavis… no Mace Ranch, no Wildhorse, no Cannery.
The “Mace Mess” can be largely attributed to decisions (led by certain no-growthers) to have no I-80 interchanges except Richards and Mace… previous GP’s had one projected for CR 103 (now, Drummond)… Richards was not turned to 4 lanes under the RR (early 1970’s, with the slogan “it will stop development of South Davis” (yeah, that turned out real well for them!)… no interchange @ CR 103/Drummond, and expensive realignments of streets, was going to keep Mace Ranch from being developed (yeah, that turned out real well for them!) [irony there, is that a developer in West Davis, and a member of the Covell Village development team spearheaded those efforts]…
I can understand why you say, “I don’t understand your suggestion at all.”… but is not borne out in history, and unless stasis is your goal, ignoring history and looking out to 20-50 year horizons, is not real”…
I opine that my suggestion makes sense… but am convinced that it will never get any credence by you and many others… I say three times (total) “it is not in the cards”… more is the pity…
It is written, if you “sow the wind (not planning, IMO), you will reap the whirlwind”… also known as “logical consequences”… ex: Richards OH, “Mace Mess”, etc., etc., etc.
WM, not sure what the time horizon of the original question was regarding where to tie in transit. It appeared to be just a few years in the future, in which case Arthur is fine. No need to build new infrastructure. But these decisions should be made by transit planners, not via public meetings. Have the argument and the reason why ready to go once a plan is made, so the public can see the mature plan, not the so-called connection. A transit connection without a transit plan is nonsensical. But, as a transit planner, I’ve seen similar cart-before-horse ‘public input’ surveys.
If you are talking 20-50 years in the future, Lake might make sense – but we are talking buses. So there is no need to plan that far in the future. It’s a waste of time and a distraction.