The resolution was read into the record by Councilmember Lamar Heystek. The consensus emerged following the public comment of dozens of residents, most of who came forward strongly in support of the project.
One of the points made during public comment was asking why we did a road diet for Farmer’s Market on Fifth Street. Councilmember Heystek asked that question of city staff.
The answer in short was that it better controlled the flow of traffic during a peak period of traffic. From the standpoint of city staff it created a shorter point of travel for pedestrians to enable them to cross the street more safely from the district parking lot to C Street. It also slows the traffic.
Councilmember Heystek followed up,
“If we do it for the Farmer’s Market it must be good for the downtown. And if it’s good for downtown, it must be good for Davis.”
The point here is that no one seems to believe that fewer people will come to the downtown for Farmer’s Market due to the road diet. And they create the diet far later than it would occur in this plan, which means traffic actually backs up somewhat more than it would if it was designed at a more natural choke point. And even then, it does not really impede the flow of traffic through the corridor.
Councilmember Souza during his question/ comment period suggested that as a bicyclist this street was an adrenaline rush as huge trucks wiz by in lanes next to the bicyclist. He describes numerous times where he had narrowly avoided collisions with vehicles swerving out to avoid cars making left turns.
“Will this solve all of the problems? I’m not sure but I’m at least willing to continue where we’ve begun and that is to move the ball forward.”
He expressed hope that this could solve the problems that occur without “impairing some of the activities that occur within the downtown for our merchants.”
One of the key points he made directly addresses the concerns of downtown business.
“I firmly believe that we’ll get to the downtown whether we have a diet on the roadway or not. People that want to shop at the downtown or be entertained at the downtown will get to the downtown in many other routes besides Fifth Street frankly I avoid the section of Fifth Street all the time. I go down L Street and I go to Third. I go to B Street and I’ll turn to Third or Second. I avoid it most of the time because I find it very unsafe at least between G and A. It isn’t as big of a problem from G to L because you don’t have as much traffic interacting.”
Councilmember Souza’s observations gibe with countless others I have spoken to. Others have suggested they take Eighth Street to bypass Fifth altogether. The concern from downtown is that people will take other routes–the reality is that they already do. What downtown needs to focus on is to make the downtown the best attraction to the public as possible and then they will come there regardless of the route and probably more of them will do so if Fifth Street were safer and more available to bicyclists and pedestrians.
Councilmember Don Saylor in more measured terms also expressed support for the diet in concept while still taking into consideration the concerns that have come for others:
“I really like the idea of improving safety on Fifth Street, it’s a problem. I really do like the idea of enhancing the walkability of our community. I do think that we need to make a changeon Fifth Street… My gut feeling is that need to proceed with the complete street.”
Councilmember Sue Greenwald wanted a very short statement of support. She was outflanked on that but was able to get it incorporated into the cover letter.
“Council supports the reconfiguration of the Fifth Street Corridor and directs staff to move forward with CEQA and to identify funding sources.”
Councilmember Souza moved in a substitute motion and seconded by Councilmember Saylor the support of the staff’s resolution in support of Fifth Street.
Councilmember Heystek read the entire resolution into the record.
“This is a resolution of the City of Davis establishing that a road diet should be implemented on the Fifth Street Corridor providing for the reconfiguration of two traffic lanes with center left turns lanes and on-street bicycle lanes between A and L Streets and directing staff to undertake implementing actions.”
The resolution goes on to talk about priorities relating to the need for traffic calming and multi-modal transportation, various safety issue, among other things.
This was a resolution that all on the council could support and help staff to move forward with an application for funding from SACOG showing strong but not unanimous community support and very strong council support.
Commentary
There are many people in this community–and it was a broad-based community effort to get this passed. Clearly without the support of the bicycling community who came out en masse last night, this would not have happened. The resident of Old North Davis have long been advocates of a Fifth Street Redesign. They see the problems every day as they try to walk from their homes to the downtown, as they try to bike from their homes to the downtown, and as they try to drive from their homes perhaps to other portions of town if not the downtown.
But as the map posted yesterday on the Vanguard and displayed yesterday at the council meeting demonstrates, this was not one simply one neighborhood, it was not simply one community supporting this project, it was all of Davis. Many of the people who came out last night were not people that you see coming to council meetings in support of various projects week after week. They were people concerned about the safety and accessibility of a key street in town. A street that has been far too dangerous for far too long.
As Mayor Asmundson pointed out, this is a discussion that has come before every council that she has been a part of–what does that tell us? This is a street that has among the highest accident rates in town.
A few years ago they brought us the staggered lights on F and G. Those lights solved one problem–the problem of a specific accident on those intersections. But they caused more problems. The signals were for a fixed length of time and one found themselves stopped for 63 seconds out of every 90 seconds regardless of the amount of traffic on the side street. I have often been on that street at 4 or 5 in the morning and there are no cars around and I find myself stopped for a minute. That is a waste of fuel and a waste of time.
The road diet plan has worked elsewhere. We have run models for it. We had the great presentation this past winter on it. And Steve Tracy deserves a tremendous amount of credit for pushing forward with it through multiple obstacles over many years.
This resolution is of course only the key first step. We still need funding and there still needs to be follow through regardless of whether SACOG funding is approved, but let us make no mistake this was a huge first step as it signals for the first time really in concrete and unequivocal writing that the council supports this action and they deserve tremendous credit for pushing through this in the face of opposition from the downtown.
I believe this will do nothing but help the downtown, and I think they all recognize the need to work with the downtown in order to mitigate whatever harmful effects there might be particularly in terms back up on the sides streets–if that really is going to be a problem.
Most of the concerns of downtown can be addressed with thoughtful planning and good design work. I look forward to seeing this process through. As I have said since the announcement of the deal to bring DeLanos to Westlake, this has become my top priority for Davis. I am glad to see this one well on its way to fruition.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
Folks: This is only for the issue of the Fifth Street Redesign. Any off-topic post will be deleted as soon as possible.