Davis Bicycles! Projects — 5th Street Corridor
5th Street Redesign
- Traffic analysis
- Issue updates
- Make 5th Street safer for everyone (op-ed article)
Davis Bicycles! endorses the Complete Street Solution for Fifth Street between A and L Streets. The redesigned street would include bike lanes, provide smoother traffic flow, prevent cars from speeding, and greatly improve safety.
On September 8th, the City Council unanimously passed a resolution supporting the reconfiguration of Fifth Street.
Although the proposed redesign would reduce the number of through traffic lanes from four to two, two traffic engineering studies and experiences with numerous similar streets nationwide indicate that this redesign will handle the same or higher traffic volumes while improving traffic flow, and thus it will not result in more car traffic on Eighth or other parallel streets. Because Fifth Street traffic will stop for red lights as always, there will still be gaps in traffic at predictable intervals at intersections without stoplights.
Existing Fifth Street between B and L Streets with four lanes (left), and the proposed redesign (right)
In the initial phase, only the lane stripes on the street, and traffic signals at F and G Streets would be changed. The width of the street and trees along the street would be unaffected. The initial project is expected to cost $25,000 to restripe the lanes, and up to $500,000 (but more likely closer to $200,000) to reconfigure the traffic signals at F and G Streets. The latter would help traffic throughput by cutting about 30 seconds from the wait time at these intersections. The protected left turn lanes (right-hand picture above) make this possible.
Visit the Facebook page ...join the "Supporters of the Fifth Street Redesign"
See the links to video and articles below for more information...
- City submittal to SACOG for funding of the 5th Street redesign (7MB) (September 1, 2009)
- Op-ed in support of 5th Street redesign, along with "What do you think?" responses from six people asked about Fifth Street (Davis Enterprise, Sep. 6, 2009)
- Article summarizing the 3/6 Fifth Street Design Workshop (Davis Enterprise, Mar. 8, 2009)
- Op-ed article in support of the "road diet" (Davis Enterprise, Feb. 15, 2009)
- Downtown Needs To Embrace Change on Fifth Street ...commentary by David Greenwald (davisvanguard.org, Sep. 1, 2009)
- Letter by Davis Bicycles! detailing concerns about Fifth Street corridor, January 2009
- Presentation by Old North Davis Neighborhood Assoc. detailing current safety issues and the Complete Street proposal, presented at the Nov. 19 DB! projects meeting: [on ONDNA website] [6MB PDF]
- When road design gets personal ...an encounter with serious injury due to poor road design
- "Laundry list" of concerns about current Fifth Street (Fall 2008)
- City of Davis Fifth Street corridor page (contains information that is months old, with staff reports concerned essentially with a process of community input and a timeline in which alternatives would be presented, followed by further community input)
- Reports and analysis of traffic engineering studies
- Updates on progress toward Fifth Street redesign
- Citywide support for Fifth Street redesign
See the map of where people live who have signed the petition urging Davis City Council to proceed with Fifth Street redesignIn a presentation on March 6, renowned street designer Dan Burden showed examples from over 50 streets all across the US that have received the highly successful "road diet" treatment, and the potential for a similar transformation of Fifth Street. If you missed the workshop, see the streaming video of it at Davis Media Access (click on the video image).
