Davis Bicycles! Projects — 5th Street Corridor

Davis Bicycles! led a campaign in 2009 to redesign Fifth Street between A and L Streets.

The information below, following the initial paragraphs, along with additional linked pages, was prepared in 2009 for the campaign which culminated in the Davis City Council’s historic vote to proceed with the Fifth Street redesign (also known as a “road diet”).

As of March 2011, the project has yet to be constructed. An article on DavisVanguard.org dated March 9, 2011 offers an interesting perspective on current delays. For additional details on developments since 2009, see the 5th Street Corridor information on the City of Davis website.

The new street design will include bike lanes, provide smoother traffic flow, prevent cars from speeding, and greatly improve safety. On September 8th, 2009 the City Council unanimously passed a resolution supporting the reconfiguration of Fifth Street. This was the culmination of efforts dating back to 2003 when the Old North Davis Neighbors Association asked the City of Davis to study and implement the proposed street redesign, as described in the city’s General Plan.

Although the proposed redesign will 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 will be changed. The width of the street and trees along the street will not be affected. In 2009 the initial project was expected to cost $25,000 to restripe the lanes, and $200,000 to $500,000 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. More details on the proposed changes…

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See the links to video and articles below for more information… City submission to SACOG for funding 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, 2008 DB! projects meeting 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 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 redesign

In a presentation on March 6, 2009, 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 images parts 1 and 2 below).