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Davisite Banner. Left side the bicycle obelisk at 3rd and University. Right side the trellis at the entrance to the Arboretum.

Category: Bicycling

  • Commissions and Quorum-Buffers

    By Todd Edelman

    The high wheeler bike share bikes are rusting, the tomatoes are hibernating, the persimmons are throbbing, the Creek’s not so full, I-80 is roaring and stinky, the sun’s shining perhaps a bit more than it should… it’s mid-winter in Davis and I was just temporarily suspended from the Bicycling, Transportation and Street Safety Commission (BTSSC).

    Any situation like this is Davis is subjectively-analytical, and dynamically-objective, but there’s several factors at play dealing more with facts (with spin, if only because none of us have infinite context.).

    For now I am going to give what I hope to be an accurate accounting of the quorum piece of the matter at hand, and some suggestions… and then later on (today, tomorrow etc.) will provide some details on activity of the current membership of the BTSSC, including myself:

    Quorum: My position is that this didn’t have to be an issue at all, or at the very least less of one.

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  • Freedom to Park Downtown: Questions Answered

    FreeparkingFrom The Freedom to Park committee, FreedomToPark.org

    While tabling for free parking at the Farmers Market, we have encountered very few advocates of “paid parking.” We find that many casual paid parking supporters, upon consideration of all facts, will reconsider or at least support putting the issue to public vote. There are some extremists who assert there should be no vehicles or vehicle parking in the downtown, not even for frail, elderly or handicapped individuals. But most people accept the existence of automobiles and realize that even electric cars must park.

    This space is too brief to answer every question or assertion that we have heard, but we will address the most common.  For additional examples, we refer you to our website:  freedomtopark.org. 

    First, the initiative prohibits the charging of a fee for the public parking that is already provided by our tax dollars. It does not change standard parking regulations; it does not change the parking time limits; it does not change the city parking permit program.  Second, the initiative requires the replacement of the 120 parking spaces that the City has already removed from the downtown.  These spaces can easily be replaced by turning parallel spaces into perpendicular or slant parking spaces, for example.

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  • Mace Mess: 11 Broken Promises

    Mace mess2Squandered Trust

    Comments given to the Davis City Council by Mimi McMahon

    Trust is an important element when citizens elect officials to act on their behalf.  There is no room for special interests or personal gain.  A promise is a contract. The City has squandered the trust of Davis citizens and those affected by the Mace Mess you and your staff have created.  You have wasted millions of dollars of our hard-earned taxes. 

    Broken and Unfulfilled Promises

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  • Thursday’s Caltrans Workshop Key to Davis Growth and Climate Future

    IMG_6919By Alan Hirsch

    On Thursday Caltrans will hold a workshop on the future of the I-80 corridor, Davis’s Connection to the rest of the World.  It will be in the Blanchard room of the Library at 6:30pm.

    Caltrans will be considering different options to deal with transportation demand in this corridor.

    Will they just address only thru traffic, i.e. Tahoe Snowbirds…or real needs of people who live in the corridor, for example transit needs that can’t be met by slow, limited stop and expensive Capitol Corridor Train service or the anemic and unreliable Yolobus service?

    If you care about traffic on Mace Blvd…or how we can have accommodate economic growth in Davis — like the proposed 12,000 (!!!)  trip a day Aggie business park on Mace curve  — this is the meeting to go to.

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  • Homeless “Respite Center” Proposed by School Bike Route Receives Pushback

    Picture3By Colin Walsh

    An ad hoc group of Davis residents have started a Change.org petition opposing the location of the Homeless Respite Center. The new Homeless center is proposed for adjacent to the Dave Pelz Overpass near second street. Those opposing the location seem to clearly state that they support services for the homeless like this project, but not next to a thoroughfare for school children on bikes.

    This Item was moved forward by the Davis City Council on July 30, 2019. The project would contain “tough shed” type buildings and likely a designated camping area. It is unclear if there will be water or sewer services or what staffing might be provided by the City.

    In the staff report, "staff estimates that the day shelter could accommodate up to 40 individuals at one time and the overnight shelter could sleep up to 15 individuals" but with the addition of a camping area as suggested by council member Frerichs the site may be able to accommodate more.

    When the Council addressed this issue on July 30th 2019, the staff omitted from their report and presentation to council that the Dave Pelz overcrossing was a safe route to school. There is no part of the staff report that addresses the impact of a homeless encampment on the bike and pedestrian through-way.

    This is the table of advantages and disadvantages from the July 30, 2019 Davis City staff report:
    Respite-Center-FTable 4.pdf
    This very expensive overcrossing was built to better connect South Davis and East Davis, especially to provide a bikeable route to school for South Davis Junior High Kids.

    The petition can be signed at  https://www.change.org/p/davis-city-council-no-homeless-shelter-for-schoolchildren-s-safety

    The petition reads as follows:

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  • Pay to Détour(nement)

    Can Davis Pioneer a Toll for Waze?

    Map2By Todd Edelman

    At the most recent public meeting about the “Mace Mess” – on a summer evening at Pioneer Elementary – we were told that City attorneys were going to look into a legal way to keep traffic guided by apps like Waze from diverting from I-80 between just west of town and the Yolo Bypass, not only via Tremont and Mace but also via 113 and Covell, etc.

    I’ve not heard anything about this since then, which might mean nothing. 

    OK.

    So, imagine a system that records the license plates and FasTrak transponders of vehicles that exit and enter I-80 and CA-113 at various points in the City and nearby to the west (see the map). How to determine if the driver is “just passing through”?:  If the transit time is e.g. + or – 20% of what's predicted by Waze and similar for the same journey, the driver is charged a reasonable fee. (Using Waze, etc. against itself is the détournement mentioned, and a great pun if I might say so!). 

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  • Open Letter to City Council on Jump’s Age Discrimination

    Jumpvote

    Uber photo modified by T. Edelman

    Todd Edelman sent the following email to the City Council today for tonight's Council meeting. For reference, please see yesterday’s article by the same author.

    Dear City Council,

    1 -  I feel it is important to note that when modifications to the bike share ordinance related to bike share were initially adopted, the BTSSC was bypassed, and that one element which Staff pushed hard for – locking bikes TO racks – resulted in a lot of the problems we had with bikes parked where they were not supposed to. Though Sacramento's unofficial policy permitted flexible parking in 2018, the Staff resisted a change until the spring of this year. Thankfully, the current Staff Report recommends e.g. "parking in the street like a motorcycle".

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  • Tell City Council it’s time to lower the age limit for Jump bike share

    SWNS_THUNBERG_MURAL_006

    Credit: SWNS

    By Todd Edelman

    If Greta Thunberg had visited Davis last month for the Climate Strike, she wouldn’t have been able to use Jump bike share. Perhaps before arriving, she would have learnt that kids of all ages in Davis are the national champions of cycling for transportation: To school, to the park, to the homes of their friends, to the library, to the movies, to places they’re not supposed to go…. In the USA, they use bikes more than anyone else in their age group.

    Greta is only 16. Perhaps she would have forcefully asked why Jump bike in Davis (and the region) has a minimum age limit of 18.

     

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  • Making Biking Convenient

    Is making driving worse our Bike-rack-1 only alternative?

    By Roberta Millstein

    When I read the Davis Enterprise op-ed on roads, driving, and biking last month (“Infrastructure, what is it good for?”), I was sympathetic.  After all, it does seem to make sense to call out the “operative principle” that “if only we make driving (or parking) inconvenient enough, then people will drive less, or slower, or somewhere else.”  Indeed, as the op-ed says, we surely don’t want to rejigger our roads and our parking spaces only to increase car traffic and cars idling if the goal is to reduce carbon emissions.

    But now I am not so sure.

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  • Surprise! It’s a Bike Party!

    Tunnel swirlBy Carey Ann Hunt

    As I biked through a wooded area on a path headed downtown from South Davis around sunset, I began hearing party music. The music and bright flashing party lights came quickly toward me and then zoomed right past. The speaker and lights were mounted to a bike and the rider was the leader of a long string of cyclists, many with brightly decorated and lit up bicycles. There were perhaps thirty of them that whizzed by me going in the opposite direction.

    One of the bikers caught my eye and said as he past, “Psst, you’re going the wrong direction! Turn around, it’s a bike party”! 

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