Category: Transportation

Recommendations to the Davis City Council for Downtown Housing Projects
Submitted for consideration by the Davis City Council from the Sierra Club Yolano Group (email sent 4/2/2024)

March 30, 2024

Recently, several housing projects have been proposed for downtown Davis: one at the site of the former Hibbert Lumberyard at the intersection of G Street and 5th Street (“The Lumberyard”), one at the site of the former Regal Cinemas Davis Stadium 5 at the intersection of G Street and 4^th Street, and one at 240 G Street.

We write to express our strong support of these sorts of infill projects, projects that would increase housing density in Davis, allowing for more efficient use of land and creating the potential for reduced-carbon lifestyles. However, we have concerns about the details of the projects and urge that they be addressed prior to approval:
1. Increase affordable housing. Davis’s greatest housing need is for affordable housing, yet only the 4^th and G Street project provides for a reasonable percentage of affordable housing (20%, in accordance with the “Builder’s Remedy” that they are applying under). The other two projects are only proposing 5% affordable housing, which does very little to address Davis’s affordable housing needs. Equity demands that a higher percentage of affordable housing – at least 20% – be included in all future downtown housing projects. 5% is totally unacceptable. If Proposition 1 funds become available, the minimum required percentage should be increased to 25%.
2. Increase feasibility of a car-free lifestyle for all potential residents. Two out of the three projects (the Lumberyard and 240 G Street) provide for very little parking. We commend the attempt to foster a car-free lifestyle that could be possible in the downtown, especially if increased numbers of residents are able to attract more retail businesses. However, the units should be feasible for all, and car-free lifestyles can be difficult for those with mobility challenges, including but not limited to some elderly seniors. Thus, the housing projects need to facilitate other ways of getting around by including, for example, an area for taxis/Uber/Lyft/DoorDash/etc. to pick up and drop off. Projects should provide a minimum percentage of parking spaces for people who have Disabled Person (DP) placards. Putting funds toward improving public transportation in the downtown (including microtransit) – or having dedicated vans are other options that we strongly recommend; developers should work with the City and UCD on this, with subsidized passes provided for people with low incomes.
  We understand that some members of the community think that there should be parking minimum requirements for downtown housing projects. However, to create a walkable, active transit oriented lifestyle (which many younger people in particular have been asking for), we need fewer, not more, cars downtown. This is the best way to achieve our climate goals. We have suggested a variety of ways to try to make it easier for everyone to live downtown, but other solutions may be possible and feasible; the City should consult with relevant experts, such as disability access professionals.
3. Support use of vehicles other than cars. Car-free lifestyles can be facilitated with bicycles, e-bikes and e-scooters. To that end, projects should be required to set aside a sufficient number of covered spaces for these vehicles relative to number of bedrooms and units. Moreover, San Francisco’s recent experience (https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/bike-scooter-battery-fire-17869505.php) has shown that some of the batteries for e-bikes and e-scooters can be fire hazards. Davis should look to NYC’s ordinances (they are ahead of other municipalities) as a way to mitigate the risk of fire when e-bikes and e-scooters are brought indoors. To further facilitate the use of these vehicles, charging stations should be provided.
4. Ensure a high quality of life for residents. Living in a dense environment can be physically and psychologically challenging if it is not done correctly. This can be ameliorated by providing greenspace, rooftop gardens, etc. The City of Davis should work with developers to identify community garden space and/or spaces where residents of these housing developments can grow food or plants (e.g., on balconies or window boxes). Again, this is an equity issue.
5. Require planting and maintenance of trees and landscaping. One of the goals of the Davis Climate Action and Adaptation Plan is to “…create a cooler city with more urban forest and green space for people and habitat.” To help further that goal, developers should fund the planting and maintenance of trees in internal plazas and along public sidewalks, using best practices for producing a street canopy developed in concert with Tree Davis and the Davis Tree Commission.
Thank you for your consideration of these recommended changes.

Respectfully submitted,

The Sierra Club Yolano Group Management Committee

The Sierra Club Yolano Group is comprised of over 1,400 Sierra Club members from Yolo County, a portion of eastern Solano County, and a portion of southern Colusa County.
April 3, 2024
Council’s Non-Scientific Reasoning on I-80

Why Didn’t YoloTD share the facts?

By Alan Hirsch

My beloved Davis has failed to accept the science out of UC Davis on climate change. I worry for our future if even Davis can’t face the urgency of our situation.

I urge everyone to watch the March 5th video of Davis City council and listen to their rationalization not to align city policy with UC Davis scientists on the freeway I-80 policy. The city council discussed sending a letter to state officials noting the city’s agreement with Caltrans’ own policy that freeway widening is contrary to the State’s climate action plan and won’t solve congestion. The city council rejected sending the letter, even though no one challenged its substance.

I know a few readers here still might think freeway widening works to fix congestion– for them I wonder who they are listening to if Caltrans policy itself accepts UC Davis research?

Begin watching council rationalize the “settled science” away beginning at 1:07:41 as Councilmember Donna Neville withdraws her letter and offers two unscientific reasons: 1) there was no community consensus, and 2) the letter would not make any difference.

Is consensus the way to measure scientific validity in Davis? Should we accept at face value Councilmember Gloria Partida’s argument that her survey of people she talked to on her walks takes precedence over findings from the UCD Institute of Transportation Studies? Or Neville’s statement that until we have consensus, we “should not speak to the highest level of government.” I note the council managed to take a position on the Israel Gaza war before a polarized audience.

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March 21, 2024
Davis Chooses Popularism over Science

YoloTD is going to CTC for I-80 money

By Alan Hirsch

YoloTD Chair/Mayor Chapman

On Tuesday March 5, Davis Council let stand a 2021 policy to “strongly support” I-80 widening for cars—ignoring 34 letters and public comments asking for reversal of city policy adopted with no commission or other input.

The city council, at least temporally, seems to have joined the science deniers on freeways with a majority of members claiming we need “consensus” before simply accepting UC Davis research, affirming settled science, or even simply adopting policy that just restated Caltrans and the state climate plan on sustainable transportation.

This also means science supporting Davisites must turn their attention to a more sympathetic body to stop I-80: the California Transportation Commission (CTC). This body once in the past blocked funding Yolo80, rating it 24 out of 24 in priority and might do it again next week. Emails on CTC agenda item 19 are needed ideally by Monday to ask them to block a $105 Mil grant for more I-80 auto widening in Yolo County. They, unlike YoloTD seem concern with induced demand’s climate impact, as described in this article “Managed Lane Expansion Project Not Approved by California Transportation Commission “

Who spoke in favor of the Widening in Davis?

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March 14, 2024
The Ever-Changing Justification for Widening I-80

Why can’t Caltrans Tell Yolo County the True Cost?

By Alan Hirsch

On Tuesday March 5th the Davis City Council will review and hopefully reverse the current city policy that endorses I-80 freeway widening for cars. This policy was set quietly in 2021 as two line buried a 10 page policy statement on thing the city would lobby by an ad hoc committee of Lucas Frerich and Dan Carson. But now I-80 has surfaced before council as a threat to the City Climate Change Plan its clear the current council needs to reexamine it if it want to be taken seriously on climate change.

The January 9^th ye open staff report to reviewing the I-80 Draft EIR also heighten interest.. At that meeting, Councilmember Will Arnold the former Caltrans Director Of Media Relations, shared Caltrans policy which he summarized: believing freeway widening will fix anything is the definition of insanity. (Link to transcript of Arnold’s remarks)

Every-changing Justification for I-80 Widening

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February 19, 2024
Council to Commit to De-Commissioning Commissions?

There's some metaphor here… ask the Council about it?

Today, January 30th, the City of Davis City Council will “Consider Recommendations Related to Commissions”. Please show up this evening – item 5 is scheduled for 7:20pm – or call the comment line at (530) 757-5693 before 4pm.

Let's look at some recent history first… and then tonight's meeting:

June 3rd 2021

“City Council Subcommittee and All-Commission Chair Meeting”. Video.

This was a two-hour meeting between all Commission Chairs with then City Council member Lucas Frerichs – who chaired the meeting – and Gloria Partida.

It’s worth noting that two of the Commission Chairs – Bapu Vaitla and Donna Neville – are now on the City Council. Vaitla does not reference this meeting in the Council sub-committee proposal scheduled for this evening.

While the meeting is certainly worth a focused viewing, for now I will focus only on statements made at the meeting related to future activity (e.g. further similar meetings with Chairs, Council agenda items, etc):

“Hopefully not the last meeting” (Lucas, earlier in the meeting)

“Update to the City Council Coming shortly” (Frerichs @ 1:59:40 – it’s not clear if this meant any minutes from meeting would be passed along to Council)
“Hopefully on a regular basis” (Frerichs @ 2:00:00 – Referring to an intention for similar meetings with Chairs.)
“I’m sure that Kelly [Stachowicz] and Zoe [Mirabile] also will […] put together some minutes.” (Partida – 2:01:00 – As no publicly-distributed minutes are taken, it’s not clear what this referred to. )

At the end Colin Walsh – the Chair of the Tree Commission - asked about when there would be another similar meeting “in the not too distant future”. Partida responded: “It was pretty clear that that’s one of the main takeaways here… we will be setting that up”. She also said “…What I heard was that people are we really wanting twice a year to meet this way…so I can [should or will be able to] confirm that” (Walsh, Partida from 2:04:25)

Despite what Frerichs and Partida said or intended, there were no meetings – between Chairs and a Council non-quorum or in City Council – until February 2023, 20 months after the 2021 meeting.

February 7th 2021

City Council Meeting. Community comments start at about 2:34. Some highlights:

* Alan Hirsch. gives a good comprehensive look at the overall poor state of things regarding respect for Commissions.

*John Johnson – a member of the NRC - talks about NRC not having enough time to do what it needs to

* Alan Miller suggests a great, truly-democratic and also streamlined idea for organizing the Council and Commissions.

* Roberta Millstein makes clear the paternalistic functioning of Council and Staff

* Colin Walsh criticizes the generally low-quality process

Based on Colin Walsh's observation at the meeting, there were very few members of the Public at the meeting. This would indicate a likely lack of communication about the agenda topic. I also don’t understand why it was called a “workshop”, as it didn’t have this form.

Present Day:

Two pieces earlier this week in Davisite:

Council to Eliminate Tree Commission Tuesday

City Commissions Merger Proposals are Ill Conceived – Testify Tuesday

In the sub-committee report for today’s meeting:

"The Council Subcommittee spoke with all AVAILABLE chairs (or vice-chairs) [emphasis mine] of existing commissions to receive their feedback on what is working in the present structure and what could be improved." [page 4]

"In reviewing the scopes and structure of each of the City's 14 advisory commissions, the subcommittee undertook the following research: […] * Met with [ALL?] chairs and vice-chairs of each commission to gain a better understanding of what works well and areas of potential improvement, especially with respect to Council direction about what areas of commission activity would be most valuable; [page 7].

What actually happened? Did the Chairs and/or Vice Chairs coordinate with each other? Did they have the opportunity to e.g. get questions from Chapman and Vaitla and then get input from their Commission before speaking with Chapman-Vaitla?Are there minutes of these meetings?

The proposal would – in the long-run – have a total of approximately 28 fewer Commissioners than the current 98, so just under 1/3 less participation from the same city (and possibly expanding) population, with similar low to mid level staff, same senior staff and same council numbers, and still minimal involvement from youth (see below)

While there would be less staff hours, it's not clear if this will reduce staffing expenditure (I don't fully understand how staff gets paid when working evenings, etc)

The new language comes from state-mandates on General Plans, but it's clear that the "Element" names don't have to be included in the names of the related Commission.

We then have the proposed "Circulation and Active Mobility" – and they don't get the correct name for the BTSSC again! – but I think that Circulation is a somewhat old-fashioned term which I believe – and not only superficially – relates to LOS (Level of Service)

The archaic and unusual name of "Circulation…" as the new name for what’s unfortunately and informally oft-referred to as the "bike commission" with "….and Active Mobility" which in aggregate is… poor English (just like the current BTSSC, as “Bicycling” is a subset of “Transportation” (outside the sporting context) and “Street Safety” is mostly a quality of the situation,

I would prefer e.g. “Efficient, Joyous and Safe Mobility Commission”, as it covers all forms of transportation using conveyances, walking, other means of travel, resources/climate change issues and the social sphere!

"The required Noise and Safety elements [of the Consolidation] are not listed; community engagement for these will be led by Staff.)" (page four) Seriously, what the actual f*ck?? Is there any actual logic for this or a similar and official mechanism in any other part of the proposal

There's a promise at the end that no one will have to leave, presumably Commissions will change as people term out, but will there will perhaps be more split votes for a long time due to math: 7 to 7, 6 to 6, 5 to 5, 4 to 4 votes (before Commissions "settle" again at 7 members.

There's NO proposal for a Commission of Youth Members/Youth Commission. About 90 cities and towns in California have these! At the very least, there's no proposal for more youth OR age of minority-age ex-officios for ALL Commissions

There’s NO promise of more communications – via social media, the City’s website, etc – to encourage more attendance and attention of Commission meetings and ongoing work, inclusive of biographies of Commission members. One should not have to Google a Commissioner’s name to see their affiliations, job, a bit about their experience, etc.

January 30, 2024
City Comissions Merger Proposals are Ill Conceived – Testify Tuesday!

The City Council is hearing proposals to consolidate commissions on Tuesday night. These changes have serious implications. Here are the proposals:

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January 28, 2024
Arnold calls $465mil I-80 Widening “Insanity”

Council Member & Former Caltrans Employee’s Remarks on I-80

Submitted by Alan Hirsch

Below is a transcription of Councilperson Will Arnold remarks on the I-80 widening for the video of the 1/9/24 Davis Council meeting. Arnold was the Manager of Media Relations at Caltrans HQ until August 2023. His testimony adds to that of the Hi level whistle blower Jeanie Ward-Waller She accused Caltrans of violations CEQA in moving ahead freeway widenings and I-80 project in specific. YoloTD Board has never asked their staff or Caltrans a single question about that in any open board meeting.

(Link to city website with video see time stamp 3:51:29)

“Thank you, Mayor Chapman.

There is an important note I want to read:

‘Highway investments over the years have contributed to a dependence on automobiles and supported development patterns that have made walking, cycling and transit use inefficient, challenging and sometime dangerous in many parts of the state. Highway investment have also contributed to the displacement and division of some neighborhoods and imposed noise and safety hazard on many others.

Further research over the past several decades had demonstrated that highway capacity expansion has not resulted in long term congestion relief and in some cases has worsen congestion, particularly in urbanized regions. (ed note: all emphasis his) Projects in urban area that add travel lanes result in changes in travel behavior due to a short-term reduction in travel time and improvement in reliability. This phenomenon known as “Induced travel” explains why adding capacity has rarely succeed in reducing congestion over the long term or supported alternatives to driving and more transportation efficient land uses.

Finally, highway expansions are costly. Expansion of the existing highway system means less available funding for other transportation needs and priorities as well as continued increase to long term maintenance costs for the existing system. As a result, we cannot continue the same pattern of highway expansion investment in California and expect different results. 3:52:52

Rethinking our approach to highway expansion programs will be a critical part of insuring we are working toward equitably meeting our climate change goals. 3:53:01 ‘

This is part of the state Climate Action Plan for Transportation Infrastructure, known as CAPTI. This is a document passed in 2021 by the state transportation agency signed by Davis Hi Alumnus David Kim, former (CA) Secretary of Transportation

They Know. THEY KNOW (Arnold emphasis), They know what we are saying it true.

This isn’t a secrete in Sacramento, this it isn’t a secrete in any of the 12 Caltrans districts, even District 12 in Orange county. They know.

And yet, we reach these inflection points where it’s time to put our money where our mouth is as a state in how we invest our limited transportation dollars, and we each these inflection points and the same thing keep happening when we invest in what we know, which is more freeways, or lanes expecting a different result.

Which we know is the definition of Insanity.” ends 3:54:18

January 25, 2024
ML King’s Lesson on how needed structural change is slowed by cities

By Alan Hirsch

This year's Davis city-sponsored King celebration is on Peace Activism. It will take place on Monday at 10 am at the Veterans Memorial Center.

This 53-second viral YouTube video of Stokely Carmichael/Kwame Ture discussing peace and justice provides the context in which King was working.

I believe local cities, especially progressive Davis can best honor King by learning from him about how change happens- what it feels like when you are in the middle of the story. We can learn by analogy what it looks like when a local community is grappling with deep structural change—and how local civic leaders respond when they recognize the need for a change in the traditional way of doing things.

King’s goal in 1960’s was to reform the structural evil of Jim Crow, deeply ingrained in the culture of Southern cities.

Today, we are in the middle of a story of how to deal with the climate crisis - a society dependent on burning fossil fuels creating a crisis for long-term survival.

For Dr. King the obstacle to change was not Washington but local government. The Supreme Court had just equipped local governments with tools through rulings like Brown vs. Board of Education. The Eisenhower and Kennedy Administrations were sympathetic, yet in the 1960s South, it was local businesses & governments that resisted. They sought to first maintain peace, of the status quo, fearing that change would be disruptive, leading to divisiveness and disorder.

Similarly, in addressing climate change, the State of California has established strong goals and policies. It has provided local governments with tools under the environmental impact process to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.

Local leaders are aware of what is at stake for climate.. During a discussion of the I-80 freeway widening January 9^th Davis Councilmember Will Arnold shared what he learned when he was a Caltrans employee. He read from Caltrans HQ policy states freeway widening does not fix congestion for long and also undermines the state climate change plan…. local caltrans district need to stop advancing these projects. Arnold summed it up dramatically:
"We know this," widening freeways is "insanity."

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January 14, 2024
Sign the Petition to block I-80 Yolo Widening

Will Arnold labels I-80 insanity but other won’t join him

By Alan Hirsch

At the January 9th council meeting, Councilman Will Arnold read Caltrans policy guidance to local districts offices. It states flatly freeway widenings don’t work and are contrary to state climate change plan. He then said it was “the definition of… insanity” to try widening one more time. Arnold is a former high level Caltrans employee.

But in the city council did NOT support Arnold and the transit option and oppose widening due to abstentions by Gloria Partida (“I’m not sure” i.e.-we may need toll revenue) and Donn Neville (“I need more information”) .

Find the petition at: https://www.change.org/BetterYoloTransit

Why this petition matters

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January 11, 2024
I-80: No such thing as a Free $86m Lunch

On Tuesday, let’s hope council is more curious than YoloTD on DEIR

By Alan Hirsch

Slide from YoloTD slide presentation on I-80 DEIR December 11 when the board decided it was OK with the DEIR and mitigation plan. It does not disclose that the DEIR requires Yolo commit to $50m/year mitigation spending.

At the YoloTD board meeting on December 11 the YoloTD staff the presented the I-80 project. After 6 public comment, and 16 ½ minute discussion they unanimous decided to accept the DEIR, it VMT mitigation plan, and the staff recommend alternate 4. HOT3+

These are the slide staff presented.

https://yolotd.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/2023-12-11_YoloTD-BoardSlides.pdf

No one at the meeting unpacked the ongoing financial obligation of mitigation that YoloTD took on as part of the DEIR

….. in turn for getting the $86 million in free starter money for the project

The VMT/GHG mitigation plan is on slides 15-19—which lists all the 7 mitigation measures.

Its bit confusing so let me unpack – before the Tuesday council meeting.

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January 9, 2024