It was mostly a matter of crossing t’s and dotting i’s Tuesday for the City Council, which put the finishing touches on the long-anticipated Fifth Street redesign and gave the OK to city staff to bid out the $1.9 million project.

The “road diet” plan, served to one of the city’s busiest thoroughfares, will peel away two of the four vehicle lanes from Fifth Street, paint in two buffered bicycle lanes in their stead, add turn pockets, a dual left-turn lane, striped pedestrian crosswalks and a host of other new features between A and L streets.

City leaders hope that — with the inclusion of bike boxes and rectangular rapid flashing beacons — the makeover will improve pedestrian and bicyclist safety, reduce vehicle speeds and open up that stretch of road to a greater mix of interaction and connectivity for all modes of transportation.

If the offers submitted by the contractors competing for the work fall within the $1.9 million price tag, City Manager Steve Pinkerton will have the ability to award the project and get construction underway.

The city hopes to have construction started by August, most of the obtrusive road work completed by September and the project completely finished in October.

Councilwoman Rochelle Swanson wanted to make sure it was clear how the city will pay for the project, considering the elevated levels of public scrutiny over city expenditures as of late.

Bob Clarke, who as the council learned Tuesday was recently promoted from interim public works director to full director, explained that more than half of the project’s budget will come from grant funding, which was awarded specifically for the redesign.

Clarke added that the road funds the city will put toward the project aren’t coming from other projects. Any such projects haven’t yet received similar grants that would allow for their advancement.

“I think it’s important sometimes to take the extra time to demonstrate that (we) are taking a holistic view,” Swanson added. “(We’re) trying … to spread the funds that we do have and, more importantly, capitalize on the opportunities when we can get grant funding to be able to move these things forward.

“It’s tough when we’re making cuts and doing other things (for people to understand) why some projects get green-lighted and others don’t.”

The work largely will be paid for by an $836,000 Sacramento Area Council of Governments grant the city was awarded for the project. The city also will allocate more than $800,000 from roads and roads transportation funds and utilize several smaller grants it received.

But funding hasn’t been the only controversial aspect of the redesign since it was first introduced in 2009. Many in the community have raised concerns throughout the process about how the “road diet” would affect traffic flow and congestion in and around the downtown.

While staff believes that the new configuration ultimately will not impact the street’s vehicle capacity, Councilman Brett Lee acknowledged concerns about congestion and said he would like to see data aggregated before and after implementation of the project to gauge its success.

Steve Tracy, a Davis resident and representative of the Old North Davis Neighborhood Association, said the baseline data already exists.

“The two studies that were done, one by a city-paid consultant and one through the engineering school at UC Davis, both showed that a round trip through the corridor would not be the equivalent time, but rather 45 seconds faster with the redesigned street,” Tracy said.

According to city numbers, the 3,900-foot stretch of Fifth Street between A and L streets sees average traffic levels of about 12,000 to 17,000 vehicles per day.

The ultimate vision for Fifth Street, meanwhile, includes raised medians that would provide pedestrians a safer refuge when crossing the thoroughfare.

Mayor Joe Krovoza said he would like staff to be prepared to implement that phase of the project if bids for the initial phase come in low and more of the project budget is left available.

— Reach Tom Sakash at [email protected] or 530-747-8057. Follow him on Twitter at @TomSakash

Comments

comments