Students bicycling and walking to school at Holmes Junior High School in East Davis should keep an eye out for the next few months as construction on Drexel Drive started this week to improve it as a bicycle- and pedestrian-friendly road.

Once complete, the street that runs in front of the school will feature painted shared-lane markings for bicycles and vehicles, speed tables, bulb-outs at L Street and Drexel and new pedestrian ramps and crosswalks.

Plans also include a new separate two-way cycle track lane from Drexel to about 400 feet north of J Street up to the H Street bike tunnel, and all-new LED street lights.

The city expects construction to be complete in a little more than a month with some lane closures to occur throughout the course of the project. Work did not start until the school year began because the contract approval and administration process for the project took longer than expected, according to Dave Kemp, the city’s active transportation coordinator.

School officials sent out an email earlier this week encouraging parents to use J and L streets for drop-off and pickup purposes.

The construction is scheduled as follows:

* Sept. 9-14:  Work on the bike path on the west end of Drexel. Students coming from that direction will be rerouted through the school track area to the bike racks.

* Sept. 16-26: Work on the corner of Drexel Drive and L Street. A flag person will help students and drivers maneuver through the intersection.

* Sept. 24-Oct. 31: On J Street and Drexel Drive, workers will be fixing potholes, placing speed bumps, repainting street markings, replacing street lights and adding a bikeway from the tunnel on J Street to Drexel Drive.

The project will cost $333,740, with funding coming in the form of a $159,000 Sacramento Area Council of Governments grant and $174,740 from city funds.

First Street

Work is just about complete on First Street between A and F streets, where crews for the past few weeks have been repaving the road to flatten it out and reconfiguring the lanes to better facilitate bicycle and vehicle sharing of the road.

The most noticeable difference is in the bike lane running westward along the north side of First Street. A two-foot buffer has been painted on the right side of the bike lane and a three-foot buffer on the left.

Meanwhile, new markings featuring bicycles with arrows added to the eastbound travel lane signify that the road should be shared by both modes of transportation, according to Kemp.

For more information on road construction projects happening in town, visit the city’s website at http://traffic.cityofdavis.org.

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

Roadwork2w

Holmes Junior High School student Zhen Larsen, 13, pedals from school along Drexel Drive Thursday during a reconstruction project of the roadway. Fred Gladdis/Enterprise photo

Roadwork3w

Roadwork1w

Comments

comments