Concerned about emergency response
On Friday, Nov. 18, UC Davis police called for mutual aid and the Davis Police Department immediately responded from police headquarters and throughout the city. Approximately 12 to 15 patrol cars and other vehicles sped west on Fifth Street with emergency lights flashing. Had Fifth Street been one lane from L to A streets, their emergency response time would have been severely impaired.
At approximately the same time, traffic on Russell Boulevard/Fifth Street going east was backed up from California Avenue to B Street. Good thing there wasn’t a single lane through downtown for an ambulance to negotiate to get to senior housing on the east side of the city.
Will the City Council and staff explain why coning off a lane each way to try this experiment does not make good sense? Certainly logic suggests making Fifth Street one lane each way does not make any sense. Prove to us we are wrong before spending public funds we don’t have.
Clark Goecker
Davis
Short URL: http://www.davisenterprise.com/?p=107236
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Posted by Letters to the Editor
on Dec 8 2011.
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I agree that an assessment of impact BEFORE changes are made is prudent.
Sounds like a reasonable suggestion to me. I can’t see why the City would not be agreeable to such an idea.
I think having open pavement in the form of bike lanes would make it easier for car traffic to clear a path for emergency vehicles. When there’s heavy traffic in four lanes, it’s wall-to-wall cars…nowhere to go. And there’s traffic now with four lanes, there’s likely be traffic with two lanes.
Also, I think the “coning off” proposal will only confuse drivers, bicyclists and pedestrians (particularly at night or during bad weather), cones fall over and are moved or removed by weather, cars and people. Also, some drivers will intentionally drive right through the cones. Add to that, it would require a lot of man-hours to set-up and maintain cones, to change the timing of traffic lights, add and maintain temporary signage, to set-up and maintain monitoring devices, to gather/analyze data, etc.
And how long should the coning experiment take place to satisfy critics of the proposed 5th street change? Even if it works exactly as the designers project, I’ll bet a ‘Davis Dollar’ that people will still come out vehemently against making any sort of change from status quo.