[OldNorth] 5th Street

[Valerie Vann]

Re: 5th St. Traffic proposals, BUSES & BIKES

A couple of notes about BUS TRAFFIC in the study area.

(1) UniTrans uses the London double decker buses on their E Route,
which operates on F Street. These buses have an English style
configuration, with passenger exit from the LEFT REAR of the bus.
Unitrans uses a flagperson/conductor to stop following traffic
as necessary for passengers to step down into the street. 

I don't think they use the London buses on the P-Q line, which
operates on 5th Street (because they won't clear the Subway), 
but you might want to verify with UniTrans that they don't
operate the London buses on 5th.

Also:

(2) Has there been coordination with YoloBus as well as UniTrans?

YoloBus operates East and Westbound 42 lines hourly between
about 5am and 10pm on 5th St., turning onto F Street. 
There are also several commute hour Express lines before
9am and after 4pm, operating on the 42 Line route, mainly
the 43 Express. (The 44 Express turns off Russell onto
B St.) YoloBus has stops along 5th/Russel between F Street
and Anderson Rd, most shared with UniTrans. The major
stops are provided with a concrete pad for wheelchairs.

Yolo Buses are all equipped with wheelchair lifts of
various designs, some with complex restraint systems that
in my experience can result in a bus stopping for up
to 10 minutes, while a normal stop is less than a minute.

In what way (if any) was bus traffic incorporated into the
Fifth Street timing studies?

(3) At the ON meeting the 26th, Steve mentioned in passing the
possibility of moving a bus stop to the other side of the
intersection, e.g. the one in the Fire Station block.

In over 30 years of bus commuting, I've been to a lot of
route & stop change hearings, and observed a lot of bus
and bus rider activity/behavior, both in Davis and several
of Sacramento's heaviest traveled routes.

Regional Transit and Yolobus (which tends to follow RT practice)
generally opposed locating a bus stop just upstream of a cross
street. They prefer sites just downstream of the intersection.

One reason is that both the intersection and the cross street
sidewalk distance makes it easier to pull the bus fully into
to curbside (without the rear end hanging out),
so that the wheelchair lift can be deployed and
passengers don't have to step into the street to board or 
exit by either the front or rear doors of the bus.

Also, if more than one bus happens to arrive at the same time
at a stop downstream of a minor cross street, the 2nd bus CAN
(though this is discouraged) pull over partly in the
intersection to briefly queue behind the first if necessary,
freeing the traffic lane of the route street. 

But the main reason I've heard given is SAFETY. 
First, when a bus pulls over to stop upstream of an intersection,
other traffic can be confused by the bus turn signal,
not knowing whether the bus is making a right turn instead
of pulling into the curb to stop.

Following traffic will usually pass the bus on the left in 
either assumption. The stopped bus may obstruct following
traffic's view of cross street traffic from the right,
(or a stop sign on the route street), and vice versa. 
I've personally seen some near misses in these
situations.

Now, as you probably know, California has a law about 
School Buses, where it is prohibited to pass a School
Bus that is stopped (and has a sign and lights on the
back to that effect) because a lot of children were
struck when passing in front of the bus after exiting.

However, while this law doesn't apply to regular bus 
transit, adult bus riders tend to behave the same as
children: when a bus is stopped just upstream of a stop sign,
passengers tend to cross the route street in front of
the bus (cross walk) where they can't be seen by traffic 
passing to the left of the bus until they emerge into the
traffic lane. This may also impede the bus exiting the
stop. I've even seen the bus almost hit someone crossing
in front of it because the bus driver was looking at
the rear view mirror for following traffic while pulling
out of the stop.

However, when the stop is downstream of the intersection,
passengers from both exits will go the intersection
(or crosswalk) BEHIND the bus, where they are visible
to following traffic and vice versa. (Oncoming
traffic is still a problem, but there's half a street
more visibility.) Also the bus can pull out of
the stop unimpeded if traffic permits. Cross street
traffic is fully visible to following traffic at
all times.

In the particular case of the Fire Station stop on
5th Street, the further east the stop is the better,
as the curve in the street along Central Park
(and its street trees) make it difficult to see 
the stop until the bus is at C Street. Traffic
is moving fast during commute hours and in winter
it is often foggy in the morning and the buses can
use the extra distance to see that they need to
make that stop, especially with someone right on
their tail.

So it has been my experience that the bus authorities will
resist locating a bus stop upstream of a cross street, and
it would be well to get both UniTrans and YoloBus fully
onboard about the proposals.


BIKES:

Buses and other traffic turning from 5th onto F (or
F onto 5th) or traffic turning onto cross streets
from 5th.

The lack of bike lane on 5th causes the sidewalks along
5th Street to be used as bike lanes. 

Although bikes on sidewalks are an occasional hazard
at all times in Davis, especially at start of school year
when there are newcomers who don't know the system (bikes
are supposed to use sidewalks in Sacramento), in
general Davis pedestrians can expect not to have to
dodge bikes on the sidewalks. 

But bike riders in my experience for some reason 
don't expect to yield to or watch out for
pedestrians under any circumstance. When operating on
a sidewalk in particular, and approaching a pedestrian
from the rear, not one bike rider in a millian realizes
that due to the Doppler effect, the pedestrian will not
hear them until they whiz past, often even brushing up
against you. This makes the 5th street sidewalks very
pedestrian unfriendly at all times of day or night.

The older sidewalks are not really wide enough for
two way (or passing) traffic, whether two bikes or
bikes and pedestrians (or pedestrian with dog.) 

In addition, as a freqent user of the bus stop on
F Street at 5th, I have witnessed many near accidents between
autos/buses and bikes, especially at the 5th and F 
and the 5th and C intersections. Even at F with a traffic
light, the bike has the light in their favor as well
as the 5th street traffic, and traffic turning off
onto F can be suddenly confronted by a bike using
the sidewalk speeding into the crosswalk in front
of the turning vehicle. This is especially dangerous in
the fog, at night, and where the row of street trees
partly hides the sidewalk from the view of traffic 
and vice versa.

So safety would be best served by getting the bikes
off the sidewalks and onto their own lanes.

Val
-- 
Valerie Vann
valerie at vanngroup.com