ICPI Issue 2 2019

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between the city’s downtown and the university entrance, points out Nathan Lozier, vice president of RHAA Landscape Architecture and Planning in San Francisco. “Davis is a bicycle town. Over 4,000 bicycles travel through the Third Street area between downtown and UC Davis daily. Diversion bollards to control automobile traffic and deep cross- street drainage swales were safety hazards to bicyclists,” he says. There is also much pedestrian traffic, so it was important to address narrow sidewalks, deteriorating pavement,

and inadequate lighting for pedestrians and bicyclists, he adds. Visually, the plan also recommended better connecting downtown to the campus, says Mr. Lozier. “Prior to improvements, you could stand at the downtown end of the two-block area and not even know that the university was there,” he says. “The existing street profile was also steeply crowned to divert water into deep gutters along the roadway.” The 850 foot (245 m) street length includes 675 ft (206 m) of permeable interlocking concrete pavement (PICP). The

two-block area previously had four- foot wide sidewalks next to four- foot wide tree lawns with on-street parking and bollards divert pass- through traffic at an intersection. The new design eliminates on- street parking in exchange for wider sidewalks, flattens the street to make it safer for pedestrians and bicycles, installs more bicycle racks throughout the area, and uses custom art—an obelisk of bicycle parts—in the center of a newly rebuilt intersection circle to control traffic flow.

COVER STORY

Issue 2 • 2019 ® esign interloc 7

An obelisk of bicycle parts provides the crowning touch to this bicycle-friendly city.