Downtown 2nd Street Makeover Delayed

Must. Stop. Dreaming. About. Sidewalk Bulb-outs.

Living in downtown Davis has many charms for someone like me  who shuns the use of cars and chooses to walk, bike or take public transportation everywhere. I pay for that benefit by putting up with the noise  generated by our dense commercial/mixed use core area. Behind my snugly situated cottage looms  an apartment building filled with university students who are wont to play beer pong and loud (and often bad, to my ears) music into the wee hours. And in the early morning hours, service  trucks of all variety begin lumbering and loudly clambering around downtown.

Since the City of Davis announced last year that 2nd Street between B & G Streets would be receiving a makeover, I’ve happily incorporated those early morning clangings into my dreams of being able to  smoothly navigate 2nd Street. A flyer circulated to residents and businesses stated that work would,

Modify street corners and crossings to improve the flow of  pedestrian traffic in the corridor similar to Third Street.  [Parking will be modified, but there will be no net losses in public parking.]

I’ve been announcing to anyone who would listen that they  should expect some really drastic improvements on 2nd Street and would soon be able to bike and walk more safely down that oft used corridor, so be prepared  to endure a fair amount of construction over the summer. Apparently, we’ll all have to wait.

After the jump, get the details on when 2nd Street will finally get the upgrade treatment is deserves.

Yesterday morning, I awoke to what I was convinced was some big-toothed behemoth of a machine digging into the asphalt at the corner of 2nd & C Streets. But, when I took my coffee outside, there was no machinery, no barricades, and no federally stimulated workers to be seen.

I took my laptop down to Mishka’s and fired off  an inquiry to several of our esteemed city leaders. Joy Cohan of the Downtown Davis Business Association (DDBA) was first on the scene,

My understanding is that there were delays in getting the
work started such that it would not have begun until late Fall, which is too
close to the holiday season to have the streets disrupted for the businesses.
So, it will now happen in 2010.

Fair enough, Joy.  It’s a little early for me to think about holiday shopping… but I guess that’s why you’re so popular with downtown merchants, you’re always thinking ahead. By the way, be sure to support local businesses with this  great promotional event, $30 on 8/30 which reminds us that every dollar spent at a locally owned business sticks around a lot longer than dollars spent at the Minneapolis Menace.

Next on the scene was our highly esteemed Deputy City Manager Kelly Stachowicz,

We are still awaiting CalTrans authorization to bid  the project.  Because we have not yet received it, it is possible the project will be pushed off into next year.  We try to do downtown construction projects like this during slower times for downtown.

And finally, word came from the Man with the Master Plan, Bob  Clarke, City Engineer,

This project was planned for this Summer, but due to the  lengthy (and still not completed) approval process Caltrans has for Stimulus funded projects, we do not yet have authorization to initiate the bidding  process.  We hope to receive the approval later this calendar year andwill plan on performing the work next summer

Well, so much for getting those federal stimulus dollars out  on the streets as quick as possible… guess I’ll just have to keep avoiding 2nd Street (and 5th Street, but more on that later) while on bicycle until next summer.

Thanks to Roter Hugo for sharing photos of Davis on panoramio.com and GoogleMaps.