Pedestrian Infrastructure ‘Improvements’

Downtown Sebastopol is bisected by two Caltrans controlled state highways. Highway 12 heads east from downtown toward Santa Rosa on Sebastopol Avenue. Highway 116 is north-south and uses two one-way roads, Main Street and Petaluma Avenue. Caltrans has recently made some ‘improvements’ to downtown intersections and some driveway curb cuts

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The Happy City

Just read a great blog post from Mr. Money Mustache. Check it out The Happy City and our $20 Trillion Opportunity. It is a succinct description of the inefficiencies of our current development paradigm in the United States. It relates very directly to work I’ve been doing with Urban Community

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Community Character, State Highways and Walkability

One of the topics at our General Plan Advisory Committee (GPAC) meeting this week was ‘Community Character.’ It was an interesting conversation and it made me think about the form of the public spaces in Sebastopol and how they may be improved. People often describe Sebastopol as ‘quirky.’ I don’t

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Smart School Siting – 4

Today’s post will be an update on the Sebastopol Charter School’s pursuit of a new 20 acre campus located on the periphery of Sebastopol. If you’re interested in reading previous posts on this topic please see the following links; Smart School Siting -1,  Smart School Siting – 2 and Smart

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Traffic Calming

I am a member of the Sebastopol General Plan Advisory Committee. Circulation was the topic of our meeting last month. It was a robust conversation for 3.5 hours, and we still managed to omit large topics, like transit. But it gave me another opportunity to look at circulation issues in

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Traffic Lane Width Reduction Improves Safety

I came across this article today by Jeff Speck where he discusses reducing drive lane widths on urban streets from 12′ to 10′. Reading down through the comments there are obviously strong opinions on both sides, but it seems like an obvious safety improvement to me and I think would

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Sharing the Streets

I came across this interesting video that demonstrates the concept of ‘Shared Streets’ which is the inspiration for this post. Prior to the widespread use of the automobile, streets were shared by all users. We didn’t have the segregation we see today in which priority is given to the movement

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More Traffic Thoughts

Probably the number one complaint of residents of Sebastopol and West County, as mentioned in an earlier post, is traffic. This is a common lament of people in communities across the country from large urban areas to small towns like Sebastopol. People just hate traffic. And who could blame them.

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FRITZ ARCHITECTURE-URBANISM
small town urbanism

urban design thoughts through the filter of living in a small town

P.O. Box 1074
Sebastopol, CA 95473
707.975.6220
paul@fritzarchitecture.com
Paul Fritz in Sebastopol, CA on Houzz

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