People hate traffic. I get it. Who wants to sit in a car and not move, or move more slowly than you think you should be moving? Cars have been marketed as being able to provide us freedom. Get in your car and you can get anywhere you want! With the right truck or SUV, you don’t even need a road! I love how car ads either show cars speeding through a bucolic landscape or speeding through an urban downtown with not a single other car in site. They don’t show real world driving conditions. Never do you see car ads with cars sitting in bumper to bumper traffic. Or even a moderate amount of traffic, which is how many people experience driving.  So I get it, it’s frustrating when you are sitting in your car and not able to at least drive the speed limit.

I came across this meme a number of years ago.

I don’t know the source, but it definitely rings true. I’m not sure why we expect to be the only person out driving when we need to go somewhere, but most of us seem to feel this way. I think it comes back to the promise of cars being able to provide the utlimate in access. It’s frustrating when that access is thwarted or slowed down by other people driving their cars. But I’ll say that just recognizing this fact does change your perspective a bit about traffic. I believe we all need to be a bit more Zen about traffic. When you are frustrated about the traffic conditions while in your car, recognize that you are responsible for creating the traffic conditions you are cursing. And recognize that you are not the only person that wants to get somewhere at that moment. We’ll all eventually get to our destinations. Relax and enjoy the ride.

Along these lines I frequently hear people complain about traffic congestion in my small town. I can’t tell you the number of times I hear how bad traffic is in Sebastopol. As a planning commissioner it is probably the comment I hear the most from members of the public. When a new housing project is proposed I can absolutely guarantee that much of the public comment will be about how much traffic will be generated and how horrible things are already. Traffic and parking. You can’t count on it.

This has come up during discussions of the Caltrans Planning Grant that Sebastopol was awared. The grant is looking at revising the current circulation patterns downtown to increase mobility options and make downtown a safe, vibrant and engaging place.  (I’ve written about it previously here) One concern about restoring a two-way circulation pattern to downtown and abandoning the existing one-way couplet system is that traffic will get worse. In my mind, it doesn’t really matter what happens with traffic or congestion. I’m hoping that through this process of reimagining our downtown we focus on placemaking and making it a place where people want to be and not just a place people drive through. The drive through traffic does nothing for our economic vitality. We want people to stop, get out of their cars and experience downtown on foot Shop in our stores. Eat in our restaurants. Drink in our cafes and bars. And our downtown should be comfortable for people that live in town to be able to walk and bike there. That is what is going to create a vibrant downtown. Regardless of how much congestion there is.

The one-way couplet system was implemented in 1985 to alleviate traffic congestion (We were a little late to the game. Many cities started converting their streets to one-way couplets in the ’50’s and ’60’s.). That’s the point of one-way couplets. I just don’t think that should be the priority of a small town Main Street district. In fact, the lack of traffic in the evenings and weekends is more concerning to me. After 6PM downtown is a ghost town.

Main Street at 6:30 on a Saturday evening in the summer. We could use some congestion here.

The lack of traffic is more of an issue for downtown vibrancy than a bit of congestion for a couple hours a day. Many of our favorite places do have traffic congestion. Because people want to be there! Congestion is often a sign of success. There are many small towns across the country that you can drive through without a hint of traffic 24 hours a day. I bet many of them wish for a bit more traffic. We need to make our downtown a place people want to be. Let’s make the congestion work for us.

It is worth considering the extent and duration of traffic to understand the real impact. I would argue that it really is not as bad as many people perceive. To this effect, I’ve been tracking how long it takes to drive through Sebastopol in the north-south direction throughout the day for several weeks. I’ve used Google Maps and tracked the time between a point on the north side of town (Andy’s Market) and a point on the south side of town (Himalayan Salt Room and Day Spa). I’ve done this from 7 AM to 8 PM. The route is 3.3 miles long.

What I’ve found is that it is remarkably predictable. Every weekday followed a very similar pattern. At 7 AM it takes about 7 minutes in each direction. There’s a bit of a bump in the 8 o’clock hour. Then starting at 9 AM it generally takes 8 or 9 minutes, in both directions, most of the day,with another slight bump in the noon hour, until about 7 PM when it drops back down to 7 minutes. The biggest congestion of the day happens from 2:30 – 4:30 PM. And even then, the average does not exceed 12 minutes. The longest I ever measured in either direction was 15 minutes and that occurred a couple of times during that 3-4 PM timeframe.

It should be noted that the high school in Sebastopol is located at the north end of downtown and most people travelling to and from the high school will need to drive on a portion of the north-south route mapped above. We all know this. It is not a surprise. Look at the times when traffic is the worst. 8 AM and 3 PM. Hmmm. What’s occurring at those times? Maybe parents dropping kids off at school? Teenagers driving themselves to school? This is by far the biggest impact on congestion in Sebastopol. Congestion, mysterioulsy, is a lot less of an issue during school holidays. Late afternoon is the most congested time. But at 5PM we’re pretty much back to the typical 8 or 9 mintues.

The number of housing units we allow is not creating the congestion. The congestion is created by parents driving kids to school because they are not comfortable allowing their children to walk or bike on streets they do not feel are safe for cyclists or pedestrians. The congestion is created by allowing interdistrict school transfers so many of our kids don’t even live within walking or biking distance of their school. The congestion is created by us closing and consolidating schools, which again results in kids not living within walking or biking distance of their school. When El Molino High School was closed in Forestville, we ended up with hundreds of kids that live in Forestville, Guerneville and further away now having to drive to high school in downtown Sebastopol. That is drives congestion in Sebastopol. And as I’ve shown in the graphs above, we’re only talking about a trip through town taking 3 or 4 minutes longer than normal. It’s not the end of the world.

If we really want to address congestion in Sebastopol, we need to create an environment where parents that live in town, and whose children go to school in town, feel safe letting them walk and bike to school. For families that live out of town and don’t have the option of walking or biking to school, we should be talking about busing children to school. That would do a lot to reduce congestion. To be honest, I don’t think the congestion is bad enough to generate those conversations. But let’s not stop housing development, which we desperately need, or discount the idea of restoring two-way traffic circulation downtown for fear of increased congestion.

Let’s think about the relative scale of the congestion here. It really could be so much worse. And try to keep in mind when you are frustrated about traffic, that you are part of the problem and have some compassion for others that have to be in their cars at the same time as you. Or even better, delay your trip if possible. Or take a different route. Or get out of your car and bike or walk. There’s nothing better than riding your bike past of line of slow-moving or stopped cars. And remember, you are not stuck in traffic. You are traffic.