The consultant team working on the Caltrans Sustainable Transportation Planning Grant has released their four alternatives for the redesign of the street network in downtown Sebastopol. You can check this earlier post to get more background on the grant. The four alternatives include two that keep the one-way couplet system (Alt. 1 and Alt. 3), one creates a two-way Main Street but leaves Petaluma Ave one-way northbound (Alt. 2) and a final option that eliminates the one-way couplet system entirely by converting Main Street, McKinley and Petaluma Avenue to 2-way streets (Alt. 4).

The schematic alternative plans and images were produced by the consultant team. The Streetmix sections were something I put together to help explain what the plans are proposing. I’ve only included street sections of the block of Main Street between McKinley and Bodega/Hwy 12.

Alternative 1: Fine Tune Today

This section is across Main Street, closer to McKinley. Imagine the Cookie Company in the building on the left side of the street

This section is also across Main Street, but closer to Bodega/Hwy 12. Imagine Sagestone in the building on the left.

In general, Alternative 1 is the least interesting. It makes minimal changes to the existing conditions. The bike lanes are split between Main Street (southbound) and Petaluma Ave. (northbound), as they currently are, but both are protected as they are located between the sidewalk and parallel parked cars. You get some wider sidewalks and bump-outs at intersections which can be seen in red on the plan. We would get new street trees, lighting and furniture I would assume. And it does eliminate a good amount of parallel parking on Main Street to accommodate the turn lanes at Bodega. On Petaluma Ave., the existing bike lane is relocated to the west side of the street to avoid the existing conflict between the right turn lane and the bike lane which shifts from being located at the curb, to being located between the right turn lane and drive lane.  That’s a welcome change. It’s not a comfortable feeling to be in a bike lane with moving cars on both sides of you.

Alternative 2: Test the Two-Way

This section across Main Street is between McKinley and Bodega/Hwy 12. The section is consistent for most of the block.

This scheme relocates both bike lanes to Petaluma Ave. in a two-way cycle track. Main Street is two-way with a center turn lane for most of the full length of the block between McKinley and Bodega/Hwy 12. There is parallel parking on both sides of the street and there is space for slightly wider sidewalks of about 14′ wide. (the current sidewalks vary from about 9′ to 11′). Petaluma Ave. is a single lane for most of the length except at the intersection with Sebastopol Ave./Hwy 12 and then a single lane again north of that intersection. I like the sidewalk opportunities and bump-outs at the intersections.

I would like to see McKinley switched to a two-way street in this scheme to provide access to the northeast quadrant of downtown. As it is now, and in this scheme, drivers wanting to get to that area have to drive another block down Main St., turn left on Hwy 12 and then another left on Petaluma Ave. to get there. This could relieve the need for such a long center turn lane on Main St. This could allow for either wider sidewalks, or maybe a center median providing a great green Main St. experience.

Alt. 2 with a center median replacing a portion of the center right turn lane.

Alternative 3: Walkable One-Way

This section is also consistent for the block of Main Street between McKinley and Bodega/Hwy 12.

This alternative keeps the fully one-way couplet system but reduces the number of lanes on Main St. to two instead of the existing 3. By relocating both bike lanes to the two-way cycle track as in Alternative 2, the actual curb-to-curb distance is much narrower than existing conditions which allows for the widest sidewalks of any of the alternatives. This could allow cafe/restaurant seating areas and parklets. This is certainly appealing.

My concerns with this alternative are that it is still one-way which is confusing for people and still feels more like a highway down Main St. I also am concerned about the speeding and dangerous driving that occurs south of the Bodega intersection. This plan does not show how traffic will be calmed for this 1/2 mile stretch. One thought I had was to possibly have only a single lane south of Bodega/Hwy 12. This would leave a lot of right-of-way for other uses. But I’m not sure what those would be. The commercial buildings right up to the back of the sidewalk gives way to larger setbacks after a block or so as you leave the downtown district. We don’t need wider sidwalks down there, or more parking, so I’m not sure what you do with that space.

Alternative 4: Totally Two -way

I wanted to like Alt. 4 the best. I’ve always been a fan of restoring the two-way street system. There are a number of reasons including it just has more of a small town feel. People expect small towns to have a 2-way Main Street. (This can be evidenced here by the number of people I see attempting to drive the wrong way down Main Street) The two-way streets will help slow down vehicle speeds which automatically makes the streets safer for pedestrians and cyclists. It will also help slow down cars because of the ‘friction’ involved when your are driving on a two-way street. Our existing multi-lane southbound Main Street encourages reckless driving behavior. Plus the two-way streets provide more options for getting to your destination which now is complicated by the fact that sometimes when you are driving you have to go past your destination and then circle back to it on the adjacent street.

But the fact that Alt. 4 has no on-street parking for two blocks is going to be a non-starter. The merchants will never go for it. And I don’t think it feels right either. This alternative has the full block length left turn lane plus a single lane south and a single lane north. Protected bike lanes are located between the driving lanes and the sidewalks. You do get wider sidewalks, but the no street parking is just not workable. Petluma Ave. has two-way vehicular traffic and a parking lane on one side of the street. McKinley has two westbound lanes and one eastbound lane. I believe it would be possible to get the parking back by removing most, if not all, of the center left turn lane.

Part of the issue with the proposed Totally Two-Way alternative is that they have a center left-turn lane for the entire length of the block between McKinley and Bodega. I find this wholly unnecessary and catering to a concern that cars may back-up on Main Street to the north. I think this concern about vehciles backing up misses the point of this exercise. We should be designing our Main Street for people. We shouldn’t focus on ensuring people get through downtown in their cars as quickly as possible. That is not the purpose of our downtown. For more on this discussion see my previous post on congestion .

A Few Alternatives of my own

I can really geek out and spend a lot of time on Streetmix. I have to say, I am not a traffic engineer. So there may be some fatal flaws with what I’ve proposed below. But it has been a fun exercise.

I came up with a two-way Main Street design that allows for protected bike lanes in each direction as well as street parking on both sides of the street, which will help protect the bike lanes. The parking zone can also be used for loading zones. While the sidewalks are not super generous, they are about 2′-3′ wider than our existing sidewalks when you include the 2′ for street trees and 2′ for lighting in the cross-section below.

I did modify the section to include a left turn lane if we wanted it. But I would say we certainly don’t want this for the entire block. Maybe to allow 3-4 cars to stack. In that situation you would lose the parking on one side of the street.

I also came up with a scheme that locates the bike lanes in a two-way cycle track on Petaluma Ave. This is what the consultants did  for Alternative 2 and 3. Although in both those schemes, Petaluma Ave. remains one-way northbound. My design allows for two-way vehicle circulation, a two-way cycle track and street parking on one side of the street. This design fits in the existing curb-to-curb width of 40′ on Petaluma Ave. The cycle track is at sidewalk level. There is parallel parking adjacent to the cycle track and two travel lanes, one in each direction.

With both bike lanes located to Petaluma Ave you can get an awesome street section on Main Street.

These are 16′ wide sidewalks, including a zone for street trees and street furniture, plus an opportunity for a beautifully landscaped center median. This would make Main Street Sebastopol designed as a place for people with more space dedicated for people (42′) than cars (34′) and great opportunities for sidewalk dining, nice landscaping, parklets and a unique identity. This scheme could be modified to allow for a left turn pocket as well by eliminating the central planter near the intersection with Bodega.

Another idea if both bike lanes could be moved to Petaluma Ave. would be to include angled parking on one side of the street.

Eliminating the downtown couplet and making both north-south streets two-way also brings a unique opportunity. Right now Petaluma Ave. is state route 116 North and Main St. is state route 116 South. If both streets are two-way, we could plan events on Main Street as there is still an alternate route for vehicles to get through downtown.

This exercise has shown me that there are really so many options. I appreciate the challenge the consultant team had to undertake to get to the 4 alternatives they’ve presented. It’s really quite a challenging puzzle. I’m confident we’ll come up with the best solution.

If you want to review the proposed alternatives further and take a survey about the options, you can find the alternatives at this link and here for the survey. And feel free to leave comments below with your thoughts or some Streetmix ideas of your own.