This article regards Rich Rifkin’s article today in the Enterprise “Car-free downtown housing will benefit Davis”, at https://www.davisenterprise.com/forum/car-free-downtown-housing-will-benefit-davis/article_a4c63d0c-7531-4ffb-a6bd-0745b9007777.html for those of you who can break through the paywall, possibly by paying.

“Don’t build car parking spaces and they won’t come”. Pure fantasy. I live three blocks from the ACE project. I have no driveway so we have to park in the street. There are several similar properties nearby, mainly on corners. When the Capitol Corridor grew to a certain level and the parking lot reached critical mass, the cars overflowed en masse into our neighborhood. Yes, the project to keep cars off the road overflowed mass quantities of cars into our residential neighborhood.

I spearheaded a parking district that was implemented, but it took two years. We balanced this to allow open parking most of the time, but just enough to deal with Amtrak parking. There were times I couldn’t park within two blocks of my residence, again no driveway.

Now with ACE coming, we may have to redesign the parking district to keep the neighborhood from filling up at night. Simply declaring no parking does not mean people without cars will move in. As you know there is a huge business in Davis of people who rent out driveways and other spaces to students and others who can’t park. Also, these hundreds of residents will have visitors some of whom will drive. They will park in our neighborhoods.

The parking-free projects will reach a critical mass just like the Amtrak station did, and suddenly the parking districts as-designed won’t work anymore as these (dream on) ‘car free’ residents and their visitors park in our neighborhoods. Those most impacted, by far, will be those closest to project with insufficient parking-district protections. Old East and Huntwood neighborhoods between 5th and 8th will be adjacent to hundreds of carless (not really) residents who will park their non-existent cars and those of their visitors in an area with, currently at least, no parking district.

Also, all those alternative methods of transportation you (Rifkin) tout are wreaking havoc on Davis. Scooters, electric bikes and motorcycles are riding fast and in new patterns that involve riding on roads, bike paths, bike lanes and sidewalks in any direction. Discussing Davis with people, this is among the top concerns in Davis, and no one seems to have even an idea of a solution, and there is near-zero enforcement by UCD or City police.

Also, there are serious parking safety issues downtown already from Uber and Door Dash drivers who simply pull into the bike lane, turn on their hazard lights, swing their door open often without looking for bikes going around them that they just blocked, and taking up that space for as long as they want. Again, near-zero enforcement. Again, major issue for Davis and no solutions, and also a parking issue downtown.

People such as yourself (Rifkin) propose zero-parking projects as if having no parking means the people will have no cars and no visitors. Yes, on average fewer cars per resident, still more cars downtown and in central neighborhoods, and when this reaches critical mass, our neighborhoods will suddenly be impacted. I know how this happens, suddenly. I’ve been through it.

You won’t find a person who believes in and wants improved public and alternative transit than myself, and I’ve fought for this both as a private citizen my entire life and taken this as a career path. But the solution is building the infrastructure first, and maintaining it! Not fantasy ‘zero parking means zero cars’ projects.

With the state of many Davis roads in deterioration to the point bicycling can be hazardous, Thompson’s praise of Davis as a bicycle Mecca is borderline deranged. Politicians should stop praising themselves for a City that no longer should be proud of itself for being an innovator on bicycling, and instead go into emergency mode to prioritize fixing its streets and bike paths, and also come up with solutions on how to handle infrastructure and enforcement to make these new, heavy, fast ‘last mile’ modes part of the solution instead of new hazards.