Your support helps build great cities and towns in our region where everyone can lead an active lifestyle and bicycle and walk for everyday transportation, health, and joy.
Shasta Living Streets builds prosperous communities by creating better bikeways and trails, walkable cities and vibrant public places where active living excellence brings a strong and secure economy and enables all people in our region to lead healthy and joyful lives.
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Together we build better bikeways, trails, walkable cities and vibrant public places.
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1313 California Street, Redding, CA 96001
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All Aboard! Exciting Potential Development Coming To Downtown Redding?
Shasta Living Streets has been talking with the Shasta Historical Society and other stakeholders in the discussion about the historic Wells Fargo building on Yuba Street and the long underused Union Pacific railroad reservation on which it sits. The current proposal would transform the site into “The Railyard,” a permanent home to the farmers’ market and a major multimodal transportation crossroads in downtown Redding!
This is an important opportunity to improve the walking and bicycling experience in downtown for three groups with significant purchasing power that will help make this downtown site a success:
Local shoppers: People who will be more easily able to walk or bicycle from the many neighborhoods within two miles;
River trail tourists: There’s tremendous untapped potential for spending that will naturally come downtown once we build better bicycle and walking connections to our trail system;
Adventure-cycling enthusiasts bringing their bicycles to town by Amtrak’s Bicycle Tourism Route. Read more about what Amtrak is doing to encourage and support tourists traveling with their bicycles.
Shasta Living Streets is working with the other stakeholders in this project to ensure that the infrastructure and facilities to support these groups (and their spending downtown) are included in the project scope.
What We Hope to See in this Mixed-Use Site
More ideas and details will come as we help develop the concept with stakeholders. For now, here are five key things that we think are necessary to make this project a success.
Bikestationto provide services and information for people using a bicycle to get around Downtown Redding and beyond.
Bike corral or bicycle lockers for shoppersat the Farmers Market and visiting the historical site and other attractions.
Roll-on bicycle service at Amtrack – Infrastructureto ensure convenient travel for people with bicycles
Local neighborhood connections – Infrastructureto ensure reliable connections to neighborhoods and attractions within 2 miles of the Railyard
Reliable, convenient connection to the River Trail – Infrastructure to ensure reliable connections between the River Trail and the Railyard
If you have any ideas or other input you want to see included, or just want to talk about the project, please contact Anne.
Bikestation
One of the facilities we are advocating for the Railyard project is a Bikestation that would serve people coming to Redding through the transit crossroads and as well as those using the Railyard for the farmers’ market and other activities.
Bikestations are being installed in many places around the country and each one is customized to meet the needs of the community. They serve as a convenient place for secure bicycle parking and can offer affordable services and amenities for travelers, commuters, and casual cyclists such as:
The Downtown Redding Railyard project needs ideas and support from all of us across the community. There is much we can do to build a livable community and a vibrant downtown in Redding.
The photo below is from a project in Rockville, MD.
Are you looking for a copy of the recent article about Redding trails?
We met a number of people at today’s event on the Diestelhorst Bridge who had not had a chance to read this article. Feel free to share with anyone you think would be interested.
There are two versions of the article, a shorter version for the print magazine, a longer version online. Both are available at the top of our Media page.
We have a tremendous opportunity to transform the cities, county towns and rural areas in our region to be places that are safe and inviting for people to walk and bicycle in their daily routine.
So, don’t believe the myth that it can only happen in urban areas. With a little work to design and implement superior bicycle and pedestrian facilities, we can quickly create great places to live, work and play right here at home:
People in small towns want to bike too, it’s not just an urban phenomenon: The share of work trips made by bicycle in small towns is nearly double that of urban centers.
Significant funding is available: Transportation Enhancements has provided twice the funding per capita in rural America than in big cities. And is the nation’s largest funding source for trails, walking and bicycling. Also, this year the State of California increased the amount dedicated to biking and walking transportation projects, to the highest level ever. And there is a priority on spending these funds in cities and towns like those in our region.
People in small towns prioritize active transportation facilities over auto-related projects: Among a list of transportation priorities—including major roads and long-distance travel—rural Americans selected sidewalks as “important” more often than any other transportation need.
Active Transpiration Beyond Urban Centers: Walking and Bicycling in Small Towns and Rural America. Report by Rails-to-Trails Conservancy.
We have to stop building transportation through communities and instead build communities through transportation.’ Unfortunately, as logical as this may sound, Departments of Transportation and Public Works don’t often follow this path.
The problem with the suburbs isn’t that they are not the city. The problem with the suburbs is the same problem as the city: they had a bad 5 or 6 decades of urban design.
Hang out with friends, eat, have a beer or two, enjoy the live music—and support better bicycling in our community while you’re at it!
You don’t need to ride a bike but it’s a great opportunity to ride downtown for a fun evening with other people who love to cycle and are working to make our community a more livable place.
Portions of the proceeds from the evening will be donated to Shasta Living Streets.
Beer Saved the World: Egyptian texts contain 100 medical prescriptions calling for beer. * Since beer went through fermentation the alcohol present effectively made it cleaner than water. * Beer saved millions from giardia and worse. * Midwives created ultra-strong beer to ease the pain of labor. * Louis Pasteur studied beer and it led him to invent pasteurization and discover the existence of bacteria, which led to treatments for smallpox and polio. More information: Beer Facts And How It Saved The World
Bicycles are Saving the World:
An opportunity for regional world-class advantage in active living
Local business, tourism, and strengthening our regional economy
A lifestyle choice for young people and their families
Improvements in individual health and lower community health costs
Safer road conditions for everyone – driving, walking and riding
Easy, fast commute times that leave you feeling energized
Friendlier communities and business districts
Reducing costs of maintaining our road and transportation network
Independence, confidence, and better school performance for children and teens who ride to school and for errands
This is a truly impressive level of support for individuals, families and businesses across the state who will benefit from improvements to safe bicycling and walking in neighborhoods, business districts, and between towns and cities.
Great News from State Government: California went rapidly from deficit to surplus, and then with a reorganization to improve effectiveness we now have a new Transportation Agency with increased funding to active transportation for better health, greater community interaction, stronger businesses, less pollution and more joy.
Walking and bicycling projects will receive a 35 percent boost in state funding through legislation signed by Governor Jerry Brown last week. The bill establishes a new Active Transportation Program funded by $130 million in the first year.
Thank you! It wouldn’t have happened without actions from people all across the state – writing letters, making phone calls, and ongoing membership and support of their local organizations. Let’s work together to help our communities ensure increased funding is applied in our region to improve the ability for people to bicycle and walk.
This milestone follows months of negotiations between the administration, legislature, and an ad hoc coalition coordinated by the Safe Routes to School National Partnership including California WALKS, California Bicycle Coalition, Rails to Trails Conservancy, PolicyLink, TransForm, Prevention Institute, California Pan-Ethnic Health Network, and the Public Health Institute.
Still, $130 million is about one percent of California’s transportation budget and barely a drop in the bucket compared to the need.
Read more on what this achievement means for the future of California:
Safe Routes to School National Partnership: Read Jeanie Ward-Waller’s blog on saferoutescalifornia.org.
Rails to Trails Conservancy is featuring the trails of California this September with articles and posts about activities across the state. Redding trails make the Top 10 list – and are the subject of the featured article! Check out the articles and share them with your friends:
You’ve read about it in Rails to Trails magazine, now get the full story about the Sacramento River Trail system in the extended story with additional details and travel facts!
This article on the wonderful systems of trails in Redding first appeared in the Fall 2013 edition of Rails to Trails magazine. Due to space restraints, Bryan Goebel’s original piece was edited down quite a bit for the print product.
Rails to Trails Conservancy has made the full article available online, with many additional travel facts and descriptions of the Sacramento River Trails.
It’s always fun to take the occasional trip to your old college town to see how things have changed. The past Friday I took trip down to Chico to see how the old alma mater has fared over the years. I was surprised to see a major change to one of downtown Chico’s busiest thoroughfares.
Second Street, a major east-west artery that skirts the CSU, Chico campus and goes through the heart of downtown has been turned into a one-way eastbound street for several blocks, from Broadway (a southbound arterial), past Main Street (a northbound arterial) and east to a new traffic circle at the bridge across Big Chico Creek. The block between Broadway and Main Street used to be particularly congested in both directions because of cars stacking up to make left turns.
The one-way section of Second Street now features angle-in parking on the north side, two lanes of eastbound traffic, a well-marked bike lane, and parallel parking on the south side.
Many of the businesses expanded their sidewalk dining, venturing closer to the street into areas that previously would have been too unpleasant because of exhaust fumes and traffic noise. The well-defined and wide bike lane is a particularly welcome addition for Chico’s many cyclists, since the arterial previously lacked bike lanes—lionhearted cyclists previously had to navigate the extremely narrow and unmarked space between on-street parking and traffic lanes.
The City of Chico should be commended for its willingness to experiment with new ideas and seeking to refine its streets to make them more inviting and livable for all its citizens. Although downtown Redding is often criticized for its confusing one-way streets, downtown Chico has just as many—if not more! What changes do you think Redding could make to make its downtown streets as inviting as those of Chico?
Some of you may have noticed there’s been a lot of roadwork going on Parkview Avenue, just south of the Redding Civic Center. The City of Redding has resurfaced the street with a nice, fresh overlay and taken the opportunity to put Parkview Avenue on what’s commonly known as a “road diet.”
The term road diet can be misleading, conjuring images of sacrifice, frustration, and scarcity. We prefer the term “rightsizing.” The goal is to reallocate resources in a more useful way that reflects the current needs of the community and to make streets more livable for everyone.
Rightsizing is typically applied to streets with excess capacity, most commonly two-way streets with two lanes in each direction. Rightsizing usually reconfigures the street to one lane in either direction, and the freed-up space is then used to improve the street’s facilities.
Rightsizing Changes To Parkview Avenue
In Parkview Avenue’s case, a well-marked bike lane has been added in either direction along with a center turn lane. Parkview Avenue has actually gained a lane—going from four lanes to five—one in each direction for motorists, one in each direction for cyclists, and a center turn lane for safer turns!
Bulbouts make Parkview Avenue’s sidewalks safer for children and others (Photo courtesy of Heather Phillips.)
The city has also added bulb-outs at several intersections. Bulb-outs are features where the sidewalk is extended into the street at corners, making a bulblike shape. Bulb-outs make streets much more pedestrian friendly because they shorten the distance to cross from sidewalk to sidewalk—which is great for families with small children, the elderly, and the differently abled. Bulb-outs also encourage cars to slow down in order to safely navigate the turn onto the cross street.
Benefits of a Rightsizing a Street
Decreases vehicle travel lanes for pedestrians to cross, therefore reducing the multiple‐threat crash (when one vehicle stops for a pedestrian in a travel lane on a multi‐lane road, but the motorist in the next lane does not, resulting in a crash) for pedestrians.
Improves safety for bicyclists when bike lanes are added (such lanes also create a buffer space between pedestrians and vehicles).
Provides the opportunity for on-street parking (also a buffer between pedestrians and vehicles).
Reduces rear-end and side-swipe crashes.
Improves speed limit compliance and decreases crash severity when crashes do occur.
When modified from four travel lanes to two travel lanes with a two-way left-turn lane, roadways have experienced a 29 percent reduction in all roadway crashes.
Numerous rigorous studies show that rightsizing significantly decreases the number of accidents on a street and does not affect the volume of traffic a street can handle. Rightsized streets have been successfully implemented in numerous cities such as Seattle, San Francisco, and Palo Alto.
Why Parkview Has Been Rightsized
Rightsizing is endorsed by the Federal Highway Administration as a proven safety countermeasure that benefits motorists, pedestrians, and cyclists.
A 2007 City of Redding speed study (the most current posted to the City of Redding website) indicates Parkview Avenue carries an average daily traffic of 4,600 vehicles. The FHA notes that “it has been shown that roads with 15,000 ADT or less had very good results in the areas of safety, operations, and livability [when rightsizing has been applied.]”
Furthermore, The 2000-2020 City of Redding General Plan designated Parkview as a focus area and called for the city to “establish public open-space and pedestrian/bicycle links between the river and parks, activity centers, schools, and other major open-space areas such as stream corridors” and to “provide for a pattern of development that encourages walking, bicycling, and transit use.” Parkview Avenue was also named as proposed Class II bikeway facility in the transportation element of the general plan.
Community Response
The residents of Parkview are thrilled with the rightsizing. In a recent email to our organization, Heather Phillips, president of Parkview Neighborhood
Association, writes, “I am so thrilled with the Parkview Avenue project currently underway… and I want to assure everyone that it is noticed and LOVED and welcomed.”
Citizens are already enjoying the rightsized Parkview Avenue! (Photo courtesy of Heather Phillips.)
A Minor Quibble
There are still some areas for improvement and issues brought up by local residents that have not yet been addressed. For example, there is a section of sidewalk that was not completed and crucial improvements are still needed to help people walk and bicycle safely cross the A.C.I.D. canal. We encourage the city to address these as soon as is possible so that Parkview Avenue can truly be considered a complete street.
That said, the improvements that have been made terrific. It’s great to see the City of Redding focus on Redding’s core and impressive to see how far Parkview Avenue has come in the past decade!
