Sort of random, cool thing about the Davis city gov.

WeAintFoundShit · Post by **WeAintFoundShit** » Fri Jun 15, 2012 11:58 am

I found out the other day just how dedicated the city of Davis is to planning for new bicycle routes through town.

As it turns out, when they build new roads, they also build bike crossing tunnels underneath them, in order to eventually expand their bike trail network to new neighborhoods.
Then they bury the bike tunnels until the development happens, and unearth them if/when it does.

It's happening right next to my house at the moment.

Bigshankhank · Post by **Bigshankhank** » Fri Jun 15, 2012 12:42 pm

Being that I am something of a geek for civil contruction projects, how exactly are they sealing these future tunnels to prevent moisture/animals/The Homeless from becoming a problem?

WeAintFoundShit · Post by **WeAintFoundShit** » Fri Jun 15, 2012 7:36 pm

Bigshankhank wrote:Being that I am something of a geek for civil contruction projects, how exactly are they sealing these future tunnels to prevent moisture/animals/The Homeless from becoming a problem?

Moisture is a question I also had, but for homeless and animals, these things are buried. As in, they've got excavators out there digging them out from under the ground. There's now a big trench running through the empty field by my house, and at the deep end, apparently there is a concrete tunnel that they've gotta get all cleared out.

Sisyphus · Post by **Sisyphus** » Sat Jun 16, 2012 4:02 am

That's where they buried the dead aliens.

Bigshankhank · Post by **Bigshankhank** » Sat Jun 16, 2012 6:22 am

WeAintFoundShit wrote:
Bigshankhank wrote:Being that I am something of a geek for civil contruction projects, how exactly are they sealing these future tunnels to prevent moisture/animals/The Homeless from becoming a problem?
Moisture is a question I also had, but for homeless and animals, these things are buried. As in, they've got excavators out there digging them out from under the ground. There's now a big trench running through the empty field by my house, and at the deep end, apparently there is a concrete tunnel that they've gotta get all cleared out.

See, and since the drawings for public works projects should be on file for anyone to acces, I would find out where the buried tunnels were, go dig one up and establish the new Honeycomb Hideout.

Post by **DerGolgo** » Sat Jun 16, 2012 6:44 am

Good job on foresight in town planning!

Personally, I'd let the road dip so that the bikes could stay on the level, but that's just me.
I hope this plan does better than the similar schemes the brits tried in their "new towns" after the war, where bridges and tunnels were used to separate road traffic from other kinds of traffic. Apparently it didn't really work out for them, with criminals, waste dumpers, dope fiends and eventually (these were new towns, so it took a while) the homeless liking the tunnels a lot. But this is the 21st century, so I'd expect they got video surveillance planned out.

WeAintFoundShit · Post by **WeAintFoundShit** » Sat Jun 16, 2012 2:16 pm

There's really only one spot around here where the bums like to hang out on the bike path. Davis is a small college town, so it's not like we have much of a homeless problem.
...which is good, because Davis has an EXTENSIVE network of bike trails with loads of tunnels. They call this place the bicycle capital of the United States. I'd be willing to bet that we've got 20k-30k bicycle commuters in this town of 65k.

Zer0 · Post by **Zer0** » Sat Jun 16, 2012 3:23 pm

The foresight and environmentally-conscious thinking is indeed refreshing. Nice work, Davis!

Bigshankhank wrote:
WeAintFoundShit wrote:
Bigshankhank wrote:Being that I . . . becoming a problem?
Moisture . . . a concrete tunnel that they've gotta get all cleared out.
See, . . . I would find out where the buried tunnels were, go dig one up and establish the new UTMC Hideout.

fixed

wzm · Post by **wzm** » Sun Jun 17, 2012 7:25 pm

WeAintFoundShit wrote:There's really only one spot around here where the bums like to hang out on the bike path. Davis is a small college town, so it's not like we have much of a homeless problem.
...which is good, because Davis has an EXTENSIVE network of bike trails with loads of tunnels. They call this place the bicycle capital of the United States. I'd be willing to bet that we've got 20k-30k bicycle commuters in this town of 65k.

Davis is a really special place (I grew up there), and it's difficult to explain to anyone who hasn't lived there. You'll go describe just one neighborhood (like Village Holmes) and all the weird planned development things, like having public parks for backyards, edible plants everywhere, etc. and the entire conversation gets derailed, and you never get to talk about the bike paths, the extensive public parks, the very well established downtown, or the farmers market.

WeAintFoundShit · Post by **WeAintFoundShit** » Mon Jun 18, 2012 4:27 pm

I went and checked out the site close up today. They've dug to the end of the tunnel, which appears to have been sealed off with about 8" of concrete on both ends.
There was also a manhole that they had unearthed in the dig, leading down into *whatever.*
Looks like there may have been a slight failure in planning somewhere along the line, because there appears to be some sort of pipe about a foot in diameter that might block off one end of the tunnel. Either that, or they dug the trench about four feet too deep, and the tunnel is a pretty shallow one. Not sure; bike tunnels around here tend to run pretty far underneath the surface for some reason.

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Sort of random, cool thing about the Davis city gov.

Sort of random, cool thing about the Davis city gov.