The Olive Drive Bike and Pedestrian Safe Routes to School Connection

 

Location

Olive Drive

City or County Responsible for Project

City of Davis

Category

Bridge: Efficient and Sustainable Bridge Maintenance, Construction and Reconstruction Projects

Description

The Olive Drive Bike and Pedestrian Safe Routes to School Connection project significantly strengthened the City’s 63-mile, shared-use pathway network. This project included constructing a new bicycle and pedestrian ramp, which connected the isolated, underserved Olive Drive neighborhood to the extensive Davis bike and pedestrian network.
Olive Drive is nestled between train tracks and I-80, and it is part of the historic U.S. Highway 40, the first transcontinental highway. Olive Drive consists of a mix of affordable housing and market-rate apartments. The east end of Olive Drive terminates at a recently closed interstate off-ramp and pathway entrance to the Lincoln Highway 40 shared-use path. Since Olive Drive terminates on the east side, all traffic must travel as far as 0.5 miles to connect with the nearest street, Richards Boulevard. Due to the lack of connectivity, before this project, Davis students living on Olive Drive who were biking and walking to school had to travel on a major arterial roadway and navigate Interstate 80 on and off ramps while traveling 2.6 miles to their elementary school.
This important new connection reduced the walking and biking distance to Montgomery Elementary School by 1.4 miles and allowed students to travel to school on a car-free network. Providing this pathway connection improved safety for everyone.
The new pedestrian-bicycle ramp connects Olive Drive to the Pole Line Road Overcrossing Bridge at I-80. The ramp connects at the east end of Olive Drive to the Olive Drive shared-use path to the Pole Line Road Overcrossing shared-use path. This linear ramp bridge is cast-in-place, reinforced-concrete box-girder bridge and is approximately 14 feet wide and 408 feet long with a longitudinal slope of 8 percent. Six piles of the supporting columns reach depths between 60 and 80 feet and are approximately 6 by 6 feet square. The project included modification of the existing Olive Drive path through realignment at the connection to the linear ramp bridge, tree and vegetation removal, planting of replacement trees, and reconstruction of existing bicycle path pavement due to current pavement condition.