By Russell Snyder

DAVIS, Calif. – July 16, 2008 – For many, the issue of whether a full-service grocery store can return to the Westlake Plaza Shopping Center hinges on traffic. Specifically, is there enough traffic to make such an operation viable?

One of the arcane bits of data that planners use to examine this question is something called “traffic counts.” State and local transportation departments conduct periodic counts of the number of cars that pass by a given point on streets and highways as a way to measure traffic patterns, identify potential safety hazards and justify infrastructure improvements.

“ADT” is transportation-speak for “Average Daily Traffic,” and is computed by taking the number of cars that pass by a given point in a 24-hour period, in both directions. Typically, the city will place a temporary sensor on the roadway attached to a device that counts each vehicle that drives over it, and this data is later fed into a computer and published in reports that are studied by planners and bureaucrats.

This information is highly coveted by businesspeople who want to determine the best location for a business that relies on exposure to vehicle traffic to generate customers. Because this information is so often requested, many municipalities, including the City of Davis, have taken to publishing this data on their websites.

“City of Davis Latest 5 Year ADT Counts” is posted on the city’s website, and also presented here. The date of the report is Jan. 31, 2008, and it presents some interesting statistics.

The Westlake Plaza Shopping Center is located at the corner of Arlington Boulevard and Lake Boulevard in West Davis. According to the most recent traffic count done at that location, on Oct. 23, 2006, the ADT was 3,552 on Arlington east of Lake. On Lake Boulevard, north of Arlington, the city measured the traffic on May 1, 2006 as 5,742. And on Lake, north of Russell Boulevard, the count on Nov. 20, 2006, was 5,310. Finally, the count on Lake Boulevard just south of Arlington, measured May 1, 2006, was 3,934.

Appearing to support the “busy street” theory, the traffic count on the nearest major arterial, Covell Boulevard, east of Lake Boulevard, measured on May 17, 2006, was 12,298. But tree-lined Russell Boulevard, measured just west of Lake on Oct. 8, 2007, had an ADT of only 3,016. Both Russell and Covell are major east-west thoroughfares connecting Davis to points west, including Dixon, Winters and West Plainfield. Yet, according to the city, the traffic on Russell at Lake drops off dramatically from the 21,192 vehicles a day counted on Russell just west of Highway 113 on Feb. 4, 2004.

So what does this tell us? Sure, there’s more traffic on Covell than there is on Lake. But keep in mind that the poorly run “Food Fair” market closed its doors on May 21, 2006. It wasn’t much of a draw when it was open, but since the departure of this so-called “anchor tenant” it’s been left to the other businesses in Westlake Plaza to generate trips. The businesses, including restaurants, a dry cleaner and video store, were never meant to be a shopping center draw on their own.

This data, of course, focuses solely on vehicle traffic, and does not take into account pedestrian and bicycle trips. Many of the measurements were taken after the Food Fair market closed down, further skewing the data. It also does not consider what would happen if some variables were introduced into the equation.

What if, for example, the city were to place some discrete signage on Lake and Covell informing motorists that a shopping center was a half-block away? And what if the grocery tenant was run by people who actually understood how to run a grocery store, stocking products people want, at reasonable prices, in a clean and attractive setting?

There’s another thing to consider. Traffic engineers are always looking for ways to more efficiently use the existing road network. Much attention is focused on traffic bottlenecks – too many cars and not enough road. One very costly solution to this problem is to build more and wider roads. But a much more cost-effective approach is to more efficiently use the transportation infrastructure already in place by redirecting traffic elsewhere.

You may have seen some ham-handed attempts at this with so-called “traffic calming” measures in downtown Sacramento. But think of how much more sense it makes for someone who lives west of Highway 113 to swing by the underutilized Westlake Plaza shopping center to shop for groceries and other essentials, rather than trying to join the masses hunting for a parking space at the always-crowded Marketplace shopping center on Covell Boulevard east of Highway 113. Remember, according to census data collected in 2000, there are more than 11,000 people living west of Highway 113 within the city boundaries. This does not take in account the many residences just outside the city limits. Where do all those people shop?

Trader Joe’s, so we are told, may be interested in opening a store in Davis, but they are pushing for the University Mall location, just off the freeway and walking distance to the University and downtown, presumably so they can sell cases of “Two Buck Chuck” to hoards of college students.

This conventional wisdom, however, runs counter to the basic tenets of smart planning that Davis is known for – a pedestrian- and bike-friendly town composed of neighborhoods anchored by neighborhood shopping centers that de-emphasize the need for car trips. Also, an attractive grocery tenant at Westlake would serve to spread out traffic, rather than cram it hopelessly into already overcrowded centers.

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The author is past president of the Stonegate Homeowners’ Association and, from 1991-2002, worked for the California Department of Transportation.