Fritz Architecture-Urbanism

09/09/2026

I live where I live because I wanted to enjoy a walkable lifestyle as much as possible, and I believe I deserve safe walkable/bikable infrastructure. Good walking/biking infrastructure should slow down cars as they pass through my small town. That makes it safer for bikers and pedestrians. I'm really not sympathetic to complaints about cars having to drive slowly when they are around people outside of cars. There are plenty of places that are hostile to pedestrians/cyclists where cars rule. So respect my small town walkability and deal with the extra 5 minutes it takes you to drive through town. I'm not preventing you from living in a place that requires you to get in your car for every trip away from home.

This Caltrans Sustainable Transportation Planning Grant process has had me thinking a lot about walkability versus driveability. The city council voted to proceed with a plan that prioritizes bike and pedestrian infrastructure downtown; the walkable two-way option approved by the planning commission...

06/08/2026

Sebastopol was awareded a Sustainable Transportation Grant from Caltrans a couple of years ago. The consultant team has been working on the grant for the past couple of years meeting with stakeholders, public workshops and in public meetings with the planning commission and city council. At the city council meeting two weeks ago the project manager from Fehr & Peers presented the final report for adoption by the council. The council adopted the final report on a 4-1 vote. There was surprisingly little opposition at the council meeting. A couple people spoke about concerns about traffic congestion, but there was certainly not the extent of public comment that there had been at the planning commission and council meetings to review the draft plan.

The final plan is interesting and I think does take into account a lot of the public comment provided throughout the process and adapts it to Sebastopol's unique downtown environment.

Sebastopol was awareded a Sustainable Transportation Grant from Caltrans a couple of years ago. The consultant team has been working on the grant for the past couple of years meeting with stakeholders, public workshops and in public meetings with the planning commission and city council. At the city...

02/24/2026

The Caltrans Sustainable Transportation Planning Grant is coming into the final stretch. The planning commission made a recommendation to the city council at our last meeting and the city council will decide whether to go along with the commission's recommendation or not at their meeting on March 3r...

02/05/2026

The consultant team working on the Caltrans Sustainable Transportation Planning Grant has released their four alternatives for the redesign of the street network in downtown Sebastopol. You can check this earlier post to get more background on the grant. The four alternatives include two that keep the one-way couplet system (Alt. 1 and Alt. 3), one creates a two-way Main Street but leaves Petaluma Ave one-way northbound (Alt. 2) and a final option that eliminates the one-way couplet system entirely by converting Main Street, McKinley and Petaluma Avenue to 2-way streets (Alt. 4).

The schematic alternative plans and images were produced by the consultant team. The Streetmix sections were something I put together to help explain what the plans are proposing. I've only included street sections of the block of Main Street between McKinley and Bodega/Hwy 12.
Alternative 1: Fine Tune Today

In general, Alternative 1 is the least interesting.

The consultant team working on the Caltrans Sustainable Transportation Planning Grant has released their four alternatives for the redesign of the street network in downtown Sebastopol. You can check this earlier post to get more background on the grant. The four alternatives include two that keep t...

12/20/2025

Traffic congestion is a constant complaint. People have complained about traffic in Sebastopol since the 1950s. We instituted a one-way couplet system to alleviate the traffic in 1985. And today people continue to complain about traffic. So how about we restore our 2-way street system and make our downtown a vibrant and safe place for people, and let the congestion be what it is. And let people continue to complain about traffic. I think they like to do it.

I thought of something else I believe is worth pointing out regarding the concept of congestion in Sebastopol. Apparentely people have been complaining about traffic in Sebastopol 'since before the 1950s.' The downtown one-way couplet was originally proposed in 1958 as a way to alleviate the congest...

12/19/2025

People hate traffic. I get it. Who wants to sit in a car and not move, or move more slowly than you think you should be moving? Cars have been marketed as being able to provide us freedom. Get in your car and you can get anywhere you want! With the right truck or SUV, you don't even need a road! I love how car ads either show cars speeding through a bucolic landscape or speeding through an urban downtown with not a single other car in site. They don't show real world driving conditions. Never do you see car ads with cars sitting in bumper to bumper traffic. Or even a moderate amount of traffic, which is how many people experience driving. So I get it, it's frustrating when you are sitting in your car and not able to at least drive the speed limit.

I came across this meme a number of years ago.

I don't know the source, but it definitely rings true. I'm not sure why we expect to be the only person out driving when we need to go somewhere, but most of us seem to feel this way.

People hate traffic. I get it. Who wants to sit in a car and not move, or move more slowly than you think you should be moving? Cars have been marketed as being able to provide us freedom. Get in your car and you can get anywhere you want! With the right truck or SUV,

12/19/2025

People hate traffic. I get it. Who wants to sit in a car and not move, or move more slowly than you think you should be moving? Cars have been marketed as being able to provide us freedom. Get in your car and you can get anywhere you want! With the right truck or SUV, you don't even need a road! But is traffic really as bad as we think it is? And is it bad for vitality? These are things I expore in this post

People hate traffic. I get it. Who wants to sit in a car and not move, or move more slowly than you think you should be moving? Cars have been marketed as being able to provide us freedom. Get in your car and you can get anywhere you want! With the right truck or SUV,