The campus’s south entry is getting a roundabout, to be built this summer to ease traffic congestion and improve pedestrian and bicyclist safety at Old Davis Road and California Avenue.

A detour is planned during the project’s first phase, July 5 to Aug. 14, and drivers should continue to expect delays for another month after that.

Besides easing the congestion, the roundabout will “calm” the traffic, or slow it down, thereby making for safer crossings for pedestrians and bicyclists going to and from the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science on the south side of Old Davis Road.

The institute is one of several new facilities that are drawing more cars and people to the south entry. The other buildings include the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts, the Buehler Alumni and Visitors Center, Gallagher Hall (the Graduate School of Management) and the UC Davis Conference Center, with the university’s new art museum still to come.

The institute, though, with three academic buildings (which opened in 2008) and the August A. Busch III Brewing and Food Science Laboratory (which opened earlier this year), draws the most car, bicycle and foot traffic during the day.

The Old Davis Road-California Avenue intersection has only one traffic control at this time: a stop sign on southbound California Avenue where it connects with Old Davis Road. At certain times of the day, particularly around 5 p.m., turning left or right from California to Old Davis Road can take a while, as traffic goes by unimpeded on Old Davis Road.

Campus planners considered signals, but said the roundabout will be safer and more efficient — not to mention more attractive with landscaping at the center and around the circle.

“A roundabout can move more traffic, without red lights,” said Matt Dulcich, a senior planner in Administrative and Resource Management, “and the severity of crashes is a lot less, with cars going around the circle at 15 miles per hour.”

Dulcich said the roundabout will be a single-lane traffic circle for both cars and bicycles. Yield signs will be posted at each entrance; drivers and bicyclists can enter the roundabout only when there is a space amid the cars and bikes that are already in the circle.

Bicyclists will have the option of dismounting and walking across Old Davis Road, in the existing crosswalk just east of the roundabout.

California Avenue to be closed

The California Avenue leg of the project will require the closure of California Avenue between Old Davis Road and Arboretum Drive (just south of the bridge over the arboretum waterway) from approximately July 5 to Aug. 14.

A detour will be in place 24 hours a day, seven days a week, around the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts (via Mrak Hall Drive and Arboretum Drive). If you are bound for the campus core (north of the waterway), your best bet will be to use Hutchison Drive — and signs on Interstate 80 will give this advice.

Construction along Old Davis Road is planned until approximately Sept. 13. Project managers said one lane will be open in each direction at all times. Nevertheless, drivers should expect delays, particularly during off-peak times when one-way traffic controls may be in effect.

Tidelands Construction Co. of Brentwood, Contra Costa County, won the contract with a $1.1 million bid, the lowest of five that came in.

Officials said the roadwork should be completed and the roundabout fully operation by the start of the fall quarter, while the landscaping and electrical work may take a bit longer.

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