Fritz Architecture-Urbanism

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,

08/18/2025

When we require every property downtown to have its own parking lot, we destroy the walkability of our downtowns. Sebastopol Avenue in downtown Sebastopol is a perfect example. This is the east-west route through downtown and the only entrance to Sebastopol if you are coming from the east. It takes you directly into the core of downtown. It is very car-oriented and not at all pleasant to walk along. One of the primary reasons this is an upleasant walk is all of the parking lots and their associated curb cuts. Every property on this stretch has its own private parking lot, all of which have vehicular access from Sebastopol Avenue. Businesses also become very possessive of their private parking lots which does not support the idea of 'park once and walk' which is what we should be promoting downtown.

There are three adjacent properties on Sebastopol Avenue which contain a Napa Auto Parts, a Goodwill and the Sebastopol Liquor and Delicatessen.

When we require every property downtown to have its own parking lot, we destroy the walkability of our downtowns. Sebastopol Avenue in downtown Sebastopol is a perfect example. This is the east-west route through downtown and the only entrance to Sebastopol if you are coming from the east. It takes....

05/05/2025

The next public meeting for the Caltrans Sustainable Transportation Grant that is looking at making downtown Sebastopol more pedestrian and multi-modal friendly is coming up. The consultant team will be looking for feedback on 11 proposed circulation options for downtown. There are both two-way and one-way circulation options. All options will include a protected bike lane. They will narrow the options down to 3 with feedback from the community and then do a more detailed analysis on those 3 options for a later presentation.

The meeting will be May 22, 2025 at the Sebastopol Center for the Arts. Meeting will be from 3-7, but similar to the first meeting the format will be an open house so you do not need to be there the full 4 hours. There will be a presentation at the beginning and probably later in the meeting as well.

The next public meeting for the Caltrans Sustainable Transportation Grant that is looking at making downtown Sebastopol more pedestrian and multi-modal friendly is coming up. The consultant team will be looking for feedback on 11 proposed circulation options for downtown. There are both two-way and....

04/26/2025

Today was the Apple Blossom Parade in Sebastopol. Thousands of people lined Main St. and somehow they were able to find a place to park and walk to Main St.

But I hear ALL THE TIME how difficult it is to find parking downtown. People avoid going downtown because there is no place to park. But when you make a place a destination, people figure it out.

04/05/2025

I was recently able to borrow a speed detector from a friend. I wanted to check speeds of cars as they proceeded down S. Main Street, heading away from downtown. This is a stretch of road I walk on at least 4 times a day and while the posted speed limit is 25 mph, I felt that most cars were driving a lot faster. And let's face it, most of us, myself included, rarely limit our driving speeds to the actual posted speed limit.

What I found was a bit of a surprise. I realize that 25 mph itself feels a little fast as a pedestrian walking on a sidewalk separated from moving cars by only the parking lane next to the curb, which often does not have a car parked in it. I measured a few cars at 15 mph and 20 mph which felt much more reasonable as a pedestrian in this environment.

Since most of us drive over the posted speed limit, many people I measured were driving more like 30-35 mph.

I was recently able to borrow a speed detector from a friend. I wanted to check speeds of cars as they proceeded down S. Main Street, heading away from downtown. This is a stretch of road I walk on at least 4 times a day and while the posted speed limit is 25 mph, I

02/17/2025

SLIP LANES
While passing through a Sebastopol intersection on my bike recently, I realized what a horrible place it is for pedestrians and bikes. This is an intersection I don't often pass through other than in my car, so I haven't thought much about the pedestrian experience. This is the intersection of Pleasant Hill and Bodega.

The roads do not intersect at 90 degrees, which may be why they have added the slip lanes for right turns on the movements from Pleasant Hill onto Bodega. The SE quadrant of the intersection is a cemetery. The SW quadrant is multi- and single-family homes. The NW quadrant is commercial and residential. The NE quadrant is commercial and mostly higher density residential with some single-family as well. There could be a good deal of pedestrian/bike traffic through this intersection. But the slip lanes allow for cars to make quick right-hand turns without having to wait for the light.

SLIP LANES While passing through a Sebastopol intersection on my bike recently, I realized what a horrible place it is for pedestrians and bikes. This is an intersection I don't often pass through other than in my car, so I haven't thought much about the pedestrian experience. This is the intersecti...

01/20/2025

This is my favorite before and after project and it was recently published on Dwell+.

Many people would have torn down the existing house and started with a clean slate. Not my clients!

They loved the form of the original farmhouse and wanted to preserve as much as possible, while updating and adding on. Even though the original house was 'box-framed' which meant it was built without any studs (just 1x and 2x boards with shiplap exterior siding and plaster interiors), they wanted to work with it.

Super happy with the way it turned out.

See profile for link to the article.

Photography: Ramsay Photography

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