Davisville

Rochelle Swanson has seen Davis from several sides—first as a student at UC Davis, and later as a parent, a participant in various civic projects, as a business owner, and for eight years as one of the five members of the Davis City Council. She decided two terms was enough, and on today’s Davisville we talk about the city, how it has changed, economic development, how she interprets the voters' approval of the Nishi housing project this month, what she’s doing next, and more, as she leaves the council behind on July 9.

We’re short on housing, the roads are crowded, the amount of homelessness is a disgrace. How do we solve problems like these—actually solve them, not just talk about them? Starting in the 1980s, Martin Tuttle has held jobs that have allowed him to observe, address, and help fix problems in the Solano-to-Placer region, from his days as a chief aide to then-Assemblyman Tom Hannigan, to Tuttle’s current job as city manager for West Sacramento. He leaves that job in June. Today we talk about the regional identity, how the area has changed since the 1980s, what we can learn from the ways we've solved problems before ... and get his take on two of our most intractable public works problems today: transportation and the lack of housing.

With 372,000  passengers getting on or off at the our station last year, Davis is the sixth-busiest stop in California for Amtrak. Mixed among the Capitol Corridor trains that make up 98 percent of that traffic are two long-haul survivors of the Golden Age of train travel: the Oakland-Chicago California Zephyr, and the Los Angeles-Seattle Coast Starlight.

Amtrak, the federal entity that operates the passenger trains in Davis and most of the country, has a new chief executive (ex-Delta Air Lines) and has been curtailing aspects of its service—ending student discounts, reducing dining-car options on two long-distance trains back east, and cutting its ranks of ticket and baggage agents, to name three. More changes seem likely. But, and this is highly unusual in Amtrak’s 47-year-history, Washington just increased Amtrak’s budget by more than $1 billion.

To get a sense of what all this means, on today's show we talk with George Chilson, former chair of the Rail Passengers Association. He tells us why he thinks trains still matter, and says Amtrak's first priorities should be new equipment and more frequent trains—an approach that helped the Capitol Corridor succeed. (Photo shows the view from the end of the eastbound Zephyr in fall 2017, near the Utah/Colorado border.)

The Yolo County Transportation District is proposing a new shuttle service that would operate self-driving, electric vehicles (something like the model in this photo) between the UC Davis campus and the Davis Amtrak station downtown. The shuttles would run frequently during peak commute hours, and use Third Street and Old Davis Road for parts of the route. On today's show Terry Bassett, executive director of the district, discusses everything from the details to the larger picture.