The approach of the previous Vision Zero Action Plan (2018, with minor update 2023) was to seek grants from federal, state and regional (SACOG) sources to implement complete streets projects on corridors. For some corridors, grants were received and implemented, or are in progress. For other corridors, the grants were not received and nothing has occurred. As presented in previous posts (category: Vision Zero), I believe this approach is why Vision Zero has failed in the city. We have far too many dangerous roadways to ever fix, with grants or without. We must use other methods, though continuing to implement major projects, so long at they don’t take away a focus on what can be done now, and best use of staff time (it takes hundreds of hours of staff time to write and submit a grant application).
Instead, the city must fund Vision Zero directly. A good start would be an allocation of $20,000,000 in the 2026-2027 budget. That amount would be increased every budget cycle until there is a documented downward trend in fatalities and serious injuries of at least 10% per year.
Where would the money come from, in this time of budget deficits? Let me be blunt. Out of the police department budget.
The police department received $256,280,944 in the 2025-2026 budget, including $9,156,810 from Measure U, which should have been spent on other priorities. This is more than the entire Public Works budget of $237,586,768, which includes everything the city does to maintain and enhance the transportation network, including efforts to improve the safety of our roadways. Fatalities related to violent crime, and fatalities related to traffic violence, are about on parity in the city, competing for the top spot, with traffic violence usually coming out on top. We should be investing just as much to reduce and prevent traffic violence fatalities as we do to respond to – not prevent – violent crime. Is a life claimed by mis-designed and unsafe roadways, particularly of vulnerable users, walkers and bicyclists, of less value than a life claimed by violent crime? I don’t think so, but our existing budget priorities say yes.
A shift of $20,000,000 from the police budget to Public Works, specifically allocated to Vision Zero, would be a minor reduction of the police budget but a major step towards reducing traffic violence and fatalities.
City Council has consistently increased the police department budget while reducing the budget of other departments. That seems to be the politically expedient thing to do, but it is not the courageous action necessary to address our real problems in the city.
From the 2025-2026 budget: “The Public Works Department is dedicated to maintaining safer streets, sustainable infrastructure, and innovative mobility solutions. Over the past year, we have implemented tens of millions of dollars in transportation improvements, expanded electric vehicle charging and transit access, enhanced traffic safety, and completed critical road and facility upgrades. Additionally, the department has strengthened parking management through expanded permit programs and automated enforcement, while continuing to improve operations at the Sacramento Marina to better serve the boating community.”
The City of Sacramento is updating its Vision Zero Action Plan. Both the in-person and online meetings have passed, but the survey is still open through Sunday, February 22. See SacCity Vision Zero Update for my comments on the survey, as well as other posts on vision zero (category: Vision Zero).
I believe that the most effective short term approach for reducing fatalities is quick-build projects at locations which have seen fatalities, or are likely to have fatalities based on poor roadway design and driver behavior. The city has implemented a quick build program, with a transportation safety team and some funding. Still no webpage that I have been able to find.
This is not to say that other elements should not be included in the action plan, but I believe that 80% of the funding, and 80% of staff time, should be devoted to quick-build.
What should not be included is education and in-person law enforcement. However, given that we have an epidemic of fatality-inducing red light running and failure to yield to people in crosswalks in the city (and the county, and the region, and the state), a limited period of in-person enforcement of these violations, with strict guardrails to prevent pretextual stops and law enforcement bias, may be appropriate. Research has proven that education is ineffective, though a favorite of people who don’t really want to solve problems.
I am not sure what the other elements of the action plan should be. Therefore, I’d want to see a commitment to minor updates to the plan on a frequency of about every two years, to reflect lessons learned and evolving legislation about what cities are permitted or required to do to reduce fatalities and address traffic violence.
This is timely as the City of Sacramento is updating its Vision Zero Action Plan.
The main point of the article is that speed control for safety is way more popular with society than the impression one would get from reading media, which has both a bias to highlight controversy when there really isn’t much, and the windshield bias of those who drive rather than walk, bicycle, and transit.
“What I learned surprised me. With rare exceptions, these strategies to reduce speeding are effective, often to a striking degree. And contrary to common perceptions, residents generally support them.”
He also lists a number of speed control measures, in the article, and more in the paper, which are probably familiar:
speed humps: The City of Sacramento has certainly put in a number of speed humps. Problem is, the design slows motor vehicles only momentarily, and drivers return to their previous speed over a very short distance. The literature is variable as to whether speed humps or speed tables are more effective, but my own hours of observation indicate that tables are more effective. A speed table with crosswalk, matching the height of the curb at six inches, is far more effective than a hump at 3 inches.
automatic traffic cameras: The City of Sacramento once had red-light running cameras, but the program ceased when the county program ceased. The city has said it will install cameras and implement a program in alignment with new state laws, however, no time frame or budget had been identified. Speed cameras have been authorized for a few cities as a pilot program, and Sacramento is not one of them.
conversions to make one-way arterials bidirectional: The City of Sacramento has made one conversion, of 5th Street, which was converted last year. It seems successful. However, the city used this project as an excuse to install completely new signal heads and signal controllers, rather than reusing any materials. At upwards of $1M per intersection, this approach guarantees that few conversions will be done.
adjusting traffic signalizations: The City of Sacramento has talked about this, but not done so. The ‘green wave’ used in other cities, where signals are set to average bicyclist speed of about 13 mph, are very effective at calming traffic. In the central city, signals are set to 28 mph, which encourages drivers to speed in order to beat the next signal.
posted speed reductions: The City of Sacramento has done this for some school zones, but has refused to do it anywhere else. “Simply lowering speed limits works, too. Boston’s 2017 move to reduce its default speed limit from 30 mph to 25 mph produced a relative 29% decline in vehicles exceeding 35 mph…”
road diets: The City of Sacramento has implemented road diets on several arterial streets, reducing the number of lanes and sometimes reducing the width of lanes. However, these are major projects that require a lot of money, grants from the federal, state or regional agencies. This greatly limits the number of roadways that can be ‘fixed’.
The article concludes with: “The missing link: policymakers courageous enough to do the right thing.”
The City of Sacramento has a GIS database of sidewalks, but has not made it available to the public. The Sacramento Active Transportation Commission has requested that the data be made public. A number of active transportation advocates have requested that it be made public. The response is usually vague, but includes the excuses: the quality of the data is too low to make public; it is incomplete, as some streets were never surveyed; it was developed by the consultants and the city doesn’t have permission to publish.
It was shared in Streets for All Active Transportation Plan (Appendix 2, Gap Analysis, page 13). But this is a screen capture of a map, and can’t be zoomed in for detail. (pdf)
The Neighborhood Connections Network Map probably has sidewalk information, and can be zoomed in, but it shows only recommended improvements to create a network, not sidewalk details, and a legend is lacking, so it is not possible to say for certain what the lines indicate. It may be the same information as the Neighborhood Connections Network map that is in the Neighborhood Connections Existing Conditions appendix. (pdf) This map does have a legend, but can’t be zoomed.
The final Streets For People Active Transportation Plan includes the ‘Recommendations for People Walking and Rolling in Sacramento map on page 67 (pdf), but again, it can’t be zoomed in, and includes recommendations, not existing sidewalk conditions. One could assume that the New Sidewalk on Both Sides indicates that there is no existing sidewalk, and New Sidewalk on One Side indicates that a sidewalk exists on the other side, but not both sides. The plan contains six detailed maps, so it is easy to pick out streets, but again, no information about existing.
There is also a recommendations map that was part of public outreach in developing the plan, the Streets for People Draft Network Recommendations. It can be zoomed in, but it is not clear whether the street designations came from the city, or the public, or both.
All of this uncertainty could be resolved if the city would post the data to its GIS (Geographic Information Systems) portal. If the data needs a disclaimer, this is easy to include.
The City of Sacramento is updating its Vision Zero Action Plan. I believe that the focus of the plan should be quick-build fixes to locations where fatalities have occurred or are likely to occur. These locations are primarily intersections of arterial streets. Local streets, and to some degree collector streets, if they were not designed for more traffic and higher speeds, are mostly not the location of crashes, and even less likely fatalities because motor vehicle speeds are lower. Arterials are the problem to be solved.
That said, I want to speak up again for an infrastructure fix that has the greatest potential for reducing motor vehicle traffic. Traffic diverters would usually be on local streets, sometimes on collector streets. As such, they don’t prevent serious crashes. But they do discourage driving, and so would indirectly reduce crashes on arterials, as there would be fewer motor vehicles on all roadways. Anything that can be done to reduce the number of, and length of, car trips, will reduce fatalities.
The diagram below is the the City of Sacramento Neighborhood Connections Plan, which includes the first photo. Though permanent traffic diverters, with concrete curbs and planting, are the desired state, quick-build temporary diverters have most of the safety and traffic calming effect at a fraction of the cost. Constraints: Since quick-build placement can be easily removed if they don’t work, a traffic study is NOT required. Emergency vehicles can easily and safely go around the diverter. Cost: The cost shown is for a permanent installation. A quick-build installation could probably be installed for $1000-2000.
Traffic Diverter diagram from City of Sacramento Neighborhood Connections
The second photo is of a traffic diverter in the northeast section of the central city, on D Street at 20th Street. The diverter allows bicyclists to pass through, which is why it is also called a modal filter. Note that it doesn’t prevent reckless driver behavior in the intersection (donuts), but it does filter reckless drivers out of D Street.
One of the City of Sacramento Vision Zero Action Plan Update documents, Collision Landscape Summary and Collision Profiles, on page 4, uses a stacked bar chart to graph ‘Driving-only’, ‘Involving People Bicycling’, and ‘Involving People Walking’ data. The chart obscures rather than illuminates the data. The chart from the document is below. It shows the overall trends for KSI (killed or serioiusly injured). Useful, but hides trends for each category. Though dozens of charts follow in the document, not a single one breaks out the basic data by category alone.
Below is a graphic with the data, and each category separated out. This is what should have been in the report. This is not in particular a criticism of this report or the report authors, but of the use of stacked bar charts in general. See Stacked Bars Are the Worst and many other posts on the weakness of stacked bar charts.
I think the charts below are actually useful to understanding collision trends.
It is apparent that the City of Sacramento’s Vision Zero Action Plan has overall been a failure. Traffic fatalities in the city have increased, and Sacramento remains among the most unsafe cities in the state. I have written recently about the action plan update process (SacCity Vision Zero Update) and longer ago all the way back to the inception of the program (category: Vision Zero).
I believe that the failure is in large part due to the focus on improving corridors rather than specific points of concern which are mostly intersections, and a reliance on getting grants from federal, state or regional (SACOG) sources to accomplish these projects. The assumption was, and is for all transportation projects, that outside grants rather than the city’s general budget, will be the source for transportation infrastructure. The city spends very little of its own budget on transportation, beyond some basic maintenance and required grant matches. The recent quick-build program is the first time significant money has been dedicated to traffic calming and safety.
The city is offering a survey to gather community input on the action plan update, open through February 22. I just took the survey, and some screen captures are below, but I want to focus on the third page (the others are below). The top of this page offers a chance to rearrange actions in order of importance. Since these are screen captures, the six items in text are:
Planning and constructing large street projects that make big changes to intersections and streets to greatly improve safety, but take longer to build
Planning and constructing smaller projects that are quicker to build but may only modestly improve safety
Implementing traffic signal changes that enhance safety for everyone
Enforcement by police officers to address traffic violations most linked to serious or fatal crashes (for example, DUIs, red-light running, speeding)
Automated enforcement to address traffic violations most linked with serious or fatal crashes (for example, DUIs, red-light running, speeding)
Education campaigns reminding or teaching people proper rules of the road
My ranking of these is:
Planning and constructing smaller projects that are quicker to build but may only modestly improve safety
Automated enforcement to address traffic violations most linked with serious or fatal crashes (for example, DUIs, red-light running, speeding)
Implementing traffic signal changes that enhance safety for everyone
Education campaigns reminding or teaching people proper rules of the road
Enforcement by police officers to address traffic violations most linked to serious or fatal crashes (for example, DUIs, red-light running, speeding)
Planning and constructing large street projects that make big changes to intersections and streets to greatly improve safety, but take longer to build
Why?
These small projects are in line with the city’s new Traffic Safety Initiative (quick-build) program. Though there does not seem to be a webpage for this program yet, an article in City Express summarizes the program. It is still not fully staffed and fully active. This kind of program has proven to be effective in many cities, including ones that have achieved vision zero no fatalities or greatly reduced fatalities.
Automated enforcement is the best solution for speeding and red light running. Red light running is particularly epidemic in Sacramento, though a problem everywhere. There are no widely available methods for automated enforcement of failure to yield to pedestrians (people walking in the crosswalk), but this is something that could be piloted and implemented.
On roadways with frequent traffic signals, traffic can be significantly slowed by setting signal timing to award safe speeds and make unsafe speeds awkward. It can even be set to a ‘green wave’ where the signals are timed to the speed of bicyclists, about 12 mph. This would be higher on my list except that the city has, to this point, demonstrated that they use signal improvements not to improve safety for walkers, but to ease traffic flow. They are claim that the entire intersection must be upgraded, at a cost approaching $1 million per intersection. That is a complete waste of taxpayer dollars.
Education does not work. Of the millions of dollars spent on ‘education’ programs, there are almost no studies indicating that these programs are effective. They are feel good, but worthless.
Law enforcement bias, which in integral to officers and very very slow to change, makes this an unacceptable solution in nearly all cases. In-person enforcement is as likely to result in officer escalation and harm as to preventing unsafe driver behavior. Particularly in the past, but true today, many ‘safety’ enforcements have actually been stings targeting people walking and bicycling rather than driver behavior. There may be situations in which enforcement is the last but only solution, but it should definitely not be part of the program design.
Large projects are what the city has been doing, and it hasn’t worked. The city has a backlog of poorly designed and unsafe arterial roadways that will take decades (or more) and hundreds of millions of dollars (or more) to fix. We can’t wait that long, or until we find the money, to save lives. That is why small projects are the answer. Of course the projects are nice when complete, and the city has done as well as most cities its size in getting grants for these big projects, but we need to save lives tomorrow, not ten years from now. Writing grants for large projects takes an inordinate amount of staff time.
The city seems to be OK with a focus on small short-term projects, and these have been promoted by the city’s consultant (Fehr & Peers). But the public will need to support this approach, particularly against pushback from the cars-first lobby and individuals.
If you have the time and inclination, reviewing the seven documents on the city’s Vision Zero Action Plan Update page will deepen your understanding of the issue and possible solutions. If you have time for only one, the Safety Strategies (2025.06.18) is probably the most valuable.
The other pages. Note that I sometimes had started to fill out a page before capturing it.
I first posted on coffee shops on the grid in April 2023, with an update in December 2024. Time for another update, as there are a number of new coffee shops, and a few have gone. The coffee shops marked with a plus (+) are new since the last update.
table of grid coffee, 2026-01, not clickable
Though the links in the png above look clickable, they are not. You must use the xlsx or pdf versions for links. The columns are what interested me. Reuse means they offer reusable cups for tea and coffee service, outdoor means they offer outdoor seating, and tea indicates my take on the number and variety of teas offered. I have refined hours with open and close. It should be noted that some coffee shops do not post their hours, either on the websites or on the door, and hours often change, so take these hours with a grain of salt. The ‘checked’ column means that the business was checked for existence, but the details were not necessarily checked.
Disclaimer up front: I don’t drink and don’t even like coffee, but I do drink and love tea, and the majority of coffee shops offer tea as well, but most other businesses do not. So I can tell you absolutely nothing about the variety or quality of coffee at any of these shops.
I have long believed that the frequency of locally-owned coffee shops is a key indicator of livability and walkability. Though I’ve not done the calculations, I think this measure would be just as effective a ‘walk score’ as the WalkScore offered by Redfin, which uses a complicated and proprietary algorithm to determine walkability, measured as distance to amenities. Note that WalkScore does not assess the walking environment such as presence or condition of sidewalks, and safety of crossing streets.
I live in the Sacramento central city, the area bounded by the Sacramento River to the west, Broadway to the south, Alhambra Avenue to the east, and the railroad tracks to the north. I have focused my coffee shop visits on this area. Though there are certainly coffee shops throughout the urbanized county, the number of locally-owned coffee shops drops off rapidly outside the central city. In much of the suburbs, there are only chain coffee shops such as Starbucks and Peets. I do not list national chain coffee shops such as Starbucks, Peets, and Philz.
My new preferred coffee shops are Zoe Coffee and Tacos (yes, an unusual name, but their tacos and samosas are good), mostly for the friendliness of the manager and baristas, and Tupi Cafe, which is on my morning walks to Southside Park.
If you have a place to suggest, or updated information, please comment. There is a fuzzy line between places which are mostly coffee shops, and places that are mostly cafes, but also have coffee and tea. In fact Google Maps and Apple Maps makes this fuzzier by allowing businesses to show an icon on the map that reflects what was searched for, not the primary classification of business. I assume they pay for this.
If you also like to drink tea at home, as I do, I recommend Tea Cozy, 1021 R Street, next to Fox and Goose, with a very large and diverse offering of bulk and packaged teas. And in Davis, Mishka’s Cafe, 610 2nd Street, offers a selection of brewed tea unparalleled in the region, so far as I know.
I changed from a slide show to a gallery for coffee shop photos, so that they could be captioned. Captioning is partially complete, and there will be additional photos to come, so check back. The photos are alphabetical by business name, more of less. For photos of business hours, take these with a grain of salt. They were accurate at the time of the photo, but may not be currently.
Anchor & Tree Coffee outsideAnchor & Tree Coffee counterAnchor & Tree Coffee hoursAnchor & Tree Coffee artBalance Coffee outsideBalance Coffee serviceBalance Coffee counterBarrio Downtown signBarrio Downtown hoursBlueprint Coffee outsideBlueprint Coffee counterBueno Cafe outsideBueno Cafe counterBueno Cafe serviceBueno Cafe signBueno Cafe artBurnside Coffee counterBurnside Coffee outsideBurnside Coffee hoursBurnside Coffee signCafe Immortal outsideCafe Immortal counterCafe Immortal serviceCafe Immortal hoursCafe Xocolatl outsideCafe Xocolatl insideCafe Xocolatl serviceCamellia Coffee serviceCamellia Coffee counterCamellia Coffee frontCamellia Coffee hoursChocolate Fish Coffee 12th counterChocolate Fish Coffee 12th outsideChocolate Fish Coffee 12th hoursConcept Coffee counterConcept Coffee outside seatingConcept Coffee hoursCora Coffee counterCora Coffee outsideDrip Lab counterForever serviceForever counterGino’s Java counterGino’s Java outsideGoodside Coffee counterGoodside Coffee serviceGrace Coffee insideGrace Coffee outsideIntuition Coffee serviceIntuition Coffee inside Intuition Coffee outsideLa Costa Cafe outsideLa Costa Cafe serviceLa Costa Cafe counterMast Coffee 17th St counterMast Coffee 17th St outsideMast Coffee 17th St serviceMast Coffee Midtown counterMast Coffee Midtown outsideMilka Coffee G St insideMilka Coffee G St outsideNaked Lounge artworkNaked Lounge insideNaked Lounge outsideNaked Lounge plaqueOld Soul in the Alley insideOld Soul in the Alley outsideOld Soul Capitol Mall insideOld Soul Capitol Mall outsideOld Soul Weatherstone insideOld Soul Weatherstone outsideOld Soul Weatherstone servicePachamama outsidePachamama counterPachamama seatingPachamama servicePachamama signPachamama SNFC counterPachamama SNFC signRoots Coffee outsideRoots Coffee insideSana’a Cafe counterSana’a Cafe serviceSana’a Cafe outsideScorpio Coffee counterScorpio Coffee outsideScorpio Coffee serviceScorpio Coffee outside seatingSeasons Coffee insideShine outsideShine counterShine signShine hoursTemple Coffee 16th St insideTemple Coffee 16th St outsideTemple Coffee 16th St serviceTemple Coffee 9th St insideTemple Coffee 9th St outsideTemple Coffee K St insideTemple Coffee K St outsideTemple Coffee S St insideTemple Coffee S St outsideDrip Lab Espresso insideThe Mill counterThe Mill outsideThe State Grind insideThe State Grind outsideTiferet Coffee outsideTiferet Coffee insideTiferet Coffee serviceTwin Snakes Coffee counterTupi Cafe counterTupi Cafe outsideTupi Cafe serviceT-Bar counterT-Bar outsideT-Bar serviceTwin Snakes Coffee counterWorld Traveler Coffee insideWorld Traveler Coffee outsideWorld Traveler DOCO counterWorld Traveler DOCO outsideWorld Traveler DOCO serviceZoe Coffee & Tacos counterZoe Coffee & Tacos serviceZoe Coffee & Tacos outside
California Streets and Highways Code (SHC) Division 7, Part 3, Chapter 22, Article 2: Repairs, states that the responsibility for repairing sidewalks lies with the adjacent property owner. This is, on its face, unconstitutional, regardless of state code. The state is saying that a government agency can require a property owner to maintain property that belongs to the government, without any compensation. It has long been hoped that a public interest entity would sue the state to declare this code unconstitutional, but so far that has not happened. The ability of the public to sue is overmatched by the power of the cities and counties to fight any such lawsuit. Therefore, it is imperative that the legislature remove this unconstitutional requirement from state law.
It is worth noting that this code dates from 1941. Society’s view of the responsibility of governments to its citizens, what characterizes a livable and walkable place, and equitable transportation systems, have evolved considerably since that time. State law, on the topic of sidewalks, has not.
Code defines sidewalk (paragraph 5600): “As used in this chapter “sidewalk” includes a park or parking strip maintained in the area between the property line and the street line and also includes curbing, bulkheads, retaining walls or other works for the protection of any sidewalk or of any such park or parking strip.” The lack of a definition for ‘parking strip’ is concerning. Is it the buffer area, or does it include parking areas on the roadway? Does the use of this term allow people to park motor vehicles in the buffer? The code is vague.
It is not clear that state code should require, or not require, adjacent property owners to maintain the ‘park or parking strip’, most commonly called sidewalk buffers. These buffers are not part of the transportation network, but they are a key part of enhancing walkability and overall livability through provision of shade trees.
Note that this does not address the day-to-day maintenance of sidewalks in the sense of removal of leaf fall and snow. However, neither does existing code. This is left to policy of the individual city or county, as it probably should be.
The replacement language would be very simple. Chapter 22 would read:
“Sidewalks and curbs are an integral part of the transportation network, and will be maintained for the benefit of all citizens using all modes of transportation, in a state of good repair, under the same requirements that apply to adjacent roadways.”
It is worth noting that the most poorly repaired sidewalks are often adjacent to government-owned property. Governments seem to view this code as applying to private property owners, and not to themselves.
Nothing in state law precludes a local government, city or county, from taking on responsibility for repairing sidewalks. They generally have not done so, because by shifting the responsibility for maintaining part of the transportation network onto private citizens, they can spend more money on infrastructure for motor vehicles. That is the real reason for this state law, and its continuance into modern times.
It has been increasingly common to refrain from blaming traffic violence on drivers, and instead to point to transportation infrastructure which encourages drivers to speed and to act in such a way as to create crashes. There is truth in this, and equity to some degree. But I think the pendulum has swung too far in that direction, and it is time to bring back driver responsibility.
We have invested trillions of dollars to create a transportation system that kills and mains countless people, with an emphasis on harming people who walk and bicycle. This was not an ‘accident’. Traffic engineers knew that their roadway designs would kill people, but absolved themselves of responsibility by pointing to the ‘standards’, which promote these designs, but are based on nothing but speculation and bias. It is always easier to blame crashes on driver behavior than to design safe roadways. Well, here we are. It will cost trillions to fix. We don’t have that money. That is not to say we should not be fixing what we can, with a priority on those designs and locations that have killed the most people, or seem most likely to.
But there are two very, very common driver behaviors which are not really an infrastructure problem. Red light running, and failure to yield to walkers in the crosswalk, both of which I’ve written about before. See ‘how to stop red light running‘ and the list of other posts there, and ‘Yield to walkers? Nah.‘.
Could we move signals to upstream instead of downstream of intersections? Yes, but that is very unlikely in a transportation profession that values tradition over observation and innovation. Could we install raised crosswalks (also known as continuous sidewalks) or raised intersections to let drivers know that they are guests on the roadway, not the hegemony. Yes, and that would cost a lot of money.
Let me say up front that I am not in favor of in-person law enforcement of traffic law. However, we have an epidemic of traffic violence, perpetrated by drivers, which could be greatly reduced with a limited and guardrailed period of enforcement. Automated enforcement of red light running will come to City of Sacramento, probably within five years, and to the entire county, probably within 10 years, but a lot of people are going to be killed and severely injured in the meanwhile. Would law enforcement use this as a pretext for racial and income bias? Yes, they will. It is in their nature. But I want to save lives. Police could write hundreds of tickets a day to red light runners. No, it isn’t about citation income, it is about saving lives.
Automated enforcement of failure by drivers to yield to walkers in the crosswalk is even further away, and may never happen. Nothing short of direct law enforcement may correct this problem. Again, police could write hundreds of tickets a day on failure to yield.
It is not just traffic violence, death and injury, that is the problem. It is that both of these driver behaviors intimidate people who would like to walk and bicycle from doing so. People stay home, or drive instead, or go ahead and walk and bicycle, but live in fear. Of course this is the desired outcome for politicians who support a cars-first transportation system, and oppression of those who don’t participate in the automative paradigm whether by choice or necessity. People who walk and bicycle are truly second-class citizens in our society, and many of them are further so due to racism, income bias, age, and disability.
As you will notice from past posts, I’m not a supporter of the police, and most particularly, not CHP. But police in the City of Sacramento could be forced to actually do something useful. The police work for the Chief, the Chief works for the City Manager, and the City Manager works for the City Council. The council could direct the police to pay attention to traffic violence. If the City Manager doesn’t support, fire her. If the Chief doesn’t support, fire her. And on down the line. The police spend almost all their time responding to things after they’ve gone wrong. Though they give lip service to community policing, prevention is a tiny part of what they do. And so with traffic violence. They respond to crashes, when they could be preventing crashes through targeted enforcement. They document the carnage, and almost alway blame it on the person walking and bicycling, though that is rarely the case. CHP is harder to rein in. It is an agency largely out of the control of the rest of state government. It goes its own way, ignoring laws it doesn’t like, interpreting laws to absolve drivers, and putting its thumb on corrective legislation by encouraging the windshield bias of our governor.
Getting Around Sacramento 