I posted on the Fruitridge Road Safety and Mobility Plan (2026-02-21), which was before the first community meeting on March 4, which I attended. There were a number of display boards with details that are not necessarily in other documents, but I did not capture those. A second workshop, on July 6, which presented updated concepts based on the first workshop and other outreach, I was not able to attend. The project website has a number of documents of interest, including all those that I reference below. Note that there is another city project, Fruitridge Road Improvement Project, east from Stockton Blvd to Power Inn Road, that is separate from this project.

The public outreach for Phase 2 is complete, and there is no formal process at this time for public input. However, you have the right as a citizen to email the project lead, Virginia Morgan, VMorgan@cityofsacramento.org.

Overall

The map below shows the corridor, and related transportation projects.

The project extends from Riverside Blvd to on the west to Stockton Blvd on the east. The roadway from Riverside to South Land Park Drive is named Seamas Avenue, which is important if you are looking at details in the documents, but I’ll refer to the entire corridor as Fruitridge Road. The section from Riverside to Freeport Blvd is four lanes, but with fairly low traffic volumes and speeds. The posted speed limit is 35 mph. From Freeport to 24th Street, volume and speeds are higher, and the roadway has frontage roads on south and then north side. The posted speed limit is 40 mph. From 24th all the way to Stockton Blvd, the corridor is mostly commercial, with some residential here and there. Volume and speed are again higher. The posted speed limit is 40 mph, but observed speeds are much higher, particularly in the vicinity of the Hwy 99 interchange, where drivers reach highway speeds at the onramps, and continue highway speeds coming off the off-ramps. The section from east edge of the freeway interchange to Stockton Blvd is mostly within Sacramento County, not the city. This section has paint-only bike lanes, which apparently were added in 2024.

Traffic Violence

The corridor map below shows collisions. As is no surprise, they are concentrated at major intersections, but also occur in between, most likely at side streets or driveways. Few collisions are shown for the Hwy 99 onramps and off-ramps, possibly because this data was not included. Though the interchange is within the city, it is completely controlled by Caltrans and collisions would be reported by CHP, not the city. When I asked the consultants why the collision density was so much higher in the county section than the city section, they speculated that it was because there was so much more commercial activity and driveways in that section.

Sidewalks

With few exceptions, sidewalks throughout the corridor are five feet wide. Though there are problems here and there, including utility poles in the sidewalk, and a gap east of the Del Rio Trail, they are overall in decent condition. The lack of trees along this corridor does reduce sidewalk heaving. Driveways are frequent, particularly between Franklin Blvd and Stockton, including the county section. More than half of the driveways have a steep cross-slope in the sidewalk, not meeting current PROWAG/ADA requirements. Some, mostly within the county section, have been fixed with the ramp down, ramp up solution, which is legal but not optimal. Many of the unmodified driveways present barriers to travel with mobility devices, and discomfort for all walkers. All sidewalks and driveways within the project area should be upgraded to PROWAG compliance. The best way of doing so it to install a sidewalk buffer (which the city calls planting strips) so that the driveway slope in within the buffer, not within the sidewalk.

Sidewalks should be a minimum of six feet wide, with additional width where higher walker use justifies it. Initially, the project proposed to leave almost all of the sidewalks untouched, only widening them where there are bus stops. The new Alternative 2 – Enhanced Improvements, considers but does not promise widening sidewalks along the corridor. More on this below.

Roadway re-allocation

The project plan focuses on lane number reductions and lane width reduction, and the question of whether the eastern Segment 2 from 24th Street to Stockton Blvd will be two lanes (three with center turn lane) or four lanes. I don’t think this is the most important issue, except as re-allocation allows for wider sidewalks and sidewalk buffers. I find that Alternative 2, illustrated below, is the only acceptable design of the three presented. The diagram shows a section without driveways, but frequent, poorly designed driveways are characteristic of much of Segment 2. Only this alternative allows continuous level sidewalks, with driveway ramps in the sidewalk buffer. Though at this stage of planning, the width of the widened sidewalks and new sidewalk buffers is not specified. I believe that sidewalks should be a minimum of six feet, and wider where walkers and rollers are more frequent. Bus stops should have at least eight feet of sidewalk, and most bus stops should have bus shelters and other amenities that are not within that eight feet. Buffers should be a minimum of eight feet, to allow for tree health and growth without sidewalk buckling. The city has been using buffers of 4 to 6 feet on many projects, which is too narrow.

The Phase 2 Design Alternatives document, which I assume must have been the display boards at Workshop 2, does have widths shown for the various segments, but unfortunately, these diagrams do not exactly match the diagrams in the presentation. For example, the presentation Alternative 2, below, indicates widened sidewalks, but the design alternatives document continues to show the existing five foot sidewalks.

Sidewalks should also be continuous across intersections with local streets. These raised crosswalk/sidewalks clearly communicate to drivers that they need to slow, and look, when crossing a sidewalk, that they are guess in the walker space, not the preeminent user. There may be intersections with collector and arterial roadways, and other signalized intersections, where continuous sidewalks/raised crosswalk are appropriate.

Bicycle facilities

Alternative 1 shows paint-only Class 2 bicycle lanes. These are unacceptable on roadways over 30 mph, and with the current speed limits at 35 mph and 40 mph, they are not safe. Unless posted and design speed limits are reduced to 30 mph on the corridor, bicycle facilities must be protected with at a minimum, wide buffers with vertical delimiters, and preferably and safer, concrete medians and curbs. Without width specification, it is unknown whether these facilities will accommodate modern bicycles and riders. But as with all bicycle facilities, the more important issue is how bicycles are accommodated at intersections. The city has not done well with this issue.

Intersections

Intersections are where most collisions occur, and the locations where walkers and bicyclists are most at risk, and most discouraged, but the documents available to date don’t show intersection modifications.

There are two intersection in the corridor that must be significantly modified to make them safe for all users. At Fruitridge Road and Freeport Blvd, the intersection flares to have five westbound lanes, with two dedicated left turn lanes, two through lanes, and one dedicated right turn lane. A crossing distance of 113 feet! Eastbound, four lanes, with one dedicated left turn lane, two through lanes, and one dedicated right turn lane. A crossing distance of 100 feet! There are problems with the design of Freeport Blvd as well.

The intersection of Fruitridge and 24th Street is acceptable, though it could certainly be improved.

The intersection of Fruitridge and Franklin Blvd is unacceptable, with a similar flared design. The free right turn slip lanes from Franklin to Fruitridge are a clear and present danger to all users of the roadway, particularly walkers and bicyclists. These should have been removed as part of the Franklin Blvd Complete Streets project. And they should be removed citywide.

The intersection of Fruitridge Rd and Stockton Blvd is the third problematic intersection, though it isn’t clear to me whether changes will be part of this project, or the future Stockton Blvd Stockton Transportation Enhancement Project. On Fruitridge, it is not as bad as the two preceding intersections, but the intersection is a vast area of pavement, unfriendly and unsafe for walkers and bicyclists.

These flared intersections create large number of conflict points for motor vehicles, and lengthen crossing distances for walkers to unacceptably long distances. Long crossing distances also slow signal cycles due to the longer pedestrian crossing time, frustrating drivers as well. They also encourage drivers to jockey for position at intersections, and accelerate hard to get ahead of others. Though not a common behavior, belligerent drivers also use turn lanes as bypasses for slow traffic in front of them, creating a high level of danger for everyone. The city has, in the past, installed these flared intersections to create stacking space for motor vehicles at signals, but shortening signal cycles can have the same beneficial impact.

I believe intersections should never have dedicated right turn lanes, and particularly, not ones leading to free right turn slip lanes. Right turning drivers can wait their turn with everyone else. Intersections should only have one dedicated left turn lane. Two or more turn lanes lead to motor vehicle conflict on turns, higher speed turns, and inattention by drivers to people in the crosswalk and bicyclists. Whether there are one or two through lanes (never three or more), depends upon the intended design use of the road. Not on existing traffic counts, but on intended use.

Hwy 99

The worst ‘intersection’ of all is the Fruitridge Road & Hwy 99 interchange. This interchange features three high speed onramps from Fruitridge Road to Hwy 99, and three high speed off-ramps onto Fruitridge Road. It is not a true cloverleaf interchange, which would have four of each, but it is bad enough.

On eastbound Fruitridge, the south side, bicycle lanes are dropped, and so are sidewalks. There are ‘no pedestrian’ signs approaching from the west and east. There are no marked crosswalks or pedestrian warning signs or ramps over the two onramps and one off-ramp. The sidewalk on that side is basically an isolated fake. I watched these ramps for some while. Drivers were entering the onramp to Hwy 99 southbound at highway speeds, far over the posted 40 mph speed limit. The off-ramp on northbound onramp were not as bad because they lead to fairly tight turns, and presumably most drivers know that excessive speeds will cause roadway departures.

On westbound Fruitridge, the north side, bicycle lanes are dropped, but there is sort of a sidewalk. There are sidewalk ramps to unmarked crossings of the one onramp and two off-ramps. There are even pedestrian crossing signs at each, and the west off-ramp, even added yield signs, though those may be for merging to Fruitridge, and not for the crosswalk. I watched the west off-ramp for a while. Every driver was exiting at highway speeds, though the posted speed limit is 40 mph.

I believe that all freeway interchanges should have right-angle entry and exits from surface streets, which cause drivers to stop, or at least greatly slow. If a walker or bicyclist got hit at such a ramp, it would be a low speed collision, and probably survivable. For the high speed ramps of this interchange, a collision with walker or bicyclist would almost certainly be fatal. When a city or county want to redesign an interchange to be safe, Caltrans response is almost always: ‘we’ll work with you on the design, but you are going to pay for the infrastructure, 100%’. Caltrans knows that its interchanges are deadly, but has no interest in fixing them. Cities and counties can rarely afford to do so. As for the lack of mapped collisions (see diagram above), I believe that collisions that happen at the exit of the off-ramps and entry of the onramps are considered to be on a state highway, under the jurisdiction of CHP and not Sacramento Police, so don’t show up in the city’s data.

Bus stops

The designs use the phrase ‘Transit stops will need to be designed to accommodate bikeways’, but there are no diagrams or descriptions of what these would look like. This is a very important issue. The optimal bus stop is at a transit boarding island where the bus stops in the travel lane rather than pulling out of traffic. However, other options are possible and may be more compatible with the overall roadway design. An unanswered question.

The Upshot

Segment 1, from Riverside Blvd to Freeport Blvd, at perhaps at far as 24th Street, should be delayed. The traffic on this section is lower volume and lower speed than the rest of the corridor. Though it would be easier to re-allocate roadway width here, it does not have the same safety value. For Segment 2, to the east of 24th Street, and perhaps including the section from Freeport Blvd, the nature of the roadway, driver behavior, conflict points, and adjacent land uses changes completely. This is where the real problem is, and should be the focus of the project.

Hazardous intersections, particularly at Freeport and Franklin, must be fixed in this project, and these intersections are more important than fixing the corridor, because intersections are where the most conflicts occur, and therefore the most collisions. Even if the city fixed only those two intersections, the project would be progress.

Sidewalks for walkers and rollers are the most important aspect of any re-allocation project, of course more important than motor vehicle throughput, and even more important that bicyclists. Only Alternative 2 provide reasonable infrastructure for walkers and rollers. Sidewalks must be a minimum of six feet wide, even in low-use sections, and wider or much wider in heavily used sections. These sidewalk must be shaded by trees, which must be planted at about 30 foot intervals within sidewalk buffers (planting strips) of at least eight feet wide. Of course that means robust irrigation for trees and other plants during the period of establishment.

Wide concrete buffers, of the sort shown in Alternative 1 – Base Improvements, are a waste of concrete. Wide concrete buffers (8.5 feet!) are no more protective of bicyclists than 18 inch buffers, are a waste of project funds, and add to heat island effects of the roadway. The new Franklin Blvd Complete Streets unfortunately has a number of these. Don’t use them!

The city continuously refuses to reduce posted speed limits on reconstructed streets, with their faulty logic that speeds cannot be reduced without a speed study that shows lower 85th percentile speeds. But reconstructed, complete streets are essentially new streets, as though they had been constructed from scratch. The city can, and should, determine an optimal design and posted speed (which should be the same, not the over-engineered forgiving design speed of 10 mph or more over the posted speed). For this project, the design and posted speed should be 30 mph. Designing for slower traffic is even more important than reducing travel lane numbers.