Note: updated 2020-03-28 to correct lane descriptions and add a photo of the lane shift.
On the south side of I Street, between 15th Street and 16th Street, the city has permanently closed the sidewalk. This was to construct a loading dock for Memorial Auditorium. I had noticed the construction going on there, the first phase of the city’s project for the convention center and community center theater, and just assumed things would be returned to normal when construction was complete. How wrong I was. I was flabbergasted when I saw this. The loading dock sticks quite a ways into what used to be the public right of way, erasing the sidewalk and two parking lanes (the general purpose lanes were shifted to the right). The loading dock is concrete, intended to be there forever. See the photos below.
If the loading area was really than important, and could not be provided anywhere else, the city could have set things up for easy temporary closure of some of the street so as to allow loading when needed. They did not, they made it permanent.
I have walked by here, on the sidewalk, when events were going on at the Memorial Auditorium and there were a lot of walkers using this sidewalk. I imagine for a lot of other uses as well.
Also note that the ‘ bike lane’ stripe does not meet standards for a bike lane because it is immediately adjacent to a hard barrier and fence, so requires shy distance not provided. So that means when there are eventually bike lanes on I Street, this will be a gap, permanently.
What the fuck were you thinking, City of Sacramento?
Getting Around Sacramento 
Brian Henry had mentioned in a tweet that the configuration of I Street here was going to be changed. In the Grid 3.0 document, I Street between 16th and 21st will be converted to a two-way street, though I don’t know what the cross-section will be. It is already two-way to the east of 21st. Between 12th and 16th, the section in question, it will be reduced from three lanes to two lanes, though, again, I don’t know what the cross-section will be. West of 12th it will remain three lanes (or more) one-way.
Grid 3.0 Preferred Roadway detail
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[…] projects. The renewal of Memorial Auditorium had issues. Though now finished, it resulted in the permanent closure of the sidewalk on the south side of I Street. The next worse offense is the ongoing city project called 3C, the convention center and community […]
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[…] I will be interested to see if the city will address the lack of sidewalk on the south side of I Street between 16th and 15th, where the city installed a loading dock for Memorial Auditorium in place of the former sidewalk. I strongly believe that removal of sidewalks, as was done here, are criminal (Sac permanently closes sidewalk). […]
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