Update: The letter on the status of walking/biking was deferred to the next meeting, where a modified letter will be considered and hopefully passed. The Freeport and Northgate Transportation Plans were forwarded to council. I spoke in favor of Northgate and against Freeport, for reasons I will detail in the near future. The applications for planning grants were supported.

The Sacramento Active Transportation Commission (SacATC) is meeting online Thursday, January 18, 2023, 6:00PM to about 8:00PM, via Zoom. See http://sacramento.granicus.com/ViewPublisher.php?view_id=21 for agenda and eComment.

The three main topics are:

• A report from the subcommittee on the status of walking/biking in Sacramento
• Northgate Blvd Transportation Plan (35MB)
• Freeport Blvd Transportation Plan (29MB)
• (earlier reduced versions replaced because they dropped important design elements)

A read of the subcommittee report, formatted as a letter to the mayor since the commission is advisory to the council, is good and should be supported. I particularly like the emphasis on completing the construction detour policy, since city staff otherwise do not care about the safety of walkers and bicyclists in navigating construction projects that close or change sidewalks and bikeways. Two items missing are bike/scooter share, and Vision Zero. These two items may or may not fall under the purview of SacATC, however, the city is not making information available to the public on these efforts, so it seems to fall to SacATC to do so.

In general, the Northgate and Freeport plans are an immense improvement over existing conditions, so meet needs of the moment, but it is less clear they are going to meet the needs of the future, which will be much less private motor vehicle driving, and more walking, bicycling and transit. If time is available to look at the plans more closely, I’ll add posts.