Agenda item 11 on the Sacramento City Council agenda last night (2023-08-29) was ‘Active Transportation Commission 2022 Annual Report Regarding the Status of Walking and Bicycling in the City of Sacramento and Activities of the Commission‘. Twenty members of the public and organizations spoke in support of the recommendations, no one against, and all council members spoke in support. Comments of both the public and council focused on the need for more funding to make infrastructure changes to our roadways, in order to fix the unsafe roadway network we have.

I have written twice before about the SacATC recommendations: support SacATC status on walking/biking (now!) and SacATC meeting Jan 19 with report, Northgate, Freeport. I recommend you read the full set of recommendations. Do they go far enough? No. Do they miss some important issues? Yes. But these recommendations are beyond anything that the city has considered before, and deserve the support of everyone in the city (and county and region).

Several representative from Land Park talked about how much they loved the slow streets in the park, and how disappointed they were when the city nixed them. They want them back! So do a number of other speakers. Grace Bartley talked about how she was hit by a driver while riding her bike to McClatchy High on Freeport, probably the most impactful speaker of the evening. Several speakers mentioned the imperative to control motor vehicle speeds, by whatever means necessary. (The ultimate solution to this issue is not any action of the city, but speed-limited motor vehicles.)

Eric Guerra mentioned again, as he has other times, that many parents seem to care about only their own children, once their children are safely dropped off at school, they speed away, endangering other people’s children. And some not ever their own children, encouraging their kids to run across the street at drop-off and pick-up. There was general agreement that there needs to be more money in next year’s budget for active transportation, though no one said what would be cut to accomplish that. SacATC had wanted their recommendations to go to the council for consideration in adopting this year’s budget, but a roadblock (intentional?) was thrown up by requiring that the report go first to the Personnel and Public Employees Committee, which meant that it did not come to the council until August. Katie Valenzuela suggested that Public Works come up with guidelines for citizen-initiated ‘tactical urbanism’ projects so that quick-builds can happen now, when the city does not have the funds or materials or personnel to complete in a timely manner. Jennifer Donlon Wyant was open to the idea, but I’m sure it would get nixed in Public Works. Darrell Steinberg talked about his proposal for a housing and transportation measure in 2024, that would provide some of the additional funding needed. This will be the topic of my next post.

I spoke along with the other 19 people, and my comments are below:

I strongly support all of the recommendations included in the 2022 report from the ATC to the city council. In particularly, I would like to address two of those, 3. Develop a Citywide Safe Routes to School Program, and 4. Finalize the Construction Detour Policy. 

I was the Safe Routes to School Coordinator for San Juan Unified for 10 years. Having that position funded through federal and ATC grants, and district funding, allowed the completion of many infrastructure project though collaboration with the City of Citrus Heights and Sacramento County. Most of these would not have occurred without the position. We also offered an extensive program of walking and bicycling education to students, and to the community. Civil Thread/WALKSacramento was a key partner in these efforts. I recommend that Sac City schools and the city create and fund a Safe Routes position to head an ongoing program in the support of students and their families.

It is long past time for a policy to accommodate walkers and bicyclists during construction projects. Nearly every construction project that has occurred in the central city has violated ADA guidelines, which require accommodation. City staff is on record as saying that walkers and bicyclists would be accommodated when it does not remove capacity from motor vehicles. So every project presents dangers to walkers and bicyclists. The are poorly signed and do not provide detectable barriers. I spend a lot of time reporting these violations, and over time many though not all of them are corrected. However, it should not be the responsibility of citizens to hold the city to ADA requirements. A progressive city would develop traffic plans that accommodate all travel modes, and would then inspect and enforce those plans.