This is Central City Mobility Project update #33. Note that 5th Street has not yet been converted from one-way to two-way.

When looking at 5th Street, part of the Central City Mobility Project to convert this from a one-way street to a two-way street, I was focused on the looking at the new signals and the mast arms. I failed to notice all the new beg buttons that have been installed. These are the ‘wave at’ variety. Installations are at Q Street, P Street, N Street and Capitol Mall. At Q, P, and N Streets, there are 8 new buttons per intersection. At Capitol Mall there are six, all on the east side of the intersection, because there is a pedestrian crossing prohibition on the west side. I don’t have documentation of what was here before these were installed, but I’m pretty sure that these intersections were on auto-recall, meaning that the button did not need to be pressed, or waved at. I have to admit I have been fooled again by City of Sacramento Public Works. I had been assuming that either things would remain the same, or things would get better. They have proved me wrong by making things worse.

There are beg button posts installed at R Street as well, but since this crossing of 5th St has not been activated, I don’t know how the beg buttons will be labeled.

At Broadway and 5th Street, new corners are being installed. Though it is too soon to tell for sure, it looks like there will be posts for these same beg buttons. I don’t know if this is part of the Broadway Complete Street project, or the Central City Mobility Project, since they intersect here.

Not to be outdone by 5th Street, it appears as though all the revised intersections along Broadway will have the same new beg buttons. Below is a photo of the crossing of Broadway at 10th Street, where posts for beg buttons have been installed, but not yet the buttons.

In case you might think that it is only with signals that the city is actively biased against people walking, here is the end of the sidewalk on the west side of 5th Street, approaching X Street. There is no crosswalk over X Street here, due to the configuration of freeway off ramps. But the real issue is that there is no crosswalk over 5th Street either. There isn’t a prohibition on crossing here, there just isn’t a safe place to cross. The stop bar for this signal is so far forward that a person walking around it to cross would be very close to the high speed traffic on X Street. The use path indicates that many people head west on the south side of X Street. At 3rd Street, there is a crosswalk, but no signal, and the crosswalk crosses a high speed slip lane from 3rd Street southbound to X Street. Not a great place to cross.

Well, OK, at least the city warned people that the sidewalk ended and was a dead-end, when they headed north from Broadway. NOT. There is no indication there of the closure. What would a typical walker do? What would a person in a wheelchair do? What would a blind or vision impaired person do? You may be concerned about this, but the city is not.