Revised 2024-11-14, to add detail

Yesterday the city held a Zoom meeting entitled ‘SacCity Parking Revisions Community Project Update Meeting’. The second and last meeting is today, 5:30PM, via Zoom. Registration is required, at https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMlf–gqjwsHdbLbRtxQ1_-59HFgLSajWJx#/registration.

The city is developing what it calls a ‘Parking Strategy‘ with a ‘Parking Management Toolkit’. This is not a parking management plan, which the 2040 General Plan requires. Though the city keeps claiming that it already has a Parking Management Plan, that is being revised, no such plan exists. More than half the 190 page Parking Strategy document is Appendix A ‘Economic Conditions and Housing Development Funding Assessment’ (page 68 of the pdf) and Appendix B ‘Best Practices Research’ (page 83 of the pdf) with examples from other cities and standards. A twelve page Executive Summary provides key information for those who don’t have time for the whole document.

The parking revision process is led by Community Development Department, under Senior Planner Vic Randall, vrandall@cityofsacramento.org, but Public Works is also participating, under Parking Manager Staci Hovermale, shovermale@cityofsacramento.org. The presentation was mostly by the W-Trans consultant, Brian Canepa.

I encourage you to attend and comment. In particular, pay attention to what is excluded as well as included. Kendra Ramsey of CalBike had some of the best questions and comments, so I hope she can be on the Zoom again today.

In addition to the meeting, you can also comment via email to ParkingRevisions@cityofsacramento.org, or by adding comments to the document via konveio at https://sacramento.konveio.com/parking-strategy-public-review-draft.

What the presentation and document address:

• Parking maximums are established for the central city and transit oriented development. These are rather liberal, but a good first step.
• Parking would be unbundled from rent for new developments above 3 units, which is better than the state requirement of AB 1317. Unbundling of existing parking is not addressed.
• Bicycling parking would be improved by referencing the standards in code, thereby making them enforceable, and eventually updating the Bike Rack Placement and Design Standards.

What the document does not address:

• daylighting: AB 413 (2023) prohibits parking within 20 feet of a crosswalk (marked or unmarked), upstream of intersections. The document does not even mention daylighting or AB 413, even though the law went into effect on January 1, 2024. The plan does not address removal of this parking, nor marking with red curbs and/or signing, nor implementation. Staci said that they were going to do an RFP for a consultant to look at daylighting, which probably means a delay of several years. San Francisco is proactively moving forward on daylighting, issuing warnings already and citations starting January 1, 2025.
• substandard bicycle parking: A significant portion of existing bicycle parking on private property is substandard, unusable, well below advertised capacity, and sometimes unsafe. The plan grandfathers these bike racks in and has no intent to upgrade them. There are also substandard city-owned racks in the public right-of-way, but these are less common.
• vague residential permit parking (RPP): The plan says that it will eventually start charging for residential on-street parking permits, to recover the administrative costs of that program. But it does not propose charging market rates, and it does not provide any information about when such charges might start or be complete. It specifically does not intend to recover the high costs of providing on-street parking, including the cost to create parking lanes in road construction, the cost of maintaining these parking lanes, and the cost of parking meters or occupancy sensors.
• other uses of street space: Higher uses of street areas currently dedicated to private motor vehicle storage is not addressed, such as micro-mobility parking, street dining (which the city calls ‘al-fresco dining’), and parklets.
• curb management: The document does not mention curb management. revising allowed curb use to reflect the needs of a particular block, including delivery, passenger loading, and short-term parking.
• street closures: Closure of streets to private motor vehicles (but open to walking and bicycling, and other uses), either temporary or permanent, which would result in a loss of parking spaces and parking revenue, is not addressed. The city actively discourages alternative use of streets by demanding the sponsors of the closure pay for lost parking revenue.
• bus stops: Parking in bus stops, lack of red curbs at some bus stops, and bus stops which are too short for buses to use are ongoing issues for transit. This is not the major issue in Sacramento that it is in some other cities, but it does need to be addressed.
• enforcement of crosswalk and bike lane violations: Enforcement of crosswalk blocking and bike lane blocking is rare. Not only are these violations not listed as options in the city 311 app and website, they are rarely enforced when reported. Apparently most parking officers don’t consider these violations. But they endanger both walkers and bicyclists. Staci said the crosswalk blocking would be added to the 311 app, but this same promise was made several years ago, without effect.