Author: Dan Allison

Dan Allison is a transportation advocate in Sacramento, CA. Dan dances and backpacks, as much as possible.

where to have open streets in Sacramento?

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a family on SF Sunday Streets - Embarcadero
a family on SF Sunday Streets – Embarcadero

Sacramento Area Bicycle Advocates (SABA) posted a question on Facebook, “Where shall we hold one in Sacramento?” about the Sunday Streets event this past Sunday on the Embarcadero in San Francisco. This echoes a conversation Alexis and I had while we were attending. She liked the Embarcadero Sunday Streets because it was a long distance and showed how streets can be used for transportation in a different way than we usually use them. For Sacramento, that would argue for a long distance closure that connects together destinations.

Though I certainly enjoyed this Sunday Street, I really like the two that I’ve been to in the Mission neighborhood of San Francisco, which close stretches of Valencia St and 24th St. This route is in a neighborhood, there are people living along the streets and in the neighborhood, as well as those who come from other places to enjoy. There are a multitude of locally-owned businesses to appreciate and engage, with nary a chain in sight. The special events such as play areas, climbing walls, hula hoops, dance demonstrations and others feel more concentrated rather than scattered out along a long route. For Sacramento, this argues for a midtown location, which is the only area where there is a sufficient concentration of residents and locally owned businesses. The Mission event is about community, and more like a street fair.

Embarcadero is more about transportation, and Mission is more about community. Sacramento, of course, could do both.

For more information about the flavors and locations of open streets events, see Open Streets Project. Check out the website for background information including “models”, and then go to one! Of course San Francisco is the easiest for us here in the Sacramento region, but Berkeley will also be having one or more this year, and as you’ll see, they are becoming common on the west coast, throughout the United States, and the world.

The next San Francisco event is on April 14, and is in the Mission neighborhood which I’ve referred to above, on Valencia St and 24th St. Don’t miss it! And bring back your thoughts and commitment to making it happen in Sacramento.

Alexis and I volunteered at the event as intersection monitors. Once you’ve been to an event, you can consider volunteering, which provides a different perspective. Though I was initially assigned to an quiet intersection where there was nothing much to do, I got moved to a lively intersection, The Embarcadero and North Point, where the F streetcar line crosses The Embarcadero at an angle, and there was a lot to do, stopping the walking-biking-rolling crowd as the streetcar came through, keeping people out of the dedicated streetcar lane, and talking to people about how to safely cross tracks.

I wrote more about the Sunday Streets Mission events I attended last year.

News summary March 10

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School closure

Sacramento transportation projects

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This is the current list of Public Works transportation projects in the City of Sacramento. I know about a few of these projects, but many of them I don’t know anything about. It would be worth exploring all of them to see what the implications are for walkability and bikeability, but where would I find the time? Some projects have their own document or page on the city website, but most of them don’t, at least that I’ve been able to find, so I presume these would require getting in touch with the city to get the documents.

SacCivilProjects_2013-01

bicycling in the east bay

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This weekend I was in the east bay. I normally switch over from Amtrak to BART at Richmond, and from BART back to Amtrak at Richmond at the end of my trip, but this weekend I had a much less tight schedule, so decided to pedal my way around. From the station, I headed south to the waterfront, looking for the San Francisco Bay Trail. Many of the streets in Richmond are seriously deteriorated, just as is true in all of the east bay, but some have been renewed. I picked up the trail, which winds for quite some ways along the edge of the bay, sometimes far from the freeway and city and quite pleasant. At Golden Gate Fields, the racing stadium, the trail seemed to disappear, or at least I couldn’t find it. Today I found some good maps online that would have gotten me around this gap, but not having them, I reverted to surface streets. Since this was also the point at which I noticed that the slow tire leak had turned into a fast leak, I pulled out my phone and located a bike shop to get it fixed.

OhloneGreeway_new-section

Blue Heron Bikes on Gilman in Berkeley is a Brompton dealer, and turned out to be the perfect place to go. I got the tube replaced, and then decided to get my other tire replaced, as it was two plus years old and had been punctured so many times I could see daylight through it. The work was done with professionalism. Better yet, I had great conversations with shop manager Jeremy and owner Rob, about Bromptons and all kinds of other biking. A couple was also in, waiting patiently for Jeremy to finish with my bike, one a Brompton owner and the other soon-to-be Brompton owner, and it was fun talking to them as well.Read More »

News summary March 3

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School closure

Amtrak ridership, up 55 percent nationwide, triples in Sacramento (SacBee 2013-03-03)

Back-seat Driver: RT hopes to expand bus bike racks (SacBee 2013-03-01)

Flood and basketball (Sacramento News & Review 2013-02-28); read the long but fascinating 2005 article that is linked from this one!

Los Rios buys Rancho Cordova site for satellite campus (Sacramento Business Journal 2013-03-01; subscriber only article); unlike the mythological Cordova Hills university campus, this one is directly on the SacRT Folsom light rail line

It’s decision time for massive Capital Southeast Connector project (Sacramento Business Journal 2013-03-01; subscriber only article); Editorial: Road work ahead — we hope (Sacramento Business Journal 2013-03-01; subscriber only article); I for one hope this project does not succeed, as it is clearly a sprawl inducer, and was one of the reasons that the sprawl Cordova Hills project was even considered viable

More California bicycle bills 2013 (Cyclelicious 2013-02-27); Four bills that affect California cyclists (Cyclelicious 2013-02-25)

Letter: MacGlashan’s logic undermines infill development (SacBee 2013-02-28)

CHP to recommend charging motorist, bicyclist in Rio Linda collision (SacBee 2013-02-27); though one can’t judge a case from a newspaper article, I’m highly suspicious of CHP’s motivation

Group seeks to Turn Downtown Around – ‘Get up and help, don’t hate’ (Sacramento Press 2013-02-26)

Sacramento councilman wants to combat bike thefts (SacBee 2013-02-25)

BikeLink

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BikeStationBerkeley_tray-racksLast night I used my BikeLink membership to store my bike at the Berkeley BikeStation, which is just two blocks from the Downtown Berkeley BART station. I was wandering around downtown in the late afternoon and early evening before going to a concert, and it was more convenient to be without my bike while walking, and then not having to negotiate to bring it inside at the concert. The BikeStation is a self-service setup, so you can put your bike in and get it out again at any time of day. The adjacent staffed BikeStation has weekday hours, but it doesn’t have to be open to use the storage.

BikeLink is a membership system. Storage costs about 3-5 cents per hour, often less at low-use times, so it is a very reasonable deal. To get started, you have to purchase the card for $20, though, and there is a $5 identification charge on first use. At any rate, $20 buys a lot of bike storage time.

I first wanted to use BikeLink one Sunday in San Francisco when I needed air for my tires and couldn’t find an open bike shop in the part of town I was in. I remembered that there was some sort of bike place at Embarcadero BART station, and so went there, but found it required that I have a card ahead of time. So I signed up and was mailed a card. I used it several weeks later to store my bike there at Embarcadero while attending the Climate Forward SF rally.

BikeLink also has storage lockers at a number of BART stations, other transit locations, and bike-heavy places throughout the bay area. I’ve not used these lockers yet.

BikeLink-card

BikeLink uses the same sort of electronic card as the ClipperCard transit system card which is now in use throughout nearly all of the bay area. Apparently there are discussions about merging the systems, or at least letting BikeLink credit be stored on the ClipperCard, but at the moment, they are separate.

I asked SACOG about whether the new ConnectCard (similar to the ClipperCard), which is being planned for the Sacramento region, would be able to use BikeLink as well. The answer was that the systems are theoretically compatible, but no plans for interoperability are in the works. I’ve heard that just getting all the transportation entities in the Sacramento region to agree on a common card has been a challenge enough.

parking violence

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On Monday evening, I observed an altercation over a parking spot in front of my apartment on O Street in Sacramento. There are several restaurants on 16th Street that are popular and generate a desire for parking, and there is already a lot of local resident parking, so spots are hard to find at times. I had noticed that cars were backed up on the street as people were waiting for others to leave, but was not paying close attention until I heard yelling. A driver of a car stopped in the middle of the street was yelling at two people who had parked and were walking towards 16th Street, claiming that they had “stolen” his parking spot and demanding that they move. He escalated into threats against their car (breaking out all the windows) and against their persons (“I’m going to take you down”). The angry driver pursued the other two, and ended up shoving and slapping the male of the couple. He also made threats against the female. He continued the confrontation even when the others were trying to end it, and he taunted the male with “I slapped you in front of your girlfriend and you were too much of a wussy to do anything about it.”

My point is not to document the assault and battery, and given that it did not show up on the SacPD daily activity log, I presume the police, when they eventually responded, did not think it important. My point, rather, is to talk about the sickness of someone threatening to harm another over a parking spot. Over a parking spot! The perpetrator was completely prepared to do harm to the other two just because he felt unjustly deprived of his parking spot. Whether he was unjustly deprived or not, I can’t say, because I didn’t observe the taking of the parking spot.

What kind of world view leads one to think that it is justified to harm others over a parking spot? Only an angry sociopath would view things that way.

As I have said before, driving causes brain damage. But let me be more specific now. Driving not only encourages and brings out sociopathic behavior, it IS sociopathic behavior. Driving is sociopathic behavior. There, I’ve said it.

News summary February 24

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School Closure:

Viewpoints: Cordova Hills will cost the entire region (SacBee 2013-02-24)

Teenagers injured in hit-and-run collision in Rio Linda (SacBee 2013-02-23)

Law enforcement to crack down on Sacramento’s distracted drivers (SacBee 2013-02-23)

Back-seat Driver: Should Sacramento stay suburban or go urban? (SacBee 2013-02-22)

Sacramento seeks new name for downtown train station (SacBee 2013-02-21)

City of promise (Sacramento News & Review 2013-02-21)

Sacramento, West Sac get serious about two new river bridges (SacBee 2013-02-18); Editorial: Broadway bridge will be an asset, not a liability (SacBee 2013-02-23)

Go Outside: 5 places to take a walk in Sacramento, California (People+Places+Things 2013-02-18)

Editorial: Chamber’s backing of Cordova Hills threatens credibility of Next Economy (SacBee 2013-02-17)

Nice Rack (Downtown Sacramento Partnership)

Broadway Vision Study Report Released (Urban Land Institute blog 2013-01-28)

schools closed

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The Sacramento City USD Board voted to close seven schools, including Washington Elementary. This is a sad day for students and their communities. There is a good chance that the decision will be overturned in the courts, as the district proudly refused to consider the effects of the closure on low income and high minority communities, but nevertheless, this will take up yet more community energy and time, energy and time that could have been devoted to improving schools. What kind of feeling does this leave the communities with, when the district and the board work against the interests of the community?