Author: Dan Allison

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

Caltrans pedestrian killer

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Last week I walked from the Arden Fair Mall area to REI. No, there is no bus that covers that route. There is a sidewalk on the north side of Exposition Blvd, not on the south side. At the I-80 Business onramp to to the freeway south, there is a pedestrian crossing of sorts, as shown in the photo below. There are ADA ramps on both sides of the onramp, but there is no marked crosswalk, there are not signs indicating that it is a pedestrian crossing (at a minimum, there should be a MUTCD W11-2 and W16-7 sign set, shown at bottom. But there is nothing. Drivers are accelerating onto the freeway at this point, not thinking in any way about someone crossing the ramp. Making it worse, the overpass leading to this point is convex, so that sight distances are limited and a driver would not see a pedestrian in time to make a graceful yield or stop. Note in the photo that the ramps are newer than the onramp; they were placed after initial construction, without any attention paid to their actual use. This is typical Caltrans engineering, doing what the law requires without thinking about it at all.

Just barely noticeable in the photo is a sign on the ground just on the other side of the onramp. This sign was knocked over by a vehicle (driver) who either was going to fast or decided at the last moment this was not the ramp wanted, and continued straight, jumping the curb, knocking down the sign, and continuing along the sidewalk before eventually returning to the street.

This location is a pedestrian killer, designed by Caltrans for that purpose.

This interchange needs to be completely redesigned. There should be no free onramps or off-ramps. All traffic should be required to make right-angle turns onto and off the freeway ramps, in order to slow drivers to a safe speed. A safe pedestrian route should be installed to that it is motor vehicles rather than walkers who need to go out of the way. All pedestrian crossings should have marked high-visibility crosswalks, with pedestrian signals that allow an exclusive phase for pedestrians.

I haven’t even mentioned bicyclist facilities here. They are just as bad, just as hazardous at the pedestrian facilities.

Caltrans engineers are directly responsible for any and all crashes involving pedestrians and bicyclists at this interchange. They have designed and promoted something that can and will kill pedestrians and bicyclists.

unacceptable accommodation

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Sacramento City continues its practice of approving construction projects that do not consider the needs of walkers and bicyclists. Here is the latest I ran across, on Folsom Blvd between Santa Ynez Way and 39th St. The construction on the south side appears to be installing cable or fiber. At the west end, there is a sudden ‘sidewalk closed’ sign. There is no prior warning, there is no ramp or marked crosswalk for crossing Folsom to the north side (it requires crossing an offset intersection diagonally to go from one ramp to another, an exceptionally long distance), and there is no indication about how long the detour is.

At the other end, there is the same sort of signing without any prior warning or information provided.

At this location, 39th St, there is a marked crosswalk with traffic signal which could allow people to cross Folsom, but just to make sure the message that pedestrians are unwelcome here is clearly received, a construction truck was parked across the crosswalk. When I asked the construction crew to move the truck, they refused. I reported it to parking enforcement but am not sure of the outcome.

Of course there is a bicycle lane along this section of Folsom Blvd, which is also blocked by the construction. That may be justifiable, but you would think that forcing bicyclists to share the general purpose traffic lane would justify a reduction of the speed limit from 35 mph to 25 mph, but no, that that would inconvenience drivers and in the city, that is not to be considered.

This kind of bias against walkers and bicyclists should be unacceptable in the city. And it would be if the staff of Construction Services were not biased against walkers and bicyclists. Time to replace that staff with people who care about all modes of travel.

Leaf season

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In my neighborhood, about half the trees have lost all their leaves for the year, and the other half are still hanging on. If I listen closely, I can hear the tick of leaves hitting the ground.

So, how have the bike lanes been doing during leaf season? At least for the parts of the central city and east Sacramento that I ride in, acceptably OK. People are putting their leaf piles in the bike lanes much less often than in previous years. I’m not sure why. I haven’t noticed any city effort to educate about this, other than a vague “When possible, avoid placing piles in bike lanes.” on their Leaf Season page. But I really do believe there are less piles in the bike lanes. Maybe people are beginning to clue in. If only there were a similar improvement in trash cans in bike lanes.

A big concern was how the new separated bikeways (‘protected bike lanes’, ‘cycletracks’) on P and Q and 10th (and now 9th) would do. The city has not yet purchased a device for sweeping these bike facilities. Apparently the ‘the claw’, the loader that collects the leaf piles and moves them into dump trucks, can negotiate the bikeways, and this is how they have been kept clear. This is working pretty well, all except for one block, pictured below. This section of P Street between 15th and 14th has a large accumulation of leaves, and the leaves have developed into leaf slime, with is an incredibly slippery mush of decayed leaves. I am not sure what is different about this block, but it certainly is different. It needs to be cleaned now, and cleaned more frequently.

P Street separated bikeway leaf slime

Sacramento among 10 best new bikeways

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People for Bikes just published “America’s 10 Best New Bikeways of 2018” and Sacramento is one of them. Congratulations!

4. Sacramento, California
The J Street Safety Project was designed to calm traffic, improve pedestrian crossings, provide parking-protected bikeways, and make the street more inviting for travel. They chose to add a parking-protected lane to allow people of all ages and levels to bike the grid, separated from moving traffic. Travel lanes were reduced from 3 to 2, encouraging slower vehicle speeds, decreasing pedestrian crossing lengths, and improving corridor safety.
The project came out of the Central City Transportation Plan (Grid 3.0) in 2016, and is a marriage of street maintenance funding and transportation planning. They found that there was a need to calm traffic and improve pedestrian crossings, which was identified by the local businesses and residential community. The project improves pedestrian visibility by moving parking back from the intersection. It also benefits local businesses along the corridor by slowing traffic and increasing ease of crossing the corridor.
So far they’ve built over 25 blocks of parking-protected bikeways this year, and have funding for another 22 blocks.

People for Bikes

21950 and Vision Zero

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California Vehicle Code 21950, failure to yield to pedestrians, is in my opinion the most important violation as it applies to implementing Vision Zero in Sacramento. The Vision Zero Sacramento Action Plan (draft) says “Launch high-visibility enforcement campaigns against speeding, failure to yield to pedestrians, distracted driving, and impaired driving. Campaigns will focus on HIN corridors.” The state code says:

21950.
  (a) The driver of a vehicle shall yield the right-of-way to a pedestrian crossing the roadway within any marked crosswalk or within any unmarked crosswalk at an intersection, except as otherwise provided in this chapter.
(b) This section does not relieve a pedestrian from the duty of using due care for his or her safety. No pedestrian may suddenly leave a curb or other place of safety and walk or run into the path of a vehicle that is so close as to constitute an immediate hazard. No pedestrian may unnecessarily stop or delay traffic while in a marked or unmarked crosswalk.
(c) The driver of a vehicle approaching a pedestrian within any marked or unmarked crosswalk shall exercise all due care and shall reduce the speed of the vehicle or take any other action relating to the operation of the vehicle as necessary to safeguard the safety of the pedestrian.
(d) Subdivision (b) does not relieve a driver of a vehicle from the duty of exercising due care for the safety of any pedestrian within any marked crosswalk or within any unmarked crosswalk at an intersection.

VEHICLE CODE – VEH, DIVISION 11. RULES OF THE ROAD,CHAPTER 5. Pedestrians’ Rights and Duties; http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=VEH&sectionNum=21950; retrieved 2018-12-15

So, how is the Sacramento Police Department doing on enforcing this code against drivers who fail to yield to pedestrians in the crosswalk? Well, from the ‘Sacramento Police Vehicle Stop Data’ (http://data.cityofsacramento.org/datasets/sacramento-police-vehicle-stop-data) of the last two years, there were 101 violations of 21950 recorded, out of 61,151 violations. This is 0.17 percent, or, other violations were 582 times more common.

Anyone spending more than 10 minutes standing on the corner of any busy pedestrian intersection could count a hundred violations of this law. I know this because I do it. It is part of my job and it is also part of my advocacy. In two years the police only wrote 105 citations? I will also add that I have seen Sacramento Police Department officers in motor vehicles violating this very code hundreds of times, on myself and on others. Even the bicycle mounted officers are frequent violators. I will say that officers have yielded to me in the crosswalk, but it is much more common that they don’t. I’m not saying that they are trying to run me down, rather than they don’t wish to be slowed or inconvenienced, and so will cross through the crosswalk when I’m in it. They are, in this sense, just like other drivers.

So what is this disconnect between what is important and what officers do? I’m going to be blunt here. The police not partners in achieving Vision Zero, in fact they are the main impediment to Vision Zero. If they persist in their windshield perspective that pedestrians are the problems and drivers don’t mean to cause harm, pedestrians will continue to die, and drivers will continue to not face consequences for their violations, for their assaults, for their murders.

If you wish to reply that we all need to work together, and consider perspectives, well, please present evidence that this has worked in the part, or some construct that says it will work in the future. I’m not seeing it. In case you think I am picking on Sac PD, things are actually worse in other jurisdictions, but since this is where I live and observe the issue every day, it is the place I focus on.

By the way, thank you Don Kostelec @KostelecPlan for getting me fired up about all the ways in which our entire system is biased against pedestrians, and that those people whose job it is to consider and act on safety are mostly only concerned about drivers and traffic flow. I encourage you to follow his ‘The Twelve Days of Safety Myths‘ series.

Sac Opportunity Zones

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Opportunity Zones are something I’ve never paid much attention to, and don’t understand very well, so what follows is just information from a new report, National Opportunity Zones Ranking Report, by LOCUS and Smart Growth America. The report selects two of the 46 designated opportunity zones/census tracts in the county for ranking, 06067000700, western downtown, and 06067001101, eastern downtown and midtown, as shown on the map.

On the  ‘Top Opportunity Zones for Smart Growth Potential’ list, 0700 is in the ranking 3 band (of 6), and 0101 is in the ranking 4 band. On the ‘Top Social Equity and Vulnerable Places with High Smart Growth Potential’ list, 0700 is ranked 6 of 50, but 0101 is not on the list. On the ‘Top Opportunity Zones Markets for Office Asking Rents’ list, Sacramento is ranked 8 of 10, but it isn’t clear whether this is one or both census tracts. On the ‘Top Opportunity Zones for Office Asking Rents’ list, the two Sacramento tracts are ranked 47 and 47, with asking rents of $31.14 per square foot. On the ‘State (Top 10) Opportunity Zone Snapshots’ list for California, Sacramento 0700 is ranked 3 in the whole state.

What does this all mean? Well, I’m not sure. I hope that other people will chime in. I do note the following things:

  • The emphasis for Sacramento is on office space. I don’t think that is a good measure of a livable city, particularly one whose downtown is already overwhelmed by state offices. What downtown needs is people, not offices. But if the investment opportunity is in offices, that is what we will get.
  • The population of western downtown, 06067000700, is small, 2798 in 2012, and for 06067001101, 2082, though because it is much smaller 0700 has a population density of 13,990/sqmi while 1101 is only 3,413/sqmi.
  • Why do the other 44 opportunity zones in Sacramento county not show up? It could be because the have less opportunity for smart growth investment, or it could be because they have significant challenges on the SEVI (Social Equity + Social Vulnerability) scale. I’m not sure. See all the Sacramento region Opportunity Zones on the map below.

There is an interesting opinion article in the SacBee California Forum from May: Sacramento has its best shot in years at outside investment. Seize the opportunity. California has an interesting website at https://opzones.ca.gov/, but it doesn’t really answer my questions either.

Smart Cycling and LCI Seminar now open!

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Jibe (formerly North Natomas TMA) is hosting two Smart Cycling (Traffic Skills 101) courses, in December and January, and a League Cycling Instructor (LCI) Seminar in February. If you are interested in working with youth for Jibe and other regional programs, or being a bicycling instructor, check the flier and position announcement, and sign up now! Yours truly is a LCI who leads the bicyclist education program in San Juan Unified School District, and cannot speak more highly of this opportunity. Go for it!

Smart Cycling class December

Jibe Bicycle Instructor Position

 

Sacramento Vision Zero Top 5 outreach

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This information from the City of Sacramento via email.

Vision Zero Top 5 Corridors Banner

We have added and updated upcoming outreach events for the Vision Zero Top 5 Corridors.

Join us to learn more about the Vision Zero Top 5 Corridors Study and share your experience biking, walking and driving along these streets at one of the following events:

 

Date and Time Event Location Corridor of Interest
Monday, November 5th

5:00-7:00 p.m.

 Community Workshop Peter Burnett Elementary School

6032 36th Ave.

 South Stockton Blvd.
Wednesday, November 7th

Noon-2:00 p.m.

 Pop-up Event Transit stop at Broadway and Stockton near Food Source (4401 Broadway) Broadway/Stockton Blvd.
Saturday, November 10th

9:30-10:15 a.m.

 Old North Sacramento/Dixieanne Community Association GraceCity

701 Dixieanne Ave.

 El Camino Ave.
Thursday, November 15th

5:00-7:00 p.m.

 Community Workshop Luther Burbank High School

3500 Florin Rd.

 Florin Rd.
Thursday, November 15th

6:30-8:00 p.m.

 Gardenland/Northgate Neighborhood Association Stanford Settlement Conference Room

450 W. El Camino Ave.

 El Camino Ave.
Friday, November 16th

4:00pm-6:00 p.m.

 Pop-up Event Grocery Outlet

2308 Del Paso Blvd.

 El Camino Ave.
Wednesday, December 5th

6:00-8:00 p.m.

 Hagginwood Community Association William J. Kinney Police Facility

3550 Marysville Blvd.

 Marysville Blvd.

 

About the Study

In 2017, the City of Sacramento identified the five corridors in Sacramento with the highest numbers of fatal and serious crashes involving pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorists.

The Vision Zero Top Five Corridor Study will analyze the factors that contribute to these corridors’ high crash rates.  Based on technical analysis, community input, and best practices in roadway safety and design, the study will identify improvements for each of these corridors that can be implemented in the near-term.

More information about the project is available at http://visionzerosac.org

Traffic Skills and Project Ride Smart

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Jibe (formerly North Natomas TMA) and partners are offering two Traffic Skills 101 workshops, in December and January. Though the workshops are schedule to train new instructors for the Jibe Project Ride Smart program that teaches bicycling skills and safety in schools, they are open to others. Traffic Skills is a League of American Bicyclists course that qualifies people to go on to take the League Cycling Instructor Seminar.

The first workshop is Thursday, December 6, evening, and Saturday, December 8, daytime.

Please check the flier for more information.

Parking thoughts

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Applicable to the City of Sacramento, but also to any urbanized area:

  • Any block on which parking capacity regularly fills on any day of the week and any time of day should charge parking fees.
  • The price of parking should be managed so as to always have at least one free space per block (the Shoup criteria)
  • Any block with mixed use should have one spot per block for bike racks and scooter parking, and one spot for ride-hailing and delivery use. These spots could be in the space daylighted by red curbs for crosswalk visibility.
  • The fees paid for by residents for parking permits should be sharply increased so that they more closely reflect the cost to the city of providing car storage space for car-owning residents.
  • The income from all new parking fee areas should go into a fund to be spent on the neighborhood that generated it, to enhance livability. It should not go into the general fund, and not be used to bond against. (again, the Shoup criteria)

Free and underpriced parking is one of the largest subsidies the city provides to car owners, but everyone who doesn’t own a car or has on-property parking pays for the subsidy. Which is not fair, and which encourages car ownership and car use.

I’m not suggested we get rid of on-street parking, it is a good use for some of the space we’ve set aside for it, but we do need to manage it more intentionally for the benefit of everyone and all modes of transportation, and charge for what it really costs.

Much more could be said, but that is enough for today.