We can’t go back

2020/04/17 Dan Allison1 Comment

sorry, could not find a photo for Sacramento,, but if someone provides it, I will replace this one of Los Angeles (via Business Insider)

We can’t go back to the way things were before! To the car-dominated world where walkers and bicyclists were considered second-class citizens, worthy of consideration only when it did not inconvenience the privileged drivers of cars. The streets are largely empty (except for some essential drivers and too many joy-riders). The air is clean. The city is quiet. It is (other than the above-mentioned joy riders) safe to cross the street, to bicycle on the street, even in some places, to walk in the street. I don’t intend to ever go back, and will work to make sure we do not go back.

Here is a list, with brief notes, of areas in which I think we should not and cannot go back. No priority order. I think that over time my ideas can be refined and added to. Let me acknowledge the many people on Twitter, my main social platform, for giving me a lot of good ideas and food for thought.

Right to Move: I believe that, as humans, we have a right to move, to freedom of movement (though I also believe that reduction or even suspension of this right for public health during a pandemic is acceptable, though traumatic). However, this right is expressed through walking (or mobility devices for those not able to walk). It is not expressed through bicycles, or scooters, or even transit, and it is absolutely not expressed through privately owned vehicles. I am not saying that bicycles and scooters and transit are not good methods of movement for transportation, but walking must always be the most important and the most guaranteed, our most basic right, with other modes coming later, if at all (in the case of cars). I am tired of myself and others being terrorized by private vehicle drivers, who are all too happy to inflict their traffic violence on innocent people. Walking FIRST!
Transportation
- all pedestrian signals should be set on recall; they should be labeled with their function; and if there a locations where traffic engineers claim such a low rate of pedestrian use, I’d ask for an analysis of why is there no pedestrian use; if it is an urbanized area, why aren’t there pedestrians, and if it is a rural area, why is there a signal?
- failure to yield to pedestrians (CA CVC 21950) should be considered a sociopathic offense, similar to drunk driving and smoking in buildings, and strictly enforced; I am not just concerned about the number of pedestrians who are killed and severely injured by drivers, but about all the people who could walk, but don’t, because they are rightfully afraid of car drivers; drivers who repeatedly violate this should have their driving privileges revoked (drivers license suspended and vehicle impounded), and those who still violate should be jailed
- #NoNewLaneMiles (a more specific version of #NoNewRoads); we have all the roads we will ever need, we just need to use them more efficiently by increasing the density of homes, jobs, and services; because there are no new roads, there will be no greenfield developments, as we have plenty of infill/redevelopment land to work with, and we have an excess of single family homes
- expenditures on roadways will only go to maintenance, and once a level of good repair is achieved, then to true complete streets projects which reallocate roadway space and increase safe crossings
- all roadways that are more than two lanes per direction must be reduced to no more than two lanes. Drivers have proven themselves, again and again, incapable of responsibly using wide roadways, and so these wide roadways must end. Temporarily, we can put up barricades or delineators to reduce the lanes, and in the long run, determine and then implement ways of re-allocating this space to best serve the community; some land might be available for housing development
- freeways will be designed and sized for freight movement, not for commuting; interstate commerce is the primary legally and morally justifiable use for our Interstate system; the idea of continuously expanding freeways so that a continuously expanding number of people can choose to commute continuously expanding distances is not socially or economically rational or feasible; where there are more than two lanes on a freeway, one or more of them should be designated (and enforced) as a freight-only lane so that freight is not slowed by commuting traffic
- private and commercial fossil-fueled vehicles must be strictly controlled on all spare-the-air days; if the air quality particulates (winter) or ozone (summer) exceeds the ‘healthy’ level, then we start shutting down vehicles; this would be much easier to do if we implemented a pricing scheme (congestion management) all the time, but if we are still working on that, we can in the meanwhile reduce traffic; I’m thinking the easiest way to do that is to control on-ramps and off-ramps, since most long distance commuters, and much commercial traffic, is using the freeways; some on-ramps already meter vehicles, and we could just slow this down so fewer vehicles are allowed to enter; we would have to add off-ramp metering; there are a lot of ways of managing traffic, some of the best controlling the amount of underpriced or free parking, but this is definitely one to explore
- vehicles must be speed limited, so that drivers cannot exceed safe speed limits; this is one of the easiest to accomplish because all modern vehicles could be speed limited with minor software modification, but I realize that it is politically the least feasible; nevertheless, we need to be talking about it and advocating for it
Work from home: I fully understand that not every job is amenable to working from home, and interestingly, it turns out that almost all of the truly essential jobs are not, but nevertheless, many jobs are; employers should be required to analyze each job position to determine whether a particular job could be done from home, either all the time, or some days of the week, and then to implement work from home policies that allow the least in-person work required
Schools: I am part of the educational system. I like the idea of school choice, and I think it has a number of benefits. However, I also see the cost of it. A huge amount of driving, taking students to and from school. The idling of cars outside the school has a measurable and negative impact on air quality in the classrooms. Much of this driving is unnecessary, and trips could be done walking or bicyclist, but is driven for the convenience of the parents (not the students). The greatest danger students walking and bicycling face is the drivers taking their own child to school, and in addition to the direct danger, there is the intimidation that makes people less willing to walk and bike. Students are getting significantly less physical activity. Students and families feel less connected to the neighborhood they live in, and the school feels less connected to its neighborhood as well. So:
- for any school located on an arterial with more than two lanes of traffic in a direction, lanes will be immediately closed in order to increase the safety of students walking and bicycling, and to create a less polluted and hectic environment
- private vehicles will be prohibited on campuses, except where the parent has submitted a statement to the school detailing why a particular student must be transported directly to the school (meaning, a disability of some sort), and received a pass; schools are there to educate students, not to accommodate drivers
- for schools located on local streets, the block on which the school is located will be closed to through traffic for the duration of arrival and dismissal (or longer); of course this means that students and families using mobility devices must be guaranteed high quality sidewalks and crosswalks, with ADA ramps, at least 6 feet in width, and in good repair
- school districts should have a conversation with families and the public about the ways in which a non-neighborhood school supports and does not support academic learning and the needs of its community
Housing: Part of the reason we have a housing crisis is that single family homeowners have been able to suppress the building of homes, for some types of people (read: minorities) and for some kinds of housing (read: multi-family), for a long period of our history. We all suffer from this: un-housed people, high rents, separation of jobs and housing, climate change, air pollution, most of our transportation dollars going to long distance commuters while we have potholes in our local streets, underinvestment in transit and rail, etc. The most egregious, though largely hidden from view, aspect of this is that single family housing has bankrupted our cities, and counties, and state. Single family housing can never generate enough sales tax or property tax or user fees to pay for the maintenance required to sustain all these spread out houses and roads and utilities and law enforcement, and fire, and, and and. I think it is becoming clearer by the day how financially on edge our governments were. They have huge bond debt, huge deferred maintenance and well as current maintenance obligations, and far too much reliance on new development just to keep the old going (which is called the development ponzi scheme – see Strong Towns). Sprawl is the primary though not the only driver (pun intended) of this. So:
- immediately remove all residential zoning classifications, so that there is only one residential zone, and no limit on the types of housing that can be constructed on a piece of land; until such time as we can analyze what we need in terms of zoning and development standards, I’d leave the rest be, but this is a step we can and should take immediately
- no developments (even infill) larger than a certain size should be allowed to deed road and utility improvements to cities and counties, unless they pay a fee to a maintenance endowment sufficient to maintain that infrastructure for all time; I am not talking about development fees, which of course are used to maintain past infrastructure and to keep the doors open, but never retained for the future, rather, these are banked funds to meet the needs of the future
- recognize a right to housing for all people; this is obviously a huge undertaking, for which governments may not have the money (because of the sprawl subsidy and bankruptcy detailed above), though there is certainly a lot of shifting of resources that could get us a significant way there, but we need to start working toward that goal now, and with much of our societal focus on how to solve the issue as quickly and equitably as possible

Thank you if you stuck with this long list to the end. As I said, it is preliminary, and your constructive comments here or on Twitter are welcomed.

I admit that I thought we had a decent world, many issues to work on, but sort of OK. Probably some others felt this way. But the bottom has dropped out, for those in poor health (much of that poor health due to all the actions above that we did not take), people of color, low income people, un-housed people, people dependent on employer-provided health insurance, people in essential jobs. I am very lucky! (yes, the luck of privilege).

I hope that we reflect deeply on the clean air and streets available for people (outside cars) to live, and all join together to make sure we do not go back to the old, unenlightened times, but to work hard towards a better future.

I am quite aware that I have not mentioned, or have lightly touched on, a lot of other issues that are critical to so many people. Climate change is one of the biggies for me. Please don’t think that those other issues are unimportant to me, but transportation is my expertise and advocacy, and it needs strong voices, now and always.

beg button signs

2020/04/042024/07/01 Dan Allison1 Comment

The Manual for Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD), and the California equivalent, are standards for the design and placement of traffic control signs. They have the force of law for any federal or state funded roadways, but there is no enforcement mechanism, so signs that do not meet these standards can certainly be found, both in places that just decide they know better, and in places where the public right-of-way and use is evolving rapidly and the glacial pace approval of new signs is not keeping up.

The MUTCD has 14 signs related to the use of beg buttons to cross the street, in the R10-1 through R10-4 series. One of these is shown below, the most complicated one, R10-3e. Of the 14, none offer any information about whether the beg button is required or not. This is not an oversight; it is a direct expression of traffic engineer’s disdain for pedestrians. California could, of course, add other signs with better information, after approval by FHWA, but it has not seen fit to do so.

Noting the lack of good signs that actually address real-world situations, some entities have designed their own. One example is below, which came via Don Kostelec, of whom I’ll have more to say shortly. (original source not known)

Why is the distinction between these two types of signs important? Buttons can be used by limited vision or blind people to trigger the pedestrian signal, and the auditory and sometimes vibratory message that goes with it. When the conversation started about removing beg buttons, many disability advocates were up in arms, understandably. If there is no button, there is no message.

Except, of course, for automatic detection of pedestrians, and even pedestrians types, that many other countries and a very few places in the US are installing. Traffic engineers routinely resist automatic detection as “too expensive and not practical” despite spending much larger sums on vehicle detection. Which in the case of bicyclists, often doesn’t work anyway.

Traffic engineers also frequently place buttons in places where people with disabilities, as well as everyone, can’t find them and/or can’t reach them.

So, is there a way to preserve the function of buttons needed by disabled people, while not discriminating against all pedestrians? You bet. Just label the button for its function. And put it in an accessible location.

So, Don Kostelec. He is one of my heroes, as he has done a better job than anyone I know of documenting the failures of transportation agencies to install safe and usable pedestrian facilities. Sidewalks too narrow, or that end where you really need them; ADA ramps to nowhere; crosswalks that can’t be safely used; and on and on. I highly encourage you to check out his blog (http://www.kostelecplanning.com/blog/) and Twitter feed (@KostelecPlan). He does not hesitate to call out road and traffic engineers for their failure to think, and for their failure to follow their professional code of ethics. Though he didn’t originate it, I think he is responsible for popularizing the expression “Hold my beer!” in the transportation world, implying that only an engineer drinking beer, and momentarily designing a roadway or facility before going back to drinking, could have done something that stupid.

And on this topic of beg buttons, I particularly encourage you to read his recent post, Push buttons: The good, the beg, and the ugly.

There has also been a lot of discussion about whether it is hard to change the buttons from required to not required, which is called auto recall, or just recall. A number of cities have changed hundreds of buttons in very short order because they prioritized it. Newer signal control boxes allow changes to be made remotely, changing the function and timing of pedestrian signals. Older control boxes may require that someone go out and physically change them. The older boxes are sometimes derisively called squirrel cages because they had large physical clocks with rotating dial, with pegs to change the signal on or off, as it came around. They made noises like a squirrel or hamster cage. A few idiots have been saying that pedestrian signals should not be changed remotely because of security issues. That is the whole point of modern signal controllers, part of Integrated Traffic Systems (ITS), that they can be can sense and respond to actual traffic, and can be adjusted remotely to respond to changing conditions and for changing flow when crashes occur.

There is also the issue that many transportation agencies don’t know what is at the intersection. Does it have pedestrian signals or not? Does it have pedestrian countdown or not? What is the timing of the pedestrian phase, in terms of countdown? Is the beg button required or not? They simply don’t know. Locally, Sacramento County is the worst on this issue.

Previous post on beg buttons: Don’t touch that button! Then, there are locations where pedestrian crossing is simply prohibited, for reasons having everything to do with speeding traffic and nothing to do with pedestrian safety: and crossing prohibitions, and no-ped-crossing in the grid.

prudent vs. irresponsible drivers

2020/04/042020/04/04 Dan AllisonLeave a comment

The previous post was about prudent drivers. The table below shows how I think of prudent drivers, and irresponsible drivers. It is so hard to not be snarky about driver behavior, but I have toned it down quite a bit. If you think I am exaggerating, then you don’t spend much time on the roads walking and bicycling. I spend a lot of time doing both, probably averaging three hours per day, all of it closely observing driver behavior and the roadway built environment, because it is both my job and my advocacy. The irresponsible behavior is something I see every day, from a significant percentage of drivers. Notice that I did not use the term negligent driver, as is the legal term in my prior post on a prudent driver, because only some of this is negligent; much of it is just sociopathic.

Prudent Driver	Irresponsible Driver
yields to pedestrians in crosswalks and waiting to cross	never yields to pedestrians
takes turn at stop sign intersections	goes out of turn at stop sign intersections
obeys speed limits, within 5 mph	drives as fast as possible in all situations
on multi-lane roads, always slows or stops if a vehicle in another lane is stopped	on multi-lane roads, pulls around other vehicles that are stopped, honks, and proceeds at full speed
rarely uses their car horn, and only to prevent a crash	often uses their car horn to make those other idiots pay attention and get out of the way
is aware of what is going on around them	is focused on other things than the road
doesn’t use their smart phone while driving, other than wayfinding	holds ongoing conversation on smart phone; texts when they think they can get away with it
passes bicyclists with a safe distance, even when it means waiting	yells at, honks at, and close-passes bicyclists, because they don’t belong on the road
believes all people have a right to share the public space on the roadway	believes that right to the roadway is determined by the value of their vehicle and social status
will do anything to avoid a crash	revels in crashes when they know they are right
knows the the cost of building and maintaining roads is subsidized by everyone	is certain that gas tax monies are being illegally diverted to other uses
knows that parking is never ‘free’ and someone, or all of us, are paying	believes that the right to free parking is guaranteed in the constitution, and that the parking space in front of their house belongs to them
could be a male or female (or non-binary)	is almost always a male

a prudent driver

2020/04/04 Dan Allison1 Comment

700. Basic Standard of Care: A person must use reasonable care in driving a vehicle. Drivers must keep a lookout for pedestrians, obstacles, and other vehicles. They must also control the speed and movement of their vehicles. The failure to use reasonable care in driving a vehicle is negligence.
Judicial Council of California Civil Jury Instructions, 2019

The term ‘prudent driver’ does not exist in law or case law for California, though it does for some other states. The concept is useful enough that I’d like to explore it here. The term is closely related to other concepts such as a ‘reasonable person’, ‘~~prudent man~~‘, ‘prudent person’, ‘duty of care’, and ‘standard of care’. The Judicial Council of California Civil Jury Instructions (CACI) document, excerpted above, is often referred to a ‘case law’, instructions for how to interpret legal codes, based on court findings. Many terms in California Vehicle Code are left intentionally fuzzy, but case law removes much of, but not all of, this fuzziness. In civil law, which is what this document covers, the three criteria for establishing liability are negligence, causation, and harm, meaning that the person acted in a negligent way, and harm was caused by the negligence.

Of the two issues most relevant to people walking, speeding and failure to yield are the most significant.

706. Basic Speed Law (Veh. Code, § 22350): A person must drive at a reasonable speed. Whether a particular speed is reasonable depends on the circumstances such as traffic, weather, visibility, and road conditions. Drivers must not drive so fast that they create a danger to people or property.
Judicial Council of California Civil Jury Instructions, 2019

Section 706: Basic Speed Law (and sections 707 and 708), presents the idea that violation of the speed limit is not, per se, evidence of negligence on the part of the driver, but that the test is whether the speed was reasonable. In most European countries, violation of speed limits is negligence, but unfortunately that is not the case in the US. But the document does lay out pretty clearly that the driver is responsible for controlling their vehicle and anticipating the presence of other users on the roadway.

710. Duties of Care for Pedestrians and Drivers in Crosswalk (Veh. Code, § 21950): A driver of a vehicle must yield the right-of-way to a pedestrian who is crossing the roadway within any marked crosswalk or within any unmarked crosswalk at an intersection. When approaching a pedestrian who is within any marked or unmarked crosswalk, a driver must use reasonable care and must reduce his or her speed or take any other action necessary to ensure the safety of the pedestrian.
A pedestrian must also use reasonable care for his or her own safety. A pedestrian may not 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. A pedestrian also must not unnecessarily stop or delay traffic while in a marked or unmarked crosswalk.
The failure of a pedestrian to exercise reasonable care does not relieve a driver of a vehicle from the duty of exercising reasonable care for the safety of any pedestrian within any marked crosswalk or within any unmarked crosswalk at an intersection.
Judicial Council of California Civil Jury Instructions, 2019

Section 710 covers the failure to yield to pedestrians violation, CVC 21950. The case law does have some interesting quotes:

“While it is the duty of both the driver of a motor vehicle and a pedestrian, using a public roadway, to exercise ordinary care, that duty does not require necessarily the same amount of caution from each. The driver of a motor vehicle, when ordinarily careful, will be alertly conscious of the fact that he is in charge of a machine capable of projecting into serious consequences any negligence of his own. […]”

“It is undisputed that defendant did not yield the right of way to plaintiff. Such failure constitutes a violation of the statute and negligence as a matter of law in the absence of reasonable explanation for defendant’s conduct.”

To summarize, my interpretation of the judicial guidance is:

Drivers must control the speed of their vehicle, no matter what the posted speed limit, in recognition that they must always be aware of other users of the roadway and take all reasonable precautions to ensure that crashes do not occur.
Drivers must yield to pedestrians who are exercising reasonable care in crossing the street, and the pedestrian has a presumption of right-of-way in the absence of other evidence.

So, a prudent driver would not be negligent, and a negligent driver would not be prudent.

Next post, more about how a prudent driver behaves.

the city could do this now

2020/03/312020/03/31 Dan AllisonLeave a comment

Some things the City of Sacramento could do today, and this week, to improve transportation and safety now and in the future:

Paint red curb offsets for all marked and unmarked crosswalks. These are upstream offsets, which have a strong safety value of increasing the visibility of drivers and walkers to each other. Downstream offsets, beyond the crosswalk, are much less important. Paint is cheap! Yes, maintenance of paint is more expensive, but this is important enough to make the investment.
Set all pedestrian signals to auto-recall, city-wide. Later we can have a discussion about whether to leave them this way, and how this interacts with the audible signals for limited vision people. I’m NOT saying disconnect the buttons, they would work if you pressed them, rather, that you no longer need to press them.
Convert the southbound light rail lane on 12th Street from a shared general purpose travel lane to a transit lane, from C Street to K Street. Having drivers interfere with light rail should never be OK. Consider doing the same for the portions of 7th Street and 8th Street where there is excess vehicle capacity.
Enforce, with a vengeance, speeding and failure to yield to pedestrian laws. Impound the cars and revoke the licenses of anyone who has more than one of these violations in a week. Our streets have been taken over by lawless joy-riders, and we need to take them back, for the safety of walkers, bicyclists, and other people in vehicles, and yes, people in adjacent buildings. Yes, these situations will end up in court, about whether the city has the power to do this, but in the meanwhile, we get these people off the street. This is an emergency, after all, and this seems a reasonable use of police emergency powers.
Close at least one street of at least a eighth mile length in every census tract. Since census tracts vary by population size, in a very rough way, this distributes the closed streets in the fairest manner. It provides people safe walking space in their neighborhoods, to ensure physical distancing.
Close the extra lanes on any street that has more than two lanes per direction, and re-allocate that space to either pedestrians or bicyclists, as demand seems to indicate.

There is construction going on right now on N Street adjacent to Capitol Park. The street has been narrowed from three lanes to one lane, and it is working just fine. The prudent driver, the one following speed limits, or at least in the range, now sets the speed of the roadway, and the egregious violators have to live with it. Which is, I think, why I’m not seeing problems on N Street right now, and am still seeing it on other wide roadways.

What else would you recommend, actions that could take place almost immediately and would not cost much?

16th & E construction problems

2020/03/282021/03/20 Dan AllisonLeave a comment

An new housing development at 16th Street and E Street (remember, I’m not against housing developments) has significant problems. At the southeast corner of 16th and E, the corner has been completely blocked by construction barriers and fencing, so there is no safe wait space for people using the crosswalk, and therefore both crosswalks should be closed. There should be a barrier and signing on the east side crosswalk over E Street, and there should be a barrier and signing for the south side crosswalk over 16th Street. Neither are there.

16th Street & E Street, no crosswalk barrier

The project also has problems on 16th Street approaching from the south, where the sidewalk end, but a small sidewalk closed sign is not visible because it is on a canted fence, and there is no advance warning at F Street.

16th Street northbound, no visible signing

On E Street westbound, there is a construction fence with no sidewalk closed signing, nor is there any advanced signing at the last safe crossing at 17th Street.

This property and development is apparently owned by SKK Development, Sotiris Kolokotronis, and is called Eleanor Apartments.

closed sidewalk & dead project at 700 16th

2020/03/282026/04/08 Dan Allison4 Comments

The apparently dead redevelopment project at 700 16th Street, the old Clarion Hotel, which occupies the block between 16th and 15th, and H Street and Government Alley, has closed sidewalks for a long period of time, even though nothing is happening there. The sidewalks closed are on H Street, the entire block, and 15th Street, the half block. As seen in the first photo below, there is enough pedestrian traffic on 15th Street to have worn a path in the sidewalk buffer. The solution here is to require the developer to remove this fence. If fencing is needed, which is doubtful on this side of the building, it should be on the property and not in the buffer. Re-opening this piece of sidewalk until such time as there is active development is the right thing to do.

15th Street use path, north of H Street, old Clarion Hotel

On the northwest corner of 15th Street and H Street, the corner could have been left open so that the two crosswalks could be safely used, but it was not. Instead, a sloppy fencing job leaves a sidewalk too narrow for ADA use.

15th Street & H Street, northeast corner, no ADA access for crosswalks

The sidewalk closure on H Street might need to remain because there is building access on this side, but it should be properly signed approaching from the east, which is is not.

Lastly, on 15th Street southbound at Government Alley, there is a fence but no signing, and there is no advance warning at G Street that the sidewalk is closed ahead.

15th Street at Government Alley, no signing

This property is apparently owned by SKK Development, Sotiris Kolokotronis, and is called The Bernice. This failure to accommodate walkers is both the fault of the owner/developer, for the poor job of fencing and signing, and of the city for failing to monitor the situation (and perhaps for allowing it to exist in the first place). This also points out that there must be bonds for construction zone fencing and signing so that if a owner/developer fails to proceed with development, the city can go in and partially or fully restore access at the developer’s expense.

Sac permanently closes sidewalk

2020/03/282026/04/08 Dan Allison4 Comments

Note: updated 2020-03-28 to correct lane descriptions and add a photo of the lane shift.

On the south side of I Street, between 15th Street and 16th Street, the city has permanently closed the sidewalk. This was to construct a loading dock for Memorial Auditorium. I had noticed the construction going on there, the first phase of the city’s project for the convention center and community center theater, and just assumed things would be returned to normal when construction was complete. How wrong I was. I was flabbergasted when I saw this. The loading dock sticks quite a ways into what used to be the public right of way, erasing the sidewalk and two parking lanes (the general purpose lanes were shifted to the right). The loading dock is concrete, intended to be there forever. See the photos below.

If the loading area was really than important, and could not be provided anywhere else, the city could have set things up for easy temporary closure of some of the street so as to allow loading when needed. They did not, they made it permanent.

I have walked by here, on the sidewalk, when events were going on at the Memorial Auditorium and there were a lot of walkers using this sidewalk. I imagine for a lot of other uses as well.

Also note that the ‘ bike lane’ stripe does not meet standards for a bike lane because it is immediately adjacent to a hard barrier and fence, so requires shy distance not provided. So that means when there are eventually bike lanes on I Street, this will be a gap, permanently.

What the fuck were you thinking, City of Sacramento?

photo: I Street, south side, east of 15th Street — I Street, south side, east of 15th Street

photo: I Street, south side, west of 16th Street — I Street, south side, west of 16th Street

public or private bike share?

2020/03/272020/03/27 Dan Allison5 Comments

JUMP (Uber) pulled out of the Sacramento region (the cities of Sacramento, West Sacramento, and Davis) in order to meet their concerns about COVID-19. They announced this on March 18, though the bikes and scooters were mostly gone two days before that (except for a few dead ones they still haven’t picked up because without GPS they don’t know where the devices are).

Of course the bikes and scooters were getting used a great deal for recreation and socialization, but they were also being used by many people to get to and from work, and to go grocery shopping (small loads) and other errands. Some of these people do not have an alternative, they do not own a bike, or their bike is not functional. I don’t know what the level of participation was in the JUMP Boost program for low income individuals, but I suspect most of those people do not own cars, or cannot afford to keep them running, so JUMP bikes were a major transportation solution for these people. JUMP pulled the rug out from under these people. As a private company, they are entitled to do so. I will note that Spin scooters still seem to be available, and Spin has publicly made a commitment to continuing to offer scooters.

I am not one of the people depending on JUMP bikes. I have a bike, and using JUMP was just a matter of convenience for me, letting me make faster trips to the store and other errands, and during the warm/hot months, get there without a sweat. But there are others not so fortunate.

I consider bike share to be a part of the transit system for Sacramento. Both JUMP and SacRT also seem to see it this way – they cooperated to install JUMP charging hubs at a number of light rail stations in the city of Sacramento. But now we are without that first mile/last mile option (as it is called, though bike certainly allow more than a mile). Just as transit is funded by the public (as well as user fees), bike share, and probably scooter share, should be funded by the public (as well as user fees).

Going forward, the city needs to give serious thoughts to whether it is acceptable to have a private system as the only provider of mobility devices. Coronavirus is only one ‘natural’ disaster emergency. There will be others from other causes that demand we continue to have a functional transportation system. I am not suggesting that JUMP be eliminated in favor of a public system. JUMP (Uber) has had its issues, but when I think back to where we were before SoBi > JUMP, I can’t doubt it was a good thing. Certainly the fairly rapid expansion of the number of bikes and scooters, and the service area enlarged to much more (though not all) of the city of Sacramento, could not have happened without private investment.

Maybe the city can work out an agreement with JUMP that a certain number of bikes would remain available through any disaster. And through education, make it clear that this limited set of bikes if for Boost members and people in essential occupations.

I don’t know the best solution, and am happy to hear from others. What I do know is that if we come out the other side of the pandemic without having talked about this, we have failed to plan for the future and ensure an effective and equitable transportation system.

Dr. Destiny Thomas (@DrDesThePlanner) posted on Twitter today that if we are serious about bicycling as an alternative during these times, we need to address how to get bikes into the hands of those who don’t have them and can’t afford them. I agree!

Getting Around Sacramento

by foot, bicycle, and public transit (car-free!)

Category: Active Transportation