pedestrian collisions in Sacramento

2015/07/282015/08/08 Dan Allison1 Comment

I often wonder if governments really focus on the issues rather than responding to incidents. In the case of pedestrians and the City of Sacramento, is the city really placing its attention, and its dollars, where they need to be to enhance the safety of pedestrians? I’ve created some maps to show where the problems lie (see note at bottom about data sources and how these were created).

The collisions mapped are:

Date: 01-01-2004 to 12-31-2012
Location: City of Sacramento only (no, I can’t explain why some are outside the city)
Victim role: Pedestrian
Victim degree of injury: Killed or Severe Injury
388 collisions
ArcGIS link

The first map, a point map of the entire city, shows:

the greatest density of collisions is in downtown/midtown, but there are certainly plenty in other areas
almost all collisions happen at intersections, not mid-block
almost all collisions are associated with major streets, called arterials and collectors, which are wide and high speed, intended to move motor vehicle traffic at speed rather than provide for multi-modal transportation

pedestrian collisions, killed or severe injury, point map

no-ped-crossing in the grid

2015/07/272015/08/07 Dan Allison1 Comment

no pedestrian crossing means three crossings

As mentioned in my recommendations for improving walkability in midtown/downtown, in response to the Sacramento Grid 2.0 program, I’ve developed more information including a map (at bottom) about the locations in the grid that are signed against pedestrian crossing. The signs at these locations may be the modern MUTCD R9-3a sign, shown at right, or the older text sign, shown below, or variety of non-standard signs. Update 2015-07-27: 37 locations.

There are a large number of other locations where crossing is discouraged by the lack of sidewalks, curb ramps, and crosswalks, but is not specifically prohibited.

As can be seen from the map below, the majority of the no pedestrian crossing locations are along the Capitol Expressway (Business 80) and US 50 freeways. These freeways, designed and constructed by Caltrans, are barriers to pedestrian use. In fact, they are a barrier to all use and livability because many of the grid streets do no continue under the freeways, making access more difficult for pedestrians, bicyclists, and motor vehicle drivers. In many cases there are no sidewalks on the freeway side of the adjacent surface street, so whether or not there is a safe or marked crossing doesn’t mean much without a sidewalk to connect to.

Grid 2.0 pedestrian comments

2015/07/23 Dan Allison1 Comment

The City of Sacramento Grid 2.0 project is requesting specific input on ways to improve the pedestrian experience in midtown/downtown. I encourage you to go there and add your pins.

Dropping pins on a map, however, doesn’t allow some more general comments that I think are very important, and perhaps just as important as any of the corridor improvements shown. For me, these points are:

All signals and pedestrian signals in the grid should be set on automatic recall by default. That means that pedestrians get a walk signal on every cycle without having to find and press the beg button (many of which can’t be accessed by disabled people). If the city thinks that a particular crossing should require a button, they should have to do a traffic study to justify it, which includes both the requirements that 1) the level of pedestrian use if very low (unlikely in the grid, but possible), and 2) that there is a demonstrable delay in traffic due to automatic recall. This does not mean that pedestrian buttons will not be present, as there may be valid ADA benefits to having them, including the specific announcements now being included, but they should never be required.
In heavy pedestrian use area, if pedestrian buttons are present, pressing the button should actually shorten the signal cycle to provide for pedestrian crossing on demand, rather than just changing the pedestrian signal head when the signal goes through its regular slow cycle. No regular cycle should be longer than 90 seconds because long cycles unnecessarily delay pedestrian (and bicyclist) travel in favor of motor vehicle traffic.
All three-lane one-way roads should be reduced to two lanes. This will make street crossings safer (by about 1/3 – what other improvement could make such a difference!) and more comfortable. There is no excuse in a walkable urban environment for there to be three-lane one-way streets.
All no-pedestrian-crossing locations should be removed and replaced with regular high visibility crosswalks. Though these prohibitions are often justified by safety concerns, they are really just for the convenience of motor vehicle drivers, so that they don’t have to slow down or wait as long at signals. If a crosswalk is not safe, it means the roadway design is unsafe, and the correct solution is to change the roadway design, not to prohibit crossing.
The ability to safely and comfortably cross streets is just as important to people walking as the ability to walk along streets. I don’t know that this is the case here, but transportation agencies often get so focused on travel along corridors that they forget about the need to cross corridors. The grid pattern in midtown/downtown eases this problem, and is in fact one of the major benefits to a grid, but nevertheless, significant attention must be paid to crossing.

Rancho Cordova achieves bronze Bicycle Friendly

2015/06/10 Dan Allison1 Comment

The City of Rancho Cordova was awarded bronze level status in the League of American Bicyclist’s Bicycle Friendly Community (BFC) program. Rancho is the first of the communities within the new Bicycle Friendly 50 effort, though Folsom had earlier achieved silver status.

The Bicycle Friendly 50 group, including 50 Corridor TMA and the city hosted two Traffic Skills 101 courses and a League Cycling Instructor (LCI) Seminar in 2014, training two city employees and a number of community members. An education program is one of the requirements for achieving BFC status.

Above is a wayfinding sign in Rancho Cordova, which seems to have installed more than other communities in the Sacramento region.

More Sac county nonsense

2015/05/05 Dan AllisonLeave a comment

The Bicycle Detector Pavement Marking (CA-MUTCD Figure 9C-7, shown at right) is placed to show a bicyclist where to stop so that they can trigger a traffic signal. When installed properly, they prevent the all-too-common scenario where bicyclists cannot trigger signals and must either cross against the red light when a safe gap is available, or wait until a motor vehicle arrives. They are also a clear signal to motorists that there is a reason why the bicyclist is positioned where they are. Of course “bicycles may use full lane” is true approaching any intersection where right turns are permitted, however, most motorists do not know or remember this law unless there is a sign there to remind them. The sharrow serves a similar purpose. However, these markings are often not installed in properly.

Mission southbound at Marconi, bike detector placement

Here is another fresh Sacramento County mistake, where the marking was not placed properly. On Mission Ave southbound, approaching Marconi Ave, there is a Bicycle Detector Pavement Marking in the bike lane, but not in the regular through/right turn lane. This marking is on new pavement placed in a complete streets project along Marconi from Mission westward to Fulton, and was installed within the last two years. If a bicyclist is to trigger the signal, they have to stay in the right hand edge bicycle lane, where they are at risk of getting right hooked. If they adopt a merge position between the two lanes, where they should be in order to make clear to motor vehicle drivers to either get in front or fall in behind, not beside, then the signal won’t trigger.

The solution is to place a marker in the regular lane, and adjust loop sensitivity if necessary, so that the bicyclist can choose which lane position to use.

Sac County just doesn’t get it

2015/04/30 Dan Allison2 Comments

The photo below shows Garfield Ave southbound approaching Marconi Ave, in the Carmichael community of Sacramento County. This roadway was repaved within the last year, and this is the bicycle facility that was painted by the county. The bike lane veers to the right and then ends, running into the dedicated right hand turn lane, and another bike lane continues to the left of the right hand turn lane. These pavement marking clearly give priority to motor vehicles making a right hand turn, and ask bicyclists to yield to those vehicles, as second-class users of the roadways.

And this is what it could look like.Read More »

Embassy Suites is pedestrian hostile

2015/04/282015/04/28 Dan Allison6 Comments

sign adjacent to Capitol Mall sidewalk at Embassy Suites

The sign at right is posted prominently at the eastern driveway of the Embassy Suites Sacramento, on Capitol Mall at Tower Bridge. The sign is illegal, as no sign on private property can direct people on public property what to do, particularly when the sign uses the standard red octagon which is reserved for official stop signs. But more importantly, it is offensive to anyone who walks. What is the hotel saying by posting this sign? That we welcome people who drive cars, who should not have to stop for pedestrians even on the sidewalk, and we reject people who walk, because they are second class citizens, not our customers? This sign has been here at least since December 2013, and I have talked to management at the hotel twice about it, and it is still there today. They really don’t care.

TransForm’s Transportation Choices Summit took place today at the Embassy Suites. I’m not sure how many participants approached from a direction that they would have seen this sign, but I would guess that everyone who saw it was offended. This sign directly works against the efforts of every single person who attended the summit.

I have to publicly ask that TransForm, and everyone else, boycott Embassy Suites until this sign is removed.

The Active Transportation Program petition

2015/03/112021/11/05 Dan Allison1 Comment

The Safe Routes to School National Partnership, along with a number of coalition partners, has offered a petition to increase the amount of funding for California’s Active Transportation Program (ATP). Information on the petition is at Safe Routes to School California and California Walks. What follows is not intended to discourage you from signing the petition. Rather, I’m suggesting that it doesn’t go far enough.

The petition asks for an increase of $100 million per year in funding. With the existing funding of about $120M, this would be just less than double the current funding, a not insignificant increase.

However, the amount is a tiny fraction the roughly $28 billion spent yearly on transportation in California. The majority of this expenditure is through Caltrans, and the majority of that is to expand the highway and road network. Those expenditures work directly against the goal of walkable, livable communities. Yes, expansions often now include some sidewalks and some bicycle facilities, but the preponderance of the project is not on these afterthoughts, but on increasing lane miles by extending and widening highways and roadways. Of the money expended on the road transportation system, about half comes from cities, counties and regions, about one-quarter from the federal government, and about one-quarter from the state. But because the state controls the federal and state portion, and state standards determine or strongly influence how the rest is spent, things must change at the state level.

Marketing for the petition includes: “Nearly $800 million in shovel-ready walking, bicycling and Safe Routes to School projects and programs were left unfunded in the first ATP awards cycle.” I imagine now that many agencies have started to figure out how ATP works, there will be even more applications this cycle, with an even bigger gap between applications and available funding. So would the addition of $100 million really make much of a difference? We have a long term deficit in active transportation of trillions of dollars. $100 million is not that significant.

The graphic below shows the portion of the state transportation budget (in red) going to the ATP program (in green) and which would be added (blue) if the petition resulted in supportive legislation. You may need to squint.

11th St bike fix

2015/03/08 Dan AllisonLeave a comment

The section of 11th Street between L St and Jazz Alley (the alley south of J St) is largely a pedestrian place, but it is also a bike route. For bikes wanting to enter from L St, there are two choices, using the sidewalk area to the right of the fenced seating, or riding the wrong way on the parking garage exit. It is signed against bicycles (see photo at right). And to be honest, it should be signed against bicycles in the sidewalk area because this walkway gets such heavy pedestrian traffic from the Capitol and all the retail and offices in this area.

So, I’m proposing that a short protected bike lane be created that would carry bicyclists from L St to the open part of the pedestrian plaza. The roadway here is 27 feet wide, wide enough for two traffic lanes exiting the garage, and one contra-flow bike lane heading north. I’ve watched traffic exiting the parking garage, particularly at the end of the work day, and there is a lot of crazy, erratic driving, and almost continuously an attempt to form three lines of traffic and cut around other cars. A stripe of paint on the ground is not enough. There must be either delineators or a curb (asphalt or concrete) separating motor vehicles from bicyclists. The Google maps at right shows the general setting.

Below is a graphic showing how the traffic lanes and the contraflow bike lane would be installed. Southbound bicycle traffic would use the left hand of the two traffic lanes, which could be marked with a sharrow.

N Street bike route to cycle track

2015/03/072016/12/13 Dan AllisonLeave a comment

Unknown, or unnoticed, by many people, there is a bike route along N Street on the sidewalks. The route is well-signed from 8th St, where it crosses over from the south side to the north side of N Street, to 12th Street. The route extends east along Capitol Park to 15th Street, and I believe it also extends west to 3rd Street, though it is not well signed at these ends. On the City of Sacramento bikeways map, the route is shown on both sides of N Street, as “Existing Off-street (wide sidewalk).”

The bike route allows bi-directional travel along N Street, which would otherwise not be possible. The city has recognized that N Street is a significant barrier to east-west bicycling.

Getting Around Sacramento

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

Category: Active Transportation