Category: Active Transportation

Curtis Village to City College bridge starts

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Work has started on the bridge that will connect Curtis Village to Sacramento City College over the Union Pacific railroad right-of-way. The bridge supports on the Curtis Village side have been installed. I did not see any signs of work yet on the section over the tracks nor on the west side at the light rail station and campus. The bridge will be usable by bicyclists, though I am not sure whether the design really addresses bicyclists. The paucity of east-west routes over the rail and light rail corridor means that both bicyclists and walkers have rather unpleasant routes to choose from, so this will be a great improvement. The Sutterville Road bridge, though it has sidewalks and even a narrow bike lane, is a very unpleasant place to be due to the high speed traffic and poor visibility.

update on I Street

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"bicycles must turn right" sign, I Street between 6th and 5th
“bicycles must turn right” sign, I Street between 6th and 5th

I wrote previously about the The I Street Mess. A small change has taken place here, with a new sign that says “Bicycles Must Turn Right” on the bike lane midway between 6th and 5th. Basically, this is a warning to bicyclists who missed the “Thru Bikes Merge Left” sign at the beginning of the block that they are truly screwed. By this point, bicyclist will have a very hard time merging across four lanes of high speed traffic to reach the left side bike lane that takes one to Old Sacramento or 3rd Street. At a minimum, the warnings need to occur earlier, in the block between 7th and 6th. Better yet would be slowing the traffic on I Street so that a bicyclist could actually maneuver through the traffic lanes. Best would be an alternate route for bicyclists who don’t wish to ride vehicularly, that avoids the I Street Mess completely.

14 foot lanes

Dan Allison1 Comment

There has been a discussion on the Association for Pedestrian and Bicyclist Professionals (APBP) listserv for the last two weeks on what to do with an outside lane of 14 feet (without on-street parking), particularly when there is a seam between the asphalt pavement and the gutter pan. Several people encouraged the use of narrow, substandard bike lanes in an effort to get something on the street, rather than using sharrows in the wide lane, or just leaving the lane unmarked. I believe we need to be very careful to not create “bike lanes at any cost,” and to carefully consider the actual roadway conditions before specifying anything that does not meet or exceed standards. The diagrams below are from the NACTO Urban Bikeway Design Guide. The first shows a high quality bike lane adjacent to a curb; the second one shows sharrows rather than a bike lane where there is not sufficient roadways width.

bike lane adjacent to curb (right side): NACTO Urban Bikeway Design Guide
bike lane adjacent to curb (right side): NACTO Urban Bikeway Design Guide

shared lane markings adjacent to curb (left side); NACTO Urban Bikeway Design Guide
shared lane markings adjacent to curb (left side); NACTO Urban Bikeway Design Guide

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Protected Intersections

Dan Allison1 Comment

When I posted on the North 12th Street Complete Street Project, I expressed concern about how the  cycle track to the north would transition to the bike lane to the south, and how bicyclists northbound would access the cycle track. On Wednesday I attended the project open house at City Hall. Preliminary designs presented by the contractor Echelon Transportation Group indicate one possible design for the intersection of 12th Street and C Street, a protected intersection. These conceptual design drawings are not yet available on the North 12th website, so I don’t have a drawing to share here. Comments from the open house and online will be used to revise the concepts, and they should then be available on the website for further review and comment.

The protected intersection is a design new to the United States, and so far not built anywhere in its entirety. The design is fairly common in bicycling friendly countries in Europe. The Protected Intersections for Bicyclists website provides a great video showing how the design works by providing a higher level of safety for bicyclists and pedestrians without much impact on motor vehicles. The design has not yet been included in the NACTO Urban Bikeway Design Guide, but I would guess it soon will be.

protected intersection
protected intersection

The diagram at right shows the general outline of a protected intersection. The intersection at 12th and C would look like the right half of the diagram on the west side, with the almond shaped corner medians, but would not look like the left half on the east side. Bicyclists heading south out of the cycle track would either continue south in the bike lane or use the protected intersection to turn east and then continue south on lower traffic streets. Bicyclists coming from the east would use the protected intersection to get to the west side and the cycle track.

Active Transportation Program (ATP) in region

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This is not fresh news, but I just realized that I had not posted about grants in the Sacramento region under the Active Transportation Program cycle 1 awards in 2014.

Regional grants from the statewide program:

  • PLA, Roseville, Downtown Roseville Class 1 Trails, $2,547K
  • SAC, Elk Grove, Lower Laguna Creek Open Space Preserve Trail, $1,778K
  • SAC, Sacramento County, Howe Ave Sidewalk Infill and Bike Lane Improvements, $1,853K
  • SAC, San Juan USD, SRTS, $250K
  • YOL, Davis, SRTS Program, $562K
  • YOL, Woodland, 2014 SRTS, $539K
  • YUB, Marysville, SRTS Project & Programs, $489K

SACOG region grants:

  • ELD, El Dorado County Transportation Commission, Western Slope Bicycle Travel Opportunities Map $50K
  • PLA, City of Auburn, Nevada Street Pedestrian & Bicycle Facilities $799K
  • PLA, City of Colfax, North Main Street Bike Route Project $264K
  • SAC, City of Galt, South Galt Safe Routes to Schools $1,800K
  • SAC, City of Rancho Cordova, Mather Rails to Trails Project $2,235K
  • SAC, Sacramento County, El Camino Avenue Phase 2 – Street and Sidewalk Improvements $1,692K
  • SAC, City of Folsom, Oak Parkway Trail Undercrossing and Johnny Cash Trail Connection Project $992K
  • SUT, City of Yuba City, Franklin Road Improvements $313K
  • YOL, City of West Sacramento, Citywide Bike Lane Gap Closures $525K
  • YUB, Yuba County, Ella Elementary School Safe Routes to School Project $1,195K

There are also three projects on the SACOG contingency list.

At the other end of the bike lane

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bike-lane-symbol-farI have long wondered why so many people ride the wrong way in bike lanes. The common label for these bicyclists is “salmon,” probably from Portland, signifying they are swimming upstream against the current. Good for spawning salmon (and bears), bad for bicyclists. There are some evident reasons for wrong-way riding:

  1. The completely wrong but common misunderstanding that bicyclists should ride facing traffic. The origin of this is the “walk facing traffic if there is no sidewalk” rule. It doesn’t apply to bikes, but when teaching bicyclist education to youth, I often hear them mention this as something their parents have taught them. In fact, riding the wrong way is the most common bicyclist-caused source of crashes, though these are usually injury crashes and not fatal crashes.
  2. One way streets make it difficult to get where you are going, so many people ride the wrong way to get where they are going. Understandable, but wrong.

I’ve recently come to realize, however, that the common bike lane design fails to discourage wrong-way riding by not marking the end of the bike lane with a direction. The beginning, departing an intersection, is marked with the bicycle symbol and arrow, but the end, approaching an intersection is not. So a person entering the bike lane does not immediately realize they are going the wrong way. Once they do realize it, I think they often just continue along their way rather than changing course to ride with traffic.

The solution? Mark bike lanes at both the beginning and end. That way a person going the wrong way immediately sees that they are going the wrong way.

What is the downside? There may be some confusion induced between the dashed line message, which is that this is a merge area for the regular lane and the bike lane, and the bike lane symbol, which seems to indicate that the exclusive bike lane continues. I don’t see this as a stopper, but it is an issue to be addressed. It is possible that a different variation of the pavement marking could be used, but another symbol is probably not what is needed.

North 12th Street Complete Street Project

Dan Allison4 Comments

North12thSt-logoThe City of Sacramento is soliciting input on the North 12th Street Complete Street Project, the most significant portion of which would install a two-way cycletrack on the west side of 12th Street between the Hwy 160 bridge over the American River near Richards Blvd, and as far south as F Street.

The project should be compatible with and benefit from the Choice Neighborhoods Initiative Twin Rivers project which would revitalize the Twin Rivers Community Housing and the surrounding area. The January 2014 Final Transformation Plan is available from SHRA.  Though the plan does not go into great detail on streets and transportation, page 78 does provide a good overview of the changes and the relationship to 12th Street and other efforts in the River District and Railyards. In particular:

  • Richards Blvd would be realigned and extended east of 12th St
  • several streets intersecting 12th St would be reconfigured, particularly Bannon St
  • a potential SacRT light rail station near the redevelopment and Richards Blvd

There is also a City of Sacramento project to add sidewalks to the east side of 12th St between B St and Richards Blvd.

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Best Foot Forward Summit – join me?

Dan Allison1 Comment

California Walks, the statewide advocacy group, is hosted the Best Foot Forward Summit in Oakland on November 8th & 9th. I’m thinking of attending, but am unsure how exactly to make use of the summit to support efforts in the Sacramento region. If a critical mass of people from Sacramento attended, then we could have very useful discussions at the summit, and come to a consensus about how we can use the experience to move things forward here. However, there are only four people from the region registered at the moment. On the other hand, those who do attend could bring back a summary and skills for working on our regional issues, and share them locally with others. At the moment, it does not appear that WALKSacramento has the capacity to implement either of these ideas. But I’m asking that every reader here will consider the opportunity, and then share what they think, either by commenting here on the blog or by responding to the @GetAroundSac tweet and using the hash tag #BestFootForwardSummit.

What we know is that the transportation agencies in the region will move at a snail’s pace to improve walkability and livability, unless we exert strong public pressure on them. In fact, I believe that the harm they do will continue to outweigh the good they do, for some while, as they cling to outmoded ways of thinking and outmoded views of the kind of place that resident want. It will take a transformative experience to get advocates fired up and moving forward, together. I’m not sure if this is that experience, but I’d like to know what you think.

I am not minimizing the work of WALKSacramento and other advocates that have made a difference, particularly in the lower income South Sacramento area. This is all good work, and the priorities identified by community participants reflect the changing needs and desires of the region, but it is a drop in the bucket of what needs to take place.

Walk to School Day?

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Today was Walk to School Day. If any schools in the region have photos or stories to share, I’d be glad to post them, or link to other sources. I think your photos and stories will be an inspiration to others, and fuel for the next major event, Bike to School Day next May. I hope that you had a successful celebration!

Who rides e-bikes?

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I have noticed, as I ride around the Sacramento region, that about 90% of the e-bikes are being ridden by young, apparently healthy males. Of course it is true that not all disabilities are apparent, and that some of these e-bikes may be the perfect solution a person with a disability. However, I wonder at the user profile. Why are young, healthy males riding e-bikes when they could be riding regular bikes? And why am I not seeing more elderly, and more visibly disabled, people riding them? It seems strange to me. Just saying…