diagonal ramp corners are now illegal

2023/12/13 Dan AllisonLeave a comment

PROWAG (Public Right-of-Way Accessibility Guidelines) from the US Access Board have now been officially adopted. I’ve only begun to review them, but a few things grabbed my attention right off the bat. From PROWAG:

“At an intersection corner, one curb ramp or blended transition shall be provided for each crosswalk, or a single blended transition that spans all crosswalks at the intersection corner may be provided. Where pedestrian crossing is prohibited, curb ramps or blended transitions shall not be provided, and the pedestrian circulation path shall be either (a) separated from the roadway with landscaping or other non-prepared surface or (b) separated from the roadway by a detectable vertical edge treatment with a bottom edge 15 inches maximum above the pedestrian circulation path.”

This means that the diagonal access ramps at corners, which are common in suburban areas and even a few urban areas, are no longer legal for installation. For any alterations of curbs, sidewalk, or corner, new ramps must be two to a corner, perpendicular, or the ramp must cover the area of both sidewalks. See photo below.

photo of diagonal curb ramp, now illegal under PROWAG, installed May 2023 — diagonal curb ramp, now illegal under PROWAG, installed May 2023 by Sac City

Secondly, the pedestrian prohibition signing in common use in the City of Sacramento and many other places is now illegal, because it does not meet the criteria of the bottom edge no more than 15 inches above the sidewalk. See photo below, showing a newly installed curb ramp where the ramp does not extend the full width of both crosswalks. Again, any alteration of the curb, sidewalk, or corner requires compliant design. Of course the majority of these pedestrian crossing prohibitions are unnecessary, and were installed to ease motor vehicle traffic and not to protect walkers, so most should simply be removed, and legal curb ramps installed. The one exception would be freeway on and off ramps that have not been modified to be safe under any conditions.

photo of pedestrian crossing prohibition, now illegal under PROWAG — pedestrian crossing prohibition, now illegal under PROWAG

NACTO shared micromobility report

2023/12/132024/04/14 Dan Allison1 Comment

NACTO released it’s Shared Micromobility in the U.S. and Canada 2022 ‘130 Million Trips’ report in September 2023, and the report has a summary webpage at https://nacto.org/publication/shared-micromobility-in-2022/. The report is interesting throughout, but one paragraph in particular is important for the Sacramento situation in which Lime has removed its bikes from the region, and Bird is offering few bikes. Bike share in Sacramento is more or less dead. It is clear that the model of privately owned and managed bike share does not work here. If we are to have bike share, we need a new model. I’ll have one or more posts on that shortly.

From the report (page 10):

“Shared micromobility systems that see consistent growth and equitable outcomes are typically municipally-owned or closely managed through long-term partnerships with private operators. Long-term contracts have resulted in more sustainable results for ridership and the durability of systems. The enduring viability of private sector operators remains uncertain, especially as companies with short-term permits respond to financial troubles by pulling out of cities–often abruptly–altogether. Shared bikes and e-scooters can and should be integral parts of a city’s transportation network, but that is only possible if they are consistently available and resistant to the volatility of market conditions. Partnership models where local governments have greater involvement in their shared micromobility programs generally lead to better outcomes, like more equitable pricing structures, greater investment in historically underserved communities, and ultimately, a greater likelihood of long-term viability.”

Another issue for the Sacramento area was that rental prices for bikes saw several increases during the JUMP and Uber times, and a huge jump when Lime took over. The system had become unaffordable for many former users. Lime originally offered a free for a low monthly fee rental program for people in CalFresh or similar programs, but this year changed to a half-off discount, helpful but hardly affordable. Bird has a similar half-off program. Again, from the NACTO report (page 14):

“The cost to ride a shared bike or scooter continues to rise in numerous cities, posing a threat to affordability. In a year of widespread consumer price increases–including public and private transportation modes–shared micromobility was no exception. Annual membership hikes, alongside rising e-bike surcharges, led to a 70% increase in average per-trip costs for members of station-based bike share systems from the previous year. Pay-as-you-go trips on e-bikes or e-scooters were the most expensive, with average per-trip costs more than double the typical fare of a one-way trip on public transit in the U.S. and Canada.”

I have not yet used the Spin bike share in Davis yet. I’m always in Davis with my own bike, so haven’t been motivated, but I should test it out.

pedestrian safety countermeasures

2023/12/09 Dan AllisonLeave a comment

As a follow-on to Sac City NEW beg buttons, some background information on pedestrian pushbuttons (beg buttons). The federal government, under the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) makes available the PEDSAFE: Pedestrian Safety Guide and Countermeasure Selection System. Eleven countermeasures are offered for pedestrian crossing locations:

Curb Ramps
Marked Crosswalks and Enhancements
Curb Extensions
Crossing Islands
Raised Pedestrian Crossings
Lighting and Illumination
Parking Restrictions (at Crossing Locations)
Pedestrian Overpasses/Underpasses
Automated Pedestrian Detection
Leading Pedestrian Interval
Advance Yield/Stop Lines

Note that automated pedestrian detection is among the eleven. Pedestrian pushbuttons are not listed because they are not a pedestrian safety countermeasure.

Now knowing about the Vision Zero update (thanks, Matt), I will see how the city’s list of actions compares to this list of countermeasures.

where did the bikes go? partial answer

2023/12/09 Dan Allison4 Comments

Follow-on to where did the bikes go?.

SACOG staff provided this information:

About a month ago, Lime pulled their e-bikes from the cities of Sacramento and West Sacramento. They are renewing their permits in both cities with the intent of only continuing to provide e-scooters. Bird has about 30 e-bikes available to rent in the City of Sacramento.

Since the launch of bike share in the SACOG region, Sacramento and West Sacramento have had open market permitting for shared micromobility, which allows any private operator to apply for a permit. If the operator meets all local requirements, they are then able to deploy shared bikes and scooters. For more information on these cities’ permitting processes, please see the links below:

City of Sacramento – https://www.cityofsacramento.org/Public-Works/Transportation/Planning-Projects/Shared-Rideables
City of West Sacramento – https://www.cityofwestsacramento.org/government/departments/capital-projects-and-transportation/shared-e-bikes-e-scooters-jump

The City of Davis and UC Davis recently launched a shared micromobility system with Spin. More information on this program and their plans is available here: https://taps.ucdavis.edu/spin.

Though not obvious from this response, I have been told by several sources that SACOG is no longer involved in bike share in any way. They have washed their hands of the program that they originated. The last time bike share was on the agenda for SACOG board or committees was May 2023. Since then, nothing. No discussion, no announcements, no communication with the public.

City of Sacramento staff said that the permit that Lime has with the city specifies a number of ‘devices’ but does not require that any of them be bikes.

This loss of a transportation service again points out that bike share systems must be at least publicly owned, though they might be operated by a private company with expertise. This is the second time that a private bike share has pulled out of the city, and region, without any notice to customers or the agencies. This is unacceptable.

For my earlier take on bike share ownership and operation: public or private bike share?. Additional posts under category bike-share.

Sac City NEW beg buttons

2023/12/09 Dan Allison8 Comments

I was out walking last evening, and was horrified to discover this:

This is a brand new beg button (technically called pedestrian pushbutton) on Alhambra Blvd in Sacramento. These have not been turned on yet, hence the cardboard over the button itself, but they are newly installed. There are a number of these along Alhambra Blvd, though I don’t yet know how many. For at least the ones I observed, these are all at locations where the pedestrian signal was previously on auto-recall, meaning the pedestrian signal changes as part of the regular signal cycle, not requiring any action on the part of the walker. Now, with these beg buttons, a person walking must ‘beg’ to cross the street by pressing the button. These buttons do not, at least in Sacramento, speed up the signal cycle. The person waiting must wait the same amount of time before a walk indicator comes on.

This is an affront to myself and anyone who walks. I’m sure the city considers this a pedestrian safety improvement, and I’d not be surprised if the city used pedestrian safety funds to install it. But it is a motor vehicle facility and improvement, it does absolutely nothing for someone walking. What is does do is allow the traffic engineer to favor motor vehicle traffic in signal timing.

The trend all over the US is to either remove such beg buttons completely, or to change them to accessible audible buttons. In a few places, they are being replaced by automated pedestrian detection, so that no action is required on the part of any walker. San Francisco has converted all of its beg buttons to accessible buttons. Other bay area cities have started to do so. I know of no place in the US where new beg buttons are being installed.

City of Sacramento Public Works is populated by fossil engineers and fossilized thinking. It has a cars-first attitude, and will continue to have that attitude until the fossils are cleared out. Put them in a museum of the 1970s, and get them out of our transportation system.

beware the leaves of December

2023/12/06 Dan AllisonLeave a comment

It is fall in Sacramento, trees are turning, leaves are falling. It is my favorite time of year, in part due to the knowledge that it will be over soon, only memories and photos. While out walking the last two days, I have been watching little breezes create leaf-fall, more fascinating to watch than snowfall. The four ginkgo trees back of my apartment are at their peak of brilliant yellow color, and the ground is carpeted in yellow. Blocks with a variety of trees are a kaleidoscope of colors.

This morning landscape workers were out blowing leaves into piles, but they were falling faster than they were moved. As I write, it is raining lightly, which will accelerate the leaf fall.

photo of ginkgo tree and leaves next to bikeway on P St — ginkgo tree and leaves next to bikeway on P St

What is not to like? Well, what happens over the next few days. The wet leaves will start to rot, which is a natural process. But any leaf area where cars are allowed to drive will grind the leaves into fine particles, and those particles with turn into what I call leaf slime. Leaf slime is incredibly slippery, and it is a clear and present danger to bicyclists (and walkers). The Class 4 separated bikeways probably won’t be too bad, since bicycles don’t grind up the leaves, and the city may even get around to sweeping the bikeways. But the regular Class 2 bike lanes will be horrible. Cars will drive over the leaves, and start the process. The city very rarely sweeps bike lanes. They may be partially cleared if residents have illegally piled leaves in the bike lane, and the claw picks up the leaf piles, but the very act of scraping up the piles leaves a thin leaf slime layer.

So, it is time of year to avoid bike lanes, until there is either maintenance or enough rain to wash away the leaf slime. Ride in the general purpose lane. Yes, you will get yelled at by asshole drivers whose car isolates them from the realities of roadways, but at least you won’t be slipping and falling on the leaf slime. Beware the leaves of December.

Central City Mobility: 5th St signals and rubber speed bumps

2023/11/192026/02/17 Dan Allison1 Comment

This is Central City Mobility Project update #28.

Rubber Speed Bumps

The rubber speed bumps have finally been installed on most of the non-concrete turn wedges. These are marked by vertical delineators, as shown below. it is odd that most of these installations have both green K-71 vertical delineators in addition. These K-71s might have been installed temporarily, while waiting for the rubber speed bumps, and be removed later, or may be permanent. In some of the locations, the white vertical delineators have already been hit and bent by errant drivers. I have not visited all of the locations where the rubber speed bumps have been installed (or not), so don’t have any more information. More info about the rubber speed bumps is available from the vendor TreeTop Products.

transportation and May is Bike Month thoughts (guest)

2023/11/082023/11/19 Dan Allison2 Comments

This is a guest post from reader Sonya Hendren. Sonya is a bike advocate and educator in the Sacramento region.

In looking back at this year’s May is Bike Month, two comments during meetings have left an impression, informing my current opinions on the efficacy of our bike advocacy.

During a neighborhood association meeting about walking/biking safety, a panelist emphasized that transportation projects are funded by competitive grants. It’s a fixed-sum game: if Sacramento gets a grant, all the losing cities’ projects are left unfunded. If another city’s project wins, Sacramento’s project doesn’t happen, at least not in this funding cycle, from this source. Of course our first instinct, mine included, is to cheer for Sacramento; we get funding, we do projects.

My revelation is that I don’t want Sacramento to win competitive grants. In the Freeport Blvd Transportation plan, the city never considered a road diet (reduction in lanes), despite it being a prominent request during the community input phase, because their goal is to maintain previous ADT (average daily traffic count.)¹The city works to maintain current levels of private-car use. The city’s Climate Action and Adaptation Plan, companion document to the General Plan, reduces the MCCC (Mayors’ Commission on Climate Change) goal of 30% Active Transportation, down to 6%. Under these practices and policies, Sacramento would use transportation funding to further cement car-dependency. Grant funding would be better spent in another city that is actually trying to shift transportation mode share away from private-cars, trying to reduce VMT (vehicle miles traveled). The project in another city would do more good to Sacramento by serving as a positive example, than spending the money in Sacramento under Sacramento’s current practices and policies.

Second, during a debrief-and-next-steps meeting on school “bike buses,” I learned that after Safe Routes to Schools programs end, feedback of continued walking/biking is the rare exception, not the norm. The norm is that Safe Routes to Schools programs are funded for one to three years, they get a group of kids walking or biking during those years, and when the funding ends, all the families go back to driving. Current infrastructure and incentives are such that without a paid person there helping, even students/families who have been taught how to walk/bike to school and practiced it for years, do not. That’s so discouraging: if “holding people’s hands,” not just teaching them the routes, but traveling those routes with them regularly, sometimes for years, doesn’t convert people to using the routes, how can any of our encouragement projects have any affect??

Caltrans likes killer interchanges

2023/10/042024/01/21 Dan Allison2 Comments

See Caltrans Readies Guidance for Complete Streets, with a Giant Exemption (StreetsblogCal, 2023-09-29) and Caltrans: We Need Complete Streets at Freeway Interchanges (CalBike, 2023-09-28).

I worked for 10 years as the Safe Routes to School Coordinator for San Juan Unified School District. Three of those years were focused on Citrus Heights schools, and the rest on schools in unincorporated Sacramento County (Orangevale, Fair Oaks, Carmichael, Arden-Arcade, and Gold River). The interchanges with Interstate 80 presented barriers for students who lived on one side and went to school on the other. They could not walk or bike across the freeway, because the interchanges were designed to be safe only for motor vehicle drivers (and not really even those), not to be safe for walkers and bicyclists. Crosswalks over on-ramps and off-ramps were placed where drivers would cross them at freeway speeds, with poor visibility due to the curves. Bike lanes were usually non-existent, and when they were there, exposed bicyclists to high speed merges at on-ramps and off-ramps. If you have ever had the ‘pleasure’ of walking or riding across one of these interchanges, you will know how scary and unpleasant they are. Generally only ‘fearless’ bicyclists and people who have no other choices will walk or bicycle here.

Since these horrible interchanges were designed and constructed by Caltrans, you might think that they are responsible for fixing them. They deny responsibility. They say to cities and counties, if you want a better interchange, you build it on your own money, or with grants. One of the interchanges in Citrus Heights, Antelope Road, was repaved by Caltrans, and they removed the bike lane from the westbound direction. Of course that bike lane was not safe to begin with, but removing it was criminal.

Same Caltrans denial of responsibility for ped/bike bridges over the freeway. There is one ped/bike bridge over I-80 in the entire stretch between Sunrise Blvd and Watt Ave, a distance of about eight miles. One. And it is no a pleasant crossing to use, often full of trash and graffiti. Again, to the cities and counties, Caltrans says, if you want it, you pay for it, don’t expect it to come out of our budget.

Given this, Caltrans will not even allow the application of complete streets designs to these interchanges. They want them to remain as they are, barriers to travel, and killers of the few walkers and bicyclists who use them.

All of this after spending four years developing a new complete streets policy, which could have been done in a year if Caltrans were not dragging its feet. Caltrans says that it has changed its ways, and is now concerned with people who walk and bicycle. Their actions say otherwise.

Getting Around Sacramento

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

Category: Active Transportation