So the neglect of the Central City Mobility Project for fixing these two blocks of I Street is disturbing. Of the people riding on I Street anywhere west of 16 Street, probably 50% are going to Sacramento Valley Station. But if you spend time on I Street looking for bicyclists, you won’t see many. The average bicyclist won’t ride on I Street. They are uncomfortable with the volume and speed of motor vehicle traffic, but more importantly, they are scared to death of these two one-block sections with only sharrows. So they drive to, or have someone drop them off at, the station. Sacramento Valley Station is the most important transit hub in the city, in the county, and in Northern California outside of the Bay Area, yet the city has neglected access to the station.
The TIRCP grant for improvements at Sacramento Valley Station may improve access from the station on H Street, but again, that is not a near term project, and it is not clear how effective it will be. Probably 80% of the riders on H Street are coming from the station. (Sac kill those sharrows on H St, H St bicycle fixes)
My observation of bicyclist numbers and destinations is based on observation and talking to some riders. It would be nice if the data were available, but I don’t have it, and apparently the city doesn’t have it, or at least has never shared it publicly. I know that the city purchased cell phone data several years ago that would have allowed them to see bicyclist patterns, but so far as I know, they only used it for motor vehicle drivers patterns.
I St shadows between 10th St and 9th St, Sacramento
A local transportation advocate Tom has started a discussion group/book club for the book by Jeff Speck, Walkable City: how downtown can save America, one step at a time. The third meeting of the group will be this Wednesday, May 17, 6:00PM at Lefty’s Taproom, 5610 Elvas Ave, Sacramento, CA 95819. The meetings will likely be on the second Wednesday of the month, same time and location, but his meeting will be the third Wednesday. You may just show up, and you may also send me your email address (to allisondan52@gmail.com) and I will get you added to the announcement list. Lefty’s has beer, wine, and food, but you are not obligated to buy anything. We meet outside.
The group has been going through the book part by part, and this meeting will focus on Part 3: Get the Parking Right. If you can read ahead of time, great, but you can also just show up. The group is a variable number of people and a variety of backgrounds and interests, so you will fit in.
This second edition, ten years after the first, has additional information since that time. Sometimes Jeff amplifies what he said before, or brings things up to date with what has happened in the last ten years. He makes up for his prior lack of emphasis on equity. And if a few cases, he simply say – I was wrong! If you have a choice, get the second edition, which contains all of the first, plus new info. But if you have the old, don’t worry, because we won’t get to the new for a while.
If you don’t have a copy of the book, Sacramento Public Library has three copies. The original edition, 2012, is on the shelf at Central and Carmichael branches. The second edition, 2022, is checked out as of today (probably a book club member!). For the discussion of the parts, which are little changed from the first edition, either will serve you. You can order a copy from your local bookstore ($20). My local bookstore, Capital Books, does not have it in stock but can get it in two days. Amazon has a Kindle edition, if you prefer digital over a physical book ($12.99). But you don’t have to have your own copy, nor even have read the part to be discussed. Your presence is welcome in any case.
Walkable City is a seminal work in transportation urbanism. This book, and his Walkable City Rules, are must-reads for anyone who cares about their city, and livability, safety, and fiscal responsibility. Even if you can’t make the book club meetings, I highly recommend you read it!
I now know why all the of initial ADA ramp projects were on 21st Street. That is the first street being repaved as part of the Central City Mobility Project. 21st has been identified in the project for separated bikeways. Since there is a bus route on 21st (SacRT Route 62), I assume that the bus stops will be on the right hand side northbound, and the bikeway on the left hand side. The design shown on the project webpage shows a parking-protected separated bikeway on the left, along with a buffer zone (to protect against car doors opening). This seems to be the standard that the city has adopted, and side so far the city is placing separated bikeways only on roadways that also have bus service, presumably this design will be used in every case.
Another diagram indicates that there will be vertical delineators (K-71) in the buffers, but there are no details about the frequency. There’s are the delineators that are run over and destroyed by vehicle drivers on a regular basis, and these will suffer the same fate. The larger diameter delineators (NOT bollards, the city is incorrect in calling vertical plastic a bollard; bollards are made of metal or concrete, not plastic) that are now installed on part of J Street are not specified here. Though these don’t provide any more actual physical protection, they seem to raise doubts among drivers and get run over less often.
There were several curb islands along 21st Street on the left hand side. All but one have been removed. The remaining one at 21st Street and Capitol Ave may just be an oversight, but if not, it is in the middle of what is expected to be the separated bikeway.
Sac_21st-St-Capitol-Ave-SW_curb-islands
The fourteen blocks of 21st Street from W Street to H Street has been stripped down about two inches, for repaving. The restriping after paving will include the separated bikeway.
The project webpage has a diagram for the transition of a separated bikeway on the left side of 19th Street southbound to the right side of 19th Street south of W Street, which is a two-way street. However, it does not have a diagram for the transition of this 21st Street separated bikeway at the north end, where 21st Street becomes a two-way street at I Street. This is already a hazardous intersection due to the double left-turn lane from 21st Street to I Street westbound.
Separated bikeways are only as safe as their intersection treatments, and the transition from and to separated bikeways to regular bike lanes are critically important. I hope that the city has a good design for 21St Street and H Street, otherwise bicyclists will be placed in more danger than existing conditions. The solution is of course bicycle signal faces that allow bicyclists to move when other traffic is held, but the city has been reluctant to use these.
A bike/scooter corral was installed on R Street in a parking space, next to the Sacramento Natural Foods Co-op. Though for a while drivers respected the set-aside, marked for bikes and scooters, drivers came to use the space as regular parking, with a car parked there almost all day long, preventing the intended use as a bike and scooter parking area. I reported this illegal parking to the city a number of times, but to my knowledge, no one was ever ticketed. It should be noted that parking is not short on the streets around the co-op, and there is a parking garage adjacent to the co-op, which I have never seen full. So drivers were using the spot for personal convenience.
The city recently installed vertical delineators (flex posts) in the spot and repainted the while line that signifies are bike parking area. So far it is working, I’ve not seen anyone run over the posts in order to park there.
The majority of the bike/scooter corrals in the city have been placed on wide sidewalks, where they don’t interfere with walking. The in-street corrals are mostly being respected; this is the only one I am aware of that was routinely violated.
These corrals are designed to solve two issues: 1) provide parking where traditional bike racks are not present or insufficient; and 2) to keep scooters (mostly rental scooters from the scooter-share companies) from filling up the regular bike racks and preventing their use by the public.
This is an update to the update on work being done on corner ADA ramps in the Sacramento central city, apparently as part of the Central City Mobility Project.
So far as I have seen, curb extensions are not part of this project.
There are now a number of locations where the concrete ramp is being cut so that the detectable warning strip can be installed, but the curbs are not being touched. See below for an example.
Q-St & 16th-St, SW corner, ADA ramp construction
One of the corners I have been monitoring, 21st St and O St northeast corner, is complete, but with temporary patches that make the ramps useable, though ironically still blocked by folding barricades and caution tape, which absolutely does not meet ADA guidelines for contruction signing and safety. This seems to be the pattern with the city, trying to make things better, but not paying attenteion to the details. I don’t know when the asphalt will be restored and the corner opened. Maybe the contractor is waiting until all the corners are ready before patching, though that would be stupid.
21st-St & O-St, NE corner, completed corner with ADA ramps
I am still not able to make sense of the asphalt cuts that are being done on the corners where the curb will be or has been modified. I’m guess that there was a standard cut design, implemented everywhere, no matter what the actual project.
Walking around the central city, it appear that most of the corners which did not have ADA-compliant ramps will have them when the project is done, but some may not. I don’t know what the criteria is for which corners are being done, and which are being done at a higher level of replacing the curbs and widening the ramps. Many of the existing ramps are narrow, with edging curbs, which was apparently the design at the time they were placed, but the new corners are a different design, with a sloping area between the two ramps, similar to the diagram below, from the 2020 Department of Utilities Standard Specifications: Transportation drawings, not from the 2009 Department of Public Works Street Design Standards, which contain no ADA diagrams. I think the detectable warning strip width is at least 60 inches on the new installations, which is an improvement. The 48 inch width does not allow two people to stand on the strip. Corners with new curb extensions seem to have 72 inch strips.
There has been construction on several of the corners I had previously mentioned (half-measure corners?), with 21st Street and O Street being the most advanced. It seems that I was wrong about curb islands being put in – there is no evidence of such construction. I don’t know why the asphalt cutting implied that. When more of these are complete, I’ll post again.
What seems to be going on is simple updates to place ADA-compliant curb ramp with detectable warning strips. Of course any improvement to curb ramps helps everyone, disabled and otherwise, and I’m not criticizing that. Rather, wondering why when the city is changing these corners, they did not take the opportunity to do true curb extensions. The ADA ramp and detectable warning in place for O Street is wider, than previous ramps and strips, looks to be more than four feet rather than the prior narrow ones. If all the ramps end up wider, that will be a plus.
This work is probably part of the city’s Central City Mobility Project. The project detail mentions ‘turn wedges’. Maybe the wedges will be added later, or maybe these will be at different locations than the ones I’ve looked at. The page does not specifically mention ADA ramp improvements.
21st St & O St, northeast corner, ADA ramp construction, partially complete
I had mentioned in the previous post curb extensions being extended to serve as bus boarding areas. I am not aware of any of these in Sacramento, but San Francisco has many. Many earlier posts have mentioned bus boarding islands, but this is for a street without bike lanes (yet), which allows the bus to stop in-lane and people to board directly. Notice that the extension allows for a bus shelter without constraining the sidewalk width for walkers. This should be the standard for Sacramento for all streets with bus routes but not bike lanes.
curb extension and bus boarding extension, San Francisco, Leavenworth & Sutter
Summary: Complete streets concept is a failure because it doesn’t address frequent safe crossings. It leaves streets dominated by motor vehicle traffic while not necessarily increasing safety or welcoming design for walkers and bicyclists.
A recent post on Strong Towns (Ager Road: Where Complete Streets Fell Short) shows a street that was converted to a ‘complete street’, and won awards, but is actually less safe and less pleasant than what was there before. A fatality occurred shortly after the conversion, perhaps as a result of the conversion increasing vehicle speeds, perhaps not, but the conversion did nothing to reduce the likelihood.
From the post: “This is a stroad in disguise,” remarked Strong Towns Director of Community Action Edward Erfurt when examining Ager Road in Hyattsville, Maryland. And a Twitter post below.
My response:
The complete streets concept is largely a failure, everywhere it is implemented. I’m sure the original intentions were good, but every complete street project I’ve seen affirms the primacy of motor vehicles over other modes. The greatest failure of all is not what happens along the street, but that the concept does not even address the need for frequent safe crossings of the roadway. No wonder traffic engineers have embraced the concept – it allows them to continue motor vehicle dominance and accept traffic violence.
Dan Allison
So you can see the present ‘complete street’ more clearly:
Google Street View of Agar Rd, referenced on Strong Towns
The complete Streets concept is all about travel ALONG streets. Though it recognizes that crossings of streets are important, and encourages designs that make crossing safer and more welcoming, it does NOT address the frequency of safe crossings. The Complete Streets Coalition, part of Smart Growth America, does not require that complete streets policies include anything about the frequency of safe crossings. And so nearly all polices do not address that. The Caltrans policy, which applies only to state highways but is often applied to other streets, does not mention the frequency of safe crossings.
Traffic planners and engineers have embraced the Complete Streets concept, and tout policies and implementation. But what do we really end up with in most cases? Just more motor vehicle dominated streets, which is what most traffic planners and engineers want anyway, and claiming a complete street isolates them from criticism of the roads being designed and built, while making it more likely that they will be a federal, state, or regional grant for their project. Very few projects are awarded grants these days unless they claim to be a complete streets project. That is good, but the bar is set so low for what can be called a complete street, that the result is just more car infrastructure.
The project shown in the Strong Towns post checks off the following elements:
sidewalk, check
bike lane, check
green paint, check
general purpose lane(s), check
fence to prevent walkers from crossing any place other than the signalized intersection, check (I put this here with tongue in cheek)
What it does not check:
narrow the travel lanes to calm traffic
reduce the speed limit or actual speed through design
remove slip lanes (ask any bicyclist how they feel about bike lanes that cross high speed slip lanes)
reduce the corner radius at driveways
install or maintain street trees to calm traffic and provide shade for walkers
widen sidewalk buffers to ensure healthy trees and vegetation
create a pleasant walking environment
provide wayfinding to the nearby Metro station
The next time you hear a planner or engineer mention ‘complete streets’, hold on to your wallet (because, after all, it is your tax dollars that fund ineffective projects), and look around you to identify the traffic violence that will remain or even be increased.
The first step in designing a safe and welcoming streets is top ensure that there are safe and welcoming sidewalks and crossings of the street. Everything else comes after that, if at all. Adding bicyclist facilities that are neither safe nor welcoming, and reducing the the environment for walkers in trade, is going the wrong direction, and will lead to less walking and more traffic violence.
Summary: The city should not install curb islands at corners, as it is currently doing, but rather install much safer and more effective true curb extensions, even if fewer can be installed now. Temporary installations can be used at other corners.
The City of Sacramento is currently re-doing a number of intersection corners in midtown. Most of these corners are along 21st Street, so far as I’ve noticed, but some are on other streets, and there well may be other locations I’ve not noticed yet. Last week crews were out saw cutting asphalt at corners, in preparation for new concrete work. The existing corner concrete and ramps have been removed from at least two corners, and at the 21St Street and O Street corner there is form work for whatever is going to replace the old corners.
The first photo is of the saw cuts at P Street & 19th Street. The cuts don’t really stand out, but they do indicate the areas that will be changed.
19th St & P St, SW corner, asphalt cuts for corners changes
It appears from the saw cuts that what is going to be constructed is something similar to the existing northwest and northeast corners. Northwest is shown below. I am not sure what to call these. They are not in the city’s street design standards, and almost the only place where I’ve seen them is Sacramento. I looked at several other cities to see if these were in their street designs, and they were not. So, just to call them something, I’m going to call them ‘curb islands’. The City of Los Angeles calls these floating curb extensions, but apparently their intended use is with bike lanes, not with gutters.
19th St & P St, northwest corner, corner islandsRead More »
Assembly Bill 825 been introduced to the California legislature by Issac Bryan. The bill would allow bicyclists to use sidewalks where safe street bicyclist facilities have not been provide by the transportation agency. Class 1 separated paths, Class 2 bike lanes and Class 4 separated bikeways are considered safe facilities. Note that Class 3 bike routes, which are only signing and sometimes sharrows, are not considered safe under this bill. It would limit speed on sidewalks to 10 mph and require that bicyclists yield to walkers. The bill passed Assembly Committee on Transportation last week and will go to Assembly Committee on Appropriations.
I posted two day ago about bicycling on sidewalk codes in Sacramento county. The county and all the cities prohibit biking on sidewalks unless they are recognized in the bicycle plan as being bike facilities. There are very, very few such designations. The City of Sacramento takes the reverse approach, that it is legal except where signed against, and there are currently no locations signed against.
Again, I’ll say that I don’t like bicycling on sidewalks, and I don’t do it, but I completely understand why others do. The are making the best decision they can to keep themselves safe from traffic violence. This bill recognizes that reality.
Let me say that I am not in favor of bicyclists on sidewalks, but the conflict between bicyclists and walkers is often exaggerated, and bicyclists are making the best decision they perceive to keep themselves safe from traffic violence. I don’t do it, but I understand why other people do.
So what is the situation in the Sacramento region?
City of Sacramento code 10.76.010 Riding bicycles on sidewalks prohibits bicycling on sidewalks only where signed and where in-street facilities are provided. The code says:
A. No person shall ride a bicycle on a sidewalk where a sign is posted indicating that bicycling is prohibited. The city manager shall designate sidewalks where such signs are posted upon a finding that:
1. The sidewalk abuts a road that is designated a “Low Stress Bikeway” using the criteria for the Facility Selection Guidelines in the City of Sacramento Bicycle Master Plan; and
2. There is either a demonstrated or probable conflict between pedestrians and bicycles. This may be shown by information including, but not limited to: 311 reports, incident data, or estimated high pedestrian activity determined by counts or adjacent land uses and densities.
B. Subsection A of this section does not apply to the following persons:
1. City employees acting within the course and scope of employment, including but not limited to:
a. Peace officers, as defined in California Penal Code section 830.
b. Emergency medical personnel as designated by the fire chief of the city.
c. Parking enforcement officers.
2. Children under the age of 18 years old and an accompanying adult.
C. Where bicycling on a sidewalk is permitted, the following apply:
1. Bicyclists must yield the right-of-way to pedestrians by slowing down, stopping, or dismounting, as needed.
2. Before passing a pedestrian traveling in the same direction, bicyclists must give the pedestrian an audible warning.
D. The city manager or designee shall report to the city council annually regarding the impacts of sections 10.76.010 and 10.76.030. (Ord. 2019-007 § 2; Ord. 2017-0033 § 1; Ord. 2016-0024 § 1; prior code § 25.05.070)
There are some designated bike routes on sidewalks in the City of Sacramento, which were designated before this code came into effect and are still valid. N Street between 8th Street and 15th Street, and the area through the convention center/performance center between 13th Street and 14th Street.
SABA has a summary of sidewalk riding rules, on Sharing the Road page, scroll down to ‘Is it legal to ride on the sidewalk? This page may be out of date.
Note that the County of Sacramento, Elk Grove, and Rancho Cordova code sections are identical, and the Folsom and Galt code sections are identical, examples of mindless copying of code from other locales.
I do not have any information on whether these codes are being enforced in a discriminatory way, but given the almost universal pattern of law enforcement oppression of people of color, I’d not be the least surprised.
On the positive side, AB-825 Vehicles: bicycling on sidewalks (Bryan) has been introduced which would prohibit sidewalk prohibitions except where there are high quality bicycle facilities available on the street, invalidating all of these code sections except, perhaps, the City of Sacramento. The relevant paragraph is: Notwithstanding paragraph (1), a local authority shall not prohibit the operation of a bicycle on a sidewalk adjacent to a highway or corridor that does not include a Class I, Class II, or Class IV bikeway, as defined in Section 890.4 of the Streets and Highway Code.
I hope readers will support this legislation. The bill passed the Assembly Committee on Transportation on March 20, 2023, and was referred to Assembly Committee on Appropriations, but not yet scheduled. See also Streetsblog CA Traffic Safety Bills Pass First Committee.
If passed, the legislation might well cause cities and counties to accelerate projects to add safe bicycling facilities to streets, in order to reduce sidewalk riding. One can hope.
Getting Around Sacramento 