Category: walkability

does SacCity care about blocking crosswalks?

Dan Allison6 Comments

In the city’s 311 website and app, the following 10 options are listed under Parking: Enforcement Request:

  • Blocking Alley
  • Blocking Driveway
  • Commercial Vehicle in Residential Zone
  • Parked Beyond Posted Time
  • Parked in Disabled Space Without Placard
  • Parked On Unpaved Surface
  • Parked without Permit
  • Red Zone
  • White Zone
  • Other

Blocking a crosswalk is not listed. Is this a mere oversight? I doubt it. I have reported dozens of vehicles parked blocking crosswalks, and not a single one has resulted in a citation. Apparently the city does not consider this a citable violation. One time I actually waited at the crosswalk where a vehicle was parked in violation. The parking officer drove up, noticed the vehicle blocking the crosswalk, and drove away. The 311 request was marked closed with the note that the vehicle was no longer there. But of course it was, and the parking officer knew that it was.

California Vehicle Code (CVC) Division 11: Rules of the Road, Chapter 5: Pedestrians’ Rights and Duties, paragraph 21970 states:

(a) No person may stop a vehicle unnecessarily in a manner that causes the vehicle to block a marked or unmarked crosswalk or sidewalk.

In addition, paragraph 22500 states:

A person shall not stop, park, or leave standing any vehicle whether attended or unattended, except when necessary to avoid conflict with other traffic or in compliance with the directions of a peace officer or official traffic control device, in any of the following places:

(b) On a crosswalk, except that a bus engaged as a common carrier or a taxicab may stop in an unmarked crosswalk to load or unload passengers when authorized by the legislative body of a city pursuant to an ordinance.

The city should do two things: 1) add ‘Blocking Crosswalk’ to the 311 website and app; and 2) actually enforce this CVC.

This is yet another example of the city’s bias toward motor vehicle drivers and against people walking. Please join me in emailing the city’s Parking Services at  ParkingCSR@cityofsacramento.org, and requesting that the city add this violation to the 311 website and app, and that violations be cited when reported or observed.

If you would like some copy and paste text:

I request that the City of Sacramento Parking Services:

  1. Add ‘Blocking Crosswalk’ to the list of parking violations in the 311 website and app. This is a violation of CVC 21970 and CVC 22500.
  2. Issue citations to vehicles blocking crosswalks, in order to protect the safety of walkers using crosswalk.

SacCity sidewalk responsibility

Dan Allison3 Comments

Before delving into street design, I must come back to the question of whose responsibility it is to maintain sidewalks. I’ve talked about this before, Sacramento and sidewalks, but it bears repeating. It also deserves a citizen movement to force the city to change policy.

photo of deteriorated sidewalk, 24th St near Capitol Ave
deteriorated sidewalk, 24th St near Capitol Ave, Sacramento

Take a look at the city’s Sidewalks, Curbs & Gutters page. Unless you are a confirmed windshield perspectives, cars-first and cars-only person, I think it will strike you as strange.

Start with the opening paragraph, which tells a lie. “Within the City of Sacramento, there are approximately 2,300 miles of sidewalk. Sacramento City Code, section 12.32, and California Streets & Highway Code 5610 requires that the maintenance and repair of public sidewalks be the responsibility of the property owner.” Streets and Highways code does NOT require that maintenance be the responsibility of the property owner. It simple allows a city to try to make it the responsibility of the property owner. Not all cities do that. But Sacramento has decided that shifting responsibility for transportation infrastructure in the public right-of-way to property owners fits the model of car dominance that is essentially city policy.

Let me offer some paragraphs, with the only change being replacement of ‘sidewalk’ with ‘street’.

“…requires that the maintenance and repair of public streets be the responsibility of the property owner.… If the property owner does not take action in one of the above three ways, the City will make repairs under default and the cost will be collected from the property owner. Unpaid collection will ultimately lead to a lien on the property.”

“As the property owner may bear civil liability for a person suffering personal injury or property damage caused by a defective street: it is in the property owners best interest to maintain the street and reduce the risk of a lawsuit.”

“City ordinance requires property owners to take responsibility for street repairs, regardless of whether or not the tree’s roots causing damage is City owned.”

“An owner shall maintain and repair any defective street fronting such owner’s lot, lots or portion of a lot. Where a defective street is caused in whole or in part by a tree root or roots, the owner shall nevertheless have the duty to repair the street.“

Sounds absurd, doesn’t it? And it is absurd. Sidewalks are an integral part of the transportation system in the city. In fact, for people with disabilities who use mobility devices, they are the ONLY way of travel in the city. So trying to force responsibility for sidewalks onto property owners is a violation of at least the intent of ADA regulations, and perhaps the actual legal force of ADA regulations.

Beyond the arguments of fairness in sidewalk policies, there is the real issue that it simply does not work. There are broken sidewalks all over the central city, and the further out one goes, the worse they are. There are sidewalk defects that have been there the entire 12 years I’ve lived in the central city. There is a clear pattern that sidewalks in front of residential property are much more likely to get repaired than in front of commercial properties, reflecting a bias in enforcment.

Some lower income neighborhoods have such poor sidewalks (not to mention narrow sidewalks of 3-4 feet) that everyone walks in the street instead. If the city’s bias against walkers and the disabled is clear, its bias against lower income neighborhoods is glaring.

Even if the city’s policy on sidewalk repair were morally right, which it clearly is not, it is a failure to serve citizens of the city. And it is as clear a statement of bias in favor the drivers of motor vehicles as one can find. It is time for it to end.

what do drivers think?

Dan AllisonLeave a comment

As I was walking this afternoon, crossing 19th Street at S Street, with the light, a woman very nearly ran me over. She was looking only at opposing traffic, and decided she could make the left turn if she accelerated. She was not looking at the crosswalk or at me. In fact, I’m pretty sure she would not have seen me until I was on her hood. She only noticed me because I screamed at her as I jumped back to avoid being hit.

This is a story that anyone who walks could repeat, it is not in the least unique. I have probably 150 almost identical instances since moving to Sacramento 11 years ago. And it is not unique to Sacramento. Traffic violence is everywhere, almost all the time.

But as I continued my walk, I wondered what goes through the minds of drivers who almost kill people. In many cases, they blame it on the person walking, for having the effrontery of being on the street in front of their car. I know this because they often start the screaming, directing invective at me.

But what about the others? Do they drive more carefully, with more attention to surroundings? Do they refrain from accelerating into dangerous situations? Do they slow the fuck down? Probably, for a few days. I imagine some of these drivers are actually quite shaken by the realization that they almost killed someone.

I’m pretty sure that it doesn’t last, though. They must slide back into their old reckless ways. If this were not so, there would be much more careful drivers on the road, and much less traffic violence. But there isn’t.

I suspect almost every driver on the road has come close to killing someone before. Some drivers, many times. Some drivers have killed people walking. After all, killing someone with your vehicle is seen by law enforcement and courts as a whoopsie, unless you are very drunk.

Note that I define traffic violence as any driver behavior that intimidates people from walking or bicycling. The driver doesn’t have to actually kill or injure to have the (desired?) effect.

sidewalks across alleys

Dan Allison4 Comments

Note: Please see post on City of Sacramento Street Design Standards. It turns out that there are at least two different sets of design standards.

The City of Sacramento has Standard Specifications and Drawings that require certain designs for the public right-of-way. There were last revised April 2020, and are available on the Utilities: Development Standards page. It is not clear why these are part of Utilities rather than Public Works or Community Development, but they are. Though I haven’t done an element by element comparison, they seem to be a considerable improvement over the previous standards, which seem to be June 2009.

There are designs which are not being followed, and others that should be eliminated. Today, I’ll address sidewalks crossing alleys. Alleys are only common in the central city, but they do exist other places throughout the city.

The city design standard is below (pdf of entire page). The detail is hard to see, but the alleyway, sidewalk, and alley driveway are all concrete, none are asphalt. The T-11 Standard Alley Entrance Detail page says “Portland Cement Concrete (PCC) is the city standard pavement for alleys.”

SacCity Specification detail alley entrance

Of course there are many alleyways that are asphalt, and some that are unpaved gravel. I don’t know when the city standards changed to require pavement, or when to require concrete, but those are the current standards. That means that if an alley, or a sidewalk, or the alley driveway is changed, it must meet current standards. Below is a photo of Neighbors Alley at 17th Street, which was just redone within the last two months. It clearly does not meet city standards. Both the driveway and the sidewalk are asphalt, not concrete. Though I noticed this work being done, I failed to notice who was doing it. City? Private? Private utility? Not sure.

photo of Neighbors Alley at 17th Street
Neighbors Alley at 17th Street
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Yield to walkers? Nah.

Dan Allison1 Comment

This is essentially the second part of my red-light-running bullies post. Except that it applies to every intersection, not just signalized intersections.

This is another driver behavior that accelerated with the pandemic. But it didn’t start there. It primarily started with the election of Donald Trump. There was a noticeable change in driver behavior immediately after the election. Many drivers apparently thought, well if the president can say and do whatever he wants without consequence, so can I. It was really noticeable to me how belligerent drivers became. I’m guessing that it was because many drivers see people walking and bicycling as ‘other’, people with different values and political views. Used to be communists, then it was “lib’rels”, and I won’t use the current round of words here. If you are walking or bicycling, you are ‘other’ and if you are walking or bicycling and black or poor, you are truly the enemy. God meant us to drive, and anyone who thinks otherwise or gets in my way is against both God and me. That may sound outlandish, but it does accurately reflect how many drivers view the world.

But back to the driver behavior. Most drivers no longer yield to people using crosswalks. Of course most drivers are not aware that there is a crosswalk at every intersection, whether marked or not. And the DMV is complicit in this, they make no effort to educate drivers about pedestrian right-of-way. The law doesn’t require a driver to stop until the walker steps off the curb (or ramp) and into the street. Common decency would mandate yielding to waiting walkers, but common decency is not common among drivers. Once the walker has stepped into the street, they have the right of way. But most drivers will not stop. They may change lanes to avoid the blood splat on their car, but they won’t stop.

There are drivers who do stop, but when I look at them, I see the fear in their eyes, that they are going to get rear ended by an inattentive driver, or that on a street with more than one lane in the same direction, another driver in another lane will fail to stop or even slow, and they will have to see someone die right in front of their eyes. I understand that fear, because both these things happen with disturbing frequency.

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SacCity should remove crossing at alleys prohibition

Dan AllisonLeave a comment

City of Sacramento code prohibits pedestrians from crossing streets at alleys.

10.20.030 Crossing at alleys.
     No pedestrian shall cross a through street at an intersection with an alley except within a marked crosswalk. (Prior code § 25.03.052)

https://library.qcode.us/lib/sacramento_ca/pub/city_code/item/title_10-chapter_10_20-10_20_030

While this code has always been an attempt to prioritize motor vehicle drivers over people walking, it is becoming increasing problematic as housing and businesses are now located along alleyways in the central city. ADUs and lot split housing are often accessed through alleys and not from the street. This code makes it so that anyone living or doing business in an alley must go out of the way to cross the street, and it prohibits people who just want to walk alleys to avoid busy streets.

The code should be excised.

slip lanes of death

Dan AllisonLeave a comment

Additional information added below.

Today I wandered around the edges of Sac State, looking at some of the access points. But the worst of the worst is this slip lane from 65th Street northbound to Folsom Blvd eastbound. More on access soon.

slip lane 65th St north to Folsom east
slip lane 65th St north to Folsom east

Is there a stop sign? No. Is there a signal to stop motor vehicle drivers when the crosswalk is being used, or the bike lane on Folsom? No. Is there a yield to pedestrians sign? No. Is there paint on the ground? Yes. It is well known, among traffic engineers, if no one else, that the word ‘yield’ painted on the ground slows drivers to a safe speed. This is bullshit.

The city recently did ADA ramp work on this corner. They could have fixed the issue, but did not.

This is the kind of transportation infrastructure the City of Sacramento builds to preference the convenience and time-saving of drivers over the lives of people walking and bicycling. This is criminal negligence. The next time someone is killed or injured here, I would be happy to testify that the city was aware of this hazard and chose not to do anything about it. Criminal negligence, as I said.

Additional Information

Solutions

  1. Install stop signs at every slip lane.
  2. Do NOT install signalization since this is an expensive alternative and would be wasted when the slip lane is removed.
  3. Place a prohibition on slip lanes in city code except under rare and defined circumstances. This would be where the crossing roadway presents an angle less than 75 degrees, a sharper than right angle turn. This skewed intersection does not quite meet that criteria, but even if it did, the slip lane as constructed is hazardous.
  4. Develop a program to close all slip lanes in the city within one year.
  5. Develop a program to replace the closed slip lanes with sidewalks, planting strips, or other useful infrastructure within five years.

does Sacramento enforce illegal parking?

Dan Allison2 Comments

As a person who walks a lot in the central city, and some in other areas, I often see and report illegal parking to the city through the 311 app. I’m not talking about parking too long, or not paying, but about blocking driveways, sidewalks, and crosswalks. 90% of the time, the response that I get was that a parking officer was dispatched and the vehicle was no longer there, so no citation was issued. I provide the license number, vehicle description, and a photo, but the city will not use that information to ticket once a vehicle has moved. But, the real issue it that they often ignore the violation completely.

An example. I reported this illegally parked vehicle at 9:17AM. It was blocking the crosswalk over 13th St, and the ADA ramp. The remaining ramp area was not wide enough to allow a wheelchair to pass. At 11:09AM I received an email reply from the city, stating: “A Parking Enforcement Officer arrived at P ST & 13TH ST, SACRAMENTO, 95814 to find that the vehicle(s) reported were no longer on the scene.” At 7:30PM, the vehicle was still in exactly the same place. The officer was lying. The vehicle was still there. Either the officer never visited the location, or decided not to cite the vehicle.

illegally parking vehicle blocking crosswalk and ADA ramp
illegally parked vehicle, 13th St, not cited

This is the sort of attitude the city has toward people who walk, or roll. They are always less important than people who drive.

Sacramento disdains walkers

Dan Allison3 Comments

The City of Sacramento, both the city government and many people who live here, have a picture of a pretty good place to live, and work, and play. And that is true, to some degree. Good climate (except middle of summer), a wealth of trees, interesting and useful businesses (at least in midtown), mostly flat (for bicyclists), two rivers and the confluence, moderately friendly people. But the transportation network sucks.

Heavy rain of course brings out the flaws in the transportation system. Flooded roadways that at the least make it hard to get places, and at worst kill people. Trees and tree debris blocking both sidewalks and bike lanes. Light rail that runs late or not at all, buses behind schedule. All of those are important issues. But this post is about flooded ADA ramps.

flooded ADA ramp, Q St at 13th St
flooded ADA ramp, Q St at 13th St

The above photo is a mild case, as it does not make the ADA ramp and connecting sidewalks impassible. It just means wet feet for people who can’t jump the puddle, or wet wheels for people with mobility devices. You might think that this is a problem created by the storms. But look closer. The ADA ramp was built so that it is LOWER than the drain inlet. This puddle will remain until it evaporates, and if the rain continues, it will be there for quite some while. There are two explanations, and I don’t know which is correct. 1) The ramp and drain inlet was designed by an incompetent engineer; or 2) ramp and drain inlet were not built as designed, meaning that the construction inspector did not notice or did not care that it was not installed as designed. In either case, it is the fault of the city.

You might think that this is an unusual circumstance, but if you walk and notice, about half the ADA ramps in the city have this same problem. Why is this so common? Because the city doesn’t care. The engineer doesn’t care, or the inspector doesn’t care. Every one of these situations expresses the city’s disdain for walkers, and users of mobility devices.

I started with a mild example, but to present a much worse example:

flooded ADA ramp and sidewalk, 3rd St at O St
flooded ADA ramp and sidewalk, 3rd St at O St

This puddle won’t disappear for at least a week, even without additional rain. This is not a problem of a plugged drain inlet. The ramp and sidewalk was designed to be BELOW the gutter level along the street.

I have reported this location multiple times to the city, over the years. It has never been fixed. When I submit a 311 report, it is marked as complete without anything being done. Which is not untypical for the city, most of my 311 reports are ignored, marked as complete without anything being done.

Does this bother you? Get in touch with your city council member, provide photos and stories about how this impacts you and the people you know. Ask council members to hold city staff responsible for their incompetence and lack of care. If the city manager can’t fix these problems, it is time for a new city manager. If Public Works can’t fix this problem, it is time for a new head of Public Works. Anything else is not acceptable.

What City of Sacramento ISN’T doing

Dan AllisonLeave a comment

The City of Sacramento, that bastion of doing the least amount possible, has failed to notice that progressive cities in the US and worldwide are making changes to their environment to make is safer for people who walk and bicycle, and more efficient and welcoming for people outside of cars.

What the city is NOT doing, that it could:

  • Accept responsibility for maintaining sidewalks, as an integral part of the transportation network. The city continues to shirk its responsibility, spending funds on motor vehicle infrastructure instead of maintaining walker infrastructure.
  • Installing leading pedestrian intervals (LPIs) at every traffic signal in the city. The same eleven have been in place for years; none have been added. The recent legislation, AB 2264, only applies to state highways; it is up to cities and counties to implement on other roadways.
  • Daylighting intersections. This means removing parking from within 15-20 feet of the crosswalk or stop bar, either by painting and enforcing red curbs, or building curb extensions (bulb-outs) at every intersection. Upstream, approaching the intersection, is the big safety feature, downstream, leaving the intersection is much less important. There are interim solutions here, such as painting curb extensions and using soft-hit posts (vertical delineators).
  • Implementing construction zone requirements that accommodate walkers and bicyclists. The current city policy is to provide safe bypasses only if it does not in any way inconvenience drivers. The public has asked that a policy be developed along the lines of the Oakland construction policy, but the city has stonewalled against that.
  • Making transportation improvements that benefit walkers and bicyclists, except with county, state or federal grants. The city simply will not spend any of its general funds on improving transportation safety.
  • Waiting until a roadway is completely repaved to reallocate roadway width to bicycle lanes or separated bikeways, or transit. Compounding this issue is that the city doesn’t share with the public the repaving projects that it intends to do, so the public has no chance to comment beforehand.
  • Lowering speed limits citywide. While it is true that spot reductions have little effect on travel speeds, there are a growing number of cities that have lowered speed limits citywide, with a significant reduction in speed.
  • Enforce traffic laws. The Sacramento Police Department has essentially stopped enforcing laws related to the safety of walkers and bicyclists. This of course is also true in many other places. Police don’t see traffic safety as an issue worthy of concern. Of course so much of law enforcement is used as pretext to oppress, and I’m not in favor of any of that, but if the police won’t even enforce failure to yield to people in the crosswalk, what use are they? We would all be much safer if traffic law enforcement were removed from the police, largely automated, and the money saved diverted to real community needs. Yes, defund the police.
  • Painting marked crosswalks at every intersection. Yes, I know that unmarked crosswalks are legal crossings, but most drivers either don’t know or don’t care, so marking crosswalks is critical.
  • Remove beg buttons. These buttons, which sometimes a walker must press to get a walk sign, and sometimes don’t need to press (this is called auto-recall) are a direct attempt to discriminate against people walking. The city, after much pressure from the public at the beginning of the pandemic, set five crossings to auto-recall, out of the thousands. Of course they didn’t change the signing, so people walking don’t know this. The city it being intentionally obstinate in its defense of this outmoded requirement.
  • Remove pedestrian prohibition signs unless that is a demonstrable safety reason for the prohibition. There are numerous signs all over the city that were placed solely to preference motor vehicle drivers over people walking. The default should be that every one is removed unless the city wishes to do a traffic study to justify them.
  • Install traffic diverters (mode filters) all over the city. These diverters, which allow bicyclists free travel but turn motor vehicle drivers aside, are the single most effective safety measure that city could implement. But the city has decided to take these off the menu of solutions, for no reason that it has ever been made public. The few that exist are in the central city, almost none in other neighborhoods. Another example of privileging the already privileged over lower income neighborhoods.
  • Charge for parking, eveCavrywhere. Residential neighborhoods, where there is usually open parking space, would be charged through permits for the cost of maintaining that portion of the street. Any place where parking is in short supply, market rates for parking should be charged. Giving away free parking is subsidizing drivers and throwing your tax money in the trash.

I could go on with this list for pages. In fact, I have: walking policies for SacCity, and many related posts. But the city is still not taking meaningful action on any of these items, so I will keep reposting. For as long as it takes. And it will probably take quite some while before the city gets over its culture of doing the least amount possible.

Caveat: The city has disinvested in lower income and high minority neighborhoods, probably for its entire history. The first steps should be taken in these neighborhoods, with input from the residents, of course, and not in higher income and non-minority neighborhoods which have always gotten more than their share.