I have mentioned the problems with the gutter pan on several blocks of the new bikeway on 19th Street being so deteriorated that the effective width of the bikeway is only about two feet. It is clear that the city did not look at the existing conditions of the gutter before deciding to place the bikeway in this gutter. But, this is not an easy thing to fix. There are at least four blocks that are unacceptable, but it will probably require reconstruction of the gutter pan to fix it.
What can be fixed, but has not been, is the root heave in the 19th Street bikeway at Matsui Alley (note that Matsui is discontinuous, and is present only on the west side of 19th Street; the alley does not exist on the east side.) The photo below shows the root heave, but doesn’t really emphasize how big it is. There is a four inch displacement. This is a pavement flaw that could easily cause a bicyclist to crash. I don’t know whether the orange paint marking is from the city or bicyclists, but orange paint is not visible at night, and even in daytime it doesn’t make clear what the rider should do to avoid the hazard.
19th St bikeway at Matsui Alley root heave
I have reported this issue to the city 311 app several times. I know of at least two other bicyclists who have reported it multiple times. The city 311 incident map shows only my latest report (230805-1907594), which means that the city has closed all the other reports without any action.
Allowing this type of hazard to exist, when it is a known hazard, particularly in a location designed to attract bicyclists, is criminally negligent. Let me repeat that for the idiots in Public Works, who seem to be hard of hearing – CRIMINALLY NEGLIGENT.
If you are a bicyclist who is using 19th Street, I encourage you to NOT use the bikeway in this block between Capitol Avenue and N Street. Ride in the middle of the general purpose travel lane instead. And if you have the time, file a 311 report on the hazard. It will become increasingly difficult for the city to claim it didn’t know about this problem (by closing the reports without action), the more people report it.
Flexible delineators have been installed along part of 21st Street, and are undergoing active installation this week. These K-71 posts are more substantial that the traditional vertical delineators. They can still be run over, and are run over, but since they look more substantial, drivers are less likely to run over them. They are still plastic, so provide no actual protection from errant motor vehicles; only hard curbs or true bollards (steel or concrete) can do that, but still, an improvement over earlier designs.
Central City Mobility Project, 21st St, K71 delineators
I don’t know how quickly the otherwise completed sections of the Central City Mobility Project will have these delineators installed. Apparently there is a US-wide shortage of materials for separated bikeways, and many cities are not able to complete their projects.
A second change since my last posting is that some parking spot paint is showing up. I had thought that parts of the striping that were still missing after quite some while were just missed, but in fact at least some of them were intended for parking regulation marking. The photo below shows a yellow curb and yellow stripe adjacent to the parking spots. I am glad to see that both the curb and the parking lane are being marked with paint. Otherwise, many drivers would fail to see, or pretend not to see, the curb color alone. This is hard to miss!
Central City Mobility Project, 21st St, yellow curb and parking marking
In California, painted curbs have the following meaning:
red – no stopping, standing, or parking
yellow – commercial loading and unloading (can also be used for passenger loading and unloading, unless otherwise signed)
white – passenger loading and unloading
green – limited time parking, as posted on a sign or the curb
blue – disabled parking (must have a license plate or temporary hanger tag)
In Sacramento, and many places in California, parking enforcement takes a laissez faire attitude towards curb colors. Except for red curbs, they are seldom enforced, and even red curb enforcement is uneven. Note that red curbs are really intended to mean what they say. If you stop there, you are in violation. A typical driver excuse for any parking violation is that they were ‘just going in for a moment’. Moments turn into minutes turn into hours, as I have observed many, many times. If you get out of your car, you are parking, no matter what the driver calls it, the law calls it parking. Parking on white and yellow curbs is a violation. Obviously commercial loading and unloading may take some time, but if there is no active loading or unloading going on, that is a violation.
I like green curbs as a solution for businesses where people pick up food and beverages. Fast food places where people order ahead. Coffee shops. My local coffee shop has a green curb right outside, and it is used for its intended purpose by some drivers. Other drivers just take it as an open free parking spot. I have reported these to city 311 as violations, but the city has not enforced so far as I am aware. More green curbs, please! (note that in the photo, the motor vehicle had just pulled into the curb, and the driver was crossing the street to pick up food at one of the businesses on the west side of 15th St; the parking meters are not functional, but the 15 minute limit is clearly posted)
green curb 15 minute parking, 15th St, Naked Lounge
Because past enforcement has been laissez faire, it will take some signing and education to make these curb colors work. Most drivers in California don’t really understand curb colors; I used to work in Nevada, and I can tell you most drivers there know exactly what they mean.
I am very pleased to see that curb colors are being more actively used in the city. Illegal parking endangers bicyclists, in particular, but also walkers and drivers. Of course something must be done to get delivery vehicles out of bike lanes and out of blocking streets and crosswalks. The city is far, far from having a plan to address that.
Other
19th St: no active work south of Q St
10th St: street being prepared for repaving and re-striping
I St: street being prepared for repaving and re-striping
5th St, 9th St: no active work
Nothing has been installed in the ‘turn wedges of death‘. I looked at the detailed design for these turn wedges (another advocate was able to obtain them), and it is still not clear what is intended for these locations. The bicycle signal at 21st and H Sts has not been installed, nor is there any sign cautioning bicyclist from using the pedestrian signal, which exposes them to high speed left turning motor vehicles.
The City of Sacramento General Plan 2040 update draft offers a map of the SB 535 disadvantaged communities (DAC), on page 7-6, reproduced below. The areas are census tracts, and their number is labeled. Census tracts do not necessarily follow city boundaries, some overlap with county areas.
The general plan text states “Under SB 535, a DAC is defined as an area scoring in the top 25 percent (75th – 100th percentile) of all California census tracts for pollution burden and socioeconomic factors as measured in CalEnviroScreen.” You can read more detail about how DACs are determined, and the relationship to CalEnviroScreen, on page 7-3.
It is good that the area of ‘the finger’ (also known as the Fruitridge/Florin study area), disadvantaged communities in south Sacramento, are included, but it also makes the map hard to read. What areas are actually within the city, where the city might invest to overcome the past disinvestment that created these disadvantaged communities? To look at this question, I created the map below, which distinguishes city from county, blue being city and orange being county. It is clear that ignoring that significant areas of south Sacramento are in the county would be a mistake, but it is important to note where the city disadvantaged areas are, because that is where the city could spend money.
But these type of maps, where an area is mapped without reference to other characteristics, can be misleading. For example, the large area on the southeast side is indeed disadvantaged, but it is also mostly low density and even agricultural. The Census Bureau indicates that census tracts range between 1200 and 8000 people, with an average of 4000. Sacramento does not have such a wide range, but nevertheless, there are significant differences in the number of people residing in each census tract. The table ‘Table EJ-1: CalEnviroScreen Scores of DACs in the Planning Area’ (pages 7-4 & 7-5) lists the population density of all the tracts in the city, but unfortunately this data is not mapped. Of the disadvantaged census tracts, the population density (residents per acre) in the table range from 3.71 (6067006900, north area) to 20.71 (6067000700, northwest downtown)
So I developed a map that shows the range of densities (this is calculated for my map from area of census tract and population in 2022, not from the city’s table; the city does not indicate the date of the table data). A higher intensity of blue indicates more dense census tracts in the city, and for the county, a higher intensity of orange. As you can see, some of the city census tracts that are indicated as disadvantaged are very low density.
Why is density important? The city will never have enough money, from its own budget or other sources, to overcome past disinvestment. So investments must be prioritized. I believe the most important criteria is population density. A dollar of investment in a higher density area reaches more people. Conversely, investment in a low density area reaches fewer people. This fact is glossed over in the general plan.
There are additional maps of the disadvantaged census tracts in the general plan, focused on particular areas of the city, and addressing such issues as healthy food resources, environmental justice issues, parks, and light rail transit. It should be noted that SB 535 disadvantaged communities are only one criteria for looking at an area. The state offers Low Income High Minority (LIHM), and SACOG uses that criteria among others. All of these criteria are important, but I believe density to be one of the most important.
You may comment on the General Plan under the ‘Self-Guided Workshop‘. For a good explanation of how to use this resource, see my previous post relaying the House Sacramento guide. For my earlier posts on the General Plan, see category: General Plan 2040.
House Sacramento (SacYIMBY) has provided a simple guide to commenting on the City of Sacramento General Plan 2040 Update. I hope you will take a look and consider their priorities and comments when making your own comments to the city. The update is weak, full of glorious language, but not much in the way of commitments or actions that will really make a difference. We can greatly improve it by making comments, so please do!
I have four prior posts on the General Plan, at category General Plan 2040. Groups actively working on identifying improvements and concerns include: House Sacramento, Strong SacTown, ECOS Climate Committee, Civic Thread, 350Sacramento, and Sacramento Climate Coalition.
I regularly ride the newly repaved streets with separated and/or parking protected bikeways, because I want to see how bicyclists and drivers are dealing with the new design. Well, the turn wedges are a complete failure. At every intersection where there is a turn wedge for left turns, drivers are cutting the corner and turning at higher speeds than they did before. The city has created a danger that was not present before, when there were regular bike lanes. The city has not completed work on the turn wedges, and for now, they are an incredible danger to bicyclists. The city has not placed construction signs at these locations, though at least according to the rough designs the city has shared with the public, construction is not complete. Nothing has been installed in the turn wedges. That means that the city has left the project in an incomplete state, but is communicating to the public that the project is complete.
The number of close calls that I have personally experienced at these turn wedges now numbers over 40. As an experienced bicyclist, I know what to watch out for and respond, but having to slam on my brakes to keep from getting run over is not something I or any other bicyclist should have to do.
The city must stop this madness before people die. The city knowingly has installed unsafe roadways, and has not fixed them despite knowing that they are hazardous. This means that the city is legally responsible for any bicyclist-driver crashes that happen at those corners. I will happily testify against the city, and hope that they have to pay our millions for their incompetence. But of course someone will be dead or severely injured, and the city won’t have to be liable for that. Traffic engineers depend on ‘approved’ designs to isolate themselves from direct legal responsibility, but these are not approved designs, they are ones that the city invented using pieces and parts of internationally recognized designs.
A post today on Streetsblog LA (Santa Monica’s New 17th Street Curb-Protected Bike Lanes are Amazing) is about new bicycle facilities on 17th Street in Santa Monica. I think you will find some of the photos interesting. At first glance, it looks like some of the ones being installed as part of the Central City Mobility Project, but looking more closely, two differences really stand out. Most of the separated bikeways in Santa Monica are curb-protected. Bikeways that are solely parking protected only are protected when cars are parked. Otherwise, they are really just buffered bike lanes. And the turn wedges are hard curbs with additional markers, not paint-only, and definitely superior to the Sacramento’s suggested turn wedges which might have vertical delineators or other markers, but won’t have curbs.
curb turn wedges in Santa Monica (from Streetsblog LA)
To illustrate the problem these curb turn wedges solve, see the photo below of a motor vehicle making a high speed dangerous turn over a painted parking wedge at P Street and 15th Street.
16th St & P St, Sacramento, high speed turn across painted turn wedge
Other
P Street markings including green paint are nearly complete. In two blocks, the green paint is nearly the entire block, for unknown reasons. There is nothing unique about these blocks. While green paint is useful to mark conflict areas, excessive use will just lead to maintenance expense over time.
Q Street has preliminary markings, but the temporary lane tabs still indicate overly wide and dangerous general purpose lanes.
19th Street is nearly complete from H Street to Q Street, but there is no marking south of Q Street. South of Q Street, the old bike lanes show in some places, but otherwise have been erased in favor of overly wide and dangerous general purpose lanes. Several blocks of the new bikeway are in the gutter pan, making an unacceptable rough and dangerous surface.
21st Street is complete except for a few spots that were missed and have not been picked up. The confusing arrow at 21st Street and W Street has been corrected. There is still accommodation or signal for bicyclists at 21st Street and I Street.
I Street work has begun, with the last few ADA ramps complete and some repaving.
10th Street has the last few ADA ramps complete.
9th Street doesn’t have any work in evidence.
5th Street has not progresses past installation of signal bases.
Overall, no vertical delineators have been installed at any locations.
Delivery vehicles are parking in and blocking the separated bikeway on P Street approaching 16th Street. The city did not mark any of the parking spaces for delivery use. Cones and barricades have been placed in the buffer to reduce this hazardous driver behavior, and have been removed by someone, and replaced by citizens, and removed by someone, and …
There is an insightful admission hiding in the City of Sacramento General Plan 2040 update. In the Mobility Element, A Multimodal System section, Maintenance and Funding subsection (page 8-8), “A key challenge for Sacramento is that existing revenue streams do not fully cover operations and maintenance costs, and this same funding is also used to support implementation of improvements for safety and mobility throughout the city.”
Revenue does not cover expenses. Liabilities exceed assets. The city is bankrupt, just as you would be in this situation. Some asset of yours, like your house if you own one, or your business if you own one, is deteriorating, and you do not have the income to fix it. In the case of the city, it has incurred debt in order to build a transportation network that it cannot possibly maintain under the current taxation regime. And it never will. Never. If the city raised taxes, of whatever type, to the point they would pay for debt service and maintenance of the existing system, people would revolt. And that does not even include the new transportation infrastructure that some people would want. The city’s transportation system is bankrupt. It always will be. The core of the reason is that the city asked developers to pay for transportation infrastructure within a development, but then the city takes on liability for maintenance of that infrastructure. It all looks good for about 30 years, until things start to fall apart. The streets need repaving. The sidewalks are cracked. Painted lines and crosswalks have long since faded to invisibility. Not to mention what lies beneath (water and sewer), which is even more expensive to fix. For an in-depth explanation of how cities and counties and states got into this situation, I can recommend Confessions of a Recovering Traffic Engineer: Transportation for a Strong Town, and Strong Towns: A Bottom-up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity, both by Charles Marohn of Strong Towns. In fact, just in time for my post, an article today on Strong Towns: Why Cities are Flying Blind When It Comes to Their Own Debt.
So, what to do?
Don’t bond anything again. We don’t need more roadways, or wider roadways, or interchanges. We don’t need big projects. Pay for maintenance of what we have, out of current income. This also means that we would never again bond against future income for current funding, as the city has done with parking revenue.
Figure out what we can’t afford to maintain, and have that discussion with the public. I’d suggest that we can’t afford to maintain parking areas, whether on street, surface lots, or structured parking. Parking has never paid for itself and never will, and if we have to triage our transportation spending, it should be the first to go. Next would be cut-de-sacs and intentionally dead-end streets.
Change accounting and budgeting so that transportation infrastructure shows up as a liability in accounting and budget, because it must be maintained forever, rather than as an asset.
Cease accepting responsibility for new roadways built by developers. If a developer wants infrastructure, they can pay for it, and maintain it, forever, by setting aside reserves to cover the necessary maintenance. This would result in gated communities, which I definitely do not like, but a gated community is better than fiscal bankruptcy. It would also result in far, far fewer greenfield developments, since the financial model for these is that society will take on maintenance responsibility, and will build the surrounding infrastructure of arterial roads and highways that the development must have to pencil out. That is all to the good.
Wean the city off of federal, state, and regional grants. Not all at once, but decrease the percentage of transportation projects that depend on outside money. This would mean even less money for transportation in the city, but it would force the city and citizens to look at what is really important, to individuals and society, and spend on the things that are really important. I hope that safety comes out at the top, and that we spend on transforming out transportation system from the current one that kills and maims people to one that protects vulnerable users first and foremost.
Note that the city is bankrupt in many ways, not just transportation. But transportation is my thing, so that is what I focus on.
This phrase summarizes the street network we have in the City of Sacramento. With a very, very few exceptions, every single street is too wide and too fast, across the entire range from residential streets to traffic sewer arterials. These streets kill and injure incredible numbers of people every year. Walkers, bicyclists, drivers, passengers, no one is immune to the danger that these poorly designed streets present. Though rankings change year to year, and depend on details, Sacramento is at or near the top of crash rates for the state. We probably don’t have worse drivers than other cities, we have worse streets.
The city has promised that it will update the Street Design Standards that have created this hazard. Maybe soon, maybe not for years. In fact, the existing standards don’t even have all that much detail, so a lot of the streets were apparently designed on the whim of traffic engineers, not even on standards. MUTCD (Manual for Uniform Traffic Control Devices) and CA-MUTCD will not be considered acceptable roadway designs since they emphasize motor vehicles over all other roadway users. NACTO (National Association of City Transportation Officials) or European standards such as the Netherlands CROW will be referred to as needed.
The new standards must ensure that we never build an unsafe roadway again. The goal must be no fatalities or severe injuries, no matter how drivers behave. Sacramento must be a true Vision Zero, safe systems city, not the lip service, we will fix things someday, when we have the money, that it is now.
What should the new standards be like?
There should be separate documents, or at least clearly separate sections, for new construction and for healing existing designs.
The state and federal roadway functional classification system (FCS) should not be used. Instead, a system that addresses the intended purpose of streets including ALL users should be used. The FCS is in large part responsible for the mess we have now. It represents that traditional traffic engineer focus on maximizing motor vehicle volume and speed. See SacCity street classification for more information.
New construction standards:
will emphasize limited roadways, one lane in each direction, and would include designs for two lanes in each direction in exceptional circumstances
design speeds and posted speed limits must match
base design speed is 20 mph
roadways over 20 mph must have bike lanes; over 30 mph must have separated bikeways
no roadway will have a design speed over 40 mph. Anywhere. Ever.
intersections will be designed so that it is clear that crosswalks, at sidewalk level, continue through the intersection, and motor vehicles are the guests
all new developments will be designed with a street grid of 1/4 mile
rolled curbs will not meet standards, however, streets without curbs may be used if the design speed is 10 mph
Healing existing roadways:
no street will be repaved without consideration being given to reallocating right-of-way width to walking, bicycling, transit, and sidewalks buffers for trees
the intent of reallocation will be to achieve the same design as new construction
on-street parking will be retained for its traffic calming effect, however, removal of parking will never prevent reallocation to higher uses
for overly wide streets, parallel parking will be converted to back-in diagonal parking in order to narrow roadways for safety
streets without a tree canopy will have trees added, in parking lanes if no other space is available
the city will adopt responsibility for maintenance of sidewalks, in the same way that they are responsible for pavement
designs will be available for closing sections of street temporarily or permanently for dining or community events
designs for diagonal ADA ramps will not be part of the updated standards; only perpendicular ramps will meet standards
My intent here is to provide something simple, summarizing beyond the details of previous posts on Street Design Standards.
City of Sacramento Public Works staff has told the Active Transportation Commission that an update to the Street Design Standards will start soon. But the General Plan says otherwise. From the plan, Implementation Actions, pages 8-28 to 8-29:
M-A.10: Street Design Standards Update. The City shall review and update City Street Design Standards as needed to ensure they adequately support objectives for prioritizing people throughput, safety, and efficient transportation management. Responsible Entity: Department of Public Works Timeframe: Mid-term (2030-2035)
This timeframe indicates that the update will not even start until 2030, six years after the adoption of the plan in 2024. Six years of Public Works enforcing outmoded and dangerous street designs on the public and on developers. Hopefully the plan is out of date, and staff is correct that it will start soon.
Yes, I had promised quite some while ago a summary of my many blog posts on the Street Design Standards update. Coming soon to a blog near you.
I have been following the progress of the Central City Mobility Project which has now mostly completed separated bikeways on 21st Street, half of 19th Street (H to Q), most of P Street, and now going to Q Street. One of the features of the design is ‘turn wedges’ which I have written about before: where the bike lane ends – update, where the bike lane ends, Central City Mobility update. I have spent a lot of time observing driver and bicyclist behavior at the intersections which have these turn wedges installed. The wedges are marked only by white paint, though city diagrams show them having some sort of physical barrier installed in them.
Drivers are using the turn wedges, and the buffer areas of the separated bikeway, to make very high speed, very wide turns at these corners, cutting the corner where a bicyclist might be riding. The prior configuration of a regular intersection did not allow such wide and high speed turns. I have seen a number of close calls between motor vehicles and bicyclists, and walkers, for that matter, since these high speed turns cross the crosswalk as well as the bikeway. These turn wedge corners are also encouraging drivers to run red lights, even more so than the usual red light running. I saw three drivers run the red on a single signal cycle, and a driver on the cross street had to slam on their brakes to avoid a collision. I’ve seen a large number of near-misses for motor vehicles.
It is not clear whether these turn wedges are complete or not. Will the city actually install something here that prevents or at least discourages these high speed dangerous turns? I don’t know. What I do know is that in the meanwhile, these turn wedges are a clear and present danger to bicyclists.
I spent time this afternoon watching left turns from P Street westbound to 15th Street southbound. Drivers were using the buffer area and the bikeway to form two lines of left turning traffic, where there should be only one. The block of P Street was completely devoid of parked cars, so drivers were queuing into two lines way back near 16th Street. Since the intersection is in no way marked for a double left turn lane, there were motor vehicle conflicts on every signal cycle.
Sorry to be the doom-sayer, but I have to recommend that bicyclists simply not ride on these streets until the projects are truly complete, with as full a protection for bicyclist as can be achieved with these less than international best practice designs.
The city’s attitude seems to be that since the bikeways will eventually be safer, we just have to put up with the unsafe situation in the meanwhile. I completely disagree. This may be criminal behavior on the part of the city, to remove moderately safe bike lanes and replace them with unsafe bikeways. If bicyclists (or walkers or drivers) die before the project is complete, is this just a ‘whoopsie’? Professional engineers designed this project, signed off on this project, and should be inspecting the project as it goes along. Why do we then have these unsafe situations? Is is intentional? Is it indifference to bicyclists and walkers? Is it professional incompetence?
It is imperative that all construction projects accommodate walkers and bicyclists, who are even more vulnerable at these projects than normally. The attitude of ‘it will be safer later’ is completely unacceptable.
The construction company for this project is McGuire and Hester. Though many people might blame these problems on the construction company, I don’t. It is the city’s responsibility to design safe projects, during and after construction, and it is the city’s responsibility to inspect projects to see if they are complying with the design, and to fix things if not. But I strongly suspect that the construction company is doing exactly what the city told it to do.
Getting Around Sacramento 