Category: City of Sacramento

reallocate N St to a separated bikeway

Dan AllisonLeave a comment

Note: Added information on proposed streetcar alignment below.

N Street in downtown Sacramento, from 3rd Street to 15th Street, is a three lane street with parking on both sides. There are no bicycle facilities. For part of the stretch, from 8th Street to 15th St, the sidewalk on the north side is a designated bike route, and is signed as such. Currently, this route alongside Capitol Park is closed due to annex construction, and not alternative has been provided. The city has made the choice to offer nearly unlimited capacity for motor vehicle drivers, but to dump walkers and bicyclists onto the same sidewalk. Some of the time this sharing works, but not when it is at all busy with either walkers or bicyclists.

N Street does not need, and has never needed, three motor vehicle lanes. Since the pandemic, the street is empty most of the day, with very short periods of heavier traffic, but it is never congested. Even before the pandemic, there was only about 20 minutes a weekday when the street could have, perhaps, be considered congested. Frequent construction projects, both before and during the pandemic, have narrowed N Street from three lanes to two, and even to one for shorter periods of time. When there was one lane, traffic was slow (a good thing!) but never really backed up.

The gallery of photos below was taken today, admittedly mid-day when there is almost no traffic at all, but ‘rush hour’ would not look much different. Motor vehicle traffic has come back to pre-pandemic levels on some city streets, but has not on N Street, and it is very unlikely that it ever will.

How should N Street right-of-way be reallocated? By installation of a parking protected separated bikeway on the north (left) side of the street, from 3rd Street to 15th Street. Separated bikeway is the official term, though protected bike lane or cycletrack are common alternative terms. Though in general left side or right side each have advantages and disadvantages, in this case left side (north side) works best because the of long stretch free of driveways on the Capitol Park side, from 10th Street to 15th Street.

Sacramento already has parking protected separated bikeways on P Street, Q Street, 10th Street, and J Street, though J Street in particular is a weak implementation. The NACTO diagram shows a high quality parking protected separated bikeway with a concrete curb, which retains all the benefits and safety even when there are no parked cars. For sections with driveways, protection with vertical delineators may be appropriate.

NACTO diagram one-way cycletrack with curb

The number of driveways in each block between intersections is:

  • 3rd-4th: one, parking garage
  • 4th-5th: zero
  • 5th-7th: two, parking garage, gated driveway
  • 7th-8th: zero
  • 8th-9th: one
  • 9th-10th: two, rarely used
  • 10th-15th: none

The advantages of this reallocation:

  • greatly reduces conflict between walkers and bicyclists on the north sidewalk between 8th St and 15th St
  • provides a safe east-west bicycle route
  • reallocates unneeded roadway width from motor vehicles to bicyclists

The city’s Central City Mobility Project will add 62 blocks of separated bikeways to the downtown area. All of these projects are great. But N Street is not among them. The lane reduction on I St, shown in purple, is particularly great. N Street would benefit from the same. Lane reductions not only slow motor vehicle traffic, but can shorten crossing distances for people walking. Three (or more) lanes in a direction are never safe, and never appropriate in an urban area. All of the three lane roadways in the city should be reallocated to other uses, and reduced to two lanes.

These type of projects are often called road diets, but I don’t like that term. The road is not on a diet, it is just being reallocated from unnecessary or unwanted motor vehicle capacity to more useful purposes such as walking, bicycling, or dining.

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support SacATC status on walking/biking (now!)

Dan Allison2 Comments

I encourage you to support the Sacramento Active Transportation Commission’s (SacATC) sending the Status of Walking/Biking committee report to city council. The report is on the agenda for SacATC on this Thursday, 6:00PM to about 8:00PM.

The report is the first attempt since the early days of the SacATC to actually address transportation policy. The SacATC has unfortunately become a rubber stamp for city grant applications, and has not delved into policy since the early days when an update of the city’s Bicycle Master Plan being completed, and the ATC was able to make some improvements to that. The commission was formed to advise council on policy (it is NOT advisory to staff, but to the council), but has not done so. Now is the time, and this status report should be supported because it finally starts to address policy.

The status report includes nine recommendations:

  1. Increase Funding for Active Transportation
  2. Expand Speed Management Program
  3. Develop a Citywide Safe Routes to School Program
  4. Finalize the Construction Detour Policy
  5. Develop an ATC Dashboard
  6. Create a Sacramento Quick-Build Bikeways Program
  7. Pilot an Electric Bike Library & Promote E-Bike Incentives
  8. Increase Bike Parking
  9. Re-establish Slow & Active Streets

I’m sure you can think of many other recommendations that might be made, but this is a great start. If the council pays attention to these recommendations, and takes action to create and fund programs, the status of walking and bicycling will have improved by next year, and more items can be added.

You an express your support in several ways:

Consult the agenda for more detail on making public comment. It used to be possible to submit email to the city clerk, but this option is no longer mentioned.

bike left turn Carlson Dr to H St

Dan AllisonLeave a comment

I was at a meeting last evening with transportation advocates when the subject of the turn left from Carlson Drive to H Street came up. Most people expressed discomfort about this turn, and most of the people were also experienced and skilled bicyclists. They felt that left turning motor vehicles, which go at the same time as left turning bicyclists, would encroach on the dashed green lane and hit bicyclists. They were also uncomfortable turning across the straight through lane, as they had seen people run this red light. This is a critical intersection and area for bicyclists, as it is one of four main routes onto and off the Sacramento State campus for bicyclists.

So today I went to take a look. I have not written about this intersection before, but two articles are of interest: SABA https://sacbike.org/carlson-corridor/ and City of Sacramento https://www.cityofsacramento.org/Public-Works/Engineering-Services/Projects/Completed-Projects/Carlson-Drive-Improvements.

So far as I know, this was the first use of green paint, and the first use of a bicycle signal head in the city. The installation was intended to be innovative, and it was, for its time, in Sacramento, but it hasn’t stood up to the test of time.

Here is what it looks like from above. As you can see, it is a complicated intersection with several features intended to ease and speed motor vehicles. The city attempted to make the intersection safer without really changing it at all, beyond the green paint. Green paint helps communicate, but it does not protect in any way, and it has no legal meaning under California Vehicle Code or city code.

Carlson Dr - H St intersection aerial
Carlson Dr – H St intersection aerial

The two photos below show the setting of the left turn. The bicycle lane on the right side of the street leads to a dashed (skip) green lane turning through the intersection. The bike lane stop line is somewhat in front of the motor vehicle stop line, and there is a button to trigger the bicycle signal. The bicycle signal face is mounted to the right of the motor vehicle signal face, and there are two, before the intersection and on the far side.

bicyclist pressing the button to trigger the bicycle signal
bicyclist pressing the button to trigger the bicycle signal
bicyclist turning left from Carlson to H St; bicycle signal face green
bicyclist turning left from Carlson to H St; bicycle signal face green

I was there at a low traffic (motor vehicles and bicyclists) time of day and was unable to capture a bicyclist and motor vehicle adjacent to each other on the turn.

I have to say that I was not uncomfortable with the left hand turn. I’m a strong bicyclist and good at anticipating and mitigating for driver misbehavior. But I’m not the person bicycle facilities should be designed and built for. They need to be comfortable and legible (understandable) for any bicyclist, of any age and skill level, including Sac State students who seem to be the majority of the bicyclists here. This left turn is not.

There has been only one reported bicyclist injury crashes at this intersection since the green paint was put in (as of December 2020), and one in the 6-1/2 years before, so it is not a high injury intersection. But intersections like this discourage bicyclists, and so fewer people are willing to bicycle here. The poor quality of most of the access points to the Sac State campus probably in large part explains why the school has a much lower bicycling rate than most universities.

I don’t have a ready solution for fixing this intersection so that it is safe and comfortable (low stress) for bicyclists. But I do believe it is the city’s responsibility to study it, design a safe and welcoming intersection, and install it.

Freeport Blvd as a failure of vision and possibility

Dan Allison5 Comments

Another post on the Freeport Blvd Transportation Plan. See the category Freeport Blvd for other posts.

It should be obvious, if you have been reading, that the City of Sacramento’s Freeport Blvd Transportation Plan is a failure of vision and possibility. How so?

The city removes from all planning efforts the possibility of reducing speed limits on streets that are reconstructed, usually complete streets projects. Whatever the speed limit is before the project will be the speed limit after the project. I’ve written about this before: lower speed limits on complete streets in Sac. I get that changing posted speed limits without changing roadway design has only limited effect in lowering speeds. But we are talking about reconstructing streets, the very design changes that are necessary to effectively lower motor vehicle speeds. Yet the city refuses to consider lowering speed limits when planning reconstructed roadways. Posted speed is like a rachet, it can only increase but never decrease. Some planners and engineers go so far as to claim that the law prevents lowering of speed limits on reconstructed streets. That is a lie.

The city also refuses to consider lane reductions (also called road diets, roadway reallocation, or right-sizing) when average daily traffic counts (ADT) are above certain thresholds. It will not consider that ADT is above what it should be because the city earlier widened roadways and induced the travel that is now resulting in high ADT. Again, lane counts are like a rachet that goes only one direction. You can increase lanes, but you can’t decrease lanes, except in situations where the roadway is so obviously overbuilt that it would be ridiculous to suggest maintaining that number of lanes.

The city has a responsibility to reduce vehicle miles traveled (VMT) in the city, under state law, under SACOG guidance, and its own policy in the Mayor Climate Change Commission Report and Climate Emergency declaration. Yet in transportation planning, the city seems to be fully committed to maintaining the current levels of VMT by ensuring that the current levels of traffic are not reduced. This is climate arson.

Community input to the Freeport Blvd planning process provided high priorities: safety, economic vitality, and walkability. Yet the plan maintains motor vehicle capacity, ensuring that the community priorities will be only partially met. This is not a compromise between drivers and walkers and bicyclists. It is throwing crumbs to the walkers and bicyclists so that drivers may eat nearly the entire cake.

Freeport Blvd, today, is a suburban form. Uninviting streets, hostile walking and bicycling, many small businesses in strip malls and a few big box stores (some of them closed or failing). The built environment is an artifact of the time and way in which Sacramento grew in this direction. It is a fact. But the city, in its transportation plan, makes no effort to change or mitigate that fact. In no way does it even suggest transformation to a more vibrant and interesting place. At the simplest level, it just adds bike lanes and changes nothing else. I’m not against bike lanes, and certainly not against separated (protected) bikeways, but they are not transformative. What would be transformative is shifting Freeport towards a walking-first transportation corridor, a destination for people who live there and people who travel to there.

The city intends to add a number of new crosswalks to the corridor. That is good news, as distances between safe crossings are too great. The problem is, most of these will require extensive signalization to protect the people crossing there, because speed limits are such that a person hit by a motor vehicle will be seriously injured or killed. Lower speed limits, not just posted but enforced by design, would allow much less expensive crossings. Money matters. The city will put very little of its own funds toward these changes, depending mostly on regional, state and federal funds, which will always be too little and too slow.

This plan is only the first step in changing the roadway. Grants will be solicited for major project work. A few critical locations will be improved in the near term. But the plan as a whole is decades away from completion, particularly if the probably unnecessary section south of 35th St is included. The city has done pretty well obtaining grants for complete streets, but with an entire city full of streets needing improvement, Freeport Blvd can’t be and won’t be the only priority. Once the plan projects are complete, the street won’t likely be changed for 30 years. So 50 years from now, more or less, the roadway will look like what the city has planned today. Will it meet the needs of citizens at that time? Very, very unlikely. In the future, VMT will be and must be much lower than it is now. A much higher percentage of trips will be made by walking and bicycling. The built environment will densify, with more small businesses, though some stretches won’t make it and will fail. That’s OK. Properties with failed businesses are good candidates for infill housing, which will support those businesses remaining. But housing along a dangerous traffic sewer, as Freeport Blvd currently is and will largely remain under the city plan, is a disservice to everyone who lives there. Who wants to live on a busy arterials stroad, where you can’t let your kids outside because the risk of traffic violence is too great, and the air hazardous to breathe, and the noise of traffic is a constant psychological and health danger? Riding to the grocery store may be slightly more pleasant and somewhat more safe, but many people still won’t want to because they aren’t comfortable with regular bike lanes beside high speed traffic, and complicated intersections. People won’t want to walk during the summer because the city failed to plan for and install trees along the sidewalks.

Enough said for now. I may write some more or post others if people point out important issues that I have not addressed. Otherwise, the next post will be just before the plan goes to city council, in hopes that citizens will urge the council to reject this plan as too flawed for use. I was very disappointed that the City of Sacramento Active Transportation Commission rubber-stamped the plan and passed it along to council, but that is water under the bridge.

The city can do better, but only if a significant number of citizens press their council members to set a higher standard for transportation planning than is exhibited in the final draft plan.

Freeport roundabout(s)

Dan Allison2 Comments

Another post on the Freeport Blvd Transportation Plan. See the category Freeport Blvd for other posts.

The city has proposed a roundabout for the intersection of Freeport Blvd and Sutterville Rd E. This is a good location for a roundabout, in part because there is so much space here already that a roundabout would not encroach on other uses.

Notes: I am calling the section of Sutterville Rd to the east of Freeport ‘Sutterville Rd E’ and the section to the west of Freeport ‘Sutterville Rd W’, but these names do not reflect street addresses, since this is all East Sutterville Rd. This post introduces the idea of protected intersections along Freeport, which apparently were not considered by the city in their planning process. For more information on this design, see protected intersections and Davis protected intersection.

First, what it looks like today. As you can see, there is a huge area of wasted space in the intersection

Freeport - Sutterville E intersection existing
Freeport – Sutterville E intersection

Second, the roundabout proposed in the plan.

Freeport - Sutterville E roundabout proposed
Freeport – Sutterville E roundabout proposed, north is to the right
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Freeport trees and sidewalk buffers

Dan Allison2 Comments

Another post on the Freeport Blvd Transportation Plan. See the category Freeport Blvd for others.

So, given the need for trees to shade sidewalks along Freeport, where do they go? The answer is in the sidewalk buffer or planting strip. At one existing location along Freeport, there is an example of street trees in a sidewalk buffer, where the new Raley’s shopping center is. The photo below is from the photo essay. I don’t know whether the city required the developer to put in sidewalk buffers and wider sidewalks, or whether the developer knew this was the right thing to do and did it on their own. In any case, this is the only part of Freeport that has them, other than a short section along the airport north of Blair Ave.

The one situation in which sidewalk buffers may not be appropriate is where buildings come to the curb in dense retail areas. But there are virtually no instances of this along Freeport. Almost all buildings are set back from the sidewalk a little, or a lot. In several cases there are massive parking lots adjacent to the sidewalk, creating the kind of place where no one wants to be. So buffers and trees at least mitigate the blandness to some degree.

Freeport Blvd sidewalk buffer and trees
sidewalk buffer and trees along Freeport Blvd at Raley’s

As with any post, I look for example photos and diagrams. So I searched Google for ‘sidewalk buffer’. Lo and behold, the second item is my own post about this! It is experiences like this that make me realize the value of this blog, when other people are using my advocacy work in their advocacy work.

So, so rather than re-write the post, I’ll link to it here: sidewalk buffers. I encourage you to take a read. Trees, and the sidewalk buffers that would allow them, are probably the most important aspect of Freeport Blvd, and the most important topic that the city has neglected.

Where are the trees on Freeport?

Dan Allison2 Comments

Another post on the Freeport Blvd Transportation Plan. See the category Freeport Blvd for others.

If you take a look at the Freeport Blvd Transportation Plan, including Appendix F Design Layout, you will see that most of the existing trees are preserved. But there is no information about new trees, not in the diagrams, not in the text. In fact, the only text mention of trees, other than existing trees, is in the Community Vision (page 20, 23 in the pdf), where it says “4 IMPROVE SHADE AND COMFORT: Enhance the walking and bicycling experience along the corridor by integrating street trees to provide shade and comfort from the sun and rain”. Certainly, that is the community’s vision, but it does not seem to be the city’s vision. If it were, the plan would have addressed trees.

Given that a major objective of the plan is to make Freeport Blvd more walkable, the lack of trees and mention of trees is concerning, to say the least. When questioned about trees at the January 18 Active Transportation Commission meeting, city staff said two things: 1) we aren’t the experts in trees, so we didn’t include them, and 2) tree information will come later in the design process.

This is a classic case of planning and engineering gaslighting. The story beforehand is always, well, it’s too early in the planning process to consider that. The story later is that it is too late to consider that element of the plan, we’re already past that, the decisions have been made. Every plan goes that way. It is true that this plan is only the first step in design, and there will be more detailed design to come, but when you don’t plan for trees from the beginning, you get a roadway with too few trees. Or no trees.

Almost all the existing trees are in median strips at a few locations along the roadway. Trees in medians have some value. They make the road look prettier, they slow traffic to a slight degree, they shade pavement and slightly reduce the heat island effect. But they are not even as remotely useful as trees along sidewalks. What Freeport Blvd needs is trees adjacent to sidewalks, not median trees. But the city has nowhere reserved space for them. So they won’t be there.

Next post is about where to put the trees, adjacent to sidewalks.

Freeport Blvd photo essay

Dan Allison3 Comments

I rode Freeport Blvd on Monday to refresh my memory, because I hadn’t been along the stretch in a few months. For readers who don’t regularly use Freeport Blvd, it may help you understand the city’s Freeport Blvd Transportation Plan. Yes, Freeport, as it is, has many problems. My concern is that the plan doesn’t solve most of them. The photos below include my thoughts about various places along Freeport Blvd. See the category Freeport Blvd for other posts.

Freeport Blvd complete street

This is Freeport Blvd north of 13th Ave, showing the conversion of what was a four lane traffic sewer to a two lane street. It includes a center turn lane, which is often not needed, in what is called a 3/2 configuration, two travel lanes and one center lane. It has regular Class 2 bike lanes. The sidewalks were repaired but not widened except at McClatchy High School. This is called a complete street.

Freeport Blvd adjacent to Land Park

Freeport Blvd adjacent to Land Park park. Sacramento City College is across the road. It shows the dirt/decomposed granite walking/running path within the park, which is great, but not usable during wet weather. There should be both a sidewalk and a natural surface walking/running path adjacent. A local advocate has suggested there be a separated two-way bikeway along this section, since there are no driveways and only two streets (two branches of 14th St) along this entire stretch of the park from 13th Ave to Sutterville Rd to the west.

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Freeport & Fruitridge intersection

Dan Allison2 Comments

Another post on the Freeport Blvd Transportation Plan. See the category Freeport Blvd for others.

The plan states, page Appendix A-9, “Fruitridge Road: The left turn from Freeport Boulevard to Fruitridge Road includes two left turn lanes, which may not be needed given the turn volumes. U-turns are moderately used at this location.” Despite this statement, the plan for this intersection is to leave it essentially unchanged. The diagram from Appendix F Design Layout is below.

Freeport - Fruitridge intersection design
Freeport Blvd Transportation Plan, Freeport-Fruitridge intersection design

The same seven lanes across for the north side of the intersection (to the right in the diagram), 86 feet for a person using the crosswalk, with no pedestrian refuge in the middle. Long crosswalks like this require a long pedestrian signal to meet federal standards, which of course slows all other movements in the intersection. In an effort to ease motor vehicle traffic by maintaining unneeded lanes, the city is actually slowing down everyone at the intersection, and making traffic worse rather than better.

The same dedicated double left turn lanes southbound (from the left). The same dedicated right turn lanes which require right turning traffic to conflict with the bike lane as they merge (out of the diagram left and right). The same free-right, high-speed slip lane from Fruitridge westbound to Freeport northbound which presents a tremendous hazard to walkers, bicyclists, and drivers traveling on Freeport.

Again, the city has released a final draft plan which fails to meet the needs of the community, fails to calm traffic, and fails to keep people (walking, bicycling, and driving) safe.