The Sacramento Active Transportation Commission (SacATC) will meet this Thursday, October 15, 2026, starting at 5:30 PM, at the city council chambers. People can comment on agenda items in person at the meeting, or by making an comment ahead of time online. Though comments up through the meeting become part of the record, commission members will not see comments unless they are submitted early the day of the meeting or before.
The method for speaking in person has changed. Go to the city’s Public Participation Hub page, and then select Sacramento Active Transportation Commission (note: this page works poorly on handheld devices), and then click on the ‘View Page’ button. Select ‘Register’ to register for the meeting and to speak on an agenda item. Select ‘Comments’ to make a comment, or view other’s comments. You may also use the meeting kiosk to register in person. There are no longer speaker cards available. Once an item has been announced by the chair, it is not possible to register to speak on that item.
Select ‘Files’ to download the agenda. Within that document are links to individual agenda item documents, and these can be downloaded. All of this is much more awkward that the previous meeting mechanism. Check it out ahead of time so you can figure it out. I have made the documents for the three primary agenda items available below, so you don’t have to go through the awkward interface.
I do not have any comments to make at this time, but may tomorrow.
I have not had time to analyze Franklin Phase 3. My comments on the earlier and complete phase are at SacCity: Franklin Blvd complete street, and may be of use.
Franklin Blvd Phase 3, overall proposed improvements, slide from SacATC presentation
As mentioned in no grid: the original sin of city planning, freeways are one of the features that constrain the grid system of the central city Sacramento. Unlike the rivers, which are a natural feature, the freeways were designed to break the grid. This was a design choice by Caltrans to priority freeway travel over local travel. It doesn’t mean freeways are a bad idea, they are good and bad, but the decision to break grid streets was an intentional one, and a mistake that has harmed the city.
I was thinking of mapping all the broken grid streets, but realized there is a useful map in the Grid 2.0 presentation. Note that Grid 2.0 was superseded by Grid 3.0, and then the Downtown Mobility Plan, and then Central City Mobility Project. The focus on broken grid locations, and the goal of correcting some of them, was lost. In the map below, you can see seven locations where Business 80 broke the grid, eight locations where Hwy 50 broke the grid, and eight locations where Interstate 5 broke the grid. There was a proposal to reconnect N Street over Interstate 5, but I’ve not heard anything about that in years.
Some of the grid streets are broken in favor of freeway onramps and off-ramps. A reconfiguration of the ramps from long, long ramps to shorter (and safer) ramps could allow reconnection of some grid streets, but not most of them. The freeways, as designed and built, are a permanent blight on city livability.
13th Street is one that could be reconnected, and would have great utility because 13th, with its route through Capitol Park, is a critical north-south bikeway through the central city. Though K Street has a freeway underpass for walkers and bicyclists, a street connection at J Street or L Street would serve to reconnect Old Sacramento Waterfront (as it is called now) to the rest of the city. Currently, it is isolated by freeway, parking lots, and broken grid streets.
Worse, from a city amenity viewpoint, was that Hwy 50 broke Southside Park, splitting it into two sections, and with the W Street and X Street traffic sewers, making it unsafe and unpleasant to get from one part of the park to the other.
grid discontinuity map from Grid 2.0 presentation by ITE
There have been rumors for years of a curb management policy or program for the City of Sacramento, but nothing has surfaced. The Mobility and Sustainability Division of Public Works has a Mobility, Parking, and Curb Management page, but there is nothing on it about curb management.
I spend a lot of time in other cities, and am in San Francisco as I write this. Sacramento has much less of a problem than many other places. Ride hailing is all over San Francisco, both driver and automated, and traffic and bike lanes and bus lanes are blocked by ride hailing. San Francisco has a much greater density of retail business in many areas, and delivery vehicles do the same blocking. But Sacramento does have a problem, and that problem can be mitigated or eliminated by curb management.
As to curb colors, these are the patterns. California has much less clear code about curb colors than do most states, but to the degree it does, these are the colors.
red = no parking. Parking means getting out of your vehicle. Whether it is one second or hours, it is still parking. Red curbs may also be more restrictively signed as no standing or stopping.
yellow = commercial loading
white = passenger drop-off/pick-up
green = time limited parking. The amount of time is marked on the curb and/or signed
blue = disabled
Sacramento has recently added some painted curbs, some with marking or signing, and some simply painted. One example below, on 3rd Street at The Bernice Apartments. It is not clear whether this is a city or developer installation. The time frame is unusual, but might make sense if loading is limited to certain times (see below). I suspect that this is a white curb passenger drop-off/pick-up situation that was mis-painted and mis-labeled as yellow loading. The distinction between white and yellow is often misunderstood.
yellow curb on 3rd St, Sacramento
But the rate of painting curbs is far slower than is needed. The city is not managing curb use as it should.
Whenever the city does come up with curb management policies or programs, here is what I’d like to see:
One blue disabled parking spot per block. This should not be a free spot, as is common practice, but a paid spot just like any other. Though there are certainly low income disabled people, there are also a whole lot of upper income people that park in these free handicapped spots for hours, precluding use by other handicapped users.
At least one green time limited spot on any block with retail business that cater to come and go customers, such as coffee shops. The limit should be 10 or 15 minutes. And it should be enforced! I often see drivers parked on green curbs for long periods of time, and when I report it to 311 for enforcement, the parking officers almost alway fail to ticket. The common city view of parking is that only staying over time paid for, or blocking a private driveway, is a violation, and nothing else is.
One long yellow curb spot on any block with retail business, which does not have alley access (if alley access is available, there should not be any commercial loading on the street, at all). I don’t mean ‘long’ like semi-truck long, but long like delivery truck and van long. Semi-trucks have no place in urbanized areas, and should be prohibited. Instead, there should be transfer to smaller vehicles at logistics locations.
One white passenger drop-off/pick-up spot on any block that has residential or retail. Both ride hailing and private vehicles should be required to use these spots, and be ticketed if they double park.
Limited hours for commercial deliveries. Though this could be adjusted for the characteristics of a particular block, delivery times should be limited to 3:00 AM to 10:00 AM. 3:00 AM is after the entertainment use and parking clears out. 10:00 AM is when most businesses open, and curb space is needed for other purposes.
Regular use of yellow curbs should require a permit, with permit fees going to the same purposes as other parking fees. Yes, this needs to be changed to parking benefit districts, but no need for a separate account. Though there may be occasional instances of a delivery that is not a regular user, almost all use is regular and repeated.
Regular commercial use (ride hailing) of white curbs should require a permit, with permit fees going to the same purposes as other parking fees.
These changes would result in less regular parking on each block. I am not against regular parking, but I see these other uses as higher uses that should be accommodated. Less regular parking means less driving, which is a good thing.
The oldest parts of the City of Sacramento have a grid street pattern, meaning streets and cross-streets at regular intervals. Nearly all of the central city and much of east Sacramento have a grid. Outside that, there is a broken grid, or no grid. There are certainly constraints to a grid, such as the Sacramento River and American River, railroad tracks, and old highways that are now arterial streets, such as Stockton Blvd. And of course there are the freeways that have destroyed what grid did exist: Interstate 5, Interstate 80, Highway 99, Highway 50, cutting most local streets into two inaccessible sections.
I acknowledge that the other cities of Sacramento County, and unincorporated county, are as bad or worse than anything in the city, but I’m using the City of Sacramento as a example of a universal problem in the region. In the eastern suburbs, unincorporated Arden-Arcade, Carmichael, Fair Oaks and Orangevale, streets intentionally change directions, for example, a street that starts out north-south will end up exiting east-west to an arterial. Other streets loop back on themselves, but change names somewhere along the way. Streets that were designed wide, as through streets, suddenly end. Yes, things can be much worse.
Here is the central city grid. Not perfect, but close. This grid was largely the street layout of the original city, from 1848. The street blocks are 400 feet (122 m) on a side, supplemented by east-west alleys at 200 feet. There are some larger blocks, including the state capitol, which covers five blocks by two blocks. Many cities have a shorter block length than 400 feet, but 400 is satisfactory. Many cities have rectangular blocks, with one dimension shorter than 400 and one longer than 400.
Sacramento central city grid, Google Maps
Here is East Sacramento. Less regular, but not bad.
Sacramento, East Sacramento grid, Google Maps
Here is a section in south Sacramento. There are grid streets, Florin Road, Meadowview Road, Freeport Blvd, and 24th Street. There are even a through street within this section, 21st Street. But none of the other streets are through streets. Some are straight, and some wind around.
Sacramento, south Sacramento broken grid, Google Maps
And finally, here is the River Lake area of The Pocket. Few through streets, cul-de-sacs everywhere. No way to get from one area to the next.
Sacramento River Lake, no grid whatsoever, Google Maps
So why is this important? Grids allow travel by many different routes. They allow travel on parallel streets so that some streets can emphasize car travel (well, actually, all of them do, currently), while others are or could be for slower travel by foot and bicycle. Grids allow efficient bus routes that get people to destinations with no transfers or one transfer. Our bus system that exists is a maze of zig-zags, largely trying to make the best of a no-grid street system.
Why did this happen? In the Sacramento area, developers of high income neighborhoods (see River Lake above) wanted windy streets so that only people who live there can figure out how to get places. Cul-de-sacs galore, making sure that people from outside (‘those people’) cannot get into the neighborhood, and guaranteeing low traffic on that street, while increasing traffic on all other streets as people try to get somewhere. In middle income neighborhoods (see South Sacramento above), windy streets were designed to give the feel of a high income neighborhood. If you can’t figure out where to go, isn’t that a sign of income?
Broken grid and no-grid neighborhoods make sure that amenities such as groceries, coffee shops, and medical services, are further away. Everyone must drive. All traffic must be funneled onto larger and larger, and more dangerous streets. And isn’t that the point of these neighborhoods, a sign of wealth when you can have the fancy car that exceeds the cost of some homes, and a deep bank account for gas, or charging?
Downtown Sacramento had most of its buildings removed, replaced by state buildings and massive buildings, which is why downtown is largely dead. But the street grid is mostly still there, the bones of what could someday become a livable, functional place again. As I have said many times, midtown Sacramento is the model of what a place can be, a vibrant neighborhood with a mix of uses. The grid is in large part what allowed it to develop, and to continue to exist. I doubt that most of Sacramento will ever evolve to a more economically vibrant and livable place. Without a grid street network, it can’t.
Many people have argued that single family homes, exclusionary zoning and redlining, and suburban sprawl are the original sin. They are a sin, but not the original sin. The original sin is the lack of a grid street system.
The city allowed this, by allowing developers to design any sort of street pattern they wanted. The city could have developed a grid street system, and allowed developers to design streets within this, but they did not. They also did not require that streets in one development connect to streets in an adjacent development. The lack of a grid is a problem that will haunt us forever.
But for any new development areas, the city must design and enforce a street grid. Regular north-south and east-west streets should be on a grid of one-quarter mile (400 m). Within that grid, developers can do what they want, but they can’t break the grid. Blocks, the distance between cross streets, should be no more than 800 feet.
The street grid is a topic that crosses boundaries (ha ha) between street design standards (Public Works, Street Design Standards Amendment) and development standards (Community Development, Planning Division). I am not sure where it best belongs, but I do know that it must exist, and must be enforced, no matter what bribes (mostly in the past) or campaign contributions (modern bribes) are made.
The lack of a grid has long bothered me, but I’m posting about it now because the recent How to design for cars in people-centred places suggests that not every street needs to be multi-modal, that a ‘complete network’ of parallel routes, rather than a ‘complete street’ is a better solution, hence “Complete networks, not complete streets”. I have just started to look at the design guide, but this is something that jumped out at me in the Strong Town podcast and Streetsblog post – how do you have parallel routes when there are no parallel streets, because there is no street grid?
If you want to know more about the program, go to the workshop. If you want to support program implementation, go to the workshop. If you want to comment on camera locations, or suggest additional dangerous intersections, go to the workshop.
A recent City of Sacramento action to handicap the function of the Sacramento Active Transportation Commission (SacATC) was highlighted in a SacBee article (New Sacramento rule kept traffic safety projections out of commission presentation, SacBee 2026-09-29, Madison Smalstig) as well as an email by Isaac Gonzalez of Slow Down Sacramento, who is also chair of SacATC. If you aren’t on the Slow Down Sacramento email list, I strongly encourage you to join.
To summarize, the commission was prevented from showing a slide presentation on the annual report that they are going to present to council, and was prevented from even printing one slide that showed a horrible and accelerating trend in traffic violence fatalities in the city.
Though this action can be seen as an effort to suppress the actions and communication of SacATC, and it is, it is also part of a trend with the City of Sacramento to reduce transparency and to create the maximum distance between city council and the citizens of the city.
The Personnel and Public Employees Committee was created under the regime of disgraced City Manager Howard Chan to screen all communication from boards and commission to city council. Please understand that the entire reason for boards and commissions is to investigate details and make recommendations to the council. Council cannot possibly look into the details of every issue facing the city, so the board and commissions were created to help them with this task. Chan felt this was too much, and worked to prevent and/or corrupt this communication. This pattern has continued, unabated so far as I can tell, under the current administration of City Manager Maraskeshia Smith.
The longer lead times for submitting agendas, staff reports, and presentations are similarly intended to make it more difficult for boards and commissions to communicate with the public. The Brown Act requires agendas three days or more before meetings, and depending on interpretation, staff reports and presentations as well. This is reasonable. But the city is now requiring that everything be approved by administration 19 days before the three days. The purpose of this is to make sure that much of the information from boards and commissions never reaches the public.
The availability of documents on the city website has decreased. As tools for posting documents has made the process easier, requiring almost no staff intervention, the availability has gone done. Unless you know the specific name of a document, the search engine is unlikely to find it.
The city now requires people to generate public records requests (PRAs – Public Records Act) for documents that should logically be available to the public without request, and some of which were formally available but are no longer. PRAs sometimes lead to the city claiming that the information requested does not exist, which is a lie, or if it is eventually supplied, takes a ridiculously long period of time, generally past when the information was needed. Most governments complain about the expense and staff time required to comply with PRAs, but this is largely a self-inflicted problem. If they simply posted the information, they wouldn’t be subject to PRAs.
As a frequent user of GIS (Graphical Information Systems) data, I would expect that more and more data available in that format would be posted on the city Open Data website. However, the city ceased updating some data several years ago, even though internally the data is still being updated. There are datasets that the city uses internally, but have never been made public. The Streets for People Active Transportation Plan mapped planned bicycle and walking facilities, but it took more than a year and repeated requests from the public for it to show up.
On August 25, I attended the ACLU Defending Democracy Tour in Sacramento. The main topic of the evening was defending election integrity (Election Safeguarding), which as we all know is under attack by the felon Trump’s administration. But a highlight was the Driving While Black and Brown report (summary) about bias in the City of Sacramento Police Department against black drivers.
ACLU Driving While Black and Brown title
The data comes from AB 953 Racial Identity and Profiling Act (RIPA) of 2015 database, which law enforcement must report to the California Attorney General’s Office. It is worth reading the report for details, data, and charts, but to summarize:
Blacks are stopped more often than whites, 33% of all stops while only 12% of population. Blacks are stopped more often for non-moving (in other words, not related to traffic safety, or much less related), than for moving violations, particularly in relation to white drivers. Blacks are much more likely than whites to be searched, but citations or arrests resulting from searches are much less likely than for white drivers. For Latino drivers, the disparities are less pronounced, but still present.
In other words, SacPD uses traffic stops of black and brown drivers for pretextual reasons, in an effort to find crime unrelated to driving, but if that is the purpose, it is failing.
I’ll make two speculations: 1) white drivers are much more likely to be in violation of traffic law and other laws than blacks, and 2) the continuance of such an ineffective pattern of traffic stops is intended to oppress blacks rather than increase public safety. The phrase ‘driving while black‘ is well known, and the pattern is also well documented across the US. Charles T. Brown coined the term ‘arrested mobility‘ to describe how law enforcement and other governmental actions suppress the ability of blacks to travel freely and safely.
The report only analyzed stops of motor vehicle drivers. It did not look at stops of walkers (pedestrians) and bicyclists and other users of micro-mobility. I suspect an analysis would reveal the same pattern.
The report makes the following Recommendation: These racial disparities are damning and paint a clear picture that the Sacramento Police Department uses minor traffic violations as a pretext to stop and search Black and Latino drivers. The ACLU of Northern California recommends that Sacramento adopt a policy prohibiting its police department from stopping drivers for non-safety related violations, such as tinted windows and failure to illuminate a license plate. Other California cities that have implemented such reforms have reduced racial disparities in traffic enforcement with no negative impact on public safety.
The Sacramento Active Transportation Commission (SacATC) will meet this Thursday, September 17, 2026, starting at 5:30 PM, at the city council chambers. People can comment on agenda items in person at the meeting, or by making an comment ahead of time online. Though comments up through the meeting become part of the record, commission members will not see comments unless they are submitted early the day of the meeting.
The method for speaking in person has changed. Go to the city’s Public Participation Hub page, and then select Sacramento Active Transportation Commission (note: this page works poorly on handheld devices), and then click on the ‘View Page’ button. Select ‘Register’ to register for the meeting and to speak on an agenda item. Select ‘Comments’ to make a comment, or view other’s comments. You may also use the meeting kiosk to register in person. There are no longer speaker cards available. Once an item has been announced by the chair, it is not possible to register to speak on that item.
Select ‘Files’ to download the agenda. Within that document are links to individual agenda item documents, and these can be downloaded. All of this is much more awkward that the previous meeting mechanism. Check it out ahead of time so you can figure it out. I have made the documents for the three primary agenda items available below, so you don’t have to go through the awkward interface.
The City of Sacramento has recently installed lane channelizers at new locations in the central city. The three I’ve noticed are shown below. If you are aware of others, please let me know. The four locations that have been in place for several years are 15th Street (southbound) at O Street and at R Street, and 16th Street (northbound) at R Street and O Street. See Strong SacTown: Things that work: traffic posts and traffic calming measures, Lane Channelization, for these older locations. There are other locations where vertical delineators separate opposing lanes of traffic, which I call centerline hardening; for another post.
19th St at O St, channelization with vertical delineators21st St at O St, channelization with vertical delineators, also yield markersW St at 8th St, channelization with vertical delineators, also yield markers
Given that the study was completed and adopted by city council in February 2021, the exact nature of the projects at each school site might now be different, but it is worth looking at what was recommended at that time. I looked at The MET Sacramento High School (pages 33-36), since it is on my morning walk. The diagram is below, followed by my comments.
diagram of improvements for The MET Sacramento, from SacCity VZ School Safety Study 2021
W Street at 8th St: The study missed what I consider to be one of the most significant safety hazards for the school, which is that there was, at that time, no safe crossing of W Street, one-half block south of the school, which would be the source area for probably half the students at the school. As part of an unrelated project (so far as I know), the crosswalks over W Street were made safer by high visibility crosswalk markings, vertical delineator lane channelizers, and RRFBs (Rapid Rectangular Flashing Beacon). I would not recommend installation of RRFBs, since most drivers ignore them, particularly on high speed roadways such as W Street, nevertheless, it is an attempt to make the crossing safer. These improvements may have been done for the heavy walker use during the Sunday farmers market, and Southside Park, but they are a value to the school. Since these crosswalks are only a half block from the school, they should be yellow. If the possible solution to parking is “…consider implementing a parking program at the W/X Parking Lot”, these crosswalks are even more important to student safety.
8th Street & V Street: The intersection of 8th Street and V Street should have school crosswalks (yellow) on both the north side (as shown) and the south side. The south side is constrained by a heritage tree on the west side of 8th Street, but a shifted alignment is possible. All crosswalks should be high visibility zebra pattern, not parallel lines. There is no excuse for excluding a crosswalk on this school corner. As mentioned, RRFBs are not safe, so should not be considered for this intersection. What should be installed are curb extensions on the west, northeast, and southeast corners. Full daylighting must be implemented on V Street westbound and 8th Street northbound (AB 413). V Street has a 15 foot, very faded, red curb, rather than 20 feet.
V Street & 9th Street: Curb extensions should be installed in the northwest and southwest corners. All crosswalks should be high visibility, not parallel lines. Curb extensions on both ends of the section of V Street between 8th Street and 9th Street would further communicate that this is a slow area, not a through route. Full daylighting must be implemented on 9th Street southbound and V Street eastbound.
Sidewalks: In addition to the repair noted for 8th Street east side sidewalk, areas officially designated for drop-off/pick-up should have hard surfaces in the sidewalk buffer (planting strip). Where it is possible to widen sidewalks without reducing the sidewalk buffer, sidewalks on all side of the campus should be eight feet rather than 5-1/2 feet (on V Street) and six feet (on 8th Street). However, the 8th Street width is narrowed to 37 inches for a tree, which is less than the required ADA/PROWAG 48 inches. The damaged sidewalk on 8th Street has been repaired.
Bicycle facilities: The city has a partially funded project to extend a parking protected separated bikeway on 9th Street from its current terminus at Q Street to Broadway (9th Street Separated Bikeway Project). If consistent with the existing facility, this would be on the east side of 9th Street. A two-stage turn box will need to be installed at V Street, and perhaps Victorian Alley, so that southbound bicyclists can wait for a gap in traffic and make a safe turn onto V Street or the alley. The limited bike racks are located off Victorian Alley, which complicates ingress and egress, but can be addressed.
