Strong SacTown has created a great visual introduction to quick-build fixes for street safety, posted to Instagram. I encourage you to take a look. The series includes curb extensions and modal filters (traffic diverters), both quick build with temporary materials, and permanent installations. Of course temporary materials should eventually be replaced with permanence, but it is better to get something on the ground now rather than waiting for the planning and money it takes for permanent installations. We are experiencing an epidemic of traffic violence, and even small actions can reduce fatalities and injuries. These installations are also called tactical urbanism, though the definition of quick-build and tactical urbanism is not identical.
Some additional ideas that are not always thought of as traffic calming.
Street Design
We can design better streets to begin with so that the need for traffic calming is reduced. Example one is the wide medians in Boulevard Park, which reduces turning movements to the intersections while providing a pleasant environment. Example two is wide sidewalk buffers in the Poverty Ridge area, where narrow streets reduce vehicle speeds, and the sidewalk buffers provide a pleasant environment. I have watched motor vehicle drivers passing each other on these narrow streets in the Poverty Ridge area. They are slowing to about 5 mph to pass. This is a traffic violence reduction design in action!
wide street median, 22nd St at C St in Boulevard Parknarrow street with wide sidewalk buffers, V St at 21st St in Poverty RidgeRead More »
CalBike is supporting SB 960, the Complete Streets bill (Senator Scott Wiener). See their post below. An earlier post here has some information about the Speeding and Fatality Emergency Reduction (SAFER) on California Streets package: Senator Wiener introduces road safety bills.
With the establishment of the regional tolling authority, Capitol Area Regional Tolling Authority (CARTA), a joint powers authority (JPA), the opportunity exists for existing HOV (high occupancy vehicle) lanes to tolled lanes, specifically Express Lanes. HOV lanes had their time, but that time is past. HOV lanes are routinely violated. If you stand on an overpass and look down at vehicles in the HOV lane, you will see that many of them are single occupant vehicles, not high occupancy. You could also do the same while driving, but I’d rather you kept your eye on the road. The HOV 2+, used in the Sacramento region, which requires two occupants, is a pretty low bar, but even that is not achieved by many drivers. HOV lanes, being free, also generate no funds to maintain the lanes.
The SACOG region current has about 144 lane-miles of HOV lanes. It has no HOT (high occupancy toll) lanes, and no Express Lanes (all vehicles tolled, though toll may vary with occupancy or time of day). The map below (pdf) shows the existing HOV lanes (blue), and the HOV lane now being constructed as part of the Fix50 project. I have seen a SACOG map of the intended Managed Lane Network, but am unable to find it at the moment.
While the Yolo 80 project initiated the current tolling effort, SACOG in the 2020 MTP/SCS, identified managed lanes as a key component of both managing traffic and paying for maintenance of the system.
The MTP/SCS identifies these policies directly related to tolling:
POLICY 11: Initiate a leadership role in testing and piloting roadway pricing mechanisms, such as facility-based tolling and mileage-based fees, in partnership with the state, federal, and local agencies and private sector organizations.
POLICY 12: Take steps to implement tolling or pricing of specific lanes on major facilities, such as freeways, to improve traffic management, reliability, and operations of those facilities and to help raise funding for the cost of building and maintaining large capital investments.
POLICY 13: All new major expansion projects on the region’s freeways and expressways should be planned for eventual deployment of pricing options to both manage demand and provide a financing mechanism for capital costs. Any pricing strategy pursued should be sensitive to changes in roadway demand during different parts of the day (peak/off-peak) with the objective of managing demand and providing travel choice.
POLICY 14: Revenues generated from facility-based pricing should be used to build and maintain a regional network of paid express lanes and, where surplus revenue is available, on strategic transit services (e.g., express buses) or other mobility solutions that can reduce vehicle miles traveled and provide multiple travel options along priced corridors.
SACOG also has Managed Lane Network webpage, which includes Frequently Asked Questions.
I propose that all HOV lanes in the Sacramento region be converted to Express Lanes within a five year period, and that tolling be managed by CARTA. The reason for five years is that it will take about that long to do the public hearings required by law, to purchase and install the tolling infrastructure, and to determine the amount of tolls and any discounts offered for occupancy or time of day.
There are now so may types of vehicles that might lay claim to discounts that it would be better to charge the same for every vehicle. The road mileage charge, which is being considered by the state, could vary by type of vehicle, particularly to charge by weight which directly corresponds to wear and tear on the roadway, as well as the amount of tire and brake dust generated.
Converting HOV lanes to Express Lanes is the first step. The second step is to convert any lanes in excess of two per direction to Express Lanes (the basic two would remain free, for a period of time), and eventually to toll all lanes on all freeways and bridges. Freeways and bridges are incredibly expensive infrastructure to build and maintain, and users of the freeways and bridges should be paying for this, not the general taxpayer, many of whom never drive (though they do derive some benefit from freight traffic).
For additional posts on managed lanes, see category ‘managed lanes‘.
The ‘share the road’ sign, which has been very popular with traffic engineers, is NOT in the 2023 MUTCD. So this sign is dead, and a well deserved death. The ‘share the road’ sign was often interpreted by drivers to mean, bicyclists must share the road with motor vehicles, or in less polite terms, “get out of my way, the sign says so”. The share the road diamond shaped sign was never a legal MUTCD sign, though they were and are quite common.
W16-1P sign, which used to say ‘share the road’ now says ‘in road’, as in, bicycles in roadway. The left sign is common, the middle sign can be used, and the right sign is for temporary traffic control (TTC). Since this new sign content replaces the old with the same sign designation, I take it to mean that the old sign may no longer be used at all, and must be replaced by the new sign.
W16-1PW16-1aPW16-1P for TTC
The plaque is not used by itself, but with the W11-1 bicycle sign, below. Though the yellow version of the W11-1/W16-1P assembly is permitted, this sign would more likely be used at TTC in a construction zone.
MUTCD W11-1/W16-1P assembly sign ‘bicycles in road’
Outside of construction zones, the preferable sign would be MUTCD R9-20 ‘bikes allowed use of full lane’, below, and this sign can also be used in construction zones. This sign is similar to the old MUTCD R4-11 sign, which is no longer in the MUTCD.
MUTCD R9-20 ‘bicycles allowed use of full lane’
Only in a few cases does the MUTCD require replacement of existing signs, but does require that the current sign be used in any new installation.
The new MUTCD recognizes the green painted bicycle lanes and green dotted bicycle lanes (often called skip marking) through conflict areas such as merges and intersections. Unfortunately, it did not drop recognition of the ‘sharrow’ shared lane marking. Though the sharrow can be legitimately used to show a bicyclist path in confusing locations, it has generally been used to bias roadways against bicyclists and to encourage motorists to fail to yield to bicyclists in the roadway. Maybe next time!
The MUTCD now has an entire chapter devoted to bicycles, Part 9: Traffic Control for Bicycle Facilities. This is progress, even if less than desired.
The 11th edition of the Manual for Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) was released in December by FHWA (Federal Highway Administration), so is the 2023 version. The update included solicited comments from the public for the first time, as previously it had been solely the work of traffic engineer insiders. As a result, it is better than the previous version, but still has many unsafe practices included. Though it is supposed to be only about signs and pavement markings, it grades into roadway design, with an emphasis on high speed freeways. Much of it should be limited to highways, but it is regularly applied, or mis-applied, to local streets.
I have been focused on Part 6: Temporary Traffic Control, because it relates to the City of Sacramento work zone policy update. The diagrams are much easier to digest than the text, but the text is also critical. Most of the text and diagrams relate to freeways and expressways, where sidewalks and bike facilities are absent, but it does have some information that affects walking and bicycling. The document uses the phrase ‘shall’ to indicate that a practice must be followed, however, the entire document is prefaced with allowance and encouragement to use engineering judgement. Other terms such as guidance and support are used, for ‘good ideas’ but not requirements. It is very unlikely that I will ever read the entire document; it is 1,150 pages!
California has in the past adopted its own version of the federal MUTCD, the CA-MUTCD. The current California version is 2014, and it took the state five years to develop this version and get it approved. Hopefully it will take far less time this go-round. The California version deletes some text and diagrams from the federal, adds some diagrams, and adds quite a bit of text. In most case, the California version specifies clearer or safer information, but not always. In some cases the California version has been included in the new federal version, so does not need to vary. I have not seen any announcement from Caltrans about a state update.
Support governance options with one Caltrans voting member, but not two
Support inclusion of Sacramento Transportation Authority as the Sac county agency
Tolling advances user pays concept, which transportation advocates support
If the JPA had been in place, Fix50 project would have had toll lanes rather than HOV: HOV lanes don’t work for management because they are routinely violated
Support does not indicate that I support adding lanes in Yolo, but if lanes are added, they should be tolled
Questions about JPA membership, board members and voting are probably best answered by proportional representation based on tolled lane miles rather than county representation, which is more consistent with citizen representation; this would also entice counties to add or convert tolled lanes so they could be part of the process and benefits
Conversion of HOV lanes and general purpose lanes to tolled lanes will be required in the future to maintain our very expensive highway system, so this is a start
Brian Abbanat of YoloTD also spoke.
Several board members spoke, and to summarize and paraphrase their comments:
Rich Desmond and Eric Guerra supported a lanes miles voting idea
Karina Talamantes expressed concern but seemed satisfied by the answers
Bret Daniels expressed the standard ‘I don’t want to pay anything’ and tolling is for rich Tesla people
Phil Serna asked about safety of adjacent lanes, SACOG responded that safety can be part of the infrastructure and/or tolling design; I don’t think the idea of separation on the causeway has come up before; also asked about detection and enforcement
Eric Guerra said benefit or presentation is raising awareness
Patrick Hume actually said that eventually we will need to toll not just lanes but entire facilities
Overall, the concerns of the board were mainly that Sacramento County be treated equitably in terms of tolled projects, design of tolls, and distribution of toll revenue; several people also commented that the focus on excess revenue may be premature since it isn’t clear that there will be excess revenue, and some of it is already dedicated to mitigation measures.
Kevin Bewsey presented on SacTA’s role in the JPA, including how votes would be handled.
Though no motion was made on the issue, nor any vote taken, the consensus of the board seems to be:
Support for creation of the JPA
Support for creating tolled lanes in Sacramento County
Yes to SacTA being the agency for Sacramento County
Yes to appointing members of the SacTA board to the JPA board, probably with one county representative and one city representative (under the staff recommended governance structure, SACOG would appoint another from its own board, and from Sacramento County or a city within)
Concern about the governance model treatment of Sacramento County, and concern about a voting methodology that is equitable for Sacramento County, but willingness to allow some uncertainty here for the time being (the voting document created by SACOG was not presented, but was discussed since several SacTA board members are also SACOG board members)
map of potential tolled lanes in the SACOG region
Note: I am unsure of the source of this map. It was referred to as being in the 2020 SCS, but I don’t find it there. Apologies for the low resolution, it was extracted from the SACOG presentation today, not from an original source.
For additional posts on managed lanes in general, this regional tolling authority, and the Yolo 80 project, see category ‘managed lanes‘.
The proposal for a tolling authority JPA for the Sacramento region came before a special meeting the SACOG Transportation Committee yesterday. Agenda item 2 was to recommend to the SACOG Board that the JPA effort move forward, and that was passed after a whole lot of information and even more discussion. The reason for it coming back is that several options for governance membership are now included, which were not available in December. The tolling authority would be called Capital Area Regional Tolling Authority (CARTA). The meeting can be viewed on YouTube, and the supporting documents are available from SACOG.
presentation page on tolling JPA governance options
For reasons that were not clear to me, SACOG staff added an addendum to the item at the last minute, Evaluation of Voting Options, about how votes might be allocated on use of excess revenue. At least one-third of the meeting time was taken up by discussing this issue, though it was not to be voted on, and is not even relevant in the near future. It will be years before there is any excess revenue to be spent, there will not likely be a large amount of excess revenue, and there is already a long list of mitigations to be funded by excess revenue that are part of the Yolo 80 project. Just when the committee was ready to move on from this topic, SACOG staff brought it up again. Argh!
It is typical of government councils or boards, when composed of more than one government agency, to spend an absurd amount of time haggling over membership. The situation is created when these boards adopt a one-member/one-vote policy, where the vote of each member weighs equally with each other. This sounds like representative government, analogous to one-person/one-vote that our democracy is founded on (with the exception of the US Senate, of course). But it is NOT analogous, and it is NOT representative. Smaller agencies have an outsized affect on the outcome, which is the case of transportation related boards means that smaller cities and rural areas have a much larger voice than they would have if voting were population weighted. We recognize this in creating city council districts, supervisor district, legislative districts, and US House of Representative districts, where each district has an approximately equal number of people. And it is why we do redistricting, so that this balance is maintained over time as population shifts. But for some reason, when it comes to transportation, the usual solution is to give each entity the same voice. I believe this is wrong. In most cases, voting should be population weighted.
In the case of the tolling authority, however, I believe that membership and voting should be weighted by tolled lane miles. This means that initially, only Yolo County, through YoloTD, would have that voice, and other counties would gain that voice over time as they added tolled lane miles. It would make sense to add membership and voting rights at the beginning of construction, not at opening of the toll facility, since decisions about tolling amounts, discounts or exceptions, and hours would start to be made at that point. Since Sacramento County has the largest number of freeways likely to be eventually tolled, it would end up with the highest membership and weighted voting, but not at this time.
Caltrans spend an inordinate amount of time in the meeting defending their right to one or two voting memberships. They had a long list of expertise they could provide, though when challenged to put a dollar value on in-kind or contracted work, was flummoxed. Though both Caltrans District 3 denied it, it was pretty clear to me that they had their eye on excess revenue for future capacity expansion projects. Caltrans has never really had to justify its work or existence to anyone, and when challenged to do so, is quite inept at it.
I spoke at the meeting, the only member of the public to do so. My points were:
Support creation of regional tolling JPA
Support governance options with one Caltrans voting member, not two
Support inclusion of Sacramento Transportation Authority as Sac county agency
Voting options for excess revenue can be deferred because there likely won’t be any for a while
Tolling advances user pays concept, which transportation advocates support
HOV lanes don’t work for management because they are routinely violated
Support does not indicate that I support adding lanes in Yolo, but if lanes are added, they should be tolled
For additional posts on managed lanes in general, this regional tolling authority, and the Yolo 80 project, see category ‘managed lanes‘.
These are my posts on Yolo 80 Managed Lanes Project, or related and relevant. The category ‘managed lanes‘ will surface most of these posts, and future ones if there are any. My main purpose is to inform the public so we will be better informed for the next project (and there will be a next project). The only thing that might stop the Yolo 80 project is a lawsuit or lack of funds. Public opinion will not stop it.
I now will get back to other issues that I’ve been neglecting while focused on Yolo 80 and managed lanes.
All-lanes tolling means that all lanes of a freeway or bridge are tolled, or priced. Freeways and bridges are incredibly expensive to build and maintain, even if they are not way over budget as most bridges and many freeways are. Gas tax or road charge (road charge) will never be enough to pay for these infrastructure projects and maintenance. Therefore, more than half of the cost is shifted onto taxpayers who use less of these facilities, or don’t use them at all. In the future, either more and more taxpayer funds will go to keeping these facilities in state of good repair, or they will deteriorate, which is already happening in many places. The solution is to have the users of such facilities pay the full price of such facilities.
Caltrans approach to transportation is to continually build more and to under-maintain what they already have. Anyone who says the era of big, expensive bridge and freeway projects is at an end doesn’t know Caltrans. Caltrans is like the heroin addict who needs ‘just one more hit, and then I’ll quit’. The only solution is to have Caltrans go ‘cold turkey’, ceasing all freeway expansions and focusing on maintenance. Of course most Caltrans engineers would be suddenly superfluous, and that it the real issue, that freeway and bridge building is just an employment program for engineers, having little to do with meeting the needs of the traveling public.
MTC (Metropolitan Transportation Commission) is the Municipal Planning Organization, MPO, for the nine county Bay Area, similar to SACOG in the Sacramento region. MTC is considering all-lane tolling in a study to determine how to fund maintenance of freeways. I encourage you to view the MTC presentation at the SPUR Digital Discourse in January 2023 (https://www.spur.org/sites/default/files/2023-01/NGFS_SPUR_Jan2023.pdf). The best summary page is below. Keep in mind that this is a long term study, and solutions might not be implemented before 2035. Nevertheless, the Sacramento region could learn a lot from the study, and even implement some ideas before 2035. Other MTC pages and documents of interest: Express Lanes START, Next Generation Bay Area Freeways Study, Bay Area Express Lanes, and Open Road Tolling. Yes, Sacramento is not the bay area, but anyone who claims we can’t learn from each other is stupid.
Note that it says ‘in Transit-Rich Corridors’ for two of the options. Sacramento currently has three corridors that might be considered transit-rich: Capitol Corridor between Sacramento and the Bay Area (if frequency were improved), light rail to Watt/I-80 for I-80 (if access and connections were improved), and light rail to Folsom for Hwy 50 (if access and connections were improved, and after 15-minute service to Folsom is implemented). I-5 does not have an alternate transit corridor. None of these are comparable to transit-rich corridors in the bay area provided by BART, Caltrain, Capitol Corridor, and several high frequency and BRT-ish bus services. To achieve this level of transit-rich in the Sacramento region will require funds beyond that which might be available from a new sales tax measure (which has been delayed until 2026, or beyond). I believe that tolling/pricing is the only practical source of funds that will allow our region to develop transit rich corridors parallel to our freeways, and beyond, as well as maintaining what we have. Note: I can’t find an official definition of high frequency rail, so I’m going to say 30 minutes during peak times and 60 minutes at all other times. Capitol Corridor and San Joaquins do not achieve this yet.
I believe that all-lane tolling is the best ultimate solution. Freeways should not be free. The illusion that they are free to use is the same that biases motor vehicle drivers over all other modes and users. The money is coming from somewhere, so the question is, is it coming from the users of the freeways, or from everyone? For individuals, paying for what they use would cause them to use less, and shift travel to other modes. Yes, people would still drive, but less than they do now. For freight, paying true costs would no doubt increase the price of goods transported by truck. Truck freight traffic is highly subsidized, most prominently by not making trucks pay their share of road damage. Rail freight is not directly subsidized, though in a sense accepting the diesel pollution, disruption of travel across rail corridors, and dominance over passenger rail are indirect subsidies.
Below is a map of the SACOG region showing freeways, rail, and high frequency transit (light rail and bus). If you squint hard, you may be able to pick out the transit. So the following map shows the area focused on Davis to Folsom. These are sketch maps meant to give a general idea, so pdfs are not provided, and I intend to update and refine the maps.
map of freeways, rail and high frequency transitmap of freeways, rail and high frequency transit, focused on Davis to Folsom
Road charge is not a tolling system. It charges per mile driven, no matter what the classification of roads (freeway, arterial, collector, local). The California gas tax funds maintenance of mostly large infrastructure, bridges and freeways, but to a lesser degree surface arterials, collectors and local roads. In every place in California, the gas tax, as well as motor vehicle fees, pays for only about half of the cost of roadways. The rest is paid for at the county and city level, by all taxpayers regardless of how much they drive, or even if they drive. As such, transportation funding is in part a subsidy to motor vehicle drivers by people who don’t drive. The same is true at the federal level, where gas tax accounts for less than half of the highway trust fund. The inflation adjusted yield of federal gas tax has been declining since 1994.
A road charge, which drivers pay when they actually use the roadways, is an equitable system because every driver can choose, to some degree, to drive more or less. Though many low income people live in locations where access to jobs and other destinations is difficult without a car, there is always some choice involved. That doesn’t mean there are no equity implications, but a road charge is definitely more equitable than the gas tax because high income people can afford higher gas mileage or electric vehicles, whereas low income people cannot.
Many road charge proposals charge all vehicles the same per-mile rate. This is not equitable. The damage to pavement, and the pollution generated by tire and brake wear, is directly related to the weight of the vehicle. Big rig trucks cause many times more damage to roadways, and produce many time more tire and brake dust, than passenger vehicles. And large SUVs, so popular these days, also produce much more roadway wear and tear and tire and brake dust. And of course since electric vehicles weight considerably more than fossil fuel vehicles, they also produce more. Therefore, road charges should be ‘weighted’ by the weight of the vehicle. This information is available for every vehicle, as it is required when registering; yes, people can modify to create heavier weight, but the initial weight is close enough. Caltrans claims that all vehicles under 10,000 lbs GVW cause the same amount of road damage, even the elephantine electric Hummer, but this doesn’t pass the smell test. The standard calculation is that road wear goes up as the square (conservatively; fourth power is well documented for heavy trucks) of the weight. So the Hummer (9500 lbs) causes about 100 times the damage of a Prius (3000 lbs). Even at the conservative second power, it causes 10 times as much damage. Heavier vehicles of course also require that bridges be built for heavier loads, increasing their built cost as well as maintenance.
California has carried out one road charge pilot, a demonstration for different charging mechanisms, and is soon to start another pilot. It is hard to say when a road change might be implemented across the state. It has a lot of opposition from drivers who think the roadways should be free and that others should pay instead, or that gas tax covers infrastructure needs, which is only partially does.
San Diego County (SANDAG MPO) was slated to start a road charge for that county, but the board chickened out and removed it from the regional transportation plan draft. However, it is unlikely the plan will be accepted by the state unless it is either returned, or a viable alternative is proposed (KPBS: SANDAG board nixes ‘road usage charge’ from transportation plan).
It is a universal truth that drivers don’t want to pay the true cost of their driving. An appropriately designed road charge comes closer to the true cost than anything else.
A reminder: A road change is different from tolling/pricing. The road charge applies to all roadways at all times. Tolling applies to high cost infrastructure such as bridges and freeways, and may vary with time or other criteria.
Getting Around Sacramento 