South Sacramento Vision Zero

Vision Zero Kick-Off MeetingWALKSacramento and other partners are hosting a Vision Zero Kick-Off Meeting on Wednesday, January 14 in south Sacramento, part of the ongoing Building Healthy Communities project. This is the first event in Sacramento, and I encourage you to participate, even if you don’t reside or work in south Sacramento. A city, county and region can be judged by how it treats its most vulnerable citizens, and there is no doubt that walking (and bicycling) safely is a major justice challenge for south Sacramento. Click on the thumbnail at right to view the flier.

From WALKSacramento’s email:

You are invited to join WALKSacramento on January 14, 2015 as we launch “Vision Zero” in South Sacramento.
Vision Zero aims to reduce pedestrian and bicycle fatalities to ZERO by improving infrastructure, education, and enforcement.  We’re starting a Vision Zero project in South Sacramento because we know that it is within our power to prevent these tragedies on our streets.
We need better street design, better regulations, and better enforcement.
Let’s start talking about what we can do to help make Sacramento streets safer.
For more information and to RSVP, please contact Emily Alice Gerhart, egerhart@walksacramento.org

Vision Zero, which started in Sweden, is now a wordwide effort to eliminate pedestrian, bicyclist and motor vehicle fatalities. In the United States, New York and San Francisco are leaders, but the idea is now being talked about nearly everywhere, including Sacramento.

A Vision Zero for Cities Symposium was held in November in New York City, with attendance by a few people from the Sacramento region. Transportation Alternatives has posted the Collectively Drafted Statement of Principles from that symposium, and Streetsblog USA has a good summary of the event at What Would a National Vision Zero Movement Look Like?

News summary December 14

Crash, crash, crash

NotAnAccidentI don’t know whether the term accident has a new-found popularity, or whether I’m just more sensitive to it the last week, but it seems like everywhere I look in the news media, there it is, the term accident. I’m talking here about use for motor vehicles, bicycles, and pedestrians.

The term accident implies that no one was at fault, it just happened, an act of nature. But nothing that occurs on the roadways is an accident. Someone caused it, or someone contributed to it.

#NotAnAccident (yes, I realize that this twitter tag gets used for other things, but I haven’t thought of a better one)

I have been using the term crash in place of accident for several years. However, several people have commented that crash may be more appropriate to a single user situation, as in, the car crashed into a tree, or the bicyclist crashed on slippery pavement. The word collision implies two or more users, as in, a collision between a motor vehicle and a bicycle or pedestrian. But I’m not yet entirely happy with those definitions either. Incident has also been suggested, but that seems to clinical to me, almost a valueless opposite of accident.

Here are some links:

News summary December 7

Carnage

Other

News summary November 30

Carnage

Other

One-way streets, again

I’m glad to see the idea of converting one-way streets to two-way streets to improve livability and safety is back in the news: More than one way (Sacramento News & Review 2014-11-27).

The reasons given, by Chris Morfas, William Burg, Jim Brown, Dave Saalsaa, and Emily Baime Michaels are all good, strong reasons for conversion.

The comments by Sparky Harris are a little disingenuous. The city already has a plan to convert one-way to two-way, documented in the 2006 Central City Two-Way Conversion Study Final Environmental Impact Statement (no long available on the city’s website, but I have a copy of this large document if you want it). It is interesting that it is not longer on the website. Eight years ago the changes in driving and living habit were starting to become obvious, and even at that time, it was clear that there were considerable benefits from conversion. Except for a very few streets that were converted when they were resurfaced, nothing has been done. Now another study? I’d rather see more action and less study. Yes, some conversions will not have benefits that are as strong, and some will be controversial, but converting many of the streets is “low-hanging” fruit, something that should already be underway and not awaiting more study.

I’ve written about this idea in several posts:

Active Transportation Program (ATP) in region

This is not fresh news, but I just realized that I had not posted about grants in the Sacramento region under the Active Transportation Program cycle 1 awards in 2014.

Regional grants from the statewide program:

  • PLA, Roseville, Downtown Roseville Class 1 Trails, $2,547K
  • SAC, Elk Grove, Lower Laguna Creek Open Space Preserve Trail, $1,778K
  • SAC, Sacramento County, Howe Ave Sidewalk Infill and Bike Lane Improvements, $1,853K
  • SAC, San Juan USD, SRTS, $250K
  • YOL, Davis, SRTS Program, $562K
  • YOL, Woodland, 2014 SRTS, $539K
  • YUB, Marysville, SRTS Project & Programs, $489K

SACOG region grants:

  • ELD, El Dorado County Transportation Commission, Western Slope Bicycle Travel Opportunities Map $50K
  • PLA, City of Auburn, Nevada Street Pedestrian & Bicycle Facilities $799K
  • PLA, City of Colfax, North Main Street Bike Route Project $264K
  • SAC, City of Galt, South Galt Safe Routes to Schools $1,800K
  • SAC, City of Rancho Cordova, Mather Rails to Trails Project $2,235K
  • SAC, Sacramento County, El Camino Avenue Phase 2 – Street and Sidewalk Improvements $1,692K
  • SAC, City of Folsom, Oak Parkway Trail Undercrossing and Johnny Cash Trail Connection Project $992K
  • SUT, City of Yuba City, Franklin Road Improvements $313K
  • YOL, City of West Sacramento, Citywide Bike Lane Gap Closures $525K
  • YUB, Yuba County, Ella Elementary School Safe Routes to School Project $1,195K

There are also three projects on the SACOG contingency list.

Liestal Row shared space

Edible Pedal in Liestal Row
Edible Pedal in Liestal Row

Shared space is a type of roadway that is common in Europe, found in a few places in the United States, and so far as I know, only one place in Sacramento. The concept is that pedestrians, bicyclist, and motor vehicles can mix without having to have set-aside areas defined by curbs and painted bike lanes.

In Sacramento, Liestal Row, an alley between L Street and Capitol Avenue, and 17th Street and 18th Street, is the example. The alley was reconstructed with sidewalk areas defined by smooth concrete and roadway areas defined by bricks, however, there are no curbs in between and no limitations that keep the modes separate. The two businesses in the alley, Edible Pedal and Old Soul, spill out into the alley, and people often stand around in conversation. Often vehicles (including bicycles) have to thread their way between other users. What makes the alley work is that motor vehicle drivers are moving at a very slow speed, and do not have priority over other users. I’ve seen the uncertainty in the eyes of drivers negotiating the space, and that is exactly what makes it safe for everyone, the uncertainty that leads to paying attention instead of making assumptions or driving distracted.

Read More »

comments on Transportation Impacts Analysis

I’ve commented on the California Office of Planning and Research’s (OPR) Updating Transportation Impacts Analysis in the CEQA Guidelines: Preliminary Discussion Draft of Updates to the CEQA Guidelines Implementing Senate Bill 743 (Steinberg, 2013), below. OPR’s page is Developing Alternatives to Level of Service, which includes the downloadable discussion draft. Climate Plan has a good if too brief analysis at Support a stronger law to reduce greenhouse gases and fight climate change! If there are other good resources, please let me know.

The deadline for comments is this Friday, November 21!

  1. I completely agree with removal of level of service analysis and the statement “A project’s effect on automobile delay does not constitute a significant environmental impact.”
  2. I fully support subdivision (b)(1) use of VMT analysis.
  3. I fully support subdivision (b)(2) which states that “For example, projects that are primarily designed to improve safety or operations would not typically be expected to create significant impacts. The same is true of pedestrian, bicycle and transit projects, including those that require reallocation or removal of motor vehicle lanes.”
  4. I fully support Subdivision (b)(4) which states that “a lead agency would be expected to consider vehicle miles traveled that extend beyond the lead agency’s political boundaries.”
  5. Appendix E: Estimating VMT From Roadway Capacity Increasing Projects (of the discussion draft) is useful and has an appropriate level of detail for initial use, but detail and specificity may need to be increased in the future.
  6. The draft uses the terms “major transit stops” and “high quality transit corridors” without defining the terms. What frequency of service, hours of service, or ridership at that particular stop would define a “major transit stop?” What defines a “high quality transit corridor?” Rail? BRT? Regular bus service? Ridership?For example, bus service on 30 or 60 minutes headways, or running only during commute hours or only during the day time, certainly does not qualify as a “high quality transit service.” A bus service sign by the side of the road, without any associated facilities such as seating, shelter, transit signing, trash can, and perhaps bicycle racks, does not qualify as a “major transit stop.”

    Using the terms without more specific definition might encourage some agencies to claim exemption when it really doesn’t apply. As an example, some agencies have claimed that a development is “transit oriented development” when it is not oriented to transit at all but simply located in proximity to transit. I can imagine that some agencies would make similar claims about “major transit stops” and “high quality transit service.”

Free holiday parking? Why not free transit?

The City of Sacramento has announced free holiday parking (on the Downtown Sacramento Partnership website), stretching from Old Sacramento through midtown, to attract shoppers. This is done in order to attract people who might otherwise shop at suburban big box stores and malls that offer acres of free parking, as this free parking in the suburbs puts downtown businesses at a disadvantage. (There is, of course, no such thing as free parking, someone has to pay, but that is another argument for another day.)

However, why no benefits for people who use transit to reach downtown, either by choice or necessity? I think there should be free transit tickets for people who shop downtown during the same times and places as the free parking is in effect. Businesses would give out a SacRT single ticket (normally $2.50) to each shopper for the trip back home. There might be a minimum purchase requirement, just to prevent someone from accumulating a large number of tickets by making small purchases at several businesses. However, since one free ticket doesn’t cover the trip to the business, nor trips requiring a transfer, nor family members, I think overall it would be more than fair to the city.

The free tickets would cost the city money, since they’d have to be purchased from SacRT. I’m sure a volume discount could be worked out, but there would still be real costs. The free parking offer means that the city is foregoing a considerable amount of parking revenue in order to support local business. Whether the increase in sales tax revenue from holiday shopping balances the lost parking revenue, I don’t know, but the city obviously considers it an overall benefit whether the balance sheet works or not. The same benefit could be obtained through free transit tickets.

Fare is fair! Let’s see free transit tickets!