CalBike’s Agenda for 2025

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A number of organizations have come out with agenda’s for next year, and I’ll cover a few of those in several posts. First, CalBike. I participated in CalBike’s agenda reveal on December 3, and it was disappointing. Mostly videos of talking heads about the past, not much about the future. The breakout I participated in was dominated by a single person who wanted to talk about specific locations and wouldn’t let anyone get a word in edgewise about policy. But CalBike now has a page dedicated to CalBike’s Agenda for 2025, which is clearly presented. CalBike has organized support statewide for progressive legislation which encourages bicycling and makes it safer, and has supported legislation for walkers as well. There isn’t an active statewide organization for walking, unfortunately.

The agenda lists:

  • bicycle highways
  • shared streets
  • quick-build pilot
  • bike omnibus #2
  • bicycle safety stop
  • new bike boulevard classification
  • e-bike policy

Though e-bikes modified to be (illegal) motorcycles is not a big problem in Sacramento area, yet, it is in other places. San Francisco, where I am right now, is full of deliveristas on bikes that have pedals and chains, but top out about 40 mph. In the Lake Tahoe region, it is rich high school students. I’d like to see legislation to clearly define what is and is not an e-bike, and make sure high speed devices are banned from bike lanes and bike facilities. It is already illegal (AB 1774 Dixon, 2024) to modify an e-bike for higher speeds, or to sell devices which bypass design speed, but of course enforcement is uncertain.

The bicycle safety stop should be a no-brainer, except of course that Newsom and CHP probably don’t have brains. Treating stop signs as yield signs, slowing and yielding when necessary, is what almost all bicyclists already do, and there is nothing unsafe about it. Research has indicated that the rate of full and complete stops at stop signs is nearly the same for bicyclists and drivers, but when bicyclists stop, then are in danger of getting hit from behind by drivers not stopping, and the energy to get started again is significant, not just a press of the gas pedal.

Shared street standards are a good idea. Many locations have implemented shared streets, with different designs. As a new idea to be experimented with, wide variation was OK, but enough is known about designs now to create a standard. Some cities have continually lessened the protection and messaging on shared streets (or removed them completely, in the case of Sacramento), and standards would help prevent this erosion. I think shared streets should be more common that ‘regular’ streets. Shared streets are where people live, regular streets are where people drive.

I’m not sure whether state-recognized quick-build designs would help much. Cities are already doing these projects, and the best thing Caltrans could do is get out of the way.

photo of Sacramento 26th St slow & active street, since terminated
Sacramento 26th St slow & active street, since terminated

what now?

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It is Winter Solstice today, December 21. It seems like a good day to write the ‘what now’ post that I’ve been thinking about since the election. I’m not religious, so the four ‘sun-days’ of the year, two solstices and two equinoxes, are my main celebrations. And sometimes, but not as often, the cross-quarter days of Imbolc, Beltane, Lughnasadh, and Samhain (Halloween). I’m in Santa Cruz today to celebrate the solstice with good friends, fortunately this year on a weekend. I used to work and live in Santa Cruz, years ago now, but many of my best friends are here. Of course I got here on train and bus and bike. Santa Cruz has about the same number of coffee shops per capita as central city Sacramento, but they are busier here. I’m sitting in a coffee shop, drinking tea. I’ll do a update post on grid coffee soon.

I was very depressed by the 2016 election, but less so this time. Why? Because in 2016 I was uncertain. This time I’m not, I know we are in for a very dark four years. At the national level, things will suck for everything I care about, in transportation and equity. Many of my friends, both in transportation advocacy and otherwise, were far more depressed than I. I was in a personal growth seminar the day after the election, and some people were immobilized with depression. I understand.

But at the local level, I feel more hopeful. I don’t feel as though I do or can have much of an influence for better at the national level, but I do see positive influence and action at the local level. The parting of ways with Howard Chan was definitely a bright spot for me. And the organizations which support the same things I do and working hard on making Sacramento, both city and region, a better place.

I can’t do better at explaining than the Strong Town process, below. Of course this process is about way more than just transportation, it is about everything that makes a place, our place, a livable, vibrant place.

The other major thought I have is that most people will be harmed by Trump, both those who voted for him and those who did not. He is a vindictive, authoritarian person, who cares primarily for himself, and to some slight degree, for his rich powerful friends. No matter what he says, his actions indicate that he does not care for other people. So this will be a bad time for everyone, as he and his sycophants work to undermine everything that is good about our country. He intend to break everything, without having a better idea to put in place.

It would be tempting to blame what goes wrong on the people who voted for him, but I will not. They will be hurting, just like the rest of us. They deserve our empathy and forgiveness. Not that we need to give in to what they voted for, but to recognize that all humans, all life, are the victims here.

Our lives are affected by what happens at the national and international level. There is clearly a trend in many parts of the world towards fascism. But at the local level, there is work to do, past harms to heal, people to celebrate, people to listen to, people to see as neighbors no matter who they voted for. Obviously I do work in this blog, but coming to coffee shops to talk with people is also part of the work.

Amtrak lost and never found

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As readers may know, I travel a lot by train and throughway bus, especially on the Capitol Corridor (Sacramento to San Jose), the San Joaquins (Sacramento or Oakland to Bakersfield and bus to Las Vegas or LA), and the Amtrak long distance trains.

Over the years I have lost a few items on the trains and buses, perhaps 15. Not a lot, but mostly things that were important to me. Back in the old days, lost and found was handled through the end point stations, or which Sacramento was one. In the new days, it is handled through a reporting system that contracts with ChargerBack for lost and found tracking.

I have never gotten back a lot item. Not once. Never. My most recent loss was on a bus from Las Vegas to Bakersfield, connecting to the San Joaquins back home to Sacramento. Though the bus is operated under contract, and serves Amtrak, Flixbus and Greyhound tickets, Alvand Transportation said they do not handle lost & found, it is handled by Amtrak. It took a long while to find the contact info for lost & found, on the Capitol Corridor website, not on the Amtrak website, and here it is: https://www.amtrak.com/onboard/baggage-policy/reporting-lost-items.html.

I have to assume my experience is typical. What happens to the items? Are they just discarded, or do they go home with Amtrak employees or contractors? I don’t know. What I do know is that they are not ‘found’.

So if you travel on Amtrak services, which includes state funded routes such as Capitol Corridor, San Joaquins, Pacific Surfliner, or Amtrak national long distrance trains, or connecting bus service, double-check, triple-check, before you get off to make sure you haven’t forgotten anything. Sometimes the conductors will remind passengers to check around their seats, in the overhead bins, or specifically, for phone chargers, which seem to be frequently left behind. Take it to heart.

school district housing

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SacBee: Sacramento-area school district to build affordable housing for teachers, employees; https://www.sacbee.com/news/equity-lab/article296894224.html.

This SacBee article from December 11, 2024, highlights a Twin Rivers Unified School District project to add workforce housing for beginning teachers and other school district employees. Though it is less of a problem in the Sacramento region than in many cities, teachers and other employees on the lower end of the income scale can often not afford to live near their school because rents are too high.

With shrinking student populations in most, though certainly not all, of the school districts in the Sacramento region, there are empty or underutilized school district property that could be used for housing. While I worked for San Juan Unified, I encouraged the district to explore this option, as the district has many school sites that are unused, or only partially used for special programs. In fact the district office has a vast parking lot that used to be a bus yard and now grows weeds.

Elvas Ave and Hornet Tunnel update

Dan Allison1 Comment

Re-upping the Elvas Ave and Hornet Tunnel post from earlier this year. It has been reported to me by a number of bicyclists, and I have experienced it myself, that this section of Elvas between the Hornet Tunnel and the signal at 62nd Street has become significantly more hazardous due to the motor vehicle traffic generated by The Line (a collection of various food vendors, opened 2022) and Garden at the Line (an outdoor eating and drinking area adjacent to The Line, opened this December). There is a lot more come and go parking on Elvas, and a lot more motor vehicle traffic in and out of the parking lots. Most bicyclists ride on the sidewalk to avoid the fast-moving traffic, otherwise the crash rate would be higher. The M Street to Elvas Avenue to Hornet Tunnel route is probably the busiest in the city.

In addition to the previous post (reblog below) about the hazards for bicyclists, this area is now hazardous for walkers along and crossing Elvas.

I was there last night for the SABA social gathering, and the place was packed. People were parking along the west side of Elvas as well as on 63rd Avenue and 64th Avenue, and then trying to cross Elvas to Garden at the Line. It was nearly impossible to cross, as there are no marked crosswalks over Elvas at either street, drivers are going fast, and Elvas is not well lit. The speed limit in this section is 40 mph, which almost guarantees that walkers hit by cars will die. Sidewalks on both sides of Elvas are in poor condition, and rolled curbs are common, which are less safe for people walking than vertical curbs. There are no sidewalk buffers. While this section of Elvas is not one of the top 5 or top 10 Vision Zero corridors, it will quickly become so. In the last five years, there have been two injury crashes on this stretch, one bicyclist and one walker, both in the vicinity of Hornet Tunnel.

The city has no plans to improve safety for bicyclists or walkers on this stretch of Elvas.

Elvas Ave and Hornet Tunnel

SacBee: update on lack of city investment in street safety

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An article today in the Sacramento Bee is about two traffic fatalities on Freeport Blvd, but also does an excellent job of summarizing the city’s lack of general fund investment and action street safety, and over-dependence on long-term grant funded projects. Yay, Ariane Lange for the excellent reporting on roadway safety and solutions, and the real people who are the victims of poorly designed roadways and traffic violence.

SacBee, Ariane Lange: Two grandmothers died blocks apart on a dangerous Sacramento road. Will the city fix it?
https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article296838739.html

The city’s solution to fatalities and severe injuries on our our streets has been the Vision Zero effort and Vision Zero Action Plan (2018), and related documents. This resulting in a focus of grant applications on corridors with a high level of traffic violence, the high-injury corridors. For more posts on Vision Zero, see tag: Vision Zero. What has not occurred since 2018 is a significant increase of city general funds to address traffic safety. Since that time, Sacramento Police Department has largely ceased traffic enforcement, while their budget has continually increased, though there are strong safety benefits for people of color in that reduction of enforcement which tends to be pretextual and biased.

The city council has repeatedly suggested allocation of some general funds to traffic safety and fixing roadways, but City Manager Howard Chan, and perhaps Public Works, has resisted this. With the departure of Chan, this may change (more to come on that). The city has no program for quick-build projects, though a few have happened. The city’s transportation budget goes to pavement maintenance (which is a good thing, as your roadways are in poor condition for everyone), new capacity expansion, and grant matches. Almost none goes to quick-build solutions.

I am not suggested dropping the approach of grant applications for big projects, as those long-term projects are important. What I am suggesting, and the SacBee supports, is investment in fixing some of the worst roadway designs, now rather than someday.

SacCity Council: last night, the people won!

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The Sacramento City Council last night voted to reject the agenda proposal to extend City Manager Howard Chan’s contract for a year. Actually for two years, as the contract had another year extension if Chan wanted it.

There were a long line of big business and labor leaders speaking in support of Chan, and the extension. No wonder. Those have been treated well by Chan during his reign as mayor, whoops, I mean City Manager (he thinks of himself as a strong mayor, but even stronger). Police and fire of course support him because he keeps giving them raises, and increasing their budgets. There is a downtown power structure in Sacramento that wins almost all political battles, or has in the past. Last night, they lost.

There was an even longer line of just plain citizens who spoke against extending Chan’s contract, some quiet with salient points, and some very vocal about ways in which the City Manager has harmed the city, and homeless people, and has refused to reign in the biases of the police against people of color.

Several small business owners also spoke, most opposed to Chan but some in support. It is small businesses that the city should be supporting, but too often they come down on the side of big business. Big business is used to getting its way. Maybe we are moving into a brighter future.

Flo Cofer, who lost the election for Mayor be a very small margin, also spoke. She had previously said that she would move separate Chan if she won.

Council discussion quickly shifted from what many expected to be a done deal when a motion to reject was offered and seconded. Though every council member spoke in praise of Chan’s work, 8 years as City Manager and 22 with the city, there was clearly a lot of discomfort with his arrogant style and refusal to follow council direction on many issues. Though stability had been raised both by the power players and council members, it became clear that the council wanted transition to new leadership, and wanted it now, not a year from now. Roger Dickinson (D2), Karina Talamantes (D3), Caity Maple (D5), Eric Guerra (D6) Mai Vang (D8), and Mayor Kevin McCarty all voted for the motion to reject the extension. Lisa Kaplan (D1), Phil Pluckebaum (D4), and Rick Jennings (D7) voted against the motion. Therefore, 6 to 3.

Several council members indicated that they had been leaning toward supporting the extension until an executive session of three hours. Though council members can’t share what was said in executive session, it was clear that two, maybe three, members changed their mind. I’m guessing that Chan was resistant to any compromise, and some council members were not aware that the one-year extension would like turn into two.

I of course spoke, my comments below.

  1. The City Manager is not working for the citizens of Sacramento. The council-manager governance model only works if the council holds the City Manager accountable. It has not. 
  2. The City Manager has routinely ignored direction of council, most egregiously on homeless issues. The SacBee has reported a number of dishonest if not illegal actions. 
  3. The City Manager has a false view of public safety, that increases to the police budget solve the public safety challenge. 
  4. Most important to me, as a transportation advocate, the City Manager has refused to allocate significant funding to traffic safety and the reduction of traffic violence. You are going to consider an emergency declaration in part due to the failure of the City Manager to act. If the City Manager had truly been addressing public safety, it is unlikely we would have an emergency. 
  5. Several leaders have expressed that extension would provide stability. Stability of what and for what? For a form of governance and management that does not work for the citizens of Sacramento? I hope not. 

SacCity is not sweeping separated bikeways

Dan Allison1 Comment

The City of Sacramento is not sweeping its separated bikeways, as it promised to do when it installed them. The separated bikeways, on I St, P St, Q St, 9th St, 10th St, 19th St, and 21st St have not been swept by the city. The city has a sweeper designed specifically for these bikeways. It may be broken down, or the city may be choosing not to sweep. Some of the bikeways are being swept by landscape maintenance services associated with adjacent properties, a few spots are being swept by individual owners or residents, and even the parks department is cleaning up, but not consistently.

photo of Q St at 14th St, separated bikeway, not swept by city
Q St at 14th St, separated bikeway, not swept by city

In a few places that have heavier bicycle and scooter traffic, such as P St between 15th and 14th, the leaves have turned into leaf slime, which is extremely hazardous for anyone on two wheels. I’ve seen people almost spin out here, and I have as well.

Most people seem to have realized that the place for piled leaves is NOT in the bikeway, but in the adjacent buffer, and in some locations that buffer is labeled as such. But some people are still piling in the bikeway.

Regular bike lanes are an issue as well. Most are not swept. Dry leaves are sometimes swept away be motor vehicle traffic, but once they are wet, they don’t move. If there is motor vehicle traffic across or along the bike lane, such as approaching an intersection, the leaves are quickly turned into slime. Very slippery! Be cautious anywhere there are leaves.

Palm trees – ack!

And just in case you need to be reminded, palm trees and the fronds they drop are an ongoing hazard to people walking and bicycling. A single frond can block a sidewalk from use by anyone with a mobility device. A single frond can block a bikeway or bike lane, and can throw a bike rider off their bike. With every wind storm or heavy rain storm, palm trees drop huge numbers of fronds. Why do we continue to allow this hazard for walkers and bicyclists? In a few locations where they have historic value, such as Capitol Park, they might be justifiable. But nowhere else. They need to be removed!

photo of palm fronds on Q St
palm fronds on Q St

this week 2024-12-16

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SacMoves Coalition hosts an event calendar at https://sacmoves.org/events/, which is maintained by STAR (Sacramento Transit Advocates and Riders) and Getting Around Sacramento.

Monday 16

Tuesday 17

Wednesday 18

  • House Sacramento ? (uncertain meeting date)

Thursday 19

Friday 20

Saturday 21

  • Winter Solstice

Sunday 22

red light cameras and law enforcement

Dan Allison2 Comments

Earlier posts on red light running and automated enforcement are available at category: automated enforcement.

The City of Sacramento has a crisis in biased law enforcement against people of color and low income, and also has a crisis of red light running.

The city had red light cameras at eleven locations, part of a program managed by Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office. The county dropped the program in early 2024, and all cameras were removed. The county claimed that the fines from red light running were not paying the cost of the program, and of the contractor. The City of Sacramento therefore dropped its program and has made no effort to restart it. At the dollar value of human life being $10M or more, it is hard to understand how the county saw this program as too costly. City of Sacramento paid $27M in traffic crash lawsuits over five years. The county information does not seem to be available, but it would likely be larger due to higher population, more road miles, and more poorly designed roadways and intersections.

The nature of red light running is that a motor vehicle driver T-bones someone, impacting other motor vehicles, walkers and bicyclists at a perpendicular angle at high speeds, frequently resulting in a fatality. This is not the leading cause of fatalities, but it is significant.

There are reasonable objections to any law enforcement of traffic laws. Traffic stops are often pre-textual, intended to discover illegal activity or warrants that have nothing to do with traffic law, and to oppress people of color and low income. Law enforcement officers not infrequently escalate interactions, resulting in intimidation, unlawful arrest, and death. Law enforcement often focuses on communities with people of color and low income, both because of the pre-textual nature of stops and intended intimidation of people in those communities. Even when justified, tickets for traffic violations have an outsized impact on lower income people because fines are a flat amount no matter the income of the violator, so are strongly regressive. Court fees add a great deal to the cost of a ticket, often sending low-income people in a downward economic and legal spiral. 

Automated enforcement of traffic law removes some of these concerns, but not others. By removing the interaction with officers, law enforcement intimidation and violence is eliminated. But the issue of outsized economic impact remains.

If a red light camera program were to be restarted in the City of Sacramento, it would have to have these characteristics:

  1. The program would be operated by Public Works as part of their transportation management responsibilities, not by the Police Department.
  2. Camera locations would be selected based on traffic crash location hot-spots, but adjusted so that low-income communities do not have a higher number of cameras per-capita than other areas 
  3. For camera locations with a history of traffic crashes resulting in fatalities and severe injuries, and with a higher than average number of citations issued, the city would commit to making changes to that intersection to reduce the incidence of red light running and crashes.
  4. The fines for red light running would be reduced for low-income people. The reduction could be a) across the board for income levels below a certain set percentage of the median household income, or b) based on the value of the vehicle driven by the violator. Alternatives to fines could also be implemented. Though income based fines are often mentioned, and are used in other countries, concerns about privacy and availability of the data make this impractical. The value of a vehicle is easily available, and does track to some degree with the income of the owner. It is not certain whether these options could be implemented by the city now, or if changes in state law would be required, but the city should commit to exploring options and committing to a solution.

Two other types of automated law enforcement have been discussed. Automated speed cameras are legal under a pilot program for several cities, but Sacramento is not one of them. It is unlikely that other cities would be added, or statewide implementation would occur before the pilot is completed. It is possible that active intelligent speed assistance will become law in California, and obviate the need for automated speed enforcement, at least in urban areas.

Automated enforcement of ‘failure to yield’ to walkers (pedestrians) law would be very useful. Failure to yield sometimes results in fatalities and severe injuries, but it always results in intimidation of people walking by people driving, reducing the frequency and comfort of walking trips. The technology for detection of ‘failure to yield’ is not well developed, but has been implemented in some cities and is practical. ‘Failure to yield’ is another crisis on our roadways.

This recommendation to restart the red light camera program in the city does not indicate that it is the primary solution to the traffic violence crisis. It is one among many tools. Changes to the roadway, temporary (quick-build) or permanent, are by far the most effective solution and should be the lead action by the city.