this week 2024-09-16

Dan Allison1 Comment

Note: Don’t expect this to be a regular feature. I’ll do it when I can. Please see the calendar maintained by SacMoves Coalition, at https://sacmoves.org/events/.

Monday 16

Tuesday 17

  • Sacramento City Council meeting, 5:00 PM, likely will address emergency declaration for road safety introduced by Caity Maple, Mayor Darrell Steinberg, and Karina Talamantes; not noted on the agenda as of 2024-09-15

Wednesday 18

Thursday 19

Friday 20

Saturday 21

Sunday 22

Week Without Driving: save the dates

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Week Without Driving 2024 will be held nationally, and in the Sacramento region, September 30 – October 6. Mark those dates on your calendar and prepare to participate!

The Sacramento website is https://weekwithoutdriving-sac.org/, and the hashtag for social media is #SacWWD. 

A planning committee is meeting once a week to refine details and promotion, so expect to see that showing up shortly. SacRT will be offering free rides to participants on select days.

this week 2024-08-19

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A slower week, so far as I know. SacMoves Coalition hosts an event calendar at https://sacmoves.org/events/.

Tuesday 20

Wednesday 21

Friday 23

Sunday 25

  • Sunday Streets SF: Mission Ciclovia, 11:00AM to 4:00PM (no, not Sacramento region, but if you’ve never experienced the joy of an open streets event, highly recommended; entirely accessible by train and transit; bring your bike!)

report on SacATC 2024-08-15

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Several transportation advocates attended the SacATC meeting in person, several people made eComments online, and hopefully others watched via Zoom.

3. Two Rivers Trail Phase III

This project is in the selection of alternatives and preliminary design phase. It will connect the existing trail segments of the Two Rivers Trail (the one on the south side of the American River, matching the American River Parkway Trail on the north side), except for crossings of the two UPRR (Union Pacific Railroad) tracks across the river, which are under discussion but without resolution. An additional crossing is Hwy 160, with uncertainty due to there being no active project design to replace one or both sides of the bridge, which are substandard, and will need to be replaced. Commission members asked a number of questions about the alternative alignments, particularly around the old city landfill. The project will report back when alternatives are selected.

4. Street Design Standards Amendment

This was just an update on the project, which is in early stage with some meetings held but several others yet to go (stakeholders, technical advisory, and public). Actual designs were not discussed, though public comment requested that the designs be innovative and cutting edge, and that outmoded or unsafe designs in the 2009 version be eliminated completely from the amendment.

5. Active Transportation Commission 2024 Annual Report

The presentation was on the 2023 report, with some questions about formatting, but the major questions having to do with whether to carry the 2023 recommendations, which sadly have not been acted on by city council or staff, into the 2024 report, or to modify them. The consensus seems to be there there should be a list of recommendations focused on safety issues, with safety for walkers and bicyclists being a higher priority than promotion of walking and bicycling (or course, they can’t really be separated). Recommendations that do not end up on the safety list might be on a separate list, not as prominent, but not lost. There was also discussion about organizing things by short-term and longer-term, but no consensus.

Recommendation 1: Increase Funding for Active Transportation Infrastructure Projects was agreed as the top priority on any list. Recommendation 6: Create a Sacramento Quick-Build Bikeways Program, also received a lot of support, however, not universal agreement.

Discussions will continue at the September and October, and perhaps November, SacATC meetings. A number of members of the SacATC were absent, quorum just barely made, but there seemed to be agreement that the conversation would continue from this point and not go back to the beginning, and the returning members would catch up on their own.

Of course the elephant in the room is that the city council accepted the report and recommendations, but has made no policy or funding decisions to implement the recommendations. The request to add funding to the 2024-2025 city budget for any of the recommendations was rejected by the city manager. Staff has moved forward in minor ways on some of the recommendations, using existing funding and staffing.

My favorite, Recommendation 9: Finalize the Construction Detour Policy, is stalled out in Public Works, and it is not clear when or if it will ever see the light of day. Adherence to best practices for ADA accommodation and meeting PROWAG guidelines is not popular in the regressive Public Works Department.

SacATC 2024-08-15 (Active Transportation Commission)

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The Sacramento Active Transportation Commission (SacATC) meets today, August 15, 2024 at 5:30 PM. in city council chambers, 915 I St. It can be viewed online by going to the city meetings page, selecting SacATC livestream. Comments are only available in-person, via the meetings page eComment, or ahead of time to the city clerk, if eComment is not working. In-person comments are the most effective.

The agenda includes three main items:

  1. Two Rivers Trail Phase III (T15225400)
  2. Street Design Standards Amendment
  3. Active Transportation Commission 2024 Annual Report

I encourage everyone to attend in person, or watch online, and to submit comments. Recently, public participation has increased, but far too few citizens are engaged. Though the commission is not powerful, it is one of the few ways the public has of engaging the city on the public health crisis that is the epidemic of traffic violence in the city.

SacCity fails to act on traffic violence

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At the June 11 city council meeting at which the 2024-2025 budget was adopted, seven of the council members spoke strongly about the need to address safety on the city’s streets, acknowledging that the city leads California as the most deadly for roadway users. But no modification was made to the budget to reflect that priority, and the city manager refused to make any changes to the budget to fund street safety.

In the two months since that council meeting, nothing has shown up on the council agenda to move forward on street safety, nothing has shown up to allocate funds, except some minor grant applications.

The city has long had a policy that it does not fund street safety projects, except for the required grant matches. Other than grant matches, no city general funds are expended to make our streets safer. The city certainly has been successful in getting some grants, but also has not been competitive on many others.

The Sacramento Active Transportation Commission (SacATC) made a recommendation in their annual report to allocate $10M to safety projects. Council members spoke in support of the idea, but no action was taken to fund those ideas.

We have an epidemic of traffic violence in the city. Yet the city is doing almost nothing to address that. Walkers, bicyclists, drivers and passengers are all dying in horrible numbers. What is the city doing in response? Submitting grant applications and hoping for the best. This is unacceptable.

The council must take this public health crisis seriously, and allocate funds to start solving it. It must also stand up to the city manager, who does not believe in spending money on street safety. The city manager runs the city according to his own whims, and rarely follows the direction of council on anything. The council must either stand up to, or fire, the city manager. So long as he is in the position, the city will not move forward on saving the lives of vulnerable roadway users.

again, from the outside in

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I’ve written before that streets should be planned from the outside in. Nearly every street I travel and nearly every plan I see for changing street width allocation clearly shows that the reverse is what was built, and what is planned.

There are a number of streets where center turn lanes are provided in blocks where there are few to no driveways. S Street near where I live is just one example. Many blocks have few to no driveways, yet the center turn lane exists all the way from 3rd Street to Alhambra Blvd. Could the street width be better used? You bet.

The most egregious example, however, is the Broadway Complete Streets project. I’ve written quite a number of posts, about the ways in which the project is successful, and the ways in which is it not. The project is such a disappointment to all the transportation advocates I talk to. Why?

Broadway was planned from the inside out. A center turn lane, all the way, whether needed or not. I’ll point out the expression, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds”, Ralph Waldo Emerson, from the essay Self-Reliance“. Next, two motor vehicle lanes, one each way (which is an improvement over two each way before the project). The lanes are overly wide, 11 feet when they could have been 10 feet (not less than 10, because it is a bus route). Next, traditional bike lanes, mostly five feet wide but sometimes six, sometimes with a painted buffer (no vertical delineators), sometimes without. The bike lanes could have been parking protected, but they were not. They could have been wider, so that two bicyclists could safely pass each other, and accommodate cargo bikes and three-wheeled bikes. They were not. There is a short one block section between 15th Street and 16th Street where these a curb-protected bikeway. But nowhere else.

Then comes the sidewalks. The city apparently had a design policy to not touch the sidewalks, which then engenders ADA requirements, which are somewhat expensive to meet (though a small fraction of the entire project). But they did touch the sidewalks in places, and in each of these places, the sidewalks are narrower than they were before the project. In several locations, the sidewalks do not even meet ADA or PROWAG guidelines. The city has claimed that since PROWAG has not been adopted by FHWA, the requirements don’t apply to the city. In other words, go ahead and sue us, but we aren’t going to do the right thing. That is what city staff said when challenged about this.

Has the city learned its lesson? No. The two additional segments of Broadway to the east have exactly the same design.

The city’s stated objective for this project was to slow and reduce motor vehicle traffic so that people would stop for businesses along the street, increasing economic vitality. Broadway has real problems currently, as you can see by traveling along the corridor. A lot of empty buildings, a lot of parking lots, a lot of low value fast food joints. But is also has a number of great locally owned businesses, many of which were beginning to fail due to the street design and the pandemic. I admire the city’s intent, but mourn their failure to create a street than will accomplish that.

SacBee: quit parroting CHP misinformation

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An article in the SacBee today reports that a bicyclist died when he/she swerved into the path of a motor vehicle. The article parrots the CHP spokesman, that the bicyclist swerved. No doubt the uninjured driver would say that. The bicyclist is dead and has nothing to say, so the CHP takes the word of the driver.

Note that no crash investigation has been conducted by CHP. Crash investigations take weeks, and require gathering of detailed information about the point of collision, and the direction of movement of the bicyclist and driver at the time of collision, and more information about the victim and perpetrator. But without the results of an investigation, the CHP just assumes that the bicyclist is at fault and the driver is innocent. This is victim blaming of the first order. Of course this is standard procedure for CHP, where almost every officer thinks that every bicyclist crash is the fault of the bicyclist, without evidence to support that assumption. CHP is not a safety-oriented agency, they are a victim-blaming agency. No surprise.

What is a surprise is that the SacBee would parrot the CHP’s misinformation about the crash. News media does not exist to reprint agency press releases. It should exist to question what agencies say, particularly when the agency expresses certainty about a crash that has not received an incident investigation. Please do better, SacBee. Report the facts that are known, not CHP speculation.

this week 2024-08-12

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Note: Don’t expect this to be a regular feature. I’ll do it when I can. SacMoves Coalition hosts an event calendar at https://sacmoves.org/events/. Added note about consent calendars, below.

Monday 12

  • SacRT Board Meeting – canceled (no surprise)

Tuesday 13

Wednesday 14

Thursday 15

Friday 16

Consent Calendar items

All of the agency agendas have items on a consent calendar or consent agenda, items which are routine continuations of decisions already made, or which are not expected to generate any controversy or public discussion. Any council/board/commission member may request that an agenda item be pulled from the consent calendar for discussion. Sometimes this is just so that they can make a statement of support, and sometimes it is because they wish the governing body to really discuss the item. It is not unusual for an item that really deserves discussion to be snuck by on the consent agenda, but at the same time, discussion of every single item would lead to interminable meetings. The consent calendar does serve a useful purpose.

The public may comment on any item on the consent calendar. However, unless the item has been pulled for discussion, comment is unlikely to change the outcome. The consent calendar is passed en-masse, not item by item. It is often not known until the consent calendar comes up whether or not a particular item may be pulled, so if you do wish to comment, you must submit a speaker card for that item ahead of time (if in person) or a comment beforehand on whatever schedule and mechanism the entity requires.