more Sac failure to properly mark/sign ADA for construction

Dan AllisonLeave a comment

Note: This post was developed in October 2022 but not posted at that time due to an oversight. It is still useful.

There is a new construction project at N St & 14th St in the Sacramento central city, opposite Capitol Park. The project, called Cypress, is a CADA project for multi-family housing, but I do not know the lead construction company. The site has been fenced along N St and 14th St (address is 1330 N St), and across Neighbors Alley. Along N St, the sidewalk is closed at the project, and the crosswalk over 14th St is closed at the southeast corner. Along 14th St, the crosswalk over N St is closed at the north side, and the sidewalk is closed at a property south of the alley.

As is usual for a project permitted by the City of Sacramento, either the traffic control plan was written to allow violation of ADA, or the company has not followed the plan. Or both.

The photos below show the failures.

construction barrier not ADA at 14th St crosswalk
14th St at N St crosswalk, southeast corner, construction barrier not ADA

At this location, the barrier is not ADA compliant. The bottom bar must be no more than six inches from the ground, at bottom, so that it is detectable by a person using a cane. The barrier footing is a trip hazard for both unsighted and sighted persons.

construction barrier not ADA at N St crosswalk
N St croswalk at 14th St, construction barrier not ADA
Read More »

SacATC meeting Jan 19 with report, Northgate, Freeport

Dan Allison2 Comments

Update: The letter on the status of walking/biking was deferred to the next meeting, where a modified letter will be considered and hopefully passed. The Freeport and Northgate Transportation Plans were forwarded to council. I spoke in favor of Northgate and against Freeport, for reasons I will detail in the near future. The applications for planning grants were supported.

The Sacramento Active Transportation Commission (SacATC) is meeting online Thursday, January 18, 2023, 6:00PM to about 8:00PM, via Zoom. See http://sacramento.granicus.com/ViewPublisher.php?view_id=21 for agenda and eComment.

The three main topics are:

A read of the subcommittee report, formatted as a letter to the mayor since the commission is advisory to the council, is good and should be supported. I particularly like the emphasis on completing the construction detour policy, since city staff otherwise do not care about the safety of walkers and bicyclists in navigating construction projects that close or change sidewalks and bikeways. Two items missing are bike/scooter share, and Vision Zero. These two items may or may not fall under the purview of SacATC, however, the city is not making information available to the public on these efforts, so it seems to fall to SacATC to do so.

In general, the Northgate and Freeport plans are an immense improvement over existing conditions, so meet needs of the moment, but it is less clear they are going to meet the needs of the future, which will be much less private motor vehicle driving, and more walking, bicycling and transit. If time is available to look at the plans more closely, I’ll add posts.

Sacramento disdains walkers

Dan Allison3 Comments

The City of Sacramento, both the city government and many people who live here, have a picture of a pretty good place to live, and work, and play. And that is true, to some degree. Good climate (except middle of summer), a wealth of trees, interesting and useful businesses (at least in midtown), mostly flat (for bicyclists), two rivers and the confluence, moderately friendly people. But the transportation network sucks.

Heavy rain of course brings out the flaws in the transportation system. Flooded roadways that at the least make it hard to get places, and at worst kill people. Trees and tree debris blocking both sidewalks and bike lanes. Light rail that runs late or not at all, buses behind schedule. All of those are important issues. But this post is about flooded ADA ramps.

flooded ADA ramp, Q St at 13th St
flooded ADA ramp, Q St at 13th St

The above photo is a mild case, as it does not make the ADA ramp and connecting sidewalks impassible. It just means wet feet for people who can’t jump the puddle, or wet wheels for people with mobility devices. You might think that this is a problem created by the storms. But look closer. The ADA ramp was built so that it is LOWER than the drain inlet. This puddle will remain until it evaporates, and if the rain continues, it will be there for quite some while. There are two explanations, and I don’t know which is correct. 1) The ramp and drain inlet was designed by an incompetent engineer; or 2) ramp and drain inlet were not built as designed, meaning that the construction inspector did not notice or did not care that it was not installed as designed. In either case, it is the fault of the city.

You might think that this is an unusual circumstance, but if you walk and notice, about half the ADA ramps in the city have this same problem. Why is this so common? Because the city doesn’t care. The engineer doesn’t care, or the inspector doesn’t care. Every one of these situations expresses the city’s disdain for walkers, and users of mobility devices.

I started with a mild example, but to present a much worse example:

flooded ADA ramp and sidewalk, 3rd St at O St
flooded ADA ramp and sidewalk, 3rd St at O St

This puddle won’t disappear for at least a week, even without additional rain. This is not a problem of a plugged drain inlet. The ramp and sidewalk was designed to be BELOW the gutter level along the street.

I have reported this location multiple times to the city, over the years. It has never been fixed. When I submit a 311 report, it is marked as complete without anything being done. Which is not untypical for the city, most of my 311 reports are ignored, marked as complete without anything being done.

Does this bother you? Get in touch with your city council member, provide photos and stories about how this impacts you and the people you know. Ask council members to hold city staff responsible for their incompetence and lack of care. If the city manager can’t fix these problems, it is time for a new city manager. If Public Works can’t fix this problem, it is time for a new head of Public Works. Anything else is not acceptable.

Measure A fails, and mapping

Dan Allison3 Comments

Measure A, the transportation sales tax for Sacramento County, failed spectacularly, 44% yes and 55% no. Advocates for a better, safer, more equitable transportation, and better investment of our transportation dollars, celebrate this failure. Final election results were released on December 8, 2022.

Sacramento County Measure A 2022 results

More analysis of the results and significance to come, but for now, some maps.

Sacramento County Elections provided a map of the Measure A results.

Sacramento County Elections, Measure A 2022 map

Sacramento Bee provided a similar though not identical map.

SacBee Measure A 2022 map

Both these maps indicate whether a precinct voted yes or no, but no indication of the number of voters or the proportion of the vote yes or no. There is a movement towards better election reporting maps, called ‘Land Doesn’t Vote, People Vote’. A few references are U.S. election maps are wildly misleading, so this designer fixed them, Election graphics 2020: Land (still) doesn’t vote, and Land Doesn’t Vote, People Do: This Electoral Map Tells the Real Story, but you can find many more.

Below is my first attempt at producing a better map for Measure A. Click on the graphic for a linked pdf, which allows you to zoom in on specific areas. What’s different? I used a range of colors, from red (no) to green (yes) votes (ArcGIS: graduated colors, equal interval, 10 classes). You can see there is much more subtle detail. There were a few precincts which voted entirely no or entirely yes, but very few. Most were somewhere in between. For elections (other than the antique federal electoral college), votes count, precincts do not.

The map still over-emphasizes precincts with large area and few voters (some precincts have as few as one person who actually voted). If you look (unfocus your eyes), you would think that there were almost no ‘yes’ votes in the county, but that is not accurate.

The data I used, modified from the Sacramento County Elections data, is here.

Measure A 2022 mp by Dan Allison, graduated colors

Some of the other map alternatives, which are better, require ArcGIS techniques and skills that I’m just looking into, so I expect I’ll have better maps soon. Stay tuned!

Sac region does well on ATP grants

Dan Allison1 Comment

The California Transportation Commission (CTC) adopted the staff recommendations for funding Active Tranportation Program (ATP) grant applications. The Sacramento region did well, with seven grants awarded. Sacramento County received two, City of Sacramento two, Rancho Cordova one, West Sacramento one, and Placerville one. More detailed descriptions of these projects will be available on the CTC ATP or Caltrans websites.

CTC ATP awards for Sacramento region

The SACOG announcements will be made later, and there may be additional projects awarded that did not make the state-level cutoff of 89/100.

the worst ADA violation in Sacramento?

Dan AllisonLeave a comment

Let me say up front that there is a lot of competition for ‘the worst’, but I think the sidewalk and other construction on Capitol Ave between 16th St and 17th St is certainly in the running.

What are the issues?

  • No advance warning of sidewalk closure at the preceding corners on 17th St.
  • No ADA detectable barrier. The project is using chain link fencing with yellow caution tape strung through the fence.
  • Fence bases protrude into the sidewalk, presenting a tripping hazard for blind or low vision persons, or anyone at night.
  • No appropriate ‘sidewalk closed’ sign at the point of closure.
  • Both sides of Capitol Ave have closed sidewalks, so there is no choice between sides of street.
  • The small sign on the fences at 16th St indicate very long detours to reach the entrances of both 1616 Capitol Ave (south side) and 1615 Capitol Ave (north side). Photo below. This sign of course would be of absolutely no use for someone with impaired vision, or anyone on a dark day or early in the morning or late afternoon (at this time of year).
  • The bike lanes on both sides of Capitol are partially obstructed by fencing. No signing for bicyclists or drivers indicates this. Bicyclists have to merge away from the fencing into the general purpose lane, with no advance warning.

This is a California Department of General Services (DGS) project, and signing indicates that the construction contractor is Z Squared. I have reported these violations to both the City of Sacramento 311 (case 221130-1423348) and DGS Facilities Management Division.

It is worth noting that his current construction seems to be part of an ongoing construction project that was stalled for about a year. DGS removed the rocks from a sidewalk adjacent area meant to protect walkers from walking into the awkward building buttresses, then fenced these areas. About a year ago. Then, nothing.

There is also construction going on Capitol Ave between 15th and 16th, but I was so depressed by this one that I didn’t include it.

1616 Capitol Ave construction blocking sidewalk
1616 Capitol Ave construction blocking sidewalk
1615 Capitol Ave construction blocking sidewalk
1615 Capitol Ave construction blocking sidewalk
Capitol Ave at 16th St construction blocking sidewalk, north
Capitol Ave at 16th St construction blocking sidewalk, north
Capitol Ave at 16th St construction blocking sidewalk, south
Capitol Ave at 16th St construction blocking sidewalk, south
Capitol Ave detour signing for pedestrians
Capitol Ave detour signing for pedestrians

lower speed limits on complete streets in Sac

Dan Allison1 Comment

The eternal argument on speed limits has resurfaced on Twitter. The binary solution is: a) lower speed limits, or b) redesign roadways. This is a false dichotomy, to which I answer yes! Ultimately, the solution is to redesign roads (and motor vehicles) so as to physically enforce posted speed limits. But in the meanwhile, speed limits that are posted too high for urban areas (and with speeds that alway exceed that, because the road was designed for a higher speed than is posted) should be reduced.

There are two types of speed: posted speed, on the speed limit sign, and design speed, the speed that the road was designed for. Design speeds have traditionally been much higher than posted speeds, at least 10 mph higher, and often more, because the traffic engineer’s value system says that we must always protect drivers from their errors by providing a road that is safer at higher speeds. This is highway design thinking, applied to city streets, and is always inappropriate outside freeways and rural roads (and maybe even there). Protecting other users of the road (walkers and bicyclists) does not traditionally figure into this at all.

As a starting point, local or residential streets should be 20 mph maximum, collector streets 30 mph maximum, and arterial streets 40 mph maximum. These are maximums, more than is appropriate for many roads. 40 mph may never be appropriate in an urban area. Of course most arterial streets are stroads, roads designed for higher speeds but then knee-capped my multiple driveways and intersections. These roads should never have been built that way, or allowed to evolve that way, and must be radically changed.

Existing posted speed limits for the city are available.

It should be noted that most research indicates that the majority of fatality and severe injury crashes are caused by people egregiously exceeding speed limits, by 10 mph or more. It is not unusual for speed surveys, and the rare law enforcement, to record a few drivers exceeding freeways speeds on surface streets. Roadway design, along with lower speed limits, probably does little to change the behavior of egregious speeders, and those are better addressed through automated enforcement.

The City of Sacramento has a number of complete streets or road reconstruction projects underway or planned. Two significant ones are Northgate Blvd and Stockton Blvd. Stockton is on the city’s high injury corridor Vision Zero plan, Northgate is not.

Stockton Blvd

The city has been through several cycles of planning for Broadway and Stockton Blvd. The current plan is the Stockton Blvd Plan – Community Working Version. Though public concerns about motor vehicle speed have been a recurring theme, the city plans to address this by reducing travel lanes and planting trees. They do not intend to reduce the posted speed limit. In fact, speed limit is hardly mentioned in any of the documents. In fact, design speed is never mentioned. The city is pretending that posted speed limits have nothing to do with roadway design. The city is not willing to share with the public its intended design speeds.

The posted speed limits on Broadway and Stockton are 35 mph and, south of Lemon Hill, 40 mph. Broadway and Stockton are ‘other principal arterial’ in the state functional classification system, one step below freeway. And much of Stockton’s current design is very freeway-like. Given the intensity of uses along both Broadway and Stockton, posted speed limits of 30 mph would be appropriate. Instead, the city intends to maintain 35 mph and 40 mph for the redesigned road. This will ensure that they remain stroads rather than streets.

Northgate Blvd

Northgate Blvd is not on the city’s high injury corridor Vision Zero Plan, but was identified because it is a road with intensive local use in a disinvested community. The planning effort for Northgate is in an earlier stage. An existing conditions report, appendices, and initial community outreach are available. These reports document that posted speeds are mostly 40 mph, with a small section 45 mph. Recorded speeds are not that far off from posted speeds. but then again, the 40 mph speed is above what one would normally find in an urban area. Northgate is a ‘other principal arterial’, one step below a freeway. Parts of Northgate are have freeway-like designs, but most of it is more like a simple stroad.

Though public concerns about motor vehicle speed have been a recurring theme, the city plans to address this by narrowing travel lanes and planting trees. I participated in the initial workshop on Northgate, and I and others asked whether the posted speed limit would be reduced. The answer was no. But it is early enough in the planning process that this could be changed by public pressure. Another online workshop was scheduled for yesterday (I was unable to participate), and an in-person open house will be October 22 (Saturday, October 22 from 11:30am-1:30pm at Garden Valley Elementary School).

The city’s standard answer to questions about reducing speed limits is that they cannot be changed, because of the 85% rule (not a law, but guidance by Caltrans and courts), but this is incorrect. When a street is reconstructed, whether complete streets or other, the city can design for and set whatever speed limit it wants. It is as though a new street is being constructed. But the city doesn’t want to see it that way.

I think to redesign a road without seriously considering a reduction of the posted speed limit, as well as the design speed, is throwing money down the toilet. These projects will probably be in place for 30 years. 30 years of less than ideal design, 30 years of less than a fully functional and livable street, 30 years of failure to take climate change seriously, 30 years of unnecessarily high fatalities and severe injuries.

Background

Research on the effects of reducing posted speed limits are mixed. Some have indicated a significant impact, particularly at the higher end of the speed range (over 35 mph), and others indicating no significant change. Though even one life saved by a lower posted speed limit is worthwhile to me, it also points out that the ultimate solution to speeding is not just posted speed limits, or enforcement of those, but also roadway redesign. As I said, both!

Law enforcement of speed limits has been well documented as a tool of harassment and oppression of people of color and low income, so I am not in favor of in-person enforcement. Automated enforcement can easily manage speeds and particularly egregious speeders.

Streetsblog: Vision Zero Cities: How to Fix Our Most Dangerous Roads

Streetsblog: STUDY: 20 Is Plenty — But Signs Alone Don’t Always Get Drivers to Slow Down

Caltrans Setting Speed Limits

NACTO City Limits: Setting Safe Speed Limits on Urban Streets

What City of Sacramento ISN’T doing

Dan AllisonLeave a comment

The City of Sacramento, that bastion of doing the least amount possible, has failed to notice that progressive cities in the US and worldwide are making changes to their environment to make is safer for people who walk and bicycle, and more efficient and welcoming for people outside of cars.

What the city is NOT doing, that it could:

  • Accept responsibility for maintaining sidewalks, as an integral part of the transportation network. The city continues to shirk its responsibility, spending funds on motor vehicle infrastructure instead of maintaining walker infrastructure.
  • Installing leading pedestrian intervals (LPIs) at every traffic signal in the city. The same eleven have been in place for years; none have been added. The recent legislation, AB 2264, only applies to state highways; it is up to cities and counties to implement on other roadways.
  • Daylighting intersections. This means removing parking from within 15-20 feet of the crosswalk or stop bar, either by painting and enforcing red curbs, or building curb extensions (bulb-outs) at every intersection. Upstream, approaching the intersection, is the big safety feature, downstream, leaving the intersection is much less important. There are interim solutions here, such as painting curb extensions and using soft-hit posts (vertical delineators).
  • Implementing construction zone requirements that accommodate walkers and bicyclists. The current city policy is to provide safe bypasses only if it does not in any way inconvenience drivers. The public has asked that a policy be developed along the lines of the Oakland construction policy, but the city has stonewalled against that.
  • Making transportation improvements that benefit walkers and bicyclists, except with county, state or federal grants. The city simply will not spend any of its general funds on improving transportation safety.
  • Waiting until a roadway is completely repaved to reallocate roadway width to bicycle lanes or separated bikeways, or transit. Compounding this issue is that the city doesn’t share with the public the repaving projects that it intends to do, so the public has no chance to comment beforehand.
  • Lowering speed limits citywide. While it is true that spot reductions have little effect on travel speeds, there are a growing number of cities that have lowered speed limits citywide, with a significant reduction in speed.
  • Enforce traffic laws. The Sacramento Police Department has essentially stopped enforcing laws related to the safety of walkers and bicyclists. This of course is also true in many other places. Police don’t see traffic safety as an issue worthy of concern. Of course so much of law enforcement is used as pretext to oppress, and I’m not in favor of any of that, but if the police won’t even enforce failure to yield to people in the crosswalk, what use are they? We would all be much safer if traffic law enforcement were removed from the police, largely automated, and the money saved diverted to real community needs. Yes, defund the police.
  • Painting marked crosswalks at every intersection. Yes, I know that unmarked crosswalks are legal crossings, but most drivers either don’t know or don’t care, so marking crosswalks is critical.
  • Remove beg buttons. These buttons, which sometimes a walker must press to get a walk sign, and sometimes don’t need to press (this is called auto-recall) are a direct attempt to discriminate against people walking. The city, after much pressure from the public at the beginning of the pandemic, set five crossings to auto-recall, out of the thousands. Of course they didn’t change the signing, so people walking don’t know this. The city it being intentionally obstinate in its defense of this outmoded requirement.
  • Remove pedestrian prohibition signs unless that is a demonstrable safety reason for the prohibition. There are numerous signs all over the city that were placed solely to preference motor vehicle drivers over people walking. The default should be that every one is removed unless the city wishes to do a traffic study to justify them.
  • Install traffic diverters (mode filters) all over the city. These diverters, which allow bicyclists free travel but turn motor vehicle drivers aside, are the single most effective safety measure that city could implement. But the city has decided to take these off the menu of solutions, for no reason that it has ever been made public. The few that exist are in the central city, almost none in other neighborhoods. Another example of privileging the already privileged over lower income neighborhoods.
  • Charge for parking, eveCavrywhere. Residential neighborhoods, where there is usually open parking space, would be charged through permits for the cost of maintaining that portion of the street. Any place where parking is in short supply, market rates for parking should be charged. Giving away free parking is subsidizing drivers and throwing your tax money in the trash.

I could go on with this list for pages. In fact, I have: walking policies for SacCity, and many related posts. But the city is still not taking meaningful action on any of these items, so I will keep reposting. For as long as it takes. And it will probably take quite some while before the city gets over its culture of doing the least amount possible.

Caveat: The city has disinvested in lower income and high minority neighborhoods, probably for its entire history. The first steps should be taken in these neighborhoods, with input from the residents, of course, and not in higher income and non-minority neighborhoods which have always gotten more than their share.

Measure A, Not OK

Dan AllisonLeave a comment

A committee of transportation and equity advocates have come together to oppose the Sacramento County Measure A transportation sales tax measure. Measure A, Not OK!

The new website is https://measureanotok.org. The home page identifies the measure proponents, which are greenfield developers (greenfields are former agricultural and open space lands which these developers want to convert to low density housing) and representatives of large construction companies who will profit from the unnecessary large infrastructure projects the measure proposes. It also addresses six of the worst aspects of the measure. A list of organizations and individuals against the measure is also available, 25 and growing.

The new Twitter handle is @MeasureANotOK. No tweets yet, but there will be soon.

If you want to catch up on all the reasons to vote NO on Measure A in November, please take a look at the posts here: https://gettingaroundsac.blog/category/transportation-funding/measure-a-2022/
and
https://star-transit.org/category/transportation-funding/measure-a-2022/ (for more transit-specific information).

Both of these blogs will provide additional information. If you have issues you would like addressed, questions about the details of the measure including the Transportation Expenditure Plan, or proponent arguments you’ve heard, please reply.

real transportation solutions

Dan Allison3 Comments

Measure A 2022, which will be on the ballot this November, is a bundle of old ideas and a commitment to doing things the old way, the way that has dominated our transportation system since World War II. It does not address current transportation challenges. It proposes building more freeways, more interchanges, and widening roadways. It proposes to continue and increase the motor vehicle dominance of our transportation system. Sure, there is a weak commitment to fix-it-first, for the first five years of the 40 years. Sure, there are some complete streets, but that won’t make a dent in the pedestrian and bicyclist-hostile roadways that traffic engineers have built for us.

When Measure A fails, we have a chance in Sacramento County to identify and implement progressive and effective transportation projects and systems. What would a better transportation system look like?

  • One not so dependent on sales taxes. Sales taxes are regressive – low income people spend a much higher percentage of income on sales tax than do higher income people. Property taxes and congestion charges are a much fairer way to fund transportation. We have been too dependent on sales tax, for not just transportation, but many government functions.
  • One that recognizes and works to overcome the disinvestment that low income and high minority communities have suffered. Our transportation system is largely designed to ease the commutes and travel of high income individuals, not of society as a whole. The light rail system was designed with the needs of suburban, largely white commuters. So too were our freeways. At least 70% of transportation expenditures should be in and for the benefit of disinvested communities.
  • We have all the lane miles and pavement we will ever need. It is time to stop adding lanes miles and stop adding pavement. Not just because of the climate implications, but because these are low-return investments. Instead, transportation expenditures should support walking, bicycling and transit.
  • Big transportation projects such as freeways and interchanges claim big job benefits, but they are in fact much less efficient at generating high paying jobs than many other types of infrastructure investments. New construction spends most of its funds on materials, not on labor. The construction companies make large profits on large projects, but little of that filters down to workers. Small to moderate projects would employ many more people.
  • A transportation system dependent on motor vehicles, whether they are fossil fueled or electric, has strongly negative impacts on our places: direct air pollution, tire dust pollution, noise, traffic violence, loss of land to parking and roadways rather than productive development, and probably most important, it intimidates people out of walking and bicycling. A transportation system based on walking, bicycling, and transit eliminates most of these negatives.
  • A car dominated transportation system pushes everything further apart, jobs and housing and shopping and medical far away from each other. Cars not only encourage but largely demand low density development, so that there is space reserved for cars, all the parking and roadways that take up a large portion of our cities. It requires a car to participate in society, and thereby requires low income people to expend an unsustainable percentage of their income on transportation. A transportation system that relies much more on walking and bicycling allows things to be closer together, so that cars are not necessary for most daily travel.
  • Transportation investment should depend much less on state and federal funding, and much more on local funding. Large portions of the Measure A funds are intended to be matches for grants. But grants cause planners to focus on what the state and the federal government want, not on what the county or cities need. When the income from taxes or fees is close to the people, the solutions are much more likely to be what is desired by the people.
  • Private vehicle travel does little to contribute to making our places and our lives better. A innovative transportation system would focus on access to services, and make those services available nearby. It would reduce vehicle miles traveled, both by changing our development pattern and by actively working to reduce motor vehicle travel.
  • Our current transportation system has destroyed a lot of natural and agricultural lands, paving it over with roadways and low density housing. The best way of preserving nature and agriculture is to focus our attention and our funding on already higher density areas, which means infill.
  • None of the projects in Measure A are designed to support infill development. A progressive transportation system would focus nearly all investment on infill areas. It would cost much less money, and be much more productive.
  • Measure A calls out and essentially requires completion of the Green Line light rail to the airport. But who will use it? Unless service hours are 24 hours a day, it won’t be usable for many of the airport workers, who work before and after peak travel times. Instead, it may become yet another very expensive service for high-income travelers, just like our freeways system. Instead, we need to rethink our transit system to determine what citizens want and will use, and build a more efficient system around that. We know that frequency is freedom, so we must shift spending towards that, even while maintaining a reasonable level of areal coverage.

I’m sure you can think of many other things that an innovative, equitable transportation system would accomplish. Please suggest!