The SacBee published an article yesterday: After a deadly crash, Sacramento fixed a dangerous road. Why isn’t this the norm? Apologies for linking to a firewalled article; if you have a subscription or access to a printed newspaper, it is well worth reading.The article is quite in-depth, more like the investigative reporting that the SacBee used to do, but rarely does any more. The author is Ariane Lange.
The article highlights changes made to the intersection of Broadway and Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd (MLK) after a fatal crash single-vehicle crash in 2021. Though the article did not make clear, the driver was likely eastbound on Broadway and continued straight into the building. Google maps, below, does not show the changes, but a photo from the article does (second).
Broadway & MLK intersection, Google Maps (not up to date)Broadway & MLK, SacBee photo (more recent)Read More »
The white line stripes that were added to the two blocks of P Street protected bikeway, 19th Street to 17th Street, are an attempt to keep leaf piles and trash cans out of the bikeway. I noted the added white stripes in Central City Mobility update #27, but wasn’t sure why they were added. The wording was added later. I have not yet observed this location on either a trash pickup day, or now that there are a lot more leaf piles. I have not seen the striping and marking on other blocks of the new bikeways, so this may be a pilot to see if it works. The practice of putting leaf piles in the regular Class 2 bike lanes in common, and the city has made no effort to reduce this practice.
The parking-protected, separated bikeway on 9th Street between K Street and L Street is finally open again, 2-1/2 years after it was closed for construction conversion of the Capitol Park Hotel by Mercy Housing. Though the area was occasionally used for active construction, mostly it was used for long-term storage of construction materials.
This phrase summarizes the street network we have in the City of Sacramento. With a very, very few exceptions, every single street is too wide and too fast, across the entire range from residential streets to traffic sewer arterials. These streets kill and injure incredible numbers of people every year. Walkers, bicyclists, drivers, passengers, no one is immune to the danger that these poorly designed streets present. Though rankings change year to year, and depend on details, Sacramento is at or near the top of crash rates for the state. We probably don’t have worse drivers than other cities, we have worse streets.
The city has promised that it will update the Street Design Standards that have created this hazard. Maybe soon, maybe not for years. In fact, the existing standards don’t even have all that much detail, so a lot of the streets were apparently designed on the whim of traffic engineers, not even on standards. MUTCD (Manual for Uniform Traffic Control Devices) and CA-MUTCD will not be considered acceptable roadway designs since they emphasize motor vehicles over all other roadway users. NACTO (National Association of City Transportation Officials) or European standards such as the Netherlands CROW will be referred to as needed.
The new standards must ensure that we never build an unsafe roadway again. The goal must be no fatalities or severe injuries, no matter how drivers behave. Sacramento must be a true Vision Zero, safe systems city, not the lip service, we will fix things someday, when we have the money, that it is now.
What should the new standards be like?
There should be separate documents, or at least clearly separate sections, for new construction and for healing existing designs.
The state and federal roadway functional classification system (FCS) should not be used. Instead, a system that addresses the intended purpose of streets including ALL users should be used. The FCS is in large part responsible for the mess we have now. It represents that traditional traffic engineer focus on maximizing motor vehicle volume and speed. See SacCity street classification for more information.
New construction standards:
will emphasize limited roadways, one lane in each direction, and would include designs for two lanes in each direction in exceptional circumstances
design speeds and posted speed limits must match
base design speed is 20 mph
roadways over 20 mph must have bike lanes; over 30 mph must have separated bikeways
no roadway will have a design speed over 40 mph. Anywhere. Ever.
intersections will be designed so that it is clear that crosswalks, at sidewalk level, continue through the intersection, and motor vehicles are the guests
all new developments will be designed with a street grid of 1/4 mile
rolled curbs will not meet standards, however, streets without curbs may be used if the design speed is 10 mph
Healing existing roadways:
no street will be repaved without consideration being given to reallocating right-of-way width to walking, bicycling, transit, and sidewalks buffers for trees
the intent of reallocation will be to achieve the same design as new construction
on-street parking will be retained for its traffic calming effect, however, removal of parking will never prevent reallocation to higher uses
for overly wide streets, parallel parking will be converted to back-in diagonal parking in order to narrow roadways for safety
streets without a tree canopy will have trees added, in parking lanes if no other space is available
the city will adopt responsibility for maintenance of sidewalks, in the same way that they are responsible for pavement
designs will be available for closing sections of street temporarily or permanently for dining or community events
designs for diagonal ADA ramps will not be part of the updated standards; only perpendicular ramps will meet standards
My intent here is to provide something simple, summarizing beyond the details of previous posts on Street Design Standards.
At the meeting of the ECOS Climate Committee on Tuesday, June 27, there was a presentation on the City of Sacramento General Plan 2040 Update by city staff Remi Mendoza. The presentation gave an overview of the plan, which is pretty much available on the city website, but the questions and comments were interesting.
Heather Fargo raised issue of language to address disability transportation concerns; does plan address sidewalk maintenance? Staff did not really answer about disabled mobility, rather, the answer was about walking and bicycling for other people. Heather said she is dissatisfied with bicyclist improvements which make things harder for disability. I will ask Heather for clarification on her concerns. Heather also expressed a number of concerns about the lack of a commitment to protecting agricultural and wildlife lands in the Natomas Basin and Natomas area, both in the main general plan and in the specific North Natomas Community Plan.
I asked two questions:
Why is the council commitment to removing parking mandates now a weak ‘could include’? Staff answered that a consultant is working on this, and if council wants stronger language, it can reinstitute it. This is a very dissatisfying answer. If the council wanted weaker language, they could asked for it, but they have not. I suspect that some politically powerful people (more powerful than you or I) asked for the language to be weakened, and staff complied. Was this City Manager Howard Chan, or was it one of the powerful who is not on the council?
Map M-3 emphasizes light rail and arterials for transit oriented development. These are both NOT the best locations due to surrounding land use (often industrial and toxic), poor accessibility to transit (long distances to safe crosswalks over high speed, high volume, very wide arterials), lack of existing neighborhoods to build on in several cases, and the pollution created along these freight routes and motor vehicle traffic sewers. This question was brushed off.
A number of others asked questions about the plan, which were only partially answered. It appears that the transportation and climate community are very concerned about the general plan. And they should be.
The members of city Community Development Department, which initially seemed to be on board with very innovative and future-looking goals and policies, seems to have backed way off, and are now proposing something not remarkable different from the current 2035 plan, which was outdated before it was even adopted.
I appreciate ECOS (Environmental Council of Sacramento) for their willingness to stand up to the powers that be. I’m a member of a number of other groups that are not willing to stand up. The city and the county, and the other cities in the county, get away with the status quo and gaslighting because no one is calling them out on their poor decisions and lack of attention to the needs of the people who live here.
I now know why all the of initial ADA ramp projects were on 21st Street. That is the first street being repaved as part of the Central City Mobility Project. 21st has been identified in the project for separated bikeways. Since there is a bus route on 21st (SacRT Route 62), I assume that the bus stops will be on the right hand side northbound, and the bikeway on the left hand side. The design shown on the project webpage shows a parking-protected separated bikeway on the left, along with a buffer zone (to protect against car doors opening). This seems to be the standard that the city has adopted, and side so far the city is placing separated bikeways only on roadways that also have bus service, presumably this design will be used in every case.
Another diagram indicates that there will be vertical delineators (K-71) in the buffers, but there are no details about the frequency. There’s are the delineators that are run over and destroyed by vehicle drivers on a regular basis, and these will suffer the same fate. The larger diameter delineators (NOT bollards, the city is incorrect in calling vertical plastic a bollard; bollards are made of metal or concrete, not plastic) that are now installed on part of J Street are not specified here. Though these don’t provide any more actual physical protection, they seem to raise doubts among drivers and get run over less often.
There were several curb islands along 21st Street on the left hand side. All but one have been removed. The remaining one at 21st Street and Capitol Ave may just be an oversight, but if not, it is in the middle of what is expected to be the separated bikeway.
Sac_21st-St-Capitol-Ave-SW_curb-islands
The fourteen blocks of 21st Street from W Street to H Street has been stripped down about two inches, for repaving. The restriping after paving will include the separated bikeway.
The project webpage has a diagram for the transition of a separated bikeway on the left side of 19th Street southbound to the right side of 19th Street south of W Street, which is a two-way street. However, it does not have a diagram for the transition of this 21st Street separated bikeway at the north end, where 21st Street becomes a two-way street at I Street. This is already a hazardous intersection due to the double left-turn lane from 21st Street to I Street westbound.
Separated bikeways are only as safe as their intersection treatments, and the transition from and to separated bikeways to regular bike lanes are critically important. I hope that the city has a good design for 21St Street and H Street, otherwise bicyclists will be placed in more danger than existing conditions. The solution is of course bicycle signal faces that allow bicyclists to move when other traffic is held, but the city has been reluctant to use these.
A bike/scooter corral was installed on R Street in a parking space, next to the Sacramento Natural Foods Co-op. Though for a while drivers respected the set-aside, marked for bikes and scooters, drivers came to use the space as regular parking, with a car parked there almost all day long, preventing the intended use as a bike and scooter parking area. I reported this illegal parking to the city a number of times, but to my knowledge, no one was ever ticketed. It should be noted that parking is not short on the streets around the co-op, and there is a parking garage adjacent to the co-op, which I have never seen full. So drivers were using the spot for personal convenience.
The city recently installed vertical delineators (flex posts) in the spot and repainted the while line that signifies are bike parking area. So far it is working, I’ve not seen anyone run over the posts in order to park there.
The majority of the bike/scooter corrals in the city have been placed on wide sidewalks, where they don’t interfere with walking. The in-street corrals are mostly being respected; this is the only one I am aware of that was routinely violated.
These corrals are designed to solve two issues: 1) provide parking where traditional bike racks are not present or insufficient; and 2) to keep scooters (mostly rental scooters from the scooter-share companies) from filling up the regular bike racks and preventing their use by the public.
This is an update to the update on work being done on corner ADA ramps in the Sacramento central city, apparently as part of the Central City Mobility Project.
So far as I have seen, curb extensions are not part of this project.
There are now a number of locations where the concrete ramp is being cut so that the detectable warning strip can be installed, but the curbs are not being touched. See below for an example.
Q-St & 16th-St, SW corner, ADA ramp construction
One of the corners I have been monitoring, 21st St and O St northeast corner, is complete, but with temporary patches that make the ramps useable, though ironically still blocked by folding barricades and caution tape, which absolutely does not meet ADA guidelines for contruction signing and safety. This seems to be the pattern with the city, trying to make things better, but not paying attenteion to the details. I don’t know when the asphalt will be restored and the corner opened. Maybe the contractor is waiting until all the corners are ready before patching, though that would be stupid.
21st-St & O-St, NE corner, completed corner with ADA ramps
I am still not able to make sense of the asphalt cuts that are being done on the corners where the curb will be or has been modified. I’m guess that there was a standard cut design, implemented everywhere, no matter what the actual project.
Walking around the central city, it appear that most of the corners which did not have ADA-compliant ramps will have them when the project is done, but some may not. I don’t know what the criteria is for which corners are being done, and which are being done at a higher level of replacing the curbs and widening the ramps. Many of the existing ramps are narrow, with edging curbs, which was apparently the design at the time they were placed, but the new corners are a different design, with a sloping area between the two ramps, similar to the diagram below, from the 2020 Department of Utilities Standard Specifications: Transportation drawings, not from the 2009 Department of Public Works Street Design Standards, which contain no ADA diagrams. I think the detectable warning strip width is at least 60 inches on the new installations, which is an improvement. The 48 inch width does not allow two people to stand on the strip. Corners with new curb extensions seem to have 72 inch strips.
The City of Sacramento started a design with protected bikeways on streets with significant bus traffic on P Street and Q Street in downtown Sacramento. I live on P Street, so see use of the bikeway on a daily basis. It works OK. P and Q are not heavily biked streets, and the separated bikeways are not heavily used, but they are OK. And actually, P Street doesn’t work well for buses. Since much of the bus traffic is commuter buses, a lot of them over a short period of time, there is often a stack-up of buses blocking traffic and interfering with each other at a stop opposite me on P Street at 13th Street.
Note: I’m using the term separated bikeway here because it is the term in state law, and therefore planning and engineering documents. Most people call these protected bike lanes, or sometimes cycletracks, though the term cycletrack is more commonly used for two-way bike facilities. Use whatever term you’d like!
On Q Street eastbound, the separated bikeway transitions to a bike lane at 14th Street. Since there are bike lanes on both sides of Q Street to the east, a bicyclist a decide where to transition to the right side of the street. This works OK.
On P Street westbound, however, it is a completely different story. The separated bikeway ends at 9th Street. To the west there are no bicycle facilities of any sort. It is a three lane traffic sewer (what I can three or more lane roadways, the purpose of which is solely to flush traffic in and out of downtown). With the construction going on all through downtown, P Street is and has been reduced to two lanes is several places, and with state workers mostly working from home, there is much less traffic in downtown. Nevertheless, the design is fatally flawed. I use the term ‘fatally’ on purpose – it is a design likely to result in bicyclist fatalities.
Part of an ongoing series of posts to support better streets in the City of Sacramento during their 2023 update of Street Design Standards. New standards must be innovative, safe, and equitable, and it will take strong citizen involvement and advocacy to make them so.
The streets we have are largely for cars and car parking. In this, I include trucks and delivery vehicles. Streets are only incidentally for walkers, bicyclists, economic vitality, and urban life. We know that our urban environment must change, to meet the challenge of climate change, but also to create a place where people thrive.
SPUR, a San Francisco Bay Area education and advocacy organization, has done as good a job as I’ve found so far with the words to describe where we are going and how to get there. Their Transportation page includes:
Our Goal: Make walking, biking, taking transit and carpooling the default options for getting around
SPUR’s Five-Year Priorities:
Improve the region’s transit network, and the institutions that run it, so that all people have fast, reliable access to their city and region.
Make it faster, easier, more dignified and less expensive to get around without a car.
Leverage transportation investments to build great neighborhoods and connect people to opportunity.
As a point of comparison, the City of Sacramento, Department of Public Works, Transportation Division says:
The Transportation Division’s primary focus is maintaining and enhancing traffic operations, traffic safety and multimodal mobility for our citizens and customers.
Wake me up from my nap!
I have started working on transportation principles for Sacramento. I admit that the points and wording below are not yet succinct and powerful, but I’m offering them now so that you have an idea where I’m going. I will work on improving them, and post the improvements again at the end of the series.
Street Design Principles
Street design will ensure the safety of all street users; Vision Zero rejects any street design that allows fatalities or severe injuries for any street user
Street design will encourage walking, bicycling, and transit use, and will discourage unnecessary motor vehicle use
Street design will rank safety, livability and economic vitality above vehicle throughput or speed; congestion relief will not be a goal in street design
Street design will actively support the city’s goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) through reduction of vehicle miles traveled (VMT)
Streets can and will be redesigned to better serve current and future need; past design which may have met past need need not be retained
Interim solutions to safety or capacity issues will be identified for immediate implementation whenever permanent solutions are not yet budgeted; design diagrams for these interim solutions will be provided along with the permanent solution diagrams
My posts and city design standards should use these definitions:
‘Walking’ and ‘walkers’ includes mobility devices; the term pedestrian will not be used except in reference to laws or designs which use that term
‘Bicycling’ or ‘bicyclists’ includes any devices permitted by state law or city code to use bike facilities
‘Street’ includes all roadways which are not freeways or expressways, even if they do not currently meet standards for safe, equitable, or effective streets
Your suggestions on words and ideas are welcome! Comment below, or email me.
Getting Around Sacramento 