bike share before re-opening

2020/05/282021/11/05 Dan Allison2 Comments

JUMP unceremoniously pulled out of Sacramento (the Sacramento region program that included West Sacramento and Davis) in the very early days of the pandemic. The bike and scooters disappeared, except for those few that are still out there, abandoned and never picked up. Though the company claimed that the devices weren’t being used, that is not true. Despite people not commuting to work (the stay at home was not yet clearly defined), they were still getting used, at perhaps half the rate as before. I’ve suspected that Uber/JUMP was already planning a pull-out, and saw the pandemic as a convenient excuse. Sacramento had been the most successful JUMP system in the US, in terms of rides per bike per day. Some argue that means they would not have pulled out unless they had to. But I see exactly the opposite reason, that they pulled the bikes and scooters because they were so successfully competing with what Uber considers (and has now demonstrated) to be its core business, ride hailing.

Lime also had scooters here for a while, but they disappeared as well. Spin had a program based on the campus of Sacramento State, and I saw a few of the scooters off campus, but they were never widespread. I’ve heard rumors of other scooter companies, but never saw any of the scooters. There were also some short-lived or planned but not implemented bike and scooter share programs in other cities around the region.

JUMP is now out of the bike and scooter business altogether. They sold the business, and apparently some of the bikes, to Lime. There are stories on the Internet from locations all around the US about Uber recycling the batteries and scrapping the bikes, so this is apparently widespread, and either already has or will shortly erase most of the bike fleet from existence.

Lime had an electric bike share bike for a while, though never in Sacramento. I saw them but never rode one, as the places they were available had alternative vendors that I was already using. The reviews I read said they were much better than the pedal bikes Lime was famous/infamous for, but nowhere near as good as JUMP bikes.

Apparently Lime is restarting bike share in the Denver area, using the JUMP bike model, starting this Friday. I have not heard any rumors of a restart any place else.

So, what does this have to do with re-opening from the pandemic? I have not heard anything from any of the agencies involved in the bike share program about how bike share can be brought back. SACOG (Sacramento Area Council of Governments), the original sponsor of the Tower Bridge pilot program (remember the white SoBi bikes?), SMAQMD (Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District), which provided some of the start-up funds, the City of Sacramento, the City of West Sacramento, and the City of Davis. Not a peep. There may be discussions going on, just not public, or there may not be.

This region, not just the area covered by the JUMP program, must have a bike share program. I am less certain that scooters must be part of the program, but I’m sure many feel they should. As people who were using transit but are not willing to right now, for an unknown but hopefully not too long period of time, search for alternatives, the choice to drive, and often to purchase a vehicle in order to drive, would be disastrous for the region. Our air quality has been wonderful for three months, but has already returned to the ‘unhealthy for sensitive individuals’ level even with only a fraction of the pre-pandemic traffic levels. If 80% of those who were using transit now drive, air quality will likely be in the ‘unhealthy’ for all category for much of the summer, and jump into the ‘very unhealthy’ category from time to time. We can’t let this happen. We must provide alternatives for people who cannot and will not drive, and that must include bike share. Of course the impact of motor vehicles, more than 40% of carbon emissions in the state, go far beyond current air quality to civilization-changing climate change, but my biggest concern right now is the short term impact on air quality.

Beyond air quality and climate, there are equity concerns about how we re-open. Yes, I know the JUMP system was not perfect. Even after expansion, it covered only part of the low income communities in Sacramento. JUMP had a low income uer discount program, but it was almost a state secret, and they never solved the issue for unbanked people.

We know that most transit users right now are essential workers and people who have no other way of getting to essential destinations. Those who can have been driving, but many can’t. They are not of a driving age (too old or too young), the have valid reasons they are unable to drive, and they simply do not want to be a part of the planet-destroying car obsession. What are we doing to do for these people? Are we going to put all our transportation eggs (funding and projects) into the cars-first basket, as we have done for too long, or are we going to change our futile ways and provide real alternatives? Are we going to commit low income people to a descending spiral of debt as they try to keep old cars running, or buy cars that barely run, just so they can get where they need to go?

The solution is bike share. Here is what I think needs to happen:

Equity concerns must be predominant in rolling out the new bike share system. Who really needs this option? How can we make sure it works for them? As one of my favorite people, Tamika Butler (and many others) has said, we don’t want to return to normal, because normal was never acceptable. High income state office workers are not the people the new system should be designed for, though certainly it should work for them too.
We must discard the idea that a privately owned and operated system can work to meet the transportation needs of the region. It could be a public system, or it could be a public/private system, but it cannot ever again be solely private.
Bike share is identified as a critical transportation service, and as a logical part of the transit system. This does not mean that it is operated by transit agencies, though it could be, but that transit agencies are a core partner in the program.
Major traffic attractors will not reopen until a bike share system is in place to handle the additional car traffic that might otherwise be generated. This most definitely includes shopping malls, and probably includes government offices in downtown Sacramento. Universities and colleges are not an issue, for now, as they will be online and not the trip generators they usually are.
Funding for bike share infrastructure (bikes and bike racks) will be diverted from road building projects. If the emergency powers of the state and county have any meaning at all, this is well within their power to do. When transportation agencies talk about the ‘color of money’, what they generally mean is that they don’t want to make the effort to justify different uses, and they are happy with the current mode share. Time to end that malfeasance.

Temporary Traffic Control (TTC) references

2020/05/142021/03/20 Dan AllisonLeave a comment

The City of Sacramento is not taking the failures of its construction zone signing and maintenance seriously. I have forwarded a number of issues to the city, both via email and via the 311 service. Nothing seems to have come of any of this. I have not seen a single location corrected. The 311 requests are being closed without being corrected. It is not clear to me whether the city staff are incompetent, or simply don’t care, but I’m going to list some resources I’ve found useful. These may be useful to readers, so that you can recognize failures and report them as well.

The Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) addresses construction zones in Part 6: Temporary Traffic Control Devices. California has its own version, similar but not identical, the CA-MUTCD Part 6. Don’t misunderstand me, the MUTCD/CA-MUTCD is very weak on pedestrian and bicyclist accommodation. If you randomly threw a dart at the manual, 999 times out of 1000, you would see text or signs or diagrams that assume that pedestrians and bicyclists don’t exist. Nevertheless, the manual has the force of law, for any agency that uses federal funding, and it is what most agencies use as the gospel.

Applying the Americans with Disabilities Act in Work Zones: A Practitioners Guide (National Work Zone Safety Information Clearinghouse)
Improving Pedestrian and Bicyclist Safety in Work Zones (FHWA recorded webinar)
Pedestrian Accommodation in Work Zones: A Field Guide (FHWA document)

pedestrian barricade, with detectable edge (National Work Zone Safety Info Clearinghouse)

Note that the MUTCD prohibits the use of tape, rope, or plastic chain strung between devices because they are not detectable and do not comply with the design standards in the ADAAG; therefore, they may not be used as a control for pedestrian movements (MUTCD 6D.01).
National Work Zone Safety Information Clearinghouse

I-5/Richards Interchange

2020/05/13 Dan Allison3 Comments

The City of Sacramento is soliciting comments on its Interstate 5 / Richards Boulevard Interchange Project. Please take a look and comment.

My comments are summarized as:

The safety justification doesn’t hold water. The interchange itself has no fatal collisions and no severe injuries during the period of time analyzed (safety starts at about 9:56 in the video). The severe injury collisions are all outside the project area. The city is definitely trying to gaslight people on the safety issue. If the city were actually concerned about safety, they would be doing projects at the severe injury locations. But they are not. In fact, unnecessary projects like this one gobble up the funds that could be used to solve real safety issues. It is worth pointing out that this area is not a high priority in the city’s Vision Zero program. There are many, many areas in the city with far higher collision rates.
The information on bicycle and pedestrian improvements is very fuzzy. Nothing is indicated that to me makes is seem safer for either. More traffic means less safety, unless the safety improvements are substantial, and I just do not see that here. See DDI comment below.
The project points out rightly there there will be increased demand for travel as a result of residential, commercial, and public development in the Railyards and River District areas. But it makes no mention of other ways of solving the issue. Demand management? Never heard of it. The project simply accepts that traffic congestion will get worse if no infrastructure is built, so infrastructure must be built. Of course the EIR has to consider the no-build alternative to be legal, but the city is certainly not presenting that option to the public.
The project uses traffic delay through the interchange (on the interstate) to justify the project. The current traffic delay is due to the fact that commuter traffic has been encouraged by the provision of additional capacity on Interstate 5 to the south of the city, and on Interstate 80 east and west of the city. Of course things will get worse at this location, as more people commute and travel on this increased capacity. This is called induced travel, and is to be expected. Induced travel is increased by capacity expansion projects.
The city wants to spend $46 to $100 million of your tax money to ‘solve’ this problem. If we let them do that, they will be back in a few years with another project to ‘solve’ the problem at some other nearby pinch point, and the new project will be even more expensive because they have induced more travel by ‘solving’ the perceived congestion problem here.

It is time for us to demand that highways engineers be cut off from building new capacity. They see the taxpayer pockets as their piggy bank. Fix what we have, and invest the remaining transportation funds in supporting walking, bicycling, and transit.

The projects proposes making the interchange into a diverging diamond interchange (DDI), where the travel lanes switch sides under the freeway so as to reduce the number of intersections, and to ease common vehicle movements. Some people hate DDIs. Traffic and highway engineers love them. I’m pretty indifferent. I have spent a lot of time observing DDIs, before and after. They do offer some improvement in traffic flow, and they do offer minor improvement in safety for drivers. They are not any better or worse for bicyclist and pedestrian comfort and safety, IF they are designed properly (I’ve seen some very poor installations, some of which won awards from AASHTO, the highway lobby entity, that never saw an expensive project it did not love). It does take a period of a year or two for people to adjust to the different feeling of a DDI, but that is not necessarily bad. So my opposition to this project is not due to the DDI, but other issues. Others may feel differently.

city’s 311 app broken

2020/05/012023/04/07 Dan Allison1 Comment

The City of Sacramento recently release a new 311 app. I have been using this app (iOS version), mostly to report issues with construction signing. The app is broken!

What are the issues?

If you switch away from the app to some other app, the app logs you out, and you have to log in again.
Once you’ve logged in again, it asks you to confirm your contact details. Even though it asked you to do that moments ago – it doesn’t keep track.
It will not allow you to upload photos. Usually it give an error message, photo could not be uploaded, but sometimes it hangs the entire app. If you are wondering, it makes no difference whether you take the photo then or try to use an existing photo, nor what size you attempt to upload.
The app (and the website) is happy to show you requests you’ve made, but the only information on the request is the cross streets or address that you reported. It doesn’t show what the request was, so if you’ve made more than one request on the same location, or simply don’t remember what the request was, you won’t get any help from the app (or the website).

An ongoing problem, not specific to the app, is that the city closes requests without saying whether they did anything or not. The only way for you to know whether they did anything is to go back to the same location, and look to see. That’s if you remember what your request was.

poor accommodation at 3C

2020/03/222021/03/20 Dan AllisonLeave a comment

The convention center and community center theater project (3C) project did a very poor job of preserving access for walkers and bicyclists at the beginning. Some issues have been resolved, but some never have, though the project has now been going on for just less than two years.

The most significant issue is that there was no provision made for northbound bicyclists on 13th Street, passing the construction between L Street and J Street. 13th is a major bicyclist route of travel, and the city knew this before the construction started. But the original traffic plan did not address this use at all. After public complaints, a sign was installed on the sidewalk for northbound bicyclists, photo below, but not the southbound. The numerous walkers using this sidewalk, adjacent to the Marriott and Sheraton convention facilities, were confused to see bicyclists on the crowded sidewalk. After more public complaints, a sign was added southbound, the second photo, though it is placed in a location where people coming from K Street would not necessarily see it. As you can see in the first photo, the sidewalk is narrow just north of the crosswalk, so bicyclists heading north are brought into immediate conflict with pedestrians heading south, many of whom are headed to the crosswalk over L Street. Of course having an angled ADA ramp here, rather than the two-to-a-corner design that should be used wherever there is significant pedestrian traffic, makes things worse.

Of course the best solution here would have been to just close 13th Street to motor vehicles between K Street and L Street, leaving the narrowed roadway available for two-way bicyclist traffic. There are far more bicyclists using this route than private vehicle drivers. Despite that, the city biased in favor of drivers.

One issue on which progress was made was the southeast corner of J Street and 13th Street. Initially this corner was closed, giving walkers only one choice of how to cross, despite this being one of the most heavily used intersection crossings in the city. There was no reason to close the corner off, the area behind the fence was never used for construction. After about a year and a half, the corner was re-opened, photo below, so that walkers have a choice of routes. Note that when the city finally worked on this corner, the work was not done behind the fence, but the fence was moved and then the sidewalk and ramp work done by closing off the corner until it was done.

J Street & 13th Street, southeast corner, finally re-opened

On the east side of the project, issues remain. The sidewalk from J Street south along 15th Street has no signing indicating that it is closed ahead, see photo. When you get half way, there is just a fence blocking access. In daylight, you can see the fence ahead, but a limited vision person and anyone walking at night would not see the fence until they got to it. This is simply unacceptable.

15th Street west side, southbound from J Street, no signage

There are several other less serious issues around the east and south sides. At K Street & 15th Street, there is no signing to indicate how to get to the other side, to go either northbound or southbound. This one is not hard to figure out, at least for sighted people, but it was still not done correctly. This crosswalk ramp should have been barriered off, just like the ADA compliant barriers in the previous post, since it only leads to a closed crosswalk.

On the south side of the project, there are plastic barriers for the crosswalk over 14th Street at L Street, and for the crosswalk over L Street on the west side of 14th Street. These barriers were knocked over months ago and have not been put up again. There were not sufficient to begin with, but laying down on the ground, are both useless and hazardous.

L Street at 14th Street, west side crosswalk, failed barrier

I’m going to call this one a failure on the part of both the construction company and the city: the construction company for failing to monitor and maintain the traffic control devices for which they are legally responsible, and the city for failing to monitor the construction company. Blame all around!

And lastly, the closure of a lane on L Street for the construction was not handled well. As you can see, there is a narrow crosshatched area the length of the block. One might reasonable choose not to go this way, but then again I see people going this way every day, both walking and bicycling. I am not sure how this should have been handled, but there must be a better solution. Of course one solution would have been to continue a temporary pedestrian walkway on the north side of the street, set off by concrete barricade, and requiring only a simple fence to separate the walkway from the construction site. If more street width was required, parking could have been removed from the south side and the general purpose lanes shifted to the left. Note there there never was a bicycle lane present in this block, it is dropped at 15th Street and the traffic sewer 3-lane roadway continues west.

L Street westbound at 14th Street, narrow shoulder

In closing, this construction project is probably the worst in the city (though there is competition). It does not involve a private property owner, it does not involve a state construction project, it is a city project on city land. There is simply no excuse for such poor walker and bicyclist accommodation. It is a big middle finger to those to who don’t drive.

Construction zone done right

2020/03/212021/03/20 Dan AllisonLeave a comment

Since there will likely be a long string of posts on construction zones done wrong, I want to point out that they can be done right. This is one from yesterday. Though the crosswalk closure here was less than one day, it was signed properly, and the detour was very short, about 30 feet west to the next crosswalk.

N Street at 12th, clear construction zone signing

Continuing construction woes

2020/03/212021/03/20 Dan AllisonLeave a comment

Construction projects all over the city of Sacramento continue to bias motor vehicle travel over walkers and bicyclists. This has been going on for a long time, and it has not gotten any better. A few construction projects handle it appropriately, most do not.

One issue that I ran into yesterday is particularly galling because of the long detour it takes to bypass the construction site at the corner of J Street and 4th Street, at the California Fruit Building (not sure if it will have the same name after reconstruction). From the southeast corner of J Street & 3rd Street to the southeast corner of J Street & 4th Street is 380 feet, along a sidewalk which has been closed by construction. The detour is 785 feet, but the important issue is not the distance but the time. The detour requires pressing five beg buttons and using five crosswalks, a walk of 7.25 minutes, most of that time waiting for the pedestrian signal to change. A direct route would be just over a minute.

This map (Google) shows the detour.

What are the alternatives? One is that a travel lane could be removed from J Street. Both a pedestrian walkway and a bicycle lane could be temporarily installed in this section past the construction. Another is to install a crosswalk on the east leg of the J Street & 3rd Street intersection. Pedestrian crossing is currently prohibited (by signing and guard rail) at this location, but the prohibition is solely for the flow of motor vehicle traffic and the convenience of drivers, it has nothing to do with pedestrian safety. The crosswalk need not be temporary, it could be a permanent installation. Of course this crosswalk would require two crossings, but two is better than five.

Short of these two real fixes, the signing could be better. In the photo below, there is an unobvious sign indicating a detour to the west, but it doesn’t say which sidewalk. I did not understand what it meant until I had walked down to the construction fence. On the sidewalk that is closed, there is no indication until reaching the construction fence that the sidewalk is closed. There should be some indication of how long, or how many crossings, for the detour. A person might decide to turn around and head south to L Street, or to the access points to K Street, if they had more information. This photo also shows the pedestrian prohibition established for traffic flow rather than pedestrians safety.

In the westbound direction, there is even less information. The sign says sidewalk closed, and there is a vandalised construction arrow, which might or might not indicate the detour route.

I don’t blame most of this type of issue on the construction companies. The construction company has to get a permit from the city, which includes a traffic plan. The city is accepting, and in some cases encouraging, traffic plans with no, or insufficient, accommodation for pedestrians and bicyclists, and insufficient signing. Of course the construction company wishes to minimize the work and the signing, but it should be the city’s responsibility to ensure good traffic plans. It rarely does. I will remind readers again that the city employee who supervises this permitting process said that pedestrians and bicyclists would be accommodated if it did not interfere with traffic flow.

Since I have time on my hands, I’ve been walking a lot more in downtown/midtown, with social distancing of course, so I hope to add additional posts on this topic.

unacceptable accommodation

2019/01/042021/03/20 Dan Allison1 Comment

Sacramento City continues its practice of approving construction projects that do not consider the needs of walkers and bicyclists. Here is the latest I ran across, on Folsom Blvd between Santa Ynez Way and 39th St. The construction on the south side appears to be installing cable or fiber. At the west end, there is a sudden ‘sidewalk closed’ sign. There is no prior warning, there is no ramp or marked crosswalk for crossing Folsom to the north side (it requires crossing an offset intersection diagonally to go from one ramp to another, an exceptionally long distance), and there is no indication about how long the detour is.

At the other end, there is the same sort of signing without any prior warning or information provided.

At this location, 39th St, there is a marked crosswalk with traffic signal which could allow people to cross Folsom, but just to make sure the message that pedestrians are unwelcome here is clearly received, a construction truck was parked across the crosswalk. When I asked the construction crew to move the truck, they refused. I reported it to parking enforcement but am not sure of the outcome.

Of course there is a bicycle lane along this section of Folsom Blvd, which is also blocked by the construction. That may be justifiable, but you would think that forcing bicyclists to share the general purpose traffic lane would justify a reduction of the speed limit from 35 mph to 25 mph, but no, that that would inconvenience drivers and in the city, that is not to be considered.

This kind of bias against walkers and bicyclists should be unacceptable in the city. And it would be if the staff of Construction Services were not biased against walkers and bicyclists. Time to replace that staff with people who care about all modes of travel.

Sacramento Vision Zero Top 5 outreach

2018/11/022026/01/23 Dan AllisonLeave a comment

This information from the City of Sacramento via email.

We have added and updated upcoming outreach events for the Vision Zero Top 5 Corridors.

Join us to learn more about the Vision Zero Top 5 Corridors Study and share your experience biking, walking and driving along these streets at one of the following events:

Date and Time	Event	Location	Corridor of Interest
Monday, November 5th 5:00-7:00 p.m.	Community Workshop	Peter Burnett Elementary School 6032 36th Ave.	South Stockton Blvd.
Wednesday, November 7th Noon-2:00 p.m.	Pop-up Event	Transit stop at Broadway and Stockton near Food Source (4401 Broadway)	Broadway/Stockton Blvd.
Saturday, November 10th 9:30-10:15 a.m.	Old North Sacramento/Dixieanne Community Association	GraceCity 701 Dixieanne Ave.	El Camino Ave.
Thursday, November 15th 5:00-7:00 p.m.	Community Workshop	Luther Burbank High School 3500 Florin Rd.	Florin Rd.
Thursday, November 15th 6:30-8:00 p.m.	Gardenland/Northgate Neighborhood Association	Stanford Settlement Conference Room 450 W. El Camino Ave.	El Camino Ave.
Friday, November 16th 4:00pm-6:00 p.m.	Pop-up Event	Grocery Outlet 2308 Del Paso Blvd.	El Camino Ave.
Wednesday, December 5th 6:00-8:00 p.m.	Hagginwood Community Association	William J. Kinney Police Facility 3550 Marysville Blvd.	Marysville Blvd.

About the Study

In 2017, the City of Sacramento identified the five corridors in Sacramento with the highest numbers of fatal and serious crashes involving pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorists.

The Vision Zero Top Five Corridor Study will analyze the factors that contribute to these corridors’ high crash rates. Based on technical analysis, community input, and best practices in roadway safety and design, the study will identify improvements for each of these corridors that can be implemented in the near-term.

More information about the project is available at http://visionzerosac.org

Getting Around Sacramento

by foot, bicycle, and public transit (car-free!)

Tag: City of Sacramento