Vision Zero comments

2018/02/062018/02/06 Dan AllisonLeave a comment

Here are my comments on the draft Vision Zero Action Plan for Sacramento. Most of these were posted on the boards at the 2018-01-31 meeting, and in email to the city.

Sacramento essentially has no traffic enforcement currently. More about this tomorrow.
I was concerned by the prominence of the bicyclist fatalities increasing 150% without any contextual information. As with any data point with small numbers, as bicyclist KSI (killed and severely injured) is with respect to pedestrian and vehicular KSI, noise can lead to apparently huge changes that may not indicate a pattern. It would be sad if that one statistic were used to argue that changes to protect bicyclists should be prioritized, when it is clear from all the other data in the plan that pedestrians are at the greatest risk.
If 78% of KSI occurred at intersections, issues can be addressed more quickly and cheaply by focusing on intersections rather than corridors.

Profiles

All profiles should have the DAC/CES overlay, not just profile 3.

Profile 1: unsafe speed and profile 3: 35+ streets: Street Narrowing should say Street Narrowing and Speed Limit Reduction
Profile 4: 30+ streets should include lane narrowing
Profile 5: broadside: is there evidence that adding signals reduces crashes, anecdotal evidence would argue that it increases crashes
What does no bullets for efficacy mean, that there is no benefit, or that there is insufficient research?

I asked about why there was a 30+ and a 35+ profile. The answer is that collision characteristics change considerably between 25 and 35, with 30+ being an issue for bicyclists, and 35+ being an issue for all modes.

Vision Zero Actions (p. 45-50)

1.5 Launch online, interactive crash data map and website. > short-term
2.2 Install 10 low-cost safety improvements, including new road markings, signs, and minor signal modifications per year. > 10 locations
2.3 Develop prioritized list and deliver half of engineering safety projects on the HIN in Disadvantaged Communities (commensurate with share of fatal collisions). > separate so that list is short-term, deliver is long-term
4.4 Install school zones at all schools. > what about reductions at qualified locations?
5.4 Update City signal timing policy to improve safety for all modes (e.g. all red time, pedestrian crossing times). > should include specific mention of LPI at high-pedestrian or high-collision intersections

Sacramento Vision Zero and Bicycle Plan meeting January 31

2018/01/312026/01/23 Dan AllisonLeave a comment

You might have thought you had other plans for the evening, but…

The City of Sacramento is holding the last of four public meetings on Vision Zero and Bicycle Master Plan implementation tonight, January 31, 5:00 to 7:00PM at city hall.

You can see the new Bicycle Master Plan and draft implementation plan at http://bit.ly/SacBicyclingProgram. You can see the Vision Zero Draft Action Plan and other documents at http://bit.ly/VisionZeroSac.

Just one of these would be reason to attend, but both! Hope to see you there.

What activates parks?

2017/07/212017/07/22 Dan Allison2 Comments

Now that I’ve had some things to say about individual parks in Parks in the central city and Park positives, some comments about what I think activates parks.

People experiencing homelessness. Yes, I’m serious. There is nothing worse than an empty park, and I’d rather see people using a park than not.
Nearby residential, something more than single family. Parks need people who live close, and parks surrounded by single family and other uses cannot gather enough people to activate them except for special events. Nothing wrong with mixed use, but if no one lives there, there won’t be a good park.
Drinking fountains. In a climate like Sacramento, all public spaces should have drinking fountains.
Something unique that does not exist at nearby parks. Restaurant, senior center, stage, basketball courts, water features, etc.
Playground. Parks need kids, and kids need playgrounds. The size can be scaled to use, but the playground needs something unique that appeals to kids and isn’t just like every other playground. Creative ideas.
Restroom. Any Park of a block or larger in size should have a public restroom. Park users will need restrooms, particularly kids, and they should not need to return home or seek out a local business. Of course this is part of a more general issue that Sacramento has almost no public restrooms anywhere.

I am am sure there are official answers to what parks need, and I will look for those when I have the time, but I want to provide my two cents worth.

What do you think?

Park positives

2017/07/20 Dan Allison1 Comment

As promised, some positives to say about parks to follow up on the previous park post.

Cesar Chavez Plaza: The park always has people in it. Yes, some complain that it is the wrong (homeless) people, but I think a park full of people is a good park. The park hosts special events such as Concert in the Park, and has a seasonal farmers market. And it finally again has a restaurant. Too high-end for many of the people who use the park, but a positive nevertheless.

Roosevelt Park: The real strength of this park, in my opinion, is the basketball courts. I almost always see people there, playing and socializing. Many are not from this neighborhood, which I see as an indication that there is a much greater demand for high quality community basketball courts than is being met by the city. I'm not a fan of basketball, nor of the Kings who helped upgrade the courts, but I know park activation when I see it.

Fremont Park: This park has a playground used by every kid who lives in the neighborhood. It has a number of special events throughout the year, the biggest of which is Chalk It Up on Labor Day weekend. The park is surrounded by both housing and retail, so it gets a lot of unplanned visits.

Capitol Park: Capitol and Sutter's Fort are of course not primarily parks, but parks surrounding important state buildings. For me, the most interesting thing is the arboretum. It could be better advertised and have an app guide, but nevertheless it is a great resource.

Sutter's Fort and State Indian Museum: Again, a park managed by the state primarily for other purposes, but with some nice park amenities. The ponds and fountains are my favorites.

Grant Park: This would be another big, bland water-wasting grass park, but it is saved by having a great little playground and a drinking fountain.

Zapata Park: Though small, Zapata has a playground, garden, court, grass and trees. The most distinctive thing it has is adjacent multi-family housing, so the park is always full of kids and families.

Southside Park: Southside is of course the gem of the central city, with a large number of amenities. The playgrounds are large enough to have a variety of equipment for different ages, with elements not seen in other parks, and is heavily used by families.

Next up: What activates a park?

Parks in the central city

2017/07/182017/07/19 Dan Allison3 Comments

Winn Park, a block-square park between P & Q, and 27th & 28th, seems dead to me. It doesn’t matter what time of day I see the park, it is almost always empty, sometimes with some homeless folks hanging out, and more rarely, a family with kids on the playground equipment. Other parks seem lively much of the day. Why are the parks so different? I have been visiting all the parks in Sacramento central city to take photos and see if I can make sense of their characteristics.

big smiles at Sunday Street on Broadway

2017/05/222017/05/23 Dan AllisonLeave a comment

Sacramento’s first open street event* took place on Sunday, Sunday Street on Broadway.

Broadway was closed to cars and open to people from 8 to noon. The route was on Broadway from Riverside east to 26th St, jogged down to 2nd Ave, and then ended again at Broadway. People were wondering how this would work in Sacramento, the first time, and in a place that is pretty car-centric. Well it worked great! A lot of people came out. I’m sure the city will have an estimate, but the initial answer is, a lot.

If success is measured by smiles, and it should be, this event was a great success. People of all ages were there, people from the neighborhood and the region. A lot of people were bicycling, but a lot were walking, and using other wheeled devices. Slide tricycles, which I didn’t even realize were a thing in Sacramento, were common.

Sacramento Area Bicycle Advocates (SABA) created a separated bikeway (protected bike lane) for people to experience, which attracted a lot of attention and generated a lot of discussion about the state of bicycling in Sacramento. Adjacent, WALKSacramento asked people to add their favorite places to walk to a chalk board, all of which were NOT car-dominated places. Some people prioritized how it felt to walk, others their destination. Ice cream was a popular theme.

Outside food vendors were prohibited in order to highlight local restaurants. For those open, business was booming. Some places missed out, though, by not being open. I’d imagine as word gets around how well it works, food retail along future events will be open and prosperous. Many business owners just assume that most of their customers come by car, but places that encourage and activate walking and bicycling all have increased business. Vintage Bicycle Supply was open and crowded with people not even aware it existed, and fans of the CycleFest cruiser bikes. New Helvetia Brewing was quenching people’s thirst and hosting running clubs. There were a lot of sports and fitness vendors, showing people what they had to offer and just providing fun. The two hula hoop groups were particularly popular with kids, and there were chalk drawings everywhere. Sidewalk chalk may be the single most important tool available to the public for activating public spaces.

SACOG and Social Bicycles were showing off the new bike share which opened just Thursday. I heard comments from a lot of people that they found the bikes easier to ride than they thought, and were looking forward to trying it out. [previous post riding the bike share.

The section along 26th St and 2nd Ave was much quieter, with a cluster of local businesses and organizations near the end at Broadway. It was also far cooler than Broadway, with all the street trees moderating the temperature about 10 degrees below Broadway. This was not only much appreciated by people, but points out that for the new Broadway to work for pedestrians and bicyclists, it is going to need to not only not lose many of the existing trees, but to really create a welcoming tree lined street. When I participated in the public meetings the last two years, I didn’t realize how important street trees would be. Since Broadway will be a vibrant commercial corridor, it may be that the big shade trees should be in the median, with less dense trees between the street and retail, so that the view of customers is not obstructed. Interesting design issues.

Hope you had a fun time too! I’m looking forward to the next one.

Photos on Flickr

* Though the county claims its Great Scott road closure is an open street event, it really does not meet the widely accepted definition of an open street.

transportation development impact fee

2016/12/102016/12/13 Dan AllisonLeave a comment

The City of Sacramento is working on a Transportation Development Impact Fee (TDIF) for the entire city, and with somewhat different requirements for subareas including downtown, river district, and North Natomas. The Sacramento Bee clued me into the proposal with Sacramento asks developers to open wallets to keep city streets from clogging (SacBee 2016-12-08). My initial guess was that this is in response to the failure of Measure B, but this proposal has been worked on since at least August, so that is not the case. The city has a webpage on development impact fees, with two documents specifically about the transportation DIF. I have not had the time to delve into the details, nor do I have any expertise in this area, so these are my initial thoughts.

city failure on Capitol Mall bike lane

2016/08/192023/04/07 Dan AllisonLeave a comment

Sacramento has nearly completed a reconstructed bridge over I-5 between 3rd Street and Tower Bridge. This is part of a project to provide access from and to Old Sacramento, but that part is not complete yet. The pavement is fresh, with bright white lines and green carpet bike lanes. But, the bike lane design is a failure. The eastbound bike lane is OK. A little strange because it varies in width, but acceptable. The westbound bike lane, though, is a hazard to bicyclists.

Below is a photo of the first problem, a bike lane to the right of a place where a right turn is permitted. This is at the entrance to the Old Sacramento access.The straight-and-right arrow indicates that the city expects heavy right turning traffic at this location.

While this design is in compliance with the law, using a dashed line to indicate that traffic from the general purpose lane and the bike lane should safely merge, the use of green paint here is the wrong message. Though green paint has no legal meaning, the general meaning taken is that this is the place for bicycles. So an average bicyclist will stay in the bike lane, not realizing that the safe manesuver is to merge into the general purpose lane. The result is a right hook danger that has been created by the design.

Stay to the right of right turning cars? NO!

There are a lot of ways to solve this issue, but this is the worst possible solution. Creating a separate signal phase for bicyclists and right turning traffic is one solution. Dropping the bike lane in favor of green-back sharrows in the general purpose lane is another.

However, this problem spot is minor in comparison to what happens just on the other side of the intersection. Here, the bike lane suddenly ends and becomes a right turn only lane. There is no signing for bicyclists or motor vehicle drivers, no pavement markings, no indication of what biyclists should do. I’m a vehicular bicyclist and would not be in this bike lane fragment to begin with, but for the average bicyclist, this green paint is a clear message, “this is where you belong.” Whoops. Sorry. Turns out we needed the road for a right turn lane, and just got rid of the bike lane. Hope you are still alive, but if not, well it wasn’t our fault. But the thing is, it is the city’s fault. This is a mis-design, and the city should be sued the first time someone is injured at this location. It is not as though this was an existing location where the city did the best if could to squeeze in bike facilities. This is a new construction where things should have been done right. They were not.

There are several good solutions for this location, and the NACTO Guide to Urban Bicycling has several, but even the standard MUTCD design is better than this. Though you can’t see the turn lane due to the parked FedEx van (it was there for more than 10 minutes, double-parked, and I couldn’t wait any longer for the photo), there are no bike markings in the right turn lane at all. There is no “bicyclists may use full lane” sign. Maybe bicyclists are meant to fly over this right turn lane and return to earth at the bridge. Or maybe they are meant to die.

As I always warn people in bicyclist education classes, don’t get sucked in by paint. Paint doesn’t keep you safe. And in this particular case, paint creates a danger for you that would not exist if not for the paint. Negligent design, for sure.

So, what is SacBAC?

2015/08/082015/08/09 Dan Allison1 Comment

When talking to people about local transportation issues, the subject of SacBAC comes up, and at least half the people say “SacBAC? What is that?” SacBAC is the Sacramento Bicycle Advisory Committee. It is a joint committee formed by the City of Sacramento and the County of Sacramento to advise the respective governments on bicycle issues. It was officially chartered in 1995, and has twelve members, six appointed by the city council and six appointed by the county board of supervisors. It is supported by two staff, the City of Sacramento Bike and Pedestrian Coordinator, Ed Cox, and the County of Sacramento Alternative Modes Coordinator, Dan Klinker. The committee meets once a month, on the second Tuesday, 6:00-8:00PM, in room 1217 of Sacramento City Hall at 915 I Street. The meetings are open to the public.

The agenda for the August 11 meeting is available.

Getting Around Sacramento

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

Tag: City of Sacramento