Tag: P-St

SacCity separated bikeway failure?

Dan AllisonLeave a comment

Are the City of Sacramento separated bikeways on 9th St, 10th St, 19th St, 21st St, J St, P St and Q St a failure?

These separated bikeways are mostly but not entirely parking protected, meaning they are between the curb and the parking lane. The city purchased a bikeway sweeper specifically for use on these bikeways. But that sweeper has not been used this year. As documented in SacCity is not sweeping separated bikeways, the bikeways are filling with fallen leaves, which have now turned to leaf slime. Though I have not seen anyone fall on the leaf slime, I’d not be surprised, and I have slipped but not fallen several times. Some of the bikeways have been cleared, but it has been by adjacent property owners, and by City of Sacramento Youth, Parks, and Community Engagement (YPCE, otherwise called parks) on some but not all park-adjacent blocks. City of Sacramento Public Works, whose responsibility it is to sweep these bikeways which are part of the transportation system, have done nothing. Nothing.

A second issue is that the city has done nothing to solve the bikeway blocking that occurs on a daily basis on P Street approaching 16th Street. The bikeway here is blocked by delivery vehicles, people moving in and out of the adjacent residences, and people picking up food from the restaurants. The city is very aware of this problem, as there are frequent reports to 311 of illegally parked vehicles, by myself and many other bicyclists. But nothing has been done to solve the problem. This location needs, at the least, additional vertical delineators to discourage drivers from using the bikeway, and even better, a hard curb to prevent use.

It is worth noting that there is marked loading zone immediately adjacent to the bikeway, see below. Most drivers choose not to use that, or it is routinely blocked by drivers parked for a long period of time, clearly not loading.

photo of loading zone adjacent to bikeway, P St
loading zone adjacent to bikeway, P St

There are other locations where a separated bikeway is blocked by motor vehicles, but nowhere is it as common as the P St approaching 16 St location.

If the city is not willing to maintain the bikeways, and is not willing to solve issues with the bikeways of which it is very aware, then it can’t claim these as separated bikeways. Maybe they should be removed.

On the plus side, the city’s 311 app finally includes a drop down for ‘blocking bike lane’ under the parking violations menu, about five years after the request being made by myself and many others.

Central City Mobility update #12

Dan Allison2 Comments

I really am not sure if this is #12 on Central City Mobility Project, but close, so I’ll go with it.

Nothing has changed on 21st Street since the last post.

On 19th Street, some of the striping has been completed as far south at P Street. This is only white, long-line striping, none of the details have been painted. While riding 19th Street today, I was very nearly hit by a driver at O Street. The long-lines lead drivers to think that they have full width right of way, and to not expect bike riders to be coming out to pass the curb extensions at O Street. As I have said all along, I question putting extensions in locations with separated bikeways. It may be less dangerous once the detailed striping and green paint are installed, but it won’t be as safe as it could be if the city had simply not installed extensions on the east side of the 19th Street and O Street intersection.

A friend pointed out that the separated bikeway on 19th Street southbound is more than half in the gutter pan, and that the gutter pan is deteriorated in many locations. Therefore the effective width of the separated bikeway is not six feet, but about two feet. Smooth sailing for drivers, not for bicyclists!

19th St separated bikeway in the gutter pan
19th St separated bikeway in the gutter pan

As is true of every street that has been repaved, or patched, so far, the lane tabs have indicated that the general purpose lanes are very wide, and there are no bike lanes. Bike riders are now exposed to higher speed traffic (because of the very wide lanes), with not even the slight protection of paint.
Though this might be the fault of the project contractor, I doubt it. If the city had told the contractor to keep temporary bike lanes, they would have. I’m almost certain that the city did not say anything about accommodations for bicyclists to the contractor. The city is endangering bicyclists during this construction project, on purpose and with full knowledge. If someone is hurt or killed here, it will be on the city, and I hope they get sued for millions. The city philosophy, overall, for this project and every other construction project on streets and sidewalks, is that bicyclists and walkers don’t matter.

The city has claimed that they are now, finally, working on a construction accommodation policy. I suspect that it will come out very weak, because Public Works still believes strongly in cars-first. Traffic flow and ease for drivers controls all their decisions.

P Street has been repaved, but does not have any marking yet. Q Street has been patched, though I can’t tell if there is more to be done. A reader pointed out that there is some active work on 10th Street, but I haven’t gotten there yet.

A friend mentioned that traffic was a disaster when the city closed Q Street and 15th Street, with traffic backed up for many blocks. Though I did not observe this, I’ve had reports now from many people that the detour signage for this project does not provide drivers (or bicyclists) with any information about which way to go (the detour signs, I have observed, frequently point two directions, and the signage along the detours is incomplete. This could, possibly, be the fault of the contractor, but if the city was not out inspecting the detours and getting them corrected, the city was also failing. I have talked to a number of people on the street for whom this project has left a bad taste in their mouth. They have seen that the city has done a poor job of communicating with drivers, bicyclists and walkers, and there is a lot of doubt being expressed about whether the separated bikeways will actually be safer.

Lastly, I will note that there was no public outreach on this project. There are no plans available to the public. I am sure if there had been outreach, some of the design details would be different, some of the flaws would have been caught, communication would have been continuous and effective, and construction signing would have been done correctly. This was an internal Public Works project, and it was not done well.

red light running consequences

Dan Allison3 Comments

I’ve written recently about red-light-running bullies. On Wednesday morning I got to observe the logical consequences of this behavior.

red light running crash at P St & 15th St
red light running crash at P St & 15th St

The driver of the SUV heading south on P Street intentionally ran the red light, colliding with the passenger car that was heading west through the intersection. The red light running was well after the light had turned red. Fortunately the red light running driver slammed on his brakes and the resulting collision was low speed, or the other driver might well be dead. I might well have been dead if the other car had not been in the way, since I was using the crosswalk over 15th St, west to east, and would quite possible have been run over by the SUV driver. The driver would have been much less likely to see me than to see the other car.

Really all the red light running driver had to say is that we was in a hurry.

Perhaps most interesting is that law enforcement refused to come to the crash. The passenger car driver had called 911 shortly after the crash, as did at least one bystander. I waited 45 minutes so that I could give a statement. The passenger car driver said that he had finally gotten a text message back that no one would respond. So the crash will not get recorded anywhere. The SUV driver will not get a ticket. Apparently the 911 operator had transferred the caller to CHP, and it is CHP that refused to respond. Perhaps they were busy attending a white supremacy meeting somewhere and couldn’t be bothered. No one died – what’s the big deal?

Just more traffic violence. Nothing to see here. Let’s move along.

Leaf season

Dan AllisonLeave a comment

In my neighborhood, about half the trees have lost all their leaves for the year, and the other half are still hanging on. If I listen closely, I can hear the tick of leaves hitting the ground.

So, how have the bike lanes been doing during leaf season? At least for the parts of the central city and east Sacramento that I ride in, acceptably OK. People are putting their leaf piles in the bike lanes much less often than in previous years. I’m not sure why. I haven’t noticed any city effort to educate about this, other than a vague “When possible, avoid placing piles in bike lanes.” on their Leaf Season page. But I really do believe there are less piles in the bike lanes. Maybe people are beginning to clue in. If only there were a similar improvement in trash cans in bike lanes.

A big concern was how the new separated bikeways (‘protected bike lanes’, ‘cycletracks’) on P and Q and 10th (and now 9th) would do. The city has not yet purchased a device for sweeping these bike facilities. Apparently the ‘the claw’, the loader that collects the leaf piles and moves them into dump trucks, can negotiate the bikeways, and this is how they have been kept clear. This is working pretty well, all except for one block, pictured below. This section of P Street between 15th and 14th has a large accumulation of leaves, and the leaves have developed into leaf slime, with is an incredibly slippery mush of decayed leaves. I am not sure what is different about this block, but it certainly is different. It needs to be cleaned now, and cleaned more frequently.

P Street separated bikeway leaf slime

Separated bikeway demo on P St

Dan Allison2 Comments

The City of Sacramento has created a demonstration separated bikeway on P Street (westbound) between 15th and 13th streets. Separated bikeways, also known as protected bike lanes and cycletracks, are becoming common in progressive cities, but this is the first in Sacramanto. Yesterday the city held a “ribbon cutting” on the facility, with Mayor Steinberg and Councilmember Hansen speaking and visibly excited. The demonstration will be there through Friday, then removed. The purpose of the demonstration is to show the public what a separated bikeway looks like and how it works, and gain community feedback on the project. The city wants to install parking protected separated bikeways on portions of P and Q streets, and a buffered separated bikeway on a portion of 10th St (map below), so the demonstration hopefully will lead to permanent installations. 

I was amazed at how quickly drivers adapted to the parking change. Most of the spots were filled with properly parked cars, even though the parking didn’t open until after the morning rush on parking. I was also noted that when the project was already set up for the morning inbound rush hour, there was no congestion on P St. This is the type of project that benefits drivers, bicyclists, and even people parking. 

On of the questions about these facilities is how they interact with transit. The demo was placed on the left (south side westbound) to avoid interacting with buses. However, Route 6 Land Park and Route 38 P/Q Streets are low frequency 60 minute routes that should not strongly influence street allocation. An easy solution to having both separated bikeways and bus stops on the same side of the street is bus boarding islands within the parking lane or buffer, so that the bikeway passes behind the island. 

I encourage you to get out and see, and use, the demo, and then provide your feedback to the city. The city will host an Open House on October 9 from 5-7 p.m. at City Hall. If you can go, please do! I’m sure there will be people there complaining about loss of a lane, and loss of parking (though there is only a slight decrease), and about change in general, so the city needs to hear from enthusiasts (we want it NOW) and thoughtful ideas for how to improve projects and install in more places. More information is available on the CityExpress page, and the Downtown Bikeways Project page. 


More photos on Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/allisondan/albums/72157686958079110.