The City of Sacramento’s Vision Zero Action Plan Update process has produced a Draft Actions chart. Item 9 in the high priority list is:

“Update City Traffic Signal Operations Manual (TSOM) to reflect complete streets and designs reflective of reducing exposure, likelihood, and severity. Include application of Leading Pedestrian Intervals, No Right Turn on Red, Protected Left-Turn Phasing, Rest on Red, and other similar strategies.”

Sounds great. The problem is, the TSOM apparently does not exist. I did a PRA (Public Records Act) request with the city for the existing document. The city first referred me to the Traffic Signal Operations and Standards webpage. That page contains links to short documents that might or might not be part of the manual, but the manual does not exist on that page.

So I submitted another PRA, stating that the document I wanted is not on that page, and again requested it. The city’s response was that the document does not exist.

I suspect the document does exist, but the city is unwilling to admit it. But it is also possible that the city has been managing signals based on whim, not on documented policy and guidelines. A lot of the signal work the city does, including new signals, tends to support the second explanation.

It might be challenging to update something that doesn’t exist (snark).