The City of Sacramento is holding a city council workshop on Tuesday, February 8, 5:00PM. The purpose of the workshop is to gather input to help the city realign its transportation policies and project with its climate change objectives (they are far, far from in alignment now). The workshop will focus on reducing VMT, not on supporting EVs, which is good because EVs, electric vehicles meaning cars, dominate the conversation around climate change solutions.

The city’s webpage is at http://www.cityofsacramento.org/Public-Works/Transportation/Planning-Projects/Climate-and-Transportation. The major graphic is below.

The webpage identifies one action in support of improving transit in the city:

Mode Shift to the Bus - Build Stockton Boulevard Bus Lane
In order to achieve the City’s climate goals, we need to significantly increase the number of trips on transit. In order to increase transit use, transit needs to be connected, convenient, and frequent. Travel times should be reliable and competitive with driving. One way to achieve these goals is to provide reliable fast bus service through dedicated bus lanes. The proposed project expands the bus lanes approved by the City Council on September 21, 2021, as part of the Stockton Boulevard Corridor Plan.

7. Bus-Bike lanes on Stockton Blvd 

Stockton Blvd, which serves SacRT route 51, with 15 minute service during core weekday times (and 12 minutes during peak times) is certainly a desirable route to support for improvements, as the highest ridership route in the system. The bikeway superhighways map, which provides the only available information, shows a bus lane on Stockton from Alhambra Blvd to Elder Creek Road. The text implies that it will be better than the occasional bus lane with some improvements to other areas, which was approved under the Stockton Blvd Corridor Plan. The corridor should have a continuous dedicated bus lane, which would be complemented by enhanced SacRT service at 10-minute frequency, and a broadening of the span of service on weekdays and weekends.

No mention is made of important routes in the city, particularly Route 30 from downtown to Sac State at 30 minute frequency (currently), and route 81, 15 minute frequency on a portion of the route.

Bus lanes are not appropriate for every location, but there are a number of other improvements that can be made to accelerate bus service.

1. Remove bus pull-outs, except where there are at timed points at which the driver might need to wait to get back on schedule (happens mostly on weekends and nights), or layover points at the end of routes. Having buses pull out of traffic slows every route. Where parking or separated bikeways are present, bus boarding islands are the superior solution.
2. Paint curbs and pavement red at all bus stops, no matter what the frequency, so as to reduce private vehicle interference with the buses.
3. Install full length concrete bus pads in the street at any location where there is pavement deterioration from bus loads.
4. Implement signal priority, so that buses on frequent routes change trigger a green light on select intersections, particularly ones with long signal cycles or where not all vehicles make it through on a cycle. There are also queue-jump options, but the locations where they would work are more limited.
5. Lengthen the sidewalk pads at bus stops to allow for safe deboarding at all doors, and safe boarding when SacRT implements all door boarding.
6. Partner with SacRT to develop curb heights appropriate to ease bus boarding, and then modify curbs at bus stop locations to meet this standard. Where buses load and unload to driveways, either remove the driveway or move the bus stop.
7. Partner with SacRT to improve bus stops. The city should be responsible for bike racks and, at high use stops, bike lockers, at bus stops. The city should be proactively expanding the concrete paved areas at bus stops to accommodate whatever amenities SacRT installs.
8. Partner with SacRT to integrate the bike share, and possibly scooter share, system into the transit system by making bike racks and bike share bikes available at all high use transfer points in the bus and light rail system.

Beyond the specifics, there is a funding issue. The city has always said that the responsibility of transit improvements is with SacRT. I believe that the city should be investing more in the transit system, as a partner with SacRT. The city might supplement operations expenses for bus routes where higher frequency would support the equity goals of the city, connecting low-income neighborhoods to jobs, social services, and community amenities including shopping and parks.

Policy should really be at the core of city efforts. If you have great policy, the projects which follow will likely be great. If you have poor policy, or no policy, the projects can never be great.

It seems as though the city continues to talk about equity, but the projects put forward only weakly support equity. The city has long disinvested in south and north Sacramento, and every transportation and transit decision should work to undo those harms.

SABA and other partners have offered a petition to the city for a better transportation system, and some specific ideas. You can view and perhaps sign the petition at https://sites.google.com/sacbike.org/cleansac/home.

It is likely that STAR will submit a letter to the city on transit issues. If you have ideas or would like input on that letter, contact Dan Allison, allisondan52@gmail.com. We hope your can attend the February 8th meeting to support better transit.

• City of Sacramento
• transit
• transit stops