SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Car crashes involving pedestrians and cyclists have risen to a crisis level in Sacramento, city leaders say.
More than 265 people walking or riding a bike have been hit and killed by a vehicle within city limits since 2012, according to UC Berkeley's Transportation Injury Mapping System.
On Monday, Sacramento’s Mayor Darrell Steinberg, Vice Mayor Caity Maple and Mayor pro Tem Karina Talamantes submitted a proposal to declare a State of Emergency to address these kinds of deaths.
"We've heard the devastating news about pedestrian after pedestrian after cyclist being hit, some injured and some killed, in Sacramento,” Maple said at a Monday news conference. “I would say that this is a public health issue — an emergency."
They’re proposing a public education campaign; directing the city manager to work with the Sacramento Police Department to increase enforcement of traffic laws that protect pedestrians; and a doubling down on the city’s Vision Zero Action Plan — adopted in 2018 — which aims to get to zero deadly crashes and serious traffic-related injuries on Sacramento city streets by 2027.
The proposal has to go before a committee and get reviewed by the city attorney and city manager, among other leaders, before it even comes to council for a vote.
Steinberg and Maple told reporters Monday they also want to hear from the public on this, particularly when the proposal goes before committee. They want ideas on how the city can improve pedestrian safety and where people think it’s needed the most.
This move comes as yet another pedestrian died in a traffic collision. It happened Thursday night on Sutterville Road, by Sacramento City College. The woman died from her injuries on Sunday.
"I’m devastated hearing about another loss,” Maple said.
A heat map from UC Berkeley’s Transportation Injury Mapping System shows the areas with more frequent fatal crashes over the past dozen years. They include the corridors of Stockton Boulevard, Rio Linda Boulevard, Mack Road and Del Paso Boulevard.
“There's a disproportionate impact on our lower-income communities of Sacramento,” Steinberg said, posing the question, “How do we get the resources to be able to invest more in safer streets?”
The city’s Vision Zero Action Plan involves safety projects — including crosswalk improvements, reducing school speed zones to 15 miles per hour and more. Many of these have been accomplished, according to the city’s most recent Vision Zero update last summer, but there’s much work left to be done. It's made more difficult with budget constraints and rising costs.
Vision Zero “is almost entirely funded by grant funding,” Maple said. “The cost of these projects has gone up astronomically since COVID. That's not just in Sacramento; that's all over the state. It's all over the U.S. we're seeing these increases, so we're trying to respond as government.”
She and Steinberg said they hope to see a county ballot measure in a future election — there isn’t one this year — to increase sales tax to pay for traffic safety improvements.
“The voters of this county are going to have an opportunity sometime in the near future to find a way to invest billions of dollars in what really matters to the quality-of-life for people, starting with Vision Zero and safer streets,” Steinberg said.
In the meantime, they’re looking for affordable ways to improve traffic safety and they say declaring a State of Emergency could potentially mobilize state funds.
They say traffic safety improves with awareness and accountability.
“I think right now there is very much a feeling in some places in the city that, that maybe you can get away with it,” Maple said. “You do see people speeding down the streets, you see people not stopping all the way at stoplights or at signs. We see people texting and driving. We see people driving while intoxicated.”
She and Steinberg point to the cities of San Francisco and Carlsbad, both of which have declared local traffic safety emergencies for similar reasons in recent years.
The proposal comes during Pedestrian Safety Month in California. The message is to remind drivers to slow down and be alert.
Smart Growth America released its Dangerous by Design 2024 report and found the Sacramento region ranked 20th, highlighting dangerous U.S. cities for pedestrians. Four other California cities were ranked above Sacramento: Bakersfield (4), Fresno (7), Riverside-San Bernardino (12) and Stockton (19).
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