After 32 deaths in 2024, will Sacramento's city council fund road safety plans?

Ariane Lange, The Sacramento Bee on Jan 7, 2025

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A committee of the Sacramento City Council voted Tuesday to gave preliminary approval of six recommended steps toward pedestrian and cyclist safety on city streets after a year in which 32 people were killed in traffic collisions.

The unanimous vote of the Personnel and Public Employees Committee, however, does not mean the recommendations will ultimately be acted on.

Recommendations from the Active Transportation Commission were approved last year, but when members of the council passed the 2024-25 budget in June, they did not set aside any money for those measures.

The commission has since pared down its list from nine items to six, with a first-year estimated cost of $8.1 million. The biggest ask is for the city to send $3 million toward infrastructure projects that center on walking and cycling. Separately, the council is set to consider declaring a state of emergency over pedestrian and cyclist safety.

“The total budget for the city is approximately $1 billion. The Police Department, also responsible for public safety, receives approximately $226 million,” Active Transportation Commission chair Arlete Hodel said in her presentation to the committee Tuesday. “Our less-than-$10 million request is minuscule compared to the total budget and that allotted to the Police Department.”

With the committee’s yes vote, the recommendations will be forwarded to the council’s Budget and Audit Committee.

Over the past year, members of the City Council have been under increased pressure to overhaul some of the city’s most dangerous roads. In September, Councilmember Caity Maple submitted a proposal to declare the state of emergency though that proposal, which hasn’t been approved, did not come with funding attached for infrastructure improvements.

Sacramento’s leaders made a “Vision Zero” pledge in 2017 to eliminate all traffic fatalities and serious injuries by 2027. Though many safety-enhancing projects are planned and some have been built, the California capital is not on track to achieve its goal. Capital Improvement Program budget documents show that after setting this ambitious target, the council did not change the way it funded the infrastructure projects critical to achieving that aim.

Where would the money go?

The city currently faces a $77 million deficit. Still, sitting on the dais Tuesday, council members Maple, Karina Talamantes and Lisa Kaplan all said the city should prioritize funding for safety projects. They talked about the need for a ballot measure; Maple emphasized the need for spending in the upcoming budget.

Maple said she saw active transportation projects as a safety imperative, but also as critical to encouraging development. “People want walkable spaces,” she said.

During public comment, housing advocate Ben Raderstorf agreed.

“I understand that there are real concerns around budgetary limitations,” he said. “I think we need to think of this not just as a moral obligation, but really an investment opportunity. ... These do pay themselves back through investment over time.”

The Active Transportation Commission is asking the council to include the following in the next budget, which is expected to be finalized in June:

▪ Increase funding for active transportation infrastructure projects

▪ Expand the speed management program, which currently focuses on speed lumps

▪ Create a program to establish affordable “quick-build” bike lanes without the typical delays

▪ Reestablish neighborhood “Slow & Active Streets” that were piloted in the early months of the COVID pandemic

▪ Develop a program that prioritizes biking and walking to school

▪ Finalize the long-stalled policy that would direct how construction sites must accommodate pedestrians and cyclists

Since the council adopted its Vision Zero goal in 2017, vehicle crashes have killed more than 300 people on Sacramento streets. Last year, The Sacramento Bee reported on the deaths of Mattie Nicholson, 56; Kate Johnston, 55; Jeffrey Blain, 59; Aaron Ward, 40; Michael J. Kennedy, 40; Federico Zacarias Cambrano, 28; Marvin Moran, 22; Sam Dent, 41; Daniel Morris, 38; Terry Lane, 55; David Rink, 51; James Lind, 54; Tyler Vandehei, 32; Jose Valladolid Ramirez, 36; Larry Winters, 76; Sau Voong, 84; Johnnie A. Fite, 82; Robert Kohler Jr., 50; Edward J. Lopez, 61; David D. Taylor, 60; José Luis Silva, 55; Geohaira “Geo” Sosa, 32; Kaylee Xiong, 18; Muhammad Saddique, 64; Azure Amonti Daniels, 48; Duane Ashby, 35; Martin Chavez, 41; Daniel Lee Jennings Jr., 54; Jordan Nicolas Rodriguez, 38; Alfred Ramirez, 23; Nelson Lee, 64; and Lindie Kraushar, 53.

Maple attended a vigil for them last week organized by Slow Down Sacramento. At the event, Isaac Gonzalez, vice chair of the Active Transportation Commission and the founder of Slow Down Sacramento, read their names, their ages and the day each of them was killed. The list took four minutes to recite.

The vigil was a reminder, Maple said from the dais Tuesday, that “there are very real human-life consequences to policy decisions that we make or don’t make. And that also includes funding decisions.”

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