Road Diets (Sacramento, Elk Grove: daycares, neighborhood, college)

[Majin]

City of Sacramento considering new set of

I hope they FINALLY start actually implementing this. Especially streets like Broadway and Freeport Blvd, they both need MAJOR work for urbanity/pedestrian friendlness and cycling.

I hope they don't modify J street though.

[caligirlz]

Interesting, wondering how the proposal for J St will impact people who prefer to drive. And what I mean, will people choose to not go downtown at all because the traffic bottlenecks & causes major traffic jams? Not everyone has access to LR, or wants to drive & park & then get on LR, but it appears that is what is being "forced" upon, or perhaps, planned for the public from the outlying areas.

I was reading in the Sac Bee how many people from Elk Grove who've been using the e-trains, do not want to deal with the hassle of LR from the college. It's not convenient for them. And it takes more time. At least for now.

[Majin]

Originally Posted by caligirlz

And what I mean, will people choose to not go downtown at all because the traffic bottlenecks & causes major traffic jams?

Won't happen, and never will happen. If people want to go downtown, they WILL go, whether they have to deal with crappy parking, or taking a taxi/uber, or light rail, whatever. In some spots in the grid it is already virtually impossible to find parking yet places are packed. The Arena has no parking at all, and I will bet you it will still sell out every night.

[wburg]

There's a difference between forcing someone to do something and no longer subsidizing their ability to do it.

[Elliott_CA]

What? No mention of the 3-lane, one-way "urban freeways" like 15th, 16th, L St., N St.? Especially 15th, 16th. They can be like NASCAR tracks, packs of cars thundering along at 10 or 15 mph over the limit, ignoring pedestrians waiting to use zebra crosswalks. Those 3-laners are ripe for a diet in my book.

[Mr. Ozo]

Originally Posted by Elliott_CA

What? No mention of the 3-lane, one-way "urban freeways" like 15th, 16th, L St., N St.? Especially 15th, 16th. They can be like NASCAR tracks, packs of cars thundering along at 10 or 15 mph over the limit, ignoring pedestrians waiting to use zebra crosswalks. Those 3-laners are ripe for a diet in my book.

15th and 16th are run by the State, who have resisted change.

The only 3 lane road left on the grid past 15th are J and I. I don't think there should be much argument to reducing those to 2 with bike lanes.

[wmlegr]

A fundamental problem is that most of the streets downtown are designed primarily for rush hour traffic only. If you go down G, H, P, Q, N, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 8th, 9th, or 10th during non rush hour times, the streets are dead empty. Essentially, these one way streets are designed to flush high volumes of traffic to and from the highways twice a day, and then for the rest of the time, sit empty and underutilized.

I do not think that the proposed road diets on J and Broadway are enough to reverse some of these problems. There is no reason that J or I need 3 or 4 lanes when a few streets over, N, P, and Q streets are silent. The city needs to stop trying to make the city speedy to get in and out of twice a day in a car, and start designing the streets for how many people actually use them for all the time in between. Personally, I think the above listed streets would serve well as two way two lane, with J, I, L, 16th, 15th, and 12th as one way two lane. People coming downtown to live, shop, and eat past rush hour would easily be able to use any of the currently underutilized streets, while rush hour commuters could find ways to adapt by using different routes and modes of transportation.

The obstacles would be to convince commuters that slower traffic at rush hour is not the end of the world, and to convince the city that such changes are worth the money required. The changes would act as a good base to making downtown Sacramento's streets more liveable, and would set steps for more development and population downtown.

[caligirlz]

Originally Posted by Majin

Won't happen, and never will happen. If people want to go downtown, they WILL go, whether they have to deal with crappy parking, or taking a taxi/uber, or light rail, whatever.

I think some people will take it into consideration.

[xeney]

Slower traffic at rush hour completely sucks, though. Not everyone has flexibility at that time. (Most daycares close at 5:30 or 6, and you can't be late for daycare -- they tend to charge by the minute once you are late, and if you are REALLY late there is a CPS call.)

And if the idea is to push traffic onto the mostly empty streets, prepare for the residents of those streets to complain.

But I don't notice the two-lane one-way streets moving much more slowly than the three-lane one-way streets.

[xeney]

Also, I am not worried about people avoiding downtown. That was also supposed to happen after "traffic calming" in midtown. I am happy to report that we still have plenty of jerks speeding through the neighborhood and running stop signs.

(I still hate traffic calming but I don't mind road diets.)