Sutterville Road pedestrian dies as Sacramento considers action on dangerous roads
A 48-year-old pedestrian died in the hospital as Sacramento City Council prepared to consider declaring a state of emergency over a road safety crisis that has now killed at least 21 people this year.
The woman, who has not yet been identified, was struck Thursday night just outside of Sacramento City College trying to cross Sutterville Road, which the city has previously identified as dangerous. Police confirmed she died from her injuries on Monday morning.
“We need to take immediate and urgent action,” Maple tweeted Friday evening, when the woman was still in critical condition in the hospital. She said that she, Mayor Darrell Steinberg and Councilwoman Karina Talamantes would call for both funding a “public education campaign” and for ramped-up police enforcement of traffic violations that imperil pedestrians.
The proposal would also direct staff to “expedite safety projects.” City leaders made a Vision Zero promise in 2017 to eliminate all traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2027, but currently remains behind schedule to fulfill that promise.
Sacramento currently allows drivers on many streets to legally travel at speeds considered lethal. A study in the public health journal Accident Analysis & Prevention found that when a driver hits a pedestrian at 24.1 mph, the average risk that the pedestrian will die is 10%; by 40.6 mph, the risk of death shoots up to 50%.
One advocate said that unless the state of emergency directed money toward fast infrastructure improvements often called “quick-build” or “tactical urbanism” projects, the declaration wouldn’t do much for safety. Isaac Gonzalez, vice chair of the city’s Active Transportation Commission, said that without changes to the built environment, “Enforcement would be a cathartic exercise for some but little more than a performative action.”
Sacramento has previously said that “two-thirds of fatal crashes occur on streets with a posted speed of 40 mph or higher” — meaning that drivers can obey every law and travel at speeds research shows are lethal.
The city, Gonzalez said, needs to “properly invest in changes to the built environment that make it prohibitively difficult to drive at unsafe speeds.”
Councilwoman Katie Valenzuela has pushed for a quick-build program that could swiftly address safety problems without the yearslong wait times associated with most road improvement projects. City spokeswoman Gabby Miller told The Sacramento Bee this month that that staff were still reviewing consultant proposals for the program, but would “need to identify funding to implement.”
Road safety improvements are slow in Sacramento
Although Sacramento has made some progress on road safety, including with the major street revamp currently under construction on Broadway, officials have been slow to pursue smaller-scale projects that could keep road users safer in the short term.
At one intersection in Del Paso Heights, a two-vehicle crash killed Amritpal Singh, 61, and Ryan Jacob Murphy, 38, on Feb. 19, 2021; two years later, Juan Ramon Flores was hit by a car and killed crossing the same intersection. After three deaths in two years, the city had no plans to make safety improvements at the intersection.
The newest victim was fatally struck crossing Sutterville Road. The city has identified the road as part of the “high-injury network” — those city streets where the most severe and fatal crashes occur. The city’s 2040 General Plan says that “reducing driver speeds” on Sutterville is a priority for the Greater Land Park community, but a project has not yet come to fruition. A buffered bike lane on Sutterville — which could potentially slow traffic by removing some lane space from cars — is a “medium priority” project in the Transportation Priorities Plan.
This year, in addition to the Sutterville Road collision, The Bee has reported on crashes that killed Mattie Nicholson, 56, Kate Johnston, 55, Jeffrey Blain, 59, Aaron Ward, 40, Michael Kennedy, 40, Federico Zacarias Cambrano, 28, Marvin Moran, 22, Sam Dent, 41, Daniel Morris, 38, Terry Lane, 55, David Rink, 51, Tyler Vandehei, 32, James Lind, 54, Jose Valladolid Ramirez, 36, Larry Winters, 76, Sau Voong, 84, José Luis Silva, 55, Geohaira “Geo” Sosa, 32, Kaylee Xiong, 18, and Muhammad Saddique, 64, who was killed Sept. 9 walking through the same Natomas intersection where Voong was fatally struck on his morning bike ride June 11.
On Monday, a 44-year-old man was struck and killed crossing an onramp to the Capital City Freeway at Watt Avenue, which straddles the city limit, according to the CHP.
Of the dead, 14 were pedestrians or cyclists and two were riding electric scooters. The other five were motorists.
This story was originally published September 16, 2024 at 12:42 PM.
