Sacramento exploring four new bike lane designs to boost rider safety on roads
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Sacramento explores four concrete-based bike lane designs to replace plastic posts.
- Protected bike lanes attract twice as many riders and reduce crash severity rates.
- City planners weigh upfront costs of concrete barriers against long-term durability.
Sacramento’s future protocols for separated bike lanes could involve a lot more concrete and fewer chunky plastic posts.
In a presentation Thursday at the city’s Active Transportation Commission meeting, Jeff Jelsma, an associate planner in the Department of Public Works, described four types of potential separated bike lanes that could eventually become the standard for new permanent bike lanes with approval from the City Council. All four designs involved varying types of concrete barriers placed between cyclists and vehicles.
Currently, Jelsma said, 44% of trips in the city are under three miles, but 85% of those short trips still involve a car. City staff have recognized that the more separated bike lanes are from traffic, the more people feel comfortable enough to ride. A study published this month in the academic journal Nature Cities found that protected bike lanes attract about twice as many riders as unprotected bike lanes. They have also been shown to make roads safer for everyone on them, the research noted.
“Separated bikeways result in increased safety for all street users, not just folks walking or biking: That’s including people driving,” Jelsma said. “A study that analyzed crash data over the last 13-year period found that areas with separated bike lanes on city streets resulted in 44% fewer deaths and 50% fewer serious injuries.”
The dangers of sharing space with drivers are significant.
Jelsma said that 205 bike crashes occur in the city each year. In 2025, at least two cyclists — Zhen Cheng Kuang, 76; and Cornelius Jesse, 59 — died in collisions on city streets. At least seven pedestrians — Jonathon T. Slaugh, 62; Adrienne Keyana Johnson, 33; William Andrew Akens Jr., 26; Ernesto Torres, 58; Thongthai Xanaxay, 55; Natalia Regina Sanchez, 50; and Kaleb Josiah Green, 22 — have also died in the city since January.
What would the bike lanes look like?
The most significant separation would go on streets with a speed limit of 35 mph or faster with no parking and relatively short buildings, to accommodate potential emergency response. That intervention would look like a miniature concrete construction barrier between 18 and 27 inches tall.
Other separated bike lanes were extruded curbs, a type of continuous curb laid directly onto the street; precast curbs, which bear some resemblance to a blockier version of a wheel stop in a parking lot; and sidewalk widening projects that place a bike lane two to four inches below the level of the pedestrian walkway but still elevated above street level.
As these options work their way through the city government, the go-to standard for separated bike lanes will continue to be the thick green plastic bollards, known as K-71 posts. Those posts are relatively cheap to purchase and install. Because they are plastic bollards, motor vehicles can damage or destroy them easily, driving up maintenance costs.
The concrete interventions would require more upfront spending compared to the K-71 posts. But, Jelsma said, “If you look over the lifespan of, say, the K-71, it might actually, in the long run, might be cheaper if you have a concrete barrier, because they’re a little more durable. You wouldn’t have to replace them as often.”
The sidewalk extension bike lanes would likely be the most expensive. Jelsma said they would be a good intervention on boulevards with relatively long blocks: He gave the 65th Street Expressway as an example. The road has been identified for a possible lane reduction in the 2040 General Plan that would leave room to extend the width of the sidewalk.
He nodded to the fact that the Department of Public Works is always constrained by which grant funding it can win. The team would install that type of bike lane on 65th, he said, “if and when we ever had the funds to do a full reconstruction of it.”
