Sacramento urged to act on transportation safety report as traffic deaths mount
Sacramento residents rallied online and in-person Tuesday to ask the City Council to prioritize transportation safety in the next budget, which city leaders have said could include some deeper cuts.
The Sacramento City Council did not schedule discussion at its 2 p.m. Tuesday meeting of recommendations from the city’s Active Transportation Commission, which advises the council on policies, programs and grants related to alternatives to driving.
The commission’s 2025 annual report, which was finalized at the end of the year, includes eight proposals that would require about $8.2 million to implement in the first year. The commission estimated ongoing annual costs of about $7.7 million, with the potential to rise.
The recommendations — including funding for safer street design, school travel programs and stricter traffic controls — arrived ahead of development of the city’s next fiscal year budget. This year, there’s an estimated $66 million budget gap following two years in which expenses outpaced revenues.
The commission’s report was one of three items on the council’s consent calendar labeled “receive and file,” meaning the recommendations were not read aloud or individually listed. It is standard city policy for commission reports to receive that designation, city spokesperson Gabby Miller said.
There were about 30 items total on the consent calendar, which the council approved in a single vote.
At the Tuesday meeting, Councilmember Caity Maple pulled the Active Transportation Commission report for public comment.
In advance of the meeting, 26 comments were submitted online in support of funding the report’s proposals. Three people, including commission chair Isaac Gonzalez, spoke at the meeting.
Gonzalez read the names of 32 people who died in 2025 in crashes on Sacramento city streets.
At least 18 people have been killed so far in 2026, including a motorcyclist who died Friday night after a solo collision near 65th Street Expressway and 21st Avenue. Their names are Reema Ram, 37; Christian David Garcia Flores, 31; Eunice La Vonne Queener, 67; Maria Aurora Victoria Titman, 29; Paris Lamar Johnson, 34; Ronald Howard, 68; Kalia Giselle Cabello Fernandez, 22; Dwayne Andrew Henderson, 44; Domonik Frederick Gross, 33; Habiba Safi, 33; Miguel Ramirez Padilla, 23; William Douglas Wradge, 27; Rule Allah Yahya Smith, 32; David Mordecai Meyer, 38; Forrest Murray Coss, 70; Lue Lawrence Powell, 53; and one man whose name has not yet been released by the Sacramento County Coroner’s Office.
Gonzalez said in an interview that he believes the council should still discuss transportation improvements in relation to the budget, even if it ultimately chooses not to prioritize them. If the city cannot fund the projects, he said, advocates could turn to other options, including a ballot measure.
One measure that could appear on the November ballot would impose a half-cent sales tax to fund road maintenance, pedestrian and bicycle safety projects, and transit operations. The measure, if approved by voters, would increase the city’s sales tax to 9.25% and could raise as much as $70 million a year, according to organizers.
During the Tuesday meeting, Maple, who represents Oak Park and the Parkway, called the recommendations “actionable” and said she had talked with other council members about bringing “a discussion of what it would take to fund those recommendations” back to council.
One recommendation calls for setting aside about $3 million for infrastructure projects. The city faces a 20-year backlog estimated to cost at least $5 billion. The proposal would increase funding by about $1.1 million over last year.
Although the city made a Vision Zero pledge in 2017 to eliminate traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2027, it has not made significant changes to its funding structure, leaving the Department of Public Works reliant on federal and state grants. Many grants require local matching funds, and higher matches can improve the chances of securing larger awards.
The $3 million proposal is double the average match amount for active transportation grants, according to the report, and matches the commission’s recommendation from last year. The commission proposed increasing that amount by 10% annually.
Other recommendations from the report include allocating more funds for speed lumps and the quick-build program, as well as hiring staff to coordinate a citywide Safe Routes to School program, and exploring a citywide ban on right turns on red lights. The report also calls for a study of transit access from transitional housing and expanding policies allowing brighter colors for crosswalks to include nearby curbs.
Gonzalez said the commission has turned in its report on time for the budget cycle for at least the last two years. Yet, none of the recommendations have been funded in-full.
“We really have an intentional and realistic discussions about what are the minimum investments that we should be making in active transportation to make our city safer for all road users,” Gonzalez said. “We’re not being wildly aspirational or delusional with these recommendations. These are simple.”
Sherry Martinez, a member of multiple cycling and advocacy groups, spoke in support of the report. She said that Maple’s comment about bringing the report back to council gives her a little bit of hope, but added that she felt similarly after Maple in fall 2024 started the process for the council to consider declaring a state of emergency over cyclist and pedestrian deaths.
“It’s hopeful,” Martinez said, “but we needed change when she called (for) the state of emergency.”
On Tuesday, the council also accepted about $1 million in grant funding from the Sacramento Area Council of Governments and about $138,000 from Measure A, a countywide half-cent sales tax for transportation improvements, for a Vision Zero project on El Camino Avenue. The corridor, from Del Paso Boulevard to the Steelhead Creek trail crossing, is among the five in Sacramento with the highest numbers of fatal and serious crashes.
“It’s a budgetary adjustment,” Councilmember Roger Dickinson, who represents North Sacramento, said, “but ... whatever we can do here to slow traffic down and make it safer is going to be a significant benefit.”
