Sacramento streets are killing people at alarming rates. We need funding — fast | Opinion

The Sacramento City Council appears ready to take an important symbolic step towards addressing our epidemic of pedestrian deaths — but probably not until next year. We can only hope that declaring these deaths an official emergency will elevate the crisis right to the top when it comes to crafting next year’s budget.

That will be where the proverbial rubber meets the road.

Elevating anything as a budget priority means less money for something else. But what? The city already rejected $10 million in this year’s budget towards the issue, and it’s facing a projected $77 million in the city budget for next year. Sacramento must find dedicated funding for the Department of Public Works or risk even more lives.

Members of Sacramento City Council’s Law and Legislation Committee voted on Tuesday to approve a draft resolution declaring a state of emergency to improve pedestrian and cyclist safety in the city.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t in time to save the life of Nelson Lee, 64, killed while walking at the intersection of Bell and Norwood avenues in North Sacramento on Nov. 12.

Nor could it save Muhammad Saddique, a retired grandfather, before he was struck and killed Sept. 9 while walking at the intersection of Banfield and Club Center drives — the same intersection where Sau Voong, another Sacramento-area grandfather, was hit by a car on his morning bike ride last June.

Lee’s death earlier this week marks the 31st traffic death of this year in Sacramento, something Bee readers have been following thanks to the ongoing coverage by Bee staff writer Ariane Lange.

This resolution from the Law and Legislation Committee is long past due. However, it won’t go in front of the City Council for their full approval until sometime in the new year.

With six weeks remaining in 2024, it is a statistical probability that Sacramento will suffer at several more pedestrian fatalities by the time the resolution makes it to a council vote. In 2017, city leaders made a “Vision Zero” promise to Sacramento eliminate traffic fatalities and serious injuries by 2027.

Clearly, that’s not going well.

Will the resolution equal funds?

On its face, such a resolution looks to be nothing but a paper tiger. Council members say it is a strategic move by a to ensure stable funding in the next city budget for a department that is currently almost entirely funded by the fickle world of grants.

“It is very intentional timing that we’re doing this ahead of the budget season. We are not dedicating enough of our own budget to what needs to happen,” said Councilwoman Caity Maple. “Declaring this says that we are prioritizing this; we think this is an emergency.”

By passing the resolution and prioritizing street safety, the city council members can direct City Manager Howard Chan to include it in the budget process for the upcoming budget year. However, it was the two-year pay raises for staff approved in December 2023 that resulted in a $45 million impact on this year’s budget and we would be remiss not to mention that the Sacramento Police Department budget’s has increased by $100 million over the last four years.

However, those pay raises got even Maple’s vote. And historically speaking, Chan’s No. 1 fiscal priority also seems to be pay raises. (Particularly for himself.)

Another hurdle will be convincing the council that such a resolution wouldn’t make the city liable — legally — for any further fatal accidents. City Attorney Susana Alcala Wood is currently looking into the matter, Maple said.

Of course, common sense would dictate that the city is already morally liable for these deaths, if not legally. If they know there is a problem they cannot morally refuse to do something about it. Therefore any city council member who is more concerned about legal ramifications rather than the safety of their constituents should be publicly questioned — and we certainly find ourselves up to the task.

Grant money dwindles, takes too long

Even if the council does pass the resolution, there’s the problem of maintaining funding for projects that will slow drivers down.

Beyond any city funds dedicated to pedestrian safety, Measure A is the county-wide half-cent sales tax for transportation improvements approved in 1988 and extended for an additional 30 years in 2004. It is coming to an end in less than a decade.

That money has represented an important funding stream that has been bolstered by grants, but subsequent attempts to direct funding toward transportation via a ballot measure have failed, and much of the local money gathered has gone toward large-scale freeway and interstate projects that score badly on climate emissions and can’t secure much federal funding.

Local transportation and road maintenance funding would likely be proposed in any future sales tax, and traditionally, voters have preferred spending to fix existing roads and make them safer than build new ones.

Federal grants increasingly rely on local contributions, and finding that money takes time if voters aren’t willing to grant it. In the interval, there are quick-fix solutions that can save Sacramentan lives.

Sac has quick fix options

Tactical Urbanism is the concept of creating short-term, traffic calming projects while waiting to advance long-term goals. Put more simply: A roundabout or chicanes may slow traffic, but they take time, planning and funding. A quick build, urbanist approach may be to paint a mural in the roadway, place bollards, install benches or plant a garden on street corners — all with the intent of introducing humanity to roadways and purposefully slowing drivers down.

An excellent example right here in Sacramento is the intersection of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Broadway in Oak Park, said Maple, where the community was experiencing multiple crashes per year thanks to a dangerous curve. By placing bollards to narrow the road down to one lane and change the angle at which drivers enter the curve, there have been no crashes since, the councilwoman said. (What also may have helped move that project along is that the building that kept getting hit is part of the St. Hope charter school system, which was founded by former Sacramento mayor, Kevin Johnson.)

What we already know doesn’t work is introducing more police enforcement, no matter how tempting that may feel. The Law and Legislation Committee wisely listened to community advocates who encouraged them to remove a portion of the proposal that would have directed police to step up enforcement of traffic violations.

Transportation money in Sacramento must go toward fixing the roads we currently have, not toward police enforcement or widening freeways. If it takes guerrilla urbanism from the community, then that’s what we’ll do — hopefully with the city’s blessing... and maybe a bit of a blind eye. But while we do our part, the city must also do all it can to fix these dangerous streets in more permanent ways.

That starts with signing this resolution as quickly as possible, declaring a state of emergency to improve pedestrian and cyclist safety, and prioritizing the issue in our city budget so that we can put the money where it will immediately start saving lives.