Latest news with #SlowDownSacramento
CBS News
08-08-2025
- CBS News
Natomas pedestrian death is Sacramento County's 97th traffic fatality so far this year
The Sacramento County coroner has identified the 19-year-old man killed by an alleged drunk driver while he was standing at a bus stop as Ricky Rey Reyes, Jr. The driver drove into the sidewalk and hit Reyes at the bus stop on Del Paso and El Centro roads in the North Natomas area. An online fundraiser featured photos of Reyes and described him as a young man dedicated to service at the Sacramento National Guard Base. The page said he was at the bus stop after taking a tour at a local trade school. James Thomas takes the same bus line, where flowers now mark the spot where Reyes was killed in this latest pedestrian loss of life on a Sacramento street. "That could have been me," Thomas said. "It makes me sad, so much potential." Sacramento County tracks motor vehicle deaths and reports the count is nearing 100 for the year. Reyes' death makes 97. Isaac Gonzalez is the founder of Slow Down Sacramento and created a map using coroner data, showing the locations of all the deadly crashes in the county from January to July, listing victims as pedestrians, drivers, or passengers. "It's absolutely heartbreaking," Gonzalez said. "And the data is pretty eye-opening. It shows you that it's a systemic problem across our county but also that there's clusters, so there are specific areas where we are seeing multiple fatalities." The Sacramento city council just approved funding for safety enhancements to one of its deadliest corridors - on Broadway between Stockton Blvd. and Martin Luther King, Jr Blvd. The 'vision zero' project is aimed at zero traffic fatalities and serious injuries by 2027. It will reduce lanes for motor vehicles and add buffered lanes for bicyclists. The City of Sacramento Public Works Department now investigates deadly crash sites to see if the environment at a crash scene needs to be changed. Reyes was also an employee of the Corti Brothers deli in east Sacramento. He was set to turn 20 years old in just eight days. The city's law and legislation committee did consider declaring pedestrian deaths a state of emergency last year. The city ultimately never made the declaration.
CBS News
06-08-2025
- Automotive
- CBS News
Sacramento's new quick-build crosswalk in Tahoe Park aims to slow down drivers
The City of Sacramento is changing some intersections to slow down drivers, but now some people are saying it's time the city hit the brakes on these types of traffic safety measures. The city installed a crosswalk and flexible plastic posts in the Tahoe Park neighborhood on 59th Street, a stretch of roadway that's seen serious crashes in the past. "This is 100% residential community from tip to tip," said Isaac Gonzalez, founder of Slow Down Sacramento. "It's all houses and people still drive really fast down here." Gonzalez said that he supports these types of quick-build traffic safety features. "It doesn't actually make the road any narrower than it actually is, but it does create a bit of visual tension as cars approach," Gonzalez said. "The natural inclination at that point is for cars to slow down." But some people are now complaining about the new crosswalk barriers. "I could see where you would notice the pylons driving up, but you'd probably be distracted by the pylons and hit the pedestrian," driver Ray Lang said. Some drivers are cutting between the plastic posts to make quicker right-hand turns. "You don't want to do that," Gonzalez said. "You want to go on the outside. The inside is not for cars." Gonzalez is concerned that the city may remove the crosswalk if too many people complain, and he's encouraging people who support these types of traffic calming measures to speak up. "It's a small price to pay for safety," he said. The city said these quick-build projects will be installed across Sacramento to try and eliminate all fatal crashes, but they are easy to remove if they do not meet safety goals. In Sacramento County, 96 people have died this year due to motor vehicle crashes.
CBS News
04-06-2025
- General
- CBS News
Sacramento stalls on enforcing daylighting law aimed at improving pedestrians safety
SACRAMENTO — A California law aimed at pedestrian safety now bans cars from parking 20 feet from intersections. The law allows cities to issue fines to violators, but the City of Sacramento has not issued those fines even in the face of what some have called a pedestrian safety crisis. Slow Down Sacramento founder Isaac Gonzalez is calling on the city to speed up its conversion of city streets to follow state law. "We really shouldn't wait until people get hurt before we actually act and follow state law," Gonzalez said. "I think, unfortunately, in the city, we get decision paralysis. Where do we start? The problem is so huge." The so-called daylighting law requires all California cities to create 20 feet of space on the approaching side of intersections to prevent collisions. A City of Sacramento spokesperson confirmed that the city has not removed all meters, has not started red striping all the intersections, and is still working to identify how many spots need to be removed. Asad Mohammadi lives in Natomas, down the street from a new "quick-build" temporary traffic safety installation the city created after two pedestrians were killed in separate collisions. The installation went up after the second deadly collision. Asad Mohammadi /lives near deadly crash "It was a very sad day," Mohammadi said. "After that incident happened, then they put the sign up, they should have put it at the beginning." Sacramento's police department reports that so far this year, there have been 13 deadly collisions on city streets. Last year, there were 34. The year before, there were 55. Sacramento's own law and legislation committee declared an emergency in 2024 over the number of pedestrians killed in roadway collisions. "Let's talk about the cost-benefit ratio here," Gonzalez said. "What does it cost to paint a curb red, versus what does it cost for someone to die and for us to pay out a big lawsuit? I would rather be on the side of painting the curb red." The city council voted to approve a $25 fine starting July 1 for violators of the law. It will need to ID and remove spaces to begin that enforcement. What the rollout of that enforcement will look like is still unclear.
CBS News
30-05-2025
- General
- CBS News
How Sacramento is looking to increase traffic safety on Folsom Boulevard
SACRAMENTO — Sacramento has reached a top-20 list no one wants to be on. The city ranked as one of the most dangerous places for drivers, bicyclists, and pedestrians in the nation. Now, safety improvements are being made along one busy street where a mother lost her life three years ago. "The biggest problem that we have is people drive way too fast," said Megan Johnson, a senior engineer with the city. In January 2022, Lupe Jimenez Brown was hit and killed by a car outside her daughter's elementary school on Folsom Boulevard in east Sacramento. "It was a day that we never want to see again," said Isaac Gonzalez, founder of Slow Down Sacramento. Gonzalez is a parent at the same school and says the road remains unsafe. "We see near misses that really resemble the crashes that happened, that took Lupe's life," he said. Now, city traffic engineers are unveiling a roadway redesign along a 16-block stretch of Folsom Boulevard, including the intersection where Lupe died. The first planned change is a road diet, where one of the two lanes in each direction is removed to make way for a new center turn lane and a new buffered bicycle path. "Doing a lane reduction makes the road feel more constrained, and it eliminates the likelihood and tendency to just drive way too fast," Johnson said. Another more controversial proposal is to remove 19 on-street parking spaces that could impact some local businesses along the boulevard. "There is limited parking as it is, and most buildings don't have parking spots around this area," said Carrie Bailon, a hairdresser at Black Sheep Hair Studio on Folsom Boulevard. "So it's like, 'Where are the clients going to go?' " Removing the parking spots will create a continuous bike path to Sacramento State University and is part of the city's Vision Zero goal to eliminate all vehicle crashes that cause serious injury or death. "I'm really happy that the city's working on this right now, and hopefully it's installed before anyone else has to die," Gonzalez said. The city is currently designing the Folsom Boulevard traffic safety plan and hopes to break ground in late 2026. "Our number one priority is always going to be safety, and so it is a safety need that's driving this decision," Johnson said.
CBS News
26-03-2025
- Politics
- CBS News
Sacramento City Council considers creating team to make quick fixes for improved road safety
SACRAMENTO — The Sacramento City Council is considering creating a transportation safety team after the number of traffic-related deaths continues to climb throughout the city. The city said that instead of spending half a million dollars on roundabouts, the transportation safety team would be able to spend closer to $50,000 on quick fix projects. These types of quick fixes would include installing more green traffic posts that separate bike lanes or pedestrians from cars, adding more road signs, marking crosswalks and railroad crossings or repaving green bike lanes. Carol Turner does not have a car and walks the streets daily. She told CBS13 that she constantly sees drivers speeding and even sometimes getting mad at the pedestrians they almost hit. "There was no reason for you to get that close," Turner said about the close calls with cars she has had. Data from the group Slow Down Sacramento shows that 32 people died in traffic-related deaths in the city in 2024. It had a memorial to honor those lives in January. "None of these had to happen," said Isaac Gonzalez, the founder of Slow Down Sacramento. "These were all preventable deaths." Gonzalez wishes that people did not need to get killed for change to happen. "Make safety a priority on our roads, instead of speed," said Gonzalez. City Councilor Lisa Kaplan has been implementing road safety improvements in north Natomas. "I can't get in that car with you. I can't make people slow down," said Kaplan. "I can ask you, 'Let's care about each other more instead of trying to get somewhere faster.' " Kaplan is hopeful the rest of her team sees the need for the changes across Sacramento, not just in her district. "You can see ticks in the street that are permanently in the street so then we can start gathering data so that cars have to go around them," said Kaplan. The city has a Vision Zero goal of zero traffic-related deaths by 2027 and these quick fixes could be another step in achieving that goal. If approved by council, the implementation of projects would happen within months. The city is still working on an updated list of high-priority dangerous roadways across the city.
