Sacramento County is seeking feedback from residents on proposed changes to a dangerous three-mile stretch of Watt Avenue in North Highlands.
With the help of a grant focused on sustainability, the county could make big or small changes along Watt, from Antelope Road to just north of Roseville Road, as the capital region grapples with a traffic fatality crisis.
The plans, which aim to “enhance the safety and mobility” of the community, are still in motion and could be combined. Residents can view and comment on the current options for North Watt online.
One of the county’s four proposed road designs exposes cyclists to six lanes of traffic at deadly speeds. Watt’s suggested speed limit in the area ranges from 35 to 45 mph — speeds at which a crash would most likely kill a pedestrian or cyclist.
That risk has occurred to at least a dozen people using this particular stretch of Watt Avenue. UC Berkeley’s Transportation Injury Mapping System shows that since 2012, 11 fatal crashes and 12 people have died on the Watt side because of these changes. Five of the victims were pedestrians.
Additionally, since 2017, three pedestrians and one bicyclist have been killed on Watt Avenue, just south of the project area, in the block between Roseville Road and Peacekeeper Way, which marks the southern boundary of the designated corridor.
Currently, the county’s plan does not include lane reductions, which research shows can slow traffic. Matt Robinson, a county spokesman, said the county plans to have three lanes in each direction because “growth projections predict a significant increase in traffic volumes from 28-38,000 vehicles per day today to 43-47,000 vehicles per day in the future due to anticipated development along this corridor.”
One of the four proposed road designs, however, offers something like a lane reduction. It would convert Watt to three one-way lanes and create a two-way bike path separated from traffic by a median. A parallel lane, 34th Street, would become a one-way street in the other direction. The Federal Highway Administration says one-way streets encourage higher speeds.
In two of the four road designs, cyclists are not separated from cars by anything other than paint.
In one of four design options for the road, called “minimal impact,” Robinson confirmed that cyclists would have nothing but paint to separate them from cars.
In another section of the proposals describing specific cycling infrastructure that could be integrated into larger road designs, the province has emphasised safer cycling infrastructure.
A ‘shared use’ path would be open to cyclists and pedestrians and separated from the roadway.
The province has also highlighted another, slightly less safe option in its ‘class IV’ cycle paths: either a cycle path with a low island that separates cyclists from moving vehicles, or a cycle path with painted buffers and a ‘vertical element’. — often a plastic pole that can be knocked over by cars.
Other parts of the proposals include adding bus facilities such as bus stops, widening sidewalks, closing gaps in sidewalks and modifying traffic light intersections to allow pedestrians to cross before traffic starts.
Two Deadly Crises in Sacramento County
Changes to road infrastructure are also part of the county’s strategy to combat a deadly climate crisis caused by human carbon emissions. The county is trying to make walking, biking and public transit more attractive to combat transportation emissions. The proposed changes to North Watt are part of that plan: Sacramento County won a $487,000 Caltrans Sustainable Transportation Planning grant for this phase of the North Watt project, and it’s adding another $63,100 for its 11.47% local match.
As the county battles climate change, it also faces a traffic safety crisis. A June report from Consumer Affairs found that Sacramento County has the fourth-highest rate of traffic fatalities per capita among large California counties, while the state capital had the worst rate among large cities.
The Transportation Injury Mapping System found that there were an average of 192 serious pedestrian injuries and deaths each year from 2019 to 2023.
And marginalized neighborhoods like North Highlands experience a disproportionate number of pedestrian deaths, said Pristina Zhang, a project manager at the local transportation safety organization Civic Thread. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 21% of North Highlands residents live in poverty, 29% were born in other countries, 10% are Black and 30% are Latino.
Zhang linked dangerous roads to environmental crises.
Risky streets “influence fear and (create) a physical barrier for people to walk, bike or roll in the neighborhood around them,” she said. “Reducing opportunities for active travel — and thus promoting a car-culture society — also impacts the environmental health of a community, leading to risks for respiratory problems, asthma and cardiovascular disease.”
As of Tuesday, the Sacramento County Coroner’s Office’s public database listed 101 traffic deaths this year.
About 40% of the dead were pedestrians or cyclists.
Slower speeds save lives in New Jersey
Even at relatively low speeds, drivers pose a risk of death or serious injury to vulnerable road users who are not in cars. A study published in the public health journal Accident Analysis & Prevention found that when a driver traveling at 24.1 mph hits a pedestrian, the average risk of the pedestrian dying is 10 percent; by the time the driver reaches 32.5 mph, the risk of the pedestrian dying is 25 percent.
If a driver is traveling 48 mph (slightly faster than the 45 mph speed limit on a section of northbound Watt Avenue) and hits someone on foot, the average chance of the person dying is 75%.
In Hoboken, New Jersey, where traffic fatalities have declined due to policy and infrastructure changes, the city’s speed limit is 20 mph.
“The facts don’t lie,” said Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla, who has led that city’s robust public safety reforms. “The data shows that the risk of serious injury is significantly lower when you’re driving 20 miles per hour. … That data speaks for itself.”
