A Tale of Two Corridors: Community-Based Safety Improvements

They were the best of corridors. Northgate Boulevard and Freeport Boulevard are on the opposite sides of Sacramento, but both are in enthusiastic, engaged communities that have self-organized to give voice to their transportation safety concerns. 

They were the worst of corridors. They’re both in the City’s the Vision Zero High Injury Network—meaning a high rate of serious and fatal traffic crashes—in neighborhoods that have greater Hispanic, African American and Asian populations than the rest of the City.

A comprehensive planning effort identified community values and priority concerns, aimed at improving safety and mobility on the commercial corridors. 

The multilayered community engagement program offered residents, business owners, youth and other stakeholders varied opportunities to share their ideas, comments and feedback about each corridor. We worked with three community-based organizations to reach community members that are historically underrepresented. The team “popped-up” at local gathering spots—the public library, markets, soccer games, and vaccine clinics—to survey people with an “on-the-spot” interview or a written questionnaire. That was matched with in-person and virtual workshops, as well as walking tours with small groups to obtain people’s thoughts as they actually experienced the streets. And business owners along the corridors offered their insights regarding the impacts of corridor safety on economic development.

Over 8,500 responses, in English, Spanish and Mandarin, offered critical insights into what community members would like to see on both these corridors. The final plans set the vision for future transportation system investments. 

Streetscape improvements for Northgate Boulevard include:

• Wider, ADA-compliant sidewalks
• Improving existing signals and planned signals, adding another six new pedestrian signals with crosswalks
• Class IV separated bike lanes all along the corridor
• Improved transit stop locations that are closer to crosswalks and with better striping to reduce conflicts with bike lanes 
• Use traffic management and wider medians to improve traffic conditions 

Streetscape improvements for Freeport include:

• Wider, ADA-compliant sidewalks
• In addition to improving existing and planned signal, four new pedestrian signals with crosswalks 
• Class IV separated bike lanes for most part of the corridor and buffered bike lanes where parking demand is higher 
• Improved transit stop locations that are closer to crosswalks and with better striping to reduce conflicts with bike lanes