Taking a bike ride through Sacramento's busy streets is rarely safe.
In mid-September, Sacramento submitted a proposal to declare a state of emergency over pedestrian and cyclist safety and traffic deaths after three fatal accidents between a vehicle and a pedestrian within a roughly two-week period.
Last year, Smart Growth America shared its Dangerous by Design 2024 road safety report with the Sacramento Area Council of Governments. The report ranked the Sacramento-Roseville-Folsom metro area 20th in the United States for pedestrian road fatalities.
The City of Sacramento has made some attempts to address the issue.
The city council adopted its Vision Zero Action Plan in 2018 in an effort to “create safer streets.” The plan identified roads with the highest number of injuries and fatalities as a “high injury network.”
Broadway is one of the roads identified in the report. Through its Broadway Complete Streets Project, the city has been working on “transformative improvements” to the road in recent years.
As part of an ongoing series, CapRadio reporter Gerardo Zavala recently took a bike ride down Broadway to see what's changed, and what there is to see along the way. Here's what he saw.
Taqueria Maya’s
Taqueria Maya’s owner Alfredo Cruz Navarro Friday, Jan. 30, 2025, outside of his restaurant located at 2700 Broadway in Sacramento.(Gerardo Zavala/CapRadio)
Located three blocks from where the current stretch of bike lane ends is Taqueria Maya’s.
Alfredo Cruz Navarro’s Mexican restaurant has been in business for 15 years. It’s known for, among other things, having a Mariachi band every Sunday morning so guests can enjoy live music while eating.
“For people looking at where to celebrate birthdays, baptisms or whatever, they don’t have to spend on a Mariachi,” he said in Spanish. “It’s great for people who are trying to save during these times, and people leave happy.”
He said it’s difficult for cyclists to get to his business without having to ride on the sidewalk.
“Customers do come on their bicycles,” Navarro noted. “It’s a bit complicated on Broadway, but we hope more people will come on bikes to visit our location.”
Navarro is an avid cyclist himself. He noted that he uses his bike to get around Carmichael — where he lives — to save money on gas, and argued that more people should do the same.
“It’d definitely help businesses,” he said. “If people aren’t spending money on gas, they’ll have more money to eat, to dress, for anything.”
Soul House Vintage
Soul House Vintage owner Nathaniel Woo Friday, Jan. 30, 2025, at 2403 21st Street in Sacramento.(Gerardo Zavala/CapRadio)
Just off Broadway along 21st Street, Nathaniel Woo sifted through racks of clothing while wearing an old flannel covered in a bird feather design. The 23-year-old opened Soul House Vintage 9 months ago with his mom with the goal of making vintage clothing more accessible to people.
“We have pretty good competitive pricing and I want it to be super accessible because growing up, I didn’t have a lot of money,” Woo said. “It’s nice to have something where anyone can come in and grab a piece.”
He used a 1950s dress he sold for $30 the previous week as an example of how his store is offering fair prices.
“Anything 50s and 60s is just going to be really expensive typically,” he noted.
Cars aren’t allowed to park outside of his business because it’s a bike lane, so Woo said he sees a lot of cyclists passing by every day.
“I love the idea of more eco-friendly traveling and I think it’s awesome that people are staying in shape doing that,” he added. “It’s not as much as Davis, but there’s a lot of people riding bikes here. Sacramento needs a little bit of work on transportation, but it’s cool to see.”
Avid Reader
Avid Reader employee Clement Prassa Friday, Jan. 30, 2025, at 1945 Broadway in Sacramento.(Gerardo Zavala/CapRadio)
Clement Prassa is an employee at Avid Reader. He explained that the nearly 40-year-old business has been at its Broadway location for roughly 8 years and called it a cornerstone of Sacramento’s bookstores.
Prassa said the business is surviving because of the devoted clientele they’ve created over the years, but noted that brick-and-mortar bookstores are “generally struggling a bit.”
One solution the bookstore is planning on implementing is a small used book section.
“We’ll still maintain new stuff being a priority, but just because the profit margin on used stuff is so much better than new product, I think it’s a change that’s been a long time coming,” he said.
Prassa lives in the neighborhood and often bikes down Broadway. He said he sees the improvements to Broadway as a boon because he prefers to walk or ride his bike when possible.
“There are some bike lanes that are great, but then I get to right here where the store is and I have to look over my shoulder before I cross over the railroad tracks,” he stressed. “I’m hoping that will get addressed once the new construction is done here.”
What Prassa is referring to is a two-block stretch of road between 19th Street and 21st Street that doesn’t have bike lanes. According to Megan Johnson, a senior engineer with the city, that’s because of its proximity to the railroad.
Project improvements
Johnson explained that the city needs to get approvals from Union Pacific, the Sacramento Regional Transit District and the California Public Utilities Commission to add bike lanes near the railroad.
“The process to get those approvals is really lengthy, so we’re still working through that,” she said. “Those blocks will get constructed, but it will be with the remaining segments of the Complete Streets Project when that goes to construction.”
The intersection of 19th Street/Freeport Boulevard and Broadway Friday, Jan. 30, 2025, in Sacramento. The stretch of road between here and 21st Street doesn’t have bike lanes.(Gerardo Zavala/CapRadio)
So far, the city has completed two out of three phases of construction adding bike lanes from 3rd Street to 24th Street, converting 16th Street to a two-way road between X Street and Broadway to “improve circulation” and adding buffered bike lanes along with lighting and enhancements to intersections and crosswalks to improve pedestrian crossings.
The city also has other projects in the works for the busy road. The Envision Broadway in Oak Park Complete Street Project will pick up where this project ends starting at Highway 99 and ending at Martin Luther King Boulevard.
“It will do similar improvements — lane reduction, buffered bike lanes — and it will have some pretty robust pedestrian crossing treatments to make it easier and more comfortable for people to cross the street in that community,” Johnson noted.
The Broadway Vision Zero Project will start at Martin Luther King Boulevard and continue to Stockton Boulevard. Johnson said this will address an area on the city’s Vision Zero top five corridors for locations with the highest fatality and injury rates.
The intersection of 3rd Street and Broadway Friday, Jan. 30, 2025, in Sacramento.(Gerardo Zavala/CapRadio)
A work in progress…
According to Johnson, community members are saying that traffic feels calmer and people are more comfortable walking and biking along Broadway.
“Broadway was on our Vision Zero High Injury Network, which means that it was one of our streets with high numbers of injury and fatality crashes,” she highlighted. “It’s important for us to take action to address these locations.”
She argued that one of the biggest contributing factors to those crashes is speeding. That led to speed-reducing strategies, like lane reduction, that Johnson believes have worked along the constructed portions of the project.
“With the way Broadway was set up before with four lanes of traffic, the street can feel kind of like a highway and it encourages speeding and racing,” she said.
Fewer lanes reduce the number of “conflict points,” which Johnson explained are points where pedestrians and cyclists are exposed to cars.
“Through slowing cars down, reducing the number of conflict points, it increases safety. It also gives us space to bring in bike lanes and to improve the pedestrian crossings.”
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