Active Transportation Commission - Regular Meeting

Chair, staff is ready when you are.

Welcome to the Thursday, May 21st, 2026 meeting of the Active Transportation Commission. This meeting is now called to order. Will the clerk please call the roll to establish a quorum?

Yes, sir. Commissioners, could you please turn your mics on for the roll call? Commissioner Hodel? Here. Commissioner Harris? Here. Commissioner Gibson?

Here.

Commissioner Wadwani? Here. Commissioner Ratio-Patel is absent. Commissioner Howell?

Here.

Commissioner Tao is absent. Commissioner Rubenstein?

Present.

Commissioner Moore?

Here.

Commissioner Amin is absent, and Commissioner Banks? Here. Did you call the chair and vice chair? Chair Gonzalez?

Here.

And Vice Chair, my apologies. And Vice Chair Gibson?

Here. Thank you, you have a quorum, sir. Thank you. I'd like to remind members of the public and the chambers that if you'd like to speak on an agenda item tonight, please turn in a speaker slip before the item begins. After the item is called, we will no longer accept speaker slips. You'll have two minutes to speak when you're called on. We'll now proceed with today's agenda, and Commissioner Moore will lead us through the land acknowledgment. Please rise if you're able to open for the opening acknowledgments in honor of Sacramento's Indigenous People and Tribal Lands.

May we acknowledge and honor the native people who came before us and still walk beside us today on these ancestral lands by choosing to gather together in the active practice of acknowledgement and appreciation for Sacramento's indigenous peoples, history, contributions, and lives. Thank you.

please remain standing for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all, someday. This is the agnostic commission, in case you didn't. The first business item today is Commission Staff Report. Staff, please proceed if you have a report.

Thank you, Chair. Good evening, Commissioners. I'm happy to report on April 20th. Oh, thank you. Our annual report was adopted by the City Council and is complete. So thank you for those who came out for that and spoke. One update on the ATC log item. I know it's been a discussion point here before. We're going to be bringing that back as a larger discussion item in either June or August at this point. Jennifer Dunland-White will be bringing that back as a discussion item either June or August. I also want to say there was an item in discussion during the budget at city council around reducing the number of commission meetings as part of the budget. I do want to report no decision was made on that at this point, but it is still being analyzed by the city manager's office. So as soon as we hear more about that, we will report back on that item. And then one final note, this will be my last meeting here, as I am transitioning to a different position here at the city to do more grants and funding. So we'll be looking for another Transpatient Planning Manager position, but you'll be seeing familiar faces. Jennifer Dunlap-White will probably be back in this seat, and or possibly with Nicole Zeiling-Porter to support, or possibly me if they need me to fill in. It's been a pleasure to work with this commission. It's been one of the highlights of the last year of taking on this position. I just want to say thank you, and it's been a pleasure.

Thank you, Chris. You know, it's Sacramento, so you can't really get away. We'll see you for sure. Any questions for staff before we proceed with the consent calendar? I will note for the log item, I believe we have a commissioner very interested in speaking on that, and it may be out of town in June. Is there any preference of June or August by any commissioners?

I do have an item I'm going to propose for this meeting, and I do have several items on the log. And right now it looks like I'm going to have to miss the June meeting. So you might get a reprieve to August, but other people feel differently and have more pressing things to see. Understand I'm not the only commissioner with interest and items on the log. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. Oh, sorry. Commissioner O'Dell, please. And I like Chris know today that I submitted two items on November 24th, and they have yet to appear on the log so Yeah, we will resolve that with the discussion item that will be coming forward I Don't see any other speakers in the queue So I'm gonna assume we can move on to the approval of the consent calendar clerk Are there any members of the public tonight who wish to speak on our consent calendar chair there or not?

I?

All right. Thank you. Any commissioners who wish to speak on this item? If not, can I get a motion to approve the consent?

I'll move to approve the consent agenda.

Thank you, Commissioner. Is there a second? I second. Thank you. Any discussion? Please call the roll.

Yes, sir. Commissioner Amin is absent. Commissioner Banks? Yes. I'm sorry. All commissioners, go ahead and turn your mics on. You started with me, usually end with me. I'm sorry. Commissioner Gibson?

Yes.

Commissioner Harris? Aye. Commissioner Hodel? Yes. Commissioner Hou?

Aye.

Commissioner Moore?

Aye.

Commissioner Ratio-Patel is absent. Commissioner Rubenstein?

Aye.

Commissioner Tao?

Yes.

Commissioner Wadwani? Aye. Aye. And Chair Gonzalez.

Aye. Thank you, sir. All right. We're now going to proceed to tonight's discussion calendar. We have item three, the Del Paso Road Bike Lane Enhancement Project. Is there a staff presentation this evening?

Good morning commission or good evening commissioners. My name is Ricardo Navarro I'm an assistant civil engineer for the engineering services, and I'll be speaking on the Del Paso bike lane enhancements project The project location runs along Del Paso between El Centro Road and East Commerce Way It's located in district 1 and it's a quarter of a mile or 3 quarters of a mile stretch And so I have the purpose, need, and funding sources here. The project goals is to improve visibility at bike lane conflict points along Del Paso Road. And I have some of the funding here, but really what I want to highlight is that this was earmarked money to do some green paint treatments along Del Paso Road on existing bike lanes. Gratefully, Traffic Engineering committed an extra $50,000 for this project. And so that allows us to do a little bit more than just paint existing bike lanes. And so I want to highlight some of the existing conditions here. You do see a dual right turn lane with two through lanes and a dual left. This is not typical, but we do try to do an improvement instead of having the bike lane in the middle of travel lanes. It's typically not our practice anymore. We try to get away from that. So this is an old way of designing the roadway. And so on the bottom portion, which is the eastbound, I want to highlight that there are some skip markings in the bike lane that signifies that vehicles can emerge through the bike lane and into the next travel lane as needed. So here in this bike lane, you see three different conflict points. And what we try to do with this project is try to eliminate at least one of those. And so this is what the proposed improvements show. I want to start with the eastbound where we did a bike lane shift or proposing a bike lane shift with the green bike lane treatment. We try to make it so that the bike lane rests more of your conventional bike lane along the curb instead of in between two travel lanes. And so that also provides connectivity to an existing bike lane that I didn't really show very well, but there is an existing bike lane south of Del Paso here. And so for westbound, we maintain the bike lane as is. We did include green paint treatment. But we included a bike ramp so if you're wanting for riders to improve the comfortability of riding the bikes, we gave them an option to go onto the sidewalk, which meets the 10 feet requirement width, which allows bikes to be supported and pedestrians as well. And so a bit about the project timeline. The design just started to kick off. It's a bit of a... a long time just because we had to do Caltrans coordination, which is gonna take quite a bit. Really, really also wanna note is that there's other improvements along with this. This was just a portion that I shared. There's also Green By Lake conflict treatment being done near the off ramps. And so we are set to go into construction next spring, or next summer. It's probably the best condition for, to make sure that the paint cures appropriately. doesn't start doing the some of the chipping that it can happen if in colder weather and This is a bit of my information if you need to contact me for any further information, and I'll open it up for questions Thank you very much are there any members of the public who wish to speak on this item yes chair there is Matt

Good afternoon, everyone. I want to give Ricardo a shout out. That information is correct. I have contacted him and he has responded and answered all of my questions. Very much appreciated. I don't really know, well, let me start off by saying I'm really glad that we have staff looking at these bike lane enhancements, active transportation in general, funding is low, and it's always appreciated that this is happening. It's wild that we have to string together four different funding sources just to put some paint or thermal plastic on the ground. This is the state of safety in active transportation, as you all well know. But sometimes built and I don't want to say this shouldn't happen, but I feel like putting more thermoplastic class two bike lanes on a 45 mile per hour what is a highway is kind of throwing what little money we have that is good after bad. And so I just would urge folks who reconsider this whole area. I am not a traffic engineer, but from my plebe eyes, it seems like this road is ridiculously overbuilt. When I asked the traffic stats, it seems like there are only a couple thousand cars per day, which means we need like one lane there, not five at some of the turns. So my radical proposal, use some of that paint, just get rid of like the northern half of Del Paso, turn it into a bike lane. Honestly, just ask your traffic engineers, see what would happen. I think we'd still have the travel lanes. We'd have the turnpockets for the current travel. And I'm looking at you, Chris, but I mean this to all of you. It's kind of wild, but I do urge some out-of-the-box thinking here because we do have minimal money. And this is a high-injury network. There have been 60 crashes here in the last 10 years, including multiple fatalities. A man on a bicycle was killed.

Thank you, sir. Your time is up.

Just a month ago. Thank you. Are there any commissioners who would speak on this item? Commissioner Hodel.

Is it three-quarters of a mile from the freeway to El Centro?

No, it's starting from East Commerce.

Why aren't we seeing the whole project? Because, frankly, the other side of the freeway, between the freeway and El Centro, e-commerce is the part that needs the most attention. There are three lanes of traffic turning right, and I would be really interested, since I ride there all the time, I feel like I would need to see the treatment on the other side also, and how you're going to make that safer for us. I don't think you emphasized that I-5 is right there. And what you did see going eastward is like, it's a runway. I mean, people are going fast. They're going in and out like this. It's going to be interesting to see whether the treatment that you've suggested where the bike lane is along the curb, essentially, and then crosses over. Is that going to be safer when those people are hitting 60 miles an hour when the meter isn't on? And then I'm going to cross over in that short distance? Or is it safer to have me out in between the traffic where I can continue my through? Also, you may have the dashed lines to show where. To me, that's sort of an indicator of where people can cross. That's not what happens there. They're all over the place. The dashed lines don't make any difference. So for me as a vulnerable bike traveler, I really hope this is safe, but I would really like to see the rest of the project.

Okay.

I'm sorry, Vice Chair Gibson? Yeah, I just pulled myself off the speaker now, because I want to hear Commissioner Hodel's whole point, because she knows this intersection very well. Speaking of, do you have any, or is it, we just have that one slide on the current draft design. Are you looking to design any more Because I didn't hear clearly, are you looking to design also on the east side of I-5 for this area, or just this one intersection?

Yes, there are conceptual plans that show a little bit of improvements on the east side. Majority of that is not as drastic change as the west side, which is why I try to highlight the west side, because that one's going to experience the most change compared to the east side. A lot of the improvements proposed as of now for the east side is... pretty much repainting the bike lane green where it's faded or it requires it on the east end.

Okay. First of all, thank you for clarifying where you're at, and I understand this is, I only saw maybe $250,000 kind of budget range. Was that right? The staff report doesn't pull up right now online, so I couldn't.

$350,000 total. Okay.

Thank you very much. But to emphasize kind of something from the public commenter, We do have very little funds for these issues. And with the draft design on the west side of the freeway for Del Paso, technically it would be considered an improvement. But in practice, I don't believe it would be. So I've used this intersection hundreds of times. And also in my neighborhood, there's one of those where the bike lane is in between six car lanes. I would never use that. I feel that those are fundamentally unsafe by that level of vehicle traffic and also to the west side of there, the neighborhood of West Lake, it's small in the grand scheme of things, you know, maybe a few thousand residents, although there are proposals for more peripheral development, you know, those won't get built for quite a while if they do get built. And we really need to look into lane reduction here because Natomas is overbuilt in many, many neighborhoods. And I think especially North Natomas, where it makes it a lot more expensive to maintain the roads and just really encourages speeding. So that intersection, it can be reduced to three total travel lanes from six. I think you would have a lot more safer improvements. As the public commenter, this is on the High Injury Network. A year ago in August, National Guardsman Ricky Rage Jr. was struck and killed from a drunk driver from there going, I believe, eastbound near where the project is. If we're able to reduce that from highway size to more neighborhood road, even for travel lanes in both directions, as opposed to, because I think that's, because I'm sorry, I'm just double checking. That's like in both directions, almost 10 travel lanes for, you know, frankly, a relatively small neighborhood. I think that really should be encouraged as much as we can, especially the two right turn lanes. I really don't understand why that would be, especially what, even if the peripheral developments are built, I really can't imagine there would be significant traffic ever. for there. And again, I just want to thank you for working on it. There's also a slip lane there, which I think is unnecessary. Again, that kind of just encourages higher speed travel. And I recognize that this is just a very small amount of funding, but in my opinion, whenever you can do anything as, I don't want to say minor, but as in flex post, you know, that does visually narrow the space, and I, as a less comfortable cyclist compared to some of my other commissioners, would actually consider taking, because I would never cycle on a lane that is sandwiched by two car travel lanes on the right and four on the left. And I'm glad we don't do that anymore. But if we're doing traffic improvements, then let's recognize that the designs in the past didn't meet the safety requirements then or today. But let's just not repeat the same designs. And again, I want to thank you for working on this. Yeah, so those are my comments. Thank you. Commissioner O'Dell?

Just to emphasize, the most dangerous part of this project, going east or west, is when the three lanes of traffic are coming off the freeway and making a right turn onto Del Paso. So that's the most dangerous section that needs attention. It's frightening when you have three cars turning right in front of you as you're coming down a hill on a bike.

Commissioner Rubenstein. Hi, thank you for your presentation. I want to commend you for all the work you've done. Also, thank you Mr. Daugherty for all the work you've been doing. You'll be sorely missed. I'm happy to hear that you'll still be with this city. With that being said, I think my commissioners have pointed out that we are in the budget crunch. I mean, who isn't? But that brings to the point that return on investment is something that we always have to keep in mind. For projects going forward, I'd recommend that the city staff give us traffic volume data if that's available, as well as fatality and serious injury information, including primary crash factors. That will assist this commission and the public in giving better suggestions to the city on what improvements can be made. I do think it's a high cost for what we're going to get, but I know that's the world we live in right now. And again, thank you for all your work.

Seeing no other commissioners asking to speak, I just have a question for staff. It's been posited by some of my fellow commissioners that perhaps we remove lanes. Would there be any funding ramifications such as the return of monies to federal or other funding streams if we removed lanes in that location? I remember the Truxell Bridge discussion. We talked about if we removed lanes or made them only car lanes or only bicycle lanes, we'd have to return certain federal dollars that were earmarked for motor vehicle lanes. Is that a situation we see here at this location?

I believe not. For this project, it was only scoped for the bike lanes itself. There's nothing in the project scope that requires removal of bike lanes or removal of travel lanes. And so just strictly, we're working within existing bike lanes here for this project.

But if we just used paint and flex posts to remove the rightmost slip lane, would we then be... liable to a developer, to a federal or state funding stream that helped pay for the construction of that road in the first place to return that money? I'm postulating, but I'm just asking. I'm trying to educate myself.

I don't believe that's the case.

Okay. I'm just asking because sometimes I know that the ideas we have have even more difficult ramifications beyond what we sometimes hear from staff because it just hasn't been considered or, well, we just don't know that. But in this case, it sounds like Maybe we throw some of that paint on a lane and close it off and get us to a place where people feel a little more comfortable. Thank you very much for your presentation. Thank you. All right. Next up, something a little different, folks. The chair requests the formation of an ad hoc committee to create the 2026 Active Transportation Commission's annual report. For background for the commission, there can be only five or no more than five members on this commission to protect us from violating Brown Act. And the committee can only last for up to one year. The recommendation from staff is that we end it in November, which seems poignant, as we typically have the annual recommendations done by then. So it's a discussion now for the commission and staff to direct us that we can do this, correct?

Yes, you are able to do this, and at this point, I would probably recommend looking for volunteers who would want to be on that committee and take it from there.

Do we have any volunteers?

The Vice Chair. I'll start by volunteering to be on the Active Transportation Ad Hoc Committee to draft the 2026 Annual Report.

Thank you, Vice Chair. I know this has been a cause that you've been championing for a long time. I think it's most appropriate that you volunteered first. Is there anyone willing to join Vice Chair Gibson?

I do. Mr. Banks? I do.

Wonderful. Thank you. We have up to three spots remaining. Commissioner Harris? Thank you. for volunteering. Now, we have two spots. We could have a tug of war. We could have a flip a coin if we have more than two more. We don't have to have five, but the more is merrier, I guess, or not sometimes.

Chair, I was wondering, it may be helpful for other commissioners to know how much time goes into the committee. Maybe if any of the other commissioners have done this in the past, they could share some details about it. That would help inform.

Good question, Commissioner Rubenstein. I think we're a bit in unchartered territory here. It's something we've wanted to do for a while, but can you give us some guide rails here?

I think the question is how long does the annual report take to draft and to put together, and I think that would be who, I'm trying to remember who last year drafted the majority of the report.

I did the primary amount of the drafting with some assistance with other members. I guess there are two questions here. One is the amount of hours that it requires versus also the number of iterative drafts. If we're bringing it to vote in November, is that our target date? We would need to have a draft in front of this group in September. That's a hard not to exceed. That's not a flexible September. That's an aim for August so we can meet September. sort of date. So if you had no other better summer plans, this is, and you're still thinking about it, that's the timeline. The process, why that matters for those of you who haven't been part of it, we do try to get this done in November so that it can be on the January calendar for council with the various iterations they have to. We have to discuss and vote on the final version effectively In November, we have to accept it, which means the last changes we talk about in October, which means the first changes for that drafting happen in September. We haven't done this sort of committee for a while, so it's hard to say how we will organize. I think there's some flexibility. My expectation is that people will volunteer for certain authoring and for figure creation. That's what's happened in the past. I think it probably took about 20 hours of drafting, give or take, with the various go backs. And then we do ask that some people be on our initial review group. I will volunteer myself as the last author to be on the authoring group, as long as I have somebody else helping author as well. I'm not the only one. But it would be helpful if we had some additional reviewers internal to provide an internal working draft and feedback.

Thank you for the illumination. Commissioner Harris, I have a couple questions for staff on this now. Today, if we select this, and we're not going to vote on it, actually. It's not a voting item. Three volunteers have stepped up. If up to two more volunteers stepped up at a later date to help with the review portion of the report, would that be inappropriate or allowed?

I'm getting nods from the city clerk's office, yes.

I mean, I think with three to go, three wonderful talented members of the commission to give this their first go, and other members of the commission who perhaps more likely than not will help with the review stage, perhaps we're in a good position. And I just want to reiterate what Commissioner Harris said about kind of getting it done in August because staff begins the preparation for the agenda in September, a few days after our August meeting. So they really need to know that we'll be ready in August. So there are some very hard for us to stay within, but it's doable. We've done it in this room, and now we can do it outside this room. And luckily, this committee will have a really good foundation because we've worked on it so hard the last three years that unless there's substantive changes in the philosophy of active transportation safety, we'll probably be close to where we were. I don't want to prejudge, though. Maybe we'll have some different thoughts, but it's possible that we could have some close iterations to where we already are. So, Commissioner Banks.

Yeah, just to add into this a question about getting ready for the funding aspect of it. We haven't done that. city to put dollars associated with our recommendations. So how does that weigh into the timeline for getting this done? If we're done in August, as you say, Commissioner Harris, does that give the city, Chris, Jennifer, whoever is going to be doing this work, the time it needs so that we're not holding things up?

Yeah, it is probably important to note that when this is formed, we'll probably set up a meeting with Jennifer and staff to talk through the schedule, talk through what is needed, because staff does support by putting the number of hours and approximate costs into the recommendations. We do need a little bit of time for that. So that will be set up probably in the next couple weeks, and then we can probably have a pretty decent timeline moving forward. Thanks.

I have a, as somebody who has volunteered for this, a matter of question for both staff and the commission for changes. We've talked about this in this room when we talked about through what we wanted to change in the last report and made some decisions and then wrote to those items with some liberties by the authors, which were, you know, everyone reflected on and we adopted. Is the intent... and what is appropriate to be that all the changes come from this working group and that the information, the decisions about any changes then just be presented versus this group discussing and then giving it back to the authors. Sort of how much input does the whole commission have on what's changing?

I think that's largely at your discretion. You could bring it back to discuss it as an agendized item and then take that feedback and then go back and work on it as a group and come back. There may be one stopping point to do that.

So I will make my last thing. If you have some thoughts on that you would like, you have strong feelings about what might change, volunteer.

Wonderful. I don't see anyone else signed up to speak, so thank you to Vice Chair Gibson, Commissioner Harris, Commissioner Banks for volunteering to be on our ad hoc committee, and I hope the rest of the commissioners will find opportunities to support them in the review process, and we look forward to a discussion late summer, early fall on our next annual report. Yes, go ahead.

I just want to thank staff for allowing us to go through this process. It Sometimes doing the annual report was quite cumbersome, including three-hour-long meetings, us trying to all hash out ideas. So hopefully this will help facilitate things and make us go through the most appropriate process to draft things to make it compelling for our elected officials.

All right. Next item is member comments and idea. Any commissioners who have comments, ideas, wish to speak at this time?

Commissioner Harris. I'm so glad that you asked because there's something I would like to propose as a log item so that we can be better informed to make a suggestion for the annual report. I personally live at the end of the sidewalk in my neighborhood, which some of you have heard from me before. The sidewalk ends at my driveway and we're a constant remodeling process and so I was curious. How much would it cost to extend the sidewalk at my home? And so I contacted city staff who frankly were discouraged any individual home owner improvements to build the sidewalk at my expense. Telling me, since they didn't know that I was very well aware, there are no funds in North Sacramento and that there's significant need and there's no plans to build that sidewalk. I asked and they'd let me know I would have to get a permit to do so, an encroachment permit. They sent me to the website to look and I am college educated and part of this committee and I could not figure out how I would get an encroachment permit and what it would cost. Pretty well-informed, I'm going to say that that means it is impossible for the regular person who might actually want to build the sidewalk to get through that process. So I would like to propose a log item for a presentation in August so that we could put it into our report. June, if you have the time, but I'm assuming that'll be too fast and I'll probably miss that meeting anyway. A presentation from staff on the process that a individual homeowner would have to go through to get a sidewalk in front of their house if they were paying for everything. And my intent is I would like for us to consider a proposal for the annual report once we were informed of what it actually takes. Perhaps I just had an off day and did not understand. A process for the city to make that easier. That if you are a homeowner who's adjacent or within whatever parameters we want and wants to continue the sidewalk so that people can actually walk because you're going to do it out of the goodness of your heart, we make that a policy that that is possible. And we make that something that is accessible online for people to do. Perhaps we even waive that encroachment fee, since it seems like something that would be for the good of all. So that's my one item, and I'm just going to keep talking. My second item, Citi's doing great stuff. Last night I was at a meeting about the Arden-Auburn mobility plan, the second phase work. workshop. They have alternatives proposed for the portion of Arden in front of Arden Mall, which is well-traveled and known. They have, just so that I get you all excited and you all go onto their website and give comments, because I know you can't go in the past and go to the last night's meeting, but you can go online. Anyone in the public recommend you do it, but they're talking about a separated, one-sided, two-way bicycle lane on the, I think it'd be on the south side of Arden, both sides of Arden in front of the mall there, and then only providing a bike lane underneath the business 80 there so people get through, but then they'd be on their own riding on sidewalks. So if you care about bicycling there or driving there, please take a look at those options. It also covers Arden from going the other direction towards Del Paso Boulevard. That is a huge commuting area. They've done the traffic studies. There's a lot of people who use that as a by way to cut through to get to the Arden Arcade area. And so they're talking about the improvements on what sort of bike lanes they would be going from um if you're not familiar um business 80 it goes over uh the light rail and heavy rail um and then into uh the Wood Lake area to touch Del Paso that's their area but then they're also really exciting because I know we care um going on uh Auburn Boulevard, both a names difficult for me to go between Arden and Marconi. I'm looking at the bike lane improvements there as well. So it's really exciting. It matters. If you care, please go make comments so that we can have active participation. Thank you.

I will add that that item will be in front of the commission in June. The Arden Auburn mobility plan. Vice Chair Gibson.

Since it's been two months since our last meeting, unfortunately, there have been at least seven people who are walking or biking struck by vehicles and died. A 25-year-old man was walking on State Route 51, also known as Business 80, near the El Camino exit on March 20th, and this was reported as a hit and run. A 33-year-old woman who was struck and killed on March 27th near the intersection of Florin and Amherst Street, that was also reported as a hit and run. On March 25th, a 23-year-old man was struck and passed away a few days later on the 29th of March. He was near the intersection of Florin and 29th. Then on March 26th, a man was struck near Martin Luther King Boulevard. I don't have the exact address. It's not reported online on the source I use. but then passed away on March 30th, a few days later. As Commissioner Hodel mentioned a moment ago, a 38-year-old man was struck near Del Paso Road and East Commerce Way just for the project we just saw on April 17th while cycling. And then an 81-year-old man cycling on Warehouse Way in Sacramento was struck and killed. And then, sadly, another person was a 70-year-old woman was struck by her own vehicle, must be a sad turn of events, in East Sacramento and was killed on May 15th. Thank you.

Commissioner Banks.

Thank you. I've got a threefer. First, and Commissioner Harris, you made me think of this. There's a Safe Routes to Transit work that's going on with SACRT, and both Commissioner Hodel and I are participating in this. Yes, it is SAC County, but it also is the city, obviously. I just want to reflect on doing walk audits around transit and where ADA compliance is or is not, where bike paths are or are not, where there are sidewalks, or not, or all sorts of other barriers. It is impressively bad how our infrastructure is around our bus stops. Incredibly bad. And so I feel really inspired by doing these walk audits, which we've been doing for the last two weeks. They are not fun, but they are really eye-opening. And I highly encourage any of you to just take a walk around your neighborhood where bus stops are, and see what the traffic patterns are, what the people patterns are, what the people on bikes, their patterns are. It's very eye-opening. That's one. Two is it is still May. Hello, it's May. It's bike month. And we're halfway through May. I am not going to shame commissioners who haven't gotten anything going. But I am going to applaud those that have got something going in their districts. And I'm going to encourage everybody to at least get the word out in your neighborhoods and in your areas to get people to trade their car keys for a bike ride during the course of May, that would be fantastic. There are a couple e-bikes up for grabs if you do participate, and that would be fantastic. And three, I just want to say that, I want to put a stake in the land and say that I think it's incredibly short-sighted for Council to consider cutting commissions in half by meeting times. We are not very expensive, and the Active Transportation Commission has done an enormous amount of work with very little resources. So the idea of cutting our commission with half of its meetings, so only meeting every other month or whatever, and we don't even meet 12 months out of the year, to me is outrageous because we We are a voice box of the community and send information up to our elected leaders. And it just feels really short-sighted to shut that down. And so I want to be on the record by saying I think that's a really bad idea. Find money someplace else. We don't cost that much. It's not like we're going to balance the budget. Thank you.

Commissioner Tau.

Thank you, Chair Gonzales. To the point of May is Bike Month. I just wanted to say that this Sunday we'll be having our bike ride around the neighborhood, Meadowview neighborhood. So I just wanted to invite you all to join us. We'll be meeting at the Meadowview Farmer's Market at 9.30 a.m. So we'll be leaving at around 10 a.m. And we would love to have you there. We'd love to have city staff as well. If you have questions, you can contact me.

Thank you. I'm not seeing any other commissioners who wish to speak. I'm going to use the time now for some of my thoughts. On April 28th, I attended the city council meeting to speak on behalf of the active transportation report. And it's something I've done for several years now in several different iterations of not only the committee, the council meetings, but committee meetings to laud the work of this group, the thoughtfulness of us, the timeliness of our report, The non-complexity or non-innovative nature of our report, it's actually simple things that we ask for, and we do it very clearly, and we've done a good job of it for the last three years. And on April 28th, when I came to the city council meeting, instead of asking again and explaining again why the recommendations were so important and vital, I simply read the names of the 32 people that died last year on our city streets, and asked the city council to consider funding our recommendations. TWO DAYS LATER THE BUDGET CAME OUT. THEY FUNDED NONE OF THEM. WE WORKED REALLY HARD IN THIS ROOM TO GET THOSE RECOMMENDATIONS TO COUNCIL, TO THOSE COMMITTEES SO IT COULD BE PART OF A DISCUSSION. THREE YEARS AGO IT WAS PART OF A DISCUSSION. THERE WAS A STAFF REPORT Explaining our recommendations. And 90 people came to that meeting to speak in favor of it. And Daryl Stanberg said right here and said, I don't remember when people come here in favor of something like this. We don't get crowds in favor of things like this. And they funded none of it. The year before last, they put us on consent. There was no staff report. And we still brought out 30 people to speak on behalf. And some council members were ired because they said, we've already talked about this twice. But that was at committee meetings, not the city council meeting. And they funded none of it. On April 28th, on the consent item once again for no discussion, It was received and filed. And as council member Dickinson said in the Sacramento Bee, we don't as a council seem to have a practice of doing anything more than accepting annual reports from the commission and essentially filing them. Why are we working so hard? Why are we building ad hoc committees when 32 people died last year for nothing to happen? No, I understand. This is a very difficult budget cycle. And I am very glad that I'm not the person who was elected to make the hard decisions that these council members have to make. And I have respect for all of them and the staff who also has to make hard decisions. But if we can't even have a discussion about what we can do to prevent people from dying on our roads, why are we meeting at all? It's pointless. And the frustration you hear in my voice now is three years of pointless work while over 70 people have died. 21 people have died this year already. We are on track to have over 40 people die this year, and we can't have a discussion? As the founder of Slow Down Sacramento, I brought this frustration back to my board. And I told them I wanted to put the city council on blast, but I knew that wasn't smart, that I must be tempered, that we must have resolve, and that the end result is more important than me venting my frustration. And my board calmly and succinctly guided me to write a letter, and we did that. So we sent a letter to every single council member asking them, if we cannot fund this, Can we at least have a discussion about it? Can you come out and talk to your constituents about why we can't fund it so they can understand the complexities in the city that prevent us from having dozens of people dying on our streets? Can we have that conversation in public? Maybe then your constituents would consider supporting a funding mechanism that is currently being circulated not by the city of Sacramento but by the residents of Sacramento who want to stand up now and do something about this. Can we at least have that discussion? And only by putting out that letter, and only by the work of members of our fourth estate who are trying to hold truth to power, are we now even beginning to have that conversation. You all give your time to come here. And commissioners before you have as well. It should not be for nothing. So I hope that in the days and weeks to come, we will have a discussion about why we can't fund it and what we can do as a community beyond our elected officials and beyond City Hall to maybe get a funding stream to get these things done. I posted this on Reddit today, the story that was in the paper, and some people said, well, that person died, so what? Literally, that was one of the comments. That's some of the contention we have out there in our community, this car-centric, built city of ours that has built people to be indifferent to the deaths of others simply to be statistics and numbers. And thank you, Vice Chair Gibson, for always reading those names. Please keep reading those names. Because we are not talking about numbers. We're talking about people. Let's make this work not for nothing. So for the council and for the people watching this right now or watch it later, let's not make this for nothing. Let's have a discussion, let's figure out what we need to do, and let's work forward to a day where Sacramento will have zero deaths. That is not an aspirational goal. Other cities do it, and we can too. It takes will, it takes prioritization of our funding, and it takes the political power to get it done. And I hope one day we do. Thank you. Are there any members of the public who wish to speak?

Yes, Chair, there are. Matt?

Thank you. That concludes today's agenda. Thank you, everybody, for participation. We'll see you next month.