Sacramento neighborhood calls for more traffic safety improvements
SACRAMENTO – People in a Sacramento neighborhood spoke out about dangerous traffic at a community meeting that was already planned but came one day after a bicyclist was killed just down the street.
Alena Wong,17, has seen firsthand the dangers of Sacramento streets. In 2019, she was hit by a car along Sutterville Road while riding her bike to school.
"I had a traumatic brain injury, broke my femur, tibia, humorous, jaw and three teeth," Wong said.
Now she's demanding the city take action to decrease the number of people being killed and seriously injured in vehicle crashes.
"I feel like it happens so much that it's almost normalized now, which it shouldn't be," Wong said.
People in the Hollywood Park community held a meeting with city officials Wednesday night talking about the need for more traffic safety improvements.
"It can get really scary," said Claire Sallee, the Hollywood Park Neighborhood Association president.
The event took place less than two miles away from where a bicyclist was hit and killed on Fruitridge Road just one night earlier.
"I used to ride my bike to work and I stopped doing that because cars would turn right in front of me," Sallee said.
"It's incredibly dangerous to be a bicyclist or pedestrian on Sacramento streets," said Caity Maple, a Sacramento city councilmember.
Maple says more than 260 people have been killed in crashes just in the last decade. Last September, she called on the city to declare a traffic safety state of emergency.
"I would argue, of course, it's a public health crisis because this is literally impacting people's lives," Maple said.
She says the city has set aside about $5 million to start making "tactical" traffic improvements that could be done cheaper than re-designing entire streets or intersections.
One idea is to install a new mini-roundabout along Sutterville Road in the same spot where Wong was nearly killed five years ago.
"Roundabouts decrease the amount of spots in the intersection that collisions can happen by quite a lot and they force cars to slow down," Wong said.
The proposed state of emergency still has not been approved.
Councilmember Maple says public works staff are working on the details before bringing it to the city council for a vote.
