Sacramento Street Plan Would Change One-Way Streets, Add Sidewalks In Downtown

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — Sacramento city leaders are proposing changes for how 18,000 people who work and live in downtown get around.

The changes will be made on 15th and 16th streets between I and Q streets.

Sacramento City Councilman Steve Hansen is proposing a plan to improve the downtown transportation system for pedestrians and bicyclists.

The plan would add 251 blocks of pedestrian sidewalks, convert 62 blocks of one-way streets into two-way streets and add 162 additional blocks of bike lanes.

Those who work and live around bicyclists in the area like Tracey Wilkinson say more room is needed.

"A lot of bikes on the sidewalks which is really dangerous for us and we walk right out of house and bikes almost hit us all the time," she said.

She says converting the one-way streets is long overdue.

"My mom won't come downtown to see me," she said. "We have to come pick her up because of the one way streets and she ends up on the wrong one. And it always confuses her and I have a lot of that with older people. They get confused down here."

We asked Hansen about the cost for the plan.

"A lot of this is re-striping and re-striping is not that expensive. As we go through and update the roads, re-pave and re-seal, we can do that," he said. "We use street repair funds that repave that's sort of the normal course things, we also have money to improve air quality and state and federal funds for walking and biking that we can tap into."

Hansen says the proposed improvements will be presented to the community at 5:30 p.m. on Monday at City Hall.