Sacramento-based journalist Hilary Abramson loved active modes of transportation.
A transplant from the East Coast, she loved walking, and regularly scaled San Francisco’s steep hills before moving to Sacramento. She had cycled daily as a kid, and as an adult sometimes rode with her husband, a regular cyclist.
On a pleasant spring day in 2014, she decided to take a mid-morning walk to her Midtown Sacramento gym. As she strolled past Capitol Park – California’s smaller, quainter version of DC’s National Mall – she had the sidewalk paralleling the one-way 15th Street practically to herself.
It was her final moment of life as she had known it.
“I just remember blinking, and everything’s different,” she told me.
Seconds later, she suddenly lay sprawled on the ground.
“I remember feeling like a puppet,” Abramson recalled. “My left leg was turned out.”
Her femur was shattered. To this day, she has difficulty balancing and must manage chronic pain. The first responders, surgeons, and others at UC Davis Medical Center who tended to her had a strong initial assumption of what had happened.
“ this was the force of an automobile with which I was struck,” she said.
But she was not hit by a driver. Instead, the culprit – the first person she saw when she looked up – was a young male cyclist, offering to help her up. Bystanders gave him permission to leave the scene, but that was little solace for the internally-bleeding Abramson.
The collision upended Abramson’s multimodal habits, due to mental trauma in addition to lasting physical limitations.
“I never go in public without a cane, because people will see it and not run you over,” she explained. “I wouldn’t get on a bike, because I’d be fearful and I couldn’t sit on a banana seat.”
When distinct modes are pitted against each other, people get hurt
Biking and walking are two different transportation modes, as distinct from each other as they are from driving, transit, electric scooters, or aerial gondolas. But all too often, these distinctions are ignored. This sloppy blending not only pits cyclists and pedestrians against each other, but puts people in danger.
As Abramson learned, this danger can have permanent, life-altering consequences. But she also helped catalyze public discussion that has improved mobility for those on two feet, as well as those on two wheels.
In pursuit of safety, oppressed modes fight for space
In the midst of recovery from her devastating injuries, Abramson decided to take action. Her objective was pretty straightforward.
“I wanted to codify that the sidewalk is for walking,” she said.
Working with pro bono legal representation, she decided to push for an ordinance requiring cyclists to stay off sidewalks, modeled after one regulating central portions of nearby Davis. The Davis ordinance has helped maintain a comfortable environment for pedestrians, while the town’s wide bike lanes – which helped make it America’s first platinum cycling city – make it more comfortable to cycle on streets than on sidewalks.
But Abramson encountered resistance in Sacramento, where biking on central city streets can be unnerving. The busiest corridors contain five lanes for cars (three for moving traffic and two for parking), only allow on-street travel in one direction, and lack any dedicated cycling space.
“, ‘I’m too scared to ride on the road,’” she said. “One councilmember said they are too afraid of losing the millennials.”
In the end, Sacramento did update its bicycle ordinance, banning cyclists from the busiest sidewalks as identified via new signage. The city was also to review and update its data on bike-pedestrian collisions – according to Abramson, the relevant law-enforcement and emergency-services agencies had gathered casualty statistics for streets, but not for sidewalks.
Cooperation leads to progress
To date – two years since the ordinance took effect – Abramson has yet to see a single no-cycling sign. She has better advice for local politicians trying to woo millennials.
“Build your bike lanes and they’ll come back,” she suggested.
To an extent, Sacramento has followed Abramson’s advice, taking two meaningful steps in the last year to give central-area cyclists an option other than car lanes or sidewalks.
The city has installed protected bike lanes on several major streets, and is in the process of doing so on busy J Street. While Abramson would like to see stricter measures to protect pedestrians sooner, she supports these efforts.
“ are cheap and they work,” she said.
Additionally, Sacramento’s leaders have embraced JUMP, the electric-assist bikeshare operator owned by Uber, which launched in the city in May. The bright-red bikes’ nice kick makes it easier to navigate city traffic situations that could scare a rider of a standard bicycle to the sidewalk, incentivizing even California legislators to hop on.
Much work remains to be done in Sacramento, and some cyclists still use the sidewalk – Abramson even pointed out one who pedaled past her apartment as she was on the phone with me. But she has seen fewer sidewalk cyclists in recent months, and looks to the future with optimism.
“ Amsterdam, Copenhagen – it’s amazing,” she said. “Sacramento never change anything, but now they’re trying.”
Photo by Sam Kittner for Mobility Lab.