ACTION NEEDED: Sausalito crosswalk safety delays + two new op-eds

[Kieran Culligan]

Hi Sausalito Pedestrian and Bicycle Advocates,

Sausalito's ongoing failure to implement the AB 413 pedestrian safety law is on the City Council agenda this Tuesday. I had two pieces published this week outlining the safety issues, which you can read and share here:

• Marin IJ: Sausalito should follow new law for pedestrian safety

• Streetsblog SF: Op-Ed: Sausalito Continues Its Quest to Delay Crosswalk Daylighting

For those newer to the issue, AB 413 is a statewide law requiring a 20-foot clear zone (e.g., red curb) on the approach side of crosswalks. This is known as "daylighting." With SUVs and trucks growing ever larger, a driver simply cannot see a pedestrian, especially a child, entering the crosswalk if a vehicle is parked right up to the painted line. Daylighting physically clears that visual space. Full enforcement of this mandate was legally required to start 14 months ago, in January 2025.

As the parent of two young children who frequent the Caledonia area, I find this delay in implementation and enforcement particularly concerning. Sausalito is lagging behind most cities statewide, from Mill Valley and SF to even Carmel.

Rather than ensuring compliance and painting the curbs on Caledonia and Bridgeway, City Council is instead considering a $63,400 traffic consultant contract on this Tuesday’s (March 17) Consent Calendar.

To be clear, there are actually a lot of good ideas in the "Base Scope" of this contract. It involves studying side streets to see if we can reconfigure them to creatively recover parking. I fully support the city proceeding with this as a quick-hit Phase 1, and even expanding the concept into a holistic urban design project to improve overall circulation.

However, in the meantime, they are delaying the red curbs for daylighting and have included "Optional Task A": a nearly $7,000 line item explicitly designed to find an engineering loophole to shrink the 20-foot safety buffer. The consultant proposes studying a reduction in the speed limit to 15 mph so they can claim a car's stopping distance is shorter, thereby legally "justifying" a 15-foot buffer instead of 20 feet.

Shrinking a daylighting buffer by 5 feet does not magically create a 20-foot parking space. It simply waters down a mandatory safety measure to create the illusion of preserving parking. We cannot let Sausalito further delay basic pedestrian safety.

If you value Sausalito as a walkable community, please let City Council know how you feel. These 3 points are most important:

• Paint the curbs now. Direct Public Works to immediately mark the full 20-foot daylighting zones with red paint to protect our community today.

• Reject Optional Task A. Do not spend taxpayer money trying to shrink mandatory crosswalk safety buffers.

• Please continue to consider how the streets in this area could be improved for all users. Study the side streets to recover parking, or even better expand it into a holistic urban design project to improve overall circulation on Caledonia, Bridgeway, and surrounding streets. However, this should not delay the daylighting!

WAYS YOU CAN HELP MAKE SAUSALITO SAFER FOR PEDESTRIANS:

1. Email the City Council: Send a brief email to cityc...@sausalito.gov and cc city...@sausalito.gov. ➡️ Here's a draft email template to help you get started. ⬅️

2. Share the Op-Eds: Post the Marin IJ and Streetsblog links to Nextdoor, Facebook, and your personal networks to help educate the broader community on why these red curbs are necessary and should be implemented now while other studies are ongoing.

3. Show up on Tuesday in person or by Zoom: Live comments at the Tuesday evening meeting make an outsized impact (location and zoom details in the agenda here). If this gets pulled from the Consent Calendar for debate, the Council needs to hear that safety comes first. Timing is TBD and will likely be late after the scheduled business items. If you're interested in commenting, message me and I can provide timing updatces on Tuesday night.

Thank you for your continued advocacy and concern for our community, especially our children.

Best,

Kieran Culligan
Sausalito Resident