Sacramento just wrapped its final public workshop on a long-studied plan to redesign Arden Way, one of the city's busiest commercial corridors and the route that leads to the city's largest shopping mall. The proposal under consideration would remove a traffic lane in each direction to make room for a protected bicycle path and a wider sidewalk, but after years of planning, the project's biggest obstacle may still be money.
The corridor has sidewalks that abruptly end, forcing pedestrians onto a dirt shoulder, and only a limited number of crosswalks, according to CBS Sacramento. City Councilman Roger Dickinson told the station that walking the distance on Arden Way is not very inviting, and said removing a traffic lane is part of the solution the city is pursuing. The final community workshop on the Arden Way safety plan took place Wednesday evening, October 28, 2026, before the ideas head to the city's traffic commission, though any construction would still need sign-off from the Sacramento City Council.
Residents who use the corridor every day see the danger differently. Gary Moll, who said he frequently walks along Arden Way, told CBS Sacramento he has watched many drivers exceed the speed limit, while cyclist Bill Dean described cars turning right in front of him as scary. But Moll also voiced skepticism about the fix itself, saying he does not think the lane-reduction proposal will be a good idea in the long run and warning it could cause traffic congestion and frustrated drivers.
A Broader Plan Years in the Making
The workshop is the public-facing piece of a much larger effort: the Arden Way-Auburn Boulevard Mobility Plan, which the city says focuses on improving safety and mobility along Arden Way, Auburn Boulevard and Harvard Street, according to Sacramento City Express. Proposed safety and mobility improvements for Fruitridge Road, Arden Way and Auburn Boulevard were scheduled for public review this fall, the outlet reported, as the city folds several corridor studies into one review window.
City staff presented three draft corridor concepts for Arden Way and Auburn Boulevard to the Active Transportation Commission in June, per Citizen Portal. Those concepts could include lane reductions to accommodate protected bikeways and pedestrian refuge islands, the same report noted, though traffic analysis was still underway at the time, with staff planning to return with a preferred alternative ahead of a 2027 council submission.
The corridor's inclusion in these plans is not incidental. Arden Way, Auburn Boulevard and Fruitridge Road are all part of Sacramento's Vision Zero High Injury Network because of their concentrations of fatal and serious-injury crashes, Sacramento City Express reported. Citywide, the top contributing factors in severe and fatal crashes are speeding, impaired driving and disregarding traffic signs, according to a dashboard cited by KCRA.
Grants Fund the Planning, But Not the Concrete
Money is the recurring theme in nearly every account of this project. City of Sacramento officials face funding as the project's biggest hurdle, and Dickinson told CBS Sacramento the city seeks every grant and funding source available for critical improvements like these. Separately, KCRA has reported that the city largely relies on grants.
The Arden Way-Auburn corridor near Swanston Estates received nearly $400,000 in Caltrans grant funding in January 2025, according to The Sacramento Bee. The grant was intended to develop plans to slow traffic and address safety issues, especially for pedestrians and cyclists.
A County Project Offers a Preview
While the city's Arden Way plan is still in the concept stage, Sacramento County has already built something similar nearby. The county finished substantive construction last month on Phase 1 of its Arden Way Complete Streets project, a half-mile stretch between Morse and Watt avenues, per the Bee. The $7.4 million phase included rehabilitating deteriorating pavement, adding landscaping and ADA-compliant ramps, plus raised, physically separated Class IV bike lanes and a flashing-yellow traffic-signal phase.
KCRA reported that the county's approach uses an extended, much wider sidewalk to move bicycles away from street traffic and up onto the sidewalk, instead of relying on traditional green-painted bike lanes — a design built around raised delineators separating bike lanes from pedestrian pathways. County officials told the Bee that if the design is well received, they would look to incorporate similar vertically separated bike lanes into future phases and possibly other projects. The Bee reported that the next phase will cover a segment between Morse Avenue and Hesket Way, with construction expected to begin in spring 2028 at a cost of about $8.9 million.
What Vision Zero Is Meant to Solve
The Arden Way push is part of a citywide commitment. Sacramento's City Council adopted its Vision Zero Action Plan in 2018 with a goal of eliminating traffic fatalities and serious injuries by 2027, according to city council records posted by the City of Sacramento. The Arden-Auburn plan is explicitly framed as supporting that goal, Sacramento City Express reported, and the city's High Injury Network includes corridors such as Arden Way.
For now, the path forward runs through the city's traffic commission, then eventually the City Council, before any lane striping changes or new sidewalks appear on Arden Way. Residents like Moll and Dean will be watching to see whether the eventual design calms the traffic they described, or simply shifts the congestion they're worried about onto neighboring streets.
