The Sacramento County Coroner's Office has identified the woman killed by a car on a Rancho Cordova freeway two nights ago as Sondra Noel Schramko, 44. Coroner's records listed her as unhoused. She died about 10:50 p.m. on eastbound Highway 50, just east of Zinfandel Drive, in a crash that remains under investigation.
According to The Sacramento Bee, the driver of a Toyota Prius was traveling east in the freeway's No. 2 lane when he felt a bump and immediately pulled over. CHP Officer Angie Monroe, with the California Highway Patrol's East Sacramento office, relayed that account to the newspaper. Investigators said the driver did not know where the pedestrian had come from or whether she had crossed from the north or south side of the freeway.
Schramko was wearing dark clothing and carrying a black backpack when she was struck, per the CHP officer, and she suffered fatal injuries. No further details about her background or how she came to be on the freeway have been released, and the crash remains under investigation.
A Second, Earlier Fatal Crash Near the Same Stretch
This is not the first deadly pedestrian crash reported along this section of Highway 50. In a separate incident near the same stretch of freeway, KCRA reported that a pedestrian was hit and killed on eastbound Highway 50 near Zinfandel Drive, with all lanes reopening before 6:30 a.m. CHP spokesperson Tommy Riggin said at the time that reports of a pedestrian walking on the westbound side of the highway near Zinfandel Drive began before 4:30 a.m., and that the pedestrian later crossed into eastbound traffic.
Riggin said the pedestrian's body was found in the median and that it was unclear what the pedestrian had been doing on the freeway. He added that the driver who struck that pedestrian was not hurt, showed no signs of intoxication, and that speed was not a factor. In a chaotic aftermath, a witness who had pulled over to the shoulder after seeing the crash was then struck by another vehicle, though nobody was hurt in that second collision.
A Pedestrian Bridge Is Still More Than a Year Away
Rancho Cordova officials have been working toward a fix for pedestrians trying to cross this part of Highway 50. The city council unanimously approved a $2.2 million increase to the contract for the Zinfandel Drive Bicycle and Pedestrian Overcrossing Project, according to sacbee.com. The planned span is meant to let pedestrians and bicyclists cross the freeway near Zinfandel Drive, somewhere between Folsom Boulevard and White Rock Road.
Construction on that overcrossing is tentatively scheduled to begin in spring 2027 and wrap up the following fall, per the same outlet's reporting. That timeline means the span remains months away from breaking ground, let alone opening to foot and bike traffic.
A Regional Pattern of Pedestrian Deaths
Pedestrian fatalities have been a persistent problem across the broader region. The Sacramento-Roseville-Folsom metropolitan area recorded 377 pedestrian deaths over a five-year span, landing it 20th on Smart Growth America's 2024 list of the most dangerous metro areas for people on foot, according to sacbee.com. Between 2018 and 2022, the area averaged 3.15 pedestrian deaths per 100,000 residents annually, the outlet reported.
More than 70 pedestrians died in Sacramento County in 2022 alone, according to a public dataset created by Sacramento County Coroner Rosa Vega. In the five-year stretch before that, from 2013 to 2017, another 238 pedestrians died in the Sacramento area. Those figures describe a regional toll and do not establish a cause or trend specific to the Highway 50 corridor near Zinfandel Drive, where Schramko's death remains an open investigation.
