Switch to a different priority:
Nobody likes sitting in traffic. It seems like adding more lanes should fix the problem, but it doesn’t. Widen a road and more people start driving on it until congestion is just as bad as before. When Houston widened the Katy Freeway to 26 lanes — the widest in the world — peak travel times got worse. And when cities remove highway capacity? The predicted gridlock almost never comes.
Right now, Caltrans is spending nearly half a billion dollars to widen US 50 in Sacramento — and that’s just the construction cost. Every new lane is a permanent maintenance liability, replacing land that once generated tax revenue. Imagine if we invested that money to fix dangerous crossings, create safe greenways for our kids to walk and bike to school, improve light rail, and strengthen our existing neighborhoods.
More highway lanes dump more cars onto our streets, but only if we design our streets to accommodate more cars. We should not blindly comply — wider and faster city streets mean higher maintenance costs, more pollution, and more of us dying on the street. The Strong Towns approach creates alternatives to driving — and reduces pressure to spend billions on lanes that won’t solve the traffic problem.
Our Actions:
- ✅ In 2025, Sacramento began to reverse the trend by converting 5th street from one-way back to two-way. Drivers adjusted, and traffic improved. We believe the city can do them all and will continue to push for the elimination of all multi-lane one-way city streets.
- ✅ In 2025, we published a popular animation visualizing the displacement caused by Sacramento’s freeways.
Help with ending highway expansions in Sacramento by joining Strong SacTown.