A car crash maimed a Sacramento child. Six years later, a crash killed a mom three blocks away
Mattie Nicholson, a 56-year-old mother of six, was hit by a car and killed Jan. 9.
The deadly collision occurred in South Land Park at the intersection of Potrero Way and Freeport Boulevard, a major thoroughfare the city has identified as part of its “high-injury network.” Freeport has unprotected bike lanes — paint is all that separates cyclists from vehicles.
UC Berkeley’s Transportation Injury Mapping System shows that between 2012 and the end of 2022, there were nine fatal crashes on Freeport Boulevard. The intersection where a driver hit Nicholson — on the southbound side of Freeport — is between a 30 mph zone and a 35 mph zone.
Those speeds are often lethal. A study in Accident Analysis & Prevention found that if a driver traveling 32.5 mph strikes a pedestrian, the risk of death is 25%. At 40.6 mph, the risk of death is 50%.
Just three blocks south of the crash that killed Nicholson, QuiChang Zhu, 72, was crossing the street with her grandson when both were struck by a car in January 2018. Zhu died. Her grandson, Jian Hao Kuang, then 6, survived the crash with extensive brain damage. Ultimately, the city paid the family an $11 million settlement.
The city also removed the crosswalk they were using when they were struck.
From 2012 to 2022, most of the nine people who were killed on Freeport were either pedestrians or cyclists. A cyclist was fatally hit by a car in both 2014 and 2018. In addition to Zhu, three more pedestrians were killed over the years 2015 and 2017.
A car crash in 2019 resulted in a severe injury at the same intersection where Nicholson was killed.
Plans to change Freeport Boulevard
In February 2023, the city adopted a plan to change Freeport Boulevard. It has yet to fund construction.
Gabby Miller, a spokeswoman for the city, said safety was the city’s “highest priority,” and that “traffic deaths and serious injuries are often preventable, are a public health issue and must be effectively addressed.”
For these high-priority safety projects, however, the city typically doesn’t allocate money from the general fund. Sacramento usually relies instead on competitive grants to pay for such improvements.
As a result, “Acquiring all transportation funding necessary for the process from concept to construction can require many sources,” Miller said, “and typically takes many years to complete.”
Plastic posts for bike lanes, plus no change to speed limit
Under the current plan, which Miller said was subject to change, two lanes of north- and southbound vehicle traffic would remain. The city would install new bike lanes — mostly set off with both paint and plastic posts, though some sections of bike lane will only have a painted buffer.
The city plans to skip plastic barriers in those places so that cars can more easily drive through the bike lane and continue to park at the curb.
The cross street where Zhu was fatally struck — Oregon Drive — would be one of the dividing lines between these varying levels of protection for cyclists on Freeport. At Potrero Way, the cross street where Nicholson was fatally struck, the bike lane will have plastic posts under the adopted plan, as well as a new pedestrian signal.
The paint would make the designated lanes for cars narrower: 11 feet wide rather than the current 12. Narrower lanes tend to discourage higher, deadlier speeds.
Traffic deaths are preventable
Other cities, including Jersey City and Hoboken, New Jersey, have demonstrated that traffic fatalities and serious injuries are almost always preventable. Jersey City, which has about half the population of Sacramento, saw four traffic deaths on its streets iin 2023. The California capital lost four pedestrians and cyclists in the first 26 days of 2024: Nicholson, Kate Johnston, Aaron Ward and Jeffrey Blain.
The month that these Sacramento residents died, Hoboken announced that it had gone seven years without a traffic death.
Like Jersey City and Hoboken, Sacramento has pledged to eliminate traffic deaths and injuries. So far, the California capital has failed.
Sacramento has installed more safety-enhancing infrastructure, but it has also perennially struggled to fund such projects.
The shortfall has had deadly consequences: According to the Transportation Injury Mapping System, between the year of Sacramento’s 2017 Vision Zero announcement and the end of 2022, more than 160 pedestrians and cyclists died in Sacramento car crashes.
An outgoing personality and a selfless heart
Mattie Olivia Nicholson was born in Oakland on July 9, 1967, to Geraldine Nicholson. She was raised by Olivia and Eugene Lee. Her friends called her “TT.”
In a brief obituary, the writer said Nicholson was “known for her outgoing personality.” She was a Christian. She enjoyed music, cooking and fishing, and adored her two dogs, Poppa and Molly.
“Mattie had a beautiful selfless heart,” the writer said. She “always went out of her way to help others.”
Nicholson’s youngest daughter, Tamar Blackman, did not agree to an interview request, but referred the reporter to her mother’s obituary and funeral announcement. Her mother was interred in Richmond, at Rolling Hills Memorial Park.
Nicholson is survived by her six children: Andrea Smith, Stanford Boatner, and Isaac, Monique, Angela and Tamar Blackman. She is also survived by two grandchildren, Kierra Lee and Stanford Boatner Jr.
Shortly after her mother was fatally struck on a road the city knows is dangerous, her daughter Monique wrote on GoFundMe that she and her siblings were “suffering from an untimely tragic loss.”
Nicholson was just 56. Tamar tweeted, “So many conversations I wish we could’ve had.”
Mattie Olivia Nicholson
Mother of six and Sacramento resident.
Age: 56
Died: Jan. 9
Survived by: Children Andrea Smith, Stanford Boatner, and Isaac, Monique, Angela and Tamar Blackman; and grandchildren Kierra Lee and Stanford Boatner Jr.
