Pedestrian struck and killed on W-X portion of Highway 50 in midtown Sacramento

A man walking in freeway lanes was struck and killed Wednesday morning on the W-X portion of the Capital City Freeway in midtown Sacramento, according to authorities.

The pedestrian was hit about 5:20 a.m. by a vehicle in the No. 2 lane of westbound Highway 50, according to incident logs from the California Highway Patrol and the Sacramento Fire Department.

Officer Mark Leavitt, a spokesman for the CHP’s South Sacramento office , said that a man was walking in the middle lane of traffic along Highway 50 when he was struck just before the 16th Street offramp.

Officers who arrived at the scene told dispatchers that the man had come to rest on the hood of a Lexus SUV. Leavitt said the driver and several other motorists had stopped to help the man, who was pronounced dead by firefighters about 15 minutes later.

Investigators were still piecing together why the man was walking on the freeway, Leavitt said. He added that drugs and alcohol were not factors in the crash and that the driver was cooperating with investigators.

While work continues on Highway 50 in multiple spots along the Capital City Freeway including around the Interstate 80 split in West Sacramento and past Highway 50’s junction with Highway 99 about a mile east of the crash, no overnight roadwork had been scheduled on the W-X, according to Caltrans District 3 announcements about the project.

All westbound lanes on the elevated freeway were shut down as emergency officials worked to investigate the crash with Caltrans issuing a SigAlert for nearly two hours.

The identity of the man who died was expected to be released by the Sacramento County Coroner’s Office once relatives are notified.