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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2023-02-06; Traffic and Mobility Commission; ; Endorsing the Vision Zero GoalMeeting Date: Feb. 6, 2023 To: Traffic and Mobility Commission Staff Contact: Nathan Schmidt, Transportation Planning and Mobility Manager Nathan.Schmidt@carlsbadca.gov, 442-339-2734 Subject: District: Endorsing the Vision Zero Goal All Recommended Action Support staff’s recommendation to the City Council to adopt a resolution endorsing the Vision Zero goal. Executive Summary Vision Zero is an internationally recognized traffic safety program that aims to eliminate all traffic deaths and serious injuries by a certain time. The City of Carlsbad is already actively implementing safety projects, programs and efforts consistent with Vision Zero to improve safety on city streets with the adoption of the Sustainable Mobility Plan in 2021 and later building on these efforts with the Local Roadway Safety Plan and Safer Streets Together Plan in 2022. A formal adoption of Vision Zero will better position the city to eliminate injuries on our city streets. Additionally, a Vision Zero program could allow the city to qualify for additional grant funding opportunities and maximize the city’s significant efforts across departments to prevent injury while encouraging active transportation and creating comfortable, welcoming networks for bike and pedestrian transport. To join the Vision Zero Network (visionzeronetwork.com), a city must meet the following criteria: 1.Have set a clear goal of eliminating traffic fatalities and severe injuries 2.The Mayor has publicly, officially committed to Vision Zero 3.Key departments (including police, transportation and public health) are engaged 4.A Vision Zero plan or strategy is in place, or the Mayor has committed to doing so in a clear time frame Approving this resolution will stratify the first three criteria. After adopting this resolution, city staff could begin on the fourth criterion through the update of the Sustainable Mobility Plan to include a Vision Zero chapter with an action plan. Explanation & Analysis Background Feb. 6, 2023 Item #6 Page 1 of 6 Vision Zero is a global road safety strategy aimed at reducing the number of fatalities and serious injuries in traffic to zero. It was first implemented in Sweden in the 1990s and has since been adopted by many cities and countries around the world. The strategy is based on the belief that traffic crashes and fatalities are not inevitable and can be prevented through a combination of safe road design, vehicle design and behavior-based approaches. The focus of Vision Zero is on creating safe road infrastructure, promoting safe behavior for all road users, and ensuring that the consequences of traffic crashes are as limited as possible. The ultimate goal is to create safe, livable and sustainable urban environments for all people. Vision Zero recognizes that humans make mistakes and that infrastructure should be designed around people’s limitations to reduce these errors. It supports a preventative approach to road safety, which includes investing resources into engineering, enforcement, education and emergency phases. Engineering solutions include changes in roadway design, including speed limit reductions, upgraded pedestrian crossings and other design elements that prioritize safety. Enforcement involves the presence of police and automated speed cameras that help to discourage dangerous driving. Education campaigns help to raise public awareness about road safety and encourage safer behaviors, such as wearing a seatbelt or not drinking and driving. Lastly, emergency response systems are put in place so that when an accident does occur, it can be quickly addressed, and the affected parties can receive the necessary medical attention as soon as possible. Components of a Strong Vision Zero Commitment The City of Carlsbad is committed to a strong and effective Vision Zero program which will be built on the city’s past efforts that are in alignment with the Vision Zero principles including the Safer Streets Together Plan, Sustainable Mobility Plan and Local Roadway Safety Plan. The following are components of the city’s efforts to date to implement a plan that will have a long- lasting effect for all transportation system users, as shown in Exhibit 2: Political Commitment: The city leadership, including the Mayor and the City Council, is committed to the Vision Zero goal. By adopting this resolution, the city would commit to reducing fatalities and serious injuries on city streets to zero. Multi-Disciplinary Leadership: The City of Carlsbad Safer Streets Task Force is comprised of representatives from agencies, organizations and citizens across the city to shepherd implementation of Vision Zero in the years ahead. The City of Carlsbad Safer Streets Task Force and Traffic & Mobility Commission could be an advisory board to guide the development and implementation of the Vision Zero principles in the city. These multi-disciplinary groups, with representatives from engineering, enforcement, education, public health and transportation safety partners would meet on a recurring basis to monitor the safety of our transportation network and develop recommendations to address safety issues. Cooperation and Collaboration: Carlsbad’s Vision Zero stakeholder agencies and organizations would also have an ongoing opportunity to guide and shape the development and implementation of a successful Vision Zero program. Involvement of agencies, organizations and individuals is essential to carry out the diverse strategies and actions in a Vision Zero Feb. 6, 2023 Item #6 Page 2 of 6 program as no one agency has the resources to carry out every single activity. Each participant has a role and responsibility to advance different elements of the Vision Zero program. Systems-Based Approach: The city and partner agencies is committed to an approach to focus on improving the city’s built environment and implementing policies that will improve safety of the transportation system for all users. Street design and design speed have an impact on both the perception of safety and observed outcomes when using the transportation system. The redesign and reconfiguration of the city’s streets reduce both the number and severity of crashes for all modes. For example, applying a lower design speed for a street could result in geometric changes that influence the driver to lower their speed, and in turn, reduce fatalities and injuries. This approach embraces the Vision Zero principle that human life and health are prioritized within all aspects of the transportation system. Community Engagement: The implementation of a Vision Zero goal would require continued public engagement to involve all communities that make up the city and will be primarily guided by the city’s Traffic & Mobility Commission. As stated in the commission’s workplan, “The Traffic & Mobility Commission is committed to enhancing the safe mobility for the city and its residents by using data-driver decision-making and a forward-looking approach to transportation.” The Traffic & Mobility Commission provides a public forum to review community input regarding mobility and traffic safety matters, including but not limited to those related to pedestrian, bicycle, vehicular and transit modes of travel and school safety. Data-Driven: The city’s Vision Zero program would continue to build upon and update collision or crash data provided by the Carlsbad Police Department and the California Department of Transportation to help prioritize its resources so that investments provide the most benefits, as driven by a reduction in fatalities and serious injuries. Travel activity data will supplement the crash data and continue to be monitored through the city’s annual multimodal transportation monitoring programs to focus improvements in areas of high use. Traffic deaths and serious injuries are preventable, but stakeholders must understand the complex factors of prevention to appropriately address transportation safety. Transparency: Transparency is tied to responsiveness and good governance. All city agencies are committed to reporting the implementation process and progress of Vision Zero. The City Council, the Traffic & Mobility Commission, and the public will receive annual updates on traffic safety data and the various projects and programs that the city has implemented in response. The availability of good quality process and crash data increases civic engagement and enables Carlsbad to identify issues that impact transportation safety in the city. Equity: The city’s Vision Zero efforts take an equitable approach by establishing inclusive actions to provide safe transportation options for all road users across the city. This approach recognizes the fact that certain communities are more impacted than others. According to the American Community Survey, 2.6% of working Carlsbad residents do not have access to a car to get to work, compared to 2.8% statewide and 4.4% nationally. Those without access to a car must turn to other means of transportation such as public transit, bicycling and walking. Feb. 6, 2023 Item #6 Page 3 of 6 However, as transportation facilities have mostly favored the personal vehicle, there are opportunities to improve city facilities to better accommodate those who do not have access to a car. Students, people with disabilities, the elderly, young families and other populations are among those who do not have their own personal vehicle. Implementation of the plan will prioritize resources to invest in the transportation options for these populations as well as the high-injury street network that are most impacted by crashes. The city will proactively engage with community members to better understand transportation improvements to improve their safety. Action Plan: The city will update the Sustainable Mobility Plan to include an action plan, upon adoption of the Vision Zero resolution. The Sustainable Mobility Plan, Local Roadway Safety Plan, and most recently, the Safer Streets Together Plan, already include much of the data analysis, research and public feedback to determine city safety priorities. These three plans already include a comprehensive list of actions that Carlsbad will pursue to address traffic safety in the years ahead. However, in a cost=constrained environment, not all actions will take place concurrently. The city is currently developing an Implementation Plan for the Sustainable Mobility Plan that will identify actions from the comprehensive list of projects for prioritization and identify funding mechanisms and opportunities. As discussed earlier, the city is already actively implementing safety projects, programs and efforts consistent with Vision Zero which are listed in the table below with indication of how these plans and programs address the various Vision Zero components shown in Exhibit 2. Vision Zero Components Vision Zero Resolution Safer Streets Together Plan Sustainable Mobility Plan Local Roadway Safety Plan Political commitment  Multi-disciplinary leadership     Action Plan    Equity   Cooperation & collaboration     Systems-based approach    Data-driven    Community engagement    Transparency    Feb. 6, 2023 Item #6 Page 4 of 6 Next Steps Should the City Council adopt the resolution to endorse the Vision Zero goal, staff would begin executing actions necessary to update the Sustainable Mobility Plan and then return to the Traffic & Mobility Commission and the City Council with these updates. Staff would evaluate, revise and update the draft strategic actions associated with the plan and make any necessary budgetary recommendations during the budget process. Environmental Evaluation This action does not constitute a project within the meaning of the California Environmental Quality Act under California Public Resources Code Section 21065 in that it has no potential to cause either a direct physical change in the environment or a reasonably foreseeable indirect physical change in the environment. Exhibits 1. Vision Zero Nine Components of a Components of a Strong Vision Zero Commitment Feb. 6, 2023 Item #6 Page 5 of 6 9 Components of a Strong Vision Zero Commitment POLITICAL COMMITMENT The highest-ranking local officials (Mayor, City Council, City Manager) make an official and public commitment to a Vision Zero goal to achieve zero traffic fatalities and severe injuries among all road users (including people walking, biking, using transit, and driving) within a set timeframe. This should include passage of a local policy laying out goals, timeline, stakeholders, and a commitment to community engagement, transparency, & equitable outcomes. MULTI-DISCIPLINARY LEADERSHIP An official city Vision Zero Taskforce (or Leadership Committee) is created and charged with leading the planning effort for Vision Zero. The Taskforce should include, at a minimum, high-ranking representatives from the Office of the Mayor, Police, Transportation (or equivalent), and Public Health. Other departments to involve include Planning, Fire, Emergency Services, Public Works, District Attorney, Office of Senior Services, Disability, and the School District. ACTION PLAN Vision Zero Action Plan (or Strategy) is created within 1 year of initial commitment and is implemented with clear strategies, owners of each strategy, interim targets, timelines, & performance measures. EQUITY City stakeholders commit to both an equitable approach to Vision Zero by establishing inclusive and representative processes, as well as equitable outcomes by ensuring measurable benchmarks to provide safe transportation options for all road users in all parts of the city. COOPERATION & COLLABORATION A commitment is made to encourage meaningful cooperation and collaboration among relevant governmental agencies & community stakeholders to establish a framework for multiple stakeholders to set shared goals and focus on coordination and accountability. SYSTEMS-BASED APPROACH City leaders commit to and prioritize a systems-based approach to Vision Zero — focusing on the built environment, systems, and policies that influence behavior — as well as adopting messaging that emphasizes that these traffic losses are preventable. DATA-DRIVEN City stakeholders commit to gather, analyze, utilize, and share reliable data to understand traffic safety issues and prioritize resources based on evidence of the greatest needs and impact. COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT Opportunities are created to invite meaningful community engagement, such as select community representation on the Taskforce, broader community input through public meetings or workshops, online surveys, and other feedback opportunities. TRANSPARENCY The city’s process is transparent to city stakeholders and the community, including regular updates on the progress on the Action Plan and performance measures, and a yearly report (at minimum) to the local governing board (e.g., City Council). Based on the experiences of early-adopter cities in the United States, these nine components have proven to be an effective high-level framework for communities considering a Vision Zero commitment. While these are not the only factors to consider, they are critical aspects to ensure a strong and lasting commitment to Vision Zero. For more visit the Vision Zero Network at visionzeronetwork.org. Questions or ideas? Contact leah@visionzeronetwork.org. Exhibit 1 Feb. 6, 2023 Item #6 Page 6 of 6 1 To: Traffic and Mobility Commission From: Steve Linke Meeting Date: February 6, 2023 Subject: Public comment on Item #6: Vision Zero The Traffic and Mobility Commission voted unanimously (7-0) at its October 27, 2022 meeting to recommend the following as a substitute to making a commitment to follow the tenets of the third- party Vision Zero website: Recommend to the City Council that a new goal be added to Carlsbad’s Sustainable Mobility Plan to eliminate all preventable traffic-related severe and fatal collisions by a future year designated by staff, that root-cause analysis be conducted for all such collisions, and that equity be considered when planning transportation projects. Despite multiple subsequent opportunities during “Safer Streets Together” updates at City Council meetings, staff has not passed that recommendation along to them. Instead, they are now coming back to the commission for a do-over. As I stated at the October meeting, there is no grant, policy, action, project, or any other component of the so-called “Vision Zero Commitment” that the City is not already doing or cannot accomplish through minor updates to existing planning or policy documents, which are already very redundant with Vision Zero. It is equally troubling that staff is requesting that the commission recommend adoption of a resolution that the public and you have never even seen, and then planning as their “next step” to go to the City Council citing the commission’s recommendation of whatever staff chooses to write in the meantime. Ironically, they are simultaneously claiming how important “transparency” is in the process. This is an unnecessary “trophy-chasing” exercise that likely will divert hundreds of thousands of dollars (or more) to consultants and staff time for redundant planning—and away from actions that actually increase safety. Many California cities have made “The Commitment” to Vision Zero, including San Francisco (2014), Los Angeles (2015), San Diego (2015), and Sacramento (2017). However, those cities have seen either no changes or increases in severe and fatal collisions post-commitment: • “Five Years Into ‘Vision Zero,’ and San Diego Streets Are Even Deadlier (KPBS, 5/13/2021) • “Is Vision Zero Failing? Cities Grapple With How to Reach Goal of Ending Traffic Fatalities: 11 California cities want to end traffic fatalities in the next few years, but that goal seems distant” (California Local, 9/14/2022) The main goal of Vision Zero is to use education, enforcement, and engineering to eliminate all traffic- related severe and fatal injuries. That is a laudable goal. However, many such injuries arise from DUI, or cyclists hitting parked cars/poles, or other situations that are nearly impossible to prevent 100%. Reducing these to zero is not an achievable goal, which is why I used the word “preventable” rather than “all” in the commission’s October recommendation. 2 The central tenet of Vision Zero is to reduce speeds to about 20 to 30 mph on all city streets (chances of severe injury or death are too high above those speeds), and, on streets where that is not possible, to erect physical barriers between the vehicle lanes and bicycle lanes/sidewalks to prevent encroachment. However, it is neither practical nor reasonable to reduce speeds to those levels on all of Carlsbad’s streets, and the cost to create physical barriers would be astronomical—with the likely outcome that intersections would actually become even more dangerous for cyclists. The core strategy of Vision Zero to reduce speeds is a three-pronged approach: (1) safe street design, (2) lowered speed limits, and (3) automated enforcement using speed safety cameras that read license plates and automatically send citations to violators. The automated enforcement is considered a key element of achieving the lowered speeds, but I am not sure how that will be received by residents. While Vision Zero commitments are failing to reduce severe injury and fatal collisions in the cities listed above, what they did do is require the creation of expensive new bureaucracies, task forces, audits to assess why Vision Zero was not working, etc. It also exposed the cities to criticism and, perhaps, litigation for not following the tenets and strategies closely enough to achieve the stated goal. Does anybody have any idea what sorts of extreme projects would be necessary to eliminate every single severe traffic injury—or the costs to implement those projects? But that is what “The Commitment” demands. Conclusion The commission’s existing recommendation from October 27, 2022 is superior for the following reasons: • Commitments should not be made to unachievable goals. Unlike Vision Zero, the goal in the existing commission recommendation is far more achievable, but all of the positive aspects of Vision Zero can still be proposed and implemented. • “The Commitment” to the Vision Zero goal is meaningless, if the underlying tenets and strategies are just going to be ignored. With the existing recommendation, Carlsbad can choose its own goals, strategies, and policies, rather than committing to (or ignoring) those on a third- party website that could subject the city to criticism or legal action if the goal is not achieved. • Eliminates unnecessary monetary costs of redundant new planning, freeing up resources for actual projects. • Puts a focus on root-cause analysis to tailor projects to address the actual problems. • The equity provision incorporates the only component really lacking in Carlsbad’s current planning documents. • “The Commitment” is not necessary for any grants or other actions the city wants to take, nor is it necessary for staff to engage in inter-departmental and inter-agency collaborations. Endorsing the Vision Zero Goal Nathan Schmidt, Transportation Planning and Mobility Manager February 6, 2023 TODAY’S PRESENTATION •Recommended action •Overview of Vision Zero •Components of a Strong Vision Zero Commitment in Carlsbad •Next Steps ITEM 6: VISION ZERO RECOMMENDED ACTION •Support staff’s recommendation to City Council to: –Adopt a resolution endorsing the Vision Zero goal ITEM 6: VISION ZERO WHAT IS VISION ZERO? •Internationally recognized traffic safety program •Aim: Eliminate ALL traffic deaths and serious injuries but a certain time •Focus: Creating safe road infrastructure and safe behavior for all road users ITEM 6: VISION ZERO VISION ZERO APPROACH ITEM 6: VISION ZERO Source: Vision Zero Network COMPONENTS OF A STRONG VISION ZERO COMMITMENT •Political Commitment •Multi-Disciplinary Leadership •Cooperation and Collaboration •Systems-Based Approach •Community Engagement •Data-Driven •Transparent •Equitable •Action Plan ITEM 6: VISION ZERO REQUIREMENTS TO JOIN VISION ZERO 1.Set a clear goal of eliminating fatalities and severe injuries (Resolution) 2.The Mayor has publicly, officially committed to Vision Zero (Resolution) 3.Key departments are engaged (Vision Zero updates to the SMP) 4.A Vision Zero plan or strategy is in place (Vision Zero updates to the SMP) ITEM 6: VISION ZERO NEXT STEPS •Present Vision Zero resolution to City Council •If adopted: –Update of the Sustainable Mobility Plan with necessary Vision Zero elements –Return to Traffic & Mobility Commission and City Council with proposed draft Updates ITEM 6: VISION ZERO RECOMMENDED ACTION •Support staff’s recommendation to City Council to: –Adopt a resolution endorsing the Vision Zero goal ITEM 6: VISION ZERO