City of Alexandria, Virginia
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MEMORANDUM
DATE: DECEMBER 6, 2017
TO: THE HONORABLE MAYOR AND MEMBERS OF CITY COUNCIL
FROM: MARK B. JINKS, CITY MANAGER /s/
DOCKET TITLE:
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Consideration of the Vision Zero Action Plan.
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ISSUE: Consideration of the Vision Zero Action Plan.
RECOMMENDATION: That the City Council receive the Vision Zero Action Plan and docket it for public hearing and adoption on December 16, 2017.
DISCUSSION: On January 24, 2017, the City of Alexandria adopted Vision Zero with the goal of eliminating all traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2028. Staff provided an update to City Council on October 24, 2017. The Draft Vision Zero Action Plan (the Action Plan) was released to the public on November 8, 2017, along with the Alexandria Police Department’s Traffic Safety Plan (Attachment 1) and the public comment period closed on November 26, 2017. The Traffic Safety Plan is an operational plan that does not require City Council adoption but is consistent with the goal of Vision Zero in that it aims to create safe, viable and balanced systems that will help eradicate traffic crashes, serious injuries and fatalities, while promoting voluntary compliance with traffic laws. This plan provides more details on the higher level enforcement strategies noted in the Action Plan.
Overall, public input on the Action Plan has been largely positive with 86% of respondents stating that they support the Vision Zero Action Plan and 79% stating that the City of Alexandria should increase resources in order to implement the plan. Staff received nearly 200 written comments about the overall Action Plan as well as its strategies. When asked to select the four strategies that were most important to the respondent (of twelve), the top strategies noted were:
§ Strengthen traffic safety enforcement policies and practices (18%)
§ Develop and implement infrastructure policies to reduce Killed or Seriously Injured (KSIs) (16%)
§ Improve delivery and implementation of safety treatments (12%)
§ Enhance data collection and coordination efforts (10%)
In general, the public comments from the draft Action Plan were largely balanced in terms of support for, or request to expedite, specific areas such as education, engineering, and enforcement. While most respondents felt that one should be prioritized over another, the specific requests were generally evenly distributed across Action Plan themes. The comments received highlighted the importance of promoting a culture of safety through taking responsibility for individual actions no matter the mode of travel.
To the extent possible, staff aimed to incorporate the comments provided by the public, both online and in person at the November 16, 2017 City Council public hearing, as well as those provided by the Transportation Commission. The following summaries outline major changes to the final Vision Zero Action Plan (Attachment 2) that were made based on these comments.
§ A detailed three-year work plan was developed and posted to the Vision Zero website. This document breaks the Action Plan items into measurable milestones that will provide the foundation for the planned Vision Zero annual report.
§ Year 1 Priority Action Items were highlighted in the plan
§ High Crash Intersections, that are based on injuries as well as KSIs, will be prioritized and are highlighted on the website
§ A renaming of the of High Injury Network map to “High KSI Network” map, updated to include Seminary Road for consistency with the data analysis
§ Year 1 Priority Engineering Action Items were identified in the plan
A Vision Zero dashboard is currently being developed to report the City’s progress as the City works toward Zero. Additionally, staff will publish a Vision Zero annual report detailing the status of the Action Plan items and updated crash numbers.
The City has taken on the challenge of accomplishing the goal of Vision Zero within ten years of the adoption of this Action Plan. However, City staff cannot accomplish these goals alone. Part of the success of this Action Plan will be to have our residents, visitors, businesses, and workers take responsibility for their individual actions, look out for one another on the roads, and embrace the culture of safety Alexandria is trying to build. To date, nine organizations have signed on as “Coalition Partners” to help the City achieve its goal. The Transportation Commission has also endorsed the Action Plan (Attachment 3).
FISCAL IMPACT: Many of the Action Plan items are funded with existing budget resources. Additional capital and operating money will be required to implement further Action Plan items in the recommended timeframe. Many of the short-term action items (1 to 2 years) are funded through FY 2018 dollars that were included in the Complete Streets budget. For FY 2019, T&ES staff are requesting an additional $100,000 in operating funding to support additional data collection and education campaign strategies. An additional $375,000 is being requested by T&ES in Complete Streets Capital funding for FY 2019, which would provide $50,000 to supplement the existing $47,000 for Safe Routes to School engineering projects, $300,000 for high crash intersection design and $25,000 to supplement the existing $30,000 for pedestrian signal technology. For FY 2020 and FY 2021, a supplemental request for $300,000 each year is being requested by T&ES for the design and implementation of high crash locations and Neighborhood Slow Zones. A supplemental request for $300,000 in FY 2020 for Sidewalk Capital Maintenance is also being requested by T&ES. While Vision Zero related capital and operating funding is a priority, those funding requests will have to compete for limited City funding as the FY 2019 operating budget and the FY 2019 to FY 2028 CIP are developed for City Manager’s proposed budget and subsequent City Council consideration. This competition for resources is how the City budget process works for all items under consideration in the operating and capital budgets.
ATTACHMENTS:
Attachment 1: Alexandria Police Department Traffic Safety Plan
Attachment 2: Vision Zero Action Plan
Attachment 3: Transportation Commission Letter of Endorsement
Attachment 4: Presentation
STAFF:
James B. Banks, City Attorney
Emily A. Baker, Deputy City Manager
Yon Lambert, Director, Transportation and Environmental Services (T&ES)
Matt Melkerson, Acting Deputy Director, T&ES
Hillary Orr, Special Assistant to the City Manager