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HomeMy WebLinkAbout011624-09.1 LRSP LETTER & QUESTIONS - DANVILLE TOWN COUNCIL(JANUARY 15, 2024) edited (3)Subject: Urgent Request to Reevaluate Approval of Resolution No. 3-2024 - Town of Danville's Local Roadway Safety Plan (LRSP) (PDF attached) Dear Members of the Danville Town Council, January 15, 2024 I am writing to urge the Town Council to carefully consider the impact of adopting Resolution No. 3-2024, Agenda item 9.1, the Local Roadway Safety Plan (LRSP), on the January 16, 2024, agenda. I recommend that the Council withhold approval. Instead, LSRP should be referred to the Bicycle Advisory Commission for thorough review, input, and finally, approval. Several concerns have surfaced regarding the LRSP that require careful consideration: 1. Lack of Substantive Revisions: The Town Staff has presented a Final Report, dated January 16, 2024, which appears to be a mere rebranding of the January 23, 2023, Draft LRSP. Notably, essential edits provided by community members Alan Kalin and Bruce Bilodeau were disregarded (PDF's attached), leaving both versions virtually identical. Additionally, two stakeholder meetings were held by Town Staff in 2022, months after the appointment of the Bicycle Advisory Commission, yet the Commissioners were not invited. 2. Incomplete and Inaccurate Data: The LRSP relies on the Town's limited dataset of bicycle and pedestrian crash data, encompassing only the years 2017 to 2021, a period where there is a significant discrepancy between the State of California's collision data and the Town's. One of Kalin and Bilodeau's specific objections was the report's focus on just KSI collisions (Killed or Severely Injured). Every collision between a vehicle and a bicyclist or pedestrian is potentially severe, so every collision should be considered. Also, the use of a "Rolling Five years" approach, discarding valuable historical data, raises concerns about the relevance and comprehensiveness of the recommendations and subsequent funding decisions outlined in the plan. 3. Boilerplate Concerns: The LRSP, created by consultants at TJKM, incorporates significant portions of content from LRSPs of other cities, such as Napa and Moraga. The inclusion of boilerplate material compromises the integrity and originality of the Danville -specific plan. 4. Lack of Collaboration: Despite persistent efforts to collaborate and provide valuable insights, the Town Staff has been unresponsive to repeated requests for collaboration on tailoring the LRSP to address Danville's specific safety issues with regard to bicycles. The Bicycle Advisory Commission, established for this purpose, has not been given the opportunity to provide input on either the January 2023 Draft or the January 2024 Final LRSP Reports. In light of these concerns, I propose the following actions: 1 • Comprehensive Data Review: Reevaluate the LRSP collision data, considering all available bicycle and pedestrian crash data from 2009 to 2022, as per the more recent Town of Danville Collision Map. • Address Boilerplate Concerns: Scrutinize the LRSP to ensure that the content is original, aligning with Danville's unique needs and the challenges faced by our community. • Bicycle Advisory Commission Involvement: Schedule a Workshop to allow the Bicycle Advisory Commission to collaborate with the Town Staff, providing their expertise and fulfilling their role in offering "advice and guidance" for the LRSP. I firmly believe that involving the Bicycle Advisory Commission in this process will lead to a more comprehensive and data -driven LRSP. By working together, the Commission and Town Staff can ensure that the safety plans put forth by the Town of Danville are of the highest quality, aiming to reduce traffic collisions, prevent injuries, and ultimately save lives. Publishing a flawed, boilerplate LRSP will make it appear that the Town of Danville does not consider bicyclist and pedestrian safety a priority. The following are a list of questions that need to be asked: 1. Decide if there has been sufficient use of SMEs (Subject Matter Experts) to tailor the plan to Danville's unique needs. 2. Decide if the data used in the report is of good enough quality to make funding recommendations. 3. Decide if the data used in the report is relevant enough to make recommendations for bicycle and pedestrian safety mitigation 4. Decide if the LRSP will be accepted by Caltrans and the Danville public. 1. A significant portion of the LRSP involves bicycle and pedestrian safety. How did the Town Staff involve the Bicycle Advisory Commission in writing this report? a. Has the Bicycle Advisory Commission approved this plan? b. Has the Bicycle Advisory Commission reviewed this plan? c. The LRSP provides a list of "Safety Partners" that doesn't include the Bicycle Advisory Commission. The BAC was appointed in March 2022 and stakeholder meetings were held in May and October 2022, yet the BAC was not invited to attend. Why is the BAC not considered a "Safety Partner"? 2. LRSPs are supposed to be data -driven, according to Caltrans and the Federal Highway Administration. The plan only considers collision data from a 5 -year period from 2017 to 2021. Is there more recent data available? a. If yes, will the more recent data make the plan more relevant? b. How much staff or consultant effort would it take to bring the plan up to date? c. The Danville Collision Analysis Map has collision data from 2009 to 2022. If you included all 14 years of this data, would it affect the report? d. 2017 was the first year that the Crossroads database was used by the Town. Prior to that, the Police reported collisions to the California State collision database 2 (SWITRS). Have you compared the collision data in Crossroads to the California State database to see if any collision data is missing from Crossroads? e. In the 5 -year period, how many collisions in the State database were missing from the Crossroads database? f. The LRSP identified six intersections and seven roadway segments as high risk for bicyclists and pedestrians. Would the same intersections be identified if all the data in the Danville Collision Analysis Map were used? 3. The LRSP focuses heavily on the 32 KSI collisions (Killed/Severely Injured) out of a total of 642 collisions in this 5 -year period in order to identify mitigation recommendations ("countermeasures") . Any time a car collides with a bicyclist or a pedestrian, it is severe. a. Reducing KSI collisions is important, but why limit the collision data analysis to this subset of the data collected by the Police Dept? b. If you included all of the collision data, would it affect the mitigation recommendations? 4. Does this LRSP meet all of the Caltrans requirements and recommendations for a Local Roadway Safety Plan? a. How could this safety plan be improved? b. Could it be improved and still meet the grant application deadlines? c. The plan says it should be routinely reviewed and updated. When is the next planned review and update? d. Many of the recommendations in the section on improving bicycle safety to reduce the number of KSIs have nothing to do with bicyclists, they are more focused on pedestrians. In fact, this section is almost identical to the City of Napa's LRSP strategies for pedestrians, written by the same consultant. Also, the report doesn't mention the Iron Horse Trail or I-680 as safety focus areas. Are you sure the recommendations in this report will meet Danville's specific needs? For guiding documents from the FHWA see: Local and Rural Road Safety Briefing Sheets - Safety 1 Federal Highway Administration For guiding documents from Caltrans see: https://dot. ca. gov/programs/local-assistance/fed-and-state-programs/highway-safety- improvement-program/local-roadway-safety-plans Thank you for your attention to these critical matters. I trust that the Town Council will prioritize the well-being and safety of our citizens. Sincerely, Alan Kalin Attachments: Draft Town of Danville Local Roadway Plan, January 23, 2023, edits and comments by Alan Kalin, February 8, 2023. Draft Town of Danville Local Roadway Plan, January 23, 203, edits and comments by Bruce Bilodeau February 2023. 3