1 STAFF REPORT
DATE: July 30, 2024
TO: Justin Hess, City Manager
FROM: Patrick Prescott, Community Development Director VIA: David Kriske, Assistant Community Development Director – Transportation
BY: Christopher Buonomo, Senior Transportation Planner
SUBJECT: Discussion and Update on the Development of the Safe r Streets Burbank Plan
RECOMMENDATION
Note and file.
BACKGROUND
At the January 10, 2023 , City Council meeting, staff presented a report on Complete Streets Plan Implementation and Vision Zero (Attachment 1). The purpose of this report is to provide an update on the development of the City’s Vison Zero Pla n as directed at the January 10 th meeting. Vision Zero seeks to eliminate traffic -related fatalities across all modes of travel and enhance coordination across the various disciplines associated with planning, designing, implementing, and enforcing transportation systems. The program relies on collecting data with targeted, focused responses while creating synergy among the City’s many plans and implementation strategies.
DISCUSSION
At this stage of plan development, staff is engaged in the initial steps of internal education and data analysis. These efforts will serve as the foundation for the final plan that will inform project implementation.
Internal Education: Safe Systems
Although Vision Zero is the goal, Safe Systems is the approach. 1 The Safe System approach acknowledges multiple factors work together to improve road safety . This
1 The Safe Systems Approach is a holistic and comprehensive approach that provides a guiding framework to make places safer for people. This is a shift from a conventional safety approach because it focuses on both human mistakes and human vulnerability and designs a system with many redundancies in place to protect all road users. This is policy terminology adopted by Federal and State bodies. https://www.transportation.gov/NRSS/SafeSystem
2 approach, adopted by the U.S. Department of Transportation and Caltrans , works by building and reinforcing multiple layers of protection to both prevent crashes from happening and minimize the harm caused to those involved when crashes do occur. Safe Systems is a shift from the way most public works departments operate. In the traditional approach, the focus is on improving human behavior and reacting based on crash history.
Under a Safe Systems approach, the focus is to analyze the most serious crashes , proactively identify problems, and design projects that limit the effect of human error.
Staff convened a taskforce of various departments that is involved in formulation and ongoing implementation of the Safe Systems approach. The taskforce consists of Public Works, Fire, Police, City Attorney, Public Information, and the Burbank Unified School District. T o date, t his taskforce has met three times to share their experiences with roadway safety, discuss the Safe Systems approach, interpret data analysis, and shape the path of plan development.
From Vision Zero to Safer Streets Burbank
After conversations with the Taskforce and Transportation Commission, it was determined that referring to the project as “Safer Streets Burbank” is more intuitive and impactful. Although Vision Zero is a global movement and other cities have programs that go by th is global name, Safe r Streets Burbank reflects local context and is a more effective tool for community communication. It speaks directly to the most foundational goal of the program and the immediate improvements residents will see within the City.
Furthermore, it acknowledges the work that has already gone into establishing safety on Burbank’s streets and the aspects of project implementation that have proven successful to date. The Complete Streets Plan, Bicycle Master Plan, and Burbank2035 General Plan Mobility Element all outline policies aimed at fostering safety on the City’s roadways with several projects that have already implemented th ese policies and design standards.
Safer Streets Burbank will build upon that foundation, focus on improving corridors identified in the final Safer Streets Burbank Action Plan, and continue the momentum in building a transportation system that works for people of all ages, abilities, and modes.
Data Analysis
In order to fully understand collision trends in the City, reliable data is crucial. In coordination with the Burbank Police Department and the Public Works Department, a five-year selection of data was gathered on all vehicle collisions from 2018 to 2022 (typical timeframe used by other programs). This timeframe also provides insight into roadway trends before and after the COVID-19 pandemic and recovery, which shifted vehicle travel patterns. The number of injury crashes dropped, especially in the early lockdown period, but the severity of crashes increased.2
The initial step of data analysis was to observe overall roadway trends in the City:
• Between 2018 and 2022, 3,835 collisions occurred on local roadways in Burbank. • 55% (2,123) of total collisions resulted in an injury of some kind.
2 California Office of Traffic Safety, https://safetrec.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/publications/safetrecfactsspeed- relatedcrashes_summer2021.pdf
3 • 105 collisions resulted in a fatality or serious injury (denoted in statistics as “KSI”). • While pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorcyclists were involved in just 24% of all injury collisions, they accounted for 64% of KSI collisions.
The next step was to examine collisions based on location. To understand where these collisions are occurring in the City and analyze the underlying contextual conditions of these corridors, all collisions were plotted in a geospatial mapping software (ArcGIS).
Each injury collision was assigned a number value, with additional weight assigned to collisions resulting in a KSI and collisions involving a pedestrian or bicyclist. Segments with values in the 85th percentile or higher were selected as the highest priority streets known as the “ Focus Network” (Attachment 2) . This enabled the City to locate the corridors prone not just to the most collisions, but to the collisions resulting in the most severe injuries involving vulnerable road users like pedestrians and bicyclists . The weighting methodology is aligned with increasing safety for vulnerable road users as outlined in the Complete Streets Plan adopted by City Council in 2020 , and it is used by other organizations that have adopted a Vision Zero goal.
It should be noted that not all collisions are correctible with engineering countermeasures, such as driving under the influence or distracted driving. The Safe Systems Approach acknowledges that people do make mistakes and not all collisions can be eliminated .
However, in a roadway system that has multiple crash reduction factors working together, these planned redundancies can decrease the severity of collisions that occur due to human error. For this reason, all injury collisions, regardless of cause, are included in the data analysis.
The Focus Network accounts for 80% of KSIs on just 17% of the City’s roadway network from 2018-2022, most of which are arterial roadways and streets in Downtown3. The map further refines the Focus Network by illustrating the percentile breakdown , illustrating which corridors or intersections should be prioritized during the next step of identifying specific roadway and/or operational improvements.
Development of the Focus Network will be the foundation for an iterative process to identify locations of focus (where crashes are occurring ) and then investigate how to mitigate those crashes to improve safety. As locations are identified and mitigations implemented, crash data will continually be monitored and updated in response to the mitigations implemented. Annually, the City will add the most recent collision data to the database to analyze where collision trends shift or new hot spots emerge. An ann ual update to the Safer Streets Burbank Action Plan will be created to outline any proposed changes to the Focus Network or priority projects. Safer Streets Burbank will be an ongoing effort, and so will the data analysis that serves as its foundation.
Next Steps
The next step is to use the Focus Network to develop the remainder of the Safer Streets Burbank Action Plan. A toolbox of appropriate engineering and operational countermeasures will be developed that includes proven, cost-effective measures to best
3It is typical to see high daily traffic volumes on arterial roadways and heavy pedestrian activity in Downtown Burbank. 4 address the locations on the Focus Network . For each countermeasure, the toolbox will provide a description, crash reduction factor 4, crash types addressed, and appropriate roadway context. Drawing on the Focus Network map, specific project locations with proposed project details will be developed. Based on the completion of these initial projects, staff will work to determine a goal of a regular number of projects per year to be proposed. Finally, a “Hurdles and Policies Assessment” will identify any possible policy , program, code, ordinance, or law that may conflict and how the City can overcome th at conflict.
All components will be combined to develop the Safer Streets Burbank Action Plan which will memorialize the process, explain the outcomes, and provide a roadmap for program implementation. Next steps will be presented t o Council two more times, first with the countermeasure toolbox and then with a project list. Staff’s goal is to present the final Safer Streets Burbank Action Plan to Council for approval by the end of 2024.
ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW
Reviewing this progress update on the Safer Streets Burbank Action Plan has no potential for resulting in either a direct physical change in the environment, or a reasonably foreseeable indirect physical change in the environment, and as such, is not a “project” subject to the requirements of the California Environ mental Quality Act (CEQA) 14 Cal.
Code Regs § 15378. This report is for informational purposes only. Any project that is identified in the final Safer Streets Burbank Action Plan and recommended for approval and funding will be separately evaluated in accordance with CEQA prior to Council’s approval of the project(s).
COMMUNITY OUTREACH
Staff presented a first step report to Council on January 10, 2023 and to the Transportation Commission on March 27, 2024 and June 26, 2024. Members of the public were able to provide comments at each of those meetings. In addition, a presentation was provided for the Senior Board on August 21, 2023, with an additional presentation planned for September 25, 2024. The proposed project list will also be presented to the Infrastructure Oversight Board (date to be determined). Additional public education and outreach is necessary , therefore staff will hold a public workshop and partner with the Public Information Office to effectively craft a communications strategy that draws residents to the meeting and shares relevant materials on social media for ongoing discussion and engagement.
FISCAL IMPACT
There is no fiscal impact related to this report. The Fiscal Year 2024-25 budget allocated $600,000 for plan development and project design and an additional $400,000 for initial implementation allocated from Measure R Local Return (Fund 107 CD33A.70002.0000).
Requests for additional funding or reallocation of existing transportation and infrastructure funds will be required for future implementation, as well as operation and maintenance of
4 Crash Reduction Factors is a measure of proposed effectiveness of a particular treatment, as defined by Caltrans Local Road Safety Manual, Version 1.7 April 2024 https://dot.ca.gov/-/media/dot-media/programs/local- assistance/documents/hsip/2024/lrsm2024.pdf
5 new infrastructure. By adopting the Safer Streets Burbank Action Plan , the City will be eligible for additional grant-funding through federal and state agencies, for which a Vision Zero plan is a prerequisite.
CONCLUSION
The Safer Streets Burbank Action Plan outlines the principles, methodologies, and systems aimed at addressing highest priority road segments as quickly as possible. Data from 2018-2022 was analyzed to establish a Focus Network, which narrows the focus to a select number of roadways that the City should first prioritize appropriate roadway safety improvements. Next steps will be presented to Council in Fall 2024 and will include information regarding a countermeasures toolkit and identification of the first set of proposed priority projects.
ATTACHMENTS
Attachment 1 – January 10, 2023, Staff Report – Review of Complete Streets Plan Implementation and Vision Zero Discussion
Attachment 2 – Map of Safer Streets Burbank Focus Network