DATE: February 6, 2024
TO: Mayor and City Council
FROM: Director of Public Works
SUBJECT: Adopt a Resolution Authorizing the City Manager to Accept $3,252,000 in Federal Funding from the Safe Streets and Roads for All Grant Program Administered by the Federal Highway Administration and Appropriate $4,065,000 for the Development of a Speed Management Plan Project No. 06943 and the High Injury Network Safety Plan Project No. 06942
RECOMMENDATION
That Council adopts a resolution (Attachment II) authorizing the City Manager to accept $3,252,000 in awarded federal funding from the Federal Highway Administration and appropriate $4,065,000 for the development of the Speed Management Plan Project No. 06943 and the High Injury Network Safety Plan Project No. 06942.
SUMMARY
The City has been awarded funding from the Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A) Grant Program of Fiscal Year 2023 to develop a Speed Management Plan and a High Injury Network Safety Plan. The SS4A Grant Program is a federally funded program administered by the Federal Highway Administration to support the National Roadway Safety Strategy and the goal of zero roadway deaths. Staff recommends adopting the resolution to accept $3,252,000 of federal funding awarded to the City from the Federal Highway Administration and appropriate a total of $4,065,000. The City will contribute a twenty-percent match of $813,000 from Fund 460 Transportation System Improvement.
BACKGROUND
Launched in 2022, the purpose of the SS4A grant program is to improve roadway safety by significantly reducing or eliminating roadway fatalities and serious injuries through safety action plan development and refinement and implementation focused on all users. The program provides funding to develop the tools to help strengthen a community’s approach to roadway safety and save lives while meeting the needs of diverse local, Tribal, and regional communities.
The City adopted its first Local Road Safety Plan (LRSP) on June 27, 2023, which assesses and identifies locations and strategies to improve road safety throughout the City. Along with identifying the City’s High Injury Network, the LRSP recommends a set of strategies and countermeasures to address and prevent severe injury and fatal collisions. In addition, the City has committed to Vision Zero by 2050, which is the goal of achieving zero fatalities and severe injuries on the City’s roadways by 2050.
Action Item 2 of the LRSP recommends the near-term action of pursuing SS4A grant funding. Recognizing the effort needed to achieve Vision Zero by 2050, additional supplemental planning funds would be needed to build on the planning that has been started by the LRSP and to develop corridor-specific safety plans through a High Injury Network Safety Plan. In addition, unsafe speeding and aggressive driving were recognized in the LRSP as an area of concern that needs focused attention. On July 7, 2023, staff applied for supplemental planning funds under one application to the SS4A grant program to develop two distinct and separate plans: a Speed Management Plan and a High Injury Network Safety Plan.
On October 27, 2023, the City was awarded the full amount of the $3,252,000 requested in its application to the SS4A grant program. With a required local match of twenty percent, the City must contribute $813,000 to the total project cost of $4,065,000.
DISCUSSION
The purpose of the City-wide Speed Management Plan is to evaluate the City’s existing speeds, speed limits, speed-related collisions, and develop target speeds and strategies for speed management that will be cost effective and aligned with the LRSP and California’s speed limit laws. With unsafe speeding and aggressive driving recognized as an area of concern in the LRSP that needs more attention, the Speed Management Plan will provide more detailed recommendations and strategies using a data-driven approach.
The LRSP was developed to recommend broad system-wide strategies and goals to achieve Vision Zero by 2050. Its data-driven approach identified the City’s High Injury Network, a group of roadways that experience the majority of severe injury and fatal collisions. Seventy-five percent of Hayward’s severe injury and fatal crashes occur on the High Injury Network. The LRSP also provides a toolbox of countermeasures to improve safety on these roadways but does not specify what and where each countermeasure should be employed. The purpose of the High Injury Network Safety Plan is to move the City forward in its Vision Zero by 2050 goal and study in detail a total of one area and six corridors identified by the High Injury Network and make specific safety countermeasure recommendations. Those areas/corridors are as follows:
Downtown Area
A Street
B Street
Hesperian Blvd
Jackson Street
Mission Blvd
Tennyson Road
High Injury Network Plan – Map & Project Locations
The countermeasure recommendations for each area/corridor will be developed and informed by its own analysis through data collection, feasibility studies, safety road audits, and outreach efforts that consider transportation equity and social justice. The result of the High Injury Network Safety Plan will be conceptual plans of the safety recommendations for each area or corridor.
The funding to develop a Speed Management Plan and a High Injury Network Safety Plan is necessary because the LRSP alone is not enough to implement safety improvements and functions as a broad planning document. More detailed planning is still needed, especially where collisions are occurring to identify and locate specific countermeasures. Only by doing so can the City move forward with implementation in the future. By completing these two plans, the City will be well-positioned to seek implementation funding through other grant opportunities.
If the Council accepts and appropriates the awarded funding, a grant agreement with the Federal Highway Administration will need to be executed following the approval of this resolution. The budget for the City’s scope of work for this supplemental planning work is $4,065,000, which is reimbursement-based after the contract is executed. The City contribution amount will be twenty percent ($813,000).
ECONOMIC IMPACT
There will be no economic impact associated with this action. Awarded funds are for the development of planning documents.
FISCAL IMPACT
The total cost for the City’s grant funding match is $813,000, and will come from the Transportation System Improvement Fund (Fund 460). The federal funding and City grant funding match will be split among the two projects from cost estimates prepared by staff and is shown below:
Project Description
Project Number
Estimated Cost
High Injury Network Safety Plan
06942
$3,830,000
Speed Management Plan
06943
$235,000
Total
$4,065,000
Staff recommends that Council authorize the City Manager to accept the $3,252,000 in awarded federal funding from the Federal Highway Administration, and appropriate $4,065,000 for the two projects.
STRATEGIC ROADMAP
This agenda item supports the Strategic Priority of Invest in Infrastructure. Specifically, this item relates to the implementation of the following projects:
Project N1: Continue to implement major corridor traffic calming initiatives.
Project N8: Evaluate Alternatives of the Loop
SUSTAINABILITY FEATURES
There are no sustainability features associated with this action.
PUBLIC CONTACT
Robust public outreach and engagement will be implemented as the project moves forward. All necessary stakeholders and affected neighborhoods, agencies, community-based organizations, and businesses will have opportunities for input and be done in a way that is equitable.
NEXT STEPS
If Council approves this request, the City Manager will enter into a grant agreement with the Federal Highway Administration for a total amount of $3,252,000 federal funds and $813,000 local matching funds. Once the grant agreement is executed, staff will begin the process to perform the scope of work.
Prepared by: Byron Tang, Senior Transportation Engineer Kathy Garcia, Deputy Director of Public Works
Recommended by: Alex Ameri, Director of Public Works
Approved by:
_________________________________________
Kelly McAdoo, City Manager