DATE: June 25, 2025
TO: Council Infrastructure & Airport Committee
FROM: Director of Public Works
SUBJECT: Vision Zero Update: Speed Management Plan
RECOMMENDATION
That the Council Infrastructure & Airport Committee (CIAC) reviews and provides feedback on the draft street types and target speeds developed for the Speed Management Plan (CIP Project No. 06943).
SUMMARY
The Safe System Approach for Speed Management is a Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) approved road safety framework that involves proactively identifying locations where operating speeds are high compared to desired target speeds. The City’s Speed Management Plan will use this approach to achieve safer speeds and prioritize projects for areas with excessive speeding in Hayward.
The City began working on the Speed Management Plan on December 16, 2024. After studying existing conditions and gathering necessary data, staff developed a framework to identify target speeds Citywide. This framework consists of associated target speeds to four street types: Connector Streets, Core Streets, Place Streets, and Neighborhood Streets.
For outreach, the project created the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) and the Stakeholder Advisory Committee (SAC) to involve internal and external stakeholders. The TAC consists of internal stakeholders from various City departments, including the Police Department, Fire Department, and Development Services Department. The SAC consists of community-based organizations and stakeholders such as Bike Hayward, California State University East Bay, Hayward Unified School District, and La Familia. Feedback was sought from the TAC and the SAC on the data gathered, the four street types, and their accompanying target speeds. Staff is seeking feedback from CIAC before moving forward to the next phase of the plan development.
BACKGROUND
City Council adopted the 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. Council also committed to Vision Zero by 2050, a goal of eliminating fatalities and severe injuries on the City’s roadways by 2050.
Action Item 2 of the LRSP recommends the near-term action of pursuing Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A) grant funding. Launched by the U.S. Department of Transportation 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.
Recognizing the effort needed to achieve Vision Zero by 2050, the City applied for supplemental planning funds from SS4A to develop a comprehensive approach to reduce speeds (Speed Management Plan) and conduct a set of corridor-specific safety plans focused on the City’s High Injury Network. The Speed Management Plan will help address the LRSP focus area of unsafe speeding and aggressive driving, which play a significant role in generating serious injuries and fatalities.
The Safe System Approach for Speed Management is an FHWA approved road safety framework that involves proactively identifying locations where operating speeds are high compared to target speeds. Target speeds can be based on various factors including road and land use context, impact statistics, safety goals, and other factors. This framework builds on the Safe System Approach identified in the City’s LRSP by using a five-stage approach, which the City will use to develop the Speed Management Plan to achieve safer speeds and prioritize projects for areas with excessive speeding. The five stages are: establishing a vision and building consensus for speed management, collecting and analyzing speed and safety data, prioritizing locations for speed management, selecting speed management countermeasures, and conducting ongoing monitoring, evaluation, and adjustment.
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. On February 6, 2024, City Council adopted a resolution accepting the funding and allocated $813,000 in City matching funds. On November 19, 2024, the City awarded $210,000 to Fehr & Peers to develop the Speed Management Plan. The consultant contract with Fehr & Peers was executed on December 4, 2024.
DISCUSSION
Work began on the Speed Management Plan on December 16, 2024. The project team, made up of City and Fehr & Peers staff, studied existing conditions and gathered relevant information over the first quarter of 2025. Relevant data analyzed included observed speed, posted speed limit, collision, land use, and roadway attribute data. In addition, the project created the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) and the Stakeholder Advisory Committee (SAC). The TAC consists of internal stakeholders from various City departments, including the Police Department, Fire Department, and Development Services Department. The SAC consists of community-based organizations and stakeholders such as Bike Hayward, California State University East Bay, Hayward Unified School District, and La Familia. The TAC and SAC had their first outreach meetings on February 26, 2025 and March 21, 2025, respectively.
The development of the Speed Management Plan is organized to follow four steps:
Step 1: Determine desired speeds Citywide based on roadway and land use context.
Step 2: Select countermeasures to apply where speeds exceed desired speeds.
Step 3: Develop an implementation plan for priority projects.
Step 4: Identify opportunities to institutionalize safe speeds.
To date, the project team has made significant progress on Step 1. The process of determining desired speeds Citywide requires an understanding of roadway context and purpose. For example, some streets are more focused on vehicle throughput with higher vehicle volumes and lower land use activity, while other streets are more focused on placemaking and economic activity with lower vehicle volumes and higher volumes of people walking and biking. The project team used the industry standard roadway classifications of arterial, collector, and local as a proxy for relative vehicle volumes and also looked at land use context to develop four street types:
Connector Streets represent arterial and collector streets outside commercial areas with high traffic and lower land use activity. Many of the City’s streets in the industrial area, such as Industrial Parkway and Whipple Road fit in this category.
Core Streets represent arterial and collector streets inside commercial areas or near schools with high traffic levels and land use activity, such as Mission Boulevard and Jackson Street.
Place Streets category are streets with lower traffic volumes and high land use activity, and they typically make up streets inside Downtown and local streets inside commercial areas, such as B Street and Dixon Street.
Neighborhood Streets are local streets outside commercial areas and make up the majority of the City’s roadway network in lane miles. Neighborhood Streets are streets with low traffic levels and land use activity, typically in residential neighborhoods.
Table 1 shows the street types summarized with a description and approximate road miles.
Table 1. Street Types and Approximate Road Miles
Street Type
Description
Approximate Road Miles
Connector
Arterials and collectors with high traffic and low land use activity. 30 Core
Arterials and collectors with high traffic and high land use activity. 17 Place
Streets with low traffic and high land use activity.
29 Neighborhood
Local streets with low traffic and low land use activity. 312
The project team then identified target speeds for each street type considering potential conflicts, particularly with vulnerable users (e.g. people walking, people biking, youth), and speeds at which collisions are likely to result in a severe injury or fatality (see Figure 1). The chart illustrates that there is significant risk of a fatal collision involving a pedestrian at speeds as low as 25 or 30 miles per hour (mph).
Figure 1. Risk of Fatality in a Collision based on Vehicle Speed Source: Federal Highway Administration (FHWA)
The FHWA suggests desired travel speeds based on the types of conflicts shown in Table 2, which was used to develop the Speed Management Plan target speed framework.
Table 2. Considering Conflicts and Motor Vehicle Speeds Type of Conflicts
Desired Travel Speed1
Locations with possible conflicts between vulnerable road users (e.g. people walking) and motor vehicles 20 mph
Intersections with possible side impacts between motor vehicles 30 mph
Roads with possible frontal impacts between motor vehicles 45 mph
Notes: Speed thresholds for an inherently safe system based on kinetic energy transfer and ability of the human body to survive. Originally from Tingvall & Haworth (1999).
Source: FHWA. A Safe System-Based Framework and Analytical Methodology for Assessing Intersections.
In addition, the target speed for Place Streets aligns with California legislation AB 43, which enables jurisdictions to set speed limits to 20 mph in business activity districts (i.e. Downtown). All downtown streets, except for Foothill Boulevard, will use a 20-mph target speed. Table 3 shows the target speed for each street type.
Table 3. Target Speeds
Street Type
Target Speed (mph)
Examples
Connector
35 Industrial Pkwy, Whipple Rd
Core
301
Mission Blvd, Jackson St, A St
Place
202
B St, Dixon St
Neighborhood
153
Sleepy Hollow Ave
Notes:
Target speed of 25 mph in front of schools.
Target speed of 25 mph on Foothill Boulevard.
Target speed of 25 mph in industrial areas.
Attachment II shows the location of street types and Attachment III shows the difference between observed speeds gathered from data and target speeds. On many city roadway segments, the observed speeds exceed the target speeds by 10 mph or more.
The project team gathered feedback on the street types and target speeds from the TAC and the SAC in the months of May and June. Both advisory committees provided feedback that excessive speeding is shown in the data aligned with observations. The project team did not receive feedback about changing the proposed street types or target speeds. Some stakeholders had concerns with the difficulty of implementing effective countermeasures to manage speeds throughout the City, specifically pointing to resistant driver behavior and resident opposition to past traffic calming projects in the City.
The next step (Step 2) for the development of the Speed Management Plan is to create a toolbox of countermeasures that will recommend strategies and infrastructure treatments to slow down speeds and which street types they will apply to. The project team is currently working on developing this toolbox.
ECONOMIC IMPACT
The Speed Management Plan will develop strategies to reduce vehicle speeds in the City, which will help reduce the likelihood of serious injuries and fatalities. Vehicle crashes have a significant economic cost, both to those directly impacted and to other users of the transportation system. By helping to avoid these impacts, the Speed Management Plan will have a significant economic benefit for Hayward residents and visitors.
FISCAL IMPACT
This item will not impact the General Fund. The Speed Management Plan is primarily funded by the grant from the USDOT SS4A program ($187,000). City Council has previously authorized allocation of $235,000 from Fund 460, Transportation System Improvement, to complete this Plan, including $48,000 in City matching funds. Any funding not expended for the Speed Management Plan will be incorporated into the High Injury Network Corridor Plan (CIP Project No. 06942) which is also funded by the SS4A grant.
STRATEGIC INITIATIVES
This agenda item supports the Strategic Priority to Enhance Community Safety & Quality of Life and the Strategic Priority to Invest in Infrastructure. This item is not specifically related to a project identified in the Strategic Roadmap. Staff is bringing forward this new item to advance implementation of the City Council adopted LRSP.
SUSTAINABILITY FEATURES
The Speed Management Plan will help the City implement strategies to reduce vehicle speeds in the City which should reduce the incidence and severity of vehicle crashes.
PUBLIC CONTACT
The Local Road Safety Plan included community engagement, including acceptance by City Council. The project team met with the TAC on May 19, 2025 and SAC on June 2, 2025 to receive feedback on the proposed street types and target speeds. The project team will continue to provide updates and seek feedback from the TAC, SAC, and CIAC, with the goal of taking the Speed Management Plan to the City Council for adoption in June 2026.
NEXT STEPS
The project team will incorporate CIAC feedback into the development of the Speed Management Plan and proceed to the next phase by developing a toolbox of countermeasures and implementation plan for priority projects. The anticipated completion date for the Speed Management Plan is June 2026.
Prepared by: Byron Tang, Principal Transportation Engineer Recommended by: Alex Ameri, Director of Public Works
Approved by:
Michael S. Lawson, Acting City Manager
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