July 20, 2026
Re: City Council Item 4.a - Proposed Traffic Calming Policy Mayor Kate and Members of the City Council,
On behalf of the Marin County Bicycle Coalition and our members, I am writing in strong support of the city’s proposal to implement a formal traffic calming policy (TCP). Along with roadway treatments such as multiuse paths and protected bike lanes, traffic calming is an essential part of the toolbox for creating safe streets and roads.
Particularly on constrained roadways or those with high-demand on-street parking, traffic calming through the use of horizontal or vertical deflection (examples of which include chicanes and speed humps, respectively) can serve to make a street feel safe to ride on for less risk-tolerant riders. From a pedestrian perspective, traffic calming also increases yield rates at crosswalks, by slowing down drivers and keeping their feet over the brake rather than the gas.
Until now, San Rafael has installed traffic calming in an ad hoc fashion. There are a number of locations with speed humps (e.g. Irwin St) and several raised crosswalks (e.g. in front of Coleman Elementary School), but no formal or funded program to implement more. The fact that $150k/year is associated with this effort demonstrates that the city intends to use this policy to make physical changes rather than as an impossible hurdle to throw at constituents asking for relief.
Staff have taken feedback from the BPAC, including giving each unit an opportunity to vote rather than assigning votes to the building owner, which provides more agency to renting households, which own motor vehicles at lower rates in San Rafael.
However, we do have several concerns and recommendations for the city regarding this proposed policy:
Confusion around street qualification
The policy states that it applies to “neighborhood residential streets and may be applied to low-volume residential collector streets.” What standard or classification system is being used here to determine whether a roadway is “neighborhood residential” or “low-volume residential collector?” What is considered “low-volume” for these purposes? This is especially important because bullet #4 of the policy (see Figure 1 below) states one of the ways that a residential street can qualify for the TCP is if it sees over 1,000 Average Daily Traffic Volume. There does not appear to be a corresponding volume ceiling.
Figure 1 - TCP Residential Street Qualifications
Typos in qualifications
Bullet #3 in the street qualifications appears to contain a typo, and is not actionable. Perhaps it is missing an important “or” in the first clause? Bullet #4 appears to have misplaced the closing parenthesis, but is still parseable.
Voting process
As mentioned above, staff adjusted the proposal in alignment with feedback from the BPAC in order to count housing units rather than parcels. However, because this is a petition requirement rather than a vote, the effect of this means that the standard for achieving 50% +1 of a block has increased. This may be particularly burdensome for streets with majority apartments, as reaching a doorway to speak with a resident or leave a petition is harder than with single family homes.
Speed standards are high
As shown above in Figure 1, surveyed 85th percentile speeds have to be at least 5 mph over posted speed limits for 6 hours a day to qualify for. This is a standard that is unlikely to be met in most instances, save the streets whose posted speed limits are set to be lowered thanks to AB 43 on the same council agenda. While I understand staff’s decision to take a conservative approach, my fear is that few requests will actually qualify under this high standard and little traffic calming will be actually implemented. If you live on a 25 mph speed limit street and one in seven cars barrels past your house at 31 mph, your street will not qualify for TCP (it has to be at least one in six).
Speed is the only variable
Other cities with traffic calming policies (I would point to Davis, CA as an example) consider variables beyond just speed, including whether a street is part of the bicycle network, a street’s history of collisions, whether it is on the Safe Route to School network, and whether there are adjacent sensitive uses. Existing speeds is the variable that is weighted most heavily, but is only one part of the equation in determining whether traffic calming is warranted. I would have preferred a multifactorial approach in San Rafael.
Year one check-in
I recommend that staff be asked to report back on the progress of this policy after it has been in place for a year. If it is not being used (as I suspect will be the case), council and staff should consider adjusting the qualifications to ensure that the allocated funding is actually being spent making the streets safer. As mentioned above, part of this check-in should include an analysis of whether more single family-majority or apartment-majority blocks are making use of the TCP.
Flow chart and public communication
The city may already have plans for this, but I recommend that the process be clearly laid out for the lay resident, ideally in a visual flow chart form and provided in multiple languages.
Reading the policy it is somewhat confusing when in the process the petition takes place. The policy states that the “TCP begins (emphasis mine) by submitting a petition of support,” but it later seems as though the petition only takes place after staff have determined that the speeding issues cannot be mitigated with striping and channelizers alone, which appears at odds with the prior statement.
Final thoughts
I hope that the city adopts this policy with the typographic clarifications suggested above, and that the council is willing to revisit it in the coming years to ensure that it is supporting the important goals the city has set regarding traffic safety and access.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Yours sincerely,
Warren J. Wells, AICP
Policy & Planning Director
Marin County Bicycle Coalition