Submitted By
Bill McKenna, Village Engineer
Reviewed By
CLP
Agenda Item Title
Title
Receipt of the Traffic Calming Toolbox as Recommended by the Transportation Commission and Scheduling its Discussion for November 6, 2017.
End
Overview
Overview
As established in the Transportation Commission's approved work plan, a document has been developed and recommends the list of acceptable options to address traffic problems on residential streets in the Village, i.e. the Traffic Calming Toolbox which is proposed to be a component of a Neighborhood Traffic Management Program (NTMP). Such a program provides a process for identifying and addressing problems related to speeding, vehicle crashes, excessive vehicle volumes, and pedestrian/bicycle safety on residential streets in the Village.
Body
Staff Recommendation
Schedule the item for discussion as part of the November 6, 2017 Regular Meeting of the Village Board. It is noted the recommendations include speed humps, speed tables, raised crosswalks, and raised intersections as tools and staff does not recommend inclusion of these options.
As part of the November 6, 2017 meeting, staff also plans to bring forward recommendations for traffic calming measures on the 1200 blocks of Euclid, Linden, Columbian, and East. Information related to those streets is included in the attachments for this item.
Fiscal Impact
N/A.
Background
The Transportation Commission voted unanimously at its July 24, 2017 meeting to recommend the Traffic Calming Toolbox to the Village Board.
The development of a traffic calming toolbox was first added to the 2015 Transportation Commission work plan in order to provide a known list of accepted options to address traffic problems on streets. The item was carried over into the Commission's 2016 and 2017 work plans. The Transportation Commission started on the development of the toolbox in March of 2016. The toolbox was developed over twelve Commission meetings.
The Transportation Commission is making the following recommendations to the Village Board:
1. Review and approve the draft traffic calming toolbox documents as submitted.
2. Review and approve the recommended funding mechanism for expensive traffic calming measures.
3. Continue to the next phase of developing a Neighborhood Traffic Management Program.
4. Village Board provide direction regarding funding mechanisms for the expensive traffic calming measures to allow the Commission to evaluate traffic calming petitions with funding in mind.
Upon approval, Village Staff and the Transportation Commission will take the approved traffic calming toolbox and incorporate it into a NTMP document for use by the Village and its residents.
The Toolkit provides the following:
Exhibit A is a tabular matrix of the thirty-four traffic calming measures the Commission wants to be included in the traffic calming toolbox. The matrix indicates if Village Staff concurs with a recommendation and also indicates the type of Village Board action required for implementing each measure. Staff did not concur with four of the Commission's proposed measures. Reasons for its non-concurrence will be given farther down in the commentary.
Exhibit B is a revised resident petition for requesting that the Village remedy perceived traffic problems at locations throughout the residential neighborhoods. The existing petition that has been in use for many years is focused on the petitioners requesting a specific traffic calming device, such as a stop sign or a diverter, to address a perceived traffic problem. The revised petition has shifted the focus of the petition so that the petitioners instead indicate the types and severity of perceived traffic problems to be remedied and then allow the Transportation Commission to evaluate the petition using the traffic calming toolbox scoring table and list of available traffic calming measures in order to recommend the most appropriate solution to address the perceived traffic problem.
Exhibit C is a "scoring table" that allows for the consistent and objective evaluation of the causes that result in resident generated petitions for traffic calming measures at locations throughout the Village. The table measures six criteria: crash history, vehicle speed, vehicle volume, the proximity of pedestrian traffic generators, the proximity of designated bicycle routes, and community interest. Each criteria is assigned a maximum possible score. The total possible maximum score is 100 points. The table includes metrics for each criteria to assign points ranging between zero and the maximum possible for that criteria. The Transportation Commission has decided that a minimum score of 25 points is necessary in order to submit a petition to the Commission for review and recommendation.
Exhibit D is a tabular listing of thirty-four traffic calming measures that the Transportation Commission has decided can be used to remedy the traffic problems indicated in the petition. The table groups the measures into four categories of increasing severity. The four groups are comprised of: no traffic flow changes, some traffic flow changes, significant traffic flow changes, and street closures. The use of this grouping allows the Commission to start with the less severe measures and then work its way up to the more severe measures if necessary.
The Village's Fire, Police, and Public Works Departments reviewed each proposed measure and ranked it as to the level of impact that it would have on its operations. The Commission and the Departments discussed the ranking during the development of the tabular listing.
It should be noted that Village Staff does not concur with four of the Commission's recommendations regarding the use of speed humps, speed tables, raised crosswalks, and raised intersections. The Fire Department provided a memorandum to the Transportation Commission, included as Exhibit E, providing reasons for its not recommending these four measures. The primary reasons given include an increased response time due to having to slow down while going over these devises and causing a "rough ride" for all drivers and possible pain for passengers with certain skeletal disabilities. The Police Department informed the Commission at its May 10th meeting that a few speed humps wouldn't affect its operations but that if they were to proliferate then it would start to cause problems. The Public Works Department informed the Commission at its May 10th meeting that these four devices could be worked around but would still have a negative impact on providing services.
The Transportation Commission voted 4 to 2 to not include full and partial street closures (i.e. diverters and cul de sacs) in the traffic calming measures table. These treatments will no longer be available to residents to request via a petition process or to the Commission to recommend. The Commission also determined that two of the calming measures are not bicycle friendly (neckdowns and chokers) but they ultimately recommended to include these treatments since they are effective calming measures and directed staff to make their designs as bicycle friendly as possible.
Included in the exhibit D traffic calming measures summary table are recommendations for the funding source for the various traffic calming measures. The recommendations call for the Village to provide one-hundred percent funding for some measures and for the petitioners to pay for some measures by means of a Special Service Area (SSA) tax.
Expenditures for implementing traffic calming measures varies from inexpensive ($500 to $3,000) for "Level 1 - No Traffic Flow Changes" measures up to expensive (in excess of $10,000) for "Levels 2/3 - Some/Significant Traffic Flow Changes" and "4 - Street Closures" measures. The inexpensive Level 1 costs are typically already included in the Village's annual Public Works budget.
Exhibit F provides a graphical description of each of the proposed traffic calming measures. The descriptions used by the Commission during its development and included in this exhibit were taken from the NTMP documents as published by Placer County, California and the City of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Graphical descriptions specifically geared for and relevant to the Village of Oak Park's NTMP document would be created by the consultant hired to assist in creating the Village's NTMP document.
Alternatives
The review of the Toolkit could be schedule for an alternative date.
Previous Board Action
N/A.
Citizen Advisory Commission Action
The Transportation Commission recommended the following:
1. Review and approve the draft traffic calming toolbox documents as submitted.
2. Review and approve the recommended funding mechanism for expensive traffic calming measures.
3. Continue to the next phase of developing a Neighborhood Traffic Management Program.
4. Village Board provide direction regarding funding mechanisms for the expensive traffic calming measures to allow the Commission to evaluate traffic calming petitions with funding in mind.
Anticipated Future Actions/Commitments
Staff will be recommending under a future separate agenda item that the Village Board authorize the use of a consultant familiar with the development of such documents to work with Staff and the Transportation Commission in order to develop and publish a complete NTMP document.
Intergovernmental Cooperation Opportunities
None at this time.
Performance Management (MAP) Alignment
N/A.