Submitted By
Jack Chalabian, Transportation Commission Chairperson Bill McKenna, Village Engineer
Reviewed By
LKS
Agenda Item Title
Title
A Motion to Reject the Transportation Commission’s Recommendation to Install Speed Tables or Bumps on the 1200 Blocks of Columbian, North Euclid, Linden, and North East Avenues
End
Overview
Overview
The Village of Oak Park received petitions to install traffic calming devices on the 1200 blocks of North East, Linden, Columbian and North Euclid Avenues. The Village conducted crash analysis and traffic studies for the petitioning and adjacent blocks. The Transportation Commission voted three to two to recommend install speed tables or bumps on the 1200 blocks of Columbian, North Euclid, Linden, and North East Avenues at its August 21, 2017 meeting. Staff does not support the recommendation.
Body
Staff Recommendation
Approve the Motion rejecting the Transportation Commission’s Recommendations.
Fiscal Impact
Staff estimates it will cost approximately $30,000 to install speed tables on the 1200 blocks of North East, Linden, Columbian and North Euclid Avenues. The FY 2017 budget only includes $25,000 for traffic calming improvements on local streets in the Capital Improvement Fund, Public Works - Engineering, Traffic Calming Improvements account no. 3095-43780-101-570955. There are available unspent funds in the same account for rapid rectangular flashing beacons which could be used to fund the installation of these speed tables pending Board concurrence.
Background
On July 27, 2015, the Village of Oak Park received a petition to install a cul-de-sac on the 1200 block of North East Avenue. Persons representing 77.4% of the street frontage on the petitioning blocks signed the petition. See Attachment A, page 1 for the timeline of this petition. See Attachment A, pages 5 - 9 for the petition and related letter of explanation. See Attachment B for copies of the written public testimony received by the Village for all the traffic calming petitions.
Collection of traffic data was delayed waiting for the school year to begin (so school-related traffic would be included) and for utility work in the area to end. Traffic data was collected in November 2015. By that time the Village Board of Trustees established a moratorium on the processing of resident petitions for the installation of cul-de-sacs and traffic diverters. The petition was placed on hold until the Traffic Calming Toolbox was developed. After numerous contacts from the residents about the status of the Traffic Calming Toolbox, the residents requested the petition be submitted as a petition for a traffic calming device. Staff agreed and the item was reviewed by the Transportation Commission at its November 2016 meeting.
The Transportation Commission recommended the following at its November 28, 2016 meeting:
1. To revise the Parking and Traffic policy to include speed tables along border streets
2. Install bump-outs on the 1200 block of North East Avenue at the alley, south of North Avenue
3. Install a speed table mid-block on the 1200 block of North East Avenue
4. Complete a speed study on the 1200 block of Linden Avenue and an after study, six months after the installation of the temporary traffic calming devices.
5. Conduct speed counts in the alley adjacent to the 1200 block of North East Avenue.
The motions passed unanimously (six to zero).
Subsequent to the meeting, staff determined the installation of a mid-block speed table would cause significant negative impacts to Village operations. Thus it was not submitted to the Village Board but brought back to the Transportation Commission for another review and recommendation.
On January 30, 2017, the Village of Oak Park received a petition to install a traffic calming device on the 1200 block of Linden Avenue. Persons representing 67.1% of the street frontage on the petitioning blocks signed the petition. See Attachment A, page 2 for the timeline of this petition. See Attachment A, pages 10 - 11 for the petition and related letter of explanation. See Attachment B for copies of the written public testimony received by the Village for all the traffic calming petitions.
As part of their petition, the residents of the 1200 block of Linden Avenue requested their petition be included with the traffic calming petition from the 1200 block of North East Avenue when the Transportation Commission reviews it.
The Transportation Commission recommended the following at its April 24, 2017 meeting:
1. Installation of bump-outs on the 1200 blocks of North East and Linden Avenues, south of the alley (not speed bumps).
2. Increased police enforcement.
3. Review parking on North Avenue, effectiveness of parking meters on North Avenue, and parking enforcement on North East Avenue.
4. Do follow-up traffic studies on the 1200 blocks of North East, Columbian, Linden and North Euclid Avenues.
The motions passed unanimously (four to zero).
On May 5, 2017, the Village of Oak Park received a petition to install a traffic calming device on the 1200 block of Columbian Avenue. Persons representing 83.7% of the street frontage on the petitioning blocks signed the petition. See Attachment A, page 3 for the timeline of this petition. See Attachment A, pages 12 - 16 for the petition and related letter of explanation. See Attachment B for copies of the written public testimony received by the Village for all the traffic calming petitions.
On July 7, 2017, the Village of Oak Park received a petition to install a traffic calming device on the 1200 block of Columbian Avenue. Persons representing 64.8% of the street frontage on the petitioning blocks signed the petition. See Attachment A, page 4 for the timeline of resident contact and this petition. See Attachment A, pages 17 - 18 for the petition and related letter of explanation. See Attachment B for copies of the written public testimony received by the Village for all the traffic calming petitions.
The Transportation Commission recommended the following at its August 21, 2017 meeting:
1. Installation of speed bumps or tables on the 1200 blocks of Columbian, North Euclid, Linden and North East Avenues.
The motion passed three to two.
Staff recommends rejecting the Transportation Commission recommendations for the 1200 blocks of North East, Linden, Columbian, and North Euclid Avenues and sending the petitions back to the Commission for review for the following reasons:
1. Speed bumps are not allowed according to current policies which prohibit speed bumps on Village streets.
2. Staff does not support the inclusion of speed bumps in the Traffic Calming Toolbox
3. The Transportation Commission’s August 21, 2017 recommendations for the 1200 blocks of North East and Linden Avenues differ from what was previously recommended by the Commission at a prior meeting (April 24, 2017) for these same blocks and no notification was provided to the residents of these blocks indicating the Transportation Commission would consider modifying prior recommendations for traffic calming on their blocks.
By sending the petitions back to the Transportation Commission for review, the four blocks can be adequately notified of any proposed changes on their blocks; and the Commission will then have direction from the Village Board regarding which tools are within their ability to recommend.
ANALYSIS SECTION
Geometry of the Petitioning Blocks and Neighborhood Context (Attachments C & D)
See Attachment C for digital aerial photographs of the 1200 blocks of North East, Linden, Columbian, and North Euclid Avenues.
Attachment D shows the existing cul-de-sacs, diverters, one-way streets, etc. on the 1200 blocks along North Avenue between Harlem Avenue and Austin Boulevard. This exhibit shows the traffic limiting devices that have been employed along North Avenue.
Traffic Study - Volume and Speed (Attachments E & F)
There were a total of four, twenty-four hour traffic volume count and speed studies conducted on the various blocks. The studies occurred on Tuesday, November 17, 2015, Tuesday, June 14, 2016, Wednesday, June 15, 2016 and Thursday, May 25, 2017. See Attachment E for a summary of the results from these four studies.
Reviewing the 24-hour volumes for the blocks in the traffic studies, the two-way average daily traffic (ADT) for a majority of the time were below or within the 800 to 1,200 vehicle range for typical daily traffic on a residential block in the Village. Exceptions occurred in 2017 on the 1200 block of Columbian Ave (1,260 vehicles) and the 1200 block of North East Avenue (1,407 vehicles).
Regarding vehicular speeds, it is an accepted traffic engineering practice to set the speed limit to the 5 mile per hour increment above or below the 85th percentile speed. Village Staff holds the opinion that the majority of drivers will drive at or near the posted speed limit. In addition, it is an accepted fact that the speed indicated on speedometers can vary up to 2 percent above or below the actual speed of the vehicle.
By definition, the 85th percentile speed is the speed at which 85 percent of the vehicles are traveling at or less than. Conversely, 15 percent of the vehicles will be traveling faster than the 85th percentile speed. It has already been stated that speed limits are typically set to the 5 mile per hour increment above or below the 85th percentile speed. This implies that it is expected that approximately 15 percent of vehicles will be traveling faster than the speed limit, if the speed limit is the 5 mile per hour increment below the 85th percentile speed.
Looking at the 85th percentile speeds for the 1200 blocks of North East, Columbian, Linden and North Euclid Avenues, the bi-directional speeds for these blocks ranged between 26 and 29 miles per hour. The 85th percentile speeds on the blocks remained consistent over the three year time period. Based on the collected data, it appears there may be a speeding issue on the 1200 blocks of North East, Columbian, Linden and North Euclid Avenues.
Because residents on the 1200 block of North Euclid Avenue expressed concerns about vehicles bypassing the traffic signal at Oak Park Avenue and North Avenue, turning movement data related to certain specific movements was collected during the morning and evening peak hours (7AM-9AM and 4PM-6PM).
Residents on the 1200 block of North Euclid Avenue observed vehicles turning right from Oak Park Avenue onto LeMoyne Parkway eastbound, then turning left from LeMoyne Parkway onto Euclid Avenue northbound to North Avenue thereby avoiding the queue of vehicles waiting to travel through the Oak Park Avenue and North Avenue signalized intersection. As a result, a series of video cameras were installed to capture vehicles movements from the Oak Park Avenue and LeMoyne Avenue intersection to the Euclid Avenue and North Avenue intersection. See Attachment F for a summary of the movement data collected depicted on an aerial map of the area as well as the source data.
Crash History - Collision Diagrams (Attachment G)
Thirty-six months of vehicle crash reports for the following intersections were reviewed Euclid/LeMoyne, Linden/LeMoyne, Columbian/LeMoyne, East/LeMoyne, Euclid/North Avenue, Linden/North Avenue, Columbian/North Avenue, and East/North Avenue. Please see Attachment G for the collision diagrams.
For the northern section of the area-wide traffic study (Augusta Street to North Avenue and Harlem Avenue to Austin Boulevard), the critical crash rate is 0.675 Acc/MEV. If an actual accident rate exceeds the critical crash rate then it is highly probable that the accidents were caused by factors other than chance.
Looking at the four collision diagrams that include LeMoyne Parkway (Attachment G, pages 1 - 4), three of the four intersections have no reported crashes for the time period studied. The fourth intersection, Linden/LeMoyne had only one crash reported in the three years ending March 31, 2017. The crash rate for that intersection is 0.801 Acc/MEV. While this crash rate is above the critical crash rate of 0.675 Acc/MEV, this is due to the low volume of traffic entering the intersection rather than the number of accidents occurring at the intersection.
Looking at the four collision diagrams that include North Avenue (Attachment G, pages 5 -8), the number of reported crashes occurring at an intersection ranged between one and eight crashes. Likewise, the crash rate for these intersections ranged between 0.029 Acc/MEV and 0.225 Acc/MEV which is below the critical crash of 0.675 Acc/MEV. Additionally, the majority of these incidents were either sideswipes or rear-end collisions occurring on North Avenue. As a result, there does not appear to be a problem with vehicle crashes at any of the eight intersections studied.
Summary of Police Department Traffic Missions (Attachment H)
Enforcement data for the 1200 blocks of North Euclid Avenue, Linden Avenue, Columbian Avenue and North East Avenue was provided by the Police Department. The data was for traffic missions completed in 2016 and to August 2017. Please Attachment H for a summary of the data.
Included in the summary is the number of vehicle stops, citations issued and total number hours spent on enforcement. Information on why a vehicle was stopped or the type of citation issued was not available.
The lion’s share of vehicles stopped (80.0%) and citations issued (85.7%) occurred on Euclid Avenue. However those figures are in line with the amount of enforcement hours spent on Euclid Avenue (79.8%) when compared to the sum of enforcement hours for all four blocks. Please also note, in general the majority of the traffic missions conducted by the Police Department are in response to complaints from residents.
Alternatives
Approve a motion to install speed tables on the 1200 blocks of North East, Columbian, Linden, and North Euclid Avenues.
Previous Board Action
N/A.
Citizen Advisory Commission Action
The Transportation Commission recommended the following at its April 24, 2017 meeting:
1. Installation of bump-outs on the 1200 blocks of North East and Linden Avenues, south of the alley (not speed bumps).
2. Increased police enforcement.
3. Review parking on North Avenue, effectiveness of parking meters on North Avenue, and parking enforcement on North East Avenue.
4. Do follow-up traffic studies on the 1200 blocks of North East, Columbian, Linden and North Euclid Avenues.
The motions passed unanimously (four to zero).
The Transportation Commission recommended the following at its August 21, 2017 meeting:
1. Installation of speed tables or tables on the 1200 blocks of Columbian, North Euclid, Linden and North East Avenues.
The motion passed three to two.
Anticipated Future Actions/Commitments
Subject to consensus of the Village Board to deny the Transportation Commission’s recommendation; Village staff will resubmit the traffic calming petitions for the 1200 blocks of North East Avenue, Linden Avenue, Columbian Avenue and North Euclid Avenue to the Transportation Commission for another review and recommendation. The Commission will have direction from the Village Board of Trustees as to what is included in the Traffic Calming Toolbox. It will subsequently return to the Village Board for review and a decision at a future Village Board meeting.
Intergovernmental Cooperation Opportunities
None at this time.
Performance Management (MAP) Alignment
N/A.