Officials say transportation plan should stress safety

Council calls for no roadway fatalities or severe injuries by 2030 and less than 50 percent of all trips by single-occupancy vehicle by 2040

REDWOOD CITY >> A key goal of the draft transportation plan Redwood City is crafting should be to eliminate all traffic-related fatalities and severe injuries, the City Council agreed last Monday during a study session.

The draft, released in October, envisions a future where more than half of the trips taken within the city by 2040 are via transit, bicycling or walking.

The council added a socalled Vision Zero strategy component to the plan to emphasize safety, particularly near schools and parks where most traffic-related fatalities and injuries involving children occur.

“The worst areas for safety are around schools that serve low-income kids,” Councilwoman Shelly Masur said. “For me, that is a really significant area we need to address.”

Kris Johnson, a resident, said information in the draft report is insufficient and outdated.

“The worst areas for safety are around schools that serve lowincome kids. For me, that is a really significant area we need to address.”

— Councilwoman Shelly Masur

“I’m concerned that we have a draft study in front of you that has limited underlying data to allow us to analyze existing impacts, brace for impending impacts, make decisions and create solutions going forward on how to address the congestion and safety concerns of the community,” Johnson said. “How do we decide where we are going if we don’t know where we’ve been?”

Senior transportation coordinator Jessica Manzi acknowledged the city typically doesn’t collect safety data before and after most projects and that available collision data from transit agencies is typically two years old.

Mayor Ian Bain asked staff to insert “hard data” in the final plan. “There’s some data on collisions, but it’s not clear which intersections should have the highest priority,” he said.

Bain said survey data is helpful as the city plans for future projects and neighborhood associations should get more involved before the plan returns to the council for possible approval.

Matthew Self, chairman of the city’s Complete Streets Advisory Committee, said the city has done a good job of keeping traffic under control downtown as new offices have opened. But traffic is bound to worsen.

“When we build offices, those workers are going to be coming across the bridge and they’re going to be putting cars onto our streets that can’t be offset with transit options nearly as easily,” Self said.