Memorandum

City of Lawrence

Public Works Department

TO:	Thomas M. Markus, City Manager
FROM:	Amanda Sahin, Transportation Engineer
DATE:	June 19, 2018
RE:	Status Update on the Traffic Calming Policy

The City Commission requested an update on the status of revisions to the Traffic Calming Policy. The Traffic Calming Policy, Resolution No. 6602, which was enacted 13 years ago, is currently under review.  Staff has been researching best management practices for traffic safety and are working on a preliminary draft of a new policy to present to the Transportation Commission for input and public comment. The goal is to have a policy drafted this fall that the Transportation Commission can recommend to City Commission. 

Staff is looking to the City Commission to provide some policy guidance through the 2019 budget development process.  The majority of citizen concerns received relating to traffic and transportation reference risks for pedestrians and bicyclists.  These concerns drive a majority of requests for, not only traffic calming, but signage and pedestrian crossings.  Currently all of these requests follow different processes even if the intent or goal of the requestor is the same.  Staff is developing a comprehensive traffic safety program in lieu of the current traffic calming program.  In order to accomplish this, the Traffic Calming budget item (CIP# PW17E8) could be renamed to Traffic Safety and funded by General Fund dollars instead of Infrastructure Sales Tax funds. The current Infrastructure Sales Tax dollars could be moved to an appropriate project, like the Annual Contracted Street Maintenance Program (CIP# PW17SM1), thus freeing up General Fund dollars to fund the Traffic Safety budget. This would allow administrative flexibility as a traffic safety policy is developed to meet the overall goal of making the streets safer for vehicles, pedestrians and bicyclists. 

Traffic Safety is often broken down into several components that are referred to as the “E’s”.  The three “E’s” that are a universally used are education, engineering and enforcement (some additional “E’s” are: encouragement, evaluation, equity, and engagement).  The current traffic calming budget and policy only address one “E” and that is engineering.  Using engineering to address overall traffic safety concerns block by block is not sustainable.  The goal of the new Traffic Safety program would be to utilize engineering, education, enforcement, evaluation and other relevant components to have a more holistic approach to traffic safety that can positively impact the community as a whole.  Although we do believe that some of the budget should be reserved for engineering solutions we also would like the flexibility to use it for personnel, equipment, or educational campaigns if deemed necessary.