AGENDA #3a(2)
To: Chapel Hill Town Council
From: Go Chapel Hill Active Living by Design Advisory Committee
Petition: Complete Streets
Date: May 19, 2008
The Go Chapel Hill Active Living by Design Advisory Committee in collaboration with the Town’s Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Board as well as the Town’s Parks and Recreation Commission -- requests that the Town Council appoint a task force to establish a Complete Streets Policy and to draft a Complete Streets Ordinance with corresponding departmental operational procedures.
Chapel Hill is a leader in innovation and highly values a high quality of life for its residents.
The Town:
- Has a strong concern for the safety and health of all residents,
- Has committed to reducing carbon emissions,
- Encourages the development and expansion of facilities that promote and enable healthy lifestyles, as reflected in the Designation as a Fit Community,
- Explicitly outlines a commitment to improve facilities and safety for pedestrians and cyclists in the Comprehensive Plan.
However, Chapel Hill’s transportation planning system currently lacks a coordinated approach to expanding, maintaining, and encouraging pedestrian, bicycle and transit use, and ensuring the safety of those users.
A Complete Streets Policy and Ordinance encompasses all of the varied mobility sources within a town and creates an over-arching strategy to ensure that all transportation modes are given balanced consideration.
A Complete Streets Ordinance includes provisions to create a multi-departmental focus on the Town’s “Complete Streets” policy, including updating design, planning and policy manuals; training personnel to plan, design, and maintain complete streets; implementing procedures for citizen input and rating infrastructure requests; and creating checklists and program audits to evaluate how well roads serve all users.
Components and strategies of a Complete Streets policy are outlined in the following paragraphs. Examples of complete streets policies and guides are included as attachments.
Vision Statement for a Complete Streets Ordinance
The safety and convenience of all users of the town’s transportation system – including pedestrians, bicyclists, transit users, freight, and motor vehicle drivers – is accommodated and balanced in transportation and development projects so that even the most vulnerable – children, elderly, and persons with disabilities – can travel safely, confidently, and pleasantly within the public right of way.
Components of Complete Streets Ordinance
q Public Outreach
q Enforcement
q Infrastructure
q Maintenance
q Technology
q Policies and Design Standards
q Legislative Action
q Funding
Public Outreach Strategies
- Launch a pedestrian safety awareness campaign.
- Launch pedestrian/bicycle safety public awareness campaign.
- Launch school zone safety campaign.
- Inform citizens how to request improvements to infrastructure
Enforcement Strategies
- Enforce speed limits, particularly in school zones.
- Enforce pedestrian right-of-way laws.
- Deploy a new pedestrian safety Targeted Traffic Team at critical intersections and school zones to beef up enforcement.
- Prohibit right on red vehicle turns in high pedestrian use areas.
- Double traffic fines in school zones.
- Increase fines for violating pedestrian right-of-way.
- Assign each city school a traffic enforcement officer.
Infrastructure Strategies
- Implement pedestrian crossing safety improvements in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act Accessibility Guidelines with a focus on areas adjacent to parks and schools.
- Adopt design standards that minimize crossing distances and increase visibility between pedestrians and motorists.
- Incorporate features that create a pedestrian and bicycle friendly environment, such as:
- Narrower traffic lanes
- Median refuges
- Curb extensions (“bulb-outs”)
- Countdown pedestrian signals
- Striped Crosswalks
- Bike Lanes
- Bike activated traffic signals
- Survey transit stops and ensure adequate crossing improvements are implemented for safe access (e.g., MLK blvd.).
- Expand traffic-calming program.
- Reclaim street space for bike or pedestrian uses through the use of “road diets” by using striping to convert extra wide roadways to narrower lanes and marked bike lanes (e.g., Honeysuckle, Shady Lawn, Pinehurst, etc.).
- Consider one-way streets as a strategy to reclaim roadways for bike and pedestrian users
- In residential areas where there are no sidewalks, identify strategies to improve pedestrian safety (e.g., limit parking to one side of the road).
- Designate a percentage of all transportation dollars to improving bike, pedestrian, and transit facilities.
- Allocate dollars to retrofit state roads when health and safety are at issue.
Technology Strategies
- Add pedestrian countdown signals on all new traffic signals.
- Retrofit existing pedestrian signals with pedestrian countdown signals.
- Explore automated pedestrian sensors.
- Install bike activated traffic signals.
Policy Strategies
- Create a multi-departmental focus on the City’s “Complete Streets” policy.
- Identify the town departments with a vested interest in Complete Streets policies, including Transportation Engineers, Policy Makers, the Police Department, transit operators, Parks and Recreation, and Public Works.
- Designate a department head to oversee all aspects of the Complete Streets ordinance, including greenway construction, sidewalk construction, cross walk marking, bike lane marking, right-of-way procurement, mapping of bike/ped routes, and transit access improvements that make up the comprehensive transportation network (e.g., transit stops should include infrastructure to ensure safe passage by pedestrians).
- Analyze accident data to identify trends and develop countermeasures.
- Update and train Chapel Hill Transportation engineers and project managers on new guidelines and strategies.
- Train transit operators to obey all pedestrian and cyclist right-of-way laws.
- Adopt improved sidewalk and street maintenance policies and ensure that public works staff are trained and comply with new guidelines and strategies.
- Create a long-term comprehensive Pedestrian Plan.
- Create a long term comprehensive Bike Network Plan.
- Create measures to gauge progress of Complete Street Policy (e.g., inventory miles of sidewalks/bike lanes and increase by 5% per year).
- Review and update design standards to maximize pedestrian/bicycle safety.
- Use advisory boards to review construction projects, sidewalk requests, etc. for compliance to Complete streets policies.
Legislative Strategies
- Reduce statutory speed limit on low-volume residential streets if warranted.
- Lobby the state Department of Transportation Department to adopt similar Complete Streets policies at the state level.
Closing Remarks
The adoption of a Complete Streets Ordinance will ensure that recent efforts to make the streets of Chapel Hill safer for all users is continued and expanded upon. A Complete Streets Ordinance will combine current programs and policies with new initiatives and strategies to build a comprehensive transportation network designed to make driving, walking, cycling, and accessing public transportation safer for all users. A comprehensive transportation network, or Complete Streets program, is also a means to promote physical activity and improve health, as well as to reduce carbon emissions assisting in the Town’s efforts to meet the goals of the Community Carbon Reduction (CRed) pledge.
The Town will improve the quality of life for all Chapel Hill residents and visitors by providing safe and attractive streets for walking, bicycling, and driving.