Director of Transportation Ghassan Khankarli presented plans for a newly proposed service request system to the transportation and infrastructure committee May 16. Khankarli said the purpose of the new system is to better track projects and provide a consistent point of contact between the city and residents to find a "good solution."
Most residents request road humps on their neighborhood streets to calm traffic, according to Khankarli. However, he added that options including horizontal shifts in roadways, traffic circles and street width reductions are also available to inhibit speeding.
“The importance of what we’re trying to do is to try to inform the public that there are options out there for traffic calming other than road humps,” Khankarli said.
Steps in the proposed process would include the following:
- Residents would submit traffic safety concerns by calling 311 or through an app.
- The department of transportation’s engineering team would review the service request and contact the requestor for additional information as needed. Also a site visit “to better understand the roadway dynamics and driver behavior” would be performed.
- If an engineering solution is recommended, city staff would coordinate with the requestor to route a petition seeking support of at least two-thirds of affected property owners.
All eligible locations deemed to be of low cost would be implemented on a first-come, first-served basis, according to Khankarli’s presentation. Capital projects would be funded through a variety of funding mechanisms and would be in a separate category. An inventory of eligible locations will be developed and prioritized as funding is utilized.
About $1.5 million has been dedicated to traffic-calming measures in the city’s annual budgets for fiscal years 2020-21 and 2021-22, the presentation stated. Another $200,000 was provided in the fiscal year 2021-22 budget to combat street racing primarily on arterial roadways.
Khankarli said he expects a resolution to go before City Council for approval this summer.
