The Municipal Services Committee met 03/25/2024. One of the items they took up was the request to approve the Complete Streets documents consisting of the Complete Streets Policy, the Pedestrian Crossing Improvements Policy, Priority Project Locations, and the Complete Streets Design Guide.
The Complete Streets Policy and associated documents aim at improving roadway safety and accessibility for all users, with a focus on pedestrians, cyclists, and other vulnerable road users.
- The policy commits the city to applying Complete Streets principles to all transportation projects going forward but does anticipate deviations under some circumstances and “is not intended to limit discretion in City decision-making.”
- The Pedestrian Crossing Improvements Policy establishes a data-driven prioritization process for pedestrian crossing upgrades, aligned with the Complete Streets policy.
- The Priority Project Locations provides a map showing highly-ranked potential sites for future projects based on factors like safety data, equity, and proximity to destinations like schools and parks.
- The Design Guide provides guidance on incorporating Complete Streets infrastructure into projects, such as by adding curb extensions, traffic circles, and pedestrian islands. It includes typical street cross-sections and a toolkit of design elements as well as information on retrofitting streets that are not up for reconstruction.
The committee received an overview of the policy documents on 02/12/2024 and was now being asked to officially recommend them for approval, which it did by a vote of 5-0.
I’ve prepared a transcript of the discussion for download:
The alderpersons on the committee and who attended the meeting had several questions regarding the policy.
Alderperson Chad Doran (District 15) noted that the Complete Streets Design Worksheet referenced “equity considerations” and “priority populations”. He wanted to know how those terms were defined and how they would be enforced through the policy.
Lisa Bender of Alta Planning and Design, the consultant that put together this policy, answered by referring to the definition of “vulnerable road user” listed on page 1 of the policy which states:
“Safety and mobility for the most vulnerable road users will be prioritized in planning, project scoping, design, implementation, and maintenance, while all modes are considered. Examples of vulnerable road users can include people walking, rolling or on bicycle, people with disabilities, children or elderly people and people with economic or other barriers that limit their transportation options.”
[Based on that answer, I presume “vulnerable road users” is synonymous with “priority populations”.]
Regarding the definition of “equity”, Ms. Bender responded, “As far as the equity—it’s a great question about the equity piece. We did use specific data sets in the equity map that was included as part of the prioritization exercise. So that’s documented in that methodology.”
[As far as I can tell, there is no “equity map” included in any of these documents. There is a “Crossing Prioritization” map, but that map doesn’t actually explain what “equity” is referring to. Rather it just opaquely states, “Equity and density of trips combined account for 75% of the Community Priorities Score (37.5% each) and the remaining factors account for 25% of the score (5% each for crossing a major barrier, proximity to parks/schools, commercial areas, trails and transit).” So, I don’t actually see where in the documents the term “equity” was ever defined.]
Alderperson Doran also asked about the rough cost of a Complete Street versus how the city has been handling streets up until this time. Traffic Engineer Eric Lom responded that generally what they would be doing through this policy would not be adding additional costs to the budget. “A lot of times when we talk about Complete Streets, people are visualizing what we did in the downtown last year, where it’s colored concrete, and it’s decorative streetlights, and all of those things. That can get to be quite a large incremental cost. But the vast majority of when we talk about Complete Streets, isn’t really the finishings, the some of the things that you see in the downtown. It’s things we’re doing just on regular streets.”
He noted that things like traffic circles and curb extensions could introduce a little bit of incremental cost, but the proposed design guide also included often narrowing the street which came with a lot of savings, not just on the front end when the street was reconstructed but in the long-term as well through ancillary things such as reducing the need for stormwater storage.
Alderperson Alex Schultz (District 9) was confused by the Crossing Prioritization Map. “[T]he purple stuff is what draws my eye but it doesn’t feel in my mind well distributed as those are priority areas, especially a neighborhood up by Northland Drive. So, I want to understand what that represents. I assume the more important data is the smaller long colorations of roads that represent the traffic incidents or accident ranking. Do those accidents—this is a secondary question—do those accidents include like vehicle and pedestrian accidents or is it all just vehicular collection, vehicular accidents?”
Traffic Engineer Lom said the purple represented the “community priorities score.”
He went on to explain, “[T]his score is a composite of a whole bunch of things […] roughly half of it is what we call the safety score, and the safety score comes from things like sidewalk availability, proximity to amenities, the speed limit, and then—that’s what we call kind of the risk portion of it. And then we have the what we call the observed portion of it—crash rates, total crashes, crash severity, and in there are any pedestrian related crashes (to address that specific question.)
“And then the other roughly 50% of the score is what we call our “equity focus score.” And that is a composite of roughly a dozen demographic-type datasets ranging from eco—well, I can just kind of list them off—economic opportunity, zero vehicle households, air quality, canopy coverage, heart disease, race and ethnicity, poverty level, educational attainment. And then all of this all—the safety part and the equity part—is all sort of smashed together, and that is how we created the priority score. And so that purple represents the top 10% of that composite score for any given piece of centerline—any block of streets in the city.”
[I am confused by this entire explanation because the map itself seems to suggest the scoring was not 50% safety and 50% equity. The map itself says the score is based on 37.5% equity, 37.5% density of trips, 5% major barrier, 5% proximity to parks/schools, 5% commercial areas, 5% trails, and 5% transit.
I also don’t see where in this document the “equity focus score” is described or defined. Ms. Bender said their methodology was documented somewhere and then Traffic Engineer Lom listed a bunch of factors that went into this score, but neither of them gave a page number for this and, in reading through the document on my own, I cannot find where this information is laid out or defined. Maybe all of this made more sense to people in the room.]
Alderperson Schultz asked, “Is it fair to assume that as a reference point, this map is will be used as a tool to sort of figure out where our priority is going to be when we start talking about adding or introducing traffic calming devices throughout the city? So, this is, this is kind of a reference point for those discussions, I assume?”
Engineer Lom responded, “Yeah, I would—that’s a perfect way to say it is it’s a tool for us to use. It’s certainly not going to spit out all the answers. But it’s a really good foundational piece for us to really be able to look at the data without any biases, and see where we think the needs are.”
Alderperson Doran asked if the purple areas on the map were going to be used as the criteria going forward for the city to look at where to do projects. In the past, when the city had determined which projects to do it had looked at things like a road’s PASER rating and the age of the infrastructure. “Is this now the new method for which we’re going to determine when we’re doing roads? Or is this sort of an additional consideration to that?”
Engineer Lom answered, “This would certainly not be the primary basis for determining when a road is going to be reconstructed. […] we’ll continue to use the most of the same criteria we have been using to determine when a street needs to be reconstructed—the condition of the underground utilities, the condition of the pavement, so on and so forth. This certainly becomes sort of another layer to that onion. I do think that there may be projects that spin off from this that would fall short of a reconstruction, perhaps a road diet or something like that, that could—you know, where this could yields specific individual projects, but not reconstruction projects.”
Alderperson Kristin Alfheim (District 11) thought these new policies and guides were beneficial. “[T]o me, the value of this tool is that the data validates the importance in the prioritization. In the end, sometimes we have voices that end up louder than others, and it isn’t necessarily the most scientific method of working through the priority list. And so, all of us want to do our best to take care of our people in our neighborhoods, but there are sometimes priorities that push other things first. And so, this is a great tool to say “This as why.” We’re not—it’s not that we like this alder or that alder, better, but this is why we’re doing it. And so that alone is a great tool to add into who we are as a city. So, I appreciate that.”
The committee voted 5-0 to recommend the policy and supporting documents for approval.
[I do think there would be value in more clearly defining what the term “equity” means in this specific policy, given that it accounts for 37.5% (or 50%, or whatever) of the prioritization map. Traffic Engineer Lom listed a number of factors that went into that score—economic opportunity, zero vehicle households, air quality, canopy coverage, heart disease, race and ethnicity, poverty level, educational attainment—but it’s not clear why any of those things should factor in to what streets the city reconstructs or where and what types of pedestrian crossings the city installs. An already relatively safe neighborhood does not cease to be safe or require more attention because it has limited trees or a concentrated number of residents with heart disease or who are of a specific race. Likewise, an area with safety issues, doesn’t become safer simply because the air quality is reasonable and residents all went to college and have incomes above 150% of the federal poverty level.]
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1187534&GUID=FD292762-C866-4CB5-8B24-327794E7F353
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