The Municipal Services Committee met 02/07/2022. During that meeting, they received an update on the Pedestrian Crosswalk Safety Enhancement Program.
Director of Public Works Paula Vandehey told the committee that the program had been very successful. She thought that because it was so successful there has been a lot of pressure to add locations not within the original program. As a result, she thought it might be helpful to give an overview of what had already been done, which was a surprising amount, and then talk about next steps.
There were a few more crosswalks in the queue, slated to be completed by the end of 2025, and when those were done that would be the end of all the crosswalks that had been planned. She said when those were completed, they wanted to step back and make sure the program had been successful and the city had obtained the outcome they were hoping to get with the enhancements. If those outcomes were obtained, what should the next program entail?
Right now, the city’s goal was to have enhanced crosswalks every half mile. Where they go to talk about changing that goal to every quarter mile or was there some other criteria they wanted to use?
Alderperson Brad Firkus (District 3) who was the chairperson of the committee started the conversation out by asking when staff would recommend that conversations begin regarding the post-2025 phase of this program and the parameters for potential projects.
Traffic Engineer Eric Lom gave some background on the timeline of design and construction for these projects. Typically, they look at designing it in year one, dealing with relocating utilities (if necessary) in year 2, and then actually constructing the crosswalks in year 3. He noted that often there are underground utilities such as fiber optic lines or water mains that are located where they need to sink bases into the ground to erect poles.
Generally, they had a 3-year cycle for these projects, so if the city wanted to pick up projects right away in 2026 with a new phase of this program, they would need to start designing those projects in 2024.
Alderperson William Siebers (District 1) who was a member of the committee, asked when they could start discussing the program criteria and whether they wanted to change it or not.
Traffic Engineer Lom answered that they could start any time, and there was no harm in starting now. He did note that if the city was going to follow the program that was currently in place, they wouldn’t be adding anything to the 5-year plan until 2026. He did, however, acknowledge that the 5-year plan could be changed.
In terms of determining the criteria for the next phase of this plan, he thought there was an advantage to talking about it sooner rather than later.
Alderperson Chad Doran (District 15) who was a member of the committee asked if staff could talk about the ongoing maintenance and replacement costs associated with these crosswalks. He noted that Traffic Engineer Lom had mentioned a few weeks prior that when these crosswalks are hit, it can be a hefty expense to fix them.
Traffic Engineer Lom wryly commented that people are usually surprised by how many things drunk people run over on the weekends. The city currently has 15 enhanced crosswalk systems out there, and when they are damaged, they have to be repaired right away, so his department had expensive spare parts sitting on shelves waiting to be used.
Generally speaking, RRFB (Rectangular Rapid Flashing Beacon) crosswalks require about 1/2 to 1/3 of the maintenance time and cost as a traffic signal. The 15 RRFB crosswalks equated to adding between 5 and 8 traffic signals to the city, but his department still had the same staff and budget. He said that would definitely be a discussion worth having if they consider expanding the program.
Alderperson Denise Fenton (District 6) who was a committee member said she didn’t want to put anybody on the spot, but she thought it would be helpful in a future meeting to go through the program specifications regarding how crosswalks are evaluated and determined to meet or not meet criteria.
Traffic Engineer Lom said they could certainly do that. There were essentially three pieces to the existing policy. The first was a sheet that said they were going to follow the succeeding pages of the policy. The second was a flow chart which was rather complex. The third was a hazard index sheet that rated the hazard index of certain intersections in the city.
Alderperson Siebers wanted to clarify that if a person hit one of the signals it was their responsibility to pay for the repair of that signal.
Traffic Engineer Lom answered that was true; however, the costs of those repairs still counted against his department’s expenditure constraints. If someone knocks over one of those signals and then writes a check for the damage they did, that is still however much money that can’t be used on other things across the city.
Director Vandehey confirmed that he was correct and explain that if they know they are going to have an average of $10,000 worth of equipment that will be needed to maintain these signals (whether that maintenance is due to damage or simply age), that $10,000 will be budgeted for maintaining existing equipment vs being used to build a new signal.
Alderperson Firkus said, if he understood correctly, there was only so much budgeted for, so it didn’t matter how many signals were knocked down or how many checks were written, the budget was still only so much.
Director Vandehey confirmed that was correct and pointed out that that assumed the person who caused the damage even had insurance and the city got their money.
Traffic Engineer Lom also wanted to make sure it was understood what the term “Enhanced Pedestrian Crossings” meant. That term included a spectrum of enhanced crossing starting with two little skinny white lines, moving to heavier lines, moving to even heavier lines, to raised crosswalks, and included things like curb extensions or bump outs and raised median islands. At the very far end of the spectrum was the expensive RRFB signaled crosswalks.
He was concerned that the way people were talking about enhanced crosswalks suggested they thought enhanced crosswalks were only the signaled crosswalks with flashing lights. He wanted to make sure they understood that was not the case.
Alderperson Doran followed up his previous question about maintenance and replacement costs and thought they had to take those expenses as well as manpower needs into consideration if they discussed expanding the program.
Alderperson Firkus said that it had been explained in the memo that some crosswalk projects had been done as part of road reconstruction projects. He wondered if it made more sense for crosswalk projects that would potentially fall in the area of road reconstruction to be done in conjunction with that road reconstruction or would it be possible to come back several years after the road was reconstructed and install those crosswalks.
Traffic Engineer Lom answered that when an area meets the requirements the next thing staff looks at is if that street is up for reconstruction within the next several years. Although there was no magic number, 10 years was kind of a number they look at. During reconstruction streets get widened or narrowed and there are a lot of things that change. They try to make an educated judgement in that case of how much they want to spend, knowing that some of it will become a throwaway cost.
He pointed to the area of Lawe Street and Pacific Street. There are crossing safety concerns in that area, but there is a project planned for that section of road. It was initially scheduled for 2018, then moved to 2020, then pushed to 2024, and not to 2026. So, there was some danger in waiting because projects get pushed back, but they also want to try and make the best use of the city’s resources and minimize the throwaway costs.
Alderperson Firkus said it would be nice to have a map not of 5-year projects but of 6–10-year projects. Especially when talking about the more expensive crosswalks, it would be useful in deciding if they wanted to install a crosswalk in an area that may very well be torn up in 7 or 8 years.
Traffic Engineer Lom thought it was worth mentioning that generally the parts of a crosswalk people can see are the cheap parts. A lot of money is spent down below on underground sections, and all of that gets thrown away when a street is reconstructed.
The committee had no further comments or questions.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=922395&GUID=3FA36DA5-7610-4573-8B63-EE3B043367A2
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