Available Neighborhood Traffic Speed Surveys

[council3_rubal]

Fellow Councilmembers,

I would like to thank the City Manager, Police Chief, and his staff for meeting with me to review available data on neighborhood traffic speed surveys obtained from City deployed traffic radar trailer. Only data from five streets was available for review (2024). Chief reported that under the current policy, there would be few citations.

Noteworthy in this presentation is the volume of traffic reported (20 days) on West Byrd (72,340 vehicles) of which 37,656 (52%) exceeded the 20-mph speed limit, 3,118 (>4%) exceeded 30mph, and 72 vehicles exceeded 40mph.

It would be reasonable for our City to give priority to the evaluation of speed-limiting devices on neighborhood streets with proven high traffic volume and high survey incidence of excess speed.

Please review the attached. No data were presented for any other neighborhood streets.

Thank you for your consideration and comments on this matter. The location of the radar trailer was not further identified in the reports provided.

 

[council5_bulman]

Thank you for the info. Hopefully with the new signs they have talked about will be able to get a handle on it. The question will be if the new signs work or not.

 

[council4_vaughan]

Thanks for sharing, Bernie. Do you know if someone complained about speeding on Byrd or how it was selected to survey?

It would be great to have this data for all city streets. That is obviously not practical, but I hope they can move it around based on feedback they are getting.

I would look at that Byrd data and conclude that speeds are pretty reasonable. If I read your summary right, almost half were driving under 20. That is crazy. I don't think it would need extra attention.

They need to survey sunrise canyon and see if Bear really does have a problem.

I think you (or maybe I) mentioned making these public. Perhaps if we did that on the City's webpage people could see the data for themselves.

What was the device that captured data? Was it obvious to the driver (and perhaps influencing their speed)?

 

[council3_rubal]

Thanks for sharing, Bernie. Do you know if someone complained about speeding on Byrd or how it was selected to survey?

It would be great to have this data for all city streets. That is obviously not practical, but I hope they can move it around based on feedback they are getting.

I would look at that Byrd data and conclude that speeds are pretty reasonable. If I read your summary right, almost half were driving under 20. That is crazy. I don't think it would need extra attention.

They need to survey sunrise canyon and see if Bear really does have a problem.

I think you (or maybe I) mentioned making these public. Perhaps if we did that on the City's webpage people could see the data for themselves.

What was the device that captured data? Was it obvious to the driver (and perhaps influencing their speed)?

Speeding on W. Byrd and other streets is a common complaint of residents (talking with residents and by comments by fellow Councilmembers at Council meetings). The data provided is from the City radar trailer. It is the total sum of all data reported since the beginning of this year. Unfortunately, data is not tabulated for all locations where the radar trailer is deployed. Perhaps there can be improved reporting. I very much like your suggestion that data could be posted on the City website. Also posting the number of speed citations on UC streets might be an additional incentive to slow traffic down.

Regarding the surveyed speeds on W. Byrd, this is a “half-full” and “half-empty” dataset. It is likely the citizens on W. Byrd might disagree that the speeds are “reasonable” since the survey clearly shows every other car (52%) is driving faster than the speed limit and given the high volume of traffic. The fact that this street does not have sidewalks and there is parking on both sides of the street raises additional safety concerns. The other half of the argument is a consideration for what is an enforceable speed on neighborhood streets with posted limits of 20mph given that this neighborhood street is now a high-volume corridor to and from 1604.

To my knowledge, this is the first time that traffic survey information has been requested. Certainly, it is necessary information for the pending neighborhood traffic safety program. Perhaps, it could be reported to the Council as a component within Tab Z.

Thanks for commenting.

 

[council4_vaughan]

I think if we post a speed limit sign of 20, most people are going to go around 25. I don't think that is an unsafe speed for that street.

What we really need to do is catch those handful of people that are going over 30.

Do you know if the data captures the time of day the person was driving that speed? Perhaps we could use that to set targeted speed traps. If we can catch the people doing those speeds, it might really make a difference.

 

[council3_rubal]

I think if we post a speed limit sign of 20, most people are going to go around 25. I don't think that is an unsafe speed for that street.

What we really need to do is catch those handful of people that are going over 30.

Do you know if the data captures the time of day the person was driving that speed? Perhaps we could use that to set targeted speed traps. If we can catch the people doing those speeds, it might really make a difference.

1) Additional questions regarding the times for resolving traffic in the report and possible additional enforcement would best be directed to the Chief. I have specifically NOT reported citation speed practices fearing that this infers that it is OK to travel greater than posted speed limits in our City. I do not think our residents consider neighborhood-posted speed limits a suggestion and this is the reason it is a common concern on their radars! 2) For W Byrd during the 20-day survey period 10,996 were clocked between 26-30 mph and 3,118 greater than 31 mph. 3) Our city is considering deploying a "test" of electronic signage for speed amelioration, certainly survey data and shear traffic volume on West Byrd suggest this neighborhood may benefit from this program.