Councillor Jill Bruce presented the Decision Note on the proposed changes to the City's current Traffic Calming Policy and introduced Mr. Amer Afridi, Manager of Transportation Engineering, who reviewed each of the proposed changes and provided the rationale for each.
- Collision History – currently points are given to historical collisions that are only related to vulnerable road users. The revised scoring scheme considers additional collisions such as property damage only (PDO) and fatal/injury collisions as well as collisions related to vulnerable road users. The proposed change is to consider PDO and fatal/injury collisions in the revised scoring.
- Traffic Volume Threshold - The maximum score allocated to traffic volume for both Local and Collector roads is 25 points. Based on 2011 Policy, Local roads get points from 900 vehicle per day (vpd) and reach maximum value at 2150 vpd. Similarly, Collector roads get points from 3000 vpd and reach maximum value at 5,500 vpd. Previous review (DN March 2021 and IN Dec 2020) recommended revising this upper volume threshold to make the scoring more sensitive to higher traffic volumes. Based on the sample of traffic volume data reviewed for the City’s Local and Collector streets, their upper volume threshold 2150 vpd and 5500 vpd, respectively, seems reasonable, and no proposed change to the upper volume thresholds for Local and Collector.
- Non-local Traffic Volume: Non-local traffic volume is difficult and expensive to measure accurately. Also, this factor is closely related to the total traffic volume, which is already part of the scoring system. Having non-local traffic volume factor, often a busy street gets points for the same matter twice. Therefore, previous review (DN March 2021 and IN Dec 2020) recommended removing this from scoring scheme. Jurisdiction scan also shows that this factor is rarely used in scoring by other municipalities. The proposed Change is to remove non-local traffic volume in the revised screening and scoring scheme.
- Street Context: In previous reviews it was recommended to add more weights to street context, which is addressed by the following changes in the revised scoring scheme:
- Points for sidewalk is increased by 5 points for Local Road. With this, the maximum point a street (Local or Collector) can get for sidewalk is 10. Score will be allocated based on the proportion of sidewalk for the given street as follows: If a street has sidewalks on both sides of the street, it gets no point; for each 20% missing sidewalk, 2 points is given; street gets maximum 10 points when there is missing sidewalk on both sides.
- Some additional locations such as playgrounds, licensed childcare centers, library and retail stores are identified as pedestrian generators.
- Adjacent Land Use is added as a new factor to provide weights related to land use context. With this scoring, street in a residential area, irrespective of whether it be a Local or Collector, gets additional points based on the proportion of residential area fronting the street. A street gets 5 points if it is a fully residential area; 1 point is reduced for every 20% non-residential area, reaching 0 point when it is a fully non-residential area. Proposed Change: Above mentioned street context related components are added in revised scoring scheme.
- Traffic Speed: It was recommended that the score be developed for target speed. From Jurisdictional scan, all other municipalities have scoring for speed based on posted speed limit; and therefore, will keep same as in 2011 Policy. The maximum score for traffic speed is increased to 30 points; however, there will be no change in the scoring criteria, meaning a Local street gets 1 point for each 1 km/hr above posted speed and a Collector gets 1 point for each 1 km/hr above threshold (i.e., posted speed + 5 km/hr).
Proposed Changes:
- Scoring for traffic speed to be based on the posted speed limit.
- Increase maximum score for traffic speed to 30 points
- A separate program/plan to formulate in future to evaluate speed reduction as a traffic initiative. Progress on this plan will depend on staff resource.
- Removed Factors: Three factors, namely, transit route, EMS route and block length, are removed from the revised scoring scheme. This aligns with the practices across other Canadian municipalities.
Proposed Change: Remove transit route, EMS route and block length from the revised scoring scheme to be aligned with other jurisdictions.
- Interrelated factors: It was recommended that the score be developed for interrelated factors (DN March 2021). From Jurisdictional scan, no other municipalities use scoring criteria for interrelated factors.
Proposed Change: it is recommended not to develop interrelated factors.
- Request Initiation: In the updated policy, a petition would be required to initiate the traffic calming process. The petition intends to minimize resources spent in evaluating streets which may not proceed due to insufficient resident support at the later stage of implementation. For the updated policy, it is proposed request initiator will obtain signatures from at least 25% of households on their street for the petition. Similar approaches have been practiced by other municipalities in Canada. A standard format for petition would be included in the updated policy and readily available to residents for use.
Proposed Change: Petition required from 25% of households for the requested street.
- Formalize Temporary Implementations: Based on the current practice, City first installs temporary traffic calming measures prior to the permanent ones. This approach provides an opportunity to testing and evaluating their impact for both residents/road users and the technical team and have proved to be more effective. It was recommended to formalize this practice (DN March 2021).
In the current practice, a public survey is conducted prior to implementation of the temporary measures. In the follow-up discussion with the Council held in September 2022, this survey was recommended to be removed from the traffic calming process.
Proposed Change:
- Install temporary traffic calming measures for warranted locations.
- Remove public survey step prior to the implementation of temporary measures.
- Public Survey: The public participation is key part of implementing permanent traffic calming measures in their neighborhoods. For this, public survey will be conducted by staff. This is the only survey that will give an opportunity to the residents to provide their input before the permanent installation.
According to the 2011 Policy, 60% of the affected residents would need “yes” vote to move to next step of implementation. In practice, this requirement for public survey was changed to “60% of responded survey”. This provision assigns “neutral” opinion on resident that do not respond. Previous review recommended to formalize this current practice (DN March 2021)
To make the traffic calming process more participatory, it is proposed that the minimum response rate of at least 50% +1 household response rate be considered for the survey in addition to the 60% support rate criteria. This means, if a street for traffic calming has a total of 100 HHs, at least 51 HHs would have to participate in the survey with 30.6 HHs supporting the installation. Similar approach is currently adopted in other municipalities in Canada.
Proposed Change: Consider the minimum response rate for public survey to be 50%+1 household with support from at least “60% of the responded” household.
- Annual Priority List: Current policy simply follows the ranking list when selecting the project for implementation. Whenever a new street is evaluated and is warranted for traffic calming, street ranking could change, thereby impacting the priority for the implementation. For the updated policy, it was recommended to prioritize top 10 streets for implementation of traffic calming in each fiscal year so that it will allow technical team to prepare a systematic plan for implementation for the given fiscal year (DN March 2021).
Proposed Change: With the current staffing capacity staff can annually, prioritize a range of between 5 to 10 streets/segments for implementation.
- Re-evaluation Timeline: Based on 2011 Policy, if a street gets excluded from traffic calming for not meeting any of the traffic calming process criteria, it will have to wait at least 2 years for the next consideration. It is recommended that re-evaluation timeline be changed from 2-year to 5-year to allow more time to focus on new requests and optimize the resources (DN March 2021). If there is a major change in the traffic pattern, that street will be exempted from the evaluation timeframe due to constraint.
Proposed Change: Re-evaluation timeframe to be 5-year period.
- Cul-de-sacs and Crescents/P-loops: Current policy doesn’t screen out cul-de-sacs, crescents, and P-loops. Due to the nature of these streets, they never scored high enough to be eligible for traffic calming in the past. That means, there is a wastage of time and money for data collection and analysis to assess their eligibility. As such, the updated policy could be streamlined by excluding these from consideration, thereby focusing on most needed locations. Crescent could be sometimes long; therefore, limitation of 300 m is considered for their exclusion from traffic calming.
Proposed Change: Screen out cul-de-sacs, P-loops and crescents that are less than 300 meters.
- New Development/Rehab Works: It was recommended to include provision for the application of traffic calming tools to the projects identified under new developments and road rehabs (DN March 2021). This aligns with the Envision St. John’s Municipal Plan 2021 stating “Require new development to anticipate and implement traffic calming measures consistent with the principles and objectives of the City’s Traffic Calming Policy, so that proactive measures can be applied before traffic problems arise.”
It is important that the traffic calming measures considered for these projects would not unduly affect service of emergency vehicles, transit buses and other vehicles, and would not create safety concerns. Examples of traffic calming measures suitable for this type of projects are roundabouts, curb extensions and raised crosswalks. These projects typically do not involve public consultation on the traffic calming features; however, Staff may need to discuss with stakeholders such as schools and Metrobus, where needed.
In case of streets that are under the traffic calming potential list (score above 30) and are considered for City’s street rehab project, these streets would be given higher priority. The general traffic calming process to follow for this kind of project would be same as for the normal streets.
Proposed Change:
- Consider traffic calming tools to the projects identified for new developments.
- Streets qualified for traffic calming and considered for Rehab projects to be aligned with Rehab projects for implementation.
- Speeding Issue in Arterial Roads: In the follow-up discussion with the Council (September 2022), speeding issue in arterial roads was discussed. This road category falls outside of the Traffic Calming Policy. Traffic Calming policy applies to local and collector streets. Police enforcement program with RNC can be initiated to address speeding concerns along arterial street.
Proposed Strategy: It is recommended that a police committee be formed with internal and external stakeholders. This committee could meet three times a year to discuss and implement effective enforcement program.
Members of Council discussed the proposed changes as presented by Mr. Afridi and sought clarification on some particular areas including:
- whether major changes would warrant consultations with residents
- using data from previous complaints when making changes in areas
- bump-out usage and their importance for slowing traffic and making roads safer for pedestrians and cyclists
- having street calming incorporated during street rehabilitation
- formation of a speed committee for recommendations and feedback to Council, could include crossing guards
- pros and cons of surveying residents after temporary traffic calming
- changes to transit and EMS routes – ensuring that the general public are aware of this change, providing a list of streets where traffic calming will not be possible due to the EMS/transit routes and that transit & EMS stakeholders be consulted on any issues
- whether a re-evaluation of streets for traffic calming can be considered before the 5 years set. Staff advised that they need to catch up with the requested locations and that two years is not possible, unless there are cases out of the norm they can consider.
- Implementing traffic calming into new developments/streets, and the use of traffic impact assessments, narrower streets, which does make for slower driving rates
- different speeds for different classes of streets should be looked at in the future.
- a communications strategy for the Traffic Calming policy for residents
- use of the provincial collision database, and stakeholder involvement