HomeMy WebLinkAbout2/17/2026 Item 6b, Slem
Charles M. Slem <
To:E-mail Council Website
Subject:Higuera Complete Streets Project Question about lag time in reporting safety data in
program evaluation.
Dear Council Members and Staff:
Jennifer Rice quickly and graciously responded to my previous feedback to the interim
North Chorro Greenway report with her reactions to my concerns and I appreciate the
time she took to explain and defend the methodology in the report.
Although I am still in disagreement about significant parts of the methodology, and I
have found additional anomalies, she described what I think is a glaring problem that
the council should address in discussion of the Higuera Complete Street Projects and
similar programs - the horrible lag time in publishing accidents/injuries involving
cars, bikes, and pedestrians for the streets impacted by the project.
According to her response to my concerns about the lack of accident/injury data, she
pointed out that
“The City relies on a collision database to track safety trends; however, this database is
labor-intensive to update and typically lags by approximately one year.”
The most current accident data that I can find is for 2023 (Draft Zero Vision Plan June
2025) so as citizens we are a couple of years behind.
Since the key element in the Slo Vision Zero Action Plan shifts the focus to a “Safe
Systems” approach which I think is trying to eliminate collisions by properly designed
streets that help minimize unsafe behavior - having timely data as to the consequences
of bikelane and related striping configurations seems important in both specific project
evaluation as well as using that data to evaluate similar configurations in currently
proposed projects.
I would hope that the timely collection of accident/injury data would be embedded into
our action plan framework so that preliminary data is available to determine the safety
effect as newer programs are being considered.
Thanks for your consideration,
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Chuck Slem
Slo
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