HomeMy WebLinkAbout10/26/1993, 3 - REQUEST FOR PEDESTRIAN ENHANCEMENT: RAMONA DRIVE �����II�Ip��INllllllllllallulll "J 1" MEETING DATE:
Cio san «.lis oBispo October 26 1993
COUNCIL AGENDA REPORT ITEM NUMBER:
FROM: Michael D. McCluskey, Public Works Director
SUBJECT: Request for Pedestrian Enhancement: Ramona Drive
CAO RECOMMENDATIONS:
By motion, direct staff to maintain existing traffic patterns and
establish a neighborhood communications forum to facilitate better
understanding regarding speeding traffic issues.
BACKGROUND:
During the recent campaign for Council membership, the Mayor stated that
the residents of The Village voiced their fear and apprehension of
crossing Ramona Drive to each of the candidates, and requested help in
resolution of the perceived problem.
In March of 1993 , the Public Works Department was asked to study the
problem. The Mayor contacted Dr. Laura Joines, a Cal Poly professor of
architecture, with student input, to likewise study the problem. Ms.
Joines agreed to use the problem as a class project.
In April of 1993 , the Public Works Director and Ms. Joines met to discuss
the results of her class. From that discussion', several scenarios were
developed which would address the problem. The scenarios ranged in cost
and effectiveness from minimal to extensive.
In May of 1993, the Mayor, the Public Works Director, and Ms. Joines met
with the residents of The Village. The meeting was attended by over 50
residents and was well received. The first half of the meeting consisted
of receiving the residents' "view" of the problem. The second half of
the meeting consisted of a "problem-solving" session wherein the
residents diagrammed their own solution to the problem.
Comments received during the meeting ranged from "there is no problem" to
"the problem includes driveway exiting, skateboards, speeding, noisy
students, truck loading zones and speeding vehicles which makes crossing
the street unsafe" . The range of resident-proposed solutions varied:
1. speed bumps;
2. stop sign;
3 . cross walks;
4. prohibit traffic from exiting the Lucky Center to Ramona;
5. close the street;
6. install speed bump dots; and
7. provide a crossing guard.
The proposed solution of the Cal Poly students was presented by . Ms.
Joines. This solution included: 1) the creation of bike lanes on Ramona
with the concurrent loss of on-street parking; 2) the narrowing of the
effective paved street width with the concurrent widening of the
sidewalk/parkway area on the north side of the street from Lucky's
driveway to Broad Street (a variation of the Berkeley "SLOW STREET"
design) ; 3) the encouragement of stores, within the shopping center
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complex which back onto Ramona within the area of #2 , to provide an
opening to Ramona and provide for business opportunities and promotion
via those openings. The proposal was received by the residents as
"interesting" but none of their own solutions included this proposal.
In late September, the Public Works Director met with the steering
committee of The Village and reviewed the precursor to this staff report,
its findings, conclusions and recommendations. Subsequently, the
steering committee met with the interested residents in early October and
achieved consensus that residents of The Village favor implementation of
Alternative Solution A1-install bulb-outs.
Cause of the Problem:
Before a solution can be formulated, the root cause of the problem needs
to be identified. In the late 1960's, the Lucky Center was constructed.
The development was designed to face onto Broad and Foothill. No direct
access to the site was provided from the northwest corner of Broad and
Ramona. Access to the site from Ramona was solely provided by the
driveway to the Center on Ramona located approximately 210' west of Broad
Street.
Later, The Tropicana complex was built and marketed solely to the student
population. The complex was designed with the sole access to the
shopping center in mind. An exit facility was designed and constructed
directly opposite the driveway to the shopping center. Thus the design
of the housing complex encouraged pedestrians to cross Ramona at an
unmarked mid-block location. As the student population is, in general,
young and agile, the issue of fear of being hit by speeding vehicles did
not occur.
In approximately the late 1980's, the student population within the
complex was replaced in total by seniors. As seniors began to use the
same location for their access to the shopping center, the issue of
crossing safety arose. Lucky's responded to the concern by providing
free delivery of goods. However, this action did not alleviate the
perceived problem.
A marked cross walk at the intersection of Broad and Ramona received
little use by the student population and receives little use by the
senior population. The combination of single access to the shopping
center and a designed, convenient, exit from the residential complex
directly across from that access point creates a most desirable
opportunity to jaywalk.
Traffic Data:
A. Speed
Actual measurements of traffic speed on Ramona were taken. The
average vehicular speed was found to be 32 mph, while the 85th
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percentile speed was 36 mph. Ramona Street is designated in the
Draft Circulation Element as a residential-collector street, with a
desired 85th percentile speed of 25 mph. Thus it is. readily shown
that existing speeds exceed desired speeds. This situation is
common to most residential and residential-collector streets in the
City and reflects the tendency of all citizens to drive at higher
acceptable speeds than they believe acceptable as pedestrians or
residents.
B. Accident History
In the past five years, no pedestrian or vehicle accidents have been
recorded at the location under discussion on Ramona Street. Of the
sixteen recorded accidents, four occurred at Broad Street, and seven
occurred near Palomar. One accident did occur between these two
cross streets between a skateboarder and a vehicle, whereby the
skateboarder angled across the eastbound travel lane and was side-
swiped by an eastbound vehicle.
Legal Issues:
The two most often proposed solutions are the placement of a stop sign
and the placement of a marked cross walk. Both have significant legal
issues which affect the City's ability to implement either of these.
The Caltrans Traffic Manual, Chapter 4, Section 3 , Regulatory Signs,
addresses the stop sign issue. Although the Manual details the
conditions for a stop "TEE" intersection of streets, the same criteria
can be applied to a heavily used "TEE" intersection of a street and a
driveway. Using this criteria, the number of vehicles required to
justify installation of a stop sign far exceeds the vehicle counts at the
intersection of Ramona and the driveway to the shopping center and
therefore this intersection cannot be justified. Although the City
Council can "find" a need to provide a stop intersection, several
lawsuits have been successfully adjudicated against cities with non-
warranted stop intersections. Thus a non-warranted stop intersection
could be a possibility, although staff would not recommend it due to
liability concerns.
Mid-block cross walks are specifically discouraged by the Caltrans
Traffic Manual, Chapter 6, Section 2 . 12. A marked cross walk is intended
to channelize pedestrians where the preferred path is not readily
apparent. Cross walks are not intended to be used as a safety device, in
fact significant data has been collected which shows that vehicle-
pedestrian accidents occur at a greater rate in a marked cross walk than
in areas not marked. As a result, many cities currently are removing
marked crosswalks to facilitate pedestrian safety.
Almost all possible solutions which follow in some degree or another do
not comply with various areas of the Traffic Manual. This does not mean
that the City cannot implement a particular solution or solutions, but
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only that, in case of an accident, the City's legal exposure is
proportionately higher as is the likelihood of an adverse judgement.
Possible solutions:
1. Use Existing Markings
The residents of The Village would walk to the corner of Ramona and.
Broad and use the existing marked cross walk and stop intersection.
More agile elderly could continue to cross mid-block while others
could cross at the cross walk at whatever pace they could manage.
An education program could be established to help residents
individually determine their safety limits. Also, a conjunctive
program could be established to create a dialog between student
groups and the residents to create awareness of and sensitivity to
the "speeding" issue.
Compliance with Traffic Manual: Full
Cost to Implement: $0
Impacts: 1) Less agile elderly would be required to walk an extra
410' to reach the driveway to the Lucky shopping center.
2) No precedence for future similar requests.
2. Install Speed Bumps
The majority of the input received from residents of The Village
showed fear of high traffic speeds in the eastbound travel lane.
Some concern was raised for westbound traffic. Many residents
suggested speed bumps. Speed bumps can be designed for specific
speed limits, thus a speed bump could be designed to generally limit
traffic to 25 mph. As recently seen in a presentation by the
Chamber of Commerce, speed bumps can be lessened in intensity
without substantial increases in vehicle speed. The Fire Department
and other emergency services do not favor speed bumps, because they
reduce response time and can damage equipment.
While many residents favored speed bumps, others complained of noise
generated by freight trucks parked and running on Ramona. These
trucks must await their turn to unload items at the major stores in
the complex and refrigerated units must be kept running at all
times. Noise complaints from neighbors along Broad Street near
existing speed bumps indicate that the City will receive new and
additional noise complaints from residents of The Village if speed
bumps are installed.
Limiting traffic to 25 mph will greatly enhance a person's ability
to safely cross Ramona at the non-marked mid-block crossing. The
fear of being struck while crossing should diminish, however, t ere
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is no guarantee that all fear (and complaints) can or will be
eliminated.
Compliance with Traffic Manual: Not approved as a speed control
device.
Cost to implement: $1, 500 each
Impacts: 1) Speed in the eastbound direction would most likely be
reduced. In some instances, higher vehicle speeds result
in a smoother ride over the bumps.
2) Precedence setting impacts could be large:
a) The City is home to many elderly and as such many such
individuals or groups could request similar actions; and
b) The Public Works Department regularly receives requests
for installation of speed bumps throughout the City.
3) Could contribute to erratic driving behavior as some
drivers try using the gutters, crossing diagonally or
speed up/slow down maneuvers.
4) May impact traffic patterns in the neighborhood
causing other residential streets to become residential=
collector streets.
5) Would cause change in SLO Transit bus routes.
Installation of speed bumps on Broad Street was found
detrimental to the structure of SLO buses and as such the
existing bus route on Broad was abandoned. In discussions
with the Transit Manager, the bus stop at the intersection
of Ramona and Palomar has a typical daily passenger pick-
up of 200-300 people - "the single largest pick-up point
in the system" . Alternative bus routes (to Ramona) have
been previously attempted and found unacceptable.
3 . Install a Mid-block Stop Sign
As discussed previously, this option would totally stop traffic and
would include a marked cross walk. Full pedestrian access would be
made available by installation of handicapped ramps on either side
of the street.
Compliance with Traffic Manual: It is a legal traffic control
device; not an approved speed control device; cannot be justified
(warranted) to meet requirement of the manual.
Cost of Installation: $4 , 000
Impacts: 1) Sets precedent for other non-warranted stop sign/cross
walk installations.
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2) The result of non-warranted stop signs is a general
disregard for its existence. Because cross traffic,
either vehicular or pedestrian is so infrequent, the
public becomes complacent, and either partially or fully
ignore its placement. This increases the likelihood of
accidents and complaints to the Police Department for
enforcement action.
4 . Construct Bulb Outs
Part of the "fear" of the residents is related to the walking
distance from curb to curb. By constructing dual bulb outs on
either side of the street, the walking distance can be reduced to
26' from 401 . Visibility of motorists by those wishing to cross the
street and vice versa is greatly enhanced. Traffic safety is also
greatly improved with better visibility. However, fixed solid
objects are now located within the traveling road right-of-way and
key design considerations need attention to preclude fixed
object/vehicle collisions.
Compliance with Traffic Manual: The manual is silent on bulb outs
for either traffic or speed control. In this case the bulb out is
used for visibility enhancement, not traffic or speed control. They
do not encroach upon the traveled way, except when the street is
totally void of parked cars. Bulb outs already exist on Monterey
Street and are approved for use in the Downtown Concept Plan.
Therefore, precedent has already been set.
Cost of Installation: $8 , 000
Impacts: 1) Although built for improved visibility, a case (in
court) could be made that the City "channelized" the
jaywalkers and therefore de-facto created a non-marked
cross walk: encouraging such activities to take place.
2) Additional requests for bulb outs throughout town can
be expected.
3) Unless specifically allowed for, bulb-outs would force
bicycle riders into the traffic lane.
5. Close Ramona Street (at Palomar) to Eastbound Traffic
Since the majority of opinion focused on perceived high speed
eastbound traffic, closing of Ramona to eastbound traffic at Palomar
would eliminate all eastbound traffic, except residents of The
Village. Effectively, 50% of the traffic on Ramona would be
eliminated. Only buses would be allowed use of the eastbound lanes.
Ramona Street, in this area, would become very lightly traveled
(2, 100 ADT WB) and relatively easy to cross at any point. Access
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westbound at Broad would remain, allowing freight and customer
access to the shopping center.
Compliance with Traffic Manual: Traffic Manual allows restriction
in vehicle access.
Cost: $500
Impacts: 1) Traffic southbound on Chorro, between Murray and
Foothill, may increase as access to Broad via Ramona would
be denied.
2) Traffic on Serrano and Palomar would increase as they
would become the "Ramona BY-PASS" .
3) Traffic on Tassajara would increase as the neighborhood
access to Broad would now be via Tassajara and Foothill.
4) Southbound traffic on Broad (Foothill to Serrano) ,
eastbound traffic on Meinecke and Murray should decrease.
NOTE: In the absence of a traffic study, exact impacts
are unknown.
6. Install "SLOW STREET" Solution
Because direction changes (i.e. curved streets) control traffic
speed, realigning an existing straight street to one containing a
tight (small) reverse curve will slow down traffic. Additionally,
narrow lanes and reduced visibility contribute to decreased vehicle
speed. This would include a few of the changes recommended by the
Cal Poly students: 1) realignment and replacement of curb, gutter
and sidewalk; 2) new landscaping; 3) removal of on-street parking
and creation of Class II-B bike lanes.
Reduced visibility may also contribute to increased accidents
depending on the attitude of the driver. The minimal crossing
distance proposed, in combination with lane widths and alignment,
would allow an easier crossing for pedestrians at a non-marked mid-
block location. As all curbside parking would be removed, no room
would be left for delivery vehicles to await unloading operations,
forcing those vehicles to take up customer parking spaces inside the
shopping center which already has traffic circulation problems.
Compliance with Traffic Manual: Streets with specific design speeds
can be designed with curves associated with those speeds. Lane
widths as proposed are acceptable. However, the proposed solution
is not a "standard" design for a collector street.
Cost: $66, 360
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Impact: 1) Precedent could be set for major reconstruction of
existing infrastructure to control speeding traffic.
2) Access to utilities under the street would be more
difficult.
Note: A fairly inexpensive alternative (6A) of $4 , 000 would involve
the placement of an asphaltic berm (curb) placed in the same
alignment as the more expensive version. This is the only work
proposed and then an observation period could be established to
determine its effectiveness and acceptance. If found positive,
additional funding through contributions and/or budget allocations
by Council would allow full implementation.
Findings and Conclusions:
1. Students walk, run, drive and live fast. The elderly walk slow and
may have impaired hearing or sight. The City of San Luis Obispo is
blessed or burdened (depending on one's point of view) with large
and significant populations of both students and the elderly. Any
solution must not only address the needs of these two groups, but
also consider the needs of all citizens.
2. The requests for change have only come from the residents of The
Village. No requests have been received from other residents of
Ramona Street. • Some of the solutions to this particular request
will have impacts on surrounding areas and other neighborhoods (e.g.
Chorro Street) .
3 . People take the quickest route, be it by foot, car, or bicycle. The
driving public will take the quickest route to their destination, if
traffic speeds are significantly reduced, on Ramona so as to affect
their route time, they will switch to a faster route with less
travel time. While this removes traffic from Ramona, it impacts
traffic on other streets.
Likewise, the elderly are no different. Having once been young
themselves, they still desire the quickest route to their
destination. Although safety concerns become a factor, this paper
is being prepared because of a number of complaints about an
existing (quickest) pedestrian route perceived as unsafe.
The quickest route dominates the public's thinking, rather than what
is safe or the safest route. If the public would drive by set speed
limits and the elderly would use the existing cross walk, these
requests/complaints would not have occurred.
4 . Solutions proposed, but not offered for consideration, were as
follows:
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A. "Bot Dot" rumble/warning strip in-lieu of speed bump. This is an
area of high bicycle usage by students and the slick surface of Bots
Dots are known hazards to cyclists.
B. Prohibit traffic from exiting the shopping center to Ramona.
The existing traffic patterns in this shopping center are difficult;
this proposal would exacerbate that situation, and probably severely
impact the viability of the shopping center. The City would most
likely be required to purchase the access rights to the center or
face a losing court case of inverse condemnation.
C. Close the street. This was seen as a waste of the public
infrastructure to service the public. All traffic would be focused
on to Broad Street as access to Palomar and West Ramona would be
denied.
D. Provide a crossing guard. This was seen as a tremendous
financial drain upon the City to provide service rarely needed.
5. Delivery service for the shopping center is available to residents
of The Village so the issue is not one of goods transportation but
singularly one of access ease.
6. There has not been a recorded accident at the studied site since
1988. This reinforces the idea that the requests/complaints were
generated out of "fear of an accident" . This is not to dismiss the
requests but simply to put the matter into perspective.
7 . Measured traffic speeds exceed desired traffic speeds for this type
of street. This is typical throughout the City and, as such, a
solution chosen should apply in the broad context of what is best
for the entire City.
8. Virtually any solution chosen by the City Council will set a
precedent of one sort or another. This study verifies an existing
policy to study perceived problems and look for solutions. Solution
1 concludes existing facilities are sufficient and confirms the
existing policy. Remaining solutions involve City financial
participation with general fund revenues to try to solve particular
cultural/sociologic problems -- in this case, traffic speed versus
the perception of crossing safety. The financial impact to the City
could be lessened as interest groups contribute funds toward desired
solutions. This idea could become a Council policy by which
solutions become possible if certain safety and financial criteria
are met.
Alternatives:
As described in Finding No. 8 above, staff is following existing policy.
Staff feels that to recommend use of City funds for projects such as this
one would set a new policy of giving priority over solution to known
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documented traffic problems. Prior to any such action, staff would seek
Council consideration and direction. As such, the following alternative
solutions and policies are offered for consideration:
Alternative Solutions:
Al. Implement Solution 4 . INSTALL BULB OUTS. Increased visibility and
a shorter travel distance should result in a better "feeling" of
safety.
Impact: High demand for more installations elsewhere in the city.
IF NOT ACCEPTABLE, choose Solution 5.
A2 . Implement Solution 5. CLOSE RAMONA TO EASTBOUND TRAFFIC. This is
very quick to install, has full compliance with the Traffic Manual
and can be easily removed if impacts are shown to be severe.
Impact: Without a traffic study, it is impossible to ascertain the
traffic impacts to neighboring streets and residential areas.
Policies•
A. Give directions to staff to develop for Council consideration a
policy concerning private party financial participation toward
solutions of traffic speeding/pedestrian safety issues.
Dependent upon A above, open discussions/negotiations for financial
participation of selected solution.
B. Establish a policy to guide staff in time allocation and funding
priority for traffic safety related requests. Such a priority could
take the form of setting percentages of time for non-documented vs.
documented hazzard abatement or funding limitations on a per fiscal
year basis, etc.
Fiscal Impact:
The CAO recommendation has no fiscal impact to the adopted budget. Staff
time spent coordinating and facilitating neighborhood meetings will not
impact the budget, but will affect time available to pursue other Council
goals and objectives. The budgetary impact of alternative solutions is
given in the description of each; the funding source being unappropriated
General Fund reserves.
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