Guess What Delayed Traffic Calming Meeting?

In an ironic beginning to Monday evening's Traffic Pedestrian and Bicycle Committee meeting, the consultant who designed the proposed traffic calming measures for West K Street was late because she was stuck in traffic.

When she finally arrived, Christine Carey, of Fehr and Peers, gave a powerpoint presentation that outlined a number of strategies to slow cars and increase safety for pedestrians and bicyclists on the street.

At the committee's April 25 meeting, West K Street residents identified a number of safety issues, including speeding cars, cars and bicycles not coming to a complete stop at stop signs, speed limit signs covered by vegetation and cars not stopping for pedestrians in crosswalks.

Traffic calming focuses on three main ideas; education, enforcement and engineering.  The measures outlined at Monday's meeting concentrated on the engineering aspects. 

The city's plan identifies education and enforcement as Level 1 traffic-calming measures. 

Enforcement has been stepped up in the area since the April 25 meeting;  bicyclists and automobile drivers have been ticketed for a number of violations, including failure to obey a stop sign.

Level 2 measures do not require physical modifications to the roadway.  The measures outlined at the Monday's meeting were Level 2 and consisted of adding striping and signs.

The measures proposed include creating high-visibility crosswalks at the intersections of West K, West Eighth and West 10th streets. The crosswalks will have signs that read “Stop for Pedestrians in Crosswalk.” 

The plan also calls for Class II bike lanes from West 13th Street to the entrance of the Benicia State Recreation Area and new speed legends, numerals painted on the road indicating the speed limit. 

The plan includes the use of sharrows, large arrows painted on the roadway that indicate where bicyclists should ride. They make motorists aware that bicycles have a right to part of the road.  The plan calls for the sharrows to be used between West 10th and West 13th streets.

Estimates for implementation run from $10,000 to $15,000.  The money for the project comes from traffic impact fees paid to the city.

When asked about the plan, committee chairman Mark Hughs said, “I’m very happy with the outcome.”

“The input we got was from the community,” he said. “The nice thing is the interaction.  We (the city) made a commitment to take action and that’s exactly what we’ve done.”

The committee approved the plan and officials from the Benicia Public Works Department estimated that the improvements would be completed in one to three months.