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Safe Streets for All plan maps top safety priorities for Auburn, highlights high-injury corridors
Summary
Consultants from VHB presented the Safe Streets for All Safety Action Plan to Auburn councilors on April 7, identifying a high-injury network in the city, public-surveyed trouble spots and a menu of engineering, policy and enforcement recommendations linked to federal FHWA tools and grant-readiness.
Consultants from VHB delivered an overview of the Safe Streets for All (SS4A) Safety Action Plan for Auburn and Lewiston at the April 7 meeting, describing an evidence-driven plan intended to prioritize projects and make future grant applications more competitive.
VHB project manager Jason Reddy said the plan used 10 years of MaineDOT crash data and community input to identify a “high-injury network” of road segments where crashes producing serious injuries or fatalities concentrate. The consultant said the analysis found that roughly 75 percent of reported crashes were not injury-producing and that the plan focuses on injury- and fatality-producing incidents, vulnerable users (pedestrians and bicyclists), winter-related crashes and young-driver incidents.
Reddy noted an online public survey and mapped “dot” responses that highlighted pedestrian concerns on Court Street, Center Street and segments of Main Street in New Auburn. The plan pairs those local reports with engineering countermeasures — for example, retro-reflective backplates on signal heads, lead pedestrian intervals, enhanced lighting and targeted enforcement — and describes policy recommendations including revisiting complete-streets guidance, daylighting crosswalks and clarifying development-review standards.
Reddy said the action plan includes an FHWA crash-modification-factor (CMF) analysis where applicable, an implementation matrix with 25 priority locations and a list of potential funding partners. City staff said the document could be used to support MaineDOT partnership and future grant applications and recommended council endorsement and adoption of the plan at an upcoming meeting so it could be used in capital planning and grant submittals.
Councilors asked how the plan would be folded into the capital-improvement program and operating budgets; staff said the plan would be shared with the comprehensive-plan consultant, Complete Streets advisory bodies and used to inform grant applications and future work with MaineDOT.
