Council committee recommends PlanBTV Walk Bike safety action plan to qualify for Safe Streets for All grants
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Summary
Staff and consultants presented a data‑driven safety action plan focused on pedestrian and bicycle serious‑injury crashes; the committee voted to recommend the plan to full city council so the city can pursue federal Safe Streets for All funding.
City transportation staff and consultants presented the PlanBTV Walk Bike Safety Action Plan to the Transportation, Energy and Utilities Committee and the committee voted to recommend the plan to the full city council to enable federal grant applications.
Philip Peterson, senior transportation planner in Public Works, introduced the presentation and said staff had coordinated with FHWA and the Vermont regional planning commission on a strategy that meets federal guidelines. Karen Sontag, a consultant with BHBA, summarized the plan’s data‑driven focus, saying the team concentrated on the most serious crashes over the last five to ten years.
“More than 40 percent of our serious crashes are involving pedestrians and bicyclists,” Sontag said, and the team found that 73 percent of serious crashes occurred on arterial connector streets. The report groups recommended countermeasures into three emphasis areas: crossing safety, turning movement safety and arterial corridor treatments. The plan uses crash modification factors and FHWA‑supported research to prioritize proven countermeasures and then applies a corridor prioritization framework that weights crashes, network connectivity and demographics.
Committee members pressed for clarity on how the plan would be used. Staff and consultants said the action plan is a guidance document that must be in place for the city to apply for Safe Streets for All (SS4A) implementation grants; it is not a binding standard that forces construction of every item in the document. Philip Peterson described implementation priorities the city would target first if grant funds were secured, focusing on pedestrian crossing enhancements, new crosswalks, visibility improvements and intersection safety projects.
Several committee members asked about outreach to accessibility and aging advocates; staff said AARP participated on the project advisory committee, that they would meet with the city’s accessibility committee and that they would engage the newly constituted council on aging. The committee voted to recommend that city council approve the PlanBTV Walk Bike Safety Action Plan so staff can pursue SS4A grant opportunities.
