Planning commission reviews Vision 0 action plan and short deadline for Safe Streets grant application

Consultant Peter Simone presented the Vision 0 action plan to the Reading Planning Commission on Tuesday, describing a multimodal strategy intended to eliminate traffic fatalities and serious injuries and explaining an aggressive timetable to qualify for federal grant funding.

The plan emphasizes “easy‑to‑build” demonstration projects—paint, flexible delineators, bollards and signage—intended to be implemented within existing curb lines; the consultants estimated a project cost of roughly $1.8 million for the recommended corridors and asked the Planning Commission to recommend City Council adoption in time to support an SS4A grant application due June 26.

Simone described the plan’s goals and the funding landscape: the plan began as an active‑transportation study supported by a WalkWorks grant and was reframed after the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law established the Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A) program. He said the SS4A program has awarded more than $3 billion nationwide over recent years and that the city’s proposed demonstration application would seek approximately 80% grant coverage from SS4A and a Pennsylvania DCED grant to cover an anticipated remaining 20%.

The plan’s technical approach and corridors The Vision 0 action plan narrows an initial set of 12 corridors to six downtown priority routes, including Second/Canal Street, Seventh Street, Penn Street (a limited downtown segment), Court/Cherry one‑way pairs, and others. For each priority route the plan supplies graphic “veil sheets” showing where painted bike lanes, parking‑protected bike lanes and painted shared‑lane markings (“sharrows”) could be placed without major reconstruction.

Simone said the plan is intended to be updated annually and that the Planning Commission would be the reviewing body for those updates; he also emphasized that adoption of the plan would allow the city to apply for SS4A funding. “The philosophy behind Vision 0 is that we can do better with our design of streets and sidewalks, and we want to have the aspirational goal of eliminating fatalities and serious injuries due to traffic accidents,” Simone said.

Cost and implementation notes - Total estimated cost for the full set of corridors: about $1.8 million (consultants' estimate), with Seventh Street identified as the largest single‑route item (roughly $684,000), largely because it includes new walkways and trails that the team would likely exclude from the first SS4A demonstration application. - Grant strategy: consultants proposed an SS4A demonstration application (eligible for low‑infrastructure, paint and bollard projects) to cover roughly 80% of eligible costs and a Pennsylvania DCED multi‑portal grant to cover the remainder. - Project scope: the first application would emphasize low‑cost, quick‑build measures (painted lanes, flexible delineators, signage, decorative crosswalks) rather than heavy pavement or curb realignment.

Commission feedback and timeline Commissioners expressed support and asked about funding and coordination with other projects and PennDOT. Jamar suggested pursuing state DCED funds strategically so the city’s capital match could be covered by its capital budget while using SS4A for the bulk of eligible costs. Simone asked the commission for a timely recommendation to City Council so the city could file the SS4A grant by the June 26 deadline and present the plan to council on June 9.

Ending No formal recommendation vote was taken at the workshop; consultants and staff asked the Planning Commission to review the plan and consider a formal recommendation to City Council in the next meeting cycle to meet the SS4A application deadline.