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Committee reviews draft Safe Streets for All safety analysis: collisions, e-bikes and high-injury network
Summary
City staff presented the safety-analysis chapter of the federally funded Safe Streets for All action plan, reporting rising severe injuries in 2024, increased e-bike involvement in bicycle collisions, and a proposed high-injury network that captures 85% of severe and fatal crashes on 20% of city streets.
City transportation staff on April 24 presented the safety-analysis chapter of the federally funded Safe Streets for All action plan, showing a rise in severe and fatal traffic injuries in recent years, a growing share of bicycle collisions involving e-bikes, and a proposed high-injury network for prioritizing capital and enforcement resources.
Jessica Grant, supervising transportation planner, said the federal grant funds a two-year planning effort aimed at preventing traffic fatalities and serious injuries while increasing safe, equitable mobility. Grant told the committee the grant award “was just under $800,000 with the 20% city match,” and that the chapter under review covers a five-year collision dataset from January 2020 through 2024, a period the city uses for safety analysis and for grant competitiveness.
The safety analysis found that pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists — the city’s most vulnerable users — account for a disproportionate share of severe and fatal collisions. Staff noted the majority of collisions occur at intersections; top contributing factors listed in the draft included unsafe speed, driving under the influence, improper turning and right-of-way violations. The draft also highlights that a significant share of collisions resulting in severe or fatal injuries occur at night, especially in the midnight–6 a.m. window.
On bicycling, staff said bicycle-involved collisions are increasing and that e-bikes account for a majority of the increase where coding allows identification. The draft maps show collision density concentrated on a defined high-injury network; staff said the top 20% of roadway mileage comprises about 85% of the city’s severe and fatal collisions. Grant said an adopted high-injury network can unlock policy options such as an automatic 5% local speed reduction for included roadways, citing examples in surrounding jurisdictions.
Committee members and attendees asked for clarifications and improvements to the draft chapter. Questions focused on how to present mode share and exposure-adjusted collision rates (collisions per miles traveled by mode), additional narrative explaining the 2023–24 spike in severe injuries, how e-bikes are coded in the data, and whether the analysis includes incident reports for nontraditional pedestrian zones such as the State Street promenade. Data reviewer Nami and traffic engineer Derek Bailey answered technical questions about data sources and marking materials; staff said some e-bike coding only became widely available in 2022.
Public commenter Randy Wilson, who described himself as a data-oriented reviewer, recommended an executive summary at the start of each chapter and urged the report to include both raw counts and exposure-adjusted rates (e.g., incidents per miles traveled) so readers can distinguish increased risk from increased mode share.
Grant said the presentation was an early chapter-by-chapter review and that staff will bring additional chapters to the committee over the coming months — including a safe-routes-to-school focus and targeted countermeasure recommendations — before returning with a draft action plan for formal review.
Ending: Staff will revise the safety-analysis chapter to address committee requests for clearer denominators and narrative explanation of recent trends and will continue outreach to neighborhood and public-safety stakeholders.
