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Kalamazoo adopts federal Safe Streets plan, adds one priority bus stop and six‑month review
Summary
The City Commission approved a federal Safe Streets for All (SS4A) Safety Action Plan, adopting prioritized intersection, sidewalk, lighting and bus‑stop upgrades and amending the plan to add the Alamo/Alamo Hills Drive stop as a premium priority with six‑month reviews.
Kalamazoo commissioners voted Jan. 5 to adopt a federal Safe Streets for All Safety Action Plan designed to reduce traffic fatalities and serious injuries and to unlock federal funding for infrastructure work.
The plan, presented by Nolan Bergstrom of the Community Planning and Economic Development Department, maps priority intersections, sidewalk gaps, lighting deficiencies and the city’s top 50 bus stops. Bergstrom told commissioners, “Safe Streets for All program is a federal program… [it] is basically the development of the plan itself… a key that unlocks the door to more federal funding” for implementation.
Traffic and public‑services staff described technical work by consultants (Alta Planning and Design and AECOM) that led to five detailed design concepts for the highest‑priority intersections and a scored list of bus stops for upgrades. Dennis Randolph, public services division manager, cited early results from local pilots and crash trends: “In 2025… we had 2,286 crashes. We had 467 crashes less than we would have expected… We’ve already kept people out of the emergency room.”
Commissioners debated two procedural issues: which bus stops should be prioritized and how often the plan should be revisited. Commissioner Slaby pushed for adding the bus stop at Alamo and Alamo Hills Drive after public commenters and other commissioners described high pedestrian use and safety concerns there. Staff told the commission the stop was captured in the consultant dataset and could be added to the prioritized list for Metro coordination.
A motion to adopt the plan with two directed changes carried on a 6–1 roll call (Vice Mayor Duncan opposed). The approved amendment requires staff to: add the Alamo/Alamo Hills Drive stop to the priority list as a premium upgrade; transmit the plan to partner agencies including Metro and Consumers Energy; and provide a six‑month implementation/status review to the commission. Staff said they will use the document as a living baseline to pursue federal and state safety grants and to phase projects into the capital improvement program.
What’s next: staff will forward the adopted plan to federal grant administrators and Metro, pursue funding opportunities and return to the commission with six‑month updates on implementation progress and any adjustments to the priority list.
