Burlingame hears Vision Zero briefing: consultants present high‑injury network, outreach and candidate countermeasures

Consultant Dana Wiseman told the Burlingame Transportation Safety & Parking Commission that the city2s Vision Zero (Vision 0) action‑plan work — funded through the federal Safe Streets and Roads for All program — is midway through development and that a combination of police and TIMSS collision data produced a draft High Injury Network and candidate safety strategies.

"Burlingame received a federal grant through the Safe Streets and Roads for All program to develop a Vision 0 action plan," Wiseman said, outlining the project timeline and outreach to date. She reported the team compiled roughly five years of injury collision data (2020–2024), which produced an inventory of approximately 560 injury collisions on Burlingame surface streets.

She presented headline findings: an average of about 112 people injured per year in Burlingame during the study period, with most injury collisions from vehicle occupants but a disproportionate share of serious and fatal collisions involving pedestrians and bicyclists. The draft High Injury Network (HIN) covers about 20% of city‑owned roadways but accounted for an estimated 85% of serious and fatal collisions in the study period, making those corridors candidates for prioritized safety investment.

"These corridors ... saw 85 percent of serious injury and fatal collisions and 71 percent of all injury collisions on city owned roadways during the 5 year study period, yet they cover 20 percent of the city owned roadways in Burlingame," Wiseman explained while showing the HIN map.

Wiseman described five draft safety emphasis areas — arterials, signalized intersections, commercial/office zones, areas within a quarter‑mile of schools and parks, and areas with concentrated low‑income and zero‑vehicle households — and a toolbox of programmatic and infrastructure countermeasures ranging from leading pedestrian intervals and protected left turns to corridor‑scale lane reconfigurations and neighborhood traffic calming.

Commissioners pressed on data methods and implications. One commissioner asked whether signal timing changes (pedestrian scrambles or staggered starts) might be investigated given that "signalized intersections ... see 24% of serious and fatal collisions and 38% of all injury collisions" despite representing a small share of intersections. Wiseman said the project will evaluate both intersection and corridor countermeasures and that the plan will include metrics to choose measures appropriate to context.

Commissioners also asked about the project2s public advisory bodies. Wiseman said the team established a Community Advisory Committee (CAC) and an internal task force; CAC members include city council and school representatives, downtown business leaders, former commissioners, and residents selected for prior civic engagement. Wiseman said the online map survey logged roughly 650 contributions from about 250 people and nearly 1,500 visits to the project website by about 900 unique users.

On grant timing, Wiseman reassured the commission that the current planning grant is committed and the team does not anticipate immediate disruption from changes at the federal level; however, she noted future implementation funding remains competitive.

The presentation closed with an outline of next steps: finalize the HIN and emphasis areas, select priority projects and identify funding pathways and targeted outreach to ensure proposed countermeasures fit Burlingame2s contexts and community preferences.

The commission took the presentation for discussion and directed staff and consultants to continue refining the HIN, the countermeasure toolbox and outreach before returning with a draft action plan.