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Board backs $32,000 request to fund NVCOG municipal Vision Zero safety plan
Summary
The board approved requesting $32,000 from city funds to pay NVCOG staff time to prepare a municipal Vision Zero safety action plan with community engagement and project prioritization to support future grant applications.
The Bristol Board of Public Works voted to seek a $32,000 appropriation to hire the Naugatuck Valley Council of Governments to prepare a municipal Vision Zero safety action plan.
NVCOG Director of Transportation Planning Rich Donovan told the board the regional Vision 0 plan focuses on preventing fatalities and serious injuries through a Safe Systems approach and that a municipal plan would follow federal guidance, include robust public engagement and produce prioritized projects eligible for grant funding. "Vision 0 is... focused on the crashes that result in serious injuries and fatalities," Donovan said, adding the regional plan scored crashes from 2022–2024 to build a high-injury network and that a quarter of the region's most severe corridors are in Bristol.
The board discussed the proposed municipal plan's scope, timeline and targets. The director of public works expressed concern about setting a specific target date for zero fatalities and said he would be comfortable with the regional target of 2060 as a planning baseline. NVCOG said it normally sets an annual target methodology and revises targets every five years if progress warrants.
NVCOG staff described data and tools they would use, including pole-mounted radar counters for speed outliers and a connected-vehicle data platform (Streetlight) to derive origin-destination pairs, volumes, speeds and turning movements to inform project prioritization. "We can get origin-destination pairings from it... we get average speeds... so a lot of the work we used to do manually is now available," NVCOG's analyst said.
The motion asked the board to request the Board of Finance appropriate $32,000 by rescinding a line-item and to authorize the mayor or the director of public works to contract with NVCOG contingent on Board of Finance approval. The board approved the request on a voice vote.
Next steps: The director will forward the funding request to the Board of Finance; if approved, NVCOG will begin public engagement and develop a municipal safety action plan for Bristol.
