Committee recommends NACTO review, speed‑monitoring plan for council

The City of Cambridge Traffic & Safety Committee on March 19 discussed adopting guidance from the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) and asked staff to prepare a formal recommendation for City Council consideration.

The committee asked staff to draft a policy that would codify the principle of designing roads for posted speed limits. Brian Hermann, Planning Director, said staff would set up a follow‑up meeting to review NACTO guidance before forwarding a staff report to council.

Captain Hinson reported outreach to the Department of Public Safety and said that "Jason from DPS will work on deployment of additional CPD radar signs and DPS evaluation of permanent pole installations." City Manager Glenn Steckman added the signs should remain movable so staff can redeploy them in response to citizen complaints and asked staff to investigate cloud‑based reporting from the signs to provide timely speed data to engineers.

Commissioner Lewis‑Cisco flagged federal funding opportunities, noting bipartisan bill HR7437 as a potential source for walkability projects and urging the committee to consider those programs when crafting policy recommendations.

Committee directions from the meeting included: staff to draft a NACTO‑based policy recommendation that includes the 'design roads for posted speed limits' language; staff to evaluate and report on speed‑sign deployment and cloud reporting; and a request to identify priority locations using GIS crash data. The committee is expected to review the staff report in a subsequent meeting before any formal Council referral.