Recommendation to receive and file a Pedestrian Safety presentation from Department of Public Works, Long Beach Fire and Police Department; and Request City Attorney to prepare a resolution to recognize October as National Pedestrian Safety Month.
So just appreciate all of you for for being involved in that. And obviously, one of the larger institutions that we have in the city, either on the public or private side, and certainly you can get engaged in all the volunteer work they're all doing. So thank you very much. And with that, let me go and turn it over to item number 15. Communication from Councilwoman Ciro. Councilwoman, then they have Councilwoman Price recommendation to receive. And finally, pedestrian safety presentation and request city attorney to prepare a resolution to recognize October as National Pedestrian Safety Month. I'm sorry. Thank you. So it's been a very alarming and just in the past year, the the rising rates in pedestrian vehicle accidents. And I wanted to make sure that given that in the recent pandemic, many people have been encouraged to go outdoor and walk. And also, in light of our budget discussion, we've been talking a lot about infrastructure and making sure we have better roads. But I think that we want to I want to make sure we bring back the focus back to pedestrian and that it's really important we recommit back to our 2016 Vision Zero goal to eliminate traffic, death and serious injury by 2026. And in July 2020, the Safe Street Long Beach Action Plan was adopted and outlined to eliminate traffic and related death and serious injuries city wide. So I want to thank you. Public Works and Long Beach fire and police for being here to do the presentation today. So with that said, I'll hand it over to Mr. Hickman. Thank you, Councilwoman Ciro and Mr. Mayor, fellow council members. I'm Carl Hickman, city traffic engineer and acting city engineer. With me this evening, I have Deputy Fire Chief Hardin and Deputy Chief of Police Lewis. To talk about this important topic regarding pedestrian safety. A few facts that we do know. On the chart on the left, you can see where if there were to be a collision between a pedestrian and a car, if the car is traveling at 20 miles an hour, there's a 13% likelihood that there will be a serious or fatal outcome. And if a car is traveling at 30 miles an hour, there is a 40% chance that there will be a fatality or a serious injury. And it kind of makes sense as if you could go up there. You can see at 40 miles an hour, there was a 73% chance or likelihood that there will be a serious or fatal outcome as a result of that event. On the chart on the right. We do know that from 2013 to 2017, if you look at all the collisions in the city of Long Beach, 6% of those collisions involve pedestrians. And on the chart there on the far right of all the fatal and serious collisions that have occurred between 2013 and 2017, 34% of those injuries that are fatal or serious involve pedestrians as well. This is a chart of the entire city. It's kind of tough to see there. But for all the vehicle versus pedestrian collisions, it kind of shows you the dense area in the downtown section of the city where we have the majority of our car versus pedestrian collisions. It kind of, again, makes sense where you have a more dense area cars, pedestrians and a smaller, dense area, you have more pedestrian related collisions. And that data there is from 2019 to 2021. One of the important aspects about pedestrian collisions is that drivers need to be aware that they must always yield to pedestrians, whether there's a crosswalk there at the intersection or not. It is legal in the state of California to cross at an intersection, even if there's not a crosswalk. And drivers take a large bit of the responsibility to make sure that they're looking out for pedestrians, bicycles, scooters and whatnot as they approach the intersections. The drivers also need to slow down and be prepared to stop when turning or otherwise entering a crosswalk. Drivers need to stop behind crosswalks and yield to pedestrians at all times. Drivers should never pass. Vehicles stopped at a crosswalk. There may be people crossing that. Drivers may not be able to see. And one final note is that drivers really need to be able to follow directions from crossing guards or emergency responders. There's many times where cars enter an area that is being controlled by someone and they need to be paying attention to what's going on in the intersection. Following along with our drivers responsibilities. Drivers should never drive under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Drivers should always follow the speed limit, but especially when there are people on the street. Drivers should be paying attention and driving a little bit slower. As a commitment to our Safe Streets action plan in July of 2020. I've recently looked at, investigated and changed speed limits on 50 plus of our roadways in the city of Long Beach. So over 50 roadways. We are looking at the speed limits and reducing them by five miles an hour in an effort to make our streets safer. Also, drivers need to make sure that when turning on a red, they need to come to a complete stop. Look for all traffic, pedestrians and bicyclists. Folks on scooters, whatever the case may be. And then again, you know, when there's bad conditions out there on the road, hard to see conditions such as nighttime or bad weather . Drivers need to take extra precautions. So again, these roles, ideal safety tips are the responsibility of drivers and pedestrians. So now here are some rules and safety tips for pedestrians. One of the main problems that we're experiencing is that many drivers are distracted. So are the pedestrians. So pedestrians need to keep your keep their eyes up, put away the phones, pay attention. Look at what's happening on the streets. You know, pedestrians need to be looking out for scooters and bicyclists as well. There are times when collisions happen between between pedestrians and scooters or pedestrians and bicyclists. So those are unsafe as well. Pedestrians need to look left, right and left again before crossing the street. And if there are locations where pedestrians walking, where you don't have sidewalks, make sure that a pedestrian is walking on the far left of the roadway. That way. The the the pedestrian is out of the traveled way and less likely to be involved in a collision with the with the driver. That syringe should not run or dart out into the street or jump out between parked cars. Very unsafe. And pedestrians should always make eye contact with drivers as are crossing the street. Make sure that the driver of the car sees you before you cross the street and again look out for bikes or scooters. Now we're going to move into a section of the presentation where we talk about traffic signals and what happens at a traffic signal when a person approaches the intersection and pushes that button to cross the street. A steady walk signals the is that green man you see there on the top. That means you have 7 to 10 seconds to get into the crosswalk to start your crossing. Typically, I increase that time to 10 seconds around school zones or areas where there are senior homes. Next phase of the pedestrian walk time, you'll see the hand come up and usually a time, a number that will give you the number of seconds that is left for you to cross the street. That's the flashing don't walk period, where a pedestrian shouldn't enter the intersection from the curb. But if he's already in the intersection, he can proceed. And finally, you have the red hand at the very bottom there that's telling the pedestrian who might be approaching the intersection not to enter the intersection. You're not going to have enough time to cross. And that's a big problem in the city. When I walk around, I see people who are walking against that red hand. That's a big problem in the city of Long Beach. The pedestrian walk. Times are determined by the road, with divided by 3.5 seconds feet per 3.5 feet per second, minus the yellow time, minus all red time. So basically the average walking person is moving at 3.5 feet per second. And there are cases when I get phone calls to my office where folks want more time. So I make adjustments to make sure that they have enough time to get across the street when that's when it's proper. Next, we have additional resources. Again, you can always look at our Safe Streets initiative that was passed by this council in July of 2020. And I wanted to point out that many of our engineering projects, as we move forward, they do contain complete streets and safe streets elements to make the streets safer for all users, that is drivers, pedestrians, bicyclists, etc.. So we are making moves and taking giant steps to make our streets safer in the city of Long Beach. Now I welcome comments. From one of the deputies. Thank you, honorable mayor and council members. I'd like to present some of the data in regards to fire that we collected prior to this Council meeting in 2019. There are four we respond to 492 vehicle versus pedestrian pedestrian incidents and 347 vehicle versus biker motorcycle. 2020, those numbers did drop. Obviously, with COVID, there's a lot less traffic on the streets. And then 2021, we're on track and we had 528 vehicle pedestrians and actual vehicle versus biker motorcycles actually lower. And it was a 7% roughly increase in those pedestrian incidents. When you look at that heatmap, majority of our incidents were in that downtown area from ocean up to Willow or from Magnolia to Redondo, up Atlantic of all the intersections that had major thoroughfares. And then on the obvious, intersections such as lasco is diagonal. Santa Fe and PCH in Bellflower and Seventh Street have clusters at all those areas. Just an insight to how we operate. Any any incident that involves a vehicle versus pedestrian. We'll get at Charlie response which is a the closest engine or truck with a paramedic unit which has advanced life support the engine or truck and usually arrives on scene first and protects the incident and the personnel working on the incident. And then when the medics arrive on scene, if they determine that that vehicle is traveling over 20 miles an hour, that person is transported immediately to the closest trauma center, which for us is St Mary's Memorial. And that 20 miles an hour from reference, five or six is concurrent with what Mr. Hickman was talking about, is data of anything over 20 miles an hour. That 13% chance of increased injury or fatalities. That also includes the same procedure for an enclosed transport crash and significance over or greater than 20 miles an hour. And that relates to bicycles, motorcycles or scooters. And then if we have patients that do not want to be transported, we make a base station protocol contact and they can sign out against medical advice. Even then, we still encourage them to be transported to the local, local trauma center. But if they sign out, they can go with a VLF EMT ambulance or they can go by a family member. And that's all four of our. Vice Mayor and council. The police department is obviously an integral and important part of the city's city's overall public safety effort to reduce vehicular and as we heard already, pedestrian related traffic collision. This includes a big part of public education, traffic, engineering awareness and ultimately through enforcement. We understand this is a team effort in conjunction with staff and support from from other city departments, not even just sitting next to me tonight. It is important for residents and visitors to know the police department has an eye on traffic safety is in addition to in addition to standard patrol officers, the police department deploys specialized traffic safety personnel like motorcycle officers, DUI team and commercial enforcement officers to name a few types of personnel we have that are focused on traffic safety. All of this is in addition to staff who work with and support traffic safety efforts through the various city departments. Furthermore, in support of overall city effort, the police department deploys personnel in response to specific traffic complaint complaints and can include traffic safety issues in neighborhoods, business areas, entertainment areas and on large high volume roadways. In addition to the police department activities, the police department believes believe residents are a valuable piece of the overall traffic safety effort . The police department encourages all residents to drive safely report traffic concerns while providing suggestions or input on how traffic measures can be better implemented together through these efforts. We will make a positive difference on the safety of all the residents and visitors throughout the city. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Next, we have Councilwoman Van de Haas. Think. Thank you, Councilwoman Ciro, for bringing this very, very important item forward. Thank you to Carol, not only for this great presentation, but also for continuously working with my office on finding solutions for pedestrian safety. I know that's an ongoing thing, and I thank you for always being willing and open to working with my office when we have questions from our residents. A 2017 CD report indicated that in 2017, 5977 pedestrians were killed in traffic crashes in the U.S., which amounts to about one death every 88 minutes. Additionally, about 137,000 pedestrians were treated in emergency departments for crash related injuries that same year. Therefore, we are concerned not only for the loss of life that may occur during these incidents, but also for the the lack of pedestrian safety and also the health implications that come after being injured in an accident as such. Also, pedestrians, child pedestrians who are children, seniors and or wheelchair users are at the highest risk of being a being. We have an accident resulting in fatal. And a collision when a collision happens. It also is a matter of equity when we talk about increasing pedestrian safety. This is of high concern for my residents, especially around our schools. This is why I am extremely supportive of this item. And thank you again, council member Sorrell, for bringing this item forward. Yes, I think it raises the importance of having this discussion and it aligns with our city's interest in protecting and strengthening our public safety. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman Ciro. Yes? I wanted to. Thank. Mr. Hickman and Deputy Chief Hardin and Deputy Chief Lewis for your presentation. I think it's just so crucial. And thank you all the staff for their hard work in ensuring that everyone is safe on the street. And I just want to share that. While what Mr. Hickman presented isn't anything new, it's very common sense stuff. But I think that it's just like. Everyone needs to be reminded again and again, especially now as more people are on the streets walking and more people are driving as we're resuming back to working in-person again, and that we don't forget that this is a high priority issue and that we as a city have created many plans. In addition to the Safe Street Initiative of 2020, there's been the community of excellent nutrition, physical activity, but obesity prevention, the pedestrian plan, there's been that. And then more recently, the Cambodia Town Dry Vision plan. And a lot of these are within the highly dense area that was mentioned earlier where a lot of the accidents occur. And so we want to make sure we bring it back to the forefront that this is alarming. And the rates that people are being hit are almost hit. More and more people are not paying attention while they're driving and sometimes even walking. So that's why I wanted to make sure we recognized October as National Pedestrian Safety Month, is that we really need to recommit back to this vision plan. So thank you so much to my colleagues for your support and to staff for all their hard work. Thank you. Councilman Pryce. Thank you very much. And I want to thank Councilwoman Sara for bringing this item forward. We had the opportunity and the privilege to hear this presentation at the Public Safety Committee meeting, and I think it's a really fantastic presentation. It just reminds us all how important pedestrian safety is. And as I mentioned in the public safety meeting, and I'll do it again. You know, a lot of residents don't like the decisions that we make or don't make regarding traffic safety. But I always tell them I try. Perhaps it's just my background and profession. I try to tell people that even if you don't like the outcome or the decision, it's being made by an expert. And, you know, Mr. Heckman is I tell everyone all the time, he is an actual engineer that's required for traffic engineering. And sometimes I make him tell people that, too, because I think it it sets the foundation for why they should trust his opinion, why they should trust the decisions that he's making. It's important to me that when we ask people to take the direction of city staff in terms of a traffic measure or traffic mitigation measure or really anything, we ask the public to trust us in that. We tell them the expertize of the people. And and Mr. Heckman is a fantastic engineer. He spent a lifetime committed to the principles of traffic design and engineering, which include knowledge of physics and all the different human factors that take into account. When we're talking about traffic, traffic safety, this is a huge area for the city to focus on. It's no secret that I think we need a better a stronger and more populated traffic enforcement team with the Long Beach Police Department. I know that enforcement does not result in long term traffic mitigation and pedestrian safety, but it does provide for some directed enforcement efforts that serve as an outreach opportunity to educate drivers about the safety concerns. And our traffic division at the Long Beach Police Department has been reduced dramatically in the last ten years. We need to have more drug recognition experts hired by the Long Beach Police Department. We need to have more directed enforcement teams that do directed enforcement right now. I mean, I want to thank our police department. We don't have a commander. We have we have a commander starting this week. But in the past, the commanders we've had, you know, we've really had to beg for traffic enforcement because the resources are so limited. And again, that's a short term solution. The long term solution for pedestrian safety is Mr. Hickman and his team. But the short term solution, the solution that we need to remind drivers that you can't drive while you're impaired, you can't drive while you're distracted, you can't speed on especially on certain roads because it will result in great bodily injury or death. That's our police department. And so I really firmly believe that we need to route more money to the police department, specifically for traffic enforcement, because someone who loses a son, a daughter, a mother or father, a relative to a traffic fatality, especially by an impaired driver, that is no less of a murder than if someone is killed in their family because of a gun or a knife. It's still a death. It's still a major loss. It's still totally avoidable. And we need our police department to be out there educating people so that we don't lose members of our community due to impaired drivers and other factors that we can have a more active hand in . So I thank you for the presentation. I think Catwoman's sorrow for bringing this item forth. I know that when it came to Public Safety Committee, we talked about making sure that our California Office of Traffic Safety Grants are maximized right now, that we're looking at creative grant opportunities at someone who runs that program. In my day job with the jurisdiction I work in, it's important for us to change up those grants every year. We shouldn't be applying for the same grants with the same language. We should be looking at ways to be creative and including things like the mobility issues, the mobility options that we see into those grant funding opportunities , loud pipes, for example, speeding speed contests. We've seen a rise in speed contests in the region. These are things that we really should be trying to route money to, to have our police department be able to enforce. And again. Traffic engineering is actual real engineering. You have to trust the opinions and the decisions. Even though everybody wants a stop sign to solve every problem, that doesn't solve every problem. For reasons that our traffic engineer often shares with people. So thank you to our city team for being here. And I mean, I just think I'm always going to be advocating for more money to go to traffic, education, traffic, engineering and traffic enforcement, because that's what makes a difference in people's lives. Thanks. Thank you. We have Councilwoman Mango. Thank you. I want to thank everyone for the presentation. I want to thank the Public Safety Committee. Pedestrian safety has been a huge concern since I was on the city council. Many of you know, my story is similar to Councilman Price's, where our issue was about a crosswalk and a left turn arrow and protection for a neighborhood that had had far too many accidents and pedestrian deaths. And our neighborhood association kind of rallied around a woman who was going to run for city council, hopefully. And then she backed out. And here I am. And it comes down to the safety of the neighborhoods you live in. And changing driver behavior is definitely one of the best ways to solve some of these issues. Installing the stop sign that nobody's going to stop at anyway are the same people who are the ones speeding, are the same people who sometimes are the ones complaining. And I think that it's very poignant that I had a real heart to heart with a neighbor recently who was one of the people who complained all the time about speeding. And then his wife almost took the door off of the police chief's car because she was speeding in her own neighborhood. So we often forget and we get rushed and we have to remind people and the only way that we can really make meaningful change is to change traffic conditions. And I think that it's also really important to remember that our traffic engineer is also really restrained by state law. There's a lot of state law that is in place to ensure that when a driver drives from city to city to city to city, that they can expect the same standards across all cities. They don't always know when they're crossing from one city to another. And it's it's difficult to make changes that are meaningful. And we appreciate all the work you do. We know how hard it is. And on behalf of the residents, we want to thank you, all of you, for all three of you. Thank you. Is your public comment on this item? There's no public comment on certain. Customers or any additional comments. Looking to please members go and cast your vote. Careful analysis of motion is carried.