Recommendation to request City Manager to provide a report to the City Council within 60 days on the status of the Pedestrian Safety Advisory Committee, an overview of the City's school crossing guard program, including how many and where crossing guards are currently deployed, and what the cost, as well as the City's overall efforts to ensure traffic safety in school zones.
Communication from Councilwoman Austin, recommendation to request to report on the status of the Pedestrian Safety Advisory Committee and an overview of the city's school crossing guard program. Thank you. Councilmember Austin. Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor. I think the agenda item is very much self-explanatory. I received many kind of constituent calls over the last few weeks. So as school has started again and many of them are concerned, many of my constituents have expressed concerned about safety around schools, roads, pedestrian safety, the safety of our children, the high traffic volume. And we we wanted to to look into the pedestrian safety advisory committee, understanding that this was something that was brought forward by the voters back in 1978, a time where we had a population of about 360,000 residents. Today we have 100,000 more residents. And it's it's apparent that that these safety issues are still a major concern in our neighborhoods and around our schools. And so I wanted to see where we were with the Pedestrian Safety Advisory Committee, and we'd love to hear from staff on that and what we can do and how we can start working as a city council to start improving those conditions in and around our schools. I'd love to get a staff report from from staff on where we are with the Pedestrian Safety Advisory Committee today. I think so. Mr. West, I wanna make some comments. Certainly, Mayor Council members are traffic engineer Dave Roseman can give us a quick report. The Pedestrian Safety Advisory Committee, as the councilman mentioned, started in 1978. We're one of only a few cities that have in California actually have an ordinance that specifically outlines when crossing guard should be deployed and not. And I believe we're the only one that has a citizens committee that makes the Approvals Peace Act is essentially a 13 member committee comprised of one member representing each council district one member from L.B. USD, one member from the PTA, one member representing NONPUBLIC schools and myself as the city traffic engineer. And in order to have a meeting, we need seven members to have a quorum. The last meeting of the committee was in November of 2008. Unfortunately, with the advent of the Form 700 reporting and ethics rules applied to committees at that time, we lost most of our membership because they felt that those requirements were too onerous. We are actively seeking additional members. We have nine potential members now, of which only six have actually completed the appointment requirements, which is a form 700 and the ethics training. The last meeting of peace in 2008, they set out a plan for us to study 14 locations for potential new crossing guards or reallocation of existing crossing guards . Those are throughout the districts, and that's about how many we were studying. We're studying about 12 to 15 locations a year piece. Also recognize at that last meeting that membership was a problem. Many of them felt that they would not continue and they suggested a few things to us at that time. One was to move the meetings to an evening because we were having the meetings during the day, which I think is a good idea. They also suggested having meetings in a central part of the city, perhaps around the airport area, rather than at city hall, to make it easier for them to get there. And the third item was they suggested that perhaps the city should consider some compensation for membership because of the Form 700 and the other requirements that they would have to be exposed, their financial information exposed to the public. And that's essentially where we stand now. We're actively trying to get the additional members, the three that would names that we have completed through the process so that we can start up the committee at that time. You also asked about how many cross. And guards. We have currently we have 82 personnel positions. That's through the police department. And I think it's 68 locations that are covered by crossing guards at this time. And that concludes my report. Thank you. At this time, Mr. Austin, going to take to the public, unless you have any comments. Any members of the public that want to comment on the item, please come forward. Good evening. I'm Janet. What? I'm a parent with some Long Beach Unified School children and other schools. Here to talk about the issue, I'm very glad this has come before the council. My children walk and or bike to school and beyond just walking. I think we need to look at the bike lanes yet again so that they can transition there safely without my supervision. So I'm going to say that as a preface as I know they want to speak. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Uh, I want to pull the mic down. Just. There you go. And just introduce yourself. Hello. I'm Pierce White. And it is an honor to meet all of you. And I go to Little Cerritos Elementary, and there is such a problem with the bike lanes, and there are no bike lanes. And so it's dangerous for me to ride in the street because a car could hit me and I could get seriously hurt . And so I go on the sidewalk, which is also dangerous for the other people around me, because I could run into them and hurt them, too. So I really appreciate it if you put some more bike lanes in to the schools and the city so I could ride around more safely because I enjoy my time spending and bike riding and stuff. So. That's all. That was an excellent presentation, actually. So. Yes. Excellent. Next speaker, please. Miss Kerr. That's a tough. That is a very tough act to follow. I won't even try. Good evening, Honorable Mayor. Council representatives, city staff. My name is Megan Kerr. I'm a member of the Long Beach Unified School District Board of Education representing District One. Happy to be here. We finished our meeting and I managed to get to back to school mate tonight. So I'm kind of glad that it was delayed. Personally. So thank you. I'm here to speak in support of this agenda item, which is an overview and update of pedestrian safety. The school district works closely with the city and agencies such as the police department and Long Beach Transit to ensure the safety of our students not only while they are at school, but on their ways to and from school traveling with their families. Our schools take a number of precautions and proactive steps related to pedestrian and vehicular traffic. And we welcome the periodic review with the with our efforts with the city, its residents. And we're always open to new ideas that might improve safety for our students. Thank you, Councilmember Austin, for bringing this item forward. I encourage you to keep the school district appraised of your review process as our input can be very important to you in this effort. And please let us know if we can be of any further assistance to you. Thank you so much for your time tonight. Thank you. Any other speaker? I think we had another speaker up. Yeah. Come forward, please. Hello. My name is Elise. What? I'm 12 years old and I'm a seventh grader at Intellectual Virtues Academy. Today I will be speaking for the bike lanes. When I rode my bike to school in the mornings with my friend Alex, we felt as if we could not be safe while riding in the streets, considering that they were so busy. So we rode on the sidewalk when there was a driveway. As adults always say, we looked both ways. Halfway across a car comes turning into it. And before and when he finally notices me, he's a foot away from hitting me and my bike. Consequently, I feel I'm feeling less safe while riding my bike in the city. In summer, my mom, brother and I rode to Jamba Juice on our way back. I rode through the entering and exiting of a parking lot a few minutes late. A few moments later, a car exited. Once again, I was almost hit by a car because I was on the sidewalk since bike lanes were not available. Lastly, in front of this building, it says that Long Beach is the most bike friendly city in America. This, though, is hard for me to believe, considering that twice I've nearly been hit with cars and two years ago I spoke for the bike lanes, yet they're still debating whether or not to put them in. Thank you for. Another excellent presentation. Give her a round of applause. Two. Very good. Very. Any other comments? Please come forward. Mr. Mayor, council members, my name is Michael Jensen. I am a long term resident. Of the eighth District. And I also would. Like to voice my support for Councilman Austin's proposal. I think that anything that we can do to improve the traffic and safety infrastructure of our community is. An extremely valuable investment. I think anything that we. Can do to expand the bike lanes will improve safety for bicyclists, as well as students who ride to our local schools. And I think anything that we can do along these lines will make our community a. More attractive place to live and will help the values of our property and make Long Beach an even greater place to live. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Any other comments on the site and from the public, please? My name is Alec. Watt and this bike lane put in and encourages the biking and this there's the environmental aspect of it which is it decreases people driving around, which decreases carbon emissions. There's also the. Danger to both bikers and drivers. When the bikers are on the side of the road or on the sidewalk, there's more of a possibility to get hit by cars or to hit other people and also cars if they see a biker. They'll often move more to the middle of the road or someone comes around the corner. A car could swerve to avoid hitting anyone and hit another car instead. Putting the bike lanes then would also decrease the traffic of cars because more people would be on their bikes and having all the people out on bikes in the neighborhood builds community. Thank you very much. Very good. Thank you. And seeing no other public comment on the I don't want to take it behind to the council, starting with Councilwoman Gonzales. I just want to thank Councilmember Austin for bringing this forward, because I know this is something that we've talked about many, many times in the first District, particularly because we have two schools, elementary schools. And I know I've talked to Dave Roseman about it many times. Chavez and Edison right next to the 710 Freeway. So it also may be good to look at. I mean, I know there's current accidents that we have that have occurred, unfortunately. And looking at those, I'm sure, which you will. But are those factored into or how are we working with that exactly? Actually, when the committee was in existence or meeting regularly, they really drove how we conducted these studies because in the past we would just look at the pure numbers, but it's not all about numbers when it comes to safety around schools. There's a lot of other elements. So the Peace Committee also requested us to do traffic signal studies. We've installed a number of traffic signals because of Peace Act requests. We've done other all way stops. So the crossing guard is a element of safety around the school. And so it would be really good to be able to get this committee back together, to be able to help guide that discussion within public works as well. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. And back to Councilmember Austin. Yes. I want to thank the speakers who came out to speak this evening on this very important issue. They speak for several people in our community. And I want to just say well done, especially to the youth, takes a lot of courage to get up here and speak as eloquently as you did right before the city council here this evening. And I think you were solution based with your comments talking about the importance of of laying out infrastructure to make school zones a lot safer. I think bike lanes can do that. If we could do that throughout our entire community, I think we'd be better off personally. But I want to get back to the core problem, and that's the fact that we have a committee that hasn't met since 2008. This agenda item asks for the city manager to review our crossing guard program, including how many and where the crossing guards are, where they're currently deployed, and at what cost and when. Well, as as well as the city's overall effort to ensure traffic safety in school zones. We have asked for a report back in 60 days, and I'd like to move the item. With that said. Kay, there's been a motion in a second by Councilwoman Gonzalez. Thank you for all for speaking for the motion, seeing no other council comments, please cast your votes, members. Thanks for. Watching. Case eight zero. Excellent. We're going to go ahead and move on to the consent calendar, but we're going to pull item number six at the request of one of the council members. So can I get a motion? There's been a motion and a second to approve the consent calendar.