title
Adopt a Resolution Supporting a Grant Application to the Governor's Highway Safety Program.
body
Staff:
Department:
Britany Waddell, Director
Planning
Bergen Watterson, Transportation Planning Manager
Ian Baltutis, Complete Streets Specialist
Overview: On January 31, 2023, staff submitted a preliminary application for the North Carolina Governor's Highway Safety Program (GHSP) grant program for Fiscal Year 2024. Council must adopt a resolution to finalize the application and accept $102,600 of federal grant funding. If received, the grant funds would pay a part-time Complete Streets Specialist, part-time Pedestrian Safety Outreach Intern, contribute to Chapel Hill Police Department crosswalk enforcement efforts, and support additional pedestrian safety and education campaigns. This grant application is a continuation of the existing GHSP grant the Town originally received in FY21.
Over the past three years, the part-time Complete Streets Specialist has become an important position in the Planning Department, managing the Vision Zero Task Force and Executive Committee, analyzing existing crash data, improving systems to collect the data, creating a data-driven system for ranking crash risk, and developing quick-build projects to treat high-risk roads and intersections. Additionally, the Complete Streets Specialist conducts outreach campaigns with community stakeholders and will host events and workshops to engage and educate the public.
Promoting bicycle and pedestrian safety and increasing law enforcement efforts that will increase the safety of vulnerable road users, especially at marked crosswalks at intersections with histories of crashes, is an important step in moving the Town of Chapel Hill toward the goal of increasing pedestrian, bicycle, and transit commute mode share to 35% by 2025 and eliminating deaths and serious injuries on our roads by 2031.
Recommendation(s):
That the Council adopt the resolution approving the grant application t...
Click here for full text