To: Board of County Commissioners
Through: Bryan Weimer, Director, Public Works and Development
Prepared By:
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Steven Buckley, Engineer III, Transportation, Public Works and Development
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presenter
Presenter: Steven Buckley, Engineer III; Jim Katzer, Transportation Division Manager
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Subject:
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1:15 PM *Arapahoe County Comprehensive Safety Action Plan
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Purpose and Request:
recommended action
The purpose of this Drop-In is to inform the Board about the goals and scope of work of the Comprehensive Safety Action Plan project that the Transportation Division is currently conducting, of upcoming public engagement activities related to the project, and of future involvement by the Board that will occur within the next six months related to this Planning project.
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Alignment with Strategic Plan:
Safe and Healthy Communities - Advance public safety by strengthening partnerships across law enforcement, emergency response, and community stakeholders.
Background and Discussion:
The Transportation Division is currently working on a Comprehensive Safety Action Plan for the unincorporated areas of the County. This Plan continues a long-established practice of the Division to seek continuous improvements to roadway safety for all users by periodically preparing a plan that prioritizes future Capital and Operational safety projects on the County’s roadways. The previous iteration of the Local Road Safety Plan was completed in 2020 and most of the recommended projects from that Safety Plan have since been implemented. Additionally, traffic patterns and crash trends have changed substantially in some ways since 2020, necessitating a new analysis and updated Safety Plan.
This Comprehensive Safety Action Plan project will be based on the Safe Systems Approach to reduce deaths and serious injuries on the County’s roads, and will:
1) Examine the last seven years of crash data on all public roadways in the unincorporated areas of the County (except for limited access highways such as E-470, I-70, etc.), with a particular focus on identifying root causes of crashes that caused fatalities or severe injuries.
2) Determine high-crash-rate locations and high-injury or fatality locations.
3) Engage and solicit feedback from both the public and from other agency stakeholders such as CDOT and Colorado State Patrol on emerging and current transportation safety issues and problem locations.
4) Recommend future actions to reduce fatal and severe-injury crashes in the form of policy and procedure changes, and traffic operations and capital improvement projects.
5) Prioritize those recommendations for implementation.
6) Prepare a final Plan summarizing the recommendations and prioritization and seek formal Board adoption of that Plan by May 2026, and
7) Identify high-priority projects for a potential 2026 Safe Streets for All Grant Application, pending future Board approval.
In the future, staff will come to the Board for a longer discussion summarizing the feedback received from upcoming public and stakeholder engagement, the results of the data analysis, and initial recommendations for roadway safety improvement projects. The Board will have an opportunity to provide feedback on the recommendations and priorities at that time before adopting the plan at a future meeting.
Alternatives: The Board could choose to forego this informational presentation.
Fiscal Impact: The County is under contract with AtkinsRéalis in an amount not to exceed $299,980 to conduct the Safety Analysis and public and stakeholder engagement, to recommend and prioritize future transportation safety projects, and, pending Board approval at a future date, prepare a federal Safe Streets for All Grant Application for one or more of the high-priority projects in the plan.
Alignment with Strategic Implementation Strategies: N/A
Staff Recommendation: Informational only.
Concurrence: N/A.