COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA COMMITTEE ON LEGISLATIVE OVERSIGHT Room 400, City Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19106 Tuesday, February 18, 2025 1:10 p.m. PRESENT: COUNCILMAN ISAIAH THOMAS, CHAIR COUNCILWOMAN RUE LANDAU, VICE-CHAIR COUNCILWOMAN QUETCY M. LOZADA COUNCILMAN ANTHONY PHILLIPS COUNCILMAN MARK SQUILLA COUNCILMAN JEFFREY YOUNG, JR. RESOLUTION: 240700 - - -
Good afternoon, everybody. Today is Tuesday, February 18, 2025. This is the Committee on Legislative Oversight. I want to welcome everybody to Philadelphia City Council and the Committee on Legislative Oversight. I note that the hour has come. Before we get started, I just want to take a moment of privilege to say thank you to the Clerk for today, Mr. Ben Wilcox. If you don't know, Ben is somebody who is a strong advocate for issues related to Vision Zero, and he helped lead this effort in my office. And so, I want to publicly thank him and let him know I also appreciate him clerking today's hearing. So with that being said, Mr. Wilcox, will you please call the roll to take attendance.
Present. A quorum is not present at today's hearing, but for the record we do not need a quorum present to start today's hearing because we will not be taking a vote on any legislation today. So with that being said, as the Chair of the Committee I now note that the hearing has started. This is the public hearing of the Committee of Legislative Oversight on Resolution No. 240700. Mr. Wilcox, will you please read the title of the hearing resolution to be heard today.
Resolution 14 No. 240700, authorizing the Committee on Legislative Oversight to hold hearings investigating the City's progress towards achieving its Vision Zero goals, and examining opportunities to increase safety measures for pedestrians and cyclists.
Thank you. I'm not going to make any comments before the start of the hearing. Colleagues wouldn't like to make any comments as well either. So with that being said, we look forward to a robust and important dialogue. This is a series of conversations that we've had since I've been on City Council. As it relates to Vision Zero, we've seen some level of improvement but we still have more work to do. And so, today's conversation is about figuring out exactly what that work is and how we make Philadelphia a safer place for all. Mr. Wilcox, will you please call the first panel to come testify before us today.
Yes, Mr. Chair. First, we'll hear from Chris Puchalsky, Director of Policy and Strategic Initiatives in the Office of Transportation and Infrastructure Systems. After that, we'll hear from Rich Lazer, Executive Director of the Philadelphia Parking Authority. (Witnesses approached Witness table.)
Good afternoon to you both. I'll ask that you please -- of course you guys are professional. State your name for the record and proceed with your testimony. We will not ask any questions until the entire panel is finished. And that'll be our instruction for today. We'll allow each panel to testify. And after the panel was complete, we'll open it up for questions for members of the Committee.
Great. Good afternoon, Chair Thomas, Vice- Chair Landau, Councilmember Lozada and other members of the Legislative Oversight Committee. Thank you for inviting me to testify regarding Resolution 4 240700. My name is Christopher Puchalsky. I'm the Director of Policy and Strategic Initiatives at OTIS. That's the Office of Transportation and Infrastructure Systems. I'm here today to offer testimony on the City's progress on the Vision Zero initiative, which aims to eliminate traffic deaths in the city of Philadelphia. In March of '24, Mayor Parker issued an executive order recommending recommitting Philadelphia to achieve zero deaths on our roads. The order introduced key initiatives that the City will pursue over the next five years, including programming safety improvements on every mile of the High Injury Network by 2030, ensuring that every capital project is designated, designed to improve safety for all road users, ensuring that every child is taught about traffic safety in the classroom and issuing a new five-year action plan by October 31, 2025. The executive order directs the Vision Zero Task Force and the Office of Multimodal Planning to carry out these initiatives in the first year of the Parker Administration. Vision Zero secured key wins on a number of fronts, including partnering with City Council to expand automated enforcement to Broad Street and Route 13, with additional corridors and school zones yet to be determined coming soon. Advancing proven safety countermeasures through roadway projects like Penrose Roundabout, a proven safety countermeasure. We expect to see an 80 percent reduction in injured crashes at the previously dangerous intersection of 20th Penrose, Moyamensing and Packer. Partnering with City Council to pass the no stopping in the bike lane bill, continuing to work towards Vision Zero through our Complete Streets project, which redesigned high crash roadways with safety and access as top priorities. On roads where we finished Complete Streets projects, we've seen an average of a 16 percent decrease in injury crashes 17 compared to trends in the High 18 Injury Network. 19 We also look to new 20 technologies to achieve Vision Zero. The Philadelphia Police Department Crash Investigation Division has started to utilize data from cell phone towers and automatic license plate readers to solve hit-and-run cases. We welcome these new methods and are optimistic they'll help us curb crashes in Philadelphia. And I want to thank all members of Council for your critical support of these and many other bills over the last year. And just note in my testimony, I said Vision Zero. Vision Zero is an all-of-government approach. That includes both OTIS but also the Streets Department and many other departments and partners like the Parking Authority here with me today. Despite our progress, traffic deaths in Philadelphia remain high. Since 2020, the City has experienced over 120 traffic deaths each year, a rate that's significantly higher than the City's pre-COVID average. To deviate just slightly from my written remarks, those aren't just numbers. Those are people. And I see here in front of us, there's posters of people, you know, names like Jayana and Pablo and Jorge. Every number that we're talking about here is an actual person, an actual family that's been impacted. Though traffic deaths have increased nationwide since the onset of the COVID pandemic, we 13 still see more annual deaths in our 14 peer cities with a rate of 8 15 traffic deaths per 100,000 16 citizens. That rate is higher than 17 Chicago, Washington, Los Angeles, 18 and nearly triple the rate of New 19 York. The burden of traffic death does not weigh evenly on everyone in our city. From 2019 to 2023, hospitalization rates for Black Philadelphians who experience a crash was 59 percent higher than their White neighbors. For Black motorists, the hospitalization rate was 104 percent higher according to research from the Department of Public Health.
OTIS is hard at work developing the next five-year plan to address these challenges. The state system approach is a federally-recommended framework for (inaudible) to address severe crashes by aligning seemingly disparate areas of government around the shared goal of eliminating traffic deaths. Using this approach, OTIS is working with departments across City government and key outside agencies like PennDOT, the Philadelphia Parking Authority and the School District to craft action items that focus our resources on Vision Zero goals identified by the Mayor in her executive order. Community feedback will inform the next action plan. OTIS has a robust plan for the action plan, including an online phone bank and inperson surveys tabling at community events and targeted outreach efforts through stipend- paid Vision Zero ambassadors. OTIS is also holding focus group-style roundtables with community groups around the city. com and fill out the interest form. We are also expanding our Complete Streets projects to ensure that our city's infrastructure supports safe behaviors. The Office of Multimodal Planning has nearly 100 projects in various stages of development throughout the city. Continuing to ramp up this work is how we will meet the Mayor's directive to program safety on every mile of the High Injury Network by 2030. Vision Zero must be a citywide effort. To be successful, we need the support of leaders representing every corner of the city to bring Philadelphia together around the goal of making travel safe for everyone. So please, please tell your constituents about the opportunity to be part of this work. Thank you again for the opportunity to appear before you today. I'd be happy to answer any questions you have.
Good afternoon. Let me say for the record before you start that Councilmember Rue Landau and Councilmember Anthony Phillips are present.
Thank you. Good afternoon, Chair Thomas and other members of the Committee. My name is Rich Lazer, Executive Director of the Philadelphia Parking Authority. I want to thank you all for allowing me this opportunity to talk today about the PPA's new more proactive Vision Zero-based approach to partnering with the Parker administration, City Council and advocates on a number of public safety initiatives and neighborhood quality-of-life issues. I've been the Executive Director for a little over two years now. And during that time, I've seen firsthand how hard our employees work and how dedicated they are to serving the people of our great city. I'm very proud of our workers and honored to join them in trying to do the best job we can for the people of Philadelphia. Over the past two years, the PPA has enhanced and expanded some of our existing public safety programs. Working closely with City Council and the Mayor's Office and OTIS, we are embracing new technologies to help us save lives and improve the quality of life in Philadelphia. In the coming months we will be implementing several new lifesaving and quality-of-life initiatives. We're set to begin our Bustling Camera Enforcement program in late spring or early summer, along with utilizing new smart loading zone enforcement technology to help alleviate congestion in our downtown commercial districts. We will also be expanding our lifesaving Automated Speed Camera Enforcement program to Broad Street with cameras stretching from the Navy Yard to the Boulevard. Our speed cameras along Roosevelt Boulevard have reduced speeding by a dramatic 93 percent and reduced crashes by 36 percent. We're hoping for similar results on Broad Street. Between 2018 and 2022 we tragically lost 165 lives due to speeding. Our Red Light Camera program has been reducing accidents and saving lives throughout the city since 2005. We've reduced red light- running by 43 percent and reduced repeat red light offenders by 80 percent. We've also expanded our bike lane enforcement with the creation of our new Bike Lane Enforcement Unit, where we have officers riding bikes throughout the city. With that group, we've issued over 10,000 violations since the unit hit the streets back in March of 2023. We're continuing to implement our ADA Mobility Access Initiative to help eliminate onstreet barriers that impede the ability of our disabled community to navigate our city. Our ADA Initiative is a dual public education and onstreet enforcement component aimed at reducing illegal parking on sidewalks and blocking curb cuts and crosswalks, all of which create dangerous situations that block access and the free movement of pedestrians and people with disabilities. Since initiating this program, we have issued over 140,000 mobility-related violations and are noticeably changing behavior, issuing fewer tickets for parking on sidewalks. Enforcing neighborhood quality-of-life issues is now one of our top priorities. Working with Mayor Parker and the Office of Clean and Green, we've towed over 870 ghost vehicles and over 4000 unregistered nuisance vehicles from city streets. We removed another 1000 trucks and tractor trailers as well. The Philadelphia Parking Authority stands ready to continue helping where and when needed. We will continue to do our part working with this Administration and City Council to improve the quality of life in Philadelphia and help save lives. Thank you for this opportunity to talk on behalf of the Authority, and I'll have any questions I can answer at this time.
Thank you both for your testimony. Thank you for being here today. Before I open up the questions for members of the Committee, when the Mayor and the executive team decided to sign the executive order as it relates to Vision Zero, the vision was moved from 2030 to 2050. Does that sound correct?
I think we moved our goal from -- so it's the regional goal that's 2050. It was moved back. There was a 2030 goal which now we have the goal to at least program improvements on every mile of the High Injury Network by 2030.
So help us understand that timeline. Like how do we get to the point -- because I thought we were on a trajectory to meet our 2030 goals so why are we now pushing it back?
Yeah. We were not on a trajectory to meet our 2030 goals. If we look at the crash trends, we were not, definitely not. Even before the pandemic, we were not on a trajectory to meet the 2030 goals. In hindsight, that was probably an overly ambitious goal to try to get zero fatalities by 2030. There's no time other than today that is the right time to stop traffic fatalities. But if we're talking about a goal and trying to set targets against it, being able to program every mile off the High Injury Network, that's something that we can definitely control.
So you're saying that the goal was pushed back because we weren't on a trajectory to reach the goal and we needed to add another 20 years to put us in a position to feel like we're on the right timeline?
Yeah. I don't think I'm saying that 2030 was probably never a realistic goal to eliminate traffic fatalities --
So is 2050 a realistic goal or are we just throwing numbers out?
Yeah, I think it's impossible to make significant improvements to the High Injury Network and to reduce traffic fatalities. I think if we -- I don't think it's an easy goal by any stretch of the imagination. I think it will be a challenging goal to get to zero by 2050 or to get meaningfully close to zero by 2050. So I think it takes all of our working together to meet that goal, both to make engineering improvements to roads, to continue to work on equitable enforcement like automated speed enforcement and to make educational improvements such as educating our kids on how to walk, bike, drive and take transit safely.
How many fatalities did we have the last couple years? So we know that in 2020 we spiked to an all-time record high --
-- as it relates to fatalities. What have we done since 2020 over the last five years?
Yeah. We've been flat for the last two to three years at about 120 fatalities.
Before the last two to three years, help the listening audience understand where we were.
Before the pandemic, we were at 80 to 90 fatalities a year. I think it went to something like 150-ish during the pandemic per year. And then it went down to 120, but it stayed at around 120 for the last several years.
So why haven't we seen a decrease over the last several years? What has happened over the last several years that's made us become flat, specifically on this issue of hit-and-runs -- or I shouldn't even say hit-and-runs, or fatalities involving a vehicle?
You know, I think a few things are happening, Councilmember, that we've seen all across the country, but particularly here in Philadelphia. I think there was great social dislocation that happened during the pandemic and that there was a decreased adherence to certain social norms, like driving in a respectful way. During the height of the pandemic when there was a lot of stay-at-home orders and there wasn't a lot of people on the street, folks got used to driving in an uncongested environment as fast as they can. And unfortunately, it's, you know, putting that genie back in the bottle where people respect social norms is difficult. When I was walking from MSB to this hearing today, I nearly saw two pedestrians getting hit crossing the Penn Square here by motorists that was just driving completely irresponsibly. So I think re-establishing those social norms is going to be a huge part of getting a handle on those traffic fatalities. I think the other part is making engineering improvements on our streets. Like I mentioned, we've got over 100 projects that are in some state of development, capital improvements on our roadway. I think the work that the Streets Department has done in installing speed cushions around schools, around rec centers and other places in the city, I think that is going to have an enormous impact in slowing people down. And I think the work that the Parking Authority and that the Philadelphia Police Department are doing, you know, it's been impactful and needs to continue if we're going to get back on a downward trajectory.
So there was a time when I sat in a similar chair, had a similar hearing. And in that hearing I vividly remember Captain Overwise talking about investment in infrastructure. Captain Overwise told us that 80 percent of the car accidents happen on percent of 11 the roads, which is what we call a 12 High Injury Network, and we're 13 pretty much hearing the same thing 14 today. 15 So over the last couple 16 years when we're talking about 17 capital investment in 18 infrastructure, why haven't we seen 19 capital investment in 20 infrastructure, specifically looking at the 20 percent of the roads that produce 80 percent of the car accidents? Out of that 20 percent of those roads that we talked about, we've been talking about for years, what infrastructure investment have we seen? Have we gone from percent to 15 percent? 6 Can we identify specific areas in 7 the city of Philadelphia where it 8 was a High Injury Network but 9 because of capital investment, 10 that's no longer the case? Can you 11 help us with that one? 12
Yeah, we 13 can get you that analysis. We can 14 get you those facilities. But as I 15 mentioned in my testimony, we've 16 got a project right now underway in 17 South Philly, the 18 Penrose/Moyamensing/20th Street 19 roundabout that the Streets 20 Department is working on, completing a project like that's going to make an enormous difference. We saw that where we were able to make capital improvements, we saw a percent decrease in serious injury crashes on those facilities. So where we are able to make capital improvements, we are definitely seeing a difference and where we are able to put in automated enforcement, we are seeing a difference at those locations.
So 12 we agree 100 percent. I think the 13 concern is that that is not 14 happening fast enough, right. So 15 when we're talking about using 16 technology, we had a whole hearing 17 around using technology to improve 18 traffic safety, traffic conditions. 19 When you talk about advocacy around 20 speed cameras and things of that, red light cameras, I mean we fought for all of that stuff. So we're fans of it. I think the concern that we have from the legislative branch is why the needle is moving so slow when we recognize that we have tools that work but we flatlined ourselves at around 120 fatalities a year. Do you think that if we seen expedited investment in some of the solutions that you've communicated today, those numbers would drop?
I mean, more improvements are going to make, you know, more of the things that work, that we know work will make more of a difference. We know that for sure. Capital improvements do have a lifetime. There's community engagement that needs to happen. And we talked to you and your colleagues all the time about what community engagement do you want to see. It does sometimes take a while to get everybody on board in the neighborhood to decide what individual improvements we want to make. So we don't want to short-change that process and that does take a while. And then the engineering and construction that needs to happen afterwards, you know, that doesn't happen overnight. So we do see, let's say, a three-to-five-year time frame for any capital project is pretty typical to allow all those important activities to happen. But, yeah, if we do more of what works, we'll see more of a difference.
So a couple more things. Then I want to open it up to my colleagues. I want to acknowledge the presence of our Council President, Council President Johnson, as well as Councilmember Nicolas O'Rourke. The irony of Council President Johnson walking in, Council President Johnson recently passed a bill that looks at bike lanes and encouraging vehicles not to be parked in bike lanes, and this is for either one. Where are we as it relates to enforcement of that legislation? And is there any intention to look at this from an infrastructure issue as it relates to where we have loading zones, if they're in the right place and things of that capacity, so the loading zones directly correlated to people wanting to park in the bike lanes because the loading zones don't exist. I'm wondering where we are as it relates to enforcement around the new legislation and how can we look at what's going on with loading zones, double parking, things of that capacity, so we can make sure that it's not happening in the bike lanes and people are following the law that City Council passed?
Yeah. Since that law was passed on, I'd like to thank Council President for his leadership on this issue, for passing that legislation. It's been enormously, you know, even though it hasn't been fully implemented yet, because of that legislation we're able to set wheels in motion that I think are going to have a significant impact. And so, I appreciate your leadership. We've been working since it was passed to talk to residents, to community members along the streets where they'd like to see loading zones. So we have been working on it. And I'll pass it to Richie to say more.
Thank you. So we're working with the City now. Where the signs are ordered, the change will happen probably by the spring. Once the loading zones are installed and then this signage will be changed. We are enforcing it now as in when our bike patrols are out there, we're moving people along and if the car is in no 11 parking and unattended for 20 minutes, we're then ticketing it. But once the signs are changed, they will be ticketed on the spot unless there's somebody in the car. And then the officer will tell that vehicle they have to move out of the lane. But we are changing all the signs on Pine and Spruce. The rest of the signs citywide for bike enforcement is already at no stopping, so they're being enforced on the spot currently.
As you begin to modify things, can you please make sure that you notify my office, other members of City Council, so that we can make sure constituents are aware of where we are as it relates to the progress of this legislation and future enforcement that they can anticipate happening? That'll definitely be very beneficial. Mr. Lazer, while I have you a little bit about the fake tags issue. Where are we at with the fake tags? What progress are we making? Then how can we be even more effective at enforcement on a lot of those vehicles?
Definitely. So as I said, the ghost vehicle enforcement has drastically dropped. That was where -- it's not a fake tag issue but it's where people were taking their plates off totally and covering the VIN. The complaints for those have dropped dramatically because we've heavily enforced on that and taken the car, towed right on the street. We have been working with L&I and the police department to do these PPL, Parking Authority police and license inspection, going out in neighborhoods where there's these vehicles with temp tags, fake tags, no tags, busted-up vehicles, and we've been handling those issues and tackling those 50-, 60-plus cars at a time. The one thing that we're having issues with is every state handles tags differently. So Delaware handles their tags differently, New Jersey. And when we have to run them, there's different processes to run tags depending on the state and what VIN it is. So we are working with police and trying to work with our states, Delaware and Jersey, because a lot of them are coming from Delaware and New Jersey where the temp tags are. So we're trying to work together and try to figure out a way to better attack that issue. But I think by us going after illegal body shops with L&I and police by taking a lot of these vehicles off the street that we're seeing in neighborhoods, we're doing a lot of sweeps in the 7th. We're doing a lot of sweeps in the 2nd in Southwest and in West Philly as well, and it's been really helpful. Neighbors love it, and it's like a concentrated effort. So I think by continuing to do those, that's been cutting down on it as well.
Thank you for the update. We appreciate it. Did you want to add anything?
Okay. Thank you. Council President, did you -- okay. So as I close out, one of the things that has been really popular as it relates to advocacy is protected bike lanes, not just bike lanes but protected bike lanes. What is the appetite of the Admin for protected bike lanes specifically? Is there an appetite to essentially look at some bike lanes that already exist and provide those protected barriers or is there only an appetite to provide the barriers for future bike lanes?
No. We've continued -- as those 100 projects, a lot of them are looking at adding protected bike lanes where possible. So it's --
How 6 do you prioritize what 7 neighborhoods get the protected 8 bike lanes compared to which ones 9 that don't? 10
Yeah. 11 First of all, we look at the 12 PennDOT paving list so we see what 13 projects are going to get repaved 14 this year by PennDOT and what 15 streets are going to get repaved 16 this year by the Streets 17 Department. And then we look to 18 see can we put a protected bike 19 lane in on those streets. 20 And, you know, we've 21 been talking to some of your 22 colleagues such as Councilmember 23 Young introducing legislation 24 recently on some bike lanes. But the first thing we do that the City actually put out by the Planning Commission, has a bike and pedestrian plan where we set the long-term vision for bike lanes throughout the city with the goal of having every community, every resident, no more than a quarter mile away from a high quality bike lane. We've recently been doing work -- we know that not every street can fit a protected bike lane. A lot of really small neighborhood streets are only wide enough for one travel lane for cars. So in those neighborhoods, we say how can we slow down traffic enough so that, you know, people from 8 to 80 would feel comfortable riding a bike then. So we've been recently working with neighbors in Germantown and in Fishtown to see where we can put neighborhood bikeways, you know, sitting down around a table with neighbors looking at them and saying, you tell us what you think are the good streets for cyclists to come.
The protected bike lanes, how much do they cost compared to regular bike lanes?
On average. I know it's going to be different compared to the street and all that. But on average?
Yeah. It can -- I'm not going to say a number off the top my head and be wrong. But --
When we get ready for budget, can you prepare that number for Council President? Would that be good for us?
Yes, absolutely. There's a wide range from a flex post, those plastic posts that, you know, those are the cheapest option. They also probably have the most maintenance issues. The highest quality option are concrete, and you can easily be over $1 million a mile for actually concrete curb separated.
When we go into budget, can you give us the entire menu --
-- so we can see exactly what the options are, what we're entertaining and fiscally what it will cost us to do something different moving forward. I'll stop right there. Council President, did you want to be recognized? Chair recognizes Council President. Then after that, I will recognize Councilmember Phillips.
Thank you, Chairman Thomas. And I applaud you for your leadership to really elevate the issue of traffic violence here in the city of Philadelphia and really taking a leadership role and educating people around the issue of traffic violence in the city of Philadelphia. And I also want to acknowledge Councilmember Phillips for also advocating around making sure that we have speed bumps around our schools all throughout the city of Philadelphia protecting our young people. And so, I want to thank my members for always being on the forefront of making sure we address this for traffic violence and safety as well. I'll also acknowledge you, Chris and Richie Lazer, for working with me and my team regarding what we call No Stopping in the Bike Lane legislation that's not only in the 2nd Councilmanic District, but it's all throughout the city of Philadelphia. And I thank all my colleagues who are District members for signing on to make this a citywide policy. And so, I do thank you. I just had a couple questions. In terms of -- well, let me back up. First, I was up New York this past weekend. And I look at the New York infrastructure, right. Their blocks are like three times the size of our blocks, right. And you'll have a protected bike lane and then you'll still have three additional lanes going in one direction. But one thing I did see that was very, very interesting was there was a traffic light that was red, yellow and it was a spot for a bicycle, right. Why don't we have those in the city of Philadelphia? And I actually was like okay. And what happens is if you're in this lane and you're making a left, right, it makes the bicyclist aware when you're looking at the traffic light that there's a specific light dedicated to bicyclists. Have we ever --
-- thought about implementing those in the city of Philadelphia?
Yes, sir, we have looked at implementing them. In fact, we do have several bike signals in the city of Philadelphia. We have one at 16th and Market here to signal when it is time for the cyclist to take a straight or left movement versus that left-hand turn that happens from Market onto 16th, and we have them at a number of other locations --
Are we going to scale because I haven't seen them in South Philly or the Southwest Philadelphia part of my District, so I just was wondering if we're going to be on the cusp of technology when it comes to bicycle safety? Would that be something we consider taking to scale?
Yes, sir. We've not yet looked at putting them at every single intersection where a bike lane exists. Normally, the cyclists follow the regular green light. They're particularly useful and in some cases even required by the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices for whenever there's a conflicting movement between cyclists and the motorists. So that's where you see them the most, is when we don't want to get cyclists and motorists confused when there's a conflicting movement.
Okay. And then also just following up on what Councilmember Thomas talked about, I know there is a movement for support for concrete bike barriers as opposed to the flex posts. And just give me an idea -- I know my team are working with you and your team regarding Spruce and Pine Streets in working and engaging with the community. Where are we in terms of concrete barrier proposals?
Yeah. So we had a public meeting last year where we put several different proposals to the public. We had several 100 people attend that meeting. We recently published a post showing the results from the surveys we did at that meeting that did show support, overall support, for the concrete separation. At this point, we're continuing to work with the neighborhood RCOs and advocate groups. We want everybody to bring their ideas to the table. As you know, there's some advocacy groups that have recently emerged to oppose the concrete separation on Spruce and Pine. So we're trying to get everybody to the table to talk through their issues, everybody bring them, and hopefully come up with a consensus solution for the configuration on Spruce and Pine.
Right. And the last question and, one, I want to acknowledge the advocacy work of the Bicycle Coalition, Philly Bike Action and the Pediatric Advocates for Transportation and Health for Barbara, who was one of my constituents that passed away as it relates to traffic violence. In terms of your upcoming budget proposal, are you requesting -- and I'm not going to say if we're requesting as a legislative branch -- are you requesting the $5 million to be restored to Vision Zero as a part of your budget proposal to the Administration?
I'm going to defer that budget question to the Mayor's Office and Finance.
Okay. I just wanted to go on the record. Let me reframe it. (Applause.)
I'm just asking a frank question. So with the additional $5 million restored to Vision Zero, what would that be used for? As you being the head over there working with Michael Carroll, what would it be used for in terms of expanding Vision Zero?
I can tell you what $5 million could pay for. So $5 million could pay for two neighborhood slow zones. It could pay for, you know, I don't know the specific number, but a lot of speed cushions. It could fund, you know, continued concrete separation or maintenance of existing bike lanes. So we don't have a spending plan for $5 million at this point. But that's --
Let me ask you this: If you don't have a spending plan, right, help me out. All right. Every department, Streets, L&I, Parks & Rec, they will submit a budget to members of Council and we will legislate that budget, right, process. So you're not going to ask for the 5 million? You're going to wait until the Administration says this is how much you're allowed to ask for? I don't know. I'm trying to figure out how that works.
Yeah. Thanks, Council President. I mean, we're following the normal budget process where all the departments submit requests up through the Administration.
And I mean, it's like every department. You know, I'm sure every department can do more with more money in the city, and it's you guys and the Mayor who are balancing that out.
No, we're just trying to go through the process. And Leader Thomas has also asked the question. I wanted to follow up on it because it's something we've been reviewing ourselves on our end, but we also want to get the sentiments of OTIS and the work that you're doing as we continue to make this a priority. And for me, it's really about just changing the culture in our city in terms of just slowing down but also respecting individuals in general. And one way we can do that is also making sure that our budgetary priorities, we're putting them forward to show that it's a priority in the city. So that's all I have. And again, I commend Councilmember Thomas for stepping up and making sure this is a priority. And again, Chris, we've worked together. So thank you for your leadership. And to the good gentleman from South Philadelphia, Richie Lazer who has taken probably one of the most hated institutions or organizations and flipped it to become the beloved Parking Authority, we appreciate you for your leadership, Richie, for really flipping it and really making sure the Parking Authority is something that's not just focused on giving people tickets but really in all seriousness taking a comprehensive approach and integrating it. And you play a lead role around the issue of bicycle safety, right, and making sure that individuals are safe. So thank you, Richie. You keep up the good work. That's all I have. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Council President. I'm going to recognize Councilmember Phillips in a second. Let me just follow up and just put something on the record. Chris, first of all, this is your second hearing today, right? I'm told this is your second one.
Okay. All right. You're doing an excellent job. We appreciate you. And I know it's a little taxing to be able to have to answer these questions and not necessarily be able to make all the decisions. But let me just put something on the record real quick. So in last year's budget, one of the things that we advocated for was more funding for Vision Zero, right. This Council President, this leadership team, that was a real thing we advocated for. That advocacy was not necessarily met with open arms. Now, we're in a different position because we've seen a number of catastrophes. We've all been doing this for a year right now. And on top of that, you've just testified on the record that things have flatlined, right. So I think what we want to do is just put on the record that we are challenging and pushing to see more funding, specifically for Vision Zero. We put in 50 million for street paving. So clearly, we have an appetite to do things as it relates to the infrastructure and infrastructure-related issues in the city of Philadelphia. I think overall the goal is to make sure that the Admin understand that we really want to see a different appetite in this year's budget specifically related to funding for Vision Zero. And I just want to put that on the record because I heard everything Council President said. I agree with everything that was said. And I was one of the members who advocated, along with the Council President, for funding for Vision Zero, and that advocacy was not met with welcomed arms. With that being said, Chair recognizes Councilmember Phillips. (Applause.)
I'm sorry. I have to also acknowledge Councilmember Mark Squilla and Councilmember Jeffrey Young have joined today's hearing. Chair recognizes Councilmember Phillips.
Thank you, Chairman. I just want to say thank you for putting this hearing together. It is very important to our city. I'm still taken aback by the tragic death that took place on Kelly Drive this past summer with a gentleman who was in an Uber. And it still bothers me today so I can see the importance of this. Just a quick follow-up question to what Chairman Thomas said about the execution of division. Chris, you mentioned that it's going to take three to five years to engineer, I believe, cameras. And then you also said it takes a while to do community meetings. I'm more interested in learning do you have a detailed timeline on when all of these goals that the Administration says that they're going to be implementing, from program safety improvements, capital projects, traffic safety in classroom, is it laid out so we could be a little bit more in a goal like every single month, which I was appreciative of Rich, Rich Lazer, because he's only been doing this for about a year or so now, couple years at this point. And immediately, we already got a bus lane camera program happening in the spring. So I'm trying to figure out why they move so quickly compared to your office?
Yeah. So it takes three to five years to move a capital project. It doesn't take three years to do cameras. And I will say that our office working with the Parking Authority and SEPTA is the one who drove that camera-aided bus lane bill through Council. We appreciate Councilmember Mark Squilla in sponsoring that bill, but it was our office who led the push. We probably had worked for five years to get that bill passed and we are really grateful for City Council to pass it at the end of 2023, but we did provide the leadership for that bus lane bill that you mentioned.
Okay. Thanks for clarifying that. And as the person who's also the Vice-Chair working along with Chairman Thomas of Education, I'm interested in the Child Safety program in the classroom, the Traffic Safety program that's going to be taught in classrooms, how is that going to be implemented and when do we see that beginning?
Yeah. It's now. It has been. So we work with the schools and the School District to get the curriculum. We've developed modules that are on our website. We work with educators to try to get them into classroom. We have an elementary school curriculum. We're now working on a middle school curriculum and we've got a curriculum for high school students. So that's ongoing. There's I think over -- yeah, there's over 20 schools that we have regularly engaged with. And whether that's leading walking, school buses or just making sure they're using the curriculum in the classroom so kids can learn to walk and bike to school safely.
Is this a part of a regular class safety pro -- is this like a traditional classroom? Is it part of an English class? Is it something that's just an add-on and when is it going to be at every school? And what grades is it going to start at?
I'd like to call Marco Gorini who's our Vision Zero Program Manager to come up and answer your question.
Okay. So, Marco, just a reminder we're just asking when is it going to be at every school? What grades is it? And currently -- yeah, I'm just curious about that.
Sure. Yeah. So Safe Routes Philly is our Safe Routes to School program. And we have curriculum for kindergarten through 5th grade. Like Chris was saying, we're working on 6th through 8th. And right now it's -- well, it's based on a train-to- trainer model. So we go to schools. We work with sort of traffic safety champions at each school. Often it's through a health class or PE and we set them up to be able to run this program at the school itself. There is a challenge there where schools are stretched thin. There's only so much capacity. So some schools are able to really take this on and adopt it. Other schools, it's more of a challenge. They need a little bit more support so -
So we do a lot of outreach to inform schools about this opportunity. You know, schools come to us different ways. Sometimes they're requesting some help from the Streets Department and they get connected to us or otherwise looking just for where are our safe routes, kind of resources available. And then we also do a lot of kind of independent outreach. We try to identify schools that we know could benefit the most, right, because we're seeing higher rates of child pedestrian crashes nearby and things like that.
So I say that because if you're trying to ensure that every child is taught about traffic and safety in the classroom, that goes back to what I was talking to Chris about, like where is the detailed timeline to actually achieve that goal within five years? It seems like you're just pitching it as opposed to making it a formal program that's going to be here to stay. And I think it's a great goal, but I just want to see how we're going to make sure it's achievable. So I think -- because it sounds great and it's good that you're making some -- but I need, you know, is there details about the impact? Are things changing? These are important things because it is important to change the future. Because, you know, my grandmother used to say, look at the stop sign. That was important. But this generation is not there so we got to do some innovative stuff, right. Their grandmothers are not there like our grandmothers. So can we get a more detailed timeline on how we're going to implement it for every kid?
Yeah. I think we can provide you definitely some more information about sort of how we see this rolling out. A lot of it does kind of rely on sort of taking the groundwork that we've done in developing those lesson plans and sort of doing some proof of concept and then trying to identify kind of how does this scale up to get to that goal of 2030. But, yeah, we can definitely --
And I just have one more question and then I'm going return it to my colleagues. It's not for you. I just want to make sure that for the Bus Lane Camera Enforcement program in late spring, Rich, will this be every bus lane in the city of Philadelphia?
It'll be all trolley lanes. It'll be all trolleys in the city. And then there's a box in the legislation that creates where the bus enforcement will be.
Okay. And then how does the new smart loading zone work for enforcement technology? Is it using the cameras in every loading zone in the city of Philadelphia?
Yeah. So we looked at -- we worked with OTIS back about a year or so ago on a different smart loading zone pilot that was not camera-enforced. Now, we're working with a camera- enforced program. There's 24 loading zones. Most of them are Walnut, Spruce, Chestnut, from probably 8th to probably somewhere around Rittenhouse. There's 4 total, probably 80 cameras. 5 What it is, it's almost 6 like an E-ZPass type system. 7 Vehicle pulls into the loading zone 8 and then the camera -- after three 9 minutes the camera will then start 10 to charge $0.10 a minute on the 11 plate. A majority of the fleets 12 that use the loading zone, the 13 UPSes, Amazons, they're already in 14 the PPA fleet program, but there'll 15 be a wide roll-out. There'll be a 16 grace period and there'll be an 17 education outreach for those 18 loading zones. 19
Because most 22 loading zones are done. These will 23 be charge loading zones. Majority 24 loading zones are not charged.
Okay. I got it. All right. Well, thank you so much, Rich. Again, Rich Lazer has done a phenomenal job and we're looking forward to continue working with you. But I am concerned about that school program so hopefully we can get some serious work on it. It looks cute, but it needs to be top notch.
Mr. Chair, I just wanted to reiterate something. So with all the enforcement programs, red light, speed, bus camera, it really is a collaborative effort with the Philadelphia Park Authority, Streets Department and the Office of Transportation and PennDOT. There's a lot of meetings that go in. We do walkthroughs with staff on all the different groups and a lot of data is given. So it really is a very indepth look at where these cameras go, and it's a team effort amongst all the parties involved to really lay out the program to make sure that it works effectively and efficient and the goal to lower traffic deaths.
Thank you. I just also don't think the community meeting process should be that long either. We all can put on quick community meetings to get it together, so I don't know why that was a big deal about putting community meetings together.
Chair recognizes Councilmember Landau. Before Councilmember Landau goes, I just want to acknowledge all of the high school students who are working in City Council. If you don't know, high school students in a lot of schools across the city of Philadelphia are required to do an internship to graduate from the City of Philadelphia, actually in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. And myself and my colleagues, we always open our doors to the high school students who need an internship requirement. So I just want to take a moment to give them a round of applause and thank them for being here today. (Applause.)
Chair recognizes Councilmember Landau followed by Councilmember Squilla.
Thank you so much, and thank you for being here and for your testimony. I had a couple of follow-up questions and sorry if you answered my first one already. Got started very promptly. We're only a couple minutes behind coming from a different meeting. But I am deeply concerned about the fact that our traffic fatality rate has remained constant for so many years and I feel the urgency of us here and what we can do to remedy this. So my first question is my concern that the rate of traffic deaths in Philadelphia is so much higher than in Chicago, D.C., LA, and nearly three times as high as New York. What are they doing differently than what we're doing here where we can implement something to reduce our rate quickly?
Yeah, I think there's a few things. The one in New York they've -- and especially in D.C., they've had much larger automated enforcement programs for a much longer amount of time. So it's tremendous that the state authorized us to expand our automated speed enforcement, but I think we're still limited to the Boulevard five corridors and five school zones. I think New York is school zone citywide. So that's a big change. Another barrier that we have is it's very hard to reduce speed limits in the city of Philadelphia or anywhere in the Commonwealth. There's a very onerous process. And so, we would like to work with City Council and members of the local delegation to work on legislative or other solutions for us to be able to bring speed limits down. Because right now, the state Motor Vehicle Code essentially says you have to do a speed study and set it at the 85th percentile, so that encourages speeding. It makes it very hard if you have speeding on a road to reduce the speed limit and then put an engineering solutions so that the street is engineered or designed for that lower speed. And the others, you know, there's been significant investments in those other cities on infrastructure.
Not everybody who faces violence by cars dies. Have you done a full study on these crashes in general to see what is it? Is it speeding? Is it not following traffic signs? Is it, you know, not having a bike lane in a certain area? Have you really granularly dug down to find out exactly what is happening and not just about fatalities?
Yeah. I think speed is the number one thing. So controlling speed is the number one thing that we can do to reduce traffic fatalities and actually even to reduce serious injury crashes. Speed not only determines how deadly a crash will be, but in some ways it even determines how likely a crash is to happen. Because if two vehicles or a vehicle and a pedestrian, if the vehicle is traveling at a slower speed, that's more reaction time for the motorist to identify the issue and then take corrective action. So speed is the number one thing that we want to control. It's not the only thing. Certainly we want to -- distracted driving or intoxicated driving, reducing the number of conflict points where two different movements can conflict with each other, improving visibility so that motorists and pedestrians and cyclists, all road users can see each other. Those are all important, but the number one thing is reducing speed.
And would this $5 million investment we're talking about assist you in increasing speed zones in the city?
I'll just say that the infrastructure, almost every infrastructure project that we do has some way of controlling speed. Whether it's reducing the number of lanes, which is often contentious, which is why the community engagement process takes a while and why the institutional engagement is important or if there's -- sometimes there's parking in order to make a street safer such as in order to bump out the sidewalk at the corner. Speed bumps, speed cushions, those devices all reduce speeding, narrowing the -- even if it's the same number of lanes, often narrowing the lanes can have an effect on reducing speed. There's a long list of interventions that we can use. Improving the visibility of traffic signals, which is why we're always looking for more funding also to improve our traffic signals around the city. Tying in the traffic signals to the Traffic and Control Center so that we can monitor and adjust the synchronization of the signal so that we can have a progression that is safe so that the signal timing tends to induce driving at a safe speed. These are all things that we can do with investments to improve traffic safety outcomes.
Thank you. And another area of questioning I want to just ask about is basic maintenance of our streets. I'm a big proponent of people with disabilities and also making sure all of our streets are easily accessible. So each year City Council has asked for more money for the paving budget and a third paving crew. And even with an increase in funds, the City is still paving only 60 miles a year and the goal is 131. The City has not yet hired this third paving crew that we talked about; am I right? And why not?
I think my colleague Michelle Brisbon from the Streets Department is here.
I'm Michelle Brisbon. I'm the Chief of Staff for the Streets Department. Can you repeat the question, Councilperson?
The question is about the third paving crew, whether or not the City is still only paving 60 miles and the goal was 131 miles? And has the City hired a third paving crew? And if not, why not?
So, no, we have not hired a third paving crew. This past season we just finished hiring fully for the second paving crew. And so, we're looking to start hiring for the third paving crew this spring.
Are there any administrative barriers to making this happen?
Several. So the pool of candidates for the asphalt paving machine, the roller operator, the asphalt rakers and then the drivers as well.
Okay. And the paving is done inhouse, correct, with the City of Philadelphia?
So we have paving crews that do it inhouse, but then we also contract out some.
So the milling is contracted out. We don't have the resources to do that.
Point of information while the Councilmember is taking a breath. Why is it that -- so I'm listening to this paving crew and I'm thinking about some of the workforce development stuff that we've encouraged to happen. I'm specifically thinking about Mural Arts. I'm on the Board of Mural Arts. One of the things that we asked is there to be a pipeline between programs like Mural Arts and people being able to house these jobs. Why is that not still happening? To listen to the type of jobs that you're telling us is vacant, to me -- and looking at the text messages I get in my phone of people saying that they need a job, how does this disconnect still exist?
So paving is a skilled job that they have to at least come in with six months of general laboring experience and then we train them. But the candidates that we're getting, we've opened up the exams I would say at least three times over the last three years and we may get 9 candidates on each list. 10
So 11 why don't we create a direct 12 pipeline between programs like 13 Mural Arts? I just listened to the 14 folks at the Same Day Pay program, 15 right. If someone's in the Same 16 Day Pay program, how can we create 17 a pipeline between people who are 18 in the Same Day Pay program so that 19 they could be put in a position to 20 be able to have some type of apprenticeship program so they can take these jobs? My thing is, and then I'm going to pass it back to the Councilmember, the appetite for people to work is clearly there. And the type of jobs that you're saying need to be filled, we have the demographic who could fill them. What are we doing to connect the jobs? I think that's what I'm asking.
So I'm not familiar with the Mural Arts. Streets Department, we work with the Future Track Program and we funnel the Future Track Program into the paving program.
Same concept. Sorry, Councilwoman. Go ahead. I apologize.
No, it's similar -- I'm about to get to a really similar question. Why doesn't the City have the six-month apprenticeship program, so when people pass the apprenticeship program they can get right into the City job?
Well, you -- I'm sorry. You said someone has to come with six months of experience.
So normally the six months semi- skilled experience or general laboring experience.
Someone else isn't going to take folks on -- the City of Philadelphia has historically been the place that fills the gap for people who need a job. This is basic workforce development. A private company is likely not going to take anybody with no experience also. They're going to say you need six months of experience. And you've got people walking around the city who can't get the six months experience but want the job. Why doesn't the City just start an apprenticeship workforce program that puts people through a six-month apprenticeship and then they're prepared for the job? They've got the experience.
Well, we can definitely talk with Central personnel to see what we would have to do to be able to look into that program.
Thank you. And I have another one too. I want to ultimately also talk about bringing milling inhouse. We wait for the outside contractors to do the milling and then we're doing the paving on top. And if we could do all of these parts of the project, we could get our streets paved faster and I think more efficiently. Has there been any thought of bringing milling inhouse?
So years ago and under previous administrations they looked into it. And part of the issue was with air quality and being -- where we would sort of, I guess, house that operation at. But we haven't looked at it in recent years. But that was part of the issue, was the air quality.
Thank you. I would love to look into that more with you. And then the final question, because this is another workforce development thing that I believe we contract out and I believe we could do inhouse quicker, faster, easier, is the tactile paving when we do the curb cut. When a curb is rebuilt, there's tactile paving that's supposed to be installed to help people with vision impairment cross the street safely. How do we install those now and are those done inhouse or by a City contract?
Has there been any discussion of bringing that inhouse?
Yes, we have had that discussion and we're continuing to have those discussions.
Okay. I'm coming back to you guys with all of this when it comes to budget. I want this inhouse. These are great workforce development opportunities. It would make it so much faster and streamline everything that we're doing in the city. And most importantly just to be clear, we won't have the process where an outside company did the milling. There's now a 3-inch drop or 4- or 5-inch drop from the curb. That is very dangerous to people for a whole lot of levels. While we're waiting for the paving because we've got two different entities trying to coordinate, we can do this all inhouse. I believe it can happen. Thank you so much.
Thank you, colleague. I appreciate that line of questioning. I think it's extremely important. And thank you for taking the time to answer the questions to the best of your ability. We definitely appreciate it. Chair recognizes Councilmember Mark Squilla followed by Councilmember Jeffrey Jay Young.
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And, Chris, we talked about the money for Vision Zero. And the Vision Zero budget for, I guess, operations, what would be the budget for Vision Zero operations without money that we know we need for the actual work that would be done as far as speed cushions, daylighting, bike lanes infrastructure and stuff like that?
Can you repeat the question, Councilmember? I don't think I quite grasp what you're asking.
Per capita -- I think -- well, as I understand -- sorry. Go ahead.
What is the operating cost to keep the office of Vision Zero moving?
Yeah. So let me try to answer what I think you're asking me. Right now we're working on a study. We hope to finish it this calendar year on the life cycle cost of certain elements like a speed cushion or like one of those white flex posts because we know they're an enormous maintenance issue to be able to maintain them. The durability hasn't always been what we would have hoped or what the manufacturers have promised it would be. So we are working on a full-like life cycle cost analysis for certain traffic safety improvements that we do hope to have completed this year.
All right. Staffing for Vision Zero. I know it's under OTIS, right. Is it all the OTIS folks working on Vision Zero or do you have certain folks that work just on the Vision Zero planning process?
Yeah. So we house a lot of the planning and programmatic management for Vision Zero, but the Streets Department has staff who are working on traffic safety improvements every day, whether it's installing speed cushions or maintaining traffic signals.
The reason why I'm asking is because when we have a budget request for Vision Zero, it seems to get convoluted or where's the money going? Is it Vision Zero itself that the money goes in the Vision Zero? It doesn't go for the construction part. That goes to the Streets Department to implement the Vision Zero plan.
So is there a request to keep Vision Zero planning process, to keep the employees that are -- their goal is to put the Vision Zero plan together. Is it just under OTIS? Because a lot of the constituent questions we get is that we're not funding Vision Zero, right.
And so, do we have dedicated people? You're saying it's under OTIS and there's Streets Department folks that are working on the capital side of it. But what is the vision for the city as far as operating costs for Vision Zero, employees, somebody working on the plan, putting our plan together to make sure that then there's a capital ask beside that, right, that would go to the Streets Department. But it seems like it gets lost. When we say all right, we're putting $5 million to Vision Zero, does that just go to OTIS?
Yes, thank you for that. So the Vision Zero capital line is within the Streets Department budget as is the separate speed cushion line that was created by Mayor Parker last year. So that's, you know, Mayor Parker has been insistent that the Vision Zero budget was not cut. Even though one line item changed, there was an increase in speed cushions. But beyond the capital funds, there are dedicated staff. Marco has an entire team doing both programmatic planning work and all the engagement in schools. Then the Office of Multimodal Planning has four districts. In each of those districts, there's a dedicated Vision Zero staffer who works on the infrastructure side trying to make -- working on developing some of those 100 projects that I mentioned during my testimony that we have in the pipeline doing the early planning and concept work. In each of those four districts, there's a dedicated community engagement person who works on the community meetings. And then there's all the great staff in the Department of Streets, in the Design Division who help take the planning level concepts and put them into specific plans. So as you can see I'm not trying to be evasive, Councilmember, not giving a straight answer but it is --
It's po -- it sounds like I'm talking to a politician.
It is in a number of different departments in a number of different functions, because Vision Zero takes a lot of different parts of government coming together just to deliver an infrastructure project, let alone deliver automated enforcement systems or increased education for our kids. I think if we could try to put together a list of all the different folks who work on Vision Zero, if that's what you're asking for.
Yes, because when we hear from the advocacy crowd, our residents or people talking about public safety, they believe that there should be a budgetary item for Vision Zero, right. And so again, if we put million in here, million there, 500,000 there, it doesn't look like we're putting a plan together to address Vision Zero.
Yeah. Every time we've been asked how much have you spent on Vision Zero, it's always a difficult process because it's part of so many people's jobs in so many different departments, whether it's OTIS, Streets, MDO, Purchasing, you know, Finance. All the folks that work on Vision Zero are much greater. And I remember years ago, you know, it was not just like the -- back maybe four or five years ago the Vision Zero line item, the capital line item was somewhere around $1 million. But when we looked at all the Vision Zero spending, it was somewhere of $30 million, $40 million when you looked at all the improvements we did with other line items, let alone the outside funding, like the ARLE and ASE funding that we got or federal funding that we got that, that we then used for Vision Zero improvements.
All right. I mean, I'll ask if we could give something to the Chair that would have a breakdown of what the request is for Vision Zero and the upcoming budget as far as operating costs as far as planning cost, and then what is the capital ask for Vision Zero. Because even we as Council have made some demands on Vision Zero as far as speed cushions around schools, playgrounds and senior centers, right. We know that's going to take several years to fund and build out from capital cost, but we have to know how much that is, where that money is going to and then who's responsible for it. So then at the end of the year we could say, did we spend it. Right now we have no 2 idea how much is spent on Vision Zero. And all we hear is that we took money out of Vision Zero. So I think if you could make that clear for us and for the Chair so they could share with us, and then we have a better idea of what we're doing, how we're doing it and who's in charge of making sure that that gets spent in the proper way.
Yeah. I can work with our colleagues in Streets and Finance to try to put together a little bit more comprehensive picture of spending on Vision Zero. And I know we've done that in the past and we can try to replicate that for this current budget.
Thanks, Chairman Thomas. I just want to do a quick point information for Mark Squilla, Councilmember Mark Squilla. Would it be easier or would it be better to make this more effective if Vision Zero had its own department of engineers and Streets people and everything as opposed to you having to go through four or five different departments to get things done? If you had your own people, would that make it easier to get things done?
Yeah. I appreciate the sentiment, Councilmember Phillips. But I think that would make it more difficult. I think Vision Zero will be most effective when everybody inside of city government thinks it's part of their job.
Yeah. That's the part -- and we've committed -- one of the parts of the executive order was to ensure that every capital project that touches the street is designed to improve safety. So there's a lot of projects. We don't necessarily think of it as a traffic safety project, but it's an opportunity to increase the safety of the street. And that's the culture change that's been happening over the time that I've been in city government where lots of people who didn't think their job was Vision Zero now know and we have people who their title isn't Vision Zero. Their title might be Engineer 2 or something like that or Construction Engineer 3, but they know that improving traffic safety is part of their mission. I was at a conference in Penn State in December where I heard three Streets Department construction engineers talking about the work on that roundabout that I mentioned in South Philly and how they're improving traffic safety even though construction engineers is their title.
Thank you. I just wanted to find a way to get through anything that's bureaucratic that might be holding up the process for it to get done. And I feel like sometimes if one department is not as invested in it, it just becomes a -- goes to the wayside. So I just want to make sure everybody's invested in this in a very efficient way, but thank you.
Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. First, I just want to acknowledge the young people over there. Again, I started out as a high school intern right in these very chambers so you never know where your future is going to take you. So just keep at it, have goals and have the vision. Back to Vision Zero. You mentioned to us that there was a -- you have a community engagement person in the office that goes out and talks to the communities. Can you talk to us about what your engagement efforts are in certain communities where, to be honest, Vision Zero is not a priority for them, right. It's not a goal for them. So what do you do? How do you connect with those people? I can tell you it's a lot of folks in my District, right, where Vision Zero is just not, it's not a priority. I'm not saying they don't care about it, right, but it's just not at the top of their list of things to put their attention to when it comes to safety in this city. So how do you -- what is your message to those communities? How do you reach out to those communities?
Yeah. Thank you, Councilmember, for that question. I think one of the first things that we do when we're looking to make improvements, we reach out to the local Council District. And I know you've been extremely helpful in saying, here are the community groups that you should talk to in a particular district. And I know we've got for each of the Councilmember's District, Councilmembers in this office whether it's Councilmember -- or in this room, Lozada or Phillips or Squilla, we try to work through your offices to get a sense of what are the community groups that we should work with when we're trying to do a project so at least we're not making sure that we're inadvertently excluding someone just because we didn't know the lay of the land as well as you do. Often we can only move at the speed of trust, so that takes -- in order to build that trust it takes a lot of different forms. The Vision Zero ambassadors are one way. So having paid safety ambassadors where we work with people to try to get the message out and usually then those people and then the people that they interact with are a great way to make sure that we're reaching a broader set of community members, especially if that community has concerns that are significant such as gun violence or the opioid crisis or economic prosperity. So that's one way we try to break through to have meaningful conversations about traffic violence. We've certainly been there in communities where we show up and we say, hey, we'd like to improve your neighborhood. And, A, they don't believe us, you know, we're from the government. There's a lot of distrust in government those days. And so, it's up to us to move at a speed and communicate in a way that builds a partnership. And I think we've been successful in doing that in a lot of neighborhoods. The other thing that we've been trying to do, and my colleague Lily Reynolds in the office of -- the Infrastructure Solutions team is trying to build more workforce measures into projects, because a lot of time we've shown up at community meetings and like, well, that's great that you're doing that, but what I'd really like is a job for my grandson or my neighbor is needing a job. And so, trying to increase our workforce participation so that whether that's improving the performance, the DBE performance on federally- funded work or putting in initiatives like geographic and economic hiring preferences or working with the trades in order to have more apprenticeship classes, these are all things that don't necessarily seem directly connected with Vision Zero but help to build trust and help to meet other community needs. The other thing we did, and I've got to give credit to my colleague Waffiyyah Murray, who runs our Indigo system, so a program that she has is mini grants so she gives out really small grants I think twice a year to community groups. And it's not for traffic safety work directly. It's maybe buying turkeys, frozen turkeys at Thanksgiving for that community group. And what that does is showing up and saying to the community, listen, we care about what you care about so that when we show up to say, hey, can we talk about traffic safety, they know that they have a partner there who's going to, you know, we're not just here to knock them over and tell them what you need. We're here to listen and work together to solve problems.
Now, what can you tell me or advise me as a District Councilmember when I go to certain communities and they think that any, you know, you mentioned this is to help improve the community, improve their neighborhoods. But how can you help me put that message out here that a lot of folks see that these improvements mean gentrification, mean that their neighborhood is changing, right, meaning that it's not for them, right. So what is that message? How can you help me deliver that message to those constituents who believe that these improvements are to eventually move them out of their community?
Yeah. I think one of the first things we did is we wanted to make sure that bike lanes, for example, were not causing gentrification. So we worked with a national group called the Better Bike Share Partnership to fund high-quality research to try to get an impartial answer on do bike lanes have a gentrifying effect on neighborhoods. And the results is -- and we can share this with the whole Committee -- that bike lanes do not have a gentrifying effect on neighborhoods. So first of all, we really wanted to go to the substance of the fear that if we build safer transportation infrastructure, is that going to displace me from my neighborhood. And I think the answer was conclusively no. 23 The second thing then is to build partners and champions in those communities. So we say, hey, this infrastructure is for me. That's why when we're doing expansion work with our Indigo system we're funding ambassadors in those neighborhoods that work with the community, try to say this is how you can use this new asset in your system so that this is for you, whether you might not want to ride a bike every day in all kinds of weather, but maybe this is for you for recreation, to try to do health classes. We also tried to bridge the digital divide, so we had a class we were running called Digital Skills and Bicycle Thrills where we paired digital literacy training with learn-to-ride classes so that people could sign up for Indigo. They knew how to sign up for Indigo. And then once they were signed up, they knew how to safely cycle maybe if they had never done it or hadn't done it in a while.
Thank you. And that question came from an idea, conversation I had with Stephanie Ridgeway at Indigo who's in my community who deals with these type of questions all the time from neighborhood folks who say that this creates gentrification. We just want information to give them to show that, no, they're just trying to improve your safety in your neighborhood, not move you out, not displace you from your neighborhood. But sometimes perception is a reality for a lot of folks as they see only in certain places these measures are being in place, and then at the same time come behind that they see the neighborhood changing, right. And so, we have to figure out in what neighborhoods are these like -- let's say solid minority neighborhoods where we know that gentrification isn't happening right now, are these improvements still happening there as well, right. I think that's what the community wants to see, that it's being placed all over and not just in certain areas where they think in their mind that it's being done to just push them out.
Yeah. I think the sad fact though is that the traffic fatality statistics tell a story that traffic fatalities don't discriminate. They do discriminate in the fact that traffic fatalities hit residents of color worse than White residents. So it's critical that we make these improvements all throughout the city. And when I look at the faces and the names on these graphics in front of me, I see African American residents, I see Hispanic residents in front of me that were unfortunately the victim of traffic violence. So being able to -- I think what's really, really critical is when the advocacy that the families of these members have exhibited over the years where they can tell the story much better than a bureaucrat and with much more trust with the community, that this is why we're making these improvements so a different family doesn't have to go through the same suffering that these families went through.
Thank you for that. And one thing I've noticed is to be honest for me my own recollection is that people nowadays just don't know how to drive, right. They just seem like they forgot the rules of the road. Just the other day with all the wind the traffic lights were out and people were zooming through lights and signals that weren't working. And I'm just like, you don't know that's supposed to be a stop sign. So what is the City doing I guess to educate and inform people on the rules of the road to make it a little bit safer for everyone traveling?
Yeah. So as part of -- I'll give you an example. As part of rolling out automated speed enforcement on Broad Street, we've put ads all up and down Broad Street, on buses and on bus shelters. We've also reached out to every single community group along North Broad Street to make sure, hey, can we come talk to you, we want to let you know that this is coming, these are the rules of the road, this is how you can avoid getting a ticket. Because what we're really going for is behavior change. The way that we're going right now is part of the reason why we have the fatality levels we have. Part of that behavior change is redesigning the streets to encourage and reinforce safe driving factors. But the other is the numerous education work we have, whether it's with kids or with adults, to try to get the message out that this is how we all stay safe. This is how we all get home at the end of the day.
Thank you. Yeah, again that was just my own this past weekend anecdote just seeing that people just ignore or just don't know what certain signs are, what certain rules are. Another question that I have is regarding bikers. And again, it's informing people of certain changes because in certain neighborhoods adding these bike lanes is new, and it's a new I guess it would be -- someone's looking right now to look for a biker coming where they never had to before, right. So what can we do to kind of ease folks into these changes for the instincts, right, to kick in to say we always have to look right now when before that was never a part of your driving instincts. We never had to do it when we took our driving exams and things like that. So what can we do to reinforce some of those newer instincts that are needed now, now that the roads are structured a little differently?
Yeah. What we try to do when we put in a new piece of infrastructure in the neighborhood that maybe hasn't seen it before, isn't accustomed to it, is we try to do an education campaign. So that's putting like these signs on the infrastructure sometimes saying, you know, this is a protected bike lane, this is how it works, this is where you should park, this is where you shouldn't park. Then we try to do leaflets in those neighborhoods to let everybody know what the rules of the road are. And I think engagement doesn't end with the agreement or the Council ordinance. Education and engagement need to continue all the way through and past construction. I think in some ways that's the most important engagement to do is after the thing is built to listen to people and to see what's working, what's not working. That's why when the Washington Avenue Project happened, part of the enabling ordinance that Councilmember Squilla passed was that we come and do that several years' worth of after reports and make adjustments as we're going through that project to see what's working, what's not working, is it having an effect. We try to do a high- quality before-and-after study for every single infrastructure, major infrastructure project that we do to see what effect it has. And that's how we have the plethora now of data after a few years to say that projects we've done have had on average a percent reduction in serious injury crashes.
Thank 5 you. And, Mr. Chair, I have one 6 more question for Ms. Brisbon. If 7 you can come back up to the table 8 as well. 9 Just a question, just a 10 follow-up regarding the paving and 11 milling and what we're doing as a 12 city to attract people to those 13 particular jobs. You said over 14 three years the exam went out. Can 15 you describe to us or tell us what 16 the exam looks like? 17 And I guess if we're not 18 finding enough qualified people, 19 then what can we do as a Council, 20 as a city, to make sure that the people who are applying for these jobs understand what this exam really is and what it's really catering toward? Because six months of labor experience -- I mean to be a laborer, people can do that work, right, but they may not necessarily have the other skills necessary to pass an exam, right. So can you tell us what that exam looks like and what is needed?
Okay. So the three times that we've offered it, one of the times we didn't even have a physical exam. We just did submit it, if you qualify, you were put on the list. The other two times is a performance exam and you're just coming in and just being familiar with the tools that we're using and being able to follow these instructions. And we offered some training prior to the exam was even given.
Were they successful in finding qualified applicants? Were those exams successful?
Again, I think we maybe had candidates that was successful on each of those lists. We may have had 80 candidates.
We hired 9 all of them that were interested. 10 Everybody that we interviewed we 11 hired. 12
Let 15 me -- yep. 16 Councilmember Lozada 17 wants to make a comment. 18 Councilmember Landau has a 19 question. 20 Let me just make sure that we all know our homework assignments so we're on the same page when we come back for budget season. Councilmember Squilla requested and the Council President also echoed that we have specific items related to Vision Zero as it relates to what money you want on the operating side as well as what money you want on the capital side. We want to hear from your department as it relates to issues related to hiring. From the seats that we sit in, we don't understand how these type of skilled jobs, we're not able to fill those positions but yet 14 percent of our city is living in 15 poverty. So there's a disconnect 16 there and we need to improve that 17 pipeline very fast. 18 The third thing, and I'm 19 going to add this to the list, in 20 February of 2021 we had our first hearing when I was on Council as it relates to Vision Zero, as it relates to the hit-and-run crisis. Captain Overwise, didn't sit in that seat because we were virtual, told us -- and happy retirement to him -- that infrastructure investment was the best way to fix the issues that we were seeing at that time. When we come back to budget, this body would like to see all of the capital projects that have taken place in the city of Philadelphia, specifically around Vision Zero in the hit-and-run crisis from the first time we were told that in 2021 to the spring of 2025. So over four years what have we done to address the hit-and-run crisis, to address the High Injury Network and how have we improved the percent of the 20 roads that produce 80 percent of the car accidents. That's our homework so we're all clear. So when we revisit this conversation in budget, there's no surprises. No one will tell us that they have to get back to us with more information. We'll all have that information readily available because we're asking for it in February. Young people, I hope y'all heard that. Adults get homework too. It's not just for y'all, right. Homework goals even after high school. Chair recognizes Councilmember Landau, then Councilmember Loz -- oh, Councilmember Lozada, then Councilmember Landau. And then we're going to close out this panel because we have two more panels left before we open up for public comment. Councilmember Lozada.
23 Yeah. I just want to recognize the 24 work that I've been able to do in the 7th Council District as a result of the partnership that I have with the Parking Authority. They've actually helped us remove a lot of these vehicles that have been problematic on our streets, either whether they were double parked and have been there for years or they've been vandalized and have been there for years and have been parked in some of our handicapped spaces and folks have reported for a long time and have not been able to get them removed. I just want to recognize their work because we've been in multiple parts of the District and we've been able to remove hundreds of vehicles as a result of that. So wanted to make sure that I put that on the record. But I also wanted to comment on or follow up on Councilmember Young's question and concern as it relates to some of our bike lanes, right, and the outreach when we're looking at those bike lanes or when we're trying to talk to residents about these bike lanes. A lot of community residents associate bike lanes with justification or displacement. And so, I think we need to look at the outreach that we're doing and what is the language. What is the -- how are we communicating with some of these community residents that don't understand or don't speak the English language as it relates to the work that we're doing around Vision Zero. You know, how do I go back into my community to talk to them about, listen, these bike lanes are for your safety as well, right, the work that we're doing as it relates to cameras is for your safety as well. We need to do better at sharing that information around the work of Vision Zero in other languages. I have multiple communities in my District that don't speak English, that don't speak Spanish, right, that are Cambodian or that speak a different dialect of the Asian community. We just need to make sure that we are out in these communities when we're having these meetings, that we're offering the information, the outreach information, in languages that are not just in English. We need to do better at that. I'm happy to help with some of that work, but we need to do better when we're out in the community. We're talking about the importance of the work that Vision Zero is offering in our communities.
Thank you, Councilmember. Chair recognizes Councilmember Landau.