It would depend on the particular problem you're looking at. If you've got specifics and the number of crashes. We sometimes specifically look at locations because we have crash problems.
Well, supposing that something said that there was a change from 30 crashes to 15 crashes, that wouldn't tell you what type of crashes they were, would it?
It can be relevant. It depends on what you're looking at. If we did a function and we want to determine whether that function was working, we would look at it 39 05/28/04 - STREETS - BILL 040370 more closer and determine what those crashes were.
When you were looking at the impact of a traffic change of any kind on the surrounding area, do you look into what public transportation routes there are and what would have to be diverted as a result of any change?
We look to see if there's any SEPTA routes that would be diverted, yes.
If there are routes that are affected they would be shown. If there are no routes that are affected, then it wouldn't be shown.
When you look at the impact of a traffic change on the surrounding area, does your study and subsequently your report reflect the number of children under 40 05/28/04 - STREETS - BILL 040370 the age of on a given block? 3
It's not information we 6 generally have available. We don't have a 7 real way of collecting it. 8
Well, certainly, 9 there's census data available to you, isn't 10 there? 11
Well, as you're 14 probably aware, there was a study conducted by 15 a reporter from the Daily News some months ago 16 about traffic accidents at various elementary 17 schools and high schools as well. So why 18 would that not be something you would take into consideration, how many schools were in a given area, especially if you're going to be changing the traffic pattern?
You asked if there were children, you didn't ask if there were specific schools.
I believe I asked 41 05/28/04 - STREETS - BILL 040370 both, but if I didn't, I apologize and now I'm asking.
If there are schools in the affected route, yes, that would be looked at.
If there are houses with children who would be likely to be playing or walking in the area, that's not something that you would look at?
If there are residences or other streets. That would be noted.
Would you make a general assumption that a street that went past a series of institutions could take a volume of traffic than a street that goes through a residential area?
No. What's going to determine how much traffic a street can take is the width of the street and number of lanes and the parking additions.
So it's just not relevant whether it's houses or a big institution of some sort?
In determining what a 42 05/28/04 - STREETS - BILL 040370 street can carry, no. There are other factors to look at, but not in determining what it can carry. What it can carry is based on its width and parking additions.
And the report is solely addressing what? I'm sorry, I'm not understanding. The report is solely addressing what the street can carry and not the impact regarding safety?
No, you were just asking whether -- most streets can carry a lot more volume than they have a demand to carry. So we just don't generally look at what the carrying capacity of a street is, we would look at what the demand is because the demand is well below what its capability of carrying is.
All right. I don't believe that's what I asked. What I asked was, when you're considering some kind of change in traffic direction, do you take into consideration the type of area the traffic is going to be redirected through? Not carrying capacity. Say you've got a street, there's an 43 05/28/04 - STREETS - BILL 040370 institution, you're going to redirect traffic. If you redirect traffic, it's going to go through a residential area. Is that something that's relevant to you or to your consideration?
We would not want to take traffic that is using an arterial and put it on local streets. We don't want to take traffic that's --
I know, but I'm trying to answer your question in the way I can. If we're dealing with a local street and we make a change that traffic is going to be diverted to other streets and it can be diverted to the local streets, local streets generally don't carry that much volume. With collector streets, we would look to divert the traffic to collector streets.
It's a street that 44 05/28/04 - STREETS - BILL 040370 collects traffic or distributes traffic to local streets that would bisect a neighborhood, take the traffic off of those local streets and feed them into arterials. An arterial is a street that carries through volume.
The Councilman was curious about your statement that you would not want to move traffic from an arterial street to a local street. Specifically, he was curious about the phrase "We would not want to." Is that a requirement?
I don't think it's a written requirement. Our goal is to keep as much through-traffic on arterial streets as possible and off local streets.
Now, going back to the collector street. So you have arterial streets and you have local streets and you have collector streets. How do you make a distinction between what is a collector street 45 05/28/04 - STREETS - BILL 040370 and what is a local street?
You look at the network of the streets, whether a street goes through, what the size of the street is, how much volume a street is carrying.
You're talking about determining whether a street is a collector or a arterial or local street.
So you make the determination of whether something is a collector street or an arterial street or a local street by the volume?
By volume and function. An arterial is going from neighborhood to neighborhood, is going through neighborhoods and is carry traffic from different neighborhoods. A collector is taking traffic from local streets and feeding it onto arterials. And a local street is a local street, just carrying traffic primarily on that street and maybe a couple of adjacent 46 05/28/04 - STREETS - BILL 040370 streets.
When you're conducting a traffic study, do you look at the location of police stations, fire stations, hospitals and stuff? That's a technical term. Do you look at the location and number of hospitals, fire stations and so forth?
Only if they're immediately on the streets that's being changed?
So if access to a hospital or fire station was changed by a change in traffic, if it wasn't on that particular street, you would not look at that?
It would depend on the functional classification of the street. An arterial street would have an effect. A local street would not have an effect. And collector most likely would not.
How do you make that 47 05/28/04 - STREETS - BILL 040370 determination that it would not have an effect?
You identify the location of the institution and whether or not the traffic would be -- it would be used to or from that institution.
For instance, would you time how long it took an emergency vehicle to go from Point A to Point B under the previous circumstances and under the new circumstances?
We would not be looking to increase delay on any streets significantly as is.
I'm sorry. I didn't identify myself before I was questioning you. I'm Rosalie Leonard. I'm from City Council's technical and planning staff. And I just have one other question for you. Do you hire consultants or outside firms when you do your traffic studies? 48 05/28/04 - STREETS - BILL 040370
And could you give us the names of some of the firms that you've hired?
I'll try. I think Pennoni is P-E-N-N-O-N-I. Urban is "Urban." Orth Rogers is O-R-T-H and then "Rogers." MacMahon Associates. That's M-A-C-M-A-H-O-N, I believe. McCormick Taylor.
There are a number of 49 05/28/04 - STREETS - BILL 040370 firms all over the place. When we generally do things like that from that City it's either on an RFP basis or a competitive bid, and everybody and their brother can put in for it, so any number firms can do that.
I just have a couple other questions. I think you said that studies vary so there's not a typical length of a study?
No. It depends on how long it takes to collect the data and analyze it. It depends on --
When you generate a report and you have supporting data, how do you make the decision what data is included in the report and what is left out? What's a typical report look like?
I'm not sure I know what a typical report looks like. I think sometimes it's just a general summary of 50 05/28/04 - STREETS - BILL 040370 what's contained more than it is what you would call a long, large, thick report.
Would it be fair to say that if somebody only has a summary and they don't have something that's more detailed indicating what the volume of cars was, how many hospitals, emergency institutions there were, what the volume of public transportation was, how many kids were in the area, what types of accidents there were, would it be fair to say that somebody looking at a report that didn't include those things would be at a loss in assessing the validity of the report, what went into the report, the reliability of the conclusions? Would you say that without that data that people would be at a disadvantage?
Well, if you're changing the direction of traffic and traffic 51 05/28/04 - STREETS - BILL 040370 gets diverted to smaller streets, traffic gets diverted to areas where there are children under the age of 18, some under the age of 5 going to school, where emergency vehicles have 6 typically been able to go one way and now 7 suddenly they can't go another way, would you 8 say a report that didn't detail how you took 9 into account this information would not be 10 able to allay people's concern in the same way 11 a report that did indicate all of that? 12
Most of the streets where we're changing direction are usually small local streets and there's not really a large amount of reporting done with it.
It depends on what the adjacent streets are and what their capabilities are.
But again, why would you not want to provide that information about emergency vehicles, schools, number of children, and so forth, in your report? Isn't that something that you want to make available 52 05/28/04 - STREETS - BILL 040370 to people so they can see that the study is thorough and complete and they should not be concerned about any impact?
We just generally give a summary and a lot of times things are -- changes in a direction of a street are done on a trial basis. You get complaints if there's a problem when you do it on a trial basis, and you react to what those complaints are and you address it and you look at this. If there are no complaints when you do something on a trial basis, you don't look at those things necessarily.
A complaint would be a written request or a phone call coming in complaining about something.
Would you ever generate a report or a summary without having reviewed all the data? 53 05/28/04 - STREETS - BILL 040370
So if a report is issued for a given change of some kind, whether it's widening a street, narrowing a street, changing a direction of a street, if you've issued a report, then you are finished with your study; is that correct?
If it's a final report, yes. If it's not a final report, then no, there may still be other things to look at.
How does one determine whether something is a final report?
If it is a final report, there would be no reason why you couldn't provide data to people who requested it so that they would be able to fill in the gaps where you haven't specified things; is that right?
So, for instance, if Councilman Cohen were to call you up and say, 54 05/28/04 - STREETS - BILL 040370 "This is a wonderful report, but I'm really interested in A, B, C and D," you would be willing to give him the data immediately; is that correct?
It would depend on how the data -- the data may not be neat necessarily and we may want to clean it up in terms of making it legible. Not everyone's handwriting is legible, not everything is typed out.
The Committee stand in recess until June 4 at 2 o'clock. (Council adjourned at 12:15 a.m.) - - - - 55 C E R T I F I C A T I O N I HEREBY CERTIFY that the foregoing proceedings of the Council of the City of Philadelphia of Friday May 28, 2004, were reported fully and accurately by me, and that this is a correct transcript of the same. RE: COMMITTEE ON STREETS _________________________ Lisa C. Bradley, RPR