In response to a less-than-ideal review of traffic collisions in the last five years in Redwood City, councilmembers discussed on Monday the best ways to address the problem effectively to rid of serious injury or fatalities.
While some on the City Council felt increasing education among young drivers and promoting awareness for road safety could be impactful, others felt physical infrastructure and design is key. Unanimous agreement was maintained, though, on the need to skirt a downwards trend.
A study session was held at the Redwood City Council meeting Monday, Sept. 29, at which city staff and elected officials looked at collected data gathered as part of the city’s Vision Zero strategy.
The city has a goal to eliminate transportation-related fatalities and severe injuries by 2030, but that data point more than doubled between 2023 and 2024.
Principal Transportation Planner Malahat Owrang gave a presentation on the ongoing safety improvements on which the city is working. There are 10 identified locations that are hot spots for collisions and were prioritized for improvements, and eight of those areas have projects either completed or in the works, Owrang said.
Two remaining areas — Whipple Avenue between El Camino Real and Veterans Boulevard, and segments of Redwood Shores Parkway — are intended to be addressed within five years, Owrang said.
Statistics presented to the City Council identified Redwood City as the third worst in California, compared against the 105 similarly populated cities, in terms of traffic safety, according to 2022 rankings by California’s Office of Traffic Safety.
The biggest reasons for injury collisions between 2019 and 2024 were speeding, driving under the influence and failure to stop at red lights, according to Redwood City Police Department data.
While human error and decision-making is often a critical aspect of these collisions, as noted by Police Chief Kristina Bell, infrastructure and enforcement can also play a factor, which is far more in the city’s control.
Councilmember Isabella Chu, a vocal advocate for radical pedestrian and bicyclist safety improvements, said she wants the city to think about traffic safety through a “hierarchy of controls.”
A priority of the City Council should be on investing in engineered improvements that can stand the test of time and funding, Chu said. Increasing education and building awareness is the “least effective mechanism to improve road safety,” and should be considered secondary to physical measures and administrative decisions, she said.
While securing funding for infrastructure improvements — such as new protected bike lanes, speed bumps, thinner lanes — is a growing difficulty for cities, Chu said once these things are built or implemented, they can last decades.
“[A ballard or jersey barrier] doesn’t need a grant to continue to calm traffic,” Chu said.
Enforcement was also a focus of the study session. Lt. Jesus Castro and Sgt. Peter Cang from the Redwood City Police Department also gave a presentation.
While police enforcement can be preventative, it is often that traffic violations such as speeding or running red lights can only be addressed when they happen in front of officers. Some councilmembers shared they would be in favor of establishing red-light or speeding cameras should they be available.
Redwood City once had red-light cameras, but dropped the program along with many other cities in the Peninsula after realizing they weren’t reducing accidents. San Francisco is currently piloting speeding-cameras, which if found to be successful after five years could make its way to other smaller cities.
In regards to traffic safety improvements approved by the City Council going forward, Councilmember Marcella Padilla noted her desire to make sure community members, and residents in the neighborhoods addressed, are being heard.
“I want to make sure at the heart whatever we do, we are actually talking to the communities around,” Padilla said.
Councilmember Chris Sturken said decisions will be a balance between residents’ desire and what the safety data shows. It’s “choosing to preserve lives over convenience,” he said.
(6) comments
Lets watch our language here!
We usually don't see 'radical' in that kind of context:
"advocate for radical pedestrian and bicyclist safety improvements"
Is that the voice of Mayor Entitlement, I'm hearing there?
- Walking/Biking are basic human RIGHTS in America.
- Driving is a PRIVILEGE paid for with SIN TAXES or VICE TAXES - the kind you pay for smoking and getting drunk.
So asking for a little more safety for people on foot or bike isn't RADICAL - that should be the absolute bare minimum.
But San Mateo Democrats can't even achieve the BARE MINIMUM anymore these days.
And no, Mrs Padilla, we don't need to "hear from the community"* about this. That is just professional expectation at this point.
* 'hear from the community' is a figure of speech and a call to fossil fuel lobbyists to send in more campaign checks. That was what happened in San Mateo, when gentrifier Nicole Fernandez "listened to her neighborhood".
Thank you Councilmembers Chu and Sturken (and others!) for your support for accelerating safe street improvements.
While this traffic collision statistic sounds bad – is it really? Reports show more collisions but was this because more drivers were on the road? We need statistics to show the ratio of how many collisions per 100 cars or per 1000 cars and whether this ratio increased or decreased. Until then, as in many cases, cherry-picked statistics can introduce a false narrative. Meanwhile, I expect this story is a precursor to Redwood City floating tax proposals to fund traffic safety improvements which may not be needed. Perhaps we need more enforcement in major corridors and intersections, even if they need to park officers at trouble locations to witness the infraction. Decoy cars in visible locations - perhaps with mannequin drivers.
The State's analysis compares RWC to similarly sized cities. In this peer group, RWC is third worst in the state. This is a valid comparison. For this reason additional safety improvements are necessary.
Per the very thoughtful discussion by Council, studies show that enforcement alone is not an effective (or inexpensive) long-term strategy for making streets safer.
Thanks for your response, joebob91, but the article says “similarly populated cities” and not “similarly sized cities.” Who cares about population when we’re dealing with traffic statistics? Do these cities have comparable traffic volume? Number of drivers? Numbers of roads? Traffic commuters? Because if not similar in anything traffic-related then the “similarly populated cities” comparison means nothing. Do traffic collision statistics support an increased traffic collision narrative? Why can’t Redwood City provide data on the number of collisions per 100 or per 1000 residents to clear up confusion? In this day and age, even more so, we’ve seen selective cherry-picking of statistics to promote an issue, when in fact, there isn’t an issue. This sounds like another case of it. Provide valid statistics so there's a valid comparison.
As for enforcement, the article notes that red-light cameras aren’t effective. You say enforcement alone is not inexpensive. Do you think spending millions of dollars to make a few road changes, including road diets, are inexpensive? For those costs, we can hire a few more traffic cops and enforce traffic laws (maybe for years). And with enforcement of traffic laws, there’s a revenue stream that can fund traffic cops hired for enforcement. Much better than mass transit where taxpayers continue to keep subsidizing union workers with no hope of a return on investment.
Don't fight kids, you are both fairly wrong.
First the cost: building dangerous streets and then pay again for "traffic calming" afterwards is where the high infrastructure cost is coming from. Like in any profession the way to success is "measure twice, cut once". Do it right - which means SAFETY FIRST - the first time.
Now the Stats: You are completely forgetting about Vision Zero.
Once cities like San Mateo, Burlingame, Redwood City or basically all of the county became Vision Zero cities no further statistics are necessary. No one needs to be fudging numbers anymore to make it sound better or worse. The culprits are known.
In Vision Zero cities every collision causing death or serious injury is the fault of the city council, city manager and the police department.
If any death or serious injury happens in North Central, Nicole Fernandez is at fault.
The death of the 4 year old in Burlingame goes directly to the lap of Donna Colson. That's why she tried to frame that 11 year old kid on an e-bike instead of taking responsibility and action.
Every single traffic collision in RWC means the combination of city manager (Melissa Stevenson-Diaz), transportation director (Tanisha Werner), police chief (Kristina Bell) and of course transportation staff (Jessica Manzi / Mahalat Owrang) have failed doing their duty. They should be fired.
PS.: might be coincidence, but these are all females in charge. The stereotypes promised us more empathy if only more women were in charge.
Now they are in charge ... but our kids are still waiting ...
Female San Mateo Democrats clearly don't seem to be up to the task.
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