What YOUR Neighborhood Can Do to Calm TrafficWhat YOUR Neighborhood Can Do to Calm Traffic
FIRST DRAFT OUTLINE (9/18/19)
The City of Northampton is improving transportation safety for pedestrians, bicyclists, transit riders, and motorists, consistent with the City’s Complete Streets Policy. The City’s
effort includes public investment (federal, state, and local dollars), new engineering approaches, regulatory requirements, and enforcement and education. We want a community with no
traffic related fatalities or serious injuries, Vision Zero.
Resources are always going to be limited, however, and we can never do as much as we want.
Even with only limited City resources, there are tremendous opportunities for neighborhoods to help calm traffic and build safer streets. This manual is designed to help describe that.
What works (precedents)
We learn from what has worked elsewhere in Northampton and in other communities:
Stories from City Repair
Stories from Build a Better Block
Lessons from Main Street Complete Streets demonstration day
Lessons from Northampton portable Parklet
Social Equity
We love it when neighborhoods help identify their needs. We have also seen, in Northampton and elsewhere, that neighborhoods of means can lobby successfully for their needs and some
neighborhoods are left out. One of the City’s roles is making sure that we have an equitable distribution of city resources.
Your neighborhood can help by identifying populations that may have special needs, mobility disabilities, higher percentage of the population without access to cars, youth, elderly,
etc. Make sure that any plan specifically identifies the needs of these communities.
How you can do it
Doing any work within the street right-of-way can be dangerous. The last thing we want is for traffic safety improvements to result in any crashes or injuries.
The first step of any neighborhood project is meaningful engagement with all residents. This requires not only the people you know and people who are easily available, but deep engagement
and involvement with everyone…
Any project, even those listed as automatically approvable, requires signoff from DPW and Police. Please allow enough time.
Work in a city road generally requires police details, which is a cost that has to be paid by anyone making that improvement. If the neighborhood comes together and an entire street
section can be closed during an installation, this cost can be avoided.
Public notice is critical. We will ask neighborhoods to share their plans with the Northampton Department of Public Works and to leaflet all homes and businesses who might be effected.
City Councilors, Planning & Sustainability, and others can often help with the planning process
Take before and after traffic counts, so you can learn what works and build a case for projects looking for future public investments
Etc
What you can do
Temporary signage on your front lawn- include zoning requirements
Can the City provide the signs- EG MassBike Mini-Grant program
Street and sidewalk painting programs- with neighborhood consensus and a safe process for closing streets
Coordinate parking cars in legal parking spots to narrow a road
Work with the City’s tree committee to plant more street trees
Participate in the City’s Pace Car program, where residents put a Pace Car sticker on their car and agree to drive the speed limit to set a reasonable pace for traffic.
etc