Zero traffic deaths by 2039 says Bloomington, outdoor parklet dining program OK’d another year
Bloomington wants to reduce the number of deaths and serious injuries on the city’s roadways to zero by 2039.
That’s one of the big points of a resolution adopted by Bloomington’s city council at its regular Wednesday meeting.
The other big point of the resolution is that the city will adopt a Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A) Action Plan. The SS4A is a grant program administered by the Federal Transit Administration.
Presenting the resolution was Ryan Robling, who is the city’s planning services manager, and Dean Chamberlain, who is the engineering group manager for Toole Design’s Minneapolis office. Toole is helping Bloomington develop the city’s SS4A action plan under a $132,500 contract approved last year by the board of public works.
Also at Wednesday’s meeting, the city council extended for the 2024 season the outdoor dining program for parklets—on-street parking spaces that restaurants can pay a fee to use as additional areas to serve customers. The program this year runs from April 29 until Nov. 1.
Not a part of the outdoor dining program this year is the closure of any part of Kirkwood Avenue. That’s not really a policy-driven choice, but rather one that acknowledges the practical difficulty of working around an underground culvert project, at 6th Street and Indiana Avenue. It’s the final leg of a bigger, years-long project to help manage stormwater runoff.
The outdoor parklet program was presented to the council by Chaz Mottinger, special projects manager with the economic and sustainable development (ESD) department and De de la Rosa, who is assistant ESD director for small business development.
The resolution on adopting a target year for zero roadway deaths came during Safety Week—during which planning staff and consultants from Toole Design are doing public outreach through a series of popup events.
The point of the action plan is to define the projects that the city will undertake to put it on a path to reaching the goal of zero deaths by 2039. Responding to a B Square question after the presentation, Robling said that the $2 million that’s in the 2024 budget for SS4A will be put towards those initial projects that are defined in the city’s SS4A action plan, a draft of which is supposed to be finalized sometime in July.
The draft action plan will then be amended into the Bloomington’s comprehensive plan and its transportation plan.
Councilmember Isak Asare asked Robling about ensuring something actually gets built: “How do we give this more teeth so that we actually do it—so that we stop making plans upon plans upon plans?” Asare quipped, “It sounds like a Dr. Seuss book, right?”
Asare continued, “The answer is, Hey, we’re going to be really transparent this time, or something, so we can hold you accountable. Hold you accountable to what?”
Robling replied, “I would flip it and say it’s actually you holding yourselves accountable here, and the administration holding themselves accountable.” Robling continued: “This plan is the teeth that you’re looking for.”
About the city’s transportation plan, Robling said that it does address safety. But he continued, “It does not do it in a clear and definitive way. So this resolution plus this plan will address safety.” Robling wrapped up his response to Asare by saying “In every transportation decision we make going forward, engineering will have to address it.”
Toole Design’s Chamberlain talked about the initial projects that would likely be in the action plan—the “low-hanging fruit.” They are projects that could be implemented quicker, like signing and striping projects, or installing a pedestrian crossing refuge median. Pricewise, Chamberlain described the individual projects as in the tens or maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars, not millions of dollars.
As one example of the kinds of quick-implementation, low-cost, experimental projects that could be a part of the initial SS4A phase, the new 3rd Street bike lane delineators got some discussion. The project has already added delineators and flexible stanchions to a stretch of the 3rd Street bicycle lane just south of the Indiana University campus, under a $35,200 contract with E&B Paving.
About the 3rd Street bicycle lane project, councilmember Matt Flaherty said it took a “shockingly long to implement.” He said it was proposed eight years ago, there was pushback from the university, and ultimately got scrapped. Flaherty called it a “quick-build, low cost, easy implementation project—low hanging fruit, data driven, obvious solution to increase safety.”
Also commenting on how long it took for the city to get the 3rd Street bicycle lane project installed was councilmember Kate Rosenbarger: “When we have Indiana University, throwing a fit about the city putting bollards on 3rd Street, because IU doesn’t think they’re pretty, and so we leave the street the way it is for about a decade, I mean, I think that’s wild, right?”
The cost to restaurants for the parklet program is $250 per parking space. It’s confined to Kirkwood and just the streets around the courthouse square. Mottinger confirmed to the B Square after the presentation, that businesses near the square, like Metal Works and The Bishop, which have had parklets in past years, will also be eligible for parklets this year.
There are “beautification guidelines” that are supposed to help mitigate the visual impact of the orange jersey barriers that are used to wall off the spaces from car traffic.
