We Get Letters: More Need to do More to Keep Pedestrians and Bicyclists Safe

I’ve been reading your articles the last two days referencing Safety Campaigns for Traffic and Council Members asking for more to be done to address Pedestrian and Bicyclist Fatalities.

As a member of the Transportation Advisory Commission I whole heartily agree. I am not the best writer, but I wanted to share that I have expressed my concerns about safety on more then one occasion at our meetings and even in our last meeting, we were tasked with completing a “Commissioner Annual Work Plan” and my hand written comments are attached, where I stressed certain things needed to be added, like the Commissioners needing more training and guidance in performance of their duties, and that we need to bring more focus in addressing traffic concerns around the city. The ped and bike safety being a priority.

I believe we are failing as a Commission in holding the department to task.

I believe the department is failing at making improvements on this and needs re-structured top down.

TAC is not included on any of these subjects as well, keep in mind. I am reading all about this first hand from your news source. The department seems to always present stats that show improvements. They also conveniently do not keep us in the loop on what I consider major projects. This being one, how about the survey for on-street parking recently launched, we are not involved in this consultant’s work at all (once again, I read about it in your news online articles).

Interestingly enough too, one of our main responsibilities at TAC is passing and approving the CIP. When that was presented this year, when it came time for Commissioner Comments, the Director left the meeting, she did not even bother to hear our advice?

This has been one of the most frustrating Commissions I have ever been a part of and I have now sat on 4 different commisions at varying levels of Government, State down.

Lastly, I have always been an advocate of wanting more Police involvement, even when I ran for City Council.

We can not operate with only 6 Traffic Officers in our city, for its size and event status, etc… DOT also is very resistant to including PPD in their meetings as well, even though I believe they could provide valuable information on traffic hotspots throughout the City.

I can go on……………….

Sincerely,

Kevin M. Litwin

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