CAMPO passes road safety plan, begins hunt for grant funding

A two-sided sheet of paper was distributed at the Carson Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (CAMPO) meeting Monday distilling a new plan that is hundreds of pages long including appendices. But listing 10 priority safety locations CAMPO will focus on going forward, the summary gave the public a way to grasp how their local government is responding to fatal road crashes. It was available in Spanish as well.

“As you can see, staff are taking steps to make this Local Road Safety Plan come to life to save lives,” said Carson City Senior Transportation Planner Kelly Norman, who also staffs CAMPO.

With Douglas County representative John Erb absent but other members present, the CAMPO board voted unanimously to approve a new Local Road Safety Plan (LRSP) that sets up the organization for more grant resources targeting problematic traffic areas in Carson City, western Lyon County and northern Douglas County.

The plan’s 10 priority areas include both intersections and dangerous segments of road such as North Carson Street in the capital city, the Topsy Lane intersection with Highway 395 in Douglas County and the Highlands Drive area in Mound House.

The plan and appendices are available on the CAMPO website: https://www.carson.org/government/departments-g-z/public-works/transportation/campo-carson-area-metropolitan-planning-organization.

“As of 2020, the population of the Carson City Metropolitan Area was approximately 85,000 people and is anticipated to grow 24% to 105,000 people by 2050,” the plan says. “CAMPO’s transportation network includes 867 centerline miles of roadway.”

The LRSP incorporates crash data and notes from site visits. For instance, from 2018 to 2022, there were 82 serious-injury crashes in the CAMPO area and 35 fatalities. Though overall crashes are declining, serious-injury and fatal crashes remain high, something that has concerned local and state transportation leaders.

The plan also incorporates safety countermeasures supported by the federal government, their relative effectiveness, benefit-cost analysis and appendices with project recommendations and estimated costs. Countermeasures may be applied at specific sites or system-wide depending on need.

Lower speed limits, intersection lighting and pedestrian beacons are some of the measures recommended for implementation or for further evaluation. For example, at Highlands Drive and Highway 50 in Mound House, where a 10-year-old girl was killed in January, a pedestrian hybrid beacon and related improvements are estimated to cost about $2.2 million. The current recommendation is to evaluate this option. Intersection lighting, on the other hand, is recommended to be installed for an estimated cost of $21,500.

At Nye Lane and North Carson Street, where a 14-year-old girl also lost her life in January, one recommendation is to realign the intersection and provide pedestrian refuge islands for an estimated cost of $16.5 million. Another recommendation is to install a rectangular rapid flashing beacon and related improvements for a much cheaper estimated cost of $552,500, according to appendices in the plan.

The LRSP qualifies CAMPO for more federal grant programs. Carson City Transportation Manager Chris Martinovich said Monday that CAMPO would pursue a Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A) grant for the Mound House area in the next year.

“The issue we sometimes struggle with is the match component,” he said.

CAMPO receives no local funding, Martinovich said, so the planning organization relies on state and local governments to support match requirements for federal grant money.

Who has jurisdiction over which roadway (Highway 50 in Mound House is maintained by NDOT) is a challenge in the prioritization process, said Carson City Mayor Lori Bagwell, who chairs the CAMPO board. CAMPO might include a project in its top 10 list, but it might be a lower priority at other agencies, she said.

“I’m not sure how we do that,” she said, wanting the public to understand the process. “Maybe even just putting it on the record, so they understand that we’re one metropolitan planning organization. There are others doing, I’m going to guess, the very same exercise.”

Norman added CAMPO acts as a mediator “but cannot push forward on any project.”

“It has to go through the city itself,” she said.

CAMPO members agreed the LRSP is a living document that will reflect a growing region, and priority projects will change with ever-evolving needs.

“The plan is more than the 10 priority locations that are identified,” Martinovich said.

He added: “If we can take lessons learned from past projects or through the detailed analysis of corridors that are currently in this plan and apply them to projects across the CAMPO region by all agencies, then I think, regardless of what corridor is in here, we moved the needle and we’ve made a difference in safety and those areas.”

In approving the plan, CAMPO members also agreed to add language differentiating between local roads in the LRSP – all public roads except I-580 – and local roads in the Carson City road-funding ballot measures, which are defined as neighborhood streets as opposed to collectors or arterials.