Title
School Zone Policy Revisions
Action
Action:
Approve the Transportation and Planning Committee’s recommendation to revise the School Zone Policy.
Body
Committee Chair:
Julie Eiselt, Transportation and Planning
Staff Resource(s):
Liz Babson, Transportation
Charles Abel, Transportation
Current Policy
§ The current School Zone Policy was adopted in 2004.
§ The existing policy has conditional requirements for high schools that preempt some schools from qualifying for the installation of school zones.
§ School zones are only allowed on frontage streets.
§ Qualifications for school zones are determined by a total number of student walkers.
Proposed Changes
§ Align the policy with the tenets of Vision Zero and ease the requirements on school eligibility.
§ Remove conditional requirements on high schools for eligibility.
§ Allow adjacent streets to be part of school zones in addition to frontage streets.
§ Considers the school location on the High Injury Network corridor while factoring in traffic volumes and speeds.
§ School speed zones should be established at 25 miles per hour citywide.
§ The City will seek concurrence with the North Carolina Department of Transportation to establish school speed zones on state-maintained streets in accordance with this policy.
Committee Discussion
§ The Transportation and Planning Committee (Committee) received information and discussed the policy at the meetings on June 24, 2018, November 26, 2018, and January 14, 2019.
§ On January 14, 2019, the Committee voted unanimously in favor of advancing the proposed School Zone Policy to full City Council (Eiselt, Phipps, Egleston, and Winston; Ajmera was absent).
§ City Council received a presentation highlighting the current policy with proposed changes at the Action Review on February 11, 2019.
Attachments
Attachment(s)
Draft School Zone Policy