- Hello everybody. Thank you for being here. This is the Metropolitan the Bloomington Metro Monroe County
- Metropolitan Planning Office technical advisory committees meeting on July 22nd I guess we'll start
- with a just Introductions and maybe if we can start on my left with you Neil Good morning, Nate Nichols
- City of Bloomington Public Works Department
- John Baton GIS coordinator for Monroe County Kelly Whitmer Monroe County Parks and Recreation Jackie
- Jelen Monroe County Planning Department Ben Ayers Monroe County Highway proxy Amy Garrett Oz area 10
- rural transit In dot proxy for Rebecca Packer
- GIS proxy for Megan Blair There are no committee members online although one may join later Awesome.
- Thanks Katie and just a reminder for folks even though there is nobody online if you do come online
- to make sure to turn your camera on if you're voting or speaking So with that, I think it's on to the
- approval of the agenda for today. Can I get a motion to approve? So moved
- Thank you Neil and a second. Thanks Jane. I guess we can. Can we do a voice vote. Is that OK. Yes. So
- all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed say nay. Any abstentions. Thanks. Do I announce motion passed.
- Okay, seems like that motion passed for the approval agenda onto the approval of the minutes from our
- last meeting on May 27th Can I get a motion to approve? Thanks Neil and a second second, thanks Jane
- all in favor say aye aye any opposed say nay any abstains Okay, so motion passes
- On to the communications from the chair and vice chair. I don't have a ton. It's a beautiful summer.
- I hope everybody's enjoying it. That's me Jane. Do you have anything to report. It does not look like
- it. So staying busy and things like that. I guess we're going to move on to Pat and Katie for
- some communications from from staff. OK. Just the first item is
- that the state of Indiana is working on their strategic highway safety plan and they are accepting public
- input on that at this moment. So if you follow the link in the agenda, you can go view it and we encourage
- you to fill out the survey. It only takes about 10 to 15 minutes if you have time. Just give me one second.
- The next item is that NDOT is also updating the Indiana State Rail Plan. Sorry, one second, technical problems.
- The Indiana State Rail Plan guides the state's rail infrastructure investment and their policies. Okay,
- sorry. And they have this website here, it's kind of like
- overview of the plan, and then there's a link to the plan at the very bottom. So again, if you have
- a moment and you want to look at that, the link for that is in the agenda. Finally, we wanted to share
- item 6.3 in the agenda. We wanted to share this federal input opportunity. The Federal Transit Administration is
- seeking input from the transit industry and the public about transportation service quality across five
- areas, safety, cleanliness, accessibility, service data, and system reliability. And it looks like they
- are accepting comments until August 3rd. So if you are so inclined to participate in providing comments
- to that, the link to that is in the agenda.
- Okay, item 6.4. Update to the crash dashboard for Monroe County in Bloomington. Huge thanks to Max and
- to Megan for updating this. We went through all the 2025 crash data from the Department of Transportation
- for the entire county.
- Proof through all of that, GIS coordinated everything to make sure that everything was accurate, passed
- it on to the ITS GIS team. This was posted approximately three weeks ago, I think, or something like
- that. It shows all the crash records from 2020, 2022, calendar year 2022. God, first day back through 2025.
- And you'll see there that Predominant crash factors failure to yield right away following too closely
- unsafe backing animals and objects in the roadway one thousand two hundred and seventy six of those
- And local roads we're looking at sixty two percent of the total crashes run local roads only twenty
- one percent were on state routes
- We encourage you to go to the crash data hub or crash dashboard for Bloomington Monroe County and check
- out everything that's there. It's really a significant amount of work that's there and it's also uploaded
- on to the state level from there. We have next thing we have item six point five early coordination
- letter from the Indiana Department of Transportation.
- This is for a small structure improvement project on State Road 45 over an unnamed tributary of Griffey
- Creek, 0.38 miles east of Interstate 69. If you can find it, good. If you know exactly where it is,
- good. But there's an early coordination letter that's in the packet, shows the specific location of
- the project itself. It's just a little bit east of
- of the interstate 69 on zero forty five forty six corridor if you have any questions please let us know
- we'll be happy to answer those item six point six ourselves the city of Bloomington Monroe County and
- the Indiana Department of Transportation completed a set of roadways safety audits or essays in the
- planning area and this was last week
- The Indiana Department of Transportation examined, first location they examined was State Road 45 in
- the area from Industrial Boulevard to Curry Pike, affectionately known as Wally World. That area has
- significant congestion, significant number of crashes. Many of those are what I would call fender bender,
- property damage only type of crashes.
- Nonetheless, they're looking at that to see if there's something they can do with the roadway, with
- the signal timing, with the access to make that an improvement. They will have some sort of a recommendation
- within a couple of months. Second location we looked at jointly was the intersection of St. Wood 45,
- St. Wood 46 in the area of Kinzer Pike.
- and Rogers Street itself. The concern there is pedestrian movement more than anything else. There's
- a planned pedestrian project along the corridor on the north side of the corridor where they will have
- a protected walkway. But that is another four years or five years down the road.
- Predominantly we're looking at here is the congestion we've got because we've seen the area grow from
- somewhere around 36,000 vehicles a day up to roughly 40 to 42,000 vehicles a day. Commercial traffic
- is fairly light. It's only about 5% or so. But the issue here is the pedestrian movements, the north-south
- pedestrian movements on the west side of the corridor,
- which Katie has up, where pedestrians are walking to the Kroger in that area. We triggered one pedestrian
- walk just to see what would happen and we had a significant backup in traffic along the Roger Street
- corridor to the south. We don't know what we're gonna do on this area.
- The Department of Transportation will take a look again at all of the crashes over the last five years
- and then they will have a recommendation coming out from the independent roadway safety audit
- team approximately two months from now. The third intersection we looked at was the intersection of
- zero forty forty six and Moore's Pike. Well Katie gets down there.
- Stuart 40 46 and Morris Pike. If you're familiar with that intersection we affectionately armored it
- up back in 2020. We had had a number of what I would call crazy crashes there where people weren't looking
- or they were making right angle crashes. This one popped out of the cake somehow or another just because
- the frequency is back again.
- and we're not really sure why. I have a question. There used to be a blinking light there. I'm sorry?
- There used to be a blinking light. Yeah, prior to 2020, it was an overhead flashing yellow. They determined
- that overhead flashing yellow was inadequate. People couldn't see it. So instead, what they did was
- they put up... They took it away. They took it away and they put up the stop signs.
- with the flashing stop signs on the west and the east legs of that intersection. They also added a left
- turn lane for what I would call a northbound to westbound left turn lane. They added that in there,
- too. That reduced the number of right angle crashes. Part of the problem may be site distance issue.
- On the west leg the west leg if you're eastbound You come up to state road 446 you're on a rise And
- you have a stop bar there, but everybody goes past the stop bar to stick their nose out to see if they
- can Get a better view The frequency is up only slightly The serious and fatalities are not there. It's
- just property damage only
- But this is something that they will look at in terms of what I would call fine tuning the intersection.
- Again that report will be out within two months or three months at the most. OK. And then moving. I'll
- be happy to answer any questions anybody may have before I move on here. Yeah. Could you elaborate at
- all about like
- metrics the audits looking at is it just traffic counts or is it speed is a direction that everything
- The metrics are actually several dozen. Okay in list. I I don't have it It's fairly comprehensive. It's
- it's extensive. It's it's an audit So they look they look at everything Assuming nothing is right assuming
- everything is wrong and then they go down the checklist from there to see okay
- What is happening? When is it happening? They're happening, well, that was the other thing. Steering
- 446 and the 4546 at Kinzer, all of those are happening in the daytime. And they're happening when light
- conditions are good, when it's dry pavement. And you have to ask yourself, what's going on here? As
- you can see, there's no skid marks. It's not snowing or anything like that. Some of it is driver attention.
- Another part of it up on say 45 and 46 at Kinzer is speed where the vehicles are eastbound off the interstate
- eastbound come up to the intersection. They're still up. The 85th percentile was somewhere around 55
- miles an hour even though that posted speed in that area is 45 miles an hour. And so therefore you're
- you've got a lot of rear end crashes or something of that nature.
- Does that answer your question? Yeah, thanks. Okay, sure. And then moving on now, the next item on the
- agenda is item 6.7, upcoming fiscal year 2028-2032 call for projects. The MPO will be doing a call for
- projects in August, mid August to the end of August. We haven't got the exact, well, we have an exact
- date and we just haven't announced it yet. We'll be doing a call for projects.
- This will be for fiscal year all federal aid projects for fiscal year 28 through 32. This will include
- the full gamut of all projects based on available funding in prior calls that we've had are available
- funding annually federal funding available annually. It was somewhere around five point two five point
- five million. This time it looks like our federal call will be only somewhere around four point five million.
- We've lost funding and this isn't just us, it's all of the other MPOs within the state of Indiana. This
- is the last year of the Federal Highway Funding Bill and Congress is negotiating, I'm using quotes on
- this, negotiating a new funding bill but the likelihood of that bill passing prior to the November election is zero.
- Uh, so we'll probably see a continuing resolution, which means that our funding levels will remain static,
- at least into the beginning of the new calendar year. And we'll be happy to answer any questions you
- may have on any of that. I'm a neuro county in the city of Bloomington are well aware of all of this.
- And as, as Bloomington transit is and area seven agency on aging transit also should be aware of this.
- Well, I've got, unless anybody has any other questions. Sorry, I'm out of practice with vacation here.
- Okay. Six point eight. If you go to the TIP project listing that I've linked there, you can see all
- the updates from the May meeting if you weren't here. There was, we had quite a few updates for a lot
- of the projects, but if Neil has any more recent updates that he'd like to share or
- Ben and Tim from the county, please feel free to at this time. Real quick updates on the city's federal
- projects. So we have our second street project that's in construction. If you're out there, you'll see
- it. Our curb ramps phase four project is bidding this fall. We did move that letting back to a December
- letting. We just had a stage three submission and they were a little bit behind. So we needed to give
- some more time for that.
- Our curve ramps phase four or sorry, phase five project is still early in its design phase. Our high
- street project is ready to go to its letting. We've just moved it to an October letting due to some
- issues with updating the STIP, but very much appreciate the MPO staff's help in getting that resolved.
- We are in utility relocation right now for that project and then expecting construction next year in 2027.
- Crosswalks Phase 3 is still in design. Crosswalks Phase 4 still hasn't started. We're expecting consultant
- selection for design for that at the end of the year. Our Dunn Street project is in its right-of-way
- acquisition phase now. And our College Walnut project, we have two phases of that. They're now combined
- into the same fiscal year and consultant selection for design is underway right now.
- And I'd be happy to answer questions if there are any. I went through those pretty quickly. So from
- the county the twenty six twenty six to twenty twenty nine bridge inspections have been completed and
- are in compliance and will be uploaded into the bridge program in dot Dillman Ridge bridge eighty three
- right away at acquisition.
- Is starting to begin in the next month or so The consultant contract is with Aegis and it's just waiting
- on the in dot LPA contract to be generated Eagleton bridge 922 Looks like counties met with IU and And
- other reps and the bridge utilities will start relocating in the area and
- coordinate with IU as well Fairfax Road I Believe this is for the high-friction Asphalt has been awarded
- and will begin soon Rockport Road Bridge 308 is under construction At this time, there's no date on
- completion, but I believe it's October That road bridge 79
- has been approved and executed with Clark Dietz and we're starting the federal aid process. I know this
- one's not in the MPO area but just kind of want to touch base on it is the rural road bridge 75 is right
- now under construction in that area is closed. That's it. Thank you guys.
- Recommend staff for this map. It's extremely helpful. So, thank you The that the that road bridge is
- is in the tip we added it in May It's not on the map yet because the map just updates every month. So
- it's it'll it should be up there showing soon So as you know some
- Some changes to the tip, we don't require that they be reviewed and formally approved at committee meetings.
- However, so there is one change to the tip that was completed since the last meeting that did not require
- TAC review. So this is just an FYI to you in terms of
- what was done. I really don't know why that screen is so weird today. So the city's downtown curb ramps
- for project, the CE and CN phases were shifted from fiscal year 26 to 27. And the CE phase funding amounts
- were updated
- And the reason for this change was to just provide additional time to complete environmental and design
- process. This project is not using MPO funds, but they did get special safety funds from the state during
- a special call in 2024. Those are the same funds that the Monroe County won for their Fairfax high friction project.
- And that is the only change that was done since the last meeting. Item 6.10 is for your review but also
- just something to think about in all of your free time that you have. So this is just an attempt to
- kind of share, provide you more information on this whole
- review process that we have to put ourselves through. So we have first the federal law that guides us,
- which is fairly general. And the federal law defines what we call amendments and modifications. And
- this is the reason, you know, we bring items to you for updating the tip document and ask for
- your recommendation to approve it to send to the policy committee.
- The federal definitions here though are pretty vague. And so then at the state level, they are able
- to specify how they will define amendments and modifications. So when those changes are sent to them,
- they do their own public reviews and posting to the website according to their definitions here that
- you see. And then most specific of all,
- is that the local community, you guys, are able to dictate the standards at which you want to review
- things, and so they at the very least need to meet the state, or they should meet the state and federal
- definitions, but they can get more specific beyond the state and federal definitions in terms of how
- reviews are done locally, how long you want public comment to be,
- what types of changes you want to review, and it can be as specific as you really want it to be. And
- so our guidance, our local policy is within Bloomington, or within the MPO's public participation plan.
- It's not that language is just in the plan. It's not in the tip at this time, but we'll be sure to include
- it in the tip in the future just so that it's easier to find. And so at this time we have our local
- policy is to have a major amendment category where all the committees review it, where there's a 30
- day written comment period and where it requires a meeting and
- Adoption by the policy committee and then we have definition for a minor amendment which Includes these
- criteria here and Does not require the 30-day comment period does not require CAC and TAC of review
- but just requires policy committee review and then we have administrative approval amendments policy which is
- changes that only have to be sent by email to the policy committee for a three-day review. And if nobody
- comments, then we can go ahead and send them to NDOT for their review. So that's what our current policy
- is. So we will likely come back to you in the future, and we will likely
- want to propose some updates to our current process. In particular, I can say right now that we would
- like to reduce the time period to the public comment period to more like 10 days or two weeks at the
- most instead of 30 days. And we may also propose some other changes just to bring it more into
- with the current state and federal definitions of things. So that's a lot of information, but if there's
- any burning thing on your mind where you're like, man, I really wish I had a chance to review that thing
- before it got sent to the state, feel free to write that down and bring it up when we propose changes
- in the future.
- Questions yeah in terms of public comment just like a back of an envelope Calculation what's like that
- annually? How many public comments do you guys receive about these these processes? Well for the specifically
- for like tip project updates Only what's set at the meetings? We do have
- And it's a little bit buried in the packets, obviously. We do have, like on our home page, we have the
- blurb here about items open for public review. But that's really, and then once in a while I post it
- on Facebook or something, but we don't get any comments outside of this meeting for this. And then in
- the public participation plan, there is like a separate procedure for like
- the big approval of the TIP every two years and then the approval of other documents and what the public
- comment period is for those as well. Awesome. Thanks. Just a quick question, Katie. Is it addressed
- in here when there's an exchange between LPAs or MPOs?
- if that's in there or is that not part of this discussion? What kind of exchange? Just like a conversation?
- Like I guess it's somewhat addressed in changing the construction year like phase timeline. So would
- that be like part of that under administrative? Yeah, I mean that's something we would definitely coordinate
- with the LPAs.
- They will keep us apprised on the status of their project. We do the quarterly project meetings or quarterly
- tracking meetings where we get updates from the LPAs and then we get updates in between that as well.
- And if they cannot use, if they're assigned funds in a given year and they cannot use them, then we'll
- have to reassess
- You know where those funds go and then we have to work with the LPA and their end up project manager
- to figure out what like a new letting date would be. Yeah. So we have we have conversations within that
- basically to get to the point where we can propose this update to you in terms of what we think is the
- what we in the LPA LPA think is the most reasonable solution based on all the information we have. OK.
- Thank you.
- is helpful. Yeah, yeah. So I guess I'll say because of this like, you know, very rigorous review at
- multiple levels, this is one of many places where delays can occur. So for example, if, you know, we
- may have a change to our tip that the local, locally we consider
- an amendment and that requires we wait till the next meeting to take it to the committees and hope they
- approve it. Once they approve it then we have to send it to INDOT for their review and then they send
- it to Federal Highway for review as well. And if it's right now if it's an amendment they the Federal
- Highway review is being done by one person. I don't know what their scope of review is but
- As a result of their reduction in staff to do those reviews that are required. It's now taking like
- three to five months To get an okay back from them and they won't release federal funding until they
- have that that review done so that can that is one of many things that can potentially cause a
- these delays that then force us to change our letting dates or move our construction phases for a project
- from one fiscal year to the next. It's a lot of juggling that you guys do. We appreciate it. Also,
- I think, you know, for the just in my learning of our role in the MPO, especially the TAC, it's like the
- Projects that are selected are selected amongst the stakeholders of this group and so This is a helpful
- document for us to kind of piece through to say, okay What kind of amendment is this to categorize?
- But also at the end of the day if there's a comment on you know, how things are done It I would like
- some clarity if there's some question by the policy committee or this committee. Is it a
- an issue of the projects that are selected or is it an issue of when these things go to construction
- and then the money that is left over and how that gets reallocated because obviously you guys are dealing
- with a lot of timelines that are out of your control. And so at least from my perspective I want to
- support staff because you guys see it from your perspective and you're getting the applications in from our team.
- here and if there's a way we can streamline things to fulfill projects on time that would be a priority
- I would think so Yeah, thanks It looks like we're moving on to old business which I don't see any on
- the agenda I
- And then on to new business, so 8.1. All right. Speaking of amendments, this is a set of changes that...
- Oh, no. Oh, no. It looks like I linked. I messed up my link here.
- So hopefully you all are looking at the combined PDF. Yeah, when you're looking for this, I just do
- want to say, too, I did appreciate the two different packets that were available on the website, the
- one with all the hyperlinks and then also that combined packet was a nice addition. So thanks, Steph.
- Yeah, I'm doing both for now because it seems like some folks prefer the combined one. But in the future,
- that won't be considered accessible.
- Unless I figure out a way to make it accessible the linked version is the accessible one And so I don't
- know if I'll be able to put up both in the future just so you guys know but I guess today It's handy
- because I messed up the linked one So we are
- requesting your recommendation or approval to the policy committee for some changes to the tip. The
- first change to the tip is the addition of a new end dot project. It's two fiscal years for traffic
- signal modernization project that was already in the tip. But they are they are different project numbers
- and contracts. So they though I have listed them here in the tip together with the others there
- they are considered new project additions. So this is just, again, a pretty general one for this whole
- Seymour district. The amount for us or the locations are not specifically identified yet. And this is
- just a step where they ask us to add it in advance to help shorten review timelines in the future.
- The next addition is a new INDOT project. Again, kind of a grouped one called raised pavement markings.
- And so they have added in some allocated amounts for fiscal year 29 and 30 to the other years that were
- already in the TIP. And again, this is various locations in Seymour District. So anyone who could potentially
- be impacted by this is asked to put it in their TIP.
- This third change is to update INDOT projects 230, 1124, the one that was titled HMA overlay and minor
- structural. This was the one on SR4446 between SR46 and Morris Pike. As some of you may recall, we met
- last April, I think, to talk to NDOT about this project because it's close to the new Monroe County
- Park. So their pavement, I don't know all the details, but this is a more complicated thing on NDOT's
- end in terms of their contracts. They've changed the scope.
- to remove the HMA overlay portion of it, and they've shifted it just to bicycle pedestrian facilities
- on SR-446. They have also shifted the right-of-way phase out to fiscal year 29, and the construction
- has moved from fiscal year 30 to 32.
- And if you have complaints about that, you can submit a INDOT for you ticket, but this decision would
- have been made based on their own budget and prioritization process. The total project cost was updated
- a little bit as well.
- The fourth change is to the Monroe County Old SR 37 South and Dillman Road intersection improvement
- project. After some of the funding exchanges and the shifting of College and Walnut project and the
- shifting of the SR 37 and Dillman Road project to new fiscal years, which we did this past spring,
- After all of that shifting around was done, we had $122,000 in fiscal year 28 that we needed to allocate.
- And so, NPO staff did meet with City of Bloomington and Monroe County representatives to
- discussed this because both both LPAs had projects in those years that could use the funding and the
- result of that meeting was to agree to assign that hundred and twenty two thousand in funds to the SR
- 37 and Dillman Road project. And so this change this update adds that funding in.
- And that's it, I think. I have a question. Back to the sidewalk by Brewster's ice cream to the Monroe
- County Nature Preserve. Did they say how wide that's going to be? I know we had this long discussion
- and I was under the impression it was wider than a normal sidewalk, but not wide enough to be a path.
- I don't think they've and well now that they've moved the construction date out I don't think that they
- are necessarily at that decision point yet but yeah they know they know our feelings about having a
- wider sidewalk there but or a multi-use path but I believe their explanation last year was that the
- funding they were using didn't allow for anything larger than was it eight eight or six feet one of the two
- Yeah. Okay. But I can check in into that again and see if there's been any changes. Excellent.
- Thank you. Thanks. So I think we need to have a motion to approve the item 8.1 the BMC MPO resolution
- FY 20 2701 proposed changes to the FY.
- Twenty twenty six twenty thirty tip can I get a motion to approve Thanks Neil and a second Second Thanks
- Jackie voice vote so all in favor would say aye aye Any opposed say nay any abstentions Motion carries
- On to eight point two
- Okay, the next item we have is a presentation here and a resolution adopting State of Indiana's Department
- of Transportation calendar year 2027, safety performance targets. If you go to the hot link there, you'll
- see that staff wrote a memo regarding this. This is an annual update by the Indiana Department
- of Transportation on what are called their targets.
- The targets have to do with performance in terms of what I'd call FSI fatalities and serious injury
- type crashes. The numbers that are shown there are pretty straightforward. Well, I'm sorry, in the memo
- that we have that goes with it, the memos are pretty straightforward, showing we're looking at the number
- of fatalities rated
- rate of fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled, number of serious injuries, rate of serious
- injuries per 100 million vehicle miles traveled, and the number of non-motorized fatalities and non-motorized
- serious injuries. Now those numbers are the fatalities are 777, this is for calendar year 27, 777 for
- the entire state, fatality rate of 0.97 per 100 million vehicle miles traveled,
- Serious injuries, 2,900. Rate of serious injuries per 100 million vehicle miles traveled, 3.62. And
- the number of non-motorized fatalities and serious injuries is 453. Now, the Department of Transportation
- has adopted, and they adopted this four years ago, a 2% straight line reduction every year.
- shown in the State Highway Safety Plan, the State Highway Safety Plan. Now, if you can go to, okay.
- Now, reading off the numbers, you're probably wondering, how did they come up with that? Did they pull
- it out of clean air, or did they use actual data? And the answer is they used actual data. But the actual
- data we've used is complicated.
- First we'll go over the first chart here. This is the state of Indiana's fatal and serious injury crash
- data from 2014 to 2025. You can see where the fatalities there are on the first column. And there's
- a link there for the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration's research data on fatalities
- and reporting of fatalities.
- You can see it started at 745 in 2014 and 844. Now fatalities are definitive. So there's really
- no equivocation about any of this. The volumes are based on traffic data sampling statewide. Usually
- those take almost two years to process to collect because it's such a complex process. But you can see where the
- Volumes in 2014 there were seven hundred ninety one point seven one Fatalities per hundred million vehicle
- miles traveled and now we're up to in 2025 nine hundred ninety seven point zero two. That's alarming
- Now the fatality rate if you look at that also in the next column over zero point nine four one Starting in 2014
- And then going down to 0.847 in 2025, that's not alarming. That's a good sign. Uh, serious injuries
- have been increasing steadily since 2014 from 3,383, 3,338 at 4,498. However, the definition of what's
- called a serious injury has changed.
- and it's also variable by state. Back in 2014, a serious injury was determined by the officer on the
- scene filling out the report. And then up to now, the definition just recently changed is serious injury
- goes into an extreme definition. I'm not gonna go into severed limbs or anything like that.
- but largely it goes with if someone is transported to the hospital, that's considered a serious injury
- and that's reported as such. The serious injury rate has remained all over the place from 4.215 in 2014
- up to 4.511 in 2025. It's a mixed bag. I can't tell you what to say about any of that.
- Now the non motorized fatalities and serious injuries. This is the total number of pedestrian and bicycle
- crashes. By the way, buggies are not in this horse drawn buggies are not considered part of the statistics
- in the state of Indiana at least. So this is all bike pad 461 in 2014 up to 519 in 2025. Now you look at the
- The non-motorized fatalities, this is alarming. It goes from 90, hit a high of 144, but it's currently
- at 126 in 2025. Non-motorized serious injuries. Again, there's the equivocation here. Serious injury
- was determined by the officer at the scene up until recently.
- And then the more current definition is that if someone is transported to the hospital is considered
- serious injury, otherwise considered just a property damage type of crash. But that's, that's the first
- set of data. That's what I would call the broad, the broad brush stroke neck. And then we'll go to the
- next one here, which is the state of Indiana's five year rolling average fatalities and serious injury
- crash data. Five years is considered,
- the norm or I would call it standard practice nationwide in terms of data smoothing because you've got
- the ups and downs of each individual year based on well based on traffic volumes and we had the anomaly
- of 2020 and 2021 with COVID where the volumes were down but the fatalities were up and I'll go into
- that in a minute. But anyway looking at the whoops I got a typo in there far as
- that's supposed to be fatalities. 883 starting from 2014 to 2018, going up to 896 in 2021 to 2025. VMT,
- million vehicle miles traveled. That's steadily increased because people are using their vehicles more.
- Look at the rate of fatalities. Actually, it's actually not
- I hate to say this, not bad, considering that you were at 1.03 back in 2014 and 18 and now you're up
- to 1.187. Serious injuries have increased steadily again from 3,375 on the five-year rolling average
- up to 4,026. Again, this goes into the definition of what's a serious injury and what's not. The rate
- of serious injuries there, you can see the rate.
- is what I would call fairly constant with a slight increase and a slight decrease in the last four years.
- I'll go into why on that in a few minutes. The non-motorized fatalities and serious injuries,
- that's still up. And every one of those is considered, it's tragic. That's the only word I want to use.
- Now, I'll go to the last chart here. This is boiling down. This is where we get maple syrup from originally
- the tree sap. The five-year rolling average fatalities and serious injury crash targets. This is how
- the Department of Transportation, Indiana Department of Transportation determines how they're gonna
- come about their target. You can see the baseline values here, which began in, oh, yeah, began in 2012.
- Ending in twenty twenty one beginning twenty twenty two fatality rates fatalities eight hundred and
- eighty three with a two percent annual reduction across the board from twenty twenty two three four
- five six and seven. We arrive at a target of seven hundred and seventy seven in twenty twenty seven
- rate of fatalities.
- You can see the rate of fatalities has been dropping. And I'll explain why here in a minute. The number
- of serious injuries has actually been all over the board and somewhat slightly increasing. But in 2026,
- over the five-year rolling average, it's down. And then the rate of serious injuries, again,
- This is a variable due to the definition of what's a serious injury. And then the non-motivized fatalities
- and serious injuries, we're seeing a drop here from, yeah, a drop from 2022 all the way down to 2026
- and in 2027. Now you're saying to yourself, how did they get the drop? Well, the answer is they've been
- the Office of Traffic Safety,
- both in the districts each one of the individual districts and also in the central office have been
- very aggressive about investigating intersection crashes and non intersection crashes. Predominant number
- of fatalities are actually on local roads. They're not on state routes and a predominant number of those
- fatalities on local roads are at night.
- and they often involve speed, high speed or excess speed above the design standards. So the Department
- of Transportation Office of Traffic Safety has gone through in a very aggressive manner, re-examining
- all locations, hotspots and other locations in a, what I would call visionary look at it, lowering speed
- limits, adding bicycle lanes,
- narrowing travel lanes, slowing the traffic down because speed is the number one predictor for the fatalities
- and for serious injuries. They've been extremely aggressive and the results have shown here when you
- look at the rate of fatalities going down and also if you look at the number of fatalities going down
- and are we, and have we, then there's the other question of
- have we hit the targets for the five year period? And the answer is the jury's still out. We're required,
- the state of Indiana is required to hit three out of the five years. And if you don't hit three out
- of the five years, then the punishment will come in and funds will be shifted to highway safety improvement
- program funding. So far we've hit two out of four. And then the fifth year is this calendar year,
- 2027 coming up here, which will tell us whether we've hit the target, I'm sorry, 2026, which will tell
- us whether we've hit the targets or not. Thus far as of the end of June, fatality rates are down across
- the entire state, down substantially, and I credit that to the Department of Transportation and the
- efforts they've done. On the converse side, serious injuries are up,
- statewide Part of that is a reflection of added travel part of it is a reflection of we don't know And
- we're still trying to figure that out. Anyway, that's a long long long story to get to the target the
- county year 2027 targets and then in your packet, there's a resolution that we've got proposed here for
- endorsing the Department of Transportation's calendar year 2027 targets questions anybody please a lot
- of statistics and data but I wanted to show we've had this question over several years how do they get
- there well this is how they got there yeah I'll just say thanks for that for you elaborating on that
- to make it a little bit more
- I know in the past what we've done as a committee has been to Basically have an amendment that would
- say that the Bloomington Metropolitan Planning Office would prefer these numbers to be zero for fatalities
- So I would I guess for this I'm not sure if we would do an amendment again or a motion to amend that
- I'll let you talk Pat. Yeah, you can yeah, please feel free to do that because the
- the safe streets and roads for all plan action plan adopted by city of Bloomington December of twenty
- twenty four. Yeah. Had a vision zero goal of twenty thirty nine. Now the Department of Transportation
- does not have a formal vision zero goal. They have the goal is zero which is
- to several states, I think there are 25, 26 states hedge and they use that language instead so that
- way they won't inflame certain elected officials. I won't go any further than that. So yeah, please
- feel free to add whatever language you wish to add to that and we'll be more than happy to share that
- with the policy committee on Friday.
- So if everybody here is okay with that, does anybody have questions about what we're getting at here?
- Yeah, I would agree with using the same language. Part of it's just an issue of like we're saying there's
- a target of 700 fatalities and what I think they mean is a maximum of 700. And like even that is not
- clearly what, you know, it's not well stated. But so yeah,
- just for using the same language. I actually had a question in the data, and I think I maybe heard it
- backwards, but just so I know, not in the target data, but in the actual crash data, you were showing
- like 2014 to 2025 or something, in the fatalities and the fatality rates over that time, has the number
- and rate, that has increased, right?
- The rate, the rate in 2014 was 0.9 for one. The rate in 2025 was 0.8 for seven. Okay. Can you show the
- one that had the like five year rolling average? Uh, yeah. Whoops. Here we go. So yeah, yeah. Now the
- five year average, you're seeing a,
- I would call it a marginal increase zero point three one two and twenty fourteen to eighteen. But then
- you had a drop in twenty twenty twenty four twenty four and my guess is that's probably because of covid.
- Fewer people were traveling but more people actually died during the twenty twenty twenty twenty one
- period because they were driving faster on less congested roadways. That's what we were told. But yeah.
- 2021 2025 one point one eight seven Okay, so like a fifteen percent increase actually. Yeah. Okay. Thank
- you Yeah, yeah now I would have graphed all of this but going then you would have ended up with a couple
- of dozen graphs No, that that's fine. I was just trying to wrap my head around. Yeah. No Does that answer?
- Everything yeah, okay
- I think what I'd like to put forth as a amendment to to this item is to Reuse the language we've used
- in the past years Stating that the technical advisory committee would like to have that goal at zero
- or that target at zero versus 777 And then with that to approve the to approve the item so
- If we can package those together I'm guessing that's okay, or should these two be two separate votes
- Packaged together is fun. Okay, so if I could get a motion to approve that Just a Friendly amendment
- or advice. I know that we had talked about not necessarily approving it, but we are simply Forwarding
- it to the policy committee it's not that we agree with the Information but
- Know that it has to be forwarded to the policy committee For actual approval Yeah, thanks Jane. Yeah,
- so using Jane's words there if we could get a motion to forward this to the policy committee Last year's
- comments from the TAC Please take your time to read it
- And we also have to recognize that I mean
- Perhaps part of the reason that even though the state, you know, does advocate for zero deaths, we have
- to set a target that we can actually have a chance at meeting due to policy and funding and everything
- like that, so. Great, yeah, thanks for showing us this language and
- Everything So I guess can I get a a motion to approve Thanks Jane and a second second, thank you Neil
- and then we'll do a voice vote all in favor say aye aye Any opposed nay any abstentions motion carries
- Okay, now this is a time for
- Public comment. So if there's anybody here, there's there's nobody in the room except for the wonderful
- people of the tack If there's anybody online who would like to make a comment now, it's your time. So
- I guess you could raise your hand I'm not seeing anyone on Nobody else, okay so then this is time for
- communications from committee members on
- Non-voting items or things that are not on the agenda fun stuff they've been working on I would actually
- like to just share something if I could Family and Social Services and the Bureau for better aging have
- notified state legislature of their intent to redesign the public service areas of area agencies on
- aging in Indiana thus reducing the number and increasing the size of the public service areas
- We are concerned about the impact this will have on community members particularly the elderly
- and individuals living with disability. Public hearings will be scheduled for spring of 2027. If anyone
- would like to learn more about this please contact our agency and we can share information. Thank you.
- Awesome. Thank you.
- Okay or topic suggestions for future agendas It looks like our next upcoming meetings we have the citizens
- advisory committee today as well at 530 That's a hybrid meeting followed by the policy committee, which
- would be on Friday Is that the 24th is at 10 30 a.m? And then the next technical advisory committee
- is going to be in August on August 26th at 10 a.m With that another successful TAC meeting
- Hope everybody here enjoys the rest of their July Stay cool schools about to start Stay safe and we'll
- see you guys in August. So with that adjournment. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you