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