In December of 1991, the Long Beach City Council adopted a revised Transportation Element of the City's General Plan which focused, among other issues, on intrusion by commuter traffic onto neighborhood streets. In an effort to implement some of the provisions of this Transportation Element, the City, through its Engineering Public Works and Planning Departments, identified 23 separate and definable neighborhoods for the preparation of Neighborhood Traffic Management Plans. The Engineering Public Works Department, responding to the need to conduct studies and prepare plans in 23 separate areas of the City, elected to use a consultant to complete this massive assignment. Going through the Request for Proposal process, the City selected Willdan Associates, teamed with Austin-Foust Associates, Meyer-Mohaddes Associates, Wil-tec, Inc., and Traffic Data Services, Inc., to conduct the studies and prepare these plans. The challenge was to complete studies, develop consensus within each neighborhood, and secure City Council approval of the plans within 1 year. A team of 10 highly-qualified traffic engineers was assembled from the consulting firms. Each member was assigned between one and three areas to conduct the individual studies. It was clear to all concerned that the study areas would have to be done concurrently in order to meet the 1-year deadline. This paper addresses the following: Brief history of the Transportation Element; City's dilemma, conducting a project of this size with City staff; City staff versus consultants; The reasoning behind doing 23 neighborhoods concurrently; Putting the consultant team together; Organizing the "kick-off" meetings (a total of 65,000 households were contacted); Conduct the "kick-off" meetings; Creation of steering committees from the neighborhoods; Conduct of the study with assistance of steering committees; Monthly progress meetings with consultant and City staff; Development of recommendations; Committee member actually involved in data collection; Consensus building; Presentation to City Council; Implementation (beyond 1 year and ongoing); and Lessons learned. The project represented one of the most comprehensive and largest neighborhood traffic management efforts known to any of the involved parties. The information should be interesting and valuable to anyone involved in City Traffic Engineering issues. (A)
Samenvatting