North Sanborn Road Safety Improvement Project

Location

North Sanborn Road (from East Alisal Street to Freedom Parkway) -10 intersections

City or County Responsible for Project

Salinas

Category

Safety or Intelligent Transportation System Projects

Author

Victor Gutierrez

Organization

City of Salinas

Address

200 Lincoln Avenue

Phone

831-758-7241

Project Description

North Sanborn Road, between East Alisal Street and Freedom Parkway, was identified as a road segment with heavy pedestrian activity and a high number of rear-end collisions, broadsides and collisions that involved pedestrians and/or bicyclists. The City of Salinas successfully received funding from the California Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP) to make improvements along North Sanborn Road, between East Alisal and Freedom Parkway, to address the need for safety and efficiency along this corridor. The corridor is in East Salinas, a low-income area in the City which has high pedestrian and transit/bus activity along the route to various schools (elementary, middle and high schools). The North Sanborn Road Project improved the traffic safety operations by installing SCOOT Adaptive Traffic Control system, an adaptive traffic signal coordination system that continuously measures traffic demand on all approaches to intersections in the network and optimizes the signal timings at each intersection to minimize delays and stops. Signal coordination is a countermeasure that helps reduce collisions by encouraging uniform flow through the 2.5-mile corridor with over 27,000 Average Daily Traffic (ADT). Communication improvements bring live video data to the City’s traffic operations center to enable staff to monitor intersection operations. The improvements, mainly at the locations of 10 signalized intersections is also anticipated to improve travel time through the corridor. In addition to the installation of the adaptive traffic control system, protected left turn phases were installed at the intersections of Sanborn Road/Garner Avenue, Sanborn Road/Del Monte Avenue and Sanborn Road/Freedom Parkway. This improvement aims to reduce the number of broadside collisions along the corridor. The project also included updates to the traffic signal controllers, video detection, vehicle and pedestrian signal heads and pedestrian ramps. Pedestrian signals now provide countdown information to help pedestrians make decisions when crossing the street. Updating the signalized intersections along the North Sanborn Road corridor has provided safer travels for the pedestrians and drivers using these facilities. Construction for the North Sanborn Project began in August of 2018 and was completed on January 11, 2019. The total funding for this project included $1,685,200 in Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP) grant funds, $157,300 from Regional Surface Transportation Program (RSTP) grant funds and $228,000 in Measure X (sales tax measure) Bond funds for a total project funding of $2,070,500.