Stats confirm what Modesto motorists already know: Traffic is terrible. Who’s to blame?
Modesto finds itself No. 1 in a category where it’s better to be last than first. But the ranking should not be a surprise to anyone who drives in the city.
The California Office of Traffic Safety ranked Modesto worst among its peer cities for traffic crashes. The ranking is for 2019, which is the latest year for which OTS has statistics, and places Modesto among 59 California cities with 100,000 to 250,000 residents. Modesto’s population is about 220,000 residents.
The OTS rankings look at about a dozen types of accidents, including drivers hitting pedestrians or bicyclists, fatal crashes, DUI crashes, hit-and-run and speed-related incidents. It looked at a variety of factors, including population, the number of accidents and miles driven, in calculating the rankings.
Modesto was ranked second worst among its peer cities in 2018 and worst in 2017, which are the two other years available on the OTS website. OTS spokesman Tim Weisberg said 2020 crash data for California cities should be available by November or December. (The OTS also has crash data for California’s 58 counties.)
City Manager Joe Lopez highlighted the OTS statistics last month during the City Council workshops for Modesto’s upcoming budget year, which starts July 1.
Lopez said that because of the need for cuts each year to balance the general fund budget, Modesto has seen a continued reduction in services, including in public safety, maintaining the city’s urban forest and in its parks. He said the city is at a crossroads in which it needs to decide what kind of city it will be and the level of services it will offer residents.
The City Council is expected to consider in the coming weeks whether to put a 1% sales tax on the November ballot to increase general fund revenue.
Lopez said as an example of the budget cuts since the Great Recession, the Police Department has reduced its traffic safety unit from 21 officers to five. (The unit consists of four motorcycle officers and a sergeant.) “We believe there is a direct correlation between this fact” and the Office of Traffic Safety statistics, he said.
Lopez said Modesto was ranked second worst among the 59 cities for alcohol-related crashes in 2019, third worst for crashes resulting in death or injury, fifth worst for hit-and-run crashes resulting in death or injury, and fourth worst for crashes involving pedestrians.
Modesto’s road diet
Weisberg, the OTS spokesman, said several factors go into traffic safety, including enforcement, public education campaigns and road design. The last factor includes ensuring pedestrians can cross streets safely, bicycle lanes that have ample buffers between bicyclists and motorists, and designing streets to slow traffic where it’s appropriate.
Modesto’s remaking of a 1.6 mile section of College Avenue several years ago through what is called a “road diet” is an example of slowing traffic. The redesign included reducing the number of travel lanes to create more room for cars parked along the street and adding bike lanes with buffers between the lanes and traffic.
Modesto also has started an effort to make neighborhood streets safer. Residents can petition the city for traffic calming measures in their neighborhoods. More information is available at https://bit.ly/3skKYci.
“We can’t (just) enforce and educate our way out of the problem,” Weisberg said. But he said having fewer traffic officers does not help. He said Modesto is among several California cities that have reduced their traffic units because of a lack of funding.
Sgt. Dan Starr, who oversees Modesto’s traffic safety unit, agreed traffic safety consists of road design, education and enforcement. He said his unit works closely with the city’s traffic engineers to make streets safer.
But Starr said Modesto has felt the pain of having fewer traffic safety officers. “It takes all three of those (factors) for safe traffic,” he said. “If you remove any one of them you start to have repercussions. If people don’t get tickets, speeds increase, they drive more and more aggressively, cutting people off, not fearing running red lights.”
Top complaint: speeding
Starr said the complaints his unit receives are citywide, which he said tells him the primary issue is driver behavior. He said the No. 1 complaint is speeding, and No. 2 is running stop signs in residential neighborhoods.
Starr said traffic has gotten worse in the past two years. And he said he understands residents are frustrated and wish the Police Department could do more. Starr said he shares that frustration.
The Office of Traffic Safety has traffic crash statistics for 2017 through 2019 on its website. The OTS has been compiling these statistics since 2009 and provided The Bee with Modesto’s rankings from 2009 through 2016. That includes the years when Modesto had more traffic officers.
Modesto was ranked 10th worst among its peer cities in 2013, 12th worst in 2010, 13th worst in 2015 and 2016, 15th worst in 2011 and 21st worst in 2012. It’s best ranking was 36th among 57 peer cities in 2014, and its worst was in 2009 when it was ranked the worst among 56 peer cities.
The Office of Traffic Safety places California cities in seven groups based on their population. OTS states on its website that it developed the rankings so cities could compare their traffic safety statistics to similar-sized cities.
But OTS cautions that its rankings indicate potential problems. “(T)here are many factors that may either understate or overstate a city/county ranking that must be evaluated based on local circumstances,” according to its website.
