FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
UCB SafeTREC Receives $4.38 Million in Grants from the California Office of Traffic Safety
6 separate projects address crucial traffic safety issues for the safety of all road users in California.
Berkeley, Calif. – The UC Berkeley Safe Transportation Research and Education Center (SafeTREC) received $4,382,050.00 for 6 grants from the California Office of Traffic Safety (OTS) to support crucial traffic safety programs.
“It is critical to think proactively about creating a Safe System for all road users to reach the goal of eliminating serious and fatal injuries. We thank the California Office of Traffic Safety for their leadership in providing grants for education, tool development, data analysis, and outreach programs-all with the goal of improving safety on our roadways.” said SafeTREC Co-director Jill Cooper. SafeTREC is a research center affiliated with the UC Berkeley School of Public Health and the Institute of Transportation Studies that seeks to reduce transportation-related injuries and fatalities through research, education, outreach and community service.
The grants will provide support for the following projects:
TIMS: DUI/DUID Crash Summary and Map: This project proposes to (1) develop a new feature on the TIMS website to create a DUI related crash summary and map viewer; 2) geocode all non-final SWITRS data quarterly and manually geocode any non-geocoded SWITRS after each quarterly data update; 3) continue administering the site and making functional improvements; and 4) maintain and improve the tribal data viewer.
Community Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety Program (CPBSP): The goal of this program is to apply evidence-based solutions to pedestrian and bicycle safety programs in order to work toward zero traffic deaths. The CPBSP includes: 1) the Community Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety Training program; 2) the Focus Cities program; and 3) general statewide data analysis and outreach to provide data analysis, research briefs, maps, trend analysis, etc. for training sites, OTS and other state agencies, and the public at large.
Complete Streets Safety Assessments (CSSA): For this project, SafeTREC will provide free expert technical assistance to California's local agency staff in the form of Complete Streets Safety Assessments in order to reduce the number of fatalities of pedestrians and bicyclists and to reduce the injuries and severity of collisions on California's roadways.
SafeTREC: Data Analysis, Technical Assistance, Education and Outreach: For this grant, SafeTREC aims to contribute to traffic records in California and to increase stakeholder and public access to data by: 1) analyzing statewide fatal and injury traffic collision data and trends; 2) researching, developing, and disseminating information and best practices in preventing fatalities and injuries; 3) enhancing web-based tools and using web resources to help stakeholders maximize the use of data to target traffic safety programs; 4) providing technical assistance; 5) conducting outreach and education with professional and community stakeholders to increase knowledge and awareness of safety best practices and traffic fatality and injury risks; and 6) educating the next generation of traffic safety professionals with expertise in and commitment to traffic safety.
Street Story: Supporting Community Engagement Through Crowdsourced Data: For this project, the online community engagement tool Street Story will collect local, qualitative information about transportation safety that is often not present in traditional transportation safety datasets, then create publicly accessible, downloadable maps and tables that can be used by agencies, organizations and members of the public to better understand local safety issues and to engage community members. Users will be able to enter data about: 1) crashes; 2) near misses; 3) hazardous places; or 4) safe-feeling places. The data available through Street Story contributes to traffic records in the state by providing a data source to fill in potentials gaps in knowledge and about dangerous locations for drivers, pedestrians, bicyclists, and others.
CATSIP: California Active Transportation Safety Website: This project will add updated county-wide pedestrian and bicycle data, any new California laws and policies, micromobility resources, upcoming active transportation events, webinars, funding opportunities, and interactive content like video and blogs to CATSIP. Users will also be able to access expanded resources on: 1) funding opportunities for active transportation; 2) road safety communications and the role the media plays; and 3) the Safe System and Vision Zero approaches to road safety.
While motor vehicle fatalities continued to decline in 2019 from the recent peak of 3,798 people killed in 2018, 3,606 victims in 2019 are still too many. These are grandparents, parents, children, friends, co-workers and each life matters. In addition, there were 972 pedestrian fatalities and 133 bicyclist fatalities in 2019.
The grant program will run through September 2022.
Funding for these programs was provided by grants from the California Office of Traffic Safety, through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.