Half Moon Bay aims to eliminate traffic fatalities

Priority projects include locations with the highest crash rates, prioritizing social equity and assisting disadvantaged populations and addressing systemic factors like road and land use characteristics associated with crashes, Public Works Director Maz Bozorginia said. 

The city also received $150,000 in grant funding from the U.S. Department of Transportation to develop its own, more specific Local Road Safety plan, which is categorized by several factors including safe roads, road users, speeds, vehicles and postcrash care. 

“This chapter is just a starting point,” Bozorginia said. 

Seventeen reported crashes from 2018 to 2022 — approximately three per year — resulted in death or severe, life-changing injuries on nonfreeway roads, according to a staff report. During that time, 116 severe crashes occurred on state highways in Half Moon Bay. 

Half Moon Bay’s Vision Zero-specific goal is to eliminate all traffic fatalities and reduce nonfatal crashes by 50% by 2050, an objective that will be achieved in a variety of ways, Bozorginia said. 

“It’s a goal we will continue to strive for in many different ways, in things that are tangible, like capital projects that local jurisdictions in the county have more control over, to legislation towards self-driving cars and technology advancements in the future,” he said. 

Vice Mayor Harvey Rarback said that the language in the plan was “very bureaucratic” and the city needed to take actionable steps toward specific unsafe road areas, including Kelly Avenue as a whole and Main Street North. 

“This is only going to work if it results in action,” he said. “All the way from the ocean to Main Street on Kelly [Avenue] I think should get the highest priority.” 

That could include bike lanes, safety crosswalks and blinking signs among other safety tools, he said. 

Councilmember Robert Brownstone also referenced the Highway 1 and Kelly Avenue intersection and the pedestrian islands known as pork chops that have beleaguered residents for years. Coastside residents have previously emphasized the dangers of the intersection, including overflow on the pedestrian island when children are traveling to and from school. Currently, to reach the pork chop, pedestrians must cross through a right turn lane. 

“I think everyone agrees those pork chops have been an ongoing hazard waiting for something to happen,” he said. “I’d like to see us revisit that with Caltrans.” 

The city could pursue grant funding for those intersections under the umbrella of safe routes to school, Councilmember Debbie Ruddock — a member of C/CAG, the group that developed the plan — suggested. 

Resident and current City Council candidate Paul Nagengast suggested that the city approach safety issues at the intersections of Kelly Avenue and Highway 1 and Kelly Avenue and Redondo Beach Road with recently-approved developments in mind. He previously appealed one such project, senior farmworker housing at 555 Kelly Ave., on traffic and pedestrian safety grounds. 

“The county report emphasized a proactive approach, rather than just a purely reactive approach, to find solutions to Vision Zero goals,” he said.