LONG BEACH, NY. — The City of Long Beach approved a $236,000 contract with international engineering firm WSP Inc. Wednesday, authorizing City Manager Daniel Creighton to solicit the firm’s services to develop a Roadway Safety Action Plan.
The plan will be 100 percent funded by a grant from the Federal Department of Transportation. The City Council said Wednesday that WSP would create a digital map Long Beach police’s accident data, fixed objects along city roadways like light poles and fire hydrants, and non-car traffic including pedestrians, to create a safer vision for Long Beach streets.
“The goal of this project is to devise a plan to reduce roadway fatalities and serious injuries,” Creighton said. “The plan is needed in order to apply for future grant funding in order to implement recommendations, which are expected to be going for those grants next spring.”
While the plan is a requisite step in securing grant funding for future roadway projects in the city, some council members expressed skepticism about what new insight it could provide.
“What are we going to learn from this report that our police department doesn’t already know?” Council member John Bendo asked.
On this point, Creighton said, “We know where the intersections are the worst, but you have to compile that data, you have to present it in a certain way. The grants to actually implement those sorts of projects require you to have a study done.”
For other members of the council, the study signaled a positive step forward in the pursuit of safer Long Beach streets.
“Its great that we’re getting a grant to do this study, because anybody in this room that’s ever worked with grants, and i know a lot of us have, you have to have the complete study done, down to every single detail,” Councilmember Michael Reinhart said. “And the fact that we’re able to use a grant to get that, to be able to apply for grants for the actual work, I think is going to be very beneficial.”
The total cost of the plan, according to the contract, will not exceed $236,390.