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Blaine Neighborhood Traffic Management Program 1.0 Introduction Increasing traffic volumes and higher speeds have become important issues throughout the metro area and are having an increasing impact on residential streets in the City of Blaine. The City of Blaine is continually striving to strengthen and protect its neighborhoods by improving the quality of life in residential areas. A goal of the Blaine Transportation Plan is for the transportation system to address community issues and concerns while maintaining and enhancing neighborhoods, providing connectivity, and the sense of community cohesion. Discussion with traffic engineers in cities with established traffic management programs provided insight into the need for a formal process. An established traffic management process: . Allows the city to better respond to residents, . Provides the opportunity for better understanding of the issues, and . Allows consistent application across the community. Therefore, for residents to obtain consideration for any given traffic control measures on either street or larger neighborhood area they are required to follow a process. The process will ensure that neighborhoods with demonstrated traffic issues and community support for traffic management have equal access to the neighborhood traffic process. The Neighborhood Traffic Management Program depends upon citizen involvement and may vary from year to year based upon citizen participation and available funding. 1.1 Purpose This document was developed to guide city staff and inform residents about the processes and procedures for implementing traffic management strategies on local residential streets to address traffic concerns such as excessive volumes and vehicle speeds, high volumes of non- local through traffic, and vehicle crashes in neighborhoods. The document includes a summary of the City of Blaine's Policies for the Traffic Management Program, background on the history of traffic management, the City of Blaine's process for implementing strategies, and a toolbox of common traffic management measures. 2.0 Policies The following policies are established as part of the Neighborhood Traffic Management Program for neighborhood streets: Compatibility with transportation goals in City of Blaine Transportation Plan. Implementation limited to local streets (no arterials or collectors) as identified in the Blaine Transportation Plan. Implementation of strategies will be funded by a combination of city funds and neighborhood participation. Trucks are allowed on all City streets unless otherwise posted (by State law trucks must be allowed on all State-Aided roadways.) The program intends to take a system-wide approach when addressing a neighborhood traffic problem. For each project, city staff will determine a logical project boundary that will APRIL 2005