REP PWMTC 027 2020/10/20 2018-2020

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PWMTC-27 Page 2 October 20, 2020 Committee Member Tim Richards asked whether the action plan has studied the correlation of drivers being involved in accidents because of their being tired, and connected it to the need for housing to be built in West Hawaii. Ms. Soriano said that driver exhaustion was not a metric that the task force used because it was hard to quantify. Committee Member Valerie Poindexter said narrowing and attention -grabbing roadway markings could be other ways to reduce traffic speeds by making motorists aware of how fast they are driving. Committee Member Ashley Kierkiewicz appreciated the organization of the action plan into short term goals (with a two-year timeframe), medium term goals (with a five-year timeframe) and long term goals (with a 10 -year timeframe). She asked whether actions will begin once the plan is adopted, or whether action is happening already. Director Yee said the education and encouragement components are already happening, and the long-term goals lay out a plan. He said "progressive leadership" would be necessary to continue work in the next administration. Ms. Soriano said the coming annual report would be generated by the Planning Department in partnership with PATH. She planned to keep quarterly (at minimum) meetings with the stakeholders and will be working with partners in the State. Ms. Clothier said PATH is committed to seeing the Vision Zero Action Plan through the next 10 years. She hoped at some point there would be a Vision Zero webpage on the County's website. Committee Member Aaron Chung said he supported the adoption of the action plan and congratulated all involved. He commented that the correlation between substance abuse and traffic fatalities is "intuitive," and noted that most of the fatalities happened on highways, as opposed to urban streets. Law enforcement checkpoints on highways would help to reduce highway fatalities, he said. Mr. Chung also asked why Native Hawaiians are overrepresented in the fatality count. Director Yee said it would be hard to draw big conclusions about the disparity. Asked by Mr. Chung about what plan the County had to address the inequity, the director said all five areas are worthy of focus, including education and encouragement, that can help the Native Hawaiian population, rather than merely enforcement. Ms. Soriano said reducing road striping widths from 12 to 11 feet could help to curb speeding. With regards to the higher fatality rate for Native Hawaiians, that could be addressed in a future iteration of the action plan. Mr. Chung said reducing the road widths would not increase the number DUI -related fatalities at night, but it would increase the non -DUI accidents during the daytime. PWMTC Report No.: 27