Talking traffic with the City of Fremont

Fremont is changing and so is its traffic. Sitting at one of the City’s 175 or so signals the other day, I began to wonder how traffic in Fremont is managed. Who are the people responsible for moving an increasing number of vehicles through a fixed number of streets?

To that end, I met recently with Noe Veloso and Donya Amiri, transporation engineers with the City of Fremont. I had some basic questions, and I think that a Q & A format best lets them speak directly to our readers.

Tri City Voice: Let’s start simply: what is our city is doing about traffic? How are decisions about traffic management made? Where do you put signals, how do you set speed limits?

Noe: Typically, all that is governed by federal and state regulations and policies. Here locally we follow the ‘California Manual for Uniform Traffic Control Devices’ [MUTCD] It provides us the guidance and regulation in terms of stop signs, traffic signals, warrant studies, everything that concerns the public right of way; it governs and regulates the traffic control devices that are placed: how they are placed, when they are placed, and really the overall design.

TCV: So a lot of this comes from the outside from outside the City of Fremont?

N; Yes. In fact, here’s a copy. [Noe produces a copy of the MUTCD, and it comes down with a thump. It’s about a thousand pages] This is just one of the documents that dictates how when and why things are done; there’s a highway design manual, trip generation manuals…

TCV: What is a trip generation manual?

N: When we look at a project, like a development, and we’re trying to assess its impact on the traffic system, we need to determine how many trips that development will generate.

V: Where is there latitude for you to make decisions?

N: A lot of these manuals are for standard conditions and standard situations. There’s going to be situations where we have latitude for “engineering judgment.” If there’s a situation where the guidelines don’t specifically apply, we can’t follow the typical “cookbook” approach…

V: So, for example, a new road comes in at a strange angle, and you have to decide based on the examples given how to apply the regulations to your non-standard situation, where to put the signal, the island, and so forth.

N: Correct.

TCV: Traffic is always changing. There’s a lot being thrown at you. What is your game plan moving forward?

N: There are lots of ways to answer that. If you’re looking from a development perspective, we have a General Plan that outlines exactly what will be approved given the development that’s allowed in the City. A traffic study was conducted [in 2015 https://fremont.gov/DocumentCenter/View/29109] to determine, if we allow all of this growth, what our traffic will look like by 2035. The study identified which intersections would operate at an unacceptable level of service.

In response to the study, we then developed a program called the Traffic Improvement Program (TIP). Under TIP, fees are calculated and levied on developers in order to fund the mitigating improvements needed to bring the level of service to an acceptable rating.

Now, fees are one way we address future growth and traffic impacts. Another way is to look at it from a traffic signal perspective. Over the last five years we’ve received approximately $700,000 in grant money to better coordinate our signals

TCV: What? When I drive up and down Mowry day or night, I hit every signal!

N: It’s tough for people to understand, but we’ve actually coordinated the traffic signals to optimize the flow through the system. That said, we have over 170 signals and this money goes towards maybe 50 at a time.

Donya: In order to apply for grant funds we have to show how our streets are freeway reliever routes. We can clearly show the Feds, for example, or the State, that people exit the 880 to cut through Fremont, that people get off the 680 and come down Mission. [Donya shows me a map showing the location of signals and whether they are connected by fiber or copper to the traffic control center.]

Compared to the rest of the nation, Fremont is on the path of becoming very technically advanced in the area of signal communication. Every signal touches our management system through either copper or fiber lines. When we apply for a grant we try to showcase a corridor where we know our residents are feeling congestion. Fremont is one and of course people use Mowry to get to the 84. Stevenson, Mowry, Fremont, and Paseo Padre are areas where we have qualified for funding.

But, funding happens in three year cycles, so even though the situation is constantly changing, we have to wait. Mowry, Stevenson and part of Fremont, for example, were just done last year.

Communication with our signals is a safety concern, and the City has invested in the kind of equipment that would immediately allow us, in the case of an incident, to run certain operations, such as a manual override, as long as there is communication.

TCV: In a recent editorial, my publisher, Bill Marshak, foresees tech employers contributing to fixing the problems, possibly with funding.

N: In terms of the Googles, the Ubers, they are definitely a big part of the solution. Uber helps a certain portion of the demographic. As we move toward high-density urban housing situated near transit centers, hopefully people won’t need cars, but if they do, Uber is a great alternative.

Companies like Google and Facebook offer what we call “Transportation Demand Management” (TDM) tools. A single shuttle bus replaces 80 single occupancy vehicles; other car-sharing tools include apps like Scoop, which matches you up with a car pool. Those are the kinds of efforts we’re always looking to partner with. They don’t necessarily provide us funding, but they are a big part of the solution moving forward.

V: What is the relationship between law enforcement and traffic management?

N: We really partner with Fremont PD. We’ve been working with them on the Vision Zero Project (https://www.fremont.gov/DocumentCenter/View/29505), a plan to eliminate traffic fatalities in Fremont by 2020. As you can imagine, speed is a major factor in surviving a crash. With the Police Department’s help in identifying areas of speeding, as well as higher than average incidences of DUI, we are re taking a data-driven look to find where severe injury and fatality collisions take place. We’re about to release a report here soon that shows that working together, along with public works, we have significantly reduced severe traffic injuries and fatalities between 2015 and 2016.

[Writer’s note: Recently, according to Noe and Donya, grant funds of almost a million dollars were used to create a unique and groundbreaking traffic management tool to help alleviate traffic along Fremont Blvd. in the Centerville area. It has recently been completed; expect an announcement from Transportation Engineering in the near future.]