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6 <br /> <br /> <br />Emergency Vehicle Access <br /> <br />Traffic calming is typically not installed on streets that are defined or used as primary emergency <br />vehicle access routes. If traffic calming is deemed necessary on any roadway identified as a primary <br />response route, the design must be coordinated with the emergency responders. Primary emergency <br />vehicle routes are comprised of two types of streets: <br /> <br />1. Routes used by emergency vehicles to cross large parts of the community or on paths <br />logically used to service large numbers of potential destinations. Routes of this type are <br />generally ineligible for traffic calming through this document based on their functional <br />classification. <br /> <br />2. Streets of generally local character which also serve as the immediate egress route from <br />an emergency vehicle dispatch point or as the immediate access route to a regular <br />destination for emergency vehicles (such as where a fire station or a hospital emergency <br />room access is located on a street classified "local"). Such circumstances will limit the <br />eligibility of streets which would otherwise be eligible for traffic calming. <br /> <br />The City has a duty to maintain a street system which reasonably allows for timely emergency <br />service response. However, on local streets the City also has other compelling duties which may to <br />some degree conflict with maintaining the streets in a manner to optimize emergency service <br />response. Those duties include maintaining local residential streets in a manner which will <br />induce traffic behavior consistent with areas where children and pedestrians can be expected to be in <br />or near the street, or maintaining the streets in a manner which induces traffic behavior that <br />allows residents quiet enjoyment of their homes and that limits impacts from traffic. For residential <br />streets which are not on primary emergency response routes, reasonable accommodation for timely <br />emergency service response may be quite different from individual residential streets on the <br />primary response routes. In those circumstances, traffic calming which causes minor increases to <br />emergency service response time may be acceptable . Fire vehicles rarely if ever achieve speeds of <br />over 20 mph on the local residential streets where traffic calming is normally employed. Traffic <br />calming plans will be designed with this in mind to minimize the impact on response times. <br /> <br />The City will normally seek to identify and implement measures which offset the effects of <br />neighborhood traffic management on emergency response and to avoid situations where the <br />cumulative effect of neighborhood traffic controls dramatically alters emergency response. <br /> <br />Transit Routes <br /> <br />Traffic calming generally should be limited along streets with established, conventional bus transit <br />with normal service frequency. School transit, shuttle vans, paratransit vehicles, and similar services <br />of conventional transit are not included in this consideration because they can reasonably be <br />expected to operate in the neighborhood environment at speeds where traffic calming would not pose <br />problems. In addition, many of these vehicles are not exceptionally long wheelbase vehicles. <br /> <br />Resident Support <br /> <br />Where traffic calming is initiated by resident request, a petition requesting traffic calming signed <br />by representatives of 50 percent of the properties in the primary impact zone of the traffic calming <br />shall be considered sufficient indication of community support for the City to act on the request <br />(impact zone to be defined by the City staff). <br />6.3.B. - Page 23