Re-engineer Iowa City streets to reduce the need for police traffic stops

In the aftermath of the Black Lives Matter demonstrations last year, Iowa City is evaluating its policing policies. Last December, City staff prepared a draft report entitled Restructuring the Iowa City Police Department: A Preliminary plan to Accelerate Community Policing. Iowa City also sponsored public events throughout town, aimed at getting a better understanding of the struggles faced by the BIPOC community.

Some people described their firsthand experiences of "driving while Black." Blacks in mixed-race relationships commented that when driving together, their white partner does the driving to reduce the risk of a traffic stop. Iowa City has been collecting traffic data on its police stops for a number of years, and the data confirms disproportionate contact with the Black population.

The restructuring the ICPD draft report proposes a continuum of responses to calls for services. The first of four strategies in that continuum is reducing the number of calls for police service. On calls resulting from a mental health crisis, many cities are developing teams staffed by mental health professionals better suited to respond to the crisis. Iowa City has launched such an approach this year.

When considering calls for service related to traffic law enforcement, how can cities achieve a similar reduction in calls, as it pertains to enforcing illegal speeding? In my view, the most effective approach is re-engineering those streets that induce driving at illegal speeds. Unfortunately, many of our streets have been designed to maximize traffic volume and speed over safety. That traffic engineering approach is undergoing change, as we now see its many negative impacts. In Iowa City, those impacts include:

Many street design factors can result in illegal speeds. In response, land use policies and street design standards have been developed by town planners and traffic engineers to re-imagine cities and towns in a less auto-dependent manner. This vision of a "walkable city" has been well documented in urban planner Jeff Speck's two books, “Walkable City“ and ”Walkable City Rules.“ The latter is essentially a pattern book for achieving the walkable city.

As an elected public official, the question of advancing streets that are "safe by design" and thus self-regulating is a guiding principle in my approach toward transportation and traffic law enforcement policy. By reducing the need for policing traffic speed, the chances of a BIPOC person being subject to a traffic stop is also reduced. Equity intersects with traffic safety.

If there is community consensus with the concept of streets that are "safe by design," the next step is implementation. Which streets should be prioritized for re-engineering?

By analyzing the distribution of traffic crashes, cities typically find that the majority of crashes occur on a small percentage of major arterial streets with more than one lane in each direction. For example, in Iowa City these streets include Burlington Street, Highway 6, and Highway 1. One type of engineering strategy on multilane streets is the "road diet" (4- to 3-lane reduction), which was implemented on Mormon Trek Boulevard and First Avenue, and resulted in reduced traffic speeds. Cedar Rapids has done an extraordinary job reverting its one-way streets to two-way, which has a similar effect, as drivers can no longer jockey between lanes.

Re-engineering roadways to better self-regulate traffic speeds can sometimes require significant capital expenditures, in a time of constrained municipal budgets. It is under these circumstances that traffic cameras could be considered, both as an interim measure to reduce illegal speeding and address disproportionate contact with the BIPOC community.

In addition, the revenues generated by the traffic citations could only be used to accelerate a "Safe Streets" capital improvement program. Camera locations would be reviewed and approved by the BIPOC community, and consideration would be given to ensure equity in fine structures by adjusting for low-income households (for example, sliding scale fines, waiving the first fine, etc.)

John Thomas serves on the Iowa City Council.