The subject matter of streets and traffic calming involves multiple jurisdictions, oversight, and policies. The following summarizes the staff presentation provided on August 14 to assist with the City Commission discussion.
Roadway Network and Responsibilities
The City of Oakland Park roadway network is comprised of State, County, and City roadways. Each jurisdiction has specific oversight and control over their streets, including maintenance and standards, including traffic calming opportunities where applicable.
Traffic Engineering and Signage
Broward County Traffic Engineering (BCTE) serves as the Traffic Engineer for all Cities in Broward. Duties include but are not limited to:
- Installing and maintaining stop or yield signs and traffic signals as warranted
- Designate crosswalks, establish safety zones and mark traffic lanes, including school zones
- Establish no parking, no standing, and no stopping regulations
- Establish speed limits
- Prohibit use of streets by trucks
- Install and maintain street name signs
- Conduct Speed and Volume Studies
BCTE, like all traffic engineers, follows traffic engineering standards such as the Uniform Manual on Traffic Engineering Control Devices and the FDOT Traffic Engineering Manual.
Traffic Calming
On November 1, 2000, the City Commission adopted Chapter 18, Residential Traffic Calming and Street Closures, within the City's Code of Ordinance.
The purpose of the Chapter was to establish procedures for administering, evaluating, and implementing applications for residential traffic calming and street closures within residential neighborhoods. Due to jurisdictional authority, the procedures set forth within Chapter 18 are intended to apply only for residential local streets and are not intended to cover the following:
- The modification of any arterial street, a county collector road or state highway
- The modification of local streets within other than a residential neighborhood.
Chapter 18 is the current established City Commission policy that staff follows when implementing requests for traffic calming devices on local streets.
As provided for in the Ordinance, the Ordinance is not intended to limit the City Commission from authorizing the implementation of any street closure and traffic calming within the city boundaries upon its own initiative for the public's health, safety, and welfare in accordance with such procedures it so adopts.
Traffic Enforcement
BSO is the agency tasked with traffic enforcement in the City of Oakland Park. Attached hereto are the Traffic Crash and Citation Comparison charts for 2017-2021 (Year to Date). (2020 data is considered a deviation for comparison purposes because of the decrease in vehicle travel on roadways due to COVID-19).
In 2021, BSO increased its traffic enforcement efforts throughout the City, as reflected in the attached number of citations issued within the Oakland Park District in 2021 to date. In addition, traffic crashes (including hit and runs) are below 2017, 2018, and 2019