LAKEPORT >> The Lakeport City Council received a Traffic Safety report and related complaints during their regularly scheduled meeting Tuesday.
According to the staff report, the city staff began formally tracking and logging traffic safety related complaints in June 2015 and more recently began providing periodic reviews of traffic complaints to the City Council. The purpose of the periodic review is to monitor developing trends with the intention of identifying potential future agenda items or projects for Council consideration.
Lakeport City Manager Kevin Ingram said the last review of a traffic safety report was in September 2023, when the city had only received seven complaints. Since then, the city has received a few complaints. These include sidewalk issues, bus stop and crosswalk striping and missing or damaged signage.
“We have been taking traffic complaints for some time now, most are general in nature, and we can get to right away. In general we use these reports to track trends in the city,” Ingram said.
One notable traffic safety issue during this period involved three separate complaints from the same individual regarding vehicles traveling in the wrong direction along a one-block section of High Street. This is designated for one way travel between Eleventh Street and Clear Lake Avenue.
“City Staff responded and relocated the “Do Not Enter” sign to a more conspicuous location and put in a camera at the site to monitor the area,” Ingram said. “The camera did capture at least one instance of wrong-way driving.”
As of now, there has been no verified accident data for this road section.
Ingram said as the staffing levels of the Police Department improve, greater emphasis will be placed on traffic enforcement. As of right now this is more of an enforcement issue he added.
Other traffic safety projects include enhanced crosswalk improvements at Eleventh and High Street, replacement and upgrade of street signage throughout Lakeport, new pavement markings associated with the recently completed North Main Street paving project, South Main Street paving project, Enhanced crosswalk improvements at the intersection of Lakeport Boulevard and Larrecou Lane, and sidewalk improvements for the Green/Sayre/Loch pavement rehabilitation project.
The Lakeport city staff will continue to review traffic safety complaints on a quarterly basis.
The Council also received a report on the Forbes Creek Headwall and Hartley Street Culvert Projects. Lakeport Public Works Director Ron Ladd said after the flooding in 2019, the city began the process to fix the damages to Forbes Creek Headwall and the Hartley Street Culvert.
According to city staff, since securing agreements in January of 2022 with Dokken Engineering for these two areas, the project has encountered various delays due to extensive reporting requirements mandated by both state and federal agencies.
These are small projects in the public works world, but huge to us. “Significant progress has been made,” Ladd said, “Our aim is to complete these projects by late 2025.”
The next city council meeting will take place on Tuesday March 5, 2024 at 6 p.m. at the Lakeport City Hall.
