Unincorporated Marin ranks number one out of California’s 58 counties in terms of the percentage of car accidents resulting from speeding, according to a systemic roadway safety analysis completed by the county’s Department of Public Works.
The assessment, which analyzed a variety of different collision types, flagged the unincorporated area as largely more problematic than the cities and towns. Robert Goralka, the transportation and traffic division manager for the department, presented the findings to the Board of Supervisors in the last week of December, highlighting a series of projects countywide that could mitigate the most accident-prone roads and intersections.
Citing data from the state’s traffic safety office, the analysis revealed that in 2015 the unincorporated region ranked second statewide in terms of bicycle collisions, third for pedestrian collisions involving seniors and, in 2014, first for speed-related accidents. Compared to collisions countywide, unincorporated Marin came up with higher percentages of collisions attributed to D.U.I.’s, bicycles, motorcycles and fixed objects.
During the five-year span of the report, 15 percent of collisions in unincorporated Marin were attributed to drunk driving, compared to 10.5 percent countywide; 22 percent of crashes in the unincorporated area involved bicycles, compared to 18 percent countywide. Eleven percent of all collisions in unincorporated Marin involved motorcycles and 25 percent involved hitting fixed objects—percentages that were almost double the countywide average.
Though unincorporated Marin accounts for 26 percent of the total county population, the jurisdiction also accounted for 45 percent of crashes countywide involving severe injuries or fatalities. In the five-year period between 2012 and 2016, unincorporated Marin saw a total of 624 reported crashes; 100 of those involved a person who was killed or severely injured, including seven fatalities.
“We need to prioritize our most vulnerable road users,” Bjorn Griepenburg, the policy and planning director of the Marin Bicycle Coalition, commented before supervisors in December. “This is a reminder, and a call to action, that we still have a lot of work to do.”
As far as integrating the information, the county has identified several high-priority projects in West Marin, including several on Point Reyes-Petaluma Road. The report proposes widening that road’s shoulders for bicyclists, providing signage warning of bicyclists, and installing new turnouts and guard rails on the stretch of the road between Nicasio Valley Road and Novato Boulevard and at both intersections.
That stretch of Point Reyes-Petaluma Road saw a total of 32 reported collisions between 2012 and 2016, including one that resulted in a three-year prison sentence for a young driver who hit four bicyclists during a Marin County Bicycle Coalition fundraising event in October 2017.
The safety analysis also highlights similar improvements for Panoramic Highway, between the intersection with Highway 1 in Stinson Beach and Gravity Car Road in Mill Valley, which had 26 total reported collisions in five years.
The state’s systemic safety analysis report program funded the lion’s share of the $555,000 study, which the Department of Public Works contracted to Parisi Transportation Consulting.
Mr. Goralka told the board in December that the report, which he had shared among county departments and agencies as well as at the state level, had already proved helpful in securing funding for three improvement projects, including countywide traffic signal enhancements and two corridor projects in incorporated Marin.
Copies of the 2018 Marin County Travel Safety Plan can be found at the Marin County website, under the Public Works Department, under “transportation services,” under “transportation.”