Council members spar over traffic safety plan

CITY HALL — The City Council on Tuesday affirmed Councilman Ara Najarian’s plan to bring in state and federal officials to assess Glendale’s poor traffic safety rates, but not before his colleague Dave Weaver again railed against the program as a thinly veiled electioneering tactic.

The City Council voted 4-1 Tuesday to approve Najarian’s so-called “Glendale Safe Streets Initiative,” which will tap experts from the UC Berkeley Traffic Safety Center, the California Department of Public Health and other agencies to train residents and local officials on the latest traffic safety measures.

“Just what are you planning to do when you get done with all of this? Educate a few smart people who are caring and want to follow all the laws all the time?” Weaver asked. “It’s not going to reach the people it wants.”

Najarian unveiled the plan with much fanfare at a council meeting in January, touting his independent lobbying to get the venerable UC Berkeley Traffic Safety Center to agree to target Glendale as one of 12 cities statewide for an intensive evaluation.

The state Department of Public Health would conduct three days of training sessions on developing traffic and pedestrian safety action plans the week of May 18. A half-day Community Pedestrian Safety Training program, which would include roughly 25 community leaders who would then carry the message to their respective constituents, is tentatively scheduled for May 14, city officials said.

“There is no amount of education that will ever teach these people that are [speeding] to slow down,” Weaver argued, adding that greater emphasis on enforcement was the only way to affect lasting change on driving habits.

Glendale has one of the worst pedestrian safety rates in the country, according to an Allstate Insurance report, and a recent spat of speed-induced traffic accidents, especially along main thoroughfares, have induced outcry from the public.

But with local governments forced to bow to state traffic regulations, the Police Department has turned to myriad other programs to subdue errant drivers, including enforcement stings, public education campaigns and helicopter monitoring.

And yet the accidents, especially pedestrian-related run-ins with motorists, continue.