Safe Streets for All - Safety Acton Plan
The City of Ritzville is actively pursuing improvements to reduce crashes and enhance safety for its multimodal transportation system. As part of that effort, the city has prepared this Safety Action Plan (SAP) following the risk-based, data-driven analytical procedures outlined in guidance provided by the national Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A) program, and the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) Local Programs Division.
This guidance is designed to support state and national efforts to implement the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Roadway Safety Strategy with its goal of zero roadway deaths using a Safe System Approach. Guidance also supports achieving Target Zero as outlined in the Washington State Strategic Highway Safety Plan. The purpose of this Safety Action Plan is to improve safety for different modes of transportation along city streets through the analysis of crash data, identifying and prioritizing risk factors that impact safety, and establishing and prioritizing engineering countermeasures and strategies that reduce the number and severity of crashes in the city.
The Safety Action Plan development was fund by a grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Administration.
Downtown Revitalization Project
The City of Ritzville is partnering with WSU Rural Design Initiative and Innovia Foundation on a Downtown Revitalization Project to stimulate new business development and jobs as well as improving streetscape for community gatherings and events.
Priority Goals
-
Economic development.
-
Community gathering place.
-
Connect plaza with Historic Downtown.
-
Improve functionality for community activities.
-
Develop streetscape guidelines.
What Does the Project Involve?
-
Creating gathering places for festivals, car show, concerts, and community activities.
-
Create “active use” businesses in close proximity to the plaza.
-
Connecting plaza with downtown businesses and parking.
-
Connecting historic building with streetscape concepts.
-
Improve transportation for walking, biking, cars, trains, etc.
-
Incorporating Complete Streets concepts.
Project Phases:
Phase 1: Design – Workshop 1: Work with WSU Design Team and local landscaper to review exiting conditions, develop plan, and draft conceptual designs (Fall 2019).
Phase 2: Public Process and Input – Workshop 2: Held public meeting to gather ideas for development of conceptual designs (February 2020).
Phase 3: Conceptual Designs-Workshop 3: Reviewed conceptual designs.
Workshop was held on July 22, 2020. The workshop was held via zoom with WSU students, City of Ritzville and community members. Click on Conceptual Designs Presentation below.
Phase 4: Project Implementation – Identify grant funding opportunities and move forward with constructing design phases (Delayed-Future dates TBD).
Wayfinding Plan
In May of 2018, Arnett Muldrow & Associates was hired to develop a wayfinding master plan for Ritzville. The overall project goal is to continue to develop Ritzville as a visitor destination. Key project include boosting visitor engagement with local attractions, curating visitor experience within the community, and spurring overnight visitation in Ritzville. The wayfinding plan was funded through lodging tax dollars and managed by staff at the City of Ritzville.
Phase I of the plan is being implemented in the Spring of 2020, with signs being installed to direct traffic from the freeway entrance to downtown. As funding is allocated each year, additional phases will be implemented to provide directional signs from other entrances into the city.
For further information check out the wayfinding masterplan.
Statewide Transportation Improvement Plan (STIP)
Washington State’s Statewide Transportation Improvement Program (STIP) is a four-year, fiscally constrained prioritized multimodal transportation program of state, local, tribal, and public transportation (transit) projects, which includes highways, streets, roads, rail roads, transit-hubs, park-and-ride lots, bridges, sidewalks, bike lanes, ferry terminals, trails and safety projects funded with federal, state, tribal and local sources.
The STIP is a calendar year document, and is developed on an annual basis with monthly updates from January through October. The STIP is developed from local, metropolitan and regional transportation improvement programs (TIPs). Projects are identified through state, metropolitan, regional, tribal and local planning processes.
An environment of community engagement is woven into each stage of the planning process merging public dialogue forums with practical solutions to deliver transportation projects that “fit” into the communities and augment their transportation needs.
Projects programmed in the STIP are the highest priority for the available funding, to preserve and improve the state's transportation network and achieving the national goals established in the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21) and continued in the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act (FAST).
Only those projects programmed in the STIP can be authorized by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) to utilize federal funds. Once projects are approved in the STIP, agencies may request federal fund authorization of the project.