Morro Bay city leaders asking for feedback to help improve travel in the area.
Morro Bay’s Local Roadway Safety Plan studies trends, factors and causes of collisions within the city. Based on that analysis, city leaders create a plan recommending safety improvements for future planning efforts toward safer roads. One area of emphasis the city has drafted is pedestrian safety.
Between 2013 and 2022, within city limits three out of nine severe injury crashes involved pedestrians, and one out of three fatal crashes in the city involved pedestrians.
David Owens who owns Village Center Dry Cleaners said he was struck by a car at the Main and Beach intersection while he was walking to the Morro Bay Rock.
“The person that hit me didn’t see me and then when she did see me, she panicked and hit the gas instead of the brakes,” Owens said.
That wasn’t the only time Owens was involved in a traffic incident. Another time he said he was struck right outside of his business as he was walking through the crosswalk.
“I don’t know how you do it but crack down on cell phone use because that’s the second time I’ve been hit. I’ve also been hit at the intersection out here and that gentleman was definitely on his cell phone,” Owens said.
Another area of emphasis in the plan is street lighting. In that same nine-year time frame, 28% of crashes occurred at night and seven percent of crashes happened in areas where there were no street lights. The goal is to help increase night-time visibility in areas with pedestrians and bicyclists.
Rudie Schroeter said he does not have any problems regarding the traffic within Morro Bay but does say pedestrian safety is one thing to look out for.
“Definitely there is. I know that a lot of people tend to not pay attention when they are coming up on some of these crosswalks. Sometimes you see people darting out in front of traffic where there isn’t a crosswalk,” said Rudie Schroeter, Rudie’s Rock Espresso owner.
Another area the city is focusing on is bicyclist safety by providing enforcement programs to encourage safer driving behaviors, providing signage for drivers to slow down for bikes, installing bike facilities along key corridors and also installing additional bike markings.
“As long as they’re following the same rules of the road, I think we’re all going to get along just fine out there,” Schroeter said.
The city has received a $40,000 grant from Caltrans to conduct this plan.
The Morro Bay Public Works Advisory Committee is holding a meeting Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. in the Veteran’s Memorial building where you can share your thoughts on the draft plan.
