Hello Tom,
Here are some comments regarding your proposal: "Comprehensive Community Traffic Safety and Education and Enforcement Grant"
Given the short review period I was originally worried about being able to give it a fair review. Over the last 20 years I've produced and reviewed many proposals. But those were for NASA and the National Science Foundation, and most were at least 50 pages long. So I was relieved when I got your proposal and it was just a few pages.
In writing and reviewing proposals I ask a few basic questions:
Here are the specific comments:
Item 1. On the title page change the word Grant in the proposal title to Program to make it consistent with the wording in the remainder of the document.
Item 2. The first table (Collisions in the City) has a serious typo. The 1988 Fatal and Injury count for 1988 should be 303, not 333. The 333 number caused major confusion when I read the first paragraph that claimed a 10% reduction, when the table indicated no reduction from 1996.
Item 3. The problem you seem to be stating is that Santa Cruz has too many bicycle and pedestrian related fatal and injury collisions.
This might be true, but I find it difficult to derive that conclusion solely on the data presented in the two tables. For one thing, the first table seems to be total counts in a year (collisions per year). But the second table is counts per VMT or counts per population. So the two tables are scaled differently and can't be directly compared.
Furthermore, I'm not clear how scaling bicycle or pedestrian collision by either population or VMT gives an accurate picture. If we lived in a city with no bikers or pedestrians the collision rate would be 0, regardless of VMT or population. In other words, the number of bikers or pedestrians matters when trying to evaluate collision rates. We really need something like "number of collisions per VMT per BMT" (BMT=Bicycle miles traveled).
We know that Santa Cruz has more bikers than the typical town. So the total number of bike collisions SHOULD be higher than the typical town, if all other factors are equal. You would have a much stronger case if you could somehow fold the biking BMT (or some similar figure of our bike ridership) into your arguments. So is there really a problem given the number of bike rides? It is not possible to tell conclusively from just the data presented.
The same applies for pedestrians, although I note that you do not state that Santa Cruz has a bad ranking with regard to pedestrians. The text says the counts are unchanged over the last few years. If the City is not badly ranked (the statistical meaning of "rank" is unclear), then does having the counts steady represent a real problem?
The bottom line for this item is that the problem is not well demonstrated. This my Basic Question A.
Item 4. A typo: In the first paragraph after the tables it says "form 1996" instead of "from 1996."
Item 5. Here are some suggestions regarding the reasons for the high ranking:
Item 6. In the paragraph following the ranking reasons, the second sentence that begins "In particular" is not actually a proper sentence. In particular, no verb.
Item 7. The objectives list seems to be lacking in a number of significant ways. First, I couldn't clearly identify any objectives which involved the significant use of the proposed Traffic Officer. Either the objectives list is lacking or the need for the Officer is lacking.
Second, while the text mentions educating motorists, there doesn't seem to be any objective which specifically addresses this. You really should have a program of educating motorists which is at least as aggressive as the program of educating bikers and pedestrians.
Third, there may be a third party here that needs more education, the police office on patrol. Add an objective something like this: "Provide intensive officer training related to bicycle and pedestrian laws including the responsibility of motor vehicle drivers with respect to bicycles and pedestrians."
Fourth, how about something like this: "Conduct at least four sting operations (you probably have a better term!) per year in which a plain-clothed police officer crosses the street at a variety of legal cross walks. All motor vehicle laws pertaining to pedestrians will be enforced, with citations issued for infractions."
Fifth, add this objective" "More rigorously enforce speed limits."
Sixth, add this objective: "Establish a system to thoroughly report and document all bicycle and pedestrian related collisions." I've heard that as currently maintained, reporting and record keeping is not very good when it comes to bikes and pedestrians. This may also require additional officer training to make sure adequate reports are obtained.
Item 8: On the budget page, Fiscal Year 2 column, the heading says 10-1-02 OR 9-30-03. Change OR to TO.
Conclusion
To conclude, I come back to my set of basic questions.
From a NASA and National Science Foundation background I'd say this proposal is a good beginning, but would not make it past the first round of reviews.
Is it good enough for the OTS? I don't know.
Could it be better crafted to better serve the people of Santa Cruz? Yes, I think so. More thorough attention to vehicular driver behavior and responsibility is essential.
I'd be glad to work further with you on this proposal (or future proposals). Please call on me at any time.
Regards,
Richard
Richard Stover email: richard@ucolick.org Detector Development Laboratory http://gardiner.ucolick.org/~ccdev UCO/Lick Observatory Voice: 831-459-2139 Natural Sciences Bldg. 2, Room 160 University of California FAX: 831-459-2298 Santa Cruz, CA 95064 USA FAX: 831-426-5244 (Alternate)