2001-101 Council Resolution - Laserfiche WebLink

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Lino Lakes Police Department Problem Identification: On our proposed 2001 grant we have three additional agencies (Anoka, Coon Rapids, & Ramsey) that have decided to join our group. With the addition of these three agencies there will be 16 cities served with a population of 206,512 residents. There are several hundred miles of roadway within our boundaries. Included in these roadways are two major freeways, I35W- I35E, and the new Hwy. 10 from Coon Rapids west to the Anoka County border. Also included are several collateral, yet significant roadways that include, Hwy. 65, 242, 610, and 47. There are several hundred miles of two lane, two way rural roads where most fatal crashes occur. Many of these two lane roads are 55 MPH zones. With this many miles of two-lane roadways, coupled with the major arteries, Anoka County continues to rank as one of the worst counties in the number of deaths and severe injury crashes. During the time period of 1996-1998, Anoka County ranked 85th out of 87 counties for the most number of fatalities and severe injury crashes. In the year 2000 Anoka County had 23 fatalities, the 4th worst county in the state. There were 1,745 personal injury crashes which resulted in 2,612 people being injured, the 3rd.worst in the state in 2000. The City of Coon Rapids experienced five fatal crashes in 2000 and 462 personal injury crashes with 685 people being injured. Lino Lakes had three fatalities and 58 personal injury crashes that resulted in 80 people being injured. Ramsey City experienced three fatal crashes and 78 personal injuries crashes that injured 124 people. The City of Anoka experienced 127 personal injury crashes that resulted in 188 people injured. Spring Lake Park had 54 personal injury crashes with 75 people injured. The Centennial Lakes Police Department reported 21 personal injury crashes in which 34 people were injured. The City of St. Francis had 19 personal injury crashes with 30 injured people. Between these eight agencies 1,684 impaired drivers were removed from our streets in 2000. 990 of these rests came from the original five agencies in our group. This is about a 15% increase from the year before. With tie addition of the three new agencies, we expect even better results in removing impaired drivers from the roads. Consider the number of driving complaints (2,179) received in 2000 by the eight agencies. With addition of three new agencies, this number probably will rise as we strive to get our message out about the Safe & Sober program in the new areas. The past has shown that this number should eventually decrease. Some of these 2,179 complaints come as a result of road construction and design. For example, I35W northbound is narrowed to a one - lane freeway prior to merging with I35E. Hwy. 10 reduces from four lanes to two lanes in less than one mile. This results in major traffic congestion. These types of situations result in driving complaints and road rage incidents. There is also an increase in the number of vehicles on our roadways and the number of miles traveled in Anoka County. There was a decrease in road and driving complaints in 2000 among the original five agencies from 1218 to 1056, which is about a 14% decrease in these types of complaints. 2001 Grant: In August 2000 we were awarded a Safe & Sober grant. The group continues to meet on a regular basis to discuss and plan our projects. This usually results in projects well thought out that will help reduce the number of accidents and increase the number of seat belt users. During our meetings we plan and strategize our media opportunities, educational applications and our enforcement activities. We believe part of the success of this group is due to the cooperative attitude taken by all involved. No one agency has been slighted within this group. We work as one unit during our Safe & Sober campaign. This results in 7eryone involved knowing what is expected and how to achieve those results. During our current grant we have planned several joint projects to focus on an area that presents particular problems. These joint projects usually consisted of 5-10 squads saturating an area coupled with a high media blitz informing citizens of our intent.