Plan Overview

Safety in transportation is an essential component of a healthy community. A safe transportation environment is one where people can meet their daily needs, using a mode of travel that is the easiest, most convenient, and affordable for them and their families. Recognizing this, the U.S. Department of Transportation created the Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A) program to provide funding for plans and projects that help prevent deaths and serious injuries on roadways across the country. The Comprehensive Safety Action Plan (CSAP) for the Matanuska-Susitna Borough (MSB) is a strategic component of the SS4A program. The CSAP can be used to secure a variety of funding opportunities to implement its recommended strategies and projects, whether from the SS4A grant program or other sources.

This Safety Plan DOES...

• Provide background on the Safe System Approach, U.S Department of Transportation’s guiding framework for roadway safety
• Analyze crash history and trends
• Set goals to reduce serious and fatal injury crashes on the road, and provides a recommended list of policies and practices that the MSB, cities, and Mat-Su Valley Planning for Transportation can choose to implement
• Provide a “toolkit’ of safety countermeasures that agencies can use in developing new road projects
• Recommend projects that that can help improve safety in select areas
• Serve as a tool to fund projects and planning activities from various sources, including the SS4A progam

This Safety Plan DOES NOT...

• Serve as a directive or mandate to implement any of the policies, practices, or projects
• Change the boundary of the Mat-Su Core Area. The Expanded Core Area is a study area for this plan only and includes the cities of Houston, Palmer, and Wasilla, as well as the surrounding populated areas
• Favor one mode of transportation over the another. This plan’s goal is to improve safety for ALL users
• Limit, or recommend limitations to allowing ATV use where they are currently legally allowed to operate
• Direct agencies to use any of the countermeasures in the toolkit
• Obligate MSB to meet crash reduction goals or other performance targets or result in any kind of penalty for failure to meet them
• Set goals related to reducing carbon emissions or combatting climate change