Hollister kicks off citywide road safety study

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Hollister couple Dan Dungy and Nancy MacLean have witnessed a couple of near-misses involving students and vehicles along San Benito Street between Nash Road and Hawkins Street. They attribute the safety issue to the large number of students and vehicles using San Benito Street combined with the lack of marked crosswalks at most of the intersections in that area. 

They decided to reach out to their City Council representative Dolores Morales to relay their concerns. As a result, the couple later met with Public Works Director Javier Hernandez and engineer Dillon Albert at San Benito Street to discuss their concerns.

Even at marked crosswalks, they said, it can be dangerous when motorists on either side fail to give pedestrians the right-of-way. 

Dungy said Hernandez and Albert listened and informed them about the city’s proposal to make changes to a large portion of the street to address safety concerns.

He was also told of a citywide project known as Vision Zero Action Plan, which kicked off on May 12 at the Veterans Memorial Building in Hollister. It featured a workshop to gather input from the community about safety issues related to streets and roads.

The workshop was part of the federal Safe Streets For All grant, which was awarded to the city in 2024 in the amount of $1.08 million. It also involves a local match of $270,000. 

About 10 public members participated in the gathering which will help the city develop a plan which aims to eliminate traffic deaths and serious injuries. 

Hernandez said prior to the workshop there had been meetings with stakeholders such as school officials to discuss safety concerns around their campuses. 

Dungy said the timing of the projects appears to be “just right.”

“We think this is a great opportunity and a great start,” he said. “We plan on being part of it.”

On Feb. 2, the City Council approved contracting with the engineering firm Kimley Horn to develop a safety action plan and administer the grant. According to the grant agreement, the city has 30 months to complete the project and 34 months to adopt a final plan.

Hernandez told BenitoLink the data collected with this grant will help the city identify and pursue additional funding to address proposed projects. 

According to an overview of the project at the workshop, the completed plan will have six detailed elements with specific infrastructure improvements, cost estimates and a prioritized project list ready for grant applications. 

The project also includes an advisory committee, a public safety campaign with educational materials and an online dashboard for tracking implementation progress.

The project overview states, “The advisory committee and monitoring tools are designed to keep this effort going well beyond the life of the project, giving the city a lasting framework for evaluating safety concerns, pursuing funding and delivering improvements as Hollister continues to grow.”  

The workshop included six stations covering the following six different but interconnected plans:

• Vision Zero Strategy: A combination of all the plans with the goal of eliminating traffic deaths and severe injuries in Hollister. It sets safety priorities and measurable goals and action plans. It will be used to pursue future grants.
• Safe Routes To School Plan: A focus on making it safer for students to walk and bike to school. It will map needs at each school site and produce a list of infrastructure improvement needs. 
• ADA Transition: An evaluation of facilities that don’t meet Americans with Disabilities Act and Public Rights-of-Way Access Guidelines standards and catalog deficiencies in a mapping database. 
• Safe Routes for Seniors: Examining key routes seniors use to find barriers such as missing sidewalks, unsafe crossings and lack of resting places to create best practices.
• Active Transportation & Trail: A proposal for a connected network of sidewalks, bike lanes and trails ensuring safe travels for pedestrians and bicyclists. 
• Evacuation Scenario Modeling: A simulation of fire evacuation scenarios to test the city’s road network under emergency conditions to identify bottlenecks, capacity constraints and neighborhoods with limited exit routes.

Each station included related data such as hazard zones, collision locations, bike lane locations and pedestrian activity.

According to the overview, two other workshops are scheduled: one in the fall to present draft recommendations and one in spring 2027 to review final draft plans. 
The project’s website, which includes an interactive map and space for the community to provide input is here.

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