Light the Way. Make Every Crossing Safer.

The need is documented.

State data count 12 pedestrians killed or injured in Desert Hot Springs in 2023. The City’s Active Transportation Plan identifies collision concentrations near transit stops at Palm Drive and Hacienda Avenue and at Palm Drive and Two Bunch Palms Trail.

Rank projects by collisions, speed, nighttime visibility, pedestrian demand, missing sidewalks, transit access, and risk to children, seniors, and people with disabilities.

Fix the places people use.

Audit routes around the City’s eight parks and recreation facilities, community centers, transit and school-bus stops, lodging, and other busy pedestrian areas. Build the right mix of lighting, high-visibility crosswalks, curb ramps, signs, refuge islands, beacons, and signals.

Evaluate Sky Haven with traffic counts, pedestrian demand, crash history, sight distance, and engineering warrants. Install a signal only if the evidence supports it.

Fund the work.

The City already secured $561,150 in Highway Safety Improvement Program funds for a $623,500 project covering 17 intersections, including eight high-visibility crosswalk locations.

Pursue HSIP, California’s Active Transportation Program, Safe Streets and Roads for All, SB 1, SB 821, Measure A, Streets Development Impact Fees, and CVAG’s Transportation Uniform Mitigation Fee. Use City capital funds for required matches and coordinate with SunLine, the school district, Caltrans, CVAG, and RCTC.

Direct the Police Department to pursue California Office of Traffic Safety grants for overtime, training, equipment, education, and joint operations against illegal street racing and roadway takeovers. The next application period opens in December 2026. Pair enforcement with data-supported traffic-calming projects eligible for HSIP, which funds infrastructure rather than routine policing.

Pursue four additional competitive paths: Reconnecting Communities for a future eligible round if a major transportation facility is shown to divide residents from daily needs; California AHSC when safe walking improvements are part of a qualifying affordable-housing and transit project; Caltrans Sustainable Transportation Planning Grants to pay for safety plans, data, and engineering studies before its October 9, 2026 deadline; and federal BUILD, formerly RAISE, for a large corridor-scale project in a future round. These are competitive programs, not guaranteed awards.

Update the fee nexus study so growth pays its lawful share. Study an Enhanced Infrastructure Financing District only where a public analysis confirms eligible projects, sufficient tax growth, and protection for existing services.

As a councilmember, I will pursue every lawful funding source, attach a financing plan to each priority project, and keep applying until the money is secured. Residents should not have to keep waiting for safer streets.

Act on longstanding traffic-calming requests.

The adopted General Plan records community demand for slower traffic, speed bumps, lighting, signs, and enforcement. City budgets show two speed humps completed in FY 2019-20 and a later Panorama project. The response has been piecemeal, not systematic.

Residents also see circular tire marks from donuts and burnouts across the city. The marks do not provide an incident count, but they are visible warnings of reckless driving. Map reported locations, compare them with calls and crashes, target enforcement, and install proven traffic calming where engineering and emergency access allow it.

Create one published process for speed-hump and traffic-calming requests. Log each request, measure speeds and crashes, review emergency access, rank the location, identify funding, and give residents a written decision and schedule.

This advances the Strategic Plan’s goals for parks, roads, grant funding, corridor traffic control, and the hotel and spa district.