Yuma Officials Partner With Kimley-Horn to Tackle Deadly Traffic Crashes

Yuma's most dangerous streets are now the subject of a formal engineering study, with city officials and consultant team Kimley-Horn presenting a safety plan framework to the City Council at a late-March work session aimed at cutting the toll of deadly and serious-injury crashes.

Kimley-Horn, a national engineering and planning firm, outlined an approach built on crash data analysis rather than reactive, one-off repairs. The work session presentation covered problem identification, high-crash corridor mapping, intersection design evaluation and a menu of speed-management strategies. Among the near-term countermeasures on the table: signal timing adjustments, striping improvements, crosswalk upgrades and targeted lighting enhancements at the locations data identifies as most hazardous to drivers, cyclists and pedestrians.

City officials signaled interest in a prioritized, long-range program over the kind of piecemeal fixes that have historically characterized local street safety responses. A structured plan also strengthens Yuma's position to compete for state and federal safety grants, including federal Safe Streets and Roads for All funding that has directed billions toward exactly this kind of data-driven local initiative.

The work session served as a public check-in on Kimley-Horn's early findings. The next phase calls for the consultant team and city staff to refine recommendations, complete additional data collection and conduct community outreach before presenting a finalized action plan to the council for budget consideration.

Residents who want to track the plan's progress can follow City Council meeting agendas, which will list formal action items when staff moves from study to implementation. Meeting records are available through the City of Yuma's public meeting calendar at yumaaz.gov.