City of Burnsville Traffic Calming Policy

Challenge

The City of Burnsville, Minnesota, was hearing increasing concerns from residents about speeding and neighborhood traffic safety. As expectations for safer local streets grew, city leaders recognized the need for a consistent way to respond to requests while maintaining fairness across neighborhoods.

Without a formal policy in place, each request was handled individually, making it difficult to ensure fairness, transparency, and alignment with broader safety goals. This case-by-case approach also placed increasing pressure on staff, who were tasked with balancing competing concerns, managing limited resources, and explaining why some locations received improvements while others did not.

As requests continued to grow, city staff needed a clear, defensible framework to evaluate concerns, prioritize investments, and provide residents with transparent, consistent responses.

Solution

Burnsville set out to create a traffic calming policy that would support fair decision-making while giving staff practical tools to address both immediate concerns and long-term safety goals. SEH worked with city officials to develop the framework and tailor it to Burnsville’s operational needs and community expectations.

A key feature of the policy is a decision-making flow chart that walks staff through a series of straightforward yes-or-no questions. This tool connects each step directly to the City’s safety goals and helps identify the most appropriate response for each situation. This process includes defined community involvement “checkpoints” that encourage the city to present improvement strategies to the public prior to investing in or installing traffic calming treatments. These engagement opportunities allow the community to voice their opinions and understand the reasoning and process before a treatment makes its way onto their street.

The policy also distinguishes between lower-cost, lower-impact strategies, such as signage and pavement markings, and more involved infrastructure improvements that require additional analysis and coordination. By clearly outlining these pathways, the city can respond efficiently while still planning for long-term solutions where needed.

After a series of collaborative workshops, city staff refined the policy to ensure it reflected local priorities and could be implemented easily in day-to-day operations. The result is a practical tool shaped by Burnsville’s experience, knowledge, and goals.

Throughout these efforts, the resulting policy established clear criteria for assessing traffic conditions and determining when action is warranted. To support this, the team developed a prioritization system that allows staff to objectively score and rank locations across the city. This gives Burnsville a transparent and defensible way to allocate resources, ensuring the most critical needs are addressed first. Just as importantly, the system provides residents with a clear understanding of how and why decisions are made.

Today, Burnsville has a clear, repeatable process for addressing traffic safety concerns. Staff rely on the policy and its supporting tools to evaluate requests, prioritize improvements, and communicate decisions with consistency and transparency. Designed as a living document, the framework can evolve alongside the community, supporting safer streets for years to come.

Early outcomes demonstrate the impact of this structured approach. As part of implementation, SEH conducted a follow-up study that found 96% of approaching vehicles stopped for pedestrians in marked crosswalks, reinforcing the City’s goal of improving neighborhood safety while building public confidence in how traffic concerns are addressed.