Audit ATX
An interview series where we learn about local government and the City of Austin through audits and investigations from the Austin City Auditor's Office.
Audit ATX
Speed Reduction Audit
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Audit ATX speaks with Auditor Sam Socolow about a recent audit that evaluated whether the City's speed reduction efforts are working effectively.
Welcome, Audithusiast of Austin, to another episode of Audit ATX.
SPEAKER_01The podcast that dives deep into the audits and investigations our office does to make Austin better for all residents. We're your hosts, Sam and Max. Welcome back to Audit ATX, everyone. Today we're kicking off the new year of 2026 with Auditor and my fellow co-host, Sam Socolo, to talk about a recent audit our office conducted. This audit goes into speed reduction within the city. Sam, it's great to have you here one-on-one. Thanks, Max. It's good to be on this end of the podcast with you this time. Alright, so let's go ahead and take it from the top by first diving into what the objective was here and why this audit was conducted in the first place.
SPEAKER_00The objective of this audit was to determine whether the city speed reduction efforts are working effectively. This audit was part of the 2025 calendar year audit plan, and one reason why it was on the plan was because of concerns about speeding in residential areas.
SPEAKER_01Gotcha. That makes sense to me, and it's definitely a concern that I've had in my neighborhood. I definitely see some cars going a little bit too fast through our streets. And as you know, not all of our listeners are auditors, which is great, but some context might get lost in the mix. So what do you think is important for our listeners to know as far as background information goes?
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. I think there's a good bit to cover, but I'll try to keep it short. So speed reduction and traffic safety overall can often be approached through the lens of the three E's of engineering, education, and enforcement. We looked at each of these three lenses in the audit, but we focus mostly on the city's engineering efforts. These efforts involve altering roads and adding in structures like speed cushions to self-enforce driving behaviors like driving more slowly. There are multiple city transportation entities in the Austin Transportation Public Works Department, or ATPW for short, who play a role in speed reduction. But the department's speed manager program is most directly involved with this work, so they were a big focus of the audit as well. Their efforts fall into two main buckets, implementing traffic calling projects as well as speed limit changes. I also think it's important to point out that a speed cushion is not the same thing as a speed hump or bump. The main difference is that speed humps are continuous structures, whereas speed cushions are separate structures. We use cushions instead of hums because emergency response vehicles don't need to slow down when they drive over them.
SPEAKER_01I like that. And the three E's is definitely catchy, but let's get into the findings now. So it looks like there's a few findings here in this report. Would you be able to start us off by telling us about finding one?
SPEAKER_00For sure. So for the first finding, we looked at several of the city's more recent traffic homing projects and found that almost all of them were effective at lowering speeds. However, we did observe that projects with speed cushions were generally more effective at lowering speed and less expensive compared to projects that did not have speed cushions. Another part of our work involved meeting with transportation staff in other large cities. A key difference that we noticed between Austin and most of the cities that we met with is that Austin's staff have a process to use data to determine where projects are needed, whereas in other cities, this process is driven by applications and petitions from residents.
SPEAKER_01Well, that makes sense to me. What about finding two though?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so as I alluded to and discussing the last finding, the city has a formal risk-based process to identify locations for traffic line projects, but other aspects of the decision-making process regarding this are done more informally. For example, uh we found that decision makers don't formally document why each project gets picked, and speed and cost data from past projects are not always formally baked into the decision-making process to help inform those decisions. Also, the city does not have formal financial tolerances or decision points regarding when a project might become too expensive or who actually constructs the project, whether that's city staff, a contractor, or a mix of. Like many things right now, the cost for traffic helping projects are rising a lot. So we believe that making improvements in these areas could help ensure that the city is making the best spending decisions as far as traffic helping projects go.
SPEAKER_01I see. And let's go ahead and hit this last finding and then we can jump into some of the extras here. What was finding three?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so when an entity acquires and installs an asset like a speed cushion, they may eventually need to maintain it and will eventually have to decide whether to dispose of or replace it when it meets the end of its useful life. But for the city to make such a determination and plan accordingly, there needs to be condition standards and a maintenance plan. The city has condition standards in the maintenance plan for their signs and marking assets, like speed limit signs and delineator posts, but not for other assets such as speed cushions. While speed cushions are durable, we saw several throughout the city that have shown some signs of wear and tear, so they definitely do deteriorate over time. As these assets continue to age, the city will need to further assess how to balance deploying new ones while also maintaining and replacing existing ones.
SPEAKER_01Appreciate you recapping that for us, Sam, and thanks for all the work that you and your team did here on this audit. I noticed the report had both an additional observation, which we've seen in reports before, and then an innovation opportunity, which seems to be a little bit new to me at least. Can you go over one of these or both of these for our listeners, real quick?
SPEAKER_00Right. So these both consist of additional information that didn't quite rise to the level of a finding, but they still do represent information that we think our stakeholders should be aware of. One thing we learned was that while Austin uses bonds to fund traffic calming projects, there are other possible funding sources that the city can look at, which is important since existing bond funds for traffic calling projects have been spent. We also learned that some cities have their own staff construct projects instead of contractors. This presents a potential way for Austin to save money on these projects. And for additional observation, we wanted to shed light upon how enforcement, which as mentioned earlier, is a key aspect of the traffic safety ecosystem, has been limited in Austin for several years. But it does seem as though the city is making some effort to turn this around.
SPEAKER_01Very cool. And I always like the comparisons to other pure cities in the audits that we do here in our office. And based on the findings here, what recommendations were ultimately made to the department and to the city to improve some of these processes?
SPEAKER_00We issued a total of three recommendations. The first two recommendations that we issued involve having ATPW formally document how decisions are made and to formally and consistently leverage data on past projects to help inform those decisions. And the last recommendation involves having ATPW work on developing condition standards and a maintenance plan for its key speech assets, such as speed cushions. Got it.
SPEAKER_01Well, thanks for coming on the podcast today as an Audit Expert to explain some of you and your team's work, Sam. We appreciate your time and look forward to having you back as my fellow co-host again here on Auda ATX.
SPEAKER_00Thanks, Max. Looking forward to some more familiarity on my end as well.
SPEAKER_01Thanks for listening to this episode of Auda ATX. For more information about this report, you can visit our website at austontexas.gov slash auditor. Or shoot us an email at Austenauditor at awesentexas.gov.
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