Day-to-day road safety tools at odds with evacuation times, new Berkeley study finds

BERKELEY — Road safety is often a major priority for cities but a new report on emergency evacuation times in Berkeley underscores the trade-offs that exist between calming day-to-day traffic and quickly moving people out of a dangerous area.

The report, developed by KLD Associates on behalf of the city, evaluated evacuation patterns and exit hurdles during wildfires and tsunamis and found that city-wide evacuation times can vary from 2 hours and 30 minutes to nearly 4 hours, depending on time of day and day of the week.