Making Streets Safer with Vision Zero and Complete Streets
Accommodating all moving vehicles and pedestrians on a town or city’s streets so they can all transit safely can be difficult, but it is necessary as more and more people use alternative methods of transportation such as biking or public transportation. Municipalities across the country are integrating Vision Zero iniatives into their short- and long-term planning and adopting complete street installations. Vision Zero is a different way of approaching transportation planning and policies with the goal of improving road safety to reduce and ultimately eliminate pedestrian deaths or serious injuries. Complete Streets is an approach to city street design and policies that promotes safe, convenient, and equitable mobility and forms of transportation for everyone, especially children, people with disabilities, and older adults. The pandemic has created increased walking and biking activity and therefore these initiatives have been accelerated.
What is Vision Zero?
The Vision Zero movement considers traffic safety as a public health issue, believing that traffic accidents, deaths, and injuries can be prevented through design, engineering, policies, enforcement, community engagement, and education. Its goal is to create safe and equitable mobility for everyone. Vision Zero plans bring together a wide variety of stakeholders, with collaboration among local traffic planners and engineers, policymakers, and public health professionals to work on the many factors that go into making roadways safe including roadway design, speeds, behaviors, technology, and policies. A critical component of Vision Zero is Education which engages the community, civic and public officials to come together to develop tools that help to change unsafe and egregious driving behaviors. The Vision Zero movement, which began in Sweden in 1997, has grown across Europe and in the United States. Cities that have implemented Vision Zero in the U.S. include New York City, Boston, Charlotte, North Carolina, Denver Colorado, Tempe Arizona, and Bellevue, Washington, among others.
What is Complete Streets?
Complete Streets is a perfect pairing with Vision Zero platform with the goal of having streets that are safe for everyone, from motorists to public transportation riders, bicyclists to pedestrians. Some ways to do this is to integrate better roadway design with safe access in mind for all different types of mobility through the city when improving existing streets and designing new ones. What this looks like depends on the city or town, but could include creating dedicated mobility hubs, adding, and improving sidewalks, bike lanes, special bus lanes, safe public transportation stops, clearly marked and accessible crosswalks, median islands, and pedestrian-designated signals.
Combining Vision Zero & Complete Streets
Many cities and towns across the country are integrating and adopting combined Vision Zero and Complete Street initiatives into their short- and long-term planning. Vision Zero is used as an added safety layer on top of Complete Streets to establish equitable mobility for all kinds of people throughout all city operated roadways. Initiatives typically include community engagement to identify concerns and discuss options before changes are made. Key city departments, community and civic leaders and neighborhood are involved with the planning and implementation.
Plans and installations that combine the Vision Zero and Complete Streets platforms include developing and implementing long-range transportation plans with an eye to safety that include many modes of transportation (motor vehicles, buses, bicyclists, pedestrians, and mobility devices, such as senior scooters), and giving other transportation options, such as biking and walking, a high priority. Specific steps include collaborating with transit districts to create safe pedestrian access to bus and transit stops as well as to new commercial and mixed-use development areas, allocating space for pick-up/drop-off and vehicular and bicycle parking in busy urban areas, and investing in new sidewalks as well as bicycle and walking facilities throughout the community.
For more information about Vision Zero:https://visionzeronetwork.org/