What Happens When a City Tries to End Traffic Deaths

In an effort to promote safe streets and bicycle and pedestrian safety, Officials in Tower Hamlets, an East London neighborhood, closed down a main community road to car traffic - and it didn't go well. But local officials learned from the pilot, recognizing a need to better prepare the community for any road closures as well as plan for alternative routes for car traffic.

Sweden's "Vision Zero" program has used a comprehensive approach to infrastructure and regulation to drastically reduce traffic-related deaths, making Swedish roads the safest in the world.

Hoboken, New Jersey implemented a comprehensive strategy to eliminate traffic fatalities through multiple coordinated responses, including curb extensions that narrow crossing distances and slow traffic, seven-second pedestrian head starts at crosswalks, physical barriers to enforce no-parking zones near intersections, reduced speed limits and high-visibility crosswalk markings. Since January 17, 2017, Hoboken has recorded zero traffic fatalities for nine consecutive years.

Safe System design is a public health framework for preventing traffic accidents and death. The system adapts and transforms roads as part of a broader system of reforms. In Bogotá, in addition to a city-wide speed limit, high-risk corridors were identified using geo-referenced collision data and modeling. Multiple locations were transformed into pedestrian friendly streets that encourage lower traffic speeds by using speed bumps, bicycle lanes, wide sidewalks, benches, and planters. Officials note that the change has led to a decline in fatalities.

The Vision Zero program many cities use to reduce traffic deaths depends on data to inform where to target safety measures like redesigned streets and speed limits. But, when significant numbers of crashes, particularly involving pedestrians and bicycles, go missing in the data, the interventions miss the problems. Racial disparities in unreported crashes or unresponsive police mean that the problems are compounded in under-served areas. Data improvements in D.C., San Francisco, and other cities aim to fill the gaps so that the benefits of Vision Zero can extend to places where they're needed most.

As the District lagged on its Vision Zero goals, bike and pedestrian advocates in Washington turned traffic fatalities into a rallying cry, and got results.  

A plan to redesign Market Street in San Francisco uses a controversial approach used by cities around the world: eliminating personal cars entirely. This bicycle, pedestrian and bus-oriented layout approach reduces traffic accidents and fatalities; San Francisco plans to move forward with their plan in 2020.

In order to cut back on automotive emissions and traffic within the city center, Amsterdam has introduced road-dividing "cuts" - called "knips" in Dutch - along major roadways to make travel in the city center easier for pedestrians and public transportation users. These cuts consist of barriers set to close off short sections of a street, therefore disabling through-travel to cars. The city notes that a "knip" effectively cuts automotive traffic on a blocked-off road by 70 percent.

American cars made since the early 1980s have carried ratings from the federal New Car Assessment Program, showing how risky they are to human life in a crash. NCAP ratings motivated a host of safety enhancements by manufacturers. Since the 1990s, similar programs in the European Union, China, Australia, Korea, and Japan have also rated vehicles' risks to pedestrians and bicyclists, and their fatalities have dropped. Not so in the U.S., where industry resistance has stalled expansion of NCAP ratings. Advocates hope the Biden Transportation Department will finally expand the program.

Oakland is making an effort to make city planning more equitable to include the needs of communities of color. "Esential Places" is the second iteration of a program that started off as "Slow Streets" and was criticized by local residents for catering to "white and moneyed interests." The initial attempt was informed by survey respondents who were overwhelmingly white and rich. Meetings with community members in distressed neighborhoods resulted in different traffic challenges and pedestrian needs. The shift in policy planning has led to safer intersections with no collisions at previously dangerous sites.