A community comes together to make transportation safer for everyone. B y N at G a l e
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ccording to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 2015 ended a five-decade trend of declining traffic fatalities by showing a 7.2 percent increase over the year 2014. This trend was also seen in the city of Los Angeles, which exhibited one of the highest collision death rates of its peer cities in the country. In Los Angeles, one person is killed in a traffic collision every two days. Of even greater concern is the fact that 30 percent of these collisions involve people walking or bicycling, young people, and/or the elderly. In fact, traffic collisions are the leading cause of death for children between the ages of five and 14 and the second greatest cause of death for people between the ages of 15 and 25 within the city. Enter Mayor Eric Garcetti—in August 2015, he issued Executive Directive Number 10, which formally launched Vision Zero in Los Angeles (visionzero.lacity.org). Vision Zero is Los Angeles’ commitment to end all traffic deaths by the year 2025. It is a commitment to reversing this alarming trend and making the city a great place in which people can travel safely and securely no matter what mode of transportation they choose. It makes human life the top priority in the design of city streets and identifies strategies for ways the government and members of the public can work to reduce traffic deaths to zero, with a specific focus on the most vulnerable of road users. The original concept behind Vision Zero comes from Sweden, where it was adopted as a national strategy back in 1997. Since then, Sweden has seen its transportation deaths drop by 30 percent despite a rise in traffic volume. According to the Vision Zero Network, other cities that have gotten on board with Vision Zero include New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Chicago, San Jose, and San Diego.
Implementation At its core, Vision Zero is a data-driven initiative. Upon formalizing its commitment to zero traffic deaths, Los Angeles went through a rigorous data analysis to identify the places where focused traffic safety efforts will produce the most significant decrease in deaths and serious injuries. In our collision data, we found there was an over- representation of people walking and biking. They account parking.org/tpp
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for 15 percent of all collisions but approximately 50 percent of all deaths on the road. Therefore, the city decided to focus on areas that have a higher concentration of deaths and serious injuries for these most vulnerable parts of the population. These identified areas form the High Injury Network (HIN), which is comprised of 386 corridors that represent 6 percent of Los Angeles’ street miles. Sixty-five percent of all deaths and severe injuries involving people walking and biking occur in this part of the city. While all collisions cannot be prevented, the city is taking steps to implement strategic safety programs and improve infrastructure so mistakes on the road do not lead to loss of life. For example, the installation of a pedestrian scramble at the intersection of Hollywood & Highland (see page 37) has significantly reduced the number of injuries at that intersection. These are the types of projects that will be prioritized going forward. FEBRUARY 2017 | INTERNATIONAL PARKING INSTITUTE
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