AUSTIN (KXAN) — This month marks 10 years since the City of Austin implemented its Vision Zero initiative. The goal: no loss of life or serious injuries on Austin roadways.
Four fatal driving behaviors are an ongoing challenge for Austin:
- Impaired driving
- Speeding
- Distracted driving
- Failure to yield
On average, over the last decade, 500 people have been killed or seriously hurt in crashes in Austin. Between city funding, mobility bond funds, and federal grants, the City of Austin has committed more than $134 million to try to drastically reduce that number.
“In terms of cost-benefit, one of the things we try to highlight in our report is that reducing these crashes and these injuries really has societal benefits from a cost-saving standpoint as well. If you think about the amount of public resources, police, fire, and EMS that have to respond to these crashes every single day, it’s a huge drain on our public safety budgets,” said Joel Meyer, the transportation safety officer with the City of Austin.
In the last 10 years, Vision Zero has added 500 pedestrian crossings, 320 miles of upgraded sidewalks, more than 100 miles of bicycle facilities, and 600 safe routes to school projects.
In the last two years, fatal and serious crashes have been down, according to Austin’s transportation department.
“We think that’s the result of the investments we as a community have made in these transportation safety infrastructure projects. Looking deeper at the data, we also know there’s a lot of disparities in terms of who’s impacted by these crashes. We know that the black community in Austin is significantly overrepresented in the number of serious injuries and fatalities compared with its population,” Meyer said. “We also know that men in lower-income communities are impacted. So a lot of what we try to do with Vision Zero is try to understand these disparities and then direct those resources to those communities so we can address those disparities.”
The data also found that in the case of fatal or serious injury crashes involving a cyclist or pedestrian, 40-60% are homeless.
“What we’ve tried to do is work closely with the city’s homeless strategy office to try to identify those hot spots around the city where we can invest in things like lighting and safe crossings to try to reduce those risks. We’ve also worked closely with TxDOT to try to find ways to reduce people crossing our major highways where there’s a lot of risks. So one of the big successes we’ve had in the last 10 years working with TxDOT with Vision Zero is a temporary pedestrian barrier on I-35. And that’s really decreased the number of fatalities on I-35. And we’ve also worked with them to get permanent pedestrian crossings as part of their I-35 effort,” said Meyer.
Digging into the numbers helps guide the Vision Zero strategy. With eyes on the next 10 years, funding is also a challenge.
“There’s always going to be more [of a] need than there is funding. I think it’s important to recognize that. But I think when you compare Austin to a lot of other cities that have tried to do Vision Zero in their city, what stands out for us is that sustained level of funding for the last three bond elections, just being able to chip away at those safety needs. And over time, that’s going to show up in the numbers,” said Meyer.
The numbers along the Bluff Springs Road Safety Project show the improvements are working, with a 30% reduction in crashes and a 58% decrease in high-risk speeding.
The full Vision Zero 10-year report can be viewed on the city of Austin website.
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