Jeff Speck is on Twitter, and here's what he's been saying about traffic safety, political movements ... and Vision Zero. Expect Jeff Gahan to award a contract to HWC Engineering (cha-ching) to explain to him what vision means, zero or otherwise.
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Today I am tweeting from Rule 33. Adopt Vision Zero: Make a political movement around traffic safety. From #WalkableCityRules (1/4)
In every major American city, pedestrian deaths are a part of life. Often, the victim is a child. (2/4)
The news cycle is predictable: first comes the victim blaming, then the driver blaming—sober drivers are almost never punished—then perhaps a discussion about speed limits and enforcement. (3/4)
Through it all, the crash is called an “accident,” as if it was not preventable. Rarely is the design of the roadway itself considered. And never—never—is there any reconsideration of the professional engineering standards that created the hazard in the first place. (4/4)
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The Swedes, those geniuses of driving safety, know better. For some time, the Swedish traffic safety profession has acknowledged that street design is at the heart of street safety, and modified its engineering standards with an eye to lowering speeds in urban areas. (1/3)
The results are astounding. Their traffic fatality rate as a nation is about one quarter of the US’s, but the biggest difference is in the cities. In 2013, Stockholm, with a similar population to Phoenix, lost six people to car crashes. Phoenix lost 167. (2/3)
Remarkably, Stockholm made it through 2016 without a single pedestrian or cyclist dying. Welcome to Vision Zero, the Swedish path to eliminating traffic deaths. (3/3)
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Welcome to Vision Zero, the Swedish path to eliminating traffic deaths. Now a decade old, Vision Zero has become an international movement, and joining it in earnest means making a commitment to its goals. (1/5)
As of this writing, there are more than 30 “Vision Zero Cities” in the US, including Austin, Boston, Denver, Fort Lauderdale, Los Angeles, New York, Seattle, and Washington DC. (2/5)
Each of these cities has approached the commitment in its own way, but joining the Vision Zero network can be a key first step to identifying the elimination of traffic fatalities as an important goal and reorienting policy and investment around that goal. (3/5)
In New York City, for example, the Vision Zero program has organized the insertion (at last count) of 18.5 miles of protected bike lanes, 776 Leading Pedestrian Interval traffic signals, and 107 left-turn calming treatments ... (4/5)
... and also overseen a dramatic crackdown on speeding and failure-to-yield violations. The result? After holding fairly steady for three years, pedestrian fatalities dropped by a whopping 32 percent between 2016 to 2017, from 148 to 101. (5/5)
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