Episode 69: Vision Zero
In 2017, the City of Greensboro logged more than 40 vehicle crash fatalities, at the time a high mark that rattled officials enough to explore ways toward safer travels. This led city officials to a global movement in the form of a scalable initiative called Vision Zero. On this episode, City of Greensboro Transportation Planning Engineer Lydia McIntyre explains what Vision Zero is, how it seeks to reduce traffic fatalities and serious accidents, and what the city has learned (with surprises) since embarking. Related material: Making Street Safety a Priority in Greensboro N.C. Vision Zero Federal grant program
Top Keywords
- vision zero 0.025
- zero 0.016
- greensboro 0.015
- vision 0.014
- city 0.010
- crashes 0.008
- fatalities 0.007
- action plan 0.006
- roadways 0.006
- safe 0.006
- city greensboro 0.006
- transportation 0.006
Transcript
This episode of Municipal Equation is brought to you by MedCost. MedCost balances the care of your employees with the financial health of your local government by offering flexible administration, best in class care management, cost containment strategies, health and wellness programs, access to a broad provider network, and exceptional customer service. MedCost. This is Municipal Equation from the North Carolina League of Municipalities. Hello, everyone. This is Ben Brown, and welcome to another episode of Municipal Equation, the podcast of the North Carolina League of Municipalities, where on each episode, we take a topic from one or more of our cities and towns and talk with them about it. Initiatives, challenges, doing things better together. As we say at the league, working as one, advancing all. Speaking of, we are here at the April, just off our annual conference, City Vision twenty twenty two, which played out April in downtown Wilmington, North Carolina with an amazing turnout, amazing weather, really sharp programming. And it was just generally fantastic seeing all of our members together again as this was the first in person conference for us since the pandemic began. So that is to say the energy in the Wilmington Convention Center where city vision took place was awesome. Hundreds of municipal officials, Wilmington mayor Bill Saffo made sure everyone felt welcome in his beautiful city. It's actually the city I grew up in, Wilmington, the port city. And I was amazed at the developments and the cool tax credit projects and things that the city of Wilmington has done in partnership with the private sector to make Wilmington really the place you wanna be. It was absolutely beautiful. Took a boat tour along the Cape Fear River. The legendary chairman of the board, performed for everyone at the city's new Live Oak Bank Pavilion, which was beautiful. And then we had the core pieces of the conference being the programming, which looked at the spending of American Rescue Plan dollars, something we covered a few episodes ago. It's actually been a forefront effort on part of the league to help our cities and towns through the programming of ARP money and its ability to render lasting change in our communities. We talked about economic development, climate resilience, all kinds of timely topics that our members could learn from together. And certainly not the least of things to point out, we have a new league president, officers, and board of directors. Those elections were part of City Vision 2022, and so succeeding our now immediate past president, being Karen Alexander, the mayor of Salisbury, who is an amazing president for the league over the past year, Succeeding her in the president's chair is Scott Nisler, the mayor of Kings Mountain. He's our new president and an excellent choice, very involved, very gregarious. He's actually a radio guy, if you want some trivia. He told me all about that during a visit I took to Kings Mountain a while back when I got to spend a day with mayor Nisler. He showed me around his town, Kings Mountain. We talked about his background and his priorities, one of which is broadband access. He said as president of the league, that's going to be one of his focuses, better broadband access for North Carolinians, which is definitely a good topic as virtually everything these days requires reliable connectivity. We're going to hear more from president Nisler. Joining him as officers for the league over the next year will be Fuquay Varina Town Commissioner Bill Harris and Durham Mayor Pro Tem Mark Anthony Middleton as first and second vice presidents, respectively. Two very involved municipal officials, Commissioner Harris and Mayor Pro Tem Middleton, and a full board of directors, everyone sworn in this past Thursday at City Vision twenty twenty two in Wilmington Let me just quote real quick from our executive director Rose Vaughn Williams She said, It is due to local leaders like Mayor Neisler that our state is as strong as it is and that our organization is as robust as it is. I could not be more proud to have mayor Neisler, commissioner Harris, and mayor Pro Tem Middleton, along with the entire board of directors, lead the NC League this coming year. From Rose Vaughn Williams, executive director of the North Carolina League of Municipalities. And that is my super abbreviated coverage of City Vision twenty twenty two held this past week in Wilmington. If you're signed up for our weekly league bulletin that comes out each Friday, you got to see some coverage from the event, and we will have more to come. I literally took about 3,000 photos while I was there, so I'm getting those squared away to share with everybody. Thanks so much to the hundreds of municipal officials and partners who attended and helped the success of City Vision twenty twenty two. This episode's topic was inspired by a post I saw on the National League of Cities website featuring one of our members, the city of Greensboro, North Carolina, and its efforts to combat kind of, I guess you could say, a long running issue in general, and that's traffic risks, specifically fatalities. And I know we all talk about the issue sometimes in context with the future of transportation where, you know, we will have safe autonomous vehicles and alternate modes of getting around more safely, maybe more walkability, more opportunities for bikes. By the way, I think May is National Bike Month. But right now, you know, we're still in our own private automobiles relying on ourselves and those around us for a smooth journey. I mean, that's kind of generally the system without getting into influential local traffic planning and other things that affect how we drive around. So Greensboro, one of the busier cities in North Carolina. In 2017, the city logged its highest number of traffic fatalities for a year long period. Forty two people killed. Traffic crash deaths, forty two in the year 2017. And this led to an ongoing intervention effort that we'll be talking about today. It's called Vision zero. And Vision zero is not unique to Greensboro. There are other cities in North Carolina and around the globe participating in this effort, which has been described kinda like a global movement to reduce traffic fatalities to zero. That would be the perfect goal. We're zooming in on Greensboro because I got the chance to talk with the point person there, Lydia McIntyre. She's a transportation planning engineer for the city. So first, just to put a basic definition on it, what is vision zero to begin with and and what is its goal?
Yes. Vision zero is actually an international strategy to eliminate all traffic fatalities and serious injuries. It actually was first implemented over in Sweden in the 1990s and has shown, great success in other European countries. The goal of business zero is to eliminate all traffic related fatalities and serious injuries. So it's not looking at eliminating all crashes, but just the crashes that result in fatalities or serious injuries. That's the goal of Vision zero.
And so was there a spark to this? You know, what was the the conversation that led the city to launching a proper initiative to that end? You know, you you can notice it, you know, working in Sweden or elsewhere, but, you know, what was really the impetus to launch a a program like this in, the city of Greensboro?
Back in 2017, the city of Greensboro actually had experienced its highest number of fatalities at the number of forty two deaths. And that actually during that year of 2017 was actually the same number of homicides that we had had in the city of Greensboro. And this prompted the Greensboro Department of Transportation to evaluate the vision zero strategy. So it was new to us and it was very much so a very new approach. But it was something that we said, okay. This number is too high. This is not acceptable, so we need to do something different. And then that's when we said, well, let's look at the Vision zero strategy, to see how we can incorporate since it was having success in other areas. So we said, let's look at how we can do things better, and that we recognize that those that death toll was too high, and was not acceptable. And we said, let's look at the Vision zero strategy to see how we can incorporate that here. And because it was having great success over in, other European countries, but not just there, but actually in The United States. Wow. So okay. So,
that registers with the city, and the city is like, we have to do something about this. And there's this program that, you know, there's a model out there. Yes. Mhmm. You decide to bring it to, to Greensboro. So so Vision zero, we know the goal. What does it look like in practice? Like, what specifically actually happens with it? And, from what I understand, it's also a data, data driven initiative. You know, what kind of data is being collected and and how?
That's that's correct. And I, you know, I failed to say earlier with the Vision zero, it it recognizes that people are human and that humans will make mistakes or make poor decisions. And I mentioned it also. It's about traffic deaths are preventable, so there are things that can be done. Mhmm. And it kinda rotates around, I guess you could say, five, principles or elements, and those includes a safe road user. So a safe road user, safe vehicles, safe speeds, safe roads, and then post crash care. So if you kinda just base and look at that, those five areas, it could kinda vary for each city how they attack it. So in New York, if you look at their Vision zero program, they really kind of focus initially on their pedestrians, which makes sense. They have a lot of congestion with cars, so the cars may be going slower, but they were finding they were having a lot of pedestrian hits. So in Greensboro, we still are doing our analysis, and, yes, it's data driven. But there are three things that kinda stood out to me as I've learned more about the Vision zero strategy. Mhmm. And it includes policy changes, technology advances, and partnerships. And I think this is kinda, like, key to having a successful Vision zero program. And policy changes may range from, you know, getting the support of the state and local officials, and that's key, especially having your local officials on board. Then there's certain requirements, policy changes that need to be done at the state level, so also having them on board. Then also coming back to the local side, maybe taking a reevaluation of our design standards or railway design standards, and also policies that support behavioral changes. And so, you know, in Greensboro, we previously did have the red light camera. Right now, they are not, in use, but it you know, that's something that we've talked about and even have asked as we pushed out Vision zero in Greensboro as citizens, how do you feel about the red light cameras or hands free? Because it's gonna be a combination of policy changes. And And then when we talk about technology advancements and you think about I mentioned the element of safe vehicles. So we know the carmakers are doing a lot to improve the safety of vehicles where, you know, you have autonomous vehicles, but there's different levels. But just, you know, being able to know if you move out of your lane that the car lets you know by shaking maybe the steering wheel Mhmm. Or if you're exceeding the safe speed limit that the car may let you know, hey. You're going too fast. So there are a lot of, you know, on that side. But then on our side too, which this is where transportation comes in or the Department of Transportation because when we talk about safe roads, safe speeds, we are the ones who set the speeds. We are the ones who design the roads. So this is where we have to say, okay. How do we design differently? So instead if a person does make a mistake or a poor decision when they get behind the wheel Mhmm. Or step out into the road, that they don't get killed or seriously injured. They don't have to die for making that, mistake. And And this is where we kinda are saying, well, let's look at how we can take the Vision zero approach and change the way we are designing our roads and make sure that our roads, can serve all population, not just those who are behind the wheel of vehicle, but those who may be walking to the bus stop or those who may be riding their bike, whether it's for recreation or commute. And then the last thing I mentioned was partnerships. So, yes, we at the Department of Transportation are responsible for the roads, but, also, we have to work with others, whether that's working with the citizens to know that when you get behind the wheel or when you're walking, we need you to be responsible too. And whether it's working with police on the enforcement side or public health practitioners or private businesses, including developers or advocacy groups, to get different perspectives. We all use the system. We all are a part of helping the system to operate properly. So we have to make sure that we're inclusive and kind of share perspectives across all entities, different entities and agencies. So it's not just a government driven, approach or led by just the government, but also trying to incorporate all the different users or people who help who may build along the system or those who may see, the residents on on a more personal level, like the health practitioner they may be saying you need to get out and walk more. So we have to make sure that we'd be able to provide the sidewalks for that person to be able to walk more, in a safe manner. So it's kinda like pulling pulling together policy changes, technology advancements, and partnerships altogether to say the kind of form how the Vision zero, implementation would look out on our roadways and transportation system.
So it's it's going at the problem of, of of crashes and and fatalities from a whole bunch of different directions. Is the the city learning about the nature or behavior of crashes in the city, like, what the leading causes are? I mean, is it is it kind of bringing up that kind of data?
Yes. And, you know, you mentioned it's data driven. We have been collecting data and even at the onset of us, initiating, been zero Greensboro in the city of Greensboro, we did work with a consultant who who helped us to develop an action plan, and that action plan is online. If you just Google business zero, Greensboro, you'd be able to access it. But not only did we have the help of the consultant, but we also engaged like over 50 stakeholders. And those stakeholders were some of the people I just mentioned earlier with the private businesses. We had a law firm, we had advocacy groups from bicycle advocacy groups. We also had someone from Gifford County, public health, someone from the development community. So we had a range of participants, including police, but we had over 50 and they came together to help us develop the action plan. And when we did that development of the action plan, we did do analysis on our crash data. And we looked at that time, we were looking at data from 2013 to 2017 And some of the things that kind of, stood out really had to do with speed, drivers being alert as well as, wearing your seat belt. So those are some of the major kind of factors that stood out in the data. And I don't think this these key factors that are leading to the crashes, I don't think Greensboro is alone in identifying those. I don't think those were surprising, but speed definitely is a top one. Because if you're speeding, you can lose control. We get a lot of run off the road crashes, which means the car is leaving their lane and maybe, going airborne or hitting something when they run off the road or hitting another vehicle. So speeding is a top one. And then, you know, if you're speeding and you're not wearing your seat belt, that's not a good recipe for, your survival rate.
So you had mentioned, you know, the the 2017 mark of of forty two fatalities. So so Vision Zero has been on the ground for a few years at this point. What what are you guys seeing, in terms of, results?
Well, that's good. Dan, that's very good because, you know, although we initiate in 2017, our action plan actually got approved by our city council in May 2019. Okay. And so, really, right now, we've been doing more of we had initially been doing more educational push, kinda educating people about what Vision zero is, internal to the city as well as external going to major events, sharing information. So we haven't seen any changes where we are can say directly that because of vision zero or this project, we've seen a direct correlation. Because it's something I've found out as I've gone through this process, although we started in 2017, there is a process. So, like, right now, it's like we're in the exploration process where we really are learning about exactly what vision zero is, cross referencing to what our current processes or procedures are and working with staff, whether internal or external to figure out, hey, how can we incorporate this here in the city of Greensboro and make a difference in the lives of all our transportation users or save their lives, when they're using our system? So we, right now we're still, and we collected data. I mean, I said earlier at the beginning that we had had our highest fatality rate of forty two in 2017, but last year, which was not, I think, unusual trend for many of the cities across the nation, we actually had, a higher fatality rate last year at fifty two in 2021. And I, excuse me, it was fifty one. So we actually had a higher. So we actually had a higher fatality rate in 2021 with fifty lot, fifty one lives lost. Wow. And that's not, you know, the thinking behind it is thinking that maybe the reasoning behind why we saw these higher rates may have been because with the stay in place in the pandemic, the roadways were less congested. So it was a lot more capacity on the roads. So maybe people had the opportunity to speed more. Right. And so that's kind of like the, the line of thinking where we've seen these, this start increase of crashes. But I will say I was looking at our numbers today for 2022 to date, and we're more an average, but what we've seen in the past. So hopefully we won't have this same number at the end of this year, but we'll be maybe even lower, definitely lower than last year at 51. In the past, we had been around the thirty, thirty one, 32, 33, 34 on average. So, hopefully, we'll be more in that range, if not lower, at the end of this year.
So you had mentioned, the partners involved, and, it it it sounds, you know, necessary, to to bring in a lot of especially if you're attacking this, attacking this problem from so many different angles. You wanna have different kinds of minds in the room and people who represent different areas and different points of view. And even with initiatives where everybody agrees that there's a problem, it's still hard to to get people on board when it comes to, you know, participating in in something like an actual initiative. How did you how are these private entities engaged, for example?
Yeah. When we first started, we actually had, we kind of engaged at many levels. So we looked at our safety, which may have been, not just Greensboro police department, but also our sheriff, different county sheriff department or our EMS, department. So we kind of engaged them in little small groups and intimate groups and said, Hey, GDOT is wanting to start an effort, focused on vision zero. This is the goal of it. Would you like to come along? So we kind of engaged in small groups and then we were able to reach out also to the private entities. One of our huge champions is Crumley Roberts. They're the law firm and, they do things in the community already. So some of it was that these organizations are already doing things. So like they promote, bicycles and helmets and give out helmets to promote bicycle safety. So this is something that their firm was already doing. So So we was, we were able to partner with them and they were able to come along and help us with the action plan. And even to this day, we still partner on events because we have formed that relationship. And then we had another group state farm, a local agent. He found out that what we were doing, we invited him to the table and he said, you know, I may not be present for all the action plan development, but I'm willing to support you. And two summers ago, I think in 2020, yeah. In 2020, we did as a part of our educational outreach, we had a campaign called what's your safe, which made me pretty much was aimed at what does safety on the transportation system look like to you to, so some said, you know, putting on your seatbelt, some said wearing your helmet, but we wanted to hear what the, young people, the children and the youth of the Gifford County School System understood are in, in Gifford County. And so we had a contest where you could submit, a drawing or a, essay, some type of, personal art to kind of share what you thought safety looked like, and he was able to support us with the cash prize. So we had nine, yeah, nine, because we did it at each level, elementary, middle school, and then high school. And we had three winners within each of those categories or groups, and we were able to share and kind of promote it that way. So not only did we reach the child, but we also reached the parent. So we've been able to engage the private side in different ways because there are a lot of, private businesses who do care and are doing work already. So it's a matter of it's a matter of finding out who they are and then engaging with them.
Has anything surprised you, so far with Vision Zero in Greensboro with any data or results that you didn't expect?
And, you know, the I mentioned the key factors, the speeding, not wearing your seat belt, and the driver's alertness were key. Mhmm. I think one thing that surprised me is that it's not young people. So when we look at the average age of those who are dying in our crashes in Greensboro, it's not the young people. The average age has ranged from 40 to, I guess, you could say anywhere between 40 and 60 years of age for our years. So it's, you know, it's the older adult, the more seasoned, like, what you expect, maybe the most seasoned driver. Drivers that are, dying in our crashes. So it's not sixteen, seventeen, or twenty years old that are dying in crashes. We do see a higher rate of males and a crash, which is not necessarily surprising, but I was surprised that our average age was you know, I'm 47. So I was surprised that it's my age average age of those who are dying in our crashes on our roadways.
Is there any given that that's a surprise or is there any analysis of that, of why that might
be? No. And that's the hard part. That's the hard part because then you start to go into, the behavior. Right? So is it because they may be have children in a home and they're having to make multiple trips? Are they driving more? Do they have more exposure? Is there more stress? You know, so that's where you get into the behavior. But as for the department of transportation, our goal is, okay, there may be some behaviors. There may be some external stressors. We can't manage those, but what we can manage is the transportation system. So how do we go back and say, how do we look at our roadways? How do we slow the speed down? And just because we post the speed lower does not mean that the person is going to follow it. Right. Because when we say speeding, they're exceeding the speed limit. Right. So as a matter of how do we design the roadways or, you know, when I think about partnerships, I just don't think about just the roadways, but how do we amp up our other transportation alternatives, like the transit, the bus? How do we maybe say, how do we improve our bus system so we maybe can get more people to ride the bus? Or how can we improve our sidewalks so maybe more people maybe can walk to work as opposed to drive to work or cycle to work to do it safely? It's a combination of things of looking in our roadways, but also looking at our other modes to see how we can amp them up or expand them such that more people are using them and can use them safely.
Yeah. There there's a lot of self awareness that can come from this program, what you can learn about your community and, you know, kind of what happens when and how. And, obviously, with this having a a European origin and now existing in Greensboro, it's it's scalable to different kinds of cities and towns and and communities. So let's just say, hypothetically, I'm a mayor or a city council member from another town, and I heard about Vision Zero, in Greensboro, and I'm interested in doing something like that where I live. What are some initial steps I can take?
That's a great question. There's actually also so we have them in the local, jurisdictions. So, like, I'll just throw out a couple other areas that are working on it because they could be a resource, as step one. They have one in Chapel Hill, Charlotte, Robertson County. The Robertson County one's actually being, led by NCDOT, which I have to, mention them because the governor highway safety program is a big advocate and does a lot of work, to promote safety, whether it's, driver's alert or wearing your seat belt. And they're a big supporter and push for the vision zero program. And they're actually supporting what we call the initiative, the NC vision zero. So there's also a state level NC Vision Zero, and they have a website, and you can access that website at ncvisionzero, that's all one word, .org, ncvision0.org. And on that website, you can click on how to get involved or get involved. And when you click on that and get involved, you'll be able to access resources for how if you wanna get started, they have a checklist there that was created for you to be able to say, this is how I can get involved and how I can start. And they also have a checklist for you if you want to actually develop an action plan, how you can get started on that. And that actually was developed by the UNC Chapel Hill Highway Research Safety Center Mhmm. As they are a partner right now, helping to lead and kinda guide the way we think about it because it's definitely there's very much a, public health issue too. Mhmm. And there can be a lot of, like, when we think about data, things that we can borrow from the public health side on how they study and analyze data. So but, yeah, if you check out the ncvision0.org, you can find out a lot of resources there for any community and as well as reach out to any of the other existing, Vision Zero communities to see because it will be different for everyone. Some of the smaller cities may feel like I don't have enough staff to really institute it, but it's more about starting where you are. When we looked at New York, when we first started, it seemed like, whew, that's a lot, right? New York's so big. They have a lot of staff. Right. We don't have that same number of staff, but we just have to start with with what we have. And I found that as you start and you continue on, you may, you know, you may not see any changes, but you continue on. And I didn't mention that. I mean, our goal is not to do this overnight. Our goal is, we said, by 2040, we would like to get to zero. Mhmm. But the long term goal of zero by 2040. Some may think zero is unreasonable, but that's the goal. We may not reach it, but that's the goal. Because, you know, there's a question and people ask, when you talk about this is zero and can you really reach zero, you know, if I asked you how many loved ones would you want to lose in a crash, everyone's gonna say none. So that's the goal is to get to zero. May we may will there be a need for us to possibly adjust that year? Possibly. But that's the goal right now by 2,040 that we can eliminate fatalities and serious injuries. Is it gonna take time? Yes. Is it gonna take partnerships? Yes. And is it gonna take reviewing data and adjusting, our response? Yes. But it's something that you have to commit to and commit to over the long haul.
Well, we love seeing partnerships and collaboration. And, I mean, this is obviously, an extremely worthy cause. Is there anything that I didn't ask that you think might be important to, to to tell anybody listening?
I think I just would emphasize if you see a need, if you see lives being lost on your roadways in your city, to just start to just start, evaluating vision zero and kind of plugging it in to your existing processes to see how you can make a change, impactful change on the lives of those citizens in each of your communities. Mhmm.
Right. And as you said, you know, you can you don't have to have a $100,000,000 budget to get it going. You know, you can kinda start with what you have, and it's it's scalable to different kinds of cities and towns. And so, yeah, this this is something that's, achievable.
And as we join together as more cities, sign on to Vision zero, so there's volume with numbers. Right? So as we come together and continue to focus on this effort and we can share across the cities because we do share with each other, so you're not in it alone. So as we come together and kinda build this movement, then we can have a larger voice, especially as we talk about policy changes because it'll be a collective to kinda impact and say, let's change legislation at the state level, and that would have to be a collective impact. Mhmm.
Well, Lydia McIntyre, thank you so much for your time. This has really been great educational, and I I love it that we can discuss these programs that can be, you know, spread around to different parts of the state. Well, thank you, Ben. Thank you for having me. That's Lydia McIntyre with the city of Greensboro who also pointed out that in the new semi new bipartisan infrastructure law, sometimes called BIL, in that is a new discretionary program called Safe Streets and Roads for All, which will provide 5 to $6,000,000,000 in grants over the next five years. And this can support initiatives like Vision zero and developing an action plan among other things. The notice of funding opportunity is supposed to be released this spring, so be on the lookout. Once that notice of funding opportunity is posted, local governments and others can apply for it. Again, the grant program is called Safe Streets and Roads for All, and that's in the bipartisan infrastructure law, which passed in November 2021. And like McIntyre said, there's a state level vision zero with all kinds of information at ncvision0.org. There's a frequently asked question section. There's data and analytics you can look at ncvision0.org. And that's a great place to go if you like what we talked about today. If you think it's a problem in your community and you want some tools to respond to it, There's even a seat belt usage dashboard where you can see the seat belt use rate in your county. So some self awareness there. We sort of spoke about this program here today in more general terms, even as we localized it. And, you know, it's not an overnight program, as McIntyre said. But the point is there's a template for us to work together to help everybody in terms of safe travels. We can learn about our local behavior and where the specific problems are, even surprise ourselves like what happened in Greensboro where they noticed the age range in a certain aspect of crashes was not the young folks, to review one example. We can learn our local data. We can compare it with what's going on in other communities and really push education, spread the word so people know what's going on and are more mindful of the problems, which may lead to adjusted behaviors, new policies, and better outcomes. And that's what we like, partnerships and ways we can work together to move everybody forward. I wanna thank you for listening to this episode of Municipal Equation, the podcast of the North Carolina League of Municipalities. If you have an idea for an episode, maybe something's happening in your community, a scalable project or a scalable initiative that you'd like other cities and towns to know about, send me an email. My name is Ben Brown, and you can reach me at bbrown@nclm.org. Again, that's bbrown@nclm.org. NCLM stands for North Carolina League of Municipalities, which brings you this podcast, working as one advancing all. You can find us online at nclm.0rg. Thank you again for listening, and and we'll talk to
you again soon.