Here Is What Vision Zero Should Really Look Like

There are a lot of public officials who campaign on a platform that includes Vision Zero, the notion that our transportation systems should, above all else, be safe. When elected, they adopt Vision Zero policies and often hire people to pursue this approach. Their heart is in it.

Even so, the results fall far short. I have equated Vision Zero with having zero vision, merely repeating platitudes without any commitment to the outcome of zero deaths. A stated goal without a measurable goalpost is merely an aspiration.

I plan to lose ten pounds; pass the Doritos.

My home state of Minnesota watered down Vision Zero to the aspirational Towards Zero Deaths, which reflects our cultural discomfort with self-deception. I wish we were culturally less comfortable with traffic deaths, instead.

For places that want to get beyond the platitudes and empty goals, what should a real Vision Zero approach look like? If the heart is willing, what does it mean to pursue zero traffic deaths?

It looks radically different from what your city is doing right now.

First, let's be clear about what causes nearly every traffic death. It isn't speed. It isn't distracted driving. It isn't reckless, angry or unvaccinated drivers.

The underlying cause of nearly every traffic death is a design that incorrectly combines speed and complexity.

In places where there are lethal speeds — speeds over 15 mph — there can't be complexity. There can't be randomness in the environment. There can't be stopping traffic, turning traffic, people biking, people walking, the kid randomly chasing a ball out into the street, etc....

Conversely, where there is a complex human habitat with all the messy and random things that humans do, there can't be high traffic speeds. There can't be lethal levels of kinetic energy.

When lethal speeds come into contact with complex human habitats, it is only a matter of time before a random occurrence results in tragedy. Ineffective Vision Zero efforts focus on random occurrences. They are, to use the words of Nassim Taleb, fooled by randomness, focusing on the distribution of human messiness instead of looking at the underlying causes.

If we want to actualize Vision Zero, we have to build environments where one of two things is true. Either (1) vehicles can travel at high speeds in a simplified environment free from randomness, or (2) we build complex human environments where kinetic energy is reduced by dramatically lowering automobile speeds.

To use Strong Towns vernacular, we build either a road or a street. A road is a high-speed connection between places while a street is a platform for building a place. We measure the success of a road by all the typical engineering variables like traffic speed, volume and travel time. We measure the success of a street by measuring financial return on investment and total wealth creation. Both roads and streets are inherently safe.

In an effective Vision Zero approach, when elected officials are presented with a transportation project design, they should also be told whether the design is a road or a street. The design logic should then be obvious.

Of course, the area between street and road — the stroad — is the most dangerous transportation system being built today. It combines lethally high speeds with randomness and complexity in an environment that is brutally expensive to build yet provides very low financial returns on that investment. If you’re committed to Vision Zero, you’re committed to eliminating stroads. 

Lots of cities have appointed staff to oversee their Vision Zero efforts. Generally, these professionals are reduced to working on bike lanes, preparing plans with lots of public outreach (marketing), and applying for grants. When we see this, we are seeing an unserious approach.

Vision Zero shouldn't be the domain of one person; it needs to be part of the culture. Safety first. Safety second. Safety, safety, safety. If Vision Zero is an afterthought, you’re doing it wrong.

If your city has designated one person as the Vision Zero coordinator, okay, but that person needs to be empowered to do their job. They need to be able to raise issues with the design process. They need to have veto power over dangerous designs, not merely the ability to comment (like everyone else). They need to have direct access to whoever makes day-to-day decisions and a responsibility to report directly to elected officials. They should sign off on all transportation plans going out to bid.

And, of course, if your city is committed to eliminating traffic deaths, you must have a Crash Analysis Studio to study and learn from the crashes that occur in your community. If you don’t have a studio, you can take our free course on how to get started, or someone from the Strong Towns team can come to your community and help you get up and running. The Crash Analysis Studio approach is the highest standard of care for traffic safety, essential for Vision Zero.

You will also need to pair your Crash Analysis Studio with a Street Design Team authorized to use tactical urbanism to quickly respond to problem situations. For the price of one (useless and redundant) engineering study, a Street Design Team can implement real safety changes at dozens of problem sites, iterating your community to safety. 

If you feel the sense of urgency that Vision Zero requires — if having zero traffic deaths isn’t just a platitude or a way to pursue more grant funding, but a solid commitment to safety — then you need to pursue these three strategies:

Demand that every transportation investment be either for a road or a street and then look for relevant safety elements within the design.

Empower your Vision Zero staff. Require them to sign off on designs and report directly to elected officials.

Adopt a Crash Analysis Studio and create a Street Design Team to pair a process of internal learning with iterative improvement.

If you are joining us this week in Cincinnati for the Strong Towns National Gathering, you’ll hear keynote speaker Barkha Patel (Jersey City’s Director of Infrastructure) talk about how her city has successfully pursued this approach.


Ready to turn Vision Zero from an aspiration to a concrete goal? We’ve got the resources to help you. Become a member of Strong Towns today.



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