Earlier this year Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh in his state of the city made a commitment to Vision Zero: the goal to eliminate traffic deaths or severe injuries for all road users.
Leah Shahum, executive director of the Vision Zero Network, said Vision Zero is a paradigm shift from the traditional way of approaching roadway safety. The traditional approach to road safety, Shahum said, puts an emphasis on individual behavior like telling someone to be careful biking or driving or educational campaigns warning of the dangers of drinking and driving.
"Vision Zero's focus is upstream," Shahum said. "How do you focus the safety strategies on the upstream pieces like the built environment? How do we design our roads, so that when those either innocent or bad mistakes happen, they're not fatal? They're not severe. So how do we design roads in a way that are more forgiving? How do we design motor vehicles so they're more safe?"
She said one example of that is the invention of seat belts. Other steps could be doubling the time pedestrians have at a crosswalk or lowering speed limits.
"A crash happening at 70 miles per hour is much more serious and severe and tragic than one happening at 20 miles per hour," Shahum said.
But Shahum said Syracuse making a commitment to Vision Zero is not a quick fix — it's a huge undertaking.
"They're not going to see safety dramatic change overnight," Shahum said. "So I think it's important to set that expectation. You know, it took a generation to build the system we have. I don't think it needs to take a generation to change it, but it's going to take more than a year or two or three to make significant changes."
Shahum said change is hard for people and there's likely to be pushback from members of the community who might see their traffic patterns change. Some traffic solutions also cost money too.
"I think there's honestly just an awareness element too, of like, 'Oh, wow! If we just throw more police out on the street, or if we educate kids when they're learning to walk and go to school, you know, this will get us there,'" Shahum said. "But again, Vision Zero is a really different shift. And that's not gonna get us there. We do need these more upstream approaches."
More than 45 communities in the U.S. have committed to Vision Zero.
