Traffic plan turns eye on pedestrian deaths

With the passage of the Vision Zero Action Plan in May 2016, the Austin City Council decided it wanted to reach zero deaths on Austin roads by 2025.

Almost three years later, reaching Vision Zero by 2025 seems like a stretch, but the plan appears to be reducing traffic deaths. Now, Vision Zero leaders want to focus their efforts on reducing losses among particularly vulnerable populations: pedestrians in East Austin and underserved neighborhoods.

Austin’s traffic deaths reached a peak of 102 in 2015, with 11.3 deaths per 100,000 people, locally surpassing the national rate of 10.9 deaths per 100,000 people, according to calculations from Austin police’s 2015 traffic report and national data from the Institute for Highway Safety and the Highway Loss Data Institute. Austin, though, remained below the state’s rate of 12.8 traffic fatalities per 100,000 people.

Traffic deaths can spike from time to time, but Austin’s growing population most likely contributed to the 2015 peak, said Laura Dierenfield, the active transportation program manager for Austin’s Transportation Department.

Austin’s population has only continued to grow since, reaching 967,629 people in 2018, but traffic fatalities have declined since 2015 and since the Austin City Council adopted the Vision Zero plan in 2016.

“Despite the increases in the vehicle miles traveled, we have been able to keep the fatalities down by 25 percent the two years the program has been in place,” Dierenfield said.

Traffic fatalities recorded by Austin police decreased to 8.2 and 8.0 per 100,000 people in 2016 and 2017, respectively. With the 71 traffic deaths reported by Austin police as of Dec. 5, 2018 could close at only 7.3 deaths per 100,000.

A public health approach

Dierenfield attributes this decrease to Vision Zero’s public health approach, which borrows tactics from campaigns to reduce and prevent risky health behaviors, such as smoking.

“We’re looking systematically at the issue,” Dierenfield said. “We’re looking at it not only from a law enforcement solution, but we’re looking at it from an education, an engineering and a policy perspective approach. It really requires a holistic approach, and the public health perspective really gives us that framework.”

Vision Zero specifically focuses on reducing distracted driving; speeding; alcohol and drug impairment; unsafe driving maneuvers; and the failure to stop or yield right of way.

Almost a third of the deadly crashes recorded by Austin police from 2013 to 2017 involved speeding. Most fatal crashes in Austin took place on Interstate 35, state highways or on high-speed roadways during this period.

“Most accidents come from bumps and fender-benders on the road during traffic, but a lot of the traffic fatalities that we see are a result of speeding,” said Kara Kockelman, a University of Texas transportation engineering professor. “When you’re going at high speed, the risk of death goes up significantly.”

Austin police officers also often report intoxication among drivers, as well as among pedestrians or some bicyclists in fatal crashes, Dierenfield said. In roughly 60 percent of Austin’s fatal crashes from 2013 to 2017, at least one individual was classified as impaired by Austin police.

To address some of these issues, Vision Zero pushed for more no-refusal periods, during which Austin police officers can more easily obtain intoxication test results from anyone they suspect to be driving under the influence.

Vision Zero also has tried to promote better driver behavior by increasing marketing campaigns on TV, radio and highway signs, Dierenfield said.

“We are pleased to see these positive trends, but we know that’s obviously very far away from zero,” she said.

While traffic deaths in 2016, 2017 and 2018 have remained below the 2015 peak, Dierenfield said Vision Zero does not yet consider their work a success.

"We would need to be substantial decreases in the number of serious injuries and fatalities before we’re able to say our efforts are a success, and that would take many years," she said.

'Remnants of an old age'

But if officials hope to end traffic deaths in Austin, pedestrian safety remains a major challenge. Pedestrian deaths have declined since 2015, but they continue to make up roughly a third of traffic fatalities.

Joel Meyer, the Transportation Department’s pedestrian coordinator, said a big problem for cities like Austin is that their mid-20th century urban design primarily accommodated motor vehicles.

“The areas of town where we’re seeing the most fatal (pedestrian) crashes, those are areas that were designed with cars in mind,” Meyer said. “We’re kind of stuck with these remnants of an old age.”

Highways are not designed for pedestrians, most recently demonstrated last month when a robbery suspect tried to run cross I-35 and died after being struck by a semi. But city officials have recently found that poorer neighborhoods in Austin are also unsafe for pedestrians.

“One of the things we found in looking at crash data is that certain areas of Austin are disproportionately affected by this problem, and that’s true among all modes, but especially for pedestrians,” Meyer said. “Low income, minority and elderly communities are even more at risk for serious injuries and fatalities.”

For example, black people make up 7 percent of Austin’s population, but they account for 24 percent of traffic fatalities, Meyer said.

City officials also reported in the 2018 Pedestrian Action Plan that the U.S. census tracts in Austin with the highest number of severe crashes had significantly higher black and Hispanic populations.

These patterns are likely the result of a lack of sidewalks and pedestrian-friendly infrastructure in East Austin and other black and Hispanic neighborhoods, Meyer said.

“A lot of that has to do likely with historical underinvestment in these communities," Meyer said.

But sidewalks can make all the difference. A crash in an area with no sidewalks was nearly twice as likely to result in an incapacitating injury or death as a crash that occurred at a location with a sidewalk on at least one side of the street, Vision Zero reported in the 2018 Pedestrian Action Plan.

A lack of crosswalks also is linked to more pedestrian deaths, according to the pedestrian plan and other studies.

“A lot of times people are trying to catch a bus on one side of the road, or they’ll try to find a friend picking them up on the other side of the road, and they don’t want to walk all the way to a walk signal,” Kockelman said.

Vision Zero already has added more than 7.5 new miles of sidewalks throughout the city. But the next phase of Vision Zero will focus on adding pedestrian infrastructure in East Austin and low-income neighborhoods, Meyer said.

Dierenfield said more research on pedestrian safety and city improvements will be funded with an additional $15 million from Austin’s $160 mobility bond package, which taxpayers approved in November.

“That is now funding a first-of-its kind program to look at pedestrian crossings both that are unsignalized and are signalized,” Dierenfield said. “With that kind of coordinated effort, we are confident we can make a big difference in Austin’s public safety.”

Reaching zero

While the progress has been promising, Dierenfield acknowledges that the city’s goal to reach zero deaths by 2025 might not happen.

“It’s an audacious goal to be sure,” Dierenfield said. “But, if you think about your family and loved ones and think about how many people it would be acceptable to die in your family, we think zero. When you extrapolate that into the Austin community that’s really the vision in Vision Zero.”

Realistically it is nearly impossible to eliminate traffic fatalities, especially by 2025, Kockelman said. But she said it is still a community and personal responsibility to try.

“It’s so devastating as a police officer, policymaker or a as a parent to see somebody die on the roadway,” she said. “And, as an engineer, if I design a roadway and somebody dies a on it, it’s just awful to feel responsible or powerless. So, I do think that should be the vision.”

CORRECTION: This story has been updated from an earlier version that incorrectly referred to a per capita figure for traffic deaths.