Top 10 Ways to Reinforce Local Vision Zero Commitments

Our collective understanding of what it takes to advance Vision Zero in the U.S. has evolved over the past 10 years. While the fundamentals of Vision Zero remain solid, we’ve also learned a lot about how U.S. communities can most effectively advance – and, importantly, institutionalize – lasting road safety progress. As Vision Zero Network marks 10 years of helping communities invest in safer streets and stronger communities, it is an opportune time to pause and reflect on these key questions: Are your Vision Zero efforts focused on what matters most? Are they grounded in the most up-to-date understanding of how to achieve real, lasting change? Our new Top 10 list highlights key areas communities should assess and recommit to in order to sustain meaningful Vision Zero efforts. How’s your community doing on these?

10. Keeping Vision Zero Task Forces Active

Too many communities drop their taskforce once their Vision Zero Plan is developed and adopted. Actually, this is the time to double-down on engaging a broader, multi sector group, such as your public health department and school district and neighborhood leaders in the communities most impacted by traffic violence. Moving your Vision Zero work from plan to implementation – and, ultimately, to institutionalization – is when a strong task force can be most helpful to keep plans on track, hold partners accountable and ensure that your community’s Vision Zero is a living, evolving effort rather than a static document. We commend New York City for maintaining its robust, multi-agency Vision Zero Task Force, which still meets routinely more than10 years after they launched their work and still plays an important role in policymaking, strategizing and promoting accountability and transparency. In addition to the Department of Transportation, NYC’s task force includes representatives from the Mayor’s Office and agencies including transit, public health, taxi commission, police, as well as team members focused on data analytics and others. With an impressive track record of reducing pedestrian fatalities by 29% from 2014 to 2023, NYC’s Vision Zero leaders understand the importance of sustained cross-agency collaboration and ongoing shared commitment to make real, lasting change.

9. Adding a Missing Element: Vehicle Safety

Of the five core elements of a Safe System Approach – Safer People, Safer Roads, Safer Speeds, Safer Vehicles, and Post-Crash Response – the one that is least represented in local roadway safety/Vision Zero plans and priorities is a focus on vehicles. Understandably, many assume that vehicle safety regulation is something that the federal government controls – which is largely true. However, state and local agencies can and do also influence the safety of the vehicles on our roads. It’s time to step up local leadership on vehicle safety. Check out these five key strategies that local governments can use to promote safer vehicles in their communities.

8. Measuring the Causes, Not Just the Consequences

We need to move beyond tracking injury/crash statistics and better measure the factors that lead to safer outcomes – especially speeds. While reducing deaths and serious injuries remains the ultimate goal, relying solely on those numbers can obscure early signs of progress (even small signs matter!) and areas needing more attention. Forward-thinking cities such as Austin, TX offer a helpful model. In its Vision Zero 10-Year Report, Austin tracks not only fatalities and serious injuries, but also metrics such as average travel speeds, crashes by roadway ownership (City vs. State) and financial savings from safety investments. Denver’s annual Vision Zero dashboard reports progress on commitments, including the number of safety projects completed on its High Injury Network and in equity-priority areas. Here are ideas to expand your measurement framework beyond injury and fatality tracking:

• Average operating speeds, particularly on high-injury corridors;
• Percent of streets meeting safe speed thresholds, especially those high-volume, high-speed roads where people need to cross on foot too;
• Land use and context, such as reducing speeds on high-speed roads near schools, senior centers and parks;
• Financial savings from safety projects, such as avoided emergency response and crash costs;
• Equity-focused metrics, such as investments and safety outcomes in historically underinvested areas.

7. Stepping up Changes on State-owned Roads

Nearly two-thirds of U.S. traffic deaths happen on state-managed arterials, which make up only 14% of our roadway network. These legacy highways were built for through-traffic but now are often deadly main streets through communities. Progress is possible when cities, advocates and states work together to address these often-problematic areas. For example, the Ohio Department of Transportation (DOT) is supporting cities to replace outdated speed-setting practices with safer, context-based tools like USLIMITS2, and investing $25 million statewide in lower-speed design strategies such as gateway treatments, curb bump-outs and narrowed lanes. In Washington State, advocates are leading a push for the “Megaproject for Safety”. Oregon is modernizing both design and policy through its Blueprint for Urban Design and updated Speed Zone Manual, to better match roadway design and speeds to surrounding land use. Vision Zero cities are ready to build on these state efforts. Tampa, Jersey City, Minneapolis and other cities are naming, claiming, and coordinating safety improvements on high-injury corridors that cross jurisdictions. Chicago and the Illinois DOT are working together to streamline action to upgrade safety on nearly 400 miles of state-owned roads. Don’t pass over state-owned roads; make them part of your Vision Zero strategy to create a safer system for all users.

6. Making land use Central to Your Vision Zero Strategy

Achieving Vision Zero isn’t just about safer driving – it’s also about giving people more options to reduce the need to drive. Fewer car trips mean fewer crashes and safer conditions for everyone on the roads. Communities that invest in excellent transit service, truly walkable communities and well-connected bike networks are making powerful safety improvements. California, Massachusetts and Washington State are integrating land use into their Safe System frameworks, underscoring that how communities develop absolutely shapes how safely people can move around for their everyday needs. And it’s not just these states making the link. Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, a Vision Zero community of 38,000 people, includes prioritizing land use as part of its Safe System approach. Its Vision Zero Plan states: “Thoughtful land use planning and urban design reduce traffic crashes by bringing homes, schools, workplaces, and recreation closer together while prioritizing safer travel options.”

5. Leaning into Quick-Builds & Pilots

Planning, then securing approval and funding for safe street designs are essential – yet we all know they take time. We need to be leveraging Quick Builds to make progress quicker and cheaper. Using low-cost, flexible materials such as paint, posts and planters, communities can test designs, gather feedback and make changes that offer more near-term safety benefits and help inform longer-term investments. Examples abound: You can pilot a neighborhood traffic circle – such as this one in Milwaukee, WI that reduced the share of drivers speeding from 8% to 1%. You can add painted corner extensions – as done in Winterville, NC to shorten crossing distances and reduce turning conflicts and vehicle speeds. And you can pilot school street closures – as in Seattle, WA to encourage more children to walk and bike safely to school. See more examples here and here. Pilots serve as both proof-of-concept and community engagement tools – building buy-in, revealing what works and paving the way for larger-scale changes.

4. Actively Prioritizing Safety over Speed

Reducing speeds – whether by street design, lower speed limits, using technologies or other strategies – is the most effective way to prevent deaths and serious injuries. Cities across the country are showing what’s possible. Traffic deaths reached their lowest level in recorded history in NYC during the first six months of 2025, following a decade of efforts that included lowering the default speed limit to 25 mph and speed limits in certain areas to 20 mph. Portland, OR and Seattle, WA have integrated speed management into every street redesign. Santa Rosa, CA used speed studies to guide its Safe System plan and is re-timing signals prioritized for safety, not just speed. San Francisco, CA has experienced a 72% average reduction in speeding vehicles in the first few months of piloting speed safety cameras. And states are starting to approve policies to require Intelligent Speed Assistance in the vehicles of repeat Super-Speeders, while cities are equipping thousands of municipal fleet vehicles with ISA technology. It’s clear: We have the tools to reduce dangerously high speeds. Now, we need to make sure our leaders show the political will to do what works to manage speeds.

3. Putting Money where the Safety Needs Are

Improving safety on the streets needs to be the priority of transportation planning and policymaking, whether we’re lucky enough to have “new” safety-focused funding or not. Don’t get us wrong: We’re fans of new funding for smart, Safe System-focused efforts, such as the popular federal Safe Streets & Roads for All grant program, but we can’t wait for new funding to do what’s right. We need to make every transportation project a safety project by using existing funding better. Examples include integrating meaningful safety upgrades into regularly scheduled repaving projects and other maintenance efforts. And communities can reconsider spending plans and, when needed, change to focus on safety first, as Santa Rosa, CA did by right-sizing a road near a school instead of widening the road, which was the original plan. Their work reduced speeds by 14% in phase one and by 17% after further modifications. Another low-cost, big-benefit opportunity is to add safety features, such as Intelligent Speed Assistance and advanced driver assistance systems, to your fleet vehicles next time they’re being updated. And we need to be pushing states and metropolitan planning organizations, which control a lot of transportation funds, to prioritize safety needs, not just continue a “build more highways” approach that often degrades safety. There’s far more flexibility in how safety can be funded by State programs even if they do not explicitly have “safety” in their titles.

2. Centering Crash Victims’ Experiences & Voices

Roadway safety isn’t about numbers – it’s about people. Behind every statistic is a life lost or changed forever, a family grieving and a community impacted. Elevating the voices of victims and survivors keeps this reality front and center. Communities across the country are learning from and with people who are admirably channeling their losses into leadership for change. Groups such as Families for Safe Streets and local survivor advocates are shaping local and state advocacy efforts for new laws, including speed safety cameras and Intelligent Speed Assistance and others, as well as leading powerful remembrance events. The annual World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims (WDoR), November 16, 2025, is a time to honor those lost, support those affected and renew collective commitment to change. Integrating victim and survivor perspectives into your Vision Zero work can take many forms – inviting them to speak at task force meetings, co-develop campaigns, or help review plans and messages for tone and empathy. By working alongside victims and survivors, communities turn grief into purpose and sustained action needed to reach zero.

1. Celebrating Progress (No Matter How Small)

It can be easy to feel discouraged as the number of traffic deaths in the U.S. remain unacceptably high, as infrastructure and policy change move slowly. But zooming in to the local level reveals something important: where communities invest in Vision Zero and implement Safe System strategies, they see improved safety outcomes. We’ve seen communities like Austin and Philadelphia redesign their streets, ultimately decreasing severe injuries, and how quick-build changes done in Milwaukee can yield safer conditions almost immediately. And while these may look like isolated wins, they are proof that the crisis of traffic violence is not inevitable. That is why celebrating even “small” progress matters. Meaningful, measurable change often begins with pilot projects, modest redesigns or policy tweaks that pave the way for bigger shifts. Celebrating these small but impactful changes isn’t naïve – it’s strategic. It fuels momentum, sustains political will, and signals that investment in Vision Zero pays off. Now is a time to ask: What are signs of progress in our road safety work and how do we build on that and scale up what works citywide?!