On a recent walk with transportation leaders in Durham, North Carolina, we discussed familiar Vision Zero priorities: slowing speeds, designing safer streets, and preventing traffic deaths and serious injuries. We also talked about how transit, land use, and development support that work.
Durham’s approach connects three priorities: zero traffic fatalities, support for zero-car households, and zero emissions. The connection is clear: reducing the need to drive and improving access are part of making communities safer.
Transportation Options Are a Safety Strategy
When people have practical transportation choices, such as walking, biking, and taking transit, they are less dependent on driving for every trip. Replacing some car trips with these options reduces exposure to crash risk for everyone.
These choices are especially important for young people who cannot yet drive, older adults who cannot drive safely, some people with disabilities, and households without cars. Two-thirds of riders on GoDurham, Durham’s bus system, do not own a vehicle. For them, reliable transit, safe sidewalks and crossings, and connected bike routes are essential links to work, school, health care, and other daily destinations.
According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, nearly half of U.S. households without a vehicle include at least one worker, highlighting the need for reliable, affordable ways to reach jobs, especially as the cost of owning and operating a car rises.
The Safe System Success Stories — developed by Vision Zero Network, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE), and others — highlights examples of how communities are furthering their road safety goals by expanding transportation choices.
Source: The Safe System Success Stories describes that the strongest projects often work through more than one of the Safe System levers at the same time.
The Safe System Success Stories show how state and local agencies can take a more proactive injury prevention approach by addressing three core factors: Exposure, Severity and Likelihood of a crash.
Reducing exposure to high-risk driving has received less attention than reducing crash severity and likelihood, but it is essential to advancing Vision Zero. Communities should not have to choose between safer streets and better transportation choices. The strongest approaches do both.
As we wrote in our 2018 blog, Public Transit: An Undervalued, Effective Vision Zero Strategy, good public transit reduces the number of cars on the road by giving people more ways to get around. Our related webinar, Investments in Transit are Investments in Traffic Safety, brought together the American Public Transit Association (APTA) and leaders from San Francisco and Boston to show how transit investments can create safer conditions for everyone.
APTA Analysis "Public Transit Is Key Strategy in Advancing Vision Zero, Eliminating Traffic Fatalities" August 2018.Since then, additional research has strengthened the case that transportation choices improve traffic safety. Todd Litman’s 2026 report, Safer Than You Think! Revising the Transit Safety Narrative, finds that transit is one of the safest ways to travel and that communities with stronger transit systems generally have lower traffic fatality rates.
Researchers Nicholas Ferenchak, Abbas Sheykhfard, and Todd Litman reach a similar conclusion in Is Reducing Exposure to Motor Vehicles a Road Safety Strategy? Using data from all 50 states, they found that lower automobile dependence and fewer vehicle miles traveled are associated with lower traffic fatality rates. We’re seeing these safety benefits in practice, too.
San Francisco: Better Transit, Safer Streets, Broader Benefits
San Francisco’s Bus Rapid Transit project produced striking results: transit-involved collisions fell 82%, and injury collisions fell by one-fourth. Transit ridership along the corridor also rebounded above pre-pandemic levels, far outpacing the systemwide rate.
The ridership and safety gains are notable because they happened on a major state highway (US 101) with significant vehicle and pedestrian activity. Dedicated bus lanes and a redesigned corridor made transit faster and more reliable while also changing conditions that contribute to serious crashes.
These changes reduced opportunities for crashes, shortened pedestrian crossings, sped up transit and moved more people without widening the road. Adapted from IIHS’s Safe System case study.
The project pulled all three Safe System levers: reducing exposure, crash severity, and the likelihood of crashes. The redesign also shortened pedestrian crossings and gave emergency responders a more reliable route through the corridor.
Land Use Shapes Safe Travel Choices
Transportation choices are shaped by where homes, jobs, schools, parks, and services are located. Land-use decisions affect how far people travel, whether daily destinations connect, and whether walking, biking, and transit are practical.
That makes land-use and development decisions a core Vision Zero issue. Residents want walkable neighborhoods where daily needs are accessible without driving, and smart-growth policies can help meet that demand while improving safety. Street projects are often planned one corridor at a time, but development patterns take shape over decades. Bringing transportation and land use into the same conversation helps communities make safe travel choices easier over the long term.
North Carolina: Connecting Land Use and Safety
In communities with wide roads and spread-out development, making safe alternatives to driving practical can be especially challenging. Durham and Charlotte show how planning can help address that challenge. Charlotte’s Strategic Mobility Plan pairs its Vision Zero commitment with an aspiration for half of commute trips to be made by means other than driving alone. The plan directs investment toward faster, more reliable transit, sidewalks, crossings, and bike connections.
Durham is advancing a Multimodal Development Standard and Street Design Manual to guide safer street design and development review and set clearer expectations for sidewalks, bikeways, crossings, and other infrastructure. Durham is also updating its Land Development Code to better align land-use policies with transportation safety goals. Planning, development review, and street-design standards can make safe travel choices easier long before a trip begins.
New York City: Vision Zero Reimagined
More than a decade after launching Vision Zero, New York City is making alternatives to driving a central part of its renewed safety commitment.
In New York City’s revised action plan, Mayor Mamdani writes: “With this action plan, we are renewing and strengthening our City’s commitment to Vision Zero.” Source: Except from page 8 of Vision Zero Reimagined.
Transit Funding Shortfalls Are a Safety Challenge
Communities across the country are facing difficult decisions about public transportation. Funding shortfalls can reduce service, delay improvements, and make transit less frequent and less reliable. When transit becomes less practical, connected, or convenient, more trips are made by car—raising vehicle miles traveled and exposure to high-risk driving. This is not only a mobility, budget, or climate concern; it is also a traffic-safety concern.
The implications extend beyond transit riders. Reliable transportation choices help older adults remain mobile, young people travel independently, workers reach jobs, and families make everyday trips without driving. Reliable transit can reduce congestion, improve air quality, and support local economic activity.
With transportation budgets under pressure, there is even more reason to make every transportation dollar a safety dollar. Communities can start with practical steps and build toward making safety routine. Durham’s voter-approved transit tax helps fund the Better Bus Project to make transit safer to reach. Santa Rosa California redesigned its Capital Improvement Program to prioritize pavement maintenance and safety improvements, especially on streets with the most serious crashes and along transit routes. Projects that conflict with safety and community priorities are revised or canceled.
Santa Rosa’s approach to safer streets offers lessons for communities where wide roads and spread-out neighborhoods make safe alternatives to driving harder to provide.
No single strategy works everywhere, but every community can work toward making safe transportation choices more practical, connected, and convenient.
States Shape the Conditions for Safety
Meeting that challenge requires more than local action. State agencies own many of the roads where people are killed and seriously injured, as explored in Who Owns the Most Dangerous Roads in America. States must fund reliable transit, make state roads safer, and support more housing near transit and daily destinations. Advocates build public support and press for action; lawmakers turn those priorities into legislation and funding. We all have a role in making safe, affordable transportation choices a reality.
Colorado: Advancing Transit Through Legislation
Colorado is pairing new transit funding with policies that help people use it. Fees on retail deliveries and oil and gas production support transportation investments, including more transit service.
Colorado has also encouraged housing near frequent transit, eased parking requirements for some new housing, and aligned major transportation investments with its climate goals. Together, these policies can reduce dependence on driving while supporting safer, more livable communities. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) highlights legislation behind Colorado’s progress.
Washington: Turning Safety Goals into Policy and Funding
Washington State’s Target Zero Plan identifies expanding transit and reducing the need to drive as safety strategies. It highlights more frequent transit, safer access to stops, and land-use policies that put daily destinations within walking and biking distance.
The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) considers exposure alongside crash likelihood and severity. Source: Washington State Safety Implementation Plan, page 36.
Washington’s study of nondrivers identified cost and disability as key reasons people do not drive. As communities grapple with affordability pressures and an aging population, planning for households without cars should be a priority—so daily life does not depend on being able to afford or drive one.
Advocates have also helped secure major investments. Transportation Choices Coalition and its partners helped win $5.2 billion for transit, walking, and biking through the state’s 2022 Move Ahead Washington package. The coalition is also championing a “Megaproject for Safety” that pairs safer state highways with transit and local land-use plans.
California: Aligning Transportation and Land-Use
California offers another route: aligning transportation safety with transportation, climate, and land-use policy, as highlighted in the Safe System Success Stories. California shifted transportation analysis from Level of Service, which measures vehicle delay, to measuring how much driving a project generates (vehicle miles traveled, or VMT). That change better supports infill development, multimodal transportation, and investments that reduce driving while improving access.
In 2026, California released guidance for a new statewide VMT mitigation program that supports location-efficient affordable housing and related infrastructure. California has also enacted reforms that encourage housing near jobs and transit and streamline many infill and affordable-housing projects. These policies are steps toward safer streets.
These examples reinforce a broader point: state policies and funding decisions can either support or undermine local safety efforts. Vision Zero Network’s States: We’re Looking at You. We Need You explores what states can learn from places making positive shifts—and why state leaders should play a more proactive role in aligning transportation funding, policies, and practices with safety goals.
Source: NRDC’s Transportation Scorecard. The top six states do more to expand transportation choices and support local efforts to reduce dependence on driving. Oregon, for example, stands out for investing in safe streets and using flexible federal funds to support public transit.
What Vision Zero Leaders Can Do
Communities vary, but Vision Zero leaders can take practical steps to expand transportation choices as part of their road safety work.
Include transit agencies as core Vision Zero partners. Involve them early and often in planning, project development, implementation, and evaluation.
Plan complete trips, not individual modes. Make safe walking routes, crossings, and bike and transit connections part of project planning, along with accessible transfers, lighting, and waiting areas.
Measure people moving - not just vehicles. Prioritizing transit, walking, and biking can improve safety, access, and reliability. Draw on examples such as NACTO’s Transit Streets Design Guide, Virginia’s SMART SCALE program, and California’s System Investment Strategy.
Support land-use and development decisions that reduce the need to drive. Bring safety into zoning and housing conversations and support development that makes walking, biking, and transit more practical. These choices give people who face greater risks behind the wheel, alternatives to driving.
Make reducing exposure an explicit safety strategy. Alongside crash data and operating speeds, consider measures such as vehicle miles traveled, transit access, automobile dependence, and the availability of practical transportation alternatives.
And for advocates: include transportation choices in Vision Zero advocacy. Explain why reliable transit and accessible active transportation are safety and mobility investments.
Leaders in the cities and states highlighted above show what’s possible. Use these resources to support your own Vision Zero work:
- Safer Than You Think! provides safety data and guidance for talking about transit’s benefits.
- Smart Growth America recommends measuring risk exposure and travel across modes.
- NRDC’s Transportation Scorecard helps advocates share policies that reduce driving.
- IIHS’s Safe System Success Stories explains how reducing exposure supports a Safe System approach.
Today, as transit agencies face funding challenges and communities work to reverse persistently high traffic deaths, that message is even more urgent. Investing in transit is an investment in mobility, affordability, and safety. Vision Zero needs transit—and the safe, connected, multimodal communities it helps make possible.