By: NICOLAS FIERRO
Salina Post
The City of Salina has approved and announced a new strategy meant to achieve traffic safety, by eliminating all traffic fatalities and serious injuries.
"Vision Zero," a strategy approved by Salina Commissioners meant to achieve the policy goal of eliminating all traffic fatalities and serious injuries, while increasing safe, healthy and equitable mobility for all.
Specifically the strategy is meant achieve the following:
• Actively working to eliminate traffic deaths and serious injuries on City streets within 10 years (by 2035).
• Collecting, analyzing, and using data to understand trends and potential effects of traffic deaths.
• Creating a Vision Zero Committee to develop and implement an action plan that is guided by community input.
• Prioritizing the safety of pedestrians, bicyclists, transit riders, scooter riders, and people with disabilities over the ease of use of personal automobiles.
The City stated it is an "ambitious and challenging goal, but achievable."
"Vision Zero" public committee
This committee will work with the community, to develop an action plan for achieving the goals set for the strategy.
Moreover, the committee will increase government accountability through public participation and public reporting provisions.
Anyone from the public can join the committee.
The strategy is designed to increase transparency and ensure accountability in the policymaking process.
The City clarified Vision Zero "cannot eliminate" all traffic fatalities and serious injuries or solve all traffic safety problems. This approach must work in tandem with other transportation policy and planning efforts, such as:
Complete Streets policies, long-range planning, active transportation plans and new mobility policies.
Collisions resulting in minor injuries; near misses; and issues related to enforcement and personal safety also affect people’s experiences with traffic safety and their perceptions of it.
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About Vision Zero
Vision Zero was first implemented in Sweden in the 1990s. This strategy has proved successful across Europe — and since 2014 has been gaining momentum in the United States.
More than 50 US cities, counties, and Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) have committed to the Vision Zero strategy.