Recent Streetsblog CHICAGO posts about vision zero

Five Key Lessons From Europe’s Vision Zero Success

By leahshahum | Jun 10, 2015 | No Comments

This piece is cross-posted from the Vision Zero Network. From the moment that Vision Zero began capturing attention in American cities, we’ve heard many admiring references to its success in Europe, particularly in its birthplace of Sweden. I’m fortunate to have the opportunity to research those experiences and their lessons for the growing number of […]

Active Trans: Improve, Don’t Remove Cams, Launch a Vision Zero Strategy

By John Greenfield | May 7, 2015 | 4 Comments

Active Transportation Alliance director Ron Burke said the advocacy group approves of reforms to Chicago red light camera program that passed in City Council on Tuesday, but the city needs to keep its eyes on the prize of eliminating serious injuries and deaths from crashes. He called on Mayor Rahm Emanuel to formulate a comprehensive […]

New Organization Sets Out to Raise the Standard for “Vision Zero” Cities

By Angie Schmitt | Apr 13, 2015 | No Comments

Vision Zero — the idea that we should no longer accept traffic deaths and serious injuries — is gaining momentum as a framework for thinking about city streets and transportation, as more American cities adopt the goal of ending traffic fatalities. But what actually constitutes a Vision Zero policy? What are the best strategies to dramatically […]

Yellow Journalism: Tribune Panics Over “Risky” Stoplight Timing

By Steven Vance and Payton Chung | Dec 23, 2014 | 35 Comments

Day in and day out for at least 30 years (and perhaps for almost a century), over 3,000 stoplights all across Chicago have whirred through tens of millions of cycles the exact same way: green, then yellow for three seconds, then red. Yet today, this three second cycle was suddenly declared a public safety emergency, […]

What Would a National Vision Zero Movement Look Like?

By Tanya Snyder | Nov 21, 2014 | No Comments

Earlier this week, New York-based Transportation Alternatives released a statement of 10 principles that emerged from the Vision Zero symposium the group sponsored last Friday. It was the first-ever national gathering of thought leaders and advocates committed to spreading Vision Zero’s ethic of eliminating all traffic deaths through better design, enforcement, and education. I caught […]

Vision Zero Momentum Builds From Philly to Portland

By Tanya Snyder | Nov 10, 2014 | No Comments

Eight years ago, a campaign promise yielded this protected bike lane on Philadelphia’s Spruce Street. Will the next mayor promise Vision Zero? Photo: Bicycle Coalition This Friday, more than 200 movement leaders for safe transportation will gather in New York City for a symposium on Vision Zero — how New York and Sweden did it, […]

Peter Norton: We Can Learn From the Movement To Enshrine Car Dependence

By Tanya Snyder | Oct 17, 2014 | No Comments

Yesterday, we published part one of my interview with Peter Norton, a historian at the University of Virginia and the author of Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City. We talked about whether the push for infrastructure investment is always code for increasing car capacity, and how the Vision Zero campaign […]

Pedestrian Fatality Tracker: More Deaths This Year Than Last

By Steven Vance | Aug 15, 2014 | 24 Comments

More people were killed while walking in Chicago in the first seven months of this year, compared to the same time period last year. Chicago transportation commissioner Rebekah Scheinfeld pointed out to the Mayor’s Pedestrian Advisory Council last week that “this is the first increase since 2009.” 21 people on foot died in car crashes […]

A Blank Slate: Wells St. Extension Can Embody CDOT’s New Values

By Steven Vance | May 30, 2014 | 12 Comments

The Chicago Department of Transportation has a rare clean-slate opportunity to design a Street of Dreams — a street that incorporates many leading-edge safety features. That opportunity is phase three of their Wells-Wentworth Connector between Chinatown and the South Loop, a future southward extension of Wells Street that longtime South Loop resident Dennis McClendon calls “Riverside Boulevard.” […]

26 Bike/Ped Injuries Next to a School? No Big Whoop, Says WGN

By Steven Vance | May 15, 2014 | 33 Comments

WGN TV recently reported this week that 26 bicyclist and pedestrian injuries at Addison and Western, just outside of Lane Tech High school and within view of three speed cameras, “is relatively small.” Reporter Jackie Bange did not clarify just how many injured Chicagoans would be “relatively large” and thus merit a public response. She quoted […]

Are Sidewalks Really Necessary?

By Angie Schmitt | Apr 1, 2014 | No Comments

A lot of big, surprising revelations are happening in the livable streets movement around the country today. Here’s a sample of what Streetsblog Network members are reporting. Miami Adopts Vision Zero Policy: Street safety advocates are elated after Miami officials suddenly announced the city would adopt a Vision Zero policy aimed a reducing the number […]

Speeding Collisions “Much More Deadly Than Other Collisions”

By Steven Vance | Dec 20, 2013 | 14 Comments

Washington, DC, has the same “vision zero” goal to eliminate traffic deaths as Chicago. In this new public service announcement, DC police chief Cathy Lanier says, “High speed collisions are much more deadly than other collisions.” Exactly. When you compare the severity of injuries that pedestrians suffer in speeding-related crashes to non-speeding crashes, you see what […]

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