Boston Rolls Out Its “Vision Zero” Plan

This is fantastic news, and it totally where we need to be going, these are not accidents, they are crashes, and its time we fix the problems leading to needless death and suffering.

From the cities new Vision Zero website:

I am proud to be the Mayor of America’s Walking City.

Dear Bostonians,

I am proud to be the Mayor of America’s Walking City. I know that with that title comes the responsibility to ensure that the hundreds of thousands of Bostonians and visitors who use our streets every day have a safe and enjoyable experience. Unfortunately, an average of two pedestrians are hit by cars every day – people like you and me who are simply trying to get across the street. Almost as many people riding bikes are treated by our EMS and every year thousands of drivers are injured, put in danger, or delayed by collisions with other vehicles.

While only a handful of these crashes are fatal, every tragedy leaves a trail of grieving family and friends, and the despair of unfulfilled potential. As Mayor, I see the real people behind these statistics; I share the grief, pain, and sense of loss that every crash report represents.

I grew up in Dorchester. We could walk to the store, to church, to a friend’s house, or to a park. We could ride our bikes to school or to Boston Harbor. We could get on a subway train or a bus and go to work almost anywhere in Greater Boston. That freedom of movement is what made it a strong community – tightly knit and human scaled, but also fully connected to the wider world of jobs, amenities, and culture.

Children growing up today deserve that same level of freedom and mobility. Our seniors should be able to safely get around the communities they helped build and have access to the world around them. Driving, walking, or riding a bike on Boston’s streets should not be a test of courage.

We know how to build safer streets. We know how to protect our most vulnerable road users, who are suffering disproportionately because of speeding traffic and distracted drivers.

With this Action Plan, I am saying it’s time to act. It’s time to commit to eliminating fatal and serious traffic crashes from our daily experience.

IT’S TIME FOR VISION ZERO.

Sincerely,

Martin J. Walsh

You can find more info here at the Massachusetts Vision Zero Plan

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Support MassBike As It Fights For Vision Zero, Act Now!

It’s a Crash, not an accident.

———-

MassBike is a part of the Massachusetts Vision Zero Coalition, a group that advocates for the implementation of Vision Zero across Massachusetts, working together with community organizations, non-profits, businesses, and individuals.

What is Vision Zero?

Vision Zero is a strategy to eliminate all traffic fatalities and severe injuries, while increasing safe, health, equitable mobility for all.

What is MassBike doing to support the Vision Zero effort?

There are 3 crucial bills that we have filed to protect bicyclists and pedestrians and there is still time to voice your support.The vulnerable users bill, the bike lane bill, and the crosswalk bill are imperative to improving safety on the road. To read more about these 3 bills and what they mean, click here. There is also a sample letter you can send!

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The Time Has Come To End Traffic Fatalities

It was never acceptable that people got hurt and killed in motor vehicles, but we now have the technology to drastically reduce traffic fatalities.

Operating a motor vehicle is not a right, its a privileged, and we need to take the safety of the operation of motor vehicles more seriously. Because lets be clear, the vast vast majority of traffic fatalities are caused by big heavy fast moving pieces of metal operated by people who are very bad at operating big heavy fast moving pieces of metal.

This is not to say that everyone is a bad driver, but that no one is a good driver. Human beings didn’t evolve to drive around in cars, and as such we lack many of the skills that one would need to operate them effectively. Combined with our penchant for drinking, falling asleep, texting, and other distractions behind the wheel and you end up with a murderous rampage killings tens of thousands of people every year.

The “freedom” provided by owning and operating motor vehicles in the way we do currently is not worth the cost in human lives. There are a host of well tested and proven methods shown to reduce or eliminate traffic fatalities, all we need to do is enact them in our city. Speed reduction, automated cars, better enforcement, better infrastructure, driver education, and many more. Start with the easy ones, and work your way up to the hard ones. It’s time we stop allowing those we love to die needlessly.

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Mayor Walsh Announces Vision Zero For Boston

Like New York, Mayor Walsh has outlined a ‘Vision Zero‘ philosophy for Boston.  It’s something myself and many other have been saying for years.  Traffic fatalities are not “accidents” they are crashes.  They don’t just happen by cosmic chance, someone is at fault.  Through good planning, comprehensive education, strong engineering and proper enforcement we can reduce them to zero.

Some other juicy announcements in the press release below.

from the city:

March 24, 2015 – Today, Mayor Martin J. Walsh announced five transportation initiatives to improve how individuals on foot, bike, or in a vehicle move around the City of Boston with a significant focus on improving public safety. The announcements include a complete streets approach to Commonwealth Avenue, featuring protected bike lane on from the BU Bridge to Packard’s Corner, the adoption of Vision Zero Boston, aimed at eliminating traffic fatalities in the city, the citywide replacement of parking meters with intelligent parking meters, and a pilot program to eliminate street sweeping towing. The initiatives are early action projects as part of Go Boston 2030 launched to imagine a bold new transportation plan for Boston for the next five, 10, and 15 years. Additionally, the Mayor and the Boston Transportation Department will begin a nationwide search for a new Active Transportation Director to think holistically about how our streets are used by people who walk, bike, and take transit.

“We’re implementing innovative and inventive transportation strategies and infrastructure upgrades in the City of Boston to improve travel safety and convenience,” said Mayor Walsh. “Whether you walk, drive, take the T, or ride a bike on our streets, we’re looking at solutions that can accommodate every mode of transportation in a meaningful way.”

Vision Zero

Mayor Walsh announced that the City of Boston will adopt Vision Zero, based on the premise that traffic fatalities are not accidents, but rather they are crashes that can be  prevented by effective policies and systematic evaluation, enforcement, engineering, education, and  community engagement.  By adopting Vision Zero, the City of Boston joins cities such as New York, San  Francisco, and Chicago, which have committed to making traffic safety a priority. Toward that end, Mayor Walsh has convened a Vision Zero Task Force to develop an action plan for a  comprehensive and coordinated strategy to eliminate traffic fatalities and injuries in Boston.

The Task  Force includes representatives of Boston’s Transportation Department (BTD), the Boston Police Department (BPD), the Public Works Departments (PWD), the Boston Public Health Commission (BPHC), Boston Emergency Medical Services (EMS), and WalkBoston, Massachusetts’  leading pedestrian advocacy organization, and the Boston Cyclists Union.  Early action items include:

• BPD improvements to its electronic crash reporting system that will lead to  better data collection and better crash analysis;

• BPD is hiring a full-time Transportation Safety Data Analyst and a full-time DDACTS  Analyst (Data Driven Approaches to Crime and Traffic Safety) to reduce motor vehicle,  pedestrian and bicycle collisions. Evidence in other cities suggests that this will also reduce  crime.

• BPD and EMS will use crash data to identify pedestrian crash hot spots and high crash corridors with the help of researchers from BPHC and the Tufts Medical  Center Division of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery.

• BTD and PWD will pilot test rapid-response improvements at pedestrian crash hot spots and along high crash corridors, as well as “residential slow zones”

• BPHC will assist with education and outreach to educate residents  on safe road behavior.

Commonwealth Avenue Multi-Modal Redesign

At a public meeting held at Boston University, the City of Boston last night unveiled the new Commonwealth Avenue Phase 2A Redesign Plan, which will transform the portion of this busy thoroughfare that extends between the BU Bridge to Packard’s Corner. The built roadway will be innovative and provide bicyclists with physically protected bike lanes on both the inbound and outbound sides of the avenue.  It will also offer the MBTA and its patrons with fully ADA compliant crossings at all intersections along the project route and will create a framework for the construction of wider platforms that will be safer and more efficient for trolley riders. The design affords motor vehicle drivers and pedestrians with numerous enhanced amenities.

The Complete Streets design incorporates a “Protected Intersection” approach to make Commonwealth Avenue one of the most progressive multi-modal corridors in the country, and the first time that this design component will be used on Boston’s public streets.  This utilizes a sizeable separation between bikes and cars at intersections to reduce “right hooks,” a  common cause of bicycle/motor vehicle crashes where motor vehicle drivers turning right crash with cyclists continuing straight. This is a cutting edge safety feature built into the design along with bike boxes and a corner deflection island to maximize safety while accommodating turns and providing better visibility for both motor vehicle drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians.

A collaborative process between Boston’s bicycle advocates, pedestrian groups, the Boston University community, as well as others with an interest in Commonwealth Avenue, helped formulate the design with the City.

Commonwealth Avenue in the project area will also receive new street lighting, landscaping, repaving and new street furniture.  Construction financing for this $17 million project is being funded 80% by the federal government and 20% by the state.  The city expects to have another public meeting in the fall of 2015 before bidding begins on the project contract.  Construction is expected to begin in the spring of 2016 with a completion date of  late fall of 2017.  The design process for this project began in 2009.

Adding protected bike lanes has shown positive economic impacts on surrounding businesses in cities across the country, including New York City, San Francisco, and Portland. A redesign of NYC’s Union Square to include a protected bike lanes resulted in nearly 50% fewer commercial vacancies, and the construction of a protected bike lane on 9th Avenue saw a nearly 50% increase in retail sales. Studies have shown that adding a protected bike lane increases cycling traffic on the roadway, boosting retail performance, with nearly 70% of merchants on San Francisco’s Valencia Street seeing a positive impact on business. Studies have shown that customers who arrive at retail stores by bike spend the same amount per month as comparable people who arrive by car, making smaller purchases but returning more frequently

Intelligent Parking Meters

The Boston Transportation Department will be making parking at the curb smarter and easier for people who park at the 8,000 metered spaces across the City. With the addition of new intelligent multi-space and single space parking meters, drivers can pay through mobile phone, a credit card, or pocket change. This next generation of meters will also provide real-time data to the City to help BTD better manage the space at the curb. The information provided by an upgraded parking system and an analysis of current on-street parking regulations will allow the City to make decisions based on data, not just intuition. Credit card and mobile payment enabled meters have shown increased revenue with drivers more likely to pay for the maximum length of stay.

Multi-space meters will be deployed in new locations in the Back Bay and in the Innovation District to improve City operations. A typical multi-space meter allows for more vehicles to fit on a blockface than a block demarcated with single space meters. In addition to the approximately 145 new multi-space meters that will replace some single space meters, current multi-space meters throughout the Back Bay and parts of Downtown will be upgraded, reducing annual maintenance costs for the aging equipment.

The remaining single space parking meters will be replaced with smart single space parking meters that can also be paid for with a mobile phone, credit card, or pocket change. A current pilot of credit card enabled single space meters in the Back Bay and around the Public Garden has shown positive results since deployment. This next generation of meters will provide the potential for collecting occupancy and turnover rate of vehicles, critical data that gives the City insight on how to better manage the curb space around Boston.

Street Sweeping Pilot

Mayor Walsh will file a City Council ordinance to pilot a new street sweeping initiative in one of Boston’s neighborhoods. The ordinance, which is being drafted now, will propose eliminating towing for street sweeping, and increase the fine for not moving a vehicle from $40 to $90. The City plans to use the pilot to determine whether this initiative should be extended to other neighborhoods.

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This Is How The Dutch Bicycle Revolution Started

In the 70’s the Dutch got sick of cars running over kids, now they have 30%+ rates of cycling…Its time America, its time we do the same. Boston, steal this idea from NYC.

NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio Makes Historic “Vision Zero” Announcement from Streetfilms on Vimeo.

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