Public safety is my first priority as an elected official. Traffic fatalities and serious injuries take an enormous toll on society and families, but they are not inevitable. San Antonio families deserve safe streets, and they deserve streets that respect and protect all road users. People who walk and ride bikes should have the same level of protection as those who drive.
Vision Zero is a traffic safety approach that ensures traffic crashes do not result in deaths or serious injuries. It recognizes that driving is inherently dangerous. Therefore, the traffic system should take human error into account and design systems that prevent fatalities and serious injuries when people make mistakes. Driver behavior is important, vehicle safety is important, but design of the built environment is also important.
I established making San Antonio a Vision Zero city a priority during this term in my 2015 State of District 5 speech. I initiated a Council Consideration Request (CCR) to develop a Vision Zero action plan. That CCR was signed by council members Ray Lopez (D6), Rey Saldaña (D4), Ron Nirenberg (D8), and Roberto Treviño (D1). The first step to eliminating traffic fatalities and serious injuries in San Antonio has been taken.
Historically, traffic safety emphasis has focused on improving driver behavior, vehicle safety, and road design with a goal of reducing risk while prioritizing mobility. As a result, we have built traffic systems that often compromise safety in the interest of mobility.
Vision Zero demands a new approach. Prioritizing safety over all other interests.
Traffic fatality rates vary widely by city and state. In 2014, the safest U.S. cities had traffic fatality rates as low as 3.2 per 100,000 population. San Antonio’s 2014 traffic fatality rate was 10.57 per 100,000. That’s an improvement from previous years, but still 326% greater than New York City. Traffic fatality rates in Texas compare negatively to the nation as a whole. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported the national average for 2009-2013 as 11.05 fatalities per 100,000 population. During the same period, Texas had a traffic fatality rate of 12.52 per 100,000 population, while the best performing state had a fatality rate of 4.90 per 100,000 population.
Functionally classified roads, including collectors, arterials, and highways, account for the overwhelming majority of traffic fatalities in San Antonio. All Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) managed roads in San Antonio are functionally classified. To achieve Vision Zero, TxDOT must change the way they design and build roads in San Antonio. Therefore, TxDOT must be a partner in developing and implementing San Antonio’s Vision Zero action plan.
The Alamo Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (AAMPO) has a leading role in transportation planning. The AAMPO Transportation Improvement Plan (TIP) identifies major federally funded capital improvement projects throughout the San Antonio region. Congestion management is the most heavily weighted criteria for evaluating and selecting added capacity and road improvement projects for the TIP. Safety is second, and the criteria for safety is crashes per vehicle miles traveled, not fatalities or serious injuries. As a result, AAMPO is funding projects that are not consistent with Vision Zero. AAMPO must change their transportation planning processes and evaluation criteria, and should be a partner in developing and implementing San Antonio’s Vision Zero action plan.
Other key stakeholders include Transportation and Capital Improvements (TCI), The Office of Sustainability, Planning, and Development Services from the City of San Antonio, VIA Metropolitan Transit, and the independent school districts. TCI designs and builds city streets, but the purpose of those streets is to provide access between destinations within the city. Community planning, development patterns and land use define the transportation system that connects these destinations. Vision Zero requires a new way of not only viewing traffic safety, but also the network of streets and the built environment that those streets serve. Achieving Vision Zero will also likely require or create a more compact and connected city, where transit and active transportation play greater roles. Agencies that lead in the areas of transportation, planning, zoning, land use, and community development must all be fully engaged in developing and implementing the Vision Zero action plan.
Emergency responders have an important role in street design. Research shows road design guidelines that require high design speeds with long line of sight, wide lanes, and wide rights of way increase risk of fatal crashes in urban areas. Solutions will have to be developed that ensure emergency responders have sufficient access while reducing the design speed of urban streets. The San Antonio Police and Fire Departments must be partners in developing solutions that ensure their ability to respond to emergencies while reducing the design speed of streets throughout the city.
Vision Zero is achievable. It will take time and commitment. That commitment must come from every sector of San Antonio, but the rewards will be far reaching. Those rewards will include not only safer streets, but I believe the city will become more walkable and bicycling friendly, our air will be cleaner, and San Antonio will be more prosperous. In short, achieving Vision Zero will be transformative, and San Antonio will be a better place. San Antonio residents and visitors will not only be safer, but they will enjoy a greater quality of life.
I encourage you to contact your Councilmember and tell them you support Vision Zero.
Featured top image: Cyclists ride on South Alamo Street near downtown San Antonio. Photo by Scott Ball.
Related Stories:
Transportation Pieces Take Shape for VIA, Comprehensive Plan
Commentary: Charter Amendment Derails San Antonio’s Transportation Future
Not to be confused with Taylor’s Zero Vision…
District 5 needs better sidewalks for pedestrians and peope in wheelchairs.
Should make wearing helmets mandatory if riding a bike….
Yes. Safety can start with improved and additional sidewalks.
Sidewalks are important, but if the goal is preventing all traffic fatalities and injuries, focusing on sidewalks alone won’t do it. Several reasons:
1. Pedestrians are killed and seriously injured at a higher rate than motorists, but those incidents most often happen crossing the street, not walking along a street without sidewalks. Pedestrians are also struck while walking on sidewalks.
2. Sidewalks will not prevent motorist fatalities and serious injuries.
3. Sidewalks will not prevent fatalities and serious injuries to people riding bikes.
The solution will be bigger than sidewalks alone, but whatever that solution is, the next question to ask is why hasn’t it already been done? There are two reasons: money and popularity. Transportation funding is spent overwhelmingly on moving as many cars as fast as possible. New roads, wider lanes and more lanes. Roads are expensive, and they are being built without sufficient money to maintain them. Spending money on sidewalks means there is less money to build more and wider roads.
The money used to build more and wider roads could instead be used to build sidewalks or make existing roads safer, but it’s not because what is popular is more and wider roads, not safer roads.
Sidewalks on every street would be great, but not as great as every street being safe for every user. Coincidentally, you’ll find the money for sidewalks when safety takes precedent over mobility (speed).
Hope this goes beyond District 5. The kids in our neighborhood do not have bus service, yet they are unable to walk on sidewalks all the way to school. There are blind spots along the way, and sadly, it’s going to take someone getting hurt or killed before San Antonio does something about it.
This district needs serious bike lanes! Tired of bikers cutting infront of drivers- be wiser bikers!
Hope this applies to all of San Antonio.
Sounds like a whole lot of words and no real solutions
Sounds like a whole lot of words and no real solutions
Hipsters need to start promoting wearing helmets and media needs to respect the initiative by using photography that promotes an all inclusive safety protocol. Thanks for discussing Rivard Report now go the distance! Butt on bike helmet on head! God bless our commuters!
Hipsters need to start promoting wearing helmets and media needs to respect the initiative by using photography that promotes an all inclusive safety protocol. Thanks for discussing Rivard Report now go the distance! Butt on bike helmet on head! God bless our commuters!
Bikers also need to obey traffic laws once they are in the bike lane.
San Antonio needs better sidewalks (not heaved, cracked, flooded and impassable with a stroller or wheelchair), and an enforcement/education campaign so that motorist yield for pedestrians at crosswalks and driveways as required by law.
One of the first things that needs to be done is something about the readability of street signs at night. It’s either the street light wavelength, sign paint, combination, or something else (not my eyes), that makes the intersection signs hanging in the streets totally unreadable. Drivers focus so much attention on figuring out the street that they lose focus on driving. I travel all over the country weekly, and no other city has this problem.
Sorry, I mean I don’t have this problem in any other city. It’s very strange and has happened when clear, raining, etc. I go to San Antonio often, so maybe I’m not “used” to it, but there is definitely something wrong when comparing it to driving around at night in other cities around the country. Street signs (I’m talking about the big ones dangling over the intersection) that are typically on major streets people are looking for should not be hard to find – since they typically occur at intersections of busy streets where there is a lot of traffic where drivers need to have as much focus on the road conditions as possible (such as other cars, bikes, and pedestrians). Just a comment from a frequent visitor every year since 1960s.
I don’t mean hard to find. They are very clearing dangling over the intersection. But they look blank. You can’t see the letters at night at a lot of intersections. There, done.
Jeff Moore where’s your helmet?
People who bike will start respecting the rules of the road once people who drive start respecting the rules of the road & being courteous to everyone on the street. Enforcement needs to go BOTH ways.
D5 needs way more pressing issues addressed like poverty, hunger and housing. Still, this is the only time I see the councilwoman vocal on anything.
I’m all for motorist safety. Motorists should wear helmets and obey all traffic laws when driving! Too many senseless deaths while driving, let’s protect our motorists, all passengers wear helmets and follow traffic laws, come on we can do it!!
What a stupid statement. Traffic deaths are, and always will be, inevitable. Politicians that talk like this should be sent packing because chasing unrealistic goals is not the role of government.
Do what you can to maximize safety and minimize restrictions on individual freedom. That’s it.
Um. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that it is estimated that 40% of San Antonio drivers don’t possess driver’s licenses? And 60% don’t have insurance? Helloooo??
I wish the city would maintain the bike lanes, making them safer for cyclists to ride. Many of the bike lanes are littered with broken glass, sharp metal fragments, and other hazardous debris, that make it difficult for cyclist to use. Bike tires and tubes are not cheap! Recently, a group of cyclists from all over the city participated in a Bike Lane Clean-up Party, cleaning bike lanes along Broadway, Austin St., the bike lanes around Maverick Park, and numerous other areas. The city should be cleaning the bike lanes on a regular basis and not be dependent on it’s citizens to do the city’s job.