Vision Zero Los Angeles | Page 28

ACTIONS TO ACHIEVE VISION ZERO LOS ANGELES Vision Zero provides the framework for a new way of doing business in the City of Los Angeles. Engineering & Planning Enforcement Education & Outreach Evaluation & Monitoring Partnerships Building from the Complete Streets Design Guide of Mobility Plan 2035, we will begin by focusing on high priority intersections and street segments to increase the visibility of those who are most vulnerable on our streets. We will use the opportunities during everyday maintenance and roadway work to make changes that will increase predictability and reduce the number of conflicts. However, recognizing that we will not be able to prevent every collision, we must also design the transportation system for speeds that protect human life. We will create a prioritized list of safety projects citywide, matching costeffective, proven countermeasures with specific crash profiles for individual corridors and intersections. Collisions are often the result of poor behavior, and enforcement of traffic laws can mitigate the consequences of collisions. Traffic enforcement patrols will focus on high crash locations and target DUIs, distracted driving, not yielding to persons in crosswalks and other dangerous driving behaviors that disproportionately contribute to severe injury and death. Enhanced enforcement reporting statistics will assist in directing safety efforts in high injury areas including schools, housing for seniors, people with disabilities and disadvantaged communities. The impact of traffic deaths touches people’s lives unlike other issues, and is devastating and life-changing for families and communities. Vision Zero provides the framing for the City to proactively and meaningfully partner with community and neighborhood groups, particularly those in areas subject to high collision rates. These groups can reinforce the need for funding and programs to improve safety at the community-level. We will continue to analyze collision, public health, land use, and an array of other data as we build a Transportation and Public Health Database. We will evaluate the impact of our engineering, enforcement, and education efforts. As we continue to identify areas of the City in the most need of safety improvements. we will meaningfully engage our community partners as we work toward traffic safety improvements at the neighborhood level. As we collect our data, we will share it with the public to increase transparency and accountability. Equity The Vision Zero Initiative will develop safety campaigns to promote safe travel behavior and increase awareness of our most vulnerable users. We will be mindful of communities that are burdened with both high collision incidence and poor health outcomes, and use data-driven methods, like the High Injury Network, to ensure areas of the City with the most need are prioritized for safety improvements. Spotlight on Data-driven Safety Studies in Los Angeles This is not the first datadriven effort to increase safety in Los Angeles. Many other organizations have taken a hard look at the numbers and provided suggestions for improvement. Los Angeles Walks, in its 2014 Report on the State of Walking in L.A., mapped all of the pedestrian-vehicle collisions between 2003 and 2009 and identified intersections with the highest collision counts. Students from the USC Marshall School of Business, in partnership with LADOT, completed an award-winning study of pedestrian- and bicyclerelated collisions in Los Angeles. The report recommended encouraging public transit, adding additional infrastructure for people on bikes, and improving data collection when collisions occur. http://s3.amazonaws.com/ latrafficprojectusc/index.html Recently, the Los Angeles Times identified 817 intersections that have relatively high rates of pedestrian injuries and deaths after analyzing more than 665,000 traffic collisions in LA County from 2002 through 2013. The July 12, 2015 article also included a webmap to view the hotspot locations from the collision an