Vision Zero safety improvements at High Injury Roadways and implementation and Leading Pedestrian Intervals are reducing crashes in Austin. The city has a long way to go to achieve Vision Zero.
The City of Austin Transportation Department (ATD) has been seeing promising results from its Vision Zero initiative," according to an article published by Fox 7 Austin.
According to ADT, early results of Vision Zero projects "show significant effects on reducing severe crashes," in the city, even while traffic safety statistics worsen in other parts of the city and around the nation.
The ADT's Vision Zero team has so far implemented safety improvements at six of 13 "High Injury Roadways" identified in the city. "Crashes resulting in deaths and serious injuries were down 17% on the six HIRs that are considered substantially complete this year through August compared to the 2017-19 average in the same eight-month period," according to the article's summary of the ADT's preliminary data on the changes.
Still, the rest of the city is seeing the same trends toward increasing traffic fatalities as the rest of the country. "There have been more than 100 fatalities on the roads this year citywide, up 30% from 2020," according to the article.
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