Vision Zero: Improving Street Safety for All

Vision Zero – Improving Street Safety for All

The City of Lafayette is committed to prioritize and address safety on our City’s roadways for all residents and visitors of all ages who walk, roll, bike and drive throughout our city. Roadway engineering, education and enforcement ALL play an important role in safety so that we can achieve the goal to eliminate transportation-related fatalities and injuries in Lafayette.

What is Vision Zero?

In November 2021 the Lafayette City Council unanimously adopted Vision Zero, which is a global initiative to eliminate traffic fatalities and severe injuries in Lafayette, while increasing safe, healthy, and equitable mobility for all. The Vision Zero approach views transportation-related fatalities and injuries as preventable, not inevitable, and recognizes that people will sometimes make mistakes, so we have a responsibility to design and operate a transportation system that makes inevitable mistakes less severe.

Each year over 42,000 people are killed in traffic-related collisions in the United States alone, more than the population of Lafayette, and thousands more are seriously injured.  A Vision Zero approach represents a different approach to traffic safety and public health.

Read the November 22, 2021 Vision Zero staff report or watch the presentation from the City Council meeting where Vision Zero was adopted.  Additionally, the Vision Zero Network provides detailed information on this initiative and its approach towards traffic safety. 

A Vision Zero approach is expected to result in a number of community benefits, including:

• Designing streets that make safe behavior the default.
• Making changes to our laws and policies, such as reducing speed limits and calming traffic in our neighborhoods, that result in safer roadways for all.
• Educating drivers to be safe and respectful of all road users.
• Creating systems for evaluation as we make ongoing improvements to our shared roadways.
• Increasing our investments in safety and active transportation projects and ensuring that every transportation project is approached as an opportunity to improve safety.

How do we Implement Vision Zero in Lafayette?

The City prepared a Local Roadway Safety Plan (LRSP) in support of Vision Zero, which resulted in a systemic safety analysis of our roadways and a multi-disciplinary list of systemic low-cost and longer-term countermeasures to address the safety issues specific to Lafayette. 

Resources

See below for resources on and tools to support safer streets for all in Lafayette. 

• Learn more about Vision Zero.
• The Safe System Approach reflects a new paradigm for addressing roadway safety.
• Improving roadway safety requires a shift in our culture of safety. 
• Take the Lafayette Street Smarts Community Pledge to Promote Traffic Safety.
• Visit the Contra Costa Transportation Authority’s website for information on the Countywide Vision Zero effort.
• Learn about the state’s guidance on Local Road Safety Plans (LRSPs).

For more information on Vision Zero and the LRSP, contact Patrick Golier, the City’s Transportation & Circulation Program Manager at PGolier@ci.lafayette.ca.us.