High Visibility Enforcement – City of Oro Valley, AZ

Background

The Oro Valley Police Department (OVPD) has created a data-driven initiative to improve traffic safety in the town of Oro Valley, Arizona. The program is called "HiVE" or High Visibility Enforcement, designed to target intersections that have high crash rates. HiVE is described as an “educational” initiative rather than a strict enforcement detail with the following two primary components:

• OVPD publishes HiVE’s future deployment dates and times to television, print, radio, and social media. This is to alert the community about the increased visibility of law enforcement and to improve communications between the police and citizens. Partnering with local media is a key component of the HiVE
• During scheduled deployments, OVPD places six motorcycle officers in and around the targeted intersections. Motorcycle officers actively enforce traffic violations during peak travel times. The graphic below shows the HiVE logo developed for communications and program identification.

OVPD reminds motorists not to engage in distracted driving or other driving behaviors that contribute to avoidable injury or fatal vehicle crashes.

Targeted Reporting of Speeding-Related Crashes – Arizona DOT

Background

Speed Too Fast for Conditions (STFC) is a field provided on most agency crash forms. The intent is to label scenarios where a driver was traveling below the posted speed limit but the speed at the time of the crash was not appropriate for prevailing environmental conditions and was a contributor to the crash. However, significant variations exist in interpreting the definition of the environment when coding crash forms. As a result, it is often left to the attending officer's interpretation.

In Arizona, historically STFC was defined as “Traveling at a speed that was unsafe for the road, weather, traffic or other environmental conditions at the time.” In many cases, an officer would include the behavioral or human environment and could interpret driver incapacity (Driving Under the Influence (DUI), impaired, distracted, fatigued) as a condition that would warrant traveling at a lower speed regardless of actual roadway conditions. For instance, a drunk driver on dry daytime roads traveling under the speed limit could be coded as Speed Too Fast for Conditions if the officer felt the state of impairment warranted a lower speed. Depending on the attending officer’s interpretation, there may be scenarios in which no speed is safe for conditions¹. While it is important to address these crashes, solutions should focus on the root cause of the crash when feasible. Countermeasures geared specifically towards speeding, such as Dynamic Speed Feedback Signs (DSFS), lane narrowing, or use of landscaping, may be less effective when the driver is impaired. Rather areas with a high number of impaired crashes should be targeted with countermeasures that address the impairment, such as enforcement.

Georgia DOT Uses Curve Safety Assessment Devices for High Friction Surface Treatment Site Selection

Problem

RwD crashes are a major emphasis area for Georgia. To address this crash type, the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) investigated and implemented several solutions to crashes in horizontal curves. One solution that GDOT is using to improve safety is the installation of high friction surface treatment (HFST) at curves where roadway departure crashes have the greatest likelihood of occurring. GDOT initially identified these curves using a traditional ball bank indicator. This approach is both time and resource intensive requiring two to three workers (driving, reading, and writing). Therefore, a new approach was tested: a market-ready curve safety assessment device that utilizes an electronic ball bank indicator traditionally used for setting safe speeds in curves. This market-ready device also has a website/database where all the raw data could be stored and access at any time.

Solution

GDOT rents devices for each of its Districts to collect data on all curves on the road network. Once the data is collected, GDOT manually locates each curve on the road network since data from the devices are imported as individual data points and may not be geospatially located correctly. GDOT will use the tool and database developed from the Georgia Tech research project to determine potential safety projects. Crash and historical probe speed data will be used with the curve data to determine which projects are to be implemented first by using a benefit/cost ratio ranking.

Fletcher Avenue Complete Streets Redesign – Hillsborough County, Florida

Vision Zero Success Story – Infrastructure

Background

The Hillsborough County Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO), in the Tampa, Florida region, identified several corridors in the roadway transportation network that would benefit from infrastructure enhancements to improve the safety, mobility, and accessibility of all users, particularly pedestrians and bicyclists. Through early crash analysis, the MPO identified the top 20 severe crash corridors, later adopted in its Vision Zero Action Plan. The MPO Board supported prioritizing funding in the transportation Improvement Program for redesigns that included safety for all modes.

Fletcher Avenue, near the University of South Florida (USF), was one of the targeted corridors. From 2011-2013, the section of Fletcher Avenue from Nebraska Avenue to Bruce B. Downs Boulevard averaged over 1,100 total daily pedestrian crossings. Additionally, the corridor had a high pedestrian crash rate with 31 pedestrian crashes.

Milwaukee Avenue Rapid Delivery Approach – Chicago, Illinois

Vision Zero Success Story – Planning, Implementation, & Evaluation

Background

Chicago’s Vision Zero Action Plan identified 43 High Crash Corridors, which are corridors where a disproportionately high number of people have been killed or severely injured in traffic crashes. The Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) adopted a Rapid Delivery approach to provide a better response to the community and quickly address road safety concerns for specific corridors. This approach uses low-cost, rapidly implemented countermeasures including new street markings, signage, colored pavement treatments, and flexible delineators.

In 2017, CDOT piloted the implementation of the Rapid Delivery approach on the Milwaukee Avenue High Crash corridor, a 1.5-mile segment between Western Avenue and Division Street. This project was designed to enhance the safety of the corridor for people walking, biking, riding transit, and driving. Based on crash data collected from 2010 to 2014, there were 1,097 reported crashes. People walking and biking accounted for 20 percent of all crashes, however these more vulnerable users represented 66 percent of the injury crashes and 68 percent of the serious injury crashes in the corridor.

Speed Management Projects – West Palm Beach, Florida

Vision Zero Success Story – Infrastructure

Background

In August 2018, West Palm Beach became the fourth jurisdiction in Florida to adopt the Vision Zero initiative. The City focused on speed management as part of its Vision Zero efforts. As part of this focus, the City identified three speed management projects, all centered around reducing speeds and creating a safer space for pedestrians and bicyclists. These projects were initially developed under the City’s bicycle master plan and prioritized under Vision Zero.

One of the three projects was along Okeechobee Boulevard, where 33 percent of the crashes in the downtown area occurred. Forty-five percent of the crashes that occurred on Okeechobee Boulevard occurred during either the morning or afternoon peak hour. Fifty-two percent of the bicycle or pedestrian-involved crashes occurred at night.

Traffic Safety Camera Program – Portland, Oregon

Vision Zero Success Story – Behavioral

Background

The Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) implemented the traffic safety camera program in 2016 to reduce speeding in neighborhoods and save lives. The traffic safety cameras were installed along corridors in the City’s High Crash Network. The High Crash Network included 30 streets; a composite of the top 20 high crash streets for driving, the top 20 for bicycling, and the top 20 for walking. The City identified four corridors for the traffic safety cameras:

• SW Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway.
• SE Division Street.
• SE 122nd Avenue.
• NE Marine Drive.

By early 2018, PBOT installed eight (8) systems along the four (4) high crash corridors enforcing each direction of travel. In advance of each traffic safety camera, a speed reader board (SRB) displayed a driver’s speed. When drivers exceeded the posted speed limit, the traffic safety camera system engaged and photographed the driver and the front and rear of the vehicle.

Safest Driver Contest – Boston, Massachusetts

Vision Zero Success Story – Behavioral

Background

The City of Boston’s Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics (MONUM) championed the inaugural “Safest Driver Contest.” As a partnership between the Vision Zero Task Force, MONUM, and the Transportation Department, the Safest Driver Contest held its first season in 2016 and a second season in 2019. Similar contests have been held in other cities including Seattle, San Antonio, and Los Angeles.

The contest aimed to change driver behavior by offering incentives to participants who adopted safe practices while behind the wheel. Participants downloaded an app that used five performance evaluation metrics to assess each driver including braking, acceleration, speeding, cornering, and distraction. The app made calculations for these metrics based on the phone’s GPS, accelerometer, and gyroscope. The app collected and stored the monitored behaviors of individual drivers for each trip.

Zero Traffic Fatalities Task Force and Speed Limit Setting Report – California

Vision Zero Success Story – Partnerships

Background

Motor vehicle collisions are a leading cause of unintentional injuries and deaths among all age groups in the United States. In 2017, approximately 3,600 deaths and over 14,000 serious injuries occurred as a result of traffic collisions in California, costing the State over $53.5 billion. Twenty-six percent of the collisions were speeding-related, which included vehicle speeds that were unsafe for conditions or in excess of the speed limit.

This spurred the legislature into action and in 2018, the California Assembly signed Assembly Bill 2363. This Bill required the establishment of a Zero Traffic Fatalities Task Force. The Task Force aimed to evaluate the ways in which speed limits are set in California, suggested alternatives to the current speed-limit-setting process (85th-percentile method), and proposed policies to reduce traffic fatalities to zero. AB 2363 directed the California Secretary of Transportation to publish a Report of Findings following the conclusion of the Task Force activities and submit it to the Legislature.

Rainier Avenue South Redesign – Seattle, Washington

Vision Zero Success Story – Infrastructure

Background

The Rainier Valley neighborhood located in southeast Seattle is home to one of the City’s most culture-rich and diverse populations. Rainier Avenue South is a principal arterial street that connects residents and communities along the former regional rail corridor. The area surrounding Rainier Avenue South includes many land uses like retail, schools, and parks. These uses are pertinent to pedestrians, cyclists, transit users, and drivers.

It was also the corridor with the highest number of traffic crashes in Seattle; the corridor had a per mile crash rate that is greater than other streets in the City that carry more than twice the volume of traffic as on Rainier Ave South. The City launched Vision Zero efforts in 2014, one of which was working with the community to redesign a one-mile segment of the eight-mile corridor for the pilot phase of the Rainier Avenue South Corridor Safety Project. The City implemented changes to the piloted segment between South Alaska Street and South Kenny Street over a weekend in August 2015.

Rainier Avenue South carries over 13,000 people daily on transit, is a freight and emergency response route, and serves between 19,700 and 26,600 vehicles each weekday. Studies in the corridor show that between 1,000 and 2,000 vehicles per day travel along the corridor at a speed greater than 10 miles above the 30 miles per hour (mph) posted speed limit. The total average number of annual crashes over the 10 years prior to the redesign was 95 crashes, 9 serious injury crashes, and 1 fatality crash.