What Will It Take for Durham to Eliminate Traffic Deaths?

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Good morning, readers.

For residents traveling by foot, bike, scooter, wheelchair, or car, traveling on Durham’s streets can be a perilous pursuit. As a bike commuter in Durham for the last 11 years, these streets and I are old friends.

And just like any friend, you want what’s best for them. So does the city’s Vision Zero coordinator, Lauren Grove.

At a work session last Thursday, Grove presented her recommendations for a Vision Zero Action Plan, a proposal for how the city can reduce traffic deaths and injuries by 2045.

Grove recommended six main policies to help the city meet its goal: update the city’s land use code, create a street design manual, conduct more routine safety assessments, improve streets more rapidly, manage safe speeds, and share traffic safety insights.

For the action plan to be successful, Grove said during her presentation, the city will need to improve how it tracks crashes and fatalities to measure the effectiveness of policy interventions and make recommendations that can be acted on swiftly to save lives.

But the city can’t just rely on data and planning sessions in city meeting halls, Grove says. City staff, as well as others in the community, need to hear from residents directly about their lived experience on Durham’s most dangerous roadways, known as the “high injury network.”

“I think a lot of it is about storytelling and hearing from community members who have been impacted by the historic nature of how we build roads for just cars and have all these negative externalities,” Grove says. “I think you have to hear it from a lot of people, you can’t just keep hearing it from me.”

Read more about the city’s Vision Zero goals and what it may take to meet them.

 —Justin

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