Jersey City: A Vision Zero Success Story

Bucking a nationwide trend, Jersey City eliminated traffic deaths on its city-managed roads for a full year. As John Surico explains in Bloomberg CityLab, the city used innovative tools such as mini-roundabouts to slow down traffic at dangerous intersections and small-scale, low-cost pilot programs to test interventions before making them permanent. “And local leaders are intent on pushing forward with more improvements that will eventually encompass more of the city and region.”

Jersey City is the rare municipality that has embraced the spirit of tactical urbanism — a practice where quick DIY fixes are deployed to nudge officials to make more permanent changes.

Thanks to its targeted investments in improving its bike infrastructure, the city has also seen a rise in cycling. “This last quarter, Citi Bike, which operates in Jersey City, saw usage increase to more than 15,000 peak rides per week on average.”

Jersey City’s success in improving traffic safety could be replicated in other cities, but comes with some caveats. “So far, most of the city’s interventions have been downtown, and largely avoided loss of on-street parking,” Surico notes. But addressing the proverbial low-hanging fruit can lead to increased public support and more political will to engage in more controversial projects in the future.