Pittsburgh Agencies Collaborate on Vision Zero Projects

In a piece for Pittsburgh CityPaper, Colin Williams describes how a multi-pronged effort by city agencies and road safety advocates has helped Pittsburgh lower its pedestrian death rate and inch closer to Vision Zero.

“Similar to other civic issues, Vision Zero requires collaboration among agencies that don’t always share the same priorities or systems, including the city government and the relatively new Department of Mobility and Infrastructure (or DOMI, created in 2017); advocacy groups like BikePGH and Pittsburghers for Public Transit (PFPT); PennDOT; and the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police,” Williams writes. For example, roughly half of the 10 percent of roadways where the vast majority of deaths and major injuries occur are managed by PennDOT.

Williams outlines the various tools and databases that PennDOT and local agencies use to aggregate crash data and understand where the most incidents occur and what safety interventions have the biggest impact. “As the city moves ahead with a proposed red-light camera program, many such interventions have gone in, including the two-way conversion of the former Penn Circle, traffic calming along streets such as Stanton Ave. and Grandview Ave., and pedestrian safety installations in Central Lawrenceville. The city continues to install leading pedestrian interval signals at crosswalks that give walkers and rollers a headstart on motorists.”