Even one traffic fatality or serious injury is too many

Eight months ago, Mayor Malik Evans announced that Rochester would embrace a national initiative called Vision Zero that aims to eliminate traffic fatalities and severe injuries while increasing safe, healthy, equitable mobility for all.

Last week, Evans spoke at a Rochester Beacon community forum on Vision Zero, describing the initiative in detail and explaining why he has made it a priority for the city.

The event, held Feb. 12 at the Central Library, was sponsored by Canandaigua National Bank and Passero Associates, with additional support from Gallina Development.

Here are Evans’ prepared remarks for the Beacon’s Vision Zero community forum.

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Good morning, and thank you all for being here today.

It’s very gratifying to see so many people take an interest in our ROC Vision Zero initiative to make Rochester’s streets, roadways and sidewalks safer for everybody.

Thank you as well to today’s guest, Juan Martinez from the New York City Vision Zero Advisory Committee, for traveling to Rochester to share your insights and success stories on New York City’s Vision Zero initiative.

And thank you to those on today’s panel for coming here to talk about the progress of ROC Vision Zero, including Councilmember Mitch Gruber.

Finally, thank you to Kent Gardner and the people from the Rochester Beacon for elevating this very important conversation on roadway safety.

I’m very proud that Rochester is the only city in the state outside of New York to adopt the Vision Zero initiative to eliminate all traffic fatalities and serious injuries.

The importance of this plan came into stark relief in 2023, after we drafted Rochester’s very first Active Transportation Plan, which changes the paradigm away from vehicle-centric priorities to include improving conditions for pedestrians, children, bicycle commuters and others.

During our studies for this plan, we saw that Rochester has more traffic fatalities than any of our peer cities in New York: Buffalo, Syracuse, Albany and Yonkers.

From 2017 to 2021, Rochester had an average of 17 traffic fatalities per year, compared to 14 for Buffalo, which has a higher population than we do.

The other cities’ averages were all in the single digits.

There’s no way anyone could look at those numbers and not do anything about them.

ROC Vision Zero is going to save lives and reduce the incredible amounts of suffering that comes from these crashes.

I know people who have lost loved ones to vehicle crashes.

I know people whose lives have been changed forever after they or someone they love has been seriously injured in a crash.

Believe me, their pain is just as tragic, just as heartbreaking, as those who are affected by homicides or opioid overdoses.

They deserve the same level of attention—the same level of justice—that we apply to violence and addiction. And that’s what we’re doing with ROC Vision Zero.

In many ways, the actual name of the initiative—Vision Zero—is one of its most critical components: to achieve ZERO fatalities and ZERO serious injuries.

Some people may think that goal is unrealistic …

That we should strive to just reduce fatalities and serious injuries.

But think about the undertones of that mindset.

The Rochester Police Department doesn’t strive to reduce homicides. They strive for zero. Because even one homicide is too many.

The Rochester Fire Department doesn’t strive to reduce fatal fires. They strive for zero. Because even one fire fatality is too many.

So, even before we begin to implement the strategies laid out in ROC Vision Zero, we’re starting out with a loud and clear statement: Even one traffic fatality or serious injury is too many.

We strive for zero.

Furthermore, achieving zero traffic fatalities and serious injuries is more than a mindset shift. It’s a very realistic goal because crashes that result in deaths or serious injuries are preventable.

Achieving zero can be done. Therefore, it should be done.

And I am very proud to be the first mayor of Rochester to say, in our city, it will be done.

ROC Vision Zero is our blueprint to do that.

ROC Vision Zero lays out a very realistic and achievable path to zero traffic deaths and serious injuries…

A path that takes us from changing our collective mindset on how and why they happen …

Through our methods to influence behavior on the roads and enforce vehicle and traffic laws …

And right on to the way we design our streets and sidewalks.

ROC Vision Zero is our blueprint to do all that with what we call the three E’s: Education, Enforcement and Engineering.

The education component begins, as I said, with changing the mindset around traffic deaths and fatalities to make sure people understand these crashes are preventable.

They’re not inevitable. They won’t, as Jesus said of the poor, always be with us.

That’s why we don’t call them accidents anymore. We call them crashes, because the word accident implies nobody was at fault.

But, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 94 percent of all crashes—whether there’s an injury or not—are caused by human error.

In fact, error isn’t even the right word for that stat.

It should be human behavior. Because the leading factors are:

■ drunk driving;

■ distracted driving;

■ reckless driving;

■ speeding;

■ and failure to obey traffic laws.

Those aren’t errors.

Those aren’t accidents.

They’re behaviors.

They’re decisions.

They’re decisions people make when they get behind the wheel. And we’re not going to excuse the consequences of those decisions by calling them accidents.

As a part of ROC Vision Zero, we’re going put together education and communications campaigns that will start a community conversation about these decisions.

And because we know the one thing that influences human behavior more than anything is other humans, we’re going to recruit Traffic Safety Champions to help lead those conversations.

I’m sure many of the people in this room would make great Traffic Safety Champions.

Enforcement is the next E.

Unfortunately, we can’t rely on everybody to make the right decision—even when they’re aware of the consequences.

So, we have to find new ways to enforce our vehicle and traffic laws.

This includes lowering the city’s default speed limit from 30 to 25 miles per hour and incorporating automated enforcement tools, including speed cameras.

A 5-mile-per-hour reduction in the speed limit will have little to no impact on travel times.

But it will increase stopping times for motorists; give pedestrians, bicyclists and motorists more time to see each other; and it will lower the velocity of collisions, which reduces the risk of death or serious injury from a crash.

Speeding is a major concern for our residents.

It’s among the top complaints we receive at City Hall, and speed humps are among the top requests from residents in our neighborhoods.

It’s not realistic, and not even very effective, to dramatically step up police enforcement for speed limits …

… so we’re looking to implement an automated speed camera program like they have in New York City—where a recent report found a 14 percent reduction in traffic deaths and injuries in areas with speed cameras.

We’re well aware of the concern that this could have a disproportionate impact on low-income and minority drivers, so we’re going to take steps to make sure our program is rolled out in an equitable manner.

We also have to remember that the people who are disproportionately impacted by traffic fatalities and serious accidents are the black and brown members of our community.

I know Councilman Gruber, who is a member of the Vision Zero Task Force, has been studying how this has been achieved in other cities and has a lot of thoughts on it.

I understand Juan Martinez helped lead these efforts in New York City. It’ll be interesting to hear his perspective on this.

We’re also moving forward with a program to install cameras on the stop-sign arms of school buses to catch motorists who pass buses while children are getting on or off.

I know Councilmember (Bridget) Monroe has a personal interest in this issue and is very eager to see it through.

On the engineering front, I’m very excited about some of the ROC Vision Zero plans to redesign our roadways to make them safer.

Especially because we’ve been very successful in applying for state and federal grants to advance some of these projects.

We’ve been awarded more than $30 million for projects that include exploring a major redesign of Lake Avenue, including the possibility of a dedicated rapid-transit bus lane in the center median …

… building out our bicycle spine network,

… installing more pedestrian crosswalks,

… and incorporating enhancements like flashing yield signs and raised walkways.

This is just a short overview of our plans to make our streets safer for everybody.

You can learn more about this initiative on our website at www.cityofRochester.gov/visionzero.

Thank you again for your interest in ROC Vision Zero, and for this this opportunity to talk about it.

 Malik Evans is mayor of Rochester.

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