and a culture of continuous
improvement. Vision Zero is datadriven:
you set benchmarks and use
data to evaluate your progress. If you
don’t reach Zero by that date, it
doesn’t mean you’ve failed. You can
look at what you’ve done and figure
out how to readjust and recalibrate
your strategies.”
Redesigning streets
The City of Houston will spend the
next year formulating its strategies,
which Budnick expects to include the
design of more forgiving streets.
600,000+
Fleet vehicles operated
by Together for Safer
Roads members. The goal
“Humans make
mistakes, so streets
should take account of
human imperfections,” he
is to make them all
says. “If you design forgiving
safer drivers
streets for the most vulnerable users,
they’ll be safer for everybody.”
Protected bike lanes and safer speed
limits are two key elements. “Above
20mph, humans have a much higher
chance of being killed in a collision,”
Budnick adds. “Safer limits mean that,
if a collision does occur, the pedestrian
has more chance of survival.”
Forgiving streets may also give
pedestrians greater prominence at
junctions, where most collisions
occur. “That can be done by creating
more pedestrian space at corners,
with wider sidewalks to make
drivers more aware that pedestrians
are present.”
TSR was founded in 2014 to align
the road safety efforts of privatesector
members including several
multinational corporations.
It has already spearheaded a project
in Gulfton that may serve as
a template for the city at large. “As
a new organization, we are moving
deliberately to figure out how
to make the biggest difference,”
says Budnick.
“Our primary program model is
to deliver public-private
partnerships. Our role is firstly as
a convener, bringing people together
in defining a road safety problem,
then organizing stakeholders to
develop a work plan around solving
it,” he adds. “We also have resources
from our members with expertise in
transportation data and analytics and
also fleet safety.”
As prominent Houston businesses,
TSR’s members played an initial role
in engaging the Mayor and his staff
on the issue of road safety. Anheuser-
Busch and Silver Eagle Distributors
are two such companies with
thousands of employees and tens of
thousands of customers in the
Houston area.
“They are obviously committed
to the safety of their workers, but also
to the safety of the communities they
serve,” says Budnick. “They engaged
the Mayor after becoming aware of
PHOTOS: CONNECT COMMUNITY/ TOGETHER FOR SAFER ROADS
Above and left:
Recording the
condition of road
surfaces is an
important part of
understanding crash
statistics
| Vision Zero
November/December 2019 Traffic Technology International 021
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