Phoenix City Council voted down a proposal to begin research on the Vision Zero program, which aims to reduce Phoenix’s record numbers of pedestrian deaths in recent years.
Tens of thousands of vehicles pass through Phoenix’s multiple-lane arterial roads each day. In the last ten years, pedestrian fatalities and serious injuries have skyrocketed 125 percent, according to city data.
First implemented in Sweden in the 1990s, Vision Zero has since been implemented in 40 communities across the U.S., including Portland, Albuquerque and New York City.
Data collected shows the vast majority of pedestrian collisions occur on arterial roads, oftentimes at night with single-sided street lighting.
According to studies presented by the City Manager’s Office, 57% of pedestrian-involved collisions observed occurred outside of a crosswalk and about half of the pedestrians struck by vehicles were impaired by drugs or alcohol, according to Deputy City Manager Mario Paniagua.
Much of those injuries and deaths are concentrated in downtown and the metro Phoenix area, which were identified as “hotspots” by City Manager’s Office officials.
Some of the causes identified by the study was an increase in trucks on the road and distractions related to smartphone use while driving or crossing the street.
City officials said Vision Zero takes an individualized approach based on the community it is implemented in. In some areas, creating safer streets might mean narrowing lanes to discourage speeding and lowering speed limits, especially in pedestrian-prone parts of town.
Council members Sal DiCiccio and Jim Waring were vocally against the proposal and instead advocated for personal responsibility rather than implementing new safety precautions.
“You can’t be intoxicated, crossing a major street at dark not in a crosswalk and expect it’s going to be fine every single time,” said Waring. “That is not a reasonable expectation.”
Warring also advocated for more traffic lights in lieu of the Vision Zero implementation.
Newly elected Mayor Kate Gallego cited Phoenix’s higher than average youth fatality rates.
“We’ve had some real tragedies in this community. We had a young person in the district I used to represent who was killed riding a scooter, and his family feels an additional traffic signal would have saved his life … No parent should ever have to bury their child,” said Gallego.
DiCiccio said he viewed Vision Zero as a way to discourage the use of cars by implementing measures he believes will slow traffic and frustrate drivers. He instead advocated increased spending on repairing existing roadways.
“Just to bring our roads up to standard … we need 1.6 billion dollars … In my district … I need the potholes fixed,” said DiCiccio. “I don’t want to see any more spiderwebs in there. I want my roads to look good … if you end up narrowing these roads … you’re going to lose your quality of life.”
Phoenix resident Ronald Sereny was glad the proposal failed. He is concerned that ramping up enforcement for violations such as jaywalking will disproportionately affect the homeless and poor and will lead to more arrests.
“They can’t make sure everyone is safe … we need to take [the] onus on ourselves,” said Sereny, who in 2018 made an unsuccessful run as a member of the Central Arizona Water Conservation District.
Some who showed up in support of the proposal were confused by the controversy.
“I’m kind of frustrated and confused a little bit,” said C.J. Hager, director of healthy community policies at Vitalyst Health Foundation. “The measure that was being voted on was not to adopt a vision zero framework but it was allowing staff time to do research. It’s kind of frustrating and bewildering why you wouldn’t want to gather more information.”
Contact the reporter at Madeline.Ackley@asu.edu.
Madeline is the community editor for Downtown Devil and is a senior studying at the Walter Cronkite School. She is a local freelance journalist who primarily covers politics, policing, immigration and business. In 2019, she won first place in her category in the national SPJ Mark of Excellence Awards for her reporting on deported veterans in Tijuana, Mexico with Cronkite News.
