[Lauren Grove] It happens everywhere, it happens to
everybody, and it happens in really alarming numbers. If we
start to take that same lens to traffic pass that we do
other public health crises, that starts to get us to the
prevention which is far more effective than continuously
reacting to a crash where somebody dies, and that�s just we
do not want to see that anymore.
[Laura Whitley] Saving lives by the thousands, ending deaths
and serious injuries on Houston roadways. That is the goal
Vision Zero Houston has set out to meet.
[Music]
[Male] The Next Stop.
[Female] The Next Stop.
[Male] The Next Stop.
[Male] METRO�s Podcast.
[Music]
[Laura Whitley] I�m Laura Whitley in this edition of The
Next Stop what you need to know about Vision Zero Houston,
simple action steps so you can get involved and start saving
lives. We're joined now by Lauren Grove, who is a
Transportation Planner from the City of Houston and really
leading the effort when it comes to developing the city's
Vision Zero plan. Lauren, thank you for joining The Next
Stop.
[Lauren Grove] Thanks for having me here.
[Laura Whitley] Vision-Zero-Houston, it's an extremely
powerful life saving initiative. Can you tell us more about
it?
[Lauren Grove] Yeah, absolutely. Vision Zero started in
Sweden, so as you mentioned, it's a global strategy. It
started in Sweden in the 90s, and has been adopted around
the world and about 45 cities in the US. When I say adopted,
I mean they formally commit to Vision Zero, which is a
strategy to end traffic deaths and serious injuries. It
really focuses on making our streets safer and making them
safer for everyone, so people walking, biking, driving,
connecting to transit using a wheelchair, it's focusing on
how we can improve our streets for everybody and making it
safer for people of all ages and abilities to get where they
need to go and return home safely. The goal is that we end
traffic deaths and serious injuries because no one should
die on roadways. No loss of life is acceptable. We can
actually through a variety of different strategies like
street design and community engagement, prevent people from
dying on our roadways. That's really the core of Vision Zero
is shifting our mindset to think about traffic safety that
no one should die on our roadways, and we can prevent tragic
incidences like that from happening.
[Laura Whitley] This idea, in some way seems very profound,
but it's very simple in the sense. I remember becoming in
early -- the early years of driving. One of the things that
sticks out most vividly is being at a high school and there'
s like a car that's all smashed up there, and they were sort
of trying to, I think, educate young drivers about prevent -
- not drinking and driving. But it sort of also reinforced
the idea that like accidents and, perhaps, fatal accidents
or crashes are just part of the experience of being on our
roadways. What Vision Zero is saying is, it's not, it's not
just because people are driving doesn't mean that loss of
life is inevitable.
[Lauren Grove] Absolutely, yeah. It took me a minute to
really wrap my head around this idea. When I first learned
about Vision Zero, you sort of hear ending traffic deaths
and serious injuries and you kind of have to take a step
back and really think about the significance there and
recognize the problem that so many people are dying on our
roadways, and we really don't think twice about it. That's
part of the strategy too, is shifting our culture and our
mindset to realize that problem that that's not okay. We
should not accept these numbers that are happening in large
amounts in cities, everywhere in the US. There are so many
things that we can do as individuals just recognizing our
responsibility on the road every day, and as organizations
and entities that can really make our streets safer. I
mentioned street design, that's a really, really big part of
it is how we come together to recognize. We haven't really
designed our streets in a way that does prevent people from
dying. But I think that first step of just recognizing the
problem, and recognizing that that's not okay is so
important.
[Laura Whitley] Absolutely. Now this paradigm shift for
Houston in this charge to develop Houston Vision Zero
started with at least in a public way with Mayor Sylvester
Turner's Vision Zero executive order just over a year ago.
Can you tell me a bit about that, and then what's kind of
gone on in this past year?
[Lauren Grove] In August of 2019, Mayor Turner signed an
executive order to adopt Vision Zero. That's a really
important step for cities to be a part of the Vision Zero
network is to make a formal adoption to Vision Zero, this
commitment that you're going to build a strategy around.
Mayor Turner did that in August of 2019, which also put in
place a few steps of how we're going to come up with a plan
in a year. One of that is bringing people to the table who
have a big role in our streets and in our transportation
system, entities like METRO, and TxDOT, and H-GAC and Harris
County, as well as city departments and other agencies like
LINK Houston and BikeHouston, so really putting in place
people that do have a role in street safety. We've been
meeting as groups and as subcommittees looking at crash
data, thinking about how we communicate this out.
In the past year to think of how does all of this fit
together? How do the plans that exist in Houston that relate
to transportation and street safety, how does that fit into
Vision Zero? How do we get these things to talk to each
other and use the resources that we have to get the biggest
impact? That's all coming together in Vision Zero action
plan, which will target specific locations where we're
seeing the most traffic deaths and serious injuries. We'll
think about communication and community engagement, how
street safety looks in every neighborhood is going to be
different, and that we need to be talking to our community
members about that. They know better their streets than we
do, and so how do we target measures there?
[Laura Whitley] It's not a one size fits all approach.
[Lauren Grove] Exactly, yeah. There are certain common
things that will be the basis of the plan. But this is just
the start to thinking about what it looks like on the
ground, and our communities are a key part of that. That
draft plan is coming together now. We're starting to see
some draft actions that have been made available to the
public online. It's actually up right now at www.
visionzerohouston.com, and people can view where the draft
actions are right now. We're hoping to incorporate all of
that feedback and come out with another draft version
towards the end of this month. We should have a plan that is
really going to help us start moving forward on this
paradigm shift and reach the goal by 2030, which is also
what Mayor Turner has signed into an executive order as
well, so ending traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2030.
[Laura Whitley] Ending them.
[Lauren Grove] Ending them. Yes.
[Laura Whitley] In terms of -- although you certainly have
been working with all of these partner agencies, such as
METRO, TxDOT, the others that you mentioned. You also --
another part of this component has been a large public
outreach role. Could you share that and I understand folks
can still get involved with that.
[Lauren Grove] Yeah, and I think there's a part of this that
needs to be recognized of the time that we're in, right. We'
re in the midst of COVID-19, which has limited our outreach
efforts in a way that we can't reach everybody who is not
plugged in, who's not dialed in to the internet in this
virtual world. That's something we are definitely aware of
and thinking of ways. As I mentioned this is just the start,
so thinking of ways moving forward, how we can reach people
who may not be wired right now, because it's just such a
big, big thing to convey, there are so many components to
it. The more outreach that we have, the better we can
connect with people and hear their story, too.
I think, often times we look at crash data and think, okay
there's a lot of problems occurring in this location, let's
target that. But then we miss out on the community's
perspective where streets and intersections that they're
avoiding because they don't feel safe. Where are potentially
crashes that happen that they've seen that maybe don't get
reported, or maybe they've seen people nearly get hit. We
need to hear from our communities in that way. That's why
that outreach is so important.
We have a few ways people can give us feedback online. We
have an interactive map tool, where you can actually go and
place a pin on a street or an intersection and you can say,
I have a safety concern, as a person walking. You can place
a pin on the street and say, there's no sidewalks here,
there's no street lighting, things like that. That
interactive map tool, I think, we have about 1300 pins
placed so far.
[Laura Whitley] People can go and really identify
specifically like this corner down the street from the
grocery store I go to, this is the worst, and they put a pin
and let you all know what's going on, correct?
[Lauren Grove] Yeah, yeah. We've identified it -- you can do
it as somebody driving in a lot of -- across the board, I
think, by the mode, so if you're somebody driving, if you're
walking, biking, using a wheelchair, you can place this pin
on any anywhere in Houston. Actually Harris County who's
also doing a Vision Zero effort has the map on their
website, so it's Harris County, too. But you can -- anywhere
and any concern, we need to know that, that's really, really
vital information, because that does not get captured in a
crash report. I don't know how else we would find out that
information. That's necessary and part of our effort,
because if people don't feel safe, walking, biking, driving,
they're not going to get out, they're not going to explore
their neighborhood. They're not going to feel like they
belong even if they just are avoiding places that feel
dangerous. It's really important for us to know that from
the community. That map is going to be up indefinitely so
that will be part of the action plan. But moving forward,
we're going to keep that map on our website indefinitely.
[Laura Whitley] Then how will that, the information and data
that you collect on that map be used?
[Lauren Grove] I think right now what we're going to do is
pair that with where crashes are occurring and just see,
okay, yeah, a lot of people are saying it's a concern and we
see that concern with crash data, so that's a first step.
That would likely bump that up on this is a priority
location, not only because there are a lot of crashes here,
but also more importantly, because a lot of people are
saying it's dangerous.
[Laura Whitley] For some type of redesign, traffic
evaluation, all of those plan or study things that y�all do?
[Lauren Grove] Right, yeah, so I'll -- so yeah, that's a
good point. What we would want to do is find these priority
locations and then say, okay, we need to do a combination of
things to improve the street. The number one thing is how
can we create this street or intersection to be safer for
everybody? If it has eight lanes, that's something that we
need to address, because eight lanes is a long way for
people walking or in a wheelchair to cross. We need to be
thinking about, is that really feasible for somebody to
expect them to get across eight lanes of vehicle traffic?
Are there things like the time that we are allowing people
to cross, is that sufficient? Do they have enough time? If
I'm an older person, do they have enough time to cross the
street? Do we need to be thinking about the speed limit?
Absolutely, yes, speed is a huge component of that. We think
about all of the elements of that area.
The community is saying it's a problem, we are seeing a lot
of crashes here. We need to think about what is surrounding
the area? Where are people trying to go? What is the land
use? Is it a lot of commercial? Is it residential? Then what
do the streets look like? Wide, fast streets where cars are
just zooming through, we need to address that. Right, as we
start to look at those priority locations that rise to the
top, we then start to think about those improvements that we
make through street design. Maybe there's education that
needs to happen in conjunction with the street design. If we
are improving that intersection, the community is aware of
what's different now and how we're able to improve safety.
That's really important.
[Laura Whitley] You know one thing as you're talking that
comes to mind is I know that from working in public transit,
it really forced me sometimes to get out of my car and use
my city streets and sidewalks in a different way than I
might have previously. It really changes your perspective on
the design, and just how -- what's available, the safety and
all of that. It sounds like you're really trying to ask the
community, please share your experience and let us all know,
those of us who maybe don't have that perspective or
opportunity.
[Lauren Grove] Absolutely, yeah. I think it's really easy
for us to think in that one frame of mind, because that's
how we operate every day and forget about the myriad of
other ways people are moving around, and forget that. Mostly
at the end of the day, all of us are pedestrians, we take a
few steps to our car, even from our house to our driveway
perhaps, or, yeah, getting off the bus and walking to your
job. We're all users of this transportation system but it's
so easy to forget that, and so that's what I'm trying to
capture is like, we need to hear from everybody no matter
how you get around and no matter where you are at in
Houston, we need to know if we're going to make this
successful and comprehensive, we need to know who's moving
and how and where they feel unsafe.
[Laura Whitley] This is really a proactive approach. I mean,
in the past, there might be some change to certain areas if
there was a tragic accident or something like that in terms
of the way you found out. This Vision Zero is about
preventing all of that.
[Lauren Grove] I think that it's really, really tough to
improve straight safety if we are being so reactive to
everything, and it's just not working. I think a lot of
cities who've adopted this approach and sort of focus on
prevention see it much like they see other public health
issues, like, when we think about cancer and a number of
research, the amount of research and hours and resources
that go towards preventing cancer. Then you look at traffic
deaths in the same way and you just really don't see much of
that. We don't think about it like a public health issue.
But it totally is. It happens everywhere, it happens to
everybody, and it happens in really alarming numbers. If we
start to take that same lens to traffic deaths that we do
other public health crises, that starts to get us to the
prevention which is far more effective than continuously
reacting to a crash where somebody dies, and that�s just we
do not want to see that anymore.
[Laura Whitley] I'm glad you brought up the numbers and the
data. Let's talk a little bit about that. Let's talk about
the numbers. What is the reality right now for Houston
roadways?
[Lauren Grove] I think probably most people know that
Houston is a dangerous place to be using our streets. There'
s a series of articles that Dug Begley in the Houston
Chronicle came out with five parts of a series called Out of
Control where he actually looked at data in Houston Metro
area compared it to other Metros in the US and found that
Houston's roads are the most deadly when you look at traffic
deaths per capita, and so that starts to sort of tell the
story about Houston. I think we all know anecdotally, we all
want to see it improve. Right now, if we look at the City of
Houston in the last five years from 2014 to 2018, it's the
timeframe the action plan is focusing on. We're seeing that
about every 40 hours, somebody dies in a traffic crash in
Houston.
[Laura Whitley] So that's basically every other day is what
you're saying?
[Lauren Grove] Every other day, yep. Every other day someone
dies in a traffic crash. When we look at serious injuries,
so injuries where it's really hard for somebody to walk
away, like, they have to go to the hospital. We're seeing
three people every day suffer from serious injuries in
traffic crashes in Houston. Then you think about the impact
of those lives lost on friends and family, you think about
the impact of serious injuries and not being able to return
to work right away and just carry out daily routines, and
the impact goes beyond just those numbers. It's something
that I think we're trying to address this holistically. We
have to start looking at crash data to identify the problem.
It's really becoming sort of like -- you don't want to just
focus on those numbers, you have to start somewhere and we
need to recognize how many people are dying in Houston every
day. I think that's part of the problem too is really being
able to speak to those lives lost. I mean, we can't have any
more of that.
I think, just additionally, I think people would just want
to feel safe in Houston, and so this is trying to address
that. I do want to point out something that other cities are
looking at right now because of COVID, and that is we know
that there were far fewer cars on the road because
everybody's working from home, and you're seeing traffic
volumes decrease. You're kind of thinking like, oh I bet
there are fewer people dying --
[Crosstalk] yeah, yeah.
[Laura Whitley] Fewer crashes.
[Lauren Grove] Right. But we are seeing fewer car crashes.
However, we are seeing more traffic deaths on our roadways
during this time. If we look at data compared to 2019, 2018,
2017, going all the way back to 2014, between March and
August, we're seeing more fatalities than those previous
years with the exception of 2019. 2019 was -- we had about
120 traffic deaths during that March to August period. Right
now there are about 110 traffic deaths. Even though traffic
volumes are down, fewer cars on the road, we're seeing more
people dying in crashes. A lot of that is you have these
wide roadways, you have fewer cars on the road, so people
want to speed and swerve and this and that's a big
contributor here. I think other cities are seeing the same
thing. They're seeing the exact same alarmingly traffic
deaths increase from previous years, even though there are
fewer cars on the road.
[Laura Whitley] In that awareness and kind of bringing it
back to what's going on right now, it sounds like then if
you're talking about single car accidents and speed really
being a factor in these accidents, it sounds like there's
definitely some personal responsibility that's involved with
drivers. I know one of the components that Vision Zero
Houston is sharing and asking the community to engage in is
to look at the intake the Vision Zero pledge. Could you
share that with me?
[Lauren Grove] Yeah, definitely. I think you said it
perfectly that we all have an individual responsibility to
share our street safely and to take that responsibility
however we move around that, my actions contribute to safer
streets. One way that we can start to have that conversation
is asking people to take a pledge to help us end traffic
deaths and serious injuries, and acknowledge their role in
traffic safety. We have a pledge on our website www.
visionzerohouston.com that anyone can take. It's about five
items that you can say that you pledge not to drive
distracted, so no texting and driving, only drive while you'
re driving. We also have an item in there about not driving
impaired or under the influence. We know that's a really big
problem in Harris County and in Houston is driving impaired.
Anything that we can do for people to recognize that the
pledge is one of those ways. We also just have recognition
of sharing the streets that it's not just for one person or
one mode. It's for everybody.
[Laura Whitley] I know that that draft Vision Zero action
plan is due to release at the end of September, I believe,
September 30th. But can you give us a -- just a preview of -
- and I know you said some of it�s already available on the
website, some of the components of that plan, and just what
-- if people want to engage and get involved, what they need
to do?
[Lauren Grove] As you mentioned online, there are the draft
action items, and these are things that we want the public
feedback on. We want to hear does this make sense? Does this
get us where we need to go? Is it measurable? We don't want
something that says make our street safe for people walking.
We need to really get into the meat of how do we do that? We
have to create things that we can measure like, well let's
fill 25 blocks of sidewalk gaps every year. That's how we
started to get to making it safer for people to walk in
identifying that there are lots of gaps in sidewalks in
Houston that creates a problem that forces people to maybe
have to walk in the street or elsewhere that's unsafe.
There's one thing that we can measure, did we fill those 25
blocks or not. Another is equity, how are we going to invest
in communities that have been historically under invested or
under resourced, also where there's a lot of traffic deaths
and serious injuries happening. We really need to think
about how this is an equitable approach. But then we
identify specifically make walking and biking safe, make
driving safe and make connecting to transit safe. These are
based on largely what we heard from our agencies and
communities about where they would like to focus efforts.
You can see actions to do those things, to make walking and
biking safe, to make connecting to transit safe. All of that
is available on our website, you can just go to www.
visionzerohouston.com and there's a link there to view the
actions and you can contribute to the discussion.
[Laura Whitley] Although there's going to be a draft plan
released by the end of September, you're still wanting
people from the community to engage and provide feedback.
[Lauren Grove] Basically, there will be another opportunity
for people to view these actions again, and provide
comments, you can still provide comments now. We're just
trying to take it all as much as we can get.
[Laura Whitley] Got it, got it. Is there anything else that
you think is important for the community? This is a podcast
so it sort of lives forever just to know and understand
about Houston Vision Zero.
[Lauren Grove] Yeah, I think it's a start to a very
necessary conversation, commitment and strategy to make it
safe for everyone, people walking, biking, driving, using
transit, using a wheelchair, however you move around. This
is the strategy to make it safe for everyone in Houston to
get where they're going, and to enjoy streets to see streets
as places, to see streets as a way to gather or distance or
streets as a place to protest and express. I mean, this is
really -- this is about a long term shift in how we think
about street safety and transportation in Houston.
I know people want to see things done like yesterday, like
this absolute -- and I'm absolutely with them, like there
are things that needed been done years ago to make our
streets safer. This plan could not come out soon enough. I
think it's important to know that it is a long term
commitment to street safety, and there are things we can do
quickly, there are things that are going to take a while
longer. But this is a start to shifting it in a direction
that makes it safe in Houston for everybody.
[Laura Whitley] I know you are helping lead this effort, but
this is really for everyone, and the tagline I think in on
your logo really says that, Our Streets, Our Lives, Our
Commitment.
[Lauren Grove] Absolutely, yeah. It's interesting because
people keep saying like this is your project, this is your
baby. I was like, well we've already failed if that's the
view, because there really has to be ours. I can't say it
enough, this is like so many people's responsibility here to
make our streets safer. Everybody, all the agencies,
partners, city departments really have a role in this and so
that commitment to the strategy to implementing it is really
on all of us.
[Laura Whitley] Again, the website that listeners can visit
to get more information and take the pledge.
[Lauren Grove] Yep. So the website is www.visionzerohouston.
com and there's a variety of ways to get involved. You can
take the Vision Zero pledge, which is a link right on the
Vision Zero Houston website. You can use our interactive map
tool to place a pin on any street or intersection in Houston
and say, I do not feel safe here and here's why. You can
take our survey which is on there and help us prioritize
efforts, like what do you want the city to do first? What
should the very first thing that we do? What do you want it
to be? You can also just email us, its mobility.planning@
houston.tx.gov or give us a call 832-393-6660. Yes, this is
just the start of it.
[Laura Whitley] Well, we'll have to revisit this again on
The Next Stop and thank you so much for your effort and
helping to bring Vision Zero Houston to the forefront and
develop it. Again, this is a team effort. Lauren Grove,
Vision Zero Houston, City of Houston, traffic planner, we
truly appreciate your coming today.
[Lauren Grove] Thank you so much, Laura. I really
appreciated talking about the work.
[Music]
[Laura Whitley] That�s all for this edition of The Next
Stop. I'm Laura Whitley. If you'd like to check out more
episodes, you can find them on our website or subscribe on
Apple podcast, SoundCloud, Spotify, or Google Play. Until
next time, drive less, do more with METRO.
[Music]