Vision Zero in Practice: Small Changes That Save Lives
City council, a message from your constituents: get involved or get out of the way
TL;DR: Vision Zero isn't just a lofty goal - it's achievable through specific, proven interventions that are often simple and cost-effective. From quick-build traffic calming to policy changes, this piece explores the tactical urbanism already saving lives in Philadelphia and beyond. The most effective safety measures don't require massive infrastructure overhauls; they require the political will to implement solutions we already know work. Yet Philadelphia's councilmanic prerogative system continues to be one of the biggest obstacles to citywide safety improvements.
When I walk my neighborhood streets, I'm constantly doing mental calculations. How fast is that car approaching? Will that driver see me in the crosswalk? Should I make eye contact or will that somehow make them more likely to speed up?
It's not that I'm paranoid. It's that I'm a pedestrian in a city where, last year alone, 123 people died in traffic crashes.
Vision Zero – the commitment to eliminate all traffic deaths and serious injuries – often gets dismissed as an unrealistic aspiration. As if "people not dying while trying to cross the street" is some pie-in-the-sky dream rather than a basic expectation of urban life.
But here's the thing: Vision Zero isn't some abstract philosophy. It's a set of concrete, proven strategies that work. And many of them are surprisingly simple to implement.
Quick Wins That Actually Work
The good news about traffic safety is that we don't need to invent solutions. We already know what works. And many of the most effective interventions are relatively quick and inexpensive:
Daylighting Intersections
One of the simplest changes with the biggest impact is something called "daylighting" – removing parking spaces near corners so that drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists can actually see each other.
A study from the Portland Bureau of Transportation found that removing just one parking space at each corner of an intersection reduced crashes by up to 30%. That's a remarkable return on investment for simply not allowing cars to park in precisely the place where visibility matters most.
In Philadelphia's neighborhoods like Queen Village and Point Breeze, residents have taken matters into their own hands by placing planters at corners when official infrastructure lags. But imagine if this were standard practice citywide – how many lives might be saved by this one change?
Strategic Road Diets
Another high-impact change is the much-maligned "road diet" – reducing the number of travel lanes to slow speeds and make room for protected bike lanes or wider sidewalks.
When Washington Street in Hoboken implemented a road diet, crashes decreased by 30% overall, with injuries down 40%. This wasn't accomplished by building an elaborate underground transportation network – it was done with paint, flexible posts, and political courage.
In Philadelphia, we saw similar results when the 22nd Street bike lane was protected between South and Lombard. Crashes decreased, and the street became more comfortable for everyone – including careful drivers who just want to get where they're going safely.
Raised Crosswalks
Speed humps get a bad rap, but their more sophisticated cousin – the raised crosswalk – provides a perfect example of design that naturally enforces safe behavior.
By lifting the pedestrian crossing to sidewalk level, cars are physically required to slow down precisely where people are crossing. No police enforcement needed, no speed cameras, just smart design that works 24/7.
If I had to die on a hill, that hill better be a raised crosswalk—in which case I wouldn’t die, because raised crosswalks are so safe.
Anyhow.
Cambridge, MA installed 50 raised crosswalks throughout the city and saw pedestrian crashes decrease by 45% at those locations. The cost? About $10,000 each – far less than the medical costs of even a single serious injury crash.
The Policy Side of Vision Zero
Not all life-saving changes involve concrete and paint. Some of the most important are policy decisions:
20 Is Plenty
Cities worldwide have been reducing default speed limits to 20 mph on residential streets, recognizing a fundamental truth about human physiology: at 20 mph, about 90% of pedestrians survive being hit by a car. At 40 mph, only 10% survive.
When London implemented 20 mph zones, they saw a 42% reduction in road casualties. Edinburgh's citywide 20 mph limit led to a 40% reduction in crashes.
Philadelphia has begun implementing "Slow Zones" in neighborhoods like Fairhill and Tioga, but we could be doing this much more broadly. A citywide reduction to 20 mph on residential streets would save lives while adding only seconds to most trips.
Automated Enforcement
Speed cameras work. They just do. When New York City installed speed cameras in school zones, speeding dropped by over 60%. When Chicago installed them, fatal crashes decreased by 14-19% in the enforcement zones.
Philadelphia's Roosevelt Boulevard speed cameras reduced speeding by 91%. That's not a typo – ninety-one percent.
Yet we still face resistance to expanding this proven technology. The recent tabling of Councilmember Thomas's Safe Streets for Students Act, which would have put speed cameras in school zones across the city, shows we still have work to do in communicating that these aren't cash grabs – they're life-saving tools.
Thankfully it’s now passed out of the Streets Committee, but so help me—if someone defends blocking speeding enforcement on the grounds of “they can’t afford the ticket”, shout from the rooftops: we should also fix that problem. Don’t block good policy because of bad policy. Fix both. Help or get out of the way.
Parking Reform
This might seem tangential to Vision Zero, but how we manage parking has everything to do with safety. When we prioritize curbside storage of private vehicles over visibility and safe infrastructure, we're making a choice that costs lives.
Philadelphia's parking-protected bike lanes on JFK Boulevard reduced crashes by 36% while ensuring that not a single parking space was lost. Just by moving the parking lane between the bike lane and traffic, we created a safer street for everyone.
The Councilmanic Roadblock
Perhaps the single greatest obstacle to implementing Vision Zero measures in Philadelphia isn't technical or financial – it's our system of councilmanic prerogative.
For those unfamiliar, councilmanic prerogative is the unwritten rule that gives district council members near-absolute power over land use and street design decisions in their districts. No bike lane, no intersection redesign, no pedestrian plaza happens without the local councilperson's approval.
No really. All councilmembers spend their time one by one introducing these pieces of legislation and reviewing them. In the best case, where they’re passing helpful changes, it’s a waste of time for legislators to do the work our infrastructure professionals are hired and trained for.
The way it pans out, this system creates a patchwork approach to safety that fundamentally undermines Vision Zero's comprehensive philosophy. A street can have protected bike lanes in one councilmember's district, only to have them disappear at the district boundary – creating exactly the kind of disconnected network that fails to attract riders and protect lives.
The Washington Avenue saga exemplifies this problem perfectly. After years of community engagement and planning for a road diet with protected bike lanes, one councilmember's opposition completely derailed the project. What was eventually implemented was a compromised design that maintains unsafe conditions on significant portions of the corridor.
(KJ, I am looking for follow through from your promising speech at the Vision Zero conference. I’m optimistic, but I gotta see those eggs hatch.)
This isn't how Vision Zero works in successful cities. Oslo didn't achieve zero pedestrian deaths by letting each neighborhood decide whether safety was important. They implemented a comprehensive, citywide approach based on data and best practices.
As long as any single councilmember can veto safety improvements in their district – often based on complaints from a vocal minority about parking or traffic – Philadelphia will struggle to achieve the cohesive, connected safe street network we need.
The irony is that councilmembers often oppose these measures thinking they're representing their constituents, when surveys consistently show strong majority support for safety improvements. A recent poll found that 68% of Philadelphians support protected bike lanes, and 71% support measures to reduce speeding in residential areas.
Breaking through this roadblock will require leadership from the council as a whole, perhaps establishing minimum safety standards that override individual prerogative when it comes to Vision Zero implementation. Until then, we'll continue seeing life-saving measures deployed inconsistently across the city, with deadly consequences.
The Neighborhood Scale
Some of the most promising Vision Zero work is happening at the neighborhood level, where residents are taking the initiative to create safer streets:
Community-Led Traffic Calming
Remember that Fishtown street I mentioned in a previous piece, where neighbors installed their own speed bump after the city declined their request? That's just one example of communities stepping up when official channels move too slowly.
In West Philly, neighbors have created "slow blocks" with signs, planters, and even street murals that naturally encourage drivers to slow down. The Philly Slow Zone in Tioga resulted from years of community organizing and is finally being implemented.
These grassroots efforts show that Vision Zero isn't just about top-down policy – it's about what neighbors can do together to create safer streets.
School Zones as Safety Zones
One of the most obvious places to start with Vision Zero is around our schools. Every school day, hundreds of thousands of children navigate Philadelphia's streets. Making these journeys safe should be non-negotiable.
Barcelona's "School Streets" program closes streets around schools to through traffic during arrival and dismissal times. The result? Nitrogen dioxide levels dropped by 22%, and children could walk and bike to school without fear.
Similar programs in New York and London have shown that temporary closures around schools create safer environments without causing traffic Armageddon. Philadelphia could implement this tomorrow if we had the will to do so.
From Tactical to Permanent
Perhaps the most encouraging trend in Vision Zero implementation is the rise of "tactical urbanism" – quick, low-cost interventions that can be tested, evaluated, and made permanent if successful.
The pandemic-era outdoor dining setups that took over parking spaces showed us how quickly we can reimagine street space when there's political will. Many cities are applying this same rapid-implementation approach to safety measures.
New York's emergency protected bike lane program deploys concrete barriers and planters within days of deadly crashes. Oakland's "Slow Streets" program used simple barricades and signs to create a network of pedestrian-priority streets in a matter of weeks.
Philadelphia has dipped its toe in these waters with pilot projects like the recent Washington Avenue redesign, but we could be moving much faster and more boldly.
The Bottom Line: Vision Zero Works When We Actually Do It
The fundamental truth about Vision Zero is that it works when it's actually implemented. It fails when it remains a slogan without action.
Cities that have seen dramatic reductions in traffic deaths – Oslo (zero pedestrian and cyclist deaths in 2019), Helsinki (zero pedestrian deaths in 2019), Amsterdam (reducing deaths by over 70% since the 1970s) – didn't achieve this through declarations. They did it through consistent, widespread implementation of the kinds of measures I've described.
What's stopping Philadelphia? It's not technical knowledge. It's not even primarily funding, as many of these interventions are relatively inexpensive. It's political will, priority-setting, and our fragmented decision-making system that lets a single voice drown out the city's collective need for safety.
When Kenyatta Johnson stood at that Vision Zero conference and pledged to fight for more funding, he was acknowledging that we know what works. The question is whether we value human life enough to implement it consistently across the entire city, not just in districts where councilmembers happen to support it.
Every time we wait, more people die unnecessarily. Every time we choose free parking over daylighting an intersection, we're making a choice about whose safety matters. Every time we allow a road design that encourages speeding through residential neighborhoods, we're deciding that convenience matters more than children's lives.
Vision Zero isn't some utopian dream. It's a practical approach that's working wherever it's actually tried. The question for Philadelphia isn't whether we can achieve it – it's whether we're willing to make the small changes that add up to saved lives, and whether we're ready to reform a governance system that currently privileges local objections over citywide safety.
Let's make traffic deaths suck less by making Vision Zero real in practice, not just in speeches.