WEST HARTFORD, Conn. — The West Hartford mayor announced that she will be introducing the Vision Zero initiative at the upcoming Town Council meeting.
Vision Zero is a strategy to eliminate all traffic fatalities and severe injuries to ensure the safety of the people.
The Town Council meeting is set to take place on Jan. 10.
“Just one traffic-related death or serious injury is too many, but this has been a truly challenging time with numerous accidents, injuries, and deaths. Our goal must be to eliminate these tragedies,” said Mayor Shari Cantor in a statement. “Our streets and public rights of way are what hold our community together, providing connection between neighborhoods and opportunities for healthy mobility.”
The move comes after several fatal pedestrian crashes in West Hartford in recent weeks.
With the implementation of the resolution, the town manager will appoint a vision zero task force, which will include a Community Advisory Committee made up of community stakeholders, and Technical Advisory Committee made up of town staff and technical experts. The Town Manager will regularly make recommendations and report on progress to the Town Council, with a final report due within a year.
Town Manager Rick Ledwith said work to improve traffic safety has been ongoing, and that the Town has already completed or begun a number of street safety initiatives.
“Public safety is always a top priority, and a lot of the work done by the Vision Zero Task Force will complement initiatives the Town is already engaged in,” said Ledwith. “Our hope is to come to the Town Council very quickly with steps that can be taken in the short term that will have an immediate impact, things like tactical urbanism projects. But Vision Zero encourages us to take a human-centered approach to street design, and a major focus of the Vision Zero Task Force involves investigating longer-term infrastructure projects to improve street safety.”
According to Ledwith, the town has successfully engaged in various tactical urbanism projects. These projects are small-scale, low-cost, and temporary as a way to see how street design changes work. These projects include the North Main Street Road Diet; redesigning side streets that intersect with Boulevard just west of West Hartford Center; and experimenting with back-in parking on LaSalle Road.
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