Comment 116196

By kevlahan (registered) | Posted January 20, 2016 at 17:23:06 in reply to Comment 116185

The point about the implicit "optimal number of deaths and injuries" is very important. Sometimes journalists even make this explicit, claiming that traffic deaths and injuries are the inevitable and acceptable price we pay for the (undeniable) benefits of mobility.

Strangely, street design seems to be the last bastion of this way of thinking.

No one would say: "Mining deaths are the inevitable price we pay for a modern economy. There is no point aiming for zero." Or, "Bridges will sometimes collapse ... it would be prohibitively expensive to engineer bridges so they never fall down." Or "People have always died from food poisoning and they always will. It would just be too expensive to try to reduce the number of food poisoning deaths. Besides, they are already much lower than they were 200 years ago."

In each of these cases we already have a de facto vision zero policy (for workplace deaths, integrity of bridges and food safety).

There is no reason that our streets can't be made as safe as other infrastructure or machines or the food we eat.

And focusing on deaths is far too narrow. For each traffic death, there are about 100 injuries (often serious). And, as others have pointed out, complete streets have all sorts of other benefits including higher property values and greater economic activity.

Comment edited by kevlahan on 2016-01-20 17:30:43

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