CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The city of Charlotte continues to see major growth with more drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists on the roads.
In an effort to strengthen its commitment to safe travel for everyone, the city adopted “Vision Zero” in 2018. The goal of this initiative is to eliminate traffic-related deaths and serious injuries in the region.
According to 2017 crash data, there were, on average, 73 crashes a data on city streets. People walking and bicycling were found to be involved in less than 3% of all crashes but were involved in 44% of all fatalities.
Pedestrians are more vulnerable to being seriously hurt or lose their lives in crashes. According to city officials, there were 27 deadly pedestrian crashes in 2017. That number reached 32 in 2019 and dropped to 19 in 2022.
Fencil said one traffic-related death is one too many.
“Distracted driving is at an all-time high, people using their cellphones while driving and our vehicles are getting larger and larger so that means more inertia when a person is hit,” Fencil said. "Larger vehicles hit a person higher on the body ... they are more likely to cause serious damage to a person's body."
The organization was part of the efforts to first bring the movement to the Queen City after a young girl lost her life.
“An 11-year-old girl was hit and killed by a car while she was crossing West Boulevard to get a snack with a friend,” Fencil. said “We got together with residents and brought it to city council to say to take Vision Zero seriously.”
It’s an initiative that started in Sweden and has made its way to dozens of cities in the U.S. The project implements systematic strategies to reduce risky behaviors through infrastructure improvements.
“We have a lot of streets that don’t have crosswalks or sidewalks, or signalized intersections,” Fencil said. “So, there is now money added to the budget for Vision Zero to build those types of features that make it safer for a person to use our streets.”
Sustain Charlotte fired off a letter to city leaders "to not abandon vision zero" sharing concerns of a discussion at a Transportation, Planning, and Development meeting earlier this month. Members talked about ways to better evaluate its performance and it was the use of the word “reduce” rather than “eliminate” traffic-related deaths that raised some eyebrows for the organization.
“The founders of the Vision Zero movement were very intentional about using the word eliminate instead of reduce because zero is the only acceptable goal,” she said.
Charlotte city councilman and the committee’s chairman, Ed Driggs said they suggested the use of the word “reduce” traffic fatalities rather than “eliminate” to better measure performance among their teams.
“Since we are putting this new emphasis on performance and metrics and demonstrated success, we have to establish a criteria that is measurable,” Driggs said.
He adds this would be for internal use only.
“You’d like it to be zero but when you get down to the reality of actually being accountable and measuring how successful you’ve been, you have to have a target to aim at,” said Driggs. “So, you can say I did better this time than that and that is what it was all about… otherwise you will always essentially fail.”
Driggs said there are no plans to change the language or message of Vision Zero at large. He said the commitment remains the same.
However, Sustain Charlotte said the message across the board needs to also stay the same. Fencil adds sticking with elimination holds the city to a higher standard.
“It is a little bit of a nuance, I know we are not going to get to zero overnight, but abandoning the word eliminate weakens the overall commitment to the vision,” Fencil said.
Sustain Charlotte said there’s a lot of work that needs to be done to make the streets safer for everyone who uses them, and they are committed to making sure it stays a priority in the city.
Charlotte City Council, at-large member Dimple Ajmera reaffirmed her commitment to the initiative and sent this statement.
“Every life lost on our streets is a tragedy. Behind each statistic is a beloved son or daughter, parent, sibling, or friend. We must do better to protect our most vulnerable residents, including our children, seniors, and those walking or biking. That's why I'm so committed to our Vision Zero initiative.”
Contact Jesse Pierre at jpierrepet@wcnc.com or follow her on Facebook, X and Instagram.