The Cost of Vision Zero

On the agenda of the December 3rd city council meeting was the issue of the Rancho Arroyo Parkway and Niles Blvd street design. For this particular meeting the focus was on these two streets, but this is actually part of a larger issue that is fundamentally changing Fremont as we know it. The issue I am referring to is the Vision Zero project, which is tied in with the Fremont General Plan.

The Vision Zero initiative is the reason why we have all seen fundamental changes to the streets of Fremont. These changes, which include bulb outs at corners, wider and more prominent bike lanes, narrower lanes in our streets, plastic road dividers, and all the other changes that have taken place to our roads and are reshaping how people commute.

Vision Zero is an initiative that has been adopted by multiple cities across America, based on a model initially developed in Sweden. The basic idea is that through road engineering, enhanced enforcement, and driver education serious accidents and fatalities can be completely eliminated.

Eliminating traffic accidents is a laudable goal. Every life senselessly lost in a traffic accident is a tragedy. Even in accidents without fatalities, every injury a person sustains is catastrophic to both that person, as well as their family. As a society, we must do everything we can to prevent needless accidents.

Fremont is not alone in adopting Vision Zero. Many cities have adopted it. Hundreds of millions of tax dollars have been spent nationally on this program.

The basic tenet of Vision Zero is to calm the flow traffic and our roads are being rebuilt to do just that. Traffic calming is the euphemism commonly used with Vision Zero initiatives to mean, slowing. At its core, Vision Zero is about slowing traffic.

As Fremont is being transformed, it seems prudent to look at the results thus far. Vision Zero was adopted by Fremont, as it was by all of the cities that chose to implement this program, without a previous track record to judge its effectiveness. These measures were effective in Sweden, but that is not correlative. As a society, America has alternative transportation modalities than Europe, different urban and suburban designs, as well as a history and relationship with our vehicles that is unique in the world. There is no correlation between the traffic in Sweden and America.

So, as we continue to see our city transformed and our tax dollars spent, it seems prudent to look at what we are getting for our efforts. Is Vision Zero having the desired effect?

Nationally, a recent Citylab report on November 21 made an analysis of five cites, based on size and geographic diversity, that were among the first to adopt Vision Zero. Those cities are Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, and New York. The report states that of these cities, since adopting Vision Zero, the first three have seen fatality rates either stay flat or rise. The last two, have seen a decline, but the report also notes that they have seen fatalities start to creep up again. The report also mentions Vision Zero cities Austin and San Jose, which have seen an increase in fatalities since adoption, and Seattle where fatality rates have remained flat.

Further, another report highlights that in Los Angeles, the spike in pedestrian fatalities since enacting Vision Zero has been significant. In the 13 years before Vision Zero, Los Angeles averaged 84 pedestrian fatalities per year. Since enacting Vision Zero, Los Angeles had 135 pedestrian fatalities in 2017 and 128 in 2018.

To reiterate, seven of the nine cities studied had fatality rates either remain flat or go up since Vision Zero was enacted. At least one had fatality rates go up considerably. Given the hundreds of millions of dollars spent nationally on Vision Zero, that seems a poor return on our investment.

But what of Fremont? All of those in the report are major urban cities, completely unlike our quiet, suburban community. How has Fremont fared? The results are mixed. At the city council meeting, city staff presented results and focused on the decline in severe injury accidents in Fremont. However, while the number of reported accidents is down, the number of fatalities has remained flat. In fact, while admittedly not a statistically significant delta, it is notable that the year with the highest single number of fatalities shown came after Vision Zero was enacted.

So how are we to judge Vision Zero? Nationally, it has not been very effective, but that really doesn’t matter. What matters is, has it been worth the cost to Fremont? To answer that we must look at other factors, such as, are lives being lost because the slowing of traffic and narrowing of lanes is impacting the response times of emergency services? Does it now take longer for ambulances, fire, and police to respond to emergencies? There are no definitive numbers, but the answer appears to be yes.

While there are no specific numbers available for Fremont, a September 19 article in the New York Post reported that the FDNY response times are up. According to the article, “average response times to life-threatening medical emergencies by ambulances rose by 26 seconds over the past year from 6:55 to 7:23. Fire companies saw a six-second increase, from 4:42 to 4:48.”

The Uniformed Firefighters Association directly attributes this to Vision Zero. Similar issues have been reported in other cities. According to one report. “Firefighters, paramedics, and police officers in Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Seattle, Oakland, New York, Boston, and elsewhere have confirmed…that lane reductions, particularly so-called “road diets,” have increased their response times dramatically.”

Further, according to Randal O'Toole, senior fellow with the Cato Institute and author of Gridlock: Why We’re Stuck in Traffic and What to Do About It:

“Americans suffer almost ten times as many sudden cardiac arrests as traffic fatalities. If emergency medical technicians reach someone within four minutes of a sudden cardiac arrest, their chances of survival are better than 60 percent, but if it takes five minutes or more, survival drops below 30 percent.

Studies have found that for every pedestrian whose life might be saved by slowing traffic, anywhere from 35 to 85 people will die from sudden cardiac arrest due to delayed emergency response. This doesn’t even count other medical emergencies, structure fires, or other emergency service needs.”

So how much does Vision Zero cost? Fremont does not explicitly call out the amount spent on Vision Zero, but it is implemented through the Public Works department, which saw a fiscal 2017/2018 budget of just over $29M increase to over $35M for FY 2019/2020. Just under half of this total budget is allocated to engineering, which includes Vision Zero. This does not include the monies for street maintenance and repair, which went from $3.7M to $4.3M during the same period.

All of these numbers reflect a national trend. American cities are spending millions of dollars on Vision Zero, with the result being an increase in the response times of services to life threatening emergencies and no measurable decrease in the number of fatalities that Vision Zero was intended to produce.

We must do everything we can to prevent needless traffic accidents and fatalities. The money, however much, doesn’t matter in the end. Lives do. But if the price is millions of dollars and even more lives lost, then the cost is too great.

It is time to rethink Vision Zero. Our lives just might depend on it.

https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2019/11/vision-zero-data-traffic-deaths-pedestrians-cyclist-safety/601831/

https://www.newgeography.com/content/006418-new-york-city-firefighters-union-calls-out-vision-zero-bike-lanes-and-road-diets

https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/congestion-kills-so-why-are-politicians-making-it-worse