Does Vision Zero lower vehicle involved deaths?

Vision Zero originated in Sweden in the 1990s as a community-centered framework that treats traffic deaths as preventable system failures rather than inevitable collisions. It leverages street design, speed management and enforcement, data and a culture of accountability and education to target zero vehicle deaths annually. Once implemented, traffic deaths there fell by more than 50% even as population and travel increased. 

In New York City between 2014-23, pedestrian deaths declined by 40% to 45%. That reduction coincided directly with lowering the citywide speed limit from 30 mph to 25 mph, installing more than 2,000 speed cameras, redesigning hundreds of high-injury intersections, installing more than 600 miles of protected bicycle and bus lanes, and prioritizing enforcement in school zones. On streets with speed cameras, speeding violations dropped by roughly 60%.

After Hoboken, New Jersey, adopted Vision Zero in 2014, the 53,000-population city implemented a citywide 20-mph speed limit, eliminated most right turns on red, daylighted intersections, and rapidly deployed curb extensions and bike infrastructure. Today, Hoboken has gone eight consecutive years without a single traffic-related fatality, when prior to 2014, the city experienced five traffic related deaths in five years, similar to San Mateo.

“Zero traffic deaths in eight years is the result of safety being prioritized first, above all else,” notes Safe Routes to School advocate Allison MacQueen. 

Austin, Texas, Orlando, Florida, and Madison, Wisconsin, have similar stories. When these cities shifted from planning to implementation, the numbers moved. On corridors that received Vision Zero redesigns, traffic deaths and serious injuries fell by 30% to 40%. Speed management alone produced immediate reductions in serious incidents. Pedestrian and cyclist deaths dropped most sharply on streets that were redesigned rather than merely re-signed. 

Back home, the city of San Mateo passed Vision Zero in 2015 through its Sustainable Streets Plan, explicitly stating that no loss of life is acceptable, and wrote Vision Zero into the 2040 General Plan in 2024. With added complexity like seven lanes of El Camino Real and its state jurisdiction cutting through this and most cities up and down the Peninsula, San Mateo has focused investments on the other highest priority areas. Since then, the city has lowered speed limits around public schools, implemented seven-second leading pedestrian intervals in crosswalks downtown, and continues to focus on high-injury corridors like 19th Avenue/Fashion Island Boulevard, Delaware Street, Humboldt Street, Third Avenue/Norfolk Street, and Alameda de Las Pulgas.

On data — from 2015-25, nearly two-thirds of the 331 crashes inside city limits were due to vehicles making a turn when the pedestrian had the right of way, whereas countywide, pedestrian right of way represented 1.74% and unsafe speed was the largest reason representing 34% of crashes involving vehicles. This seems like a next great data point to double click on, especially in high-risk intersections and in collaboration with the current SamTrans/Caltrans project to redesign El Camino Real for safer multimodal movement. 

So what works? Quick-build projects matter and have been a key strategy to success. Temporary curb extensions, traffic circles and painted safety zones — coined traffic calming measures — routinely reduce vehicle speeds by 10% to 20% within weeks without changing speed limits. They are inexpensive, fast and politically easier to sell, which is why cities that moved fastest relied on them.

But, speed remains the most powerful lever, and physics is physics. At 20 mph, a pedestrian has roughly a 90% chance of survival when struck by that vehicle. At 40 mph, that chance drops below 20%. Vision Zero accepts that people will make mistakes and focuses on effective street design so those mistakes are not lethal.

Other cities have adopted Vision Zero plans to lesser success, largely because priority, funding and other factors came into play. Still yet, many more jurisdictions are in early innings with prioritizing implementation as vehicle-involved pedestrian death rates continue to rise in the United States while it declines in the top 28 high-income countries globally, per the Centers for Disease Control. Pedestrian death rates have been the highest in the United States amongst this cohort since 2020.

Just like most everything else in life, Vision Zero is not self-executing. The data shows Vision Zero can reduce vehicle-involved deaths by 30%, 50% or even 100%. This and most strategies work when treated as sustained mandates and then are funded as such. Sustained priority is what matters especially when it comes to infrastructure and safety, and today, attention and empathy seem to be most expensive commodities of all.