The city of Charlotte has pledged to end all traffic deaths by 2030. It’s an ambitious goal that’s part of the city’s Vision Zero plan, adopted in 2019. But so far, it seems the opposite is actually happening. There were 81 traffic-related fatalities last year. That’s an increase of 9% from the year before. There were also 111 serious injuries, a 13% jump. The new numbers have prompted advocates to call for Charlotte to take emergency action. Shannon Binns is the founder of the group Sustain Charlotte, and he joined WFAE’s Marshall Terry to talk about what his group is calling on the city to do.
Marshall Terry: So what's going wrong here? Why are more people dying on our streets? Is it one factor or several?
Shannon Binns: At the core, children, parents, and seniors in our community are dying simply because our streets are designed for speed, not protecting human life.
Terry: You say it’s time for the city and DOT to focus on three main courses of action you’d like to see immediately. Let’s start with safety upgrades on what are called High Injury Network streets. What are those and what do you want changed?
Binns: The High Injury Network are the streets in our city that are the most dangerous, based on the number of fatal crashes and serious injury crashes. The same corridors, the same streets, show up year after year. We know where the danger is. We just haven't acted with enough urgency. We'd like to see rapid safety upgrades to the High Injury Network streets.
These can include safer crossings, curb extensions, protected bike lanes, lane narrowing and lane reductions. There's so many things that can happen, and we don't have to wait for millions of dollars. Cities around the country are using inexpensive interventions, using paint and bollards, and other quick-build items, as it's called. We could do that absolutely if we decided we were willing to put human life ahead of speed.
Terry: Next, you call for additional measures to reduce speed. Like what?
Binns: It all comes down to designing the street. Simply posting a lower speed limit doesn't really make a difference. People will drive as fast as they feel they can safely drive. A lot of times, it has to do with how wide the road is and how many lanes there are, how easy it is to see, and how straight it is. We have to do things that essentially require people to slow down. Again, we don't have to reinvent the wheel. There are best practices that are used all over the country, all over the world, even here in Charlotte. We’ve done a lot of this. We just haven't done enough of it. More of our problems are actually on roads that are maintained by the North Carolina DOT.
The problem is they have not been willing to modify them to make them safer. We essentially have what has been designed as highways to move cars as quickly as possible through residential areas, through neighborhoods, and that's the problem.
Terry: Lastly, it sounds like you want the city to come up with a plan and be clear about when and where changes would occur.
Binns: That's right. To address Vision Zero, it can't just be a planning exercise. We have to have a very clear plan that states a timeline, which segments are going to be fixed. We would suggest the ones that we already know are the most dangerous, what changes are going to be made, and when those changes are going to actually happen.
Terry: Are there any safety changes in the works as part of the big transportation plan that will be funded by that tax increase voters approved in November?
Binns: Yeah, the city released in January a transportation investment plan over the next 20 years. Redesigning our streets for safety is, I would argue, the top priority. It's a high priority for the city, but what we've run into is the city being reluctant and the state DOT being reluctant to make the changes on these corridors where we have the biggest problem because they are moving cars, and again, there's hesitancy to actually slow drivers down. There is more money that's coming. We already have some set aside where we could make these changes much more quickly, but it's really not just a money problem.
It's a political will problem, and that's why we're asking for our local officials, both at the city and the state level, to direct their DOTs to actually fix this problem.
