INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — The Indianapolis Vision Zero Task Force met on Wednesday night and unveiled a draft of its Action Plan to help reduce traffic fatalities to zero by 2035.
Councilor John Barth is the chairperson for the Vision Zero Task Force.
“This Action Plan is the tool by which we will start making changes to get to our goal of reducing and eliminating deaths and injuries by car by 2035,” Barth said.
Stopping all traffic-related deaths by 2035 seems like a lofty goal, but Indianapolis officials have studied other cities that had significant reductions utilizing a Vision Zero plan.
The Department of Public Works hired Le’Andre Level to be the Vision Zero administrator. He has been on the job for six weeks.
“We can look at our peer cities who have also implemented a Vision Zero and see how the tools they’ve used, how we can implement it for the city of Indianapolis,” Level said.
Level told me that Vision Zero does have a lot to do with changing infrastructure to be safer, but also includes enforcement, education, and the justice system.
“It’s for all road users. It’s for cars, pedestrians, bike riders, you name it. It’s not biased towards any mode of transportation,” Level said. “It’s an all systems approach on how we make the roads safer for everyone.”
Local advocates said they want to see the city move faster on this after experiencing dangerous situations while walking and biking.
“Oh, I’ve had many close calls, but you just get better at evading bad drivers, but thankfully, I haven’t had any accidents,” said Carlos Lemus, a traffic safety advocate.
The Vision Zero ordinance required the task force to have an Action Plan by July 1. The plan likely will not be finalized by that point.
“I would say we’re acting with a significant sense of urgency, and I think the fact that we did this so quickly, to be direct, our consultants didn’t think it was possible to achieve this so quickly because this is a lot of work and a lot of cities have taken up to a year to do this,” Barth said.
The Vision Zero initiative passed the council last August. Task force officials said it has been working with the consultants for the last seven months.
Task force officials shared these data maps showing the High Injury Network and the High Risk New among other data points across Indianapolis. This document lays out the Indianapolis Vision Zero Action Plan Strategies.
