For many, driving in big cities can be a stressful endeavor that enhances the threats of driving unlike any other environment, Crowded streets, dense pedestrian traffic, and unsuitable road design form a dangerous combination for drivers and pedestrians alike. This narrative is no different in Kansas City, where the city ranks seventh for American cities with the highest rate of fatal car accidents per 100,000 residents. However, the city has decided to take the initiative to curb traffic fatalities, implementing the Vision Zero resolution in May 2020. Since then, KCMO has worked to execute this resolution in various ways that have impacted the safety of its residents.
The KCMO area has already completed a variety of projects across the city, implementing redesigns to streets and road networks that have shown the greatest need for additional safety precautions. These improvements include curb extensions, roundabouts, medians, protected mobility lanes, pedestrian islands, raised crosswalks, and several other implications
While it may seem that such small changes would not be able to create such a drastic change, the program has already been established in nearly every major city in the US. In these implications, success has been found in many different areas. NYC has seen its addition of speed tracking cameras reduce traffic speeding violations by 25% while reducing overall injuries by 14%.
To expand this further, each of these efforts can be broken down to show how they will affect city residents. Firstly, it’s important to look at the more driving-based improvements, including medians, roundabouts, chicanes, and speed bumps. Medians are among the most common roadway improvements made in cities, limiting the turning space of vehicles and guiding drivers to safer turning points. In addition, medians also create a safe refuge space for bikers and pedestrians crossing roads.
Roundabouts, while relatively unpopular within America, have seen a recent influx of implementation across the country, as they reduce dangerous collision probability and improve traffic flow over the traditional stoplight-based intersection. Meanwhile, chicanes are widely unknown by the common public, though their utilization in low-density areas on downtown streets is vital. By offsetting an alternating set of curb extensions or street-side parking, chicanes curve the road and hence slow down drivers as they pass through, extending pedestrian use of sidewalks and walking spaces in the process. The same can be said for speed bumps on the concept of slowing drivers, as utilizing bumps keeps vehicles at safer speeds on roadways.
Moving on to the improvements made with the intention of protecting pedestrians, projects like raised crosswalks, protected mobility lanes, pedestrian scrambles, and leading pedestrian intervals all come to mind. All of these are to be applied in the KCMO area or have already been introduced, each with an individual purpose serving to protect pedestrians. Raised crosswalks serve the same purpose as speed bumps in slowing traffic, but they also serve to increase the visibility of pedestrians crossing the street.
Protected mobility lanes serve a unique purpose in creating a physical barrier between roadways and adjacent bike lanes, where research has shown that establishing such protections reduces overall traffic collisions and injuries by 30-50%.
Finally, intersection implementations like pedestrian scrambles and leading intervals have been introduced to create a safer experience for pedestrians in busy intersections. Scrambles halt traffic in all directions, allowing pedestrians to cross in any direction that is necessary, including diagonally. Meanwhile, leading intervals establish a pedestrian presence in intersections by allowing them to begin crossing for a set amount of time before adjacent cars are given the green light to turn right or left in the direction of crossing pedestrians, meaning that pedestrians will always have a right of way priority in crossing the intersection.
All in all, these additions are sure to make the KCMO area a safer city for motorists and pedestrians alike. While these projects can certainly be costly in some aspects, I believe that these improvements are of far larger concern with the sheer magnitude of serious injuries caused by roadway accidents.