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The Vision Zero Task Force for Indianapolis, which faces the ambitious goal of ending road deaths by 2035, was greeted by a surprise at its Tuesday meeting: 21 empty seats.
“Vision Zero” is a framework aimed at reducing pedestrian deaths by implementing changes in road design, traffic signals and driver education. It’s an effort adopted by peer cities including Columbus and Cincinnati.
And each of those empty seats in the Public Assembly Room of the City-County Building represented the death or serious injury of a pedestrian or cyclist since the Vision Zero proposal was introduced last July, Bike Indianapolis Advocacy Committee Chair Jakob Morales told IBJ.
Morales said he and his tight-knit group of advocates are frustrated by the task force’s pace. The 15-member task force’s most recent public meeting was last fall. Advocates said Tuesday’s meeting was their first chance to hear progress updates from committee members and Burgess & Niple, the engineering firm contracted to assist the city.
Councilor Andy Nielsen acknowledged the concerns of about a dozen people in the audience, some of whom held signs with “Vision Zero now” and “60 dead since August.”
“We absolutely hear you, we know we need to act with urgency,” Nielsen said. “But taking a decade-plus look at what we know is a really complicated process, it’s re-emphasizing that we’re trying to get this right so that it is durable, and good public policy moving forward.”
Advocates worry about lack of transparency
By the task force’s own measures, the work is off to a slow start. The ordinance creating the collaborative effort between city officials, elected councilors and community members also set a goal to hire a Vision Zero administrator by Jan. 1, but a posting for that role didn’t go up until mid-January. The city plans to accept applications for the job until the end of February.
Councilor John Barth, chair of the task force, said some of the struggle has come from the nature of their work, which requires collaboration between councilors and staff within Mayor Joe Hogsett’s administration.
“Because this is an effort that’s going to have a crescendo over a 10-year period, we really wanted to take the time to be intentional and thoughtful and careful, because if we launched this too quickly and did it aggressively, we would fail,” Barth said.
Carlos Lemus, a near-north-side resident and cyclist, said there’s a “perceived lack of sense of urgency,” which he attributed to a lack of transparency. Lemus told IBJ that it was frustrating to receive little communication from the task force, which hadn’t met publicly since October and otherwise hadn’t provided updates to stakeholders.
Bike Indianapolis which has called for the city to allocate $8 million annually in a “traffic safety triage fund” to give the Indianapolis Department of Public Works resources for quick-build projects to slow or reroute traffic.
“We don’t want to see this just be another plan that dies and sits in a folder somewhere,” Morales, of Bike Indianapolis, said.
The next major deadline for the Vision Zero Task Force is to adopt an action plan by July 1.
Barth told attendees that timing is intentional, allowing the task force to request funding for projects during the city budget process. Each year, the Hogsett administration typically holds discussions with the city controller, councilors and department heads before proposing a budget to the council in August. The council typically votes on the budget in October.
When that time comes, Barth told advocates they should be talking to their elected councilors to support investments in road safety.
What’s happened so far?
Maria Cantrell, the former Vision Zero coordinator for Columbus, Ohio, is contracted to work with the task force through engineering firm Burgess & Niple. Cantrell lauded Indianapolis public works projects like the two-way conversion of College Avenue and the Michigan Street road diet, which decreased the width of the road from six lanes total to one lane each way and added pedestrian and cyclist space.
She told the committee that the next steps include hiring the Vision Zero administrator, collecting community input and updating the city’s crash data.
Indianapolis-based nonprofit Health by Design is officially on board to conduct the outreach, starting with an online survey. CEO Marc McAleavey told IBJ the survey is just the first step in an ongoing process to ensure stakeholders have a voice in shaping Vision Zero strategies that prioritize equity, accessibility and safety.
The organization’s outreach goal is to host 30 hours and two events per each of Marion County’s nine townships by the July 1 deadline. That outreach includes hosting and attending events, as well as interaction at public spaces like libraries.
Cantrell said Burgess & Niple is currently working on the crash data in order to identify dangerous corridors. She said the firm is also looking at doing a proactive risk analysis, which would look at intersections and streets that don’t necessarily have a history of major crashes but have potential for road deaths or serious bodily injuries. Those risk factors might include a high number of lanes or higher than necessary speed limits.
The next meeting of the task force hasn’t been scheduled.
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