The First Meeting of the Vision Zero Technical Advisory Committee
On November 3rd, I attended the Vision Zero Technical Advisory (TAC) Committee as a representative of Safe Omaha Streets (SOS). The cover photo for this post was taken from the 7th floor of City Hall.
What is Vision Zero?
“Vision Zero is a strategy to eliminate all traffic fatalities and severe injuries, while increasing safe, healthy, equitable mobility for all. First implemented in Sweden in the 1990s, Vision Zero has proved successful across Europe - and now it’s gaining momentum in major American cities.”
A Vision Zero Task Force was assembled in Omaha in 2018, per the request of Mayor Stothert in her commitment for Omaha to become a Vision Zero city. Prior to this, many Omaha citizens and advocacy groups were dedicated to urging the City to commit to safer roads for all - their hard work continues to this day. The Vision Zero Task Force compiled a thorough and informative “Findings & Recommendations Report” in 2019, which you can read here. In the 3 years since that report was published, the City hired a Vision Zero Coordinator and just recently hired a national consultant to help the city develop a Vision Zero Action Plan so that Vision Zero strategies can finally be implemented in Omaha. The Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) will be active in development of said plan.
What is the TAC?
This passage from Jeff Sobczyk, Omaha’s Vision Zero Coordinator, that was included in the TAC invite gives a clear explanation of the purpose of this committee:
As you already know, the City of Omaha is pursuing a Vision Zero Action Plan (VZAP) to maximize the City’s potential to reduce the number of fatalities and severe injuries down to zero across the transportation system. As part of this project, we are conducting considerable stakeholder engagement, including the creation of a Technical Advisory Committee (TAC).
The TAC is a large and diverse group of City department staff, partnering agencies representatives, and community advocacy groups. The TAC will review data analysis and public input, determine safety focus areas, as well as filter, prioritize, and implement recommendations from Focus Area Working Groups and public engagement.
November 3, 2022 meeting
About 36+ people were in attendance, half of whom attended in person and half who attended virtually. The consultant hired by the City, with approval from the Omaha City Council, is an international firm - WSP. They are supported locally by a Nebraska-based firm - JEO Consulting Group.
One of the consultants from WSP explained that the TAC is the middle structure between the Vision Zero Executive Committee and the public. The TAC will help prioritize, filter, and bring recommendations to the Executive Committee.
Vision Zero & Omaha
Here are a few other important points the consultant noted about Vision Zero in general, and Omaha’s Vision Zero plan specifically:
Vision Zero is a lot of work but is highly effective
Vision Zero is always a data-driven approach
Omaha’s Vision Zero Action Plan will be the first in the State, and will hopefully prove an effective model for other local communities across Nebraska
“Community involvement and transparency are both crucial” to the process
Vision Zero is a long-term project, so results may not be seen in 2 or 3 years, but rather in 10 or 20 years. Further, due to lags in data reporting, it may be hard to accurately judge the effectiveness of our Vision Zero plan until it’s been in the works for a few years anyway.
The deliverable of this project will be “actual actionable steps”
“We have a lot of tools in our toolbox” - a statement made by the WSP Consultant.
This was just the introductory meeting where people met each other and the WSP consultant provided a thorough overview of Vision Zero and how the Action Plan would be developed. The committee will be given “homework” prior to the next meeting where we will dedicate our time to establishing Focus Areas for the project as well as review a possible “set of core values and guiding principles” for Vision Zero in Omaha.
Quoted Highlights
Enjoy just a few of the quoted highlights from the first TAC meeting:
“Is Vision Zero proactive or reactive?” We were told it will be “Both.” We will be moving towards a more proactive approach and will use predictive analysis, but some crashes just cannot be predicted.
“Is Vision Zero a policy level guideline? Will all future projects have to abide by VZ recommendations?” We were told that “Vision Zero is not a policymaking or legislative-making plan.” Vision Zero is the first step, legislation or rule-making would be future steps not under the purview of this phase of Vision Zero.
“Vision Zero will be a lens we look through - a resource for evaluation.”
“In moving forward how will we actually engage the whole community including grassroots ownership?” We were told this would be discussed in future meetings but would also be addressed by the various public focus groups that will be hosted throughout the city.
One of the main questions I posed was this: What is Vision Zero ‘not?’ For instance, I was always under the impression that it was not enforcement.” We were told that Enforcement is part of Vision Zero.
One person in attendance they’d like to see more education - “this is a 140-square mile city and we need to take steps to change humann behavior because sometimes people just act a fool.” [SOS is in complete agreement that we need to tackle behavior change]
After a brief discussion on the additional funding dollars that will be made available to the City of Omaha once we have an approved Vision Zero Action Plan, one person made this unforgettable statement, “We don’t need more money, we just need to pick better projects.” This was a thought-provoking statement, and my favorite of the day!
The WSP consultant made a great statement about data on pedestrian deaths, he explained “Some places have fewer pedestrians deaths and injuries only because pedestrians avoid it like the plague. We need to find those places.” * For more clarification, see the comment section at the end of this post.
And after seeing the slide below, which presents the inequities of deaths on our local roads, one person said “Shining a light on these statistics is hard, it is not exciting, it is terrifying.”
Check out this bevy of answers the attendees gave when asked for feedback on Vision, Values, Challenges, and Pop-up locations:
Which responses above were your favorites? Please comment below!
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