Alltop.com

Driving through any city is an adventure, what with buses, cars, bikes and pedestrians competing for scarce road space, but Chicago is taking this crowding as a challenge, and one that it can overcome with the “Chicago Forward” plan.

The goal is a lofty one in that the city wants to eliminate all traffic fatalities in the next decade, attacking the problem from several different directions.

…[T]he city will be taking a multifaceted approach to traffic safety that includes engineering local streets to reduce car speeds; improving pedestrian and bike facilities; education; better data collection and evaluation; and increasing enforcement.

While this kind of plan has never been tried in the States, Sweden has had considerable success with its Vision Zero Initiative, which has brought down traffic fatalities to 4.3 per 100,000 people compared to the European average of 11 per 100,000.

Though Chicago’s record on traffic fatalities has been improving and they claim to have “…had fewer pedestrian fatalities per capita than most of its peer cities,” it remains to be seen if there will be enough political will (and driver patience) to bring this goal to fruition.

Full story at The Atlantic.

Making the streets of Chicago safer.

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