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Consider This from NPR

What Vision Zero Has And Hasn't Accomplished

Consider This from NPR

NPR

Society & Culture, News, Daily News, News Commentary

4.15.3K Ratings

🗓️ 4 February 2024

⏱️ 12 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

More than 100 people are killed on U.S. roads every day — more than 40,000 people a year. So, it seemed bold, if not crazy, when city leaders across the country began to set their sights on eliminating traffic fatalities completely.

It has now been 10 years since U.S. cities began to adopt the approach known as Vision Zero.

NPR's Joel Rose reports on what has worked and what hasn't.

For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.

Email us at considerthis@npr.org

Transcript

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0:00.0

A decade ago, on January 15,

0:03.0

Bill DiBlazio visited the site of a tragedy.

0:06.0

It was the intersection where an eight-year-old boy named Neshat Nahan was killed by a semi-truck

0:11.0

as he walked to school.

0:12.0

I stood a few moments ago. killed by a semi truck as he walked to school.

0:12.6

I stood a few moments ago at No Schatz Memorial

0:18.1

and you could feel there how great the sense of loss was you could feel how different things could

0:26.3

have been and you could see exactly where his life was lost and that it didn't have to be that way.

0:34.0

De Blasio was just two weeks into his first term as mayor of New York City.

0:38.0

He came to give a speech, but first he spoke to the boy's parents.

0:42.0

I could tell it was deeply painful, but I also admired that they wanted to tell their story.

0:48.1

They wanted their son's memory to continue and they wanted us to learn and act.

0:53.5

De Blaseo's speech laid out how New York City would act.

0:57.0

He announced that New York would be the first U.S. City to officially adopt a policy called Vision Zero.

1:03.2

The goal is literally to reduce fatalities on our roadways to Zero.

1:08.2

The core concept is it treats every death as preventable. Vision Zero is a road safety approach first pioneered in Sweden, where it was a big success.

1:18.0

After New York signed up to the program, dozens of cities across the U.S. followed.

1:22.0

What a beautiful December day in Washington, D.C.

1:25.9

I'm pleased to see you all here.

1:28.3

And I'm even more pleased to talk about Vision Zero.

1:32.3

San Francisco, Austin, Los Angeles,

1:35.2

where the mayor signed the executive directive

...

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