Alta is teaming up with the City of El Paso to complete an extensive Vision Zero Action Plan aiming to secure implementation funding through the Safe Streets For All (SS4A) Federal program. The plan will identify priorities for making El Paso streets safer by evaluating data, reviewing policies, and hearing directly from people who live and work in El Paso. To develop the Action Plan, Alta will remain dedicated to five pillars of work:
To create the Action Plan, Alta will:
- LISTEN TO EL PASOANS: Gather a broad range of community input on roadway safety and behaviors, especially the needs of vulnerable users.
- IDENTIFY HIGH CRASH CORRIDORS: Locate the roadway segments with the most severe and fatal injury crashes.
- UNDERSTAND CRASH FACTORS: Understand which factors contribute to crashes in El Paso—especially severe and fatal crashes.
- RECOMMEND COUNTER-MEASURES: Identify a set of tools—such as roadway design changes, policy updates, and educational programs—that El Paso can use to improve safety across the transportation network.
- PREPARE FOR FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES: Set El Paso up for future funding opportunities to implement changes that make our roads safer.
The process has involved a robust and complex systemic safety analysis resulting in vehicular and pedestrian high injury networks, ten unique crash profiles, predictive modeling, and crash cost implications. The systemic safety analysis is being used to guide specific policy updates, organized by the Safe Systems Approach criteria, and prioritize locations for infrastructure improvements.
Innovative components include development of an insightful data dashboard and the use of connected vehicle data to do a proactive safety analysis that accounts for observed speeding, harsh braking, or other risky behaviors.
The project has an implementation-focus that will take this process beyond the typical policy-orientation of an Action Plan. As the project continues to move forward, Alta is preparing conceptual designs to guide countermeasure application at the top ten priority locations and is performing a corridor deep dive to help systemically match policy and design objectives to an existing city corridor context.
The project also included an extensive community outreach process and development of unique graphics and materials, in both English and Spanish, that convey technical information in public-friendly and understandable ways.