Vision Zero

Documents for Public Review & Comment

What is Vision Zero?

Vision Zero Salinas is the City’s strategy to will build safety into our streets, protecting the people who travel about the City every day. The Vision Zero Salinas policy acknowledges that traffic deaths not inevitable but are preventable.

Why do we need it? Between 2008 and 2017, fifty-five (55) lost their lives while traveling on Salinas’ streets. Over half of the traffic related deaths involved people walking or bicycling. These deaths and serious injuries are unacceptable, and the City of Salinas is committed to preventing further loss of life.

What does it mean? The City adopted Vision Zero as a policy on February 11, 2020, committing to building safer streets, educate the public on traffic safety, enforce traffic laws, and to develop a Vision Zero Salinas Action Plan that save lives. The goal of the Vision Zero Salinas Action Plan is to create a culture that prioritizes traffic safety and to ensure that traffic related accidents on our city streets don’t result in serious injuries or death.

VISION ZERO STATEMENT AND GUIDING PRINCIPLES

Traffic safety impacts our community, neighborhoods, health, and Salinas’ quality of life. No fatality or serious injury is acceptable on our streets because traffic collisions are preventable and can be addressed through education, enforcement and engineering.
Public safety is paramount and the top priority. Safety takes precedence over travel delays, speeds, congestion, and convenience.
Traffic deaths and serious injuries are preventable and unacceptable.
Actions towards Vision Zero is a culture change requiring a comprehensive, collaborative, and equitable approach through education, enforcement and engineering.
Data driven analysis will lead to influence actions towards Vision Zero
Vision Zero will be ongoing, and will routinely measure the performance against the Vision Zero Action Plan objectives.

SALINAS HIGH INJURY NETWORK (HIN)

The High Injury Network (HIN) is a data-driven approach to better understand where and why traffic collisions occur. The High Injury Network is composed of the corridors with the highest concentration of fatal and serious injury collisions. Knowing these facts will also help build understanding among decision makers of what is needed and where so that funds can be invested in areas that are most impacted by traffic related deaths and serious injuries.

Traffic data for the HIN was collected from the Transportation Injury Mapping System (TIMS), Statewide Integrated Traffic Records System (SWITRS) and local police records between the years 2009- 2018. The HIN focuses on corridors where the highest number of traffic fatalities and severe injuries occurred. In this, we have found that the Salinas HIN consists of 24% of the city’s roadway streets network.

Click here to view and download a copy of the Salinas High Injury Network.

VISION ZERO NETWORK

The Vision Zero Network is a collaborative campaign helping communities reach their goals of Vision Zero -- eliminating all traffic fatalities and severe injuries -- while increasing safe, healthy, equitable mobility for all. As a nonprofit project, the Vision Zero Network is committed to defining, building momentum, and advancing Vision Zero in communities across the U.S. For more information, please visit https://visionzeronetwork.org

VISION ZERO ACTION PLAN

The City of Salinas will work collaboratively with the community and multiple stakeholders in a data-driven effort to eliminate traffic deaths and serious injuries. The city is currently taking public comments on two emphasis areas of Vision Zero Action Plan, high collision corridors and high collision intersections. Maps with collision data information are provided on the City’s website. Public stakeholders are encouraged to review the maps and provide comments and suggestions. Additional updates are planned for other emphasis areas including pedestrians collisions, bicycle collisions, near schools, and under the influence corridors emphasis areas.

Public comments can be submitted to the Salinas Public Works Department, Traffic and Transportation Division by electronic mail: [email protected]; fax: (831)758-7935; OR mail: 200 Lincoln Ave, Salinas, CA 93901. Written and/or emailed comments on the document received before October 1, 2020, will be integrated into the Vision Zero Action Plan.