According to Ohio State Highway Patrol's crash database, since Jan. 1, there have already been more than 8,000 traffic crashes in Franklin County. Officials say that's a decrease from last year.
In 2021, the City of Columbus launched its multi-year Vision Zero Action Plan, an initiative aimed at eliminating traffic fatalities by 2035.
The results might be promising for highway traffic, however Columbus streets remain a significant risk for pedestrians and cyclists, especially on wide, high traffic roads like Morse Road and High Street.
We will learn more about what changes the city is trying to make to improve traffic safety on this hour of All Sides.
Guests:
- Katherine Swidarski, Vision Zero coordinator
- Angela Harden, research and assistant professor, Ohio State University's School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences
- Ginger Tornes, founder, Friends and Families for Safe Streets Columbus
Transcript
This transcript is generated with AI. To ensure its accuracy, review the audio file.
Amy Juravich: Welcome to All Sides with Amy Juravich. Since January 1st, there have been more than 8,000 traffic crashes in Franklin County. That's according to the Ohio State Highway Patrol's crash database. But that number is still a decrease from last year.
In 2021, the City of Columbus launched its multi-year Vision Zero action plan, an initiative to eliminate traffic fatalities in the city by the year 2030. And joining us now with an update on that action plan is the City of Columbus Vision Zero coordinator, Katherine Swidarski. Welcome to All Sides, Swid. Thanks, Amy. And I understand you like to be called Swid, right? Yes. Yes, all right, hi, Swid. So why did Columbus decide to implement a Vision Zero action plan? I know Vision Zero is like a phrase that's used around the country, but why did Columbia decide we're gonna lean into this Vision Zero idea?
Katherine Swidarski: Yeah, let me maybe tell people a little bit about Vision Zero as an initiative here in Columbus. So this is our commitment, like you said, to end fatal and serious injury crashes by 2035. So we're a relatively young initiative.
And obviously this is an issue that many people care about. Traffic safety affects every single person. So we are committed to this life-saving effort to keep our residents, our visitors, employees, employers, everyone here alive when they're in Columbus
Juravich: So I had it as a vision by 2030. Did I just have the number wrong? It's 2035. It's a 10 year plan. Or when did you start it?
Swidarski: So we actually launched the initiative in March of 2020. Oh, that's a fun time. A totally normal time in everyone's life. Yeah. And that work began maybe before the initiative formally launched, but at that time, we started working on a fast-paced two-year action plan. So there were specific strategies that were gonna advance us toward that goal.
And one of the very first pieces, the biggest piece is developing what we call our High Injury Network, because this is a values-focused initiative, safety as the number one. Outcome of interest here, saving lives, but using data to inform how we make those decisions, where we make these investments.
So we look at those crash data, the number of fatal and serious injury crashes. Also in Columbus, we look vulnerable road user data, so we look people walking, people biking, and unique to us, people on motorcycles, all as vulnerable road users, they're all outside the protection of a vehicle.
We consider where are the greatest density of those crash types happening. And then we map that. So if people go on Columbus.gov slash Vision Zero, you can see the map of that high injury network, you can the roadways that are most deadly in Columbus.
Juravich: And so if you started around 2020-ish, so it's a 15-year plan to zero fatalities, is that right? That's right. So the idea of zero fatality, though, you're not necessarily talking about just drivers. You're talking about anything involved with a vehicle, right? Absolutely.
Swidarski: Absolutely, all roadway users, we care to keep everyone alive. It's a public health crisis, traffic safety impacts everyone. So we want all of our road users to make it home alive every single day.
Juravich: So pedestrians too, cyclists as well.
Swidarski: Yep, people walking, people biking, like I said, people on motorcycles, as well as our drivers and their occupants.
Juravich: And can you share some statistics that people would find on that website if they looked at it? Because my understanding is that overall traffic crashes for the city and fatalities are down overall since you started in 2020, right?
Swidarski: These are major milestones of hope for us, seeing that downward trend every year since we began the initiative. It was hard across the country during COVID, during stay at home order, behavior on the roadway really shifted.
So in 2021, you saw it peak, not just in Columbus, but across the state and across the county. People were behaving their worst on roadways because there was no- People forgot.
Juravich: Like people forgot how to drive? There was no congestion to hold them back. I see.
Swidarski: And speed is the fundamental factor in whether or not a crash occurs and the severity of that crash when it happens. So imagine you're going 63 on a 35 mile an hour roadway when that crash happens, the effects are gonna be devastating.
So... We're very excited to see downward decline in those numbers across the state and here in Columbus. We were initially at that peak in the 70s, about 73 fatal crashes, and now we're down to 50, potentially fewer than 50 as we wait for official crash data from the state.
Juravich: So for 2025, you're saying that there were maybe 50-ish? 48. 48. OK, yeah. We can be exact. So the idea of having zero fatalities by the year 2035, I mean, it's a great goal, but that seems... I mean to say that you want zero, that seems like hard to achieve, right? Just by the sheer fact that a vehicle is a powerful instrument and you can't control people. So what does it mean to you with the idea of meeting that goal of zero?
Swidarski: There are some challenges. And thankfully, this isn't like Columbus created the initiative. It actually started in Sweden in the 90s, and it was aimed at saving lives of motorists on highways, so high-speed crashes. And that's where it all started. New York City was the first city in the United States to bring that over.
So they've gone before us. Several other cities across the country have gone before us. We're a relatively young initiative. Cities like Austin and New York City. Have been doing this work for 10 years or more. So us being about five or six years deep, we have lots to learn from those other cities.
But the work that we're putting in, focusing on that high injury network, focusing investments on those roadways, focusing investments on our most vulnerable road users, improvements for pedestrians that make it possible. They have infrastructure to cross streets and shorter crossing distances, separating different road user types. Like on our East Broad Demonstration Project, those are the things that help keep people alive.
Juravich: So I was looking at some crash information and mistakenly I was look at all of Franklin County, which you told me before we got on the air, was going to involve highways. But for your actual program, Vision Zero Columbus, you're just looking at Columbus roadways. Can you tell me what roads you are considering and what were ones you're not?
Swidarski: So Vision Zero Columbus is only our surface streets, anything that's within the Columbus jurisdiction and that's owned, maintained by the city. So it doesn't include I-70, I-60, 315, none of that's included. Like you mentioned that that would be included in those Franklin County stats, but for us, it's just our Columbus roadways.
And a few of the major ones, again, if you're looking at that high injury network, 161 Morris Road, Refugee High Street, Sullivan Avenue, Livingston Avenue, those are major corridors that you'd expect to see on there as well as several other corridors. When we started the initiative in 2020, about 65% of fatal and serious injury crashes were happening on just 10% of roadways.
And now, five years later, we're seeing 52% of fatally and serious entry crashes on just 7% of roadsways. And when we measure that, it's about a 17% decrease in the length. Of the roadway that is considered high-injury network.
Juravich: And you said that the number of fatalities last year in 2025 was 48. Do you remember what the number was in 2020 or 2021-ish?
Swidarski: Back then, it was around 73. We were in the 70s.
Juravich: So that is a significant decrease. But of those 48 from last year, from 2025, do you know how many were people in a car versus people not in a care? Yes. Do you know what I mean? Like a pedestrian or a cyclist or someone.
Swidarski: Right, we do see vulnerable road users disproportionately over-represented in the number of fatal and serious injury crashes. Motorcyclists are actually where we're probably doing the worst in terms of fatal crashes are not decreasing, but each other road user group we're seeing a decline each year.
Juravich: This is All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. We're talking about traffic safety with City of Columbus Vision Zero coordinator, Katherine Swiddarski. So with these motorcycle users, what can you do as a Vision Zero Coordinator besides just tell them to wear a helmet? I don't know. Like, what can do for the motorcyclists? Yeah.
Swidarski: Yeah, good point. Trauma data does show us that wearing your protective gear, taking courses, receiving the state level endorsement, those are all things that'll help keep you safer. You know better how to protect yourself against the behavior of other people on the roadway, so that's true of cyclists and drivers as well.
The more advanced training you have, the better you are at keeping yourself alive on the roadway no matter other people's mistakes or decisions. Um, we actually received federal funding to start what we call a comprehensive, vulnerable road user safety plan.
So we'll be kicking off that work shortly with a consultant to build us a plan for looking through those data deeply, understanding who's being impacted, where they're being impacted and what are the strategies within the timeframe of achieving zero by 2030 that are going to be most effective in getting us to zero within that timeframe.
Juravich: So, another concern that you mentioned already is pedestrian crashes, like car accidents that involved hitting a pedestrian or a cyclist. That's still a major concern on some city roads, especially wide roads that are very busy, roads like High Street and Morris Road. What is the city doing to make a road, let's use Morris Road as an example, to make it safer to cross? Mm-hmm.
Swidarski: Whenever we're doing resurfacing of a roadway, so if it's on our high injury network, that's the very first thing that we're looking at. Is it on our injury network? And also whether or not it's inside of a community of interest.
So those are parts of the city that maybe have fewer options when it comes to transportation. Where they can move, what access they have to different transportation and trying to prioritize doing improvements in those spaces.
And the big thing is separating different road user types, giving everybody their own space on the roadway. So that's what you see when we come through with those resurfacing projects as we're making the pavement smoother.
What other improvements can we add? Can we put a bike lane or can we add a crossing or upgrade the crosswalk from just two parallel painted lines to a ladder style or add signage or does it need to be signalized? What are the improvements that we can make so that everything is bundled more comprehensively?
Juravich: Does every crosswalk on one of these major high-injury roadways need to need improvement? You know, need to have flashing lights, you know, need to get so people see the crosswalk better?
Swidarski: Some of our partners in the academic realm are looking at that studies for the state of Ohio, examining like what are the roadways where we can more passively enforce road behaviors that we want to see and encourage more yield behavior. So we know that if it's four lanes are wider, typically motorists don't yield for pedestrians.
So that probably will require a more significant presence of crossing infrastructure. Than at some other locations. So our engineering team goes through and makes decisions about what meets criteria based on our design memos and local policies internally for where we're gonna place different crossing types. But we do our best effort to upgrade and improve those crosswalk locations whenever possible.
Juravich: Later in the hour, we're going to talk with an advocate who runs an organization calling for safer streets in Columbus, and she's going to talk about protected bike lanes, lighting the crosswalks better. And she's also going to talk about something I hadn't heard of, raised crosswalk, kind of like I'm picturing like a speed bump. Is that a wide one that you can walk on? Is that what a raised cross walk is? Do we have any of those in the city? Great question.
Swidarski: There may be a couple of spots, they're not a common installation. We're testing a lot more of the separated bike facilities, so like our east broad demonstration project includes a few different types of separation and community input on what to them feels like the best protection.
The vulnerable road user safety plan will explore a lot of that same kind of work, so from the community perspective as a person who is walking and different. Types of people who are walking different needs. What's the best experience we can offer you with the suite of options that we have available.
Juravich: Another big thing is lowering the speed limit, right? And has your group been, or your department been involved with, because I know the speed limit has been lowered on some Columbus roads within the past few years.
Swidarski: Actually it's one of the pieces of the action plan. We're very excited to continue celebrating that we had a commitment of lowering speeds on 10 corridors by 2028 and we've been able to do that successfully already. That is partnership with Ohio Department of Transportation, collaboration with the county.
So we started with high speed roadways that went in and out of Columbus jurisdiction and studied speed behavior on those roadways so we could lower speed and then also smooth it so it was the same speed. As you traveled the corridor, whether or not you were inside of City of Columbus jurisdiction or County jurisdiction.
So those were all successful and each of those is demonstrating success in reducing the number of crashes, especially if the first digit of the speed changes. So when you come down 45 to 35 or 40 to 35, 35 to 25, those types of changes have big impact.
Juravich: Now, you hear news stories constantly about drivers making bad decisions. Now, I know you don't involve highways, but like drivers constantly in Columbus are stopping on highways because they missed their exit. So they're driving the wrong way on the road. I mean, how, you know, even though you're not talking about highways and you're talking about Columbus roads, but like, how do you overall, how do just make people better drivers? What do you do?
Swidarski: This is a fun challenge. I mean, the Vision Zero initiative, nationally and internationally, is really a systems level approach. So you focus on impacting the environment, making change at the policy environmental level so that you don't have to make decisions as an individual about whether or not you're gonna drive safely. You essentially engineer out that decision making for people. And that means that then you don't require speed enforcement because you're already forcing people by the design of the roadway, comfort of the Roadway. To go the speed you want them to go.
Juravich: What are you doing about cracking down on speeding, or maybe more penalties for reckless drivers? As an example, if they fail to yield to a pedestrian and they're going too fast, have you worked with the police or however that works to increase penalties?
Swidarski: Definitely, everything that we do at Vision Zero is a collaborative effort. We have 15 partners and more who are part of the initiative. Columbus Division of Police has been using those crash data, our high injury network data to make decisions about staffing.
And last year we launched the Vision Zero enforcement effort, which is focused on the deadliest time of year, which are those summer months, actually July through October, and focusing on high injury networks corridors. And it's a high visibility enforcement, so you don't keep it a secret from the public.
You publicize it, they put out a press release, they post on social media. We talk a lot about it in the news and anywhere, anyone will listen to us. So compliance just happens because people are expecting that police will be there, they don't wanna get pulled over. And it actually has a more long lasting effect than if you're just doing a typical. Enforcement day-to-day ticketing people without the publicity and the education aspect.
Juravich: So are you talking about a public awareness campaign that police officers are going to be sitting along this road looking for speeders? Is that what you mean? Exactly, yeah.
Swidarski: Yep, we put out notice, we do different corridors every month throughout that time period, but letting people know this is where we're going to be, this is what we're looking for. And their main focus is that excessive speed, because again, speed is the primary factor in whether or not that crash happens. So helping to reduce those most serious crashes, we're trying to get rid of that beating behavior.
Juravich: If just to end on if someone listening right now has a crosswalk that they use often that they find is dangerous that they Find the cars don't pay attention. They you know, basically they hate crossing the street, but they have to can they report it to you Can they ask for help? Absolutely
Swidarski: Vision Zero is in addition to daily operations at public service and the other partners involved. So always use the tool of 311, communicate to us. We don't know what's the problem unless you report it. So tell us, tell us what's wrong. Tell us what going on. We'll be looking at those data as we work through our vulnerable road user safety plan.
Juravich: We've been talking about traffic safety with City of Columbus Vision Zero Coordinator, Katherine Swodarski. Thank you so much for your time today, Swyd.
Swidarski: Thanks for having me.
Juravich: And coming up to make roads safer, you're going to need crash data. We've talked about that to analyze. So we're gonna talk with someone who gathers that information. That is when All Sides continues on 89.7 NPR News.
You're listening to All Sides. I'm your host, Amy Juravich. Central Ohio is a hotspot for speeding and traffic crashes, and the city has been implementing changes to try to make our roads safer. To decide what changes to make, crash data is needed to be analyzed. Angela Harden, a research assistant professor at Ohio State, takes on that role. Welcome to All Sides Angela.
Angela Harden: Hi, thank you for having me.
Juravich: Can you give me some examples of what you're researching when it comes to traffic safety? Like, what kind of crashes are you looking at?
Harden: All kinds. We pull data from Ohio Department of Public Safety and which collects all of the crashes across the state of Ohio that are reported to all law enforcement agencies. And that ranges from property damage only to fatal crashes.
So we pull all of that data for different projects, different reasons to assess what's contributing to maybe fatal crashes versus suspected serious crashes. And that's differences in whether it's the vehicle, the road, infrastructure, speed. And so we pull all that together to try to see really what's driving these fatalities and serious injury crashes.
Juravich: I'm going to start with you with where I ended with Swid in the Vision Zero segment. And that is saying that drivers are, like, Columbus seems to not have good drivers. I mean, there's a news story basically like constantly about drivers making bad decisions. They're stopping on the highway, backing up on 71 because they missed their exit. Can your research help determine how to make people better drivers?
Harden: I think it's about collaboration, not as researchers, but as people, as a community. The idea behind the safe system approach is a shared responsibility. And so what I can do with my data and my analyzes is I can say, hey, we're seeing that, for example, teens that don't go through a graduated driver's license program are getting in more crashes than those that do. Is that like?
Juravich: Is that like driver's ed?
Harden: Yeah, so graduated drive, yes, so they get their learner's permit, and then they go through all of the things, and they can take their driving test.
Juravich: So after an accident, a part of the information that is gathered, is they ask if the driver had driver's ed or?
Harden: It's not that they it's reported as part of their driver's license because they had like a learner's permit. I
Juravich: So you can look at their driver's license and see like continue. I was just I was like, how do you know that? Wow, how do you know that?
Harden: There's lots of information out there. And so we know that additional training and more time on the road gives people more experience and gives people that insight. And so the data can help inform policy in terms of getting a driver's license, what's required, things like that.
Juravich: What about the idea of can it inform whether people need to like take a second driver's test at any point in their life or something like that? Like if they have an accident, maybe they need to take a driver's tests again.
Harden: Building in Columbus. I think it's more about continued education and reinforcement. I was speaking with someone there like, I have to do all of these certifications to maintain my job. I have constantly get CE credits, but we don't have to do anything.
Juravich: Well, like a teacher, a nurse, I mean, they're continuously learning, but we send a 16-year-old to class for like 20 minutes and then say, you know, drive for the rest of your life.
Harden: And so we don't have any of that in driving, which is interesting because also laws change or new infrastructures developed. So I think it's more of a group effort in terms of like parents teaching your kids, embracing this, like we're all in this together, whether we're in the car or on the sidewalk. But yes, education is a vital part of all of that.
Juravich: What can you tell me about the way cars have gotten smarter? There's lots of different ways of aspects about that, but let's start with just the map system, so that you have a map on your dashboard telling you where to go. Because I would think that sometimes when people stop on the highway, it's because their map was telling them, like they didn't understand what the map wanted them to do and they panic, right? So are these maps being right there in our dashboard? Could you have information to know that's making us better drivers or worse drivers?
Harden: I don't have information on that, particularly that might be more like a behavior aspect in terms of driving, but we do get data from Cambridge Telematics, and that gives us information about cell phone usage and things like that, so we can see when cell phones are picked up or when there's a hard braking. Mm-hmm. And so we can say, oh, there's something going on at this intersection or there's something happening here that's causing people to be distracted or do something like that.
Juravich: In the next 10 years, I would think that most people, as they get newer cars, they're gonna have more of these new features that all cars have where you don't need to pick up your phone because your whole car is now the phone suddenly. What are you anticipating as you collect more information? What do you think you're gonna learn?
Harden: We are gonna get, our cars are gonna hit smarter and we already have, right? There's already self-driving robo taxis out there. But the issue is it's not, there's an equity difference there in terms of like, most of the cars on our roads now are, I think it's like an average of 12 years old.
So even as we're putting out newer cars, there's still older vehicles on the road and not everybody can afford that brand new car with all the features. So, while... Vehicle technology and safety is a big part of this pie or this puzzle of figuring out how to get to zero. It also has to embrace the other aspects of it, like the speed, the infrastructure, the people. But I like that I have to do less in my car.
Juravich: Um, okay. And then what, what about as cars get smarter, the, the automatic braking where the car stops for you, um, the flashing lights on the side. So as you change lanes, it tells you someone's in your blind spot. Are you starting to notice that that's helping drivers or, or making it worse?
Harden: I think a lot of people turn off a lot of those safety features. Those are like active safety features that, you know, they're like, oh, this sound annoys me. So I'll turn off this lane departure or things like that.
I also think we're in kind of a weird zone where we're not quite ready for all of this to be in our faces. And we don't know, we get distracted by our own safety features. But we do see that, especially we have, there's CARFIT, which is a program that helps older adults identify what features their vehicle has safety wise. And once they learn about some of these features, it is helpful to have for them, and I think for everybody to use.
Juravich: Safety features. This is All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. We're talking about traffic safety with Angela Harden, Ohio State Research Assistant Professor specializing in safety strategies for transportation. She works in the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences. I want to talk about pedestrians for a few minutes. Why do you think despite an increase in crosswalks and bike lanes, pedestrians and cyclists remain the most vulnerable on the road? They're the most honorable.
Harden: Because they have no protection, right, other than their body. And human tolerance has a has a limitation. Also, they're not we're in our vehicles in our own bubble. We're worried about like us being safe, we're looking out for cars. And a lot of times we're just not paying enough attention to what's going on like immediately outside.
Juravich: Have you consulted on, if a new road is being built or road improvements are being done, do they ask you questions about the road, about research, do they you what they should do?
Harden: So I collaborate with ODOT, MorpC, Vision Zero. And we talk about a lot of these things in there. OK, what are other people doing? What are other cities doing? How did they reach zero? And what can we implement here? Kind of at all it doesn't one model doesn't fit everybody because we all have different cultures different experiences and so it is about that roadway change but also like how do we reach the people that we're trying to reach with like safety is important this is this is
Juravich: Can you give me an example of something that you've recommended that can be done? Is it like flashing lights at crosswalks or like, give me and example. Sure.
Harden: Yeah. There's a couple of examples out there right now. Dublin just installed some new lighting for pedestrian crosswalks in particular that light up as the individual crosses. So they have like basically a spotlight as they cross the whole sidewalk or as they reviews. And looking at what aspects we could have changed and we can change for future to prevent fatal crashes. We will always have crashes. So the idea isn't that we're gonna get rid of crashes and there'll be zero crashes because we are humans, but we can reduce those.
Juravich: Fatalities, okay. So how do we reduce the fatalities? Can you give me an example there? Is it because car because cars now have airbags all around you if you have a new one. So yeah
Harden: Well, part of it is we don't all have new cars, we have older cars. Getting people to wear seatbelts, Ohio does not have it. That's still a problem. We do not have a primary seatbelt law. And so I think there's misconceptions about wearing a seatbelt. People think like sitting in the back seat, I don't have to wear a seat belt. I'm in the backs seat.
Juravich: My car won't shut up if someone doesn't put the seatbelt on.
Harden: It really blows my mind because I'm like, you're still in the car. So I think engaging with these different communities and these different demographics that are like, oh, I'm a good driver, I don't need to wear my seatbelt. So seatbelt is a really big one.
And identifying what the data can do is identify which demographics, which groups Are at higher risk and identify like what we can do to reach them and make them realize like this is important. It's not just a personal choice. It's about your safety and your family.
Juravich: You are also working with two representatives, Mike Odioso and Mark, is it Cygress, on House Bill 714. And this is aiming to increase the penalty for failure to yield to pedestrian incidents. So what does, tell me, I guess, about the bill, but also what does it mean if you increase the penalties, does that improve things, right? You know.
Harden: So I am working with them in the sense of I give them data and provide like, OK, these are how many pedestrians were injured in a crosswalk last year or things like that. Increasing a penalty could deter people from hitting someone with their car. I would like to think they didn't mean to. I would also, right?
Or maybe encourage people to be more aware as they approach crosswalks or things that. Or even not crosswalks, right? We have a lot of like mid block crossings, especially in downtown.
Juravich: So we're gonna need to hang a sign at the crosswalk that says if you don't slow down and hit a pedestrian, you're gonna get a big penalty now.
Harden: Um, but like I tell people this all the time and when you think about who worries about penalties and the law, um, it's the people that are most likely driving, driving safely. Um, so increasing a penalty, but it's probably not going to prevent the person that's already speeding or already not wearing a seatbelt to, to wear their seatbelt or, or to down.
There's a... Kind of movement going across the states right now, that's a super speeders bill. We don't have it in Ohio, it hasn't been brought here yet, but it looks at instead of a fine or instead of removing your driver's license, they put what's called an intelligence speed assist in your vehicle and that prevents you from going over the speed limit.
Because people still need to drive, people still need to get places. And a lot of crashes, people don't have their license. It has been revoked, but they're still going to drive. And so this allows people to keep their driver's license, but you can't speed. Your car won't let you.
Juravich: So, we did a show recently where we had a professor on who talked about the future and the future of driverless vehicles and he said that traffic crashes could go down to zero if we just get the human out of the way. So he thinks that, you know, a future of all driverless cars is what's needed. What do you think about that?
Harden: I don't know that I will see that in my lifetime. I think people will always be dependent on cars, depending on their situation, where you live, where you work. But the idea of having that mixed combination of cars that can drive themselves, but also people that have experience driving next to those cars, I think will get better and will reduce crashes. If you have a fleet of vehicles that are all the speed limit. And you're on the same road, it's like you'll have to also go the speed limit. So it will contribute, I think, to helping behavior-wise decisions.
Juravich: Okay, so do you think taking the human out and putting a robot in charge will reduce traffic fatalities?
Harden: I think it has the possibility. It has the possibilities, yes, okay.
Juravich: Well, just to end on, how do you think Columbus is doing with their Vision Zero action plan? It's still 2035. They want to be down to zero. Last year there were 48 fatalities, so the number is going down, but it's not near zero yet.
Harden: No, yeah, we still have a long way to go. Zero seems difficult and seems hard to achieve, but other cities have done it. And I always like to use the analogy of if a plane crashed every day in the United States and everyone on board that plane died, that was the number of fatalities we have on our roadways. And so would we all just be like, ugh.
Juravich: That's that's very sobering. Yeah. So we just so we just accept traffic crashes too much
Harden: Could you imagine if a plane crashed every day and everybody, like, we would all be like, okay, no more of planes. No more, I don't, I wouldn't fly. So I think it's about bringing that reality home. I think we're also all kind of, kind of numb to it because we see it all the time. Oh, another crash. Oh, there's gonna be traffic. But really thinking like, oh, we can actually stop this.
Juravich: I want to thank you so much for your time. We've been talking about traffic safety with Angela Harden, Ohio State Research Assistant Professor specializing in safety strategies for transportation. Thanks for joining us. Thanks so much. And coming up, we're going to hear about a group that's working to bring attention to dangerous roads in Columbus. That's when All Sides continues on 89.7 NPR News.
You're listening to All Sides, I'm your host, Amy Juravich. Pedestrians represent 3.5% of road users, yet suffer 28% of road traffic deaths. For pedestrians, even a crash at 25 miles per hour has a significant chance of fatality and a high chance of broken bones, head and brain trauma, and even paralysis.
Friends and Family for Safe Streets Columbus is a local community organization bringing attention to the unsafe road conditions in the city. And joining us now is founder Ginger Tornes. She recently wrote up an opinion piece in the Columbus Dispatch titled, "Five Pedestrians Died in Weeks. Columbus Must Fix Dangerous Roads Now." Welcome to All Sides Ginger.
Ginger Tornes: Thank you so much for having me, Amy. Yes.
Juravich: So what made you decide to start a Safe Streets organization? Why did you form your group?
Tornes: Well, years ago, actually, I think it was back in 2017, a dear family friend by the name of Linda Evans, who was a legacy marathon runner and also a special ed teacher at Linden Primary School up north, was out for her morning run, which she had done for. Many, many years on a bright and sunny July day, and somebody ran into her and left her to die.
This was, we were all, of course, just... In shock that this could happen to such a vibrant woman who had so much life left to live. And all of a sudden have it snuffed out by a preventable traffic death.
It turns out after doing a little research, I found out that the road was not safely designed. Including it had no sidewalks. And was, even though it was in an urban area, it was primarily meant, unfortunately like most of the roads around central Ohio, it's meant to move traffic quickly as opposed to move all modes safely.
Juravich: Are you have you found that in forming your group and doing all of your research that the focus is on cars rather than on?
Tornes: Absolutely. Yeah. I do have to say that some communities are doing some good work. As you know, the city of Columbus has put in some, installed some road diets around town. And the city actually did a great job on Directional Avenue recently. They put in extended curb extensions.
And a mid lane median on Directional Avenue, which was also part of a state highway. So that the traffic, you know, it feels very uncomfortable to go anything over 25 miles an hour. And people used to go 40, 45 on that street. So yeah, some communities are doing some good work.
Juravich: In the piece you wrote for The Dispatch, you spoke a lot about Morris Road in particular. Can you tell me why that area is so concerning?
Tornes: Well, Morris Road is like Broad Street, probably two of the widest streets in central Ohio, at least that come to mind. They have 10 lanes, a pedestrian or somebody in a wheelchair or somebody on a bicycle, anybody in a car. If they want to cross an intersection, In many cases, you are crossing.
10 lanes of traffic and you're fighting everything that's going on at the same time. You've got right turns, you've got double right turns. You got double left turns. And you know, there's of course, there's people that run the red lights. That's just happens all over the place. And it just, you know the wider the street, the more perilous it is for people outside of cars.
So, we are trying to advance. A road and highway system where no one loses their lives through street design improvements, including road diets, which would skinny up wide roads like Morris Road and not materially affect the amount of vehicles that move through there in a day.
Juravich: So is that what you would like to see? I was just going to ask, what can be done to Morris Road? So there's four lanes, two in each direction, then there's turning lanes on both sides. What do you want to see, a bike lane added, a bigger median, what do you wanna see on Morris Road.
Tornes: Well, if it makes any sense, Broad Street's very similar. NATCO, I don't know if you've heard of NATCO. NATCO is an acronym for the National Association for City Transportation Officials. And they're like a national group, umbrella group, that has state-of-the-art design principles, that advances state- of-the art design principles for municipalities to utilize when they do their street design.
And when Natco was in Columbus in 2018 or 2019, I was at the conference, they came up with a street design for broad that would narrow it down to have two transit lanes in the middle, then outside of that have traffic lanes, a lane going each direction, then outside of that would be a wide-tread median.
And then in between outside of that would be the bike lane and the sidewalk, the widened sidewalk. So there's lots of space to do all kinds of things with these things, with these roads, which is a good thing. That gives city planners lots of latitude. But that, for example, was the winning design for Broad Street that Natco came up with. Back in 2018. And so why couldn't you replicate that on Morris Road?
Juravich: Yeah. Did that happen for Broad Street? I mean, do parts of it look like that or no?
Tornes: Um, uh, no, no. Not completely.
Juravich: I didn't think so, but I can't say I've traveled all of Broad Street, so I didn't want to generalize, yeah.
Tornes: Well, I see it almost every day, but to the city's credit, city of Columbus, we're talking now, they did install a, I think it's a couple mile long pilot program whereby you, they just demarked one lane on either side of broad for bicycles.
And so they've got, you know, those little, they call them little, some people refer to him as little turtles in between the. The travel, the car lane and the bike lane and some of those flexible delineator posts. So they did install those and that's a good thing. But the rest of the street is still, you know, five lanes and it's just a tiny little area that they did that.
Juravich: I know part of Broad Street is involved in the, um, the link us plan. So bus, bus rapid transit that Coda is building. And I've seen some images. So it looks like what you described from that 2018 conference is closer to what's going to happen with the bus, rapid transit lanes, cause there is this dedicated bus lane, right? Correct. Yes.
Tornes: That is, we can't wait.
Juravich: But the problem is patience, right, because you've been you've been worried about this since 2017 and we're not seeing the changes as fast as you would like, I'm sure. Right.
This is All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. We're talking about traffic safety with Ginger Tornes, founder of Friends and Family for Safe Streets, Columbus. It's been five years since Columbus implemented their Vision Zero action plan. They hope to have zero traffic fatalities in the city of best by 2035. Do you think the city is doing well with that or do you wish they were doing more?
Tornes: I wish they were doing more. Excuse me. Like I said, they have done some good work with bike lanes. But there is much more that can be done. There needs to be some policy changes.
And I don't believe the mindset is completely there. It doesn't seem like the mindset is completely there to it. Prioritize preservation of life and health before all other considerations in the road and highway system planning.
And the Vision Zero principles that Swit was talking about earlier, we totally support those. In fact, our group helped lobby the city of Columbus to adopt the Vision Zero policy back in 2020. And at that time, I thought, oh, great, they'll fix the streets, and then my job will be done. Well, it's not that easy.
Juravich: Can you give me an example of a policy that you'd like to see implemented that has not been?
Tornes: I would like to see the level of service criteria replaced with a vehicle miles traveled criteria. And that's used at the local and regional and state level.
Juravich: I'm not sure I understand what that means. Explain that a little bit more. Right, I will. Right. I will.
Tornes: Thank you for asking the clever clarification. Well, the level of service is a ranked prioritization of needs that are used when planning a street design. And it prioritizes the quick. Movement of motor vehicles at the very top.
And that's like a level of service A. Well, a level service, it goes all the way from A to F. And then a leveled service F is when, you know, there's traffic congestion and there's just, there's not the free flowing traffic that you would find in level of Service A. But it turns out, I don't know if you've ever heard of Jeff Speck.
He's a visionary urban designer that was here in 2024. But he points out that the level of service F, E, and F communities are the ones that have the most thriving downtowns and higher GDP. It turns out there's an inverse corollary between the amount of vehicles on a street.
And the GDP of an area. And so we would like to have it reversed so that not only is safety prioritized, but you're also prioritizing livability and a thriving, vibrant community. I mean, the entire community can feel this once you redesign the street.
And to the city of Columbus' credit, they also did do something along these lines, not exactly what I would still like to see them put in a mid lane meeting with pocket turning lanes. But down at a short north on High Street, they did do a road diet and they did do some bump outs there.
And if you go down to North High Street short north, any time in the day, pretty much. The traffic isn't speeding along like you'd see it on like East or West Broad or something like that. But it's still moving and that people are out walking, they're enjoying themselves. It's a thriving urban environment. And so this is more of what we'd like to see.
Juravich: How do you get more people in the community involved? How do get more in Columbus to care about this so that leaders will listen and act more quickly?
Tornes: Well, I'm so glad you asked that because I forgot to mention it at the outset. But what this is really all about is, of course, the fundamental right to stay alive, right? To use our roads and highways without fear of losing your life or suffering serious injury.
We also want to recognize the people that have lost their lives on our roads and highways. And so we started a few years ago the World Day of Remembrance for victims of traffic crashes, actually it's a global phenomenon that happens every third Sunday in November.
And we have ours at the corner, this year it'll be November 15th, it's at the Northeast corner of Broad Street at Cleveland Avenue. At one o'clock and we invite victims of traffic crashes and or their loved ones to share their stories. So to impart upon everyone that, you know, these are not just mere traffic statistics, these are real lives that are infected forever. And so we want to make sure that their message gets out there.
Juravich: We only have 30 seconds left. But do you also ask people to talk to city council, maybe, or report an intersection to 311 if it's a problem?
Tornes: You know, I haven't, we haven't been doing that. And I have to say it's because, you know, we haven't t had good luck talking to city council and we haven t had a good luck dialing 311. So we hope that does change soon because we would love to have better communication, more communication. Um, with this, with the city, we are, we, we communicate with Swid, which is she's the vision zero coordinator, which was fantastic. Uh, but we would like to have our voice, our message heard by the city council, as well as the division of public service.
Juravich: We've been talking about traffic safety with Ginger Tornes, founder of Friends and Family for Safe Streets Columbus. Thank you so much for your time today, Ginger.
Tornes: Hey, thank you, Amy, and take care.
Juravich: And thank you for listening, this is All Sides, on 89.7 NPR News.