DES MOINES, Iowa — The Des Moines City Council on Monday night gave the stamp of approval to the city's "Vision Zero" plan to reduce traffic fatalities. With the project getting the green light, work is officially underway to bring the city's traffic deaths to zero by 2040.
It's an ambitious goal and definitely not one that the city is going to reach overnight. To start, officials identified five "crash corridors."
They include portions of Euclid Avenue, Forest Avenue, Martin Luther King Jr Parkway, Douglas Avenue, and SE 14th Street.
"We looked at the crash data from 2017 through the end of 2021, and did what they call a sliding window analysis to identify where the fatalities and serious injuries were occurring," said John Davis, the City Traffic Engineer for Des Moines.
Tyler Wilson lives on the Douglas Avenue crash corridor. He has to back out of his driveway onto the busy street whenever he's leaving home — a maneuver he says can be pretty nerve-wracking.
"I tend to see a lot of drivers who get very aggressive, passing people in the turning lane. And that's a big thing that I see most of the time," he said.
With the plan approved, the city will be submitting for "Safe Streets And Roads For All" grant funding to help get some of the improvements rolling, which include everything from lane reductions to extending curbs so pedestrians don't have to spend as much time in the street.
It's one step towards that zero-fatality goal, but officials say the work is just getting started.
"It's not just infrastructure, changes in engineering, but it's also enhanced enforcement. It may also be educational components. It's changing a mindset and culture to enhance traffic safety to be at the forefront," Davis said.
Those grant applications will be submitted in July, with funding expected in winter 2023 if approved.