Image from Walk San Francisco.

Arlington County Board candidate Alan Howze released a call for Arlington to set a goal of zero pedestrian and cyclist injuries and deaths from vehicle-related collisions.

These types of goals have become commonly known as “Vision Zero” after the Swedish campaign of the same name that began in 1997. They represent an important challenge to the belief that casualties from our transportation systems are inevitable and unpreventable.

In the United States, New York, San Francisco, and Chicago have adopted Vision Zero policies. DC mayoral candidates David Catania and Muriel Bowser have pledged to establish a program in the District.

Howze lays out a fairly detailed four-pronged action plan:

In order to “make streets safer for all users,” Howze calls for identifying neighborhood safety hotpots and to address them within 12 months. He lays out a plan for accelerating safety improvements at the “Intersection of Doom” in Rosslyn and recommends collecting detailed collision data, expanding sidewalks, increasing traffic enforcement and adjusting signal timing to minimize vehicle and pedestrian interactions in intersections.

To “complete safe routes to all Arlington schools,” Howze calls for making a Transportation Demand Management (TDM) plan for each school, creating a coordinated County/APS plan to clear sidewalks and provide safe routes within 24 hours of inclement weather, and designing safe bike infrastructure and policies that accommodate “all bikes, especially those used to transport children”. Cyclists who ride regularly with trailers or on cargo bikes know that not all bike infrastructure meets this threshold presently.

Howze wants to “expand the trail and route network” including creating “20 miles of protected bike lanes by 2020,” completing bike connectivity along Route 50, working with the National Park Service to “widen the Mt Vernon Trail and separate cyclists and runners and pedestrians,” and improve connectivity on the Roosevelt Bridge, Chain Bridge, and Memorial Bridge.

Finally the plan lays out some standard “enhance community involvement” items like “improve county outreach and response processes on street safety issues,” “accelerate implementation of neighborhood traffic safety solutions,” and “improve opportunities for input by residents on street and safety improvements.”

Howze will face incumbent John Vihstadt in the November election. Vihstadt has campaigned primarily on halting Arlington’s planned streetcar system.