Lancaster’s “Vision Zero” safe streets initiative got a shout-out in NPR’s “Morning Edition” radio broadcast this week.
The Red Rose City is using $12 million in federal infrastructure grants to install bike lanes, paint eye-catching “piano key” crosswalks, and “daylight” dangerous intersections — using paint and bollards to keep cars from parking near them and blocking sightlines.
It’s part of a national push to redesign city roadways to slow traffic and protect cyclists and pedestrians — an effort many urbanists say is overdue, but which is generating more than a little pushback from residents irate about reduced curbside parking and skeptical of the changes.
“It’s awful,” Debbie Smithgall, widow of former Mayor Charlie Smithgall, told NPR reporter Joel Rose.
Lancaster’s funding comes through the federal “Safe Streets for All” program. According to a U.S. Department of Transportation fact sheet, more than $1.7 billion in safe streets funding has gone out to more than 1,000 jurisdictions representing 70% of the U.S. population.
In June, U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg visited Lancaster to see the results so far. Sorace told him the federal money is allowing the projects to be done in half the time — five to six years for full implementation, rather than 10 to 12.
The goal is to reduce crashes, injuries and especially deaths — the latter to zero if possible, as the “Vision Zero” moniker implies.
Nationwide, around 40,000 people died in road fatalities in 2023, down slightly from 2022 but well above pre-pandemic levels.
In her January State of the City address, Sorace highlighted one of the city’s intersection safety projects: the Plum Street roundabout. Its installation was controversial, but there have been no serious crashes there since, she said, versus 11 crashes, two with injuries, in the preceding three years.
