Town leaders in West Hartford are committing to a new policy for road safety aimed at eliminating all traffic deaths and serious injuries.
“It happens all the time. All the time. There are certain intersections we don’t even use," Hope Vandenberg tells us.
A frustrating moment for Hope Vandenberg and her son crossing Trout Brook and Boulevard in West Hartford. Something they’ve seen too often going through crosswalks in town.
“We’ve gotten hit almost several times when people are making left turns,” she said.
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This worry comes after the town saw a string of fatal crashes in a span of a week last month, a spike from years past. To address road safety issues, the Town of West Hartford is pushing a new approach by embracing the Vision Zero policy.
“The premise of Vision Zero is that traffic deaths are preventable. Through Vision Zero, we would commit to eliminate all traffic fatalities within a defined time period. That’s zero traffic deaths,” Rick Ledwith, the Town Manager of West Hartford, said.
The policy’s core principle being “life and health can never be exchanged for other benefits within society” with the responsibility of safety shared by road users and transportation designers. A task force of 15 to 16 people made up of town residents and staff would be created to come up with plans to meet the goal of zero fatalities.
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Mayor Shari Cantor says the town can look to Stamford which already adopted the Vision Zero policy.
“I talked to the mayor of Stamford and their progress has been ongoing as they’re a few months into the development of their task force,’ she said.
For Edward Pawlak, chair of the town’s pedestrian and bicycle commission, this is a positive development.
“I can’t overemphasize how big of a paradigm shift that is. Just flipping the way, we view our road network,” he said.
Pawlak says West Hartford roads were originally built to make car traffic efficient, but Vision Zero would instead focus on building roads that can help prevent deaths and serious injuries.
“This is a commitment and it’s one that town residents will hold the town officials to. We’ll know whether we’re successful or not,” he said.
The town mayor is expected to put forth a resolution where West Hartford adopts the Vision Zero policy at the next town council meeting Tuesday night.
