Vision Zero Belmont

Vision Zero: Safe Streets for Belmont

In response to a series of fatal and severe pedestrian crashes in the community, including one involving a four-year-old child, Belmont committed to a goal of zero traffic fatalities in October 2023 with a powerful community-driven call to action. One year later, city staff completed the Vision Zero Safety Action Plan and presented it to City Council for unanimous adoption. The action plan lays out a framework for Vision Zero Belmont, a program which commits our city to eliminating traffic deaths on our streets by the year 2030.

What is Vision Zero?

Vision Zero was first implemented in Sweden in 1997. A Vision Zero plan provides direction around the vision to eliminate all traffic fatalities and severe injuries while promoting safe, healthy, and equitable mobility for all road users. Since 2000, traffic deaths have fallen by half in Sweden. Vision Zero has now spread across the world, including U.S. cities like New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, Charlotte, and Washington D.C. New York City was the first city in the U.S. to approve a Vision Zero plan in 2014. In North Carolina, a growing number of communities have implemented Vision Zero programs, including Davidson, Mooresville, Charlotte, Greensboro, Apex, Boiling Springs, and a dozen others.

At its core, Vision Zero challenges the traditional mindset that traffic deaths are an inevitable consequence of modern transportation systems. No traffic related death or serious injury is acceptable. Vision Zero acknowledges that human beings will always make mistakes, so we must have systems in place to ensure mistakes do not cause deaths or serious injuries. Setting ZERO as the only acceptable target, Vision Zero sends a strong message: deaths on our transportation network are unacceptable and preventable.

Our Vision & Guiding Principles

Together with the Vision Zero Advisory Board, a group of residents and stakeholders invested in traffic safety in our community, the city has committed to the following vision statement for Vision Zero Belmont:

"As a community, it's our responsibility to eliminate traffic deaths for all who share City of Belmont streets by 2030."

The guiding principles of Vision Zero Belmont are as follows:

Traffic deaths and severe injuries are preventable and unacceptable, especially those involving pedestrians, cyclists, and other vulnerable road users.
Protecting human lives takes priority over all other objectives of the road system. Safety on our streets is everyone’s responsibility.
The transportation system must be designed so mistakes are not fatal.
Solutions must be collaborative, interdisciplinary, equitable, and data driven.
Belmont must continue to educate the community on pedestrian safety and safe operation of all motor vehicles.
Our community is accountable for implementing the Vision Zero Action Plan, measuring performance and responding accordingly.