Vision Zero Action Plan and Collision Dashboard
Project Overview
Vision Zero is an international effort to eliminate all fatal and serious injury traffic crashes. Adopted by communities across the United States, Vision Zero is a belief that these crashes are preventable and that changed attitudes and approaches will enable success.
The Cupertino Vision Zero Action Plan (VZAP) guides policies and programs with the goal of eliminating fatalities and severe injuries on Cupertino roadways by 2040 for all roadway users, including those who walk, bike, drive, ride transit, and travel by other modes.
Vision Zero programs prioritize safety over other transportation goals, acknowledge that traffic fatalities and serious injuries are preventable, and incorporate a multidisciplinary Safe System approach.
Safe Systems Approach
Cupertino’s Vision Zero Action Plan adopts the Safe System approach to eliminate traffic-related deaths and serious injuries by designing a transportation system that anticipates human mistakes and minimizes their consequences.
Applying the Safe System approach involves anticipating human mistakes by designing and managing road infrastructure to keep the risk of a mistake low; and when a mistake leads to a crash, the impact on the human body doesn’t result in a fatality or serious injury. Road design and management should encourage safe speeds and manipulate appropriate crash angles to reduce injury severity.
Six principles form the basis of the Safe System approach:
• Deaths and serious injuries are unacceptable.
• Humans make mistakes.
• Humans are vulnerable.
• Responsibility is shared.
• Safety is proactive.
• Redundancy is crucial.
Vision Zero Tools
Collision Dashboard
Use this dashboard to review crash data from 2018 to 2024. Collision data shown on this dashboard is sourced from the California Statewide Integrated Traffic Records System (SWITRS), which is maintained by the California Highway Patrol. Cupertino will update this dashboard annually, when data becomes available.
High Injury Network
The Vision Zero High Injury Network highlights corridors and intersections with the highest concentrations of fatal and severe injury crashes. This network was developed through a detailed spatial analysis that weighted serious and fatal incidents more heavily. By focusing on these high-risk areas, the City can more effectively prioritize safety improvements and allocate resources where they will have the greatest impact.
Vision Zero Task Force
Cupertino will be establishing a Vision Zero Task Force in the fall to support the implementation of its Vision Zero Action Plan. While details are still being finalized, the Task Force will be guided by the strategies and priorities outlined in the Plan. This group will play a key role in advancing the City's goal of eliminating traffic fatalities and severe injuries.
Cupertino VZAP Guiding Principles
Cupertino Vision Zero Vision Statement
Introduction
It is unacceptable for people to be killed or seriously injured while traveling along or across Cupertino’s streets. Through a holistic and proactive approach, the City of Cupertino commits to eliminating all fatal and serious injury traffic crashes by 2040.
Guiding Principles
1. Safety is our highest priority. Human life is more important than speed, convenience, or property. We will evaluate trade-offs and make both proactive and reactive engineering decisions about street design based on this value.
2. Traffic deaths and severe injuries are a preventable public health issue. We will treat fatal and severe collisions as preventable and unacceptable incidents that can and must be addressed.
3. People make mistakes. We will design our streets so that mistakes do not result in death or severe injury. We will not victim-blame but seek to understand and respond compassionately and objectively.
4. Slower streets are safer streets. Mobility is the safe and efficient movement of people and goods through a transportation system. We will design, construct, and operate our streets for slower speeds to eliminate all fatal and severe collisions, and protect our most vulnerable street users.
5. We will create safer transportation options for people to travel. Creating safer and more comfortable transportation options for pedestrians, cyclists, and transit riders can make these modes more attractive and reduce the number of vehicle miles traveled and the risk of fatal and serious injury crashes.
6. Street safety must be achieved equitably. This plan emphasizes data-driven engineering and education actions first, supported by equity and data-driven enforcement and in an effort to conduct equitable traffic enforcement.
7. Vision Zero will be both reactive to crash data and proactive to crash risk. Crash data reveals where the risk of fatal and serious injury crashes has manifested. A proactive crash risk assessment identifies and prioritizes those locations where risk exists but crash experience has yet to materialize.
8. Vision Zero requires a holistic approach to land use and transportation to include policy analysis and changes at the local and regional levels.
9. Cupertino’s response will utilize proven safety countermeasures coupled with innovative strategies. We will perform annual monitoring, reporting, and evaluation through an equity lens. We will communicate clearly what resources are necessary to achieve Vision Zero, why street design modifications are proposed, and the basis for prioritizing competing improvements.
Community Meetings
October 04,2023
City staff held the project's first community meeting on October 4, 2023. The purpose of the meeting was to introduce the project to the community and to collect feedback. The goals and process of vision zero, collision trends, high injury network, collision profiles, counter measures, and next steps were presented/discussed, followed by open discussion. The meeting concluded with a Q&A session, where speakers were given opportunity to speak, and City staff/Consultant responded to questions asked.
January 23, 2024
City staff held the project's second community meeting on January 23, 2024. The principles and benefits of the Vision Zero plan, process, collision analysis, countermeasures toolbox, collision profiles, action plan, vision zero programs, and next steps were presented and discussed, followed by an open discussion. The meeting concluded with a Q&A session, where speakers were given the opportunity to speak, and the city staff and consultants responded to questions asked.
Final Plan
See the link below for the final Vision Zero Action Plan, adopted by City Council on July 09, 2024.
