Longmont commits to Vision Zero

Longmont City Council unanimously committed on Tuesday to a vision of zero traffic fatalities or severe injuries in the city.

According to the resolution, Longmont has seen 42,000 traffic crashes over the past 22 years, resulting in 92 fatalities and 4,688 severe injury crashes.

During a presentation, Director of Engineering Jim Angstadt outlined what the resolution would mean and the next steps Longmont would take to implement Vision Zero. He emphasized that Vision Zero, while tailored to individual communities, approaches traffic in an new way.

“It’s a different approach to what we do now,” he said.

With the resolution approved Tuesday, work will begin on creating a Vision Zero Action Plan to outline actionable and data-driven goals to work toward a city with zero traffic fatalities. The city will bring together a group of local stakeholders to address these concerns — which is not the current norm for the city’s approach to traffic.

The task force will be composed of city and stakeholders and community members in public health, education, affordable housing, urban development and more.

Angstadt also emphasized the data-driven aspects of Vision Zero, like tracking “hotspots” for crashes. While he said Longmont has a pretty robust tracking of that type of data, additional information will be collected on volumes of vehicles and speeds throughout the city.

The city wants to create a new staff position to manage and coordinate the implementation of Vision Zero as soon as this year. City Manager Harold Dominguez said that staff is looking at using monies from different parts of existing budgets to get the position started sooner than later.

Next steps would include procuring consulting assistance and putting out a request for proposals in conjunction with the work currently being done on the city’s Transportation Mobility Plan. Staff plans to request further funds for the Vision Zero approach in the upcoming budget for things like traffic safety and infrastructure work along with additional staffing for support.

There will also be regular reporting to council on the progress of Vision Zero and work to ensure components of Vision Zero are included in transportation capital improvement projects.

“This is going to take time so we ask for patience in the results,” Angstadt said.

He explained that recruiting the task force should have representatives from all around the community, so the city will likely recruit by putting out a call for volunteers and approaching certain members.

Council was supportive of the Vision Zero resolution, but Councilmember Tim Waters did raise his concerns over what he feared was a lack of accountability in the program.

“I’ve seen a lot of big ideas that do need more substance, ultimately, than what we’ve seen so far,” he said.