Vision Zero Cities: Safe Streets Save Lives
Vision Zero is not just a policy goal—it’s an imperative. From October 19–21, Vision Zero Cities will bring together leading industry and policy experts, advocates, and elected officials. Explore the challenges and opportunities facing us as we work to build a world with zero traffic deaths. Join us for both virtual and in-person sessions, keynotes, breakouts, deep dives, and field tours, all focused on building safer streets and more livable cities.
Speaker:
The Honorable Ravi Bhalla, Mayor of Hoboken, NJ
Program:
8:00 AM – Check-In & Breakfast
9:00 AM – Opening Keynote: The Honorable Ravi Bhalla, Mayor of Hoboken, NJ
10:00 AM – 11:15 AM – Morning Breakout Sessions
Effective & Proven Ways to Reduce Car Use
Overuse of cars in cities occurs when the harmful consequences—traffic, pollution, crashes, etc.—are larger than the benefits. Almost every city experiences this imbalance of negative and positive externalities and the proposals to lower car overuse span from planting more trees to fully banning private vehicles. But what methods are most successful in achieving this goal? Join us for an exciting panel and find out what the research and on-the-ground experience show to be most effective in order to shift trips from cars to more sustainable and safer modes of transportation.
Towards Safer Fleets
From our city’s vehicle fleets to for-hire vehicles and freight operators, those operating some of the largest fleets are exploring new, creative and tech forward approaches to advance safety and greater efficiencies. In this panel, we’ll hear about the City of New York’s new pilot to bring speed limiters to thousands of vehicles, how Uber uses data and technology to change driver behavior, and groundbreaking new ideas across some of the nation’s largest fleets.
The Pink Tax on Transportation
Our public space has been intimately shaped by gender and power relationships. How cities are built affects everything from bus wait times to frequency of public benches, bathrooms and adequate street lighting. Gender also impacts access to affordable transportation: in New York City, more women than men depend on public transportation, often facing longer commutes with multiple stops, while 60% of people who commute by car are men. This panel will consider the role of gender in transportation access and equity, asking who has our public space been built for and how do we make it accessible for all of us?
11:15 AM – Networking Lunch
12:30 PM – 1:45 PM – Afternoon Breakout Sessions 1
Defining & Engineering for the New Wave of Micromobility
In 2021, the U.S. imported more two-wheeled electric vehicles than electric cars. In this session, we will look at the explosive growth of sustainably-minded micromobility options—like stand-up electric scooters, e-bikes, and mopeds—and the challenges and opportunities present in reshaping our cities’ narrow bikes lanes, shared bridge paths, and wide roads to meet this demand.
The Power of Personal Stories: Sharing Victim Stories With Impact & Care
Every day in America, crashes kill over 100 people. All over the country, survivors, victims, and their loved ones have turned their anguish into action to make streets safe and prevent other families from experiencing the pain of traffic violence. They share their stories through interviews, op-eds, and protests that build support for their efforts while also building solidarity among other survivors and allies. This panel will bring together activists, journalists, and people who have been personally impacted by traffic violence to discuss how storytelling is effective for policymaking and can be empowering for victims. The panel will focus on the dos and don'ts for reporters, advocates, and others who want to include personal stories in their work and how to support and be sensitive to individuals through this challenging yet important process.
Raw Data, Real Results: Visualizing Data For Change
Spatial equity is a way to understand how public space is distributed, restricted, used, and made unusable, and the different outcomes that result for different communities. The goal of Transportation Alternatives' soon-to-be-released data tool, Spatial Equity NYC, is to empower New Yorkers with data about local disparities in public health, environmental resilience, and transportation access that result from how public space is used—and to provide concrete solutions to these inequities that can be implemented quickly on a local level. This panel will bring together data experts, urban planners, activists, and local elected representatives to discuss how data-driven and community-informed small-scale, spatial solutions can chip away at the harm caused by systemic racist and classist policies and make immediate and meaningful improvements to the lives of all residents.
2:00 PM – 3:15 PM – Afternoon Breakout Sessions 2
The 15-Minute City: Designing for More Walkable Communities
Popularized by Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, the 15-minute city allows residents to accomplish most daily necessities by either walking or biking from their home in 15 minutes or less. This panel will situate this new way of designing cities within Vision Zero and provide insight for the ingredients needed to create it. Hear about the historical context of the concept and a new 15-minute city being developed in Utah among other topics.
Monitoring the Curb Presented by VADE
The United States is facing a crisis in road safety, with motor-vehicle crashes resulting in 1,400 bicyclist deaths and another 120,000 injuries in 2020 alone. This panel will discuss new solutions to measure and mitigate the growing number of preventable crashes in an equitable way driven by data.
Lifesaving Artistic Activism: Artists Light the Way to a Living Future
In this session we will start by looking at lifesaving artistic activism past and present, from the iconic collective of the AIDS crisis, Gran Fury, to Peatónito, the superhero-defender of pedestrian rights. Then we will get to work, brainstorming a collaborative piece of artistic activism for the streets of New York City. No professional experience necessary; only enthusiasm for saving lives on our streets.
3:30 PM – 4:30 PM – Closing Remarks & Reception
About the Speaker:
Mayor Bhalla, who has served as the city’s mayor since 2017, has pledged to end traffic deaths and serious injuries, and invested in improving access to micromobility by expanding Citi Bike to Hoboken to create a regional bike share system covering Hoboken, Jersey City, and New York City. Bhalla has also accelerated the pace of complete streets redesigns, with over 40 percent of city streets now incorporating bike lanes and more than 40 curb extensions added since 2019.
This event is offered in person and virtually; COVID-19 vaccinations and face masks are strongly encouraged for all visitors. Read our full Health and Safety Protocol here.
Save The Date
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Dec 18, 2024