For Immediate Release: 1/28/2025 2:56 pm
WORCESTER, Mass. – The City of Worcester recently shared its Draft Vision Zero Safety Action Plan and is soliciting feedback from residents on the plan, which is part of an international street safety movement that is dedicated to eliminating fatalities and serious injuries on roadways.
“I want to thank the Department of Transportation & Mobility, and its partners, for all of the hard work that went into putting together this draft Vision Zero Safety Action plan,” said City Manager Eric D. Batista. “It is a collective effort to curb traffic violence in our community. Municipal departments cannot do this work alone and I highly encourage all residents to read the draft plan and offer feedback to help us best improve road safety in Worcester.”
The Department of Transportation & Mobility is hosting two public meetings for residents to learn more about the recommendations in the draft plan and for residents to share feedback.
The meetings, which will have Spanish interpretation, are being held on:
The Draft Vision Zero Plan is available for review here. Residents can submit feedback on the form here. The comment period for the draft plan closes on Monday, Feb. 24, 2025.
The plan will have two main components: (1) a Citywide Action Strategy to address Vision Zero goals through policy and systems changes and (2) a data-driven High Injury Network Action Strategy to address location‐specific safety issues on the small fraction of Worcester roads that represent the most frequent and severe crashes.
By recognizing that people will inevitably make mistakes, Vision Zero uses the Safe System approach to build a series of policies and programs to prevent crashes from happening in the first place and minimize the harm from crashes that do occur. The focus of Vision Zero is less about encouraging people to act differently or increasing enforcement, and more about designing roadways so that people, especially vulnerable users—those on the outside of vehicles—are not exposed to deadly force.
The release of the draft Vision Zero Safety Action Plan follows the publication of the municipality’s final Mobility Action Plan (MAP). Many of the recommendations from the MAP centered on safety, which led to the development of the Vision Zero Plan and program.