Political and engineering leaders in Madison, Wisconsin, are working to make their city streets safer by developing a culture of safety with the efforts of their Vision Zero initiative. As Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway said: “In Madison, we are committed to creating an environment where the community feels safe on our streets when walking, biking, taking transit or driving to work, school or wherever they may need to go. Working together with the community, we will build a positive safety culture and improve our design and construction processes to ensure that our streets are accessible for all people regardless of their age, ability, gender, race or method of travel.”

Madison’s preliminary efforts to create safer streets seem to be working, as the Transportation Commission released an update announcing that, “Following a 19% spike in 2020, fatalities and serious injuries on Madison roadways declined by 17% in 2021 and by a further 13% in 2022. There were 90 fatalities and serious injuries in the City of Madison in 2022, which is even lower than the pre-pandemic 2019 number of 106 (as reported by Channel 3000).”