It’s time for the City Council to view street design as public safety

High vehicle speeds through Salt Lake City neighborhoods is the No. 1 complaint into the Transportation Division year after year, yet the city has no way to stop it.

We’re asking the mayor and City Council to change that this year.

The City Council moved to abandon its traffic calming program in 2003, and Salt Lake City has had no formal way to promote safe vehicle speeds through street design ever since.

We’re asking for a change. Specifically, we’re asking Mayor Erin Mendenhall and the Salt Lake City Council to approve $3 million per year from the Funding Our Future budget to pay for traffic calming in two neighborhoods.

It’s time for kids to feel safe playing in their neighborhoods. It’s time for families to feel comfortable riding bikes on neighborhood byways. It’s time for real action to slow down cars traveling on local, neighborhood streets.

The request comes as the Transportation Division is working on a program called Livable Streets, and it would provide a way for the division to begin work immediately, rather than create a plan with no way to pay for it.

We believe this is a sufficient amount of money for the Transportation Division to take a holistic look at two neighborhoods and implement traffic calming that will improve the well-being of the neighborhoods on multiple levels.

We also believe it’s time to view the design and operation of our streets as directly linked to the public safety of Salt Lake City residents. 

While long-term trends show fewer motorists are dying in fatal crashes, the number of people outside of cars are being killed has risen, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

That’s true particularly in American cities, where national data show deaths of people outside cars has climbed since the 1990s.

We believe the real and perceived danger on even our local streets — even streets in front of schools, churches, shops and homes — prevent people from feeling safe enough to walk, bike or otherwise travel and feel safe on Salt Lake City Streets.

It’s likely why parents no longer feel safe letting their kids walk or bike to school, even if they live near school.

It’s one of countless reasons why the city’s budgeting for public safety must include safe street design and implementation of effective solutions. City leaders are currently preparing their 2021-22 budget, and city residents need and want safer streets.
Read more about our request in the Salt Lake Tribune, spread the word, and email your City Council representative asking them to support this initiative this year.