Vision Zero

• ​​​​Want to know about a street project on your block, your neighborhood or anywhere in the City? Check out City of Milwaukee Department of Public Works Projects interactive street project map. From speed bumps to paving, it’s all here. 
• Want to have your voice heard on larger City projects including parks, planning, and transportation projects?  Visit the Engage MKE site. 
• Want to understand where traffic violence is happening? With the interactive Traffic Violence Dashboard you can see the impact of traffic violence by location, by transportation mode, or by severity of injury at the scale that matters to you, from your block to the whole city.
• Want to join with others to help create a Milwaukee where all people are thriving in safe, healthy, and equitable neighborhoods?  ? Join the MKE Elevate Healthier Built Environment Action Team for quarterly meetings, organized by the Health Department to address key community issues.
• Want traffic calming near you? The Community-Led Traffic Calming Program allows property owners, residents, business owners, and community members to request traffic calming measures to address traffic-related concerns. Property owners may be assessed a portion of the cost of construction for traffic calming improvements.

• Want to report reckless driving? Visit Be Part of the Solution / Sea parte de la solución – Traffic Safety Unit, call (414) 935-3925, or use the MKEMobile app to report reckless driving.
• Want to understand where traffic enforcement is happening?  For traffic enforcement data visit TSU Statistics – Traffic Safety Unit
• Traffic Violence Dashboard (arcgis.com): An interactive dashboard that shows all the traffic crashes that injured or killed a person. You can search by injury severity, address, specific dates, transportation mode, etc., to see local crash patterns and hotspots.
• Speeding - We Can Live Without It | Engage MKE (milwaukee.gov)
• Speeding – We Can Live Without It Campaign Toolkit 
  • Packed with graphics, social media posts, templates, and more. It’s your resource for effectively promoting street safety.
• Report reckless driving:
  • Call 414-935-3925 or fill out the online Traffic Safety Unity form to report reckless driving.
• Invite Vision Zero to your event to teach classes or have community conversations.
• Share your impact of speeding story:TheSocialWall forEveryone – Walls.io

Key Concepts

• Death and serious injuries are unacceptable
  • All crashes are undesirable, but Vision Zero prioritizes eliminating crashes that result in death or serious injury. The transportation system should allow for human error that does not result in severe crashes.
• Crash not accident
  • Accidents imply nothing could be done to prevent the incident and/or that no one is at fault. Eliminate the word “accident” from your vocabulary and begin using “crash.”
• Equity at the forefront
  • Black, brown, and low-income communities are disproportionately impacted by dangerous streets and dangerous driving. These communities must be prioritized. Vision Zero also must not result in over-policing of these communities.
• Slow speeds save lives
  • A person hit by someone driving a car at 20 MPH has a 9 in 10 chance of surviving; at 30 MPH, the chances of survival drop to 60%. Slowing speeds through safe street design must be prioritized. Everyone must drive at safe speeds, not just “bad drivers.”
• Multi-sector
  • Vision Zero requires the commitment and work of multiple departments, agencies, and stakeholders – City Departments, partner agencies, and people living and visiting Milwaukee. A safe transportation system is the responsibility of all.

What does Vision Zero look like?

Below are examples of strategies that may be used under Vision Zero. This list is not comprehensive and not all strategies may be used in Milwaukee.

• Redesigned streets that make it difficult to speed and safer and easier to choose to walk, bike, and take transit
• Comprehensive driver education provided automatically to all MPS students
• Immediate investigations of fatal/serious injury crashes by MPD and DPW
• City-wide reduction in speed limits
• Automated enforcement at targeted intersections and corridors to ensure safe driving behaviors
  • Note: this type of enforcement is not currently legal in Wisconsin
• Investments in infrastructure on high crash corridors
• A community-wide safe driving education campaign
• A restorative justice program for individuals convicted of traffic offenses

More Resources: 

• City of Milwaukee File #: 211255 - Substitute resolution committing the City to become a Vision Zero community.
• The City of Milwaukee Department of Public Works (DPW) completed a Crash Study in 2023 with a high-injury network to help target safety improvements. 

Policy Director Jessica Wineberg

[email protected]

 City Hall, 200 E. Wells Street, Room 606, Milwaukee, WI 53202 

 Monday - Friday, 8:00 AM - 4:30 PM

 414-286-8502