Vision Zero

A primary responsibility of the City of Gainesville government is to ensure the safety and health of all users of the transportation system. The Vision Zero philosophy asserts that traffic deaths and serious injuries are preventable and therefore, ethically unacceptable. The main goal of a Vision Zero Action Strategy is to eliminate traffic fatalities and serious injuries, while increasing safe and equitable mobility for all neighbors.

The City Commission adopted a Vision Zero Policy in 2018 with the goal of eliminating traffic deaths and serious injuries in the City of Gainesville by 2040. The City further reaffirmed its commitment to this initiative by making it a high priority in its FY20/FY21 Strategic Plan.

To ensure effectiveness of resource utilization, the Vision Zero Action Strategy will focus initially on a defined core area to prioritize serving primarily vulnerable road users. Building on initial efforts, the application of strategies will expand to include appropriate measures in other areas of the City.

The City of Gainesville has had measurable success creating Complete Streets that support land use and zoning. Implementing a Vision Zero Action Strategy can leverage these prior investments to significantly reduce traffic fatalities and serious injuries with the established goal to eliminate all serious traffic crashes. The basic Vision Zero approach is data-driven and integrates education, equity, engineering, evaluation, encouragement and road user compliance into a comprehensive strategy. Focusing in high density population areas of Gainesville where many streets were built to move cars efficiently, those streets shall be repurposed to move people safely.