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A MOTION endorsing the Safe System approach to achieve the goal of zero traffic deaths and serious injuries in King County; and requesting that the King County executive propose a strategy to develop a coordinated, multiagency safety action plan using the Safe System approach.
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WHEREAS, according to the Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center of the University of Washington, there were eight hundred ten traffic deaths in Washington state in 2023, a ten percent increase since 2022, and the largest number of traffic deaths in the state since 1990, and
WHEREAS, according to the Washington state Traffic Safety Commission, there were one hundred sixty-seven traffic deaths involving motor vehicles in King County during 2023, double the amount recorded in 2014, including a one-hundred-sixty-five-percent increase in pedestrian deaths in King County over the last decade from 20 in 2014 to fifty-three in 2023, and
WHEREAS, according to the King County traffic safety coalition, in 2023, the societal cost of traffic collisions in King County was $6.7 billion per year, and
WHEREAS, according to Smart Growth America's Dangerous by Design 2024 report, Black and Native Americans, older adults, and people walking in low-income communities die at higher rates and face higher levels of risk when using our nation's streets, and
WHEREAS, both the adopted 2012 King County Comprehensive Plan, as amended, and the proposed King County Comprehensive Plan, to be adopted under Proposed Ordinance 2023-0440, state as a goal that King County should maintain safe and secure county-owned infrastructure, including roads, bridges, trails, buses, passenger ferries, and transit and ferry facilities, and
WHEREAS, the Vision Zero strategy, which was developed in Europe in the 1990s and is now used worldwide, aims to eliminate all traffic fatalities and severe injuries, while increasing safety, health, and equitable mobility for all, and
WHEREAS, at the federal level, the U....

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