Categories
Safety & Education

What’s a VRUSA and what does it say about Michigan?

A new report compares Michigan with five other Midwestern states.

Walking, accessibility, biking, and transit saw considerable improvements in policy and funding with the adoption of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. An often overlooked piece of those legislative changes was the creation of a new document: the Vulnerable Road User Safety Assessment (VRUSA, also pronounced Ver-roo-suh, for short).

The VRUSA is a tool to evaluate how a state Department of Transportation (DOT) understands the issue of traffic violence among people who walk, roll, and bike. It also documents what state DOTs are doing to address and improve the safety of vulnerable road users. 

While every state is supposed to follow the same guidance from the Federal Highway Administration with developing their own VRUSA, that does not always look the same in practice. These documents are essentially self assessments — the onus is on states to evaluate themselves and their efforts. 

In creating their VRUSAs, each state needed to detail their efforts to protect vulnerable road users in five key areas:

  1. Overview of VRU Safety Performance – what trends exist in VRU crashes and what progress is the state DOT making to address this?
  2. Summary of Quantitative Analysis – what data and methodology did the state DOT use to identify high-risk areas of VRUs?
  3. Summary of Consultation – who did the state DOT consult with in the community and what solutions did these individuals or groups offer?
  4. Program of Projects or Strategies – what specific steps is the state DOT taking to reduce VRU crashes?
  5. Safe System Approach (SSA) – how was the Safe System Approach incorporated into the state DOT’s VRUSA?

The first major deadline for states to complete and submit their VRUSA was November 2023. After that, states are expected to update the document as part of their Strategic Highway Safety Plan update, which must be completed every five years. 

Thanks to funding from the RE-AMP Network, we were able to study this further in partnership with BikeWalkKC, 1000 Friends of Iowa, 1000 Friends of Wisconsin, Bike Cleveland and Transportation Riders United. We analyzed and compared the VRUSAs of Michigan and five other states and compiled our work into the findings below:

Click here to read the report: Comparing Vulnerable Road User Safety Assessments in the Midwest

The report covers three key areas:

  1. Ways that the Federal Highway Administration can strengthen its guidance on how state DOTs develop their VRUSAs,
  2. Details on how each state completed (or didn’t complete) the required parts of a VRUSA, and
  3. Recommendations on how those states can do more to support the needs of vulnerable road users in the future.

Additionally, the report makes recommendations for how each state DOT can do more to support the needs of vulnerable road users. What did this look like for Michigan?

  • MDOT’s program of projects and strategies should address the changes needed to make VRU safety a key criteria in road project funding prioritization (e.g. implementation of Virginia’s SMART SCALE program).
  • MDOT should identify existing projects and strategies that are a barrier to improving VRU safety.

In light of these points, the question becomes: “How can advocates in other states use this approach to push their state DOTs to do more for Vulnerable Road Users?” Examples include:

  • Draw attention to dangerous corridors. Use the report to highlight the dangers for people who walk, roll, and bike along corridors identified as harmful. Invite your state DOT staff and/or local media to do a walk audit along those corridors so they understand the challenges from the pedestrian perspective.
  • Share the VRUSA with local leaders. Make sure that the elected leaders and staff of communities that are overrepresented in your state’s VRUSA know and understand why their community is unsafe for vulnerable road users and what can be done to address it. That can help to strengthen your efforts to get the state DOT to do more.
  • Push state DOTs to take steps they have missed or ignored. What the VRUSA says or does not say is a reflection of what a state DOT has done or not done. Advocates can help the public understand that the poor safety outcomes may speak to the need for additional steps. In Missouri, for example, BikeWalkKC is using the VRUSA to push MoDOT to develop a statewide active transportation plan (one of only five states that has not taken this crucial step).

In publishing this report, we hope to demystify the Vulnerable Road User Safety Assessment for active transportation advocates across the country. The goal is to make it easier for people to understand what their state DOT is (or is not) doing for its most vulnerable road users. It serves as a tool to help people push their state DOTs to do better.

The fact that 54% of pedestrian fatalities occur on state-owned roads, according to the group Smart Growth America, means the VRUSA comes at a critical time in the fight for safer streets.

Streetsblog has also covered this report in Everything You Need to Know About Keeping Pedestrians and Bicyclists Safe In Your State, in One Document. It includes an interview with Michael Kelley of BikeWalkKC, who helped lead this project.

Two men in gray shirts with I bike KC standing in a colorful crosswalk with a church in the background
Categories
Complete Streets Safety & Education

World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims

The Detroit Greenways Coalition is joining communities around the world in observing the World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims, taking place on November 17th, 2024. This annual observance serves as an opportunity to honor the lives lost and affected by road traffic crashes, raise awareness about road safety, and advocate for safer, more sustainable transportation systems for all.

The Detroit Greenways Coalition, a non-profit organization dedicated to the expansion and improvement of the city’s network of safe walking, biking, and rolling pathways, recognizes the vital need for systemic change to prevent road traffic fatalities and injuries in Detroit and beyond. This day serves as a reminder of the human cost of unsafe roadways and underscores the importance of a holistic approach to transportation that prioritizes safety, equity, and environmental sustainability.

“We mourn the lives lost on our streets, and we stand with the families, friends, and communities who are affected by traffic violence,” said Todd Scott, Executive Director of the Detroit Greenways Coalition. “In Detroit, too many people are impacted by preventable crashes, and we are committed to advocating for policies and infrastructure that protect the most vulnerable road users, including pedestrians, cyclists, and people with disabilities.”

The World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims, which began in 1995, is observed in over 50 countries and calls for action on issues of road safety, justice for victims, and accountability for those who contribute to the epidemic of road traffic injuries and fatalities. In Detroit, the Coalition is amplifying its efforts to support Vision Zero goals—an initiative aimed at reducing all traffic fatalities to zero.

“We must work together to create safe streets that are designed for people, not just cars. We’re optimistic that the $62.5 million Detroit has received in Safe Streets for All funding will help address the most dangerous streets and intersections,” said Scott. “However, Detroit’s 1,285 road fatalities during the past decade (with nearly one-third being vulnerable road users) is a stark reminder that this work is far from done.”

Categories
Climate Action Safety & Education

Our MDOT Five-Year Transportation Plan comments

We submitted the below comments on MDOT’s 2025-2029 Five-Year Transportation Plan. This year we did not have any comments specific to Detroit projects within the plan. However, we did ask how this plan supports and helps meet MDOT’s Toward Zero Deaths goal and Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s Carbon Neutrality pledge. We’d note that the plan’s cover includes a photo of 14th Street construction in Corktopwn that removed the bike lanes.

Safety

The MDOT trunkline safety goal of zero fatalities and serious injuries by 2050 will not be met by reliance on “several safety initiatives and strategies.” (Page 23) We ask for a more sober assessment that this goal will not be achieved without fundamental changes in how MDOT prioritizes, funds and designs its trunklines while also making investments that encourage modeshift to public transit and active transportation. The latter is critically necessary for MDOT to reach its safety goal, yet we don’t see this mentioned in the plan, even in Public Transportation Program Impacts. (Page 19).

We ask that you show the required annual performance targets to get MDOT to zero by 2050. If you can project pavement and bridge condition through 2040 then there’s no reason why safety can’t be given this similar forward looking graph.

MDOT’s prioritization of safety is not apparent from the provided project list, including the proposed HSIP list. Is MDOT prioritizing safety projects in the high-injury network? By far, Wayne County has more trunkline fatalities and serious injuries than any other Michigan county, yet no proposed HSIP projects are listed for it.

Carbon Neutrality

This plan has a modest mention of MDOT’s Carbon Reduction Strategy (using a broken hyperlink) but doesn’t show how these strategies affect the provided project list. Do these projects reduce carbon emissions and will they get the state to carbon neutrality by 2050?

Similar to our safety comments, we want to see carbon emissions performance targets through 2050. We want to know where we are at today and what changes need to be made to get us to zero.

And as we noted earlier, modeshift to public transit and active transportation must be clearly called out in the plan as a fundamental safety and carbon neutrality strategy.

Categories
Greenways Safety & Education

Detroit Trails Excluded

Back in 2017, we were made aware that trails within the city of Detroit were not included in the Michigan Trails Magazine — both the print publication and the website — which claims to include “more than 180 of Michigan’s best non-motorized biking, hiking, cross-country skiing, and water trails.”

According to the Internet Archive, the Detroit RiverWalk and Dequindre Cut were shown on the website in 2015.

We contacted the publisher and learned they were removed after they’d experienced an unfortunate smash-and-grab at a Detroit trailhead parking lot. The publisher told us they could no longer recommend Detroit trails to its readers.

They will simply become more easy prey for Detroit’s criminals. I would be doing Detroit’s criminals a big favor sending more easy money their way.

Email correspondence with the publisher, June 2017

We noted that a Macomb County trail had a murder, but that trail remained in the publication.

We shared this issue with the Michigan Trails and Greenways Alliance, which we are a member of. The compromise they reached was for the publisher to link to our website’s Detroit Riverfront Trail Network page. When we recently added context to that page explaining this exclusion, the link was removed.

Our Tweet goes Viral

When dropping off our new Detroit Bike and Trail Maps at the Michigan Welcome Center in Southwest Detroit, we saw the magazine and tweeted about this exclusion.

It went viral with nearly 73K impressions in a week’s time, including a very thoughtful response from State Representative Laurie Pohutsky, who chairs the House Natural Resources, Environmental, Tourism and Outdoor Recreation committee.

Next Steps

We’ve patiently waited for a permanent solution to this issue. Our tweet has unexpectedly rekindled discussions on how to move forward on this.

We’ve met with MTGA, MEDC (who manages the Pure Michigan brand), and others. The Detroit News published the article, Michigan’s ‘premier’ trails magazine omits Detroit walkways ($). More groups have plans to release statements. We wouldn’t be surprised if some of the publication’s sponsors weigh in on this as well.

But in the end, it’s a private publication that can choose what to include and what not to.

We will continue doing our best making more people aware of this.

Thanks to Craig Wood and others who brought this to our attention and offered their assistance in this matter.

Categories
Greenways Newsletter Policy Safety & Education

News from the Trail – July 2023

Available online

Categories
Complete Streets Policy Safety & Education

Pedestrian Safety in Michigan

Late last year we were interviewed for an article on the dramatic rise in pedestrian and bicyclists crashes in Michigan. That article was published (Michigan pedestrian deaths rise, safety laws questioned) but most of our input didn’t get included.

Our views on safety don’t align well with the status quo. As the safety numbers for bicyclists and pedestrians get worst, it’s clear that the current approach pursued by others hasn’t worked. That’s reflected in our complete answers.


Do you think the state pedestrian safety laws (i.e. yielding to peds in crosswalks) are sufficient? Why or why not?

There are very few state pedestrian laws. Unlike other states, the Michigan State Police (MSP) has put most of the pedestrian law language in a PDF document and asks the nearly 2,000 local government entities to adopt them by reference. That law language is based on the Uniform Vehicle Code model laws that all states use. However, MSP has modified the language in at least a couple instances to reduce protections for pedestrians and bicyclists. Is it sufficient? That may not be the right question when it’s unclear that law enforcement across Michigan have been properly trained on these laws. When reading the crash reports that law enforcement gives to the media, it seems there’s not a comprehensive understanding of the current pedestrian laws.

What you do think about the cities who have ordinances with stronger pedestrian laws, i.e. Ann Arbor, Kalamazoo, etc? Should more cities follow suit? Should the legislature follow suit? What should the legislature do?

It seems the one benefit (perhaps the biggest) of stronger local pedestrian laws is that law enforcement is more likely to be aware of them. 

The Office of Highway Safety Planning (OHSP) provides grants to select cities during Pedestrian Safety Month for pedestrian safety enforcement efforts where motorists and pedestrians are given warnings and citations. Is this a step in the right direction? Should this be expanded on? How could it be expanded? 

We do not support OHSP pedestrian or bicyclist enforcement efforts. Such enforcement is a largely temporary and often ineffective method for improving road safety. In fact, nationwide organizations such as the Vision Zero Network are explicitly removing enforcement as a strategy for improving safety. We are members of the Transportation Equity Caucus that is working to prevent federal safety funding from paying for enforcement efforts such as this. 

Like many others (including the FHWA and NTSB), we believe Safe Systems is the best approach for improving road safety for everyone. Safe Systems has a heavy focus on improving roads so that motorists drive safely without the need for enforcement. 

Is Michigan more motorist friendly than pedestrian friendly? If so, how can we make changes? What changes are already happening?

Most Michigan roads are designed to be motorist friendly — and the conditions are getting worse. There were 175 pedestrian deaths in Michigan last year, a 17% increase. In 2010, 14% of all road fatalities in Michigan were pedestrians. That’s now over 16%. Despite this, MDOT only focuses 1.4% of its federal Highway Safety Improvement Planning dollars on pedestrians. (It focuses zero on bicyclists.) That will change with the recent Bipartisan Infrastructure bill which will force MDOT to spend a minimum of 15% on improving bicyclist and pedestrian safety.

And if I haven’t asked the right question yet, please feel free to tell me whatever is topmost on your head and/or agenda regarding pedestrian safety in Michigan.

It seems two biggest factors affecting pedestrian safety are:

  • Road design that prioritizes motorist speed over pedestrian safety (and encourages speeding.)
  • Vehicle designs that have larger, higher, more blunt front ends; are heavier and faster; and encourage driver distraction.

I would also suggest looking over the 2020 OSHP Annual Evaluation Report, if you haven’t already done so. They substantially increased pedestrian and bicyclist fatality goals for 2019. This shows how ineffective they see themselves in reducing fatalities and their unwillingness to commit to Towards Zero Deaths. 

You might also consider the letter FHWA sent to the MDOT director in April of 2020 about their safety performance. It’s on page 51 of MDOT’s Highway Safety Improvement Plan

Based on the review of your safety performance targets and data, it appears that Michigan has not met or made significant progress towards achieving its safety performance targets. The below table provides a summary of the target achievement determination

Federal Highway Administration letter to MDOT Director, 2020