Work Session on Safe Streets for All – March 17, 2026
Work Session on Safe Streets for All – March 17, 2026
City Council held a work session on the Safe Streets for All comprehensive safety action plan on March 17, 2026, to evaluate priorities for reducing traffic fatalities and serious injuries. Mayor Pro Tem Harrison was absent and excused. Sean Driscoll, Vision Zero Program Manager, presented the plan’s findings, recommendations, and next steps, followed by council discussion.
Discussion Items
- Background and Crash Data: The city experiences 20,000–25,000 reported crashes annually, of which about 250 are serious injury crashes and approximately 40 are fatalities. Over half of fatal and serious injury crashes (2013–2023 data) involve speeding, and nearly 75% involve no seat belt. About 50% occur on roadways with posted speeds greater than 40 mph.
- High Injury Network and High Risk Network: The High Injury Network (reactive) identifies the top 20 corridors and intersections with the most serious injuries and fatalities; 80% of this network falls on NC DOT‑owned roadways. The High Risk Network (proactive) uses risk factors like roadway classification, number of lanes, traffic volumes, posted speed, transit routes, and land use to anticipate future crash patterns.
- Public Engagement: In late 2024 and early 2025, the city held one in‑person public meeting in each council district (several hundred attendees) and received over 1,000 survey participants. Citizens requested better pavement markings, more signalized intersections, filling sidewalk gaps, more enforcement, and better connectivity to greenways, parks, and community centers.
- Priority Network and Projects: From the networks and engagement, staff developed a priority network of 20 corridors, 10 vulnerable road user intersections, and 10 all‑mode intersections. Nine improvement projects were identified: five corridor projects (e.g., Capital Boulevard, Poole Road, South Saunders Street, Rock Quarry Road) and four intersection projects (three vulnerable road user, one all‑mode).
- Safety Countermeasure Toolkit: A toolkit of 38 proven, data‑driven countermeasures (e.g., positive offset left turns) was created to help engineers and planners quickly identify appropriate treatments.
- Safe Routes to School: Using safety, accessibility, population, and stakeholder criteria, 14 Tier 1 schools with the greatest need were identified. Cut sheets include relocating transit stops, signalizing crosswalks, filling sidewalk gaps, and pavement marking improvements.
- Behavioral and Enforcement Measures: Staff worked with Raleigh Police Department (RPD), Raleigh Fire, and Wake EMS. Recommendations include targeted enforcement on the high injury network, educational campaigns, improved crash response to reduce secondary crashes (about 20% of fatalities nationally). RPD cited three recent saturation patrols (e.g., Glenwood Ave, 9 p.m.–4 a.m., with multiple DUI/seatbelt/speeding citations).
- Policy Recommendations: The plan aligns with other city studies (Active Mobility Study, Downtown Mobility Study) and CAMPO’s Blueprint for Public Safety. Priorities include aligning design speeds with operational goals, updating the Unified Development Ordinance (UDO) and Street Design Manual to incorporate safety improvements, and embedding safety into daily transportation decisions.
Council Questions and Comments
- Council Branch requested that road names (e.g., SR 2205) be clarified for public‑facing materials.
- Council Silver emphasized the importance of intersection design for pedestrian safety, noting issues like missing stop bars, crosswalks, and long distances between signalized intersections on corridors like Capital Boulevard. He supported the plan and urged a hard look at intersection design citywide.
- Council Jones asked about broader educational outreach to address driver behavior. Driscoll suggested more enforcement, media engagement, social media posts, in‑school programs, and informational signage at high‑crash locations. She also raised concerns about staffing capacity to maintain existing and new infrastructure; Driscoll acknowledged the need for future operational resources.
- Council Patton noted that Northeast and Southeast Raleigh appeared heavily impacted. She inquired about the effectiveness of speed feedback signs; Driscoll said they are effective-ish, especially when combined with other countermeasures. She also asked about the pace of spending $15 million in safety funding; Driscoll explained that most is delivered through NC DOT over 5–7 years and is subject to real estate, construction, and contractor constraints. She asked about the Street Design Manual update; Bradley Camillo (Transportation) said phase one (clarifications) may come in spring/summer 2026, and phase two (incorporating plan recommendations) later in the calendar year. Council Patton also raised the topic of neighborhood traffic management; Will Shoemaker (Transportation) confirmed an annual report will come in April/May 2026.
- Council Lambert Milton asked about tactical urbanism and quick‑build projects. Driscoll mentioned a Tactical Urbanism webpage on the Vision Zero site and ongoing work with community groups like Oaks and Spokes. Lambert offered that creative community members could help deploy low‑cost, flexible projects.
Key Outcomes
- No formal votes were taken; the work session was informational.
- The draft Comprehensive Safety Action Plan will be provided to council in a few weeks for review and feedback.
- Staff aim to bring the plan back for adoption at a council meeting in April 2026.
- Adoption of the plan is required to pursue Safe Streets and Roads for All implementation grant funding (design and construction), which opens in about a month and closes around May 2026. A consultant is already under contract to prepare the grant application.
- After adoption, staff will advance quick‑build projects using the safety countermeasure toolkit, increase enforcement and educational outreach, and update policies through the UDO and Street Design Manual.
Meeting Transcript
All right, everybody, welcome to the work session on safe streets for all. Uh Mayor Pro Tem Harrison is absent and excused, and we will proceed with the session. Good morning. Sean Driscoll from Transportation. Yes, ma'am. Good morning, Madam Mayor, City Council. My name is Sean Driscoll. I'm the Vision Zero Program Manager here at the city. So I'm gonna start off by kind of highlighting what's in front of you. So what you have there is the executive summary from the comprehensive safety action plan. A list of all the high injury network and high injury intersections that fall within your respective district. The mayor and the outlarges have all maps. And then again, the list. So getting into the presentation, I you know, it's safe to say that everyone in this room probably individually or knows someone that's been affected by a traffic crash. And that's the goal here today, and that's what this study uh is here to do is to evaluate where our priorities are and try to reduce and eliminate serious injuries and fatalities. So the agenda I'm gonna touch on uh the background, the vision zero program, some of the accomplishments that we've completed over the last four years or so. Get into the action plan and the development of it, highlight the safety networks, that's the high injury network and high risk network. I'll speak to more. The engagement that we completed and the findings and the recommendations from the citizens, and then the plan recommendations and and on to next steps. So in the city, we have about 20 to 25,000 reported crashes every year. Of those, around 250 are serious injury or life altering crashes, and about 40 or so are our fatalities. So that 290 are the crashes we're focusing on, trying to eliminate and and trying to reduce and eventually eliminate. Mary's has has gone over very well, it's very well received and has a big impact. And then constructing signals at Riverbend Elementary as well as Wakefield, where those have been advertised, and we'll start construction this summer. So other improvements we're making around intersections, you've heard us talk about this a lot, but leading pedestrian intervals, accessible pedestrian signals, high visibility crosswalks, and then lots of streetlight improvements across the city, trying to focus on areas where we're having serious injuries and fatalities. So the needs are overwhelming across the city, and so how do we prioritize that? So developing this plan will go a long way in doing so. So a few years back, the city pursued a safe streets and road for all grant, which we were awarded $1 million to develop this plan. And uh adoption of this plan is required for uh pursuing implementation funding here in the future. And y'all feel free to stop me at any point in the uh presentation to ask questions. So getting into the plan. It was built on crash data and stakeholder input. So the crash data is the high injury network, I'll touch on the roadway risk analysis is the high risk network. So that's our high injury networks are reactive approach, and our high risk network is our proactive approach. So lots of public and stakeholder engagement. We developed a vision zero task force with the members that you see here. It's kind of acted as our steering committee as we've navigated the development of this plan over the last two years. Some of the big findings I just want to call out. Achieving vision zero is more than just building infrastructure. There are a lot of behavioral based challenges that we have. And of all the fatal and serious injury crashes for the 10 year data set we pulled from 2013 and 2023, more than half involve speeding, and almost 75% involved no seat belt. Okay, so this is the high injury network. This is our reactive approach. So what you're looking at here is a number of corridors and intersections that have had the most serious injuries and fatalities within the city. The orange is the top 20 corridors, and the red dots are high injury intersections. So again, contributing factors are speeding behavior and lane departure. Um approximately 50% of all fatal and serious injury crashes are resulting on roadways, which the speed is greater than 40 miles per hour. And this high injury network you're looking at, about 80% of it falls on NC DOT owned roadways. So again, not placing blame on them, but just driving home the need for our great partnership and continued partnership we have to make improvements along those corridors. Next is a high risk network.
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