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Planning Board to be briefed on new Vision Zero tools and resources to help Montgomery County eliminate severe traffic injuries and fatalities by 2030

pedestrians in crosswalk, bus passing behind them
Planning staff will highlight the new Vision Zero Community Toolkit, Interactive Crash Map, and Predictive Safety Analysis on March 25

WHEATON, MD – The Montgomery County Planning Department, part of The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC), will brief the Montgomery Planning Board on March 25 on its Vision Zero Work Plan, which supports the county’s goal to eliminate traffic fatalities and severe injuries by 2030. Planning staff will present new Vision Zero tools for county agencies and the public—a Montgomery County Interactive Crash Map, which provides users with an understanding of safety challenges, and a Vision Zero Community Toolkit, which focuses on identifying the appropriate treatments to address those challenges. The briefing will also include discussion on Montgomery Planning’s Predictive Safety Analysis.

“Safe roads begin with thoughtful design,” said Planning Director Gwen Wright. “Through our planning work, we are in a unique position to support Montgomery County’s Vision Zero initiative by addressing safety through development approvals and master planning. Our dual roles allow us to focus on both short-term design improvements and the long-term vision for safety.”

Vision Zero Community Toolkit

Montgomery Planning’s Vision Zero Community Toolkit is a resource intended to help community members understand and advocate for specific types of road safety designs to reduce crashes involving motor vehicles, bicyclists, and pedestrians. It consists of over 40 design treatments and outlines how each treatment can address road safety challenges in different contexts throughout Montgomery County.

The Vision Zero Community Toolkit will help users identify which design strategies are best suited for the specific safety challenges of their neighborhood. Certain treatments are aimed at reducing vehicle speeds, while others may provide safer crossings for bicyclists and pedestrians. Because not all treatments are suited for all roadway types, this toolkit highlights which ones are most effective in a given context.

Montgomery County Interactive Crash Map

Montgomery Planning developed the Interactive Crash Map to be used by county staff and the public. This map displays Montgomery County crashes from 2015 to 2019 with tools to allow users to understand crash trends by intersection, corridor, and neighborhood. Planning staff developed a brief video tutorial to help users navigate the map’s interactive features, which include summaries of crashes by location, the ability to isolate crashes by type, and tools to select and export crash data.

Predictive Safety Analysis

Montgomery Planning is conducting a Predictive Safety Analysis that uses the context and characteristics of locations to identify where crashes are likely to occur. This analysis will allow the county to prioritize where and how to most-effectively make safety improvements through capital projects, development approvals, and master planning to prevent crashes from happening. Montgomery County is one of the first jurisdictions of its size and land use mix to undertake a predictive analysis with this level of rigor and detail.

Planning staff will present the final results of the Predictive Safety Analysis to the Planning Board by the end of 2021 or early 2022.

“Our new Vision Zero tools are an important step forward for Montgomery County,” said Jesse Cohn, Montgomery Planning Vision Zero Coordinator. “These resources will help our staff, partner agencies, and the public better understand the safety challenges facing our communities and the suite of potential strategies that can be used to improve safety.”

Additional resources