(Maria Silva) Welcome to Nevada Week.

I'm Maria Silva, in for Amber Renee Dixon who is on maternity leave.

We'll talk to the CEO of the Regional Transportation Commission about projects in the works to help improve the daily commute in just a moment.

But first, from the Strip to the suburbs, traffic can be tricky, even dangerous.

But a new influx of money from the federal government through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law aims to help.

Joining us to talk about the safety of our streets are Joey Paskey, City Traffic Engineer for the City of Las Vegas; and Erin Breen, Director with the Road Equity Alliance Project.

Thank you both so much for joining us.

(Erin Breen) Thanks for having me.

-So I'm going to take off my glasses because I have some stats that I need to read right now, and this is really important.

And I want to start with you, Erin.

You've been doing this for many years here in Southern Nevada.

How many years?

-Oh, you had to do that, huh?

[laughter] It will be 27 years on April 1.

-Well, I remember calling you 15 years ago, at five o'clock in the morning for a live shot.

And you were ready to do this because you're passionate about this.

-I am.

-But some stats here...

Between 2018 and 2022, an estimated, listen to this, 308 pedestrians died in Clark County between 2017 and 2021.

27 bicyclists died in Clark County.

We hear these-- It's jarring to hear these numbers.

-You're right.

-You have to deal with this every day.

And you have some new stats already for the year, and we're just, what, in March?

-Right, right.

You know, I take them personally is the problem.

So many of us work so hard to try to quell those numbers.

We are not alone.

It's a-- it's a national trend in many, many cities.

And the difference is, we're going to talk today a little about Vision Zero, the difference is having programs like that and not having them.

And so far we've been on the not having them side, so our numbers are up.

And we've joined lots of communities across the country in that, in that fact.

-And you do have some stats to share just from this year alone, 2023.

-I do, and very sadly.

So we call "vulnerable road users" those people who are outside of cars.

So it's pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorcyclists.

And they're 3% to 5% of the road users.

So they're a very small number.

But last year in the state of Nevada, 58% of our fatalities were, in fact, those vulnerable road users.

And in Clark County, 58%.

And so far this year, year to date in our city, 61% of our fatalities have been people not traveling in cars.

-Joey, Erin just mentioned Vision Zero.

A lot of people may not be aware that this exists here in Southern Nevada.

What is this program?

It's been around for decades, started actually in Europe.

(Joey Paskey) Correct.

So Vision Zero is a strategy to eliminate all traffic fatalities and severe injuries while increasing safe, healthy, and equitable mobility for all.

It is not a new concept, as you said.

And like many other agencies, the City has been implementing safety improvements that support Vision Zero for many years.

But where this is different is that Vision Zero recognizes that people are human, and we're going to make mistakes.

So we are taking this responsibility to design and operate a transportation system that makes these inevitable mistakes less severe.

-Now, I do need to say in doing research, I did find your vision statement which says, as you touched on it, "...eliminate all transportation of fatalities and serious injuries in the city of Las Vegas by 2050."

Now when you hear this, you might think a city, growing pains, we keep growing.

We hear these staggering numbers.

Could this be a reality?

Do you-- Are you met with a lot of skepticism when you tell people by 2050 zero fatalities?

-Yes, we are often met with skepticism on this.

And what we try to do when we hear this is we try to challenge people to think, How could our goal be anything other than zero?

I mean, this could be one of your family members.

This could be one of your friends.

And even the United States Department of Transportation has adopted zero as their goal.

So we are not the only ones.

We are in very good company here, and I would think Erin would support us on this.

How could zero-- -1,000%.

Absolutely.

And it is happening.

That's the crazy thing.

There's a city in New Jersey that has had zero fatalities for the last two years.

So this is, it's not a new concept.

It is tried and true, recognizing again that we're all going to be human and we're all going to do things that might not be very smart, and if we lessen the severity of the crash-- The whole thing is, we're not going to eliminate crashes, because people are always going to be people.

But if we can make the crash less severe-- so no critical injuries, no fatalities-- and that's the key.

-And that's a big part of this, right, reactive versus proactive?

-Correct.

-And let's also talk about the funding.

We talked, the City of Las Vegas is getting quite a bit of money, 1.85 million, more than $1.8 million for this program.

How will the money be used?

-We're very excited about this.

This is part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which really has the opportunity to be truly transformational towards preventing deaths and serious injuries in the nation.

And we received this as part of the Safe Streets and Roads For All program.

And we're gonna use this to build on our existing Vision Zero Action Plan, which is a living document, and going to use this for our data management and reporting and as well as to do an update in the future to our action plan.

We're excited.

There are four more years available in this program.

It's a $5 billion program.

Billion with a B.

This is really a great opportunity.

And we think there are going to be great opportunities again in the future for additional funding for implementation of the projects, hopefully to get some of our intersection improvements, pedestrian safety improvements out there on the street.

-And let's talk about a stretch of road that definitely needs a lot of attention, Boulder Highway.

We were talking off camera that every time I have to drive down there, I tense up knowing that-- And you have to be vigilant at all times.

But it is one of the deadliest roads here in Southern Nevada.

-Very sadly for the last two years, it's once again led our list of deadly roads for, for pedestrians.

Six people lost their lives on Boulder Highway as pedestrians last year.

And you know, it's-- I always say about Boulder Highway, at least it tells you in its name what it is.

We have lots of roads that are-- We don't call Flamingo Road Flamingo Highway, but that's what it is.

Or something like Blue Diamond or St. Rose Parkway.

We are a city that is built for cars, and it's very difficult for other road users to be safe on our streets.

And that's why it's so important that, you know, all these years that I've been talking about this stuff, Maria, it's finally coming to fruition.

So the City has been doing a lot of this for a long time, but now other entities are joining as well.

And, and at the same time though, the infrastructure money became available.

So it was like the perfect storm, only a good storm that, that thought processes have changed and money has become available to implement them.

-And it's interesting, the point that Boulder Highway is a what, 17-mile stretch?

So those are different jurisdictions: A little bit City of Las Vegas, County a big portion of it, as well as Henderson.

City of Henderson, they are doing some road improvements as well.

Let's talk about the County, the fact that they did have to create an Office of Traffic Safety for that very reason, because it's so bad out there when it comes to safety on our roads.

-Well, let's talk about how awesome that is.

-Yes, wonderful news.

Andrew Bennett is the director.

-And you know what a perfect, perfect person to lead that.

And so again, that's a convergence where all the stars lined up, you know?

You have commissioners that are committed, committed to changing our quality of life basically is what it comes down to.

And so, so they develop this Office of Traffic Safety, and they're doing wonderful things that-- I've always pointed at the City for being the leader in a lot of especially vulnerable road user projects.

But I am so happy to say that the County is, is right behind them these days.

I can't tell you how exciting that is.

-And it is a group effort.

-It totally is.

-Again, we talk about not just the City, the County, what you're doing, but also us as residents of this great state.

It's also up to us.

That's a big part of it, correct, Vision Zero?

-Absolutely.

And a really neat part of our Vision Zero program is that we, the City, didn't create our Vision Zero action plan by ourself.

It was a very collaborative effort, and we put together a technical advisory committee that was made up of a large number of city departments.

But it wasn't just our city departments.

We had over 20 peer and partner agencies that were involved in doing that, and that included Las Vegas Metro, the Nevada Department of Transportation, the Regional Transportation Commissions of both Washoe County and Southern Nevada, the Clark County Office of Traffic Safety, local safety professionals like Erin.

They didn't just help us put the plan together over the course of a year and a half.

They're going to stay through implementation; they all have responsibilities as part of our plan, and they're going to help us see it through all the way to fruition.

And we're very, very fortunate to have had them on through the whole thing.

-And you have a lot of other programs, the Citywide Intersection Crash Mitigation Program, as well.

Tell us real quick about that.

-So that was actually the precursor to our Vision Zero action plan.

And it was kind of one of those things where you can't fix your problems until you know where they actually are.

And so we wanted to know where our biggest problems were and that we found out where our top 10 intersections for crashes.

And that's exactly what we did.

We figured out where our top five intersections for vehicular crashes were, our top five intersections for crashes for vulnerable users, and that we were able to find out what those were and then program them in for future improvements.

So a lot of those reside, if you look at our action plan, they reside in there for planning for future funding to take care of in the-- -And you have all this information online-- -We do.

- --which is wonderful.

We have that on our website as well.

I want to touch on something that's also really important, which is kids and teens.

That's something that you're passionate about as well.

Erin, you work on this so much for many years.

I just yesterday, by sheer coincidence, on Nextdoor someone posted: Parents of children -- they go to, I won't name the middle school-- please teach your children that are walking home about safety.

I had a group of girls run across the road in front of me and a bunch of cars-- in front of a bunch of cars.

And several people were honking at them, and the kids did not care.

What is being done, especially through your program, to make sure that these kids know about road safety and that they do also abide by the traffic laws?

-Well, so one of the big-- One of the big issues is that kids are so contained in elementary school, and suddenly they get to middle school and they get a little freedom and they don't know what to do with it.

So actually right now, a big, a big committee of community representatives-- Again, it's we're not in a vacuum here, everybody's together.

We are working on looking at how could we develop a program to have crossing guards for middle schoolers.

And that's a-- It's greatly needed.

It's been recognized that it's needed.

And so hopefully, we're going to come up with a plan for how we're going to fund that, because that's the problem.

-And before we do leave you, I do want to tell you a little bit about the contest that you have going on to incorporate and help these kids, CCSD.

Real quick.

-That's awesome.

That's the RTC program along with us.

It's called Save a Life, Win a MacBook.

And Mainor and Wirth attorneys have donated the prizes.

So all throughout the Clark County School District if your child is from kindergarten to 12 years of age, go to our website at pedsafe.vegas.

All of the information is there.

They develop a bus shelter message really aimed at drivers, or in the bus message aimed at pedestrians.

And the two winners, one wins a MacBook and one wins an iPad.

But more importantly, we take all, a lot of the top 14 entries, turn them into a calendar, do art shows with them, but the kids learn a little about traffic safety while they're developing those messages.

And that's our goal.

-Erin, thank you so much for what you're doing here in Southern Nevada.

-Thank you.

-Joey, you as well.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate you both.