America Walks is thrilled to welcome 4 new members of our Board of Administrators, together with Heyden Black Walker, whose introduction is under. View the remainder of our board and workers right here.
Heyden Black Walker joined the Board of America Walks in April of 2026. She involves us from her hometown of Austin, Texas, the place she works tirelessly to advertise walkability, security, and entry all through the town. She serves because the Director of Planning at Black + Motal Structure and City Design, at the moment chairs the Board of Administrators for native nonprofit Protected Streets Austin, and was a founding member of the Metropolis’s Pedestrian Advisory Council. Heyden co-created this weblog publish along with her daughter Addie Walker, Public Well being Analysis Lead at Black + Motal Structure and City Design.
Within the fall of 2025, my hometown of Austin, Texas celebrated 10 years of its Imaginative and prescient Zero program. Imaginative and prescient Zero, a motion which started in Sweden within the Nineteen Nineties, is the concept the one acceptable variety of deaths and critical accidents on our roads is zero, and that crashes are preventable utilizing data-informed insurance policies and interventions. During the last 10 years Austin has made main enhancements on Metropolis-owned roads to scale back the frequency and severity of crashes. How we obtained here’s a testomony to Austin’s advocacy community, Metropolis workers and forward-thinking native leaders, and a dedication to partnership for the advantage of the whole metropolis.
In September of 2015, Austin reached a horrific new report—the very best variety of site visitors fatalities within the metropolis in a single yr: 102. In recognition of this milestone and in a name to motion to Metropolis management, Austin’s vibrant and lively advocacy group put collectively the primary Imaginative and prescient Zero vigil within the metropolis. Advocates stood outdoors Metropolis Corridor and held a remembrance for these 102 individuals who had misplaced their lives on Austin’s streets, and for all these others who had been injured or affected by site visitors violence.
Advocates spoke at Metropolis Council conferences, studying off the title and age of each single one that had been misplaced to site visitors violence. It took 5 audio system, studying names one after the opposite for his or her three allotted minutes of talking time, to get by way of the record.
On the time, Austin had a Imaginative and prescient Zero Job Drive to supply really helpful security insurance policies. In October of 2015, Metropolis Council adopted the Imaginative and prescient Zero objective of zero traffic-related fatalities and critical accidents as official Metropolis coverage. However the true success got here in 2016, when Metropolis Council adopted a Imaginative and prescient Zero Motion Plan and allotted $6 million to enhance security at high-crash intersections. Additional funding for the Motion Plan got here from a 2016 voter-approved bond.
The mixture of the adopted Plan and substantial funding gave the Metropolis energy to rent its first ever Imaginative and prescient Zero Security Officer, who put collectively a incredible Imaginative and prescient Zero crew. They created a Imaginative and prescient Zero dashboard, a complete useful resource of each documented crash, critical damage, and fatality on Austin’s roads. The info is categorized by modality, time of day, location (together with an interactive map), and demographics.
Having this knowledge allowed the crew to make knowledgeable, data-driven infrastructure investments specializing in high-crash intersections. The primary intervention was in-built 2017. Since then, Imaginative and prescient Zero has accomplished 29 main intersection tasks, over 12 miles of road lighting enhancements, 28 pace administration tasks, and low-cost, systemic security enhancements like entry administration therapies and site visitors sign upgrades at tons of extra places on Metropolis of Austin-owned streets. Imaginative and prescient Zero tasks during the last 10 years have led to a 38% discount in critical damage and deadly crashes, and a $78 million annual discount in crash prices.
“Every challenge interprets into safer communities, safer journeys to high school, safer walks to the bus cease. The result’s fewer crashes and accidents – one thing we could be happy with. However we also needs to keep in mind what these numbers imply. It’s fewer lives turned the wrong way up, fewer households grieving, extra individuals who make it dwelling every day. Behind each knowledge level is a future that’s nonetheless intact” – Council Member Paige Ellis, 2025
Austin’s Imaginative and prescient Zero program is a exceptional success. It could be attributed to the Imaginative and prescient Zero Crew’s dedication, to crossdepartmental coordination, to voter-approved bond funding, to public help and celebration by advocates, to data-driven options, to concrete poured and intersections renovated. However the reality of the matter is that actual issues require actual options. They require advocates to push for a greater world, for native governments to place actual funding and assets in the direction of the trigger, and for all of us to mirror on our wins. I encourage everybody wholeheartedly to learn by way of the Metropolis’s 10 Yr Imaginative and prescient Zero report, and to mirror on how greatest a partnership between advocates and native authorities can enhance their cities.
My deepest acknowledgements and because of Lewis Leff, Austin’s inaugural Imaginative and prescient Zero Security Officer, and Joel Meyer, the present Imaginative and prescient Zero Security Officer, in addition to the whole Imaginative and prescient Zero crew for his or her dedication to the trigger. My because of the 2015 Austin Metropolis Council, particularly my late buddy Chris Riley, and Metropolis Employees for believing on this imaginative and prescient and for placing actual assets behind it. My because of all of the advocates, particularly those that have misplaced family members and who proceed to battle in order that others is not going to know their struggling. My because of everybody concerned in and supporting Protected Streets Austin in persevering with to maneuver this effort ahead. And at last, my because of America Walks for highlighting success tales like these.
