FY2025 Work Program

The Office of Safe Streets (OSS) is focused on advancing Regional Vision Zero 2050 through planning studies, data analysis, and coordination with regional partners at each level of government as well as with other private and public partners. OSS embraces the Federal Highway Administration’s Safe System Approach which involves anticipating human mistakes by designing and managing road infrastructure to minimize crash risk, and prevent the consequences of a crash from resulting in fatalities or serious injuries. This work involves identification of crash trends and problem locations, promoting data-driven solutions and safety best practices, exploring policy initiatives, and promoting a positive safety culture by strengthening existing partnerships and establishing new ones. The Safe Streets program includes problem analysis, performance measure tracking, helping partners identify and advance safety projects, and efforts designed to explore the connections between crash safety, health and equity. OSS frequently collaborates with other DVRPC offices on joint planning efforts, where the goals of safety, accessibility, and multi-modalism are complementary.

The Regional Safety Task Force (RSTF) is a multi-disciplinary forum for agencies and organizations to improve road safety by exploring crash safety topics. The RSTF serves as the safety culture mechanism for the now underway Regional Vision Zero 2050 effort. The quarterly meeting structure promotes progress toward regional safety goals through facilitated action item development; action items are tracked and updated by staff. Traditionally meetings have been focused on a crash safety emphasis area from the Transportation Safety Analysis and Plan—the region’s guiding document for safety. With the development of a Regional Vision Zero plan, the RSTF topics and audience are expanding to support FHWA's Safe System Approach which aligns with the Vision Zero paradigm. Staff manages the RSTF and its progress toward meeting goals and objectives, and serves as facilitator.

Crash data is foundational to the work of the Office of Safe Streets, and is used in most planning and analysis work undertaken by DVRPC. Products and tools like the DVRPC Crash Data Viewer web tool and DVRPC’s Data Navigator are updated regularly as crash data becomes available. OSS staff relies on crash data for annual work program projects, to fulfill data and analysis requests from DVRPC partners, and to assist other DVRPC staff in understanding a diagnosing crash contributing factors, promoting analytical consistency and best practices. Crash database and GIS crash file maintenance is coordinated across DVRPC departments.

OSS provides assistance to city, county, and state partners in developing and advancing safety projects using the federal Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP) and other funds, and tracks progress toward safety objectives. Specific activities include program management, crash analyses to support funding applications, and problem identification. This work is focused on identifying problem locations, and advancing the next steps needed to secure funding for safety-focused infrastructure projects that support bigger-picture goals like Regional Vision Zero 2050, DVRPC’s Long-Range Plan goals, and state Strategic Safety Plans. Work on this task is done in collaboration with DVRPC’s Offices of Capital Programming, Long-Range Planning, and Project Implementation.

As part of the City of Philadelphia's Vision Zero 2025 plan, the City identified priority corridors and intersections for future improvement under a Vision Zero Capital Plan. Wissahickon Avenue, from Hunting Park Avenue to Queen Lane, was identified as a top ten corridor. Working with the Office of Mobility Analysis and Design, OSS will be responsible for the stakeholder and local community engagement tasks, and all safety-related work including a road safety audit of the corridor. The goal is to have plans ready to progress to preliminary engineering and grant applications.

As crash safety increases in priority among our partners and the public, OSS receives an increasing number of invitations to participate in and conduct both traditional and non-traditional safety-focused analyses, and to collaborate on safety culture-focused engagement efforts. Some of these opportunities are conducted in collaboration with outside partners to advance safety programs and projects that are consistent with DVRPC’s Long-Range Plan and Regional Vision Zero 2050. Others involve ongoing support and implementation tasks resulting from completed projects from preceding fiscal years, e.g.: City of Trenton Vision Zero. Safe Streets welcomes the opportunity to provide support for both short and long-term safety efforts as time and capacity allow.

In February of 2023 DVRPC was awarded a federal grant from the Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A) discretionary program, established as part of the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL). This grant has set into motion the creation of a Regional Vision Zero Plan including a data-driven region-wide High Injury Network and a toolbox of hot-spot strategies and low-cost systemic improvements including FHWA’s Proven Safety Countermeasures, for system-wide deployment. We’ll use the FHWA Safe System Approach as context for the planning process, promoting the fact that crashes are preventable and that creating a system safe for all modes and all people is a shared responsibility. The plan will be developed in collaboration with county and city partners who are sub-recipients of the grant. This work is funded separately via the 23-52-230 Regional Vision Zero (RVZ) 2050 Action Program (2-Years)

Completion of these tasks may require the purchase of equipment or services.

All members of the region's traveling public including residents, employees, and through-travelers; municipal, county, state, and federal partner agencies.