Dear Friends,

Every year, more than 200 people are killed while trying to move around Los Angeles. Nearly half of the people who die on our streets are people walking and bicycling, and an alarming number of them are children and older adults.

Our streets must be safer. Vision Zero is more than an approach to traffic safety management: it is an international movement, based on the fundamental principle that loss of life due to traffic collisions is unacceptable and preventable.

With Vision Zero, we can reduce the likelihood of death and severe injury through strategic, data-driven approaches to engineering, enforcement, education, evaluation, and community engagement.

We may not be able to prevent every collision, but we can — and must — take important steps that can make a difference and save lives.

My goal is to eliminate all traffic deaths in the City of Los Angeles by 2025. Achieving this ambitious objective will require us to engineer our streets for safety first; help ensure the public is more aware of how to stay out harm’s way; and better enforce our traffic laws. If we can realize this vision, children will be safer walking to school, families will be safer going to the park, and commuters will be safer getting to work.

In L.A., this movement has already begun. To help prioritize our efforts, we will focus initial work in places that have been identified as having the highest rates of collisions for people walking and bicycling.

Working together, we can eliminate traffic deaths and make Los Angeles a safer place for everyone traveling through our city.

Sincerely,

Eric Garcetti
MAYOR

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