Madison Unanimously Fails Vision Zero
When we don't build the safest street allowable by street planning guidance, what is it all for?
I pitched Isthmus on an opinion piece for the Regent Street vote. We lost the vote, but it’s still important for people to know what Common Council voted on and why. As we move further away from the decision, we lose context. I still stand by my work so I’m posting it here.
Common Council meetings are normally inconsequential. But sometimes, there are agenda items vital to how the city functions; budgeting is an obvious example where meetings regularly go beyond midnight. Item 94 from the June 9th meeting, the geometry of Regent Street, is one of them.
The meeting featured several speakers, including myself, who were opposed to a specific redesign of Regent Street. There are improvements to Regent Street that I am excited to partake in: wider sidewalks, no confusing peak-hour lanes, and adaptable street space. Alders praised the design for its balance for all users and effective compromise.
Unfortunately, Council did not engage with our feedback. They acknowledged us, expressing “inspiration” in our public engagement. But any questions or discussions directed at us were about bike lanes, missing the point entirely. This redesign was vital to understanding how alders would work to achieve “Vision Zero” when there are difficult decisions to make. Many alders campaigned on prioritizing safety for all users over other considerations, but in their first test on a city-controlled street since Sasha Rosen died over four months ago, they all failed.
Vision Zero is a policy goal to eliminate all traffic fatalities or severe injuries on our streets. This is because “death and injury on city streets is preventable” through better street design. Common Council has adopted this goal and you can see it in press releases, public information meetings, and street design guidance.
It might sound implausible, but several cities have gotten close to realizing this goal. Madison, with a population over 270,000, recorded 39 traffic fatalities between 2023-2025. Vision Zero started in Sweden and was adopted by other Nordic states, where Helsinki (pop. 700,000) recorded 10 deaths in the same period, with no deaths recorded in 2025. Stateside, Hoboken, NJ (pop. 60,000) has not recorded a traffic fatality since 2017 even with their dense street grid.
The political issue with Vision Zero is that reducing deaths means changing the existing street infrastructure. Instead of focusing on reducing vehicle congestion, or making every building convenient and accessible to cars, new designs focus on slowing cars down and making safer intersections. This policy is not for the faint of heart; if you commit to Vision Zero you are committing to frustrating drivers.
I asked Common Council to refer the design because it called for lanes wider than what Complete Green Streets guidance suggests. Narrow lanes save lives by reducing “comfortable” driving speeds. Drivers go slower when they don’t have as much room to maneuver, and the difference between surviving a collision at 20 mph and 30 mph goes from 90% to 50%. There were unnecessary turn lanes that could be eliminated to reduce intersection collisions. Safer infrastructure could be prioritized, per their own planning documents, but staff did not include it.
The geometry that the alders passed unanimously will be set in concrete and asphalt. It will exist for decades and it will cost money to fix it if someone is hurt or dies. The reason it passed is because there are competing interests. Businesses testified that losing parking in front of their building would be destructive, despite many cities showing rejuvenated corridors when parking isn’t prioritized. The hospitals prefer convenient traffic flows for their out of town patients. Fire and Police asked staff for wide lanes to ensure easy vehicle access during emergencies, despite no existing guidance or standard.
The problem here is that these incumbents are used to the status quo. Things work, even if it results in 22 crashes since 2017 and a fatality in 2007. They work because cars can get around, customers don’t complain, and we can build around the congestion vehicles cause. Vision Zero fundamentally asks them to sacrifice this comfort for the greater good.
When alders talk about “compromise” and “balance” with this design, I think they mean “limiting losses”. What can they do to ensure the incumbents of Regent don’t “lose” too much? What improvements can be made, but not so far as to frustrate the people who have existed on Regent for far longer than they’ve been on council?
And that’s the reason I’m severely disappointed in them. I’m trying to “limit the losses” of human life. I have seen intersections like this design that kill people when they try to cross the street. I know that even though congestion slows traffic down during commute hours, the wide lanes remain at night when students could be walking back from an exam. The safety proposals are not misaligned with what the incumbents want, it’s asking cars to slow down and make small adjustments to their commutes. Regent Street can be a safe and thriving street. Council decided that it wasn’t worth the hassle.
My question is, if someone dies, what do we lose?
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Common Council Rejects a Safer Regent
Hi, My name is Josh Olson, I'm a former resident of the Regent Street area. As a student, I never considered walking on Regent because the cars were erratic and the sidewalks were too narrow.
Madison is pro-people, not anti-car
Sometimes I write at the inspiration of positive stories. For example, I felt inspired by Progress and Poverty’s Uniformity Does Not Preclude Land Value Taxes to look at what the Wisconsin Constitution has to say about LVTs. You can see that here:
When I was in Madison a few weeks ago our Uber driver complained about how unsafe the streets are for pedestrians ... and then immediately blamed this on the pedestrians. "They just walk into traffic! Drivers really have to pay attention!" I did not explain Vsion Zero to him but I thought loud thoughts.