Charlotte spent millions, but traffic deaths, injuries aren’t going down, new audit finds
Charlotte isn’t doing enough to eliminate deadly accidents on the city’s roads, a new internal audit found.
The audit, which examines the city’s Vision Zero program, calls for change within the Charlotte Department of Transportation and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department in order to meet the city’s goals. The city’s internal audit department posted the review last week.
Charlotte’s Vision Zero launched in 2019 with a goal to reduce crashes and eliminate traffic-related deaths and severe injuries on the city’s roads by 2030. But little has changed despite millions in spending, according to the audit.
CDOT has failed to fully implement some “key components” of the Vision Zero plan, the audit concluded. CMPD has fallen short on tracking crash-related data and using that data to improve strategies, the audit reported. And a lack of “buy-in” at the state level makes the city’s plan to eliminate deaths and serious injuries more difficult to achieve, the report says.
CDOT and CMPD accepted the report’s findings and are “are working to implement corrective actions in a timely manner.” The city’s internal audit team will do a follow-up report, the audit concludes.
John Holmes, vice chair of the city’s Bicycle Advisory Committee, offered a blunt assessment of the audit. The Vision Zero program “is failing Charlotteans,” he said on social media.
What is Vision Zero?
Charlotte spent $21.1 million on Vision Zero and tens of millions more on sidewalks and bicycle and pedestrian programs since 2019, the audit notes.
“Although safety spending has increased, there hasn’t been a significant decrease in crashes resulting in deaths and/or suspected serious injuries,” the audit said.
In 2023, 70 people were killed in vehicle-related incidents on Charlotte roads, Queen City Nerve reported. That was up from 61 in 2022.
The strategy, first developed in Sweden in 1997, calls for transportation systems that take into account the inevitability of human error and aim to prevent crashes resulting in death and severe injury rather than all crashes. Charlotte’s plan calls for the city to “proactively identify and mitigate risks” on roadways and closely monitor data to track where serious accidents occur most frequently and the circumstances behind them.
Audit: City, CMPD must do more to eliminate traffic fatalities
Much of the new internal audit focuses on CDOT’s and CMPDs’ handling of the Vision Zero plan.
The plan called for annual updates, but no updates have been published since 2020. Demographic data also hasn’t been updated since 2020, and both CDOT and CMPD aren’t consistently publishing traffic studies and metrics, according to the audit.
The audit calls for CDOT to name a person to track progress, provide updates to city leaders and “define a process for escalating concerns to management” to improve accountability. It also recommends the department periodically go over the city’s Vision Zero plan to look for any necessary changes.
The city also needs to do more to ensure its own workers are following traffic ordinances, including not obstructing sidewalks and bike lanes with vehicles or signage, and update its street closure maps to include sidewalk and bike lane closures, the report concluded.
The audit also calls for changes to how CMPD approaches crashes.
It suggests the department focus traffic enforcement efforts, including speed checks and DUI checkpoints, in areas with high rates of severe accidents rather than evenly distributing them around the city. The report also calls on the department to better track where crashes are happening and contributing factors in order to provide more comprehensive data.
Asked to comment, CMPD directed an Observer reporter back to the audit.
Sustain Charlotte, a nonprofit advocating for sustainable growth and transportation, was “thrilled” CDOT and CMPD agreed to implement the audit’s recommendations, executive director Shannon Binns said in a statement.
Binns said the group “strongly supports” the audit’s recommendations and would also like to see more investment in CDOT projects, including narrowing travel lanes, reducing the number of lanes and adding separated bike lanes.
“Over the last century, billions of dollars have been spent designing a transportation system in Charlotte that focused on moving vehicles as quickly as possible, and ensuring the safety of all road users was not the top priority. Most crashes, including those that kill or seriously injure people, are due to roads that are designed for maximizing vehicle speed rather than safety,” he said.
State of North Carolina blocking progress?
Another listed hurdle to Charlotte reaching its Vision Zero goals: a lack of “buy-in” from the North Carolina Department of Transportation. The audit cites an example of a rezoning petition where a developer agreed to a city request to add in bike lanes, extend sidewalk connections and add a bus shelter in conjunction with a townhome project, but NCDOT removed the bike lane and bus shelter.
“The State’s ability to dictate how streets within the City limits are managed has ripple effects that impact many of the City’s stated goals, not just Vision Zero,” the audit said.
Binns would like to see the state get more involved too, including allowing for automated enforcement such as red light cameras.
“Strategic enforcement by CMPD will help, but redesigning dangerous roads to make speeding more difficult will have a greater long-term impact,” he said.
“We urgently need NCDOT, who has also committed to Vision Zero, to do their part and work with the city to save lives,” he said.
This story was originally published July 30, 2024 at 12:02 PM.
