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AAMPO adopts 2050 target to reach zero fatal and serious-injury crashes
Summary
Ames Area Metropolitan Planning Organization leadership voted to set 2050 as the target year for achieving zero fatal and serious-injury crashes in the MPO planning area, adopting the technical committee’s recommended goal as part of work funded by a USDOT Safe Streets and Roads for All grant.
Ames Area Metropolitan Planning Organization leadership voted to set 2050 as the target year for achieving zero fatal and serious-injury crashes in the MPO planning area, adopting the technical committee’s recommended goal as part of work funded by a USDOT Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A) grant.
The MPO is using a $100,000 SS4A planning grant to develop a Comprehensive Safety Action Plan, or CSAP, intended to qualify the area for implementation funding from USDOT. Jonathan, a consultant with HDR working on the CSAP, told the MPO that the CSAP is structured around eight federal “core components” required by the grant and that the plan will recommend a mix of major capital projects, systemic low-cost treatments and policy/process changes.
Why it matters: MPO staff and the consultant framed the CSAP as a data-driven step that allows the Ames community and other member jurisdictions to compete for federal SS4A implementation funds. The MPO presentation showed there were 11 fatalities and 98 serious injuries within the planning area from 2017 through 2023, with elevated risk for pedestrians, cyclists and drivers under 25 — data the consultant said would be used to prioritize corridors and countermeasures.
Consultant Jonathan said the federal guidance encourages a “safe system” approach focused on preventing death and serious injury rather than on all crashes. Damien, traffic engineer for the City of Ames, told the MPO he views the CSAP as an evolution in safety practice, not a criticism of past work: “This is just a new technique that has come up … and it is the next evolutionary step.”
The technical committee recommended using a measurable target that assumes a steady average reduction (the committee modeled a 4% per-year average reduction scenario) and recommended 2050 as the target year. The MPO will continue technical review and public outreach and expects to return to the policy committee with a draft plan for adoption in 2025.
What they directed: The policy body voted to accept the technical committee recommendation and the target-year proposal and to continue CSAP development, including stakeholder engagement, equity analysis and corridor-level recommendations. MPO staff said they will deliver context benchmarking (peer comparisons) and refined corridor lists to the committee for future review.
What’s next: Staff and consultants will produce corridor- and countermeasure-level recommendations, refine cost/benefit information for potential projects, and present a draft CSAP for adoption in September 2025. The CSAP will also identify transparency and progress-tracking steps required by the SS4A program.
