City staff introduce Vision Zero action plan aimed at cutting road fatalities

City planning staff and consultants introduced a draft Vision Zero action plan to the Oklahoma City Council that seeks to reduce — and ultimately eliminate — traffic fatalities and serious injuries on the city’s streets.

The plan, presented by Jeff Butler, planning director, and Brian Schamberger of Kimley‑Horn and Associates, lays out a three-part approach: define the purpose and engagement process, analyze crash data and high‑injury corridors, and recommend infrastructure and policy countermeasures. Butler and Schamberger said staff would return to council within about two weeks for formal consideration and potential approval to support upcoming federal grant cycles.

The plan uses a data-driven “high injury network” to focus investments: Schamberger said that the network represents roughly 6.6% of the city’s roadway mileage but accounted for about 58% of serious-injury crashes and 87% of the city’s fatalities during the period analyzed. The plan identifies seven priority corridors for focused engineering study and a toolbox of countermeasures — medians, pedestrian refuge islands, roundabouts, pedestrian hybrid beacons and other treatments — that federal safety research shows reduce crash severity.

Consultants said the plan was developed over about a year with an advisory board that included council members and representatives from the planning commission, traffic and transportation commission, police and public works. Public engagement included six pop‑up events, six public workshops and an online mapping/survey tool that generated more than 1,800 contributions. Schamberger said the engagement helped corroborate crash data with reported issues such as poor lighting at specific intersections.

The draft organizes action items by the Safe System approach — safer people, safer roads, safer speeds, safer vehicles and post‑crash care — and assigns short, medium and long timeframes (under 2 years, 2–5 years, and longer than 5 years) and likely implementation partners and funding sources. Schamberger listed potential funding sources that include routine maintenance budgets, regional grant partnerships and upcoming federal implementation grant cycles; staff emphasized some changes (for example to design standards) could be implemented without new funding.

Council members asked clarifying questions and requested staff follow up; the city manager and planning director said they would return to council for formal consideration within roughly two weeks so the city could be positioned for federal grant deadlines in March–May. No formal action was taken at the presentation.

The draft plan is available for public feedback. Council members and staff said they expect to review edits and return the plan to the council for a vote before the next federal grant application window.