Cape Cod committee reviews six years of crash data, sets public meetings and draft plan timeline

Colleen Medeiros, transportation program manager at the Cape Cod Commission, convened the Vision 0 Action Committee on Oct. 2 to review six years of crash data and outline public engagement and next steps. Consultants presented maps and analyses intended to identify a draft high-injury network and complementary high-risk network for the Cape.

Consultants from Kimley Horn and partners said the MassDOT crash-data portal shows about 5,000 crashes per year — roughly 29,587 crashes across the six-year window presented — with geographic hot spots including Barnstable, Falmouth and the Bourne Rotary. "Deaths and serious injuries are unacceptable," a consultant said while explaining the Safe Streets for All framework for focusing on fatal and serious injury locations. The presentation broke crashes down by contributing factor and mode: distracted driving was cited as the largest contributing factor (about 38% of the flagged primary causes), followed by reckless driving (25%) and impaired driving (21%).

The consultants reported 365 pedestrian crashes (about 1.3% of the dataset) and 474 bicyclist crashes (about 1.6%). They said the dataset included 14 fatalities involving non-motorists in the presentation window (13 pedestrians and one bicyclist) and multiple serious injuries among vulnerable users. "We are presenting draft high-injury and high-risk networks," the consultant said, adding that the team is still refining definitions and coordinating data with MassDOT.

Committee members pressed for finer-grained analysis and context. Catherine Janssen, chair of the Falmouth Bicycle and Pedestrian Committee, said a per-capita look highlights a concentrated cluster on Route 28's Davis Straits area and urged the team to examine commuter bike access and bike-lane continuity. John (last name not recorded) and other participants asked whether high counts in Provincetown reflect seasonal population spikes rather than year-round exposure; consultants said seasonality can be analyzed and they will drill down to finer location-level detail.

Committee members also raised outreach and equity concerns. Jane Ward, a retired Air Force physician and Safe Routes advocate, asked for denominator data (estimates of how many people walk or bicycle in each village or town) so planners can assess exposure rather than raw counts. Several participants urged multiple ways to collect local knowledge — including paper comment forms, map boards at in-person events and translated materials — because some residents have difficulty using interactive online mapping tools.

Medeiros announced that slides and the meeting recording will be posted on the Vision 0 project page and that the team will convene in-person public meetings in Orleans on Nov. 12 and Sandwich on Nov. 21 (a Barnstable location will follow). Consultants and commission staff said they will conduct field reconnaissance at top locations, assemble toolkits of countermeasures, and aim to present a committee check-in in mid-December, with a draft action plan targeted for February. Medeiros noted the Safe Streets for All implementation-grant cycle reopens in April and cited an example, saying, "the city of Lynn just won $9,000,000 through this program," as an illustration of the funding available for certifiable action plans.

The meeting produced a list of follow-up tasks rather than formal votes: refine the high-injury and high-risk networks with seasonal and local data, obtain local crash narratives where needed, prepare materials for the November public meetings and focus groups (including youth and first-responder engagement), and develop a prioritized list of field-recon and study locations. The committee tentatively scheduled a mid-December virtual meeting and asked staff to post materials and keep the public comment tools open for written input.