Santa Clara staff recommend Vision 0 action plan; council debates hiring a senior civil engineer

Nicole Hee, senior civil engineer in the Department of Public Works, presented the city’s first Vision 0 action plan and urged the council to adopt it as a multi‑disciplinary strategy to eliminate traffic fatalities and severe injuries by 2050.

Hee said staff analyzed collisions from 2016 through 2023 and reported 7,934 total collisions in that period, including 51 fatal and 139 severe‑injury crashes — roughly six fatal collisions and 17 severe injuries per year. She told the council that pedestrians and bicyclists accounted for about 7% of crashes but 35% of the fatal and severe‑injury total, and that staff identified a high‑injury network where a disproportionate share of collisions are concentrated. “With this Vision 0 plan, we set a target to end all traffic fatalities and severe injuries on city roadways by 2050,” Hee said.

The plan lays out engineering countermeasures, policy recommendations and programs. Hee said staff estimated program costs across three buckets: capital projects on the high‑injury network, professional services and program activities, and ongoing program support. She reported an…