Vision Zero LouisvilleSafety Action Plan - Jefferson County, KY

In 2018, Palmer Engineering was selected to develop the Louisville Roadway Safety Plan. This plan is the first for a local agency in Kentucky and was prepared through the cooperation of Louisville Jefferson County Metro Government (LMG) and the Kentucky Office of Highway Safety. Through coordination with LMG, the findings of the study were incorporated in the Vision Zero Louisville Safety Action Plan. The methods, procedures, and lessons learned from this pilot study will be utilized for other small communities to develop similar action plans.

The first step in the study was the collection of many sources of data from KYTC, Kentucky Transportation Center, Kentucky State Police, LMG, KIPDA, and other governmental agencies. The network data was incorporated into a GIS database so that relationships could be determined regarding potential risk factors that contribute to crashes. In total, 127,174 crashes occurred in the Louisville Metro area over a five-year study period (2013-1017) after removing interstate crashes that are not considered as part of the study. Numerous crash trends were evaluated in an attempt to determine emphasis areas for Louisville Metro. In some ways, the identified emphasis areas for the Louisville Metro area are different than the state of Kentucky.

Emphasis Areas identified included:

• Intersections

• Roadway Departures

• Non-Motorized Users

• Lighting

• Aggressive Driving

• Distracted Driving

• Occupant Protection

• High Risk Drivers

• Four-Lane Undivided Highways

• Impaired Driving

• Motorcycles

• Environmental Justice Areas

Crash Trees were utilized to help to determine where higher percentages of crashes were occurring so that systemic risk factors could be developed to help identify potential countermeasures deployment. An emphasis was placed on fatal and severe crashes since they have the highest societal costs.

The Vision Zero Louisville Safety Action Plan was developed with implementation strategies focused on the Emphasis Areas developed for Louisville Metro to use in planning projects, measuring success, and monitoring progress. The implementation strategies were categorized using the 4 E’s of safety to emphasize the roles of each area: Education, Enforcement, Emergency Services, and Engineering.

The strategies included:

• Improve the roadway network

• Improve multi-modal safety

• Improve driver behavior

• Improve risk areas