Abstract Manager

Coquitlam is developing its first comprehensive Road Safety Strategy based on the Safe System Approach with the goal of achieving Vision Zero by 2050. This target aligns with BC's Road Safety Strategy. A major component of developing the Road Safety Strategy is exploring and identifying how road safety is interrelated with Coquitlam's broader goals related to mode share, equity, and sustainability.

Consistent with TAC's Vision Zero and the Safe System Approach Primer, Coquitlam has developed a series of actions for the Road Safety Strategy that relate to all the elements of the Safe System, including Safe Land Use Planning. The relationship between land use context and mobility has a significant impact on road safety and purposeful decisions are required to ensure the design of public spaces and main streets support their intended use. Like many communities across Canada, people walking, cycling, and using micromobility devices have been disproportionately killed and seriously injured in motor vehicle crashes. As such, actions that link active transportation, land development, and street design have been prioritized in Coquitlam's Road Safety Strategy.

During this presentation, Anagha Krishnan, Coquitlam's Road Safety Engineer, will share the approach that was taken to create a holisitic Road Safety Strategy that included collaboration across departments including those responsible for land development. Anagha will highlight the proactive risk-based crash analysis that allowed for identification of corridors and intersections where crash counts may not have shown the road safety risks to people, particularly within neighbourhoods. The analysis reflected road safety-related issues that had been identified by the community, but were not showing up in the data. Anagha will also share how the strategic suite of actions developed for the Road Safety Strategy helped to contribute to the City's Strategic Transportation Plan, which was being developed at the same time. The ability to link these two initiatives together meant actions that would support increases in use of non-motorized modes of transportation, adopt context-specific transportation design and operational standards, and incorporate road safety into the land development process will create a more integrated approach to community and transportation growth, development, and transformation.