New Jersey’s own Target Zero Action plan, adopted in 2025, identified a need to implement a Rapid Response program for municipalities to enable emergency services to deploy safety countermeasures immediately after a fatal or serious injury crash. Researchers recently interviewed a variety of transportation experts within the city of Denver, which adopted its own Vision Zero Action plan in 2017.
Topic
pedestrian safety
Do drivers hate bicyclists? US sees an alarming rash of crashes.
“But wider roads are also an invitation for faster car speeds, Von Hagen said. Since the pandemic began, overall speeds have increased, along with reckless driving, she said. “
VTC Research Featured at 2026 TRB
Convened by the Transportation Research Board (TRB), the 2026 TRB Annual Meeting was held January 11–15, 2026, in Washington, D.C., at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center and the Marriott Marquis. The Alan M. Voorhees Transportation Center participated in the meeting, presenting research on pedestrian safety, travel behavior, and access to public transportation.
Gov. Murphy Signs New Pedestrian/Cyclist Safety Bill in Maplewood
“This bill marks a crucial step in advancing awareness of New Jersey’s Safe Passing Law and, in particular, ensuring drivers fully understand their responsibility to protect pedestrians, bicyclists, and other vulnerable road users when they’re behind the wheel,” said Leigh Ann Von Hagen, AICP,PP, Executive Director, Voorhees Transportation Center.
School Dropoff Is Everything That Sucks About Car Culture
Dr. Kelcie Ralph at Rutgers University found that even when controlling for income, wealth, residential location, family composition, and race, “young adults who were carless as children completed less education, worked for pay less often, experienced more unemployment, and earned less than their matched peers with consistent car access.”
University of Alabama grapples with traffic safety amid record enrollment
“We can all agree that too many pedestrians die on our streets, but a misplaced focus on distracted walking will hamper our efforts to save lives and improve safety for all users,” Rutgers public policy professor Kelcie Ralph said in the study.
What Will It Take to Eliminate Pedestrian and Bicycle Fatalities in NJ?
The New Jersey Department of Transportation adopted the Zero Deaths National Strategy with the vision of achieving zero fatalities on all public roads by the year 2050 by prioritizing safety for the most vulnerable road users such as pedestrians, bicyclists, and other users of wheeled and mobility transports. But how can this be accomplished?
Distracted Walking: A Critical Analysis of the Real Risks and Solutions
Dissecting the “Distracted Walking” Narrative Pedestrian deaths have risen by a staggering 35% between 2008 and 2017 in the United States. This alarming statistic has prompted widespread concern, with many attributing this to the rise of ‘distracted walking’. The...
Dr. Kelcie Ralph Interviewed on Freakonomics: Why Is the U.S. So Good at Killing Pedestrians?
Dr. Ralph was a guest on the podcast Freakonomics. The discussion centered around the fact that among the world’s high-income countries, the U.S. is particularly good at killing pedestrians — the death rate here is much higher than in places like northern and western Europe, Canada, and Japan. The question is, why?
Raising Kids Would Be So Much Better Without Cars
As Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says, we’re facing a crisis on our roadways. The death rate of children younger than 15 has more than doubled since 2018, from 5.8% to 11.9%, and that’s just for pedestrian deaths related to speeding, not for other scenarios,...