The City of Worcester is seeking proposals from transportation safety consulting firms to help it adopt a citywide Vision Zero safety action plan.
"This Plan is crucial to acting on the City's commitment to the elimination of fatalities and serious injuries from across the transportation system to create safe, equitable, and sustainable mobility for all," according to a Request for Proposals (RFP) document that the city issued this week. "Ultimately, this plan will help the City identify projects, policies, programs and strategies to make Vision Zero a routine part of City operations across all departments."
According to the RFP documents, the city hopes to engage a consulting team by November and kick off public outreach for the plan this winter.
Worcester has an unusually high rate of traffic violence for a city of its size.
Drivers in Worcester killed eight pedestrians over the course of 2022, including 5-year-old Candice Asare-Yeboah, who died of her injuries a month after a speeding driver drove into her on Stafford Street in April 2022.
The city is paying for the Vision Zero plan with a $200,000 "Safe Streets for All" planning grant it received from the U.S. Department of Transportation earlier this year.
The 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law established the new Safe Streets for All grant program with $5 billion in funding over a 5-year period.
Cities that adopt a comprehensive safe streets plan, like the one Worcester is undertaking, will be eligible for additional construction funding from the Safe Streets for All program in future years.
