Two months ago, my husband and 3-year-old were commuting to preschool by bicycle as they do every morning, when a driver veered into the oncoming lane while turning left, hitting them as they waited at the light. My husband suffered two torn ligaments, and my son was thrown into the street, but miraculously not physically injured. It was incredibly traumatic for them both, as well as for our family and community.
Our story is one of about 650 injuries that occur in Berkeley each year as a result of traffic violence. This number has grown as drivers are more distracted than ever before, operating larger vehicles on streets designed to prioritize car speed.
Just the day before our collision, Julia Elkin was out for a jog when she was fatally struck by a car. Two weeks later, a pedestrian was heading to grab coffee when she was hit in the crosswalk at the very same intersection as our incident. She spent three weeks in the hospital, getting treatment for a traumatic brain injury and multiple broken bones, and luckily is recovering.
These collisions — and the lasting trauma they cause — are preventable. We often consider traffic injuries to be an inevitable part of life, when they are actually an unnecessary symptom of our outdated street design. We have the data and the resources to update our streets with life-saving protections now.
We can look to cities that have made significant progress in achieving Vision Zero — zero serious or fatal traffic injuries. After Hoboken, New Jersey redesigned its streetscapes with safer infrastructure, they have seen seven consecutive years without a single traffic death. Protected intersections, raised crosswalks, traffic circles, road diets, and protected bike lanes, are among the many tools cities like Hoboken use to prevent collisions and save lives.
As Berkeley citizens, there are actions we can take today to move our city toward achieving Vision Zero:
- Help pass the citizen-led Safe Streets Measure, which would gather the funding needed through a parcel tax to both repave and update our streets with safer design.
- Call and email City Council members and candidates, and urge them to include safe streets on their platforms.
- Make lifestyle choices such as driving slower, consciously avoiding distractions, and choosing to bike, walk or take public transportation whenever possible.
- Get involved with safe streets advocacy by joining Walk Bike Berkeley.
Berkeley can and should be a model of safe and sustainable transportation — a city in which kids through elders can easily get around by foot, bike and public transit. We have work ahead of us before we can achieve this goal, but the movement is growing and with our collective efforts we can get there.
It should not be dangerous to get to preschool, go out for a jog or grab a coffee. Let us change our streets now before any more of us have to endure the tragedy and trauma of traffic violence.
Julia Moss is a writer, educator and mother of three young kids in Berkeley.
